Mexico

by James A. Michener

  He assured me even then that I was destined to be the wife of the king, so that later when he sacrificed himself, my mother continued to impress upon me the importance of my future duties, and I learned not only about sewing and weaving and the making of tortillas but also about the management of a house that contained many rooms and many servants. I was especially good at music and played the flute in the quietness of our home, and at one time I must have known most of the songs of my people.

  Most Spaniards I have met have asked me what I thought about human sacrifice, and I have grown tired of explaining that up until the age of twenty-one I had never seen the rite and did not really comprehend it. My mother, I noticed, kept us at home whenever the great drum sounded at the pyramid, and even on the days that celebrated my father’s greatest triumphs, when thousands of captives were executed, my mother refused to attend. I remember when I was six and Father returned triumphantly from Guadalajara. After the drum stopped beating, he came home, washed, played with me and then tended his garden. I can’t recall ever having heard sacrifices mentioned in my home, and that is why my reaction to the Mother Goddess was so unexpected and so spectacular.

  In two short articles my magazine once asked me to write about the Cactus People, I tried to speak well of them, for there was much about these ancestors of mine that was admirable, but I admit that my task would have been easier if the Mother Goddess had not become part of their history.

  In the late 1400s, when the triumph of War God was as complete as it could be, and when there were no further refinements in the grisly rites honoring him, a convocation of priests of City-of-the-Pyramid convened and heard the high priest reason in this manner: “If our War God is wholly omnipotent, and if there is nothing further we can do to honor him directly, we ought to consider other oblique ways in which to pay him respect. And it seems to me that what we have overlooked is the fact that he could never have become so powerful if he had not had a mother even more terrible than he.”

  Consequently, to fulfill a religious need, the Cactus priests created a Mother Goddess who as a sheer abomination has never been equaled. Her head was two horned serpents on the verge of devouring each other. Her hands were talons, each tearing apart a human heart. Her breasts were coiled vipers, and her navel was an eagle’s beak plucking out the eyes of an infant. Her skirt was a writhing mass of snakes and her feet were the teeth of animals rending flesh. She wore a necklace of human hearts, rings of human eyes and beads of teeth. Hers was the most repulsive statue ever carved in Mexico, a squat, sullen, hideous travesty of both god and woman When she was unveiled, in her own temple atop a small pyramid that occupied the space where the cathedral now stands, there was revelry and feasting, for it was recognized that a worthy goddess had at last been found to accompany War God in his lonely rule of the high valley.

  What made the Mother Goddess such a dreaded deity was the refinement in torture that the priests had devised for her: since she was the mother of War God, she was satisfied only with perfect things, so each year only the youths who were flawless in every way were set aside for her. Since she also represented motherhood, she was also entitled to numerous sacrifices to empower her to ensure continued fertility, and therefore hundreds of victims were thrown alive into huge fires that roared at her feet.

  When, in her twenty-second year, Lady Gray Eyes first saw the rites she was so overcome that she would have fainted had not her strong-minded mother gripped her arm and whispered: “If you disgrace yourself before the Mother Goddess you too will be chosen as a sacrifice.” Lady Gray Eyes then learned the need for extreme discretion. Because her reputation was unsullied by any suspicion that she was less than devout, there were no obstacles to her marrying the young king, who was much in love with her.

  The position of the young queen at this crucial moment in history was a curious one. There was no way in which she could have known that powerful strangers from Europe were about to land in Cuba and would soon be heading for Mexico, but she sensed that great change was in the wind. This nebulous suspicion made her feel that Cactus society could not remain as it was, especially the hideousness of Mother Goddess and the abomination whereby the priests were able to convince the Cactus women that their noblest function in life was to produce handsome, intelligent sons to be sacrificed at the feet of the Mother Goddess. “It’s evil,” she muttered to herself as she contemplated the perverting of motherhood and the waste of human lives. “No woman can want to see her son, her brother or her husband slain in such a horrible way. Killing scores so the sun will come back north! Of course it will return! It always has and always will.”

