Statuette.—A statuette of Tezcatlipocâ from the Valley of Mexico, and now in the Uhde collection, shows the god as nude, with the exception of a loin-cloth and a flat headdress, rising in the middle.

Tezcatlipocâ in His Black and Red Forms.—Tezcatlipocâ was regarded by the Mexican people as possessing two definite forms, the Black and the Red. In this paragraph we will deal only with the insignia of these and not with their mythological significance, which we will attempt to explain in its proper place. Perhaps the best and most classical examples of these forms we possess are to be observed on sheet 21 of Codex Borgia, on both halves of which we see the two forms represented as parallel figures, closely resembling one another in nearly every detail. It should at once be stated that the Red Tezcatlipocâ is merely a variant of Xipe, and indeed in one place in Codex Vaticanus B we observe that his loin-cloth forks in the swallow-tail fashion noticeable in the loin-cloth of that god, and, generally speaking, the red colours he wears are those of the roseate spoon-bill, the feathers of which are typical of Xipe’s dress. These pictures in the Codex Borgia are supplemented by two on sheets 85 and 86 of Vaticanus B, where the swallow-tail ends of the loin-cloth and the nasal rod show distinctly that the Red Tezcatlipocâ is only a form of Xipe. The Black Tezcatlipocâ opposite him is, however, represented with the striped body-paint of Tlauizcalpantecutli, the arms being entirely black. In the Borgia paintings the Black Tezcatlipocâ wears the black body-paint of the priest, his face-paint is alternately black and yellow, he has the warrior’s tousled hair, the nasal rod with the square plaque falling [[97]]over the mouth, the forked heron-feather adornment in his hair, and on his temple the smoking mirror. The foot, too, is torn off and replaced by a smoking mirror—all symbolical of the “standard” character of the god’s sable form. The Red Tezcatlipocâ represented in the upper portion of Borgia (sheet 21) has a yellow face-painting striped with horizontal bands of red and his body-paint is red. On the red bands crossing the face is seen the stellar eye. A brown fillet encircles a red headdress, and the torn-off foot is also replaced by the smoking mirror. On his back is seen the bundle of the merchant, surmounted by the arara bird, two symbols which indicate his southern character. The representation of the Red Tezcatlipocâ in the lower portion of sheet 21 is practically similar to this, save that he wears feather balls and heron plumes in his headdress, is without the merchant’s pack, and holds in one hand the jaguar-skin copal-bag of the priests and the smoking rubber ball used as incense.

These forms of the god have been laid down in myth as distinctly separate deities, especially in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas.[45]

FESTIVALS

Toxcatl.—This, one of the most important of all the Mexican festivals, is described by Sahagun substantially as follows: The fifth month called toxcatl and sometimes tepopochuiliztli, was begun by the most solemn and famous feast of the year, in honour of the principal Mexican god, a god known by a multitude of names and epithets, among which were Tezcatlipocâ, Titlacaoan, Yautl, Telpuchtli, and Tlamatzincatl. A year before this feast one of the most distinguished of the captives reserved for sacrifice was chosen for his superior grace and personal appearance from among all his fellows, and given in charge to the priestly functionaries called calpixques. These instructed him with great diligence in all the arts pertaining to good breeding, [[98]]such as playing on the flute, deportment, conversation, saluting those he happened to meet, the use of straight cane tobacco-pipes and of flowers. He was attended upon by eight pages, who were clad in the livery of the palace, and had perfect liberty to go where he pleased night and day; while his food was so rich that, to guard against his growing too fat, it was at times necessary to vary the diet by a purge of salt and water. Everywhere honoured and adored as the living image and accredited representative of Tezcatlipocâ, he went about playing on a small shrill clay flute or fife, and adorned with rich and curious raiment furnished by the king, while all he met did him reverence, kissing the earth. All his body and face was painted black, his long hair flowed to the waist; his head was covered with white hens’ feathers stuck on with resin, and covered with a garland of the flowers called izquixochitl,[46] while two strings of the same flowers crossed his body in the fashion of cross-belts. Earrings of gold, a necklace of precious stones, with a great dependent gem hanging to the breast, a lip-ornament (barbote) of sea-shell, bracelets of gold above the elbow on each arm, and strings of gems called macuextlu winding from wrist almost to elbow, were part of his ornaments. He was covered with a rich, beautifully fringed mantle of netting, and bore on his shoulders something like a purse made of white cloth of a span square, ornamented with tassels and a fringe. A white maxtle of a span broad went about his loins, the two ends, curiously wrought, falling in front almost to the knee. Little bells of gold hung upon his feet, which were shod with painted sandals called ocelunacace.

(From Codex Borgia.) (From the Sahagun MS.)

(Pottery figure from the Uhde Collection.)

TEZCATLIPOCÂ.

All this was the attire he wore from the beginning of his year of preparation; but twenty days before the coming of the festival they changed his vestments, washed away the paint or dye from his skin, and cut down his long hair to the length, and arranged it after the fashion, of the hair of the captains, tying it up on the crown of the head with feathers and fringe and two gold-buttoned tassels. At the same time they married to him four damsels, who had [[99]]been pampered and educated for this purpose, and who were surnamed respectively after the four goddesses, Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlantonan, and Uixtociuatl. Five days before the great day of the feast, the day of the feast being counted one, all the people, high and low, the king it would appear being alone excepted, went out to celebrate with the man-god a solemn banquet and dance, in the ward called Tecanman; the fourth day before the feast the same was done in the ward in which was guarded the statue of Tezcatlipocâ. The little hill or island called Tepetzinco, rising out of the waters of the Lake of Mexico, was the scene of the next day’s solemnities; which were renewed for the last time on the next day, or that immediately preceding the great day, on another like island called Tepelpulco, or Tepepulco. There, with the four women who had been given to him for his consolation, the honoured victim was put into a covered canoe usually reserved for the sole use of the king, and he was carried across the lake to a place called Tlapitzaoayan, near the road that goes from Yztapalapan to Chalco, at a place where was a little hill called Acaccuilpan, or Cabaltepec. Here left him the four beautiful girls whose society for twenty days he had enjoyed, they returning to the capital with all the people. There accompanied him only those eight attendants who had been with him all the year. Almost alone, done with the joys of beauty, banquet, and dance, bearing a bundle of his flutes, he walked to a little cu, some distance from the road mentioned above, and about a league removed from the city. He marched up the temple steps; and as he ascended he dashed down and broke on every step one of the flutes that he had been accustomed to play on in the days of his prosperity. He reached the top, where he was sacrificed. From the sacrificial stone his body was not hurled down the steps, but was carried by four men down to the tzompantli, to the place of the spitting of heads.