Chapter III: Mexico (1)

(_Continued_)

I. COSMOGONY[47]

Mexican cosmogonies conform to a wide-spread American type. There is first an ancient creator, little important in cult, who is the remote giver and sustainer of the life of the universe; and next comes a generation of gods, magicians and transformers rather than true creators, who form and transform the beings of times primeval and eventually bring the world to its present condition. The earlier world-epochs, or "Suns," as the Mexicans called them, are commonly four in number, and each is terminated by the catastrophic destruction of its Sun and of its peoples, fire and flood overwhelming creation in successive cataclysms. Not all of this, in single completeness, is preserved in any one account, but from the various fragments and abridgements that are extant the whole may be reasonably reconstructed.

One of the simpler tales (simple at least in its transmitted form) is of the Tarascan deity, Tucupacha. "They hold him to be creator of all things," says Herrera,[48] "that he gives life and death, good and evil fortune, and they call upon him in their tribulations, gazing toward the sky where they believe him to be." This deity first created heaven and earth and hell; then he formed a man and a woman of clay, but they were destroyed in bathing; again he made a human pair, using cinders and metals, and from these the world was peopled. But the god sent a flood, from which he preserved a certain priest, Texpi, and his wife, with seeds and with animals, floating in an ark-like log. Texpi discovered land by sending out birds, after the fashion of Noah, and it is quite possible that the legend as recounted is not altogether native.

More primitive in type and more interesting in form is the Mixtec cosmogony narrated by Fray Gregorio García, which begins thus:[49] "In the year and in the day of obscurity and darkness, when there were as yet no days nor years, the world was a chaos sunk in darkness, while the earth was covered with water, on which scum and slime floated." This exordium, with its effort to describe the void by negation and the beginning of time by the absence of its denominations, is strikingly reminiscent of the creation-narrative in Genesis ii. and of the similar Babylonian cosmogony; the negative mode, employed in all three, is essentially true to that stage when human thought is first struggling to grapple with abstractions, seeking to define them rather by a process of denudation than by one of limitation of the field of thought. The Mixtec tale proceeds with a group of incidents. (1) The Deer-God and the Deer-Goddess (the deer is an emblem of fecundity)--known also as the Puma-Snake and the Jaguar-Snake, in which character they doubtless represent the tawny heaven of the day-sky and the starry vault of night--magically raised a cliff above the abyss of waters, on the summit of which they placed an axe, edge upward, upon which the heavens rested. (2) Here, at the Place-where-the-Heavens-stood, they lived many centuries, and here they reared their two boys, Wind-of-the-Nine-Serpents and Wind-of-the-Nine-Caves, who possessed the power of transforming themselves into eagles and serpents, and even of passing through solid bodies. The symbolism of these two boys as typifying the upper and the nether world is obvious; they can only be one more example of the demiurgic twins common in American cosmogony. (3) The brothers inaugurated sacrifice and penance, the cultivation of flowers and fruits; and with vows and prayers they besought their ancestral gods to let the light appear, to cause the water to be separated from the earth, and to permit the dry land to be freed from its covering. (4) The earth was peopled, but a flood destroyed this First People, and the world was restored by the "Creator of all Things."

It is probable that this Mixtec Creator-of-All-Things was the same deity as he who was known to their Zapotec kindred as Coqui-Xèe or Coqui-Cilla ("Lord of the Beginning"), of whom it was said that "he was the creator of all things and was himself uncreated." Seler is of opinion that Coqui-Xèe is a spirit of "the beginning" in the sense of dawn and the east and the rising sun, and that since he is also known as Piye-Tào, or "the Great Wind," he is none other than the Zapotec Quetzalcoatl, who also is an increate creator. Coqui-Xèe, however, is "merely the principle, the essence of the creative deity or of deity in general without reference to the act of creating the world and human beings"; for that act is rather to be ascribed to the primeval pair (equivalent to the Deer-God and Deer-Goddess of the Mixtec), Cozaana ("Creator, the Maker of all Beasts") and Huichaana ("Creator, the Maker of Men and Fishes").

The ideas of the Nahuatlan tribes were similar. Of the Chichimec Sahagun[50] says that "they had only a single god, Mixcoatl, whose image they possessed; but they believed in another invisible god, not represented by any image, called Yoalli Ehecatl, that is to say, God invisible, impalpable, beneficent, protector, omnipotent, by whose strength alone the whole world lives, and who, by his sole knowledge, rules voluntarily all things." Mixcoatl ("Cloud-Snake"), the tribal god of the Chichimec and Otomi, is certainly an analogue of Quetzalcoatl or of Huitzilopochtli, like them figuring as demiurge; and Yoalli Ehecatl ("Wind and Night," or "Night-Wind") is an epithet applied to Tezcatlipoca, who also is addressed as "Creator of Heaven and Earth."

