154 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



In their journey from Chicomoztoc to Tula, they 

 flopped a while in Coatlicomac, where the tribe was di- 

 vided into two fa£lions, which bceame perpetual rivals, 

 and alternately perfecuted each other. This difcord was 

 occaiioned, as they fay, by two bundles which miracu- 

 loufly appeared in the midll: of their camp. Some of 

 them advancing to the firfl bundle to examine it, found 

 in it a precious flone, on which a great contefl: arofe, 

 each claiming to polTefs it as a prefent from their god. 

 Going afterwards to open the other bundle they found 

 nothing but two pieces of wood. At firfl: fight they un- 

 dervalued them as things which were ufelefs, but being 

 made acquainted, by the wife liuitziton, of the fervice 

 they could be of in producing fire, they prized them more 

 than the precious fl:one. They who appropriated to 

 themfelves the gem were thofe, who, after the foundation 

 of Mexico called themfelves Tlatelolcas, from the place 

 which they fettled near to that city ; they who took the 

 pieces of wood were thofe who in future bore the name 

 of Mexicans, or Tenochcas, This account however can- 

 not be confidered in any other light than as a moral 

 fable, to teach that in all things the ufeful is preferable 

 to the beautiful. Notwithflanding this diffention both 

 parties travelled always together for their imaginary in- 

 terefl: in the protection of their god (k). 



It ought not to excite wonder that the Aztecas made 

 fo great a circuit, and journeyed upwards of a thoufand 

 miles more than was neceffary, to reach Anahuacr as 

 they had ijo limits prefcribed to their travel, and were 



in 



by a manufcript hlftory in Mexican, cited by Boturini, and in this point of chro- 

 nology other authors agree. 



{k) It is not to be doubted that the ftory of the packets is merely a fable; as 

 the Aztecas knew, fome centuries before, how to produce fire from two pieces 

 of wood, by frit5lion. 



