A variant myth makes Quetzalcoatl the god who seeks bones in the underworld from which to make the human race. As he returns, the bones drop to earth and quails gnaw them. Ciuacoatl pounds them into a paste from which men are formed. The Anales de Quauhtitlan makes the gods create man from the cinders of the worlds destroyed in the four epochs.

Probably because of his status as god of twins and of duplicates of all kinds.

Obviously this sacred bundle is in the same category with the “medicine-bundle” of the North American Indian tribes, and it would seem that from such a form certain of the Mexican gods were evolved.

Bk. vii, c. 2.

For further information regarding this incident see Boturini, Idea, section iii, 14, “Tlatocaocelotl.”