Sc.-fcioo i "^ ' I / THE MYTHS OF MEXICO &> PERU The Princess is given a Vision n'acc nil V\illiaiii Sewcll THE MYTHS OF MEXICO ^ PERU BY LEWIS 'SPENCE y^'<^i§r^^' '"'ii'l^ij^ r'P:c ,s 1913 AUTHOR OF "THE MYTHOLOGIES OF ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERUy* /y',.^ "THE POPOL VUH " "THE CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT XV,'/"' MEXICO" "A DICTIONARY OF MYTHOLOGY" ETC. ETC. 'l^n^hi ^v#^ WITH SIXTY FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS MAINLY BY GILBERT JAMES AND WILLIAM SEWELL AND OTHER DRAWINGS AND MAPS e. NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Printed by BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, ^^ LTD Tavistock Street Covent Garden London England PREFACE IN recent years a reawakening has taken place in the study of American archaeology and antiquities, owing chiefly to the labours of a band of scholars in the United States and a few enthusiasts in the con- tinent of Europe. For the greater part of the nine- teenth century it appeared as if the last word had been written upon Mexican archaeology. The lack of excavations and exploration had cramped the outlook of scholars, and there was nothing for them to work upon save what had been done in this respect before their own time. The writers on Central America who lived in the third quarter of the last century relied on the travels of Stephens and Norman, and never appeared to consider it essential that the country or the antiquities in which they specialised should be examined anew, or that fresh expeditions should be equipped to discover whether still further monuments existed relat- ing to the ancient peoples who raised the teocallis of Mexico and the huacas of Peru. True, the middle of the century was not altogether without its Americanist explorers, but the researches of these were performed in a manner so perfunctory that but few additions to the science resulted from their labours. Modern Americanist archaeology may be said to have been the creation of a brilliant band of scholars who, working far apart and without any attempt at co-opera- tion, yet succeeded in accomplishing much. Among these may be mentioned the Frenchmen Charnay and de Rosny, and the Americans Brinton, H. H. Bancroft, and Squier. To these succeeded the German scholars Seler, Schellhas, and FOrstemann, the Americans Winsor, Starr, Savile, and Cyrus Thomas, and the English- men Payne and Sir Clements Markham. These men^ PREFACE splendidly equipped for the work they had taken in hand, were yet hampered by the lack of reliable data — a want later supplied partly by their own excavations and partly by the painstaking labours of Professor Maudslay, now the principal of the International College of Antiquities at Mexico, who, with his wife, is responsible for the exact pictorial reproductions of many of the ancient edifices in Central America and Mexico. Writers in the sphere of Mexican and Peruvian myth have been few. The first to attack the subject in the light of the modern science of comparative religion was Daniel Garrison Brinton, professor of American languages and archaeology in the University of Philadelphia. He has been followed by Payne, Schellhas, Seler, and FOrstemann, all of whom, however, have confined the publication of their researches to isolated articles in various geographical and scientific journals. The remarks of mythologists who are not also Americanists upon the subject of American myth must be accepted with caution. The question of the alphabets of ancient America is perhaps the most acute in present-day pre-Columbian archaeology. But progress is being made in this branch of the subject, and several German scholars are working in whole-hearted co-operation to secure final results. What has Great Britain accomplished in this new and fascinating field of science ? If the lifelong and valuable labours of the venerable Sir Clements Markham be excepted, almost nothing. It is earnestly hoped that the publication of this volume may prove the means of leading many English students to the study and consideration of American archaeology. There remains the romance of old America. The real interest of American mediaeval history must ever PREFACE circle around Mexico and Peru — her golden empires, her sole exemplars of civilisation ; and it is to the books upon the character of these two nations that we must turn for a romantic interest as curious and as absorbing as that bound up in the history of Egypt or Assyria. If human interest is craved for by any man, let him turn to the narratives of Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega and Ixtlilxochitl, representatives and last descendants of the Peruvian and Tezcucan monarchies, and read there the frightful story of the path to fortune of red-heeled Pizarro and cruel Cort6s, of the horrible cruelties com- mitted upon the red man, whose colour was " that of the devil," of the awful pageant of gold-sated pirates laden with the treasures of palaces, of the stripping of temples whose very bricks were of gold, whose very drain-pipes were of silver, of rapine and the sacrilege of high places, of porphyry gods dashed down the pyramidal sides of lofty teocallis, of princesses torn from the very steps of the throne — ay, read these for the most wondrous tales ever writ by the hand of man, tales by the side of which the fables of Araby seem dim — the story of a clash of worlds, the conquest of a new, of an isolated hemisphere. It is usual to speak of America as "a continent without a history." The folly of such a statement is extreme. For centuries prior to European occupation Central America was the seat of civilisations boasting a history and a semi-historical mythology second to none in richness and interest. It is only because the sources of that history are unknown to the general reader that such assurance upon the lack of it exists. Let us hope that this book may assist in attracting many to the head-fountain of a river whose affluents water many a plain of beauty not the less lovely because PREFACE bizarre, not the less fascinating because somewhat remote from modern thought. In conclusion I have to acknowledge the courtesy of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which placed in my hands a valuable collection of illustrations and allowed me to select from these at my discretion. The pictures chosen include the drawings used as tail- pieces to chapters ; others, usually half-tones, are duly acknowledged where they occur. LEWIS SPENCE Edinburgh : July 191 3 CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. The Civilisation of Mexico i II. Mexican Mythology 54 III. Myths and Legends of the Ancient Mexicans ii8 IV. The Maya Race and Mythology i43 V. Myths of the Maya 207 VI. The Civilisation of Old Peru 248 VII. The Mythology of Peru 291 Bibliography 335 Glossary and Index 34^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Princess is given a Vision Frontispiece The Descent of Quetzalcoatl xiv Toveyo and the Magic Drum i6 The Altar of Skulls 26 The Guardian of the Sacred Fire 30 Pyramid of the Moon : Pyramid of the Sun 33 Ruins of the Pyramid of Xochicalco 34 The Spirit of the dead Aztec is attacked by an Evil Spirit who scatters Clouds of Ashes 38 The Demon Izpuzteque 40 The Aztec Calendar Stone 44 A Prisoner fighting for his Life 48 Combat between Mexican and Bilimec Warriors 53 Priest making an Incantation over an Aztec Lady 54 The Princess sees a Strange Man before the Palace 62 Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Night Winds 66 The Infant War-God drives his Brethren into a Lake and slays them 7° Statue of Tlaloc, the Rain-God 76 The Aged Quetzalcoatl leaves Mexico on a Raft of Serpents 80 Ritual Masks of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca ; and Sacri- ficial Knife 84 The so-called Teoyaominqui 88 Statue of a Male Divinity 90 Xolotl 94 The Quauhxicalli, or Solar Altar of Sacrifice 98 xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Macuilxochitl 102 The Penitent addressing the Fire 106 Cloud Serpent, the Hunter-God no Mexican Goddess 114 TezcatHpoca 117 " Place where the Heavens Stood " 120 A Flood-Myth of the Nahua 122 The Prince who fled for his Life 126 The Princess and the Statues 130 The King's Sister is shown the Valley of Dry Bones 140 Mexican Deity 142 The Prince who went to Found a City 156 " The Tablet of the Cross " 160 Design on a Vase from Chami representing Maya Deities 166 The House of Bats 172 Part of the Palace and Tower, Palenque 182 The King who loved a Princess 186 Teocalli or Pyramid of Papantla : The Nunnery, Chichen- Itza 188 Details of the Nunnery at Chichen-Itza igo The Old Woman who took an Egg home 192 Great Palace of Mitla : Interior of an Apartment in the Palace of Mitla 198 Hall of the Columns, Palace of Mitla 202 The Twins make an Imitation Crab 214 The Princess and the Gourds 220 The Princess who made Friends of the Owls 222 In the House of Bats 226 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE How the Sun appeared like the Moon 230 Queen Moo has her Destiny foretold 240 The Rejected Suitor 242 Piece of Pottery representing a Tapir 247 Doorway of Tiahuanaco 248 Fortress at OUantay-tampu 250 " Mother and child are united " 252 The Inca Fortress of Pissac 254 " Making one of each nation out of the clay of the earth 258 Painted and Black Terra-cotta Vases 280 Conducting the White Llama to the Sacrifice 312 " The birdlike beings were in reality women " 318 " A beautiful youth appeared to Thonapa " 320 •' He sang the song of Chamayhtiavisca " 322 " The younger one flew away " 324 " His wife at first indignantly denied the accusation " 326 " He saw a very beautiful girl crying bitterly " 328 MAPS The Valley of Mexico 330 Distribution of the Races in Ancient Mexico 331 Distribution of the Races under the Empire of the Incas 333 XllI E^^n^-"^ The Descent of Quetzalcoatl CHAPTER I : THE CIVILISATION OF MEXICO The Civilisations of the New "World THERE is now no question as to the indigenous origin of the civilisations of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. Upon few subjects, how- ever, has so much mistaken erudition been lavished. The beginnings of the races who inhabited these regions, and the cultures which they severally created, have been referred to nearly every civilised or semi- civilised nation of antiquity, and wild if fascinating theories have been advanced with the intention of showing that civilisation was initiated upon American soil by Asiatic or European influence. These specula- tions were for the most part put forward by persons who possessed but a merely general acquaintance with the circumstances of American aboriginal civilisation, and who were struck by the superficial resemblances which undoubtedly exist between American and Asiatic peoples, customs, and art-forms, but which cease to be apparent to the Americanist, who perceives in them only such likenesses as inevitably occur in the work of men situated in similar environments and surrounded by similar social and religious conditions. The Maya of Yucatan may be regarded as the most highly civilised of the peoples who occupied the American continent before the advent of Europeans, and it is usually their culture which we are asked to believe had its seat of origin in Asia. It is unnecessary to refute this theory in detail, as that has already been ably accomplished.^ But it may be remarked that the surest proof of the purely native origin of American * By Payne in The 'New World called America, London, 1892-99. A I MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU civilisation is to be found in the unique nature of American art, the undoubted result of countless centuries of isolation. American language, arithmetic, and methods of time-reckoning, too, bear no resem- blance to other systems, European or Asiatic, and we may be certain that had a civilising race entered America from Asia it would have left its indelible impress upon things so intensely associated with the life of a people as well as upon the art and architecture of the country, for they are as much the product of culture as Is the ability to raise temples. Evidence of Animal and Plant Life It is impossible in this connection to ignore the evidence in favour of native advancement which can be adduced from the artificial production of food in America. Nearly all the domesticated animals and cultivated food-plants found on the continent at the period of the discovery were totally different from those known to the Old World. Maize, cocoa, tobacco, and the potato, with a host of useful plants, were new to the European conquerors, and the absence of such familiar animals as the horse, cow, and sheep, besides a score of lesser animals, is eloquent proof of the prolonged isolation which the American continent underwent subsequent to its original settlement by man. Origin of American Man An Asiatic origin is, of course, admitted for the aborigines of America, but it undoubtedly stretched back into that dim Tertiary Era when man was little more than beast, and language as yet was not, or at the best was only half formed. Later immigrants there certainly were, but these probably arrived by way of Behring TRADITIONS OF INTERCOURSE WITH ASIA Strait, and not by the land-bridge connecting Asia and America by which the first-comers found entrance. At a later geological period the general level of the North American continent was higher than at present, and a broad isthmus connected it with Asia. During this prolonged elevation vast littoral plains, now submerged, extended continuously from the American to the Asiatic shore, affording an easy route of migration to a type of man from whom both the Mongolian branches may have sprung. But this type, little removed from the animal as it undoubtedly was, carried with it none of the refinements of art or civilisation ; and if any resem- blances occur between the art-forms or polity of its equal descendants in Asia and America, they are due to the influence of a remote common ancestry, and not to any later influx of Asiatic civilisation to American shores. Traditions of Intercourse with Asia The few traditions of Asiatic intercourse with America are, alas 1 easily dissipated. It is a dismal business to be compelled to refute the dreams of others. How much more fascinating would American history have been had Asia sowed the seeds of her own peculiar civilisation in the western continent, which would then have become a newer and further East, a more glowing and golden Orient ! But America possesses a fascina- tion almost as intense when there falls to be considered the marvel of the evolution of her wondrous civilisa- tions— the flowers of progress of a new, of an isolated world. The idea that the " Fu-Sang " of the Chinese annals alluded to America was rendered illusory by Klaproth, who showed its identity with a Japanese island. It is not impossible that Chinese and Japanese vessels may 3 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU have drifted on to the American coasts, but that they sailed thither of set purpose is highly improbable. Gomara, the Mexican historian, states that those who served with Coronado's expedition in 1542 saw off the Pacific coast certain ships having their prows decorated with gold and silver, and laden with merchandise, and these they supposed to be of Cathay or China, " because they intimated by signs that they had been thirty days on their voyage." Like most of these interesting stories, however, the tale has no foundation in fact, as the incident cannot be discovered in the original account of the expedition, published in 1838 in the travel-collection of Ternaux-Compans. Legends of European Intercourse We shall find the traditions, one might almost call them legends, of early European intercourse with America little more satisfactory than those which recount its ancient connection with Asia. We may dismiss the sagas of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, which are by no means mere tradition, and pass on to those in which the basis of fact is weaker and the legendary interest more strong. We are told that when the Norsemen drove forth those Irish monks who had settled in Iceland, the fugitives voyaged to "Great Ireland," by which many antiquarians of the older school imagine the author of the myth to have meant America. The Irish Book of Lismore recounts the voyage of St. Brandan, Abbot of Cluainfert, in Ireland, to an island in the ocean which Providence had intended as the abode of saints. It gives a glowing account of his seven years' cruise in western waters, and tells of numerous discoveries, among them a hill of fire and an endless island, which he quitted after an unavailing journey of forty days, loading his ships 4 THE LEGEND OF MADOC with its fruits, and returning home. Many Norse legends exist regarding this "Greater Ireland," or "Huitramanna Land" (White Man's Land), among them one concerning a Norseman who was cast away on its shores, and who found there a race of white men who went to worship their gods bearing banners, and "shouting with a loud voice." There is, of course, the bare possibility that the roving Norsemen may have on occasions drifted or have been cast away as far south as Mexico, and such an occurrence becomes the more easy of belief when we remember that they certainly reached the shores of North America. The Legend of Madoc A much more interesting because more probable story is that which tells of the discovery of distant lands across the western ocean by Madoc, a princeling of North Wales, in the year 1170. It is recorded in Hakluyt's English Voyages and Powel's History of Wales. Madoc, the son of Owen Gwyneth, disgusted by the strife of his brothers for the principality of their dead father, resolved to quit such an uncongenial atmosphere, and, fitting out ships with men and munition, sought adventure by sea, sailing west, and leaving the coast of Ireland so far north that he came to a land unknown, where he saw many strange things. "This land," says Hakluyt, " must needs be some part of that country of which the Spaniards affirme themselves to be the first finders since Hanno's time," and through this allusion we are enabled to see how these legends relating to mythical lands came to be associated with the American continent. Concerning the land discovered by Madoc many tales were current in Wales in mediseval times. Madoc on his return declared that it was pleasant and fruitful, but uninhabited. He succeeded in persuading 5 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU a large number of people to accompany him to this delectable region, and, as he never returned, Hakluyt concludes that the descendants of the folk he took with him composed the greater part of the population of the America of the seventeenth century, a conclusion in which he has been supported by more than one modern antiquarian. Indeed, the wildest fancies have been based upon this legend, and stories of Welsh-speaking Indians who were able to converse with Cymric immigrants to the American colonies have been received with compla- cency by the older school of American historians as the strongest confirmation of the saga. It is notable, however, that Henry VII of England, the son of a Welshman, may have been influenced in his patronage of the early American explorers by this legend of Madoc, as it is known that he employed one Guttyn Owen, a Welsh historiographer, to draw up his paternal pedigree, and that this same Guttyn included the story in his works. Such legends as those relating to Atlantis and Antilia scarcely fall within the scope of American myth, as they undoubtedly relate to early communication with the Canaries and Azores. American Myths of the Discovery But what were the speculations of the Red Men on the other side of the Atlantic ? Were there no rumours there, no legends of an Eastern world ? Immediately prior to the discovery there was in America a widely disseminated belief that at a relatively remote period strangers from the east haci visited American soil, eventually returning to their own abodes in the Land of Sunrise. Such, for example, was the Mexican legend of Quetzalcoatl, to which we shall revert later in its more essentially mythical connection. He landed with several companions at Vera Cruz, and speedily brought to bear 6 A PERUVIAN PROPHECY the power ot a civilising agency upon native opinion. In the ancient Mexican pinturas^ or paintings, he is represented as being habited in a long black gown, fringed with white crosses. After sojourning with the Mexicans for a number of years, during which time he initiated them into the arts of life and civilisation, he departed from their land on a magic raft, promising, however, to return. His second advent was anxiously looked for, and when Cortes and his companions arrived at Vera Cruz, the identical spot at which Quetzalcoatl was supposed to have set out on his homeward journey, the Mexicans fully believed him to be the returned hero. Of course Montezuma, their monarch, was not altogether taken by surprise at the coming of the white man, as he had been informed of the arrival of mys- terious strangers in Yucatan and elsewhere in Central America ; but in the eyes of the commonalty the Spanish leader was a "hero-god" indeed. In this interesting figure several of the monkish chroniclers of New Spain saw the Apostle St. Thomas, who had journeyed to the American continent toeffect its conversion to Christianity. A Peruvian Prophecy The Mexicans were by no means singular in their presentiments. When Hernando de Soto, on land- ing in Peru, first met the Inca Huascar, the latter re- lated an ancient prophecy which his father, Huaina Ccapac, had repeated on his death-bed, that in the reign of the thirteenth Inca white men of surpassing strength and valour would come from their father the Sun, and subject the Peruvians to their rule. " I command you," said the dying king, " to yield them homage and obedience, for they will be of a nature superior to ours." ^ But the most interesting of American legends connected ^ Garcilasso el Inca de la Vega, Hist, des Iiuas, lib. ix. cap. i 5. 7 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU with the discovery is that in which the prophecy of the Maya priest Chilan Balam is described. Father Lizana, a venerable Spanish author, records the pro- phecy, which he states was very well known throughout Yucatan, as does Villagutierre, who quotes it. The Prophecy of Chilan Balam Part of this strange prophecy runs as follows : " At the end of the thirteenth age, when Itza is at the height of its power, as also the city called Tancah, the signal of God will appear on the heights, and the Cross with which the world was enlightened will be manifested. There will be variance of men's will in future times, when this signal shall be brought. . . . Receive your barbarous bearded guests from the east, who bring the signal of God, who comes to us in mercy and pity. The time of our life is coming. . . ." It would seem from the perusal of this prophecy that a genuine substratum of native tradition has been over- laid and coloured by the influence of the early Spanish missionaries. The terms of the announcement are much too exact, and the language employed is obviously Scriptural. But the native books of Chilan Balam, whence the prophecy is taken, are much less explicit, and the genuineness of their character is evinced by the idiomatic use of the Maya tongue, which, in the form they present it in, could have been written by none save those who had habitually employed it from infancy. As regards the prophetic nature of these deliverances it is known that the Chilan, or priest, was wont to utter publicly at the end of certain prolonged periods a pro- phecy forecasting the character of the similar period to come, and there is reason to believe that some dis- tant rumours of the coming of the white man had reached the ears of several of the seers. THE TYPE OF MEXICAN CIVILISATION These vague intimations that the seas separated them from a great continent where dwelt beings like them- selves seem to have been common to white and red men alike. And who shall say by what strange magic of telepathy they were inspired in the minds of the daring explorers and the ascetic priests who gave ex- pression to them in act and utterance ? The discovery of America was much more than a mere scientific pro- cess, and romance rather than the cold speculations of mediaeval geography urged men to tempt the dim seas of the West in quest of golden islands seen in dreams. The Type of Mexican Civilisation The first civilised American people with whom the discoverers came into contact were those of the Nahua or ancient Mexican race. We use the term " civilised " advisedly, for although several authorities of standing have refused to regard the Mexicans as a people who had achieved such a state of culture as would entitle them to be classed among civilised communities, there is no doubt that they had advanced nearly as far as it was possible for them to proceed when their environ- ment and the nature of the circumstances which handi- capped them are taken into consideration. In architec- ture they had evolved a type of building,^ solid yet wonderfully graceful, which, if not so massive as the Egyptian and Assyrian, was yet more highly decorative. Their artistic outlook as expressed in their painting and pottery was more versatile and less conventional than that of the ancient people of the Orient, their social system was of a more advanced type, and a less rigorous attitude was evinced by the ruling caste toward the subject classes. Yet, on the other hand, the picture is darkened by the terrible if picturesque 9 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU rites which attended their reli^-. > Pyramid of the Sun, San Juan Teotihuacan Photo C. B. Waite, Mexico 32 THE HILL OF FLOWERS pyramids were divided into four stories, three of which remain. On the summit of that of the sun stood a temple containing a great image of that luminary carved from a rough block, of stone. In the breast was inlaid a star of the purest gold, seized afterwards as loot by the in- satiable followers of Cort6s. From the teucalli of the moon a path runs to where a little rivulet flanks the "Citadel." This path is known as "The Path of the Dead," from the circumstance that it is surrounded by some nine square miles of tombs and tumuli, and, indeed, forms a road through the great cemetery. The Citadel, thinks Charnay, was a vast tennis or tlachtU court, where thousands flocked to gaze at the national sport of the Nahua with a zest equal to that of the modern devotees of football. Teotihuacan was a flourishing centre contemporary with Tollan. It was destroyed, but was rebuilt by the Chichimec king Xolotl, and preserved thenceforth its traditional sway as the focus of the Nahua national religion. Charnay identifies the architectural types discovered there with those of Tollan. The result of his labours in the vicinity included the unearthing of richly decorated pottery, vases, masks, and terra-cotta figures. He also excavated several large houses or palaces, some with chambers more than 730 feet in circumference, with walls over 7^ feet thick, into which were built rings and slabs to support torches and candles. The floors were tessellated in various rich designs, " like an Aubusson carpet." Charnay concluded that the monu- ments of Teotihuacan were partly standing at the time of the conquest. The Hill of Flowers Near Tezcuco is Xochicalco (The Hill of Flowers), SI Uocalli the sculpture of which is both beautiful c 33 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU and luxuriant in design. The porphyry quarries from which the great blocks, 12 feet in length, were cut lie many miles away. As late as 1755 the structure towered to a height of five stories, but the vandal has done his work only too well, and a few fragmentary carvings of exquisite design are all that to-day remain of one of Mexico's most magnificent pyramids. Tollan We have already indicated that on the site of the "Toltec" city of Tollan ruins have been discovered which prove that it was the centre of a civilisation of a type distinctly advanced. Charnay unearthed there gigantic fragments of caryatides, each some 7 feet high. He also found columns of two pieces, which were fitted together by means of mortise and tenon, bas-reliefs of archaic figures of undoubted Nahua type, and many fragments of great antiquity. On the hill of Palpan, above Tollan, he found the ground-plans of several houses with numerous apartments, frescoed, columned, and having benches and cisterns recalling the implu- vium of a Roman villa. Water-pipes were also actually unearthed, and a wealth of pottery, many pieces of which were like old Japanese china. The ground-plan or foundations of the houses unearthed at Palpan showed that they had been designed by practical architects, and had not been built in any merely hap- hazard fashion. The cement which covered the walls and floors was of excellent quality, and recalled that discovered in ancient Italian excavations. The roofs had been of wood, supported by pillars. Pictufe'Wfiting The Aztecs, and indeed the entire Nahua race, employed a system of writing of the type scientifically 34 0, INTERPRETATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHS described as " pictographic," in which events, persons, and ideas were recorded by means of drawings and coloured sketches. These were executed on paper made from the agave plant, or were painted on the skins of animals. By these means not only history and the principles of the Nahua mythology were communicated from generation to generation, but the transactions of daily life, the accountings of merchants, and the purchase and ownership of land were placed on record. That a phonetic system was rapidly being approached is manifest from the method by which the Nahua scribes depicted the names of individuals or cities. These were represented by means of several objects, the names of which resembled that of the person for which they stood. The name of King Ixcoatl, for example, is represented by the drawing of a serpent {coatl) pierced by flint knives {iztli), and that of Motequauhzoma (Montezuma) by a mouse-trap {montli)^ an eagle {quauhtli)^ a lancet (zo), and a hand iniaitl). The phonetic values employed by the scribes varied exceedingly, so that at times an entire syllable would be expressed by the painting of an object the name of which commenced with it. At other times only a letter would be represented by the same drawing. But the general intention of the scribes was undoubtedly more ideographic than phonetic ; that is, they desired to convey their thoughts more by sketch than by sound. Interpretation of the Hieroglyphs These pinturaSj as