The gods of Mexico

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 9: His nose-plug has the colours of the chalchihuitl. The ornament attached to the nape and back is a large rosette or disk painted in the chalchihuitl colours, as is the wrap which falls over the back. The ends of the loin-cloth also show the elements of this hieroglyph, and such a loin-cloth painting was usually indicative of the rank of the wearer in ancient Mexico. On his breast is a large gold disk. From his hollow ear-plug depends a jewelled band, and his collar consists of a solar disk (?). Sheet 70: in this picture he is seated on a platform covered with a jaguar-skin. His face-paint and body-paint are yellow, with a rectangular stripe from the end of the nose-plug and above the eye across the forehead. His hair or wig is yellow, and is held by a jewelled band ornamented with a bird’s head. His [301]headdress is further equipped with eagle’s feathers, and three tasselled cords edged with cotton hang from it. On his breast lies the solar disk. The head of a grey parrot protrudes from his back, and on the face is a small red disk. Sheet 14: Here he is depicted as a red Tezcatlipocâ with the face-paint of the Sun-god, but is without the small red disk on the face, having instead the small, four-cornered white-and-red patch characteristic of the Maize-god, of Xochipilli and Tonacatecutli.

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 20: Here he is painted with flame-coloured hair, bound by a fillet, on the front of which is the usual bird’s-head ornament. His panache consists chiefly of two eagle’s feathers, from which hang two long bands, one side of which is hairy as if formed of skin, and this may be taken as a characteristic sign of him in the MSS. of the Codex Borgia group. His nose-plug has a plate depending from it, which falls over the mouth, as in some representations of Tezcatlipocâ, and on his breast he wears an ornament which recalls that worn by the Fire-god in this codex. In this MS., as in Codex Borgia, he is represented as standing before a temple, with a burnt-offering of wood and rubber in his hand, and here the temple is painted in the chalchihuitl colour-elements, and its roof covered by jewelled disks. Sheet 94: In this picture he is shown as wearing a long, flame-like beard, which strongly resembles that worn by Quetzalcoatl and Tonacatecutli in some MSS., save that it is the colour of fire.

Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl.—Sheet 10: In this manuscript the upper portion of the face is light red, and the lower a darker red. The outer corner of the eye is encircled by three red lines, which are rounded. He wears a jewelled fillet, feathered crown, collar, breast-ornament, butterfly’s wing neck-ornament, the net-pouch of the hunting tribes, and the sword-fish pattern sword.

Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—The face is yellow with no lines. He wears the fillet with turquoise jewels, and a wheel-shaped ornament at the nape of the neck, probably symbolic of the solar disk. Elsewhere in this MS. he is red, wears the [302]solar disk on his back, and holds the cotinga bird in one hand and a shield and a bundle of spears in the other.

Codex Borbonicus.—The face is half yellow, half red, and is surmounted by a flame-coloured wig bound by the jewelled fillet with its usual ornament. Elsewhere in this codex he represents the sun by night, with the body and upper part of the face dark, no nasal rod, but a crescent like that of the Earth-goddess and the octli-gods. The sea-snail’s shell is above him, and the symbol of the eye in a dark patch.

General.—As second member of the third row in Codex Borgia, Vaticanus B, and Fejérváry-Mayer, he is recognized by his red body and face-painting, and flame-coloured hair bound up by a jewelled chain or strap, with the conventional bird figure on the frontal side.

Several lively paintings decorate the friezes executed on the walls of the palaces at Mitla, where the insignia of the god are given in the manner familiar throughout Mexico. The fillet with the bird’s-head frontal ornament, the peculiar disposition of the panache, and the necklace typical of the deity are all reproduced, and here serve to prove the widespread character of his worship.

The myths dealing with the origin of the sun and the several epochs in which he reappeared under different forms have already been given in the chapter on Cosmogony, and in the précis of the opening chapters of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas. The myths relating to his paradise have also been dealt with in that chapter.

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says:

“It was Tonatiuh they affirm who conducted to heaven the souls of those alone who died in war; and on this account they paint him with these arms in his hands. He sits as a conqueror, exactly opposite to the other who is near him, who is god of hell. They allege that the cause of winter being [303]so disagreeable is the absence of the sun, and that summer is delightful on account of its presence; and that the return of the sun from our zenith is nothing more than the approach of their god to confer his favours on them.”

