Cast of characters
Time Machine
Quetzalcóatl: the god of wind, of life and of the morning; creator of mankind. Mother: James’ mother.
James: lost traveler; student at W L. Cross H.S.
Xólotl: Quetzalcóatl’s twin brother.
Mictlantecihtli: the god of the underworld.
Tezcatlipoca: the god of death; Quetzalcóatl’s rival.
Xochiquetzal: the goddess of beauty and love.
Act one-Scene one
(Two Indian gods are startled by the appearance of
a
student who seems to have fallen from the heavens
.)
James: (
Frightened, but he manages to approach and to address one of the gods.
) Sir, I am lost. Would you please tell me where I am and who you are?
Quetzalcóatl: I am Quetzalcóatl, the god of wind, of life and of the morning.
Xólotl: I am Xólotl, Quetzalcóatl’s twin brother. And you, stranger, are in Tula.
James: Tula? I must be in what is present day Mexico. I remember this because we studied about Quetzalcóatl in my Spanish class. Oh, by the way, let me introduce myself also. My name is James. I am a student at Wilbur Cross High School. In fact, I was tinkering with this time machine that we had built when all of a sudden, there was an explosion and everything went up in Smoke.
James: Would you mind telling me more about yourselves?
Quetzalcóatl: I am the creator of mankind. I will tell you how I created man. In order to recreate a new man after the last catastrophe, I had to travel to Mictlan, the underworld, to obtain bones of dead men. I decided to take my twin with me because there is strength in numbers.
Xólotl: Upon arriving, we made our plea before Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the dead, But since Quetzalcóatl knew that this god was double-dealing and not to be trusted, we were extremely cautious.
James: Ah, you must have gone to what we call Hades and you probably saw Pluto, the god of the Underworld.
Quetzalcóatl: Yes, you still use the Greek names. But, as I was saying, as soon as we received the bones, we ran as fast as we could.
Mictlantecuhtli: (
Ap
p
ears from nowhere
.) I am Mictlantecuhtli! Who dears speaks my name? Who dears to retell that story that had angered me so? (No one speaks.) I was so angered by his escape that I pursued him and I ordered the quail to attack him.
Quetzalcóatl: (
laughs
) I slipped during my flight and thus, I was attacked by these birds. When I fell, I broke all the bones. I scarcely had time to pick up the fragments and escape with them from the underworld,
Xólotl: When we reached safety, we had a conference. And in spite of the fact that the affair did not turn out as well as we had hoped, Quetzalcóatl offered a sacrifice over the bones.
Quetsalcóatl: I sprinkled my own blood over the bones and a new race of men was created.
Mictlantecuhtli: But, since the bone fragments were of different sizes, so too are the men and women of the earth.
Xólotl: The quail, as a result of their daring pursuit of the god, were to be sacrificed and their blood sprinkled on the sacrificial altars, for they were the collaborators of the god of the underworld and had attempted to prevent my brother from carrying out his mission.
(This next section can be a continuation of this skit or it can be a new skit with a new cast,)
James: But, I had learned that you had to flee Tula. Was there any truth to this?
Quetzalcóatl: As the god of life, I was the benefactor of mankind. After having created man with my own blood, I also sought a way to nourish him. I discovered corn hidden by the ants within a hill. I changed my form into an ant and I stole a grain which I later gave to man. I taught man how to polish jade and other precious stones. I also showed him how to locate deposits of these stones. I taught man how to weave multicolored fabrics from cotton. I taught him how to do mosaic work with the feathers of the quetzal bird, the macaw, the bluebird, and to other birds with brilliant plumage.
Xólotl: Above all, my twin taught man science. He endowed man with the means to measure time and study the movements of the stars. He taught man how to arrange the calendar and how to devise ceremonies and how to fix certain days for prayers and sacrifices.
James: But, I don’t understand! I can see that you are the very essence of saintliness. I have heard of your life of fasting and penitence, your priestly character and your benevolence toward your children, mankind. What could you have possibly done to have to flee Tula? How did you sin?
Quetzalcóatl: Sin is a moral filth. Sin to us means drunkeness and failure to observe sexual abstinence. I allowed myself to be dragged into drunkeness and incontinence!
Tezcatlipoca: (
Appears from nowhere gloating
.) I am Tezcatlipoca, the god of evil. Quetzalcóatl and I have long been rival gods. And we are still carrying on our long drawn-out struggle; creating and destroying the universe only to create and destroy it again. It seems that we will be struggling until the end of time.
Quetzalcóatl: Tezcatlipoca, be gone from here! You are not wanted here!
Tezcatlipoca: I shall leave, but not before I humiliate you in front of your visitor. (
Turns to James
.) Do you want to know how the most holy Quetzalcóatl has sinned? (
Does not wait for him to answer.
) I left pulque where it was easily accessible. At the same time, I instilled in him a thirst that he could not seem to quench. So he drank and drank the pulque! (
He laughs
.) I had never seen anyone as drunk as he was. (
laughing.