All of these gods are of the sky and atmosphere, and all of them appear as creative powers, though mainly in the demiurgic _rôle_. Back of and above them is the ancient Twofold One, the Male-Female or Male and Female principle of generation, which not only first created the world, but maintains it fecund. This being, sometimes called Tloque Nauaque, or "Lord of the By," i.e. the Omnipresent, is represented as a divine pair, known under several names. Sahagun commonly speaks of them as Ometecutli and Omeciuatl ("Twi-Lord," "Twi-Lady"), and in his account of the Toltec he states that they reign over the twelve heavens and the earth; the existence of all things depends upon them, and from them proceeds the "influence and warmth whereby infants are engendered in the wombs of their mothers." Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciutl ("Lord of Our Flesh," "Lady of Our Flesh") is another pair of names, used with reference to the creation of the human body out of maize and to its support thereby.[51] A third pair of terms, appearing in Mendieta and in the _Annals of Quauhtitlan_, is Citlallatonac and Citlalicue ("Lord" and "Lady of the Starry Zones"). In the _Annals_ Quetzalcoatl, as high-priest of the Toltec, is said to have dedicated a cult to "Citlalicue Citlallatonac, Tonacaciuatl Tonacatecutli ... who is clothed in charcoal, clothed in blood, who giveth food to the earth; and he cried aloft, to the Omeyocan, to the heaven lying above the nine that are bound together." Nevertheless, these deities--or rather deity, for Tloque Nauaque seems to be, like the Zuñi Awonawilona, bisexual in nature--received little recognition in the formal cult; and it was said that they desired none.

Figures representing the heavenly bodies. The upper figure, from _Codex Vaticanus B_, represents the conflict of light and darkness. The Eagle is either the Morning Star or the Sun; the Plumed Serpent is the symbol of the Cosmic Waters, from whose throat the Hare, perhaps the Earth or Moon, is being snatched by the Eagle. Similar figures appear in other codices, the Serpent being in one instance represented as torn by the Eagle's talons.

The lower figure, from _Codex Borgia_, portrays Sun, Moon, and Morning Star. The Sun-god is within the rayed disk; he holds a bundle of spears in one hand, a spear-thrower in the other; a stream of blood, apparently from a sacrifice offered by the Morning Star, which has the form of an ocelot, nourishes the Sun. The Moon appears as a Hare upon the face of the crescent, which is filled with water and set upon a background of dark sky.

In connexion with these primal creators appear the demiurgic transformers, Quetzalcoatl usually playing the important part. According to Sahagun's fragmentary accounts, the gods were gathered from time immemorial in a place called Teotiuacan. They asked: "Who shall govern and direct the world? Who will be Sun?" Tecuciztecatl ("Cockle-Shell House") and the pox-afflicted Nanauatzin volunteered. They were dressed in ceremonial garments and fasted for four days; and then the gods ranged themselves about a sacrificial fire, which the candidates were asked to enter. Tecuciztecatl recoiled from the intense heat until encouraged by the example of Nanauatzin, who plunged into it; and because of this Nanauatzin became the Sun, while Tecuciztecatl assumed second place as Moon. The gods now ranged themselves to await the appearance of the Sun, but not knowing where to expect it, and gazing in various directions, some of them, including Quetzalcoatl, turned their faces toward the east, where the Sun finally manifested himself, close-followed by the Moon. Their light being then equal, was so bright that none might endure it, and the deities accordingly asked one another, "How can this be? Is it good that they should shine with equal light?" One of them ran and threw a rabbit into the face of Tecuciztecatl, which thenceforth shone as does now the moon; but since the sun and the moon rested upon the earth, without rising, the gods saw that they must immolate themselves to give motion to the orbs of light. Xolotl fled, but was finally caught and sacrificed; yet even so the orbs did not stir until the wind blew with such violence as to compel them--first, the sun, and afterward the moon. Quetzalcoatl, the wind-god, is, of course, thus the giver of life to sun and moon as he is also, in the prayers the bearer of the breath of life from the divine pair to the new-born.

A complete version of the same myth is given by Mendieta,[52] who credits it to Fray Andrés de Olmos, transmitted by word of mouth from Mexican caciques. Each province had its own narrative, he says, but they were agreed that in heaven were a god and goddess, Citlallatonac and Citlalicue, and that the goddess gave birth to a stone knife (_tecpatl_), to the amazement and horror of her other sons which were in heaven. The stone hurled forth by these outraged sons and falling to Chicomoxtoc ("Seven Caves"), was shattered, and from its fragments arose sixteen hundred earth-godlings. These sent Tlotli, the Hawk, heavenward to demand of their mother the privilege of creating men to be their servants; and she replied that they should send to Mictlantecutli, Lord of Hell, for a bone or ashes of the dead, from which a man and woman would be born. Xolotl was dispatched as messenger, secured the bone, and fled with it; but being pursued by the Lord of Hell, he stumbled, and the bone broke. With such fragments as he could secure he reached the earth, and the bones, placed in a vessel, were sprinkled with blood drawn from the bodies of the gods. On the fourth day a boy emerged from the mixture; on the eighth, a girl; and these were reared by Xolotl to become parents of mankind. Men differ in size because the bone broke into unequal fragments; and as human beings multiplied, they were assigned as servants to the several gods. Now, the Sun had not been shining for a long time, and the deities assembled at Teotiuacan to consider the matter. Having built a great fire, they announced that that one among their devotees who should first hurl himself into it should have the honour of becoming the Sun, and when one had courageously entered the flames, they awaited the sunrise, wagering as to the quarter in which he would appear; but they guessed wrong, and for this they were condemned to be sacrificed, as they were soon to learn. When the Sun appeared, he remained ominously motionless; and although Tlotli was sent to demand that he continue his journey, he refused, saying that he should remain where he was until they were all destroyed. Citli ("Hare") in anger shot the Sun with an arrow, but the latter hurled it back, piercing the forehead of his antagonist. The gods then recognized their inferiority and allowed themselves to be sacrificed, their hearts being torn out by Xolotl, who slew himself last of all. Before departing, however, each divinity gave to his followers, as a sacred bundle, his vesture wrapped about a green gem which was to serve as a heart. Tezcatlipoca was one of the departed deities, but one day he appeared to a mourning follower whom he commanded to journey to the House of the Sun beyond the waters and to bring thence singers and musical instruments to make a feast for him. This the messenger did, singing as he went. The Sun warned his people not to harken to the stranger, but the music was irresistible, and some of them were lured to follow him back to earth, where they instituted the musical rites. Such details as the formation of the ceremonial bundles and the journey of the song-seeker to the House of the Sun immediately suggest numerous analogues among the wild tribes of the north, indicating the primitive and doubtless ancient character of the myth.

