QUETZALCOATL.
After a drawing in Cumplido’s Mexican ed. of Prescott’s Mexico, vol. iii. Images of him are everywhere (Nadaillac, 273-74). Cf. Eng. transl. of Charnay, p. 87.
Bancroft (iii. 273) finds the Geschichte der Amer. Urreligionen (p. 577) of Müller to present a more thorough examination of the Quetzalcoatl myth than any other,[1908] but since then it has been studied at length by Bandelier in his Archæological Tour (p. 170 etc.), and by Brinton in his Amer. Hero Myths, ch. 3.[1909]
What Tylor (Primitive Culture, ii. 279) calls “the inexplicable compound, parthenogenetic deity, the hideous, gory Huitzilopochtli” (Huitziloputzli, Vitziliputzli), the god of war,[1910] the protector of the Mexicans, was considered by Boturini (Idea, p. 60) as a deified ancient war-chief. Bancroft in his narrative (iii. 289, 294; iv. 559) quotes the accounts in Sahagún and Torquemada, and (pp. 300-322) summarizes J. G. Müller’s monograph on this god, which he published in 1847, and which he enlarged when including it in his Urreligionen.
Acosta’s description of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli is translated in Bancroft (iii. 292). Solis follows Acosta, while Herrera copies Gomara, who was not, as Solis contends, so well informed.
As regards the Votan myth of Chiapas, Brinton tells us something in his American Hero Myths (212, with references, 215); but the prime source is the Tzendal manuscript used by Cabrera in his Teatro Critico-Americano.[1911] No complete translation has been made, and the abstracts are unsatisfactory. Bancroft aids us in this study of worship in Chiapas (iii. 458), as also in that of Oajaca (iii. 448), Michoacan[1912] (iii. 445), and Jalisco (iii. 447).
THE MEXICAN TEMPLE.
Reduced from a drawing in Icazbalceta’s Coleccion de Documentos, i. p. 384. There were two usual forms of the Mexican temple: one of this type, and the other with two niche-like pavilions on the top. Cf. drawings in Clavigero (Casena, 1780), ii. 26, 34; Eng. tr. by Cullen, i. 262, 373; Stevens’s Eng. tr. Herrera (London, 1740, vol. ii.).
“The religion of the Mayas,” says Bancroft (iii. ch. 11), “was fundamentally the same as that of the Nahuas, though it differed somewhat in outward forms. Most of the gods were deified heroes.... Occasionally we find very distinct traces of an older sun-worship which has succumbed to later forms, introduced according to vague tradition from Anahuac.” The view of Tylor (Anahuac, 191) is that the “civilization,” and consequently the religions, of Mexico and Central America were originally independent, but that they came much into contact, and thus modified one another to no small extent.”