Quetzalcoatl is further reported by Mendieta to have assisted in drawing up and arranging the Mexican Calendar, a sacred book of thirteen tables, in which the religious rites and ceremonies proper to each day were set forth, in connection with the appropriate signs. It is said that the gods having created mankind, bethought themselves that it would be well if the people they had made had some writings by which they might direct themselves. Now there were, in a certain cave at Cuernavaca, two personages of the number of the gods, andthey were man and wife, he Oxomoco and she Cipactonal; and they were consulting together. It appeared good to the old woman that her descendant Quetzalcoatl should be consulted. The Cholulan god thought the thing of the calendar to be good and reasonable; so the three set to work. To the old woman was respectfully allotted the privilege of choosing and writing the first sign; she painted a kind of water-serpent calledcipactli, and called the signCe Cipactli, that is "a serpent." Oxomoco, in his turn wrote "two canes," and then Quetzalcoatl wrote "three houses;" and so they went on till the whole thirteen signs of each table were written out in their order.[VII-14]
THE SUN CALLS QUETZALCOATL.
Let us now take up again the narrative of Sahagun, at the point where Quetzalcoatl, after drinking the potion prepared by Tezcatlipoca, prepares to set off upon his journey. Quetzalcoatl, very heavy in heart for all the misfortunes that this rival god was bringing upon the Toltecs, burned his beautiful houses of silver and of shell, and ordered other precious things to be buried in the mountains and ravines. He turned the cocoa-nut trees into a kind of trees that are calledmizquitl; he commanded all the birds of rich plumage, the quetzaltototl, and the xiuhtotl, and the tlauquechol, to fly away and go into Anáhuac, a hundred leagues distant. Then he himself set out upon his road from Tulla; he traveled on till he came to a place called Quauhtitlan, where was a great tree, high and very thick. Here the exile rested, and he asked his servants for a mirror, and looked at his own face. What thoughts soever were working in his heart, he only said, I am already old. Then he named that place Vevequauhtitlan, and he took up stones and stoned the great tree; and all the stones he threw sank into it, and were for a long time to be seen sticking there, from the ground even up to the topmost branches. Continuing his journey, having flute-players playing before him, he came to a place on the road where he was weary and sat down on a stone to rest. And lookingtoward Tulla, he wept bitterly. His tears marked and ate into the stone on which he sat, and the print of his hands, and of his back parts, was also found therein when he resumed his journey. He called that place Temacpalco. After that he reached a very great and wide river, and he commanded a stone bridge to be thrown across it; on that bridge he crossed the river, and he named the place Tepanoaya. Going on upon his way, Quetzalcoatl came to another place, where certain sorcerers met and tried to stop him, saying, Whither goest thou? why dost thou leave thy city? to whose care wilt thou commend it? who will do penance? Quetzalcoatl replied to the said sorcerers, Ye can in no wise hinder my going, for I must go. They asked him further, Whither goest thou? He said, To Tlapalla. They continued, But to what end goest thou? He said, I am called and the sun calls me. So the sorcerers said, Go then, but leave behind all the mechanical arts, the melting of silver, the working of precious stones and of masonry, the painting, feather-working, and other crafts. And of all these the sorcerers despoiled Quetzalcoatl. As for him, he cast into a fountain all the rich jewels that he had with him; and that fountain was called Cohcaapa, and it is so named to this day.
Quetzalcoatl continued his journey; and there came another sorcerer to meet him, saying, Whither goest thou? Quetzalcoatl said, To Tlapalla. The wizard said, Very well; but drink this wine that I have. The traveler answered, No: I cannot drink it; I cannot so much as taste it. Thou must drink, said the grim magician, were it but a drop; for to none of the living can I give it; it intoxicates all, so drink. Then Quetzalcoatl took the wine and drank it through a cane. Drinking, he made himself drunk; he slept upon the road; he began to snore; and when he awoke, he looked on one side and on the other, and tore his hair with his hands. And that place was called Cochtoca.
Quetzalcoatl going on upon his way and passing between the sierra of the volcano and the snowy sierra, allhis servants, being hump-backed and dwarfs, died of cold in the pass between the said mountains. And Quetzalcoatl bewailed their death bitterly and sang with weeping and sighing. Then he saw the other snowy sierra, which is called Poyauhtecatl and is near Tecamachalco; and so he passed by all the cities and places, leaving many signs, it is said, in all the mountains and roads.[VII-15]It is said further that he had a way of crossing the sierras whereby he amused and rested himself at the same time: when he came to the top of a mountain he used to sit down, and so seated, let himself slide down the mountain-side to the bottom. In one place he built a court for ball-play, all of squared stone, and here he used to play the game calledtlachtli.[VII-16]Through the midst of this court he drew a line called thetelcotl; and where that line was made the mountain is now opened with a deep gash. In another place he cast a dart at a great tree called apochutl, piercing it through with the dart in such wise that the tree looked like a cross; for the dart he threw was itself a tree of the same kind.[VII-17]Some say that Quetzalcoatl built certain subterranean houses, calledmictlancalco; and further, that he set up and balanced a great stone, so that one could move it with one's little finger, yet a multitude could not displace it. Many other notable things remain that Quetzalcoatl did among many peoples; he it was that named all the places and woods and mountains. Traveling ever onward, he came at last to the sea-shore, and there commanded a raft to be made of the snakes calledcoatlapechtli. Having seated himself on this raft as in a canoe, he put out to sea, and no man knows how he got to Tlapallan.[VII-18]
Torquemada gives a long and valuable account of Quetzalcoatl, gathered from many sources, which cannot be overlooked. It runs much as follows:—The nameQuetzalcoatl means Snake-plumage, or Snake that has plumage—and the kind of snake referred to in this name, is found in the province of Xicalanco, which is on the frontier of the kingdom of Yucatan as one goes thence to Tabasco. This god Quetzalcoatl was very celebrated among the people of the city of Cholula, and held in that place for the greatest of all. He was, according to credible histories, high priest in the city of Tulla. From that place he went to Cholula, and not, as Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas says in hisApologia, to Yucatan; though he went to Yucatan afterwards, as we shall see. It is said of Quetzalcoatl that he was a white man, large bodied, broad-browed, great-eyed, with long black hair, and a beard heavy and rounded.[VII-19]He was a great artificer, and very ingenious. He taught many mechanical arts, especially the art of working the precious stones called chalchiuites, which are a kind of green stone highly valued, and the art of casting silver and gold. The people, seeing him so inventive, held him in great estimation, and reverenced him as king in that city; and so it came about that, though in temporal things the ruler of Tulla was a lord named Huemac,[VII-20]yet in all spiritual and ecclesiastical matters Quetzalcoatl was supreme, and as it were chief pontiff.
SWIFTNESS OF THE SERVANTS OF QUETZALCOATL.
It is feigned by those that seek to make much of their god that he had certain palaces made of green stone like emeralds, others made of silver, others of shells, red and white, others of all kinds of wood, others of turquoise, and others of precious feathers. He is said to have been very rich, and in need of nothing. His vassals were very obedient to him, and very light of foot; they were called tlanquacemilhuique. When they wished to publish any command of Quetzalcoatl, they sent a crier up upon a high mountain called Tzatzitepec, where with a loud voice he proclaimed the order; and the voice of this crier was heard for a hundred leagues distance, andfarther, even to the coasts of the sea: all this is affirmed for true. The fruits of the earth and the trees flourished there in an extraordinary degree, and sweet singing birds were abundant. The great pontiff inaugurated a system of penance, pricking his legs, and drawing blood and staining therewith maguey thorns. He washed also at midnight in a fountain called Xiuhpacoya. From all this, it is said, the idolatrous priests of Mexico adopted their similar custom.
