en preserved in greater fullness than that of any
other American people, and for this reason I am enabled to set forth in
ampler detail the elements of their hero-myth, which, indeed, may be taken
as the most perfect type of those I have collected in this volume.

Sec.1. _The Two Antagonists._

The culture hero of the Aztecs was Quetzalcoatl, and the leading drama,
the central myth, in all the extensive and intricate theology of the
Nahuatl speaking tribes was his long contest with Tezcatlipoca, "a
contest," observes an eminent Mexican antiquary, "which came to be the
main element in the Nahuatl religion and the cause of its modifications,
and which materially influenced the destinies of that race from its
earliest epochs to the time of its destruction."[1]

[Footnote 1: Alfredo Chavero, _La Piedra del Sol_, in the _Anales del
Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p. 247.]

The explanations which have been offered of this struggle have varied with
the theories of the writers propounding them. It has been regarded as a
simple historical fact; as a figure of speech to represent the struggle
for supremacy between two races; as an astronomical statement referring to
the relative positions of the planet Venus and the Moon; as a conflict
between Christianity, introduced by Saint Thomas, and the native
heathenism; and as having other meanings not less unsatisfactory or
absurd.

Placing it side by side with other American hero-myths, we shall see that
it presents essentially the same traits, and undoubtedly must be explained
in the same manner. All of them are the transparent stories of a simple
people, to express in intelligible terms the daily struggle that is ever
going on between Day and Night, between Light and Darkness, between Storm
and Sunshine.

Like all the heroes of light, Quetzalcoatl is identified with the East. He
is born there, and arrives from there, and hence Las Casas and others
speak of him as from Yucatan, or as landing on the shores of the Mexican
Gulf from some unknown land. His day of birth was that called Ce Acatl,
One Reed, and by this name he is often known. But this sign is that of the
East in Aztec symbolism.[1] In a myth of the formation of the sun and
moon, presented by Sahagun,[2] a voluntary victim springs into the
sacrificial fire that the gods have built. They know that he will rise as
the sun, but they do not know in what part of the horizon that will be.
Some look one way, some anothe