) Part of the plan was to have Xochiquetzal, the goddess of beauty and love seduce him.
James: (
To himself.
) Xochiquetzal must be Aphrodite or Venus and he must have drunk too much nectar. Now, I am beginning to understand.
Xochiquetzal: I, Xochiquetzal, the goddess of beauty and love, waited for him in his bed. And the fool could not resist me. (
She and Tezcatlipoca laugh until they leave the stage
.)
Quetsalcóatl: What they spoke was the truth. I had to leave Tula because I had sinned. I left to go to Tlillan Tlapallan, the land of the black and the red. But, I made a promise to my people that someday I would return from the east in the year of my name “Ce çcatl”. It was because of this prophecy that when the conquistadores landed at Veracruz in the year 1519, called “Ce çcatl” (one reed) in the Aztec calendar; that Montezuma gave up without a struggle. Montezuma believed that I had returned to take possession of my kingdom.
James: Thank-you for helping me understand. Now I must find a way to get back to Cross so that I can help spread your legend and in this way, you will be able to live on.
Act one—Scene two.
Mother: Jimmy, wake-up, you’re late for school. Jimmy...
Huitzilopochtli, the Sun God
Cast of characters:
Coatlicue: the goddess of the earth; mother of the sun, mother of the moon and of the stars.
Huitzilopochtli: the sun god.
Coyolxauhqui: the moon.
Centzonhuitznhuac: three or four stars.
High Priest
Young girl
Act one—Scene one
Coatlicue: (
sweeping
) Good morning, I am Coatlicue, the goddess of the earth. I am not as young as I used to be. (
Points to the sun
). That’s my son. Isn’t he brilliant? Would you like to know how he came to be... and how day turns into night and night into day? Let me tell you my story. Now, you have to listen very carefully. I am also the mother of the moon, Coyolxauhqui, and the stars, Centzonhuitznáhuac. But, they are not as bright as my Huitzilopochtli.
Huitzilopochtli: (
enters
) Good morning, mamá earth. Whom are you talking to?
Coatlicue: Buenos d’as, hijo m’o. I am talking to mankind. I am telling them our story.
Huitzilopochtli: Oh, let me assist you mamacita. One day, many, many moons ago before I came to be; my mother, who was a priestess in the temple, came across some down. My mother led a life of retreat and chastity after giving birth to my brother and my sisters.
Coatlicue: Yes, on that dark day, while sweeping, I picked up a ball of down and I tucked it away in my waistband. How was I to know that I was being tricked by some god?
Huitzilopochtli: After finishing her tasks, she looked for the ball of feathers, but it had disappeared.
Coatlicue: That’s when I realized that I was pregnant.
Coyolxauhqui and Centzonhuitznahuac: She betrayed us!
Coyolxauhqui: When we learned of her delicate state, we became so furious that we also became determined to kill our mother.
Coatlicue: (
crying
) I could not believe that my children had planned to do away with me after having raised them with all my love and tenderness.
Huitzilopochtli: But, I managed to speak to my mother from her womb and I tried to console her. I assured her that I would be able to defend her from her enemies.
Coatlicue: My son was born just as my children came to kill me.
Huitzilopochtli: My rays, the serpent of fire, cut off Coyolxauhqui’s head, and put the Centzonhuitznáhuac to flight.
Centzonhuitznáhuac #1: So it was that when the sun god was born, he a to combat us, his brothers, the stars, and his sister the moon. Armed with the serpent of fire, he puts us to flight every new day.
Huitzilopochtli: My victory signifies a new day of life for men.
Centzonhuitznahuac #2: When he consummates his victory, he is carried into the center of the sky by the spirits of warriors who have died in combat or on the sacrificial stone.
Centzonhuitznahuac #3: When afternoon commences, he is picked up by the spirits of women who have died in childbirth, for they are equal to warriors because they, too, died taking a man prisoner—the newborn child.
Centzonhuitznahuac #4: During the afternoon the souls of the mothers lead the sun to its new setting, where we, the stars, die and where the sun, like the eagle in his fall to death, is gathered close to her bosom by our mother earth.
Coatlicue: Each day this divine combat is begun anew, but in order for my sun to be triumphant, he must be strong and vigorous, for he has to fight against the unnumbered stars of the North and the South, his brothers, and frighten them all off with his arrows of light.
High Priest: (
enters
) For this reason, man must give nourishment to the sun. Since the sun is god, he disdains the coarse foods of mortals and can only be kept alive by life itself, by the magic substance that is found in the blood of man, the Chalch’huatl, “the precious liquid”, the terrible nectar with which the gods are fed. Thus, war is a form of worship. Its purpose is to take prisoners for sacrifice to the sun. In this way, the Aztecs, the chosen people of the sun, prepare from birth to become warriors.
(
A young male warrior enters, and lies down on a sacrificial stone. The priest with a daggar in his hand approaches her and offers her up as sacrifice.
)
