1894.] 4J , [Brinton. 



solemn scene of sacrifice for the ancient priests ; that of Just- 

 lahuaca, near Sola (Oaxaca), which was a place of worship of 

 the Zapotecs long after the Conquest ; and that in the Cerro de 

 Monopostiac, near San Francisco del Mar. * 



The intimate meaning of this cave-cult was the worship 

 of the Earth. The Cave God, the Heart of the Hills, really 

 typified the Earth, the Soil, from whose dark recesses flow the 

 limpid streams and spring the tender shoots of the food-plants, 

 as well as the great trees. To the native Mexican, the Earth 

 was the provider of food and drink, the common Father of All ; 

 so that to this day, when he would take a solemn oath, he stoops 

 to the earth, touches it with his hand, and repeats the solemn 

 formula : Ciiix avio nechitla in toteotzin ? " Does not our Great 

 God see me ? " 



25. The identity of theTepej'ollotlof the Nahuas and the Yotan 

 of the Tzentals is shown not only in the oneness of meaning of 

 the names, but in the fact that both represent the third day in 

 the ritual calendar. For this reason I take it, we find the num- 

 ber three so generally a sacred number in the symbolism of the 

 nagualists. We have already learned in the extract from Nunez 

 de la Yega that the neoph3'tes were instructed in classes of 

 three. To this day in Soteapan the fasts and festivals appointed 

 by the native ministrants are three daj'S in duration."]" The 

 semi-Christianized inhabitants of the Sierra of Na3'erit, the 

 Nahuatl-speaking Chotas, continued in the last century to ven- 

 erate three divinities, the Dawn, the Stone and the Serpent ;| 

 analogous to a similar " trinity " noted by Father Duran among 

 the ancient Aztecs. § 



The number nine, that is, 3x3, recurs so frequently in the 

 conjuration formulas of the Mexican sorcerers that de la Serna 

 exclaims : " It was the Devil himself who inculcated into them 

 this superstition about the number nine."|| 



* Sec Miihlenpfordt, Mexico, Brl. ii, pp. 200-266 ; Brasseur, Hist, des Nations Civ. de la 

 Mexique, Vol. iv, p. 821 ; Herrera, Hisloria de las Iiidias, Dec. lii, Lib. iii, cap. 12, etc. 



t Diccionario Universal., Appendice, s. v. 



J Their names were Ta Yoapa, Father Dawn ; Ta Te, Father Stone ; Coanamoa, the 

 Serpent which Seizes. JXcc. Univ., App., Tom. iii, p. 11. 



g Duran, Iliatoria de los Indios, Tom. ii, p. HO. They were Tota, Our Father ; Yollomctli, 

 the Heart of the Maguey (probably pulque); and Topiltzin, Our Noble One (probably 

 Quetzalcoatl, to whom this epithet was often applied). 



II " Fue el Demonio que les dio la superslicion del numero nueve." Manual de Minis- 

 tros, p. 197. 



PKOC. AMER. PHIIiOS. SOC. XXXIII. 144. G. PRINTED FEB. 15, 1894. 



