Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes

9. The Myth of the Half-Man Who Descended from the Sky

9 The Myth of the Half-Man Who Descended from the Sky Alfredo Lopez Austin Trllnslaud by Ralph Kite Mesoamericanists encounter notably persistent historio-graphic problems . One ofthem, and it is one ofthe most serious, is the interpretation of historical myth: Narratives in which the actions of gods and men are mixed together in the playing out of the miracle tale are frequent. The basis for Mesoamerican hisrorical rales consists of a creation myth. The peoples had come to life through the intervention of the gods, emerging from the earth's interior or from the mount ofthe seven wombs, or falling from the heavens like seeds in a divine projectile. So, it appears that the lack of a miracle story would have taken away human legitimacy. Each people presented itself to the rest as the result ofa birth through which it had established ties wirh the patron god, and marvelous life accompanied it to its definitive settling place, where the srory is completed by rhe foundarion myth. This is the outline ofthe first stage ofthe history ofthe Mesoamerican peoples. Nevertheless, it is difficult to undersrand rhe meaning of rhe various episodes ofthe originating migrations. How, for example, can the supernatural deeds in the migration ofthe Mexicas be explained? Does the myth of Coyolxauhqui, Coatlicue, and Huitzilopochtli have its origin in an actual event? Was Huitzilopochtli a man of flesh and blood who, through his feats, achieved the status of a god? Some historians explain the mythical overtones by referring to the primitive forms of tradition. From this point of view there existed a distortion caused by immature historical recall: Human events were full The Halfman Who Descendedfrom the Sky 153 of wonders that made the narration more interesting to an audience accustomed to marvelous deeds, and imponanr men became heroes, then gods, through a transforming process of the oral tradition. This is an interpretation of the old euhemerist type that many scholars still prefer. For other historians, however, the explanation rests in the predominance ofthe archerype over the narration and, going a bit further, in the presence of myth as a model for human activiry. Mesoamericanists are still far from agreement on the methods and foundations of the interpretation of the marvelous stories. The solution will be made easier to the extent that we increase the numbet of analyses oftales ofthis rype and distinguish more clearly the differences among the mythical tale, the openly historical tale, and the tale ofthe marvelous initial stage, so common in Mesoamerican historiography. Here, I put forth a case that may be enlightening. It is an interesting and well-known tale: the myth of the origin of a people as it was told in one of the most important cities in the lacustrine Basin of Mexico Tctzcoco . This city, like many others of the Mesoamerican Postclassic period, had a mixed population, separated into neighborhoods that maintained their own customs and traditions. A large part ofthe population of Tetzcocowas Chichimecan, that is, ofrecent barbarian origin. The Chichimecas ofTetzcoco had arrived in the lacustrine Basin of Mexico, led by theit chief, Xolotl, in the thirteenth century, taking advantage ofthe fact that the peoples ofthe Basin found themselves in political chaos. Another segment of the population consisted of the Aculhuas, a sedentary people with an ancient history in Mesoamerica who had made the most of the invasion of the Chichimecas and established an alliance with them, providing them with the basic means of becoming sedentary. The myth has two versions: that of the Tetzcocan Aculhuas and that ofthe people ofChichimecan origin. The first narrative shows the typical form of the myth. In the second, one can recognize one of the ways in which history has influenced the myth and transformed it. The version we can consider primary is recorded in the Historia Eclesidstica Indiana by Fray Geronimo de Mendieta (1945, vol. 1:87-88): Those from Tezcuco offered in their paintings another version of the creation of the first man relating that their ancestors had come from that land where the gods fell . . . and from that cave of Chicomoztoc. And what theyshowed aftenvard in painting and declared to the above-mentioned Fray Andres de Olmos, was that the first man 154 Alfredo LOpez Austin from whom they descended had been born in the land ofAculma. which is two leagues from Tezcuco and five from Mexico, or a little more, coming this direction. They say that with...