American Hero-Myths Part 4

THE GLORY OF THE LORD OF TULA--THE SUBTLETY OF THE SORCERER, TEZCATLIPOCA--THE MAGIC MIRROR AND THE MYSTIC DRAUGHT--THE MYTH EXPLAINED--THE PROMISE OF REJUVENATION--THE TOVEYO AND THE MAIDEN--THE JUGGLERIES OF TEZCATLIPOCA--DEPARTURE OF QUETZALCOATL FROM TULA--QUETZALCOATL AT CHOLULA--HIS DEATH OR DEPARTURE--THE CELESTIAL GAME OF BALL AND TIGER SKIN--QUETZALCOATL AS THE PLANET VENUS.

--4. _Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds._

THE LORD OF THE FOUR WINDS--HIS SYMBOLS THE WHEEL OF THE WINDS, THE PENTAGON AND THE CROSS--CLOSE RELATION TO THE G.o.dS OF RAIN AND WATERS--INVENTOR OF THE CALENDAR--G.o.d OF FERTILITY AND CONCEPTION--RECOMMENDS s.e.xUAL AUSTERITY--PHALLIC SYMBOLS--G.o.d OF MERCHANTS--THE PATRON OF THIEVES--HIS PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS.

--5. _The Return of Quetzalcoatl._

HIS EXPECTED RE-APPEARANCE--THE ANXIETY OF MONTEZUMA--HIS ADDRESS TO CORTES--THE GENERAL EXPECTATION--EXPLANATION OF HIS PREDICTED RETURN.

I now turn from the wild hunting tribes who peopled the sh.o.r.es of the Great Lakes and the fastnesses of the northern forests to that cultivated race whose capital city was in the Valley of Mexico, and whose scattered colonies were found on the sh.o.r.es of both oceans from the mouths of the Rio Grande and the Gila, south, almost to the Isthmus of Panama. They are familiarly known as Aztecs or Mexicans, and the language common to them all was the _Nahuatl_, a word of their own, meaning "the pleasant sounding."

Their mythology has been preserved in greater fullness than that of any other American people, and for this reason I am enabled to set forth in ampler detail the elements of their hero-myth, which, indeed, may be taken as the most perfect type of those I have collected in this volume.

--1. _The Two Antagonists._

The culture hero of the Aztecs was Quetzalcoatl, and the leading drama, the central myth, in all the extensive and intricate theology of the Nahuatl speaking tribes was his long contest with Tezcatlipoca, "a contest," observes an eminent Mexican antiquary, "which came to be the main element in the Nahuatl religion and the cause of its modifications, and which materially influenced the destinies of that race from its earliest epochs to the time of its destruction."[1]

[Footnote 1: Alfredo Chavero, _La Piedra del Sol_, in the _a.n.a.les del Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p. 247.]

The explanations which have been offered of this struggle have varied with the theories of the writers propounding them. It has been regarded as a simple historical fact; as a figure of speech to represent the struggle for supremacy between two races; as an astronomical statement referring to the relative positions of the planet Venus and the Moon; as a conflict between Christianity, introduced by Saint Thomas, and the native heathenism; and as having other meanings not less unsatisfactory or absurd.

Placing it side by side with other American hero-myths, we shall see that it presents essentially the same traits, and undoubtedly must be explained in the same manner. All of them are the transparent stories of a simple people, to express in intelligible terms the daily struggle that is ever going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm and Suns.h.i.+ne.

Like all the heroes of light, Quetzalcoatl is identified with the East. He is born there, and arrives from there, and hence Las Casas and others speak of him as from Yucatan, or as landing on the sh.o.r.es of the Mexican Gulf from some unknown land. His day of birth was that called Ce Acatl, One Reed, and by this name he is often known. But this sign is that of the East in Aztec symbolism.[1] In a myth of the formation of the sun and moon, presented by Sahagun,[2] a voluntary victim springs into the sacrificial fire that the G.o.ds have built. They know that he will rise as the sun, but they do not know in what part of the horizon that will be.

Some look one way, some another, but Quetzalcoatl watches steadily the East, and is the first to see and welcome the Orb of Light. He is fair in complexion, with abundant hair and a full beard, bordering on the red,[3]

as are all the dawn heroes, and like them he was an instructor in the arts, and favored peace and mild laws.

[Footnote 1: Chavero, _a.n.a.les del Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p.

14, 243.]

[Footnote 2: _Historia de las Cosas de Nueva Espana_, Lib. VII, cap. II.]

[Footnote 3: "La barba longa entre cana y roja; el cabello largo, muy llano." Diego Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, Vol. viii, p. 260.]

His name is symbolic, and is capable of several equally fair renderings.

The first part of it, _quetzalli_, means literally a large, handsome green feather, such as were very highly prized by the natives. Hence it came to mean, in an adjective sense, precious, beautiful, beloved, admirable. The bird from which these feathers were obtained was the _quetzal-tototl_ (_tototl_, bird) and is called by ornithologists _Trogon splendens_.

The latter part of the name, _coatl_, has in Aztec three entirely different meanings. It means a guest, also twins, and lastly, as a syncopated form of _cohuatl_, a serpent. Metaphorically, _cohuatl_ meant something mysterious, and hence a supernatural being, a G.o.d. Thus Montezuma, when he built a temple in the city of Mexico dedicated to the whole body of divinities, a regular Pantheon, named it _Coatecalli_, the House of the Serpent.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Coatecalli, que quiere decir el _templo de la culebra_, que sin metafora quiere decir _templo de diversos dioses_." Duran, _Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana_, cap. LVIII.]

Through these various meanings a good defence can be made of several different translations of the name, and probably it bore even to the natives different meanings at different times. I am inclined to believe that the original sense was that advocated by Becerra in the seventeenth century, and adopted by Veitia in the eighteenth, both competent Aztec scholars.[1] They translate Quetzalcoatl as "the admirable twin," and though their notion that this refers to Thomas Didymus, the Apostle, does not meet my views, I believe they were right in their etymology. The reference is to the duplicate nature of the Light-G.o.d as seen in the setting and rising sun, the sun of to-day and yesterday, the same yet different. This has its parallels in many other mythologies.[2]

[Footnote 1: Becerra, _Felicidad de Mejico_, 1685, quoted in Veitia, _Historia del Origen de las Gentes que poblaron la America Septentrional_, cap. XIX.]

[Footnote 2: In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," Ra, the Sun-G.o.d, says, "I am a soul and its twins," or, "My soul is becoming two twins." "This means that the soul of the sun-G.o.d is one, but, now that it is born again, it divides into two princ.i.p.al forms. Ra was wors.h.i.+pped at An, under his two prominent manifestations, as Tum the primal G.o.d, or more definitely, G.o.d of the sun at evening, and as Harmachis, G.o.d of the new sun, the sun at dawn." Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, p. 80.]

The correctness of this supposition seems to be shown by a prevailing superst.i.tion among the Aztecs about twins, and which strikingly ill.u.s.trates the uniformity of mythological conceptions throughout the world. All readers are familiar with the twins Romulus and Remus in Roman story, one of whom was fated to destroy their grandfather Amulius; with Edipus and Telephos, whose father Laios, was warned that his death would be by one of his children; with Theseus and Peirithoos, the former destined to cause the suicide of his father Aigeus; and with many more such myths. They can be traced, without room for doubt, back to simple expressions of the fact that the morning and the evening of the one day can only come when the previous day is past and gone; expressed figuratively by the statement that any one day must destroy its predecessor. This led to the stories of "the fatal children," which we find so frequent in Aryan mythology.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George W. c.o.x, _The Science of Comparative Mythology and Folk Lore_, pp. 14, 83, 130, etc.]

The Aztecs were a coa.r.s.e and b.l.o.o.d.y race, and carried out their superst.i.tions without remorse. Based, no doubt, on this mythical expression of a natural occurrence, they had the belief that if twins were allowed to live, one or the other of them would kill and eat his father or mother; therefore, it was their custom when such were brought into the world to destroy one of them.[1]

[Footnote 1: Geronimo de Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_. Lib.

II, cap. XIX.]

We shall see that, as in Algonkin story Michabo strove to slay his father, the West Wind, so Quetzalcoatl was in constant warfare with his father, Tezcatlipoca-Camaxtli, the Spirit of Darkness. The effect of this oft-repeated myth on the minds of the superst.i.tious natives was to lead them to the brutal child murder I have mentioned.

It was, however, natural that the more ordinary meaning, "the feathered or bird-serpent," should become popular, and in the picture writing some combination of the serpent with feathers or other part of a bird was often employed as the rebus of the name Quetzalcoatl.

