April 6, 2017

Coloring Book Overhaul – The Aztec Icons

BIG NEWS FOR ALL YOU COLORING ENTHUSIASTS! Whether you’re new to this website, have just been keeping your eye on it, or have actually colored some of my unusual icons of Aztec deities, you’ll find my overhauled coloring book now has a lot more to offer.

There are 13 icons currently completed (but there will be 19 by May, 2020!), each is now accompanied by a page with its descriptive caption and full-color images from the Aztec Codices that served as models for drawing the icon. Those images will give a good idea of the varying styles of the ancient picture-books and maybe even suggest authentic colors to use in your own coloring.

Check out this example of the caption/model page for CHALCHIUTLICUE, the Jade Skirt.

caption-model page for Chalchiuhtlicue

As before, all the icons can be viewed or downloaded individually from the coloring book page, either as a pdf file with caption/models page or as freely sizable vector drawings. But now they are also all bundled together into an actual book: YE GODS! THE AZTEC ICONS.

But that’s almost the least of the overhauls. In addition to that book, there is now a major revision and expansion of the earlier catalog and appendix—a complete illustrated encyclopedia of essentially all the Aztec deities: YE GODS! THE AZTEC PANTHEON.

Its 88 alphabetical entries include some 1,300+ divinities (depending on how you count), and there’s usually an authentic image for each selected from the Aztec Codices. Again, the images illustrate their varying styles and provide even more suggestions for coloring the icons.

Here’s a sample page from the encyclopedia:

sample page – The Aztec Pantheon

Of itself, YE GODS! THE AZTEC PANTHEON amounts to a crash course in ancient Mexican mythology, history, culture, and art. YE GODS! THE AZTEC ICONS takes this another step further—into illustrating details of Aztec society.

For perhaps excessive example, with Huehuecoyotl, the Old Coyote, there are vignettes of people playing musical instruments, singing, and dancing; with Huitzilopochtli, Hummingbird of the South, there’s a pictorial narrative of the legendary migration of the Aztecs to Tenochtitlan; with Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of the Land of the Dead, there’s a vague map of the soul’s way to Mictlan; and with Patecatl, God of Medicine, there are scenes of medical practices and medicinal herbs. Each icon contains its own type of social commentary.

I haven’t quite started on Aztec Icon #14: Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, but hope to do so shortly. In the meantime, I’m working on yet a third component of my Aztec project, another section on the Aztec Codices themselves. It will be a description of and commentary on each of the 15 surviving picture-books, including sample pages and Internet sources to view the whole documents. I perhaps unrealistically hope to complete it in the next couple months, and guess what: I’ll call it YE GODS! THE AZTEC CODICES. Watch for a post announcing it.

###

March 10, 2017

History Redux

This morning over my grapefruit, I serendipitously read an essay that ruined my breakfast with the bitter taste of irony. The quotes that follow have been redacted to mask the actual subject. Please read them and guess who. Afterwards, I’ll reveal his identity and that of the writer, publication, and other references.

“[The subject]…arrived on the national scene just in time to capitalize on the [current ‘scare’]. An unprincipled political opportunist, he began to make an issue of [purported enemies]…, thereby drawing attention to himself and nurturing his hopes for a continuing political career.

“…[He] made a speech during which he [claimed to have a list of people] known to be [enemies]. [At the time] this was not at all an illegal affiliation, but the [group] was certainly a suspicious [class of people]. …that list itself never existed. It was a fiction, a prop for [his] political theater. … But that hardly mattered. With his trumped-up list, [he] had struck a mindless nerve in the body politic, and the Age of [Fear] had acquired its messiah, a leader of the yelping pack.

“[He] proved himself a master of reckless accusation, unabashed equivocation, and outright lying. He determined guilt by association and made liberal use of innuendo, half-truth, character assassination, and intimidation. When officials questioned his allegations, [he] countered by questioning their loyalty and their intentions. Since he … was the champion of the [anti-enemies], anyone who raised any doubts about him was interfering with his patriotic work, seeking, presumably, to stop him in this noble pursuit. Those who[m] [he] cast aspersions upon were often unemployed or disgraced shortly thereafter.

