If such an
understanding had been current, it could scarcely have escaped the
inquiries of such a close student and thorough master of the Nahuatl
tongue as Father Sahagun.
On the other hand, it must be said, in corroboration of this
identification, that the same idea appears to be conveyed by the symbol of
the serpent. One correct translation of the name Quetzalcoatl is "the
beautiful serpent;" his temple in the city of Mexico, according to
Torquemada, had a door in the form of a serpent's mouth; and in the _Codex
Vaticanus_, No. 3738, published by Lord Kingsborough, of which we have an
explanation by competent native authority, he is represented as a serpent;
while in the same Codex, in the astrological signs which were supposed to
control the different parts of the human body, the serpent is pictured as
the sign of the male member.[1] This indicates the probability that in his
function as god of reproduction Quetzalcoatl may have stood in some
relation to phallic rites.
[Footnote 1: Compare the _Codex Vaticanus_, No. 3738, plates 44 and 75,
Kingsborough, _Mexican Antiquities_, vol. ii.]
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.
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