SELER] ANCIENT MEXICAN FEATHER ORNAMENTS Gl 



At tlie time wIkmi Axiiyacatl was king, that is, supreme war chief of 

 the Mexicans, the kitij>-dom passed through a severe crisis. After 

 Itzcouatl freed the Mexicans from the supremacy of Azcapotzalco 

 and the elder Motecuhzoma had prepared the conditions for the later 

 rapid extension of Mexican dominion by establishing the alliance of the 

 three states and forcibly subjugating Chalca, the enemy arose against 

 Axayacatl in his own house. Close by Tenochtitlan, on the same 

 marsh island, was the sister city of Tlatelolco, whose inhabitants, 

 although of another and an older race than the Tenochca, living accord- 

 ing to laws of their own, had hitherto united their interests with those 

 of the Mexicans and fought shoulder to shoulder with them — for 

 instance, against Azcapotzalco. In the early years of Axay acatl's reign, 

 discontent, which had probably long been smoldering, broke out. 

 Histories give various insignificant provocations as the cause. Suffice 

 it to say that Moquiuix, king of Tlatelolco, opcidy took up arms 

 against Tenochtitlan. The danger was all the greater because the 

 neighboring cities allied to the Tlatelolca, Azcapotzalco, Tenayocan. 

 and Quauhtitlan, also turned their arms against the Tenochca. Here 

 young Axayacatl seems to have decided the matter in favor of the 

 Mexicans b}' his own military abilit}'. The Tlatelolca were forced 

 back from street to street and finally surrounded in the great market 

 place of Tlatelolco, near which the terraced pyramid of their god 

 rose like a citadel. The warriors of the Tlatelolca took refuge upon 

 its apex, and it was Axayacatl himself, as historians unanimously state, 

 who, pressing forward, slew King Moquiuix and hurled him down the 

 steps of the pyramid. It is this event which is portraye^l in the 

 accompanying cut (figure (5) from the Cozcatzin codex. On the left we 

 see King Moquiuix, in eagle array and denoted by his name hiiu-oglyph, 

 escaping up the steps of the pyramid pursued b}' Axayacatl; on the 

 right, the victorious Axayacatl on the pyramid and Mo(|uiui\ lying 

 vancpiished at the foot. 



I have pointed out in earlier works that it follows from history, as 

 well as from picture manuscripts, that Mexican kings and connnanders 

 in chief in later times assumed in war the dress and attributes of the 

 god Xipe, the red god of the Yopi, who was called Tlatlauh(|ui Tezcatl 

 or Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca, the god who was clad in a flayed human 

 skin. This follows from various passages in the Cronica Mexicana 

 of Tezozomoc. It is confirmed by Sahagun. who mentions as first 

 among the military equipments of kings the tlauhquecholtzontli 

 ("crown made of the feathers of the roseate spoonbilF'), which was 

 worn together with the coztic teocuitlayo ueuetl (•"the gilded timbrel"), 

 the tlauhquecholeuatl ("the jacket of spoonbill feathers"), and the 

 tzapocueitl ("the petticoat or apron of green feathers lapping over 

 one another like tiles"), all parts of the dress of Xipe. And it is 

 clearly demonstrated by a passage in the Codex Vaticaiuis A (page I'iS), 



