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Gandhi and the
Psychology
of Nonviolence,
Volume 2
Applications across Psychological Science
V. K. Kool · Rita Agrawal
 Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence,
Volume 2

“Vinod Kool has once again provided us with groundbreaking new under-
standings of sides of nonviolence in the Gandhian tradition few have paid
attention to. These two volumes cover an impressive wide range of topics
and each of them combines thorough studies of the sources with recent
scientific discoveries in psychology and medicine.
Both volumes of Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence must be
obligatory reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Gandhian
“experiments with Truth” have developed into the most important force
in societal conflicts globally. All engaged citizens, activists, politicians,
researchers, and students should include these books in their curriculum.
Kool and Agrawal provide food for thought on most of the important
questions humanity is facing today including the 2020 pandemic.
Reserve space in your book shelves for these books. When you have read
them you will achieve a more nuanced view on Gandhi and nonviolence
than you can imagine.”
—Jørgen Johansen, Deputy Editor, Journal of
Resistance Studies, Sweden

“Those of us in peace psychology take pride in how much our field covers
almost all other approaches in psychology. In these two volumes, this is
done with a focus on Gandhian psychology. The wide range and depth of
coverage offers a must read for everyone who wants to be familiar with
Gandhi or who wants to be well-versed in peace psychology.”
—Rachel MacNair, Director of the Institute for Integrated Social
Analysis for Consistent Life, USA, President of the American
Psychological Association’s Division of Peace Psychology
(2013), and author of Religions and Nonviolence:
The Rise of Effective Advocacy for Peace (2015)
 V. K. Kool • Rita Agrawal

Gandhi and the

Psychology
of Nonviolence,
Volume 2
Applications across Psychological Science
V. K. Kool Rita Agrawal
SUNY Polytechnic Institute Harish Chandra Postgraduate College
Utica, NY, USA Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

ISBN 978-3-030-56988-4    ISBN 978-3-030-56989-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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 Prologue to Volume 2

One of the most difficult challenges a professor faces is when a student in

the West is to be taught a concept rooted in the Eastern philosophy or vice
versa. Gandhi employed several concepts such as aparigraha, anasakti,
tapas and many more derived from the Indian religions and philosophies
that are not easy to grasp by students and public at large in the West and
elsewhere. But come to think of it, Gandhi and his principles and the con-
cepts that he used are not really difficult to understand.
Let us start our explanations by imagining what would have taken place
if Gandhi had been a subject for Milgram’s “obedience to authority”
experiment reported in almost every book of psychology. What Gandhi
would have done, how would he have behaved, were he to participate as a
subject in the experiment inviting him to deliver lethal shocks to an erring
learner? For one thing, Gandhi would seldom refuse if a person approached
him for help. So, would he have gone along with the instructions to help
the experimenter? Certainly not! Instead of obeying Milgram’s instruc-
tions to deliver shocks, Gandhi would have asked if there was any other
way in which he could help Milgram so as to serve the purpose of the
experiment. No civilized person would start giving shocks simply because
he had been told to do so. Using his wisdom and following the Socratic
dictum of challenging oneself with questions before embarking on a jour-
ney in unfamiliar terrain, Gandhi would have given Milgram an analogy of
the windows in the homes of the Netherlands, the majority of which are
generally not draped with curtains or blinds. Well, the Dutch believe that
they have nothing to hide and even as darkness sets in the late evening and

v
vi PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2

the inside of their Dutch homes are visible from the outside, the residents
do not cover their windows for privacy. This attitude is, in many ways, akin
to the Protestant religious tradition of Calvinism which stipulates that
there is nothing to hide: we are the same, both from the inside and from
the outside. Since psychologists, often, do not tell subjects the real pur-
pose of the experiment until the debriefing session is conducted after the
experiment is over, Gandhi would not have been a willing and cooperative
subject in a psychology experiment, let alone the famous Milgram experi-
ment. What is the reason for such an attitude? The reason is that for
Gandhi, any achievement of goals is contingent upon the fairness of the
means; otherwise, no matter how great the success, in the absence of pious
means, it is harmful and carries a poor message for humanity. Gandhi
would have told the Yale professor Milgram to learn from the Dutch.
As stated in the Preface of Volume 1 of this book, people do not become
saints overnight. It is only through their struggles, both within and with-
out, that they learn, they grow and they evolve. The same was the case
with Gandhi, and one of the important objectives of this book was to
delve into the experiences that made him a Mahatma (saint) for the great
Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and Bapu (father) for the teeming
masses that followed him, through thick and thin. Another objective of
this book was an analysis of Gandhi’s creed of nonviolence and to study it
in the context of twenty-first-century empirical research and theory in psy-
chology. Further, we felt a need to establish the idea that Gandhi’s ahimsa
or nonviolence was not only in a class of its own, but that it was based on
sound principles derived from the multifarious experiments Gandhi con-
ducted on himself and “Truth.” In sum, the majority of books of psychol-
ogy, including those on social psychology, reveal that the brunt of the
focus has been on people characterized by aggression and even violence,
with those who choose nonviolence as their characteristic mode of reac-
tion receiving negligible attention. In contrast, the present book, offered
in two volumes, was written with the aim of highlighting the psychology
of nonviolence, with specific reference to Gandhi. While the significance
of concepts such as self-control and moral inclusion have been noted rela-
tively recently in the field of psychology, Gandhi had long put them in the
backyard of psychology, on the basis of his social “experiments.” There is
much to learn from his life and philosophy, which can be used to enrich
the content of modern psychology in general and well-­being in particular.
In view of the above-stated objectives, Volume 1 of this book, entitled,
Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence: Scientific Roots and Development,
 PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2 vii

comprised eight chapters through which we traced the scientific roots and
development of Gandhi’s nonviolence and the ways in which it has been
validated by empirical research in psychology. The volume started with the
beginning of our journey in the area of nonviolence and how we were
intrigued not by those subjects who obeyed the orders of Milgram but by
those who chose to disobey: their psychology, personality and dynamics of
behavior. We found a close similarity between these disobeying subjects
and people characterized by nonviolent tendencies. Throughout human
history, we find examples of people who have resisted powerful situations
eliciting compliance, such as acting against oppression, unfair laws and
other adverse social situations. According to Zimbardo (2004), while such
unsung heroism at individual levels is manifested everywhere, a few among
them broaden their mission and address social issues at large. One such
hero is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who, through his nonviolent
technique popularly known as Satyagraha, offered to shape human behav-
ior by being morally inclusive, displaying utmost self-control and con-
stantly learning to monitor nonviolent behavior while facing oppression
and aggression by the adversary.
The natural sequel in Chap. 2 of the volume was the analysis of the
disobedient Gandhi, and his early life and experiences which molded him
and helped him develop a deep interest in nonviolence as the guiding
principle of his life, as the Truth, which was to become his God and his
religion. The chapter also contains descriptions of the many people who
were influenced by him. The next chapter, Chap. 3 deals with an aspect
which is very dear to us, focusing on interviews we conducted with mem-
bers of Gandhi’s family and other survivors of the Gandhi era, the majority
being over eighty years of age. These interviews brought us, personally
speaking, very close to Gandhi and helped us gain deep insight into his
ideas and philosophy. While Chap. 4 attempted to look into the building
blocks of Gandhi’s nonviolence, Chap. 5 established the idea that nonvio-
lence is nothing new, “it is as old as the hills,” as professed by Gandhi, by
looking into the depths of the evolutionary history of humanity, along
with the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological basis of many of the
attributes of Gandhi’s nonviolence, including those of empathy, love, jus-
tice and self-control. The next chapter, namely, Chap. 6, was devoted to
the delineation of the nonviolent personality and to show that nonvio-
lence is a more or less stable dimension of human personality. As such it is
amenable to measurement, much like other traits of personality. Various
scales, including the Nonviolence Test (NVT) and the Teenage
viii PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2

Nonviolence Test (TNT) were described and discussed in detail. Chapter

7 analyzed nonviolence in terms of the models and theories that have been
proposed by psychologists including the three-­dimensional model of non-
violence. Last but not the least, Chap. 8 went into the analysis of the
cognition of nonviolence, revealing that the ways through which Gandhi
helped his followers cognize his creed of nonviolence in the early twenti-
eth century were amazing, to say the least, and were very much in line
with the current research in cognitive psychology almost a century later,
that is, during the twenty-first century. The volume ended with an epi-
logue (Chap. 9) in which we summed up the status of Gandhi’s psychol-
ogy of nonviolence and its scientific nature.
Even a cursory glance at the state of the world and the earth, today,
makes us realize that it is beset with multifarious problems, for the major-
ity of which we humans are to blame, but are unable to find solutions to.
Whether it is in the domain of the disrupted ecological balance playing
havoc with the climate, rising levels of crime, prejudice and interstate con-
flict, violence and war, or, it is in terms of the increasing feelings of alien-
ation and stress among the youth, and the widespread erosion of morality
and ethics, the problems are apparently insurmountable. This volume of
the book brings to the reader an account and an analysis of how Gandhi’s
nonviolence, based on the strong foundation of empathy, compassion,
anasakti (detachment), aparigraha (nonpossession) and tapas (self-­sacrifice)
coupled with self-control and discipline in terms of differentiating between
our needs and our wants can go a long way in mitigating and even alleviat-
ing many of the problems cited above. The ways in which Gandhi leads his
followers, his charisma derived from his conviction and faith in the “truth,”
and his suggestions for transparent corporate governance using means that
are pure, offer insights into the problems facing many an organization,
either small or large. In other words, when the world is grappling with
problems related to the sustainability of the environment and climate
change, poverty, corporate governance, education, lowered moral stan-
dards, increasing crime, cross-border violence and many more, there is
much that can be gleaned from a psychological analysis of Gandhi and his
followers. A detailed analysis of the life and work of Gandhi will provide
interesting insights into the dynamics of such behavior.
We draw the attention of the reader to the large number of eminent
scholars and thinkers, some of them being Nobel laureates, who have
vouched for the validity of Gandhi’s ideas and philosophy and practice of
nonviolence for providing solutions. Scientists from across a variety of
 PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2 ix

