Chalchiuhtlicue

Water fell upon the earth in enormous quantities. A great flood swept over the land and destroyed the Fourth Sun. In one account, Quetzalcoatl had begun the age after the previous one ended in a rain of fire. He appointed Chalchiuhtlicue, Tlaloc’s second spouse, as its sun goddess. The age was also called the Water Sun. Chalchiuhtlicue ruled over it, but her reign was unhappy.

Tezcatlipoca denounced Chalchiuhtlicue and eventually knocked her out of the sky. The people living at that time would have drowned, but some gods changed them into fish at the last moment. When the waters withdrew, no humans remained on the earth’s surface.

Another account says that one man and one woman survived the flood, rather than people being transformed into fish. The age is also described as the fourth of five world periods, each lasting 105,456 years. After the flood, the gods turned towards the creation of a new human race. They had already expressed this wish before sacrificing themselves in the great bonfire at Teotihuacan. Once they had revived and restored their scorched bodies, they returned to earth and discussed the plan. They gave Quetzalcoatl responsibility for the work. He found that the human bones from the previous race had been left behind when people became fish. The bones now lay in the dark caverns of Mictlan.