Aztec Art Photostream by Ilhuicamina
Happy New Year’s! Instead of fireworks, let’s ring in the new year with a superb photostream from Flickriver user Ilhuicamina. This set is of exceptional quality and covers many significant artworks excavated from the Templo Mayor and safeguarded by INAH at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Take a look!
Quiquiztli: The Conch Shell Trumpet
It’s the ending of the old baktun and the dawning of a new one, and I’d like to greet both the new era and the return of the Sun on this Winter Solstice with the blowing of conch horns!
Aztec Conch Trumpeter (quiquizoani), Codex Magliabecchi
The Aztecs named the conch shell trumpet quiquiztli, and the musicians who played them “quiquizoani.” This is the instrument that Quetzalcoatl played to defeat the devious challenge of Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead, and reclaim the ancestral bones of humanity at the start of the Fifth Sun. I have seen some speculation that the “mighty breath” blown by the Plumed Serpent to set that newborn Sun moving in the sky was actually a tremendous blast on a conch horn. It’s the trumpet the priests played to call their colleagues to offer blood four (or five) times a night in the ceremony of tlatlapitzaliztli, and also during the offering of incense, according to Sahagun in the Florentine Codex . Tecciztecatl, the male Moon God, is sometimes depicted emerging from the mouth of a quiquiztli. The sound of the instrument itself was considered by the Aztecs to be the musical analog to the roar of the jaguar. Like the twisting spiral within the shell, the associations are nearly endless, doubling back on each other in folds of life, death, night, dawn, and breath.
The quiquiztli appeared in two offerings at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan (offering #88). One shell was found on Tlaloc the Rain Lord’s side (not at all surprising, given the overwhelming watery connotations of the instrument). A second one was found on Huitzilopochtli’s side of the manmade replica of Coatepetl. If you would like to actually hear one of these very trumpets being played, you can click HERE to visit the International Study Group on Music Archaeology’s page for these trumpets. You can directly download the MP3 recording by clicking HERE.
I also found a beautiful photograph of an Aztec or Mixtec conch trumpet (covered in intricate carvings) currently in the holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts here in Boston. If you’d like to view the photo and see their notes on the artifact, please click HERE. If you’d rather jump right to the full-size, more detailed image, click HERE instead.
Want to learn more about the trumpet and its uses in Mesoamerican cultures past and present? Head on over to Mixcoacalli and read Arnd Adje Both’s excellent 2004 journal article called “Shell Trumpets in Mesoamerica: Music-Archaeological Evidence and Living Tradition” (downloadable full text PDF). It gives a valuable introduction to the instrument in Teotihuacan, Aztec, and Mayan societies and includes numerous interesting photos and line sketches as a bonus. I couldn’t find a direct link to the article on his site, but I did find it on his server via Google. As a courtesy, the link to his homepage is here. There is some other interesting material relating to the study of ancient Mesoamerican music on there, so I recommend poking around.
What about South American cultures? I’m a step ahead of you — why not go here to read an interesting article on Wired about a cache of 3,000 year old pre-Incan shell trumpets found in Chavin, Peru? Includes recordings and photos.
Finally, if you’re curious for an idea of how the Aztecs and Maya actually played the quiquiztli, including how they changed the tone of the instrument without any finger-holes or other devices, you can view a demonstration by ethnomusicologist John Burkhalter below. If you noticed that the trumpeter in the codex image I embedded earlier has his hand slipped into the shell, you’ll get to see what that actually does when the horn is played in the video.
Xultún And The Baktun
In honor of the approaching end of the 13th baktun on December 21, per the famous Mayan calendar, I’d like to write about a piece of ironclad historical evidence contradicting the “Mayan doomsday” nonsense. That particular piece of evidence lies in the ruins of Xultun.
Xultun was once a flourishing Mayan metropolis, and its importance continues to the present day as the site of a series of murals of great significance to clearing up an archaic misunderstanding of the great calendar. More specifically, painted on the walls in a house that appears to have been a workshop for scribes and astronomers, is a series of complex astronomical tables extending well past the end of 2012. In other words, the Mayan astronomers of the ninth century C.E. most certainly didn’t think the world would end when the thirteenth baktun did, but instead carried on with their work charting planetary and stellar activities well beyond the supposed end of the world. “So much for the supposed end of the world,” quips William Saturno, one of the present-day (re) discoverers of these scientific calculations.