II. THE FOUR SUNS[53]

In the developed cosmogonic myths the cycles, or "Suns," of the early world are the turns of the drama of creation. Ixtlilxochitl names four ages, following the creation of the world and man by a supreme god, "Creator of All Things, Lord of Heaven and Earth." Atonatiuh, "the Sun of Waters," was the first age terminated by a deluge in which all creatures perished. Next came Tlalchitonatiuh, "the Sun of Earth"; this was the age of giants, and it ended with a terrific earthquake and the fall of mountains. "The Sun of Air," Ehcatonatiuh, closed with a furious wind, which destroyed edifices, uprooted trees, and even moved the rocks. It was during this period that a great number of monkeys appeared "brought by the wind," and these were regarded as men changed into animals. Quetzalcoatl appeared in this third Sun, teaching the way of virtue and the arts of life; but his doctrines failed to take root, so he departed toward the east, promising to return another day. With his departure "the Sun of Air" came to its end, and Tlatonatiuh, "the Sun of Fire," began, so called because it was expected that the next destruction would be by fire.

Other versions give four Suns as already completed, making the present into a fifth age of the world. The most detailed of these cosmogonic myth-records is that given in the _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas_. According to this document Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciuatl dwelt from the beginning in the thirteenth heaven. To them were born, as to an elder generation, four gods--the ruddy Camaxtli (chief divinity of the Tlascalans); the black Tezcatlipoca, wizard of the night; Quetzalcoatl, the wind-god; and the grim Huitzilopochtli, of whom it was said that he was born without flesh, a skeleton. For six hundred years these deities lived in idleness; then the four brethren assembled, creating first the fire (hearth of the universe) and afterward a half-sun. They formed also Oxomoco and Cipactonal, the first man and first woman, commanding that the former should till the ground, and the latter spin and weave; while to the woman they gave powers of divination and grains of maize that she might work cures. They also divided time into days and inaugurated a year of eighteen twenty-day periods, or three hundred and sixty days. Mictlantecutli and Mictlanciuatl they created to be Lord and Lady of Hell, and they formed the heavens that are below the thirteenth storey of the celestial regions, and the waters of the sea, making in the sea a monster Cipactli, from which they shaped the earth. The gods of the waters, Tlaloctecutli and his wife Chalchiuhtlicue, they created, giving them dominion over the Quarters. The son of the first pair married a woman formed from a hair of the goddess Xochiquetzal; and the gods, noticing how little was the light given forth by the half-sun, resolved to make another half-sun, whereupon Tezcatlipoca became the sun-bearer--for what we behold traversing the daily heavens is not the sun itself, but only its brightness; the true sun is invisible. The other gods created huge giants, who could uproot trees by brute force, and whose food was acorns. For thirteen times fifty-two years, altogether six hundred and seventy-six, this period lasted--as long as its Sun endured; and it is from this first Sun that time began to be counted, for during the six hundred years of the idleness of the gods, while Huitzilopochtli was in his bones, time was not reckoned. This Sun came to an end when Quetzalcoatl struck down Tezcatlipoca and became Sun in his place. Tezcatlipoca was metamorphosed into a jaguar (Ursa Major) which is seen by night in the skies wheeling down into the waters whither Quetzalcoatl cast him; and this jaguar devoured the giants of that period. At the end of six hundred and seventy-six years Quetzalcoatl was treated by his brothers as he had treated Tezcatlipoca, and his Sun came to an end with a great wind which carried away most of the people of that time or transformed them into monkeys. Then for seven times fifty-two years Tlaloc was Sun; but at the end of this three hundred and sixty-four years Quetzalcoatl rained fire from heaven and made Chalchiuhtlicue Sun in place of her husband, a dignity which she held for three hundred and twelve years (six times fifty-two); and it was in these days that maize began to be used. Now two thousand six hundred and twenty-eight years had passed since the birth of the gods, and in this year it rained so heavily that the heavens themselves fell, while the people of that time were transformed into fish. When the gods saw this, they created four men, with whose aid Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl again upreared the heavens, even as they are today; and these two gods becoming lords of the heavens and of the stars, walked therein. After the deluge and the restoration of the heavens, Tezcatlipoca discovered the art of making fire from sticks and of drawing it from the heart of flint. The first man, Piltzintecutli, and his wife, who had been made of a hair of Xochiquetzal, did not perish in the flood, because they were divine. A son was born to them, and the gods created other people just as they had formerly existed. But since, except for the fires, all was in darkness, the gods resolved to create a new Sun. This was done by Quetzalcoatl, who cast his own son, by Chalchiuhtlicue, into a great fire, whence he issued as the Sun of our own time; Tlaloc hurled his son into the cinders of the fire, and thence rose the Moon, ever following after the Sun. This Sun, said the gods, should eat hearts and drink blood, and so they established wars that there might be sacrifices of captives to nourish the orbs of light. Most of the other versions of the myth of the epochal Suns similarly date the beginning of sacrifice and penance from the birth of the present age.

