Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru — John Shaqi
Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and PeruRéville, Albert
Religion
Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru
Réville, Albert
Indian mythology -- Mexico; Indian mythology -- Peru
To sum up: Uitzilopochtli was a derivative form or determination of the
Sun, and specifically of the Sun of the fair season. He had three great
annual festivals. The first fell in May, at the moment of the return of
the flowering vegetation. The second was celebrated in August, when the
favourable season unfolded all its beauty. The third coincided with our
month of December. It was the beginning of the cold and dry season. On
the day of this third festival they made a statue in Uitzilopochtli's
likeness, out of dough concocted with the blood of sacrificed infants,
and, after all kinds of ceremonies, a priest pierced the statue with an
arrow. Uitzilopochtli would die with the verdure, the flowers and all
the beauteous adornments of spring and summer. But, like Adonis, like
Osiris, like Atys, and so many other solar deities, he only died to live
and to return again.[12]
It was now his brother Tezcatlipoca who took the direction of the world.
His name signifies "Shining Mirror." As the Sun of the cold and sterile
season, he turned his impassive glance upon all the world, or gazed into
the mirror of polished crystal that he held in his hand, in which all
the actions of men were reflected. He was a stern god of judgment, with
whose being ideas of moral retribution were associated. He was therefore
much dreaded. Up to a certain point he reminds us of the Vedic Varuna.
His statue was made of dark obsidian rock, and his face recalled that of
the bear or tapir. Suspended to his hair, which was plaited into a tail
and enclosed in a golden net, there hung an ear, which was likewise made
of gold, towards which there mounted flocks of smoke in the form of
tongues. These were the prayers and supplications of mortals. Maladies,
famines and death, were the manifestations of Tezcatlipoca's justice.
Dry as the season over which he presided, he was not easily moved. And
yet he was not absolutely inexorable. The ardent prayers, the sacrifices
and the supplications of his priests might avert the strokes of his
wrath. But in spite of all, he was pre-eminently the god of austere law.
And this is why he was regarded as the civilizing and organizing deity
of the Aztecs. It was he who had established the laws that governed the
people and who watched over their observance. In this capacity he made
frequent journeys of inspection, like an invisible prefect of police,
through the city of Mexico, to see what was going on there. Stone seats
had been erected in the streets for him to rest upon on these
occasions, and no mortal would have dared to occupy them. At the same
time a terrible and cruel subtlety in the means he employed to
accomplish his ends was attributed to him; and the legend about him,
which is far less brilliant than that of his brother Uitzilopochtli, led
several Europeans to believe that he was simply an ancient magician who
had spread terror around him by his sorceries. All this we see
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