In front, on flagpoles, Aztlaner flags hung limp in the smoggy air. The symbol that appeared on them was the same as the crest on the license that adorned the side of the meter that was rapidly ticking away peso normas: an eagle, poised on a cactus and holding a snake in its beak. According to legend, the sun god Huitzilopochtli had prophesied that when the wandering Aztec tribe saw an eagle sitting on a cactus and eating a snake, they would have arrived at their new homeland. The omen came true on the swampy island that was the original core of Tenochtitlán—the name that translated as "place of the cactus."