The twenty years past, Quetzalcoatl resumed his journey, taking with him four of the principal youths of the city.  When he had reached a point in the province of Guazacoalco, which is situated to the southeast of Cholula, he called the four youths to him, and told them they should return to their city; that he had to go further; but that they should go back and say that at some future day white and bearded men like himself would come from the east, who would possess the land.[1]

[Footnote 1:  For this version of the myth, see Mendieta, Historia Eclesiastica Indiana, Lib. ii, caps, v and x.]

Thus he disappeared, no one knew whither.  But another legend said that he died there, by the seashore, and they burned his body.  Of this event some particulars are given by Ixtlilxochitl, as follows:[1]—­

[Footnote 1:  Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones Historicas, p. 388, in Kingsborough, vol. ix.]

Quetzalcoatl, surnamed Topiltzin, was lord of Tula.  At a certain time he warned his subjects that he was obliged to go “to the place whence comes the Sun,” but that after a term he would return to them, in that year of their calendar of the name Ce Acatl, One Reed, which returns every fifty-two years.  He went forth with many followers, some of whom he left in each city he visited.  At length he reached the town of Ma Tlapallan.  Here he announced that he should soon die, and directed his followers to burn his body and all his treasures with him.  They obeyed his orders, and for four days burned his corpse, after which they gathered its ashes and placed them in a sack made of the skin of a tiger.

The introduction of the game of ball and the tiger into the story is not so childish as it seems.  The game of ball was as important an amusement among the natives of Mexico and Central America as were the jousts and tournaments in Europe in the Middle Ages.[1] Towns, nations and kings were often pitted against each other.  In the great temple of Mexico two courts were assigned to this game, over which a special deity was supposed to preside.[2] In or near the market place of each town there were walls erected for the sport.  In the centre of these walls was an orifice a little larger than the ball.  The players were divided into two parties, and the ball having been thrown, each party tried to drive it through or over the wall.  The hand was not used, but only the hip or shoulders.

[Footnote 1:  Torquemada gives a long but obscure description of it. Monarquia Indiana, Lib. xiv, cap. xii.]

[Footnote 2:  Nieremberg, “De septuaginta et octo partibus maximi templi Mexicani,” in his Historia Naturae, Lib. viii, cap. xxii (Antwerpt, 1635).  One of these was called “The Ball Court of the Mirror,” perhaps with special reference to this legend.  “Trigesima secunda Tezcatlacho, locus erat ubi ludebatur pila ex gumi olli, inter templa.”  The name is from tezcatl, mirror, tlachtli, the game of ball, and locative ending co.]