explains it. It was told in the province of Meztitlan, a mountainous
country to the northwest of the province of Vera Cruz. Its inhabitants
spoke the Nahuatl tongue, but were never subject to the Montezumas. Their
chief god was Tezcatlipoca, and it was said of him that on one occasion he
slew Ometochtli (Two Rabbits), the god of wine, at the latter's own
request, he believing that he thus would be rendered immortal, and that
all others who drank of the beverage he presided over would die. His
death, they added, was indeed like the stupor of a drunkard, who, after
his lethargy has passed, rises healthy and well. In this sense of renewing
life after death, he presided over the native calendar, the count of years
beginning with Tochtli, the Rabbit.[1] Thus we see that this is a myth of
the returning seasons, and of nature waking to life again after the cold
months ushered in by the chill rains of the late autumn. The principle of
fertility is alone perennial, while each individual must perish and die.
The God of Wine in Mexico, as in Greece, is one with the mysterious force
of reproduction.

[Footnote 1: Gabriel de Chaves, _Relacion de la Provincia de Meztitlan_,
1556, in the _Colecion de Documentos Ineditos del Archivo de Indias_, Tom.
iv, p. 536.]

No writer has preserved such numerous traditions about the tricks of
Tezcatlipoca in Tollan, as Father Sahagun. They are, no doubt, almost
verbally reported as he was told them, and as he wrote his history first
in the Aztec tongue, they preserve all the quaintness of the original
tales. Some of them appear to be idle amplifications of story tellers,
while others are transparent myths. I shall translate a few of them quite
literally, beginning with that of the mystic beverage.

The time came for the luck of Quetzalcoatl and the Toltecs to end; for