These ideas descend directly from those which were current in the days before the Spaniards came. The belief in the introduction of a foreign body by magic to cause illness was very widely spread, and the healing-women were called tetlacuicuilique, 'they who draw out stones (from the body)', tetlanocuilanque, 'those who draw out worms from the teeth', and teixocuilanque, 'those who draw out worms from the eyes.' 68
Although the Nahuatl expression in its present sense is probably a recent usage, formerly the term tonalli embraced the genius peculiar to each person, his good fortune and his 'star', in the sense of his predestination. 69 As to the malignant 'airs', they were formerly thought to originate with Tlaloc and the Tlaloque, the mountain gods. 'They (the Indians) believed that certain illnesses, which seem to be those which are caused by the cold, came from the
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mountains, or that these mountains had the power of healing them. Those who had these diseases made a vow to offer a feast or a sacrifice to some particular mountain in their neighbourhood or for which they felt a special devotion. Those who were in danger of death by drowning in the rivers or the sea made the same kind of vow. The diseases for which these vows were made were gout in the hands or the feet, or any other part of the body, palsy in a limb or the whole body, swelling of the neck or of some other part of the body, the withering of a limb or general stiffness . . . Those who were afflicted with these illnesses vowed to make images of the god of the wind, of the goddesses of the water and of the god of the rain.' 70
Skin diseases, ulcers, leprosy and dropsy were also attributed to Tlaloc. 71 Convulsions and infantile paralysis were thought to come from those ciuapipiltin who were mentioned earlier. 'These goddesses go about in the air together, and when they choose they appear to those who live upon the earth, and they strike boys and girls with sickness by paralysing them and by getting into human bodies.' 72 The present belief in the 'airs' is only the same tradition, in an impersonal form.
Other deities, Tlazolteotl and her companions, who presided over carnal love, could also cause disease. It was believed that the man or woman who indulged in forbidden love spread about them, like a lasting evil spell, that which was called tlazolmiquiztli, 'the death (caused by) lust', and that because of this their children and relatives were afflicted with melancholy and consumption. It was like an uncleanliU? ness that was both physical and moral; and one could only be cured by the steam-bath, the rite of purification, and by calling upon the tlazolteteo, the goddesses of love and desire. 73
The god of youth, music and flowers, Xochipilli, who was also called Macuilxochitl, punished those who did not obey prohibitions -- men and woman who lay together during fasts, for example -- by sending them venereal diseases, piles and skin diseases. Xipe Totec was thought to be responsible for eye-diseases. 74
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If some gods caused sickness, others, or the same, could heal. The Tlaloque and Xochipilli might answer prayers and sacrifices and take away the maladies that they had sent. The fire-god helped women in labour, 75 as did the goddess Ciuacoatl also, who looked after those who took steambaths. Another goddess, Tzapotlatenan, cured ulcers or eruptions on the scalp, chaps and hoarseness; and a little black-faced god, Ixtlilton, healed children. 'In his temple there were closed pots that held what was called his black water (ixtlilauh). When a child fell sick, it was taken to the temple of Ixtlilton; a jar was opened; the child was made to drink some of the black water, and it was cured.' 76
When an Indian became unwell, the first thing to do was to find the reason for his illness, and the diagnosis was made by divination, not by any observation of his symptoms. To do this, the physician threw maize upon a piece of cloth or into a vase full of water, and he drew his conclusions from the manner in which the grains fell, in groups or separately, or how they floated or sank to the bottom.
To know whether a sick child had lost its tonalli, the healing-woman held it over a vessel filled with water and looked into it as into a mirror while she called upon the water-goddess. 'Tlacuel, tla xihuallauh, nonan chalchiuhe, chalchiuhtli ycue, chalchiuhtli ihuipil, xoxouhqui ycue, xoxouhqui ihuipil, iztaccihuatl. (Listen, come, you my mother, stone of jade, you who have a jade skirt, you who have a jade blouse, green skirt, green blouse, white woman.)' If the child's face seemed darkened in the water-mirror, as if it were covered with a shadow, it meant that its tonalli had been stolen. 77
In other cases the ticitl turned to the holy plant called ololiuhqu, 78 whose seed produced a kind of intoxication and visions. Sometimes peyotl or tobacco was used, being taken either by the doctor or the patient, or by a third person. The hallucinations that these plants induced were thought to bring revelations as to the cause of the disease, that is to say, as to the magic which caused it and the identity of the sorcerer. A man's denunciation by these oracles was never questioned; and from this cause arose
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much bitterness and many undying hatreds between the families of the sick people and the alleged sorcerers. 79
Then there were other forms of diagnostic magic in use -the divination by strings, which was the speciality of the mecatlapouhque (fortune-tellers by the strings), 80 and the 'measurement of the arm', a rite in which the healer, having rubbed his hands with tobacco, 'measured' the left arm of the patient with the palm of his right hand. 81
Once the nature and the cause of the malady had been decided, the treatment began. If it were an illness sent by a god, they tried to appease him with offerings. In other cases, the treatment including magical operations to a greater or a less degree -- invocations, insufflations, laying on of hands, 'drawing out' of stones, worms, or pieces of paper that were supposed to have been put into the patient's body 82 -- and medical treatment based upon positive knowU? ledge -- bleeding, baths, purges, dressings, plasters and the giving of extracts or infusions of plants.
