The ground plan of the Caracol or Round Temple of Chichen-Itza, which was built, according to tradition, by the high priest Quetzalcoatl, carries out the idea of the middle and of the four quarters in so obvious a manner that it may safely be assumed that it represented the supposed centre of a dominion (fig. [30]). Referring the reader to the interesting description of this remarkable edifice in Mr. William Holmes' valuable work already cited, I note that round temples, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, are recorded to have also existed in Mexico. It seems probable that, at certain festivals, the living representatives of the Above and Below performed certain sacred rites on the summit of one of these circular edifices. It is obvious that such rites could only have been fitly performed by the coöperation of both twin rulers or Quequetzalcoas, each of whom personified two elements. The appropriate season for such rites would be that when the necessity of insuring a successful harvest would seem most urgent. It is a recorded fact that the most solemn festivals of the year were held between the vernal equinox, on which date the ritual year began, and the fall of the first rain which usually occurs about the middle of May. It is extremely significant that at this precise period the festival toxcatl took place (cf. Maya thoaxol or thoxol=distribution, giving each one a little, and o-och=food or maintenance) during which Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli were jointly honored. During this festival the “sacred dough,” named tzoalli, was a prominent feature of the ritual and it was undoubtedly associated with the idea of the life-giving union of the four elements, the Above and Below, or the male and female principles.
It can, moreover, be directly connected with the recumbent statues representing the centre; for, whilst Bernal Diaz recorded that the statue on the summit of the Great Temple held a collection of all the seeds of the land, Cortés, in his descriptive letter, gives us [pg 098] an important detail which evidently applied to the identical statue. He relates that “the bodies of the idols are made of a dough consisting of all the kinds of seeds and vegetables that these people ate. These are ground, mixed with each other and then moistened with the blood of the hearts of human victims ...” (op. cit. p. 105). Sahagun relates that an image of the earth goddess, under the title of Seven-serpents or twins, was made of this sacred dough and that offerings of all kinds of maize, beans, etc., were made before it “because she is the author and giver of all these things which sustain the life of the people” (book ii, 4). It is well known that the dough images were broken into small pieces and these were distributed to the priests and people, who partook of the substance after having prepared themselves by fasting, for the sacred rite. I draw attention to the fact that the above sacred substance is but the natural outcome of the primitive notion already mentioned, which led the hunters to spill blood upon the earth, to obtain its increased fruitfulness. An insight having been thus obtained of the origin of blood sacrifices in ancient America, it is possible to understand the meaning of certain representations showing the performance of ritual blood-offerings.
On the well-known bas-relief preserved in the National Museum of Mexico, and illustrated in the Anales (vol. i, p. 63), the two historical rulers of ancient Mexico, who figure as Quequetzalcoas, or divine twins, in exactly the same costume, are sculptured with blood flowing from their shins and in the act of piercing their ears with a sharp bone instrument. Two streams of blood descend from these and meet before falling into the open jaws figured beneath an altar, on which two conventionalized flowers appear. The two rows of teeth=tlantli, convey the sound of the affix tlan=land of, or tlalli=earth. But the most remarkable and striking instance of the group of ideas we have been studying is found on p. 62 of the Borgian Codex. On a background formed by a pool of water, there is a group which represents the “earth-mother” lying on a band of lizard-skin, with two maize plants issuing from her body and growing into a large two-branched tree, in the centre of which is a flint-knife or tecpatl. A bird stands on its summit and its branches terminate in maize plants. Its growth is being furthered by the two streams of blood which proceed from two human figures, standing at each side of the tree. One is painted black and evidently represents [pg 099] the Lord of the Below; the other is painted blue-green and represents the Lord of the Above. The blood-sacrifice they are jointly offering is that mentioned in the “Lyfe of the Indians,” as performed in order to obtain generation. Unquestionably this symbolical group would have been equally intelligible to Mayas or Mexicans, since the ideas it expressed were held in common by both people.
Before proceeding further it is necessary to state that after the native philosophers had, for an indefinite period of time, been satisfied with the artificial division of all things into four quarters, corresponding to the cardinal points and elements, the idea of the Above and Below gradually grew in importance, whilst prolonged thought and observation disclosed that the above classification demanded revision. On carefully investigating the attributes of the principal ancient Mexican deities or personifications of the elements we see that the native thinkers had found themselves obliged to make a distinction between the different forms of each element, having realized, for instance, that water not only fell to earth from the heaven, but also issued from the depths of the earth in the form of springs or fountains, and formed rivers and lakes. The final conclusions they reached in this instance are best explained by the fact that the name of the god Tlaloc means earth-wine or rain only, and that his sister “Chalchiuhtlycue” appears as the personification of wells, springs, rivers and lakes. It is evident that the classification of the ocean or sea must have given rise to much serious thought. We know how the problem was solved by the fact that the Nahuatl name for the ocean is “ilhuica-atl”=heaven-water. Accordingly, the rain and the ocean pertained to the heaven, the Above and male principle, whilst the wells, springs, rivers, etc., belonged to the earth, the Below, the female principle.
As in this case, so it was with the other elements, each of which was finally personified by a male deity and his female counterpart, which, in some cases, tended to represent its distinctive and beneficent properties. As these deities are separately treated in my commentary of the “Lyfe of the Indians” and lack of space forbids my discussing them here, I shall but mention that the ultimate native systematization of the elements, each of which was thought of as an attribute only of supreme and central divinity, corresponds exactly to that held by the Zuñis of to-day and set forth in the following account given by Mr. Frank H. Cushing and [pg 100] quoted in Dr. Brinton's “Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico” (p. 8). In quoting it I draw special attention to the numerical divisions given, as this is absolutely essential for the understanding of the statements I shall make, further on, concerning the origin of the native Calendar-systems.
Figure 31.
“In the ceremonies of the Zuñis the complete terrestrial sphere is symbolized by pointing or blowing the smoke to the four cardinal points, to the zenith and nadir, the individual himself making the seventh number. When the celestial is also symbolized, only the six directions are added to this seven, because the individual remains the same, so that the number typifying the universe, terrestrial and celestial, becomes 13. When, on the other hand, in their ceremonies, the rite requires the officiant to typify the supra- and intra-terrestrial spheres, that is, the upper and lower worlds [the Above and the Below], the same number 13 results, as it is held that in each the sun stands for the individual, being in turn the day sun and night sun, the light and dark sun, but ever the same and therefore counts but once.”
After having gained this knowledge of native speculative philosophy, let us penetrate still further into their modes of thinking by studying, first of all, a series of symbols of the earth-mother taken from one of the most valuable of Mexican MSS., the Vienna Codex (fig. [31]). In these the idea of the vase, bowl or receptacle and of the serpent predominates. It is instructive of native thought to find the vase represented as containing a child (no. 1), an agave plant (no. 7), a fire, denoting warmth (no. 3), a flower (no. 12), [pg 101] and a bunch of hair, the numerical symbol for multiplicity=the number 400 (no. 5). In no. 2, the hollow between two recurved peaks conveys the idea of a central vase; a band with eyes rests upon the peaks and denotes the heaven. No. 4 shows a double vase, enclosed in a similar representation of the nocturnal heaven—the idea to be conveyed being evidently that of a receptacle hidden in darkness. No. 9 displays an open jaw, two claws, a human heart and a stream of blood issuing from it. Nos. 10 and 11 present different shapes of the serpent's jaw, the symbol of the earth.