Part 5 (1/2)
Two priests are likewise pictured in the act of offering bowls containing human blood to the idol and a third, mounted on a ladder, is pouring the contents of another bowl over its head. It is obvious how the constant a.s.sociations of the earth-mother with sanguinary sacrifices and bloodthirstiness would, in time, give rise to the idea of a hostile, maleficent power, linked with darkness and devouring fire, who, under the aspect of the serpent-woman, waged an eternal warfare on the human race and clamored for victims and b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices. The natural sequence to the above a.s.sociations is that in ancient Mexico the powers exerting fatal influence upon the human race are all represented as female, viz.: the Cihuacoatl or woman-serpent, the Ciuapipiltin and the Tzit-zime, etc.
These and various other personifications of the female principle are described in detail in my notes and commentary to the B. N. MS.
After considering the foregoing data it seems impossible not to conclude that it must have taken centuries of time for the idea of duality, or of the Above and Below to have taken such a deep hold upon the native mind and to have produced such a growth of symbolism and a.s.sociation in so many ramifications of thought. Let us endeavor to obtain a further insight into the native mode of thought by carefully studying some significant details concerning the social organization of the Mexicans from the time of Acamapichtli to that of Montezuma and the influences it had been subjected to gradually. This, the first ruler, unquestionably ruled as the Cihuacoatl, a name which means either Woman-serpent or Female-twin. This fact in itself testifies to an epoch-making change in the organization of the Mexican government, in the making of which a concession was made to a previously existing order of things, by the retention of the female t.i.tle by a male ruler.
Having carefully studied the question for many years, I have long considered it proven that when the Mexicans settled in the valley of Mexico they came under a series of influences emanating from an ancient and highly cultured centre of civilization situated in the south, which had followed, during untold centuries, the same lines of primitive thought which have been stated. This question of contact and influence from an older civilization is so important and the material I have collected on the subject is so extensive and complex, that it cannot be adequately treated here. Further on I shall discuss at length certain historical data throwing light on ancient contact and influences. Meanwhile I may as well state here that, having carefully weighed all testimony, I accept as amply proven and well supported, the testimony of Las Casas, Torquemada, Mendieta and others, who record that the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl was an actual person who had come to Mexico from Yucatan twice and had finally returned thither, leaving a small colony of his va.s.sals behind him whose influence upon the religious and social organization and symbolism of the tribes, inhabiting the central plateau, can be plainly discerned.
Montezuma himself, in his famous speech to Cortes, which the latter carefully reported to the Emperor Charles V, states that: ”we [the Mexican rulers] were brought here by a lord, whose va.s.sals all of our predecessors were, and who returned from here to his native land. He afterwards came here again, after a long time, during which many of his followers who had remained, had married native women of this land, raised large families and founded towns in which they dwelt. He wished to take them away from here with him, but they did not want to go, nor would they receive or adopt him as their ruler, and so he departed. Hut we have always thought that his descendants would surely come to subjugate this country and claim us as their va.s.sals....” (Historia de Nueva Espana. Hernan Cortes, ed.
Lorenzana, p. 81; see also p. 96). I do not see how it is possible to construe such plain, unadorned statements of simple, common-place facts into the a.s.sumption that Montezuma was recounting a mythical account of the disappearance of the Light-G.o.d from the sky, as upheld by some modern writers, who interpret the whole episode as a sun-myth or legend.
I have already shown that the meaning of the ocelot-skin and the spider, employed as symbols by the Mexicans, is apparent only when studied by means of the Maya language of Yucatan, the land whence the culture-hero is said to have come by the foregoing authorities. I will add here that in the Maya chronicles, it is stated that the culture-hero had ruled in Chichen-Itza, the first part of which name, _Chichen_, means _red_. In Mexican records it is described that he departed by water from the Mexican coast and travelled directly east, bound for Tlapallan-a name which means _red_-land. I draw attention to the fact that any one sailing from the mouth of the Panuco river, for instance, in a straight line towards the east, would inevitably land on the coast of Yucatan, not far from the modern Merida and the ancient ruins of Chichen-Itza.
I shall also produce evidence, further on, to show that the meaning of the much-discussed name of the culture-hero's home, Tullan, is also furnished by the Maya language. From more than one source, we learn, moreover, that there were several Tullans on the American continent. The conception of _Twin-brothers_ as the personification of the Above and Below had been adopted in Yucatan and it is to the influence emanating from that source that I attribute the movement made in Mexico, to subst.i.tute male twin-rulers in the place of the man and woman, who had previously and jointly ruled the ancient Mexicans.
Let us now a.n.a.lyze the Maya t.i.tle Kukulcan, of which Quetzalcoatl is the Mexican equivalent. As already stated, the word _can_ means serpent and the numeral 4 and is almost h.o.m.onymous with the word for sky or heaven=_caan_. The image of a serpent, therefore, directly suggested and expressed the idea of something quadruple incorporated in one celestial being and appropriately symbolized the divine ruler of the four quarters.
In the word Kukulcan the noun _can_ is qualified by the prefix _kukul_. In the compiled Maya dictionary published by Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg (appendix to de Landa's Relacion) the adjective _ku_ or _kul_ is given as ”divine or holy.” Kukulcan may therefore be a.n.a.lyzed as ”the divine serpent” or the ”Divine Four.” When Maya sculptors or scribes began to represent this symbol of the divinity they must have searched for some object, easy to depict, the sound of whose name resembled that of ku or kul. The Maya adjective ”feathered” being _kuk.u.m_, the artists evidently devised the plan of representing, as an effigy of the divinity, a serpent decorated with feathers and to this simple attempt at representing the ”divine serpent” in sculpture or pictography is due, in my opinion, the origin of the ”feathered serpent” effigies found in Yucatan and Mexico, which have so puzzled archaeologists.
Of Kukulcan, the culture-hero of the Mayas, it is recounted that he had been one of four brothers who originally ruled at Chichen-Itza, over four tribes. ”These brothers chose no wives but lived chastely and ruled righteously, until, at a certain time, one died or departed and two began to act unjustly and were put to death. The one remaining was Kukulcan. He appeased the strife which his brothers' acts had aroused, directed the minds of the people to the arts of peace and caused to be built various edifices. After he had completed his work at Chichen-Itza he founded the great city of Mayapan, destined to be the capital of the confederacy of the Mayas.” (See Brinton, Hero-myths, p. 162.) Friar Diego de Landa relates that the current opinion amongst the Indians of Yucatan was that this ruler had gone to Mexico where, after his return (departure?) he was named Cezalcouatl and revered as one of their G.o.ds (Relacion, ed. Bra.s.seur de Bourbourg, p. 36). Before a.n.a.lyzing the Nahuatl rendering of Kukulcan's name I would point out the noteworthy coincidence that, during his reign at Chichen-Itza and Mayapan, he practically united in his person and a.s.sumed the offices formerly fulfilled by four rulers, of which he had been only one.
I would, moreover, draw attention to the remarkable, sculptured columns which support the main portal of the main pyramid-temple called El Castillo at Chichen-Itza. These represent gigantic feathered serpents and are figured on pl. XIV of Mr. Wm. Holmes' most instructive and useful ”Archaeological Studies,” Part I, ”Monuments of Yucatan.” The feathers carved on the ma.s.sive columns are evidently the precious tail feathers of the quetzal, which have the peculiarity of exhibiting, according to the way the light falls upon them, blue, red, yellow and green colors-precisely those a.s.signed to the four quarters by the Mexicans and for all we know to the contrary, by the Mayas. Whether this feather was chosen for this peculiarity or for its beauty only, as that with which to deck the effigy of the divinity, can, of course, only be conjectured. In Mexico numberless effigies of feathered serpents exist. The resemblance of the sound of the Nahuatl words: feather=ihuitl, and heaven or sky=ilhui-catl, should be recorded here as a possible reason for the a.s.sociation of feathers with the serpent and as a means of conveying the idea of its divinity. It should also be noted that quetzal, the name of the most precious feathers the natives possessed, resembles in sound, the second part of the Nahuatl words for flame=tle-cuecal-lotl, or for ”tongue of fire”=tle-cuecal-nenepilli. That the feathered serpent was an image of the divinity is finally proven, I think, by the following pa.s.sage from Sahagun which establishes that the earliest form, under which the divinity was revered by the Mexicans, was that of fire: ”Of all the G.o.ds the [most]
ancient one is the G.o.d of Fire, who dwells in the midst of flowers, in an abode surrounded by four walls and _is covered with s.h.i.+ning feathers like wings_” (_op. cit._ book VI, chap. IV). It is thus shown that whilst the word ihuitl=feather suggested something divine, the word quetzal, besides being the name of a particular kind of feather, conveyed the idea of something resplendent or s.h.i.+ning [like fire]. The name for serpent, coatl, signified twin; thus there is a profound a.n.a.logy between the Maya and Mexican symbol, pointing, however, to the Yucatan form as the most ancient.
Let us see how the name Quetzal-coatl occurs in Mexico. It is given as the name of the ”supreme G.o.d whose substance was as invisible and intangible as air,” but who was also revered as the G.o.d of fire. The constant reference to air in connection with the supreme divinity caused him to be also adored as the G.o.d of air and of the four winds. On the other hand, the divine t.i.tle of Quetzal-coatl was carried by the culture-hero whose personality has been discussed and who was a Yucatec ruler and high priest. Sahagun (_op. cit._ book III, chap. IX) informs us that ”Quequet-zalcoa,” the plural form of the word Quetzalcoatl, was employed to designate ”_the high priests_ (elsewhere designated as the 'supreme pontiffs') _who were the successors of Quetzalcoatl_.” He also states that ”the high priest of the temple was [the representative of] the G.o.d Quetzalcoatl” (book I, chap. 5). ”The priest who was most perfect in his conduct and in wisdom was elected to be high priest and a.s.sumed the name of Quetzalcoatl.... There were two such high priests equal in rank and honours.... One of these, the Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui, was in the service of Huitzilopochtli.” Without pausing here to a.n.a.lyze this t.i.tle since it will be discussed in detail in another publication I will only repeat that, after years of careful research, I have obtained the certainty that the foregoing t.i.tle and office were those held by Montezuma at the time of the Conquest. What is more, I can produce ample evidence to prove that he was the living personification of Huitzilopochtli one of the ”divine twins” and of the Above. He was not the first Mexican ruler who had filled this exalted role, for it is recorded that Axayacatl, one of Acamapichtli's successors, had represented, in life, ”our G.o.d Huitzilopochtli.” After his death his effigy ”was first covered with a fine robe representing Huitzilopochtli; over this was hung the dress of Tlaloc ... the next garment was that of Youalahua [=the lord of the wheel]
and the fourth was that of Quetzalcoatl” (Duran, vol. I, chap. 39, pp. 304 and 306).
Let us now see how Montezuma's personification of Huitzilopochtli was carried out by his life and his surroundings. According to Bernal Diaz, an eye-witness, when the great Montezuma came forth in state to meet Cortes, he was conveyed on a sumptuous litter, being thus raised above the earth.(6) When he descended from this and walked, the golden soles of his sandals prevented his feet from coming into direct contact with the ground; he was supported, _i. e._ partially held up, by his four princ.i.p.al lords, and a baldachin adorned with light greenish-blue feathers, gold, pearls and jade representing the xoxouhqui-ilhuicatl=”the verdant or blue sky” (which was, by the way, a t.i.tle of Huitzilopochtli), was carried over his head. Other lords preceded him, ”sweeping the ground and spreading blankets upon it so that he should not tread upon the earth. All of these lords did not dare to think of raising their eyes to look at his face-only the four lords, his cousins, who supported him, possessed this privilege”
(Bernal Diaz, Historia Verdadera de la Conquista. Madrid, 1632, p. 65). A feature, the origin of which can be directly traced back to the a.s.sociation of the star-G.o.d, Polaris, with repose and immovability, was that Montezuma, like his predecessors, was the only person privileged to sit on state occasions, on a throne or raised seat with a high back and rest whilst all other individuals stood or moved about him.
From several sources we know that Montezuma habitually wore blue or white attire, which sometimes was of open network. He employed gold, precious blue and green feathers, turquoise, pearls and emeralds for his personal ornaments. His diadem with a high point in front, was incrusted with turquoise or was made of burnished gold. He sometimes wore a crown made of featherwork, with a bird's head of gold above his forehead. His emblem was the sun, the orb of day, and he presided over its cult which had developed itself simultaneously with the cult of the Above, a feature of which was the offering of ”birds, b.u.t.terflies and flowers.” Sometimes he wore, ”attached to his sandals, small wings, named tzi-coyolli, resembling the wing of a bird. These produced a sound like that of tiny gold bells when he walked” (Tezozomoc, Cronica, p. 594).
