g the field of ancient Mexico, I frequently
had occasion to observe certain familiar landmarks, from a new point of
view, and illuminated by rays of fresh light proceeding from recently
acquired sources. It was remarkable how often facts, which had seemed so
hopelessly complicated, finally appeared to be quite simple and
comprehensible. This was noticeably the case with the Aztec deities which,
for years, had seemed to me as numberless. After closely studying their
respective symbols, attributes and names, during several consecutive
months, and subjecting them to a final minute analysis, I found that their
number dwindled in a remarkable way and also verified the truth of the
statement made by the anonymous author of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript which I was editing, that the Mexicans painted one and the same
god under a different aspect "with different colours," according to the
various names they gave him in each instance.

It was particularly interesting to find that, in assuming that certain
names designated different native deities, the early Spanish writers had
committed a mistake as great as though someone, reading the litany of the
Virgin in a Catholic prayer-book, for the first time, inferred that it was
a series of invocations addressed to distinct divinities, amongst whom
figured the "morning star," a "mirror of justice," and a "mystical rose,"
etc. An examination of the texts of several native prayers preserved,
established that the Mexicans addressed their prayers to a supreme Creator
and ruler, whom they termed "invisible, incomprehensible and impalpable,"
and revered as "the father and mother of all." Some of their so-called
idols were, after all, either attempts to represent in objective form, the
attributes of the divine power, the forces of nature, the elements, etc.,
or rebus figures. As these "gods" or "idols" are enumerated farther on and
are exhaustively treated in my commentary of the Biblioteca Nazionale
manuscript, now in press, it suffices for my present purpose merely to
mention here that the most mysterious figure of Mexican cosmogony,
Tezcatlipoca, whose symbolical name literally means "shining mirror,"
proved to be identical with Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the underworld,
whose title may also be interpreted as "the ruler or regent of the North,"
since Mictlampa is the name of this cardinal point.

The Codex Fuenleal (Anales del Museo Nacional, Mexico, tomo II, p. 88)
preserves an im