Besides the supreme being, the Aztecs worshipped innumerable divinities, the principal of which were thirteen. Every trade and profession had its particular god. They had besides their household gods, of which the king and the first noblemen had six, the inferior nobility four, and every plebeian two. These divinities were worshipped by offering to them sacrifices of human victims, of animals, plants, flowers, and fruits; by prayers, hymns, fastings, and other rigorous penances, in which the worshippers frequently shed their own blood. The human sacrifices were so horrible, that the simple recital of them excites disgust; and so frequent and numerous, that the Mexican historians calculate that no less than 20,000 victims perished every year, but this must be a great exaggeration. The priests were very numerous. Besides serving in the temple, they were employed in educating the youth, in painting the annals of the empire, in forming and regulating the calendar, in composing hymns, and in other scientific and literary pursuits. The body of the priests was subject to two high priests, the Teoteuctli, or divine lord, and the Hueiteopixqui, or high priest: both offices were elective; but it is not known whether the electors were the body of the priests themselves, or the electors who appointed the king. In Acolhuacan the high-priest was always the second son of the king. (Clavigero, vol. ii. ch. vi. p. 39.) There were also persons of both sexes devoted to the service of the gods, who lived in retirement, practising very severe austerities. The Aztecs had two ceremonies, resembling the circumcision of the Jews and the baptism of Christians. Every child who was devoted by his parents to the service of the temple was consecrated by the priests by making an incision on its breast with a knife of obsidian. A child of either sex, four days after its birth, was taken by the midwife to the court of the house, where a ceremony analogous to our baptism was performed. The Aztecs attended very assiduously to the instruction of their children. In general, every child followed the profession of his father. From their third to their fifteenth year they were instructed in their houses by their parents. At the age of fifteen they were sent to the temples, or to some private school, to be taught those acquirements which their parents were unable to impart to them. The education of the Aztec youth is described in the collection of Mendoza, plate lviii.-lxiv. (Aglio, Antiquities of Mexico, vol. i.) When a man and a female had arrived at a proper age, which for the former was twenty or twenty-two, and for the latter seventeen or eighteen, the marriage was contracted between the families by means of a female negociator, who was sent to the bride that the father of the youth had chosen for his son. This woman, accompanied by four other females, with lighted torches in their hands, carried the bride upon her shoulders to the house of the bridegroom. There she was met by the relations of the intended husband, who, after fumigating her with copal, introduced her into the house. The couple were placed upon a mat by the fireside, and the female negociator tied together the end of their garments, in which ceremony they made the marriage contract consist. An elderly man and woman, who at the same time acted as witnesses to the ceremony, then delivered a speech to the new-married couple, and presented them with some food. Four days after they went to the temple to offer to their god the mats on which they had slept. The ceremonies which the Aztecs used in their burials were no less singular. As soon as any one died, a certain master of ceremonies first covered the body with pieces of the paper of aloe, and sprinkled the head with water; then he dressed the corpse in a garment representing that of the particular god or gods who were the patrons of the profession or professions which the deceased had followed in his lifetime. Under this dress they placed a flask of water for the journey which the deceased was going to enter on, and likewise six pieces of paper containing instructions, in virtue of which he would be allowed to pass through different places in his voyage. The body was afterwards burnt, with all the ornaments, arms, instruments, and tools of the trade of the deceased, and with a techichi, a domestic quadruped of the Mexicans. Whilst the master of ceremonies was kindling the fire, some priests sung funeral hymns. When the body was consumed by the fire, they placed the ashes in a vessel, with a gem of more or less value, according to the means of the deceased's family, and this funeral urn was buried in a deep hole, and libations of pulque offered upon it for several days. With the bodies of kings and great lords, their priest, some of their wives, slaves, and other servants of their household, were killed and then burnt. Those who died of leprosy and other diseases, or before attaining the age of seventeen, were buried without burning: their bodies were placed in niches made of stone and mortar, sitting upon a chair surrounded by their arms, and wearing many valuable