The original home of the Toltecs was said to have been in Tlapallan—­the very same Red Land to which Quetzalcoatl was fabled to have returned; only the former was distinguished as Old Tlapallan—­Hue Tlapallan—­as being that from which he and they had emerged.  Other myths called it the Place of Sand, Xalac, an evident reference to the sandy sea strand, the same spot where it was said that Quetzalcoatl was last seen, beyond which the sun rises and below which he sinks.  Thither he returned when driven from Tollan, and reigned over his vassals many years in peace.[1]

[Footnote 1:  “Se metio (Quetzalcoatl) la tierra adentro hasta Tlapallan o segun otros Huey Xalac, antigua patria de sus antepasados, en donde vivio muchos anos.”  Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones Historicas, p. 394, in Kingsborough, vol. ix.  Xalac, is from xalli, sand, with the locative termination.  In Nahuatl xalli aquia, to enter the sand, means to die.]

We cannot mistake this Tlapallan, new or old.  Whether it is bathed in the purple and gold of the rising sun or in the crimson and carnation of his setting, it always was, as Sahagun tells us, with all needed distinctness, “the city of the Sun,” the home of light and color, whence their leader, Quetzalcoatl had come, and whither he was summoned to return.[1]

[Footnote 1:  “Dicen que camino acia el Oriente, y que se fue a la ciudad del Sol, llamada Tlapallan, y fue llamado del sol.”  Libro. viii, Prologo.]

The origin of the earthly Quetzalcoatl is variously given; one cycle of legends narrates his birth in Tollan in some extraordinary manner; a second cycle claims that he was not born in any country known to the Aztecs, but came to them as a stranger.

Of the former cycle probably one of the oldest versions is that he was a son or descendant of Tezcatlipoca himself, under his name Camaxtli.  This was the account given to the chancellor Ramirez,[1] and it is said by Torquemada to have been the canonical doctrine taught in the holy city of Cholollan, the centre of the worship of Quetzalcoatl.[2] It is a transparent metaphor, and could be paralleled by a hundred similar expressions in the myths of other nations.  The Night brings forth the Day, the darkness leads on to the light, and though thus standing in the relation of father and son, the struggle between them is forever continued.

[Footnote 1:  Ramirez de Fuen-leal, Hist. de los Mexicanos, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 2:  Monarquia Indiana, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv. Camaxtli is also found in the form Yoamaxtli; this shows that it is a compound of maxtli, covering, clothing, and ca, the substantive verb, or in the latter instance, yoalli, night; hence it is, “the Mantle,” or, “the garb of night” ("la faja nocturna,” Anales del Museo Nacional, Tom. ii, p. 363).]