137 
arrows covered him^ and his heart was torn out, 
to be offered to the King Sun, Bochica. The 
blood of the guesa was received into sacred vases. 
This barbarous ceremony has several striking 
relations with that celebrated by the Mexicans 
at the end of their great cycle of fifty-two years, 
which IS represented in the 15th plate^. 
The Muysca Indians engraved on stones the 
signs, yhich presided over the years, the moons, 
and lunar days. These stones, as we have al- 
ready mentioned, reminded the priest xeques, 
in what zocam, or Muysca year, such or such a 
moon became intercalary. The stone of petro- 
silex, represented in orthographical projection, 
fig. 1 ; and in perspective, and of its real di- 
mensions, fig. 2 ; seems to indicate the ernbo- 
Ifemic months of the first indiction of the cy- 
cle. It is pentagonal, because this indiction 
contains five ecclesiastical years of thirty-seven 
moons each ; it exhibits nine signs, because five 
times thirty-seven moons are contained in nine 
Muysca years. To have a perfect comprehension 
of Mr. Duquesne’s explanation of these signs, 
we should first recollect, that, by the employment 
of the periodical series in an in diction of nine 
years and five Muysca months, the intercalated 
months fall successively in cuhupqua, muyhica, 
* See vol. xiii, p. 225 and 381; PI. xv. No. 8, 
