VIII. GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP

VIII. GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP

VARIOUS ACCOUNTS OF THE BIRTH, ORIGIN, AND DERIVATION OF THE NAME OF THE MEXICAN WAR GOD, HUITZILOPOCHTLI, OF HIS TEMPLE, IMAGE, CEREMONIAL, FESTIVALS, AND HIS DEPUTY, OR PAGE, PAYNAL -- CLAVIGERO -- BOTURINI -- ACOSTA -- SOLIS -- SAHAGUN -- HERRERA -- TORQUEMADA -- J. G. MÜLLER'S SUMMARY OF THE HUITZILOPOCHTLI MYTHS, THEIR ORIGIN, RELATION, AND SIGNIFICATION -- TYLOR -- CODEX VATICANUS -- TLALOC, GOD OF WATER, ESPECIALLY OF RAIN, AND OF MOUNTAINS -- CLAVIGERO, GAMA, AND IXTLILXOCHITL -- PRAYER IN THE TIME OF DROUGHT -- CAMARGO, MOTOLINIA, MENDIETA, AND THE VATICAN CODEX ON THE SACRIFICES TO TLALOC -- THE DECORATIONS OF HIS VICTIMS AND THE PLACES OF THEIR EXECUTION -- GATHERING RUSHES FOR THE SERVICE OF THE WATER GOD -- HIGHWAY ROBBERIES BY THE PRIESTS AT THIS TIME -- DECORATIONS AND IMPLEMENTS OF THE PRIESTS -- PUNISHMENTS FOR CEREMONIAL OFFENCES -- THE WHIRLPOOL OF PANTITLAN -- IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS IN HONOR OF THE TLALOC FESTIVAL -- OF THE COMING RAIN AND MUTILATION OF THE IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS -- GENERAL PROMINENCE IN THE CULT OF TLALOC, OF THE NUMBER FOUR, THE CROSS, AND THE SNAKE.

[Sidenote: BIRTH OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

Huitzilopochtli, Huitziloputzli, or Vitziliputzli, was the god of war and the especially national god of the Mexicans. Some said that he was a purely spiritual being, others that a woman had borne him after miraculous conception. This legend, following Clavigero, ran as follows:

In the ancient city of Tulla, lived a most devout woman, Coatlicue by name. Walking one day in the temple as her custom was, she saw a little ball of feathers floating down from heaven, which, taking without thought, she put into her bosom. The walk being ended, however, she could not find the ball, and wondered much, all the more that soon after this she found herself pregnant. She had already many children, who now, to avert this dishonor of their house, conspired to kill her; at which she was sorely troubled. But, from the midst of her womb the god spoke: Fear not, O my mother, for this danger will I turn to our great honor and glory. And lo, Huitzilopochtli, perfect as Pallas Athena, was instantly born, springing up with a mighty war-shout, grasping the shield and the glittering spear. His left leg and his head were adorned with plumes of green; his face, arms, and thighs barred terribly with lines of blue. He fell upon the unnatural children, slew them all, and endowed his mother with their spoils. And from that day forth his names were Tezahuitl, Terror, and Tetzauhteotl, Terrible god.

This was the god who became protector of the Mexicans, who conducted them so many years in their pilgrimage, and settled them at last on the site of Mexico. And in this city they raised him that proud temple so much celebrated even by the Spaniards, in which were annually held their solemn festivals, in the fifth, ninth, and fifteenth months; besides those kept every four years, every thirteen years, and at the beginning of every century. His statue was of gigantic size, in the posture of a man seated on a blue-colored bench, from the four corners of which issued four huge snakes. His forehead was blue, but his face was covered with a golden mask, while another of the same kind covered the back of his head. Upon his head he carried a beautiful crest, shaped like the beak of a bird; upon his neck a collar consisting of ten figures of the human heart; in his right hand, a large, blue, twisted club; in his left, a shield, on which appeared five balls of feathers disposed in the form of a cross, and from the upper part of the shield rose a golden flag with four arrows, which the Mexicans pretended to have been sent to them from heaven to perform those glorious actions which we have seen in their history. His body was girt with a large golden snake, and adorned with various lesser figures of animals made of gold and precious stones, which ornaments and insignia had each their peculiar meaning. They never deliberated upon making war without imploring the protection of this god, with prayers and sacrifices; and offered up a greater number of human sacrifices to him than to any other of the gods.[VIII-1]

A different account of the origin of this deity is given by Boturini, showing the god to have been a brave Mexican chief, who was afterward apotheosized:--

While the Mexicans were pushing their conquests and their advance toward the country now occupied by them, they had a very renowned captain, or leader, called Huitziton. He it was that in these long and perilous journeys through unknown lands, sparing himself no fatigue, took care of the Mexicans. The fable says of him that being full of years and wisdom he was one night caught up in sight of his army, and of all his people, and presented to the god Tezauhteotl, that is to say the Frightful God, who, being in the shape of a horrible dragon, commanded him to be seated at his right hand, saying: Welcome, O valiant captain; very grateful am I for thy fidelity in my service and in governing my people. It is time that thou shouldest rest, since thou art already old, and since thy great deeds raise thee up to the fellowship of the immortal gods. Return then to thy sons and tell them not to be afflicted if in future they cannot see thee as a mortal man; for from the nine heavens thou shalt look down propitious upon them. And not only that, but also, when I strip the vestments of humanity from thee, I will leave to thine afflicted and orphan people thy bones and thy skull so that they may be comforted in their sorrow, and may consult thy relics as to the road they have to follow: and in due time the land shall be shown them that I have destined for them, a land in which they shall hold wide empire, being respected of the other nations.

Huitziton did according to these instructions, and after a sorrowful interview with his people, disappeared, carried away by the gods. The weeping Mexicans remained with the skull and bones of their beloved captain, which they carried with them till they arrived in New Spain, and at the place where they built the great city of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico. All this time the devil spoke to them through this skull of Huitziton, often asking for the immolation of men and women, from which thing originated those bloody sacrifices, practiced afterwards by this nation with so much cruelty on prisoners of war. This deity was called, in early as well as in later times, Huitzilopochtli--for the principal men believed that he was seated at the left hand of Tezcatlipoca--a man derived from the original name Huitziton, and from the word mapoche, 'left hand.'[VIII-2]

[Sidenote: IMAGE OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

Acosta gives a minute description of the image and temple of this god:--

"The chiefest idoll of Mexico was, as I have sayde, Vitziliputzli. It was an image of wood like to a man, set vpon a stoole of the colour of azure, in a brankard or litter, at every corner was a piece of wood in forme of a Serpent's head. The stoole signified that he was set in heaven: this idoll hadde all the forehead azure, and had a band of azure vnder the nose from one eare to another: vpon his head he had a rich plume of feathers, like to the beake of a small bird, the which was covered on the toppe with golde burnished very browne: hee had in his left hand a white target, with the figures of five pine apples, made of white feathers, set in a crosse: and from above issued forth a crest of gold, and at his sides hee hadde foure dartes, which (the Mexicaines say) had beene sent from heaven to do those actes and prowesses which shall be spoken of: In his right hand he had an azured staffe, cutte in fashion of a waving snake. All those ornaments with the rest hee had, carried his sence as the Mexicaines doe shew; the name of Vitziliputzli signifies the left hand of a shining feather. I will speake heereafter of the prowde Temple, the sacrifices, feasts and ceremonies of this great idoll, being very notable things. But at this present we will only shew, that this idoll thus richly appareled and deckt, was set vpon an high Altare, in a small peece or boxe, well covered with linnen clothes, jewells, feathers and ornaments of golde, with many rundles of feathers, the fairest and most exquisite that could be found: hee had alwaies a curtine before him for the greater veneration. Ioyning to the chamber or chappell of this idoll, there was a peece of lesse worke, and not so well beautified, where there was another idoll they called Tlaloc. These two idolls were alwayes together, for that they held them as companions, and of equal power.

[Sidenote: TEMPLE OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

There was in Mexico, this Cu, the famous Temple of Vitziliputzli, it had a very great circuite, and within a faire Court. It was built of great stones, in fashion of snakes tied one to another, and the circuite was called Coatepantli, which is, a circuite of snakes: vppon the toppe of every chamber and oratorie where the Idolls were, was a fine piller wrought with small stones, blacke as ieate, set in goodly order, the ground raised vp with white and red, which below gave a great light. Vpon the top of the pillar were battlements very artificially made, wrought like snailes [caracoles], supported by two Indians of stone, sitting, holding candlesticks in their hands, the which were like Croisants garnished and enriched at the ends, with yellow and greene feathers and long fringes of the same. Within the circuite of this court, there were many chambers of religious men, and others that were appointed for the service of the Priests and Popes, for so they call the soveraigne Priests which serve the Idoll.

There were foure gates or entries, at the east, west, north, and south; at every one of these gates beganne a faire cawsey of two or three leagues long. There was in the midst of the lake where the cittie of Mexico is built, foure large cawseies in crosse, which did much beautify it; vpon every portall or entry, was a God or Idoll, having the visage turned to the causey, right against the Temple gate of Vitziliputzli. There were thirtie steppes of thirtie fadome long, and they divided from the circuit of the court by a streete that went betwixt them; vpon the toppe of these steppes there was a walke thirtie foote broad, all plaistered with chalke, in the midst of which walke was a Pallisado artificially made of very high trees, planted in order a fadome one from another. These trees were very bigge, and all pierced with small holes from the foote to the top, and there were roddes did runne from one tree to another, to the which were chained or tied many dead mens heades. Vpon every rod were twentie sculles, and these ranckes of sculles continue from the foote to the toppe of the tree. This Pallissado was full of dead mens sculls from one end to the other, the which was a wonderfull mournefull sight and full of horror. These were the heads of such as had beene sacrificed; for after they were dead, and had eaten the flesh, the head was delivered to the Ministers of the Temple, which tied them in this sort vntil they fell off by morcells; and then had they a care to set others in their places. Vpon the toppe of the temple were two stones or chappells, and in them were the two Idolls which I have spoken of, Vitziliputzli, and his companion Tlaloc. These Chappells were carved and graven very artificially, and so high, that to ascend vp to it, there was a staire of stone of sixscore steppes. Before these Chambers or Chappells, there was a Court of fortie foote square, in the midst thereof, was a high stone of five hand breadth, poynted in fashion of a Pyramide, it was placed there for the sacrificing of men; for being laid on their backes, it made their bodies to bend, and so they did open them and pull out their hearts, as I shall shew heereafter."[VIII-3]

Solis describes this temple also:--

The top of the truncated pyramid on which the idols of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc were placed was forty feet square, and reached by a stair of a hundred and twenty steps. On this platform, on either hand, at the head of the stairs, stood two sentinel-statues supporting great candlesticks of an extraordinary fashion. And first, from the jasper flags, rose a hump-backed altar of green stone. Opposite and beyond was the chapel wherein behind curtains sat Huitzilopochtli, on a throne supported by a blue globe. From this, supposed to represent the heavens, projected four staves with serpents' heads, by which the priests carried the god when he was brought before the public. The image bore on its head a bird of wrought plumes whose beak and crest were of burnished gold. The feathers expressed horrid cruelty and were made still more ghastly by two stripes of blue one on the brow and the other on the nose. Its right hand leaned as on a staff upon a crooked serpent. Upon the left arm was a buckler bearing five white plumes, arranged in form of a cross; and the hand grasped four arrows venerated as heaven-descended. To the left of this was another chapel, that of Tlaloc. Now these two chapels and idols were the same in every particular. These gods were esteemed brothers--their attributes, qualities, powers, inclinations, service, prayers, and so on, were identical or interchangeable.[VIII-4]

[Sidenote: HUITZILOPOCHTLI AND CAMAXTLI.]

