inevitably doomed to become a drunkard. All the octli-gods were closely associated with the soil and with the Earth-goddess. After the Indians had harvested their maize they drank to intoxication, and invoked one or other of these gods. On the whole it is safe to infer that they were originally deities of local husbandry who imparted virtue to the soil as octli imparted strength and courage to the warrior.
Many of the titles of these deities are derived from place-names, as Acolua, Calhuatzincatl, Chimalpanecatl, etc., and this widespread denomination would seem to show that their worship must have been established at an early period, and that each seems to represent a section of the population of Mexico. Their relation with the moon is plain—a rabbit dwelt therein, and they were rabbit-gods.
They seem to have been connected in a measure with the cult of fire. Vetancurt states that the natives in his day, when they had brewed the new octli, and it was ready to be drunk, first built a fire, walked round it in procession, and threw some of the new liquor into the flames, chanting the while an invocation to Tezcatzoncatl to descend and be present with them.5 Duran says that “the octli was a favourite offering to the gods, and especially to the god of fire.” Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases, sometimes it was scattered upon the flames with a brush, at other times it was poured out around the fireplace.6 Sahagun also states that the liquor was poured on the hearth at four separate points.7 Jacinto de la Serna describes the same ceremony as current in his day.8 The invocation ran: “Shining Rose, light-giving Rose, receive and rejoice my heart.”
May not this connection with fire have arisen out of some such train of thought as connected the lightning with the sacred oak of Zeus? In his Ascent of Olympus, Dr. Rendel Harris has shown that the oak was regarded as the “animistic repository of the thunder,” and therefore of the