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American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

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Title: American Hero-Myths: A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent

Author: Daniel G. Brinton


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS: A STUDY IN THE NATIVE RELIGIONS OF THE WESTERN CONTINENT ***

AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS.

A STUDY IN THE NATIVE RELIGIONS
OF THE WESTERN CONTINENT.

BY

DANIEL G. BRINTON, M.D.,

MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN
SOCIETY; THE NUMISMATIC AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF PHILA., ETC.; AUTHOR OF
"THE MYTHS OF THE NEW WORLD;" "THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT." ETC.


1882.


TO

ELI K. PRICE, ESQ.,

PRESIDENT OF THE NUMISMATIC AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, WHOSE
ENLIGHTENED INTEREST HAS FOR MANY YEARS, AND IN MANY WAYS, FURTHERED THE
PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE
AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


This little volume is a contribution to the comparative study of
religions. It is an endeavor to present in a critically correct light some
of the fundamental conceptions which are found in the native beliefs of
the tribes of America.

So little has heretofore been done in this field that it has yielded a
very scanty harvest for purposes of general study. It has not yet even
passed the stage where the distinction between myth and tradition has been
recognized. Nearly all historians continue to write about some of the
American hero-gods as if they had been chiefs of tribes at some
undetermined epoch, and the effort to trace the migrations and
affiliations of nations by similarities in such stories is of almost daily
occurrence. How baseless and misleading all such arguments must be, it is
one of my objects to set forth.

At the same time I have endeavored to be temperate in applying the
interpretations of mythologists. I am aware of the risk one runs in
looking at every legend as a light or storm myth. My guiding principle has
been that when the same, and that a very extraordinary, story is told by
several tribes wholly apart in language and location, then the
probabilities are enormous that it is not a legend but a myth, and must be
explained as such. It is a spontaneous production of the mind, not a
reminiscence of an historic event.

The importance of the study of myths has been abundantly shown of recent
years, and the methods of analyzing them have been established with
satisfactory clearness.

The time has long since passed, at least among thinking men, when the
religious legends of the lower races were looked upon as trivial fables,
or as the inventions of the Father of Lies. They are neither the one nor
the other. They express, in image and incident, the opinions of these
races on the mightiest topics of human thought, on the origin and destiny
of man, his motives for duty and his grounds of hope, and the source,
history and fate of all external nature. Certainly the sincere expressions
on these subjects of even humble members of the human race deserve our
most respectful heed, and it may be that we shall discover in their crude
or coarse narrations gleams of a mental light which their proud Aryan
brothers have been long in coming to, or have not yet reached.

The prejudice against all the lower faiths inspired by the claim of
Christianity to a monopoly of religious truth--a claim nowise set up by
its founder--has led to extreme injustice toward the so-called heathen
religions. Little effort has been made to distinguish between their good
and evil tendencies, or even to understand them. I do not know of a single
instance on this continent of a thorough and intelligent study of a native
religion made by a Protestant missionary.

So little real work has been done in American mythology that very diverse
opinions as to its interpretation prevail among writers. Too many of them
apply to it facile generalizations, such as "heliolatry," "animism,"
"ancestral worship," "primitive philosophizing," and think that such a
sesame will unloose all its mysteries. The result has been that while each
satisfies himself, he convinces no one else.

I have tried to avoid any such bias, and have sought to discover the
source of the myths I have selected, by close attention to two points:
first, that I should obtain the precise original form of the myth by a
rigid scrutiny of authorities; and, secondly, that I should bring to bear
upon it modern methods of mythological and linguistic analysis.

The first of these requirements has given me no small trouble. The sources
of American history not only differ vastly in merit, but many of them are
almost inaccessible. I still have by me a list of books of the first order
of importance for these studies, which I have not been able to find in any
public or private library in the United States.

I have been free in giving references for the statements in the text. The
growing custom among historians of omitting to do this must be deplored in
the interests of sound learning. It is better to risk the charge of
pedantry than to leave at fault those who wish to test an author's
accuracy or follow up the line of investigation he indicates.

On the other hand, I have exercised moderation in drawing comparisons with
Aryan, Semitic, Egyptian and other Old World mythologies. It would have
been easy to have noted apparent similarities to a much greater extent.
But I have preferred to leave this for those who write upon general
comparative mythology. Such parallelisms, to reach satisfactory results,
should be attempted only by those who have studied the Oriental religions
in their original sources, and thus are not to be deceived by superficial
resemblances.

The term "comparative mythology" reaches hardly far enough to cover all
that I have aimed at. The professional mythologist thinks he has completed
his task when he has traced a myth through its transformations in story
and language back to the natural phenomena of which it was the expression.
This external history is essential. But deeper than that lies the study of
the influence of the myth on the individual and national mind, on the
progress and destiny of those who believed it, in other words, its true
_religious_ import. I have endeavored, also, to take some account of this.

The usual statement is that tribes in the intellectual condition of those
I am dealing with rest their religion on a worship of external phenomena.
In contradiction to this, I advance various arguments to show that their
chief god was not identified with any objective natural process, but was
human in nature, benignant in character, loved rather than feared, and
that his worship carried with it the germs of the development of
benevolent emotions and sound ethical principles.

_Media, Pa., Oct., 1882._




CONTENTS.




CHAPTER I.


INTRODUCTORY.

Some Kind of Religion Found among all Men--Classifications of
Religions--The Purpose of Religions--Religions of Rite and of Creed--The
Myth Grows in the First of these--Intent and Meaning of the Myth.

Processes of Myth Building in America--Personification, Paronyms and
Homonyms--Otosis--Polyonomy--Henotheism--Borrowing--Rhetorical
Figures--Abstract Expressions--Esoteric Teachings.

Outlines of the Fundamental American Myth--The White Culture-hero and the
Four Brothers--Interpretation of the Myth--Comparison with the Aryan
Hermes Myth--With the Aryo-Semitic Cadmus Myth--With Osirian Myths--The
Myth of the Virgin Mother--The Interpretation thus Supported.


CHAPTER II.


THE HERO-GODS OF THE ALGONKINS AND IROQUOIS.

§1. _The Algonkin Myth of Michabo._

The Myth of the Giant Rabbit--The Rabbit Creates the World--He Marries the
Muskrat--Becomes the All-Father--Derivation of Michabo--of Wajashk, the
Musk-rat--The Myth Explained--The Light-God as God of the East--The Four
Divine Brothers--Myth of the Huarochiris--The Day-Makers--Michabo's
Contests with His Father and Brother--Explanation of These--The Symbolic
Flint Stone--Michabo Destroys the Serpent King--Meaning of this
Myth--Relations of the Light-God and Wind-God--Michabo as God of Waters
and Fertility--Represented as a Bearded Man.

§2. _The Iroquois Myth of Ioskeha._

The Creation of the Earth--The Miraculous Birth of Ioskeha--He Overcomes
his Brother Tawiscara--Creates and Teaches Mankind--Visits his People--His
Grandmother Ataensic--Ioskeha as Father of his Mother--Similar Conceptions
in Egyptian Myths--Derivation of Ioskeha and Ataensic--Ioskeha as
Tharonhiawakon, the Sky Supporter--His Brother Tawiscara or Tehotennhiaron
Identified--Similarity to Algonkin Myths.


CHAPTER III.


THE HERO-GOD OP THE AZTEC TRIBES.

§1. _The Two Antagonists._

The Contest of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca--Quetzalcoatl the
Light-God--Derivation of His Name--Titles of Tezcatlipoca--Identified with
Darkness, Night and Gloom.

§2. _Quetzalcoatl the God._

Myth of the Four Brothers--The Four Suns and the Elemental Conflict--Names
of the Four Brothers.

§3. _Quetzalcoatl the Hero of Tula._

Tula, the City of the Sun--Who were the Toltecs?--Tlapallan and Xalac--The
Birth of the Hero God--His Virgin Mother Chimalmatl--His Miraculous
Conception--Aztlan, the Land of Seven Caves, and Colhuacan, the Bended
Mount--The Maid Xochitl and the Rose Garden of the Gods--Quetzalcoatl as
the White and Bearded Stranger.

The Glory of the Lord of Tula--The Subtlety of the Sorcerer
Tezcatlipoca--The Magic Mirror and the Mystic Draught--The Myth
Explained--The Promise of Rejuvenation--The Toveyo and the Maiden--The
Juggleries of Tezcatlipoca--Departure of Quetzalcoatl from
Tula--Quetzalcoatl at Cholula--His Death or Departure--The Celestial Game
of Ball and Tiger Skin--Quetzalcoatl as the Planet Venus.

§4. _Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds._

The Lord of the Four Winds--His Symbols, the Wheel of the Winds, the
Pentagon and the Cross--Close Relation to the Gods of Rain and
Waters--Inventor of the Calendar--God of Fertility and
Conception--Recommends Sexual Austerity--Phallic Symbols--God of
Merchants--The Patron of Thieves--His Pictographic Representations.

§5. _The Return of Quetzalcoatl._

His Expected Re-appearance--The Anxiety of Montezuma--His Address to
Cortes--The General Expectation--Explanation of his Predicted Return.


CHAPTER IV.


THE HERO-GODS OF THE MAYAS.

Civilization of the Mayas--Whence it Originated--Duplicate Traditions

§1. _The Culture Hero Itzamna._

Itzamna as Ruler, Priest and Teacher--As Chief God and Creator of the
World--Las Casas' Supposed Christ Myth--The Four Bacabs--Itzamna as Lord
of the Winds and Rains--The Symbol of the Cross--As Lord of the Light and
Day--Derivation of his Various Names.

§2. _The Culture Hero Kukulcan._

Kukulcan as Connected with the Calendar--Meaning of the Name--The Myth of
the Four Brothers--Kukulcan's Happy Rule and Miraculous
Disappearance--Relation to Quetzalcoatl--Aztec and Maya
Mythology--Kukulcan a Maya Divinity--The Expected Return of the
Hero-god--The Maya Prophecies--Their Explanation.


CHAPTER V.


THE QQICHUA HERO-GOD VIRACOCHA.

Viracocha as the First Cause--His name Illa Ticci--Qquichua Prayers--Other
Names and Titles of Viracocha--His Worship a True Monotheism--The Myth of
the Four Brothers--Myth of the Twin Brothers.

Viracocha as Tunapa, He who Perfects--Various Incidents in His
Life--Relation to Manco Capac--He Disappears in the West.

Viracocha Rises from Lake Titicaca and Journeys to the West--Derivation of
His Name--He was Represented as White and Bearded--The Myth of Con and
Pachacamac--Contice Viracocha--Prophecies of the Peruvian Seers The White
Men Called Viracochas--Similarities to Aztec Myths.


CHAPTER VI.


THE EXTENSION AND INFLUENCE OP THE TYPICAL HERO-MYTH.

The Typical Myth found in many parts of the Continent--Difficulties in
Tracing it--Religious Evolution in America Similar to that in the Old
World--Failure of Christianity in the Red Race.

The Culture Myth of the Tarascos of Mechoacan--That of the Kiches of
Guatemala.--The Votan Myth of the Tzendals of Chiapas--A Fragment of a
Mixe Myth--The Hero-God of the Muyscas of New Granada--Of the
Tupi-Guaranay Stem of Paraguay and Brazil--Myths of the Dènè of British
America.

Sun Worship in America--Germs of Progress in American Religions--Relation
of Religion and Morality--The Light-God A Moral and Beneficent
Creation--His Worship was Elevating--Moral Condition of Native Societies
before the Conquest--Progress in the Definition of the Idea of God in
Peru, Mexico and Yucatan--Erroneous Statements about the Morals of the
Natives--Evolution of their Ethical Principles.


INDEX.




AMERICAN HERO-MYTHS.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

SOME KIND OF RELIGION FOUND AMONG ALL MEN--CLASSIFICATIONS OF
RELIGIONS--THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIONS--RELIGIONS OF RITE AND OF CREED--THE
MYTH GROWS IN THE FIRST OF THESE--INTENT AND MEANING OF THE MYTH.

PROCESSES OF MYTH-BUILDING IN AMERICA--PERSONIFICATION. PARONYMS AND
HOMONYMS--OTOSIS--POLYONOMY--HENOTHEISM--BORROWING--RHETORICAL
FIGURES--ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONS. ESOTERIC TEACHINGS.

OUTLINES OF THE FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN MYTH--THE WHITE CULTURE-HERO AND THE
FOUR BROTHERS--INTERPRETATION OF THE MYTH--COMPARISON WITH THE ARYAN
HERMES MYTH--WITH THE ARYO-SEMITIC CADMUS MYTH--WITH OSIRIAN MYTHS--THE
MYTH OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER--THE INTERPRETATION THUS SUPPORTED.


The time was, and that not so very long ago, when it was contended by some
that there are tribes of men without any sort of religion; nowadays the
effort is to show that the feeling which prompts to it is common, even
among brutes.

This change of opinion has come about partly through an extension of the
definition of religion. It is now held to mean any kind of belief in
spiritual or extra-natural agencies. Some learned men say that we had
better drop the word "religion," lest we be misunderstood. They would
rather use "daimonism," or "supernaturalism," or other such new term; but
none of these seems to me so wide and so exactly significant of what I
mean as "religion."

All now agree that in this very broad sense some kind of religion exists
in every human community.[1]

[Footnote 1: I suppose I am not going too far in saying "all agree;" for I
think that the latest study of this subject, by Gustav Roskoff, disposes
of Sir John Lubbock's doubts, as well as the crude statements of the
author of _Kraft und Stoff_, and such like compilations. Gustav Roskoff,
_Das Religionswesen der Rohesten Naturvölker_, Leipzig, 1880.]

The attempt has often been made to classify these various faiths under
some few general headings. The scheme of Auguste Comte still has
supporters. He taught that man begins with fetichism, advances to
polytheism, and at last rises to monotheism. More in vogue at present is
the theory that the simplest and lowest form of religion is individual;
above it are the national religions; and at the summit the universal or
world religions.

Comte's scheme has not borne examination. It is artificial and sterile.
Look at Christianity. It is the highest of all religions, but it is not
monotheism. Look at Buddhism. In its pure form it is not even theism. The
second classification is more fruitful for historical purposes.

The psychologist, however, inquires as to the essence, the real purpose of
religions. This has been differently defined by the two great schools of
thought.

All religions, says the idealist, are the efforts, poor or noble,
conscious or blind, to develop the Idea of God in the soul of man.

No, replies the rationalist, it is simply the effort of the human mind to
frame a Theory of Things; at first, religion is an early system of natural
philosophy; later it becomes moral philosophy. Explain the Universe by
physical laws, point out that the origin and aim of ethics are the
relations of men, and we shall have no more religions, nor need any.

The first answer is too intangible, the second too narrow. The rude savage
does not philosophize on phenomena; the enlightened student sees in them
but interacting forces: yet both may be profoundly religious. Nor can
morality be accepted as a criterion of religions. The bloody scenes in the
Mexican teocalli were merciful compared with those in the torture rooms of
the Inquisition. Yet the religion of Jesus was far above that of
Huitzilopochtli.

What I think is the essence, the principle of vitality, in religion, and
in all religions, is _their supposed control over the destiny of the
individual_, his weal or woe, his good or bad hap, here or hereafter, as
it may be. Rooted infinitely deep in the sense of personality, religion
was recognized at the beginning, it will be recognized at the end, as the
one indestructible ally in the struggle for individual existence. At
heart, all prayers are for preservation, the burden of all litanies is a
begging for Life.

This end, these benefits, have been sought by the cults of the world
through one of two theories.

The one, that which characterizes the earliest and the crudest religions,
teaches that man escapes dangers and secures safety by the performance or
avoidance of certain actions. He may credit this or that myth, he may hold
to one or many gods; this is unimportant; but he must not fail in the
penance or the sacred dance, he must not touch that which is _taboo_, or
he is in peril. The life of these cults is the Deed, their expression is
the Rite.

Higher religions discern the inefficacy of the mere Act. They rest their
claim on Belief. They establish dogmas, the mental acceptance of which is
the one thing needful. In them mythology passes into theology; the act is
measured by its motive, the formula by the faith back of it. Their life is
the Creed.

The Myth finds vigorous and congenial growth only in the first of these
forms. There alone the imagination of the votary is free, there alone it
is not fettered by a symbol already defined.

To the student of religions the interest of the Myth is not that of an
infantile attempt to philosophize, but as it illustrates the intimate and
immediate relations which the religion in which it grew bore to the
individual life. Thus examined, it reveals the inevitable destinies of men
and of nations as bound up with their forms of worship.

These general considerations appear to me to be needed for the proper
understanding of the study I am about to make. It concerns itself with
some of the religions which were developed on the American continent
before its discovery. My object is to present from them a series of myths
curiously similar in features, and to see if one simple and general
explanation of them can be found.

The processes of myth-building among American tribes were much the same as
elsewhere. These are now too generally familiar to need specification
here, beyond a few which I have found particularly noticeable.

At the foundation of all myths lies the mental process of
_personification_, which finds expression in the rhetorical figure of
_prosopopeia_. The definition of this, however, must be extended from the
mere representation of inanimate things as animate, to include also the
representation of irrational beings as rational, as in the "animal myths,"
a most common form of religious story among primitive people.

Some languages favor these forms of personification much more than others,
and most of the American languages do so in a marked manner, by the broad
grammatical distinctions they draw between animate and inanimate objects,
which distinctions must invariably be observed. They cannot say "the boat
moves" without specifying whether the boat is an animate object or not, or
whether it is to be considered animate, for rhetorical purposes, at the
time of speaking.

The sounds of words have aided greatly in myth building. Names and words
which are somewhat alike in sound, _paronyms_, as they are called by
grammarians, may be taken or mistaken one for the other. Again, many myths
spring from _homonymy_, that is, the sameness in sound of words with
difference in signification. Thus _coatl_, in the Aztec tongue, is a word
frequently appearing in the names of divinities. It has three entirely
different meanings, to wit, a serpent, a guest and twins. Now, whichever
one of these was originally meant, it would be quite certain to be
misunderstood, more or less, by later generations, and myths would arise
to explain the several possible interpretations of the word--as, in fact,
we find was the case.

Closely allied to this is what has been called _otosis_. This is the
substitution of a familiar word for an archaic or foreign one of similar
sound but wholly diverse meaning. This is a very common occurrence and
easily leads to myth making. For example, there is a cave, near
Chattanooga, which has the Cherokee name Nik-a-jak. This the white
settlers have transformed into Nigger Jack, and are prepared with a
narrative of some runaway slave to explain the cognomen. It may also occur
in the same language. In an Algonkin dialect _missi wabu_ means "the great
light of the dawn;" and a common large rabbit was called _missabo_; at
some period the precise meaning of the former words was lost, and a
variety of interesting myths of the daybreak were transferred to a
supposed huge rabbit! Rarely does there occur a more striking example of
how the deteriorations of language affect mythology.

_Aztlan_, the mythical land whence the Aztec speaking tribes were said to
have come, and from which they derived their name, means "the place of
whiteness;" but the word was similar to _Aztatlan_, which would mean "the
place of herons," some spot where these birds would love to congregate,
from _aztatl_, the heron, and in after ages, this latter, as the plainer
and more concrete signification, came to prevail, and was adopted by the
myth-makers.

_Polyonomy_ is another procedure often seen in these myths. A divinity has
several or many titles; one or another of these becomes prominent, and at
last obscures in a particular myth or locality the original personality of
the hero of the tale. In America this is most obvious in Peru.

Akin to this is what Prof. Max Müller has termed _henotheism_. In this
mental process one god or one form of a god is exalted beyond all others,
and even addressed as the one, only, absolute and supreme deity. Such
expressions are not to be construed literally as evidences of a
monotheism, but simply that at that particular time the worshiper's mind
was so filled with the power and majesty of the divinity to whom he
appealed, that he applied to him these superlatives, very much as he would
to a great ruler. The next day he might apply them to another deity,
without any hypocrisy or sense of logical contradiction. Instances of this
are common in the Aztec prayers which have been preserved.

One difficulty encountered in Aryan mythology is extremely rare in
America, and that is, the adoption of foreign names. A proper name without
a definite concrete significance in the tongue of the people who used it
is almost unexampled in the red race. A word without a meaning was
something quite foreign to their mode of thought. One of our most eminent
students[1] has justly said: "Every Indian synthesis--names of persons and
places not excepted--must preserve the consciousness of its roots, and
must not only have a meaning, but be so framed as to convey that meaning
with precision, to all who speak the language to which it belongs." Hence,
the names of their divinities can nearly always be interpreted, though for
the reasons above given the most obvious and current interpretation is not
in every case the correct one.

[Footnote 1: J. Hammond Trumbull, _On the Composition of Indian
Geographical Names_, p. 3 (Hartford, 1870).]

As foreign names were not adopted, so the mythology of one tribe very
rarely influenced that of another. As a rule, all the religions were
tribal or national, and their votaries had no desire to extend them. There
was little of the proselytizing spirit among the red race. Some exceptions
can be pointed out to this statement, in the Aztec and Peruvian
monarchies. Some borrowing seems to have been done either by or from the
Mayas; and the hero-myth of the Iroquois has so many of the lineaments of
that of the Algonkins that it is difficult to believe that it was wholly
independent of it. But, on the whole, the identities often found in
American myths are more justly attributable to a similarity of
surroundings and impressions than to any other cause.

The diversity and intricacy of American mythology have been greatly
fostered by the delight the more developed nations took in rhetorical
figures, in metaphor and simile, and in expressions of amplification and
hyperbole. Those who imagine that there was a poverty of resources in
these languages, or that their concrete form hemmed in the mind from the
study of the abstract, speak without knowledge. One has but to look at the
inexhaustible synonymy of the Aztec, as it is set forth by Olmos or
Sahagun, or at its power to render correctly the refinements of scholastic
theology, to see how wide of the fact is any such opinion. And what is
true of the Aztec, is not less so of the Qquichua and other tongues.

I will give an example, where the English language itself falls short of
the nicety of the Qquichua in handling a metaphysical tenet. _Cay_ in
Qquichua expresses the real being of things, the _essentia_; as, _runap
caynin_, the being of the human race, humanity in the abstract; but to
convey the idea of actual being, the _existentia_ as united to the
_essentia_, we must add the prefix _cascan_, and thus have
_runap-cascan-caynin_, which strictly means "the essence of being in
general, as existent in humanity."[1] I doubt if the dialect of German
metaphysics itself, after all its elaboration, could produce in equal
compass a term for this conception. In Qquichua, moreover, there is
nothing strained and nothing foreign in this example; it is perfectly
pure, and in thorough accord with the genius of the tongue.

[Footnote 1: "El ser existente de hombre, que es el modo de estar el
primer ser que es la essentia que en Dios y los Angeles y el hombre es
modo personal." Diego Gonzalez Holguin, _Vocabvlario de la Lengva Qqichua,
o del Inca; sub voce, Cay_. (Ciudad de los Reyes, 1608.)]

I take some pains to impress this fact, for it is an important one in
estimating the religious ideas of the race. We must not think we have
grounds for skepticism if we occasionally come across some that astonish
us by their subtlety. Such are quite in keeping with the psychology and
languages of the race we are studying.

Yet, throughout America, as in most other parts of the world, the teaching
of religious tenets was twofold, the one popular, the other for the
initiated, an esoteric and an exoteric doctrine. A difference in dialect
was assiduously cultivated, a sort of "sacred language" being employed to
conceal while it conveyed the mysteries of faith. Some linguists think
that these dialects are archaic forms of the language, the memory of which
was retained in ceremonial observances; others maintain that they were
simply affectations of expression, and form a sort of slang, based on the
every day language, and current among the initiated. I am inclined to the
latter as the correct opinion, in many cases.

Whichever it was, such a sacred dialect is found in almost all tribes.
There are fragments of it from the cultivated races of Mexico, Yucatan and
Peru; and at the other end of the scale we may instance the Guaymis, of
Darien, naked savages, but whose "chiefs of the law," we are told, taught
"the doctrines of their religion in a peculiar idiom, invented for the
purpose, and very different from the common language."[1]

[Footnote 1: Franco, _Noticia de los Indios Guaymies y de sus Costumbres_,
p. 20, in Pinart, _Coleccion de Linguistica y Etnografia Americana_. Tom.
iv.]

This becomes an added difficulty in the analysis of myths, as not only
were the names of the divinities and of localities expressed in terms in
the highest degree metaphorical, but they were at times obscured by an
affected pronunciation, devised to conceal their exact derivation.

The native tribes of this Continent had many myths, and among them there
was one which was so prominent, and recurred with such strangely similar
features in localities widely asunder, that it has for years attracted my
attention, and I have been led to present it as it occurs among several
nations far apart, both geographically and in point of culture. This myth
is that of the national hero, their mythical civilizer and teacher of the
tribe, who, at the same time, was often identified with the supreme deity
and the creator of the world. It is the fundamental myth of a very large
number of American tribes, and on its recognition and interpretation
depends the correct understanding of most of their mythology and religious
life.

The outlines of this legend are to the effect that in some exceedingly
remote time this divinity took an active part in creating the world and in
fitting it to be the abode of man, and may himself have formed or called
forth the race. At any rate, his interest in its advancement was such that
he personally appeared among the ancestors of the nation, and taught them
the useful arts, gave them the maize or other food plants, initiated them
into the mysteries of their religious rites, framed the laws which
governed their social relations, and having thus started them on the road
to self development, he left them, not suffering death, but disappearing
in some way from their view. Hence it was nigh universally expected that
at some time he would return.

The circumstances attending the birth of these hero-gods have great
similarity. As a rule, each is a twin or one of four brothers born at one
birth; very generally at the cost of their mother's life, who is a virgin,
or at least had never been impregnated by mortal man. The hero is apt to
come into conflict with his brother, or one of his brothers, and the long
and desperate struggle resulting, which often involved the universe in
repeated destructions, constitutes one of the leading topics of the
myth-makers. The duel is not generally--not at all, I believe, when we can
get at the genuine native form of the myth--between a morally good and an
evil spirit, though, undoubtedly, the one is more friendly and favorable
to the welfare of man than the other.

The better of the two, the true hero-god, is in the end triumphant, though
the national temperament represented this variously. At any rate, his
people are not deserted by him, and though absent, and perhaps for a while
driven away by his potent adversary, he is sure to come back some time or
other.

The place of his birth is nearly always located in the East; from that
quarter he first came when he appeared as a man among men; toward that
point he returned when he disappeared; and there he still lives, awaiting
the appointed time for his reappearance.

Whenever the personal appearance of this hero-god is described, it is,
strangely enough, represented to be that of one of the white race, a man
of fair complexion, with long, flowing beard, with abundant hair, and
clothed in ample and loose robes. This extraordinary fact naturally
suggests the gravest suspicion that these stories were made up after the
whites had reached the American shores, and nearly all historians have
summarily rejected their authenticity, on this account. But a most careful
scrutiny of their sources positively refutes this opinion. There is
irrefragable evidence that these myths and this ideal of the hero-god,
were intimately known and widely current in America long before any one of
its millions of inhabitants had ever seen a white man. Nor is there any
difficulty in explaining this, when we divest these figures of the
fanciful garbs in which they have been clothed by the religious
imagination, and recognize what are the phenomena on which they are based,
and the physical processes whose histories they embody. To show this I
will offer, in the most concise terms, my interpretation of their main
details.

The most important of all things to life is _Light_. This the primitive
savage felt, and, personifying it, he made Light his chief god. The
beginning of the day served, by analogy, for the beginning of the world.
Light comes before the sun, brings it forth, creates it, as it were. Hence
the Light-God is not the Sun-God, but his Antecedent and Creator.

The light appears in the East, and thus defines that cardinal point, and
by it the others are located. These points, as indispensable guides to the
wandering hordes, became, from earliest times, personified as important
deities, and were identified with the winds that blew from them, as wind
and rain gods. This explains the four brothers, who were nothing else than
the four cardinal points, and their mother, who dies in producing them, is
the eastern light, which is soon lost in the growing day. The East, as
their leader, was also the supposed ruler of the winds, and thus god of
the air and rain. As more immediately connected with the advent and
departure of light, the East and West are twins, the one of which sends
forth the glorious day-orb, which the other lies in wait to conquer. Yet
the light-god is not slain. The sun shall rise again in undiminished
glory, and he lives, though absent.

By sight and light we see and learn. Nothing, therefore, is more natural
than to attribute to the light-god the early progress in the arts of
domestic and social life. Thus light came to be personified as the
embodiment of culture and knowledge, of wisdom, and of the peace and
prosperity which are necessary for the growth of learning.

The fair complexion of these heroes is nothing but a reference to the
white light of the dawn. Their ample hair and beard are the rays of the
sun that flow from his radiant visage. Their loose and large robes typify
the enfolding of the firmament by the light and the winds.

This interpretation is nowise strained, but is simply that which, in Aryan
mythology, is now universally accepted for similar mythological creations.
Thus, in the Greek Phoebus and Perseus, in the Teutonic Lif, and in the
Norse Baldur, we have also beneficent hero-gods, distinguished by their
fair complexion and ample golden locks. "Amongst the dark as well as
amongst the fair races, amongst those who are marked by black hair and
dark eyes, they exhibit the same unfailing type of blue-eyed heroes whose
golden locks flow over their shoulders, and whose faces gleam as with the
light of the new risen sun."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George W. Cox, _An Introduction to the Science of
Comparative Mythology and Folk-Lore_, p. 17.]

Everywhere, too, the history of these heroes is that of a struggle against
some potent enemy, some dark demon or dragon, but as often against some
member of their own household, a brother or a father.

The identification of the Light-God with the deity of the winds is also
seen in Aryan mythology. Hermes, to the Greek, was the inventor of the
alphabet, music, the cultivation of the olive, weights and measures, and
such humane arts. He was also the messenger of the gods, in other words,
the breezes, the winds, the air in motion. His name Hermes, Hermeias, is
but a transliteration of the Sanscrit Sarameyas, under which he appears in
the Vedic songs, as the son of Sarama, the Dawn. Even his character as the
master thief and patron saint of the light-fingered gentry, drawn from the
way the winds and breezes penetrate every crack and cranny of the house,
is absolutely repeated in the Mexican hero-god Quetzalcoatl, who was also
the patron of thieves. I might carry the comparison yet further, for as
Sarameyas is derived from the root _sar_, to creep, whence _serpo_,
serpent, the creeper, so the name Quetzalcoatl can be accurately
translated, "the wonderful serpent." In name, history and functions the
parallelism is maintained throughout.

Or we can find another familiar myth, partly Aryan, partly Semitic, where
many of the same outlines present themselves. The Argive Thebans
attributed the founding of their city and state to Cadmus. He collected
their ancestors into a community, gave them laws, invented the alphabet of
sixteen letters, taught them the art of smelting metals, established
oracles, and introduced the Dyonisiac worship, or that of the reproductive
principle. He subsequently left them and lived for a time with other
nations, and at last did not die, but was changed into a dragon and
carried by Zeus to Elysion.

The birthplace of this culture hero was somewhere far to the eastward of
Greece, somewhere in "the purple land" (Phoenicia); his mother was "the
far gleaming one" (Telephassa); he was one of four children, and his
sister was Europe, the Dawn, who was seized and carried westward by Zeus,
in the shape of a white bull. Cadmus seeks to recover her, and sets out,
following the westward course of the sun. "There can be no rest until the
lost one is found again. The sun must journey westward until he sees again
the beautiful tints which greeted his eyes in the morning."[1] Therefore
Cadmus leaves the purple land to pursue his quest. It is one of toil and
struggle. He has to fight the dragon offspring of Ares and the bands of
armed men who spring from the dragon's teeth which were sown, that is, the
clouds and gloom of the overcast sky. He conquers, and is rewarded, but
does not recover his sister.

[Footnote 1: Sir George W. Cox, _Ibid._, p. 76.]

When we find that the name Cadmus is simply the Semitic word _kedem_, the
east, and notice all this mythical entourage, we see that this legend is
but a lightly veiled account of the local source and progress of the light
of day, and of the advantages men derive from it. Cadmus brings the
letters of the alphabet from the east to Greece, for the same reason that
in ancient Maya myth Itzamna, "son of the mother of the morning," brought
the hieroglyphs of the Maya script also from the east to Yucatan--because
both represent the light by which we see and learn.

Egyptian mythology offers quite as many analogies to support this
interpretation of American myths as do the Aryan god-stories.

The heavenly light impregnates the virgin from whom is born the sun-god,
whose life is a long contest with his twin brother. The latter wins, but
his victory is transient, for the light, though conquered and banished by
the darkness, cannot be slain, and is sure to return with the dawn, to the
great joy of the sons of men. This story the Egyptians delighted to repeat
under numberless disguises. The groundwork and meaning are the same,
whether the actors are Osiris, Isis and Set, Ptah, Hapi and the Virgin
Cow, or the many other actors of this drama. There, too, among a brown
race of men, the light-god was deemed to be not of their own hue, but
"light colored, white or yellow," of comely countenance, bright eyes and
golden hair. Again, he is the one who invented the calendar, taught the
arts, established the rituals, revealed the medical virtues of plants,
recommended peace, and again was identified as one of the brothers of the
cardinal points.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Dr. C.P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, pp.
93, 95, 99, et al.]

The story of the virgin-mother points, in America as it did in the old
world, to the notion of the dawn bringing forth the sun. It was one of the
commonest myths in both continents, and in a period of human thought when
miracles were supposed to be part of the order of things had in it nothing
difficult of credence. The Peruvians, for instance, had large
establishments where were kept in rigid seclusion the "virgins of the
sun." Did one of these violate her vow of chastity, she and her fellow
criminal were at once put to death; but did she claim that the child she
bore was of divine parentage, and the contrary could not be shown, then
she was feted as a queen, and the product of her womb was classed among
princes, as a son of the sun. So, in the inscription at Thebes, in the
temple of the virgin goddess Mat, we read where she says of herself: "My
garment no man has lifted up; the fruit that I have borne was begotten of
the sun."[1]

[Footnote 1: "[Greek: Ton emon chitona oudeis apechaluphen on ego charpon
etechan, aelios egeneto.]" Proclus, quoted by Tiele, ubi suprá, p. 204,
note.]

I do not venture too much in saying that it were easy to parallel every
event in these American hero-myths, every phase of character of the
personages they represent, with others drawn from Aryan and Egyptian
legends long familiar to students, and which now are fully recognized as
having in them nothing of the substance of history, but as pure creations
of the religious imagination working on the processes of nature brought
into relation to the hopes and fears of men.

If this is so, is it not time that we dismiss, once for all, these
American myths from the domain of historical traditions? Why should we try
to make a king of Itzamna, an enlightened ruler of Quetzalcoatl, a
cultured nation of the Toltecs, when the proof is of the strongest, that
every one of these is an absolutely baseless fiction of mythology? Let it
be understood, hereafter, that whoever uses these names in an historical
sense betrays an ignorance of the subject he handles, which, were it in
the better known field of Aryan or Egyptian lore, would at once convict
him of not meriting the name of scholar.

In European history the day has passed when it was allowable to construct
primitive chronicles out of fairy tales and nature myths. The science of
comparative mythology has assigned to these venerable stories a different,
though not less noble, interpretation. How much longer must we wait to see
the same canons of criticism applied to the products of the religious
fancy of the red race?

Furthermore, if the myths of the American nations are shown to be capable
of a consistent interpretation by the principles of comparative mythology,
let it be recognized that they are neither to be discarded because they
resemble some familiar to their European conquerors, nor does that
similarity mean that they are historically derived, the one from the
other. Each is an independent growth, but as each is the reflex in a
common psychical nature of the same phenomena, the same forms of
expression were adopted to convey them.



CHAPTER II.

THE HERO-GODS OF THE ALGONKINS AND IROQUOIS.

§1. _The Algonkin Myth of Michabo._

THE MYTH OF THE GIANT RABBIT--THE RABBIT CREATES THE WORLD--HE MARRIES THE
MUSKRAT--BECOMES THE ALL-FATHER--DERIVATION OF MICHABO--OF WAJASHK, THE
MUSKRAT--THE MYTH EXPLAINED--THE LIGHT-GOD AS GOD OF THE EAST--THE FOUR
DIVINE BROTHERS--MYTH OF THE HUAROCHIRIS--THE DAY-MAKERS--MICHABO'S
CONTESTS WITH HIS FATHER AND BROTHER--EXPLANATION OF THESE--THE SYMBOLIC
FLINT STONE--MICHABO DESTROYS THE SERPENT KING--MEANING OF THIS
MYTH--RELATIONS OF THE LIGHT-GOD AND WIND-GOD--MICHABO AS GOD OF WATERS
AND FERTILITY--REPRESENTED AS A BEARDED MAN.

§2. _The Iroquois Myth of Ioskeha._

THE CREATION OF THE EARTH--THE MIRACULOUS BIRTH OF IOSKEHA--HE OVERCOMES
HIS BROTHER, TAWISCARA--CREATES AND TEACHES MANKIND--VISITS HIS
PEOPLE--HIS GRANDMOTHER, ATAENSIC--IOSKEHA AS FATHER OF HIS
MOTHER--SIMILAR CONCEPTIONS IN EGYPTIAN MYTHS--DERIVATION OF IOSKEHA AND
ATAENSIC--IOSKEHA AS THARONHIAWAKON, THE SKY SUPPORTER--HIS BROTHER
TAWISCARA OR TEHOTENNHIARON IDENTIFIED--SIMILARITY TO ALGONKIN MYTHS.


Nearly all that vast area which lies between Hudson Bay and the Savannah
river, and the Mississippi river and the Atlantic coast, was peopled at
the epoch of the discovery by the members of two linguistic families--the
Algonkins and the Iroquois. They were on about the same plane of culture,
but differed much in temperament and radically in language. Yet their
religious notions were not dissimilar.


§1. _The Algonkin Myth of Michabo._

Among all the Algonkin tribes whose myths have been preserved we find much
is said about a certain Giant Rabbit, to whom all sorts of powers were
attributed. He was the master of all animals; he was the teacher who first
instructed men in the arts of fishing and hunting; he imparted to the
Algonkins the mysteries of their religious rites; he taught them picture
writing and the interpretation of dreams; nay, far more than that, he was
the original ancestor, not only of their nation, but of the whole race of
man, and, in fact, was none other than the primal Creator himself, who
fashioned the earth and gave life to all that thereon is.

Hearing all this said about such an ignoble and weak animal as the rabbit,
no wonder that the early missionaries and travelers spoke of such fables
with undisguised contempt, and never mentioned them without excuses for
putting on record trivialities so utter.

Yet it appears to me that under these seemingly weak stories lay a
profound truth, the appreciation of which was lost in great measure to the
natives themselves, but which can be shown to have been in its origin a
noble myth, setting forth in not unworthy images the ceaseless and mighty
rhythm of nature in the alternations of day and night, summer and winter,
storm and sunshine.

I shall quote a few of these stories as told by early authorities, not
adding anything to relieve their crude simplicity, and then I will see
whether, when submitted to the test of linguistic analysis, this
unpromising ore does not yield the pure gold of genuine mythology.

The beginning of things, according to the Ottawas and other northern
Algonkins, was at a period when boundless waters covered the face of the
earth. On this infinite ocean floated a raft, upon which were many species
of animals, the captain and chief of whom was Michabo, the Giant Rabbit.
They ardently desired land on which to live, so this mighty rabbit ordered
the beaver to dive and bring him up ever so little a piece of mud. The
beaver obeyed, and remained down long, even so that he came up utterly
exhausted, but reported that he had not reached bottom. Then the Rabbit
sent down the otter, but he also returned nearly dead and without success.
Great was the disappointment of the company on the raft, for what better
divers had they than the beaver and the otter?

In the midst of their distress the (female) muskrat came forward and
announced her willingness to make the attempt. Her proposal was received
with derision, but as poor help is better than none in an emergency, the
Rabbit gave her permission, and down she dived. She too remained long,
very long, a whole day and night, and they gave her up for lost. But at
length she floated to the surface, unconscious, her belly up, as if dead.
They hastily hauled her on the raft and examined her paws one by one. In
the last one of the four they found a small speck of mud. Victory! That
was all that was needed. The muskrat was soon restored, and the Giant
Rabbit, exerting his creative power, moulded the little fragment of soil,
and as he moulded it, it grew and grew, into an island, into a mountain,
into a country, into this great earth that we all dwell upon. As it grew
the Rabbit walked round and round it, to see how big it was; and the story
added that he is not yet satisfied; still he continues his journey and his
labor, walking forever around and around the earth and ever increasing it
more and more.

The animals on the raft soon found homes on the new earth. But it had yet
to be covered with forests, and men were not born. The Giant Rabbit formed
the trees by shooting his arrows into the soil, which became tree trunks,
and, transfixing them with other arrows, these became branches; and as for
men, some said he formed them from the dead bodies of certain animals,
which in time became the "totems" of the Algonkin tribes; but another and
probably an older and truer story was that he married the muskrat which
had been of such service to him, and from this union were born the
ancestors of the various races of mankind which people the earth.

Nor did he neglect the children he had thus brought into the world of his
creation. Having closely studied how the spider spreads her web to catch
flies, he invented the art of knitting nets for fish, and taught it to his
descendants; the pieces of native copper found along the shores of Lake
Superior he took from his treasure house inside the earth, where he
sometimes lives. It is he who is the Master of Life, and if he appears in
a dream to a person in danger, it is a certain sign of a lucky escape. He
confers fortune in the chase, and therefore the hunters invoke him, and
offer him tobacco and other dainties, placing them in the clefts of rocks
or on isolated boulders. Though called the Giant Rabbit, he is always
referred to as a man, a giant or demigod perhaps, but distinctly as of
human nature, the mighty father or elder brother of the race.[1]

[Footnote 1: The writers from whom I have taken this myth are Nicolas
Perrot, _Mémoire sur les Meurs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de
l'Amérique Septentrionale_, written by an intelligent layman who lived
among the natives from 1665 to 1699; and the various _Relations des
Jesuites_, especially for the years 1667 and 1670.]

Such is the national myth of creation of the Algonkin tribes, as it has
been handed down to us in fragments by those who first heard it. Has it
any meaning? Is it more than the puerile fable of savages?

Let us see whether some of those unconscious tricks of speech to which I
referred in the introductory chapter have not disfigured a true nature
myth. Perhaps those common processes of language, personification and
otosis, duly taken into account, will enable us to restore this narrative
to its original sense.

In the Algonkin tongue the word for Giant Rabbit is _Missabos_, compounded
from _mitchi_ or _missi_, great, large, and _wabos_, a rabbit. But there
is a whole class of related words, referring to widely different
perceptions, which sound very much like _wabos_. They are from a general
root _wab_, which goes to form such words of related signification as
_wabi_, he sees, _waban_, the east, the Orient, _wabish_, white, _bidaban_
(_bid-waban_), the dawn, _wában_, daylight, _wasseia_, the light, and many
others. Here is where we are to look for the real meaning of the name
_Missabos_. It originally meant the Great Light, the Mighty Seer, the
Orient, the Dawn--which you please, as all distinctly refer to the one
original idea, the Bringer of Light and Sight, of knowledge and life. In
time this meaning became obscured, and the idea of the rabbit, whose name
was drawn probably from the same root, as in the northern winters its fur
becomes white, was substituted, and so the myth of light degenerated into
an animal fable.

