Quetzalcoatl, the light one, and Tezcatlipoca, the dark one, looked down from the sky and saw only water below. A monstrous goddess floated upon the waters, eating whatever she could find with her many mouths, for every joint in her body contained eyes sharp enough to spot any source of food and mouths that bit like wild animals.
     "We must find some way to stop the goddess from devouring whatever we create," they said to one another.
     So, it came to pass that the two great gods transformed themselves into two huge serpents. One of them quickly grabbed the goddess by her arms, while the other quickly grabbed her by the feet. Then, before she could resist, they pulled until she broke apart in the middle. Her head and shoulders became the earth, while the lower parts of her body rose into the sky and became the heavens.
     The other gods were angry at what Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca had done to the goddess. They came down to earth and decided to give her gifts that would compensate for her mutilation. They decreed that whatever human beings needed for survival she would provide. They created trees, tall grass, and flowers from her hair, fine grasses and tiny flowers from her skin, small caves, fountains, and wells from her eyes, large caves and rivers from her mouth, hills and valleys from her nose, and mountains from her shoulders.
     The goddess is often unhappy. Sometimes in the night, the people can hear her crying. Then they know that she is filled with ravenous thirst for human blood. Whenever thirst comes upon her, the goddess will not provide the fruits of the soil and will not stop crying until the blood from human hearts has quenched her thirst. She who provides sustenance for human lives demands human lives in return for her own sustenance. So it has always been; so it will ever be.