Oliverio Balcells Arte Mexicano Toltecayotl Collection

Toltecayotl:   
A grouping of the creations of the Toltec culture

“The knowledge, practices and wisdom related to 
the universal search to transcend our existence 
in this material world, are known as Toltecayotl.” 
Guillermo Marin

“The Toltecayotl, essence of being Toltec,was         
sustained with the philosophy of the duality and 
came to represent for the posterity that which is 
most elevated inasmuch as the constant search 
of the loftiness in knowledge and in the human arts,         
to become a Toltec, to become what is Toltec, 
a concept that was born with those sedentary         
villages that by living at the edge of the rivers, 
lagoons and streams where the tula plants abound, 
they managed to evolve until they converted their 
name into a synonym of perfection, that which is 
described in the posterity designated to the artists 
that have Toltec hands, and to those wise men 
and philosophers that make their knowledge 
bloom like Toltecs”bbb        mmmmmmmllllllllllllllll  
Arturo Meza

The Toltecs were experienced people, all their works 
were good, were right, all well done, all admirable.
Their houses were beautiful, their houses were inlaid with 
turquoise mosaics, polished covered in stucco, wonderful. 
What is said about a Toltec house is it is well made, 
a work in all aspects beautiful…
Painters, sculptors, those who work in stone, artists of feathers, 
jewelry makers, spinners, weavers, profoundly experienced…
they discovered, they perfected work in green rock, 
the turquoises.. 
They were familiar with turquoises, they found the mines 
and the mountain of silver, of gold, of copper, of tin,  
of the moon’s metal…
    
 The Toltecs were certainly the most wise, well they would 
dialogue with their heart…
     
They would play the huehuetl, the rattles, they were singers, 
they composed chants, they would give them to be known, 
they retained them in their memory, creating them in their heart 
the wonderful chants that they would invent…”

Text from the informers of Sahagún VIII folio 172r

“The Law of the Center or the Quincunce” of the Ancient Grandparents, 
tells us that the human being should try to balance the four courses 
of the existence in its center in order to achieve transcendence.
Guillermo Marin (Writer and Scholar from Oaxaca)

The heavens are represented from the belly button up to the head, 
symbolized by the beautiful celestial bird, Quetzal.
The earth is represented from the belly button down to the feet, symbolized      
by Coatl or the serpent. The Toltec philosophy says that each person has to     
bring together the Quetzal-Coatl, which represents the spiritual and material      
parts.
The left-handed part of the person represents the subjective world, lunar     
and feminine, symbolized by the intangible world or Nahual.
The right-handed part of the person represents the objective world, solar      
and masculine, symbolized by the tangible world or Tonal.

“The Calmécac was an institution to which only the most exceptional could attend. 
The youth that initiated their preparation in the ancient and secret knowledge of the 
Old Grandparents were called “Warriors”.

Warriors because they had to undertake the most difficult struggle that a human being face. 
The struggle with one’s self; the battle to defeat      the “inner enemy”.

This war was based on “Flor y canto (Flower and Song)”, which represented the wisdom, 
philosophy and art. The warrior’s objective was to “flower its heart” and give itself as 
nourishment to its      beloved. [A] beautiful metaphor, where the “War” is used in a 
symbolic and spiritual way.

The warriors prepared themselves for the symbolic death and with this achieved reaching
the eternal life. This concept was from the classic period of the Toltecs.
Guillermo Marin (Writer and Scholar from Oaxaca)

The luminous energy is the essence of the whole “material” world. Matter,    
in its most intimate essence, is shaped by energy.

The Ancient Grandparents represented this energy symbolically with water,      
understanding that through the influence of water, the material world reproduce itself.

The symbol is shaped by the presence of water as the announcement of life.