disciplines ranging from physics and astronomy to ethics, philosophy and

political science have pointed out the relevance of Gandhian principles and
strategies for solving many of the problems listed above. This august list
includes Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, French philosopher, Grinevald,
astronomer and former President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees,
Australian ethicist, Clive Hamilton, British climate scientist, Chris Rapley,
veteran scholars, Ray Kurzweil and Steven Pinker, to name just a few.
Current work in neuroscience (e.g., the work of Robin Dunbar on the
social brain) and evolutionary biology also validates many of the principles
enunciated by a person named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi way back
in the 1930s and 1940s. The eminence of this person can be gauged from
the fact that in that era itself, when technology was still in a very nascent
stage and the globalized, boundary-less village had yet to take shape, he
could envisage the problems that we human beings were giving an invita-
tion to. Had we heeded his warnings and applied some of the techniques
advocated by him, it is probable that Mother Earth and the species of flora
and fauna, including the Homo sapiens would have been in a better state
today. However, all is not lost, there is still hope. In this volume, we will
attempt to focus on some of these problems and the ingenious ways in
which they can be countered, with Gandhian thinking as the base.
In view of the above, the present volume of the book, namely Volume
2, entitled Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence: Applications Across
Psychological Science, comprises seven chapters, each focusing on applica-
tions of Gandhi’s principles and strategies for a particular domain of
applied psychology. Chapter 1 deals with the issue of the tragedy of the
commons and how many of our environmental problems and those related
to climate change are linked to this issue. We envisage that current research
and theorization in the field of environmental psychology will draw les-
sons from Gandhi and endeavor to help professionals and United Nation
agencies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
to deal with the onslaughts of the era of the Anthropocene through the
emerging human consciousness in the form of the Noosphere. Chapter 2
focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations as
part of its Agenda 2030, and how the United Nations has advocated that
Gandhi’s principles of education can be incorporated into twenty-first-
century educational systems, the world over. The chapter describes at
length, Gandhi’s system of education in terms of Buniyadi Shiksha (Basic
Education) and Nai Talim (New Education) and how it leads to the well-
rounded growth of the child. The importance of character building has
x PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2

been dealt with in depth, with gleanings from recent research in educa-
tional psychology and character building and socio-emotional develop-
ment. A Nai Talim school that is grounded in the very traditions of Gandhi
and his followers is described in detail. Chapter 3 makes an attempt to
clear the myth of Gandhi’s nonacceptance of machines and technology,
discussing the reasons for his supposed “distaste” for machines and his
“obsession” with the spinning wheel. Gandhi had great foresight and
could foresee many of the negative effects of technology that the world is
witnessing today. These have been analyzed in the light of empirical
research in the nascent field of psychology of technology and its future
trajectories, in the context of many of the technology-related problems of
today. Gandhi set up a number of communities in the form of ashrams,
settlements and farms. While many other communities especially estab-
lished along the lines of specific principles have often failed to sustain
themselves, those set up by Gandhi were highly successful. The ways in
which they were managed under the capable and charismatic leadership of
Gandhi provide many a lesson for the twenty-first-century manager and
the student of organizational behavior and conflict resolution. Thus,
Chap. 4 deals with the implications of Gandhi’s creed of nonviolence for
the understanding of organizational behavior. At the same time, these
communities offer excellent examples of harmonious community living in
the lap of nature.
Chapter 5 deals with how community psychology can learn from
Gandhi and also how the very principles enunciated by Gandhi and fol-
lowed in his communities are validated by current research in community
psychology. The lessons for moral inclusion, the eradication of prejudice
and discriminatory practices and the creation of a strong culture are delin-
eated through an analysis of the ways in which Gandhi attempted to solve
these problems. Gandhi’s focus on the village system in the form of oce-
anic circles is discussed in the light of current research in the computa-
tional limits of the human brain. A salient feature of Gandhi’s life and
work was his emphasis on pure means, means that are morally and ethically
correct.
Chapter 6 deals with the issues of religion and morality in the light of
Gandhi’s principles and how they have been corroborated by recent
research in psychology of religion and morality. The volume ends with
projections for the future, of how Gandhi, with his deep insight into
human psychology, could foresee many of the problems yet to come. The
directions that modern psychology can take, in the perspective of Gandhi’s
 PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2 xi

life and work, have been highlighted. The question raised is whether
Gandhi is relevant in the twenty-first century, and, if so, what are the ways
in which he is relevant. When scientists, as eminent as Einstein, opined
that Gandhi enlightened his mind and UC-Berkeley professor, Nagler,
stated that the laws of nonviolence are more robust than the laws of phys-
ics, we envisage that the psychology of nonviolence, based on scientific
principles enunciated by Gandhi and corroborated by current state-of-the-
art research in psychology, is here to stay, though it has a long way to go.
The foundation has been laid by Gandhi, it is up to psychology and its
sister disciplines to construct and develop the structure.
In this volume, we have navigated through and sampled several domains
of human life including, but not limited to, religion, technology, educa-
tion, organizational behavior, climate change and community living, in
the context of Gandhi’s contributions. Finally, in the concluding chapter
on modern psychology and Gandhi in the twenty-first century, we have
begun by stating the extent to which Gene Sharp was correct when he
advised social scientists, including psychologists, to focus on what Gandhi
had offered to us in order to grow and improve our theories and applica-
tions. While we understand that several Gandhian concepts are deeply
rooted in the ethos of the Indian culture, we have attempted to present
the material in both the volumes in an easy, simple manner, such that it
should not be difficult for either the technical or the nontechnical reader
to grasp the psychological underpinnings of Gandhi’s life and work. We
considered this aspect to be of considerable importance having noticed
the difficulties often faced by students, members of the public and others,
when we delivered lectures in the classrooms or participated in discussions
in public fora across the continents. As such, we have restricted technical
jargon to the minimum and have sought to explain Indian terms and con-
cepts, as simply as possible, so that the uninitiated reader does not get
intimidated by exotic and ethnic expressions.

Los Angeles, CA V. K. Kool

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India  Rita Agrawal
 Contents

1 Environmental Psychology: Lessons from Gandhi  1

Tragedy of the Commons   3
Evidence for Rapid Climate Change   4
Have We Reached the “Tipping Point”?   6
The Anthropocene   7
The Noosphere  10
Nexus between the Anthropocene and the Noosphere  11
Building Temperance  12
The Earth Charter  14
Ecological Citizenship  15
Environmental Psychology  19
Theory of Planned Behavior  21
Norm Activation Model  21
Value-Belief-Norm Theory  21
Nudging Pro-Environmental Behavior  22
Gandhi, the Environmentalist  24
Gandhi and Environmental Ethics  25
Gandhi and Building Temperance  27
Gandhi, Nonpossession (Aparigraha) and Pro-environmental
Behavior  29
Gandhi and Attitude Change  30
Gandhi, Self-Reliance and the Ecological Movement  32

xiii
xiv Contents

Gandhi and the Role of Culture in Building a Sustainable

Ecological System  34
Gandhi and Identification with Nature (Vasudhaiva
Kutumbakam)  37
Deep Ecology  41
References  44

2 The Gandhian Model of Education: Relevance for

Educational Psychology 51
The UNO Sustainable Development Goals and Gandhi  53
Establishment of the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education
and Peace and Its Objectives  53
The Philosophy of Education and Educational Psychology  55
Gandhi’s Philosophy of Education  57
Gandhi and Education  60
Nai Talim (New Education) and its Salient Features  62
Free Education from Seven to Fourteen Years of Age  62
Universal Education  63
Education Through Handicraft  64
The Logic for Education Through Handicraft  65
Self-Supporting Aspect of Education  67
The Medium of Instruction  68
Education and the Creed of Nonviolence  69
Education and Character Building  72
Take the Educational Institutions to the Village  74
Character Building in Modern Education  74
The Theory of Triadic Influence (Snyder 2014)  77
Nai Talim Schools of the Twenty-First Century  79
The Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli (India)  81
Nai Talim at the Global Level  86
References  87

3 Gandhi and the Psychology of Technology 93

Gandhi and Machines  94
Machines and the Tragedy of the Commons  95
Machines and Unemployment  96
Technology and Unemployment  97
 Contents  xv

Compensation Effects for Unemployment Due to New Technology  99

Psychological Effects of Unemployment 102
The Scars of Unemployment 103
Bread Labor 106
The Music of the Spinning Wheel 109
The Spinning Wheel and Moral Inclusion 110
The Digital Divide 111
Digital Divide and the Elderly 114
Technology and the Means-Ends Relationship 116
From Ergonomics to Hedonomics 117
The Consequences of Modern Technology 124
Technology and the Wisdom of Gandhi’s Swaraj 125
Gandhian Engineering 126
Technology and Flow: The Music of the Spinning Wheel 129
References 130

4 Gandhi’s Calling Orientation: Applications to

Organizational Behavior137
The Beginnings of Organizational Psychology 140
Nature of Organizational Psychology and Organizational
Behavior 141
Individual Factors, OB and Gandhi 143
The Calling Orientation 143
Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Motivation 147
Self-Efficacy 152
Group Dynamics, Organizational Behavior and Gandhi 153
Interdependence Among Members 153
Group Cohesiveness 155
Leadership 158
The Charisma of Gandhi’s Leadership 159
Negative and Positive Charisma 165
Esprit de Corps and Organizational Citizenship Behavior 166
Organizational Factors, OB and Gandhi 167
Organizational Culture 167
Organizational Culture in Gandhi’s Organizations 169
Diversity Management and a Culture of Inclusivity 172
Trusteeship as an Organizational Vision 175
xvi Contents

Gandhi and Means-End Relationship in Organizational

Governance 178
Conflict Resolution and Integrative Negotiation 181
Gandhi and Conflict Resolution 185
References 187

5 Gandhi’s Nonviolence and Community Psychology for the

Twenty-First Century195
Communal Living and Communities 197
The Beginnings of Community Psychology 198
Objectives of Community Psychology 199
Gandhi as a Community Psychologist 201
Gandhi and Oceanic Circles 202
Swaraj, Swadeshi and the Village Republic 202
The Village Republic and the Dunbar Number 203
Oceanic Circles in the Twenty-First Century 204
Gandhi’s Communities 205
Phoenix Settlement 205
Tolstoy Farm 208
Sabarmati Ashram 211
Sevagram Ashram 212
Community Intervention 216
Gandhi and Community Intervention 217
Gandhi and Kelly’s Fourfold Ecological Model 221
Interdependence 221
Adaptation 223
Succession 223
Cycling of Resources 223
Second Freedom (Doosri Azaadi) 224
The Village Republic Beyond Gandhi 227
References 232

6 Gandhian Nonviolence from the Perspective of the

Psychology of Religion and Morality237
Gandhi’s Religion 238
The Development of Gandhi’s Religiosity 239
Gandhi and Religious Conversion 242
Politics and Religion for Gandhi 244
 Contents  xvii

The Psychology of Religion 244

Religion and Spirituality 245
Gandhi’s Spirituality 247
Gandhi, Religion of Nonviolence and Vows 248
Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health 249
Religion, Spirituality and the Sacred 250
Religion, Spirituality and Peace 254
From Religion to Morality 254
Gandhi and Morality 255
Morality and Religion 257
Morality as a Function of Means and Ends 258
Morality and Self-Control 259
Morality and Moral Shaming 260
Morality and Moral Reasoning 262
Morality and Moral Inclusion 264
References 269

7 Epilogue: Modern Psychology and Gandhi in the

Twenty-­First Century277
The Relevance of Gandhi 277
Gandhi’s Enigmatic Personality 282
The Wisdom of Gandhi 286
Gandhi and Applied Psychology 290
Implications for Scientific Research 303
Concluding Remarks 309
References 314

