which the merchants gave themselves, and used the word in the above sense.
Compare Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva España_, Lib. ix, cap. xii.]

Where Quetzalcoatl finally retired, and whence he was expected back, was
still a Tollan--Tollan Tlapallan--and Montezuma, when he heard of the
arrival of the Spaniards, exclaimed, "It is Quetzalcoatl, returned from
Tula."

The cities which selected him as their tutelary deity were named for that
which he was supposed to have ruled over. Thus we have Tollan and
Tollantzinco ("behind Tollan") in the Valley of Mexico, and the pyramid
Cholula was called "Tollan-Cholollan," as well as many other Tollans and
Tulas among the Nahuatl colonies.

The natives of the city of Tula were called, from its name, the _Tolteca_,
which simply means "those who dwell in Tollan." And who, let us ask, were
these Toltecs?

They have hovered about the dawn of American history long enough. To them
have been attributed not only the primitive culture of Central America and
Mexico, but of lands far to the north, and even the earthworks of the Ohio
Valley. It is time they were assigned their proper place, and that is
among the purely fabulous creations of the imagination, among the giants
and fairies, the gnomes and sylphs, and other such fancied beings which in
all ages and nations the popular mind has loved to create.

Toltec, Toltecatl,[1] which in later days came to mean a skilled craftsman
or artificer, signifies, as I have said, an inhabitant of Tollan--of the
City of the Sun--in other words, a Child of Light. Without a metaphor, it
meant at first one of the far darting, bright shining rays of the sun. Not