Mexico: A Novel Part 11

During these critical years, the king of the Drunken Builders was Tlotsin, a descendant of Nopiltzin, the discoverer of pulque, and of all that his ancestors had accomplished in the high valley Tlotsin appreciated most the brewing of this beverage. He could not be called a hopeless drunkard, but he did find solace in drink.

In 1145, when the Cactus People were a definite threat, Tlotsin was thirty-three and married to a keen-eyed girl of twenty named Xolal, who was particularly sensitive to the danger posed by the invaders because her father had been sent as an amba.s.sador to the Cactus People some years earlier when they were still some hundred miles to the north and they had promptly sacrificed him to their War G.o.d. At the time Xolal had wanted the king to dispatch a force to punish the murderers, but Tlotsin, who was then wooing her, argued: "They're barbarians! You've got to take into account that they don't know the customs of civilized states."

"They killed an amba.s.sador," Xolal protested.

'They probably don't know what an amba.s.sador is," Tlotsin rationalized.

"They're a hideous people and they worship a hideous G.o.d," Xolal said.

"Our scouts tell me there are only four or five thousand of them," the king said lightly. "Two generations ago they were living in caves."

But when, in 1146, the Cactus People sent an armed group within a few miles of the city and captured a band of Tlotsin's people, hauling all the men back to their camp to serve as living sacrifices, City-of-the-Pyramid was finally forced to acknowledge the existence of a powerful enemy.

"They worship a monstrous G.o.d," reported a man who had escaped from his captors. "He feeds only on human hearts.

Any man captured by them is stretched across an altar and his heart is ripped out while he is still breathing."

The escaped prisoner's description of the G.o.d did not so much terrify the Drunken Builders as fascinate them, and men began to speculate on what life would be like if the invaders triumphed. There was discussion of how it would feel to be flung across an altar with a knife at one's chest, and it was generally concluded that any G.o.d that could command such devotion must be more important than the pallid ones worshiped in City-of-the-Pyramid.

"There's only a handful of them," Tlotsin temporized, "and it isn't logical to suppose that they could cause trouble to a large city like ours."

Xolal, who made every effort to discover as much as she could about the enemy, became convinced that they did intend to occupy the high valley permanently, and she argued: "They are few now, and they have not yet crossed the mountains into our valley. Let us drive them back now, lest they invade our fields and, strengthened by our food supply, become too strong for us to oppose."

In fairness to King Tlotsin, it must be said that there was not much he could do, for during the golden age of the Drunken Builders there had been no knowledge of war and therefore no need for an army. Complacently Tlotsin took refuge in the thought, Something will happen and they will go away.

But when Xolal persisted in arguing for defensive action King Tlotsin produced a map that showed the high valley secure within its rim of hills and explained indulgently, "The Cactus People are here beyond the hills, and we are safe inside. Before they reach us they must pa.s.s Valley-of-Plenty, which has always been our outpost, and when they see how strong we are''-he pointed triumphantly at the distant valley-"their scouts will report how many we are and how few they are, and they will depart along this river."

To this reasoning Xolal replied, "Three years ago they were far away and we did nothing. Next year they will occupy Valley-of-Plenty and it will be theirs."

"If that occurs," the king replied resolutely, "we shall have to do something."

In 1147, as Xolal had predicted, the Cactus People and their puissant G.o.d moved to the crest of the protecting hills, but to her surprise they did not attack Valley-of-Plenty. Instead they waited for their own meager crops to ripen, after which their priests decreed that anyone with even a slight physical defect must be killed off. Eighty of the best warriors were also sacrificed, and at the height of the religious frenzy thus induced, the Cactus People rushed through the pa.s.ses and down into Valley-of-Plenty, capturing or killing all those at the Drunken Builder outpost. They sacrificed every one of their captives and rededicated the area as Valley-of-the-Dead, a name that has continued to this day.

"Now we have got to do something," King Tlotsin said, and he summoned his advisers, who argued back and forth futilely all through the winter of 1148. When the autumn came, more Drunken Builders were captured and there was another ghastly series of sacrifices, after which the Cactus People moved closer to the city.

Some of the younger men, encouraged by Xolal, proposed conscripting an army that would drive the invaders away, but King Tlotsin opposed this with determination. "We would only anger them," he cautioned, and the year progressed with still no decision, except that a delegation of amba.s.sadors was dispatched. This time the Cactus People did not cut out the emissaries' hearts. "See!" Tlotsin said to his advisers. "They are becoming civilized."

"Did our amba.s.sadors win any concessions?" Queen Xolal demanded.

"No," the king replied, "but at least they weren't sacrificed, and that's progress." The Cactus People made progress in another direction, too. When the crops were in, they moved even closer to the city.

The year 1149 was a critical one, for it became evident that if the Cactus People were to usurp any more fields the Drunken Builders would begin to experience shortages in food. Now something had to be done, so against his better judgment King Tlotsin authorized the formation of a battle corps that would march against the intruders and convince them that they must come no nearer the city. It was an exciting day when the corps a.s.sembled and its inexperienced generals fortified themselves with liberal drafts of pulque, which gave them all the courage they needed. There were banners and drums and flutes and ferocious-looking headdresses designed to frighten the enemy.

Some four thousand men marched out from City-of-the-Pyramid and against them the Cactus People dispatched seven hundred rock-hard warriors. Sustained by an absolute belief in their War G.o.d, these skilled warriors hacked their way right into the middle of the enemy army and with no great struggle carried off more than twelve hundred prisoners.

