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clearly indicated by the small tongues placed at 

 some distance from the mouth. A dead man, 

 say the natives, is reduced to eternal silence : 

 according to them, to live, is to speak ; and, as 

 we shall see presently, to speak much is a mark 

 of power and nobility. These figures of tongues 

 are also met with in the Mexican picture of the 

 Deluge, which Gemeili published from a manu- 

 script at Siguenza ; in which we see men born 

 dumb, who disperse themselves to repeople the 

 Earth ; and a bird, that distributes among them 

 thirty-three different tongues. In the same man- 

 ner a volcano, on account of the subterraneous 

 noise heard sometimes in its neighbourhood, is 

 figured by the Mexicans as a cone with several 

 tongues hovering over its top : a volcano is 

 called the mountain that speaks. 



It is remarkable enough, that the Mexican 

 painter should have given only to the three per- 

 sons, who were living in his time, the diadem 

 (copilli) which is a sign of sovereignty. We 

 meet with the same headdress, but without the 

 knot which reaches towards the back, in the 

 figures of the kings of the Azteck dynasty, pub- 

 lished by the Abbe Clavigero. The last branch 

 of the lords of Azcapozaico is represented sitting 

 on an Indian chair, with his feet at liberty : 

 dead kings, on the contrary, are figured not only 

 without tongues, but with their feet wrapped up 

 in the royal cloak (xiuhtilmatli) which gives 



