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INTRODUCTORY

COSMOGONY

The "ages" of Mexican cosmogony--The making of the earth--The peopling of the earth--Creation of the sun and moon--The Historia de los Mexicanos--Deluge myths--The "Coxcox" fallacy--The fall of the gods--Mexican conceptions of the universe--The five regions of the world: The Tree of the East; the Tree of the North; the Tree of the West; the Tree of the South; Tlaxicco; Tlapcopa; Uitznauac or Uitzlampa; Ciuatlampa; Mictlampa--The supporters of the heavens--The Aztec heavens: Tlalocan; Homeyoca--Mictlampa as Hades pp. 36-64

THE GREAT GODS

Method of treatment--Uitzilopochtli--Tezcatlipoc?--Quetzalcoatl pp. 65-145

THE CREATIVE DEITIES

Tonacatecutli--Tonacaciuatl pp. 146-152

DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

Introductory--Tlazolteotl--Chicomecoatl--Cinteotl--Ciuacoatl--Coatlicue-- Xochiquetzal--Macuilxochitl or Xochipilli--Xipe--Xilonen--Itzpapalotl-- Zapotlantenan--Ilamatecutli pp. 153-233

THE GODS OF RAIN AND MOISTURE

Introductory--Tlaloc--Chalchihuitlicue--Uixtociuatl--Atlaua--Napatecutli --Matlalcu?y?--Opochtli pp. 234-267

THE FIRE-GODS

Xiuhtecutli--Chantico--Quaxolotl pp. 268-284

THE OCTLI OR PULQUE GODS

General--Tezcatzoncatl--Tepoxtecatl--Patecatl--Mayauel--Totoltecatl-- Macuiltochtli--Totochtin--Tomiauhtecutli pp. 285-299

STELLAR AND PLANETARY DEITIES

Tonatiuh the Sun-God --Metztli or Tecciztecatl the Moon-God--Mixcoatl, Iztac Mixcoatl or Camaxtli--Tlauizcalpantecutli-- Coyolxauhqui--The Tzitzimim? pp. 300-326

GODS OF DEATH, EARTH, AND THE UNDERWORLD

Mictlantecutli--Mictecaciuatl--Tepeyollotl pp. 327-335

VARIANTS OF THE GREAT GODS

Itztli--Itztlacoliuhqui--Paynal--Yacatecutli pp. 336-343

MINOR DEITIES

Xolotl--Ixtlilton--Omacatl--The Ciuatete? or Ciuapipiltin pp. 344-358

THE TONALAMATL AND THE SOLAR CALENDAR

Day-signs--Model tonalamatl--The day-gods--Gods of the "weeks"--Lords of the night--Lords of the day-hours--Tonalamatl festivals-- Recapitulation--The calendar round--The nemontemi--The Venus period--Short bibliography of works relating to the tonalamatl pp. 359-371

GLOSSARY pp. 382-383

INDEX pp. 384-388

Nephrite Figure of a Death-god Frontispiece

FACING PAGES Colossal Statue of Coatlicue 14, 15 Statue of Coatlicue 16, 17 The Great Calendar Stone of Mexico 38 Symbols of the "Suns" in Mexican Cosmogony 40, 41 The Trees of the World-quarters 58, 59 The Tree of the Middle-quarter 60 Uitzilopochtli 66 Coyolxauhqui 67 The Red and Black Tezcatlipoc?s 92 Tezcatlipoc? in Various Forms 93, 98 Altar of Skulls to Tezcatlipoc? 99 Quetzalcoatl and Tlauizcalpantecutli 118 Quetzalcoatl and the Death-god 119 Forms of Quetzalcoatl 120, 121 Tonacatecutli-Tonacaciuatl 121 Forms of Tlazolteotl 156, 157 Forms of Chicomecoatl 170 Cinteotl 171 Ciuacoatl 180 Forms of Ciuacoatl 181 Xochiquetzal and her Symbols 188 Forms of Xochiquetzal 189, 190 Stone Figures of Macuilxochitl 196, 197 Forms of Macuilxochitl 198 Forms of Xochipilli 199 Pottery Figure of Xochipilli 200 Forms of Xochipilli 201 Forms of Xipe 204 Stone Image of Xipe 205 Forms of Xipe 208 Itzpapalotl 222 Itzpapalotl 223 Xilonen and Zapotlantenan 223 Forms of Tlaloc 236, 237, 240 Chalchihuitlicue 258 Chalchihuitlicue and Tlauizcalpantecutli 259 Chalchihuitlicue and Uixtociuatl 260 Forms of the Tlaloqu? 261 Xiuhtecutli and Tlauizcalpantecutli 268, 269, 272 Xiuhtecutli and Chantico 276 Ixco?anhqui and Chantico 277 Tepoxtecatl 292 Patecatl, with Octli Emblems 293 The Octli-gods 298, 299 Totoltecatl 299 Forms of Tonatiuh 300 Mexican Idea of Sacrifice to the Sun-god 301 Planetary Deities 304 Forms of Mixcoatl 310, 311 Forms of Tlauizcalpantecutli 320 Tlauizcalpantecutli and Victim 321 Forms of the Underworld Deities 328 Statue of an Octli-god 329 Variants of the Great Gods 336 Xolotl and Tlaloc 344 Minor Deities 345 The Lords of the Night-hours 364