QUETZALCOATL LEAVES MARKS ON A STONE.
While Quetzalcoatl was enjoying this good fortune with pomp and majesty, we are told that a great magician called Titlacahua [Tezcatlipoca], another of the gods, arrived at Tulla. He took the form of an old man, and went in to see Quetzalcoatl, saying to him, My lord, inasmuch as I know thine intent and how much thou desirest to set out for certain distant lands, also, because I know from thy servants that thou art unwell, I have brought thee a certain beverage, by drinking which thou shalt attain thine end. Thou shalt so make thy way to the country thou desirest, having perfect health to make the journey; neither shalt thou remember at all the fatigues and toils of life, nor how thou art mortal.[VII-21]Seeing all his projects thus discovered by the pretended old man, Quetzalcoatl questioned him, Where have I to go. Tezcatlipoca answered, That it was already determined with the supreme gods, that he had to go to Tlapalla, and that the thing was inevitable, because there was another old man waiting for him at his destination. As Quetzalcoatl heard this, he said that it was true, and that he desired it much; and he took the vessel and drank the liquor it contained. Quetzalcoatl was thus easily persuaded to what Tezcatlipoca desired, because he wished to make himself immortal and to enjoy perpetual life. Having swallowed the draught he became beside himself, and out of his mind, weeping sadly and bitterly. He determined to go to Tlapalla. He destroyed or buried all his plate and other property andset out. First he arrived at the place, Quauhtitlan, where the great tree was and where he, borrowing a mirror from his servants, found himself "already old." The name of this place was changed by him to Huehuequauhtitlan, that is to say, "near the old tree, or the tree of the old man;" and the trunk of the tree was filled with stones that he cast at it. After that he journeyed on, his people playing flutes and other instruments, till he came to a mountain near the city of Tlalnepantla, two leagues from the city of Mexico, where he sat down on a stone and put his hands on it, leaving marks embedded therein that may be seen to this day. The truth of this thing is strongly corroborated by the inhabitants of that district; I myself have questioned them upon the subject, and it has been certified to me. Furthermore we have it written down accurately by many worthy authors; and the name of the locality is now Temacpalco, that is to say "in the palm of the hand."
Journeying on to the coast and to the kingdom of Tlapalla, Quetzalcoatl was met by the three sorcerers, Tezcatlipoca and other two with him, who had already brought so much destruction upon Tulla. These tried to stop or hinder him in his journey, questioning him, Whither goest thou? He answered, To Tlapalla. To whom, they inquired, hast thou given the charge of thy kingdom of Tulla, and who will do penance there? But he said that that was no longer any affair of his and that he must pursue his road. And being further questioned as to the object of his journey, he said that he was called by the lord of the land to which he was going, who was the sun.[VII-22]The three wizards seeing then the determinationof Quetzalcoatl, made no further attempt to dissuade him from his purpose, but contented themselves with taking from him all his instruments and his mechanical arts, so that though he departed those things should not be wanting to the state. It was here that Quetzalcoatl threw into a fountain all the rich jewels that he carried with him; for which thing the fountain was called from that time Cozcaapan, that is to say, "The water of the strings or chains of jewels." The same place is now called Coaapan, that is to say, "In the snake-water," and very properly, because the word Quetzalcoatl means "feathered snake." In this way he journeyed on, suffering various molestations from those sorcerers, his enemies, till he arrived at Cholula where he was received (as we in another part say),[VII-23]and afterward adored as god. Having lived twenty years in that city he was expelled by Tezcatlipoca. He set out for the kingdom of Tlapalla, accompanied by four virtuous youths of noble birth, and inGoatzacoalco, a province distant from Cholula toward the sea a hundred and fifty leagues, he embarked for his destination. Parting with his disciples, he told them that there should surely come to them in after times, by way of the sea where the sun rises, certain white men with white beards, like him, and that these would be his brothers and would rule that land.
After that the four disciples returned to Cholula, and told all that their master and god had prophesied when departing. Then the Cholulans divided their province into four principalities and gave the government to those four, and some four of their descendants always ruled in like manner over these tetrarchies till the Spaniard came; being, however, subordinate to a central power.
QUETZALCOATL SWEPT THE ROADS.
This Quetzalcoatl was god of the air, and as such had his temple, of a round shape and very magnificent. He was made god of the air for the mildness and gentleness of all his ways, not liking the sharp and harsh measures to which the other gods were so strongly inclined. It is to be said further that his life on earth was marked by intensely religious characteristics; not only was he devoted to the careful observance of all the old customary forms of worship, but he himself ordained and appointed many new rites, ceremonies, and festivals for the adoration of the gods; and it is held for certain that he made the calendar. He had priests who were called quequetzalcohua, that is to say "priests of the order of Quetzalcoatl." The memory of him was engraved deeply upon the minds of the people, and it is said that when barren women prayed and made sacrifices to him, children were given them. He was, as we have said, god of the winds, and the power of causing them to blow was attributed to him as well as the power of calming or causing their fury to cease. It was said further that he swept the road, so that the gods called Tlaloques could rain: this the people imagined because ordinarily a month or more before the rains began there blew strong winds throughout all New Spain. Quetzalcoatl is described as having worn during life, for thesake of modesty, garments that reached down to the feet, with a blanket over all, sown with red crosses. The Cholulans preserved certain green stones that had belonged to him, regarding them with great veneration and esteeming them as relics. Upon one of these was carved a monkey's head, very natural. In the city of Cholula there was to be found dedicated to him a great and magnificent temple, with many steps, but each step so narrow that there was not room for a foot on it. His image had a very ugly face, with a large and heavily bearded head. It was not set on its feet but lying down, and covered with blankets. This, it is said, was done as a memorial that he would one day return to reign. For reverence of his great majesty, his image was kept covered, and to signify his absence it was kept lying down, as one that sleeps, as one that lies down to sleep. In awaking from that sleep, he was to rise up and reign. The people also of Yucatan reverenced this god Quetzalcoatl, calling him Kukulcan, and saying that he came to them from the west, that is from New Spain, for Yucatan is eastward therefrom. From him it is said the kings of Yucatan are descended, who call themselves Cocomes, that is to say "judges or hearers."[VII-24]
CLAVIGERO ON QUETZALCOATL.
Clavigero's account is characteristically clear and comprehensible. It may be summed up as follows:—
Among the Mexicans and other nations of Anáhuac, Quetzalcoatl was accounted god of the air. He is said to have been sometime high-priest of Tulla. He is described as having been white—a large, broad-browed, great-eyed man, with long black hair and thick beard. His life was rigidly temperate and exemplary, and his industry was directed by the profoundest wisdom. He amassed great treasure, and his was the invention of gem-cutting and of metal-casting. All things prospered in his time. One ear of corn was a man's load; and the gourds, or pumpkins, of the day were as tall as one's body. No one dyed cotton then, for it grew of all colors; and all other things in like manner were perfect andabundant. The very birds in the trees sang such songs as have never since been heard, and flashed such marvelous beauties in the sun as no plumage of later times could rival. Quetzalcoatl had his laws proclaimed from the top of the hill Tzatzitepec, (mountain of outcry), near Tulla, by a crier whose voice was audible for three hundred miles.