Sahagun says of Huitzilopochtli, that, being originally a man, he was a sort of Hercules, of great strength and warlike, a great destroyer of towns and slayer of men. In war he had been a living fire, very terrible to his adversaries; and the devise he bore was a dragon's head, frightful in the extreme, and casting fire out of its mouth. A great wizard he had been, and sorcerer, transforming himself into the shape of divers birds and beasts. While he lived, the Mexicans esteemed this man very highly for his strength and dexterity in war, and when he died they honored him as a god, offering slaves, and sacrificing them in his presence. And they looked to it that those slaves were well fed and well decorated with such ornaments as were in use, with ear-rings and visors; all for the greater honor of the god. In Tlaxcala also they had a deity, called Camaxtli, who was similar to this Huitzilopochtli.[VIII-5]

Gage, in a pretty fair translation of Herrera, describes this god with Tezcatlipoca. He says:--

"The gods of Mexico (as the Indians reported to the first Spaniards) were two thousand in number; the chiefest were Vitzilopuchtli, and Tezcatlipoca, whose images stood highest in the temple upon the altars. They were made of stone in full proportion as big as a giant. They were covered with a lawn called Nacar; they were beset with pearls, precious stones, and pieces of gold, wrought like birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers, adorned with emeralds, turquies, chalcedons, and other little fine stones, so that when the lawn was taken away, the images seemed very beautiful and glorious to behold. These two Indian idols had for a girdle great snakes of gold, and for collars or chains about their necks ten hearts of men made of gold; and each of them had a counterfeit visor with eyes of glass, and in their necks Death painted. These two gods were brethren, for Tezcatlipoca was the god of providence, and Vitzilopuchtli, god of the wars, who was worshiped and feared more than all the rest."[VIII-6]

Torquemada goes to some length into the legend and description of this god of war, Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitl:[VIII-7]--

Huitzilopochtli, the ancient god and guide of the Mexicans, is a name variously derived. Some say it is composed of two words: huitzilin, 'a humming-bird', and tlahuipuchtli, 'a sorcerer that spits fire.' Others say that the second part of the name comes not from tlahuipuchtli, but from opuchtli, that is, 'the left hand;' so that the whole name, Huitzilopochtli, would mean 'the shining-feathered left hand.' For this idol was decorated with rich and resplendent feathers on the left arm. And this god it was that led out the Mexicans from their own land and brought them into Anáhuac.

Some held him to be a purely spiritual being, others affirmed that he had been born of a woman, and related his history after the following fashion: Near the city of Tulla there is a mountain called Coatepec, that is to say the Mountain of the Snake, where a woman lived, named Coatlicue, or Snake-petticoat. She was the mother of many sons called Centzunhuitznahua, and of a daughter whose name was Coyolxauhqui. Coatlicue was very devout and careful in the service of the gods, and she occupied herself ordinarily in sweeping and cleaning the sacred places of that mountain. It happened that one day, occupied with these duties, she saw a little ball of feathers floating down to her through the air, which she taking, as we have already related, found herself in a short time pregnant.[VIII-8]

[Sidenote: DOUGH STATUE OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

Upon this all her children conspired against her to slay her, and came armed against her, the daughter Coyolxauhqui being the ringleader and most violent of all. Then, immediately, Huitzilopochtli was born, fully armed, having a shield called teuehueli in his left hand, in his right a dart, or long blue pole, and all his face barred over with lines of the same color. His forehead was decorated with a great tuft of green feathers, his left leg was lean and feathered, and both thighs and the arms barred with blue. He then caused to appear a serpent made of torches, teas, called xiuhcoatl; and he ordered a soldier named Tochaucalqui to light this serpent, and taking it with him, to embrace Coyolxauhqui. From this embrace the matricidal daughter immediately died, and Huitzilopochtli himself slew all her brethren and took their spoil, enriching his mother therewith. After this he was surnamed Tetzahuitl, that is to say, Fright, or Amazement, and held as a god, born of a mother, without a father--as the great god of battles, for in these his worshipers found him very favorable to them. Besides the ordinary image of this god, permanently set up in the great temple of Mexico, there was another, renewed every year, made of grains and seeds of various kinds. In one of the halls in the neighborhood of the temple the priests collected and ground up with great devotion a mass of seeds, of the amaranth and other plants, moistening the same with the blood of children, and making a dough thereof, which they shaped into a statue of the form and stature of a man. The priests carried this image to the temple and the altar, previously arranged for its reception, playing trumpets and other instruments, and making much noise and ado with dancing and singing at the head of the procession. All this during the night; in the morning the high-priest and the other priests blessed and consecrated the image, with such blessing and consecration as were in use among them. This done, and the people assembled, every person that could come at the image touched it wherever he could, as Christians touch a relic, and made offerings thereto, of jewels of gold and precious stones, each according to his means and devotion, sticking the said offerings into the soft fresh dough of which the idol was confected. After this ceremony no one was allowed to touch the image any more, nor to enter the place where it was, save only the high-priest. After that they brought out the image of the god Paynalton,[VIII-9]--who is also a war god, being vicar or sub-captain of the said Huitzilopochtli--an image made of wood. It was carried in the arms of a priest who represented the god Quetzalcoatl, and who was decorated with ornaments rich and curious. Before this priest there marched another carrying [the image of] a great snake, large and thick, twisted and of many coils. The procession filed along at great length, and here and there at various temples and altars the priests offered up sacrifices, immolating human captives and quails. The first station, or stopping-place, was at the ward of Teotlachco. Thence the cortège passed to Tlatelulco (where I, Torquemada, am now writing this history); then to Popotlan; then to Chapultepec--nearly a league from, the city of Mexico; then to Tepetoca; then to Acachinanco; then back again to the temple whence it had set out; and then the image of Paynalton was put on the altar where stood that of Huitzilopochtli, being left there with the banner, called ezpaniztli, that had been carried before it during the march: only the great snake, mentioned above, was carried away and put in another place, to which it belonged. And at all these places where the procession appeared, it was received with incensings, sacrifices, and other ceremonies.

This procession finished, it having occupied the greater part of the day, all was prepared for a sacrifice. The king himself acted the part of priest; taking a censer, he put incense therein with certain ceremonies and incensed the image of the god. This done, they took down again the idol, Paynalton, and set out in march, those going in front that had to be sacrificed, together with all things pertaining to the fatal rite. Two or three times they made the circle of the temple, moving in horrid cortège, and then ascended to the top, where they slew the victims; beginning with the prisoners of war, and finishing with the fattened slaves, purchased for the occasion, rending out their hearts and casting the same at the feet of the idol.

[Sidenote: SYMBOLIC DEATH OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

All through this day the festivities and the rejoicings continued, and all the day and night the priests watched vigilantly the dough statue of Huitzilopochtli, so that no oversight or carelessness should interfere with the veneration and service due thereto. Early next day they took down said statue and set it on its feet in a hall. Into this hall there entered the priest, called after Quetzalcoatl, who had carried the image of Paynalton in his arms in the procession, as before related; there entered also the king, with one of the most intimate servants, called Tehua, of the god Huitzilopochtli, four other great priests, and four of the principal youths, called Telpochtlatoque, out of the number of those that had charge of the other youths of the temple. These mentioned, and these alone, being assembled, the priest named after Quetzalcoatl took a dart tipped with flint and hurled it into the breast of the statue of dough, which fell on receiving the stroke. This ceremony was styled, 'killing the god Huitzilopochtli so that his body might be eaten.' Upon this the priests advanced to the fallen image and one of them pulled the heart out of it, and gave the same to the king. The other priests cut the pasty body into two halves. One half was given to the people of Tlatelulco, who parted it out in crumbs among all their wards, and specially to the young soldiers--no woman being allowed to taste a morsel. The other half was allotted to the people of that part of Mexico called Tenochtlitlan; it was divided among the four wards, Teopan, Atzaqualco, Quepopan, and Moyotlan; and given to the men, to both small and great, even to the men-children in the cradle. All this ceremony was called teoqualo, that is to say, 'god is eaten,' and this making of the dough statue and eating of it was renewed once every year.[VIII-10]

Closely as J. G. Müller studied the character of Quetzalcoatl, his examination of that of Huitzilopochtli, has been still more minute and was indeed the subject of a monograph published by him in 1847. A student of the subject cannot afford to overlook this study, and I translate the more important parts of it in the paragraphs which follow; not, indeed, either for or against the interests of the theory it supports, but for the sake of the accurate and detailed handling, rehandling, and grouping there, by a master in this department of mythological learning, of almost all the data relating to the matter in hand:--

Huitzilopochtli has been already referred to as an original god of the air and of heaven. He agrees also with Quetzalcoatl in a second capital point, in having become the anthropomorphic national god of the Aztecs, as Quetzalcoatl of the Toltecs. On their marches and in their wars, in the establishment of codes and towns, in happiness as well as in misfortune, the Aztecs were guided by his oracle, by the spirit of his being. As the Toltecs, especially in their later national character, differ from the Aztecs, so differ their two chief national gods. If the capital of the Toltecs, Cholula, resembled modern Rome in its religious efforts, so the god enthroned there was transformed into the human form of a high-priest, in whom this people saw his human ideal. In the same manner one might be led to compare the capital of the Aztecs with ancient Rome, on account of its warlike spirit, and therefore it was right to make the national god of the Aztecs a war god like the Roman Mars.

[Sidenote: THE NAME HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

We will commence with the name of the god, which, according to Sahagun, Acosta, Torquemada, and most of the writers, signifies 'on the left side a humming-bird;' from huitzilin, 'a humming-bird,' and opochtli, 'left.' In connecting the Aztec words, the ending is cut off. The image of the god had in reality, frequently, the feathers of the humming-bird on the left foot. The connection of this bird with the god is, in many ways, appropriate. It no doubt appeared to them as the most beautiful of birds, and as the most worthy representant of their chief deity. Does not its crest glitter like a crown set with rubies and all kinds of precious stones? The Aztecs have accordingly, in their way, called the humming-bird, 'sun-beam,' 'or sun-hair;' as its alighting upon flowers, is like that of a sun-beam. The chief god of the Caribs, Juluca, is also decorated with a band of its feathers round the forehead. The ancient Mexicans had, as their most noble adornment, state-mantles of the same feathers, so much praised by Cortés; and even at the present time the Aztec women adorn their ears with these plumes. This humming-bird decoration on the left foot of the god was not the only one; he had also a green bunch of plumage upon his head, shaped like the bill of a small bird. The shield in his left hand was decorated with white feathers, and the whole image was at times covered with a mantle of feathers. To the general virtues which make comprehensible the humming-bird attribute as a divine one, must be added the special virtue of bravery peculiar to this bird, which is specially suited to the war god. The English traveler Bullock tells how this bird distinguishes itself for its extraordinary courage, attacking others ten times its own size, flying into their eyes, and using its sharp bill as a most dangerous weapon. Nothing more daring can be witnessed than its attack upon other birds of its own species, when it fears disturbance during the breeding-season. The effects of jealousy transform these birds into perfect furies, the throat swells, the crest on their head, the tail, and the wings are expanded; they fight whistling in the air, until one of them falls exhausted to the ground. That such a martial spirit should exist in so small a creature shows the intensity of this spirit; and the religious feeling is the sooner aroused, when the instrument of a divine power appears in so trifling and weak a body. The small but brave and warlike woodpecker stood in a similar relation to Mars, and is accordingly termed picus martius.

This, the most common explanation of the name Huitzilopochtli, as 'humming-bird, left side' is not followed by Veytia, with whom Prichard agrees. He declares the meaning of the name to be 'left hand,' from huitzitoc, 'hand,' because Huitzilopochtli, according to the fable, after his death, sits on the left side of the god Tezcatlipoca, Now, Huitzilopochtli is in another place considered as the brother of this god; he also stands higher, and can therefore scarcely have obtained his name from his position with respect to the other deity. Besides, hand in Aztec is properly translated as maitl, or toma.

Over and above this attribute which gives the god his name, there are others which point towards the conception of a war god. Huitzilopochtli had, like Mars and Odin, the spear, or a bow, in his right hand, and in the left, sometimes a bundle of arrows, sometimes a round white shield, on the side of which were the four arrows sent him from heaven wherewith to perform the heroic deeds of his people. On these weapons depended the welfare of the state, just as on the ancile of the Roman Mars, which had fallen from the sky, or on the palladium of the warlike Pallas Athena.

By-names also point out Huitzilopochtli as war god; for he is called the terrible god, Tetzateotl, or the raging, Tetzahuitl. These names he received at his birth, when he, just issued from his mother's womb, overthrew his adversaries.

[Sidenote: KINDRED OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

Not less do his connections indicate his warlike nature. His youngest brother, Tlacahuepancuextotzin, was also a war god, whose statue existed in Mexico, and who received homage, especially in Tezcuco. In still closer relationship to him stands his brother-in-arms, or, as Bernal Diaz calls him, his page, Paynalton, that is, 'the fleet one;' he was the god of the sudden war alarm, tumultus or general levée en masse; his call obliged all capable of bearing arms to rush to the defence. He is otherwise considered as the representant of Huitzilopochtli and subordinate to him, for he was only a small image, as Diaz says, and as the ending ton denotes. The statue of this little war-crier was always placed upon the altar of Huitzilopochtli, and sometimes carried round at his feast.

