Zompist Bboard Again

One explanation I read that really makes sense to me is Philip K. Dick's. Christianity is like a mutation, or gene therapy if you like, and communion spreads the virus/genes/whatever.

'Body' and 'blood' would be really sort of DNA code.

(I'm, um, not sure the Church accepts Dick's theology.)

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:37 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:22 pm Someone had to actually argue on catholic.org that transubstantiation is not actually cannibalism even though their arguments seemed a bit thin...

As opposed to the arguments that it's actually cannibalism? I mean, come on, it's not.

That page is forced to argue from an Aristotelian ideology that was hot shit 800 years ago but no one accepts as science today. It would be difficult, though, to even define transubstantiation using modern science.

Well of course transubstantiation is not cannibalism - it's a damn wafer and wine after all, and consecrating it does not change that. But that article was arguing that Catholics don't actually believe it is cannibalism, even though their arguments sound awfully like they believe they are actually the body and blood of Christ, and it does not do a good job of it.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:49 pmBut that article was arguing that Catholics don't actually believe it is cannibalism, even though their arguments sound awfully like they believe they are actually the body and blood of Christ, and it does not do a good job of it.

This is, in fact, what every single Catholic I've ever known has believed, included myself. If they really thought it was equivalent to cannibalism, they wouldn't consume it.

Despite being an ordained deacon, my father held a heretical position on the issue. When I asked him, he explained it away as a metaphor, saying that just because Christ actually said "This is my body" the Church had to insist on the literal truth of that statement.

The way the nuns explained it to us, it didn't become the physical body of Christ--the one he used to walk the earth--but his glorified body--the one he obtained after his resurrection and took to Heaven with him. This was good enough for primarily schoolers to believe that we weren't actually noshing on a corpse. Essentially, it's God. God's not like anyone else, his body isn't like anyone else's, so eating his body isn't at all like eating anyone else's.

This is why the climax of More tales of the city didn't ring the least bit true to me. Nobody raised in the Catholic tradition would consider cannibalism "one step beyond transubstantiation"; it's several steps behind because you're substituting a mere dead human body for the living divine body of Jesus Christ. It makes as much sense as saying that praying to a statue of Jesus Christ you can see and touch is "one step beyond" praying to Jesus himself.

But trying to explain the most sacred mysteries of your religious tradition to outside sceptics is as much of a mug's game as there ever was.

IINM the Romans used to consider Christians cannibals, but I don't know whether they genuinely believed that.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:15 pm
iquac ticcaoa quac aca tiquiana iquac (illegible) ca ie totecuyo, ca totequacauh auh ie toiaouh
when we-him-leave then someone we-him-take, truly already our-lord, truly our-lord-??, and he-our-enemy
ipampa in ne(illegible) mach ontlatlatlami tlatolli inic tlapalolo inic tlatlauhtilo.
that-for ART that.one(?) reportedly there-indef.pl.-cover speech as salute-PASS as pray-PASS

My own free translation would be something like this: 'When we replace him (the king) with someone, that one is already our Lord, our Lord (??) and our Enemy. For that reason, he (the one advising the new king) covers his speech in reverence and supplication.

I have absolutely no idea what totequacauh means. The totequ- bit could be 'our lord', but I just give up on the rest.

totecuacauh is the possessed form of te:cuani "predator/man-eater/jaguar" - "he is our predator".

Oh, thanks! I actually figured that one out later on. (I gather figuratively it means a goon.)

I think there is a cultural tradition that likens warriors to predatory animals - think of the eagle and jaguar and coyote warrior societies for example. So both tecuani and yaotl refer to the ruler as a warrior.

Okay, this has been a very long wait... Sorry about that. It's been a long year.
(On the plus side, I got some extra books and I have a somewhat better grasp of Nahuatl.)

Anyway, I think it's time to get on with this thread, and this time we'll get into religion.

It's been sometime and we'll handle quite a few hairy Nahuatl names, so I think I'll begin with a short pronunciation guide.

Nahuatl has four vowels: <a>, <e>, <i>, <o>. <a>, <e>, i have more or less the values you'd expect from Spanish; <o> can be [o] or [ u ]. Classical Nahuatl had vowel length, and long vowels are indicated with a macron. The problem is, our original sources didn't distinguish vowel length in writing; it's mostly known from reconstruction, and not all of my sources bother with them. I'll try to mark them if I can find the info.

<h> is a glottal stop. Again, sources don't always bother with it. <c> is /s/ before e, i, <k> otherwise; <qu> is /k/. <uc> and <cu> is /kʷ/ <uh> and <hu> are /w/. <ch> is /tʃ/ and <x> is /ʃ/. <z> is /s/, and <tz> is /ts/. <tl> is a lateral affricate /tɬ/ but you guesses that already.

Stress falls consistently on the penultimate.

So for instance: Huīxtohcihuātl: /wi:ʃtoʔ'siwa:tɬ/, Tezcatlipoca /teskatɬi'poka/, Ehēcatl /eʔe:'katɬ/


The Calendar

I think it's not a bad idea to begin with the calendars -- both of them. The calendars were at the base of much of Mexica thought and religion; we'll get to run through some of the symbolism, the major gods, the holidays and the associated sacrifices.

The calendar is roughly similar across Mesoamerica; the Mexican calendar isn't unlike the Maya calendar -- what's missing is the Long Count, of 2012 fame.

Divinatory calendar.

