|
Yacatecutli.
Yacatecutli. (From the Sahagun MS.) |
A tepitoton or model of Tlazolteotl.
A tepitoton or model of Tlazolteotl. |
Itzcoliuhqui. (From Codex Bologna, sheet 12.)
VARIANTS OF THE GREAT GODS.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 19: He looks out from the open jaws of a stone knife, which is designed with teeth and the socket of an eye above them. Otherwise he is pictured as a black Tezcatlipocâ with the yellow cross-bands on his face. The smoking mirror, the badge of Tezcatlipocâ, is clearly to be discerned. The clouds of incense reach a great height, and are set with feather-work. He wears the blue nose-rod from which a little plate falls over the mouth, and he has a white breast-ring.
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 14: In this place he is represented with his hair brushed up on one side, over the brow, the warrior’s hairdressing, and the forked heron-feather ornament in his hair, part of the warrior’s dancing attire. The smoking mirror at the temple is given with great clearness.
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 2: The one foot exhibited as missing or torn off is stuck in the throat of a stone knife. The body-paint has perhaps been forgotten here, and the facial painting differs from Tezcatlipocâ’s usual adornment, being perhaps reminiscent of that of Tezcatlipocâ-Itzlacoliuhqui. The head and neck are wrapped in a cloth with a fringed hem, and which must be regarded as decked with feather balls on the surface as in the picture of the red [337]Tezcatlipocâ in Borgia (sheet 11). He is associated with the crossway in all MSS.
This deity is a surrogate of Tezcatlipocâ in his guise of the obsidian knife of sacrifice, and as such is, of course, representative of the paramount connection of that god with the obsidian cult alluded to in the Introduction. He is, indeed, nothing more or less than a personalization of the obsidian knife; his name implies this and the picture of him in Codex Vaticanus B (sheet 19), where he is seen looking out of the jaws of an obsidian knife disguise, affords absolute proof, if more were required, of the identification.
Codex Borgia.—The god is indicated by a bundle having a peculiar object with two black, longitudinal stripes for a head. At the eye-level a bandage is worn, and the whole is crowned with a hair wig and bound with a double-jewelled fillet. The crown of the “head” is also indicated by two longitudinal stripes which terminate in an involuted peak, curving backwards. Two malinalli (grass) stripes are worn as a breast-ornament, and the lower extremities are draped with a flowing cloth.
General.—The head is more elaborately shown in the Mexican MSS. proper. Through the peak is thrust a carefully inserted arrow and its anterior edge is evenly notched. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Borbonicus the face of this personage, who is called by the interpreters “the curved [338]sharp stone,” Itztlacoliuhqui, is decorated with the gold crescent nasal ornament of Tlazolteotl and the octli-gods. That this figure is the god of avenging justice is indicated by its bandaged eyes, which recall the appearance of Tezcatlipocâ-Ixquimilli, or Tezcatlipocâ as god of the thirteenth day-count. The stone and club were used for punitive purposes, so the figure symbolic of “justice” was thus represented as a hard stone.
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Itztlacoliuhqui is shown here as of a blue colour, and his face is painted with blue and white cross-bands instead of yellow and black, like Tezcatlipocâ. He wears Tezcatlipocâ’s breast-ornament, while in his hair is the forked adornment of heron-feathers.
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says:
“Ytzlacoliuhqui signifies the lord of sin or of blindness, and for this reason they paint him with his eyes bandaged. They say that he committed sin in a place of the highest enjoyment and delight, and that he remained naked; on which account his first sign is a lizard, which is an animal of the ground naked and miserable. He presided over these thirteen signs, which were all unlucky. They said likewise that if false evidence should be adduced on any one of these signs it would be impossible to make the truth manifest. They put to death those who were taken in adultery before his image if the parties were married; as this not being the case, it was lawful for them to keep as many women or concubines as they pleased. Ytzalcoliuhqui is a star in heaven which as they pretend proceeds in a reverse course; they considered it a most portentous sign, both as concerned with nativities and war. This star is situated at the south.”
The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:
“Ytzlacoliuhqui, the lord of sin. Ytzlacoliuhqui was the lord of these thirteen days. They say he was the god of frost. They put to death before his image those who were convicted of adultery during these thirteen days; this was the punishment of married persons both men and women, [339]for, provided the parties were unmarried, the men were at liberty to keep as many concubines as they pleased.
“Ytzlacoliuhqui was the lord of sin or of blindness, who committed sin in paradise; they therefore represented him with his eyes bandaged, and his day was accordingly the lizard and, like the lizard, he is naked. He is a star in heaven which … proceeds in a backward course with its eyes bandaged. They considered it a great prognostic.
“All these thirteen days were bad, for they affirmed that if evidence should be adduced in these days it would be impossible to arrive at justice, but they imagined that justice would be perverted in such a manner that unjust condemnations would ensue, which was not the case in the days immediately following, when if evidence was adduced they supposed that justice would be made apparent. They believed that those who were born on the sign dedicated to him would be sinners and adulterers.”
This deity is a variant of Tezcatlipocâ in his character of the obsidian knife, the god of the stone and therefore of blood, avenging justice, of blinding, of sin, of cold. The obsidian stone was regarded as the instrument of justice, as has already been stated in the section on Tezcatlipocâ. The figure became a general symbol of all things hard, and is therefore explained by the authors of the Interpretative Codices as “the god of cold.” Frost, ice, or low temperature is in the Sahagun MS. symbolized by a man wearing the headdress of this deity, which was also worn by Uitzilopochtli at the ochpanitztli festival, when the knife of sacrifice had such free play. The manner in which the god is represented in Codex Borbonicus as blindfolded is probably a late conception of him as the god of justice. But he seems also to have had a stellar connection which is a little vague.