Other symbolic attributes establish Huitzilopochtli as the general national god of this warlike people, and symbolized his personal presence. On the march from the ancient home, the priests took their turn, in fours, to carry his wooden image, with the little flag fallen from heaven, and the four arrows. The litter, upon which the image was carried, was called the 'chair of god,' teoicpalli, and was a holy box, such as was used among the Etruscans and Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans, in Ilium, among the Japanese, among the Mongols. In America, the Cherokees are also found with such an ark. The ark of the covenant carried by the Levites through the desert and in battle, was of a similar kind. Wherever the Aztecs halted for some time during their wanderings, they erected an altar or a sacrifice mound to their god, upon which they placed this god's-litter with the image; which ancient observance they kept up, in later times, in their temples. By its side they erected a movable tent, tabernaculum, (Stiftshütte), in the open country, as is customary among nomadic people, such as the Mongols. The god, however, gave them the codes and usages of a cultured people, and received offerings of prisoners, hawks, and quails.

As the head of a sparrow on a human body points to the former worship of Quetzalcoatl under the form of a sparrow, so the humming-bird attribute on the image and in the name of Huitzilopochtli, points him out as an original animal god. The general mythological rule, that such animal attributes refer to an ancient worship of the god in question under the form of an animal, points this out in his case, and the special myth of Huitziton assists here in the investigation of the foundation of this original nature.

When the Aztecs still lived in Aztlan, a certain Huitziton enjoyed their highest esteem, as the fable tells. This Huitziton heard the voice of a bird, which cried "tihui," that is 'let us go.'[VIII-11] He thereupon asked the people to leave their home, which they accordingly did. When we consider the name Huitziton, the nature of the story, and the mythical time to which it refers, no doubt remains as to who this Huitziton is supposed to be. It is evident that he is none other than the little bird itself, which, in our later form of the myth, as an anthropomorphic fable, is separated from him; separated euhemeristically, just as the Latin Picus was separated from his woodpecker. This Picus, whose songs and flight were portentous, was represented as a youth with a woodpecker on his head, of which he made use for his seer-art; but was originally, as denoted by his name, nothing else than a woodpecker, which was adored on the wooden pillar from which it sent its sayings. This woodpecker placed itself upon the vexillum of the Sabines, and guided them to the region which has been named Picenum after it. As this bird guided its people to their new abode, like Huitziton, so many other animal gods have lead those who, in ancient times, sought new homes. Thus a crow conducted Battus to Cyrene; a dove led the Chalcidians to Cyrene; Apollo, in the form of a dolphin, took the Cretans to Pytho; Antinous founded a new settlement, to which a snake had pointed the way; a bull carried Cadmus to Thebes; a wolf led the Hirpinians. The original stock of the South American people, the Mbayas, received the divine order, through the bird Caracara, to roam as enemies in the territories of other people instead of settling down in a fixed habitation--this is an anti-culture myth. As the founding of towns favors the birth of myths like the preceding, so also does the founding of convents, the sites of which, according to the numerous fables of the Christian mediæval age, were pointed out by animals--one of the remnants of old heathenism then existing in the popular fancy. To resume the subject, Huitziton is, therefore, the humming-bird god, who, as oracular god, commanded the Aztecs to emigrate. His name signifies nothing else than 'small humming-bird,' the ending ton being a diminutive syllable, as in Paynalton. Thus the humming-bird was the bearer, at the time of the great flood, of the divine message of joy to the Tezpi of the Michoacans, a people related to the Aztecs. It had been let loose as the water receded, and soon returned with a small twig to the ark.[VIII-12] On the Catherine Islands [islands of Santa Catalina],[VIII-13] in California, crows were adored as interpreters of the divine will. From the above it is also self-evident that Huitziton and Huitzilopochtli were one, which is the conclusion arrived at by the learned researcher of Mexican languages and traditions, the Italian Boturini. The name, myth, and attributes of Huitzilopochtli point then to the humming-bird. Previous to the transformation of this god, by anthropomorphism, he was merely a small humming-bird, huitziton; by anthropomorphism, the bird became, however, merely the attribute, emblem or symbol, and name of the god--a name which changed with his form into 'humming-bird on the left,' or Huitzilopochtli.

The identity of the two, in spite of the different explanations of the name, is accepted by Veytia, who gives Huitzitoc as the name of the chief who led the Aztec armies during their last wanderings from Chicomoztoc, or the Seven Caves, into Anáhuac. Under his leadership the Aztecs were everywhere victorious, and for this reason he was placed, after his death, on the left side of the god Tezcatlipoca; since which time he was called Huitzilopochtli.

[Sidenote: HUITZITON AND PAYNALTON.]

The identity of Huitziton and Huitzilopochtli, is also shown by other facts besides the name, the attribute, and the mythological analogy: the same important acts are ascribed to both. We have seen that Huitziton commanded the Aztecs to leave their home; according to another account of Acosta, this was done on the persuasion of Huitzilopochtli. If other Spanish authors state that this was done by instigation of the devil, they mean none other than Huitzilopochtli, using a mode of speech which had become an established one. This name became a common title of the devil in Germany, under the form of Vizliputzli, soon after the conquest of Mexico, as may be seen in the old popular drama of Faust. The fable further relates of Huitziton that he taught the Aztecs to produce fire by friction, during their wanderings. The gift of fire is usually ascribed to a culture-god. Huitzilopochtli was such a deity; he introduced dress, laws, and ceremonies among his people. The statement that Huitziton had at some time, given fire to the people, has no historical meaning; there is no people without fire, and a formerly told myth mentions that man made fire even before the existence of the present sun. The signification of the fable is a religious one, it is a myth in which the Aztecs ascribe the origin of all human culture to Huitziton their culture-god, afterward Huitzilopochtli.

[Sidenote: SACRIFICE MYTHS.]

This god wore also a band of human hearts and faces of gold and silver; while various bones of dead men, as well as a man torn in pieces, were depicted on his dress. These attributes like those of the Indian Schiwa and Kali, clearly point him out as the god to whom human sacrifices were made. It was extensively believed among the nations composing the Mexican Empire that human sacrifices had been introduced by the Aztecs within the last two centuries. Before that time only bloodless offerings had been made. A myth places the commencement of human sacrifices in the fourteenth century, in which the three first successive cases thereof are said to have occurred.

The Colhuas, the ruling nation at that time in the valley of Anáhuac, are said to have fought a battle with their enemies of Xochimilco, which was decided in favor of the Colhuas, owing to the impetuous attack made by the tributary Aztecs in their aid. While the Colhuas were presenting a large number of prisoners before their king, the Aztecs had only secured four, whom they kept secreted, but exhibited, in token of their bravery, a number of ears that they had cut from their slain enemies, boasting that the victory would have been much delayed had they lost time in making prisoners. Proud of their triumph, they erected an altar to Huitzilopochtli, in Huitzilopochco, and made known to their lord, the king of the Colhuas, that they desired to offer this god a costly and worthy sacrifice. The king sent them, by the hands of priests, a dead bird, which the messengers laid irreverently upon the altar, and departed. The Aztecs swallowed their chagrin, and set a fragrant herb with a knife of iztli beside the bird. As the king with his suite arrived at the festival, more for the sake of mocking the proceedings than to grace them, the four prisoners taken from the Xochimilcos were brought out, placed upon the stone of sacrifice, their breasts cut open with the iztli, and the palpitating heart torn out. This sacrifice brought consternation upon the Colhuas, they discharged the Aztecs from their service and drove them away. The Aztecs wandered for some time about the country, and then, at the command of their god, founded the town of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, on a site where they had found a nopal (Opuntie) growing upon a rock.

At the second sacrifice a Colhua was the victim. An Aztec was hunting, on the shore of the lake, for an animal to offer his patron deity, when he met a Colhua called Xomimitl; he attacks him furiously, bears him down, and the defeated man is made to bleed upon the sacrifice stone.

Both myths are aitiological, and explained by the sacrifice system (Opferkultus). This is shown in the case of the four prisoners, of whom we shall learn more in the third story. The second story personifies the Aztec and the Colhua peoples in the two men, the second nation supplying the first with human sacrifices. With the sacrifice of Xomimitl, the parallelism of which to the four Xochimilcos cannot be overlooked by any one, the first temple of Huitzilopochtli, in Tenochtitlan, was inaugurated.

The third sacrifice shows still more closely the religious basis (Kultusgrundlage) of the myth. Here also, as in the former, we have to do with a Colhua. The Aztecs offered the Colhua king to show divine honors to his daughter and to apotheosize her into the mother of their national god, declaring that such was the will of the deity. The king, rejoicing at the honor intended for his daughter, let her go, and she was brought to Tenochtitlan with great pomp. No sooner, however, had she arrived than she was sacrificed, flayed, and one of the bravest youths dressed in her skin. The king was invited to the solemn act of the deification of his daughter, and only became aware of her death when the flame from the copal gum revealed to him the bloody skin about the youth placed at the side of the god. The daughter was, however, at once formally declared mother of Huitzilopochtli and of all the gods.

[Sidenote: TETEIONAN.]

This aitiological cultus-myth is easily explained. The name of the daughter is Teteionan, whom we have learned to know as the gods'-mother, and as Tocitzin, 'our grandmother.'[VIII-14] She was never the daughter of a human king, but has been transformed into one by euhemerism, somewhat as Iphigenia is to be considered as originally Artemis. The goddess Teteionan had her special festival in Mexico, when a woman, dressed as goddess, was sacrificed; while held on the back of another woman, her head was cut off, then she was flayed, and the skin carried by a youth, accompanied by a numerous retinue, as a present to Huitzilopochtli. Four prisoners of war were, moreover, previously sacrificed.

Similar to this story, told by Clavigero, is another, narrated by Acosta. According to the latter, Tozi was the daughter of the king of Culhuacan, and was made the first human sacrifice by order of Huitzilopochtli, who desired her for a sister. Tozi is, however, none other than Tocitzin, and is also shown to be 'our grandmother.' According to the Aztec version, the custom of dressing priests in the skin of sacrificed beings dates from her--such representations are often seen, especially in Humboldt; the Bâsle collection of Mexican antiquities possesses also the stone image of a priest dressed in a human skin. The fourth month, Tlacaxipehualitzli, this is, 'to flay a man,' derived its name from this custom, which is said to have been most frequent at this period of the year.

Goddesses, or beings representing goddesses, are sacrificed in both of these fables. We have met with human sacrifices among the Muyscas in Central America, and in connection with many deities of the Mexicans, in which the human victim represents the god to whom he is to be sacrificed. Slaves impersonating gods were also sacrificed among the northern Indians, the so-called Indios bravos. The person sacrificed is devoured by the god, is given over to him, is already part of him, is the god himself. Such was the case with the slave that personated Quetzalcoatl in the merchants' festival in Cholula.

The critic is only able to admit the relative truth of the recentness of the period in which the origin of Mexican human sacrifices is placed by these three myths. We already know that human sacrifices are very ancient in all America, and that they have only been put aside at a few places by humane efforts; as in Peru to some extent by means of the Incas. We have met with them throughout all South America.

The statement so generally made that the Toltec Quetzalcoatl preached against human sacrifices, certainly implies the previous existence of such sacrifices. This statement about Quetzalcoatl also points out the way to the assimilation of the varying accounts, fables, and myths. In very ancient times human sacrifices predominated everywhere. The Toltecs, like the Incas, endeavored more or less to abolish them, and, even if not altogether successful, they reduced them considerably. The Aztecs reintroduced them. In the East Indies, these sacrifices date back to the era before the flood, and the Greeks there met with remains of anthropophagy, the basis thereof.

Brahmanism sought to exterminate these ancient sacrifices, and the Vedas forbid them, a prohibition which, in connection with the custom of pretending to sacrifice human beings, gives evidence of a former use of actual sacrifices. The later sect of Shiwaits again introduced them.

However ancient the national political phase of Huitzilopochtli may be, the nature phase is still older. This god, too, has a nature-basis which not only explains his being, but throws light upon his further unfolding as a national or war god. All searchers who do not begin with this basis, see nothing but inexplicable riddles and contradictions before them.

[Sidenote: TWO MOTHERS OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

This nature-basis is first seen in the myth about his birth. In the neighborhood of Tulla there was a place called Coatepec, where lived a god-fearing woman, called Coatlicue. One day, as she was going to the temple, according to her custom, a gaily colored ball of feathers fell down from heaven; she picked it up, and hid it in her bosom, intending to decorate the altar therewith. As she was on the point of producing it for this purpose, it could not be found. A few days afterward she was aware of being pregnant. Her children, the Centzunhuitznahuas, also noticed this, and, in order to avoid their own disgrace, they determined to kill her before she was delivered. Her sorrow was however, miraculously consoled by a voice that made itself heard from within her womb, saying: Fear not, O mother, I will save thee to thy great honor, and to my great fame! The brothers, urged on by their sister, were on the point of killing her, when, behold, even as the armed Athena sprang from her father's head, Huitzilopochtli was born; the shield in his left hand, the spear in his right, the green plumage on his head, and humming-bird feathers on his left leg; his face, arms, and legs being, moreover, striped with blue. At once he slew his opponents, plundered their dwellings, and brought the spoils to his mother. From this he was called Terror and the Frightful God.