The Nahuas called this religious energy Tlaloc, the Mayas Chac,, 
the Zapotecs Cosijo, and the Totonacas Tajín.
Guillermo Marín (Writer     and Scholar from Oaxaca)

From the ancestral perceptions point of view, the beginning of beginnings, of double nature, 
is composed of two entities called Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, which join in the middle to 
become Omeyotl, the dual essence of Omeyohcan where they coexist in harmony and 
balance, forming the fundamental conception who the people of Anahuac called mother 
and father together, giving beginning and origen to all that exists.

Nowadays the native peoples call this: In Totan, In Totah, Our Mother, Our Father. 
They also called it Teteo Inan, Teteo Itah, as a duality that generates the elements of nature
and that generates also through themselves other dualities.
Arturo Meza (Writer and Scholar from Mexico City)

The wise ones of the Anahuac grouped together in the four children of Ometeotl a complete 
sequence starting from the formation of the cosmos up to ending with the formation of the human 
being. The four Tezcatlipoca contain the sequence of a formative process.

Yayauhqui Tezcatlipoca is the cosmic beginning, the origin of far-away time, dark 
and immeasurable, and therefore incomprehensible and mysterious. It represents the furthest 
era registered in the memory of man.

Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca is the red one; the one who orders the universe, who makes things 
concrete and gives order to all that is beginning to take shape and that exists and materializes 
itself in the dark and infinite time, in the place of the dual essence.

Texouqui Tezcatlipoca is the blue one; represented by Ollin, that signifies all that is active. 
It is the symbol of constant activity that is perceived in all matter of all the components 
of the universe, that is present and actual in all that apparently is static in nature, given that 
truly in each of the cosmic particles there exists a great activity ruled by the laws of universal      
movement, the same that in the philosophy of the Anahuac is represented by the blue Tezcatlipoca.

Iztac Tezcatlipoca, the white one; in this one the action of its three siblings is concentrated, 
the force of the three is brought together so that Quetzalcoatl appears in the universal sphere. 
The three Tezcatlipoca with their own attributes give form to the Beautiful Snake so that it can 
generate life in the world and in all of the universe.

Time, space, matter and activity is brought together in the concept of Tezcatlipoca. This means 
that Tezcatlipoca is always regenerating itself and creating itself continually.      
In Tezcatlipoca two opposing actions are manifested: one that pushes all that is in the middle out, 
and the other that brings everything into its center. This function is contained in one of the names 
that Nezahualcoyotl called  the generating beginning: Tloque Nahauque. It is the interaction and 
the balance of that which is together and that which is far apart.

Arturo Meza (Writer and Scholar from Mexico City)

Your Own Face and True Heart, to be a proper person. Miguel L. Portilla


Mexicans have spent the last five centuries negating our Mother Culture  and trying ot convert 
ourselves in something that we will never be. The basis of education in ancient Mexico was to 
“form your own face and a true heart.”
The future of those Mexicans who we don’t want to die in the alienation of our minds and spirits, 
we encounter in the past. Only with your own face and not limited. Only with a true heart and 
not lost. 

Guillermo Marin  (Writer and Scholar from Oaxaca)


 “Xochipilli, the prince of the flowers, emerges like the rebirth of our race, shining his own face 
and presenting his true heart. This offers the opportunity of a profound encounter with himself. “ 
Oliverio Balcells

The invention of corn might be one of the major achievements of the preclassic     
period. From a wild grass, the Old Grandparents produced the splendid corn  plant, 
a food staple of the civilization.


Corn is a herbaceous anual grain related to grasses. This plant has suffered great 
transformations, given that it was originally a grass, and is now  called Teozintle. 
That transformation has brought forth a great variety of breeds  which are differentiated 
by their height, that varies from 2-4 meters, and also by the shape and size of the ear, 
its color, and texture, etc. There are studies that conclude, from archeological 
and paleobotanical finds, that in the Valley of Tehuacan, in the south of Mexico, 
corn was cultivated  4,600 years ago.

Guillermo Marín (Writer and Scholar from Oaxaca)

In México we have only one civilization, with many different cultures in time and space.       
But they are all united under one philosophical/cultural matrix, like a hand has five fingers 
different from one another but all belonging to the same hand.


