CHAPTER II—MEXICO: THE GODS

The question of the religion of the Ancient Mexicans is by no means easy to approach. At the time of the Spanish conquest the Mexican pantheon was still in a state of great confusion, and the number of tribal cults of which it was composed had not yet been reduced to a homogeneous whole. Gods whose functions were similar or associated had been invested with the attributes one of the other, and there is reason to suspect that the names of deities whose importance was relatively recent had been incorporated in the earlier myths by a priesthood jealous of the dignity of its own particular god. The history of the valley of Mexico, as far as it can be traced, consists, as we have seen, of the conquest from time to time of the sedentary agricultural population by ruder and more warlike tribes from the hills. The victors, conscious of their cultural inferiority, in adopting to the best of their ability the mode of life of the conquered, were careful also to propitiate the local gods, whom they regarded as responsible for the superior culture of the latter; though they attempted, as far as they dared, to subordinate them to their own chief deity. These hill-tribes of primitive hunters seem to have worshipped each a god of its own, who was regarded as its personal leader, who presided over war and the chase and who appears to have been connected with the stars and occasionally with the sun. This connection with the sun was, I am inclined to think, an afterthought, and not universal, arising from the belief that war was instituted in order to provide the sun with blood-offerings. To this class of deities belong Curicaveri, Tiripemé and Taras, worshipped by the Tarascans, Mixcoatl of the Otomi, Chichimec and Matlatzinca, Camaxtli of Tlaxcala and Uexotzinco, Amimitl and Atlaua of the Chiampanec, and the Mexican Uitzilopochtli (Fig. [3, f]). The connection is especially close between Mixcoatl, Camaxtli and Uitzilopochtli, in fact they are occasionally identified. Their attributes consist of a spear-thrower and net bag, or bow and arrows, and the arrows are sometimes shown as tipped with down, in allusion to the fact that they are gods of sacrifice, such being the insignia of prisoners destined for the sacrificial stone; Uitzilopochtli is usually shown in the dress of a humming-bird (Uitzitzilin) in punning allusion to his name, and with him is associated a minor deity, Paynal, believed to be his messenger. According to a widespread legend Uitzilopochtli is said to have been conceived by his mother, Coatlicue, from a ball of down which fell from heaven and which she placed in her bosom; her other sons, the Centzon Uitznaua (Four hundred Southerners, the number meaning “innumerable”), at the instigation of their sister Coyolxauhqui (Pl. [II, 1]), accused Coatlicue of improper conduct, and attempted to kill her; but Uitzilopochtli, springing from his mother’s body, defeated them, decapitating Coyolxauhqui with the xiuhcoatl or “fire-snake” with which he was armed. Coatlicue was an earth-goddess, patron of flower-sellers, and, as her name implies, is distinguished by a skirt woven of snakes (Pl. [III]); the brothers are identified with the stars of the southern heaven. Very similar is the legend of Mixcoatl (Fig. [4], a), according to which this god was attacked and killed by the Centzon Mimizcoa (also stellar deities), but was avenged by his son Ce Acatl, who slew the latter with the tezcacoatl (“mirror-snake”). In the person of Mixcoatl we find a direct connection with the Tarascan Curicaveri, whose symbol was a stone knife kept in a box by the priest, since the same legend relates that Mixcoatl always carried with him a stone knife as a fetish. It may also be mentioned in passing that the date of Uitzilopochtli’s (and Camaxtli’s) movable feast was 1. tecpatl (tecpatl being the stone-knife day-sign), and, as will be explained later, gods were often known by calendrical names. Mixcoatl’s knife was said to be a symbol of the peculiar female deity Itzpapalotl (“obsidian butterfly”), a star-goddess associated with fire and lightning, and occasionally identified with a mythological two-headed deer called Itzcueye which figures in the legends of Mixcoatl and Camaxtli as the captive and wife of the god. This two-headed deer was again identified at Cuitlauac and Xochimilco with the Colhuacan earth and warrior goddess Ciuacoatl (Tonantzin or Quilaztli), invoked in childbirth, whose symbol was an obsidian knife; but, and here is a good instance of the confused nature of the myths with which we have to deal, Ciuacoatl was regarded as the mother of Mixcoatl (as also the other earth-goddess Coatlicue the mother of Uitzilopochtli), and as sister of the Mimizcoa. The planet Venus was a war-god in Michoacan, and, under the name Urendequa Vecara, was the especial deity of Curinguaro, a town hostile to the votaries of Curicaveri. In Mexico this planet was known as Tlauizcalpantecutli, and was connected in some respects with prisoners destined for sacrifice. Representations of Uitzilopochtli are very rare in Mexican art of pre-Spanish date, but we are told that his face-paint consisted of blue and yellow horizontal stripes. Mixcoatl and Camaxtli are usually shown with black paint around the eye, rather in the form of a highway-man’s mask, and Uitzilopochtli also appears with this occasionally. The distinguishing feature of Tlauizcalpantecutli is a series of five dots, arranged quincunx fashion on a dark ground, with the central spot on the nose (Fig. [4, c]).

Fig. 3.—Mexican deities from various MSS.

Fig. 4.—Mexican deities from various MSS.

