CHAPTER 9

OF THE FOURTH AND LAST KIND OF IDOLATRY THAT THE INDIANS, ESPECIALLY THE MEXICANS, USED WITH IMAGES AND STATUES

Although there is great offense to God in the kinds of idolatry I have described, in which mere creatures were worshiped, the Holy Spirit condemns and abominates much more another kind of idolater, those who worship only figures and images made by the hands of men, although they are mere stones or sticks or metal and have only the shape bestowed on them by the artist who made them. The sage speaks of these as follows: `But unhappy are they, and their hope is among the dead, who have called gods the works of the hands of men, gold and silver, the inventions of art, and the resemblance of beasts, or an unprofitable stone the work of an ancient hand." And he continues to speak, divinely inspired, against this deceit and folly of the heathen, as the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Baruch and holy King David also argue fully and elegantly. And it behooves the minister of Christ who reproves the errors of idolatry to have these places in Scripture well marked and digested, and the arguments that the Holy Spirit so graciously mentions can all be reduced to a short sentence spoken by the prophet Hosea: "A workman made it, and it is no god: for the calf of Samaria shall be turned to spiders' webs." To return to our subject, great zeal was shown in the Indies to make idols and paintings of different forms and materials, and these were worshiped as gods. In Peru they were called huacas, and ordinarily these were ugly and deformed in appearance; at least all the ones I have seen were so. I believe there is no doubt that the devil, in whose veneration they were made, liked to be worshiped in ill-featured figures. And, indeed, the devil spoke and answered in many of these huacas or idols, and his priests and ministers flocked to those oracles of the Father of Lies, and his counsels and warnings and prophecies were of the same nature as himself.

The place where this kind of idolatry flourished more than anywhere else in the world was in the provinces of New Spain, in Mexico and Texcoco and Tlaxcala and Cholula and neighboring parts of that realm. And to tell of the superstitions that they had there is a monstrous thing, but it would be useful to recount some of them. The chief idol of the Mexicans, as stated above, was Huitzilopochtli; this was a wooden statue carved into the likeness of a man, seated on a blue bench set upon a litter, from each of whose four corners emerged a beam ending in a serpent's head; the bench symbolized that he was sitting in heaven. The idol itself had its forehead painted all blue, and above the nose a blue fillet that stretched from ear to ear. On its head was rich plumage in the shape of a bird's beak, tipped with highly polished gold. In its left hand it held a round white shield with five tufts of white feathers placed in the form of a cross, and on top a gold pennon, and from the shield's handholds issued four arrows, which were said by the Mexicans to have been sent them from heaven to do the deeds that will be described in their proper place. In its right hand the idol held a staff carved in the shape of a serpent, all curved and painted blue. According to the Mexicans, all these ornaments and others, which were many, had their special meanings. The name Huitzilopochtli means "left claw of shining feathers." Later I will describe the splendid temple and the sacrifices and feasts and ceremonies of this great idol, for they are very remarkable. At present I will merely say that this idol, richly dressed and adorned, was set upon a very high altar in a little room amply hung with draperies and jewels and feathers and gold ornaments, with many shields made of feathers, all as beautifully and carefully arranged as possible, and with a curtain always placed before it to show greater veneration. Adjacent to the apartment of this idol was a less richly ornamented chamber where there was another idol called Tlaloc. These two idols were always together, for they were considered to be companions and to have equal power.

