FRAY GERONIMO DE MENDIETA
(1525-1604)
A HISTORIA ECLESIASTICA INDIANA
written in 1596
not published until 1870
https://archive.org/stream/historiaeclesis00mendgoog#page/n6/mode/2up
It is divided into five books.
The first book,
consisting of seventeen chapters and a prologue,
treats
"Of the introduction of the Gospel and the Christian religion in the islands of Española
and the neighbouring regions which were first discovered".
The second,
containing forty-one chapters and a prologue,
tells "Of the rites and customs of the Indians of New Spain and their infidelity".
The third,
containing sixty chapters and a prologue,
treats "Of the manner in which the Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ
was introduced and planted among the Indians of New Spain".
The fourth,
containing forty-six chapters and a prologue, treats
"Of the improvement of the Indians of New Spain and the progress of their conversion."
The fifth book
is divided into two parts: the first contains fifty-eight chapters,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10185a.htm
SOURCES
MENDIETA, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana (Mexico, 1870);
ICAZBALCETA, Obras (Mexico, 1905);
BERISTAIN, Biblioteca hispano-americana septentrional (Amecameca, 1883);
BETANCOURT,Menologio franciscano (Mexico, 1873).
A Spanish account on the origin of the huehuetl and tepo as divine beings sent to earth
Mendieta came to Mexico as a youth of nineteen, and immediately
began the study of Nahuatl, which he learned to speak with signal "elegance."
He was commissioned by his order to prepare a history of the
Indians and started the Historic Eclesidstica Indiana in 1571 ;
the pressure of missionary duties,
the involvement in unforeseen administrative
responsibilities, and the interruption caused by a prolonged journey back
to Spain, delayed its completion, however, until 1596.
Mendieta tells us (b the extract offered below) that the Aztecs assribed a divine
origin to their two most important instruments,
the teponaztli
and
the huehuetl.
The legendary account concerning the origin of these instruments runs like this:
Teponaztli and Huehuetl were originally divine beings dwelling at the court of the Sun.
A priestly messenger from earth invaded the heavenly precincts and poured forth in
song the story of man's grief.
The Sun, however, forbade his servitors to listen to the earthly messenger.
Teponaztli and Huehuetl disobeyed the Sun,
and for their disobedience were expelled from the
heavens.
They fell to earth and assumed the form of musical instruments.
Ever since their expulsion from the skies they have assuaged man's
grief with the sound of their music.
This legendary account is interesting if for no other reason than because
it helps explain why the ancient Mexicans thought a magic power
(having nothing to do with music) inhered in their instruments.
Since they thought the teponaztli and huehuetl were actually divine beings temporarily condemned
to earthly exile, they treated these instruments as idols.
Even today the INDIGENA in certain out-of-the-way places still hoard their teponaztlis,
and venerate them as if they were sacred objects.
The Church has, of course, tried to extirpate such vestiges of idolatry, but many contemporary
Indians, like their pre-Conquest forbears, still ascribe mana
to their teponaztlis and huehuetls and the Church's campaign against
idolatry has therefore not achieved full success.
Rodney Gallop
(whose article on "The Music of Indian Mexico" appeared in the April, 1939, Musical Quarterly)
reported several cases, all of which he had seen at first hand, involving the superstitious veneration
of teponaztlis.
According to Gallop,
"There is a suspicion of idolatry in the reverence paid to the drums
of San Juan Acingo, Tepoztlan, and Xico, which comes out even more strongly in other
parts of the Sierras of Puebla and Hidalgo."
Gallop continued by citing the case of an Aztec village, named Xolotla,
where the chief sorcerer (sorcerer - probably a priest or a shaman???)
guarded a teponaztli which he kept wrapped in a garment, as if it were
something human needing protection.
The sorcerer,furthermore, called his teponaztli by a human name.
"When the priest's back is turned this drum is sometimes
smuggled into the village church and hidden behind the altar."
The legendary account Mendieta gives also helps us understand how
the Aztec priests acquired so terrible a stranglehold on the Aztec mind.
In this story of the bringing of musical instruments as in other stories of
other boons, the priests always pictured themselves as the bringers of every
good gift man possesses.
With music as with maize, the gift of the gods was only secured through the intercession
of a priest in sorrowing man's behalf.
For the details of the legend which follows, Mendieta cited the authority
of a pioneer Nahuatl grammarian, Fray Andres de Olmos.
mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/islandora/object/pintura%3A3970
Seeing that they were utterly unable to prevail in their struggle with
the newly-created Sun, the old gods of Teotihuacan in desperation decided
to sacrifice themselves.
