Note IX-4 — Chapter IX · GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., pp. 16-22; Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, lam. xii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 140; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. xxx., Ib., p. 180; Humboldt, Essai Politique, tom. i., p. 217; Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 631. The sacrifices to Centeotl, if she be identical with the earth-mother, are illustrated by the statement of Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 81, that the Mexicans painted the earth-goddess as a frog with a bloody mouth in every joint of her body, (which frog we shall meet again by and by in a Centeotl festival) for they said that the earth devoured all things—a proof also, by the by, among others of a like kind which we shall encounter, that not to the Hindoos alone (as Mr J. G. Müller somewhere affirms), but to the Mexicans also, belonged the idea of multiplying the organs of their deities to express great powers in any given direction. The following note from the Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 179-80, illustrates the last point noticed, gives another form or relation of the goddess of sustenance, and also the origin of the name applied to the Mexican priests: 'They feign that Mayaguil was a woman with four hundred breasts, and that the gods, on account of her fruitfulness, changed her into the Maguey, which is the vine of that country, from which they make wine. She presided over these thirteen signs; but whoever chanced to be born on the first sign of the Herb, it proved unlucky to him; for they say that it was applied to the Tlamatzatzguex, who were a race of demons dwelling amongst them, who according to their account wandered through the air, from whom the ministers of their temples took their denomination. When this sign arrived, parents enjoined their children not to leave the house, lest any misfortune or unlucky accident should befall them. They believed that those who were born in Two Canes, which is the second sign, would be long lived, for they say that that sign was applied to heaven. They manufacture so many things from this plant called the Maguey, and it is so very useful in that country, that the devil took occasion to induce them to believe that it was a god, and to worship and offer sacrifices to it.'