The tōnalpōhualli 'counted days' was a 260-day cycle. Linguistic notes: this incorporates tōnalli, a complex notion with several related meanings: the heat of the sun, a day, one's fate and the soul.
There are twenty series of thirteen-days (trecenas; the original Nahuatl has been lost), running through twenty signs:

1. Cipactli. Crocodile (alternatively, an alligator or a mythological monster)
2. Ehēcatl Wind
3. Calli House
4. Cuetzpalin Lizard
5. Cōātl Snake
6. Miquiztli Death
7. Mazātl Deer
8. Tōchtli Rabbit
9. Ātl Water
10. Itzcuintli Dog
11. Ozomahtli Monkey
12. Malīnalli Grass
13. Ācatl Reed
14. Ocēlōtl Jaguar
15. Cuāuhtli Eagle
16. Cōzcacuāuhtli Vulture
17. Olīn Earthquake
18. Tecpatl Flint
19. Quiyahuitl Rain
20. Xōchitl Flower

How does that work? You start counting 1 Crocodile, then 2 Wind (going through the day signs and adding one to the count) until you reach 13 Reed; at which point you go back to one (but keep counting through the day signs): 1 Jaguar, 2 Eagle, 3 Vulture...

A similar system is found all across Mesoamerica -- the earliest attestation is from Olmec times, ca 650 BC with a fair bit of local variation. (The day signs are generally different, to begin with.)

I haven't found a satisfying explanation for the origin of the 260 days cycle. Some interesting theories can be found over at Wikipedia.
The Mexica held that the calendar was invented by Cipactōnal and Oxomoco (represented as an old man and an old woman; sources differ on which is the man and which is the woman.)

People might be named for the day of their birth; if you're born on 1 Crocodile you'll be called Ce Cipactli, Cipac for short. This extends to god; in his capacity as the god of banquet, Tezcatlipoca is known as Ōme ācatl 'Two Reed.'
Each of the sign is associated to a god, sometimes two.

Your birthday is essentially your destiny (that's one meaning of tōnalli). Whether that fate is good or bad is determined by the first day of the trecena; this is further refined by two other counts: the thirteen 'lords of the day' (the thirteen Heavens of Mesoamerican cosmology) and the nine 'lords of the night' (the nine levels of the Underworld.)

Generally, the first series of thirteen days, beginning with 1 Crocodile is a good one: children born then will be powerful lords (if noble) or brave and prosperous (if commoners). The next series, however, is pretty dire: these thirteen days are tēcuāntōnalli, days of wild beasts or devouring days. To wit: 'of those born of these, all became slaves', 'all bad was his lot', 'he only wallowed in evil and became covered in filth', 'would die in war, be abandoned, imprisoned, seized.'
Well, you get the idea.
There's more than a little fatalism to this: 'Thus was his day sign, thus was his life' but you could to some extent avert this by being "diligent and careful", "a doer of penances", "one who fast[s] and [bleeds] himself'", "sweeps" (The Mexica were obsessed with sweeping; a metaphor, I guess for virtue as filth was a metaphor for sin), being "chaste and consciencous". Those born on Two Rabbit do nothing but drink wine. Three Rabbit will give you an okay sort of life, neither good nor bad.

(All quotes from the Florentine Codex, book IV)


A sort of name-giving ceremony (not entirely unlike baptism) was held for newborn children; the ceremony could be delayed, a little, to mitigate the fate a bit. A professional sooth sayer was consulted; sources and native condices are sometimes in conflict, vague or contradictory about omens. The system was complex enough to give the fortune teller some leeway in interpretation. Presumably the predictions given were terribly vague, as is always the case.

The solar calendar

The Mexica kept a solar year of eighteen months of twenty days. This adds up to 360 days; to these are added five nēmontēmi 'insufficient' days. These five days were of ill omen, and someone born on these was known as a nēmoquichtli and would be useless, unhappy.

Each month was associated with a god; and most (but not all!) of the religious holidays were tied to the solar calendar.
Additionally, markets would be scheduled according to a five day "week."

Each month corresponded to a religious festival, held in honor of a specific god (or several). These almost always involved human sacrifice.
So I have to issue a content warning: some of it is graphic and disturbing. Then again, I don't think it would be fair to mention religious holidays without mentioning sacrifice and it's not fair either not to describe them.
The Florentine Codex mostly focuses on the sacrifices, and this is reflected in my description. It's worth mentioning that the festivals weren't only about the sacrifice: all involved penances, self-mortification and on a more positive note, dances, songs, and feasts. A common practice was fashioning images of certain gods out of amaranth, and then eating these -- followed by various penances. (The commonest penances were cutting oneself with cactus spines to draw blood -- in fact, the most common form of sacrifice, vigils, and sometimes strenuous fasts.)


It's not terribly clear whether the Mexica had leap years or not. The Florentine Codex implies they do; other sources I read warn they didn't. We do know it shifted as different sources disagree on the dates corresponding to the Mexica months.
Most of the ceremonies seems seasonal and related to agriculture -- but given a gradual shift, the Spaniards may have gotten quite the wrong idea about them!

Religious holidays also occured on specific days of the divinatory calendar.

Other Nahua had more or less similar months, with some variations. The Tlaxcallans had Lesser and Greater Feasts of the Dead instead of Tlaxōchimaco and Xocohuetzi, for instance.


Bundle of years.

The Mexica used the coincidence of the 260-day and 365-day cycles.
The two calendars coincide once every fifty-two years, forming a xiuhmolpīlli, 'a bundle of years', their equivalent of a century.

Solar years were named according to the day in the 260-day calendar with which they began; the cycle always ended on a 2-Reed year. (Fairly inauspicious)

The end of a 52-year cycle was, quite literally the end of the world. The Tzitzimimeh (female star ~demons(**), roughly) could take advantage of the situation to descend upon the earth and devour all of it.

A New Fire ceremony had to performed to avert the danger. All fires would be extinguished; a new fire would be started in the torso of a sacrificial victim. Huge bonfires were lit. People would draw bleed from their ears and offer it in sacrifice to the new fire.

(**) In fact they were worshipped by women, and especially by women, associated with childbirth and women dying in childbirth. During those fateful days, pregnant women could turn into demons. To say that the Mexica had a deeply ambivalent attitude towards women would be quite an understatement.

Venusian years

In addition to these two calendars, the Mexica (and in fact, most of Mesoamerica) kept track of the Venusian year. The Venusian year and the divinatory calendar coincide every eight years. The festival of Ātamalcualiztli (celebrating water) was held then.

Yay! Another Meet the Mexica!

No comments for now… I did try to read it, but my computer suddenly crashed when I got to the human sacrifice part. This is probably a sign of something or other.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 4:06 am my computer suddenly crashed when I got to the human sacrifice part. This is probably a sign of something or other.

Man, I hope not!

Nothing much to say from my side, just thanks for doing this thread. I've always been interested in that region since reading Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" as a boy.

Cosmology

The creator, or perhaps creating principle, is a double god: Ōme Teotl or Ōme Teuctli 'the god Two' or 'Lord Two', and his wife Ōme Cihuātl 'Lady Two'. Ōme Teotl is Tlōque Nāhaque, 'Lord of the Near and the Far' and Īpalnemohuani 'Him by whom we live'

The Dual Gods reside in Ōmeyōcān the place of duality, were all souls are conceived. (The heavens are conceived as divided i n thirteenth levels; Ōmeyōcān is naturally the highest ones.)

They have four sons, the four Tezcatlipocas, who each govern one of the cardinal directions:

• The red Tezcatlipoca, Mixcoatl or Xipe Totec, governing East and the rising sun.
• The black Tezcatlipoca, the greatest and the worst of the four -- because he was born 'in the middle' -- Tezcatlipoca proper, governing the North, the cold and night.
• The white Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, god of the West and the rising sun.
• The blue Tezcatlicopa, Huitzilopochtli, god of the South, war and noon.

As is typical of mythology generally, the sources are fairly contradictory over which Tezcatlipoca corresponds to which god and which cardinal point.
Huitzilopochtli is the Mexica tribal god and unlike the other gods, worshipped by other Nahuas, if not all over Mesoamerica, pretty specific to them. The Tlaxcallan substituted their war god, Camaxtli. He also has an entirely different origin story.

Tezcatlipoca proper is the chief god, the 'All Powerful', and generally identified with the creator -- he also bears the title of Tlōque Nāhaque and Īpalnemohuani.

Creation

After their birth, the gods did nothing at all for six hundred years, the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas informs us, after which Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl, under the direction of the others, proceeded to creation.
They began with fire, and then a half-sun. After that, they created Cipactōnal and Oxomoco, the first man and woman, then created the calendar. Then they created Mictlāntēuctli and Mictlāncihuātl, the lord and lady of the Underworld, the gods of death and the nine levels of the Underworld. Then they created the heavens below the thirteenth.

They also created water, and the gods of water, Tlaloc and his consort Chālchiuhtlicue. Swimming in the water was Cipactli, an alligator (or a crocodilian monster). Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca fashion the earth out of the monster; Cipactli puts up quite a fight, and devours Tezcatlipoca's foot.

(Tezcatlipoca is associated with the big dipper. I'm told the Big Dipper is almost vertical from Mexico's latitude, and the Mesoamerican saw it as a one-legged god -- the other leg being devoured by the Earth.)

The Four Suns
The gods had only created a half-sun, that gave very little light. That was not very satisfactory, so Tezcatlipoca himself turned himself into the sun.

The First Sun lasted for thirteen bundles of years, so 676 years and the other gods created giants to people the Earth.
On the year 4-Jaguar, Quetzalcoatl gave his brother a blow with a big stick. Tezcatlipoca fell into the sea, turned into jaguars, which devoured all the giants.

Quetzatlipoca became the sun in turn. The Second Sun lasted 676 years, and during this time human beings ate nothing but pine nuts. In the year 4-Wind, Tezcatlipoca turned into a jaguar and kicked Quetzalcoatl in the ass 'which upset him.' A terrible wind (In Nahua thought, Quetzalcoatl is the wind) carried away all human beings. Some remained suspended in the air, others were turned into monkeys.

Tlaloc became the Third Sun, for seven bundles of years (364 years.) The food was again, terrible; this time human beings had nothing to eat but a kind of water weed similar to maize
On the year 4-Rain, Quetzalcoatl sent a rain of fire -- human beings turned into birds.

Tlaloc's wife, Chālchiuhtlicue became the Fourth Sun, which lasted for six bundles of years (312 years.) Humans ate another kind of weed -- again, similar to maize.

In the last year of the Fourth Sun, 4-Water, it rained so much that the heaven themselves fell on earth, and all human beings were turned into fish.

Seeing that the heavens had crumbled, the gods created four men to assist them; Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca turned themselves into trees, and god and men together raised the heavens again.

The Fifth Sun
All gods met in Tula, or possibly Teotihuacan, to create a new sun. A god must jump into a ritual bonfire to be turned into the sun. A candidate shows up; his name is Tēucciztēcatl 'Conch Shell'. The gods would rather have another volunteer, just in case and select the old and sickly Nānāhuatzin (the Pustulent One'.) The Pustulent One accepts the one gratefully.
Both gods fast and practice self-mortification for four days. The instruments Tēucciztēcatl are all precious things: quetzal feathers to flagellate himself with, spines of jade, with red coral representing blood he brings top-quality incense as offerings. Nānāhuatzin uses simple reeds and maguey spines, reddened with his own blood; he uses the scabs from his sores as incense.

Each remained on a hill to do penances: the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan.

After four days came time to jump into fire. Of course, Tēucciztēcatl, the proud and rich god never worked up the courage to sacrifice himself: he tried four times, and each time ran away from the heat. Now it's poor, pustulous Nānāhuatzin's turn, and he jumps into the fire at once.
Vexed, Tēucciztēcatl jumps as well.

After some time, Nānāhuatzin rises, transformed in Tōnatiuh, the Sun. But the cowardly Tēucciztēcatl soon rises as well, and the gods are left to debate what to do with two gods. They finally reach a decision, and one of the gods throws a rabbit into Tēucciztēcatl's face; his brilliance is diminished and he becomes Mētztli the moon. (Another version of the legends adds that the cowardly Tēucciztēcatl is mocked and dressed in rags by the Tzitzimimeh.)

The Sun and Moon rise, but still they remain motionless. Something is missing, something must be done to give them the strength to move. They require sacrifice. In the Florentine Codex, all the gods are slain by Ehcatl, the wind (that is to say, Quetzalcoatl.) In other versions, humans are created for the purpose of sacrifice.

How about us poor humans, by the way? Last time we saw human beings they were drowned or turned into fishes. The gods recreate them; in some version Quetzalcoatl has to undertake an arduous journey into Mictlān, the Underworld to recover the bones, along with Xōlōtl, his dog-headed twin brother. The bones are then planted like seed, to renew humankind.

The Mexica being generally fairly pessimistic in outlook, the fifth sun will also end, this will occur in a year 4-Earthquake. The earth will be destroyed in a gigantic earthquake, and all of mankind will die, probably devoured by the Tzitzimimeh.


Various notes
We find several version of the Legend of the Five Suns. Not all sources will agree on the order of the suns, or which of the gods were suns, and when. The above is taken from the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas and the Florentine codex. The myth was very prevalent in Mesoamerica. I like the version in the Mayan Popol Vuh a lot, myself.
The Mexica also held that the Sun was Huitzilopochtli, the national war god.

According to the Mexica, we only see the real sun from dawn to noon; what we see from noon to sunset is but its reflection.
The Nahuatl Tōnatiuh is linguistically interesting: it's a compound of tōna 'sunny, warmth' and the directional suffix -tiuh 'to move, to go, to go forth doing sth.': Tōnatiuh 'goes forth being warm.'

Teotihuacan is a real place; it was the site of a predecessor civilization, a city inhabited between 100BC and 600-700 AD. We're not entirely sure who lived there; they may have spoken a Totonacan or Mixe–Zoquean language. The native name is perhaps represented by the Maya glyph for 'Reed.' The Nahuatl equivalent is Tōllān, also the name of a later city we call Tula. (Generally Tōllān and the demonym Tōltēcah can be taken as referring to civilization, and great crafstmanship in general.)

The Mexica found the place incredibly awe-inspiring; their name for the city could mean 'Where the gods are made', or more likely 'where they have great gods.'
Mesoamerican civilization were prone to sudden collapse. The Mexica were surrounded by ruins of previous fallen civilization -- and came very close to extinction a few times themselves. That probably explains some of their grimdark outlook.

This is so great

Thanks!

The Afterlife

In Mexica belief, much depended on the manner of your death. The kind of afterlife you get, and even the funeral practice depend on the way you died.
At first glance, this is entirely arbitrary and there's not much of a sense of reward and punishment. But on second thought, hey, maybe there is. If Tezcatlipoca or Tlaloc are satisfied with you, they'll arrange matters so that you die in a "good" way, that is, in a way that allows you to enter the better kinds of afterlife.

Mictlān

Those who die of natural causes go to Mictlān (quite literally, the place of the dead), ruled by Mictlāntēuctli, the Lord of the Land of the Dead and his consort, Mictlāncihuātl. The Spaniards translated this as infierno, 'hell', and vice-verso when translating into Nahuatl, leading to a certain confusion. As we'll see, Mictlān isn't pleasant at all; but going there isn't considered punishment.

Mictlān is in the North, mictlāmpa 'towards the land of the dead.' So, as one dude on Twitter quipped, to the Mexica hell was the United States. (More seriously, though, northern Mexico is steppe and desert, pretty fitting for the land of the Dead.)

Anyway, words of consolation are offered to the mourners, and ornaments of paper are fashioned for the newly deceased. Some water in a bowl is offered as well, and the deceased is wrapped in a shroud, with the bowl and the paper ornaments. A green stone was placed in the deceased mouth; jade for the noblemen -- the commoners made do with ordinary stones.
The body was burned; the ceremony was presided over by old men called tlālhuahqueh ('those have earth') who sang 'canticles' and took care of the body. Afterwards the ashes and bones were buried in the deceased' calpōlli.

All of the deceased belonging were burned; this seems to have been done at separate intervals, after eighty days, then once a year for four years. A yellow dog was sacrificed and burned along with the deceased (don't forget about the dog.)

If noble, some of his slaves were sacrificed as well. Though not burned, they were interred separately -- the slaves would serve him the afterlife.

The burned belongings of the deceased would help him along in his four-year journey through Mictlān, a very arduous trips, going through:

• The place where mountains move and clash together.
• A road guarded by a serpent.
• The place guarded by Xōchitōnal, a blue lizard.
• The eight deserts.
• The eight hills
• The place of obsidian-bladed winds. (Obsidian blades and stones are swept along by the wind. A place of much suffering.)
• The place of the nine rivers. Do you remember the yellow dogs? His task is to carry his master across the river. It has to be yellow. (A white one will refuse to cross; it doesn't want to get dirty. A black one won't cross either: it will say it's already dirty.)
• Finally, the deceased reaches the nine places of the dead and complete oblivion

There are hints that possibly, the Mexica believed the deceased would be reborn somehow.

Tlalocān

This is the place where Tlalocān tēuctli,that is, the god Tlaloc reign and the Tlālōqueh, the small gods that preside over rain and thunder, serve as priests. Tlalocan is the land of eternal spring, there is great wealth, there are great riches, there is an abundance of food and the crops never fail.

