I’m collecting Xolotl related things for an altar I want to make once I find nice shelves for display! I’m also carving something but I’m worried the plaques and images won’t fit on whatever shelves I get. There is some GORGEOUS prints but I think the smallest one is going to be too big?
The Recovery of the Chalchiuhomitl, the Precious Bones of the Ancestors
You can read the story from top to bottom; the text which describes the images follows. You can find prints of these paintings in the artist’s Etsy store, Mexica Heart, at this link.
1.1 Than it was that the Teótl called an assembly, for now that the earth was stilled and the sky called into being, in this new-born world of darkness, no man lived upon the earth to give witness to the gods. From their home in Tamoanchan they called out in distress; Citlallinicue, Citlallatonac, Apantecuhtli, Tepanquizqui, Tlallamanqui, Huictlollinqui, Quetzalcoátl, Titlacahuan, “Who will be seated there, on the earth, now that Tlaltecuhtli has ceased her writhing, now that the heavens have found their place?” They summoned before them Quetzalcoátl and his Nagual, his spirit double, Xolótl. “You who are the Morning Star, destined to rise before the sun and guide him from the underworld and to the heavens,” they said to Quetzalcoátl, and, turning to Xolótl, “you who are the Evening Star, destined to lead the sun into the darkness of Mictlán, there to find his path to rebirth and day, go you to Mictlantecuhtli, and bade him return the precious bones of the ancestors, so that man might be reborn on earth.” 1.2 And so the twin gods descended to Mictlán, entering the surface of the earth.
2.1 Xolotl led the way through the Nine levels of the underworld, across the river Apanohuaya, 2.2 the crashing mountains of Tepetl Monanamycia, 2.3 Itztepetl, the Mountain of obsidian blades, 2.4 the frozen winds of Yeehecayan, 2.5,6 the great lizard Xochitonal guarding the Place of Human Banners, Panoecoe Tlacaya-Cuepa, 2.7 the place of Arrows, Teminaloya, 2.8 and the place of the heart-eating beast, Teocoylqualoya, 2.9 before they arrived at Itzmictlan Apochalocan, the final home of Mictlantecuhtli in his infernal temple. Than Quetzalcoátl spoke to Mictlantecuhtli, the Dead Lord, and his wife, the Dead Lady; “I come to take away the Chalchiuhomitl, the Precious Bones you hold in your keeping. I come to re-populate the earth and give birth, once more, to man.” But Mictlantecuhtli was displeased by the request, and jealous of the jade-stone bones, “never shall I give them up, Quetzalcoátl. They shall remain in my keeping forever.” “You misunderstand, Mictlantecuhtli,” replied Quetzalcoátl. “The bones are no more than borrowed, for just a little while, for all men born of bones shall to bones return, and in your realm eternally remain.” “Take than, the Chalchiuhomitl. But first, play my conch trumpet and blow four times around the extent of my realm. Than you shall have your bones.”
3.1 Yet, the conch trumpet was not hollow, and had no holes for finger-stops. But Quetzalcoátl summoned worms, who drilled holes in the shell, and honeybees and wasps, who rushed inside and filled it with sound so that all Mictlán reverberated with its thunder. 3.2 And the twin Lords traversed the extent of Mictlán, sounding the trumpet in the East, the North, the West, and the South. “He has sounded the trumpet!” cried Mictlantecuhtli, “he shall take my precious bones! Never shall shall I permit their escape!”
4.1 Xolotl spoke to Quetzalcoátl, saying “ Trick the Lord of Death. Tell him you shall leave the bones, even as we secret them away,” So Quetzalcoátl cried out loudly “ See, Mictlantecuhtli, I shall leave without the Chalchiuhomitl, I shall return to Tamoanchan without the bones that you had promised!” Yet even as he spoke, he quickly gathered up the sacred bones, those of the man in one bundle and those of the woman in another, and they sped away through the dark passages of Mictlán. 4.2 “They have taken my bones!” cried Lord Death, and he sent his servants, the spirits, the fleshless, and the quail, to pursue them. “Spirits!” he cried “Dig a pit in their path that they may not leave my kingdom!” 4.3 Looking behind them as they ran at the dark army of the Lord and Lady of the Dead, they did not see the pit dug in their path by the fleshless servants of Mictlantecuhtli. Suddenly, a covey of quail burst from hiding by the pit, and the Lord Quetzalcoátl stumbled and fell into its depths.