jewels. They had no appointed place for burying their dead; scme buried them in their own gardens, and others in the teocalli. The ashes of the kings were deposited in the great teocalli. The manner adopted by the Aztecs of computing time shows that they had attained a certain degree of astronomical knowledge. They had a solar year of 365 days divided into eighteen months, of twenty days each. The five complementary days, which they called nemontemi, or useless, were added to the last month. The year was represented in their paintings, as the engraving shows, by a circle, in the centre of which they placed a figure intended to represent the moon illuminated by the sun; and in the circumference they placed the symbols of the eighteen months. The month was divided into four periods of five days each. Thirteen of their years formed a period analogous to the Roman Indiction, which they called tlalpilli; four tlalpilli formed a xiuhmolpilli, or ligature of years; and two xiuhmolpilli a huehuetiliztli, or old age of a hundred and four years. Instead of adding one day every fourth year, as we do, they added thirteen days every fiftytwo years. They had also a lunar year, by which they regulated their sacred festivals. The years were distinguished by the names of Tochtli, a rabbit; Acatle, a cane or reed; Tecpatl, a flint; and Calli, a house. The first year of their century was called first rabbit; the second, second cane; the third, third flint; the fourth, fourth house; the fifth, fifth rabbit, and so on, till the indiction ended with the thirteenth rabbit. The second period began with the first reed, and then followed second flint, third house, and fourth rabbit, to end with the thirteenth cane. The order of the third period was flint, house, rabbit, reed; and that of the fourth, house, rabbit, reed, and flint. The age was represented in their paintings by a circle formed by a serpent biting its tail, and forming four foldings with its body, which corresponded to the four indictions. In the centre of this circle they painted a face representing the sun, and round it the images of a rabbit or hare, a reed, a knife of flint, and a house, and upon each sign the number of that sign expressed in dots or rounds. Their year, according to the computation of Clavigero (vol. ii. p. 234), began on the 26th of February, on the first year of the cycle; but every fourth year it was anticipated one day, and on the last year of the cycle it began on the fourteenth of the same month, because of the thirteen intercalary days of the leap years. According to Humboldt (Researches, p. 132), the beginning of the Aztec year varied from the ninth to the twenty-eighth of January. The day was divided into eight parts, four of which were for the rising and setting of the sun, and two for its passage across the meridian, corresponding to the third, rings and other ornaments in their ears, nose, and under lip, as also collars and bracelets. On their festivals they ate the legs and arms of the prisoners or slaves who had been sacrificed in the temple. They also made use of several intoxicating liquors, the principal of which was that called by the Spaniards pulque, made of the juice of the aloe. They were not acquainted with the use of beasts of burden. Things were conveyed from one place to another upon men's shoulders. They had public roads and inns, also bridges, some of which were suspended over the torrents. These suspension-bridges consisted in a sort of hammock, made of strong ropes of aloe, and suspended from two trees on each side of the stream. In their traffic with each other they made use of the bean of the cacaonut (Theobroma cacao), a bag of which represented 8000 units; a feather or quill full of gold, which represented 400; and a sort of coin, the value of which is not known, made of copper, cut in the form of a T. In their chinampas, or floating-gardens, they cultivated Indian corn and several species of vegetables and flowers. These gardens were made upon large rafts formed of reeds, rushes, and brushwood, covered with the black mould of the lake. The farmer who cultivated it built at one of the extremities of the chinampa a hut for his abode. These gardens floated on the lake, or were attached to the shore. ninth, fifteenth, and twenty-first hours of astronomical | The Aztec language wants the sounds corresponding to the letters b, d, f, g, and r, and abounds in those expressed by 4, x, t, tl, tz, and z. The letter, though occurring so often in that language, is never found at the commencement of a word. The language is very copious, Clavigero, as a proof of this assertion, gives a list of forty-four authors who have written in that language, mostly on religious subjects, and were able to express the most abstract ideas without being obliged to borrow any words from other languages. It has very few monosyllabic words, and although it allows great freedom in the compounding of words, even to the extent occasionally of no less than sixteen syllables, yet few are monosyllables in their roots. It abounds in diminutives, like the Italian, and there is no verb from which many