File:The myths of Mexico and Peru (1913) (14784100425).jpg

Identifier: mythsofmexicoper01spen (find matches)
Title: The myths of Mexico and Peru
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indian mythology Indians of Mexico Indians of South America Indian mythology Indians of South America
Publisher: New York, T. Y. Crowell company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
p it and deck it withflowers ; the antiquaries, with about the same degreeof intelligence, to speculate about it. What mostpuzzled them was that the face and some other partsof the goddess are found in duplicate at the back ofthe figure ; hence they concluded it to represent twogods in one, the principal of whom they further con-cluded to be a female, the other, indicated by the back,a male. The standard author on Mexican antiquitiesat that time was the Italian dilettante Boturini, ofwhom it may be said that he is better, but not muchbetter, than nothing at all. From page 27 of his workthe antiquaries learned that Huitzilopochtli was accom-panied by the goddess Teoyaominqui, who was chargedwith collecting the souls of those slain in war andsacrifice. This was enough. The figure was at oncenamed Teoyaominqui or Huitzilopochtli (The One plusthe Other), and has been so called ever since. Theantiquaries next elevated this imaginary goddess tothe rank of the war-gods wife. *A soldier, says
Text Appearing After Image:
The so-called Teoyaominqui In the National Museum, M^exico Photo C. E. Waite, Mexico AN ANTIQUARIAN MARE^S-NEST Bardolph, is better accommodated than with a wife :a fortiori^ so is a war-god. Besides, as Torquemada(vol. ii. p. 47) says with perfect truth, the Mexicansdid not think so grossly of the divinity as to havemarried gods or goddesses at all. The figure isundoubtedly a female. It has no vestige of anyweapon about it, nor has it any limbs. It differs inevery particular from the war-god Huitzilopochtli,every detail of which is perfectly well known. Therenever was any goddess called Teoyaominqui, Thismay be plausibly inferred from the fact that such agoddess is unknown not merely to Sahagun, Torque-mada, Acosta, Tezozomoc, Duran, and Clavigero, butto all other writers except Boturini. The blunder ofthe last-named writer is easily explained. AntonioLeon y Gam.a, a Mexican astronomer, wrote an accountof the discoveries of 1790, in which, evidently puzzledby the name of Teoyaominqui

Note About Images