symbol of the earth.

The double-headed serpent forming a vase containing a flower (no. 12) is
particularly interesting because the flower=xoch-itl in Nahuatl, seems to
suggest an intentional likeness to the Maya word for "vase, vessel or cup
in general," ho-och (Arte de la lengua Maya, Fray Pedro Beltran de Santa
Rosa, ed. Espinosa, Merida, 1859) as well as hoch or o-och="food and
maintenance." The symbolical vase-like opening in the core of the agave
plant, (no. 8) is such as is made to this day, in order to collect the
juice, which, when fermented, constitutes the sacred wine of the ancient
Mexicans, octli, now better known as pulque.(8) As will be shown the
Mexicans considered this as "the drink of life." Its use was rigidly
regulated and supervised by the "octli-lords" or "rain-priests" who
distributed it at certain dances, in order to induce a state of mild
intoxication amongst the participants.

As in the case of the Zunis and Tarahumari Indians of the present day,
referred to by W J McGee, in his valuable and instructive article on "The
beginning of Marriage" (the American Anthropologist, vol. IX, no. 11, p.
371), "certain ceremonials typifying the fecundity of the earth and of the
leading people thereof" were performed by the ancient Mexicans. These
public ceremonials had also been "apparently developed to the end that the
tribes and peoples might be encouraged to increase and multiply and
possess the fecund earth." They took place at the period of the year when
the heaven and earth were also supposed to unite, _i. e._, at the
beginning of the rainy season. During this the ordinary out-door
occupations of the agriculturist and hunter were forcibly interrupted and
the regular and periodical transportations of produce and tribute to the
capital became impossible, owing to torrential rain, swollen rivers and
impassable roads. This period of enforced shelter and confinement indoors
seems to have become the definite mating season of the aborigines. At the
same time the union of the sexes had obviously assumed a sort of
consecration since it was intimately associated with the cosmical,
philosophical and religious ideas and coincided with what was regarded as
the annual union of the elements or of the Above and Below, the heaven and
earth.

At that period of its history, when the Aztec race was jointly governed by
a priest, personifying the heaven and a priestess, "his wife and sister,"
who personified the earth, s