The _Annals of Quauhtitlan_ gives a somewhat different picture of the course of the epochs. Each epoch begins on the first day of Tochtli, and the god Quetzalcoatl figures as the creator. Atonatiuh, the first Sun, ended with a flood and the transformation of living creatures into fish. Ocelotonatiuh, "the Jaguar Sun," was the epoch of giants and of solar eclipse. Third came "the Sun of Rains," Quiyauhtonatiuh, ending with a rain of fire and red-hot rocks; only birds, or those transformed into them, and a human pair who found subterranean refuge, escaped the conflagration. The fourth, Ecatonatiuh, is the Sun of destruction by winds; while the fifth is the Sun of Earthquakes, Famines, Wars, and Confusions, which will bring our present world to destruction. The author of the _Spiegazione delle tavole del codice mexicano_ (Codex Vaticanus A)--not consistent with himself, for in his account of the infants' limbo he makes ours the third Sun--changes the order somewhat: first, the Sun of Water, which is also the Age of Giants; second, the Sun of Winds, ending with the transformation into apes; third, the Sun of Fire; fourth, the Sun of Famine, terminating with a rain of blood and the fall of Tollan. Four Suns passed, and a fifth Sun, leading forward to a fifth eventual destruction, seems, most authorities agree, to represent the orthodox Mexican myth; though versions like that of Ixtlilxochitl represent only three as past, while others, as Camargo's account of the Tlascaltec myth, make the present Sun the third in a total of four that are to be. Probably one cause of the confusion with respect to the order of the Suns is the double association of Quetzalcoatl--first, with the Sun of Winds, which he, as the Wind-God, would naturally acquire; and second, with the fall of Tollan and of the Toltec empire, for Quetzalcoatl, with respect to dynastic succession, is clearly the Toltec Zeus. The Sun of Winds is normally the second in the series; the fall of Tollan is generally associated with the end of the Sun last past: circumstances which may account for the shortened versions, for it seems little likely (judging from American analogies) that the notion of four Suns passed is not the most primitive version.

Figures from _Codex Vaticanus A_ representing cataclysms bringing to an end cosmic "Suns," or Ages of the World.

The upper figure represents the close of the Sun of Winds, ending with the transformation of men, save for an ancestral pair, into apes. The lower pictures the end of the Sun of Fire, whence only birds and a human pair in a subterranean retreat escaped.

Another myth confusedly associated now with the Sun of Waters, now with the Sun last past, is the story of the deluge. In the pattern conception (if it may so be termed) each Sun begins with the creation or appearance of a First Man and First Woman and ends with the salvation of a single human pair, all others being lost or transformed. The first Sun ends with a deluge and the metamorphosis of the First Men into fish; but a single pair escaped by being sealed up in a log or ark. In the Chimalpopoca (Quauhtitlan) version given by Brasseur de Bourbourg it is related that the waters had been tranquil for fifty-two years; then, on the first day of the Sun, there came such a flood as submerged even the mountains, and this endured for fifty-two years. Warned by Tezcatlipoca, however, a man named Nata, with Nena his wife, hollowed a log and entered therein; and the god closed the port, saying, "Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but a single ear also." When the waters subsided, they issued from their log, and seeing fish about, they built a fire to roast them. Citlallatonac and Citlalicue, beholding this from the heavens, said: "Divine Lord, what is this fire? Wherefore does this smoke cloud the sky?" Whereupon Tezcatlipoca descended in anger, crying, "What fire is this?" And he seized the fishes and transformed them into dogs. Certainly one would relish an elaboration of this tale; for it would seem that a theft of the fire must precede--perhaps a suffering Prometheus may have followed--the anger of the gods. In another version the Mexican Noah is named Coxcox, his wife bears the name of Xochiquetzal; and it is said that their children, born dumb, received their several forms of speech from the birds. Now Xochiquetzal is associated (doubtless as a festal goddess) with Tollan and the age in which she appears is the last of all, that in which Tollan is destroyed; whence the deluge is placed at the end of the fourth Sun.

To the same group of events--the passing of Tollan and the deluge--belong the stories of the building of the great pyramid of Cholula and the portents which accompanied it. It is said[54] that, reared by a chief named Xelua, who escaped the deluge, it was built so high that it appeared to reach heaven; and that they who reared it were content, "since it seemed to them that they had a place whence to escape from the deluge if it should happen again, and whence they might ascend into heaven"; but "a chalcuitl, which is a precious stone, fell thence [i.e. from the skies] and struck it to the ground; others say that the chalcuitl was in the shape of a toad; and that whilst destroying the tower it reprimanded them, inquiring of them their reason for wishing to ascend into heaven, since it was sufficient for them to see what was on the earth." It is worth while to remember that the hybristic scaling of heaven is no uncommon motive in American Indian myth, while the moral of the tale is honestly pagan--"mortal things are the behoof of mortals," saith Pindar; nor can we fail to see in the green jewel the jealous Earth-Titaness, for the toad is Earth's symbol.

The duration of the cosmic Suns is given various values by the recorders of the myths. These, no doubt, issued from variations in calendric computations; for the Mexicans not only possessed an elaborate calendar; they also used it, in its involved circles of returning signs, as the foundation for calculating the cycles of cosmic and of human history. It is essential, therefore, if the genius of Mexican myth be fully grasped, that the elements of its calendar be made clear.

