Note 58 — Chapter III · THE GREAT GODS

Tezcatlipocâ was unquestionably the god of the itztli (obsidian) stone, and Seler58 has identified him with Iztli, the stone-knife god, the second of the lords of the night. In certain codices, too, he is represented as having such a knife in place of a foot, and we know that it was a fairly common practice of the Mexican artists to indicate the name or race of an individual by drawing one of his feet in a hieroglyphical manner.59 I believe, too, that the net-like garment worn at times by the god above his other attire is an adaptation of the mesh-bag in which Mexican hunters carried flints for use as spear- and arrow-heads.