the Spanish conquerors desig- nated them, offer no very great difliculty in their elucidation to modern experts, at least so far as the general trend of their contents is concerned. In this they are unlike the manuscripts of the Maya of Central America with which we shall make acquaintance further 35 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU on. Their interpretation was largely traditional, and was learned by rote, being passed on by one generation of amamatini (readers) to another, and was by no means capable of elucidation by all and sundry. Native Manuscripts The phituras or native manuscripts which remain to us are but few in number. Priestly fanaticism, which ordained their wholesale destruction, and the still more potent passage of time have so reduced them that each separate example is known to biblio- philes and Americanists the world over. In such ^ as still exist we can observe great fullness of detail, repre- senting for the most part festivals, sacrifices, tributes, and natural phenomena, such as eclipses and floods, and the death and accession of monarchs. These events, and the supernatural beings who were supposed to control them, were depicted in brilliant colours, executed by means of a brush of feathers. The Interpretative Codices Luckily for future students of Mexican history, the blind zeal which destroyed the majority of the Mexican manuscripts was frustrated by the enlightenment of certain European scholars, who regarded the wholesale destruction of the native records as little short of a calamity, and who took steps to seek out the few remaining native artists, from whom they procured copies of the more important paintings, the details of which were, of course, quite familiar to them. To those were added interpretations taken down from the lips of the native scribes themselves, so that no doubt might remain regarding the contents of the manuscripts. These are known as the "Interpretative Codices," and are of considerable assistance to the student of Mexican 36 THE MEXICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD history and customs. Three only are in existence. The Oxford Codex, treasured in the Bodleian Library, is of a historical nature, and contains a full list of the lesser cities which were subservient to Mexico in its palmy days. The Paris or Tellerio-Remensis Codex, so called from having once been the property of Le Tellier, Archbishop of Rheims, embodies many facts concerning the early settlement of the various Nahua city-states. The Vatican MSS. deal chiefly with mythology and the intricacies of the Mexican calendar system. Such Mexican paintings as were unassisted by an interpretation are naturally of less value to present-day students of the lore of the Nahua. They are principally concerned with calendric matter, ritualistic data, and astrological computations or horo- scopes. The Mexican " Book of the Dead '* Perhaps the most remarkable and interesting manu- script in the Vatican collection is one the last pages of which represent the journey of the soul after death through the gloomy dangers of the Other-world. This has been called the Mexican " Book of the Dead." The corpse is depicted dressed for burial, the soul escap- ing from its earthly tenement by way of the mouth. The spirit is ushered into the presence of Tezcatlipoca, the Jupiter of the Aztec pantheon, by an attendant dressed in an ocelot skin, and stands naked with a wooden yoke round the neck before the deity, to receive sentence. The dead person is given over to the tests which pre- cede entrance to the abode of the dead, the realm of Mictlan, and so that he may not have to meet the perils of the journey in a defenceless condition a sheaf of javelins is bestowed upon him. He first passes between two lofty peaks, which may fall and crush him 37 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU if he cannot skilfully escape them. A terrible serpent then intercepts his path, and, if he succeeds in defeating this monster, the fierce alligator Xochitonal awaits him. Eight deserts and a corresponding number of mountains have then to be negotiated by the hapless spirit, and a whirlwind sharp as a sword, which cuts even through solid rocks, must be withstood. Accompanied by the shade of his favourite dog, the harassed ghost at length encounters the fierce Izpuzteque, a demon with the backward-bent legs of a cock, the evil Nextepehua, the fiend who scatters clouds of ashes, and many another grisly foe, until at last he wins to the gates of the Lord of Hell, before whom he does reverence, after which he is free to greet his friends who have gone before. The Calendar System As has been said, the calendar system was the source of all Mexican science, and regulated the recurrence of all religious rites and festivals. In fact, the entire mechanism of Nahua life was resident in its provisions. The type of time-division and computation exemplified in the Nahua calendar was also found among the Maya peoples of Yucatan and Guatemala and the Zapotec people of the boundary between the Nahua and Maya races. By which of these races it was first employed is unknown. But the Zapotec calendar exhibits signs or both Nahua and Maya influence, and from this it has been inferred that the calendar systems of these races have been evolved from it. It might with equal probability be argued that both Nahua and Maya art were offshoots of Zapotec art, because the characteristics of both are discovered in it, whereas the circumstance merely illustrates the very natural acceptance by a border people, who settled down to civilisation at a 38 The Spirit of the dead Aztec is attacked by an Evil Spirit who scatters Clouds of Ashes Gilbert James 38 LUNAR RECKONING relatively later date, of the artistic tenets of the two greater peoples who environed them. The Nahua and Maya calendars were in all likelihood evolved from the calendar system of that civilised race which undoubtedly existed on the Mexican plateau prior to the coming of the later Nahua swarms, and which in general is loosely alluded to as the "Toltec." The Mexican Year The Mexican year was a cycle of 365 days, without any intercalary addition or other correction. In course of time it almost lost its seasonal significance because of the omission of the extra hours included in the solar year, and furthermore many of its festivals and occasions were altered by high-priests and rulers to suit their convenience. The Mexican nexiuhilpililztli (binding of years) contained fifty-two years, and ran in two separate cycles— one of fifty-two years of 365 days each, and another of seventy-three groups of 260 days each. The first was of course the solar year, and embraced eighteen periods of twenty days each, called " months " by the old Spanish chroniclers, with five nemontemi (unlucky days) over and above. These days were not intercalated, but were included in the year, and merely overflowed the division of the year into periods of twenty days. The cycle of seventy-three groups of 260 days, subdivided into groups of thirteen days, was called the " birth-cycle." Lunar Reckoning People in a barbarous condition almost invariably reckon time by the period between the waxing and waning of the moon as distinct from the entire passage of a lunar revolution, and this period of twenty days 39 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU will be found to be the basis in the time-reckoning oi the Mexicans, who designated it cempohualli. Each day included in it was denoted by a sign, as " house," "snake," "wind," and so forth. Each cempohualli was subdivided into four periods of five days each, sometimes alluded to as "weeks" by the early Spanish writers, and these were known by the sign of their middle or third day. These day-names ran on without reference to the length of the year. The year itself was designated by the name of the middle day of the week in which it began. Out of twenty day-names in the Mexican "month" it was inevitable that the four calli (house), tochtli (rabbit), acatl (reed), and tecpatl (flint) should always recur in sequence because of the incidence of these days in the Mexican solar year. Four years made up a year of the sun. During the netnontemi (unlucky days) no work was done, as they were regarded as ominous and unwholesome. We have seen that the civil year permitted the day- names to run on continuously from one year to another. The ecclesiastical authorities, however, had a reckon- ing of their own, and made the year begin always on the first day of their calendar, no matter what sign denominated that day in the civil system. Groups of Years As has been indicated, the years were formed into groups. Thirteen years constituted a xiumalpilli (bundle), and four of these a nexiuhilpilitztli (com- plete binding of the years). Each year had thus a double aspect, first as an individual period of time, and secondly as a portion of the "year of the sun," and these were so numbered and named that each year in the series of fifty-two possessed a different description. 40 The Demon Izpuzteque Photo Mansell & Co. 40 THE BIRTH-CYCLE The Dread of the Last Day With the conclusion of each period of fifty-two years a terrible dread came upon the Mexicans that the world would come to an end. A stated period of time had expired, a period which was regarded as fixed by divine command, and it had been ordained that on the com- pletion of one of those series of fifty-two years earthly time would cease and the universe be demolished. For some time before the ceremony of toxihnolpilia (the binding up of the years) the Mexicans abandoned themselves to the utmost prostration, and the wicked went about in terrible fear. As the first day of the fifty-third year dawned the people narrowly observed the Pleiades, for if they passed the zenith time would proceed and the world would be respited. The gods were placated or refreshed by the slaughter of the human victim, on whose still living breast a fire of wood was kindled by friction, the heart and body being consumed by the flames so lighted. As the planets of hope crossed the zenith loud acclamations resounded from the people, and the domestic hearths, which had been left cold and dead, were rekindled from the sacred fire which had consumed the sacrifice. Mankind was safe for another period. The Birth'CycIe The birth-cycle, as we have said, consisted of 260 days. It had originally been a lunar cycle of thirteen days, and once bore the names of thirteen moons. It formed part of the civil calendar, with which, however, it had nothing in common, as it was used for ecclesias- tical purposes only. The lunar names were abandoned later, and the numbers one to thirteen adopted in their places. 41 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU Language of the Nahua The Nahua language represented a very low state o. culture. Speech is the general measure of the standard of thought of a people, and if we judged the civilisation of the Nahua by theirs, we should be justified in con- cluding that they had not yet emerged from barbarism. But we must recollect that the Nahua of the conquest period had speedily adopted the older civilisation which they had found awaiting them on their entrance to Mexico, and had retained their own primitive tongue. The older and more cultured people who had preceded them probably spoke a more polished dialect of the same language, but its influence had evidently but little effect upon the rude Chichimecs and Aztecs. The Mexican tongue, like most American languages, belongs to the " incorporative " type, the genius of which is to unite all the related words in a sentence into one con- glomerate term or word, merging the separate words of which it is composed one into another by altering their forms, and so welding them together as to express the whole in one word. It will be at once apparent that such a system was clumsy in the extreme, and led to the creation of words and names of the most barbarous appearance and sound. In a narrative of the Spanish discovery written by Chimalpahin, the native chronicler of Chalco, born in 1579, we have, for example, such a passage as the following: Oc chiucnauhxihuitl ink onen qu'tlantimanca Espana camo niman ic yuh ca omacoc ihuehti- Hztli inic niman ye chiuhcnauhxiuhtica^ in oncan ohiialla. This passage is chosen quite at random, and is an average specimen of literary Mexican of the sixteenth century. Its purport is, freely translated : " For nine years he [Columbus] remained in vain in Spain. Yea, tor nine years there he waited for influence." The 42 NAHUA GOVERNMENT clumsy and cumbrous nature of the language could scarcely be better illustrated than by pointing out that chiucnauhxihultl signifies " nine years " ; quilantimanca^ "he below remained"; and omacoc ihuelitiliztli^ "he has got his powerfulness." It must be recollected that this specimen of Mexican was composed by a person who had had the benefit of a Spanish education, and is cast in literary form. What the spoken Mexican of pre- conquest times was like can be contemplated with mis- giving in the grammars of the old Spanish missionaries, whose greatest glory is that they mastered such a lan- guage in the interests of their faith. Aztec Science The science of the Aztecs was, perhaps, one o the most picturesque sides of their civilisation. As with all peoples in a semi-barbarous state, it consisted chiefly in astrology and divination. Of the former the won- derful calendar system was the basis, and by its aid the priests, or those of them who were set apart for the study of the heavenly bodies, pretended to be able to tell the future of new-born infants and the progress of the dead in the other world. This they accomplished by weighing the influence of the planets and other luminaries one against another, and extracting the net result. Their art of divination consisted in drawing omens from the song and flight of birds, the appearance of grains of seed, feathers, and the entrails of animals, by which means they confidently predicted both public and private events. Nahua Government The limits of the Aztec Empire may be defined, if its tributary states are included, as extending over the 43 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU territory comprised in the modern states of Mexico, Southern Vera Cruz, and Guerrero. Among the civi- lised peoples of this extensive tract the prevailing form of government was an absolute monarchy, although several of the smaller communities were republics. The law of succession, as with the Celts of Scotland, pre- scribed that the eldest surviving brother of the deceased monarch should be elected to his throne, and, failing him, the eldest nephew. But incompetent persons were almost invariably ignored by the elective body, although the choice was limited to one family. The ruler was generally selected both because of his military prowess and his ecclesiastical and political knowledge. Indeed, a Mexican monarch was nearly always a man of the highest culture and artistic refinement, and the ill- fated Montezuma was an example of the true type of Nahua sovereign. The council of the monarch was composed of the electors and other personages of im- portance in the realm. It undertook the government of the provinces, the financial affairs of the country, and other matters of national import. The nobility held all the highest military, judicial, and ecclesiastical offices. To each city and province judges were delegated who exercised criminal and civil jurisdiction, and whose opinion superseded even that of the Crown Itself. Petty cases were settled by lesser officials, and a still inferior grade of officers acted as a species of police in the supervision of families. Domestic Life The domestic life of the Nahua was a peculiar admix- ture of simplicity and display. The mass of the people led a life of strenuous labour in the fields, and in the cities they wrought hard at many trades, among which may be specified building, metal-working, making 44 The Aztec Calendar Stone See page 38 Photo C. B. Waite, Mexico 44 A MYSTERIOUS TOLTEC BOOK robes and other articles of bright featherwork and quilted suits of armour, jewellery, and small wares. Vendors of flowers, fruit, fish, and vegetables swarmed in the markets. The use of tobacco was general among the men of all classes. At banquets the women attended, although they were seated at separate tables. The enter- tainments of the upper class were marked by much magnificence, and the variety of dishes was consider- able, including venison, turkey, many smaller birds, fish, a profusion of vegetables, and pastry, accompanied by sauces of delicate flavour. These were served in dishes of gold and silver. Pulque^ a fermented drink brewed from the agave, was the universal beverage. Cannibalism was indulged in usually on ceremonial occasions, and was surrounded by such refinements of the table as served only to render it the more repulsive in the eyes of Europeans. It has been stated that this revolting practice was engaged in owing solely to the tenets of the Nahua religion, which enjoined the slaughter of slaves or captives in the name of a deity, and their consumption with the idea that the con- sumers attained unity with that deity in the flesh. But there is good reason to suspect that the Nahua, deprived of the flesh of the larger domestic animals, practised deliberate cannibalism. It would appear that the older race which preceded them in the country were innocent of these horrible repasts. A Mysterious Toltec Book A piece of Nahua literature, the disappearance of which is surrounded by circumstances of the deepest mystery, is the Teo-Amoxtli (Divine Book), which is alleged by certain chroniclers to have been the work of the ancient Toltecs. Ixtlilxochitl, a native Mexican author, states that it was written by a Tezcucan wise 45 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU man, one Huematzin, about the end of the seventh century, and that it described the pilgrimage of the Nahua from Asia, their laws, manners, and customs, and their religious tenets, science, and arts. In 1838 the Baron de Waldeck stated in his Voyage Pit- toresqiie that he had it in his possession, and the Abb6 Brasseur de Bourbourg identified it with the Maya Dresden Codex and other native manuscripts. Bustamante also states that the amamat'ini (chroniclers) of Tezcuco had a copy in their possession at the time of the taking of their city. But these appear to be mere surmises, and if the Teo-Amoxtli ever existed, which on the whole is not unlikely, it has probably never been seen by a European. A Native Historian One of the most interesting ot the Mexican his- torians is Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a half- breed of royal Tezcucan descent. He was responsible for two notable works, entitled Historia Chichimeca (The History of the Chichimecs) and the Relaciones, a compilation of historical and semi-historical incidents. He was cursed, or blessed, however, by a strong leaning toward the marvellous, and has coloured his narratives so highly that he would have us regard the Toltec or ancient Nahua civilisations as by far the most splendid and magnificent that ever existed. His descriptions of Tezcuco, if picturesque in the extreme, are manifestly the outpourings of a romantic and idealistic mind, which in its patriotic enthusiasm desired to vindicate the country of his birth from the stigma of savagery and to prove its equality with the great nations of anti- quity. For this we have not the heart to quarrel with him. But we must be on our guard against accepting any of his statements unless we find strong corro- 46 DISTRIBUTION OF THE NAHUA TRIBES boration of it in the pages of a more trustworthy and less biased author. Nahua Topography The geography of Mexico is by no means as familiar to Europeans as is that of the various countries of our own continent, and it is extremely easy for the reader who is unacquainted with Mexico and the puzzling orthography of its place-names to flounder among them, and during the perusal of such a volume as this to find himself in a hopeless maze of surmise as to the exact locality of the more famous centres of Mexican history. A few moments' study of this paragraph will enlighten him in this respect, and will save him much confusion further on. He will see from the map (p. 330) that the city of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, its native name, was situated upon an island in the Lake of Tezcuco. This lake has now partially dried up, and the modern city of Mexico is situated at a considerable distance from it. Tezcuco, the city second in importance, lies to the north-east of the lake, and is somewhat more isolated, the other pueblos (towns) clustering round the southern or western shores. To the north of Tezcuco is Teotihuacan, the sacred city of the gods. To the south-east of Mexico is Tlaxcallan, or Tlascala, the city which assisted Cortes against the Mexicans, and the inhabitants of which were the deadliest foes of the central Nahua power. To the north lie the sacred city of Cholula and Tula, or Tollan. Distribution of the Nahua Tribes Having become acquainted with the relative position of the Nahua cities, we may now consult for a moment the map which exhibits the geographical distribution 47 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU of the various Nahua tribes, and which is self-explana- tory (p. 331). Nahua History A brief historical sketch or epitome of what is known of Nahua history as apart from mere tradition will further assist the reader in the comprehension of Mexican mythology. From the period of the settlement of the Nahua on an agricultural basis a system of feudal government had evolved, and at various epochs in the history of the country certain cities or groups of cities held a paramount sway. Subsequent to the "Toltec" period, which we have already described and discussed, we find the Acolhuans in supreme power, and ruling from their cities of Tollantzinco and Cholula a considerable tract of country. Later Cholula maintained an alliance with Tlascala and Huexotzinco. Bloodless Battles The maxim "Other climes, other manners" is no- where better exemplified than by the curious annual strife betwixt the warriors of Mexico and Tlascala. Once a year they met on a prearranged battle-ground and engaged in combat, not with the intention of killing one another, but with the object of taking prisoners for sacrifice on the altars of their respective war-gods. The warrior seized his opponent and attempted to bear him off, the various groups pulling and tugging desperately at each other in the endeavour to seize the limbs of the unfortunate who had been first struck down, with the object of dragging him into durance or effecting his rescue. Once secured, theTlascaltec warrior was brought to Mexico in a cage, and first placed upon a stone slab, to which one of his feet was secured by a chain or 48 1 >|fc'; A Prisoner fighting for his Life He was painted white and tufts of cottnn-wool were put on his head Gilbert James 48 TEZCUCO thong. He was then given light weapons, more like playthings than warrior's gear, and confronted by one of the most celebrated Mexican warriors. Should he succeed in defeating six of these formidable antagonists, he was set free. But no sooner was he wounded than he was hurried to the altar of sacrifice, and his heart was torn out and offered to Huitzilopochtli, the implacable god of war. The Tlascaltecs, having finally secured their position by a defeat of the Tecpanecs of Huexotzinco about A.D. 1384, sank into comparative obscurity save for their annual bout with the Mexicans. The Lake Cities The communities grouped round the various lakes in the valley of Mexico now command our attention. More than two score of these thriving communities flourished at the time of the conquest of Mexico, the most notable being those which occupied the borders of the Lake of Tezcuco. These cities grouped themselves round two nuclei, Azcapozalco and Tezcuco, between whom a fierce rivalry sprang up, which finally ended in the entire discomfiture or Azcapozalco. From this event the real history of Mexico may be said to commence. Those cities which had allied themselves to Tezcuco finally overran the entire territory of Mexico from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific. Tezcuco If, as some authorities declare, Tezcuco was originally Otomi in afiinity, it was in later years the most typically Nahuan of all the lacustrine powers. But several other communities, the power of which was very p 49 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU nearly as great as that of Tezcuco, had assisted that city to supremacy. Among these was Xaltocan, a city-state of unquestionable Otomi origin, situated at the northern extremity of the lake. As we have seen from the statements of Ixtlilxochitl, a Tezcucan writer, his native city was in the forefront of Nahua civilisation at the time of the coming of the Spaniards, and if it was practically subservient to Mexico (Tenochtitlan) at that period it was by no means its inferior in the arts. The Tecpanecs The Tecpanecs, who dwelt in Tlacopan, Coyohuacan, and Huitzilopocho, were also typical Nahua. The name, as we have already explained, indicates that each settle- ment possessed its own tecpan (chief's house), and has no racial significance. Their state was probably founded about the twelfth century, although a chronology of no less than fifteen hundred years was claimed for it. This people composed a sort of buffer-state betwixt the Otomi on the north and other Nahua on the south. The Aztecs The menace of these northern Otomi had become acute when the Tecpanecs received reinforcements in the shape of the Azteca, or Aztecs, a people of Nahua blood, who came, according to their own accounts, from Aztlan (Crane Land). The name Azteca signifies *' Crane People," and this has led to the assumption that they came from Chihuahua, where cranes abound. Doubts have been cast upon the Nahua origin of the Azteca. But these are by no means well founded, as the names of the early Aztec chieftains and kings are unquestionably Nahuan. This people on their arrival in Mexico werei in a very inferior state of culture^ and 5° THE AZTECS AS ALLIES were probably little better than savages. We have already outlined some of the legends concerning the coming of the Aztecs to the land of Anahuac, or the valley of Mexico, but their true origin is uncertain, and it is likely that they wandered down from the north as other Nahua immigrants did before them, and as the Apache Indians still do to this day. By their own showing they had sojourned at several points 671 route^ and were reduced to slavery by the chiefs of Colhuacan. They proved so truculent in their bondage, however, that they were released, and journeyed to Chapoultepec, which they quitted because of their dissensions with the Xaltocanecs. On their arrival in the district inhabited by the Tecpanecs a tribute was levied upon them, but nevertheless they flourished so exceedingly that the swamp villages which the Tecpanecs had permitted them to raise on the borders of the lake soon grew into thriving communities, and chiefs were provided for them from among the nobility of the Tecpanecs. The Aztecs as Allies By the aid of the Aztecs the Tecpanecs greatly extended their territorial possessions. City after city was added to their empire, and the allies finally invaded the Otomi country, which they speedily subdued. Those cities which had been founded by the Acolhuans on the fringes of Tezcuco also allied themselves with the Tecpanecs with the intention of freeing themselves from the yoke of the Chichimecs, whose hand was heavy upon them. The Chichimecs or Tezcucans made a stern resistance, and for a time the sovereignty of the Tecpanecs hung in the balance. But eventually they conquered, and Tezcuco was over- thrown and given as a spoil to the Aztecs. SI MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU New Powers Up to this time the Aztecs had paid a tribute to Azcapozalco, but now, strengthened by the successes of the late conflict, they withheld it, and requested permission to build an aqueduct from the shore for the purpose of carrying a supply of water into their city. This was refused by the Tecpanecs, and a policy of isolation was brought to bear upon Mexico, an embargo being placed upon its goods and intercourse with its people being forbidden. War followed, in which the Tecpanecs were defeated with great slaughter. After this event, which may be placed about the year 1428, the Aztecs gained ground rapidly, and their march to the supremacy of the entire Mexican valley was almost undisputed. Allying themselves with Tezcuco and Tlacopan, the Mexicans overran many states far beyond the confines of the valley, and by the time of Montezuma I had extended their boundaries almost to the limits of the present republic. The Mexican merchant, followed in the footsteps of the Mexican warrior, and the commercial expansion of the Aztecs rivalled their military fame. Clever traders, they were merciless in their exactions of tribute from the states they conquered, manufacturing the raw material paid to them by the subject cities into goods which they afterwards sold again to the tribes under their sway. Mexico became the chief market of the empire, as well as its political nucleus. Such was the condition of affairs when the Spaniards arrived in Anahuac. Their coming has been deplored by certain historians as hastening the destruction of a Western Eden. But bad as was their rule, it was probably mild when compared with the cruel and insatiable sway of the Aztecs over their unhappy dependents. 