the sun-god Piltzintecutli is merely a personification of Tonatiuh, the sun. As has already been said, solar worship in Mexico seems to have been developed at a comparatively late period. In the myths regarding the origin of the sun given by Olmos and Sahagun, it is clear that he is regarded more as a luminary than as a god. The name Tonatiuh, indeed, means nothing more than “sun,” and although one of the sacrificed gods was believed to have given him life, and he afterwards acts as a living being, he does not seem to possess the same qualities of personality as his later form, Piltzintecutli. The expression “Tonatiuh” seems to have been regarded as a divine place-name, a paradise to which those warriors fared who died in battle.
Tonatiuh was known as the Teotl, that is as the god par excellence, but this does not by any means imply that the Mexicans regarded him as the highest form of deity known to them. I think it rather means that the priests, having