(Borgia MS., Rome)
Among the Tarascans too were found gods associated with the world-directions, and, as will be seen later, among the Maya also. The association of the underworld with the north by the Mexicans is interesting as exemplifying a tendency found amongst primitive peoples all over the world. The original home of the Mexicans lay to the north, and consequently it was to the north that departed spirits took their way, just as in Polynesia and Melanesia the disembodied souls were supposed to leap into the sea and disappear in the direction whence their forefathers had arrived.
It is therefore particularly interesting to note that among the Mixtec and Zapotec two spots were pointed out as the entrance to the underworld, and that each of these spots lay in the actual territory inhabited by these tribes respectively. The Mixtec believed that the gate to the region of departed spirits was situated at Chalcatongo, and the place was regarded as a burial-ground of peculiar sanctity. While the Zapotec believed that their sacred city Mitla (or rather Lyobaa, Mitla being the Nahua name) stood on the site of the approach to the spirit-world. This belief, together with the peculiarities in religion mentioned in the last chapter, points to the existence among the population of a large element which may be called indigenous in so far as its beliefs were probably evolved locally and before the advent of the Nahua tribes in Mexico, by contact with whom they were so strongly affected in later years.
In Mexican ceremonial constant attention was paid to the world-directions, and the victim’s blood was often sprinkled, and incense offered, in the four directions of the compass.
It will not be necessary to say many words on the subject of Mexican ritual, since much can be gathered from the description of the various feasts given above. In early times human sacrifice seems to have been far from prevalent, and the Chichimec were reputed to have made offerings only of animals and produce until they came into contact with other tribes. But according to the “Annals of Quauhtitlan,” human sacrifice had already made its appearance under the Toltec régime. The first rite of this nature is said to have been the offering of children to Tlaloc in 1018, while the arrow-sacrifice was introduced from the Huaxtec country in 1058, and the flaying-sacrifice in 1063. But the arrow-sacrifice is mentioned elsewhere at a very early stage of the Nahua migration, in connection with the earth-goddesses. Once introduced into the valley of Mexico, the practice of making human offerings became more and more prevalent, until we find the number of individuals slain during the four-day ceremonies at the dedication of the great temple to Uitzilopochtli by Auitzotl given in two manuscripts as twenty thousand (see Fig. [12]; p. 87). The Tezcocan ruler Nezahualcoyotl is said to have forbidden it, and later to have limited it to prisoners of war, but at the time of the conquest it showed no signs of abatement, and Bernal Diaz is constantly referring to the sacrifices which he and his companions were compelled to witness. Spaniards taken prisoner in the hostilities with the Mexicans were invariably devoted to death, and the same chronicler relates the grisly discovery in a temple at Pueblo Morisco of the remains of two of his compatriots, where Sandoval found two “faces which had been flayed, and the skin tanned like skin for gloves, the beards left on, and they had been placed as offerings on one of the altars.” The hides of four horses were found at the same place. But terrible as such rites may seem to us, it may be taken as certain that they were regarded almost with equanimity by the Mexicans. Death by sacrifice was considered the normal death of a fighting man, and ensured entrance to the paradise of the Sun. Instances occur where men have deliberately demanded death on the sacrificial stone, notably the king Chimamalpopoca is said to have made arrangements for his own immolation, clad in the insignia of Uitzilopochtli. Or again, the Tlaxcalan general Tlahuicol, captured by the Mexicans, who refused his freedom at the hands of Montecuzoma, and subsequently even the rank of general in the Mexican army, and was so persistent in his demands for death on the gladiatorial stone that it was at length granted him. The very cannibalism which, to a limited extent, formed the occasional sequel to human sacrifice, becomes divested of much of its horror when it is remembered that the rite was, in essentials, an act of communion with the deity, with whom the victim was identified. Instances of this identification have been mentioned, and it has been said that the victim, especially he who was condemned to die by the gladiatorial sacrifice, was clad in the insignia of the old stellar war- and hunting-deities, Mixcoatl and the Morning Star, insignia which are often borne by Uitzilopochtli and the earth-goddesses. The ornament, which was regarded as that typical of the sacrificial victim, was the following: the body and face were painted white with yellow stripes, lips and chin red, and across the eyes was the black “mask” seen in the figures of the star-gods. The hair was covered with down, and the victim carried arrows and a sword tipped and edged with the same material, which also appeared in five bunches on his shield (Fig. [12]; p. 87).
The act of communion with the god is seen in the many festivals at which an idol of the deity was made of some edible substance, later to be eaten by the worshippers. This custom was followed also by the Totonac.
PLATE IX
British Museum
MEXICO