Nauollin.—One of the feasts of the Sun-god was held at the ceremony known as nauollin (the “four motions,” alluding to the quivering appearance of the sun’s rays) in the Quauh­quauhtinchan (House of the Eagles), an armoury set apart for the military order of that name. The warriors gathered in this hall for the purpose of dispatching a messenger to their lord the sun. High up on the wall of the principal court was a great symbolic representation of the orb, painted upon a brightly coloured cotton hanging. Before this copal and other fragrant gums and spices were burned four times a day. The victim, a war-captive, was placed at the foot of a long staircase leading up to the stone on which he was to be sacrificed. He was clothed in red striped with white and wore white plumes in his hair—colours symbolical of the sun—while he bore a staff decorated with feathers and a shield covered with tufts of cotton. He also carried a bundle of eagle’s feathers and some paint on his shoulders, to enable the sun, to whom he was the emissary, to paint his face. He was then addressed by the officiating priest in the following terms: “Sir, we pray you go to our god the sun, and greet him on our behalf; tell him that his sons and warriors and chiefs and those who remain here beg of him to remember them and to favour them from that place where he is, and to receive this small offering which we send him. Give him the staff to help him on his journey, and this shield for his defence, and all the rest that you have in this bundle.” The victim, having undertaken to carry the message to the Sun-god, was then dispatched upon his long journey.

Ome acatl or Toxiuhilpilia.—This great solar festival was celebrated once in fifty-two years only, and signified the “binding of the years,” the end of the solar cycle, when, it was believed, the “old” sun died and a new luminary [304]would take its place, or the world would be plunged into darkness. Says Clavigero:

“The festival, which was celebrated every fifty-two years, was by far the most splendid and most solemn, not only among the Mexicans, but likewise among all the nations of that empire, or who were neighbouring to it. On the last night of their century, they extinguished the fire of all the temples and houses, and broke their vessels, earthen pots, and other kitchen utensils, preparing themselves in this manner for the end of the world which at the termination of each century [sic] they expected with terror. The priests, clothed in various dresses and ensigns of their gods and accompanied by a vast crowd of people, issued from the temples out of the city, directing their way towards the mountain Huixachtla, near to the city of Itztapalapan, upwards of six miles distant from the capital. They regulated their journey in some measure by observation of the stars, in order that they might arrive at the mountain a little before midnight, on the top of which the new fire was to be kindled. In the meantime the people remained in the utmost suspense and solicitude, hoping on the one hand to find from the new fire a new century granted to mankind, and fearing on the other hand the total destruction of mankind if the fire by divine interference should not be permitted to kindle. Husbands covered the faces of their pregnant wives with the leaves of the aloe, and shut them up in granaries; because they were afraid that they would be converted into wild beasts and would devour them. They also covered the faces of children in that way, and did not allow them to sleep, to prevent their being transformed into mice. All those who did not go out with the priests mounted upon terraces, to observe from thence the event of the ceremony. The office of kindling the fire on this occasion belonged exclusively to a priest of Copolco, one of the districts of the city. The instruments for this purpose were, as we have already mentioned, two pieces of wood, and the place on which the fire was produced from them was the breast of some brave prisoner whom they sacrificed. As soon as the fire was [305]kindled they all at once exclaimed with joy; and a great fire was made on the mountain that it might be seen from afar, in which they afterwards burned the victim whom they had sacrificed. Immediately they took up portions of the sacred fire and strove with each other who should carry it most speedily to their houses. The priests carried it to the greater temple of Mexico, from whence all the inhabitants of that capital were supplied with it. During the thirteen days which followed the renewal of the fire, which were the intercalary days, interposed between the past and ensuing century to adjust the year with the course of the sun, they employed themselves in repairing and whitening the public and private buildings, and in furnishing themselves with new dresses and domestic utensils, in order that everything might be new, or at least appear to be so, upon the commencement of the new century. On the first day of that year and of that century, which, as we have already mentioned, corresponded to the 26th of February, for no person was it lawful to taste water before midday. At that hour the sacrifices began, the number of which was suited to the grandeur of the festival. Every place resounded with the voice of gladness and mutual congratulations on account of the new century which heaven had granted to them. The illuminations made during the first nights were extremely magnificent; their ornaments of dress, entertainments, dances, and public games were superiorly solemn.”1

Codex Borgia.—In this codex he is shown as a female, old, with the gobber tooth or lip contraction indicative of extreme age. He is painted yellow, the colour of women. The white of the clothing expresses the relatively dull hue of the luminary when compared with the sun.

Codex Vaticanus B.—Here he is old and white-haired, and is pictured as a priest with the marine snail’s shell on his brow. The body-colour is blue, as is the face, on sheet 30, but on sheet 88, half-blue, half-red, as in the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer [309]picture of Mixcoatl. On sheet 30 he is figured with a long beard and wears Xochipilli’s ornaments.

