CHAPTER IX.

GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

THE MOTHER OR ALL-NOURISHING GODDESS UNDER VARIOUS NAMES AND IN

VARIOUS ASPECTS HER FEAST IN THE ELEVENTH AZTEC MONTH OCH-
PANIZTLI FESTIVALS OF THE EIGHTH MONTH, HUEYTECUILHUITL, AND
OF THE FOURTH, HUEYTOZOZTLI THE DEIFICATION OF WOMEN THAT DIED
IN CHILD-BIRTH THE GODDESS OF WATER UNDER VARIOUS NAMES AND
IN VARIOUS ASPECTS CEREMONIES OF THE BAPTISM OR LUSTRATION OF
CHILDREN THE GODDESS OF LOVE, HER VARIOUS NAMES AND ASPECTS
RITES OF CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION THE GOD OF FIRE AND HIS VARI
OUS NAMES His FESTIVALS IN THE TENTH MONTH XOCOTLVETI AND IN
THE EIGHTEENTH MONTH YZCALI; ALSO HIS QUADRIENNIAL FESTIVAL IN
THE LATTER MONTH THE GREAT FESTIVAL OF EVERY FIFTY-TWO YEARS;
LIGHTING THE NEW FIRE THE GOD OF HADES, AND TEOYAOMIQUE, COL
LECTOR OF THE SOULS OF THE FALLEN BRAVE DEIFICATION OF DEAD PvUL-
ERS AND HEROES MIXCOATL, GOD OF HUNTING, AND HIS FEAST IN THE
FOURTEENTH MONTH QUECHOLLI VARIOUS OTHER MEXICAN DEITIES-
FESTIVAL IN THE SECOND MONTH, TLACAXIPEHUALIZTLI, WITH NOTICE OF
THE GLADIATORIAL SACRIFICES COMPLETE SYNOPSIS OF THE FESTIVALS OF
THE MEXICAN CALENDAR, FIXED AND MOVABLE TEMPLES AND PRIESTS.

CENTEOTL is a goddess, or according to some good

authorities a god, who held, under many names and in
many characters, a most important place in the divine
world of the Aztecs, and of other Mexican and Cen
tral American peoples. She was goddess of maize,
and consequently, from the importance in America of
this grain, of agriculture, and of the producing earth
generally. Many of her various names seem depend
ent on the varying aspects of the maize at different
stages of its growth; others seem to have originated
in the mother-like nourishing qualities of the grain of
( 349 >
350 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

which she was the deity. Miiller lays much stress on

th is aspect of her character The force wh ich sustains
:

life must also have created it. Centeotl was therefore

considered as bringing children to light, and is repre
sented with an infant in her arms. Nebel gives us
such a representation, and in our Mexican museum at
Basel there are many images in this form, made of
burnt clay. Where agriculture rules, there more chil
dren are brought to mature age than among the hunt
ing nations, and the land revels in a large population.
No part of the world is so well adapted to exhibit this
difference as America. Centeotl is consequently the
great producer, not of children merely: she is the
1
great goddess, the most ancient goddess."
Centeotl was known, according to Clavigero, by the
titles Tonacajohua, she who sustains us; Tzinteotl,
original goddess; and by the further names Xilonen,
Iztacacenteotl, and Tlatlauhquicenteotl. She was fur
ther, according to the same author, identical with To-
nantzin, our mother, and according to Miiller and
many Spanish authorities, either identical or closely
connected with the various deities known as Te-
2
teionan, the mother of the gods, Cihuatcoatl, the
snake-woman, Tazi or Toci or Tocitzin, our grand
mother, and Earth, the universal material mother.
Squier says of Tiazolteotl that "she is Cinteotl, the
3
goddess of maize, under another aspect."
She was particularly honored by the Totonacs, with
whom she was the chief divinity. They greatly loved
her, believing that she did not demand human vic-
1
Miiller,Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 493.
2
Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 16, 22, indeed, says that
Teteiouaa and Tocitzin are certainly different.
3
Squier s Serpent Symbol, p. 47. A passage which makes the principal ele
ment of the character of Toci or Tocitzin that of Goddess of Discord may
he condensed from Acosta, as follows: When the Mexicans, in their
wanderings, had settled for a time in the territory of Culhnacan, they were
instructed by their god Huitzilopochtli to go forth and make wars, and first
to apotheosize, after his directions, a Goddess of Discord. Following these
directions, they sent to the king of Culhuacan for his daughter to be their
queen. Moved by the honor, the father sent his hapless daughter, gorgeously
attired, to be enthroned. But the wiley, superstitious, and ferocious Mexicans
slew the girl and flayed her, and clothed a young man in her skin, calling
him their goddess and mother of their god, under the name of Toccy, that
is, grandmother. See also Purchas his Pilyrimes, vol. iv., p. 1004.
 THE MOTHER-NOURISHER 351

tims, but was content with flowers and fruits, the fat
banana and the yellow maize, and small animals, such
as doves, quails, arid rabbits. More, they hoped that
she would in the end utterly deliver them from the
cruel necessity of such sacrifices, even to the other gods.
With very different feeling, as we shall soon see.,
did the Mexicans proper approach this deity, making
her temples horrid with the tortured forms of human
sacrifices. It shows how deep the stain of the blood
was in the Mexican religious heart, how poisonous far
the odor of it had crept through all the senses of the
Aztec soul, when it could be believed that the Ooreat
/

sustainer, the yelloAV waving maize, the very mother

4
of all, must be fed upon the flesh of her own children.
To make comprehensible various allusions, it seems
well here to sum up rapidly the characters given of
certain goddesses identical with or resembling in
various points this Centeotl. Chicomecoatl was, ac-

^Claviycro, StoriaAnt. del Messico, torn, i., pp. 16-22; Explication del Code,r,
Telkriano-Remensis, lam. xii., in KingsborouijlCs Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 140;
Spieyaziove delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. xxx., Jb., p. 180; Humboldt,
Exsai Politique, torn, i., p. 217; Schoolcraftfs Arch., vol. vi., p. 631. The sacri
fices to Centeotl, if she be identical with the earth-mother, are illustrated
by the statement of Mendieta, Hltt. Ecles., p. 81, that the Mexicans painted
the earth-goddess as a frog with a bloody mouth in every joint of her body
(which frog we shall meet again by and by in a Centeotl festival), for they
said that the earth devoured all things -a proof also, by the bye, among
others of a like kind which we shall encounter, that not to the Hindoos alone
(as Mr J. G. Miiller somewhere affirms), but to the Mexicans also, belonged
the idea of multiplying the organs of their deities to express great powers in
any given direction. The following note from the Spiejazione delle Tavole
del Codice Mexicano, in Kingsborauyh a Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 179-80, illus
trates the last point noticed, gives another form or relation of the goddess of
sustenance, and also the origin of the name applied to the Mexican priests:
They feign that Mayaguil was a woman with four hundred breasts, and
that the gods, on account of her fruitfulness, changed her into the Maguey,
which is the vine of that country, from which they make wine. She presided
over these thirteen signs; but whoever chanced to be born on the first sign
of the Herb, it proved unlucky to him; for they say that it was applied
to the Tlamatzatzguex, who were a race of demons dwelling amongst them,
who according to their account wandered through the air, from whom the
ministers of their temples took their denomination. When this sign arrived,
parents enjoined their children not to leave the house, lest any misfortune or
unlucky accident should befall them. They believed that those who were
born in Two Canes, which is the second sign, would be long lived, for they
say that that sign was applied to heaven. They manufacture so many things
from this plant called the Maguey, and it is so very useful in that country,
that the devil took occasion to induce them to believe that it was a god, and
to worship and offer sacrifices to it.
^S thayttn, Hixt. Gen., torn, i., lib. i., pp., 5-6; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethnol.
Soc., Transact,, vol. i., pp. 341, 349-50, condensing from and commenting
 352 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

cording to Sahagun, the Ceres of Mexico, and the

goddess of provisions, as well of what is drunk as of
what is eaten. She was represented with a crown on
her head, a vase in her right hand, and on her left
arm a shield with a great flower painted thereon; her
garments and her sandals were red.
The first of the Mexican goddesses was, following
the same authority, Cioacoatl, or Civacoatl. the
god
dess of adverse things, such as poverty, down-hearted-
ness, and toil. She appeared often in the guise of a
great lady, wearing such apparel as was used in the
palace she was also heard at night in the air shouting
;

and even roaring. Besides her name Cioacoatl, which

means snake-woman, she was known as Tonantzin,
that is to say, our mother. She was arrayed in
white robes, and her hair was arranged in front, over
her forehead, in little curls that crossed each other.
It was a custom with her to carry a cradle on her
shoulders, as one that carries a child in it, and after
setting it down in the market-place beside the other
women, to disappear. When this cradle was ex
amined, there was found a stone knife in it, and with
this the priests slew their sacrificial victims.
The goddess of Sahagun s description most resem
bling the Toci of other writers is the one that he calls

upon the codices Vaticanus and Tellerianus, says: Tonacacigua, alias

Tuchiquetzal (plucking rose), and Chicomecouatl (seven serpents); wife of
Tonacatlecotle; the cause of sterility, famine, and miseries of life....
Amongst Sahagun s superior deities is found Civacoatl, the serpent-woman,
also called Tonantzin, our mother; and he, sober as he is in Scriptural
allusions, calls her Eve, and ascribes to her, as the interpreters [of the
codices] to Tonatacinga, all the miseries and adverse things of the world.
This aaalogy is, if I am not mistaken, the only foundation for all the allu
sions to Eve and her history, before, during, and after the sin, which the in
terpreters have tried to extract from paintings which indicate nothing of the
kind. They were certainly mistaken in saying that their Tonacacinga was
also called Chicomecouatl, seven serpents.
They should have said Civacoatl,
the serpent-wornan. Chicomecoatl, instead of being the cause of sterility,
famine, etc., is, according to Sahagun, the goddess of abundance, that which
supplies both eating and drinking: probably the same as Tzinteotl, or Cin-
teotl, the goddess of maize (from centli, maize), which he does not mention.
There is no more foundation for ascribing to Tonacacigua the name of Suchi-
quetzal. Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. i., p. 39, says in effect: Cihuacohuatl,
or snake-woman, was supposed to have
given birth to two children, male and
female, whence sprung the human race. It is on this account that twins are
singular, cohuatl or coatl, now
called in Mexico cocohua, snakes, or in the
vulgarly pronounced coate.
 MEDICINE-GODDESS, 353

the mother of tlie gods, the heart of the earth, and

our ancestor or grandmother (abuela). She is described
as the goddess of medicine and of medicinal herbs, as
worshipped by doctors, surgeons, blood-letters, of those
that gave herbs to produce abortions, and also of the
diviners that pronounced upon the fortune of children
according to their birth. They worshipped her also
that cast lots with grains of maize, those that augured
by looking into water in a bowl, those that cast lots
with bits of cord tied together, those that drew little
worms or maggots from the mouth or eyes, those that
extracted little stones from other parts of the body,
and those that had sweat-baths, temazcallis, in their
houses. These last always set the image of this god
dess in the baths, calling her Temazcalteci, that is to
say, the grandmother of the baths. Her adorers
made this goddess a feast every year, buying a woman
for a sacrifice, decorating this victim with the orna
ments proper to the goddess. Every evening they
danced with this unfortunate, and regaled her deli
cately, praying her to eat as they would a great lady,
and amusing her in every way, that she might not
weep nor be sad at the prospect of death. When the
dreadful hour did come, having slain her, together
with two others that accompanied her to death, they
flayed her; then a man clothed himself in her skin
and went about all the city playing many pranks
by all of which her identity with Tozi seems suffi
ciently clear. This goddess was represented with the
mouth and chin stained with ulli, and a round patch
of the same on her face; on her head she had a kind
of turban made of cloth rolled round and knotted be
hind. In this knot were stuck plumes which issued
from it like flames, and the ends of the cloth fell be
hind over the shoulders. She wore sandals, a shirt
with a kind of broad serrated lower border, and white
petticoats. In her left hand she held a shield with a
round plate of gold in the centre thereof; in her right
hand she held a broom. 6
6
KiiKisharowili x Mex. Anti<i., vol. vii., pp. 3^4.
VOL. III. 23
354 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

The festival in which divers of the various manifes

tations of the mother-goddess were honored was held
in the beginning of the eleventh Aztec month, begin

ning on the 14th of September; Centeotl, or Cinteotl,

or Centeutl, or Tzinteutl, is, however, represented
therein as a male, and not a female.
Fifteen days before the commencement of the fes
tival those that took part in it began to dance, if

dancing it could be called, in which the feet and body

were hardly moved, and in which the time was kept
by raising and lowering the hands to the beat of the
drum. This went on for eight days, beginning in the
afternoon and finishing with the set of sun, the dancers
being perfectly silent, arranged in four lines, and each
having both hands full of flowers, cut branches and
all. Some of the youths, indeed, too restless to bear
the silence, imitated with their mouths the sound of
the drum but all were forced to keep, as well in mo
;

tion as in voice, the exactest time and good order.

On the expiration of these eight days the medical
women, both old and young, divided themselves into
two parties, and fought a kind of mock battle before
the woman that had to die in this festival, to amuse
her and keep tears away; for they held it of bad au
gury if this miserable creature gave way to her grief,
and as a sign that many women had to die in child
birth. This woman, who was called for the time
being the image of the mother of the gods, led in
person the first attack upon one of the two parties of
fighters, being accompanied by three old women that
were to her as mothers, and never left her side, called
respectively Aoa, Tlavitezqui, and Xocuauhtli.
7
The
with handfuls of
fight consisted in pelting each other
red leaves or leaves of the nopal, or of yellow flowers
called cempoalsuchitl, the same sort as had been carried
by the actors in the preceding dance. These women
wore girdles, to which were suspended
all little gourds
filled with powder of the herb called yietl. When the

Or, according to Bustamante s

7
ed., Aba, Tlavitecqui, and Xoquauchtli.
Sahayun, Hist. Gen., torn. L, Kb. ii., p. 149.
 SACRIFICE TO THE MOTHER-GODDESS. 355

pelting-match was over, the woman that had to die

was led back to the house where she was guarded;
and all this was repeated during four successive days.
Then the victim representing Toci, that is to say, our
grandmother or ancestor/ for so was called the mother
of the gods, was led for the last time through the
market-place by the medical woman. This ceremony
was called the farewell to the market-place; for
never more should she see it who this day passed
through, decorated in such mournful frippery, sur
rounded by the pomp of sucli hollow mirth. She went
sowing maize on every side as she walked, and having
passed through the market, she was received by the
priests, who took her to a house near the cu where she
had to be killed. There the medical women and mid-
wives consoled her: Daughter, be joyful, and not sad,
this night thou shalt sleep with the king. Then they
adorned her with the ornaments of the goddess Toci,
striving all the while to keep the fact of her death in
the background, that she might die suddenly and
without knowing
O At
midnight,
it.
O in darkness, not
so much as a
cough breaking the silence, she was led
to the holy temple-top, and caught up swiftly on the
shoulders of a man. There was hardly a struggle ;

her bearer felt himself deluged with blood, while she

was beheaded with all despatch, and
flayed, still warm.
The skin of the thighs was iirst taken cff, and carried,
for a purpose to be
presently revealed, to the cu of
Centeotl, who was the son of Toci. With the remain
der the skin, next taken off, a priest clothed him
of>

self, drawing it on, it would appear from other records,

like a glove; this priest, who was a
young man chosen
for his bodily forces and size, thus clothed
represented
Toci, the goddess herself. The Toci priest, with this
horrible jacket sticking to his sinewy bust, then came
down from the temple amid the chanting of the sing
ers of the cu. On each side of him went two persons,
who had made a vow to help him in this service, and
behind came several other priests. In front there ran
a number of principal men and soldiers, armed with
356 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

besoms of blood-stained grass, who looked back from

time to time, and struck their shields as if provoking
a fight; these he pretended to pursue with great fury,
and all that saw this play (which was called cacacalli)
feared and trembled exceedingly. On reaching the
cu of Huitzilopochtli, the Toci priest spread out his
arms and stood like a cross before the image of the
war-god; this he did four times, and then went on to
the cu of Centeotl, whither, as we remember, the skin
of the thighs of the flayed woman had been sent.
This skin of the thighs another young priest, repre
senting the god Centeotl, son of Toci, had put on over
his face like a mask. In addition to this loathsome
veil, he wore a jacket of feathers and a hood of feath
ers attached to the jacket. This hood ran out into a
peak of a spiral form falling behind ;
and the back
bone or spine of this spiral resembled the comb of a
cock; this hood was called ytztlacoliuhqui, that is to
7

say, god of frost.

The Tocipriest and the Centeotl priest next went
together to the cu of Toci, where the first waited for
the morning (for all this already described took place
at night), to have certain trappings put on over his
horrid under-vest. When the morning broke, amid
the chanting of the singers, all the principal men, who
had been waiting below, ran with great swiftness up
the steps of the temple, carrying their offerings. Some
of these principal men began to cover the feet and the
head of the Toci priest with the white downy inner
feathers of the eagle; others painted his face red;
others put on him a rather short shirt with the figure
of an eagle wrought or woven into the breast of it, and
certain painted petticoats others beheaded quails and
;

offered copal. All this done quickly, these men took

their departure.
Then were brought forth and put on the Toci priest
all his rich vestures, and a kind of square crown very
wide above and ornamented with five little banners,
one in each corner, and in the centre one higher tlian
the others. All the captives that had to die were
 THE SKIN-BEARERS. 357

brought out and set in line, and he took four of them,

one after the other, threw them down on the sacrificial
stone, and took out their hearts; the rest of the
captives he handed over to the other priests to com
plete the work he had begun. After this he set out
with the Centeotl priest for the cu of the latter. In
advance of these a little way there walked a party
of their devotees, called ycuexoan, decorated with
papers, girt for breech-clout with twisted paper,
carrying at their shoulders a crumpled paper, round
like a shield, and tassels of untwisted cotton. On
either side also there went those that sold lime 8 in
the market, and the medical women, moving to the
singing of the priests and the beat of drum. Having
come to the place where heads were spitted at the
cu of Centeotl, the Toci priest set one foot on the
drum and waited there for the Centeotl priest. The
two being come together, it would seem that he
who represented Centeotl now set out alone, with
much haste and accompanied by many soldiers for a
place on the enemy s frontier where there was a kind
of small hut built. There at last was deposited and
leftthe skin of the thighs of the sacrificed woman
which had served such ghastly use. And often, it is
said, ithappened, this ceremony taking place on the
border of a hostile territory, that the enemy sallied
out against the procession, and there was fighting, and
many were slain.
After this the young man who represented the goddess
Toci was taken to the house that is called Atempan.
The king took his seat on a throne with a mat of eagle-
skin and feathers under his feet, and a
tiger-skin over
the back of his seat, and there was a grand review of
the army, and a distribution from the royal treasury of
raiment, ornaments, and arms; and it was understood
that those who received such arms had to die with
them in war. This done, dcincino- O was be^ un in the *. ^

court-yard of the temple of Toci; and all who had

*Lhne was much used in. the preparation of mai/e for making various
articles of food.
358 GODS. SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. AND WORSHIP.

received presents, as above, repaired thither. This

as in the first part of the festival, consisted
dancing,
for the most part in keeping time to the beat of the
drum with hands filled with flowers so that the whole
;

court looked like a living garden; and there was so

much gold, for the king and all the princes were there,
that the sun flashed through all as on water. This
began at midday and went on for two days. On the
evening ofthe second day, the priests of the goddess
Chicomecoatl, clothed with the skins of the captives
that had died in a former day, ascended a small cu
called the table of Huitzilopochtli and sowed maize of
all kinds, white and yellow and red, and calabash-seeds,

upon the heads of the people that were below. The

people tried to gather up these as they fell, and
elbowed each other a good deal. The damsels, called
cioatlamacazqm, that served the goddess Chicomecoatl,
carried each one on her shoulder, rolled in a rich man
tle, seven ears of maize, striped with melted ulli and
wrapped in white paper; their legs and arms were
decorated with feathers sprinkled over with marcasite.
These sang with the priest of their goddess. This done,
one of the priests descended from the above-mentioned
cu of Huitzilopochtli, carrying in his hand a large
basket filled with powdered chalk and feather-down,
which he set in a, small chamber, or little cave called
coaxalpan, between the temple stairs and the temple
itself. This cavity was reached from below by four
or five steps, and when the basket was put down there
was a general rush of the soldiers to be first to secure
some of the contents. Every one, as he got his hands
filled, with much elbowing, returned running to
the
place whence he had set out. All this time the Toci
priest had been looking on, and now he pretended to
chase those that ran, while they pelted him back with
the down and powdered chalk they had in their hands;
the king himself running a little way and pelting him
like the rest. After this fashion they all ran away
from him and left him alone, except some priests, who
followed him to a place called Tocititlan, when he took
 THE XILONEN FESTIVAL. 359

off the skin of the sacrificed woman and hung it up in

a little hut that was there; taking care that its arms
were stretched out, and that the head (or surely the
neck for have we not read that the head was cut off
the woman on the fatal night which, terminated her
life?) was turned toward the road,
or street. And
this was the last of the ceremonies of the feast of
9
Ochpaniztli.
The intimate connection of the goddess Xilonen
(from xilotl, a young or tender ear of maize) with Cen-
teotl is shown by the fact that in the cu of Ceriteotl
was woman who was decorated
killed the unfortunate
to resemble the goddess Xilonen. The festival of
Xilonen commenced on the eleventh day of the eighth
Mexican month, which month begins on the 16th of
July. The victim was made to resemble the image
of the goddess by having her face painted yellow from
the nose downward, and her brow red. On her head
was put a crown of paper with four corners, from the
centre and top of which issued many plumes. Round
her neck and over her breasts hung strings of precious
stones, and over these was put a round medal of gold.
Her garments and sandals were curiously wrought,
the latter painted with red stripes. On her left arm
was a shield, and in the right hand she held a stick, or
baton, painted yellow The women led her to deatli
dancing round her, and the priests and the principal
men danced before them, sowing incense as they went.
The priest who was to act as executioner had on his
shoulders a bunch of feathers, held there in the grip
of an eagle s talons, artificial; another of the priests
carried the hollow board filled with rattles, so often
mentioned. At the foot of the cu of Centeotl, this
latter stopped in front of the Xilonen woman, scat
tered incense before her, and rattled with his board,
waving O it from side to side. They ascended the cu, t/

and one of the priests caught the victim up, twisting

her backwards, her shoulders against his shoulders;
9
Kinfj8bor<nwfi8 Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 69-70; Saharjun, Hist. Gen., torn,
i., lib. ii., pp. 148-50.
 360 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

on which livingO altar her heart was cut out through3

her breast, and put into a cup. After that there was
more dancing, in which the women, old and young,
took part in a body by themselves, their arms and legs
decorated with red macaw feathers, and their faces
painted yellow and dusted with marcasite. There
was also a
banquet of small pies, called xocotamalli,
during which to the old men and women license was
given to drink pulque ; the young, however, being re
strained from the bacchanalian part of this enjoyment
10
by severe and sometimes capital punishment.
Lastly, the intimate connection or identity of Cen-
teotl with the earth -mother, the all-nourish er, seems
clearly symbolized in the feast of the fourth month of
the Mexicans, which began on the 27th of April. In
it they made a festival to the god of cereals, under the
name of Centeotl, and to the goddess of provisions,
called Chicomecoatl. First they fasted four days, put
ting certain rushes or water-flags beside the images of
the gods, staining the white part of the bottom of
each rush with blood drawn from their ears or legs;
branches, too, of the kind called acxoiatl, and a kind
of bed or mattress of hay, were put before the altars.
A sort of porridge of maize, called mazamorra, was
also made and given to the youths. Then all walked
out into the country and through the maize -fields,
carrying stalks of maize and other herbs called me-
coatl With these they strewed the image of the god
of cereals that every one had in his house, and they put
papers on it and food before it of various kinds; five
11
chiquivites, or baskets, of tortillas, and on the top of
12
each chiquivitl a cooked frog, a basket of chian flour,
which they called pinolli; 13 and a basket of toasted .

maize mixed with beans. They cut also a joint from

a green maize-stalk, stuffed the little tube with mor-

10
Kingsboroufjh s Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 60-1; Sahayun, Hist. Gen., torn,
torn, ii., p. 75; Tor-
pp. lt35-9; Claviyero, Storia Ant. del Messico,
i., lib. ii.,

quemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 2C59-71.

