149

MODE OF RECKONING.

"They count time," observes Dr. Boudinot, "after the manner of the Hebrews. They divide the year into spring, summer, autumn and winter. They number their year from any of those four periods, for they have no name for a year; and they subdivide these, and count the year by lunar months, like the Israelites, who counted by moons as their name sufficiently testifies. The number and regular periods of the Indians' religious feasts, is a good historical proof, that they counted time by, and observed a weekly sabbath, long after their arrival on the American continent. They began the year at the first appearance of the first new moon of the vernal equinox, according to the ecclesiastical year of Moses."-Star in the West.

1 'The Otahietans count by ten and then turn back as the Hurons and Algonquins do; when they come to twenty, they have a new word. They afterwards proceed by scores, and so on to ten score-and ten times ten score. Dr. Parsons has published the names of several American Indian tribes who do the same, viz. the Mohawks, the Onondagoes, the Wyandots, the Shawnese, Delawares, and Carribees."-See Astle's Origin and Progress of Printing.

This is precisely the manner of counting used by the Israelitish people: having got to ten, they begin ten one, ten two, ten three, ten four, and so on to twenty, which has a new name, &c.

"The mode of reckoning time," says Hunter, "is very simple. Their year begins at the vernal equinox, their diurnal reckoning is from "evening to evening" beginning at sunset."

150

MEXICAN CALENDAR.

"THIS plate, (writes the interpreter of the Indian records,) represents the first age of the world, which was destroyed by water. The world had been peopled by two persons whom the triune God placed there at first.

"The world had been subsequently peopled by three, (names not mentioned.) They (the tribes) were descended from, or of the race of Quetzalcoatl, and for this reason they hold lineage in great account, and wherever they chanced to be, they said, I am of such a lineage.' Before His image, which they called the HEART of the people, wood and incense were always burning.

The third age is characterized as "the holding up of roses and flint knives, partly covered with branches of rose tree, which denote the suffering of Quetzalcoatl. From this

1 The learned Arias Montanos was convinced that the primitive people of the Western Hemisphere were of the race of Shem.

It is not surprising that Sigunenza, who in knowing only the religion of the Spanish ecclesiastics, might have been led to suppose his people of the race of Cham. His reason for this opinion, we are informed by Clavegero, was the similarity which he found between their pyramidal monuments, and the appellative Teotl which he thought bore a strong affinity to the Egyptian Teuth. The commentator on the Antiq. Mex. observes, "The learned Siguenza, conversant with the drawings of his people, believed that they had arrived in the Western continent soon after the dispersion of Babel. But if, as he supposed, they were of the race of Cham, why did they not observe the Egyptian modes of idolatry ? And how came they to the knowledge of the Hebrew ritual?"

The Egyptian pyramids were places of sepulture; whereas those of the Indians were neither hollow, subterraneous, nor (with the exception of the small ones, dedicated to the planets) places of interment.

The word Teotl is not more analogous to the Teuth of Egypt, than to the Theos of Greece. Those who build theories on a solitary and dubious sound, have only contributed to create those clouds by which the fair face of this luminous subject has been obscured." Drake observes of the Rev. Mr. Mortimer, a New England divine: That the Indians have a Latin origin, he thinks evident, because he fancied he heard among their words Pasco pan, and hence thinks without doubt, their ancestors were acquainted with the god Pan!-History of North Carolina, 1. 216, in Drake's book of the Indians, p. 5.

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season of suffering and affliction, according to the belief of the Mexicans, they were to be relieved by the coming again of Quetzalcoatl."

"They recount to us the history of the creation, of the deluge, of the confusion of tongues, and the tower of Babel, and other epochs of the world;-of their ancestors' long journeying in Asia, with the years previously distinguished by their corresponding characters, or symbols. They record in the year of seven tochtli, the great eclipse which happened at the crucifixion," &c.

The two sigus dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, are two primitive terms, characterizing his first and second coming, viz. that of wisdom in its symbol the serpent, and of the life or breath of the Most High, in that of its emblem the wind, for they, like the Hebrews, express spirit and wind by one term, ruach. The catastrophe which they say befel Tulan :—(of which it is to be noted the virgin mother of Quetzalcoatl was a native, and of which he was the anointed king—) “ was that which gave rise to a new epoch. This age was called Yzapal Nanacaya, (heaven of roses). The sign of this age was Yztapal, (a flint). The symbol of this fourth age was characterized by two flint knives, encompassed with branches inserted in a cane, (rod) between which the head of the ruler of hell, (or hades) is placed; and in the following plate representing the fourth age, those two flint knives are decorated with budding branches, alluding to the atonement of Quetzalcoatl, at some remarkable era of his life."

