Of gods with a foreign origin perhaps the most important were Quetzalcoatl and Xipe. The former was introduced long before the Aztecs raised their banner of war and was the Long-nosed God of the Mayas, introduced under the patronage of Quetzalcoatl, the powerful emperor of the Toltecs. The worship of Xipe is said to have originated in a town in southern Mexico. It had certainly taken a strong hold on the Aztecs of Mexico City and was likewise known as far south as Salvador. It has recently been demonstrated that the people of Yopico, specially given to the worship of Xipe, originated in Nicaragua.

Conceptions of the Universe.

Cosmogonic myths, the world over, are unscientific attempts to explain the creation of the universe, to outline the powers of the gods and to trace the development of nature. The cosmogonic myths of Mexico and Central America are characterized by multiple creations. The Aztecan belief in five suns each standing for a world epoch is paralleled in fragments of Mayan mythology. Creation is not emphasized so much as destruction. The sequence of the suns is figured on the Calendar Stone, and in one of the codices, besides being explained in some of the early writings of Spanish priests and educated natives. The first sun was devoured by a jaguar and in the resulting darkness the inhabitants of the earth were devoured by jaguars. The second sun was destroyed by a hurricane, the third by a rain of fire, and the fourth by a flood. One human pair escaped each cataclysm and lived to repopulate the world. The fifth or present sun will be destroyed by an earthquake.

Notions of the shape and character of the universe are pretty well defined in Aztecan lore. The widespread belief that the universe consists of three superimposed worlds, the upper or sky world, the middle world of living men and the under world of the dead, is found in a developed form. The upper world is divided into thirteen levels. The uppermost four levels are called Teteocan, the abode of the gods, and are considered to be invisible. The creator of all, Ometeuctli, Lord of Duality, dwells with his spouse in the highest heaven and under him in order are the Place of the Red God of Fire, the Place of the Yellow Sun God and the Place of the White Evening Star God. The inferior heavens, called Ilhuicatl, are given over to the visible celestial activities. There is one heaven for the storms, another for the blue sky of the day, the dark sky of the night, the comets, the evening star, the sun, the stars, etc.

The under world is Mictlan, the Place of the Dead. Nine divisions are commonly given and in the lowermost of these lives Mictlanteuctli, the Lord of Death, and his mate. The idea of future blessing or punishment is not entirely absent from the minds of the Aztecs. Warriors killed in battle go to the House of the Sun, in one of the upper worlds, as do women who die in childbirth. Tlalocan, the lowermost heaven, is a sort of terrestrial paradise for others. Mictlan is, however, the common abode of the dead, and the wretched soul can reach it only after a journey set with horrors.

The cult of the quarters is intimately associated with the concept of the universe. With the four cardinal points a number of others are sometimes taken including the zenith, the nadir, and the middle. The sacred numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7 may thus conceivably be derived from the points of space, but it would be very unsafe to assume that they are necessarily so derived. The general concept of a universe divided into quarters, fifths, or sixths is a powerful conventionalizing factor in mythology, religion, and art. Prayers, songs, and important acts are repeated in identical or in systematically varied form for each point of space. In Mayan and Aztecan codices the symbolism of the four directions is often manifest.

Ceremonies.

Ceremonialism was intensely developed in Mexico and the dramatic quality of many Aztecan rites of human sacrifice has probably never been equaled. We are apt to think only of the gruesome features of human sacrifice and to overlook the spiritual ones. The victim was often regarded as a personification of a god and as such he was fÊted, clothed in fine garments, and given every honor. Efforts were made to cause the victim to go willingly to his death uplifted by a truly religious ecstasy. It was considered unlucky that he should grieve or falter.

The religious calendar was given over to fixed and movable feasts. The fixed feasts were eighteen in number and each came on the last day of a twenty-day period and gave its name to that period. These eighteen periods correspond with the Mayan uinals or months, but since dates were rarely given in relation to them, they do not have the same calendrical importance. The five days that rounded out the 365-day year were considered unlucky.

Each of the eighteen feasts of the year was under the patronage of a special divinity and each had a set of ceremonies all its own. In some cases the ceremonies were really culminations of long periods of preparation. Thus, on the last day of the month Toxcatl there was sacrificed a young man, chosen from captured chieftains for his beauty and accomplishments, who for an entire year had been fitting himself for his one turn on the stage of blood and death. This intended victim, gayly attired and accompanied by a retinue of pages, was granted the freedom of the city. When the month of Toxcatl entered he was given brides, whose names were those of goddesses, and in his honor was held a succession of brilliant festivals. On the last day there was a parade of canoes across Lake Texcoco and when a certain piece of desert land was reached, the brides and courtiers bade farewell to the victim. His pages accompanied him by a little-used trail to the base of an apparently ruined temple. Here he was stripped of his splendid garments and of the jewels that were symbols of divinity. With only a necklace of flutes he mounted the steps of the pyramid. At each step he broke one of the flutes and he arrived at the summit, where the priests waited, knife in hand, a naked man whose heart was to be offered to the very god he had impersonated. This ceremony is given only as an example, but it illustrates two characteristics that are seen in several other sacrifices, namely, the paying of homage and honor to the intended sacrificial victim, and, secondly, the necessity of keeping the victim in a happy frame of mind.