That afternoon, while the remnants of King Tlotsin's demoralized army were creeping back to the city, the Cactus People hauled their G.o.d to the scene of the battle, and while the appalled citizens of the city looked down from the terraces of their pyramid, the captives were lined up and led one by one to the altar, across which they were stretched by powerful priests while their hearts were ripped out and fed to the hungry War G.o.d. The citizens of City-of-the-Pyramid could identify their husbands and sons as they came before the awful deity, and they could hear their final shrieks of agony as the swift daggers plunged into their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They could also see the smoking fires as they enveloped the G.o.d and the bowl of pulsating hearts that was constantly replenished.

The aftermath of this terrifying day could not have been predicted. The Cactus People made no effort to a.s.sault the city. They merely kept their G.o.d on the spot where he had gained a significant victory and from time to time his priests sacrificed whatever captives were taken on raids throughout the countryside. The harvest of 1149 was garnered and a thanksgiving celebration was held, at which over three hundred victims were sacrificed in plain view of any who wanted to watch from City-of-the-Pyramid. In 1150 new crops were planted and in the autumn of that year they were harvested to the accompaniment of a celebration fully as b.l.o.o.d.y as those that had preceded. The next year a new crop was planted, this time less than a hundred yards from the northern base of the pyramid.

Within the city a great debate was being waged. In his public speeches King Tlotsin maintained that within a year or so the Cactus People would go away, but sometimes when he drank in private with his closest advisers he would say in the fourth or fifth hour, "Now I see it all very clearly. We should have opposed them when they were camped beyond the hills. Before they captured our grain fields." But when his council asked him directly, "What shall we now do?" he never had any clear idea. He kept repeating: "I feel sure that sooner or later they will go away."

Queen Xolal in these days moved among the people trying to make them rise to some supreme effort. She often argued, "Granted that we were defeated that first time, and granted that we lost some of our best men. Look at the Cactus People! Each year they willingly sacrifice many of their bravest warriors and each year they return stronger than before. We too could muster our strength." To her despair, her pleas went unheeded because the great snakeskin drum beyond the pyramid would begin to throb and the people would throng to the walls and rooftops to watch yet another gruesome scene of b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice; becoming transfixed by the barbarity, they would wonder among themselves: "How many of us will they sacrifice when they capture the city?" And it was an appalling fact that as the sacrifices continued, the people of the city became increasingly engrossed in conjecturing when it was going to happen to them, and how it would feel, and how great the War G.o.d must be if he could command such devotion; so before Xolal could devise a plan to ward off disaster, and before the drunken king could make up his mind on what to do, the city had virtually surrendered from within.

In midsummer of the year 1151 the Cactus People simply walked into City-of-the-Pyramid and occupied all buildings. There was no fighting, no ma.s.sacre, not even any negotiation. They came in not from the north, which would have disturbed their ripening crops, but from the east, where the roads were good.

July, August and September pa.s.sed without a single Drunken Builder being killed by the Cactus People. They were, of course, pressed into service for harvesting the crops, and some six thousand were a.s.signed the task of tearing down everything on top of the pyramid to make way for an imposing temple in which was to be seated the hideous statue of War G.o.d. Since the Cactus People admitted that, unlike the Drunken Builders, they were not skilled craftsmen, they appointed a team of the best local stone carvers to construct a new statue of War G.o.d, and it is interesting to note that we have on clay tablets fine portraits of the old version in wood and the new in stone-you can study them at the Palafox Museum in Toledo-and what is most notable is that in the new stone version every trace of the original G.o.d who had nourished these people in the caves is gone. There is a slight indication of a glittering fish, but the iridescence comes from jewels in the handle of a war club, and there is a hint of a quetzal feather, but it is really the hair of a victim. The new G.o.d who was to occupy the apex of the ancient pyramid was remorseless, warlike and terrifying; and he clasped between his knees a bowl of stone much deeper and wider than the original one.

As the end of harvest approached, and as the newly carved image of War G.o.d was installed in the temple atop the pyramid, a pall of nervous apprehension hung over the city and men whispered to one another: "I wonder if I'll be taken?"

When the harvest was in and all work on the pyramid had been completed, the great snakeskin drum began to throb and its echoes penetrated to the limits of the city. Gaunt priests, their ears pierced with cactus spines, their hair matted with human blood, appeared at the base of the pyramid, and scores of men were lined up at various points throughout the city. Then it became obvious to the horror of all that the entire corps of six thousand men who had worked on the pyramid was to be sacrificed. The number was almost too vast to comprehend, but the Cactus People had decided that in this greatest of all celebrations they must outdo themselves in expressing grat.i.tude to their G.o.d. For such an occasion six thousand human hearts were not excessive.

The victims were paraded through the streets along which they had once reeled in drunken revelry, and their compatriots, watching them go, could only think, This must be a most powerful G.o.d who now sits atop our pyramid. There were gasps of surprise when the final procession formed and it was seen that at its head marched King Tlotsin, a tall, imposing Indian of thirty-nine-an ancestor of mine in direct line. That day, the chronicles tell us, he wore a kind of numbed look, but he also smiled. In a simpler time, when a king could drink as he liked and postpone decisions to another day, Tlotsin would have been an adequate ruler; even now as he marched to the base of the pyramid he failed to realize how wretchedly he had met the challenge of his reign. The Cactus People, willing to accommodate a captive king who would shortly initiate the installation of the new G.o.d, had allowed him as much pulque as he wished, and he had drunk generously. When, in the solemn procession, he pa.s.sed some old friend he would nod in a kind of daze and pa.s.s on with his fatuous smile unchanged. He knew where he was marching, but he was able to erase that knowledge from his mind.