Author Index319

Subject Index327
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 The overlapping systems of the Earth Charter 15

Fig. 1.2 Kool (left) with a local resident of the Malana area of Himachal
Pradesh, India 19
Fig. 1.3 The three pillars of sustainable development based on the
Brundtland Report, 1987 (based on Singh 2019) 34
Fig. 1.4 Culture as sustainable development 36
Fig. 1.5 Development of self-realization in the growing child 42
Fig. 2.1 The theory of triadic influence (based on Snyder 2014) 78
Fig. 2.2 The Principal and students of Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya, Bardoli
with Kool 84
Fig. 3.1 Causes of unemployment 98
Fig. 3.2 Bandura’s triadic reciprocity theory (adapted from Kool and
Agrawal 2016) 115
Fig. 4.1 A systems approach to organizations (based on Levitt 1965) 142
Fig. 4.2 Results of Schachter et al.’s (1951) pitchfork study. (Adapted
from Luthans 1995) 156
Fig. 4.3 The onion model of organizational culture. (Adapted from
Hofstede 2011) 168
Fig. 4.4 The three pillars of integrative negotiation 184
Fig. 7.1 The NBIC tetrahedron (adapted from Kool and Agrawal 2016) 307

xix
 List of Boxes

Box 1.1 Evidence for the Anthropocene 7

Box 1.2 Water Crisis in Cape Town 16
Box 1.3 The Historical Beginnings of Environmental Psychology 20
Box 1.4 Examples of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam from the Life of Gandhi 38
Box 1.5 “A sobering astronomical reminder from COVID-19: We
should be grateful for the conditions that allow us to exist at all,
because they won’t last forever” 40
Box 2.1 The Formal Genesis of Nai Talim 58
Box 2.2 Gandhi, Socrates and Confucius on Education and Its
Psychological Basis 60
Box 2.3 Taking Gandhi’s Nai Talim to Schools 70
Box 2.4 Gandhi and Character Building in Bolivia 72
Box 2.5 A Practicum Using Gandhi 79
Box 3.1 Unemployment Due to Technological Advances 100
Box 3.2 The Therapeutic Workplace (Adapted from Silverman et al.
2018, p. 515) 105
Box 3.3 Twenty-First-Century Approach to Meditative Goals Served by
Technology Usage 123
Box 3.4 Gandhi and His Obsession for Innovation 128
Box 4.1 Planning and Implementing a Successful Diversity or Inclusivity
Training Program (Excerpted and Adapted from Fernandez
(November 2019, Business News Daily))174
Box 4.2 Honestly Dishonest: A Behavioral Model of Financial
Dishonesty (Based on Article by Sahibzada 2018) 180
Box 5.1 Minimalistic Living at Sevagram 214
Box 5.2 The Ashram Today (Excerpted from Anuja, Live Mint, 2018) 215
Box 5.3 Malana: A Living Example of a Nonviolent Community 219

xxi
xxii List of Boxes

Box 5.4 Building Community Feeling Through Community All Faith

Prayer Meetings 221
Box 5.5 Gandhi Is Still Alive—Very Much There in Several Households
of India 230
Box 6.1 Service to Society as a Sacred Value 251
Box 6.2 Moral Dilemmas and Moral Reasoning 262
Box 6.3 “Gandhi’s Anti-untouchability Campaign to Go Under the
Hammer”267
Box 7.1 On Meeting Winston Churchill 284
Box 7.2 We Have Created the Mess and It Is Our Duty to Help Clean
It Up 295
Box 7.3 Conflict Resolution in the Modern World of Today 299
Box 7.4 A Simple But Smart Way to Demonstrate Nonviolence in the
Service of the Community 303
Box 7.5 Sanjit “Bunker” Roy and the Barefoot College 309
Box 7.6 Howard Gardner—Learning from Gandhi 313
 CHAPTER 1

Environmental Psychology: Lessons

from Gandhi

Opening Vignette: Generalist Versus Specialist

As adherence to nonviolence involves, not only humans but all
aspects of life, sentient in nature, Gandhi should be considered as a
thinker who was not a specialist in any one area of activity. Rather, he
was a generalist, being able to obtain results in a variety of domains.
The importance of such people in the twenty-first century had been
pointed out by Nicole Torres (2016) and well illustrated in the June
issue of the Harvard Business Review. According to her, individuals
who tend to acquire a wide range of skills and demonstrate talent
across a variety of areas are likely to be, not only, more unusual, but
also, redeployable. Also, such people can be seen to excel in leader-
ship roles.
Along the same lines, in a recent interview with CNBC, Vikram
Mansharamani (2020) of Harvard University contended that
“breadth of perspective and the ability to connect the proverbial dots
(the domain of generalists) is likely to be as important as depth of
expertise and the ability to generate dots (the domain of specialist).”
Further, he concluded that the future belongs to the generalists,
especially in the context of an uncertain future. And, today, while in

(continued)

© The Author(s) 2020 1

V. K. Kool, R. Agrawal, Gandhi and the Psychology of Nonviolence,
Volume 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56989-1_1
2 V. K. KOOL AND R. AGRAWAL

(continued)
the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, uncertainties about the
future, definitely, loom large.
Even without the pandemic, the rampant destruction of commu-
nities and the natural habitat, the altering of the environment and
developments in technology, our concerns for the issues regarding
growth of communities and their sustainability, and degradation of
the ecological balance are greater now than ever before with a big
question mark regarding what the future holds for coming genera-
tions. Even experts at the National Science Foundation, USA, clearly
state that the impact of technology is so strong and rapid that it
would be difficult, or almost impossible, to foresee where and to
what it will lead. At such uncertain times, wisdom is the need of the
hour. And, who could be a better person to look up to than one of
the wisest human beings of the previous century, Gandhi—a thinker,
a generalist, a visionary regarding human values and survival, and
above all, a person who led us with simple examples par excellence.

Yes, Gandhi was certainly a generalist, but, in no way, was he a “jack of all
trades.” As this volume clarifies, Gandhi had relevant and cogent ideas for
many fields of human endeavor, including, education, technology and its
development, leadership in organizations, environmental degradation, the
establishment of sustainable communities, the inculcation of moral and
religious values and many more, which are beyond the purview of this
volume. Moreover, he actually put these ideas into practice. While most of
Gandhi’s life (after that night at Pietersmaritzsburg railway station when
he was thrown out of the first-class compartment of the train in which he
was traveling) were spent in fighting against oppression and for the rights
of people, he created, alongside, a values-based system of education, tech-
nology which was appropriate for the times and communities that were
sustainable. The guiding spirit all along was truth, which for him was God,
and which could be followed only through the right means, namely,
ahimsa or nonviolence. Whether in South Africa or in India, for Gandhi,
nonviolence was not a simple pragmatic strategy to be used for the attain-
ment of specific ends. Nonviolence was not even a principle, for Gandhi.
Rather, it was a creed to be exercised in every domain of life and to be
 1 ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: LESSONS FROM GANDHI 3

extended to all forms of life. This was the guiding force behind all his
endeavors—personal, social or political, and was best exemplified by his
steadfast belief in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (nature is my family).
Moreover, he was of the firm opinion that Mother Nature provides for all.
It is our selfishness and lack of concern for others that create the problems,
a concern which he voiced through his now famous words, “there is
enough for every man’s need but not for every man’s greed.”

Tragedy of the Commons

Decades later, in 1968, Hardin expounded on the same idea and gave an
explanation for it based on what he called “the tragedy of the commons.”
According to Hardin, there are a whole host of problems for which there
are techno-fixes, leading to problems that can be nomenclatured as “no
technical solutions problem.” Explaining it even more explicitly, Hardin
takes the example of the grazing commons of the Western world. As the
name suggests, these are public grazing grounds for which payment is not
needed. Seeing greater grazing opportunities, a few herdsmen add more
animals to their herd and so earn greater profits. Their example sets off
others, who follow suit. The result is that individual herdsmen keep on
adding animals till the land becomes insufficient for the ever-increasing
herds, making the whole proposition unfeasible. As Hardin puts it,

Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd
without limit—in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward
which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that
believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings
ruin to all. (Hardin 1968, p. 1244)

The same may be said of many other commons: the oceans and rivers,
which are constantly being polluted, leading to the extinction of many
species; the atmosphere, which is being polluted by noxious gases and
airborne particles, not to speak of sound; even free parking spaces and
playgrounds face a similar threat simply because they are part of the com-
mons, being open to all and, yet, not requiring payment.
The tragedy of the commons clarifies the fallacy of Adam Smith’s state-
ment in his book, The Wealth of Nations (1776), that individuals who
pursue their own private interests are so to say, “led by an invisible hand
to promote… the public interest,” (p. 423). The tragedy of the commons
4 V. K. KOOL AND R. AGRAWAL

reveals that humans, left to their own choices, may not always work for
societal good.
Today, in the year 2020, almost five decades since Hardin professed his
ideas, where are we placed? What have we done to Mother Earth through
the tragedy of the commons and various other acts that have led to the
degradation of nature? While Vaughan (2016) presents a long list, we will
enumerate just some of them, enough to show the havoc we have caused.

• Rising levels of airborne carbon particles.

• Increasing concentrations of the noxious carbon dioxide since the
Industrial Revolution.
• Nitrogen and phosphorous levels have doubled due to rising use of
chemical fertilizers.
• Increased use of nonbiodegradable plastics which will leave indelible
fossil records for generations to come.
• A marked increase in the extinction rate of flora and fauna. If we go
the way we are going, we would see the extinction of 75% of plant
and animal species within the next few centuries itself.

Evidence for Rapid Climate Change

All of the above, and more, have led to rapid climate changes, the effects
of which are clearly visible. A recent NASA Global Climate Change Report
(2020) presents compelling evidence, a summary of which we will now
present. There are, at least, nine aspects which serve as evidence to show
that rapid climate change is taking place.

1. Rise in global temperature: The average surface temperature of the

earth has risen by about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit since the late nine-
teenth century due to mainly increased carbon dioxide and other
human-made emissions into the atmosphere. It may be amazing, but it
is true, that most of the warming has occurred over the past 35 years,
with the five warmest years on record taking place in the very recent
past, that is, since 2010. The NASA analysis also reveals that the year
2019 was the second warmest year on record since modern record-­
keeping began in 1880 (NASA 2020).
 1 ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: LESSONS FROM GANDHI 5

2. Warming oceans: Much of this increased surface heat has been absorbed
by the oceans, as a result of which we are witnessing a rise of about
0.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the top 700 meters of the ocean, since 1969.
3. Shrinking ice sheets: Would you believe that the once ice-bound
Greenland and the Antarctic are witnessing a massive decrease in mass
of ice sheets, so much so that Greenland has lost an average of 286 bil-
lion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016 while the Antarctic
has lost about 127 billion tons during the same period. Further, the
rate of ice mass loss in the Antarctic has tripled in the last decade.
4. Retreating glaciers: Around the world, whether it is in the Himalayas,
the Alps, Andes, Rockies, Alaska or Africa, glaciers are retreating at an
increasingly fast rate.
5. Decreased snow cover: As far as the Northern Hemisphere is concerned,
the amount of spring snow cover has decreased over the past five
decades, and each consecutive year sees the snow to be melting earlier.
6. Rise in sea level: Over the last century, the global sea level has risen by
about eight inches. Further, as in the case of snow cover, one can
understand its enormity, when we consider the finding that the rate of
sea-level rise over the last two decades has been nearly double that over
the last century and is constantly accelerating.
7. Declining Arctic Sea level: Both the extent and the thickness of the
Arctic Sea have declined over the past several decades.
8. Extreme events: The total number of high-temperature events has been
increasing in the USA as also around the world. At the same time, the
number of record low-temperature events is decreasing along with a
rise in the number of intense rainfall events.
9. Ocean acidification: So great has been the effect of the Industrial
Revolution and its aftermath that the acidity of surface ocean waters
has increased about 30%. Most of this is because of humans emitting a
greater amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with the result
that more of it is being absorbed by the ocean.