The eleventh feast of the year was called Ochpaniztli, “the feast of the broom” and was celebrated in honor of the goddess known as Toci, or Teteoinnan. The first of these names means “our female ancestor” and the second one means “the mother of the gods.” She was a goddess of the earth and her symbol was the grass broom with which the earth was swept. She also exerted an influence over the arts of the hearth, such as weaving. Her pictures in the codices show her with a broom in one hand and a shield in the other while about her head is a band of unspun cotton into which are stuck spindles wrapped with thread.

During this month the roads were repaired, the houses and plazas swept, and the temples and idols refurbished. According to the text in the Codex Magliabecchiano there were human sacrifices in the temples which fronted on the roads and there were great dances and carousals. Those sacrificed were afterwards flayed as in the feast of Xipe and their skins worn by dancers. The picture that accompanies this revolting admission is itself devoid of any morbid symbols. It shows a kneeling woman holding out the broom and shield. She wears a white dress and a neckless of jade beads with golden bells for pendants. Below her are two standing men who bear in their hands offerings of ripe fruit.

Sahagun gives details of a terrible drama that was enacted during this twenty-day month. For the first eight days there was dancing without song and without the drum. After this prologue a woman was chosen to impersonate the patron goddess and to wear her characteristic dress and ornaments. With her was a retinue of women skilled in medicine and midwifery. For four days these persons divided in opposing ranks and pelted each other with leaves and flowers. While this harmless ceremony and others like it were being acted out, the greatest care was taken that the woman who played the rÔle of the goddess and who was marked for death should not suspect her fate. It was considered unlucky, indeed, if this victim wept or was sad. When her time to die had come she was clothed in rich garments and given to understand that she should be that night the bride of a rich lord. And under such a beguiling belief she was led silently to the temple of sacrifice. There without warning an attendant lifted her upon himself, back to back, and her head was instantly struck off. Without delay the skin was stripped from her warm body and a youth, wearing it as a garment, was conducted in the midst of captives to the temple of the War God, Huitzilopochtli. Here in the presence of this mighty god the youth himself tore out the hearts of four victims and then abandoned the rest to the knife of the head priest. Thus closed the terrible drama which began with an innocent battle of flowers and ended in an orgy of blood.

The twelfth month passed under two names. It was called Pachtli after a plant with which the temples were decorated and Teotleco which signifies “the arrival of the gods.” The principal feast was held, as usual, on the twentieth day when the great company of gods was supposed to return from a far land. One god, very youthful and robust, arrived on the eighteenth day, being able to outwalk the others, while a few very old and infirm divinities were late in getting to the feast. The one who arrived first was called Telpochtli or Titlacauan but in reality he was the great Tezcatlipoca in disguise.

In anticipation of this return, the temples, shrines, and household idols were decorated with branches. The youths who did this work were repaid in corn, the amount varying from a full basket to a few ears. A novel manner of attesting the earliest presence of divinity is related. Some cornmeal was spread in a circular mass upon the ground. During the night the high priests kept vigil and from time to time visited this circle of cornmeal. When he saw a footprint in the center he cried out, “Our master has come.” Then there was a burst of music and everyone ran to the great feast in the temple. Much native wine was drunk, for this was considered equivalent to washing the tired feet of the travel-worn gods. As a final act of the celebration there was a dance in costume around a great fire and several unfortunates were tossed alive into the flames.

Space will not permit a further examination of the eighteen fixed feasts. The movable feasts were mostly in definite relation to the tonalamatl and were thus subject to repetition every 260 days. The permutation of twenty day names and thirteen numbers is pictured in Mexican codices in two or more stereotyped forms, but these are very complete. In the commonest form the entire cycle is divided into twenty groups of thirteen days each and each group is presided over by a special divinity. There are other repeating series of gods, sacred birds, etc., that preside over the individual days in these groups. The tonalamatl was much used in Mexico in connection with foretelling events. The days were lucky, indifferent, or unlucky, and the future life of a child was believed to be locked up in the horoscope of his birthday.

Other feasts were held in relation to longer time periods. There were important festivals held in connection with the planet Venus with especially elaborate ones falling at intervals of eight years. Still another ceremony was held at the completion of a fifty-two year period, when the set of years were figuratively bundled up and laid away and a new sacred fire lighted.

Poetry and Music.

The languages of Central America were capable of considerable literary development. This is seen especially in the songs that were used in different religious ceremonies of the Aztecs, as well as in the reflective poems written by educated natives. Several very fine pieces have been preserved, and while there is no rhyme, there is much rhythm. When recited by a person speaking fluently the native tongue these poems are very impressive. Of course, translation is always hazardous, and fundamental differences in language, such as exist between English and Aztecan, make it almost impossible. The most famous poet whose name has come down to us was Nezahualcoyotl, or Famishing Coyote, who was a ruler of Texcoco and died at the advanced age of eighty years in 1472. A few verses from one of his poems on the mutability of life and the certainty of death have been translated as follows:—

All the earth is a grave, and naught escapes it; nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not today; and let not that which is today trust to live tomorrow.

The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sat upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.

Another example will serve to emphasize the strain of sadness and the vision of death that characterize so many Aztecan poems.

Sad and strange it is to see and reflect on the prosperity and power of the old and dying king Tezozomoc; watered with ambition and avarice, he grew like a willow tree rising above the grass and flowers of spring, rejoicing for a long time, until at length withered and decayed, the storm wind of death tore him from his roots and dashing him in fragments to the ground. The same fate befell the ancient King Colzatzli, so that no memory was left of him, nor of his lineage.