Chiqumitl, cesto 6 canasta. Molina, V ocdbulario.
11

12
Chian, 6 Chia, cierta semilla de que sacan azeite. Id.
13
Pinolli, la harina de mayz y chia, antes que la deslian. Id.
 BLESSING THE SEED-MAIZE. 3C1

sels of every kind of tlie above-mentioned food, and

14
set it
carefully on the back of the frog. This each
one did in his own house, and in the afternoon all this
offering of food was carried to the cu of the goddess
of provisions, of the goddess Chiconiecoatl, and eaten
there in a general scramble, take who take could;
symbolizing one knows not what, if not the laisser-
faire and laisser-aller system of national commisariat
much advocated by many political enconomists, savage
and civilized.
In this festival the ears of maize that were preserved
for seed were carried in procession by virgins to a cu,

apparently the one just mentioned, but which L here

called the cu of Chiconiecoatl and of Centeotl. The
maidens carried on their shoulders not more than seven
ears of corn apiece, sprinkled with drops of oil of ulli,
and wrapped first in papers and then in a cloth. The
legs and arms of these girls were ornamented with red
feathers, and their faces were smeared with the pitch
called chapopotli and sprinkled with marcasite. As
they went along in this bizarre attire, the people
crowded to see them pass, but it was forbidden to
speak to them. Sometimes, indeed, an irrepressible
youth would break out into words of admiration or
love toward some fair pitch-besmeared face, but his
answer came sharp and swift from one of the old wo
men that watched the younger, in some such fashion
as this- And so thou speakest, raw coward! thou
must be speaking, eh? Think first of performing
some man s feat, and get rid of that tail of hair at the
nape of thy neck that marks the coward and the good-
for-nothing. It is not for thee to speak here thou ,

art as much a woman as I am thou hast never come ;

out from behind the fire! But the young lovers of

Tenochtitlan were not without insolent spring-alls
among them, much given to rude gibes, and retorts
like the following: Well said,
my lady, I receive thi>s

with thanks, I will do what you command me, will

u
Apparently the earth synil><
>1!x .<! a ; a frog (see this vol., p. 351, note 4),
and bearing t!i fruits thereof
: <m M.
3G2 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

take care to show myself a man; but as for you, I

value two cacao-beans more than you and all your
lineage ; put mud on your body and scratch yourself ;
fold one leg over the other and roll in the dust see ;
!

here is a rough stone, knock your face against it; and

if you want anything more, take a red-hot coal and
burn a hole in your throat to spit through ; for God s
sake, hold your peace.
This the young fellows said, writes Sahagun, to
show their courage and so it went, give and take, till
;

the maize was carried to the cu and blessed. Then

the folk returned to their houses, and sanctified maize
was put in the bottom of every granary, and it was
said that it was the heart thereof, and it remained
there till taken out for seed. These ceremonies were
specially in honor of the goddess Chicomecoatl. She
she it was that had made all kinds
supplied provisions,
of maize and frijoles, and whatsoever vegetables could
be eaten, and all sorts of chia and for this they made
;

her that festival with offerings of food, and with songs

and dances, and with the blood of quails. All the
ornaments of her attire were bright red and curiously
15
wrought, and in her hands they put stalks of maize.
The Mexicans deified, under the name Cioapipilti,
all women that died in childbed. There were ora
tories raised to their honor in every ward that had
two streets. In such oratories, called cioateucalli or
ciateupan, there were kept images of these goddesses
adorned with certain papers, called amatetevitl. The
eighth movable feast of the Mexican calendar was
dedicated to them, falling in the sign Cequiahuitl, in
the first house; in this feast were slain in their honor
all lying in the jails under pain of death. These god
desses were said to move through the air at pleasure,
and to appear to whom they would of those that lived
upon the earth, and sometimes to enter into and pos
sess them, They were accustomed to hurt children
15
Kingsborougtis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 43-4; SaJiagun, Hist. Gen., torn,
i., pp. 97-100; Clawjero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 07; Tor"
lib. ii.,

quemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii , pp. 52-3, (50-1, 134, 152-3, 181, 255-G.
 THE MOTHER-GODDESS AND WOMAN IN CHILDBED 363

with various infirmities, especially paralysis and other

sudden diseases. Their favorite haunt on earth was
the cross-roads, and on certain days of the year, peo
pie would not go out of their houses for fear of meet
ing them. They were propitiated in their temples
and at the cross-roads by offerings of bread kneaded
into various shapes into figures of butterflies and
thunderbolts, for
example by offerings of small
tamales, or pies, and of toasted maize. Their images,
besides the papers above mentioned, were decorated
by having the face, arms, and legs painted very white ;

their ears were made of gold their hair was dressed

;

the shirt was painted

like that of ladies, in little curls ;

over with black waves; the petticoats were worked in

divers colors; the sandals were white.
The mother-goddess, under the form of the serpent-
woman, Cioacoatl, or Ciuacoatl, or Cihuacoatl, or lastly,
Quilaztli, seems to have been held as the patroness of
women in childbed generally, and especially of those
thqt died there. When the delivery of a woman was
likely to be tedious and dangerous, the midwife ad
dressed the patient saying; Be strong, my daughter;
we can do nothing for thee. Here are present thy
mother and thy relations, but thou alone must conduct
this business to its termination. See to it, my daugh
ter, my well-beloved, that thou be a strong and valiant
and manly woman ; be like her who first bore children,
like Cioacoatl, like Quilaztli. And if still after a day
and a night of labor the woman could not bring forth,
the midwife took her away from all other persons and
brought her into a closed room and made many prayers,
callingupon the goddess Cioacoatl, and upon the goddess
18
Yoalticitl, and upon other goddesses. If, notwith-

16
Yoalticitl, another name of the mother-goddess, of the mother of the
gods, of the mother of us all, of our grandmother or ancestress; more par
ticularly that form of the mother-goddess described, after Sahagun (this vol.,
as being the patroness of medicine and of doctors and of the sweat-
L333),
tlis. Sahagun speaks in another passage of Yoalticitl (Kinijuborongtis
Alex. Aritttj., vol. v., p. 453): La madre de los Dioses, que es la Diosa de las
medicinas y medicos, y es madre de todos nosotros, la cual se llama Yoalti
citl, la qual tiene poder y antoridad sobre los Temazcales [sweat-baths] que
Hainan Xuchicalli, en el qual lugar e^ta Diosa ve las cosas socretas, y adereza
364 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

standing all, the woman died, they gave her the title
mociaquezqm, that is, valiant woman/ and they washed
all her body, and washed with
soap her head and her
hair. Her husband lifted her on his shoulders, and
with her long hair flowing loose behind him, carried her
to the place of burial. All the old midwives accom
panied the body, marching with shields and swords,
and shouting as when soldiers close in the attack.
They had need of their weapons, for the body that
they escorted was a holy relic which many were eager
to win; and a of youths fought with these
party
Amazons to take their treasure from them this fiVht O :

was no play, but a very bone-breaking earnest. The

burial procession set out at the setting of the sun, and
the corpse was interred in the court-yard of the cu of
the goddesses, or celestial women, called Cioapipilti.
Four nights the husband and his friends guarded the
grave, and four nights the youths, or rawest and most
inexperienced soldiers, prowled like wolves about the
little band. If, either from the fighting midwives or
from the night-watchers, they succeeded in securing
the body, they instantly cut off the middle finger of
the left hand and the hair of the head either of these
;

things being put in one s shield made one fierce, brave,

invincible in war, and blinded the eyes of one s ene
mies. There prowled also round the sacred tomb cer
tain wizards, called temamacpalilotique, seeking to hack
off and steal the whole left arm of the dead wife; for

they held it to be of mighty potency in their enchant

ments, and a thing that when they went to a house to
work their malice thereon would wholly take away
the courage of the inmates, and dismay them so that
they could neither move hand or foot, though they
saw all that passed.
The death of this woman in childbed was mourned
by the midwives, but her parents and relations were
joyful thereat; for they said that she did not go to
hades, or the under-ground world, but to the western
las cosas desconcertadas en los
cuerpos de los hombres, y fortifica las cosaa
tiernas y blandas.
 THE HOUSE OF THE SUN. 365

part of the House of the Sun. To the eastern part

of the House of the Sun, as the ancients said, were
taken up all the soldiers that died in war. When the
sun rose in the morning these brave men decorated
themselves in their panoply of w ar, and accompanied
T

him toward the mid-heaven, shouting and fighting,

apparently in a sham or review battle, until they
reached the point of noon-day, which was called nepan-
tlatonatiuh. At this point the heroines whose home
was in the west of heaven, the mocioaquezque, the
valiant women, dead in childbed, who ranked as equal
with the heroes fallen in war, met these heroes and re
lieved them of their duty as guards of honor of the
sun. From noon till night, down the western slope
of light, while the forenoon escort of warriors were
scattered through all the fields and gardens of heaven,
sucking flowers till another day should call them anew
to their duty, the women, in panoply of war, just as
the men had been, and fighting like them with clash
ing .shields and shouts of joy, bore the sun to his set
ting; carrying him on a litter of quetzales, or rich
feathers, called the quetzal-apanecaiutl. At this set
ting-place of the sun the women were, in their turn,
relieved by those of the under-world, who here came
out to receive him. For it was reported of old by the
ancients that when night began in the upper world the
sun began to shine through hades, and that thereupon
the dead rose up from their sleep and bore his shining
litter through their domain. At this hour too the celes
tial women, released from their duty in heaven, scat
tered and poured down through the air upon the earth,
where, with a touch of the dear nature that makes
the world kin, they are described as looking for spindles
to spin with, and shuttles to weave with, and all the
old furniture and implements of their housewifely
pride. This tiling, says Sahagun, "the devil wrought
to deceive withal, for very often, in the form of those
women, he appeared to their bereaved husbands, giv
ing them petticoats and shirts."
Very beautiful was the form of address before burial
366 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

used by the midwife to the dead woman who had taken

rank among the mocioaquezque or mocioaquetza: O. wo
man, strong and warlike, child well-beloved, valiant
one, beautiful and tender dove, strong hast thou been
and toil-enduring as a hero thou hast conquered, thou
;

hast done as did thy mother the lady Cioacoatl, or

QuilaztlL Very valiantly hast thou fought, stoutly
hast thou handled the shield and the spear that the
great mother put in thine hand. Up with thee break
!

from sleep behold, it is already day already the red

!
;

of morning shoots through the clouds; already the

swallows and all birds are abroad. Rise, my daughter,
attire thyself, go to that good land where is the house
of thy father and mother the Sun; thither let thy
sisters, the celestial women, carry thee, they that are
always joyful and merry and filled with delight, be
cause of the Sun with whom they take pleasure. My
tender daughter and lady, not without sore travail
hast thou gotten the glory of this victory; a great
pain and a hard penance hast thou undergone. Well
and fortunately hast thou purchased this death. Is
this, peradventure, a fruitless death, and without great
merit and honor? Nay, verily, but one of much honor
and profit. Who receives other such great mercy,
other such happy victory, as thou ? for thou hast gained
with thy death eternal life, a life full of joy and de
light, with the goddesses called Cioapipilti, the celes
tial goddesses. Go now, my lady, my well-beloved;
little by little advance toward them; be one of them,
that they may receive thee and be always with thee,
that thou mayest rejoice and be glad in our father arid
mother the Sun, and accompany him. whithersoever
he wish to take pleasure. O my lady, my well-beloved
daughter, thou hast left us behind, us old people, un
worthy of such glory; thou hast torn thyself away
from thy father and mother, and departed. Not, in
deed, of thine own will, but thou wast called; thou
didst follow a voice that called. We must remain
orphans and forlorn, old and luckless and poor; misery
will glorify itself in us. O my lady, thou hast left us
 CHALCHIHUITLICUE 367

here that we may go from door to door and through

the streets in poverty and sorrow; we pray thee to
remember us where thou art, and to provide for the
poverty that we here endure. The sun wearies us
with his great heat, the air with its coldness, and the
frost with its torment. All these things afflict and
grieve our miserable earthen bodies; hunger is lord
over us, and we can do nothing against it. well- My
beloved, I pray thee to visit us, since thou art a val
orous woman and a lady, since thou art settled forever
in the pkce of delight and blessedness, there to live
and be forever with our Lord. Thou seest him with
thine eyes, thou speakest to him with thy tongue,
pray to him for us, entreat him that he favor us, and
17
therewith we shall be at rest.

Chalchihuitlicue, or Chalchiuhcyeje, is described by

Clavigero as the goddess of water and the mate of
Tlaloc. She had other names relating"
O to water in its
different states, as Apozonallotl and Acuecuejotl, which
mean the swelling and fluctuation of water; Atlaca-
mani, or the storms excited thereon Ahuic and Aiauh, ;

or its motion, now to one side, now to the other; and

Xixiquipilihui, the alternate rising and falling of the
waves. The Tlascaltecs called her Matlalcueje, that
is, clothed in a green robe; and they gave the same
name to the highest mountain of Tlascala, on whose
summit are found those stormy clouds which generally
burst over the city of Puebla. To that summit the
Tlascaltecs ascended to perform their sacrifices and
offer up their prayers. This is the very same goddess of
water to whom Torquemada gives the name of Hochi-
quetzal, and Boturini that of Macuilxochiquetzalli. 18
Of the accuracy of the assertions of this last sen
tence I am by no means certain; Boturini and Torque
mada both describe their goddess of water without
giving any support thereto. Boturini says that she
17
KiiHjHborouylCs Mcx. Ant tq., vol. vii., pp. 5, 35, vol. v.,
pp. 450-2; Sahayun,
Hixt. Gen., torn, i., lib. pp. 8-9, lib. ii., pp. 78-9; torn, ii., lib. vi.,
i., pp.
18
Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mexsicq torn, ii., p. 16.
368 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

was metaphorically called by the Mexicans the goddess

of the Petticoat of Precious Stones chalchihuites, as
it would appear from other authorities,
being meant
and that she was represented with large pools at
her feet, and symbolized by certain reeds that grow in
moist places. She was particularly honored by fisher
men and others whose trade connected them with
water, and great ladies were accustomed to dedicate
to her their nuptials probably, as will be seen imme
diately, because this goddess had much to do with
certain lustral ceremonies performed on new-born
19
children.
Many names, writes Torquemada, were given to this
goddess, but that of Chalchihuitlicue was the most
common and usual; it meant to say, petticoat of
water, of a shade between green and blue, that is, of
the color the stones called chalchihuites. 20 She was
the companion, not the wife, of Tlaloc, for indeed, as
our author affirms, the Mexicans did not think so
21
grossly of their gods and goddesses as to marry them.
According to Sahagun, Chalchihuitlicue was the
sister of the Tlalocs. She was honored because she
had power over the waters of the sea and of the rivers
to drown those that went down to them, to raise
tempests and whirlwinds, and to cause boats to founder,
19
Boturini, Idea, pp. 25-6.
20
The stones called chalclunites by the Mexicans (and written variously
chalckibetes, chalchihuis, and by the chroniclers) were esteemed of
calcluhula
high value by all the Central American and Mexican nations. They were
generally of green quartz, jade, or the stone known as inodre de Esmeralda.
.... The goddess of water, amongst the Mexicans, bore the name of Chalchhdl-
cuye, the woman of the Ckaldduites, and the name of Chalchtuihapan was often
applied to the city of Tlaxcalla, from a beautiful fountain of water found
near it, the color of which," according to Torquemada,
"

was between blue

"

and green." Sqider, in Palacio, Cart.a, p. 110, note 15. In the same work, p.
53, we find mention made by Palacio of an idol apparently representing Chal
chihuitlicue: Very near here is a little village called Coatan, in the neigh
borhood of which is a lake ["this lake is distant two leagues to the south
ward of the present considerable town of Guatepcquc, from which it takes its
"

name, Lat/ioia de Gwttepue Guatemala], situated on the flank of the vol

cano. Its water is bad; it is deep, and full of caymans. In its middle there
are two small islands. The Indians regard the lake as an oracle of much
authority I learned that certain negroes and mulattoes of an adjacent estate
, , , .

had been there [on the islands], and had found a great idol of stone in the
form of a woman, and some objects which had been offered in sacrifice. Near
by were found some stones called chalchibites.
21
Torquemada, Monarq. ImL, torn, ii., p. 47.
 IDOL OF CHALCHIHUITLICUE. SG9

They worshipped her, all those that dealt in water, that

w^ent about selling it from canoes, or pedled jars of
it in the market. They represented this goddess as a
woman, painted her face yellow, save the forehead,
which was often blue, and hung round her neck a collar
of precious stones from which depended a medal of
gold. On her head was a crown of light blue paper,
with plumes of green feathers, and tassels that fell to
the nape of her neck. Her ear-rings were of turquoise
wrought in mosaic. Her clothing was a shirt, or upper
body-garment, clear blue petticoats with fringes, from
which hung marine shells, and white sandals. In her
left hand she held a shield and a leaf of the broad
round white water-lily, called atlacuezona* 2 In her
right hand she held as a sceptre a vessel in the shape
of a cross, or of a monstrance of the Catholic Church.
This goddess, together with Chicomecoatl, goddess of
provisions, and Vixtocioatl, goddess of salt, was held
in high veneration by kings and lords, for they said
that these three supported the common people so that
23
they could live and multiply.
Chalchihuitlicue was especially connected with cer
tain ceremonies of lustration of children, resembling
O
inmany points baptism among Christians. It would
seem that two of these lustrations were practised upon
22
Atlacue^onan, ninfa vel onenufar, flor de yerna de agua. Molina, Vocab-
ulario. The Abbe Brasseur adds, on what authority I have not been able to
find, that this leaf was ornamented with golden nags. Hist, dcs Nat. Civ.,
torn, i., p. 324. He adds in a note to this passage, what is very true, that
suivant Ixtlilxochitl, et apres lui Veytia, la deesse des eaux aurait adoree e"te

sous la forme d une grenouille, faite d une seule emeraude, et qui, suivant
Ixtlilxochitl, existait encore au temps de la conqm-te de Mexico. La seule
deesse adoree sous la forme unique d une grenouille etait la terre. (See
this vol., p. 351, note 4.) Gomara, Hist. Conq. Mex., fol. 326, says that the
figure of a frog was held to be the goddess of fishes:
*
Entre los idolos. es- . .

taua el de la rama. A
la cual tenian por diosa del pescado. Motolinia ex
tends this last statement as follows: The Mexicans had idols, he says, say
: in
Jcuzbalcctd, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 34, de los pescados grandes y de lo
gartos de agua, hasta sapos y ranas, y de otros peces grandes, y estos decian
quo eran los dioses del pescado. un pueblo de la laguna de Mexico
I>e

llevaron unos idolos de estos peces, que eran unos peces hechos de piedra,
grandes; y despues volviendo por alii pidieronles para comer algunos peces,
y respondieron que habian llevado el dios del pescado y que 110 podiaii tomar
peces.
23
Kin<jxl>orou<j]is
Mcx. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 5-6, 36; Sahw/un, Hist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. i., pp. 9-10, lib. ii., p.81; Amer. Etluiol. Soc., Transact., vol. i.,
pp. 342, 350.
VOL. III. 24
370 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

every infant, and the first took place

immediately
upon its birth. the When
midwife had cut the um
bilical cord of the child, then she washed it, and while

washing it said, varying her address according to its

sex :
son, approach now thy mother, Chalchihui-
My
tlicue, the goddess of water; may she see good to re
ceive thee, to wash thee, and to put away from thee
the filthiness that thou takest from thy father and
mother; may she see good to purify thine heart, to
make it good and clean, and to instil into thee good
habits and manners.
Then the midwife turned to the water itself and
spoke: Most compassionate lady, Chalchihuitlicue,
here has come into the world this thy servant, sent
hither by our father and mother, whose names are
Ometecutli and Omecioatl, 24 who live on the ninth
heaven, which is the place of the habitation of the
gods. We
know not what are the gifts that this in
fant brings with it we know not what was given to
;

it before the beginning of the world; we know not

what it is, nor what mischief and vice it brings with
it taken from its father and mother. It is now in
thine hands, wash and cleanse it as thou knowest to
be necessary; in thine hands we leave it. Purge it
from the filthiness it inherits from its father and its
mother, all spot and defilement let the water carry
and undo. See good, O our lady, to cleanse and
purify its heart and life, that it may lead a quiet and
peaceable life in this world for indeed we leave this
;

creature in thine hands, who art mother and lady of

the gods, and alone worthy of the gift of cleansing
that thou hast held from before the beginning of the
world see good to do as we have entreated thee to
;

this child now in thy presence.

Then the midwife spake again I pray thee to re
:

ceive this child here brought before thee. This said,

the midwife took water and blew her breath upon it,
and gave to taste of it to the babe, and touched the
babe with it on the breast and on the top of the head,
24
See this vol., p. 58, note 15.
 TWO LUSTRATIONS OR BAPTISMS. JJ71

Then she said: My

well-beloved son, or daughter, ap
proach here thy mother and father, Chalchihuitlicue
and Chalchihuitlatonac ; let now this goddess take
thee, for she has to bear thee on her shoulders and in
her arms through this world. Then the midwife
the child into water, and said: Enter, my son,
dipped
into the water that is called mamatlac and tuspalac;
let it wash thee; let him cleanse thee that is in every

place, let him see good

to put away from thee all the
uvil that thou hast carried with thee from before the

beginning of the world, the evil that thy father and

thy mother have joined to thee. Having so washed
the creature, the midwife then wrapped it up, address
ing it the while as followsprecious stone, O rich
:

feather, emerald, O sapphire, thou wert shaped

where abide the great god and the great goddess that
are above the heavens; created and formed thou wert
by thy mother and father, Ometecutli and Omecioatl,
the celestial woman and the celestial man. Thou
hast come into this world, a place of many toils and
troubles, of intemperate heat and intemperate cold
and wind, a place of hunger and thirst, of weariness
and of tears; of a verity we cannot say that this
world is other than a place of weeping, of sadness, of
vexation. Behold thy lot, weariness and weeping
and tears. Thou hast come, my well-beloved, repose
then and take here thy rest let our Lord that is in
;

every place provide for and support thee. And in

saying all these things the midwife spake softly, as one
tli at
prays.
The second lustration, or baptism, usually took place
on the fifth day after birth, but in every case the
astrologers and diviners were consulted, and if the
signs were not propitious, the baptism was postponed
till a day of
good sign came. The ceremony, when
the child was a boy, began by bringing to it a little
shield, bow, and arrows; of which arrows there were
four, one pointing toward each of the four points of the
world. There were also brought a little shield, bow,
and arrows, made of paste or dough of wild amaranth
372 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

seeds, and a pottage of beans and toasted maize, and

a breech-clout and blanket or mantle.
little The poor
in such cases had no more than the little shield, bow,
and arrows, together with some tamales and toasted
maize. When the child was a girl, there were brought
to it, instead of mimic weapons, certain woman s
implements and tools for spinning and weaving, the
spindle and distaff, a little shirt and petticoats. These
things being prepared, suiting the sex of the infant,
its parents and relatives assembled before sunrise.
When the sun rose the midwife asked for a new vessel
full of water; and she took the child in her hands.
Then the by-standers carried all the implements and
utensils already mentioned into the court-yard of the
house, where the midwife set the face of the child
toward the west, and spake to the child saying: O
grandson of mine, O eagle, tiger, valiant man,
thou hast come into the world, sent by thy father and
mother, the great Lord and the great lady; thou wast
created and begotten in thy house, which is the place
of the supreme gods that are above the nine heavens.
Thou art a gift from our son Quetzalcoatl, who is in
every place; join thyself now to thy mother, the god
dess of water, Chalchihuitlicue.
Then the midwife gave the child to taste of the
water, putting her moistened fingers in its mouth, and
said Take this by this thou hast to live on the earth,
:
;

to grow and to through this we get all things

flourish;
that support existence on the earth; receive it. Then
with her moistened fingers she touched the breast of
the child, and said: Behold the pure water that washes
and cleanses thine heart, that removes all filthiness;
receive it; may the goddess see good to purify and
cleanse thine heart. Then the midwife poured water
upon the head of the child, saying: my grandson,
my son, take this water of the Lord of the world,
which is thy life, invigorating and refreshing, washing
and cleansing. I pray that this celestial water, blue
and light blue, may enter into thy body and there live ;

I pray that it may destroy in thee and put away from

 PRAYER TO THE EARTH-MOTHER. 373

thee all the things evil and adverse that were given
thee before the beginning of the world. Into thine
hand, O goddess of water, are all mankind put, because
thou art^ our mother, Chalchihuitlicue. Having so
washed the body of the child and so spoken, the mid
wife said Wheresoever thou art in this child, O thou
:

hurtful thing, begone, leave it, put thyself apart for ;

now does it live anew, and anew is it born now again ;

is it purified and cleansed; now again is it shaped and

engendered by our mother, the goddess of water.

All these things being done and spoken, the mid
wife lifted the child in both her hands toward heaven,
and said: Lord, behold here thy creature that thou
hast sent to this place of pain, of affliction, of anguish,
to this world. Give it, O Lord, thy gifts and thine
inspiration, forasmuch as thou art the great god, and
hast with thee the great goddess. Then the midwife
stooped again and set the child upon the earth, and
raised it the second time toward heaven, saying O :

our lady, who art mother of the heavens, who art

25
called Citlalatonac, to thee I direct my voice and my
cry; I pray thee to inspire with thy virtue, what
virtue soever it may be, to give and to instil it into
this creature. Then the midwife stooped again and set
the child on the O ground, and raised it the third time
33
See note 24. Entre los Dioses quo estos ciegos Mexicanos fingieron
tener, y ser maiores, que otros, fueroii clos; vno llamado Ometecuhtli, que
quiere decir, dos hidalgos, 6 cavalleros; y el otro llainaron Omecihuatl, que
quiere decir, dos mugeres: los quales, por otrcs nombres, fueron llamados,
Citlalatonac, que quiere decir, Estrella que resplandece, 6 resplandecieiite;
y el otro, Citlalicue, que quiere decir, Faldellin. de la Estrella:. .Estos dos
. .

Dioses fingidos de esta (lentilidad, crelan ser el vno Hombre, y el otro Muger;
y como a dos naturalecas distintas, y de distintos sexos las nombraban, como
por los nombres dichos parece. De estos dos Dioses (o por mejor decir, De-
monios) tuvieron creido estos naturales, que residian en vna Ciudad gloriosa,
asentada sobre los once Cielos, cuio suelo era mas alto, y supremo de ellos; y
que en aquella Ciudad gocaban de todos los deleites imaginables y poseian
todos las fiquecas de el Mundo; y decian, que desde alii arriba regian, y gov-
eriiaban toda esta maquina inferior del Mundo, y todo aquello qiie es visible,
e invisible, iniiuiendo en todas las Animas, que criaban todas las inclinacioiies
naturales, que vemos aver en todas las criaturas racioiiales, 6 irracionales; y
que cuidabaa de todo, como por naturaleca los coiivenia, atalaindo desde aquel
su asiento las cosas criadas .... De manera, que segun lo dicho, esta mui elaro
de entender, que tenian opinion, que les que regian, y governaban el Mundo,
eran dos (conviene a saber) vn Dios, y vna Diosa, de los quales el vno que era
el Dios Hombre, obraba en todo el genero de los Varones; y el otro, que era
la Diosa, criaba, y obraba en todo el genero de las Mugeres. Torqnemada,
Mount *}. 2nd., torn, ii., p. 37.
374 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

toward heaven, and said: O our Lord, god and god

dess celestial, that are in the heavens, behold this crea
ture see good to pour into it thy virtue and thy breath,
;

so that it may live upon the earth. Then a fourth and

last time the midwife set the babe upon the ground, a
fourth time she lifted it toward heaven, and she spake
to the sun and said: our Lord, Sun, Totonarnetl,
Tlaltecutli, that art our mother and our father, behold
this creature, which is like a bird of precious plumage,
m
like a zaquan or a quechutl; thine, O our Lord the
Sun, he is; thou who art valiant in war and painted
like a tiger in black and gray, he is thy creature and
of thine estate and patrimony. For this he was born,
to serve thee and to give thee food and drink ; he is of
the family of warriors and soldiers that fight on the
field of battle.
Then the midwife took the shield, and the bow and
the dart that were there prepared, and spake to the Sun
after this sort: Behold here the instruments of war

26
Caquantototl, paxaro de pluma amarillo y rica. Molina, Vocabulario.
According to Bustamante, however, this bird is not one in any way remark
able for plumage, but is identical with the tzacua described by Clavigero, and
is here used as an example of a vigilant and active soldier. Bustamante (in
a note to Sahayun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 194-5) writes: Tzacua,
of this bird repeated mention has been made in this history, for the Indians
used it for a means of comparison or simile in their speeches. It is an early-
rising bird (madrugador), and has nothing notable in its plumage or in. its
voice, but only in its habits. This bird is one of the last to go to rest at
night, and one of the first to announce the coming sun. An hour before day
break a bird of this species, having passed the night with many of his fel
lows on any branch, begins to call them, with a shrill clear note that he
keeps repeating in a glad tone till some of them reply. The tzacua is about
the size of a sparrow, and very similar in color to the bunting (calaiidria),
but more marvellous in its habits. It is a social bird; each tree is a town of
many nests. One Izacua plays the part of chief and guards the rest; his post
is in the top of the tree, whence, from time to time, he flies from nest to nest

uttering his notes; and while he is visiting a nest all within are silent. If
he sees any bird of another species approaching the tree, he sallies out upon
the invader and with beak and wings compels a retreat. But if he sees a
man or any large object advancing, he flies screaming to a neighboring
tree, and, meeting other birds of his tribe flying homeward, he obliges them
to retire by changing the tone of his note. When the danger is over, he re
turns to his tree and begins his rounds as before, from nest to nest. Tzacuas
abound in Michoacan, and to their observations regarding them the Indians
are doubtless indebted for many hints and comparisons applied to. soldiers
diligent in duty. The quechutl, or tlauhquechol, is a large aquatic bird with
plumage of a beautiful scarlet color, or a reddish white, except that of the
neck, which is black. Its home is on the sea-shore and by the river banks,
where it feeds on live fish, never touching dead flesh. See Claviyero, Storia
Ant. delMessico, toui. i., pp. 87, 91-3.
 DEDICATION OF THE CHILD TO WAR. 375

which thou art served with, which thou delightest in ;

impart to this babe the gift that thou art wont to give
to thy soldiers, enabling them to go to thine house of
delights, where, having fallen in battle, they rest and
are joyful, and are now with thee praising thee. Will
this poor little nobody ever be one of them? Have
pity upon him, clement Lord of ours.
all the time of these ceremonies a great
During
torch of candlewood was burning and when these ;

ceremonies were accomplished, a name was given to

the child, that of one of his ancestors, so that he might
inherit the fortune or lot of him whose name v,as so
taken. This name was applied to the child by the
midwife, or priestess, who performed the baptism.
Suppose the name given was Yautl. Then the mid
wife began to shout and to talk like a man to the
child :
Yautl, O valiant man, take this shield and
this dart; these are for thy amusement, they are the

delight of the sun. Then she tied the little mantle

on its shoulders and girt the breech-clout about it.
Now all the boys of the ward were assembled, and at
this stage of the ceremony they rushed into the house
where the baptism had taken place, and representing
soldiers and forrayers, they took food that was there
prepared for them, which was called the navel-string/
or navel/ of the child, and set out with it into the
streets, shouting and eating. They cried Yautl, :

Yautl, get thee to the field of battle, put thyself into

the thickest of the fight O Yautl, Yautl, thine office
;

is to make
glad the sun and the earth, to give them
to eat and to drink upon thee has fallen the lot of
;

the soldiers that are eagles and tigers, that die in

war, that are now making merry and singing before
the sun. And they cried again O soldiers, O men :

of war, come hither, come to eat of the navel of Yautl.

Then the midwife, or priestess, took the child into the
house, and departed, the great torch of candlewood
being carried burning before her, and this was the
2/
last of the ceremony.
27
Kinyslorour/tis Mcx. Antiy., vol. v., pp. 479-483, vol. vii., pp. 151-2;
376 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

The goddess (or god, as some have it) connected by

the Mexicans with carnal love was variously called
Sahayun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib vi pp. 215-21. According to some au
,

thors, and I think Boturini for one, this baptism was supplemented by pass
ing the child through fire. There was such a ceremony; however, it was
not connected with that of baptism, but it took place on the last night of
every fourth year, before the five unlucky days. On the last night of every
fourth year, parents chose god-parents for their children born during the
three preceding years, and these god-fathers and god-mothers passed the
children over, or near to, or about the flame of a prepared fire (rodearlos por
las llamas del fuego que tenian aparejado para esto, que en el latin se dice
lust rare). They also bored the children s ears, which caused no small up
roar (habia gran voceria de muchachos y muchachas por el ahugeramiento
de las orejas), as may well be imagined,, They clasped the children by the
temples and lifted them up to make them grow; wherefore they called the
feast izcalli, growing. They finished by giving the little things pulque
in tiny cups, and for this the feast was called the drunkenness of children.
Saliayun, Hist. Gen., torn, i lib. ii
, pp. 189-92
,
In the Spieyazione dclle
Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. xxxi., in Kingsborough s Mex.
Antiq., vol. v., p. 181, there is given a description of the water baptism dif
fering somewhat from that given in the text. It runs as follows: They
took some ficitle; and having a large vessel of water near them, they made
the leaves of the ficitle into a bunch, and dipped it into the water, with
which they sprinkled the child; and after fumigating it with incense, they
gave it a name, taken from the sign on which it was born; and they put into
its hand a shield and arrow, if it was a boy, which is what the figure of
Xiuatlatl denotes, who here represents the god of war; they also uttered
over the child certain prayers in the manner of deprecations, that he
might become a brave, intrepid, and courageous man. The offering which
his parents carried to the temple the elder priests took and divided with the
other children who were in the temple, who ran with it through the whole
city. Mendieta, Hid. Edes., p. 107, again describes this rite, in substance
as follows: They had a sort of baptism; thus when the child was a few
days old, an old woman was called in, who took the child out into the court
of the house where it was born, and washed it a certain number of times
with the wine of the country, and as many times again with water; then
she put a name on it, and performed certain ceremonies with the umbilical
cord. These names were taken from, the idols, or from the feasts that
fell about that time, or from a beast or bird. See further Esplioacion
de la Colecdon de Mendoza, pt. iii., in Kinyslorouylis Mex. Antiq., vol.
v., pp, 90-1; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 445, 449-58; Cla-
vigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 85-9; Hurnboldt,
Vues des
Corditleres, torn, ii., pp. 311, 318; Gama, Dos Pitdras, pt. ii., pp.
39-41; Prescott s Mex., vol. iii., p. 385; Brintons Mytlis, pp. 122, 130;
Midler, Amerikaniscke Urreliyionen, p. G52; Biart, La Terre Tempered, p.
274. Air Tylor, speaking of Mexico, in his Anahuac, p. 279, says:
*
Children were sprinkled with water when their names were given
to them. This is certainly true, though the statement that they
believed that the process purified them from original sin is probably
a monkish fiction. Further reading, however, has shown Mr Tylor the
injustice of this judgment, and in his masterly latest and greatest work (see
Primitive Culture, vol. ii., pp. 429-30), he writes as follows: The last group
of rites, whose course through religious history is to be outlined here, takes
in the varied dramatic acts of ceremonial purification or lustration. With
all the obscurity and intricacy due to age-long modification, the primitive

thought which underlies these ceremonies is still open to view. It is the tran
sition from practical to symbolic cleansing, from removal of bodily impurity
to deliverance from invisible, spiritual, and at last moral evil. [See this vol.,
p. 1 19.] ... .In old Mexico the first act of ceremonial lustration took place at
birth. The nurse washed the infant in the name of the water-goddess, to re-
 THE AZTEC VENUS. 377

Tlazolteotl, Ixcuina, Tlaclquani, with other names, and,

especially it would appear in Tlascala, Xocliiquetzal.
She had no very prominent or honorable place in the
minds of the people, and was much more closely allied
to the Roman Cloacina than to the Greek Aphrodite.
Camargo, the Tlascaltec, gives much the most agree
able and pleasing account of her. Her home was in
the ninth heaven, in a pleasant garden, watered by in
numerable fountains, where she passed her time spin
ning and weaving rich stuffs, in the midst of delights,
ministered to by the inferior deities. No man was able
to approach her, but she had in her service a crowd of
dwarfs, buffoons, and hunchbacks, who diverted her
O and dances, and acted as messengers
with their soncrs O
to such gods as she took a fancy to. So beautiful was
she painted that no woman in the world could equal
her; and the place of her habitation was called lamo-
tamohuanichan, Xochitlycacan, Chitamihuany, Cicuh-
nauhuepaniuhcan, and Tuhecayan, that is to say, the
ace of Tamohuan, the place of the tree of flowers,
S ochitlihcacan, where the air is purest, beyond the
nine heavens. It was further said that whoever had
been touched by one of the flowers that grow in the
beautiful garden of Xocliiquetzal should love to the
28
end, should love faithfully.

move the impurity of its birth, to cleanse its heart and give it a good and per
fect life; then blowing on water in her right hand, she washed it again, warning
it of forthcoming trials and miseries and labors, and praying the invisible

Deity to descend upon the water, to cleanse the child from sin and foulness,
and to deliver it from misfortune. The second act took place some four
days later, unless the astrologers postponed it. At a festive gathering, amid
fires kept alight from the first ceremony, the nurse undressed the child sent
by the gods into this sad and doleful world, bade it to receive the life-giving
water, and washed it, driving out evil from each limb, and offering to the
deities appointed prayers for virtue and blessing. It was then that the toy
instruments of war or craft or household labor were placed in the boy s or
girl s hand (a custom singularly corresponding with one usual in China),
and the other children, instructed by their parents, gave the new-comer its
child-name, here again to be replaced by another at manhood or womanhood.
There is nothing unlikely in the statement that the child was also passed
four times through the fire, but the authority this is given on is not sufficient.
The religious character of ablution is well shown in Mexico by its form
ing part of the daily service of the priests. Aztec life ended as it had
begun, with this ceremonial lustration; it was one of the funeral ceremonies
to sprinkle the head of the corpse with the lustral water of this life.
28
Caraarv/o, in Nonvdles Amities Voyctf/es, 18i3, torn, xcix., pp. 132-
<hs

3. On cOlebrait cliaque annee une fete solennelle en I hoimeur de cette

 378 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Boturini oives a legend in which this goddess figures

in a very characteristic way. There was a man called
Yappan, who, to win the regard of the gods, made him
self a hermit, leaving his wife and his relations, and re

tiring to a desert place, there to lead a chaste and soli

tary life. In that desert was a great stone, or rock,
called Tehuehuetl, dedicated to penitential acts, which
rock Yappan ascended and took up his abode upon like
a western Simeon Stylites. The gods observed all this
with attention, but doubtful of the firmness of purpose
of the new recluse, they set a spy upon him in the per
son of an enemy of his, named Yaotl, the word ydotl
indeed signifying enemy. Yet not even the sharpened
eye of hate and envy could find any spot in the austere
continent life of the anchorite, and the many women
sent by the gods to tempt him to pleasure were re
pulsed and baffled. In heaven itself the chaste vic
tories of the lonely saint were applauded, and it began
to be thought that he was worthy to be transformed
into some higher form of life. Then Tlazolteotl, feel
ing herself slighted and held for naught, rose up in her
evil beauty, wrathful, contemptuous, and said: Think
not, ye high and immortal gods, that this hero of yours
has the force to preserve his resolution before me, or
that he is worthy of any very sublime transformation ;

I descend to earth, behold now how strong is the vow

of your devotee, how unfeigned his continence !

That day the flowers of the gardens of Xochiquetzal

were untended by their mistress, her singing dwarfs
were silent, her messengers undisturbed by her be
hests, and away in the desert, by the lonely rock, the
crouching spy Ydotl saw a wondrous sight one shaped :

like a woman, but fairer than eye can conceive, ad

vancing toward the lean penance- withered man on the

sacred height. Ha! thrills not the hermit s mortified
flesh with something more than surprise while the

deesse Xochiquetzal, et une fotile de peuple se reunissait dans son temple.

On disait qu elle etait la femme de Tlaloc le dieu des eaux, et que Texcat-
lipuca la lui avait enlevee et 1 avait transported au neuvieme ciel. Met-
lacueycati etait la deesse des magiciennes. Tlaloc 1
epousa quand Xochi
lui cut ete enlevee.
 TLAZOLTEOTL SEDUCES YAPP AN. 379

sweet voice speaks :

My
brother Ydppan, I, the god
dess Tlazolteotl, amazed at thy constancy, and com
miserating thy hardships, come to comfort thee; what
way shall I take, or what path, that I may get up to
speak with thee ? The simple one did not see the ruse,
he came down from his place and helped the goddess
up. Alas in such
! a crisis, what need is there to speak
further ? no other victory of Ydppan was destined to
be famous in heaven, but in a cloud of shame his chaste
light went down forever. And thou, O shameless one,
have thy fierce red lips had their fill of kisses, is thy
Paphian soul satisfied withal, as now, flushed with
victory, thou passest back to the tinkling fountains,
and to the great tree of flowers, and to the far-reach
ing gardens where thy slaves await thee in the ninth
heaven ? Do thine eyes lower themselves at all in any
heed of the miserable disenchanted victim left crouch
ing, humbled on his desecrated rock, his nights and
days of fasting and weariness gone for naught, his
dreams, his hopes, dissipated, scattered like dust at the
trailing of thy robes? And for thee, poor Yappan, the
troubles of this life are soon to end Yaotl, the enemy,
;

has not seen all these things for nothing; he, at least,
has not borne hunger and thirst and weariness, has
not watched and waited, in vain. O, it avails nothing
to lift the pleading hands, they are warm, but not with
clasping in prayer, and weary, but not with waving
the censer the flint-edged mace beats down thy feeble
;

guard, the neck that Tlazolteotl clasped is smitten

through, the lips she kissed roll in the dust beside a
headless trunk.
The gods transformed the dead man into a scorpion,
with the forearms fixed lifted up as when he deprecated
the blow of his murderer; and he crawled under the
stone upon which he had abode. His wife, whose
name was Tlahuitzin, that is to say, the inflamed, still
lived. The implacable Ydotl sought her out, led her
to the spot stained with her husband s blood, detailed
pitilessly the circumstances of the sin and death of the
hermit, and then smote off her head. The gods trans-
380 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

formed the poor woman into that species of scorpion

called the alacran encendido, and she crawled under
the stone and found her husband. And so it coix.es
that tradition says that all reddish colored scorpions
are descended from Tlahuitzin, and all dusky or ash-
colored scorpions from Ydppan, while both keep hid
den under the stones and nee the light for shame of
their disgrace and punishment. Last of all the wrath
of the gods fell on Yaotl for his cruelty and presumption
in exceeding their commands he was transformed into
;

a sort of locust that the Mexicans call ahuacachapullin

Sahagun gives a very full description of this goddess
and her connection with certain rites of confession,
much resembling those already described in speak
30
ing of Tezcatlipoca. The goddess had, according
to our author, three names. The first was Tlazol-
7

teotl, that is to say, the goddess of carnality. The

second name was Yxcuina, which signifies four sisters,
called respectively, and in order of age, Tiacapan,
Teicu, Tlaco, Xucotsi. The third and last name of
this deity was Tlaclquani, which means eater of filthy
things, referring, it is said, to her function
of hearing
and pardoning the confessions of men and women
guilty of unclean and carnal crimes. For this god
dess, or these goddesses, had power not only to inspire
and provoke to the commission of such sins, and to aid
in their accomplishment, but also to pardon them, if

they were confessed to certain priests who were also

diviners and tellers of fortunes and wizards generally.
In this confession, however, Tlazolteotl seems not to
have been directly addressed, but only the supreme
deity under several of his names. Thus the person
whom, by a stretch of courtesy, we may call the peni
tent, having sought out a confessor from the class
above mentioned,, addressed that functionary in these
29
Botunm, Idea, pp. 15, 63-6: Pero, no menos indignados los Dioses del
pecado de Yappan, que de la inobediencia, y atrevimiento de Yaotl, le
con-
virtieron en Langosta, que llaman los Indios Ahuacachapulhn, mandando se
llamasse en adelante Tzontecmnama, que quiere dicir, Cargo, Cabeza, y en
ef ecto este animal parece que lleva cargo consigo, propriedcad de los Malsines,
que siempre cargan las honras, que han quitado & sus Proximos.
30
See this vol., pp 220-5-
 CONFESSION. 381

