Note VII-22 — Chapter VII · GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

At this part of the story Torquemada takes opportunity, parenthetically, to remark that this fable was very generally current among the Mexicans, and that when Father Bernardino de Sahagun was in the city of Xuchimilco, they asked him where Tlapalla was. Sahagun replied that he did not know, as indeed he did not (nor any one else—it being apparently wholly mythical), nor even understand their question, inasmuch as he had been at that time only a little while in the country—it being fifty years before he wrote his book [the Historia General]. Sahagun adds that the Mexicans made at that time divers trials of this kind, questioning the Christians to see if they knew anything of their antiquities. Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 50.