Chapter III: The Priesthood and Ritual of the Ancient Mexicans

The resemblance of the Mexican priesthood to that of Ancient Egypt was very marked. However, the influence of the priests among the people of Anahuac was even greater than that of the analogous caste among the people of Khemi. Their system of conventual education permitted them to impress their doctrines upon the minds of the young in that indelible manner which secures unfaltering adhesion in later life to the dogmas so inculcated; and no doubt the ever-present fear of human sacrifice assisted them mightily in their dealings with the people. In short, they were all-powerful, and the Mexican, accustomed to their influence from the period of childhood to that of death, submitted unquestioningly to their rule in all things, spiritual and temporal.

The religious ethics of the Mexican priesthood were lofty and sublime in the extreme, and had but little in common with their barbarous practices. They had been borrowed from the more cultured Toltecs, who during their sole tenure of Anahuac had evolved a moral code to which it would be difficult to take exception. But although this exalted philosophy had been adopted by the fierce and uncultured Aztecs, it had become so obscured by the introduction of cruel and inhuman rites and customs as to be almost no longer recognisable as the pure faith of the race they had succeeded in the land. The germ and core of the Aztec religion was the idea of the constant necessity of propitiating the gods by means of human sacrifice, and to this aspect of their religion we will return later.

We have already seen that underlying the mythology of the ancient Mexicans was the idea of a supreme Being, a 'Great Spirit.' In the rites of confession and absolution particularly was this Being appealed to in prayer, and the similarity of these petitions to those offered up by themselves so impressed the monkish companions of the Spanish conquerors that their astonishment is very evident in their writings. It is unlikely that these priests would admit a soul of goodness in the evil thing it was their business to stamp out; and their testimony in this respect is of the highest value as evidence that the Aztec Religion possessed at least the germ of the eternal verities.

The Aztecs believed that eternity was broken up into several distinct cycles, each of several thousand years' duration. There would seem to have been four of these periods, concerning the length and nature of which the old Spanish writers on the subject differ very materially. The conclusion of each was (according to the Mexican tradition) to witness the extinction of humanity in one mighty holocaust, and the blotting out of the sun in the heavens. Whether this universal upheaval applied only to the sons of men, or, like the Teutonic Gotterdaemmerung, or the Scandinavian Raegnarok, had an equal significance for the gods, is not clear. It is worth remarking, however, that it premises the mortal nature of the sun, and, therefore, the existence of a creative agency with the ability to set another sun in its place.

With the Mexicans the question of a future life was a very nebulous one, though perhaps no more so than with the ancient Greeks or Romans. There was more than one paradise. Mictlan, the shadowy sombre place of the dead, was the resting-place of the majority, for the Aztecs fully believed that the higher realms of bliss were preserves for the aristocracy where the lowly might not enter. And this, in passing, is perhaps an explanation of the marvellously speedy adoption of Christianity by the Mexican natives subsequent to the conquest of Anahuac. Of the higher realms of bliss the 'Mansion of the Sun' was perhaps the most desirable. There the principal pleasures consisted in accompanying the sun in his course, and the amusement of choral dancing. Souls in this paradise might also enter the bodies of humming-birds, and flit from flower to flower. The exercise of the chase lent to this place something of the character of a Valhalla, and we hear something of Gargantuan banquets. Here, too, the blessed might animate the clouds, and float deliciously over the world they had quitted.

The paradise of Tlaloc was the special dwelling of those who had lost their lives by drowning, of sacrificed children, and of those who had died of disease caused by damp or moisture. But two exceptions were made as regarded the souls of others, and these related to warriors slain in battle, and women who had died in child-bed, who were permitted to enter paradise as having forfeited their lives in the service of the state.

