The gods decide, having refashioned the world, that people are needed to repopulate the earth. A number of colonial accounts describe the creation of the present race of humans; the following version derives from the Leyenda de los soles. It is agreed that the god of wind, Quetzalcoatl must go to the underworld to retrieve the human bones of the last creation, the race turned into fish by the flood. The underworld, a dangerous place known as Mictlan, is ruled by the skeletal god Mictlantecuhtli, Lord of Mictlan. Once in the underworld, Quetzalcoatl asks Mictlantecuhtli and his wife for the bones of the ancestors:
"And then Quetzalcoatl went to Mictlan. He approached Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl; at once he spoke to them:
I come in search of the precious bones in your possession. I have come for them.'
And Mictlantecuhtli asked of him, 'What shall you do with them, Quetzalcoatl?'
And once again Quetzalcoatl said, 'The gods are anxious that someone should inhabit the
earth."
The crafty god of death agrees to give up the bones, provided that Quetzalcoatl can fulfilan apparently simple task.
He tells Quetzalcoatl to travel around his underworld realm four times while sounding a conch shell trumpet. However, instead of a
shell trumpet, Mictlantecuhtli gives Quetzalcoatl a simple conch with no holes. Not to be outsmarted, Quetzalcoatl calls upon worms
to drill holes in the shell and for bees to enter the trumpet and make it roar. (As an emblem of his powers of wind and life, Quetzalcoatl
is often depicted wearing the cut conch Wind Jewel on his chest.
Hearing the conch blast, Mictlantecuhtli first allows Quetzalcoatl to take the bones of the last creation but quickly changes his mind. However, Quetzalcoatl again
outwits Mictlantecuhtli and his underworld minions, and escapes with the bones. The enraged Mictlantecuhtli then commands his followers to make
a deep pit. As Quetzalcoatl runs towards it, a quail bursts out and staetles him, causing him to stumble into the hole. Although Quetzalcoatl eventually
revives and retrives the bones, they are now broken, and for this reason people today are different sizes. Having escaped the underworld, Quetzalcoatl
carries the precious load to Tamoanchan, a miraculous place of origin. There the old goddess Cihuacoatl, or Woman Serpent, grinds the bones into
a flour-like meal which she places in a special ceramic container. The gods gather around this vessel and shed drops of their blood upon the ground bones
and from the bones of the fish people mixed with the penitential blood of the gods, the present race of humans are born.