“Many people recognized at once that [he] was a fraud…

“Chairing a committee charged with investigating [his] allegations, [the Chair] issued a report … that found not a shred of evidence in support of his charges. He was effectively branded a liar.

“[His] reaction to this supposed reverse is instructive. [He] said, ‘The most loyal stooges of the [enemy] could not have done a better job of giving a clean bill of health to [foreign enemies] in this country.’ [The committee chair] was giving ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemies of the United States. …he said, ‘let me make it clear … that this fight against [the enemy] shall not stop, regardless of what any group … may do.’ He was undaunted and undeterred.

“He was a genius at manipulating the news media. He understood, apparently, that the press was a knee-jerk institution. [He] quickly mastered the techniques necessary to dominate the news. He would call a press conference to announce that he would have a press conference the next day, and the day’s papers would carry headlines heavy with proclamatory import… And when some allegation of his was proven completely wrong, [he] simply shifted his attack and targeted a new victim. The sensation of his new charges drew fresh headlines, displacing stories about his errors. His was the tactic of a guerrilla raider, and he used it time and again with astonishing effectiveness.

“[He] was by no means laying waste to cherished American freedoms without being criticized. Many newspapers attacked him on their editorial pages—while giving him headlines on their front pages—but nationally prominent political figures were slow in rising to the challenge. When a [prominent journalist] fired a shot or two, [he] rounded on him. He insinuated that [the journalist] was a tool of [the enemy] and advised people [to boycott the writer’s sponsor].

“Television journalists were nearly silent. Finally…one of the most prestigious journalists in the world attacked [him] … [with] an exposé [that] alternated film clips of [him] making charges and assertions with shots of [the journalist], live, presenting the contradictory facts. The relentless rhythm of lie refuted by truth again and again drummed in the flagrancy of [his] perfidy. Given [his] power, going on the air with any sort of an attack at that time took guts.

“…With many of the journalistic fraternity, [a syndicated cartoonist] had long ago recognized that he was at least a charlatan and perhaps a monstrous one, spewing the sulfurous fumes of intimidating invective with every press conference…ripe as a subject for satirical ridicule. [He] was still riding high, with his minions and his actions claiming headlines daily on the front pages of the nation’s papers.

“[The cartoonist] conjures up nightmares of book burning, evoking memories of the Nazi regime in the 1930’s.

“On various editorial pages throughout the land some perceptive souls recognized that [he] was employing methods that had been used to advantage…earlier by an Austrian paper-hanger and his gang in Nazi Germany.”

Okay, no matter your obvious first guess, this damning verbiage was actually about Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin in the early 1950’s. The [enemies] weren’t foreign terrorists but Communists. The truth-finding committee chair was Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, and the brave journalist was Edward R. Murrow. The [syndicated cartoonist] wasn’t Gary Trudeau in “Doonesbury,” but Walt Kelly in “Pogo.” The prophetic essay, ironically titled “Swamp Talk” by R. C. Harvey, appeared in “Pogo, Evidence to the Contrary,” the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Vol. 3, published by Fantagraphics in 2014.

Let’s remember the quote from philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist George Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The horror is that historical travesties seem to get worse with each new iteration. Elevating travesty to tragedy, our current villain hasn’t been discredited and disgraced, but has managed through demagoguery, hate, and lies to become, as Pogo might say, President of the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed U. S. and A, and now our nationable future looks dog-bone miserabobble.

Honestly, I don’t blame those terrified, thoughtless, and forgetful folks who voted for him. It’s the fault of all those apathetic and forgetful folks who didn’t vote for anybody. And the fault of the craven cowards in Congress who are letting their rogue elephrump run rampant in our beloved Okefenokee.

February 17, 2017

Aztec Icon #13 – PATECATL, God of Medicine

So—six weeks now seems to be my new average to produce an Aztec icon for the coloring book YE GODS! Here’s Icon #13, PATECATL, which I drew on my old system (GNU) and believe it or not, using the mouse in my left hand. Back while drawing #12 I started getting pains in my right hand from all the clicking—so I switched. Nothing to it!

