Note 10 — Chapter VIII · THE OCTLI OR PULQUE (DRINK) GODS

I fail to find corroboration elsewhere of the interpreter’s statement that Patecatl was “saved from the deluge.” He seems to me to bear a general resemblance to Apollo, as recently explained by Dr. Rendel Harris,10 that is, he seems to have been named in accordance with some conception of him in which he was thought of as coming from a “Land of Medicines” (in his case the Huaxtec country, which was also the Tlillan Tlapallan, the “Land of Writing” or of Civilization). The herbal conception of many Greek and other deities—that is, their actual development from plants, the evolution of the god from the medicinal herb—is now well authenticated, as can be seen from a perusal of Dr. Harris’s remarkable work. Nor is the proven development of many deities from mineral substances any less remarkable.