Those who died struck by thunder, drowned, of syphillis, pustules, hemorrhoids, skin sores, festering, the gout, swellings or dropsy went to Tlalocan after death.
Logically, though somewhat counter-intuitively, if the Tlālōqueh strike you by lightning, it means they like you and want you to enjoy the better kind of afterlife. There's generally an element of divine election in general; if Tlaloc and the Tlālōqueh like you, you'll die in the appropriate fashion.
Those lucky ones were not burned, but buried. Their face was painted blue, and their body adorned with paper ornaments.

Tlalocān is in the East -- the word is also used for Mixtec country.

In īchān tōnatiuh

If you die in battle, or in gladiatorial sacrifice, or cast into the fire, or slain on a ritual cactus, well, if you die in war or human sacrifice, then you'll go in in īchān tōnatiuh, in the House of the Sun, to the East.
The place is like a desert; when the sun rises, the warriors howl and strike their shields together to encourage him. Those whose shield was pieced several time by arrows (ie, the most brave) were able to look into the Sun's face; those less brave didn't get that privilege.
Various edible sorts of cacti grew there; the dead also received their family's burnt offerings. After four years, they were reborn as carefree burns, especially hummingbirds or butterflies.
(Hummingbirds are associated to warriors. I haven't had the luck to see any real hummingbirds, but apparently they're fairly agressive birds.)

Cihuātlān

Cihuātlān, the place of women is in the West, Cihuātlāmpa, towards the setting sun. Childbirth is the equivalent of battle; so it's only fair that women who die in childbirth get a similar afterlife to warriors.
In addition, they're divinised as Cihuātēteoh (quite simply, 'women gods')

As I mentioned, the Mexica believed 'the real sun' is the one you see from dawn to noon; from noon to sunset will see a reflection.
Well, the women are tasked with cheering along the reflection from noon to dusk.

The Cihuātēteoh were fearsome divinity; they were worshipped, notably, by midwises. They were also held to haunt crossroads and lead men to perdition and adultery, cause madness, occasionally steal children. They were depicted in a scary fashion, with clenched fists, bare teeth and their skirts fastened by snakes.

(As usual, the attitude is one of mixed respect, disdain and fear.)

Tōnacācuauhtitlan

This is the land of Tōnacātēuctli and Tōnacācihuātl, the Lord and Lady of Abundance. These two gods don't get mentioned much, but they're quite possibly Ōme Teotl and Ōme Cihuātl, the Dual Gods / creative principles.

This is the place where chilren who died in a young age go. They nurse on Chīchīhualcuahuitl, the nursing / breastmilk tree (See here for a depiction: http://sites.estvideo.net/malinal/notes ... ahuitl.jpg) for a while before being reborn.

(I really like that last one. It's uncanny and sweet at the same time.)

A slight complication.

If, like me, you're a bit of a rule lawyer, you may have noticed something embarassing about all this. Defeated warriors get a pretty sweet kind of afterlife, but how about the winners? It seems they go to Mictlān, which is pretty dreadful, and a worse fate than people who die of hemorrhoids. Shouldn't they get to encourage the sun along its path and turn into butterflies too?
Didn't kings die in their bed on occasion? That would raise the unfortunate implication that perhaps Tezcatlipoca didn't like them well enough. (Actually, I don't think we know much on the way Nahua rulers died.)

A mesoamericanist, Michel Graulich, was apparently bothered by this too, and offered a theory to fix this. Essentially, he maintains, sacrificial victims acted as a kind of proxy. When a Mexica offered a captive or a slave, he symbolically died through sacrifice. The identification was further completed through eating the victim and hence victorious warriors, rulers, or rich merchants gained access to a better afterlife.
That makes a lot of sense, fits pretty neatly with what we know of the rituals and has the additional benefit of explaining some of the enthusiasm for sacrifice. The one problem is, I don't know if there is any textual evidence to support this.
Quite possibly the theory is wrong and it's not that much of a problem in the first place. Various culture worldwide dealt just fine with dreary afterlives (the Greeks, for instance.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:06 am Tlalocān is in the East -- the word is also used for Mixtec country.

In īchān tōnatiuh

If you die in battle, or in gladiatorial sacrifice, or cast into the fire, or slain on a ritual cactus, well, if you die in war or human sacrifice, then you'll go in in īchān tōnatiuh, in the House of the Sun, to the East.

So the East has two heavens and the South none?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:06 am If, like me, you're a bit of a rule lawyer, you may have noticed something embarassing about all this. Defeated warriors get a pretty sweet kind of afterlife, but how about the winners? It seems they go to Mictlān, which is pretty dreadful, and a worse fate than people who die of hemorrhoids. Shouldn't they get to encourage the sun along its path and turn into butterflies too?
...
A mesoamericanist, Michel Graulich, was apparently bothered by this too, and offered a theory to fix this. Essentially, he maintains, sacrificial victims acted as a kind of proxy. When a Mexica offered a captive or a slave, he symbolically died through sacrifice. The identification was further completed through eating the victim and hence victorious warriors, rulers, or rich merchants gained access to a better afterlife.
That makes a lot of sense, fits pretty neatly with what we know of the rituals and has the additional benefit of explaining some of the enthusiasm for sacrifice. The one problem is, I don't know if there is any textual evidence to support this.
Quite possibly the theory is wrong and it's not that much of a problem in the first place. Various culture worldwide dealt just fine with dreary afterlives (the Greeks, for instance.)