This is a standard pixelated image, and it’s currently winging its electronic way to my graphic wizard for conversion to vectors. The vectorized files for #12, OMETEOTL, have now been added to the list on the coloring book page, where you can also view and download all the previous icons.

To download this one as a pdf file with a page of caption and model images from the Aztec Codices, just right-click here and select “Save as.” You can also download it in freely sizable vector drawings from the coloring book page.

Patecatl, God of Medicine

PATECATL

God of Medicine

PATECATL {pa-te-katł} is the god of healing and fertility, medicine (herbology) and surgery, who gives comfort in illness. Logically he is patron of day Grass. Husband of MAYAUEL, he is the father of the Centzon Totochtin (400 Rabbits), the gods of drunkenness led by Ome Tochtli (Two Rabbit). As well as being a pulque god like his wife, he’s the deity of intoxication by peyote, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and psychotropic herbs such as datura (jimson weed), morning glory, and marijuana. These plants were used in healing, fortune telling, shamanic magic, and public religious ceremonies, hopefully also to tranquilize sacrificial victims and enhance the sacramental nature of the ritual.

***

There are several points of interest in this icon:

The god’s physiognomy is iconographically authentic, quite the way he appears in Codex Borgia, nose, buck-teeth, and all. His eye is just as baleful in the model, where (as is often the case with gods, male and female) it’s horribly blood-shot. I won’t even guess what that’s all about. Also, since it’s so obvious here, in general the Aztecs didn’t bother with the difference between right and left feet, but they usually tried to distinguish between right and left hands.
The vignettes in the upper section of the icon are based on medicinal scenes from various codices, including Nuttall, Borgia, Fejervary-Mayer, Vaticanus, and even the post-Conquest Florentine Codex.
The vignette of nose-piercing is remarkable for two reasons. In the Nuttall model, the patient is not only bearded, but black. Throughout the codices there are frequent black personages, both human and divine, and indisputable beards. Make of that what you will.
The plants scattered around the icon are actual medicinals, several adapted from early herbal illustrations, from Nuttall, and from nature.
Meant as a House of Healing, the temple in the upper right may be a bit over the top ornamentally, but it’s stylistically real. The figure of the snake ingesting a rabbit is based on a page from Vaticanus, where an eagle is also seizing the snake. I’ve included it to symbolize life as a food cycle, very much the way the Aztecs saw it.

January 16, 2017

Now Some Uncommon Sense

[If anybody knows how to bring my recent essay and this post to the attention of the President-Elect, I (and possibly the world) would be tremendously grateful. I don’t “tweet” and hope I never have to, and besides these matters aren’t such as can be expressed in that limited medium.]

When I posted that rant the other day about public enterprise, I wanted to stop thinking about the political situation here in the US, but all the same I kept on thinking that this is the only way we’re ever going to fix our terminally infected system.

Otherwise, we’ll remain colonies of corporations until they’ve drained our personal lifeblood and absconded with all our national treasures, our common wealth. Next, and this abomination is already in progress, they’ll try to do the same to the whole world.

Playing the cards they were dealt by the obsolete tradition of private enterprise and the short-sightedness of our Founding Fathers about economic psychodynamics, corporations have been running the Roman gambit to control and exploit their captive public: bread and circus.

Corporate agri-business has been keeping the American populace too well fed (to judge by our obesity epidemic), and corporate media entertain us within an inch of our lives. We are inundated and consumed by movies, politics, news, sports, sensationalism, nonsense, and most obnoxiously, the celebrity syndrome, video games, and social networking.

As a result, our people are stunned, hypnotized, and incapable of thinking for themselves or questioning our nation’s critically ill condition. This sickness requires intensive treatment, even radical surgery, to set new rules of play. In this life-and-death game of providing public benefit, the public good must always trump private interest, or it’s all over.

I haven’t been a supporter of President-Elect Trump for more reasons than I can count, but I have to acknowledge his election, however it was accomplished, and rightfully expect real results on his promises to “fix the system.” He hasn’t explained what he hopes to do about it, but I maintain that this public enterprise ideology is his and our country’s best and perhaps only bet. Besides, it’s also a sure way to renew our country’s greatness.

