The usual translation of _Tonaca tecutli_ is "God of our Subsistence," _to_, our, _naca_, flesh, _tecutli_, chief or lord. It really has a more subtle meaning. _Naca_ is not applied to edible flesh--that is expressed by the word _nonoac_--but is the flesh of our own bodies, our life, existence. See _Anales de Cuauhtitlan_, p. 18, note.] Of these four brothers, two were the black and the red Tezcatlipoca, and the fourth was Huitzilopochtli, the Left handed, the deity adored beyond all others in the city of Mexico. Tezcatlipoca--for the two of the name blend rapidly into one as the myth progresses--was wise beyond compute; he knew all thoughts and hearts, could see to all places, and was distinguished for power and forethought. At a certain time the four brothers gathered together and consulted concerning the creation of things. The work was left to Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli. First they made fire, then half a sun, the heavens, the waters and a certain great fish therein, called Cipactli, and from its flesh the solid earth. The first mortals were the man, Cipactonal, and the woman, Oxomuco,[1] and that the son born to them might have a wife, the four gods made one for him out of a hair taken from the head of their divine mother, Xochiquetzal. [Footnote 1: The names Cipactli and Cipactonal have not been satisfactorily analyzed. The derivation offered by Señor Chavero (_Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p.116), is merely fanciful; _tonal_ is no doubt from _tona_, to shine, to warn; and I think _cipactli_ is a softened form with the personal ending from _chipauac_, something beautiful or clear. Hence the meaning of the compound is The Beautiful Shining One. Oxomuco, which Chavero derives from _xomitl_, foot, is perhaps the same as _Xmukane_, the mother of the human race, according to the _Popol Vuh_, a name which, I have elsewhere shown, appears to be from a Maya root, meaning to conceal or bury in the ground. The hint is of the fertilizing action of the warm light on the seed hidden in the soil. See _The Names of the Gods in the Kiche Myths, Trans. of the Amer. Phil. Soc._ 1881.] Now began the struggle between the two brothers, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, which was destined to destroy time after time the world, with all its inhabitants, and to plunge even the heavenly luminaries into a common ruin.