283 



Sun would be in following its course from east 

 to west ; this gesture was accompanied by these 

 remarkable words : iz Teotl, there God will he ; 

 an expression which recalls that happy period, 

 when the people emigrated from Aztlan knew 

 yet no other divinity than the Sun, and were ad- 

 dicted to no sanguinary rite *, 



Each Mexican month of twenty days was 

 subdivided into four small periods of five days. 

 At the beginning of these periods every com- 

 mune kept its fair, tianguiztli. The Muyscas, 

 a nation of South America, had weeks of three 

 days. It appears, that no nation of the New 

 Continent was acquainted with the week, or 

 cycle of seven days, which we find among the 

 Hindoos, the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the 

 Egytians, and which, as Le Gentilf has very 

 justly observed, is followed by the greater part 

 of the nations of the Old World. 



A passage in the history of the Incas by Gar- 

 cilasso, induced M. M. Bailly \ and Lalande to 

 think, that the Peruvians reckoned by cycles 

 of seven days. " The Peruvians," says Garci- 

 lasso, " reckon the months by the Moon ; they 

 reckon the half months by the increas- 



* See above, p. 216. 



t Le Gentil, Hist, de l'Acad. 1772, Tom. ii, p. 207, 209. 

 La Place, Expos, du Systeme clu Monde, p. 272. 



% Bailly, Hist. de l'Astron. Liv. 5, § 17, p. 408. Lalande,, 

 Astron. : . 1-3:34. 



