Aztec metaphysics sees the vertical ordering of the cosmos during each of the five Sun-Earth Ages as consisting of three basic regions: upper, middle, and lower.96 However, the cosmos was not always ordered in this way. As we saw in chapter 7, at first the cosmos consisted entirely of the primordial inamic male~female unity: Ometeotl, Ometecuhtli~Omecihuatl, or Tonacatecuhtli~ Tonacacihuatl. Neither middle layer (Sun, Earth) nor lower layer (Mictlan) existed. Over the course of Ometeotl’s self-unfolding, the cosmos became vertically layered and its vertical layering became more complex. There became three basic regions.
The three regions of the cosmos of the Fifth Sun-Earth Ordering are counted in several different ways. According to one, the three regions consist of thirteen upper or celestial layers, Tlalticpac (the earthly layer), and nine lower layers (Mictlan).97 According to a second, the upper region consists of nine layers. The first four layers above Tlalticpac - Ilhuicatl of Tlalocan and Metztli (the Moon), Ilhuicatl of Citlalicue (Skirt of Stars), Ilhuicatl of Tonatiuh (the Sun), and Ilhuicatl of Huixtotlan (Salt-Fertility Goddess)98 - are not genuinely celestial but assigned instead to the middle region along with Tlalticpac.99 By this reckoning, the nine layers above the middle realm parallel the nine layers below. By yet another way of reckoning, the earth constitutes the first layer of both the ascending and the descending counts. The earth is the first layer of the upperworld as well as the first layer of the underworld.100 This manner of reckoning nicely captures the inamic ambiguity of the earth as nepantla-defined confluence of ascending~descending forces along with its parallel inamic partners. The earthly layer, the habitat of humans, is constantly awash in two kinds of sacred forces: those originating in and descending from the upper realm (male, dry, hot, etc.) and those originating in and ascending from the under realm (female, wet, cold, etc.). These are none other than the basic agonistic inamichuan of Aztec metaphysics. They constitute those forces creative of and essential to life (e. g., tonalli, heat, teyolia, sunshine, spring water, agricultural fertility, and rain) as well as those forces detrimental to and destructive of life (e. g., drought, heat wave, agricultural infertility, flood, and disease).
Scholars routinely interpret the illustrations on Codex Vaticanus jyj8 A (fol. rv and 2r) as depicting the vertical layering of the Fifth Age.101 Each layer has its own name and kind of power. Folio rv depicts the celestial layers beginning with the Sky-Place of the Sun, while folio 2r depicts the nine layers under the Earth. Scholars also routinely base their claims about the hierarchical nature of the Aztec cosmos upon these two illustrations and their accompanying text.102 Chapter i however argued Aztec philosophy embraces a monistic and nonhierarchical metaphysics. How does this square with the apparent hierarchical organization of the cosmos suggested by the illustrations on Codex Vaticanus 3738 A (fol. rv and 2r)?
First, illustrations such as these are rather rare among the artwork of both Postclassic and post-Contact central Mexico. In fact, Gillespie argues the twodimensional Postclassic artworks of central Mexico such as the chronotopo-grams of Codex Fejervdry-Mayer (pl. i) and Codex Mendoza (fol. 2r) emphasize the nonhierarchical as opposed to the hierarchical structure of the cosmos of the Fifth Age.103
Second, this artistic emphasis upon the nonhierarchical at the expense of the hierarchical corresponds neatly with the emphasis in Aztec sociopolitical philosophy, moral philosophy, aesthetics, and epistemology upon nonhierarchical horizontal space over hierarchical vertical space. As Louise Burkhart and Wayne Elzey show, Aztec sociopolitical and moral (etc.) notions are configured primarily in terms of the opposition between center and periphery.104 These emphases upon the nonhierarchical are, in turn, consonant with Aztec metaphysics’ emphasis upon immanence over transcendence, becoming over being, and process over substance.
Third, nothing in the aforementioned Codex Vaticanus jyj8 A illustrations themselves - as opposed to the commentaries accompanying them - logically entails a metaphysical hierarchy. Interpreting their visual vertical ordering as a metaphysical hierarchical ordering would appear to rest upon a tacit metaphysical assumption deeply rooted in Western metaphysics and theology: namely, the equivalence of the vertical with the hierarchical.105 According to the latter, higher means better, more real, and more perfect, whereas lower means worse, less real, and less perfect. Yet I see no reasons for attributing this assumption to Aztec metaphysics.106
But if not hierarchically, how then does Aztec metaphysics interpret the vertical ordering of the cosmos? Aztec metaphysics conceives the vertical layers of the cosmos as folded layers or lengths of a single cloth or blanket, and therefore as ontologically homogenous. The vertical layers of the cosmos are nothing more than folds in a single, ontologically homogeneous stuff: teotl as energy-in-motion. The thirteen celestial levels above and nine levels below Tlalticpac do not constitute a hierarchy of ontologically graded levels or degrees of being, purity, perfection, mutability, and inactivity. Each fold represents a different aspect of teotl’s energy. Higher folds are not more real or more sacred than lower folds. The respective names for upper and lower realms - chicnauhtopan (“nine that are above us”) and chicnauhmictlan (“nine places of death”) - by no means entail a hierarchy.107 Nor, for that matter, does the name, topan, mictlan (“what is above us, what is below us” or “the beyond” (el mas alla)l°°‘ Aztec metaphysics does not therefore construe the layers along the lines of Arthur Lovejoy’s notions of “the great chain of being” or “great scale of being” - an organizing metaphor that has influenced Western religious and secular metaphysics since Plato.109 Briefly put, altitude (up, down) does not translate into qualitative metaphysical difference; and vertical layering does not entail a hierarchical metaphysics.