I believe that a similar analysis will explain the part which the muskrat
plays in the story. She it is who brings up the speck of mud from the
bottom of the primal ocean, and from this speck the world is formed by him
whom we now see was the Lord of the Light and the Day, and subsequently
she becomes the mother of his sons. The word for muskrat in Algonkin is
_wajashk_, the first letter of which often suffers elision, as in _nin
nod-ajashkwe_, I hunt muskrats. But this is almost the word for mud, wet
earth, soil, _ajishki_. There is no reasonable doubt but that here again
otosis and personification came in and gave the form and name of an animal
to the original simple statement.

That statement was that from wet mud dried by the sunlight, the solid
earth was formed; and again, that this damp soil was warmed and fertilized
by the sunlight, so that from it sprang organic life, even man himself,
who in so many mythologies is "the earth born," _homo ab humo, homo
chamaigenes_.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull has pointed out that in Algonkin the
words for father, _osh_, mother, _okas_, and earth, _ohke_ (Narraganset
dialect), can all be derived, according to the regular rules of Algonkin
grammar, from the same verbal root, signifying "to come out of, or from."
(Note to Roger Williams' _Key into the Language of America_, p. 56). Thus
the earth was, in their language, the parent of the race, and what more
natural than that it should become so in the myth also?]

This, then, is the interpretation I have to offer of the cosmogonical myth
of the Algonkins. Does some one object that it is too refined for those
rude savages, or that it smacks too much of reminiscences of old-world
teachings? My answer is that neither the early travelers who wrote it
down, nor probably the natives who told them, understood its meaning, and
that not until it is here approached by modern methods of analysis, has it
ever been explained. Therefore it is impossible to assign to it other than
an indigenous and spontaneous origin in some remote period of Algonkin
tribal history.

After the darkness of the night, man first learns his whereabouts by the
light kindling in the Orient; wandering, as did the primitive man, through
pathless forests, without a guide, the East became to him the first and
most important of the fixed points in space; by it were located the West,
the North, the South; from it spread the welcome dawn; in it was born the
glorious sun; it was full of promise and of instruction; hence it became
to him the home of the gods of life and light and wisdom.

As the four cardinal points are determined by fixed physical relations,
common to man everywhere, and are closely associated with his daily
motions and well being, they became prominent figures in almost all early
myths, and were personified as divinities. The winds were classified as
coming from them, and in many tongues the names of the cardinal points are
the same as those of the winds that blow from them. The East, however,
has, in regard to the others, a pre-eminence, for it is not merely the
home of the east wind, but of the light and the dawn as well. Hence it
attained a marked preponderance in the myths; it was either the greatest,
wisest and oldest of the four brothers, who, by personification,
represented the cardinal points and the four winds, or else the Light-God
was separated from the quadruplet and appears as a fifth personage
governing the other four, and being, in fact, the supreme ruler of both
the spiritual and human worlds.

Such was the mental processes which took place in the Algonkin mind, and
gave rise to two cycles of myths, the one representing Wabun or Michabo as
one of four brothers, whose names are those of the cardinal points, the
second placing him above them all.

The four brothers are prominent characters in Algonkin legend, and we
shall find that they recur with extraordinary frequency in the mythology
of all American nations. Indeed, I could easily point them out also in the
early religious conceptions of Egypt and India, Greece and China, and many
other old-world lands, but I leave these comparisons to those who wish to
treat of the principles of general mythology.

According to the most generally received legend these four brothers were
quadruplets--born at one birth--and their mother died in bringing them
into life. Their names are given differently by the various tribes, but
are usually identical with the four points of the compass, or something
relating to them. Wabun the East, Kabun the West, Kabibonokka the North,
and Shawano the South, are, in the ordinary language of the interpreters,
the names applied to them. Wabun was the chief and leader, and assigned to
his brothers their various duties, especially to blow the winds.

These were the primitive and chief divinities of the Algonkin race in all
parts of the territory they inhabited. When, as early as 1610, Captain
Argoll visited the tribes who then possessed the banks of the river
Potomac, and inquired concerning their religion, they replied, "We have
five gods in all; our chief god often appears to us in the form of a
mighty great hare; the other four have no visible shape, but are indeed
the four winds, which keep the four corners of the earth."[1]

[Footnote 1: William Strachey, _Historie of Travaile into Virginia_, p.
98.]

Here we see that Wabun, the East, was distinguished from Michabo
(_missi-wabun_), and by a natural and transparent process, the eastern
light being separated from the eastern wind, the original number four was
increased to five. Precisely the same differentiation occurred, as I shall
show, in Mexico, in the case of Quetzalcoatl, as shown in his _Yoel_, or
Wheel of the Winds, which was his sacred pentagram.

Or I will further illustrate this development by a myth of the Huarochiri
Indians, of the coast of Peru. They related that in the beginning of
things there were five eggs on the mountain Condorcoto. In due course of
time these eggs opened and from them came forth five falcons, who were
none other than the Creator of all things, Pariacaca, and his brothers,
the four winds. By their magic power they transformed themselves into men
and went about the world performing miracles, and in time became the gods
of that people.[1]

[Footnote 1: Doctor Francisco de Avila, _Narrative of the Errors and False
Gods of the Indians of Huarochiri_ (1608). This interesting document has
been partly translated by Mr. C.B. Markham, and published in one of the
volumes of the Hackluyt Society's series.]

These striking similarities show with what singular uniformity the
religious sense developes itself in localities the furthest asunder.

Returning to Michabo, the duplicate nature thus assigned him as the
Light-God, and also the God of the Winds and the storms and rains they
bring, led to the production of two cycles of myths which present him in
these two different aspects. In the one he is, as the god of light, the
power that conquers the darkness, who brings warmth and sunlight to the
earth and knowledge to men. He was the patron of hunters, as these require
the light to guide them on their way, and must always direct their course
by the cardinal points.

The morning star, which at certain seasons heralds the dawn, was sacred to
him, and its name in Ojibway is _Wabanang_, from _Waban_, the east. The
rays of light are his servants and messengers. Seated at the extreme east,
"at the place where the earth is cut off," watching in his medicine lodge,
or passing his time fishing in the endless ocean which on every side
surrounds the land, Michabo sends forth these messengers, who, in the
myth, are called _Gijigouai_, which means "those who make the day," and
they light the world. He is never identified with the sun, nor was he
supposed to dwell in it, but he is distinctly the impersonation of
light.[1]

[Footnote 1: See H.R. Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, Vol. v, pp. 418, 419.
_Relations des Jesuites_, 1634, p. 14, 1637, p. 46.]

In one form of the myth he is the grandson of the Moon, his father is the
West Wind, and his mother, a maiden who has been fecundated miraculously
by the passing breeze, dies at the moment of giving him birth. But he did
not need the fostering care of a parent, for he was born mighty of limb
and with all knowledge that it is possible to attain.[1] Immediately he
attacked his father, and a long and desperate struggle took place. "It
began on the mountains. The West was forced to give ground. His son drove
him across rivers and over mountains and lakes, and at last, he came to
the brink of the world. 'Hold!' cried he, 'my son, you know my power, and
that it is impossible to kill me.'" The combat ceased, the West
acknowledging the Supremacy of his mighty son.[2]

[Footnote 1: In the Ojibway dialect of the Algonkins, the word for day,
sky or heaven, is _gijig_. This same word as a verb means to be an adult,
to be ripe (of fruits), to be finished, complete. Rev. Frederick Baraga,
_A Dictionary of the Olchipwe Language_, Cincinnati, 1853. This seems to
correspond with the statement in the myth.]

[Footnote 2: H.E. Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, vol. i, pp. 135, et
seq.]

It is scarcely possible to err in recognizing under this thin veil of
imagery a description of the daily struggle between light and darkness,
day and night. The maiden is the dawn from whose virgin womb rises the sun
in the fullness of his glory and might, but with his advent the dawn
itself disappears and dies. The battle lasts all day, beginning when the
earliest rays gild the mountain tops, and continues until the West is
driven to the edge of the world. As the evening precedes the morning, so
the West, by a figure of speech, may be said to fertilize the Dawn.

In another form of the story the West was typified as a flint stone, and
the twin brother of Michabo. The feud between them was bitter, and the
contest long and dreadful. The face of the land was seamed and torn by the
wrestling of the mighty combatants, and the Indians pointed out the huge
boulders on the prairies as the weapons hurled at each other by the
enraged brothers. At length Michabo mastered his fellow twin and broke him
into pieces. He scattered the fragments over the earth, and from them grew
fruitful vines.

A myth which, like this, introduces the flint stone as in some way
connected with the early creative forces of nature, recurs at other
localities on the American continent very remote from the home of the
Algonkins. In the calendar of the Aztecs the day and god Tecpatl, the
Flint-Stone, held a prominent position. According to their myths such a
stone fell from heaven at the beginning of things and broke into sixteen
hundred pieces, each of which became a god. The Hun-pic-tok, Eight
Thousand Flints, of the Mayas, and the Toh of the Kiches, point to the
same association.[1]

[Footnote 1: Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Dissertation sur les Mythes de
l'Antiquite Americaine_, §vii.]

Probably the association of ideas was not with the flint as a fire-stone,
though the fact that a piece of flint struck with a nodule of pyrites will
emit a spark was not unknown. But the flint was everywhere employed for
arrow and lance heads. The flashes of light, the lightning, anything that
darted swiftly and struck violently, was compared to the hurtling arrow or
the whizzing lance. Especially did this apply to the phenomenon of the
lightning. The belief that a stone is shot from the sky with each
thunderclap is shown in our word "thunderbolt," and even yet the vulgar in
many countries point out certain forms of stones as derived from this
source. As the refreshing rain which accompanies the thunder gust instills
new life into vegetation, and covers the ground parched by summer droughts
with leaves and grass, so the statement in the myth that the fragments of
the flint-stone grew into fruitful vines is an obvious figure of speech
which at first expressed the fertilizing effects of the summer showers.

In this myth Michabo, the Light-God, was represented to the native mind as
still fighting with the powers of Darkness, not now the darkness of night,
but that of the heavy and gloomy clouds which roll up the sky and blind
the eye of day. His weapons are the lightning and the thunderbolt, and the
victory he achieves is turned to the good of the world he has created.

This is still more clearly set forth in an Ojibway myth. It relates that
in early days there was a mighty serpent, king of all serpents, whose home
was in the Great Lakes. Increasing the waters by his magic powers, he
began to flood the land, and threatened its total submergence. Then
Michabo rose from his couch at the sun-rising, attacked the huge reptile
and slew it by a cast of his dart. He stripped it of its skin, and
clothing himself in this trophy of conquest, drove all the other serpents
to the south.[1] As it is in the south that, in the country of the
Ojibways, the lightning is last seen in the autumn, and as the Algonkins,
both in their language and pictography, were accustomed to assimilate the
lightning in its zigzag course to the sinuous motion of the serpent,[2]
the meteorological character of this myth is very manifest.

[Footnote 1: H.R. Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, Vol. i, p. 179, Vol.
ii, p. 117. The word _animikig_ in Ojibway means "it thunders and
lightnings;" in their myths this tribe says that the West Wind is created
by Animiki, the Thunder. (Ibid. _Indian Tribes_, Vol. v, p. 420.)]

[Footnote 2: When Father Buteux was among the Algonkins, in 1637, they
explained to him the lightning as "a great serpent which the Manito vomits
up." (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, An. 1637, p. 53.) According to
John Tanner, the symbol for the lightning in Ojibway pictography was a
rattlesnake. (_Narrative_, p. 351.)]

Thus we see that Michabo, the hero-god of the Algonkins, was both the god
of light and day, of the winds and rains, and the creator, instructor and
teacher of mankind. The derivation of his name shows unmistakably that the
earliest form under which he was a mythological existence was as the
light-god. Later he became more familiar as god of the winds and storms,
the hero of the celestial warfare of the air-currents.

This is precisely the same change which we are enabled to trace in the
early transformations of Aryan religion. There, also, the older god of the
sky and light, Dyâus, once common to all members of the Indo-European
family, gave way to the more active deities, Indra, Zeus and Odin,
divinities of the storm and the wind, but which, after all, are merely
other aspects of the ancient deity, and occupied his place to the
religious sense.[1] It is essential, for the comprehension of early
mythology, to understand this twofold character, and to appreciate how
naturally the one merges into and springs out of the other.

[Footnote 1: This transformation is well set forth in Mr. Charles Francis
Keary's _Outlines of Primitive Belief Among the Indo-European Races_
(London, 1882), chaps, iv, vii. He observes: "The wind is a far more
physical and less abstract conception than the sky or heaven; it is also a
more variable phenomenon; and by reason of both these recommendations the
wind-god superseded the older Dyâus. * * * Just as the chief god of
Greece, having descended to be a divinity of storm, was not content to
remain only that, but grew again to some likeness of the older Dyâus, so
Odhinn came to absorb almost all the qualities which belong of right to a
higher god. Yet he did this without putting off his proper nature. He was
the heaven as well as the wind; he was the All-father, embracing all the
earth and looking down upon mankind."]

In almost every known religion the _bird_ is taken as a symbol of the sky,
the clouds and the winds. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that by
the Algonkins birds were considered, especially singing birds, as
peculiarly sacred to Michabo. He was their father and protector. He
himself sent forth the east wind from his home at the sun-rising; but he
appointed an owl to create the north wind, which blows from the realms of
darkness and cold; while that which is wafted from the sunny south is sent
by the butterfly.[1]

[Footnote 1: H.R. Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, Vol. i, p. 216. _Indian
Tribes_, Vol. v, p. 420.]

Michabo was thus at times the god of light, at others of the winds, and as
these are the rain-bringers, he was also at times spoken of as the god of
waters. He was said to have scooped out the basins of the lakes and to
have built the cataracts in the rivers, so that there should be fish
preserves and beaver dams.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Michabou, le Dieu des Eaux," etc. Charlevoix, _Journal
Historique_, p. 281 (Paris, 1721).]

In his capacity as teacher and instructor, it was he who had pointed out
to the ancestors of the Indians the roots and plants which are fit for
food, and which are of value as medicine; he gave them fire, and
recommended them never to allow it to become wholly extinguished in their
villages; the sacred rites of what is called the _meday_ or ordinary
religious ceremonial were defined and taught by him; the maize was his
gift, and the pleasant art of smoking was his invention.[1]

[Footnote 1: John Tanner, _Narrative of Captivity and Adventure_, p. 351.
Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, Vol. v, p. 420, etc.]

A curious addition to the story was told the early Swedish settlers on the
river Delaware by the Algonkin tribe which inhabited its shores. These
related that their various arts of domestic life and the chase were taught
them long ago by a venerable and eloquent man who came to them from a
distance, and having instructed them in what was desirable for them to
know, he departed, not to another region or by the natural course of
death, but by ascending into the sky. They added that this ancient and
beneficent teacher _wore a long beard_.[1] We might suspect that this last
trait was thought of after the bearded Europeans had been seen, did it not
occur so often in myths elsewhere on the continent, and in relics of art
finished long before the discovery, that another explanation must be found
for it. What this is I shall discuss when I come to speak of the more
Southern myths, whose heroes were often "white and bearded men from the
East."

[Footnote 1: Thomas Campanius (Holm), _Description of the Province of New
Sweden_, book iii, ch. xi. Campanius does not give the name of the
hero-god, but there can be no doubt that it was the "Great Hare."]


§2. _The Iroquois Myth of Ioskeha._[1]

[Footnote 1: The sources from which I draw the elements of the Iroquois
hero-myth of Ioskeha are mainly the following: _Relations de la Nouvelle
France_, 1636, 1640, 1671, etc. Sagard, _Histoire du Canada_, pp. 451, 452
(Paris, 1636); David Cusick, _Ancient History of the Six Nations_, and
manuscript material kindly furnished me by Horatio Hale, Esq., who has
made a thorough study of the Iroquois history and dialects.]

The most ancient myth of the Iroquois represents this earth as covered
with water, in which dwelt aquatic animals and monsters of the deep. Far
above it were the heavens, peopled by supernatural beings. At a certain
time one of these, a woman, by name Ataensic, threw herself through a rift
in the sky and fell toward the earth. What led her to this act was
variously recorded. Some said that it was to recover her dog which had
fallen through while chasing a bear. Others related that those who dwelt
in the world above lived off the fruit of a certain tree; that the husband
of Ataensic, being sick, dreamed that to restore him this tree must be cut
down; and that when Ataensic dealt it a blow with her stone axe, the tree
suddenly sank through the floor of the sky, and she precipitated herself
after it.

However the event occurred, she fell from heaven down to the primeval
waters. There a turtle offered her his broad back as a resting-place
until, from a little mud which was brought her, either by a frog, a beaver
or some other animal, she, by magic power, formed dry land on which to
reside.

At the time she fell from the sky she was pregnant, and in due time was
delivered of a daughter, whose name, unfortunately, the legend does not
record. This daughter grew to womanhood and conceived without having seen
a man, for none was as yet created. The product of her womb was twins, and
even before birth one of them betrayed his restless and evil nature, by
refusing to be born in the usual manner, but insisting on breaking through
his parent's side (or armpit). He did so, but it cost his mother her life.
Her body was buried, and from it sprang the various vegetable productions
which the new earth required to fit it for the habitation of man. From her
head grew the pumpkin vine; from her breast, the maize; from her limbs,
the bean and other useful esculents.

Meanwhile the two brothers grew up. The one was named Ioskeha. He went
about the earth, which at that time was arid and waterless, and called
forth the springs and lakes, and formed the sparkling brooks and broad
rivers. But his brother, the troublesome Tawiscara, he whose obstinacy had
caused their mother's death, created an immense frog which swallowed all
the water and left the earth as dry as before. Ioskeha was informed of
this by the partridge, and immediately set out for his brother's country,
for they had divided the earth between them.

Soon he came to the gigantic frog, and piercing it in the side (or
armpit), the waters flowed out once more in their accustomed ways. Then it
was revealed to Ioskeha by his mother's spirit that Tawiscara intended to
slay him by treachery. Therefore, when the brothers met, as they soon did,
it was evident that a mortal combat was to begin.

Now, they were not men, but gods, whom it was impossible really to kill,
nor even could either be seemingly slain, except by one particular
substance, a secret which each had in his own keeping. As therefore a
contest with ordinary weapons would have been vain and unavailing, they
agreed to tell each other what to each was the fatal implement of war.
Ioskeha acknowledged that to him a branch of the wild rose (or, according
to another version, a bag filled with maize) was more dangerous than
anything else; and Tawiscara disclosed that the horn of a deer could alone
reach his vital part.

They laid off the lists, and Tawiscara, having the first chance, attacked
his brother violently with a branch of the wild rose, and beat him till he
lay as one dead; but quickly reviving, Ioskeha assaulted Tawiscara with
the antler of a deer, and dealing him a blow in the side, the blood flowed
from the wound in streams. The unlucky combatant fled from the field,
hastening toward the west, and as he ran the drops of his blood which fell
upon the earth turned into flint stones. Ioskeha did not spare him, but
hastening after, finally slew him. He did not, however, actually kill him,
for, as I have said, these were beings who could not die; and, in fact,
Tawiscara was merely driven from the earth and forced to reside in the far
west, where he became ruler of the spirits of the dead. These go there to
dwell when they leave the bodies behind them here.

Ioskeha, returning, peaceably devoted himself to peopling the land. He
opened a cave which existed in the earth and allowed to come forth from it
all the varieties of animals with which the woods and prairies are
peopled. In order that they might be more easily caught by men, he wounded
every one in the foot except the wolf, which dodged his blow; for that
reason this beast is one of the most difficult to catch. He then formed
men and gave them life, and instructed them in the art of making fire,
which he himself had learned from the great tortoise. Furthermore he
taught them how to raise maize, and it is, in fact, Ioskeha himself who
imparts fertility to the soil, and through his bounty and kindness the
grain returns a hundred fold.

Nor did they suppose that he was a distant, invisible, unapproachable god.
No, he was ever at hand with instruction and assistance. Was there to be a
failure in the harvest, he would be seen early in the season, thin with
anxiety about his people, holding in his hand a blighted ear of corn. Did
a hunter go out after game, he asked the aid of Ioskeha, who would put fat
animals in the way, were he so minded. At their village festivals he was
present and partook of the cheer.

Once, in 1640, when the smallpox was desolating the villages of the
Hurons, we are told by Father Lalemant that an Indian said there had
appeared to him a beautiful youth, of imposing stature, and addressed him
with these words: "Have no fear; I am the master of the earth, whom you
Hurons adore under the name _Ioskeha_. The French wrongly call me Jesus,
because they do not know me. It grieves me to see the pestilence that is
destroying my people, and I come to teach you its cause and its remedy.
Its cause is the presence of these strangers; and its remedy is to drive
out these black robes (the missionaries), to drink of a certain water
which I shall tell you of, and to hold a festival in my honor, which must
be kept up all night, until the dawn of day."

The home of Ioskeha is in the far East, at that part of the horizon where
the sun rises. There he has his cabin, and there he dwells with his
grandmother, the wise Ataensic. She is a woman of marvelous magical power,
and is capable of assuming any shape she pleases. In her hands is the fate
of all men's lives, and while Ioskeha looks after the things of life, it
is she who appoints the time of death, and concerns herself with all that
relates to the close of existence. Hence she was feared, not exactly as a
maleficent deity, but as one whose business is with what is most dreaded
and gloomy.

It was said that on a certain occasion four bold young men determined to
journey to the sun-rising and visit the great Ioskeha. They reached his
cabin and found him there alone. He received them affably and they
conversed pleasantly, but at a certain moment he bade them hide themselves
for their life, as his grandmother was coming. They hastily concealed
themselves, and immediately Ataensic entered. Her magic insight had warned
her of the presence of guests, and she had assumed the form of a beautiful
girl, dressed in gay raiment, her neck and arms resplendent with collars
and bracelets of wampum. She inquired for the guests, but Ioskeha, anxious
to save them, dissembled, and replied that he knew not what she meant. She
went forth to search for them, when he called them forth from their hiding
place and bade them flee, and thus they escaped.

