Among the gods of fertility must be reckoned those who presided over octli (Fig. [4, f]), the intoxicating drink obtained from the maguey (the American aloe, Agave americana). These deities were connected with the harvest, and also bore a relation to the moon; they were regarded as innumerable, a fact explained by an early chronicler as typifying the countless forms of drunkenness, and were spoken of collectively as Centzon Totochtin or the “Four hundred (i.e. innumerable) Rabbits.” Many names of these gods have come down to us; they were all regarded as brothers, and it is possible that each one represents a section of the Mexican population, especially as their names seem taken from the names of places. If so their number would point to an early date for the discovery of octli. Tezcatzoncatl is said by some to be the chief, by others Izquitecatl, or again Ome Tochtli, (Two Rabbit, a calendrical name taken from the date of the principal feast). The two former are Chichimec gods, and Coatlicue was assigned to both as wife. Tepoztecatl was the octli god of the Chichimec inhabitants of the Amantlan quarter, while Patecatl was connected with the Huaxtec, a people popularly supposed to be especially given to drunkenness. Indeed one legend makes the tribal father of this people the first drunkard. In invocations the Totochtin were related to Colhuacan. Their principal insignia consisted of red and black face-paint, and a semi-lunar nose-ornament which appears also on their shields, while Tepoztecatl, the god to whom most probably the temple at Tepoztlan was erected, carries an axe. As sister of the Totochtin we have Mayauel, the agave goddess, wife of Patecatl, who, like the Ephesian Diana, was supposed to have four hundred breasts. An interesting myth attaches to Tezcatzoncatl, who was fabled to have been killed and revived by Tezcatlipoca, by which action the sleep of the drunken, so similar to death, became harmless for men. No doubt it was this awakening after heavy sleep, as much as anything else, which connected the octli gods with the waxing and waning of vegetation and the moon. The Tarascans of Cumachan also worshipped an octli god, who was believed to be lame, since he disgraced himself by becoming intoxicated in heaven, and was thrown thence to the earth. The supremacy which Tlaloc was supposed to exercise over the deities of fertility is well seen in the fact that at the great feast to the mountains four women and a man were sacrificed to him, named after five of these divinities, Matlalcue, Mayauel, Tepexoch, Xochitecatl (the two latter connected with flowers), and the male god of snakes, Milnauatl. One other goddess connected with the food-supply deserves mention here, namely Uixtociuatl, the deity of salt, who bore a certain relation to Chalchiuhtlicue.
The earth-goddesses Teteoinnan and (to a less degree) Chicome Coatl have already been mentioned, but another most important female divinity, an earth-goddess, but not associated with vegetation, was Tlazolteotl (Fig. [3, a]). This deity seems originally to have come from the Olmec, and was identified with the Huaxtec Ixcuina. She is at times identified also with Teteoinnan, and was occasionally honoured with a flaying-sacrifice, but her chief province was the superintendence of carnal sin, confession and penitence. She is shown with a black mouth and chin, a semi-lunar nose-ornament, and a cotton headband in which are stuck two spindles. The cult of this goddess was practised by the Huaxtec, Olmec and Mixtec, but not by the Chichimec or Tarascans.
We must now consider one of the most interesting and important gods of the Mexican pantheon, Tezcatlipoca (Fig. [3, e]). It is difficult to give a short, and at the same time clear, account of his manifold functions and manifestations, since there were few departments of native life with which he was not intimately connected. In the first place he was the all-powerful god of the Nahua-speaking tribes, worshipped by them in common; as such he was superior to the tribal war- and hunting-gods such as Mixcoatl and Uitzilopochtli, and in actual practice he seems to have been regarded with even greater awe. In typical form he appears with face banded with yellow and black, a shell ring breast-ornament, and a mirror from which a spire of smoke issues. This smoking mirror is his especial sign, and constitutes the rebus of his name; in it he was supposed to see all that was occurring on earth, for one of his main functions was the distribution of rewards and punishments. He bears this mirror on his head, or very often in place of one of his feet, a peculiarity explained by the idea that in his capacity of god of the setting sun he lost his foot owing to the premature closing of the doors of the underworld. Sometimes the missing foot is replaced by a stone knife, and in this manifestation he was known as Itztli, the knife-god. He is thus brought into intimate relation with the hunting deities, of whom this weapon was a symbol. Besides this, attempts seem to have been made by the various tribes to dignify their respective gods by actual identification with the supreme deity. One legend states that he became Mixcoatl, and in this personality invented the production of fire from flint. Or again, he appears under two forms, a red and a black Tezcatlipoca, and the latter is identified with Camaxtli and Uitzilopochtli. This distinction of colour recalls the yellow and black Tiripemés of the Tarascans, of whom the former was identified with Curicaveri. One of the many names of Tezcatlipoca was Yoalli Eecatl, the night-wind, and he was supposed to wander through the streets after dark in search of evildoers. Seats were placed for him at cross-roads, and a cross-road is often shown as one of his attributes in the manuscripts. When portrayed with bandaged eyes he bore the name of Itztlacoliuhqui, and presided over sin and cold.
