Histoyre du Mechique
The theory that sustains the sense of this museum, and that is to be demostrated in it, is grounded in the interpretation, supported by innumerable Mexican archaeological monuments, of two fragments, that up to now had not received the attention they deserve, of that Histoyre du Mechique.
Such fragments, literally translated, propound:
"Some say that the earth was created of this sort: two gods, Calcoatl and Tezcatlipuca, brought the goddess of the earth Atlateutli downwards from heaven, she was full in all her joints of eyes and mouths, with which she bit as a savage beast; and before they had lowered her, there was already water, which nobody knows who created it, over which this goddess walked. Seing this the gods said: “There is need to create the earth”. And in thus saying, they turned both into two great serpents, of which one held the goddess from the right hand to the left foot; the other, from the left hand to the right foot, and pressed so hard that they made her brake in the middle, and from the half to the shoulders they created the earth, and the other half they took to the heavens
There was a goddess named Tlaltentl, who is the very earth, which according to them had the figure of a man, others say that of a woman."
This way then, two divine potencies make descend, to the surface of increated waters,an entity with human figure, whether of man or woman, in the joints of which there are eyes and mouths; when the divine potencies see the latter, they conceive the passion of creation.
Having realized the ophidian condition of such eyes and mouths, parts of the human figure, and with the end of adapting themselves to such condition, the divine potenties, after declaring their need to create, transmute themselves, each, into a great serpent, and both descend to unite themselves with the human form.
In the moment of that union a form of condesation of matter is constituted which, obligated by its own density to explode, will give origin, with such explosion, to the whole universe. Because after having joined the human form, the serpents press it until they cut it in two; with its upper part they make the earth; heaven, with the other. The universe starts to be created.
The interpretation done here of this text, and suported by manifold monuments, from the Olmec faces to the breasts of Coatlicue, is that the human form of that entity defines its essential nature; that entity, as its form shows, is a human being. Given that in that moment the world did not exist, that human being has to be the first of all.
