The above and many scattered allusions throw light upon the group of ideas associated with the Cihuacoatl and clearly indicate what were his duties. To him devolved the care of the earth and his one thought was to secure abundance of rain and of crops. In order to ensure the proper cultivation of the ground, he had, under him, innumerable agents, who strictly superintended the cultivation of all food-plants, the irrigation of barren lauds, etc. These agents, who also resorted to ceremonial usages in order to bring rain or avert hail-storms and other disasters, were collectively named “the 400 pulque or octli-gods”—an appellation which developed into tochtli-gods, when the rabbit (=tochtli) had become the pictograph habitually employed to convey the sound of the word octli, and had been adopted as the symbol of the earth [pg 079] and of prolific reproduction in connection with this. The latter idea is born out of the female title, that of the earth-mother, who “always brought forth twins.” The Cihuacoatl thus stands out as the representative of the bountiful mother-earth and as the lord of agriculture, one of whose duties was the careful collection, storage and distribution of all food products. He presided over the cult of the fertility of the earth, of the nocturnal heaven, of the stars and moon, which were associated with the female principle and with growth in general. The following record proves that amongst his other duties he offered sacrifices to the invisible hidden powers of darkness and earth. “During the night, in the feast Tititl, the high priest named Tlillan tlenamacac [=the dealer with fire in the land of darkness=tlilli=black, evidently a title analogous to that of Tlill-potonqui-cihuacoatl, given by Tezozomoc, in Cronica, chap. 33], sacrificed a victim in honour of the god of the Underworld” (Sahagun, book ii, appendix). In this, as on similar occasions, he was assisted by four priests who succeeded him in rank.
Mr. Bandelier has already recognized that judicial sentences were ultimately referred to the “woman-serpent,” who pronounced the “final sentence, which admitted of no appeal.” There are more reasons than can conveniently be presented here, proving that in Mexico, as in Guatemala, the priest of the Below, the personification of Tezcatli-poca=Shining Mirror, employed an actual mirror made of polished obsidian, as an aid in pronouncing final judgment on criminals.
The Cakchiquel procedure is described by Fuentes of Guzman, who is quoted by Dr. Otto Stoll in his most instructive and valuable work on the Ethnology of the Indian Tribes of Guatemala (Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, band i, supplement i, 1888): “A road leads [from the ancient city of Guatemala] to a hill [figured with a large tree growing from it]; on its top there is a flat circular cement floor, enclosed by a low wall. In the centre is a pedestal, polished and shining like glass. No one knows of what substance it is made. This was the tribunal or court of the Cakchiquel Indians, where public trials were held and where the sentences were executed. The judges sat in a circle on the low wall. After the sentence had been pronounced, it had to be confirmed or vetoed by another authority. Three messengers, acting as deputies of the council, went to a deep ravine situated to the [pg 080] north of the palace, where, in a sort of hermitage or prayer-house, there was the oracle of the devil, which was a black, transparent stone, like glass, but more costly than [ordinary] obsidian. In this stone the devil revealed to the messengers, the sentence to be executed. If it agreed with the judgment pronounced, this was immediately executed upon the central pedestal [of the hill of justice] on which the criminal was also tortured, at times.” If nothing was seen in the mirror, and it gave no sign, the prisoner was pronounced free.
This oracle was also consulted before wars were undertaken ... “During the first years of the Spanish occupation, when the bishop Marroquin heard about this stone, he had it cut out and consecrated it as an altar, which is still in use in the convent of San Francisco in the capital. It is a precious stone of great beauty and is half a vara long.”
A picture in the Vatican Codex B (p. 48) represents a temple, on the summit of which a large obsidian mirror is standing on its edge. Inside the doorway there are many small black spots, which obviously represent small mirrors and convey the idea that the interior walls were incrusted with such. These illustrations would prove that sacred edifices were associated with obsidian mirrors even if Sahagun did not mention, as he does (book ii, appendix), no less than three sacred edifices in the great temple of Mexico, which were associated with obsidian mirrors. It is, moreover, stated by Duran that “in Mexico the image of the god Tezcatlipoca was a stone, which was very shining and black, like jet. It was of the same stone of which the natives make razors and knives,” i. e., obsidian (Duran ii, p. 98).
What is more, Bernal Diaz relates that the image of Tezcatlipoca, which he saw beside the idol of Huitzilopochtli in the hall of the great temple of Mexico, had shining eyes which were made of the native mirrors=tezcatl. “In connection with the shining eyes” of the god it is interesting to note that when, as Duran states, he was represented under another form, his idol “carried in its hand a sort of fan made of precious feathers. These surmounted a circular gold disc which was very brilliant and polished like a mirror. This meant that, in this mirror, he saw all that went on in the world. In the native language they named it ‘itlachiayan,’ which means, that in which he looks or sees” (Duran, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 99).