Another of Saturno’s comments sums up the contrast between Western pop culture’s misconceptions and Mayan thought nicely, in my opinion — “We keep looking for endings… the Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change. It’s an entirely different mindset.” (National Geographic, 5/10/2012)
After the above excerpts, you might be interested in getting a look at Xultun and these murals for yourself. If so, you’re in luck!
If you click HERE, you can view National Geographic’s “Giga Pan” high resolution photographs of some of the murals.
If you’d like to explore the beautiful stone stelae (carvings) that dot the city, you can click HERE to visit the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard’s website cataloguing a bit of the site’s history, its carvings, and their locations around the town. (The diagrams of the carvings are in the list on the lefthand side of the page.)
Finally, National Geographic has also prepared a short video on the discoveries at Xultun for your viewing pleasure, which you can view HERE if you have trouble viewing the embedded version below.
Conquistador Helm In Salem, MA Part 2
A quick post today to follow up on my last one. I was digging through a disc of photos my father took while we were visiting Salem, and it turns out he also snagged a shot of the conquistador’s helmet. He had a proper DSLR camera with him and was able to get a larger, higher resolution photo of the helm, so I’m posting it too so you can get a more detailed look. As always, click to view the image in its full size.
Conquistador’s Helm at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA (photo copyright 2012 by John L.)
Conquistador Helm In Salem, MA
Earlier this month I visited the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA and spotted a surprising object in their collection. Amidst the lovely array of East Asian artwork (better than the MFA’s holdings in Boston proper, in my opinion), nautical paintings and artifacts, and other marvels, sitting unobtrusively on a shelf in their gallery devoted to curios collected by local sailors from around the world, sits a conquistador’s helmet. I snapped a couple of photos to share with you all (please excuse the quality, I wasn’t planning on doing any photography and flashes were forbidden in the museum to boot). Click to view the photos full size.
First, a shot of the whole helmet on its shelf.
Conquistador’s Helm at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA (photo copyright 2012 by Cehualli)
Next, a close-up of the antique paper label pasted on the helm by a museum curator (presumably) a long time ago. Judging by the paper, ink, and handwriting style, I’m guessing it was attached to the artifact sometime in the 19th century. The label reads “An Ancient Spanish H[elmet] found in Mexico, and probably [worn?] by some of the followers of Cortez.”
Detail of the label attached to the conquistador’s helmet. (photo copyright 2012 by Cehualli)
Aztecs In The Werner Forman Archive
Tonight I’ve decided to bring your attention to a major collection of photographs of Aztec and other Mesoamerican art, crafts, and architecture. It’s housed at the Werner Forman Archive in the United Kingdom. It’s a treasure trove of wonderful pictures of literally thousands of different objects and places around the world, including pictures relating to the Aztecs, Maya, Teotihuacanos, and other peoples of Central America.
Click HERE to enter the Archive and begin browsing or searching.
You can browse their Precolumbian section for photos covering both North and South American peoples, or you can try searching for Aztec, Maya, or more specific keywords. To give you a hint at how much there is to explore, the full Precolumbian section has 763 photos available online!
As they don’t appear to look kindly on people rehosting their images, and hotlinking is rude, I’ll just drop a few direct links here to some particularly interesting photos to get you started…
Click here to see a sculpture of Tlaloc, Lord of Storms and Tlalocan, in His Earth-lord guise.
Want to see a pectoral device in the shape of a chimalli (shield)?
How about Quetzalcoatl’s signature necklace, the wind jewel?
Two Aztec Censer Photos
While browsing links and foraging for data, I came across an excellent pair of photos on Flickr that tie in nicely with yesterday’s post on pre-Conquest Aztec censers. Both photographs were taken by Lin Mei in 2006 at the Museo del Templo Mayor (Museum of the Grand Temple) and adjacent excavation site of the Huey Teocalli itself in Mexico City. They are hosted on Rightstream’s Flickr photostream as a part of his Templo Mayor set of images. I recommend taking a look at the full set in addition to the two I’m highlighting here, as the photos are very good quality and provide a good look at many of the fascinating examples of Mexica art and architecture uncovered by the Templo Mayor archaeology team. My thanks to Leo and Lin Mei for generously allowing their work to be shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
The first photo is a beautiful example of a ladle-type censer, intended to be carried in the hand and used to incense places, people, sacred images, etc. It’s the design Walter Hough described as being derived from a basic tripod incense burner design, where one leg is elongated into a handle, producing a ladle form.
