Latin-American Mythology. Hartley Burr Alexander

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      PLATE VIII.

      Figure from the Codex Borgia representing the red and the black Tezcatlipoca facing one another across a tlachtli court upon which is shown a sacrificial victim painted with the red and white stripes of the Morning and Evening Star (Venus). The red Tezcatlipoca symbolizes day, the black Tezcatlipoca, night; the ball court is a symbol of the universe; the Morning and Evening Star might very naturally be looked upon as a sacrifice to the heaven god.

      In myth Tezcatlipoca plays the leading rôle as adversary of Quetzalcoatl, the ruler and god of the Toltec city of Tollan. In Sahagun's version of the story, three magicians, Huitzilopochtli, Titlacauan ("We are his Slaves," an epithet of Tezcatlipoca), and Tlacauepan, the younger brother of the others, undertook by magic and wile to drive Quetzalcoatl from the country and to overthrow the Toltec power. The three deities are obviously tribal gods of Nahuatlan nations, and Tezcatlipoca, who plays the chief part in the legends, is clearly the god of first importance at this early period, possibly the principal deity of all the Nahua; he was also the foremost divinity of Tezcuco, which, almost to the eve of the Conquest, was the leading partner in the Aztec confederacy. As the tale goes, Quetzalcoatl was ailing; Tezcatlipoca appeared in the guise of an old man, a physician, and administered to the ailing god, not medicine, but a liquor which intoxicated him. Texcatlipoca then assumed the form of a nude Indian of a strange tribe, a seller of green peppers, and walked before the palace of Uemac, temporal chief of the Toltec. Here he was seen by the chief's daughter, who fell ill of love for him. Uemac ordered the stranger brought before him and demanded of Toueyo (as the stranger called himself) why he was not clothed as other men. "It is not the custom of my country," Toueyo answered. "You have inspired my daughter with caprice; you must cure her," said Uemac. "That is impossible; kill me; I would die, for I do not deserve such words, seeking as I am only to earn an honest living." "Nevertheless, you shall cure her," replied the chief, "it is necessary; have no fear." So he caused the marriage of his daughter with the stranger, who thus became a chieftain among the Toltec. Winning a victory for his new countrymen, he announced a feast in Tollan; and when the multitudes were assembled, he caused them to dance to his singing until they were as men intoxicated or demented; they danced into a ravine and were changed into rocks, they fell from a bridge and became stones in the waters below. Again, in company with Tlacauepan, he appeared in the market-place of Tollan and caused the infant Huitzilopochtli to dance upon his hand. The people, crowding near, crushed several of their number dead; enraged, they slew the performers and, on the advice of Tlacauepan, fastened ropes to their bodies to drag them out; but all who touched the cords fell dead. By this and other magical devices great numbers of the Toltec were slain, and their dominion was brought to an end.

      3. Quetzalcoatl³⁵

      The most famous and picturesque of New World mythic figures is that of Quetzalcoatl, although primarily his renown is due less to the undoubted importance of his cult than to his association with the coming and the beliefs of the white men. According to native tradition, Quetzalcoatl had been the wise and good ruler of Tollan in the Golden Age of Anahuac, lawgiver, teacher of the arts, and founder of a purified religion. Driven from his kingdom by the machinations of evil magicians, he departed over the eastern sea for Tlapallan, the land of plenty, promising to return and reinstitute his kindly creed on some future anniversary of the day of his departure. He was described as an old man, bearded, and white, clad in a long robe; as with other celestial gods, crosses were associated with his representations and shrines. When Cortez landed, the Mexicans were expecting the return of Quetzalcoatl; and, according to Sahagun, the very outlooks who first beheld the ships of the Spaniards had been posted to watch for the coming god. The white men (perhaps the image was aided by their shining armour, their robed priests, their crosses) were inevitably assumed to be the deity, and among the gifts sent to them by Montezuma were the turquoise mask, feather mantle, and other apparel appropriate to the god. It is certain that the belief materially aided the Spaniards in the early stages of their advance, and it is small wonder that the myth which was so helpful to their ambitions should have appealed to their imaginations. The missionary priests, gaining some idea of native traditions and finding among them ideas, emblems, and rites analogous to those of Christendom (the deluge, the cross, baptism, sacraments, confession), not unnaturally saw in the figure of the robed and bearded reformer of religion a Christian teacher, and they were not slow to identify him with St. Thomas, the Apostle. When an almost identical story was found throughout Central America, the Andean region, and, indeed, wide-spread in South America, the same explanation was adopted, and the wanderings of the Saint became vast beyond the dreams of Marco Polo or any other vaunted traveller, while memorials of his miracles are still displayed in regions as remote from Mexico as the basin of La Plata. Naturally, too, the interest of the subject has not waned with time, for whether we view the Quetzalcoatl myth in relation to its association with European ideas or with respect to its aboriginal analogues in the two Americas, it presents a variety of interest scarcely equalled by any other tale of the New World.

The name of the god is formed of quetzal, designating the long, green tail-plumes of Pharomacrus mocinno, and coatl ("serpent"); it means, therefore, "the Green-Feather Snake," and immediately puts Quetzalcoatl into the group of celestial powers of which the plumed serpent is a symbol, among the Hopi and Zuñi to the north as well as among Andean peoples far to the south. Sahagun says that Quetzalcoatl is a wind-god, who "sweeps the roads for the rain-gods, that they may rain." Quetzal-plumes were a symbol of greening vegetation, and it is altogether probable that the Plumed Serpent-God was originally a deity of rain-clouds, the sky-serpent embodiment of the rainbow or the lightning. The turquoise snake-mask or bird-mask, characteristic of the god, is surely an emblem of the skies, and like other sky-gods he carries a serpent-shaped spear-thrower. The beard (which other Mexican deities sometimes wear) is perhaps a symbol of descending rain, perhaps (as on some Navaho figures) of pollen, or fertilization. Curiously enough, Quetzalcoatl is not commonly shown as the white god which the tradition would lead us to expect, but typically with a dark-hued body; it may be that the dark hue and the robe of legend are both emblems of rain-clouds.

      The tradition of his whiteness may come from his stellar associations, for though he is sometimes shown with emblems of moon or sun, he is more particularly identified with the morning star. According to the Annals of Quauhtitlan, Quetzalcoatl, when driven from Tollan, immolated himself on the shores of the eastern sea, and from his ashes rose birds with shining feathers (symbols of warrior souls mounting to the sun), while his heart became the Morning Star, wandering for eight days in the underworld before it ascended in splendour. In numerous legends Quetzalcoatl is associated with Tezcatlipoca, commonly as an antagonist; and if we may believe one tale, recounted by Mendieta, Tezcatlipoca, defeating Quetzalcoatl in ball-play (a game directly symbolic of the movements of the heavenly orbs), cast him out of the land into the east, where he encountered the sun and was burned. This story (clearly a variant of the tale of the banishment of Quetzalcoatl told in the Annals of Quauhtitlan and by Sahagun) is interpreted СКАЧАТЬ