Down to the Bone-Place

One Nahua telling of how people were made sends someone into the land of the dead. In the Leyenda de los Soles, Quetzalcoatl goes down to Mictlan to fetch the bones of an earlier humanity, argues terms with its lord, and gets out with the bones broken after a fall — which the story offers as the reason people come in different sizes. Colonial commentary, and modern readings of pre-Hispanic images, put a dog-headed double beside him on that descent. Where Xolotl stands in the episode depends on which class of source is being read.