Strategic Management Planning For Domestic and Global Competition 13Th Edition Pearce Ii Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Strategic Management Planning For Domestic and Global Competition 13Th Edition Pearce Ii Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Chapter 7
Before we learn how strategic decisions are made, it is important to understand the two principal
components of any strategic choice; namely, long-term objectives and the grand strategy. The
purpose of this chapter is to convey that understanding.
Long-term objectives are defined as the result a firm seeks to achieve over a specified period,
typically five years. Seven common long-term objectives are discussed: profitability, productivity,
competitive position, employee development, employee relations, technological leadership, and
public responsibility. These, or any other long-term objectives, should be flexible, measurable
over time, motivating, suitable, and understandable.
Grand strategies are defined as comprehensive approaches guiding the major actions designed to
achieve long-term objectives. Fifteen grand strategy options are discussed: concentrated growth,
market development, product development, innovation, horizontal integration, vertical integration,
concentric diversification, conglomerate diversification, turnaround, divestiture, liquidation,
bankruptcy, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and consortia.
Learning Objectives
Lecture Outline
I. Long-Term Objectives
A. Strategic managers recognize that short-run profit maximization is rarely the best approach
to achieving sustained corporate growth and profitability.
1. An often repeated adage states that if impoverished people are given food, they will
eat it and remain impoverished, whereas if they are given seeds and tools and shown
how to grow crops, they will be able to improve their condition permanently. A
parallel choice confronts strategic decision makers:
a) Should they eat the seeds to improve the near-term profit picture and make
large dividend payments through cost-saving measures such as laying off
workers during periods of slack demand, selling off inventories, or cutting
back on research and development?
7-1
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) Or should they sow the seeds in the effort to reap long-term rewards by
reinvesting profits in growth opportunities, committing resources to
employee training, or increasing advertising expenditures?
2. For most strategic managers, the solution is clear—distribute a small amount of profit
now but sow most of it to increase the likelihood of a long-term supply. This is the
most frequently used rationale in selecting objectives.
a) Profitability
(1) The ability of any firm to operate in the long run depends on attaining
an acceptable level of profits.
(2) Strategically managed firms characteristically have a profit objective,
usually expressed in earnings per share or return on equity.
b) Productivity
c) Competitive Position
d) Employee Development
(1) Employees value education and training, in part because they lead to
increased compensation and job security.
(2) Providing such opportunities often increases productivity and decreases
turnover.
(3) Therefore, strategic decision makers frequently include an employee
development objective in their long-range plans.
7-2
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
e) Employee Relations
(1) Whether or not they are bound by union contracts, firms actively seek
good employee relations.
(2) In fact, proactive steps in anticipation of employee needs and
expectations are characteristic of strategic managers.
(3) Strategic managers believe that productivity is linked to employee
loyalty and to appreciation of mangers’ interest in employee welfare.
(4) They, therefore, set objectives to improve employee relations.
(5) Among the outgrowths of such objectives are safety programs, worker
representation of management committees, and employee stock option
plans.
f) Technological Leadership
g) Public Responsibility
1. There are five criteria that should be used in preparing long-term objectives: flexible,
measurable over time, motivating, suitable, and understandable.
a) Flexible
b) Measurable
(1) Objectives must clearly and concretely state what will be achieved and
when it will be achieved.
(2) Thus, objectives should be measurable over time.
7-3
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
c) Motivating
(1) People are most productive when objectives are set at a motivating
level—one high enough to challenge but not so high as to frustrate or so
low as to be easily attained.
(2) The problem is that individuals and groups differ in their perceptions of
what is high enough.
(3) A broad objective that challenges one group frustrates another and
minimally interests a third.
(4) One valuable recommendation is that objectives be tailored to specific
groups.
(5) Developing such objectives requires time and effort, but objectives of
this kind are more likely to motivate.
(6) Objectives must also be achievable
d) Suitable
(1) Objectives must be suited to the broad aims of the firm, which are
expressed in its mission statement.
(2) Each objective should be a step toward the attainment of overall goals.
(3) In fact, objectives that are inconsistent with the company mission can
subvert the firm’s aims.
e) Understandable
1. The balanced scorecard is a set of measures that are directly linked to the
company’s strategy.
a) Surrounding the vision and strategy are four additional boxes, each box
contains the objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives for one of the four
perspectives:
7-4
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(1) The box at the top of Exhibit 7.1 represents the financial perspective, and
answers the question “To succeed financially, how should we appear to our
shareholders?”
(2) The box to the right represents the internal business process perspective
and addresses the question “To satisfy our shareholders and customers,
what business processes must we excel at?”
(3) The learning and growth box at the bottom of the exhibit answer the
question “To achieve our vision, how will we sustain our ability to
change and improve?”
(4) The box at the left reflects the customer perspective, and responds to the
question, “To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our
customers?”
b) All of the boxes are connected by arrows to illustrate that the objectives and
measures of the four perspectives are linked by cause-and-effect relationships
that lead to the successful implementation of the strategy.
4. The balanced scorecard is a management system that can be used at the central
organizing framework for key managerial processes.
D. Generic Strategies
1. Many planning experts believe that the general philosophy of doing business
declared by the firm in the mission statement must be translated into a holistic
statement of the firm’s strategic orientation before it can be further defined in
terms of a specific long-term strategy.
7-5
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
2. Low-Cost Leadership
b) A low-cost leader is able to use its cost advantage to charge lower prices or
to enjoy higher profit margins.
(1) By doing so, the firm effectively can defend itself in price wars, attack
competitors on price to gain market share, or, if already dominant in the
industry, simply benefit from exceptional returns.
3. Differentiation
(1) By stressing the attribute above other product qualities, the firm
attempts to build customer loyalty.
(2) Often such loyalty translates into a firm’s ability to charge a premium
price for its product.
b) The product attribute also can be the marketing channels through which it is
delivered, its image for excellence, the features it includes, and the service
network that supports it.
4. Focus
7-6
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(1) Likely segments are those that are ignored by marketing appeals to
easily accessible markets, to the “typical” customer, or to customers
with common applications for the product.
(2) A firm pursuing a focus strategy is willing to service isolated
geographic areas; to satisfy the needs of customers with special
financing, inventory, or servicing problems; or to tailor the product to
the somewhat unique demands of the small- to medium-sized customer.
(3) The focusing firms profit from their willingness to serve otherwise
ignored or underappreciated customer segments.
(4) The classic example is cable television. An entire industry was born
because of a willingness of cable firms to serve isolated rural locations
that were ignored by traditional television services.
a) This lead is derived from the firm’s focus on one discipline, aligning all
aspects of operations with it.
b) Having decided on the value that must be conveyed to customers, firms
understand more clearly what must be done to attain the desired results.
c) After transforming their organizations to focus on one discipline, companies
can concentrate on smaller adjustments to produce incremental value.
d) To match this advantage, less focused companies require larger changes than
the tweaking that discipline leaders need.
B. Operational Excellence
a) A company that follows this strategy attempts to lead its industry in price and
convenience by pursuing a focus on lean and efficient operations.
7-7
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
2. Customer Intimacy
7-8
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
3. Product Leadership
b) Like other product leaders, Johnson & Johnson creates and maintains an
environment that encourages employees to share ideas.
(1) Additionally, product leaders continually scan the environment for new-
product or service possibilities and rush to capitalize them.
(2) Product leaders also avoid bureaucracy because it slows down
commercialization of their ideas.
(3) In a product leadership company, a wrong decision is often less
damaging than one made late.
(4) As a result, managers make decisions quickly, their companies
encouraging them to decide today and implement tomorrow.
(5) Product leaders continually look for new methods to shorten their cycle
times.
(1) These firms continually make the products and services they have
created obsolete.
(2) Product leaders believe that if they do not develop a successor, a
competitor will.
A. A grand strategy is a master long-term plan that provides basic direction for major
actions directed toward achieving long-term business objectives. .
7-9
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
a) They are the basis of coordinated and sustained efforts directed toward
achieving long-term business objectives.
2. The purpose of this section is twofold: (1) to list, describe, and discuss 15 grand
strategies that strategic managers should consider and (2) to present approaches to
the selection of an optimal grand strategy from the available alternatives.
3. Grand strategies indicate the time period over which long-rang objectives are to be
achieved.
a) Any one of these strategies could serve as the basis for achieving the major
long-term objectives of a single firm.
b) But a firm involved with multiple industries, businesses, product lines, or
customer groups—as many firms are—usually combines several grand
strategies.
c) For clarity, each of the principal grand strategies is described independently
in this section, with examples to indicate some of its relative strengths and
weaknesses.
B. Concentrated Growth
1. Many of the firms that fell victim to merger mania were once mistakenly
convinced that the best way to achieve their objectives was to pursue unrelated
diversification in the search for financial opportunity and synergy.
a) Concentrated growth is the strategy of the firm that directs its resources to
the profitable growth of a dominant product, in a dominant market, with a
dominant technology.
b) The main rationale for this approach, sometimes called a market penetration
strategy, is that by thoroughly developing and exploiting its expertise in a
narrowly defined competitive arena, the company achieves superiority over
competitors that try to master a greater number of product and market
combinations.
