That legend is as follows: When the Azteca or Mexica—for these names were applied to the same tribe[99]—left their early home in Aztlan—which Ramirez locates in Lake Chalco in the Valley of Mexico, and Orozco y Berra in Lake Chapallan in Michoacan[100]—they pursued their course for some generations in harmony; but at a certain time, somewhere between the eighth and the eleventh century of our era, they fell out and separated. The legend refers to this as a dispute between the followers of the tribal god Huitzilopochtli and those of his sister Malinalxochitl. We may understand it to have been the separation of two “totems.” The latter entered at once the Valley of Mexico, while the followers of Huitzilopochtli passed on to the plain of Tula and settled on the Coatepetl. Here, says the narrative, they constructed houses of stones and of rushes, built a temple for the worship of Huitzilopochtli, set up his image and those of the fifteen divinities (gentes?) who were subject to him, and erected a large altar of sculptured stone and a court for their ball play.[101] The level ground at the foot of the hill they partly flooded by damming the river, and used the remainder for planting their crops. After an indeterminate time they abandoned Tula and the Coatepetl, driven out by civil strife and warlike neighbors, and journeyed southward into the Valley of Mexico, there to found the famous city of that name. This is the simple narrative of Tulan, stripped of its contradictions, metaphors and confusion, as handed down by those highest authorities the Codex Ramirez, Tezozomoc and Father Duran.[102] It is a plain statement that Tula and its Snake-Hill were merely one of the stations of the Azteca in their migrations—an important station, indeed, with natural strength, and one that they fortified with care, where for some generations, probably, they maintained an independent existence, and which the story-tellers of the tribe recalled with pride and exaggeration. How long they occupied the site is uncertain.[103] Ixtlilxochitl gives a list of eight successive rulers of the “Toltecs,” each of whom was computed to reign at least fifty-two years, or one cycle; but it is noteworthy that he states these rulers were not of “Toltec” blood, but imposed upon them by the “Chichimecs.” This does not reflect creditably on the supposed singular cultivation of the Toltecs. Probably the warrior Aztecs subjected a number of neighboring tribes and imposed upon them rulers.[104]