Actually, that looks very similar to Norse mythology - slain warriors go to Valhalla, survivors who die some other death go to the dreary underworld of Hel. Winning, of course, has its advantages in this world (fame, riches, power), but the true goal of the warrior is to go into battle again and again, until he dies.

hwhatting wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:06 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:06 am If, like me, you're a bit of a rule lawyer, you may have noticed something embarassing about all this. Defeated warriors get a pretty sweet kind of afterlife, but how about the winners? It seems they go to Mictlān, which is pretty dreadful, and a worse fate than people who die of hemorrhoids. Shouldn't they get to encourage the sun along its path and turn into butterflies too?
...
A mesoamericanist, Michel Graulich, was apparently bothered by this too, and offered a theory to fix this. Essentially, he maintains, sacrificial victims acted as a kind of proxy. When a Mexica offered a captive or a slave, he symbolically died through sacrifice. The identification was further completed through eating the victim and hence victorious warriors, rulers, or rich merchants gained access to a better afterlife.
That makes a lot of sense, fits pretty neatly with what we know of the rituals and has the additional benefit of explaining some of the enthusiasm for sacrifice. The one problem is, I don't know if there is any textual evidence to support this.
Quite possibly the theory is wrong and it's not that much of a problem in the first place. Various culture worldwide dealt just fine with dreary afterlives (the Greeks, for instance.)

Actually, that looks very similar to Norse mythology - slain warriors go to Valhalla, survivors who die some other death go to the dreary underworld of Hel. Winning, of course, has its advantages in this world (fame, riches, power), but the true goal of the warrior is to go into battle again and again, until he dies.

I had the very same thought when reading the above myself.

Thank you for continuing this series.

hwhatting wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 10:06 am So the East has two heavens and the South none?

That's correct; no heaven in the South. (The South gets the god Huitzilopochtli, youth, the color blue and a host of other associations.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Thu Aug 26, 2021 5:06 am Actually, that looks very similar to Norse mythology - slain warriors go to Valhalla, survivors who die some other death go to the dreary underworld of Hel. Winning, of course, has its advantages in this world (fame, riches, power), but the true goal of the warrior is to go into battle again and again, until he dies.

Yes, there's an interesting parallel here. (The Norse also practiced human sacrifice and shared a similar concern for the end of the world.)

The Gods
In true polytheist fashion, the Mexica had an elaborate and impressive pantheon, 'a god for everything', as an account has it. The multiple god do not contradict an outlook that feels, sometimes, almost monotheistic (Book V of the Florentine Codex, which concerns itself with ethics and politics refers often to Tezcatlipoca but mentions no other gods). This was built out of continual syncretism, newcomers (and the Mexica were very much barbarian newcomers) bringing their own gods (Huitzilopochtli, among others) and trying to make them fit among an existing pantheon (Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc), sometimes adopting gods from their neighbours (Xipe Totec).

I'll begin with four of the most important gods: Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc and Quetzalcoatl. (In the sense that they were important to the state and state function, and feature heavily in myths and accounts. Merchant and commonners had their own ideas; besides each city-state had a slightly different pantheon. )

The Florentine Codex records long, elaborate prayers to Tezcatlipoca; Sahagun's informants hold these as examples of good language, full of interesting metaphors and poetry. Tezcatlipoca is indeed adressed with an impressive array of epithets. Let's run some of these:
one of the most common epithet is Titlācahuān 'We are his slaves'. Another common one is Yohualli, Ehēcatl 'Night, Wind'. Sahagun has a clever formula to translate this difrasismo: 'invisible and intangible.'
Īpalnemōhuani 'By him one lives'
Tloque Nahaque '(Owner) of the Near, of the Far'
Teyōcoyani 'Creator of People', Teīxihmatini 'Maker of People', Moyōcoyahtzin ' Self-Creator', Moquehqueloa 'the Mocker.'

We also find Yaotl, 'Enemy', Necoc Yaotl 'the Enemy of both sides' Īpalnemōhuani 'By him one lives.' More encouragingly, he's also called Icnōhuahcātzintli 'Compassionate.'

Essentially, Tezcatlipoca is the creator and the ruler of the universe. (What about the two creators, Ōme Teotl and Ōme Cihuātl? These show up a bit in creation stories and as creator of souls, but in terms of practice and worship, Tezcatlipoca is the creator. In a sense he is Ōme Teotl and shares much of the same epithet.)

Mexica priests would pray to Tezcatlipoca so that he stops epidemics and famines (essentially, divine punishment. Tezcatlipoca rejoices in his righteous smiting -- it's assumed humans did something wrong to bring about divine wrath -- but may be amenable to prayer), so that he chooses and bless new rulers (on occasion, priests would pray that he kill unworthy rulers!)

Tezcatlipoca is, in essence, a supernatural king (the way priests adress the king or Tezcatlipoca closely parallel each other.) Though, really, it's the other way around. The king is the lieutenant of Tezcatlipoca and assumes the reed, the mat (we would say 'the throne') in his stead. The king is treated with some appropriate divine dread, on the other hand the king himself should be aware that he is only a very unworthy substitute.
To be worthy of the honor, the king must act towards Tezcatlipoca with appropriate reverence, self-abasement and supplication, much self-mortification, and nocturnal meditation. (Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a companion of Cortéz, portrays Montezuma as constantly consulting with Tezcatlipoca.)

Tezcatlipoca is concerned with morality, in a very stern but just. Tezcatlipoca, lord of the Near and the Far, invisible and intangible sees all, including our hearts and thoughts. Morality is a matter of being aware that Tezcatlipoca sees all, as if we were naked. (Sin is filth and excrement; essentially the sinners is naked and covered in excrement in front of Tezcatlipoca.)

Tezcatlipoca would also create discord, strife, and bring about all kind of disaster. Occasionnal
The Mexica would sometimes, understandably, get impatient with their stern, demanding and not infrequently capricious god. Sick men would cry out in anger: 'Titlācahuāné, cuilonpōlé' 'O Titlacahuan, terrible sodomite!' as Anderson and Dibble put it. (Entirely meant as offensive. The Mexica were violently homophobic.) Tezcatlipoca wouldn't necessarily be offended.

