in the following
description of the ancient Mexican game "of those who fly," translated
from Clavigero (op. et ed. cit. p. 236). This performance, which furnished
a diversion to the Spaniards after the Conquest, had evidently been,
originally, connected with religious ideas. "The Indians selected a tall,
stout and straight tree, and, lopping off its branches, planted it firmly
in the centre of the great square" (which was always situated in the
centre of the city and had four roads leading to it from the four
quarters). "On the summit they placed a large cylinder of wood, the shape
of which was compared by the Spaniards to that of a mortar. Four strong
ropes hung from this and supported a square frame composed of four wooden
beams. Four other ropes were fastened by one end to the pole itself and
wound around it thirteen times. Their loose ends were passed through holes
in the middle of each beam and hung from these. Four Indians, masked as
eagles or other birds, ascended the pole singly, by means of certain loops
of cord, and mounting on the cylinder they performed in this perilous
position a few dance-like movements. Each man then attached himself to the
loose end of one of the hanging ropes, and then, with a violent jerk and
at the same moment, the four men cast themselves into space from their
positions on the beams. This simultaneous movement caused the frame and
cylinder to revolve and uncoil the ropes to which the men were fastened
and these descended to the ground after performing a series of widening
circles in the air. Meanwhile a fifth individual, who had mounted the
wooden cylinder after the others, stood on this as it revolved, beating a
small drum with one hand, whilst he held a banner aloft with the other."
Whilst it is obvious that this peculiar and dangerous performance clearly
symbolized axial rotation, typified by the revolving pivot and the four
men in aerial motion, its full meaning and intention are only made clear
by the following explanation recorded by Clavigero. "The essential point
in this game was to calculate so exactly the height of the pole and the
length of the ropes, that the men should describe precisely thirteen
circles each before reaching the ground, so as to represent the cycle (of
4x13=)52 years."

This passage constitutes absolute proof that the Mexican Calendar system
was intimately associated with axial rotation and ideas such as could only
have been derived from observation of P