III. THE CALENDAR AND ITS CYCLES[55]

The Mexican calendar is one of the most extraordinary inventions of human intelligence. Elsewhere the science of the calendar is a lore of sun, moon, and stars, and of their synodic periods; in the count of time astronomy is mistress, and number is but the handmaiden. In the Mexican system this relation is distinctly reversed: it is number that is dominant, and astronomy that is ancillary. One might, indeed, add that the number is geometric. It is common enough elsewhere to find the measures of space influencing the measures of time, but ordinarily they are the measures of celestial, not of terrestrial, space; and they are, therefore, moving, and not stationary, numbers. In the Mexican system the controlling numerical ideas appear to be the 4 (5) and the 6 (7) of the world-quarters--these in their duplicate forms, 9 (= 2 x 4 + 1) and 13 (= 2 x 6 + 1)--and all are under the domination of the four by five digits (two fives of fingers and two of toes) of their vigesimal system of counting. Man in the Middle Place of his cosmos; oriented to the rising Sun; four-square with the Quarters, which are duplicate in the Above and the Below; counting his natural days by his natural digits: this is the image which makes most plausible our explanations of the peculiarly earth-tethered calendar of the Mexicans, and, in consequence, of a cosmographical rather than an astrological conception of the Fates and Influences.

Not that the moving heavens were without computation: astronomy, though secondary, was indispensable.[56] The day, of course, is the creation of the journey of the sun; and the day, as a time-unit, plays in the Mexican count a part altogether commensurate in importance with that given to the sun in myth and ritual. The moon, though far less prominent in every respect, is still conspicuously figured. The morning star (far and wide a great deity of the American Indian nations) was second in significance only to the sun; indeed, one of the most extraordinary achievements of aboriginal American science was the identification of Phosphorus and Hesperus as the same star, and the computation of a Venus-period of five hundred and eighty-four days (the exact period being five hundred and eighty-three days and twenty-two hours). Comets and meteors were regarded as portents; the Milky Way was the skirt of Citlalicue, or was the white hair of Mixcoatl of the Zenith; and in the patterns of the stars were seen the figures that define the topography of the nocturnal heavens. Sahagun mentions three constellations, which he vaguely identifies with Gemini, Scorpio, and Ursa Minor; and in the chart of heavenly bodies, given with his Nahuatlan text, he figures two other stellar groups; while five is the number which Tezozomoc names as those for which the king elect must keep watch on the night of his vigil. Doubtless many other star-patterns were observed, but these five seem predominant. Stansbury Hagar, resolving what he regards as the Mexican Scorpio into Scorpio and Libra, would see in Sahagun's figures half of the zodiacal twelve; and in both Mexico and Peru he believes that he has identified a series of signs closely equivalent to that of the Old World zodiac. Another view (presented by Zelia Nuttall) conceives the Aztec constellations as forming a series of twenty, corresponding to the twenty day-signs employed in the calendar. A third interpretation, on the whole, accordant with the evidence, is that of Seler, who maintains that the five constellations named by Sahagun and Tezozomoc represent, instead of a zodiac, the four quarters and the zenith of the sky-world, and are, therefore, spatial rather than temporal guides. Seler identifies Mamalhuaztli, "the Fire-Sticks," with stars of the east, in or near Taurus. The Pleiades, rising in the same neighbourhood, he believes to have been the sign of the zenith; and at the beginning of a new cycle of fifty-two years the new fire was kindled when the Pleiades were in the zenith at midnight--the very hour, according to Tezozomoc, when the king rises to his vigil. Citlalachtli, "the Star Ball-Ground," is called "the North and its Wheel" by Tezozomoc, and must refer to the stars which revolve about the northern pole. Colotlixayac, "Scorpion-Face," marks the west; while Citlalxonecuilli--so named, Sahagun tells us, from its resemblance to S-shaped loaves of bread which were called _xonecuilli_--is clearly identified by Tezozomoc with the Southern Cross and adjacent stars. Thus it appears (granting Seler's interpretation) that the constellations served but to mark the pillars of this four-square world.

Essentially the Mexican calendar is an elaborate day-count. As with many other American peoples, the system of notation was vigesimal (probably developed from a quinary mode of counting), and the days were accordingly reckoned by twenties: twenty pictographs served as day-signs, endlessly repeated like the names of the days of the week. These twenty-day periods are commonly called "months" (following the usage of Spanish writers), though they have no relation to the moon and its phases; they are, however, like our months, used as measures of the primitive solar year of three hundred and sixty-five days, the Aztec year comprising eighteen months (or sets of twenties) plus five _nemontemi_, or "Empty Days," regarded as unlucky. According to Sahagun, six _nemontemi_ were counted every fourth year; if this were true (it is widely doubted), the Mexicans would have had a calendar which was Julian in effect. Like our months, each of the eighteen twenties of the solar year had its own name and its characteristic religious festivals; during the _nemontemi_ there were neither feasts nor undertakings. The beginning of the solar year is placed by Sahagun on the first day of the month Atlcaualco--corresponding, he says, to February 2--the period of the cessation of rains, and the time of rites in honour of Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue. Some authorities, however, believe that the year really began with Toxcatl, corresponding to the earlier part of May, the period of the celebration of the great festival of Tezcatlipoca, when his personator was sacrificed and the next year's victim was chosen. The location of the _nemontemi_ in the year is not certain.