All this, however, was put an end to, as far as Tulla was concerned, by Tezcatlipoca, who, moved perhaps by jealousy, determined to remove Quetzalcoatl. So the god appeared to the great teacher in the guise of an old man, telling him it was the will of the gods that he betake himself to Tlapalla, and administering at the same time a potion, the effect of which was to cause an intense longing for the said journey. Quetzalcoatl set out and, having performed many marvels on the way, arrived in Cholula. Here the inhabitants would not suffer him to go farther, but persuaded him to accept the government of their city; and he remained with them, teaching many useful arts, customs, and ceremonies and preaching against war and all other forms of cruelty. According to some, he at this time arranged the divisions of the seasons and the calendar.
Having lived twenty years in Cholula, he left, still impelled by the subtle draught, to seek this imaginary city of Tlapalla. He was no more seen of men, some said one thing and some another; but, however he might have disappeared, he was apotheosized by the Toltecs of Cholula, who raised him a great mound and built a sanctuary upon it. A similar structure was erected to his honor at Tulla. From Cholula his worship as god of the air spread over all the country; in Yucatan the nobles claimed descent from him.[VII-25]
BRASSEUR ON QUETZALCOATL.
The ideas of Brasseur with regard to Quetzalcoatl have their roots in and must be traced back to the very first appearing of the Mexican religion, or of the religion or religions by which it was preceded; so that to arrive at those ideas I must give a summary of the abbé's wholetheory of the origin of that creed. He believes that in the seething and thundering of volcanoes a conception of divinity and of supernatural powers first sprang up in the mind of the ancestors of the Mexicans. The volcanoes were afterwards identified with the stars, and the most terrific of all, Nanahuatl or Nanahuatzin,[VII-26]received the honors of apotheosis in the sun. Issued from the earth of the Crescent (Brasseur's sunken island or continent in the Atlantic),[VII-27]personified in the antique Quetzalcoatl, prototype of priests and of sacerdotal continence, he is thus his son and identifies himself with him; he (the divinity, Tylor's "Great Somebody") is the model of sages under the name of Hueman and the prototype of kings under that of Topiltzin. Strange thing to find united in one being, personalities so diverse! King, philosopher, priest par excellence, whose virtues serve as a rule to all the priests of the pagan antiquity, and, side by side with all that, incontinence and passion deified in this invalid, whose name even, "the syphilitic," is the expression of the abuse he has made of the sex.
At the commencement of the religion two sects appear to have sprung up, or rather two manners of judging the same events. There was first a struggle, and then a separation; under the banner-names of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca the rival schools fought for the most part—of course there were divers minor factions; but the foregoing were the principal and most important. There is every reason to believe that the religion that took Quetzalcoatl for symbol was but a reformation upon another more ancient, that had the moon for its object. It is the moon, male and female,Luna Lunus, personified in the earth of the Crescent, engulfed in the abyss, that I believe (it is always the abbé that speaks) I see at the commencement of the amalgam of rites and symbols of every kind, religion of enjoyments and material pleasures, born of the promiscuity of the men andwomen, taken refuge in the lesser Antilles after the cataclysm.
The religion that had taken the moon for point of departure, and in which women seem to have played the principal rôle, as priestesses, attacked formally, by this very fact, a more antique religion, a pre-diluvian religion that appears to have been Sabaism, entirely exempt from idolatry, and in which the sun received the chief homage. In the new religion, on the contrary, it was not the moon as a star, which was the real object of worship, it was the moon-land (lune-terre), it was the region of the Crescent, shrouded under the waves, whose death was wept and whose resurrection was afterward celebrated in the appearance of the isles—refuge of the shipwrecked of the grand catastrophe—of the Lesser Antilles; to the number of seven principal islands, sung, in all American legends, as the Seven Grottoes, cradle of nations.
This is the myth of Quetzalcoatl, who dies or disappears, and whose personality is represented at the outset in the isles, then successively, in all the countries whither the civilization was carried of which he was the flag. So far as I can judge at present, the priest who placed himself under the ægis of this grand name, labored solely to reform what there was of odious and barbarous in the cult of which the women had the chief direction, and under whose regime human blood flowed in waves. After the triumph of Quetzalcoatl, the men who bore his name took the direction of religion and society, which then made considerable progress in their hands.
But if we are to believe the same traditions, their preponderance had not a very long duration. The most restless and the most audacious among the partisans of the ancient order of things, raised the flag of revolt: they became the chiefs of a warlike faction, rival of the sacerdotal—a conquering faction, source of veritable royal dynasties and of the religion of the sun living and victorious, in opposition to the god entombed in theabyss. Quetzalcoatl, vanquished by Tezcatlipoca, then retired before a too-powerful enemy, and the Toltecs were dispersed among all nations. Those of them that remained coalesced with the victors, and from the accord of the aforementioned three cults, there sprang that monstrous amalgam of so many different ideas and symbols, such as is found to-day in what remains to us of the Mexican religion.
For me (and it is always the abbé that speaks), I believe I perceive the origin of the struggle, not alone in the diversity of races, but principally in the existence of two currents of contrary ideas, having had the same point of departure in the events of the great cataclysm of the Crescent Land, above referred to. Different manners of looking at these events and of commemorating them, seem to me to have marked from the beginning the starting point of two religions that lived, perhaps, side by side for centuries without the explosion of their disagreements, otherwise than by insignificant agitations. Before these two could take, with regard to each other, the proportions of a schism or a heresy, it was necessary that all the materials of which these religions are constituted had had time to elaborate themselves, and that the hieroglyphics which represented their origin had become sufficiently obscure for the priesthood to keep the vulgar from understanding them. For, if schism has brought on the struggle between and afterward the violent separation of families, this separation can not have taken place till after the entire creation of myths, the entire construction of these divine genealogies, of these poetic traditions, that are found scattered among all the peoples of the earth, but of which the complete whole does not exist, save in the history and religion of Mexico.[VII-28]
MANY CHARACTERS OF QUETZALCOATL.
