Note 90 — Chapter III · THE GREAT GODS

In my view the physical phenomena which occur in connection with the courses of the winds typical of the Mexican plateau provide by far the most simple and natural explanation of the nature of the god Quetzalcoatl. From April or May to the beginning of October the trade-wind blows from the east coast over the Plateau of Anahuac, bringing with it abundance of rain, and accelerating vegetable growth, thus actually “sweeping the ways for the rain-gods.” Its advance is comparatively slow, the rains beginning three or four weeks earlier in Vera Cruz than in Puebla and Mexico. At the beginning of October, however, it is invariably modified by the local monsoon, which interrupts it over wide areas, or in certain districts invades it in violent cyclonic storms, dissipating its energies and altering its course. Quetzalcoatl represents the gentle trade-wind, which ushers in the growth-making rains. His reign of peace, plenty, and fertility over, he comes into opposition with Tezcatlipocâ, who represents the monsoon and who chases his rival “from city to city,” ravening at him like a tiger, says Mendieta, and at last hustling him out of the country. That Tezcatlipocâ is also a god of wind is certain, as is proved by one of his names, Yoalli Ehecatl, “Wind of Night,” and that he is the monsoon or hurricane is proved beyond all doubt by the circumstance that he is said to have rushed along the highways at night at extraordinary speed, and that Hurakan, his Quiche name, is still employed for the very wind he represented, and has become a generic name for a tempestuous wind in practically all European languages, which have without question adopted it from the American word.90