PATTERNS OF TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN MESOAMERICA PORTRAIT OF AN UNSEEN WORLD. Andrew J. McDonald, PhD

Transcription

1 PATTERNS OF TRANSITION AND TRANSFORMATION IN MESOAMERICA PORTRAIT OF AN UNSEEN WORLD by Andrew J. McDonald, PhD

2 ABSTRACT The presentation is a commentary on Mesoamerican life from the perspective of a Model of its iconography. Fundamental in Mesoamerican thought and reflected in its iconography was a remarkably consistent view over some three millennia until the Spanish Conquest of a quincunx shaped cosmos of four corners and a center. The social dimensions of this cosmic design as a model community were known at the Conquest as Tollan or Place of Reeds, whose ethos is introduced as the central conception of Mesoamerican life from earliest times. The Model purports to illustrate the design of Tollan s unseen conceptual world of transition and transformation. Chapter 1 discusses the underpinnings of the Model. Chapter 2 details the relation of the Model to a broad array of Mesoamerican iconography. Summary observations on the fractal nature of Mesoamerican cosmography and broader connections are discussed in a final Chapter 3

3 PREFACE Is it true that on earth one lives? Not forever on earth, only a little while Though jade it may be, it breaks; Though gold it may be, it is crushed; Though it be quetzal plumes, it shall not last. Not forever on earth, only a little while. Is there perchance any truth to our worlds here? All seems so like a dream, only do we rise from sleep, Only on earth do our words remain. Eagerly does my heart yearn for flowers; I suffer with songs, yet I create them on earth. I crave flowers that will not perish in my hands! Where might I find lovely flowers, lovely songs? Such as I seek, spring does not produce on earth; Indeed, I feel tormented. Perchance will our friends be happy; will they feel pleasure? Where might I find lovely flowers, lovely songs? Only from His home do they come, from the innermost part of heaven, Only from there comes the myriad of flowers Where the nectar of the flowers is found The fragrant beauty of the flowers is refined... They interlace, they interweave; Among them sings, among them warbles the quetzal bird. Cantares Mexicanos: Aztec Thought and Culture by Miguel Leon-Portilla

4 INTRODUCTION Mesoamerica designates a culturally unique zone of the Americas in pre- Columbian times reaching southward from central Mexico into upper Central America (Figure 87). Underlying the variations in iconographic style and complexity of organization in Mesoamerica over some three millennia until the Spanish Conquest has been a remarkably consistent view of a quincunx shaped cosmos of four corners and a center. Mesoamerican archeology has understandingly largely focused on the nature and details of the material remains, the many bits and pieces of Mesoamerican culture. My interests, on the other hand, lie more with structural issues and relations among the parts. To be sure my emphasis on structure, patterns and relations is less well defined than a detailed analysis of physical attributes. More abstract, it often rests to a greater degree on plausibility and reasoned opinion. While my departure from strict cause-andeffect determinism may not meet the scholarly standards of some (in their view placing the cart before the horse), its one redeeming quality, in my estimation, is that it is in the main essentially correct. It is in this light that I undertake the current discussion. Whatever our approach to Mesoamerican studies or pretense of objectivity, it is important to recognize that we all are prone to believe what we are disposed to believe and to find what we look for. To an important extent beliefs determine what we can see. Most endeavors in life are fundamentally a personal quest for meaning and purpose. CHAPTER I A Central Conception The noted historian of religion, Mircea Eliade (1969: 10), wrote that religions generally have a central conception which informs the entire corpus of myths, rituals and beliefs. What I believe to be the central conception and foundation shape of the Mesoamerican cosmos from early on is the Tollan design of Figure 1. My assertion is that it is within this framework 1

5 that Mesoamerican iconography can be understood. As substitute phonetic elements joined in Maya glyphs to form words are known from their context to be linked, so it is with iconographic elements within the context of the Figure 1 design. Tollan The early chroniclers of pre-hispanic life in Mesoamerica wrote of Indian origins in reference to what they described as Tollan. By their account, Tollan or Tula, as place of reeds, was the homeland of a chosen people. It was also a metropolis or capital, and those who lived there were called Toltecs. Tollan was said to have thrived under the direction of the legendary king Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl from whom the principles of community life, from writing, rulership and building to medicine and horticulture, were first learned. The Toltecs were revered for their knowledge, wisdom and craftsmanship. Quetzalcoatl s story is of both historical and mythical proportions. The Mexican pantheon included Ehecatl Quetzalcoatl as the wind god. Moreover, as a paragon of humility, abstinence, simplicity and personal sacrifice, Quetzalcoatl was pitted against the dark Tezcatlipoca whose nature was rooted in pride, indulgence, gratification and subterfuge (Figure 113). The two vied one against the other until Tezcatlipoca ultimately prevailed. Soon Tollan was decimated by drought and fell under enemy attack. As the Toltec people were hunted down one by one, Quetzalcoatl disappeared eastward, vowing later to return from whence he had left. In Conquest times, especially in Mexican thought, it was Quetzalcoatl who was believed to have instituted in idyllic Tollan the true order of heaven on earth. Tollan was the alleged inspiration behind the myth, religion and government whose imprint we now examine as history. Tollan in my view, then, was much more than a city. It was a concept of how an ideal world is framed, where vision is no longer limited by the horizon. Free of barriers and obscurity it is the Mesoamerican reply to the 2

6 human dilemma of separation and unity. As the British social anthropologist Edmund Leach has said, in every mythical system, the myth first discriminates between gods and men and then becomes preoccupied with the relations and intermediaries which link men and gods together (1962: 31). My view is that this general Mesoamerican concept of the cosmos was highly structured in a remarkably consistent way over millennia. The Tollan Model as a mandala (Sanskrit for circle ) is likely an expression of the organic symmetry shaping human thought. Such symmetry informs. It patterns culture and society in all their variety. It is basic to sociocultural boundaries and relationships of all kinds and to some rationalization of their meaning and purpose. What changes over time and space in such a system of complementary opposition and balance are the orientation, proportion and complexity of its parts rather than the overall structural integrity of its symmetrical design. The Tollan Model The Model (Figure 1) is an equation of sorts of the balance and symmetry of Mesoamerican cosmology. Shaping it is a circular sea circumscribing an octagonal cosmos with a quadrangular earth-island face and interior altar/throne core. Such a land surrounded by water was Cemanahuac of the Aztec (ca AD) of highland Mexico (Figure 12). As explained by Carrasco (1990: 71), This land was conceived as having five parts with four quadrants called Nauchampa, literally the four directions of the wind, extending outward from the central section. The waters surrounding the inhabited land were called ilhuica-atl, the celestial water, which extended upward in a vertical direction merging with the sky and supported the lower levels of heaven. Several Maya post-conquest manuscripts from highland Guatemala describe their homeland also as an area the other side of a watery divide (Sachse and Christenson 2005: Mesoweb). An octagonal creation described as a fourfold siding, fourfold cornering is explained in a K iche - Maya post- 3

7 conquest document from highland Guatemala known as the Popol Vuh (Book of the People) (Tedlock 1985:63). Typically, the Mesoamerican earth is jaguarian. A Teotihuacan jaguar mural painting (Figure 115) and a Chiapa de Corzo pottery seal (Figure 116) illustrate the arrangement of the eyes, nose and mouth of a jaguar-face earth. Cardinal points are vertically and horizontally aligned, but with East up. Flanking the cruciform shape of the earth directions are four corner sections, while a fifth is at the center. Below the earth design lies the Underworld and above it the Upper World. On the outside is the physical world. Masculine in nature it rotates counterclockwise in a 365-day secular calendar cycle. Inside at the center, now with West on top, is a spiritual domain that is feminine. Its rotation is clockwise in a 260-day sacred calendar cycle. More on the mirrored nature of inner and outer realms is discussed below under Chiasmus. How the human body likewise constitutes a microcosmic unit is shown along the right margin next to the label of Halach Huinich, a Maya term for True Man. Key divisions correspond to the natural body articulation of shoulders, waist and knees. Transition Transitional growth is depicted proceeding from right to left along the Model s (Figure 1) horizontal center axis. Defining qualities are selfawareness, memory, language and categorization. Building on the past, it involves incremental growth in knowledge and expertise. Comparison is with the transitional dynamic of evolutionary trial-and-error natural selection. Learning is key. Transitional growth is the essence of culture and is a relatively predictable outcome within a particular stage of development. It is intragenerational. Gregory Bateson (1972) determines such learning to be rational and describes it as secondary process. Details are gathered as a basis for achieving broader conclusions. 4

8 Rational learning is particularistic. It thrives on boundaries and categorization and promotes clannishness and separation. Opposition, competition and conflict are natural outcomes. Rational learning can be characterized in its us vs. them formulation as two-part and in its tendency toward cyclic up-and-down success in the face of opposition as circular. Shamanism, according to the considerable research of Mircea Eliade (1964), typically treats the flow of events more as cyclic rounds repeating primordial archetypes. In the case of the Tz utujil-maya of Santiago Atitlán in highland Guatemala, the ethnographer Allen Christenson (2001: 24) reports that, all history is seen as a procession of repetitive events with different characters and circumstances, but always the same message. The world of the present is perceived as a shadow of things sacred and familiar. Mendelson wrote that the people of Santiago Atitlán explain new crises in terms of old ones. Events associated with the creation of the world are repeated again and again in times of conflict through living priestshamans who carry out ancient rituals established by the first ancestors (1965: 93-94). When a Maya priest-shaman performs a ritual at the proper time and in the proper manner, he is able to re-create the world just as it was at the first dawn of time (1957: 416). Not to be confused with history, myth is essential for what it reveals of the nature of life and our interaction with others. The circularity of myth and ritual lies in our need to regularly revisit and clarify such vital issues. The noted psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung, and other accomplished researchers in various disciplines, have looked to myths old and new for insights into the human condition. Transformation Transformational growth, on the other hand, is pictured on the Model s (Figure 1) vertical axis extending upward across lower and upper portals of a three-part cosmos of Underworld, Earth and Upper World levels. Here change is qualitative. Relatively sudden and less predictably, culture and 5

9 reason are transcended as one thing becomes another. In contrast with the transitional dynamic in evolutionary trial-and-error natural selection, transformation more closely resembles mutation. Central to transformation is the divide or threshold-door between different levels of development. It is intergenerational, embracing not only the present generation but also, with equal concern, those past and future. Bateson (1972) describes the process as primary and intuitive. It is inner intuition that is considered to be primary with secondary reason as an outward rationalization or cultural expression of intuition. The platform is the unseen, ethereal world of the sacred and of rites of passage wherein thresholds are negotiated and life is renewed at higher levels of integration and complexity. Paving the way is faith, purpose and meaning within a broader, supernal order. Understanding is a priori from the perspective of the broader design. Details now become meaningful from their place within the symmetry of the larger whole. Notably, Sally and Lewis Binford years ago (1968) spoke in favor of a new archeology wherein findings were interpreted within the framework of a larger cultural conception, rather than from the mistaken notion that somehow the facts might speak for themselves. The perspective is ecological. As Bateson (1972: ) explains, the self as ordinarily understood is only a small part of a much larger system which does the thinking, acting, and deciding. This system includes all the informational pathways which are relevant at any given moment to any given decision. The self is a false reification of an improperly delimited part of this much larger field of interlocking processes. Society has a life of its own greater than the sum of its parts, an unseen dimension which is experienced variously as a divine presence (where two or more are properly gathered) a priestly power or heavenly order. It is in primary process that boundaries are breached. Inclusivity and 6

10 cohesiveness increase. Group welfare takes precedence over special interests. Bertrand Russell (Haidt 2012) remarked that, Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. It is also true, as we know from sad experience, that science without compassion has not served us well. Growth occurs as separation gives way to increasing unity in the crossing of thresholds and reconciliation of opposition at ever higher, more encompassing and complex levels of integration. Mediation is key. As explained by Edmund Leach, when we are considering the universalist aspects of primitive mythology, we shall repeatedly discover that the hidden message is concerned with the resolution of unwelcome contradictions (1976b: 62). Adding mediation and resolution to opposition, the transformative process is three-part and linear. Resolution, Integration and Balance In their study of the modern-day Atiteco-Maya of highland Guatemala, Carlsen and Prechtel (1991) explain that the central conception spoken of earlier by Eliade that informs the Atiteco corpus of myths, rituals and beliefs is Jaloj-K exoj. Jaloj-K exoj is about the categorization of change. Jal is described as change that is individual as in the horizontal transition of birth, youth, old age and death. It is intragenerational. K ex on the other hand is reported as transformation that is ancestral. It is the vertical renewal of the unity of the old in the flowering of the multiplicity of the new. It is intergenerational and is associated with ancestor worship. Jal and k ex combine, Carlsen and Prechtel explain, to form a concentric system of change within change, a single system of transformation and renewal (1991: 26). Jaloj-K exoj match Bateson s secondary and primary logical types, and 7

11 Bateson (1972) emphasizes that they too are both required for categorization in the fullest sense. He explains that when the dreams and fantasy of primary process are suppressed, there is neurosis, but when the metaphors of primary process are treated with the full intensity of literal truth, there is schizophrenia. These distinct logical types taken synonymously, Bateson claims, are the basis of paradox in life. Our dilemma lies in that what is deemed true in one perspective may be judged false in another. Levi-Strauss (Leach 1976b) postulated that the juxtaposition of the principles of transition and transformation is the structure of myth-making generally. The comparison is evident in his Culinary Triangle of horizontal transition and vertical transformation (Leach 1976b: Figure 19). Levi-Strauss reasoned that the contrast in axes of his model is central to how humans process information. The horizontal dichotomy of culture and nature (cooked vs. rotten) involves categorization based on similarities in function (paradigmatic), while vertical transformation involves categorization based on rules of syntax (syntagmatic). The first is about observable cause and effect relationships that are logically consistent. Weapons and war, for example, are logically of the same context. One affects the outcome of the other. Categorization in this sense is exclusive. In the second sense, however, experience is joined by rules of meaning in an inclusive fashion that may cross cut logical categories. Ritual petition for supernatural assistance in war, for example, is logically inconsistent. Any link between the two endeavors is not readily and consistently demonstrated. Rules of meaning transform so that appropriate ritual in a religious context may be linked to and even deemed essential for a successful outcome in a secular matter. Leach adds that, The distinction between nature and culture which dominates normal human experience largely disappears. In myth men converse with animals or marry animal spouses, they live in the sea or in the sky, they perform feats of magic as a matter of course 1976b: 62). Citing Barbara Tedlock (1982, ) and Dennis Tedlock (1985, 13), Allen Christenson in his study of the Tz utujil-maya of highland Guatemala 8

12 (2001) explains that, Barbara Tedlock prefers to characterize the Maya view of history as a dialectic of both cyclical and linear aspects in which the uniqueness of specific events is recognized but patterned to fit important precedents from similar events in the past. In this view, the Maya do not reject innovations and foreign influences outright but structure them in such a way that they resonate with older indigenous patterns. The process of Atiteco myth making is therefore one of accumulation, adding new elements to older traditions rather than replacing them by substitution. Andres Xiloj Peruch, a K iche -Maya daykeeper who collaborated with Dennis Tedlock in his translation of the Popol Vuh, suggested that you cannot erase time. Thus Francisco Sojuel, as the greatest of remembered culture heroes in Santiago Atitlán, is associated in tradition with otherwise anachronistic historic events. In popular myths, he may appear as a creator god at the beginning of the world, be killed and rise from the dead as a Christ figure to inaugurate aspects of Atiteco Easter observances, contend with the Spaniard king in Antigua soon after the conquest, or live a relatively mundane life as a farmer and community priest-shaman around the turn of the century. A Russian cosmonaut said that he looked into the heavens and saw nary an angel, whereas an American astronaut observing the heavens said that he saw God everywhere. Could both be right? The Tz utujil-maya likely would answer yes. History and myth and other paired opposites among the Tz utujil-maya would seem to be considered more complementary than separate. Synecdoches including mountains-valleys for one s body, fire-water (burning water) for sacrificial war and quetzal-serpent (Quetzalcoatl) for the unity of opposition further convey the Mesoamerican conception of the left and right hands of God in all things and the nature of completeness. The quintessential example of complementarity is transition and transformation. Related examples are unity and separation, constraint and agency, belief and perception, form and energy, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. Of form and energy Rupert Sheldrake in his discussion of Morphic 9

13 Resonance (2009) wrote that, In the most general terms, form and energy bear an inverse relationship to each other: energy is the principle of change, but a form or structure can exist only as long as it has a certain stability and resistance to change. Although these aspects of form and energy can be separated conceptually, in reality they are always associated with each other. No morphic unit can have energy without form, and no material form can exist without energy. This physical duality of form and energy that is made explicit by the hypothesis of formative causation has much in common with the so-called wave-particle duality of quantum theory. Constraint and agency further demonstrate the reciprocity of such a relationship. At their extremes constraint is stagnant while agency is chaotic. Together, agency allows for motion to which constraints give direction. Constraints channel the probability of certain outcomes over others. Movement becomes evolutionary and purposeful. Religious constraints are the means of accomplishing extraordinary things, both good and bad. We willingly sacrifice for the community in ways we would not do for ourselves. In the end, science and religion--reason and intuition--are different ways of knowing. While science is empirical, religion is mythical, allegorical and symbolic. Yet in reality they are complementary and merged. Both are about change. Science is incremental, outwardly predictable and transitional while religion is miraculous, outwardly unpredictable and transformational. Growth and Development The idea of opposition and resolution as the means of creation and growth is widespread and seemingly also the underlying message of Biblical Genesis (1983), as discussed by Edmund Leach in his article titled, Levi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden: An Examination of Some Recent Developments in the Analysis of Myth (1961). An expanded outline of the narrative is as follows. At the onset of the Genesis creation account, heaven and earth are formed (Genesis 1:1). The earth, the scripture explains, consists of a desolate empty and dark earth and water, upon which the Spirit of God moves (Genesis 1:2). 10

14 On the first day, light is divided from darkness. There is night and day, evening and morning (Genesis 1:3-5). The water part of the earthly realm is the focus of the second day when a mediating firmament is introduced in the midst of the water. Infertile saline seas below are separated from the fertile fresh-water clouds of the atmosphere above. The firmament or expanse is called Heaven and is tantamount to the unseen world (Genesis 1:6-8). Water and earth, as contrasting entities, are reconciled in the third day when the water under heaven is separated from dry land to form Earth and Sea. Mediation of Earth and Sea is by plant-life, which grows on land yet requires water (Genesis 1:9-13). Significantly, plant-life is characterized as containing its seed within itself (Genesis 1:11-12). This emphasizes the static nature of plant-life and of the creation of the first three days. The second phase of creation parallels the first phase, day for day but with motion. On the fourth day, like the first, there is light; but this time in the form of the sun, moon and stars whose movement allows for signs, seasons, days and years. The sun rules over the day, and the moon rules over the night, while the stars possibly mediate the opposition to complete the triad (Genesis 1:14-19). Corresponding to the opposition of the creation of the second day between water below and atmospheric water, there are on the fifth day moving creatures in the sea and in the air (Genesis 1:20-23). Fowl in the air above and fish in the sea below are mediated on the sixth day of creation by living creatures of the earth: at first, cattle creeping things and beasts (Genesis 1:24-25). Cattle are the domestic opposite of wild beasts; anomalous creeping things are the intermediary category. Then, in contrast to field creatures comes human kind (Genesis 1:26-27). Each day, then, is characterized by two contrasting categories and typically a third, intermediate category. And similarly, during a static phase of creation, days one and two are in contrast and are mediated in the third day, while in a subsequent active phase of creation days four and five are in 11

15 opposition and are mediated in the sixth day. The active and static phases would in turn be mediated in the seventh day. A second creation story in Genesis (this time noted as of the earth and the heavens rather than previously as of the heavens and the earth) begins with a mediating mist linking earth and water and includes the planting of a garden eastward in Eden with contrasting trees of knowledge and of life and the creation of a living soul as a combination of the dust of the ground and the breath of life. Animals are formed and named by the man Adam. As a static phase preceded an active one in the first creation, the second is seemingly the physical counterpart to what would be a spiritual creation before it. Their mediation within a larger millennial whole would indicate the conjoined spiritual and physical nature of completeness. Rites of Passage The threshold betwixt and between of progressive stages in life is a perilous place, often beset by crises of faith, where success or failure hang in the balance. Symmetry is broken. There is an apocalyptic loss of balance and a fall. The challenge of emergence at a higher level is not some outside enemy but one s ego. Mistakenly attacking an other as an outward projection of this inner struggle is to fail. One s enemy other is forever a mirage in a sea of endless conflict and disturbing cycles of boom and bust. Key to a resolution of differences and to progress are accommodation and ever broader inclusivity along the difficult straight and narrow way of the center where opposition is balanced. Rites of passage pave the way. Submission and commitment to a higher ideal and proven sacrifice in the death of the ego are required of the initiate. Rebirth within a larger, more encompassing sphere at the culmination of liminal strife is always only accomplished through the mediation of supernatural intercession. 12

16 The Center At the center intersection of the Model s two-part, circular and horizontal transitional pathway and three-part, linear and vertical transformational pathway, atop an alter/throne inner world mirror of the outer world, lies the wellspring ofcreation. All crossroads and boundaries are important. As Leach makes clear (1976a), the boundary which serves as a marker to distinguish [one side from the other], the betwixt and between element, is both ambiguous and sacred. As noted, crossing thresholds is a perilous undertaking. Forsaking one realm that is known for another that is not is risky business. Liminality is fraught with ambiguity and disorientation. Like a particle of iron between the poles of a horseshoe magnet, passage is only at the very center where the pole s contrasting magnetism is perfectly balanced. Only slightly askew is to be drawn off course. Tales of treasure seekers worldwide are clear: only from purity unencumbered by pretense is there access to the sacred inner realm where riches are found. The altar/throne at a center physical and spiritual singularity is where petitions are granted, culture is transformed, mountains are moved and a rain dance brings rain. While movement on the outside is counterclockwise ( ), from birth to death, that inside is clockwise ( ), from death to birth. Vertically, the Model s inner center is the gateway between 2 and 3 ; horizontally, it is the gateway between 2/1 and 3/4. The collective numeric assignation of the Model s flat quadriform center base, where a tree/maize plant (3) sprouts from a split mountain top (see Figures 3, 11, 20 and 112), is 4. Always 4 is the underlying support in its pairing with 3. The mountain interior beneath is 2 (Figure 19), and a water fount at its base is 1. Corresponding to the Model s center section is the human pelvis. Modern- day Tzeltal-Maya nomenclature for it (Stross n.d.) likens the coccyx to procreative fire and the surrounding twin hipbone sides and sacrum connection to three hearthstones (Figure 114d). 13

17 Sacrifice By faith and by sacrifice at the center altar/throne an alternate, more balanced and integrated reality is sought less subject to a physical imperative. Reason is suspended in submission to a higher order. Insight into sacrifice in Mesoamerica is provided by Dennis Tedlock (1986: 79) from his study of the K iche -Maya Popol Vuh. the phrase xa quitzih only their words is elaborated with xa quinaual, xa quipuz only their naual, only their puz, which reduces only their words to the status of one of a series of figures of speech for a larger ritual that involves much more than tzih words. In Quiche, naual refers to the spiritual essence or character of a person, animal, plant, stone, or geographical place. When it is used as a metonym for shamanic power, as it is here, it refers to the ability to make these essences visible or audible by means of ritual. Puz, all the way from its Mixe-Zoque (and possibly Olmec) sources down to modern Quiche, refers literally to the cutting of flesh with a knife, and it is the primary term for sacrifice. If it is read as a synecdoche in the present passage, it means that the creation was accomplished (in part) through sacrifice; if it is read as a metaphor, it means that the creation was something like a sacrifice. Puz or blood sacrifice, then, is the ritual means by which tzih, words, join with naual, shamanic power, in a process of actualization. Life and death too are complementary, as only in sacrifice and death of the old is there newness of life of a higher order, all focused in Mesoamerica on a calendar round of times and seasons. An Aztec myth recounts how in the creation of humanity Quetzalcoatl retrieved the bones of the ancestor-fathers from the underworld realm of Mictlantecuhtli. These bones were then moistened by father rain, ground up by mother Quilaztli and sprinkled with blood from Quetzalcoatl s penis to become humanity. This was thought to have occurred in a paradise on Mexico s hot and humid swampy southern Gulf Coast known as Tamoanchan, a name thought to be of Mayan etymology signifying place of the misty sky. 14

18 Nearly everyone in Aztec society was expected to let blood in similitude of this first act of autosacrifice by Quetzalcoatl. Horizontal and Vertical Progression Each of the Model s horizontal and vertical axes comprises a fourfold progression of 1, 2, 3 and 4. In profile the horizontal fourfold sequence on the Model s north-south axis appears linear. But as viewed from above, the fourfold corner sequence of the earth s flat surface face is circular. Moreover, the 1-2 and 4-3 sides of the horizontal progression are contrasting halves in an arrangement that is two-part. The vertical fourfold sequence on the Model s east-west axis reaches upward at the earth s center from 1 below the earth to 4 above it and is linear. Overall, in its arrangement of Underworld (1), Earth (2 and 3) and the Upper World (4) levels, it is three-part. J. Eric Thompson (1970) has written of the vertical axis mundi among the Maya that, Countering [the] severely geometric structure [of a flat square earth], a giant ceiba tree, the sacred tree of the Maya, the yaxche, first or green tree stands in the exact center of the earth. Its roots penetrate the underworld; its trunk and branches pierce the various layers of the skies. Some Maya groups hold that by its roots their ancestors ascended into the world, and by its trunk and branches the dead climb to the highest sky. The idea of a central world tree is widespread (see Figures 125 and 126). According to the traditions of an aboriginal Australian group, the Achilpa (Eliade1969), in mythical times the divine being Numbakula cosmicised their future territory, created their Ancestor, and established their institutions. From the trunk of a gum tree Numbakula fashioned the sacred pole (kauwa- auwa) and, after anointing it with blood, climbed it and disappeared into the sky. This pole represents a cosmic axis, for it is around the sacred pole that territory becomes habitable, hence is 15

19 transformed into a world. The sacred pole consequently plays an important role ritually. During their wanderings the Achilpa always carry it with them and choose the direction they are to take by the direction toward which it bends. This allows them, while being continually on the move, to be always in their world and, at the same time, in communication with the sky into which Numbakula vanished. For the pole to be broken denotes a catastrophe; it is like the end of the world, reversion to chaos. Spencer and Gillen report that once,when the pole was broken, the entire clan were in consternation; they wandered about aimlessly for a time, and finally lay down on the ground together and waited for death to overtake them. Of equal importance for the Israelites of the exodus wandering in the desert was the Ark of the Covenant. Evident is the importance of communal religious values and the devastation and aimlessness of their loss. Heaven and Earth Again, the British anthropologist Edmund Leach wrote that every mythical system, first discriminates between gods and men and then becomes preoccupied with the relations and intermediaries which link men and gods together (1962: 31). In this regard, Mesoamerica is no exception. Arthur Miller(1974) wrote of the Maya Kusansum myth recorded by Tozzer (1957: 153) that it, compares a mythical pathway in the sky with a sacbe (sabke), which is the term used to describe the artificially raised limestone causeways which connect certain Maya centres. The myth also implies that the pathway in the sky which once connected the land of the gods with the earth is like a giant umbilical cord containing blood. The cord was cut and the earth was no longer joined with the sky, the supernatural and the natural were no longer one. In their discussion of the concept of Flowering Mountain Earth among the modern-day Atiteco-Maya of highland Guatemala, Carlsen and Prechtel (1991: 26) explain that, In Atiteco lore this great tree (Flowering Mountain Earth) sheltered the young plants. But finally it was overtaken by them and now is a stump at the center of the world. 16

20 What was said, lives. It has become a jewel, And it flowers. But it is something now lost. Something relegated to death Lost in dust, lost in earth. A Fourfold Archetypal Sequence A number of Mesoamerican legends of mixed storyline and setting are sequenced in four cyclical stages: 1) an origin place, 2) journey to a foreign land with severe trials, 3) supernatural intervention at the brink of defeat and final victory and 4) return and apotheosis. Among them are contemporary Maya hero myths analyzed by Pickands (1986), including When the Guatemalans were Blown Sky-High, Juan López-Nona, Chiapa and the Tiltik, The Story of Ez, When the Zinacantecos Rode Home on Horseback, Cuwan K anil, The Quiche Fathers, The Hero Twins, and Don Antonio Martinez. The legendary southward migration of the Aztec also fits this mold, involving 1) departure from their mythical homeland of Aztlán, 2) wandering mixed with severe deprivation and supernatural help, 3) arrival at a chosen place foretold in the appearance of an eagle atop a cactus with a snake in its beak and 4) a pilgrimage back to ancestral Aztlán where emblems of entitlement and patron deities are obtained in renewal of a covenant binding gods and people in a special relationship. This experience, duplicated also in the storied exodus and gathering of ancient and modern Israel, is a common theme in human affairs everywhere, individually and collectively. The Aztec island redoubt in the Valley of Mexico is pictured (different from its natural shape) as a four-cornered, four-sided flat horizontal earth plain penetrated vertically at its center by a cactus on which sits an eagle (Figure 12). A ceremonial precinct at the center of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (AD 1325) was said to have been patterned after the design of Tollan. 17

21 Such fourfold historical/mythological accounts are significant for their universality. In the Middle East they are widely known as Joseph in Egypt stories, befitting Joseph s life experiences of 1) family unity, 2) separation and trials, 3) divine mediation, reconciliation and triumph and 4) return and completion. Similarly, the fundamental association of the Model s quadriform sequence is noted as 1) unity, 2) separation, 3) mediation/reconciliation and 4) completion. First Family Also represented in the Model s numeric sequence is a First Family, consisting of 1) a mother, 2) an older son, 3) a younger son and 4) a father. Mother López-Austin (1997: 188) discusses a Mexican Great Mother complex with a variety of manifestations, including Coatlicue ( Skirt of Serpents ), Cihuacoatl ( Woman Serpent ), the goddess of sexual sin, Tlazolteotl ( Goddess of Filth ), Chalchiuhtlicue ( Skirt of Chalchihuites ) and Xochiquetzal ( Precious Flowery Feather ). Evident is the near universal imagery of competing feminine qualities of virtue (blessed, giver of life) and debauchery (sexual sin, filth). A focus on hearth, home and unity of family further characterizes the image of the Mesoamerican First Mother, occupying the Model as 1. A prominent iconographic symbol of the Mesoamerican archetypal mother is a beak tooth, whose likely Mixe-Zoque origins are intimated in the filed front tooth of the old woman in the story of Homshuk (e.g., Sammons 1996). That Mixe-Zoque is generally thought to be the language of the Olmec mother culture of Mesoamerica from around 1300 BC suggests considerable antiquity for the symbolism of the feminine beak tooth. Femininity in the Model is tied to circularity as in the circular shape of the sea and the circular nature attributed to the horizontal plane and central inner world. Other of the Model s feminine associations are with bone, mouth and cave. 18

22 Older Brother/Younger Brother Much of the circumstances of the older and younger brother legend is described in a modern-day Chol-Maya story called, Our Holy Father, the Sun Is Born (Whittaker, A. and V. Warkentin: 1965). An abbreviated and paraphrased version is as follows. Our holy mother had an older son (a father is not mentioned). Then came younger brother sun, unbeknownst to the older son. When the older brother was at work in the cornfield, the younger brother was brought out by the mother to play. The younger brother was hidden in a wooden box on return of the Older Brother. One day the younger brother was hidden but not in time to prevent the older brother from seeing toys. The mother had to tell the older son of his younger brother. The older son waited for the younger son to grow. When the boy was big enough, the older brother took him to the cornfield. But he only took him to torment him. The older brother recognized that there was a purpose in the younger boy and that he would become the sun. The older brother was actually the real devil. He hated the boy and sought to kill him in the woods. He would place the boy on a rock like an animal and cut him into small pieces, which he would throw into a cave or into the water or into the fire. When thrown in the water, however, the boy would return home with a fish or from the cave with a tepescuintle. The younger brother began to understand. He told his mother to clean some cotton seed for planting. However, he planted it in a tree where it changed to honey. It was the white kapok tree. It was the red kapok tree. But the honey was cotton. The boy told his older brother of the honey in the tree. Planning to do away with his older brother, the boy told his brother to climb to the top of the tree to retrieve the honey. When the older brother was climbing down, the younger brother asked for some bee s wax to chew. The older brother got some and threw it down, hitting the boy in the head and making him cry. The boy took the beeswax and some thorny fruit and made a gopher. The gopher began to eat at the roots of the tree, and the boy chopped at the tree 19

23 with a little machete. The tree fell, and the older brother was killed. The older brother was smashed to pieces. The boy returned home. His mother knew that he had killed his older brother. The older brother had no power to resurrect himself. He was only a devil. Key elements of the Chol-Maya story are shared in the conflict described in the K iche -Maya Popol Vuh between the Hero Twins and their older halfbrothers, whose renown was as flautists, singers, writers and carvers. Again the younger brothers are mistreated until they trick their older half-brothers into climbing a tree, where, in the Popol Vuh version, the older brothers are transformed into frivolous monkeys whose antics are ridiculed. Akin to the Mesoamerican story of older and younger brothers is the Aztec tale of Tecciztecatl and Nanahuatzin. In the final creation of the fifth sun of our era, an illustrious, rich and proud Tecciztecatl is selected by the gods to become the sun, while a diseased, poor and humble Nanahuatzin is to become the moon. Self-sacrifice by casting themselves onto a burning pyre is how it is to be done. Tecciztecatl prepares with rich offerings; Nanahuatzin by penance and offerings of blood. A ramp is constructed for jumping into the fire. For four days the fire builds. Finally, Tecciztecatl poises himself to jump into the raging inferno, but stops out of fear after four failed attempts. The gods then turn to Nanahuatzin who, knowing what must be done, calmly steps forward and jumps into the fire. Shamed by his cowardice, Tecciztecatl follows. But a rabbit thrown into Tecciztecatl s face by a god disgusted by his lack of courage dims his brilliance. The humble Nanahuatzin then becomes the sun; proud Tecciztecatl, the rabbit faced moon. As with the older and younger brothers, the first becomes last and the last first. Older Brother Attributes The role of the older brother in the 2-slot of the Model--corresponding on the Aztec Sun Stone (Figure 13) with the sacrificial knife, Tecpatl--is noted as sacrificer. Symbolic of the position are distinctive eyebrow designs, in earlier form described as a flame eyebrow and later shaped differently with inward 20

24 turned volute ends (Figures 14, 92 and 121). Mountain interiors and enclosures generally are the symbolism of 2, in keeping with the inward turned volute ends of the later eyebrow (and mouth) designs, which may be depicted as centipede fangs (Figures 14 and 92). Younger Brother Attributes Sacrificial victim is the Model s designation in the 3 position and the younger brother. Associated symbols are the spiral design, wind, breath and maize. Further representation of the proposed sacrificer (2) and sacrificial victim (3) division is interpreted in the shoulder adornment of the Young Lord (Figure 74). Father Attributes Marking the father and the 4 position in the Model are square and crossed-band elements. Mountain tops are his domain. His masculine nature is linear Deity Assignations Of interest are the Maya numerical glyphs for 1, 2, 3 and 4. One is the young moon goddess. Two relates to the sacrificial flint knife. Three is depicted as a youthful head with an Ik sign on its cheek, Ik designating wind, breath, germination and life itself. The Aztec deity associated with three is the wind god, Ehecatl Quetzalcoatl. Stross (n.d.) has linked three in both Mixe-Zoque and in Mayan with maize. Lounsbury (1978) indicates that in Mayan generally three may signify in-between. Mayan four is the head of the aged sun god. Lounsbury (1978) mentions that a Mayan definition of four is completion. Deities too fit the Model s multiform fourfold cosmic design. And the central quadrangular display of deities of the Aztec Sun Stone (Figure 13) indicates that the basic arrangement would be 1) Chalchiuhtlicue, 2) Tezcatlipoca, 3) Quetzalcoatl and 4) Tlaloc. Possibly the extensive 21

