"But as soon as they had finished they went out, and the water remained calm, for the wood no longer moved, and on opening it they began to see fish.
"Then they lit a fire, by rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish.
"The gods Citlallinicué and Citlalatonac instantly looking down said: 'Divine Lord, what is that fire that is making there. Why do they thus smoke the sky?' At once Titlacahuan-Tezcatlipoca descended. He began to chide, saying, 'Who has made this fire here?' And seizing hold of the fish he shaped their loins and heads, and they were transformed into dogs (_chichime_)."
This last touch is a satire on the Chichimecs, or "barbarians of the North," founders of the kingdom of Tezcuco. It proves the decidedly indigenous character of the story, and removes any such suspicion of a Biblical imitation, as the date might have led to.
The manuscript, written in Spanish by Motolina, who belonged to the generation of the "conquistadores," has hitherto only been known by extracts given from it by Abbé Brasseur in his "Recherches sur les Ruines de Palenque," a work containing many useful documents, though already pervaded by the delusions which towards the end of his career so strangely misled this learned pioneer of Mexican antiquarianism. Here, too, we find the theory of the four suns, or four ages, given in the same order as by the author of the "Codex Chimalpopoca."
The first is called "age of Tezcatlipoca," because that god had then added on a half to the sun, which was only half luminous, or had "made himself sun in its place." This was the age of the Quinames, or giants, who were almost all exterminated by famine. After this, Quetzlcoatl, the god of the air, having armed himself with a great stick, struck Tezcatlipoca with it, threw him into the water, and "and made himself sun in his place." The fallen god, transforming himself into a jaguar, devoured such of the Quinames as had escaped from the famine. The statements of the "Codex Vaticanus" and the "Codex Chimalpopoca" as to the final catastrophe of the world's first age, are thus reconciled by this last narrative.
Motolina calls the two next ages those of wind and fire; they are closed in the way we have seen.