around
her believed, a momentary absence of soul, an absorption of her spirit
into its nagual, a transportation into an unknown world? Who shall decide?"[82]
24. It would be a mistake to suppose that Nagualism was an incoherent medley of superstitions, a mass of jumbled fragments derived from the ancient paganism. My study of it has led me to a widely different conclusion. It was a perpetuation of a will-defined portion of the native cult, whose sources we are able to trace long anterior to the period of the conquest, and which had no connection with the elaborate and bloody ritual the Aztecs. The evidence to this effect is cogent.
Wherever in later days the Catholic priests found out the holy places and sacred objects of the nagualists, they were in caves or deep rock-recesses, not in artificial structures. The myths they gleaned, and the names of the gods they heard, also point to this as a distinguishing peculiarity. An early instance is recorded among the Nahuas of Mexico. In 1537 Father Perea discovered a cavern in a deep ravine at Chalma, near Mallinalco (a town famous for its magicians), which was the sanctuary of the deity called Ottoteotl, the Cave God (oztotl, cave; teotl, god), "venerated throughout the whole empire of Montezuma."[83] He destroyed the image of the god, and converted the cavern into a chapel.
We cannot err in regarding Oztoteotl as merely another name of the Nahuatl divinity, Tepeyollotl, the Heart, or Inside, of the Mountain, who in the Codex Borgia and the Codex Vaticanus is represented seated upon or in a cavern. His name may equally well be translated "the Heart of the Place," or "of the Town."
Dr. Eduard Seler has shown beyond reasonable question that this divinity did not originally belong to the Aztec Pantheon, but was introduced from the South, either from the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, or the Mayan tribes, beyond these.[84] The Cave God of the Aztecs is identical with the Votan of the Tzentals of Chiapas, and with the U-q'ux Uleuh of the Quiches of Guatemala, and probably with the Cozaana of the Zapotecs.
The rites of all of these were conducted in caverns, and there have been preserved several interesting descriptions of the contents of these sacred places. That relating to the "dark house of Votan" is given thus in the work of the Bishop of Chiapas:
"Votan is the third hero who is named in the calendar, and some of his descendants still reside in the town of Teopisca, where they are known as Votans. He is sometimes referred to as Lord of the Sacred Drum, and he is said to have seen the great wall (which must have been the Tower of Babel), and to have divided this land among the Indians, and given to each tribe its language.
"They say further that he once dwelt in Huehuetan, a town in the province of Soconusco. Near there, at the place called Tlazonloyan, he constructed, by blowing with his breath, a dark house, and put tapirs in the river, and in the house a great treasure, and left all in charge of a noble lady, assisted by guardians (tlapiane) to preserve. This treasure consisted of earthenware vases with covers of the same material; a stone, on which were inscribed the figures of the ancient native heroes as found in the calendar; chalchiuites, which are green stones; and other superstitious objects.
"All of these were taken from the cave, and publicly burned in the plaza of Huehuetan on the occasion of our first diocesan visit there in 1691, having been delivered to us by the lady in charge and the guardians. All the Indians have great respect for this Votan, and in some places they call him 'the Heart of the Towns.'"[85]
[82] Voyage á l'Isthmus de Tehuantepec, p. 164. He adds a number of particulars of the power she was supposed to exercise.
[83] "Que era venerado en todo elimperiode Montezuma." See Diccionario Universal, Appendice, s. v. (Mexico, 1856).
[84] "Dass der Gott Tepeyolloti im Zapotekenlande und weiter südwärts seine Wurzeln hat, und dem eigeztlichen Aztekischeu Olymp fremd ist, darüber kann kein Zweifel mehr obwalten." See Dr. Seler's able discussion of the subject in the Compte-Rendu of the Seventh International Congress of Americanists, p. 559, seq. The adoption of subterranean temples was peculiarly a Zapotecan trait. "Notandose principalmente en muchos adoratorios de los Zapotecos, estan los mas de ellos cubiertos, ò en subterraneos espaciosos y lóbregos." Carriedo, Estudios Historicos Tom. i, p. 26.
[85] Constituciones Diocesanas , pp. 9,10.
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