But when he came at last to the pyramid itself, leading his six thousand, he saw his beautiful queen, Xolal; he realized that she had been set aside as a prize for one of the Cactus People's leaders, and the foolish smile left his face. "Xolal," he mumbled, but his brain would not form the words he wished to say, and he could only look at her dumbly.

Breaking loose from the Cactus People who surrounded her, Xolal leaped to her husband's side and, standing before him as a shield, started to cry, "Men of the city! Defend yourselves at last!" Before she could continue her exhortations, an eagle warrior, his terrible mask in place, slammed his hand across her mouth. Biting the hand, she broke loose again and shouted: "Men! Men! You must resist" With a sweep of his obsidian dagger the eagle warrior cut Xolal's throat and silenced her forever. She fell backward against her husband, then slumped to the ground, but as she fell she trailed a line of blood down his body.

Tlotsin marched up the steep steps of the pyramid, flanked on either side by a Cactus warrior. At last he reached the topmost terrace of the pyramid and there he saw for the first time the G.o.d who had captured his city. War G.o.d sat with his ma.s.sive hands on his knees, between which rested a beautiful unstained bowl adorned with human skulls. The head of the G.o.d was wreathed in carved snakes. His eyes were made of turquoise and his teeth of opal. About his neck he wore a chain of carved skulls and his ankles were festooned with litde stone hearts. His visage was terrifying beyond Tlotsm's imagination, and his gaze was focused on a convex slab of stone. The captive king was hurled down on the stone with such force that his breath was knocked out, and as he lay supine he saw for the first and last time the flashing of a long, beautiful knife. It was his royal heart that first stained the ma.s.sive bowl His broken body was the "first to pitch headlong down the steep eastern flank of the pyramid.

From that day on the Drunken Builders ceased to exist as a nation. The shock was so great that they never recovered. In subsequent b.l.o.o.d.y orgies their men were systematically eliminated and their women routinely violated by the conquerors. Native blood became so diluted that within a hundred years it is doubtful that one pure-blooded Drunken Builder survived. I am descended from the daughter of King Tlotsfn and Queen Xolal who was taken by one of die eagle warriors and who was, my family's chronicles claim, a good and faithful wife, whose descendants were a line of warriors who for more than three hundred years spread terror throughout central Mexico.

About twenty years after the Cactus People had occupied the city their priests advised the king: "For more than a hundred years our people have grown strong through wandering and fighting. But now that we have our own city and the comforts that go with it we are becoming weak, and soon no one will fear our eagle warriors. There are no more important battles to be fought, so let us engage on some ma.s.sive project that will stimulate the people and keep them strong." When the king asked what such a project might be they said, "Let us put a new face on the old pyramid built by our enemies. Let us make it a Cactus pyramid decorated with our G.o.ds and our figures."

In 1171, therefore, the final resurfacing of the great pyramid was authorized. Half the surviving Drunken Builders were moved to the quarries and the other half put to work on the pyramid itself. The present vast outlines of the structure were laid out-691 feet on each side, 219 feet high-and the ambitious operation began. But the Cactus People quickly saw that they lacked both the artists and the knowledge required for such an undertaking, so they turned over the supervisory job to the last of the Drunken Builder experts, and the pyramid as we know it today is the final poetic flowering of those gifted master builders.

A good many critics have said that the southern stairway is one of the marvels of world architecture and I recall the joy with which my father and I used to study its exquisite details. The functional part, of course, is the stairs themselves; each has a carved riser showing the flowers and animals of the region. One shows birds flying and it has been widely reproduced, for the scene is the essence of flight, so handsomely executed that one can almost feel the stone wings whizzing by in the eddies of air.

But the risers, exquisite as they are, have never been as universally admired as the accompanying frieze of eagle warriors, one of the treasures of Mexican art. At the top of the stairway stands a low, roofless wall along which march a row of warriors in bas-relief, each different from the others but all wearing eagle masks in which the upper beak of the bird juts out from the forehead and the lower from beneath the chin. What has always impressed me about the frieze is that such minute details as the feathers on each eagle helmet are superbly carved.

Sometime in the thirteenth century, when the final work on the pyramid was completed, most of the surviving Drunken Builders had their hearts ripped out in a ghastly celebration that lasted six days. In a photo essay I did for an art magazine in Germany 1 calculated that this n.o.ble pyramid had witnessed during the nearly four centuries from 1151 through 1519 no less than one million human sacrifices. During the preceding five hundred years of Drunken Builder occupation, none had died, but in Cactus times an average of about three thousand human beings were sacrificed each year. What is appalling is that for the most part only the young and strong were sacrificed. Year by year their hearts were burned so that the smoke could make the temple look more forbidding and their bodies were thrown down the steep steps to be hauled away by slaves to rot in pits. Thus the pyramid and all connected with it was a stinking place of abominable death; yet, paradoxically, from the spirit it generated rose the greatness of the Cactus People.

