96 HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



favourable occafion. To the fecond bathing, which was 

 a more folemn rite, all the relations and friends, and 

 fome young boys were invited ; and if the parents were 

 in good circumftances, they gave great entertainments, 

 and made prefents of apparel to all the guefls. If the 

 father of the child was a military perfon, he prepared for 

 this ceremony a little bow, four arrows, and a little ha- 

 bit, refembling in make that which the child, when 

 grown up, would wear. If he was a countryman, or an 

 artift, he prepared fome inflruments belonging to his art, 

 proportioned in lize to the infancy of the child. If the 

 child was a girl, they furniflied a little habit, fuitable to 

 her fex, a fmall fpindle, and fome other little inftruments 

 for weaving. They lighted a great number of torches, 

 and the midwife taking up the child, carried it through 

 all the yard of the houfe, and placed it upon a heap of 

 the leaves of fword grafs clofe by a bafon of water, 

 which was prepared in the middle of the yard, and then 

 undreffing it, faid : My child, the gods Ometeuctli and 

 Omecihuatl, lords of heaven, have fent thee to this dlfmal 

 and calamitous world. Receive this water which is to give 

 thee life. And after wetting its mouth, head, and breaft, 

 with forms fimilar to thofe of the firft bathing, fhe bathed 

 its whole body, and rubbing every one of its limbs, faid, 

 Where art thou ill Fortune ? In what limb art thou hid t 

 Go far from this child. Having fpoke this, me raifed up 

 the child to offer it to the gods, praying them to adorn 

 it with every virtue. The firft prayer was offered to the 

 two gods before named, the fecond to the goddefs of 

 water, the third to all the gods together, and the fourth 

 to the fun and the earth. Tou fun, flie faid, father of 

 fill things that live upon the earth, our mother, receive this 

 child, and protect him as your own fon; and Jince he is 



born 