7-10
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(3) The high success rates of new products also are tied to avoiding
situations that require undeveloped skills, such as serving new
customers and markets, acquiring new technology, building new
channels, developing new promotional abilities, and facing new
competition.
(1) This is certainly not true for a firm that correctly utilizes the strategy.
(2) A firm employing concentrated growth grows by building on its
competences, and it achieves a competitive edge by concentrating in the
product-market segment it knows best.
(3) A firm employing this strategy is aiming for the growth and results from
increased productivity, better coverage of its actual product-market
segment, and more efficient use of its technology.
(1) The first is a condition in which the firm’s industry is resistant to major
technological advancements.
(2) This is usually the case in the late growth and maturity stages of the
product life cycle and in product markets where product demand is
stable and industry barriers, such as capitalization, are high.
(1) Markets with competitive gaps leave the firm with alternatives for
growth, other than taking market share away from competitors.
c) A third condition that favors concentrated growth exists when the firm’s
product markets are sufficiently distinctive to dissuade competitors in
adjacent product markets from trying to invade the firm’s segment.
d) A fourth favorable condition exists when the firm’s in puts are stable in price
and quantity and are available in the amounts and at the times needed.
e) The pursuit of concentrated growth is also favored by a stable market—a
market without the seasonal or cyclical swings that would encourage a firm
to diversify.
f) A firm also can grow while concentrating, if it enjoys competitive advantages
based on efficient production or distribution channels.
7-11
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(3) Exhibit 7.3, Top Strategist, profiles BNSF’s CEO Matthew Rose’s
pursuit of a concentrated growth strategy.
a) Under stable conditions, concentrated growth poses lower risk than any other
grand strategy; but, in a changing environment, a firm committed to
concentrated growth faces high risks.
(1) The greatest risk is that concentrating in a single product market makes
a firm particularly vulnerable to changes in that segment.
(2) Slowed growth in this segment would jeopardize the firm because its
investment, competitive edge, and technology are deeply entrenched in
a specific offering.
(3) It is difficult for the firm to attempt sudden changes if its product is
threatened by near-term obsolescence, a faltering market, new
substitutes, or changes in technology or customer needs.
(1) However, any failure of such a firm to properly forecast major changes
in its industry can result in extraordinary losses.
7-12
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) The firm that chooses a concentrated growth strategy directs its resources to
the profitable growth of a narrowly defined product and market, focusing on
a dominant technology.
(1) Firms that remain within their chosen product market are able to extract
the most from their technology and market knowledge and, thus, are
able to minimize the risk associated with unrelated diversification.
(2) The success of a concentration strategy is founded on the firm’s use of
superior insights into its technology, product, and customer to obtain a
sustainable competitive advantage.
(3) Superior performance on these aspects of corporate strategy has been
shown to have a substantial positive effect on market success.
(1) Broadly speaking, the firm can attempt to capture a larger market share
by increasing the usage rates of present customers, by attracting
competitors’ customers, or by selling to nonusers.
(2) In turn, each of these options suggests more specific options, some of
which are listed in the top section of Exhibit 7.4, Specific Options
under the Grand Strategies of Concentration, Market Development,
and Product Development.
d) When strategic managers forecast that their current products and their
markets will not provide the basis for achieving the company mission, they
have two options that involve moderate costs and risk: market development
and product development.
C. Market Development
7-13
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) Exhibit 7.5, Top Strategist, describes how, under the leadership of CEO
Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola implemented advertising and public relations
initiatives to develop its market share among the Hispanic population in North
America.
D. Product Development
a) The product development strategy often is adopted either to prolong the life
cycle of current products or to take advantage of a favorite reputation or
brand name.
b) The idea is to attract satisfied customers to new products as a result of their
positive experience with the firm’s initial offering.
c) The bottom section in Exhibit 7.4 lists some of the options available to firms
undertaking product development.
E. Innovation
2. While most growth-oriented firms appreciate the need to be innovative, few firms
use it as their fundamental way of relating to their markets.
3. Few innovative ideas prove profitable because the research, development, and pre -
marketing costs of converting a promising idea into a profitable product are
extremely high.
7-14
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
F. Horizontal Acquisition
2. Such acquisitions eliminate competitors and provide the acquiring firm with
access to new markets.
3. The attractions of a horizontal acquisition strategy are many and varied. However,
every benefit provides the parent firm with critical resources that it needs to
improve overall profitability.
G. Vertical Acquisition
1. When a firm’s grand strategy is to acquire firms that supply it with inputs (such as
raw materials) or are customers for its outputs (such as warehouses for finished
products), vertical acquisition is involved.
2. Exhibit 7.9, Vertical and Horizontal Acquisition, depicts both horizontal and
vertical integration.
3. The reasons for choosing a vertical acquisition grand strategy are more varied and
sometimes less obvious.
a) The main reason for backward integration is the desire to increase the
dependability of the supply or quality of the raw materials used as production
inputs.
7-15
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) That desire is particularly grate when the number of suppliers is small and
the number of competitors is large.
c) In this situation, the vertically integrating firm can better control its costs
and, thereby, improve the profit margin of the expanded production-
marketing system.
d) Forward integration is a preferred grand strategy if great advantages accrue
stable production.
e) A firm can increase the predictability of demand for its output though
forward integration, that is, through ownership of the next stage of its
production-marketing chain.
a) For horizontally integrated firms, the risks stem from increased commitment
to one type of business.
b) For vertically integrated firms, the risks result from the firm’s expansion into
areas requiring strategic managers to broaden the base of their competences
and to assume additional responsibilities.
H. Concentric Diversification
a) With this grand strategy, the selected new businesses possess a high degree
of compatibility with the firm’s current businesses.
b) The ideal concentric diversification occurs when the combined company
profits increase the strengths and opportunities and decrease the weaknesses
and exposure to risk.
c) Thus, the acquiring firm searches for new businesses whose products,
markets, distribution channels, technologies, and resource requirements are
similar to but not identical with its own, whose acquisition results in
synergies but not complete interdependence.
I. Conglomerate Diversification
(1) The principal concern, and often the sole concern, of the acquiring firm
is the profit pattern of the venture.
(2) Unlike concentric diversification, conglomerate diversification gives
little concern to creating product-market synergy with existing
businesses.
7-16
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) Regardless of the approach taken, the motivations of the acquiring firms are
the same:
(1) Increase the firm’s stock value. In the past, mergers often have led to
increases in the stock price or the price-earnings ratio.
(2) Increase the growth rate of the firm.
(3) Make an investment that represents better use of funds than plowing
them into internal growth.
(4) Improve the stability of earnings and sales by acquiring firms whose
earnings and sales complement the firm’s peaks and valleys.
(5) Balance or fill out the product line.
(6) Diversify the product line when the life cycle of current products has
peaked.
(7) Acquire needed resource quickly.
(8) Achieve tax savings by purchasing a firm whose tax losses will offset
current or future earnings.
(9) Increase efficiency and profitability, especially if there is synergy
between the acquiring firm and the acquired firm.
J. Turnaround
1. For any one of a large number of reasons, a firm can find itself with declining
profits.
7-17
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) In may cases, strategic managers believe that such a firm can survive and
eventually recover if a concerted effort is made over a period of a few years
to fortify its distinctive competences.
c) This grand strategy is known as turnaround.
d) It typically is begun through one of two forms of retrenchment, employed
singly or in combination:
a) In a study of 58 large firms, researches Shendel, Patton, and Riggs found that
turnaround almost always was associated with changes in top management.
b) Bringing in new managers was believed to introduce needed new
perspectives on the firm’s situation, to raise employee morale, and to
facilitate drastic actions, such as deep budget cuts in established programs.
3. Strategic management research provides evidence that the firms that have used a
turnaround strategy have successfully confronted decline.
a) The research findings have been assimilated and used as the building blocks
for a model of the turnaround process shown in Exhibit 7.10, Strategy in
Action, A Model of the Turnaround Process.
4. The model begins with a depiction of external and internal factors as causes of a
firm’s performance downturn.
a) When these factors continue to detrimentally impact the firm, its financial
health is threatened.
b) Unchecked decline places the firm in a turnaround situation.
7-18
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
a) Severity is the governing factor in estimating the speed with which the
retrenchment response will be formulated and activated.
b) When severity is low, a firm has some financial cushion.
c) Stability may be achieved through cost retrenchment alone.
d) When turnaround situation severity is high, a firm must immediately stabilize
the decline or bankruptcy is imminent.
e) Cost reductions must be supplemented with more drastic asset reduction
measures.
f) Assets targeted for divestiture are those determined to be underproductive.
g) In contrast, more productive resources are protected from cuts and represent
critical elements of the future core business plan of the company.