5* NEW POWERS The Spaniards found a tyrannical despotism in the conquered provinces, and a faith the accessories of which were so fiendish that it cast a gloom over the entire national life. These they replaced by a milder vassalage and the earnest ministrations of a more enlightened priesthood. Combat between Mexican and Bilimec Warriors From the Aubin-Goupil MS. 53 CHAPTER II: MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY Nahua Religion THE religion of the ancient Mexicans was a poly- theism or worship of a pantheon of deities, the general aspect of which presented similarities to the systems of Greece and Egypt. Original influences, however, were strong, and they are especially discern- ible in the institutions of ritualistic cannibalism and human sacrifice. Strange resemblances to Christian practice were observed in the Aztec mythology by the Spanish Conquistadores, who piously condemned the native customs of baptism, consubstantiation, and con- fession as frauds founded and perpetuated by diabolic agency. A superficial examination of the Nahua religion might lead to the inference that within its scope and system no definite theological views were embraced and no ethical principles propounded, and that the entire mythology presents only the fantastic attitude ot the barbarian mind toward the eternal verities. Such a con- clusion would be both erroneous and unjust to a human intelligence of a type by no means debased. As a matter of fact, the Nahua displayed a theological advancement greatly superior to that of the Greeks or Romans, and quite on a level with that expressed by the Egyptians and Assyrians. Toward the period of the Spanish occupation the Mexican priesthood was undoubtedly advancing to the contemplation of the exaltation of one god, whose worship was fast excluding that of similar deities, and if our data are too imperfect to allow us to speak very fully in regard to this phase of religious advancement, we know at least that much of the Nahua ritual and many of the prayers preserved by the labours of the Spanish fathers are unquestionably 54 Priest making an Incantation over an Aztec Lady Gilbert James 54 COSMOLOGV genuine, and display the attainment of a high religious level. Cosmology Aztec theology postulated an eternity which, however, was not without its epochs. It was thought to be broken up into a number of aeons, each of which depended upon the period of duration of a separate "sun." No agreement is noticeable among authorities on Mexican mythology as to the number of these "suns," but it would appear as probable that the favourite tradition stipulated for four " suns " or epochs, each of which concluded with a national disaster — flood, famine, tempest, or fire. The present aeon, they feared, might conclude upon the completion of every "sheaf" of fifty-two years, the "sheaf" being a merely arbitrary portion of an ason. The period of time from the first creation to the current aeon was variously computed as 15,228, 2386, or 1404 solar years, the discrepancy and doubt arising because of the equivocal nature of the numeral signs expressing the period in the pinturas^ or native paintings. As regards the sequence of "suns" there is no more agreement than there is regarding their number. The Codex Vaticanus states it to have been water, wind, fire, and famine. Humboldt gives it as hunger, fire, wind, and water ; Boturini as water, famine, wind, and fire ; and Gama as hunger, wind, fire, and water. In all likelihood the adoption of four ages arose from the sacred nature of that number. The myth doubtless shaped itself upon the tonalamatl (Mexican native calendar), the great repository of the wisdom of the Nahua race, which the priestly class regarded as its vade mecum^ and which was closely consulted by it on every occasion, civil or religious. 55 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU The Sources of Mexican Mythology Our knowledge of the mythology of the Mexicans is chiefly gained through the works of those Spaniards, lay and cleric, who entered the country along with or immediately subsequent to the Spanish Conquistadores. From several of these we have what might be called first-hand accounts of the theogony and ritual of the Nahua people. The most valuable compendium is that of Father Bernardino Sahagun, entitled A General History of the Affairs of New Spaift^ which was pub- lished from manuscript only in the middle of last century, though written in the first half of the six- teenth century. Sahagun arrived in Mexico eight years after the country had been reduced by the Spaniards to a condition of servitude. He obtained a thorough mastery of the Nahuatl tongue, and con- ceived a warm admiration for the native mind and a deep interest in the antiquities of the conquered people. His method of collecting facts concerning their mytho- logy and history was as effective as it was ingenious. He held daily conferences with reliable Indians, and placed questions before them, to which they replied by symbolical paintings detailing the answers which he required. These he submitted to scholars who had been trained under his own supervision, and who, after consultation among themselves, rendered him a criticism in Nahuatl of the hieroglyphical paintings he had placed at their disposal. Not content with this process, he subjected these replies to the criticism of a third body, after which the matter was included in his work. But ecclesiastical intolerance was destined to keep the work from publication tor a couple of centuries. Afraid that such a volume would be successful in keeping alight the fires of paganism in Mexico, Sahagun's brethren 56 TORQUEMADA refused him the assistance he required for its publication. But on his appealing to the Council of the Indies in Spain he was met with encouragement, and was ordered to translate his great work into Spanish, a task he undertook when over eighty years of age. He trans- mitted the work to Spain, and for three hundred years nothing more was heard of it. The Romance of the Lost "Sahagun** For generations antiquarians interested in the lore of ancient Mexico bemoaned its loss, until at length one Muiioz, more indefatigable than the rest, chanced to visit the crumbling library of the ancient convent ot Tolosi, in Navarre. There, among time-worn manu- scripts and tomes relating to the early fathers and the intricacies of canon law, he discovered the lost Sahagun ! It was printed separately by Bustamante at Mexico and by Lord Kingsborough in his collection in 1830, and has been translated into French by M. Jourdanet. Thus the manuscript commenced in or after 1530 was given to the public after a lapse of no less than three hundred years ! Torquemada Father Torquemada arrived in the New World about the middle of the sixteenth century, at which period he was still enabled to take from the lips of such of the Conquistadores as remained much curious information regarding the circumstances of their advent. His Monarchia Indiana was first published at Seville in 16 1 5, and in it he made much use of the manuscript of Sahagun, not then published. At the same time his observations upon matters pertaining to the native religion are often illuminating and exhaustive. In his Storia Antka del Messico the Abbe Clavigero, 57 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU who published his work in 1780, did much to disperse the clouds of tradition which hung over Mexican history and mythology. The clarity of his style and the exactness of his information render his work exceedingly useful. Antonio Gama, in KisDescripcion Historica y Cronologica de las dos PiedraSy poured a flood of light on Mexican anti- quities. His work was published in 1832. With him may be said to have ceased the line of Mexican archaeo- logists of the older school. Others worthy of being men- tioned among the older writers on Mexican mythology (we are not here concerned with history) are Boturini, who, in his Idea de una Nueva Historia General de la America Septentrional^ gives a vivid picture of native life and tradition, culled from first-hand communication with the people ; Ixtlilxochitl, a half-breed, whose menda- cious works, the Relaciones and Historia Chichimeca, are yet valuable repositories of tradition ; Jose de Acosta, whose Historia Natural y Moral de las Tndias was pub- lished at Seville in 1580; and Gomara, who, in his Historia General de las Tndias (Madrid, 1749), rested upon the authority of the Conquistadores. Tezozomoc's Chronica Mexicana, reproduced in Lord Kingsborough's great work, is valuable as giving unique facts regard- ing the Aztec mythology, as is the Teatro Mexicana of Vetancurt, published at Mexico in 1697-98. The Worship of One God The ritual of this dead faith of another hemisphere abounds in expressions concerning the unity of the deity approaching very nearly to many of those we ourselves employ regarding God's attributes. The various classes of the priesthood were in the habit of addressing the several gods to whom they ministered as " omnipotent," " endless," " invisible," " the one god complete in 58 TEZCATLIPOCA perfection and unity," and " the Maker and Moulder of All." These appellations they applied not to one supreme being, but to the individual deities to whose service they were attached. It may be thought that such a practice would be fatal to the evolution of a single and universal god. But there is every reason to believe that Tezcatlipoca, the great god of the air, like the Hebrew Jahveh, also an air-god, was fast gaining precedence of all other deities, when the coming of the white man put an end to his chances of sovereignty. Tezcatlipoca Tezcatlipoca (Fiery Mirror) was undoubtedly the Jupiter of the Nahua pantheon. He carried a mirror or shield, from which he took his name, and in which he was supposed to see reflected the actions and deeds of mankind. The evolution of this god from the status of a spirit of wind or air to that of the supreme deity of the Aztec people presents many points of deep interest to students of mythology. Originally the personification of the air, the source both ot the breath of life and of the tempest, Tezcatlipoca possessed all the attributes of a god who presided over these phenomena. As the tribal god of the Tezcucans who had led them into the Land of Promise, and had been instrumental in the defeat of both the gods and men of the elder race they dispossessed, Tezcatlipoca naturally advanced so speedily in popularity and public honour that it was little wonder that within a comparatively short space of time he came to be regarded as a god of fate and fortune, and as inseparably connected with the national destinies. Thus, from being the peculiar deity of a small band of Nahua immigrants, the prestige accruing from the rapid conquest made under his tute- lary direction and the speedily disseminated tales of the 59 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU prowess of those who worshipped him seemed to render him at once the most popular and the best feared god in Anahuac, therefore the one whose cult quickly over- shadowed that of other and similar gods. to' Tezcatlipoca> Overthrower of the Toltecs We find Tezcatlipoca intimately associated with the legends which recount the overthrow of Tollan, the capital of the Toltecs. His chief adversary on the Toltec side is the god-king Quetzalcoatl, whose nature and reign we will consider later, but whom we will now merely regard as the enemy ot Tezcatlipoca. The rivalry between these gods symbolises that which existed between the civilised Toltecs and the barbarian Nahua, and is well exemplified in the following myths. Myths of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca In the days of Quetzalcoatl there was abundance of everything necessary for subsistence. The maize was plentiful, the calabashes were as thick as one's arm, and cotton grew in all colours without having to be dyed. A variety of birds of rich plumage filled the air with their songs, and gold, silver, and precious stones were abundant. In the reign of Quetzalcoatl there was peace and plenty for all men. But this blissful state was too fortunate, too happy to endure. Envious of the calm enjoyment of the god and his people the Toltecs, three wicked " necro- mancers " plotted their downfall. The reference is of course to the gods of the invading Nahua tribes, the deities Huitzilopochtli,Titlacahuan or Tezcatlipoca, and Tlacahuepan. These laid evil enchantments upon the city of Tollan, and Tezcatlipoca in particular took the lead in these envious conspiracies. Disguised as an aged man with white hair, he presented himself at 60 TEZCATLIPOCA AND THE TOLTECS the palace of Quetzalcoatl, where he said to the pages- in-waiting : " Pray present me to your master the king. I desire to speak with him." The pages advised him to retire, as Quetzalcoatl was indisposed and could see no one. He requested them, however, to tell the god that he was waiting outside. They did so, and procured his admittance. On entering the chamber of Quetzalcoatl the wily Tezcatlipoca simulated much sympathy with the suffering god-king. " How are you, my son ? " he asked. " I have brought you a drug which you should drink, and which will put an end to the course of your malady." " You are welcome, old man," replied Quetzalcoatl. " I have known for many days that you would come. I am exceedingly indisposed. The malady affects my entire system, and I can use neither my hands nor feet." Tezcatlipoca assured him that if he partook of the medicine which he had brought him he would imme- diately experience a great improvement in health. Quetzalcoatl drank the potion, and at once felt much revived. The cunning Tezcatlipoca pressed another and still another cup of the potion upon him, and as it was nothing but pulque^ the wine of the country, he speedily became intoxicated, and was as wax in the hands of his adversary. Tezcatlipoca and the Toltecs Tezcatlipoca, in pursuance of his policy inimical to the Toltec state, took the form of an Indian of the name of Toueyo (Toveyo), and bent his steps to the palace of Uemac, chief of the Toltecs in temporal matters. This worthy had a daughter so fair that she was desired in marriage by many of the Toltecs, but all to no 6j MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU purpose, as her father refused her hand to one and all. The princess, beholding the false Toueyo passing her father's palace, fell deeply in love with him, and so tumultuous was her passion that she became seriously ill because of her longing for him. Uemac, hearing of her indisposition, bent his steps to her apartments, and inquired of her women the cause of her illness. They told him that it was occasioned by the sudden passion which had seized her for the Indian who had recently come that way. Uemac at once gave orders for the arrest of Toueyo, and he was haled before the temporal chief of Tollan. " Whence come you ? " inquired Uemac of his prisoner, who was very scantily attired. "Lord, I am a stranger, and I have come to these parts to sell green paint," replied Tezcatlipoca. " Why are you dressed in this fashion ? Why do you not wear a cloak ? " asked the chief. " My lord, I follow the custom of my country," replied Tezcatlipoca. " You have inspired a passion in the breast of my daughter," said Uemac. " What should be done to you for thus disgracing me .? " " Slay me ; I care not," said the cunning Tezcatli- poca. " Nay," replied Uemac, " for if I slay you my daughter will perish. Go to her and say that she may wed you and be happy." Now the marriage of Toueyo to the daughter of Uemac aroused much discontent amona; the Toltecs ; and they murmured among themselves, and said : " Wherefore did Uemac mve his daughter to this Toueyo ? " Uemac, having got wind of these murmur- ings, resolved to distract the attention of the Toltecs by making war upon the neighbouring state of Coatepec. 6z The Princess sees a strange Man before the Palace Gilbert James 62 TEZCATLIPOCA AND THE TOLTECS The Toltecs assembled armed for the fray, and having arrived at the country of the men of Coatepec they placed Toueyo in ambush with his body-servants, hoping that he would be slain by their adversaries. But Toueyo and his men killed a large number of the enemy and put them to flight. His triumph was celebrated by Uemac with much pomp. The knightly plumes were placed upon his head, and his body was painted with red and yellow — an honour reserved for those who distinguished themselves in battle. Tezcatlipoca's next step was to announce a great feast in Tollan, to which all the people for miles around were invited. Great crowds assembled, and danced and sang in the city to the sound of the drum. Tezcatlipoca sang to them and forced them to accompany the rhythm of his song with their feet. Faster and faster the people danced, until the pace became so furious that they were driven to madness, lost their footing, and tumbled pell-mell down a deep ravine, where they were changed into rocks. Others in attempting to cross a stone bridge precipitated them- selves into the water below, and were changed into stones. On another occasion Tezcatlipoca presented himself as a valiant warrior named Tequiua, and invited all the inhabitants of Tollan and its environs to come to the flower-garden called Xochitla. When assembled there he attacked them with a hoe, and slew a great number, and others in panic crushed their comrades to death. Tezcatlipoca and Tlacahuepan on another occasion repaired to the market-place of Tollan, the former dis- playing upon the palm of his hand a small infant whom he caused to dance and to cut the most amusing capers. This infant was in reality Huitzilopochtli, the N.ahua god of war. At this sight the Toltecs crowded 63 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU upon one another for the purpose of getting a better view, and their eagerness resulted in many being crushed to death. So enraged were the Toltecs at this that upon the advice of Tlacahuepan they slew both Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli. When this had been done the bodies of the slain gods gave forth such a pernicious effluvia that thousands of the Toltecs died of the pestilence. The god Tlacahuepan then advised them to cast out the bodies lest worse befell them, but on their attempting to do so they discovered their weight to be so great that they could not move them. Hundreds wound cords round the corpses, but the strands broke, and those who pulled upon them fell and died suddenly, tumbling one upon the other, and suffocating those upon whom they collapsed. The Departure of Quetzalcoatl The Toltecs were so tormented by the enchantments of Tezcatlipoca that it was soon apparent to them that their fortunes were on the wane and that the end of their empire was at hand. Quetzalcoatl, chagrined at the turn things had taken, resolved to quit Tollan and go to the country of Tlapallan, whence he had come on his civilising mission to Mexico. He burned all the houses which he had built, and buried his treasure of gold and precious stones in the deep valleys between the mountains. He changed the cacao-trees into mez- quites, and he ordered all the birds of rich plumage and song to quit the valley of Anahuac and to follow him to a distance of more than a hundred leagues. On the road from Tollan he discovered a great tree at a point called Quauhtitlan. There he rested, and requested his pages to hand him a mirror. Regarding himself in the polished surface, he exclaimed, " I am old," and from that circumstance the spot was named Huehuequauhtit- 64 THE DEPARTURE OF QUETZALCOATL Ian (Old Quauhtitlan). Proceeding on his way accom- panied by musicians who played the flute, he walked until fatigue arrested his steps, and he seated himself upon a stone, on which he left the imprint of his hands. This place is called Temacpalco (The Impress of the Hands). At Coaapan he was met by the Nahua gods, who were inimical to him and to the Toltecs. "Where do you go ?" they asked him. "Why do you leave your capital ? " "I go to Tlapallan," replied Quetzalcoatl, "whence came. " For what reason ? " persisted the enchanters. " My father the Sun has called me thence," replied Quetzalcoatl. " Go, then, happily," they said, " but leave us the secret of your art, the secret of founding in silver, of working in precious stones and woods, of painting, and of feather-working, and other matters." But Quetzalcoatl refused, and cast all his treasures into the fountain of Cozcaapa (Water of Precious Stones). At Cochtan he was met by another enchanter, who asked him whither he was bound, and on learning his destination proffered him a draught of wine. On tasting the vintage Quetzalcoatl was overcome with sleep. Continuing his journey in the morning, the god passed between a volcano and the Sierra Nevada (Mountain of Snow), where all the pages who accom- panied him died of cold. He regretted this misfortune exceedingly, and wept, lamenting their fate with most bitter tears and mournful songs. On reaching the summit of Mount Poyauhtecatl he slid to the base. Arriving at the sea-shore, he embarked upon a raft of serpents, and was wafted away toward the land of Tlapallan. It is obvious that these legends bear some resemblance E 65 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU to those of Ixtlilxochitl which recount the fall of the Toltecs. They are taken from Sahagun's work, Historia General de Nueva Espana, and are included as well for the sake of comparison as for their own intrinsic value. Tczcatlipoca as Doomstef Tezcatlipoca was much more than a mere personifica- tion of wind, and if he was regarded as a life-giver he had also the power of destroying existence. In fact on occasion he appears as an inexorable death-dealer, and as such was styled Nezahualpilli (The Hungry Chief) and Yaotzin (The Enemy). Perhaps one of the names by which he was best known was Telpochtli (The Youthful Warrior), from the fact that his reserve of strength, his vital force, never diminished, and that his youthful and boisterous vigour was apparent in the tempest. Tezcatlipoca was usually depicted as holding in his right hand a dart placed in an atlatl (spear-thrower), and his mirror-shield with four spare darts in his left. This shield is the symbol of his power as judge of mankind and upholder of human justice. The Aztecs pictured Tezcatlipoca as rioting along the highways in search of persons on whom to wreak his venoreance, as the wind of night rushes along the deserted roads with more seemmg violence than it does by day. Indeed one of his names, Yoalli Ehecatl, signifies " Night Wind." Benches of stone, shaped like those made for the dignitaries of the Mexican towns, were distributed along the highways for his especial use, that on these he might rest after his boisterous journeyings. These seats were concealed by green boughs, beneath which the god was supposed to lurk in wait for his victims. But if one of the persons 66 Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Night Winds (Gilbert lames 66 TEZCATLIPOCA AS DOOMSTER he seized overcame him in the struggle he might ask whatever boon he desired, secure in the promise of the deity that it should be granted forthwith. It was supposed that Tezcatlipoca had guided the Nahua, and especially the people of Tezcuco, from a more northerly clime to the valley of Mexico. But he was not a mere local deity of Tezcuco, his worship being widely celebrated throughout the country. His exalted position in the Mexican pantheon seems to have won for him especial reverence as a god of fate and fortune. The place he took as the head of the Nahua pantheon brought him many attributes which were quite foreign to his original character. Fear and a desire to exalt their tutelar deity will impel the devotees of a powerful god to credit him with any or every quality, so that there is nothing remarkable in the spectacle of the heaping of every possible attribute, human or divine, upon Tezcatlipoca when we recall the supreme position he occupied in Mexican mythology. His priestly caste far surpassed in power and in the breadth and activity of its propaganda the priesthoods of the other Mexican deities. To it is credited the invention of many of the usages of civilisation, and that it all but succeeded in making his worship universal is pretty clear, as has been shown. The other gods were worshipped for some special purpose, but the worship of Tezcatlipoca was regarded as compulsory, and to some extent as a safeguard against the destruc- tion of the universe, a calamity the Nahua had been led to believe might occur through his agency. He was known as Moneneque (The Claimer of Prayer), and in some of the representations of him an ear of gold was shown suspended from his hair, toward which small tongues of gold strained upward in appeal of prayer. In times of national danger, plague, or famine universal prayer (^1 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU was made to Tezcatlipoca. The heads of the com- munity repaired to his teocalli (temple) accompanied by the people en masse, and all prayed earnestly together for his speedy intervention. The prayers to Tezcatli- poca still extant prove that the ancient Mexicans fully believed that he possessed the power of life and death, and many of them are couched in the most piteous terms. The Teotleco Festival The supreme position occupied by Tezcatlipoca in the Mexican religion is well exemplified in the festival of the Teotleco (Coming of the Gods), which is fully described in Sahagun's account of the Mexican festivals. Another peculiarity connected with his worship was that he was one of the few Mexican deities who had any relation to the expiation of sin. Sin was symbolised by the Nahua as excrement, and in various manuscripts Tezcatlipoca is represented as a turkey-cock to which ordure is being offered up. Of the festival of the Teotleco Sahagun says : " In the twelfth month a festival was celebrated in honour of all the gods, who were said to have gone to some country I know not where. On the last day of the month a greater one was held, because the gods had returned. On the fifteenth day of this month the young boys and the servitors decked all the altars or oratories of the gods with boughs, as well as those which were in the houses, and the images which were set up by the wayside and at the cross-roads. This work was paid for in maize. Some received a basketful, and others only a few ears. On the eighteenth day the ever-youthful god Tlamatzincatl or Titlacahuan arrived. It was said that he marched better and arrived the first because he was strong and young. Food was offered 68 THE TOXCATL FESTIVAL him in his temple on that night. Every one drank, ate, and made merry. The old people especially celebrated the arrival of the god by drinking wine, and it was alleged that his feet were washed by these rejoicings. The last day of the month was marked by a great festival, on account of the belief that the whole of the gods arrived at that time. On the preceding night a quantity of flour was kneaded on a carpet into the shape of a cheese, it being supposed that the gods would leave a footprint thereon as a sign of their return. The chief attendant watched all night, going to and fro to see if the impression appeared. When he at last saw it he called out, * The master has arrived,' and at once the priests of the temple began to sound the horns, trumpets, and other musical instruments used by them. Upon hearing this noise every one set forth to offer food in all the temples." The next day the aged gods were supposed to arrive, and young men disguised as monsters hurled victims Into a huge sacrificial fire. The Toxcatl Festival The most remarkable festival In connection with Tezcatlipoca was the Toxcatl, held In the fifth month. On the day of this festival a youth was slain who for an entire year previously had been carefully in- structed in the role of victim. He was selected from among the best war captives of the year, and must be without spot or blemish. He assumed the name, garb, and attributes of Tezcatlipoca himself, and was regarded with awe by the entire populace, who Imagined him to be the earthly representative of the deity. He rested during the day, and ventured forth at night only, armed with the dart and shield of the god, to scour the roads. This practice was, of course, 69 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU symbolical of the wind-god's progress over the night- bound highways. He carried also the whistle sym- bolical of the deity, and made with it a noise such as the weird wind of night makes when it hurries through the streets. To his arms and legs small bells were attached. He was followed by a retinue of pages, and at intervals rested upon the stone seats which were placed upon the highways for the convenience of Tezcatlipoca. Later in the year he was mated to four beautiful maidens of high birth, with whom he passed the time in amusement of every description. He was entertained at the tables of the nobility as the earthly representative of Tezcatlipoca, and his latter days were one constant round of feasting and excitement. At last the fatal day upon which he must be sacrificed arrived. He took a tearful farewell of the maidens whom he had espoused, and was carried to the teocalli of sacrifice, upon the sides of which he broke the musical instruments with which he had beguiled the time of his captivity. When he reached the summit he was received by the high-priest, who speedily made him one with the god whom he represented by tearing his heart out on the stone of sacrifice. Huitzilopochtli, the War'God Huitzilopochtli occupied in the Aztec pantheon a place similar to that of Mars in the Roman. His origin is obscure, but the myth relating to it is dis- tinctly original in character. It recounts how, under the shadow of the mountain of Coatepec, near the Toltec city of Tollan, there dwelt a pious widow called Coatlicue, the mother of a tribe of Indians called Cent- zonuitznaua, who had a daughter called Coyolxauhqui, and who daily repaired to a small hill with the intention of offering up prayers to the gods in a penitent spirit 70 ^./'^I ll^&ll^tW dAf\E.