occasionally represented with his face painted black, probably expressing
the sun in its absence.]

[Footnote 2: He is so portrayed in the Codex Vaticanus. and Ixtlilxochitl
says, "tubiese el cabello levantado desde la frente hasta la nuca como á
manera de penacho." _Historia Chichimeca_, cap. viii.]

At times he was painted with a large hat and flowing robe, and was then
called "Father of the Sons of the Clouds," that is, of the rain drops.[1]

[Footnote 1: Diego Duran, _Historia_, in Kingsborough, viii, p. 267.]

These various representations doubtless referred to him at different parts
of his chequered career, and as a god under different manifestations of
his divine nature. The religious art of the Aztecs did not demand any
uniformity in this respect.


§5. _The Return of Quetzalcoatl._

Quetzalcoatl was gone.

Whether he had removed to the palace prepared for him in Tlapallan,
whether he had floated out to sea on his wizard raft of serpent skins, or
whether his body had been burned on the sandy sea strand and his soul had
mounted to the morning star, the wise men were not agreed. But on one
point there was unanimity. Quetzalcoatl was gone; but _he would return_.

In his own good time, in the sign of his year, when the ages were ripe,
once more he would come from the east, surrounded by his fair-faced