“If any of their old superstitions has remained more deeply rooted than another in the hearts of these Indians, both men and women, it is this about fire and its worship, and about making new fire and preserving it for a year in secret places. We should be on the watch for this, and when in their confessions they speak of what the Fire said and how the Fire wept, expressions which we are apt to pass by as unintelligible, we must lay our hands on them for reprehension. We should also be on the watch for their baptism by Fire, a ceremony called the _yiahuiltoca_,[43-†] shortly after the birth of a child when they bestow on it the surnames; nor must the lying-in women and their assistants be permitted to speak of Fire as the father and mother of all things and the author of nature; because it is a common saying with them that Fire is present at the birth and death of every creature.” This curious ceremony derived its name from the _yiahuitli_, a plant not unlike the absinthe, the powdered leaves of which, according to Father Sahagun, the natives were accustomed to throw into the flames as an offering to the fire.[43-‡] Long after the conquest, and probably to this day, the same custom prevails in Mexico, the fumes and odor of the burning leaves being considered very salubrious and purifying to the air of the sick room[TN-4][43-§] The word _yiahuiltoca_ means “the throwing of the _yiauhtli_” (from _toca_, to throw upon with the hands). Another name for the ceremony, according to Father Vetancurt, who wrote a century later than Leon, was _apehualco_, which has substantially the same meaning, “a throwing upon” or “a throwing away.”[44-*] He adds the interesting particulars that it was celebrated on the fourth day after the birth of the child, during which time it was deemed essential to keep the fire burning in the house, but not to permit any of it to be carried out, as that would bring bad luck to the child. Jacinto de la Serna also describes this ceremony, to which he gives the name _tlecuixtliliztli_, “which means that they pass the infant over the fire;” and elsewhere he adds: “The worship of fire is the greatest stumbling-block to these wretched idolaters.”[44-†] =27.= Other ceremonies connected with fire worship took place in connection with the manufacture of the pulque, or _octli_, the fermented liquor obtained from the sap of the maguey plant. The writer just quoted, de Vetancurt, states that the natives in his day, when they had brewed the new pulque and it was ready to be drunk, first built a fire, walked in procession around it and threw some of the new liquor into the flames, chanting the while an invocation to the god of inebriation, Tezcatzoncatl, to descend and be present with them.