And they did become a great people; of that there can be no question. They voluntarily adopted every desirable trait of the Drunken Builders, even taking over their advanced language. Once the Builders' G.o.ds had been removed from the top of the pyramid, they were reinstated in lesser temples and honored for their own special virtues. The Cactus People improved every aspect of Builder agriculture, built better roads and found new sources of water. For their pottery they adopted Builder design, but they also made the clay objects stronger and more functional. Once they had learned how. to domesticate animals they maintained huge turkey farms, and they even made improvements in the manufacture of pulque. Numerous archaeologists have pointed out that just as the Romans borrowed from the Greeks, always improving what they took, and just as the j.a.panese borrowed in the same improving way from the Chinese, so the Cactus People absorbed Builder culture and made each item better, until in the period from 1350 to 1527-when the Spaniards finally reached the high valley-the Cactus civilization was one of the most advanced in the Americas, surpa.s.sing in some respects both the nearby Aztec and the distant Inca in Peru.

Because the Cactus People learned to keep picture records, we have a substantial history of their nation, one with names and dates in a fairly reliable chronology. German and English experts have written books on the subject and we know far more about these warlike people of Toledo than we do about any of the Indians who inhabited the United States. To take only one example, we know exactly how they planted corn, in what month and with what fertilizer. We know how and where it was gathered and stored, and we have specific lists of how much was apportioned to each kind of family, and what amount had to be paid back in taxes.

But mostly we know about the wars, for under the pressure of War G.o.d the Cactus People terrorized the entire central Mexican plateau. They regularly ranged from Guadalajara on the west to Puebla on the east, never seeking territorial conquest but only captives who could be sacrificed to their insatiable G.o.d. Their most consistent enemies were the Aztecs, from the lake on whose borders present-day Mexico City stands, and the wars between these two strong nations were prolonged and b.l.o.o.d.y. What the two tribes fought about is never specified, and there is substantial suspicion that the leaders of the two groups initiated wars solely for the purpose of keeping their warriors occupied.

In fact, in one year around 1350 all ostensible reasons for fighting seem to have been exhausted, so in a formal agreement worked out by amba.s.sadors from the two nations the ninety leading warriors from each side met on a field of flowers halfway between the cities and a mock battle was held, which in subsequent reenactments became known as the Tournament of Flowers. I use the phrase "mock battle" with some hesitancy because according to the ground rules observed at the tournament, prisoners captured by either side were hauled back to the home capitals, there to be sacrificed with due pomp to War G.o.d in the case of the Cactus People and to an equally evil G.o.d, Huitzilopochtli, in the case of the Aztecs. Later, if the records are read in a certain way, historians believe that the murderous tournament was held not on an impartial middle field but one year in Mexico City and the next in City-of-the-Pyramid on what one archaeologist has called "a home-and-hcme schedule."

One aspect of this ceremonial war was particularly reprehensible. When either side required prisoners for some unusually important ceremonial, for which ordinary captives from ordinary tribes would not suffice, a full-fledged war would be launched with the best generals from each side leading their troops, unaware that some months earlier amba.s.sadors had secretly arranged that this year one side would win and be allowed to capture the two or three hundred prisoners they needed, with the firm agreement that in some subsequent year, when the priests on the other side were calling for prime prisoners, the leaders on the opposing side would manipulate a reciprocal betrayal of their army. When the faked battle was over-"faked" is hardly the right word, for men did die-the betrayed prisoners were led off to ritual slaughter, and, so far as we know, none protested the treachery.

There has been much speculation as to why, year after year, the finest men of the Cactus People allowed such things to happen and why they went so willingly to their death, for there is substantial proof that it was with exaltation that they climbed the steep steps of the pyramids. I once asked my father about this abomination and he said, "Young men like you often think that the worst thing in the world is death. And you shudder at the behavior of your Indian ancestors. But I can think of a hundred civilizations that developed propaganda that convinced their youth that to die for one cause or another was the n.o.blest act of all or that to perish in the arms of a certain religion ensured perpetual life. Every man who climbed these steps was sure he was going straight to heaven, and someday you'll probably find a flight of stairs that you'll be willing to climb." In later years I often thought of my father's words as I got into a B-29 and then felt it climb high into the sky for our bombing runs against j.a.pan.

An incident in which one of my ancestors was involved will ill.u.s.trate my father's argument. Sometime around 1470, when Aztec and Cactus culture had reached a high level of sophistication, City-of-the-Pyramid developed a general of unusual prowess called Tezozomoc, and under his leadership the Cactus People extended their fringe of feudatory states almost to Guadalajara. In nineteen major battles he was not defeated, and his victories were gained princ.i.p.ally because he outguessed the enemy and deployed his troops in sudden and unexpected patterns. Long before this time the Indians had stumbled upon the universal trick of sending forth what appeared to be the main but small body of troops, so that the enemy would be lured into attacking in force; when the battle was joined the real power of the first army would strike from some unexpected quarter, catching the main body of the enemy off balance; and wily generals defended themselves against this maneuver. It was Tezozomoc who developed the tactic of sending forth one weak force, then supporting it with another almost as weak, so that when the enemy fell upon the second force, thinking it to be Tezozomoc's trap, the princ.i.p.al body of the Cactus warriors rushed forth to easy victory.

From his nineteen triumphs Tezozomoc had led back to the pyramid no less than twenty-five thousand captives, who were duly sacrificed, and each one who died enhanced the general's reputation a little more, so that his fame reached as far as Yucatan, and at places as distant as modern Veracruz there have been found clay tablets celebrating his accomplishments.