The pronunciation of Mexican names presents at first some little difficulty. The letter X is invariably pronounced as sh, so that Mixcoatl and Mexitli are, viva voce, Mishcoatly and Meshitlee, the final tl being pronounced as tl followed by a short y, although the natives in many parts of the country articulate it with a definite clicking sound, unapproachable by a European. The names of the more important gods are pronounced as follows:

Most of the others are comparatively simple of pronunciation. The ch sound is pronounced as in Spanish, i.e. hard, as in "thatch."

INTRODUCTORY

If, like the necromancers of old, we possessed the power to summon the shades of the dead before us, and employed this dread authority to recall from the place of shadows the spirit of a member of the priesthood of ancient Mexico, in order that we might obtain from him an account of the faith which he had professed while in the body, it is improbable that we would derive much information regarding the precise significance of the cult of which he was formerly an adherent without tedious and skilful questioning. He would certainly be able to enlighten us readily enough on matters of ritual and mythology, calendric science and the like; but if we were to press him for information regarding the motives underlying the outer manifestations of his belief, he would almost certainly disappoint us, unless our questionary was framed in the most careful manner. In all likelihood he would be unable to comprehend the term "religion," of which we should necessarily have to make use, and which it would seem so natural for us to employ; and he would scarcely be capable of dissociating the circumstances of his faith from those of Mexican life in general, especially as regards its political, military, agricultural, and artistic connections.

Nor would he regard magic or primitive science as in any way alien to the activities of his office. But if we became more importunate, and begged him to make some definite statement regarding the true meaning and import of his religion ere he returned to his place, he might, perhaps, reply: "If we had not worshipped the gods and sacrificed to them, nourished them with blood and pleasured them with gifts, they would have ceased to watch over our welfare, and would have withheld the maize and water which kept us in life. The rain would not have fallen and the crops would not have come to fruition." If he employed some such terms as these, our phantom would outline the whole purport of the system which we call Mexican religion, the rude platform on which was raised the towering superstructure of rite and ceremony, morality and tradition, a part of which we are about to examine.

The writer who undertakes the description of any of the great faiths of the world usually presupposes in his readers a certain acquaintance with the history and conditions of the people of whose religion he treats. But the obscurity which surrounded all questions relating to Mexican antiquity until the beginning of this century formerly made it essential that any view of its religious phase should be prefaced by an account of the peoples who professed it, their racial affinities, and the country they occupied. This necessity no longer exists. The ground has been traversed so often of late, and I have covered it so frequently in previous works, that I feel only a brief account of these conditions is necessary here, such, in a word, as will enable the reader to realize circumstances of race, locality, and period.

The people whose religious ideas this book attempts to describe were the Nahua of pre-Colombian Mexico, a race by no means extinct, despite the oft-repeated assertions of popular novelists, and which is now usually classed as a branch of the great Uto-Aztecan family of the North American Indian stock. They spoke, and their descendants still speak, a language known as the Nahuatl, or Nahuatlatolli . At the era of the Spanish invasion of their country in 1519 they had succeeded in overrunning and reducing to their dominion practically all that part of modern Mexico which lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. They were, in all probability, immigrants from the north, and their art-forms, no less than their physique and beliefs, have led certain writers to form the opinion that they came originally from the neighbourhood of British Columbia, or that they had a common origin with the Indian tribes which inhabit that region at the present time.