Aubin Tonalamatl.—In this place he is represented by Tezcatlipocâ.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 24: Here he is pictured as an old god with a long beard. The body-colour is blue, and the face half-blue, half-red, like that of Xolotl in the same MS. He wears the sea-snail shell on his fillet.

The principal myths relating to the origin of the Moon-god have already been given in the chapter on Cosmogony.

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A states that:

“They believed that the moon presided over human generation, and accordingly they always put it by the side of the sun. They placed on its head a sea-snail, to denote that in the same way as this marine animal creeps from its integument or shell, so man comes from his mother’s womb.”

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:

“Meztli was otherwise named Tectziztecatl; because in the same way that a snail creeps from its shell, so man proceeds from his mother’s womb. They placed the moon opposite to the sun, because its course continually crosses his; and they believed it to be the cause of human generation.”

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 25: In this manuscript Mixcoatl’s almost nude body is striped with white, as in the case of some of the stellar deities, and he has the half-mask stellar face-painting about the eye. His hair curls up above the brow, is covered with downy white feathers, and he wears a forked heron-feather tuft on the head. On sheet 37 his effigy is accompanied by the symbolical weapons of war.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 50; right-hand corner, lower portion: The representation in this place is almost identical with that in Codex Vaticanus B, sheet 25. On sheet 15 the god has the implements of war and a small hand-flag, and wears a blue metal breast-plate set in gold, from which depends a chalchihuitl jewel.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 41: Mixcoatl is here depicted with body-colour half-blue, half-red, the black domino-stellar painting about the eye, his hair puffed up above the brow and surmounted by the warrior’s adornment. The body-painting in this place is merely a variant [311]of the striped colour, perhaps indicating the twilight. As god of the hunting tribes, he is naked like the hunter, and has an ear-plug made from a deer’s foot. He is armed with a throwing-stick (atlatl).

On the west side of the court of Palace I at Mitla are certain fragments, some of which undoubtedly represent Mixcoatl in his different phases. In the first of these he is represented as wearing a white wig surmounted by tufts of down in which arrows are stuck. On his face he has the familiar “domino-painting,” he is bearded, and his nose-plug is of a peculiar character, somewhat unfamiliar and expressing a serpentine motif. He wears a collar with sharp stellar edges. The fifth figure to the right from this once more represents him in the same guise, only that in his left hand he holds the atlatl, or spear-thrower. His peculiarly stellar character has not been lost upon the artist who executed these paintings, as the stellar eye-motif decorates the top of the frieze on which they appear. Not far away is seen the deer usually associated with him.

Face-paint.—He wears the domino face-paint, like Uitzilopochtli and Mixcoatl, and a nose-plug.

The body is striped with red and white, in which circumstance he agrees with Mixcoatl and Tlauizcalpantecutli, the morning star. He wears a headdress seemingly of feathers, and in Duran his hair is long and he wears a knitted loin-cloth. A dead rabbit, or its skin, is slung across his breast. In the Humboldt MS. (Roy. Lib. of Berlin) his headdress perhaps represents the symbol of hieroglyphic expression for the phrase atl tlachinolli (water and fire) used in the sense of “war.”

Weapons, etc.—He carries the atlatl, or spear-thrower, and net-bag of the wild hunting tribes, bow and arrows, sometimes tipped with down, also a bag or pouch, in which he carries his arrowheads of obsidian. Like Mixcoatl he is sometimes clothed in the device of the two-headed deer, in which he went to war.

Mixcoatl has already been alluded to in the précis of the early chapters of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas given in the chapter on Cosmogony, where the circumstances of his birth are touched upon. In chapter x of the same work he is identified with Amimitl, another Chichimec deity, seemingly without reason. The Anales de Quauhtitlan speaks of him as one of the three who “sought [314]the hearth-stone,” and as one of the priests of the Fire-god. As Iztac Mixcoatl, according to Motolinia,3 he dwelt with his wife, Ilancuêyê, in Chicomoztoc, the “Land of the Seven Caves,” the primeval land of the tribes, and from them sprang the forefathers of the natives. By a second wife, Chimamatl, he begot the god Quetzalcoatl. In the Tlaxcaltec legend reproduced in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas,4 mention is made of a two-headed deer which fell from heaven and was honoured as a god by the people of Cuitlauac, and it is told how, clothed in its form or disguise, Camaxtli or Mixcoatl subdued the surrounding tribes.

