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CHAPTER 1
PANQUETZALIZTLI OUTSIDE TENOCHTITLAN
The month of Panquetzaliztli had an important role in the life of the Mexica in Tenochtitlan. But before looking at the ceremonies and rituals associated with the month in the capital, this chapter will consider how it was marked outside Tenochtitlan. Similarly, it will attempt to determine how the month might have been celebrated prior to the rise of the Mexica. Both these perspectives can, then, better explain how the Mexica might have innovated the month's activities and what the implications of these changes might have represented.
The two major sources for knowledge of Mexica life and culture, written by friars Diego Durán and Bernardino de Sahagún, essentially draw from the experiences of Tenochtitlan. But in order to better consider the Mexica ceremony in its larger context, we need to look beyond Tenochtitlan and to the rest of the Nahua world. This chapter will consider how the month was celebrated in the Nahua world generally and in the Central Basin of Mexico outside Tenochtitlan more specifically. It draws on several sources. The richest, by far, is the information collected by Sahagún early in his career in Tepepulco, which lies within the Central Basin of Mexico but well outside the immediate influence of Tenochtitlan. Other missionaries also gathered bits of information about the preconquest celebrations that can help to re- create the broad strokes of the festival outside the city. Lastly, some of the pictorial evidence draws on experiences outside the Central Basin of Mexico or simply from outside Tenochtitlan. Some of the sources included in this chapter, such as the narrative of Motolinia, come from Tenochtitlan and other places in the Central Basin. Yet, because Motolinia was one of the very first missionaries, the information he collected potentially also came from the earliest times after the conquest.
As noted, the ceremonies described for Tenochtitlan at the time of European contact may or may not have been representative of how the festival was celebrated in other Nahua communities. Likewise, the descriptions may not even reflect how the festival was commemorated in Tenochtitlan historically. It is quite likely that ceremonies changed after the Mexica took leadership of the Triple Alliance. Fortunately, we have surviving descriptions, although fragmentary, of Panquetzaliztli celebrations, some of which are from other regions of central Mexico, along with glimpses of Tenochtitlan earlier in its history.
Looking at the "compact veintena icons," that is, the specific images associated with each of the twenty-day months found in pictorial manuscripts, H. B. Nicholson saw a movement toward greater consistency among the depictions of the months, especially in the iconography. There were significant differences in local practices, but at the same time, there was "widespread sharing of basic ideological concepts and ceremonial performances throughout the region" due to many communities' incorporation into the Triple Alliance. Thus, looking across many different pictorial sources, Nicholson perceived a fairly high degree of homogenization, at least in the small images used to represent the months, which in the case of Panquetzaliztli was simply a banner.
Pictorial manuscripts, those from both before and after the conquest, can provide a great deal of information about the celebrations associated with Panquetzaliztli. The illustrations from Sahagún's Primeros memoriales of the Panquetzaliztli celebration and the descriptions of the gods' raiment can be particularly useful in providing a hint of Nahua religious practice outside the imperial capital city. A score or so of other pictorial manuscripts document practices from the xiuhpohualli (the solar calendar). Of these, only one comes from outside the Central Basin. One clearly comes from Tetzcoco, across the lake from Tenochtitlan, while the others originate in either the imperial capital or the Central Basin more generally. Nonetheless, these works can help to round out our knowledge of religious performances and practices.
Central to understanding the rituals of Panquetzaliztli, and all feasts, is the Mexica notion of ixiptla (plural, ixiptlahuan). Taken at its basic level, an ixiptla was a symbolic representation of something. This could be an object that represented some cosmic force or deity, or it could be a person who dressed up like a deity. Generally, the crucial examples considered here were objects or people who represented deities. In Nahuatl, things cannot exist in the abstract but must be possessed, owned, or part of someone or something. "Someone's ixiptla," that is, an ixiptla not possessed by a specific person, would be teixiptla, "someone's impersonator or symbolic representation." Molly Bassett has called the teixiptla "the localized embodiment." While an ixiptla of a person is easily distinguishable from that person, the ixiptla of a deity might both look like the deity and embody the deity. These concepts will become crucial as we explore the details of Panquetzaliztli celebrations here and in later chapters.
Fray Toribio de Benavente, known as Motolinia, collected a great deal of information about preconquest life during the early days of the evangelization. He was active between his arrival in 1524 and his death in 1568, thus making him one of the first observers of preconquest culture. His missionary efforts focused largely on central Mexico, including Tenochtitlan and the Tlaxcala region. But his observations do not seem to be as tightly focused on Tenochtitlan as other commentators'. He describes the ceremonies and rituals of Panquetzaliztli twice, once briefly and once with a bit more detail. The brief description is evocative as much for what it says as for what it implies.
