Quetzalcoatl: The Hero-God of the Aztec Tribes E-Book

Daniel Garrison Brinton

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899) was an American surgeon, historian, archaeologist and ethnologist. After graduating from Yale University in 1858, he studied at Jefferson Medical College for two years and spent the next year travelling in Europe. He continued his studies at Paris and Heidelberg. From 1862 to 1865, during the American Civil War, he was a surgeon in the Union Army. He became professor of Ethnology and Archaeology in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1884; and was professor of American linguistics and Archaeology in the University of Pennsylvania from 1886 until his death.
From 1868 to 1899, Brinton wrote many books, and a large number of pamphlets, brochures, addresses and magazine articles.
From Brinton's fundamental essay American Hero-Myths (which our publishing house has already republished in 2019), undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and complete work on the comparative mythology of the ancient American peoples, we have selected the study Quetzalcoatl: The Hero-God of the Aztec Tribes. We propose it to our readers today.

Leseprobe

Symbols & Myths

DANIEL GARRISON BRINTON

QUETZALCOATL

THE HERO-GOD OF THE AZTEC TRIBES

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: Quetzalcoatl: The Hero-God of the Aztec Tribes

Author: Daniel Garrison Brinton

From the essay American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent (1882)

Series: Symbols & Myths

Editing and illustrations by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN: 979-12-5504-635-6

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2024 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

[email protected]

www.auroraboreale-edizioni.com

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INTRODUCTION BY THE PUBLISHER

Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899) was an American surgeon, historian, archaeologist and ethnologist. He was born in Thornbury Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 1837. After graduating from Yale University in 1858, he studied at Jefferson Medical College for two years and spent the next year travelling in Europe. He continued his studies at Paris and Heidelberg. From 1862 to 1865, during the American Civil War, he was a surgeon in the Union Army, acting during 1864-1865 as surgeon-in-charge of the U.S. Army general hospital at Quincy, Illinois. Brinton was sun-stroked at Missionary Ridge (Third Battle of Chattanooga) and was never again able to travel in very hot weathers. This handicap affected his career as an ethnologist.

After the war, Brinton practiced medicine in West Chester, Pennsylvania for several years; was the editor of a weekly periodical, the Medical and Surgical Reporter, in Philadelphia from 1874 to 1887; became professor of Ethnology and Archaeology in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1884; and was professor of American linguistics and Archaeology in the University of Pennsylvania from 1886 until his death (July 31, 1899).

He was a member of numerous learned societies in the United States and in Europe and was president at different times of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, of the American Folklore Society, the American Philosophical Society, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

From 1868 to 1899, Brinton wrote many books, and a large number of pamphlets, brochures, addresses and magazine articles. His works include: The Myths of the New World (1868); A Guide-Book of Florida and the South (1869); The Religious Sentiment: its Sources and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and Philosophy of Religion (1876); American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent (1882); The Annals of the Cakchiquels (1885); A Lenâpé-English Dictionary (1889); Ancient Nahuatl Poetry (1890); Essays of an Americanist (1890); Races and Peoples: Lectures on the Science of Ethnography (1890); The American Race (1891); The Pursuit of Happiness (1893); Nagualism. A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History (1894); A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics (1895); and Religions of Primitive People (1897).

From Brinton's fundamental essay American Hero-Myths (which our publishing house has already republished in 2019), undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and complete work on the comparative mythology of the ancient American peoples, we have selected the study Quetzalcoatl: The Hero-God of the Aztec Tribes. We propose it to our readers today.

Nicola Bizzi

Florence, June 14, 2024.

Daniel Garrison Brinton in a portrait by Thomas Eakins, circa 1899

(University of Pennsylvania)

CHAPTER I.

