LETTER XVII. 
TEOYAOMiqUI. MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. 
The chief antiquities of the Mexicans which have descended to our 
times, are of a religious character; and their gods, their temples, their 
pyramids, and their funeral vases, alone remain, after every other im- 
portant record of a material character has wasted before Time and the 
bigoted rapacity of the Spaniards. An inquiry in relation to their reli- 
gion is therefore interesting, as a memorial of the past. Debase a nation 
as much as you may; crush out its spirit beneath the iron heel of despot- 
ism; tear from it and destroy every record of its greatness and its 
ancestry ; yet the miserable remnant which survives the ruin, will still 
retain, amid changed laws, changed customs, and even a changed faith, 
the shadow of some of the rites, and the recollection of the gods who were 
adored by its ancestors. The spirit seems to cling with traditionary fer- 
vor to the belief of our fathers. Thus, in Mexico, even after three cen- 
turies of the dominion of a foreign Priesthood, the Indian worship, (as 1 
shall have occasion hereafter to show,) still tinges the rites of the Catholic ; 
and I have been credibly informed, that, even now, the keepers of the 
University sometimes find garlands and flowers which have been hung 
around that hideous statue, whose figure has just been exhibited in the 
preceding engraving. 
Clavigero, who, with Veytia, is unquestionably the best writer on Mex- 
ican history, informs us, that the ancients believed there were three 
places assigned to their departed spirits. 
The soldiers who died in battle fighting for their country, or, who per- 
ished in captivity, and the souls of women who died in childbirth, went to 
the House of the Sun, where they led a life of endless delight. "At 
morning they hailed the luminary with music and dancing, attended him 
in his journey to the meridian, where they met the souls of women, and 
with similar festivities accompanied him to his setting." 
After years of these pleasures their spirits were transformed into 
clouds, or birds of beautiful plumage and pleasant song ; but they had 
power to ascend again, whenever they desired, to heaven. The ridicu 
