A strange mixture of history and legend concerns the efforts of the Aztec (Mexica) emperor Motecuhzoma the Great to locate this legendary island homeland of his people. (This Motecuhzoma was the first of two emperors to bear the name; the second and lesser was ruler when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico.) Aztlan was supposedly somewhere in the north, so Motecuhzoma organized an expedition of sixty sorcerers to discover the details.

The puzzle of Aztec origins is complicated by the fact that a homeland called Aztlan is unique to the Aztecs, whereas all the other tribes of the Valley of Mexico thought of themselves as having emerged from caves, as from the womb of the earth. And a variant of the latter myth has been mixed in with the account of Motecuhzoma's expedition. Thus the sorcerers were dispatched to find the Seven Caves of the Aztecs' ancestors, set in a curved-top mountain surrounded by marshes in a paradise called Aztlan.

Here the tribe's patron deity, Huitzilopochtli, was said to have inspired the Aztecs to set out on the great migration that led to the founding of Tenochtitlan. And here Huitzilopochtli's mother was rumored to be still living.

And so the wizards set forth burdened down with baskets of costly offerings for the goddess. And when they hadn't traveled very far, they summoned up a demon, taking care to protect themselves first with magic ointment. And the demon turned them into flying beasts and conveyed them to a curved mountain in the middle of a vast lake. And here they were taken to the aged guardian of Coatlicue, mother of Huitzilopochtli.

This old man said he would lead them to the goddess and went bounding away up a mountainside of sand so deep that the others were soon bogged down. "What are you waiting for?" he asked. "What have you been eating and drinking that's made you weigh so much?"

The wizards replied that back where they came from, they ate the local food and drank chocolate. The old man suggested that this would be the death of them. Then he shouldered their bundles and went striding on ahead. When they reached the top of the hill they found a woman so old and hideous-looking that it was a beyond disgusting. She was weeping for her departed son Huitzilopochtli. Since he went away, she said, she hadn't washed or changed her clothes.

The wizards told why they had come, but the name of the great Emperor Motecuhzoma rang no bell. Coatlicue told them to remind her son of his promise to return. "When he left he said he was going forth to conquer and build an empire. But then he forsaw that he himself would be overthrown. At that time he would return to his mother. So give him these, for the journey home."

She handed them a rustic cape and loincloth. Then they took their leave. And the old man leading them down the mountain became suddenly young again. "Now watch this," he said. He climbed upward and aged with each step. When he returned to where they were standing, he was a young man once more. He gave them presents and sent them on their way. And they performed their magic spells, turned into beasts and flew back to Tenochtitlan.

Here they reported to Motecuhzoma, telling him of the prediction that Huitzilopochtli would one day be overthrown. The Emperor thanked them and gave them presents. He told them to place the cloak and loincloth before the altar of Huitzilopochtli for his journey home.

The foregoing is based on the Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, as translated by Doris Heyden in Markman and Markman (1992). Also see Durán (1994).