COSMOGONY
Accounts of the creation of the world and of man, even as handed down to us by those writers on Mexican mythology who had the best opportunities for collecting them, are prone to vagueness, and differ so materially one from another that we will probably not be in error if we impute their inconsistencies to a variety of local origins. As regards the agencies by whom the creation or reconstruction of the earth was accomplished, we are not in doubt, for certain passages in the Interpretative Codices find almost exact corroboration in the creation story contained in the Popol Vuh, the mythic book of the Quiche of Guatemala (which was unknown to the interpreters of the Mexican Codices), as well as in similar works of Maya origin.
The interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis states that the god Tonacatecutli, “when it appeared good to him, breathed and divided the waters of the heavens and the earth, which at first were all confused together, and disposed them as they now are.”1 Further, “he breathed and begot Quetzalcoatl, not by connection with a woman, but by his breath alone.”2 The first of these deities, and his female counterpart Tonacaciuatl, are almost certainly spoken of in the Popol Vuh as “the serpents covered with green feathers,” which, farther on in the Quiche work, are alluded to as Xpiyacoc and Xmucane, gods who are generally admitted to be the same as the Mexican Oxomoco and Cipactonal, who, again, are either identical with or closely connected with Tonacatecutli and his spouse.3 Quetzalcoatl, too, appears in the Popol Vuh as Gucumatz, a known Quiche equivalent or translation of his name, for as “wind” or “breath” he was also thought of as “spirit” or “life,” and probably his