Fwd(2): Re: About the word "teotl" and Ometeotl

[Kay Read]

Actually, I think so-called "divine" powers were part of the natural
world, not sharply separated from it.  We have to be careful to take a
very old Western model of the cosmos and universalize it to everyone,
everywhere in the world.  The model of Man, Nature and God dates way
back in western religious history and sets up a disinction between
nature and the divine or nature and the supernatural.  But I don't see
that in the Nahuatl material at all, really.

I've written on this (Aztec Time and Sacrifice, Indiana University
Press, 1998:  144-48), although I drew from others before me.  Arild
Hvidfeldt was one (I believe that he's already been mentioned in this
conversation); but also Walter Krickeberg, who translated teotl as
"kraft" or power (Altmexickanische Kulturen, Berlin, Safari-Verlag,
1966: 183-84)), and Jorge Klor de Alva, who saw teotl as an abstract
concept absolutely central to Nahua religious belief and even coined
the term "teoyoism"  ("Spiritual Warfare in Mexico:  Christianity and
the Aztecs,"  Ph.D diss., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1980:
66)

I tend to think of "-teo-" as a generic element referring to powers,
sometimes quite distinctive that many, many natural objects, animals,
people and various beings could have.  I say this because "-teo-"
appears embedded in numerous, very diverse settings, such as: teoatl
(ocean, marvelous water according to Simeon), or teuhpiltontli (very
terrible or bad boy according to Sahagun, see below).

This latter example comes from a telling passage translated in an
older article by Howard Cline ("Missing Variant Prologues and
Dedication in Sahagun's Historia General:  Texts and English
Translations," vol. 9, Estudios de cultural de Nahuatl, UNAM, 1971:
237-52).

". . .any creature whatsoever they see to be good or bad.  They call
it "teutl," which means "god," in such wise that they call the sun
"teutl," because of its beauty, or at least because of it frightening
disposition and fierceness.  From this it can be inferred that this
word "teutl" can be taken for a good quality or for a bad one.  This
is much better recognized when it is compunded in this name,
"teupilzintli," "very pretty child," teuhpiltontli," "very terrible or
bad boy."  Many other terms are compounded in this same way, from the
meaning of which one can conjecture that this term "teutl" means a
"thing extremely good or bad."

It is telling that Molina gives "teoyotica" as the Nahuatl equivalency
of "spirituality" ("spiritualment"), which is followed by a slew of
nahuatl terms joined with it to indicate various Catholic concepts
such as:  teoyotica tlamachiotilli (confirmed or "chrismado". .
.question, does anyone know what this means, is it an old form meaning
to christen or sacralize??) or teoyotica tlatoani (bishop or prelate).
 I.e., he seemed to be coining terms based on a notion of spiritual
power to get across the ideas of sacramental functions and
functionaries in the Catholic tradition.  But, I think this was an
imperfect attempt to get across a cosmos based on man, nature and God
(the worldview all Europeans held in Molina's time)--a world dividing
the natural from the supernatural.

Instead of this rather westernized (even medievalized) idea of nature
and that which is beyond nature, I read all this stuff about -teo- as
a very slim to no distinction between the natural and supernatural.
I.e., to some degree everything is natural, but not everything shares
the same powers.  For example, do we really want to say that very bad
boys are supernatural?  They may drive us nuts naturally, but
supernaturally?  Nor can we say that it is all one universal power,
because there is a big difference between that bad little boy and the
powerful ocean (teoatl), both in their character and what they are
able to do and effect.

In other words, I think it is a cosmos filled with various powers that
make things happen and those powerful event and their perpetrators can
include anything from a very nasty drought caused by the sun to the
pleasure of a beautiful child or the disruption in family harmony when
a boy misbehaves.

Kay Read
Dept. of Religious Studies
DePaul University, Chicago



On 12/6/06, Michael Swanton <mwswanton at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Does the distinction between natural and
> "supernatural" have a place in indigenous religion(s)
> of Mesoamerica? That is, were divine powers understood
> to be beyond the natural world or part of it?
>
>
> --- Craig Berry <cberry at cine.net> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, Ramiro Medrano wrote:
> >
> > > Does "teotl" translate to "inexplicable,"
> > "powerful," "untouchable," or
> > > maybe even "divine"? It makes sense to me.
> >
> > My attempt at a single-word translation is
> > "supernatural", in both the
> > senses of that word.  A horse is a "supernatural
> > deer" in the sense that
> > it is shaped like a deer, but is bigger and stronger
> > than a deer, and
> > behaves very differently from a deer.  Thus it is
> > "outside nature".  A god
> > is "supernatural" in a different (but ultimately
> > related) sense.
> >
> > So for example "Ometeotl" is "supernatural duality",
> > the concept of "two"
> > expressed outside all normal experience and natural
> > limits.
> >
> > --
> >    )   Craig Berry - http://www.cine.net/~cberry/
> >   +   "You do not secure the liberty of our
> > country and value of our
> >    (   democracy by undermining them.  That's the
> > road to hell."
> >             - Lord Phillips of Sudbury
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
>
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