Source: History of Religions, August 1999 v39 i1 p1.
Title: UTTERED FROM THE HEART: GUILTY RHETORIC AMONG THE AZTECS.
Author: David Carrasco
Abstract: The rhetoric of guilt among the Aztecs is discussed. Topics
include the Aztec vision of the cosmos, including the universe's geometry
and
dynamics, the duality of equilibrium and disequilibrium, and the human
body as
axis mundi; as well as the guilt of the gods and of humans, and the
ritual
confession of sexual sins to Tlazolteotl, the goddess called the eater
of
filth.
Subjects: Guilt - Social aspects
Aztecs - Religion
Locations: Mexico
Electronic Collection: A57535007
RN: A57535007
Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 University of Chicago
Press
My interest in guilty utterances among the Aztec
was stimulated by the
invitation to participate in the Eranos conference on "Guilt"
at Ascona,
Switzerland in the summer of 1996. I had been working on the cosmomagical
worldview of the Mexica for some time, and this conference allowed me
to both
refine my work on the relations of ritual to cosmology in Mesoamerica
and
recall the ways that Mircea Eliade wrote about the "Eranos experience"
in his
journals. Eliade felt that the Eranos experience gave vitality to his
attempts
to stimulate a "new humanism" among scholars through the practice
of a
creative hermeneutics. He believed that the Western encounter with archaic
and
Asian spiritualities would revitalize scholarship and open the way to
new
modes of understanding the sacred and human existence. He thrilled at
Olga
Froebe Kapteyn's invitation in 1950 to join the Eranos meetings, and
he began
his journal, No Souvenirs, with a selection written at Casa Gabrielle
in
Ascona in 1957. Elsewhere he wrote that the "spirit of Eranos"
was "one of the
most creative cultural experiences of the modern Western world. Nowhere
else
is to be found a comparable sustained effort of scholars to integrate,
in one
all embracing perspective, the progress made in all the various fields
of
study."(1) Standing today in this place brings up in me a series
of powerful
emotions as the rich and tall shadows of past scholars, discussions,
and
conferences fall across the landscape. What is one to do, to feel in
the
presence of such a rich tradition? How does one contribute to profound
intellectual substance? How can one try to measure up without falling
into the
sin of pride, or falling miserably short and thereby committing a kind
of
intellectual sin? In fact, one of the emotions that accompanied Eliade
in his
days of preparation for his talk and final preparation of his manuscript
was
something akin to guilt, the topic of our conference. His busy schedule
and
prolific creativity often left him with a sense of catching up, not
measuring
up, being behind in his preparation, perhaps even feelings of guilt.
Reading
his references to Ascona and the presentations he made here, one discerns
the
combination of excitement, anxiety, and not having the time to do the
job
well. On July 12, 1959 he wrote on the eve of his departure by car for
Ascona,
"I've spent nearly six weeks in this apartment. I've written `With
the Gypsy
Girls' but have done nothing, or almost nothing for the Eranos lectures.
It
has only been these last few days that I've had the time to spend a
few hours
at the Musee de l'Homme and the Musee Guimet."(2) Then a month
and a half
later on August 23 he writes that he is still working to revise the
manuscript, which should have been handed in for publication in the
Eranos
Yearbook, and will not finish until he returns to Chicago in the fall.
Eliade's sense of trying to catch up with time's
responsibilities and the
inklings of his feelings of guilt also show up in journal entries about
his
visit to Mexico, where he was fascinated by Mesoamerican religions,
worldviews, and ritual practices. He sometimes mentions his missed
opportunities to learn something important, to focus more deeply on
a symbol,
image, or, as he liked to say, "message." Consider this final
entry in the
section "Winter in Mexico," telling of his visit to Oaxaca
and his meeting
with the great archaeologist, Alfonso Caso:
Afternoon in the museum in Oaxaca. Extraordinarily
rich. We lingered
especially in the Monte Alban hall. The corn deities in the hall of
the
monoliths. Then, on the floor above, tomb number VII with its fabulous
treasure. In the display windows: corals, shells, enormous pearl necklaces,
alabaster vases, turquoise and jade necklaces. (If Flaubert could have
seen
them!) In an isolated comer, a rock-crystal vase. And that extraordinary
skull
done in a turquoise mosaic. And the God of death; his golden mask reproduced
on so many postcards. On the wall, the photograph of Caso, in front
of tomb
number VII, at the moment he had discovered it. (I should have written
down
more closely my conversations with Dr. Caso last week.)(3)
HEARTS AND SOULS
When other European visitors, the Spaniards,
came to Mexico in the sixteenth
century and began their futile "spiritual conquest" of native
peoples, a small
cadre of priests turned their attention to the ideas, languages, and
religious
practices of indigenous peoples.(4) They were struck with the central
importance of the corazon (heart) in Aztec life and thought. On the
one hand,
the Spaniards were excited and scandalized by the extraction and ritual
use of
hearts (sometimes their own) in human sacrifice,(5) while on the other
hand,
they learned that the concept of "heart" had something to
do with the native
conception of "center" or "essence." They found
that everything important had
a "heart." There was the "heart" of the mountain,
the "heart" of the town, the
"heart" of the sky, the "heart" of the tree, and
certain special individuals,
whom the Spaniards labeled hombre-dioses (man-gods),(6) were considered
to be
the "heart" of social groups. In time we have learned that
the Aztecs believed
(as many natives today still believe) that humans have three souls or
"animistic entities" and one of these is the heart. Humans
think and live with
all three souls and maintain their health only when all three are in
balance,
equilibrium, and harmony. The central soul is in the heart where human
rationality and therefore the understanding of guilt reside.
When Bernardino de Sahagun did his extensive
research in the middle of the
sixteenth century in three towns around the lakes of Mexico, he discovered
that the sophisticated Aztec practice of public oratory was intimately
tied up
with the indigenous notion of "heart." These orations, called
huehuetlatolli
(ancient sayings) were spoken or uttered from the heart and reflected
Aztec
cosmovision, child-rearing practices, and social relationships in a
series of
ideal type admonitions (see fig. 1). These admonitions contained sets
of
prohibitions as well as descriptions of high ideals to be sought after.
They
"truly issued from their hearts when they spoke ... when they prayed."
The
"words which came from their very hearts ... which they uttered
from their
very hearts" reflect what I am calling guilty rhetoric among the
Aztecs.(7)
They describe some of the sins to be avoided (but often committed),
the gods
to be worshiped (but often disobeyed), and the crimes abhorred (but
often
acted out). In what follows I want to explore some of the rhetoric of
guilt,
sin, and confession that was uttered from the heart and other bodily
organs.
First, I will contextualize the guilty rhetoric of Aztec hearts and
bodies by
describing the Aztec cosmovision, which includes: (1) the geometry and
dynamics of the universe, (2) the importance of the equilibrium/disequilibrium
duality, and (3) the axis mundi of the human body. We will see that
the human
body was a container not only of the heart but also of three souls or
animistic entities. And we will learn that it was the ritual site where
the
drama of sacred dualities and the four quarters of the universe was
acted out.
Second, I will focus on the guilt of the gods, the guilt of humans,
and the
ritual confession of sexual sins to Tlazolteotl, the eater of filth,
to whom
guilty rhetoric was periodically spoken.
[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
THE FALL AND THE COSMOS
One of the most fascinating and problematic concepts
in the history of
religions is the concept of the fall of human life out of paradise or
a golden
age into sin and the inherited condition of guilt and punishment.(8)
The
conception of a primordial rupture and the subsequent, shared human
condition
of guilt takes a very interesting form among the Nahua-speaking peoples
of
Mexico. Here it is the gods who commit terrible acts and "fall"
out of a
primordial condition of intranscendence, peace, and equilibrium. The
passage
of time and the history of the cosmos in which gods and humans act originated
when the gods committed the sins of disequilibrium that ruptured universal
peace and created the divisions, unions, and geometry of the cosmos.
In
general terms, these two sins of disequilibrium were the sexual union
of
elements that should not have been joined and the rupture of the sacred
tree
that spilled the cosmic forces of blood, heat, cold, and death into
the world
of the passage of time. Within the drama of these actions, the gods
became
involved in sexuality, death, and rebirth, which collectively establish
the
nature and destiny of human life. Of the numerous examples of the fall
of the
gods and their associated guilt, allow me to begin with the journey
of
Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent,(9) into the underworld of Mictlan
to recover
the bones of the ancestors in the dark period between the Fourth and
Fifth
Ages of the world. This story, complex in itself, also reflects a number
of
cosmogonic characteristics that will help contextualize the discussion
of
guilty rhetoric in Mesoamerica.
