Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican Part 8

Ometcuctli and Omecihuatl, a G.o.d and G.o.ddess presided over new born children, and, reigning in Paradise, benignantly granted the wishes of mortals. Cihuacohuatl, or, woman-serpent, was regarded as the mother of human beings. Tonatricli and Meztli were deifications of the sun and moon. Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were deities of the air and of water, whilst Xiuhteuctli was the G.o.d of fire to whom the first morsel and the first draught at table were always devoted by the Aztecs.

Mictlanteuctli and Joalteuctli were the G.o.ds of h.e.l.l and night, while the generous G.o.ddess of the earth and grain who was worshipped by the Totonacos as an Indian Ceres, enjoyed the more euphonious t.i.tle of Centeotl. Huitzilopotchtli or Mexitli, the G.o.d of war, was an especial favorite with the Aztecs, for it was this divinity according to their legends who had led them from the north, and protected them during their long journey until they settled in the valley of Mexico. Nor did he desert them during the rise and progress of their nation. Addicted as they were to war, this deity was always invoked before battle and was recompensed for the victories he bestowed upon his favorite people by b.l.o.o.d.y hecatombs of captives taken from the enemies of the empire.

We have already spoken of this personage in the portion of this work which treats of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

If the Mexicans had their G.o.ds, so also had they their final abodes of blessedness and misery. Soldiers who were slain in conflict for their country or who perished in captivity, and the spirits of women who died in child-birth, went at once to the "house of the sun" to enjoy a life of eternal pleasure. At dawn they hailed the rising orb with song and dances, and attended him to the meridian and his setting with music and festivity. The Aztecs believed that, after some years spent amid these pleasures, the beatified spirits of the departed were changed into clouds or birds of beautiful plumage, though they had power to ascend again whenever they pleased to the heaven they had left. There was another place called Tlalocan the dwelling place of Tlaloc, the deity of water, which was also an Aztec elysium. It was the spirit-home of those who were drowned or struck by lightning,--of children sacrificed in honor of Tlaloc,--and of those who died of dropsy, tumors, or similar diseases. Last of all, was Mictlan, a gloomy h.e.l.l of perfect darkness, in which, incessant night, unilluminated by the twinkling of a single ray, was the only punishment, and the probable type of annihilation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEOYAOMIQUI. (FRONT.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEOYAOMIQUI. (PROFILE.)]

The figure which is delineated in the plate representing Teoyaomiqui, is cut from a single block of basalt, and is nine feet high and five and a half broad. It is a horrid a.s.semblage of hideous emblems. Claws, fangs, tusks, skulls and serpents, writhe and hang in garlands around the shapeless ma.s.s. Four open hands rest, apparently without any purpose, upon the bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a female. In profile, it is not unlike a squatting toad, whose glistening eyes and broad mouth expand above the cincture of skulls and serpents. Seen in this direction it appears to have more shape and meaning than in front. On the top of the statue there is a hollow, which was probably used as the receptacle of offerings or incense during sacrifice. The bottom of this ma.s.s is also sculptured in relief, and as it will be observed in the plate, that there are projections of the body near the waist, it is supposed that this frightful idol was suspended by them aloft on pillars, so that its worshippers might pa.s.s beneath the ma.s.sive stone.

In 1790, this idol was found buried in the great square of Mexico, whence it was removed to the court of the university; but as the priests feared that it might again tempt the Indians to their ancient worship, it was interred until the year 1821, since which time it has been exhibited to the public.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOTTOM OF TEOYAOMIQUI.]

The reader who has accompanied us from the beginning of this volume and perused the history of the Spanish conquest, has doubtless become somewhat familiar with the great square of ancient Tenocht.i.tlan, its _Teocalli_, or pyramidal temple, and the b.l.o.o.d.y rites that were celebrated upon it, by the Aztec priests and princes. It served as a place of sacrifice, not only for the Indian victims of war, but streamed with the blood of the unfortunate Spaniards who fell into the power of the Mexicans when Cortez was driven from the city.

This _Teocalli_ is said to have been completed in the year 1486, during the reign of the eighth sovereign of Tenocht.i.tlan or Mexico, and occupied that portion of the present city upon which the cathedral stands and which is occupied by some of the adjacent streets and buildings. Its ma.s.sive proportions and great extent may be estimated from the restoration of this edifice, which we have attempted to form from the best authorities, and have presented in a plate in the preceding portion of this work.