verbal nouns are not derived, and few substantives that cannot be converted into verbs. The plural of nouns is formed by doubling the first syllable and adding the particle in to the word, thus from miztli, a cat, is formed mimiztin, cats. This reduplication is sometimes made in the middle of the word, as ichpochtli, a girl, ichpopochtin, girls. In all the examples quoted by Humboldt, it should be observed, the is dropped in the plural. Verbal nouns are formed by means of the particle liztli; thus from tlatlolana, to ask a question, they form the noun tetlaniliztli, a question. The Aztec language is very regular in its construction, and abounds in words adapted to compliment. The word notlazomahuizteopixcatàtzin, i. e., my esteemed lord and reverend priest and father, is the word commonly used by a Mexican in addressing a priest. This word is thus analyzed by Clavigero, no, my, tlazontli, esteemed, mahuiztic, revered, teopixqui (god-keeper), priest, tatli, father. The Aztecs had made some progress in the arts of social life. The monuments of architecture, sculpture, and painting which still exist, though very far behind that degree of perfection which these arts had obtained among some of the nations of the old continent, are not devoid of merit. The Aztec painters had no knowledge of perspective, nor of light and shade. Their designs are coarse and uncouth; their figures are fantastical, and only drawn in profile; but they are remarkable for the brilliancy and durability of their colours. Their works of architecture and sculpture evince a far superior degree of excellence. The Aztecs were also acquainted with the art of casting in metal figures of natural objects. Their mosaic, or rather works of embroidery, were admirable. The method they adopted was to glue feathers of different colours upon a piece of canvas, and then place it upon a tablet of wood or a plate of copper. They laid the feathers so even and matched the colours so admirably, as to give to objects thus represented the appearance of painting. Another work, which might with greater propriety be called mosaic, they made with pieces of shells of different colours. This work was done by separate artificers, every one of whom undertook a certain part of it, and then another artist arranged the different parts together, so as to complete the performance. The houses of the poor were made of reeds, or of unbaked brick, and were roofed with a certain species of grass, upon which they placed leaves of the aloe, cut in the shape of tiles. They had but one apartment, where all lived together. The houses of the citizens had besides an ajauhcalli or oratory, and a temazcalli or bath. The nobles had their houses built with stone and mortar, and consisted of two stories, covered with a flat roof or terrace. The stone most commonly used for building was the tetzontli, a red stone, very hard and porous. Their tools were made either of obsidian or copper. Their stuffs were of cotton, of rabbit's hair, of a certain species of palm, and of thread made The Aztecs were not acquainted with the art of alphabetic out of the leaves of the aloe. The dress of the men con-writing, but represented past events by means of certain sisted merely in a sash tied round the waist, with the two hieroglyphics. The objects were represented either in full, or extremities hanging before and behind, and a square by such a part of them as was considered sufficient to convey mantle, four feet long, the two extremities of which were the meaning of the painter. To record the events of their tied upon the chest. This mantle covered the shoulders and history they painted round the canvas the signs of the days all the body behind. The women wore a square piece of or years, and close by each sign the hieroglyphics represtuff tied round their waists, which descended down to their senting the event which at that period had taken place. In ankles, and a sort of waistcoat without sleeves. The stuff writing any series of hieroglyphics, Humboldt says that their used by the poor was made of the aloe, and that of the order was from right to left, beginning at the bottom of nobles of cotton embroidered with feathers or rabbit's hair. the page and proceeding upwards; but Clavigero says, that Their shoes consisted in a sole cut out of the leaves of the if the painter began his series at the right superior angle aloe, fastened to the foot with a cord. The kings wore of the canvas, he proceeded horizontally from right to left. instead thin plates of silver, gold, or copper. None of the if he began at the opposite superior angle, he continued perAztecs ever cut their hair, with the exception of the virgins pendicularly downwards; if he began at the left inferior who were consecrated to the service of the temples; the angle, he proceeded horizontally to the right; and perpendimen tied it on the crown of their heads, and the women let cularly upwards when he began on the opposite inferior it hang down their shoulders. Both men and women wore angle. We have seen a series of Aztec hieroglyphics The Aztecs cultivated the arts of oratory and poetry. Few of