Duran reports that Nezahualpilli spoke of the “nine folds of the heavens” in a speech addressed to Moctezuma II.110 Molina however explains that heavens (cielos) are among the items that are counted using the special Nahuatl numeral classifier tlamantli (“a thing that has been set down”), which is used for counting things that can be doubled over, layered, or piled upon one another.111 Other things in this category are blankets, bowls, pairs of sandals, plates, conversations, and sermons. Such things are typically but not exclusively flat. The use of this numeral classifier supports the idea that Aztec cosmologists conceived the vertical ordering of the cosmos as a single homogeneous stuff folded over
Upon itself in the manner of cloth or blanket - rather than as a set of ascending and hierarchically ordered heterogeneous substances stacked on top of one another.
What does the linguistic evidence suggest? The Nahuatl term meaning “to line or cover something, or fold a blanket, or to join one with another” is ixnepa-noa.112 Given the centrality of nepantla-processes in the making of the cosmos, it should not surprise us that ixnepanoa is a member of the nepantla semantic cluster. Chapter 6 quoted a speech delivered by a midwife upon the occasion of the ritual bathing of a newborn. In it she declares the newborn to have been conceived in Omeyocan (the place of duality), Chicnauhnepaniuhcan, the residence of Omecihuatl and Ometecuhtli.113 The speech identifies Chicnauhnepaniuhcan with Omeyocan, the double heaven occupying the twelfth and thirteenth layers of the cosmos that, according to Lopez Austin, is sometimes identified with Tamoanchan.114 Chapter 6 argued that nepantla motion-change defines Chicnauhnepaniuhcan, Tamoanchan, and Omeyocan; that nepantla motion-change functions as the crucial element in creation miracles; and that nepantla motion-change defines Tamoanchan’s process of “marvelous crossing” and hence the highest level of the cosmos, Omeyocan. I interpreted the series of nine superimposed, united, and continuous figures suggested by the name Chicnauhnepaniuhcan as a series of nine, nepantla-defined interweavings. I suggest we now add foldings-over. There is no evidence here of an ontologically graded hierarchy.
Let’s look more closely at the word ilhuicatl, which is routinely translated as “sky” and in early post-Conquest literature is standardly used to mean “heaven” and “celestial.”115 As we saw in chapter 7, Lopez Austin translates il as “curve,” “turn,” and “return.”116 Other il-prefixed words include ilacatzoa (“to roll up”), ilpia (“to tie”), ilacatziuhqui (“twisted thing”), ilacatziui (“for something like the point of an awl or something similar to twist”), quauilacatzoa (“to play with a rod with one’s feet, or to twist and join plants together”), ilacatzoa (“to roll up a blanket, mat, piece of paper or something similar or to wind up thread or string on one’s finger” and “for a snake to wrap itself around a tree”), and teteuilacachtic (“whirlwind or something similar”).117 This semantic cluster suggests the Aztecs conceived the cosmos as a single, ontologically uniform substance that is folded, rounded, or rolled up like a blanket or mat.
In light of such considerations Klein writes, “In the end the infinite strands of the universe [were] seen as integrated into a giant pile of cloth.”118 She includes a figure that I interpret as illustrating the cosmos of the Fifth Age (see Figure 8.8). Contemporary indigenous women in Mexico fold their wrap-around skirts using a variety of methods resembling Klein’s illustration. Cordry and Cordry
Record some fifteen of these.119 One that is especially suggestive is depicted in Figure 8.9.
Figure 8.8. The folds of the cosmos. (Redrawn from Klein [1982: Figure 16].)
Matos Moctezuma suggests the vertical architectural arrangement of the Templo Mayor reproduced the vertical arrangement of the cosmos.120 The pyramid rested upon a platform that was raised above the floor of the Sacred Precinct. This platform represented the earthly plane, Tlalticpac. The pyramid’s superstructure represented the levels above the earthly plane. The topmost level represented Omeyocan. The lower levels of the Underworld extend from the platform to the floor of the Sacred Precinct, upon which the platform rested. The Templo Mayor’s vertical arrangement, however, does not entail that the Aztecs conceived these levels as an ontologically graded hierarchy. According to Felix Baez-Jorge and Arturo Gomez Martinez, contemporary Nahuatl-speakers in Chicontepec similarly reproduce the vertical arrangement of the cosmos with quadrangular altars. The altar’s top layer represents the heavens, its middle represents the earth, and the floor represents the underworld.121 There is no indication that they conceive the cosmos in an ontologically hierarchical manner.
World History
