waTeR and The sacRed ciTy • 45in central Mexican origin histories. The Nahua believed
that the world had existed in four previous incarnations,
each called a “sun” and each ending in calamity. One of
these worlds, or suns, had come to an end in a great watery
flood, and it was named for the day it ended: 4 Rainstorm,
or nahui quiyahuitl. Its patron was none other than Chal-
chiuhtlicue. Tlaloc was the patron of the sun that ended
in a great rain of fire, a sun named for the day on which it
ended, 4 Water, or nahui atl. The present world, 4 Move-
ment, or nahui olin, it was believed, will come to an end at
the future date of 4 Movement, in a great earthquake.
We have seen how, on one hand, Chalchiuhtlicue’s asso-
ciation with watery violence grew out of daily experience
within Tenochtitlan, as over the years the Mexica encoun-
tered floods that threatened to wash away their island city.
On the other hand, Mexica rulers, who often dressed as
Huitzilopochtli to show their close identification with the
Mexica tribal deity, connected themselves to the water-
controlling hydraulic works necessary for the stable altepetl.
The need for male deities to dominate and tame a danger-
ous female space finds echoes in a Mexica story of origins.
In the Histoyre du Mechique, a history of the beginning
of the earth written down in the sixteenth century (and
surviving through a French translation), the creation of the
habitable world is made possible only through the violent
sacrifice by dismemberment of Tlaltecuhtli, the earth deity
who is presented as a female, by two male deities, Quetzal-
coatl and Tezcatlipoca, who transform themselves into ser-
pents and rip her apart to create the earth. “After this was
done, to repay this earth goddess for the damage that the
two gods had done to her, all the gods descended to console
her and they commanded that from her all the fruits of
the earth necessary for mankind should come.” 62 Similar
sacrifices mark other creation stories from central Mexico,
as the Mexica well understood that fundamental acts of
violence underlay the creation of their world. However, for
the Mexica, it was particularly the conquest of female dei-
ties like Tlaltecuhtli and Coyol xauhqui that brought about
an ordered world. And these templates would be extended
to Chalchiuhtlicue and her physical manifestation, the sur-
rounding lake.
The TeocaLLi of sacRed waRfaRe
Understanding the cosmic templates that the Mexica drew
on to conceptualize the surrounding environment allows
us to reconsider one of the most important pre-Hispanic
representations of the city of Tenochtitlan, the back face
of the throne of Moteuczoma II, the Mexica ruler who
greeted Cortés in 1519 (figures 2.13, 2.14, and 2.15). Upon
its discovery in 1926, the work was christened the “ Teocalli
[temple] of Sacred Warfare” by Alfonso Caso, a name still
in common use today; writing a half century later, Emily
Umberger rechristened it “Moteuczoma’s Throne.” These
names given to the work reflect the interpretive frame that
each of these authors constructed for the sculpture, briefly
summarized here. Caso saw in the carved images a unify-
ing statement of Mexica religious practices, arguing that
they expressed two entwined ideas: a solar cult and sacred
warfare. In believing that the sun demanded human sac-
rifices in order to rise and set every day, the Mexica were
compelled to provide the offerings that propelled the sun
across the sky; their quest for sacrificial victims led them
to continually engage in warfare. 63 The sun’s presence is
seen by the solar disk at the top of the monument, and
the practice of this “sacred warfare” is made manifest in the
lower iconography, of whose bellicose nature Caso left little
doubt: on each of its lateral sides are arrayed two seated
deities in martial garb, holding spines to pierce themselves
in ritual bloodletting; the twisting symbol streaming from
their skeletal mouths combines atl (water) with tlachinolli
(burnt thing) to convey “war.” The iconography bears up
Caso’s argument that the Teocalli’s main iconographic
theme is sacred warfare, which, not incidentally, allowed
the Mexica to keep up a juggernaut imperial expansion.
Certainly, for any Mexica viewer of this symbol, the
tlachinolli symbol would be easily associated with warfare.
After all, the sign of capitulation of a polity conquered by
the Mexica was the burning of its temple. In the Codex
Mendoza’s account of the history of conquests of the
Mexica emperors, the pages are filled with images of tem-
ple structures with their thatched roofs pushed off their
supports and emitting red- and yellow-tipped flames (see
figure 1.4). The roof-burning of the principal temple of an
altepetl was not only a symbol for conquest on the manu-
script page, but a lived event as well. When a temple roof
was burnt it would send out a smoky plume that would
make the altepetl’s defeat visible for miles around.
Umberger’s more recent interpretation of the Teocalli
shifts emphasis from the general practice of warfare by
the Mexica to the particular role of the ruler among them.
She argues that the work, which is forty-eight inches high,
served as a seat, or throne, for the ruler. It took the form
of the Templo Mayor, which had a steep staircase running