Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual and Religion, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
There was a god in heaven named Citlalatonac, and a goddess, Citlalicue.
When we speak of "heaven" we must probably think of some such world of
ordinary terrestrial nature above the sky as that from which Ataentsic
fell in the Huron story. The goddess gave birth to a flint-knife, and
flung the flint down to earth. This abnormal birth partly answers to
that of the youngest of the Adityas, the rejected abortion in the Veda,
and to the similar birth and rejection of Maui in New Zealand. From
the fallen flint-knife sprang our old friends the magnified non-natural
beings with human characteristics, "the gods," to the number of 1600.
The gods sent up the hawk (who in India and Australia generally comes
to the front on these occasions), and asked their mother, or rather
grandmother, to help them to make men, to be their servants. Citlalicue
rather jeered at her unconsidered offspring. She advised them to go to
the lord of the homes of the departed, Mictlanteuctli, and borrow a
bone or some ashes of the dead who are with him. We must never ask for
consistency from myths. This statement implies that men had already
been in existence, though they were not yet created. Perhaps they had
perished in one of the four great destructions. With difficulty and
danger the gods stole a bone from Hades, placed it in a bowl, and
smeared it with their own blood, as in Chaldea and elsewhere. Finally, a
boy and a girl were born out of the bowl. From this pair sprang men, and
certain of the gods, jumping into a furnace, became sun and moon. To the
sun they then, in Aztec fashion, sacrificed themselves, and there,
one might think, was an end of them. But they afterwards appeared in
wondrous fashions to their worshippers, and ordained the ritual of
religion. According to another legend, man and woman (as in African
myths) struggled out of a hole in the ground.(1)
(1) Authorities: Ixtlil.; Kingsborough, ix. pp. 205, 206; Sahagun, Hist.
Gen., i. 3, vii. 2; J. G. Muller, p. 510, where Muller compares the
Delphic conception of ages of the world; Bancroft, iii. pp. 60, 65.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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