283 
Sim would be in following its course from east 
to west ; this gesture was accompanied by these 
remarkable words : iz TeMl, there God xvill he ; 
an expression which recalls that happy period, 
when the people emigrated from Aztlan knew 
yet no other divinity than the Sim, and were ad- 
dicted to no sanguinary rite 
Each Mexican month of twenty days was 
subdivided into four small periods of five days. 
At the beginning of these periods every com- 
mune kept its fair, tianguiztli. The Muyscas, 
a nation of South America, had weeks of three 
days. It appears, that no nation of the New 
Continent was acquainted with the week, or 
cycle of seven days, which we fin'd among the 
Hindoos, the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the 
Egytians, and which, as Le Gentilf has very 
justly observed, is followed by the greater part 
of the nations of the Old World. 
A passage in the history of the Incas by Gar- 
cilasso, induced M. M. Bailly| and Lalaride to 
think, that the Peruvians reckoned by cycles 
of seven days. The Peruvians,” says GarcE 
lasso, reckon the months by the Moon ; they 
reckon the half months by the increas- 
^ See above, p. 216. ' 
t Le Gentil, Hist, de I'Acad. 1772, Tom. ii, p. 207, 209o> 
La Place, Expos, du Sj^steme du Monde, p. 272. 
1 Bailly, Elist. de I’Aslron. Liv. 5, § 17, p. ^08. Lalaade,. 
Astrou. § 1534. 
