Toltec state, and the concealment of his gold and gems by burial to analogous Toltec practice on the defeat or decline of that civilized folk. With his departure the reign of plenty ceases, the trees wither, the birds migrate, the season of the trade-wind rains has come to an end. History and myth are perhaps combined in this story of the latter days of the Toltec régime and those of the revivifying rains. The priest-god withdraws eastwards to the “flute-playing” of the retreating trade-winds. Nahua sorcerers detain him in order to learn the Toltec arts, perhaps a mythical manner of showing how the Nahua barbarians forced captive Toltecs to teach them the mysteries of stone- and metal-craft. He is given the draught of the dead, “that none of the living can drink,” a mythical episode common in all parts of the world. His dwarfish followers (the rain-gods, the Tlaloque, with whom Sahagun associates him elsewhere) are frozen to death in the cold of the mountains, otherwise the rain is congealed into snow.
Torquemada’s version of Quetzalcoatl’s myth is eloquent of the pre-eminence of his cult at Cholula. The priest-god’s prophecy of his return bears an extraordinary resemblance to that given in the Books of Chilan Balam, a Guatemalan native production, regarding the coming of white men to Central America.92
Motolinia’s story of the fixing of the strap on Quetzalcoatl’s arm is merely a grotesque explanation of the name Acolhua, which in reality signifies “the folk of the great shoulder,” “the pushers,” “the hustling invaders.”
Mendieta, in dwelling upon Quetzalcoatl’s dislike of war, merely retains for us a characteristic of the effeminate people of Cholula. The appearance of Tezcatlipocâ as a spider is typical of the god of the dry season, or of the dry-rot prevalent in that period of the year. As a tiger he symbolizes