As the god of divine punishment he was also a god of confession, and as such was associated with Tlazolteotl, while his connection with war is seen in the fact that he was regarded as the especial patron of the warrior-school, or Telpochcalli. In his dual capacity as a night- and warrior-god he was supposed to appear in all sorts of grisly shapes in order to test the courage of those he might meet. To flee from one of these phantoms was fatal, but the brave man who seized the apparition and wrestled with it until it gave him one or more spines of the maguey, was rewarded with a similar number of prisoners in his next battle. One of the forms which the god assumed on such occasions was a headless body with two doors in its chest which opened and shut, making a noise like the sound of an axe upon a tree. At the same time this deity possessed a lighter side; as Omacatl (a calendrical name, “Two Reed”) he was the god of banquets and festive entertainments, and as Tlamatzincatl he was regarded as endowed with perpetual youth. His relation to the produce-goddesses is seen in the fact that the four women given as wives to the victim, identified with the god himself, who was destined to be sacrificed at his principal feast, bore the ceremonial names of Xilonen, Xochiquetzal, Uixtociuatl and Atlatonan, the last-named being a goddess associated with Teteoinnan and honoured with a flaying-sacrifice.
Another important deity, whose relations are peculiarly difficult to unravel, was Quetzalcoatl ([Pl. VI, 2]). He was the especial god of the Toltec, inventor and patron of the arts and crafts, and originator of the calendar and priestly ritual. In studying the extremely confused legends concerned with this divinity it is important to remember two facts which have probably given rise to much misunderstanding. First that the high-priest of the god bore his name, secondly that the last Toltec king, in whose reign occurred the fall of Tulan and the scattering of the Toltec, was called Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. The relation of this god to the Maya deity Kukulkan, whose name is an exact equivalent (quetzal = kukul, the quetzal bird; coatl = kan, snake), is discussed below (p. 226). It is said that after giving laws to the people he departed eastward, and on reaching the sea put off his feather dress and turquoise snake-mask and immolated himself upon a funeral pyre, his soul becoming the morning star; or, according to another account, he sailed away eastward, promising to return in a year of similar date. As a god of the morning star he bore the calendrical name of Ce Acatl (“One Reed”), one of the dates marking the periodical appearances of Venus. It will be remembered that we have seen a deity named Ce Acatl as a warrior-god, slaying the Mimizcoa who had killed his father Mixcoatl. But this deity is certainly not to be identified with Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, who was essentially a god of peace, averse to human sacrifice. Among the hunting peoples, as can be seen especially from a study of the Tarascan tribes, the morning star was a war-god, while the association of Quetzalcoatl with this planet was due to the fact that it was the regulator of the solar calendar as explained subsequently. In the second legend the promise of the god to return in a year ce acatl had very far-reaching effects. Quetzalcoatl was regarded as white and bearded, and the arrival of the Spaniards in a year bearing this date seemed to the Mexicans to possess a religious sanction which proved of inestimable service to the invaders. Indeed, but for this legend it is more than doubtful whether the almost incredible exploit of Cortés would have been successful. Quetzalcoatl is usually shown with black paint, the priestly colour, and wearing a pointed head-dress of the form associated with the Huaxtec, and hook-shaped ear pendants. As Eecatl the wind-god he bears a mask with a long snout, and a spirally marked shell breast-ornament, typifying the eddies of the wind (Fig. [4, d]). In this capacity he was associated with the rain-gods, for whom he was said to sweep the road, and in one place he is given the same title as Tezcatlipoca, Yoalli Eecatl, the night-wind. As a god of ceremonial purification he is generally shown with the bone implement for piercing the ears, sometimes stuck in his head-dress, and, as a patron of education, children were presented to him at the public school or Calmecac. His legendary connection with Tezcatlipoca is interesting. In one myth the two are mentioned as creating-gods, who raised the heavens after they had fallen upon the earth at the end of the last mythical period. In another they are shown as foes, and it is Tezcatlipoca who by his machinations drives Quetzalcoatl from Tulan. The latter story probably represents the retirement of the Toltec before the