  When she asked her mother: “Surely you know that the sun will always come back, whether the goddess has victims or not?” her mother drew back and counseled: “Daughter, don’t think along those lines or you’ll endanger the king.” But when Lady Gray Eyes asked: “Surely you must deplore the ritual sacrificing of our best young men?” her mother nodded. “Yes.” She would say nothing more.

  From that moment Lady Gray Eyes became a kind of subversive citizen. By patient listening and oblique questioning she began to probe the minds of others, which led her to suspect that many women had sickened of the bloody rites and that a general revulsion against them was developing among the population. However, she was not yet daring enough to speak openly, as noted in a report by the wife of a Cactus general:

  She overtook me one morning as I was drawing water at the well and asked me casually, “How is your son?” and I replied, “He was taken, you know.” That was how we phrased it when the priests selected your son. Very quietly she asked: “And do you miss him?” We were forbidden to discuss such matters, but she was the queen and this made me feel free to speak, so I said: “Yes, I do,” and tears, which were rigidly forbidden, came to my eyes. And for a moment I wept, but when I looked at her, she was as hard as rock, all of her, hands clenched, teeth gritting together and her remarkable eyes tearless but almost flashing fire, and I knew that she and I thought alike. That accidental meeting was why, when the great test came, I stood with her and handled one of the wooden levers.

  The secret opposition launched by Lady Gray Eyes came to a head in 1507. Since that autumn marked the end of a fifty-two-year cycle that coincided with some important date regarding the movement of the sun and the planet Venus, the high priest ordained ceremonies that were especially gruesome. “To ensure the regeneration of the world,” he explained, “we must all make unusually difficult sacrifices.”

  It had long been a belief of the Cactus People that with the culmination of any fifty-two-year cycle the world might end and the sun not rise. Only by extraordinary human sacrifice could the sun be coaxed from darkness and a tradition had developed that when the cycle ended, all human possessions had to be destroyed so that life could begin anew with the rebirth of the world. Accordingly, as the year 1507 drew to a close, there was wholesale destruction of personal belongings; and here Lady Gray Eyes first came into open conflict with her gods. Her father had left her a shield that he had worn in battle against the Guadalajarans, but before he had given it to her he had decorated it with designs drawn by his own hands, and from the age of six she had treasured it. This shield she was determined not to sacrifice, even though she was warned that for a queen to hold back anything of value would especially incense the gods and cause them to terminate the world instantly. When she went to hide the shield in a closet whose door was masked, she found that her mother had already secreted there many objects of sentimental value.

  What had led to this initial break with the gods was a series of events so profoundly malignant that Lady Gray Eyes later told the chroniclers: “If I had suffered those cruelties without revulsion and anger I would have been less than human.” What happened was that the high priest of the Mother Goddess required for the ceremony of relighting the world a man of exemplary character, a man of vital importance to the kingdom whose sacrifice would mean a grievous loss to the city; only by kindling a sacred fire
on his living heart as he lay with his chest cut open would the sun be lured back to embark on its next cycle of fifty-two years.

  The man they had chosen was her own kin, the king’s learned brother, and when she heard of the decision Lady Gray Eyes cried to her mother: “This is senseless. He’s the wisest man in the kingdom. We need him.”

  “Ssssssh!” the mother warned. “You may think these things, but you must never speak them.”

  The king’s brother was killed, the ritual of fire was completed; and obediently the sun rose again. The priests then launched an orgy of sacrifice to celebrate the rebirth of the world: hundreds were killed, then more hundreds, then thousands until the mind was numb from counting and the air was thick with smoke. In her quarters as Lady Gray Eyes listened with mounting anger to the throbbing drum she was oppressed by the thought that for the past three hundred years there must have been countless women like herself who had hated this abomination of endless sacrifice but had never spoken out because of fear.

  The horror did not end with her brother-in-law’s murder. A disaffected servant reported to the priests of the Mother Goddess that the queen’s mother, the widow of General Tezozomoc, had sequestered personal treasures and not destroyed them to ensure the rebirth of the world. An inspecting party had been immediately dispatched to the royal palace, where the servant led them to the secret closet where they found the hidden items. Among them, of course, was General Tezozomoc’s shield, which would have incriminated the queen herself had not her mother stepped forth and calmly said: “The shield was given me by my husband.”

