Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky

by David Bowles

  When it came, the knowledge was wholly unexpected, horrifying yet glorious. In the darkness of early morning Huitziltzin awakened and went to the temple. There he armed himself as if for war, staining his face a filthy yellow-brown, drawing blue lines down his cheeks.

  The priests of the House of Huitznahuac were asleep in the sacred enclosure beside the ball court when he descended upon them like a funnel of destruction. When the sun rose glowering in the eastern sky, the Mexitin awoke to find the rebels sprawled lifeless in the bloody dirt, their chests ripped open.

  Beside the dead stood Huitziltzin, devouring the last of their hearts. He had been transformed into something fearsome and powerful. He was no longer just a divine mouthpiece: the high priest had become the god of war.

  The Mexitin were horrified. Like the rebels, many had secretly hoped that the tribe would remain upon those verdant slopes, that this would be their kingdom, but Huitzilopochtli-made-flesh had other ideas. With a single blow of his fiery serpent, he smashed the dam to pieces, sending floodwaters rushing down the mountainside, carving a great canyon in its wake. Another gesture withered the willows and reeds, killed the frogs and flies, sent storks and mallards beating the air in frenzied escape.

  “Ready yourselves,” he thundered to his cowering people. “We depart as soon as the New Fire Ceremony is complete! For I, your god, declare to you that no mere mountain will suffice to bear the name Mexico, land of the Mexitin—no, only the entire sea-ringed world itself can come close to the scope I envision for our realm!”

  The Mexitin, trembling, spent the final days of the year storing food, gathering belongings, preparing to restart their trek. When the new fire blossomed in the chest of the sacrificial victim, Huitzilopochtli ordered the torches of each house lit immediately. Beneath the glittering stars and gleaming eyes of tzitzimimeh, the tribe abandoned Mount Coatepec and threaded into the darkness.

  Arrival in the Promised Land

  For twenty more years the Mexitin wandered with the avatar of their god. Their governor died and was replaced by Acacihtli. Beneath his standard, the nomads harried again and again the Chichimec tribes and other indigenous peoples, emerging victorious every time. Battle and sacrifice became regular parts of daily life for the nomads. In awe they offered a new epithet to Huitzilopochtli: Tepanquizqui, He Who Towers over All. The god was well pleased.

  At last he led them to the abandoned city of Tollan. They picked through its ruins, amazed by the glory that had been brought low by the hand of Tezcatlipoca. They added effigies of that dark lord and his feathered twin to their pantheon. Humbled by the artisanship evident everywhere about them, the Mexitin began to call such skill toltecayotl, contrasting with the barbarism of their greatest foes of the time, which they labeled chichimecayotl. When they visited other great cities, they would append Tollan to the name of each.

  After conflicts with the Chichimecah that cost them in rapid succession the lives of three military governors, the nomads moved on to the fertile, water-rich land they named Atlicalaquian. There between the roots of trees at the water’s edge they established chinampas, little island gardens of tomato and squash, beans and maize, chili and amaranth.

  The Mexitin were honored and loved by the neighboring nation of Atenco, whose king—Tlahuizcalpotonqui, fragrant dawn—venerated Huitzilopochtli and allowed a skull rack or tzompantli to be erected in the god’s honor. For that reason, the city-state became known as Tzompanco, place of the skull rack. The king gave the newest Mexitin governor his youngest daughter, Tlaquilxochitzin, in marriage. She would bear Lord Tozcuecuextli three children, including the future leader of the nation, Huitzilihuitl the First.

  The Mexitin set out once more. Soon they saw spreading before them broad Lake Xaltocan and the whole vast basin of the high plains.

  “This is the land I promised, this watery, fertile valley. Here we will face many challenges and obstacles, but we will also find the home from which to rule Mexico, land of Mexitli, land of his people.”

  For decades more they skirted the lakes, making allies and enemies, hiring out their warriors to fight the wars of others, never backing down from confrontations. They befriended their fellow Nahuas of Cuauhtitlan, but annoyed the Tepanecas, who had also emigrated from Chicomoztoc centuries before and now controlled a large region along the western shore of Lake Texcoco.

  At the foot of Chapultepec Hill, at a place they called Tepepanco, against the mountain, the Mexitin stopped at the command of their god. It was time to bind the years. The crags of that ancient tor were soon glistening with blood.

