Nor did these sages suppose that the struggle of the dark Tezcatlipoca to master the Light-God had ceased; no, they knew he was biding his time, with set purpose and a fixed certainty of success.  They knew that in the second heaven there were certain frightful women, without flesh or bones, whose names were the Terrible, or the Thin Dart-Throwers, who were waiting there until this world should end, when they would descend and eat up all mankind.[1] Asked concerning the time of this destruction, they replied that as to the day or season they knew it not, but it would be “when Tezcatlipoca should steal the sun from heaven for himself”; in other words, when eternal night should close in upon the Universe.[2]

[Footnote 1:  These frightful beings were called the Tzitzimime, a word which Molina in his Vocabulary renders “cosa espantosa o cosa de aguero.”  For a thorough discussion of their place in Mexican mythology, see Anales del Museo Nacional, Tom. ii, pp. 358-372.]

[Footnote 2:  The whole of this version of the myth is from the work of Ramirez de Fuen-leal, which I consider in some respects the most valuable authority we possess.  It was taken directly from the sacred books of the Aztecs, as explained by the most competent survivors of the Conquest.]

The myth which I have here given in brief is a prominent one in Aztec cosmogony, and is known as that of the Ages of the World or the Suns.  The opinion was widely accepted that the present is the fifth age or period of the world’s history; that it has already undergone four destructions by various causes, and that the present period is also to terminate in another such catastrophe.  The agents of such universal ruin have been a great flood, a world-wide conflagration, frightful tornadoes and famine, earthquakes and wild beasts, and hence the Ages, Suns or Periods were called respectively, from their terminations, those of Water, Fire, Air and Earth.  As we do not know the destiny of the fifth, the present one, it has as yet no name.

I shall not attempt to go into the details of this myth, the less so as it has recently been analyzed with much minuteness by the Mexican antiquary Chavero.[1] I will merely point out that it is too closely identified with a great many similar myths for us to be allowed to seek an origin for it peculiar to Mexican or even American soil.  We can turn to the Tualati who live in Oregon, and they will tell us of the four creations and destructions of mankind; how at the end of the first Age all human beings were changed into stars; at the end of the second they became stones; at the end of the third into fishes; and at the close of the fourth they disappeared, to give place to the tribes that now inhabit the world.[2] Or we can read from the cuneiform inscriptions of ancient Babylon, and find the four destructions of the race there specified, as by a flood, by wild beasts, by famine and by pestilence.[3]