Part 6 (1/2)
--3. _Quetzalcoatl, the Hero of Tula._
But it was not Quetzalcoatl the G.o.d, the mysterious creator of the visible world, on whom the thoughts of the Aztec race delighted to dwell, but on Quetzalcoatl, high priest in the glorious city of Tollan (Tula), the teacher of the arts, the wise lawgiver, the virtuous prince, the master builder and the merciful judge.
Here, again, though the scene is transferred from heaven to earth and from the cycles of other worlds to a date not extremely remote, the story continues to be of his contest with Tezcatlipoca, and of the wiles of this enemy, now diminished to a potent magician and jealous rival, to dispossess and drive him from famous Tollan.
No one versed in the metaphors of mythology can be deceived by the thin veil of local color which surrounds the myth in this its terrestrial and historic form. Apart from its being but a repet.i.tion or continuation of the genuine ancient account of the conflict of day and night, light and darkness, which I have already given, the name Tollan is enough to point out the place and the powers with which the story deals. For this Tollan, where Quetzalcoatl reigned, is not by any means, as some have supposed, the little town of Tula, still alive, a dozen leagues or so northwest from the city of Mexico; nor was it, as the legend usually stated, in some undefined locality from six hundred to a thousand leagues northwest of that city; nor yet in Asia, as some antiquaries have maintained; nor, indeed, anywhere upon this weary world; but it was, as the name denotes, and as the native historian Tezozomoc long since translated it, where the bright sun lives, and where the G.o.d of light forever rules so long as that orb is in the sky. Tollan is but a syncopated form of _Tonatlan_, the Place of the Sun.[1]
[Footnote 1: ”Tonalan, o lugar del sol,” says Tezozomoc (_Cronica Mexicana_, chap. i). The full form is _Tonatlan_, from _tona_, ”hacer sol,” and the place ending _tlan_. The derivation from _tollin_, a rush, is of no value, and it is nothing to the point that in the picture writing Tollan was represented by a bundle of rushes (Kingsborough, vol. vi, p.
177, note), as that was merely in accordance with the rules of the picture writing, which represented names by rebuses. Still more worthless is the derivation given by Herrera (_Historia de las Indias Occidentals_, Dec.
iii, Lib. i, cap. xi), that it means ”Lugar de Tuna” or the place where the tuna (the fruit of the Opuntia) is found; inasmuch as the word _tuna_ is not from the Aztec at all, but belongs to that dialect of the Arawack spoken by the natives of Cuba and Haiti.]
It is worth while to examine the whereabouts and character of this marvelous city of Tollan somewhat closely, for it is a place that we hear of in the oldest myths and legends of many and different races. Not only the Aztecs, but the Mayas of Yucatan and the Kiches and Cakchiquels of Guatemala bewailed, in woful songs, the loss to them of that beautiful land, and counted its destruction as a common starting point in their annals.[1] Well might they regret it, for not again would they find its like. In that land the crop of maize never failed, and the ears grew as long as a man's arm; the cotton burst its pods, not white only, but naturally of all beautiful colors, scarlet, green, blue, orange, what you would; the gourds could not be clasped in the arms; birds of beauteous plumage filled the air with melodious song. There was never any want nor poverty. All the riches of the world were there, houses built of silver and precious jade, of rosy mother of pearl and of azure turquoises. The servants of the great king Quetzalcoatl were skilled in all manner of arts; when he sent them forth they flew to any part of the world with infinite speed; and his edicts were proclaimed from the summit of the mountain Tzatzitepec, the Hill of Shouting, by criers of such mighty voice that they could be heard a hundred leagues away.[2] His servants and disciples were called ”Sons of the Sun” and ”Sons of the Clouds.”[3]
[Footnote 1: The _Books of Chilan Balam_, of the Mayas, the _Record from Tecpan At.i.tlan_, of the Cakchiquels, and the _Popol vuh_, National Book, of the Kiches, have much to say about Tulan. These works were all written at a very early date, by natives, and they have all been preserved in the original tongues, though unfortunately only the last mentioned has been published.]
[Footnote 2: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii, cap. iii.]
[Footnote 3: Duran, _Historia de los Indios_, in Kingsborough, vol. viii, p. 267.]
Where, then, was this marvelous land and wondrous city? Where could it be but where the Light-G.o.d is on his throne, where the life-giving sun is ever present, where are the mansions of the day, and where all nature rejoices in the splendor of its rays?
But this is more than in one spot. It may be in the uppermost heavens, where light is born and the fleecy clouds swim easily; or in the west, where the sun descends to his couch in sanguine glory; or in the east, beyond the purple rim of the sea, whence he rises refreshed as a giant to run his course; or in the underworld, where he pa.s.ses the night.