All the science and wisdom of the country was embodied in the priestly caste. The priests understood the education of the people, and so forcibly impressed their students with their knowledge of the occult arts that for the rest of their lives they quietly submitted to priestly influence. The priestly order was exceedingly numerous, as is proved by the fact that no less than five thousand functionaries were attached to the great temple of Mexico, the rank and offices of whom were apportioned with the most minute exactitude. The basis of the priesthood was eminently aristocratic, and its supreme pontiff was known by the appellation of _Mexicatl Teohuatzin_, or 'Mexican Lord of Divine Matters.' Next in rank to him was the high priest of Quetzalcoatl, whose authority was limited to his own priesthood, and who lived a life of strict seclusion, not unlike that of the Grand Lama of Tibet. This was probably a remnant of old Toltec practice. The pontiff seems to have wielded a very considerable amount of political power, and to have had a seat on the royal council.

The life of an Aztec priest was rigorous in the extreme. Fasting and penance bulked largely among his duties, and the idea of the implacability of the gods which was current in the priesthood appears to have driven many priests to great extremes of self-inflicted torture. They dressed entirely in black (with the exception of the caste of Quetzalcoatl, who were clothed in white), and their cloaks covered their heads, falling down at each side like a mantilla. Their hair was permitted to grow very long. They bathed every evening at sunset, and rose several times during the night for the purpose of paying their devotions. Some of their orders permitted marriage, while others were celibate, but all, without distinction, passed an existence of severe asceticism. As has been said, departmental duties were strongly marked. Some were readers, others musicians, while others again, probably the lower orders, attended to the sacred fires, and the more menial offices, the grand duty of human sacrifice devolving upon the higher orders of the prelacy alone.

There was also an order of females who were admitted to the practice of all the sacerdotal functions, omitting only that of human sacrifice. These appear to have been more of the description of nuns than of priestesses. Fakirs and religious beggars also abounded, but these seem to have taken upon themselves mendicant vows for a space only.

Education was wholly sacerdotal. That is, though secular studies were communicated to the young, the principal part of their training consisted of religious instruction. The schools were situated in the temple precincts, and entering these at an early age the boys were instructed by priests, and the girls by nuns. They resided within the temple buildings, and those who did not, and who probably consisted of the lower orders, were enrolled in a society called the _Telpochtiliztli_, which met every evening at sunset to perform choral dances in honour of Tezcatlipoca. A secondary school also existed, called the _Calmecac_, in which the lore of the priests and the reading of the hieroglyphs, astrology, and the kindred sciences were taught the young men, whilst the girls became experts in the weaving of costly garments for the adornment of the idols, and the wear of the higher orders of the hierarchy.

When the boys and girls left the school at the age of fifteen they were either sent back to their families, or to public service, to which they were often recommended by the priests. Others remained to become in their turn priests or nuns in different convents.

Severe educational tests were required for entrance into the priesthood, and grades were many. The priests, we have seen, might occupy one of several ranks, and the nuns could become abbesses, or merely retain the position of simple sisters, according to their ambition and abilities. The lower ranks were designated _Cihuaquaquilli_, or 'lady herb-eaters,' while the higher orders were known as _Cihuatlamacasque_, or 'lady deaconesses.'

The Spanish conquerors of Mexico were astonished to find among this peculiar people a number of rites which appeared in many respects analogous to some of those practised by Catholics. Such were the use of the cross as a symbol, communion, baptism, and confession. The cross, which was designated, strangely enough, 'Tree of our Life,' was merely the symbol of the four winds, which were indeed the life of Anahuac. As regards confession and absolution, these were permitted to a person only once in his existence, and that at a late period of life, as any repetition of the pardoned offence was held to be inexpiable. Penance was apportioned, and absolution given much in the same manner as in the Roman Catholic Church. There appears to have been more than one kind of communion. At the third festival of Huitzilopochtli they made an image of him in dough kneaded with the blood of infants, and divided the pieces among themselves. In the case of Xiuhtecutli a similar image was placed on the top of a tree, which, like our Christmas trees, had been transported from the forest to the town, and when the tree was thrown down and the image broken, the people scrambled for the pieces, which they devoured.

In the rite of baptism the principal functionary was the midwife. She touched the mouth and breast of the infant with water in the presence of the assembled relations, and invoked the blessing of the goddess Cihuatcoatl, who presided over childbirth (and who was a variant of Centeotl, the maize-goddess) upon it. But it is unlikely that she did so in the devoutly Christian language ascribed to her by Sahagun.

