er he returned when driven from
Tollan, and reigned over his vassals many years in peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Se metio (Quetzalcoatl) la tierra adentro hasta Tlapallan o
segun otros Huey Xalac, antigua patria de sus antepasados, en donde vivio
muchos anos." Ixtlilxochitl, _Relaciones Historicas_, p. 394, in
Kingsborough, vol. ix. Xalac, is from _xalli_, sand, with the locative
termination. In Nahuatl _xalli aquia_, to enter the sand, means to die.]

We cannot mistake this Tlapallan, new or old. Whether it is bathed in the
purple and gold of the rising sun or in the crimson and carnation of his
setting, it always was, as Sahagun tells us, with all needed distinctness,
"the city of the Sun," the home of light and color, whence their leader,
Quetzalcoatl had come, and whither he was summoned to return.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Dicen que camino acia el Oriente, y que se fue a la ciudad
del Sol, llamada Tlapallan, y fue llamado del sol." Libro. viii, Prologo.]

The origin of the earthly Quetzalcoatl is variously given; one cycle of
legends narrates his birth in Tollan in some extraordinary manner; a
second cycle claims that he was not born in any country known to the
Aztecs, but came to them as a stranger.

Of the former cycle probably one of the oldest versions is that he was a
son or descendant of Tezcatlipoca himself, under his name Camaxtli. This
was the account given to the chancellor Ramirez,[1] and it is said by
Torquemada to have been the canonical doctrine taught in the holy city of
Cholollan, the centre of the worship of Quetzalcoatl.[2] It is a
transparent metaphor, and could be paralleled by a hundred similar
expressions in the myths of other nations. The Night brings forth the Day,
the darkness leads on to the light, and though thus standing in the
relation of father and son, the struggle between them is forever
continued.

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Hist. de los Mexicanos_, cap. viii.]

[Footnote 2: _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxiv. _Camaxtli_ is also
found in the form _Yoamaxtli_; this shows that it is a compound of
_maxtli_, covering, clothing, and _ca_, the substantive verb, or in the
latter instance, _yoalli_, night; hence it is, "the Mantle," or, "the garb
of night" ("la faja nocturna," _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p.
363).]

Another myth represents him as the immediate son of the All-Father Tonaca
tecutli, under his title Citlallatonac, the Morning, by an earth-born
maiden in Tolla