However this may be, the first Nahua immigrants would appear to have entered the Valley of Mexico at some time during the eighth century of our era. But the Aztec?, part of a later swarm of Nahua, do not seem to have descended upon it until the middle of the thirteenth century, or to have founded the settlement of Mexico-Tenochtitlan until about the year 1376. At the period of their arrival in the valley they were a barbarous tribe of nomadic hunters, wandering from place to place in search of fresh hunting-grounds, precisely as did many North American Indian tribes before reservations were provided for them. Gradually, by virtue of their superior prowess in war, they achieved the hegemony of the Plateau of Anahuac, which boasted a tradition and civilization at least five hundred years old. These they proceeded to assimilate with marvellous rapidity, as is not infrequently the case when a race of hunters mingles with a settled agricultural population. Indeed, in the course of the century and a quarter which intervened between the founding of Mexico and the period of the Spanish Conquest, they had arrived at such a standard of civilization as surprised their Castilian conquerors. When the Aztec?, abandoning their wandering life, finally settled in the Valley of Anahuac, upon the site of Tenochtitlan, now the city of Mexico, they embarked upon a series of conflicts with their neighbours, which ended in the complete subjection of these peoples.

The races over whom they exercised a kind of feudal sway were many and diverse, and only the more important of these can be mentioned here. To the north dwelt the hunting Chichimecs, a related people, and the Otomi, a semi-barbarous folk, probably of aboriginal origin, and speaking a distinct language. To the west dwelt the Tarascans, whose racial affinities are unknown, or, at least, dubious. South of the Rio de las Balsas were situated the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, whose language somewhat resembled that of the Otomi and who possessed a larger measure of civilization. On the East Coast were found the Huaxtecs and Totonacs, races of Maya origin, and south-east of these lay the Olmecs, Xicalancas, and Nonoualcas, of older precedence in the land. Beyond the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were found the Maya, a people of relatively high civilization, whose origin is obscure, and into the question of whose relationship I do not propose to enter in this place.

Until the beginning of the present century most Americanists held that Mexican civilization and consequently Mexican religion were the outcome of but a few generations of native progress. It is true that the Nahua people had behind them a relatively brief history of national and tribal life, but modern research has shown that they were undoubtedly the heirs of a civilization having early foundations and of considerable achievement and complexity, the religious aspect of which had arrived at a high state of development. Evidences of the archaic character of this faith are rapidly accumulating, but many years must yet be dedicated to the examination and comparison of the data concerning it before it is possible to speak with any degree of certainty regarding the causes which contributed to its formation and evolution.

Although we must necessarily regard Mexican religion as having had a progressive history spread over many generations, we are at present almost ignorant of the gradual changes which accompanied its growth. An effort will be made to outline the probable nature of these mutations, but the endeavour will not receive any great measure of assistance from the abundant but chaotic and unclassified material amassed by Americanists during the last twenty years, which in its present condition is not of much value as regards this particular branch of the subject, but which it is the writer's intention to employ, so far as it is capable of illustrating the question before us.

Here it is only necessary to remark upon the several theories which have regard to their place of origin. Dr. H. J. Spinden, in his valuable Study of Maya Art, objects that "most of the detailed accounts of religious beliefs and ceremonies that have come down to us refer primarily to the Valley of Mexico, while nearly all the really elaborate codices of a religious nature come from either the Zapotecan-Mixtecan area or from the Maya." We are not here concerned with the Maya manuscripts, and with regard to the Zapotec and Mixtec examples we have the assurance of Seler, which is founded upon critical evidence of value, that an entire group of these manuscripts--and that by far the most important, the Codex Borgia group--"belongs to a Mexican-speaking people" who inhabited the districts of Teouacan, Cozcatlan, and Teotitlan del Camino, and who, though separated from the Nahua of the Valley of Anahuac at an early period, yet in great measure retained the ancient beliefs common to both. Nearly all of the deities represented in this group of manuscripts so closely resemble in their aspect, costume, and general symbolism the drawings and descriptions of gods known to have been worshipped in the Mexican area proper, as to make it positively certain that they represent the same divine beings with merely trifling differences of detail due to local environment. The separation of the Nahua of the Plateau of Mexico and those of the more southerly region was of such duration as to justify the belief that their religious ideas had diverged considerably. But the subsequent conquest of the southern area by the Northern Nahua must have resuscitated old common beliefs among their kindred in the south, and weakened the ideas they had adopted or developed in that environment. This is proved by the considerable variation in type between the oldest southern pottery representing what are presumably divine forms and the pictures of the gods in the later manuscripts of the Codex Borgia group.

