heaven” by a subterranean passage. Returning to Palenque, he found that others of his race had arrived there, and with them he made a friendly pact. He built a temple by the Heuheutan River, known, from its subterranean chambers, as “the House of Darkness,” and here he deposited the national records under the charge of certain old men called tlapianes, or guardians, and an order of priestesses. Here also were kept a number of tapirs. A quotation of the passage dealing with this temple may be made from Nuñez de la Vega: “Votan is the third heathen in the calendar (that is the deity who is ascribed to the third division of the calendar), and in the little history written in the Indian language all the provinces and cities in which he tarried were mentioned; and to this day there is always a clan in the city of Teopisa that they call the Votans. It is also said that he is the lord of the hollow wooden instrument which they call tepanaguaste (that is, the Mexican teponaztli); that he saw the great wall, namely, the tower of Babel, which was built from earth to heaven at the bidding of his grandfather, Noah; and that he was the first man whom God sent to divide and apportion this country of India, and that there, where he saw the great wall, he gave to every nation its special language. It is related that he tarried in Huehueta (which is a city in Soconusco), and that there he placed a tapir and a great treasure in a slippery (damp, dark, subterranean) house, which he built by the breath of his nostrils, and he appointed a woman as chieftain, with tapianes (that is, Mexican tlapiani, “keepers”) to guard her. This treasure consisted of jars, which were closed with covers of the same clay, and of a room in which the picture of the ancient heathens who are in the calendar were engraved in stone, together with chalchiuites (which are small, heavy, green stones) and other superstitious images; and the chieftainess herself and the tapianes, her guardians, surrendered all these things, which were publicly burned in the market place of Huehueta when we inspected the aforesaid province in 1691. All the Indians greatly revere this Votan, and in a certain province they call him ‘heart of the cities’ (Corazon de los pueblos).” In his ninth Pastoral Letter Nuñez says of Quetzalcoatl: “In most of the Calendars, the seventh sign is the figure of a man and a snake, which they call Cuchulchan. The masters have explained it as a snake with feathers which moves in the water. This sign corresponds with Mexzichaut (Mixcoatl), which means Cloudy Serpent, or, of the clouds. The people also consult them in order to work injury on their enemies, taking the lives of many through such devilish artifices, and committing unspeakable atrocities.”