There was another very important idol in Mexico, which was the god of penitence and jubilees and forgiveness of sins. This idol was called Tezcatlipoca and was made of a very shiny stone as black as jet and splendidly arrayed after their fashion. It had gold and silver earrings, and in its lower lip a little crystal tube a handbreadth long with a feather stuck through it that was sometimes green and sometimes blue and seemed to be of emerald or turquoise. Its tress of hair was bound with a ribbon of polished gold, ending in a golden ear with symbols painted on it representing smoke, which signified the pleas that the idol heard from the afflicted and sinners when they applied to it for help. Between this ear and the other were a large number of plumes; around its neck hung a gold ornament so large that it covered the whole breast. There were gold bracelets on both arms and a rich green stone in the navel; in its left hand was a fly whisk of beautiful green, blue, and yellow feathers, emerging from a plaque of gleaming, highly polished gold, so brilliant that it resembled a mirror. This signified that the god saw in that mirror everything that was happening in the world. This mirror or gold plaque was called Itlacheaya, which means "his looking glass." In its right hand were four arrows, signifying the chastisement that he meted out to evildoers for their sins. Hence this was the idol they most feared, lest he discover their wrongdoings; pardon for sins was issued during his festivities, which took place every four years, as will be described later. They held this god, Tezcatlipoca, to be the god of droughts and famines and barrenness and pestilence. And so they represented him in another way, seated with much pomp upon a bench and wrapped in a crimson mantle embroidered with skulls and dead men's bones. In his left hand was a shield with five tufts of cotton and in his right a throwing spear with which he seemed to be threatening, his arm stretched out as if about to throw. Four arrows stuck out of the shield. The idol's face was angry, its body all daubed with black, its head full of quail feathers. The superstitions they entertained concerning this idol were very great, owing to their acute fear of it.

In Cholula, which is near Mexico and was a separate country, they worshiped a famous idol who was the god of merchandise, for they were great merchants and even today are very fond of business dealings; they called it Quetzalcoatl. This idol stood in a large courtyard in a very lofty temple. All around it were gold, silver, jewels, rich feathers, and very valuable clothing of different colors. It was represented as a man but had a bird's head with a red beak and above it a comb with wattles, and several rows of teeth, and the tongue hanging out. On its head was a painted paper miter, sharp pointed; there was a sickle in its hand, and many gold ornaments on its legs, and innumerable other ridiculous objects that were symbolic of all those things; and, indeed, they worshiped this god because he enriched those whom he loved, like the god Mammon or Pluto. And certainly the name given by the Cholulans to their god was appropriate, although they did not understand it. They called him Quetzalcoatl, which means "serpent of rich plumage," a description of the demon of greed.

These savages were not content to have gods but also had their goddesses, like those that the tales of poets introduced and the blind unbelief of Greeks and Romans venerated. The chief goddess that they worshiped was called Toci, which means "our grandmother;" for according to the histories of the Mexicans she was the daughter of the king of Culhuacán, who was the first to be flayed by order of Huitzilopochtli, consecrating her in this way as his sister; and it was then that they began to flay men for the sacrifices and dress the living in the skins of those who had been sacrificed, for they believed that their god was pleased by it. They also learned from their god to tear the hearts out of those whom they sacrificed, when he did this with those whom he punished in Tula, as will be described in its proper place. One of these goddesses whom they adored had a son who was a great hunter and was later adopted as a god by the faction opposed to the Mexicans, the Tlaxcallans, with whose help the Spaniards won Mexico.

The province of Tlaxcala is very suitable for hunting and the people are much given to it, and so they offered him great festivities. They represent the idol in a certain form, and I will not waste time in describing it; but the festivity that they offered to him is very colorful. And it was that at daybreak they blew upon a horn and everyone assembled with their bows and arrows, nets, and other hunting implements and went in procession with their idol, a large crowd following, to a high hill, on the top of which they had built a bower with a richly adorned altar in it, where they placed the idol. And marching along with a great noise of trumpets, conch shells, flutes, and drums they reached the place and surrounded the whole slope of the hill, and when they had set fire to it everywhere many and very diverse animals came out, such as deer, rabbits, hares, foxes, wolves, and so on, which ran toward the summit fleeing from the fire. Then the hunters went after them with much shouting and yelling, playing different instruments; they steered them to the summit before the idol, where the press of game was so great that some leaped, others rolled over and over, others jumped onto the people, and still others climbed on the altar, so that there was great rejoicing and merrymaking. Then they took a great quantity of game and sacrificed the deer and large animals before the idol, tearing out their hearts with the same ceremony they used when sacrificing men. This done, they loaded the game onto their backs and returned with their idol in the same manner in which they had come and entered the city with all these things, rejoicing greatly and with much music of trumpets and kettledrums, until they reached the temple, where they replaced their idol with much reverence and solemnity. Then everyone went to cook the flesh from all that game and invited all the people to join them, and after the meal gave their usual performances and dances before the idol. They had many other gods and goddesses and a large number of idols, but the chief ones were in the Mexican nation and its neighbors and were those that we have described.