SELER] DEITIES AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS 293 



of worship and succeeded in persuading the Indians to surrender the 

 idol to him. He had the stone g'round up, although a Spaniard 

 offered 3,000 ducats for it, stirred the powder in water, and poured 

 it upon the earth and trod upon it, in order at the same time to 

 destroy the heathen abomination entirely, and to demonstrate in 

 the sight of all the impotence of the idol. It is worthy of notice 

 tliat there existed in the immediate neighborhood of this place of 

 worship, in the middle of the j^lain of Yancuitlan, a second sanctuary, 

 Avhich also had a high priest, who, however, A\as subordinate to the 

 one at Achiotlan. This sanctuary consisted of a great cave, in the 

 rear of which the idol was set up." To a certain extent it seems to 

 have been considered equivalent to the aforesaid sanctuary situated 

 on the summit of the mountain, for it is said that those who came 

 hither from a distance, those who were hindered by their inability to 

 walk so far, and the women., who could not climb the rugged moun- 

 tains of Achiotlan, made their offerings here. 



It is true that, as far as th(* Za]:)otec tei'ritory is concerned, this god 

 is not expressly named in connection with the chief sanctuary of the 

 country at Mitla ; but in the neighborhood of Tehuantepec, on the 

 great salt-water lagoon, which was called in Burgoa's time " Laguna 

 de San Dionisio '', and which was inhabited b}' the small tribe of tlie 

 Iluaves, there was, as Burgoa relates,^ a small wooded island shaped 

 like a tenq^le pyramid and abounding in game. Upon this island was 

 " a deep and extensive cave, where the Zapotecs had one of their most 

 important and most revered idols, and they called it ' soul and heart 

 of the kingdom (Alma y Corazon del Reyno)' because these barba- 

 rians were persuaded that this fabulous deity was Atlas, upon whom 

 the land rested and who bore it on his shoulders, and when he moved 

 his shoulders the earth was shaken with unwonted tremblings; and 

 from his favor came the victories which they won and the fruitful 

 years which yielded them the means of living"''. There was an oracle 

 connected also with this temple, and the last king of Tehuantepec, 

 Cocijo-Pij, is said to have received here from the god the information 

 that the rule of the Mexicans was at an end and that it was not pos- 

 sible to withstand the Spaniards. AVhen the baptized king was later 

 seized and imprisoned on account of his falling back into idolatry 

 the vicar of Tehuantepec, Fray Bernardo de Santa Mai-ia. sought 

 out the island, forced his way into the cave, and found there a large 

 quadrangular chaml)er, carefully swept, with altarlike structui'es 

 around on the sides, and on tliem many incense vessels, ridi and (-ostly 

 offerings of valuable materials, gorgeous feathers, and disks and neck- 

 laces of gold, most of them sju'inkled with freshly drawn blood. 

 There is no record of finding an idol here. Unlike the padre Fray 



" Burgoa, work cited, cliaii. ;{2. '' Work cited, chaps. 72 and T.'). 