At death the corpse of a Mexican was dressed in the robes peculiar to his guardian deity, and in this can be perceived an analogy to every dead Egyptian becoming an Osirian, or Osiris himself. Covered with paper charms, as the Egyptian mummy was covered with metal or faience symbols, the body was cremated, the ashes placed in an urn, and preserved in the house of the deceased. At the death of a rich man many slaves were sacrificed to bear him company in the world beyond the grave. This was obviously a meaningless survival of a prehistoric custom. Valuable treasures were often buried with the wealthy, and a rich man would often have his private chaplain sacrificed at his tomb to assist him with ghostly counsel and comfort in the other world.

Among the ancient Mexicans every month was consecrated to some particular deity, and in their calendar every day marked a celebration of some greater or lesser divinity. Those differed considerably in their character. Some were light and joyous, and their ritual abounded in the use of flowers and song. Others (and these, unhappily, were in the majority) were stained with the hideousness of human sacrifice.

The temples of the Ancient Mexicans were very numerous. They were called _teocallis_,[4] or 'houses of God,' and were constructed by facing huge mounds of earth with brick and stone. They were pyramidal in shape, and built in stages which grew smaller as the summit was reached. The bases of some of these teocallis were more than one hundred feet square. The great teocalli at Mexico, for example, was three hundred and seventy-five feet long at the base, and three hundred feet in width. Its height was over eighty feet. It consisted of five stages, each communicating with the other by means of a staircase which wound around the entire edifice. In the case of some teocallis, however, the staircase led directly up the western face of the building. At the top two towers, between forty and fifty feet in height, stood perched upon a broad area. Inside these were kept the idols of the gods to whom the teocalli was sacred. Before these towers stood the stone of sacrifice, and two altars upon which the fires blazed night and day. In the city of Mexico six hundred of these fires rendered any artificial illumination at night superfluous. Through the very construction of these temples all religious services were of a public nature. In front of the great teocalli of Mexico stretched a court twelve hundred feet square, around which clustered the chapels of minor deities, and those captured from conquered peoples, as well as the dwellings and offices set apart for the attendant priests.

Although it appears that the Toltecs, the forerunners of the Aztecs in Mexico, had at one period of their history been prone to human sacrifice, they had almost entirely discarded the practice at the time of their downfall. Some two hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards the Aztecs had adopted this abomination, and were in the habit of sparing the lives of immense numbers of prisoners of war solely for the purpose of offering them up to the national gods. As their empire extended, these holocausts became greater and more common. On the teocalli of Mexico the Spaniards could count one hundred and thirty-six thousand human skulls piled in a horrid pyramid.

Of the sacrifices the most important was that signifying the annual demise of Tezcatlipoca. The most handsome of the captives who chanced to be in the hands of the Aztecs was chosen for the purpose. It was necessary that he should be without spot or blemish, as it was intended that he should represent Tezcatlipoca himself. He was taken in hand by a body of tutors, who instructed him how to play his allotted part with the dignity and grace to be expected from a divine being. Arrayed in magnificent robes typical of his godhead, and surrounded by an atmosphere of flowers and incense, he led the life of a voluptuary for the space of nearly a year. On the occasion of his appearance in the public streets he was received by the populace with all the homage due to a god, but was strictly guarded, nevertheless, by eight pages, who in reality were merely gaolers. Within a month's time of his immolation four beautiful girls were given him as wives, and he was feasted and feted by the nobility as the incarnation of Tezcatlipoca.

