[Footnote 1: Señor Alfredo Chavero believes Tezcatlipoca to have been originally the moon, and there is little doubt at times this was one of his symbols, as the ruler of the darkness. M. Girard de Rialle, on the other hand, claims him as a solar deity. "Il est la personnification du soleil sous son aspect corrupteur et destructeur, ennemi des hommes et de la nature." _La Mythologie Comparée_, p. 334 (Paris, 1878). A closer study of the original authorities would, I am sure, have led M. de Rialle to change this opinion. He is singularly far from the conclusion reached by M. Ternaux-Compans, who says: "Tezcatlipoca fût la personnification du bon principe." _Essai sur la Théogonie Mexicaine_, p. 23 (Paris, 1840). Both opinions are equally incomplete. Dr. Schultz-Sellack considers him the "Wassergott," and assigns him to the North, in his essay, _Die Amerikanischen Götter der Vier Weltgegenden, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. xi, 1879. This approaches more closely to his true character.] This is further shown by the beliefs current as to his occasional appearance on earth. This was always at night and in the gloom of the forest. The hunter would hear a sound like the crash of falling trees, which would be nothing else than the mighty breathings of the giant form of the god on his nocturnal rambles. Were the hunter timorous he would die outright on seeing the terrific presence of the god; but were he of undaunted heart, and should rush upon him and seize him around the waist, the god was helpless and would grant him anything he wished. "Ask what you please," the captive deity would say, "and it is yours. Only fail not to release me before the sun rises. For I must leave before it appears."[1] [Footnote 1: Torquemada, _Monarquía Indiana_, Lib. XIV, cap. XXII.] §2. _Quetzalcoatl the God._ In the ancient and purely mythical narrative, Quetzalcoatl is one of four divine brothers, gods like himself, born in the uttermost or thirteenth heaven to the infinite and uncreated deity, which, in its male manifestations, was known as _Tonaca tecutli_, Lord of our Existence, and _Tzin teotl_, God of the Beginning, and in its female expressions as _Tonaca cihuatl_, Queen of our Existence, _Xochiquetzal_, Beautiful Rose, _Citlallicue_, the Star-skirted or the Milky Way, _Citlalatonac_, the Star that warms, or The Morning, and _Chicome coatl_, the Seven Serpents.[1] [Footnote 1: The chief authorities on the birth of the god Quetzalcoatl, are Ramirez de Fuen-leal _Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas_, Cap. i, printed in the _Anales del Museo Nacional_; the _Codex Telleriano-Remensis_, and the _Codex Vaticanus_, both of which are in Kingsborough's _Mexican Antiquities_.