Two small pottery figures of Xolotl found in the Valley of Mexico insist strongly upon his animal character, but in neither of these is the precise bestial type ascertainable. The first shows a face ending in a blunt snout and surmounted by a kind of wig, with ear-pieces rising on either side. What seems to be a collar of feathers surrounds the neck. In the other he is represented as a little bear, or dog, without clothing, but having Quetzalcoatl’s sliced snail-shell breast-ornament. A stone head of him found in the Calle de las Escalerillas in Mexico City on 29th October 1900 shows a blunt, almost ape-like animal face with large powerful molar teeth, dog-like canines, and large, sharp fangs, not unlike those with which Tlaloc was usually represented. Incised lines represent powerful muscular development in the region of the nose and jaws. The type is only generally and not particularly bestial, and it would seem that it was the aim of the sculptor to represent a ferocious animal countenance without laying stress upon the peculiarities of any one species. MYTHS The most important of the myths relating to Xolotl are those given by Sahagun and Olmos, which have already been described at length in the chapter on Cosmogony. The Codex Vaticanus A says of him: “They believe Xolotle to be the god of monstrous productions and of twins, which are such things as grow double. He was one of the seven who remained after the deluge, and he presided over these thirteen signs which they usually considered unlucky.” The Codex Telleriano-Remensis describes him in verbiage almost identical. Juan de Cordova in his Zapotec Grammar writes: “When a solar eclipse occurred then they said that the world is coming to an end, and that the Sun-god wanted war, and that they would kill one another, whoever was first able to do this. Likewise they said that the dwarfs were created by the sun, and that at the time (that is during the eclipse) the Sun-god wanted the dwarfs as his property. And therefore wherever dwarfs or undersized persons were found in a house the people fell upon and killed them, and they hid themselves in order not to be killed, so that during that time few escaped from their fate.” One of the hymns or songs given in the Sahagun MS. says of Xolotl: Old Xolotl plays ball, plays ball On the magic playing-ground. NATURE AND STATUS