Two orders of gods—the one order fallen from heaveninto the abyss, becoming there the judges of the dead, and being personified in one of their number, who came to life again, symbolizing thus life and death—the other order surviving the cataclysm and symbolizing thus an imperishable life—such, at its origin, is the double character of the myth of Quetzalcoatl. But, in reality, this god he is the earth, he is the region swallowed up by the waters, he is the vanquished stifled under the weight of his adversary, under the force of the victorious wave; which adversary, which power in opposition to the first, joining itself to the fire on the blazing pile of Nanahuatl, is Tezcatlipoca, is Hercules, conqueror of enemies, is the god whose struggle is eternal as that of the ocean beating the shore, is he in whom the light becomes afterward personified, and who becomes thus the battle-flag of the opponents of Quetzalcoatl. To the dead god a victim is necessary, one that like him descends into the abyss. This victim was a young girl, chosen among those that were consecrated at the foot of the pyramid, and drowned; a custom long found as well in Egypt as at Chichen-Itza,[VII-29]and in many other countries of the world. But to the god come to life again, to the god in whom fire was personified, and immortal life, to Quetzalcoatl when he became Huitzilopochtli, victims were sacrificed, by tearing out the heart—symbol of the jet of flame issuing from the volcano—to offer it to the conquering sun, symbol of Tezcatlipoca, who first demanded holocausts of human blood.[VII-30]
Mr Tylor declares Quetzalcoatl to have been the Sun: "We may even find him identified with the Sun by name, and his history is perhaps a more compact and perfect series of solar myths than hangs to the name of any single personage in our own Aryan mythology. His mother, the Dawn or the Night, gives birth to him, and dies. His father Camaxtli is the sun, and was worshiped with solar rites in Mexico, but he is the old Sun of yesterday. The clouds, personified in the mythic race of the Mixcohuas, or "Cloud-Snakes" (the Nibelungs of the western hemisphere), bear down the old Sun and choke him, and bury him in their mountain. But the young Quetzalcoatl, the Sun of to-day, rushes up into the midst of them from below, and some he slays at the first onset, and some he leaves, rift with red wounds to die. We have the Sun boat of Helios, of the Egyptian Ra, of the Polynesian Maui. Quetzalcoatl, his bright career drawing toward its close, is chased into far lands by his kinsman Tezcatlipoca, the young Sun of to-morrow. He, too, is well known as a Sun God in the Mexican theology. Wonderfully fitting with all this, one incident after another in the life of Quetzalcoatl falls into its place. The guardians of the sacred fire tend him, his funeral pile is on the top of Orizaba, he is the helper of travelers, the maker of the calendar, the source of astrology, the beginner of history, the bringer of wealth and happiness. He is the patron of the craftsmen, whom he lights to his labor; as it is written in an ancient Sanskrit hymn, 'He steps forth, the splendor of the sky, the wide-seeing, the far-aiming, the shining wanderer; surely enlivened by the sun, do men go to their tasks and do their work.' Even hispeople, the Toltecs, catch from him solar qualities. Will it be even possible to grant to this famous race, in whose story the legend of Quetzalcoatl is the leading incident, anything more than a mythic existence?"[VII-31]
BRINTON ON QUETZALCOATL.
Dr Brinton is of opinion "that there were in truth many Quetzalcoatls, for his high priest always bore his name, but he himself is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing but a myth. His emblematic name, the Bird-Serpent, and his rebus and cross at Palenque, I have already explained. Others of his titles were, Ehecatl, the air; Yolcuat, the rattlesnake; Tohil, the rumbler; Huemac, the strong hand; Nanihehecatl, lord of the four winds. The same dualism reappears in him that has been noted in his analogues elsewhere. He is both lord of the eastern light and the wind.
As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of Tula or Tlapallan, in the distant Orient, and was high priest of that happy realm. The morning star was his symbol, and the temple of Cholula was dedicated to him expressly as the author of light. As by days we measure time, he was the alleged inventor of the calendar. Like all the dawn heroes, he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing beard. When his earthly work was done he too returned to the east, assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, demanded his presence. But the real motive was that he had been overcome by Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or spirit of night, who had descended from heaven by a spider's web and presented his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, in fact, producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the light both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds spread their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains, and pour the vivifying rain upon the fields.
In his other character, he was begot of the breath ofTonacateotl, god of our flesh or subsistence, or (according to Gomara) was the son of Iztac Mixcoatl, the white cloud serpent, the spirit of the tornado. Messenger of Tlaloc, god of rain, he was figuratively said to sweep the road for him, since in that country violent winds are the precursors of the wet seasons. Wherever he went all manner of singing birds bore him company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally disappeared in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths who had ever shared his fortunes, 'incomparably swift and light of foot,' with directions to divide the earth between them and rule it till he should return and resume his power. When he would promulgate his decrees, his herald proclaimed them from Tzatzitepec, the hill of shouting, with such a mighty voice that it could be heard a hundred leagues around. The arrows which he shot transfixed great trees, the stones he threw leveled forests, and when he laid his hands on the rocks the mark was indelible. Yet as thus emblematic of the thunderstorm, he possessed in full measure its better attributes. By shaking his sandals he gave fire to men; and peace, plenty, and riches blessed his subjects. Tradition says he built many temples to Mictlantecutli, the Aztec Pluto, and at the creation of the sun that he slew all the other gods, for the advancing dawn disperses the spectral shapes of night, and yet all its vivifying power does but result in increasing the number doomed to fall before the remorseless stroke of death.
His symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross and the flint, representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the thunderbolt. Perhaps, as Huemac, the Strong Hand, he was god of the earthquakes. The Zapotecs worshiped such a deity under the image of this number carved from a precious stone, calling to mind the 'Kab ul,' the Working Hand, adored by the Mayas, and said to be one of the images of Zamná their hero god. The human hand, 'that divine tool,' as it has been called, might well be regarded by the reflective mind as the teacher of the arts and the amulet whosemagic power has won for man what vantage he has gained in his long combat with nature and his fellows."[VII-32]
ANALOGUES OF QUETZALCOATL.
Mr Helps sees in Quetzalcoatl the closest analogies with certain other great civilizers and teachers that made their appearance in various parts of the American continent:—"One peculiar circumstance, as Humboldt remarks, is very much to be noted in the ancient records and traditions of the Indian nations. In no less than three remarkable instances has superior civilization been attributed to the sudden presence among them of persons differing from themselves in appearance and descent.
Bohica, a white man with a beard, appeared to the Mozca Indians in the plains of Bogota, taught them how to build and to sow, formed them into communities, gave an outlet to the waters of the great lake, and, having settled the government civil and ecclesiastical, retired into a monastic state of penitence for two thousand years.
In like manner Manco Capac, accompanied by his sister, Mama Oello, descended amongst the Peruvians, gave them a code of admirable laws, reduced them into communities, and then ascended to his father, the Sun.
Amongst the Mexicans there suddenly appeared Quetzalcoatl (green-feathered snake), a white and bearded man, of broad brow, dressed in a strange dress; a legislator, who recommended severe penances, lacerating his own body with the prickles of the agave and the thorns of the cactus, but who dissuaded his followers from human sacrifice. While he remained in Anáhuac, it was a Saturnian reign; but this great legislator, after moving on to the plains of Cholula, and governing the Cholulans with wisdom, passed away to a distant country, and was never heard of more. It is said briefly of him that 'he ordained sacrifices of flowers and fruits, and stopped his ears when he was spoken to of war.'"[VII-33]
The Abbé Domenech considers the tradition of thelives of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca to be a bit of simple and slightly veiled history, and also that there were several Quetzalcoatls. Let it be remembered in reading the abbé's version of this matter that the names of places, peoples, and the dates he gives are in great part mythical and conjectural:—"After the enfranchisement of the Olmecs, a man named Quetzalcoatl arrived in the country, whom Garcia, Torquemada, Sahagun, and other Spanish writers took to be Saint Thomas. It was also at that time that the third age ended, and that the fourth began, called Sun of the fire, because it was supposed that it was in this last stage that the world would be destroyed by fire.
