As the MOON is associated with the dampness and dews of night, an
ancient and wide-spread myth identified her with the Goddess of Water.
Moreover, in spite of the expostulations of the learned, the common
people the world over persist in attributing to her a marked influence
on the rains. Whether false or true, this familiar opinion is of great
antiquity, and was decidedly approved by the Indians, who were all, in
the words of an old author, "great observers of the weather by the
moon."[130-2] They looked upon her not only as forewarning them by her
appearance of the approach of rains and fogs, but as being their actual
cause.
Isis, her Egyptian title, literally means moisture; Ataensic, whom the
Hurons said was the moon, is derived from the word for water; and
Citatli and Atl, moon and water, are constantly confounded in Aztec
theology. Their attributes were strikingly alike. They were both the
mythical mothers of the race, and both protect women in child-birth, the
babe in the cradle, the husbandman in the field, and the youth and
maiden in their tender affections.
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