Religion (1981 ) 11,275--297

TEMPLO MAYOR: THE AZTEC VISION OF PLACE

David Carrasco

W h e n the S p a n i a r d s a r r ived in the Val ley of Mexico and first saw the Aztec cap i t a l o f Tenoch t i t l an in 1519, they were s tar t led by its archi tectural wonders , social complex i ty and spat ia l organizat ion. Bernal Diaz del Castil lo, a s e rgean t in Cor tes ' t roop, has left us this memorab le first impression of the Az tec capi ta l .

During the morning we arrived at a broad causeway and continued our march towards Iztapalapa and when we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level causeway going towards Mexico, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built ofmasonry. And some ofthe soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream. Gazing on such Wonderful sights, we did not know what to s a y . . , and the lake itself was crowded with canoes and in the causeway there were many bridges at intervals and in front ofus stood the great City o f M e x i c o . . , we went to the orchard and garden, which was such a wonderful thing to see and walk in, that I never tired of looking at the diversity oftbe trees, and noting the scent which each one had, and the pathsfull of roses and flowers, and the many fruit trees and native roses and the pond offresh water . . . and all was cemented and very splendid with many kinds of stone (monuments) with pictures on them, which gave much to think about. 1

C o m p a r e that reverie with one o f the last impressions the Span ia rds had of the Az tec ci ty before the conquest . Dur ing tile ferocious Spanish s i e g e o f T e n o c h -

t i t ian, the Aztecs m a d e a despera te sacrifice o f capt ive Span ia rds to their sun a n d w a r god Hui tz i lopocht l i whose shr ine sat on top of the Grea t Temple , the T c m p l o M a y o r , located in the hear t o f the ceremonial centre.

When we retreated near to our quarters and had already crossed a great opening where there was much water, the arrows,javelins and stones could no longer reach us. Sandoval, Francisco de Lugo and Andreas de Tapia were standing with Pedro de Alvarado each one relating what had happened to him and what Cortes had ordered, when again there was sounded the dismal drum of Huichilobos and many other shells and horns and things like trumpets and the sound of them all was terrifying, and we all looked towards the lofty Pyramid where they were being sounded, and saw that our comrades whom the}, had captured when the}" defeated

00t81721XI811030275 + ';'35111,01~/0 �9 1981 Academic press Inc. (London) Ltd.

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Cortes were being carried by force up the steps, and they were taking them to be sacrificed. When they got them up to a small square in front of the oratory, where their accursed idols are kept, we saw them place plumes on the heads of many of them and with things like fans in their hands they forced them to dance before Huichilobos and after they had danced they immediately placed them on their backs on some rather narrow stones which had been prepared as places for sacrifice, and with some knives they sawed open their chests and drew out their palpitating hearts and offered them to the idols that were there, and they kicked the bodies down the steps, and the Indian butchers who were waiting below cut offthe arms and feet and flayed the skin offthe faces, and prepared it aftexavards like glove leather with the beards on, and kept those for the festivals when they celebrated drunken orgies and the flesh they ate in chilmole. 2

These radically different impressions of Aztec life and religion, one emphasizing the peaceful order, architectural wonders and delights of a capital city, the other lamenting the horrifying human sacrifices at the Great Temple , reflect the incongruous and enigmatic image of Aztec life which has troubled modern readers for centuries. 3 For students of American Indian religions and cultures, this fractured image raises questions of the most profound and emotional sort. For instance, how could a people who conceived of and carved the uniquely marvellous Calendar Stone, and developed one of the most accurate calendrical systems in the ancient world, spend so much energy, time, blood and wealth in efforts to obtain and sacrifice human victims for every conceivable feast day in the calendar? s Why did a people so fascinated by and accomplished in music, sculpture, 6 featherwork, craft industries, poetry, 7 painting become so committed to cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife? The Aztec image which glares at us through the texts is an image of startling juxtaposition of Flowers, Songs/ Blood, Cutt

We may come to a greater understanding of theAztec situation by focusing our attention on the Aztec 'vision ofplace ' , that is the way they conceived the character of their cosmos and their vital and pressured role within it. By knowing a culture's sense of its own place and position in the cosmos, we can become familiar with the central and dominant concepts, paradigms, and enigmas of that culture. Jonathan Z. Smith explains the importance of knowing a people's vision ofplace this way.

The question of the character of the place upon which one stands is the funda- mental symbolic and social question. Once an individual or culture has expressed its vision of its place, a whole language of symbols and social structure will follow, s

In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Mexico, the city of Tenochtitlan was the place upon which a vision ofempire was founded. This capital, and especially its amazing ceremonial centre was the place where the Aztec vision ofcosmic order and dynamics was expressed in stone, wood, colour, sound and drama.

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From this ceremonial theatre, Aztec symbolic language, social character and political authority flowed outward to influence over four hundred towns and cities in central Mesoamerica. 9 As the second quotation above suggests, the quintessential example of Aztec symbolization of cosmological order was the Great Temple which dominated the ceremonial centre. In fact, numerous other references to the rituals performed at the Great Temple during Aztec times, 1~ plus the amazing discoveries at the excavations of the temple's base in Mexico City, 11 demonstrate that this shrine was not only the axis of their universe, but it was the architectural image of their cosmic order and sense of destiny. The mythology, shape, sculpture and ceremony associated with the Templo Mayor reveals that more than any other single structure, it embodied the Aztec vision of their place in the world.

HERMENEUTICS AND THE TEMPLO MAYOR Today the ruins ofthe Great Temple, which is surrounded by Mexico City, are being excavated. This excavation is extremely important for students of American Indian Religions because it is uncovering the foundation and treasures of a structure which reflected the Aztec sense of order, expansion, inspiration and authority. Unlike the majority of texts available to us about the Aztecs, which were painted or written during the conquest or colonial period, and which reflect that crisis situation, 12 the Templo Mayor is a pre-Golumbian expression and it can be viewed as the Aztec statement oftheir world view.

The excavation provides, among other things, a golden moment for the historian of religions seeking to understand the interrelationship between urban form and symbolic order in central Mesoamerica. We now have the growing opportunity of combining, cross-checking, and interweaving the written and pictorial evidence about the Aztec shrine with the mute evidence from the dig which is both confirming the written evidence and revealing surprising facts about Templo Mayor's history, structure and its relationship with distant and peripheral communities in the Aztec empire. Never before have we had the opportunity to understand with such precision, the signifi- cance of a major Mesoamerican religious shrine in terms of its history, archi- tecture, symbolic meaning and the dynamics which existed between the capital city it crowned and the empire it integrated.

My own interpretation of Templo Mayor as a vision ofplace is based on my reading of the written evidence, 13 my observations of the excavation during part of two summers, intense discussion with scholars associated with the dig 14 and my attempts to test aspects of the Theory of the Central Place which has been elucidated, after intense observations of empirical data from world religions, by the historian of religions Mircea Eliade and the urban geo- grapher, Paul Wheatley. Wheatley's work is particularly germane to this

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article. He has combined the methods of urban studies with the insights from the History of Religions, tested them against a multitude ofsources from seven areas of primary urban generation to show how ceremonial centres were the 'primary instruments for the creation ofpolitical, social, economic and sacred space', is which constituted traditional cities and their spheres of influence. Developing the insights articulated by Fustel de Coulanges, a hundred years before, 16 Wheatley has demonstrated some of the complex ways by whicli religious archetypes, symbols and meanings, replicated in ceremonial eentres, contributed to the origin and development of cities and capitals. My work, here and elsewhere, is an attempt to explore the religious character of spatial order in the Aztec tradition by (a) intensifying the quantity and quality ofour knowledge of the empirical evidence about Aztec urbanism, and (b) utilizing and testing the methods and notions of the Chicago School of the History of Religions against the empirical data about ceremonial cities.