[340]
Sahagun MS.—He has the stellar face-painting, and wears a many-pointed crown of yellow feathers, the lower part of which is white. The front of this white portion ends in three small globes or bells. At the back is a bow, and he is furnished with an ear-plug and nose-plug of turquoise. On the head he wears a shell ring like Uitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl, and he holds a narrow striped banner ending in a sort of fleur-de-lis motif. The shield is blue, inlaid with turquoise mosaic. He has a peculiar skirt with a train marked with cross-hatchings. The banner he carries is a golden one, and he also bears the fire-drill. On his face is painted a chaffinch, which composes his face-mask.
See Uitzilopochtli.
Seler identifies the god with the morning star. Sahagun calls him “the messenger” or “page” of Uitzilopochtli. He acted as “forerunner” of that god at the panquetzalitztli festival, thus perhaps signifying the manner in which the morning star precedes the sun. But I think the chaffinch painted upon his face and his general birdlike appearance may justify us in concluding that he was developed from some such form. The myth which alludes to Uitzilopochtli as a “little bird” which led the Aztecâ into Mexico may be a confused form of an older story in which a hero of the name of Uitzilopochtli may have been spoken of as accepting the augury and following the flight of a little bird.
[341]
Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The ground of the face-painting is white, but portions of the face, especially the forehead, nose, and chin, and the region in front of the ears, are brilliantly coloured. The hair is puffed up and is bound with bands of quetzal-feathers. The ear-plugs are of gold. The large mantle which almost covers the body is decorated with the cross-hatching symbolic of water and has the red rim of the eye-motif. The shield bears the Greek key motif, such as is seen in the tribute-lists of the Codex Mendoza. In his hand the god bears the bamboo staff of the merchant or traveller, which typifies his nature and which was worshipped, as being symbolic of him, by all traders.
Panquetzalitztli.—Yacatecutli, says Sahagun,1 was the first merchant and prototype of traffickers, so was chosen by the merchants as their god. They dressed his statue with paper and greatly venerated the staff he carried, which was of massive wood, or else of dark cane, very light, but strong, such as the merchants carried on their journeys. He had four brothers and a sister, also reverenced by traders. He was usually depicted as a man on a journey, equipped with such a staff as has been mentioned.
Arrived at the place where they were to pass the night, the merchants laid their staves in a heap and drew blood from their ears and limbs, which they offered to it, burning incense before it, and praying for protection from the dangers of the road. At the festival of panquetzalitztli, thousands of members of the powerful Pochteca, or merchant guild, proceeded to the vicinity of Tochtepec, where they invited the Tlatelolcans of that place to a festival in honour of Yacatecutli. They decorated his temple and spread mats before his image. Then they opened the bundles in which they had brought presents and ornaments for the god, and placed them, along with their staves, before his idol. If a merchant laid two [342]staves at the feet of the god, that signified that it was his intention to sacrifice two slaves, a man and a woman, in his honour; if four, he would devote two wretched creatures of either sex. These slaves were covered with rich mantles and paper. If the staff represented a male slave, it was also equipped with the maxtli, or loin-cloth, but if a female, the uipilli, or chemise, and the cueitl, or skirt.
The Mexican merchants then accompanied their Tlatelolcan confrères to the villages, where they feasted, drank cocoa, and smoked. Quails were then decapitated, their heads thrown into the fire, and incense was offered to the four cardinal points. An address was delivered by one of their number practised in oratory. The magnificence of this festival, with its richly jewelled accessories, was probably unsurpassed in Mexican ritual, as on this occasion the Pochteca employed their entire stock of trinkets and ornaments for the temporary decoration of the victims. Yacatecutli was also associated in worship with Coyotlinauatl, god of the guild of feather-workers of the quarter of Amantlan.
Bancroft2 connects Yacatecutli with the Fire-god, with whom, indeed, Clavigero would seem to equate him, and in describing the return of the gods in the twelfth month, Sahagun makes both deities arrive together. Xiuhtecutli was certainly the god who was believed to settle disputes at law, but I am unable to connect Yacatecutli with him in any satisfactory manner. Yacatecutli, “the lord who guides,” seems to me a mere deification of the merchant’s staff, an artificial deity invented as the patron of a caste in an environment where it was not difficult to invent gods. By this I do not mean to convey the impression that the staff was necessarily his earliest form, but that, whatever his primitive shape, the merchant’s stick came to symbolize him.
The names of Yacatecutli’s brothers and sister seem to me to allegorize the circumstances of the travelling merchant’s [343]career in the same manner as the names of the companions of a folk-tale hero may have a bearing upon his story.
Thus Chiconquiauitl (“Seven-rains” or “All-weathers”) may portend the varied climatic conditions which the chapman has to face; Xomocuitl (“Caught-drake”) the kind of fare he may expect in an unfrequented country; Naxtit (“Four-feet”) may typify endurance in walking; Cochimetl, (Sleeping-maguey) may apply to the leaves of the maguey-plant which shaded the traveller from the heat during his noonday siesta, or from the wind if he used them to construct a temporary shelter, as was often done; Yacapitzanac (“Sharp-nose”) needs little explanation in connection with the peddler’s calling, and the name of the one goddess of the series, Chalmecaciuatl, is evidently that of a tribal deity of the Chalmeca, with whom the Mexicans traded. [344]