The gods of Mexico

by Lewis Spence

MYTHS

Sahagun says of Tezcatlipocâ that he was invisible and was able to penetrate into all places, heaven, earth, and hell. The Mexicans, he says, believed that he wandered over the earth stirring up strife and war, and setting men against one another. He also remarks that he was the true giver of prosperity, and extremely capricious.[51]

Acosta calls him the god of drought, famine, barrenness, and pestilence.[52]

Clavigero alludes to him as the chief of the gods worshipped in Mexico, the god of providence, the soul of the world, the creator of heaven and earth and master of all things. “They represented him as young, to denote that no length of years ever diminished his power. They believed [[104]]that he rewarded with various benefits the just, and punished the wicked with diseases and other afflictions.”[53]

The interpreter of Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that “Tezcatlipocâ is he who appeared to the nation on the mountain of the mirror, as they say, and is he who tempted Quetzalcoatl the penitent.” Elsewhere he says: “They do not here paint Tezcatlipocâ with a foot formed of a serpent, since they say that this festival [panquetzaliztli] relates to a time previous to his sinning while still in heaven, and that hence happened the war in heaven, from whence wars sprung below.”

The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A. says of him: “Tezcatlipocâ, here represented, was one of their most potent gods. They say that he appeared in that country on the top of a mountain called Tezcatepu, which signifies the mountain of mirrors.” Later on he remarks that the god was sometimes painted with the feet of a man and of a cock, “as they say his name bears allusion to this circumstance. He is clothed with a fowl, which seems to cry in laughing accents, and when it crows, Oa, Oa, Oa, they say that it deceived the “first woman, who committed sin, and accordingly they place him near the goddess of pollution.”

A report on the Huaxtec territory, dated 1579, states that: “They relate another fable, that they had two other effigies as gods, one called Ometochtli, who is the god of wine, the other Tezcatlipocâ, which is the name of the most exalted idol worshipped by them, and with these they had painted the figure of a woman named Hueytonantzin, that is ‘our great mother,’ because they said that she was the mother of all these gods or demons. And those four above-mentioned male demons, they related, had killed this great mother, founding with her the institution of human sacrifice, and taking her heart out of her breast, and presenting it to the sun. Similarly, they related that the idol Tezcatlipocâ had killed the god of wine with his consent and concurrence, giving out that in this way he gave eternal life, and that if he did not die, all persons drinking wine must die; but that the [[105]]death of this Ometochtli was only the sleep of one drunk, that he afterwards recovered, and again became fresh and well.”

Tezcatlipocâ, it will be remembered, is alluded to in the cosmogonic myths of Mendieta and Sahagun, already related in the chapter on Cosmogony. The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas refers to him as the creator, says that “he made the sun to shine,” and states that he was the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, which “sank in the water.” He also made the Tazcaquavlt, or “tree of the mirror,” fashioned four hundred men and a hundred women as food for the sun, and, along with Quetzalcoatl, constructed “the road in the heavens, the Milky Way.”

Sahagun states[54] that after Tezcatlipocâ had succeeded in driving Quetzalcoatl from the country, “he proceeded further guilefully to kill many Toltecs and to ally himself by marriage with Vemac or Uemac, who was the temporal lord of the Toltecs, even as Quetzalcoatl was the spiritual ruler of that people. To accomplish these things Tezcatlipocâ took the appearance of a poor foreigner and presented himself naked, as was the custom of such people, in the market-place of Tulla, selling green chilli pepper. Now the palace of Vemac, the great king, overlooked the market-place, and he had an only daughter, and the girl, looking by chance among the buyers and sellers, saw the disguised god. She was smitten through with love of him, and she began to sicken. Vemac heard of her sickness, and he inquired of the women who guarded her as to what ailed his daughter. They told him as best they could, how for the love of a peddler of pepper, named Toveyo, the princess had lain down to die. The king immediately sent a crier upon the mountain Tzatzitepec to make this proclamation: ‘O Toltecs, seek me out Toveyo that goes about selling green pepper, let him be brought before me.’ So the people sought everywhere for the pepper vendor, but he was nowhere to be found. Then after they could not find him, he appeared [[106]]of his own accord one day, at his old place and trade in the market. He was brought before the king, who said to him: ‘Where dost thou belong to?’ and Toveyo answered, ‘I am a foreigner, come here to sell my green pepper.’ ‘Why dost thou delay to cover thyself with breeches and a blanket?’ said Vemac. Toveyo answered that in his country such things were not in the fashion. Vemac continued: ‘My daughter longs after thee, not willing to be comforted by any Toltec. She is sick of love and thou must heal her.’ But Toveyo replied: ‘This thing can in no wise be; kill me first; I desire to die, not being worthy to hear these words, who get my living by selling green pepper.’ ‘I tell thee,’ said the king, ‘that thou must heal my daughter of this her sickness; fear not.’ Then they took the cunning god and washed him, and cut his hair, and dyed all his body and put breeches on him and a blanket; and the king Vemac said, ‘Get thee in and see my daughter, there, where they guard her.’ Then the young man went in and he remained with the princess and she became sound and well; thus Toveyo became the son-in-law of the king of Tulla.

“Then, behold, all the Toltecs, being filled with jealousy and offended, spake injurious and insulting words against King Vemac, saying among themselves, ‘Of all the Toltecs can there not be found a man, that this Vemac marries his daughter to a peddler?’ Now when the king heard all the injurious and insulting words that the people spake against him he was moved, and he spoke to the people saying, ‘Come hither, behold I have heard all these things that ye say against me in the matter of my son-in-law Toveyo; dissimulate then; take him deceitfully with you to the war of Cacatepec and Coatepec, and let the enemy kill him there.’ Having heard these words, the Toltecs armed themselves, and collected a multitude and went to the war, bringing Toveyo along. Arrived where the fighting was to take place, they hid him with the lame and the dwarfs, charging them, as the custom was in such cases, to watch for the enemy, while the soldiers went on to the attack. The battle began. The Toltecs at once gave way, treacherously [[107]]and guilefully deserting Toveyo and the cripples. Leaving them to be slaughtered at their post, they returned to Tulla and told the king how they had left Toveyo and his companions alone in the hands of the enemy. When the king heard the treason he was glad, thinking Toveyo dead, for he was ashamed of having him for a son-in-law. Affairs had gone otherwise, however, with Toveyo from what the plotters supposed. On the approach of the hostile army he consoled his deformed companions, saying: ‘Fear nothing; the enemy come against us, but I know that I shall kill them all.’ Then he rose up and went forward against them, against the men of Coatepec and Cacatepec. He put them to flight and slew of them without number. When this came to the ears of Vemac it weighed upon and terrified him exceedingly. He said to his Toltecs, ‘Let us now go and receive my son-in-law.’ So they all went out with King Vemac to receive Toveyo, bearing the arms and devices called quetzalapanecayutl, and the shields called xiuhchimali.[55] They gave these things to Toveyo, and he and his comrades received them with dancing and the music of flutes, with triumph and rejoicing. Furthermore, on reaching the palace of the king, plumes were put upon the heads of the conquerors, and all the body of each of them was stained yellow, and all the face red. This was the customary reward of those that came back victorious from war. And King Vemac said to his son-in-law: ‘I am now satisfied with what thou hast done, and the Toltecs are satisfied; thou hast dealt very well with our enemies, rest and take thine ease.’ But Toveyo held his peace.