388.] A recent writer asserts that the popular belief of the Aztecs extended the figure to a greater game than this.[1] The Sun and Moon were huge balls with which the gods played an unceasing game, now one, now the other, having the better of it.

If this is so, then the game between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl is again a transparent figure of speech for the contest between night and day.
[Footnote 1: _Anales del Museo Nacional_, Tom.

ii, p.

367.] The Mexican tiger, the _ocelotl_, was a well recognized figure of speech, in the Aztec tongue, for the nocturnal heavens, dotted with stars, as is the tiger skin with spots.[1] The tiger, therefore, which destroyed the subjects of Quetzalcoatl--the swift-footed, happy inhabitants of Tula--was none other than the night extinguishing the rays of the orb of light.

In the picture writings Tezcatlipoca appears dressed in a tiger's skin, the spots on which represent the stars, and thus symbolize him in his character as the god of the sky at night.
[Footnote 1: "Segun los Anales de Cuauhtitlan el _ocelotl_ es el cielo manchado de estrellas, como piel de tigre." _Anales del Mus.