words : wish to approach the all-powerful god,

Sir, I
protector of all, Yoalliehecatl, or Tezcatlipoca; I wish
to confess my sins in secret. To this the wizard, or
priest, replied: Welcome, my son; the thing thou
wouldst do is for thy good and profit. This said, he
searched the divining book, tonalamatl, to see what
day would be most opportune for hearing the confes
sion. That day come, the penitent brought a new
mat, and white incense called copalli, and wood for the
fire in which the incense was to be burned. Some
times when he was a very noble personage, the priest
went to his house to confess him, but as a O oreneral rule
the ceremony took place at the residence of the priest.
On entering this house, the penitent swept very clean
a portion of the floor, and spread the new mat there for
the confessor to seat himself upon, and kindled the wood.
The priest then threw the copal upon the fire and
said: O Lord, thou that art the father and the mother
of the gods and the most ancient god, 31 know that
here is come thy vassal and servant, weeping and with
great sadness; he is aware that he has wandered from
the way, that he has stumbled, that he has slidden,
that he is spotted with certain filthy sins and grave
crimes worthy of death. Our Lord, very pitiful, since
thou art the protector and defender of all, accept the
penitence, give ear to the anguish of this thy servant
and vassal.
At this point the confessor turned to the sinner and
said :
son, thou art come into the presence of God,
My
favorer and protector of all; thou art come to lay bare
thy inner rottenness and unsavoriness ;
thou art come
to publish the secrets of thine heart ; see that thou fall
into no pit by lying unto our Lord; strip thyself, put
away all shame before him who is called Yoalliehecatl
and Tezcatlipoca. It is certain that thou art now in
his presence, although thou art not worthy to see him,
neither will he speak with thee, for he is invisible and.
impalpable. See, then, to it how thou comest, and
with what heart; fear nothing to publish thy secrets
8i
See this vol., pp. 212, 22G.
382 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

in his presence, give account of thy life, relate thine

evil deeds as thou didst perform them; tell all with
sadness to our Lord God, who is the favorer of all,
and whose arms are open and ready to embrace and
set thee on his shoulders. Beware of hiding anything
through shame or through weakness.
Having heard these words, the penitent took oath,
after the Mexican fashion, to tell the truth. He
touched the ground with his hand, and licked off the
earth that adhered to it; 32 then he threw copal in
the fire, which was another way of swearing to tell the
truth. Then he set himself down before the priest,
and inasmuch as he held him to be the image and
vicar of god, he, the penitent, began to speak after
this fashion our Lord who receivest and shelterest
:

all, give ear to my foul deeds; in thy presence I strip,

I put away from myself what shameful things soever
I have done. Not from thee, of a verity are hidden
my crimes, for to thee all things are manifest and
clear. Having thus said, the penitent proceeded to
relate his sins in the order in which they had been
committed, clearly and quietly, as in a slow and dis
tinctly pronounced chant, as one that walked along a
very straight way, turning neither to the right hand
nor to the left. When he had done, the priest an
swered him as follows son, thou hast spoken be-
:
My
32
Other descriptions of this rite are given with additional details: Usa-
ban una ceremonia generalmente en toda esta tierra, hoinbres y mugeres,
ninos y ninas, que quando eiitraban en algun lugar donde habia imageiies de
los idolos, una 6 muchas, luego tocaban en la tierra con el dedo, y luego
le llegabaii a la boca 6 a la lengua: a esto llamaban comer tierra, haciendolo
en revereiicia de sus Dioses, y todos los que salian de sus casas, aunque no
saliesen del pueblo, volviendo a su casa hacian lo mismo, y por los caminos
quando pasaban delante algun Cu ii oratorio hacian lo mismo, y en lugar de
juramento usabaii esto mismo, que para afirmar qiiien decia verdad hacian
esta ceremonia, y los que se querian satisfacer del que hablaba si decia ver
dad, demandabanle hiciese esta ceremonia, luego le creian como juramento.
. .Teniaii tambien costumbre de hacer juramento de cumplir alguna cosa a
. .

que se obligaban, y aquel a quien se obligaban les demandaba que hiciesen

juramento para estar seguro de su palabra y el juramento que hacian era en
esta forma: Por vida del Sol y de nuestra senora la tierra que no falte en lo
que tengo dicho, y para mayor seguridad como esta tierra; y luego tocaba
con los dedos en la tierra, llegabalos a la boca y lamialos; y asi comia tierra
haciendo juramento. Kinysborouyli s Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 95-6, 101;
Sakayun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. i., ap. pp. 212, 22G; Clavigero, Storia Ant.
del Messico, torn, ii., p. 25.
 PENANCES. 383

fore our Lord God, revealing to him thine evil works ;

and I shallnow tell thee what thou hast to do. When

the goddesses Civapipilti descend to the earth, or when
it is the time of the festival of the four sister goddesses
of carnality that are called Yxcuina, thou shalt fast
four days, afflicting thy stomach and thy mouth; this
feast of the Yxcuina being come, at daybreak thou
33
shalt do penance suitable to thy sins. Through a
hole pierced by a maguey thorn through the middle
of thy tongue thou shalt pass certain osier-twigs called
teucakacail, or tlacotl, passing them in front of the face
and throwing them over the shoulder one by one or ;

thou inayest fasten them the one to the other, and so

pull them through thy tongue
like a long cord. These
twigs were sometimes passed through a hole in the
ear; and wherever they were passed, it would appear
by our author that there were sometimes used of them
by one penitent to the number of four hundred, or even
of eight hundred.
If the sin seemed too light for such a punishment
as the preceding, the priest would say to the penitent:
My son, thou shall thou shall fatigue thy stomach
fast,
with hunger and thy mouth with thirst, and that for
four days, eating only once on each day, and that at
noon. Or the priest would say to him: Thou shalt
go to offer paper in the usual places, thou shalt make
images covered therewith in number proportionate to
thy devotion, thou shalt sing and dance before them
as custom directs. Or, again, he would say to him :

Thou hast offended God, thou hast got drunk thou ;

must expiate the matter before Totochti, the god of

wine and when thou goest to do penance, thou shalt
;

go at night, naked, save only a piece of paper hanging

33
Quite different versions of this sentence are given by Kingsborough s,
and Bustamaiite s editions respectively. That of Kingsborottgh s Mcx. Antiy.,
vol. vii., p. 7, reads: Quaiido decieuden a la tierra las Diosas Ixcuiname,
luego Me inaiiana 6 en amaneciendo, paraque hagas la penitencia convenible
por tus pecados. That of Bustamante, Sakagun, lli$t. Gcn v torn, i., lib, i.,
p. 13, reads: Cuarido desciendeii a la tierra las diosas llamadas Cirapipilti, 6
cuando se hace la fiesta de las diosas de la carnalidad que se Hainan Y.vtui-
name, ayunaras cuatro dias afligiendo tu estdmago y tu boca, y llegado el
dia de la fiesta de estas diosas Y.rtuhiame, luego de maiiana 6 en amanecieudo
para que hagas la penitencia convenible por tus pecados.
384 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

from thy girdle in front and another behind thou shalt ;

repeat thy prayer, and then throw down there before

the gods those two pieces of paper, and so take thy
departure.
This confession was held not to have been made to
a priest, or to a man, but to God and inasmuch as ;

it could only be heard once in a man s life, and as for

a relapse into sin after it there was no forgiveness, it
was generally put off till old age. The absolution
given by the priest was valuable in a double regard;
the absolved was held shriven of every crime he had
confessed, and clear of all pains and penalties, temporal
or spiritual, civil or ecclesiastical, due therefor. Thus
was the fiery lash of Nemesis bound up, thus were
struck down alike the staff of Minos and the sword of
Themis before the awful segis of religion. It may be
imagined with what reluctance this last hope, this
unique life-confession, was resorted to it was the one ;

city of refuge, the one Mexican benefit of sanctuary,

the sole horn of the altar, of which a man might once
34
take hold and but no more again forever.
live,
The Mexican god of fire, as we have already noticed,
was usually called Xiuhtecutli. He had, however,
other names, such as Ixcozauhqui, that is to say,
yellow-faced; and Cuecaltzin, which means flame
34
De esto bien se arguye que aunque habian hecho irmchos pecados en
tiempo de su juventud, no se confesaban de ellos hasta la vejez, por no se
obligar a cesar de pecar antes de la vejez, por la opinion qiie teiaan, que el
que toniaba a reincidir en los pecados, al que se confesaba una vez no tenia
remedio. Klnysborouytis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 6-8; Sahtujun, Hist. Gen. y
torn, i., lib. i., pp. 10-16. Prescott writes, Mex., vol. i., p. 68: It is re
markable that they administered the rites of confession and absolution.
The secrets of the confessional were held inviolable, and penances were
imposed of much the same kind as those enjoined in the Roman Catholic
church. There were two remarkable peculiarities in the Aztec ceremony.
The first was, that, as the repetition of an offence once atoned for was
deemed inexpiable, confession was made but once in a man s life, and was
usually deferred to a late period of it, when the penitent unburdened his
conscience, and settled at once the long arrears of iniquity. Another pecu
liarity was, that priestly absolution was received in place of the legal punish
ment of offences, and authorized an acquittal in case of arrest. Mention of
Tlazolteotl will be found in Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 309; Torquemada,
Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 62, 79; Herrera, Hist. Gen., torn, i., dec. ii., lib. vi.,
cap. xv.; Clarnrjero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 21. They say that
Yxcuina, who was the goddess of shame, protected adulterers. She was the
goddess of salt, of dirt, and of immodesty, and the cause of all sins. They
She
painted her with two faces, or with two different colors on the face.
 GOD OF FIRE. 385

3;
of and Huehueteotl, or the ancient god.
fire;
His idol represented a naked man, the chin black
ened with ulli, and wearing a lip-jewel of red stone.
On his head was a parti-colored paper crown, with
green plumes issuing from the top of it like flames of
fire; from the sides hung tassels of feathers down to
the ears. The ear-rings of the image were of tur
quoise wrought in mosaic. On the idol s back was a
dragon
O s head made of yellow feathers arid some little
/

marine shells. To the ankles were attached little

bells or rattles. On the left arm was a shield, almost
entirely covered with a plate of gold, into which were
set in the shape of a cross five chalchiuites. In the
right hand the god held a round pierced plate of gold,
called the looking-plate (niirador 6 miradero); with
this he covered his
looking only through the
face,
hole in the golden plate. Xiuhtecutli was held by
the people to be their father, and regarded with feel
ings of mingled love and fear; and they celebrated to
him two fixed festivals every year, one in the tenth
and another in the eighteenth month, together with a
movable which, according to Clavigero, they
feast, in
appointed magistrates and renewed the ceremony of
the investiture of the fiefs of the kingdom. The sac
rifices of the first of these festivals, the festival of the
tenth month Xocotlvetzi, were particularly cruel even
for the Mexican religion.
The assistants be^ano by cuttingo down a o great tree
/

of five and twenty fathoms long, and dressing off the

branches, removing all, it would seem, but a few round
the top. This tree was then dragged by ropes into
the city, on rollers apparently, with great precau
tion against bruising or spoiling it; and the women
met the entering procession, giving those that dragged
was the wife of Mizuitlantecutli, the god of hell. She was also the goddess
of prostitutes; and she presided over these thirteen signs, which were all un
lucky, and thus they held that those who were born in these signs would be
rogues or prostitutes. Spieyazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexican o (Vaticano),
tav. xxxix., in Kingsborougfia Mex, Antiy., vol. v., p. 184; Brasseur de Bour-
lourg, Quatre Lettrex, pp. 291-2, 301.
See this vol., pp. 212, 226.
a>y

VOL. III. 25
386 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

cacao to drink. The tree, which was called xocotl, was

received into the court of a cu with shouts, and there
set up in a hole in the ground, and allowed to remain,
for twenty days. On the eve of the festival Xocotl-
vetzi, they let this large tree or pole down gently to
the ground by means of ropes and trestles, or rests,
made of beams tied two and two, probably in an X
shape; and carpenters dressed it perfectly smooth and
straight, and where the branches had been left near
the top, they fastened with ropes a kind of yard or
cross-beam of five fathoms long. Then was prepared,
to be set on the very top of the pole or tree, a statue
of the god Xiuhtecutli, made like a man out of the
dough of wild amaranth seeds, and covered and deco
rated with innumerable white papers. Into the head
of the image were stuck strips of paper instead of
hair; sashes of paper crossed the body from each
shoulder; on the arms were pieces of paper like
wings, painted over with figures of sparrow-hawks;
a maxtli of paper covered the loins, and a kind of
paper shirt or tabard covered all. Great strips of
paper, half a fathom broad and ten fathoms long,
floated from the feet of the dough god half-way down
the tree; and into his head were stuck three rods with
a tamale or small pie on the top of each. The tree
being now prepared with all these things, ten ropes
were attached to the middle of it, and by the help of
the above-mentioned trestles and a large crowd pull
ing all together, the whole structure was reared into
an upright position and there fixed, with great shout
ing and stamping of feet.
Then came all those that had captives to sacrifice ;

they came decorated for dancing, all the body painted

yellow (which is the livery color of the god) and the
face vermilion. They wore a mass of the red plu
mage of the parrot, arranged to resemble a butterfly,
and carried shields covered with white feathers, and,
as it were, the feet of tigers or eagles walking. Each
one went dancing side by side with his captive. These
captives had the body painted white and the face ver-
 FESTIVAL OF THE FIRE GOD. 387

milion, save the cheeks, which were black; they were

adorned with papers, much, apparently, as the dough
image was, and they had white feathers on the head
and lip-ornaments of feathers. At set of sun the
dancing ceased; the captives were shut up in the cal-
pulli, and watched by their owners, not being
even al
lowed to sleep. About midnight every owner shaved
away the hair of the top of the head of his slave, which
O fastened with red thread to a little tuft of
hair, being"
feathers, lie put in a small case of cane, and attached
to the rafters of his house, that every one might see
that he was a valiant man and had taken a captive.
The knife with which this shaving was accomplished
was called the claw of the sparrow-hawk. At day
break the doomed and shorn slaves were arranged in
order in front of the place called Tzompantli, where
the skulls of the sacrificed were spitted in rows.
Here one of the priests went along the row of cap
tives, taking from them certain little banners that
they carried and all their raiment or adornment, and
burning the same in a fire; for raiment or ornament
these unfortunates should need no more on earth.
While they were standing thus all naked and waiting
for death, there came another priest, carrying in his
arms the image of the god Paynal and his ornaments ;

he ran up with this idol to the top of the cu Tlacacouh-

can where the victims were to die. Down he came,
then up again, and as he went up the second time the
owners took their slaves by the hair and led them to
the place called Apetlac, and there left them. Imme
diately there descended from the cu those that were
to execute the sacrifice, bearing bags of a kind of stu
6
pefying incense called yiauhtli,* which they threw by
30
II Jauhtli e uiia pianta, il cui fusto e lungo tin cubito, le foglie somigli-
anti a quelle del Salcio, ma dentate, i fiori gialli, e la radice sottile. Cosi i
iiori, come 1 altre parti della pianta, haniio lo stesso odore e sapore dell
Anice. E assai ntile per la Medicina, ed i Medici Messicani 1 adoperavano
contro parecchie malattie; ma servivansi ancora d essa per alcuni usi super-
stiziosi. This is the note given by Clavigero, Stnria A tit. (Id Mexico, torn,
ii., p. 77, in describing this festival, and the incense used for stupefying the

victims; see a different note, however, in this vol., p. 339, in which Molina
describes yiauhtli as black maize. In some cases, according to Mendieta,
Hist. Edcx., p. 100, there was given to the condemned a certain drink that
388 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

handfuls into the faces of the victims to deaden some

what their agonies in the fearful death before them.
Each captive was then bound hand and foot, and so
carried up to the top of the cu where smouldered a
hugh heap of live coal. The carriers heaved their
living burdens in ; and the old narrative gives minute
details about the great hole made in the sparkling em
bers by each slave, and how the ashy dust rose in a
cloud as he fell. As the dust settled, the bound bodies
could be seen writhing and jerking themselves about
in torment on their soft dull-red bed, and their flesh
could be heard crackling and roasting. Now came a
part of the ceremony requiring much experience and
judgment; the wild-eyed priests stood, grappling-hook
in hand, biding their time. The victims were not to
die in the fire, the instant the great blisters began
to rise handsomely over their scorched skins, it was
enough, they were raked out. The poor blackened
bodies were then flung on the tajon, and the agon
ized soul dismissed by the sacrificial breast-cut (from
nipple to nipple, or a little lower) the heart was then
;

torn out and cast at the feet of Xiuhtecutli, god of fire.

This slaughter being over, the statue of Paynal was
carried away to its own cu, and every man went home
to eat. And
the young men and
boys, all those called
1
quexpaleque? because they had a lock of hair at the
nape of the neck, came, together with all the people,

the women in order among the men, and began at

mid-day to dance and to sing in the court-yard of
Xiuhtecutli; the place was so crowded that there was
hardly room to move. Suddenly there arose a great
cry, and a rush was made out of the court toward the
place where was raised the tall tree already described
at some length. Let us shoulder our way forward,
not without risk to our ribs, and see what we can see :

there stands the tall pole with streamers of paper and

the ten ropes by which it was raised dangling from
put them beside themselves, so that they went to the sacrifice, with a ghastly
drunken merriment.
37
Cuexpalh, cabello largo que dexan a los muchachos en el cogote, quando
los tresquilan. Molina, Vocabulario.
 CLIMBING FOR THE GOD. 389

it. On
the top stands the dough image of the fire-
god, with all his ornaments and weapons, and with the
three tamales sticking out so oddly above his head.
Ware clubs! we
press too close; shoulder to shoulder
in a thick serried ring round the foot of the pole stand
the captains of the youths/ keeping the youngsters
back with cudgels, till the word be given at which all
may begin to climb the said pole for the great prize
at the top. But the youths are wild for fame; old
renowned heroes look on; the eyes of all the women
of the city are fixed on the great tree where it shoots
above the head of the struggling crowd; glory to
him who first gains the cross-beam and the image.
Stand back, then, ye captains, let us pass There is a !

rush, and a trampling, and despite a rain of blows, all

the pole with its hanging ropes is aswarm with climb
ers, thrusting each other down. The first youth at
the top seizes the idol of dough; he takes the shield
and the arrows and the darts and the stick atalt for
throwing the darts; he takes the tamales from the
head of the statue, crumbles them up, and throws
the crumbs with the plumes of the image down into
the crowd; the securing of which crumbs and plumes
is a new occasion for
shouting and scrambling and
fisticuffsamong the multitude. When the young hero
comes down with the weapons of the god which he
has secured, he is received with far-roaring applause
and carried up to the cu Tlacacouhcan, there to re
ceive the reward of his activity and endurance, praises
and jewels, and a rich mantle not lawful for another to
wear, and the honor of being carried by the priests
to his house, amid the music of horns and shells. The
festivity is over now; all the people lay hold on the
ropes fastened to the tree, and pull it down with a
crash that breaks it to pieces, together, apparently,
with all that is left of the wild amaranth dough image
38
of Xiuhtecutli.
38
Km<j$l>orou(jlis
Alex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 8-9, 28, G3-6; SiJiagun, Hixt.
G?n., torn, i., lib. i., pp. 1619, lib. ii., pp. G 2-4, 141-8; Clavigero, Storia Ant.
del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 1G, 7G; Spicgazione delta Tavole del Codice Mericano
(Vaticano), tav Ivi., in Kinysborouylis Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 190.
390 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Another feast of the god of fire was held in the

month Yzcalli, the eighteenth month; it was called

to say, our father the fire
motlaxquiantota, that is
toasts his food. An
image of the god of fire was
made, with a frame of hoops and sticks tied together
as the basis or model to be covered with his ornaments.
On the head of this was a shining mask of
image put
turquoise mosaic, banded across
with rows of green
chalchiuites. Upon the mask was put a crown fitting
to the head below, wide above, and gorgeous with
rich plumage as a flower a wig of reddish hair was ;

attached to this crown, so that the evenly cut locks

it, behind and around
flowed from below the mask,
as if
they were natural. robe of costly feathers A
covered all the front of the image, and fell over the
shivered and
ground before the feet, so light that it
floated with the least breath of air till the variegated
feathers glittered and changed color like water. The
back of the image seems to have been left unadorned,
concealed by a throne on which it was seated, a throne
covered with a dried tiger-skin, paws and head com
plete. Before this statue new fire was produced at
midnight by boring rapidly by hand one
stick upon

another; the spunk or tinder so inflamed was put on

the hearth and a fire lighted.
39
At break of day came
all the boys and youths with game and fish that they
had captured on the previous day walking round the ;

fire, they gave it to certain old

men that stood there,
who taking it, threw it into the flames before the god,
certain tamales that had
giving the youths in return
been made and offered for this purpose by the women.
To eat these tamales it was necessary to strip off the
maize leaves in which they had been wrapped and
cooked these leaves were not thrown into the fire, but
;

were all together and thrown into water.

After
put
39 asi adornado no lejos de un lugar que estaba delante de
Esta estatua
ella,a la media noclie sacaban fuego nuevo para que ardiese en aquel lugar,
sobre el barrenaban con
y sacabanlo con unos palos, uno puesto abajo, y
otro palo, conio torciendole entre las manos con gran prisa, y con aquel
movimiento y calor se encendia el fuego, y alii lo tomaban con yesca y en-
cendian en el hogar. Kingsborough s Hex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 84;
Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 184.
 FOURTH YEAR FESTIVAL. 291

this all the oldmen of the ward in which the fire was
drank pulque, and sang before the image of Xiuhtecutii
till night This was the tenth day of the month, and
thus finished that feast, or that part of the feast, which
was called vauquitamalqualiztli.
On the twentieth and last day of the month was
made another statue of the fire-god, with a frame of
sticks and hoops, as already described. They put on
the head of it a mask with a ground of mosaic of little
40
bits of the shell called tapaztli, composed below the
mouth of black stones, banded across the nostrils with
black stones of another sort, and the cheeks made of
a still different stone, called tezcapuchtli. As in the
previous case, there was a crown on this mask, and
over all and over the body of the image costly and
beautiful decorations of feather-work. Before the
throne on which this statue sat there was a fire, and
the youths offered game to and received cakes from
the old men with various ceremonies; the day being
closed with a great drinking of pulque by the old peo
ple, though not to the point
of intoxication. Thus
ended the eighteen th month; and with regard to the
two ceremonies just described, Sahagun says, that
though not observed in all parts of Mexico, they were
observed at least in Tezcuco.
It will be noticed that the festivals of this month
have been without human sacrifices but every fourth ;

year was an exception to this. In such a year, on the

twentieth and last day of this eighteenth month, being
also, according to some, the last day of the year, the
five Nemonteni, or unlucky days, being excepted,
men and women were slain as images of the god of
fire.The women that had to die carried all their ap
parel and ornaments on their shoulders, and the men
did the same. Arrived thus naked where they had
to die, men and women alike were decorated to re
semble the god of fire; they ascended the cu, walked
round the sacrificial stone, and then descended and
40
Or tapaditli, as Bustamaiite spells it. Tupachtll, cral concha o venera."