&. The Infant War-God drives his Brethren into a Lake and slays them Gilbert James 7° i HUITZILOPOCHTLI THE WAR-GOD of piety. Whilst occupied in her devotions one day she was surprised by a small ball of brilliantly coloured feathers falling upon her from on high. She was pleased by the bright variety of its hues, and placed it in her bosom, intending to offer it up to the sun-god. Some time afterwards she learnt that she was to become the mother of another child. Her sons, hearing of this, rained abuse upon her, being incited to humiliate her in every possible way by their sister Coyolxauhqui. Coatlicue went about in fear and anxiety ; but the spirit of her unborn infant came and spoke to her and gave her words of encouragement, soothing her troubled heart. Her sons, however, were resolved to wipe out what they considered an insult to their race by the death of their mother, and took counsel with one another to slay her. They attired themselves in their war-gear, and arranged their hair after the manner of warriors going to battle. But one of their number, Quauitlicac, relented, and confessed the perfidy of his brothers to the still unborn Huitzilopochtli, who re- plied to him : " O brother, hearken attentively to what I have to say to you. I am fully informed of what is about to happen." With the intention of slaying their mother, the Indians went in search of her. At their head marched their sister, Coyolxauhqui. They were armed to the teeth, and carried bundles of darts with which they intended to kill the luckless Coatlicue. Quauitlicac climbed the mountain to acquaint Huitzilopochtli with the news that his brothers were approaching to kill their mother. " Mark well where they are at," replied the infant god. " To what place have they advanced ? " "ToTzompantitlan," responded Quauitlicac. Later on Huitzilopochtli asked : " Where may they be now ? " 71 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU " At Coaxalco," was the reply. Once more Huitzilopochtli asked to what point his enemies had advanced. " They are now at Petlac," Quauitlicac replied. After a little while Quauitlicac informed Huitzilo- pochtli that the Centzonuitznaua were at hand under the leadership of Coyolxauhqui. At the moment of the enemy's arrival Huitzilopochtli was born, flourish- ing a shield and spear of a blue colour. He was painted, his head was surmounted by a panache, and his left leg was covered with feathers. He shattered Coyolxauhqui with a flash of serpentine lightning, and then gave chase to the Centzonuitznaua, whom he pursued four times round the mountain. They did not attempt to defend themselves, but fled incon- tinently. Many perished in the waters of the adjoining lake, to which they had rushed in their despair. All were slain save a few who escaped to a place called Uitzlampa, where they surrendered to Huitzilopochtli and gave up their arms. The name Huitzilopochtli signifies ** Humming-bird to the left," from the circumstance that the god wore the feathers of the humming-bird, or colibri^ on his left leg. From this it has been inferred that he was a humming-bird totem. The explanation of Huitzilo- pochtli's origin is a little deeper than this, however. Among the American tribes, especially those of the northern continent, the serpent is regarded with the deepest veneration as the symbol of wisdom and magic. From these sources come success in war. The serpent also typifies the lightning, the symbol of the divine spear, the apotheosis of warlike might. Fragments of serpents are regarded as powerful war-physic among many tribes. Atatarho, a mythical wizard-king of the Iroquois, was clothed with living serpents as with a 72 HUITZILOPOCHTLI THE WAR-GOD robe, and his myth throws light on one of the names of Huitzilopochtli's mother, Coatlantona (Robe of Serpents). Huitzilopochtli's image was surrounded by serpents, and rested on serpent-shaped supporters. His sceptre was a single snake, and his great drum was of serpent-skin. In American mythology the serpent is closely asso- ciated with the bird. Thus the name of the god Quetzalcoatl is translatable as " Feathered Serpent," and many similar cases where the conception of bird and serpent have been unified could be adduced. Huitzilopochtli is undoubtedly one of these. We may regard him as a god the primary conception of whom arose from the idea of the serpent, the symbol of warlike wisdom and might, the symbol of the warrior's dart or spear, and the humming-bird, the harbinger of summer, type of the season when the snake or lightning god has power over the crops. Huitzilopochtli was usually represented as wearing on his head a waving panache or plume of humming- birds' feathers. His face and limbs were striped with bars of blue, and in his right hand he carried four spears. His left hand bore his shield, on the surface of which were displayed five tuftsof down, arranged in the form of a quincunx. The shield was made with reeds, covered with eagle's down. The spear he brandished was also tipped with tufts of down instead of flint. These weapons were placed in the hands of those who as captives engaged in the sacrificial fight, for in the Aztec mind Huitzilopochtli symbolised the warrior's death on the gladiatorial stone of combat. As has .been said, Huitzilopochtli was war-god of the Aztecs, and was supposed to have led them to the site of Mexico from their original home in the north. The city of Mexico took its name from one of its districts, 73 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU which was designated by a title of Huitzilopochtli's, Mexitli (Hare of the Aloes). The War'God as Fertiliser But Huitzilopochtli was not a war-god alone. As the serpent-god of lightning he had a connection with summer, the season of lightning, and therefore had dominion to some extent over the crops and fruits of the earth. The Algonquian Indians of North America believed that the rattlesnake could raise ruinous storms or grant favourable breezes. They alluded to it also as the symbol of life, for the serpent has a phallic significance because of its similarity to the symbol of generation and fructification. With some American tribes also, notably the Pueblo Indians of Arizona, the serpent has a solar significance, and with tail in mouth symbolises the annual round of the sun. The Nahua believed that Huitzilopochtli could grant them fair weather for the fructification of their crops, and they placed an image of Tlaloc, the rain-god, near him, so that, if necessary, the war-god could compel the rain- maker to exert his pluvial powers or to abstain from the creation of floods. We must, in considering the nature of this deity, bear well in mind the connection in the Nahua consciousness between the pantheon, war, and the food-supply. If war was not waged annually the gods must go without flesh food and perish, and if the gods succumbed the crops would fail, and famine would destroy the race. So it was small wonder that Huitzilopochtli was one of the chief gods of Mexico. Huitzilopochtli's principal festival was the Toxcatl, celebrated immediately after the Toxcatl festival of Tezcatlipoca, to which it bore a strong resemblance. Festivals of the god were held in May and December, at the latter of which an image of him, moulded in 74 TLALOC THE RAINGOD dough kneaded with the blood of sacrificed children, was pierced by the presiding priest with an arrow — an act significant of the death of Huitzilopochtli until his resurrection in the next year. Strangely enough, when the absolute supremacy of Tezcatlipoca is remembered, the high-priest of Huitzilopochtli, the Mexicatl Teohuatzin, was con- sidered to be the religious head of the Mexican priesthood. The priests of Huitzilopochtli held office by right of descent, and their primate exacted absolute obedience from the priesthoods of all the other deities, being regarded as next to the monarch himself in power and dominion. TIaloc, the Rain'God Tlaloc was the god of rain and moisture. In a country such as Mexico, where the success or failure of the crops depends entirely upon the plentiful nature or otherwise of the rainfall, he was, it will be readily granted, a deity of high importance. It was believed that he made his home in the mountains which sur- round the valley of Mexico, as these were the source of the local rainfall, and his popularity is vouched for by the fact that sculptured representations of him occur more often than those of any other of the Mexican deities. He is generally represented in a semi-recum- bent attitude, with the upper part of the body raised upon the elbows, and the knees half drawn up, probably to represent the mountainous character of the country whence comes the rain. He was espoused to Chal- chihuitlicue (Emerald Lady), who bore him a numerous progeny, the Tlalocs (Clouds). Many of the figures which represented him were carved from the green stone called chakhhiitl (jadeite), to typify the colour of water, and in some of these he was shown holding 75 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU a serpent of gold to typify the lightning, for water- gods are often closely identified with the thunder, which hangs over the hills and accompanies heavy rains. Tlaloc, like his prototype, the Kiche god Hurakan, manifested himself in three forms, as the lightning- flash, the thunderbolt, and the thunder. Although his image faced the east, where he was supposed to have originated, he was worshipped as inhabiting the four cardinal points and every mountain-top. The colours of the four points of the compass, yellow, green, red, and blue, whence came the rain-bearing winds, entered into the composition of his costume, which was further crossed with streaks of silver, typifying the mountain torrents. A vase containing every description of grain was usually placed before his idol, an offering of the growth which it was hoped he would fructify. He dwelt in a many-watered paradise called Tlalocan (The Country of Tlaloc), a place of plenty and fruitfulness, where those who had been drowned or struck by lightning or had died from dropsical diseases enjoyed eternal bliss. Those of the common people who did not die such deaths went to the dark abode of Mictlan, the all-devouring and gloomy Lord of Death. In the native manuscripts Tlaloc is usually portrayed as having a dark complexion, a large round eye, a row of tusks, and over the lips an angular blue stripe curved downward and rolled up at the ends. The latter character is supposed to have been evolved originally from the coils of two snakes, their mouths with long fangs in the upper jaw meeting in the middle of the upper lip. The snake, besides being symbolised by lightning in many American mythologies, is also symbolical of water, which is well typified in its sinuous movements. Many maidens and children were annually sacrificed to Tlaloc. If the children wept it was regarded as a 76 C^ -" -5 1 JZ 3 r^ 5 u S ID o "rt n a ■a o u 2; > V 1 SACRIFICES TO TLALOC happy omen for a rainy season. The Etzalqualiztli (When they eat Bean Food) was his chief festival, and was held on a day approximating to May 13, about which date the rainy season usually commenced. Another festival in his honour, the Quauitleua, com- menced the Mexican year on February 2. At the former festival the priests of Tlaloc plunged into a lake, imitating the sounds and movements of frogs, which, as denizens of water, were under the special protection of the god. Chalchihuitlicue, his wife, was often symbolised by the small image of a frog. Sacrifices to Tlaloc Human sacrifices also took place at certain points in the mountains where artificial ponds were consecrated to Tlaloc. Cemeteries were situated in their vicinity, and offerings to the god interred near the burial-place of the bodies of the victims slain in his service. His statue was placed on the highest mountain of Tezcuco, and an old writer mentions that five or six young children were annually offered to the god at various points, their hearts torn out, and their remains interred. The mountains Popocatepetl and Teocuinani were re- garded as his special high places, and on the heights of the latter was built his temple, in which stood his image carved in green stone. The Nahua believed that the constant production of food and rain induced a condition of senility in those deities whose duty it was to provide them. This they attempted to stave off, fearing that if they failed in so doing the gods would perish. They afforded them, accordingly, a period of rest and recuperation, and once in eight years a festival called the Atamalqualiztli (Fast of Porridge-balls and Water) was held, during which every one in the Nahua community returned for the time 77 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU being to the conditions of savage life. Dressed in cos- tumes representing all forms of animal and bird life, and mimicking the sounds made by the various creatures they typified, the people danced round the teocalU of Tlaloc for the purpose of diverting and entertaining him after his labours in producing the fertilising rains of the past eight years. A lake was filled with water-snakes and frogs, and into this the people plunged, catching the reptiles in their mouths and devouring them alive. The only grain food which might be partaken during this season of rest was thin water-porridge of maize. Should one of the more prosperous peasants or yeomen deem a rainfall necessary to the growth of his crops, or should he fear a drought, he sought out one of the professional makers of dough or paste idols, whom he desired to mould one of Tlaloc. To this image offerings of maize-porridge and pulque were made. Throughout the night the farmer and his neighbours danced, shrieking and howling round the figure for the purpose of rousing Tlaloc from his drought- bringing slumbers. Next day was spent in quaffing huge libations of pulque^ and in much-needed rest from the exertions of the previous night. In Tlaloc it is easy to trace resemblances to a mytho- logical conception widely prevalent among the indigenous American peoples. He is similar to such deities as the Hurakan of the Kiche of Guatemala, the Pillan of the aborigines of Chile, and Con, the thunder-god of the Collao of Peru. Only his thunderous powers are not so apparent as his rain-making abilities, and in this he differs somewhat from the gods alluded to. Quetzalcoatl It is highly probable that Quetzalcoatl was a deity of the pre-Nahua people of Mexico. He was regarded by QUETZALCOATL the Aztec race as a god of somewhat alien character, and had but a limited following in Mexico, the city of Huitzilopochtli. In Cholula, however, and others of the older towns his worship flourished exceedingly. He was regarded as " The Father of the Toltecs," and, legend says, was the seventh and youngest son of the Toltec Abraham, Iztacmixcohuatl. Quetzalcoatl (whose name means" Feathered Serpent" or "Feathered Staff") became, at a relatively early period, ruler of Tollan, and by his enlightened sway and his encouragement of the liberal arts did much to further the advancement of his people. His reign had lasted for a period sufficient to permit of his placing the cultivated arts upon a satisfactory basis when the country was visited by the cunning magicians Tezcatlipoca and Coyotl inaual, god of the Amantecas. Disentangled from its terms of myth, this statement may be taken to imply that bands of invading Nahua first began to appear within the Toltec territories. Tezcatlipoca, descending from the sky in the shape of a spider by way of a fine web, proffered him a draught ai pulque^ which so intoxicated him that the curse of lust descended upon him, and he forgot his chastity with Quetzalpetlatl. The doom pronounced upon him was the hard one of banishment, and he was compelled to forsake Anahuac. His exile wrought peculiar changes upon the face of the country. He secreted his treasures of gold and silver, burned his palaces, transformed the cacao-trees into mezquites, and banished all the birds from the neighbourhood of Tollan. The magicians, nonplussed at these unexpected happenings, begged him to return, but he refused on the ground that the sun required his presence. He proceeded to Tabasco, the fabled land of Tlapallan, and, embarking upon a raft made of serpents, floated away to the east. A slightly different version of this myth 79. MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU has already been given. Other accounts state that the king cast himself upon a funeral pyre and was consumed, and that the ashes arising from the conflagration flew upward, and were changed into birds of brilliant plumage. His heart also soared into the sky, and became the morn- ing star. The Mexicans averred that Quetzalcoatl died when the star became visible, and thus they bestowed upon him the title " Lord of the Dawn." They further said that when he died he was invisible for four days, and that for eight days he wandered in the underworld, after which time the morning star appeared, when he achieved resurrection, and ascended his throne as a god. It is the contention of some authorities that the myth of Quetzalcoatl points to his status as god of the sun. That luminary, they say, begins his diurnal journey in the east, whence Quetzalcoatl returned as to his native home. It will be recalled that Monte- zuma and his subjects imagined that Cortes was no other than Quetzalcoatl, returned to his dominions, as an old prophecy declared he would do. But that he stood for the sun itself is highly improbable, as will be shown. First of all, however, it will be well to pay some attention to other theories concerning his origin. Perhaps the most important of these is that which regards Quetzalcoatl as a god of the air. He is con- nected, say some, with the cardinal points, and wears the insignia of the cross, which symbolises them. Dr. Seler says of him : " He has a protruding, trumpet-like mouth, for the wind-god blows. . . . His figure sug- gests whirls and circles. Hence his temples were built in circular form. . . . The head of the wind-god stands for the second of the twenty day signs, which was called Ehecatl (Wind)." The same authority, however, in his essay on Mexican chronology, gives to Quetzal- coatl a dual nature, " the dual nature which seems to 80 The Aged Quetzalcoatl leaves Mexico on a Raft of Serpents (jilbert James THE MAN OF THE SUN belong to the wind-god Quetzalcoatl, who now appears simply a wind-god, and again seems to show the true characters of the old god of fire and light." ^ Dr. Brinton perceived in Quetzalcoatl a similar dual nature. "He is both lord of the eastern light and of the winds," he writes (Myths of the New World^ p. 214). "Like all the dawn heroes, he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long, white robes, and, as many of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing beard. . . . He had been overcome by Tezcatlipoca, the wind or spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider's web, and presented his rival with a draught supposed to confer immortality, but in fact producing an intolerable longing for home. For the wind and the light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the vivifying rain upon the fields." The theory which derives Quetzalcoatl from a " cul- ture-hero " who once actually existed is scarcely recon- cilable with probability. It is more than likely that, as in the case of other mythical paladins, the legend of a mighty hero arose from the somewhat weakened idea of a great deity. Some of the early Spanish mis- sionaries professed to see in Quetzalcoatl the Apostle St. Thomas, who had journeyed to America to effect its conversion ! The Man of the Sun A more probable explanation of the origin of Quetzal- coatl and a more likely elucidation of his nature is that which would regard him as the Man of the Sun, who has quitted his abode for a season for the purpose of inculcating in mankind those arts which represent ^ Bulletin 28 of the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology. F 81 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU the first steps in civilisation, who fulfils his mission, and who, at a late period, is displaced by the deities of an invading race. Quetzalcoatl was represented as a traveller with staff in hand, and this is proof of his solar character, as is the statement that under his rule the fruits of the earth flourished more abundantly than at any subsequent period. The abundance of gold said to have been accumulated in his reign assists the theory, the precious metal being invariably associated with the sun by most barbarous peoples. In the native pinturas it is noticeable that the solar disc and semi- disc are almost invariably found in connection with the feathered serpent as the symbolical attributes of Quetzal- coatl. The Hopi Indians of Mexico at the present day symbolise the sun as a serpent, tail in mouth, and the ancient Mexicans introduced the solar disc in con- nection with small images of Quetzalcoatl, which they attached to the head-dress. In still other examples Quetzalcoatl is pictured as if emerging or stepping from the luminary, which is represented as his dwelling-place. Several tribes tributary to the Aztecs were in the habit of imploring Quetzalcoatl in prayer to return and free them from the intolerable bondage of the con- queror. Notable among them were the Totonacs, who passionately believed that the sun, their father, would send a god who would free them from the Aztec yoke. On the coming of the Spaniards the European con- querors were hailed as the servants of Quetzalcoatl, thus in the eyes of the natives fulfilling the tradition that he would return. Various Forms of Quetzalcoatl Various conceptions of Quetzalcoatl are noticeable in the mythology of the territories which extended from the north of Mexico to the marshes of Nicaragua. In 82 QUETZALCOATL*S NORTHERN ORIGIN Guatemala the Kiches recognised him as Gucumatz, and in Yucatan proper he was worshipped as Kukulcan, both of which names are but literal translations of his Mexican title of " Feathered Serpent " into Kiche and Mayan. That the three deities are one and the same there can be no shadow of doubt. Several authorities have seen in Kukulcan a " serpent-and-rain god." He can only be such in so far as he is a solar god also. The cult of the feathered snake in Yucatan was unques- tionably a branch of sun-worship. In tropical latitudes the sun draws the clouds round him at noon. The rain falls from the clouds accompanied by thunder and lightning — the symbols of the divine serpent. There- fore the manifestations of the heavenly serpent were directly associated with the sun, and no statement that Kukulcan is a mere serpent-and-water god satisfactorily elucidates his characteristics. Quetzalcoatrs Northern Origin It is by no means improbable that Quetzalcoatl was of northern origin, and that on his adoption by southern peoples and tribes dwelling in tropical countries his characteristics were gradually and unconsciously altered in order to meet the exigencies of his environment. The mythology of the Indians of British Columbia, whence in all likelihood the Nahua originally came, is possessed of a central figure bearing a strong resem- blance to Quetzalcoatl. Thus the Thlingit tribe wor- ship Yetl ; theQuaquiutl Indians, Kanikilak; the Salish people of the coast, Kumsn5otl, Quiiaqua, or Skalekam. It is noticeable that these divine beings are worshipped as the Man of the Sun, and totally apart from the luminary himself, as was Quetzalcoatl in Mexico. The Quaquiutl believe that before his settlement among them for the purpose of inculcating in the tribe the arts 83 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU of life, the sun descended as a bird, and assumed a human shape. Kanikilak is his son, who, as his emis- sary, spreads the arts of civilisation over the world. So the Mexicans believed that Quetzalcoatl descended first of all in the form of a bird, and was ensnared in the fowler's net of the Toltec hero Hueymatzin. The titles bestowed upon Quetzalcoatl by the Nahua show that in his solar significance he was god of the vault of the heavens, as well as merely son of the sun. He was alluded to as Ehecatl (The Air), Yolcuat (The Rattlesnake), Tohil (The Rumbler), Nanihehecatl (Lord of the Four Winds), Tlauizcalpantecutli (Lord of the Light of the Dawn). The whole heavenly vault was his, together with all its phenomena. This would seem to be in direct opposition to the theory that Tezcatlipoca was the supreme god of the Mexicans. But it must be borne in mind that Tezcatlipoca was the god of a later age, and of a fresh body of Nahua immigrants, and as such inimical to Quetzalcoatl, who was probably in a similar state of opposition to Itzamna, a Maya deity of Yucatan. The Wofship of Quetzalcoatl The worship of Quetzalcoatl was in some degree antipathetic to that of the other Mexican deities, and his priests were a separate caste. Although human sacrifice was by no means so prevalent among his devotees, it is a mistake to aver, as some authorities have done, that it did not exist in connection with his worship. A more acceptable sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl appears to have been the blood of the celebrant or worshipper, shed by himself. When we come to con- sider the mythology of the Zapotecs, a people whose customs and beliefs appear to have formed a species of link between the Mexican and Mayan civilisations, we 84 3 # THE MAIZE-GODS OF MEXICO shall find that their high-priests occasionally enacted the legend of Quetzalcoatl in their own persons, and that their worship, which appears to have been based upon that of Quetzalcoatl, had as one of its most pronounced characteristics the shedding of blood. The celebrant or devotee drew blood from the vessels lying under the tongue or behind the ear by drawing across those tender parts a cord made from the thorn-covered fibres of the agave. The blood was smeared over the mouths of the idols. In this practice we can perceive an act analogous to the sacrificial substitution of the part for the whole, as obtaining in early Palestine and many other countries — a certain sign that tribal or racial opinion has contracted a disgust for human sacrifice, and has sought to evade the anger of the gods by yielding to them a portion of the blood of each worshipper, instead of sacrificing the life of one for the general weal. The Maize'Gods of Mexico A special group of deities called Centeotl presided over the agriculture of Mexico, each of whom per- sonified one or other of the various aspects of the maize-plant. The chief goddess of maize, however, was Chicomecohuatl (Seven-serpent), her name being an allusion to the fertilising power of water, which element the Mexicans symbolised by the serpent. As Xilonen she typified the xilote^ or green ear of the maize. But it is probable that Chicomecohuatl was the creation of an older race, and that the Nahua new-comers adopted or brought with them another growth-spirit, the "Earth-mother," Teteoinnan (Mother of the Gods), or Tocitzin (Our Grandmother). This goddess had a son, Centeotl, a male maize-spirit. Sometimes the mother was also known as Centeotl, the generic name for the MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU entire group, and this fact has led to some confusion in the minds of Americanists. But this does not mean that Chicomecohuatl was by any means neglected. Her spring festival, held on April 5, was known as Hueytozoztli (The Great Watch), and was accompanied by a general fast, when the dwellings of the Mexicans were decorated with bulrushes which had been sprinkled with blood drawn from the extremities of the inmates. The statues of the little tepitoton (household gods) were also decorated. The worshippers then proceeded to the maize-fields, where they pulled the tender stalks of the growing maize, and, having decorated them with flowers, placed them in the calpulli (the common house of the village). A mock combat then took place before the altar ot Chicomecohuatl. The girls of the village presented the goddess with bundles of maize of the previous season's harvesting, later restoring them to the granaries in order that they might be utilised for seed for the coming year. Chicomecohuatl was always represented among the household deities of the Mexicans, and on the occasion of her festival the family placed before the image a basket of provisions sur- mounted by a cooked frog, bearing on its back a piece of cornstalk stuffed with pounded maize and vegetables. This frog was symbolic of Chalchihuitlicue, wife of Tlaloc, the rain-god, who assisted Chicomecohuatl in providing a bountiful harvest. In order that the soil might further benefit, a frog, the symbol of water, was sacrificed, so that its vitality should recuperate that of the weary and much-burdened earth. The Sacrifice of the Dancer A more important festival of Chicomecohuatl, how- ever, was the Xalaquia, which lasted from June 28 to July 14, commencing when the maize plant had attained 86 THE SACRIFICE OF THE DANCER its full growth. The women of the pueblo (village) wore their hair unbound, and shook and tossed it so that by sympathetic magic the maize might take the hint and grow correspondingly long. Chian pinolli was consumed in immense quantities, and maize- porridge was eaten. Hilarious dances were nightly performed in the teopan (temple), the central figure in which was the Xalaquia, a female captive or slave, with face painted red and yellow to represent the colours of the maize-plant. She had previously under- gone a long course of training in the dancing-school, and now, all unaware of the horrible fate awaiting her, she danced and pirouetted gaily among the rest. Throughout the duration of the festival she danced, and on its expiring night she was accompanied in the dance by the women of the community, who circled round her, chanting the deeds of Chicomecohuatl. When daybreak appeared the company was joined by the chiefs and headmen, who, along with the exhausted and half-fainting victim, danced the solemn death-dance. The entire community then approached the teocalli (pyramid of sacrifice), and, its summit reached, the victim was stripped to a nude condition, the priest plunged a knife of flint into her bosom, and, tearing out the still pal- pitating heart, offered it up to Chicomecohuatl. In this manner the venerable goddess, weary with the labours of inducing growth in the maize-plant, was supposed to be revivified and refreshed. Hence the name Xalaquia, which signifies "She who is clothed with the Sand." Until the death of the victim it was not lawful to partake of the new corn. The general appearance of Chicomecohuatl was none too pleasing. Her image rests in the National Museum in Mexico, and is girdled with snakes. On the under- side the symbolic frog is carved. The Americanists 87 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were unequal to the task of elucidating the origin of the figure, which they designated Teoyaominqui. The first to point out the error was Payne, in his History of the New World called America^ vol. i. p. 424. The passage in which he announces his discovery is of such real interest that it is worth transcribing fully. An Antiquarian Mafe*s-Nest " All the great idols of Mexico were thought to have been destroyed until this was disinterred among other relics in the course of making new drains in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico in August 1790. The dis- covery produced an immense sensation. The idol was dragged to the court of the University, and there set up ; the Indians began to worship it and deck it with flowers ; the antiquaries, with about the same degree of intelligence, to speculate about it. What most puzzled them was that the face and some other parts of the goddess are found in duplicate at the back of the figure ; hence they concluded it to represent two gods in one, the principal of whom they further con- cluded to be a female, the other, indicated by the back, a male. The standard author on Mexican antiquities at that time was the Italian dilettante Boturini, of whom it may be said that he is better, but not much better, than nothing at all. From page 27 of his work the antiquaries learned that Huitzilopochtli was accom- panied by the goddess Teoyaominqui, who was charged with collecting the souls of those slain in war and sacrifice. This was enough. The figure was at once named Teoyaominqui or Huitzilopochtli (The One plus the Other), and has been so called ever since. The antiquaries next elevated this imaginary goddess to the rank of the war-god's wife. * A soldier,' says The so-called Teoyaominqui In the National Museum. Mexico Photo C. B. Waite, Mexico AN ANTIQUARIAN MARE'S-NEST Bardolph, ' is better accommodated than with a wife ' : a fortiori^ so is a war-god. Besides, as Torquemada (vol. ii. p. 47) says with perfect truth, the Mexicans did not think so grossly of the divinity as to have married gods or goddesses at all. The figure is undoubtedly a female. It has no vestige of any weapon about it, nor has it any limbs. It differs in every particular from the war-god Huitzilopochtli, every detail of which is perfectly well known. There never was any goddess called Teoyaominqui. This may be plausibly inferred from the fact that such a goddess is unknown not merely to Sahagun, Torque- mada, Acosta, Tezozomoc, Duran, and Clavigero, but to all other writers except Boturini. The blunder of the last-named writer is easily explained. Antonio Leon y Gama, a Mexican astronomer, wrote an account of the discoveries of 1790, in which, evidently puzzled by the name of Teoyaominqui, he quotes a manuscript in Mexican, said to have been written by an Indian of Tezcuco, who was born in 1528, to the effect that Teoyaotlatohua and Teoyaominqui were spirits who presided over the fifteenth of the twenty signs of the fortune-tellers' calendar, and that those born in this sign would be brave warriors, but would soon die. (As the fifteenth sign was quauhtli^ this is likely enough.) When their hour had come the former spirit scented them out, the latter killed them. The rubbish printed about Huitzilopochtli, Teoyaominqui, and Mictlantecutli in connection with this statue would fill a respectable volume. The reason why the features were duplicated is obvious. The figure was carried in the midst of a large crowd. Probably it was considered to be an evil omen if the idol turned away its face from its worshippers ; this the duplicate obviated. So when the dance was performed round the figure {cf. Janus). 