The gods of Mexico

by Lewis Spence

STATUES

A stone figure of Macuilxochitl found in Cuernavaca represents the god seated in a squatting attitude, and it is evidently intended to show him as an onlooker at the ball-game. He wears a pointed headdress or mitre, on the top of what would seem to be a cotton head-covering. A head of the god in stone is included in the collection of the Natural History Museum at Vienna. In this the nose-plug is prominent and he wears round earrings. The wing-ornament stands well out behind the head and the face seems to look out of a bird helmet-mask, on both sides of which are large, circular holes, through which feathers or cotton ear-plugs fall. The difficulty of working in stone has evidently restrained the sculptor from representing the upper and lower portions of the bird’s beak, and the helmet-mask bears a strong resemblance to that of Xochipilli in the Codex Magliabecchiano, if the beak in that representation were removed. A statue of the god found in the Calle de las Escalerillas in Mexico City on December 13, 1900, is almost identical with the first of those two statues, and agrees with the second in that here we have the circular holes at the side of the headdress with the dependent feathers or cotton plug. The best known of the representations of this god, however, is the clay model found by Seler at Teotitlan del Camino. It represents Macuilxochitl in a sitting position and is brilliantly coloured. The face of the god looks out of a bird helmet-mask, highly conventionalized, and which has practically lost all its birdlike characteristics. The two circular holes below the ear are, however, still represented. The upper part of the face is painted yellow, but under each eye is an oblong patch painted in variegated colours, such as appears on the faces of the gods of grain. Around the mouth is a large white patch, in which we may see the white hand motif conventionalized. The body-paint is red and the garment white, except that portion at the neck, which is blue. Small golden [[198]]bells adorn the necklace and wristlets. In this statuette we have evidently a very late and highly developed figure of the deity, showing a considerable departure from the earlier drawings and statues of him. In the Anthropological Museum at Berlin is a stone statue of Macuilxochitl, also in a squatting attitude, in which the circular motif above the ear, with its accompanying plug, is strongly in evidence. A number of stone statuettes of the god were found at Tepeaca in the state of Puebla and are now housed in the Natural History Museum at Vienna. These do not differ from the examples already described, save that in one of them the Greek fret-pattern takes the place of the circular ear-plug motif. A stone figure of the god was found amid the ruins of the Castillo de Teayo, a teocalli, or pyramid, in Vera Cruz. In this, which is also a squatting figure, the god is covered by a mantle which is surmounted by the bird’s comb, as seen in Magliabecchiano and elsewhere. Around the head are three of the circular holes above mentioned, one above each ear and one at the back of the head, from which depend a double strip of cotton or other textile.

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 15.)

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 16.)

FORMS OF MACUILXOCHITL.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Xochipilli)

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 26: In this MS. the god is painted a light yellow colour. His light hair is bound with a jewelled strap ornamented on the frontal side with a conventional bird’s head. Round his head he also wears the fillet of the Sun-god, ornamented with a feather tuft. As a breast ornament he has a large gold disk suspended from a broad gold chain, hung with bells. His right hand clasps a bundle of grass, and in his left he bears a staff embellished with turquoise mosaic and flowers, probably intended for a rattle-stick. Above the twilight symbol of the west in the water are instruments of mortification. On sheet 32 he is represented as of a blue colour with a jewelled chain in front of his mouth.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—The description of the god in this MS. is similar to that just given. In his hand he supports [[199]]a dish with ornaments, a bangle for the upper arm, a feather tuft and a neck-chain.