(From a wall-painting at Mitla.)

Mexican idea of the moon. Metztli, the Moon-god. (From the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, sheet 24.)

PLANETARY DEITIES.

“The festival, which was celebrated every fifty-two years, was by far the most splendid and most solemn, not only among the Mexicans, but likewise among all the nations of that empire, or who were neighbouring to it. On the last night of their century, they extinguished the fire of all the temples and houses, and broke their vessels, earthen pots, and other kitchen utensils, preparing themselves in this manner for the end of the world which at the termination of each century [sic] they expected with terror. The priests, clothed in various dresses and ensigns of their gods and accompanied by a vast crowd of people, issued from the temples out of the city, directing their way towards the mountain Huixachtla, near to the city of Itztapalapan, upwards of six miles distant from the capital. They regulated their journey in some measure by observation of the stars, in order that they might arrive at the mountain a little before midnight, on the top of which the new fire was to be kindled. In the meantime the people remained in the utmost suspense and solicitude, hoping on the one hand to find from the new fire a new century granted to mankind, and fearing on the other hand the total destruction of mankind if the fire by divine interference should not be permitted to kindle. Husbands covered the faces of their pregnant wives with the leaves of the aloe, and shut them up in granaries; because they were afraid that they would be converted into wild beasts and would devour them. They also covered the faces of children in that way, and did not allow them to sleep, to prevent their being transformed into mice. All those who did not go out with the priests mounted upon terraces, to observe from thence the event of the ceremony. The office of kindling the fire on this occasion belonged exclusively to a priest of Copolco, one of the districts of the city. The instruments for this purpose were, as we have already mentioned, two pieces of wood, and the place on which the fire was produced from them was the breast of some brave prisoner whom they sacrificed. As soon as the fire was [[305]]kindled they all at once exclaimed with joy; and a great fire was made on the mountain that it might be seen from afar, in which they afterwards burned the victim whom they had sacrificed. Immediately they took up portions of the sacred fire and strove with each other who should carry it most speedily to their houses. The priests carried it to the greater temple of Mexico, from whence all the inhabitants of that capital were supplied with it. During the thirteen days which followed the renewal of the fire, which were the intercalary days, interposed between the past and ensuing century to adjust the year with the course of the sun, they employed themselves in repairing and whitening the public and private buildings, and in furnishing themselves with new dresses and domestic utensils, in order that everything might be new, or at least appear to be so, upon the commencement of the new century. On the first day of that year and of that century, which, as we have already mentioned, corresponded to the 26th of February, for no person was it lawful to taste water before midday. At that hour the sacrifices began, the number of which was suited to the grandeur of the festival. Every place resounded with the voice of gladness and mutual congratulations on account of the new century which heaven had granted to them. The illuminations made during the first nights were extremely magnificent; their ornaments of dress, entertainments, dances, and public games were superiorly solemn.”[1]

NATURE AND STATUS

In my view the sun-god Piltzintecutli is merely a personification of Tonatiuh, the sun. As has already been said, solar worship in Mexico seems to have been developed at a comparatively late period. In the myths regarding the origin of the sun given by Olmos and Sahagun, it is clear that he is regarded more as a luminary than as a god. The name Tonatiuh, indeed, means nothing more than “sun,” and although one of the sacrificed gods was believed to have [[306]]given him life, and he afterwards acts as a living being, he does not seem to possess the same qualities of personality as his later form, Piltzintecutli. The expression “Tonatiuh” seems to have been regarded as a divine place-name, a paradise to which those warriors fared who died in battle.

Tonatiuh was known as the Teotl, that is as the god par excellence, but this does not by any means imply that the Mexicans regarded him as the highest form of deity known to them. I think it rather means that the priests, having arrived at the conclusion that the tonalamatl and the calendar hinged, so to speak, upon the solar periods, came very naturally to regard the sun as the centre or hub of the intricate system which they had built up through generations. The very name Teotl, too, shows that, in later times at least, the sun was regarded as a deity, perhaps because he occupied the vault of the sky “where the gods live.”

But above and beyond this we have to regard Mexican sun-worship from an entirely different point of view. There is abundant evidence that the hunting tribes of the northern steppes, the Chichimec immigrants, possessed a primitive sun-worship of their own. It may be, indeed, that it was from this that the worship of Tonatiuh sprang, and not from the consideration of calendric science; but the criteria we possess regarding this part of the question is at present much too scanty to permit of more precise statement. But if we know that sun-worship obtained among the nomadic tribes of northern Mexico, we are somewhat ignorant of the precise form it took. One thing, however, seems certain, and that is that it was founded on the belief that the sun existed on the blood of animals, preferably deer, and that when these were scarce, on the blood of human beings. If blood-offerings to the sun were to cease, it was thought that the luminary would grow weak, fail, and become extinguished, or else would visit his wrath upon humanity in some such manner as we read of in those myths which recount the recurrent catastrophes of fire, wind, deluge, and earthquakes which the wrathful luminary brought upon mankind. I [[307]]would, therefore, date the introduction of the solar worship proper into Mexico, and consequently that of human sacrifice, from the period of entry of those northern Chichimec peoples, who, entering the Valley of Mexico at an epoch shortly after the disintegration of the Toltec civilization, adopted an agricultural existence, and finding the supply of wild animals insufficient to meet the requirements of sacrifice, instituted the occasional immolation of human beings. This custom seems, indeed, to have already obtained in the case of the ritual of some of the native gods, for example, Tlaloc and the Earth-mother, and it may be, indeed, that the northern nomads drew the inspiration which prompted them to this evil practice from their more civilized neighbours. But it is even more probable that, as the various Mexican peoples were for the most part of cognate origin and contiguous civilization, the practice of human sacrifice had been common to all of them in a more or less modified form for some generations, and only received an impetus after the Chichimec immigration. Against this view may be quoted the myth which refers the introduction of human sacrifice to a group of Huaxtec earth-goddesses, Tlazolteotl and her sisters. But it seems to me that this Maya people were by no means so prone to the custom, and that in this instance Tlazolteotl has been confounded with some of her Mexican forms. The process by which blood was thought of as being transformed into rain has already been fully described, and it but remains here to indicate that Tonatiuh is, in places, closely identified with the sign atl, water, and is indeed one of the four rulers of the week beginning with the day “one rain,” probably because of the early belief that on one occasion the sun “drank up” all the water on earth and later disgorged it in floods.

For the reason that he was regarded as existing on blood, the sun was thought of as the great patron of warriors, and has an intimate connection with both Uitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipocâ. But if we seek for evidence which would seem to exalt him above the greater gods in Mexico, and place him in a central and pre-eminent position in the pantheon, [[308]]we will be disappointed.[2] At the same time we must recollect that the two deities just mentioned, and even Quetzalcoatl in a measure, possessed a solar connection, and in the offering of the hearts of all victims to his glowing face we may probably see a survival or a reminiscence from a period when he was perhaps the central figure in the pantheon of the Chichimec nomads.

There is also plenty of evidence that the sun must be classed with Xiuhtecutli and the other gods of fire, as is shown by the great fire festival which took place every fifty-two years. But the lack of data regarding the sun as a personalized deity rather than a divine luminary places us at a disadvantage in attempting to assess his precise nature and status in the Mexican pantheon, and considerable research is required before this can be essayed with any degree of confidence.