SKLKR] DEITIES AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS 301 



that in it the god was present who had furnished them with every- 

 thing besides, and, as the abode of the god, they, with much burning 

 of incense, addressed worship and prayers to it while they placed it 

 ui3right on an altar and honored it with songs and merry dances. 

 They dressed it in clothes, which were made according to its 

 measure, and hung upon it small green stones which were their 

 jewels, and after they had offered it sacrifice it was rolled in a 

 white cotton cloth and thus preserved. When the season for plow- 

 ing the land and planting the seed returned they notified and 

 smnmoned the priests, and the foremost men of the village assem- 

 bled in the house where the gaily decked ear of maize was kept, and 

 after repeating the heathenish ceremonies in its honor they begged 

 its permission to carry it out to watch over the fields; and then a 

 priest took it, rolled it in a clean deerskin which he had brought 

 with him for this purpose, and they all went together to a place 

 in the midst of their planted fields, where they had made for it 

 of stones an ovenlike hole in the ground, and in this they placed it, 

 Avith much burning of incense, and earnestly besought it to take 

 under its gracious protection the seeds of these poor men who hoped 

 for their means of subsistence at its hands, and they covered the 

 place [with earth j so that they could see it from afar without anyone 

 daring to apjiroach. If the year Avas a fruitful one, they took it out 

 with great solemnity at the harvesting of the crops, thanked it for 

 the liberality with which it had given them food, and the ear of 

 maize, Avhich had become entirely moldy from the dampness, was 

 divided among those present as a relic and a sacred object ". 



Pinopiaa, the goddess of the fruitful vega of Xalapa, above 

 Tehuantepec. seems to have been a deity of the earth. The sanctu- 

 ary of this goddess, whom later tradition declared to be a daughter 

 of the Zapotec king Cocijo-eza Avho had been changed into stone 

 after her death, was found on the sunnnit of a small mountain, where, 

 in the middle of a small plaza, were four stone slabs, so placed as 

 to form a roof, and under them the idol of the goddess, a cone-shaped 

 white stone. When the matter became known and the monks hunted 

 (loAvn the priests and devotees of this goddess it was found that 

 the belief was spread among the Christian Indians of Xalapa that 

 St. Katharine of Sienna, who had her church in one of the quarters 

 of Xalapa, was identical with the goddess Pinopiaa and that the 

 special worship which was devoted to that saint was really meant 

 for the daughter of King Cocijo-eza who was turned into stone 

 after death." 



A number of other deities are mentioned in the dictionary of 

 Father Juan de Cordova, with their functions, but without further 



" Biirgoa, work cited, chap. 71. 



