The priest of Ilamatecutli carried a great cane, the stock of which had three roots. The mask of the goddess which he bore had two faces with “great mouths, bulging eyes, and surmounted by a crown of paper cut into sharp points.” The priests, disguised as gods, having entered the calpulli, or priests’ quarters, a priest descended from the teocalli dressed as a young exquisite, wearing a splendid cloak, his head decorated with white plumes and wearing in place of sandals the hoofs of a deer. He carried in his hand a leaf of the maguey, surmounted by a little paper banner. He proceeded to the quauhxicalco, a place of sacrifice principally associated with human offerings to Tezcatlipocâ, where there was a small cage made of pine-wood and covered with paper, and known as “the granary of Ilamatecutli.” The priest laid the maguey-leaf in this receptacle and then set the whole on fire. Seeing this, the other priests rushed to the summit of the teocalli. This ceremony was known as the xochipayna, or “flower-running.” Placing on high a flower called teoxochitl, or “blossom of the god,” the first who gained the eminence seized upon it and cast it upon the quauhxicalco where the “cage” burned. Upon the following day the men and boys made little sacks, which they filled with flowers or paper, and with these they skirmished with one another and beat the young girls who chanced to pass by. [[232]]
The purpose underlying this celebration is obscure. The costume worn by the victim is, of course, that of the goddess herself, and we may, perhaps, infer that the wooden knife she carried, the purpose of which was to press cloth, was symbolical of one of the domestic duties of the older women, whom she appears in a measure to have represented. The exercise of dancing to which the victim was subjected seems to bear reference to the name of the festival, tititl, the “stretching of limbs,” and its purpose was probably to ensure vigour and “liveliness” in the earth or soil, for it was about this period that the winter solstice occurred and the labours of the field were renewed. The Earth-mother must, therefore, stretch her limbs ere she once more took up the great task of growth.[74]
The decapitation of the slave girl was probably a dramatic-mythical representation of the reaping of the maize. The “great cane” borne by the priest of Ilamatecutli was, of course, the magic rain-rattle, so prominent an adjunct to many Mexican religious ceremonies. The “young exquisite” we must surely explain as a representative of vegetation, his deer’s-hoofs sandals having, perhaps, a pluvial significance, or else indicating the swift growth of the maize-plant, which takes but four months to ripen. The burning of the maguey-leaf in the granary would seem to indicate the end of the season of vegetative luxuriance and the commencement of that of domestic fires, and the casting of the sacred blossom into the flames probably possessed a similar significance.
NATURE AND STATUS
Ilamatecutli was unquestionably a goddess of the primeval time, as her aged appearance in the manuscripts, her association [[233]]with Iztac Mixcoatl, the old Chichimec god, and her connection with fire would lead us to suppose. She is primarily a goddess of the earth and of maize. Her stellar connection and her name Citlallinicue (Star Skirt) are eloquent of her Chichimec derivation, and she may represent the starry night sky, or possibly the Milky Way, just as does her mythical husband, and in this she connects with Tonacaciuatl. As an earth-goddess she has also a plutonic significance and can be equated with Mictecaciuatl, mistress of Hades, in this resembling many other earth-goddesses. Again, she is the “old goddess” par excellence, patroness of old women, and worker at the metate, or stone on which the maize cakes were, and still are, made by Mexican women. Her connection with fire proves her relative antiquity. The circumstance that her mask is described as being two-faced leads me to believe that her idol or image had been evolved from the “Kirn-baby,” or doll made at harvests out of the last sheaf of grain and furnished with a face and hands, frequently with two faces, in order that it should not prove of bad omen to those following the image in procession. In this respect Ilamatecutli is similar to Chicomecoatl (q.v.). [[234]]
[1] Tonalamatl of the Aubin-Goupil Collection, 1900–1901. [↑]
[2] This circular patch with the centre punched out is worn by the women of more than one Asiatic country. [↑]