Before life had been recreated, the celestial
gods lived in a static, peaceful
state and the universe was unformed. There were no divisions, ruptures,
or
motion. As one Maya creation myth states, "This is the account
of how all was
in suspense, all calm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanse
of
the sky was empty."(10) Following this period of primordial peace,
a series of
adventures by the gods took place that created the parts, dynamics,
and order
of the universe. In one account, the gods gather and ask, "Who
will there be?
Sky has been established, Tlaltecuhtli has been established. Gods, who
will
there be?"(11) The gods then send Quetzalcoatl down into the underworld
(a
"fall" through the geometry of the universe by order of the
gods) to retrieve
the ancestral bones. He travels down to the ninth level of the underworld
and
announces to Mictlantecuhtli and his consort, Mictecacihuatl, his quest
for
the precious bones. The Dual God of the underworld presents him with
a trial,
an ordeal: "'Very well. Blow my conch horn and circle four times
round my
precious realm." But his conch horn was not hollow. Then he summoned
worms,
who hollowed it out. Then bumblebees and honeybees went in. Then he
blew on it
and the dead land lord heard him."(12) Then, Quetzalcoatl is given
permission
to take the bones, but a trap is laid to destroy him; a pit is dug by
the
helpers of the underworld for him to fall into. He takes the bones,
wraps them
up, and begins to leave the Land of the Dead. Along the path, quail
spring up
from the grass and startle Quetzalcoatl, who falls (a second fall) into
the
pit and loses consciousness. The bones are broken into different sizes,
scattered on the ground, and nibbled on by the quail. Quetzalcoatl is
revived
by one of his souls, gathers the bones, and takes them to the paradise
of
Tamoanchan.(13) There his consort Quilaztli/Cihuacoatl grinds them into
powder
and places them in her jadestone bowl, a symbol of her womb. Quetzalcoatl
bleeds his penis into the bowl, the gods do penance, and human life
is
restored. The gods announce: "`Holy ones, humans, have been born;
it's because
they did penance for us.'" The episode continues as Quetzalcoatl
makes another
theft, this time the theft of corn to feed humans. He descends into
the "Heart
of Food Mountain," but I will leave off the narrative at this point.
This myth introduces us to a series of fundamental
cosmological notions,
including the four quarters, duality, the vertical shape of the universe,
the
fall, and especially the involvement in earthly things, which was a
synonym
for sin. In fact, the Nahuatl synonym for the Spanish pecado was a difrasismo,
a dual word combining teuhtli, tlazolli, meaning "filth, trash."
A related
term is tlatlacolli, which derives from the transitive verb, itlacoa,
meaning
"to damage, spoil, or harm," referring to physical or moral
transgressions.
One of the primary ways to damage or spoil was to become involved in
tlazolli
(filth). The best definition comes from Alonso de Molina's Vocabulario
de la
lengua mexicana (1555) which defines tlazolli as "rubbish which
they throw on
the dungheap," or something useless, drained of its original purpose
and
structure. As one scholar notes,
In general, tlazolli consists of little bits
and pieces of things, which might
once have belonged somewhere but now, through processes of decay,
deterioration, or digestion, have become formless and unconnected; these
fragments are now scattered about, interfering with things that are
new and
tidy. The term tlazolli covers a whole series of impurities used in
moral
discourse to connote negativity. Rags, potsherds, cobwebs, dust, mud,
straw,
or grass, charcoal, disheveled hair, excrement, urine, vomit, nasal
mucus,
sweat, pus, coagulated semen, niter or saltpeter [tequixquitl], the
drugs of
pulque--anything of unpleasant odor, of rotten or formless composition,
is
included.(14)
Quetzalcoatl's act of regeneration is tainted
through and through with
tlazolli. Here we have a god who travels down into the earth to Mictlan,
the
land of the rotten and the dead, and becomes contaminated with the process
of
death. He is frightened by the quail (which in Nahuatl is zollin, one
of the
root words of tlazolli, meaning "stumbles and falls," which
in Nahua thought
is a metaphor for immoral behavior) and loses consciousness. Even though
he
overcomes this condition, he and the bones (and therefore bodies of
humans),
which were scattered and unconnected, are now permeated by something
akin to
what we mean by sin and guilt. But it is impressive that this adventure
also
results in the recreation of human life. We see contamination and freshness,
death and life joined together. We will return to the meaning and resonance
of
tlazolli later and try to clarify these meanings. It is now time to
turn to a
review of key aspects of the cosmovision reflected in this story.
GEOMETRY AND DYNAMICS OF THE AZTEC COSMOS
The Indians of Puebla today claim that in Mexico
City there are skyscrapers
forty stories high that also have forty stories underground, reflecting
the
notion of a vertical column in the universe. The story of Quetzalcoatl's
descent to the underworld and journey to Tamoanchan reflects this notion
of a
vertical cosmos as well as the crucial symbols of duality, the four
quarters,
and equilibrium. What stands out to me in the following survey is the
emphasis
or overemphasis on a locative view of the world. In the Aztec depictions
of
the universe, we see a tightly ordered, highly detailed series of bailiwicks,
boundaries, classifications, realms, and locations in which all of life
is
organized. Everything has a place and everything must be in its rightful
place
in order for the cosmos to survive.
DUALITY
The Aztec universe, as that of many Mesoamerican
peoples, was balanced by
the dual opposition of contrary elements, dividing
the universe to explain its
diversity, its order, and its movement. Sky and earth, heat and cold,
light
and darkness, man and woman, strength and weakness, above and below,
rain and
drought are conceived at the same time to be polar and complementary
pairs,
their elements interrelated by their opposition as contraries in one
of the
great divisions and by their arrangement in an alternating sequence
of
dominance. After this primary division, the geometry becomes complicated,
governed by an order that has its maximum abstract expression in basic
numbers
and their products: 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 18, 20, 52, 73, 104, 260, 18,980,
etc.
All these numbers were in turn fundamental in establishing the classification
and the sequence of domination of the various forces of nature.(15)
The general scheme places the male/father principle
in the sky (associated
with the qualities of hot, above, eagle, the number 13, heaven, light,
day,
large fire, life, and streams of blood), while the female/mother principle
is
placed in the earth (associated with cold, below, ocelot, the number
9, the
underworld, darkness, night, water, and night stream [death]). The duality
extended, of course, to the sky/earth division, with the sky having
thirteen
celestial levels and the earth having nine underworld levels, each inhabited
by diverse gods. The top level of the sky was called the "Place
of Duality"
and the bottom level of the underworld was "The Obsidian Place
of the Dead,
The Place Where Smoke Has No Outlet."
The earth was either a rectangle or a disk surrounded
by seawater that curved
upward at the outer edges to form the lower celestial levels. A cruciform
pattern, like a Maltese cross, divided the earth into four segments
with each
of the four directions associated with colors, gods, symbols, and trees
(see
fig. 2). One common scheme went "north-black-flint knife,"
"south-blue-rabbit," "west-white-house," and "east-red-reed"
with the central
section of the cosmos colored green. According to Angel Maria Garibay
Kintana,
"this order establishes a double opposition of death-life (north-south,
with
the symbols of inert matter and extreme mobility) and female-male (west-east,
with the sexual symbols of house and reed) as if the axis of the
sky-underworld had been projected in two ninety-degree turns, each one
perpendicular to the other, upon the plane of the earth's surface,
distributing opposites in complementary pairs."(16)
[Figure 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
At the four corners of the cosmos rose four trees
or columns that supported
the sky and provided a sense of cardinal orientation to the gods and
humans.
These four entities appear as either sacred trees or as one of the four
cosmic
tlaloque (rain gods) who provided the life-giving rains from the four
directions. These four directions were also called Nauchampa, or the
Four
Quarters, and the Aztec city was a replica of this four-quartered cosmos.(17)
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Aztec
cosmos are the passageways of
communication between the four quarters and the central axis of the
universe.
