Mesoamerican artists depicted agonistic inamic unity in a variety of additional ways including spirals, butterflies, olin figures, quincunxes, and face-to-face anthropomorphic figures. To this list Elizabeth Brumfiel adds squiggles, step-frets, zigzags, the coliuhqui (“a curved hill”), the xicalcoliuhqui (step-fret spiral), and ribbons,61 while Esther Pasztory adds undulating figures (such as
Figure 3.3. Aztec life-death sculpture. (Author’s photo.)
Serpents), bicephalous figures,62 and figures involving “opposition, pairing, and intertwining.”63
Painter-scribes standardly depicted agonistic inamic unity by means of face-to-face marriage partners and face-to-face binomial deity pairs. Codex Mendoza (fol. 61r) portrays bride and groom sitting face-to-face (see Figure 3.1). Codex Borbonicus (pl. 21) depicts the married couple, Cipactonal~Oxomoco, in the same fashion.64 The post-Conquest pictorial censuses of Tepetlaoztoc found in the Codice de Santa Marta Asuncion and Codex Vergara depict household heads and wives facing one another.65 Codex Borbonicus (pl. 22) depicts the inamic deities Quetzalcoatl~Tezcatlipoca face-to-face (see Figure 3.4).66 Codex Fejervdry-Mayer depicts a number of binomial deity pairs in this fashion, including Chicomecoatl~Cinteotl (pl. 36), Tonacacihuatl~Tonacatecuhtli (pl. 24), Red Tezcatlipoca~Blue Tezcatlipoca (pl. 25), and Xochiquetzal~Xochipilli (pl. 35).67 Codex Borgia (pl. 56) depicts Quetzalcoatl~Mictlantecuhtli matched back-to-back as though sharing a common spine, much in the way two fields share a common stone-wall boundary (see Figure 3.5).68
Aztec artists also depicted agonistic inamic unity by means of intertwining, pairing, and opposition motifs that Brumfiel calls “oscillating motion or reciprocal motifs.”69 The motifs adorn woven fabric, spinning whorls, ceramic flat and cylindrical stamps, plates and bowls, codices, and architectural constructions. They include spirals, S-spirals (xonecuilli), the olin, zigzags, step-frets, the coli-uhqui (a curved hill), the xicalcoliuhqui (a step-fret spiral), cutaway shells, the
Figure 3.4. Quetzalcoatl~Tezcatlipoca. fCodex Borbonicus [Loubat 1899: pl. 22]; courtesy of Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc.)
Patolli (board game), quincunx (cruciform), and squiggles. These motifs depict simultaneous inward-and-outward, coming-and-going, and back-and-forth reciprocal motion and hence the ambiguous motion of agonistic inamic unity. Many of these motifs exhibit the figure-ground phenomenon of alternating perceived images exhibited by Gestalt figures such as Rubin’s vase, the Necker cube, and the duck/rabbit (see Figure i. i).7° Both Gestalt figures and agonistic inamic unity motifs are ambiguous. Consider the xicalcoliuhqui motif (see Figures 3.6 and 3.7). By visually switching from white figure and black ground to black figure and white ground, one perceives the motif’s undulating motion moving either from left to right or from right to left. One also perceives the reciprocal interlocking or spinning together of downward-hanging white frets and upward-rising black frets. This creates a dynamic tension and dynamic unity.
Figure 3.5. Mictiantecuhtii-Quetzaicoat! fCodex Borgia [1993: pl. 73]; courtesy of Dover Press.)
Spiral motifs function the same way. They are ambiguous since they simultaneously exhibit inward and outward motion. Like the xicalcoliuhqui, they express the mutual spinning together and hence unifying of white and black agonistic inamic partners (see Figure 3.8). The same may be said of the cutaway shell motif displayed most prominently by Quetzalcoatl and the almenas (crenellated battlements) atop the calmecac (the temple school where young people were trained to become priests) of Tenochtitlan (see Figure 3.9).71
Aztec sculptors presented the ambiguity of inamic unified twoness using bicephalous figures such as the statue of Coatlicue (“Skirt of Serpents”).72 Coatlicue’s single face is formed by two facing snakes. When looking at the statue, one experiences a Gestalt figure-ground effect, the statue alternating
Figure 3.6. Xicalcoliuhqui. (Enciso [1953:32, fig. iii]; courtesy of Dover Press.)
Figure 3.7. Xicalcoliuhqui. (Enciso [1953:21, fig. i]; courtesy of Dover Press.)
Figure 3.8. Spiral. (Enciso [1953:13, fig. ii]; courtesy of Dover Press.)
Between perceiving a forward-facing, two-eyed Coatlicue, and two singleeyed, face-to-face snakes. The statue unites in dynamic reciprocal tension female~male, death~life, and so on. It not only symbolizes but also embodies agonistic inamic unity.
Figure 3.9. Cutaway shell. (Enciso [1974: Figure 166]; courtesy of Dover Press.)
Turning to architecture, Johanna Broda, David Carrasco, and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma argue the combination of the Templo Mayor’s architectural design, twin temples to Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, directional orientation, adornments, and ritual objects captured continuous and simultaneous ascending and descending reciprocal motion and influence as well as continuous and simultaneous centering and peripheral reciprocal motion and influence.73 The Templo Mayor not only depicted but also embodied agonistic inamic unity in all its aspects: death-life, agriculture-war, and so on.
3.5. ABSTRACT INAMIC PAIRS
Agonistic inamic unity includes more abstract notions such as being-nonbeing, order-disorder, arrangement-derangement, regeneration-degeneration, creation-destruction, and integration-disintegration. These are parallel aligned with male-female, life-death, hot-cold, dry-wet, and so on. Nonbeing, disorder, and derangement fall on the “Mother” side of Lopez Austin’s alignment, while being, order, and arrangement fall on the “Father” side. Let’s examine two of these: being-nonbeing and order-disorder. What is true of these two is true mutatis mutandis of the others.
Being and nonbeing (existence-nonexistence) are inamically matched and inseparably bound to one another both metaphysically and conceptually. They are neither contraries nor contradictories; nor are they conceptually., metaphysically., or temporally prior to one another. Neither can exist without the other. They
Are mutually arising, dependent, and complementary while at the same time mutually agonistic. Each complements, completes, and competes with the other. Each nourishes and engenders the other while also struggling to undermine and dominate the other. Yet neither struggles to extinguish the other. Each continually flows and transmutes into as well as emerges from the other.
The agonistic unity of being~nonbeing characterizes all things. Consequently all things are ineliminably ambiguous with being and nonbeing. Nothing is exclusively being or nonbeing; nothing is characterized by pure being or pure nonbeing. Teotl, reality, and the entire cosmos are at bottom metaphysically ambiguous. Agonistic inamic unity therefore rejects the fundamental metaphysical intuition shaping Western philosophy since Plato that maintains that that which is real is by definition pure, unambiguous, and unmixed. Only appearances are ambiguous. According to this view, the apparent ambiguity of reality is therefore by necessity eliminated upon correctly understanding reality. For Aztec metaphysics, by contrast, both being and nonbeing are ineliminable aspects of teotl and reality. What’s more, being and nonbeing are both positive and negative. Since being feeds off nonbeing, it may be said to have a negative aspect. Since nonbeing nurtures and engenders being, it may be said to have a positive aspect. Since all things are characterized by both being and nonbeing, all things have both positive and negative aspects in this respect.
The continuous agonism of being~nonbeing results in a tertium quid: continuous becoming. Everything is defined by continuous becoming. The continuing agonism of being~nonbeing results in a second tertium quid: continuous transformation. Everything is simultaneously defined by continuous transforming. Becoming and transforming are nothing other than the continuous self-becoming and selftransforming of teotl. The cosmos and all its inhabitants are defined by continuous becoming and transformation. As a consequence, reality contains no immutable or permanent entities, structures, or arrangements. Everything that teotl generates out of itself is by nature dynamic, unstable, and transient.
Becoming and transformation are simultaneously creative and destructive. Just as life emerges from death (and conversely), creation emerges from destruction (and conversely). Creation and destruction are inamically bound together. Creating something necessarily involves destroying something. Beginning to be something new necessarily involves ceasing to be something previous. Transformation from one thing into another likewise necessarily involves destroying some previous thing. Creation and transformation do not arise from nothing.
Although each moment in the agonistic tug-of-war between being and nonbeing consists of the temporary dominance of one or other inamic and therefore an imbalance, in the long run their tug-of-war creates an overarching
Diachronic and dynamic balance. By weaving together being and nonbeing, teotl generates itself and aU things. The pattern of teotl’s weaving is nothing other than agonistic inamic unity. It is immanent and nonhierarchical.
In sum, the ceaseless becoming and transformation of teotl consists of the ceaseless agonism of being~nonbeing. Teotl’s self-becoming and self-transforming - that is, its self-creating, - destroying, and - recreating - consists of the continual weaving together and commingling of being and nonbeing. Like the life~death masks discussed earlier, teotl is neither being nor nonbeing yet it is simultaneously both being and nonbeing. It neither is nor is not - yet it both is and is not. As David Hall explains regarding the dao, “only becoming (coming into being which illustrates some mixture of being and nonbeing) is; not-becoming (either being or nonbeing abstracted away from its polar relation with its opposite) is not.”74
Consider next order~disorder (ordering energy~disordering energy). As inamic partners order and disorder are bound together in an endless back-and-forth struggle. Neither is conceptually, metaphysically, or temporally prior to the other. They are mutually competitive, complementary, and completing. Order competes with disorder yet emerges from disorder, just as disorder competes with order yet emerges from order. Each continually flows into the other and transmutes into the other. As Burkhart writes, “Entropic forces [erode] order, but [are] themselves fertile and energizing, providing the substance for new establishments of order.”75 The agonistic unity of order~disorder characterizes teotl, reality, and all things in the cosmos. Teotl, reality, and all things are thus irreducibly ambiguous with order and disorder. Nothing is wholly orderly or wholly disorderly. Like the life~death masks above, teotl is neither orderly nor disorderly yet it is at the same time both orderly and disorderly. Order and disorder are ineliminable features of teotl, reality, and cosmos.