The NASA report (ibid.) also points to the causes of the above men-
tioned events. According to them, there are at least three principal causes,
the greenhouse effect, human activity and solar irradiance. At the same
time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is
made up of over 1300 scientists from all over the world, has concluded
that changes in solar irradiance cannot alone explain the massive global
6 V. K. KOOL AND R. AGRAWAL

warming taking place. Rather, there is more than 95% probability that
human activities, over the past fifty years or so, are the major cause of
global warming.
What is the prediction for the future? It is definite that the changes
mentioned above will continue through the current century and even
beyond. Temperatures will continue to rise, there will be changes in pre-
cipitation patterns, there will be more droughts and heat waves and hur-
ricanes will become stronger. Amazing though it may seem, the Arctic is
likely to become ice free. A recent review, also, confirms that climate
change is increasing the risk of wildfire such as those seen in Australia
(University of East Anglia 2020).

Have We Reached the “Tipping Point”?

While the above changes have been continuing over the past century or
so, their accelerated rate is becoming a cause of concern. It is being pro-
posed that we may have even reached “the tipping point” (Lenton et al.
2019), in that we may have pushed the earth so far that we may soon wit-
ness a scenario, “where the Earth begins ‘self amplifying’ global warming
in a series of unstoppable destructive feedback loops” (Cockburn 2019).
The scientists warn that

The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril. International action—

not just words—must reflect this. (Lenton et al. 2019, p. 595)

While we may have, already, crossed the threshold for a cascade of

interrelated tipping points, all is not lost. But we must act early enough
and the only way seems to be a reduction in human-made emissions.
Much more needs to be done and human beings must act in a more
responsible fashion. As Nobel Laureate, Paul Crutzen puts it, “it is no
longer us against Nature. Instead, it is we who decide what Nature is and
what it will be” (Crutzen and Schwagerl 2011). In fact, in this new era,
“Nature is us” (Crutzen and Schwagerl, ibid.), leading to a new epoch,
named Anthropocene by scientists.
 1 ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: LESSONS FROM GANDHI 7

The Anthropocene
According to Steffen et al. (2011), the antecedents of what is being called
the Anthropocene can be traced to the times of our hominid ancestors a
few million years ago and the complex ways in which they attempted to
influence the environment in their search for food and shelter. Two major
events have often been cited. One is the extinction of large mammals dur-
ing the ice age, while the other is the advent of agriculture leading to mas-
sive deforestation due to which we witnessed the production of greenhouse
gases though in moderate amounts. Recent scientific evidence, however,
shows that it was the Industrial Revolution and the increase in amount of
available energy sources that went a long way in exponentially increasing,
both, the length and the width of human activity. The figures speak for
themselves: while the human population grew from one billion to six bil-
lion between the years 1800 and 2000, energy use during the same period
grew 40-fold while economic production went up fifty times. Steffen and
his colleagues (Steffen et al. 2018), therefore, suggest that the year 1800
can be taken to be the start of the Anthropocene. The rate accelerated,
further, during the two World Wars and it currently seems that we have
entered into Phase 3 of the Anthropocene, characterized by a global
awareness regarding the negative effects of human enterprise and mount-
ing governmental efforts to counteract these effects (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1 Evidence for the Anthropocene

Scientists are of the view that there is increasing evidence to show
that the current epoch should be called the Anthropocene or the era
in which humankind is deciding the fate of Nature and natural
environment.
Some of the evidence is as follows:
We have pushed flora-fauna extinction rates far above the long-­
term average, so much so, that it can be confidently stated that we
are on course for a sixth mass extinction, which would see extinction
of 75% of presently living species in the next few centuries.
The Industrial Revolution and its aftermath of mass-scale produc-
tion have been the cause of extremely high levels of carbon dioxide
emission.
There are still traces of dangerous isotopes left as remnants of the
nuclear tests undertaken in the 1950s and 1960s.

(continued)
8 V. K. KOOL AND R. AGRAWAL

Box 1.1 (continued)

The amount of plastic that we are using is bound to leave behind
identifiable fossil records for the future generations to observe.
The use of nitrogen and phosphorous based fertilizers has dou-
bled in the past century.
Airborne carbon particles are leaving permanent markers in the
sediment and glacial ice.
These are just a few of the burgeoning mass of evidence that has
been collected and is continuing to be collected (adapted from
Vaughan, in The Guardian, January 2016).
Hamilton and Grinevald (2015) have summed up the evidence by
quoting Bushnell,

Not all the winds, the storms and earthquakes and seas and seasons of
the world have done so much to revolutionize the world as he (man),
with the power of an endless life, has done since the day he came forth
upon it and received, as he is most truly declared to have done,
dominion over it. (Bushnell, Sermon on The power of an Endless life,
1860, cf. Hamilton and Grinevald 2015, p. 1)

According to Yeo (2016), the concept of the Anthropocene can be said

to date back to 1873, when a Catholic Italian priest turned professor,
Antonio Stoppari wrote that “the Anthropozoic era has begun” and added
that “geologists cannot predict its end at all.” Almost half a century later,
Russian scientist Alexei Pavlov first suggested that the current geologic era
should be called Anthropocene.
The idea, however, had to wait till the year 2000, when Nobel Laureate
Paul Crutzen and his colleagues revived the idea, following it by a paper
in the Nature in 2002. By 2009, a working group had been formed con-
sisting of thirty-eight academics from disciplines as diverse as geology, law
and history. After seven years of work, this official body presented their
recommendations to the International Geological Congress at Cape Town
in August 2016. With much flourish, all the major newspapers and maga-
zines, scientists declared the dawn of new human-influenced era: the
Anthropocene (Carrington 2016, The Guardian). The Time magazine
 1 ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: LESSONS FROM GANDHI 9

carried an obituary for the Holocene epoch (Wilson 2016), writing that
the cause of the end of the Holocene was the rapid alteration of the earth’s
ecosystem through nuclear weapons tests, microplastic pollution, in addi-
tion to, agriculture and carbon emission. So significant was this renaming
of the geological period that the Chair of the Working Group, Professor
Zalasienicz, wrote,

The significance of the Anthropocene is that it sets a different trajectory for

the Earth’s system, of which we, of course, are a part.

By 2017, the foreboding was apparent making people write “we are
now in the midst of the sixth great extinction—named Anthropocene, or
the age of the humans” and “as the authors of this loss, we are doing our
nasty work in a lot of ways” (Kluger 2017, the Time magazine). The
future, too, seemed dark. Astronomer and former President of the Royal
Society, Martin Rees wrote in an article in The Guardian in 2016
(Carrington 2016),

The darkest prognosis for the next millennium is that biological, cyber and
environmental catastrophes could foreclose humanity’s immense potential,
leaving a depleted biosphere.

Climate scientist Professor Chris Rapley, too, warns us about the grav-
ity of the situation. He writes,

Since the planet is our life support—we are essentially the crew of a large
spaceship—interference with its functioning at this level and on this scale
is highly significant. If you or I were the crew of a smaller spacecraft, it
would be unthinkable to interfere with the systems that provide us with
air, water, fodder and climate control. But the shift to the Anthropocene
tells us that we are playing with fire, a potentially reckless mode of behav-
ior which we are likely to come to regret unless we get a grip on the
situation.
So dark is the future that “we can either start to change our ways, or we can
keep going the way we are—at least until the Anthropocene extinction
claims one final species—our own.” (Rapley, quoted by Carrington 2016,
The Guardian)
10 V. K. KOOL AND R. AGRAWAL

But all is not lost! Martin Rees is optimistic and writes,

Human societies could navigate these threats, achieve a sustainable future

and inaugurate eras of post human evolution even more marvelous than
what has led to us. The dawn of the Anthropocene epoch would then mark
a one-off transformation from a natural world to one where humans jump
start the transition to electronic entities, that transcend our limitations and
eventually spread their influence far beyond the Earth. (Rees 2016)

Or as Crutzen and Schwagerl had put it earlier,

For millennia, humans have behaved as rebels against a super power we call
Nature. In the 20th century however, new technology fossil fuels and a fast
growing population resulted in the Great Acceleration of our own powers.
Albeit clumsily, we are taking control of Nature’s realm, from climate to
DNA. We humans are becoming the dominant force for change on earth.
(Crutzen and Schwagerl 2011)

The complex ways through which we are developing capabilities to

“navigate these threats” is perhaps through what has been termed the
Noosphere.

The Noosphere
Evolutionary biologists have clarified that all species on the earth are in a
constant state of flux—changing, adapting and becoming extinct as a
result of the process of gaining mastery over an unkind environment.
Charles Darwin has delineated the very ways through which these evolu-
tionary forces work, focusing on the process of natural selection. While
biological evolution is generally understood as a process for change of
form, another evolution is taking place alongside, with far greater implica-
tions for not only the human race but for the earth in general. This is the
evolution of human consciousness.
Initially conceived by Teilhard and Vernadsky, this evolution is hypoth-
esized as creating a new layer, the Noosphere, outside and above the bio-
sphere. This is the thinking layer, based on increasing encephalization of
the human brain, leading to ever higher levels of intelligence and con-
sciousness. The concept of the Noosphere suggests that humankind is in
an unfinished state as of now and will continue to advance toward a new
awakening, a new awareness.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Itzcoliuhqui. (From Codex Bologna, sheet 12.)