Malinalli, two pairs of helical bands that turned in constant motion,
brought
forces from the underworld to ascend to earth and above as well as forces
from
the upperworld to descend to earth and the underworld.(18) They are
depicted
in the native pictorial manuscripts as nocturnal streams, cords of water,
sharp points, flowers, or streams of blood, all of which are passageways
linking the above, the middle, and the below (see fig. 3). "These
passageways
provided communication between the turquoise place [the sky] and the
obsidian
place [the underworld] to create the center, the place of the precious
green
stone [the surface of the earth] as well as time, change, and the conflict
between the two opposing currents."(19)
[Figure 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The underworld had nine levels and was the source
of rivers, brooks, winds,
and the clouds which emerged from mountain caves. The abundant riches
of
seeds, waters, and minerals appeared on the earth's surface, and the
underworld was depicted, in part, as a place of endless fertility. But
it was
also the place of gods who could withhold the powers of fertility and
cause
cruel suffering among humans. Diseases emerged from the underworld where
the
ohican chaneque (the lords of dangerous places) dwelled and threatened
the
well-being of the surface of the earth.
DYNAMICS
It can be said that there were three kinds of
time narrated in the sacred
histories of the Aztecs. First, there was a Primordial era in which
gods, some
times a dual god, existed without action, motion, or change.(20) This
primordiality reflected modes of totality, equilibrium, prodigious
potentiality, or what Mircea Eliade called an "unhistorical primordiality."
This was the space and time of Ometeotl, the Dual God who lived in
equilibrium. This pattern of time, a kind of patternless time, when
nothing
had been created, was followed by a rupture, a powerful action that
was the
adventures of the gods. As already suggested, this action constituted
something akin to what we are labeling guilt, crime, or sin. Their actions
created and transformed, divided, and ranked the universe. One scholar
summarizes, "This peace was broken by a second time, that of myth
and
creations, an era in which abductions, violations, broken honor, deaths,
struggles and the dismembering of gods gave origin to beings who would
be more
intimately connected with man; then man himself was brought into existence.
These creations would also give way to a third time, the time of man,
a time
taking place in the intermediate part of the universe: that is, on the
earth's
surface and in the four lower heavens."(21)
We will review several of these divine sins and
the resultant
disequilibrium/guilt later. Suffice it to make the claim at this point
that
sin and guilt constitute part of the motor of sacred history in Aztec
thought.
HUMAN BODY, THREE SOULS, AND TLAZOLLI
Lopez Austin writes from the perspective of Mesoamerican
religions, giving new
meaning to the time-honored concept of the axis mundi.
Man was conceived to be the center of the cosmos,
born at a time when the five
points of the terrestrial plane met in equilibrium, a being in whom
it was
believed the qualities of all the components of the universe converged.
Obviously, these components, reunited in the cosmic center, ought to
exist in
man in a balanced form, making him the ordered and stable synthesis
of the
universe. If man as a species was granted maximum equilibrium, the concept
of
an individual had to account for, in terms of balance, the evident biological
and social inequalities: sex, age, degree of sociability, group and
intergroup
positions, animistic changes, temperament, variations in health, etc.(22)
Human equilibrium was dependent on the interplay
of many factors, including
sex, age, social position, temperament, and changes in health, but the
most
important factors were the three animistic entities distributed in three
parts
of the body--the skull, the heart, and the liver (see fig. 4). The most
vital
and vulnerable aspects of the cosmos were concentrated (like souls)
in these
body parts, and the experience and expression of guilt, sin, crime,
and
punishment depended in part on the conditions and interrelationship
of these
three souls. We will now consider some characteristics of these three
souls or
animistic entities.
[Figure 4 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
TONALLI AND THE HEAD
The front part of the skull, especially the area
of the fontanel, was the
container of tonalli (derived from the verb tona, meaning "to irradiate
or
make warm, to make sun").(23) Among the characteristics of tonalli
were that
(1) it was the source of warmth, vigor, valor, and growth in the human
body;
(2) animals, plants, and gods all had tonalli; (3) tonalli came from
the
celestial gods, first from the Dual God in Omeyocan who breathed tonalli
into
the fetus and second, from the Sun whose warmth and light provided tonalli
to
humans; (4) newborn children accumulated more tonalli when placed near
the
home fire where the god Xiuhtecuhtli resided; (5) human blood also generated
tonalli; (6) tonalli had a physical nature--it was hot and luminous;
(7)
tonalli left the body, causing disequilibrium during sexual intercourse,
dreams, and sleep; (8) a warrior gained control over an enemy's tonalli
when
grabbing them by the front tuft of air on the head; and (9) the loss
of too
much tonalli resulted in death.
IHIYOTL AND THE LIVER
A second animistic entity or soul was located
in the liver, the site of
passion, vigor, and feeling, Ihiyotl was breathed
into infants, especially
when they were offered to water in a bathing ceremony four days after
birth.
Its physical nature was a luminous gas capable of attracting other beings.
This power is reflected in the name for magnetic stone which was tlaihiyoanani
tetl (stone that attracts things with ihiyotl).(24) This soul was associated
with "night air" or "dead air" that provided either
beneficent or noxious
energy. Ihiyotl could be supplied by food or through breathing air onto
or
within a person. Certain individuals such as magicians or shamans could
externalize their ihiyotl and magically inject it into people, animals,
objects, or insects to cause harm and bring about desired influences.
TEYOLIA AND THE HEART
The third animistic entity, and the most important
for the purposes of this
article, was the heart, the place of equilibrium. Teyolia (heart) derives
from
yolia (he who animates) and yol (life) and is the location of thought,
rationality, the inner person. As mentioned before, animals, towns,
lakes,
sky, ocean, and other things had teyolia. Each town had a heart called
the
altepeyollotl (heart of the town). Teyolia appeared in the mother's
womb as a
gift from the gods and was hot during life and cold during death. Human
hearts
received the divine force of teyolia when they accomplished the extraordinary
in war, art, poetry, politics, or science. Certain exceptional individuals
called hombre-dioses (man-gods) by Lopez Austin had enormous amounts
of
teyolia. One of the greatest mishaps to a person's teyolia came through
sexual
misconduct when the teyolia was damaged. Unlike the other two souls,
teyolia
"went beyond" after death to various realms. The teyolia of
warriors killed in
battle or sacrificed traveled with the sun through the heavens and the
underworld. The teyolia of women who died in childbirth accompanied
the sun
until sunset and then periodically descended to earth to torment people.
The
teyolia of those who were killed by Tlaloc, the rain god, were taken
to caves
in the mountains and became helpers of the Tlaloque, who sent rain but
also
harmful weather. The teyolia of suckling infants had the best fate.
These
infants had never eaten corn or engaged in sex and therefore they had
never
committed sin, filth, dirt. Consequently, their teyolia went to
Chichiualcuauhco, "the place of the nursemaid tree," where
the teyolia existed
suckling milk from leaves shaped like female breasts.
It must be reiterated that these animistic forces
were conceived as entities
with physical features. Mesoamerican peoples did not believe in the
spirit or
the soul or in gods as immaterial entities. Everything was matter, a
kind of
subtle matter, but a matter with weight and a form of heaviness. The
equilibrium and disequilibrium of the human body and human nature were
created
by the "flow" of this subtle material.
GODS AND GUILT
I have argued elsewhere that the Aztecs were
plagued with a sense of cosmic
paranoia and a subversive genealogy, especially as it related to the
problem
of legitimate rulership.(25) It could be said that guilt permeated their
cosmos. As with the Aztec "huehuetlatolli" messages--which
overflowed with
what Freud called "superego" power, forever presenting children,
rulers,
midwives, teenagers, and anyone who listened with speeches about what
they
"ought" or "should" or "must" do to act
according to impossibly high standards
and which were filled with gloomy forecasts of human conduct and
destiny--Aztec cosmic cycles were unstable, tense, ever passing through
total
catastrophes. The cosmovision of the Mexica emphasized the more dangerous
phases of the life cycle--the phases of threat, death, decomposition,
and
eccentric periodicity. From the grand cosmogonic episodes of repeated
creations and destructions to the names given to the world ages (i.e.,
the
names of the destructive forces) to the episodes of sacred history in
which
great kings or culture heroes abdicate their authority to the images
of the
sky and earth as hungry mouths, Mesoamerican myths and the rituals in
which
they were embedded portray a tense, unstable, dynamic, perishable world.
Nevertheless, these episodes of collapse, gloom, and devourment were
perceived
as necessary stages in the decomposition of the world and the recreation
of
the cosmos. This combination of a perishable but regenerative world
is crucial
to the understanding of Aztec guilt and sin.
