350 



which a bundle of ears of corn * fills up the 

 whole of the place, which Ceres, Iris, Astrea, or 

 Erigone, ought to occupy in the sign of the har- 

 vests and vintages. It is thus we find, from the 

 remotest antiquity, among the most distant na- 

 tions, the same ideas, the same symbols, the same 

 tendency to refer natural phenomena to the mys- 

 terious influence of the stars. 



The Mexican hieroglyphic tecpatl indicates a 

 keen edged stone of oval form, lengthened at 

 both ends, like those which were made use of as 

 knives, or which were fastened to the end of a 

 pike. This sign recalls to mind the crittica or 

 sharp knife of the lunar zodiac of the Hindoos. 

 On the great stone represented in the 23d Plate, 

 the hieroglyphic tecpatl is figured in a manner 

 somewhat different from the form commonly 

 given to this instrument. The silex is pierced 

 through the centre, and the opening seems des- 

 tined to receive the hand of the warrior, who 

 makes use of this weapon with two points. We 

 know, that the Americans had a peculiar art of 

 boring the hardest stones and working them by 

 friction. I have brought from South America, 

 and deposited at the Museum at Berlin, a ring 

 of obsidian, which was a girl's bracelet, and 

 forms a hollow cylinder near seven centimetres 



* Ideler, Sternnamen, S. 172. Dupuis, Origine des Cultes, 

 Tom. 2, p. 2-28— 234. Atlas, p. 0. 



