Note 114 — PART I. ETHNOLOGIC AND ARCHÆOLOGIC. (continued 2)

Centzon Huitznahua, “the Four Hundred Diviners with Thorns.” Four hundred, however, in Nahuatl means any indeterminate large number, and hence is properly translated myriad, legion. Nahuatl means wise, skillful, a diviner, but is also the proper name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes; and as the Nahuas derived their word for south from huitzli, a thorn, the Huitznahua may mean “the southern Nahuas.” Sahagun had this in his mind when he said the Huitznahua were goddesses who dwelt in the south (Historia de Nueva España, Lib. vii, cap. 5). The word is taken by Father Duran as the proper name of an individual, as we shall see in a later note.