It was natural that the Aztecs, who were twice defeated by this great warrior, should l.u.s.t for his heart to be fed to their war G.o.d, so they launched a major effort to capture him, but Tezozomoc defeated them handily. In 1483 amba.s.sadors from the Aztecs secretly approached the Cactus leaders and arranged for Tezozomoc to be betrayed, in return for which the Aztecs would allow Cactus amba.s.sadors free entry to trading posts in the Pachuca area. When the Aztecs returned home, three Cactus amba.s.sadors, according to plan, were slain in the Pachuca hills, and this gave the Cactus leaders an adequate cause for war, with unsuspecting Tezozomoc at the head of the Cactus army. In the height of battle, during which the wily eagle warrior was preparing a new kind of trap for the Aztecs, he was left without protection as planned and was taken captive.

There was much rejoicing in the Aztec capital when his capture became known, and he was hauled into the city imprisoned in a cage decorated with silver and gold, and for eleven days the residents were free to inspect the greatest warrior of his time. On the twelfth day, when he was to be sacrificed, a mult.i.tude crowded the plaza, including King Tizoc, the uncle of the boy who was later to become Moctezuma II. In ceremonial robes, Tezozomoc was led to the sacrificial stone, a huge flat disk big enough for six or seven men to stand upon, and a rope attached to the center was tied around Tezozomoc's waist. The captive warrior could move only in a restricted circle, and under these conditions he was handed a war club with which to defend himself, but instead of a club edged with sharp obsidian he got one decorated with delicate feathers that fluttered in the air when he swung it.

Against one seminaked man were arrayed twenty fully armed warriors. The ma.s.sive crowd had gathered hoping for an unusual spectacle, and they were not disappointed. The chronicles of the time are specific in stating that Tezozomoc defended himself so adroitly and overcame the handicap of his tether with such skill, that he stood off the twenty Aztecs, disarmed many and killed three. After about a half hour he was bleeding from numerous gashes and his breath was coming in painful gasps. He was about to collapse, when with a violent effort he flung himself outward to the fullest extent allowed by the tether, and with a powerful swing of the club crushed the heads of two opponents. With that mighty effort he fell senseless on the disk, his last thought being that before he wakened he would be with the G.o.ds. But when the priests started to lay hands on him, the populace voiced their protest violently and Moctezuma's uncle, the king, announced: "This man shall be general of my armies!"

For three years the great Cactus warrior led the Aztecs to victories on the extended fronts of their empire. He fought the Tlaxcaltecas, the Pueblas, the Oaxacans and the Pachucans and from each foray he returned with many captives and much booty. But in 1486 the time came when it was unavoidable that he lead the Aztecs against his own Cactus People, and this he refused to do. Presenting himself before King Tizoc he said: "I have led your armies to victory at many parts of your empire, and I would willingly continue to do so, for I have never known men braver than the Aztecs. But I cannot lead your army against my own people. If you press me to do so, I would be a traitor and this would be a shameful conclusion to my life. So the time is at hand when I must offer myself as a sacrifice to your war G.o.d, and this I do willingly, for I have served him long and would join my companions in heaven."

Of his own accord, the great Indian warrior Tezozomoc, who if he had lived might have successfully countered the wiles of Cortes, dressed himself in ceremonial robes, both Aztec and Cactus, and, while drums throbbed and flutes shrilled warlike music, marched alone up the steep steps to the altar of Huitzilopochtli the war G.o.d, where priests laid reverent hands on him and conveyed him to the convex slab, where his heart was ripped out and fed to the G.o.d. When news of his death reached City-of-the-Pyramid no one lamented. His daughter, known to history as Lady Gray Eyes, was nine years old at the time, and when she yas told of her father's death in the remote Aztec capital and of the manner in which he died, she said gravely: "He should have died in battle."

Because the Indians of this later age focused their attention and their art so strongly on death and in such hideous forms, history has dealt rather harshly with them, as if they were barbarians whose sole concern was human sacrifice. This was not so, and in order to strike a balance in evaluating my ancestors I have always liked to think of Lady Gray Eyes, one of the great people of Mexican history.

She was given her peculiar name not by fellow Indians but by Europeans who came to Mexico from abroad and who, in their moment of victory over the Cactus People, came into contact with this resolute woman. They noticed that her eyes were not the usual jet-black but a kind of gray-this could have been an illusion because she was certainly not of mixed blood, but her eyes were, as one of the conquerors wrote, "of a soft gray color that could turn to steel as she gritted her teeth and fought to protect the rights of her people."

As the daughter of Tezozomoc, she was naturally brought up in a warlike world; she never saw her father after she was six and maintained only a dim memory of what he was like, but in later life Spanish chroniclers recorded what she told them: I think of him not at war but in our home at the edge of the city that later became Toledo. We had about an acre of land on which slaves he had taken in battle grew vegetables and raised turkeys. In fields somewhat removed from the house he also raised a lot of cotton, and I remember him primarily tending his garden.

My mother was encouraged to weave, and she had slave women who worked under her direction making a cloth that other cities cherished. As a little girl I wore dresses made of cotton, feathers and silver strands, all miraculously woven together so that I looked like a silvery bird in flight.

I was very fond of candy made from cactus, but my father made me recite songs to him before I could have any. At six I couldn't have known anything but children's songs, but he enjoyed them and I remember that he often joined me.

He a.s.sured me even then that I was destined to be the wife of the king, so that later when he sacrificed himself, my mother continued to impress upon me the importance of my future duties, and I learned not only about sewing and weaving and the making of tortillas but also about the management of a house that contained many rooms and many servants. I was especially good at music and played the flute in the quietness of our home, and at one time I must have known most of the songs of my people.

