[Footnote 1: _Moyocoyatzin_, is the third person singular of _yocoya_, to do, to make, with the reverential termination _tzin_. Sahagun says this title was given him because he could do what he pleased, on earth or in heaven, and no one could prevent him. (Historia de Nueva España, Lib. III. cap. II.) It seems to me that it would rather refer to his demiurgic, creative power.] [Footnote 2: All these titles are to be found in Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva España_.] He was said to be formed of thin air and darkness; and when he was seen of men it was as a shadow without substance. He alone of all the gods defied the assaults of time, was ever young and strong, and grew not old with years.[1] Against such an enemy who could hope for victory? [Footnote 1: The description of Clavigero is worth quoting: "TEZCATLIPOCA: Questo era il maggior Dio, che in que paesi si adorava, dopo il Dio invisible, o Supremo Essere. Era il Dio della Providenza, l' anima del Mondo, il Creator del Cielo e della Terra, ed il Signor di tutle le cose. Rappresentavanlo tuttora giovane per significare, che non s' invecchiava mai, nè s' indeboliva cogli anni." _Storia Antica di Messico_, Lib. vi, p. 7.] The name "Tezcatlipoca" is one of odd significance. It means The Smoking Mirror. This strange metaphor has received various explanations. The mirrors in use among the Aztecs were polished plates of obsidian, trimmed to a circular form. There was a variety of this black stone called _tezcapoctli_, smoky mirror stone, and from this his images were at times made.[1] This, however, seems too trivial an explanation. [Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_, Lib. ii, cap. xxxvii.] Others have contended that Tezcatlipoca, as undoubtedly the spirit of darkness and the night, refers, in its meaning, to the moon, which hangs like a bright round mirror in the sky, though partly dulled by what the natives thought a smoke.[1] [Footnote 1: _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 257.] I am inclined to believe, however, that the mirror referred to is that first and most familiar of all, the surface of water: and that the smoke is the mist which at night rises from lake and river, as actual smoke does in the still air. As presiding over the darkness and the night, dreams and the phantoms of the gloom were supposed to be sent by Tezcatlipoca, and to him were sacred those animals which prowl about at night, as the skunk and the coyote.[1] [Footnote 1: Sahagun, _Historia_. Lib. vi, caps. ix, xi, xii.] Thus his names, his various attributes, his sacred animals and his myths unite in identifying this deity as a primitive personification of the Darkness, whether that of the storm or of the night.[1]