The continuous dialectical struggle of order~disorder, like that of being~ nonbeing, results in its own tertium quid: an overarching second-order pattern or ordering of first-order ordering~disordering. This second-order pattern or ordering is immanent. Unfortunately we have no word in English like becoming that refers to such a tertium quid. Although unorder looks promising, it is too close in meaning to disorder. The metaphysics of ordinary English gets in our way. In what follows I therefore use order and disorder simpliciter to refer to first-order order and first-order disorder, respectively. It is first-order order and first-order disorder that constitute an inamic pair. When it becomes necessary to write of second-order order, I explicitly indicate it as such.
Order and being are unstable, short-lived, and impermanent. And thus we arrive yet again at the ineluctable evanescence and instability of all ordered
Things, from trees, houses, and humans to cosmic eras. Disorder is constantly subverting order. Disordering, degenerating, disintegrating, deranging, and decomposing forces are metaphysically fundamental and ineliminable. This fact gives rise to one of the defining characteristics of human existence: the Fifth Sun-Earth Ordering is a perilous habitat for humans. It is “slippery,” as a Nahua proverb recorded by Sahagun puts it.76 Life on earth is slippery because order and being are always sliding into disorder and nonbeing. The existence and well-orderedness of the things upon which humans depend slip away from under their feet, causing them to lose their balance and suffer pain, hunger, thirst, sorrow, disease, and death.
This fact contributes to a second defining characteristic of human existence: the epistemological inability of humans to fully comprehend reality (teotl).77 Although the agonism of order~disorder, being~nonbeing, and so on is rhythmically patterned, humans are nevertheless unable to know with certainty at any given locus in time and place whether or not - and if so, to what extent - order and being will collapse into disorder and nonbeing. It is impossible to know precisely when disorder and nonbeing will erupt and undermine order and being. This epistemological shortcoming contributes to the peril of human existence. When undertaking any kind of project - be it planting corn, getting married, going to war, or embarking upon a trading expedition - it is impossible to know one’s exact location in the periodic, pendulum-like swinging of cosmic inamic partners. Is one embarking on the cusp of order and generation or that of disorder and degeneration? Are ordering or disordering forces in ebb or in flow? Reality is ultimately unknowable and hence unpredictable.
I refer to the ineliminable uncertainty and unpredictability of reality as the Tezcatlipoca factor. The inamic “deity” pair Quetzalcoatl~Tezcatlipoca represents the creative~destructive and generative~degenerative forces whose continuing agon defines the becoming of reality.78 The Aztecs saw the becoming of the cosmos as the product of the ongoing inamic struggle between the generative, ordering forces of Quetzalcoatl, on the one hand, and the degenerative, disordering forces of Tezcatlipoca, on the other. Quetzalcoatl represents the forces of generation, creation, being, ordering, arrangement, and hence creative transformation. Tezcatlipoca represents the forces of degeneration, destruction, nonbeing, disorder, derangement, and hence destructive transformation. Tezcatlipoca represents forces that at any moment erupt in our lives, subverting being and order and so sabotaging our endeavors. “Tezcatlipoca, “ writes McKeever Furst, “introduced random and unexpected occurrences into the universe.”79 Tezcatlipoca is also associated with dust, filth, pollution, and tlazolli.
To be in Tezcatlipoca’s presence is to be in a dangerously slippery place.80 And humans are always in his presence!
Tezcatlipoca is accordingly said to mock, ridicule, laugh at, and play sport with humans. Tezcatlipoca thus reminds us of the role of chance in our lives and of the consequent “slipperiness” of life on the surface of the earth. I interpret this as the upshot of the following passage from Book VI of the Florentine Codex: “Our Master, the Lord of the Close Vicinity, thinks and does what He wishes; He determines, He amuses himself. As He wishes, so will it be. In the palm of His hand He has us; at His will He shifts us around. We shift around, like marbles we roll; He rolls us around endlessly. We are but toys to Him; He laughs at us.”81 Chance, uncertainty, and unpredictability are ineliminable elements of our lives.
World History