It was said of Ioskeha that he acted the part of husband to his
grandmother. In other words, the myth presents the germ of that conception
which the priests of ancient Egypt endeavored to express when they taught
that Osiris was "his own father and his own son," that he was the
"self-generating one," even that he was "the father of his own mother."
These are grossly materialistic expressions, but they are perfectly clear
to the student of mythology. They are meant to convey to the mind the
self-renewing power of life in nature, which is exemplified in the sowing
and the seeding, the winter and the summer, the dry and the rainy seasons,
and especially the sunset and sunrise. They are echoes in the soul of man
of the ceaseless rhythm in the operations of nature, and they become the
only guarantors of his hopes for immortal life.[1]

[Footnote 1: Such epithets were common, in the Egyptian religion, to most
of the gods of fertility. Amun, called in some of the inscriptions "the
soul of Osiris," derives his name from the root _men_, to impregnate, to
beget. In the Karnak inscriptions he is also termed "the husband of his
mother." This, too, was the favorite appellation of Chem, who was a form
of Horos. See Dr. C.P. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, pp. 124,
146. 149, 150, etc.]

Let us look at the names in the myth before us, for confirmation of this.
_Ioskeha_ is in the Oneida dialect of the Iroquois an impersonal verbal
form of the third person singular, and means literally, "it is about to
grow white," that is, to become light, to dawn. _Ataensic_ is from the
root _aouen_, water, and means literally, "she who is in the water."[1]
Plainly expressed, the sense of the story is that the orb of light rises
daily out of the boundless waters which are supposed to surround the land,
preceded by the dawn, which fades away as soon as the sun has risen. Each
day the sun disappears in these waters, to rise again from them the
succeeding morning. As the approach of the sun causes the dawn, it was
merely a gross way of stating this to say that the solar god was the
father of his own mother, the husband of his grandmother.

[Footnote 1: I have analyzed these words in a note to another work, and
need not repeat the matter here, the less so, as I am not aware that the
etymology has been questioned. See _Myths of the New World_, 2d Ed., p.
183, note.]

The position of Ioskeha in mythology is also shown by the other name under
which he was, perhaps, even more familiar to most of the Iroquois. This is
_Tharonhiawakon_, which is also a verbal form of the third person, with
the dual sign, and literally means, "He holds (or holds up) the sky with
his two arms."[1] In other words, he is nearly allied to the ancient Aryan
Dyâus, the Sky, the Heavens, especially the Sky in the daytime.

[Footnote 1: A careful analysis of this name is given by Father J.A. Cuoq,
probably the best living authority on the Iroquois, in his _Lexique de la
Langue Iroquoise_, p. 180 (Montreal, 1882). Here also the Iroquois
followed precisely the line of thought of the ancient Egyptians. Shu, in
the religion of Heliopolis, represented the cosmic light and warmth, the
quickening, creative principle. It is he who, as it is stated in the
inscriptions, "holds up the heavens," and he is depicted on the monuments
as a man with uplifted arms who supports the vault of heaven, because it
is the intermediate light that separates the earth from the sky. Shu was
also god of the winds; in a passage of the Book of the Dead, he is made to
say: "I am Shu, who drives the winds onward to the confines of heaven, to
the confines of the earth, even to the confines of space." Again, like
Ioskeha, Shu is said to have begotten himself in the womb of his mother,
Nu or Nun, who was, like Ataensic, the goddess of water, the heavenly
ocean, the primal sea. Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, pp.
84-86.]

The signification of the conflict with his twin brother is also clearly
seen in the two names which the latter likewise bears in the legends. One
of these is that which I have given, _Tawiscara_, which, there is little
doubt, is allied to the root, _tiokaras_, it grows dark. The other is
_Tehotennhiaron_, the root word of which is _kannhia_, the flint stone.
This name he received because, in his battle with his brother, the drops
of blood which fell from his wounds were changed into flints.[1] Here the
flint had the same meaning which I have already pointed out in Algonkin
myth, and we find, therefore, an absolute identity of mythological
conception and symbolism between the two nations.

[Footnote 1: Cuoq, _Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise_, p. 180, who gives a
full analysis of the name.]

Could these myths have been historically identical? It is hard to
disbelieve it. Yet the nations were bitter enemies. Their languages are
totally unlike. These same similarities present themselves over such wide
areas and between nations so remote and of such different culture, that
the theory of a parallelism of development is after all the more credible
explanation.

The impressions which natural occurrences make on minds of equal stages of
culture are very much alike. The same thoughts are evoked, and the same
expressions suggest themselves as appropriate to convey these thoughts in
spoken language. This is often exhibited in the identity of expression
between master-poets of the same generation, and between cotemporaneous
thinkers in all branches of knowledge. Still more likely is it to occur in
primitive and uncultivated conditions, where the most obvious forms of
expression are at once adopted, and the resources of the mind are
necessarily limited. This is a simple and reasonable explanation for the
remarkable sameness which prevails in the mental products of the lower
stages of civilization, and does away with the necessity of supposing a
historic derivation one from the other or both from a common stock.



CHAPTER III.

THE HERO-GOD OF THE AZTEC TRIBES.

§1. _The Two Antagonists._

THE CONTEST OF QUETZALCOATL AND TEZCATLIPOCA--QUETZALCOATL THE
LIGHT-GOD--DERIVATION OF HIS NAME--TITLES OF TEZCATLIPOCA--IDENTIFIED WITH
DARKNESS, NIGHT AND GLOOM.

§2. _Quetzalcoatl the God._

MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS--THE FOUR SUNS AND THE ELEMENTAL CONFLICT--NAMES
OF THE FOUR BROTHERS.

§3. _Quetzalcoatl the Hero of Tula._

TULA THE CITY OF THE SUN--WHO WERE THE TOLTECS?--TLAPALLAN AND XALAC--THE
BIRTH OF THE HERO-GOD--HIS VIRGIN MOTHER, CHIMALMATL--HIS MIRACULOUS
CONCEPTION--AZTLAN, THE LAND OF SEVEN CAVES, AND COLHUACAN, THE BENDED
MOUNT--THE MAID XOCHITL AND THE ROSE GARDEN OF THE GODS--QUETZALCOATL AS
THE WHITE AND BEARDED STRANGER.

THE GLORY OF THE LORD OF TULA--THE SUBTLETY OF THE SORCERER,
TEZCATLIPOCA--THE MAGIC MIRROR AND THE MYSTIC DRAUGHT--THE MYTH
EXPLAINED--THE PROMISE OF REJUVENATION--THE TOVEYO AND THE MAIDEN--THE
JUGGLERIES OF TEZCATLIPOCA--DEPARTURE OF QUETZALCOATL FROM
TULA--QUETZALCOATL AT CHOLULA--HIS DEATH OR DEPARTURE--THE CELESTIAL GAME
OF BALL AND TIGER SKIN--QUETZALCOATL AS THE PLANET VENUS.

§4. _Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds._

THE LORD OF THE FOUR WINDS--HIS SYMBOLS THE WHEEL OF THE WINDS, THE
PENTAGON AND THE CROSS--CLOSE RELATION TO THE GODS OF RAIN AND
WATERS--INVENTOR OF THE CALENDAR--GOD OF FERTILITY AND
CONCEPTION--RECOMMENDS SEXUAL AUSTERITY--PHALLIC SYMBOLS--GOD OF
MERCHANTS--THE PATRON OF THIEVES--HIS PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS.

§5. _The Return of Quetzalcoatl._

HIS EXPECTED RE-APPEARANCE--THE ANXIETY OF MONTEZUMA--HIS ADDRESS TO
CORTES--THE GENERAL EXPECTATION--EXPLANATION OF HIS PREDICTED RETURN.


I now turn from the wild hunting tribes who peopled the shores of the
Great Lakes and the fastnesses of the northern forests to that cultivated
race whose capital city was in the Valley of Mexico, and whose scattered
colonies were found on the shores of both oceans from the mouths of the
Rio Grande and the Gila, south, almost to the Isthmus of Panama. They are
familiarly known as Aztecs or Mexicans, and the language common to them
all was the _Nahuatl_, a word of their own, meaning "the pleasant
sounding."

Their mythology has been preserved in greater fullness than that of any
other American people, and for this reason I am enabled to set forth in
ampler detail the elements of their hero-myth, which, indeed, may be taken
as the most perfect type of those I have collected in this volume.



§1. _The Two Antagonists._

The culture hero of the Aztecs was Quetzalcoatl, and the leading drama,
the central myth, in all the extensive and intricate theology of the
Nahuatl speaking tribes was his long contest with Tezcatlipoca, "a
contest," observes an eminent Mexican antiquary, "which came to be the
main element in the Nahuatl religion and the cause of its modifications,
and which materially influenced the destinies of that race from its
earliest epochs to the time of its destruction."[1]

[Footnote 1: Alfredo Chavero, _La Piedra del Sol_, in the _Anales del
Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p. 247.]

The explanations which have been offered of this struggle have varied with
the theories of the writers propounding them. It has been regarded as a
simple historical fact; as a figure of speech to represent the struggle
for supremacy between two races; as an astronomical statement referring to
the relative positions of the planet Venus and the Moon; as a conflict
between Christianity, introduced by Saint Thomas, and the native
heathenism; and as having other meanings not less unsatisfactory or
absurd.

Placing it side by side with other American hero-myths, we shall see that
it presents essentially the same traits, and undoubtedly must be explained
in the same manner. All of them are the transparent stories of a simple
people, to express in intelligible terms the daily struggle that is ever
going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm
and Sunshine.

Like all the heroes of light, Quetzalcoatl is identified with the East. He
is born there, and arrives from there, and hence Las Casas and others
speak of him as from Yucatan, or as landing on the shores of the Mexican
Gulf from some unknown land. His day of birth was that called Ce Acatl,
One Reed, and by this name he is often known. But this sign is that of the
East in Aztec symbolism.[1] In a myth of the formation of the sun and
moon, presented by Sahagun,[2] a voluntary victim springs into the
sacrificial fire that the gods have built. They know that he will rise as
the sun, but they do not know in what part of the horizon that will be.
Some look one way, some another, but Quetzalcoatl watches steadily the
East, and is the first to see and welcome the Orb of Light. He is fair in
complexion, with abundant hair and a full beard, bordering on the red,[3]
as are all the dawn heroes, and like them he was an instructor in the
arts, and favored peace and mild laws.

[Footnote 1: Chavero, _Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p.
14, 243.]

[Footnote 2: _Historia de las Cosas de Nueva España_, Lib. VII, cap. II.]

[Footnote 3: "La barba longa entre cana y roja; el cabello largo, muy
llano." Diego Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, Vol. viii, p. 260.]

His name is symbolic, and is capable of several equally fair renderings.
The first part of it, _quetzalli_, means literally a large, handsome green
feather, such as were very highly prized by the natives. Hence it came to
mean, in an adjective sense, precious, beautiful, beloved, admirable. The
bird from which these feathers were obtained was the _quetzal-tototl_
(_tototl_, bird) and is called by ornithologists _Trogon splendens_.

The latter part of the name, _coatl_, has in Aztec three entirely
different meanings. It means a guest, also twins, and lastly, as a
syncopated form of _cohuatl_, a serpent. Metaphorically, _cohuatl_ meant
something mysterious, and hence a supernatural being, a god. Thus
Montezuma, when he built a temple in the city of Mexico dedicated to the
whole body of divinities, a regular Pantheon, named it _Coatecalli_, the
House of the Serpent.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Coatecalli, que quiere decir el _templo de la culebra_, que
sin metáfora quiere decir _templo de diversos dioses_." Duran, _Historia
de las Indias de Nueva España_, cap. LVIII.]

Through these various meanings a good defence can be made of several
different translations of the name, and probably it bore even to the
natives different meanings at different times. I am inclined to believe
that the original sense was that advocated by Becerra in the seventeenth
century, and adopted by Veitia in the eighteenth, both competent Aztec
scholars.[1] They translate Quetzalcoatl as "the admirable twin," and
though their notion that this refers to Thomas Didymus, the Apostle, does
not meet my views, I believe they were right in their etymology. The
reference is to the duplicate nature of the Light-God as seen in the
setting and rising sun, the sun of to-day and yesterday, the same yet
different. This has its parallels in many other mythologies.[2]

[Footnote 1: Becerra, _Felicidad de Méjico_, 1685, quoted in Veitia,
_Historia del Origen de las Gentes que poblaron la América Septentrional_,
cap. XIX.]

[Footnote 2: In the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," Ra, the Sun-God, says, "I
am a soul and its twins," or, "My soul is becoming two twins." "This means
that the soul of the sun-god is one, but, now that it is born again, it
divides into two principal forms. Ra was worshipped at An, under his two
prominent manifestations, as Tum the primal god, or more definitely, god
of the sun at evening, and as Harmachis, god of the new sun, the sun at
dawn." Tiele, _History of the Egyptian Religion_, p. 80.]

The correctness of this supposition seems to be shown by a prevailing
superstition among the Aztecs about twins, and which strikingly
illustrates the uniformity of mythological conceptions throughout the
world. All readers are familiar with the twins Romulus and Remus in Roman
story, one of whom was fated to destroy their grandfather Amulius; with
Edipus and Telephos, whose father Laios, was warned that his death would
be by one of his children; with Theseus and Peirithoos, the former
destined to cause the suicide of his father Aigeus; and with many more
such myths. They can be traced, without room for doubt, back to simple
expressions of the fact that the morning and the evening of the one day
can only come when the previous day is past and gone; expressed
figuratively by the statement that any one day must destroy its
predecessor. This led to the stories of "the fatal children," which we
find so frequent in Aryan mythology.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George W. Cox, _The Science of Comparative Mythology and
Folk Lore_, pp. 14, 83, 130, etc.]

The Aztecs were a coarse and bloody race, and carried out their
superstitions without remorse. Based, no doubt, on this mythical
expression of a natural occurrence, they had the belief that if twins were
allowed to live, one or the other of them would kill and eat his father or
mother; therefore, it was their custom when such were brought into the
world to destroy one of them.[1]

[Footnote 1: Gerónimo de Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_. Lib.
II, cap. XIX.]

We shall see that, as in Algonkin story Michabo strove to slay his father,
the West Wind, so Quetzalcoatl was in constant warfare with his father,
Tezcatlipoca-Camaxtli, the Spirit of Darkness. The effect of this
oft-repeated myth on the minds of the superstitious natives was to lead
them to the brutal child murder I have mentioned.

It was, however, natural that the more ordinary meaning, "the feathered or
bird-serpent," should become popular, and in the picture writing some
combination of the serpent with feathers or other part of a bird was often
employed as the rebus of the name Quetzalcoatl.

He was also known by other names, as, like all the prominent gods in early
mythologies, he had various titles according to the special attribute or
function which was uppermost in the mind of the worshipper. One of these
was _Papachtic_, He of the Flowing Locks, a word which the Spaniards
shortened to Papa, and thought was akin to their title of the Pope. It is,
however, a pure Nahuatl word,[1] and refers to the abundant hair with
which he was always credited, and which, like his ample beard, was, in
fact, the symbol of the sun's rays, the aureole or glory of light which
surrounded his face.

[Footnote 1: "_Papachtic_, guedejudo; _Papachtli_, guedeja o vedija de
capellos, o de otra cosa assi." Molina, _Vocabulario de la Lengua
Mexicana_. sub voce. Juan de Tobar, in Kingsborough, Vol. viii, p. 259,
note.]

His fair complexion was, as usual, significant of light. This association
of ideas was so familiar among the Mexicans that at the time of an eclipse
of the sun they sought out the whitest men and women they could find, and
sacrificed them, in order to pacify the sun.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap.
xvi.]

His opponent, Tezcatlipoca, was the most sublime figure in the Aztec
Pantheon. He towered above all other gods, as did Jove in Olympus. He was
appealed to as the creator of heaven and earth, as present in every place,
as the sole ruler of the world, as invisible and omniscient.

The numerous titles by which he was addressed illustrate the veneration in
which he was held. His most common name in prayers was _Titlacauan_, We
are his Slaves. As believed to be eternally young, he was Telpochtli, the
Youth; as potent and unpersuadable, he was _Moyocoyatzin_, the Determined
Doer;[1] as exacting in worship, _Monenegui_, He who Demands Prayers; as
the master of the race, _Teyocoyani_, Creator of Men, and _Teimatini_,
Disposer of Men. As he was jealous and terrible, the god who visited on
men plagues, and famines, and loathsome diseases, the dreadful deity who
incited wars and fomented discord, he was named _Yaotzin_, the Arch Enemy,
_Yaotl necoc_, the Enemy of both Sides, _Moquequeloa_, the Mocker,
_Nezaualpilli_, the Lord who Fasts, _Tlamatzincatl_, He who Enforces
Penitence; and as dark, invisible and inscrutable, he was _Yoalli
ehecatl_, the Night Wind.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Moyocoyatzin_, is the third person singular of _yocoya_, to
do, to make, with the reverential termination _tzin_. Sahagun says this
title was given him because he could do what he pleased, on earth or in
heaven, and no one could prevent him. (Historia de Nueva España, Lib. III.
cap. II.) It seems to me that it would rather refer to his demiurgic,
creative power.]

[Footnote 2: All these titles are to be found in Sahagun, _Historia de
Nueva España_.]

He was said to be formed of thin air and darkness; and when he was seen of
men it was as a shadow without substance. He alone of all the gods defied
the assaults of time, was ever young and strong, and grew not old with
years.[1] Against such an enemy who could hope for victory?

[Footnote 1: The description of Clavigero is worth quoting: "TEZCATLIPOCA:
Questo era il maggior Dio, che in que paesi si adorava, dopo il Dio
invisible, o Supremo Essere. Era il Dio della Providenza, l' anima del
Mondo, il Creator del Cielo e della Terra, ed il Signor di tutle le cose.
Rappresentavanlo tuttora giovane per significare, che non s' invecchiava
mai, nè s' indeboliva cogli anni." _Storia Antica di Messico_, Lib. vi, p.
7.]

The name "Tezcatlipoca" is one of odd significance. It means The Smoking
Mirror. This strange metaphor has received various explanations. The
mirrors in use among the Aztecs were polished plates of obsidian, trimmed
to a circular form. There was a variety of this black stone called
_tezcapoctli_, smoky mirror stone, and from this his images were at times
made.[1] This, however, seems too trivial an explanation.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. ii, cap. xxxvii.]

Others have contended that Tezcatlipoca, as undoubtedly the spirit of
darkness and the night, refers, in its meaning, to the moon, which hangs
like a bright round mirror in the sky, though partly dulled by what the
natives thought a smoke.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 257.]

I am inclined to believe, however, that the mirror referred to is that
first and most familiar of all, the surface of water: and that the smoke
is the mist which at night rises from lake and river, as actual smoke does
in the still air.

As presiding over the darkness and the night, dreams and the phantoms of
the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred
those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk and the coyote.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_. Lib. vi, caps. ix, xi, xii.]

Thus his names, his various attributes, his sacred animals and his myths
unite in identifying this deity as a primitive personification of the
Darkness, whether that of the storm or of the night.[1]

[Footnote 1: Señor Alfredo Chavero believes Tezcatlipoca to have been
originally the moon, and there is little doubt at times this was one of
his symbols, as the ruler of the darkness. M. Girard de Rialle, on the
other hand, claims him as a solar deity. "Il est la personnification du
soleil sous son aspect corrupteur et destructeur, ennemi des hommes et de
la nature." _La Mythologie Comparée_, p. 334 (Paris, 1878). A closer study
of the original authorities would, I am sure, have led M. de Rialle to
change this opinion. He is singularly far from the conclusion reached by
M. Ternaux-Compans, who says: "Tezcatlipoca fût la personnification du bon
principe." _Essai sur la Théogonie Mexicaine_, p. 23 (Paris, 1840). Both
opinions are equally incomplete. Dr. Schultz-Sellack considers him the
"Wassergott," and assigns him to the North, in his essay, _Die
Amerikanischen Götter der Vier Weltgegenden, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
Bd. xi, 1879. This approaches more closely to his true character.]

This is further shown by the beliefs current as to his occasional
appearance on earth. This was always at night and in the gloom of the
forest. The hunter would hear a sound like the crash of falling trees,
which would be nothing else than the mighty breathings of the giant form
of the god on his nocturnal rambles. Were the hunter timorous he would die
outright on seeing the terrific presence of the god; but were he of
undaunted heart, and should rush upon him and seize him around the waist,
the god was helpless and would grant him anything he wished. "Ask what you
please," the captive deity would say, "and it is yours. Only fail not to
release me before the sun rises. For I must leave before it appears."[1]

[Footnote 1: Torquemada, _Monarquía Indiana_, Lib. XIV, cap. XXII.]


§2. _Quetzalcoatl the God._

In the ancient and purely mythical narrative, Quetzalcoatl is one of four
divine brothers, gods like himself, born in the uttermost or thirteenth
heaven to the infinite and uncreated deity, which, in its male
manifestations, was known as _Tonaca tecutli_, Lord of our Existence, and
_Tzin teotl_, God of the Beginning, and in its female expressions as
_Tonaca cihuatl_, Queen of our Existence, _Xochiquetzal_, Beautiful Rose,
_Citlallicue_, the Star-skirted or the Milky Way, _Citlalatonac_, the Star
that warms, or The Morning, and _Chicome coatl_, the Seven Serpents.[1]

[Footnote 1: The chief authorities on the birth of the god Quetzalcoatl,
are Ramirez de Fuen-leal _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas_,
Cap. i, printed in the _Anales del Museo Nacional_; the _Codex
Telleriano-Remensis_, and the _Codex Vaticanus_, both of which are in
Kingsborough's _Mexican Antiquities_.

