The impressions which natural occurrences make on minds of equal stages of culture are very much alike.  The same thoughts are evoked, and the same expressions suggest themselves as appropriate to convey these thoughts in spoken language.  This is often exhibited in the identity of expression between master-poets of the same generation, and between cotemporaneous thinkers in all branches of knowledge.  Still more likely is it to occur in primitive and uncultivated conditions, where the most obvious forms of expression are at once adopted, and the resources of the mind are necessarily limited.  This is a simple and reasonable explanation for the remarkable sameness which prevails in the mental products of the lower stages of civilization, and does away with the necessity of supposing a historic derivation one from the other or both from a common stock.

CHAPTER III.

THE HERO-GOD OF THE AZTEC TRIBES.

Sec.1. The Two Antagonists.

THE CONTEST OF QUETZALCOATL AND TEZCATLIPOCA—­QUETZALCOATL THE
LIGHT-GOD—­DERIVATION OF HIS NAME—­TITLES OF TEZCATLIPOCA—­IDENTIFIED WITH
DARKNESS, NIGHT AND GLOOM.

Sec.2. Quetzalcoatl the God.

MYTH OF THE FOUR BROTHERS—­THE FOUR SUNS AND THE ELEMENTAL CONFLICT—­NAMES
OF THE FOUR BROTHERS.

Sec.3. Quetzalcoatl the Hero of Tula.

TULA THE CITY OF THE SUN—­WHO WERE THE TOLTECS?—­TLAPALLAN AND XALAC—­THE
BIRTH OF THE HERO-GOD—­HIS VIRGIN MOTHER, CHIMALMATL—­HIS MIRACULOUS
CONCEPTION—­AZTLAN, THE LAND OF SEVEN CAVES, AND COLHUACAN, THE BENDED
MOUNT—­THE MAID XOCHITL AND THE ROSE GARDEN OF THE GODS—­QUETZALCOATL AS
THE WHITE AND BEARDED STRANGER.

THE GLORY OF THE LORD OF TULA—­THE SUBTLETY OF THE SORCERER,
TEZCATLIPOCA—­THE MAGIC MIRROR AND THE MYSTIC DRAUGHT—­THE MYTH
EXPLAINED—­THE PROMISE OF REJUVENATION—­THE TOVEYO AND THE MAIDEN—­THE
JUGGLERIES OF TEZCATLIPOCA—­DEPARTURE OF QUETZALCOATL FROM
TULA—­QUETZALCOATL AT CHOLULA—­HIS DEATH OR DEPARTURE—­THE CELESTIAL GAME
OF BALL AND TIGER SKIN—­QUETZALCOATL AS THE PLANET VENUS.

Sec.4. Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds.

THE LORD OF THE FOUR WINDS—­HIS SYMBOLS THE WHEEL OF THE WINDS, THE
PENTAGON AND THE CROSS—­CLOSE RELATION TO THE GODS OF RAIN AND
WATERS—­INVENTOR OF THE CALENDAR—­GOD OF FERTILITY AND
CONCEPTION—­RECOMMENDS SEXUAL AUSTERITY—­PHALLIC SYMBOLS—­GOD OF
MERCHANTS—­THE PATRON OF THIEVES—­HIS PICTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS.

Sec.5. The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

HIS EXPECTED RE-APPEARANCE—­THE ANXIETY OF MONTEZUMA—­HIS ADDRESS TO
CORTES—­THE GENERAL EXPECTATION—­EXPLANATION OF HIS PREDICTED RETURN.

I now turn from the wild hunting tribes who peopled the shores of the Great Lakes and the fastnesses of the northern forests to that cultivated race whose capital city was in the Valley of Mexico, and whose scattered colonies were found on the shores of both oceans from the mouths of the Rio Grande and the Gila, south, almost to the Isthmus of Panama.  They are familiarly known as Aztecs or Mexicans, and the language common to them all was the Nahuatl, a word of their own, meaning “the pleasant sounding.”