The God to whom the temples of Yucatan were really dedicated appears to be _Quetzalcoatl_, by some writers called the feathered serpent, a title belonging rather to his serpent-father _Tonacatlcoatl_. This _Quetzalcoatl_ was the mysterious stranger who, according to tradition, founded the civilisation of Mexico, agreeing thus in his character of a god of wisdom with the Egyptian _Thoth_; reminding us of the resemblance of the name of this deity to that of the Toltecan _Teotl_. But the first part of the name of the Mexican _Quetzalcoatl_ no less resembles that borne by the Teutonic deity, _Etzel_. _Co-atl_ signifies the “serpent,” while _quetzal_ would seem to have reference to the male principle; and thus the idea expressed in the name of the Mexican god is the male principle represented as a serpent. _Quetzalcoatl_, moreover, is said to be an incarnation of _Tonacatlcoatl_, who is the male-serpent, his wife being called _Cihua-coatl_, meaning, literally, the “woman of the serpent,” or “female serpent.” In the identification, then, of _Atli_ or _Etzel_, who consigns his enemies to the pit of serpents, with the great serpent _Ahi_ himself, we have a ground of identification of the Teutonic deity with the Mexican serpent-god _Quetzalcoatl_. This view loses none of its probability if the latter is, as Mr. Squire asserts, an incarnation of the serpent-sun, or rather a serpent incarnation of the sun-god, since _Ahi_ himself is a solar deity. In the religious symbols used by the Mexicans, we have another point of contact with the Asiatic deities. The sacred _Tau_ of antiquity has its counterpart on the Mexican monuments. The Mexican symbol perfectly represents the cross form of the _Tau_, but it is composed of two serpents entwined, somewhat as in the caduceus of Mercury. That the _Tau_ itself had such an origin we can well believe, seeing that the name of the letter _Tet_ (θετα) of the Phœnician alphabet specially associated with _Thoth_, of whom the _Tau_ is a symbol, is that of the God himself, as well as meaning “serpent.” If the comparison thus made between the Mexican and Teutonic mythologies is correct, the further analogies pointed out by M. Brasseur de Bourbourg may be well founded. Thus the Mexican _Votan_ or _Odon_, supposed to be the same as _Quetzalcoatl_, may be in reality none other than the Scandinavian _Odin_, _Woden_, or _Wuotan_, who, if not a sun-god, was the sky-god, whose eye was the sun (Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology,” translated by Stallybrass, p. 703). The snake is intimately associated with Odin in Norse mythology (Grimm, p. 685) as it is with Votan, and both these personages have been identified with the Indian Buddha god.[228]