It must be admitted, on reading the foregoing descriptions gleaned from Sahagun's Historia, that it would be impossible to carry out, more perfectly and completely, the idea that Montezuma was the earthly representative of the Upper regions, the blue heaven. By pus.h.i.+ng symbolism so far that he actually wore wings on his feet and avoided contact with the ground, it is not surprising that Montezuma's adversaries, amongst neighboring tribes, should accuse him of exacting divine honors for his own person. At the same time there is no doubt that his own subjects revered him merely as a temporary representative and mouth-piece of the impersonal dual divinity. This idea is clearly conveyed by some native harangues, to which I refer the reader, and from which I extract the following pa.s.sages:
After his election, the ruler is solemnly addressed by one of the chief lords who says to him: ”Oh! our humane, pious and beloved lord, who deserves to be more highly esteemed than all precious stones and feathers, you are here present because our sovereign G.o.d has placed thee [above us]
as our lord.... You possess the seat and throne which was given [to your predecessors] by our lord G.o.d” ... ”you are the image of our lord G.o.d and represent his person. He reposes in you and he employs you like a flute through which he speaks and he hears with your ears.... Oh, lord king! G.o.d sees what the persons do who rule over his domains and when they err in their office he laughs at them, but in silence, for he is G.o.d, and is omnipotent and can mock at whom he will. For he holds all of us in the palm of his hand and rocks us about, and we are like b.a.l.l.s or round globes in his hands and we go rolling from one side to the other and make him laugh, and he serves himself of us as we go moving about on the palm of his hand!”
”Although thou art our neighbour and friend and son and brother, we are no more thy equals, nor do we consider you as a man, for now you have the person, the image, the conversation and the communion of our lord G.o.d. He speaks inside of you and instructs you and lets himself be heard through your mouth-his tongue is your tongue, and your face is his face ... he has adorned you with his authority and has given you fangs and claws so that you should be feared and reverenced ...” (Sahagun, book VI, chap. 10).
The foregoing figure of speech in which fangs and claws are alluded to as symbols of fear-inspiring power affords as valuable an insight into the native modes of thought and expression as do the similes employed in the following address to the newly-elected ruler by the spokesman of his va.s.sals.
”Oh lord! may you live many years to fill your office prosperously; submit your shoulders to the very heavy and troublesome load; extend your wings and breast as a shelter to your subjects whom you have to carry as a load.
Oh, lord! let your town and va.s.sals enter under your shadow, for you are [unto them] like the tree named puchotl or aueuetl, which casts a great circle or wheel of shade, under which many are gathered in shelter” (_op.
cit._ book VI, chap. II).
The admonition also addressed to the ruler, ”Never to laugh and joke again as he had done previously to his election, and to a.s.sume the heart of an old, grave and severe man,” explains the true significance of the name of Montezuma or Mo-tecuh-zoma; which was an honorific t.i.tle literally meaning, ”our angry or wrathy [looking] lord.”
Whilst the above data establish beyond a doubt that the Mexican Quetzalcoatl was regarded as the visible representative of the celestial ruler of the universe and that divine honors were voluntarily accorded to him, it is interesting to read Montezuma's explanation to Cortes concerning this question. The latter writes: ”seated on a raised seat Montezuma discoursed as follows: ... 'I know that you have been told by my enemies that I am, or have made myself a G.o.d.'... Raising his robes he showed me his body saying: 'Here you see that I am made of flesh and bone, like yourself or like any one, and that I am mortal and tangible.'
Grasping his arms and his body with his hands he continued: 'see how they have like to you.' ”... (Historia, Hernan Cortes, ed. Lorenzana, p. 82).
Better than all dissertations, the above words convey an idea of the naf simplicity of the man who uttered them.
Referring the reader to Mr. Ad. Bandelier's study, ”On the social organization and mode of government of the ancient Mexicans,” for further details concerning the duties respectively filled by Montezuma and his coadjutor, I shall only explain here the conclusion I have reached that the former was the high priest of the cult of the sun and heaven, the visible ruler, the war lord, and the administrator of justice. As stated in a native harangue: ”the supreme lord is like unto the heart of the population ... he is aided by two senators in all concerning the administration of the government: one of these was a 'pilli' and was named tlaca-tecuhtli; the other was a warrior and was ent.i.tled tlacoch-tecuhtli.
Two other chieftains aided the supreme lord in the militia: one, ent.i.tled tlaca-teccatl, was a 'pilli' and warrior; the other, named tlacoch-calcatl, was not a 'pilli.' Such is the government or administration of the republic ... and these four officers did not occupy these positions by inheritance but by election” (Sahagun, book VI, chap.
20).