My uncommon sense says, counter-intuitively, that evolving this private enterprise economy into a dependable, productive system of public life-support will probably take an autocratically inclined oligarch who intimately understands it, is not beholden to any of its special interests, and has the courage and chutzpah to do what’s absolutely necessary for the public good. Run-of-the-mill politicians wouldn’t even try.

Call me Machiavelli, but any presidential prince who would rein in the corporate nobility and their colluding politicians will have to use all and any strategies and tools available, within humanitarian and ethical limits, of course. The American Evolution of our economy to public benevolence will be, without exaggeration, the biggest social advance in human history.

This new ideology of public enterprise will also serve well for any government with the best interests of its people at heart, be it a democracy, autocracy, theocracy, or whatever. Modestly, I foresee our American Evolution inspiring the “benevolution” of economies around the world and bringing unprecedented global prosperity. And seriously, I’d call the uncommon person who creates such a brave new world order a super-hero.

# # #

January 13, 2017

Some More Common Sense

It’s been 240 years now since Tom Paine’s “Common Sense” came out, and it’s high time to apply some more of that to what’s going on here in America. Paine’s little pamphlet helped spark the American Revolution, leading to an enormous step forward in human civilization. We changed history by creating the first real democracy (only 2,600 years after that of ancient Athens), a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

All through history rulers have governed by totally controlling their people and all their activities, exploiting them like livestock. Our Revolution then led into our great Constitution, also a total game-changer by proclaiming the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and promising not to control our thoughts, beliefs, and many individual rights.

This new form of government now controls our lives and activities, (ostensibly by our consent), treating us as citizens rather than subjects, serfs, or slaves, and our revolutionary model has since spawned many other democracies around the world. But enlightened though it may be, after a couple hundred years, something in our exemplary system is apparently going awry.

Ideally our democracy should be governed by “all the people,” as was mostly possible in tiny Athens, but on today’s mega-scale of everything, that’s pragmatically highly improbable. Consequently, for a long time our nation has steadily been devolving into a government of the many by the few, especially since fully half of our electorate in the past election was willing to leave their governance to the few.

Democratically speaking, our nation is suffering a severe skew to the few and losing the commitment of far too many. To cure this life-threatening condition, we must curb, if not curtail, the corrupting influence of money (more exactly, of corporations, the media, and other vested interests), and find ways to engage and invest as many citizens as possible in the system.

Instead, in the last election through fear, demagoguery, and yes, misogyny, we the people handed our country over to the oligarchs. That’s precisely what happened in idealistic Athens and led them into tyrannies, as has already happened to many of the world’s new democracies. Just look how quickly the promising Russian democracy degenerated into oligarchy, and those poor people now suffer autocracy once more.

So why does democracy seem pathologically susceptible to the wealthy few? The US is indeed a government of (nearly all) the people and by (some of) the people, and it claims to be a government for (all) the people. In other words, the government’s purpose is to benefit us the people. But there’s a terrible flaw in the system.

To provide those benefits, our nation relies on an economic system based on the concept of private enterprise (capitalism), a system inherited from millennia of common economic practice. For all its wisdom, our Constitution simply took that for granted, never mentioning or defining an operating principle to be our life-support system. Recently, for the first time in history, capitalism was threatened (unsuccessfully) by a new concept (communism), but it has since encountered no other rival system and meanwhile remains unexamined and unquestioned.

While our democratic purpose is to benefit the many, capitalism’s purpose is to benefit the few. That’s a lethal disconnect between public and private intent. There being no motivation stronger than self-interest, our private enterprise economy is reluctant, recalcitrant, and even unwilling to provide the public benefits which our government requires of it. Instead, the wealthy few try to limit and control our government to preserve their profits and privileges.

The vast proportion of the profits of private enterprise are “earned” by exploitation of our publicly owned resources and of our citizenry as captive workers and customers. As a result, our national treasures and we the people are treated by corporations as subject colonies, as sources of unimaginable wealth deserving only the overlords’ charity and forbearance.