  As the new calendar round began, Huitzilopochtli called together Governor Tozcuecuextli, his high priest Axolohua, General Ococaltzin, all the calpoleh and the god-bearers, including Cuauhtlequetzqui the Second.

  “O fathers of the Mexica, people of Mexico, wait but a little longer for what must come to pass, for soon you will see the fruit of your long journeying. Have patience, for I know what comes. Work diligently, be brave, build yourselves up, and make yourselves ready. This is not yet our home. First we must entrench ourselves upon this hill, anticipating those who come to destroy us. Two classes of enemies will array themselves against us, but we will prove the worth and might of the Mexica. In the end we will make slaves of them all and rule forever!”

  Conflicts at Chapultepec Hill

  By this time, word of the Mexica’s passage through Tepanecapan had reached the ears of Copil, wizard king of Malinalco, a city-state to the southwest of Lake Xochimilco established by Malinalxochitl, sister of the mortal man who had since become Huitzilopochtli.

  The sorcerer, seeking information, approached the ancient crone who had given him life. “Mother, you once told me you had an older brother, the living avatar of a god.”

  “Yes, indeed. You have an uncle, Huitzilopochtli, patron of the Mexitin. He abandoned me on the long trek out of Chicomoztoc, but then I chanced to meet your father, and we established this kingdom that you now rule.”

  Copil nodded savagely. “Very good. Know this, Mother: I intend to go confront my uncle in this place your former people have settled. I go to destroy him and devour his heart, to batter and conquer the ones he has led to the valley, his nobles and vassals. I will drag from the bosom of that tribe booty of varied riches, from gold to precious plumes, cocoa and rainbow cotton, diverse flowers and fruit. Yet do not lament, Mother. I tell you I am off to find my fiend of an uncle. His very existence chafes my soul.”

  Copil rounded up a battalion of warriors. With his shaman daughter Azcalxochitzin, he set out to confront the god of the Mexica, conferring with various nations as he went, forging alliances against his mother’s native tribe.

  Huitzilopochtli immediately sensed his coming. He called again to the tribal leaders, “O Fathers, gird yourselves, take up arms! My wicked nephew approaches. I will destroy him, bring death down upon his head, but you must face his army!”

  In a flash Huitzilopochtli transported himself and King Copil to Tepetzinco, a barren rocky isle in the midst of Lake Texcoco.

  “So you are the pup my sister Malinalxochitl bore, are you?”

  “Yes, you monster. I have come to trap and destroy you for having abandoned my mother so many years ago.”

  The god of war laughed. “Not if I kill you first, knave.”

  “We will see,” Copil growled, readying his weapons and his magic. “Come and try, ancient hummingbird!”

  They circled each other cautiously, then they unleashed arrows and spells, fire and magic. The rock of Tepentzinco was blasted and burned. The wizard wounded the god, rending his human flesh, but the Terrible One simply howled in rage and ripped Copil’s head from his shoulders with a single blow. It landed a great distance away. To this time that spot by the lake is known as Acopilco, water of Copil.

  Prising open his nephew’s chest, Huitzilopochtli lifted out the heart and returned in a blink of an eye to the foot of Chapultepec Hill, where the Mexica were routing the Malinalcans and their allies. Collapsing onto
the sandy earth, his mortal wounds signaling the end of his incarnation, Huitzilopochtli summoned the godbearer Cuauhtlequetzqui to his side.

  “O Fearsome Lord,” cried the priest, “what has happened to you?”

  “My time on the sea-ringed world draws to a close, Cuauhtlequetzqui. Take this: it is the heart of the fiend Copil, whom I have killed. Run to the lakeshore, amongst the reeds of the marshes. There you will find a mat, left by Quetzacoatl during his long exile. Stand upon it till its power fills your limbs, then hurl this bloody heart as far as you can.”

  So the godbearer did, marveling at the strength of his own arm. Then he raced back to his dying god, whom he found surrounded by the king, the priests and scores of weeping nobles.

  “I leave you,” spoke Huitzilopochtli, “with a final prophecy. When you have reached the lowest point, the very nadir of your history, when all seems lost, then you will discover the place where Copil’s heart has fallen. There, upon a rock, a cactus will have sprung, and perched on that cactus you will encounter me again in eagle form. I will speak to you in words that curl like serpents through the air, and your journey will have reached its end. Upon that spot you will build a city from which to rule the sea-ringed world.”

