346 



or their fears. The sky of the nomade tribes 

 will be peopled with dogs, stags, bulls, and 

 wolves, without its being at all necessary for us 

 to conclude, that these tribes have formerly 

 made part of the same people. We must not 

 confound objects that resemble each other from 

 mere accident, or from a similarity of situation, 

 with those that attest a common origin, or 

 ancient communications. 



But the Tartar and Mexican zodiacs contain 

 not only the animals peculiar to the climates 

 which these people inhabit at present ; we find 

 also apes and tigers, two animals that are 

 unknown on the elevated plains of central and 

 eastern Asia, to which a great elevation gives 

 a colder temperature than that which reigns 

 toward the west under the same latitude. The 

 people of Thibet, the Monguls, the Mantchous, 

 and the Calmucks, have therefore received/rom 

 a more southern country the zodiac, which 4s too 

 exclusively called the Tartar cycle. The Tol- 

 tecks, the Aztecks, the Tlascaltecks flowed from 

 the north toward the south : we are acquainted 

 with Azteck monuments as far as the banks of 

 the Gila, between 33° and 34° of northern lati- 

 tude. History shows us the Toltecks coming 

 from regions still more northerly. These colo- 

 nists, issuing from Aztlan, did not arrive as bar- 

 barous hordes ; every thing that appertained to 

 them betokened the remains of ancient civiliza- 



