to the mountains at any hour of the day or night, to spill their blood; this was permitted them from a respect to the virtue which they were all thought to possess. The superiors of the monasteries bore also the name of Quetzalcoatl, and were persons of such high authority, that they visited but the king when it was necessary. The members of this religious order were destined to it from their infancy. The parents of the child invited the superior to an entertainment, who usually deputed one of his subjects. The deputy brought the child to him, upon which he took the boy in his arms and offered him with a prayer to Quetzalcoatl, and put a collar about his neck, which was to be worn until he was seven years old. When the boy completed his second year, the superior made a small incision in his breast, which, like the collar, was another mark of his destination. As soon as the boy attained his seventh year he entered into the monastery, having first heard a long discourse from his parents, in which they advertised him of the vow which they had made to Quetzalcoatl, and exhorted him to fulfil it, to behave well, to submit himself to his prelate, and to pray to the gods for his parents and the whole nation.”
The high-priest of Quetzalcoatl was stationed at Cholula and was, perhaps, the most venerated ecclesiastic in Mexico.
TEMPLES
The principal temple of the cult of Quetzalcoatl in Mexico was the well-known teocalli at Cholula. He had also a shrine in the great temple court at Mexico, built in circular form, and thus typical of the Wind-god.
NATURE AND STATUS
The latest of the myths concerning Quetzalcoatl are obviously those which regard him as a culture-hero who enters the country as an alien, and,