89 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU This duplication of the features, a characteristic of the very oldest gods, appears to be indicated when the numeral ome (two) is prefixed to the title of the deity. Thus the two ancestors and preservers of the race were called Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl (two-chief, two- woman), ancient Toltec gods, who at the conquest become less prominent in the theology of Mexico, and who are best represented in that of the Mexican colony of Nicaragua." The Offering to Centeotl During her last hours the victim sacrificed at the Xalaquia wore a ritual dress made from the fibres of the aloe, and with this garment the maize-god Centeotl was clothed. Robed in this he temporarily represented the earth-goddess, so that he might receive her sacri- fice. The blood of victims was offered up to him in a vessel decorated with that brilliant and artistic feather- work which excited such admiration in the breasts of the connoisseurs and Eesthetes of the Europe of the sixteenth century. Upon partaking of this blood- offering the deity emitted a groan so intense and terrifying that it has been left on record that such Spaniards as were present became panic-stricken. This ceremony was followed by another, the nitigapoloa (tasting of the soil), which consisted in raising a little earth on one finger to the mouth and eating it. As has been said, Centeotl the son has been con- founded with Centeotl the mother, who is in reality the earth-mother Teteoinnan. Each of these deities had a teopan (temple) of his or her own, but they were closely allied as parent and child. But of the two, Centeotl the son was the more important. On the death of the sacrificed victim her skin was conveyed to the temple of Centeotl the son, and worn there in the 90 •r o Q D o w ^ ■« W O =1 S ^ i S n! -^ XIPE succeeding ritual by the officiating priests. This grue- some dress is frequently depicted in the Aztec pinturas^ where the skin of the hands, and in some instances the feet, of the victims can be seen dangling from the wrists and ankles of the priest. Importance of the Food'Gods To the Mexicans the deities of most importance to the community as a whole were undoubtedly the food-gods. In their emergence from the hunting to the agricultural state of life, when they began to exist almost solely upon the fruits of the earth, the Mexicans were quick to recognise that the old deities of the chase, such as Mixcoatl, could not now avail them or succour them in the same manner as the guardians of the crops and fertilisers of the soil. Gradually we see these gods, then, advance in power and influence until at the time of the Spanish invasion we find them paramount. Even the terrible war-god himself had an ao-ricultural sigrnificance, as we have pointed out. A distinct bargain with the food-gods can be clearly traced, and is none the less obvious because it was never written or codified. The cove- nant was as binding to the native mind as any made betwixt god and man in ancient Palestine, and in- cluded mutual assistance as well as provision for mere alimentary supply. In no mythology is the under- standing between god and man so clearly defined as in the Nahuan, and in none is its operation better exemplified. Xipe Xipe (The Flayed) was widely worshipped through- out Mexico, and is usually depicted in the pinturas as being attired in a flayed human skin. At hi ; special 9» MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU festival, the " Man-flaying," the skins were removed from the victims and worn by the devotees of the god for the succeeding twenty days. He is usually represented as of a red colour. In the later days of the Aztec monarchy the kings and leaders of Mexico assumed the dress or classical garments of Xipe. This dress consisted of a crown made of feathers of the roseate spoonbill, the gilt timbrel, the jacket of spoonbill feathers, and an apron of green feathers lapping over one another in a tile-like pattern. In the Cozcatzin Codex we see a picture of King Axayacatl dressed as Xipe in a feather skirt, and having a tiger-skin scabbard to his sword. The hands of a flayed human skin also dangle over the monarch's wrists, and the feet fall over his feet like gaiters. Xipe's shield is a round target covered with the rose-coloured feathers of the spoonbill, with concentric circles of a darker hue on the surface. There are examples of it divided into an upper and lower part, the former showing an emerald on a blue field, and the latter a tiger-skin design. Xipe was imagined as pos- sessing three forms, the first that of the roseate spoon- bill, the second that of the blue cotinga, and the last that of a tiger, the three shapes perhaps corresponding to the regions of heaven, earth, and hell, or to the three elements, fire, earth, and water. The deities of many North American Indian tribes show similar variations in form and colour, which are supposed to follow as the divinity changes his dwelling to north, south, east, or west. But Xipe is seldom depicted in the pinturas in any other form but that of the red god, the form in which the Mexicans adopted him from the Yopi tribe of the Pacific slope. He is the god of human sacrifice par excellence^ and may be regarded as a Yopi equivalent of Tezcatlipoca. 92 XOLOTL Nanahuatl, oi* Nanauatzin Nanahuatl (Poor Leper) presided over skin diseases, such as leprosy. It was thought that persons afflicted with these complaints were set apart by the moon for his service. In the Nahua tongue the words for " leprous " and " eczematous " also mean " divine." The myth of Nanahuatl tells how before the sun was created humanity dwelt in sable and horrid gloom. Only a human sacrifice could hasten the appearance of the luminary. Metztli (The Moon) led forth Nanahuatl as a sacrifice, and he was cast upon a funeral pyre, in the flames of which he was consumed. Metztli also cast herself upon the mass of flame, and with her death the sun rose above the horizon. There can be no doubt that the myth refers to the con- suming of the starry or spotted night, and incidentally to the nightly death of the moon at the flaming hour of dawn. Xolotl Xolotl is of southern, possibly Zapotec, origin. He represents either fire rushing down from the heavens or light flaming upward. It is noticeable that in the pinturas the picture of the setting sun being devoured by the earth is nearly always placed opposite his image. He is probably identical with Nanahuatl, and appears as the representative of human sacrifice. He has also affinities with Xipe. On the whole Xolotl may be best described as a sun-god of the more southerly tribes. His head (jjuaxolotl) was one of the most famous devices for warriors' use, as sacrifice among the Nahua was, as we have seen, closely associated with warfare. Xolotl was a mythical figure quite foreign to the peoples of Anahuac or Mexico, who regarded him as something strange and monstrous. He is alluded to as the " God of Monstrosities," and, thinks Dr. Seler, the 93 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU word "monstrosity" may suitably translate his name. He is depicted with empty eye-sockets, which circum- stance is explained by the myth that when the gods determined to sacrifice themselves in order to give life and strength to the newly created sun, Xolotl withdrew, and wept so much that his eyes fell out of their sockets. This was the Mexican explanation of a Zapotec attribute. Xolotl was originally the " Lightning Beast " of the Maya XOLOTL or some other southern folk, and was represented by them as a dog, since that animal appeared to them to be the creature which he most resembled. But he was by no means a "natural" dog, hence their conception of him as unnatural. Dr. Seler is inclined to identify him with the tapir, and indeed Sahagun speaks of a strange animal-being, tlaca-xolotl^ which has " a large snout, large teeth, hoofs like an ox, a thick hide, and reddish hair " — not a .bad description of the tapir of Central America. Of course to the Mexicans the god Xolotl was no longer an animal, although he had evolved from one, and was imagined by them to have the form shown in the accompanying illustration. 94 MICTLAN The Fire-God This deity was known in Mexico under various names, notably Tata (Our Father), Huehueteotl (Oldest of Gods), and Xiuhtecutli (Lord of the Year). He was represented as of the colour of fire, with a black face, a headdress of green feathers, and bearing on his back a yellow serpent, to typify the serpentine nature of fire. He also bore a mirror of gold to show his con- nection with the sun, from which all heat emanates. On rising in the morning all Mexican families made Xiuhtecutli an offering of a piece of bread and a drink. He was thus not only, like Vulcan, the god of thunder- bolts and conflagrations, but also the milder deity of the domestic hearth. Once a year the fire in every Mexican house was extinguished, and rekindled by friction before the idol of Xiuhtecutli. When a Mexican baby was born it passed through a baptism of fire on the fourth day, up to which time a fire, lighted at the time of its birth, was kept burning in order to nourish its existence. Mictlan Mictlantecutli (Lord of Hades) was God of the Dead and of the grim and shadowy realm to which the souls of men repair after their mortal sojourn. He is represented in the pinturas as a grisly monster with capacious mouth, into which fall the spirits of the dead. His terrible abode was sometimes alluded to as Tlalxicco (Navel of the Earth), but the Mexicans in general seem to have thought that it was situated in the far north, which they regarded as a place of famine, desola- tion, and death. Here those who by the circumstances of their demise were unfitted to enter the paradise of Tlaloc — namely, those who had not been drowned or had not died a warrior's death, or, in the case of women, 95 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU had not died in childbed — passed a dreary and mean- ingless existence. Mictlan was surrounded by a species of demons called tzitzimimes, and had a spouse, Micte- caciuatl. When we come to discuss the analogous deity of the Maya we shall see that in all probability Mictlan was represented by the bat, the animal typical of the underworld. In a preceding paragraph dealing with the funerary customs we have described the journey of the soul to the abode of Mictlan, and the ordeals through which the spirit of the defunct had to pass ere entering his realm (see p. 37). Worship of the Planet Venus The Mexicans designated the planet Venus Citlalpol (The Great Star) and Tlauizcalpantecutli (Lord of the Dawn). It seems to have been the only star wor- shipped by them, and was regarded with considerable veneration. Upon its rising they stopped up the chimneys of their houses, so that no harm of any kind might enter with its light. A column called Ilhuicatlan, meaning " In the Sky," stood in the court of the great temple of Mexico, and upon this a symbol of the planet was painted. On its reappearance during its usual circuit, captives were taken before this repre- sentation and sacrificed to it. It will be remembered that the myth of Quetzalcoatl states that the heart of that deity flew upward from the funeral pyre on which he was consumed and became the planet Venus. It is not easy to say whether or not this myth is anterior to the adoption of the worship of the planet by the Nahua, for it may be a tale of pre- or post-Nahuan growth. In the tonalamatl Tlauizcalpantecutli is repre- sented as lord of the ninth division of thirteen days, beginning with Ce Coatl (the sign of " One Serpent "). In several of the pin^uras he is represented as having a 96 [SUN' WORSHIP white body with long red stripes, while round his eyes is a deep black painting like a domino mask, bordered with small white circles. His lips are a bright ver- milion. The red stripes are probably introduced to accentuate the whiteness of his body, which is under- stood to symbolise the peculiar half-light which ema- nates from the planet. The black paint on the face, surrounding the eye, typifies the dark sky of night. In Mexican and Central American symbolism the eye often represents light, and here, surrounded by blackness as it is, it is perhaps almost hieroglyphic. As the star of evening, Tlauizcalpantecutli is some- times shown with the face of a skull, to signify his descent into the underworld, whither he follows the sun. That the Mexicans and Maya carefully and accu- rately observed his periods of revolution is witnessed by the pinturas. Suri'Worship The sun was regarded by the Nahua, and indeed by all the Mexican and Central American peoples, as the supreme deity, or rather the principal source of subsistence and life. He was always alluded to as the teotl^ the god, and his worship formed as it were a background to that of all the other gods. His Mexican name, Ipalnemohuani (He by whom Men Live) shows that the Mexicans regarded him as the primal source of being, and the heart, the symbol of life, was looked upon as his special sacrifice. Those who rose at sun- rise to prepare food for the day held up to him on his appearance the hearts of animals they had slain for cooking, and even the hearts of the victims to Tezcat- lipoca and Huitzilopochtli were first held up to the sun, as if he had a primary right to the sacrifice, before being cast into the bowl of copal which lay at the feet 9 97 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU of the idol. It was supposed that the luminary rejoiced in offerings of blood, and that it constituted the only- food which would render him sufficiently vigorous to undertake his daily journey through the heavens. He is often depicted in the pinturas as licking up the gore of the sacrificial victims with his long tongue-like rays. The sun must fare well if he was to continue to give life, light, and heat to mankind. The Mexicans, as we have already seen, believed that the luminary they knew had been preceded by others, each of which had been quenched by some awful cataclysm of nature. Eternity had, in fact, been broken up into epochs, marked by the destruction of succes- sive suns. In the period preceding that in which they lived, a mighty deluge had deprived the sun of life, and some such catastrophe was apprehended at the end of every " sheaf" of fifty-two years. The old suns were dead, and the current sun was no more immortal than they. At the end of one of the " sheaves " he too would succumb. Sustaining the Sun It was therefore necessary to sustain the sun by the daily food of human sacrifice, for by a tithe of human life alone would he be satisfied. Naturally a people hold- ing such a belief would look elsewhere than within their own borders for the material wherewith to placate their deity. This could be most suitably found among the inhabitants of a neighbouring state. It thus became the business of the warrior class in the Aztec state to furnish forth the altars of the gods with human victims. The most suitable district of supply was the pueblo of Tlaxcallan, or Tlascala, the people of which were of cognate origin to the Aztecs. The communities had, although related, been separated for so many genera- 98 u 5 s 3 SUSTAINING THE SUN tions that they had begun to regard each other as traditional enemies, and on a given day in the year their forces met at an appointed spot for the purpose of engaging in a strife which should furnish one side or the other with a sufficiency of victims for the pur- pose of sacrifice. The warrior who captured the largest number of opponents alive was regarded as the champion of the day, and was awarded the chief honours of the combat. The sun was therefore the god of warriors, as he would give them victory in battle in order that they might supply him with food. The rites of this military worship of the luminary were held in the Quauhquauhtinchan (House of the Eagles), an armoury set apart for the regiment of that name. On March 17 and December i and 2, at the ceremonies known as NauhoUin (The Four Motions — alluding to the quivering appearance of the sun's rays), the warriors gathered in this hall for the purpose of despatching 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 hang- ing. 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 Quauhxicalli (Cup of the Eagles), the name of 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 99 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU 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 this 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 despatched upon his long journey. A Quauhxicalli is preserved in the National Museum of Mexico. It consists of a basaltic mass, circular in form, on which are shown in sculpture a series of groups representing Mexican warriors receiving the submission of war-captives. The prisoner tenders a flower to his captor, symbolical of the life he is about to offer up, for lives were the " flowers " offered to the gods, and the campaign in which these " blossoms " were captured was called Xochiyayotl (The War of Flowers). The warriors who receive the submission of the captives are represented in the act of tearing the plumes from their heads. These bas-reliefs occupy the sides of the stone. The face of it is covered by a great solar disc having eight rays, and the surface is hollowed out in the middle to form a receptacle for blood — the " cup " alluded to in the name of the stone. The Quauhxicalli must not be confounded with the temalacatl (spindle stone), to which the alien warrior who received a chance of life was secured. The gladiatorial combat gave the war-captive an opportunity to escape through superior adciress in arms. The temalacatl w^s somewhat higher than a man, and was provided with a platform at the top, in the middle of which was placed a great stone with a hole in it through which a rope was passed. To this the war-captive was secured, and if he could vanquish seven of his captors he was released. If he failed to do so he was at once sacrificed. lOO THE FEAST OF TOTEC A Mexican Valhalla The Mexican warriors believed that they continued in the service of the sun after death, and, like the Scandinavian heroes in Valhalla, that they were admitted to the dwelling of the god, where they shared all the delights of his diurnal round. The Mexican warrior dreaded to die in his bed, and craved an end on the field of battle. This explains the desperate nature of their resistance to the Spaniards under Cortes, whose officers stated that the Mexicans seemed to desire to die fighting. After death they believed that they would partake of the cannibal feasts oflFered up to the sun and imbibe the juice of flowers. The Feast of Totec The chief of the festivals to the sun was that held in spring at the vernal equinox, before the representa- tion of a deity known as Totec (Our Great Chief). Although Totec was a solar deity he had been adopted from the people of an alien state, the Zapotecs of Zalisco, and is therefore scarcely to be regarded as the principal sun-god. His festival was celebrated by the symbolical slaughter of all the other gods for the pur- pose of providing sustenance to the sun, each of the gods being figuratively slain in the person of a victim. Totec was attired in the same manner as the warrior despatched twice a year to assure the sun of the loyalty of the Mexicans. The festival appears to have been primarily a seasonal one, as bunches of dried maize were offered to Totec. But its larger meaning is obvious. It was, indeed, a commemoration of the creation of the sun. This is proved by the description of the image of Totec, which was robed and equipped as the solar traveller, by the solar disc and tables of the sun's lOI MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU progress carved on the altar employed In the ceremony, and by the robes of the victims, who were dressed to represent dwellers in the sun-god's halls. Perhaps Totec, although of alien origin, was the only deity possessed by the Mexicans who directly represented the sun. As a borrowed god he would have but a minor position in the Mexican pantheon, but again as the only sun-god whom it was necessary to bring into prominence during a strictly solar festival he would be for the time, of course, a very important deity indeed. Tepeyollotl Tepeyollotl means Heart of the Mountain, and evidently alludes to a deity whom the Nahua con- nected with seismic disturbances and earthquakes. By the interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis he is called Tepeolotlec, an obvious distortion of his real name. The interpreter of the codex states that his name " refers to the condition of the earth after the flood. The sacrifices of these thirteen days were not good, and the literal translation of their name is ' dirt sacrifices.' They caused palsy and bad humours. . . . This Tepeolotlec was lord of these thirteen days. In them were celebrated the feast to the jaguar, and the last four preceding days were days of fasting. . . . Tepeolotlec means the * Lord of Beasts.' The four feast days were in honour of the Suchiquezal, who was the man that remained behind on the earth upon which we now live. This Tepeolotlec was the same as the echo of the voice when it re-echoes in a valley from one mountain to another. This name *jaguar ' is given to the earth because the jaguar is the boldest animal, and the echo which the voice awakens in the mountains is a survival of the flood, it is said." I02 FATHER AND MOTHER GODS From this we can see that Tepeyollotl is a deity of the earth pure and simple, a god of desert places. It is certain that he was not a Mexican god, or at least was not of Nahua origin, as he is mentioned by none of those writers who deal with Nahua traditions, and we must look for him among the Mixtecs and Zapotecs. MacuilxochitI, or Xochipilli This deity, whose names mean Five-Flower and Source of Flowers, was regarded as the patron of luck in gaming. He may have been adopted by the Nahua from the Zapotecs, but the converse may be equally true. The Zapotecs represented him with a design re- sembling a butterfly about the mouth, and a many- coloured face which looks out of the open jaws of a bird with a tall and erect crest. The worship of this god appears to have been very widespread. Sahagun says of him that a fete was held in his honour, which was preceded by a rigorous fast. The people covered themselves with ornaments and jewels symbolic of the deity, as if they desired to represent him, and dancing and singing proceeded gaily to the sound of the drum. Offerings of the blood of various animals followed, and specially prepared cakes were submitted to the god. This simple fare, however, was later followed by human sacrifices, rendered by the notables, who brought certain of their slaves for immolation. This completed the festival. Father and Mother Gods The Nahua believed that Ometecutli and Omeciuatl were the father and mother of the human species. The names signify Lords of Duality or Lords of the Two Sexes. They were also called Tonacatecutli and Tona- 103 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU caciuatl (Lord and Lady of Our Flesh, or of Subsistence). They were in fact regarded as the sexual essence of the creative deity, or perhaps more correctly of deity in general. They occupied the first place in the Nahua calendar, to signify that they had existed from the beginning, and they are usually represented as being clothed in rich attire. Ometecutli (a literal translation of his name is Two-Lord) is sometimes identified with the sky and the fire-god, the female deity represent- ing the earth or water — conceptions similar to those respecting Kronos and Gaea. We refer again to these supreme divinities in the following chapter (see p. 1 1 8). The Pulque'Gods When a man was intoxicated with the native Mexican drink of pulque^ a liquor made from the juice of the Agave Americana^ he was believed to be under the influence of a god or spirit. The commonest form under which the drink-god was worshipped was the rabbit, that animal being considered to be utterly devoid of sense. This particular divinity was known as Ome- tochtli. The scale of debauchery which it was desired to reach was indicated by the number of rabbits wor- shipped, the highest number, four hundred, represent- ing the most extreme degree of intoxication. The chief pulque-go&s apart from these were Patecatl and Tequechmecauiani. If the drunkard desired to escape the perils of accidental hanging during intoxication, it was necessary to sacrifice to the latter, but if death by drowning was apprehended Teatlahuiani, the deity who harried drunkards to a watery grave, was placated. If the debauchee wished his punishment not to exceed a headache, Quatlapanqui (The Head-splitter) was sacrificed to, or else Papaztac (The Nerveless). Each 104 THE PULQUE-GODS trade or profession had its own Ometochtli, but for the aristocracy there was only one of these gods, Cohuatzincatl, a name signifying " He who has Grand- parents." Several of these drink-gods had names which connected them with various localities ; for example, Tepoxtecatl was the pulque-god of Tepoztlan. The calendar day Ometochtli, which means "Two-Rabbit," because of the symbol which accompanied it, was under the special protection of these gods, and the Mexicans believed that any one born on that day was almost inevitably doomed to become a drunkard. All the pulque-gods were closely associated with the soil, and with the earth-goddess. They wore the golden Huaxtec nose-ornament, the yaca-metztli, of crescent shape, which characterised the latter, and indeed this ornament was inscribed upon all articles sacred to the pulque-gods. Their faces were painted red and black, as were objects consecrated to them, their blankets and shields. After the Indians had harvested their maize they drank to intoxication, and invoked one or other of these gods. On the whole it is safe to infer that they were originally deities of local husbandry who imparted virtue to the soil ViS pulque imparted strength and courage to the warrior. The accompanying sketch of the god Tepoxtecatl (see p. 117) well illustrates the distinguish- ing characteristics of the pulque-god class. Here we can observe the face painted in two colours, the crescent-shaped nose-ornament, the bicoloured shield, the long necklace made from the malinalU herb, and the ear-pendants. It is of course clear that the drink-gods were of the same class as the food-gocis — patrons of the fruitful soil — but it is strange that they should be male whilst the food-gods are mostly female. 105 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU The Goddesses of Mexico: Metztli Metztli, or Yohualticitl (The Lady of Night), was the Mexican goddess of the moon. She had in reality two phases, one that of a beneficent protectress of harvests and promoter of growth in general, and the other that of a bringer of dampness, cold, and miasmic airs, ghosts, mysterious shapes of the dim half-light of night and its oppressive silence. To a people in the agricultural stage of civilisation the moon appears as the great recorder of harvests. But she has also supremacy over water, which is always con- nected by primitive peoples with the moon. Citatli (Moon) and Atl (Water) are constantly confounded in Nahua myth, and in many ways their characteristics were blended. It was Metztli who led forth Nanahuatl the Leprous to the pyre whereon he perished — a reference to the dawn, in which the starry sky of night is consumed in the fires of the rising sun. Tlazolteotl Tlazolteotl (God of Ordure), or Tlaelquani (Filth- eater), was called by the Mexicans the earth-goddess because she was the eradicator of sins, to whose priests the people went to make confession so that they might be absolved from their misdeeds. Sin was symbolised by the Mexicans as excrement. Confession covered only the sins of immorality. But if Tlazolteotl was the goddess of confession, she was also the patroness of desire and luxury. It was, however, as a deity whose chief office was the eradication of human sin that she was pre-eminent. The process by which this was sup- posed to be effected is quaintly described by Sahagun in the twelfth chapter of his first book. The penitent addressed the confessor as follows : " Sir, I desire to 1 06 The Penitent addressing the Fire William Sewell 1 06 TLAZOLTEOTL approach that most powerful god, the protector of all, that is to say, Tezcatlipoca. I desire to tell him my sins in secret." The confessor replied: "Be happy, my son : that which thou wishest to do will be to thy good and advantage." The confessor then opened the divinatory book known as the Tonalamatl (that is, the Book of the Calendar) and acquainted the applicant with the day which appeared the most suitable for his con- fession. The day having arrived, the penitent provided himself with a mat, copal gum to burn as incense, and wood whereon to burn it. If he was a person high in office the priest repaired to his house, but in the case of lesser people the confession took place in the dwelling or the priest. Having lighted the fire and burned the incense, the penitent addressed the fire in the following terms : " Thou, lord, who art the father and mother of the gods, and the most ancient of them all, thy servant, thy slave bows before thee. Weeping, he approaches thee in great distress. He comes plunged in grief, because he has been buried in sin, having backslidden, and partaken of those vices and evil delights which merit death. O master most compas- sionate, who art the upholder and defence of all, receive the penitence and anguish of thy slave and vassal." This prayer having concluded, the confessor then turned to the penitent and thus addressed him : " My son, thou art come into the presence of that god who is the protector and upholder of all ; thou art come to him to confess thy evil vices and thy hidden unclean- nesses ; thou art come to him to unbosom the secrets of thy heart. Take care that thou omit nothing from the catalogue of thy sins in the presence of our lord who is called Tezcatlipoca. It is certain that thou art before him who is invisible and impalpable, thou who art not worthy to be seen before him, or to speak with him. . . ." 