Huemac

Huemac of the Strong Hands (another name for Quetzalcoatl) does not appear anywhere in the Tepantitla murals. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to recognize the part he played in the destruction of the great university system at Teotihuacán.

In a Mixtec codex, the Vindobinennses, Huemac is portrayed. He is located between the Mountain Flower/Fruit and the Temple of Eight Monkey on Lamina 8. Bodley Codex, Lam. 4 The Bodley Codex has two illustrations of his work, that of splitting the mountains with his hands. Here, the mountain is called the Hill of the Wasp. One event occurred at One Reed and the other at One Jaguar, "when the 260 day year and 360 day year meet.".

But if there was a drastic change in the calendar, then this is not where the two "meet"; it is instead at the time when the year "changed." And it is the first record we have of the "cause" of that change: that of the burning star, One Vulture.

The Nuttall only contains the story of the marriage between a man, Twelve Ehécatl, and Three Flint at the fracture under the mountain. This probably indicates that the Nuttall is a later manuscript than the other two, composed at a time when the fracturing of the mountain was no longer important to the people.

When the mountains were separated, the southern rim of volcanoes rose up above the Balsas Valley. There were major eruptions and an important city called Amecameca near Teotihuacán was buried under the lava flow.

Huemac, as the God of the Large, Strong Hands, was able to "pull apart" the mountains. Mexican geology identifies this rupture as a sheer thrust located between Popocatepetl and Ixtaccíhuatl. The great rift extends from the Puerto Rican Trench in the Atlantic to the Baja region in the Pacific Ocean.

Huemac (as Quetzalcoatl) has various other forms and names, but the following also indicates the use of hands to push or move:
Symbolically then, HANDS are the givers (and takers) of life, we must also assume that they were the teachers of knowledge. The imagery of the hands is strong at Teotihuacán. The Spider Lady has distinctive hands dripping with great globules of water which fall down below the stars into the "teaching area" of the "university" complex.

The concept of the hands can be identified through de Molina's Nahuatl dictionary:

In English we have a phrase "get to the heart (source) of the matter." Apparently the Meso-Americans had the phrase "get to the fountain (heart/palm/source) of. . . " The main difference between the two phrases is that one is portrayed in picture format and the other is written as words.

Teotihuacán, then can also be explained by its translation:

The singing dog, Xolotl, also known as the planet Venus or Quetzalcoatl, has a distinctive headdress with a hand prominently placed on top. Xolotl is the avatar which went into the underworld in order to save the Sun. As a singing element, one can expect to hear the sound of the meteorite as it fell to earth. We know this sound as a "sonic boom" when planes pass the sound barrier. A meteorite probably whistled as it fell.

Interpretation: SCHOOL - Learning or knowledge imparted through Nahuatl by the mouths of men. (The stomach is the container of air which permits one to sing or speak softly in order to teach. Lungs were not considered here. This is not a primitive concept, but a well-recognized procedure to give more power to the voice when speaking or singing. To speak softly (but be heard) then is just part of the air flow control needed for the lectures of the teachers.

For more on Huemac of the Strong Hands, see Izapa: Stela 2