381 



the vessels of clay were broken, garments torn, 

 and whatever was most precious was destroyed, 

 because every thing appeared useless at the tre- 

 mendous moment of the last day. Amidst this 

 frantic superstition, pregnant women became the 

 objects of peculiar horror to the men ; their faces 

 were hidden with masks, made with paper of the 

 agave ; they were even imprisoned in the store- 

 houses of maize ; from a persuasion, that, if the 

 cataclysm took place, the women, transformed 

 into tigers, would make common cause with the 

 evil genii (tzitzimimes), to avenge themselves of 

 the injustice of the men. 



In the evening of the last day of the nemon- 

 temi, which is presided by the sign of the 

 serpent, began the festival of the new fire. The 

 priests took the dresses of their gods ; and, fol- 

 lowed by an immense crowd of people, went in 

 solemn procession to the mountain of Huixach- 

 tecatl % two leagues from Mexico, between 

 Iztapallapan and Culhuacan. This lugubrious 

 march was called the march of the gods, teone- 

 nemi - 9 a denomination which reminded the 

 Mexicans, that the gods had quitted their city, 

 and that perhaps they would see them no more. 

 When the procession had reached the summit of 

 the porphyritic mountain of Huixachtecatl, it 

 waited the moment when the Pleiades ascended 



* Vixachtla, from Gomara, Conquista, foi. 133 (a). 



