HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



25 



Colhuacan. This goddefs had a temple in Mexico, 

 where a moft folemn feaft was held in the eleventh 

 month. She was particularly adored by the Tlafcalans ; 

 and midwives worfhipped her as their protedlrefs. Ai- 

 moft all the Spanifh writers confound her with Tonantzin, 

 but they are certainly different. 



Ilamateuctli, for whom the Mexicans had a feaft upon 

 the third day of the feventeenth month, feems to have 

 been the goddefs of age. Her name means nothing more 

 than Old Lady. 



Tepitoton (little ones), was the name given by the 

 Mexicans to their penates, or houfehold gods, and the 

 images that reprefented them. Of thefe little images, 

 the kings and great lords had always fix in their houfes, 

 the nobles four, and the lower people two. They were 

 to be feen every where in the public ftreets. 



Befides thefe gods which were the mod confiderable, 

 and fome others which we omit, that we may not tire 

 the reader, there were two hundred and lixty, to which 

 as many days were confecrated. Thofe days take their 

 names from them, and are thofe we find in the firft thir- 

 teen months of their calendar. 



The Mexican gods were generally the fame with 

 thofe of the other nations of Anahuac ; differing only 

 in their greater or lefs celebrity, in fome of their rites, 

 and fometimes in their names. The god the moft cele- 

 brated in Mexico was Huitzilopochtli ; in Cholula and 

 Huexotzinco, Quetzal coat I ; among the Totonacas, Cen- 

 teotl ; and among the Otomies, MixcoatL The Tlafca- 

 lans, although the conftant enemies of the Mexicans, 

 adored the fame gods ; and even their moft favoured 

 deity was the very Huitzilopochtli of the Mexicans, but 

 under the name of Camaxtle. The people of Tezcuco, 

 Vol. II. D as 