advancing waves of Nahua migration. As might be expected, Quetzalcoatl is closely associated with the peoples of the eastern coast, he wears Huaxtec dress, and the Olmec are mentioned as his children; further, he was worshipped at Tlaxcala and Uexotzinco, and especially at Cholula, cities in which the Toltec at their dispersal had settled in numbers. Cholula was in fact the centre of his worship in later times, and his great pyramid there, greater even than that of Uitzilopochtli in Mexico, was regarded with particular veneration by the surrounding peoples, even by the Aztec conquerors. One legend makes Quetzalcoatl the chief agent in the final creation of man. According to this story he goes to the underworld to fetch bones; as he returns he falls, the bones drop to earth and quails gnaw them. Finally Ciuacoatl pounds them up and makes a paste from which men are formed. The same myth shows him as the discoverer of maize, which was concealed in the mountain Tonacatepetl. All the gods were searching for it, but the way was known to the ants alone. Quetzalcoatl turns himself into a black ant, and a red ant guides him thither, but the mountain is too heavy to lift, so the god Xolotl (in his manifestation as Nanauatzin) splits it open. This god Xolotl, who will be mentioned later, is closely associated in dress and attributes with Quetzalcoatl, as also are the octli-gods, and he is sometimes given as the hero of the creation-myth quoted above. But the maize was not destined to remain the possession of Quetzalcoatl, for it was stolen by Tlaloc, to whom since that time it belongs. In many of the invocations given by Sahagun, Quetzalcoatl is mentioned as a creator-god. A peculiar point in connection with this deity is seen in the practice of professional thieves, who were accustomed to make an image of Quetzalcoatl which they carried with them when they set out to rob a house. The explanation may be sought in the fact that the wind-god was naturally typical of mutability, and so was patron of sorcery and might be supposed to aid the magical precautions taken by robbers to cast sleep upon the inmates of the house which they wished to attack, as related below. A peculiar legend accounts for the feather-work garments and mask worn by Quetzalcoatl; from two sources we learn that this god was extremely ugly, and one of them adds that when Tezcatlipoca showed him his reflection in his mirror, Quetzalcoatl was so ashamed that he adopted these aids to concealment. The other states that his image was always kept covered.
Besides Tezcatlipoca, there were also other high gods, whose functions related to creation and generation, but, like many high gods among primitive peoples, the amount of active worship paid them was relatively small. Such were Tonacatecutli and his wife Tonacaciuatl, dwellers in the highest heaven, who were said to be Toltec deities, and were identified with Ometecutli and Omeciuatl, also associated with Tulan. The creation once over, they received little direct worship, save that appeals were made to them in invocations relative to pregnancy and birth. Tonacatecutli was also identified with Chicome Xochitl (“Seven Flower,” a calendrical name), in which manifestation he appeared as a fertility-god, and Tonacaciuatl was at times likewise identified with Xochiquetzal and Chicome Coatl. Attention has already been called to the manner in which the Aztec tried to add to the dignity of their tribal god by transferring to him the functions of other deities, and it is not therefore surprising to find in one passage that Uitzilopochtli is identified with Tonacatecutli. Connected with the creator-deities are two interesting personalities, Oxomoco (male) and Cipactonal (female). These were the prototypes of all magicians, patrons of the magical arts, assistants in the creation of men and in the discovery of maize, and general advisers in the migration of the Nahua tribes. The material attributes of these personages are not clear, and it is difficult to find a pictorial representation which can be said with certainty to portray either of them. As regards Mictlantecutli, the god of the underworld, the case is quite otherwise; he is very frequently shown, and nearly always takes the form of a skeleton, often with a stone knife in place of his nose (Fig. [4, b]). Skulls and bones are his inevitable accompaniments, the owl is his bird, and his feminine partner was named Mictlanciuatl. Other elemental divinities, of rather nebulous attributes, were the sky-gods Citlalicue and Citlaltonac, who were associated with the creator-gods, the sun and the morning star; and also Yoaltecutli and Yoalticitl, night-deities, of whom the former seems to be identified with the sun and the constellation Gemini, and the latter with Teteoinnan.
Photo. Prof. Seler
Vienna Museum
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