The Indians always delighted in carrying flowers in their solemn processions, crowning themselves with garlands, and decorating their houses and temples with them; and, while they worshipped their gods according to the simple rites which tradition says their prophet, Quetzalcoatl, (“Feathered Snake,”) appointed, before he left them and embarked in his canoe on the Eastern ocean, no name could have been more appropriate for their temple. This pleasant custom did not disappear after the Conquest; and to this day the churches in the Indian districts are beautiful with their brilliant garlands and nosegays, and are as emphatically “houses of flowers” as were the temples in ages long past.
Since writing the above notice of the Pyramid of Xochicalco, I have come upon a new piece of evidence, which, if it may be depended on, proves more about the history of this remarkable monument than all the rest put together. Dupaix made a drawing of the ruins at Xochicalco in 1805, which is to be found in Lord Kingsborough’s ‘Antiquities of Mexico,’ and among the sculptures of the upper tier of blocks is represented a reed, with its leaves set in a square frame, with three small circles underneath; the whole forming, in the most unmistakable way, the sign 3 Acatl (3 Cane) of the Mexican Astronomical Calendar.