Sola (Oaxaca), which was a place of worship of the Zapotecs long after the Conquest; and that in the Cerro de Monopostiac, near San Francisco del Mar.[91]
The
intimate meaning of this cave-cult was the worship of the Earth.
The Cave God, the Heart of the Hills,
really typified the Earth, the Soil, from whose dark recesses flow the
limpid streams and spring the tender shoots of the food-plants, as well
as the great trees. To the native Mexican, the Earth was the provider
of food and drink, the common Father of All; so that to this day, when
he would take a solemn oath, he stoops to the earth, touches it with
his hand, and repeats the solemn formula: Cuix amo nechitla in toteotzln?,
"Does not our Great God see me?"
25. The identity of the Tepeyollotl of the Nahuas and the Votan of the Tzentals is shown not only in the oneness of meaning of the names, but in the fact that both represent the third day in the ritual calendar. For this reason I take it, we find the number three so generally a sacred number in the symbolism of the nagualists. We have already learned in the extract from Nuñez de la Vega that the neophytes were instructed in classes of three. To this day in Soteapan the fasts and festivals appointed by the native ministrants are three days in duration.[92] The semi-Christianized inhabitants of the Sierra of Nayerit, the Nahuatl-speaking Chotas, continued in the last century to venerate three divinities, the Dawn, the Stone and the Serpent;[ 93] analogous to a similar "trinity" noted by Father Duran among the ancient Aztecs.[94]
The number nine, that is, 3 x 3, recurs so frequently in the conjuration formulas of the Mexican sorcerers that de la Serna exclaims: "It was the Devil himself who inculcated into them superstition about the number nine."[95]
The other number sacred to the nagualists was seven. I have, in a former essay given various reasons for believing that this was not derived from the seven days of the Christian week, but directly from the native calendar.[96] Nuñez de la Vega tells us that the patron of the seventh day was Cuchulchan, "the Feathered Serpent," and that many nagualists chose him as their special protector. As already seen, in Guatemala the child finally accepted its naual when seven years old; and among some of the Nahuatl tribes of Mexico the tonal and the calendar name was formally assigned on the seventh day after birth.[97] From similar impressions the Cakchiquels of Guatemala maintained that when the lightning strikes the earth the "thunder stone" sinks into the soil, but rises to the surface after seven years.[98]
The three and the seven were the ruling numbers in the genealogical trees of the Pipiles of San Salvador. The "tree" was painted with seven branches representing degrees of relationship within which marriage was forbidden unless a man had performed some distinguished exploit in war, when he could marry beyond the nearest three degrees of relationship.[99] Another combination of 3 and 7, by multiplication, explains the customs among the Mixes of deserting for 21 days a house in which a death has occurred.[100]
The indications are that the nagualists derived these numbers from the third and seventh days of the calendar "month" of twenty days. Tepeololtec, the Cave God, was patron of the third day
[91] See Mühlenpfordt, Mexico, Bd. ii, pp. 200-266; Brasseur, Hist, des Nations Civ. de la Mexique, Vol. iv, p. 821; Herrera, Historia de los Indias, Dec. iii, Lib. iii, cap. 12, etc.
[92] Diccionario Universal , Appendice, s. v.
[93] Their names were Ta Yoapa, Father Dawn; Ta Te, Father Stone; Coanamoa, the Serpent which Seizes . Dicc. Univ., App., Tom. iii, p. 11.
[94] Duran, Historia de los Indios, Tom. ii, p. 140. They were Tota, Our Father; Yollometli, the Heart of the Maguey (probably pulque); and Topiltzin, Our Noble One (probably Quetzalcoatl, to whom this epithet was often applied).
[95] "Fue el Demonio que les dió la superstición del numero nueve." Manual de Ministros, p. 197.
[96] The Native Calendar of Central America and Mexico , p. 12.
[97] Motolinia, Ritos Antiguos, Sacrificios e Idolatrias de los Indios de la Nueva España, p. 340 (in Coleccion de Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España).
[98] Thomas Coto, Vocabulario de la lengua Cakchiquel, MS., sub voce, Rayo.
[99] Herrera, Historia de las Indias, Dec. iv, Lib. viii, cap. 10.
[100] Diccionario Universal , Appendice, ubi suprá.
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