Most Spaniards I have met have asked me what I thought about human sacrifice, and I have grown tired of explaining that up until the age of twenty-one I had never seen the rite and did not really comprehend it. My mother, I noticed, kept us at home whenever the great drum sounded at the pyramid, and even on the days that celebrated my father's greatest triumphs, when thousands of captives were executed, my mother refused to attend. I remember when I was six and Father returned triumphantly from Guadalajara. After the drum stopped beating, he came home, washed, played with me and then tended his garden. I can't recall ever having heard sacrifices mentioned in my home, and that is why my reaction to the Mother G.o.ddess was so unexpected and so spectacular.

In two short articles my magazine once asked me to write about the Cactus People, I tried to speak well of them, for there was much about these ancestors of mine that was admirable, but I admit that my task would have been easier if the Mother G.o.ddess had not become part of their history.

In the late 1400s, when the triumph of War G.o.d was as complete as it could be, and when there were no further refinements in the grisly rites honoring him, a convocation of priests of City-of-the-Pyramid convened and heard the high priest reason in this manner: "If our War G.o.d is wholly omnipotent, and if there is nothing further we can do to honor him directly, we ought to consider other oblique ways in which to pay him respect. And it seems to me that what we have overlooked is the fact that he could never have become so powerful if he had not had a mother even more terrible than he."

Consequently, to fulfill a religious need, the Cactus priests created a Mother G.o.ddess who as a sheer abomination has never been equaled. Her head was two horned serpents on the verge of devouring each other. Her hands were talons, each tearing apart a human heart. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were coiled vipers, and her navel was an eagle's beak plucking out the eyes of an infant. Her skirt was a writhing ma.s.s of snakes and her feet were the teeth of animals rending flesh. She wore a necklace of human hearts, rings of human eyes and beads of teeth. Hers was the most repulsive statue ever carved in Mexico, a squat, sullen, hideous travesty of both G.o.d and woman. When she was unveiled, in her own temple atop a small pyramid that occupied the s.p.a.ce where the cathedral now stands, there was revelry and feasting, for it was recognized that a worthy G.o.ddess had at last been found to accompany War G.o.d in his lonely rule of the high valley.

What made the Mother G.o.ddess such a dreaded deity was the refinement in torture that the priests had devised for her: since she was the mother of War G.o.d, she was satisfied only with perfect things, so each year only the youths who were flawless in every way were set aside for her. Since she also represented motherhood, she was also ent.i.tled to numerous sacrifices to empower her to ensure continued fertility, and therefore hundreds of victims were thrown alive into huge fires that roared at her feet.

When, in her twenty-second year, Lady Gray Eyes first saw the rites she was so overcome that she would have fainted had not her strong-minded mother gripped her arm and whispered: "If you disgrace yourself before the Mother G.o.ddess you too will be chosen as a sacrifice." Lady Gray Eyes then learned the need for extreme discretion. Because her reputation was unsullied by any suspicion that she was less than devout, there were no obstacles to her marrying the young king, who was much in love with her.

The position of the young queen at this crucial moment in history was a curious one. There was no way in which she could have known that powerful strangers from Europe were about to land in Cuba and would soon be heading for Mexico, but she sensed that great change was in the wind. This nebulous suspicion made her feel that Cactus society could not remain as it was, especially the hideousness of Mother G.o.ddess and the abomination whereby the priests were able to convince the Cactus women that their n.o.blest function in life was to produce handsome, intelligent sons to be sacrificed at the feet of the Mother G.o.ddess. "It's evil," she muttered to herself as she contemplated the perverting of motherhood and the waste of human lives. "No woman can want to see her son, her brother or her husband slain in such a horrible way. Killing scores so the sun will come back north! Of course it will return! It always has and always will."

When she asked her mother: "Surely you know that the sun will always come back, whether the G.o.ddess has victims or not?" her mother drew back and counseled: "Daughter, don't think along those lines or you'll endanger the king." But when Lady Gray Eyes asked: "Surely you must deplore the ritual sacrificing of our best young men?" her mother nodded. "Yes." She would say nothing more.

From that moment Lady Gray Eyes became a kind of subversive citizen. By patient listening and oblique questioning she began to probe the minds of others, which led her to suspect that many women had sickened of the b.l.o.o.d.y rites and that a general revulsion against them was developing among the population. However, she was not yet daring enough to speak openly, as noted in a report by the wife of a Cactus general: She overtook me one morning as I was drawing water at the well and asked me casually, "How is your son?" and I replied, "He was taken, you know." That was how we phrased it when the priests selected your son. Very quietly she asked: "And do you miss him?" We were forbidden to discuss such matters, but she was the queen and this made me feel free to speak, so I said: "Yes, I do," and tears, which were rigidly forbidden, came to my eyes. And for a moment I wept, but when I looked at her, she was as hard as rock, all of her, hands clenched, teeth gritting together and her remarkable eyes tearless but almost flashing fire, and I knew that she and I thought alike. That accidental meeting was why, when the great test came, I stood with her and handled one of the wooden levers.

The secret opposition launched by Lady Gray Eyes came to a head in 1507. Since that autumn marked the end of a fifty-two-year cycle that coincided with some important date regarding the movement of the sun and the planet Venus, the high priest ordained ceremonies that were especially gruesome. 'To ensure the regeneration of the world" he explained, "we must all make unusually difficult sacrifices."