The history of the Anahuac civilization begins approximately in 6000 B.C., with the invention 
of corn and the agriculture, ending with the arrival of the Spanish in 1519 A.D. Seven and 
a half millennium of human and cultural development, without the intervention of another 
civilization. We are one of the six oldest civilizations with autonomous origin in the world.

This large period is divided in three parts. The formative period or  Pre-Classic 
(6000 B.C. –200 A.D.) when the representative culture was the Olmec. The second called 
the Classic Period or the one of splendor, (200 B.C. to 850 A.D.) of which the representative 
culture was the Toltec and finally the Postclassic period or the decadent, (850-1519 A.D.), 
was represented by the Aztec culture.


Guillermo Marín (Writer and Scholar from Oaxaca)

Starting from June 7, 2004, date in which the planet Venus was positioned between the sun 
and Earth, that is known astronomically as the transit of Venus in the solar system; this 
phenomenon marks the awakening of the conscience towards an intellectual transformation 
in the Mexican; following its force, the planet Venus will repeat the same astronomical     
phenomenon in the year 2012.

Within the Mayan calendar it is indicated that the year, 2004, marks a transformation 
that arrives at its apex of the 2012; therefore I consider  that this is the beginning of a new 
era belonging to the Anahuac civilization.


Oliverio Balcells

The first sound was a gift for the inhabitants of the earth, born from the breath of the duality 
of Ometeotl, when it breathed into Quetzalcoatl the Ihiyotl as a gift for the people.
This is a fragment of the cosmogonic myths of the History of the Mexicans through their 
paintings, where Ehecatl travels to the sun’s house in search of music:

“ The sun has other servants among those are some who have only three feet,there
are others that have ears so large that they cover their whole body.
When you arrive at the edge of the water, you will call for my servants. They call themselves
Acatapachtli, shell of reeds, and it is a turtle; the other calls itself Acihuatl, which is half
women and half fish, and you will also call Atlicipactli that means crocodile and it is a whale,
and you will ask all of them to link together to make a bridge which you can use to come
to the sun’s house.
You will bring to me from your house the musicians with their instruments to make the people
happy.
And as this was said, he left, without being seen again.
Ehecatl arrived at the beach and began to call the servants of Tezcatlipoca.
The obedient ones came and at this point they made a bridge over which crossed Ehecatl.
Upon seing him Tonatiuh who rested, said to the musicians:
Look here the mesenger arrives.
Noone should answer his call, because he comes for my musicians and singers.
Whoever responds to him will have to go with him.
The sun’s musicians were dressed in four distinct colors: white, red, yellow and water blue.
Where Ehecatl had just arrived he called them and heard voices singing. Noone responded
until finally Huehuetl and Teponaztli responded to the voice of the wind and they had to go
with him, and they took with them the music, the one which people on earth have in their
dances and with which they now rejoice.


Arturo Meza (Writer and Scholar from Mexico City)

Mexicans have a legacy that has not been recovered, a part of the legacy is the true 
discovery of the national symbol. The eagle, the prickly pear cactus, the prickly  
pear fruit, the water and the sizzling water.


The eagle is the symbol of freedom. The Mexicans explain it in a poetic fashion; when 
the sun comes up it is a hummingbird, then it transforms itself into the quetzal bird, 
then into a parrot and finally in eagle, that descends to die.
This is an astronomical occurrence, the process of the evolution of the sun as much as 
in a day as in a year. With the winter solstice Huitzilopochtli is born. Huitzilopochtli 
signifies the southern hummingbird and when the sun moves to the north being 
the summer solstice it is eagle, and when the sun returns and passes by the zenith 
of the island of Tenochtitlan is when Mexico City is founded.
The astronomical occurrence was the signal they searched for. It is not literally the eagle 
devouring a snake what they found.


The prickly pear cactus is the symbol of immortality, there is a saying that goes, if we 
throw a piece of prickly pear in any arid or desert area, from this another prickly pear 
cactus will be born. The prickly pear cactus is born from a rock, that speaks to us of its 
firmness of cementation.


