381 
the vessels of clay were broken^ garments torn^ 
and whatever was most precious was destroyed, 
because every thing appeared useless at the tre- 
mendous moment of the last day. Amidst this 
frantic superstition, pregnant women became the 
objects of peculiar horror to the men ; their faces 
were hidden with masks, made with paper of the 
agave ; they were even imprisoned in the store- 
houses of maize ; from a persuasion, that, if the 
cataclysm took place, the women, transformed 
into tigers, would make common cause with the 
evil genii (tzitzimimes), to avenge themselves of 
the injustice of the men. 
In the evening of the last day of the nemon- 
temi, which is presided by the sign of the 
serpent, began the festival of the new Jire, The 
priests took the dresses of their gods ; and, fol- 
lowed by an immense crowd of people, went in 
solemn procession to the mountain of Huixach- 
tecatl two leagues from Mexico, between 
Iztapallapan and Culhiiacan. This lugubrious 
march was called the march of the gods, teone- 
nemi ; a denomination which reminded the 
Mexicans, that the gods had quitted their city, 
and that perhaps they would see them no more. 
When the procession had reached the summit of 
the porphyritic mountain of Huixachtecatl, it 
waited the moment when the Pleiades ascended 
* Vixaclitia, from Gomara, Conquista/fol. 133 (a). 
