HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



13 



centre of which, in honour of him, they raifed a great 

 eminence and built a fanctuary upon it. Another emi- 

 nence with a temple, was afterwards erected to him in 

 Tula. From Cholula his worfhip was propagated over 

 all that country, where he was adored as the god of the 

 air. He had temples in Mexico, and elfewherej and 

 fome nations, even enemies of the Cholulans, had, in the 

 city of Cholula, temples and priefts dedicated to his wor- 

 fhip ; and people came from all countries thither, to pay 

 their devotions and to fulfil their vows. The Cholulans 

 preferved with the higheft veneration fome final 1 green 

 Hones, very well cut, which they faid had belonged to 

 him. The people of Yucatan bdafted that their nobles 

 were defcended from him. Barren women offered up 

 their prayers to him in order to become fruitful. His 

 feftivals were great and extraordinary, efpecially in Cho- 

 lula, in the Teoxihuitl, or divine year ; and were preceded 

 by a fevere faft of eighty days, and by dreadful aufteri- 

 ties pra&ifed by the priefts confecrated to his worfhip. 

 Quetzalcoatl, they faid, cleared the way for the god of 

 water ; becaufe in thefe countries rain is generally pre- 

 ceded by wind. 



Dr. Siguenza imagined that the SOuetzalcoatl, deified 

 by thofe people, was no other than the apoftie St. Tho- 

 mas, who announced to them the Gofpel. He fupported 

 that opinion with great learning, in a work which, 

 with many other of his ineflimable writings, has been 

 unfortunately loft by the neglect of his heirs. In that 

 work he inftituted a comparifon betwixt the names of 

 Didymos and Quetzalcoatl (/), their drefs, their docTrine, 



and 



(b) This work of Siguenza is mentioned by Betancourt, in his Mexican The- 

 mtrc; and by Dr. Eguiera, in his Mexican Bibliotheca. 



(») Betancourt obferves, when he is comparing together the names of Didymos 



and 