Tobacco and vegetable incense (copalli) played a great part in all these practices. The tobacco was spoken to, as it was crushed or ground; and it was called 'he who has been struck nine times'. The healer's fingers were termed 'the five tonalli', 83 and generally speaking the language used in these magic formulae was very figurative and obscure. For example, this was the way in which a headache was treated: the ticitl firmly massaged the patient's head and said, 'You, the five tonalli who all look in the same direction, and you, the goddesses Quato and Caxoch, who is the powerful and venerable being who is destroying our maceualli? It is I who speak, I the priest, I the lord of spells. We will find him at the edge of the sacred water (the sea), and we will throw him into the sacred water'. Saying these words he pressed the patient's temples between his hands and blew on his head. Then he invoked the water in these terms, 'Listen to me, mother, you who have a jade skirt. Come here and give back his life to this maceualli, our god's servant. As he spoke, he spread water over the patient's face and head. If this treatment did not answer, and if the head swelled, the healer applied tobacco mixed with a root called
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chalalatli, at the same time making this incantation: 'I the priest, I the lord of spells, (I ask) where is he who is destroyU0AD ing this bewitched head. Come, you who have been struck nine times and crushed nine times (tobacco), and we will cure this bewitched head with the red medicine (the root chalalatli). I call the cold wind that he may cure this beU? witched head. Oh wind, I say to you, do you bring the cure for this bewitched head?' 84
When the sickness was in a man's chest, they gave him a maize porridge mixed with the bark of quanenepilli (passionflower), 85 and laid hands on him, saying, 'Come, you the five tonalli. I the priest, I the lord of spells, I seek the green pain, the tawny pain. Where is it hidden? Enchanted medicine, I say to you, I the lord of spells, that I wish to heal this sick flesh. So you must go into the seven caves (the lungs). Do not touch the yellow heart, enchanted medicine: I expel from this place the green pain, the tawny pain. Come, you the nine winds, expel the green pain, the tawny pain.' 86
At the same time as these invocation
s and magic gestures, the Mexican physicians understood the use of treatment founded upon a certain knowledge of the human body -- a knowledge that was no doubt quite widely spread in a country with such frequent human sacrifices -- and of the properties of plants and minerals. They reduced fractures and they splinted broken limbs. 87 They were clever at bleeding patients with obsidian lancets. 88 They put softening plasters upon abscesses and finely-ground obsidian upon wounds -- 'Ground like flour, this stone spread on recent wounds and sores, heals them very quickly.' 89
Their pharmacopœia included certain minerals, the flesh of certain animals, and above all a very great number of plants. The good Father Sahagύn goes so far as to warrant the virtues of some stones -- 'There are also,' he writes, 'certain stones called eztetl, blood-stones, which have the power of stopping bleeding from the nose. I have tried the virtue of this stone myself, for I have a piece of it the size of a fist or a little less, and in that year of 1576, during the epidemic, I revived many people who were losing their
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blood and their lives through their nostrils. It was enough to take it in one's hand and to hold it for some moments, to stop the bleeding, and the patients were cured of this disease which killed and still does kill so many in New Spain. And there are many witnesses of these facts in this town of Santiago T'latelolco.' 90
The same historian reports that a certain stone called quiauhteocuitlatl ('gold of rain') 'is good for those who are terrified by a thunder-clap. . . . and also for those who have an inward heat (fever). This stone is found in the neighbourU? hood of Jalapa, Itztepec and Tlatlauhquitepec, and the natives of these parts say that when it begins to thunder and rain in the mountains, these stones fall from the clouds, plunge into the earth, and so grow year by year; and the Indians look for them they dig the ground and bring out these stones.' 91
It is certain that fantastic properties were attributed to stones, to animals (the opossum's tail that has already been mentioned, for example) and to plants: but it is equally certain that the Indians had been able to amass a considerable amount of positive experimental knowledge of the plants of their country, in the course of time. In this respect, if their medicine is compared with that which raged in western Europe at the same period, it may be asked whether that of the Aztecs were not the more scientific: apart from the magical trappings that the Mexican ticitl assumed, there was without any doubt more true science in their usage of medicinal plants than in the prescriptions of the European Diafoirus of that time.
The conquistadores were certainly much impressed by the efficacy of some of the native medicines. In 1570 Philip II of Spain sent his doctor, Francisco Hernández, to Mexico; and he, in seven years of strenuous labour, spending the vast sum (for that age) of sixty thousand ducats, brought together a considerable body of information upon the medicinal plants of the country, and collected a magnificent herbal. Unfortunately, he died before he could publish his work, and part of his manuscripts was destroyed in the burning of the Escurial in 1671: nevertheless, large extracts
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were published in Mexico and Italy, and they give an idea of the extraordinary wealth of the Mexican materia medica in the sixteenth century: Hernández enumerated no less than some twelve hundred plants used in medicinal treatU? ment. 92
Sahagύn devotes much of his eleventh book to herbs and healing plants, and modern research has shown that in many cases the Aztec physicians had very accurately, though empirically, distinguished the properties of the plants which they used as purges, emetics, diuretics, sedaU? tives, febrifuges, etc.