Image 055 in Rightstream’s Flickr photostream, photograph taken by Lin Mei in 2006
Used under a Creative Commons 2.0 License
The second image is a picture of the large, stationary stone brazier Hough described as being used for burning incense, offerings, ritual implements and paraphernalia, and as vessels for sacred temple fires that were never allowed to go out. The popochcomitl in the photo below is beautifully preserved, and a great amount of sharp, clear detail is apparent. Look closely at the narrow waist of the hourglass shape, and you’ll see the belt-like knotted bow I discussed yesterday. It’s a much better example than the grainy turn of the century photograph available in the linked article. You’ll also notice a beautiful monolithic serpent head nestled between the two braziers. The alternating brazier – serpent – brazier pattern continues over large sections of the stepped pyramid. It’s a logical motif when one remembers that the Grand Temple, at least on the southern side where Huitzilopochtli’s sanctuary was, is a man-made replica of the Coatepetl (Snake Mountain) where Huitzilopochtli was born and defeated the jealous Southern Stars. If you’d like to read that story, you can click HERE for my retelling of that exciting narrative.
Image 001 in Rightstream’s Flickr photostream, photograph taken by Lin Mei in 2006
Wirikuta
Today I came across some interesting news articles documenting the ongoing struggle of the Huichole (Wixáritari) people to protect one of their holiest sites in the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The site in question is a beautiful mountain region named Wirikuta in the Huichol tongue, which Spanish-speakers call Cerro del Quemado. In English, the name is roughly translated as “Burned Mountain,” a fitting name for the place where the sun ascended from the Earth’s surface to the skies in traditional belief.
Despite being considered an internationally-recognized protected site by UNESCO and the Mexican government, Wirikuta is currently under threat from foreign mining interests. In 2009, the Canadian mining company, First Majestic Silver Corp., bought mineral rights to the area, and plans extensive extraction of silver, a process which will consume a significant portion of the area’s limited water supply, as well as expose the countryside to dangerous chemicals used in silver mining, such as cyanide, which have a deadly tendency to seep into the groundwater and render it undrinkable. This threat to the mountain and the fragile aquifer rooted at it is all the more horrifying when one recalls that mountains were and still are considered to be hearts of earth and water, or “houses of mist” all across Mesoamerica, a belief uniting the imperial Mexica-Tenochca with their present-day Huichol cousins. Viewed through this lens, it’s not at all surprising that a threat to Wirikuta is a threat to the aquifer and all life in its nourishing influence.
In addition to the physical destruction that mining unavoidably brings, there will be spiritual destruction. Wirikuta is home to many sacred plants, such as peyote, animals, and divine beings, particularly deities associated with rain. Destroying the mountain will destroy these creatures and desecrate the site, which will sever the Huichol from their spiritual root. Drawing a Judeo-Christian-Islamic parallel, Dawn Paley likened digging up Wirikuta to “bulldozing Eden for a golf course” in her detailed coverage of this issue in This Magazine. Furthermore, this mountain is not only a place to gather vital religious supplies, but it is also a natural temple, a place to conduct ceremony. Cerro del Quemado, the sacred center of Wirikuta, is the destination of a traditional 800 kilometer yearly pilgrimage conducted by the Huichol people to renew bonds of community and deity.
This February, the journey had an additional goal of seeking guidance in protecting the holy ground from destruction, and by extension, themselves — the Huichol view themselves as inseparable from the sacred site so intimately intertwined with their culture and ancestry, and have stated they view First Majestic’s plans to dig as a “war of extermination” against them. The Esperanza Project has a beautiful account of the ceremony held on February 6-7th, 2012, complete with numerous photographs and interviews with several Huichol community leaders and observers about the meeting and the ideas and hope flowing from it. They were kind enough to allow journalists to record some footage of song and ceremony from this holy gathering, which you may watch below.
Courtesy link to Mysticalfrequency’s original YouTube posting
To view video statements by the Huichol against this impending desecration and in support of their traditional spirituality and lifeways, please click HERE. The linked site, www.nierika.info, also contains many interesting articles on this matter if you would like to read more, both in English and in Spanish.
Below, for those who wish to learn more, I’ve included a short video discussing this crisis and calling for action. I can’t seem to get it to embed properly, so please click the link below to check it out.
