Note 22 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

The evolution of a higher cultus is frequently identified with a more intimate acquaintance with the heavenly bodies, but it is not generally appreciated or understood by students of Comparative Religion that at least two different kinds of conception underlie the general idea. A luminary, sun, moon, or star, may be deified and achieve godhead by reason of striking natural characteristics, or, on the other hand, it may be identified with some god already known. Thus Mexican myth, as related to Sahagun by the natives, asserted that the gods met at Teotihuacan and told how two of their number, Nanahuatl and Tecciztecatl, sacrificed themselves by leaping into a great fire, becoming the sun and moon respectively. The remaining gods, sacrificing themselves also, “conferred life upon the stars,” that is they became identified with the several stellar constellations, becoming known as the Centzon Mimixcoa and Centzon Uitznaua, or “Four hundred Northerners” and “Four hundred Southerners,” as they occupied the sky on its northern or southern side.22