He was also known by other names, as, like all the prominent G.o.ds in early mythologies, he had various t.i.tles according to the special attribute or function which was uppermost in the mind of the wors.h.i.+pper. One of these was _Papachtic_, He of the Flowing Locks, a word which the Spaniards shortened to Papa, and thought was akin to their t.i.tle of the Pope. It is, however, a pure Nahuatl word,[1] and refers to the abundant hair with which he was always credited, and which, like his ample beard, was, in fact, the symbol of the sun's rays, the aureole or glory of light which surrounded his face.

[Footnote 1: "_Papachtic_, guedejudo; _Papachtli_, guedeja o vedija de capellos, o de otra cosa a.s.si." Molina, _Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana_. sub voce. Juan de Tobar, in Kingsborough, Vol. viii, p. 259, note.]

His fair complexion was, as usual, significant of light. This a.s.sociation of ideas was so familiar among the Mexicans that at the time of an eclipse of the sun they sought out the whitest men and women they could find, and sacrificed them, in order to pacify the sun.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap.

xvi.]

His opponent, Tezcatlipoca, was the most sublime figure in the Aztec Pantheon. He towered above all other G.o.ds, as did Jove in Olympus. He was appealed to as the creator of heaven and earth, as present in every place, as the sole ruler of the world, as invisible and omniscient.

The numerous t.i.tles by which he was addressed ill.u.s.trate the veneration in which he was held. His most common name in prayers was _t.i.tlacauan_, We are his Slaves. As believed to be eternally young, he was Telpochtli, the Youth; as potent and unpersuadable, he was _Moyocoyatzin_, the Determined Doer;[1] as exacting in wors.h.i.+p, _Monenegui_, He who Demands Prayers; as the master of the race, _Teyocoyani_, Creator of Men, and _Teimatini_, Disposer of Men. As he was jealous and terrible, the G.o.d who visited on men plagues, and famines, and loathsome diseases, the dreadful deity who incited wars and fomented discord, he was named _Yaotzin_, the Arch Enemy, _Yaotl necoc_, the Enemy of both Sides, _Moquequeloa_, the Mocker, _Nezaualpilli_, the Lord who Fasts, _Tlamatzincatl_, He who Enforces Penitence; and as dark, invisible and inscrutable, he was _Yoalli ehecatl_, the Night Wind.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Moyocoyatzin_, is the third person singular of _yocoya_, to do, to make, with the reverential termination _tzin_. Sahagun says this t.i.tle was given him because he could do what he pleased, on earth or in heaven, and no one could prevent him. (Historia de Nueva Espana, Lib. III.

cap. II.) It seems to me that it would rather refer to his demiurgic, creative power.]

[Footnote 2: All these t.i.tles are to be found in Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_.]

He was said to be formed of thin air and darkness; and when he was seen of men it was as a shadow without substance. He alone of all the G.o.ds defied the a.s.saults of time, was ever young and strong, and grew not old with years.[1] Against such an enemy who could hope for victory?

[Footnote 1: The description of Clavigero is worth quoting: "TEZCATLIPOCA: Questo era il maggior Dio, che in que paesi si adorava, dopo il Dio invisible, o Supremo Essere. Era il Dio della Providenza, l' anima del Mondo, il Creator del Cielo e della Terra, ed il Signor di tutle le cose.

Rappresentavanlo tuttora giovane per significare, che non s' invecchiava mai, ne s' indeboliva cogli anni." _Storia Antica di Messico_, Lib. vi, p.

7.]

The name "Tezcatlipoca" is one of odd significance. It means The Smoking Mirror. This strange metaphor has received various explanations. The mirrors in use among the Aztecs were polished plates of obsidian, trimmed to a circular form. There was a variety of this black stone called _tezcapoctli_, smoky mirror stone, and from this his images were at times made.[1] This, however, seems too trivial an explanation.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. ii, cap. x.x.xvii.]

Others have contended that Tezcatlipoca, as undoubtedly the spirit of darkness and the night, refers, in its meaning, to the moon, which hangs like a bright round mirror in the sky, though partly dulled by what the natives thought a smoke.[1]

[Footnote 1: _a.n.a.les del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 257.]

I am inclined to believe, however, that the mirror referred to is that first and most familiar of all, the surface of water: and that the smoke is the mist which at night rises from lake and river, as actual smoke does in the still air.

As presiding over the darkness and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk and the coyote.[1]