8. The primary causes of the turnaround situation have been associated with the
second phase of the turnaround process, the recovery response.
K. Divestiture
7-19
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
a) They often arise because of partial mismatches between the acquired firm
and the parent corporation.
b) Some of the mismatched parts cannot be integrated into the corporation’s
mainstream activities and, thus, must be spun off.
c) A second reason is corporate financial needs.
d) Sometimes the cash flow of financial stability of the corporation as a whole
can be greatly improved if businesses with high market value can be
sacrificed.
e) The result can be a balancing of equity with long-term risks or of long-term
debt payments to optimize the cost of capital.
f) A third, less frequent reason for divestiture is government antitrust action
when a firm is believed to monopolize or unfairly dominate a particular
market.
L. Liquidation
1. When liquidation is the grand strategy, the firm typically is sold in parts, only
occasionally as a whole—but for its tangible asset value and not as a going
concern.
M. Bankruptcy
(1) More than 75 percent of these financially desperate firms file for a
liquidation bankruptcy—they agree to a complete distribution of their
assets to creditors, most of whom receive a small fraction of the amount
they are owed.
7-20
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) The other 25 percent of these firms refuse to surrender until one final option
is exhausted.
(1) Choosing a strategy to recapture its viability, such a company asks the
courts for a reorganization bankruptcy.
(2) The firm attempts to persuade its creditors to temporarily freeze their
claims while it undertakes to reorganize and rebuild the company’s
operations more profitably.
(3) The appeal of a reorganization bankruptcy is based on the company’s
ability to convince creditors that it can succeed in the marketplace by
implementing a new strategic plan, and that when the plan produces
profits, the firm will be able to repay its creditors, perhaps in full.
(4) In other words, the company offers its creditors a carefully designed
alternative to forcing an immediate, but fractional, repayment of its
financial obligations.
(5) The option of reorganization bankruptcy offers maximum repayment of
debt at some specified future time if a new strategic plan is successful.
a) Imagine that your firm’s financial reports have shown an unabated decline in
revenue for seven quarters.
b) Expenses have increased rapidly, and it is becoming difficult, and at times
not possible, to pay bills as they become due.
c) Suppliers are concerned about shipping goods without first receiving
payment, and some have refused to ship without advance payment in cash.
d) Customers are requiring assurances that future orders will be delivered and
some are beginning to buy from competitors.
e) Employees are listening seriously to rumors of financial problems and a
higher than normal number have accepted other employment.
f) What can be done? What strategy can be initiated to protect the company and
resolve the financial problems in the short term?
(1) The court appoints a trustee, who collects the property of the company,
reduces it to cash, and distributes the proceeds proportionally to
creditors on a pro rata basis as expeditiously as possible.
7-21
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(2) Since all assets are sold to pay outstanding debt, a liquidation
bankruptcy terminates a business.
(3) This type of filing is critically important to sole proprietors or
partnerships.
(4) Their owners are personally liable for all business debts not covered by
the sale of the business assets unless they can secure a Chapter 7
bankruptcy, which will allow them to cancel any debt in excess of
exempt assets.
(5) Although they will be left with little personal property, the liquidated
debtor is discharged from paying the remaining debt.
b) The shareholders of corporations are not liable for corporate debt and any
debt existing after corporate assets are liquidated is absorbed by creditors.
(1) Corporate shareholders may simply terminate operations and walk away
without liability to remaining creditors.
(2) However, filing a Chapter 7 proceeding will provide for an orderly and
fair distribution of assets to creditors and thereby may reduce the
negative impact of the business failure.
(1) Chosen for the right reasons, and implemented in the right way,
reorganization bankruptcy can provide a financially, strategically, and
ethically sound basis on which to advance the interests of all the firm’s
stakeholders.
b) A thorough and objective analysis of the company may support the idea of its
continuing operations if excessive debt can be reduced and new strategic
initiatives can be undertaken.
c) A Chapter 11 bankruptcy can provide time and protection to the debtor firm
(which we call the Company) to reorganize and use future earnings to pay
creditors.
7-22
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(2) If the plan is accepted by creditors, the Company will be given another
chance to avoid liquidation and emerge from the bankruptcy
proceedings rehabilitated.
(1) Filing a bankruptcy petition will invoke the protection of the court to
provide sufficient time to work out a reorganization that was not
achievable voluntarily.
(2) If reorganization is not possible, a Chapter 7 proceeding will allow for
the fair and orderly dissolution of the business.
(1) Will sufficient cash be available to pay for the proceedings and
reorganization?
(2) Will customers continue to do business with the Company or seek other
more secure businesses with which to deal?
(3) Will key personnel stay on or look for more secure employment?
(4) Which operations should be discontinued or reduced?
7-23
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
(1) Investors must decide whether the management team that governed the
company’s operations during the downturn can return the firm to a
position of success.
(2) Creditors must believe that the company’s turn can return the firm to a
position of success.
(3) Creditors must believe that the company’s managers have learned how
to prevent a recurrence of the observed and similar problems.
(4) Alternatively, they must have faith that the company’s competencies
can be sufficiently augmented by key substitutions to the management
team, with strong support in decision making from a board of directors
and consultants, to restore the firm’s competitive strength.
d) The 12 grand strategies discussed above, used singly and much more often in
combinations, represent the traditional alternatives used by firms in the U.S.
(1) Recently, three new grand types have gained in popularity (thus totaling
the 15 grand strategies discussed); all fit under the broad category of
corporate combinations.
(2) Although they do not fit the criterion by which executives retain a high
degree of control over their operations, these grand strategies deserve
special attention and consideration especially by companies that operate
in global, dynamic, and technologically driven industries.
(3) These three newly popularized grand strategies are joint ventures,
strategic alliances, and consortia.
N. Joint Ventures
1. Occasionally two or more capable firms lack a necessary component for success in
a particular competitive environment.
2. The particular form of joint ventures discussed above (oil example) is joint
ownership.
3. The joint venture extends the supplier-consumer relationship and has strategic
advantages for both partners.
a) Admittedly, joint ventures present new opportunities with risks that can be
shared.
7-24
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
b) On the other hand, joint ventures often limit the discretion, control, and profit
potential of partners, while demanding managerial attention and other
resources that might be directed toward the firm’s mainstream activities.
c) Nevertheless, increasing globalization in many industries may require greater
consideration of the joint venture approach, if historically national firms are
to remain viable.
O. Strategic Alliances
1. Strategic alliances are distinguishable from joint ventures because the companies
involved do not take an equity position in one another.
a) In many instances, strategic alliances are partnerships that exist for a defined
period during which partners contribute their skills and expertise to a
cooperative project.
b) For example, one partner provides manufacturing capabilities while a second
partner provides marketing expertise.
c) Many times, such alliances are undertaken because the partners want to
develop in-house capabilities to supplant the partner when the contractual
arrangement between them reaches its termination date.
d) Such relationships are tricky because, in a sense, the partners are attempting
to “steal” each other’s know-how.
a) Licensing involves the transfer of some industrial property right from the
U.S. licensor to a motivated licensee in a foreign country.
b) Most tend to be patents, trademarks, or technical know-how that are granted
to the licensee for a specified time in return for a royalty and for avoiding
tariffs or import quotas.
7-25
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
A. At first glance, the strategic management model, which provides the framework for
study throughout this book, seems to suggest that strategic choice decision making
leads to the sequential selection of long-term objectives and grand strategies.
2. When strategic planners study their opportunities, they try to determine which are
most likely to result in achieving various long-range objectives.
4. In essence, then, three distinct but highly interdependent choices are being made at
one time.
7-26
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
3. Thus, a firm rarely can make a strategic choice only on the basis of its preferred
opportunities, long-range objectives, or grand strategy.
D. In the next chapter, the strategic choice process will be fully explained.
1. While it is true that objectives are needed to prevent the firm’s direction and
progress from being determined by random forces, it is equally true that objectives
can be achieved only if strategies are implemented.
2. In fact, long-term objectives and grand strategies are so interdependent that some
business consultants do not distinguish between them.
3. Long-term objectives and grand strategies are still combined under the heading of
company strategy in most of the popular business literature and in the thinking of
most practicing objectives.
1. Objectives indicate what strategic managers want but provide few insights about
how they will be achieved.
2. Conversely, strategies indicate what types of actions will be taken but do not
define what ends will be pursued or what criteria will serve as constraints in
refining the strategic plan.
C. Does it matter whether strategic decisions are made to achieve objectives or to satisfy
constraints?
7-27
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
3. Likewise, the constraint of an increase in the sales force does not ensure that the
increase will be achieved, given such factors as other company priorities, labor
market conditions, and the firm’s profit performance.
1. Identify firms in the business community nearest to your college or university that you believe
are using each of the 15 grand strategies discussed in this chapter.