COSMIC COMPOST HEAP
One of the most compelling images of a theory
of cosmomagical regenerative
power comes from Thelma Sullivan, the distinguished nahuatlato (Nahuatl
specialist) who described the earth and its decomposing parts as a compost
heap. Sullivan focused on the goddess Tlazolteotl, the eater of filth,
whom we
shall discuss later. Tlazolteotl is associated with the earthiness of
sexual
life, sexual license, and the confession of wrong doings (see fig. 5).
In
return for confessions, Tlazolteotl would "eat" the sexual
sins of humans and
digest evil sexual energy so that it could be recomposed in some useful
fashion. What seems most interesting is the prestige which revitalization
continued to have within this clearly negative valuation of cosmic and
human
existence. Sullivan wrote that Tlazolteotl was "the goddess of
the fertile
earth, and symbolized, too, the earth that receives all organic wastes--human
and animal excrement, vegetable and fruit remains, fish, fowls, and
animal
bones, and so forth--which when decomposed are transformed into humus.
Humus
in Nahauatl is called tlazollalli--from tlazolli, filth, garbage and
tlalli,
earth. In the same way that Tlazolteotl caused the symbolic rebirth
of the
transgressor by eating the ordure of his wickedness, she also symbolized
the
transformation of waste into humus, that is the revitalization of the
soil."(26)
[Figure 5 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
This view of the earth and some of its deities
as a cosmic compost heap eating
the refuse of humans, animals, and vegetation to restore vitality to
the earth
reflects the cosmovision of sexuality, collapse, and regeneration mentioned
earlier. One primary example of this combination, one which combines
the theme
of a subversive genealogy for supreme rulers with cosmic renewal (not
from
humus, but from ashes), is the story of the rise, fall, self-sacrifice,
and
rebirth of the hombre-dios Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, to which we now turn.
QUETZALCOATL AND FORBIDDEN SEX
Aztec rulers claimed their legitimate descent
from the paradigmatic ruler,
Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, of the Great Tollan, the ideal type of kingdom
of the
tenth to twelfth centuries north of the Basin of Mexico.(27) The Aztecs
were
nomadic latecomers into the centers of culture and civilization that
controlled social, spiritual, and economic life in the lake cultures
of
Anahuac. While climbing the social and political ladder of this urbanized
society, the Aztecs gained access through marriage and warfare to the
sine qua
non royal lineage of the Toltecs, whose supreme representative was Topiltzin
Quetzalcoatl. It is fascinating that the basic tale taught in the calmecacs
(priestly schools of the Aztec empire) emphasized the contradictory
image of
an abundant paradisiacal urban kingdom and a disgraceful collapse which
led to
the end of the era. Following a glorious period of abundance, stability,
and
expansion, Tollan comes to a miserable end in the following sequence:
(1) An
antagonist appears--a sorcerer usually identified with Tezcatlipoca--who
organizes a movement against Quetzalcoatl, (2) partially around the
issue of
human sacrifice. (3) Through a series of tricks and magical deceptions,
(4) he
gets the priest-king roaring drunk. (5) Whereupon Quetzalcoatl breaks
his
ritual commitments and perhaps has some kind of sexual encounter with
a
priestess, and (6) he awakens from the debauch heartbroken. Having realized
that his authority has been undermined, Quetzalcoatl sings out his decision
to
depart Tollan with some followers, resulting in (7) the immediate fall
of the
city or its waning over a period of years.
In one version, Quetzalcoatl had designated quail,
butterflies, snakes, and
large grasshoppers for sacrifice, but the gods Huitzilopochtli and
Tezcatlipoca demanded human victims and created a confrontation. The
rivals
entered his city and asked for human sacrifices to take place, "He
did not
consent, because he greatly loved his subjects who were Toltecs. Snakes,
birds
and butterflies that he killed were what his sacrifices always were....
And it
is told and related that with this he wore out the sorcerers' patience.
So it
was then that they started to ridicule him and make fun of him, the
sorcerers
saying they wanted to torment Quetzalcoatl and make him run away."
The
sorcerers decided, "Let us brew pulque. We'll have him drink it
and make him
lose his judgment so that he no longer performs his sacraments. Then
Tezcatlipoca said, `Myself, I say we should give him a way to see his
flesh.'"
Tezcatlipoca went first, carrying a two-sided mirror larger than the
size of
an outstretched hand, concealed in a wrapping. Following some clever
maneuvering on Tezcatlipoca's part, he managed to get past the palace
guard
and ministers and held up the mirror in front of the ruler. Quetzalcoatl
was
shocked by his decaying visage and soon entered into a drunken party,
became
utterly intoxicated, and neglected his ritual responsibilities. This
led to an
apparent sexual episode of sacred, royal proportions when "Quetzalcoatl
said
in a happy mood, `Go get my elder sister Quetzalpetlatl. Let the two
of us be
drunk together.' ... His pages went to Mount Nonohualca where she was
doing
penance and said, `My child lady, Quetzalpetlatl, O fasting one, we've
come to
get you. Priest Quetzalcoatl awaits you. You're to go and be with him.'"
She
complied and went to Quetzalcoatl with whom she became drunk, and they
neglected their rituals and perhaps had sexual intercourse. Afterward,
when
Quetzalcoatl awoke from his stupor, he cried in profound lament, "Never,
a
portion counted in my house.... There is only misery and servitude."
Then his
weeping pages sang, "They made us rich, they our lords, and he,
Quetzalcoatl,
who shined like a jade. Broken are the timbers, his house of penance.
Would
that we might see him. Let us weep."(28)
Quetzalcoatl is forced to leave in disgrace and
his kingdom begins to
collapse. The food turns "bitter, bitter to the core" as he
flees, in one
version, to the seashore. There he orders a funeral pyre created and
in an act
of self-sacrifice surrenders to the fire. This is a radical act of
purification in which his body is reduced, not to humus but to ashes,
but the
ashes, like humus, are recycled in a new form of life. The text tells
us:
And they say as he burned, his ashes rose. And
what appeared and what they saw
were all the precious birds, rising into the sky. They saw roseate spoonbills,
cotingas, trogons, herons, green parrots, scarlet macaws, white-fronted
parrots, and all the other precious birds.... And as soon as his ashes
had
been consumed, they saw the heart of a quetzal rising upward. And so
they knew
he had gone to the sky, had entered the sky.... The old people said
he was
changed into the star that appears at dawn. Therefore they say it came
forth
when Quetzalcoatl died, and they called him Lord of the Dawn."(29)
Quetzalcoatl descends into Mictlan, the lowest
underworld, for eight days and
reappears as Venus, the morning star. In this case, we see a god-man
forced by
ritual sin and guilt to relinquish his royal position. In order to overcome
his ritual guilt, he sacrifices himself, the result being, repeating
the
pattern of the cosmic compost heap, a reduction to ashes and descent
into the
earth, which leads to a rebirth in the sky.
A COMMENT ON SIN IN MESOAMERICA
In this discussion, I have tried to find analogies
between the terms guilt,
crime, and sin and the comparable Mesoamerican ideas and symbols. Both
guilt
and especially sin have been very problematic in the general scholarship
on
the history of religions, and some scholars have claimed that sin and
guilt
are Christian terms without analogies among native Americans. In fact,
the
Mesoamerican record suggests that qualities analogous to sin and guilt
were
committed, experienced, and shared by the gods in the time of sacred
history.
Alfredo Lopez Austin has made it clear that sin and guilt are common
among the
gods and humans:
The word sin is often avoided in Mesoamerican
historical studies, with the
claim that it is a Christian concept. I see no reason for this, since
the
wrongdoing in Mesoamerican myth fit perfectly the definition of sin
(pecado)
in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola, which has often been
criticized for its conservatism in religious matters. Furthermore, the
close
association of the generic idea of sin and the specific idea of sexual
sin--the epitome of sin--is not unique to Christianity. It is enough
to note
here that the metaphor in teuhtli in tlazolli ("dust, garbage")
meant carnal
sex in its generic and specific aspects to the ancient Nahua.(30)
RUPTURING THE COSMIC TREE
Let us turn to the story of Quetzalcoatl's retrieval
of the bones and his
journey to Tamoanchan, which was the site of cosmic creation and sin.
