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TEPEYOLLOTL = “HEART OF THE MOUNTAINS”

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

In Codices Fejérváry-Mayer and Vaticanus B the face-paint of this god is red, and in the latter MS. has the alternate red and yellow cross-bars of the red Tezcatlipocâ. In Codex Borgia the body is painted black, but in this MS., as well as in the Aubin tonalamatl, the upper part of the face resembles that of Quetzalcoatl in its decoration, the profile being of a [[333]]light colour, while the temporal region is painted differently, these colours in the Aubin tonalamatl being separated by a black line. But whereas the temporal colouring in the Vienna MS. is green, in Codex Borgia it shows the alternate black and yellow of Tezcatlipocâ’s face-paint. In Codex Borgia, sheet 14, a beard is worn and a plug is in the nostrils. The region of the mouth has the painting of a jaguar’s skin. The hair is puffed up in two pads, symbolic, perhaps, of the mountainous region with which the god is connected. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis he wears the broad necktie of the rain-gods, only painted in green and not in blue, and in Codex Borgia shows Tlaloc’s colours in the loin-cloth, fillet, and neck-ornament. In this MS., too, he is represented as blowing the conch-shell, and here, as well as in Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, he stands before a building which has the cone-shaped, high-pitched straw roof of the houses in the tierras calientes, crowned with a jagged motif. As ruler of the third day-sign and third week he is represented as a jaguar pure and simple in the Aubin tonalamatl, Telleriano-Remensis and Borbonicus codices, which is merely a disguise for the personality of Tezcatlipocâ, as is shown by the face of that god looking out from the jaguar’s head in Telleriano-Remensis.

In Codex Borbonicus he is more unmistakably represented as Tezcatlipocâ, for the hands and feet projecting from underneath the jaguar skin are striped like those of that god, and one of the feet wears Tezcatlipocâ’s sandal, the itzcoatl (or obsidian snake), whilst the other is torn off and replaced by his smoking mirror. The jaguar of Codex Borbonicus has other portions of the insignia of Tezcatlipocâ about him, such as the aztaxelli, or feather head-ornament, and the anauatl, or white mussel-shell ring. In the Codex Borbonicus a large marine shell or conch-shell appears to be symbolical of Tepeyollotl. The god is alluded to by Sahagun as among the unlucky symbols. He figures as one of the faces of the double-headed Quaxolotl.

MYTHS

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says: [[334]]

“They considered Tepeyolotli the lord of these thirteen signs in which they celebrated his festival, during the four last of which they fasted, out of reverence, on account of the earth’s having remained after the deluge. But as its conditions were disordered or filthy, they did not consider the sacrifices of these signs as good or clean, but, on the contrary, as unclean, and they applied to them an appellation which in common phraseology we might explain by the term ‘sacrifices of filth.’ These last four signs in which they fasted were likewise out of reverence and in honour of Suguequezal (Xochiquetzal), the wife of Tonacatecotle, whose name signifies the lifting up or raising up of the Roses, for they say that goddess caused the earth to flourish. This proper name might be written Tiscuelutli, which is the Heart of the Mountain, which means the echo.”

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says: