irst, the cult of
the Above, of the Blue Sky, was directed towards the sun and the planets
and stars intimately associated with sunrise and sunset, amongst them the
Pleiades. The cult of the Below, of the Nocturnal Heaven, was directed
towards the moon, Polaris and the circumpolar constellations--also to the
stars and planets during the period of their disappearance and possibly in
the same way to the enigmatical "Black Sun," figured in the B. N. MS.
which may have been the sun during its nightly stay in the House of the
Underworld, whose door was in the west. In order to obtain an idea of the
immense proportions ultimately assumed by these two diverging cults and
the enormous influence they exerted upon the entire native civilization,
it will be necessary to examine the form of the social organization in
Montezuma's time.

In order to comprehend this, however, it is first necessary to study
carefully the myths relating to its origin. Torquemada (lib. VI, chap. 41)
cites the authority of Friar Andreas de Olmos for the following native
account of the creation of man, which was differently recounted to him in
each province. He states that the majority of the natives, however, agreed
that "there was in heaven a god named 'Shining Star' (Citlal-Tonac) and a
goddess named 'She of the starry skirt' (Citlal-Cue), who gave birth to a
flint knife (Tecpatl). Their other children, startled at this, cast the
flint down from the sky. It fell to earth at the place named 'Seven caves'
and 'produced 1,600 gods and goddesses,' " a figure of speech which
evidently expressed the idea that, in coming in forcible contact with the
soil the flint gave forth sparks innumerable which conveyed vitality to
numberless beings. It is evidently the same idea of "life sparks" being
called into existence by the union of heaven and earth which underlies the
Texcocan version of the creation of man recorded as follows by Torquemada
(_op. et loc. cit._). "The sun ... shot an arrow towards the land of
Acolma near the boundary of Texcoco. This made a hole in the ground whence
issued the first man...."

[Illustration.]

Figure 25.

The illustrated version of the above myths, given in the Vatican Codex I,
designates the celestial progenitor of human life as Quetzalcoatl, also
named Tonaca-Tecuhtli=the lord of our subsistence, Chicome-xochitl="Seven
roses or flowers" and Citlalla-Tonalla="The Mil