Therefore, in ancient Cakchiquel legend it is said: ”Where the sun rises, there is one Tulan; another is in the underworld; yet another where the sun sets; and there is still another, and there dwells the G.o.d. Thus, O my children, there are four Tulans, as the ancient men have told us.”[1]
[Footnote 1: Francisco Ernantez Arana Xahila, _Memorial de Tecpan At.i.tlan_. MS. in Cakchiquel, in my possession.]
The most venerable traditions of the Maya race claimed for them a migration from ”Tollan in Zuyva.” ”Thence came we forth together,” says the Kiche myth, ”there was the common parent of our race, thence came we, from among the Yaqui men, whose G.o.d is Yolcuat Quetzalcoat.”[1] This Tollan is certainly none other than the abode of Quetzalcoatl, named in an Aztec ma.n.u.script as _Zivena vitzcatl_, a word of uncertain derivation, but applied to the highest heaven.
[Footnote 1: _Le Popol Vuh_, p. 247. The name _Yaqui_ means in Kiche civilized or polished, and was applied to the Aztecs, but it is, in its origin, from an Aztec root _yauh_, whence _yaque_, travelers, and especially merchants. The Kiches recognizing in the Aztec merchants a superior and cultivated cla.s.s of men, adopted into their tongue the name which the merchants gave themselves, and used the word in the above sense.
Compare Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva Espana_, Lib. ix, cap. xii.]
Where Quetzalcoatl finally retired, and whence he was expected back, was still a Tollan--Tollan Tlapallan--and Montezuma, when he heard of the arrival of the Spaniards, exclaimed, ”It is Quetzalcoatl, returned from Tula.”
The cities which selected him as their tutelary deity were named for that which he was supposed to have ruled over. Thus we have Tollan and Tollantzinco (”behind Tollan”) in the Valley of Mexico, and the pyramid Cholula was called ”Tollan-Cholollan,” as well as many other Tollans and Tulas among the Nahuatl colonies.
The natives of the city of Tula were called, from its name, the _Tolteca_, which simply means ”those who dwell in Tollan.” And who, let us ask, were these Toltecs?
They have hovered about the dawn of American history long enough. To them have been attributed not only the primitive culture of Central America and Mexico, but of lands far to the north, and even the earthworks of the Ohio Valley. It is time they were a.s.signed their proper place, and that is among the purely fabulous creations of the imagination, among the giants and fairies, the gnomes and sylphs, and other such fancied beings which in all ages and nations the popular mind has loved to create.
Toltec, Toltecatl,[1] which in later days came to mean a skilled craftsman or artificer, signifies, as I have said, an inhabitant of Tollan--of the City of the Sun--in other words, a Child of Light. Without a metaphor, it meant at first one of the far darting, bright s.h.i.+ning rays of the sun. Not only does the tenor of the whole myth show this, but specifically and clearly the powers attributed to the ancient Toltecs. As the immediate subjects of the G.o.d of Light they were called ”Those who fly the whole day without resting,”[2] and it was said of them that they had the power of reaching instantly even a very distant place. When the Light-G.o.d himself departs, they too disappear, and their city is left uninhabited and desolate.
[Footnote 1: Toltecatl, according to Molina, is ”oficial de arte mecanica maestro,” (_Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana_, s.v.). This is a secondary meaning. Veitia justly says, ”Toltecatl quiere decir artifice, porque en Thollan comenzaron a ensenar, aunque a Thollan llamaron Tula, y por decir Toltecatl dicen Tuloteca” (_Historia_, cap. xv).]
[Footnote 2: Their t.i.tle was _Tlanqua cemilhuique_, compounded of _tlanqua_, to set the teeth, as with strong determination, and _cemilhuitia_, to run during a whole day. Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii, cap. iii, and Lib. x, cap. xxix; compare also the myth of Tezcatlipoca disguised as an old woman parching corn, the odor of which instantly attracted the Toltecs, no matter how far off they were. When they came she killed them. Id. Lib. iii, cap. xi.]
In some, and these I consider the original versions of the myth, they do not const.i.tute a nation at all, but are merely the disciples or servants of Quetzalcoatl.[1] They have all the traits of beings of supernatural powers. They were astrologers and necromancers, marvelous poets and philosophers, painters as were not to be found elsewhere in the world, and such builders that for a thousand leagues the remains of their cities, temples and fortresses strewed the land. ”When it has happened to me,”
says Father Duran, ”to ask an Indian who cut this pa.s.s through the mountains, or who opened that spring of water, or who built that old ruin, the answer was, 'The Toltecs, the disciples of Papa.'”[2]