Depending on the area the student comes from, there may or may not be examples of firms
pursuing each of the 15 grand strategy options. For example, students living in small cities
may not get examples of firms pursuing, perhaps, conglomerate diversification. Most common
strategies would be concentrated growth, market development, and product development.
7-28
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
2. Identify firms in your business community that appear to rely principally on 1 of the 15 grand
strategies. What kind of information did you use to classify the firms?
As indicated in the answer to Question 1 above, it may be easier to find examples of firms
using the first 3 of the 15 grand strategies. A breakdown of sales by product or sales by
market would indicate whether any one of the first 3 strategies is pursued. Innovation may be
gauged by the percentage of total revenues that comes from new products. The instructor
should guide the students to use the proper classification procedure in this exercise.
3. Write a long-term objective for your school of business that exhibits the five qualities of long-
term objectives described in this chapter.
The five objectives are: flexible, measurable, motivating, suitable, and understandable. This is
an interesting exercise because it forces the student to be precise, yet motivating.
Horizontal acquisition occurs when a firm acquires one or more similar firms operating at the
same stage of the production-marketing chain. Vertical acquisition involves the acquisition of
firms that supply it with inputs or are customers for its outputs. Exhibit 7-9 illustrates the
difference between horizontal and vertical integration.
Concentric diversification involves the acquisition of businesses that are related to the
acquiring firm in terms of technology, markets, or products. When a firm acquires a business
because it represents the most promising investment opportunity available, it is pursui ng
conglomerate diversification. Here, little concern is paid to creating product-market synergy
with existing businesses.
Product development involves the substantial modification of existing products or the creation
of new but related products that can be marketed to current customers through established
channels. Innovation, on the other hand, occurs when firms seek to introduce products based
on original or novel ideas. The underlying rationale is to create a new product life cycle and
thereby make similar existing products obsolete.
When firms lack a necessary component for success in a particular competitive environment,
they overcome this obstacle by forming a separate company (called the joint venture) that is
created and operated for the benefit of the co-owners (parents). Strategic alliances are
distinguishable from joint ventures because the companies involved do not take an equity
position in one another. These are typically partnerships that exist for a defined period during
which partners contribute their skills and expertise to a cooperative project.
7-29
Chapter 07 - Long-Term Objectives and Strategies
5. Rank each of the 15 grand strategy options discussed in this chapter on the following three
scales:
High ---------------------------------------Low
Cost
High ---------------------------------------Low
Risk of failure
High----------------------------------------Low
Potential for exceptional growth
This rating may be subjective and the instructor should force the students to justify their
rating.
6. Identify firms that use one of the eight specific options shown in Exhibit 7.3 under the grand
strategies of concentration, market development, and product development.
Concentration
Increasing present customers’ rate of use: Wendy’s Supersizing option
Attracting competitors’ customers: AT&T in long distance telephones
Attracting nonusers to buy product: Pitching the ability to send digital
pictures through the Internet to entice
people to buy computers
Market development
Opening additional geographic markets: Dell’s expansion to China
Attracting other market segments: Arm and Hammer baking soda as
refrigerator deodorizer
Product development
Developing new product features: Tylenol PM
Developing quality variations: PCs with varying capabilities
Developing additional models and sizes: Sony TV
7-30
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
home of the maize-plant, and of the deities producing it, and also of the Gods of
Procreation. It was the Region of the Evening Star, Tlauizcalpantecutli, the planet
Venus. In Codex Borgia (sheets 43–46) we seem to see a subdivision of the
Western region into North, South, and West. This region may also be collated with
Tamoanchan, the paradisaical land of abundant maize, where the maize goddess
Tlazolteotl gave birth to her son Centeotl.
Mictlampa, “Region of the Dead,” also falls to be noticed in the section on “heaven
and hell.” Symbolically it is the region of drought.
[Contents]
Just as we gain light upon the subject of the Mexican idea of the universe from
Maya sources, so do we find a similar correspondence in the beliefs of the two
races as regards the conception that the heavens were supported by certain
deities. Thus the Maya believed that the heavens were upheld by four gods called
Bacabs, and we find pictures in the Mexican Codices which depict certain deities
upholding both the heavens and the earth. On sheets 49–52 of Codex Borgia
(upper half) are seen the gods of the four quarters and the four supporters of the
sky, which last are Tlauizcalpantecutli, [61]the Sun-god, Quetzalcoatl, and
Mictlantecutli. On sheets 19–23 of Codex Vaticanus B the four upholders of the
heavens are given as Tlauizcalpantecutli, Uitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, and
Mictlantecutli, and the four terrestrial gods as Xipe Totec, Mictlantecutli, Xochipilli,
and Centeotl. The first four are shown upholding the starry firmament, so that we
are left in no doubt as regards the existence of such a conception as the support of
the heavens by certain gods. The close correspondence between the personnel of
the sky-bearers in the two MSS. proves a fairly universal acceptance of the belief,
especially as Xipe Totec, and Tonatiuh the Sun-god have much in common. 32
[Contents]
Tlalocan.—An even more material paradise was presided over by the water-god or
deity of moisture, Tlaloc. Sahagun [62]calls this a “terrestrial paradise,” “where they
feign that there is surfeit of pleasure and refreshment, void, for a space, of torment.”
In that delectable region there is plenteousness of green maize, of calabashes,
pepper, tomatoes, haricots, and it is fulfilled with variegated blossoms. There dwell
the god Tlaloc and his followers. The persons who gain admittance to this paradise
are those who have been slain by lightning or thunderbolt, the leprous and the
dropsical—those whose deaths have in any way been caused through the agency
of water—for Tlaloc is god of that element. Existence there is perpetual. The
paradise of Tlaloc was situated in the east in a climate of eternal summer.
Homeyoca.—The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A states that the abode of the
Creator of the Universe, Tonacatecutli, was Homeyoca or Homeiocan, “place of the
Holy Trinity.” The etymology is vague, but would appear to apply to duality rather
than trinity, a suggestion which is buttressed by the androgynous character of the
creative deities. In an accompanying picture he points out the various departments
of this heaven as “the Red Heaven,” “the Yellow Heaven,” “the White Heaven.”
Young children, he says, went to a specific paradise, but it was thought that they
would return to re-people the world after the third destruction. They were nourished
by a milk-giving tree round which they were seated, getting suck from the branches.
But we have glimpses here and there in Aztec literature of a much more elaborate
series of heavens, thirteen in number. The first contained certain planets, the
second was the home of the Tzitzimimê, who included many of the great gods, the
third that of the Centzon Mimixcoa, or star-warriors, who were many-coloured—
yellow, black, white, red, blue—and provided the sun with food in the shape of
blood. The fourth was inhabited by birds, the fifth by fire-snakes (perhaps comets),
the sixth was the home of the winds, the seventh harboured dust, and in the eighth
dwelt the gods. The remainder were placed at the disposal of the high primal and
creative gods Tonacatecutli and his spouse Tonacaciuatl, [63]whose abode proper
was in the thirteenth and highest heaven. 34
[Contents]
MICTLAMPA AS HADES
The Hades of the Aztec race was Mictlampa, presided over by Mictlantecutli (Lord
of Mictlampa) and his spouse (Mictecaciuatl). The souls of the defunct who fared
thither were those who died of disease, chiefs, great personages, or humbler folk.
On the day of death the priest harangued the deceased, telling him that he was
about to go to a region “where there is neither light nor window,” and where all was
shadow, a veritable land of gloom, the passage to which swarmed with grisly forms
inimical to the soul. It was a vast, trackless, and gloomy desert, having nine
divisions, of which the last, Chiconahuimictlan, was the abode of the lord of the
place. Rank and privilege would appear to have been maintained even in this dark
realm, although all offerings to the dead must first be inspected by Mictlantecutli
himself ere being passed on to their proper owners. Sahagun states that four years
were occupied in journeying to Mictlampa, evidently an error for four days, as
elsewhere he says that the former period was spent within the regions of the dead.
The journey thence was replete with terrors. Says the interpreter of the Codex
Vaticanus A: “In this region of hell they supposed that there existed four gods, or
principal demons, one of whom was superior, whom they called Zitzimatl, who is the
same as Miquitlamtecotl, the great god of hell. Yzpuzteque, the lame demon, was
he who appeared in the streets with the feet of a cock. Nextepehua was the
scatterer of ashes, Contemoque signifies he who descends headforemost; an
allusion being made to the etymology which learned men assign to the name of the
Devil, which signifies deorsum cadens, which mode of descent after souls they
attribute to him from this name and Zon. Yzpuzteque is he whose abode is in the
streets, the same as Satan, he who on a sudden appears sideways. It appears that
they [64]have been acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, although clearer arguments
in proof of this fact are adduced in the course of the following pages. They say that
these four gods or demons have goddesses.”
