the human race from trees, rocks and wild beasts. Myths of this nature are far more typical of Peru as a whole than of Mexico and Central America. Another peculiarity of Mixtec and Zapotec worship is the great number of cave-temples, many of them so holy that they became centres of pilgrimage. Some of these shrines were oracular, and one of them, at Achiutla, held such a high reputation that Montecuzoma sent an embassy to consult it at the coming of the Spaniards. Human sacrifice was practised by both these tribes, though to a far less extent than by the Mexicans, the heart of the victim being held to the lips of the idol of stone or wood. Traces of lake-worship also occur, another point in common with Peru and Colombia, in so far as at Tecomastlahuaca (immediately S.E. of Cuicatlan) was a sacred lake into which the bodies of victims were thrown; and at Teotitlan was a celebrated idol which was said to have descended from heaven in the form of a bird in the midst of a luminous constellation, a myth which would seem to have certain Maya affinities, as will be seen later. At rs in the Zapotec country was current a creation legend not unlike some of the Mexican ztiological myths. According to this the creator and his progeny bore calendrical names, and these semi-deities built their palaces on a huge rock on the summit of which was a copper axe, with the edge upwards, supporting the heavens. This preliminary age was terminated by a great deluge, after which the creator repeopled the world with the human race.
