About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
SACRED PLACES AND PEOPLE.
ABOUT thirty miles north of Mexico are the remains of Teotihuacan, a city so old that it was falling into decay when the Aztecs entered the valley. The ground upon which it stood seems to have been built over by succeeding generations. Three successive concrete platforms for houses, one above the other, have been found buried under the cornfields which have flourished there for centuries. So large was this city that its ruins cover a space twenty miles in circumference. It was a shrine where of olden time the native worshipers flocked with their votive offerings—little clay images, men's heads, arrows and pottery decorated in bright colors. Thousands of these now strew the plain or are brought to light by the rude ploughs of the country. There are two large pyramids—one dedicated to the sun, the other to the moon—standing like grass-grown hills among these ruins. One wide, straight street—called "the Path of the Dead"—is raised above the level of the plain and leads up to the pyramid of the moon. This is bordered by many small pyramids, which are supposed to contain the now-nameless builders of these great monuments.
This worship of the sun and the moon seems to have at one time prevailed throughout Mexico, and was still retained in all the temples when other forms of idolatry were introduced by later settlers. In some forgotten age of their history the Mexicans had "exchanged the truth of God for a lie." Their belief in an invisible Creator and Ruler of the universe and the names and the character they gave him show that the ancestors of these people must have known of the one living and true God. They spoke of him as "He who is all in himself," "He in whom we live, all-wise, all-seeing, almighty and everywhere present, the Giver of every good, a Being of infinite purity and grace and the hearer and answerer of prayer." No images of this God were made; a prayer said to have been found among the old Aztec records tells us how he was regarded. Besides the sad picture which it gives us of the famines which often prevailed in Mexico, it reveals the breathings of one who, like Cornelius of old, was "a devout man and prayed to God alway:"
"O our Lord, protector most strong and compassionate, invisible, impalpable, thou art the giver of life. Lord of all and Lord of all battles, I present myself here before thee to say a few words; the need of the poor people, the people of none estate or intelligence. Know, O Lord, that thy subjects and servants suffer a sore poverty that cannot be told of more than that it is a sore poverty and desolateness. The men have no garments, nor the women, to cover themselves with, but only rags rent in every part, that let the wind and cold in. If they be merchants, they now sell only cakes of salt and broken pepper. The people that have something despise them, so that they go out to sell from door to door and from house to house; and when they sell nothing, they sit down sadly by some fence or wall or in some corner, biting their lips and gnawing their nails for the hunger that is in them. They look on one side and on the other at the mouths of those who pass by, hoping, peradventure, that some one will speak some word to them." Hungry Fox, a great Tezcucan chief, built a temple to this god toward the close of his long life, when he had become heartsick at the abominations of the religion of the Mexicans. This temple was nine stories high. A tenth story, overhanging the others like a canopy, was painted black, to represent the sky at night, gilded with stars outside and decorated within with precious gems and metals in the highest style of art known to his people. This temple he dedicated "To the Unknown God." No image of him was allowed in this beautiful shrine, and nothing but incense, fruit and flowers was offered upon its altar. A sonorous piece of metal struck by a mallet called the worshipers together.
The common people seem to have known but very little of this good and great being. The gods they served were like those who made them—fierce, unholy and delighting in blood. Thirteen of these were superior to the rest, and two hundred were of lower rank. At the head of all these the Aztecs put their frightful war-god, Huitizilapochtli, or "Humming-Bird." This god was represented as a man with a broad face, a wide mouth and terrible eyes. He was girt about with a golden serpent ablaze with jewels, and held a bow in one hand and a bunch of golden arrows in the other. His dress glittered with gold, pearls and precious stones. He wore a necklace of human faces wrought in silver and hearts of gold. His left foot was shod with the feathers of the tiny humming-birds which gave him his name. At the feet of this god stood a little one called Milziton, or 
"Little Quick One," which was borne by the priest at the head of the army in time of war. When this hideous idol was first seen by Europeans, there stood before it a brazier of burning coals in which lay three hearts just torn from the bleeding breasts of human victims.
Humming-Bird had a younger brother, a favorite with the Tezcucans, who was also a war-god. His name, Hacahuepanenexcolzin, is almost as bad as his disposition, and we would not venture to write it except to give one of the curiosities of Mexican spelling. These two gods stood side by side in the old temple in Mexico, fitting representations of the dark-minded priests who made them. "The smell of this place," says Bernal Diaz, an old Spanish soldier whom we shall often quote, "was that of a charnel-house." We cannot wonder that whitewash and scrubbing-brushes were always brought into use when Cortez got possession of one of these bloodstained shrines.
Another prominent figure in Mexican mythology was Tezcaltipoca, "the Hearer of Prayer." His image was of black shining stone. An ear hung by a string from his neck, on which smoke was pictured, whose ascending wreaths represented the prayers of his distressed people. Stone seats were put in some street-corners of Mexico, in the hope that this god would rest upon them when he visited the city. On these sacred seats no one else was permitted to sit.
By far the most interesting character among these gods was that of Quetzalcohuatl, or "Feathered Serpent," the god of the air. Stripped of all the romance with which he is invested, this old hero appears as a tall, fair-faced man of a different race from any of those which inhabitants the valley. He had a broad forehead and long black flowing beard and hair; and came to Mexico from some distant land on an errand of benevolence. Some suppose him to be the leader of the Toltec tribes, and to have come with their seven ships which figure in Mexican history; but this is by no means clear. Neither does he seem to be the Votan of other traditions, although he did the same good work among the people which is ascribed to that hero. It was Feathered Serpent who taught these still-barbarous tribes those arts of peace so foreign to savage natures. The Mexican calendar and picture-writing were his invention. The riches which lay hidden in the bowels of the earth were all unknown until he unveiled them and showed men how to dig and refine gold and silver and to work in all precious metals. During his stay the land became a very Eden. Cities arose, and in the heart of the wilderness fair fields were opened to the sun. But these bright days did not last. The powers of evil became envious of the benevolent god of the air, and he was obliged to flee for his life.