Molina, Vocalndario.
392 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

returned to the place where they were to be kept for

the night. Each male victim had a rope tied round
the middle of his body, which was held by his guards.
At midnight the hair of the crown of the head of each
was shaven oif before the fire and kept for a relic, and
the head itself was covered with a mixture of resin
and hens feathers. After this the doomed ones
burned or gave away to their keepers their now use
less apparel, and as the morning broke, they were
decorated with papers and led in procession to die,
with singing and shouting and dancing. These fes
tivities went on till mid-day, when a priest of the cu,

arrayed in the ornaments of the god Paynal, came

down, passed before the victims, and then went up
again. They were led up after him, captives first and
slaves after, in the order they had to die in; they
suffered in the usual manner. There was then a grand
dance of the lords, led by the king himself; each
dancer wearing a high-fronted paper coronet, a kind
of false nose of blue paper, ear-rings of turquoise mo
saic, or of wood wrought with flowers, a blue curiously
flowered jacket, and a mantle. Hanging to the neck
of each was the figure of a dog made of paper and
painted with flowers; in the right hand was carried a
stick shaped like a chopping-knife, the lower half of
which was painted red and the upper half white; in
the left hand was carried a little paper bag of copal.
This dance was begun on the top of the cu and fin
ished by descending and going four times round the
court-yard of the cu; after which all entered the pal
ace with the king. This dance took place only once
in four years, and none but the king and his lords
could take part in it. On this day the ears of all
children born during the three preceding years were
bored with a bone awl, and the children themselves
passed near or through the flames of a fire, as already
41
related. There was a further ceremony of taking
the children by the head and lifting them up "to
41
See this vol., p. 376, note 27.
 THE GREAT NEW FIRE FESTIVAL. 393

make them grow;" and from this the month took its
4
name, Yzcalli meaning growth.
There was generally observed in honor of fire a
custom called the throwing/ which was that no one
ate without first flinging into the fire a scrap of the
food. Another common ceremony was in drinking
pulque to first spill a little on the edge of the hearth.
Also when a person began upon a jar of pulque he
emptied out a little into a broad pan and put it beside
the fire, whence with another vessel he spilt of it four
times upon the edge of the hearth; this was the liba
tion, or the tasting 43
The most solemn and important of all the Mexican
festivals w^as that called Toxilmolpilia, or Xiuhmol-

pilli,
the binding up of the years. Every fifty-two
years was called a sheaf of years ; and it was held for
certain that at the end of some sheaf of fifty-two
years the motion of the heavenly bodies should cease
and the world itself come to an end. As the possible
day of destruction drew near, all the people cast their
household gods of wood and stone into the water, as
also the stones used on the hearth for cooking and bruis

ing pepper. They washed thoroughly their houses,

and last of all, put out all fires. For the lighting of
the new fire there was a place set apart, the summit of
a mountain called Vixachtlan, or Huixachtla, on the
boundary line between the cities of Itztapalapa and
Colhuacan, about six miles from the city of Mexico.
In the production of this new fire none but priests had
any part, and the task fell specially upon those of the
ward Copolco. On the last day of the fifty-two years,
after the sun had set, all the priests clothed themselves
with the dress and insignia of their gods, so as to them
selves appear like very gods, and set out in procession
for the mountain,
walking very slowly, with much
42
Kmgsborougtis Mex. Aniiq., vol. vii., pp. 33, 83-7; SaJ^tn, JUst. Gen.,
torn. L, lib. ii., pp. 74-5, 183-92; Bot.urim, Idea, p. 138; Spwyazione (Idle
Tavoln del Codke Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. Ixxiv., in Kingsbarougtis Mcx.
vol. v., pp. 10G-7; Claviyero, Storia Ant. del Monica, torn, ii., p. 82.
Aniiq.,
*
Kinf/fiborough a M&C. Antiy., vol. vii., p. 96- Sahagun, Iftat. Gen. toni. i.,
lib. it, ap. p. 213.
394 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

gravity and silence, as befitted the occasion and the

garb they wore; walking," as they phrased it, "like
"

gods."
The priest of the ward of Copolco, whose
office it was to produce the fire, carried the instru
ments thereof in his hand, trying them from time to
time to see that all was right. Then, a little before
midnight, the mountain being gained, and a cu which
was there builded for that ceremony, they began to
watch the heavens, and especially the motion of the
Pleiades. Now this night always fell so that at mid
night these seven stars were in the middle of the sky
with respect to the Mexican horizon; and the priests
watched them to see them pass the zenith, and so give
sign of the endurance of the world for another fifty
and two years. That sign was the signal for the pro
duction of the new fire, lighted as follows The bravest :

and finest of the prisoners taken in war was thrown

down alive, and a board of very dry wood was put
upon his breast; upon this the acting priest at the
critical moment bored with another stick, twirling it

rapidly between his palms till fire caught. Then in

stantly the bowels of the captive were laid open, his
heart torn out, and it with all the body thrown upon
and consumed by a pile of fire. All this time an awful
anxiety and suspense held possession of the people at
large; for it was said that if anything happened to
prevent the production at the proper time of the new
fire, there would be an end of the human race, the

night and the darkness would be perpetual, and those

terrible and ugly beings, the Tzitzimitles, 44 would de
scend to devour all mankind. As the fateful hour ap
proached, the people gathered on the flat house-tops,
no one willingly remaining below. All pregnant
women, however, were closed into the granaries, their
faces being covered with maize leaves; for it was said
that if the new fire could not be produced, these
women would turn into fierce animals and devour men
and women. Children also had masks of maize leaf
put on their faces, and they were kept awake by cries
44
Or Izitzimites, as on p. 427 of this vol.
 FEAST OF THE NEW FIRE. 395

and pushes, it being believed that if they were allowed

to sleep they would become mice.
From the crowded house-tops every eye was bent
on Vixachtlan. Suddenly a moving speck of light
was seen by those nearest, and then a great column
of flame shot up against; the sky. The new fire and
!

a great shout of joy went up from all the country

round about. The stars moved on in their courses,
fifty and two years
more at least had the universe to
exist. Every one did penance, cutting his ear with a
splinter of flint, and scattering the blood toward the
where the fire was; even the ears of children in
part
the cradle were so cut. And now from the blazing
pile on the mountain, burning brands of pine candle-
wood were carried by the swiftest runners toward
every quarter of the kingdom. In the city of Mex
ico, on the temple of Huitzilopochtii, before the altar,
there was a fire-place of stone and lime containing
much copal; into this a blazing brand was flung by
the first runner, and from this place fire was carried
to all the houses of the priests, and thence again to
all the city. There soon blazed great central fires in
and it was a thing to be seen the multi
every ward,
tude of people that came together to get light, and
the general rejoicings.
The hearth-fires being thus lighted, the inhabitants
of every house began to renew their household gods
and furniture, and to lay down new mats, and to put on
new raiment; they made everything new in sign of
the new sheaf of years; they beheaded quails, and
burned incense in their court-yard toward the four

quarters of the world, and on their hearths. After

eating a meal of wild amaranth seed and honey, a fast
was ordered, even the drinking of water till noon
being forbidden. Then the eating and drinking were
renewed, sacrifices of slaves and captives were made,
and the great fires renewed. The last solemn festival
of the new fire was celebrated in the year 1507, the
Spaniards being not then in the land and through
396 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

their presence, there was no public ceremony when

45
the next sheaf of years was finished in 1559.

Mictlan, the Mexican hades, or place of the dead,

signifies, either primarily or by an acquired meaning,
northward, or toward the north, though many
authorities have located it underground or below the
earth. This region was the seat of the power of a
god best known under his title of Mictlant&cutli his ,

iemale companion was called Mictlancihuatl made ?

identical by some legends with Tlazolteotl, and by

others apparently with the serpent-woman and mother
46
goddess. There has been discovered and there is
45
KingsborougJis Hex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 157, 191-3; Sahayun, Hist.
Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., ap. pp. 346-7, torn, ii., lib. vii., pp. 260-4; Torque-
mada, Moriarq. Intl., torn, ii., pp. 292-5; Boturini, Idea, pp. 18-21; Clavtgero,
Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 62, 84-5; Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 101;
Acosta, Hist, de las Yndias, pp. 398-9. Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt i.,
pp. 51-5, differs somewhat from the text; he was unfortunate in never hav
ing seen the works of Sahagun.
46
This vol., p. 59. The interpretations of the codices represent this god
as peculiarly honored in their paintings: They place Michitlatecotle oppo
site to the sun, to see if he can rescue any of those seized upon by the lords
of the dead, for "Michitla signifies the dead below. These nations painted
only two of their gods with the crown called Altontcatecoatle, viz. , the God
of heaven and of abundance and this lord of the dead, which kind of crown
I have seen upon the captains in the war of Coatle. Explication del Codex
Telleriano-Remensis, pt. ii., lam. xv., in KingsborougTis Mex. Antiq., vol. v.,
p. 140. Miquitlantecotli signifies the great lord of the dead fellow in hell,
who alone after Tonacatecotle was painted with a crown, which -kind of a
crown was used in war even after the arrival of the Christians in those coun
tries, and was seen in the war of Coatlan, as the person who copied these
paintings relates, who was a brother of the Order of Saint Dominic, named
Pedro ile los Rios. They painted this demon near the sun; for in the same
way as they believed that the one conducted souls to heaven, so they supposed
that the other carried them to hell. He is here represented with his hands
open and stretched toward the sun, to seize on any soul which might escape
from him. Spiegazione dette Tavoledcl Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav, xxxiv.,
in Kingaboroujtis Mex. A ntiq. vol. v. p. 182. The Vatican Codex says further,
, ,

that these were four gods or principal demons in the Mexican hell. Miquit-
lamtecotl or Zitziniitl; Yzpunteque, the lame demon, who appeared in the
streets with the feet of a cock; Nextepelma, scatterer of ashes; and Contemo-
que, he who descends head-foremost. These four have goddesses, not as wives,
but as companions, which was the simple relation in which all the Mexican
gods and goddesses stood to one another, there having been according to
most authorities in their olympus neither marrying nor giving in marriage.
Picking our way as well as possible across the frightful spelling of the inter
preter, the males and females seemed paired as follows To Miquitlamtecotl
:
or
Tzitzimitl was joined, as goddess, Miquitecacigua; to Yzpunteque, Nexoxocho;
to Nextepelma, Micapetlacoli; and to Coritemoque, Chalmecaciuatl. Sptegazt-
one delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. iii., iv., in Kingsborongh s
Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 162-3; Boturini y Idea, pp. 30-1; Sahagun, Hist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. iii., ap. pp. 260-3; Kingsborougtis Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 116-
17, says that this god was known by the further name of Tzontemoc and Acul-
 TEOYAOMIQUE. 397

now to be seen in the city of Mexico a huge com

pound statue, representing various deities, the most
prominent being a certain goddess Teoyaomique, who,
it seems to me, is almost identical with or at least a

connecting link between the mother goddess and the

naoacatl. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 6, 17. Gallatin,
Arner. Ethiiol. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 350-1, says that Mictlanteuctli is
specially distinguished by the interpreters as one of the crowned gods. His
representation is found under the basis of the statue of Teoyaondqui, and
Gaina has published the copy. According to him, the name of that god
means the god of the place of the dead. He presided over the funeral of
those who died of diseases. The souls of all those killed in battle were led
by Teoyaomiqui to the dwelling of the sun. The others fell under the do
minion of Mictanteuctli. Torqiiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 77, 148,
447, torn, ii., p. 428. Brasseur de Bourbourg mentions this god and his wife,
bringing up several interesting points, for which, however, he must bear the
sole responsibility: V 7 Existe. des Sources de VHlat. Prim., pp. 98-9. Du
fond des eaux qui couvraient le rnonde, ajoute un autre document mexicaiii
(Cod. Me.r. Tell.-Rem., fol. 4, v.), le dieu des regions d en bas, Mictlan-Teuctli
fait surgir un monstre marin nomine Cipuctli ou Capactli (Motolinin, Hist.
Antiij. de part. MS.
los Indios, Dans ce document, au lieu de cipactli il y a
capactli, qui n est peut-etre qu une erreur du copiste, mais qui, peut-etre
aussi est le souvenir d une langue perdue et qui se rattacherait au capac ou
Manco-Copac du Perou.): cle ce monstre, qui a la forme d un caiman, il cree
la terre (Motolinia, find.). Ne serait-ce pas la le crocodile, image du temps,
chez les Egyptiens, et ainsi que 1 inclique Champollion (Dans Hcrapollon, i.,
09 et 70, le crocodile est le symbole du couchant et des teiiebres) symbole
egalement de la Region du Couchant, de YAmenti? Dans 1 Orcus mexicain, le
prince des Morts, Mictlan-Teuctli, a pour compagne Mictecacihuatl, celle qui
etend les morts. On 1 appelle Ixcuina, ou la deesse au visage peint ou au
double visage, parce qu elle avait le visage de deux couleurs, rouge avec le
contour de la bouche et du nez peint en noir (Cod. Mex. Tell.-Rem., fol. 18,
v. ). On lid domiait aussi le nom de Tlacolteotl, la deesse de 1 ordure, ou Tlacof-
quani, la mangeuse d ordure, parce qu elle presidait aux amours et aux plai-
sirs lubriques avec ses trois sceurs. On la trouve personifiee encore avec
Chiintlco, quelquefois represented comme un chien, soit & cause de sa lubri-
cite, soit a cause du nom de Uiiucnauh-ItzcumtU ou les Neuf-Chiens, qu on lui
doiinait egalement (Cod. Mex. Tdl.-Rem., fol. 21, v.). C est ainsi que dans
1 Italic
ante-p;lasgique, dans la Sicile et dans 1 ile de Samothrace, anterieure-
ment aux Thraces et aux Pelasges, on adorait une Zerinthia, une Hecate,
deesse Chienne qui nourrissait ses trois tils, ses trois chieiis, sur le ineme
autel, dans la demeure souterraine; 1 une et i autre rappelaieiit ainsi le souve
nir de ces hetaires qui veillaient au pied des pyramides, oil elles se prosti-
tuaient aux marins, aux marchands et aux voyageurs, pour ramasser 1 argent
necessaire h, 1 erection des tombeaux des rois. "Tout un calcul des temps,

dit Eckstein (Sur les sources de la Cosmoyome de Sanchoniat/ion, pp 101, 197),

se rattache a 1 adoration solaire de cette deesse et de ses fils. Le Chien, le
Sirius, regne dans 1 astre de ce nom, au zenith de i annee, durant les jours
de la cauicule. On connait le cycle ou la periode que preside 1 astre du chien:
on sait qu il ne se rattache pas seulement aux institutions de la vieille P^gypte,
mais encore ii celles de la haute Asie En Amerique le nom de la deesse
Ixcuind se rattache egalement a la constellation du sud, oil on la persomiilie
encore avec Ixtlacoliu/iqtd, autre divinite des ivrognes et des amours obscenes:
les astrologues lui attribuaient un grand pouvoir sur les evenements de la
guerre, et, dans les derniers temps, on en faisait depcndre le chatimeiit des
adulteres et des incestueux (Cod. Mex. Tell. Rem._ fol. 16, v.). See also
Bnnf.on s Myths, pp. 130-7; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. i., p. 12, pt. ii.,
pp. 65-G.
398 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

companion of Mictlantecutli. Mr Gallatin says that

47

the Mexican gods "were painted in different ways

according to their various attributes and names; and
the priests were also in the habit of connecting with
the statue of a god or goddess, symbols of other dei
ties which partook of a similar character. Gama has
adduced several instances of both practices, in the
statue of
part of his dissertation which relates to the
the goddess of death found buried in the great Square
of Mexico, of which he, and lately Mr Nebel, have
48
given copies. Her name is Teoyaomiqui, which
means, to die in sacred war, or in defence of the
gods, and she is the proper companion
of Huitzilo-
pochtli, the god of war. The symbols of her own
attributes are found in the upper part of the statue;
but those from the waist downward relate to other
deities connected with her or with Huitzilopochtli.
The serpents are the symbols of his mother Cohua-
tlycue, and also of Cihuacohuatl, the serpent-woman
who begat twins, male and female, from which man
kind proceeded: the same serpents and feathers are
the symbol of Quezatlcohuatl, the precious stones des
of water, the
ignate Chalchihuitlycue, the goddess
teeth and claws refer to Tlaloc and to Tlatocaoceloce-

47
Amer. Ethnol Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 338-9.
Speaking of the great image in the Mexican museum of antiquities sup
48

posed by some to be this Mexican goddess of war, or of death, Teoyaomique,

Mr Tylor says, Anahuac, pp. 322-3: The stone known as the statue of the
war-goddess is a huge block of basalt covered with sculptures. The anti
quaries think that the figures on it stand for different personages,
and that it
his wife, and
is three gods Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, Teoyaomiqui,
Mictlanteuctli, the god of hell. It has necklaces of alternate hearts and dead
men s hands, with death s head for a central ornament. At the bottom of
the block is a strange sprawling figure, which one cannot see now, for it is
the base which rests on the ground; but there are two shoulders projecting
from the idol, which show plainly that it did not stand on the ground, but
was supported aloft on the tops of two pillars. The figure carved upon the
bottom represents a monster holding a skull in each hand, while others hang
from his knees and elbows. His mouth is a mere oval ring, a common fea
ture of Mexican idols, and four tusks project just above it. The new moon
laid down like a bridge forms his forehead, and a star is placed on each side
of it. This is thought to have been the conventional representation of Mic
tlanteuctli (Lord of the land of the dead), the god of hell, which was a place
of utter and eternal darkness. Probably each victim as he was led to the
altar could look up between the two pillars and see the hideous god of hell
staring down upon him from above.
 GAMA ON THE COMPOUND IMAGE. 399

lotl(the tiger king) ;

and together with her own attri
butes, the whole is a most horrible figure."
Of
this great compound statue of Huitzilopochtli
(for the most part under his name of Teoyaotlatohua),
Teoyaomique, and Mictlantecutli, and of the three
deities separately, Leon y Gama treats in substance as
49
follows, beginning with Mictlantecutli:
The Chevalier Boturini mentions another of his
names, Teoyaotlatohua, and says that as director and
chief of sacred war he was always accompanied by
Teoyaomique, a goddess whose business it was to col
lect the souls of those that died in war and of those
that were sacrificed afterward as captives. Let these
statements be put alongside of what Torquemada says,
to wit, that in the great feast of the month Hueimic-
50
cailhuitl, divine names were given to dead kings and
to all famous persons who had died heroically in war,
and in the power of the enemy; idols were made
furthermore of these persons, and they were put with
the deities; for it was said that they had gone to the
place of delights and pleasures, there to be with the
gods. From all this, it would appear that before
this image, in which were
closely united Teoyaotlato
hua and Teoyaomique, there were each year celebrated
certain rites in memory and honor of dead kings and
lords, and captains and soldiers fallen in battle. And
not only did the Mexicans venerate in the temple this
image of many gods, but the judicial astrologers
49
Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. i., pp. 41-4.
50
The tenth month, so named by the Tlascaltecs and others. See Torqiie-
vnada, Monarq. Intl., torn. ii.,p. 298. Al decimo Mes del Kalemlario huliano
llamaban sus Satrapas, Xocotlhuetzi, que quiere Jeclr: Quando se cae, y acaba
la Fruta, y debia de ser, por esta racon, de que por aquel Tiempo se acababa,
que cae en nuestro Agosto e i& en todo este Mes se pasan las Frutas en tierra
fria. Pero los Tlaxcaltecas, y otros lo llamaban Hueymiccailhuitl, que quiere
decir: La Fiesta maior de los Difuntos; y llaraavanla a..i, porque e.ite Me3
solemni9aban la memoria de los Difuntos, con grandes elamores, y llaiitos, y
doblados lutos, que la primera, y se tefiian los cucrpos de color negro, y S3
tiznaban toda la cara; y asi, las ceremonias, que se haciaii de I/ia, y de Noche,
en todos los Templos, y fuera de ellos, eran de mucha tristeca, segun que
cada vno podia hacersu sentimiento; yen este Mes daban iiombre de Divinos,
a sus Reies difuntos, y a. todas aquellas Personas senaladas, que havian
nmerto hacauosamente en las Guerras, y en poder de sus eneniigos, y les
liacian sus Idolos, y los colocaban, con sus Dioses, diciendo, que aviau ido al
lugar de sus deleites, y pasatiempos, en compania de los otros L>ioses.
400 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

feigned a constellation answering thereto, and in

fluencing persons born under it. In depicting this
constellation, Teoyaotlatohua Huitzilopochtli was rep
resented with only half his body, as it were, seated on
a bench, and with his mouth open as if speaking. His
head was decorated after a peculiar fashion with
feathers, his arms were made like trunks of trees with
branches, while from his girdle there issued certain
herbs that fell downwards over the bench. Opposite
51
this figure was Teoyaomique, naked save a thin robe,
and standing on a pedestal, apparently holding her
head in her hands, at any rate with her head cut off,
her eyes bandaged, and two snakes issuing from the
neck where the head should have been. Between
the god and the goddess was a flowering tree divided
through the middle, to which was attached a beam
with various cross-pieces, and over all was a bird with
the head separated from its body. There was to be
seen also the head of a bird in a cup, and the head of
a serpent, together with a pot turned upside down,
while the contents water, as it would appear by the
hieroglyphics attached ran out.
In this form were painted these two gods, as one of
the twenty celestial signs, sufficiently noticed by Bo-
turini, although, as he confesses, he had not arranged
them in the proper order. Returning to notice the
office attributed to Teoyaomique, that of collecting the
souls of the dead, we find that Cristobal del Castillo
says that all born under the sign which, with
the god
of war, this goddess ruled were to become at an early
age valorous soldiers; but that their career was to be
As the whole description becomes a little puzzling here, I give the origi
51

nal,Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, p. 42: Euf rente de esta figura esta Teoyao
mique desnuda, y cubierta cou solo un cendal, parada sobre uiia basa, 6
porcion de pilastra; la cabeza separada del cuerpo, arriba del cuello,
con los
ojos vendados, y en su lugar dos viboras 6 culebras, que nacen
del mismo
cuello. Entre estas dos figuras esta un arbol de flores partido por medio, al
cual se junta un madero con varies atravesanos, y encima de el una ave, cuya
cabeza esta tambien dividida del cnerpo. Se ve tambien otra cabeza de ave
dentro de uiia jicara, otra de sierpe, una olla con la boca para aba jo, saliendo
de ella la materia que contenia dentro, cuya figura parece ser la que usaban
para representar el agua; y finalmente ocupan el resto del cuadro [of
tb.3 rep

resentation of the constellation above mentioned in the text] otros geroglificos

y figuras diferentes.
 MICTECACIHUATL. 401

short as it was they wore to fall in battle

brilliant, for

young. souls were to rise to heaven, to dwell

These
in the house of the sun, where were woods and groves.
There they were to exist four years, at the end of
which time they were to be converted into birds of
rich and beautiful plumage, and to go about sucking
flowers both in heaven and on earth.
To the statue mentioned above, there was joined
with great propriety the image of another god, feigned
to be the god of hell, or of the place of the dead, which
latter the literal signification of his name, Mictlante-
is

cutli. This image was engraved in demi-relief on the

lower plane of the stone of the great compound statue ;

but it was also venerated separately in its own proper

temple, called Tlalxicco, that is to say, in the bowels
*

or navel of the earth. Among the various offices

attributed to this deity was that of burying the corpses
of the dead, principally of those that died of natural
infirmities; for the souls of these went to hell, to pre
sent themselves before this Mictlantecutli, and before
his wife, Mictecacihuatl, which name Torquemada
interprets as she that throws into hell. Thither in
deed it was said that these dead went to offer them
selves as vassals carrying offerings, and to have pointed
out to them the places that they were to occupy accord
O to the manner of their death.
ing ^oc! of hades
This O
was further Tzontemoc, a term interpreted by
called
Torquemada to mean
he that lowers his head but
;

it would rather that it should take its

appear signifi
cation from the action indicated by the great statue,
where this deity is seen as it were carrying down tied
to himself the heads of corpses to bury them in the
ground, as Boturini says. The places or habitations
supposed to exist in hell, and to which the souls of
the dead had to go, were nine; in the last of which,
called Chicuhnauhmictlan, the said souls were sup
posed to be annihilated and totally destroyed. There
was lastly given to this god a place in heaven, he
being joined with one of the planets and accompanied
VOL. III. 26
402 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

by Teotlamacazqui at his feet, there was painted a

;

body that was half buried, or covered with earth from

the head to the waist, while the rest stuck out uncov
ered. It only remains to be said that such was the
veneration and religious feeling with which were re
garded all things relating to the dead, that not only
there were invented for them tutelary gods, much
honored by frequent feasts and sacrifice, but the
Mexicans elevated Death itself, dedicating to it a day
of the calendar (the first day of the sixth trecena J,
joining it to the number of the celestial signs; and
erecting to it a sumptuous temple called Tolnahuac,
within the circuit of the great temple of Mexico,
wherein it was particularly adored with holocausts
and victims, under the title Ce Miquiztli. 52
52
Boturini, Idea, pp. 27-8, mentions the goddess Teoyaomique; on pp.
30-1, ho notices the respect with which Mictlaiitecutli and the dead were re
garded: Me resta solo tratar de la decima tercia, y ultima Deidad esto es, el
Dios del Injlemo, Geroglifico, que explica el piacloso acto de sepultar los
muertos, y cl gran respeto, que estos antiguos Indies teiiian a los sepulcros,
creyendo, ci imitacion de otras Naciones, no solo qiie alii asistian las almas
de los Difuntos, .sino que tambien dichos Parientes eraii sus Dioses Indl-
. . .

