Chapter IV · THE CREATIVE DEITIES

TONACATECUTLI—TONACACIUATL (TONACATECUTLI = “LORD OF OUR SUBSISTENCE”)

Area of Worship: Mexico; originally Atlantic coastlands, the Olmeca lands and Tlaxcallan. Anciently Toltec.

Minor Names: Ometecutli = “Twofold lord.” Tlachinale = “Lord of Creation.” Tlatecque = “Lord of the Earthly World.” Teotlale = “Lord of the Steppe.” Matlaua = “Lord of the Net.” Topeua = “Lord of the Mountains.” Tloque Nahuaque = “Lord of the Close Vicinity.”

Relationship: Father of Quetzalcoatl.

Calendar Places: Ruler of the first day, ce cipactli, of the first week and of the fourth day-hour.

Compass Direction: West.

Symbol: The human pair beneath the coverlet.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Vaticanus A.—In the Codex Vaticanus A Tonacatecutli’s body-paint is red and pink. His headdress is bound by a fillet richly encrusted with turquoises, having in front the conventional bird’s head which is so frequently encountered in representations of the Mexican gods in the codices. He wears the nasal ornament of serpentine shape peculiar to the octli- or drink-gods, as to some of the deities of fertility, and his fruitful or life-giving nature is symbolized by a foot-stool composed of maize ears.

Codex Vaticanus B.—In Codex Vaticanus B (sheet 87) Tonacatecutli is represented with Quetzalcoatl’s head and neck ornaments, combined with the jewelled fillet and bird’s head on forehead. He wears a long beard reaching to the feet.

TONACACIUATL = “LADY OF OUR SUBSISTENCE”

Minor Names: Omeciuatl = “Twofold Lady.” Citlalinicue = “Starry Skirt.”

Calendar Place: Same as that of Tonacatecutli.

Compass Direction: Same as that of Tonacatecutli.

Symbol: Same as that of Tonacatecutli.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

General.—In Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (sheet 10) the drawn-in angle of the mouth and the female figure point to the inference that here is depicted Tonacaciuatl, who is identified by the interpreters with Xochiquetzal. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Vaticanus A we find her standing in front of the male creative god Tonacatecutli. In the latter MS. the first interpreter calls her Tonagacigua, and the third Xochiquetzal, Oxomoco, and Chicomecohuatl. The picture shown under the nineteenth week of Codex Telleriano-Remensis pictures her with precisely the same dress and emblems as Xochiquetzal (q.v.).

MYTHS

In further descriptive passages concerning Tonacatecutli the same Codex says: “This is the representation of Tonacatecotle, which name signifies the Lord of our Bodies; others say that it means the First Man, or perhaps it means that the first man was so called.” “These are the figures which have been mentioned; and the first is that of their greatest god Tonacatecotle. It represented the first god under whom they affirm was the dominion of the world; who, when it appeared good to him, breathed and divided the waters of the heavens and the earth, which at first were all confused together, and disposed of them as they now are; and accordingly they called him Lord of our Bodies; and also of abundance, who bestowed everything upon them; and on this account they paint him alone with a crown. They called him besides Seven Flowers, for they say that he disposes of the principalities of the earth. He had no temple, nor did they offer sacrifices to him, for they say that he did not require them, as if on account of his superior majesty.… They say that Tonacatecotle presided over the thirteen signs which are here marked (the day-signs of the tonalamatl, q.v.). Those above denote the thirteen causes or influences of the sky which are under subjection to him, and the others below are the thirteen signs of their superstition and sorcery. This man and woman represent the first pair who existed in the world; their names are Huehue (very old ones). Between them is placed a knife or razor and an arrow above each of their heads, typifying death, as in them death originated.”

The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas regards these deities as appearing at the commencement of creation, but says nothing of their relations to the precise creative act.

The Anales de Quauhtitlan says of them:

And they say

that in the inner heaven

he [Quetzalcoatl] dedicated a cult

and called on them:

her with the star-studded robe, together with the astral Sun-god.

the mistress of our flesh, the lord of our flesh,

who is clothed in charcoal, clothed in blood,

who giveth food to the earth;

and he cried aloft

—as they (the old people) were informed—

to the Omeyocan,

to the heaven lying above the nine that are bound together.

And—as they learnt—

those having their abode there,

those he called upon, those he worshipped.

(See also chapter on Cosmogony for further mythical material relating to these deities.)

NATURE AND STATUS

In examining the characteristics of these deities we find:

(2) That these gods were regarded by the Mexican priesthood in more modern times at least, as abstractions, ideal beings who arose out of philosophic speculation. That they had become rather neglected in the popular Mexican faith is clear from the circumstance that they had no temples and that no offerings were made them. Tonacatecutli represented, indeed, that great invisible and intangible figure which at all times and in all religions has loomed behind most pantheons—the great god behind the gods—the principle of causality, that first cause beyond which the speculations of theology cannot proceed.

(3) They presided over the food supply. Although other deities occupied the positions of maize and vegetable gods, the creative deities were in the ultimate the great givers of all food. Thus they were designated “Lords of Food Supplies” and “Lords of Superabundance.”

(5) They commence the series of twenty day-signs, and this alone symbolizes their creative and original nature.

(6) They represent the sign cipactli, the animal from which the earth was made.

(7) They are gods of the Omeyocan, the highest or thirteenth heaven, which fact further illustrates their supreme character.

CONCLUSIONS

From these facts we may be justified in concluding:

(1) That in the most early times Tonacatecutli and his consort typified the father-sky and mother-earth respectively, but that this aspect of them had been forgotten and they came to have a purely abstract creative significance for both priests and people. That Tonacaciuatl originally represented the earth there is no doubt, and her identification with Xochiquetzal and Chicomecoatl alone would show this to be so. Again, the association with the sign cipactli proves the connection of one of the divine pair with the earth, and from what has been said regarding this sign in the introduction, and by the constant association of goddesses in the Mexican mind with the terrestrial sphere, it is plain that Tonacatecutli, her male counterpart, is not likely to have represented it in early times. The suggestion that he symbolizes the sky is perhaps assisted by the nature of his abode, the uppermost heaven, and from his close identification with Citlallatonac, the god of the night heaven, who was supposed to represent the Milky Way.

Tonacatecutli and his spouse are to be regarded as the parents of Quetzalcoatl, but this is probably a theogonic myth of late origin, brought about by the constant association of Quetzalcoatl with the creative gods as deities of the ancient Toltecs, and the frequent references to him as the founder of their cult.

Ixtlilxochitl states in his fourth Relacion that Tonacatecutli and his wife were the chief gods of the Toltecs, who represented them as the sun and the moon, and he goes on to say that at certain seasons of the year criminals were sacrificed to them by a method called Telimonamiquian, “which is to say grinding between the stones.” Two great stones, he says, were balanced opposite each other, and the victim was crushed between them as they fell—the slain man thus representing the corn-spirit, or, indeed, the corn itself in the process of being ground.