is more
significant still is that, in all historical records antedating the
Conquest, a man bearing the feminine title of Cihuacoatl=serpent woman, is
distinctly and repeatedly mentioned as the coadjutor of the Mexican ruler.
Mr. Ad. Bandelier, in his careful study "On the social organization and
mode of government of the Ancient Mexicans" (Twelfth Annual Report of the
Peabody Museum of Am. Arch, and Ethn., Cambridge, 1879) to which I refer
the reader, discusses the relative positions of Montezuma and the
Cihuacoatl and states: "there is no doubt about their _equality_ of rank
though their duties were somewhat different" (p. 665). This equality is
illustrated by the records that both rulers shared the same privileges
regarding dress. Thus they alone wore sandals and the Cihuacoatl is termed
"the second or double of the king, his coadjutor" (Duran, chap. XXXII, p.
255 and Tezozomoc, chap. XL, p. 66). The latter author, however, gives the
full "sacred title" as Tlil-Potonqui Cihuacoatl, literally, "the
black-powdered woman-serpent" and we thus learn that, whilst Montezuma's
garments were habitually blue like Huitzilopochtli, his coadjutor, like
Tezcatlipoca, was associated with black. It is well known that some of the
Mexican priests always smeared their bodies with black, which was
therefore their special mark.

To my idea the foregoing data, with circumstantial evidence too diffuse to
be conveniently produced, clearly indicate that at one time, in the early
history of the Aztec race, it had been governed jointly by a male and a
female ruler on a footing of perfect equality, the one being the living
representative of the Above or masculine elements and the other
personifying the Below or feminine elements. The fact that Cihuacoatl is
named "the sister" of Huitzilopochtli shows that the female ruler was not
necessarily his wife, although she was his coadjutor in her own right.
Both rulers were respectively served by four persons presumably of their
respective sex. Besides these Duran (chap. 3) records that "there were
also other seven teotls=lords, who were much reverenced on account of the
seven caves out of which the seven tribes had come."

We thus perceive that at one time the chief authority was vested in a man
and a woman, his sister, who enjoyed a perfect equality. Four persons
administered the government of each ruler and each of the seven tribes had
"its honoured representative." For how long this organization h