containing a small portion of roasted meat. What was most singular in this festival, is that, three successive years, no human victim was immolated, and the fourth year, the number of victims surpassed that of other feasts. The king in person and the lords presented themselves in the midst of this heap of corpses to dance, and all sung, with respect and solemnity, the reserved chant, which they call in their language, Neteuhicuicaliztli.
In a Treatise on the Idolatry and Superstitions o f the Mexicans, a manuscript of 1629, we perceive that what particularly attracted the veneration of the Mexicans was fire. For this reason this element presided at the birth, and at almost all the actions of life among these victims of error. The infant was born in this superstition. At the moment of its birth, fire was kindled in the room of the mother, and it was maintained four consecutive days, without removing any of it. They believed that if the live coals were drawn out, a cloud would suddenly appear over the eye of the newly born. On the fourth day the elders took the child and the fire out of the chamber; then they passed the fire four times round the child's head, twice in one direction and twice in its opposite. Then the new-born infant received its name, which was in general that of the animal or of the element to which its birthday was consecrated - as the alligator, the serpent, the tiger, the eagle, etc. ; or the water, the fire, the house, etc.
In the different sacrifices, tapers and incense almost always had a share.
We also find among them a mythological recital, which shows that a personage, formerly covered with leprosy, obtained the empire of the future world. for having passed by the ordeal of fire, and was transformed into the sun, to the great disappointment of other great personages who shrank from the test. Is this the cause of their respect for fire, and the reason why they attribute to it a mysterious power? The Potawatomies say that Chipiapoos, or the Dead-man, is the grand manitou that presides in the country of souls and