These and other dread beings, according to the same MS., rendered the hellward
journey terrible in the extreme, and an attempt was made to mitigate the terrors of
the passage between the two worlds by means of passports of much the same
character as the spells in the Egyptian “Book of the Dead,” which franked the soul
past the numerous demons and dangers which awaited it. The first paper served to
pass him by two mountains which threatened to clash together and crush him. The
second saved him from the maw of a huge snake. Others helped him to face the
lurking terrors of eight deserts and eight hills, and to avoid the grim crocodile
Xochitonal. A wind of sharp flint knives then attacked him. Lastly he came to the
river Chiconahuopan (Nine Waters), which he crossed on the back of a red-
coloured dog which accompanied him and which was killed for that purpose by
having an arrow thrust down its throat. It is not clear whether this dog acted as a
guide to Mictlampa, or whether it preceded the soul, but it would seem that its
master found it awaiting him when he came to the banks of the river, in the passage
of which it assisted him. It kept its vigil on the opposite bank, however, and had to
swim the river ere it could reach him.
The deceased then came before Mictlantecutli, to whom he made suitable gifts—
cotton, perfumes, and a mantle. He was told to which sphere he must go. It is
obvious that Mictlampa was not so much a place of punishment as a place of the
dead, a Hades, where the souls of the good and evil were alike consigned. Its
locality is partially fixed, for it is “the place where the sun slept,” and, like the
Egyptian Amenti, it was therefore antipodean, or occupied the centre of the earth.
After a four years’ sojourn in this dark monarchy the soul was supposed to come to
a place where, according to the interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus, it enjoyed a
measure of rest. [65]
[Contents]
METHOD OF TREATMENT
In the section descriptive of the gods, each divinity is dealt with separately. The need
for system and orderly arrangement in the study of Mexican Mythology is clamant. In
the hope that future students of the subject may be spared the Herculean task of
separating the mythology of the Mexican people from their history, I have thought it
best to arrange my material in as systematic a fashion as its complex character
permits.
The plan employed is a simple one. I have prefaced the description of each god with a
table containing the following information concerning him: Area of Worship, Name,
Minor Names, Relationship, Calendar-place, Compass-direction, Symbol, Festivals. In
some cases where, for example, a god has no festival or no minor names, the item
relating to such information is, of course, absent.
The description proper of each deity begins with an account of his Aspect and Insignia,
as observed in the several codices and paintings, manuscripts, vases, or statuary. 1 A
section is devoted to festivals celebrated in his honour, another deals with the
priesthood specially attendant on him, and a further paragraph with the temples in
which he was worshipped. There follows a précis of all known myths relating to him. In
certain instances, too, hymns and prayers offered up to [66]him are quoted. The last
section deals with his nature and status, so far as I have been able to elucidate these.
[Contents]
Uitzilopochtli.
(Sahagun MS.)
UITZILOPOCHTLI.
Body-paint.—Blue.
(See p. 324.)
Clavigero (tom. ii, pp. 17–19) says of Uitzilopochtli’s insignia: “Upon his head he carried
a beautiful crest, shaped like the beak of a bird, upon his neck a collar shaped like ten
figures of the human heart. His statue was of an enormous size, in the posture of a
man seated on a blue-coloured bench, from the four corners of which issued four
snakes. His forehead was blue, but his face was covered with a golden mask, while
another of the same kind covered [68]the back of his head. In his hand he carried a
large blue, twisted club, in his left a shield in which appeared five balls of feathers
disposed in the form of a cross, and from the upper part of the shield rose a golden flag
with four arrows, which the Mexicans believed to have been sent to them from heaven.
His body was girt with a large golden snake, and adorned with lesser figures of animals
made of gold and precious stones, which ornaments and insignia had each their
peculiar meaning.”
Acosta says of his appearance: “The chiefest idoll of Mexico was, as I have sayde,
Vitziliputzli. It was an image of wood like to a man, set upon a stoole of the coloure of
azure, in a brankard or litter, in every corner was a piece of wood in forme of a
serpent’s head. The stoole signified that he was set in heaven. This idol had all the
forehead azure, and had a band of azure under the nose from one ear to another.
Upon his head he had a rich plume of feathers like to the beak of a small bird, the
which was covered on the top with gold burnished very brown. He had in his left hand a
small target, with the figures of five pineapples made of white feathers set in a cross.
And from above issued forth a crest of gold, and at his sides hee hadde foure dartes,
which (the Mexicaines say) had been sent from heaven which shall be spoken of. In his
right hand he had an azured staff cutte in the fashion of a waving snake. All those
ornaments with the rest hee had, carried his sence as the Mexicaines doe shew.” 3
Herrera says that his idol was a gigantic image of stone, covered with a lawn called
nacar, beset with pearls, precious stones, and pieces of gold. It had for a girdle great
snakes of gold, and a counterfeit visor with eyes of glass. 5
Torquemada writes: “In his right hand a dart or long blue pole, in the left a shield, his
face barred with lines of blue. His forehead was decorated with a tuft of green feathers,
his left leg was lean and feathered, and both thighs and arms were barred with blue.” 6
The Sahagun MS. states that “he wears a panache of yellow parrot feathers stuck
together, and having a bunch of quetzal-feathers at the tip. His espitzalli is over his
forehead. The face or mask is striped in various colours, and the ear-plug is made of
the feathers of the blue cotinga. On his back is the fire-snake dress and on his arm he
has a quetzal-feather. At the back he is girded with a blue net cloth, and his leg is
striped with blue. Bells and shells decorate his feet, and he is shod with sandals of the
type usually worn by persons of high degree. His shield is the teueuelli with a bundle of
arrows without points stuck in it, and in one hand he holds a serpent-staff.”
Sahagun (c. xxii, bk. iv) describes the insignia employed at the god’s festival of ce
tecpatl. These were the quetzalquemitl, or mantle of green quetzal-feathers, the
tozquemitl, the mantle made of the yellow feathers of the toztli, a bird of the parrot
species, the Uitzitzilquemitl, or mantle of humming-bird’s feathers, “and others less
rich.”
FESTIVALS
The first festival of Uitzilopochtli was the tlaxochimaco, of which Sahagun says: “The
ninth month was styled [70]tlaxochimaco. A festival was held on the first day of this
month in honour of Huitzilopochtli, god of war, when he was offered the first flowers of
the year. The night before this festival everybody killed chickens and dogs with which to
make tamalli and other things good to eat. Very soon after the first glimmerings of dawn
on the day of the festival, the attendants of the idols adorned the statue of
Huitzilopochtli with flowers. The images of the other gods were decked with garlands
and wreaths of flowers, and the same was done to all the other idols of the calpulli 7 and
telpochcalli. 8 The calpixque, 9 the principal people, and the macehualli 10 covered the
statues in their houses with flowers. These preparations being completed, the viands
prepared during the previous night were partaken of, and shortly after this repast a
dance was engaged in, in which the nobles mingled with the women, taking them by
the hand, and even going the length of embracing them by placing their arms round
their necks. The usual movements of the areyto 11 were not performed, the dancers
moving step by step, to the strains of the musicians and singers, who stood, some
distance away, at the foot of a round altar called momoztli. They sang thus until night,
not only in the courts of the temples, but also in the houses of people of rank and of the
macehualli, while the aged of both sexes indulged deeply in pulque; but young people
were not permitted to touch it, and anyone allowing them to drink it was severely
punished.”
Toxcatl.—For this festival see under Tezcatlipocâ, to whom it was also and more
especially sacred.
After five days of penitential exercises mingled with dancing and singing, and on the
day before the festival, the captives rose with dawn and betook themselves to the
houses of those who had dedicated them to the slaughter, preceded by a man carrying
a vessel full of black ink or red ochre or blue tincture. On arriving at the houses of those
who had devoted them to death, they dipped their hands in the vessel and pressed
them on the gates and the pillars of the dwelling, so that the imprint remained. 12 They
then entered the kitchen of the house and walked several times round the furnace.
Then they marched in procession to the temple, accompanied by porters bearing rich
attire, which the captives donned. The hair was then taken from their heads to be kept
“as a relic.” They were then given cylindrical cakes to eat, which must be held on the
point of a maguey thorn and not between the fingers. With the dawn of day the god
Paynal, the herald of Uitzilopochtli, descended from the temple of Uitzilopochtli. Four
captives were then slain, two in honour of “the god Oappatzan.” Paynal, borne by four
“necromancers,” then took the road to Tlatelolco, whence he passed to Nonoalco, the
priest of the temple there receiving him with the representative of the god Quauitlicac,
“his companion” (see “Myths”). The images were then carried to Tlaxotlan and
Popotlan, where other captives were slain. Then the procession took its way to
Chapultepec, passing the hill of that name and crossing [72]the little river Izquitlan, at
the temple of which other captives called Izquiteca (“who eat roasted maize”) were
sacrificed. They then crossed to the right under Coyoacan, passing by way of
Tepetocan to Acachinanco.