Tamoanchan was a mythical place where the god's adventures introduced
life,
dirt, and death onto the surface of the earth. As one scholar notes,
"Tamoanchan appears as the source of creation through the sin of
the gods as
well as the place where creation occurred."(31) There are many
mythic
fragments about Tamoanchan in the surviving sources, which give us the
following picture: (1) Tamoanchan was "the heaven where the goddess
...
Xochiquetzal resided." Xochiquetzal was a goddess of love. (2)
It was the
place of the flowering cosmic tree and the flowery mist where the great
tree
grew. This tree was loaded with jewels and gold and intoxicating flowers.(32)
(3) It was the place where reincarnated dead rulers flew among the flowers
of
the tree and dwelled on the branches. (4) But Tamoanchan was also the
place of
a primordial sin symbolized in several sources by a cut tree from which
a
stream of blood flows (see fig. 6). One text reads, "those gods,
being in that
place, transgressed when they cut flowers and branches from the trees
and
that, because of it, Tonacatecuhtli and the woman Tonacacihuatl became
angry
and they cast them out of the place. Some of them came to earth and
others
went to hell, and these are the ones that made them fearful."(33)
A number of
gods, including Oxomoco , Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Tonacatecuhtli,
all
of whom sinned, fell to earth after the gods "ate some of those
fruits,"
breaking the tree. It appears that these references to fruits and flowers
are
references to sexual intercourse.
[Figure 6 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The sexual nature of what took place in Tamoanchan
is made explicit by the
names and characters of the goddesses who were cast to earth. One was
Ixcuina,
wife of the god of death who "was the goddess who was said to defend
adulterers." Another was Tlazolteotl, the goddess of garbage and
shamelessness. She was referred to as the "woman who sinned before
the flood,
the cause of all wickedness and deceit."(34) Xochiquetzal was also
sent down
for sexual sin, but the greater prestige goes to the goddess, Tlazolteotl,
of
whom it was said, "Then, when time began, sin began, and the things
it brought
on afterwards."
This primordial sexual event resulted in the
splitting of the great tree from
which the passage of time irrupted, and the gods were distributed throughout
the cosmos. Fortunately, we have an image of the Tamoanchan tree in
the Codex
Borbonicus, which is a synthesis of the four cosmic trees (see fig.
7). The
striped nature of the tree may represent the four colors of the cosmic
trees
of the four directions, but the split signifies that the gods have irrupted
and passed into the human world and the underworld. I am impressed with
Lopez
Austin's contention that sexual pleasure is the cause of this split;
he notes
that one term for sex among the Aztecs was tlalticpaccayotl (what belongs
to
the surface of the earth). Nowhere is this clearer than in glosses associated
with Tlazolteotl, the goddess of sexual sin, that appear in the Codex
Vaticanus 3738 ("A") and in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis.
These state that
"they say that this head signifies the commencement of sin that
began with
time, there has been sin since the beginning."(35) The message
which protrudes
through the obvious Christian influence is that the creation of life
on the
surface of the earth is accomplished in part through the sexual actions
of the
gods in Tamoanchan. The time of the gods (the second time) and certainly
the
time of humans (the third time) is permeated with the sexual act that
led to
the rupture and disequilibrium of the cosmic tree.
[Figure 7 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
GUILTY RHETORIC AND THE AZTEC SUPEREGO
The Aztecs felt that they lived in a world where
no privacy, no sin, no guilt,
no act was beyond the knowledge of their gods. Consider just the title
of
chapter 4 of book 6 of the Florentine Codex, which is about the huehuetlatolli
(ancient saying) to their god Tezcatlipoca, who, you will recall, fell
out of
Tamoanchan after the tree was ruptured. The title reads: "Here
are related the
words which came from their very hearts when they prayed to Tezcatlipoca,
whom
they named creator of men, knower of men, seer into men's hearts and
men's
thoughts, as they asked for help in behalf of the ruler who had been
installed, who had been chosen, in order that he might exercise well
the
office of ruler." In fact, the speech predicts a series of stupidities
the new
ruler will carry out, calling him guilty before the actions: "Perhaps
he will
be stupid; perhaps he will constantly steal; perhaps he will pilfer;
perhaps
he will keep his own counsel; perhaps in secret he will cook things
up for
himself; perhaps he will be rude, will seize the government; perhaps
he will
be quarrelsome; perhaps he will belittle others, will be precipitate,
perverse."(36) No eulogistic perfection here! The rulers were expected
to do
foolish things, but the underlying message is that the gods will know
and are
ready to condemn.
We can also hear the warnings against the earthly
sins of sexual misconduct in
chapter 18 when rulers "admonished their daughters when they had
already
reached the age of discretion," urging them to "prudence,
virtue, public and
private" so they would "in no way blacken, dirty, discredit
the lineage."
Following paragraphs of lofty poetic language filled with oblique instructions
come the following passages:
Especially note that which I say to thee, that
which I cry out to thee. Thou
art my creation, thou art my child. Take special care that thou not
dishonor
our lords from whom thou descended. Cast not dust, filth upon their
memory.
May thou not dishonor the nobility with something.
May thou not covet carnal things. May thou not
wish for experience, as it is
said, in the excrement, in the refuse. And if thou art to change thyself,
wilt
thou become as a goddess? May thou not have quickly destroyed thyself.
Yet
calmly, with special care, present thyself well.... Give thyself not
to the
wanderer, to the restless one who is given to pleasure, to the evil
youth. Nor
are two, three to know thy face, thy head. When thou hast seen the one
who,
together with thee, will endure to the end, do not abandon him.(37)
CONFESSION: BURNING UP GUILT AND SIN
We are fortunate to have a remarkable example
of the social and spiritual
therapeutics of ritual confession from a present-day pilgrimage tradition
of
the Huichol Indians of Mexico. It brings to our attention the power
of
confession of sin, especially sexual sin, which was vitally important
among
the Aztecs and which represents the power of guilty rhetoric, not only
to
restore health but also to reestablish an equilibrium with the gods.
The
Huichol engage in a public confession prior to setting out on their
yearly
pilgrimage to Wirikuta, the land of the ancestors and the sacred fire,
to
collect peyote. In order for pilgrims to leave home on the journey,
they must
first become transformed into the ancestral beings who took the first
pilgrimage. This transformation takes place, in part, when the pilgrims
are
emptied of their human identity through a public confession of all sexual
liaisons during the previous year. This public confession can often
cause
public outcries, pain, and hullabaloo as sexual secrets involving some
people
who are present are revealed through the uttering of names. Barbara
Myerhoff,
the anthropologist who participated in one of the peyote hunts under
the
guidance of a mara'akame, describes the moment of guilty rhetoric this
way:
One at a time, in the proper order, each of the
pilgrims came forward,
acknowledged the four directions and then in a highly formalized speech
stated
the names of all those persons with whom he or she had ever had illicit
sexual
relations. For each name mentioned a knot was tied by Ramon [the ritual
leader] in a husk fiber cord he brought forth from his deerskin quiver.
The
participants' mood was especially gay when old Francisco came forward
to name
his amours. Ramon was directed by the others to make one knot for each
five
names because the old man had had such a long life and so many romances
that
to make a knot for each name would leave no one else room on the cord.
At the
conclusion of each person's statement Ramon with his plumes brushed
the
pilgrim from the head downward, making a motion of shaking into the
fire the
individual's sexual experience. Before returning to his seat each pilgrim
paused to shake and brush his clothing meticulously into the fire, turning
his
bags inside out, shaking his cape and hat, cleansing his clothing as
well as
himself, then circling the fire and returning to his proper place among
the
other peyoteros.(38)
Later, the knotted string was held up and prayers
were delivered over it by
the shaman, who then threw it into the fire, where it was consumed and
turned
into ashes. It was now understood that the pilgrims were no longer mere
mortals but the Ancient Ones who had gone on the first peyote hunt to
Wirikuta
at the beginning of time, before any sexual intercourse had taken place
among
the gods or humans. It is interesting that the fire or combustion of
the
knots--representing sexuality, and therefore human identity--into ashes
is the
mode of purification and the reversal of human time back into the time
of the
Huichol gods.
