This same sign, _Ce Coatl_, One Serpent, used in their astrology, was that
of one of the gods of the merchants, and apparently for this reason, some
writers have identified the chief god of traffic, Yacatecutli (God of
Journeying), with Quetzalcoatl. This seems the more likely as another name
of this divinity was _Yacacoliuhqui_, With the End Curved, a name which
appears to refer to the curved rod or stick which was both his sign and
one of those of Quetzalcoatl.[1] The merchants also constantly associated
in their prayers this deity with Huitzilopochtli, which is another reason
for supposing their patron was one of the four primeval brothers, and but
another manifestation of Quetzalcoatl. His character, as patron of arts,
the model of orators, and the cultivator of peaceful intercourse among
men, would naturally lend itself to this position.

[Footnote 1: Compare Torquemada, _Monarquia Indiana_, Lib. vi, cap. xxviii
and Sahagun, _Historia de Nueva España_, Lib. ix, _passim_.

_Yacatecutli_, is from _tecutli_, lord, and either _yaqui_, traveler, or
else _yacana_, to conduct.

_Yacacoliuhqui_, is translated by Torquemada, "el que tiene la nariz
aquileña." It is from _yaque_, a point or end, and hence, also, the nose,
and _coliuhqui_, bent or curved. The translation in the text is quite as
allowable as that of Torquemada, and more appropriate. I have already
mentioned that this divinity was suspected, by Dr. Schultz-Sellack, to be
merely another form of Quetzalcoatl. See above, chapter iii, §2]

But Quetzalcoatl, as god of the violent wind-storms, which destroy the
houses and crops, and as one, who, in his own history, was driven from his
kingdom and lost his all, was not considered a deity of invariably good
augury. His day and sign, _ce acatl_, One Reed, was of bad omen. A person