On the day preceding the sacrifice the victim was placed on one of the royal canoes, and accompanied by his four wives, was rowed to the other side of the lake. That evening his wives bade him farewell, and he was stripped of his gorgeous apparel. He was then conducted to a teocalli some three miles from the city of Mexico. In scaling this he threw away the wreaths of flowers with which he had been adorned, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had amused his hours of captivity. Crowds thronged from the city to behold the act of sacrifice. On reaching the summit of the teocalli the victim was met by six priests, five of whom led him to the sacrificial stone, a great block of jasper with a convex surface. On this he was placed by the five priests, who secured his head, arms, and legs, whilst the officiating priest, robed in a blood-red mantle, dexterously opened his breast with a sharp flint knife. He then inserted his hand into the gaping wound, and tearing out the still palpitating heart, held it aloft towards the sun. Then he cast the bleeding offering into a vessel containing burning copal, which lay at the feet of the image of Tezcatlipoca. A species of sermon was then delivered by one of the priests to the people in which he drew a moral from the fate of the victim illustrative of the inevitable conclusion of all human pleasure by the hand of death.

Huitzilopochtli had also a representative sacrificed every year who had to take part in a sort of war-dance immediately before his immolation, and a woman was annually sacrificed to Centeotl, the maize-goddess. Before her death she took part in several symbolic representations which were expressions of the various processes in the growth of the harvest. The day before her sacrifice she sowed maize in the streets, and on the arrival of midnight she was decapitated and flayed. A priest arrayed himself in the still warm skin and engaged in mimic combat with soldiers who were scattered through the streets. Part of the skin was then carried to the temple of Centeotl the Son, where a priest made a mask of it in the likeness of the presiding deity, and afterwards sacrificed four captives in honour of the occasion. The skin was then carried to the frontiers of the empire, and buried. It was supposed that its presence there acted as a talisman against invasion.

We have before described the sacrifices of children to Tlaloc. Even more gruesome were the awful doings at the festival of Xiuhtecutli, when the unhappy victims were half-roasted and finally despatched by having their hearts torn out. Cannibal feasts often followed these sacrifices--feasts which were the more horrible in that they were accompanied by all the accessories of a high standard of civilisation; but it must be remembered that their purport was essentially symbolic, and in no way partook of the nature of the orgies of flesh-famished savages.

When the great temple of Huitzilopochtli was dedicated in 1486, the chain of victims sacrificed on that occasion extended for the length of two miles. In this terrible massacre the hearts of no less than seventy thousand human beings were offered up! In the light of such appalling wickedness it is difficult to blame the Spanish conquerors of Anahuac in their zeal to blot out the worship of the deities whom they designated 'horrible demons.' These victims were nearly always captive warriors of rival nations, and it was on rare occasions only that native Mexicans were led to the stone of sacrifice unless, indeed, they were malefactors.

The great jubilee festival, which was celebrated every fifty-two years throughout the empire, marked the coincidence of four times thirteen solar and four times thirteen lunar years. This the Mexicans called a 'sheaf of years,' and when the first day of the fifty-third year dawned, the ceremony of _Toxilmolpilia_, or 'the binding-up of years,' was held. Priests and people gazed feverishly at the Pleiades to see if they would pass the zenith. Should they do so the world would hold on its course for another similar period; if not, extinction would instantly follow. Fire was kindled upon a victim's breast by the friction of wood, and whenever it was alight the prisoner's heart was plucked out, and along with his body was consumed upon a pile of wood kindled by the new fire. As the flames ascended, and it was seen that the Pleiades had crossed the zenith, cries of joy burst from the assembled people below. Faggots were lighted at the sacred pyre, and domestic fires rekindled from them. Humanity had been respited for a generation.

It is difficult to believe that a people so imbrued in a religion of bloodshed could have been punctilious in matters of morality, and it is still more difficult to believe the evidence of Sahagun and Clavigero concerning their personal piety. It seems certain, however, that as a race the Aztecs were austerely moral, pious, truth-loving, and loyal as citizens, and even the sanguinary priests do not appear to have reaped any benefit from their terrible offices. All the evidence would seem to show that it was the belief in the existence of cruel and insatiable gods which rendered the priests and people alike callous and insensible to the taking of human life, and this is the more easily understood when it is remembered that the Aztecs had at a comparatively late period emerged from a state of migratory savagery into the heirship of an ancient and complex civilisation.[5]