But the religion of Quetzalcoatl, as observed in his Yucatec form of Kukulkan and his Guatemalan variant of Gucumatz, bore a close resemblance to that of Tlaloc. In Yucatan Quetzalcoatl was regarded by priests and people as the great rain-making priest, the god of moisture, whereas in Mexico he is merely the sweeper of the ways to the Tlaloc deities of rain. This is surely eloquent of the fact that the Tlaloc religion was not only of greater antiquity in Mexico, but that its ministers were disinclined to permit the deity of the new religion to adopt a status similar to that of their own god. With true priestly diplomacy, then, it would seem that they temporized by affording Quetzalcoatl a status as the great rain-making priest, a character which he retained to the last. Myth certainly alludes to Tlaloc as the supplanter of Quetzalcoatl in the affections of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue and as robbing the peaceful culture-hero of the maize-plant which he had discovered. This does not necessarily signify the defeat of an older religion by a more novel faith, but may relate to a successful defence by the more ancient cultus and its absorption of the other.
The theory of the amalgamation of the Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl cults appears to me to be in some measure assisted by [[26]]the circumstance that the devotees of both placed a high value upon minerals of a green colour. The word chalchihuitl (“green stone”), of such common occurrence in the works of the Spanish authors who wrote on Mexican affairs, must be taken as applying with equal force to jadeite, nephrite, turquoise, emerald, chlormelanite, green quartz, precious serpentine, or, indeed, any mineral of a green shade. A tradition existed that Quetzalcoatl brought the use and manipulation of jadeite into Mexico, but green was a salient hue in the insignia of Tlaloc, and the name of his consort Chalchihuitlicue (“greenstone skirt”) is eloquent of his connection with the several kinds of stones which the Mexicans grouped under the name chalchihuitl. Whatever significance attached to the colour of these stones, apart from their nature as precious stones, whether or not they were symbolic of water or verdure, or metal, or of all of these agencies, which are regarded as so potent by primitive peoples, it is apparent that both cults employed them symbolically or pseudo-scientifically, and it therefore seems probable that each of these religions was originally connected with the worship of water, and therefore the influence associated with and contained in water, and that this belief would render their amalgamation a process of little difficulty.
If, however, such similarities eventually made for the union of the cults, traditions were not lacking regarding their early differences or hostilities. As has been said, myths survived into historical times, which stated that although Quetzalcoatl had succeeded in discovering maize, Tlaloc had stolen it from him and had also succeeded in alienating from him the affection of Chalchihuitlicue, who had originally been regarded as the wife of Quetzalcoatl.[30] But these myths are undeniably of late origin. Quetzalcoatl’s status as a celibate god or priest would scarcely allow his name to be connected with matrimony, and it is plain that Chalchihuitlicue, the water goddess, is in a sense merely a personification of the chalchihuitl stone, which was, perhaps, originally one of the symbols of the Quetzalcoatl cult and which later [[27]]became personified in female form, thus giving rise to the myth in question. Nor do these tales necessarily prove the priority of the Quetzalcoatl cult, which was indeed regarded as responsible for practically all Mexican civilization and which would naturally be credited with the introduction of the use of the sacred stones.
THE CULT OF OBSIDIAN
But if the later Nahua immigrants also came to regard these chalchihuitl stones with reverence, at the period of their entrance to the Mexican plateau they paid devotion to a mineral of a very different kind. And this it is which helps us to regard their faith as differing entirely from those other faiths which already flourished in the land. The mineral with which their cult was so closely connected was obsidian, a vitreous natural glass found in the upper volcanic strata of Mexico and northern California, which flakes readily from the core by pressure and gains by mere fracture a razor-like edge of considerable penetrative power. The principal quarry of this volcanic glass was the mountain known as the Cerro de las Navajas (“hill of the knives”) near Timapan, and from this centre the itztli, by which name obsidian was known to the Mexicans, was widely distributed by barter over a very considerable area. There would seem to be proof that this mineral, so suitable for the purposes of the nomadic hunter, was anciently known far to the north of Mexico. The observations of Dr. G. M. Dawson[31] in British Columbia satisfied him that trading intercourse was engaged in by the coast tribes with those of the interior along the Frazer River Valley and far to the south. From the remotest times embraced in their native traditions, the Bilqula of Dean Inlet have possessed a trade route by way of the Bella Coola River to the Tinné country, along which trail broken implements and chips of obsidian have been found. Many of the routes in British Columbia have also [[28]]yielded chips and flakes of obsidian, which, the Tinné Indians stated, was obtained from a mountain near the headwaters of the Salmon River (about long. 125° 40′, lat. 52° 40′), formerly resorted to for the purpose of procuring the mineral. The Indian name of this mountain is Bece, which, Dr. Dawson suggested, is the same with the “Mexican” name for knife, itztli, an etymology which may be of Nahuatlac origin. Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey, also noted in 1883 the finding of a flake of obsidian in connection with a layer of buffalo bones occurring in alluvium, and evidently of considerable antiquity, near Fort McLeod, Alberta. The nearest source of such a material is the Yellowstone Park region. The coast tribes of British Columbia have been traders for untold generations, exchanging oolactin oil for such material as they could make implements from, and there seems to be no doubt that the Mound-builders of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky were also acquainted with obsidian, which they could only have obtained by the process of barter. It was thus either to be found in the regions from which the Nahua are thought to have come, or else obtainable through the channels of trade.