Panquezalistle — This feast was the birth of Uchilobus [Huitzilopochtli] from the virgin. And they made a Uchilobus from seeds, and all those whom they had had [captured] in war they killed them and they all ate them. And one of them they dressed in blue, and painted his face blue with each two stripes of yellow. They killed him on Mutizuma's [Moteuczoma's] stone. They offered some seed buns. They did not eat from the rising of the sun until it was set, and it lasted one day.
The outline of the feast is simple in this description. It celebrated the birth of Huitzilopochtli from a virgin. Immediately we can begin to question Motolinia's motive since this could be a clear reference to Christ's virgin birth, especially since both Christmas and Panquetzaliztli were celebrated roughly around the winter solstice. A figure of Huitzilopochtli was made of grain. Although the friar did not mention it, that figure of the deity was an ixiptla, a local embodiment of the god. Motolinia describes a festival having to do with the sacrifice of warriors captured in battle. The sacrifice also included ritual cannibalism. The general populace fasted during the daylight hours. One of the warriors/victims was dressed in blue and then sacrificed on the sacrificial stone dedicated by Moteuczoma I. That victim, dressed in imitation of Huitzilopochtli, was also an ixiptla, although again Motolinia did not recognize it as such. Thus, within Motolinia's brief description, he presented two of the forms that the ixiptlahuan can take: a figurine or statue and a person dressed in imitation of a deity.
In his longer description of Panquetzaliztli, Motolinia begins after having discussed the stars and the calendar. In addition to the information given in his brief description, he explains that the preparations for Panquetzaliztli were not simple. Each year, more than sixty or eighty men fasted for up to a year in preparation. The early missionary friars saw fasting as one of the desirable religious behaviors of the past that they could encourage. In the preconquest ritual, many women also fasted and prepared foods for the penitents. In addition, Motolinia suggests that the entire corps of priests and others involved in the rituals fasted for some eighty days (four native months). They performed self-sacrifices of blood, prayed, and offered incense to the principal gods. On the day of the feast, before dawn, the priests gathered at the Templo Mayor along with the lords and the general populace. Throughout this longer passage, Motolinia describes the Mexica priests as if they were part of the Catholic Church. He refers to the chief priest and his lieutenants as the "Supreme Pontiff with his Cardinals." Later he comments that the chief priest was dressed in "pontifical robes." The groups of priests revealed an image of Huitzilopochtli that had been finely dressed and decorated. This was, then, an ixiptla, a local embodiment of the god Huitzilopochtli. The chief priest took up the image of the god and carried it in a procession following those who carried incense before him. The procession went to Tlatelolco, then to a place called Acolman, to Azcapotzalco, then Tlacopan, passed in front of Chapultepec, then went to Huitzilopochco (modern Churubusco), and finally back to the Templo Mayor by midday. Along the way, four persons, war captives called mamaltin, were sacrificed at a temple in Acolman and another four were sacrificed outside Huitzilopochco. The route was some five leagues (about 21.5 miles) long. A similar set of fasts, sacrifices, and processions occurred in Tetzcoco.
After that introduction, in the next section Motolinia expands on the subject of Panquetzaliztli by noting that it was a month during which there were many sacrifices and homicides through heart removal and that there was ritual cannibalism. He clarifies that the month was dedicated to both Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca. The latter deity represented many aspects of Nahua life. He was associated with warfare, the hunt, and youth. Motolinia explained that they were brothers, gods of war, and powerful forces of destruction. While Tezcatlipoca was the older brother, the two were the principal gods revered throughout the region.
The feast of Panquetzaliztli was one of the principal celebrations of the native year. Motolinia explained that people would offer blood sacrifices by drawing their own blood from their tongues, ears, arms, or chests. It would be wiped on paper or sprinkled on the images of the gods in a manner, according to Motolinia, not unlike Christian priests' sprinkling of holy water. Again, this type of interjection raises many questions about veracity and intent. The place where blood was drawn differed from province to province, and one could determine a person's province of origin by how he or she drew blood.