THE TWO ANTAGONISTS

THE CONTEST OF QUETZALCOATL AND TEZCATLIPOCA –

QUETZALCOATL THE LIGHT-GOD – DERIVATION OF HIS NAME – TITLES OF TEZCATLIPOCA – IDENTIFIED WITH DARKNESS, NIGHT AND GLOOM

The culture hero of the Aztecs was Quetzalcoatl, and the leading drama, the central myth, in all the extensive and intricate theology of the Nahuatl speaking tribes was his long contest with Tezcatlipoca, «a contest», observes an eminent Mexican antiquary, «which came to be the main element in the Nahuatl religion and the cause of its modifications, and which materially influenced the destinies of that race from its earliest epochs to the time of its destruction»1.

The explanations which have been offered of this struggle have varied with the theories of the writers propounding them. It has been regarded as a simple historical fact; as a figure of speech to represent the struggle for supremacy between two races; as an astronomical statement referring to the relative positions of the planet Venus and the Moon; as a conflict between Christianity, introduced by Saint Thomas, and the native heathenism; and as having other meanings not less unsatisfactory or absurd.

Placing it side by side with other American hero-myths, we shall see that it presents essentially the same traits, and undoubtedly must be explained in the same manner. All of them are the transparent stories of a simple people, to express in intelligible terms the daily struggle that is ever going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm and Sunshine.

Like all the heroes of light, Quetzalcoatl is identified with the East. He is born there, and arrives from there, and hence Las Casas and others speak of him as from Yucatan, or as landing on the shores of the Mexican Gulf from some unknown land. His day of birth was that called Ce Acatl, One Reed, and by this name he is often known. But this sign is that of the East in Aztec symbolism2. In a myth of the formation of the sun and moon, presented by Sahagun3, a voluntary victim springs into the sacrificial fire that the Gods have built. They know that he will rise as the sun, but they do not know in what part of the horizon that will be. Some look one way, some another, but Quetzalcoatl watches steadily the East, and is the first to see and welcome the Orb of Light. He is fair in complexion, with abundant hair and a full beard, bordering on the red4, as are all the dawn heroes, and like them he was an instructor in the arts, and favored peace and mild laws.

His name is symbolic, and is capable of several equally fair renderings. The first part of it, quetzalli, means literally a large, handsome green feather, such as were very highly prized by the natives. Hence it came to mean, in an adjective sense, precious, beautiful, beloved, admirable. The bird from which these feathers were obtained was the quetzal-tototl (tototl, bird) and is called by ornithologists Trogon Splendens.

The latter part of the name, coatl, has in Aztec three entirely different meanings. It means a guest, also twins, and lastly, as a syncopated form of cohuatl, a serpent. Metaphorically, cohuatl meant something mysterious, and hence a supernatural being, a god. Thus Montezuma, when he built a temple in the city of Mexico dedicated to the whole body of divinities, a regular Pantheon, named it Coatecalli, the House of the Serpent5.

Through these various meanings a good defence can be made of several different translations of the name, and probably it bore even to the natives different meanings at different times. I am inclined to believe that the original sense was that advocated by Becerra in the seventeenth century, and adopted by Veitia in the eighteenth, both competent Aztec scholars6. They translate Quetzalcoatl as “the admirable twin”, and though their notion that this refers to Thomas Didymus, the Apostle, does not meet my views, I believe they were right in their etymology. The reference is to the duplicate nature of the Light-God as seen in the setting and rising sun, the sun of today and yesterday, the same yet different. This has its parallels in many other mythologies7.

The correctness of this supposition seems to be shown by a prevailing superstition among the Aztecs about twins, and which strikingly illustrates the uniformity of mythological conceptions throughout the world. All readers are familiar with the twins Romulus and Remus in Roman story, one of whom was fated to destroy their grandfather Amulius; with Edipus and Telephos, whose father Laios, was warned that his death would be by one of his children; with Theseus and Peirithoos, the former destined to cause the suicide of his father Aigeus; and with many more such myths. They can be traced, without room for doubt, back to simple expressions of the fact that the morning and the evening of the one day can only come when the previous day is past and gone; expressed figuratively by the statement that any one day must destroy its predecessor. This led to the stories of “the fatal children”, which we find so frequent in Aryan mythology8.