it,- 1 dicti, quasi inde geniii, cuyos huessos, y cenizas daban alii indubita-
qetcs,
1)163, y ciertas senales de el dominio, que tuvieron en aquella misma tierra,
donde se hallaban sepultados, la que havian domado con los sudores de la
Agricultura, y aun defendian con los respetos, y eloquencia muda de sus cada-
veres. .Nucstros Iiidios en la segunda Edad declicaron dos meses de el
. .

ano llamados Micaylhuitl, y Hueymicaylhuitl a la Commemoracion de los

Difuntos, y en la tercera exercitaron varies actos de piedad en su memoria,
prueba constante de que conf essaron la immortalidad de el alma. See fur
ther Torqueniada, Jlonarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 529-30. Of the compound idol
discussed above, Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, torn, ii., pp. 153-7, speaks
at some length. He says: Oil distingue, & la partie superieure, les tetes de
deux monstres accoles et 1 on trouve a chaque face, deux yeux et une large
gueulc armee de quatre dents. Ces figures monstrueuses n indiquent peut-
etre que des masques: car, chez les Mexicains, on etoit dans 1 usage de mas
quer les idoles a 1 epoque de la maladie d un roi, et dans toute autre cala-
mite publique. Les bras et les pieds sont cache sous uiie draperie eiitouree
d enormes serpens, et que Ics Mexicains designoient sous le nom de coliuatli-
cuye, vctcment de serpent. Tous ces accessoires, surtout les franges en forme
de plumes, sont sculptes avec le plus grand soin. M. Gama, dans un me-
raoire particulier, a rendu tres-probable que cette idole represente le dieu de
la guerre, Hidtzilopoclitli, ou Tlacaliuepancuexcotzin, et sa femme, appelee
Teoyarniqui (de miqui, mourir, et de teoyao, guerre divine), parcequ elle
conduisoit les ames des guerriers morts pour la defense des dicux, & la mais-
011 dn Soleil, le paradis des Mexicains, oil elle les transformoit en colibris.
Les tetes de morts et les mains coupees, dont quatre entourent le sein de la
deesse, rappellent les horribles sacrifices (teoquauhquetzoUztll) celcibres dans
la quinzieme periode de treize jours, apres le solstice d ete, a I honiieur du
dieu de la guerre et de sa compagne Teoyamiqui. Les mains coupees alter-
nent avec la figure de certains vases dans lesquels on bruloit 1 encens. Ces
vases etoient appeles top-xicalli sacs en forme de calebasse (de toptli, l^ourse
tissue de fil de pite, et de xicali, calebasse). Cette idole etant sculptee sur
 MIXCOATL, GOD OF HUNTING. 403

Mixcoatlthe god or goddess, according to some

is

good of hunting. The name means cloud-

authorities
serpent/ and indeed, seems common to a whole class
of deities or heroes somewhat resembling the Nibe-
lungs of northern European mythology.
53
He is fur
ther supposed to be connected with the thunder-storm :

"Mixcoatl, the Cloud-Serpent, or Iztac-Mixcoatl, the

White or Gleaming Cloud-Serpent," writes Brinton," 4
"said to have been the only divinity of the ancient
Chichimecs, held in high honor by the Nahuas, Nica-
raguans, and Otomfs, and identical with Taras, supreme
god of the Tarascos, and Camaxtli, god of the Teo-
Chichimecs, is another personification of the thunder
storm. To this day this is the familiar name of the
tropical tornado in the Mexican language. He was
represented, like Jove, with a bundle of arrows in his

hand, the thunder-bolts. Both the Nahuas and Ta

rascos related legendsO in which he figured as father of 5

the race of man. Like other lords of the lightning, he

was worshipped as the dispenser of riches and the pa
tron of traffic; and in Nicaragua his image is described

toutes ses faces, meme par dessous (fig. 5), ou Ton voit represente Mectktn-
teuhtli, le seitjneur <Ju lieu des morts, on ne sauroit clouter qu elle etoit soutenue
en 1au moyen de deux colonnes sur lesquelles reposoient les parties mar
air
que"
A et
B, dans les figures 1 et 3.
es D apres celte disposition bizarre, la
t6te de 1 idole se trouvoit vraisemblablement elevee de cinq k six metres au-
clessus du pave du temple, de maniere que les pretres (Teopixqui) traiiioieiit
les malheureuses victimes & 1 autel, en les faisant passer au-dessous de la
figure de Mictlanteuhtli.
53
According to Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Nouvelles Annales des Voi/arjes,
1858, torn, clx., pp. 2G7-8: Les heros et demi-deux qui, sous le ncm gen6rique
de Chichimeques-Mixcohuas, jouent un si grand role dans la mythologie mexi-
caine, et qui du vii au ix siecle de notre ere, obtinrent la preponderance sur
e c

le plateau azteque. .Les plus celebres de ces heros soiit Mixcohuatl-Maza-

. .

tzin (le Serpent Nebuleux et le Daim), fondateur de la royaute a Tollan (au-

jourd liui Tula), Tezcatlipoca, specialement adore & Tetzcuco, et son frere
Mixcohuatl le jeune, dit Camaxtli, en particulier adore a Tlaxcallan, 1 uii et
1 autre mentionnes, sous d autres noms,
parmi les roie de Culhuacari ct con-
sideres, ainsi que le premier, comme les principaux fondateurs de la mon
archic tolteque. Oil ignore oil ils recurent le jour. Un manuscrit mexicain,
[Codex Chimalpopoca], en les donnant pour fils d lztac-Mixcohuatl ou le
Serpent Blanc Nebuleux et d Iztac-Chalchiuhlicue ou la Blanche Dame
azuree, fait allegoriquement allusion aux pays nebuleux et aquatiques oil ils
out pris naissance; le meme document ajoute qu ils vinrent par eau et qu ils
demeurerent un certain temps en barque. Peut-etre que le nom d Iztac ou
Blanc, egalement donne h, Mixcohuatl, designe aussi une race differeiite de
celle des Indiens et plus en rapport avec la notre.
04
Brintons Myths, p. 158.
404 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

as the supposed
being engraved stones, probably
products of the thunder."

In the fourteenth month, called Quecholli, and be

on the fourteenth of
ginning, according to Clavigero,
November, there was made, with many obscure cere
monies, a feast to this god. On the sixth day of the
month all assembled at the cu of Huitzilopochtli, where
during four days they made arrows and
darts for uso
in war and for general practice at a mark, mortifying
at the same time their flesh by drawing blood, and by
abstaining from women and pulque.
This done, they
in honor of the dead, certain little mimic darts
made,
of a hand long, of which four seem to have been tied
these
together with four splinters of candlewood pine;
were put on the graves, and at set of sun lighted and
burned, after which the ashes were interred on the
spot. There were taken a maize-stalk of nine knots,
with a paper flag on the top that hung down to the
bottom, together with a shield and dart belonging to
the dead man, and his maxtli and blanket; the last
two being attached to the maize-stalk. The hanging
flag was ornamented
on either side with red cotton
thread, in the figure of an X; a piece of twisted white
thread also hung down, to which was suspended a dead
humming-bird. Handfuls of the white feathers of the
heron were tied two and two and fastened to the bur
dened maize-stalk, while all the cotton threads used
were covered with white hen s feathers, stuck on with
resin. all these were burned on a stone block
Lastly,
called the quaulixicalcalico.
In the court of the cu of Mixcoatl was scattered
much dried grass brought from the mountains, upon
which the old women-priests, or cioatlamacazque, seated
themselves, each with a mat before her. All the wo
men that had children came, each bringing her child
and five sweet tamales; and the tamales were put on
the mats before the old women, who in return took
the children, tossed them in their arms, and then re
turned them to their mothers.
About the middle of the month was made a special
 DRIVE-HUNT OF MIXCOATL. 405

feast to this god of the Otomis to Mixcoatl.

In the
morning prepared for a great drive-hunt, girding
all
their blankets to their loins, and taking bows and ar
rows. They wended their way to a mountain slope,
anciently Zapatepec, or Yxillantonan, above the sierra
of Atlacuizoayan, or as it is now called, according to
Bustamante, Tacubaya, There they drove deer, rab
bits, hares, coyotes, and other game together, little by
little, every one in the mean time killing what he could;
few or no animals escaping. To the most successful
hunters blankets were given, and every one brought to
his house the heads of the animals he had taken, and
hanged them up for tokens of his prowess or activity.
There were human sacrifices in honor of this hunt
ing god with other deities. The manufacturers of
pulque bought, apparently, two slaves, who were deco
rated with paper and killed in honor of the gods Tla-
matzincatl and Yzquitecatl; there were also sacrificed
women supposed to represent the wives of these two
deities. The calpixquis on their part led other two
slaves to the death in honor of Mixcoatl and of Cohua-
tlicue, his wife. On the morning of the last day but
one of the month, all the doomed were brought out
and led round the cu where they had to die; after
mid-day they were led up the cu, round the sacri
ficial block, down
again, then back to the calpulco, to
be at once guaxded and forced to keep awake for the
night.
O At midnight
O their heads were shaven before
the fire, and every one of them burned there what
55
goods he had, paper flags, cane tobacco-pipes,
little
and drinking-vessels; the women threw into the flame
their raiment, their ornaments, their spindles, little
baskets, vessels in which the spindles were twirled,
warping-frames, fuller s earth, pieces of cane for press
ing a fabric together, cords for fastening it up, maguey
thorns, measuring-rods, and other implements for
weaving; and they said that all these things had to
be given to them in the other world after their death.
"

Caflas cle Immo. Kingsborouglis Mcs. A/it/q., vol. vii., p. 75; Sahayun,
]fi*t. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 100.
406 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

At daybreak these captives were carried or assisted

up, each having a paper flag borne before him, to the
several cues of the gods they were to die in honor of.
Four that had to die, probably before Mixcoatl, were,
each by four bearers, carried up to a temple, bound
hand and foot to represent dead deer; while others
were merely assisted up the steps by a youth at each
arm, so that they should not faint nor fail two other ;

youths trailing or letting them down the same steps

after they were dead. The preceding relates only to
the male captives, the women being slain before the
men, in a separate cu called the coatlan; it is said
that as they were forced up the steps of it some
screamed and others wept. In letting the dead bodies
of these women down the steps again, it is also specially
written that they were not hurled down roughly, but
rolled down little by little. At the place where the
skulls of the dead were exposed, waited two old women
called teixamique, having by them salt water and bread
and a mess or gruel of some kind. The carcasses of
the victims being brought to them, they dipped cane
leaves into the salt water and sprinkled the faces of
them therewith, and into each mouth they put four
morsels of bread moistened with the gruel or mess
above mentioned. Then the heads were cut off and
56
spitted on poles; and so the feast ended.

In connection with the religious honors paid to the

dead, it may be here said that the Mexicans had a
deity of whom almost all we know is that he was the
god of those that died in the houses of the lords or in
56
Kingsborouylis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 73-6; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn,
i., pp. 1G2-7; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind,, torn, ii., pp. 148-9, 151-2,
lib. ii.,

280-1; Cfavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 79; Mailer, Amerika-
iiische Urreliyionen, pp. 483, 486, and elsewhere. Brasseur, as his custom is,
euhemerizes this god, detailing the events of his reign, and theorizing on
his policy, as soberly and believingly as if it were a question of the reign of
a Louis XIV. or a Napoleon I.; see Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., pp. 227-35.
Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 88, and others, make Camaxtle, the principal god of
Tlascala, identical with Mixcoatl. The Chichimecs had only one god called
Mixcoatl, and they kept this image or statue. They held to another god, in
visible, without image, called looalliehecatl, that is to say, god invisible and
impalpable, favoring, sheltering, all-powerful, by whose power all live, etc.
Sahayun, Iftat. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., p. 64.
 MACUILXOCHITL. 407

the palaces of the principal men; he was called Macuil-

xochitl, the chief that gives flowers, or that takes
57
care of the giving of flowers. The festival of this
god fell among the movable feasts, and was called
Xochilhuitl, or the festival of flowers. There were
in it the usual preliminary fasting (that is to say, eat

ing but once a day, at noon, and then only of a re

stricted diet), blood-letting, and offering of food in the
temple; though there did not occur therein anything
suggestive either of a god of flowers or of a god of the
more noble dead. The image of this deity was in the
likeness of an almost naked man, either flayed or
painted of a vermilion color; the mouth and chin were
of three tints, white, black, and light blue; the face
was of a light reddish tinge. It had a crown of light
green color, with plumes of the same hue, and tassels
that hung down to the shoulders. On the back of
the idol was a device wrought in feathers, representing
a banner planted on a hill about the loins of it was a ;

bright reddish blanket, fringed with sea-shells; curi

ously wrought sandals adorned its feet on the left ;

arm of it was a white shield, in the midst of which

were set four stones, joined two and two; it held a
sceptre, shaped like a heart and tipped with green and
58
yellow feathers.
57
This deity must not, it would seem, be confounded with another men
tioned by Sahagun, viz., Coatlyace, or Coatlyate, or Coatlantonan, a goddess
of whom we know little save the fact, incidentally mentioned, that she
was regarded with great devotion by the dealers in floweis. See Kings-
boroughs Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 42; and Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib.
ii., p. 95.
Kingsborough s Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 10-11, 136; Sahagun, Hist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. i., pp. 19-22, lib. iv., p. 305. Boturini, Idea de una Hwt., pp. 14-
15, speaks of a goddess called Macuilxochiquetzalli; by a comparison of the
passage with note 28 of this chapter, it will, I think, be evident that the
chevalier s Macuilxochiquetzalli is identical, not with Macuilxochitl, but with
Xochiquetzal, the Aztec Venus. See further, on the relations of this goddess,
Brasseur dc. Bourdoury, Hint. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 490-1. Matlalcueye, qui
donnait son nom au versant de la montagne du c6te de Tlaxcallan, etait
regardee comme
la protectrice speciale des magiciennes. La legende disait
qu elle etait devenue
1
epouse de Tlaloc, apres que Xochiquetzal eut ete en-
lovee & ce dieu [see this vol., p. 378]. Celle-ci, dont elle 11 etait, apres tout,
qu une personnification differente, etait appelee aussi Chalchiuhlycue, ou le
Jupon seme d emeraudes, en sa qualite de deesse des eaux. Le symbol e sous
Icquel on la represente, comme deesse des amours honnetes, cst celui d un
eveiitail compose de cinq "
fleiirs, ceque rend encore le nom qu on lui donnait
"

Macuil-Xochiquetzalli. Brasseur, it is to be remembered, distinguishes

408 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Ome
Acatl was the god of banquets and of guests;
his name signified two canes. When a man made a
feast to his friends, he had the image of this deity
carried to his house by certain of its priests; and if
the host did not do this, the deity appeared to him in
a dream, rebuking him in such words as these Thou :

bad man, because tliou hast withheld from me my due

honor, know that I will forsake thee and that thou
shalt pay dearly for this insult. When this god was
excessively angered, he was accustomed to mix hairs
with the food and drink of the guests of the obj ect of
his wrath, so that the giver of the feast should be dis
graced. As in the case of Huitzilopochtli, there was
ia kind of communion sacrament in connection with the
adoration of this god of feasts: in each ward dough
was taken and kneaded by the principal men into the
figure of a bone of about a cubit long, called the bone
of Ome Acatl. A
night seems to have been spent in
eating and in drinking pulque then at break of day,
;

an unfortunate person, set up as the living image of

the god, had his belly pricked with pins, or some such
articles; being hurt thereby, as we are told. This
clone, the bone was divided, and each one ate what of
it fell to his lot; and when those that had insulted this

god ate, they often grew sick, and almost choked, and
went stumbling and falling. Ome Acatl was repre
sented as a man seated on a bunch of cyperus-sedges.
His face was painted white and black; upon his head
was a paper crown surrounded by a long and broad
fillet of divers colors, knotted up at the back of the

head; and again round and over the fillet was wound
a string of chalchiuite beads. His blanket was made
like a net, and had a broad border of flowers woven
into it. He bore a shield, from the lower part of
which hung a kind of fringe of broad tassels. In the
right hand he held a sceptre called the tlachielonique,
or looker/ 59 because it was furnished with a round
between Xochiquetzal as the goddess of holiest love, and Tlazolteotl as the
goddess of lubricity.
69
The fire-god Xiuhtecutli used an instrument of this kind; see this vol.,
p. 385.
 IXTLILTON, HEALER OF CHILDREN. 409

plate through which a hole was pierced, and the god

kept his face covered with the plate and looked
60
through the hole.

Yxtliton, or Ixtlilton that is to say, the little

5

negro, according to Sahagun. and the black-faced/

according to Clavigero was a god who cured children
61
of various diseases. His oratory/ was a kind of
temporary building made of painted boards; his image
was neither graven nor painted; it was a living man
decorated with certain vestments. In this temple or
oratory were kept many pans and jars, covered with
boards, and containing a fluid which was called black
water. When a child sickened, it was brought to this
temple and one of these jars was uncovered, upon
which the child drank of the black water and was
healed of its disease the cure being probably most
prompt and complete when the priests as well as the
god knew something of physic. When one made a
feast to this god which seems to have been when one
made new pulque the man that was the image of
Ixtlilton came to the house of the feast-giver with
music and dancing, and preceded by the smoke of
60
Kinysborouylts Max. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 1112; Sahayun, liist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. i., pp. 22-3; Torquemwla, Jlonarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 58, 240-1;
Clavigero, Storin Ant. del Messico, toiu. ii., p. 22; Brasseiir da Jjottrboury,
Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 492.
61
This gocl, who was also known by the title of Tlaltecuin, i.s the third
Mexican god connected with medicine. There is first that unnamed goddess
described on p. 353 of this vol. ; and there is then a certain Tzaputaltena,
described by Sahaguii Kinysborougtis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 4; Sahayun,
Hint. Gen., torn, i., lib. i., pp. 7-8 as the goddess of turpentine (.3se Brasxeiir
de Honrhoury, Hixt. Civ., torn, iii., p. 494), or of some such substance,
N<tt.

used to cure the itch in the head, irruptions on the skin, sore throat:3, chapped
feet or lips, and other such things: Tzaputlatena fue u:ia imigcr, seguii su
iiombre, nacida en el pueblo de Tzaputla, y por esto so llama la Madre de
Tzaputla, porque la primera quo iiiventd la resina quo ee llama uxitl, y cs
fue"

u n aceyte sacado por artificio de la resina del pino, quo aprovecha para sanar
muchas enfermedades, y primeramente aprovecha contra uua manera de
bubas, 6 sarna, quo nace en la cabeza, que sc llama Quaxococivistli; y tam-
bieii contra otra, cnfermedad C3 provechosa asi mismo, que nace en la cabeza,

que es como bubas. que sc llama Chaguachicioiztli, y tambicn para la sarna

dj la cabeza. Aprovecha tambieu contra la rongucra do la garganta. Apro
vecha tambicn contra las grietas de las pies y de los labios. E s tambieii contra
los empeines que nacen en la cara 6 en las nianos. Es tambien contra c:l usagre;
contra muchas otras enfermedades c^ bueiio. Y
como esta muger debid ser la
primera quo hallo este aceyte, contaronla entrc l.is Diosas, y hacianla fiesta y 1

sacrificio,3 aquellos que vendeu y haceu este aceyto que se llama Uxitl.
410 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

copal incense. The representative of the deity having

arrived, the first thing he did was to eat and drink ;

there were more dances and festivities in his honor, in

which he took part, and then he entered the cellar of
the house, where were many jars of pulque that had
been covered for four days with boards or lids of some
kind. He opened one or many of these jars, a cere
mony called the opening of the first or of the new wine/
and himself with those that were with him drank
thereof. This done, he went out into the court-yard
of the house, where there were prepared certain jars
of the above-mentioned black water, which also had
been kept covered four days these he opened, arid if ;

there was found therein any dirt, or piece of straw, or

hair, or ash, it was taken as a sign that the giver of
the feast was a man of evil life, an adulterer, or a thief,
or a quarrelsome person, and he was affronted with the
charge accordingly. When the representative of the
god set out from the house where all this occurred, he
was presented with certain blankets called yxguen, or
ixquen, that is to say, covering of the face, because
when any fault had been found in the black water, the
62
giver of the feast was put to shame.