VARIANTS OF THE GREAT GODS.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 19: He looks out from the open jaws of a stone knife,
which is designed with teeth and the socket of an eye above them. Otherwise he is
pictured as a black Tezcatlipocâ with the yellow cross-bands on his face. The
smoking mirror, the badge of Tezcatlipocâ, is clearly to be discerned. The clouds of
incense reach a great height, and are set with feather-work. He wears the blue nose-
rod from which a little plate falls over the mouth, and he has a white breast-ring.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 14: In this place he is represented with his hair brushed up on
one side, over the brow, the warrior’s hairdressing, and the forked heron-feather
ornament in his hair, part of the warrior’s dancing attire. The smoking mirror at the
temple is given with great clearness.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 2: The one foot exhibited as missing or torn off is

stuck in the throat of a stone knife. The body-paint has perhaps been forgotten here,
and the facial painting differs from Tezcatlipocâ’s usual adornment, being perhaps
reminiscent of that of Tezcatlipocâ-Itzlacoliuhqui. The head and neck are wrapped in
a cloth with a fringed hem, and which must be regarded as decked with feather balls
on the surface as in the picture of the red [337]Tezcatlipocâ in Borgia (sheet 11). He is
associated with the crossway in all MSS.

NATURE AND STATUS

This deity is a surrogate of Tezcatlipocâ in his guise of the obsidian knife of sacrifice,
and as such is, of course, representative of the paramount connection of that god
with the obsidian cult alluded to in the Introduction. He is, indeed, nothing more or
less than a personalization of the obsidian knife; his name implies this and the picture
of him in Codex Vaticanus B (sheet 19), where he is seen looking out of the jaws of
an obsidian knife disguise, affords absolute proof, if more were required, of the
identification.

[Contents]

ITZTLACOLIUHQUI-IXQUIMILLI = “THE CURVED OBSIDIAN

KNIFE,” “THE BLIND ONE”

Area of Worship: Mexico-Tenochtitlan.

Minor Names: Cipactonal.
Calendar Place: Ruler of the thirteenth day, acatl; and of the twelfth week, ce
cuetzpalin.
Compass Direction: South.
Relationship: Variant of Cinteotl: son of Tlazolteotl.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—The god is indicated by a bundle having a peculiar object with two
black, longitudinal stripes for a head. At the eye-level a bandage is worn, and the
whole is crowned with a hair wig and bound with a double-jewelled fillet. The crown of
the “head” is also indicated by two longitudinal stripes which terminate in an involuted
peak, curving backwards. Two malinalli (grass) stripes are worn as a breast-
ornament, and the lower extremities are draped with a flowing cloth.

General.—The head is more elaborately shown in the Mexican MSS. proper. Through
the peak is thrust a carefully inserted arrow and its anterior edge is evenly notched.
In Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Borbonicus the face of this personage,
who is called by the interpreters “the curved [338]sharp stone,” Itztlacoliuhqui, is
decorated with the gold crescent nasal ornament of Tlazolteotl and the octli-gods.
That this figure is the god of avenging justice is indicated by its bandaged eyes,
which recall the appearance of Tezcatlipocâ-Ixquimilli, or Tezcatlipocâ as god of the
thirteenth day-count. The stone and club were used for punitive purposes, so the
figure symbolic of “justice” was thus represented as a hard stone.
Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Itztlacoliuhqui is shown here as of a blue colour, and his
face is painted with blue and white cross-bands instead of yellow and black, like
Tezcatlipocâ. He wears Tezcatlipocâ’s breast-ornament, while in his hair is the forked
adornment of heron-feathers.

MYTHS

The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says:

“Ytzlacoliuhqui signifies the lord of sin or of blindness, and for this reason they paint
him with his eyes bandaged. They say that he committed sin in a place of the highest
enjoyment and delight, and that he remained naked; on which account his first sign is
a lizard, which is an animal of the ground naked and miserable. He presided over
these thirteen signs, which were all unlucky. They said likewise that if false evidence
should be adduced on any one of these signs it would be impossible to make the
truth manifest. They put to death those who were taken in adultery before his image if
the parties were married; as this not being the case, it was lawful for them to keep as
many women or concubines as they pleased. Ytzalcoliuhqui is a star in heaven which
as they pretend proceeds in a reverse course; they considered it a most portentous
sign, both as concerned with nativities and war. This star is situated at the south.”

The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says:

“Ytzlacoliuhqui, the lord of sin. Ytzlacoliuhqui was the lord of these thirteen days.
They say he was the god of frost. They put to death before his image those who were
convicted of adultery during these thirteen days; this was the punishment of married
persons both men and women, [339]for, provided the parties were unmarried, the men
were at liberty to keep as many concubines as they pleased.

“Ytzlacoliuhqui was the lord of sin or of blindness, who committed sin in paradise;
they therefore represented him with his eyes bandaged, and his day was accordingly
the lizard and, like the lizard, he is naked. He is a star in heaven which … proceeds
in a backward course with its eyes bandaged. They considered it a great prognostic.

“All these thirteen days were bad, for they affirmed that if evidence should be
adduced in these days it would be impossible to arrive at justice, but they imagined
that justice would be perverted in such a manner that unjust condemnations would
ensue, which was not the case in the days immediately following, when if evidence
was adduced they supposed that justice would be made apparent. They believed that
those who were born on the sign dedicated to him would be sinners and adulterers.”
NATURE AND STATUS

This deity is a variant of Tezcatlipocâ in his character of the obsidian knife, the god of
the stone and therefore of blood, avenging justice, of blinding, of sin, of cold. The
obsidian stone was regarded as the instrument of justice, as has already been stated
in the section on Tezcatlipocâ. The figure became a general symbol of all things hard,
and is therefore explained by the authors of the Interpretative Codices as “the god of
cold.” Frost, ice, or low temperature is in the Sahagun MS. symbolized by a man
wearing the headdress of this deity, which was also worn by Uitzilopochtli at the
ochpanitztli festival, when the knife of sacrifice had such free play. The manner in
which the god is represented in Codex Borbonicus as blindfolded is probably a late
conception of him as the god of justice. But he seems also to have had a stellar
connection which is a little vague.

[Contents]

PAYNAL = “THE HASTY”

Area of Worship: Mexico, Tlaxcallan.

Relationship: Precursor or forerunner of Uitzilopochtli.

[340]

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Sahagun MS.—He has the stellar face-painting, and wears a many-pointed crown of
yellow feathers, the lower part of which is white. The front of this white portion ends in
three small globes or bells. At the back is a bow, and he is furnished with an ear-plug
and nose-plug of turquoise. On the head he wears a shell ring like Uitzilopochtli and
Quetzalcoatl, and he holds a narrow striped banner ending in a sort of fleur-de-lis
motif. The shield is blue, inlaid with turquoise mosaic. He has a peculiar skirt with a
train marked with cross-hatchings. The banner he carries is a golden one, and he
also bears the fire-drill. On his face is painted a chaffinch, which composes his face-
mask.

FESTIVAL
See Uitzilopochtli.

NATURE AND STATUS

Seler identifies the god with the morning star. Sahagun calls him “the messenger” or
“page” of Uitzilopochtli. He acted as “forerunner” of that god at the panquetzalitztli
festival, thus perhaps signifying the manner in which the morning star precedes the
sun. But I think the chaffinch painted upon his face and his general birdlike
appearance may justify us in concluding that he was developed from some such
form. The myth which alludes to Uitzilopochtli as a “little bird” which led the Aztecâ
into Mexico may be a confused form of an older story in which a hero of the name of
Uitzilopochtli may have been spoken of as accepting the augury and following the
flight of a little bird.

[Contents]

YACATECUTLI = “LORD WHO GUIDES,” OR “GUIDANCE”

Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac (worshipped by Mexican merchants

while at home and when travelling).
Festival: Panquetzalitztli.
Symbol: The merchant’s staff.

[341]

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The ground of the face-painting is white, but
portions of the face, especially the forehead, nose, and chin, and the region in front of
the ears, are brilliantly coloured. The hair is puffed up and is bound with bands of
quetzal-feathers. The ear-plugs are of gold. The large mantle which almost covers
the body is decorated with the cross-hatching symbolic of water and has the red rim
of the eye-motif. The shield bears the Greek key motif, such as is seen in the tribute-
lists of the Codex Mendoza. In his hand the god bears the bamboo staff of the
merchant or traveller, which typifies his nature and which was worshipped, as being
symbolic of him, by all traders.
FESTIVAL

Panquetzalitztli.—Yacatecutli, says Sahagun, 1 was the first merchant and prototype

of traffickers, so was chosen by the merchants as their god. They dressed his statue
with paper and greatly venerated the staff he carried, which was of massive wood, or
else of dark cane, very light, but strong, such as the merchants carried on their
journeys. He had four brothers and a sister, also reverenced by traders. He was
usually depicted as a man on a journey, equipped with such a staff as has been
mentioned.

Arrived at the place where they were to pass the night, the merchants laid their
staves in a heap and drew blood from their ears and limbs, which they offered to it,
burning incense before it, and praying for protection from the dangers of the road. At
the festival of panquetzalitztli, thousands of members of the powerful Pochteca, or
merchant guild, proceeded to the vicinity of Tochtepec, where they invited the
Tlatelolcans of that place to a festival in honour of Yacatecutli. They decorated his
temple and spread mats before his image. Then they opened the bundles in which
they had brought presents and ornaments for the god, and placed them, along with
their staves, before his idol. If a merchant laid two [342]staves at the feet of the god,
that signified that it was his intention to sacrifice two slaves, a man and a woman, in
his honour; if four, he would devote two wretched creatures of either sex. These
slaves were covered with rich mantles and paper. If the staff represented a male
slave, it was also equipped with the maxtli, or loin-cloth, but if a female, the uipilli, or
chemise, and the cueitl, or skirt.

The Mexican merchants then accompanied their Tlatelolcan confrères to the villages,
where they feasted, drank cocoa, and smoked. Quails were then decapitated, their
heads thrown into the fire, and incense was offered to the four cardinal points. An
address was delivered by one of their number practised in oratory. The magnificence
of this festival, with its richly jewelled accessories, was probably unsurpassed in
Mexican ritual, as on this occasion the Pochteca employed their entire stock of
trinkets and ornaments for the temporary decoration of the victims. Yacatecutli was
also associated in worship with Coyotlinauatl, god of the guild of feather-workers of
the quarter of Amantlan.

NATURE AND STATUS

Bancroft 2 connects Yacatecutli with the Fire-god, with whom, indeed, Clavigero would
seem to equate him, and in describing the return of the gods in the twelfth month,
Sahagun makes both deities arrive together. Xiuhtecutli was certainly the god who
was believed to settle disputes at law, but I am unable to connect Yacatecutli with him
in any satisfactory manner. Yacatecutli, “the lord who guides,” seems to me a mere
deification of the merchant’s staff, an artificial deity invented as the patron of a caste
in an environment where it was not difficult to invent gods. By this I do not mean to
convey the impression that the staff was necessarily his earliest form, but that,
whatever his primitive shape, the merchant’s stick came to symbolize him.

The names of Yacatecutli’s brothers and sister seem to me to allegorize the

circumstances of the travelling merchant’s [343]career in the same manner as the
names of the companions of a folk-tale hero may have a bearing upon his story.

