Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/76

advancing waves of Nahua migration. As might be expected, Quetzalcoatl is closely associated with the peoples of the eastern coast, he wears Huaxtec dress, and the Olmec are mentioned as his children; further, he was worshipped at Tlaxcala and Uexotzinco, and especially at Cholula, cities in which the Toltec at their dispersal had settled in numbers. Cholula was in fact the centre of his worship in later times, and his great pyramid there, greater even than that of Uitzilopochtli in Mexico, was regarded with particular veneration by the surrounding peoples, even by the Aztec conquerors. One legend makes Quetzalcoatl the chief agent in the final creation of man. According to this story he goes to the underworld to fetch bones; as he returns he falls, the bones drop to earth and quails gnaw them. Finally Ciuacoatl pounds them up and makes a paste from which men are formed. The same myth shows him as the discoverer of maize, which was concealed in the mountain Tonacatepetl. All the gods were searching for it, but the way was known to the ants alone. Quetzalcoatl turns himself into a black ant, and a red ant guides him thither, but the mountain is too heavy to lift, so the god Xolotl (in his manifestation as Nanauatzin) splits it open. This god Xolotl, who will be mentioned later, is closely associated in dress and attributes with Quetzalcoatl, as also are the octli-gods, and he is sometimes given as the hero of the creation-myth quoted above. But the maize was not destined to remain the possession of Quetzalcoatl, for it was stolen by Tlaloc, to whom since that time it belongs. In many of the invocations given by Sahagun, Quetzalcoatl is mentioned as a creator-god. A peculiar point in connection with this deity is seen in the practice of professional thieves, who were accustomed to make an image of Quetzalcoatl which they carried with them when they set out to rob a house. The explanation may be sought in the fact that the wind-god was naturally