ed descent from the Ursa Major or
Minor constellation is further supported by the fact that the shape of the
mythical recurved mountain and the name Aztlan=land of light or brightness
are simultaneously explained, as well as the number of caves and tribes.
It does not seem to be a mere coincidence that in two totally different
Codices (the Selden MS. p. 7, Kingsborough, vol. 1, and the B. N. MS., p.
70) a sacred dance is represented as executed by seven individuals who
move around a central seated personage. In the latter MS. the seated
figure wears a head-dress surmounted by flint knives and his face is
painted _red_ the color assigned to the North. Moreover the dance is
taking place before an image of Mictlan-Tecuhtli, the lord of the North,
whose raiment is strewn with cross-symbols. Referring to other native
dances we find that the most sacred of all dances was performed at the
festival of the god of fire by priests only, who, smeared with black paint
to typify darkness and night, carried two torches in each hand and first
sat, then slowly moved, in a circle, around the "divine brazier," and
finally cast their torches into it (Duran II, p. 174). This, probably the
most ancient of sacred dances, must have been extremely impressive and
significative to those who witnessed it, at night-time, from the base of
the pyramid and heard the distant solemn chant of the dancers. To watchers
from afar, the fire and the lighted torches revolving around must have
seemed like a great central star with other stars wheeling about it.

Further on, it will be shown that the earliest form under which the Deity
was revered was that of fire and the foregoing description fully explains
why it was first chosen as the most fitting image of the central immovable
star. It has already been shown that, in the popular game of "the flyers,"
a high pole surmounted by one man served as the pivot for the
circumvolation of the four performers, who "acted" the "flight of time."
The idea of an extended rule, proceeding from a central dual force, was,
however, carried out on a grand scale in the most solemn of all public
dances named the Mitotiliztli. Duran (II, p. 85) states that as many as
"8,600 persons danced in a wheel in the courtyard of the Great Temple,
which had four doorways, facing the cardinal points and opening out on to
the four principal high roads leading to the capital. The doorways were
respectively named after the four principal gods and