  She was hauled off to the temple of the Mother Goddess. Even the king was powerless to intervene; and the brave old woman prevented Lady Gray Eyes from confessing that she too was a culprit. I will not describe what the priests did to the old woman, nor how her cries of denunciation, before she was burned, ignited the first public doubts about the horrible Goddess who ruled City-of-the-Pyramid.

  When Lady Gray Eyes looked at the twin-serpent head of the Mother Goddess, obscured by steam and smoke and smeared with the blood of her mother, she vowed: “This terror must stop.” The destruction of this appalling goddess now became an obsession, and during the years from 1507 to 1518 she made discreet investigations that convinced her that the city was full of people who were as disgusted and disaffected as she but could only stand by helplessly. In later years she said of these days: “So we lived in a terrible darkness, desperately hoping for the rediscovery of peace and the rebirth of human love. But after many years of fearful silence it became the general opinion that the salvation of our city would come not from within but from without—that some act from the outside world would rescue us—but the likelihood of this seemed so remote, and a thing so futile to hope for, that I concluded that salvation must come from within, and I dedicated myself to the destruction of the terrible goddess.”

  As the year 1519 dawned with its customary savage ceremonies, the full power of the Mother Goddess was brought to bear against Lady Gray Eyes. One afternoon as she was sitting in her garden she was approached by a trio of senior priests who were so supercilious in manner that she had an instant premonition of disaster. “Revered Highness,” said their leader, “we bring joyous news. Your son—”

  “Which one?” she asked, trembling.

  “Your second, Ixmiq, named after the builder of our sacred pyramid.”

  “Yes?”

  “He has the honor of having been chosen this year’s Perfect Youth.”

  She did not cry out, for she had been taught from childhood that that was not allowed. Her father and her nurses had preached: “It is the duty of women to bear sons for the glory of the Mother Goddess. Some become warriors in her defense. Some are sacrificed to prove our respect. And each year some mother is honored above all others by having her son chosen as the Perfect Youth.”

  Biting her lip to prevent herself from shrieking at these miserable men, she sat immobile, her mind in a frenzy, as the priests went to the house, called forth her nineteen-year-old son, Ixmiq, and led him away. He was allowed no farewell words, no last embrace, for priests had learned from past experience that such acts were apt to create exhibitions of weakness unworthy of the Mother Goddess, so the queen was forced to remain sitting there as her radiant son left his home for the last time.

  Young Ixmiq was moved into a small sacred palace, where he was daily anointed with oil, bedecked with flowers and cloth of gold, and taught to play the flute. He ate only the most exquisite of foods and was constantly massaged by priests so that no ungainly fat should accumulate on his athletic body. He was encouraged to play games and sing, and at night he was watched by four priests lest he catch cold and diminish his health. His long hair was plaited with flowers, and he was sprinkled with perfume.

  For eleven months, Ixmiq led a cloistered existence. He was allowed to see his royal father now and again, but he was not permitted to talk with his mother, for the priests had found in earlier years that such a meeting sometimes unmanned the Perfect Youth and induced melancholy, which had no place in their plans for him; furthermore, Lady Gray Eyes was suspect because her mother had sinned against the Mother Goddess.

  On the first day of the twelfth month four of the most beautiful young girls of the city were brought into the sacred palace, where in the presence of Ixmiq they were undressed by a priest, who said simply: “Enjoy them.” And from then on the girls were constantly with the Perfect Youth, enticing him to lose himself in sensual pleasures.

  This was a cynical move on the part of the priests: they had found that if a young man came to the last days completely debilitated through sexual excess he was more apt to be submissive and not mar the culminating sacred moment of the year by resisting and creating a scene. But for further insurance they introduced into his diet during this last month substantial amounts of mescaline, a narcotic derived from cactus buds, and this ensured both an initial sexual excitement and a subsequent lassitude.