25 Mesoamerican pantheon of deities are but variations of this First Family/Deity complex. Family Dynamics Father (4)/Mother (1) So Tlaloc as father is paired with the Aztec Great Mother, whose aspects are personified in numerous female deities, including Xochiquetzal. But it is Chalchiuhtlicue who is most often mentioned as the consort of Tlaloc. Austin- López (1997: 210) says of this father-mother union that, The Tlaloc- Chalchiuhtlicue pair seem to be one of the god s [i.e., Tlaloc s] doublings separating the masculine and feminine elements. Tlaloc, as Chalchiuhtlicue s mate, is a creator god and the distributor of water to mankind. Younger Son (3)/Older Son (2) As the sons of the father-mother pair Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl are described as brothers. And in other contexts their behavior, as McKeever (1995: 91) points out, is as if they are paired siblings. Caso (1958: 14) summarizes their core relationship. According to the Aztecs, there were two gods who alternately created the various humanities that have existed. Quetzalcoatl, the beneficent god, the hero-founder of agriculture and industry; and the Black Tezcatlipoca, the all-powerful, multiform, and ubiquitous god, god of darkness, patron of sorcerers and evil ones. The struggle of these two gods is the history of the universe, their alternating victories so many other creations (see Figure 113). In like manner, John Sarno in his book The Divided Mind notes that, We humans are anatomically and behaviorally two different people, in constant conflict. Father/Older Son (4/2) Mother/Younger Son (1/3) 22

26 Mary Miller and Karl Taube (1993: ) write that, According to the Histoyre du méchique, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca carried (the Aztec earth goddess) Tlaltecuhtli down from the heavens and turned themselves into great serpents. One grasped the right hand and left foot and the other took the left hand and right foot; they squeezed Tlaltecuhtli until they had rent her body asunder. After they had taken one half away to the sky, the other gods descended to the earth to console her, and from the remaining, violated half of her body they formed the surfaceof the earth. From the perspective of the Model, diagonal Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca serpents show connections also of the younger son Quetzalcoatl (3) with the mother (1) and older son Tezcatlipoca (2) with the father (4) (Figures 117, 118). Father (4)/Older Son (2) A glimpse of the nature of this network of relationships is revealed in the modern-day Maya drama of highland Guatemala known as the Rabinal Achí (Tedlock 2003), often cited as an authentic voice of the Maya pre-columbian past. Reminiscent of the conflict between older and younger brothers is the battle between the young warrior prince Rabinal Achí of Rabinaleb and K iche Achí, a young jaguarian warrior prince of a neighboring province, who attempts to steal the children of Rabinaleb and usurp the office of the old turtle-shelled father- king, Job toj. K iche Achí challenges the king to come out of his hive-like fortress, where the king is protected by eagle and jaguar warriors. Here Rabinal Achí opposes K iche Achí in a precarious battle in which K iche Achí is ultimately captured and bound. Eventually K iche Achí is introduced into the fortress where after careful interrogation he receives certain temporary privileges (like Maximón of the modern Tz utujil-maya) and engages in three dances, including one with the princess of Rabinal. Finally K iche Achí is tied to a tree and succumbs to 23

27 arrow sacrifice, in substitution, Akkeren (1995) explains, for the annual death of Jobtoj, who is also known as pierced lord, lord shot with arrows. So as the first arrow splits the chest of K iche Achí, the now swelling shell of Job toj bursts with the miracle of renewed life as the young Rabinal Achí replaces the father in the yearly passing of old Job toj (see Figure 58). An important appellative of K iche Achí is teleche, which van Akkeren (1995) translates as he who carries the tree on his shoulder. Teleche, moreover, was the K iche term for prisoners of war. The captured K iche Achí assumes the same position under foot as do captives in kingly portraitures (themselves likened as trees) of the Classic Maya (Figure 29). The veneration of Maximón or San Simón in the highlands of Western Guatemala--and of merchant gods generally in Mesoamerican --is particularly interesting for its link to the modern-day cults of Santa Muerte (1) and Jesús Malverde (2) in association with Mexican drug trafficking and criminal gang activity in Central American. Further evidence of the hostility of the father/older son relationship and on what this antagonism turns is revealed in Tezcatlipoca s intentions toward the Xochiquetzal expression of the Mother Goddess and father Tlaloc s wife. Tezcatlipoca declares, I believe that she is truly a goddess, that she is really very beautiful and fine. I shall have her, not tomorrow nor the next day nor the next, but right now, at this moment, for I, in person, am he who ordains and commands it so. I am the young warrior who shines like the sun and has the beauty of the dawn (Caso 1958:29). While simple lust seems uppermost in Tezcatlipoca s mind in this episode reminiscent of Oedipus, a deeper motivation may have been access to the life-giving qualities of the mother, over which the father presides. Comparisons with Freud s structural model of the psyche are tempting, linking Tezcatlipoca with the instinctual id, Tlaloc with the paternal moralizing of the super-ego and Quetzalcoatl with the mediating ego in-between. 24