Popocatepetl (the Smoking Mountain) and Ixtaccihuatl (the White Lady) are adjacent volcanoes at the south end of the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs believed the two volcanoes were lovers that could not bear to be out of each others sight. Ixtaccihuatl's profile looks like a reclining women.
Legend cribbed from
here: In a century long since past, when the earth, moon and sun were still young, there flourished in the arid valley of Mexico a great Aztec city called Tenochtitlan. The ruler of Tenochtitlan was an elderly Emperor whose authority was absolute. Laws were made or unmade at his whim and brutal execution was the penalty for those who incurred his slightest displeasure.
One of the old Emperor's most difficult decisions directly affected a member of his own family. He had a daughter named Ixtaccihuatl, known to her friends as Ixtla. She was an exceedingly lovely girl with raven hair and dark, impenetrable eyes. Many of the young Aztec men would have vied for her hand, but her father had decreed that she should not marry. His reasoning was simple. In the course of a long reign, he had learned that he could trust nobody and that it was dangerous to confer power on any one individual. Since authority would inevitably devolve upon a son-in-law, the Emperor was not prepared to sacrifice his guiding principle of government for the happiness of his daughter.
Of all the Emperor's warriors, there was only one who had the audacity to risk his master's wrath by falling in love with Ixtla. His name was Popocatepetl and he was a Jaguar Knight...a soldier of the imperial bodyguard whose uniform of wild ocelot skin proclaimed the elite status he had attained within the court. Whenever Ixtla appeared at the palace, her father's arm resting on her shoulder, Popocatepetl could only dream of what might have been.
One summer, when the heat baked the red earth of the valley as hard as a stone, the Emperor fell ill and this was the moment for which the Aztec's many enemies had waited. Like condors at the kill, they swept down from the mountains, flanking Tenochtitlan and circling around the city walls crowing for blood. The Emperor's warriors crowded into the palace and awaited their monarch's command.
At long last, the old man appeared and disclosed a desperate strategy. Every soldier, he declared, must drink deeply of the spirit of Tezcatilipoca, the ancient god of war. The warrior who proved himself to be the bravest in battle would be richly rewarded...he would be given the hand of Ixtla, heiress apparent of the Aztec empire.
A wave of murmured amazement swept through the crowd and then, all at once, the palace courtyard erupted into a riot of jostling bodies. It had taken a terrible crisis to reverse the Emperor's decision, but now Ixtla was available and the path of eligibility for suitors plainly marked. Men ran back to their homes, already howling the chilling Aztec battle cry, and feverishly dressed themselves with bells, feathers and bracelets...the trappings of war.
Only Popocatepetl remained where he stood, transfixed as he watched Ixtla help her father down the long corridor to his bedchamber. Almost swallowed from sight by distance and shadows, the Princess finally turned and looked at him. He believed he saw a glimmer of love in her eyes, but then she was gone. With his heart racing, the young warrior marched from the courtyard and up onto a high battlement. Scowling down upon the foe through the gaping jaws of his helmet, Popocatepetl steeled himself to fight harder than he had ever done before. Then, drawing his obsidian machete, as smooth as polished glass, he strode out to meet the enemy.
The atrocities and deeds of reckless courage performed that day long fueled the ritual storytellings of the Aztec people. Blood flowed from so many wounds, that it trickled beneath the city gates and into the marketplace. As was the custom, the women wailed to the divinities to protect their menfolk and poured ashes over their heads in order to blacken their tears. In the sanctuary of her father's palace, Ixtla prayed hardest of them all.
Eventually, the cacophony of warfare receded and then ceased altogether. The women stopped their bemoaning and waited in suspense. Finally, there came a knocking at the gate and a small party of Aztec soldiers entered. The Emperor himself, aided by Ixtla, staggered out into the dark of night to meet them. He demanded to know which way the battle had gone. Triumphant, the soldiers announced a wonderful victory...the enemy had been annihilated.
Then, the Emperor asked by whose hand this glorious conquest had been achieved. "The bravest of all was Popocatepetl, the Jaguar Knight," chorused the party of soldiers. "He was constantly in the forefront...the very heart of the battle...his machete slashing a bloody trail through the ranks of our enemy." "He was an inspiration to us all," added yet another of the warriors, "spurring us on and encouraging us to fight harder, which makes what followed all the more tragic." The Emperor looked inquiringly at his guards.
"It is sad that Popocatepetl, the noblest of men, should have met with such horrible death," said one of the soldiers cunningly. "The enemy, in a last desperate stand, surrounded Popocatepetl, fell on him like a pack of rabid dogs and then ripped his body to pieces."
Although nobody in the city knew it, the warriors were lying, for Popocatepetl had only been wounded and not killed. Even as the soldiers were delivering their report to the Emperor, Popocatepetl was regaining his strength. He had bound up his wounds and, like the natural commander he was, had decided to let his exhausted troops rest before returning to Tenochtitlan. By spreading false stories of his demise, his rivals for the hand of Ixtla hoped to claim the girl for themselves...but their conspiracy was shattered by the despair of the Princess.
Some accounts tell that the daughter of the Emperor died by her own hand...others that she simply willed herself to death, having lost all reason to remain in this world. Whatever the truth might be, the lifeless body of Ixtla was discovered later that night lying on the floor of her bedchamber, curled like an autumn leaf.
Early the following morning, Popocatepetl marched into Tenochtitlan at the head of his weary army, bounded up the steps to the palace, and claimed the Princess for his bride. At the sight of his champion, the Emperor buried his face in his hands and left it to the women to tell Popocatepetl of Ixtla's death only hours before.
The great warrior's wrath was terrifying. Drawing his scarred and splintered machete once again, he stalked through the streets of the city and dragged out the soldiers who had cheated him. Without a word, he killed them all. Then, so it is said, he faced the crowd that had followed and guided him from house to house, and commanded them to build a massive funerary pyramid outside the walls of Tenochtitlan.
Every able-bodied man and woman set about the task, and soon the monument was completed...sheer and white, crowned by a golden bier. Popocatepetl carried the body of his beloved Ixtla to the summit and laid it down. He then called to the people below to build another, higher pyramid nearby, so that he might stand atop it and see forever his lost bride. When this too had been completed, Popocatepetl took a crackling pinewood torch and slowly scaled the steps. Not once did he look back, never again did he return to Tenochtitlan, and no Aztec ever dared follow in his footsteps.
The torch Popocatepetl carried for love of Ixtla will blaze for all time, for it is said that the great warrior became one with the rock of the pyramid and the pyramid itself became one with the earth...and the volcano known as Popocatepetl, the Smoky Mountain, will burn throughout eternity above the snow-capped peak called Mount Ixtaccihuatl.
