Note 35 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

Mexican tradition makes it very plain that obsidian, because of its blood-procuring properties, came to be regarded as the source of all life, as the very principle of existence. Tonacaciuatl, the creative goddess, as we shall see, gave birth to an obsidian knife from which sprang sixteen hundred demigods who peopled the earth,35 and the infant which the goddess Ciuacoatl leaves in the cradle in the market-place undergoes metamorphosis into an obsidian knife.36 As the Codices show, grain is often pictured in the form of the obsidian knife of sacrifice. Just as in many myths, both in the Old World and the New, flint was regarded as the great fertilizer because of its supposed connection with the lightning, so was obsidian. Thus all the elements which go to make for growth and life were regarded as having a connection with this mineral, even the sun itself, as we shall see, being identified with the Mirror of Tezcatlipocâ. The idea that the sun could not live without human blood was a purely Nahua conception, arising out of an earlier belief that it must be nourished upon the blood of beasts. Of the transitional process abundant proof exists. The hunter’s obsidian weapon which supplied the necessary pabulum became in turn the weapon of the warrior who procured victims for the holocaust, and the sacred knife of the priest who sacrificed them to the deity. Obsidian was thus chiefly the war weapon and the sacrificial weapon, but the traditions relating to it refer to practically all the offices of human art, industry, and activity generally.