commencement of the new century. On the first day of that year and of that century, which, as we have already mentioned, corresponded to the 26th of February, for no person was it lawful to taste water before midday. At that hour the sacrifices began, the number of which was suited to the grandeur of the festival. Every place resounded with the voice of gladness and mutual congratulations on account of the new century which heaven had granted to them. The illuminations made during the first nights were extremely magnificent; their ornaments of dress, entertainments, dances, and public games were superiorly solemn.” [315] NATURE AND STATUS In my view the sun-god Piltzintecutli is merely a personification of Tonatiuh, the sun. As has already been said, solar worship in Mexico seems to have been developed at a comparatively late period. In the myths regarding the origin of the sun given by Olmos and Sahagun, it is clear that he is regarded more as a luminary than as a god. The name Tonatiuh, indeed, means nothing more than “sun,” and although one of the sacrificed gods was believed to have given him life, and he afterwards acts as a living being, he does not seem to possess the same qualities of personality as his later form, Piltzintecutli. The expression “Tonatiuh” seems to have been regarded as a divine place-name, a paradise to which those warriors fared who died in battle. Tonatiuh was known as the Teotl, that is as the god par excellence, but this does not by any means imply that the Mexicans regarded him as the highest form of deity known to them. I think it rather means that the priests, having arrived at the conclusion that the tonalamatl and the calendar hinged, so to speak, upon the solar periods, came very naturally to regard the sun as the centre or hub of the intricate system which they had built up through generations. The very name Teotl, too, shows that, in later times at least, the sun was regarded as a deity, perhaps because he occupied the vault of the sky “where the gods live.”