[Footnote 1:  Compare Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Lib. vi, cap. xxviii and Sahagun, Historia de Nueva Espana, Lib. ix, passim.

Yacatecutli, is from tecutli, lord, and either yaqui, traveler, or else yacana, to conduct.

Yacacoliuhqui, is translated by Torquemada, “el que tiene la nariz aquilena.”  It is from yaque, a point or end, and hence, also, the nose, and coliuhqui, bent or curved.  The translation in the text is quite as allowable as that of Torquemada, and more appropriate.  I have already mentioned that this divinity was suspected, by Dr. Schultz-Sellack, to be merely another form of Quetzalcoatl.  See above, chapter iii, Sec.2]

But Quetzalcoatl, as god of the violent wind-storms, which destroy the houses and crops, and as one, who, in his own history, was driven from his kingdom and lost his all, was not considered a deity of invariably good augury.  His day and sign, ce acatl, One Reed, was of bad omen.  A person born on it would not succeed in life.[1] His plans and possessions would be lost, blown away, as it were, by the wind, and dissipated into thin air.

[Footnote 1:  Sahagun. Historia, Lib. iv, cap. viii.]

Through the association of his person with the prying winds he came, curiously enough, to be the patron saint of a certain class of thieves, who stupefied their victims before robbing them.  They applied to him to exercise his maleficent power on those whom they planned to deprive of their goods.  His image was borne at the head of the gang when they made their raids, and the preferred season was when his sign was in the ascendant.[1] This is a singular parallelism to the Aryan Hermes myth, as I have previously observed (Chap.  I).

[Footnote 1:  Ibid.  Lib.  IV, cap.  XXXI.]

The representation of Quetzalcoatl in the Aztec manuscripts, his images and the forms of his temples and altars, referred to his double functions as Lord of the Light and the Winds.

He was not represented with pleasing features.  On the contrary, Sahagun tells us that his face, that is, that of his image, was “very ugly, with a large head and a full beard."[1] The beard, in this and similar instances, was to represent the rays of the sun.  His hair at times was also shown rising straight from his forehead, for the same reason.[2]

[Footnote 1:  “La cara que tenia era muy fea y la cabeza larga y barbuda.” Historia, Lib.  III, cap.  III.  On the other hand Ixtlilxochitl speaks of him as “de bella figura.” Historia Chichimeca, cap. viii.  He was occasionally represented with his face painted black, probably expressing the sun in its absence.]

[Footnote 2:  He is so portrayed in the Codex Vaticanus. and Ixtlilxochitl says, “tubiese el cabello levantado desde la frente hasta la nuca como a manera de penacho.” Historia Chichimeca, cap. viii.]