It had long been a belief of the Cactus People that with the culmination of any fifty-two-year cycle the world might end and the sun not rise. Only by extraordinary human sacrifice could the sun be coaxed from darkness and a tradition had developed that when the cycle ended, all human possessions had to be destroyed so that life could begin anew with the rebirth of the world. Accordingly, as the year 1507 drew to a close, there was wholesale destruction of personal belongings; and here Lady Gray Eyes first came into open conflict with her G.o.ds. Her father had left her a shield that he had worn in battle against the Guadalajarans, but before he had given it to her he had decorated it with designs drawn by his own hands, and from the age of six she had treasured it. This shield she was determined not to sacrifice, even though she was warned that for a queen to hold back anything of value would especially incense the G.o.ds and cause them to terminate the world instantly. When she went to hide the shield in a closet whose door was masked, she found that her mother had already secreted there many objects of sentimental value.

What had led to this initial break with the G.o.ds was a series of events so profoundly malignant that Lady Gray Eyes later told the chroniclers: "If I had suffered those cruelties without revulsion and anger I would have been less than human." What happened was that the high priest of the Mother G.o.ddess required for the ceremony of relighting the world a man of exemplary character, a man of vital importance to the kingdom whose sacrifice would mean a grievous loss to the city; only by kindling a sacred fire on his living heart as he lay with his chest cut open would the sun be lured back to embark on its next cycle of fifty-two years.

The man they had chosen was her own kin, the king's learned brother, and when she heard of the decision Lady Gray Eyes cried to her mother: "This is senseless. He's the wisest man in the kingdom. We need him."

"Ssssssh!" the mother warned. "You may think these things, but you must never speak them."

The king's brother was killed, the ritual of fire was completed; and obediently the sun rose again. The priests then launched an orgy of sacrifice to celebrate the rebirth of the world: hundreds were killed, then more hundreds, then thousands until the mind was numb from counting and the air was thick with smoke. In her quarters as Lady Gray Eyes listened with mounting anger to the throbbing drum she was oppressed by the thought that for the past three hundred years there must have been countless women like herself who had hated this abomination of endless sacrifice but had never spoken out because of fear.

The horror did not end with her brother-in-law's murder. A disaffected servant reported to the priests of the Mother G.o.ddess that the queen's mother, the widow of General Tezozomoc, had sequestered personal treasures and not destroyed them to ensure the rebirth of the world. An inspecting party had been immediately dispatched to the royal palace, where the servant led them to the secret closet where they found the hidden items. Among them, of course, was General Tezozomoc's shield, which would have incriminated the queen herself had not her mother stepped forth and calmly said: 'The shield was given me by my husband."

She was hauled off to the temple of the Mother G.o.ddess. Even the king was powerless to intervene; and the brave old woman prevented Lady Gray Eyes from confessing that she too was a culprit. I will not describe what the priests did to the old woman, nor how her cries of denunciation, before she was burned, ignited the first public doubts about the horrible G.o.ddess who ruled City-of-the-Pyramid.

When Lady Gray Eyes looked at the twin-serpent head of the Mother G.o.ddess, obscured by steam and smoke and smeared with the blood of her mother, she vowed: "This terror must stop." The destruction of this appalling G.o.ddess now became an obsession, and during the years from 1507 to 1518 she made discreet investigations that convinced her that the city was full of people who were as disgusted and disaffected as she but could only stand by helplessly. In later years she said of these days: "So we lived in a terrible darkness, desperately hoping for the rediscovery of peace and the rebirth of human love. But after many years of fearful silence it became the general opinion that the salvation of our city would come not from within but from without-that some act from the outside world would rescue us-but the likelihood of this seemed so remote, and a thing so futile to hope for, that I concluded that salvation must come from within, and 1 dedicated myself to the destruction of the terrible G.o.ddess."

As the year 1519 dawned with its customary savage ceremonies, the full power of the Mother G.o.ddess was brought to bear against Lady Gray Eyes. One afternoon as she was sitting in her garden she was approached by a trio of senior priests who were so supercilious in manner that she had an instant premonition of disaster. "Revered Highness," said their leader, "we bring joyous news. Your son-"

"Which one?" she asked, trembling.

"Your second, Ixmiq, named after the builder of our sacred pyramid."

"Yes?"

"He has the honor of having been chosen this year's Perfect Youth."

She did not cry out, for she had been taught from childhood that that was not allowed. Her father and her nurses had preached: "It is the duty of women to bear sons for the glory of the Mother G.o.ddess. Some become warriors in her defense. Some are sacrificed to prove our respect. And each year some mother is honored above all others by having her son chosen as the Perfect Youth."

Biting her lip to prevent herself from shrieking at these miserable men, she sat immobile, her mind in a frenzy, as the priests went to the house, called forth her nineteen-year-old son, Ixmiq, and led him away. He was allowed no farewell words, no last embrace, for priests had learned from past experience that such acts were apt to create exhibitions of weakness unworthy of the Mother G.o.ddess, so the queen was forced to remain sitting there as her radiant son left his home for the last time.

Young Ixmiq was moved into a small sacred palace, where he was daily anointed with oil, bedecked with flowers and cloth of gold, and taught to play the flute. He ate only the most exquisite of foods and was constantly ma.s.saged by priests so that no ungainly fat should acc.u.mulate on his athletic body. He was encouraged to play games and sing, and at night he . Was watched by four priests lest he catch cold and diminish his health. His long hair was plaited with flowers, and he was sprinkled with perfume.

For eleven months, Ixmiq led a cloistered existence. He was allowed to see his royal father now and again, but he was not permitted to talk with his mother, for the priests had found in earlier years that such a meeting sometimes unmanned the Perfeet Youth and induced melancholy, which had no place in their plans for him; furthermore, Lady Gray Eyes was suspect because her mother had sinned against the Mother G.o.ddess.