Opuchtli, or Opochtli, the left-handed, was vener

ated by fishermen as their protector and the inventor
of their nets, fish-spears, oars, and other gear. In
Cuitlahuac, an island of lake Chalco, there was a god
of fishing, called Amimitl, who, according to Clavigero,
differed from the first-mentioned only in name. Saha-
gun says that Opuchtli was counted among the number
of the Tlaloques, and that the offerings made to him
were composed of pulque, stalks of green maize, flowers,
the smoking canes or pipes called yietlj copal incense,
the odorous herb yiauhtli, and parched maize. These
things seem to have been strewed before him as rushes
used to be strewed before a procession. There were
used in these solemnities certain rattles enclosed in
6z
Kingsbwaugh s Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 12-13; Snka.f/nn, Hist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. i., pp. 24-5; Claviyero, Hist. Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 21.
 OPUCHTLI, GOD OF FISHING. 411

hollow walking-sticks. The image of this god was

like a man, almost naked, with the face of that gray
tint seen in quails feathers; on the head was a paper
crown of divers colors, made like a rose, as it were,
of leaves overlapping each other, topped by green
feathers issuing from a yellow tassel other long tassels ;

hung from this crown to the shoulders of the idol.

Crossed over the breast was a green stole resembling
that worn by the Christian priest when saying mass ;

on the feet were white sandals; on the left arm was a

red shield, and in the centre of its field a white flower
with four leaves disposed like a cross; and in the left
63
hand was a sceptre of a peculiar fashion.

Xipe, or Totec, or Xipetotec, or Thipetotec, is, ac

/

cording to Clavigero, a god whose name has no mean

ing,
6
who was the deity of the goldsmiths, and who
*

was much venerated by the Mexicans, they being

persuaded that those that neglected his worship would
bo smitten with diseases; especially the boils, the itch,
and pains of the head and eyes. They excelled them-
a Teiiia en la maiio
izquierda una rodela tenida de Colorado, y en el me-
dio de este campo una flor blaiica con quatro ojas a manera de cruz, y de los
espacios de las ojas salian quatro puiitas que eran tambien ojas de la inisina
llor. Teiiia un cetro eu la maiio derecha coino uii caliz, y de lo alto de el
salia como uii casquillo de saetas. KinyJtorouylis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii. p. 13; ,

Sahayun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. i., pp. 26-7; Claviyero, Storia Ant. del Mes-
sico, torn, ii., p. 20; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 60-1. La peche
avait, toutefois, son genie particulier: c etait Opochtli, Is Uaucher, personni-
fication de Huitzilopochtli. Brasseur de Bourboury, Hist, des Nat. Civ.,
torn, iii., p. 494.

I,

(c

.Symbolo del primer Mes, quiere decir Dexhollamiento de Gentes, porque en su

primer dia se deshollaban unos Honibres vivos dedicados al Dios Toteuc, esto
cs, Dios Senor nuestro, o al Dios Oxipe, Dios de el Deskollamiento, syncope de
Tlo.i: peiica. Boturini, Idea de Una Hist., p. 51. Sahagun says that the name
means the flayed one. Xipetotec, que quiere decir desollaclo. Kinys-
lorowjlis Alex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 14; Saliayun, H
ist. Gen., torn, i., lib. i., p. 27.

While Torquemada affirms that it means the bald, or the blackened one.
Teniau los Plateros otro Dios, que se llamaba Xippe, y Totec .... Este De-
inonio Xippe, que quiere decir, Calvo, 6 Ate9ado. Torquenuula, Monarq.
Ltd., torn, ii., p. 53. Brasseur, Ifat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 503, partially
N<tt.

Xipe, lechauve oti IV corche, autrement

dit
accepts all the 50 derivations.
encore Totec ou iiotre seigneur. This god was further surnamed, according
to the interpreter of the Vatican Codex, the mournful combatant, or, as
Gallatin gives it, the disconsolate. Sue Spiei/nzione dclle Tcrole del Codke
Mexifttno (Vaticano), tav. xliii., in K
uujsborowjti s Mcx. Ant/q.,
vol. v., p. 186;
and. Aiiiei EthnoL Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 345, 350.
.
412 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

selves, therefore, in cruelty at his festival time, occur

ring ordinarily in the second month.
describes this god as specially honored by
Sahagun
dwellers on the sea-shore, and as having had his ori
gin at Zapotlan in Jalisco. He was supposed to afflict
people with sore eyes and with various skin-diseases,
such as small-pox, abscesses, and itch. His image was
made like a human form, one side or flank of it being
painted yellow, and the other of a tawny color;
down
each side of the face from the brow to the jaw thin
a

stripe was wrought; and on the,

head was a little cap

with hanging tassels. The upper part of the body

was clothed with the flayed skin of a man; round the
loins was girt a kind of green skirt. It had on one
arm a yellow shield with a red border,, and held in
both hands a sceptre shaped like the calix of a poppy
65
and tipped with an arrow-head.
On the last day of the second month or, according
to some authors, of the first Tlacaxipehualiztli, there
was celebrated a solemn feast in honor at once of
It was preceded
Xipetotec and of Huitzilopochtli.
a
by very solemn dance at noon of the day before. As
the night of the vigil fell, the captives were shut up
and guarded; at midnight the time when it was usual
to draw blood from the ears the hair of the middle of
the head of each was shaven away before a fire.
When the dawn appeared, they were led by their
owners to the foot of the stairs of the temple of Huit
zilopochtli and if they would not ascend willingly
the priests dragged them up by the hair. The priests
threw them down one by one on the back on a stone
of three quarters of a yard or more high, and square
on the top something more than a foot every way.
Two assistants held the victim down by the feet, two
by the hands, and one by the head this last accord
ing to many accounts putting a yoke over the neck
of
the man arid so pressing it down. Then the priest,
or a stone
holding with both hands a splinter of flint,

65
KmysltoroucjtisMex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 14; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i.,

lib. i., pp. 27-8; Botunni, Idea de Nueva Hist., p. 51.

 EATING THE BODIES OF THE SACRIFICED. 413

resembling flint, like a large lance-head, struck across

the breast therewith, and tore out the heart through
the gash so made; which, after offering it to the sun
and other gods, by holding it up toward the four quar
66
ters of heaven, he threw into a wooden vessel. The
blood was collected also in a vessel and given to the
owner of the dead captive, while the body, thrown
down the temple steps, was taken to the calpule by
certain old men, called quaquacuiltin, flayed, cut into
pieces, and divided for eating; the king receiving
the
flesh of the thurfi,
O while the rest of the carcass was
eaten at the house of the owner of the captive, though,
6
as will appear by a remark hereafter, it is improbable
that the captor or owner himself ate any of it. With
the skin of these flayed persons, a party of youths,
called the tototecli, clothed themselves, and fought in
sham fight with another party of young men prisoners ;

being taken on both sides, who were not released with

out a. ransom of some kind or other. This sham bat
tle was succeeded by combats of a terribly real sort,
the famous so-called gladiatorial fights of Mexico.
On a great round stone, like an enormous mill-stone,
a captive was tied by a cord, passing round his waist
and through the hole of the stone, long enough to

66
These human sacrifices were begun, according to Clavigero, Storia Ant.
del Mexico, torn, i., pp. 105-7, by the Mexicans, before the foundation of their
city, while yet slaves of the Culhuas. These Mexicans had done good ser
vice to their rulers in a battle against the Xochimilcas. The masters were
expected to furnish their serfs with a thank-offering for the war-god. They
sent a filthy rag and a rotten fowl. The Mexicans received and were silent.
The day of festival came; and with it the Culhua nobles to see the sport- -
the Helots and their vile sacrifice. But the filth did not appear, only a
coarse altar, wreathed with a fragrant herb, bearing a great fiake of keen-
ground obsidian. The dance began, the frenzy mounted up, the priests
advanced to the altar, and with them they dragged four Xochimilca prison
ers. There is a quick struggle, and over a prisoner bruised, doubled back
siipine on the altar-block gleams and falls the itzli, driven with a two-handed
blow. The blood spurts like a recoil into the bent face of the high-priest, who
grabbles, grasps, tears out and tlings the heart to the god. Another, another,
another, and there are four hearts beating in the lap of the grim image.
There are more dances, but there is no more sport for the Culhuas; with lips
considerably whitened they return to their place. After this there could be
no more mastership, nor thought of mastership, over such a people; there
was too much of the wild beast in them; they had already tasted blood.
And the Mexicans were allowed to leave the land of their bondage, and jour
ney north toward the future Tenochtitlan.
U7
See this vol., p. 415.
414 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP,

about the
permit him freedom of motion everywhere
block set near or at a temple called yopico, of .the

god Totec, or Xipe.

68
With various ceremonies more
described in the preceding volume, the
particularly
bound man, furnished with inferior weapons, was made
to fight with a picked Mexican champion the latter
his sword and shield to the sun before en
holding up
If, as sometimes happened,
the desperate
gaging.
though hampered and ill-armed captive whose club-
sword was, by a refinement of mockery, deprived of
its jagged flint edging and set with feathers slew his
opponent, another champion was sent against him, and
so on to the number of five, at which point, according
to some, the captive was set free; though according to
other authorities, he was not allowed so to escape, but
champions were sent against him till he fell. Upon
which a priest, called the yooallaoa, opened his breast,
tore out his heart, offered it to the sun, and threw it
into the usual wooden vessel; while the ropes used for
the four
binding to the fighting-stone were carried to
quarters of the world, reverently with weeping and
sighing. A
second priest thrust a piece of cane into
the gash in the victim s breast and held it up stained
with blood to the sun. Then the owner of the captive
came and received the blood into a vessel bordered
with feathers; this vessel he took with a little cane-
and-feather broom, or aspergillum, and went about all
the temples and calpules, giving to each of the idols,
as it were, to taste of the blood of his captive. The
slain body was then carried to the calpulco where,

Further notice of this stone appears in Kingsborougli s Mex. Antiq., vol.

68

or Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., ap. pp. 207-8. El sesenta
vii., p. 94,
de molino
y dos edificio se llamaba Temalacatl. Era una piedra como muela
grande, y estaba agujereada en el inedio como
muela de molino. Sobre
esta piedra ponian los esclavos y acuchillabaiise con ellos: estaban atados
la circumferencia de la
por medio de tal manera que podian llegar hasta
piedra, y dabanles armas con que peleasen.
Era este un espectaculo muy
f requente, y donde concurria gente de todas las comarcas a verle. Uii satrapa
vestido de un pellejo de oso 6 Cuetlachtli, era alii el padrino de los capti-
vos que alii mataban, que los llevaba a la piedra y los ataba alii, y los daba
las armas, y los lloraba entre tanto que peleabaii, y quaiulo caian los en-
vestido con
tregaba al que les habia de sacar el corazon, que era otro satrapa
otro pellejo que se llamaba Tooallaoan. Esta relacion queda escrita en la
fiesta de Tlacaxipeoaliztli.
 RELATIONS BETWEEN CAPTOR AND CAPTIVE. 415

while alive, it had been confined the night before the

sacrifice and there skinned. Thence it was brought

to the house of its owner, who divided arid made pres
ents of it to his superiors, relatives, and friends; not,
however, tasting thereof himself, for we are told "lie

counted it as the flesh of his own body," because from

the hour that he took the prisoner "he held him to
be his son, and the captive looked up to his captor as
to a father."

The skins of the dead belonged to their captors,

who gave them again to others to be worn by them for
apparently twenty days, probably as a kind of penance
the persons so clothed collecting alms from every one
in the mean time and bringing all they got, each to
the man that had given him the skin. When done
with, these skins were hid away in a rotting condition
in a certain cave, while the ex-wearers thereof washed
themselves with great rejoicings. At the putting
away of these skins there assisted numbers of people
ill with the itch and such other diseases as
Xipe in
flictedhoping thus to be healed of their infirmities,
and it is said that many were so cured. 69
The merchants of Mexico a class of men who
hawked their goods from place to place and wandered
69
Kingsborbugtis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 23, 37^3; SaJmgun, Ili*t. Gen.,
torn, lib. ii., pp. 51-3, 86-97; Explication del Codex Telleriano-Rernensis,
i.,

pt. i., lam. iii., in KingsborougJis Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 133; Spiegazione
delle Tavole del Codice Mexicatio (Vaticano), tav. Ixiii., in Id., vol. v., p. 191;
Torf/uenutdn, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 154, 252-4; Leony Gaina, Dos Piedras,
pt. ii., pp. 50-4; PreKCott*s Mex., vol. i., p. 78, note; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del

Mexico, torn, ii., p. 481. We learn from Clavigero, Ibid, torn, i., pp. 281-2,
that this great gladiatorial block was sometimes to an extraordinary extent a
stone of sacrifice to the executioners as well as to the doomed victim. In.
the last year of the reign of the last Montezuma, a famous Tlascaltec general,
Tlaliuicol, was captured by the merest accident. His strength of arm was
such that few men could lift his mtiquahnil, or sword of the Mexican type,
from the ground. Montezuma, too proud to xise such an inglorious triumph,
or perhaps moved by a sincere admiration of the terrible and dignified war
rior, offered him his liberty, either to return to Tlascala or to accept high
office in Mexico. But the honor of the chief was at stake, as lie understood
it; and not even a favor would he accept from the hated Mexican; the death,
the death he said, and, if you dare, by battle on the gladiatorial stone
!

So they tied him (by the foot, says Clavigero) upon the tcinalacntl, armed
with a great staff only, and chose out champions to kill him from the most
renowned of the warriors; but the grim Tlascaltec dashed out the brains of
eight with his club, and hurt twenty more, before he fell, dying like himself.
They tore out his heart, as of wont, and a costlier heart to Mexico never
smoked before the sun.
416 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

often far into strange countries to buy or sell had

various deities to whom they did especial honor.
Among these the chief, and often the only one men
tioned, was the god Yiacatecutli, or Jacateuctli, or
lyacatecuhtli, that is, the lord that guides/ otherwise
70
called Yacacoliuhqui, or Jacacoliuhqui. This chief
god of the merchants had, however, according to
Sahagun, five brothers and a sister, also reverenced
by traders, the sister being called Chalmecacioatl, and
the brothers respectively Chiconquiavitl, Xomocuil,
Nacxitl, Cochimetl, and Yacapitzaoac. The principal
image of this god was a figure representing a man
walking along a road with a staff; the face black and
white; the hair tied up in a bundle on the middle of
the top of the head with two tassels of rich quetzal-
feathers; the ear-rings of gold; the mantle blue, bor
dered with a flowered fringe, and covered with a red
net, through whose meshes the blue appeared; round
the ankles leather straps, from which hung marine
shells; curiously wrought sandals on the feet; and on
the arm a plain unornamented yellow shield, with a
spot of light blue in the centre of its field. Practi
cally, however, every merchant reverenced his own
stout staff generally made of a solid, knotless piece
of black cane, called utatl as the representative or
symbol of this god Yiacatecutli ; keeping it, when not
in use, in the oratory or sacred place in his house, and
invariably putting food before it prejiminary to eating
his own meal. When travelling, the traders were
accustomed nightly to stack up their staves in a con
venient position, bind them about, build a fire before
71
them, and then offering blood and copal, pray for
preservation and shelter from the many perils to
70
This last name means, Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 57, being
followed, the hook-nosed; and it is curious enough that this type of face,
so generally connected with the Hebrew race, and through them with partic
ular astuteness in trade, should be the characteristic of the Mexican god of
trade. Los mercaderes tuvieron Dios particular, al qual llamaron lyacate
cuhtli, y por otro nombre se llamo Yacacoliuhqui, que quiere decir: El que
la nariz aguilefia, que propriameiite represeiita persona que tiene vivea,
^iene
o habilidad, para mofar graciosamente, o enganar, y es sabio, y sagaz (que ea
propia condicion de mercaderes).
71
Without laying any particular stress on this lighting a fire before Yiaca-
 NAPATECUTLI. 417

which their wandering life made them especially

2
subject.

Xapatecutli, that is to say, four times lord/ was the

(

god of the mat-makers and of all workers in water

-

Hags and rushes. A

beneficent and helpful divinity,
and one of the Tlalocs, he was known by various
names, such as Tepahpaca Teaaltati, the purifier or
washer; Quitzetzelohua, or Tlaitlamliloni, he that
scatters or winnows down; Tlanempopoloa, he that
is
large and liberal; Teatzelhuia, he that sprinkles
with water; and Amotenenqua, he that shows him
self grateful. This god had two temples in Mexico,
and his festival fell in the thirteenth month, by Clavi-

gero s reckoning. His image resembled a black man,

the face being spotted with white and black, with tas
sels hanging down behind supporting a green plume
of three feathers. Round the loins and reaching to the
knees was girt a kind of white and black skirt or pet
ticoat, adorned with little sea-shells. The sandals of
tecutli perhaps here necessary as a camp-fire, and probably, at any rate, a
thing done before many other gods it may be noticed that the fire-god
seems to be particularly connected with the merchant-god, and indeed with
the merchants themselves. Describing a certain coming down or arrival of*
the gods among men, believed to take place in the twelfth Mexican month,
Sahagun after describing the coming, first of Tezcatlipoca, who, being a
youth, and light and strong, walked fastest, and then the coining of all
the rest (their arrival being known to the priests by the marks of their feet
on a little heap of maize Hour, specially prepared for the purpose) says that
a day after all the rest of the gods came the god of fire and the god of the
merchants, together; they being old and unable to walk fast as their a>

younger divine brethren. El dia siguiente llegaba el dios de los Mercaderes

llamado Yiaiacapitzaoac, 6 Yiacatecutli, y otro Dios llamado Hiococauzqui
(Yxcocauhqui), 6 Xiveteuctli (Yiuhtecutli), qua 3 el Dios del fucgo a quien
los mercaderes tienen grande devocion. Estos dos Ibgaban a li postre un
dia despues de los otros, porque decian quo eran vicjos y nc andabaii tanto
como los otros. Kingsboronfjhs Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 71, or jim, J/i^t. Sa/i<t

torn, i., lib. ii., p. Io8.

<!en., See also, for the connection of the fire-god
Xiuhtecutli with business, this vol., p. 223; and for the high position of the
merchants themselves besides Tezcatlipoca, see this vol. p. 228. ,
72
Mcx. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 14-U5;
KinyxhoroiKjIis Hi*t. Gen., torn,
8<ih<t;/tm,

i., pp. 29-33; L lirijcro, Storia Ant. del Mexico, torn, ii., p. 20.
lib. i., The
Nahuihehecatli, or Nauiehecatl, mentioned by the interpreters of the codices
as a god honored by the merchants, is cither some air-god like Quetzalcoatl,
or, as Sahagun gives it, merely the name of a sign. See Spiegcvzione delle Ta-
vole Codlce Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. xxvii., in
Kingftborougfis Alc.r. Antiq.,
vol. v., p. 179; also, pp. 139-40; Exphcaaon del Codex Telleriano-Remensis,
lam. Sahatjun, Hixt. Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 3J1--5, and Kinys-
xii. ; also,
borouglis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 135-0.
VOL. m. 27
418 ODDS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP

this idol were white; on its left arm was a shield

made the broad leaf of the water-lily, or nenu
like

phar; while the right hand held a sceptre like a flow

ering staff, the flowers being of paper; and across the
body, passing under the left arm, was a white scarf,
73
painted over with black flowers.
The Mexicans had several gods of wine, or rather
of pulque of these;
the chief seems to have been Tez-
catzoncatl, otherwise known as Tequechmecaniani, the
strangler, and as Teatlahuiani, the dr owner epithets
suggested by the effects of drunkenness. The com
panion deities of this Aztec Dionysus were called as a
class by the somewhat extraordinary name of Cent-
zontotochtin, or the four hundred rabbits; Yiaula-
tecatl, Yzquitecatl, Acoloa, Thilhoa, Pantecatl (the
Pateeatl of the interpreters of the codices), Tultecatl,
Papaztac, Tlaltecaiooa, Ometochtli (often referred
to as the principal god of wine), Tepuztecatl, Chi-
mapalnecatl were deities of this class. The principal
characteristic of the image of the Mexican god of
drunkenness was, according to Mendieta and Moto-
a kind of vessel carried on the head of the idol,
linia,
into which vessel wine was ceremoniously poured.
The feast of this god, like that of the preceding divin
ity, fell in the thirteenth month, Tepeilhuitl, and in
his temple in the city ofMexico there served four hun
dred consecrated priests, so great was the service done
74
this everywhere too widely and well-known god.
73
KingsborougTia Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 16-17; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn,
i., pp. 33-5; Torquemada, Monarq. 2nd., torn, ii., pp. 59-60; Claviyero,
lib. i.,
titoria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 22.
Kingsborough a Mcx. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 7, 19, 90, 93; SnJiagun, Hist.
i., lib. i., pp. 14, 39-40, lib. ii., pp. 200, 205; Torquemada, Monarq.

Ltd., torn, ii., pp. 58, 152, 184, 416; Spicyazione delle Tavole del Cod-ice Mexicano
(Vaticano), tav. xxxv., and Explication del Codex Tclleriano-Remenxis, lam.
xvi., in Kinysborouylis Mex. Aulit/., vol. v., pp. 141, 182; Oallatin, in Amer.
Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 344, 353; Oomara, Co/tq. Mex., fol. 87, 315;
Clariyero, Storla Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 21. Otros teiiian figuras de
hombres; tenian estos en la cabeza un mortero eii lugar de mitra, y alii les
echaban vino, por ser el dios del vino. Motolinia, H
i*t. Indlos, in Icazbalceta,

Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 33. Otros conun mortero on la cabeza, y este parece
que era el dios del vino, y asi le echaban vino en. aquel coino mortero. Men
dieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 88. Papaztla, 6 Papaztac. .Este era uiio de los tres
. .

pueblos de donde se sacaban los esclavos para el sacriiicio que se hacia de

dia, al idolo Centzentotochtin, Dios del vino en el mes noinbrado HueipacJttli, 6
tepeilhuitl en su templo propio que es el cuadragesimo
cuarto edincio de los
 THE HOUSEHOLD GODS. 419

The Mexicans had certain household gods called

or Tepictoton, the little ones small stat
Tepitoton,
ues of which kings kept six in their houses, nobles four,
and common folks two. Whether these were a par
ticular class of deities or merely miniature images of
the already described greater gods, it is hard to say.
Similar small idols are said to have adorned streets,
cross-roads, fountains, and other places of public traf
70
fic and resort.

