Page:Stanzas on an Ancient Superstition (1864).djvu/3



The nations of Annhuac believed that the sun, with all mankind, except a few individuals, had been three or four times destroyed. That another destruction, total and final, would occur; but only at the completion of one of their Cycles or Periods of fifty-two years, and only on the last night of the Period, and at midnight. The close of every Cycle was, therefore, a time of awful anxiety. Human victims w as sacrificed on their lofty pyramidal temple. Every spark of fire in the whole country, according to ancient custom, was extinguished. The people of the Aztec capital, led by their priests, marched forth at sunset in solemn procession to a mountain about six miles distant, to await on its summit their approaching doom. If the midnight hour passed as usual, the event was instantly indicated by a bonfire on the mountain. Games and national festivities followed.—See Cullen’s Clavigero, Hist. Mex., i, Bk. VI, p. 288—McCulloh’s Researches, p. 224.

I have supposed one aged priest, lifted above the superstition of his people, dispelling their terrible despondency by anticipating the hour, and secretly lighting a bonfire on their Teocal or high pyramidal temple.

W. J. R.