It is in this fourth period that the Mexican historian places the Toltecs' arrival in New Spain, that is to say, about the third century before the Christian era. According to the Quichés' traditions, the primitive portion of the Nahoas, or ancestors of the Toltecs, were in a distant East, beyond immense seas and lands. Amongst the families and tribes that bore with least patience this long repose and immobility, those of Canub, and of Tlocab may be cited, for they were the first who determined to leave their country. The Nahoas sailed in seven barks or ships, which Sahagun calls Chicomoztoc, or the seven grottos. It is a fact worthy of note, that in all ages the number seven was a sacred number among the American people, from one pole to the other. It was at Pánuco, near Tampico, that those strangers disembarked; they established themselves at Paxil, with the Votanites' consent, and their state took the name of Huehue-Tlopallan. It is not stated from whence they came, but merely that they came out of the regions where the sun rises. The supreme command was in the hand of a chieftain, whom history calls Quetzalcohuatl, that is to say, Lord par excellence. To his care was confided the holy envelope, which concealed the divinity from the human gaze, and he alone received from it the necessary instructions to guide his people's march. These kinds of divinities, thus enveloped, passed forbeing sure talismans, and were looked upon with the greatest respect and veneration. They consisted generally of a bit of wood, in which was inserted a little idol of green stone; this was covered with the skin of a serpent or of a tiger, after which it was rolled in numerous little bands of stuff, wherein it would remain wrapped for centuries together. Such is, perhaps, the origin of the medicine bags made use of, even in the present day, by the Indians of the Great Desert, and of which we shall speak in the second volume of this work."
Of apparently another Quetzalcoatl, he writes: "The Toltecs became highly flourishing under the reign of Ceocatl Quetzalcohuatl, a Culhuacan prince, who preached a new religion, sanctioning auricular confession and the celibacy of the priests. He proscribed all kinds of warfare and human sacrifices. Tezcatlipoca put himself at the head of the dissatisfied party, and besieged Tollan, the residence of Ceocatl Quetzalcohuatl; but the latter refused to defend himself, in order to avoid the effusion of blood, which was prohibited by the laws of the religion he himself had established, and retired to Cholula, that had been constructed by his followers. From thence he went to Yucatan. Tezcatlipoca, his fortunate rival, after a long reign became in his turn the victim of the popular discontent, and fell in a battle that was given him by Ceocatl Quetzalcohuatl's relatives. Those two kings are elevated to the rank of gods, and their worship was a perpetual subject of discord and civil war in all Anáhuac until the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World."[VII-34]
THE CODICES ON QUETZALCOATL.
The interpreters of the different codices, or Mexican paintings represented in Kingsborough's great work, give, as is their wont in all matters, a confused, imperfect, and often erroneous account of Quetzalcoatl:—"Quetzalcoatl is he who was born of the virgin, called Chalchihuitztli, which means the precious stone of penance or of sacrifice. He was saved in the deluge, and was born in Zivenaritzcatl where he resides. His fastwas a kind of preparation for the arrival of the end of the world which they said would happen on the day of Four Earthquakes, so that they were thus in daily expectation of that event. Quetzalcoatl was he who they say created the world, and they bestowed on him the appellation of lord of the wind, because they said that Tonacatecotli, when it appeared good to him, breathed and begat Quetzalcoatl. They erected round temples to him, without any corners. They said that it was he (who was also the lord of the thirteen signs which are here represented), who formed the first man. He alone had a human body like that of men, the other gods were of an incorporeal nature."[VII-35]
"They declare that their supreme deity, or more properly speaking, demon Tonacatecotle, whom we have just mentioned, who by another name was called Citinatonali, ... begot Quetzalcoatl, not by connection with a woman, but by his breath alone, as we have observed above, when he sent his ambassador, as they say, to the virgin of Tulla. They believed him to be the god of the air, and he was the first to whom they built temples and churches, which they formed perfectly round, without any angles. They say it was he who effected the reformation of the world by penance, as we have already said; since, according to their account, his father had created the world, and men had given themselves up to vice, on which account it had been so frequently destroyed. Citinatonali sent this his son into the world to reform it. We certainly must deplore the blindness of these miserable people, on whom Saint Paul says the wrath of God has to be revealed, inasmuch as his eternal truth was so long kept back by the injustice of attributing to this demon that which belonged to Him; for He being the sole creator of the universe, and He who made the division of the waters, which these poor people just now attributed to the Devil, when it appeared good to Him, dispatched the heavenly ambassador to announceto the virgin that she should be the mother of his eternal word; who, when He found the world corrupt, reformed it by doing penance and by dying upon the cross for our sins; and not the wretched Quetzalcoatl, to whom these miserable people attributed this work. They assigned to him the dominion over the other thirteen signs, which are here represented, in the same manner as they had assigned the preceding thirteen to his father. They celebrated a great festival on the arrival of his sign, as we shall see in the sign of Four Earthquakes, which is the fourth in order here, because they feared that the world would be destroyed in that sign, as he had foretold to them when he disappeared in the Red Sea; which event occurred on the same sign. As they considered him their advocate, they celebrated a solemn festival, and fasted during four signs."[VII-36]
MÜLLER ON QUETZALCOATL.
J. G. Müller holds Quetzalcoatl to be the representative national god of the Toltecs, surviving under many misconceptions and amid many incongruities—bequeathed to or adopted into the later Mexican religion. The learned professor has devoted an unusual amount of care and research to the interpretation of the Quetzalcoatl myths; and as no other inquirer has shown therein at once so accurate and extensive an acquaintance with the subject and so calm and judicious a judgment, we give his opinion at length, and first his summing up of the fable-history of Quetzalcoatl:—
The Toltecs, a traditional pre-historic people, after leaving their original northern home Huehuetlapallan (that is Old-red-land) chose Tulla, north of Anáhuac as the first capital of their newly founded kingdom. Quetzalcoatl was their high-priest and religious chief at this place. Huemac, or Huematzin, conducted the civil government as the companion of Quetzalcoatl, and wrote the code of the nation. Quetzalcoatl is said to have been a white man (some gave him a bright redface), with a strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, black hair, and a heavy beard. He always wore a long white robe; which, according to Gomara, was decorated with crosses; he had a mitre on his head and a sickle in his hand. At the volcano of Cotcitepec, or Tzatzitepec, near Tulla, he practised long and numerous penances, giving thereby an example to his priests and successors. The name of this volcano means "the mountain of outcry;" and when Quetzalcoatl gave laws, he sent a crier to the top of it whose voice could be heard three hundred miles off. He did what the founders of religions and cults have done in other countries: he taught the people agriculture, metallurgy, stone-cutting, and the art of government. He also arranged the calendar, and taught his subjects fit religious ceremonies; preaching specially against human sacrifices, and ordering offerings of fruits and flowers only. He would have nothing to do with wars, even covering his ears when the subject was mentioned. His was a veritable golden age, as in the time of Saturn; animals and even men lived in peace, the soil produced the richest harvests without cultivation, and the grain grew so large that a man found it trouble enough to carry one ear; no cotton was dyed, as it grew of all colors, and fruits of all kinds abounded. Everybody was rich and Quetzalcoatl owned whole palaces of gold, silver, and precious stones. The air was filled with the most pleasant aromas, and a host of finely feathered birds filled the world with melody.
