| Jan. 27th, 2012 @ 11:50 am Sunday, Bloody Sunday |
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Current Mood:  lethargic
Current Music: Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name Of
Lazy student is lazy. It's just been so busy! But there has been reading and critical thinking over Japanese food, so here I am to tell you all about it.
1) After all Boone's indignation last week about conquistador book-burning, Bierhorst points out that it wasn't just them; the Mexica (the dominant Aztec tribe, centered in Tenochtitlan) also burned the shit out of some histories when they came to power. In their case, they knew exactly what they were doing; having just conquered all these other kingdoms, they were literally destroying their memories so they could replace them with Mexica ones.
2) Reading the Codex Chimalpopoca is a trip; it was written by natives, but they knew they were being watched by the Spaniards, so every diety that turns up is referred to as a "devil" or "sorcerer", even when doing benevolent things. The extremely human Quetzalcoatl hero here may also be the result of euhemerizing to avoid getting shipped to the Inquisition.
3) To blow your minds, consider this: there are no codices, books or records remaining from before the time of the conquistadors. Everything we have was written after or only recorded by visiting Europeans. It's an incredible (and depressing) sweep of a culture having literally no more record of itself before it was shaped by its invaders.
4) For those not well-versed in Aztec myth, it revolves around the idea that this is the fifth world that has existed; in each previous world, the god that was playing the role of the all-important sun in some way failed it and the world and its inhabitants were destroyed. There are a few variations from place to place, but usually the story goes something like this:
A) The gods make a concerted effort to create the world by slaying the great earth monster (in some versions a bloodthirsty goddess named Tlaltecuhtli, in others a massive crocodile called Cipactli), during the process of which Tezcatlipoca loses his foot. (Interestingly, a missing foot becomes a symbol of royalty thereafter because Tezcatlipoca is the god of nobility; only he and Huitzilopochtli are allowed to be depicted without this limb.)
B) Once the world exists and it's possible for people to live on it, Tezcatlipoca becomes the sun. His twin Quetzalcoatl, however, is jealous of his preeminent position and knocks him out of the sky with a club. Darkness swallows the earth and all the people are eaten by jaguars (Tezcatlipoca's totem creatures).
C) The gods hit the restart button and embark on the second world, now with Quetzalcoatl as the sun. Just as pissed off about his brother's new primacy, Tezcatlipoca turns all of humanity into monkeys, which so upsets Quetzalcoatl that he blows them away with hurricane winds and abdicates the sky, once again ending the world.
D) The gods start over again and the rain-god Tlaloc takes over as the sun. Everything goes pretty well until he loses his wife to another god's seduction, at which point he rains fire from the sky, destroys everything and puts out the sun.
E) The fourth world begins, now with Tlaloc's new wife, Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of waters, taking over as the sun. She does okay, but Tezcatlipoca accuses her of being selfish and only pretending to be kind out of a desire to be popular. She is so upset that she cries until the entire world floods, turning all the people into fish.
F) The fifth (and current) world begins, and the gods have a meeting to figure out how to stop ruining everything over and over again. They eventually determine that they need a sun without personal problems, so they nominate a lowly god named Nanahuatzin to sacrifice himself on a pyre and become the sun. Once he does, they then call upon Huitzilopochtli, the pre-eminent sun and war god, to be in charge of moving the new sun (now called Tonatiuh) through the sky, thus ensuring that the world doesn't end again. Yay!
5) The Aztec practice of conquering nearby tribes in order to find sacrificial victims that were not their own people is echoed in the myth of Mixcoatl creating a separate race of people other than Quetzalcoatl's creations (the Aztecs), explaining that he has made them "so the sun has hearts to eat". Being a foreigner does not pay in this climate.
6) Mixcoatl is an interesting figure; he was the sponsoring god for a native people called the Chichimecs, who inhabited Cuautitlan, which no one has ever heard of because it's the fourth-most important city in the empire and only the big three of the Triple Alliance (Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlalopan) get noticed. The Codex Chimalpopoca was in large part written by the Chichimecs (though after they were absorbed into the Aztec empire), and as a result Mixcoatl, who is kind of a footnote for the Mexica, is around all the time, "becoming human", raping ladies, winning wars and inspiring Quetzalcoatl to go on a murdering spree to avenge him.
7) Throughout most of the codex, Quetzalcoatl is a major figure as the king of the Toltecs (in fact, several kings of the Toltecs; it seems the name is passed down to new rulers). He appears as human, but in a decidedly magical way; when he meets Tezcatlipoca in secret, he suffers from vivid prophecies of the incoming Mexica conquest and voluntarily "dies" in order to leave with the jaguar-god rather than sticking around for it.
8) In a myth that classicists might find resonant with the stories of Cronus over in Greece, the great mother-goddess Itzpapalotl (the famous Obsidian Butterfly) has 400 sons and eats them all, saving only Mixcoatl who manages to escape and hide in a cactus. He later saves them by attacking and shooting her with an arrow, calling out to his brothers so that they burst out of her to aid him.
9) Then everybody cremates her and rubs her ashes around their eyes so they can "see as she sees", which is kind of creepy. But not as creepy as Mixcoatl himself, who gathers up his mother's bones and ashes and carries them around in a bundle as his new good-luck charm.
