The tetzáhuitl (in Náhuatl) are one of the most meaningful testimonials related to Mexica conceptions of history, morality and cosmology prior to and at the time of the Conquest. This word alludes to the multiple omens, catastrophes and visions that caused “terror” because they announced future events. Eclipses, comets, temblors, fires, famine, atmospheric electrical phenomena, solar alterations, and “monstruous” animals or beings (divine messengers) were interpreted as news from the gods, whether they were calamities, omens of good fortune or transgressions committed by a member of society. The interpretation of these signs required rituals, since the tetzáhuitl meant there was an “anomaly” in the course of daily life. In some cases, the omens could be altered or avoided with certain actions, offerings or other gods’ intercessions. There is no doubt that divine presence in the world caused dread and fear, putting the faithful to the test and sidelining them to face the “frightful” apparitions and signs with a strengthened tonalli.
Tetzáhuitl also alludes to certain gods’ ability, such as Huitzilopochtli, Titlacahuan and Tlacahuepan, to act using “magical arts” and provoke extraordinary phenomena. Huitzilopochtli, main god of the Mexica, was called Tetzáhuitl because of his extraordinary birth. In the same vein, the word describes the god Tezcatlipoca’s nocturnal apparitions as a turkey, the head of a dead person, a package of ashes, a man with no head and open chest, dwarf or giant. The Lord of the Smoky Mirror appeared in the latter shape—because of his dedication to Titlacahuan – to annihilate many Toltecas, which was one of the omens warning of the fall of Tula. Tezcatlipoca participates in several episodes that predict this event and, five centuries later, he reappears to Moctezuma’s priests disguised as a drunkard, showing them that “all the cúes [temples] burned” as a sign of the imminent destruction of Tenochtitlán. Towns subject to the Purépecha empire also held on to stories about their own fate: the priests of goddess Ehuacueye, “Lady of the leather Skirt,” received signs from “a voice” that announced the arrival of the conquerors and the beginning of “another world.”
The voices, the astronomical phenomena, and the burning of the temples are recurring themes in this kind of story that foresee the fall of great empires. In Book XII of the Historia general, Frair Bernardino de Sahagún records eight dismal omens that occurred ten years before the Conquest of Mexico. Even though it was written after the Spaniards arrived, they are associated symbolically with Tezcatlipoca and his mirror, as they reflect a perception of imminent judgment, fate and transformation. The seventh omen is such an example, since a strange bird was caught and it had on its head a type of mirror—likely interpreted as a symbol of obsidian—on which Moctezuma said he could see images of war and men entering the city. Here the mirror appears to clearly be a symbol of Tezcatlipoca, he who revealed visions that announced the future.
The tetzáhuitl is a cultural framework articulated through extraordinary apparitions and it is fundamental to contexts of transgression, crisis, political and social change. Beyond simple symbolism, this Indigenous epistemology regarding time and fate is supported by the model of cyclical alternances, which is common in myths and cosmological processes related to the destruction of the eras. From this point of view, the devastation of the empires and the cities; the death of the governors and the installation of a new order are present in the collective memory and passed down through the generations. The eighth dismal omen in Sahagún’s work, describing the presence of two-headed beings or strange deformations, is an explicit articulation of chaos in the natural order: a message of the breakdown and reestablishment of balance between the worlds (and cycles). The fact that they disappear means they were prophetic.