Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky

by David Bowles

  “We are cold and our food is raw. Please help us, clever and revered opossum!”

  “What happened to the fire you got from that burning tree?” Yaushu asked.

  “We fell asleep after drinking pulque and let the coals die out. Now we shiver and our stomachs ache.”

  Yaushu looked upon the Tabaosimoa and was moved to pity. He did not want a single one of his subjects to suffer or be unhappy. But obtaining fire was a terrifying task. He would be putting his very life at risk. Still, his heart yearned to bring Man joy, so he agreed.

  “I’ll bring you fire, but you must take better care of it this time.” The Tabaosimoa bent their heads in shamed reverence and swore to keep the flame alive.

  Yaushu first gathered his gourds of pulque and then set off toward the West, following the sun as it slipped down the sky. At the edge of the world, the brave lord of this land snuck quietly down the path the sun’s passing had left, using his tail and nimble hands to navigate the narrowest patches, playing dead whenever a skeletal guardian of the Underworld happened to come along.

  Soon he nearly caught up with the sun, but the flaming disk was accompanied by Xolotl, the massive, toothy hound of hell. Yaushu had no desire to confront that growling psychopomp, so he stayed out of sight, following the pair as they made their way deeper into the bowels of Mictlan.

  Finally the sun reached the hearth of the fire god, Xiuhtecuhtli, and Xolotl left to guide more souls to their final abode. The fire god began to tend to the needs of the sun, feeding its heat with wood and coal, giving it some needed rest.

  As if he had been invited, Yaushu scampered up to Xiuhtecuhtli and gave a little bow. “My lord,” he intoned.

  The fire god, who was also the patron of kings and brave warriors, looked surprised to see the opossum, but recognized him immediately.

  “Yaushu! What brings you to the depths of the Underworld, O Lord of All Creatures? Did you suddenly die without my knowledge?”

  “No, not at all! It’s just that your last visit was several years ago. I decided to wait no longer, but to call upon you here in your own abode. I’ve brought you some pulque from my own royal stores. I think you’ll find it quite tasty.”

  “Pulque? Let me try some.”

  And the two of them sat before the hearth and drank gourd after gourd. Soon Xiuhtecuhtli, unaccustomed to the power of fermented aguamiel, succumbed to its effects and fell into a deep sleep, snoring contentedly.

  A smile on his face, Yaushu looked around for a bit of wood with which to carry fire back to Man. But the sun had devoured it all, so the clever opossum thought and thought until he realized what he would have to do.

  Taking several more draughts of pulque to shore up his courage, he dipped his agile tail into the hearth, holding it still until the fur at its tip was blazing. Then, driven by pain and urgency, he rushed back up to the land of the living, passing the ascending sun and the spirits of warriors who guarded its rise to its zenith. He reached the dwelling place of mankind and thrust his burning tail into a pile of dry wood, rekindling for his neediest subjects the flame they so desired.

  Man wept for joy at the sight. He immediately set to feasting the greatness of his lord, dancing and singing hymns of praise to the magnificent, resourceful opossum.

  Lord Yaushu, nursing his now hairless tail, looked on the revelry with love and satisfaction. For now, Man was happy, and the loss of fur was a small price to pay to have brought that felicity to any creature.

  The gods of the five suns soon discovered Yaushu’s theft. In anger they rushed to the opossum’s demesne, determined to end his meddlesome life.

  But when they found him, he was already dead, stiff on his back, his bald tail cold as the grave.

  Their anger spent, the gods muttered their mournful respects and returned to the heavens and the netherworld.

  And Lord Yaushu, who had of course been playing dead the whole time, sat up and smiled at the sun.

  Itzpapalotl and the Cloud Serpents

  The beginning of the Fifth Age was a time of demigods, divine giants who roamed the earth, leaving primitive humans in awe of their wisdom and might. The first of these beings were the Centzon Mimixcoah, the Four Hundred Cloud Serpents.

  The Cloud Serpents were born during a 1-Flint year to the earth goddess Mecihtli, she of the foam-flecked jade skirt. No sooner had these children emerged when their mother plunged into the ocean and slipped into a deep grotto. There she bore another five Cloud Serpents—Apantecuhtli, Camaxtli, Cuauhtliicoauh, Tlohtepetl, and their sister Cuetlachcihuatl.