Iztac Mixcoatl was, indeed, the Chichimec Adam, the father of the tribe. A hymn to the gods of the hunt, of whom Mixcoatl was the chief, is as follows:

[315]

The great festival of Mixcoatl was the hunt-drive in the month quecholli. Sahagun says of this observance5:

“Quecholli was the name of the fourteenth month, Mixcoatl being honoured with festivals. Arrows and darts for use in war were made, and many slaves were slaughtered in honour of this god. During the five days spent in making the arrows, everyone slit their ears and rubbed their temples with the blood thus drawn. Penance was supposed to be thus performed before the deer-hunting commenced. Those who did not slit themselves were deprived of their cloaks as tribute. During these days no man cohabited with his wife, and the aged abstained from the use of pulque, as penance was being performed. The four days employed in the making of arrows and darts being ended, smaller arrows were made and tied in bundles of four to which were added four pine torches. These were placed as offerings upon the graves of the dead, besides two tamalli to each bundle. These remained for a day upon the tombs and were then burned during the night, other ceremonies being held as well in honour of the dead.

“On the tenth day of this month the Mexicans and the Tlatelulca resorted together to the mountain of Cacatepec, which they called their mother. On reaching it they constructed thatched huts, lighted large fires, and spent the day in absolute idleness.

Next morning they breakfasted and went out together into the country. There they spread themselves out in a circular line, in which were enclosed a large number of animals—deer, rabbits, and others; they gradually approached them so as to enmesh them in a small space, and the hunt then began, each one taking what he could.

“After the hunt, captives and slaves were slaughtered in the temple called Tlamatzinco. They were bound hand and foot and were carried up the temple stairs in the same fashion as a deer is carried by its four legs when taken to the butcher. They were put to death with great ceremony. The man and the woman who represented the image of [316]Mixcoatl and his companion were slain in another temple, which was called Mixcoateopan. Several other rites were performed.”

Of this festival Acosta gives a slightly different version:

“The feast they made was pleasant and in this sort: They sounded a trumpet at break of day, at the sound whereof they all assembled with their bows, arrows, nets, and other instruments for hunting; then they went in procession with their idol, being followed by a great number of people to a high mountain, upon the top whereof they had made a bower of leaves, and in the middest thereof an altar richly decked, whereupon they placed the idol. They marched with a great bruit of trumpets, cornets, flutes and drums, and being come unto the place they environed this mountain on all sides, putting fire to it on all parts: by means of which many beasts flew forth, as stags, conies, Hares, foxes and Woolves, which went to the top flying from the fire. These hunters followed after with great cries and noise of divers instruments, hunting them to the top before the idol, whither flew such a great number of beasts, in so great a press, that they leaped one upon another, upon the people, and upon the altar, wherein they took great delight. Then took they a great number of these beasts, and sacrificed them before the idol, as stags and other great beasts, pulling out their hearts as they use in the sacrifice of men, and with the like ceremony: which done they took all their prey upon their shoulders, and retired with their idol in the same manner as they came, and entered the city laden with all these things, very joyfully with great store of music, trumpets, and drums until they came to the temple where they placed their idol with great reverence and solemnity. They presently went to prepare their venison wherewith they made a banquet to all the people; and after dinner they made their plays, representations and dances before the idol.”

Mixcoatl’s temples in Mexico were the Mixcoapan tzompantli and the Mixcoateopan. In the first were preserved the heads [317]of the victims sacrificed to the god. The ceremony of quecholli was commenced in the latter.

General.—In the Codex Borgia (sheet 25) he is painted as having a white-and-red-striped body, and the black face with white-spotted quincunx peculiar to him in his special form as evening star. The hair is yellow, the locks rising in curls above the brow, and bound by a red fillet. We can probably recognize him in the figure seen in sheet 19 of Codex Vaticanus B, which bears a strong resemblance to that found on sheet 57 of the same MS., confronting the Fire-god; but in the first instance he is not shown with the black “half-mask” painting about the eye. He has, however, the same warlike implements—shield, spears, and atlatl—as in Codex Borgia, as well as a pouch for obsidian arrow-heads and a small sacrificial flag. He is, however, almost universally represented with a white or white-and-red-striped body and [320]face-painting, and the deep black “half-mask” edged with small white circles which is usually shown in the pictures of Mixcoatl, Paynal, and Atlaua, and which is described as “the stellar face-painting called darkness.” He frequently wears long, tapering oval ornaments attached to red leather thongs in place of the chalchihuitl jewels which so often depend from the dress of the other gods, and the band which supports these has four diverging ends terminating in a bunch of feathers, as with Tonatiuh, Ueuecoyotl, and Xochipilli. The crown is generally composed of black feathers having white spots, alternating with longer yellow or red plumes. On the breast is seen an ornament like that of Tezcatlipocâ. In Codex Borbonicus and Borgia he is accompanied by the insignia of those warriors who died by sacrifice, the blue crown with the three-cornered frontal plate, the axe-shaped blue ear-plug, the blue nose-plug, the white paper shoulder-tie, and the small blue dog which accompanied the dead man on his way to the region of Mictlan.