On the first day of the twelfth month four of the most beautiful young girls of the city were brought into the sacred palace, where in the presence of Ixmiq they were undressed by a priest, who said simply: "Enjoy them." And from then on the girls were constantly with the Perfect Youth, enticing him to lose himself in sensual pleasures.

This was a cynical move on the part of the priests: they had found that if a young man came to the last days completely debilitated through s.e.xual excess he was more apt to be submissive and not mar the culminating sacred moment of the year by resisting and creating a scene. But for further insurance they introduced into his diet during this last month substantial amounts of mescaline, a narcotic derived from cactus buds, and this ensured both an initial s.e.xual excitement and a subsequent la.s.situde.

But this year the plans of the priests went awry. There was among the four young girls sent to serve Ixmiq an exquisite child of sixteen named Xochitl, who was the last to sleep with Ixmiq because she was the youngest. But once he discovered her he loved her so intensely that he wished to have nothing more to do with the others. The priests noticed this with dismay, for experience had taught them that if a Perfect Youth formed any strong attachment for one particular girl among the customary four, he was apt to dread the moment of separation and behave badly at the ceremony that would end his life. After consultation, therefore, the priests decided to whisk Xochitl away from the palace and to subst.i.tute for her a somewhat older girl, but when they did this, Ixmiq refused to leave his quarters, where he remained secluded, pensively playing the flute. When the priests asked why he was being so solitary, he replied: "I am waiting for Xochitl."

It was apparent that unless the young girl was returned to Ixmiq there was going to be trouble, so the priests brought her back but threatened: "Unless you keep Ixmiq from loving you, when he dies you will be burned alive." But when they thrust the girl back into the room, she ran to Ixmiq and they embraced pa.s.sionately, and for the last eleven days of the month they stayed together. The other three girls could do nothing, for Ixmiq refused to a.s.sociate with anyone but X6chitl, and when the priests tried to drag him away he was sufficiently in control to feign hysteria: "If you take her away I'll scream, and lunge at you and create a great noise at your ceremony." Seething with rage, they were forced to retreat.

When they were gone, Ixmiq laughed at the success of his ruse, and drew Xochitl to him, saying bravely: "It won't be too painful, little bird. For one month you'll be my wife. Lots of young men marry and either go off to war and death, or are chosen for some important sacrifice. It happens."

"But what of the children we should have? I want to have your children."

"Maybe I'll leave you with a son," he said consolingly. When she drew back and said almost in tears, "I can't pray to a creature like Mother G.o.ddess for aid in becoming pregnant," he could think of no G.o.d in the Cactus pantheon to whom a young woman could pray for help.

In the quiet of their luxurious prison they could take consolation only in the fact that he had succeeded in convincing the priests that he loved her, and that she was able to share his last days even if she did so at mortal danger to herself.

On the last day of the year 1519, when Ixmiq was given food that was drugged almost to the point of causing nausea so that his eyes were dull and heavy, he was anointed for the last time and dressed in robes of unusual splendor. Flowers and jewels were woven into his hair and sandals with golden buckles were put on his feet. He clasped Xochitl to his bosom and whispered: "You are my wife."

He then left the palace and, one of the most handsome young men ever to have performed this rite, he walked in a kind of golden haze through the streets of the city, and as he walked he played occasionally on one or another of his flutes. It was a day of complete beauty, with the sun that lit his face making his jewels shimmer. The king, his father, was proud of his son's regal bearing, but Lady Gray Eyes clenched her fists, barely restraining her grief and anger.

The priests, who were aware through their spies that the queen had been asking dangerous questions but were not yet strong enough to offend the king by attacking her openly, had arranged that she not be present at the final rites lest she call out and distress her son. She was therefore excused from witnessing the final act, and for this she was grateful.

Toward three in the afternoon, when the sun had noticeably declined and birds were beginning to sing before roosting, Ixmiq walked gallantly toward the temple of the Mother G.o.ddess, and now a hush fell over the mult.i.tude that followed him. The priests fell away and prayed that their selection would behave himself well. Stepping upon the first stone of the stairway leading to the altar, he turned to face the crowd, raised his hands above his head, and broke one of the flutes. Throwing the pieces gaily'over his shoulder, he ascended to the next step, where he broke another flute. At the small terrace that separated the two flights of stairs, he paused to play a brief song, after which he broke the flute he had been using, and in this manner he came to the top of the stairs and to the altar, where he broke his last flute and threw the two parts out to the silent and admiring crowd. He should then have presented himself impa.s.sively to the five waiting priests-four to bind him and one to kill-but instead he threw his arms into the air and screamed in agony so that all could hear: "Xochitl, Xochitl!" The outraged priests grabbed him and smashed him so hard on the sacrificial disk that his back was broken and his senses were gone even before the knife plunged into his chest.

Thus the year 1520 got off to an ominous start, and rumors of events that could not be understood were blamed on Ixmiq and his misbehavior at the sacrifice. One of Lady Gray Eyes' uncles, the wise man Xaca who served as an amba.s.sador to the Aztecs in the great city to the southeast, returned with staggering news: "A frightening group of men, G.o.ds perhaps from another world, white of skin and speaking a strange language, have come to the jungles at the feet of the great volcanoes. They are served by lesser G.o.ds that run on four feet and carry the strangers on their backs. And both the men and the lesser G.o.ds protect themselves with a heavy cloth that glistens in the sun and cannot be pierced by arrows."