(Brasseur's Introduction
in Landa's "Relacion.") The names of both Pan and Maya enter extensively
into the Maya vocabulary, Maia being the same as Maya, the principal
name of the peninsula; and pan, added to Maya, makes the name of the
ancient capital Mayapan. In the Nahua language pan, or pani, signifies
"equality to that which is above," and Pentecatl was the progenitor of
all beings. ("North Americans of Antiquity," p. 467.)
The ancient Mexicans believed that the sun-god would destroy the world
in the last night of the fifty-second year, and that he would never come
back. They offered sacrifices to him at that time to propitiate him;
they extinguished all the fires in the kingdom; they broke all their
household furniture; they bung black masks before their faces; they
prayed and fasted; and on the evening of the last night they formed a
great procession to a neighboring mountain. A human being was sacrificed
exactly at midnight; a block of wood was laid at once on the body, and
fire was then produced by rapidly revolving another piece of wood upon
it; a spark was carried to a funeral pile, whose rising flame proclaimed
to the anxious people the promise of the god not to destroy the world
for another fifty-two years.
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