f the tree. One is painted black
and evidently represents the Lord of the Below; the other is painted
blue-green and represents the Lord of the Above. The blood-sacrifice they
are jointly offering is that mentioned in the "Lyfe of the Indians," as
performed in order to obtain generation. Unquestionably this symbolical
group would have been equally intelligible to Mayas or Mexicans, since the
ideas it expressed were held in common by both people.

Before proceeding further it is necessary to state that after the native
philosophers had, for an indefinite period of time, been satisfied with
the artificial division of all things into four quarters, corresponding to
the cardinal points and elements, the idea of the Above and Below
gradually grew in importance, whilst prolonged thought and observation
disclosed that the above classification demanded revision. On carefully
investigating the attributes of the principal ancient Mexican deities or
personifications of the elements we see that the native thinkers had found
themselves obliged to make a distinction between the different forms of
each element, having realized, for instance, that water not only fell to
earth from the heaven, but also issued from the depths of the earth in the
form of springs or fountains, and formed rivers and lakes. The final
conclusions they reached in this instance are best explained by the fact
that the name of the god Tlaloc means earth-wine or rain only, and that
his sister "Chalchiuhtlycue" appears as the personification of wells,
springs, rivers and lakes. It is evident that the classification of the
ocean or sea must have given rise to much serious thought. We know how the
problem was solved by the fact that the Nahuatl name for the ocean is
"ilhuica-atl"=heaven-water. Accordingly, the rain and the ocean pertained
to the heaven, the Above and male principle, whilst the wells, springs,
rivers, etc., belonged to the earth, the Below, the female principle.

As in this case, so it was with the other elements, each of which was
finally personified by a male deity and his female counterpart, which, in
some cases, tended to represent its distinctive and beneficent properties.
As these deities are separately treated in my commentary of the "Lyfe of
the Indians" and lack of space forbids my discussing them here, I shall
but mention that the ultimate native systematization of the elements, each
of which was thought of as an attribute only of supreme and