The friar then goes on to detail the human sacrifice practiced during the month. He describes a large narrow stone (one palm's breadth thick by one and a half wide) that was placed upright on the floor in front of an image of a native deity, which Motolinia calls an idol. He writes that on this stone, the victim would be placed with the shoulders on the top point so that his breast was elevated. Priests, called the tlamacazque, would hold the hands and feet of the victim. The priests were very quick and dexterous. One took up a knife made of flint, like a flint for fire making, which he notes was not particularly sharp, contrasting it to an obsidian blade that would have an edge as sharp as a barber's razor. Although the knife was not sharp, the position of the victim, with the chest and abdomen flexed, meant that with a powerful stroke, the priest could cut open the chest and remove the heart. The officiating priest offered the heart in the sanctuary of the temple and then all around, leaving a trail of blood, until he finally dropped it to the ground. He picked it up and placed it in an offering bowl. Motolinia wrote that from time to time, the priests and their assistants would eat or sample the hearts. He used the word alfaquí for the assistants. It is a borrowed word from Arabic that describes a person trained in Islamic law, thus again raising concerns in a modern reader.
Motolinia continues, relating that after the sacrifice, the body was rolled off the top of the temple onto the steps below. If the victim had been captured in battle, the warrior who had taken him took charge of the body. Along with family and friends, the warrior would carry the body to his home, where the flesh of the victim would be prepared and served in dishes. If the warrior was wealthy, he would offer a lavish feast in testimony to his bravery, giving gifts of blankets to his guests. If the victim had been a slave, he would not be rolled off the temple but carried down. The person who had purchased him would also offer a feast, but not as lavish as the warrior's. Motolinia then briefly notes that in different feasts, slightly different procedures were followed. Nonetheless, at a feast such as Panquetzaliztli, the number of victims differed according to the size and importance of the city: from as few as twenty to as many as one hundred. In the major cities and in Tenochtitlan, more than one hundred victims were sacrificed. Somewhat later in his narrative, Motolinia also suggests that the fasting of the priests and other participants was practiced similarly in Tlaxcala, Huejotzinco, and Chollolan. The fast meant that people could eat only small rations of tortillas, salt, and water.
In discussing the widespread tradition of fasting, Motolinia comments that it was an integral part of the celebration of Panquetzaliztli. Throughout the solar year, the priests would conduct fasts of between ten and forty days, consuming only tortillas, water, and salt. Yet, in preparation for Panquetzaliztli, the priests would fast for a full eighty days, which made some of them sick. The general public, including children, generally only fasted like this for between five and ten days. The friar goes on to note that there were few general fasts but that each province would have its own schedule. The fasts and feasts would be dedicated to the most important gods for that place.
Looking at the description offered by Motolinia, we can see certain essential elements comprising the festival of Panquetzaliztli. In all likelihood, Motolinia's information is some of the earliest chronologically, probably collected before Sahagún's and Durán's accounts. It manifests a focus on Tenochtitlan, detailing activities in specific places in and around that city. At the same time, Motolinia indicates that the festival was celebrated in a similar manner elsewhere, such as in Tetzcoco and even Tlaxcala. His experiences in central Mexico allowed him to make such comparisons. The preparations began several months out with fasting and other spiritual disciplines. The highlight of the feast was a ritual procession wherein a priest carried an image of the god over a route within the Central Basin of Mexico. We can imagine that upon returning to the Templo Mayor, sacrifices such as those detailed by Motolinia occurred. There was also feasting and gift giving, principally involving warriors who had captured enemies in battle. Others also participated by providing slaves for the sacrifices, but Motolinia was silent as to their identities.
Primeros memorials — Tepepulco
Sahagún collected the material contained in the work that has come to be known as the Primeros memoriales in the altepetl of Tepepulco during the 1550s while he was a missionary friar living there. Tepepulco is located some one hundred kilometers northeast of Tenochtitlan. Historically it had closer ties to the city of Tetzcoco than to Tenochtitlan. Tetzcoco was associated with the Nahua ethnic group known as the Acolhua, who traced their lineage back to the historical city of Tula.
The rites associated with the month of Panquetzaliztli in Tepepulco continued over an eighty-day period (i.e., four Nahua months), although Sahagún does not explain exactly when they began or when they ended. The fast included not just reduced intake of food and drink but also abstinence from bathing and sexual relations. Elsewhere in the Primeros memoriales, Sahagún writes that the abstinence from bathing and sexual relations lasted only seven days, not the full eighty. Specifically, on the fifth day of the month of Panquetzaliztli, everyone fasted, including children. While Sahagún does not detail the nature of the sacrifices that were performed during Panquetzaliztli, he merely notes that there were deaths similar to those associated with the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli. He also refers to a festival for Painal, but Sahagún fails elaborate on that comment anyplace else in the work.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Fifteenth Month"
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