Latin-American Mythology. Hartley Burr Alexander
temple, built in circular rather than pyramidal form, was the shrine of what was perhaps the most ancient deity of all, Quetzalcoatl ("the Feather-Snake"), lord of wind and weather. These—Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, and Tlaloc—are the gods that are supreme in picturesque emphasis in the Aztec pantheon.
1. Huitzilopochtli33
The great teocalli of Huitzilopochtli stood in the centre of Tenochtitlan and was dedicated in the year 1486 by Ahuitzotl, the emperor preceding the last Montezuma, with the sacrifice of huge numbers of captive warriors—sixty to eighty thousand, if we are to believe the chroniclers. On the platform top of the pyramidal structure, bearing the fane of the war-god and also (as in the case of the temple in the market place) a shrine of Tlaloc, was space, tradition says, for a thousand warriors, and it was here, in 1520, that Cortez and his companions waged their most picturesque battle, fighting their way up the temple stairs, clearing the summit of some four hundred Aztec warriors, burning the fanes, and hurling the images of the gods to the pavements below. After the Conquest the temple was razed, and the Cathedral which still adorns the City of Mexico was erected on or near a site which had probably seen more human blood shed for superstition than has any other in the world.
The name of the war-god, Huitzilopochtli (or Uitzilopochtli), is curiously innocent in suggestion—"Humming-Bird of the South" (literally, "Humming-Bird-Left-Side," for in naming the directions the Nahua called the south the "left" of the sun). Humming-bird feathers on his left leg formed part of the insignia of the divinity; the fire-snake, Xiuhcoatl, was another attribute, and the spear-thrower which he carried was serpentine in form; among his weapons were arrows tipped with balls of featherdown; and it was to his glory that gladiatorial sacrifices were held in which captive warriors, chained to the sacrificial rock, were armed with down-tipped weapons and forced to fight to the death with Aztec champions. One of the most romantic of native tales recounts the capture, by wile, of the Tlascalan chieftain, Tlahuicol. Such was his renown that Montezuma offered him citizenship, rather than the usual death by sacrifice, and even sent him at the head of a military expedition in which the Tlascalan won notable victories. But the chieftain refused all proffers of grace, claiming the right to die a warrior's death on the sacrificial stone, and at last, after three years of captivity, Montezuma conceded to him the privilege sought—the gladiatorial sacrifice. The Tlascalan is said to have slain eight Aztec warriors and to have wounded twenty before he finally succumbed. It may be remarked in passing that the Tlascalan deity, Camaxtli, the Tarascan Curicaveri, the Chichimec Mixcoatl, and the tribal god of the Tepanec and Otomi, Otontecutli or Xocotl, were similar to, if not identical with, Huitzilopochtli.
The myth of the birth of Huitzilopochtli, which Sahagun relates, throws light upon the character of the divinity. His mother, Coatlicue ("She of the Serpent-Woven Skirt"), dwelling on Coatepec ("Serpent Mountain"), had a family consisting of a daughter, Coyolxauhqui ("She whose Face is Painted with Bells"), and of many sons, known collectively as the Centzonuitznaua ("the Four Hundred Southerners"). One day, while doing penance upon the mountain, a ball of feathers fell upon her, and having placed this in her bosom, it was observed, shortly afterward, that she was pregnant. Her sons, the Centzonuitznaua, urged by Coyolxauhqui, planned to slay their mother to wipe out the disgrace which they conceived to have befallen them; but though Coatlicue was frightened, the unborn child commanded her to have no fear. One of the Four Hundred, turning traitor, communicated to the still unborn Huitzilopochtli the approach of the hostile brothers, and at the moment of their arrival the god was born in full panoply, carrying a blue shield and dart, his limbs painted blue, his head adorned with plumes, and his left leg decked with humming-bird feathers. Commanding his servant to light a torch, in shape a serpent, with this Xiuhcoatl he slew Coyolxauhqui, and destroying her body, he placed her head upon the summit of Coatepec. Then taking up his arms, he pursued and slew the Centzonuitznaua, a very few of whom succeeded in escaping to Uitztlampa ("the Place of Thorns"), the South.