5.1 There he lay as though dead, the bones scattered and broken about him, as the quail nibbled and gnawed at the precious remains of the ancestors. Arising from death, Quetzalcoátl saw the ruined and broken bones. “My nagual,” he lamented, “ how shall the new men be!” And Xolotl replied “They have been broken. Thus shall the new men be.” The two gods arose, wrapped the Chalchiuhomitl into their sacred bundles, and proceeded on their way.
10.1 Then it was that on the day Seven Flint, the Teteo gathered around Quetzalcoátl in Tamoanchan, the Twelfth Heaven. In a jade bowl, Cihuacoátl, Serpent Woman, ground the maize of four colors and the broken bones of the ancestors, and presented the sacred masa of her labors to Our Lord Sovereign Plumed Serpent. With the bone dagger, the maguey spine, he pierced his penis and poured the blood of his sacrifice upon the masa.
11.1 Then, too, the gathered Teteo did penance, Xiuhtecuhtli, Tezcatlipoca, Centeótl, Mictlantecuhtli, Tlazolteótl, and Quetzalcoátl, who numbered six. The gods sprinkled their blood upon the flour, and Cihuacoátl kneaded the masa upon her metate of jade, and of the masa thus formed the first man, the first woman. 11.2 Quetzalcoátl, The Ineffable, blew upon their nostrils, and from his breath of generation, the blood and pain of his sacrifice, were they born to life. Then they said, “Holy Ones, Humans, have been born.”
I am currently painting the story of the creation of the first men, in which Xolotl appears prominently, so I thought I would write about him.
Xolotl is the patron of those born on the day-sign Ollin. He is the God of Twins, and patron of the ball-game. His name signifies that he is Our Lord, “The Double Maize Plant,” the stock of corn which grows with two heads. He is thus our sustenance, our body itself, twined, to encompass all men and women. He is the lord of the monstrous and the uncanny. He is the Nahualli of Quetzalcoatl, Lord of Creation, his spirit double, and accompanied him to the underworld to retrieve the bones of our ancestors; it was through his wisdom, trickery, and bravery that the quest proved successful. However, he proved a coward later; after the Our Lord the Sun rose into the sky at his first dawning, he stopped in the center of the heavens and declared he could go nor further; he demanded the blood of the gods as sustenance before he could continue his journey. All the gods submitted, save Xolotl alone, who ran fearfully away. His sorrow was so great he wept his eyes from out of their sockets, and he hid in the maize fields, transforming himself into the Xolotl, the double maize plant, then the Mexolotl, the double agave plant, and finally the Axolotl, a type of large and monstrous salamander, when he was finally caught and sacrificed.
Xolotl is a dog, and represents death and Tlazolli; which is to say, “trash” or disorderliness. This is the principle which governs life, in which beings are born in sex and rot, in which all living things both bloom and decay. Dogs eat rotting meat and excrement, and in so doing transform death into life, a quality which is further emphasized by their sexual promiscuity. These are the qualities of Xolotl, who resides in the Underworld, in the belly of the Earth Mother.
Quetzalcoátl and Xolotl are the doubles of one another; Quetzalcóatl represents birth and Xolotl death. Neither is possible without the other. In the ancient world, twins were considered terrible monstrosities, and in myth, Xolotl is Quetzalcoátl’s twin who was slain upon his birth. One therefore dwells in the world above, in the light of day, while Xolotl, the other, dwells in the underworld among the dead.
Both Teótl are manifestations of Venus. Quetzalcoátl is the Morning Star, the light which rises before the sun and guides him into the daytime sky. Xolotl is the Evening Star, who rises before the setting sun and leads him into death. In the underworld, Xolotl carries the sun on his back and leads him through the dangers of the Underworld, to deliver him to his brother and spirit double Quetzalcoátl and to the rebirth of day. Together they are the principle of Ollin, of endless oscillation and movement, and guide the eternal cycles of the cosmos.
In the top painting, Xolotl as he appears in the Codex Borgia. He wears the costume of Quetzalcoátl, for the two are in fact one, and wears in his headdress a device of macaw and crow plumes which symbolizes the nighttime sun, the dead sun who travels through the underworld. The following two paintings are from my version of the Tonalamatl; in the second he is wrapped in a shroud, as a Teótl of death. At the bottom, the two Teótl appear together, in a detail from my newest painting, bowing before the Lord of Death, and finally, a sculpture of Xolotl discovered in the ruins of Tenochtitlan.
