Part 4 (1/2)
For this reason I take it, we find the number _three_ so generally a sacred number in the symbolism of the nagualists. We have already learned in the extract from Nunez de la Vega that the neophytes were instructed in cla.s.ses of three. To this day in Soteapan the fasts and festivals appointed by the native ministrants are three days in duration.[41-] The semi-Christianized inhabitants of the Sierra of Nayerit, the Nahuatl-speaking Chotas, continued in the last century to venerate three divinities, the Dawn, the Stone and the Serpent;[41-]
a.n.a.logous to a similar ”trinity” noted by Father Duran among the ancient Aztecs.[41--]
The number _nine_, that is, 3 x 3, recurs so frequently in the conjuration formulas of the Mexican sorcerers that de la Serna exclaims: ”It was the Devil himself who inculcated into them this superst.i.tion about the number nine.”[41-?]
The other number sacred to the nagualists was _seven_. I have, in a former essay, given various reasons for believing that this was not derived from the seven days of the Christian week, but directly from the native calendar.[42-*] Nunez de la Vega tells us that the patron of the seventh day was _Cuculcan_, ”the Feathered Serpent,” and that many nagualists chose him as their special protector. As already seen, in Guatemala the child finally accepted its _naual_ when seven years old; and among some of the Nahuatl tribes of Mexico the _tonal_ and the calendar name was formally a.s.signed on the seventh day after birth.[42-] From similar impressions the Cakchiquels of Guatemala maintained that when the lightning strikes the earth the ”thunder stone”
sinks into the soil, but rises to the surface after seven years.[42-]
The three and the seven were the ruling numbers in the genealogical trees of the Pipiles of San Salvador. The ”tree” was painted with _seven_ branches representing degrees of relations.h.i.+p within which marriage was forbidden unless a man had performed some distinguished exploit in war, when he could marry beyond the nearest _three_ degrees of relations.h.i.+p.[42--] Another combination of 3 and 7, by multiplication, explains the customs among the Mixes of deserting for 21 days a house in which a death has occurred.[42-?]
The indications are that the nagualists derived these numbers from the third and seventh days of the calendar ”month” of twenty days.
Tepeololtec, the Cave G.o.d, was patron of the third day and also ”Lord of Animals,” the transformation into which was the test of nagualistic power.[42---] Tlaloc, G.o.d of the mountains and the rains, to whom the seventh day was hallowed, was represented by the nagualistic symbol of a snake doubled and twisted on itself, and was generally portrayed in connection with the ”Feathered Serpent” (Quetzalcoatl, Cuculchan, Guk.u.matz, all names meaning this), represented as carrying his medicine bag, _xiquipilli_, and incensory, the apparatus of the native illuminati, his robe marked with the sign of the cross to show that he was Lord of the Four Winds and of Life.[43-*]
=26.= The nagualistic rites were highly symbolic, and the symbols used had clearly defined meanings, which enable us to a.n.a.lyze the religious ideas underlying this mysterious cult.
The most important symbol was Fire. It was regarded as the primal element and the immediate source of life. Father Nicolas de Leon has the following suggestive pa.s.sage in this connection:
”If any of their old superst.i.tions has remained more deeply rooted than another in the hearts of these Indians, both men and women, it is this about fire and its wors.h.i.+p, and about making new fire and preserving it for a year in secret places. We should be on the watch for this, and when in their confessions they speak of what the Fire said and how the Fire wept, expressions which we are apt to pa.s.s by as unintelligible, we must lay our hands on them for reprehension. We should also be on the watch for their baptism by Fire, a ceremony called the _yiahuiltoca_,[43-] shortly after the birth of a child when they bestow on it the surnames; nor must the lying-in women and their a.s.sistants be permitted to speak of Fire as the father and mother of all things and the author of nature; because it is a common saying with them that Fire is present at the birth and death of every creature.”
This curious ceremony derived its name from the _yiahuitli_, a plant not unlike the absinthe, the powdered leaves of which, according to Father Sahagun, the natives were accustomed to throw into the flames as an offering to the fire.[43-] Long after the conquest, and probably to this day, the same custom prevails in Mexico, the fumes and odor of the burning leaves being considered very salubrious and purifying to the air of the sick room[TN-4][43--]
The word _yiahuiltoca_ means ”the throwing of the _yiauhtli_” (from _toca_, to throw upon with the hands). Another name for the ceremony, according to Father Vetancurt, who wrote a century later than Leon, was _apehualco_, which has substantially the same meaning, ”a throwing upon”
or ”a throwing away.”[44-*] He adds the interesting particulars that it was celebrated on the fourth day after the birth of the child, during which time it was deemed essential to keep the fire burning in the house, but not to permit any of it to be carried out, as that would bring bad luck to the child.