10) Like many gods we've mentioned, though - Mixcoatl and Quetzalcoatl do it, too - being dead is not really an impediment to Itzpapalotl, who turns up later cleverly directing and controlling the Toltec kingdom prior to the arrival of the Mexica.
11) There are a lot of examples of the Just Desserts Punishment in Aztec myth, usually having to do with sacrifice. In one story, the sun needs blood to move through the sky, and when a local god tries to get it moving by throwing a stone at it, he is instantly struck by the same stone and given permanent brain damage. In another, the rabbit-god Tecciztecatl is too afraid to sacrifice himself to become the sun, and is thrown to live forever on the moon as punishment for his cowardice. In yet another, Quetzalcoatl loves his people too much to demand blood sacrifice of them and instead says he will sacrifice only "snakes, birds and butterflies." The gods are unamused and blow up his kingdom. The underlying theme is that sacrifice is an incredibly necessary force in the world, and that those who refuse to participate in the universe's cosmic reciprocity program end up seriously ruining it for everyone.
12) In one cringeworthy story, Tezcatlipoca, in his eternal quest to one-up and disgrace his brother because he thinks it's hilarious, turns himself into a woman and becomes his brother's concubine for several years before revealing the situation, thus shaming Quetzalcoatl into abdicating the throne and sacrificing all his children. Man, and I thought Vishnu and Shiva were awkward with that gender-swapping dating thing. At least they weren't related.
13) Important Aztec vocabulary word: totec, meaning the victim of a ritual flaying. Most commonly seen in the name of the fertility god Xipe Totec ("the flayed lord"), but it's all over the place in sacrificial texts, too.
14) Because he is not yet done playing hilarious pranks on Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca proceeds to get both of his daughters pregnant. With opossums.
15) Ol' Tezcat may sound like just a shameless trickster bent on ruining everything all the time, but he's actually one of the most important gods in the Aztec pantheon; as the patron of the royalty and nobility, his rituals and influence were incredibly important to governance and custom. One story details how the king had two sons, but even though the firstborn would normally inherit, the second son gets to be king because his mother craftily named him after Tezcatlipoca.
16) The Codex Chimapopoca is about the Mexica, and if there's one thing that the Mexica want you to know, it's how badass they are. First there are enormous lists of places they conquered... then enormous lists of enemy leaders they massacred... then enormous lists of impressive sacrifices they performed... then go back to the beginning, rinse and repeat.
17) An interesting practice is that of calling any land taken in battle "eagle land", in homage to Huitzilopochtli, the eagle-god of war.
18) The Aztecs are not okay with suicide. Not only are you the lowest of the low if you kill yourself, but your children can never have glory or honor in their lives no matter how they distinguish themselves. This comes not from a particular feeling of life as too precious to lose - after all, this is a culture of people who kill one another to fuel the world and whose favorite thing to do is go die in glorious battle - but from the feeling that suicide is a direct avoidance of your duty. Everybody has a duty to their family, their people, and their occupation; committing suicide is being a draft-dodging douchebag.
19) In a hilarious aside that reminds us that this codex is being written by Chichimecs, not Mexica, the tale of the Mexican conquest of Cuautitlan is related in which they storm the temple and capture the sacred ashes of Itzpapalotl as well as the great statue of Mixcoatl, taking both back to their capital with them. Except that the Chichimecs hem and haw and say a lot of things like, "But that wasn't really the statue of Mixcoatl. We hid that. They just stole some other statue we told them was Mixcoatl. Dumb Mexica."
20) The gathering square for sacrifices at the base of the Templo Mayor (this thing that is probably what you think of when you think of Aztec pyramids) is called the apetlatl and is where sacrifices were washed, dressed and fed their final meal. It all seems kind of nice until you realize that the place was popularly known as "Huitzilopochtli's dining place", because, you know, he's going to metaphorically eat those guys.
21) The warriors that work for him are just as hardcore; in some areas, soups were made from the dried blood of sacrifices and drunk by warriors before battle to impart courage to them (again, from a curiously respectful angle, however: sacrifices were considered to be the most courageous of all men to give up their lives to fuel the gods, so the warriors were directly trying to partake of that courage rather than glorying in their dominance over dead people).
22) In a story that is funny but also tragic, the last Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, calls up a local prophet to ask him if pouring more gold and jade into Huitzilopochtli's temple is economically feasible, since he really wants to honor his patron god. The prophet informs him that the "real master" is coming from across the sea and there's no point in doing anything for the local gods, a very obvious later myth invented to give the Aztecs some window into what the Spanish conquest meant for them. Naturally, Moctezuma has him and all his sons murdered, because nobody talks about his god that way.
23) In the Aztec creation myth, Quetzalcoatl steals the bones of the previous race of humanity from the Underworld and gives them to Itzpapalotl to grind up; after she does, all the gods join in anointing the powder with their blood, turning it into clay that they can shape into humanity. It's another example of the Aztec idea that nothing can get done without sacrifice, in this case on the part of the gods; it's also curiously touching in presentation, especially when later the gods are chewing food before placing it in newly-formed human mouths, because mortals don't understand how to eat yet.
There, I promised blood and veritable rivers of it emerged. I'm hoping one of these upcoming texts will talk more about sacrifice, the idea of energy inherent in blood and its central importance in Aztec culture, because it's a very fascinating worldview that is almost totally unique to the Americas. |
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