The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 3, Myths and Languages / The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 3

by Hubert Howe Bancroft

All this took place between midnight and morning, and when the light began to break the whole body of the priests went to bathe in the usual place. They washed the blue paint off their heads, save only on the forehead; and if there were any offences of any priest to be punished he was here ducked and half drowned as described above. Lastly all returned to their monasteries, and the green rush mats spread there were thrown out behind each house.[VIII-31]

We have given the description of two great festivals of the Tlalocs—two being all that are mentioned by many authorities—there still remain, however, two other notable occasions on which they were propitiated and honored.

IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS.

In the thirteenth month, which was called Tepeilhuitl, and which began, according to Clavigero, on the 24th of October, it was the custom to cut certain sticks into the shape of snakes. Certain images as of children were also cut out of wood, and these dolls, called hecatotonti, together with the wooden snakes, were used as a foundation or centre round which to build up little effigies of the mountains; wherein the Tlalocs were honored as gods of the mountains, and wherein memorial was had of those that had been drowned, or killed by thunderbolts, or whose bodies had been buried without cremation—the dolls perhaps representing the bodies of these, and the snakes the thunderbolts. Having then these wooden dolls and snakes as a basis, they were covered with dough mixed from the seeds of the wild amaranth; over each doll certain papers were put; round one snake and one doll, set back to back, there appears next to have been bound a wisp of hay, (which wisp was kept from year to year and washed on the vigil of every feast), till the proper shape of a mountain was arrived at; over the whole was then daubed a layer of dough, of the kind already mentioned. We have now our image of the mountain with two heads looking opposite ways, sticking out from its summit. Round this summit there seem to have been stuck rolls of dough representing the clouds usually formed about the crests of high mountains. The face of the human image that looked out over these dough clouds was daubed with melted ulli; and to both cheeks of it were stuck little tortillas, or cakes of the everywhere-present dough of wild amaranth seeds. On the head of this same image was put a crown with feathers issuing from it.[VIII-32] These images were made at night, and in the morning they were carried to their 'oratories,' and laid down on beds of rushes or reeds; then food was offered to them, small pies or tarts, a porridge of maize-flour and sugar, and the stewed flesh of fowls or of dogs. Incense was burned before them, being thrown into a censer shaped like a hand, as it were a great spoon full of burning coals. Those who could afford it sang and drank pulque in honor of their dead ones and of these gods.

SACRIFICES TO TLALOC.

In this feast four women and a man were killed in honor of the Tlalocs and of the mountains. The four women were named respectively, Tepoxch, Matlalquac, Xochetecatl, and Mayavel—this last was decorated to appear as the image of the magueyes. The man was called Milnaoatl; he stood for an image of 'the snakes.' These victims, adorned with crowns of paper stained with ulli, were borne to their doom in litters. Being carried to the summit of the cu, they were thrown one by one on the sacrificial stone, their hearts taken out with the flint and offered to Tlaloc, and their bodies allowed to slide slowly down the temple-steps to the earth—a too rapid descent being hindered by the priests. The corpses were carried to a place where the heads were cut off and preserved, spitted on poles thrust through the temples of each skull. The bodies were lastly carried to the wards from which they had set out alive, and there cut in pieces and eaten. At the same time the images of the mountains, which we have attempted to describe, were broken up, the dough with which they were covered was set out to dry in the sun, and was eaten, every day a piece. The papers with which the said images had been adorned were then spread over the wisps of hay, above mentioned, and the whole was fastened up in the rafters of the oratory that every one had in his house; there to remain till required for the next year's feast of the same kind; on which occasion, and as a preliminary to the other ceremonies which we have already described in the first part of this feast, the people took down the paper and the wisp from their private oratories, and carried them to the public oratory called the acaucalli, left the paper there, and returned with the wisp to make of it anew the image of a mountain.[VIII-33]

KILLING IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS.

The fourth and last festival of Tlaloc which we have to describe, fell in our December and in the sixteenth Aztec month, called the month Atemuztli. About this time it began to thunder round the mountain-tops, and the first rains to fall there; the common people said, "Now come the Tlalocs," and for love of the water they made vows to make images of the mountains—not, however, as it would appear, such images as have been described as appertaining to the preceding festival. The priests were very devout at this season and very earnest in prayer, expecting the rain. They took each man his incense-pan or censer, made like a great spoon with a long round hollow handle filled with rattles and terminating in a snake's head, and offered incense to all the idols. Five days before the beginning of the feast the common people bought paper and ulli and flint knives and a kind of coarse cloth called nequen, and devoutly prepared themselves with fasting and penance to make their images of the mountains and to cover them with paper. In this holy season, although every one bathed, he washed no higher than the neck, the head was left unwashed; the men, moreover, abstained from their wives. The night preceding the great feast-day was spent wholly, flint knife in hand, cutting out paper into various shapes. These papers called tetevitl, were stained with ulli; and every householder got a long pole, covered it with pieces of this paper, and set it up in his court-yard, where it remained all the day of the festival. Those that had vowed to make images of the mountains invited priests to their houses to do it for them. The priests came, bearing their drums and rattles and instruments of music of tortoise-shell. They made the images—apparently like human figures—out of the dough of wild amaranth seed, and covered them with paper. In some houses there were made five of such images, in others ten, in others fifteen; they were figures that stood for such mountains as the clouds gather round, such as the volcano of the Sierra Nevada or that of the Sierra of Tlascala. These images being constructed, they were set in order in the oratory of the house, and before each one was set food—very small pies, on small platters, proportionate to the little image, small boxes holding a little sweet porridge of maize, little calabashes of cacao, and other small green calabashes containing pulque. In one night they presented the figures with food in this manner four times. All the night too they sang before them, and played upon flutes; the regular flutists not being employed on this occasion, but certain small boys who were paid for their trouble with something to eat. When the morning came, the ministers of the idols asked the master of the house for his tzotzopaztli, a kind of broad wooden knife used in weaving,[VIII-34] and thrust it into the breasts of the images of the mountains, as if they were living men, and cut their throats and drew out the hearts, which they put in a green cup and gave to the owner of the house. This done, they took all the paper with which these images had been adorned, together with certain green mats that had been used for the same purpose, and the utensils in which the offering of food had been put, and burned all in the court-yard of the house. The ashes and the mutilated images seem then to have been carried to a public oratory called Aiauhcalco, on the shore of the lake. Then all who assisted at these ceremonies joined themselves to eat and drink in honor of the mutilated images, which were called tepieme. Women were allowed to join in this banquet provided they brought fifteen or twenty heads of maize with them; they received every one his or her share of food and pulque. The pulque was kept in black jars and lifted out to be drunk with black cups. This banquet over, the paper streamers were taken down from the poles set up in the court-yards of the houses and carried to certain places in the water that were marked out by piles driven in—we may remember that our whirlpool of Pantitlan, in the lake of Mexico, was one place so marked—and to the tops of the mountains, and left there as it would appear.[VIII-35]

In taking leave here of Tlaloc I may draw attention to the prominence in his cult of the number four, the cross, and the snake; and add that as lord of one of the three Aztec divisions of the future world, lord of the terrestrial paradise, we shall meet with him again in our examination of the Mexican ideas of a future life.