Gods of the Air.— To understand the curi ous relationship of these Mexican divinities it is necessary to remember that they were all gods of the air and that they had, in general, common functions, attributes and powers. Camaxtli, the war god of the Tlaxcalans, was recognized by the Mexicans as being the equiv alent of their own Huitzilopochtli, while the Tlaxcalans held that he was identical with Mixcoatl, the Otomi god of the chase. Among these three peoples this deity was designated by more or less the same insignia. But he also wore upon his face and bod the colors of the morning as did also uetzalcoatl; he carried the lightning dart, whi proclaimed him god of. war, and at the same time con nected him with the divinities of the wind, the lightning and the thunder. Mixcoatl, who had two temples in Tenochitlin, also wore the symbols of the god of the air.
The same fate befell the mythology of Yu catan. Itzatnna, the older culture god of the peninsula, was the popular culture hero of the Itzaes, the first of the historical races who overran Yucatan and the adjacent territory; while Kukulcan was the tribal god of the Mayas. Yet both divinities were recognized by the Mayas and the Itzaes; the shrines of both were to be found in the centres of the re ligious cult of the peninsula and to them came pilgrims from Chiapas, Guatemala and all southern Mexico, generally over well-paved stone roads which now lie buried in impene trable forests.
The Kiches of Guatemala called their cul ture divinity Gucumatz, °Green Feathered Serpent,* a name indicative of divine intelli gence; and the Mixtecas, hundreds of miles awv on the west coast of Mexico, named theirs Yucano, the Light,* a term having practically the same significance. But everywhere in the south, as among the Toltecs and the Aztecs, the traditions and offices of this great intertribal divinity were the same. He was the god of the winds, the thunder and the lightning, of the morning star, of fire and of the apostle of culture, the patron of merchants, inventor of language, literature and art, the special divinity of athletes and sportsmen, artisans and thieves. To him, un der one name or other, was erected all that was beautiful in the builder's art. He was the terrestrial representative of the great sun sent to teach the people of the earth the arts and sciences. He was the originator of the Toltec, Aztec, Kiche, Maya. Zapoteca and Mixteca calendars and systems of hieroglyphic writing, and he is credited with having given names to animals, plants, minerals, places and geograph ical divisions. He was the great physician and
the inventor of medicine; music and poetry, too, were his gifts to humanity. In short, he was a universal culture god whose powers and benefactions were bounded only by the ad vancement in civilization and the breadth of imagination of each of the many tribes and nations unto whom tradition represents him as ministering.
Creation The • Nahuatls believed that before the creation of the universe there existed a region inhabited by the creator, Tona catecutli (Ometecutli), and his consort, Tonacacihuatl (Omecihuatl), who had four sons, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzal coatl and Yayauqui. When the 'youngest of these was 600 years old the gods appointed Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli as their rep resentatives. The two executors created a fire and a demi-sun, and then two human beings, Oxomoco and his wife, Cipactonatl. To the man they gave the art of cultivating the ground and to the woman those of spinning, weaving and prophecy. They then created Mictlin Tecutli and his wife, Mictlan Cihuatl, Lord and Lady of Mictlin. They divided time into days, months and years; and below the shining residence of Tonaca Tecutli, in the /3th re gion, they created eight heavens, the first of which was inhabited by two stars, male and female; the second by Tetzahua Cihuatl (woman skeletons), whose business is said to have been to devour humanity at the end of the world. In the third heaven were men of all colors; in the fourth birds which descended to the earth. The fifth was the home and birthplace of fiery serpents, comets and falling stars; the sixth the dwelling place of the wind the seventh that of dust, and the eighth that of the gods. Tlaloc and his consort, chalchintli cue, were also created as masters of the waters in the heavens above and upon the earth be low. Tlaloc, in turn, created a great num ber of little servants, all of whom were known as Tlalocs, while he himself bore the title of Tlalocaltecutli, "Lord of the Tlalocs." His pigmy servants distributed the water Wherever Tlaloc ordered them to, and sent it down upon the earth in the shape of rain, where it was again taken in charge by other little Tlalocs. Whenever one of these was unfortunate enough to break the jar in which he carried the water the crash of the fall produced thunder, and when a flying fragment hit some mortal, men said he had been struck by lightning.