The Tzitzimime
A further extract from the
essay seized by the Tlachiolani has been released within the Mirror:
Fragmentary histories from the latter portion of the Eighteenth Century in
Amerika make reference to `Martian Mantas' identified as Tzitzimime.
Whilst the veracity and accuracy of these fragmentary
records must be treated with caution, Tzitzimime is the singular of
Tzitzimitl in Náhuatl, a `Demon of Twilight'. The Méxica may have
associated Tezcatlipoca with Mars, and the planet is important to their
calendar.
In Méxica mythology the Tzitzimime were once stars but were cast out to
become lords of the dark underworld, and were a danger both at night and
especially during an eclipse. Each dawn and dusk they would battle the
sun. The end of the Aztecâ fifty-two year cycle a time of even greater
anxiety for if the new fire was not successfully drilled, the terrifying
tzitzimime star demons would reassert their control over the world.
It was prophesized that these star demons would descend to earth and
devour the few humans who survived the destruction of the Méxica world and
universe when it ended in earthquake and famine:
Perhaps now is coming
true, now is coming to pass,
what the men and women of old knew, what they handed down:
that the heavens over us shall sunder,
that the demons of the air shall descend
and come to destroy the earth and devour the people,
that darkness shall prevail, that nothing be left on earth.
Our grandmothers and grandfathers knew it,
they handed it down, it was their tradition
that it would come to pass, that it would come to be.
In most sources they were four
in number or divided into different groups that are represented with
different colours. They are made up of: the Iztactzitzimitl, "white
monsters," Xouchcaltzitzimitl, "blue
monsters," Coztzitzimitl, "yellow monsters," and the Itlatlauhcatzitzimitl,
"red monsters."
A Tzitzimime is illustrated in a codex as a skeleton with a rattlesnake
for a penis (though they are usually considered to be female) and earrings
of a human hand and necklace of human hearts and
hands, with unkept hair. Other sources describe them as female spider
demons.
One Tzitzimime is sometimes identified as the grandmother of Mayahuel, the
pulque goddess. When Ehécatl Quetzalcoatl, the wind god, went to the
second heaven to look for her he changed them both
into the branches of a tree to hide from her grandmother. However the
grandmother spirit captured her and slew her, broke her branch apart, and
gave the pieces to other Tzitzimime spirits to eat. Quetzalcoatl rescued a
few remaining pieces and buried them, his tears falling on the earth. From
the pieces and the god's tears Mayahuel grew as a plant, the tears
becoming the juice that could be made into pulque.
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