The Mexicans tell a story of the rivalry between Tezcaltipoca and Feathered Serpent which is worthy of heathen idol-makers. Tezcaltipoca, fearing that he was about to lose the reverence of the people, disguised himself as a hoary-headed sorcerer and persuaded Feathered Serpent to drink pulque, or the fermented sap of the maguey. The event proved that it is no safer for a god to indulge in such intoxicating beverages than it is for men to do so. Poor Feathered Serpent became tipsy and wandered out of the country in disgrace. On his way to the sea to return to his own land he stopped at Cholula, where he found hearts open to receive him; there he stayed for twenty years. The people built temples in his honor and sat at "his feet to learn. Like Cain, "the Fair God," as he was called, disapproved of bloody sacrifices, and commanded his followers to offer nothing on his peaceful altars but sweet incense and the fruits of the earth. After twenty happy years Feathered Serpent left Mexico by the way he came. His snakeskin boat was waiting for him on the shore of the Gulf. Turning to his friends who had followed him, he bade them farewell, promising that some day he would come again from his home toward the rising sun and take possession of their country.
The white race to whom this old hero belonged are indebted to him for their successful entry into Mexico. At the time the Spanish vessels made their appearance, in 1517, there was a universal expectation that the Fair God was about to return, and the white sails of the vessels were mistaken for bright-winged birds who had come to bring back their benefactor from his long exile.
The Aztecs adopted this god, among many others, after they came to Mexico; his shrine at Cholula was visited by multitudes of devotees from all parts of the country. This city was older than Mexico, and is supposed by many to have been founded by the Toltecs. There, on the top of the famous pyramid of Cholula, was a large hemispherical temple in honor of this Fair God. Another temple was reared to him within the serpent-wall of the great temple of Mexico; it was entered through a gate fashioned like the mouth of a hideous dragon. The black, flame-encircled face of his image enshrined there and the altar dripping with blood had taught the people to think of him as a fit companion for the war-god himself—that most bloodthirsty of all Mexican deities. 
In the towers which formed the corners of the great enclosure were deposited, after cremation, the ashes of the dead heroes of the tribe. In one of these, also, was kept a huge snake-skin drum, which was used to call the people together to witness a sacrifice or for war. The sound of this drum could be heard, it is said, far beyond the city limits—sometimes to a distance of eight miles.
These houses of worship were always the principal buildings in every town or hamlet in the land. Besides, there were many others on hilltops and sacred places throughout Mexico. One of them stood in the centre of every settlement. It was surrounded by a wall, which was often turreted and always high and strong for in time of war it was around these temples that the battle raged most fiercely. Fronting the principal roadways, there were entrances to the enclosure on all four sides. These roads stretched, wide, clean and straight, several miles beyond the city, so that a retreating army, when pursued by the enemy, might have no hindrance if it sought the protection of the gods.
Standing on one of the lofty towers of the great temple in Mexico, Cortez counted four hundred places of worship in that city alone. Of the chief teocallis (house of the gods) he writes to Charles V., "The grandeur of its architectural details no human tongue is able to describe." The square in which it stood was surrounded with the great serpent-wall, each of whose four sides was a quarter of a mile long, giving room within the enclosure for a town of five hundred inhabitants. Forty high and well-built towers were along this wall. The largest of these, says Cortez, had forty steps leading to its main body, which was higher than the tower of the principal church in Seville. Another writer says, "There were seventy temples within the square, each one of which had its images and blazing fires. Besides, there were granaries where the first-fruits of the land were gathered for use in the temple, storehouses for other kinds of tribute, a house of entertainment for pilgrims from a distance, a hospital tended by priests, an arsenal and a library, besides a garden where flowers were raised for the temple-service and accommodations for many of the priests." Curious imagery wrought in stone, woodwork carved, inlaid or richly painted, ornamented the interior of every apartment of the great building.[1] Within the main temple were three large halls adorned with these sculptured figures and the rich feather-work hangings which were among the highest efforts of Aztec art. An army of priests was needed for the elaborate service of this temple. It is said that five thousand were employed in the great teocallis, besides women and children in multitudes. Seventy fires were to be kept up day and night. Incense was offered four times every day—viz., sunrise, midday, sunset and midnight. Besides their sacrificial duties, the priests were the school-teachers, historians, poets and painters of the tribe. They must have been hideous objects, dressed in long black robes, with blackened faces and tongues torn and bleeding with frequent penances. Their hair, which was never cut nor combed from the time they entered the temple-service until they left it, was matted with blood and with cords twisted into the long mass. The chief priests were more elegantly dressed on state occasions. A costly and magnificent robe like that of the god whose day he celebrated marked the high priest, of the nation, A huge tuft of white cotton worn on the breast was his sign of office. There were a few priestesses, who lived a nun's life in the cloisters of this temple. Both priests and nuns were free to come and to go, but those who had made a vow never to marry were punished with the utmost rigor in case they broke their vow.
- ↑ In the year 1881 excavations were made in front of the cathedral in Mexico, where this building once stood, and a few feet below the surface were found the old capitals of the door-posts of the temple. They were heads of large stone serpents, each ten feet long and five feet high, with feathered ornaments carved out of solid stone.