Thus Chiconquiauitl (“Seven-rains” or “All-weathers”) may portend the varied climatic

conditions which the chapman has to face; Xomocuitl (“Caught-drake”) the kind of
fare he may expect in an unfrequented country; Naxtit (“Four-feet”) may typify
endurance in walking; Cochimetl, (Sleeping-maguey) may apply to the leaves of the
maguey-plant which shaded the traveller from the heat during his noonday siesta, or
from the wind if he used them to construct a temporary shelter, as was often done;
Yacapitzanac (“Sharp-nose”) needs little explanation in connection with the peddler’s
calling, and the name of the one goddess of the series, Chalmecaciuatl, is evidently
that of a tribal deity of the Chalmeca, with whom the Mexicans traded. [344]

1 Bk. i, c. xix; bk. ix, passim. ↑

2 Nat. Rac. Pac. States, vol. iii, p. 417, note. ↑
[Contents]
CHAPTER XII
 MINOR DEITIES

[Contents]

XOLOTL = “DOUBLE”

Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac.

Minor Names:
Chicuei Mazatl = “Eight Deer.”
Chicunaui Coatl = “Nine Serpent.”
Calendar Place: Ruler of the seventeenth day-count, olin; of the sixteenth
tonalamatl division, ce cozcaquauhtli.
Compass Direction: East.
Relationship: Twin brother or variant of Quetzalcoatl.
 XOLOTL (right) AND TLALOC.

With sacrificial and fire-making symbols.

(From Codex Borbonicus, sheet 16.)

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—In the picture of Xolotl on the left side of the middle lower part
of sheet 55 a resemblance to Quetzalcoatl is noticeable. On his head is the
peculiar wedge-shaped Huaxtec hat, painted half-red and half-blue, which is
one of Quetzalcoatl’s characteristics. The bone dagger symbolic of self-torture
and penance, and the snail-shell armlets he wears, are also reminiscent of
Quetzalcoatl’s insignia. His face-painting, however, differs from that usually
worn by Quetzalcoatl in Codex Borgia, as the front portion of his face is blue
and the part near the ears red. His body-paint is blue. Nor does he have a large
beard or fan-shaped nape-ornament, but is shown wearing the Wind-god’s
breast-ornament made from a sliced snail-shell. He also shows a likeness to
Quetzalcoatl in the manner in which his loin-cloth and fillet are rounded off. As a
travelling god, Xolotl is depicted in Codex Borgia as holding a fan similar in its
three-flapped wedge-shape to that of the other peripatetic deities, except that it
has a handle shaped like a bird’s head [345]and is seemingly composed of blue
cotinga-feathers. His travelling pack is symbolized by a flowering tree, which he
bears on his back, while his travelling staff is painted turquoise colour, is
decorated with the chalchihuitl ornament, and is completed with a flower. In the
picture to the right of sheet 36 Xolotl presents almost a new aspect, although
certain of his attributes bear some resemblance to those which we have already
observed as being peculiar to him. He still carries a travelling-staff with a
jewelled head, but in this representation its general character is more that of the
rattle-stick. His body-paint remains the same and he retains his blue feather fan.
His pack is distinguished by a flower to serve as a connection with the
florescent tree carried by him, as described elsewhere. In this sheet he is
represented as wearing a long beard and his face-paint in the region of the
mouth is white. His face is altered by a peculiar type of nose, which gives him a
disfigured appearance. The god of monstrosities on sheet 10 of Codex Borgia
has a similar patch of white about his mouth, resembling in shape a human
hand, a symbol which also characterizes the face-painting of Macuil Xochitl.
Elsewhere in this MS. he is represented as crooked-limbed and blear-eyed.

Codex Vaticanus B.—In this MS. Xolotl is represented as having a dog’s head
and again appears in the garb and ornaments of Quetzalcoatl. In Codex Borgia
his ears have a rim of yellow, evidently intended to represent dead flesh, while
in Codex Vaticanus the canine character is indicated by the cropped ears. In the
nostrils is a blue plug, the ornament of the deceased warrior, denoting that this
is the dog which accompanies his master to Mictlampa, Place of the Dead, and
assists him to swim the river which encircles it. This distinguishing plug is seen
in Codex Vaticanus, but not in Codex Borgia. The rest of the god’s attire is
exclusively that worn by Quetzalcoatl, as described in the space devoted to that
god.
Ixtlilton. (From the
Sahagun MS.)

(See p. 349.)

Omacatl. (From the

Sahagun MS.)

(See p. 352.)
 Xolotl. (From the Codex Borgia.)

MINOR DEITIES.

Aubin Tonalamatl.—In this MS. he again takes on a canine appearance and is

clothed in many respects like Quetzalcoatl. This frequent similarity in dress
between the gods may have [346]its origin in the diverse meaning of the word
coatl, which, besides meaning “snake,” also denotes “comrade” or “twin.” This
dog-like creature is usually portrayed as of a dark colour, black, with the
distinctive cropped ear, while in Codex Borgia he is depicted with jaguar-claws.
Xolotl has the face-painting of Quetzalcoatl in the Mexican MSS. proper, that is
in the middle front it is yellow and black at the sides. He wears the two-coloured
white and brown (jaguar-skin) head-loop with rounded-off ends, which latter
form is also continued in the loin-cloth. Both these articles of dress he has in
common with Quetzalcoatl.

Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—Here he is depicted with Tlazolteotl’s spindles in

his hair and an ichcaxochitl of unspun cotton, as well as the head-loop
previously described. Only in this MS. is he so adorned. The instrument of self-
mortification, the bone dagger, juts out from above his forehead, whence issues
a trickle of blood, sometimes delineated symbolically as a feather-ball string
completed with a flower, and at others represented as real blood. He grasps an
obsidian knife, which implement also projects from his mouth along with a
flower, while a copal bag is portrayed in front of him. In some MSS., as in Codex
Telleriano-Remensis and Vaticanus A, he is represented as wearing a mask on
his girdle.

WALL-PAINTINGS

Xolotl seems to be represented on one of the wall-paintings at Mitla, where he

is characterized by the physiognomy of an animal with projecting upper teeth.
He wears Quetzalcoatl’s conical cap of jaguar-skin and his necklace of snail-
shells. The dog’s ears seem in this place to be merged into tufts of feathers.

POTTERY FIGURES

Two small pottery figures of Xolotl found in the Valley of Mexico insist strongly
upon his animal character, but in neither of these is the precise bestial type
ascertainable. [347]The first shows a face ending in a blunt snout and
surmounted by a kind of wig, with ear-pieces rising on either side. What seems
to be a collar of feathers surrounds the neck. In the other he is represented as a
little bear, or dog, without clothing, but having Quetzalcoatl’s sliced snail-shell
breast-ornament. A stone head of him found in the Calle de las Escalerillas in
Mexico City on 29th October 1900 shows a blunt, almost ape-like animal face
with large powerful molar teeth, dog-like canines, and large, sharp fangs, not
unlike those with which Tlaloc was usually represented. Incised lines represent
powerful muscular development in the region of the nose and jaws. The type is
only generally and not particularly bestial, and it would seem that it was the aim
of the sculptor to represent a ferocious animal countenance without laying
stress upon the peculiarities of any one species.

MYTHS

The most important of the myths relating to Xolotl are those given by Sahagun
and Olmos, which have already been described at length in the chapter on
Cosmogony. The Codex Vaticanus A says of him: “They believe Xolotle to be
the god of monstrous productions and of twins, which are such things as grow
double. He was one of the seven who remained after the deluge, and he
presided over these thirteen signs which they usually considered unlucky.” The
Codex Telleriano-Remensis describes him in verbiage almost identical.

Juan de Cordova in his Zapotec Grammar writes: “When a solar eclipse

occurred then they said that the world is coming to an end, and that the Sun-
god wanted war, and that they would kill one another, whoever was first able to
do this. Likewise they said that the dwarfs were created by the sun, and that at
the time (that is during the eclipse) the Sun-god wanted the dwarfs as his
property. And therefore wherever dwarfs or undersized persons were found in a
house the people fell upon and killed them, and they hid themselves in order not
to be killed, so that during that time few escaped from their fate.” [348]

One of the hymns or songs given in the Sahagun MS. says of Xolotl:

Old Xolotl plays ball, plays ball

On the magic playing-ground.

NATURE AND STATUS

The Mexican game of tlachtli symbolized the movements of the moon (but more
probably of both sun and moon). This, perhaps the favourite Mexican
amusement, was a ball-game, played with a rubber ball by two persons one at
each end of a T-shaped court, which in the manuscripts is sometimes
represented as painted in dark and light colours, or in four variegated hues. In
several of the MSS. Xolotl is depicted striving at this game against other gods.
For example, in the Codex Mendoza we see him playing with the Moon-god,
and can recognize him by the sign ollin which accompanies him, and by the
gouged-out eye in which that symbol ends. Seler thinks “that the root of the
name olin suggested to the Mexicans the motion of the rubber ball olli and, as a
consequence, of ball-playing.” It seems to me to have represented both light
and darkness, as is witnessed by its colours. Xolotl is, indeed, the darkness that
accompanies light. Hence he is “the twin” or shadow, hence he travels with the
sun and the moon, with one or other of which he “plays ball,” overcoming them
or losing to them. He is the god of eclipse, and naturally a dog, the animal of
eclipse. Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, Algonquins, and Eskimos believed
him to be so, thrashing dogs during the phenomenon, a practice explained by
saying that the big dog was swallowing the sun, and that by whipping the little
ones they would make him desist. The dog is the animal of the dead, and
therefore of the Place of Shadows. 1 Thus also Xolotl is a monster, the sun-
swallowing monster, like the Hindu Rahu, who chases the sun and moon. As a
shadow he is “the double” of everything. The axolotl, a marine animal found in
Mexico, was confounded with his [349]name because of its monstrous
appearance, and he was classed along with Quetzalcoatl merely because that
god’s name bore the element coatl, which may be translated either “twin” or
“snake.” Lastly, as he was “variable as the shade,” so were the fortunes of the
game over which he presided.

At the same time he seems to me to have affinities with the Zapotec and Maya
lightning-dog peche-xolo 2 and may represent the lightning which descends from
the thunder-cloud, the flash, the reflection of which arouses in many primitive
people the belief that the lightning is “double,” and leads them to suppose a
connection between the lightning and twins, or other phenomena of a twofold
kind. As the dog, too, he has a connection with Hades, and, said myth, was
dispatched thence for the bones from which man was created.

He is also a travelling god, for the shadows cast by the clouds seem to travel
quickly over plain and mountain. As the monstrous dwarf, too, he symbolized
the palace-slave, the deformed jester who catered for the amusement of the
great, and this probably accounts for the symbol of the white hand outspread on
his face, which he has in common with Xochipilli and the other gods of pleasure.
He bears a suspicious resemblance to the mandrake spirits of Europe and Asia,
both as regards his duality, his loud lamentation when as a double-rooted plant
he was discovered and pulled up by the roots, and his symbol, which may be a
reminiscence of the mandrake.

