Note 23 — Chapter II · COSMOGONY

Sahagun, it will be observed, disappoints us in his account of the creation, which he confines to the details of the appearance of the sun and moon and is silent concerning the creation of gods and men. This is strange when the facilities he had for the collection of myths are considered, but as a priest, it is evident that he is more interested in points of ritual than in religious narrative, which, he evidently agrees with Curtin’s French-Canadian, is to be regarded as “chose d’absurde.”23 Even although we possess the sonorous warning of Prescott and the objections of others to bias us against Ixtlilxochitl, there is little ground for regarding his version of the Mexican creation story as being other than he received it from sources which would have been unspeakably precious had he made better use of them as regards other subjects.