196 



to be in the attitude of contending with each 

 other. We might be led to suppose, that the 

 two vases, which we see at the bottom of the 

 picture, one of which is overturned, is the cause 

 of this contention. The serpent woman was 

 considered at Mexico as the mother of two twin 

 children ; these naked figures are perhaps the 

 children of Cihuacohualt ; they remind us of the 

 Cain and Abel of Hebrew tradition. I doubt 

 whether the difference of colour, which we ob- 

 serve in the two figures, indicates a difference of 

 race, as in the Egyptian paintings found in the 

 tombs of the kings at Thebes, and in the orna- 

 ments moulded in earth and stuck on the chests 

 which contain the mummies at Sakhara. In 

 carefully studying the historical hieroglyphics of 

 the Mexicans, we seem to recognize, that the 

 heads and hands of the figures are painted as by 

 chance, sometimes yellow, sometimes blue, and 

 at other times red. 



The cosmogony of the Mexicans ; their tradi- 

 tions of the mother of mankind, fallen from her 

 first state of happiness and innocence ; the idea 

 of a great inundation, in which a single family 

 escaped on a raft ; the history of a pyramidical 

 edifice raised by the pride of men, and destroyed 

 by the anger of the gods ; the ceremonies of ab- 

 lution practised at the birth of children ; those 

 idols made with the flower of kneaded maize, 

 and distributed in morsels to the people assem- 