If, then, it be granted that the Chichimec Nahua were acquainted with obsidian and its properties before their entrance upon the Plateau of Anahuac (a hypothesis which is strengthened by the material differences of workmanship between their tools and weapons made of this material and those of the aboriginal peoples of Mexico), sufficient time had elapsed for their development of a cult, which, at the era of the Conquest, exhibited traces of a very considerable antiquity. It was, naturally, as a hunting people that they employed weapons of obsidian. The herds of deer on the flesh of which they chiefly lived roamed the steppes, and proof abounds that the customs of the chase strongly influenced the religious ideas of the early Nahua. Certain of their gods, indeed, seem to have been developed from cervine forms, for among barbarous races the animal worshipped is that which provides the tribe with its staple food, [[29]]or, more correctly, a great eponymous figure of that animal is adored—for example, the Great Deer, who sends the smaller deer to keep the savage in life. In like manner barbarous fisherfolk are wont to worship the Great Fish, which sends them its progeny or its subjects to serve as food. These deer gods or hunting gods in some way connected with the deer—Itzpapalotl, Itzcuêyê, Mixcoatl, Camaxtli—had also stellar or solar attributes. The deer was slain by the obsidian weapon, which, therefore, came to be regarded as the magical weapon, that by which food was procured. In the course of time it assumed a sacred significance, the hunting gods themselves came to wield it, and it was thought of as coming from the stars or the heavens where the gods dwelt, in precisely the same manner as flint arrowheads were regarded by the peasantry of Europe as “elf-arrows” or “thunder-stones”—that is, as something supernatural, falling from above.
But the obsidian itself became deified as Tezcatlipocâ. I have retained the full proof of this assertion for the section which treats of that god, and must here content myself with a summary of it. The whole cult of obsidian centred in the personality of Tezcatlipocâ. His idol was made of that stone, and in Codex Borbonicus his sandals are painted with the zigzag line of the obsidian snake. In his variant of Itztli (obsidian) he was the god of the sacrificial knife of obsidian, and in certain codices he is represented as having such a knife in place of a foot. From this stone, too, divinatory mirrors were made, one of which was held by the idols of Tezcatlipocâ and served as the mirror or scrying-stone in which he witnessed the doings of mankind. Obsidian, the great life-giver, food-getter, blood-provider, became identified in the form of this god with the cause or breath of life, which, in turn, was identified with the wind, and therefore it came to be classed among those magical stones which in some mysterious manner are considered capable of raising a tempest. In this manner Tezcatlipocâ came to be regarded as a god of wind, and has been identified with the Hurakan of the Quiches of Guatemala, from whose name the expression [[30]]“hurricane” has been borrowed and who was probably introduced into Central America by the Nahua.
When the nomadic Chichimec adopted an agricultural condition, obsidian had doubtless been regarded as sacred for many generations. It was by virtue of this magical stone that the nourishment of the gods was maintained by the sacrifice of deer; but when the Chichimec came to embrace a more settled existence within an agricultural community where deer must certainly have been more scarce, the nourishment of the gods had necessarily to be maintained by other means. The manner in which this was effected is quite clear. Slaves and war-captives were sacrificed instead of beasts of the chase, and at the festival of Mixcoatl, the greatest of the Chichimec gods, women were sacrificed in the place of deer, and after being slain were carried down the steps of the teocalli, their wrists and ankles tied together precisely in the manner in which a deer is trussed by the hunter.[32] The transition from deer-sacrifice to a human holocaust and from the hunting to the agricultural condition is well illustrated by an ancient hymn relating to the goddess Itzpapalotl (“Obsidian Butterfly”), who was associated with Mixcoatl.
“O, she has become a goddess of the melon cactus,