Brinton.] ^^ [Jan. 5, 



The word yiahuiltoca means " the throwing of the yiauhtli " 

 (from toca^ to throw upon with the hands). Anotlier name for 

 the ceremony, according to Father Yetancurt, who wrote a cen- 

 tury later than Leon, was ajjehitalco, which has substantially the 

 same meaning, " a throwing upon " or " a throwing away." * He 

 adds the interesting particulars that it was celebrated on the 

 fourth da}^ after the birth of the child, during which time it was 

 deemed essential to keep the fire burning in the house, but not 

 to permit any of it to be carried out, as that would bring bad 

 luck to the child. 



Jacinto de la Serna also describes this ceremony, to which he 

 gives the name tlecuixtliliztli^ " which means that they pass the 

 infant over the fire ;" and elsewhere he adds : " The worship of 

 fire is the greatest stumbling-block to these wretched idolaters. "f 



37. Other ceremonies connected with fire worship took place 

 in connection with the manufacture of the pulque, or octli, the 

 fermented liquor obtained from the sap of the maguey plant. 

 The writer just quoted, de Vetancurt, states that the natives in 

 his day, when they had brewed the new pulque and it was ready 

 to be drunk, first built a fire, walked in procession around it and 

 threw some of the new liquor into the flames, chanting the while 

 an invocation to the god of inebriation, Tezcatzoncatl, to de- 

 scend and be present with them. 



This was distinctly a survival of an ancient doctrine which 

 connected the God of Fire with the Gods of Drunkenness, as 

 we may gather from the following quotation from the history 

 composed by Father Diego Duran : 



"The octli was a favorite offering to the gods, and especially to the 

 God of Fire. Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases, sometimes 



ii, p. 200. Capt. Bourke, in his recent article on "The Medicine Men of the Apaches" (in 

 Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 521), suggests that the yiahuitli of the 

 Aztecs is thf same as the " hoddentin," the pollen of a variety of cat-tail rush which the 

 Apaches in a similar manner throw into the tire as an offering. Hernandez, however, 

 describes the yiahuitli as a plant with red flowers, growing on mountains and hill-sides— 

 no species of rush, therefore. De la Serna says it is the anise plant, and that with it the 

 natives perform the conjuration of the " yellow spirit " (conjuro de amarillo espiritado), 

 that is, of the Fire {Manual de Ministros, p. 197). 



* From the verb apena. Vetancurt's description is in his Teatro Mcxicano, Tom. i, pp. 

 462, 463 (Ed. Mexico, 1870). 



t His frequent references to it show this. See his Manual de Ministros, pp. 16, 20, 22, 24, 

 36, 40, 66, 174, 217, etc. The word tlecuixtlilizlli is compounded of tlecuilli, the hearth or 

 fireplace, and ixUiluia, to darken with smoke. 



