(From Codex Vaticanus B, sheet 67.)
In the Sahagun Mexican MS. he is described as “the mother of the gods, the father of the gods, who dwells in the navel of the earth, who enters the Turquoise Pyramid … the Old God, the Fire-god.”[2]
Sahagun[3] also alludes to the god in the prayer of the merchants, which says: “Sit still on thy throne, noble Lord, thou that in the navel of the earth hast thy seat, Lord of the Four Quarters.”
In this prayer he is also frequently addressed as “Lord of the With and the By” (the contiguous neighbourhood), “the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of the Surface of the Earth.”
Sahagun in a prayer to Tezcatlipocâ alludes to Xiuhtecutli as “the ancient god, who is father and mother to thyself, and is god of fire, who stands in the midst of flowers, in the midst of the place bounded by four walls, who is covered with shining feathers that are as wings”[4]; and in another prayer to Tezcatlipocâ, speaks of Xiuhtecutli as “the ancient god, the father of all the gods, the god of fire, who is in the pond of water among turrets surrounded with stones like roses, who is called Xiuhtecutli, who determines, examines, and settles the business and law-suits of the nation and of the common people, as it were washing them with water.”[5]
Clavigero says of Xiuhtecutli:
“Xiuhtecutli (master of the year and of the grass) was among these nations the god of fire, to whom they likewise gave the name of Ixcozauhqui, which expresses the colour of fire. This god was greatly revered in the Mexican empire. At their dinner they made an offering to him of the first morsel of their food, and the first draught of their beverage, by throwing both into the fire; and burned incense to him at certain times of the day. In honour of him they held two fixed festivals of the most solemn kind, one in the tenth, and another in the eighteenth month; and one movable feast, at which they created the usual magistrates and renewed [[273]]the ceremony of the investiture of the fiefs of the kingdom. He had a temple in Mexico, and some other palaces.”
FESTIVALS
Xocohuetzi.—Sahagun’s account of this festival is substantially as follows[6]:
A great tree of five and twenty fathoms long was cut down and the branches lopped off except a few at the top. The tree was then dragged by ropes into the city, great precautions being taken against damaging it. The women met the procession, giving those who had helped cocoa to drink. The tree, which was called zocotl, was received into the court of a teocalli with acclamation, and there set up in a hole in the ground and allowed to remain for twenty days. On the eve of the festival they lowered the tree gently to the ground by means of ropes and trestles made of beams lashed together. It was dressed until quite smooth, and where the branches had been left, near the top, a cross-beam of five fathoms long was secured by ropes. On the summit of the pole a statue of the god Xiuhtecutli was set, made out of the dough of wild amaranth seeds, and decorated with white papers. To the head of the image were affixed pieces of paper instead of hair, bands of paper crossed the body from each shoulder, on the arms were pieces of paper like wings painted over with figures of sparrow-hawks, a maxtli of paper covered the loins, and a kind of paper garment covered all. Great strips of paper, half a fathom broad and ten fathoms long, floated from the feet of the image, and into his head were stuck three rods with a tamalli, or small cake, on the top of each. Ten ropes were then attached to the middle of the tree, and the structure was reared into an upright position and there secured with great uproar.