From the fact that to the days of the year were assigned twenty endlessly repeating signs, and the further fact that the _nemontemi_ were five in number (18 x 20 + 5 = 365), it follows that the first day of the year would always fall upon one of four signs; and these signs--_Colli_ ("House"), _Tochtli_ ("Rabbit"), _Acatl_ ("Reed"), and _Tecpatl_ ("Flint")--inevitably became emphasized in the imagination, not only with units of time, but also with the Quarters which divide the world.

But the designation of the days was not simply by the series of pictographic signs. An additional series was formed of the numbers one to thirteen, which, like the signs, were repeated over and over; so that each day had not only a sign, but also a number. Since only thirteen numerals were employed, it follows that if any given twenty days have the number one accompanying the sign of its first day, the sign of the first day of the ensuing twenty days will be accompanied by the number eight, the sign of the first day of the third twenty by two, and so on; not until the end of two hundred and sixty days (since thirteen is a prime number) will the same number recur with the initial sign. The representation of this period of thirteen by twenty days, in which the cycles of numerals and pictographs passed from an initial correspondence to its first recurrence, was called by the Aztec the _Tonalamatl_, or "Book of Good and Bad Days"--a set of signs employed for divination as the name implies. Since the _Tonalamatl_ represents only two hundred and sixty days, it follows that the last one hundred and fifteen days of the year will have the same signs and numerals as the first one hundred and fifteen. For this reason De Jonghe and some others believe that a third set of day-signs was employed--the nine Lords of the Night, which (since two hundred and sixty is not evenly divisible by nine) would suffice to differentiate the days throughout the year. Seler, however maintains that he has disproved this theory; if so, there would still be the possibility of differentiating the days of the second _Tonalamatl_ from those of the first by employing the sign of that one of the eighteen "months" in which the day fell.

The Aztec "Calendar Stone," one of the two monuments (see Plate V for the other) found beneath the pavement of the plaza of the city of Mexico in 1790. The outer band of decoration is formed of two "Fire Snakes" (cf. Plates VII 3 and XXI), each with a human head in its mouth; between the tips of the serpents' tails is a glyph giving the date, 13 Acatl, of the historical Sun, that is, the beginning of the present Age of the World. A decorative band formed of the twenty day signs surrounds the central figure, which consists of a Sun-face, with the glyph 4 Olin; while in the four adjacent compartments are the names of the eras of the four earlier "Suns." Sun rays, with other figures, appear in the spaces between the inner and outer decorative bands. Below is given a key (after Joyce, _Mexican Archaeology_, page 74).

In addition to the _Tonalamatl_, there is another consequence of the double designation of the days. Each year, it has been noted, begins with one of four day-signs. But three hundred and sixty-five is indivisible, evenly, by thirteen; therefore, the day-signs and numerals for succeeding years must vary, the day-signs recurring in the same order every four years, and the numerals in the same order every thirteen years (since 365 = 13 x 28 + 1), while not until there has elapsed four times thirteen years will the same day-sign and the same numeral occur on the first day of the year. These divisions of the years into groups, determined by their signs and numbers, were of great significance to the Mexican peoples. The sign which began each group of thirteen years was regarded as dominant during that period, and as each of these signs was dedicated to one of the four Quarters, it is to be supposed that the powers of the ruling sign determined the fortunes of the period. The cycle was complete when, at the end of fifty-two years, the same sign and number recurred as the emblem of the year. Such an epoch was the occasion for prognostics and dread anticipations, and it was celebrated with a special feast at which all fires were extinguished and a new flame was kindled on the breast of a sacrificial victim. This festival was called "the Knot of the Years," and in Aztec pictography past periods were represented by bundles, each signifying such a cycle of fifty-two years.

It will be noted that the fifty-two year cycle is also the period for the recurring coincidence of the day-signs and numerals in the year and in the _Tonalamatl_ (for, 365 factoring 73 x 5, and 260 factoring 52 x 5, it follows that 52 years will equal 73 _Tonalamatls_). It is, therefore, the more extraordinary that in the usual mode of figuring the _Tonalamatl_ it is begun, not with one of the four signs which name the years and their cycles, but with another day-sign, _Cipactli_ ("Crocodile"). The plausible explanation of this is that since the Crocodile was the monster from which Earth was formed by the creative gods, the divinatory period was inaugurated under his sign.

