TEMPLES

In Tlalhuica, not far from Cuernavaca or Quauhnauac, stands the pyramid of Xochicalco, one of the most perfect specimens extant of Nahua architectural skill. There is reason to believe that Xochiquetzal was originally the local deity of one of these mountains the waters from which irrigate the fields below,[39] and it seems probable that the teocalli of Xochicalco typified this eminence. We know that the teotlalpan, or “Place of Divine Earth,” in the sacred precinct at Mexico, was sacred to Mixcoatl, a deity who was perhaps of Otomi origin, and that it was probably symbolic of a mountain in the Otomi country of which he was the presiding deity, so that the probability is borne out by analogy. In the country of the Tlaxcaltecs stood the heights of Xochtecatl, “Goddess of the Flowery Land,” a mountain, according to Torquemada, about six miles in circumference, which was the nucleus of a settlement, and was surrounded by graves hewn out of the solid rock. This, perhaps, provides a fuller illustration of the theory advanced above.

NATURE AND STATUS

The original home of Xochiquetzal seems to have been among the Tlalhuica and Tlaxcaltecs. But as the latter were closely connected with the Mexicans racially, there is good reason to believe that she was also an original member of their pantheon. In any case she had a place in the metropolitan calendar, and the contention of the compilers of both interpretative codices, as well as of the native author of the picture writings in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, that she is to be equated with Tonacaciuatl, the [[195]]female member of the creative pair, seems to have been a later development.

But Xochiquetzal is more especially the goddess of flowers, the female counterpart of Xochipilli-Macuilxochitl. As has been mentioned, she was probably at first the goddess who presided over some lofty mountain whose streams watered the sun-dried plains beneath and clothed them in abundant florescence, perhaps that very mountain of Xochtecatl to which allusion has been made, and which stood in Tlaxcaltec territory. As the “feminine” of Xochipilli, however, she certainly partook of his festive and frivolous character, and thus presided over the song, the dance, and all sportive amusements. By a further slight effort of imagination she came to be regarded as the goddess of illicit love, or of the sensuous side of intercourse between the sexes, not so much a goddess of degraded animal passion, like Tlazolteotl, as a figure bearing a close resemblance to the Apsarasas of Hindu myth, lovely and voluptuous, and, like them, addicted to the game of throwing the dice (patolli). A further step established her as the patron goddess of the prostitutes who existed for the pleasure of the unmarried warriors and who resided with them in the great common house of the bachelors. From this circumstance arose the obscene character of the feast of Quecholli among the Tlaxcaltecs and the Tepeilhuitl festival among the Tlalhuica.

Xochiquetzal was also in some measure the patroness of pregnant women, according to the interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A, and these worshipped and sacrificed to her in order that they should not give birth to girls. She is herself figured in Codex Borgia as the great parturient, and in Codex Vaticanus B (sheet 39) as has been indicated above.

She had also, like Xochipilli, an artistic significance, as the patroness of weavers and artists. She was revered by the women who practised the former art, the invention of spinning and weaving was attributed to her, and many kinds of craftsmen paid her honours. She had, moreover, a magical side to her character; in the Aubin tonalamatl she is seated opposite the dancing wizard, and she is furthermore one of [[196]]the Tzitzimimê, or deities of the darksome night, among whom she is symbolized by the spider.

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MACUILXOCHITL = “FIVE FLOWER,” OR XOCHIPILLI = “FLOWER PRINCE”