was described in tradition as leading them from the mythical northern country of Aztlan in the form of “a little bird.” He is usually represented in the pictorial MSS., where his appearance is infrequent, as wearing a mantle made from humming-birds’ feathers. Later legend spoke of him as the vindicator of his mother, a goddess of vegetation, and as slaying her detractors, his own half-brothers, while in historical times the whole business of war was arranged through the instrumentality of his oracular image and was carried out chiefly in view of the necessity for human sacrifice which characterized his especial cult. But if we examine the roots of the beliefs which cluster around him, we shall find much to convince us that he was, after the entrance of his people into the Valley of Anahuac, identified with the maguey plant, which forms so familiar an object in the Mexican landscape. Extended proof of this lowly origin will be found in the section which deals with the god.
Quite as humble are the beginnings of the god Tezcatlipocâ, perhaps the most universally dreaded among the Mexican deities. Regarding his precise significance nothing very definite has been arrived at by modern authorities. As will be shown later, the early significance of Tezcatlipocâ arises out of his connection with obsidian, which had an especial sanctity for the Mexicans.
ANIMAL GODS
In our gropings for the roots of the Mexican faith we must not fail to notice those elements which stand apart from agricultural religion and are eloquent of the concepts of a still earlier time. Agricultural theology is as old as agriculture, and no older. The food-supply of the savage prior to that period depends upon the successful conduct of the chase. His gods are therefore often precisely of the species of animal by hunting which he gains a livelihood, and which he frequently regards as placed at his disposal by a great eponymous beast-god of the same kind.18 Again, for