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18. Atemoztli^ the descent of water and of 
snow ; snow begins towards the end of Decem- 
ber to cover the mountains^ which surround the 
valley of Mexico. From the 15th of December 
to the 3d of January. 
In the first year of the cycle^, the five comple- 
mentary days correspond to the 4th^ 5th, 6th, 
7th, and 8th of January. A nation, which 
makes no intercalation but every 52 years, finds 
the commencement of its year retrograde nearly 
a day every four years, and consequently, twelve 
or thirteen days at the end of the cycle, xluh- 
moljpilli. Hence it results, as v/e shall see far- 
ther on, that the last complementary day, or 
nemontemi, of the last year of the Mexican cycle, 
corresponds to the 26th of December. Now the 
five nemontemi being reckoned and tiw/wcfo/ 
days, the day of the winter solstice, or the 21st 
of December, was considered as the end of the 
. XiuhmolpillL The nemontemi, or epagomenes, 
as well as the twelve or thirteen intercalary days, 
belong to neither of the two years between 
which they fall ; and it is for this reason, that we 
have named the winter solstice the end, not the 
beginning, of a cycle of 52 years. 
In the 3d, 4th and 5th months, which answer 
to our months of February, March, and April, 
solemn festivals were instituted in honor of Tla- 
locteutliy the god of water ; this period being t]^e 
time of the great droughts, which last in the 