107 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU The allusions to Tezcatllpoca are, of course, to him in the shape of Tlazolteotl. Having listened to a sermon by the confessor, the penitent then confessed his misdeeds, afteHwhich the confessor said : " My son, thou hast before our lord god confessed in his presence thy evil actions. 1 wish to say in his name that thou hast an obligation to make. At the time when the goddesses called Ciuapipiltin descend to earth during the celebration of the feast of the goddesses of carnal things, whom they name Ixcuiname, thou shalt fast during four days, punishing thy stomach and thy mouth. When the day of the feast of the Ixcuiname arrives thou shalt scarify thy tongue with the small thorns of the osier [called teocakacatl or tlazotl]^ and if that is not sufficient thou shalt do likewise to thine ears, the whole for penitence, for the remission of thy sin, and as a meritorious act. Thou wilt apply to thy tongue the middle of a spine of maguey, and thou wilt scarify thy shoulders. . . . That done, thy sins will be pardoned." If the sins of the penitent were not very grave the priest would enjoin upon him a fast of a more or less prolonged nature. Only old men confessed crimes in veneribus, as the punishment for such was death, and younger men had no desire to risk the penalty involved, although the priests were enjoined to strict secrecy. Father Burgoa describes very fully a ceremony of this kind which came under his notice in 1652 in the Zapotec village of San Francisco de Cajonos. He en- countered on a tour of inspection an old native cacique^ or chief, of great refinement of manners and of a stately presence, who dressed in costly garments after the Spanish fashion, and who was regarded by the Indians with much veneration. This man came to the priest for the purpose of reporting upon the progress in 108 TLAZOLTEOTL things spiritual and temporal in his village. Burgoa recognised his urbanity and wonderful command of the Spanish language, but perceived by certain signs that he had been taught to look for by long experience that the man was a pagan. He communicated his suspicions to the vicar of the village, but met with such assurances of the cacique s soundness of faith that he believed himself to be in error for once. Shortly afterwards, however, a wandering Spaniard perceived the chief in a retired place in the mountains performing idolatrous ceremonies, and aroused the monks, two of whom accompanied him to the spot where the cacique had been seen indulging in his heathenish practices. They found on the altar " feathers of many colours, sprinkled with blood which the Indians had drawn from the veins under their tongues and behind their ears, incense spoons and remains of copal, and in the middle a horrible stone figure, which was the god to whom they had offered this sacrifice in expiation of their sins, while they made their confessions to the blasphemous priests, and cast off" their sins in the following manner : they had woven a kind of dish out of a strong herb, specially gathered for this purpose, and casting this before the priest, said to him that they came to beg mercy of their god, and pardon for their sins that they had committed during that year, and that they brought them all carefully enumerated. They then drew out of a cloth pairs of thin threads made of dry maize husks, that they had tied two by two in the middle with a knot, by which they represented their sins. They laid these threads on the dishes of grass, and over them pierced their veins, and let the blood trickle upon them, and the priest took these offerings to the idol, and in a long speech he begged the god to forgive these, his sons, their sins which were brought to him, and to permit 109 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU them to be joyful and hold feasts to him as their god and lord. Then the priest came back to those who had confessed, delivered a long discourse on the ceremonies they had still to perform, and told them that the god had pardoned them and that they might be glad again and sin anew." Chalchihuitlicue This goddess was the wife of Tlaloc, the god of rain and moisture. The name; means Lady of the Emerald Robe, in allusion to the colour of the element over which the deity partly presided. She was specially worshipped by the water-carriers of Mexico, and all those whose avocation brought them into contact with water. Her costume was peculiar and interesting. Round her neck she wore a wonderful collar of precious stones, from which hung a gold pendant. She was crowned with a coronet of blue paper, decorated with green feathers. Her eyebrows were of turquoise, set in as mosaic, and her garment was a nebulous blue-green in hue, recalling the tint of sea- water in the tropics. The resemblance was heightened by a border of sea-flowers or water-plants, one of which she also carried in her left hand, whilst in her right she bore a vase surmounted by a cross, emblematic of the four points of the compass whence comes the rain. Mixcoatl Mixcoatl was the Aztec god of the chase, and was probably a deity of the Otomi aborigines of Mexico. The name means Cloud Serpent, and this originated the idea that Mixcoatl was a representation of the tropical whirlwind. This is scarcely correct, however, as the hunter-god is identified with the tempest and thunder-cloud, and the lightning is supposed to no Cloud Serpent, the Hunter-God Gilbert James CAMAXTLI represent his arrows. Like many other gods of the chase, he is figured as having the characteristics of a deer or rabbit. He is usually depicted as carrying a sheaf of arrows, to typify thunderbolts. It may be that Mixcoatl was an air and thunder deity of the Otomi, older in origin than either Quetzalcoatl or Tezcatlipoca, and that his inclusion in the Nahua pantheon becoming necessary in order to quieten Nahua susceptibilities, he received the status of god of the chase. But, on the other hand, the Mexicans, unlike the Peruvians, who adopted many foreign gods for political purposes, had little regard for the feelings of other races, and only accepted an alien deity into the native circle for some good reason, most probably because they noted the omission of the figure in their own divine system. Or, again, dread of a certain foreign god might force them to adopt him as their own in the hope of placating him. Their worship of Quetzalcoatl is perhaps an instance of this. Camaxtli This deity was the war-god of the Tlascalans, who were constantly in opposition to the Aztecs of Mexico. He was to the warriors of Tlascala practically what Huitzilopochtli was to those of Mexico. He was closely identified with Mixcoatl, and with the god of the morning star, whose colours are depicted on his face and body. But in all probability Camaxtli was a god of the chase, who in later times was adopted as a god of war because of his possession of the lightning dart, the symbol of divine warlike prowess. In the mythologies of North America we find similar hunter- gods, who sometimes evolve into gods of war for a like reason, and again gods of the chase who have all the appearance and attributes of the creatures hunted. Ill MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU Ixtlilton Ixtlilton (The Little Black One) was the Mexican god of medicine and healing, and therefore was often alluded to as the brother of Macuilxochitl, the god of well-being or good luck. From the account of the general appearance of his temple — an edifice of painted boards — it would seem to have evolved from the primitive tent or lodge of the medicine-man, or shaman. It contained several water-jars called ////<^// (black water), the contents of which were administered to children in bad health. The parents of children who benefited from the treatment bestowed a feast on the deity, whose idol was carried to the residence of the grateful father, where ceremonial dances and oblations were made before it. It was then thought that Ixtlilton descended to the courtyard to open fresh jars oi pulque liquor pro- vided for the feasters, and the entertainment concluded by an examination by the Aztec -/Esculapius of such of \\\Q. pulque ]2ir^ dedicated to his service as stood in the courtyard for everyday use. Should these be found in an unclean condition, it was understood that the master of the house was a man of evil life, and he was presented by the priest with a mask to hide his face from his scoffing friends. OmacatI Omacatl was the Mexican god of festivity and joy. The name signifies Two Reeds. He was worshipped chiefly by bon-vivants and the rich, who celebrated him in splendid feasts and orgies. The idol of the deity was invariably placed in the chamber where these functions were to take place, and the Aztecs were known to regard it as a heinous offence if anything derogatory to the god were performed during the con- 112 OPOCHTLI vivial ceremony, or if any omission were made from the prescribed form which these gatherings usually took. It was thought that if the host had been in any way remiss Omacatl would appear to the startled guests, and in tones of great severity up- braid him who had given the feast, intimating that he would regard him no longer as a worshipper and would henceforth abandon him. A terrible malady, the symptoms of which were akin to those of falling- sickness, would shortly afterwards seize the guests ; but as such symptoms are not unhke those connected with acute indigestion and other gastric troubles, it is probable that the gourmets who paid homage to the god of good cheer may have been suffering from a too strenuous instead of a lukewarm worship of him. But the idea of communion which under- lay so many of the Mexican rites undoubtedly entered into the worship of Omacatl, for prior to a banquet in his honour those who took part in it formed a great bone out of maize paste, pretending that it was one of the bones of the deity whose merry rites they were about to engage in. This they devoured, washing it down with great draughts oi pulque. The idol of Omacatl was provided with a recess in the region of the stomach, and into this provisions were stuffed. He was represented as a squatting figure, painted black and white, crowned with a paper coronet, and hung with coloured paper. A flower-fringed cloak and sceptre were the other symbols of royalty worn by this Mexican Dionysus. Opochtli Opochtli (The Left-handed) was the god sacred to fishers and bird-catchers. At one period of Aztec history he must have been a deity of considerable H 113 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU consequence, since for generations the Aztecs were marsh-dwellers and depended for their daily food on the fish netted in the lakes and the birds snared in the reeds. They credited the god with the invention of the harpoon or trident for spearing fish and the fishing-rod and bird-net. The fishermen and bird- catchers of Mexico held on occasion a special feast in honour of Opochtli, at which a certain liquor called octli was consumed. A procession was afterwards formed, in which marched old people who had dedicated themselves to the worship of the god, probably because they could obtain no other means of subsistence than that afforded by the vocation of which he was tutelar and patron. He was represented as a man painted black, his head decorated with the plumes of native wild birds, and crowned by a paper coronet in the shape of a rose. He was clad in green paper which fell to the knee, and was shod with white sandals. In his left hand he held a shield painted red, having in the centre a white flower with four petals placed crosswise, and in his right hand he held a sceptre in the form of a cup. Yacatccutli Yacatecutli was the patron of travellers of the merchant class, who worshipped him by piling their staves together and sprinkling on the heap blood from their noses and ears. The staff of the traveller was his symbol, to which prayer was made and offerings of flowers and incense tendered. The Aztec Priesthood The Aztec priesthood was a hierarchy in whose hands resided a goodly portion of the power of the upper classes, especially that connected with education and 114 Mexican Goddess Photo C. B Waite. Mexico 114 EDUCATION endowment. The mere fact that its members possessed the power of selecting victims for sacrifice must have been sufficient to place them in an almost unassailable position, and their prophetic utterances, founded upon the art of divination — so great a feature in the life of the Aztec people, who depended upon it from the cradle to the grave — probably assisted them in main- taining their hold upon the popular imagination. But withal the evidence of unbiased Spanish ecclesiastics, such as Sahagun, tends to show that they utilised their influence for good, and soundly instructed the people under their charge in the cardinal virtues ; " in short," says the venerable friar, " to perform the duties plainly pointed out by natural religion." Priestly Revenues The establishment of the national religion was, as in the case of the mediaeval Church in Europe, based upon a land tenure from which the priestly class derived a substantial though, considering their numbers, by no means inordinate revenue. The principal temples possessed lands which sufficed for the maintenance of the priests attached to them. There was, besides, a system of first-fruits fixed by law for the priesthood, the surplusage therefrom being distributed among the poor. Education Education was entirely conducted by the priest- hood, which undertook the task in a manner highly creditable to it, when consideration is given to sur- rounding conditions. Education was, indeed, highly organised. It was divided into primary and secondary grades. Boys were instructed by priests, girls by holy women or " nuns." The secondary schools "5 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU were called caJmecac^ and were devoted to the higher branches of education, the curriculum including the deciphering of the pinturas^ or manuscripts, astrology and divination, with a wealth of religious instruction. Orders of the Priesthood At the head of the Aztec priesthood stood the Mexicatl Teohuatzin (Mexican Lord of Divine Matters). He had a seat on the emperor's council, and possessed power which was second only to the royal authority. Next in rank to him was the high- priest of Quetzalcoatl, who dwelt in almost entire seclusion, and who had authority over his own caste only. This office was in all probability a relic from " Toltec " times. The priests of Quetzalcoatl were called by name after their tutelar deity. The lesser grades included the Tlenamacac (Ordinary Priests), who were habited in black, and wore their hair long, covering it with a kind of mantilla. The lowest order was that of the Lamacazton (Little Priests), youths who were graduating in the priestly office. An Exacting Ritual The priesthood enjoyed no easy existence, but led an austere life of fasting, penance, and prayer, with constant observance of an arduous and exacting ritual, which em- braced sacrifice, the upkeep of perpetual fires, the chanting of holy songs to the gods, dances, and the superintend- ence of the ever-recurring festivals. They were re- quired to rise during the night to render praise, and to maintain themselves in a condition of absolute cleanli- ness by means of constant ablutions. We have seen that blood-offering — the substitution of the part for the whole — was a common method of sacrifice, and in this the priests engaged personally on frequent occa- ii6 AN EXACTING RITUAL sions. If the caste did not spare the people it certainly did not spare itself, and its outlook was perhaps only a shade more gloomy and fanatical than that of the Spanish hierarchy which succeeded it in the land. Tkpoxtecatl "7 CHAPTER III : MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE ANCIENT MEXICANS The Mexican Idea of the Creation " T N the year and in the day of the clouds," writes I Garcia in his Origin de los Indias, professing A to furnish the reader with a translation of an original Mixtec picture-manuscript, " before ever were years or days, the world lay in darkness. All things were orderless, and a water covered the slime and ooze that the earth then was." This picture is common to almost all American creation-stories.^ The red man in general believed the habitable globe to have been created from the slime which arose above the primeval waters, and there can be no doubt that the Nahua shared this belief. We encounter in Nahua myth two beings of a bisexual nature, known to the Aztecs as Ometecutli-Omeciuatl (Lords of Duality), who were represented as the deities dominating the genesis of things, the beginning of the world. We have already become acquainted with them in Chapter II (see p. 104), but we may recapitulate. These beings, whose individual names were Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciuatl (Lord and Lady of our Flesh), occupy the first place in the calendar, a circumstance which makes It plain that they were regarded as responsible for the origin of all created things. They were invariably repre- sented as being clothed in rich, variegated garments, symbolical of light. Tonacatecutli, the male principle of creation or world-generation, is often identified with the sun- or fire-god, but there is no reason to consider him as symbolical of anything but the sky. The firmament is almost universally regarded by American ' See the author's article on "American Creation-Myths" in the Encyclopa'dia of Religion and Ethic s, vol. iv, 1x8 IXTLILXOCHITL'S CREATION-LEGEND aboriginal peoples as the male principle of the cosmos, in contradistinction to the earth, which they think of as possessing feminine attributes, and which is un- doubtedly personified in this instance by Tonacaciuatl. In North American Indian myths we find the Father Sky brooding upon the Mother Earth, just as in early Greek creation-story we see the elements uniting, the firmament impregnating the soil and rendering it fruitful. To the savage mind the growth of crops and vegetation proceeds as much from the sky as from the earth. Untutored man beholds the fecundation of the soil by rain, and, seeing in everything the expression of an individual and personal impulse, regards the genesis of vegetable growth as analogous to human origin. To him, then, the sky is the life-giving male principle, the fertilising seed of which descends in rain. The earth is the receptive element which hatches that with which the sky has impregnated her. Ixtlilxochitl's Legend of the Creation One of the most complete creation-stories in Mexican mythology is that given by the half-blood Indian author Ixtlilxochitl, who, we cannot doubt, received it directly from native sources. He states that the Toltecs credited a certain Tloque Nahuaque (Lord of All Existence) with the creation of the universe, the stars, mountains, and animals. At the same time he made the first man and woman, from whom all the inhabitants of the earth are descended. This "first earth" was destroyed by the "water-sun." At the commencement of the next epoch the Toltecs appeared, and after many wanderings settled in Huehue Tlapallan (Very Old Tlapallan). Then followed the second catastrophe, that of the "wind-sun." The remainder of the legend recounts how mighty earthquakes shook the world and destroyed 119 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU the earth-giants. These earth-giants (Quinames) were analogous to the Greek Titans, and were a source of great uneasiness to the Toltecs. In the opinion of the old historians they were descended from the races who inhabited the more northerly portion of Mexico. Creatiori'Story of the Mixtecs It will be well to return for a moment to the creation- story of the Mixtecs, which, if emanating from a some- what isolated people in the extreme south of the Mexican Empire, at least affords us a vivid picture of what a folk closely related to the Nahua race regarded as a veritable account of the creative process. When the earth had arisen from the primeval waters, one day the deer-god, who bore the surname Puma-Snake, and the beautiful deer-goddess, or Jaguar-Snake, appeared. They had human form, and with their great knowledge (that is, with their magic) they raised a high cliff over the water, and built on it fine palaces for their dwelling. On the summit of this cliff they laid a copper axe with the edge upward, and on this edge the heavens rested. The palaces stood in Upper Mixteca, close to Apoala, and the cliff was called Place where the Heavens Stood. The gods lived happily together for many centuries, when it chanced that two little boys were born to them, beautiful of form and skilled and experienced in the arts. From the days of their birth they were named Wind-Nine-Snake (Viento de Neuve Culebras) and Wind-Nine-Cave (Viento de Neuve Cavernas). Much care was given to their education, and they possessed the knowledge of how to change themselves into an eagle or a snake, to make themselves invisible, and even to pass through solid bodies. After a time these youthful gods decided to make 1 20 Place where the Heavens Stood " William SewL-ll ZAPOTEC CREATION-MYTH an offering and a sacrifice to their ancestors. Taking incense vessels made of clay, they filled them with tobacco, to which they set fire, allowing it to smoulder. The smoke rose heavenward, and that was the first offering (to the gods). Then they made a garden with shrubs and flowers, trees and fruit-bearing plants, and sweet-scented herbs. Adjoining this they made a grass- grown level place {un prado)^ and equipped it with everything necessary for sacrifice. The pious brothers lived contentedly on this piece of ground, tilled it, burned tobacco, and with prayers, vows, and promises they supplicated their ancestors to let the light appear, to let the water collect in certain places and the earth be freed from its covering (water), for they had no more than that little garden for their subsistence. In order to strengthen their prayer they pierced their ears and their tongues with pointed knives of flint, and sprinkled the blood on the trees and plants with a brush of willow twigs. The deer-gods had more sons and daughters, but there came a flood in which many of these perished. After the catastrophe was over the god who is called the Creator of All Things formed the heavens and the earth, and restored the human race. Zapotcc Creation'Myth Among the Zapotecs, a people related to the Mixtecs, we find a similar conception of the creative process. Cozaana is mentioned as the creator and maker of all beasts in the valuable Zapotec dictionary of Father Juan de Cordova, and Huichaana as the creator of men and fishes. Thus we have two separate creations for men and animals. Cozaana would appear to apply to the sun as the creator of all beasts, but, strangely enough, is alluded to in Cordova's dictionary as 121 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU " procreatrix," whilst he is undoubtedly a male deity. Huichaana, the creator of men and fishes, is, on the other hand, alluded to as "water," or " the element of water," and " goddess of generation." She is certainly the Zapotec female part of the creative agency. In the Mixtec creation-myth we can see the actual creator and the first pair of tribal gods, who were also considered the progenitors of animals — to the savage equal inhabi- tants of the world with himself. The names of the brothers Nine-Snake and Nine-Cave undoubtedly allude to light and darkness, day and night. It may be that these deities are the same as Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl (the latter a Zapotec deity), who were regarded as twins. In some ways Quetzalcoatl was looked upon as a creator, and in the Mexican calendar followed the Father and Mother, or original sexual deities, being placed in the second section as the creator of the world and man. The Mexican Noah Flood-myths, curiously enough, are of more common occurrence among the Nahua and kindred peoples than creation-myths. The Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg has translated one from the Codex Chimalpopoca, a work in Nahuatl dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century. It recounts the doings of the Mexican Noah and his wife as follows : " And this year was that of Ce-calli, and on the first day all was lost. The mountain itself was sub- merged in the water, and the water remained tranquil for fifty-two springs. " Now toward the close of the year Titlacahuan had forewarned the man named Nata and his wife Nena, saying, ' Make no more pulque^ but straightway hollow out a large cypress, and enter it when in the month Tozoztli the water shall approach the sky.' They 122 A Flood-Myth of the Nahua William Sewell THE SACRIFICED PRINCESS entered it, and when Titlacahuan had closed the door he said, ' Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.' "As soon as they had finished eating, they went forth, and the water was tranquil ; for the log did not move any more ; and opening it they saw many fish. " Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish. The gods Citallinicue and Citallatonac, looking below, exclaimed, 'Divine Lord, what means that fire below ? Why do they thus smoke the heavens ? ' " Straightway descended Titlacahuan - Tezcatlipoca, and commenced to scold, saying, * What is this fire doing here ? ' And seizing the fishes he moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at once transformed into dogs." The Myth of the Seven Caverns But other legends apart from the creation-stories of the world pure and simple deal with the origin of mankind. The Aztecs believed that the first men emerged from a place known as Chicomoztoc (The Seven Caverns), located north of Mexico. Various writers have seen in these mythic recesses the fabulous " seven cities of Cibola " and the Casas Grandes, ruins of extensive character in the valley of the river Gila, and so forth. But the allusion to the magical number seven in the myth demonstrates that the entire story is purely imaginary and possesses no basis of fact. A similar story occurs among the myths of the Kiche of Guatemala and the Peruvians. The Sacrificed Princess Coming to semi-historical times, we find a variety of legends connected with the early story of the city of 123 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU Mexico. These for the most part are of a weird and gloomy character, and throw much light on the dark fanaticism of a people which could immolate its children on the altars of implacable gods. It is told how after ' the Aztecs had built the city of Mexico they raised an altar to their war-god Huitzilopochtli. In general the lives rendered to this most sanguinary of deities were those of prisoners of war, but in times of public calamity he demanded the sacrifice of the noblest in the land. On one occasion his oracle required that a royal princess should be offered on the high altar. The Aztec king, either possessing no daughters of his own or hesitating to sacrifice them, sent an embassy to the monarch of Colhuacan to ask for one of his daughters to become the symbolical mother of Huitzilopochtli. The King of Colhuacan, suspecting nothing amiss, and highly flattered at the distinction, delivered up the girl, who was escorted to Mexico, where she was sacrificed with much pomp, her skin being flayed off to clothe the priest who represented the deity in the festival. The unhappy father was invited to this hideous orgy, ostensibly to witness his daughter's deification. In the gloomy chambers of the war-god's temple he was at first unable to mark the trend of the horrid ritual. But, given a torch of copal-gum, he saw the officiating priest clothed in his daughter's skin, receiving the homage of the worshippers. Recognising her features, and demented with grief and horror, he fled from the temple, a broken man, to spend the remainder of his days in mourning for his murdered child. The Fugitive Prince One turns with relief from such a sanguinary tale to the consideration of the pleasing semi-legendary 124 MAXTLA THE FIERCE accounts of Ixtlilxochitl regarding the civilisation of Tezcuco, Mexico's neighbour and ally. We have seen in the sketch of Nahua history which has been given how the Tecpanecs overcame the Acolhuans of Tezcuco and slew their king about the year 141 8. Nezahual- coyotl (Fasting Coyote), the heir to the Tezcucan throne, beheld the butchery of his royal father from the shelter of a tree close by, and succeeded in making his escape from the invaders. His subsequent thrilling adventures have been compared with those of the Young Pretender after the collapse of the " Forty-five " resistance. He had not enjoyed many days of freedom when he was captured by those who had set out in pursuit of him, and, being haled back to his native city, was cast into prison. He found a friend in the governor of the place, who owed his position to the prince's late father, and by means of his assistance he succeeded in once more escaping from the hostile Tecpanecs. For aiding Nezahualcoyotl, however, the governor promptly paid the penalty of death. The royal family of Mexico interceded for the hunted youth, and he was permitted to find an asylum at the Aztec court, whence he later proceeded to his own city of Tezcuco, occupying apartments in the palace where his father had once