Note 39 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

In Tlalhuica, not far from Cuernavaca or Quauhnauac, stands the pyramid of Xochicalco, one of the most perfect specimens extant of Nahua architectural skill. There is reason to believe that Xochiquetzal was originally the local deity of one of these mountains the waters from which irrigate the fields below,39 and it seems probable that the teocalli of Xochicalco typified this eminence. We know that the teotlalpan, or “Place of Divine Earth,” in the sacred precinct at Mexico, was sacred to Mixcoatl, a deity who was perhaps of Otomi origin, and that it was probably symbolic of a mountain in the Otomi country of which he was the presiding deity, so that the probability is borne out by analogy. In the country of the Tlaxcaltecs stood the heights of Xochtecatl, “Goddess of the Flowery Land,” a mountain, according to Torquemada, about six miles in circumference, which was the nucleus of a settlement, and was surrounded by graves hewn out of the solid rock. This, perhaps, provides a fuller illustration of the theory advanced above.