Note 5 — Chapter VI · THE GODS OF RAIN AND MOISTURE

The myth explanatory of the Tlaloquê is found in the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas (c. ii),5 which tells how the rain-gods lived in four chambers surrounding a great court in which stood four immense water-casks. In one of these good water was stored, which descended upon the grain when it was in process of growth. Bad water stood in the next, which produced fungus growth, causing the maize to turn black. When rain and frost came together it was thought that the third cask had been drawn upon, and the fourth was filled with such rain as was followed by no growth, or by such growth as grew sere and withered. Tlaloc, we learn from this account, had created for the purposes of rain-making a number of dwarfs who made their homes in the four chambers of his house, and who carried sticks in their hands, and jars into which they drew water from the great casks. When Tlaloc commanded them to water a certain tract of country they poured water from the jars they held, and the lightning-flash was supposed to proceed from the cracking or breaking of their vessels. This myth is represented in the Codex Borgia, p. 27, as already described.