Includes: glossary, chronology, bibliography, index

The land between the waters. The gods of México. Quetzalcoatl: the feathered serpent. Tezcatlipoca: the smoking mirror. The ritual of daily life. Astrology and the priesthood. The earthly confrontation.

A sense of fate overshadows mexican history. The strang story of the conflict between the gods Feathered Serpent and Smoking Mirror largeñy determined the action of the Aztec people when, in the early sixteenth century, the Spahish invaders brought the era of native rule to an end. At this point, history and mithology united for a moment to produce a great tragedy.These two gods bore the Aztec names of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, and, like all Mexican deities, their names carried many metaphorical and symbolic meanings. Perhaps the best definition of their dual sifnificance is psychological: Quetzalcoatl representing conscious intelligence and Tezcatlipoca representing the unconscious ´shadow´ in the mind.Though their technology was primitive, the Aztecs were no simple savages. Their great capital city of Tenochtitlan was built on islands at the centre of a lake, and became one of the largest cities in the contemporary world. Their orderly life allowed philosophers and poets to express and evolve a complex system of belief.They were deeply aware that life was transient within the apparent permanence of the world around them; their poetry likened the soul of man to a butterflym ciming to sip the nectar of a flower for a moment, and then passing out of sight. Their religion, however, based as it was of symbols of the forces for nature, included great cruelty and bloodshed.The Aztecs believe that Quetzalcoatl would one day return to them from the exile forced upon him by Smoking Mirror, their war god and patron who had led them to the great victories through which they came to dominate Mexico. In 1519, strangers appeared on their shores, whom they believed to be the returning Quetzalcoatl. The date was the one predicted for the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy - the final and bloody confrontation between the Feathered Serpent and Smoking Mirror.