-slayer or the evil dragon who has to
be slain. The Indian word _Naga_, which is applied to the beneficent god
or king identified with the cobra, can also mean "elephant," and this
double significance probably played a part in the confusion of the
deities in America.

In the Dresden Codex the elephant-headed god is represented in one place
grasping a serpent, in another issuing from a serpent's mouth, and again
as an actual serpent (Fig. 13). Turning next to the attributes of these
American gods we find that they reproduce with amazing precision those
of Indra. Not only were they the divinities who controlled rain,
thunder, lightning, and vegetation, but they also carried axes and
thunderbolts (Fig. 13) like their homologues in the Old World. Like
Indra, Tlaloc was intimately associated with the East and with the tops
of mountains, where he had a special heaven, reserved for warriors who
fell in battle and women who died in childbirth. As a water-god also he
presided over the souls of the drowned and those who in life suffered
from dropsical affections. Indra also specialized in the same branch
of medicine.

In fact, if one compares the account of Tlaloc's attributes and
achievements, such as is given in Mr. Joyce's "Mexican Archaeology" or
Professor Seler's monograph on the "Codex Vaticanus," with Professor
Hopkins's summary of Indra's character ("Religions of India") the
identity is so exact, even in the most arbitrary traits and confusions
with other deities' peculiarities, that it becomes impossible for any
serious investigator to refuse to admit that Tlaloc and Chac are merely
American forms of Indra. Even so fantastic a practice as the
representation of the American rain-god's face as composed of contorted
snakes[145] finds its analogy in Siam, where in relatively recent times
this curious device was still being used by artists.[146]

"As the god of fertility maize belonged to him [Tlaloc], though not
altogether by right, for according to one legend he stole it after it
had been discovered by other gods concealed in the heart of a
mountain."[147] Indra also obtained soma from the mountain by similar
means.[148]

In the ancient civilization of America one of the most prominent deities
was called the "Feathered Serpent," in the Maya language, Kukulkan,
Quiche Gukumatz, Aztec Quetzalcoatl, the Pueblo "Mother of Waters".
Throughout a very extensive part of America the snake, like the Indian
Naga, is the emblem of