But this earthly happiness came to an end. Tezcatlipoca rose up against Quetzalcoatl and against Huemac, in order to separate them, and to destroy their government. He descended from the sky on a rope of spider-web and commenced to work for his object with the aid of magic arts. He first appeared in the form of a handsome youth (and in the dress of a merchant), dressed as a merchant selling pepper-pods, and presented himself before the daughter of king Huemac. He soon seduced the princess, and thereby opened the road to a generalimmorality and a total collapse of the laws. He presented himself before Quetzalcoatl in the form of an old man, with the view of inducing him to depart to his home in Tlapalla. For this purpose he offered him a drink which he pretended would endow him with immortality. No sooner had Quetzalcoatl taken the drink, then he was seized with a violent desire to see his fatherland. He destroyed the palaces of gold, silver, and precious stones, transformed the fruit-trees into withered trunks, and ordered all song-birds to leave the country, and to accompany him. Thus he departed, and the birds entertained him during his journey with their songs.
TRAVELS OF QUETZALCOATL.
He first traveled southward, and arrived in Quauhtitlan, in Anáhuac. In the vicinity of this town he broke down a tree by throwing stones, the stones remaining in the trunk. Farther south, in the same valley, near Tlalnepantla, or Tanepantla, he pressed hand and foot into a rock with such force that the impression has remained down to the latest centuries, in the same manner as the mark of the shoes of the horses of Castor and Pollux near Regillum. The Spaniards were inclined to ascribe these and similar freaks of nature to the Apostle Thomas.
Quetzalcoatl now turned toward the east, and arrived in Cholula, where he had to remain for a longer period, as the inhabitants intrusted him with the government of their state. The same order of things which had taken place in Tulla, his first residence, was here renewed. From this centre his rule spread far and wide; he sent colonists from Cholula to Huaxayacac, Tabasco and Campeche, and the nobility of Yucatan prided themselves on their descent from him; men having been found in our time who bear his name, just as the descendants of Votan bore the name of Votan in Chiapas. In Cholula itself he was adored, and temples were everywhere erected in his honor, even by the enemies of the Cholulans. After a residence of twenty years in Cholula, he proceeded on his journey toward Tlalpalla until he arrived at the river and in the province of Coatzacoalco, or Goasacoalco,Guasacualco, that is, Hiding-nook of the snake—south of Vera Cruz. He now sent the four youths, who had accompanied him from Cholula, back to the Cholulans, promising to return later on and renew the old government. The Cholulans placed the four youths at the head of their government, out of love for him. This hope of his return still existed among the Mexican nations at the time of Cortés' arrival. In fact, Cortés was at first held to be the returning Quetzalcoatl, and a man was sacrificed to him, with whose blood the conqueror and his companions were marked. Father Sahagun was also asked, by everybody on his journey to Mexico, if he and his suite came from Tlapalla. According to Montezuma's account to Cortés, Quetzalcoatl really did once return to Cholula, but after such a length of time that he found his subjects married to the native women, having children, and so numerous that a number of new districts had to be founded. This new race would not recognize their old chief, and refused to obey him. He thereupon departed angrily, threatening to return at another time and to subdue them by force. It is not remarkable that an expectation, which was a hope to the Cholulans, should be a dread to Montezuma and his subjects.
According to some accounts, Quetzalcoatl died in the Hiding-nook of the snakes, in the Goatzacoalco country; according to others, he suddenly disappeared toward the east, and a ship, formed of snakes wound together, brought him to Tlapalla.
A closer view and criticism of this tale, in the light of the analogy of mythological laws, shows us that Quetzalcoatl is the euhemerized religious ideal of the Toltecan nations. The similarity of this tale with those of Manco Capac, Botschika, Saturn, and others, is at once apparent. The opinion of Prescott, Wuttke, and many others, who held him for a deified man, founder of a religion and of a civilization, is confirmed by the latest version of the fable, in which Quetzalcoatl is represented in this character. Although euhemerism is an old idea with all people, as well as with the Americans—personificationbeing the first step toward it—the general reasons which everywhere appear against the existence of such founders of a civilization must also be made to speak against this idea of Quetzalcoatl.
If a special value is placed upon the white face and the beard, it must be remembered that the beard, which is given to the Mexican priests, could not be omitted with Quetzalcoatl; and the mention by some of his having had a white face, and by others a red, might arouse a suspicion that Quetzalcoatl has been represented as a white man on account of his white robe.
The fable of Quetzalcoatl contains contradictions, the younger elements of which are a pure idealism of the more ancient. For instance, the statement that the earth produced everything spontaneously, without human labor, does not agree with the old version of the myth, according to which Quetzalcoatl taught agriculture and other industries requiring application and hard work. The sentimental love of peace has also been attributed to this god in later times, during a time when the Toltecs had lost the martial spirit of their victorious ancestors, and when the Cholulans, given to effeminacy, distinguished themselves more by cunning than by courage. The face of the god is represented, in the fable, as more beautiful and attractive, than it is depicted on the images. At the place where he was most worshiped, in Cholula, the statue of Quetzalcoatl stood in his temple, on the summit of the great pyramid. Its features had a gloomy cast, and differed from the beautiful face which is said to have been his on earth.
QUETZALCOATL AND THE TOLTECS.
The fable shows its later idealized elements in these points. In all other respects, the Toltecan peculiarities of the entire nation are either clearly and faithfully depicted in their hero, as in a personified ideal, or else the original attributes of the nature deity are recognizable. Where the Toltecs were, there was he also, or a hero identical with him; the Toltecs who journeyed southward are colonists sent by him; the Toltec capitals, Tulla and Cholula, are his residences; and as the lawsof the Toltecs extended far and wide, so did the voice of his crier reach three hundred miles into the country. The arts and welfare of the Toltecs, their riches and religious feeling, even their later unwarlike peacefulness, all these attributes are transferred to Quetzalcoatl. The long robe of the Toltecs was also the dress of their hero; the necktie of the boys of his religious order is attached to his image; and, as his priests wore the mitre, he is also represented with it. He is, above all, depicted as the original model of the Toltec priests, the Tlamacazque (the order was called Tlamacazcojotl), whose chief, or superior, always bore the name of Quetzalcoatl. As these orders of his had to submit to the strictest observances—their members having to slit the tongue, ears and lips in honor of Quetzalcoatl, and the small boys being set apart for him by making an incision on their breasts—so he submitted, before all others, to these penances on the Tzatzitipec Mountain. These self-inflicted punishments must not be termed penances, as is often done, for they have no moral meaning, such as to do penance for committed sins, nor have they the mystic meaning of the East Indian idea of the end of the world (Weltabsterben) and the return to the pantheistic chaos (Urall and Urnichts); all this is foreign to the American religion. They are, on the contrary, blood-offerings, substitutes for the human sacrifices in the background, to obtain earthly blessings, and to avert earthly misfortunes. As Quetzalcoatl preached against human sacrifices, so his priests under the Aztec rule, were very reluctant to make them. After the great slaughter by Cortés, in Cholula, Montezuma proceeded to the great temple of Huitzilopochtli, made many human sacrifices, and questioned the god, who bade him to be of good heart, and assured him that the Cholulans had suffered so terribly merely on account of their reluctance to offer up human beings.