For the sedentary tribes of the valleys, dependent chiefly upon agriculture and fishing for a livelihood, the deities presiding over vegetation, rain and earth were the most important; and after the Aztec had become settled and devoted themselves to intensive cultivation, they readily adopted these gods and gave them a high place in their pantheon. Most important of all was Tlaloc, the god of rain and thunder (Fig. [3, b]); his worship appears to have been extremely widespread, and his images are found in numbers among the remains of pre-Aztec date at Teotihuacan (where he is the only god who can be identified with certainty), in the Huaxtec country, at Teotitlan, at Quiengola in the Zapotec district, and at Quen Santo in Guatemala. It is even related that when the Acolhua first arrived in the valley in the reign of the first Chichimec ruler Xolotl, they discovered on a mountain a figure of this god, which remained an honoured object of worship until it was broken up by order of the first bishop of Mexico. Tlaloc is one of the most easily recognizable of Mexican deities, since he is represented with snakes twined about his eyes (the snake being throughout practically the whole of America the symbol of lightning and rain), with long teeth, and often with a trunk-like nose. According to legend he was one of the first gods created, and lived in a kind of paradise, situated in the east, called Tlalocan, where he presided over the souls of the drowned and those who in life suffered from dropsical affections. He was supposed to be assisted in his duties by a number of subsidiary rain-gods, called Tlaloque, who distributed the rain from magical pitchers and caused the thunder by striking them with rods. In the courtyard of Tlaloc’s palace four great jars were supposed to stand, which contained rain of varying quality. In the first was the good rain which produced fertile crops; in the second, rain which gave being to cobwebs and mildew; in the third were stored ice and sleet; and in the fourth, rain after which nothing matured or dried. Thus Tlaloc combined two aspects, a beneficent and a terrible; and this is not unnatural, for rain in Mexico is more often than not accompanied by thunder, and the fertilizer is therefore also the smiter. As the god of fertility maize belonged to him, though not altogether by right, for according to one legend he stole it after it had been discovered by other gods concealed in the heart of a mountain. The great importance of Tlaloc and the Tlaloque in the worship of the Ancient Mexicans may be gathered from the fact that no less than five of the twenty month-festivals were dedicated to them, and that Tlaloc shared with Uitzilopochtli the great pyramid at Tenochtitlan. The most important of the Tlaloque was Opochtli, a fishing and hunting god, the inventor of nets and the bird-spear. Closely connected with Tlaloc was his wife Chalchiuhtlicue (Pl. [II, 2]), goddess of running water, said also to be sister of the Tlaloque and mother of the Mimizcoa. This goddess, under the name Matlalcue, was especially worshipped at Tlaxcala, and is easily recognized by her tasselled headband and cape, and often by a stepped nose-ornament. The most important festivals to these deities took place on mountain-tops, for it is there that the rain-clouds gather before they sweep over the plain, and closely associated with them was the worship of mountains represented by small figures called Tepictoton, with hair dressed in two horns, whose sacrificial victims were similarly adorned. The valley-dwellers of Michoacan around Pazcuaro revered a goddess of fertility and rain, named Cueravahperi, casting the hearts of her victims into certain hot springs which were supposed to give birth to the rain-clouds. In connection with her worship we are first brought into contact with a strange and gruesome rite, peculiar to this part of America, and performed exclusively in honour of agricultural deities. The victim was flayed, and the priest performed a ceremonial dance wrapped in the fresh skin. The practice seems to be symbolical of vegetation in the early spring, apparently dead, but containing within the germ of life and fertility, and no doubt was originally intended to assist by imitative magic the process of nature in renewing the food-supply. Corresponding to this goddess, and, like her, regarded as the mother of the gods, was the Mexican Teteoinnan or Tozi, a deity held in especial reverence by the Tlaxcalans and Olmec, and perhaps borrowed from the latter people. She was in particular the goddess of ripe maize and healing herbs, patroness of doctors, midwives and bath attendants (for the steam-bath played an important part in childbirth) and diviners. She too was connected with the flaying-sacrifice, and was sometimes pictured as clad in the victim’s skin; otherwise her attributes are the same as those of Tlazolteotl (see below) and she carries a broom. The maize-god par excellence was Cinteotl, her son (though occasionally mentioned as a female deity), who appears originally to have been a Totonac god. He is usually shown with a vertical line leading down his cheek, probably representing tears and symbolizing the fertilizing rain. On certain occasions his priest wore a mask made from the skin of the thigh of the victim sacrificed in honour of Teteoinnan. At first sight it is a little surprising to find this god appearing as one of the tutelary deities of the lapidaries of Xochimilco, but no doubt the reason of this is that the ripe maize-cob, nature’s mosaic, recalled the incrusted work which formed one of their principal manufactures. Closely associated with all these deities was a maize-goddess, Chicome Coatl, sister of Tlaloc, who presided over agriculture and was honoured with a flaying-sacrifice; while the young maize-ear had an especial protector in the goddess Xilonen, perhaps the same as the Chichimec Xilo worshipped by the inhabitants of the Amantlan district of Mexico. Another goddess who seems to be connected with maize was Ilamatecutli, also called Cozcamiauh (maize-necklace), though she appears to have been a star-goddess as well. She, Teteoinnan and Xilonen were associated in a peculiar form of sacrifice in which the victim was decapitated, and which perhaps represented the reaping of the maize-ear. The sacrifice by decapitation seems to be particularly connected with the earth-goddesses, who are sometimes shown in the MSS. with head almost severed from the body, and with two snakes, perhaps representing streams of blood, issuing from the trunk. Of such a representation the colossal figure in the Mexican Museum (see Pl. [III]) is an example. This deity is either Chicome Coatl or Coatlicue, probably the latter, to judge from the skirt of serpents which she wears. In this case the two snakes which spring from her decapitated body are placed snout to snout, and from the two profiles is compounded a grotesque face, or rather two such faces, one in front and one behind. It is worthy of note that the mask of the goddess Ilamatecutli, apparently another fertility goddess, is said to have been double-faced.