  Then the god abandoned his flesh, leaving the corpse of Huitziltzin lifeless in the dirt. The Mexica paid him extravagant honors and burned him till only bones were left. These they wrapped in most sacred bundles and delivered them into the hands of the godbearers, who truly earned their title as they carried Huitzilopochtli’s remains during the many trials and tribulations awaiting them.

  Azcalxochitzin, daughter of Copil, was soon given in marriage to Cuauhtlequetzqui, and the great-niece of the Terrible One bore him a beloved son, Coatzontli. Not long afterward, Cuauhtlequetzqui passed into the east forever, to accompany the sun at his lord’s side, winging his bright way through the heavens.

  For many years afterward, the Mexica harried the cities near Chapultepec Hill: Acuezcomac, Huehuetlan, Atlixocan, Teocolhuacan, Tepetocan, Huitzilac, Colhuacan, Huixachtla, Cahualtepec, Tetlacuixomac, and Tlapitzahuayan. During this long campaign of aggression, the nomads earned the hatred of Tepaneca, Xochimilca, and Colhua alike. Only the Chalcans managed to rout them from their lands.

  When Tozcuecuextli, governor of the Mexica, fell at last in battle, the god of war sent a vision to the high priest. It was time the Mexica had once more a tlatoani or king. Once Huitzilihuitl the First was unanimously selected by the council of priests and generals, he led his people back to Chapultepec Hill, where they erected a monumental temple to Huitzilopochtli. For nearly twenty years the Mexica tended their chinampas, making occasional forays into enemy territory to capture sacrificial victims for the altar of their god.

  So disgusted and angry did the neighboring peoples become that an alliance was born. Tepaneca and Colhua, Xochimilca and Chalca: all four Nahua tribes united against the Mexica. Appealing to the tribe’s mercenary fervor, the Tepaneca hired the warriors to make an initial attack against Colhuacan, promising them many war captives. As soon as the bulk of the Mexica army had marched off to the sham battle, however, the alliance laid siege to Chapultepec Hill and its environs. Against such a massive host, the people of Mexitli had no chance: they were broken, scattered, ground down, taken captive. Women were raped, children enslaved. Some few escaped into Tepanecan lands, others made for Xochimilco. Those who laid down their arms were generally allowed to stay. They became exiles from a homeland that did not yet exist.

  The Mexica warriors, Huitzilihuitl at their head, were ambushed on the way to battle, taken into bondage by the Colhuas and marched forcibly into the kingdom of Colhuacan. There King Coxcoxtli ordered the public sacrifice of Huitzilihuitl and his daughter Chimalaxoch to that nation’s patron goddess Cihuacoatl. The Mexica warriors looked on in impotent fury, a thirst for vengeance rising within them.

  Captivity

  The Colhuas settled their captives in the borough of Contitlan, where they lived and worked for four long, arduous years. Then came the war between Colhuacan and Xochimilco. The Colhua king sent the Mexica into battle, restoring to them their spear throwers, their bows, their macanas edged with obsidian razors. Unable to bear captives back for ritual sacrifice, the warriors sliced off an ear from each of their kills as proof of their prowess. When in the end they stood victorious before Coxcoxtli, each man bore a bag full of these trophies.

  “Your Majesty,” the Mexica generals called out, “we have served you well, and we will continue in your service. We know this is your kingdom, and we are merely the lowest of your subjects. But we are hated in your city. Is there no meager plot of land somewhere in your demesne where we might go to live in peace, awaiting your pleasure?”

  “Very well,” replied Coxcoxtli. He called together his council, asking them to advise him on a suitable place for the mercenary nomads.

  “O King!” they responded. “Let them settle in Tizaapan, that dangerous lava flow there beside the mountain.”

  “Perfect,” Coxcoxtli said. “That barren land is wholly apt. These are not people, after all. They are monstrous and evil. With luck, the many snakes of Tizaapan will finish them off.”

  But the Mexica rejoiced when they saw all the serpents. They killed and spitted them, roasting and devouring all. When his messengers informed him of this turn of events, Coxcoxtli was unperturbed. “You see what savages they clearly are. We have broken their designs on civilized behavior. Just leave them be for now.”