Tenochtli is the prickly pear fruit, tetl means rock and nochtli prickly pear fruit; so 
Tenochtitlan is the place where the tough prickly pear fruit abounds. Besides that the 
symbol of the heart and the symbol of the prickly pear are identical, here it is saying 
that the human being’s heart is strong and solid.


The water reflects back to us the quality of the people to mold themselves to their 
circumstances, the quality of knowing how to flow, that of transparency.


The sizzling water is the conjunction of fire with water, that signifies strength, 
the impetus that human beings have to fight against its daily life adversaries,             
this symbol is what the chroniclers confused with the serpent. The fusion of the water 
with fire creates a sound, this sound is Atlachinolli.


All these symbols in conjunction offer us a very important interpretation, that we all 
should know, that is that the moment in which Tenochtitlan was founded, there was 
an astronomical occurrence, that of the sun passing by the zenith. The water speaks
to us of a culture that can mold itself  to things, that never has obstacles to 
achieve its objectives, that we are a solid and firm culture, with the prickly pear 
fruit it speaks to us that we are people with a strong and solid heart, that in the 
sizzling water we find the force and impetus to fight against adversaries, that in daily               
life we can be presented with the eagle that tells us that we are owners of our freedom.


This is the background of the symbolism, waiting to be known and protected, 
that we should utilize and use this atlachinolli to face the world.


Carlos Hernández Parra, Researcher from the Museum of Popular Culture of Jalisco

The energy that constituted the world was the spiritual energy that 
generated all living beings-- from a whale to an ant, but that in the 
human being it was generated with greater intensity through 
the consciousness of Being.

The human being, through its generating potential of spiritual 
energy, is seen committed to the creative force in order to maintain 
universal order. To sustain, preserve and humanize the world was 
the divine mission of the ancient Mexicans in the universal cosmic 
order of life.
Life recharges its “essence” when it receives the “divine breath that 
grants consciousness of being.”
It is the wind that announces the arrival of the rain and with this 
the flowering of life. The divine breath that gives life to the spiritual 
consciousness is associated with Quetzalcoatl.

Quetzalcoatl in Nahuatl, Cuculkan in Maya, Belaguetza in Zapotec.
Only one philosophical-cultural matrix, only one religion with 
diverse variants, in its expression in time and space.
Guillermo Marin (Writer     and Scholar from Oaxaca)

In the beginning of time when nothing had color, the sun, Tohatiuh sent his child,    
Piltzintecuhtili to give the world the beauty of color. It had been indicated that he 
should pick up the colors in the containers of clay from the rainbow and with 
these paint everything around him.

In one of the dark mountain caves there lived Tepeyolohtli. One day he noticed 
the bright and colorful world      that he now found around him.

Mad, he went to find out the cause and found Piltzintecuhtli resting, and he took 
the clay containers to hide them. Piltzintecuhtli went to get more colors from 
the rainbow and continued with his work. He repeated this many times.

Tepeyolohtli, angered, asked a favor of Huehueteotl, man of the fire, so that he 
would light his small stoves from within the earth and make an eruption to destroy 
everything. But this grandfather reflected and he understood that he would be 
destroying something beautiful.

Piltzintecuhtli was curious about what was happening and he pretended to sleep 
so that he could secretly watch his colors. Quickly he discovered that it was 
Tepeyolohtli and he asked him, Could it be that you don’t like beauty?
Tepeyolohtli answered that as he had lived in the darkness of the caves, he 
was envious of the beauty of color and for this reason he stole the clay containers 
of color.

The son of the sun nicely counseled him to make the interior of the cave beautiful 
and he showed him how to use the colors.

“…and the Tlaxcatleca legend recounts that this is the origin of the veins of 
precious minerals, copper, silver, gold, jade, turquoise, emeralds, rubies, 
amethysts inside the mountains, being as colorful and beautiful outside as inside 
the earth.”