n. The hieroglyphs for the towns Acayocan and
Tenayocan, furnish a similar employment of the mountain to express the
sound can. The sense of the affix _can_, meaning a town, only becomes
clear when we interpret it as the name of the artificial mountain with
four sides, the pyramid, which was the symbol of four=the Maya _can_, and
was the emblem of a central capital. This is convincingly proven by the
Codex Mendoza for instance, in which it is shown that the Mexican mode of
recording the conquest of a tribe was to paint their hieroglyphic name and
a picture of the destruction of the pyramid temple which had stood in the
centre of their capital. In other words, the conquered town ceased to be a
centre of rule--its captive chieftain was taken to the capital, where the
horrible rite of sacrifice performed upon him and the tearing out of his
heart likewise symbolized the destruction of the independent life of the
tribe or integral whole he represented in his person. It was thus brought
home to the conquered people that they had ceased to exist as an
independent body, and the distribution of the chieftain's flesh to the
ritualistic cannibals graphically symbolized its absorption into the great
central state. It is necessary to emphasize here that these horrible rites
were of comparatively recent origin and had been invented by the Mexicans
for the purpose of intimidating their vassals, after a prolonged period of
wars and bloodshed, which menaced the very existence of the integral
state. The presence in Mexico of numerous names of towns, ending in can,
seems to indicate the influence, in ancient times, of the Maya-speaking
civilization to which the origin of the pyramid must be assigned. The
association of the latter with the word _can_ is strikingly illustrated in
the name of Teotihua-Can, where stand the ruins of two of the largest and
most imposing pyramids of ancient America. The base of the larger of the
two has been estimated at about 700 feet square, it being impossible to
take an exact measurement owing to the mass of accumulated debris which
covers the lower part of the structure.

The base of the second pyramid measures about 475 feet square. The sides
of both pyramids rose at an angle of about 45 degrees and were in each
case interrupted by four terraces. This double application of a quadruple
division merits special attention, as it produced besides the four great
4x4 lesser sections, the sacred centre of the terrac