ii, Appendix to bk. iii) says that there was abundance of all refreshments, green maize, calabashes, and other vegetables and fruits. Here dwelt the Tlaloquê, who resembled the priests who ministered to their idols in that they wore their hair long. The folk who went to that paradise were those who had been killed by lightning, the leprous, gouty, and dropsical—any such, in fact, who had died from a “watery” complaint. In Tlalocan they enjoyed a perpetual summer.
FESTIVALS
Quaitl eloa.—The first annual festival to the Tlaloquê was the quaitl eloa, of which Sahagun says: “In the first days of the first month of the year, which month was called in some parts of Mexico quavitleloa, but generally atlacahualco, and begins on the second of our February, a great feast was made in honour of the Tlalocs, gods of rain and water. For this occasion many children at the breast were purchased from their mothers; those being chosen that had two whorls in their hair, and that had been born under a good sign; it being said that such were the most agreeable sacrifices to the storm-gods, and most likely to induce them to send rain in due season. Some of these infants were butchered for this divine holiday on certain mountains, and some were drowned in the Lake of Mexico. With the beginning of the festival, in every house, from the hut to the palace, certain poles were set up, and to these were attached strips of the paper of the country, daubed over