142 



most ancient nations of the East attributed to 

 the year, represented under the emblem of a ring. 

 Among the American nations, for instance 

 among the Mexicans and the Muyscas, we find 

 four indictions instead of five ; and this singular 

 preference for the number four is owing to the 

 interest attached to the solstitial and equinoxial 

 points, which denote the four seasons, or great 

 weeks of the great year*. Besides, the number 

 of five intercalations led the Mexicans to groups 

 of fifteen rural years, four of which form the 

 Asiatic cycle of sixty years. 



From the vague notions, which have reached 

 us respecting the lunar signs borne in the pro- 

 cession of the guesa, and of the connexion which 

 exists between the constellation of the frog, ata, 

 and the sign of water, or the water rat, which, 

 among the Chinese and the people of the Tartar 

 race, opens the march of the asterisms, we may 

 conjecture, that the ten hieroglyphics-}- of ata, 

 bosa, mica, &c. originally marked, like the signs 

 of the Mexican daysj, the division of a zodiac 

 into ten parts. We find among the Chinese, and 

 this fact is very important, a cycle of ten cans, 

 to which the Mantchous give the names of ten 

 colours^. It is probable, that anciently the cans 



* See vol. xiii, p. 373. t Plate 44, Fig. 4. 



J See vol. xiii, p. 371. 



§ Soucict and Ganbil, torn. 2, p. 135. 



