The Gods of Mexico
9781465681829
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
If, like the necromancers of old, we possessed the power to summon the shades of the dead before us, and employed this dread authority to recall from the place of shadows the spirit of a member of the priesthood of ancient Mexico, in order that we might obtain from him an account of the faith which he had professed while in the body, it is improbable that we would derive much information regarding the precise significance of the cult of which he was formerly an adherent without tedious and skilful questioning. He would certainly be able to enlighten us readily enough on matters of ritual and mythology, calendric science and the like; but if we were to press him for information regarding the motives underlying the outer manifestations of his belief, he would almost certainly disappoint us, unless our questionary was framed in the most careful manner. In all likelihood he would be unable to comprehend the term “religion,” of which we should necessarily have to make use, and which it would seem so natural for us to employ; and he would scarcely be capable of dissociating the circumstances of his faith from those of Mexican life in general, especially as regards its political, military, agricultural, and artistic connections. Nor would he regard magic or primitive science as in any way alien to the activities of his office. But if we became more importunate, and begged him to make some definite statement regarding the true meaning and import of his religion ere he returned to his place, he might, perhaps, reply: “If we had not worshipped the gods and sacrificed to them, nourished them with blood and pleasured them with gifts, they would have ceased to watch over our welfare, and would have withheld the maize and water which kept us in life. The rain would not have fallen and the crops would not have come to fruition.” If he employed some such terms as these, our phantom would outline the whole purport of the system which we call Mexican religion, the rude platform on which was raised the towering superstructure of rite and ceremony, morality and tradition, a part of which we are about to examine. The writer who undertakes the description of any of the great faiths of the world usually presupposes in his readers a certain acquaintance with the history and conditions of the people of whose religion he treats. But the obscurity which surrounded all questions relating to Mexican antiquity until the beginning of this century formerly made it essential that any view of its religious phase should be prefaced by an account of the peoples who professed it, their racial affinities, and the country they occupied. This necessity no longer exists. The ground has been traversed so often of late, and I have covered it so frequently in previous works, that I feel only a brief account of these conditions is necessary here, such, in a word, as will enable the reader to realize circumstances of race, locality, and period.
