This 17,900-foot volcano, known to the Aztecs as Popocatépetl, or "Smoking Mountain," was a focal point in the sacred geography of ancient Mexico. In the Florentine Codex, Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan friar who documented native customs and beliefs during the decades immediately following the conquest, commented that the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, in particular Popocatépetl and its northern neighbor Iztaccíhuatl, were considered sacred since the rain clouds converged on them. He tells how even toward the end of the sixteenth century pilgrimages were still made to their summits to offer sacrifices to the water deities, but none of the early sources clearly states who the volcano gods were....
Since 1993 we have directed salvage excavations on Popocatépetl's lower flanks, where we have found evidence of the inhabitants' attempts to propitiate the volcano in ways not unlike those recorded by the Spaniards more than 1,500 years later. This fertile region, known as Tetimpa, was first settled by farmers about 700 B.C. Their wattle-and-daub houses, built on low stone platforms placed around a central patio. After at least partially abandonment around 100 B.C., perhaps due to increasing volcanic activity, the area was resettled a few generations later, possibly by descendants of the original inhabitants, since the new houses were built directly over the remains of the old platforms and floors that sealed the graves of their ancestors. At the center of each patio, families built small shrines consisting of mountains modeled from clay, stone, and potsherds crowned with crudely carved heads of humans or serpents. Some are clearly effigies of Popocatépetl. Beneath each carved stone head is a chimney that leads to a charcoal-filled chamber dug in the patio floor. Smoke would have puffed out from under each head in imitation of the ash and vapor plumes expelled from the crater during volcanic activity. ....
About A.D. 80, Popocatépetl erupted, blanketing the landscape with a thick layer of fragmented pumice, or lapilli. When it was over, the villages lay preserved beneath three to seven feet of lapilli. A huge lava flow then descended over the southern part of the area, burying any settlements there under as much as 325 feet of solid rock. Geological studies undertaken as part of our project show that the eruptive column rose to a height of between 15 and 18 miles before it collapsed over the Puebla side of the mountain. Perhaps construction of Cholula's Great Pyramid, which echoes the contours of Popocatépetl and may have started at this time, was at least in part an attempt to appease the mountain. Some believe that the pyramid's Indian name, Tlachihualtepetl ("Man-made Hill"), reflects the imitative effort of those who built it.....The towns on the eastern slopes of the volcano have resumed the prescribed rituals to the best of their ability and renewed the offerings in the caves in an attempt to appease Gregorio. The modeled images of the mountains, once made every year by the Prehispanic communities of the central highlands for the feasts of Tepeilhuitl and Atemoztli, have reappeared in the festivities of the Atlixcáyotl, a regional dance festival held in late September in the city of Atlixco at the foot of Popocatépetl. In 1996, a new dance was choreographed to pacify the angry volcano, and perhaps it should not surprise us that this modern-day ritual included a model "smoking mountain" based on one of the 2,000-year-old shrines we excavated.
From Wiki
The most popular legend about Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl comes from the ancient Náhuas. As it comes from an oral tradition, there are many versions of the same story. There are also poems and songs telling this beautiful story.
Many years before Cortés came to Mexico, the Aztecs lived in Tenochtitlán, today's Mexico City. The chief of the Aztecs was a famous Emperor, who was loved by all the natives. The Emperor and his wife, the Empress, were very worried because they had no children. One day the Empress said to the Emperor that she was going to give birth to a child. A baby girl was born and she was as beautiful as her mother. They called her Iztaccíhuatl, which in Náhuatl means "white lady".
All the natives loved Izta and her parents prepared her to be the Empress of the Aztecs. When she grew up, she fell in love with a captain of a tribe, his name was Popoca. One day, a war broke out and the warriors had to go south to fight the enemy. The Emperor told Popoca that he had to bring the head of the enemy chief back from the war, so he could marry his daughter.
After several months of combat, a warrior who hated Popoca sent a false message to the Emperor. The message said that his army had won the war, but that Popoca had died in battle. The Emperor was very sad when he heard the news, and when Izta heard she could not stop crying. She refused to go out and did not eat any more. A few days later, she became ill and she died of sadness.
When the Emperor was preparing Izta's funeral, Popoca and his warriors arrived victorious from war. The Emperor was taken aback when he saw Popoca, and he told him that other warriors had announced his death. Then, he told him that Izta had died.
Popoca was very sad. He took Izta's body and left the town. He walked a long way until he arrived at some mountains where he ordered his warriors to build a funeral table with flowers and he put Izta lying on top. Then he kneeled down to watch over Izta and died of sadness too.
The Gods were touched by Popoca's sacrifice and turned the tables and the bodies into great volcanoes. The biggest volcano is Popocatépetl, which in Náhuatl means "smoking mountain". He sometimes throws out smoke, showing that he is still watching over Iztaccíhuatl, who sleeps by his side.
Another tale is much like the one before. Some warriors who did not want Popoca to be with Izta, since they liked her themselves, sent a message to the emperor saying that Popoca died. Izta was very sad. She then died of sadness. When Popoca returned he heard about Izta's death. He was also very sad. He went out of town with Izta's body and ordered his soldiers to make a mound for him and Izta. He put Izta's body on one mound and got onto the other with a smoking torch. He stays there forever looking after Izta. Over time dirt, snow, rocks, and Mother Nature covered them turning them into great mountains. Popoca's torch is still smoking as a reminder of what happened.
Popocatépetl at sunrise
Edit: There are some interesting parallels, I have to say, though I'm not prepared to make any definite connections.
From the article in Archaeology:
blanketing the landscape with a thick layer of fragmented pumice...
Wiki:
Most pumice contains tubular microvesicles that can impart a silky or fibrous fabric. The elongation of the microvesicles occurs due to ductile elongation in the volcanic conduit or, in the case of pumiceous lavas, during flow. The other form of vesicles are subspherical to spherical and result from high vapour pressure during eruption.
From 3 Nephi 8, as one example:
20 And it came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness;