Note 15 — Chapter II · COSMOGONY

These deeds had, however, passed in a world of darkness, for as yet the sun had not risen. A council of the gods was assembled at Teotihuacan, a locality of great sanctity, and seated round a council fire, it considered the means by which the luminary might be created. It was resolved that he who first cast himself into the fire should be transformed into the sun. The offer was accepted by Nanahuatzin, who was afflicted with a painful disease, had therefore found life intolerable and did not dread the transformation. Nothing happened for some time after his self-immolation, and the waiting gods began to make wagers with one another regarding the place in the heavens where the sun would be likely to show itself. None of them had considered it probable that it would rise in the East, and when at last it became visible in that quarter, it was as a stationary mass which directed such scorching rays upon them that they dispatched the hawk messenger to request it to depart. Whether or not Nanahuatzin in his rôle of Sun-god was wroth with his brothers for personal reasons, he replied that it was his intention to destroy them utterly. A great fear seized upon some, whilst others grew angry and caught up their weapons. Among the latter was Citli, who fitted an arrow to his bow and fired at the transformed Nanahuatzin. The sun-god avoided the shaft. He could not, however, evade all those which followed, but seizing one, cast it back at Citli, whom it transfixed and slew. Fiercer became the heat, until at length the gods could tolerate it no longer, and felt that it behoved them to perish by each other’s hands rather than by the ignoble death of suffocation. They agreed that Xolotl should dispatch them one by one, cutting open their breasts, and this holocaust he undertook, finally slaying himself. Before perishing, the gods left their raiment to their personal servants, of which each retainer made a bundle, wrapping his master’s clothing round a stick, placing a small green stone inside to serve as a heart, and naming it after the god to whom it had belonged. Olmos himself encountered such a relic in Tlalmanalco, exhibiting evidences of very considerable age.15 On the death of the gods the sun began to move in the heavens, and a god, Tecciztecatl, who had hidden himself in a cavern when Nanahuatzin leaped into the fire, now emerged from his hiding-place and took the form of the moon. The retainers carried the bundles from place to place, and one of them, the servant of Tezcatlipocâ, coming to the sea-shore, had a vision of his deceased master, who commanded him to betake himself to the house of the sun and to bring him singers and players of instruments to assist in the celebration of a festival. To enable the messenger to travel to the Sun-House, the whale, the siren, and the tortoise were asked to form themselves into a bridge which might reach the abode of the luminary. The servant crossed it, singing sweetly as he went, and his song was heard by the Sun, who straitly commanded his retainers not to respond to it on being approached by the singer. This some of them failed to do, and returning with the messenger, took with them the necessary instruments wherewith to celebrate the festival of Tezcatlipocâ.