This was distinctly a survival of an ancient doctrine which connected the God of Fire with the Gods of Drunkenness, as we may gather from the following quotation from the history composed by Father Diego Duran: “The _octli_ was a favorite offering to the gods, and especially to the God of Fire. Sometimes it was placed before a fire in vases, sometimes it was scattered upon the flames with a brush, at other times it was poured out around the fireplace.”[45-*] =28.= The high importance of the fire ceremonies in the secret rituals of the modern Mayas is plainly evident from the native Calendars, although their signification has eluded the researches of students, even of the laborious Pio Perez, who was so intimately acquainted with their language and customs. In these Calendars the fire-priest is constantly referred to as _ah-toc_, literally “the fire-master.” The rites he celebrates recur at regular intervals of twenty days (the length of one native month) apart. They are four in number. On the first he takes the fire; on the second he kindles the fire; on the third he gives it free play, and on the fourth he extinguishes it. A period of five days is then allowed to elapse, when these ceremonies are recommenced in the same order. Whatever their meaning, they are so important that in the _Buk Xoc_, or General Computation of the Calendar, preserved in the mystic “Books of Chilan Balam,” there are special directions for these fire-masters to reckon the proper periods for the exercise of their strange functions.[45-†] =29.= What, now, was the sentiment which underlay this worship of fire? I think that the facts quoted, and especially the words of Father de Leon, leave no doubt about it. Fire was worshiped as the life-giver, the active generator, of animate existence. This idea was by no means peculiar to them. It repeatedly recurs in Sanskrit, in Greek and in Teutonic mythology, as has been ably pointed out by Dr. Hermann Cohen.[45-‡] The fire-god Agni (_ignis_) is in the Vedas the Maker of men; Prometheus steals the fire from heaven that he may with it animate the human forms he has moulded of clay; even the connection of the pulque with the fire is paralleled in Greek mythos, where Dionysos is called _Pyrigenes_, the “fire-born.” Among the ancient Aztecs the god of fire was called the oldest of gods, _Huehueteotl_, and also “Our Father,” _Tota_, as it was believed from him all things were derived.[46-*] Both among them and the Mayas, as I have pointed out in a previous work, he was supposed to govern the generative proclivities and the sexual relations.[46-†] Another of his names was _Xiuhtecutli_, which can be translated “God of the Green Leaf,” that is, of vegetable fecundity and productiveness.[46-‡]