Aztec mythology; Indian mythology -- Mexico; Mexico -- Religion
In Codices Fejérváry-Mayer and Vaticanus B the face-paint of this god
is red, and in the latter MS. has the alternate red and yellow
cross-bars of the red Tezcatlipocâ. In Codex Borgia the body is painted
black, but in this MS., as well as in the Aubin tonalamatl, the upper
part of the face resembles that of Quetzalcoatl in its decoration, the
profile being of a light colour, while the temporal region is painted
differently, these colours in the Aubin tonalamatl being separated by a
black line. But whereas the temporal colouring in the Vienna MS. is
green, in Codex Borgia it shows the alternate black and yellow of
Tezcatlipocâ’s face-paint. In Codex Borgia, sheet 14, a beard is worn
and a plug is in the nostrils. The region of the mouth has the painting
of a jaguar’s skin. The hair is puffed up in two pads, symbolic,
perhaps, of the mountainous region with which the god is connected. In
Codex Telleriano-Remensis he wears the broad necktie of the rain-gods,
only painted in green and not in blue, and in Codex Borgia shows
Tlaloc’s colours in the loin-cloth, fillet, and neck-ornament. In this
MS., too, he is represented as blowing the conch-shell, and here, as
well as in Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, he stands before a building which has
the cone-shaped, high-pitched straw roof of the houses in the tierras
calientes, crowned with a jagged motif. As ruler of the third day-sign
and third week he is represented as a jaguar pure and simple in the
Aubin tonalamatl, Telleriano-Remensis and Borbonicus codices, which is
merely a disguise for the personality of Tezcatlipocâ, as is shown by
the face of that god looking out from the jaguar’s head in
Telleriano-Remensis.
In Codex Borbonicus he is more unmistakably represented as
Tezcatlipocâ, for the hands and feet projecting from underneath the
jaguar skin are striped like those of that god, and one of the feet
wears Tezcatlipocâ’s sandal, the itzcoatl (or obsidian snake), whilst
the other is torn off and replaced by his smoking mirror. The jaguar of
Codex Borbonicus has other portions of the insignia of Tezcatlipocâ
about him, such as the aztaxelli, or feather head-ornament, and the
anauatl, or white mussel-shell ring. In the Codex Borbonicus a large
marine shell or conch-shell appears to be symbolical of Tepeyollotl.
The god is alluded to by Sahagun as among the unlucky symbols. He
figures as one of the faces of the double-headed Quaxolotl.
MYTHS
The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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