Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky. David Bowles
the Ramayana did for Hindu epics, one that employs engaging, accessible, yet timeless language, much like Robert Fagles’ translations of the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid.
So I set out to write the book you hold in your hands.
Of course, I am hardly the first to retell these tales. The collections I found as a college freshman in different border libraries existed because of wonderful scholars and authors who gathered together written and orally transmitted myths and legends. What makes the present volume different is that—instead of telling the tales separately, discretely—I craft a single chronological narrative.
Drawing from a variety of sources (especially Nahuatl and Maya texts such as the Popol Vuh, Cantares Mexicanos, the Codex Chimalpopoca, Primeros Memoriales, and the Florentine Codex), this fresh take blurs the line between the legendary and the historical. My intent has been to stitch together myths and legends, organizing the tales so that they trace the mythic past of Mesoamerica from the creation of the world to the arrival of the Spanish.
As a Mexican-American author and translator, I see myself as one of many transmitters of tradition down the generations. My renditions treat these stories with respect and intimacy, as though they depict actual events. Because of the state of the existing lore, however, I have used several different techniques to create English-language versions. A few of the pieces are simply translated with some editorial adjustments to fit the larger narrative. Others are looser adaptations of myths and legends with some partial translation. Many are straight-up retellings, often of orally transmitted stories.
Quite a few of the myths are themselves syntheses of multiple sources, interwoven into a coherent narrative that I have quilted into the chronological sequence of the book itself. For the most part, I have synthesized several texts together from a single cultural tradition. A few times, however, I have blended Maya and Aztec cosmovisions wherever their overlap suggested an older Mesoamerican mythology from which both may have drawn. In such instances, I am not trying to erase the distinctiveness of the two very different cultures, but to reflect the hybrid mestizaje that has long been a characteristic of the Mexican identity.
I have provided notes on my sources and a comprehensive bibliography. My hope is that readers will become intrigued or excited by the mythological history I have woven and feel compelled to dive into the original texts as I once did, seeking to find some part of myself reflected in those ancient, enduring words.
DAVID BOWLES
August 22, 2016
The First Three Ages of the World
Look upon our beloved Mexico. The ancient singers gave her such lovely names—
Navel of the Moon.
Foundation of Heaven.
Sea-Ringed World.
From jungle-thick peninsula and isthmus to misty highlands and hardy deserts, Mexico has cradled dozens of nations through the millennia, all worshipping the divine around them, shaping names and tales that echo one another while remaining distinct.
If you listen close, you can hear the voices of our ancestors, whispering down the long years in a hundred different tongues, urging us never to forget where we came from, how Mexico came to be, the price they paid to make us who we are.
Can you hear that ancient chorus, chanting to the rhythm of the wooden drum, accompanied by the throaty shrill of the conch? That is the flower song, the holy hymn. Listen closely, sisters and brothers: catch snatches of the melody. Let us sing the old thoughts with new words.
Can you see the looms of our grandmothers, shuttling out colors, the weft and woof of so many tribes? They unfurl through the ages, frayed or unraveled by time and conquest like well-worn, rainbowed rebozos. Take up the threads, each of you, and weave with me the multi-hued fabric of our history, from the obsidian darkness of the void to the flash of foreign steel upon these shores.
We start at the beginning.
The Dual God
There was never nothing.
Before you or I or anything else existed, the universe was filled with a mysterious vital force we call ku or teotl. Still and calm, this divine energy stirred slow, hushed murmurs spreading in languid ripples across the immeasurable expanse.
Then, at the very heart of the cosmos, the force compressed, coalescing into a powerful being of two complementary halves—what we might call male and female. This dual god, Ometeotl in the Nahua tongue, the ancients lovingly called our grandparents. Ometeotl began to dream and to speak to itself about those dreams, describing a vast world and multi-tiered sky, peopled with creatures so diverse and wonderful that the very thought of them brought joy to our grandparents’ hearts.
And there, in that primal place of authority at the center of everything, Ometeotl understood that it could be a mirror in which these dreams would be reflected, from which they would emerge into existence.
Though still one, its two halves became more distinct. For this reason, we give them both many names: Builder and Molder, Lord and Lady of the Two, Goddess and God Who Sustain Us, Matchmaker and Midwife, Grandmother and Grandfather. They pulled the vital force in two directions, molding it to form the vast cosmic sea below and the empty heavens above. From the very depths of the eternal waters, our grandparents drew a massive leviathan, Cipactli. With its knobby skin and razor-sharp teeth, the beast prowled the sea, a frightening mixture of reptile, amphibian, and fish. Always hungry, Cipactli would not remain still, but kept diving in search of food. Our grandparents, who had hoped to build a world atop the monster’s back, understood that creation was a more complex task than they had imagined.
They would need help to finish their work.
Time Lord and Old God
Perhaps formed from the cycling of endless currents in the cosmic sea, another figure appeared, delighting Ometeotl. Turquoise-blue and very young, the newcomer wielded flinty stones in each hand, which he struck together, sending sparks and warmth throughout the universe. With his birth, time was set into motion at last, its interlocking gears slowly but ceaselessly marking the days and the years. As a result, our grandparents named him Xiuhtecuhtli—Lord of Time—and made him God of Fire.
Like Ometeotl, the Lord of Time had a dual nature: he could transform at will into his nahualli or spirit form, a dragon-like fire serpent whose coiling body matched the circular cycling of the ages. Eventually, as the complex wheels of time were deciphered, he would establish the two calendars that govern life in Mesoamerica: solar and sacred years, interlocking, ever-turning.
As the first year of our universe began to wind down, a change came over the Lord of Time: he began to grow weaker, to stoop over, to shamble slowly through the cosmos. His hair thinned, turned gray. His skin wrinkled and sagged. He became, in a word, old. Finally, this old god lay down, overcome by the shadow of something that had not yet entered the universe: death. But as the last flame of life flickered weakly in his soul, our divine grandparents, having learned the value of time, sacrificed a bit of the mysterious force from which they had formed themselves. Speeding that energy into the dying god, they restored his youthful vitality for another cycle. So it is that we renew every year by giving up something we hold dear, sending what little power we possess to the heart of the Lord of Time.
Brothers and Stewards of the Earth
Our grandparents realized that they could unfold