Mr Paine said much the same thing about the American colonies under the harsh rule of England and proposed that those little colonies could manage their economy much more productively on their own, without the overlord. Through our Revolution, we built a new social order, and now we’ve got an opportunity to create an even newer order to do the same.

We the people have empowered our democratic government to direct our activities, namely, our social and economic systems. As a matter of national security and survival, it has the power to and must draw a formal distinction between private and public enterprise. It is counter-productive and frankly, unconscionable for industries that exploit our national resources and the life-sustaining needs of us the people to be privately managed—for private benefit.

Our resources and public needs should be managed and benefitted by public enterprise. While private enterprise must remain possible and be encouraged to provide the niceties and luxuries of personal life, our national treasures belong to us the people. The time has come for an American Evolution out of capitalism into an economy of publicly managed enterprises.

Held in public trust, those enterprises will most effectively be structured and managed democratically, involving and investing everyone in the industry. Logically, the government must still direct and coordinate them for national purposes, but the management of those industries must be the responsibility of and to the benefit of the people.

Unless we evolve our economy, our splendid democracy will die. Call me utopian, but my common sense tells me that converting into a public enterprise economy will be the biggest giant step ever in mankind’s history, a brand new paradigm of human progress. Our American Evolution will once again set an amazing example for the world—making America not only great again, but spectacularly successful. We the people can do it.

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December 30, 2016

Aztec Icon #12 – OMETEOTL, Deity of Two

Well, in a mere three months I’ve managed to finish Icon #12, OMETEOTL for the coloring book YE GODS! Actually it took only about six weeks because I spent the other six weeks trying to work out a computer system upgrade. I’ve been using the freeware GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program), but a fantastic artist-friend convinced me to buy an iMac and look into another program for drawing.

After some weeks taking a community college course in Adobe Photoshop, I took a preliminary look at Adobe Illustrator—without being particularly impressed. I still have to take tutorials in Illustrator, particularly about drawing in vectors, but in the meantime I’m continuing my artwork on GIMP (on my PC) and relying on my graphic magician to turn stuff into vectors for me.

So herewith I’m posting the standard .pdf of this icon, and when my wizard has done his trick, I’ll provide the vector drawing in the various sizes. (Again, if you want his contact for similar vectorizing work, contact me at “rbalthazar” @ msn.com.) You can also view and download the previous 11 icons from the coloring book page.

Ometeotl, Deity of Two

OMETEOTL

Deity of Two

OMETEOTL {o-me-te-otł} is the creative pair of Omecihuatl (Lady of Two) and Ometecuhtli (Lord of Two), conjoined as the supreme creator and parent(s) of the primary Aztec gods. This deity of duality is transcendental, without cult, rites, or temples and exists somewhere beyond the stars. Also known as Tonacacihuatl and Tonacatecuhtli (Lady/Lord of Sustenance), as Ilamacihuatl and Ilamatecuhtli (Lady/Lord of Creation), and as Citlalicue and Citlalatonac (deities of the stars), OMETEOTL represents unity through sexual dualism. The pair rules the highest (13^th) heaven of Omeyocan where unborn souls reside. Omecihuatl chooses the days for their birth and consequently their fates.

***

I should probably explain a few things about this icon. First off, the 20 symbols arrayed around the periphery are the day-names of the month. The Aztecs named the days of their month and counted the days of their week (13).

The sequence starts with the second up from the bottom on the right side and proceeds counter-clockwise to end in the lower right corner: Cipactli (Crocodile), Ehecatl (Wind), Calli (House), Cuetzpallin (Lizard), Coatl (Snake), Miquitzli (Death), Mazatl (Deer), Tochtli (Rabbit), Atl (Water), Itzcuintli (Dog), Ozomatli (Monkey), Malinalli (Grass), Acatl (Reed), Ocelotl (Jaguar), Cuauhtli (Eagle), Cozcacuauhtli (Vulture), Ollin (Earthquake), Tecpatl (Flint), Quiahuitl (Rain), and Xochitl (Flower).