dwelt. For eight years he remained there, existing unnoticed on the bounty of the Tecpanec chief who had usurped the throne of his ancestors. Maxtla the Fierce In course of time the original Tecpanec conqueror was gathered to his fathers, and was succeeded by his son Maxtla, a ruler who could ill brook the studious prince, who had journeyed to the capital of the Tecpanecs to do him homage. He refused Nezahual- coyotl's advances of friendship, and the latter was 125 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU warned by a favourably disposed courtier to take refuge in flight. This advice he adopted, and returned to Tezcuco, where, however, Maxtla set a snare for his life. A function which took place in the evening afforded the tyrant his chance. But the prince's pre- ceptor frustrated the conspiracy, by means of substi- tuting for his charge a youth who strikingly resembled him. This second failure exasperated Maxtla so much that he sent a military force to Tezcuco, with orders to despatch Nezahualcoyotl without delay. But the same vigilant person who had guarded the prince so well before became apprised of his danger and advised him to fly. To this advice, however, Nezahualcoyotl re- fused to listen, and resolved to await the approach of his enemies. A Romantic Escape When they arrived he was engaged in the Mexican ball-game oi tIachtU. With great politeness he requested them to enter and to partake of food. Whilst they refreshed themselves he betook himself to another room, but his action excited no surprise, as he could be seen through the open doorway by which the apart- ments communicated with each other. A huge censer, however, stood in the vestibule, and the clouds of incense which arose from it hid his movements from those who had been sent to slay him. Thus obscured, he succeeded in entering a subterranean passage which led to a large disused water-pipe, through which he crawled and made his escape. A Thrilling Pursuit For a season Nezahualcoyotl evaded capture by hiding in the hut of a zealous adherent. The hut was searched, but the pursuers neglected to look below a 126 The Prince who fled for his Life Gilbert James 126 THE DEFEAT OF MAXTLA heap of maguey fibre used for making cloth, under which he lay concealed. Furious at his enemy's escape, Maxtla now ordered a rigorous search, and a regular battue of the country round Tezcuco was arranged. A large reward was offered for the capture of Nezahual- coyotl dead or alive, along with a fair estate and the hand of a noble lady, and the unhappy prince was forced to seek safety in the mountainous country between Tezcuco and Tlascala. He became a wretched outcast, a pariah lurking in caves and woods, prowling about after nightfall in order to satisfy his hunger, and seldom having a whole night's rest, because of the vigilance of his enemies. Hotly pursued by them, he was compelled to seek some curious places of concealment in order to save himself. On one occasion he was hidden by some friendly soldiers inside a large drum, and on another he was concealed beneath some chia stalks by a girl who was engaged in reaping them. The loyalty of the Tezcucan peasantry to their hunted prince was extra- ordinary, and rather than betray his whereabouts to the creatures of Maxtla they on many occasions suffered torture, and even death itself. At a time when his affairs appeared most gloomy, however, Nezahualcoyotl experienced a change of fortune. The tyrannous Maxtla had rendered himself highly unpopular by his many oppressions, and the people in the territories he had annexed were by no means contented under his rule. The Defeat of Maxtla These malcontents decided to band themselves together to defy the tyrant, and offered the command of the force thus raised to Nezahualcoyotl. This he accepted, and the Tecpanec usurper was totally defeated in a general engagement. Restored to the throne of his fathers, Nezahualcoyotl allied himself 127 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU with Mexico, and with the assistance of its monarch completely routed the remaining force of Maxtla, who was seized in the baths of Azcapozalco, haled forth and sacrificed, and his city destroyed. The Solon of Anahuac Nezahualcoyotl profited by the hard experiences he had undergone, and proved a wise and just ruler. The code of laws framed by him was an exceedingly drastic one, but so wise and enlightened was his rule that on the whole he deserves the title which has been conferred upon him of "the Solon of Anahuac." He generously encouraged the arts, and established a Council of Music, the purpose of which was to supervise artistic endeavour of every description. In Nezahualcoyotl Mexico found, in all probability, her greatest native poet. An ode of his on the mutability of life displays much nobility of thought, and strikingly recalls the sentiments expressed in the verses of Omar Khayydm. Nezahualcoyotl*s Theology Nezahualcoyotl is said to have erected a temple to the Unknown God, and to have shown a markeci pre- ference for the worship of one deity. In one of his poems he is credited with expressing the following exalted sentiments : " Let us aspire to that heaven where all is eternal, and corruption cannot come. The horrors of the tomb are the cradle of the sun, and the dark shadows of death are brilliant lights for the stars." Unfortunately these ideas cannot be verified as the un- doubted sentiments of the royal bard of Tezcuco, and we are regretfully forced to regard the attribution as spurious. We must come to such a conclusion with very real disappointment, as to discover an untutored 128 THE QUEEN WITH A HUNDRED LOVERS and spontaneous belief in one god in the midst of sur- roundings so little congenial to its growth would have been exceedingly valuable from several points of view. The Poet Prince We find Nezahualcoyotl's later days stained by an act which was unworthy of such a great monarch and wise man. His eldest son, the heir to the crown, entered into an intrigue with one of his father's wives, and dedicated many passionate poems to her, to which she replied with equal ardour. The poetical correspond- ence was brought before the king, who prized the lady highly because of her beauty. Outraged in his most sacred feelings, Nezahualcoyotl had the youth arraigned before the High Court, which passed sentence of death upon him — a sentence which his father per- mitted to be carried out. After his son's execution he shut himself up in his palace for some months, and gave orders that the doors and windows of the un- happy young man's residence should be built up so that never again might its walls echo to the sound of a human voice. The Queen with a Hundred Lovei-s In his History of the Chichimeca Ixtlilxochitl tells the following gruesome tale regarding the dreadful fate of a favourite wife of Nezahualpilli, the son of Nezahual- coyotl : When Axaiacatzin, King of Mexico, and other lords sent theirj daughters to King Nezahualpilli, for him to choose one to be his queen and lawful wife, whose son might succeed to the inheritance, she who had the highest claims among them, for nobility of birth and rank, was Chachiuhnenetzin, the young daughter of the Mexican king. She had been brought up by the monarch in a separate palace, with great I 129 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU pomp, and with numerous attendants, as became the daughter of so great a monarch. The number of servants attached to her household exceeded two thousand. Young as she was, she was exceedingly- artful and vicious ; so that, finding herself alone, and seeing that her people feared her on account of her rank and importance, she began to give way to an unlimited indulgence of her power. Whenever she saw a young man who pleased her fancy she gave secret orders that he should be brought to her, and shortly afterwards he would be put to death. She would then order a statue or effigy of his person to be made, and, adorning it with rich clothing, gold, and jewellery, place it in the apartment in which she lived. The number of statues of those whom she thus sacrificed was so great as to almost fill the room. When the king came to visit her, and inquired respecting these statues, she answered that they were her gods ; and he, knowing how strict the Mexicans were in the worship of their false deities, believed her. But, as no iniquity can be long committed with entire secrecy, she was finally found out in this manner : Three of the young men, for some reason or other, she had left alive. Their names were Chicuhcoatl, Huitzilimitzin, and Maxtla, one of whom was lord of Tesoyucan and one of the grandees of the kingdom, and the other two nobles of high rank. It happened that one day the king recognised on the apparel of one of these a very precious jewel which he had given to the queen ; and although he had no fear of treason on her part it gave him some uneasiness. Proceeding to visit her that night, her attendants told him she was asleep, supposing that the king would then return, as he had done at other times. But the affair of the jewel made him insist on entering the chamber in 130 The Princess and the Statues Gilbert James 130 THE QUEEN WITH A HUNDRED LOVERS which she slept ; and, going to wake her, he found only a statue in the bed, adorned with her hair, and closely resembling her. Seeing this, and noticing that the attendants around were in much trepidation and alarm, the king called his guards, and, assembling all the people of the house, made a general search for the queen, who was shortly found at an entertain- ment with the three young lords, who were arrested with her. The king referred the case to the judges of his court, in order that they might make an inquiry into the matter and examine the parties implicated. These ciiscovered many individuals, ser- vants of the queen, who had in some way or other been accessory to her crimes — workmen who had been engaged in making and adorning the statues, others who had aided in introducing the young men into the palace, and others, again, who had put them to death and concealed their bodies. The case having been sufficiently investigated, the king despatched ambassa- dors to the rulers of Mexico and TIacopan, giving them information of the event, and signifying the day on which the punishment of the queen and her accomplices was to take place ; and he likewise sent through the empire to summon all the lords to bring their wives and their daughters, however young they might be, to be witnesses of a punishment which he designed for a great example. He also made a truce with all the enemies of the empire, in order that they might come freely to see it. The time having arrived, the number of people gathered together was so great that, large as was the city of Tezcuco, they could scarcely all find room in it. The execution took place publicly, in sight of the whole city. The queen was put to the garrotte (a method of strangling by means of a rope twisted round a stick), as well as her three gallants ; >3i MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU and, from their being persons of high birth, their bodies were burned, together with the effigies before men- tioned. The other parties who had been accessory to the crimes, who numbered more than two thousand persons, were also put to the garrotte, and burned in a pit made for the purpose in a ravine near a temple of the Idol of Adulterers. All applauded so severe and exemplary a punishment, except the Mexican lords, the relatives of the queen, who were much incensed at so public an example, and, although for the time they concealed their resentment, meditated future revenge. It was not without reason, says the chronicler, that the king experienced this disgrace in his household, since he was thus punished for an unworthy subterfuge made use of by his father to obtain his mother as a wife 1 This Nezahualpilli, the successor of Nezahualcoyotl, was a monarch of scientific tastes, and, as Torquemada states, had a primitive observatory erected in his palace. The Golden Age of Tezcuco The period embraced by the life of this monarch and his predecessor may be regarded as the Golden Age of Tezcuco, and as semi-mythical. The palace of Neza- hualcoyotl, according to the account of Ixtlilxochitl, extended east and west for 1234 yards, and for 978 yards from north to south. Enclosed by a high wall, it con- tained two large courts, one used as the municipal market-place, whilst the other was surrounded by ad- ministrative offices. A great hall was set apart for the special use of poets and men of talent, who held sympo- siums under its classic roof, or engaged in controversy in the surrounding corridors. The chronicles of the kingdom were also kept in this portion of the palace. The private apartments of the monarch adjoined this College of Bards. They were gorgeous in the extreme, 132 A FAIRY VILLA and their description rivals that of the fabled Toltec city of Tollan. Rare stones and beautifully coloured plaster mouldings alternated with wonderful tapestries of splendid feather-work to make an enchanting display of florid decoration, and the gardens which surrounded this marvellous edifice were delightful retreats, where the lofty cedar and cypress over- hung sparkling fountains and luxurious baths. Fish darted hither and thither in the ponds, and the aviaries echoed to the songs of birds of wonderful plumage. A Fairy Villa According to Ixtlilxochitl, the king's villa of Tez- cotzinco was a residence which for sheer beauty had no equal in Persian romance, or in those dream-tales of Araby which in childhood we feel to be true, and in later life regretfully admit can only be known again by sailing the sea of Poesy or penetrating the mist-locked continent of Dream. The account of it which we have from the garrulous half-blood reminds us of the stately pleasure-dome decreed by Kubla Khan on the turbulent banks of the sacred Alph. A conical eminence was laid out in hanging gardens reached by an airy flight of five hundred and twenty marble steps. Gigantic walls con- tained an immense reservoir or water, in the midst of which was islanded a great rock carved with hieroglyphs describing the principal events in the reign of Nezahual- coyotl. In each of three other reservoirs stood a marble statue of a woman, symbolical of one of the three pro- vinces of Tezcuco. These great basins supplied the gardens beneath with a perennial flow of water, so directed as to leap in cascades over artificial rockeries or meander among mossy retreats with refreshing whisper, watering the roots of odoriferous shrubs and flowers 133 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU and winding in and out of the shadow of the cypress woods. Here and there pavilions of marble arose over porphyry baths, the highly polished stone of which reflected the bodies of the bathers. The villa itself stood amidst a wilderness of stately cedars, which shielded it from the torrid heat of the Mexican sun. The architectural design of this delightful edifice was light and airy in the extreme, and the perfume of the surrounding gardens filled the spacious apartments with the delicious incense of nature. In this paradise the Tezcucan monarch sought in the company of his wives repose from the oppression of rule, and passed the lazy hours in gamesome sport and dance. The surrounding woods afforded him the pleasures of the chase, and art and nature combined to render his rural retreat a centre of pleasant recreation as well as of repose and refreshment. Disillusionment That some such palace existed on the spot in question it would be absurd to deny, as its stupendous pillars and remains still litter the terraces of Tezcotzinco. But, alas ! we must not listen to the vapourings of the un- trustworthy Ixtlilxochitl, who claims to have seen the place. It will be better to turn to a more modern authority, who visited the site about seventy-five years ago, and who has given perhaps the best account of it. He says : " Fragments of pottery, broken pieces of obsidian knives and arrows, pieces of stucco, shattered terraces, and old walls were thickly dispersed over its whole sur- face. We soon found further advance on horseback impracticable, and, attaching our patient steeds to the nopal bushes, we followed our Indian guide on foot, scrambling upwards over rock and through tangled 134 DISILLUSIONMENT brushwood. On gaining the narrow ridge which con- nects the conical hill with one at the rear, we found the remains of a wall and causeway^; and, a little higher, reached a recess, where, at the foot of a small precipice, overhung with Indian fig and grass, the rock had been wrought by hand into a flat surface of large dimensions. In this perpendicular wall of rock a carved Toltec calendar existed formerly ; but the Indians, finding the place visited occasionally by foreigners from the capital, took it into their heads that there must be a silver vein there, and straightway set to work to find it, obliterating the sculpture, and driving a level beyond it into the hard rock for several yards. From this recess a few minutes' climb brought us to the summit of the hill. The sun was on the point of setting over the mountains on the other side of the valley, and the view spread beneath our feet was most glorious. The whole of the lake of Tezcuco, and the country and mountains on both sides, lay stretched before us. " But, however disposed, we dare not stop long to gaze and admire, but, descending a little obliquely, soon came to the so-called bath, two singular basins, of perhaps two feet and a half diameter, cut into a bastion-like solid rock, projecting from the general out- line of the hill, and surrounded by smooth carved seats and grooves, as we supposed — for I own the whole appearance of the locality was perfectly inexplicable to me. I have a suspicion that many of these horizontal planes and grooves were contrivances to aid their astro- nomical observations, one like that I have mentioned having been discovered by de Gama at Chapultepec. " As to Montezuma's Bath, it might be his foot-bath if you will, but it would be a moral impossibility for any monarch of larger dimensions than Oberon to take a duck in it. 135 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU "The mountain bears the marks of human industry to its very apex, many of the blocks of porphyry of which it is composed being quarried into smooth hori- zontal planes. It is impossible to say at present what portion of the surface is artificial or not, such is the state of confusion observable in every part. " By what means nations unacquainted with the use of iron constructed works of such a smooth polish, in rocks of such hardness, it is extremely difficult to say. Many think tools of mixed tin and copper were em- ployed ; others, that patient friction was one of the main means resorted to. Whatever may have been the real appropriation of these inexplicable ruins, or the epoch of their construction, there can be no doubt but the whole of this hill, which I should suppose rises five or six hundred feet above the level of the plain, was covered with artificial works of one kind or another. They are doubtless rather of Toltec than of Aztec origin, and perhaps with still more probability attribut- able to a people of an age yet more remote." The Noble Tlascalan As may be imagined regarding a community where human sacrifice was rife, tales concerning those who were consigned to this dreadful fate were abundant. Perhaps the most striking of these is that relating to the noble Tlascalan warrior Tlalhuicole, who was captured in combat by the troops of Montezuma. Less than a year before the Spaniards arrived in Mexico war broke out between the Huexotzincans and the Tlascalans, to the former of whom the Aztecs acted as allies. On the battlefield there was captured by guile a very valiant Tlascalan leader called Tlalhuicole, so renowned for his prowess that the mere mention of his name was generally sufficient to deter any Mexican hero from 136 THE NOBLE TLASCALAN attempting his capture. He was brought to Mexico in a cage, and presented to the Emperor Montezuma, who, on learning of his name and renown, gave him his liberty and overwhelmed him with honours. He further granted him permission to return to his own country, a boon he had never before extended to any captive. But Tlalhuicole refused his freedom, and replied that he would prefer to be sacrificed to the gods, according to the usual custom. Montezuma, who had the highest regard for him, and prized his life more than any sacrifice, would not consent to his immolation. At this juncture war broke out between Mexico and the Tarascans, and Montezuma announced the appointment of Tlalhuicole as chief of the expedi- tionary force. He accepted the command, marched against the Tarascans, and, having totally defeated them, returned to Mexico laden with an enormous booty and crowds of slaves. The city rang with his triumph. The emperor begged him to become a Mexican citizen, but he replied that on no account would he prove a traitor to his country. Montezuma then once more offered him his liberty, but he strenuously refused to return to Tlascala, having undergone the disgrace of defeat and capture. He begged Montezuma to terminate his unhappy existence by sacrificing him to the s^ods, thus ending the dishonour he felt in living on after having undergone defeat, and at the same time fulfilling the highest aspiration of his life — to die the death of a warrior on the stone of combat. Mon- tezuma, himself the noblest pattern of Aztec chivalry, touched at his request, could not but agree with him that he had chosen the most fitting fate for a hero, and ordered him to be chained to the stone of combat, the blood-stained temalacatl. The most renowned of the Aztec warriors were pitted against him, and the emperor 137 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU himself graced the sanguinary tournament with his presence. Tlalhuicole bore himself in the combat like a lion, slew eight warriors of renown, and wounded more than twenty. But at last he fell, covered with wounds, and was haled by the exulting priests to the altar of the terrible war-god Huitzilopochtli, to whom his heart was offered up. The Haunting Mothers It is only occasionally that we encounter either the gods or supernatural beings of any description in Mexican myth. But occasionally we catch sight of such beings as the Ciuapipiltin (Honoured Women), the spirits of those women who had died in childbed, a death highly venerated by the Mexicans, who regarded the woman who perished thus as the equal of a warrior who met his fate in battle. Strangely enough, these spirits were actively malevolent, probably because the moon-god- dess (who was also the deity of evil exhalations) was evil in her tendencies, and they were regarded as pos- sessing an affinity to her. It was supposed that they afflicted infants with various diseases, and Mexican parents took every precaution not to permit their off- spring out of doors on the days when their influence was believed to be strong. They were said to haunt the cross-roads, and even to enter the bodies of weakly people, the better to work their evil will. The insane were supposed to be under their especial visitation. Temples were raised at the cross-roads in order to placate them, and loaves of bread, shaped like butter- flies, were dedicated to them. They were repre- sented as having faces of a dead white, and as blanching their arms and hands with a white powder known as tisatl. Their eyebrows were of a golden hue, and their raiment was that of Mexican ladies of the ruling class. 138 THE RETURN OF PAPANTZIN The Return of Papantzin^ One of the weirdest legends in Mexican tradition recounts how Papantzin, the sister of Montezuma II, returned from her tomb to prophesy to her royal brother concerning his doom and the fall of his empire at the hands of the Spaniards. On taking up the reins of government Montezuma had married this lady to one of his most illustrious servants, the governor of Tlatelulco, and after his death it would appear that she continued to exercise his almost vice- regal functions and to reside in his palace. In course of time she died, and her obsequies were attended by the emperor in person, accompanied by the greatest personages of his court and kingdom. The body was interred in a subterranean vault of his own palace, in close proximity to the royal baths, which stood in a sequestered part of the extensive grounds surrounding the royal residence. The entrance to the vault was secured by a stone slab of moderate weight, and when the numerous ceremonies prescribed for the interment of a royal personage had been completed the emperor and his suite retired. At daylight next morning one of the royal children, a little girl of some six years of age, having gone into the garden to seek her governess, espied the Princess Papan standing near the baths. The princess, who was her aunt, called to her, and requested her to bring her governess to her. The child did as she was bid, but her governess, thinking that imagina- tion had played her a trick, paid little attention to what she said. As the child persisted in her statement, the governess at last followed her into the garden, where she saw Papan sitting on one of the steps of the baths. ' The sufRx tzin after a Mexican name denotes cither " lord " or "lady," according to the sex of the person alluded to. 139 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU The sight of the supposed dead princess filled the woman with such terror that she fell down in a swoon. The child then went to her mother's apartment, and detailed to her what had happened. She at once proceeded to the baths with two of her attendants, and at sight of Papan was also seized with affright. But the princess reassured her, and asked to be allowed to accompany her to her apartments, and that the entire affair should for the present be kept absolutely secret. Later in the day she sent for Ti90tzicatzin, her major- domo, and requested him to inform the emperor that she desired to speak with him immediately on matters of the greatest importance. The man, terrified, begged to be excused from the mission, and Papan then gave orders that her uncle Nezahualpilli, King of Tez- cuco, should be communicated with. That monarch, on receiving her request that he should come to her, hastened to the palace. The princess begged him to see the emperor without loss of time and to entreat him to come to her at once. Montezuma heard his story with surprise mingled with doubt. Hastening to his sister, he cried as he approached her : " Is it indeed you, my sister, or some evil demon who has taken your likeness ? " " It is I indeed, your Majesty," she replied. Montezuma and the exalted personages who accompanied him then seated them- selves, and a hush of expectation fell upon all as they were addressed by the princess in the following words : " Listen attentively to what I am about to relate to you. You have seen me dead, buried, and now behold me alive again. By the authority of our ancestors, my brother, I am returned from the dwellings of the dead to prophesy to you certain things of prime importance. 