The usual translation of _Tonaca tecutli_ is "God of our Subsistence,"
_to_, our, _naca_, flesh, _tecutli_, chief or lord. It really has a more
subtle meaning. _Naca_ is not applied to edible flesh--that is expressed
by the word _nonoac_--but is the flesh of our own bodies, our life,
existence. See _Anales de Cuauhtitlan_, p. 18, note.]

Of these four brothers, two were the black and the red Tezcatlipoca, and
the fourth was Huitzilopochtli, the Left handed, the deity adored beyond
all others in the city of Mexico. Tezcatlipoca--for the two of the name
blend rapidly into one as the myth progresses--was wise beyond compute; he
knew all thoughts and hearts, could see to all places, and was
distinguished for power and forethought.

At a certain time the four brothers gathered together and consulted
concerning the creation of things. The work was left to Quetzalcoatl and
Huitzilopochtli. First they made fire, then half a sun, the heavens, the
waters and a certain great fish therein, called Cipactli, and from its
flesh the solid earth. The first mortals were the man, Cipactonal, and the
woman, Oxomuco,[1] and that the son born to them might have a wife, the
four gods made one for him out of a hair taken from the head of their
divine mother, Xochiquetzal.

[Footnote 1: The names Cipactli and Cipactonal have not been
satisfactorily analyzed. The derivation offered by Señor Chavero (_Anales
del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p.116), is merely fanciful; _tonal_ is no
doubt from _tona_, to shine, to warn; and I think _cipactli_ is a softened
form with the personal ending from _chipauac_, something beautiful or
clear. Hence the meaning of the compound is The Beautiful Shining One.
Oxomuco, which Chavero derives from _xomitl_, foot, is perhaps the same as
_Xmukane_, the mother of the human race, according to the _Popol Vuh_, a
name which, I have elsewhere shown, appears to be from a Maya root,
meaning to conceal or bury in the ground. The hint is of the fertilizing
action of the warm light on the seed hidden in the soil. See _The Names of
the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Trans. of the Amer. Phil. Soc._ 1881.]

Now began the struggle between the two brothers, Tezcatlipoca and
Quetzalcoatl, which was destined to destroy time after time the world,
with all its inhabitants, and to plunge even the heavenly luminaries into
a common ruin.

The half sun created by Quetzalcoatl lighted the world but poorly, and the
four gods came together to consult about adding another half to it. Not
waiting for their decision, Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into a sun,
whereupon the other gods filled the world with great giants, who could
tear up trees with their hands. When an epoch of thirteen times fifty-two
years had passed, Quetzalcoatl seized a great stick, and with a blow of it
knocked Tezcatlipoca from the sky into the waters, and himself became sun.
The fallen god transformed himself into a tiger, and emerged from the
waves to attack and devour the giants with which his brothers had
enviously filled the world which he had been lighting from the sky. After
this, he passed to the nocturnal heavens, and became the constellation of
the Great Bear.

For an epoch the earth flourished under Quetzalcoatl as sun, but
Tezcatlipoca was merely biding his time, and the epoch ended, he appeared
as a tiger and gave Quetzalcoatl such a blow with his paw that it hurled
him from the skies. The overthrown god revenged himself by sweeping the
earth with so violent a tornado that it destroyed all the inhabitants but
a few, and these were changed into monkeys. His victorious brother then
placed in the heavens, as sun, Tlaloc, the god of darkness, water and
rains, but after half an epoch, Quetzalcoatl poured a flood of fire upon
the earth, drove Tlaloc from the sky, and placed in his stead, as sun, the
goddess Chalchiutlicue, the Emerald Skirted, wife of Tlaloc. In her time
the rains poured so upon the earth that all human beings were drowned or
changed into fishes, and at last the heavens themselves fell, and sun and
stars were alike quenched.

Then the two brothers whose strife had brought this ruin, united their
efforts and raised again the sky, resting it on two mighty trees, the Tree
of the Mirror (_tezcaquahuitl_) and the Beautiful Great Rose Tree
(_quetzalveixochitl_), on which the concave heavens have ever since
securely rested; though we know them better, perhaps, if we drop the
metaphor and call them the "mirroring sea" and the "flowery earth," on one
of which reposes the horizon, in whichever direction we may look.

Again the four brothers met together to provide a sun for the now darkened
earth. They decided to make one, indeed, but such a one as would eat the
hearts and drink the blood of victims, and there must be wars upon the
earth, that these victims could be obtained for the sacrifice. Then
Quetzalcoatl builded a great fire and took his son--his son born of his
own flesh, without the aid of woman--and cast him into the flames, whence
he rose into the sky as the sun which lights the world. When the Light-God
kindles the flames of the dawn in the orient sky, shortly the sun emerges
from below the horizon and ascends the heavens. Tlaloc, god of waters,
followed, and into the glowing ashes of the pyre threw his son, who rose
as the moon.

Tezcatlipoca had it now in mind to people the earth, and he, therefore,
smote a certain rock with a stick, and from it issued four hundred
barbarians (_chichimeca_).[1] Certain five goddesses, however, whom he had
already created in the eighth heaven, descended and slew these four
hundred, all but three. These goddesses likewise died before the sun
appeared, but came into being again from the garments they had left
behind. So also did the four hundred Chichimecs, and these set about to
burn one of the five goddesses, by name Coatlicue, the Serpent Skirted,
because it was discovered that she was with child, though yet unmarried.
But, in fact, she was a spotless virgin, and had known no man. She had
placed some white plumes in her bosom, and through these the god
Huitzilopochtli entered her body to be born again. When, therefore, the
four hundred had gathered together to burn her, the god came forth fully
armed and slew them every one.

[Footnote 1: The name Chichimeca has been a puzzle. The derivation appears
to be from _chichi_, a dog, _mecatl_, a rope. According to general
tradition the Chichimecs were a barbarous people who inhabited Mexico
before the Aztecs came. Yet Sahagun says the Toltecs were the real
Chichimecs (Lib. x, cap. xxix). In the myth we are now considering, they
were plainly the stars.]

It is not hard to guess who are these four hundred youths slain before the
sun rises, destined to be restored to life and yet again destroyed. The
veil of metaphor is thin which thus conceals to our mind the picture of
the myriad stars quenched every morning by the growing light, but
returning every evening to their appointed places. And did any doubt
remain, it is removed by the direct statement in the echo of this
tradition preserved by the Kiches of Guatemala, wherein it is plainly said
that the four hundred youths who were put to death by Zipacna, and
restored to life by Hunhun Ahpu, "rose into the sky and became the stars
of heaven."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Popol Vuh, Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, p. 193.]

Indeed, these same ancient men whose explanations I have been following
added that the four hundred men whom Tezcatlipoca created continued yet to
live in the third heaven, and were its guards and watchmen. They were of
five colors, yellow, black, white, blue and red, which in the symbolism of
their tongue meant that they were distributed around the zenith and to
each of the four cardinal points.[1]

[Footnote 1: See H. de Charencey, _Des Couleurs Considérées comme Symboles
des Points de l'Horizon chez les Peuples du Nouveau Monde_, in the _Actes
de la Société Philologiques_, Tome vi. No. 3.]

Nor did these sages suppose that the struggle of the dark Tezcatlipoca to
master the Light-God had ceased; no, they knew he was biding his time,
with set purpose and a fixed certainty of success. They knew that in the
second heaven there were certain frightful women, without flesh or bones,
whose names were the Terrible, or the Thin Dart-Throwers, who were waiting
there until this world should end, when they would descend and eat up all
mankind.[1] Asked concerning the time of this destruction, they replied
that as to the day or season they knew it not, but it would be "when
Tezcatlipoca should steal the sun from heaven for himself"; in other
words, when eternal night should close in upon the Universe.[2]

[Footnote 1: These frightful beings were called the _Tzitzimime_, a word
which Molina in his Vocabulary renders "cosa espantosa ó cosa de aguero."
For a thorough discussion of their place in Mexican mythology, see _Anales
del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, pp. 358-372.]

[Footnote 2: The whole of this version of the myth is from the work of
Ramirez de Fuen-leal, which I consider in some respects the most valuable
authority we possess. It was taken directly from the sacred books of the
Aztecs, as explained by the most competent survivors of the Conquest.]

The myth which I have here given in brief is a prominent one in Aztec
cosmogony, and is known as that of the Ages of the World or the Suns. The
opinion was widely accepted that the present is the fifth age or period of
the world's history; that it has already undergone four destructions by
various causes, and that the present period is also to terminate in
another such catastrophe. The agents of such universal ruin have been a
great flood, a world-wide conflagration, frightful tornadoes and famine,
earthquakes and wild beasts, and hence the Ages, Suns or Periods were
called respectively, from their terminations, those of Water, Fire, Air
and Earth. As we do not know the destiny of the fifth, the present one, it
has as yet no name.

I shall not attempt to go into the details of this myth, the less so as it
has recently been analyzed with much minuteness by the Mexican antiquary
Chavero.[1] I will merely point out that it is too closely identified with
a great many similar myths for us to be allowed to seek an origin for it
peculiar to Mexican or even American soil. We can turn to the Tualati who
live in Oregon, and they will tell us of the four creations and
destructions of mankind; how at the end of the first Age all human beings
were changed into stars; at the end of the second they became stones; at
the end of the third into fishes; and at the close of the fourth they
disappeared, to give place to the tribes that now inhabit the world.[2] Or
we can read from the cuneiform inscriptions of ancient Babylon, and find
the four destructions of the race there specified, as by a flood, by wild
beasts, by famine and by pestilence.[3]

[Footnote 1: Alfredo Chavero, _La Piedra del Sol_, in the _Anales del
Museo Nacional_, Tom. i, p. 353, et seq.]

[Footnote 2: A.S. Gatschet, _The Four Creations of Mankind_, a Tualati
myth, in _Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington_, Vol.
i, p. 60 (1881).]

[Footnote 3: Paul Haupt, _Der Keilinschriftliche Sintfluthbericht_, p. 17
(Leipzig, 1881).]

The explanation which I have to give of these coincidences--which could
easily be increased--is that the number four was chosen as that of the
four cardinal points, and that the fifth or present age, that in which we
live, is that which is ruled by the ruler of the four points, by the
Spirit of Light, who was believed to govern them, as, in fact, the early
dawn does, by defining the relations of space, act as guide and governor
of the motions of men.

All through Aztec mythology, traditions and customs, we can discover this
ancient myth of the four brothers, the four ancestors of their race, or
the four chieftains who led their progenitors to their respective
habitations. The rude mountaineers of Meztitlan, who worshiped with
particular zeal Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, and had inscribed, in
gigantic figures, the sacred five points, symbol of the latter, on the
side of a vast precipice in their land, gave the symbolic titles to the
primeval quadruplet;--

_Ixcuin_, He who has four faces.

_Hueytecpatl_, the ancient Flint-stone.

_Tentetemic_, the Lip-stone that slays.

_Nanacatltzatzi_, He who speaks when intoxicated with the poisonous
mushroom, called _nanacatl_.

These four brothers, according to the myth, were born of the goddess,
Hueytonantzin, which means "our great, ancient mother," and, with unfilial
hands, turned against her and slew her, sacrificing her to the Sun and
offering her heart to that divinity.[1] In other words, it is the old
story of the cardinal points, defined at daybreak by the Dawn, the eastern
Aurora, which is lost in or sacrificed to the Sun on its appearance.

[Footnote 1: Gabriel de Chaves, _Relacion de la Provincia de Meztitlan_,
1556, in the _Colecion de Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias_, Tom.
iv, pp. 535 and 536. The translations of the names are not given by
Chaves, but I think they are correct, except, possibly, the third, which
may be a compound of _tentetl_, lipstone, _temictli_, dream, instead of
with _temicti_, slayer.]

Of these four brothers I suspect the first, Ixcuin, "he who looks four
ways," or "has four faces," is none other than Quetzalcoatl,[1] while the
Ancient Flint is probably Tezcatlipoca, thus bringing the myth into
singularly close relationship with that of the Iroquois, given on a
previous page.

[Footnote 1: _Ixcuina_ was also the name of the goddess of pleasure. The
derivation is from _ixtli_, face, _cui_, to take, and _na_, four. See the
note of MM. Jourdanet and Simeon to their translation of Sahagun,
_Historia_ p. 22.]

Another myth of the Aztecs gave these four brothers or primitive heroes,
as:--

Huitzilopochtli.
Huitznahua.
Itztlacoliuhqui.
Pantecatl.

Of these Dr. Schultz-Sellack advances plausible reasons for believing that
Itztlacoliuhqui, which was the name of a certain form of head-dress, was
another title of Quetzalcoatl; and that Pantecatl was one of the names of
Tezcatlipoca.[1] If this is the case we have here another version of the
same myth.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Schultz Sellack, _Die Amerikanischen Götter der Vier
Weltgegenden und ihre Tempel in Palenque_, in the _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, Bd. xi, (1879).]


§3. _Quetzalcoatl, the Hero of Tula._

But it was not Quetzalcoatl the god, the mysterious creator of the visible
world, on whom the thoughts of the Aztec race delighted to dwell, but on
Quetzalcoatl, high priest in the glorious city of Tollan (Tula), the
teacher of the arts, the wise lawgiver, the virtuous prince, the master
builder and the merciful judge.

Here, again, though the scene is transferred from heaven to earth and from
the cycles of other worlds to a date not extremely remote, the story
continues to be of his contest with Tezcatlipoca, and of the wiles of this
enemy, now diminished to a potent magician and jealous rival, to
dispossess and drive him from famous Tollan.

No one versed in the metaphors of mythology can be deceived by the thin
veil of local color which surrounds the myth in this its terrestrial and
historic form. Apart from its being but a repetition or continuation of
the genuine ancient account of the conflict of day and night, light and
darkness, which I have already given, the name Tollan is enough to point
out the place and the powers with which the story deals. For this Tollan,
where Quetzalcoatl reigned, is not by any means, as some have supposed,
the little town of Tula, still alive, a dozen leagues or so northwest from
the city of Mexico; nor was it, as the legend usually stated, in some
undefined locality from six hundred to a thousand leagues northwest of
that city; nor yet in Asia, as some antiquaries have maintained; nor,
indeed, anywhere upon this weary world; but it was, as the name denotes,
and as the native historian Tezozomoc long since translated it, where the
bright sun lives, and where the god of light forever rules so long as that
orb is in the sky. Tollan is but a syncopated form of _Tonatlan_, the
Place of the Sun.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Tonalan, ô lugar del sol," says Tezozomoc (_Cronica
Mexicana_, chap. i). The full form is _Tonatlan_, from _tona_, "hacer
sol," and the place ending _tlan_. The derivation from _tollin_, a rush,
is of no value, and it is nothing to the point that in the picture writing
Tollan was represented by a bundle of rushes (Kingsborough, vol. vi, p.
177, note), as that was merely in accordance with the rules of the picture
writing, which represented names by rebuses. Still more worthless is the
derivation given by Herrera (_Historia de las Indias Occidentals_, Dec.
iii, Lib. i, cap. xi), that it means "Lugar de Tuna" or the place where
the tuna (the fruit of the Opuntia) is found; inasmuch as the word _tuna_
is not from the Aztec at all, but belongs to that dialect of the Arawack
spoken by the natives of Cuba and Haiti.]

It is worth while to examine the whereabouts and character of this
marvelous city of Tollan somewhat closely, for it is a place that we hear
of in the oldest myths and legends of many and different races. Not only
the Aztecs, but the Mayas of Yucatan and the Kiches and Cakchiquels of
Guatemala bewailed, in woful songs, the loss to them of that beautiful
land, and counted its destruction as a common starting point in their
annals.[1] Well might they regret it, for not again would they find its
like. In that land the crop of maize never failed, and the ears grew as
long as a man's arm; the cotton burst its pods, not white only, but
naturally of all beautiful colors, scarlet, green, blue, orange, what you
would; the gourds could not be clasped in the arms; birds of beauteous
plumage filled the air with melodious song. There was never any want nor
poverty. All the riches of the world were there, houses built of silver
and precious jade, of rosy mother of pearl and of azure turquoises. The
servants of the great king Quetzalcoatl were skilled in all manner of
arts; when he sent them forth they flew to any part of the world with
infinite speed; and his edicts were proclaimed from the summit of the
mountain Tzatzitepec, the Hill of Shouting, by criers of such mighty voice
that they could be heard a hundred leagues away.[2] His servants and
disciples were called "Sons of the Sun" and "Sons of the Clouds."[3]

[Footnote 1: The _Books of Chilan Balam_, of the Mayas, the _Record from
Tecpan Atitlan_, of the Cakchiquels, and the _Popol vuh_, National Book,
of the Kiches, have much to say about Tulan. These works were all written
at a very early date, by natives, and they have all been preserved in the
original tongues, though unfortunately only the last mentioned has been
published.]

[Footnote 2: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii, cap. iii.]

[Footnote 3: Duran, _Historia de los Indios_, in Kingsborough, vol. viii,
p. 267.]

Where, then, was this marvelous land and wondrous city? Where could it be
but where the Light-God is on his throne, where the life-giving sun is
ever present, where are the mansions of the day, and where all nature
rejoices in the splendor of its rays?

But this is more than in one spot. It may be in the uppermost heavens,
where light is born and the fleecy clouds swim easily; or in the west,
where the sun descends to his couch in sanguine glory; or in the east,
beyond the purple rim of the sea, whence he rises refreshed as a giant to
run his course; or in the underworld, where he passes the night.

Therefore, in ancient Cakchiquel legend it is said: "Where the sun rises,
there is one Tulan; another is in the underworld; yet another where the
sun sets; and there is still another, and there dwells the God. Thus, O my
children, there are four Tulans, as the ancient men have told us."[1]

[Footnote 1: Francisco Ernantez Arana Xahila, _Memorial de Tecpan
Atitlan_. MS. in Cakchiquel, in my possession.]

The most venerable traditions of the Maya race claimed for them a
migration from "Tollan in Zuyva." "Thence came we forth together," says
the Kiche myth, "there was the common parent of our race, thence came we,
from among the Yaqui men, whose god is Yolcuat Quetzalcoat."[1] This
Tollan is certainly none other than the abode of Quetzalcoatl, named in an
Aztec manuscript as _Zivena vitzcatl_, a word of uncertain derivation, but
applied to the highest heaven.

[Footnote 1: _Le Popol Vuh_, p. 247. The name _Yaqui_ means in Kiche
civilized or polished, and was applied to the Aztecs, but it is, in its
origin, from an Aztec root _yauh_, whence _yaque_, travelers, and
especially merchants. The Kiches recognizing in the Aztec merchants a
superior and cultivated class of men, adopted into their tongue the name
which the merchants gave themselves, and used the word in the above sense.
Compare Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva España_, Lib. ix, cap. xii.]

Where Quetzalcoatl finally retired, and whence he was expected back, was
still a Tollan--Tollan Tlapallan--and Montezuma, when he heard of the
arrival of the Spaniards, exclaimed, "It is Quetzalcoatl, returned from
Tula."

The cities which selected him as their tutelary deity were named for that
which he was supposed to have ruled over. Thus we have Tollan and
Tollantzinco ("behind Tollan") in the Valley of Mexico, and the pyramid
Cholula was called "Tollan-Cholollan," as well as many other Tollans and
Tulas among the Nahuatl colonies.

The natives of the city of Tula were called, from its name, the _Tolteca_,
which simply means "those who dwell in Tollan." And who, let us ask, were
these Toltecs?

They have hovered about the dawn of American history long enough. To them
have been attributed not only the primitive culture of Central America and
Mexico, but of lands far to the north, and even the earthworks of the Ohio
Valley. It is time they were assigned their proper place, and that is
among the purely fabulous creations of the imagination, among the giants
and fairies, the gnomes and sylphs, and other such fancied beings which in
all ages and nations the popular mind has loved to create.

Toltec, Toltecatl,[1] which in later days came to mean a skilled craftsman
or artificer, signifies, as I have said, an inhabitant of Tollan--of the
City of the Sun--in other words, a Child of Light. Without a metaphor, it
meant at first one of the far darting, bright shining rays of the sun. Not
only does the tenor of the whole myth show this, but specifically and
clearly the powers attributed to the ancient Toltecs. As the immediate
subjects of the God of Light they were called "Those who fly the whole day
without resting,"[2] and it was said of them that they had the power of
reaching instantly even a very distant place. When the Light-God himself
departs, they too disappear, and their city is left uninhabited and
desolate.

[Footnote 1: Toltecatl, according to Molina, is "oficial de arte mecanica
ò maestro," (_Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana_, s.v.). This is a
secondary meaning. Veitia justly says, "Toltecatl quiere decir artifice,
porque en Thollan comenzaron a enseñar, aunque a Thollan llamaron Tula, y
por decir Toltecatl dicen Tuloteca" (_Historia_, cap. xv).]

[Footnote 2: Their title was _Tlanqua cemilhuique_, compounded of
_tlanqua_, to set the teeth, as with strong determination, and
_cemilhuitia_, to run during a whole day. Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii,
cap. iii, and Lib. x, cap. xxix; compare also the myth of Tezcatlipoca
disguised as an old woman parching corn, the odor of which instantly
attracted the Toltecs, no matter how far off they were. When they came she
killed them. Id. Lib. iii, cap. xi.]

In some, and these I consider the original versions of the myth, they do
not constitute a nation at all, but are merely the disciples or servants
of Quetzalcoatl.[1] They have all the traits of beings of supernatural
powers. They were astrologers and necromancers, marvelous poets and
philosophers, painters as were not to be found elsewhere in the world, and
such builders that for a thousand leagues the remains of their cities,
temples and fortresses strewed the land. "When it has happened to me,"
says Father Duran, "to ask an Indian who cut this pass through the
mountains, or who opened that spring of water, or who built that old ruin,
the answer was, 'The Toltecs, the disciples of Papa.'"[2]

[Footnote 1: "Discipulos," Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, vol. vii,
p. 260.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid.]

