can only come when the previous day is past and gone; expressed
figuratively by the statement that any one day must destroy its
predecessor. This led to the stories of "the fatal children," which we
find so frequent in Aryan mythology.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George W. Cox, _The Science of Comparative Mythology and
Folk Lore_, pp. 14, 83, 130, etc.]

The Aztecs were a coarse and bloody race, and carried out their
superstitions without remorse. Based, no doubt, on this mythical
expression of a natural occurrence, they had the belief that if twins were
allowed to live, one or the other of them would kill and eat his father or
mother; therefore, it was their custom when such were brought into the
world to destroy one of them.[1]

[Footnote 1: Gerónimo de Mendieta, _Historia Eclesiastica Indiana_. Lib.
II, cap. XIX.]

We shall see that, as in Algonkin story Michabo strove to slay his father,
the West Wind, so Quetzalcoatl was in constant warfare with his father,
Tezcatlipoca-Camaxtli, the Spirit of Darkness. The effect of this
oft-repeated myth on the minds of the superstitious natives was to lead
them to the brutal child murder I have mentioned.

It was, however, natural that the more ordinary meaning, "the feathered or
bird-serpent," should become popular, and in the picture writing some
combination of the serpent with feathers or other part of a bird was often
employed as the rebus of the name Quetzalcoatl.

He was also known by other names, as, like all the prominent gods in early