Xolotl, the appointed sacrificer,
opened each of their breasts with a large knife
and drew out the heart;
he then killed himself
By their deaths, the Sun's anger was appeased.
Each god bequeathed his sacred clothing to a priest who had worshipped
him. Realizing the great weight of their responsibility for such sacred relics,
the priests guarded the vestments most zealously. Their grief, however,
on account of the deaths of their gods was not assuaged even though they
now had in their possession the sacred vestments. Their grief instead of
abating, in time grew insupportable, and they therefore decided to undertake
a pilgrimage, hoping that somewhere they might find solace for their
anguish.
After wandering about together for a time, they separated and one
priest traveled toward the seacoast.
When he arrived at the ocean he met there Tezcatlipoca, lord of being,
who instructed him to proceed onward to the Court of the Sun,
and there to beg the Sun for musical instruments.
With songs and musical instruments man would be able fittingly to praise
his new gods.
In order to assist him in this long journey to the Court of the Sun,
various animals in the sea, among them the tortoise, the whale, and the
sea-cow, formed themselves into a bridge so that the grief stricken priest
might pass over them.
When the priest arrived at the Court of the Sun,
he explained the motive of his visit.
The Sun, however, not wishing to
diminish his own retinue of followers, forbade any of his servitors to listen
to the priest's entreaties.
But so eloquently and earnestly did the earthly messenger make his
plea that two servants of the Sun, the one named Huehuetl and the other
Teponazdi, disobeyed and listened.
For their presumption in disobeying him, the Sun cast them forth from his presence in disgrace.
They then accompanied the priest in his return to earth.
But the sound of the huehuetl and teponaztli must forever remain
sorrowful; because forever they remember the sorrow they felt when
first they heard the story of man's extremity, as the priest told it in heaven.
If man's anguish because the gods of Teotihuacan are dead has now
abated and if instead he has learned how to dance and make merry in
song and dance, the sounds of the huehuetl and teponaztli still continue
to remind him of the sighs Huehuetl and Teponaztli long ago breathed
in heaven when first they heard the sad entreaties of the earthly messenger
(1525-1604)
A HISTORIA ECLESIASTICA INDIANA
written in 1596
not published until 1870
https://archive.org/stream/historiaeclesis00mendgoog#page/n6/mode/2up
It is divided into five books.
The first book,
consisting of seventeen chapters and a prologue,
treats
"Of the introduction of the Gospel and the Christian religion in the islands of Española
and the neighbouring regions which were first discovered".
The second,
containing forty-one chapters and a prologue,
tells "Of the rites and customs of the Indians of New Spain and their infidelity".
The third,
containing sixty chapters and a prologue,
treats "Of the manner in which the Faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ
was introduced and planted among the Indians of New Spain".
The fourth,
containing forty-six chapters and a prologue, treats
"Of the improvement of the Indians of New Spain and the progress of their conversion."
The fifth book
is divided into two parts: the first contains fifty-eight chapters,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10185a.htm
SOURCES
MENDIETA, Historia Eclesiástica Indiana (Mexico, 1870);
ICAZBALCETA, Obras (Mexico, 1905);
BERISTAIN, Biblioteca hispano-americana septentrional (Amecameca, 1883);
BETANCOURT,Menologio franciscano (Mexico, 1873).
A Spanish account on the origin of the huehuetl and tepo as divine beings sent to earth
Mendieta came to Mexico as a youth of nineteen, and immediately
began the study of Nahuatl, which he learned to speak with signal "elegance."
He was commissioned by his order to prepare a history of the
Indians and started the Historic Eclesidstica Indiana in 1571 ;
the pressure of missionary duties,
the involvement in unforeseen administrative
responsibilities, and the interruption caused by a prolonged journey back
to Spain, delayed its completion, however, until 1596.
Mendieta tells us (b the extract offered below) that the Aztecs assribed a divine
origin to their two most important instruments,
the teponaztli
and
the huehuetl.
The legendary account concerning the origin of these instruments runs like this:
Teponaztli and Huehuetl were originally divine beings dwelling at the court of the Sun.
A priestly messenger from earth invaded the heavenly precincts and poured forth in
song the story of man's grief.
The Sun, however, forbade his servitors to listen to the earthly messenger.
Teponaztli and Huehuetl disobeyed the Sun,
and for their disobedience were expelled from the
heavens.
