Quetzalcoatl, surnamed Topiltzin, was lord of Tula. At a certain time he warned his subjects that he was obliged to go "to the place whence comes the Sun," but that after a term he would return to them, in that year of their calendar of the name _Ce Acatl_, One Reed, which returns every fifty-two years. He went forth with many followers, some of whom he left in each city he visited. At length he reached the town of Ma Tlapallan. Here he announced that he should soon die, and directed his followers to burn his body and all his treasures with him. They obeyed his orders, and for four days burned his corpse, after which they gathered its ashes and placed them in a sack made of the skin of a tiger. The introduction of the game of ball and the tiger into the story is not so childish as it seems. The game of ball was as important an amusement among the natives of Mexico and Central America as were the jousts and tournaments in Europe in the Middle Ages.[1] Towns, nations and kings were often pitted against each other. In the great temple of Mexico two courts were assigned to this game, over which a special deity was supposed to preside.[2] In or near the market place of each town there were walls erected for the sport. In the centre of these walls was an orifice a little larger than the ball. The players were divided into two parties, and the ball having been thrown, each party tried to drive it through or over the wall. The hand was not used, but only the hip or shoulders. [Footnote 1: Torquemada gives a long but obscure description of it. _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. xiv, cap. xii.] [Footnote 2: Nieremberg, "De septuaginta et octo partibus maximi templi Mexicani," in his _Historia Naturae_, Lib. viii, cap. xxii (Antwerpt, 1635). One of these was called "The Ball Court of the Mirror," perhaps with special reference to this legend. "Trigesima secunda Tezcatlacho, locus erat ubi ludebatur pilâ ex gumi olli, inter templa." The name is from _tezcatl_, mirror, _tlachtli_, the game of ball, and locative ending _co_.] From the earth the game was transferred to the heavens. As a ball, hit by a player, strikes the wall and then bounds back again, describing a curve, so the stars in the northern sky circle around the pole star and return to the place they left. Hence their movement was called The Ball-play of the Stars.[1] [Footnote 1: "_Citlaltlachtli_," from _citlalin_, star, and _tlachtli_, the game of ball. Alvarado Tezozomoc, _Cronica Mexicana_, cap. lxxxii. The obscure passage in which Tezozomoc refers to this is ingeniously analyzed in the _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom. ii, p. 388.]