See and Be Seen: (‘Smoking’) Mirrors

The use of mirrors in general is ancient in Mesoamerica. Prior to obsidian, the material most commonly used was (iron) pyrite (see pic 1), sometimes formed into mosaics with a slate backing; unfortunately, iron pyrite rusts easily and most of the dozen or so still kept today in museums have poorly preserved surfaces. Even older (metallic stone Olmec) mirrors had finely polished concave surfaces; found with holes in the back (as in pic 1), it’s most likely they were worn as pendants, perhaps by priests. Examples of the more common pyrite mirrors have been found throughout the heart of the continent, from SW United States down to Central America. Whilst the more ancient mirrors could well have produced fire, obsidian mirrors, easier to make, didn’t have this ability, didn’t become common until the ‘Late Postclassic’ period (around the time of the Aztecs), and have been found in fewer places - Michoacán, Mexico’s central valley, and Oaxaca.

Pic 1: Pyrite mirror, Xochicalco, AD 700–900. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

Obsidian (itztli in Náhuatl) - a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed from its parent material, cooled lava - quickly proved to be a valuable resource to the Mexica, used for making tools, decorative artefacts, weapon blades... and mirrors. Polished with abrasive sand, glued together with bat’s poo, framed in wood, and decorated with feathers, obsidian mirrors were fine works of art, owned and used by rulers, and they became sought-after, exotic objects among the aristocracy of Europe. One found its way into the hands of Dr. John Dee, astrologer, mathematician, consultant to Elizabeth I - and, significantly, magician - and is now on view, with the case he made for it, in the British Museum (pic 3, top right).

Pic 3: Aztec obsidian mirrors in European museums: in modern wooden frame, Museo de América, Madrid (L), British Museum (including Dr. John Dee’s, top) (R)

All Aztec diviners called the tools of their trade - book, maize kernel, piece of cloth - a tezcatl or mirror, and the word in Náhuatl for ‘to predict’ (itzpopolhuia) is formed from two words, itztli (obsidian) and popolhuia (to cast a spell). Little wonder, then, that the Mexica referred to obsidian as ‘the talking stone’. An obsidian mirror could reflect images and fates, and a smoking obsidian mirror, with its extended associations with flames, luminosity, divine breath and in turn music and speech (note the similarity between the glyphs for speech/singing and smoke: pic 5) could communicate sacred messages to human beings. Just as sound can be cast back and announced audibly in the form of echo, images could be cast back and reflected visibly in the form of smoke and mirrors.

Pic 5: Speech, music or smoke scrolls? Details from: painting of Tezcatlipoca, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City (top L); Codex Borbonicus, fol 26 (bottom L) & 5 (top R); Codex Mendoza fol 16 (bottom R)

Both for the Maya and the Mexica the very word ‘mirror’ was synonymous with ‘ruler’. And the mirror - ‘pierced on both sides’ - had two faces and hence two functions: to reveal Tezcatlipoca’s will to the people, and to reveal to Tezcatlipoca the (mis)doings of the Aztec people. It was very much both a receiver and a communicator of divine force, a means - similar to a human eye - with which to see and to be seen. In order to reveal fates, Tezcatlipoca had to make his (smoking) mirror shine, and with its magical power Tezcatlipoca could play tricks, confusing young with old, guilty with innocent (in this way he deceived his younger brother Quetzalcóatl at Tula), dark with light... If (Black, male) Tezcatlipoca represented darkness, the night wind, the jaguar, the waning and night sun, it was in his brighter guise, as Tezcatlanextia (‘The Mirror That Shines’), representing the day sun, that the deity could ‘make appear’, ie reveal, the sins and fates of human beings. If we tell you that Tezcatlipoca had around 130 different names and guises, you get some idea of how complicated it can be to fathom this ‘Trickster’ deity out...!

Pic 7: Just two guises of Tezcatlipoca: as jaguar and as turkey - both noble animals: it’s likely that both were associated with meting out punishments to sinners; drawn from the Codex Borbonicus (spot the smoking mirrors!)

The splendid mask of Tezcatlipoca held at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington (USA) (pic 9, left) is one example of the smoking mirror symbol appearing on the deity’s temple, but without the end of the human bone showing in the centre. The same applies to the date sign 1-Flint (pic 9, right) - also visible in the great Aztec Sunstone, beside the glyph for the first world era or Sun, ruled by Tezcatlipoca. (Calendar signs 1-Flint and 1-Death were sometimes shown with smoking mirror symbols attached). Much more well known, when it comes to ‘bits missing’, however, is the frequent - but not universal - depiction of Tezcatlipoca with a smoking mirror replacing his left foot (see pic 10). Much has been written of this by scholars, suggesting that it forms part of an ‘astronomic code’, that it is symbolic of T’s past sins, that it relates to mythical connections between the foot and the creation of fire (via lightning)...

Pic 9: Smoking mirror glyphs: on Tezcatlipoca’s head (L) and the date 1-Flint (R) - neither shows the end of the human bone visible in Pic 8

It’s been suggested that at midday the sun itself ‘returns home’, and it is its reflection in the mirror, a kind of ‘fake’ sun, a lunar or nocturnal sun, which descends to the earth as it sets, presaging (announcing) its eventual disappearance; and it is precisely this idea of the black mirror heralding, predicting, foreseeing, in the form of an omen, a fateful end (to the day) that has been closely linked to one of the notorious omens said to have been witnessed by the Aztecs shortly before the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. According to the Florentine Codex (see pic 11), Moctezuma II was shocked one day to see, brought to him by some fishermen, a strange crane-like bird with a mirror on its head showing the sky and stars - even though it was midday. Moctezuma saw reflected in the mirror large numbers of warriors astride giant deer, approaching from a distance. Just as the deeply troubled emperor consulted his astrologers regarding the meaning, the bird and the vision vanished...

Pic 11: The seventh omen, Florentine Codex Book 8

Sources (special thanks to Guilhem Olivier):-
• Olivier, G. (2003): Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God - Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror”, University Press of Colorado, Boulder, USA
• Séjourné, L. (1957): Burning Water: Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico, Thames & Hudson, London
• McEwan, C. and López Luján, L. (Eds.) (2009): Moctezuma, Aztec Ruler, The British Museum Press, London
• Pasztory, E. (1983): Aztec Art, Harry N. Abrams, New York
• Miller, M. and Taube, K. (1993): The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames & Hudson, London.

Pic 13: A father and daughter visit the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City; note the obsidian mirror!