If we dissect this myth, we notice that another mother appears than the one formerly sacrificed in his honor, Teteionan. Two mothers present nothing remarkable in mythology, I have only to mention Aphrodite and Athena, who according to different accounts, had different fathers. So long as the formation of myths goes on, founded upon fresh conceptions of nature, somewhat different ideas (for wholly different, even here, the two mothers are not) from distinct points of view, are always possible. It is the anthropomorphism of the age that fixes on the one-sided conclusion. Teteionan is Huitzilopochtli's mother, because she is the mother of all the gods. The mother, in this instance, is the Flora of the Aztecs, euhemerized into a god-fearing woman, Coatlicue, or Coatlantana, of whose worship in Coatepec and Mexico we have already spoken.

The second point prominent in the myth, is the close connection of Huitzilopochtli with the botanical kingdom. The humming-bird is the messenger of spring, sent by the south to the north, by the hot to the temperate region. It is the means of fructifying the flowers, its movements causing the transfer of the pollen from the stamens to the germ-shells. It sticks its long, thin little bill deep into the flower, and rummaging beneath the stamens, drinks the nectar of the flower, while promoting the act of plant-reproduction. In the Latin myth also, Mars stands in close connection with Flora: Juno gives him birth with Flora's aid, without the assistance of Jupiter. In our mythology of the north, Thor is on a friendly footing with Nanna, the northern Flora. We are already acquainted also with a fable of the Pimas, according to which the goddess of maize became pregnant by a raindrop, and bore the forefather of the people, he who built the great houses.

[Sidenote: SISTERS OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI.]

The question, why Huitzilopochtli should be the son of the goddess of plants, and what his real connection with the botanical kingdom consists in, is solved by examining his worship at the three ancient yearly feasts, which take place exactly at those periods of the year that are the most influential for the Mexican climate, the middle of May, the middle of August, and the end of December. As a rule, in the first half of May the rain begins. Previous to this, the greatest drought and torpidness reign; the plants appear feeble and drooping; nature is bare, the earth gray with dry, withered grass. After a few days of rain, however, the trees appear in a fresh green, the ground is covered with new herbs, all nature is reanimated. Trees, bushes, plants, develop their blossoms; a vapory fragrance rises over all. The fruit shoots from the cultivated field, the juicy, bright green of the maize refreshes the eye. Mühlenpfordt, who stayed a long time in these regions, gives this description of the season. Völker's statement that rain and water stand as fructifying principles in the first rank in ancient physics, and that they meet us in innumerable myths, holds doubly good for the tropics. It requires little imagination to understand what a powerful impression transformed nature, with all its beauty and blessings, must produce in the soul of the child of nature. It is on this account that the ancient Tlaloc came to enjoy so high a regard among the Aztecs, nor has Quetzalcoatl disdained to adorn his mantle with the crosses of a rain-god. And so Huitzilopochtli's first feast of the year, the festival of the arrival of the god, of the offering of incense, stands at the beginning of the season of the reinvigorating of nature by the rain. The pagan Germans used to say that Nerthus, Freya, Hulda, Bertha, Frieg, and other divinities, entered the country at this period. The Aztecs prepared especially for this feast an image of their chief god, made of edible plants and honey, of the same size as the wooden image; and the youths sang the deeds of their god before it, and hymns praying for rain and fertility. Offering of multitudes of quails, incense-burning, and the significant dance of priests and virgins, followed. The virgins, who on this day were called sisters of Huitzilopochtli, wore garlands of dry maize-leaves on their heads, and carried split reeds in their hands; by this representing the dry season. The priests, on the contrary, represented the quickened nature, having their lips smeared with honey.

Now although, according to Max von Wied, there were no bees in America before the arrival of the Europeans, the bees are here represented by humming-birds, also called honey or bee birds, which, hovering and humming like bees, gather their food from the tube-shaped flowers. This food consists of a small insect that lives on honey, and they feed their young by letting them suck at the tongue covered with this honey. The priests bore, further, another symbol of spring: each one held a staff in his hand, on which a flower of feathers was fixed, having another bunch of feathers fixed over it; thus too, Freya's hawk-plumage denoted the advent of the fine season. A prisoner had been selected a year in advance as a victim, and was called 'wise lord of the heaven,' for he personated the god, and had the privilege of choosing the hour of the sacrifice; he did not die, like the other prisoners, on the sacrifice stone, but on the shoulders of the priests. The little children were consecrated to the god of their country, at this festival, by a small incision on the breast.

So also Mars appears as god of spring, he to whom the grass and the sacred spring time of the birth of animals (ver sacrum) were dedicated, whose chief festival and whose month are placed at the commencement of spring, at which time the Salii also sang their old religious songs, and a man personated the god. The Tyrian festival of the awaking of Hercules fell also in spring, for the same reason. Thus, in the myth of the birth of Huitzilopochtli, and in his first festival, spring, or the energy that produces spring, is made the basis of his being. His warlike attributes are appendages of the anthropomorphized national and war god.

The second great festival of the deity takes place in the middle of August. The rains which have lasted and refreshed up to this time, become intermittent, and the fine season approaches, during which the azure sky of the tropics pours its splendor and its beneficial warmth upon men, animals, and plants, scattered over a plain situated 8500 feet above the level of the sea. This is the twelfth month there, the month of ripe fruits. The idols in all temples and dwellings are decorated with flowers. It is now no longer the rain which is the blessing, but the blue sky which cherishes the variegated flower-world. For this reason the image of Huitzilopochtli was blue, his head was wound round with an azure ribbon, in his right hand he held an azure staff or club, and he sat on an azure stool, which, according to ancient accounts, represents heaven as his dwelling-place. His arms and legs had also blue stripes, and costly blue stones hung round his neck. The Egyptian god of fertility, Khem, was also represented in blue.

[Sidenote: DEATH OF VEGETATION.]

The third festival of Huitzilopochtli takes place during the winter solstice, a period which plays a great rôle in all worships and myths. The best-known festival of this kind is the one held on the 25th of December throughout the Roman Empire, to celebrate the birth of Mithras, the invincible sun. The Chipewas in North America call December the month of the small spirit, and January that of the great spirit. The Mexican festival of this month represented the character of the entering season, and the new state of nature. The cold sets in, the mountains are covered with snow, the ground dries up, the plants search in vain for their nourishment, many trees lose their foliage--in a word, nature seems dead. And so it happened with their god. The priests prepared his image of various seeds kneaded with the blood of sacrificed children. Numerous religious purifyings and penances, washings with water, blood-lettings, fasts, processions, burning of incense, sacrifices of quails and human beings, inaugurated the festival. One of Quetzalcoatl's priests then shot an arrow at this image of Huitzilopochtli, which penetrated the god who was now considered as dead. His heart was cut out, as with human victims, and eaten by the king, the representative of the god on earth. The body, however, was divided among the various quarters of the city, so that every man received a piece. This was called teoqualo 'the god who is eaten.'

The meaning of the death of this god is, on the whole, evident; it corresponds with the death of vegetation; and a comparison of the myth of his birth, with the two other feasts of Huitzilopochtli, leads to the same conclusion. This third feast is, therefore, at the same time, a festival in honor of the brother of this god, Tezcatlipoca, the god of the under-world, of death, of drought, and of hunger, whose rule commences where that of his brother ends. The myth gives a similar form and sense to the death of Osiris, who is killed by Typhon, and the death of Dionysos and Hercules in the Phœnician colonies. Adonis lives with Aphrodite during one half of the year, and with Persephone the other half; the Indian Krishna leaves for the under-world; thus, too, Brahma and the Celtic sun-god, Hu, died yearly, and were yearly born again. The festival of the self-burning of the Tyrian Heracles is also of this kind; it takes place at the time of the dying off of vegetation, even if this should be in the summer.

As regards the custom of eating the god, this also occurs at another feast which is celebrated during this season, in honor of the gods of the mountains and the water. Small idols of seeds and dough were then prepared, their breasts were opened like those of human victims, the heart was cut out, and the body distributed for eating. The time at which this occurs, shows that it stands in necessary connection with the death of the god. When the god dies it must be as a sacrifice in the fashion of his religion, and when the anthropomorphized god dies, it is as a human sacrifice amid all the necessary usages pertaining thereto: he is killed by priests, the heart is torn out, and his body eaten at the sacrifice meal, just as was done with every human sacrifice. Could it be meant that the god, in being eaten, is imparted to, or incorporated with, the person eating him? This is no doubt so, though not in the abstract, metaphysical, Christian or moral sense, but only with regard to his nature-sense, (seiner Naturseite), which is the real essence of the god. He gives his body, in seed, to be eaten by his people, just as nature, dying at the approach of the winter, at this very period, has stored up an abundance of its gifts for the sustenance of man. It gives man its life-fruit, or its fruit of life as a host or holy wafer. As a rule, the god, during the time of sacrifice, regales with the offering those bringing sacrifices; and, the eating of the flesh of the slave, who so often represents the god to whom he is sacrificed, is the same as eating the god. We have heard of the custom among some nations of eating the ashes of their forefathers, to whom they give divine honors, in order to become possessors of their virtues. The Arkansas nation, west of the Mississippi, which worshiped the dog, used to eat dog-flesh at one of its feasts. Many other peoples solemnly slaughter animals, consume their flesh, and moreover pay divine honors to the remains of these animals. Here the eating of the god, in seeds, is made clear--this custom also existed among the Greeks. The division of the year-god by the ancients, in myth and religious system, has, for the rest, no other sense than has this distribution of the body of Huitzilopochtli. This is done with the sun-bull at the festival of the Persian Mithras, as at the feast, and in the myth of the Dionysos-Zagreus, of Osiris and Attys.

[Sidenote: YEARLY LIFE OF THE PLANT-WORLD.]

The three yearly festivals, as well as the myth of his birth, all tend to show the positive connection of Huitzilopochtli with the yearly life of the plant-world. The first festival is the arrival of the god, as the plant-world is ushered in, with its hymns praying for rain, its virgins representing the sisters of the god and the inimical drought, in the same sense as the brothers and sister, especially the latter, are his enemies in the myth of his birth, and, as Tezcatlipoca, the god of drought is his brother. Brothers and sisters not seldom represent parallel contrasts in mythology and worship. The second celebration presents the god as the botanical kingdom in its splendor, for which reason the Mexicans call the humming-bird the sunbeam, from the form assumed by the god at this time. The humming-bird, moreover, takes also his winter sleep, and thus the god dies in winter with the plants. The Greenlanders asked the younger Egede if the god of heaven and earth ever died, and, when answered in the negative, they were much surprised, and said that he must surely be a great god. This intimate connection with the plant-world is also shown in the birth-myth of Huitzilopochtli, who here appears as the son of the goddess of plants. It now becomes easier to answer the question of Wuttke: has the fable of this birth reference merely to the making a man out of a god already existing, or to the actual birth of the god? The Aztecs, it is true, were undecided on this point, some conceding to him a human existence on earth, others investing him with a consciousness of his nature being. We, however, answer this question simply, from the preceding: the birth of the god is annual, and the myth has therefrom invented one birth, said to have taken place at some period, while the anthropomorphism fables very prettily the transformation into a man. Of the former existence of a born god, the myth knows nothing, for it is only afterward that it raises the god into heaven. It has not, however, come to euhemerism in the case of Huitzilopochtli, though it has with Huitziton. In placing the god in the position of son to the plant-goddess, the myth separates his being from that of the mother, consequently, Huitzilopochtli is not the plant-world himself, however closely he may be related to it. This is made clearer by following up the birth-myth, which makes him out to be not only the son of Coatlicue, but also of the force causing her fructification. The variegated ball of feathers which fell from heaven, is none other than Huitzilopochtli himself, the little humming-bird, which is the means of fructifying the plants, and the virile, fructifying nature-force manifested by and issuing from him in the spring. He is also born with the feather-tuft, and this symbol of the fine season never leaves him in any of his forms, it remains his attribute.

