portant myth relating how Tezcatlipoca, after having been
the sun, was cast down from this supreme position by Huitzilopochtli,
"descended to the water," but had arisen again in the shape of an ocelot,
and transformed himself into the constellation of Ursa Major.

According to Sahagun the native name of this star-group was Citlal-Colotl
or "star scorpion." Reference to Nahuatl dictionaries revealed that this
insect had doubtlessly been named colotl on account of its habit of
recurving its tail when enraged.

The Nahuatl verb coloa means, to bend over or twist something, the
adjective coltic is applied to something bent over or recurved. The noun
colotli, which is almost identical with colotl, means "the cross-beams,
the mounting, branch or handle of a cross" ("armadura de manga de cruz."
See Molina's dictionary).

The above facts show that the idea underlying the name for Ursa Major is
primarily that of "something bent over or recurved." It is obvious that
the form of the constellation answers to this description. It is,
moreover, extremely significant to find, in the Maya language also, a
certain resemblance between the words for scorpion and for a cross. This,
in Maya, is zin-che and that for a scorpion is zin-au. The above data
justify the induction that the native conception of a cross was connected
with the idea of its arms being bent over or recurved, as in the Mexican
calendar-swastika.

It is important to find the scorpion figured as one of several symbols of
Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the North, in his sculptured effigy preserved
at the National Museum of Mexico (fig. 19).

It is more significant that the verb coloa, besides meaning "to bend over
or twist something," also expressed the action "of describing or
performing a circle by walking around something." Now this is precisely
what Tezcatlipoca (the Ursa Major) is represented as doing on page 77 of
the B.N. manuscript, since he figures there, surrounded by a circle of
footsteps. I could but note that this fact showed that the name of Colotl,
applied to the constellation, was not incompatible with its identification
with Tezcatlipoca. Once my attention had been drawn to the action of
walking, performed by this god, I naturally considered, with fresh
interest, the peculiar fact that he is usually represented with one foot
only. The circumstances under which he had been deprived of this member
are set forth in several of the Codices wherein we see that,