The third and highest reward was reserved for the brave who died upon the field of battle, or, as captives, perished by the malice of public enemies, and for women who died in childbirth. These went to the sun in the sky, and dwelt up in the bright heavens. After four years they returned to earth, and under the form of bright-plumaged singing birds rejoiced the hearts of men, and were again spectators of human life.
In this Aztec doctrine the ruler of the underworld is spoken of as _Mictlantecutli_, which the obtuse missionaries persistently render as the devil.
The name means simply “Lord of the Abode of the Slain,” or of the dead. In several of myths he is brought into close relation with the Aztec national hero-god, Quetzalcoatl.
Like Osiris, Quetzalcoatl was said to be absent, to have gone away to the home of the sun, that home where the sun rests at night. More specifically, this was said to be under the earth, and it was spoken of as a place of delights, like Tlalocan. Its name was _Cincalco_, which means the House of Abundance; for no want, no dearth, no hunger and no suffering, were known there. With him dwelt the souls of his disciples and the Toltecs, his people, and at some day or other he and they would return to claim the land and to restore it to its pristine state of perfection.
The thoughts in these faiths which I have described are the same. In each of them the supposed history of the destiny of the soul follows that of the sun and the stars. In all of them the spirits are believed to descend into or under the surface of the earth, and then, after a certain lapse of time, some fortunate ones are released to rise like the orbs of light into the heavens above.
Striking analogies exist among them all. The river which in each flows through the underworld, is nothing else than the great world-stream which in the primitive geography of every nation is believed to surround the habitable land, and beyond which the sun sinks at night. To reach the abode of the sun in the west this river must be crossed.
The numbers 4 and 8 which occur in the Egyptian and Aztec geography of the underworld, are relics of the sacredness attached to the cardinal points.
The ruler of the realm of shadows is not a malevolent being. Osiris, Hades or Pluto, Mictlantecutli, Quetzalcoatl, all originally represented the sun in its absence, and none of them in any way corresponds to the mediæval or modern notion of the devil. As Osiris, who is unquestionably the departed Sun-god, was represented with heavy and braided hair, so his Aztec correlative was also named _Tzontemoc_, which means, he of the abundant falling hair. In each case the analogy was to the long slanting rays of the setting sun.