  These younger children left their mother’s side to enter the water, where they spent four days alone. When they finally emerged onto dry land, Mecihtli drew them to her bosom and suckled them till they were strong.

  Meanwhile, their father the sun watched his four hundred oldest scions rough-housing across the northern desert. Fiery Nanahuatzin, his blaze slackening some from a lack of divine energy, called down to the Cloud Serpents.

  “O my daughters and sons! I thirst for sacrifice. You must slake my need by spilling blood in offering. Take these arrows, fletched with the lovely feathers of quetzals and egrets, orioles and herons, ibis and contingas. Your mother Tlaltecuhtli, source of teeming life, will provide you prey.”

  But the four hundred did not follow his commands. Instead, they shot birds out of the sky with those swift-flying shafts, stripping feathers from their wings to make themselves adornments. They felled a jaguar, but did not offer it to their father. They made a feast of its flesh, drank deeply of pulque, and then, thoroughly besotted, found themselves human women with whom to indulge their carnal desires.

  Enraged, Nanahuatzin turned to the younger five. “My children, hearken unto me. Your four hundred brothers have shown no respect, have refused to worship their mother and father. Now it falls to you to destroy them.”

  The sun placed weapons in their hands—arrows barbed with vicious thorns, spirit shields to deflect any attack. Hiding in a copse of mesquite, the younger Cloud Serpents regarded their drunken siblings with awe.

  “They’re just like us,” they muttered to each other. But all the same they fell on them in the midst of their stupor, and the two factions of Cloud Serpents waged war against each other.

  The younger five were forced to withdraw, but they contrived to ambush the larger force. Cuauhtliicoauh hid himself within a tree. Camaxtli sank into the earth. Tlohtepetl slipped inside a hill. Apantecuhtli dove into a lagoon.

  Cuetlachcihuatl, the Bear Woman, simply stood in the ball court and waited, baiting their surviving foes.

  When the other Cloud Serpents arrived, surrounding her, a terrible groan came from the tree where Cuauhtliicoauh hid, and it burst apart, raining splinters and limbs on the attackers as Cuauhtliicoauh emerged. The earth began to shudder and split, releasing Camaxtli. The hill shattered and collapsed as Tlohtepetl came flying forth. The water of the lagoon churned violently and Apantecuhtli spun himself free.

  This time there was no stopping the five younger Cloud Serpents. They slaughtered nearly all of their older siblings, tearing their hearts out as offerings to their father Nanahuatzin, slaking the sun’s thirst with their blood. The five deposited the hearts in a cleft in a rock and burned them ritually. The souls of their brothers spiraled into the heavens, becoming the myriad stars of the northern skies.

  The few survivors pled for mercy. “We have incensed our father, the sun. We have earned your wrath as well. Yet let your rage wane, brothers and sister. We yield to you our collective home, the vast caverns of Chicomoztoc. Dwell within them. We are content to live here, at the edge of your land, obedient to your will.”

  So it was pacted. The handful of Cloud Serpents abandoned the battlefield.

  Then, as night fell thick across the land, an ambitious goddess descended to earth—Itzpapalotl, black-taloned butterfly, one of the tzitzimimeh. She perched among the bloody stones and devoured the remains of the dead.

  Not long afterward, two of the surviv
ing Cloud Serpents—Xiuhnel and Mimich—went hunting in the wastelands near Chicomoztoc. As they searched for prey, a loud groaning filled the sky, and a two-headed deer leapt toward them from above.

  Seeing the brothers, the strange beast bolted. Xiuhnel and Mimich gave chase, shooting arrows that the deer easily avoided. All through the night they pursued it and then all the following day, until at last they collapsed as evening fell, their energy spent.

  “Let the deer be damned,” Mimich spat. “We need to rest. Build yourself a lean-to over there. I’ll make a bed beneath yonder mesquite.”

  Soon they were both too asleep to notice a woman wander into their camp, bearing a clay pot. She ducked beneath the thatched rafters of Xiuhnel’s shelter and sat beside him.

  “Dearest Xiuhnel,” she whispered. “Rouse yourself. I have brought delicious drink.”

  Xiuhnel opened his eyes, delighted at the unexpected sight. “Ah, welcome, Sister.”

  He reached out for her, but she slyly drew away. “Won’t you take a draught?”