Sahagun mentions an analogous sceptre which consisted of “a gold disc pierced in the centre, and surmounted by two balls, the upper and smaller of which supported a pointed object. This sceptre was called tlachieloni, which means ‘that through which one looks or observes;’ because with it one covered or hid one's face and looked through the hole in the middle of the gold plate.” This kind of sceptre is not exclusively associated with Tezcatlipoca in the native picture writings, for it figures in the hand of Chalchiuhtlycue “the sister” of Tlaloc and of Omacatl whose attributes, the reeds and chalchiuite or jade beads, prove him to be also associated with the water. On the other hand the same sceptre is also assigned by Sahagun to the god of fire.
A clue to the truth and significance of this emblematic sceptre is furnished by the fact that, in order to express the divine title Tlachiuale, meaning “the Maker or Lord of all creatures or of young life,” the native scribes were naturally obliged to employ the verb tlachia=to look or see, in order to convey its sound. It is obvious that they cleverly agreed to express this verb by picturing some object which could be or was looked through. They therefore adopted a sceptre with a hollow disc, as an emblem, which was carried by the living representative of certain divinities, whose entire costume was in reality a sort of rebus, and in the case of Tlaloc, the lord of earthwine and fertility and the Tlachiuale or “Creator of young life,” par excellence, they once and for all designated his title by surrounding his eyes with two blue rings, accentuating thereby the action of seeing or looking. But this probably conveyed even more than the above title, for there is a Nahuatl noun tlachiuhtli, which means, “something made or formed or engendered,” or “earth which is ploughed and sown.” Then there is the verb tlachipaua which means, “the smile of dawn, the break of day, the clearing up of the weather,” also the purification and cleansing, all of which were supposed to be under the dominion of the rain-god and of his living representatives on earth, the rain-priests. The seemingly conflicting fact that the tlachieloni sceptre was also assigned to the god of fire is explained by the existence of the verb tiachinoa=to burn up the fields or forests, and of the noun tlachi-noliztli=the act of burning up or scorching the fields or forests, and finally, metaphorically, tlachinoli-teuotl=war or battle=destruction. It is only when we thus realize all the natives could express by the image of an eye, looking through a [pg 082] circle, that we begin to grasp its full meaning when employed as a symbol in their picture writings.
As to the obsidian mirror, which undoubtedly was the symbol of Tezcatlipoca and, consequently, must have pertained to his representative, the priest of the Night, we find that it played a most prominent rôle in the cult he presided over. In the first case it appears as though it was resorted to in Mexico as in the conquered province of Guatemala, as the oracle which rendered final judgment. A series of illustrations, etc., to be published in my final work on the Calendar System, will prove satisfactorily that the Mexican astronomers extensively employed black obsidian mirrors as an aid to astronomical observations, by means of reflection. Besides mirrors on the summits of temples and mountains, certain square columns, placed on an elevation and faced with a broad band of polished obsidian, are pictured in some Codices. It is obvious that the latter in particular, if carefully oriented, would have served as an admirable means of registering the periodical return of planets, stars or constellations to certain positions; they would then be reflected on the polished surface, as in a frame. In certain Codices the double, tau-shaped courtyard or enclosure surrounded by a high wall with battlements, which was employed in the daytime for the national game of ball, figures in combination with obsidian mirrors. I draw attention to the fact that the name of these courtyards was tlach-tli, which literally means the looking place=the observatory and that, amongst the edifices of the great temple, a tezca-tlachtli=obsidian-mirror-observatory, is described. I shall demonstrate more fully, on another occasion, that the chief purpose of these enclosures was to serve as astronomical observatories. Dr. Brinton, Señor Troncoso and other authorities have already observed that the game of ball itself was intended to represent the idea of the perpetual motion of the heavenly bodies. (See American Hero-myths, p. 119.)
Returning to reëxamine the divine title Tezcatlipoca we see that, when interpreted as “the lord of the shining obsidian mirror,” it was the most appropriate title of the lord of the Nocturnal Heaven, which myriads of mirrors reflected each night, throughout the land. It is easy to see how the habit of referring to the Temple Minor, in order to ascertain the positions of the stars, would naturally lead to its being consulted more extensively as an oracle later on. We thus clearly perceive how the lord of the [pg 083] Night, whose priests called themselves “the sons of the Night,” became intimately associated with divination and how the idea of a definite connection between the movements of the stars or human destinies would, in the lapse of centuries, make a deep and indelible impression upon the minds of men.