28
The Mastering of Mexico
good bottom for anchorage, and it was, moreover, sheltered from northers. Our captain and thirty of us soldiers, all well armed, went over the island, and found a temple on which stood a large and ugly idol of the god Tezcatlipoca.[1] Four Indian priests or papas, clad in wide black cloaks, and with flying hair, had that very day offered the hearts and blood of two
- ↑ When, in the following pages, the reader meets the names Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli, will he kindly bear in mind these differences between the two gods?
There were few departments of native life with which the god Tezcatlipoca was not intimately connected. He was present everywhere and saw all that happened and therefore his images bore a mirror as a symbol. As the night wind he was supposed to wander through the streets after dark in search of evil doers, and as night-god and warrior-god to appear in all sorts of grisly shapes to test the courage of those he might meet. Schools in which children prepared for military service were under his protection. Of slaves he was defender. As god of divine punishment he was also god of confession—the penitent confessing his sins before a priest whom he regarded as representative of the god and who gave absolution. The fifth months of the year, beginning the 23rd of April, was symbolized by a figure of the god and was the occasion of the feast at which a young man, identified with the god, was sacrificed to him after a year spent in the enjoyment of every luxury that Mexican civilization could afford.
Huitzilopochtli was tribal god of the Aztecs to whom he gave the bow, saying, "All that flies on high do the Mexicans know how to hit with the arrow." God of war and of hunting he sprang, the legend ran, from an earth goddess after a ball of down had fallen on her from heaven. The ninth month beginning the 12th of July was sometimes symbolized by a figure of Huitzilopochtli, and celebrated by a flower-feast. For further knowledge about gods of the Mexicans the reader should consult "Mexican Archaeology" by Thomas A. Joyce—from which book the contents of this note were gained.