Click to watch on Venado Mestizo’s Vimeo page
You may be wondering where you can go to read and watch more, and learn how you can get involved in putting pressure on First Majestic to abort their plans for this site. I would like to highlight the Wirikuta Defense Front’s excellent site (click for English or Spanish). They are an action group composed of people from the Huichol community, as well as local and international allies, and are seeking volunteers to help.
Tlaloc In Zitlala
Came across an interesting photograph recently that’s quite interesting, as it shows an aspect of a Pre-Columbian ceremony still surviving today in Zitlala, Mexico.
Tigre Fighter With Whip & Jaguar Mask. Copyright 2008 by the Associated Press/Eduardo Verdugo. Used without permission.
Link to original photograph source.
Original Caption:
“A man dressed as a tiger carries a small whip made from rope in Zitlala, Guerrero state, Mexico, Monday, May 5, 2008. Every year, inhabitants of this town participate in a violent ceremony to ask for a good harvest and plenty of rain, at the end of the ceremony men battle each other with their whips while wearing tiger masks and costumess. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)” [Cehualli’s note — “tiger” is a common mistranslation of “tigre,” when the context makes it apparent a jaguar or other large cat is meant.]
Now…there’s a lot more going on here that the photographer doesn’t get into in his note. Specifically, that this is a modern survival of traditional indigenous religious practices.
Why do I think this? Let me explain.
There’s a certain ancient god of rain in Mesoamerica who has traditionally been associated with jaguars… and that’s Tlaloc. In the codices, if you look carefully you can see that He’s always depicted with long, fearsome jaguar fangs. The growl of the jaguar resembles the rolling of distant thunder, and the dangerous power of such an apex predator fits the moody, explosive-tempered Storm Lord quite nicely. The jaguar as a symbol of Tlaloc is a very ancient tradition that appears across the whole of Central America, whether the god is being called Tlaloc, Cucijo, Dzahui, or Chaac.
The whip-club is another hint. Flogging has been done as part of rain ceremonies for Tlaloc for centuries (I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s symbolic of lightning). Additionally, though the photographer didn’t mention this, one knows what happens when people strike each other hard with whips like the one the man in the photo is shown carrying — you bleed. A lot.
In Prehispanic Mexico, one of the important rituals for Xipe Totec, the Flayed Lord, god of spring and new growth, is called “striping.” Striping involved shooting the sacrificial victim with arrows for the purpose of causing his blood to drip and splash on the dry earth below, symbolizing rain that would bring a good harvest. Similar rituals specifically devoted to Tlaloc were also done, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the gladiatorial combat done for Xipe Totec had the same basic idea in mind, sprinkling blood over the ground done to call the rain.
The next part is due to my good friend Shock and her impressive knack for research. While we were discussing this photo, Shock directed me to an excellent article about this phenomenon known as “Tigre Boxing” that still exists all throughout Mexico today. It even discusses this specific form of battling with whips in Zitlala that this photograph is of. I highly recommend checking it out, as it’s loaded with more information about the surviving practice of gladiatorial combat for rain, complete with many excellent photos of the jaguar masks, sculptures, and even videos of the combat!
Happy Panquetzaliztli!
Well, my numerous, intractable, and incredibly frustrating network/Internet connectivity problems resolve just in time for Panquetzaliztli! A lovely coincidence.
Why am I so excited? Panquetzaliztli is Huitzilopochtli’s main festival month, that’s why! I’ve been particularly waiting for this veintana to roll around, as it’s the perfect opportunity for me ramble on about this very special Teotl. I’ve been hoarding research relating to Him just for this month, and will be doing my damndest to pour it out as much as I can, come hell, high water, third-rate cable companies, or exceptionally crappy workweeks. Books have been accumulating tabs like feathers just for this special event…
So… get ready!
To whet your appetite and kick things off on the right (or left?) foot, I would like to draw your attention to the material I have already accumulated on this blog that relates to Huitzilopochtli.
My static page introducing the reader to the god.
A quick intro, a bit about His nature, and a codex image.
Mexicolore’s downloadable feature on Huitzilopochtli.
Includes many artifact photos, pictures from codices, etc. Also includes other interesting tidbits on the god, such as His birthday (1 Flint Knife), his festivals, his sacred animals (the hummingbird and the eagle), and much more. They place Panquetzaliztli a bit later in the year than most calendar correlations I’ve seen, but that’s a minor quirk.
