Tezcatlipoca: the Smoking Mirror
Panel from the Codex Fejervary-Mayer
Life in ancient Mexico was based to a great extent on the worship of the gods, but the gods were not by any means all good-natured or helpful. The most powerful of the earthly spirits was Tezcatlipoca, whose name means Smoking Mirror. This referred to a mirror, made of the volcanic glass known as obsidian, which seers would gaze at until they fell into a trance. Then, within the black, glossy surface, they saw pictures which revealed the future of the tribe and the will of the gods. The Aztecs believed that scrying was a powerful kind of magic granted to them by this shadowy god. Tezcatlipoca gave them control over the other nations; he promised the Aztec people that they should rule over the whole of Anahuac, from the deserts of the north to the mountains of the south, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. This great power accomplished his purpose through the vigour of the Aztec armies and the wise tactical decisions of their Great Speakers.
Tezcatlipoca was a representative of the heavens traversed by the sun. In midsummer, as the high sun in the southern sky, he was the special patron of the Aztecs, under his name of Hultzilopochtli, the 'Blue Hummingbird on the left'. This name may have been derived through staring at the sun, since this produces a spot of blue if the eyes are then closed. It Was 'on the left' because when facing in the direction of the sun's path, that is to say from east to west, the sun passed to the left.
In the night sky the symbol of the god Tezcatlipoca could be seen as the group of stars we call the Great Bear. To the Aztecs, this was the single footprint of the god who had lost his other foot when he drew the earth out of the waters in the titanic struggle before mankind was created. The god tempted the Earth Monster to come to the surface of the waters and drew her on with his enormous foot. The gigantic monster snapped off his foot, but he in turn tore off her lower jaw, and she never again sank back into the waters. On her rugged back all the tribes of men were created and lived. {picture}
The god who drew the earth from the waters was not a spirit of goodness, however, and because of his imperfections he could never approach the Pole Star, the symbol of the divine duality. Instead he hopped around the Pole Star on his one foot, forming the circumpolar track of the Great Bear in the sky.
Mankind was simply forced to co-exist with this awesome being. It is unusual to find a nation devoted to the service of a demiurge whom we, in a European tradition, would regard as evil in his innermost nature. The only possible parallel is among some of the early dynastic Egyptian kings, who worshipped Set, the spirit of the desert and its terrors. In psychological terms, Tezcatlipoca represents the equivalent of what might be called the 'shadow'-the side of our human personality that we do not wish to face openly, and which we consequently hide from ourselves.
In spite of the many complexities, and the apparent confusion of Aztec theology, the real position of Tezcatlipoca was as a god ruling the earth's surface. In the east his colour was yellow in honour of the rising sun, and the fruitfulness of the maize plant. The southern Tezcatlipoca was the Blue Hummingbird. In the west his colour was red, and symbolized the blood of sacrifice. In the north was the field of the black Tezcatlipoca, who was the spirit of witchcraft and black magic. {picture}
In no aspect was the god separated from the concepts of magic and sacrifices. One of his names was Titlauacan, which means 'he who is closest to the shoulder'. He was thought to be present on every shoulder, whispering thoughts into the mind, suggesting violence and trickery. In all his forms he was the patron of warriors and of war-a dangerous and deadly being, who brought great material gain and glory to his servants, the Aztec people.
Tezcatlipoca formed a total contrast to the spirit of Quetzalcoatl. The Smoking Mirror was for ever bound to be an adversary of the Feathered Serpent. This was the basic dualism in Mexican religion. Although the actions of Smoking Mirror were dangerous and violent, the Aztecs would not have called this god 'evil'. In fact, it is hard to find anything in Mexican theology that they would call evil, apart from cowardice or an insult to the gods. The contrast was simply between darkness and light, and darkness was the essence of Tezcatlipoca. The idea of goodness itself does not seem to be at all important in Mexican belief. The good man or woman was simply one who kept to the ritual observances each day and who did not seek any particular pleasures or happiness for himself. It seems strange to the mind of a European that what we would consider to be evil behaviour was taken by the Mexicans to be the result of the time of one's birth. If a priest, on consulting astrological charts at the birth of a child, found that the future was going to be one of cowardice, theft and adultery, it was still accepted as the will of the gods. So, if the child developed such characteristics in later life, nothing could be done about it, except to make out the pre-ordained punishments for such crimes. This usually meant a death penalty of some particularly unpleasant type. But again this was not particularly the of the chiefs toward the individual, but simply the working of fate. If doomed to live in such a way, then the individual was simply doomed to die as a natural consequence, and that was that. There was no means of altering fate. Some hoped that by presenting gifts to the gods, and by building additions to their temples, they could obtain some greater regard and perhaps some minor amelioration of their predicted fate, but it could never alter the main stream of destiny. That was for- ever unchangeable. The legend of the destruction of the Toltecs as it filtered through time to the Aztecs, told how Tezcatlipoca turned himself into a great giant who came up against the Toltecs, and caused himself to be killed. The enormous carcass lay on the earth rotting, and so started a pestilence which killed many many thousands of the fated Toltecs. And the story tells, too, how he tempted the daughter of the high chief of the Toltecs when he appeared in the market-place in the form of a naked Huaxtec trader, painted half blue and half red, with a penis so beautiful that she was overcome by desire. Their child was the ill-fated Huemac, who saw the total collapse of Toltec power in Mexico. In all the legends, Tezcatlipoca as the 'shadow' was the cause of the downfall of the Toltecs and their rulers, the Quetzalcoatls. Tezcatlipoca may, too, have been the cause of the change in the calendrical system which occurred at about this time: when the day on which the year began was unaccountably changed. We are also very much in the dark about why, in fact, the adoration of Quetzalcoatl was so important to the Toltecs. They were the most warlike of the Aztec predecessors, and yet gave second place to Tezcatlipoca who was the very incarnation of the spirit of warfare and cruelty. There appears to have been no chief or king named after either Tezcatlipoca or Hultzilopochtli, and no legend suggests that he was ever a human ruler on earth like Quetzalcoatl. This dark shadow was an entity in itself-a non-material being, a great and terrible spirit who was responsible for bloodshed and for compulsive magic. He was insignificant when compared to the great power, Ometecuhtli, but among the other gods of Mexico he was a giant, and during the Aztec period totally overshadowed all of them.
The cult of the god Tezcatlipoca does not clearly appear until at least late Toltec times, that is approximately the tenth century AD. Whether the idea of a shadow spirit was new or not is unclear. The movement of tribes in earlier times is not known, but when the qualities of the god are considered, he seems more and more a figure from the North American Indians. He is the 'trickster', but less friendly than in the Winnebago or Haida Indian myths. His abilities as a shape-changer and one who leads people into danger are quite clear, and the cult of warriors which was so closely connected with him is very similar to the cult of various warrior societies among the Plains Indians. It is just possible that the cult of Tezcatlipoca, reflecting a deep-seated element of the human psyche, may have been brought into prominence in Mexico through invasions from the north, possibly by the tribes known in later times as the Chichimeca. The name Chichimeca was originally an insult: it meant'the people who just say Chi Chi Chi when they speak', implying that they could not be understood by civilized people. In time, however, many Chichimec descendants became so important in Mexico that the term became an honourable one and referred to a noble ancestor.
Tezcatlipoca thus became a very powerful god, and the actual comprehension of his nature and power reveals a high level of psychological understanding on the part of the Mexican priests. They had, however, externalized the god, and saw him as something outside themselves, coming to the ceremonies from the other-world of darkness which he inhabited.