The Aztecs were a coarse and bloody race, and carried out their superstitions without remorse. Based, no doubt, on this mythical expression of a natural occurrence, they had the belief that if twins were allowed to live, one or the other of them would kill and eat his father or mother; therefore, it was their custom when such were brought into the world to destroy one of them9.

We shall see that, as in Algonkin story Michabo strove to slay his father, the West Wind, so Quetzalcoatl was in constant warfare with his father, Tezcatlipoca-Camaxtli, the Spirit of Darkness. The effect of this oftrepeated myth on the minds of the superstitious natives was to lead them to the brutal child murder I have mentioned.

It was, however, natural that the more ordinary meaning, “the feathered or bird-serpent”, should become popular, and in the picture writing some combination of the serpent with feathers or other part of a bird was often employed as the rebus of the name Quetzalcoatl.

He was also known by other names, as, like all the prominent Gods in early mythologies, he had various titles according to the special attribute or function which was uppermost in the mind of the worshipper. One of these was Papachtic, He of the Flowing Locks, a word which the Spaniards shortened to Papa, and thought was akin to their title of the Pope. It is, however, a pure Nahuatl word10, and refers to the abundant hair with which he was always credited, and which, like his ample beard, was, in fact, the symbol of the sun’s rays, the aureole or glory of light which surrounded his face.

Tezcatlipoca

His fair complexion was, as usual, significant of light. This association of ideas was so familiar among the Mexicans that at the time of an eclipse of the sun they sought out the whitest men and women they could find, and sacrificed them, in order to pacify the sun11.

His opponent, Tezcatlipoca, was the most sublime figure in the Aztec Pantheon. He towered above all other Gods, as did Jove in Olympus. He was appealed to as the creator of heaven and earth, as present in every place, as the sole ruler of the world, as invisible and omniscient.

The numerous titles by which he was addressed illustrate the veneration in which he was held. His most common name in prayers was Titlacauan, We are his Slaves. As believed to be eternally young, he was Telpochtli, the Youth; as potent and unpersuadable, he was Moyocoyatzin, the Determined Doer12; as exacting in worship, Monenegui, He who Demands Prayers; as the master of the race, Teyocoyani, Creator of Men, and Teimatini, Disposer of Men. As he was jealous and terrible, the God who visited on men plagues, and famines, and loathsome diseases, the dreadful deity who incited wars and fomented discord, he was named Yaotzin, “the Arch Enemy”, Yaotl necoc, “theEnemy of both Sides”, Moquequeloa, “the Mocker”, Nezaualpilli, “the Lord who Fasts”, Tlamatzincatl, “He who Enforces Penitence”; and as dark, invisible and inscrutable, he was Yoalli ehecatl, “the Night Wind”13.

He was said to be formed of thin air and darkness; and when he was seen of men it was as a shadow without substance. He alone of all the Gods defied the assaults of time, was ever young and strong, and grew not old with years14. Against such an enemy who could hope for victory?

The name “Tezcatlipoca” is one of odd significance. It means The Smoking Mirror. This strange metaphor has received various explanations. The mirrors in use among the Aztecs were polished plates of obsidian, trimmed to a circular form. There was a variety of this black stone called tezcapoctli, smoky mirror stone, and from this his images were at times made15. This, however, seems too trivial an explanation.

Others have contended that Tezcatlipoca, as undoubtedly the spirit of darkness and the night, refers, in its meaning, to the moon, which hangs like a bright round mirror in the sky, though

partly dulled by what the natives thought a smoke16.

I am inclined to believe, however, that the mirror referred to is that first and most familiar of all, the surface of water: and that the smoke is the mist which at night rises from lake and river, as actual smoke does in the still air.

As presiding over the darkness and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk and the coyote17.

Thus his names, his various attributes, his sacred animals and his myths unite in identifying this deity as a primitive personification of the Darkness, whether that of the storm or of the night18.

