Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/74

46 Omacatl (a calendrical name, "Two Reed") he was the god of banquets and festive entertainments, and as Tlamatzincatl he was regarded as endowed with perpetual youth. His relation to the produce-goddesses is seen in the fact that the four women given as wives to the victim, identified with the god himself, who was destined to be sacrificed at his principal feast, bore the ceremonial names of Xilonen, Xochiquetzal, Uixtociuatl and Atlatonan, the last-named being a goddess associated with Teteoinnan and honoured with a flaying-sacrifice.

Another important deity, whose relations are peculiarly difficult to unravel, was Quetzalcoatl (PI.VI,z). He was the especial god of the Toltec, inventor and patron of the arts and crafts, and originator of the calendar and priestly ritual. In studying the extremely confused legends concerned with this divinity it is important to remember two facts which have probably given rise to much misunderstanding. First that the high-priest of the god bore his name, secondly that the last Toltec king, in whose reign occurred the fall of Tulan and the scattering of the Toltec, was called Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. The relation of this god to the Maya deity Kukulkan, whose name is an exact equivalent (quetzal=kukul, the quetzal bird; coatl= kan, snake), is discussed below (p. 226). It is said that after giving laws to the people he departed eastward, and on reaching the sea put off his feather dress and turquoise snake-mask and immolated himself upon a funeral pyre, his soul becoming the morning star; or, according to another account, he sailed away eastward, promising to return in a year of similar date. Asa god of the morning star he bore the calendrical name of Ce Acatl ("One Reed"), one of the dates marking the periodical appearances of Venus. It will be remembered that we have seen a deity named Ce Acatl as a warrior-god, slaying the Mimizcoa who had killed his father Mixcoatl. But this deity is