On the five sheets of Codex Vaticanus B which indicate the periods of the planet Venus we observe Tlauizcalpantecutli depicted five times, and have thus a most favourable opportunity for studying his various attributes. All of these pictures represent him in the form of the evening star, with the quincunx of white spots on the dark background of his face. He is depicted as half-black, half-white, the body, upper arms, and knees being black, but the forearms, thighs, and lower part of the legs white and striped with yellow longitudinal lines, like the striping on Uitzilopochtli’s body. Under the eye is a motif which recalls the blue snake-band round the mouth of Tlaloc, but it is yellow in colour, and forms a kind of coil in the middle of the face over the nose. A tassel or other ornament falls from it, the whole recalling certain Maya types. The hair is flame-coloured, curls upward, and is bound with the usual fillet studded with white slicings from mussel-shells, and the black, white-tipped feathers, previously alluded to, and intermingled with eagle-plumes, crown the head. The breast is covered with the white eye-ring, also described above, and which is characteristic [321]of Tezcatlipocâ. Accompanying the picture is the emblem of the stellar eye, which in this place is almost certainly intended to depict the planet Venus. The god holds in one hand the atlatl, or spear-thrower, and in the other a bundle of darts, to symbolize his nature as a shooting god.

In those pictures in Codex Borgia where the god is represented as casting his spear at various mythological figures, his insignia is in agreement with that portrayed in Codex Vaticanus B. But of the five figures in which he is shown as the spear-thrower, in one only is he depicted with white, red-striped limbs, the remaining figures being coloured green, yellow, brown, and blue. Nor has the face the characteristic painting known as “stellar” and frequently described on those pages, but is skull-shaped, and represented as swallowing blood and a human heart. He holds, however, the usual spear-thrower, shield, hand-flag, and the hunter’s net-bag. The Codex Borgia pictures show, too, the incidence of the god’s other attributes, the oval, egg-shaped ornaments and the white-tipped black feathers, which, however, are here considerably shorter, and spread over the crown of the head only. Here also the first of the five figures is red-striped, the others being blue, red, and yellow, and red-striped. Like the figures in Codex Bologna, the first has the head of a skull painted with the face-paint of Tlauizcalpantecutli, with the quincunx of five disks on a dark ground. The other four figures wear masks, that part of their faces which is visible being coloured like the body and having the quincunx of five white disks. The second figure wears an owl naual, or mask, the third that of a dog, the fourth a rabbit-mask, and the fifth, like the first, a dead man’s skull, which, however, is portrayed in its natural colour and has no face-paint. The owl-mask of the second figure and the skull-mask of the fifth show that they represent the sequence of five periods of the planet Venus, five time-counts based on its period of visibility, and that, moreover, these figures are to be referred respectively to the compass directions, east, north, west, south, below. The Codex Fejérváry figure differs from the other representations, the face being painted white [322]with yellow stripes, like the rest of the body and limbs. But that this figure is in reality identical with those of the other manuscripts is proved by the quincunx of white spots disposed in the same manner as in the Codex Vaticanus B figure, by the three curly locks on the brow, and by the star-like eye worn by the god on his breast. In Codex Borgia are shown a sacrificial cord and two small paper flags. In Codex Fejérváry we see a shield with feather appendage, and one paper flag, which is evidently intended to appear in the ritual of the death by sacrifice. Tlauizcalpantecutli was for the Mexicans an indication of the warrior’s death, that is, sacrificial death.

In Codex Telleriano-Remensis the hair is plastered with white downy feathers, and round the neck is slung the aztemacatl, the heron-feather cord, the whole indicating the insignia of the victim about to be sacrificed after ceremonial combat. He wears a skull as helmet-mask in this MS. In the Aubin-Goupil tonalamatl Tlauizcalpantecutli wears a rod-shaped nose-plug and the blue breast-plate of the Fire-god.

Stone-head from Great Temple of Mexico.—This represents her as having on both cheeks the sign for “gold” and “bells,” hence the face of this head is really painted (xauhqui) with bells (coyolli). As a nose-ornament she has a peculiar pendant, consisting of a trapezoidal figure and a ray, the motif of which is partially repeated in her earrings. Her headdress is a small, close-fitting cap, the front of which is embroidered in a downy feather-ball pattern.

The myth which describes her enmity to her mother, Coatlicue, and her slaughter by her brother Uitzilopochtli, has already been recounted in the section dealing with the latter god.