Latin-American Mythology. Hartley Burr Alexander

When the gods saw this, they created four men, with whose aid Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl again upreared the heavens, even as they are today; and these two gods becoming lords of the heavens and of the stars, walked therein. After the deluge and the restoration of the heavens, Tezcatlipoca discovered the art of making fire from sticks and of drawing it from the heart of flint. The first man, Piltzintecutli, and his wife, who had been made of a hair of Xochiquetzal, did not perish in the flood, because they were divine. A son was born to them, and the gods created other people just as they had formerly existed. But since, except for the fires, all was in darkness, the gods resolved to create a new Sun. This was done by Quetzalcoatl, who cast his own son, by Chalchiuhtlicue, into a great fire, whence he issued as the Sun of our own time; Tlaloc hurled his son into the cinders of the fire, and thence rose the Moon, ever following after the Sun. This Sun, said the gods, should eat hearts and drink blood, and so they established wars that there might be sacrifices of captives to nourish the orbs of light. Most of the other versions of the myth of the epochal Suns similarly date the beginning of sacrifice and penance from the birth of the present age.

      The Annals of Quauhtitlan gives a somewhat different picture of the course of the epochs. Each epoch begins on the first day of Tochtli, and the god Quetzalcoatl figures as the creator. Atonatiuh, the first Sun, ended with a flood and the transformation of living creatures into fish. Ocelotonatiuh, "the Jaguar Sun," was the epoch of giants and of solar eclipse. Third came "the Sun of Rains," Quiyauhtonatiuh, ending with a rain of fire and red-hot rocks; only birds, or those transformed into them, and a human pair who found subterranean refuge, escaped the conflagration. The fourth, Ecatonatiuh, is the Sun of destruction by winds; while the fifth is the Sun of Earthquakes, Famines, Wars, and Confusions, which will bring our present world to destruction. The author of the Spiegazione delle tavole del codice mexicano (Codex Vaticanus A)—not consistent with himself, for in his account of the infants' limbo he makes ours the third Sun—changes the order somewhat: first, the Sun of Water, which is also the Age of Giants; second, the Sun of Winds, ending with the transformation into apes; third, the Sun of Fire; fourth, the Sun of Famine, terminating with a rain of blood and the fall of Tollan. Four Suns passed, and a fifth Sun, leading forward to a fifth eventual destruction, seems, most authorities agree, to represent the orthodox Mexican myth; though versions like that of Ixtlilxochitl represent only three as past, while others, as Camargo's account of the Tlascaltec myth, make the present Sun the third in a total of four that are to be. Probably one cause of the confusion with respect to the order of the Suns is the double association of Quetzalcoatl—first, with the Sun of Winds, which he, as the Wind-God, would naturally acquire; and second, with the fall of Tollan and of the Toltec empire, for Quetzalcoatl, with respect to dynastic succession, is clearly the Toltec Zeus. The Sun of Winds is normally the second in the series; the fall of Tollan is generally associated with the end of the Sun last past: circumstances which may account for the shortened versions, for it seems little likely (judging from American analogies) that the notion of four Suns passed is not the most primitive version.

      PLATE XIII.

      Figures from Codex Vaticanus A representing cataclysms bringing to an end cosmic "Suns," or Ages of the World.

      The upper figure represents the close of the Sun of Winds, ending with the transformation of men, save for an ancestral pair, into apes. The lower pictures the end of the Sun of Fire, whence only birds and a human pair in a subterranean retreat escaped.

      Another myth confusedly associated now with the Sun of Waters, now with the Sun last past, is the story of the deluge. In the pattern conception (if it may so be termed) each Sun begins with the creation or appearance of a First Man and First Woman and ends with the salvation of a single human pair, all others being lost or transformed. The first Sun ends with a deluge and the metamorphosis of the First Men into fish; but a single pair escaped by being sealed up in a log or ark. In the Chimalpopoca (Quauhtitlan) version given by Brasseur de Bourbourg it is related that the waters had been tranquil for fifty-two years; then, on the first day of the Sun, there came such a flood as submerged even the mountains, and this endured for fifty-two years. Warned by Tezcatlipoca, however, a man named Nata, with Nena his wife, hollowed a log and entered therein; and the god closed the port, saying, "Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but a single ear also." When the waters subsided, they issued from their log, and seeing fish about, they built a fire to roast them. Citlallatonac and Citlalicue, beholding this from the heavens, said: "Divine Lord, what is this fire? Wherefore does this smoke cloud the sky?" Whereupon Tezcatlipoca descended in anger, crying, "What fire is this?" And he seized the fishes and transformed them into dogs. Certainly one would relish an elaboration of this tale; for it would seem that a theft of the fire must precede—perhaps a suffering Prometheus may have followed—the anger of the gods. In another version the Mexican Noah is named Coxcox, his wife bears the name of Xochiquetzal; and it is said that their children, born dumb, received their several forms of speech from the birds. Now Xochiquetzal is associated (doubtless as a festal goddess) with Tollan and the age in which she appears is the last of all, that in which Tollan is destroyed; whence the deluge is placed at the end of the fourth Sun.

      To the same group of events—the passing of Tollan and the deluge—belong the stories of the building of the great pyramid of Cholula and the portents which accompanied it. It is said⁵⁴ that, reared by a chief named Xelua, who escaped the deluge, it was built so high that it appeared to reach heaven; and that they who reared it were content, "since it seemed to them that they had a place whence to escape from the deluge if it should happen again, and whence they might ascend into heaven"; but "a chalcuitl, which is a precious stone, fell thence [i.e. from the skies] and struck it to the ground; others say that the chalcuitl was in the shape of a toad; and that whilst destroying the tower it reprimanded them, inquiring of them their reason for wishing to ascend into heaven, since it was sufficient for them to see what was on the earth." It is worth while to remember that the hybristic scaling of heaven is no uncommon motive in American Indian myth, while the moral of the tale is honestly pagan—"mortal things are the behoof of mortals," saith Pindar; nor can we fail to see in the green jewel the jealous Earth-Titaness, for the toad is Earth's symbol.

      The duration of the cosmic Suns is given various values by the recorders of the myths. These, no doubt, issued from variations in calendric computations; for the Mexicans not only possessed an elaborate calendar; they also used it, in its involved circles of returning signs, as the foundation for calculating the cycles of cosmic and of human history. It is essential, therefore, if the genius of Mexican myth be fully grasped, that the elements of its calendar be made clear.