68 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
his headdress (seen also in the Codex Borbonicus image);
like the priest that Durán describes, he wears “a diadem
made of white heron feathers,” and on side B, the marking
around his mouth may be the “liquid rubber” that stained
Chalchiuhtlicue and her teixiptla. Also like the priest, he
wears “strings of blue and green beads” on his wrists, as well
as on his legs. In his perceptive work on the iconography
of Mexica sculpture, Barnes has further identified the fan-
and-flap back ornament as one worn by celebrants in the
feast of Ochpanitztli, as well as the pouch hanging from his
arm (visible on side B) as the turquoise-colored pouch held
by Chalchiuhtlicue’s teixiptla containing the blue-maize
flour used for scattered offerings. 63
Ahuitzotl’s choice to show himself as the teixiptla of
this water deity is unusual, because in other monuments,
Mexica rulers dressed as martial figures, like Tezcatlipoca
or Huitzilopochtli. He is shown on the stone piercing
his ears with a maguey spine, one of the principal acts of
consecration carried out by rulers. We cannot say what
consecration is being effected by the offering—whether it
is the final phase of Ahuitzotl’s ritual transformation into a
teixiptla or an offering made to complete the aqueduct. On
side B of the stone, where more of the imagery is visible,
the remains of another figure lie to the left of this altar, and
Barnes has identified a set of hands pouring water from a
jug, an action that Tlaloc impersonators frequently carry
out to call forth the arrival of water. 64
Durán’s account tells us that the presence of the teixiptla
of Chalchiuhtlicue at the opening of the aqueduct was to
“welcome” the deity into the city, but also to control her
behavior, her often-too-violent movement. This animate
icon fell under the control that elaborately planned rituals
imposed on the passage of time; her unpredictable move-
ments became the measured steps of dance, which kept
time with the rhythm of music, which made audible and
measurable the flow of the minutes. The stone of Acue-
cuexatl presents us with a related scene, as we see Ahuitzotl
dressed as Chalchiuhtlicue in an act of consecration. His
actions seem to have a visible effect, measured by the imag-
ery of the work. The imagery of the two sides of the stone is
certainly very similar, with the same basic elements of peni-
tent Ahuitzotl, central altar, and feathered serpent. That
they appear to be distinct not only shows two hands at
work, but suggests different moments and/or places, as if
each side shows different moments in a longer ritual, with
the events on side B happening first. The reason for the
sequence follows from the iconography: while on side B is
a bundle of four maguey spines, used in ritual bloodletting,
the central altar on side A features a cuauhxicalli, “eagle ves-
sel,” to receive those blood sacrifices after blood had been
let. Reading the Acuecuexatl stone as a temporal sequence
allows us to see the feathered serpent, a representation of
the deity Quetzalcoatl, quiescent on side B, leaping out
to fill the pictorial space on side A, as Ahuitzotl shrinks
in size. 65 While feathered serpents are strongly associated
with wind, on this monument they are also associated with
water. On side B, the twisting feathered body forms a spiral
at its center, looking very much like the whirlpool sign that
was associated with Chalchiuhtlicue; on the A side, the
tip of the serpent’s tail bears round beads of jade, which
also mark streams of water. The visible difference between
the snakes seems to register the effect of Ahuitzotl’s ritual
action: in phase one, shown on side B, where the four
maguey spines are still in place, suggesting the beginning of
ritual activity, the serpent is contained in the right quadrant
of the sculpture, whereas on side A, where the cuauhxicalli
serves to collect the offered blood, the feathered serpent
expands to fill much of the space, almost overwhelming the
human figure in front of it. In other words, the sculpture
shows us one of those “disturbances of the causal milieu,”
like the built aqueduct itself, revealing the effects of Ahui-
tzotl’s ritual actions as the feathered serpent expands and
springs into action.
The format of the narrowest face of the monument
(side D in figure 3.8) is the same as that of the larger faces,
with figures arranged symmetrically (presumably, given
the loss of stone) around a central cult image. This central
image is eroded, but enough can be made out of the figure
to see the remains of a disk of water; it is a representa-
tion of a spring, similar to the way it is pictured in Durán’s
Historia (figure 3.6). Moving toward it is a water serpent
carved in shallow relief, whose body is filled with the cir-
cular symbols for jade/water; another may have flanked
the spring on the missing side, as well. Unlike the windy
serpent of Quetzalcoatl of the lateral sides, this serpent is
fit inside a constrained space, carefully defined by a carved
frame of a few inches across—just as the snaking water was
confined within the open aqueduct, its movement visible
on its surface, as in this stone. A similarly framed jade-filled
serpent is carved on the end of the stone, side C. The four
distinct but related faces suggest that the stone was meant
to be read as a narrative, where cosmic events are set into
motion by the sacrifices performed by Ahuitzotl, unleash-
ing the feathered serpent. The top and end surfaces show