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

by Hubert Howe Bancroft

TLAZOLTEOTL SEDUCES YÁPPAN.

Boturini gives a legend in which this goddess figures in a very characteristic way. There was a man called Yáppan, who, to win the regard of the gods made himself a hermit, leaving his wife and his relations, and retiring to a desert place, there to lead a chaste and solitary life. In that desert was a great stone or rock, called Tehuehuetl, dedicated to penitential acts, which rock Yáppan ascended and took up his abode upon like a western Simeon Stylites. The gods observed all this with attention, but doubtful of the firmness of purpose of the new recluse, they set a spy upon him in the person of an enemy of his, named Yáotl, the word yáotl indeed signifying 'enemy.' Yet not even the sharpened eye of hate and envy could find any spot in the austere continent life of the anchorite, and the many women sent by the gods to tempt him to pleasure were repulsed and baffled. In heaven itself the chaste victories of the lonely saint were applauded, and it began to be thought that he was worthy to be transformed into some higher form of life. Then Tlazolteotl, feeling herself slighted and held for naught, rose up in her evil beauty, wrathful, contemptuous, and said: Think not, ye high and immortal gods, that this hero of yours has the force to preserve his resolution before me, or that he is worthy of any very sublime transformation; I descend to earth, behold now how strong is the vow of your devotee, how unfeigned his continence!

That day the flowers of the gardens of Xochiquetzal were untended by their mistress, her singing dwarfs were silent, her messengers undisturbed by her behests, and away in the desert, by the lonely rock, the crouching spy Yáotl saw a wondrous sight: one shaped like a woman, but fairer than eye can conceive, advancing toward the lean penance-withered man on the sacred height. Ha! thrills not the hermit's mortified flesh with something more than surprise, while the sweet voice speaks: My brother Yáppan, I the goddess Tlazolteotl, amazed at thy constancy, and commiserating thy hardships, come to comfort thee; what way shall I take, or what path, that I may get up to speak with thee? The simple one did not see the ruse, he came down from his place and helped the goddess up. Alas, in such a crisis, what need is there to speak further?—no other victory of Yáppan was destined to be famous in heaven, but in a cloud of shame his chaste light went down for ever. And thou, O shameless one, have thy fierce red lips had their fill of kisses, is thy Paphian soul satisfied withal, as now, flushed with victory, thou passest back to the tinkling fountains, and to the great tree of flowers, and to the far-reaching gardens where thy slaves await thee in the ninth heaven? Do thine eyes lower themselves at all in any heed of the miserable disenchanted victim left crouching, humbled on his desecrated rock, his nights and days of fasting and weariness gone for naught, his dreams, his hopes dissipated, scattered like dust at the trailing of thy robes? And for thee, poor Yáppan, the troubles of this life are soon to end; Yáotl, the enemy, has not seen all these things for nothing; he, at least, has not borne hunger and thirst and weariness, has not watched and waited in vain. O it avails nothing to lift the pleading hands, they are warm but not with clasping in prayer, and weary but not with waving the censer; the flint-edged mace beats down thy feeble guard, the neck that Tlazolteotl clasped is smitten through, the lips she kissed roll in the dust beside a headless trunk.

The gods transformed the dead man into a scorpion, with the forearms fixed lifted up as when he deprecated the blow of his murderer; and he crawled under the stone upon which he had abode. His wife, whose name was Tlahuitzin, that is to say 'the inflamed,' still lived. The implacable Yáotl sought her out, led her to the spot stained with her husband's blood, detailed pitilessly the circumstances of the sin and death of the hermit, and then smote off her head. The gods transformed the poor woman into that species of scorpion called the alacran encendido, and she crawled under the stone and found her husband. And so it comes that tradition says that all reddish colored scorpions are descended from Tlahuitzin, and all dusky or ash-colored scorpions from Yáppan, while both keep hidden under the stones and flee the light for shame of their disgrace and punishment. Last of all the wrath of the gods fell on Yáotl for his cruelty and presumption in exceeding their commands; he was transformed into a sort of locust that the Mexicans call ahuacachapullin.[IX-29]

CONFESSION.