  But this year the plans of the priests went awry. There was among the four young girls sent to serve Ixmiq an exquisite child of sixteen named Xóchitl, who was the last to sleep with Ixmiq because she was the youngest. But once he discovered her he loved her so intensely that he wished to have nothing more to do with the others. The priests noticed this with dismay, for experience had taught them that if a Perfect Youth formed any strong attachment for one particular girl among the customary four, he was apt to dread the moment of separation and behave badly at the ceremony that would end his life. After consultation, therefore, the priests decided to whisk Xóchitl away from the palace and to substitute for her a somewhat older girl, but when they did this, Ixmiq refused to leave his quarters, where he remained secluded, pensively playing the flute. When the priests asked why he was being so solitary, he replied: “I am waiting for Xóchitl.”

  It was apparent that unless the young girl was returned to Ixmiq there was going to be trouble, so the priests brought her back but threatened: “Unless you keep Ixmiq from loving you, when he dies you will be burned alive.” But when they thrust the girl back into the room, she ran to Ixmiq and they embraced passionately, and for the last eleven days of the month they stayed together. The other three girls could do nothing, for Ixmiq refused to associate with anyone but Xóchitl, and when the priests tried to drag him away he was sufficiently in control to feign hysteria: “If you take her away I’ll scream, and lunge at you and create a great noise at your ceremony.” Seething with rage, they were forced to retreat.

  When they were gone, Ixmiq laughed at the success of his ruse, and drew Xóchitl to him, saying bravely: “It won’t be too painful, little bird. For one month you’ll be my wife. Lots of young men marry and either go off to war and death, or are chosen for some important sacrifice. It happens.”

  “But what of the children we should have? I want to have your children.”

  “Maybe I’ll leave you with a son,” he said consolingly. When she drew back and said almost in tears, “I can’t pray
to a creature like Mother Goddess for aid in becoming pregnant,” he could think of no god in the Cactus pantheon to whom a young woman could pray for help.

  In the quiet of their luxurious prison they could take consolation only in the fact that he had succeeded in convincing the priests that he loved her, and that she was able to share his last days even if she did so at mortal danger to herself.

  On the last day of the year 1519, when Ixmiq was given food that was drugged almost to the point of causing nausea so that his eyes were dull and heavy, he was anointed for the last time and dressed in robes of unusual splendor. Flowers and jewels were woven into his hair and sandals with golden buckles were put on his feet. He clasped Xóchitl to his bosom and whispered: “You are my wife.”

  He then left the palace and, one of the most handsome young men ever to have performed this rite, he walked in a kind of golden haze through the streets of the city, and as he walked he played occasionally on one or another of his flutes. It was a day of complete beauty, with the sun that lit his face making his jewels shimmer. The king, his father, was proud of his son’s regal bearing, but Lady Gray Eyes clenched her fists, barely restraining her grief and anger.

  The priests, who were aware through their spies that the queen had been asking dangerous questions but were not yet strong enough to offend the king by attacking her openly, had arranged that she not be present at the final rites lest she call out and distress her son. She was therefore excused from witnessing the final act, and for this she was grateful.

  Toward three in the afternoon, when the sun had noticeably declined and birds were beginning to sing before roosting, Ixmiq walked gallantly toward the temple of the Mother Goddess, and now a hush fell over the multitude that followed him. The priests fell away and prayed that their selection would behave himself well. Stepping upon the first stone of the stairway leading to the altar, he turned to face the crowd, raised his hands above his head, and broke one of the flutes. Throwing the pieces gaily over his shoulder, he ascended to the next step, where he broke another flute. At the small terrace that separated the two flights of stairs, he paused to play a brief song, after which he broke the flute he had been using, and in this manner he came to the top of the stairs and to the altar, where he broke his last flute and threw the two parts out to the silent and admiring crowd. He should then have presented himself impassively to the five waiting priests—four to bind him and one to kill—but instead he threw his arms into the air and screamed in agony so that all could hear: “Xóchitl, Xóchitl!” The outraged priests grabbed him and smashed him so hard on the sacrificial disk that his back was broken and his senses were gone even before the knife plunged into his chest.