  So the Mexica warriors remained in Tizaapan, and they took as wives the daughters of the Colhua, who saw them as viable sons-in-law for their fierceness and might. Within a generation, they referred to themselves as the Colhua-Mexica, proud of the Toltec blood being intermingled with their own (for Colhuacan had been founded by refugees fleeing the destruction of Tollan).

  Nevertheless, while the people of Colhuacan mostly accepted the captives and their children as part of society, the behavior of the Mexica was often seen as barbaric, and many conflicts arose. To bring rain to the arid wilderness of Tizaapan, the warrior tribe would sacrifice children to Tlaloc from time to time. The meager temple they erected there near a mountain was often red with blood spilled in the name of Huitzilopochtli. Some Colhua, deriding the Mexica’s patron god, once entered the temple and smeared it with excrement and straw.

  As long as the Mexica helped win battles for him, King Coxcoxtli was willing to tolerate their Chichimec ways. When he finally died, his son Acamapichtli the First ruled over a Colhuacan in which the captives had become thoroughly intertwined with the native Colhua. Even the noble bloodlines of each tribe had begun to blend: Copil’s grandson Coatzontli married Nazohuatl, daughter of a great chief. Opochtli Iztahuatzin, who had risen as one of the greatest Mexica warriors, won the hand of Princess Atotoztli, youngest child of Cocoxtli.

  Mexica living in exile throughout the great basin began to immigrate to Colhuacan, to Tizaapan, bringing their children and mixing with the Colhua. Many believed their long exodus was finally at an end.

  But on a rocky isle in the midst of the lake, a cactus had begun to grow from Copil’s stony heart. Huitzilopoctli’s prophecy would soon be fulfilled.

  Hapunda and the Lake

  The Mexica had abandoned a group of their own in the lush, verdant lands of Michoacan. With time, these strangers to the Land of Fishers blended with the native Purepecha people. Down the years, they grew into a mighty nation led by the warrior priest Tariacuari.

  It is impossible, perhaps, to think of the Purepecha without thinking of the broad expanse of Lake Patzcuaro, teeming with white cranes. More than simple beauty, those waters sparkle with magic. With divine energy.

  You see, in the dimness of the distant past, a massive ball of fire lit up the night skies above Michoacan, looming like a second sun before smashing into a fertile valley nestled among the mountains. The ground thrummed and trembled at the impact. Those men and women living nearby were terrified to behold what they believed was the end of t
he world.

  What was the flaming force that fell from heaven that night? We might say a meteor, confident in our reasoned understanding of the cosmos. But to those ancient folk, it was clear that a god had been expelled from paradise to crash into our world.

  Gradually, the crater left by the impact of this being was filled by water rushing up from a hidden spring. So Lake Patzcuaro was born, its blue expanse dotted by lush islands.

  It was to this lake that the great Tariacuari led his people, establishing the Purepecha Empire on its reedy bank, a nation that would repel both Aztecs and Spanish before it finally fell.

  Despite all the momentous events that took place at their margins, only one person ever learned the true nature of those vital waters.

  Her name was Hapunda.

  At the heart of Lake Patzcuaro curves a half-moon of land, the isle of Yunuen. Long before the Spanish came, its pride and joy was the Princess Hapunda, a young woman gifted with great beauty and grace from the moment of her birth. Her gentleness and affection toward the inhabitants of Yunuen—both the royal family and their subjects—exerted such a positive influence that islanders strove to be as proper, well spoken, and good as possible whenever she was near.

  Even the animals of the island and the waters around it felt joy at her presence. No sooner would the princess approach than they would show off their loveliest songs, their most complex flights, their most daring leaps into the air from the wind-driven waves. It was as if something greater than the people and beasts of the island, something that subsumed them all, was responding to the basic goodness and beauty of Hapunda.

  A hint of the deeper truth was revealed whenever the princess waded into the water or rowed herself away from the shore. At such times, the waves took on a life of their own, flowing in strange rhythms, flashing brighter beneath the sunlight, twirling aquatic plants and foam in a mesmerizing ballet.

  “It’s as if the lake itself were smitten with her,” the islanders whispered. “And look how she laughs and claps her hands with delight!”