They fell to earth and assumed the form of musical instruments.
Ever since their expulsion from the skies they have assuaged man's
grief with the sound of their music.
This legendary account is interesting if for no other reason than because
it helps explain why the ancient Mexicans thought a magic power
(having nothing to do with music) inhered in their instruments.
Since they thought the teponaztli and huehuetl were actually divine beings temporarily condemned
to earthly exile, they treated these instruments as idols.
Even today the INDIGENA in certain out-of-the-way places still hoard their teponaztlis,
and venerate them as if they were sacred objects.
The Church has, of course, tried to extirpate such vestiges of idolatry, but many contemporary
Indians, like their pre-Conquest forbears, still ascribe mana
to their teponaztlis and huehuetls and the Church's campaign against
idolatry has therefore not achieved full success.
Rodney Gallop
(whose article on "The Music of Indian Mexico" appeared in the April, 1939, Musical Quarterly)
reported several cases, all of which he had seen at first hand, involving the superstitious veneration
of teponaztlis.
According to Gallop,
"There is a suspicion of idolatry in the reverence paid to the drums
of San Juan Acingo, Tepoztlan, and Xico, which comes out even more strongly in other
parts of the Sierras of Puebla and Hidalgo."
Gallop continued by citing the case of an Aztec village, named Xolotla,
where the chief sorcerer (sorcerer - probably a priest or a shaman???)
guarded a teponaztli which he kept wrapped in a garment, as if it were
something human needing protection.
The sorcerer,furthermore, called his teponaztli by a human name.
"When the priest's back is turned this drum is sometimes
smuggled into the village church and hidden behind the altar."
The legendary account Mendieta gives also helps us understand how
the Aztec priests acquired so terrible a stranglehold on the Aztec mind.
In this story of the bringing of musical instruments as in other stories of
other boons, the priests always pictured themselves as the bringers of every
good gift man possesses.
With music as with maize, the gift of the gods was only secured through the intercession
of a priest in sorrowing man's behalf.
For the details of the legend which follows, Mendieta cited the authority
of a pioneer Nahuatl grammarian, Fray Andres de Olmos.
mediateca.inah.gob.mx/repositorio/islandora/object/pintura%3A3970
Seeing that they were utterly unable to prevail in their struggle with
the newly-created Sun, the old gods of Teotihuacan in desperation decided
to sacrifice themselves.
Xolotl, the appointed sacrificer,
opened each of their breasts with a large knife
and drew out the heart;
he then killed himself
By their deaths, the Sun's anger was appeased.
Each god bequeathed his sacred clothing to a priest who had worshipped
him. Realizing the great weight of their responsibility for such sacred relics,
the priests guarded the vestments most zealously. Their grief, however,
on account of the deaths of their gods was not assuaged even though they
now had in their possession the sacred vestments. Their grief instead of
abating, in time grew insupportable, and they therefore decided to undertake
a pilgrimage, hoping that somewhere they might find solace for their
anguish.
After wandering about together for a time, they separated and one
priest traveled toward the seacoast.
When he arrived at the ocean he met there Tezcatlipoca, lord of being,
who instructed him to proceed onward to the Court of the Sun,
and there to beg the Sun for musical instruments.
With songs and musical instruments man would be able fittingly to praise
his new gods.
In order to assist him in this long journey to the Court of the Sun,
various animals in the sea, among them the tortoise, the whale, and the
sea-cow, formed themselves into a bridge so that the grief stricken priest
might pass over them.
When the priest arrived at the Court of the Sun,
he explained the motive of his visit.
The Sun, however, not wishing to
diminish his own retinue of followers, forbade any of his servitors to listen
to the priest's entreaties.
But so eloquently and earnestly did the earthly messenger make his
plea that two servants of the Sun, the one named Huehuetl and the other
Teponazdi, disobeyed and listened.
For their presumption in disobeying him, the Sun cast them forth from his presence in disgrace.
They then accompanied the priest in his return to earth.
But the sound of the huehuetl and teponaztli must forever remain
sorrowful; because forever they remember the sorrow they felt when
first they heard the story of man's extremity, as the priest told it in heaven.
If man's anguish because the gods of Teotihuacan are dead has now
abated and if instead he has learned how to dance and make merry in
song and dance, the sounds of the huehuetl and teponaztli still continue
to remind him of the sighs Huehuetl and Teponaztli long ago breathed
in heaven when first they heard the sad entreaties of the earthly messenger