140 •^t»fti-fvv J'' The King's Sister is shown the Valley of Dry Bones Gilbert James PAPANTZIN'S STORY Papantzin*s Story " At the moment after death I found myself in a spacious valley, which appeared to have neither com- mencement nor end, and was surrounded by lofty mountains. Near the middle I came upon a road with many branching paths. By the side of the valley there flowed a river of considerable size, the waters of which ran with a loud noise. By the borders of this 1 saw a young man clothed in a long robe, fastened with a diamond, and shining like the sun, his visage bright as a star. On his forehead was a sign in the figure of a cross. He had wings, the feathers of which gave forth the most wonderful and glowing reflections and colours. His eyes were as emeralds, and his glance was modest. He was fair, of beautiful aspect and imposing presence. He took me by the hand and said : ' Come hither. It is not yet time for you to cross the river. You possess the love of God, which is greater than you know or can comprehend.' He then conducted me through the valley, where I espied many heads and bones of dead men. I then beheld a number of black folk, horned, and with the feet of deer. They were engaged in building a house, which was nearly completed. Turning toward the east for a space, I beheld on the waters of the river a vast number of ships manned by a great host of men dressed diflferently from ourselves. Their eyes were of a clear grey, their complexions ruddy, they carried banners and ensigns in their hands and wore helmets on their heads. They called them- selves * Sons of the Sun.' The youth who conducted me and caused me to see all these things said that it was not yet the will of the gods that I should cross the river, but that I was to be reserved to behold the future with my own eyes, and to enjoy the benefits of 14-1 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU the faith which these strangers brought with them ; that the bones I beheld on the plain were those of my countrymen who had died in ignorance of that faith, and had consequently suffered great torments ; that the house being builded by the black folk was an edifice pre- pared for those who would fall in battle with the sea- faring strangers whom I had seen ; and that I was destined to return to my compatriots to tell them of the true faith, and to announce to them what I had seen that they might profit thereby." Montezuma hearkened to these matters in silence, and felt greatly troubled. He left his sister's presence without a word, and, regaining his own apartments, plunged into melancholy thoughts. Papantzin's resurrection is one of the best authenti- cated incidents in Mexican history, and it is a curious fact that on the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores one of the first persons to embrace Christianity and receive baptism at their hands was the Princess Papan.; Mexican Deitv From the Vienna Codex 142 CHAPTER IV : THE MAYA RACE AND MYTHOLOGY The Maya IT was to the Maya — the people who occupied the territory between the isthmus of Tehuantepec and Nicaragua — that the civilisation of Central America owed most. The language they spoke was quite distinct from the Nahuatl spoken by the Nahua of Mexico, and in many respects their customs and habits were widely different from those of the people of Anahuac. It will be remembered that the latter were the heirs of an older civilisation, that, indeed, they had entered the valley of Mexico as savages, and that practically all they knew of the arts of culture was taught them by the remnants of the people whom they dispossessed. It was not thus with the Maya. Their arts and industries were of their own invention, and bore the stamp of an origin of considerable antiquity. They were, indeed, the supreme intellectual race of America, and on their coming into contact with the Nahua that people assimilated sufficient of their culture to raise them several grades in the scale of civilisation. "Were the Maya Toltecs? It has already been stated that many antiquarians see in the Maya those Toltecs who because of the inroads of barbarous tribes quitted their native land of Anahuac and journeyed southward to seek a new home in Chiapas and Yucatan. It would be idle to attempt to uphold or refute such a theory in the absolute dearth of positive evidence for or against it. The architectural remains of the older race of Anahuac do not bear any striking likeness to Maya forms, and if the mythologies of the two peoples art in some particulars alike, that may well H3 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU be accounted for by their mutual adoption of deities and religious customs. On the other hand, it is distinctly- noteworthy that the cult of the god Quetzalcoatl, which was regarded in Mexico as of alien origin, had a con- siderable vos^ue among the Maya and their allied races. The Maya Kingdom On the arrival of the Spaniards (after the celebrated march of Cortes from Mexico to Central America) the Maya were divided into a number of subsidiary states which remind us somewhat of the numerous little king- doms of Palestine. That these had hived off from an original and considerably greater state there is good evidence to show, but internal dissension had played havoc with the polity of the central government of this empire, the disintegration of which had occurred at a remote period. In the semi-historical legends of this people we catch glimpses of a great kingdom, occasionally alluded to as the " Kingdom of the Great Snake," or the empire of Xibalba, realmswhich have been identified with the ruined city-centres of Palenque and Mitla. These identifications must be regarded with caution, but the work of excavation will doubtless sooner or later assist theorists in coming to conclusions which will admit of no doubt. The sphere of Maya civilisation and influence is pretty well marked, and embraces the peninsula of Yucatan, Chiapas, to the isthmus of Tehuantepec on the north, and the whole of Guatemala to the boundaries of the present republic of San Salvador. The true nucleus of Maya civilisation, however, must be looked for in that part of Chiapas which skirts the banks of the Usumacinta river and in the valleys of its tributaries. Here Maya art and architecture reached a height of splendour unknown elsewhere, and in this district, too, the strange Maya system of writing had its most skilful 144 WHENCE CAME THE MAYA? exponents. Although the arts and industries of the several districts inhabited by people of Maya race ex- hibited many superficial differences, these are so small as to make us certain of the fact that the various areas inhabited by Maya stock had all drawn their inspiration toward civilisation from one common nucleus, and had equally passed through a uniform civilisation and drawn sap from an original culture-centre. The Maya Dialects Perhaps the most effectual method of distinguishing the various branches of the Maya people from one another consists in dividing them into linguistic groups. The various dialects spoken by the folk of Maya origin, although they exhibit some considerable difference, yet display strongly that affinity of construction and resem- blance in root which go to prove that they all emanate from one common mother-tongue. In Chiapas the Maya tongue itself is the current dialect, whilst in Guatemala no less than twenty-four dialects are in use, the principal of which are the Quiche, or Kiche, the Kakchiquel, the Zutugil, Coxoh Choi, and Pipil. These dialects and the folk who speak them are sufficient to engage our attention, as in them are enshrined the most remarkable myths and legends of the race, and by the men who used them were the greatest acts in Maya history achieved. Whence Came the Maya? Whence came these folk, then, who raised a civilisa- tion by no means inferior to that of ancient Egypt, which, if it had had scope, would have rivalled in its achievements the glory of old Assyria ? We cannot tell. The mystery of its entrance into the land is as deep as the mystery of the ancient forests which now bury the K 145 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU remnants of its mighty monuments and enclose its temples in impenetrable gloom. Generations of anti- quarians have attempted to trace the origin of this race to Egypt, Phoenicia, China, Burma. But the manifest traces of indigenous American origin are present in all its works, and the writers who have beheld in these likenesses to the art of Asiatic or African peoples have been grievously misled by superficial resemblances which could not have betrayed any one who had studied Maya affinities deeply. Civilisation of the Maya At the risk of repetition it is essential to point out that civilisation, which was a newly acquired thing with the Nahua peoples, was not so with the Maya. They were indisputably an older race, possessing institutions which bore the marks of generations of use, whereas the Nahua had only too obviously just entered into their heritage of law and order. When we first catch sight of the Maya kingdoms they are in the process of disintegration. Such strong young blood as the virile folk of Anahuac possessed did not flow in the veins of the people of Yucatan and Guatemala. They were to the Nahua much as the ancient Assyrians were to the hosts of Israel at the entrance of the latter into national existence. That there was a substratum of ethnical and cultural relationship, however, it would be impossible to deny. The institutions, architecture, habits, even the racial cast of thought of the two peoples, bore such a general resemblance as to show that many affinities of blood and cultural relationship existed between them. But it will not do to insist too strongly upon these. It may be argued with great probability that these relationships and likenesses exist because of the influence of Maya civilisation upon Mexican alone, or from the 146 THE HUASTECA inheritance by both Mexican and Maya people of a still older culture of which we are ignorant, and the proofs of which lie buried below the forests of Guate- mala or the sands of Yucatan. The Zapotecs The influence of the Maya upon the Nahua was a process of exceeding slowness. The peoples who divided them one from another were themselves bene- fited by carrying Maya culture into Anahuac, or rather it might be said that they constituted a sort of filter through which the southern civilisation reached the northern. These peoples were the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, and the Kuikatecs, by far the most important of whom were the first-mentioned. They partook of the nature and civilisation of both races, and were in effect a border people who took from and gave to both Maya and Nahua, much as the Jews absorbed and disseminated the cultures of Egypt and Assyria. They were, however, of Nahua race, but their- speech bears the strongest marks of having borrowed extensively from the Maya vocabulary. For many generations these people wandered in a nomadic condition from Maya to Nahua territory, thus absorbing the customs, speech, and mythology of each. The Huasteca But we should be wrong if we thought that the Maya had never attempted to expand, and had never sought new homes for their surplus population. That they had is proved by an outlying tribe of Maya, the Huasteca, having settled at the mouth of the Panuco river, on the north coast of Mexico. The presence of this curious ethnological island has of course given rise to all sorts of queer theories concerning Toltec 147 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU relationship, whereas it simply intimates that before the era of Nahua expansion the Maya had attempted to colonise the country to the north of their territories, but that their efforts in this direction had been cut short by the influx of savage Nahua, against whom they found themselves unable to contend. The Type of Maya Civilisation Did the civilisation of the Maya differ, then, in type from that of the Nahua, or was it merely a larger expression of that in vogue in Anahuac ? We may take it that the Nahua civilisation characterised the culture of Central America in its youth, whilst that of the Maya displayed it in its bloom, and perhaps in its senility. The difference was neither essential nor radical, but may be said to have arisen for the most part from climatic and kindred causes. The climate of Anahuac is dry and temperate, that of Yucatan and Guatemala is tropical, and we shall find even such religious conceptions of the two peoples as were drawn from a common source varying from this very cause, and coloured by differences in temperature and rainfall. Maya History Before entering upon a consideration of the art, architecture, or mythology of this strange and highly interesting people it will be necessary to provide the reader with a brief sketch of their history. Such notices of this as exist in English are few, and their value doubtful. For the earlier history of the people of Maya stock we depend almost wholly upon tradition and architectural remains. The net result of the evidence wrung from these is that the Maya civilisation was one and homogeneous, and that all the separate states must have at one period passed through a uniform 148 THE NUCLEUS OF MAYA POWER condition of culture, to which they were all equally debtors, and that this is sufficient ground for the belief that all were at one time beneath the sway of one central power. For the later history we possess the writings of the Spanish fathers, but not in such pro- fusion as in the case of Mexico. In fact the trust- worthy original authors who deal with Maya history can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. We are further confused in perusing these, and, indeed, throughout the study of Maya history, by discovering that many of the sites of Maya cities are designated by Nahua names. This is due to the fact that the Spanish conquerors were guided in their conquest of the Maya territories by Nahua, who naturally applied Nahuatlac designations to those sites of which the Spaniards asked the names. These appellations clung to the places in question ; hence the confusion, and the blundering theories which would read in these place-names relics of Aztec conquest. The Nucleus of Maya Power As has been said, the nucleus of Maya power and culture is probably to be found in that part of Chiapas which slopes down from the steep Cordilleras. Here the ruined sites of Palenque, Piedras Negras, and Ocosingo are eloquent of that opulence of imagination and loftiness of conception which go hand in hand with an advanced culture. The temples and palaces of this region bear the stamp of a dignity and consciousness of metropolitan power which are scarcely to be mis- taken, so broad, so free is their architectural conception, so full to overflowing the display of the desire to surpass. But upon the necessities of religion and central organisation alone was this architectural artistry lavished. Its dignities were not profaned by its H9 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU application to mere domestic uses, for, unless what were obviously palaces are excepted, not a single example of Maya domestic building has survived. This is of course accounted for by the circumstance that the people were sharply divided into the aristocratic and labouring classes, the first of which was closely identified with religion or kingship, and was housed in the ecclesiastical or royal buildings, whilst those of less exalted rank were perforce content with the shelter afforded by a hut built of perishable materials, the traces of which have long since passed away. The temples were, in fact, the nuclei of the towns, the centres round which the Maya communities were grouped, much in the same manner as the cities of Europe in the Middle Ages clustered and grew around the shadow of some vast cathedral or sheltering strong- hold. Early Race Movements We shall leave the consideration of Maya tradition until we come to speak of Maya myth proper, and attempt to glean from the chaos of legend some verit- able facts connected with Maya history. According to a manuscript of Kuikatec origin recently discovered, it is probable that a Nahua invasion of the Maya states of Chiapas and Tabasco took place about the ninth century of our era, and we must for the present regard that as the starting-point of Maya history. The south-western portions of the Maya territory were agitated about the same time by race movements, which turned northward toward Tehuantepec, and, flowing through Guatemala, came to rest in Acalan, on the borders of Yucatan, retarded, probably, by the in- hospitable and waterless condition of that country. This Nahua invasion probably had the effect of driving 150 THE SETTLEMENT OF YUCATAN the more peaceful Maya from their northerly settle- ments and forcing them farther south. Indeed, evidence is not wanting to show that the warlike Nahua pursued the pacific Maya into their new retreats, and for a space left them but little peace. This struggle it was which finally resulted in the breaking up of the Maya civilisation, which even at that relatively remote period had reached its apogee, its several races separating into numerous city-states, which bore a close political resemblance to those of Italy on the downfall of Rome. At this period, probably, began the cleavage between the Maya of Yucatan and those of Guatemala, which finally resolved itself into such differences of speech, faith, and architecture as almost to constitute them different peoples. The Settlement of Yucatan As the Celts of Wales and Scotland were driven into the less hospitable regions of their respective countries by the inroads of the Saxons, so was one branch of the Maya forced to seek shelter in the almost desert wastes of Yucatan. There can be no doubt that the Maya did not take to this barren and waterless land of their own accord. Thrifty and possessed of high agricultural attainments, this people would view with concern a removal to a sphere so forbidding after the rich and easily developed country they had inhabited for generations. But the inexorable Nahua were behind, and they were a peaceful folk, unused to the horrors of savage warfare. So, taking their courage in both hands, they wandered into the desert. Everything points to a late occupation of Yucatan by the Maya, and architectural effort exhibits deterioration, evidenced in a high conventionality of design and excess of MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU ornamentation. Evidences of Nahua influence also are not wanting, a fact which is eloquent of the later period of contact which is known to have occurred between the peoples, and which alone is almost sufficient to fix the date of the settlement of the Maya in Yucatan. It must not be thought that the Maya in Yucatan formed one homogeneous state recognising a central authority. On the contrary, as is often the case with colonists, the several Maya bands of immigrants formed themselves into diff^erent states or kingdoms, each having its own separate traditions. It is thus a matter of the highest difficulty to so collate and criticise these traditions as to construct a history of the Maya race in Yucatan. As may be supposed, we find the various city-sites founded by divine beings who play a more or less important part in the Maya pantheon. Kukulcan, for example, is the first king of Mayapan, whilst Itzamna figures as the founder of the state of Itzamal. The gods were the spiritual leaders of these bands of Maya, just as Jehovah was the spiritual leader and guide of the Israelites in the desert. One is therefore not surprised to find in the Popol Vuhy the saga of the Kiche-Maya of Guatemala, that the god Tohil (The Rumbler) guided them to the site of the first Kiche city. Some writers on the subject appear to think that the incidents in such migration myths, especially the tutelage and guidance of the tribes by gods and the descriptions of desert scenery which they contain, suffice to stamp them as mert native versions of the Book of Exodus, or at the best myths sophisticated by missionary influence. The truth is that the conditions of migration undergone by the Maya were similar to those described in the Scrip- tures, and by no means merely reflect the Bible story, as short-sighted collators of both aver. 152 FLIGHT OF THE TUTUL XIUS The Septs of Yucatan The priest-kings of Mayapan, who; claimed descent from Kukulcan or Quetzalcoatl, soon raised their state into a position of prominence among the surrounding cities. Those who had founded Chichen-Itza, and who were known as Itzaes, were, on the other hand, a caste of warriors who do not appear to have cherished the priestly function with such assiduity. The rulers of the Itzaes, who were known as the Tutul Xius, seem to have come, according to their traditions, from the western Maya states, perhaps from Nonohualco in Tabasco. Arriving from thence at the southern ex- tremity of Yucatan, they founded the city of Ziyan Caan, on Lake Bacalar, which had a period of prosperity for at least a couple of generations. At the expiry of that period for some unaccountable reason they migrated northward, perhaps because at that particular time the in- cidence of power was shifting toward Northern Yucatan, and took up their abode in Chichen-Itza, eventually the sacred city of the Maya, which they founded. The Cocomes But they were not destined to remain undisturbed in their new sphere. The Cocomes of Mayapan, when at the height of their power, viewed with disfavour the settlement of the Tutul Xius. After it had flourished for a period of about 120 years it was overthrown by the Cocomes, who resolved it into a dependency, per- mitting the governors and a certain number of the people to depart elsewhere. Flight of the Tutul Xius Thus expelled, the Tutul Xius fled southward, whence they had originally come, and settled in Poton- i53> MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU chan or Champoton, where they reigned for nearly 300 years. From this new centre, with the aid of Nahua mercenaries, they commenced an extension of territory northward, and entered into diplomatic rela- tions with the heads of the other Maya states. It was at this time that they built Uxmal, and their power became so extensive that they reconquered the territory they had lost to the Cocomes. This on the whole appears to have been a period when the arts flourished under an enlightened policy, which knew how to make and keep friendly relations with surrounding states, and the splendid network of roads with which the country was covered and the many evidences of architectural excel- lence go to prove that the race had had leisure to achieve much in art and works of utility. Thus the city of Chichen-Itza was linked up with the island of Cozumel by a highway whereon thousands of pilgrims plodded to the temples of the gods of wind and moisture. From Itzamal, too, roads branched in every direction, in order that the people should have every facility for reaching the chief shrine of the country situated there. But the hand of the Cocomes was heavy upon the other Maya states which were tributary to them. As in the Yucatan of to-day, where the wretched henequen-picker leads the life of a veritable slave, a crushing system of helotage obtained. The Cocomes made heavy demands upon the Tutul Xius, who in their turn sweated the hapless folk under their sway past the bounds of human endurance. As in all tottering civilisa- tions, the feeling of responsibility among the upper classes became dormant, and they abandoned themselves to the pleasures of life without thought of the morrow. Morality ceased to be regarded as a virtue, and rotten- ness was at the core of Maya life. Discontent quickly spread on every hand. 15+ HUNAC EEL The Revolution in Mayapan The sequel was, naturally, revolution. Ground down by the tyranny of a dissolute oligarchy, the subject states rose in revolt. The Cocomes surrounded them- selves by Nahua mercenaries, who succeeded in beating off the first wave of revolt, led by the king or regulus of Uxmal, who was defeated, and whose people in their turn rose against him, a circumstance which ended in the abandonment of the city of Uxmal. Once more were the Tutul Xius forced to go on pilgrimage, and this time they founded the city of Mani, a mere shadow of the splendour of Uxmal and Chichen. Hunac Eel If the aristocracy of the Cocomes was composed of weaklings, its ruler was made of sterner stuff. Hunac Eel, who exercised royal sway over this people, and held in subjection the lesser principalities of Yucatan, was not only a tyrant of harsh and vindictive tempera- ment, but a statesman of judgment and experience, who courted the assistance of the neighbouring Nahua, whom he employed in his campaign against the new assailant of his absolutism, the ruler of Chichen-Itza. Muster- ing a mighty host of his vassals, Hunac Eel marched against the devoted city whose prince had dared to challenge his supremacy, and succeeded in inflicting a crushing defeat upon its inhabitants. But apparently the state was permitted to remain under the sovereignty of its native princes. The revolt, however, merely smouldered, and in the kingdom of Mayapan itself, the territory of the Cocomes, the fires of revolution began to blaze. This state of things continued for nearly a century. Then the crash came. The enemies of the Cocomes effected a junction. The people of Chichen- 155 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU Itza joined hands with the Tutul Xius, who had sought refuge in the central highlands of Yucatan and those city-states which clustered around the mother-city of Mayapan. A fierce concerted attack was made, beneath which the power of the Cocomes crumpled up com- pletely. Not one stone was left standing upon another by the exasperated allies, who thus avenged the helotage of nearly 300 years. To this event the date 1436 is assigned, but, like most dates in Maya history, con- siderable uncertainty must be attached to it. The Last of the Cocomes Only a remnant of the Cocomes survived. They had been absent in Nahua territory, attempting to raise fresh troops for the defence of Mayapan. These the victors spared, and they finally settled in Zotuta, in the centre of Yucatan, a region ot almost impenetrable forest. It would not appear that the city of Chichen-Itza, the prince of which was ever the head and front of the rebellion against the Cocomes, profited in any way from the fall of the suzerain power. On the contrary, tradi- tion has it that the town was abandoned by its inhabi- tants, and left to crumble into the ruinous state in which the Spaniards found it on their entrance into the country. The probability is that its people quitted it because of the repeated attacks made upon it by the Cocomes, who saw in it the chief obstacle to their universal sway ; and this is supported by tradition, which tells that a prince of Chichen-Itza, worn out with conflict and internecine strife, left it to seek the cradle of the Maya race in the land of the setting sun. Indeed, it is further stated that this prince founded the city of Peten-Itza, on the lake of Peten, in Guatemala. 156 fe.^H 1'-^ imt The Prince who went to Found a City Gilbert James i;6 THE MAYA TULAN The Maya Peoples of Guatemala When the Maya peoples of Guatemala, the Kiches and the Kakchiquels, first made their way into that territory, they probably found there a race of Maya origin of a type more advanced and possessed of more ancient traditions than themselves. By their connection with this folk they greatly benefited in the direction of artistic achievement as well as in the industrial arts. Concerning these people we have a large body of tradi- tion in the Popol Vuh^ a native chronicle, the contents of which will be fully dealt with in the chapter relating to the Maya myths and legendary matter. We cannot deal with it as a veritable historical document, but there is little doubt that a basis of fact exists behind the tradition it contains. The difference between the lan- guage of these people and that of their brethren in Yucatan was, as has been said, one of dialect only, and a like slight distinction is found in their mythology, caused, doubtless, by the incidence of local conditions, and resulting in part from the difference between a level and comparatively waterless land and one of a semi- mountainous character covered with thick forests. We shall note further differences when we come to examine the art and architecture of the Maya race, and to compare those of its two most distinctive branches. The Maya Tulan It was to the city of Tulan, probably in Tabasco, that the Maya of Guatemala referred as being the starting- point of all their migrations. We must not confound this place with the Tollan of the Mexican traditions. It is possible that the name may in both cases be derived from a root meaning a place from which a tribe set forth, a starting-place, but geographical connection there 157 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU is none. From here Nima-Kiche, the great Kiche, started on his migration to the mountains, accompanied by his three brothers. Tulan, says the Popol Vuh^ had been a place of misfortune to man, for he had suffered much from cold and hunger, and, as at the building of Babel, his speech was so confounded that the first four Kiches and their wives were unable to comprehend one another. Of course this is a native myth created to account for the difference in dialect between the various branches of the Maya folk, and can scarcely have any foundation in fact, as the change in dialect would be a very gradual process. The brothers, we are told, divided the land so that one received the districts of Mames and Pocomams, another Verapaz, and the third Chiapas, while Nima-Kiche obtained the country of the Kiches, Kakchiquels, and Tzutuhils. It would be ex- tremely difficult to say whether or not this tradition rests on any veritable historical basis. If so, it refers to a period anterior to the Nahua irruption, for the dis- tricts alluded to as occupied by these tribes were not so divided among them at the coming of the Spaniards. Doubtful Dynasties As with the earlier dynasties of Egypt, consider- able doubt surrounds the history of the early Kiche monarchs. Indeed, a period of such uncertainty occurs that even the number of kings who reigned is lost in the hopeless confusion of varying estimates. From this chaos emerge the facts that the Kiche monarchs held the supreme power among the peoples of Guatemala, that they were the contemporaries of the rulers of Mexico city, and that they were often elected from among the princes of the subject states. Acxopil, the successor of Nima-Kiche, invested his second son with the government of the Kakchiquels, and placed his 158 THE RIDDLE OF ANCIENT MAYA WRITING youngest son over the Tzutuhils, whilst to his eldest son he left the throne of the Kiches. Icutemal, his eldest son, on succeeding his father, gifted the kingdom of Kakchiquel to his eldest son, displacing his own brother and thus mortally affronting him. The struggle which ensued lasted for generations, embittered the relations between these two branches of the Maya in Guatemala, and undermined their joint strength. Nahua mer- cenaries were employed in the struggle on both sides, and these introduced many of the uglinesses of Nahua life into Maya existence. The Coming of the Spaniards This condition of things lasted up to the time of the coming of the Spaniards. The Kakchiquels dated the commencement of a new chronology from the episode of the defeat of Cay Hun-Apu by them in 1492. They may have saved themselves the trouble ; for the time was at hand when the calendars of their race were to be closed, and its records written in another script by another people. One by one, and chiefly by reason of their insane policy of allying themselves with the invader against their own kin, the old kingdoms of Guatemala fell as spoil to the daring Conquistadores, and their people passed beneath the yoke of Spain — bondsmen who were to beget countless generations of slaves. The Riddle of Ancient Maya Writing What may possibly be the most valuable sources of Maya history are, alas ! sealed to us at present. We allude to the native Maya manuscripts and inscriptions, the writing of which cannot be deciphered by present-day scholars. Some of the old Spanish friars who lived in the times which directly succeeded the settlement of the country by the white man were able to read and 159 MYTHS OF MEXICO AND PERU even to write this script, but unfortunately they regarded it either as an invention of the Father of Evil or, as it was a native system, as a thing of no value. In a few generations all knowledge of how to decipher it was totally lost, and it remains to the modern world almost as a sealed book, although science has lavished all its wonderful machinery of logic and deduction upon it, and men of unquestioned ability have dedicated their lives to the problem of unravelling what must be regarded as one of the greatest and most mysterious riddles of which mankind ever attempted the solution. The romance of the discovery of the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphic system of writing is well known. For centuries the symbols displayed upon the temples and monuments of the Nile country were so many meaningless pictures and signs to the learned folk of Europe, until the discovery of the Rosetta stone a hundred years ago made their elucidation possible. This stone bore the same inscription in Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphics, and so the discovery of the " alpha- bet " of the hidden script became a comparatively easy task. But Central America has no Rosetta stone, nor is it possible that such an aid to research can ever be found. Indeed, such " keys " as have been discovered or brought forward by scientists have proved for the most part unavailing. The Maya Manuscripts The principal Maya manuscripts which have escaped the ravages of time are the codices in the libraries of Dresden, Paris, and Madrid. These are known as the Codex Perezianus, preserved in the Biblioth^ue Nationale at Paris, the Dresden Codex, long regarded as an Aztec manuscript, and the Troano Codex, so called from one of its owners, Senor Tro y Ortolano, found at 1 60 ^^"^^^^^^^P '^'^ima^^^'^i^5^^S><'>~-n]= ^ :^ i <