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| Quetzalcoatl's Virgin Birth |
Mendieta reports a conversation between a Spanish priest and an old Indian. The topic of conversation is an
indigenous sacred book. "... and when this priest asked the Indian what the book contained of his doctrine, he did not know how
to reply in particular, but from what he responded, if that book had not been lost, [the priest] would have seen
how the doctrine which he taught and preached to them and that which the book contained were the same... Also he
said that they knew of the destruction by the flood... They knew also of the mission of the angel to Our Lady,
by a metaphor, saying that a very small object like a feather fell from the heavens, and a virgin picked it up
and placed it over her womb whereupon she became pregnant." (Mendieta, 1971, 538.) This report is second had at best, and may have undergone any number of embellishments before it was recorded
by Mendieta. While the old Indian may have given some syncretized tales, it is also possible that the strong Christian
flavor is the result of the Spanish retelling. For instance, the flood could well have been a completely native
tale of the destruction of one of the earlier creations, which occurred by the fall of the sky which inundated
the earth. Regardless of the distortion, the motif of the virgin birth is reconstructible to the pre-conquest level.
On that level, however, it pertains to a different deity entirely. The god Huitzilopochtli is the subject of a miraculous "virgin" birth. Compare Mendieta's Christian-appearing
tale with the version from Sahagún's native informants: "This same Coatlicue performed penitence by sweeping in the mountains of Coatepec every day. One day while
she was sweeping a small ball of feathers, like a ball of thread, descended to her. She took it an placed it in
her bosom next to her womb, underneath her skirts, and later, after having swept she wished to take it out. She
did not find it and from this it is said that she became pregnant." ( Sahagún, 1969, 1:271.) In this case it is reasonably clear that the native is repeating a part of his own tradition. The interpretation
given by Mendieta enhances its Christian appearance. Nevertheless, this is a story of a virgin birth. Since the
story is given in Mendieta to show the parallels between native religion an Christianity, the story of Huitzilopochtli's
birth becomes Christ's birth of a virgin. As the events of the native tale do not match precisely with those of
the Bible, Mendieta must state that this is the "mission of the angel to Our Lady, by a metaphor." (Mendieta,
1971, 538.) Mendieta's metaphor is an open example of his attempt to fit a native category into his own conception,
even when the two did not completely overlap. It is important to note that while there is a pre-Hispanic myth of a virgin birth, it is Huitzilopochtli's myth,
not Quetzalcoatl's. Native authors never ascribe this myth to Quetzalcoatl, who is typically born of a named father.
The shifting context becomes explicit in the Telleriano Remensis which states: "Quetzalcoatl: It is he who
was born of the virgin named Chimalma (sic), in the heavens." ("Codex Telleriano-Remensis.") In
Antigüedades de México. (Mexico: Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público,
1964), 1:180. This is the gloss on the pictograph of Quetzalcoatl, and contains several inconsistencies. The Telleriano-Remensis is an annotated codex, so it might be assumed to delineate pre-conquest thought. However,
the artistic style is clearly European-influenced, and the nature of the errors in the gloss clearly indicate that
the descriptive text came after significant Spanish development of the Quetzalcoatl material. The name of Quetzalcoatl's mother in this passage (Chimalman) agrees with most sources, but Chimalman is not
a virgin in any other version of the Chimalman myth. The virgin in the Huitzilopochtli myth is Coatlicue, as indicated
above. The Quetzalcoatl myth includes a named father, usually Mixcoatl. In addition, Chimalman is the mother only
in a terrestrial context. The tales of Quetzalcoatl's birth in the heavens is a different myth altogether. The
mixing of elements in this gloss, as well as the ascription of the Spanish-influenced notion of the virgin birth
for Quetzalcoatl clearly suggest that this gloss is due to a later Spanish distortion of the native material. The virgin birth of Huitzilopochtli was borrowed by the Spaniards, removed from its original context, and reattached
to Quetzalcoatl much later in the Christianizing process. Since the virgin birth is an important Christian theme,
the writers eventually tagged it onto the Quetzalcoatl material, as in all other ways, Quetzalcoatl appeared most
Christian.
There are several
versions of the birth of Quetzalcoatl, ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, each one listing one of three
names as the father of Quetzalcoatl. However, the most important native myth linking the natives to Christianity
was not these stories, as miraculous as they were. For the Spaniards, the most important find was the myth of the
virgin birth.
by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998