The Native Writings.--These "annals," as they are sometimes called, the work of natives who wrote in Spanish, constitute a mine of aboriginal information of nearly equal value with that contained in the codices, but considerable discrimination is necessary in using them in view of the tendency of their authors to corrupt traditional material when inspired by patriotic or other motives. This, however, manifestly does not apply with equal force to accounts of a mythical or ritual nature and to historical events, which offer a much greater temptation than the former to scribes manifestly ignorant of the virtues of literary integrity. The Mexican annals are of two classes: those which represent the historical or traditional relics of native communities, such as the Annals of Quauhtitlan, also known as the Codex Chimalpopoc?; and those which are the work of educated Mexicans or half-breeds, prone to magnify the splendour of the ancient races. Ranking almost as a third or separate class are the sacred songs or hymns included in the Mexican MS. of Sahagun's Historia General, which that most unwearied of workers received at first hand from approved native scribes. The several native writings will be found described in the appendix, and the hymns, or rather a translation of them into English prose, will be met with in the descriptions of the several deities to which they apply.

Native Art-forms.--Mexican architectural motifs, mural paintings, and especially sculpture and pottery, frequently afford reliable material upon which to form conclusions regarding the aspect and costume of the gods, and reproductions of the most important of these illustrate the descriptions of the several Mexican deities.

Writings of the Spanish Conquerors of Mexico.--If the representatives of the Church in Mexico must be condemned for their narrow and illiberal action in destroying all native manuscripts and paintings bearing upon the ancient religion of the country, certain more enlightened individuals among them laboured strenuously to remove this reproach by their zealous, if frequently unskilful, attempts to reconstruct a knowledge of the popular faith by unremitting researches into native tradition. This attitude met with but little countenance from their ecclesiastical superiors, and at times they laboured under conditions the reverse of favourable for the collection of traditional material. But it would be ungrateful not to pay a meed of respect to the self-sacrifice of those enlightened and resourceful men, but for whose endeavours our knowledge of Mexican antiquities would be all the poorer.

Undoubtedly the most valuable collection of evidence relative to the Mexican religion compiled by a Spanish churchman is the Historia General of Bernardino Sahagun, whose work, composed with scholarly care and an almost prophetic knowledge of the correct methods to be pursued in the collection of traditional material, was completed about the middle of the sixteenth century, but remained unpublished until 1830. This work has been described so repeatedly as to require no further mention here, and other notable works are included in the bibliography. Some allusion should also be made here to the works known as the Interpretative Codices, compiled by Pedro de Rios and other monks, who retained the services of native painters to execute drawings of Mexican deities or, as some believe, drew these figures themselves, the symbolism and general meaning of which they endeavoured to make plain and interpret, only too often in the light of their knowledge of the Scriptures.

The question of the origin of Mexican religion, like that of the civilization of which it was perhaps the most salient characteristic, has afforded matter for ardent controversy from the period of the discovery and conquest of the country until the present day. But, even so, it is still unsafe to dogmatize upon Mexican religious origins. At the time of the Conquest we observe Mexican religion as a highly complex faith, with a ceremonial of the most elaborate nature, a priesthood with nicely defined gradations in office, and a pantheon which had obviously been formed by the collocation of the deities of provincial and dependent tribes and peoples around a nucleus composed of the national and departmental gods of the Aztec?. The great temple-area of Mexico-Tenochtitlan harboured a bewildering array of gods, many of which possessed separate shrines and ministrants. An intensive examination of the alien elements represented, however, tends to prove the identity of many of them with the gods of the Aztec?, a similarity which, in numerous instances, was manifest to that people themselves and which was the result of tribal affinity or basic resemblance in religious conception. Nevertheless a residuum of unrelated deities remained, which might, perhaps, be accounted for by positing the existence of two markedly different cultures or tendencies in Mexico, barbarous and civilized. This may imply that the opposing influences which gave rise to these variations were alien to each other racially, or it may indicate that, whereas one had remained in an environment of barbarism, the other had developed and enlarged its theological and even its mythical conceptions in the light of the necessities of an advancing material civilization. Whence the seeds of that civilization came is, as has been said, matter of controversy. The existence of a system of monachism in Mexico would seem to indicate a non-American origin. Elements common to both aspects of this interesting faith were sufficiently numerous in Mexican religion. Thus the so-called Chichimecs, or rude hunters of the steppes to the north of the Valley of Mexico, retained in their pristine form the simple beliefs and the ungraded pantheon, which in the case of the more advanced tribes of cognate origin rapidly took shape as a great State religion under the influences of a more complex social system, the stimulus of alien religious conceptions, and above all, of a priesthood skilled in the reduction of theological and mythical material to dogma. This cult, although composed of elements perhaps at first conflicting in aim and character, had yet arrived at a comparative degree of homogeneity and had evolved an intricate and exacting ritual and a symbolism of great richness and artistic complexity, the extensive and bewildering nature of which can be verified by a cursory inspection of the native codices.

