So far we have seen how idols called Bezelao are found in quite separate parts of the Zapotec speaking regions where they are sacrificed to much like other idols are. In addition he has been said to be the one who is sacrificed to by all the valleys and towns, he has been called the universal god of the devils, as well as the universal god who is prayed to for war and agriculture. We have also seen how other idols were seen as his councillors or as mediators between him and the people. And now, in looking for another possible link between a description of a god named in a Relacion and Bezelao we will finally see a tentative translation of his name. In the Relacion of the Zapotec speaking town of Iztepec it is said that their god was named dios del palacio or god of the palace (Acuña 1984:270).
Although Acuña gives Pitao Quehui, an otherwise unknown deity name as a possible reconstruction, another possibility can be found in Thomas Smith Stark's seminal analysis of religious terminology in the Spanish-Zapotec dictionary of Fray Juan de Córdova (Smith Stark 2002).
Coming from an important Spanish noble family, and having served in the military in Flanders, Juan de Córdova eventually went to Mexico where he joined the Dominican order in 1543, going to Oaxaca in 1548 where he learned the Zapotec language. After he refused to comply to his superiors who had received complaints about the severity with which he ministered to the indigeneous people in his ministry he retired to the convent of Tlacochahauaya. There he wrote the first Spanish-Zapotec dictionary, with much attention to religious concepts, which was published in 1578 (Bandelier 1908). In Smith Stark's analysis of the different deity names in this work there are several entries interest to us. The first can be found under the heading demonio23: peze-lào or pezèe-lào, then under Diablo grande principal24: pezè-lào-tào (Smith Stark 2002: 24). The final part of this last name, tào, means sacred and can also be found in the titel Pitào, where pi means animated and the compound means god (Smith Stark 2002:5). This term is then also found under the heading Dioses del Infierno25: Pitào peze-lào (Smith Stark 2002:24). Interestingly we see here again that the text talks about
22Sacerdote: priest.
23Demonio: devil or demon
24Diablo grande principal: principal grand devil
25Dioses del Infierno: gods of hell
several gods of hell and about a principal devil. Could this mean that there are indeed several Pezelaos or might it be like Smith Stark suggests the result of Córdova's Christian worldview where there is one Satan who is the leader of a larger group of fallen angels? (Smith Stark 2002:25). Regretably Smith Stark's tentative translation of Pezèe-lào does not bring us any of the answers we have been looking for, except that it might provide a small link to the god of Iztepec as said above. Since Pezèe-lào has at least two accents it consists of at least two segments, maybe more. Pe, like pi, probably means animated while zèe seems to be a form of the word for pyramid, lào finally means face (Smith Stark 2002:24).
This would then give a translation along the line of 'Face of the Pyramid', with the pe indicating that we are dealing with an animated being, not an object. It is important to note that under the entry for pyramid, being a hill of stone that you climb by stairs and where they sacrifice men, in addition to zèe it is also called eèche peze-lào, which seems to suggest a special relation between this god and pyramids if not a commentary by Córdova wanting to point out that on pyramids people are sacrificed, which is evil and of the devil (Smith Stark 2002:24). In addition to being mentioned in the entry for pyramid there are two other entries where Pezèelào figures. The first is xicochìna pezèelào or 'messenger of god, hell or the devil', which is a nighttime bird which is seen as a bad omen and which we will see more of below (Smith Stark 2002:26). The other is xinìça pezèelào, meaning 'water of the god of hell' or 'drink of the devil' which he calls the wine of the Indians (Smith Stark 2002:27). This could very wel be the liquor of crushed fruit mixed with wine of the maguey which Burgoa mentions, that was used in ritual drinking and which commoners were not allowed to drink (Burgoa 1989:125).
From Córdova's translations it becomes very clear that he associates Pezèelào with the devil. This leads Smith Stark to the conclusion that we are probably dealing with the god of the dead or the underworld that due to association with the insides of the earth was equated with the Christian devil (Smith Stark 2002:25). Interestingly this theory is supported by another entry in Córdova's dictionary where hell, the abyss and the center of the earth is not only translated as capìilla but also twice as líchi pezè-lào, meaning house of Pezèelào (Smith Stark 2002:25). Here we seem to see Pezèelào or Bezelao figure as the lord of the underworld in a very similar way to how van der Loo describes the Nahuatl gods of death Mictlanteuctli26 and Mictecacihuatl27 as they are depicted in the various codices of the Borgia28 group (Loo 1987:99). These two were the lord and lady of the layer of the underworld of which we already saw above how it was equated with the Christian hell: Mictlan. It was this place that those who died a common death went to, since in the Mesoamerican religions it was not the way one lived
26Mictlanteuctli: Lord of the Place of the Dead
27Mictecacihuatl: Lady of the Dead. Micqui = dead (an agentive of miqui to die); tecatl = people; cihuatl = woman, lady
28Codices are pre- or early colonial folded books often made of deerskin that depict iconographic narratives. The Borgia Group is a collection of codices, painted in the Mixteca-Puebla style, that are largely of unknown provenance. They are grouped together on the basis of the religious, mantic and ritual nature of their depictions.
that determined the afterlife but the way one died (Loo 1987:100). Once arrived these dead served the lord and lady in their realm (Loo 1987:100). Concerning the trip to this place van der Loo refers to a description of this journey by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, the well-known 16th century Franciscan missionary and co-author of the Florentine Codex. Sahagún writes how after death a person has to make a trip that goes between mountains, over a road guarded by a snake, past a green lizard, over eight plains, through the wind of knives, to finally cross the river of hell, called Ciconahuapan29 on the back of a white or black dog (in Loo 1987:104). A similar trip seems to be depicted (Fig. 3) in Codex Vaticanus A of the Borgia Group (Anders & Jansen 1994:213).
29Ciconahuapan: Place of nine rivers Figure 3: The road to Mictlan from Vaticanus A, f2. (In Anders & Jansen 1994: 213).
Figure 4: The Zapotec cosmos from Calender 11, AGI Mexico 882 (Tavárez 2005).