The Tapuas in South America have, after a similar symbolism, the custom, at their yearly seed-sowing festivals, of letting some one hang a bunch of ostrich-feathers on his back, the feathers being spread over like a wheel. This feather-bunch is their symbol of the fructifying power which comes from heaven. Their belief that bread falls from heaven into this tuft of feathers is thus made clear. In this myth we find the natural basis of such a birth-myth. In our northern mythology, Neekris, the ball, is, in the same manner, the father of Nanna, the northern Flora. That this virile power of heaven is made to appear as a ball of feathers, suits the humming-bird god. The Esths also imagined their god of thunder, as the god of warmth, in the form of a bird. In the same sense, doves were consecrated to Zeus, in Dodona and Arcadia, and a flying bird is a symbol of heaven among the Chinese. This force may, however, be symbolized in another form, and give rise to a birth-myth of exactly the same kind. Thus, the daughter of the god Sangarius, in the Phrygian myth, hid in her bosom the fruit of an almond-tree, which had grown out of the seed of the child of the earth, Agdistis: the fruit disappeared, the daughter became pregnant and bore the beautiful boy Attes. According to Arnobius, it was the fruit of a pomegranate-tree, which fructified Nanna. Among the Chinese, a nymph, called Puzza, the nourisher of all living things, became pregnant by eating a lotus-flower, and gave birth to a great law-giver and conqueror. Danaë, again, becomes pregnant from the golden shower of Zeus--an easily understood symbolism. It is always the virile nature-power, either as seen in the sun, or in the azure sky (for which reason Huitzilopochtli is called the lord of the heaven, Ochibus or Huchilobos), which puts the variegated seed into the womb of the plant-world, 'at the same time bringing himself forth again, and making himself manifest in the plant-world.' This heavenly life-force no sooner finds an earthly mother-womb than its triumph is assured, even before birth, while developing its bud; just as the inner voice, in the myth, consoled the mother, and protected her against all her enemies. It is only after his birth that the myth holds Huitzilopochtli as a personal anthropomorphic god.

[Sidenote: THE VIRILE NATURE-POWER.]

This is the natural signification of Huitzilopochtli, which we have accepted as the basis of all other developments of the god, and for this universal reason, namely, that the most ancient heathen gods are nature-gods, mythologic rules being followed, and that the pagan religion is essentially a nature-worship as well as a polytheism. The special investigation and following up of the various virtues have led to the same result. But, as this view has not yet been generally accepted in regard to this god, a few words concerning the union of the anthropomorphic national aspect of Huitzilopochtli, with his natural one may be added. It has been thought necessary to make the martial phase of Huitzilopochtli the basis of the others, as with Mars. War is, from this point of view, a child of spring, because weapons are then resumed after the long winter armistice. This is not at all the case with Huitzilopochtli, because the rainy season, setting in in spring, when the arrival and birth of the god are celebrated, renders the soft roads of Mexico unsuitable for war expeditions. Wars were originally children of autumn, at which time the ripe fruits were objects of robbery. But the idea of a war and national god is easily connected with the basis of a fructifying god of heaven. This chief nature-god may either be god of heaven, as Huitzilopochtli, as the rain-giving Zeus is made the national god by Homer, to whom human sacrifices were brought in Arcadia down to a late period, or he may be a sun-god, like Baal, to whom prayers for rain were addressed in Phoenicia, to further the growth of the fruit, and who also received human sacrifices. The Celtic Hu is also an ethereal war god, properly sun-god, who received human sacrifices in honor of the victory of spring; none the less is Odin's connection with war, battle, and war horrors; he is a fire-god, like Moloch and Shiva, to whom human sacrifices were made for fear of famine and failure of crops. The apparent basis of such a god has not to be considered so much as the point that the people ascribed to him the chief government of the course of the year. In such a case, the chief ruler also becomes the national god, the life of the nation depending immediately on the yearly course of nature. Is the nation warlike, then, the national god naturally becomes a war god as well. As anthropomorphism connects itself with the nature-god only at a later period, so does his worship as war god and national god. In the case of Mars, as well as of Picus and Faunus, the same succession is followed. Mars, for example, is called upon in a prayer which has been preserved by Cato, to protect shepherds and flocks, and to avert bad weather and misgrowth; Virgil refers to him as a god of plants. In the song of the Arvalian brothers, he is called upon as the protector of the flowers. Thus, in his case also, the nature side is the basis. The Chinese symbolism of the union of the two sides or phases, is expressed in such a manner as to make spears and weapons representations of the germs of plants. This union has already been illustrated among the Aztecs, in the humming-bird, the sunbeam which plays round the flowers, in whose little body the intensest war spirit burns. Among the Egyptians, the beetle was placed upon the ring of the warrior, with whom it signified world and production.

[Sidenote: SNAKE SYMBOLISM.]

It remains to speak of another attribute of Huitzilopochtli, the snake attribute. Huitzilopochtli is also a snake-god. We have already, when treating of the snake-worship of the Mayas, referred to the numerous snakes with which this god is connected by myth and image, and how this attribute was added to the original humming-bird attribute, in Coatepec, where the snake-goddess Coatlicue gave him birth. If the snake signifies, in one case, time, in another, world, and in another instance, water, or the yearly rejuvenation of germs and blossoms, the eternal circle of nature, domination, soothsaying--it is quite proper; for all these qualities are found united in the god. Still other qualities, not seemingly possessed by him, we pass over, such as a connection with the earth and with the healing power, to be found in other Mexican gods, or the evil principle, which is entirely wanting. Just as the snake changes its skin every year, and takes its winter sleep, so does Huitzilopochtli, whose mother, Flora, is, therefore, a snake-goddess. Even so the snake represents the seed-corn in the mysteries of Demeter. In the Sabazii it represents the fructifying Zeus and the blessing. It is also the symbol of productive power and heat, or of life, attribute of the life-endowing Shiva; among the Egyptians it represents the yearly rejuvenation of germs and blossoms. The snake Agathodæmon appears with ears of grain and poppies, as the symbol of fertility. If the god exhibits this nature of his, in spring, in the rain, then the snake is a suitable attribute. In India, snakes are genii of seas, and the Punjab, whose fertility is assured by the yearly inundations, has the name of snake lands (Nagakhanda), and claims an ancient worship. The sustaining water-god, Vishnu, also received the snake attribute. Among the Chinese, the water could be represented by a snake. The Peruvians call the boa constrictor the mother of nature.

The idea of the yearly renewal of nature is also connected with that of time forever young, and the Aztecs, therefore, encircle their cycle with a snake as the symbol of time. The more positive signification which the snake, placed by the side of the humming-bird, gives to Huitzilopochtli, is that of a soothsaying god, like the snake Python among the Greeks. The snake signified 'king' among the Egyptians, and this suits Huitzilopochtli also, who may properly enough be considered the real king of his people. If, as connected with Huitzilopochtli, the snake also represents the war god, on account of its spirited mode of attack, I cannot with certainty say, but the myth as well as the worship places it in this relation to the war goddess Athene. Although the idea of a national and a war god is not quite obscured in the snake attribute, yet the nature side is especially denoted by it, as in the southern countries, where snake worship prevailed; the reference to the southern nature of this god is quite evident in the snake attribute. In the north, moisture, represented by the snake, has never attained the cosmological import which it has in the hot countries of the south. There, the snake rather represents an anticosmogonic, or a bad principle.[VIII-15]

[Sidenote: WINTER-SOLSTICE FESTIVAL.]

Mr Tylor, without committing himself to any extent in details, yet agrees, as far as he goes, with Müller. He says: "The very name of Mexico seems derived from Mexitli, the national war-god, identical or identified with the hideous gory Huitzilopochtli. Not to attempt a general solution of the enigmatic nature of this inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity, we may notice the association of his principal festival with the winter solstice, when his paste idol was shot through with an arrow, and being thus killed, was divided into morsels and eaten, wherefore the ceremony was called the teoqualo, or 'god-eating.' This, and other details, tend to show Huitzilopochtli as originally a nature-deity, whose life and death were connected with the year's, while his functions of war-god may be of later addition."[VIII-16]

Of this festival of the winter solstice the date and further particulars are given by the Vatican Codex as follows:--

The name Panquetzaliztli, of the Mexican month that began on the first of December, means, being interpreted, 'the elevation of banners.' For, on the first day of December every person raised over his house a small paper flag in honor of this god of battle; and the captains and soldiers sacrificed those that they had taken prisoners in war, who, before they were sacrificed, being set at liberty, and presented with arms equal to their adversaries, were allowed to defend themselves till they were either vanquished or killed, and thus sacrificed. The Mexicans celebrated in this month the festival of their first captain, Vichilopuchitl. They celebrated at this time the festival of the wafer or cake. They made a cake of the meal of bledos, which is called tzoalli, and having made it, they spoke over it in their manner, and broke it into pieces. These the high priest put into certain very clean vessels, and with a thorn of maguey, which resembles a thick needle, he took up with the utmost reverence single morsels, and put them into the mouth of each individual, in the manner of a communion--and I am willing to believe that these poor people have had the knowledge of our mode of communion or of the preaching of the gospel; or perhaps the devil, most envious of the honor of God, may have led them into this superstition in order that by this ceremony he might be adored and served as Christ our Lord. On the twenty-first of December they celebrated the festival of this god--through whose instrumentality, they say, the earth became again visible after it had been drowned with the waters of the deluge: they therefore kept his festival during the twenty following days, in which they offered sacrifices to him.[VIII-17]

[Sidenote: DECORATIONS OF TLALOC.]

The deity Tlaloc, or Tlalocateuchtli, whom we have several times found mentioned as seated beside Huitzilopochtli in the great temple, was the god of water and rain, and the fertilizer of the earth. He was held to reside where the clouds gather, upon the highest mountain-tops, especially upon those of Tlaloc, Tlascala, and Toluca, and his attributes were the thunderbolt, the flash, and the thunder. It was also believed that in the high hills there resided other gods, subaltern to Tlaloc--all passing under the same name, and revered not only as gods of water but also as gods of mountains. The prominent colors of the image of Tlaloc were azure and green, thereby symbolizing the various shades of water. The decorations of this image varied a good deal according to locality and the several fancies of different worshipers: the description of Gama, founded on the inspection of original works of Mexican religious art, is the most authentic and complete. In the great temple of Mexico, in his own proper chapel, called epeoatl, adjoining that of Huitzilopochtli, this god of water stood upon his pedestal. In his left hand was a shield ornamented with feathers; in his right were certain thin, shining, wavy sheets of gold representing his thunderbolts, or sometimes a golden serpent representing either the thunderbolt or the moisture with which this deity was so intimately connected. On his feet were a kind of half-boots, with little bells of gold hanging therefrom. Round his neck was a band or collar set with gold and gems of price; while from his wrists depended strings of costly stones, even such as are the ornaments of kings. His vesture was an azure smock reaching to the middle of the thigh, cross-hatched all over with ribbons of silver forming squares; and in the middle of each square was a circle also of silver, while in the angles thereof were flowers, pearl-colored, with yellow leaves hanging down. And even as the decoration of the vesture so was that of the shield; the ground blue, covered with crossed ribbons of silver and circles of silver: and the feathers of yellow and green and flesh-color and blue, each color forming a distinct band. The body was naked from mid-thigh down, and of a grey tint, as was also the face. This face had only one eye of a somewhat extraordinary character: there was an exterior circle of blue, the interior was white with a black line across it and a little semi-circle below the line. Either round the whole eye or round the mouth was a doubled band, or ribbon of blue; this, although unnoticed by Torquemada, is affirmed by Gama to have been never omitted from any figure of Tlaloc, to have been his most characteristic device, and that which distinguished him specially from the other gods. In his open mouth were to be seen only three grinders; his front teeth were painted red, as was also the pendant, with its button of gold, that hung from his ear. His head-adornment was an open crown, covered in its circumference with white and green feathers, and from behind it over the shoulder depended other plumes of red and white. Sometimes the insignium of the thunderbolt is omitted with this god, and Ixtlilxochitl represents him, in the picture of the month Etzalli, with a cane of maize in the one hand, and in the other a kind of instrument with which he was digging in the ground. In the ground thus dug were put maize leaves filled with a kind of food, like fritters, called etzalli; from this the month took its name.[VIII-18]

[Sidenote: PRAYER TO TLALOC.]

[Sidenote: PRAYER FOR RAIN.]