PLATE VII.
1. Colossal stone head representing Coyolxauhqui, the Moon goddess, sister of Huitzilopochtli (see page 60). The head is not a fragment, but bears figures upon its base, and doubtless represents Coyolxauhqui as slain by the Fire Snake, Xiuhcoatl, hurled by Huitzilopochtli, and afterwards beheaded by him. The original is in the Museo Nacional, Mexico.
2. Statue of the god of feasting, Xochipilli, "Lord of Flowers" (see page 77). The crest is missing. The original is in the British Museum.
3. The Fire Snake, Xiuhcoatl, as represented in stone. The Fire Snake is associated with Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, and the fire god, Xiuhtecutli; and stands, perhaps, in a kind of opposition to the "Green Feather Snake," Quetzalcoatl, the latter signifying rain and vegetation, the former drought and want (cf. the hymn to Xipe Totec, page 77). The original is in the British Museum.
The myth seemingly identifies Huitzilopochtli as a god of the southern sun. The hostile sister is the moon; the brothers are the stars driven from the heavens by the rising sun, whose blue shield is surely the blue buckler of the daylit sky; and probably the balls of featherdown tipping his arrows are cloud-symbols. Sahagun describes a sacramental rite in which an image of the god's body, made of grain, was eaten by a group of youths who were for a year the servitors of the deity, with duties so onerous that the young men sometimes fled the country, preferring death at the hands of their enemies—a statement which leads to the suspicion that here was some ordeal connected with chivalric advancement. Certainly Huitzilopochtli was a god of warriors, and it is probable that those devoted to him sought the warrior's death, which meant ascent into the skies rather than that descent into murky Mictlan which was the lot of the ordinary. In this connexion the name of the divinity and the humming-bird feather insignia acquire significance; for again it is Sahagun who relates that the souls of ascending warriors, after four years, are "metamorphosed into various kinds of birds of rich plumage and brilliant colour which go about drawing the sweet from the flowers of the sky, as do the humming-birds upon earth."
2. Tezcatlipoca34
Tezcatlipoca, or "Smoking Mirror," was so called because of his most conspicuous emblem, a mirror from which a spiral of smoke is sometimes represented as ascending, and in which the god was supposed to see all that takes place on earth, in heaven, and in hell. Frequently the mirror is shown as replacing one of his feet (loss or abnormality of one foot is common in the Mexican pantheon), explained mythically as severed when the doors of the underworld closed prematurely upon it—for Tezcatlipoca in one of his many functions is deity of the setting sun. In other aspects he is a moon-god, the moon of the evening skies; again, a divinity of the night; or sometimes, with blindfold eyes, a god of the underworld and of the dead; and in the calendric charts he is represented as regent of the northern heavens, although sometimes (perhaps identified with Huitzilopochtli) he is ruler of the south. Probably he is at bottom the incarnation of the changing heavens, symbolized by his mirror, now fiery, now murky, reflecting the encompassed universe. He is the red Tezcatlipoca and the black—the heaven of day and the heaven of night. He is the Warrior of the North and the Warrior of the South, symbolizing the course of the yearly sun, which, in the latitude of Mexico, culminates with the alternating seasons to the north and to the south of the zenith. His emblems include the Fire-Snake, symbol of heavenly fires; and again he is Iztli-Tezcatlipoca, the Stone-Knife God of the underworld, of blood-letting penance, and of human sacrifice. Sahagun says of him that he raised wars, enmities, and discords wherever he went; nevertheless, he was the ruler of the world, and from him proceeded all prosperities and enrichments. Frequently he is represented as a jaguar, which to the Mexicans was the dragon of the eclipse, a were-beast, and the patron of magicians; cross-roads were marked by seats for Tezcatlipoca, the god who traversed all ways; and he was called the Wizard and the Transformer. In himself he was invisible and impalpable, penetrating all things; or, if he appeared to men, it was as a flitting shadow; yet he could assume multifarious monstrous forms to tempt and try men, striking