  Leering, he took the pot from her hands and drank deeply. It was not pulque. It was not wine. It was human blood, hot and sweet. Xiuhnel consumed every last drop.

  Then he pulled the woman down upon the ground and lay with her.

  When they had consummated their passion, he asked, gasping, “Who are you?”

  Climbing atop him, she smiled fiercely.

  “I am Itzapapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly. I have devoured the corpses of your late brothers, and now I hunger for yours as well!”

  Leaning over him, she tore out his throat with her teeth and broke open his chest with her bare hands. Xiuhnel’s terrifying howls of pain awakened Mimich, who rushed over just in time to see Itzapapalotl gnawing on the older Cloud Serpent’s flesh.

  “My brother!” he gasped.

  “Ah, beloved Mimich!” the goddess cried. “Come, sweetling. Won’t you join my feast?”

  The younger Cloud Serpent did not reply, but took up his fire drill with shaking hands and sparked a blaze which he fed with fallen branches. Itzpapalotl stood, smeared with Xiuhnel’s gore, and took a step forward.

  Mimich did not hesitate—he drew a burning brand from the fire and began to run, setting the dry brush around them alight. As conflagration rose on every side, Mimich hurled himself through the blazing barrier, believing his brother’s killer to be trapped within.

  Itzpapalotl pursued him, however, through the flames and across the wastelands as he ran back to Chicomoztoc. Mimich was fleet of foot, but the goddess gained on him bit by bit.

  Camaxtli happened to see them, approaching from afar. Intuiting the danger to his brother, the Cloud Serpent hid himself within a barrel cactus, waiting with bow in hand.

  Mimich finally ran past, and Camaxtli burst forth in ambush, letting arrows fly in speedy succession into Itzpapalotl’s flesh till she collapsed, defeated.

  Mimich circled back and stood over the goddess.

  “Mighty Mimich,” she gasped, “and redoubtable Camaxtli, have mercy. I am Itzpapalotl, black-taloned tzitzimitl descended from Tamoanchan to fulfill a great purpose, to play an important role. Render me honor. Perform the proper rites. Let holy fires consume my divine flesh, and then bundle my ashes. Men are on the rise. Soon the Chichimecah will fill this wasteland, lost without a patron. You and I will guide them, puissant Cloud Serpents. We will teach them to sustain the cosmos.”

  “So will I do, Mother,” Mimich swore. Removing the arrows from her flesh, he prepared her carefully, washing her corpse and then dusting it white with chalk. Then his remaining brothers and sister festooned the goddess with precious feathers.

  Earthly fire does not suffice to immolate a god, so Camaxtli called on the four Lords of Fire—blue, yellow, white and red avatars of Xiuhtecuhtli. They brought with them flames from the great hearth in Mictlan where the sun is rekindled every night.

  Itzpapalotl burned hot and fierce, until all that was left of her were ashes and a chunk of white flint. The Cloud Serpents dipped their fingers in those ashes and rubbed them on their faces, blackening the sockets of their eyes. Then Camaxtli packed the remaining ashes into two bamboo tubes, using leather cords to bind these and the flint up in the skin of an animal.

  Thus was formed the first tlaquimilolli or holy bundle. Camaxtli would bear it for centuries as he roamed the sea-ringed world. From its depths Itzpapalotl whispered advice and commands. With her guidance, Camaxtli would assume his mantle as an aspect of the God of Chaos and bend the world to his will.

  The Birth of Huitzilopochtli

  At the heart of the sea-ringed world, near the future site of the city of Tollan, the goddess Coatlicue lived on Mount Coatepec with her daughter, Coyolxauhqui, and her sons, the Four Hundred Gods of the South. Coatlicue—a fierce but loving deity whose nature encompassed the duality of motherhood—wore a skirt of serpents and a necklace of skulls as she diligently swept the mountaintop and cared for her children. Her husband Camaxtli ranged far and wide across the earth, only infrequently visiting Coatepec.

  While sweeping one day, Coatlicue was struck by a ball of feathers. She picked it up almost absent-mindedly and placed the downy object in her bosom to continue her work. Once she was finished, she felt around for the feathers in order to examine them more carefully, but she found nothing.

