[1474] The myths connected with Quetzalcoatl (see Brinton, American Hero-Myths, and L. Spence, Mythologies of Ancient Mexico and Peru) do not relate mostly to the movements and deeds of the sun or the winds, but arose from his character as local deity with universal powers. Social and political events were woven into them. His contest with Tezcatlipoca seems to reflect the struggle between two tribes; his defeat signifies the victory of the conquering tribe, and the expectation of his return (by which the invading Spaniards, it is said, profited) was based on the political hope of his people. Cf. similar expectations among other peoples.
[1475] Gen. xxii.
[1476] B. Beer, Leben Abraham's nach Auffassung der jüdischen Sage, p. 5 and note 34; p. 102, note 30.
[1477] Turner, Samoa, Index.
[1478] Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, chap. xviii.
[1479] Pausanias, Description of Greece, passim.
[1480] Semitic and other examples are given in W. R. Smith's Religion of the Semites, p. 173 ff.
[1481] On the complicated myth of Phaëthon see the article in Roscher's Lexikon.
[1482] Isa. xxiv, 21; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 356 ff.
[1483] The Babylonians were the great astronomers and astrologers of antiquity, but their eminence in this regard belongs to their later period. After the fall of the later Babylonian empire (B.C. 539) the term 'Chaldean' became a synonym of 'astrologer' (so in the Book of Daniel, B.C. 165-164); cf. Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 259 f.