their moral, religious, historical, and dramatic performances have reached us. They had orators, who spoke on certain public occasions, such as on embassies, elections of kings, marriages, and other ceremonies. Specimens of these discourses have been transmitted to us by Father Sahagun in his Historia General de Nueva España. (See Aglio's Antiquities of Mexico, vol. vii.) written in these four different ways, but the most usual method is that which Humboldt states. They had certain conventional symbols to represent earth, water, wind, age, year, sky, day, night, the middle of night, speech, and motion. They also could express whether a person was dead or alive, whether he was speaking or silent, and, if speaking, who spoke the most. They possessed other signs, by means of which they expressed the name of any person or place. A man's head with a crown, and behind it the hieroglyphic of the sky pierced with an arrow, represented the name of the king, Motezuma-Ilhuicamina, which name signifies, he who pierces the sky with an arrow; a tunal or nopal upon a rock expressed the name of Tenochtitlan, or the place of a nopal upon a rock. They had also certain signs to express numbers. The units, below fifteen, were expressed by rounds or dots. A flag, three parts of which were coloured, expressed fifteen; if the flag was of one colour, it expressed twenty; a feather represented four hundred, and a bag eight thousand. Thus when we see in their paintings the hieroglyphic of a place, and by the side of it certain articles surmounted by a feather, it expresses that such place paid a tribute of four hundred of such articles. (See vol. i. of Aglio's Antiquities of Mexico; the Collection of Mendoza, part ii. p. 17.) To such as may be inclined to study the antiquities of the Aztecs, we recommend the excellent work, recently published by Lord Kingsborough, On the Antiquities of Mexico-a work which, for the number and variety of the fac-similes of hieroglyphics, and monuments relating to the antient Mexicans, no less than for the skilful arrangement and splendour of the performance, will always reflect honour upon the age and country in which such a work has been produced, and upon its modest author, who has not even mentioned his name in it. The first four volumes of this work contain fac-similes of all the Mexican paintings in the Vatican, in the Borgian museum of the College of Propaganda at Rome, of the Codex Telleriano Remensis at Paris, of those of the Institute of Bologna, of the libraries of Oxford, Berlin, Vienna, and Dresden; and also several collections belonging to private individuals. The fourth volume is almost entirely occupied by the rare and excellent collection of engavings of Mexican monuments made by Captain Dupaix by order of the Spanish government. The three remaining volumes contain the description of the paintings, and monuments in Spanish, Italian, and English, with numerous judicious and learned notes and criticisms. The original and interesting Historia General de Nueva España of Father Sahagun, never before published, occupies the whole of the seventh volume. The following is a chronological table of the kings of the Aztec dynasty, taken from Clavigero, vol. iv. pp. 51-55: AZU'NI, DOMENICO ALBERTO, was born at Sassari, in the island of Sardinia, about 1760. He applied early to the study of the law, and paid particular attention to the maritime regulations, which have ofter been matter of dispute between nations. Azuni becoming known as a distinguished jurist, was made a senator and judge of the tribunal of commerce of Nizza, in the continental states of the king of Sardinia. In 1795, after the French had taken possession of Nizza, Azuni published his Sistema universale dei Principii del Diretto Marittimo dell' Europa, in which he endeavoured to reduce the maritime laws to fixed principles. He afterwards recast his work, and published it in French at Paris, with the title of Droit Maritime de Europe, 2 vols. 8vo. 1805. The first volume, which is historical, is a recapitulation of the principal maritime regulations and usages of different nations, antient and modern. Great warmth is here displayed against what is called the assumption of superiority by the British navy over the flags of other countries, and its disregard of equal rights on the seas, and especially of the rights of neutrals, which formed at the time a subject of loud complaint on the part of Bonaparte's government. The second volume discusses the maritime rights of nations in time of war. The author shows himself decidedly favourable to the practice of arming privateers, and seizing the merchant-vessels and property of persons belonging to an enemy's country, a practice which, although general, has been reprobated by several writers. This work recommended Azuni to Napoleon's ministry, who appointed him one of the commissioners for the compilation of the new commercial code, and intrusted him with the part relative to maritime affairs. In 1807 Azuni was appointed president of the Court of Appeal at Genoa, which city and territory had been annexed to France. He was afterwards