A prayer to this god has been preserved by Sahagun, in which it will be noticed that the word Tlaloc is used sometimes in the singular and sometimes in the plural:--

O our Lord, most clement, liberal giver and lord of verdure and coolness, lord of the terrestrial paradise, odorous and flowery, and lord of the incense of copal, woe are we that the gods of water, thy subjects, have hid themselves away in their retreat, who are wont to serve us with the things we need and who are themselves served with ulli and auchtli and copal. They have left concealed all the things that sustain our lives, and carried away with them their sister the goddess of the necessaries of life, and carried away also the goddess of pepper. O our Lord, take pity on us that live; our food goes to destruction, is lost, is dried up; for lack of water, it is as if turned to dust and mixed with spiders' webs. Woe for the miserable laborers and for the common people; they are wasted with hunger, they go about unrecognizable and disfigured every one. They are blue under the eyes as with death; their mouths are dry as sedge; all the bones of their bodies may be counted as in a skeleton. The children are disfigured and yellow as earth; not only those that begin to walk, but even those in the cradle. There is no one to whom this torment of hunger does not come; the very animals and birds suffer hard want, by the drought that is. It is pitiful to see the birds, some dragging themselves along with drooping wings, others falling down utterly and unable to walk, and others still with their mouths open through this hunger and thirst. The animals, O our Lord, it is a grievous sight to see them stumbling and falling, licking the earth for hunger, and panting with open mouth and hanging tongue. The people lose their senses and die for thirst; they perish, none is like to remain. It is woeful, O our Lord, to see all the face of the earth dry, so that it cannot produce the herbs nor the trees, nor anything to sustain us--the earth that used to be as a father and mother to us, giving us milk and all nourishment, herbs and fruits that therein grew. Now is all dry, all lost; it is evident that the Tlaloc gods have carried all away with them, and hid in their retreat, which is the terrestrial paradise. The things, O Lord, that thou wert graciously wont to give us, upon which we lived and were joyful, which are the life and joy of all the world, and precious as emeralds or sapphires--all these things are departed from us. O our Lord, god of nourishment and giver thereof, most humane and most compassionate, what thing hast thou determined to do with us? Hast thou, peradventure altogether forsaken us? Thy wrath and indignation shall it not be appeased? Hast thou determined on the perdition of all thy servants and vassals, and that thy city and kingdom shall be left desolate and uninhabited? Peradventure, this has been determined, and settled in heaven and hades. O our Lord, concede at least this, that the innocent children, who cannot so much as walk, who are still in the cradle, may have something to eat, so that they may live, and not die in this so great famine. What have they done that they should be tormented and should die of hunger? No iniquity have they committed, neither know they what thing it is to sin; they have neither offended the god of heaven nor the god of hell. We, if we have offended in many things, if our sins have reached heaven and hades, and the stink thereof gone out to the ends of the earth, just it is that we be destroyed and made an end of; we have nothing to say thereto, nor to excuse ourselves withal, nor to resist what is determined against us in heaven and in hades. Let it be done; destroy us all, and that swiftly, that we may not suffer from this long weariness which is worse than if we burned in fire. Certainly it is a horrible thing to suffer this hunger; it is like a snake lacking food, it gulps down its saliva, it hisses, it cries out for something to devour. It is a fearful thing to see the anguish of it demanding somewhat to eat; this hunger is intense as burning fire, flinging out sparks. Lord, let the thing happen that many years ago we have heard said by the old men and women that have passed away from us, let the heavens fall on us and the demons of the air come down, the Izitzimites, who are to come to destroy the earth with all that dwell on it; let darkness and obscurity cover the whole world, and the habitation of men be nowhere found therein. This thing was known to the ancients, and they divulged it, and from mouth to mouth it has come down to us, all this that has to happen when the world ends and the earth is weary of producing creatures. Our Lord, such present end would be now dear to us as riches or pleasures once were--miserable that we are! See good, O Lord, that there fall some pestilence to end us quickly. Such plague usually comes from the god of hades; and if it came there would peradventure be provided some allowance of food, so that the dead should not travel to hades without any provision for the way. O that this tribulation were of war, which is originated by the sun, and which breaks from sleep like a strong and valiant one--for then would the soldiers and the brave, the stout and warlike men, take pleasure therein. In it many die, and much blood is spilt, and the battle-field is filled with dead bodies and with the bones and skulls of the vanquished; strewn also is the face of the earth with the hairs of the head of warriors that rot; but this they fear not, for they know that their souls go to the house of the sun. And there they honor the sun with joyful voices, and suck the various flowers with great delight; there all the stout and valiant ones that died in war are glorified and extolled; there also the little and tender children that die in war are presented to the Sun, very clean and well adorned and shining like precious stones. Thy sister, the goddess of food, provides for those that go thither, supplying them with provision for the way; and this provision of necessary things is the strength and the soul and the staff of all the people of the world, and without it there is no life. But this hunger with which we are afflicted, O our most humane Lord, is so sore and intolerable that the miserable common people are not able to suffer nor support it; being still alive they die many deaths; and not the people alone suffer but also all the animals. O our most compassionate Lord, lord of green things and gums, of herbs odorous and virtuous, I beseech thee to look with eyes of pity on the people of this thy city and kingdom; for the whole world down to the very beasts is in peril of destruction, and disappearance, and irremediable end. Since this is so, I entreat thee to see good to send back to us the food-giving gods, gods of the rain and storm, of the herbs and of the trees; so that they perform again their office here with us on the earth. Scatter the riches and the prosperity of thy treasures, let the timbrels of joy be shaken that are the staves of the gods of water, let them take their sandals of india-rubber that they may walk with swiftness. Give succor, O Lord, to our lord, the god of the earth, at least with one shower of water, for when he has water he creates and sustains us. See good, O Lord, to invigorate the corn, and the other foods, much wished for and much needed, now sown and planted; for the ridges of the earth suffer sore need and anguish from lack of water. See good, O Lord, that the people receive this favor and mercy at thine hand, let them see and enjoy of the verdure and coolness that are as precious stones; see good that the fruit and the substance of the Tlalocs be given, which are the clouds that these gods carry with them and that sow the rain about us. See good, O Lord, that the animals and herbs be made glad, and that the fowls and birds of precious feather, such as the quechotl and the caguan, fly and sing and suck the herbs and flowers. And let not this come about with thunderings and lightnings, symbols of thy wrath; for if our lords the Tlalocs come with thunder and lightning the whole people, being lean and very weak with hunger, would be terrified. If indeed some are already marked out to go to the earthly paradise by the stroke of the thunderbolt, let this death be restricted to them, and let no injury befall any of the other people in mountain or cabin; neither let hurt come near the magueys or the other trees and plants of the earth; for these things are necessary to the life and sustenance of the people, poor, forsaken, and cast-away, who can with difficulty get food enough to live, going about through hunger with the bowels empty and sticking to the ribs. O our Lord, most compassionate, most generous, giver of all nourishment, be pleased to bless the earth and all the things that live on the face thereof. With deep sighing and with anguish of heart I cry upon all those that are gods of water, that are in the four quarters of the world, east and west, north and south, and upon those that dwell in the hollow of the earth, or in the air, or in the high mountains, or in the deep caves, I beseech them to come and console this poor people and to water the earth; for the eyes of all that inhabit the earth, animals as well as men, are turned toward you, and their hope is set upon your persons. O our Lord, be pleased to come.[VIII-19]

[Sidenote: VENGEANCE OF TLALOC.]

This is a prayer to Tlaloc. But it was not with prayers alone that they deprecated his wrath and implored his assistance; here as elsewhere in the Mexican religion sacrifices played an important part. When the rain failed and the land was parched by drought, great processions were made in which a number of hairless dogs, common to the country, and good to eat, were carried on decorated litters to a place devoted to this use. There they were sacrificed to the god of water by cutting out their hearts. Afterwards the carcasses were eaten amid great festivities. All these things the Tlascaltec historian, Camargo, had seen with his own eyes thirty years before writing his book. The sacrifices of men, which were added to these in the days of greatness of the old religion, he describes as he was informed by priests who had officiated thereat. Two festivals in the year were celebrated to Tlaloc, the greater feast and the less. Each of these was terminated by human sacrifices. The side of the victim was opened with a sharp knife; the high priest tore out the heart, and turning toward the east offered it with lifted hands to the sun, crushing it at the same time with all his strength. He repeated this, turning in succession towards the remaining three cardinal points; the other tlamacaxques, or priests, not ceasing the while to darken with clouds of incense the faces of the idols. The heart was lastly burned and the body flung down the steps of the temple. A priest, who had afterwards been converted to Christianity, told Camargo that when he tore out the heart of a victim and flung it down, it used to palpitate with such force as to clear itself of the ground several times till it grew cold. Tlaloc was held in exceeding respect and the priests alone had the right to enter his temple. Whoever dared to blaspheme against him was supposed to die suddenly or to be stricken of thunder; the thunderbolt, instrument of his vengeance, flashed from the sky even at the moment it was clearest. The sacrifices offered to him in times of drought were never without answer and result; for, as Camargo craftily insinuates, the priests took good care never to undertake them till they saw indications of coming rain; besides, he adds--introducing, in defiance of nec deus intersit, a surely unneeded personage, if we suppose his last statement true--the devil, to confirm these people in their errors, was always sure to send rain.[VIII-20]

Children were also sacrificed to Tlaloc. Says Motolinia, when four years came together in which there was no rain, and there remained as a consequence hardly any green thing in the fields, the people waited till the maize grew as high as the knee, and then made a general subscription with which four slave children, of five or six years of age, were purchased. These they sacrificed in a cruel manner by closing them up in a cave, which was never opened except on these occasions.[VIII-21]

According to Mendieta, again, children were sometimes offered to this god by drowning. The children were put into a canoe which was carried to a certain part of the lake of Mexico where was a whirlpool, which is no longer visible. Here the boat was sunk with its living cargo. These gods had, according to the same author, altars in the neighborhood of pools especially near springs; which altars were furnished with some kind of roof, and at the principal fountains were four in number set over against each other in the shape of a cross--the cross of the rain god.[VIII-22]

The Vatican Codex says that in April a boy was sacrificed to Tlaloc and his dead body put into the maize granaries or maize fields--it is not clearly apparent which--to preserve the food of the people from spoiling.[VIII-23] It is to Sahagun, however, that we must turn for the most complete and authentic account of the festivals of Tlaloc with their attendant sacrifices.

[Sidenote: SACRIFICES OF CHILDREN.]

In the first days of the first month of the year, which month is called in some parts of Mexico, Quavitleloa, but generally Atlcaoalo, and begins on the second of our February, a great feast was made in honor of the Tlalocs, gods of rain and water. For this occasion many children at the breast were purchased from their mothers; those being chosen that had two whirls (remolinos) in their hair, and that had been born under a good sign; it being said that such were the most agreeable sacrifice to the storm gods, and most likely to induce them to send rain in due season. Some of these infants were butchered for this divine holiday on certain mountains, and some were drowned in the lake of Mexico. With the beginning of the festival, in every house, from the hut to the palace, certain poles were set up and to these were attached strips of the paper of the country, daubed over with india-rubber gum, said strips being called amateteuitl; this was considered an honor to the water-gods. And the first place where children were killed was Quauhtepetl, a high mountain in the neighborhood of Tlatelulco; all infants, boys or girls, sacrificed there were called by the name of the place, Quauhtepetl, and were decorated with strips of paper dyed red. The second place where children were killed was Yoaltecatl, a high mountain near Guadalupe. The victims were decorated with pieces of black paper, with red lines on it, and were named after the place, Yoaltecatl. The third death-halt was made at Tepetzingo, a well-known hillock that rose up from the waters of the lake opposite Tlatelulco; there they killed a little girl, decking her with blue paper, and calling her Quetzalxoch, for so was this hillock called by another name. Poiauhtla, on the boundary of Tlascala, was the fourth hill of sacrifice. Here they killed children, named as usual after the locality, and decorated with paper on which were lines of india-rubber oil. The fifth place of sacrifice was the no longer visible whirlpool or sink of the lake of Mexico, Pantitlan. Those drowned here were called Epcoatl, and their adornment epuepaniuhqui. The sixth hill of death was Cocotl,[VIII-24] near Chalcoatenco; the infant victims were named after it and decorated with strips of paper of which half the number were red and half a tawny color. The mount Yiauhqueme, near Atlacuioaia, was the seventh station; the victims being named after the place and adorned with paper of a tawny color.

