t myself with pointing out here that besides the
foregoing testimony about the Pleiades, the native name for which was the
miec=the many, or the tianquiztli=the marketplace, there are records
proving that the cult of the planet Venus was a firmly established feature
of the native religion at the time of the Conquest. Sahagun records that
the Nahuatl names for this planet were citlalpul or hueycitlallin both
signifying "the great star." "In the great temple of Mexico an edifice
named ilhuicatitlan [literally, the land of the sky] consisted of a great,
high column, on which the morning star was painted.... Captives were
sacrificed in front of this column annually, at the period when the star
re-appeared" (_op. cit._ appendix to book II).

With regard to the connection of the Pleiades with the beginning of the
Mexican cycle, it is interesting to note Herr Andree's statements that the
most intimate connection of the star-group with the thoughts of primitive
people, would naturally take place in such localities where its periodical
movements coincided with the changes of season, wind and weather which
affected agriculture. A survey of the data presented by Herr Andree shows
that the cult of the Pleiades attained its greatest development amongst
tribes inhabiting a southerly latitude. It was in South America, indeed,
that the Peruvians, alongside of their highly developed sun-cult, rendered
homage and offered sacrifices to the Pleiades. In Mexico, the cult of the
Pleiades appears as intimately associated with that of the sun and to have
assumed importance only in historical and comparatively recent times,
probably when the periodicity of the sun's movements had been taught or
recognized and the sign _ollin_, which is an exact presentation of the
annual course of the sun, had been invented and adopted as a symbol. I
have already pointed out that this sign occurs on the calendar-stone, for
instance, which has a human face in its centre, bearing two numerals on
the forehead and obviously symbolizing the union of two in one. In other
instances the centre displays the eye, or star symbol and conveys the
suggestion that the "four movements" of the circumpolar constellations
were thereby symbolized. It may be that, in ancient Mexico, the two
symbols, respectively referring to the movements of the sun and of the
circumpolar star-groups, were emblematic of the two different cults or
religions which existed alongside of each other. The f