“They called this god Tonacatecotli and by another name Citallatonalli [171]; and they said that he was the constellation which appears by night in the sky, St. James’s or the Milky Way. They paint these figures and all the others which follow, each of them in its own manner; because as they considered them their deities, each had its peculiar festival. It was necessary to wear in these festivals the habit of the god.” The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas regards these deities as appearing at the commencement of creation, but says nothing of their relations to the precise creative act. The Anales de Quauhtitlan says of them: And they say that in the inner heaven he [Quetzalcoatl] dedicated a cult and called on them: her with the star-studded robe, together with the astral Sun-god. the mistress of our flesh, the lord of our flesh, who is clothed in charcoal, clothed in blood, who giveth food to the earth; and he cried aloft —as they (the old people) were informed— to the Omeyocan, to the heaven lying above the nine that are bound together. And—as they learnt— those having their abode there, those he called upon, those he worshipped. (See also chapter on Cosmogony for further mythical material relating to these deities.) NATURE AND STATUS In examining the characteristics of these deities we find: (1) That they were among the oldest of the Mexican divinities. Tonacatecutli is called, among other names, “Lord of the Steppe,” [172] which does not necessarily indicate that he was a deity of the Chichimec or hunting tribes, who from generation to generation raided the Mexican valley, but may apply to his stellar or heavenly significance. Reference is also made in the Anales de Quauhtitlan to the circumstance that he and his female counterpart were gods of the ancient Toltecs, and that their cult was founded by Quetzalcoatl, the typical Toltec priest-king. (2) That these gods were regarded by the Mexican priesthood in more modern times at least, as abstractions, ideal beings who arose out of philosophic speculation. That they had become rather neglected in the popular Mexican faith is clear from the circumstance that they had no temples and that no offerings were made them. Tonacatecutli represented, indeed, that great invisible and intangible figure which at all times and in all religions has loomed behind most pantheons—the great god behind the gods—the principle of causality, that first cause beyond which the speculations of theology cannot proceed. (3) They presided over the food supply. Although other deities occupied the positions of maize and vegetable gods, the creative deities were in the ultimate the great givers of all food. Thus they were designated “Lords of Food Supplies” and “Lords of Superabundance.”