"The Mexican paintings describe four ages of the world, the present being of the flint-knives and roses. They entertain

1 A characteristic remark of a dutiful son of the church, is too curious to be neglected. "I cannot omit to point out the cunning of the adversary, who so long devised this falsehood among these poor people, in order that at any time they should obtain the knowledge of the origin of our redemption, which was when the angel Gabriel was sent by God to our Lady, that when she displayed

a singular idea of a fifth age, the commencement of which was to date from the re-appearance of Quetzalcoatl,—or destruction of the world for the fourth time, by earthquakes, &c. which they believe would occur on the sign Nahui-ollin: -it is remarkable that the figure of the sun turned into darkness,1 and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible Day of the LORD come, frequently occurs in the Mexican paintings."

The Mexicans appear to have given due consideration to a subject very explicitly detailed by the prophet Daniel, in what has been well denominated his Kalendar.'

The gold which symbolized the ancient Babylonic Empire, was not figuratively, nor spiritually, but literally and positively-not only succeeded, but superseded by that of which the symbol was silver. The Medio-Persian dominion was in turn superseded by that which the brass indicated, and in due time the Grecian domination was superseded by the Roman, which was characterized by the iron. The fifth Universal Empire, that of the Messiah, which is symbolized by the adamant, shall, as really and politically, supersede the last aspect of this Roman Empire. Daniel ii. 44, 45.

the most profound humility, calling herself servant; when the angel called her Lady, they might attribute to the father of lies, who falsified and counterfeited in their false god Citematonatli, and his ambassador to that virgin." &c.

1 Torquemeda observes, "In revolving ages, when the American soil was fated to be polluted with their accursed rites, it is strange they should have recorded in paintings the thick darkness that overspread Egypt, the sad prelude to maternal woe, and "that the mighty Hand and outstretched Arm," should be represented in their superstitious Calendars." Boturini remarks, in the 52nd page of his Idea of New Gen. Hist. &c. that the Mexicans were accustomed in the month of Hueytozoztli, to sprinkle blood on the door-posts of their houses. And Sahagun makes mention of the same ceremony."-Antiq. Mex.

"Baron Humboldt writes, that the Mozcas, a civilized nation of the kingdom of New Granada, celebrated the commencement of each of their indictions by a sacrifice. The human victim was called Guesa, the wanderer (houseless,) and Quiheia, a door. Acosta says of this sacrifice, that it was requisite that he should be without a spot, wound, or scar. If the word Guesa signified to wander in the sense of to pass by, or not to enter a house, connected as it is with the other word Quihiea, a door, this Mosca sacrifice seems rather to refer to the Hebrew lamb, than to astronomical signs."-Ibid. p. 337.

"The painting preserved in the Institute of Bologna, is a Chiapanese Calendar; which seems singularly to confirm what Boturini says of the agreement of the twenty Mexican signs of the days of the year, with those of Chiapa, since the first sign at the bottom of the Ist page, is Mexican, which corresponds with Cipatli; the 2nd is Ygh, and answers to the Echatl, (wind); and the 3rd is Votan, agreeing with the Mexican sign Calli,1 (house). The same agreement will likewise be found between the Mexican and Chiapanese symbols, &c. The sign of the lamb following the stag, and Ocelotl, (lion;) that of Acatl the reed or arrow. The figure of a heart, in which many of the signs of the Chiapanese Calendar terminate, refer, it must be supposed, to Votan, the signification of whose name was the 'HEART.' Boturini remarks that the system of the Indian Calendar, as well as the symbols employed in them, varied, and that the inhabitants of some of the provinces of Oaxaca divided their year into thirteen months, making use of a lunar calculation, while the Indian states of the same diocese counted their days by winds and serpents." " He observes in the following passage, speaking of the planets, that the week of the Chiapanese, like that of the Tulticas, consisted of seven days, which is the more remarkable, as the alleged ignorance on the part of the Indians of a week of seven days, has been used as an argument to prove that they could not have been

1 Names of the Mexican Monthly signs, 1. CALLI, (house), 2. CUETZPALLIN, lizard), 3. CоHUATL, (serpent), 4, MIQUIZTLI, (death's head), 5. MAZATL, (hart), 6. TOCHTLI, (lamb), improperly rabbit, 7. ATL (water), 8. ITZCUMTLI, (dog), 9. OZAMATLI, (ape,) 10. MALINALLI, (grass), 11. ACATL, (cane), 12. OCELOTL, (lion), 13. QUACHTLI, (eagle), 14. COZCAQUANTLI, (vulture), 15. OLLIN, Annual course of the sun. 16. TECPATI, (flint), 17. TINACITL, (rain), 18. XOCHITL (flowers), 19. CIPATLI, 20. ECHATL, (the wind.)

Fish divinity is one of the names which the Mexican gives to Coxcos TEOcipactli. The stone found in Mexico, in 1790, which affords the hieroglyphic of the days, represents the sign of Acatl, in a different manner from two reeds tied together; we recognize it in a bundle of reeds, or sheaf of maize contained in a vase, p. 349. The tutelary god, Huitzilopoctli, had made His appearance on the day of Tecpatl of the year 2 Acatl, p. 393.