Jacinto de la Serna also describes this ceremony, to which he gives the name _tlecuixtliliztli_, ”which means that they pa.s.s the infant over the fire;” and elsewhere he adds: ”The wors.h.i.+p of fire is the greatest stumbling-block to these wretched idolaters.”[44-]
=27.= Other ceremonies connected with fire wors.h.i.+p took place in connection with the manufacture of the pulque, or _octli_, the fermented liquor obtained from the sap of the maguey plant. The writer just quoted, de Vetancurt, states that the natives in his day, when they had brewed the new pulque and it was ready to be drunk, first built a fire, walked in procession around it and threw some of the new liquor into the flames, chanting the while an invocation to the G.o.d of inebriation, Tezcatzoncatl, to descend and be present with them.
This was distinctly a survival of an ancient doctrine which connected the G.o.d of Fire with the G.o.ds of Drunkenness, as we may gather from the following quotation from the history composed by Father Diego Duran:
”The _octli_ was a favorite offering to the G.o.ds, and especially to the G.o.d of Fire. Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases, sometimes it was scattered upon the flames with a brush, at other times it was poured out around the fireplace.”[45-*]
=28.= The high importance of the fire ceremonies in the secret rituals of the modern Mayas is plainly evident from the native Calendars, although their signification has eluded the researches of students, even of the laborious Pio Perez, who was so intimately acquainted with their language and customs. In these Calendars the fire-priest is constantly referred to as _ah-toc_, literally ”the fire-master.” The rites he celebrates recur at regular intervals of twenty days (the length of one native month) apart. They are four in number. On the first he takes the fire; on the second he kindles the fire; on the third he gives it free play, and on the fourth he extinguishes it. A period of five days is then allowed to elapse, when these ceremonies are recommenced in the same order. Whatever their meaning, they are so important that in the _Buk Xoc_, or General Computation of the Calendar, preserved in the mystic ”Books of Chilan Balam,” there are special directions for these fire-masters to reckon the proper periods for the exercise of their strange functions.[45-]
=29.= What, now, was the sentiment which underlay this wors.h.i.+p of fire? I think that the facts quoted, and especially the words of Father de Leon, leave no doubt about it. Fire was wors.h.i.+ped as the life-giver, the active generator, of animate existence. This idea was by no means peculiar to them. It repeatedly recurs in Sanskrit, in Greek and in Teutonic mythology, as has been ably pointed out by Dr. Hermann Cohen.[45-] The fire-G.o.d Agni (_ignis_) is in the Vedas the Maker of men; Prometheus steals the fire from heaven that he may with it animate the human forms he has moulded of clay; even the connection of the pulque with the fire is paralleled in Greek mythos, where Dionysos is called _Pyrigenes_, the ”fire-born.”
Among the ancient Aztecs the G.o.d of fire was called the oldest of G.o.ds, _Huehueteotl_, and also ”Our Father,” _Tota_, as it was believed from him all things were derived.[46-*] Both among them and the Mayas, as I have pointed out in a previous work, he was supposed to govern the generative proclivities and the s.e.xual relations.[46-] Another of his names was _Xiuhtecutli_, which can be translated ”G.o.d of the Green Leaf,” that is, of vegetable fecundity and productiveness.[46-]
To transform themselves into a globe or ball of fire was, as we have seen (ante, p. 21), a power claimed by expert nagualists, and to handle it with impunity, or to blow it from the mouth, was one of their commonest exhibitions. Nothing so much proved their superiority as thus to master this potent element.
=30.= The same name above referred to, ”the Heart of the Town,” or ”of the Hills,” was that which at a comparatively late date was applied to an idol of green stone preserved with religious care in a cavern in the Cerro de Monopostiac, not far from San Francisco del Mar. The spot is still believed by the natives to be enchanted ground and protected by superhuman powers.[46--]
These green stones, called _chalchiuitl_, of jadeite, nephrite, green quartz, or the like, were accounted of peculiar religious significance throughout southern Mexico, and probably to this day many are preserved among the indigenous population as amulets and charms. They were often carved into images, either in human form or representing a frog, the latter apparently the symbol of the waters and of fertility. Bartholome de Alva refers to them in a pa.s.sage of his Confessionary. The priest asks the penitent:
”Dost thou possess at this very time little idols of green stone, or frogs made of it (_in chalchiuh coconeme, chalchiuh tamazoltin_)?