Sahagun gives a very full description of this goddess and her connection with certain rites of confession, much resembling those already described in speaking of Tezcatlipoca.[IX-30] The goddess had according to our author, three names. The first was Tlazolteotl, that is to say 'the goddess of carnality.' The second name was Yxcuina, which signifies four sisters, called respectively, and in order of age, Tiacapan, Teicu, Tlaco, Xucotsi. The third and last name of this deity was Tlaclquani, which means 'eater of filthy things,' referring it is said to her function of hearing and pardoning the confessions of men and women guilty of unclean and carnal crimes. For this goddess, or these goddesses, had power not only to inspire and provoke to the commission of such sins, and to aid in their accomplishment, but also to pardon them, if they were confessed to certain priests who were also diviners and tellers of fortunes and wizards generally. In this confession, however, Tlazolteotl seems not to have been directly addressed, but only the supreme deity under several of his names. Thus the person whom, by a stretch of courtesy, we may call the penitent, having sought out a confessor from the class above mentioned, addressed that functionary in these words: Sir, I wish to approach the all-powerful god, protector of all, Yoalliehecatl, or Tezcatlipoca; I wish to confess my sins in secret. To this the wizard, or priest, replied: Welcome, my son; the thing thou wouldst do is for thy good and profit. This said, he searched the divining book, tonalamatl, to see what day would be most opportune for hearing the confession. That day come, the penitent brought a new mat, and white incense called copalli, and wood for the fire in which the incense was to be burned. Sometimes when he was a very noble personage, the priest went to his house to confess him, but as a general rule the ceremony took place at the residence of the priest. On entering this house the penitent swept very clean a portion of the floor and spread the new mat there for the confessor to seat himself upon, and kindled the wood. The priest then threw the copal upon the fire and said: O Lord, thou that art the father and the mother of the gods and the most ancient god,[IX-31] know that here is come thy vassal and servant, weeping and with great sadness; he is aware that he has wandered from the way, that he has stumbled, that he has slidden, that he is spotted with certain filthy sins and grave crimes worthy of death. Our Lord, very pitiful, since thou art the protector and defender of all, accept the penitence, give ear to the anguish of this thy servant and vassal.

At this point the confessor turned to the sinner and said: My son, thou art come into the presence of God, favorer and protector of all; thou art come to lay bare thy inner rottenness and unsavoriness; thou art come to publish the secrets of thine heart; see that thou fall into no pit by lying unto our Lord; strip thyself, put away all shame before him who is called Yoalliehecatl and Tezcatlipoca. It is certain that thou art now in his presence, although thou art not worthy to see him, neither will he speak with thee, for he is invisible and impalpable. See then to it how thou comest, and with what heart; fear nothing to publish thy secrets in his presence, give account of thy life, relate thine evil deeds as thou didst perform them; tell all with sadness to our Lord God, who is the favorer of all, and whose arms are open and ready to embrace and set thee on his shoulders. Beware of hiding anything through shame or through weakness.

Having heard these words the penitent took oath, after the Mexican fashion, to tell the truth. He touched the ground with his hand and licked off the earth that adhered to it;[IX-32] then he threw copal in the fire, which was another way of swearing to tell the truth. Then he set himself down before the priest and, inasmuch as he held him to be the image and vicar of god, he, the penitent, began to speak after this fashion: O our Lord who receivest and shelterest all, give ear to my foul deeds; in thy presence I strip, I put away from myself what shameful things soever I have done. Not from thee, of a verity, are hidden my crimes, for to thee all things are manifest and clear. Having thus said, the penitent proceeded to relate his sins in the order in which they had been committed, clearly and quietly, as in a slow and distinctly pronounced chant, as one that walked along a very straight way turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. When he had done the priest answered him as follows: My son, thou hast spoken before our Lord God, revealing to him thine evil works; and I shall now tell thee what thou hast to do. When the goddesses Civapipilti descend to the earth, or when it is the time of the festival of the four sister goddesses of carnality that are called Yxcuina, thou shalt fast four days afflicting thy stomach and thy mouth; this feast of the Yxcuina being come, at daybreak thou shalt do penance suitable to thy sins.[IX-33] Through a hole pierced by a maguey-thorn through the middle of thy tongue thou shall pass certain osier-twigs called teucalzacatl or tlacotl, passing them in front of the face and throwing them over the shoulder one by one; or thou mayest fasten them the one to the other and so pull them through thy tongue like a long cord. These twigs were sometimes passed through a hole in the ear; and, wherever they were passed, it would appear by our author that there were sometimes used of them by one penitent to the number of four hundred, or even of eight hundred.

PENANCES.

If the sin seemed too light for such a punishment as the preceding, the priest would say to the penitent: My son, thou shalt fast, thou shall fatigue thy stomach with hunger and thy mouth with thirst, and that for four days, eating only once on each day and that at noon. Or, the priest would say to him: Thou shalt go to offer paper in the usual places, thou shalt make images covered therewith in number proportionate to thy devotion, thou shalt sing and dance before them as custom directs. Or, again, he would say to him: Thou hast offended God, thou hast got drunk; thou must expiate the matter before Totochti, the god of wine; and when thou goest to do penance thou shalt go at night, naked, save only a piece of paper hanging from thy girdle in front and another behind; thou shalt repeat thy prayer and then throw down there before the gods those two pieces of paper, and so take thy departure.