[Contents]

IXTLILTON = “THE LITTLE BLACK FACE”

Minor Name: Tlaltetecuin = “He who strikes the Earth.”

 Area of Worship: Mexican Valley.
Relationship: Brother of Macuilxochitl.
Symbol: The toualli, the four balls or beads, seen in the Sahagun MS. and
in the Codex Magliabecchiano (sheet 63) as a shield-device.
Calendar Place: Day ome tochtli.
Compass Direction: South.

[350]

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 24: Here the god is represented opposite

Macuilxochitl. He wears on his head a white-fringed cloth, such as is worn by
Tezcatlipocâ, having on the top a bunch of downy feathers with a crest of four
plumes ending in white tips. He has a collar made of vertebræ or animals’
claws, and on the upper arm a ring, furnished on one of its sides with a
projection tapering to a point. The body is white and the face is painted black
and white round the mouth. Seler in his Commentary on this MS. (p. 127) thinks
that the white ball or disk covered with a radial design, and held by the god in
his right hand, is perhaps a symbol for ilhuitl (“day,” “feast”), and should be
compared with the parti-coloured, whorl-like disk which the dancer in Codex
Telleriano-Remensis (sheet L, verso 1) holds in his hand, and which represents
the sign of the eighth annual feast, the ueitecuilhuitl. The crest worn by him,
which is composed of black feathers, is the crest embellished with quetzal-
feathers and stone knives, as in the Sahagun MS. and the Codex
Magliabecchiano.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 62: In this representation he faces the goddess

Xochiquetzal. He wears the face- and body-paint of a priest, with a white
angular patch about the mouth, sprinkled with ulli gum. His crest is similar to
that described above. The breast-ring seems to be imbedded in a motif bearing
a resemblance to the tlachinalli fire-and-water symbol, and its significance in
this place is hard to define. From the wrists droop elaborate feather ornaments,
depending from a bracelet of stone knives. We seem to see the Dance-god in
this place in his ceremonial condition, as the ruler of the dance which preceded
human sacrifice. Sheet 64 shows him similarly attired, but without the priest’s
body-paint. He seems about to enter the dance-house of the warriors, and a
courtesan bears him company.
Codex Borbonicus.—Sheet 4: Here he is shown opposite Ueuecoytl, the coyote
god, engaged in the motions of the dance. Perhaps this position is more
eloquent of motion than any other in the Mexican MSS. In this place he appears
[351]to be almost identified with Macuilxochitl (q.v.), to whose statuettes in the
Museo Nacional de Mexico, the figure bears a strong resemblance.

Sahagun MS.—The face-paint is black and the god wears a feather comb set
with flint knives. He has a collar of animal claws, most of which are those of the
jaguar, and on his back he wears a wing-fan with the sun-banner fixed on it.
Round his shoulders is a paper with the sun-signs painted on it. His feet are
ornamented with bells and shells, and he wears “sun-sandals.” On his arm he
carries a solar shield and in his hand he bears a staff with a heart.

NATURE AND STATUS

Practically all that is known regarding this god is recounted by Sahagun, who
says of him: “They made to this god an oratory of painted planks, a sort of
tabernacle, in which his image was placed. He had in this oratory many jars full
of water, and covered with plates, and this water was called tilatl, or black water.
When an infant fell ill they took it to the temple of Ixtlilton and opened one of
these jars, made him drink it, and the malady left him. If one wished to give a
feast to the god he took his image home. This was neither painted nor
sculptured, but was a priest who wore the ornaments of the god. During the
passage he was censed with copal. Arrived at the house, he was met with
singers and dancers, which dancing is different in a manner from ours.

“I speak of that which we call areyto, and which they call maceualiztli. They
assembled in great numbers, two and two or three and three, and formed a
circle. They carried flowers in the hand, and were decorated with plumage.
They made at the same time a uniform movement with their bodies, also with
their feet and hands, in perfect combination and very worthy to be seen. All their
movements accorded with the music of the drums. They accompanied the
instruments with their sonorous voices, singing in accord the praises of the god
to whom they made the festival. They adapted [352]their movements to the
nature of their songs, for their dances and their intonation varied considerably.
“The dance continued, and the ‘god’ himself, having danced for a long time,
descended to the cave where the octli was stored in jars. He opened one of
these, an operation which was known as tlayacaxapotla (‘the new opening,’ or
‘the opening of the new’). Then he and those who accompanied him drank of
the octli. They then went to the court of the house, where they found three jars
filled with the black water, which had been covered for four days. He who
played the rôle of god opened these, and if he found them full of hairs, dust,
charcoal, or any other uncleanness, it was said that the man of the house was a
person of vicious life and bad character. Then the god went to the house, where
he was given the stuff called ixquen, for covering the face, in allusion to the
shame which covered the master of the house.” 3

From the foregoing it is clear that Ixtlilton was a god of medicinal virtue, the
deity who kept men in good health or who assisted their recovery from sickness,
therefore the brother of Xochipilli-Macuilxochitl, god of good luck and merriment.
His temple, composed of painted boards, would seem to have borne a
resemblance to the hut of the tribal medicine-man or shaman. A sacrifice was
made to him when the Mexican child first spoke.

[Contents]

OMACATL = “TWO REEDS”

Sahagun MS. (Biblioteca del Palacio).—The regions of the forehead, nose, and
mouth are “festively” painted. He wears a feather helmet and a crown of spear-
shafts. His overdress has the cross-hatching which usually indicates water, and
is edged with red, decorated with the eye-motif. Before him is a small shield
with a plain, white surface, its lower rim edged with white feathers or paper, and
in his hand he carries the “seeing” or “scrying” implement, that some of the
other gods, noticeably Tezcatlipocâ, possess. 4 [353]

NATURE AND STATUS

This god appears to have been partly of a convivial nature and presided over
banquets and festivities generally. On the occasion of a public or private
rejoicing he was borne thither by certain priests. If the banquet was suitable he
praised the host, but otherwise rebuked him, and it is said that, if irritated in any
way, he would turn the viands into hair (as did certain of the fairies of Brittany,
when annoyed or insulted). The night before a festival a cake like a large bone
was made, and this, it was feigned, was a bone of the deity himself. This cake
was eaten and octli was drunk, after which spines of the maguey were thrust
into the stomach of the idol. There can be little doubt that, as Sahagun states, 5
Omacatl was solely and simply a god of festivities.

[Contents]

CIUATETEÔ = GODDESSES
CIUAPIPILTIN = PRINCESSES

Area of Worship: Mexico.

Calendar Place: Supposed to descend to earth on initial days of third
tonalamatl quarter.
Festival: First day of ce mazatl (movable feast); ce quiauitl (movable
feast); ce ozomatli (movable feast).
Compass Direction: West.
Relationship: Frequently associated with the Uitznaua.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Borgia.—Sheets 47–48: Five figures here represent the Ciuateteô and
are dressed in the style of Tlazolteotl, with the fillet and ear-plug of unspun
cotton, and the golden nasal crescent worn by that goddess and the octli-gods.
In each case the eye has been gouged out and hangs out of the socket, as with
Xolotl. They wear on their heads a feather ornament like the heron-feather
plume of the warrior caste, but consisting of five white feathers or strips of paper
above a bunch of downy feathers. At the nape of the neck the figures wear a
black vessel as their device, in which lies a bunch of malinalli grass. The upper
part of the body is [354]naked, and round the hips is wrapped a skirt showing
cross-bones on its surface and a border painted in the manner of the variegated
coral snake. The resemblance between all five figures is close. Only the face-,
arm-, and leg-painting is different. In the case of the first the colour is white
striped with red, in the second blue, in the third yellow, in the fourth red, and in
the fifth black. All hold in one hand a broom of malinalli grass, and in the other a
black obsidian sacrificial knife, a bone dagger, and an agave-leaf spike, both
furnished with a flower symbolic of blood. They inhale the smoke which ascends
from a black incense or fire-vessel standing on the ground before them. A
rubber ball lies in the vessel of the first figure; with the second the vessel is
replaced by a cross-way, and the ascending smoke by a centipede issuing from
the mouth of the goddess. With the third a skeleton is seated in the dish,
holding a heart in one hand and a sacrificial knife in the other. The ascending
smoke is replaced by two streams of blood passing into the mouth of a
skeleton, one of which comes from the mouth of the figure, the other from her
right breast. With the fourth figure are represented a bunch of malinalli grass
and a variegated snake. Nothing here enters the mouth of the Ciuateteô, but
from it issues a similar snake, and another hangs on each of her arms. Before
the last figure, in the dish is perched a screech-owl, and a stream of blood
passes from the mouth of the figure to that of the owl.

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheets 77–79: Five figures are here also depicted which
bear a resemblance to Tlazolteotl, but are without the golden nasal crescent.
With the last four the same curling locks of hair are seen as in the case of the
Codex Borgia figures, but the first figure is pictured with the hair bristling up on
one side, as worn by the warrior caste. The eye too is hanging out, and the
headdresses and nape-vessels resemble those in Codex Borgia. In the majority
of cases the skirt is white with two diagonal red stripes crossing each other.
Only with the first figure is it painted red with white cross-bones. The last figure
has a skirt made of strips of malinalli grass fastened by a girdle made of [355]a
skeletal spinal column, on which is set a dead man’s skull as back-mirror. All
five wear the men’s loin-cloth besides the skirt. They carry the symbols of
sacrifice and mortification as in the Codex Borgia, and similar incense-vessels
stand before them.

MYTHS
Sahagun says of the Ciuateteô:

“The Ciuapipiltin, the noble women, were those who had died in childbed. They
were supposed to wander through the air, descending when they wished to the
earth to afflict children with paralysis and other maladies. They haunted cross-
roads to practise their maleficent deeds, and they had temples built at these
places, where bread offerings in the shape of butterflies were made to them,
also the thunder-stones which fall from the sky. Their faces were white, and
their arms, hands, and legs were coloured with a white powder, ticitl (chalk).
Their ears were gilded and their hair done in the manner of the great ladies.
Their clothes were striped with black, their skirts barred in different colours, and
their sandals were white.” He further relates (bk. vi, c. xxix) that, when a woman
who had died in her first childbed was buried in the temple-court of the
Ciuateteô, her husband and his friends watched the body all night in case
young braves or magicians should seek to obtain the hair or fingers as
protective talismans.

