Page 508 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

THE AZTEC GODS-HOW MANY?

Miguel Leon-Portilla

N

N I early all chroniclers of
sixteenth-century
the continuing study of the few
Nevertheless,
Mexico — Indians, Spaniards, and mestizos extant pre-Hispanic codices and sacred texts of Nahuatl-speaking nations, including the Aztecs,
the true supreme deity. He was invoked as
alike — have pondered the great number of gods the indigenous tradition preserved in sixteenth- Ipalnemoani (he by whom there is life) and as
worshipped by the Aztecs. As if summing up century sources has prompted questions about Thoqueh, Nahuaqueh (the owner of being close,
what other chroniclers had declared, Francisco this widely accepted image of the "idolatrous" the owner of being near), or the lord who is
Lopez de Gomara, chaplain of Hernan Cortes, Aztecs, worshippers of gods of rain, wind, earth, everywhere. And Tezcatlipoca was also Yohualli,
stated in 1552 in his Conquest of Mexico that sun, moon, harvest, wisdom, dance, death: Ehecatl (night, wind), or invisible and intangi-
'They affirm there were more than two thou- more gods than man could possibly need. But ble. And he, the smoking mirror, had his own
sand gods, and that each one of them had his the real question is whether the Aztec sages and counterpart, Tezcatlanextia (mirror who illu-
1
own name, attributes and signs/' Today most priests ever made an attempt to explain or even mines things).
people who have visited the archaeological sites to order that plurality of mysterious and power- All this we know through the extant Nahuatl
in Mexico or the museums where Aztec art and ful beings who received the name of teotl, a texts where the ancient word (huehuehtlahtolli)
3
culture are represented will agree that there word curiously reminiscent of the Greek term is preserved. Tezcatlipoca was represented
were, if not two thousand, at least more than a theos (god). Upon closer observation, a hidden many times on the pages of the pre-Hispanic
hundred Aztec gods. In one sense, this is true; unity can be demonstrated behind the complex codices. He appears, for instance, in the Codex
in a contemporary study some hundred celes- pantheon of the popular Aztec religion. Borgia in paired form as one and a double, the
tial, terrestrial, and other deities are identified. 2 Tezcatlipoca, the smoking mirror, was to the black and the red Tezcatlipoca, the smoking

fig. i. Tezcatlipoca. Codex Borgia, page 17. The lower two-thirds of the page fig. 2. Mictlantecuhtli and Quetzalcoatl. Codex Borgia, page 56. The dualism so
shows the supreme deity with the twenty day-signs of the sacred calendar fundamental to Aztec philosophy can be seen in this image, which shows Mict-
assigned to different parts of his body, clothing, and paraphernalia. In his right lantecuhtli, the death god, back-to-back with Quetzalcoatl, the lord of life, over
hand he grasps a shield and darts, symbolic of his position as god of war, while an inverted skull representing the land of the dead. Along the edges are the signs
obsidian mirrors, which appear at his lower leg, over his chest, and at the back of of the twenty thirteen-day weeks that made up the sacred calendar. Biblioteca
the head, signify his role as the omnipotent magician who could look into the Apostolica Vaticana
hearts of all who dwell on earth. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

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