Mexico tends to be identified popularly with the Aztecs, but they were only the last of a series of civilizations that began with the Olmecs and continued through the Zapotecs, the Toltecs and others. The Mayans, who bordered on Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula and Central America, represented a separate civilization. The mythology of the gods of the Central American cultures was, in itself, intensely violent. Tezcatlipoca, the Sun god of the Aztecs, was believed to have dragged the Earth mother, Cipactli, from the primeval waters in a ferocious creation battle, during which she bit off his left foot and he tore out her lower jaw. In a similarly brutal vein, the tutelary war god, Huitzilpochtli, sprang from the belly of his decapitated mother, Coatlicue, and immediately slaughtered his sist