446 UNIT 4 MESOAMERICAN CULTURAL FEATURES
Box 12.1 Aztec Women and Ritual SweepingSweeping, cooking, and weaving had important economic, symbolic, and religious connotations.
Priests swept the temple, and housewives swept their homes. In both cases they defended their
dwellings against chaos and dirt. The wife of a warrior had to sweep not only at dawn but also
at noon, sunset, and midnight, purifying her home and marking the sun’s path. The sun deity
was expected to reciprocate by protecting the woman’s husband in the battlefield. Warriors’
wives had to prepare special foods, grind toasted maize, and place it in gourds as offerings to
the deities. Women carried their weaving shuttles to the temples at night to offer food on be-
half of their husbands, sons, or fathers who were fighting. Weaving shuttles symbolized warriors’
weapons and the hope that they would conquer their enemies in battle. Thus, through domes-
tic production, women ensured the survival of their families while the men were away. Further-
more, these activities carried important consequences on the battlefield. The Maya myth text to
follow is on ritual sweeping.Once the great star appeared, as we say. The sky grew bri—ght [— indicates vowel elon-
gation in original narrative performance] from end to end. “I am the sweeper of the path. I
sweep his path. I sweep Our Lord’s path for him, so that when Our Lord passes by he finds
[the path] already swept.” [The star] travels. Then the sun appears. The sun sweeps forth as
we say. But you know, first it’s the morning star. Venus is a Chamulan girl. She is from
Chamula.
They didn’t believe the Chamulan girl when she talked about it. “We’ll see what the
ugly Chamulan girl is like! She says she is a star! Could she be a star? She’s an awful, ugly,
black Chamulan. Isn’t the star beautiful? It has rays of light. The star is a beautiful bright
r—ed,” said the women. They ridiculed that girl for saying she was a star.
They didn’t think she was. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re saying? You are ridi-
culing me. It’s me. I am the one who fixes the path. I sweep off the path. When Our Lord dis-
appears, the ocean dries up. The fish come out when Our Lord passes by there. That’s when
Our Lord disappears. That’s why there is the monkey’s sun as we call it [a red sunset]. That’s
when Our Lord passes over the ocean. That’s when night falls. That’s when the rays of light
can be seen in the distance. I am the sweeper of the house. I sweep-off the path. I walk just
when it grows light, at dawn again. I sweep here beneath the world. The next day when
dawn comes, I appear and sweep again, because that is my work. That’s what I do. I haven’t
any other work. That is what my work is. That’s why I am a star. Ve—nus appears early in the
dawn,say the people, but it’s me. I sweep the house. [I sweep] his path, Our Lord’s path. It
isn’t just anyone’s path,” she said.
She sweeps. She sweeps it off constantly. When she disappears then she is traveling
inside the earth again. So the star reappears the next day again. She sweeps it off again. She
passes under us, beneath the world it seems. She goes and comes out the next day again.
Just the same way she appears. That’s why the star appears first, it seems. “It’s me, I sweep
Our Lord’s path,” she said. The path of the holy sun.
We didn’t believe it ourselves, that it was a Chamulan girl, it seems. “If I ever see what
it is that sweeps, it seems to be a star, but a Chamulan, I don’t believe it!” we said to our-
selves. But she heard it when we were ridiculing her, when the poor girl was mocked. If it
weren’t so—she wouldn’t have heard. But she did hear, so it’s true. (Laughlin 1977:253–254)