As the disappearance of the Toltecs toward the south and the south-east agrees with the disappearance of Quetzalcoatl, so we find many traits from the end of thelast Toltec king reproduced in the end of the Toltec hero. After the defeat of king Tlolpintzin, he (Tlolpintzin) fled southward, toward Tlapalla. He made use of these words, in his last farewell to his friends: I have retired toward the east, but will return after 5012 years to avenge myself on the descendants of mine enemies. After having lived thirty years in Tlapalla, he died. His laws were afterward accepted by Nezalhualcoyotzin. The belief that Tlolpintzin stayed with Nezalhualcoyotzin, and some other brave kings, in the cave of Xicco, after death, like the three Tells of Switzerland, but would at some time come out and deliver his people, was long current among the Indians. Every one will notice how well this agrees with Montezuma's account of the return of Quetzalcoatl.
QUETZALCOATL A NATURE-DEITY.
Quetzalcoatl cannot, however, be a representative and a national god of the Toltecs, without having an original nature-basis for his existence as a god. It is everywhere the case among savages with their national god, that the latter is a nature-deity, who becomes gradually transformed into a national god, then into a national king, high-priest, founder of a religion, and at last ends in being considered a human being. The older and purer the civilization of a people is, the easier it is to recognize the original essence of its national god, in spite of all transformations and disguises. So it is here. Behind the human form of the god glimmers the nature shape, and the national god is known by, perhaps, all his worshipers as also a nature deity. From his powerful influence upon nature, he might also be held as the creator.
The pure human form of this god, as it appears in the fable, as well as in the image, is not the original, but the youngest. His oldest concrete forms are taken from nature, to which he originally belongs, and have maintained themselves in many attributes. All these symbolize him as the god of fertility, chiefly, as it is made apparent, by means of the beneficial influence of the air. All Mexican and European statements makehim appear as the god of the air and of the wind; even the euhemeristic idea deifies the man Quetzalcoatl into a god of the air. All the Mexican tribes adored him at the time of the conquest as god of the air, and all accounts, however much they may differ on the particular points of his poetical life, agree, without exception, in this one respect, as the essential and chief point. Besides the symbols, which are merely attached to the image, there are three attributes, which represent as many original visible forms and exteriors of the god, in which he is represented and worshiped: the sparrow, the flint (Feuerstein), and the snake.
According to Herrera, the image of Quetzalcoatl had the body of a man, but the head of a bird, a sparrow with a red bill, a large comb, and with the tongue hanging far out of the mouth. The air-god of these northern people, parallel to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec Huitzilopochtli, was represented with devices connected with the humming-bird, in remembrance of his former humming-bird nature. This is the northern element. The great spirit of the northern redskins also appear in his most esteemed form as a bird. The Latin Picus was originally a woodpecker (Specht), afterward anthropomorphized and even euhemerized, but he has ever the woodpecker by his side, in his capacity of human seer. Several Egyptian gods have human bodies and animal heads, especially heads of birds. Birds are not alone symbols of particular godlike attributes, as used in the anthropomorphic times, not mere messengers and transmitters of the orders of the gods, but they have originally been considered as gods themselves, with forms of godlike powers, especially in North America; and the exterior of the god of the air, the fructifying air, is naturally that of a bird, a singing-bird. The hieroglyphic sign among the Mexicans for the air is, therefore, the head of a bird with three tongues. Wherever Quetzalcoatl stayed and ruled, there birds filled the air, and song-birds gave indication of their presence; when he departed, he took them with him, and was entertained during the journey by their singing.
QUETZALCOATL AND THE FLINT.
A second form of Quetzalcoatl was the flint, which we have already learned to know as a symbol and hieroglyphic sign for the air. He was either represented as a black stone, or several small green ones, supposed to have fallen from heaven, most likely ærolites, which were adored by the Cholulans in the service of Quetzalcoatl. Bétancourt even explains the meaning of the name Quetzalcoatl, contrary to the usual definition, as "twin of a precious stone." The fable of Quauhtitlan is also connected with this stone-worship; how Quetzalcoatl had overthrown a tree by means of stones which remained fixed in it. These stones were later on adored as holy stones of Quetzalcoatl. The stone at Tlalnepantla, into which he pressed his hand, must also have represented the god himself. Similar ancient stone-worships, of greater nature deities as well as fetiches, were found, in many instances, in Peru, in the pre-Inca times. In ancient Central America we meet with the worship of such green stones called chalchihuites. Votan was worshiped in the form of such a green stone, connected with the other two attributes. This attribute of Quetzalcoatl most likely belongs to the south.
The third form of Quetzalcoatl, which also belongs to the south, is the snake; he is a snake-god, or, at least, merged into an ancient snake-god. The snake is not, as far as I know, a direct symbol of the air, and this attribute is, therefore, not the one pertaining to him from the beginning; but the snake represents the season which, in conjunction with heat and rain, contains the fructifying influence of the atmosphere, spring, the rejuvenating year. However, the very name of the god signifies, according to the usual explanation given to it, "the feathered snake, the snake covered with feathers, the green feathered-snake, the wood-snake with rich feathers." A snake has consequently been added to the human figure of this god. The other name, under which he is adored in Yucatan, is Cuculcan, a snake covered with godlike feathers. The entrance to his round temple in Mexico represented the jaw and fangs of a tremendoussnake. Quetzalcoatl disappeared in Goatzacoalco, the Snake-corner (or nook), and a ship of snakes brought him to Tlapalla. His followers in Yucatan were called snakes, Cocome (plural of Coatl), while he himself bore the name of Cocolcan in this country as well as in Chiapas. The snake attribute signifies, in connection with Huitzilopochtli, also the beneficial influence of the atmosphere, the yearly renewed course of nature, the continual rejuvenation of nature in germs and blossoms. The northern celestial god, Odin, is in many ways connected with snakes, he transformed himself into a snake, and bore the by-name of Snake.
The relationship of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, as given in the fable, may be touched upon here. The driving away of the latter by Tezcatlipoca does not, as may be supposed, signify a contest between the Aztec religion and the preceding Toltecan. In such a case Huitzilopochtli, the chief of the Aztec gods, by whose adoration the contrast is painted in the deepest colors, would have been a much better representant.
Quetzalcoatl no doubt preached against human sacrifices, brought into such unprecedented swing by the Aztecs, yet the worshipers of this god adopted the sacrifice of human beings in an extensive way during the Aztec rule, to which period this part of the Quetzalcoatl fable necessarily owes its origin. At this time the contrast was so slight that Quetzalcoatl partook of the highest adoration of Aztecs, not only in Cholula, but in Mexico and everywhere. His priest enjoyed the highest esteem and his temple in Mexico stood by the side of that of Huitzilopochtli. Montezuma not only calls the Toltec hero a leader of his forefathers, but the Aztecs actually consider him as a son of Huitzilopochtli. The opposition of the two gods, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, has another reason: the difference lies not in their worship, but in their nature and being, in the natural phenomena which they represent. If the god of the beneficial atmosphere, the manifested god-power of the atmosphere of the fructifying seasons, is adored in Quetzalcoatl; thenTezcatlipoca is his opposite, the god of the gloomy lower regions destitute of life and germ, the god of drought, of withering, of death.
QUETZALCOATL AND THE SNAKE.