During the time they made this progress the slaves who were about to die engaged in a
skirmish. They divided themselves into two parties, the Uitznauatl (“They of the Thorny
Wizard”), the other unnamed. The former seem to have been professional soldiers
armed with mock weapons; the others slaves, armed with maquahuitls, wooden swords
set with obsidian flakes. On Paynal’s return those who watched them from the summit
of the temple, seeing the banner of the god (epaniztli), cried out, “Mexicans, cease your
strife, the lord Paynal has come.” The warriors in the patrol of Paynal then rushed to
the summit of the temple, where they arrived in a breathless condition. They placed
their idol beside the paste image of Uitzilopochtli. Their ears were pierced by the priest.
They descended again, carrying an image of Uitzilopochtli made of paste, which they
divided, each bearing his own portion to his own house, where he made festival with
his parents and neighbours. A tour of the temple was then made, the captives walking
in front.
A priest then descended from the summit of the temple bearing a sheaf of white papers
in his hand, which he held up to the four cardinal points in turn, afterwards throwing
them into a mortar called quauhxicalco 13 (“cup of the eagles”). He was followed by
another holding a very long pine-torch called xiuhcoatl (“fire-snake”), shaped like fire.
(This was the fire-snake weapon with which one of Uitzilopochtli’s followers had killed
his rebellious sister Coyolxauhqui). This was cast burning into the vessel containing the
papers, which were consumed. Paynal reappeared, and the slaves were sacrificed
according to rank to the sound of conch-shells. All then returned home, where octli of
special strength was drunk, festivities engaged in, and presents of [73]wearing apparel
distributed to friends and dependants (bk. ii, c. 34).
This festival took place at the period of the winter solstice, when the sun has removed
farthest to the south. The burning of the papers by the xiuhcoatl, and the fact that the
fire-festival of the new period of fifty-two years, the making of the new fire, was usually
postponed to coincide with it, show it to be a fire-feast; for in his “avatar” of the sun
Uitzilopochtli was a fire-god.
Torquemada states that the priest of Quetzalcoatl hurled a dart into the breast of the
paste image of Uitzilopochtli, which fell. He then pulled the “heart” out of it, giving it to
the king. The body was then divided among the men, no woman being allowed to eat of
it. The ceremony was called teoqualo, i.e. “god is eaten.” 14
MYTHS
Regarding Uitzilopochtli, Clavigero says: “Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitli, was the god of war;
the deity the most honoured by the Mexicans, and their chief protector. Of this god
some said he was a pure spirit, others that he was born of a woman, but without the
assistance of a man, and described his birth in the following manner: There lived, said
they, in Coatepec, a place near to the ancient city of Tula, a woman called Coatlicue,
mother of the Centzonhuiznahuas, who was extremely devoted to the worship of the
gods. One day, as she was employed, according to her usual custom, in walking in the
temple, she beheld descending in the air a ball made of various feathers. She seized it
and kept it in her bosom, intending afterwards to employ the feathers in decoration of
the altar; but when she wanted it after her walk was at an end she could not find it, at
which she was extremely surprised, and her wonder was very greatly increased when
she began to perceive from that moment that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy
advanced till it was discovered by her children, who, although they could not
themselves suspect their mother’s virtue, yet fearing [74]the disgrace she would suffer
upon her delivery, determined to prevent it by putting her to death. They could not take
their resolution so secretly as to conceal it from their mother, who, while she was in
deep affliction at the thought of dying by the hands of her own children, heard an
unexpected voice issue from her womb, saying, ‘Be not afraid, mother, I shall save you
with the greatest honour to yourself and glory to me.’
“Her hard-hearted sons, guided and encouraged by their sister Cojolxauhqui, who had
been the most keenly bent upon the deed, were now just upon the point of executing
their purpose, when Huitzilopochtli was born, with a shield in his left hand, a spear in
his right, and a crest of green feathers on his head; his left leg adorned with feathers,
and his face, arms, and thighs streaked with blue lines. As soon as he came into the
world he displayed a twisted pine, and commanded one of his soldiers, called
Tochchancalqui, to fell with it Cojolxauhqui, as the one who had been the most guilty;
and he himself attacked the rest with so much fury that, in spite of their efforts, their
arms, or their entreaties, he killed them all, plundered their houses, and presented the
spoils to his mother. Mankind were so terrified by this event, that from that time they
called him Tetzahuitl (terror) and Tetzauhteotl (terrible god).
“This was the god who, as they said, becoming the protector of the Mexicans,
conducted them for so many years in their pilgrimage, and at length settled them where
they afterwards founded the great city of Mexico. They raised to him that superb
temple, so much celebrated, even by the Spaniards, in which were annually holden
three solemn festivals in the fifth, ninth, and fifteenth months; besides those kept every
four years, every thirteen years, and at the beginning of every century. His statue was
of gigantic size, in the posture of a man seated on a blue-coloured bench, from the four
corners of which issued four huge snakes. His forehead was blue, but his face was
covered with a golden mask, while another of the same kind covered the back of his
head. Upon his head he carried a beautiful [75]crest, shaped like the beak of a bird;
upon his neck a collar consisting of ten figures of the human heart; in his right hand a
large blue, twisted club; in his left a shield, on which appeared five balls of feathers
disposed in the form of a cross, and from the upper part of the shield rose a golden flag
with four arrows, which the Mexicans pretended to have been sent to them from
heaven to perform those glorious actions which we have seen in their history. His body
was girt with a large golden snake and adorned with lesser figures of animals made of
gold and precious stones, which ornaments and insignia had each their peculiar
meaning. They never deliberated upon making war without imploring the protection of
this god, with prayers and sacrifices; and offered up a greater number of human victims
to him than to any other of the gods.” 15
Boturini says of this god: “While the Mexicans were pushing their conquests and their
advance toward the country now occupied by them, they had a very renowned captain,
or leader, called Huitziton. He it was that in these long and perilous journeys through
unknown lands, sparing himself no fatigue, took care of the Mexicans. The fable says
of him that, being full of years and wisdom, he was one night caught up in sight of his
army and of all his people, and presented to the god Tezauhteotl, that is to say the
Frightful God, who, being in the shape of a horrible dragon, commanded him to be
seated at his right hand, saying: ‘Welcome, O valiant captain; very grateful am I for thy
fidelity in my service and in governing my people. It is time that thou shouldest rest,
since thou art already old, and since thy great deeds raise thee up to the fellowship of
the immortal gods. Return then to thy sons and tell them not to be afflicted if in future
they cannot see thee as a mortal man; for from the nine heavens thou shalt look down
propitious upon them. And not only that, but also, when I strip the vestments of
humanity from thee, I will leave to thine afflicted and orphan people thy bones and thy
skull so that they may be comforted in their sorrow, and may [76]consult thy relics as to
the road they have to follow: and in due time the land shall be shown them that I have
destined for them, a land in which they shall hold wide empire, being respected of the
other nations.’
“Huitziton did according to these instructions, and after a sorrowful interview with his
people, disappeared, carried away by the gods. The weeping Mexicans remained with
the skull and bones of their beloved captain, which they carried with them till they
arrived in New Spain, and at the place where they built the great city of Tenochtitlan, or
Mexico. All this time the devil spoke to them through this skull of Huitziton, often asking
for the immolation of men and women, from which thing originated those bloody
sacrifices, practised afterwards by this nation with so much cruelty on prisoners of war.
This deity was called, in early as well as in later times, Huitzilopochtli—for the principal
men believed that he was seated at the left hand of Tezcatlipocâ—a name derived from
the original name Huitziton, and from the word mapoche, ‘left hand.’ ” 16
Sahagun says of Uitzilopochtli that, being originally a man, he was a sort of Hercules,
of great strength and warlike, a great destroyer of towns and slayer of men. In war he
had been a living fire, very terrible to his adversaries; and the device he bore was a
dragon’s head, frightful in the extreme, and casting fire out of its mouth. A great wizard
he had been, and sorcerer, transforming himself into the shape of divers birds and
beasts. While he lived, the Mexicans esteemed this man very highly for his strength
and dexterity in war, and when he died they honoured him as a god, offering slaves,
and sacrificing them in his presence. And they looked to it that those slaves were well
fed and well decorated with such ornaments as were in use, with earrings and visors;
all for the greater honour of the god. In Tlaxcala also they had a deity called Camaxtli,
who was similar to this Huitzilopochtli. 17
Under the shadow of the mountain of Coatepec, near the Toltec city of Tollan, there
dwelt a pious widow called Coatlicue, the mother of a tribe of Indians called
Centzonuitznaua, who had a daughter called Coyolxauhqui, and who daily repaired to
a small hill with the intention of offering up prayers to the gods in a penitent spirit of
piety. Whilst occupied in her devotions one day she was surprised by a small ball of
brilliantly coloured feathers falling upon her from on high. She was pleased by the
bright variety of its hues and placed it in her bosom, intending to offer it up to the Sun-
god. Some time afterwards she learnt that she was to become the mother of another
child. Her sons, hearing of this, rained abuse upon her, being incited to humiliate her in
every possible way by their sister Coyolxauhqui.