The Mexican theology indulged in two kinds of sacrifice, one of which was an ordinary offering of a common victim, while the other, or gladiatorial sacrifice, was only used for captives of extraordinary courage and bravery.

When we recollect the fact that the Aztec tribe was an intruder into the valley of Anahuac, and that it laid the foundations of its capital in the midst of enemies, we are not surprised that so hardy a race, from the northern hive, was both warlike in its habits and sanguinary in its religion. With a beautiful land around it on all sides,--level, fruitful, but incapable of easy defence,--it was forced to quit the solid earth and to build its stronghold in the waters of the lake. We can conceive no other reason for the selection of such a site. The eagle may have been seen on a rock amid the water devouring the serpent; but we do not believe that this emblem of the will of heaven, in guiding the wanderers to their refuge in the lake of Tezcoco, was known to more than the leaders of the tribe until it became necessary to control the band by the interposition of a miracle. Something more was needed than mere argument, to plant a capital in the water, and, thus, we doubt not, that the singular omen, in which the modern arms of Mexico have originated, was contrived or invented by the priests or chiefs of the unsettled Aztecs.

Surrounded by enemies, with nothing that they could strictly call their own, save the frail retreat among the reeds and rushes of their mimic Venice, it undoubtedly became necessary for the Aztecs to keep no captives taken in war. Their gardens, like their town, were constructed upon the _Chinampas_, or floating beds of earth and wicker work, which were anch.o.r.ed in the lake. They could not venture, at any distance from its margin, to cultivate the fields. When they sallied from their city, they usually left it for the battle field; and, when they returned, it is probable that it seemed to them not only a propitiation of their G.o.ds, but a mercy to the victims, to sacrifice their numerous captives, who if retained in idleness as prisoners would exact too large a body for their custody, or, if allowed to go at large, might rise against their victors, and, in either case, would soon consume the slender stores they were enabled to raise by their scant horticulture. In examining the history of the Aztecs, and noticing the mixture of civilization which adorned their public and private life, and the barbarism which characterized their merciless religion, we have been convinced that the Aztec rite of sacrifice originated, in the infancy of the state in a national necessity, and, at length, under the influence of superst.i.tion and policy, grew into an ordinance of faith and worship.

The COMMON SACRIFICE, offered in the Aztec temples was performed by a chief priest, and six a.s.sistants. The princ.i.p.al flamen, habited in a red scapulary fringed with cotton, and crowned with a circlet of green and yellow plumes, a.s.sumed, for the occasion, the name of the deity to whom the offering was made. His acolytes,--clad in white robes embroidered with black; their hands covered with leathern thongs; their foreheads filleted with parti-colored papers; and their bodies dyed perfectly black,--prepared the victim for the altar, and having dressed him in the insignia of the deity to whom he was to be sacrificed, bore him through the town begging alms for the temple. He was then carried to the summit of the _Teocalli_, where four priests extended him across the curving surface of an arched stone placed on the sacrificial stone, while another held his head firmly beneath the yoke which is represented elsewhere. The chief priest,--the _topiltzin_ or sacrificer, then stretched the breast of the victim tightly by bending his body back as far as possible, and, seizing the obsidian knife of sacrifice, cut a deep gash across the region of the captive's heart. The extreme tension of the flesh and muscles, at once yielded beneath the blade, and the heart of the victim lay palpitating in the b.l.o.o.d.y gap. The sacrificer immediately thrust his hand into the wound, and, tearing out the quivering vital, threw it at the feet of the idol,--inserted it with a golden spoon into its mouth,--or, after offering it to the deity, consumed it in fire and preserved the sacred ashes with the greatest reverence. When these horrid rites were finished in the temple, the victim's body was thrown from the top of the _Teocalli_, whence it was borne to the dwelling of the individual who offered the sacrifice, where it was eaten by himself and his friends, or, was devoted to feed the beasts in the royal menagerie.

Numerous cruel sacrifices were practised by the Indians of Mexico, and especially among the Quauht.i.tlans, who, every four years, slew eight slaves or captives, in a manner almost too brutal for description.