  Coatlicue understood immediately that the plumes had penetrated her flesh and made her pregnant. Sensing a cosmic plan beyond her ken, she let the child grow in her womb.

  Her sons, however, soon noticed her state and become wildly angry. “Who made you pregnant? This shameful behavior impugns our honor!”

  Their sister Coyolxauhqui was also indignant. She drew all four hundred together to take council with them. “Brothers,” she said, “we must kill our mother. She dishonors us, the unfaithful wretch. There is no telling who put that bastard in her belly.”

  Coyolxauhqui continued to fan the flame of her brothers’ rage. The four hundred sons felt as if their hearts had been ripped away by their mother’s betrayal of the family. Finally they agreed to their sister’s plan. They made ready, girding themselves as if for battle as Coyolxauhqui supervised them. Like war captains they twisted and tied up their long hair. They adorned themselves with the accoutrements of war: paper vestments, reed and feather crowns, stinging nettles that hung from colorful ribbons. They tied on their ankle bells and gathered their barbed arrows.

  Then they began to march in military formation, Coyolxauhqui at the vanguard.

  But one of the brothers, Cuahuitlicac, broke away from the group quietly, having rejected their goal. He hurried to his mother’s side, handing over his shield as he told her what was happening.

  When Coatlicue learned of the plot against her, she became fearful and sad. But then her unborn son, Huitzilopochtli, spoke to her from the womb:

  “Do not be afraid, Mother. I know what I must do.”

  Having heard these words, Coatlicue felt at peace, her heart calm.

  Next Huitzilopochtli spoke to Cuahuitlicac. “Be watchful, my brother. Look carefully. Which way do they approach?”

  “They are near the skull rack.”

  After a few minutes, Huitzilopochtli asked again. “And now?”

  “They are crossing the terrace at the foot of the mountain.”

  Once more the unborn god spoke. “Look carefully, brother. Now where are they?”

  “On the mountainside.”

  Time passed. “And now?”

  “They have just reached the summit. Here they come! Coyolxauhqui is out in front!”

  In that instant, Huitzilopochtli was born onto his brother’s shield, emerging fully formed from his mother’s womb, whole and hale except for his left foot, withered as if in echo of Hurricane’s ancient wound. Calmly, as his angry brothers spilled across the mountaintop, the god strapped on his gear, smeared paint across his face, crowned himself with a battle headdress, put in his earplugs. Taking up his shield, spears and spear-thrower, he slipped on sandals, the l
eft one covered with feathers to disguise his weaker foot.

  Finally, the newborn god lifted and brandished a twisted bit of wood carved into the shape of a serpent. One of the four hundred, Tochancalqui, laughed mockingly and notched a flaming arrow to his bowstring. Released, the fiery dart struck the serpent, setting it alight and bringing it to life. For this was none other than Xiuhcoatl, nahualli of the God of Fire.

  Wielding the serpent, Huitzilopochtli hurled himself at his sister, striking her head from her shoulders and dismembering her, the limbs of the goddess tumbling down the mountainside to land in a jumble at the bottom.

  Then proud Huitzilopochtli gave chase to the Four Hundred Gods of the South, driving them off of Mount Coatepec, down its slopes, across the plains at its foot. He pursued them as if they were mere rabbits, chasing them four times around the mountain. In vain they would stop and turn in order to attack, their ankle bells ringing as they banged their shields together. But to no avail: they could gain no ground against the new god, and they were defenseless against his blazing might.

  Huitzilopochtli ran them down, singly and in groups. He humbled them. He defeated them utterly. He had no mercy, though they cried out, begging, “That is enough!”

  In the end, he slaughtered them all. Stripping off their battle gear, he hurled their corpses into the sky, where they became the southern stars.

  Though her son had defended her honor, Coatlicue wept in grief over the loss of her daughter. Not wanting his mother to be lonely and sad, Huitzilopochtli took Coyolxauhqui’s head and tossed it into heaven, where it became the new moon, displacing the old forever. Now mother and daughter could look upon each other each night and learn to forgive, to trust, to love.

  In time, the whole earth would marvel at Huitzilopochtli’s prodigious feats and his miraculous birth. The product of feathers and the womb of his mother, this uncommon god would rise to prominence, embracing a bloody destiny.

  For Huitzilopochtli was the god of war, and he yearned to stir up battle lust in the heart of every man.