tumbling-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.

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 th