26 



usages of a northern people, who, from the in- 

 clemency of the climate, were ol&liged to warm 

 their huts ; and the idea of Vesta ('Eat/*), which, 

 in the most ancient system of the Greek mytho- 

 logy, represents at once the house, the hearth, 

 and the domestic fire. The sign tecpatl, flint, 

 was dedicated to the god of the air, QuetzaU 

 cohuatl, a mysterious personage, who belongs to 

 the heroic times of Mexican history, and of 

 whom we have had occasion to speak several 

 times in the course of this work. According to 

 the Mexican calendar, tecpatl is the sign of the 

 night, which, at the beginning of the cycle, ac- 

 companies the hieroglyphic of the day, called 

 ehecatl, or wind. Perhaps the history of an aero- 

 lite, which fell from the sky on the summit of the 

 pyramid of Cholula, dedicated to Quetzalcohuatl, 

 led the Mexicans to establish this singular con- 

 nexion between a flint (tecpatl) and the god of 

 the winds. 



We have observed, that the Mexican astrolo- 

 gers have given to the traditions of the destruc- 

 tions and regenerations of the world an historic 

 character, in denoting the days and years of the 

 great catastrophes according to the calendar of 

 which they made use in the 16th century. A 

 very simple calculation might lead them to find 

 the hieroglyphic of the year, which preceded a 

 given period 5206, or 4804 years. It is thus that 

 the Chaldean and Egyptian astrologers, according 