The days in the middle of each side are also the year-bearers for the 52-year count, starting at the top and again going counter-clockwise: Rabbit, Reed, Flint, and House.

Meanwhile, the little creatures being “spit out” by the odd serpents all wear the traditional mask of Ehecatl, God of the Wind, (See Icon #5), who is the life spirit. So these “breezes” represent the new (or recycled?) souls being born. They have claws, I assume, because most supernatural beings seem to have them. They are based on images from Codex Borgia.

The four smaller gods represent the primary god-descendants of Ometeotl. Again counter-clockwise from lower right: Tlaloc (based on Codex Borgia), Quetzalcoatl (based on Codex Borbonicus), and Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (based on Codex Borbonicus). I had intended the last to be Xiuhtecuhtli, but I made a mistake in identification.

The medallion at top center is based on an enigmatic design from Codex Borgia which I take to represent the concept of duality. The dual image of Ometeotl is drawn from Codex Fejervary-Mayer, the only image I’ve ever been able to find of that transcendent deity. Otherwise, I haven’t a clue about the horn-like thing that Omecihuatl holds or what it may signify.

November 20, 2016

Aztec deities in vector drawings

Great news for all you coloring enthusiasts out there! I’ve now managed to get the icons of Aztec deities for the coloring book YE GODS! turned into vector drawings. This may not sound like a big deal, but it actually is because the lines are now clean-edged, and the .pdf files can be enlarged or shrunk without affecting line-quality. At least that’s what they tell me…

(The work of converting all my insane pixel drawings into vectors was done magnificently and quickly by a brave young fellow in a distant country, saving me many months of boggling labor. Contact me, rbalthazar at msn.com, for his details.)

On the coloring book page, as well as below, I now include three free download options for the icons completed thus far. The regular download is still for the original 8X10 pixel-image with title and caption. In addition, you can choose an 8X10 vector drawing or another at 16X20, which will no doubt be much better for coloring the intricate details. But you can also size these vectorized images however you wish. Go for it!

(to download, right-click on link and select “Save as”)

(Images on pages are in pixels and sized at 8” x 10” w/ captions for legal paper at 300 dpi. You can also download the images as vector drawings in two sizes which can be enlarged or shrunk with consistent line quality.)

#1 Atl Page 1 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#2 Chalchiuhtlicue Page 2 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#3 Chalchiuhtotolin Page 3 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#4 Chantico Page 4 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#5 Ehecatl Page 5 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#6 Huehuecoyotl Page 6 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#7 Huitzilopochtli Page 7 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#8 Itzpapalotl Page 8 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#9 Mayauel Page 9 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#10 Mictlantecuhtli Page 10 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

#11 Ocelotl Page 11 with caption 8X10 vector 16X20 vector

***

By the way, here’s a progress report on the next icon for YE GODS! I’m about half-way through Aztec icon #12, OMETEOTL, the Deity of Two. A “duity” (duality) deity, if you will, it’s a composite of Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, the Lord and Lady of Two. Here’s a little detail which I interpret from a page in Codex Borgia as a symbol of duity.

Aztec duity symbol

October 23, 2016

Ms. Yvonne, The Secret Life of My Mother

Yvonne Trinite Tapp
1938 at age of nineteen

My mother, YVONNE TRINITÉ TAPP, passed away a few years ago, in March of 2013 to be exact. Even after relating to her as a mostly negligent son my whole life long, I really didn’t know all that terribly much about her. Mother never talked about her experiences, ideas, opinions, or feelings, and now that she’s gone, I sorely regret never even thinking to ask. So her long life has been for all intents and purposes a secret to me and everyone.

But this past January on her would-be 97^th birthday, I wondered again about her secret life and realized that I’ve been sitting on cartons of old photographs and decades of her letters. So I decided to turn detective, ferret out details of her history from the evidence, and write her biography for her many descendants to know about their fore-mother. I hope other folks will also be interested in her long life well lived.

Those old photographs (and lots of the newer ones) took inordinate amounts of restoration and outright manipulation to be worth looking at. That close work provided me many intriguing clues, mysteries, insights, and new feelings. It was an intensely emotional journey.

