STATUE OF COATLICUE. (Side view.)
“FETISH” ORIGIN OF GODS
More than one of the great gods exhibit the signs of fetishtic origin. Uitzilopochtli, the great tribal patron deity of the Aztecâ of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was described in tradition as leading them from the mythical northern country of Aztlan in the form of “a little bird.” He is usually represented in the pictorial MSS., where his appearance is infrequent, as wearing a mantle made from humming-birds’ [[17]]feathers. Later legend spoke of him as the vindicator of his mother, a goddess of vegetation, and as slaying her detractors, his own half-brothers, while in historical times the whole business of war was arranged through the instrumentality of his oracular image and was carried out chiefly in view of the necessity for human sacrifice which characterized his especial cult. But if we examine the roots of the beliefs which cluster around him, we shall find much to convince us that he was, after the entrance of his people into the Valley of Anahuac, identified with the maguey plant, which forms so familiar an object in the Mexican landscape. Extended proof of this lowly origin will be found in the section which deals with the god.
Quite as humble are the beginnings of the god Tezcatlipocâ, perhaps the most universally dreaded among the Mexican deities. Regarding his precise significance nothing very definite has been arrived at by modern authorities. As will be shown later, the early significance of Tezcatlipocâ arises out of his connection with obsidian, which had an especial sanctity for the Mexicans.
ANIMAL GODS
In our gropings for the roots of the Mexican faith we must not fail to notice those elements which stand apart from agricultural religion and are eloquent of the concepts of a still earlier time. Agricultural theology is as old as agriculture, and no older. The food-supply of the savage prior to that period depends upon the successful conduct of the chase. His gods are therefore often precisely of the species of animal by hunting which he gains a livelihood, and which he frequently regards as placed at his disposal by a great eponymous beast-god of the same kind.[18] Again, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained and for which no solution can be found at present, in view of the rather dubious nature of what is known as “totemism,” primitive man adores, or in some manner exalts, certain [[18]]animals on the flesh of which he does not live. But although gods evolved from animal shapes are frequently to be met with in the Mexican pantheon, I can recall no instance of the taboo of the flesh of any animal as an article of diet in Anahuac, or Mexico proper, although this may be found in the cultus of several of the tribes of the more outlying regions.
Uitzilopochtli has the characteristics of a humming-bird, and, indeed, all of the thirteen gods which governed the hours of the day are figured in the tonalamatl of the Aubin Collection with bird-disguises, and one of the thirteen heavens of the Mexicans is set apart for bird-gods, while certain other deities appear in animal forms. For example, Tepeyollotl is figured as a jaguar, Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl have serpentine characteristics, Itzpapalotl is a butterfly-dragon, Tezcatlipocâ a spider, a jaguar, or a turkey, Mixcoatl takes deer shape, and so on. But some of these forms are probably symbolic rather than “totemic.” The cult of Nagualism,[19] a degraded post-Colombian form of the old religion, was insistent upon the connection of its votaries with an animal spirit or familiar from an early period of their lives—that is, to each individual a personal “totem” was assigned, precisely as is the case among many North American tribes at the present time and as among the Lacandone of Yucatan.