They were tall in stature, beyond the common race of men, and it was
nothing uncommon for them to live hundreds of years. Such was their energy
that they allowed no lazy person to live among them, and like their master
they were skilled in every art of life and virtuous beyond the power of
mortals. In complexion they are described as light in hue, as was their
leader, and as are usually the personifications of light, and not the less
so among the dark races of men.[1]

[Footnote 1: For the character of the Toltecs as here portrayed, see
Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, and Veitia, _Historia, passion_.]

When Quetzalcoatl left Tollan most of the Toltecs had already perished by
the stratagems of Tezcatlipoca, and those that survived were said to have
disappeared on his departure. The city was left desolate, and what became
of its remaining inhabitants no one knew. But this very uncertainty
offered a favorable opportunity for various nations, some speaking Nahuatl
and some other tongues, to claim descent from this mysterious, ancient and
wondrous race.

The question seems, indeed, a difficult one. When the Light-God disappears
from the sky, shorn of his beams and bereft of his glory, where are the
bright rays, the darting gleams of light which erewhile bathed the earth
in refulgence? Gone, gone, we know not whither.

The original home of the Toltecs was said to have been in Tlapallan--the
very same Red Land to which Quetzalcoatl was fabled to have returned; only
the former was distinguished as Old Tlapallan--Hue Tlapallan--as being
that from which he and they had emerged. Other myths called it the Place
of Sand, Xalac, an evident reference to the sandy sea strand, the same
spot where it was said that Quetzalcoatl was last seen, beyond which the
sun rises and below which he sinks. Thither he returned when driven from
Tollan, and reigned over his vassals many years in peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Se metió (Quetzalcoatl) la tierra adentro hasta Tlapallan ó
segun otros Huey Xalac, antigua patria de sus antepasados, en donde vivió
muchos años." Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, p. 394, in
Kingsborough, vol. ix. Xalac, is from _xalli_, sand, with the locative
termination. In Nahuatl _xalli aquia_, to enter the sand, means to die.]

We cannot mistake this Tlapallan, new or old. Whether it is bathed in the
purple and gold of the rising sun or in the crimson and carnation of his
setting, it always was, as Sahagun tells us, with all needed distinctness,
"the city of the Sun," the home of light and color, whence their leader,
Quetzalcoatl had come, and whither he was summoned to return.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Dicen que caminó acia el Oriente, y que se fué á la ciudad
del Sol, llamada Tlapallan, y fué llamado del sol." Libro. viii, Prologo.]

The origin of the earthly Quetzalcoatl is variously given; one cycle of
legends narrates his birth in Tollan in some extraordinary manner; a
second cycle claims that he was not born in any country known to the
Aztecs, but came to them as a stranger.

Of the former cycle probably one of the oldest versions is that he was a
son or descendant of Tezcatlipoca himself, under his name Camaxtli. This
was the account given to the chancellor Ramirez,[1] and it is said by
Torquemada to have been the canonical doctrine taught in the holy city of
Cholollan, the centre of the worship of Quetzalcoatl.[2] It is a
transparent metaphor, and could be paralleled by a hundred similar
expressions in the myths of other nations. The Night brings forth the Day,
the darkness leads on to the light, and though thus standing in the
relation of father and son, the struggle between them is forever
continued.

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Hist. de los Mexicanos_, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 2: _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv. _Camaxtli_ is also
found in the form _Yoamaxtli_; this shows that it is a compound of
_maxtli_, covering, clothing, and _ca_, the substantive verb, or in the
latter instance, _yoalli_, night; hence it is, "the Mantle," or, "the garb
of night" ("la faja nocturna," _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p.
363).]

Another myth represents him as the immediate son of the All-Father Tonaca
tecutli, under his title Citlallatonac, the Morning, by an earth-born
maiden in Tollan. In that city dwelt three sisters, one of whom, an
unspotted virgin, was named Chimalman. One day, as they were together, the
god appeared to them. Chimalman's two sisters were struck to death by
fright at his awful presence, but upon her he breathed the breath of life,
and straightway she conceived. The son she bore cost her life, but it was
the divine Quetzalcoatl, surnamed _Topiltcin_, Our Son, and, from the year
of his birth, _Ce Acatl_, One Reed. As soon as he was born he was
possessed of speech and reason and wisdom. As for his mother, having
perished on earth, she was transferred to the heavens, where she was given
the honored name Chalchihuitzli, the Precious Stone of Sacrifice.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Codex Vaticanus_, Tab. x; _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_, Pt.
ii, Lam. ii. The name is from _chalchihuitl_, jade, and _vitztli_, the
thorn used to pierce the tongue, ears and penis, in sacrifice.
_Chimalman_, more correctly, _Chimalmatl_, is from _chimalli_, shield, and
probably, _matlalin_, green.]

This, also, is evidently an ancient and simple figure of speech to express
that the breath of Morning announces the dawn which brings forth the sun
and disappears in the act.

The virgin mother Chimalman, in another legend, is said to have been
brought with child by swallowing a jade or precious green stone
(_chalchihuitl_);[1] while another averred that she was not a virgin, but
the wife of Camaxtli (Tezcatlipoca);[2] or again, that she was the second
wife of that venerable old man who was the father of the seven sons from
whom all tribes speaking the Nahuatl language, and several who did not
speak it (Otomies, Tarascos), were descended.[3] This latter will repay
analysis.

[Footnote 1: Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap. vi.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid.]

[Footnote 3: Motolinia, _Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, Epistola
Proemial_, p. 10. The first wife was Ilancueitl, from _ilantli_, old
woman, and _cueitl_, skirt. Gomara, _Conquista de Méjico_, p. 432.]

All through Mexico and Central America this legend of the Seven Sons,
Seven Tribes, the Seven Caves whence they issued, or the Seven Cities
where they dwelt, constantly crops out. To that land the Aztecs referred
as their former dwelling place. It was located at some indefinite distance
to the north or northwest--in the same direction as Tollan. The name of
that land was significant. It was called the White or Bright Land,
_Aztlan_.[1] In its midst was situated the mountain or hill Colhuacan the
Divine, _Teoculhuacan_.[2] In the base of this hill were the Seven
Caverns, _Chicomoztoc_, whence the seven tribes with their respective gods
had issued, those gods including Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli and the
Tezcatlipocas. There continued to live their mother, awaiting their
return.

[Footnote 1: The derivation of Aztlan from _aztatl_, a heron, has been
rejected by Buschmann and the best Aztec scholars. It is from the same
root as _izlac_, white, with the local ending _tlan_, and means the White
or Bright Land. See the subject discussed in Buschmann, _Ueber die
Atzekischen Ortsnamen_. p. 612, and recently by Señor Orozco y Berra, in
_Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 56.]

[Footnote 2: Colhuacan, is a locative form. It is usually derived from
_coloa_, to curve, to round. Father Duran says it is another name for
Aztlan: "Estas cuevas son en Teoculacan, _que por otro nombre_ se llama
Aztlan." _Historia de los Indios de Nueva España_, Lib. i, cap. i.]

_Teo_ is from _teotl_, god, deity. The description in the text of the
relations of land and water in this mythical land, is also from Duran's
work.

The lord of this land and the father of the seven sons is variously and
indistinctly named. One legend calls him the White Serpent of the Clouds,
or the White Cloud Twin, _Iztac Mixcoatl_.[1] Whoever he was we can hardly
mistake the mountain in which or upon which he dwelt. _Colhuacan_ means
the bent or curved mountain. It is none other than the Hill of Heaven,
curving down on all sides to the horizon; upon it in all times have dwelt
the gods, and from it they have come to aid the men they favor. Absolutely
the same name was applied by the Choctaws to the mythical hill from which
they say their ancestors first emerged into the light of day. They call it
_Nane Waiyah_, the Bent or Curved Hill[2]. Such identity of metaphorical
expression leaves little room for discussion.

[Footnote 1: Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap.
xxxiii.]

[Footnote 2: See my work, _The Myths of the New World_, p. 242.]

If it did, the other myths which surround the mystic mountain would seem
to clear up doubt. Colhuacan, we are informed, continued to be the
residence of the great Mother of the Gods. On it she dwelt, awaiting their
return from earth. No one can entirely climb the mountain, for from its
middle distance to the summit it is of fine and slippery sand; but it has
this magical virtue, that whoever ascends it, however old he is, grows
young again, in proportion as he mounts, and is thus restored to pristine
vigor. The happy dwellers around it have, however, no need of its youth
restoring power; for in that land no one grows old, nor knows the outrage
of years.[1]

[Footnote 1: "En esta tierra nunca envejecen los hombres. * * * Este cerro
tiene esta virtud, que el que ya viejo se quiere remozar, sube hasta donde
le parece, y vuelve de la edad que quiere." Duran, in Kingsborough, Vol.
viii, p. 201.]

When Quetzalcoatl, therefore, was alleged to be the son of the Lord of the
Seven Caves, it was nothing more than a variation of the legend that gave
him out as the son of the Lord of the High Heavens. They both mean the
same thing. Chimalman, who appears in both myths as his mother, binds the
two together, and stamps them as identical, while Mixcoatl is only another
name for Tezcatlipoca.

Such an interpretation, if correct, would lead to the dismissal from
history of the whole story of the Seven Cities or Caves, and the pretended
migration from them. In fact, the repeated endeavors of the chroniclers to
assign a location to these fabulous residences, have led to no result
other than most admired disorder and confusion. It is as vain to seek
their whereabouts, as it is that of the garden of Eden or the Isle of
Avalon. They have not, and never had a place on this sublunary sphere, but
belong in that ethereal world which the fancy creates and the imagination
paints.

A more prosaic account than any of the above, is given by the historian,
Alva Ixtlilxochitl, so prosaic that it is possible that it has some grains
of actual fact in it.[1] He tells us that a King of Tollan, Tecpancaltzin,
fell in love with the daughter of one of his subjects, a maiden by name
Xochitl, the Rose. Her father was the first to collect honey from the
maguey plant, and on pretence of buying this delicacy the king often sent
for Xochitl. He accomplished her seduction, and hid her in a rose garden
on a mountain, where she gave birth to an infant son, to the great anger
of the father. Casting the horoscope of the infant, the court astrologer
found all the signs that he should be the last King of Tollan, and should
witness the destruction of the Toltec monarchy. He was named _Meconetzin_,
the Son of the Maguey, and in due time became king, and the prediction was
accomplished.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, p. 330, in
Kingsborough, Vol. ix.]

[Footnote 2: In the work of Ramirez de Fuen-leal (cap. viii), Tezcatlipoca
is said to have been the discoverer of pulque, the intoxicating wine of
the Maguey. In Meztitlan he was associated with the gods of this beverage
and of drunkenness. Hence it is probable that the name _Meconetzin_
applied to Quetzalcoatl in this myth meant to convey that he was the son
of Tezcatlipoca.]

In several points, however, this seemingly historic narrative has a
suspicious resemblance to a genuine myth preserved to us in a certain
Aztec manuscript known as the _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_. This document
tells how Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca and their brethren were at first
gods, and dwelt as stars in the heavens. They passed their time in
Paradise, in a Rose Garden, _Xochitlycacan_ ("where the roses are lifted
up"); but on a time they began plucking the roses from the great Rose tree
in the centre of the garden, and Tonaca-tecutli, in his anger at their
action, hurled them to the earth, where they lived as mortals.

The significance of this myth, as applied to the daily descent of sun and
stars from the zenith to the horizon, is too obvious to need special
comment; and the coincidences of the rose garden on the mountain (in the
one instance the Hill of Heaven, in the other a supposed terrestrial
elevation) from which Quetzalcoatl issues, and the anger of the parent,
seem to indicate that the supposed historical relation of Ixtlilxochitl is
but a myth dressed in historic garb.

The second cycle of legends disclaimed any miraculous parentage for the
hero of Tollan. Las Casas narrates his arrival from the East, from some
part of Yucatan, he thinks, with a few followers,[1] a tradition which is
also repeated with definitiveness by the native historian, Alva
Ixtlilxochitl, but leaving the locality uncertain.[2] The historian,
Veytia, on the other hand, describes him as arriving from the North, a
full grown man, tall of stature, white of skin, and full-bearded,
barefooted and bareheaded, clothed in a long white robe strewn with red
crosses, and carrying a staff in his hand.[3]

[Footnote 1: Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv. This was
apparently the canonical doctrine in Cholula. Mendieta says: "El dios ó
idolo de Cholula, llamado Quetzalcoatl, fué el mas celebrado y tenido por
mejor y mas digno sobre los otro dioses, segun la reputacion de todos.
Este, segun sus historias (aunque algunos digan que de Tula) vino de las
partes de Yucatan á la ciudad de Cholula." _Historia Eclesiastica
Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap. x.]

[Footnote 2: _Historia Chichimeca_, cap. i.]

[Footnote 3: _Historia_, cap. xv.]

Whatever the origin of Quetzalcoatl, whether the child of a miraculous
conception, or whether as an adult stranger he came from some far-off
land, all accounts agree as to the greatness and purity of his character,
and the magnificence of Tollan under his reign. His temple was divided
into four apartments, one toward the East, yellow with gold; one toward
the West, blue with turquoise and jade; one toward the South, white with
pearls and shells, and one toward the North, red with bloodstones; thus
symbolizing the four cardinal points and four quarters of the world over
which the light holds sway.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, Lib. ix, cap. xxix.]

Through the midst of Tollan flowed a great river, and upon or over this
river was the house of Quetzalcoatl. Every night at midnight he descended
into this river to bathe, and the place of his bath was called, In the
Painted Vase, or, In the Precious Waters.[1] For the Orb of Light dips
nightly into the waters of the World Stream, and the painted clouds of the
sun-setting surround the spot of his ablutions.

[Footnote 1: The name of the bath of Quetzalcoatl is variously given as
_Xicàpoyan_, from _xicalli_, vases made from gourds, and _poyan_, to paint
(Sahagun, Lib. iii, cap. iii); _Chalchiuhapan_, from _atl_, water _pan_,
in, and _chalchiuitl_, precious, brilliant, the jade stone (_id._, Lib. x,
cap. xxix); and _Atecpanamochco_, from _atl_, water, _tecpan_, royal,
_amochtli_, any shining white metal, as tin, and the locative _co_, hence,
In the Shining Royal Water (_Anales de Cuauhtitlan_, p. 21). These names
are interesting as illustrating the halo of symbolism which surrounded the
history of the Light-God.]

I have said that the history of Quetzalcoatl in Tollan is but a
continuation of the conflict of the two primal brother gods. It is still
the implacable Tezcatlipoca who pursues and finally conquers him. But
there is this significant difference, that whereas in the elemental
warfare portrayed in the older myth mutual violence and alternate
destruction prevail, in all these later myths Quetzalcoatl makes no effort
at defence, scarcely remonstrates, but accepts his defeat as a decree of
Fate which it is vain to resist. He sees his people fall about him, and
the beautiful city sink into destruction, but he knows it is the hand of
Destiny, and prepares himself to meet the inevitable with what stoicism
and dignity he may.

The one is the quenching of the light by the darkness of the tempest and
the night, represented as a struggle; in the other it is the gradual and
calm but certain and unavoidable extinction of the sun as it noiselessly
sinks to the western horizon.

The story of the subtlety of Tezcatlipoca is variously told. In what may
well be its oldest and simplest version it is said that in his form as
Camaxtli he caught a deer with two heads, which, so long as he kept it,
secured him luck in war; but falling in with one of five goddesses he had
created, he begat a son, and through this act he lost his good fortune.
The son was Quetzalcoatl, surnamed Ce Acatl, and he became Lord of Tollan,
and a famous warrior. For many years he ruled the city, and at last began
to build a very great temple. While engaged in its construction
Tezcatlipoca came to him one day and told him that toward Honduras, in a
place called Tlapallan, a house was ready for him, and he must quit Tollan
and go there to live and die. Quetzalcoatl replied that the heavens and
stars had already warned him that after four years he must go hence, and
that he would obey. The time past, he took with him all the inhabitants of
Tula, and some he left in Cholula, from whom its inhabitants are
descended, and some he placed in the province of Cuzcatan, and others in
Cempoal, and at last he reached Tlapallan, and on the very day he arrived
there, he fell sick and died. As for Tula, it remained without an
inhabitant for nine years.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus
Pinturas_, cap. viii.]

A more minute account is given by the author of the _Annals of
Cuauhtitlan_, a work written at an early date, in the Aztec tongue. He
assures his readers that his narrative of these particular events is
minutely and accurately recorded from the oldest and most authentic
traditions. It is this:--

When those opposed to Quetzalcoatl did not succeed in their designs, they
summoned to their aid a demon or sorcerer, by name Tezcatlipoca, and his
assistants. He said: "We will give him a drink to dull his reason, and
will show him his own face in a mirror, and surely he will be lost." Then
Tezcatlipoca brewed an intoxicating beverage, the _pulque_, from the
maguey, and taking a mirror he wrapped it in a rabbit skin, and went to
the house of Quetzalcoatl.

"Go tell your master," he said to the servants, "that I have come to show
him his own flesh."

"What is this?" said Quetzalcoatl, when the message was delivered. "What
does he call my own flesh? Go and ask him."

But Tezcatlipoca refused. "I have not come to see you, but your master,"
he said to the servants. Then he was admitted, and Quetzalcoatl said:--

"Welcome, youth, you have troubled yourself much. Whence come you? What is
this, my flesh, that you would show me?"

"My Lord and Priest," replied the youth, "I come from the mountain-side of
Nonoalco. Look, now, at your flesh; know yourself; see yourself as you are
seen of others;" and with that he handed him the mirror.

As soon as Quetzalcoatl saw his face in the mirror he exclaimed:--

"How is it possible my subjects can look on me without affright? Well
might they flee from me. How can a man remain among them filled as I am
with foul sores, his face wrinkled and his aspect loathsome? I shall be
seen no more; I shall no longer frighten my people."

Then Tezcatlipoca went away to take counsel, and returning, said:--

"My lord and master, use the skill of your servant. I have come to console
you. Go forth to your people. I will conceal your defects by art."

"Do what you please," replied Quetzalcoatl. "I will see what my fate is to
be."

Tezcatlipoca painted his cheeks green and dyed his lips red. The forehead
he colored yellow, and taking feathers of the _quechol_ bird, he arranged
them as a beard. Quetzalcoatl surveyed himself in the mirror, and rejoiced
at his appearance, and forthwith sallied forth to see his people.

Tezcatlipoca withdrew to concoct another scheme of disgrace. With his
attendants he took of the strong _pulque_ which he had brewed, and came
again to the palace of the Lord of Tollan. They were refused admittance
and asked their country. They replied that they were from the Mountain of
the Holy Priest, from the Hill of Tollan. When Quetzalcoatl heard this, he
ordered them to be admitted, and asked their business. They offered him
the _pulque_, but he refused, saying that he was sick, and, moreover, that
it would weaken his judgment and might cause his death. They urged him to
dip but the tip of his finger in it to taste it; he complied, but even so
little of the magic liquor overthrew his self control, and taking the bowl
he quaffed a full draught and was drunk. Then these perverse men ridiculed
him, and cried out:--

"You feel finely now, my son; sing us a song; sing, worthy priest."

Thereupon Quetzalcoatl began to sing, as follows:--

"My pretty house, my coral house,
  I call it Zacuan by name;
And must I leave it, do you say?
  Oh my, oh me, and ah for shame."[1]

[Footnote 1: The original is--

Quetzal, quetzal, no calli,
  Zacuan, no callin tapach
No callin nic yacahuaz
  An ya, an ya, an quilmach.

Literally--

Beautiful, beautiful (is) my house
  Zacuan, my house of coral;
My house, I must leave it.
  Alas, alas, they say.

Zacuan, instead of being a proper name, may mean a rich yellow leather
from the bird called _zacuantototl_.]

As the fumes of the liquor still further disordered his reason, he called
his attendants and bade them hasten to his sister Quetzalpetlatl, who
dwelt on the Mountain Nonoalco, and bring her, that she too might taste
the divine liquor. The attendants hurried off and said to his sister:--

"Noble lady, we have come for you. The high priest Quetzalcoatl awaits
you. It is his wish that you come and live with him."

She instantly obeyed and went with them. On her arrival Quetzalcoatl
seated her beside him and gave her to drink of the magical pulque.
Immediately she felt its influence, and Quetzalcoatl began to sing, in
drunken fashion--

"Sister mine, beloved mine,
  Quetzal--petlatl--tzin,
Come with me, drink with me,
  'Tis no sin, sin, sin."

Soon they were so drunken that all reason was forgotten; they said no
prayers, they went not to the bath, and they sank asleep on the floor.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is not clear, at least in the translations, whether the
myth intimates an incestuous relation between Quetzalcoatl and his sister.
In the song he calls her "Nohueltiuh," which means, strictly, "My elder
sister;" but Mendoza translates it "Querida esposa mia." _Quetzalpetlatl_
means "the Beautiful Carpet," _petlatl_ being the rug or mat used on
floors, etc. This would be a most appropriate figure of speech to describe
a rich tropical landscape, "carpeted with flowers," as we say; and as the
earth is, in primitive cosmogony, older than the sun, I suspect that this
story of Quetzalcoatl and his sister refers to the sun sinking from
heaven, seemingly, into the earth. "Los Nahoas," remarks Chavero,
"figuraban la tierra en forma de un cuadrilátero dividido en pequeños
quatros, lo que semijaba una estera, _petlatl_" (_Anales del Museo
Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 248).]

Sad, indeed, was Quetzalcoatl the next morning.

"I have sinned," he said; "the stain on my name can never be erased. I am
not fit to rule this people. Let them build for me a habitation deep under
ground; let them bury my bright treasures in the earth; let them throw the
gleaming gold and shining stones into the holy fountain where I take my
daily bath."