Wherever, therefore, Quetzalcoatl rules, there are riches and abundance, the air is filled with fragrance and song-birds—an actual golden era; but when he goes southward with his song-birds, he is expelled by Tezcatlipoca, drought sets in, and the palaces of gold, silver, and precious stones, symbols of wealth, are destroyed. He promises, however, everywhere to return. A representation mentioned and copied by Humboldt, shows Tezcatlipoca in the act of cutting up the snake. This has not the meaning of the acts of Hercules, of Tonatiuh, of the great spirit of the Chippewas, of the German Siegfried, of the Celtic dragon-killers Tristan and Iwein, or of the other sun-gods, spring-gods, and culture-heroes, who fight and subdue the snake of the unfertile moisture; such an interpretation would be opposed to the nature of this god. On the contrary, the god of death and drought here fights the snake as the symbol of moisture, of the fertilization of the plant-life.
The question now arises: if Quetzalcoatl only received his snake attribute in the south, and this his name, what was his original northern and Toltecan name? We answer, coinciding with the views expressed by Ixtlilxochitl and others, who affirm that Quetzalcoatl and his worldly companion, Huemac, were one and the same person. The opposed opinion of Ternaux-Compans, who states that Quetzalcoatl must have been an Olmec, while Huemac was a Toltec, actually gives the key to the solution of the question. Both are right, Ixtlilxochitl and Ternaux, Huemac is the original Toltec name of the Toltec national god, ruler, and author of the holy books, the ancient name used by the Toltecs. As this people succumbed more and more to southern influences, and their ancient air-god in his sparrow form received in addition the snake attribute, on account of his rejuvenating influence upon nature, then, the new name of the more cultivated people soon appeared.The name may, therefore, be Olmec, but not the god; we may sooner suppose that the attributes of the Maya god, Votan, have been transferred to the Toltec god. Both names having thus a double origin; the legend which found two names, made also two persons of them, and placed them side by side. It is, however, easy to see that they are naturally one: Huemac has just as much a religious signification as Quetzalcoatl; as Huematzin, he wrote the divine book, containing all the earthly and heavenly wisdom of the Toltecs. Quetzalcoatl has, in the same degree, besides his religious position, the worldly one of ruler and founder of a civilization. As Quetzalcoatl possesses a divine nature, so does Huemac, to whom also are ascribed the three hundred years of life, and the impression of the hand in the rock.
Besides the attributes of the sparrow, flint, and snake, there are others which ascribe to Quetzalcoatl the same properties, but less prominently. As god of the air, he holds the wonderfully painted shield in his hand, a symbol of his power over the winds. As god of the fertilizing influence of the air, he holds, like Saturn, the sickle, symbol of the harvest—he it is that causes the grain to ripen. It used to be said that he prepared the way for the water-god, for in these regions, the rains are always preceded by winds. It was on account of this intimate connection with the rain, which had already procured him the snake attribute, that his mantle was adorned with crosses. We have already seen that such crosses represented the rain-god with the Mayas, and are symbols of the fructifying rain. Consequently they are well suited for the god who is only air-god in the sense of the air exercising its fructifying and invigorating influence upon the earth.
QUETZALCOATL AND THE TRADE-WINDS.
Another question, which has already occurred to us, must here be considered. Why did this god come from the east, depart toward the east, and why should he be expected from the east? The Toltecs have, according to almost unanimous statements, come from the north,and even Quetzalcoatl commences his rule in the north, in Tulla, and proceeds gradually on his journey from the north to the south-east, just like the Toltecs, who traveled southward from Tulla. It is plain that he departs for the east, because this is his home, from which he came and will return. His eastern origin is, no doubt, based upon the direction of the eastern trade-winds, which carry rain and, with it, fertility to the interior of Central America. The rains began three or four weeks earlier in Vera Cruz, Tampico, and Tabasco than in Puebla and Mexico. Another reason, which has, however, a certain connection with the above, may be the relationship of the god of air and the sun-god, who often assumed an equal position in nature and in worship. We know that the founders of the Peruvian and Muyscan cults come from the east, because they are sun-gods. Quetzalcoatl is not such a deity, it is true, but the fertilizing air-god is also in other places closely connected with the fructifying sun, as, for example Huitzilopochtli, Odin, and Brama. The sun is his eye. This connection with the sun, Montezuma referred to when he spoke in the presence of Cortés of the departure of Quetzalcoatl for the regions from which the sun comes. As the sun is the eye of heaven, to whom the heart of the victim sacrificed to the god of heaven is presented, so it is at night with the moon, to whom the same tribute was paid at the feast of Quetzalcoatl. I merely refer to this here to show the connection of the air-god with the great heavenly bodies.
Several other significations are attached to the idea of an air-god. It is natural that the god of heavenly blessing should also be the god of wealth. All wealth depends originally upon the produce of the soil, upon the blessing of heaven, however worldly the opinion of the matter may be. Gold is merely the symbol of this wealth, like the golden shower of Zeus. The image of Quetzalcoatl was, therefore, according to Acosta, adorned with gold, silver, jewels, rich feathers, and gay dresses, to illustrate his wealth. For this reason he wore a golden helmet,and his sceptre was decorated with costly stones. The same view is also the basis of the myths of the ancients about snakes and dragons guarding treasures. The fact that the merchants of Cholula worshiped the god of wealth before all others, and as their chief deity, requires no explanation.
His worship in Cholula was conducted as follows: Forty days before the festival, the merchants bought a spotless slave, who was first taken to bathe in a lake called the Lake of the Gods, then dressed up as the god Quetzalcoatl, whom he had to represent for forty days. During this time he enjoyed the same adoration as was given to the god: he was set upon a raised place, presented with flowers, and fed on the choicest viands. He was, however, well guarded during the night, so that he might not escape. During his exhibition through the town, he danced and sang, and the women and children ran out of their houses to salute him and make him presents. This continued until nine days before the end of the forty days. Then two old priests approached him in all humility, saying, in deep voice: Lord, know that in nine days thy singing and dancing will cease, because thou must die! If he continued of good spirit, and inclined to dance and sing, it was considered a good omen, if the contrary, a bad one. In the latter case they prepared him a drink of blood and cacao, which was to obliterate the remembrance of the past conversation. After drinking this, it was hoped that he would resume his former good humor. On the day of the festival still greater honors were shown him, music sounded and incense was burnt. At last, at the midnight hour, he was sacrificed, the heart was torn out of his body, held up to the moon, and then thrown toward the image of the god. The body was cast down the steps of the temple, and served the merchants, especially the slave-dealers, for a sacrificial meal. This feast and sacrifice took place every year, but after a certain number of cycles, as in the divine year, Teoxihuitl, they were celebrated with much more pomp. Quetzalcoatl had, generally,his human sacrifices during the Aztec rule, as well as the other gods.
QUETZALCOATL AS A HEALING GOD.
The power which reëstablishes the macrocosm, heals and rejuvenates the microcosm also: it is the general healing power. With the good weather thousands of invalids are restored, and refreshing rains not only revive the thirsty plains of the tropics, but man himself. Thus the air-god, the atmosphere, becomes a healing god. A Phœnician told Pausanius that the snake god, Æsculapius, signified the health-restoring air. If this god of heaven is also a snake-god, like Quetzalcoatl, the rejuvenating and reinvigorating power of nature is expressed in a clear parallelism.
The snake-god is also a healing god, and even the Greek Æsculapius cannot dispense with the snake. It is, thus, not to be wondered at that the sterile women of the Mexican peoples directed their prayers to Quetzalcoatl.[VII-37]