r comfort, who art most kind, most bountiful,
invisible and impalpable!" (Sahagun, book VI, on the rhetoric, moral
philosophy and theology of the Mexicans, chaps. 1-40). It is related that,
in gratitude for the birth of a son, the ruler of Texcoco, Nezahual-coyotl
erected a temple to the Unknown God.... It consisted of nine stories, to
symbolize the nine heavens. The exterior of the tenth, which formed the
top of the nine other stories, was painted black with stars. Its interior
was encrusted with gold, precious stones and feathers and held "the said
god, who was unknown, unseen, shapeless and formless" (Ixtlilxochitl,
Historia Chichimeca ed. Chavero, p. 227; see also p. 244). A passage in
Sahagun (book VI, chap. VII) states that "the invisible and imageless god
of the Chichimecs was named Yoalli-ehecatl [literally, night-air or wind],
which means the invisible and impalpable god ... by whose virtue all live,
who directs by merely exerting his wisdom and will." In the Codex Fuenleal
(chap. 1) the remarkable title of "wheel of the winds=Yahualliehecatl," is
recorded as "another name for Quetzalcoatl." This undeniably proves that
the Mexicans not only figured the Deity by the image of a serpent but also
thought of him as a wheel which obviously symbolized centrical force,
rotation, lordship over the four quarters, _i. e._, universal rulership.

[Illustration.]

Figure 16.

Returning from these ideas of later development to the primitive source of
their suggestion, let us now examine the native picture of Xonecuilli,
Ursa Minor, preserved in the unpublished Academia MS. of Sahagun's
Historia, in Madrid (fig. 16, no. 1). It is an exact representation of the
star-group. The fact that the seven stars are figured of the same size in
accurate relation to each other, either proves that the eyesight of the
native astronomers was extremely keen and their atmosphere remarkably
clear, or that possibly, the minor stars of the group were more brilliant
in ancient times, than they are now. Astronomers tell us, for instance,
that as late as the seventeenth century the star in the body of Ursa Major
nearest to the tail, was as bright as the others, while it is now of the
fourth magnitude only.

It must be admitted that the shape of the constellation resembles an S. An
SS sign is mentioned by Sahagun (Historia, book VIII, chap. 8) as
occurring frequently, as a symbolical des