Sometimes the Aztecs contented themselves with other and more significant oblations; and flowers, fruits, bread, meat, copal, gums, quails, and rabbits, were offered on the altars of their G.o.ds. The priests, no doubt, approved these gifts far more than the tough flesh of captives or slaves!

The GLADIATORIAL SACRIFICE was reserved, as we have already said for n.o.ble and courageous captives. According to Clavigero, a circular ma.s.s, three feet high, resembling a mill stone, was placed within the area of the great temple upon a raised terrace about eight feet from the wall. The captive was bound to this stone by one foot, and was armed with a sword or _maquahuitl_ and shield. In this position, and thus accoutred, he was attacked by a Mexican soldier or officer, who was better prepared with weapons for the deadly encounter. If the prisoner was conquered he was immediately borne to the altar of common sacrifice. If he overcame six a.s.sailants he was rewarded with life and liberty, and permitted once more to return to his native land with the spoils that had been taken from him in war. Clavigero supposes that for many years, twenty thousand victims were offered on the Mexican teocallis, in the "common sacrifice;" and in the consecration of the great temple, sixty thousand persons were slain in order to baptise the pyramid with their blood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SACRIFICIAL STONE.]

An excellent idea of the sacrificial stone, will be obtained from the plates which are annexed. Neat and graceful ornaments, are raised in relief on the surface, and in the centre is a deep bowl, whence a ca.n.a.l or gutter leads to the edge of the cylinder. It is a ma.s.s of basaltic rock nine feet in diameter and three in height, and was found in the great square in 1790, near the site of the large teocalli or pyramid. On its sides are repeated, all round the stone, the same two figures which are drawn in the second plate. They evidently represent a victor and a prisoner. The conqueror is in the act of tearing the plumes from the crest of the vanquished, who bows beneath the blow and lowers his weapons. The similarity of these figures to some that are delineated in the first volume of Stephens' Yucatan is remarkable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIDE OF SACRIFICIAL STONE.]

THE AZTEC CALENDAR STONE, another monument of Mexican antiquity, was found in December, 1790, buried under ground in the great square of the capital. Like the idol image of Teoyaomiqui, and the sacrificial stone, it is carved from a ma.s.s of basalt, and is eleven feet eight inches in diameter, the depth of its circular edge being about seven and a half inches from the fractured square of rock out of which it was originally cut. It is supposed, from the fact that it was found beneath the pavement of the present _plaza_, that it was part of the fixtures of the great Teocalli of Tenocht.i.tlan, or that it was placed in some of the adjoining edifices on palaces surrounding the temple.

It is now walled into the west side of the cathedral, and is a remarkable specimen of the talent of the Indians for sculpture, at the same time that its huge ma.s.s, together with those of the sacrificial stone and the idol Teoyaomiqui, denote the skill of their inventors in the movement of immense weights, without the aid of horses.

The Aztecs calculated their civil year by the solar; they divided it into eighteen months of twenty days each, and added five complimentary days, as in Egypt, to make up the complete number of three hundred and sixty-five. After the last of these months the five _nemontemi_ or "useless days" were intercalated, and, belonging to no particular month, were regarded as unlucky, by the superst.i.tious natives. Their week consisted of five days, the last of which was the market day; and a month was composed of four of these weeks. As the tropical year is composed of about six hours more than three hundred and sixty-five days, they lost a day every fourth year, which they supplied, not at the termination of that period, but at the expiration of their cycle of fifty-two years, when they intercalated the twelve days and a half that were lost. Thus it was found, at the period of the Spanish conquest, that their computation of time corresponded with the European, as calculated by the most accurate astronomers.

At the end of the Aztec or Toltec cycle of fifty-two years,--for it is not accurately ascertained to which of the tribes the astronomical science of Tenocht.i.tlan is to be attributed,--these primitive children of the New World believed that the world was in danger of instant destruction. Accordingly, its termination became one of their most serious and awful epochs, and they anxiously awaited the moment when the sun would be blotted out from the heavens, and the globe itself once more resolved unto chaos. As the cycle ended in the winter, the season of the year, with its drearier sky and colder air, in the lofty regions of the valley, added to the gloom that fell upon the hearts of the people. On the last day of the fifty-two years, all the fires in temples and dwellings were extinguished, and the natives devoted themselves to fasting and prayer. They destroyed alike their valuable and worthless wares; rent their garments; put out their lights, and hid themselves, for awhile in solitude. Pregnant women seem to have been the objects of their especial dread at this moment.

