From the earth the game was transferred to the heavens.  As a ball, hit by a player, strikes the wall and then bounds back again, describing a curve, so the stars in the northern sky circle around the pole star and return to the place they left.  Hence their movement was called The Ball-play of the Stars.[1]

[Footnote 1:  “Citlaltlachtli,” from citlalin, star, and tlachtli, the game of ball.  Alvarado Tezozomoc, Cronica Mexicana, cap. lxxxii.  The obscure passage in which Tezozomoc refers to this is ingeniously analyzed in the Anales del Museo Nacional, Tom. ii, p. 388.]

A recent writer asserts that the popular belief of the Aztecs extended the figure to a greater game than this.[1] The Sun and Moon were huge balls with which the gods played an unceasing game, now one, now the other, having the better of it.  If this is so, then the game between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl is again a transparent figure of speech for the contest between night and day.

[Footnote 1:  Anales del Museo Nacional, Tom. ii, p. 367.]

The Mexican tiger, the ocelotl, was a well recognized figure of speech, in the Aztec tongue, for the nocturnal heavens, dotted with stars, as is the tiger skin with spots.[1] The tiger, therefore, which destroyed the subjects of Quetzalcoatl—­the swift-footed, happy inhabitants of Tula—­was none other than the night extinguishing the rays of the orb of light.  In the picture writings Tezcatlipoca appears dressed in a tiger’s skin, the spots on which represent the stars, and thus symbolize him in his character as the god of the sky at night.

[Footnote 1:  “Segun los Anales de Cuauhtitlan el ocelotl es el cielo manchado de estrellas, como piel de tigre.” Anales del Mus.  Nac., ii, p. 254.]

The apotheosis of Quetzalcoatl from the embers of his funeral pyre to the planet Venus has led several distinguished students of Mexican mythology to identify his whole history with the astronomical relations of this bright star.  Such an interpretation is, however, not only contrary to results obtained by the general science of mythology, but it is specifically in contradiction to the uniform statements of the old writers.  All these agree that it was not till after he had finished his career, after he had run his course and disappeared from the sight and knowledge of men, that he was translated and became the evening or morning star.[1] This clearly signifies that he was represented by the planet in only one, and that a subordinate, phase of his activity.  We can readily see that the relation of Venus to the sun, and the evening and morning twilights, suggested the pleasing tale that as the light dies in the west, it is, in a certain way, preserved by the star which hangs so bright above the horizon.

[Footnote 1:  Codex Telleriano-Remensis, plate xiv.]

Sec.4. Quetzalcoatl as Lord of the Winds.