Aztec mythology; Indian mythology -- Mexico; Mexico -- Religion
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 73: In this place he is set back to back with the
Death-god and is surrounded by the twenty day-signs. The body-paint is
light blue, and the anterior part of the face has the stellar painting
of white circles on a black ground. His conical cap has the
parti-coloured painting and the cross, the symbol of the four winds, in
the middle. On his breast he wears the snail-shell and in his hand a
blue staff. His wind-mask is entirely covered with stellar and lunar
emblems. His rattle-staff is light blue, in contradistinction to that
of the Death-god, which is sprinkled with blood. Sheet 56: Here he is
equipped with the hoe and wears the body-paint of a priest, a necklace
of jaguar-skin and teeth, the conical bi-coloured cap, the stepped
fillet with conventional bird’s head in front, and the bearded
face-mask. Stellar symbols and feather-balls dot his dress and
headdress. He stands back to back with the Death-god, and it is clear
that here he is intended to represent the heavenly Quetzalcoatl, the
giver of breath and life. On sheet 72 we see him as a priest surrounded
by day-signs and implements of mortification. Sheet 19: As represented
in this sheet he stands opposite the Death-god. He wears a
dark-coloured garment, and what can be seen of his face is painted
black, with a spiral pattern. His mantle bears the cross-hatchings
indicative of rain or water and is ornamented with feather balls. The
red wind-mask protrudes beneath a parti-coloured cap with stellar eyes,
and a fillet with step-pattern and conventional bird’s head, and he
wears the snail-shell breast ornament and carries the implements of
mortification. Sheet 16: On the lower right-hand corner of this sheet
he is depicted in a precisely similar manner.
Quetzalcoatl’s Dress sent to Cortéz.—When Cortéz landed at Vera Cruz,
Motecuhzoma, believing him to be the god Quetzalcoatl returned, sent
him “the dress that was appropriate to him.” [143] This consisted of
four costumes, that of Quetzalcoatl proper, and those of Tezcatlipocâ,
Tlaloc, and Xiuhtecutli, the Fire-god, who were regarded as the four
deities dominant in the four quarters of the heavens, and had in the
higher theology become fused in the conception of Quetzalcoatl, or were
regarded as variants of him. The Quetzalcoatl dress proper is said by
Sahagun to have consisted of the turquoise snake-mask, now to be seen
in the British Museum, and which can be easily identified by the folds
of the snake’s body forming the eyebrows, the quetzal-feather
adornment, and the turquoise throwing-stick, shaped in the form of a
snake. It seems probable, however, that this dress, although it is
described as that of Quetzalcoatl, was that associated with the
Fire-god.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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