Before the Sun that now shines brightly
over Mexico came into being, there had been other suns; four in all. Each sun died away in turn before our present Sun appeared.
The fourth Sun,
Chalchuitlicu, had been a water goddess, copper-coloured and dressed in emerald green. For hundreds of years she provided light and warmth; and in that time
the first men and women appeared on Earth. |
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But other gods grew jealous of the Sun God; some
reproached her for giving fire to humans -- for they did not always use it wisely.
Tezcatlipoca upsets Chalchuitlicu and
causes a flood.
One night, the black God of Darkness, Tezcatlipoca,
began to torment the gentle copper Sun while she was resting in the gloom. He said she'd
grown too vain and selfish.
In her hurt at these false words, Chalchuitlicu burst
into tears. The tears put out her light and then the sky rained down upon the Earth in
torrents.
The land vanished into darkness beneath a mighty flood
which drowned all human life: every man and woman turned into fish; all, that is,
save one lone family which survived to start the human race again.
The gods make dry land appear ...
When the sky thus fell on Earth, the gods opened up
four roads beneath the land, where they created four giants and some sturdy trees. And
then, together -- the gods, the trees, the giants -- all tried to lift the Earth from
under the vales of tears.
They heaved and pushed until the land rose upwards and
the waters fell away. At last they managed to fasten the land securely to the sky.
Now there was only darkness ...
But the Earth was still plunged into utter gloom; it
had no dawn, no dusk, no sunlit days. The vales of tears were salty; there was thus no
fresh water, for no Sun appeared to draw the tears back up to heaven and change them into
rain. |