All this was done, and Quetzalcoatl spent four days in his underground
tomb. When he came forth he wept and told his followers that the time had
come for him to depart for Tlapallan, the Red Land, Tlillan, the Dark
Land, and Tlatlallan, the Fire Land, all names of one locality.

He journeyed eastward until he came to a place where the sky, and land,
and water meet together.[1] There his attendants built a funeral pile, and
he threw himself into the flames. As his body burned his heart rose to
heaven, and after four days became the planet Venus.[2]

[Footnote 1: Designated in the Aztec original by the name _Teoapan
Ilhuicaatenco_, from _teotl_, divine, _atl_, water, _pan_, in or near,
_ilhuicac_, heaven, _atenco_, the waterside: "Near the divine water, where
the sky meets the strand."]

[Footnote 2: The whole of this account is from the _Anales de
Cuauhtitlan_, pp. 16-22.]

That there is a profound moral significance in this fiction all will see;
but I am of opinion that it is accidental and adventitious. The means that
Tezcatlipoca employs to remove Quetzalcoatl refer to the two events that
mark the decline of day. The sun is reflected by a long lane of beams in
the surface waters of lake or sea; it loses the strength of its rays and
fails in vigor; while the evening mists, the dampness of approaching
dewfall, and the gathering clouds obscure its power and foretell the
extinction which will soon engulf the bright luminary. As Quetzalcoatl
cast his shining gold and precious stones into the water where he took his
nightly bath, or buried them in underground hiding places, so the sun
conceals his glories under the waters, or in the distant hills, into which
he seems to sink. As he disappears at certain seasons, the Star of Evening
shines brightly forth amid the lingering and fading rays, rising, as it
were, from the dying fires of the sunset.

To this it may be objected that the legend makes Quetzalcoatl journey
toward the East, and not toward the sunset. The explanation of this
apparent contradiction is easy. The Aztec sages had at some time
propounded to themselves the question of how the sun, which seems to set
in the West, can rise the next morning in the East? Mungo Parke tells us
that when he asked the desert Arabs this conundrum, they replied that the
inquiry was frivolous and childish, as being wholly beyond the capacities
of the human mind. The Aztecs did not think so, and had framed a definite
theory which overcame the difficulty. It was that, in fact, the sun only
advances to the zenith, and then returns to the East, from whence it
started. What we seem to see as the sun between the zenith and the western
horizon is, in reality, not the orb itself, but only its _brightness_, one
of its accidents, not its substance, to use the terms of metaphysics.
Hence to the Aztec astronomer and sage, the house of the sun is always
toward the East.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Historia_, cap. xx, p. 102.]

We need not have recourse even to this explanation. The sun, indeed,
disappears in the West; but his journey must necessarily be to the East,
for it is from that point that he always comes forth each morning. The
Light-God must necessarily daily return to the place whence he started.

The symbols of the mirror and the mystic drink are perfectly familiar in
Aryan sun-myths. The best known of the stories referring to the former is
the transparent tale of Narcissus forced by Nemesis to fall in love with
his own image reflected in the waters, and to pine away through
unsatisfied longing; or, as Pausanias tells the story, having lost his
twin sister (the morning twilight), he wasted his life in noting the
likeness of his own features to those of his beloved who had passed away.
"The sun, as he looks down upon his own face reflected in a lake or sea,
sinks or dies at last, still gazing on it."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George A. Cox, _The Science of Mythology and Folk Lore_,
p. 96.]

Some later writers say that the drink which Quetzalcoatl quaffed was to
confer immortality. This is not stated in the earliest versions of the
myth. The beverage is health-giving and intoxicating, and excites the
desire to seek Tlapallan, but not more. It does not, as the Soma of the
Vedas, endow with unending life.

Nevertheless, there is another myth which countenances this view and
explains it. It was told in the province of Meztitlan, a mountainous
country to the northwest of the province of Vera Cruz. Its inhabitants
spoke the Nahuatl tongue, but were never subject to the Montezumas. Their
chief god was Tezcatlipoca, and it was said of him that on one occasion he
slew Ometochtli (Two Rabbits), the god of wine, at the latter's own
request, he believing that he thus would be rendered immortal, and that
all others who drank of the beverage he presided over would die. His
death, they added, was indeed like the stupor of a drunkard, who, after
his lethargy has passed, rises healthy and well. In this sense of renewing
life after death, he presided over the native calendar, the count of years
beginning with Tochtli, the Rabbit.[1] Thus we see that this is a myth of
the returning seasons, and of nature waking to life again after the cold
months ushered in by the chill rains of the late autumn. The principle of
fertility is alone perennial, while each individual must perish and die.
The God of Wine in Mexico, as in Greece, is one with the mysterious force
of reproduction.

[Footnote 1: Gabriel de Chaves, _Relacion de la Provincia de Meztitlan_,
1556, in the _Colecion de Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias_, Tom.
iv, p. 536.]

No writer has preserved such numerous traditions about the tricks of
Tezcatlipoca in Tollan, as Father Sahagun. They are, no doubt, almost
verbally reported as he was told them, and as he wrote his history first
in the Aztec tongue, they preserve all the quaintness of the original
tales. Some of them appear to be idle amplifications of story tellers,
while others are transparent myths. I shall translate a few of them quite
literally, beginning with that of the mystic beverage.

The time came for the luck of Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs to end; for
there appeared against them three sorcerers, named Vitzilopochtli,
Titlacauan and Tlacauepan,[1] who practiced many villanies in the city of
Tullan. Titlacauan began them, assuming the disguise of an old man of
small stature and white hairs. With this figure he approached the palace
of Quetzalcoatl and said to the servants:--

[Footnote 1: Titlacauan was the common name of Tezcatlipoca. The three
sorcerers were really Quetzalcoatl's three brothers, representing the
three other cardinal points.]

"I wish to see the King and speak to him."

"Away with you, old man;" said the servants. "You cannot see him. He is
sick. You would only annoy him."

"I must see him," answered the old man.

The servants said, "Wait," and going in, they told Quetzalcoatl that an
old man wished to see him, adding, "Sire, we put him out in vain; he
refuses to leave, and says that he absolutely must see you." Quetzalcoatl
answered:--

"Let him in. I have been waiting his coming for a long time."

They admitted the old man and he entered the apartment of Quetzalcoatl,
and said to him:--

"My lord and son, how are you? I have with me a medicine for you to
drink."

"You are welcome, old man," replied Quetzalcoatl. "I have been looking for
your arrival for many days."

"Tell me how you are," asked the old man. "How is your body and your
health?"

"I am very ill," answered Quetzalcoatl. "My whole body pains me, and I
cannot move my hands or feet."

Then the old man said:--

"Sire, look at this medicine which I bring you. It is good and healthful,
and intoxicates him who drinks it. If you will drink it, it will
intoxicate you, it will heal you, it will soothe your heart, it will
prepare you for the labors and fatigues of death, or of your departure."

"Whither, oh ancient man," asked Quetzalcoatl, "Whither must I go?"

The old man answered:--

"You must without fail go to Tullan Tlapallan, where there is another old
man awaiting you; you and he will talk together, and at your return you
will be transformed into a youth, and you will regain the vigor of your
boyhood."

When Quetzalcoatl heard these words, his heart was shaken with strong
emotion, and the old man added:--

"My lord, drink this medicine."

"Oh ancient man," answered the king, "I do not want to drink it."

"Drink it, my lord," insisted the old man, "for if you do not drink it
now, later you will long for it; at least, lift it to your mouth and taste
a single drop."

Quetzalcoatl took the drop and tasted it, and then quaffed the liquor,
exclaiming:--

"What is this? It seems something very healthful and well-flavored. I am
no longer sick. It has cured me. I am well."

"Drink again," said the old man. "It is a good medicine, and you will be
healthier than ever."

Again did Quetzalcoatl drink, and soon he was intoxicated. He began to
weep; his heart was stirred, and his mind turned toward the suggestion of
his departure, nor did the deceit of the old sorcerer permit him to
abandon the thought of it. The medicine which Quetzalcoatl drank was the
white wine of the country, made of those magueys call _teometl_.[1]

[Footnote 1: From _teotl_, deity, divine, and _metl_, the maguey. Of the
twenty-nine varieties of the maguey, now described in Mexico, none bears
this name; but Hernandez speaks of it, and says it was so called because
there was a superstition that a person soon to die could not hold a branch
of it; but if he was to recover, or escape an impending danger, he could
hold it with ease and feel the better for it. See Nieremberg, _Historia
Naturae_, Lib. xiv, cap. xxxii. "Teomatl, vitae et mortis Index."]

This was but the beginning of the guiles and juggleries of Tezcatlipoca.
Transforming himself into the likeness of one of those Indians of the Maya
race, called _Toveyome_,[1] he appeared, completely nude, in the market
place of Tollan, having green peppers to sell. Now Huemac, who was
associated with Quetzalcoatl in the sovereignty of Tollan (although other
myths apply this name directly to Quetzalcoatl, and this seems the correct
version),[2] had an only daughter of surpassing beauty, whom many of the
Toltecs had vainly sought in marriage. This damsel looked forth on the
market where Tezcatlipoca stood in his nakedness, and her virginal eyes
fell upon the sign of his manhood. Straightway an unconquerable longing
seized her, a love so violent that she fell ill and seemed like to die.
Her women told her father the reason, and he sent forth and had the false
Toveyo brought before him. Huemac addressed him:--

[Footnote 1: _Toveyome_ is the plural of _toveyo_, which Molina, in his
dictionary, translates "foreigner, stranger." Sahagun says that it was
applied particularly to the Huastecs, a Maya tribe living in the province
of Panuco. _Historia_, etc., Lib. x, cap. xxix, §8.]

[Footnote 2: _Huemac_ is a compound of _uey_, great, and _maitl_, hand.
Tezozomoc, Duran, and various other writers assign this name to
Quetzalcoatl.]

"Whence come you?"

"My lord," replied the Toveyo, "I am a stranger, and I have come to sell
green peppers."

"Why," asked the king "do you not wear a _maxtli_ (breech-cloth), and
cover your nakedness with a garment?"

"My lord," answered the stranger, "I follow the custom of my country."

Then the king added:--

"You have inspired in my daughter a longing; she is sick with desire; you
must cure her."

"Nay, my lord," said the stranger, "this may not be. Rather slay me here;
I wish to die; for I am not worthy to hear such words, poor as I am, and
seeking only to gain my bread by selling green peppers."

But the king insisted, and said:--

"Have no fear; you alone can restore my daughter; you must do so."

Thereupon the attendants cut the sham Toveyo's hair; they led him to the
bath, and colored his body black; they placed a _maxtli_ and a robe upon
him, and the king said:--

"Go in unto my daughter."

Tezcatlipoca went in unto her, and she was healed from that hour.

Thus did the naked stranger become the son-in-law of the great king of
Tula. But the Toltecs were deeply angered that the maiden had given his
black body the preference over their bright forms, and they plotted to
have him slain. He was placed in the front of battle, and then they left
him alone to fight the enemy. But he destroyed the opposing hosts and
returned to Tula with a victory all the more brilliant for their desertion
of him.

Then he requited their treachery with another, and pursued his intended
destruction of their race. He sent a herald to the top of the Hill of
Shouting, and through him announced a magnificent festival to celebrate
his victory and his marriage. The Toltecs swarmed in crowds, men, women
and children, to share in the joyous scene. Tezcatlipoca received them
with simulated friendship. Taking his drum, he began to beat upon it,
accompanying the music with a song. As his listeners heard the magic
music, they became intoxicated with the strains, and yielding themselves
to its seductive influence, they lost all thought for the future or care
for the present. The locality to which the crafty Tezcatlipoca had invited
them was called, The Rock upon the Water.[1] It was the summit of a lofty
rock at the base of which flowed the river called, By the Rock of
Light.[2] When the day had departed and midnight approached, the magician,
still singing and dancing, led the intoxicated crowd to the brink of the
river, over which was a stone bridge. This he had secretly destroyed, and
as they came to the spot where it should have been and sought to cross,
the innumerable crowd pressing one upon the other, they all fell into the
water far below, where they sank out of sight and were changed into
stones.

[Footnote 1: _Texcalapan_, from _texcalli_, rock, and _apan_, upon or over
the water.]

[Footnote 2: _Texcaltlauhco_, from _texcalli_, rock, _tlaulli_, light, and
the locative ending _co_, by, in or at.]

Is it pushing symbolism too far to attempt an interpretation of this
fable, recounted with all the simplicity of the antique world, with
greater directness, indeed, than I have thought wise to follow?

I am strongly inclined to regard it as a true myth, which, in
materialistic language, sets forth the close of the day and the extinction
of the light. May we not construe the maiden as the Evening Twilight, the
child of the Day at the close of its life? The black lover with whom she
is fatally enamored, is he not the Darkness, in which the twilight fades
away? The countless crowds of Toltecs that come to the wedding
festivities, and are drowned before midnight in the waters of the
strangely named river, are they not the infinitely numerous light-rays
which are quenched in the world-stream, when the sun has sunk, and the
gloaming is lost in the night?

May we not go farther, and in this Rock of Light which stands hard by the
river, recognize the Heavenly Hill which rises beside the World Stream?
The bright light of one day cannot extend to the next. The bridge is
broken by the intervening night, and the rays are lost in the dark waters.

But whether this interpretation is too venturesome or not, we cannot deny
the deep human interest in the story, and its poetic capacities. The
overmastering passion of love was evidently as present to the Indian mind
as to that of the mediaeval Italian. In New as well as in Old Spain it
could break the barriers of rank and overcome the hesitations of maidenly
modesty. Love clouding the soul, as night obscures the day, is a figure of
speech, used, I remember, by the most pathetic of Ireland's modern
bards:--

"Love, the tyrant, evinces,
  Alas! an omnipotent might;
He treads on the necks of princes,
  He darkens the mind, like night."[1]

[Footnote 1: Clarence Mangan, _Poems_, "The Mariner's Bride."]

I shall not detail the many other wiles with which Tezcatlipoca led the
Toltecs to their destruction. A mere reference to them must suffice. He
summoned thousands to come to labor in the rose-garden of Quetzalcoatl,
and when they had gathered together, he fell upon them and slew them with
a hoe. Disguised with Huitzilopochtli, he irritated the people until they
stoned the brother gods to death, and from the corrupting bodies spread a
pestilential odor, to which crowds of the Toltecs fell victims. He turned
the thought of thousands into madness, so that they voluntarily offered
themselves to be sacrificed. By his spells all articles of food soured,
and many perished of famine.

At length Quetzalcoatl, wearied with misfortune, gave orders to burn the
beautiful houses of Tollan, to bury his treasures, and to begin the
journey to Tlapallan. He transformed the cacao trees into plants of no
value, and ordered the birds of rich plumage to leave the land before him.

The first station he arrived at was Quauhtitlan, where there was a lofty
and spreading tree. Here he asked of his servants a mirror, and looking in
it said: "I am already old." Gathering some stones, he cast them at the
tree. They entered the wood and remained there.

As he journeyed, he was preceded by boys playing the flute. Thus he
reached a certain spot, where he sat upon a stone by the wayside, and wept
for the loss of Tollan. The marks of his hands remained upon the stone,
and the tears he dropped pierced it through. To the day of the Conquest
these impressions on the solid rock were pointed out.

At the fountain of Cozcapan, sorcerers met him, minded to prevent his
departure:--

"Where are you going?" they asked. "Why have you left your capital? In
whose care is it? Who will perform the sacred rites?"

But Quetzalcoatl answered:--

"You can in no manner hinder my departure. I have no choice but to go."

The sorcerers asked again: "Whither are you going?"

"I am going," replied Quetzalcoatl, "to Tlapallan. I have been sent for.
The Sun calls me."

"Go, then, with good luck," said they. "But leave with us the art of
smelting silver, of working stone and wood, of painting, of weaving
feathers and other such arts."

Thus they robbed him, and taking the rich jewels he carried with him he
cast them into the fountain, whence it received its name _Cozcapan_,
Jewels in the Water.

Again, as he journeyed, a sorcerer met him, who asked him his
destination:--

"I go," said Quetzalcoatl, "to Tlallapan."

"And luck go with you," replied the sorcerer, "but first take a drink of
this wine."

"No," replied Quetzalcoatl, "not so much as a sip."

"You must taste a little of it," said the sorcerer, "even if it is by
force. To no living person would I give to drink freely of it. I
intoxicate them all. Come and drink of it."

Quetzalcoatl took the wine and drank of it through a reed, and as he drank
he grew drunken and fell in the road, where he slept and snored.

Thus he passed from place to place, with various adventures. His servants
were all dwarfs or hunchbacks, and in crossing the Sierra Nevada they
mostly froze to death. By drawing a line across the Sierra he split it in
two and thus made a passage. He plucked up a mighty tree and hurling it
through another, thus formed a cross. At another spot he caused
underground houses to be built, which were called Mictlancalco, At the
House of Darkness.

At length he arrived at the sea coast where he constructed a raft of
serpents, and seating himself on it as in a canoe, he moved out to sea. No
one knows how or in what manner he reached Tlapallan.[1]

[Footnote 1: These myths are from the third book of Sahagun's _Historia de
las Cosas de Nueva España_. They were taken down in the original Nahuatl,
by him, from the mouth of the natives, and he gives them word for word, as
they were recounted.]

The legend which appears to have been prevalent in Cholula was somewhat
different. According to that, Quetzalcoatl was for many years Lord of
Tollan, ruling over a happy people. At length, Tezcatlipoca let himself
down from heaven by a cord made of spider's web, and, coming to Tollan,
challenged its ruler to play a game of ball. The challenge was accepted,
and the people of the city gathered in thousands to witness the sport.
Suddenly Tezcatlipoca changed himself into a tiger, which so frightened
the populace that they fled in such confusion and panic that they rushed
over the precipice and into the river, where nearly all were killed by the
fall or drowned in the waters.

Quetzalcoatl then forsook Tollan, and journeyed from city to city till he
reached Cholula, where he lived twenty years. He was at that time of light
complexion, noble stature, his eyes large, his hair abundant, his beard
ample and cut rounding. In life he was most chaste and honest. They
worshiped his memory, especially for three things: first, because he
taught them the art of working in metals, which previous to his coming was
unknown in that land; secondly, because he forbade the sacrifice either of
human beings or the lower animals, teaching that bread, and roses, and
flowers, incense and perfumes, were all that the gods demanded; and
lastly, because he forbade, and did his best to put a stop to, wars,
fighting, robbery, and all deeds of violence. For these reasons he was
held in high esteem and affectionate veneration, not only by those of
Cholula, but by the neighboring tribes as well, for many leagues around.
Distant nations maintained temples in his honor in that city, and made
pilgrimages to it, on which journeys they passed in safety through their
enemy's countries.

The twenty years past, Quetzalcoatl resumed his journey, taking with him
four of the principal youths of the city. When he had reached a point in
the province of Guazacoalco, which is situated to the southeast of
Cholula, he called the four youths to him, and told them they should
return to their city; that he had to go further; but that they should go
back and say that at some future day white and bearded men like himself
would come from the east, who would possess the land.[1]

[Footnote 1: For this version of the myth, see Mendieta, _Historia
Eclesiastica Indiana_, Lib. ii, caps, v and x.]

Thus he disappeared, no one knew whither. But another legend said that he
died there, by the seashore, and they burned his body. Of this event some
particulars are given by Ixtlilxochitl, as follows:[1]--

[Footnote 1: Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, p. 388, in
Kingsborough, vol. ix.]

Quetzalcoatl, surnamed Topiltzin, was lord of Tula. At a certain time he
warned his subjects that he was obliged to go "to the place whence comes
the Sun," but that after a term he would return to them, in that year of
their calendar of the name _Ce Acatl_, One Reed, which returns every
fifty-two years. He went forth with many followers, some of whom he left
in each city he visited. At length he reached the town of Ma Tlapallan.
Here he announced that he should soon die, and directed his followers to
burn his body and all his treasures with him. They obeyed his orders, and
for four days burned his corpse, after which they gathered its ashes and
placed them in a sack made of the skin of a tiger.

The introduction of the game of ball and the tiger into the story is not
so childish as it seems. The game of ball was as important an amusement
among the natives of Mexico and Central America as were the jousts and
tournaments in Europe in the Middle Ages.[1] Towns, nations and kings were
often pitted against each other. In the great temple of Mexico two courts
were assigned to this game, over which a special deity was supposed to
preside.[2] In or near the market place of each town there were walls
erected for the sport. In the centre of these walls was an orifice a
little larger than the ball. The players were divided into two parties,
and the ball having been thrown, each party tried to drive it through or
over the wall. The hand was not used, but only the hip or shoulders.

[Footnote 1: Torquemada gives a long but obscure description of it.
_Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. xiv, cap. xii.]

[Footnote 2: Nieremberg, "De septuaginta et octo partibus maximi templi
Mexicani," in his _Historia Naturae_, Lib. viii, cap. xxii (Antwerpt,
1635). One of these was called "The Ball Court of the Mirror," perhaps
with special reference to this legend. "Trigesima secunda Tezcatlacho,
locus erat ubi ludebatur pilâ ex gumi olli, inter templa." The name is
from _tezcatl_, mirror, _tlachtli_, the game of ball, and locative ending
_co_.]

From the earth the game was transferred to the heavens. As a ball, hit by
a player, strikes the wall and then bounds back again, describing a curve,
so the stars in the northern sky circle around the pole star and return to
the place they left. Hence their movement was called The Ball-play of the
Stars.[1]

[Footnote 1: "_Citlaltlachtli_," from _citlalin_, star, and _tlachtli_,
the game of ball. Alvarado Tezozomoc, _Cronica Mexicana_, cap. lxxxii. The
obscure passage in which Tezozomoc refers to this is ingeniously analyzed
in the _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 388.]