Coatlicue went about in fear and anxiety; but the spirit of her unborn infant came and
spoke to her and gave her words of encouragement, soothing her troubled heart. Her
sons, however, were resolved to wipe out what they considered an insult to their race
by the death of their mother, and took counsel with one another to slay her. They attired
themselves in their war-gear, and arranged their hair after the manner of warriors going
to battle. But one of their number, Quauitlicac, relented and confessed the perfidy of his
brothers to the still unborn Uitzilopochtli, who replied to him: “O uncle, 18 hearken
attentively to what I have to say to you. I am fully informed of what is going to happen.”
With the intention of slaying their mother, the Indians went in search of her. At their
head marched their sister, Coyolxauhqui. They were armed to the teeth, and carried
bundles of darts, with which they intended to kill the luckless Coatlicue.
Quauitlicac climbed the mountain to acquaint Uitzilopochtli with the news that his
brothers were approaching to kill their mother.
“Mark well where they are at,” replied the infant god. “To what place have they
advanced?” [78]
“To Tzompantitlan,” responded Quauitlicac.
Once more Uitzilopochtli asked to what point his enemies had advanced.
Quauitlicac later informed them that his brothers and sister had arrived at the middle of
the mountain. At the moment they arrived Uitzilopochtli was born, attired in full war
panoply. He ordered one named Tochâncalqui (inhabitant of our house) to attack his
sister with the fire-snake xiuhcoatl, and with a blow he shattered Coyolxauhqui in
pieces. Her head rested upon the mountain of Coatepec. The infant god then pursued
his brethren four times round the mountain. Several fell into the lake and were
drowned. Others he slew, only a few escaped, and these were banished to Uitzlampa
in the south. 19
Torquemada says of Uitzilopochtli: “Huitzilopochtli, the ancient god and guide of the
Mexicans, is a name variously derived. Some say it is composed of two words: huitzilin,
‘a humming-bird,’ and tlahuipuchtli, ‘a sorcerer that spits fire.’ Others say that the
second part of the name comes not from tlahuipuchtli, but from opuchtli, that is, ‘the left
hand’; so that the whole name, Huitzilopochtli, would mean ‘the shining-feathered left
hand.’ For this idol was decorated with rich and resplendent feathers on the left arm.
And this god it was that led out the Mexicans from their own land and brought them into
Anahuac.
“Some held him to be a purely spiritual being, others affirmed that he had been born of
a woman, and related his history after the following fashion: Near the city of Tulla there
is a mountain called Coatepec, that is to say the Mountain of the Snake, where a
woman lived, named Coatlicue or Snake-petticoat. She was the mother of many sons
called Centzunhuitznahua, and of a daughter whose name was Coyolxauhqui.
Coatlicue was very devout and careful in [79]the service of the gods, and she occupied
herself ordinarily in sweeping and cleaning the sacred places of that mountain. It
happened that one day, occupied with these duties, she saw a little ball of feathers
floating down to her through the air, which she taking, as we have already related,
found herself in a short time pregnant.
“Upon this all her children conspired against her to slay her, and came armed against
her, the daughter Coyolxauhqui being the ringleader and most violent of all. Then,
immediately, Huitzilopochtli was born, fully armed, having a shield called teuehueli in
his left hand, in his right a dart, or long blue pole, and all his face barred over with lines
of the same colour. His forehead was decorated with a great tuft of green feathers, his
left leg was lean and feathered, and both thighs and the arms barred with blue. He then
caused to appear a serpent made of torches, teas, called xiuhcoatl; and he ordered a
soldier called Tochaucalqui to light this serpent, and taking it with him to embrace
Coyolxauhqui. From this embrace the matricidal daughter immediately died, and
Huitzilopochtli himself slew all her brethren and took their spoil, enriching his mother
therewith. After this he was surnamed Tetzahuitl, that is to say Fright, or Amazement,
and held as a god, born of a mother without a father—as the great god of battles, for in
these his worshippers found him very favourable to them.” 20
“Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas.” 21—Collecting and summarizing the
scattered notices regarding Uitzilopochtli in the above-named work, we find it stated
that he was the fourth and youngest son of Tonacatecutli and Tonacaciuatl, his elder
brothers being the Red Tezcatlipocâ, the Black Tezcatlipocâ, and Quetzalcoatl.
Uitzilopochtli is here also called Omitecatl, “and for another name Magueycoatl (Snake
of the Maguey). He was called Ochilobos (the Spanish rendering of Uitzilopochtli)
because he was left-handed and was chief god to those of Mexico and their god of war.
He was born without flesh but with bones, and thus he remained six hundred years, in
which nothing [80]was made, ‘neither the gods nor their father.’ Taking counsel with
Quetzalcoatl, they fashioned the sun, then they made a man, Oxomoco, and a woman,
Cipactonal, commanding him to till the earth and her to spin and weave, and created
other things.”
HYMNS
II
The man out of the cold land knew (through him) a baneful omen.
He had taken a foot from the man out of the cold land.
III
IV
VI
This song is probably a chant sung before sacrifice to the god. The line “He had taken
a foot from the man out of the cold land” seems to allude to the maiming of one of the
gods by Uitzilopochtli, or is symbolic of the punishment of a human enemy by rendering
him unfit for war through the [81]amputation of one of his feet. Tezcatlipocâ, one of
whose names was Yaotzin, “the enemy,” is frequently represented as having but one
foot, and the phrase “the man from the cold land,” i.e. the North, applies almost
certainly to him. The rest of the song relates to the peoples with whom the Mexicans
were frequently at war.
In his shield of the young wife the great warrior chieftain was born.
In his shield of the young wife (or maid) the great warrior chieftain was born.
II
The first couplet is obscure to me, and seems to refer to a lost myth, which perhaps
stated that the god was born of a virgin. The second strophe, of course, relates to the
slaughter by Uitzilopochtli of his brothers the Centzonuitznaua.
PRIESTHOOD
The high priest of Uitzilopochtli was called Totec tlamacazque, who also bore the name
of Quetzalcoatl (an honorary title, originating out of the belief that the god of that name
was regarded as the prototype of all religious orders), and who, along with the Tlaloc
tlamacazque, occupied the chief religious office in Mexico. He was selected for his
piety and general fitness. 22
TEMPLE
“There were foure gates or entries, at the east, west, north, and south; at every one of
these gates beganne a fair cawsey of two or three leagues long. There was in the
midst of the lake where the citie of Mexico is built, four large cawseies in crosse, which
did much to beautify it; vpon every portall or entry was a God or Idoll having the visage
turned to the causey, right against the Temple gate of Vitziliputzli. There were thirtie
steppes of thirtie fadome long, and they divided from the circuit of the court by a streete
that went betwixt them; vpon the toppe of these steppes there was a walke thirtie foote
broad, all plaistered with chalke, in the midst of which walke was a Palisado artificially
made of very high trees, planted in order a fadome one from another. These trees were
very bigge, and all pierced with small holes from the foote to the top, and there were
roddes did runne from one tree to another, to the which were chained or tied many
dead mens heades. Vpon every rod were twentie sculles, and these ranckes of sculles
continue from the foote to the toppe of the tree. This Palisado was full of dead mens
sculls from one end to the other, the which was a wonderfull mournefull sight and full of
horror. These were the heads of such as had beene sacrificed; for after they were dead
and had eaten the flesh, the head was [83]delivered to the Ministers of the Temple,
which tied them in this sort vntil they fell off by morcells; and then had they a care to set
others in their places. Vpon the toppe of the temple were two stones or chappells, and
in them were the two Idolls which I have spoken of, Vitziliputzli, and his companion
Tlaloc. These Chappells were carved and graven very artificially, and so high, that to
ascend vp to it, there was a staire of stone of sixscore steppes. Before these
Chambers or Chappells, there was a Court of fortie foot square, in the midst thereof,
was a high stone of five hand breadth, poynted in fashion of a Pyramide, it was placed
there for the sacrificing of men; for being laid on their backes, it made their bodies to
bend, and so they did open them and pull out their hearts, as I shall shew heereafter.” 23
Prolonged deliberation upon the nature of Uitzilopochtli has led me to the conclusion
that he was originally a personification of the maguey-plant (Agave americana). The
grounds upon which I base this hypothesis are as follows: A certain variety of the
maguey-plant, or metl, was known to the Aztecâ of Mexico-Tenochtitlan as Uitzitzilteutli,
or “beak of the humming-bird,” probably because of the resemblance the long spiky
thorns (uitztli) with which it is covered bear to the sharp beak of that bird (the uitzitzilin),
which suspends its tiny, web-like nest from the leaves of the plant in question. The
connection of Uitzilopochtli with the maguey-plant is also proved by at least two of his
subsidiary titles. Thus in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas 24 he is alluded
to as Magueycoatl, “Serpent of the Maguey,” and he was also known as Mexitli, or
“Hare of the Maguey,” a title from which one of the quarters of Tenochtitlan, and later
the entire city, took its name of Mexico. At the panquetzaliztli festival held in his honour,
the warriors who skirmished on his side in mimicry of his combat with the
[84]Centzonuitznaua were said to take the part of Uitznauatl, 25 or “Thorn that speaks
oracularly.” In certain of the place-names which are hieroglyphically figured in the
codices, too, the element of his name is depicted as a maguey-plant. Sahagun further
states that the proprietors of the maguey plantations and the publicans who sold octli or
pulque cut their plants so that they might yield their juice during the sign ce tecpatl, the
movable feast of Uitzilopochtli, in the belief that, were they tapped at this time, they
would yield abundantly. 26
These facts lead me to infer that the name implies “Humming-bird Wizard,” for
Uitzilopochtli was, as Sahagun says, 30 “a necromancer and friend of disguises,” and
wizards are universally conceived of as “sinister,” which English word means both “on
the left hand” and “inauspicious,” and “malign,” as does the Latin word from which it is
derived. The same holds good of the Mexican word. The sub-titles of the god,
Uitznauatl and Magueycoatl, show—the first, that the ideas of sorcery and oracular
speech were connected with him; and the second, that he was of a serpentine or
venomous disposition, like the liquor distilled from the plant over which he presided, the
intoxicating qualities of which were regarded as inducing prophetic inspiration.
