ese crosses as one of his
emblems. The sign came to be connected with fertility, reproduction and
life, through its associations as a symbol of the rains which restore the
parched fields and aid in the germination of seeds. Their influence in
this respect is most striking in those southern countries where a long dry
season is followed by heavy tropical showers, which in a few days change
the whole face of nature, from one of parched sterility to one of a wealth
of vegetable growth.

As there is a close connection, in meteorology, between the winds and the
rains, so in Aztec mythology, there was an equally near one between
Quetzalcoatl, as the god of the winds, and the gods of rain, Tlaloc and
his sister, or wife, or mother, Chalchihuitlicue. According to one myth,
these were created by the four primeval brother-gods, and placed in the
heavens, where they occupy a large mansion divided into four apartments,
with a court in the middle. In this court stand four enormous vases of
water, and an infinite number of very small slaves (the rain drops) stand
ready to dip out the water from one or the other vase and pour it on the
earth in showers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ramirez de Fuen-leal, _Historia de los Mexicanos_, cap. ii.]

_Tlaloc_ means, literally, "The wine of the Earth,"[1] the figure being
that as man's heart is made glad, and his strength revived by the joyous
spirit of wine, so is the soil refreshed and restored by the rains.
_Tlaloc tecutli_, the Lord of the Wine of the Earth, was the proper title
of the male divinity, who sent the fertilizing showers, and thus caused
the seed to grow in barren places. It was he who gave abundant crops and
saved the parched and dying grain after times of drought. Therefore, he
was appealed to as the giver of good things, of corn and wine; and the
name of his home, Tlalocan, became synonymous with that of the terrestrial
paradise.

[Footnote 1: _Tlalli_, earth, _oc_ from _octli_, the native wine made from
the maguey, enormous quantities of which are consumed by the lower classes
in Mexico at this day, and which was well known to the ancients. Another
derivation of the name is from _tlalli_, and _onoc_, being, to be, hence,
"resident on the earth." This does not seem appropriate.]

His wife or sister, Chalchihuitlicue, She of the Emerald Skirts, was
goddess of flowing streams, brooks, lakes and rivers. Her name, probably,
has reference to their limpid waters.[1] It is derived from
_ch