A recent writer asserts that the popular belief of the Aztecs extended the
figure to a greater game than this.[1] The Sun and Moon were huge balls
with which the gods played an unceasing game, now one, now the other,
having the better of it. If this is so, then the game between Tezcatlipoca
and Quetzalcoatl is again a transparent figure of speech for the contest
between night and day.

[Footnote 1: _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 367.]

The Mexican tiger, the _ocelotl_, was a well recognized figure of speech,
in the Aztec tongue, for the nocturnal heavens, dotted with stars, as is
the tiger skin with spots.[1] The tiger, therefore, which destroyed the
subjects of Quetzalcoatl--the swift-footed, happy inhabitants of Tula--was
none other than the night extinguishing the rays of the orb of light. In
the picture writings Tezcatlipoca appears dressed in a tiger's skin, the
spots on which represent the stars, and thus symbolize him in his
character as the god of the sky at night.

[Footnote 1: "Segun los Anales de Cuauhtitlan el _ocelotl_ es el cielo
manchado de estrellas, como piel de tigre." _Anales del Mus. Nac._, ii, p.
254.]

The apotheosis of Quetzalcoatl from the embers of his funeral pyre to the
planet Venus has led several distinguished students of Mexican mythology
to identify his whole history with the astronomical relations of this
bright star. Such an interpretation is, however, not only contrary to
results obtained by the general science of mythology, but it is
specifically in contradiction to the uniform statements of the old
writers. All these agree that it was not till _after_ he had finished his
career, _after_ he had run his course and disappeared from the sight and
knowledge of men, that he was translated and became the evening or morning
star.[1] This clearly signifies that he was represented by the planet in
only one, and that a subordinate, phase of his activity. We can readily
see that the relation of Venus to the sun, and the evening and morning
twilights, suggested the pleasing tale that as the light dies in the west,
it is, in a certain way, preserved by the star which hangs so bright above
the horizon.

[Footnote 1: _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_, plate xiv.]


§4. _Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds._

As I have shown in the introductory chapter, the Light-God, the Lord of
the East, is also master of the cardinal points and of the winds which
blow from them, and therefore of the Air.

This was conspicuously so with Quetzalcoatl. As a divinity he is most
generally mentioned as the God of the Air and Winds. He was said to sweep
the roads before Tlaloc; god of the rains, because in that climate heavy
down-pours are preceded by violent gusts. Torquemada names him as "God of
the Air," and states that in Cholula this function was looked upon as his
chief attribute,[1] and the term was distinctly applied to him
_Nanihe-hecatli_, Lord of the four Winds.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. i, cap. v. Torquemada, _Monarquia
Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv.]

In one of the earliest myths he is called _Yahualli ehecatl_, meaning "the
Wheel of the Winds,"[1] the winds being portrayed in the picture writing
as a circle or wheel, with a figure with five angles inscribed upon it,
the sacred pentagram. His image carried in the left hand this wheel, and
in the right a sceptre with the end recurved.

[Footnote 1: "Queçalcoatl y por otro nombre yagualiecatl." Ramirez de
Fuen-leal, _Historia_, cap. i. _Yahualli_ is from the root _yaual_ or
_youal_, circular, rounding, and was applied to various objects of a
circular form. The sign of Quetzalcoatl is called by Sahagun, using the
native word, "el _Yoel_ de los Vientos" (_Historia_, ubi supra).]

Another reference to this wheel, or mariner's box, was in the shape of the
temples which were built in his honor as god of the winds. These, we are
informed, were completely circular, without an angle anywhere.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Se llaman (á Quetzalcoatl) Señor de el Viento * * * A este
le hacian las yglesias redondas, sin esquina ninguna." _Codex
Telleriano-Remensis_. Parte ii, Lam. ii. Describing the sacred edifices of
Mexico, Motolinia says: "Habio en todos los mas de estos grandes patios un
otro templo que despues de levantada aquella capa quadrada, hecho su
altar, cubrianlo con una pared redonda, alta y cubierta con su chapital.
Este era del dios del aire, cual dijimos tener su principal sella en
Cholollan, y en toda esta provincia habia mucho de estos. A este dios del
aire llamaban en su lengua Quetzalcoatl," _Historia de los Indios_,
Epistola Proemial. Compare also Herrera, _Historia de las Indias
Occidentals_, Dec. ii, Lib. vii, cap. xvii, who describes the temple of
Quetzalcoatl, in the city of Mexico, and adds that it was circular,
"porque asi como el Aire anda al rededor del Cielo, asi le hacian el
Templo redondo."]

Still another symbol which was sacred to him as lord of the four winds was
the Cross. It was not the Latin but the Greek cross, with four short arms
of equal length. Several of these were painted on the mantle which he wore
in the picture writings, and they are occasionally found on the sacred
jades, which bear other of his symbols.

This has often been made use of by one set of writers to prove that
Quetzalcoatl was some Christian teacher; and by others as evidence that
these native tales were of a date subsequent to the Conquest. But a
moment's consideration of the meaning of this cruciform symbol as revealed
in its native names shows where it belongs and what it refers to. These
names are three, and their significations are, "The Rain-God," "The Tree
of our Life," "The God of Strength."[1] As the rains fertilize the fields
and ripen the food crops, so he who sends them is indeed the prop or tree
of our subsistence, and thus becomes the giver of health and strength. No
other explanation is needed, or is, in fact, allowable.

[Footnote 1: The Aztec words are _Quiahuitl teotl, quiahuitl_, rain,
_teotl_, god; _Tonacaquahuitl_, from _to_, our, _naca_, flesh or life,
_quahuitl_, tree; _Chicahualizteotl_, from _chicahualiztli_, strength or
courage, and _teotl_, god. These names are given by Ixtlilxochitl,
_Historia chichimeca_, cap. i.]

The winds and rains come from the four cardinal points. This fact was
figuratively represented by a cruciform figure, the ends directed toward
each of these. The God of the Four Winds bore these crosses as one of his
emblems. The sign came to be connected with fertility, reproduction and
life, through its associations as a symbol of the rains which restore the
parched fields and aid in the germination of seeds. Their influence in
this respect is most striking in those southern countries where a long dry
season is followed by heavy tropical showers, which in a few days change
the whole face of nature, from one of parched sterility to one of a wealth
of vegetable growth.

As there is a close connection, in meteorology, between the winds and the
rains, so in Aztec mythology, there was an equally near one between
Quetzalcoatl, as the god of the winds, and the gods of rain, Tlaloc and
his sister, or wife, or mother, Chalchihuitlicue. According to one myth,
these were created by the four primeval brother-gods, and placed in the
heavens, where they occupy a large mansion divided into four apartments,
with a court in the middle. In this court stand four enormous vases of
water, and an infinite number of very small slaves (the rain drops) stand
ready to dip out the water from one or the other vase and pour it on the
earth in showers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Historia de los Mexicanos_, cap. ii.]

_Tlaloc_ means, literally, "The wine of the Earth,"[1] the figure being
that as man's heart is made glad, and his strength revived by the joyous
spirit of wine, so is the soil refreshed and restored by the rains.
_Tlaloc tecutli_, the Lord of the Wine of the Earth, was the proper title
of the male divinity, who sent the fertilizing showers, and thus caused
the seed to grow in barren places. It was he who gave abundant crops and
saved the parched and dying grain after times of drought. Therefore, he
was appealed to as the giver of good things, of corn and wine; and the
name of his home, Tlalocan, became synonymous with that of the terrestrial
paradise.

[Footnote 1: _Tlalli_, earth, _oc_ from _octli_, the native wine made from
the maguey, enormous quantities of which are consumed by the lower classes
in Mexico at this day, and which was well known to the ancients. Another
derivation of the name is from _tlalli_, and _onoc_, being, to be, hence,
"resident on the earth." This does not seem appropriate.]

His wife or sister, Chalchihuitlicue, She of the Emerald Skirts, was
goddess of flowing streams, brooks, lakes and rivers. Her name, probably,
has reference to their limpid waters.[1] It is derived from
_chalchihuitl_, a species of jade or precious green stone, very highly
esteemed by the natives of Mexico and Central America, and worked by them
into ornaments and talismans, often elaborately engraved and inscribed
with symbols, by an art now altogether lost.[2] According to one myth,
Quetzalcoatl's mother took the name of _chalchiuitl_ "when she ascended to
heaven;"[3] by another he was engendered by such a sacred stone;[4] and by
all he was designated as the discoverer of the art of cutting and
polishing them, and the patron deity of workers in this branch.[5]

[Footnote 1: From _chalchihuitl_, jade, and _cueitl_, skirt or petticoat,
with the possessive prefix, _i_, her.]

[Footnote 2: See E.G. Squier, _Observations on a Collection of
Chalchihuitls from Central America_, New York, 1869, and Heinrich Fischer,
_Nephrit und Jadeit nach ihrer Urgeschichtlichen und Ethnographischen
Bedeutung_, Stuttgart, 1880, for a full discussion of the subject.]

[Footnote 3: _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_, Pt. ii, Lam. ii.]

[Footnote 4: See above, chapter iii, §3]

[Footnote 5: Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv.]

The association of this stone and its color, a bluish green of various
shades, with the God of Light and the Air, may have reference to the blue
sky where he has his home, or to the blue and green waters where he makes
his bed. Whatever the connection was, it was so close that the festivals
of all three, Tlaloc, Chalchihuitlicue and Quetzalcoatl, were celebrated
together on the same day, which was the first of the first month of the
Aztec calendar, in February.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Hisioria_, Lib. ii, cap. i. A worthy but visionary
Mexican antiquary, Don J.M. Melgar, has recognized in Aztec mythology the
frequency of the symbolism which expresses the fertilizing action of the
sky (the sun and rains) upon the earth. He thinks that in some of the
manuscripts, as the _Codex Borgia_, it is represented by the rabbit
fecundating the frog. See his _Examen Comparativo entre los Signos
Simbolicos de las Teogonias y Cosmogonias antiguas y los que existen en
los Manuscritos Mexicanos_, p. 21 (Vera Cruz, 1872).]

In his character as god of days, the deity who brings back the diurnal
suns, and thus the seasons and years, Quetzalcoatl was the reputed
inventor of the Mexican Calendar. He himself was said to have been born on
Ce Acatl, One Cane, which was the first day of the first month, the
beginning of the reckoning, and the name of the day was often added to his
own.[1] As the count of the days really began with the beginning, it was
added that Heaven itself was created on this same day, Ce Acatl.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Codex Vaticanus_, Pl. xv.]

[Footnote 2: _Codex Telleriano Remensis_, Pl. xxxiii.]

In some myths Quetzalcoatl was the sole framer of the Calendar; in others
he was assisted by the first created pair, Cipactli and Oxomuco, who, as I
have said, appear to represent the Sky and the Earth. A certain cave in
the province of Cuernava (Quauhnauac) was pointed out as the scene of
their deliberations. Cipactonal chose the first name, Oxomuco the second,
and Quetzalcoatl the third, and so on in turn.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mendieta, _Hist. Eclesiastia Indiana_, Lib. ii, cap. xiv.
"Una tonta ficcion," comments the worthy chronicler upon the narrative,
"como son las demas que creian cerca de sus dioses." This has been the
universal opinion. My ambition in writing this book is, that it will be
universal no longer.]

In many mythologies the gods of light and warmth are, by a natural
analogy, held to be also the deities which preside over plenty, fertility
and reproduction. This was quite markedly the case with Quetzalcoatl. His
land and city were the homes of abundance; his people, the Toltecs, "were
skilled in all arts, all of which they had been taught by Quetzalcoatl
himself. They were, moreover, very rich; they lacked nothing; food was
never scarce and crops never failed. They had no need to save the small
ears of corn, so all the use they made of them was to burn them in heating
their baths."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. iii, cap. iii.]

As thus the promoter of fertility in the vegetable world, he was also the
genius of reproduction in the human race. The ceremonies of marriage which
were in use among the Aztecs were attributed to him,[1] and when the wife
found she was with child it was to him that she was told to address her
thanks. One of her relatives recited to her a formal exhortation, which
began as follows:--

[Footnote 1: Veitia, cap. xvii, in Kingsborough.]

"My beloved little daughter, precious as sapphire and jade, tender and
generous! Our Lord, who dwells everywhere and rains his bounties on whom
he pleases, has remembered you. The God now wishes to give you the fruit
of marriage, and has placed within you a jewel, a rich feather. Perhaps
you have watched, and swept, and offered incense; for such good works the
kindness of the Lord has been made manifest, and it was decreed in Heaven
and Hell, before the beginning of the World, that this grace should be
accorded you. For these reasons our Lord, Quetzalcoatl, who is the author
and creator of things, has shown you this favor; thus has resolved He in
heaven, who is at once both man and woman, and is known under the names
Twice Master and Twice Mistress."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. vi, cap. xxv. The bisexual nature
of the Mexican gods, referred to in this passage, is well marked in many
features of their mythology. Quetzalcoatl is often addressed in the
prayers as "father and mother," just as, in the Egyptian ritual, Chnum was
appealed to as "father of fathers and mother of mothers" (Tiele, _Hist. of
the Egyptian Religion_, p. 134). I have endeavored to explain this
widespread belief in hermaphroditic deities in my work entitled, _The
Religious Sentiment, Its Source and Aim_, pp. 65-68, (New York, 1876).]

It is recorded in the old histories that the priests dedicated to his
service wore a peculiar head-dress, imitating a snail shell, and for that
reason were called _Quateczizque_.[1] No one has explained this curiously
shaped bonnet. But it was undoubtedly because Quetzalcoatl was the god of
reproduction, for among the Aztecs the snail was a well known symbol of
the process of parturition.[2]

[Footnote 1: Duran, in Kingsborough, vol. viii, p. 267. The word is from
_quaitl_, head or top, and _tecziztli_, a snail shell.]

[Footnote 2: "Mettevanli in testa una lumaca marina per dimostrare que
siccome il piscato esce dalle pieghe di quell'osso, o conca. cosi vá ed
esce l'uomo _ab utero matris suae_." _Codice Vaticana, Tavola XXVI._]

Quetzalcoatl was that marvelous artist who fashions in the womb of the
mother the delicate limbs and tender organs of the unborn infant.
Therefore, when a couple of high rank were blessed with a child, an
official orator visited them, and the baby being placed naked before him,
he addressed it beginning with these words:--

"My child and lord, precious gem, emerald, sapphire, beauteous feather,
product of a noble union, you have been formed far above us, in the ninth
heaven, where dwell the two highest divinities. His Divine Majesty has
fashioned you in a mould, as one fashions a ball of gold; you have been
chiseled as a precious stone, artistically dressed by your Father and
Mother, the great God and the great Goddess, assisted by their son,
Quetzalcoatl."[1]

[Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. vi, cap. xxxiv.]

As he was thus the god on whom depended the fertilization of the womb,
sterile women made their vows to him, and invoked his aid to be relieved
from the shame of barrenness.[1]

[Footnote 1: Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. xi, cap. xxiv.]

In still another direction is this function of his godship shown. The
worship of the genesiac principle is as often characterized by an
excessive austerity as by indulgence in sexual acts. Here we have an
example. Nearly all the accounts tell us that Quetzalcoatl was never
married, and that he held himself aloof from all women, in absolute
chastity. We are told that on one occasion his subjects urged upon him the
propriety of marriage, and to their importunities he returned the dark
answer that, Yes, he had determined to take a wife; but that it would be
when the oak tree shall cast chestnuts, when the sun shall rise in the
west, when one can cross the sea dry-shod, and when nightingales grow
beards.[1]

[Footnote 1: Duran, in Kingsborough, vol. viii, p. 267. I believe Alva
Ixtlilxochitl is the only author who specifically assigns a family to
Quetzalcoatl. This author does not mention a wife, but names two sons,
one, Xilotzin, who was killed in war, the other, Pochotl, who was educated
by his nurse, Toxcueye, and who, after the destruction of Tollan,
collected the scattered Toltecs and settled with them around the Lake of
Tezcuco (_Relaciones Historicas_, p. 394, in Kingsborough, vol. ix). All
this is in contradiction to the reports of earlier and better authorities.
For instance, Motolinia says pointedly, "no fué casado, ni se le conoció
mujer" (_Historia de los Indios, Epistola Proemial_).]

Following the example of their Master, many of the priests of his cult
refrained from sexual relations, and as a mortification of the flesh they
practiced a painful rite by transfixing the tongue and male member with
the sharp thorns of the maguey plant, an austerity which, according to
their traditions, he was the first to institute.[1] There were also in the
cities where his special worship was in vogue, houses of nuns, the inmates
of which had vowed perpetual virginity, and it was said that Quetzalcoatl
himself had founded these institutions.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Codex Vaticanus_, Tab. xxii.]

[Footnote 2: Veitia, _Historia_, cap. XVII.]

His connection with the worship of the reproductive principle seems to be
further indicated by his surname, _Ce acatl_. This means One Reed, and is
the name of a day in the calendar. But in the Nahuatl language, the word
_acatl_, reed, cornstalk, is also applied to the virile member; and it has
been suggested that this is the real signification of the word when
applied to the hero-god. The suggestion is plausible, but the word does
not seem to have been so construed by the early writers. If such an
understanding had been current, it could scarcely have escaped the
inquiries of such a close student and thorough master of the Nahuatl
tongue as Father Sahagun.

On the other hand, it must be said, in corroboration of this
identification, that the same idea appears to be conveyed by the symbol of
the serpent. One correct translation of the name Quetzalcoatl is "the
beautiful serpent;" his temple in the city of Mexico, according to
Torquemada, had a door in the form of a serpent's mouth; and in the _Codex
Vaticanus_, No. 3738, published by Lord Kingsborough, of which we have an
explanation by competent native authority, he is represented as a serpent;
while in the same Codex, in the astrological signs which were supposed to
control the different parts of the human body, the serpent is pictured as
the sign of the male member.[1] This indicates the probability that in his
function as god of reproduction Quetzalcoatl may have stood in some
relation to phallic rites.

[Footnote 1: Compare the _Codex Vaticanus_, No. 3738, plates 44 and 75,
Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. ii.]

This same sign, _Ce Coatl_, One Serpent, used in their astrology, was that
of one of the gods of the merchants, and apparently for this reason, some
writers have identified the chief god of traffic, Yacatecutli (God of
Journeying), with Quetzalcoatl. This seems the more likely as another name
of this divinity was _Yacacoliuhqui_, With the End Curved, a name which
appears to refer to the curved rod or stick which was both his sign and
one of those of Quetzalcoatl.[1] The merchants also constantly associated
in their prayers this deity with Huitzilopochtli, which is another reason
for supposing their patron was one of the four primeval brothers, and but
another manifestation of Quetzalcoatl. His character, as patron of arts,
the model of orators, and the cultivator of peaceful intercourse among
men, would naturally lend itself to this position.

[Footnote 1: Compare Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxviii
and Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva España_, Lib. ix, _passim_.

_Yacatecutli_, is from _tecutli_, lord, and either _yaqui_, traveler, or
else _yacana_, to conduct.

_Yacacoliuhqui_, is translated by Torquemada, "el que tiene la nariz
aquileña." It is from _yaque_, a point or end, and hence, also, the nose,
and _coliuhqui_, bent or curved. The translation in the text is quite as
allowable as that of Torquemada, and more appropriate. I have already
mentioned that this divinity was suspected, by Dr. Schultz-Sellack, to be
merely another form of Quetzalcoatl. See above, chapter iii, §2]

But Quetzalcoatl, as god of the violent wind-storms, which destroy the
houses and crops, and as one, who, in his own history, was driven from his
kingdom and lost his all, was not considered a deity of invariably good
augury. His day and sign, _ce acatl_, One Reed, was of bad omen. A person
born on it would not succeed in life.[1] His plans and possessions would
be lost, blown away, as it were, by the wind, and dissipated into thin
air.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun. _Historia_, Lib. iv, cap. viii.]

Through the association of his person with the prying winds he came,
curiously enough, to be the patron saint of a certain class of thieves,
who stupefied their victims before robbing them. They applied to him to
exercise his maleficent power on those whom they planned to deprive of
their goods. His image was borne at the head of the gang when they made
their raids, and the preferred season was when his sign was in the
ascendant.[1] This is a singular parallelism to the Aryan Hermes myth, as
I have previously observed (Chap. I).

[Footnote 1: Ibid. Lib. IV, cap. XXXI.]

The representation of Quetzalcoatl in the Aztec manuscripts, his images
and the forms of his temples and altars, referred to his double functions
as Lord of the Light and the Winds.

He was not represented with pleasing features. On the contrary, Sahagun
tells us that his face, that is, that of his image, was "very ugly, with a
large head and a full beard."[1] The beard, in this and similar instances,
was to represent the rays of the sun. His hair at times was also shown
rising straight from his forehead, for the same reason.[2]

[Footnote 1: "La cara que tenia era muy fea y la cabeza larga y barbuda."
_Historia_, Lib. III, cap. III. On the other hand Ixtlilxochitl speaks of
him as "de bella figura." _Historia Chichimeca_, cap. viii. He was
occasionally represented with his face painted black, probably expressing
the sun in its absence.]

[Footnote 2: He is so portrayed in the Codex Vaticanus. and Ixtlilxochitl
says, "tubiese el cabello levantado desde la frente hasta la nuca como á
manera de penacho." _Historia Chichimeca_, cap. viii.]

At times he was painted with a large hat and flowing robe, and was then
called "Father of the Sons of the Clouds," that is, of the rain drops.[1]

[Footnote 1: Diego Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, viii, p. 267.]

These various representations doubtless referred to him at different parts
of his chequered career, and as a god under different manifestations of
his divine nature. The religious art of the Aztecs did not demand any
uniformity in this respect.


§5. _The Return of Quetzalcoatl._

Quetzalcoatl was gone.

Whether he had removed to the palace prepared for him in T

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