That the maguey-plant entered into Uitzilopochtli’s insignia seems probable from the
circumstance that at his festival in the month toxcatl his dough image was surmounted
by a flint knife half covered with blood. 31 In the codices the sacrificial stone knife is
frequently depicted as growing in plant-like bundles out of the ground, this artistic and
conventional form bearing a close resemblance to the maguey plant, with the spines of
which the Mexican priests pierced their tongues and ears to procure a blood-offering.
How, then, may we reconcile the primitive fetish of the maguey-plant with the later solar
deity? In my view the course of development of the concept of Uitzilopochtli is much
the same as that of the Hellenic god Apollo, who, originally a spirit of the apple-tree, 36
came in like manner [88]to be regarded as the god of the sun. But, to adhere to the
Mexican concept, the sun was regarded by the peoples of Anahuac as the great eater
of hearts and drinker of blood. These must be obtained for him by war, or he would
perish, and all creation along with him. Uitzilopochtli, as the spirit of the maguey-plant,
was the tribal fetish of the Aztecâ, and therefore their natural leader in battle. The
connection is obvious and does not require to be laboured. Because of his tribal
leadership in war, a governance of which Mexican myth and history bear eloquent
testimony, he became confounded with the luminary which demanded blood and lived
by human strife.
The solar connection of the octli liquor yielded by his plant is also most clear. Says
Duran 37: “The octli was a favourite offering to the gods, and especially to the god of fire.
Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases; sometimes it was scattered upon the
flames with a brush (aspergillum?); at other times it was poured out around the fire-
place.” Fire is, of course, a surrogate of the sun, and Seler has already identified
Uitzilopochtli as a fire-god in virtue of his status as a sun-deity, 38 showing that the
drilling of the solar fire before the beginning of the new cycle of fifty-two years was
deferred until the panquetzalitztli, the great feast of Uitzilopochtli. Jacinto de la Serna,
too, says that the octli ritual invoked the “shining Rose; light-giving Rose, to receive
and rejoice my heart before the god.” The “rose,” of course, referring to the fire or sun.
It would seem, however, that before he became confounded or identified with the sun,
Uitzilopochtli may have possessed a lunar significance, and this may have obtained in
the period while yet the calendar was reckoned upon a lunar basis and its solar
connection still remained undefined. The name Mexitli, which has already been
remarked upon, and which means “Hare of the Maguey” appears to place Uitzilopochtli
upon a level with the other gods of octli, if not to class him as one of these. It bears a
suspicious [89]resemblance, too, to the name of the Moon-god, Metztli. The hare or
rabbit in Mexico was invariably associated both with the moon and the octli-gods,
whose chief characteristic, perhaps, is the lunar nose-plate. But among many of the
native tribes of North America the hare or rabbit is the representative of the sun or the
dawn, under the names of Michabo, Manibozho, Wabos, and so forth, being described
in myth as a warrior, hero-god and culture-bringer. Perhaps the Nahua, while still in a
more northern region where the agave was unknown to them, worshipped the rabbit of
the sun or moon, and on establishing themselves in a region where the maguey was
one of the salient features in the landscape, fused his myth with that of a newly-
acquired fetish, discarding later the more ancient belief, or retaining but a confused
memory of it. But this train of reasoning lacks evidence to support it. Nor need the
consideration of Uitzilopochtli’s serpent-form detain us long. I think I see in the myth
which recounts how the Aztecâ, on settling in Tenochtitlan, beheld an eagle perched on
a cactus with a serpent in its talons, some relation to Uitzilopochtli, but what it precisely
portends is still obscure to me. In any case the symbol of the eagle enters into his
insignia, as does that of the serpent. We will recall that he was known as
Magueycoatl, 39 “Serpent of the Maguey.” Again the solar character of the serpent in
America, as elsewhere, readily accounts for his later connection with it, and for the
prevalence of serpentine forms in his insignia and temple. But I confess that these two
points of contact with the serpent do not altogether satisfy me as regards the god’s
connection with it, nor does the fact of the serpentine character of his mother commend
itself to me as altogether explanatory of this, and I think we must look to Uitzilopochtli’s
nature as a wizard or sorcerer to enlighten us upon this point. Jacinto de la Serna 40
states that in his time some of the Mexican conjurers used a wand around which was
fastened a living [90]serpent, in much the same way as the priests of the Pueblo Indians
do at the present day; and as the great invisible medicine man of the tribe,
Uitzilopochtli may have been thought of as doing the same. “Who is a manito?” asks
the Meda chant of the Algonquins. “He,” is the reply, “who walketh with a serpent, he is
a manito.” For the connection of the Indian magicians with the serpent the reader is
referred to the pages of Brinton. 41
In many lands the serpent is the symbol of reproductive power and has a phallic
significance. In Mexico he casts his winter skin near the time of Uitzilopochtli’s first
festival, about the beginning of the rainy season. Moreover, this reptile is connected
with soothsaying, and in this respect resembles the god.
His myths, as well as his status in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, of which he was the tutelary
deity, make it plain that Uitzilopochtli was a tribal god of the Aztecâ, their national god
par excellence. The brave Quauhtemoc, the last native defender of the city, imagined
himself invincible when armed with the bow and arrows of Uitzilopochtli, and we know
that the advice of the oracle of that deity was sought by the Mexicans when hard
pressed by the Conquistadores.
Nor is there any dubiety regarding his character as a god of war. This may have arisen
from the circumstance that he presided over the liquor which was given to the troops
when about to engage in battle, or, as has been said, may have followed his promotion
to the rank of sun-god, the deity of human sacrifice, the god who demanded human
hearts and blood. A larger number of captives were devoted to him than to any other
divinity, and as the waging of war was the only means by which so many victims might
be procured, the sun would naturally become the great patron of strife.
As the sun is the great central cause of all agricultural success, so Uitzilopochtli came
to be looked upon as one of the promoters of plant growth, as is witnessed by his
festivals, which synchronize with the first rainfall of the year, the [91]growth of plant life,
and the end of the fruitful season, when, in the form of a paste image, the god was
slain. He is thus the sun of the season of plenty, as his “brother” Tezcatlipocâ
represents that of sereness and drought. He is the “young warrior” of the South, who
drives away the evil spirits of the dry season and causes the land to rejoice.
[Contents]
Area of Worship: Nahua territory generally, with extension into Central America
(as Hurakan).
Minor Names:
Titlacahuan—“He whose slaves we are.”
Yaotl—“Enemy.”
Yaomauitl—“Dreaded Enemy.”
Chico Yaotl—“Enemy on one side.”
Necoc Yaotl—“Enemy on both sides.”
Moyocoyotzin—“Capricious Lord.”
Uitznahuac Yaotl—“Warrior in the Southern House or Temple.”
Tlacochcalco Yaotl—“Warrior in the (Northern) Spear House.”
Telpochtli—“The Youth.”
Neçaualpilli—“Fasting Lord.”
Itztli—“Obsidian.”
Festivals: Toxcatl, teotleco, and the movable feasts ce miquiztli, ce malinalli, and
ome coatl.
Compass Directions: North and south in different aspects. Guardian of the fifth
quarter, “the below and above.”
Calendar Place: Ruler of the 18th day, tecpatl; ruler of the second tonalamatl
quarter, the region of the north; as Itztli, second of the nine lords of the night; ruler
of the 13th day-count acatl.
Symbol: The smoking or fiery mirror; the obsidian knife.