Aztec confessions were much more private involving
the priest, the sinner, and
the gods, especially Tlazolteotl. Confession had a therapeutic effect
in Aztec
thought because sexuality had such a strong influence on the three animistic
forces in the human body and on physical health. As Bernard Ortiz de
Montellano notes in his study of Aztec medicine and healing, "In
fact, the
threat of illness from the loss of these forces was actually much more
effective than legal sanctions as a deterrent against adultery and aberrant
sexual practices."(39) As we have noted before, moderation and
balance were
crucial in all matters, including sexual ones. Premature sex resulted
in
stunted growth and a weakening of the intelligence because tonalli was
lost
during the growth process. Apparently, the Aztecs believed that there
was a
profound gender difference in the human capacity for sex. Men were urged
to
start sexual activity later in their adolescence because they contained
a
fixed amount of semen. Waiting later to start sexual activity meant
being able
to have sex later in life. Women were sometimes thought to be insatiable
as
indicated in a famous legal case involving one of the great Aztec rulers,
the
Hungry Coyote of Tezcoco. Two elderly women caught in adultery with
younger
men were brought before the king for judgment. When interrogated as
to why
they still wanted to have sex in their old age, they told the king:
You men cease to desire sexual pleasure when
you are old because you indulged
in your youth and because human potency and semen run out. We women,
however,
are never satiated nor do we stop liking it. Our body is like a cave,
a gorge
which never swells and receives whatever is thrown in and still wants
and
demands more. And if we don't do this we are not alive. I tell you this,
my
son, so that you will live cautiously and discreetly; so you will go
step by
step and not hurry with this ugly and harmful business.(40)
SPEAKING IN TONGUES TO TLAZOLTEOTL
Nowhere is the Aztec sense of guilt and guilty
rhetoric clearer than in the
grand confession to Tlazolteotl as reported in book 1 of the Florentine
Codex.
In what follows, I want to emphasize the performative force of the sacred
actions and especially the flow of words that constitute the confession,
or
neyolmelahualiztli, which translates as "the act of straightening
the hearts."
There are a series of complex interrelated parts to this performance,
which at
the beginning, middle, and end depend on the ability of words to symbolically
strip a person of one identity and assist in the creation of a new one.
It is
not only words but also certainly the tongue which is the focus of the
action,
the tongue which at one moment is homologized with the penis, the tongue
which
must create the sounds that set one's heart straight. In order to gain
perspective on this complex rhetorical moment, I want to describe the
ritual
in seven parts, focusing on (1) the notion of the goddess's realm; (2)
the
naming of the goddesses and verbal cosmic setting of the confession;
(3) the
ritual construction of space and time for the confession; (4) the invitation
to confess, to open one's heart; (5) the opening of one's heart; (6)
the
punishment against the stomach, the tongue, and the penis; and (7) the
retreat
to silence and confidentiality.
THE REALM OF THE GODDESS
"As to her being named Tlazolteotl: it was
said that it was because her realm,
her domain was that of evil and perverseness--that is to say lustful
and
debauched living. It was said that she ruled and was mistress of lust
and
debauchery" (see fig. 8).(41) It is impressive that this goddess
ruled a
geography, a realm, but the realm was not so much a space as it was
an action,
a sexual action. She was identified as the cause of lustfulness as to
role a
specific domain. One god governed the domain of war, another governed
the
domain of art, still another controlled the waters. This goddess ruled
sexuality and in so doing provided from within her own substance the
forces of
sexuality, for good or ill, that is, she cast lust upon humans, like
casting a
net over them. But her influence was also internal as she "inspired
in one" or
breathed into a person sexual misconduct. She also provided from within
her
own substance the release and cure from this excessive lust. Tlazolteotl
provoked sinful sex but also could take it away. As we shall see, she
ate the
substance of sexual lust committed by humans, thereby taking it back
into her
divine body.
[Figure 8 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
THE NAMING OF THE GODDESS/A VERBAL COSMIC SETTING
"And as to her name Ixcuina: it was said
there were four women--the first
named Tiacapan (the firstborn or leader), the second Teicu (the younger
sister).... Each one of these was called Tlazolteotl." It is impressive
that
language creates the setting of the confession by first multiplying
the names
of the goddess into four. This sacred setting for the straightening
of one's
heart reflects the Aztec pattern of the one and the many. Various gods
can be
concentrated into one single god, and one god can be multiplied into
various
gods. Some of the chief gods, such as Tlaloc, Ehecatl, and Xiuhtecuhtli,
were
often converted into four gods in order to live in each of the cosmic
trees.
The same pattern was expressed in the goddess of sexual love who had
four
sisters, each one located in the four comers of the universe. In a sense,
this
multiplicity means that there is no escape from these sexual complexities
of
human existence.
One of the names of the goddess was Tlaelquani
(Eater of Filthy Things). The
goddess inspired lust and ate its power to disrupt.(42) I am impressed
with
the oral focus of so much of this ritual performance as expressed also
in the
passage "because one told, one recited before her all vanities;
one told, one
spread before her all unclean works, however ugly, however grave....
Indeed
all was exposed, told before her." This is a sacred, oral discourse
between
human and goddess that absolutely depends on rhetorical action from
start to
finish.
The verbal action is reiterated when the penitent
goes to a soothsayer "in
whose hands lay the books ... who preserved the writings, who possessed
the
knowledge ... the wisdom which hath been uttered." Utterances are
not only
made by the penitent, they wait for him or her embedded in the pictorial
manuscripts. It is for this reason that the penitent announces, "I
wish to go
to the master, our lord of the near, the nigh. I wish to learn of his
secrets." The verb itechtzinco means "to be in his venerable
proximity" and
ninaxitiznequi means "I wish to seek the protection of" (be
beneath the divine
figure in order to acquire virtue and become upright). One's guilt and
sin
have become enclosed in names and signs which have been uttered.
THE RITUAL CONSTRUCTION OF SPACE
"The soothsayer said, 'Thou has done a favor.'
He instructed him when he
should come; he chose the day. He consulted his sacred almanac ... when
it was
already the appointed time." In order for the ritual transformation
and
exchange of guilty and cleansing rhetoric to take place, a sacred space
and
time had to be identified. The soothsayer was the go-between or conduit
between the goddess and the penitent, and he had to identify the space
and
rhythm of time suitable for the powerful event. A "good day, good
time" was
chosen and the home of the penitent was swept clean; a new reed mat,
which was
the specific setting of the confessions, was laid down near the new
fire that
was lit. Incense was cast into the flames of Xiuhtecuhtli, and the first
words
were uttered, reflecting the duality we have seen to be so crucial in
Aztec
thought. "Mother of the gods, father of the gods, the old god,
here hath come
a man of low estate ... he hath lived in filth, ... hear the torment
of this
lowly one." These phrases show a spatial relationship between a
person
speaking from a low, near-the-earth position to a god who is old, honored,
and
at the center of the universe. Though it is not made explicit in this
text,
the use of the home as the site of confession and cleansing may be said
to
symbolize the communal nature of guilt. The sexual misconduct of one
member of
a family could spread illness and harm to others. According to the research
of
Lopez Austin, one person's sexual sins could harm all members of the
family--living and dead. This was due, in part, to the power of the
disequilibrium of one of the souls. For instance, a moral life produced
a
cemelli (unified liver). But immoral sexual activity altered the liver,
which
erupted, like the cosmic tree, with emissions of ihiyotl. These emissions
could injure the health of others, including animals. An adulterer would
emit
noxious forces that could infect the spouse. This disease was called
chahuacocoliztli (illness due to adultery).(43) Children and other innocent
bystanders were especially susceptible to these influences.
THE INVITATION TO OPEN/CLEAN ONE'S HEART/CONFESS
"Thou hast ... come to tell him, to deliver
thyself of, thy evil atmosphere
... to open thy secrets." This passage indicates the formal invitation
to the
penitent to open himself (recall our prior use of the phrase "the
heart was
opened") through narration of his sexual history. The soothsayer
implores,
"uncover thy secrets, tell thy way of life, in whatsoever way thou
art moved
... pour forth thy vices ... and tell thy sorrows to our lord of the
near and
nigh, who stretching forth his arms to thee, embraceth thee and carrieth
thee
on his back."(44) It is noted that this action, which apparently
could take
place only once in a lifetime, took courage: "be not timid because
of shame
... be daring."
THE OPENING/CLEANING OF THE HEART
"`I take off my clothes and uncover, in
thy presence my nakedness'... Then he
began [the tale of] his sins, in their proper order, in the same order
as that
in which he committed them. Just as if it were a song ... in the very
same way
he told what he had done." This passage tells of the narrative
structure of
the confession, which is likened both to a song and to a journey ("as
if on
the road he went following his deeds") and resonates with some
aspects of
contemporary psychoanalytic technique. In contemporary therapeutics,
the
analysand is instructed to relive the road of his or her life as a means
of
creating a profound and long lasting catharsis and a clear pathway of
understanding to see the impulses, forces, and sources of complex, troubling
feelings. For the Aztecs, the confession, which was the cleaning of
one's
heart, had to address the amount of phlegm and soil that has covered
the
heart. It was thought that too much weight of guilt on the heart would
drive a
person crazy.
