137 



arrows covered him, and his heart was torn out, 

 to be offered to the King Sun, Bochica. The 

 blood of the guesa was received into sacred vases. 

 This barbarous ceremony has several striking 

 relations with that celebrated by the Mexicans 

 at the end of their great cycle of fifty-two years, 

 which is represented in the 15th plate # . 



The Muysca Indians engraved on stones the 

 signs, which presided over the years, the moons, 

 and lunar days. These stones, as we have al- 

 ready mentioned, reminded the priest xeques, 

 in what zocam, or Muysca year, such or such a 

 moon became intercalary. The stone of petro- 

 silex, represented in orthographical projection, 

 fig. 1 ; and in perspective, and of its real di- 

 mensions, fig. 2 ; seems to indicate the embo- 

 lismic months of the first indiction of the cy- 

 cle. It is pentagonal, because this indiction 

 contains five ecclesiastical years of thirty-seven 

 moons each ; it exhibits nine signs, because five 

 times thirty-seven moons are contained in nine 

 Muysca years. To have a perfect comprehension 

 of Mr. Duquesne's explanation of these signs, 

 we should first recollect, that, by the employment 

 of the periodical series in an indiction of nine 

 years and five Muysca months, the intercalated 

 months fall successively in cuhupqua, muyhica^ 



* See vol, xiii, p 225 and 381; PI. xv, No. 8. 



