humming-bird, whilst his face and limbs were barred with stripes of blue. Falling upon the enemies of his mother he speedily slew them. He became the leader of the Aztec nation, and after performing on its behalf prodigies of valour, he and his mother were translated to heaven, where she was assigned a place as the Goddess of Flowers.

The Müllerism of fifteen or twenty years ago would have assigned unhesitatingly the legend of Huitzilopochtli to that class of myths which have their origin in natural phenomena. In the Hibbert Lectures for 1884, M. Réville, the French religionist, professes to see in the Mexican war-god the offspring of the sun and the 'spring florescence.' Mr. Tylor (Primitive Culture) calls Huitzilopochtli an 'inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity.' A more satisfactory solution of the myth would seem to the present writer to be that the origin of Huitzilopochtli was partly totemic—that, in fact, the humming-bird was the original totem of the wandering tribe of Aztecs prior to their descent upon Anahuac. The humming-bird is of an extremely pugnacious disposition, and will not hesitate to attack birds considerably larger than itself. This courage would appeal to a warlike tribe bent on conquest, and its adoption as a totem and as a standard in the wars of the Aztecs would naturally follow. This standard was known as the Huitziton or Paynalton, the 'little humming-bird' or 'little quick one,' and was a miniature of Huitzilopochtli borne by the priests in front of the soldiers in battle. This totem, then, took rank as the national war-god of the Aztecs. The commerce of the mortal woman with the animal is common to many legends of a totemic origin, as may be witnessed in the myths of many of the present-day American Indian tribes who believe their ancestors to have been the progeny of bears or wolves and mortal women, or as many Norse and Celtic families in Early Britain believed themselves to be able to trace a similar ancestry.

However, Huitzilopochtli had a certain solar connection. He had three annual festivals, in May, August, and December. At the last of these festivals, an image of him was modelled in dough, kneaded with the blood of sacrificed children, and this was pierced by the presiding priest with an arrow, in token that the sun had been slain, and was dead for a season. The totem had, in fact, become confounded with the sun-god, the deity of the older and more cultured races of Anahuac, who had been adopted by the Aztecs on their settlement there. The myth had, in fact, to be revised in the light of the later adoption of a solar cultus; so that here as in so many of the myths of other lands we find an amicable blending of rival beliefs which have been almost insensibly fused one into another.

But another originally totemic deity had gained high rank in the Aztec pantheon. This was Tezcatlipoca, whose name signifies 'Shining Mirror.' He was the brother of Huitzilopochtli, and in this brotherhood may be discerned the twofold nature of the Huitzilopochtli legend. Tezcatlipoca was not the blood-brother of the war-god of the Aztecs, but his brother in so far as he was connected with the sun. Tezcatlipoca, then, was the god of the cold season, and typified the dreary sun of that time of year. But he was also (probably as an afterthought) the God of Justice, in whose mirror the thoughts and actions of men were reflected. It seems probable to the present writer that Tezcatlipoca may originally, and in another clime, have been an ice-god. The facts which lead to this assumption are the period of his coming into power at the end of summer, and his possession of a shining mirror. Another of Tezcatlipoca's names signifies 'Night Wind.' He was evidently regarded also as the 'Breath of Life.' He may originally have been a wind demon of the prairies.

Tezcatlipoca's plaited hair was enclosed in a golden net, and from this plait was suspended an ear wrought in gold, towards which mounted a cloud of tongues, representative of the prayers of mankind. The ever-present nature of the 'Great Spirit' is also typified by Tezcatlipoca, who wandered invisible through the city of Mexico to observe the conduct of the inhabitants. That he might be enabled to rest during his tour of inspection, stone seats were placed for his reception at intervals in the streets. Needless to say no human being dared to occupy those benches.

But the most unique of all the gods of Mexico was Quetzalcoatl. This name indicates 'Feathered Serpent,' and the deity who owned it was probably adopted by the Aztecs upon their settlement in Mexico, called by them Anahuac. At all events, Quetzalcoatl stood for a worship which was eminently more advanced and humane than the degrading and sanguinary idolatry of which Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca were the prime objects. That he was not of Aztec origin but a god of the Toltecs or of the elder peoples who had preceded them in Anahuac is proved by a myth of the Mexican nations, in which his strife with Tezcatlipoca is related. Step by step Quetzalcoatl, the genius of Old Anahuac, resisted the inroads of the newcomers as represented by Tezcatlipoca. But he was forced to flee the country over which he had presided so long, and to embark on a frail boat on the ocean, promising to return at some future period. The Aztecs believed in and feared his ultimate return. He was not one of their gods. But in their terror of his vengeance and return they attempted to propitiate him by permitting his worship to flourish as a distinct caste side by side with that of Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca.

Réville, writing in 'the mythical age,' as the decade of the 'eighties of last century has wittily been designated, sees in Quetzalcoatl the east wind, and quotes Sahagun to substantiate his theory.[3] But Quetzalcoatl was 'Lord of the Dawn.' In fine he was a culture-god, and was closely connected with the sun. It would be impossible in the space assigned to me to enter fully into an analysis of the origin of this most interesting figure. There is, however, reason to believe that Quetzalcoatl was one of those early introducers of culture who sooner or later find a place among the deities of the nation they have assisted in its early struggles towards civilisation. The strife between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, according to Réville, typifies the struggle between the wind and the cold and dry season. It is more probable that it typifies the strife between culture and barbarism. The same authority points out that it is Tezcatlipoca and not Huitzilopochtli who attacks Quetzalcoatl. But Tezcatlipoca, was the god of austerity, and perhaps of the cold north, and thus the proper opponent of a luxurious southern civilisation. I have gone more fully into the question of the origin of Quetzalcoatl in the last chapter of this work, as a more prolonged consideration of the subject would be somewhat out of the scope of the present chapter.

The worship of Quetzalcoatl was antipathetic if not directly opposed to that of the other deities of Anahuac. It had a separate priesthood of its own who dressed in white in contradistinction to the sable garments which the priests of the other divinities were in the habit of wearing, and its ritual discountenanced if it did not forbid human sacrifice. Quetzalcoatl possessed a high priest of his own, who was subservient, however, to the Aztec pontiff, and who only joined the monarch's deliberative council on rare and extraordinary occasions. There can be no doubt that the good reception given to Cortes and