395 



As a periodical series of four terms was em- 

 ployed to distinguish the years contained in a 

 cycle, the Mexicans were very naturally led to 

 quadrennial festivals. Such was the solemn fast 

 of one hundred and sixty days, celebrated at the 

 spring equinox, in the petty republics of Tlas- 

 calla, Cholula, and Huetxocingo ; and the hor- 

 rible sacrifice, which took place every four years 

 at Quauhlitlan, in the month of itzcalli, when the 

 penitents scarified their bodies, letting the blood 

 run along reeds thrust into their wounds*, and 

 hanging up these reeds in the temple, as public 

 marks of their devotion. These festivals, which 

 remind us of the acts of penitence at Thibet and 

 in the Indies, were repeated each time that the 

 same sign presided over the year. 



On opening, at Rome, the Codex Borgianus 

 of Veletri, I there found the curious passage-)-, 

 from which the Jesuit Fabrega concluded, that 

 the Mexicans had knowledge of the real dura- 

 tion of the tropical year. Twenty cycles of fifty- 

 two years, or one thousand and forty years, are 

 there indicated in four pages : at the end of this 

 great period, we see the sign rabbit, tochtli, im- 

 mediately, precede, among the hieroglyphics of 

 the days, the bird, cozquauhtli ; so that seven 



* Gomara, p. 131. Torquemada, torn. 2, p. 307. Ge- 

 melli, torn. 6, p. 75. 



+ Cod. Borg. fol. 48—63. Fabrega, MSS. fol. k, p. 7, 



