[101] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, cap. 1, et seq.--Acosta, lib. 5. ch. 9.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 6, cap. 21.--Boturini, Idea, pp. 27, 28.--Huitzilopochtli is compounded of two words, signifying “humming-bird,” and “left,” from his image having the feathers of this bird on its left foot (Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 17); an amiable etymology for so ruffian a deity.{*}--The fantastic forms of the Mexican idols were in the highest degree symbolical. See Gama’s learned exposition of the devices on the statue of the goddess found in the great square of Mexico. (Descripcion de las Dos Piedras (México, 1832), Parte 1, pp. 34-44.) The tradition respecting the origin of this god, or, at least, his appearance on earth, is curious. He was born of a woman. His mother, a devout person, one day, in her attendance on the temple, saw a ball of bright-colored feathers floating in the air. She took it, and deposited it in her bosom. She soon after found herself pregnant, and the dread deity was born, coming into the world, like Minerva, all armed,--with a spear in the right hand, a shield in the left, and his head surmounted by a crest of green plumes. (See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 19, et seq.) A similar notion in respect to the incarnation of their principal deity existed among the people of India beyond the Ganges, of China, and of Thibet. “Budh,” says Milman, in his learned and luminous work on the history of Christianity, “according to a tradition known in the West, was born of a virgin. So were the Fohi of China, and the Schakaof of Thibet, no doubt the same, whether a mythic or a real personage. The Jesuits in China, says Barrow, were appalled at finding in the mythology of that country the counterpart of the Virgo Deipara.” (Vol. i. p. 99, note.) The existence of similar religious ideas in remote regions, inhabited by different races, is an interesting subject of study, furnishing, as it does, one of the most important links in the great chain of communication which binds together the distant families of nations.