322 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



months of twenty days each, and five days which they 

 called nemontemi ; that in their century they counted 

 four periods of thirteen years, and that the days alfo 

 were counted by periods of thirteen ; that the names 

 and characters of the years were only four, that is thofe 

 of the rabbit, the cane or reed, the jtint, and the houfe, 

 which without interruption were alternatejy ufed with 

 different numbers. 



This cannot be, fays M. de Paw, becaufe it would 

 fuppofe them to have made a long feries of agronomical 

 obfervations, and thereby attained a knowledge fuffi- 

 cient to enable them to regulate the folar year, and thefe 

 could not happen to be united with that profound igno- 

 rance in which thofe people were immerfed. How could 

 they perfect their chronology while they h^d no terms 

 to count a higher number than three? Therefore, if 

 the Mexicans had really that method of regulating time, 

 they ought not to be called barbarians and favages, but 

 rather a cultivated and polifhed people ; becaufe a na- 

 tion mull be mod cultivated which has made a long fe- 

 ries of accurate obfervations and acquired exact know- 

 ledge in aftronomy. But the certainty of the regulation 

 of time among the Mexicans is fuch as not to admit of 

 the fmalleft doubt : becaufe, if the unanimous teftimony 

 of the Spanifli writers refpecting the communion of the 

 Mexicans is not to be doubted, which M. de Paw him- 

 felf fays is not (g), how can we doubt of the method 

 which thofe nations had to compute years and centu- 

 ries, 



(if) " J e vous a voue que le confentement de tous les Hiftoriens Efpagnols ne 

 " permet gueres de douter que ces deux peuples Americains {the Mexicans and 

 " Peruvians ) n'euffant dans la fumme immenfe de leurs fuperftitions groflieres, 

 " de quelques ufages qui ne differoicnt pas beau coup de ce qu'on nonxme la 

 *' Communion parnii nous" Tom. II. Letter I. 



