high degree of conventionality. We have here the cap and panache of Quetzalcoatl, together with the strip running from brow to eye and from eye to jaw, which is part of the face-painting of the Moon-god. Moreover, in the corner we have the symbol of the moon, a pot-shaped bone, so that here, I think, we have a symbol of Quetzalcoatl as the Moon-god. In the preceding figure, too, we have also the lunar emblem, in this place in shape like the nose-plug of the octli-gods, but containing the stellar eye, and flanked by balls of feather-down. It would thus seem that the symbol has some reference to Quetzalcoatl in his variant of the planet Venus. Moreover the eye appears as gouged out. This eye-gouging is seen in the Maya Books of Chilan Balam, in the case of the god Itzamná. These two latter paintings, Seler thinks, are symbolic of the Uiyatao, or the high-priests of Mitla, who were regarded as incarnations of Quetzalcoatl.73
MYTHS
The myths concerning Quetzalcoatl are numerous and conflicting. In the first place I shall provide a careful précis of the more important, their prolixity rendering full quotation impossible.
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