Note 74 — Chapter III · THE GREAT GODS

Sahagun’s account of Quetzalcoatl may be summarized as follows: The arts had their inception with Quetzalcoatl. His houses were made of chalchiuites, silver, white, and red shells, and rich feathers. His folk were nimble and swift in passage from one place to another, and were called tlanquace­milhiyme.74 He gave his commands to the people for a hundred leagues round by means of a crier stationed on the mountain Tzotzitepetl.75 He had wealth in abundance, provision in plenty, and in his time maize was so large in the head that a man might not carry more than one stalk in his clasped arms. Pumpkins were in circumference as great as a man is high, and the stalks of the wild amaranth grew like trees. Cotton grew in all colours—red, scarlet, yellow, violet, white, green, blue, black, grey, orange, and tawny. In the city of Tollan, where Quetzalcoatl dwelt, were many birds of rich plumage and sweet song. The servants of Quetzalcoatl were wealthy and had abundance of all things, and food was plentiful with them. Their master did penance by pricking his legs and drawing blood with the spines of the maguey and by washing at midnight in a fountain. But sorcerers came against Quetzalcoatl and his people, the Toltecs, and these, we are told, were the gods Tezcatlipocâ, Uitzilopochtli, and Tlacuepan. Tezcatlipocâ visited the house of Quetzalcoatl in the guise of an old man, but was told that he was sick, and was at first refused entrance. Later, however, he was admitted, Quetzalcoatl observing that he had waited for him for many days. Tezcatlipocâ then produced a draught of medicine which, he assured the sick king, would intoxicate him, ease his heart, and carry his thoughts away from the trials and fatigues of death and departure.76 This latter phrase roused Quetzalcoatl to ask where he must go, for that he had a premonition of departure seems clear. “To Tollantlapallan,” replied Tezcatlipocâ, “where another old man awaits thee. He and you shall speak together, and on thy return thou shalt be as a youth, yea as a boy.” With little goodwill Quetzalcoatl quaffed the medicine, and having once tasted of it he drank more deeply, so that at last he became intoxicated and maudlin. That which he had drunk was the wine made from the maguey-plant, called teoncetl (“drink of the gods”). And so great a longing to depart came upon him that at length he arose and went from Tollan.77 Ere departing, Quetzalcoatl burned his houses of shells and silver and buried many precious things in the mountains and ravines. He turned the cocoa-trees into mezquites and dispatched all the birds of brilliant plumage in Anahuac, three hundred miles away. On his journey to the coast he came to the hill Quauhtitlan, where he found a great tree, under which he rested. Gazing into a mirror, as he reclined under its shade, he said, “I am very old,” named the place Ueuequauhtitlan after his saying,78 and stoned the tree. The stones he cast at it sank into its trunk, and were to be seen remaining there for long afterwards. Preceded by flute-players, he recommenced his journey, but once more became weary, and rested on a stone by the wayside. Looking towards Tollan, he wept, and his tears pitted the stone on which he sat, and the imprints of his hands and thighs also remained thereon. That place he called Temacpalco. Reaching a great river, he halted until a stone bridge was built over it, and having crossed, he called the place Tepanaoya. Certain sorcerers now met him, and asked him whither he was bound, why he had left his city of Tollan, and who would now do penance there. Quetzalcoatl replied that he must go, that he was called to Tlapallan by the Sun. The sorcerers requested him to leave behind his knowledge of the mechanical arts, the smelting of silver, the working of precious stones, and masonry, painting, and feather-work. These he left with them perforce. But his treasure of jewels he cast into the fountain of Cozcaapan hard by. Another magician whom he met insisted upon his drinking a draught which he could give “to none of the living.” Intoxicated, he slept, and when he awoke, tore his hair. That place was called Cachtoca. Pursuing his journey, he passed between a mountain of snow and a volcano, where his hump-backed and dwarfish servants perished from the excessive cold. Bitterly he bewailed their death in song. Passing on, leaving signs of his progress on every hand, and sliding down the mountains, he tarried here and there, building a tlachtli court at one place, the markings of which were visible in deep gashes on the hills. Once he transfixed a tree with a dart or with another tree, so that it resembled a cross. In other localities he constructed subterranean houses (mictlan­calco), and elsewhere balanced a great rolling-stone, and on all these spots he conferred names. At length he came to the sea-shore, where he commanded that a raft of snakes (coatapochtli) should be constructed for him. In this he seated himself as in a canoe, put out to sea, and set out for Tlapallan.79