The origin of so peculiar a reckoning as the _Tonalamatl_ is one of the puzzles of Americanist studies. Effort has been made to connect it with lunar movements, but no astronomical period corresponds with it. Again, it has been pointed out that the two hundred and sixty days of the _Tonalamatl_ approximate the period of gestation, and in view of its use, for divinations and horoscopic forecasts, this is not impossible as an explanation of its origin. The obvious fact that it expresses the cycle of coincidence of the twenty day-signs and thirteen numerals only carries the puzzle back to the origination of the numeration, with its anomalous thirteen--for which, as a significant number, no more satisfactory astronomical reason has been suggested than León y Gama's, that it represents half of the period of the moon's visibility. In myth the invention of the _Tonalamatl_ is ascribed to Cipactonal and Oxomoco (in whom Señor Robelo sees the personification of Day and Night), and again to Quetzalcoatl. At his immolation the heart of Quetzalcoatl, it will be recalled, flew upward to become the Morning Star, and in special degree the god is associated with this star. "They said that Quetzalcoatl died when the star became visible, and henceforward they called him Tlauizcalpantecutli, 'Lord of the Dawn.' They said that when he died he was invisible for four days; they said he wandered in the underworld, and for four days more he was bone. Not until eight days were past did the great star appear. Quetzalcoatl then ascended the throne as god." One of the early writers, Ramon y Zamora, states that the _Tonalamatl_ was determined by the Mexicans as the period during which Venus is visible as the evening star; and Förstemann discovered representations of the Venus-year of five hundred and eighty-four days divided into periods of ninety, two hundred and fifty, eight, and two hundred and thirty-six days, which he estimated to represent respectively the period of Venus's invisibility during superior conjunction (ninety days), of its visibility as evening star (two hundred and fifty days), of its invisibility during inferior conjunction (eight days), and of its visibility as morning star (two hundred and thirty-six days). The near correspondence of the period of two hundred and fifty days with the _Tonalamatl_, coupled with the identity of the eight days' invisibility with the period of Quetzalcoatl's wandering and lying dead in the underworld, which was followed by his ascension to the throne of the eastern heaven, as related in the myth, give plausibility to the traditions which associate the formation of the _Tonalamatl_ with the Venus-period. Seler suggests--and this is perhaps the best explanation yet offered--that the _Tonalamatl_ is the product of an indirect association of the solar year (three hundred and sixty-five days) and of the Venus-period (five hundred and eighty-four days), for the least common multiple of the numbers of days in these two periods is twenty-nine hundred and twenty days, equal to eight solar years and five Venus years; in associating the two, he says, the inventors of the calendar lighted upon the number thirteen (8 + 5), and hence upon the _Tonalamatl_ of two hundred and sixty days. If this be the case, the belief in thirteen heavens and thirteen hours of the day would be derivative from temporal rather than spatial observations, from astronomy rather than cosmography. A somewhat analogous association might be offered in connexion with the nine of the heavens and the nine of the hours of the night; for just as there are four signs that always recur as the designations of the solar years, so for the Venus-period there are five (since five hundred and eighty-four divided by twenty leaves four as divisor of the signs), and the sum of these is nine.

The signs which inaugurate the Venus periods are _Cipactli_ ("Crocodile"), _Coatl_ ("Snake"), _Atl_ ("Water"), _Acatl_ ("Reed"), and _Olin_ ("Motion"). But here again the numerals enter in to complicate the series, so that while the day-signs which inaugurate the Venus-periods recur in groups of five, they do not recur with the same numeral until the lapse of thirteen times five periods. This great cycle of Venus-days, comprising sixty-five repetitions of the apparent course of the planet, is also a common multiple of the solar year and of the _Tonalamatl_, comprising one hundred and four of the former and one hundred and forty-six of the latter. Thus it was that at the end of one hundred and four years of three hundred and sixty-five days the same sign and number-series recurred in the three great units of the Aztec calendar. When it is remembered that prognostics were to be drawn not merely from the complex relations of the signs to their place in each of the three time-units, with their respective elaborations into cycles; but from their further relations with the regions of the upper and lower worlds, and also from the numerals, which had good and evil values of their own, it will be seen that the Mexican priests were in possession of a fount of craft not second to that of the astrologers of the Old World.

That so complex a system could easily give rise to error is evident, and it is probable that, as tradition asserts, from time to time corrections were made, serving as the inauguration of new "Suns" or as new "inventions" of time. It may even be that the "Suns" of the cosmogonic myths are reminiscences of calendric corrections, and it is at least a striking coincidence that the traditions of these "Suns" make them four in number, like the year-signs, or five in number, like the Venus-signs. The latter series, too, is distinctly cosmogonic in symbolism--Crocodile suggests the creation from a fish-like monster; Snake, the falling heavens; Water, the "Water-Sun" and the deluge; Reed (the fire-maker), the Sun of Fire; Motion, the Sun of Wind, or perhaps the Earthquake. But whatever be the value of these symbolisms, it is certain that the Mexicans themselves associated perilous times and cataclysmic changes with the rounding out of their cycles.

IV. LEGENDARY HISTORY

The cosmogonic and calendric cycles (intimately associated) profoundly influenced the Mexican conception of history. Orderly arrangement of time is as essential to an advancing civilization as the ordering of space, and it is natural for the human imagination to form all of its temporal conceptions into a single dramatic unity--a World Drama, with its Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Judgement; or a Cosmic Evolution from Nebula to Solar System, and Solar System to Nebula. In the making, such cosmic dramas start from these roots: (1) Cosmogony and Theogony, for which there is no simpler image in nature than the creation of the Life of Day from the Chaos of Night at the command of the Lord of Light; (2) "Great Years," or calendric cycles, formed by calculations of the synodic periods of sun and moon and wandering stars, or, as in the curious American instance, mainly from simple day-counts influenced by a complex symbolism of numbers and by an awkward notation; (3) the recession of history, back through the period of record to that of racial reminiscence and of demigod founders and culture-heroes. Of these three elements, the first and third constitute the material, while the second becomes the form-giver--the measure of the duration of the acts and scenes of the drama, as it were--adding, however, on the material side, the portents and omens imaged in the stars.

The Mexican system of cosmic Suns is a capital example of the first element--each Sun introducing a creation or restoration, and each followed by an elemental destruction, while all are meted out in formal cycles. It is no matter for wonder that there are varying versions of the order and number of the cosmogonic cycles, nor that a nebulous and legendary history is varyingly fitted into the cyclic plan; for each political state and cultural centre tended to develop its own stories in connexion with its own records and traditions. Nevertheless, there is a broad scheme of historic events common to all the more advanced Nahuatlan peoples, the uniformity of which somewhat argues for its truly historic foundation. This is the legend which assigns to the plateau of Anahuac three successive dominations, that of the Toltec, that of the Chichimec nations, and that of the Aztec and their allies. Although the remote Toltec period is clouded in myth, archaeology tends to support the truth of the tales of legendary Tollan, at least to the extent of identifying the site of a city which for a long period had been the centre of a power that was, by Mexican standards, to be accounted civilized.