Tezcatlipoca could manifest as a jaguar. Sometimes as a coyote, too, warning the traveller of danger.
He would also manifest as eerie, unsettling ghosts. The Tlācanēxquimilli was a moaning ghost, without head or feed, rolling on the ground like a bundle of cloths and moaning. (Of course it would appear at night.)

Another manifestation of Tezcatlipoca was the Yohualtepoztli, the Night Axe.

In the dead of the night, people sometimes heard a sound, much like an axe felling a tree. (This would often happen to priests who would often spend the night in the wilderness, to do penance or to meditate.)
A brave man, priest or soldier, would seek out the source of the noise -- a ghost of a kind -- and would even chase the apparition. Eventually, they would reach the Night Axe: a man without a head, as if decapitated, with the chest and abdomen opened vertically. The wound would open and close rythmically, with a sound much like an axe and making an horrible sucking sound. The heart of the creature would be visible when the wound opened, quickly our brave man would seize it.
The Night Axe is, against all appearances, a good omen for the brave one. Upon seizing the heart, the monster-Tezcatlipoca would grant the brave one victory in battle, or wealth, or many slaves to sacrifices.

On the other hand, the apparition is a very bad omen for the coward who at any point flees from the Night Axe. All kinds of misfortune will befell him.

Oh, by the way Tezcatlipoca means Smoking Mirror (following the original morpheme order: Mirror-Smoke.)
The Mesoamerican fashioned small mirrors of obsidian and magnetite. This was used for divination, and also for light effects in temples (smoke and mirror indeed!) This represents Tezcatlipoca's association with sorcerers (which could be a respectable trade) but also, symbolically, hints that the god is all-seeing.

Sahagún calls Tezcatlipoca "a demon" and goes on to explain that Tezcatlipoca was Lucifer himself. There's some irony in the fact that Dios, the Christian God, received the Nahuatl epithet of Ipalnemōhuani 'By Him One Lives.'
It seems to me that Tezcatlipoca isn't entirely unlike the Old Testament God, all-seeing, all-knowing similarly scary and at times capricious or compassionate. (The Night Axe and other ghostly apparition may seem really alien, but no more worrying than an eye in a tomb, or Ezechiel's angelic vision.)

Huitzilopochtli
Huitzilopochtli is the patron god of the Mexico, the war god and a sun god.

Huitzilopochtli means Hummingbird-Left, alternatively Hummingbird from the Left, Left-Handed/Left-Footed Hummingbird, or Southern Hummingbird. He is associated with the South; as with many peoples, the Mexica oriented themselves by facing West; the South is to the left.
More generally, the hummingbird symbolises soldiers, warriors -- and a left-handed warrior is of course all the more dangerous.
Huitzilopocthli is indeed a dangerous, frightening and ominous god. One epithet of Huiztilopochtli is tētzāhuitl 'the ominous, the portentous.' In essence he is a sun god, a war god, and the patron god of the Mexico. The Templo Mayor, largest temple in Tenochtitlan was dedicated to both Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, and most of the ceremonies -- and sacrifices -- were held in his honor.

Huitzilopochtli has several origin stories. In one of them, he is, like Tezcatlipoca, the son of Ōme Teotl.
In another myth, the goddess Coatlicue, already the mother of the Centzon (the four hundred. 400 is 20*20, and the Mexica like all Mesoamericans counted in base twenty. Basically Centzon is 'a large number', much like we'd use 100 or 1000) Huitznāhuah and of the goddess Coyolxauqui becomes pregnant with the war god at Coatepec, after snatching up a miraculous ball of feathers. The Centzonuitznaua and their sister Coyolxauqui believe their mother dishonored and decide to kill her. Huitzilopochli springs up from his mother wound fully armed, and kills brothers and sister. The story's an allegory of the sun (Huitzilopochtli) defeating the moon and the stars as it rises. (The god Mixcoatl similary defeats 400 stars/gods.)
In yet another version, Huitzilopochtli is 'only a common man, just a man [...] a warlord.' In this version, he is the head priest and warlord of the Mexica, as they wandered guided by their god before settling at Tenochtitlan.
No matter the version, Huitzilopochtli (as a man, an eagle, or carried by his priests) guides the Mexica from their fabled origin at Aztlan to the promised land. The story's not unlike Exodus; generally the trope of a people being guided through the wilderness to a promised land seems very common, and especially so in Mesoamerica. (The Quiché Maya had a version of the story too.)

The king would, likewise, consult with Huitzilopochtli much as he did with Tezcatlipoca (Both Gods are closely associated).

Huitzilopochtli's messenger is Payīnal or Paynal 'the fast one, the runner'. At war, he incites men to carnage.

Tlaloc
Tlaloc is the rain god, worshipped alongside Huitzilopochtli in the Templo Mayor. The highest ranking priests were in fact, the chief priest of Huitzilopochtli and the chief priest of Tlaloc.

He is represented with googly eyes and fangs. And in fact the worship of a googly-eyed, fanged storm god is ubiquitous in Mesoamerica, dating back, at least to Teotihuacan. (The Mayan equivalent is Chaac.)
In addition to the Templo Mayor, a major sanctuary was found on Mount Tlaloc.
He was attended by the Tlaloqueh (plural form of Tlaloc) and a Tlaloc was associated with each of the cardinal direction.

One of Tlaloc's epithet is tlamacazqui 'the one who provides, who makes offerings', also the Nahuatl word for priest.

As I mentioned earlier, Tlaloc was offered what may be the most disturbing kind of sacrifice: crying children. These sacrifice are associated month of Ātlacāhualco but it seems they went on until the rainy season started.