Over the past nine months, I’ve alternated between writing about Mother and drawing three more of my Aztec icons for the coloring book YE GODS! I’m not sure which I spent more time on, but I’ve now finished the pictorial biography: MS. YVONNE, The Secret Life of My Mother.

Fortunately, Mother left behind two substantial pieces of writing, one of which I made her write for posterity, and the other I found afterwards amongst her effects. So as well as being a photo-documentary, this biography is also in part an autobiography of my mother, with an inescapable element of my own thrown in gratis.

Sorry that I can’t offer you much in the way of thrilling action or daring adventures, of philosophical or social impact, or of romantic or sensual titillation. However, what you’ll find in this pictorial biography is an independent and courageous woman who weathered the often oppressive vicissitudes of the 20^th century and early in the 21^st survived Hurricane Katrina.

For free download of this biography as a .pdf file, right-click here and select “Save As.” If you left-click, you can open and read it online. Meanwhile, I may have found a way to convert this and my other books into eBook format (still free) and promise to do so as soon as I can.

September 24, 2016

Aztec Icon #11 – OCELOTL (Jaguar), Lord of the Animals

At long last –Aztec Icon #11: OCELOTL, Lord of the Animals. In the midst of other projects and family stuff, it’s taken me all summer to finish this icon for the coloring book YE GODS! THE AZTEC ICONS. Not for lack of effort but the enormous amount thereof. Actually I’d already done the jaguar rampant a couple years ago, my first drawing directly to digital. Thanks to my freeware graphics program GIMP, in rendering this boggling Mesoamerican zoo, I’ve discovered almost godlike powers over pixels. But I try to be a beneficent deity.

The vast amount of effort came first in locating historical images of creatures in the ancient codices for stylistic models. Those I couldn’t find had to be drawn from photographed nature. Actually, my iconic jaguar is a departure from Aztec style in its naturalistic treatment. While there are many jaguars in the codices, in my opinion they all look too “cartoonish” to make an impressive deity. Besides, I liked the challenge of creating the pelt pattern for the little Jaguar Knights in the Chalchiuhtotolin icon. The regalia indicates the creature’s divine nature, and the wavy fork at its muzzle is the symbol of its howl.

Please note the large “dots” at each corner of the icon. They are the Aztec number four, and this is the calendrical day-name Four Jaguar, the First Sun (World) in the Mesoamerican cosmological sequence. That very first YE GODS! icon of Atl was the day-name Four Water, the Fourth Sun, and the fifth icon of Ehecatl was the day-name Four Wind, the Second Sun. You’ll have to wait a bit for the third and fifth Suns later in this series.

Ocelotl is lord of all animals: those belonging to Huixtocihuatl, Lady of Salt (Goddess of the Sea on the upper left); those belonging to Tlaltecuhtli, the hermaphroditic Lord of the Earth (on upper right); and those of the air ruled by Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent (at top).

The split circle over the deity’s head is the traditional symbol of day and night, showing its lordship over diurnal and nocturnal animals, the jaguar itself being nocturnal. The eagle to the left represents the Aztecs’ main god Huitzilopochtli as the sun at midday, and my very own “batterfly” on the right is Itzpapalotl, Goddess of the Night Sky, who was often depicted as butterfly, bat, and/or bird.

Ocelotl is also lord of the strange animal Man, as can be seen in the vignette at the bottom depicting the legendary creation of man from a primordial tree as shown in Mixtec codices.

By the way, I’ll note that the Aztecs adopted most of their cosmology and “religion” from the peoples living then and earlier in central Mexico like the Mixtec, Zapotec, Huastec, Toltec, etc., etc.—as had they from the even more ancient Teotihuacan and Maya. In the long history of Mesoamerican civilizations, their underlying myths have mostly been related, even inherited.

Ocelotl, the Jaguar, is a mythology from deep in history. The earliest (in Mesoamerica) Olmec famously revered the Jaguar (jaguar-headed babies?), and may have named the day in the calendar for it. Or maybe not. Elsewhere I’ve suggested that the Mesoamerican calendar could have come from South America, from the even earlier Chavín civilization, and curiously, the Jaguar-Man was also a prominent feature of that culture. Just saying… Deep history.

