The Darts of Dawn: The Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli Venus Complex in the Iconography of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest

Part I. Introduction

Fundamental concepts pertaining to worldview and cosmology are currently, as in the past, shared throughout Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Included here are “maps” of the cosmos and cultural landscapes, such as directional symbolism, as well as the more specific ideology of rain-making and the nature of many supernatural beings (James 2000; Mathiowetz 2011; Schaafsma 1999, 2000, 2001; Schaafsma and Taube 2006; Taube 1986, 2001; Young 1994). Among ancient and contemporary indigenous people of Mesoamerica, the planet Venus plays a central role in the art, ritual, oral traditions, and symbolism of warfare. In highland Central Mexico—one of the best-documented contact period regions of ancient Mesoamerican religion—the Morning Star dominates as Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, a fearsome being but also an aspect of the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl, an embodiment of the eastern wind and the gentle breath of life (Carlson 1991; Graulich 1992; Taube 2001). The extensive and complex religious symbolism linked to Venus as Morning Star and warfare in Mesoamerica is strikingly similar to a Venus “star complex” that became prominent in rock art and kiva murals in the American Southwest during the Pueblo IV period, that is, post AD 1300 (Carlson 2005; Schaafsma 2000, 2005).

The present study examines the relation of Venus to warfare among indigenous peoples in both Mesoamerica and the American Southwest in an effort to draw attention to significant parallels centered upon an ideology of warfare relating to this planet. Notably, we draw comparisons between aspects and character attributes of the Postclassic skeletal god Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli in Mesoamerica and the Morning Star and related supernaturals as represented in late pre-Hispanic Pueblo art, in particular the contemporary Hopi Morning Star deity Sotuqnangu. We argue here that these figures are historically related beings.

The archaeological evidence indicates that the symbolic expression of a constellation of remarkably similar metaphors centered upon Venus as the Morning Star in Central and Northwest Mesoamerica and the American Southwest is not derived from a bedrock of shared cosmology that has existed in these regions in perpetuity. Rather, by tracing the timing of appearance of these ideas in the iconographic repertoire of multiple geographical and cultural regions, we suggest that the occurrence of Morning Star-related warfare symbolism, beginning after AD 900 in West Mexico, by AD 1200 in Northwest Mexico in the Casas Grandes region, and by AD 1300 in the American Southwest, indicates that the expansion of Postclassic period information and interaction networks from highland Central Mexico and Oaxaca played an important role in the northward dissemination of a ritual and symbolic complex centered on cosmological warfare and fertility (figures 1 & 2).

This expansion coincided with the development of the Aztatlán tradition, a cultural complex that played a key role in many of the social and religious changes that occurred in Northwest Mexico and the American Southwest during the Pueblo III–Pueblo IV transition. As is discussed below, among these changes in the American Southwest is the dramatic florescence of Morning Star and warfare-related symbolism in Pueblo rock art and kiva murals. While it is beyond the scope of the present study to illuminate the precise mechanisms by which the Morning Star complex was transferred to and locally manifested across the American Southwest in the 14th century, we hope that this discussion will inspire attention and debate to this topic in the future.

Figure 1.

Regional map of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico.

Figure 2.

Regional map of West Mexico with Aztatlán-affiliated archaeological sites (circles) and modern cities and towns (squares) mentioned in the text (adapted from Hosler 1994: fig. 3.2).

Part II. Venus in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli and Itzlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli

As the Morning Star, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, or “Lord of Dawn,” was the feared and preeminent stellar being painstakingly observed and incorporated into socially shared beliefs of fate, including...