They covered their faces with masks and imprisoned them securely, for they imagined, that on the occurrence of the grand and final catastrophe, these beings, who, elsewhere, are always the objects of peculiar interest and tenderness, would be suddenly turned into beasts of prey and would join the descending legions of demons, to revenge the injustice or cruelty of man.

At dark, on the last dread evening,--as soon as the sun had set, as they imagined, forever,--a sad and solemn procession of priests and people marched forth from the city to a neighboring hill, to rekindle the "New Fire." This mournful march was called the "procession of the G.o.ds," and was supposed to be their final departure from their temples and altars.

As soon as the melancholy array reached the summit of the hill, it reposed in fearful anxiety until the Pleiades reached the zenith in the sky, whereupon the priests immediately began the sacrifice of a human victim, whose breast was covered with a wooden shield, which the chief _flamen_ kindled by friction. When the sufferer received the fatal stab from the sacrificial knife of _obsidian_, the machine was set in motion on his bosom, until the blaze had kindled. The anxious crowd stood round with fear and trembling. Silence reigned over nature and man. Not a word was uttered among the countless mult.i.tude that thronged the hill-sides and plains, whilst the priest performed his direful duty to the G.o.ds. At length, as the first sparks gleamed faintly from the whirling instrument, low sobs and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns were whispered among the eager ma.s.ses. As the sparks kindled into a blaze, and the blaze into a flame, and the flaming shield and victim were cast together on a pile of combustibles which burst at once into the brightness of a conflagration, the air was rent with the joyous shouts of the relieved and panic stricken Indians. Far and wide over the dusky crowds beamed the blaze like a star of promise. Myriads of upturned faces greeted it from hills, mountains, temples, terraces, teocallis, house tops and city walls; and the prostrate mult.i.tudes hailed the emblem of light, life and fruition as a blessed omen of the restored favor of their G.o.ds and the preservation of the race for another cycle. At regular intervals, Indian couriers held aloft brands of resinous wood, by which they transmitted the "New Fire" from hand to hand, from village to village, and town to town, throughout the Aztec empire. Light was radiated from the imperial or ecclesiastical centre of the realm. In every temple and dwelling it was rekindled, from the sacred source; and when the sun rose again on the following morning, the solemn procession of priests, princes and subjects, which had taken up its march from the capital on the preceding night, with solemn steps, returned once more to the abandoned capital, and restoring the G.o.ds to their altars, abandoned themselves to joy and festivity in token of grat.i.tude and relief from impending doom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AZTEC CALENDAR STONE.]

We have thought it proper and interesting to preface the description of the calendar stone by the preceding account of the Aztec festival of the New Fire, which ill.u.s.trates the mingled elements of science and superst.i.tion that so largely characterized the empire of Montezuma.

The stone itself has engaged the attention, for years, of numerous antiquarians in Mexico, Europe and America, but it has received from none so perfect a description, as from the late Albert Gallatin, who devoted a large portion of his declining years to the study of the ancient Mexican chronology and languages. In the first volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society he has contributed an admirable summary of his investigations of the semi-civilized nations of Mexico, Yucatan and Central America, and from this we shall condense the portion which relates to this remarkable monument.

Around the princ.i.p.al central figure, representing the sun, are delineated in a circular form the twenty days of the month; which are marked from 1 to 20, with figures in the plates, and, in this order, are the following:

1 c.i.p.actli.