elected member for the same to the legislative corps sitting at Paris. He there published his Essai sur l'Histoire Géographique, Politique, et Morale de la Sardaigne, 2 vols. 870., accompanied by a map of that island, the draught of which was taken from the archives of Turin. The second volume is entirely occupied by the natural history of Sardinia. Azuni may be said to have been the first writer who made Sardinia known to the rest of Europe; but since the publication of this work other writers have given a fuller account of that interesting island. In 1809 Azuni wrote a pamphlet, in which he ascribed to the French the invention of the mariner's compass. This engaged him in a warm dispute with those who maintained the prior right of the Italians to the discovery, and especially with the orientalist Hager, professor in the University of Pavia, who refuted Azuni's book. next published a Dictionary of Mercantile Jurisprudence, which is much esteemed, and of which a new edition was published at Leghorn in 1822. He continued his functions in the tribunal of Genoa until the fall of Napoleon, when, like many others, he lost his situation. He then withdrew first to Nizza, and afterwards to his native island of Sardinia, where the late King Charles Felix appointed him judge of the consulate of Cagliari, and librarian to the University of the same city. He died at Cagliari in January, 1827. He also wrote several other works, among which, Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire Maritime des Marins Navigateurs de Marseille. Azuni was member of several academies. (Biografia degli Italiani Viventi.) Azuni A'ZURITE, a term used by Phillips to denote lazulite, under which name this mineral is most generally described by mineralogists. [See LAZULITE.] It is different from azure-stone, by which name lapis lazuli, the ultra-marine of painters, is sometimes known. Abdéra, 16 Abdication, 16 Abdomen, 16 Abdómen of insects, 16 Abdominales, 18 Abduction, 19 ping] Abduction of ward, 19 Aconite, Winter [see Eranthis] Adjutant, or Gigantic Crane, Abousambul, Ipsambul, or Eb- Acóntias, 88 Abousir, 40 Abraham, 40 Abraham-men, 40 Abrantes, 40 Abruzzo, 40 Abscess, 42 Abscissa, 43 Absentee, 43 Absolution, 45 Absorption, 45 Abstinence, 46 Absurdum, Reductio ad, 49 Abu Bekr, 50 Abulfarágius, 50 Abul Fazl, 51 Abúlfeda, 51 Albury [see Avebury] Abutment, 51 Abduction of child [see Kidnap- Acanthion, 66 Abduction of wife, 19 Acanthophis, 67 Acanthopterygii, 67 Acanthus, in architecture, 68 Accelerated Motion, Accelerating Accident [see Predicables] Accompaniment, in music, 74 Accusative Case, 76 Acer, 76 Act of Parliament [see Statute] Act, in the Universities, 100 Act, in the Drama, 100 Act of Faith [see Auto-da-Fé] Acta Diurna, 101 Acta Eruditorum, 102 Actínia, 102 Actinolite, 105 105 A'ctium, 105 Action, in law, Active Molecules, 106 Acton, Joseph, 106 Actor and Actress [see Drama] Acts of the Apostles [see Apos- Ad Líbitum, in music, 107 Adder [see Viper] Addison, Joseph, 115 Adrianóple, 131 Adrian's Wall [see Roman Adriatic Sea, 132 Adulária, 132 Adúle, 132 Adult-Schools, 132 Adultery, 133 Advent, 134 Adventure Bay, 134 Adventure, Bill of, 134 Adverb, 134 Advértisement, 134 Advice, 135 Advocate's Library, 135 Advowsons, Value of, 138 Æcídium, 138 Ædiles, 139 Ægagre, 139 Egéan Sea, 139 Æginétan Style of Art, 142 Æginhard [see Eginhard] Acétate, 80 Aden, 118 Acétic Acid, 80 Adhesion, 118 Achæa, 81 Achæi, 82 Adhesions, in botany, 119 Adiantum, 120 Achard, François-Charles, 83 Adige, 120 Acheloús, 83 Abjuration of the Realm, 35 Abjuration, oath of, 35 Ablancourt, Perrot Nicolas d', 35 | A'cheron, 84 Aeronautics [see Balloon] A'schines, the Orator, 152 A'schines, the Philosopher, 153 Adipocíre, 120 Adipose Substance, 121 Æ'schylus, 153 Esculapius, 154 Æ'sculus, 155 Æsópus, 155 Esthétics, 156 Alauda, 253 A'lava (see Basque] Alba Longa, Albáno, Alban Mount and River, 254 Albáni, 255 Albánia, 255 Albáno, Francesco, 259 Albany, Countess of, 261 Albemarle, Duke of [see Monk] Albemarle Sound, 262 Alberóni, Cardinal, 263 Albert, Prince of Mecklenberg, 264 Albert, Margrave of Branden burg, 264 Alberti, Leon Battista, 264 Albínus, Bernard Siegfried, 267 Albion, New, 267 Al Borak, 268 Albornoz, Gil Carrillo de, 268 Aguesseau, Henri Francois d', Albours, or Alburz [see Elburz] 228 Ahanta, 228 Ahasuerus, 228 Ahaz, 228 Ahazíah, 229 Ahmed I., II., III., 229 Albuéra, 269 VOL. I. Alcaide, or Alcayde, 273 Alcalá, 273 Alcalá de Henares, 273 Alcalá la Real, 274 Alcalde, 274 Alcámo, 274 Alcántara, 274 Alcántara, the Knights of, 274 Alcédo, Spanish officer, 275 Alcester, 275 Alchemy, 275 Alcibíades, 276 Alcohol, 280 Alcúran, or Alkoran [see Koran] Alházen, 334 Alcove, 282 Alcuin, 282 Alcyoneæ, 282 Aldborough, 283 Aldébaran, 283 Alder [see Alnus] Alderman, 283 Alderney, or Aurigny, 283 Aldine Editions [see Manutius] Ale, 285 Alehouses, 285 A'leman, Mateo, 288 Alemanni, or Allemanni, 288 Alembert, Jean le Rond d', 289 Ali Ben Abi Taleb, 334 Ali Hyder [see Hyder Ali] Ali Pacha, 335 A'libi, 337 Alexander III., the Great, 294 Allahabad, subdivision of ditto, Alexander I., 302 Allspice [see Eugenia |