High atop the stone temple, a conch was blown. Four long soundings, each to the four directions.
The events were about to begin.
One team pitted to play against the other, a ball game of sorts. The warriors ran the gauntlet of the field, praying to Quetzalcoatl to make a victory goal.
The winners of the game, become the assassins of the opponents. You don't want to loose in Ancient Aztecan futbol.
It would be the noble honor of the victors to sacrifice the heads and hearts to their god, Quetzalcoatl... to ensure another year of continued sun and rain and plenty of food for the people.
These events always disturbed Golden Eagle. Deep in his spirit something stirred in him that he did not understand. A feeling of uneasiness, and restlessness would come upon him just when the crowds leaped in cheers for the victors and started to dance in a frenzy, just as the loosing opponents were being led up the grand stone steps of the ancient pyramids. Everyone was thirsting for the spilling of the Blood ceremony.
Golden Eagle winced and looked away, far away to the setting sun as the obsidian knives plunged into the chest of the living sacrifice's, and the priest pulled out a still beating heart, pumping blood out upon the soon to be dead victim.....
Golden Eagle kept up the beat. Boom, Boom, boomboomboom, Boom. A steady one, two, threefourfive, beat. He stared out of dulled eyes, and kept a steady grim face, never belieing the true feelings of disgust and contempt for the never ending sacrifice's to a god that was seeming all the more mythical day after day.
Golden Eagle dreamed of the far off Ocean. The rumble tumble of the waves, beating upon the golden shore, ever beckoning him to come to her...to swim in her, to surf the waves with the dolphins and scamper about the shore with the fledgling albatross.
Boom, Boom, boomboomboom, Boom....... and to lay back, under the palm watching the sun teasingly play amongst the puffy white clouds... Boom, Boom, boomboomboom, Boom. The beat never changes...it goes on and on and on.
The killings continue until the last of the victims are sacrificed, and the priest nods his head in approval that this years ceremony went well ... and that meant plenty of food, sun, rain... Quetzalcoatl had his bloody meal one more time...and so the people survived. One myth at a time.
Long after Golden Eagle had left this earth, not before wedding his sweet maiden from youth... 'Little Flower" and bore his generation of warrior children, that in turn lived, learned, married and bore their next generation of children, and so on for many hundreds of years, until one day, far away deep in the mountains of Tlapa Mexico, a land now conquered from times past by Conquistadors and lying priests, a little lonely shepherd couple wandered the hills in search of green pastures for their little flock of goats.
A strong young Indian man and his sweet wife, diligently watched over the flock as any good shepherd must. The dangers for the wandering flocks were many... coyotes wandered these hills, and dangerous plants that made the goats sick were ever present, and the pregnant ewes that needed tending when the babies were born.... shepherding, a task for the diligent and gentle soul.
It was in this time that the young Indian woman found herself with child.
She had kept quiet about this for a long time, as she often wondered why her belly was so flat... it had been many months now, and she had felt life, yet her belly did not grow? Strange she thought. Perhaps it was the curse of the Bruja's down the mountain. Those angry people that were always so jealous of their growing flock of goats.
Days would pass into long lonely nights, and the two shepherd's guided the goats among the mountain meadows.
One day, trailing behind, the Indian woman stopped. As a sharp pain stabbed in her belly, she fell to her knees, crying out for her husband.......
Quickly he came to her, asking what is wrong? "Oh" moaned his wife, "my belly, the baby, something is wrong." The husband thought about the woman down the valley. She was known to help young mothers in birth... and perhaps it would be best to send his wife to her now. So the young Indian wife agreed to go, and seek the help of the other woman.
As she made her way off the mountain meadow, and down the narrow trail to the small brick hut, she was met by a hunched over grey headed woman.
She explained that she had pain, and something was not right in her belly, where the baby was sleeping.
The old woman knew just what to do. She would lay her hand on the belly, and turn the baby. It wasn't positioned right, or surely this womans belly would be much bigger....
Just as she stretched out her hand, and began to lay it on the belly, she felt a jolt of pain shoot up her arm and to her chest. She couldn't breathe, and for a split second, all went black. As she regained her eyesight, she recoiled in fear; shouting..."Shaman, chiquito shaman!" and turned and ran back to her house, shutting and locking the door tight.
The poor Indian woman was in a fright herself, but had noticed the pain in her belly had stopped, so she just turned around and left, to find her husband back at the high meadow. As she walked on the way, she pondered the events that she had just experienced, and wondered what it all meant.
The time eventually came, when the pains of birth came. And, on a calm summers eve, a little tiny baby was born. Remembering the disturbing experience of the woman shouting "Shaman, chiquito shaman", the woman decided the baby would need a very good name, just in case some evil mountain spirit had inhabited her belly from all those long lonely nights spent tending the goats way high on the mountain. She pondered the name. It had to be very special, very strong to conquer the evil spirit that had claimed this baby.
When her husband came to her, she decided to tell him about her resolution for a strong, good name. "Yes," he said; "A good, strong name ..."
We will name him..."Jesus".
And that is the true story of how my husband got his name.
And, conquered the evil spirit that had claimed him from birth.
Valerie Mosso
~Bandita~
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