TOTOCHTIN
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Sahagun MS.—The face is painted in two different colours, and the head is surmounted by a crown of feathers. The god [[299]]wears the half-moon nose-plug of the octli-gods, and an ear-plug made of paper. On his back he wears the wing of the red guacamayo, and he has a feather collar. A net cloth decorated with the figures of scorpions is hung round his hips. On his feet he wears bells and shells, and the sandals peculiar to the octli-gods. The shield common to the octli-gods hangs on his arm, and he carries in his hand the obsidian or copper axe with which they are usually represented.
NATURE AND STATUS
Sahagun (bk. i, c. xii) alludes to Totochtin as “the god of wine.” He seems to me to be a personification of the Centzon Totochtin (four hundred or “innumerable” octli-gods), a figure in which the entire body of drink-gods seem to have become merged in the Aztec mind.
| Patecatl. (From Codex Vaticanus B, sheet 90.) | Totoltecatl. (From Sahagun MS.) | Tomiauhtecutli. (From Sahagun MS.) |
THE OCTLI-GODS.