born on it would not succeed in life.[1] His plans and possessions would
be lost, blown away, as it were, by the wind, and dissipated into thin
air.

[Footnote 1: Sahagun. _Historia_, Lib. iv, cap. viii.]

Through the association of his person with the prying winds he came,
curiously enough, to be the patron saint of a certain class of thieves,
who stupefied their victims before robbing them. They applied to him to
exercise his maleficent power on those whom they planned to deprive of
their goods. His image was borne at the head of the gang when they made
their raids, and the preferred season was when his sign was in the
ascendant.[1] This is a singular parallelism to the Aryan Hermes myth, as
I have previously observed (Chap. I).

[Footnote 1: Ibid. Lib. IV, cap. XXXI.]

The representation of Quetzalcoatl in the Aztec manuscripts, his images
and the forms of his temples and altars, referred to his double functions
as Lord of the Light and the Winds.

He was not represented with pleasing features. On the contrary, Sahagun
tells us that his face, that is, that of his image, was "very ugly, with a
large head and a full beard."[1] The beard, in this and similar instances,
was to represent the rays of the sun. His hair at times was also shown
rising straight from his forehead, for the same reason.[2]

[Footnote 1: "La cara que tenia era muy fea y la cabeza larga y barbuda."
_Historia_, Lib. III, cap. III. On the other hand Ixtlilxochitl speaks of
him as "de bella figura." _Historia Chichimeca_, cap. viii. He was