“As soon as they had finished eating, they went forth and the water was tranquil; for the log did not move any more; and opening it they saw many fish. “Then they built a fire, rubbing together pieces of wood, and they roasted fish. The gods Citlallinicuc and Citlallatonac, looking below, exclaimed: ‘Divine Lord, what means that fire below? Why do they thus smoke the heavens?’ “Straightway descended Titlacahuan Tezcatlipocâ and commenced to scold, saying: ‘What is this fire doing here?’ And seizing the fishes he moulded their hinder parts and changed their heads, and they were at once transformed into dogs.” [66] THE “COXCOX” FALLACY It is unnecessary in this place to deal at any length with the quite artificial myth given by Siguenza and Clavigero, based on a mistaken interpretation of certain Mexican paintings. Briefly, they state that Coxcox, “the Mexican Noah,” and his spouse Xochiquetzal escaped from the deluge in a boat which grounded on the peak of Colhuacan: “the Ararat of Mexico.” Dumb children were born to them, who received innumerable languages from a polyglot dove. Garcia y Cubas published in his Atlas Geografico a letter from Ramirez (April 1858) in which the then conservator of the National Museum of Mexico showed the fallacy of Siguenza’s interpretation and proved that the pictures in question referred to the wanderings of the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. A flood myth which has for its hero one of the giants who were supposed to inhabit the earth in the first age (or rather the first age according to the version which is supported by the Calendar-stone), states that Xelhua, the giant in question, escaped the deluge by ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise, and afterwards built the pyramid of Cholula. The interpreter of the Codex Vaticanus A says of this story: “In this first age giants existed in that country.... They relate of one of the seven whom they mention as having escaped from the deluge, that, the earth becoming populous, he went to Chululan and there began to build a tower which is that of which the brick base is still visible. The name of that chief was Xelhua; he built it in order that should a deluge come again he might escape to it. Its base is 1,800 feet in circumference. When it had already reached a great height lightning from heaven fell and destroyed it. Those Indians who were under that chief who had escaped from the deluge, named Xelhua, made bricks out of a mountain in Tlalamanalco called Cocotle, and from Tlalamanalco to Chulula Indians were placed to pass the bricks and cement from hand to hand: and thus they built this tower, that was named Tulan Chulula, which was so high that it appeared to reach heaven. And being content, since it seemed to them that they had a place to escape from the deluge if it should again happen, and from whence they might ascend into heaven—a chalcuitl, which is a precious stone, fell from thence and struck it to the ground. Others