The myths which relate to the earliest religious influences in Mexico are for the most part connected with the pre-Aztec "Toltec" civilization and the more ancient and sacred sites of Tollan and Teotihuacan. They chiefly refer to a god or culture-hero called Quetzalcoatl, whose myths and attributes will be described elsewhere in this work, and who was regarded as the prototype of the Mexican priesthood and one of the inventors of the tonalamatl or Book of Fate. The type of religion founded by him differs greatly from that practised by the Mexicans at the period of the Conquest, as it eschewed, or was, perhaps, originally innocent of, human sacrifice or ceremonial cannibalism, and practised purification and penance by the drawing of blood. In certain myths its founder is described as a native of the country, in others as the offspring of divine beings, while still others regard him as a foreigner who introduced his cult from the east. It is noteworthy that this cult is closely connected with monachism and that in later times it was, perhaps, regarded as more intimately bound up with pietistic and "civilized" ritual practice than that of any other Mexican deity. Ultimately, the myths relate, Quetzalcoatl left the country because of the machinations of "enchanters." This may mean that the older and less barbarous cult was forced into a secondary place by the ruder and more popular beliefs of a tribe of lower culture, but there are evidences that the religion of Quetzalcoatl assuredly assisted in the building-up of the rain-cult of Mexico. In any case little information is to be gleaned from the myth of Quetzalcoatl for our present purpose of illustrating the primitive type of Mexican religion, and it must probably be regarded as pointing to the existence of an early monachism and a developed ritual in ancient Mexico.

The myths relating to the great tribal gods, if faithfully examined, assist us in forming a definite idea of the character of early religious conceptions in Anahuac. The hymns to the gods are, perhaps, a surer indication of the trend of popular faith and probably date from a more archaic period than do the myths, which, as we possess them, nearly all exhibit signs of priestly alteration. In several of these chants we assuredly arrive at the whole significance of Mexican religion, which in its essence, and as seen at the Conquest period, was nothing more than a vastly elaborated rain-cult, similar in its general tendency to that still prevalent among the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, yet broader in outlook, of a higher complexity and productive of a theology and an ethical system of greater sophistication and scope. The religion of the Pueblo peoples is, indeed, the poor and degenerate descendant of the bizarre and picturesque ritual of the Mexicans, or, more probably, had a common origin with it. Through the researches and personal exertions of many well-equipped Americanists the entire ritual of this modern pluvial cult is now well known and deserves the closest study from students of Mexican religion, as providing them with comparative and analogical material of the first importance.

We shall keep on the trail of a very definite clue if we attempt to descry in such evidences as we possess of archaic Mexican faith the signs of an incipient rain-cult, having its origin in a settled agricultural existence. If we glance at the general characteristics of the numerous members of the Mexican pantheon, we find that very readily and quite naturally they group themselves into three great classes: creative deities, which may be regarded as the outcome of late theological speculation, and which may, accordingly, be passed over in this place; gods of growth; and gods developed from specific objects and deified heavenly bodies, some of which latter were developed from gods of the chase. The "original" deities of Mexico would seem, therefore, to have presided over vegetable growth and conferred on their votaries good luck in the hunt. But as time passed, these latter also took on the attributes of gods of the cereal and vegetable food-supply, and, indeed, often seriously contested the status of the true growth-gods in the elaborate nature of the symbolic vegetal ceremonial with which their festivals were celebrated.

It is not surprising that the Valley of Mexico became the centre of a cult of which the appeal for rain was the salient characteristic. A copious supply of rainfall for the purposes of irrigation is, indeed, a necessity to the Mexican agriculturist, and a dry year in ancient Anahuac brought with it famine and misery unspeakable. Inexpressibly touching are the fervent prayers to Tlaloc, god of water, that he should not visit his displeasure upon the people by withdrawing the pluvial supply. "O our most compassionate lord ... I beseech thee to look with eyes of pity upon the people of this city and kingdom, for the whole world, down to the very beasts, is in peril of destruction and disappearance and irremediable end ... for the ridges of the earth suffer sore need and anguish from lack of water ... with deep sighing and anguish of heart I cry upon all those that are gods of water, that are in the four quarters of the world ... to come and console this poor people and to water the earth, for the eyes of all that inhabit the earth, animals as well as men, are turned towards you, and their hope is set upon you."

DEIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS OF GROWTH

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