Among others may be mentioned Peruvian balm, jalap, sarsaparilla, iztacpatli (psoralea pentaphylla L.), which was successfully used against fever, chichiquauitl (garrya laurifolia Hartw.) effective against dysentery, iztacoanenepilli, a diuretic, nixtamalaxochitl, a counter-irritant, valerian, which they used as an anti-spasmodic, and matlalitztic (commelina pallida) an antihaemorrhagic; but the field is still largely unexplored, and there is a great deal that remains to be done in the way of identifying the countless species mentioned in the texts and verifying their curative properties. 93
The Mexican who managed to escape death from war and from illness (and from doctors) and who reached a sufficiU? ently advanced age to be counted among the ueuetque, the elders who played so important a part in family and political life, could look forward to a peaceable and honoured existence in his last years.
If he had served the state as a soldier or as an official, he would be a pensioner, and as such he would receive his lodging and his maintenance. 94 Even if he were only a simple maceualli he would take his place in the local council. If he could speak at all he could indulge himself in magniloquent harangues upon all those occasions (and they were many) when custom and etiquette required them. Respected by all, he would admonish, advise and warn. He could at last allow himself, at banquets and family meals, to indulge fearlessly in "octli, even to the point of inebriation, with the men and women of his own generation.
Death approached. In preparing themselves for it, those
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who had committed some grave crime, some hidden sin such as adultery, during their lives, thought of confession. The effect of confession was not only the absolution of the sinner: it also removed him from the reach of the law. But confession could happen only once in a lifetime, and so most people never called for a confessor until as late as possible.
Two deities presided over confession -- Tezcatlipoca, because he saw everything, being invisible and omnipresent, and Tlazolteotl, the goddess of lechery and unlawful love, who was also called Tlaelquani, 'she who eats filth (sin)' and thus 'she who gives absolution'. 'She was called Tlaelquani, because the penitent confessed to her and set out all his sins before her. He told her and he spread out before her eyes all his unclean doings, however grave and ugly, without hiding anything, even out of shame. When a man confessed before her, everything was shown.'
It was Tlazolteotl who inspired the most vicious desires, 'and, in the same way, it was she who forgave them. She took away the defilement; she cleaned, she washed. . . . and thus she forgave.'
The penitent told a tlapouhqui, skilled in the reading and the interpretation of the sacred books, of his wish to confess, and the priest, consulting his books, fixed upon an auspicious date. If the penitent were a man of importance, the conU? fession would take place at his house: if not, he would attend the priest upon the given day. The two of them sat on new mats, beside a fire. The tlapouhqui threw incense into the flames, and while the aromatic smoke spread about the room, he called upon the gods. 'Mother of the gods, father of the gods, oh you old god (the fire), behold a poor man who has come. He has come weeping, sad and anxious. Perhaps he has sinned. Perhaps, self-deluded, he has lived unchastely. He comes with a heavy heart, full of sorrow. Lord, our master, you who are near and who are far, make his trouble cease, pacify his heart.'
Then, addressing the penitent, he exhorted him to confess sincerely, to open all his secrets, not to be restrained by shame. The penitent swore that he would tell the whole truth: he touched the earth with a finger which he then
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put to his lips, and threw incense into the fire. He was thus bound by an oath to the earth and to the fire (or the sun), that is to say, to the supreme duality. Then he told his life at length, and recounted all his sins.
When he had finished, the priest set him a penance that would vary in severity: short or lengthy fasts, scarification of the tongue -- it might be pierced through and have as many as eight hundred thorns or straws pushed through the wound -- sacrifices to Tlazolteotl, and various austerities. Once the penance was done the man could 'no longer be punished upon this earth'. The priest was bound to the most absolute secrecy, 'for that which he had heard was not for him, but had been said, secretly, for the deity'. 95
DEATH AND THE HEREAFTER
Two different sets of funerary rites were in use among the Aztecs: cremation and burial.
A
ll those who died of drowning were buried, as well as those who had been killed by lightning and those who had died of leprosy, gout or dropsy -- in short, all who had been marked out and withdrawn from this world by the gods of the water and of the rain. 96 The body of a drowned man, in particular, was regarded with the utmost religious awe, for it was believed that when an Indian was drowned in the lake he had been dragged to the bottom by the auitzotl, a fabulous creature. When the body came to the surface again, showing no wound, but with its eyes, nails and teeth gone -- torn out by the auitzotl -- nobody dared touch it. They went to tell the priests.
'It was said that the divine Tlaloque had sent the drowned man's soul to the earthly paradise, and because of this the body was carried with great respect upon a litter to be buried in one of the oratories that are called ayauhcalco (little temples of the water-gods, on the shore of the lake): the litter was decorated with reeds, and they played on the flute before the body.' 97
And then, as we have seen, the women who died in labour and who were deified, were buried in the court of the temple of the ciuapipiltin. All other bodies were cremated. In the
Daily Life of the Aztecs Page 25