Incarnations of the Aztec Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe
Elizabeth Hill Boone’s excellent monograph on Huitzilopochtli. The only full-length English study of this particular god available at this time. Full text available to read via Google Books.
The Battle of Coatepec: Huitzilopochtli Defeats the Moon and Stars (As told by Cehualli)
This is my retelling of the important myth about Huitzilopochtli’s birth and how He protected His mother, Coatlicue, from Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua at Coatepec.
Grace Lobanov’s English translation from her Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico. The book is still under copyright and so you can’t read the whole thing, but fortunately this particular hymn in its entirety can be reached via Google’s Limited Preview. This link will take you to the “About This Book” page. Look for the “Search This Book” box, type in “Huitzilopochtli hymn,” and click on the link to page 65 that it will turn up. That’s the song for the Portentous One.
Huitzilopochtli Standing Before A Teocalli
Aztecs At The British Museum
In the spirit of the aphorism “a picture is worth a thousand words,” I recommend stopping by the British Museum’s Aztec collection online. They have available 27 photographs (well, 26 if you ignore the crystal skull that’s been proven to be a hoax) of beautiful Aztec and Mixtec artifacts. Among them are statues of Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, Mictlantecuhtli, Tlazolteotl, Tlaloc, Xochipilli, and Xipe Totec, as well as a rare mosaic ceremonial shield, a turquoise serpent pectoral, and a sacrificial knife. The images are thought-provoking and intense, as these objects speak wordlessly the vision of the Nahua peoples without Colonial censorship.
Click HERE to visit the British Museum’s Aztec Highlights.
As a bonus, I located an excellent photograph of a jade mask of Xiuhtecuhtli, God of Time and Fire, which is a part of the British Museum’s collection but is not on their website. Thank you Z-m-k for putting your fine photography skills to work on this worthy subject material and for your kindness in sharing it under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 License.
Jade Mask of Xiuhtecuhtli
Images Of Autosacrifice
I knew I’d come across images of autosacrifice in the codices before! I’ve included two below so you can see how the Aztecs depicted themselves performing ritual bloodletting to benefit the gods.
Tongue Piercing
Page 9, Recto, of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis
The image above is taken from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, a Post-Conquest religious text painted by Aztec artists in a style that is a hybrid of Mexican and European art. The worshipper is piercing his tongue and letting the blood flow as a gift to the Teteo. The tool in his hand looks like a pointed stick, rather than a thorn, bone perforator, or obsidian shard, so I believe this painting may be depicting the practice of “drawing straws through the flesh” I mentioned in my article on traditional forms of autosacrifice. If anyone’s got more information on this particular image, I’m all ears.
Numerous Piercings
Page 79, Recto, of the Codex Magliabecchiano
This second image comes from the Codex Magliabecchiano, another Post-Conquest codex drawn in a European-influenced style and speaking of religious subjects. This picture shows a group of worshippers doing many different forms of autosacrifice. One is piercing his tongue, while the other is piercing his ear. The green coloration of the objects they’re using to bloodlet makes me wonder if they’re either exaggerated maguey thorns or perforators made of jade. Given the traditional use of maguey thorns for this purpose and the association of jade with blood (as both are exceedingly precious), I could go either way. Again, if anyone knows more, please drop me a comment.
Additionally, we can see that these two worshippers have already completed more rounds of bloodletting than the forms they’re in the middle of in the picture. See the blood on their arms and legs? They’ve either been piercing in those places, or have nicked themselves with shards of obsidian or flint. Incidentally, the bag-like objects slung over their arms are traditional incense pouches. They were often made with paper and beautifully decorated, and would be filled with copal resin to be burned for the gods.
Huitzilopochtli & The Battle of Coatepec
I’m in a storytelling mood again, so I think it’s time for the legend about Huitzilopochtli’s miraculous birth and His battle at Coatepec against Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua. My version of the tale follows the most common form quite closely, as there don’t seem to be many variants of this one that need to be dealt with. As a bonus, I included a photo of the famous Coyolxauhqui Stone that was located at the foot of Huitzilopochtli’s side of the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan, a structure that retold this particular myth in stone.
The Battle Of Coatepec: Huitzilopochtli Defeats the Moon and Stars
As told by Cehualli
Long ago, before the foundations of Tenochtitlan were laid, the great goddess Coatlicue, “She With The Snake Skirt,” was living peacefully at Coatepec. One day, She was sweeping Her home as She always did, when a peculiar sight greeted her. A little ball of beautiful feathers was drifting down from the sky towards Her.
