The effect of this oft-repeated myth on the minds of the superstitious natives was to lead them to the brutal child murder I have mentioned.
It was, however, natural that the more ordinary meaning, "the feathered or bird-serpent," should become popular, and in the picture writing some combination of the serpent with feathers or other part of a bird was often employed as the rebus of the name Quetzalcoatl.
He was also known by other names, as, like all the prominent gods in early mythologies, he had various titles according to the special attribute or function which was uppermost in the mind of the worshipper.

One of these was _Papachtic_, He of the Flowing Locks, a word which the Spaniards shortened to Papa, and thought was akin to their title of the Pope.

It is, however, a pure Nahuatl word,[1] and refers to the abundant hair with which he was always credited, and which, like his ample beard, was, in fact, the symbol of the sun's rays, the aureole or glory of light which surrounded his face.
[Footnote 1: "_Papachtic_, guedejudo; _Papachtli_, guedeja o vedija de capellos, o de otra cosa assi." Molina, _Vocabulario de la Lengua Mexicana_.

sub voce.

Juan de Tobar, in Kingsborough, Vol.