THE PUNISHMENT
"When the Cihuapipiltin descend, ... thou
shalt starve thy entrails."
Following the narration of the road of one's sexual misdeeds, the soothsayer
delivered the punishment according to the severity of the story, the
volume of
guilt. The intensity of punishment is reflected in the reference to
the
descending Cihuapipiltin who are the women who died while giving birth
to
their first child. The souls of these women ascended to the western
sky of the
sun and formed five groups whose function was to accompany the sun during
the
first half of its celestial journey. These beings descended to the earth
every
fifty-two days with permission to occupy invisible houses and punish
wrongdoers or just anyone they choose (e.g., a beautiful child was paralyzed
and deformed). It was on the date of their descent that the penitent
was to
carry out at least two painful kinds of ritual cleansing.
First, a serious fast was undertaken. This fast
signified the withdrawal from
eating things of the earth, a reversal of human growth, human nature,
and the
involvement in teuhtli, tlazolli. Lopez Austin has noted that the first
disequilibrium or sin was committed the first time a child ate from
the body
of the Earth Mother, typically a corn pabulum.
When a child eats the substance that comes from
the interior of the earth, the
child ingests the weight and quality of death. All that comes from the
Earth
Mother comes from the death that produces life. In this way, the life
that is
maintained at the cost of death has to be transformed into death. If
a human
eats corn, he is required to pay his debt to the earth by giving his
own body
when he dies. Throughout life, the human being is sinning on the earth,
is
building up a debt to the earth. This debt is disequilibrium which must
be
paid or set right. This payment, in Aztec thought, is done with offerings,
with autosacrifice, with human sacrifice, with dances, and finally with
the
surrendering of one's body to the earth.(45)
This confession is just such an "offering,"
and the next requirement
introduces the painful practice of autosacrifice, which is a debt payment.
Second, the penitent is told that he must "pay
in blood" with very specific
instructions. During the fasting period, the tongue receives harsh treatment
as straws and sticks are drawn through it. Straws, reeds, or sticks
are drawn
"through the middle, thou shalt break it through from the under
side" of the
tongue or, in some cases, the ears. But it is not only the protuberance
of the
tongue that told the guilt which is pierced and bled; it is also the
protuberance of the penis that committed, in part, the sexual action
that is
bled. The penitent is also required to draw sticks, reeds, or straws
through
his penis many times. "Thou shalt insert [the reeds] in thy penis
... Thou
shall pass them through singly, or pass them through as one, binding
them
together, be they four hundred or eight hundred sticks which thou shalt
pass
through."(46) In this way, the faults, sins and evil are overcome.
Autosacrifice was carried out by all members
of Aztec society at some time in
their lives. As Cecelia Klein has shown in her seminal work, "The
Ideology of
Autosacrifice at the Templo Mayor," depictions of people engaged
in
self-sacrifice greatly outnumber images of human sacrifice, at least
on the
stone monuments that have survived. It appears that from very ancient
times,
the piercing of one's own body with spines, obsidian blades, or other
instruments promoted agricultural and reproductive fertility and good
health.
These acts of bleeding the self seem to be closely tied up with the
concept of
paying a debt or making an exchange for supernatural aid. Parents bled
their
children during the month of Tozoztontli so "that they could avoid
illness and
... no evil would befall them," and children were bled during the
New Fire
Ceremony. Describing the ideology of autosacrifice, Klein summarizes:
"Since
both sexual transgression and overindulgence in food and drink were
closely
associated with moral and physical weakness, sexual abstinence and fasting
usually accompanied bloodletting. Conversely, those who had behaved
asocially
in this manner often sought to restore their strength by offering their
blood.
Adulteresses and priestesses who broke the vows of chastity are specifically
reported to have done this ... Human blood could be shed on behalf of
plant
and animal life, as well, with the understanding that it in turn would
benefit
people."(47)
These practices among the priesthood could reach
extraordinary proportions,
reflecting our concerns with guilty rhetoric, guilty tongues. The priests
actually tied knots in the cords that were pulled through their tongues
and,
according to Diego Duran, some priests not only bled their virile members
but
also split them in two to insure impotence and the complete avoidance
of
sexual relations.
THE RETREAT INTO SILENCE/CONFIDENTIALITY
"The soothsayer before whom sins were laid
nowhere spoke of what had been
placed before him, of what had been said.... For the sins were given--they
were told--to him of the near, the nigh, whom moral man might not see."
I am
impressed with the closing comments of silence and confidentiality.
Once the
guilt had been confessed, relived through the telling, and cleansed
through
the fasting and autosacrifice (lesser offenses required singing, dancing,
the
making of images), the penitent was required to do penance at the temple
at
night while naked wearing only the emblem of Tlazolteotl (a paper painted
with
obsidian points) on his loins and buttocks. They he returned home and
silence
was required of penitent and soothsayer.
This ritual silencing of the guilty rhetoric
now ingested by the goddesses was
exaggerated by certain priestly groups who drew large numbers of knotted
cords
or thorns through their tongues. "According to Motolinia, one physical
effect
of this practice was considerable difficulty in speaking. The Cholulan
priests
who offered their own blood to Camaxtli drew the rods through their
tongues
every twenty days, he tells us, precisely so as 'to keep their tongues
from
murmuring."(48) During one eighty-day fast in honor of the god
Camaxtli in the
region of Tlaxcala, the head priest who sang "could scarcely move
his tongue."
This is a radical form of silencing the flow of guilty rhetoric as well
as of
reminding the penitent of the seriousness of the offense and blocking
the
allure of the sin.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
In Aztec thought, human life was a tender, perishable
combination of the Above
and the Below, the Four Quarters, and the Dualities of the cosmos. Guilt
was
part of human nature because the gods, in creating the thirteen levels
above
the earth, and the nine levels below, injected the sins of their sexuality
and
the bloody forces erupting from the broken tree in Tamoanchan. Perhaps
the
final word on the profundity of this guilt should be given to that greatest
of
Aztec messengers, the Mexica midwife, as she addressed the newborn baby
four
days after birth in the naming ceremony. Just before sunrise, she took
the
newborn child in her arms, faced west, and began to bathe the child.
Cooing,
she told the male child he has been sent from the gods Ometecuhtli,
Omecihuatl
who lived in the highest heavens; she gave him a taste of water, the
blue
water, the yellow water in order to purify the heart. Then she said:
"My
youngest son, my youth, take, receive the water of the lord of the earth,
our
sustenance, our refreshment, which is that which cleanseth one, that
which
batheth one. May the heavenly water, the blue water, the deep green,
go into
thy body; may it remain in thy body. May it remove, may it destroy the
manner
of things thou wert given with which thou wert arrayed in the beginning--the
bad, the evil; for we are still left in its hands; we merit it, for
even
before, our mother Chalchiuhitli icue, knoweth of it."(49)
(1) Mircea Eliade No Souvenirs: Journal, 1957-69,
trans. Fred H. Johnson, Jr.
(New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. xiii
(2) Ibid., p. 45.
(3) Ibid., p. 259.
(4) For the best introduction to the worldview
and religious practices of the
Aztec world, see H. B. Nicholson, "Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central
Mexico,"
in The Handbook of Middle American Indians, ed. Gordon F. Ekholm and
Ignacio
Bernal, vol. 10 of Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Part One, ed.
Robert
Wauchope (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965), pp. 395-445. Also,
see
Michel Graulich, Myths of Ancient Mexico, trans. Bernard R. Ortiz de
Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1997); and David Carrasco, "Aztec Religion," in The
Encyclopedia of
Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 6:518-23.
(5) For a discussion of how human sacrifice included
Spanish hearts, see David
Carrasco, "Myth, Cosmic Terror and the Templo Mayor," in The
Great Temple of
Tenochtitlan: Center and Periphery in the Aztec World, by Johanna Broda,
David
Carrasco, and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of
California Press, 1987), pp. 124-62. Eyewitness descriptions of Spaniards
being slaughtered in sacrificial ceremonies appear in Bernal Diaz del
Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517-1520, ed. Genaro
Garcia;
trans, and notes Alfred P. Maudslay; introduction by Irving A. Leonard
(New
York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1956).
