In its second or historical portion the codex states that Quetzalcoatl discovered maize which was concealed in the mountain Tonacatepetl. Many of the gods searched for it, but Quetzalcoatl, taking the form of a black ant, was guided [[133]]to the spot by a red ant. As he was unable to lift the mountain, it was split open by the magical prowess of Xolotl in his manifestation of Nanahuatl, and the maize became the spoil of Quetzalcoatl. But it was stolen from him by Tlaloc, the rain-god proper, perhaps an allegorical manner of alluding to the more direct influence of that deity upon growth.
Other myths relating to Quetzalcoatl, chiefly as a creative agency, will be found in the précis of the opening chapters of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, in the chapter on Cosmogony.
In Codex Borgia we find a passage (sheets 35–46) which appears to refer to the progress of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipocâ through the infernal regions, and which might be described as the Mexican “Harrying of Hell.” On this passage Seler has briefly commented (see his Commentary on Codex Vaticanus B, p. 119).
CENTRAL AMERICAN MYTHS RELATING TO QUETZALCOATL
Quetzalcoatl is, perhaps, singular among the deities of Mexico in that a number of well-authenticated Central American myths cluster around his name in its forms of Kukulcan, Gucumatz, and Votan. Certain of these must be considered here, for purposes of comparison and analogy.
Nuñez de la Vega: A book in the Quiche tongue, said to have been written by Votan, a local name for Quetzalcoatl, was at one time in the possession of Nuñez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, who included portions of it in his Constituciones Diocesianos de Chiapas, but nevertheless destroyed it in his holocaust of MSS. at Heuheutlan in 1691. Ordoñez de Aguilar had, however, made a copy of it before its destruction, and incorporated it in his Historia de Cielo MS. In this work Votan declared himself “a snake,” a descendant of Imos, of the line of Chan[85] of the race of Chivim. Taking Aguilar’s account along with that of Nuñez de la Vega, as both rely upon the same authority, we find that Votan proceeded to America by divine command, his mission being to lay the [[134]]foundation of civilization. With this object in view he departed from Valum Chivim,[86] passing the dwelling of the thirteen snakes, and arrived in Valum Votan, whence, with some members of his family, he set out to form a settlement, ascending the Usumacinta River and ultimately founding Palenque. By reason of their peculiar dress the Tzendal Indians called them Tzequitles, or “men with shirts,” but consented to amalgamate with them. Ordoñez states that when Votan had established himself at Palenque he made several visits to his original home. On one of these he came to a tower which had been intended to reach the heavens, a project which had been brought to naught by the linguistic confusion of those who conceived it. Finally he was permitted to reach “the rock of heaven” by a subterranean passage. Returning to Palenque, he found that others of his race had arrived there, and with them he made a friendly pact. He built a temple by the Heuheutan River, known, from its subterranean chambers, as “the House of Darkness,” and here he deposited the national records under the charge of certain old men called tlapianes, or guardians, and an order of priestesses. Here also were kept a number of tapirs. A quotation of the passage dealing with this temple may be made from Nuñez de la Vega:
“Votan is the third heathen in the calendar (that is the deity who is ascribed to the third division of the calendar), and in the little history written in the Indian language all the provinces and cities in which he tarried were mentioned; and to this day there is always a clan in the city of Teopisa that they call the Votans. It is also said that he is the lord of the hollow wooden instrument which they call tepanaguaste (that is, the Mexican teponaztli); that he saw the great wall, namely, the tower of Babel, which was built from earth to heaven at the bidding of his grandfather, Noah; and that he was the first man whom God sent to divide and apportion this country of India, and that there, where he saw the great wall, he gave to every nation its special language. It is related that he tarried in Huehueta (which is a city in Soconusco), [[135]]and that there he placed a tapir and a great treasure in a slippery (damp, dark, subterranean) house, which he built by the breath of his nostrils, and he appointed a woman as chieftain, with tapianes (that is, Mexican tlapiani, “keepers”) to guard her. This treasure consisted of jars, which were closed with covers of the same clay, and of a room in which the picture of the ancient heathens who are in the calendar were engraved in stone, together with chalchiuites (which are small, heavy, green stones) and other superstitious images; and the chieftainess herself and the tapianes, her guardians, surrendered all these things, which were publicly burned in the market place of Huehueta when we inspected the aforesaid province in 1691. All the Indians greatly revere this Votan, and in a certain province they call him ‘heart of the cities’ (Corazon de los pueblos).”
In his ninth Pastoral Letter Nuñez says of Quetzalcoatl:
“In most of the Calendars, the seventh sign is the figure of a man and a snake, which they call Cuchulchan. The masters have explained it as a snake with feathers which moves in the water. This sign corresponds with Mexzichaut (Mixcoatl), which means Cloudy Serpent, or, of the clouds. The people also consult them in order to work injury on their enemies, taking the lives of many through such devilish artifices, and committing unspeakable atrocities.”
The Popol Vuh.—The myths relating to Quetzalcoatl under his name of Gucumatz in the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiche of Guatemala, are difficult to summarize. In the first chapter he is alluded to as “the serpent covered with feathers, the heart of the lakes, the heart of the sea, master of the sky, master of the blue expanse,” and is connected with the creative gods. Along with Hurakan (Tezcatlipocâ) he creates the world by uttering the word “earth.” The creation of man having been considered, the wherewithal for his sustenance is debated. Gucumatz, who is sometimes alluded to in the plural, like the Hebrew Elohim, succeeds in discovering maize in Paxil by the aid of the fox, jackal, parrot, and crow, and obtains the seeds of other alimentary plants (pt. iii, c. i.) Gucumatz then created man by a [[136]]“miracle” (c. ii). In c. v, pt. iii, Quetzalcoatl is alluded to as Tohil, a parallel for which we have justification in ver. 19 of c. x, where in the song called Kamucu (“We see”) the first men sing: “Truly Tohil is the name of the god of the Zaqui nation, which was called Yolcuat-quetzalcuat when we separated in the place Tolan in Zuiva.” But the myths relating to this deity are obviously tribal and local, and I am of opinion that they refer to some tribal deity who possessed some of the characteristics of Quetzalcoatl and who was identified with him by the Quiches in rather an arbitrary fashion.[87]