The Mexican merchants then accompanied their Tlatelolcan confrères to the villages, where they feasted, drank cocoa, and smoked. Quails were then decapitated, their heads thrown into the fire, and incense was offered to the four cardinal points. An address was delivered by one of their number practised in oratory. The magnificence of this festival, with its richly jewelled accessories, was probably unsurpassed in Mexican ritual, as on this occasion the Pochteca employed their entire stock of trinkets and ornaments for the temporary decoration of the victims. Yacatecutli was also associated in worship with Coyotlinauatl, god of the guild of feather-workers of the quarter of Amantlan. NATURE AND STATUS Bancroft [330] connects Yacatecutli with the Fire-god, with whom, indeed, Clavigero would seem to equate him, and in describing the return of the gods in the twelfth month, Sahagun makes both deities arrive together. Xiuhtecutli was certainly the god who was believed to settle disputes at law, but I am unable to connect Yacatecutli with him in any satisfactory manner. Yacatecutli, “the lord who guides,” seems to me a mere deification of the merchant’s staff, an artificial deity invented as the patron of a caste in an environment where it was not difficult to invent gods. By this I do not mean to convey the impression that the staff was necessarily his earliest form, but that, whatever his primitive shape, the merchant’s stick came to symbolize him. The names of Yacatecutli’s brothers and sister seem to me to allegorize the circumstances of the travelling merchant’s career in the same manner as the names of the companions of a folk-tale hero may have a bearing upon his story. Thus Chiconquiauitl (“Seven-rains” or “All-weathers”) may portend the varied climatic conditions which the chapman has to face; Xomocuitl (“Caught-drake”) the kind of fare he may expect in an unfrequented country; Naxtit (“Four-feet”) may typify endurance in walking; Cochimetl, (Sleeping-maguey) may apply to the leaves of the maguey-plant which shaded the traveller from the heat during his noonday siesta, or from the wind if he used them to construct a temporary shelter, as was often done; Yacapitzanac (“Sharp-nose”) needs little explanation in connection with the peddler’s calling, and the name of the one goddess of the series, Chalmecaciuatl, is evidently that of a tribal deity of the Chalmeca, with whom the Mexicans traded. CHAPTER XII MINOR DEITIES XOLOTL = “DOUBLE” Area of Worship: Plateau of Anahuac. Minor Names: Chicuei Mazatl = “Eight Deer.” Chicunaui Coatl = “Nine Serpent.” Calendar Place: Ruler of the seventeenth day-count, olin; of the sixteenth tonalamatl division, ce cozcaquauhtli. Compass Direction: East. Relationship: Twin brother or variant of Quetzalcoatl. ASPECT AND INSIGNIA