With these Tepitoton may be said to finish the list

of Mexican gods of any repute or any general noto

riety so that it seems fit to give
;
here a condensed and
resume of all the fixed festivals and celebra
arranged
tions of the Aztec calendar, with its eighteen months
of twenty days each, and its five supplementary days
at the end of the year. There is some disagreement
as to which of the months the year began with; but
it willbest suit our present purpose to follow the ar
rangement of Sahagun, the interpreters of the Codices,
Torquemada, and Clavigero, in which the month vari
ously called Atlcahualco, or Quahuitlehua, or Cilm- 76
ailhuitl,or Xilomanaliztli, is the first. The name
Atlchualco, or Atlaooalo, or Atalcaoplo, means the
quo se conteriian en la area del mayor, como dice el Dr Hernandez: "Tern-
plum erat dicatum vini deo, in cujus honorem tres captives interdiu taraen,
it nonnoctu jugulabant, quorum primum Tepuztecatl nuncupabant secundum

cep
plusiewrs divinites particulieresr la principale etait Izquitecatl; mais le plus
coimu devaite tre Tezcatzoiicatl, appcle aiissi Tequechmecaiiiani, on le Pen-
dour. Brasse.ur de Bourbourr/, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 493.
Torqucmada, Monarq. fnd., torn, ii., p. 64; Clavigero, Storia Ant. dd
70

Messico, torn, ii., p. 23. These were what the Spaniards called oratorios
in the houses of the Mexicans. In or before these oratories the people offered
cooked food to such images of the gods as they had there. Every morning
the good wife of the house woke up the members of her family and took
care tlufct they made the proper offering, as above, to these deities. Kin;/s-
borougtis Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 95; tiahagun-, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii.,
ap. p. 21 1.
7(i
lt is obviously of little consequence to mythology whether the Mexi
cans called the month Atlcahualco the first or the third month (or, ay
Boturini has it, the eighteenth), so long as we know, with some accuracy,
to what month and day of the month it corresponds in our own Gregorian
calendar. For the complete discussion of this question of the; calendar,
we refer readers to the preceding volume of this series. Gama was unfor
tunately unacquainted with the writings of Sahagun, and Bustamante (wh
420 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEING 3, AND WORSHIP

buying or scarcity of water; Quahuitlehua, or Quavit-

leloa, the sprouting of trees; and Xiloinaualiztli, the
offering of Xilotl/ that is, heads of maize, which were
then presented to the gods to secure their blessing on
the seed-time. This first month, beginning on the sec
ond of February according to Sahagun, the eighteenth
according to Gama, and the twenty-sixth according to
Clavigero, was consecrated to Tlaloc and the other
gods of water, and in it great numbers of children were
77
sacrificed. In further honor of the Tlalocs, there
were also at this time killed many captives on the
gladiatorial stone.
8
It was the secondmonth, called Tlacaxiphualiztli/
or the flaying of men/ that was especially famous for
its gladiatorial sacrifices sacrifices already described
and performed to the honor of Xipe, or Xipetotec. 7 *
The third month, called Tozoztontli, the lesser fast
or penance, was inaugurated by the sacrifice on the
mountains of children to the Tlalocs. Those also that
traded in flowers and were called Sochimanque, or Xo-
chimanqui, made a festival to their goddess, Coatlycue,
or Coatlantona, offering her the first-fruits of the flowers
of the year, of these that had grown in the precincts

edited the works both of Gama and Sahagun) remarks in a note to the
writings of the astronomer: Muchas veces he deplorado, que el sabio Sr D.
Antonio Leon y Gama no hubiese teiiido a la vista para formar esta preciosa
obra los manuscritos del P. Sahagun, que he publicado en los anos de 1829
y 30 en la oficina de D. Alejandro Values, y solo hubiese leido la obra del P.
Torquemada, discipulo de D. Antonio Valeriano, que lo fue de dicho P. Sa
hagun; pues la lectura del texto de este, que acaso truiicd, 6 no entendid
bien podrian haberle dejado dudas en hechos muy interesaiites a*esta his-
toria. See Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. i, pp. 45-89; KinqsborougTis
Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 20-34, or Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., pp.
49-76; Torquemada, Mowtrq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 251-86; Acosta, Hist, de
las Ynd., p. 397; Chwiyero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 58-84;
Explication del Codex Telteriano-JRemensis, pt. i., and Spiegazione detle Tavole
del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. Ivii.-lxxiv., in Kingsborougtis Mex. Antiq.,
vol. v., pp. 129-34, 190-7; Boturini, Idea de Una Hist., pp. 47-53; Gomara,
Conq. Mex., fol. 294; Miiller, Amerikanische Urrelinionen, pp. 646-8; Brasseur
de Bourbourg, H
lst. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 502-37; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno.

Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 57-114.

77
See this vol., pp. 332-4.
78
It is also surnamed Cohuailhuitl, feast of the snake. See above.
79
There seems to be some confusion with regard to whether or not there
were gladiatorial sacrifices in each of the first two months. Sahagun, how
ever, appears to describe sacrifices of this kind as occurring in both periods;
those of the first month being in honor of the Tlalocs, and those of the second
in honor of Xipe. For a description of these rites, see this vol., pp. 414-15.
 THE CEREMONIAL CALENDAR. 421

of the cu yapico, a cu, as we have seen, consecrated to

Tlaloc. Into a cave belonging to this temple there
were also at this time cast the now rotten skins of the
human beings that had been flayed in the preceding
month. stinking like dead as Saha-
"

Thither, dogs,"

gun phrases marched in procession the persons that

it,

wore these skins, and there they put them off, wash
ing themselves with many ceremonies; and sick folk
troubled with certain skin diseases followed and looked
on, hoping by the sight of all these things to be healed
of their infirmities. The owners of the captives that
had been slain had also been doing penance for twenty
days, neither washing nor bathing during that time ;

and they now, when they had seen the skins deposited
in the cave, washed and gave a banquet to all their
friends and relatives, per forming, many ceremonies with
the bones of the dead captives. All the twenty days
of this month singing exercises, praising the god, were
carried on in the nouses called Cuicacalli, the per
formers not dancing, but remaining seated.
The fourth month was called, in contradistinction
to the third, Yeitozoztli, or Hueytozoztli, that is to
say, the greater penance or letting of blood; be
cause in it not only the priests but also the populace
and nobility did penance, drawing blood from their
ears, shins, and other parts of the body, and exposing
at their doors leaves of sword grass stained therewith.
After this they performed certain already described
80
ceremonies, and then made, out of the dough known
81
as tzoalli, an image of the goddess Chicomecoatl, in
the court-yard of her temple, .offering before it all
kinds of maize, beans, and chian, because she was the
maker and giver of these things and the sustainer of
the people. In this month, as well as in the three
preceding, little children were sacrificed a cruelty
which was supposed to please the water-gods, and which
was kept up till the rains began to fall abundantly.
80
See this vol., pp. 360-2.
H Le TzoJmalh etait uu compose" cle graines leguminetises particulieres au
Mexique, qu on mangeait de diverses maiiieres. Jlraxyeur de Bourbounj, Hist.
Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 513.
422 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

The fifth month,called Toxcatl and sometimes Tepo-

82
pochuiliztli, was begun by the most solemn and famous
feast of the year, in honor of the principal Mexican god,
a god known by a multitude of names and epithets,
among which were Tezcatlipoca, Titlacaoan, Yautl, Tel-
puchtli, and Tlamatzincatl. A
year before this feast,
one of the most distinguished of the captives reserved
for sacrifice was chosen out for superior grace and
per
sonal appearance from among all his fellows, and given
in charge to the priestly functionaries called calpixques.
These instructed him with great diligence in all the arts
to good breeding, according to the Mexican
pertaining
idea; such as playing on the flute, walking, speaking,
saluting those he happened to meet, the use and carry
ing about of straight cane tobacco-pipes and of flowers,
with the dexterous smoking of the one, and the grace
ful inhalation of the odor of the other. He was at
tended upon by eight pages, who were clad in the livery
of the palace, and had perfect liberty to go where he
pleased night and day; while his food was so rich that
to guard against his growing too fat, it was at times
necessary to vary the diet by a purge of salt and water.
Everywhere honored and adored as the living image
and accredited representative of Tezcatlipoca, he went
about playing on a small shrill clay flute, or fife, and
adorned with rich and curious raiment furnished by
the king, while all he met did him reverence kissing
the earth. All his body and face was painted black,
it would appear; his
long hair flowed to the waist; his
head was covered with white hens feathers stuck on
with resin, and covered with a garland of the flowers
called yzquisuchitl ; while two strings of the same flow
ers crossed his body in the fashion of cross-belts.
Ear-rings of gold, a necklace of precious stones with a
82
The nameTepopochniliztli signifies smoke or vapor. As to the
meaning of Toxcatl, writers are divided, Boturini interpreting it to mean
effort, and Torquemada, a slippery place. Acosta, Sahagun, and Gama
agree, however, in accepting it as an epithet applied to a string of parched or
toasted maize used in ceremonies to be immediately described, and Acosta
further gives root signification a dried thing. Consult, in addition to
as^its
the references given in the note at the
beginning of these descriptions of the
feasts, Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 383; Kingsborougtia Mex. Antiq., vol. vii.,
pp. 45-9; Sahcujun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. iii.. pp. 100-11.
 THE MOXT1I TOXCATL. 423

great dependent gem hanging to the breast, a lip-orna

ment (barbote) of sea-shell, bracelets of gold above the
elbow on each arm, and strings of gems called macuex-
tli
winding from wrist almost to elbow, glittered and
Hashed back the light as the doomed man-god moved.
lie \vas covered with a rich beautifully fringed mantle
of netting, and bore on his shoulders something like
a purse made of white cloth of a span square, orna
mented with tassels and fringe. white maxtli of A
a span broad went about his loins, the two ends, curi
ously wrought, falling in front almost to the knee.
Little bells of gold kept time with every motion of
his feet, which were shod with painted sandals called
ocelunacace.
All this was the attire he \vore from the beginning
of his year of preparation but twenty days before the
;

coming of the festival, they changed his vestments,

washed away the paint or dye from his skin, and cut
down his long hair to the length, and arranged it after
the fashion, of the hair of the captains, tying it up on
the crow^n of the head with feathers and fringe and
two gold -buttoned tassels. At tlie same time they
married to him four damsels, who had been pampered
and educated for this purpose, and who were surnamed
respectively after the four goddesses Xochiquetzal,
83
Xilonen, Atlatonan, and Vixtocioatl. Five days bo-
84
fore the great day of the feast, the day of the feast
83
With three of these goddesses we are tolerably familiar, knowing them
to be intimately connected with each other and concerned in the production,
preservation, or support of life and of life-giving food. Of Atlatonan little i
5

known, but she seems to belong to the same class, being generally mentioned
in connection with Cinteotl. Her name means, according to Torquemada,
she that shines in the water. Otra Capilla, 6 Templo avia, que se llamaba
Xiuhcalco, dedicado al Dios Cinteutl, en cuia fiesta sacriticaban dos Varones
Esclavos, y una Muger, a los quales ponian el nombre de su Dios. Al vno
llamaban Iztaccinteutl, Dios Tlatlauhquiciiiteutl, Dios de las Mieses eneen-
didas, o coloradas; y a la Muger Atlantona, que quiere decir, que resplan-
dece en el Agua, h la qual desollaban, cuio pellejo, y cuero, se vestia vn
Sacerdote, luego que acababa el Sacrificio, que era de noche. Torquemada^
Alonarq. torn, ii., p. 155; see also Kinffsborough s Mex. Antiq., vol. vii.,
/</.,

p. 04; or Snluifjun, Ifixt. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., ap. p. 209.
84
Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd. pp. 382-3, gives an account of various other
,

ceremonies which took place ten days before the great feast-day, which ac-
cou.it lias been followed by Torquemada, Clavigero, and later writers, and
which wo reproduce from the quaint but in this case at least hill and accurate
translation of E. (I. a translation which, however, makes this chapter the
424 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

being counted one, ail the people, high and low, the
king it would appear, being alone excepted, went out
to celebrate with the man-god a solemn banquet and
dance, in the ward called Tecanman; the fourth day
before the feast, the same was done in the ward in
which was guarded the statue of Tezcatlipoca. The
little hill, or island, called Tepetzinco, rising out of
the waters of the lake of Mexico, was the scene of the
next clay s solemnities solemnities renewed for the last
time on the next day, or that immediately preceding
the great day, on another like island called Tepelpulco,
or Tepepulco. There, with the four women that had
been & Driven him for his consolation, the honored victim
was put into a covered canoe usually reserved for the
sole use of the king; and he was carried across the
lake to a place called Tlapitzaoayan, near the road
that goes from Yztapalapan to Chalco, at a place
where was a little hill called Acacuilpan, or Cabalte-
pec. Here left him the four beautiful girls, whose
society for twenty days he had enjoyed, they return
ing to the capital with all the people; there accom
panying the hero of this terrible tragedy only those
29th of the fifth book instead of the 28th, as in the original: Then came forth
one of the chiefe of the temple, attired like to the idoll, carrying llowers in
his hand, and a flute of earth, having a very sharpe sound, and turning to
wards the east, he sounded it, and then looking to the west, north, and south,
he did the like. And after he had thus sounded towards the foure parts of
the world (shewing that both they that were present and absent did heare
him) hee Dut his linger into the aire, and then gathered vp earth, which he put
in his mouth, and did eate it in signe of adoration. The like did all they that
were present, and weeping, they fell flat to the ground, invocatiiig the dark-
nesse of the night, and the windes, intreating them not to leave them, nor to
forget them, or else to take away their lives, and free them from the labors
they indured therein. Theeves, adulterers, and niurtherers, and all others
offenders had great feare and heavinesse, whilest this flute sounded; so as
some could not dissemble nor hide their offences. By this meanes they all
demanded no other thing of their god, but to have their offences concealed,
powring f oorth many teares, with great repentaunce and sorrow, offering great
store of incense to appease their gods. The couragious and valiant men,
and all the olde souldiers, that followed the Arte of Warre, hearing this flute,
demaiuided with great devotion of God the Creator, of the Lortle for whome
wee live, of the sunne, and of other their gods, that they would give them
victorie against their ennemies, and strength to take many captives, therewith
so honour their sacrifices. This ceremoiiie was doone ten dayes before the
feast: During which tenne dayes the Priest did sound this flute, to the end
that all might do this worship in eating of earth, and demaund of their idol
what they pleased; they every day made their praiers, with their eyes lift vp
to heaven, and with sighs and groanings, as men that were grieved for their
3
sinnes and offences.
 THE FEAST OF TOXCATL. 425

eight attendants that had been with him all the year.
Almost alone, done with the joys of beauty banquet,
,

and dance, bearing a bundle of his flutes, he walked to

a little ill-built cu, some distance from the road men
tioned above, and about a league removed from the city.
He marched up the temple steps, not dragged, nob
bound, not carried like a common slave or captive; and
as he ascended he dashed down and broke on every
step one of the flutes that he had been accustomed to
play on in the days of his prosperity. He reached the
top by sickening repetition
: we have learned to know
the rest; one thing only, from the sacrificial stone his
body was not hurled down the steps, but was carried
by four men down to the Tzompantli, to the place of
the spitting of heads.
And the chroniclers say that all this signified that
those who enjoyed riches, delights in this life, should
at the end come to poverty and sorrow so determined
are these same chroniclers to let nothing escape with
out its moral.
In this feast of Toxcatl, in the cu called Huitzna-
huac, where the image of Huitzilopochtli was always
kept, the priests made a bust of this god out of tzoalli
dough, with pieces of mizquitl-wood inserted by way of
bones. They decorated it with his ornaments, putting
on a jacket wrought over with human bones, a mantle
of very thin nequen, and another mantle called the
tlaquaquallo, covered with rich feathers, fitting the
head below and widening out above in the middle of
;

this stood up a little rod, also decorated with feathers,

and sticking into the top of the rod was a flint knife
half covered with blood. The image was set on a
platform made of pieces of wood resembling snakes,
and so arranged that heads and tails alternated all the
way round; the whole borne by many captains and
men of war. Before this image and platform a num
ber of strong youths carried an enormous sheet of
paper resembling pasteboard, twenty fathoms long,
one fathom broad, and a little less than an inch thick;
it was supported by spear-shafts
arranged in pairs of
426 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

one shaft above and one below the paper, while per
sons on either side of the paper held each one of these
pairs in one hand.
When the procession, with danc
the cu to be ascended, the
ing and singing, reached
and cautiously hoisted
snaky platform was carefully
up by cords attached to its four corners, the image
was set on a seat, and those that carried the paper
rolled it and set down the roll before the bust of
up
the god. It was sunset when the image was so set
one offered food
up; and the following morning every
in his own house before the image of Huitzilopochtli
there, incensing also such images
of other gods as he
had, and then went to offer quails
blood before the
bust set up on the cu. The king began, wringing off
the heads of four quails; the priests offered next, then
all the people; the whole multitude carry ing ^clay fire
incense of every kind, after
pans and burning copal
which every one threw his live coals upon a great
hearth in the temple-yard. The virgins painted their
of parched maize
faces, put on their heads garlands
with strings of the same across their breasts, deco
rated their arms and legs with red feathers, and car
ried black paper flags stuck into split canes. The
of nobles were not of
flags of the daughters paper, bujh
of a thin cloth called canaoac, painted with vertical
black stripes. These girls joining hands danced round
the great hearth, upon or over which on an elevated
time and
place of some kind there danced, giving^the
step, two men having
each a kind of pine cage cov
ered with paper flags on his shoulders, the strap sup
not across the forehead the
porting which passed,
usual way for men to carry a burden but across the
chest, as was the fashion with women.
The priests of
the temple, dancing on this occasion with the women,
bore shields of paper, crumpled up like great flowers;
their heads were adorned with white feathers, their
lips and part
of the face were smeared with sugar-cane
effect over the black
juice, which produced a peculiar
with which their faces were always painted. They
carried in their hands pieces of paper, called amas-
 DEATH OF THE YXTEUCALLI. 427

maxtli, and sceptres of palm- wood tipped with a black

flower, and having in the lower part a ball of black
feathers. In dancing they used this sceptre like a
staff, and the part by which they grasped it was

wrapped round with a paper painted with black lines.

The music for the dancers was supplied by a party of
unseen musicians, who occupied one of the temple
buildings, where they sat, he that played
on the
drum in the centre, and the performers on the other
instruments about him. The men and women danced
on till night, but the strictest order and decency were
preserved, and any lewd word or look brought down
swift punishment from the appointed overseers.
This feast was closed by the death of a youth who
had been during the past year dedicated to and taken
care of for Huitzilopochtli, resembling in this the vic
tim of Tezcatlipoca, whose companion he had indeed
been, but without receiving such high honors. This
Huitzilopochtli youth was entitled Yxteucalli, or Tla-
cabepan, or Teicauhtzin, and was held to be the image
and representative of the god. When the day of his
death came, the priests decorated him with papers
painted over with black circles, and put a mitre of
eagles feathers on his head, in the midst of whose
plumes was stuck a flint knife, stained half-way up
with blood and adorned with red feathers. Tied to
his shoulders, by strings passing across the breast, was
a piece of very thin cloth about a span square, and
over it hung a little bag. Over one of his arms was
thrown a wild beast s skin, arranged somewhat like a
maniple; bells of gold jingled at his legs as he walked
or danced. There were two peculiar things connected
with the death of this youth: first, he had absolute
liberty of choice regarding the hour in which he was
to die and second, he was not extended upon any
;

block or altar, but when he wished he threw himself

into the arms of the priests, and had his heart so cut
out. His head was then hacked off and spitted along
side of that of the Tezcatlipoca youth, of whom we
have spoken -already. In this same day the priests
 428 GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

made little marks on children, cutting them, with thin

stone knives, in the breast, stomach, wrists, and fleshy
part of the arms marks, as the Spanish priests con
sidered, by which the devil should know his own
85
sheep. The ceremonies of the ensuing monthly fes
86
tivals have already been described at
length.
There were, besides, a number of movable feasts in
honor of the higher gods, the celestial bodies, and the
patron deities of the various trades and professions.
Sahagun gives an account of sixteen movable feasts,
many 87of which, however, contained no religious ele
ment. The first was dedicated to the sun, to whom
a ghostly deputation of eighteen souls was sent to
make known the wants of the people, and implore
future favors. The selected victims were ranged in
order at the place of sacrifice, and addressed by the
priest, who exhorted them to bear in mind the sacred
nature of their mission, and the glory which would be
theirs upon its proper fulfilment. The music now
strikes up; amid the crash and din the victims one
after another are stretched the altar; a few
upon
flashes of the iztli-knife in the practised hand of the
slayer, and the embassy has set out for the presence
of the sun. 88
The sixth, seventh, and eleventh
were cele festivals
brated to Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Huiteilo-
pochtli respectively. The public and household idols
of these gods were at such seasons decorated, arid pre
sented with offerings of food, quails, and incense.
During the festival of the god of fire, the thirteenth
of the movable feasts, various public officials were
elected, and a great many grand banquets given. The
85
Sahagun, Hist. Gen.,
torn, i., lib. ii., pp, 100-11; Torquemada, Monarq.
Ind., torn, pp. 263-6; Clavigero, StoriaAnt.
ii., del Mexico, torn, ii., pp. 70-3.
80
For the month Etzalqualiztli, see this volume, pp. 334-43; for the
months Tecuilhuitzintli, Hueytecuilhuitl, and Tlaxochimaco, see vol. ii. of
this work, pp. 225-8; for Xocotlhuetzin and Ochpaniztli, this volume, pp.
385-9, 354-9; forTeotleco, vol. f or Tepeilhuitl, Quecholli, Paii-
ii., pp. 332-4;
quetzaliztli, and Atemoztli, this volume, pp. 343-6, 404-6, 297-300, 323-4,
346-8; for Tititl, vol. ii., pp. 337-8; for Itzcalli, this volume, pp. 390-3.
87
Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. 194-7, 216. There are other scattered
notices of these movable feasts, which will be referred to as they appear.
B8
Las Casas, Hist. Apoloyetica, MS., cap. clxxvi.
 MISCELLANEOUS FEASTS. 429

atamalquallztli, orfast of bread and water, seems to

have been one of the most important of the movable
feasts. The people prepared for its celebration, which
took place every eight years, by a rigid fast, broken
only by a mid-day meal of water and unsalted bread.
Those who offended the gods by neglecting to observe
this fast were thought to expose themselves to an
attack of leprosy. The people indulged in all sorts of
amusements during the holiday season which suc
ceeded the fast. The most interesting feature of the
festivities was a bal masque, which was supposed to
be attended by all the Oofods.
t/
The chief honors of the
day were, however, rendered to the Tlalocs, and round
their effigy, which stood in the midst of a pond alive
with frogs and snakes, the dancers whirled continually.
It was a part of the ceremonies for a number of men
called maxatecaz to devour the reptiles in the pond;
this they did by each seizing a snake or a frog in his
teeth, and swallowing it gradually as he joined in the
dance; the one who first bolted his titbit cried out
triumphantly, Papa, papa!
Every fourth year, called teoxihuitl, or divine year,
and at the beginning of every period of thirteen years,
the feasts were more numerous and on a larger scale,
the fasts more severe, and the sacrifices far greater in
number than upon ordinary occasions. 89 The entire
series of festivals may be said to have closed with the
solemn Toxilmolpilia, or binding up of the years/
which took place every fifty-two years, and marked
the expiration and renewal of the world s lease of
90
existence.
89
Storia Ant. del Mcssico, torn, ii., p. 84; Sahagun, Hist Gen.,
Clavif/ero,
torn, i., lib.
pp. 77-8, 195-218.
ii., The last five clays of the year were,
according to Gomara, Coitq. Mcx., fol. 331, devoted to religious ceremonies,
as drawing of blood, sacrifices, and dances, but most other authors state that
they were passed in quiet retirement.
90
See this volume, pp. 393-6.