Note 21 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

But Cinteotl had another connection with the plutonic, such as is possessed by many grain-gods, and must, like Hades and Ishtar, be regarded as a deity of the Underworld, the place of the dead, the realm in which the seed germinates ere it sprouts above ground. He was the tutelary deity of the goldsmiths of Xochimilco, oddly enough, it seems to us, until we recall the resemblance between the ripe maize-cob and the work of the native jewellers.21