2 Xochitl.

3 Quiahuitl.

4 Tecpatl.

5 Ollin.

6 Cozcaquauhitli.

7 Quauhtli.

8 Ocelotl.

9 Acatl.

10 Malinalli.

11 Ozomatli.

12 Itzeuinitli.

13 Atl.

14 Tochtli.

15 Mazatl.

16 Miquiztli.

17 Cohualt.

18 Cuetzpalni.

19 Calli.

20 Ehecatl.

The triangular figure I, above the circle enclosing the emblem of the sun, denotes the beginning of the year. Around the circ.u.mference which bounds the symbols of the days and months are found the places of fifty-two small squares, of which only forty are actually visible, the other twelve being covered by the four _princ.i.p.al_ rays of the sun marked R. These doubtless denote the cycle of 52 years; and each of these squares contains five small oblongs, making in all 260 for the 52 squares. They are presumed to represent the 260 days or the period of the twenty first series of thirteen days. All the portion, included between the outer circ.u.mference of these 260 days and the external zone, has not been decyphered accurately. The external zone consists, except at the extremities, of a symbol twenty times repeated, and is alleged by Gama, a Mexican who first described and attempted to interpret the stone, to represent the milky way. The waving lines connected with it are supposed by this writer to represent clouds, while others imagine them to be the symbols of the mountains in which clouds and storms originated. These fanciful interpretations, however, are unavailable in all scientific descriptions, and Mr. Gallatin supposes the figures to be altogether ornamental.

The whole circle is divided into eight equal parts by the eight triangles R, which designate the rays of the sun. The intervals between these are each divided into two equal parts by the small circles indicated by the letter L. At the top of the vertical ray is found the hieroglyphic 13 Acatl, which shows that this stone applies to that year. It must be recollected that, although this Mexican calendar is in its arrangement the same for every year in the cycle, there was a variation at the rate of a day for every four years, between the several years of the cycle and the corresponding solar years. Gama presumes that this date of 13 Acatl was selected on account of its being the twenty-sixth year of the cycle and equally removed from its beginning and termination. Beneath this hieroglyphic, in correct drawings of the stone--but not in that of Gama which has been reproduced by Mr. Gallatin--will be found, between the letters Y and G, the distinct sign of 2, Acatl, and the ray above it points to the sign of the year 13 Acatl, which coincides with our 21st of December, and is undoubtedly the hitherto undetermined date of the winter solstice in the Mexican calendar.[17]

The smaller interior circle, we have already said, contains the image of the sun, as usually painted by the Indians; and to it are united the four parallelograms A, B, C, D, which are supposed by some writers to denote the four weeks into which the twenty days of the month were divided, but which contain the hieroglyphics, A, of 4 Ocelotl; B, of 4 Ehecatl; C, of 4 Quiahuitl; and D, of 4 Atl. The lateral figures E and F, according to Gama denote claws, which are symbolical of two great Indian astrologers who were man and wife, and were represented as eagles or owls.

The representations in these parallelograms, are believed to have originated in the Mexican fable of the SUNS, which will be hereafter noticed. The Aztecs believed that this luminary had died four times, and that the one which at present lights the earth, was the fifth, but which nevertheless was doomed to destruction like the preceding orbs.

From the creation, the first age or sun, lasted 676 years, comprising 13 cycles, when the crops failed, men perished of famine and their bodies were consumed by the beasts of the field. This occurred in the year 1 Acatl, and on the day 4 Ocelotl, and the ruin lasted for thirteen years. The next age and sun endured 364 years or 7 cycles, and terminated in the year 1 Tecpatl on the day 4 Ehecatl, when hurricanes and rain desolated the globe and men were metamorphosed into monkeys. The third age continued for 312 years, or 6 cycles, when fire or earthquakes rent the earth and human beings were converted into owls in the year 1 Tecpatl, on the day 4 Quiahuitl;--while the fourth age or sun lasted but for a single cycle of 52 years, and the world was destroyed by a flood, which either drowned the people or changed them into fishes, in the year 1 Calli, on the day 4 Atl. The four epochs of destruction are precisely the days typified by the hieroglyphics in the four parallelograms A, B, C and D.

It will be seen by adding the several periods together that the Aztecs counted 1469 years from the creation of the world to the flood; yet there is an incongruity in this imaginary antediluvian history. If the fourth age had lasted only 52 years, it would have terminated in the year 1 Tecpatl instead of 1 Calli. Bustamante, the publisher and annotator of Gama, states that some authorities contend for only three antecedent periods, and that the present age is expected to end by fire. But Mr. Gallatin alleges that the four ages and five suns have been generally adopted, and are sustained by the ancient Aztec paintings contained in the Codex Vatica.n.u.s, plates 7 to 10. Like most of the Mexican antiquities, this branch of the Chronology is admitted to be exceedingly obscure, for it is a.s.serted in the Appendix to Mr.

Gallatin's essay that the hieroglyphics annexed to these _paintings_, may be interpreted as giving to the four ages respectively the duration of either 682, 530, 576, and 582, or of 5206, 2010, 4404, and 4008 years.