tificially dressed into the shape of huge
arches. A natural altar had been provided in a similar manner, and on
it, at the time of his visit, were numerous idols in the figures of men
and animals, and before them fresh offerings of copal and food.
Elsewhere he refers to many such caverns still in use as places resorted
to by the natives in _la gran Sierra de Tlascala_.[40-[++]]

These extracts prove the extent of this peculiar worship and the number
of these subterranean temples in recent generations. The fame of some of
the greater ones of the past still survives, as the vast grotto of
Chalcatongo, near Achiutla, which was the sepulchral vault of its
ancient kings; that of Totomachiapa, a solemn scene of sacrifice for
the ancient priests; that of Justlahuaca, near Sola (Oaxaca), which was
a place of worship of the Zapotecs long after the Conquest; and that in
the Cerro de Monopostiac, near San Francisco del Mar.[41-*]

The intimate meaning of this cave-cult was the worship of the Earth. The
Cave God, the Heart of the Hills, really typified the Earth, the Soil,
from whose dark recesses flow the limpid streams and spring the tender
shoots of the food-plants, as well as the great trees. To the native
Mexican, the Earth was the provider of food and drink, the common Father
of All; so that to this day, when he would take a solemn oath, he stoops
to the earth, touches it with his hand, and repeats the solemn formula:
_Cuix amo nechitla in toteotzin?_ "Does not our Great God see me?"

=25.= The identity of the Tepeyollotl of the Nahuas and the Votan of the
Tzentals is shown not only in the oneness of meaning of the names, but
in the fact that both represent the _third_ day in the ritual calendar.
For this reason I take it, we find the number _three_ so generally a
sacred number in the symbolism of the nagualists. We have already
learned in the extract from Nunez de la Vega that the neophytes were
instructed in classes of three. To this day in Soteapan the fasts and
festivals appointed by the native ministrants are three days in
duration.[41-[+]] The semi-Christianized inhabitants of the Sierra of
Nayerit, the Nahuatl-speaking Chotas, continued in the last century to
venerate three divinities, the Dawn, the Stone and the Serpent;[41-[++]]
analogous to a similar "trinity" noted by Father Duran among the ancient
Aztecs.[41-Sec.]

The number _nine_, that is, 3 x 3, recurs so frequently in the
conjuration formulas of the Mexi