The general characters of Toltec civilization, as tradition shows it, are those recorded by Sahagun.[57] The Toltec were clever workmen in metals, pottery, jewellery, and fabrics, indeed, in all the industrial arts. They were notable builders, adorning the walls of their structures with skilful mosaic. They were magicians, astrologers, medicine-men, musicians, priests, inventors of writing, and creators of the calendar. They were mannerly men, and virtuous, and lying was unknown among them. But they were not warlike--and this was to be their ruin.

The temple of Xochicalco, partially restored. The relief band, of which a section is given for detail, shows a serpent; a human figure, doubtless a deity, is seated beneath one of the great coils. After photographs in the Peabody Museum.

Their principal deity was Quetzalcoatl, and his chief priest bore the same name. The temple of the god was the greatest work of their hands. It was composed of four chambers: that to the east, of gold; that to the west, encrusted with turquoise and emerald; that to the south, with sea-shells and silver; that to the north, with reddish jasper and shell. In another similar shrine, plumage of the several colours adorned the four apartments. The explicator of Codex Vaticanus A says that Quetzalcoatl was the inventor of round temples (it is possible that the rotundity of his shrines was due to the presumption that the wind does not love corners), and that he founded four; in the first princes and nobles fasted; the second was frequented by the lower classes; the third was "the House of the Serpent," and here it was unlawful to lift the eyes from the ground; the fourth was "the Temple of Shame," where were sent sinners and men of immoral life. Details such as these--obviously referring to familiar features of American Indian ritual--as well as the numerous myths that narrate the departure of Quetzalcoatl for the mysterious Tlapallan, followed by a great part of the Toltec population, clearly belong in the realm of fancy, shimmeringly veiling historic facts. Thus, when Ixtlilxochitl states that the reign of each Toltec king was just fifty-two years, we see simply a statement which identifies calendric with political periods; yet when he goes on with the qualification that those kings who died under such a period were replaced by regents until a new cycle could begin with the election of a new king, and when he specifically notes that, as exceptions, Ilacomihua reigned fifty-nine years, and Xiuhquentzin, his queen, four years after him, we are in the presence of a tradition which looks much more like history than myth--for there is no mythic reason that satisfies this shift. Fact, too, should underlie Sahagun's naïve remark that the Toltec were expert in the Mexican tongue, although they did not speak it with the perfection of his day, and again that communities which spoke a pure Nahua were composed of descendants of Toltecs who remained in the land when Quetzalcoatl departed--for behind such notions should lie a story of linguistic supersession.

Such, indeed, appears to have been the course of events. The date of the founding of Tollan, according to the _Annals of Quauhtitlan_, is, computed in our era, 752 A. D. Ixtlilxochitl puts the beginning of the Toltec kingship as early as 510 A. D.; and the end he sets in the year 959, when the last Toltec king, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, was overthrown and departed, none knew whither. It is a plausible hypothesis which assumes the historicity of this event and which accounts for the myths of the departure of Quetzalcoatl, the god, as due in part to a confusion of the permutations of a nature deity with the _gesta_ of an earthly hero--a process exemplified in the Old World in the tales of King Arthur, Celtic god and British hero-king. It is certain that from an early date the civilization of the Mexican plateau was racially akin to that of the Maya in the south; it is not improbable that the Toltec represent an ancient northern extension of Maya power (the oldest stratum at Tollan shows Huastec influences, and the Huastec are of Maya kin); and, finally, when the political overthrow of the Toltec was accomplished, and their leaders fled away to Tlapallan, to the south-east, the northern barbarians who had replaced them gradually learned the lesson of civilization from the sporadic groups which remained in various centres after the capital had fallen--Cholula, Cuernavaca, and Teotihuacan, cities which were to figure in Nahuatlan lore as the centres of priestly learning. Such an hypothesis would account for Sahagun's statement that the Toltec spoke Nahua imperfectly, for those who remained would have changed to this language; while what may well be an historical incident of the period of change is Ixtlilxochitl's account of the reply of the Toltec king of Colhuacan to the invading Chichimec, refusing to pay tribute, for "they held the country from their ancestors, to whom it belonged, and they had never obeyed or payed tribute to any foreign lord ... nor recognized other master than the Sun and their gods." However, less able in arms than the invaders, they fell to no great force.

The Chichimec, according to the prevailing accounts, were a congeries of wild hunting tribes, cave-dwellers by preference, who vaguely and imperfectly absorbed the culture that had preceded them in the Valley of Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl has it that, under the leadership of a chief named after the celestial dog Xolotl, they entered the Toltec domain a few years after the fall of Tollan, peaceably possessing themselves of an almost deserted land. They were soon followed by related tribes, among whom the most important were the Acolhua, founders of Tezcuco; while later came the Mexicans, or Aztec, who wandered obscurely from place to place before they finally established the town which was to be the capital of their empire. For several centuries, as the chronicler pictures it, these related peoples warred and quarrelled turbulently, owning the shadowy suzerainty of "emperors" whose power waxed or waned with their personal force--altogether such a picture as is presented by Mediaeval Europe after the recession of the Roman Empire before the incursive barbarians. Gradually, however, just as in Europe, the seed of the elder civilization took root, and the culture which the Spaniards discovered grew and consolidated.