This is further shown by the beliefs current as to his occasional appearance on earth. This was always at night and in the gloom of the forest. The hunter would hear a sound like the crash of falling trees, which would be nothing else than the mighty breathings of the giant form of the god on his nocturnal rambles. Were the hunter timorous he would die outright on seeing the terrific presence of the God; but were he of undaunted heart, and should rush upon him and seize him around the waist, the God was helpless and would grant him anything he wished. «Ask what you please», the captive Deity would say, «and it is yours. Only fail not to release me before the sun rises. For I must leave before it appears»19.

CHAPTER II.

QUETZALCOATL THE GOD

MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS – THE FOUR SUNS AND THE ELEMENTAL CONFLICT – NAMES OF THE FOUR BROTHERS

In the ancient and purely mythical narrative, Quetzalcoatl is one of four divine brothers, Gods like himself, born in the uttermost or thirteenth heaven to the infinite and uncreated deity, which, in its male manifestations, was known as Tonaca tecutli, Lord of our Existence, and Tzin teotl, God of the Beginning, and in its female expressions as Tonaca cihuatl, Queen of our Existence, Xochiquetzal, Beautiful Rose, Citlallicue, the Star-skirted or the Milky Way, Citlalatonac, the Star that warms, or The Morning, and Chicome coatl, the Seven Serpents20.

The usual translation of Tonaca tecutli is “God of our Subsistence”, to, our, naca, flesh, tecutli, chief or lord. It really has a more subtle meaning. Naca is not applied to edible flesh – that is expressed by the word nonoac – but is the flesh of our own bodies, our life, existence. (See Anales de Cuauhtitlan).

Of these four brothers, two were the black and the red Tezcatlipoca, and the fourth was Huitzilopochtli, the Left handed, the deity adored beyond all others in the city of Mexico. Tezcatlipoca – for the two of the name blend rapidly into one as the myth progresses – was wise beyond compute; he knew all thoughts and hearts, could see to all places, and was distinguished for power and forethought.

At a certain time the four brothers gathered together and consulted concerning the creation of things. The work was left to Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli. First they made fire, then half a sun, the heavens, the waters and a certain great fish therein, called Cipactli, and from its flesh the solid earth. The first mortals were the man, Cipactonal, and the woman, Oxomuco21, and that the son born to them might have a wife, the four Gods made one for him out of a hair taken from the head of their divine mother, Xochiquetzal.

Now began the struggle between the two brothers, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, which was destined to destroy time after time the world, with all its inhabitants, and to plunge even the heavenly luminaries into a common ruin.

The half sun created by Quetzalcoatl lighted the world but poorly, and the four Gods came together to consult about adding another half to it. Not waiting for their decision, Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into a sun, whereupon the other Gods filled the world with great giants, who could tear up trees with their hands. When an epoch of thirteen times fifty-two years had passed, Quetzalcoatl seized a great stick, and with a blow of it knocked Tezcatlipoca from the sky into the waters, and himself became sun. The fallen God transformed himself into a tiger, and emerged from the waves to attack and devour the giants with which his brothers had enviously filled the world which he had been lighting from the sky. After this, he passed to the nocturnal heavens, and became the constellation of the Great Bear.

For an epoch the earth flourished under Quetzalcoatl as sun, but Tezcatlipoca was merely biding his time, and the epoch ended, he appeared as a tiger and gave Quetzalcoatl such a blow with his paw that it hurled him from the skies. The overthrown God revenged himself by sweeping the earth with so violent a tornado that it destroyed all the inhabitants but a few, and these were changed into monkeys. His victorious brother then placed in the heavens, as sun, Tlaloc, the god of darkness, water and rains, but after half an epoch, Quetzalcoatl poured a flood of fire upon the earth, drove Tlaloc from the sky, and placed in his stead, as sun, the Goddess Chalchiutlicue, the Emerald Skirted, wife of Tlaloc. In her time the rains poured so upon the earth that all human beings were drowned or changed into fishes, and at last the heavens themselves fell, and sun and stars were alike quenched.

