Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/45

 Rh hill-top. As the people rushed in crowds to examine this strange creation, it was discovered that the child's head was a mass of corruption, the stench from which smote with death all who approached it. Finally the devil, or the god, appeared again and warned the Toltecs that their fate was sealed as a nation, and that they could only escape destruction by flight."

The visitor to this city of the gods to-day will find, scattered all over the surface of the pyramids and mounds, along the road of the dead and in the adjacent fields, numerous heads of clay, or terra cotta. They are grotesque in feature and singular in design. It is not known what use was made of them, why they were made in such quantities, nor why only heads are found, instead of entire figures having a body as well. It is thought by some that these idols were given by the priests, or holy men, to the crowds of worshipers who used to resort to this city of sanctuaries in these early times.

Whether those pyramids are Toltec, Olmec, or Totonac, it is very certain that they were built by a people who inhabited Anahuac long before the Aztecs arrived in it.

Before passing on to the people that succeeded the Toltecs in the valley of Mexico, let us glance at another pyramid of the past, belonging to this epoch, and at a great hero mentioned in Toltec traditions. We have seen that Tula was their capital and that there they lived in peace for many years. It was some time during their residence there that Quetzalcoatl, the "Feathered Serpent," appeared amongst them. He was a beneficent deity, who seemed to have taken the shape of a man in order to improve the condition of the people of earth. His name is constructed from two words, Quetzal, a bird of beautiful plumage found