(6) "Hombre-dioses" is the term used
by Alfred Lopez Austin in The Human Body
and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient Nahuas, trans. Thelma Ortiz de
Montellano and Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano (Salt Lake City: University
of
Utah Press, 1988).
(7) See the introductory phrases to the first
nine huehuetlatolli in book 6 of
Bernardo de Sahagun, Florentine Codex: The General History of the Things
of
New Spain, ed. and trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble
(Santa
Fe: School of American Research and University of Utah, 1950-82), pp.
1-41.
For an introduction to this literary style of ancient orations, see
David
Carrasco (with Scott Sessions), Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of
the Sun
and Earth (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998), pp. 164-70.
(8) See Julien Ries, "The Fall," in
Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea
Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 5:256-67.
(9) Quetzalcoatl is one of the most significant
pre-Hispanic deities of
Mesoamerica and has attracted the attention of scholars, artists, and
writers
in many cultures. The best study of the historical Quetzalcoatl is H.
B.
Nicholson, "Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan: A Problem in Mesoamerican
Ethnohistory" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1957). Also, be
sure to read
Alfredo Lopez Austin, Hombre-dios: Religion y politica en el mundo nahuatl
(Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1973); and David
Carrasco, Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies
among the
Aztecs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
(10) Popul Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient
Quiche Maya, trans. Adrian
Recinos, Delia Goetz, and Sylvanus G. Morley (Norman: University of
Oklahoma
Press, 1950), p. 81.
(11) Leyenda de los Soles, quoted in John Bierhorst,
History and Mythology of
the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca, trans, from the Nahuatl by John
Bierhorst
(Tucson and London: University of Arizona Press, 1992), p. 145.
(12) Ibid.
(13) The best study of paradise in Mesoamerican
traditions is Alfredo Lopez
Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan: Places of Mist, trans. Bernard R. Ortiz
de
Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano (Niwot: University Press of
Colorado, 1997). Also, see Hermann Beyer, "Tamoanchan, el paraiso
de los
antiguos mexicanos," in Mito y simbologia del Mexico antiguo, ed.
Carmen Cook
de Leonard (Mexico City: Sociedad Alemana Mexicanista, 1965), pp. 39-43;
and
Alfonso Caso, "El Paraiso Terrenal en Teotihuacan," Cuadernos
Americanos 6,
no. 6 (1942): 127-36.
(14) Louise Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian
Moral Dialogue in
Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989),
p. 88.
(15) Lopez Austin, The Human Body and Ideology,
pp. 52-53.
(16) Quoted in ibid., p. 58.
(17) An excellent introduction to the relationship
of cosmos and state is
Richard E. Townsend, State and Cosmos in the Art of Tenochtitlan (Washington,
D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1979).
(18) The best short introduction to the underworld
is Timothy J. Knab,
"Geografia del inframundo" Estudios de cultura nahuatl 21
(1991): 31-47.
(19.) Lopez Austin, The Human Body and Ideology
(n. 6 above), p. 60.
(20) Lopez Austin calls this time by the alternate
terms "transcendent time"
and "intranscendent time" in an attempt to describe what is
the nature of the
first stages of creation in the universe. For related and helpful discussions
of this stage of the cosmogony, see Mircea Eliade, "Cosmogonic
Myth and Sacred
History," in The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (Chicago:
University
of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 72-87. For a valuable exposition on the
different
modes of primordiality in world religions, see Charles H. Long, Alpha:
The
Myths of Creation (New York: G. Braziller, 1963).
(21) Lopez Austin, The Human Body and Ideology,
p. 61.
(22) Ibid., p. 255.
(23) See M.-N. Chamoux, "La notion nahua
d'individu: Un aspect du tonalli dans
la region de Huauchinango, Puebla," in Enquetes sur l'Amerique
Moyenne:
Melanges offerts a Guy Stresser-Pean, ed. Dominique Michelet (Mexico
City:
Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, consejo National para
la
Cultura y las Artes, and Centre d'Etudes Mexicaines et Centramericaines,
1989), pp. 303-11, for a study of contemporary ideas concerning the
tonalli.
(24) For a helpful discussion of ihiyotl and
the best overall summary of Aztec
health practices, see Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine,
Health,
and Nutrition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990),
pp.
55-70.
(25) Carrasco, Quetzalcoatl (n. 9 above) see
chap. 5.
(26) Quoted in Elizabeth Baquedano, "Aztec
Earth Deities" in Polytheistic
Systems, ed. Glenys Davies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989),
pp.
184-98. See Telma Sullivan, "Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina: The Great Spinner
and
Weaver," in The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central
Mexico, ed.
Elizabeth H. Boone (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1982), p. 15.
(27) See David Carrasco, Religions of Mesoamerica:
Cosmovision and Ceremonial
Centers (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), esp. chap. 3, "Aztec
Religion:
Ways of the Warrior, Words of the Sage," pp. 58-91, for a helpful
introduction
to Quetzalcoatl's meaning for the Aztecs. Also, see Nigel Davies, The
Aztec
Empire: The Toltec Resurgence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1987) for
an intense analysis of the historical sources about the Aztec/Toltec
relationship.
(28) Anales de Cuauhtitlan, quoted in Bierhorst
(n. 11 above), History and
Mythology of the Aztecs, pp. 31-35.
(29) Ibid., p. 36.
(30) Alfredo Lopez Austin, The Myths of the Opossum:
Pathways of Mesoamerican
Mythology, trans. Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de
Montellano (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), p. 66.
(31) Lopez Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan (n. 13
above), p. 91.
(32) Angel Maria Garibay Kintana, Poesia nahuatl
(Mexico City: Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1964-68), 2:106.
(33) Eloise Quinones Keber, Codex Telleriano-Remensis:
Ritual, Divination, and
History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (Austin: University of Texas
Press,
1995), p. 40 (fol. 81) and pp. 182-83.
(34) Ibid., pp. 38 (fol. 17) and 179-81.
(35) Quoted in Lopez Austin, Myths of the Opossum,
p. 67.
(36) Sahagun (n. 7 above), bk. 6, pp. 17-18,
quote on p. 17.
(37) Ibid., pp. 97-98.
(38) Barbara G. Myerhoff, Peyote Hunt: The Sacred
Journey of the Huichol
Indians (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 134.
(39) B. R. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine
(n. 24 above), pp. 150-51.
(40) Quoted in ibid., p. 62.
(41) Sahagun, bk. 1, p. 23.
(42) For a provocative and insightful view of
the cosmological basis of eating
symbols and rites, see, especially, Philip P. Arnold, "Eating Landscape:
Human
Sacrifice and Sustenance in Aztec Mexico," in To Change Place:
Aztec
Ceremonial Landscapes, ed. David Carrasco (Niwot: University Press of
Colorado, 1991), pp. 225-36. Also, see David Carrasco, "Cosmic
Jaws: We Eat
the Gods and the Gods Eat Us," Journal of the American Academy
of Religion 63,
no. 3 (1995): 101-35. On a related note, Aztec cannibalism has been
a juicy
topic among scholars for several centuries. The best summary of the
controversy appears in Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano, "Aztec Cannibalism:
An
Ecological Necessity?" Science 200 (1978): 611-17.
(43) B. R. Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine,
p. 152.
(44) Ibid., p. 25.
(45) Alfredo Lopez Austin, personal communication.
(46) Sahagun, bk. 1, p. 26.
(47) Cecelia F. Klein, "The Ideology of
Autosacrifice at the Templo Mayor," in
The Aztec Templo Mayor, ed. E. H. Boone (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton
Oaks,
1987), pp. 293-370, esp. 294-95. There are many pictorial images of
autosacrifice as ritual expression and discipline for children in a
number of
codices. For images of children being disciplined by autosacrifice,
see the
third pictorial section of the Codex Mendoza, ed. Frances F. Berdan
and
Patricia Rieff Anawalt, 4 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of
California Press, 1992), vol. 3.
(48) Klein, p. 355.
(49) Sahagun, bk. 6, p. 202. The speech to the
baby girl as reported in
Sahagun does not include an extensive statement about original evil.
Rather it
says, "She cleaned it of thievery. Everywhere on its body, its
groin, it was
said, she cleaned it of vice" (p. 206).
-- End --
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