The interpretation which follows is guided by an experimental use of the categories of 'Centre ' and 'Periphery' which derive from the theoretical frame- work of the Chicago School of the History of Religions and which provide us with a helpful 'geography for reflection' upon tile evidence related to Templo Mayor (*see footnote 45). As the article will show, not only did the Aztecs have conccpts analogous to Centre and Periphery, they were deeply embroiled in achieving a political and symbolic dominance by their central city over the peripheral communities oftheir empire.

When I first visited the excavation in 1978, I saw the massive intimidating carved stone of the goddess Coyolxauhqui whose dramatic death is told in the myth of the birth ofthe Sun God Huitzilopochtli. I saw the slow uncovering of the foundation of the great shrine which daily yielded offerings of masks, statues of deities, animal and human sacrifices, and treasures from distant towns under Aztec control. I saw the eleven rebuildings ofthe shrine, far more than anyone imagined had taken place. I realized that I was witnessing the exhumation of the ceremonial centre of a city and empire. My previous interests in tile centripetal and centrifugal function of central shrines in Mesoamerica was rewarded by having more evidence, literally at my feet, than I had ever dreamed of. But I saw something of perhaps greater significance. Over 80% of the offerings being unearthed contained materials from cities and towns beyond the core area of the Aztec realm, from communities with unstable relations with Tenochtitlan. It seemed likely that the Aztecs were making special efforts to integrate the objects of peripheral cities and places into their city's centre. As I thought about this surprising fact, a question raised by Jonathan Z. Smith came to mind. 17 'I would query whether one can pay such attention to the "Centre" without giving equal attention to the periphery' and I began to explore the evidence which would tell me more about the dynamics between the Aztec axis mundi and the peripheral territories

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it strove to integrate. The work which follows is a tentative statement about those dynamics as they are represented and symbolized in the evidence from Templo Mayor.

From analysing both the written texts and the evidence from the excavation, it is clear to me that the Aztecs saw themselves, their shrine, city and empire as the centre of the universe. The Aztecs felt a profound 'cosmic security' which was expressed in grandeur and aggressive pride. However, careful analysis of the data shows, surprisingly, that the Aztecs also suffered under a 'cosmic paranoia', a haunting sense ofcosmic insecurity and cultural inferiority asso- ciated with threats posed by kingdoms ofthe Aztec periphery and past. In this article I will focus on the evidence associated with the Great Temple in order to show how the Aztec vision ofplace was directed not only towards founding and maintaining a magnificently ordered cosmos held firmly at the capital and shrine of Huitzilopochtli, but it was also directed towards dealing with threats, limitations and weaknesses which were identified with peripheral places and peoples. Through this focus on the 'centre' and the 'periphery' of Aztec life, we will gain insight into the incongruity of Aztec grandeur and terror.

C1TY AS SYMBOL It has only been in the last thirty years that scholars have begun to focus intensely on the urban character of the ancient Mexican world. Is During this time relatively little attention has been given to the relationship between cosmological archetypes and the great capital cities which directed and dominated Mesoamerican cultural life for nearly two thousand years. One of tile most significant developments in this regard has been the work ofan urban geographer, Paul Wheatley, who has developed a general model of how traditional cities were organized as symbols ofcosmic order. In three important works ofscholarship, The Pivot of the Four Quarters, A Prelimina~ Enquiw into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City, 'City as Symbol', and 'The Suspended Pelt: Reflections on a Discarded Model of Spatial Order', Wheatley has shown that in tile seven areas of primary urban generation (China, Mesopotamia, Mesoameriea, Peru, Southwestern Nigeria, The Indus Valley, Egypt), that is, where cities were first created, a special kind of symbolic consciousness was utilized to organize space and human action. The great capitals of the earliest urban societies were laid out as symbols ofcosmic order and destiny. The royal and sacerdotal 61ites who ruled these capitals strove to achieve a parallelism between the regular aud mathematically expressible regimes ofthe heavens and tile rhythms of biological, personal and social life. Wheatley calls this attitude 'cosmo-magical thought', thought which dwells on the imitation of complex and detailed archetypes, and he has shown how it was expressed in at least three aspects of spatial organization which contributed to the prestige of capitals as the sacred pivots of the

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universe. First, there was tile tendency to dramatize tile cosmogony by repro- ducing on earth a reduced version of the cosmos in which the city was structured around a great shrine or axis mundi which marked the spot of ontological transition between tile levels of the cosmos. WheatIey writes that this was customarily effected in relation to that point, the holy of holies, whence the sacred habitabilis had taken its birth, and whence it had spread out in all directions. This central point, the focus of creative force, was the place where communication was achieved most easily between cosmic planes, between earth and heaven on the one hand, and between earth and the tmderworld on the other. It was through this point of ontological transition that there passed the axis of the world, represented in most instances by the capital city. In Eliade's phrasing, 'Reality had been achieved through parti- cipation in the Symbolism of the Centre. '19 Secondly, this 'Symbol of the Centre' was joined to techniques ofspatlal orientation which aligned the major thoroughfares and sectors of a capital city with tile cardinal compass direc- tions as a means ofassimilating urban space with celestial order, and thereby sanctifying the city. These four guiding avenues which usually emerged from the central ceremonial precinct, the theatre of sacred ritual and authority, acted as centripetal and centrifugal guides, magnetizing sacred and social powers into the centre and diffusing supernatural and royal authority outward into the kingdom. Thirdly, ceremonial complexes ordered by cosmo-magical thought maintain the harmony between celestial and terrestrial spheres through the presence of ritual building which dramatized great cosmogonic acts in their shape, form, ritual, iconography and sculpture. As we shall now see, the Aztec capital, its ceremonial centre and especially the Templo Mayor exemplified this pattern ofcosmo-magical organization in a distinct manner.

A Z T E C ARCHETYPES, A Z T E C CITY

(a) The Foundation of Heaven. The Aztec vision of their city and empire was largely derived from their cosmology which contained a number ofspatial and temporal archetypes, that is, exemplary models of a 'transcendental' or celestial origin which appears in the myths, sacred histories, sculpture and picture books. 2~ The Aztecs, like many Mesoamerican communities conceived of their world as a land surrounded by water, called Cemanahuac. 21 At the centre or navel, tlalxico, stood their capital city, Tenochtitlan. Through this centre flowed tile vertical cosmos which consisted of a series of thirteen layers above and nine layers below the earth. Each celestial layer was inhabited by a deity, a sacred bird and a specific cosmological influence and colour. 22 The nine underworld layers were hazard stations for the souls of the dead, who through the aid of magical charms buried with the bodies assisted them in their quest for eternal peace at the lowest level called Mictlan.

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The Aztec capital 's special Ideation in this vertical cosmos is referred to in an Aztec poem.

Proud ofitself Is the City of Mexico-Tenochtitlan Here no one fears to die in war This is our glory

This is Your Command Oh Giver of Life Have this in mind, oh princes Who could conquer Tenochtitlan Who could shake the foundation of heaven? 23

The city was eulogized as a proud, fearless and glorious place, an invincible centre which linked the world of men with the universal god, the 'Giver of Life'. 24 Conceived ofas tile 'foundation ofheaven' , Tenochtitlan was tile point of union between the celestial powers and the underworld, h joined the parts of the cosmos together. In Aztec thought, it had to be unshakable, for ifit was disturbed and conquered, tile cosmos would collapse.

How Tenocht'itlan gained this special position is told in the Aztec founda- tion myth, a version of which is embroidered on the flag 0fmodern Mexico. According to their sacred history, the Aztecs emerged from Chicomoztoc, the Seven Caves, which was on an island surrounded by a lagoon. Their patron deity Huitzilopochtli, appeared to their shaman priest, commanding him to lead the people south to a place where the god would appear in the form of a great eagle perched on a blooming nopal growing from a rocky island in the middle of a lake. The Aztecs travelled south and beheld the omen realizing that this was to be the place of their future city which according to the divine promise would become

the queen and lady ofall the others ofthe earth, and where we will receive all other kings and lords and to which they will come as to one supreme among all the others. 2s

Tile Aztecs rejoiced at the sight oftheir new land and enthusiastically built the first shrine to the patron god Huitzilopochtli.

Another version of the foundation story reveals the fuller character of Tenochti t lan as the centre of vertical space. Following the sighting of the Eagle, one of the Chichimec priests dived into the lake and disappeared. Thinking him drowned, his companions returned to their camp. Soon, he returned to report that beneath the lake he talked with the old god of the earth, Tlaloc and had received permission for the Aztecs to settle there. The city's existence was thereby sanctified by both the forces of the earth and the sky.

From these stories we can see that Tenochtitlan was conceived not merely as

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tile new settlement, but as the royaI city of the world to which the various royal authorities would visit 'as to one supreme among all the others'. This special prestige is rellected in the frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza which is all image of the foundation myth. It pictures the eagle, nopal, stone, lake image above a giant Aztec shield with seven eagle down feathers and seven arrows attached to it. 26 This is the ideogram for 'Place of Authority' and the painted image can be read 'The Aztecs have arrived in Tenochtitlan, the Place of Authority'. 2~ The persistence of Tenochtitlan's status as the centre for royal authority in central Mesoamerica is demonstrated by the fact that when Cortes wrote his second letter in 1520 to the emperor of Spain, he reported that 'all the Lords of the land, who are vassals of the said Montezuma have houses in the city and reside therein for a certain time ofyear ' .

During the next two hundred }'ears of Tenoehtitlan's existence, an elaborate ceremonial centre was constructed around the original shrine. This sacred precinct grew to be about four hundred and fort}" metres on each of its four sides. It contained numerous structures including schools for the nobles (calmecacs), major temples, a giant skull rack, a ball court, administrative structures, all surrounded by a ten foot high wall called the coalepanlli or serpent wall. Into this ceremonial centre poured pilgrim, king, noble, warrior, sacrificial victim, architect, ally and enemy. ! twas here that the spectacular human sacrifices took place, often at night belbre glowing torches and throngs of participants and onlookers. The Aztec world was integrated here. One of the most obvious examples of the integration of religious forces within the capital was the special temple built by Moctezuma II for the purpose of housing all the images of deities from towns and cities throughout the Aztec empire. All supernatural powers were imprisoned into the empire's centre in order to integrate all the divine forces of the realm. (b) Four Quarters and lhe Centre. One of the most intluential archetypes in Mesoamerican culture is reflected in the image ofthe horizontal cosmos which appears in the Codex Fejen'ao'-Ma.)'er. Here and elsewhere, we see that the cosmos was conceived as having five parts with four quadrants called nauchampa, literally the four directions ofthe wind, extending outward from the central section. Each of these quadrants had specific names, colours and influences associated with them. Though the pattern varied from culture to culture, a typical Mesoamerican version was: East-Tlacopan, 'Place of Dawn', yellow, fertile and good: North-Mietlampa, 'Region of the Underworld', red, barren, and bad; West-Cihuatlampa, 'Region of Women', blue, green, un- favourable, humid; South-Huitzlampa, 'Region of Thorns' , white; Centre- Tlalxico, 'Navel', black. The waters surrounding the inhabited land in the middle were called ilhuica-atl, the celestial water, which extended upward in a vertical direction merging with the sky and supporting the lower level of heaven. 28

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This pattern of five cosmological spaces became the organizing principle for a multitude of supernatural, political, tributary and economic concepts in central *Iesoamcreican society. For instance, the most popular and wide- spread deity in central Mesoamerica was Tlaloc, the fertilizing rain god. Tlaloc was usually conceived in quintuple forms called the tlaloques, each assigned to one of the sacred directions. The pictorial image of these gods is almost a replica, in terms of design, of the pictorial image of the cosmic regions. 29 The power of this spatial conception extended into Aztec images of cosmological time. For instance, one ofthe finest pieces of Mesoamerican religious sculpture is the Calendar Stone, more accurately called the Piedra del Sol because it is a carved image ofthe cosmogony depicting the five ages or 'suns' ofthe universe. In the centre of the stone, the cosmic eras are divided into the pattern of a central space called the 'Fifth Sun' surrounded by four previous eras, again duplicating the design of cosmic space. We have what Miguel Leon-Portilla calls the 'spatiallzation of time', a~

Tenochtit lan's prestige as the centre of horizontal space is reflected in the comment by Diego Duran's informants that the capital was the 'root and navel and heart of this whole worldly machine'. 31 It is clear from the archaeological evidence and several maps of the city that it was dMded into four sections by four major highways which crossed at the base of tim Teinplo Mayor and which drove straight out of the ceremonial precinct connecting the city with the mainland. 32 These avenues, carefully aligned to conform to major celestial events determined the direction of the city's main streets and canals. What is equally important to note is that within this urban replica of cosmological space, there were smaller microcosms. Each of tim city's four quarters, as Edward Calnek has demonstrated, 33 was a replica of the larger design in that each quarter had its own central temple complex housing tim deities of the group who inhabited that section. A marketplace and administrative centre were part of each quarter 's central precinct. Each quarter had its own sacred pivot reproducing the pattern that dominated the city as a whole. Further, within each quarter, the many barrios had their own local ceremonial precinct, repeating again the symbolism ofthe centre.

According to one primary source, this spatial order was dictated by the deity who founded tim city, Huitzilopochtli. The text reads that the god ordered tim priest to 'dMde the men, each with Iris relatives, friends and relations in four principal barrios, placing at the centre the house you have built for my rest'. 34 The dMne command is to lay out tim new settlement on the model of the horizontal cosmos ofthe four directions, assimilating the city to the form ofthe four quadrants which constituted the cosmos.

Recent research in the historical chronicles byJohanna Broda suggests that the Aztec practice of cardinal orientation went far beyond the ordering of urban space to include the ordering of parts of the tribute system which

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sustained the entire population of Tenochtitlan. In her seminal article, 'El tributo en trajes guerreros y la estructura de sistema tributario Mexica', Johanna Broda utilizes the abundant though partial evidence concerning tribute patterns ofwarriors' uniforms sent to Tenochtitlan to demonstrate that the Mexica organized their tribute system into five great regions corresponding to tile five major directions (north, west, south, east and the centre) in order to conform to their view ofcosmic order. She speculates that the influence ofcosmo-magical thought extended into the palatial structure of Moctezuma which, the Codex Mendoza reveals, was divided into five principal rooms, as The Mendoza also shows that the apex of Aztec government consisted of Moctezuma at the centre of power with four counsellors assisting his royal judgments. It appears then, that the Aztec perception of their universe as a four-cornered universe significantly influenced not only the spatial structure of their city but also the order of their tribute system, the image of the royal palace, and the balance of their government.

THE TEMPLO MAYOR AS 'IMA GO MUNDI' The most imposing and powerful structure in Tenochtitlan was the Templo Mayor. Its sustained importance as the sacred centre ofthe capital is reflected in the fact that it was enlarged frontally eleven times during less than two hundred years of its existence. At the important moments of Aztec political expansion within and beyond the valley of Mexico, the temple was expanded to symbolize, celebrate and sanctify tile manipulation and inclusion of peoples, goods, meanings. Recent excavations of the shrine's base and surrounding area have uncovered a stunning example of the architectural at tempt to translate into a ceremonial structure, one of the great cosmogonic acts which legitimated and inspired the central conceptions and rituals of Aztec life and authority.

In February of 1978 electrical workers excavating a pit beneath the street behind the National Cathedral uncovered a massive oval stone more than ten feet in diameter with the mint condition image ofan Aztec goddess carved on it. The image consisted of a decapitated and dismembered female goddess whose bood streams were depicted as precious fluid. Her striated head cloth, stomach, arms and legs were circled by serpents. A skull served as her belt buckle. She has earth monster faces on her knees, elbows and ankles. Her sandals reveal a royal figure and the icongraphy shows that tiffs is the Aztec moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. a6 As a result of this incredible discovery, Proyecto Templo Mayor was initiated to excavate the foundation ofthe entire structure. The myth of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god ofsun and war, helps us understand the meaning of this carved image and the relation it has to the Aztec vision ofplace.

On Coatepec (Serpent Mountain), the mother ofthe gods, Coatlicue (Lady

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of the Serpent Skirt) was sweeping out the temple, aT A ball of feathers 'descended upon her' and she placed it in her bosom. Later she discovered it had disappeared and immediately realized that she was pregnant. When the cenlzon huitznahua (the four hundred southerners, her children) heard of this development, they were outraged. Led by their sister Coyolxauhqui who was furious 'as if bursting her heart', they decided to attack and kill their mother. Coyolxauhqui, 'greatly excited and aroused the sibling to prepare for war'. They 'dressed themselves in war array with paper crowns, nettles, painted pipe streams and bells' and marched in military order to attack their mother. Coatlicue was frightened for her life but a voice spoke to her from her womb, 'Have no fear, already I know what I must do.' The army, in full fury, rushed the mountain top and just at the moment of attack, the god Huitzilopochtli sprang from his mother's womb full grown, dressed himself as a warrior and engaged his brothers and sisters in combat. He grabbed a serpent of fire, charged his sister in a rage, and decapitated her in one swipe. The text reads,

her body went falling below and it went crashing to pieces in various places, her arms, her legs, her body kept falling.

Huitzilopochtli then turned to the others, attacking them, and took 'them into his destiny'.

As the precise studies ofJohanna Broda have shown, this myth 'comprised several layers of symbolism, ranging from a purely historical explanation to one in terms ofcosmovision and possible astronomical content'. 3s At one level, Huitzilopochtli 's birth and victorious battle against the four hundred children represent the character of the solar religion of the Aztecs in that the daily sunrise was viewed as a celestial war against the moon (Coyolxauhqui) and the stars (cenlzon huitznahua). 39 Another version of the myth; found in the historical chronicles of Diego Duran and Ah,arado Tczozomoc, tells the story with strong historical allusion and portrays two Aztec factions in ferocious battle. The leader of one group, Huitzilopochtli defeats the warriors of a woman leader, Coyolxauh, and tears open their breasts and eats their hearts. Both versions tell of the origin of human sacrifice at the sacred place, Coatepec, during the rise ofthe Aztec nation and at the foundation of Tenoch- titian. 40

It is important here to focus on the meaning of Coatepec in the drama. The Templo Mayor, called Coatepec by the Aztecs, consisted of a huge pyramid base supporting two temples, one to Huitzilopochtli and one to Tlaloe. Two grand stainvays led up to the shrines. The Coyolxauhqui stone was found directly at the base of the stairway leading up to Huitzilopochtli's temple. On both sides of the stairway's base completing the bottom ofthe stairway's sides, were two large grinning serpent heads. The image is clear. The Templo Mayor is the image of Coatepec or Serpent Mountain. Just as Huitzilopochtli

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t r iumphed at tile top of the mountain, while his sister was dismenlbered and fell to pieces below, so Hnitzilopochtli 's temple and icon sat triumphantly at tile top of Templo *Iayor with the carving of the dismembered goddcss thr below. This d rama ofsacrilicial dismemberment was vMdly repeated in some of the offerings found around the Coyolxauhqui stone in which the decapitated skulls o fyoung women were placed. The suggestion is that there was a ritual re-enactment of the myth at the dedication of the stone sometime in the latter part of the fifteenth century. This seems likely when we find that thc cvcnts of Coatepec were performed every )'ear in the national festivals of the Aztecs during tim month of Panquetzalitzli. 41 The Tcmplo Mayor and its parts and related actions located at the heart of tim city and empire represent the dramat ic cosmic victory of Huitzilopochtli and tile Aztecs over celestial and terrestrial enemies.

COS, IHC RENEII 'AL AND THE TE,IIPLO MA }'OR We noted earlier that a culture's symbolic language will be expressed through its vision of place. Thus far wc havc seen how tile Templo Mayor symbolized and integrated the Aztec conceptions ofsymbolic space. There is at least one unusual example of how the Tcmplo M a y o r participatcd in thc rcncwal of cosmological time and the redistribution ofthat time.- I n tile sequence ofevents which constitute the New Fire Ceremony, which we will glance at brietly here, we will see how the great shrine influenced virtually all lcvcls, parts and corners of Aztec society through this renewal and redistribution of cosmic t]me. 42

One of the most crucial ceremonial moments in Aztec religion was the New Fire Ceremony which took place once every fifty-two )'ears on Star Hill located at tile edge of Tenochtit lan. Its purpose was to regenerate tile great cycles of cosmic time after they had become totally exhausted in their permutations. As the dangerous night approached, whicll marked the end of a fifty-two )'ear period, 'When it was evident that the years lay read)' to burst into life', all fires in the empire were extinguished, household statucs, pots, and utensils wcre broken, homes and temples swept clean. According to the Florenthze Codex a great apprehension filled the cities, and towns ofthe empirc. I t was thought 'if tim fire could not be drawn, then the sun would be destroyed forever; all would be ended. Night would prevail forever and the demons of darkness would descend to eat men. '43 Within tile valley of Mexico, tile people gathered in the darkness on their roofs and terraces to watch for the new fire to be reborn on Star Hill. There, a special victim was sacrificed and the new fire was ignited on his chest. Spread out on the sacrificial stone, a fire drill was used to ignite the new spark of life. 'When a little fire f e l l . . , then speedily the priest slashed open the breast of the captive, seized his heart and quickly cast it then into the fire.' This moment insured the 'binding of the )'cars', that is, the joining ofthe

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old time period to the new one. The next sequence is quite important. Follow- ing elaborate ritual actMty on Star Hill, the new fire was taken from the burning corpse down from the mountain, through the City and directly to the Templo Mayor where it was placed in a standard holder of Huitzilopochtli's great image. After it was sprinkled with the proper incense, and the proper chants were said, it was then taken out ofthe Great Temple to other important shrines and palaces in the capital and then to all the towns and cities of the empire where new fires were ignited. In this scenario, the rebirth ofthe cosmos is integrated into the axis mundi ofthe empire and then distributed to all parts of the kingdom. 44

CENTRE AND PERIPHERY Until now, we have seen abundant evidence that the Aztec city was structurcd by a series ofmeanings and activities associated with what Mircea Eliade calls the 'Symbolism ofthe Centre'. It is becoming clearer to me that the usual way which some historians of religions conceive of the category of the centre does not constitute a thorough interpretive approach for understanding the Templo Mayor 's history and meaning. A people's vision of place retlects the inter- twining of symbol and society, ontology and history. In this regard it is vitally important, in the Aztec case at least, to be aware, not just of the integrating powers of the axis mundi but also to acknowledge and interpret the impulses of expansion of a sacred centre and the results. We have seen how this process of the expansion of Aztec sacred space paralleled the development of Tenochtit- lan from the spot of the nopal to the shrine of Huitzilopochtli, and spread to the four quadrants of the city and eventually the organization oftribute payments for the empire. But it is also necessary to understand the historical, social, and symbolic tension which developed between the centripetal character of the capital and the centrifilgal tendencies of the capital. For instance, Edward Shils has shown that great eentres are ruled by 61ites whose authority has

an expansive tendency.. , a tendency to expland the order it represents towards the saturation of territorial space . . , the periphery. Rulers, simply out of their possession of authority and the impulses wbich it generates wish to be obeyed and they wish to obtain assent to tbe order they symbolically embody. 4s

Yet these impulses of expansion will inevitably lead to involvement in peri- pheral and competing traditions of value, meaning and authority. This some- times results in tentative arrangements of power and authority between the centre and the periphery. Though peripheral systems and their symbols may be weaker within a hierarchy of an empire, they nevertheless have the poten- tial to threaten the centre with disbelief, reversal and rebellion. It is within this kind of situation that W. B. Yeats' famous line has direct relevance, 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold'. Though I cannot go into the Mesoamerican'

288 Dat.id Carrasco

pattern in detail here, it is a fact that ancient Mexican kingdoms were arranged similarly to what Stanley Tambiah calls 'pulsating galactic polities', that is kingdoms in which the capital cities were in constant tension and antagonism with the surrounding allied and enemy settlements. In these 'pulsating' kingdoms, the 'exemplar}" centres' are frequently deflated by rebel- lion and disputes with unstable factions who threaten to bring about processes of disintegration on a large scale. This resulted in the continual relocation of capital cities and an eccentric and unstable understanding ofauthority. 46

To me, this is an important point, because it suggests that centres not only dominate and control peripheries, but peripheries influence and sometimes tranform centres, even a centre so aggressive and dominant as Tenochtitlan. With this pattern in mind, we can turn back to the evidence uncovered at the Great Temple to see the impact ofperipheral territories on the capital city. We will see that threats from the Aztec past as well as from the competing traditions of their contemporary world transformed the Templo Mayor and the city it sanctified.

SI51IBOLS F R O M T H E P E R I P H E R Y As noted, the Templo Mayor was the symbolic centre of the great tribute network of the Aztec empire. Not only was it the material expression of Aztec religious thought, it was also the symbolic instrument for the collection and redistribution of wealth and goods from all over the empire. The social world which the Aztecs strove to control consisted of small local states called tlatocayolls. 47 These city-states consisted of small agricuhurally based, politi- call}' organized territories under the control of a city which was the seat of government, ceremonial centre and home of a ruling class which claimed descent from the gods. Conflict and warfare was constant and the conquest of one llaloca.)'oll by another resulted in the imposition ofsignificant tribute on the conquered people. As the Aztec conquests proceeded to incorporate scores of these city-states into their empire, tribute payments to Tenochtitlan became enormous. Tile city's prestige and wealth depended to a large degree on these enormous amounts of tribute payments which flowed into the capital and insured economic superiority for the royal house, the nobles and the common citizen. Significantly, over ninety incredible offerings ofsymbolic tribute have been uncovered at strategic points around the base of the pyramid at every stage of its construction. These offerings contain sea shells, finely carved masks, statues ofdeities, sacrificed humans and animals, knives and jewelry. Over eighty per cent of these objects are from distant and frontier provinces under Aztec domination. Their presence in the heart of the city displays the at tempt to integrate valued and symbolic objects from the periphery of the Aztec state into the foundation of the central shrine as a means ofsanctifying the conquests and the expansion of Aztec sacred social order. For instance a

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number of offerings contain huge and small shells, usually oriented towards the south, which were brought from the distant sea coasts. They represent the powers of fertility associated with tile great bodies ofwater. These powers are also represented in the crocodiles and swordfish buried at tile temple. Another meaning of these burials relates to the fact that the Aztec called the terrestrial world, cem anahuac which means the land surrounded by water. In this light, the offerings of the shells demonstrate the Aztec desire to incorporate the edges of their world into the sacred shrine. The fertility symbols from the periphery were buried at the centre.

This integration of peripheral places is elaborated in one of the most stunning discoveries to date, the offerings of over two hundred finely carved masks in one burial in front of Tlaloc's shrine. These masks have noble, frightening, awe-inspiring faces which were carved in man)' different settle- ments under Aztec domination. They display different artistic styles, emphasizing different facial features and were apparently offered as a special tribute offering to the Great Temple for some auspicious ceremonial event during the latter part of the fifteenth century. They are not only signs of offering but signs ofsubjugation. Valuable objects, perhaps symbolic faces of different allies or frontier communities were buried a t the world's axis. There is one stunning temporal aspect ofthis collection because the most remarkable mask is a small, mint condition Olmecjade mask that was probably carved a full two thousand years before the first of the temple's eleven fa~;ades were constructed. In this precious Olmee treasure, we see the Aztec concern to integrate tbe symbols of the ancient civilization in its shrine.

TWIN TEMPLES When the Chichimec tribes, from whom the Aztecs emerged as conquerors, came into tbe central plateau during the thirteenth century the)' encountered a world which had long been dominated by complex state societies. 48 It is important to understand that while the Aztecs did evolve from an insignificant political group into an imperial people in less than two hundred years, the institutions which they developed had been in existence for over fifteen hundred years. Complex state societies with great capital cities dominating lesser cities and communities had been the order of life in central Mesoamerica since the beginning of the 1st millennium C.E.

The magnificent cities ofTeotihuacan, Tollan, Chollolan, with their great pyramids, imposing stone sculpture, complex social structures, long-distance trade systems, religious inconography and sacred genealogies for kings, inti- midated and inspired the Aztecs to measure up to and integrate the classic heritage. 49 For instance, the truly monumental four-quartered city of Teoti- huacan (Abode of the Gods) was revered as the place where the present cosmogonic era was'created, s~ Aztec kings went periodically to the ancient

290 David Carrasco

shrines to perform sacrifices and re-establish ties to the divine ancestors and sanctity which dwelt there. The Toltec civilization of the Great Tollan and the cult of Quetzalcoatl was viewed as the 'golden day' of artistic excellence, agricultural abundance, ritual renewal and place where giants had perceived the divine plan for human society, sl As Ester Pasztory has shown, these cities 'cast a giant shadow over the Aztecs who could not help feeling small and inferior by contrast', s2 Plagued by a sense of illegitimacy and cultural inferiority, the Aztecs made shrewd and strenuous efforts to encapsulate the sanctified traditions of the past into their shrine. This is reflected in the fact that the Templo Mayor was a 'twin temple', a form invented by the Aztecs and their contemporaries. The Templo Mayor supported great shrines to Tlaloc, as well as Huitzilopochtli. On the obvious level, Tlaloc's presence represents the great forces of water and moisture which were absolutely critical"for agricultural conditions of the lake and surrounding lands. Elaborate cere- monies were held, involving the sacrifice ofchildren to Tlaloc, in order to bring the seasonal rains to the land. s3 But Tlaloc's prominence at the shrine displays another Aztec concern as well. Tlaloc was the old god of the land who had sustained the great capitals of pre-Aztec Mexico. He represented a prior structure of reality in a cultural and supernatural sense. He had given per- mission to the Aztecs to settle in the lake, therefore he was the indigenous deity who adopted the newcomers. As a means of legitimating their shrine and city, the Aztecs were forced to integrate the great supernatural and cultural authori ty of the past into the Templo Mayor.

The practice of integrating the images of the great cultural past is also reflected in the recent discover 3, ofan elaborately painted Chac Mool in front of one of the earliest Templo Mayor constructions. This backward reclining figure who was a messenger to the fertility gods holds a bowl on his lap which was used to hold the heart ofsacrifical victims. But Chac Mools were definitely not Aztec but rather Toltec figures which had appeared in prominent ceremonial centres of the Toltec cities. The statue's surprising appearance at the Templo Mayor suggests again the Aztec insecurity and concern to bring the superior cultural past into their mighty present.

TEMPLO MAYOR, PERIPHERIES, HUMAN SACRIFICE The Templo Mayor was the scene of elaborate human sacrifices which in- creased to incredible numbers during the last eighty years of Aztec rule. s4 Human sacrifice was based upon a unique religious attitude. It was believed that human blood and especially the human heart contained the vital energT for the sun's continued motion through the heavens and the subsequent renewal of time, crops, human life and the divine forces ofthe cosmos. In these sacrifices, human hearts were offered to the sun and the blood was spread on the Templo ,Mayor's walls in order to coat the temple with sacred energy. The

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Aztec rulers were in charge of this process and had the responsibility of obtaining human victims through war. As we have seen, the paradigm for this process was the myth of Huitzilopochtli's birth. But this myth alone does not account for the quantity ofhuman sacrifice and the expansion of the Templo Mayor's role in this development.

Recently Johanna Broda's shrewd analysis of ideology and the Aztec state provides valuable insights into the interrelationship of the Templo Mayor, the increase in human sacrifice and the powers of peripheral city-states, ss We know that within the valley of Mexico the Aztec warrior and priestly nobility managed a high degree of centralization of agricultural schedules, techno- logical developments, labour management and ritual processes. But in all directions beyond the valley there was little continued success in peacefully controlling ttle internal organization ofconquered or enemy city-states, s6 Ttle Aztec capital, while expanding its territory and tribute controls, was re- peatedly shocked by rebellions which demanded complex and organized military and economic reprisals. This antagonism between the core area and the surrounding city-states created immense stresses within all the institutions of Tenochtitlan contributing to the astonishing increases in human sacrifice carried out at the Templo Mayor between 1440-1521. For not only did the political order appear weak but the divine right to Conquer and subdue all peoples and enemies seemed unfulfilled. Ttle anxiety which tile Aztecs already felt about their universal order, after all cosmic life as an unending war was intensified to the point ofcosrnic paranoia. In this situation, ttle ritual strategy to feed the gods became themajor political instrument to subdue the enemy and control the periphery.

The Templo Mayor's role in this explosive process can be seen in an at least three important events. During the reign of Moctezuma Illhuicamina, 1,t-40-55, the shrine of Huitzilopochtli received its first large reconstruction, s7 As a means of insuring quality of workmanship and allegiance to the new temple, workers from a number ofcity-states trader Aztec control were ordered to do the job. However, one independent community, Chalco, refused to participate and was declared in rebellion against tile Aztecs. A ferocious war was lannched and eventually the Chalcans were defeated. Their captured warriors were brought to tile Templo Mayor and, along with other prisoners of war, sacrificed at its redcdicatlon. This pattern ofcelebrating the expansion of tile Great Temple with warfare and the sacrifice of enemy warriors was followed by subsequent Aztec kings who increased the sacrificial festivals as a means of controlling resistance and peripheral territories. In 1487, Ahuitzotl, celebrated the renovation ofthe Templo Mayor by ordering great quantities of tribute brought into Tenochtitlau. Newly conquered city-states were ordered to send their tribute in tile form of sacrificial victims who were slain at tile iaauguration.

292 David Carrasco

Curiously at these ceremonies of massive human sacrifice, the kings and lords from allied and enemy city-states were invited to the ceremonial centre to witness the spectacular festival. The ritual extravaganza was carried out with maximum theatrical tension, paraphernalia and terror in order to amaze and intimidate the visiting dignitaries who returned to their kingdoms trembling with fear and convinced that co-operation and not rebellion was the best response to Aztec imperialism.

On another occasion, the Aztec king, this time Moctezuma Xocoyotzin (1503-20) ordered the construction of a temple to house the images of all the gods worshipped in the imperial domain. Before the dedication of the shrine, he ordered a war against a rebellious coastal city-state, Teuctepec. From this campaign, two thousand three hundred warriors were brought to Tenochtit- lan and sacrificed while the king initiated tile sacrifices.

All this suggests that the tension between the capital and peripheral towns and the political threats and cosmic insecurities which Aztec 61ires felt as a result, contributed in a major way to the increase of human sacrifice at the Templo Mayor. In the long run, this increment served to strengthen and weaken the authority of Tenochtitlan. While many city-states were securely integrated into the Aztec sphere, some were alienated into the direction of other kingdoms and the capacity for rebellion increased. So, when tile Spaniards came, Indian allies were not hard to find and in fact played tremendous roles in the conquest of Tenoehtitlan.

S U B S T I T U T E FOR A U T H O R I T Y Nowhere are tile attitudes ofcuhural inferiority and political instability more evident than ill the accounts we have ofthe confrontation between Moctezuma I I and Hernan Cortes. Earlier, when the Aztecs had manoeuvred themselves into the Toltec dynastic llne during the fourteenth century, they inherited not only tile prestige of Toltec culture but also tile tradition which claimed that the great priest-king Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, who had left Mexico centuries before promised to return one day and reclaim his throne. So, when the last Aztec king received news that strangers in temples (boats) had come floating across tile sea and landed on the eastern edge of the empire, it is reported that the king ' thought, and so it was regarded that this was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl who had arrived', ss Apparently the possibility that Cortes was a representative of tile authentic Toltec dynasty plagued Moctezuma throughout the Spanish march to Mexico City. In the Aztec account of the conquest it is stated that Moctezuma sent the costumes of four major deities, including Quetzalcoatl's, for Cortes to wear, with the message, 'Your servant Moctezuma hath sent us �9 . . Let the god deign to hear: for his vassal Moctezuma who guardeth over Mexico tbr him prayeth to him.' The reports from the coast drove the king into a deep depression. He was unable to sleep and lamented 'What will become of

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us now? Who, in truth, standeth in command. Alone until now, I. In great torment is my heart, as if run through with chili water, so that it burneth and smarteth. ' In this terrible state, 'he was filled with great dread' and moved out of his kingly palace into a lesser palace as though to make room for the true sovereign of the kingdom.

What followed in this drama was the abdication of Aztec sovereignty to the illusion of the returning Toltec authority. The abdication appears in several speeches, and this excerpt reflects clearly the sense of overwhelming intimi- dation the Aztec lord felt in relationship to the ancient tradition.

Moctezuma addresses Cortez, 'O, Our L o r d . . . Thou ha:. arrived on earth, thou hag come to thy noble city of M e x i c o . . . to occupy thy noble mat and scat, which for a little time I have guarded and watched for thee . . . , s9 Here we have the statement ofthe temporariness and tentativeness of Aztec sovereignty in which the king speaks ofhimselfas the guardian of a throne and not the true ruler. Moctczuma, in a sense, considered himselfon the periphery ofauthentic royal authority and his contribution to the collapsc ofthe capital was a major one. Though Spanish and Indian weapons and tactics provided the action of the conquest, the Aztec insecurity ofthcir legitimacy providcd the attitude for being conquered.

OMENS OF THE END The intensity of Moctczuma's crisis ofauthority can partly be explained by tile anxiety tile Aztecs felt about thcir cosmos and temple. Temples throughout tile Aztec world werc the living embodiment of each city's existe!ace. This identilication of temple and city is rcllectcd in picture books, like the Codex ,llendoza where the image of the temple tipped and burning or smoking is a sign that a city has bccn conquered. 6~ When tile Indian informants reported their version of the fall of Tenochtitlan decades after the conquest, they told tlmt the Templo ~ layor had been temporarily destroyed ten years belbre tim Spaniards came to Mexico. This valuable report shows that as in the foundation of Tenochti t lan and the construction of the Tcmplo Mayor, so in its end, omens tbretold the destiny of the capital. In the first chapter of Book XII of the Florentine Codex, entitled 'The Conquest', we read,

Here are told the signs which appeared and were seen, when the Spaniards had not yet come here to this land, when they were not yet known to the natives here. When the Spaniards had not arrived by ten years. 61

What is extremely important to note is that tile text places tile celestial omens prior to the presence ofthc Spaniards because it communicates ttmt the Aztecs understood their destruction to have been initiated by the forces of their cosmos, not just by Spanish soldiers. Of the many omens which caused.'so much dread and wonder that the people spoke of it constantly' allow mc to mention three.

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T h e first omen was a 'fiery signal, like a ffaming ear o fcorn or the blaze of daybreak : it seemed to bleed fire, drop by drop, like a wound ill the sky'. The Aztecs witness a rip in their universe, a rip which bleeds fire threatening the dea th o f their cosmos that encloses and is centred by the Templo ,\layor. A more direct ca tas t rophe followed.

The temple of Hultzilopochdi burst into flames. It is thought that no one set it afire, that it burned down ofits own accord. The name ofits divine site was Tlacateccan (House of Author i ty) . . . The flames, the tongues of fire shoot out, the bursts offire shoot up into the sky. The flames swiftly destroyed all the woodwork ofthe temple � 9 and the temple burned to the ground. 62

T h e home of their founding deity, the victorious warrior who slew the lights of darkness was burned to the ground reflecting the image just discussed: a burning, falling temple means a city has been conquered.

Following Moc tezuma ' s death and near the end of the Spanish siege of Tenocht i t l an comes a linal celestial omen . Jus t before the surrender of the city we read,

At nightfall it began to rain, but it was more like a heavy dew than a rain. Suddenly the omen appeared, blazing like a great bonfire in the sky. It wheeled in enormous spirals like a whirlwind and gave offa show of sparks and red hot coals, some great and some little. It also made loud noises, rumbling and hissing like a metal tube placed over a fire. It circled the wall nearest the lakeshore and then hovered for a while above Coyonacasco. From there it moved out into the middle of the lake where it suddenly disappeared. No one cried out when the omen came into view: the people knew what it meant and they watched in silence. 63

W h a t the), knew was that the magic of their cosmos had turned against them.

It is fascinating that the cosmo-magical vision wliich founded, sustained and threatened the Aztec capital continued to have force in the survivors' minds long after the place o f its embodiment had been shattered and trans- formed�9 O f course, Huitzilopochtl i 's temple was rebuilt after it supposedly burned down in 1510. But the Spaniards dismantled the Templo Mayor in 1521 to descacralize the location and used the materials to lay the foundation o f the i r cathedral near by. Yet thirty )'ears after the conquest, in a Spanish-run society, the Aztec wisemen poignantly reaffirmed the cosmological conviction lodged in their minds that the destiny of their capital was influenced not pr imar i ly by Spanish arms and intentions but by the pattern of their heaven.

Ironically, today the Templo Mayor is being reconstructed in our imagina- tions. I t is no longer the 'House of Authori ty ' , but a vision of a place that centred an empire and reflected its incongruities.

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NOTES

1 Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discove U and Conquest of Mexico (New York 1956), p. 191.

2 Ibid.,p. 436. 3 See Benjamin Keen's expansive The Aztec Image in Western Thought (New Brunswick,

N.J. 1971) for an entertaining andthorough outline of the ways that modem scholars and artists have responded to the Aztec enigma.

4 See Alfonso Caso's authoritative introduction to the Mesoamerican calendar in 'Calendrical systems of central Mexico' in G. F. Eckholm and Ignacio Bernal (eds.), Itandbook of Middle American Indians, Austin, Texas, 1971, 10:333--t8, here- after referred to as Handbook.

5 Diego Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Andent Calendared. F. Horcasitas and D. Heyden (Oklahoma, 197 ) has a startling number ofhuman sacrifices listed in relation to the calendar festivals in Tenochtitlan.

6 H .B. Nicholson's introduction to Mesoamerican sculpture, 'Major sculpture in pre-Hispanlc Central Mexico', Handbook, 10:92-135 discusses the character and creativity of Aztec sculpture in the round.

7 See Miguel Leon-Portilla's 'Pre-Hispanlc Literature', Handbook, 10:452-8 for a short introduction to Aztec poetic forms.

8 Jonathan Z. Smith, 'The influence ofsymbols upon social change: a place on which to stand', Worship (October, 1970), p. 469.

9 Charles Gibson, 'Structure ofthe Aztec Empire', Handbook, 10:376--96. 10 Diego Duran, Book of the Gods, refers to man}' ofthe rituals performed at Templo

Mayor. 11 See the December 1980 issue of National Geographic Magazine, 'The Aztecs', for an

introduction to the discoveries at the Templo Mayor excavation. 12 The nature ofpre-Columbian primary sources present a distinct set of problems for

the scholar interested in working with Mesoamerican materials. For a sampling of these problems and helpful approaches to them see, Donald Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period." The Metropolitan Schools (New Haven, Connecticut, 1959); Charles Gibson, 'A Su~'ey of Middle American Prose Manu- scripts in the Native Historical Tradition', Handbook, 15:311-21 and David Carrasco, 'City as Symbol in Aztec Thought', History of Religions, vol. 20, no. 3, Feb. 1981, pp. 199--308.

