IMAGE OF TEZCATLIPOCA -- HIS SEATS AT THE STREET-CORNERS -- VARIOUS LEGENDS ABOUT HIS LIFE ON EARTH -- QUETZALCOATL -- HIS DEXTERITY IN THE MECHANICAL ARTS -- HIS RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES -- THE WEALTH AND NIMBLENESS OF HIS ADHERENTS -- EXPULSION FROM TULLA OF QUETZALCOATL BY TEZCATLIPOCA AND HUITZILOPOCHTLI -- THE MAGIC DRAUGHT -- HUEMAC, OR VEMAC, KING OF THE TOLTECS, AND THE MISFORTUNES BROUGHT UPON HIM AND HIS PEOPLE BY TEZCATLIPOCA IN VARIOUS DISGUISES -- QUETZALCOATL IN CHOLULA -- DIFFERING ACCOUNTS OF THE BIRTH AND LIFE OF QUETZALCOATL -- HIS GENTLE CHARACTER -- HE DREW UP THE MEXICAN CALENDAR -- INCIDENTS OF HIS EXILE AND OF HIS JOURNEY TO TLAPALLA, AS RELATED AND COMMENTED UPON BY VARIOUS WRITERS -- BRASSEUR'S IDEAS ABOUT THE QUETZALCOATL MYTHS -- QUETZALCOATL CONSIDERED A SUN-GOD BY TYLOR, AND AS A DAWN-HERO BY BRINTON -- HELPS -- DOMENECH -- THE CODICES -- LONG DISCUSSION OF THE QUETZALCOATL MYTHS BY J. G. MÜLLER.
In the preceding chapter I have given only the loftier view of Tezcatlipoca's nature, which even on this side cannot be illustrated without many inconsistencies. We pass now to relations evidencing a much meaner idea of his character, and showing him whom we have seen called invisible, almighty, and beneficent, in a new and much less imposing light. We pass, in fact, from the Zeus of Plato and Socrates to the Zeus of Hesiod and Homer.
Let us glance first at the fashion of his representation in the temples, though with little hope of seeing the particular fitness of many of the trappings and symbols with which his statue was decorated. His principal image, at least in the city of Mexico, was cut out of a very shining black stone, called iztli, a variety of obsidian--a stone valued, in consideration of its capabilities of cleavage, for making those long splinters, used as knives by the Aztecs, for sacrificial and other purposes. For these uses in worship, and perhaps indeed for its manifold uses in all regards, it was surnamed _teotetl_, divine stone. In places where stone was less convenient the image was made of wood. The general idea intended to be given was that of a young man; by which the immortality of the god was set forth. The ears of the idol were bright with ear-rings of gold and silver. Through his lower lip was thrust a little crystal tube, perhaps six inches long, and through the hollow of this tube a feather was drawn; sometimes a green feather, sometimes a blue, giving the transparent ornament the tint at one time of an emerald, at another of a turquoise. The hair--carved from the stone, we may suppose--was drawn into a queue and bound with a ribbon of burnished gold, to the end of which ribbon, hanging down behind, was attached a golden ear with certain tongues of ascending smoke painted thereon; which smoke was intended to signify the prayers of those sinners and afflicted that, commending themselves to the god, were heard by him. Upon his head were many plumes of red and green feathers. From his neck there hung down in front a great jewel of gold that covered all his breast. Bracelets of gold were upon his arms, and in his navel was set a precious green stone. In his left hand there flashed a great circular mirror of gold, bordered like a fan with precious feathers, green and azure and yellow; the eyes of the god were ever fixed on this, for therein he saw reflected all that was done in the world. This mirror was called _itlachia_, that is to say, the 'looker-on,' the 'viewer.' Tezcatlipoca was sometimes seated on a bench covered with a red cloth, worked with the likeness of many skulls, having in his right hand four darts, signifying, according to some, that he punished sin. To the top of his feet were attached twenty bells of gold, and to his right foot the fore-foot of a deer, to show the exceeding swiftness of this deity in all his ways. Hiding the shining black body, was a great cloak, curiously wrought in black and white, adorned with feathers, and fringed about with rosettes of three colors, red, white, and black. This god, whose decorations vary a little with different writers--variations probably not greater than those really existing among the different figures representing in different places the same deity--had a kind of chapel built to hold him on the top of his temple. It was a dark chamber lined with rich cloths of many colors; and from its obscurity the image looked out, seated on a pedestal, with a costly canopy immediately overhead, and an altar in front; not apparently an altar of sacrifice, but a kind of ornamental table, like a Christian altar, covered with rich cloth. Into this holy of holies it was not lawful for any but a priest to enter.