Then the two brothers whose strife had brought this ruin, united their efforts and raised again the sky, resting it on two mighty trees, the Tree of the Mirror (tezcaquahuitl) and the Beautiful Great Rose Tree (quetzalveixochitl), on which the concave heavens have ever since securely rested; though we know them better, perhaps, if we drop the metaphor and call them the “mirroring sea” and the “flowery earth”, on one of which reposes the horizon, in whichever direction we may look.

Again the four brothers met together to provide a sun for the now darkened earth. They decided to make one, indeed, but such a one as would eat the hearts and drink the blood of victims, and there must be wars upon the earth, that these victims could be obtained for the sacrifice. Then Quetzalcoatl builded a great fire and took his son – his son born of his own flesh, without the aid of woman – and cast him into the flames, whence he rose into the sky as the sun which lights the world. When the Light-God kindles the flames of the dawn in the orient sky, shortly the sun emerges from below the horizon and ascends the heavens. Tlaloc, God of waters, followed, and into the glowing ashes of the pyre threw his son, who rose as the moon.

Quetzalcoatl

Tezcatlipoca had it now in mind to people the earth, and he, therefore, smote a certain rock with a stick, and from it issued four hundred barbarians (chichimeca)22. Certain five Goddesses, however, whom he had already created in the eighth heaven, descended and slew these four hundred, all but three. These Goddesses likewise died before the sun appeared, but came into being again from the garments they had left behind. So also did the four hundred Chichimecs, and these set about to burn one of the five Goddesses, by name Coatlicue, the Serpent Skirted, because it was discovered that she was with child, though yet unmarried. But, in fact, she was a spotless virgin, and had known no man. She had placed some white plumes in her bosom, and through these the God Huitzilopochtli entered her body to be born again. When, therefore, the four hundred had gathered together to burn her, the God came forth fully armed and slew them every one.

It is not hard to guess who are these four hundred youths slain before the sun rises, destined to be restored to life and yet again destroyed. The veil of metaphor is thin which thus conceals to our mind the picture of the myriad stars quenched every morning by the growing light, but returning every evening to their appointed places. And did any doubt remain, it is removed by the direct statement in the echo of this tradition preserved by the Kiches of Guatemala, wherein it is plainly said that the four hundred youths who were put to death by Zipacna, and restored to life by Hunhun Ahpu, «rose into the sky and became the stars of heaven»23.

Indeed, these same ancient men whose explanations I have been following added that the four hundred men whom Tezcatlipoca created continued yet to live in the third heaven, and were its guards and watchmen. They were of five colors, yellow, black, white, blue and red, which in the symbolism of their tongue meant that they were distributed around the zenith and to each of the four cardinal points24.

Nor did these sages suppose that the struggle of the dark Tezcatlipoca to master the Light-God had ceased; no, they knew he was biding his time, with set purpose and a fixed certainty of success. They knew that in the second heaven there were certain frightful women, without flesh or bones, whose names were the Terrible, or the Thin Dart-Throwers, who were waiting there until this world should end, when they would descend and eat up all mankind25. Asked concerning the time of this destruction, they replied that as to the day or season they knew it not, but it would be «when Tezcatlipoca should steal the sun from heaven for himself»; in other words, when eternal night should close in upon the Universe26.

The myth which I have here given in brief is a prominent one in Aztec cosmogony, and is known as that of the Ages of the World or the Suns. The opinion was widely accepted that the present is the fifth age or period of the world’s history; that it has already undergone four destructions by various causes, and that the present period is also to terminate in another such catastrophe. The agents of such universal ruin have been a great flood, a world-wide conflagration, frightful tornadoes and famine, earthquakes and wild beasts, and hence the Ages, Suns or Periods were called respectively, from their terminations, those of Water, Fire, Air and Earth. As we do not know the destiny of the fifth, the present one, it has as yet no name.