Totonac Religion

The Totonac are an indigenous people of Mexico who reside in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo. They are one of the possible builders of the pre-Columbian city of El Tajín, and further maintained quarters in Teotihuacán (a city which they claim to have built). Until the mid-19th century they were the world's main producers of vanilla. The region of Totonacapan was subject to Aztec military incursions from the mid-15th century until the arrival of the Spanish arrival. Despite the establishment of Aztec fortifications throughout the region, rebellion against Aztec rule was continuous. Cempoala was the first indigenous city state visited by Hernán Cortés in his march to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. The Totonac king, Chicomacatt, eagerly welcomed Cortés and promised the support of his fifty thousand warriors against Montezuma. Encouraged by Cortés, King Chicomacatt asserted his independence by seizing the Mexican tax-gatherers then residing in his country, but was restrained by the Spanish commander from sacrificing them to Totonac idols. As a final test of their friendship and obedience, Cortés commanded the destruction of the wooden images of the gods in the great pyramid temple of Cempoala, where every day human victims were sacrificed. Despite the protest of the king and the fierce opposition of the priests and their retainers, the order was carried out by a detachment of Spanish soldiers. The idols were thrown down to the foot of the temple and burned. Afterward, Fray Bartolome de Olmeda ("protector of the Indians") preached the Christian Faith and celebrated Mass before the assembled natives. Some natives were baptized, and Catholocism acquired its first converts in Mexico. Most present-day Totonacs are Roman Catholic, but Christian practice is often mixed with vestiges of their traditional religion. A notable instance of this is la Costumbre, a survival of an old rite of sacrifice in which various seeds are mixed with earth and the blood of fowls, then dispersed over planting fields. The traditional Totonac religion was described in the early 1960s by French ethnographer Alain Ichon. No other major essay on Totonac religion has been found. Mother goddesses played a very important role in Totonac belief, since each person's soul is created by them. If a newborn child dies, its soul does not go to the west, the place of the dead, but to the east with the Mothers. Ichon also recorded for posterity an important myth regarding a maize deity, a culture hero with counterparts among most other cultures of the Gulf Coast and possibly also representative of thw classic Maya maize god. Regarding traditional healers, it is believed that they are born during a storm, under the protection of thunder. A lightning bolt strikes the house of an infant healer and possesses it. Other known deities include Chichiní (the sun) and Aktzin, the Totonac god of rain. Variants of Aktzin were known as Tláloc to the Aztecs and Chaac to the Mayas. Aktzin was typically depicted as a male figure wearing some form of headdress and rings over his eyes, similar to spectacles. In one hand he held a hammer or axe which would produce thunder and lightning as it struck the clouds. Water poured from his other hand, either from his palm or from a vessel which he held. These elements represented the life-giving, but occaisionally destructive forces of the weather.