places. Eventually, on reaching the Veracruz coast, he either
burned himself and became the morning star, or, according
to other versions, he walked or sailed on a raft, miraculously
made by intertwining serpents, to the mythical land Tlapal-
lan, where he may have died. After his departure from Xico-
cotitlan, Topiltzin was replaced by a more secular ruler, Hue-
mac, perhaps Topiltzin’s kinsman, who himself was also
persecuted by the demons and who finally fled to a cave
where he killed himself or disappeared—the sources are
hopelessly contradictory on this point. Huemac, too, as-
sumed divinity, as lord of the underworld.
Conquerors of “Toltec” Affiliation. In various parts of
Mesoamerica during early Postclassic times a local popula-
tion had to submit to small groups of militant immigrants.
These usurpers, who showed positive “Toltec” traits, estab-
lished themselves as ruling elites. In the case of the Quiché
and Cakchiquel Maya in highland Guatemala, the respective
elites claimed descent from a mythical place of origin called
Tulán, far to the north, and ethnic affiliation with those they
called the Yaqui (Nahuatl-speaking Mexicans). After their
initial migration the Quiché settled for a long time near the
Laguna de Términos on the Gulf of Mexico and later contin-
ued their migration into the Guatemalan highlands. They
carried with them a “sacred bundle”—in Mesoamerica gen-
erally considered the very essence of their god and the sacro-
sanct symbol of ethnic identity—which they were given by
Nacxitl at Tulán. Nacxitl or Acxitl is one of the names of
Quetzalcoatl, according to central Mexican sources.
Quiché tradition of the sixteenth century, amply pre-
served in their “sacred book,” the Popol Vuh, relates that at
Tulán their four ethnic subdivisions had each been given
tribal deities: Tohil, Avilix, Hacavitz, and Nicacatah. The
most powerful, Tohil, who was identified by the Popol Vuh
with Quetzalcoatl, was the possessor of fire; he offered this
cultural achievement to other starving tribes at the price of
using them as victims for human sacrifice, hitherto unknown
at Tulán. The other tribes thus came under Quiché domi-
nance, which they unsuccessfully tried to shake off.
The creation myth recorded at length in the Popol Vuh
is generally considered an adaptation of central Mexican
(Toltec) prototypes: here, the creation of the world in various
stages of completion is referred to as the work of Tepeu and
Cucumatz (Gucumatz). The name Tepeu recalls the ruler of
Tollan, named Totepeuh (to is a Nahuatl possessive prefix),
sometimes referred to as the father of Topiltzin or Huemac;
the name Cucumatz is a literal translation of Quetzalcoatl
into Quiché. The account of the Popol Vuh also gives deep
insight into the wide corpus of legends of the Quiché that
do not seem to be of Toltec origin.
TOLTECA CHICHIMECA. As a rule, central Mexican ethnic
groups have ample traditions regarding their migration to
their present homes. Most of these refer to a place of origin
at Chicomoztoc (Seven Caves), and they count Tollan
among their stopping places during their long migration.
This holds true for the inhabitants of Cholula (Cholollan)
in the Puebla valley. They report in the monumental Historia
Tolteca-Chichimeca that their forefathers, bearing the charac-
teristic name Tolteca-Chichimeca, had to leave the decaying
Tollan. Before starting off, their messenger-priest asked the
god of Cholollan, then already a famous place of pilgrimage,
for permission to settle in his city, which was granted. The
god is referred to in the Nahuatl text as Quetzalcoatl Nacxitl
Tepeuhqui and is addressed as Tloque’ Nahuaque’ (Lord of
Proximity and Vicinity), the omnipresent deity. The allusion
of the source to Quetzalcoatl as already present in Cholollan
seems to indicate that well before the fall of Tollan the god’s
cult had begun to spread, certainly fostered by “Toltec”
groups, into wider parts of central Mexico.
CONCLUSION. Only a few characteristic elements common
to various facets of “Toltec” religion can be singled out so
far: a supreme deity, Quetzalcoatl, who gave his name to
priests and rulers; a cult dominated by eagles and jaguars
(i.e., the warriors); a ritual ball game as reenactment of cos-
mic processes; and the importance of human sacrifice. These
traits, whose roots go back far into Classic times, survived,
sometimes altered or obscured, into late Postclassic times.
For example, Quetzalcoatl ceded his rank to the Aztec Tez-
catlipoca, the former being reduced to a mere wind god while
the latter assumed titles peculiar to the “Toltec” Quetzal-
coatl. Thus many religious descriptions in the colonial
sources contain “Toltec” nuclei, although they are often
barely recognizable.SEE ALSO Quetzalcoatl.BIBLIOGRAPHY
No special treatment of Toltec religion in any form has yet been
published. The most comprehensive study of the Toltecs,
written from an ethnohistoric point of view but making full
use of available archaeological data, is Nigel Davies’s The
Toltecs (Norman, Okla., 1977). The subsequent period and
developments are covered in detail by the same author in The
Toltec Heritage (Norman, Okla., 1980), an expanded version
of his Los Mexicas, primeros pasos hacia el imperio (Mexico
City, 1973). There is no published synthesis yet of archaeo-
logical work at Tula de Allende, but Jorge R. Acosta’s “Los
Toltecs,” in Los señoríos y estados militaristas (Mexico City,
1976), can be profitably consulted. The Toltec-Maya period
of Chichén Itzá is summarized, although not very satisfacto-
rily, in Román Piña Chan’s Chichén Itzá, la ciudad de los bru-
jos del agua (Mexico City, 1980).
The Quiché text of the Popol Vuh has been translated many times.
Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya,
translated by Delia Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley from the
Spanish edition of Adrián Recinos (Norman, Okla., 1950),
was the standard English version until it was superseded by
the more scholarly work of Munro S. Edmonson in The Book
of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiché Maya (New Orleans,
1971). A recommendable interpretation of this highly im-
portant text is, however, still lacking.
New Sources
Brumfel, Elizabeth M. “Huitzilopochtli’s Conquest: Aztec Ideolo-
gy in the Archeological Record.” Cambridge Archaeological
Journal 8 (1998): 3–14.9224 TOLTEC RELIGION