“What a lovely bunch of feathers!” Coatlicue said as She stopped Her sweeping to pick them up. “Perhaps they are a gift from another god. Either way, I will keep them.” She tucked them into Her clothes for safekeeping and resumed Her sweeping. Later, once She had finished sweeping, She reached for the feathers to take them and put them away, but they were gone. “Where are my beautiful feathers? Did I drop them?” She looked around for the feathers, but they were nowhere to be found.
Coatlicue suddenly stopped Her search and placed a hand against Her belly. “What’s this? I’m pregnant!” She wondered at this miracle. “The beautiful feathers have become a baby — how can this be?” Excited and amazed, She shared this incredible news with the other gods and godesses.
Coyoxauhqui, the Moon goddess, “She Who Wears The Golden Bells,” was not happy for Her mother. Later that night, She gathered Her brothers, the Cenzton Huitznahua, the Four Hundred Southern Stars. “Our mother has no sense of shame! She’s pregnant, and who is the father? We don’t know! She claims it’s a miracle, but I don’t believe Her. No, She’s let Herself be overcome by lust and is acting like a common whore. We’re going to have to kill Her to remove the stain of shame from Our family. Who’s with Me?” she cried out, raising Her shield and shaking Her warrior’s bells.
The Four Hundred Southern Stars all shouted back to Her in agreement. “We’re all with You! For Her disgusting behavior, We will help You kill Our mother!” Then they all began to prepare for war. All of them except one, that is. A single Star, Cuahuitlicac, crept away from the secret meeting and ran for Coatepec.
“Mother!” he cried out. “Mother, your daughter and sons are planning to kill You!”
Coatlicue wept in terror and heartache at the news. “So I will be murdered at the hands of my own children, even though I’m innocent of any immorality!”
Then a strange voice was heard. “Don’t be afraid, Mother. I won’t let Them lay a hand on You. I’m here, and will protect You, no matter what the danger.” It was Coatlicue’s unborn son, Huitzilopochtli, speaking to Her from within Her womb. Cuahuitlicac and his mother were amazed. “I’ve already got a plan for dealing with these murderous kinslayers. Just tell Me when the army gets to the top of Coatepec, and I’ll do the rest.”
So, Coatlicue waited with trepidation in Her home atop Snake Mountain as the only loyal Southern Star watched Coyolxauhqui’s army march slowly towards Them. Even from his vantage point on the peak, he could hear the terrifying war-shouts, jingling of bells, and clashing of spears against shields. Coyolxauhqui marched Her army higher and higher up the slopes, calling out “Coatlicue! Prepare to die for your shameful deeds! We come to avenge Our family’s honor!”
At that time, Cuahuitlicac called out to Huitzilopochtli, “They’re here! And Coyolxauhqui Herself is leading them!”
In an instant, Huitzilopochtli was born. In the blink of an eye, He was a full-grown man, painted for war in blue and yellow. He straightened His warrior’s array and picked up His shield and darts. “See, Mother? I am here to protect you!” He took up His xiuhcoatl, the Fire Serpent, a blazing thunderbolt that flared to life in His hand, and with an echoing shout He raced like a comet towards the very startled Coyolxauhqui. They fought like two fierce jaguars, but in the end, Huitzilopochtli struck off the Moon goddess’s head and threw Her lifeless body tumbling down the side of Coatepec. Some say that He then threw Her severed head into the sky, where it still is to this day as the moon, Her golden bells shining in the night.
Before the Cenzton Huitznahua could react, He was in their midst like a raging fire.
They fought back, but nothing they did could drive Him away. They tried to frighten Him, but He just kept attacking. Finally, the Southern Stars pleaded with Him to spare them. “No!” Huitzilopochtli snarled. “You will all die for betraying your mother so cruelly!” The enraged god chased them, killing them mercilessly. Only a very few Stars escaped to hide in the farthest reaches of the southern sky.
With the army crushed, Huitzilopochtli proudly walked the battlefield and picked up the regalia of one of the Stars. He took it as a trophy, wearing part of it as His own and absorbing the might of the Stars. This great battle at Coatepec was the Hummingbird On The Left’s first victory, His first steps on the long road through the maelstrom of war that would ultimately take Him and His chosen people to Tenochtitlan.
*****
The Coyolxauhqui Stone
Photo taken by Thelmadatter & generously placed into the public domain
Tlacatecco 