“Mixcoatl” is the expression in use at the present time among the natives of Mexico for the tropical whirlwind [320]—obviously a much later conception of his nature, and one more intimately connected with that of Tezcatlipocâ, as I have attempted to show in the passages relating to that god, and to Quetzalcoatl. There is, indeed, a strong resemblance between Mixcoatl and Tezcatlipocâ, both of whom are connected with obsidian, and carry the hunter’s bag of obsidian darts. Mixcoatl’s festival is obviously one of considerable antiquity. As practised in Mexico-Tenochtitlan it was obviously a reminiscence of the great communal hunt. Its sacrifice of women in the place of deer, the victims being “carried up the temple stairs in the same fashion as a deer is carried by its four legs when taken to the butcher,” is obviously a substitution in more civilized times of human for deer sacrifice, either because the animals of the hunt were not so easily obtained or for the reason that the idea of human sacrifice had so thoroughly interpenetrated Mexican religious usage as to render the older form unacceptable, merely retaining its broader characteristics. It has also a strong resemblance to those medicine-hunts until recently practised by the Indians of North America, and in the Zuñi mysteries of to-day, a procuring of magical virtue for the arrows which were made during the first five days of the festival, and smaller models of which were offered up on the graves of the dead. Mixcoatl’s wife Itzcuêyê is a deer and, as we have seen, the deer was the disguise of his surrogate, Camaxtli. The deer is the animal connected in the barbarian mind with the quest for water or food. Where the deer migrated in search for these the savage must follow. The animals which compose the staple food-supply of savages are frequently regarded as their gods. In America, on the introduction of later anthropomorphic deities, the animal forms are frequently conceived of as the mates of these—perhaps one explanation of the belief in descent from animal forms. Because of his connection with the lightning Mixcoatl was also god of the fire-twirler, the apparatus with which fire was made, and he appears in this character during the fire festival. TLAUIZCALPANTECUTLI = “LORD OF THE HOUSE OF THE DAWN” Area of Worship: Mexico; Toltec (?). Calendar Place: With the Fire-god, lord of the ninth week, ce coatl. Twelfth of the thirteen lords of the day-hours. Compass Direction: West. Relationship: Variant of Quetzalcoatl. ASPECT AND INSIGNIA