13 Written evidence concerning Templo Mayor is contained in Diaz del Castitlo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (Diego Duman, Historia de los Indias de Nueva Espana y Islas de tierra.firme) Mexico City 1951; Alvarado Tezozomoc, Cronica Mexicana, Mexico City 1944; Bernardino de Sahagun, Historia general de los coasa de Nueva Espana, A. M. Garibay (ed.), 4 vols, Mexico 1956.

14 I helped organize an international symposium ofscholars 'Centre and Periphery: The Templo Mayor and the Aztec Empire' which took place at the University of Colorado, 10 November 1979. New information about the Great Temple's politi- cal, symbolic and economic power was examined for the first time during four 'round table' conferences. In particular, I am indebted to the following papers: 'Tribute and symbol at the Great Temple' by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma; 'Aztec ideology and human sacrifice' by Johanna Broda; 'Sacred geography in the founding and planning of Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan' by Doris Heyden and 'Magical flights among the ancient Nahuas' by Alfredo Lopez Austin.

15 Paul Wheatley, The Pivot of the Four Quarters, Chicago 1973, p. 225.

296 David Carrasco

16 Numa Denis, Fustel de Coulanges, The Andent City, New York, n.d. 17 Jonathan Z. Smith, 'The wobbling pivot', The Journal of Religion, April 1972, Vol.

52, Number 2, p. 145. 18 See my 'City as Symbol in Aztec Thought', History of Religions, Feb. 1981 for a

summary of this development. See Friedrich Katz, Ancient American Civilizations, New York 1972, chapter I 0, for an insightful discussion of the rise and development ofthe Aztec city.

19 Paul Wheatley, 'City as Symbol', an Inaugural lecture delivered at University College London, 20 November, 1967, p. 12.

20 See Mircea Eliade's sustained discussion ofarchetypes and their influence in Myth of the Eternal Return, Princeton 1974.

21 The most cogent discussion of Aztec cosmological archetypes appears in H. B. Nicholson, 'Religion in pre-Hispanic Central Mexico', Handbook, 10:395, ~.A.5. See especially pp. 402-5 to see how spatial conceptions blended and directed temporal conceptions in Mesoameriean society.

22 Ibid., this image can be seen in Codex Vaticanus A, fols, lv, 2r, 12v: and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, fol. 8r.

23 Quoted in Miguel Leon Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, Norman, Oklahoma, 1968, p. 87.

24 Leon-Portilla, one of the most renowned Nahuatl scholars, translates the Aztec High God's name in this fashion.

25 Duran, Historia de las Indias, I:39. 26 A fine English version of the Mendoza exists: Codex Mendoza: The Mexican

Manuscript Known as the Collection of Mendoza and Preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, trans.James Cooper Clark, 3 vols, London 1938. The pictorial sections are accompanied by English translations of a very informative Spanish gloss.

27 Ibid., p. 5. 28 See Nieholson, 'Religion in pre-Hispanic Central Mexico', Handbook 10:404 for a

version of this cosmology. 29 The tlaloques as pictured in the Codex Borgia cover an almost identical space as that

pictured in the Codex Fejervary-Mayer as the universe. 30 Miguel Leon-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, Norman, Oklahoma, 1963,

discusses the influence of spatial categories over calendrical patterns in Aztec religion.

31 Diego Duran, Historia de las Indias, 2:343. 32 See Jorge Hardoy, PreColumbian Cities, New York 1973, p. ! 76, for a description of

the influence ofthese roads. 33 Edward Calnek, 'The internal structure of Tenochtitlan,' in Eric Wolf (ed.), The

Valley of Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, p. 296. 34 Duran, Historia de las lndias, I:42. 35 Johanna Broda, 'El tributo en trajes guerreros y la estructura del sistema tributario

Mexico', in Pedro Carrasco and Johanna Broda (eds.), Economia, politica e ideologia en el Mexico prehispanico, Mexico City 1978.

36 See Henry B. Nicholson's detailed interpretation of the Coyolxauhqui stone in 'The New Tenochtitlan Templo Mayor Coyolxauhqui-Chantico Monument' in press, in Festschrift honouring Professor Gerdt Kutscher, Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin, Germany.

37 Bernardino de Sahagun's Florentine Codex, III:l--4 has the official Aztec version of this myth.

38 Johanna Broda 'Aztec Ideology and Human Sacrifice' (mineographed, Mexico City 1978) discusses the multi-layered character ofthis myth.

Templo Mayor 297

39 Eduard Seler, GesammelteAbhandlungen, II:966ff. (Berlin 1902-24). 40 Broda, 'Aztec ideology and human sacrifice', pp. 24-7. 41 Ibid., p. 25. 42 See Sahagun, Florentine Codex, VII, for a detailed description of this renewal

ceremony. 43 Ibid, p. 25. 44 Ibid., p. 26. 45 Edward Shils, 'Centre and Periphery' Selected Essays, Chicago 1970, pp. 7--8. In the

use of categories llke Centre and Periphery, which are literary categories that reflect Aztec conceptions ofspace and social order, I am building upon the work of Shils, Jonathan Z. Smith, 'The wobbling pivot', Richard Hecht, 'Centre and periphery: some aspects of the social world of Ptolemaic and Early Roman Alexandria' (mimeographed), Santa Barbara 1979, Alfonso Ortiz, The Tewa World, Chicago 1979. I have also benefited from the insights of Jane Marie Swanberg whose paper 'Centre and Periphery as a Geography for Reflection: The North American Trickster Figure' explores the potential value of these categories in a remarkable fashion (mimeographed) Boulder, Colorado, 1980.

46 Stanley Tambiah, 'The Galactic Policy: The Structure of Tradltional Kingdoms in Southeast Asia Annals New York Academy of Sdences, 1974.

47 Pedro Carrasco, 'Social organization of Ancient Mexico', Handbook, 10:347-75. 48 Ibid. 49 Ester Pasztory, Aztec Stone Sculpture, The Centre for Inter-American Relations,

January 1977 (no page numbers). 50 Ibid. 51 Ibld. 52 Ibld. 53 Duran, Book of the Gods and Rfes, p. 160. 54 Broda, 'Aztec Ideology', pp. 24-35. 55 Ibid., pp. 24-38. 56 Ibid., pp. 30-1. 57 Ibid. 58 Sahagun, Florentine Codex 12:10. The book contains the closest thing we have to an

Aztec account of the conquest. 59 Ibid., p. 42. 60 As the translator ofthe Codex Mendoza notes, this is one ofthe conventional signs

used in the ideographic language of pre-Columbiann Mexico to express the conquest of a city. In other codices, this event is expressed in a variety ofways. For instance, in the Zouche Codex, the conquest of a settlement is indicated by an arrow piercing the place-glyph. In the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, the conquest is signified by the pictograph of a captive, painted and stuck with feathers, carrying a paper shield and banner, about to be sacrificed.

61 Sahagun, Florentine Codex, 12:l. ThefollowingquotesaboutomensarefromMiguel Leon-Portilla, the Broken Spears (Boston, 1972), pp. 4-6.

62 Ibid.,p. 5. 63 Ibid., p. 116.

DAVID CARRASCO teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado.

Religious Studies Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, U.S.A.