Cipactli destroyed the gods' attempts to shape the world until Tezcatlipoca offered his foot as bait. Quetzalcoatl and his brother tore the monster apart, using her body to form the earth, its features, the rain god, and humanity.

The Creation of the Earth

Cipactli lunged through the water and destroyed every thing the gods tried to make. Each time the Four Tezcatlipocas began their work, the gigantic crocodile ate or ruined it. The gods became frustrated and decided that Cipactli had to die.

Black Tezcatlipoca dangled his foot in the water as bait. Cipactli seized it and bit it off while she chewed. As the monster fed, her brothers attacked. Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca seized Cipactli and ripped her apart. They made the world from her corpse. Her remains formed the land and its features. They also made Tlaloc, the rain god, and the first people from her body.

One account gives a different detail. Tezcatlipoca tore off the jaw of the crocodile monster and used it to make the earth. In both versions, the world arose after Cipactli's destruction. The creature that had prevented creation became its material.

Tezcatlipoca's missing foot remained part of the later struggle between the gods who sought the office of the sun. The White Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, and the Black Tezcatlipoca were brothers and rivals. Because Tezcatlipoca had lost his foot while fighting Cipactli, he became the first sun. Quetzalcoatl resented this position and knocked him from the sky with a stone club. The contest between them continued through the changing ages known as the rival Suns.

Quetzalcoatl and the Ages of the World

Tezcatlipoca took the first sun and ruled the first age. The four offspring of Ometeotl had quarrelled over which god would become the sun and direct the world. Each age had a different ruler, but each sun eventually ended. Tezcatlipoca's sun was destroyed when tigers devoured the people of the world.

Quetzalcoatl then became the sun and made new people. Tezcatlipoca remained angry and turned these people into monkeys. Quetzalcoatl was distressed by this and gave up the role of sun. He summoned hurricanes, which blew the monkeys away. This ended the second age, the Sun of Wind. Quetzalcoatl's sun was also associated with the west and with magic.

For the third age, Quetzalcoatl persuaded Tlaloc to become the sun. Tlaloc ruled early humans who ate food associated with this age. After several centuries, Quetzalcoatl destroyed the world with a rain of fire. The people became birds during this destruction.

The fourth age began when Quetzalcoatl appointed Chalchihuitlicue, Tlaloc's second spouse, as sun goddess. Tezcatlipoca denounced her and knocked her from the sky. The Water Sun ended in a flood. One man and one woman survived.

The present sun is the fifth. It belongs to Xiuhtecuhtli, the fire god, and the world continues under it. Some accounts say that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca created the present world. Its eventual destruction is expected to come through earthquakes.

Quetzalcoatl Steals the Bones of the Dead

Quetzalcoatl entered Mictlan to recover the bones of the former human race. A great flood had swept over the earth, and the people had become fish. When the waters withdrew, no humans remained on the surface. The gods agreed to create a new and longer lasting race, and chose Quetzalcoatl to lead the work. He knew that the human bones lay in caverns beneath the earth, so he began the descent through Mictlan's layers. His dog, Xolotl, helped him reach the lowest level. Nine rivers formed the final obstacle before the realm's ruler.

Quetzalcoatl met Mictlantecuhtli, the skull headed lord of the dead. He asked for the bones and explained that the gods wished to place people on the earth. Mictlantecuhtli agreed on one condition. Quetzalcoatl had to sound a shell horn and circle the realm four times. The demand was a trick. The shell had no holes and could not be played. Quetzalcoatl nevertheless found a way to sound it and completed the circuit. Mictlantecuhtli then allowed him to take the bones, although he had never intended to surrender them.

As Quetzalcoatl tried to leave, Mictlantecuhtli sought to stop him. Quetzalcoatl escaped with the bones, but fell into a pit and dropped them. Some broke, which the Aztecs associated with the different sizes of human beings. He recovered them and continued towards the earth.

Quetzalcoatl passed through Tamoanchan, a sacred paradise of forests and flower covered meadows, and sought the aged mother goddess Cihuaoatl. He mixed the bones with blood taken from his own body. Through this offering, he created the present human race and populated the barren earth, fulfilling the plan made by the gods after their return from the great bonfire at Teotihuacan.