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 another, but Quetzalcoatl watches steadily the East, and is the first to see and welcome the Orb of Light. He is fair in complexion, with abundant hair and a full beard, bordering on the red,[3] as are all the dawn heroes, and like them he was an instructor in the arts, and favored peace and mild laws. [Footnote 1: Chavero, _Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico_, Tom. II, p. 14, 243.] [Footnote 2: _Historia de las Cosas de Nueva España_, Lib. VII, cap. II.] [Footnote 3: "La barba longa entre cana y roja; el cabello largo, muy llano." Diego Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, Vol. viii, p. 260.] His name is symbolic, and is capable of several equally fair renderings. The first part of it, _quetzalli_, means literally a large, handsome green feather, such as were very highly prized by the natives. Hence it came to mean, in an adjective sense, precious, beautiful, beloved, admirable. The bird from which these feathers were obtained was the _quetzal-tototl_ (_tototl_, bird) and is called by ornithologists _Trogon splendens_. The latter part of the name, _coatl_, has in Aztec three entirely different meanings. It means a guest, also twins, and lastly, as a syncopated form of _cohuatl_, a serpent. Metaphorically, _cohuatl_ meant something mysterious, and hence a supernatural being, a god. Thus Montezuma, when he built a temple in the city of Mexico dedicated to the whole body of divinities, a regular Pantheon, named it _Coatecalli_, the House of the Serpent.[1] [Footnote 1: "Coatecalli, que quiere decir el _templo de la culebra_, que sin metáfora quiere decir _templo de diversos dioses_." Duran, _Historia de las Indias de Nueva España_, cap. LVIII.]