NATURE AND STATUS

That the witches’ sabbath was quite as famous or infamous an institution in

ancient Mexico as in mediæval Europe is testified to by the numerous accounts
of the missionary chroniclers, which are further corroborated by the native
manuscripts. But in the days prior to the coming of the Spaniards, it was thought
of as being celebrated by the dead rather than the living. The Ciuateteô, or
haunting mothers, were those women who had died in their first child-bed, and
who, out of envy for their more fortunate sisters and their offspring, continued to
haunt the world at certain fixed [356]periods, wreaking their spite upon all who
were so unlucky as to cross their path. They are represented in the ancient
paintings as dressed in the garments and insignia of the goddess Tlazolteotl,
the witch par excellence, with a fillet and ear-plug of unspun cotton, a golden
crescent-shaped nasal ornament, empty eye-sockets, and the heron-feather
headdress of the warrior caste, for the woman who died in child-bed was
regarded as equally heroic with the man who perished in battle. The upper parts
of their bodies were nude, and round the hips they wore a skirt on which cross-
bones were painted. They carried the witch’s broom of malinalli grass, a symbol
of death, and they are sometimes associated with the snake, screech-owl, and
other animals of ill-omen. The face was thickly powdered with white chalk, and
the region of the mouth, in some cases, decorated with the figure of a butterfly.
These furies were supposed to dwell in the region of the west, and as some
compensation for their early detachment from the earth-life, were permitted to
accompany the sun in his course from noon to sunset, just as the dead warriors
did from sunrise to noon. At night they left their occidental abode, the
Ciutlampa, or “Place of Women,” and revisited the glimpses of the moon in
search of the feminine gear they had left behind them—the spindles, work-
baskets, and other articles used by Mexican women. The Ciuateteô were
especially potent for evil in the third quarter of the astrological year, and those
who were so luckless as to meet them during that season became crippled or
epileptic. The fingers and hands of women who had died in bringing forth were
believed by magicians, soldiers, and thieves to have the property of crippling
and paralysing their enemies or those who sought to hinder their nefarious
calling, precisely as Irish burglars formerly believed that the hand of a corpse
grasping a candle, which they called “the hand of glory,” could ensure sound
sleep in the inmates of any house they might enter.

Says Sahagun: “It was said that they vented their wrath on people and
bewitched them. When anyone is possessed by the demons, with a wry mouth
and disturbed eyes, with [357]clenched hands and inturned feet, wringing his
hands and foaming at the mouth, they say that he has linked himself to a
demon; the Ciuateteô, housed by the crossways, have taken his form.”

From this and other passages we may be justified in thinking that these dead
women were also regarded as succubi, haunters of men, compelling them to
dreadful amours, and that they were credited with the evil eye is evident from
the statement that their glances caused helpless terror and brought convulsions
upon children, and that their jealousy of the handsome was proverbial.

The divine patroness of these witches (for “witches” they are called by the old
friar who interprets the Codex Telleriano-Remensis), who flew through the air
upon their broomsticks and met at cross-roads, was Tlazolteotl, a divinity who,
like all deities of growth, possessed a plutonic significance. The broom is her
especial symbol, and in Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (sheet 17) we have a picture of
her which represents her as the traditional witch, naked, wearing a peaked hat,
and mounted upon a broomstick. In other places she is seen standing beside a
house accompanied by an owl, the whole representing the witch’s dwelling, with
medicinal herbs drying beneath the eaves. Thus the evidence that the haunting
mothers and their patroness present an exact parallel with the witches of
Europe seems complete, and should provide those who regard witchcraft as a
thing essentially European with considerable food for thought. The sorcery cult
of the Mexican Nagualists of post-Columbian times was also permeated with
practices similar to those of European witchcraft, and we read of its adherents
smearing themselves with ointment to bring about levitation, flying through the
air, and engaging in wild and lascivious dances, precisely as did the adherents
of Vaulderie, or the worshippers of the Italian Aradia.

There are not wanting signs that living women of evil reputation desired to
associate themselves with the Ciuateteô. Says the interpreter of Codex
Vaticanus A: “The first of the fourteen day-signs, the house, they considered
unfortunate, [358]because they said that demons came through the air on that
sign in the figures of women, such as we designate witches, who usually went
to the highways, where they met in the form of a cross, and to solitary places,
and that when any bad woman wished to absolve herself of her sins, she went
alone by night to these places, and took off her garments and sacrificed there
with her tongue (that is, drew blood from her tongue), and left the clothes which
she had carried and returned naked as the sign of the confession of her sins.”

The temples or shrines of the Ciuateteô were situated at cross-roads, the

centres of ill-omen throughout the world. That they had a connection with the
lightning is shown by the fact that cakes in the shape of butterflies and “thunder-
stones” were offered them. But they were also connected with baneful astral or
astrological influences, and are several times alluded to in the Interpretative
Codices in this connection. The seasons at which they were most potent for evil
were those connected with the western department of the tonalamatl, the five
days which compose the first column of the third quarter disposed in columns of
five members, ce mazatl, ce quiauitl, ce ozomatli, ce calli, ce quauhtli. [359]

1 Bradford, American Antiquities, p. 333; Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. i, p. 271; Von Tschudi,
Beiträge, p. 29. ↑
2 See Seler, Bull. 28, American Bureau of Ethnology, p. 94. ↑
3 Bk. i, c. xvi. ↑
4 See also Sahagun, bk. i, c. xv. ↑
5 Bk. i, c. xv. ↑
[Contents]
APPENDIX
 THE TONALAMATL AND THE SOLAR CALENDAR

[Contents]

THE TONALAMATL

A Thorough knowledge of the tonalamatl is essential in order to grasp the

fundamentals of Mexican religion, but its significance has perhaps been
heightened by the difficulties which certainly attend its consideration. I have
endeavoured to present the subject here as simply as possible, and to keep all
distracting side-issues for later consideration and away from the main proof.
Most of these, indeed, have been created by writers who have too closely
identified the tonalamatl with the solar calendar, and have added to the
obscurity of the subject by the introduction of abstruse astronomical hypotheses
which have only a problematical connection with it. 1

The word tonalamatl means “Book of the Good and Bad Days,” and it is
primarily a “Book of Fate,” from which the destiny of children born on such and
such a day, or the result of any course to be taken or any venture made on any
given day, was forecasted by divinatory methods, similar to those which have
been employed by astrologers in many parts of the world in all epochs. The
tonalamatl was, therefore, in no sense a time-count or calendar proper, to which
purpose it was not well suited; but it was capable of being adapted to the solar
calendar. It is equally incorrect to speak of the tonalamatl as a “ritual calendar.”
It has nothing to do directly with ritual or religious ceremonial, and although
certain representations on some tonalamatls depict ritual acts, no details or
directions for their operation are supplied.

The original tonalamatl was probably a day-count based on a lunar reckoning.

The symbols appear to have been those of the [360]gods or other mythological
figures. Thus cipactli was merely the earth-monster, quauhtli the eagle, a
surrogate for the Sun-god, and so on. Later the tonalamatl lost its significance
as a time-count when it was superseded as such by the solar calendar. It then
took on the complexion of a book of augury, so that the temporal connection it
had with the gods was altered to a purely augural one. The various days thus
became significant for good or evil according to the nature of the gods who
presided over them, or over the precise hour in which a subject was born or any
act done. As in astrology, a kind of balance was held between good and evil, so
that if the god presiding over the day was inauspicious, his influence might, in
some measure, be counteracted by that of the deity who presided over the hour
in which a child first saw the light or an event occurred.

DAY-SIGNS

The tonalamatl was composed of 20 day-signs or hieroglyphs repeated 13

times, or 260 day-signs in all. The origin of these has already been treated of by
Seler in Bulletin 28 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 38 ff. These 260
days were usually divided into 20 groups of 13 days each, sometimes called
“weeks.” To effect this division the numbers 1 to 13 were added to the 20 day-
signs in continuous series as follow:

No. Name. Sign. No. Name. Sign.

1 cipactli crocodile 11 ozomatli monkey
2 eecatl wind 12 malinalli grass
3 calli house 13 acatl reed
4 cuetzpallin lizard 1 ocelotl ocelot
5 coatl serpent 2 quauhtli eagle
6 miquiztli death’s-head 3 cozcaquauhtli vulture
7 mazatl deer 4 ollin motion
8 tochtli rabbit 5 tecpatl flint knife
9 atl water 6 quiauitl rain
10 itzcuintli dog 7 xochitl flower

and so on. It will be seen from this list that the fourteenth day-sign takes the
number 1 again. Each of the day-signs under this arrangement has a number
that does not recur in connection with that sign for a space of 260 days, as is
proved by the circumstance that the numbers 2 of the day-signs and [361]figures
(20 to 13), if multiplied together, give as a product 260, the exact number of
days in the tonalamatl.

The combination of signs and figures thus provided each day in the tonalamatl
with an entirely distinct description. For example: the first day, cipactli, was in its
first occurrence 1 cipactli; in its second 8 cipactli; in its third 2 cipactli; in its
fourth 9 cipactli, and so on.

No day in the tonalamatl was simply described as cipactli, coatl, or calli, and
before its name was complete it was necessary to prefix to it one of the
numbers from 1 to 13 as its incidence chanced to fall. Thus it was designated
as ce cipactli (one crocodile) or ome coatl (two snake) as the case might be.
Each of the 20 groups of 13 days (which are sometimes called “weeks”) was
known as a division by the name of the first day of the group, as ce cipactli (one
crocodile), ce ocelotl (one ocelot), ce mazatl (one deer), and so on. A model
tonalamatl would thus have appeared as follows:

Ce Cipactli Ce Miquiztli Ce Ozomatli Ce Cozcaquauhtli

(1) cipactli (1) miquiztli (1) ozomatli (1) cozcaquauhtli
(2) eecatl (2) mazatl (2) malinalli (2) ollin
(3) calli (3) tochtli (3) acatl (3) tecpatl
(4) cuetzpallin (4) atl (4) ocelotl (4) quiauitl
(5) coatl (5) itzcuintli (5) quauhtli (5) xochitl
(6) miquiztli (6) ocomatli (6) cozcaquauhtli (6) cipactli
(7) mazatl (7) malinalli (7) ollin (7) eecatl
(8) tochtli (8) acatl (8) tecpatl (8) calli
(9) atl (9) ocelotl (9) quiauitl (9) cuetzpallin
(10) itzcuintli (10) quauhtli (10) xochitl (10) coatl
(11) ocomatli (11) cozcaquauhtli (11) cipactli (11) miquiztli
(12) malinalli (12) ollin (12) eecatl (12) mazatl
(13) acatl. (13) tecpatl (13) calli (13) tochtli
Ce Ocelotl Ce Quiauitl Ce Cuetzpallin Ce Atl
(1) ocelotl (1) quiauitl (1) cuetzpallin (1) atl
(2) quauhtli (2) xochitl (2) coatl (2) itzcuintli
(3) cozcaquauhtli (3) cipactli (3) miquiztli (3) ocomatli
(4) ollin (4) eecatl (4) mazatl (4) malinalli
(5) tecpatl (5) calli (6) tochtli (5) acatl
(6) quiauitl (6) cuetzpallin (6) atl (6) ocelotl
(7) xochitl (7) coatl (7) itzcuintli (7) quauhtli
(8) cipactli (8) miquiztli (8) ocomatli (8) cozcaquauhtli
(9) eecatl (9) mazatl (9) malinalli (9) ollin
(10) calli (10) tochtli (10) acatl (10) tecpatl
(11) cuetzpallin (11) atl (11) ocelotl (11) quiauitl