Quetzalcōātl

Probably the god you're most likely to know! Queztalcoatl means "feathered serpent." The quetzal bird provides precious feather, much used for regalia and war ornements. He is the god of the priesthood, and the god of wind as Ehēcatl
Alternatively Cōātl means 'twin' and Quetzalcoatl does have a twin brother, Xolotl. At the beginning of the Fifth Sun, Quetzalcoatl recreated mankind (possibly, he created human souls -- much like Tezcatlipoca, he is also a creator god) from the bones of the previous iteration; to do this he had to descend to Mictlan, the underworld, guided by the dog-headed Xolotl. (Parallel the idea that dogs guide the souls of the dead.)
He also initiated human sacrifice (sacrificing all the gods so that the Fifth Sun might rise), and invented penance and mortification. In many ways he is the ideal high priest.
And indeed, the two head priest of the Mexica were called Quetzalcōātl. (quequetzalcōāh, in the plural): Quetzalcōātl Tlaloc tlamacazqui (Quetzalcoatl priest of Tlaloc) and Quetzalcōātl Totec tlamacazqui (Quetzalcoatl, priest of Our Lord -- the high priest of Huitzilopochtli.)

Sahagun's informant described him as an old man with a long beard and a hideous, monstrous face.

The Nahua liked to arrange the world in pairs; Quetzalcoatl has his twin brother, but he's also the counterpart of Tezcatlipoca. Both 'brothers' sometimes work together (as in wrestling the crocodile monster Cipactli to form the earth), and sometimes fight each other in the most vexing possible ways.

Once upon a time, Quetzalcoatl (or was it a man, called, Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl One-Reed Our-Prince Quetzalcoatl? I don't know and I'm not sure it really matters!)
ruled over the utopian city of Tollan, as high priest. The Tolteca, though, had become 'neglectful' (how? I don't know) and in retribution three sorcerers came along: Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli and Tlacahuepan (Huitzilopochtli's brother, possibly.)
Tezcatlipoca tricks Quetzalcoatl into getting drunk. (Quetzalcoatl, it turns out, isn't a merry drunk and besides as a priest he's not supposed to drink) Not content with that, he turns himself into a Huastec chilli pepper seller with an exceptionally large penis. The daughter of Huemac (the Toltec king) is so smitten by the chilli seller she has to marry him: another humiliation. Then he dances and sings to bewitch the Tolteca; many of them, entranced, throw themselves into a canyon. Others he tricks into a flower field before killing them all. He plays a puppet show -- Tezcatlipoca as the puppet master, Huitzilopochtli as the puppet. The crowd around them gets so dance, so many Tolteca want to see the puppet that they crush each other and die of suffocation. Well, long story short, our three 'sorcerers', chief among them Tezcatlipoca soon kill all of the Tolteca (amusing themselves greatly in the process.)
Humiliated and defeated, Quetzalcoatl (shaping Mexico valley landmarks along the way) goes into exile.

Maybe you've heard that Motēuczōmah II believed Cortéz to be Quetzalcoatl returned. The Florentine Codex, indeed, says so, calls the conquistadores tēteoh, gods. Supposedly Cortéz and his posse were offered the regalia of different gods -- and picked Quetzalcoatl's. Finally, the text notes that Motēuczōmah's emissaries expected the Spaniards to eat human blood and human hearts and were mildly surprised when they retched at their offering of food sprinkled with human blood.

Let's try and delve a little into the elaborate Nahua symbolism. The story of Quetzalcoatl being chased out of Tollan is highly symbolic: Quetzalcoatl is an old, pan-Mesomerican god (Known to the Maya as Kukulcan and probably worshipped already at Teotihuacan.) The Mexica, themselves devotees of Huitzilopochtli (strongly associated to Tezcatlipoca), knew they were in a sense replacing earlier civilization. The story of Quetzalcoatl is a highly mythologized retelling of this.

But there is more. Quetzalcoatl is an important god, cosmologicaly, in fact the equal/counterpart of Tezcatlipoca. Yet, he doesn't seem to be really worshipped much, except in his capacity of Ehēcatl, the Wind. Yet, the most important priests are called quetzalcoatl. The title tlamacazqui Totec ('priest of Our Lord') is ambiguous, too: 'Our Lord' could be many gods.
This disdain for Quetzalcoatl seems specifically Mexica. Indeed Quetzalcoatl had a large ceremonial center at Cholula, and it was not uncommon for local kings to be blessed by the priests of Quetzalcoatl at Cholula. Cholula, a city that happened to be in the sphere of influence of the Tlaxcallans, the Mexica's eternal enemies.
Another bit of evidence: the many feast days in honor of Huitzilopochtli seem to correspond to ceremonies in honor of Quetzalcoatl elsewhere.

In other words, heh, maybe the Mexica unceremoniously replaced the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the cult of Huitzilopochtli. The high priest of Huitzilopochtli once had been the priest of Quetzalcoatl and the Mexica had found politically convenient to replace the old, embarassing Toltec god with their own war god. This was probably done at the instigation of Tlacaelel, cihuacoatl ('prime minister') to three Mexica king, a shrewd politician and devotee of Huitzilopochtli.

But nothing lasts forever in Nahua cosmology. Eventually, Quetzalcoatl will kick Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli's ass in return. And the Mexica had additional reasons to dread the Feathered Serpent's return. And so the Spanish Conquest -- the end of the world -- could only be associated to Quetzalcoatl.

(Oh, sometimes you'll find Quetzalcoatl as a kind, peaceful deity, who rejected human sacrifice with Tezcatlipoca the warlike, evil, sanguinary rival. I don't think there's much evidence for this. I'm pretty sure the Toltecs sacrificed to Quetzalcoatl. In fact Quetzalcoatl, in mythology, performs sacrifices himself. The grain of truth in this is that the Mexica brought human sacrifice to an unprecedented scale after Tlacaelel.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 11:03 am Mexica oriented themselves by facing East; the South is to the left.

Um, no? If you look East, the South is to the right…
(Sorry for picking the one nit I can find in your very informative post.)