Some other notes on my Mexican menagerie: I can’t even identify some of the animals or birds, especially the silly little bugs. That odd creature at the end of the deity’s tail is the salamander called in Nahuatl axolotl. My Monarch butterfly (center left, just above the stunning Turkey) is geographically appropriate, as are my several other nature drawings of Mexican fauna, including the quetzal birds (top right). Don’t overlook the Xoloitzcuintli, national dog of Mexico, at the Jaguar’s left foot. Can you identify any more of the critters in this montage?

(You can still see or download the previous ten icons in the YE GODS! series by clicking on them in the list on the page for the coloring book.)

ICON #11: OCELOTL

(Lord of the Animals)

To download this icon as a pdf file with a page of caption and model images from the Aztec Codices, right click here and select “Save Target (or Link) As.” You can also download it in freely sizable vector drawings from the coloring book page.

OCELOTL (Jaguar), Lord of the Animals

OCELOTL {o-se-lotł} (Jaguar) is the Aztecs’ deity of all animals of land, sea, and air. It is a nagual of the god TEZCATLIPOCA who created the First Sun, Nahui Ocelotl (Four Jaguar), a world peopled by giants who were devoured by divine jaguars. Ocelotl, the 14^th day of the month, was usually a lucky day, but anyone born on the day Ce Ocelotl (One Jaguar) was destined for sacrifice to one god or another. OCELOTL is patron of scouts and warriors, and the elite corps of warriors of the night were known as the Jaguar Knights. Ever since the Maya, in Mesoamerica jaguar pelts in shades of tawny gold to white were the sacred possessions of priests and royalty.

August 22, 2016

Huixtocihuatl and Mictlancihuatl, Aztec goddesses

No, I haven’t been on vacation since the middle of May. Well, actually I did go away with family for a week at the beginning of July to a beach house in Galveston. Just a week though. Otherwise I’ve been making good progress on the eleventh icon (Ocelotl-Jaguar) for my YE GODS! coloring book and restoring photographs by the dozen for a biography of my mother, which I hope to finish by October and publish under Writing. As if that weren’t enough of an excuse for no blog postings these three months, I’ve also been dealing with some medical issues I won’t bore you with, except to say they involved surgery and prescription for a blood thinner. No fun whatsoever.

Meanwhile, I’ve wondered what to write about next. I considered a lament about the current sad climate for dance in Santa Fe, but you don’t want to read about my withering opinion of what they’re calling nightlife and dance music nowadays. Rants about today’s absurd political situation seemed particularly egregious, and philosophical essays seemed pointless. I’ve been planning to write about 30 years ago, but that purely autobiographical subject, while formative and somewhat dramatic, isn’t all that exciting. So I’ll fall back on my eccentric art for a topic.

Sorry about taking so long on the Ocelotl icon, but it demands an exorbitant number of elements. The Jaguar being the Aztec’s main animal deity, lord of the animals, I’ve got to include as many of the animals indigenous to Mexico as I can manage. It’s been a hoot drawing them: armadillo, peccary, xoloitzcuintli, quetzal, turkey, iguana, tortoise, coati, etc. There are several yet to go, like pelican and giant anteater. It will present the Mesoamerican biota of creatures of the land, air, and sea.

To show this inclusiveness, I’ve drawn Tlaltecuhtli, the androgynous deity of the earth (the land); Quetzalcoatl, the composite deity of the sky (the air); and Huixtocihuatl, the Lady of Salt (the sea). In addition, in the tenth icon of Mictlantecuhtli I included a new cameo of the Lady of the Land of the Dead, Mictlancihuatl.

Since these two divine Ladies don’t figure in the Aztec ceremonial calendar, they didn’t make it into my batch of illustrations for that 1993 book. So here for your delectation are images of two more Aztec goddesses:

Huixtocihuatl, Lady of Salt, and Mictlancihuatl, Lady of the Land of the Dead

Richard Balthazar

there's dance in the old dame yet!