134).

I have endeavored to explain this widespread belief in hermaphroditic deities in my work entitled, _The Religious Sentiment, Its Source and Aim_, pp.

65-68, (New York, 1876).] It is recorded in the old histories that the priests dedicated to his service wore a peculiar head-dress, imitating a snail shell, and for that reason were called _Quateczizque_.[1] No one has explained this curiously shaped bonnet.

But it was undoubtedly because Quetzalcoatl was the god of reproduction, for among the Aztecs the snail was a well known symbol of the process of parturition.[2] [Footnote 1: Duran, in Kingsborough, vol.viii, p.267.The word is from _quaitl_, head or top, and _tecziztli_, a snail shell.] [Footnote 2: "Mettevanli in testa una lumaca marina per dimostrare que siccome il piscato esce dalle pieghe di quell'osso, o conca.

cosi va ed esce l'uomo _ab utero matris suae_." _Codice Vaticana, Tavola XXVI._] Quetzalcoatl was that marvelous artist who fashions in the womb of the mother the delicate limbs and tender organs of the unborn infant.
Therefore, when a couple of high rank were blessed with a child, an official orator visited them, and the baby being placed naked before him, he addressed it beginning with these words:-- "My child and lord, precious gem, emerald, sapphire, beauteous feather, product of a noble union, you have been formed far above us, in the ninth heaven, where dwell the two highest divinities.