Due to the success of the pochteca, many of these merchants became as wealthy as the noble class, but were obligated to hide this wealth from the public. Trading expeditions often left their districts late in the evening, and their wealth was only revealed within their private guildhalls. Although politically and economically powerful, the pochteca strove to avoid undue attention. The merchants followed their own laws in their own calpulli, and venerating their god, Yacatecuhtli, "The Lord Who Guides" and Lord of the Vanguard an aspect of Quetzalcoatl. Eventually the merchants were elevated to the rank of the warriors of the military orders.