All these miserable babes before being carried to their death were bedecked with precious stones and rich feathers and with raiment and sandals wrought curiously; they put upon them paper wings (as if they were angels); they stained their faces with oil of india-rubber, and on the middle of each tiny cheek they painted a round spot of white. Not able yet to walk, the victims were carried in litters shining with jewels and awave with plumes; flutes and trumpets bellowed and shrilled round the little bedizened heads, all so unfortunate in their two whirls of hair, as they passed along; and everywhere as the litters were borne by, all the people wept. When the procession reached the temple near Tepetzinco, on the east, called Tozocan, the priests rested there all night, watching and singing songs, so that the little ones could not sleep. In the morning the march was again resumed; if the children wept copiously those around them were very glad, saying it was a sign that much rain would fall; while if they met any dropsical person on the road it was taken for a bad omen and something that would hinder the rain. If any of the temple ministers, or of the others called quaquavitli, or of the old men, broke off from the procession or turned back to their houses before they came to the place where the sacrifice was done, they were held for infamous and unworthy of any public office; thenceforward they were called mocauhque, that is to say, 'deserters.'[VIII-25]

[Sidenote: SPOLIATION OF CÆSAR FOR THE CHURCH.]

More ludicrous than diabolical are the ceremonies of the next feast of Tlaloc. In the sixth Aztec month, the month Etzalqualixtli, there was held a festival in honor of the gods of water and rain. Before the commencement of this festival the idol priests fasted four days, and before beginning to fast they made a procession to a certain piece of water, near Citlaltepec, to gather tules; for at that place these rushes grew very tall and thick and what part of them was under water was very white. There they pulled them up, rolled them in bundles wrapped about with their blankets, and so carried them back on their shoulders. Both on going out for these rushes and on coming back with them, it was the custom to rob anyone that was met on the road; and as every one knew of this custom the roads were generally pretty clear of stragglers about this time. No one, not even a king's officer returning to his master with tribute, could hope to escape on such an occasion, nor to obtain from any court or magistrate any indemnification for loss or injury so sustained in goods or person; and if he made any resistance to his clerical spoilers they beat and kicked and dragged him over the ground. When they reached the temple with their rushes they spread them out on the ground and plaited them, white with green, into as it were painted mats, sewing them firm with threads of maguey-root; of these mats they made stools, and chairs with backs. The first day of the fast arrived, all the idol ministers and priests retired to their apartments in the temple buildings. There retired all those called tlamacaztequioagues, that is to say, 'priests that have done feats in war, that have captured three or four prisoners;' these although they did not reside continually in the temple, resorted thither at set times to fulfil their offices. There retired also those called tlamacazcayiaque, that is, 'priests that have taken one prisoner in war;' these also, although not regular inmates of the cues, resorted thither, when called by their duties. There retired also those that are called tlamacazquecuicanime, 'priest singers,' who resided permanently in the temple building because they had as yet captured no one in war. Last of all those also retired that were called tlamacaztezcahoan, which means 'inferior ministers,' and those boys, like little sacristans, who were called tlamacatoton, 'little ministers.'

Next, all the rush mats that had been made which were called aztapilpetlatl, 'jaspered mats of rushes, or mats of white and green' were spread round about the hearths (hogares) of the temple, and the priests proceeded to invest themselves for their offices. They put on a kind of jacket that they had, called xicolli, of painted cloth; on the left arm they put a kind of scarf, macataxtli; in the left hand they took a bag of copal, and in the right a censer, temaitl, which is a kind of sauce-pan or frying-pan of baked clay. Then they entered into the court-yard of the temple, took up their station in the middle of it, put live coals into their censers, added copal, and offered incense toward the four quarters of the world, east, north, west, and south. This done they emptied the coals from their incense-pans into the great brasiers that were always burning at night in the court, brasiers somewhat less in height than the height of a man, and so thick that two men could with difficulty clasp them.

[Sidenote: BATHING IN THE FESTIVAL OF TLALOC.]

This over, the priests returned to the temple buildings, calmecac, and put off their ornaments. Then they offered before the hearth little balls of dough, called veutelolotli; each priest offering four, arranging them on the aforementioned rush mats, and putting them down with great care, so that they should not roll nor move; and if the balls of any one stirred, it was the duty of his fellows to call attention to the matter and have him punished therefor. Some offered instead of dough four little pies or four pods of green pepper. A careful scrutiny was also observed to see if any one had any dirt on his blanket, or any bit of thread or hair or feather, and that no one should trip or fall; for in such a case he had to be punished; and as a consequence every man took good heed to all his steps and ways during these four days. At the end of each day's offerings, certain old men, called quaquacuiltin came, their faces dyed black, and their heads shaved, save only the crown of the head, where the hair was allowed to grow long, the reverse of the custom of the Christian priests. These old men daily collected the offerings that had been made, dividing them among themselves. It was further the custom with all the priests and in all the temples, while fasting these four days, to be wakened at midnight by the blast of horns and shells and other instruments; when all rose up and, utterly naked, went to where were certain thorns of maguey, cut for the purpose the day before, and with little lancets of stone they hacked their ears, staining the prepared thorns of maguey and besmearing their faces with the blood that flowed; each man staining maguey-thorns with his blood in number proportioned to his devotion, some five, others more, others less. This done all the priests went to bathe themselves, how cold soever it might be, attended by the music of marine shells and shrill whistles of baked clay. Every one had a little bag strapped to his shoulders, ornamented with tassels or strips of painted paper; in these bags was carried a sort of herb ground fine and made up with a kind of black dye into little longish pellets.[VIII-26] The general body of the priests marched along, each one carrying a leaf of maguey in which the thorns were stuck, as in a pincushion, which he had to use. Before these went a priest with his censer full of live coals and a bag of copal; and in advance of all these walked one carrying a board on his shoulder of about a span broad and two yards long, hollowed apparently in some way, and filled with little rollers of wood that rattled and sounded as the bearer went along shaking them.[VIII-27] All the priests took part in this procession, only four remaining behind to take care of the temple-building, or calmecac, which was their monastery. These four during the absence of the others remained seated in the calmecac and occupied themselves in devotion to the gods, in singing and in rattling with a hollow board of the sort mentioned above. At the piece of water where the priests were to bathe there were four houses, called axaucalli, 'fog houses,' set each toward one of the four quarters of the compass; in the ablutions of the first night one of these houses was occupied, on the second night another, and so on through all the four nights and four houses of the fog. Here also were four tall poles standing up out of the water. And the unfortunate bathers, naked from the outset as we remember, reached this place trembling and their teeth chattering with cold. One of their number mumbled a few words, which being translated mean: this is the place of snakes, the place of mosquitos, the place of ducks, and the place of rushes. This said, all flung themselves into the water and began to splash with their hands and feet, making a great noise and imitating the cries of various aquatic birds.[VIII-28] When the bathing was over, the naked priests took their way back accompanied by the music of pipes and shells. Half dead with cold and weariness they reached the temple, where drawing their mantles over them they flung themselves down in a confused heap on the rush mats, so often mentioned, and slept as best they could. We are told that some talked in their sleep, and some walked about in it, and some snored, and some sighed in a painful manner. There they lay in a tangled weary heap not rising till noon of the next day.

[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS DISCIPLINE.]

The first thing to be done on waking was to array themselves in their canonicals, take their censers, and to follow an old priest called Quaquacuilti to all the chapels and altars of the idols, incensing them. After this they were at liberty to eat; they squatted down in groups, and to each one was given such food as had been sent to him from his own house; and if any one took any of the portion of another, or even exchanged his for that of another, he was punished for it. Punishment also attended the dropping of any morsel while eating, if the fault were not atoned for by a fine. After this meal, they all went to cut down branches of a certain kind called acxoiatl, or, where these were not to be found, green canes instead, and to bring them to the temple in sheaves. There they sat down, every man with his sheaf, and waited for an arranged signal. The signal given, every one sprang up to some appointed part of the temple to decorate it with his boughs; and if any one went to a place not his, or wandered from his companions, or lagged behind them, they punished him--a punishment only to be remitted by paying to his accuser, within the four days of which we are now speaking, either a hen or a blanket or a breech-clout, or, if very poor, a ball of dough in a cup.

These four days over, the festival was come, and every man began it by eating etzalli, a kind of maize porridge, in his own house. For those that wished it there was general dancing and rejoicing. Many decked themselves out like merry-andrews and went about in parties carrying pots, going from house to house, demanding etzalli. They sang and danced before the door, and said, "If you do not give me some porridge, I will knock a hole in your house;" whereupon the etzalli was given. These revels began at midnight and ceased at dawn. Then indeed did the priests array themselves in all their glory: underneath was a jacket, over that a thin transparent mantle called aiauhquemitl, decorated with parrot-feathers set cross-wise. Between the shoulders they fastened a great round paper flower, like a shield. To the nape of the neck they attached other flowers of crumpled paper of a semi-circular shape; these hung down on both sides of the head like ears. The forehead was painted blue and over the paint was dusted powder of marcasite. In the right hand was carried a bag made of tiger-skin, and embroidered with little white shells which clattered as one walked. The bag seems to have been three-cornered; from one angle hung down the tiger's tail, from another his two fore feet, from another his two hind feet. It contained incense made from a certain herb called yiauhtli.[VIII-29] There went one priest bearing a hollow board filled with wooden rattles, as before described. In advance of this personage there marched a number of others, carrying in their arms images of the gods made of that gum that is black and leaps, called ulli (india-rubber), these images were called ulteteu, that is to say 'gods of ulli.' Other ministers there were carrying in their arms lumps of copal, shaped like sugar loaves; each pyramid having a rich feather, called quetzal, stuck in the peak of it like a plume. In this manner went the procession with the usual horns and shells, and the purpose of it was to lead to punishment those that had transgressed in any of the points we have already discussed. The culprits were marched along, some held by the hair at the nape of the neck, others by the breech-clout; the boy offenders were held by the hand, or, if very small, were carried. All these were brought to a place called Totecco, where water was. Here certain ceremonies were performed, paper was burned in sacrifice, as were also the pyramids of copal and images of ulli, incense being thrown into the fire and other incense scattered over the rush mats with which the place was adorned. While this was going on those in charge of the culprits had not been idle, but were flinging them into the water. Great was the noise, it is said, made by the splash of one tossed in, and the water leaped high with the shock. As any one came to the surface or tried to scramble out he was pushed in or pushed down again--well was it then for him who could swim, and by long far diving keep out of the reach of his tormentors. For the others they were so roughly handled that they were often left for dead on the water's edge, where their relatives would come and hang them up by the feet to let the water they had swallowed run out of them; a method of cure surely as bad as the malady.

[Sidenote: THE FOUR BALLS.]

The shrill music struck up again and the procession returned by the way it had come; the friends of the punished ones carrying them. The monastery or calmecac reached, there began another four days' fast, called netlacacaoaliztli; but in this the sharp religious etiquette of the first four days' fast was not observed, or at least one was not liable to be informed upon or punished for a breach of such etiquette. The conclusion of this fast was celebrated by feasting. Again the priests decorated themselves in festal array. All the head was painted blue, the face was covered with honey (miel) mixed with a black dye. Over the shoulders were carried the incense-bags embroidered with little white shells--bags made of tiger-skins, as before described, for the chief priests, and of paper painted to imitate tiger-skin in the case of the inferior priests. Some of these satchels were fashioned to resemble the bird called atzitzicuilotl, others to resemble ducks. The priests marched in procession to the temple, and before all marched the priest of Tlaloc. He had on his head a crown of basketwork, fitting close to the temples below and spreading out above, with many plumes issuing from the middle of it. His face was anointed with melted india-rubber gum, black as ink, and concealed by an ugly mask with a great nose, and a wig attached which fell as low as the waist. All went along mumbling to themselves as if they prayed, till they came to the cu of Tlaloc. There they stopped and spread tule mats on the ground, and dusted them over with powdered tule-leaves mixed with yiauhtli incense. Upon this the acting priest placed four round chalchiuites, like little balls; then he took a small hook painted blue, and touched each ball with it; and as he touched each he made a movement as if drawing back his hand, and turned himself completely round. He scattered more incense on the mats, then he took the board with the rattles inside and sounded with it--perhaps a kind of religious stage thunder in imitation of the thunder of his god. Upon this every one retired to his house or to his monastery and put off his ornaments; and the unfortunates who had been ducked were carried at last to their own dwellings for the rest and recovery that they so sorely needed. That night the festivities burst out with a new glory, the musical instruments of the cu itself were sounded, the great drums and the shrill shells. Well watched that night were the prisoners who were doomed to death on the morrow. When it came they were adorned with the trappings of the Tlaloc gods--for it was said they were the images of these gods--and those that were killed first were said to be the foundation of the others, which seemed to be symbolized by those who had to die last being made to seat themselves on those who had been first killed.[VIII-30]

The slaughter over, the hearts of the victims were put into a pot that was painted blue and stained with ulli in four places. Together with this pot offerings were taken of paper and feathers and precious stones and chalchiuites, and a party set out with the whole for that part of the lake where the whirlpool is, called Pantitlan. All who assisted at this offering and sacrifice were provided with a supply of the herb called iztauhiatl, which is something like the incense used in Spain, and they puffed it with their mouths over each other's faces and over the faces of their children. This they did to hinder maggots getting into the eyes, and also to protect against a certain disease of the eyes called exocuillo-o-alixtli; some also put this herb into their ears, and others for a certain superstition they had held a handful of it clutched in the hand. The party entered a great canoe belonging to the king, furnished with green oars, or paddles, spotted with ulli, and rowed swiftly to the place Pantitlan, where the whirlpool was. This whirlpool was surrounded by logs driven into the bottom of the lake like piles--probably to keep canoes from being drawn into the sink. These logs being reached, the priests, standing in the bows of the royal vessel, began to play on their horns and shells. Conspicuous among them stood their chief holding the pot containing the hearts; he flung them far into the whirling hollow of water, and it is said that when the hearts plunged in, the waters were strangely moved and stirred into waves and foam. The precious stones were also thrown in, and the papers of the offering were fastened to the stakes with a number of the chalchiuites and other stones. A priest took a censer and put four papers called telhuitl into it, and burned them, offering them toward the whirlpool; then he threw them, censer and all, still burning into the sink. That done, the canoe was put about and rowed to the landing of Tetamacolco, and every one bathed there.

All this took place between midnight and morning, and when the light began to break the whole body of the priests went to bathe in the usual place. They washed the blue paint off their heads, save only on the forehead; and if there were any offences of any priest to be punished he was here ducked and half drowned as described above. Lastly all returned to their monasteries, and the green rush mats spread there were thrown out behind each house.[VIII-31]

We have given the description of two great festivals of the Tlalocs--two being all that are mentioned by many authorities--there still remain, however, two other notable occasions on which they were propitiated and honored.

[Sidenote: IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS.]

In the thirteenth month, which was called Tepeilhuitl, and which began, according to Clavigero, on the 24th of October, it was the custom to cut certain sticks into the shape of snakes. Certain images as of children were also cut out of wood, and these dolls, called hecatotonti, together with the wooden snakes, were used as a foundation or centre round which to build up little effigies of the mountains; wherein the Tlalocs were honored as gods of the mountains, and wherein memorial was had of those that had been drowned, or killed by thunderbolts, or whose bodies had been buried without cremation--the dolls perhaps representing the bodies of these, and the snakes the thunderbolts. Having then these wooden dolls and snakes as a basis, they were covered with dough mixed from the seeds of the wild amaranth; over each doll certain papers were put; round one snake and one doll, set back to back, there appears next to have been bound a wisp of hay, (which wisp was kept from year to year and washed on the vigil of every feast), till the proper shape of a mountain was arrived at; over the whole was then daubed a layer of dough, of the kind already mentioned. We have now our image of the mountain with two heads looking opposite ways, sticking out from its summit. Round this summit there seem to have been stuck rolls of dough representing the clouds usually formed about the crests of high mountains. The face of the human image that looked out over these dough clouds was daubed with melted ulli; and to both cheeks of it were stuck little tortillas, or cakes of the everywhere-present dough of wild amaranth seeds. On the head of this same image was put a crown with feathers issuing from it.[VIII-32] These images were made at night, and in the morning they were carried to their 'oratories,' and laid down on beds of rushes or reeds; then food was offered to them, small pies or tarts, a porridge of maize-flour and sugar, and the stewed flesh of fowls or of dogs. Incense was burned before them, being thrown into a censer shaped like a hand, as it were a great spoon full of burning coals. Those who could afford it sang and drank pulque in honor of their dead ones and of these gods.

[Sidenote: SACRIFICES TO TLALOC.]

In this feast four women and a man were killed in honor of the Tlalocs and of the mountains. The four women were named respectively, Tepoxch, Matlalquac, Xochetecatl, and Mayavel--this last was decorated to appear as the image of the magueyes. The man was called Milnaoatl; he stood for an image of 'the snakes.' These victims, adorned with crowns of paper stained with ulli, were borne to their doom in litters. Being carried to the summit of the cu, they were thrown one by one on the sacrificial stone, their hearts taken out with the flint and offered to Tlaloc, and their bodies allowed to slide slowly down the temple-steps to the earth--a too rapid descent being hindered by the priests. The corpses were carried to a place where the heads were cut off and preserved, spitted on poles thrust through the temples of each skull. The bodies were lastly carried to the wards from which they had set out alive, and there cut in pieces and eaten. At the same time the images of the mountains, which we have attempted to describe, were broken up, the dough with which they were covered was set out to dry in the sun, and was eaten, every day a piece. The papers with which the said images had been adorned were then spread over the wisps of hay, above mentioned, and the whole was fastened up in the rafters of the oratory that every one had in his house; there to remain till required for the next year's feast of the same kind; on which occasion, and as a preliminary to the other ceremonies which we have already described in the first part of this feast, the people took down the paper and the wisp from their private oratories, and carried them to the public oratory called the acaucalli, left the paper there, and returned with the wisp to make of it anew the image of a mountain.[VIII-33]

[Sidenote: KILLING IMAGES OF THE MOUNTAINS.]

The fourth and last festival of Tlaloc which we have to describe, fell in our December and in the sixteenth Aztec month, called the month Atemuztli. About this time it began to thunder round the mountain-tops, and the first rains to fall there; the common people said, "Now come the Tlalocs," and for love of the water they made vows to make images of the mountains--not, however, as it would appear, such images as have been described as appertaining to the preceding festival. The priests were very devout at this season and very earnest in prayer, expecting the rain. They took each man his incense-pan or censer, made like a great spoon with a long round hollow handle filled with rattles and terminating in a snake's head, and offered incense to all the idols. Five days before the beginning of the feast the common people bought paper and ulli and flint knives and a kind of coarse cloth called nequen, and devoutly prepared themselves with fasting and penance to make their images of the mountains and to cover them with paper. In this holy season, although every one bathed, he washed no higher than the neck, the head was left unwashed; the men, moreover, abstained from their wives. The night preceding the great feast-day was spent wholly, flint knife in hand, cutting out paper into various shapes. These papers called tetevitl, were stained with ulli; and every householder got a long pole, covered it with pieces of this paper, and set it up in his court-yard, where it remained all the day of the festival. Those that had vowed to make images of the mountains invited priests to their houses to do it for them. The priests came, bearing their drums and rattles and instruments of music of tortoise-shell. They made the images--apparently like human figures--out of the dough of wild amaranth seed, and covered them with paper. In some houses there were made five of such images, in others ten, in others fifteen; they were figures that stood for such mountains as the clouds gather round, such as the volcano of the Sierra Nevada or that of the Sierra of Tlascala. These images being constructed, they were set in order in the oratory of the house, and before each one was set food--very small pies, on small platters, proportionate to the little image, small boxes holding a little sweet porridge of maize, little calabashes of cacao, and other small green calabashes containing pulque. In one night they presented the figures with food in this manner four times. All the night too they sang before them, and played upon flutes; the regular flutists not being employed on this occasion, but certain small boys who were paid for their trouble with something to eat. When the morning came, the ministers of the idols asked the master of the house for his tzotzopaztli, a kind of broad wooden knife used in weaving,[VIII-34] and thrust it into the breasts of the images of the mountains, as if they were living men, and cut their throats and drew out the hearts, which they put in a green cup and gave to the owner of the house. This done, they took all the paper with which these images had been adorned, together with certain green mats that had been used for the same purpose, and the utensils in which the offering of food had been put, and burned all in the court-yard of the house. The ashes and the mutilated images seem then to have been carried to a public oratory called Aiauhcalco, on the shore of the lake. Then all who assisted at these ceremonies joined themselves to eat and drink in honor of the mutilated images, which were called tepieme. Women were allowed to join in this banquet provided they brought fifteen or twenty heads of maize with them; they received every one his or her share of food and pulque. The pulque was kept in black jars and lifted out to be drunk with black cups. This banquet over, the paper streamers were taken down from the poles set up in the court-yards of the houses and carried to certain places in the water that were marked out by piles driven in--we may remember that our whirlpool of Pantitlan, in the lake of Mexico, was one place so marked--and to the tops of the mountains, and left there as it would appear.[VIII-35]

In taking leave here of Tlaloc I may draw attention to the prominence in his cult of the number four, the cross, and the snake; and add that as lord of one of the three Aztec divisions of the future world, lord of the terrestrial paradise, we shall meet with him again in our examination of the Mexican ideas of a future life.

FOOTNOTES:

[VIII-1] Huitzilopochtli is derived from two words: huitzilin, the humming-bird, and opochtli, left--so called from the left foot of his image being decorated with humming-bird feathers. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., pp. 17-19.

[VIII-2] Boturini, Idea de una Hist., pp. 60-1.

[VIII-3] Acosta, Hist. Nat. Ind., pp. 352-3, 361-3. Acosta gives a description of the wanderings of the Mexicans and how their god Vitziliputzli, directed and guided them therein, much as the God of Israel directed his people, across the wilderness to the Promised Land. Tradition also tells, how he himself revealed that manner of sacrifice most acceptable to his will:--some of the priests having overnight offended him, lo, in the morning, they were all dead men; their stomachs being cut open, and their hearts pulled out; which rites in sacrifice were thereupon adopted for the service of that deity, and retained until their rooting out by the stern Spanish husbandry, so well adapted to such foul and bloody tares. Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iv., pp. 1002-3.

[VIII-4] Solis, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. i., pp. 396-8. This writer says: 'The Spanish soldiers called this idol Huchilobos, a corrupt pronunciation: so too Bernal Diaz del Castillo writes it. Authors differ much in describing this magnificent building. Antonio de Herrera follows Francisco Lopez de Gómara too closely. We shall follow Father Josef de Acosta and the better informed authors.' Id., p. 395.

[VIII-5] Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., p. i.

[VIII-6] Gage's New Survey, pp. 116-7; Herrera, Hist. Gen., tom. i., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xvii.

[VIII-7] 'Pero los mismos Naturales afirman, que este Nombre tomaron de el Dios Principal, que ellos traxeron, el qual tenia dos Nombres, el uno Huitzilopuchtli, y el otro Mexitly, y este segundo, quiere decir Ombligo de Maguey.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 293.

[VIII-8] 'Aconteciò, pues, vn dia, que estando barriendo, come acostumbraba, viò bajar por el Aire, una pelota pequeña, hecha de plumas, à manera de ovillo, hecho de hilado, que se le vino à los manos, la qual tomò, y metiò entre los Nahuas, ò Faldellin, y la carne, debajo de la faja que le ceñia el cuerpo (porque siempre traen fajado este genero de vestido) no imaginando ningun misterio, ni fin de aquel caso. Acabo de barrer, y buscò la pelota de pluma, para vèr de què podria aprovecharla en servicio de sus Dioses, y no la hallò. Quedò de esto admirada, y mucho mas de conocer en sì, que desde aquel punto se avia hecho preñada.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 41-2.

[VIII-9] This Paynalton, or Paynal, was a kind of deputy-god, or substitute for Huitzilopochtli; used in cases of urgent haste and immediate emergency, where perhaps it might be thought there was not time for the lengthened ceremonies necessary to the invocation of the greater war deity. Sahagun's account of Paynal is concise, and will throw light on the remarks of Torquemada, as given above in the text. Sahagun says, in effect: This god Paynal was a kind of sub-captain to Huitzilopochtli. The latter, as chief-captain, dictated the deliberate undertaking of war against any province; the former, as vicar to the other, served when it became unexpectedly necessary to take up arms and make front hurriedly against an enemy. Then it was that Paynal--whose name means 'swift, or hurried,'--when living on earth set out in person to stir up the people to repulse the enemy. Upon his death he was deified and a festival appointed in his honor. In this festival, his image, richly decorated, was carried in a long procession, every one, bearer of the idol or not, running as fast as he could; all of which represented the promptness that is many times necessary to resist the assault of a foe attacking by surprise or ambuscade. Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., p. 2.

[VIII-10] Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 293, tom. ii., pp. 41-3, 71-3.

[VIII-11] See this vol., p. 69, note.

[VIII-12] See this vol. p. 67.

[VIII-13] See this vol. p. 134.

[VIII-14] If some of the names and myths, mentioned or alluded to from time to time, by Müller and others, are yet unknown to the reader, he will remember the impossibility of any arrangement of these mixed and far-involved legends by which, without infinite verbiage, this trouble could be wholly obviated. In good time, and with what clearness is possible, the list of gods and legends will be made as nearly as may be complete.

[VIII-15] Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, pp. 591-612.

[VIII-16] Tylor's Prim. Cult., vol. ii., p 279.

[VIII-17] Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. lxxi.-ii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 195-6.

[VIII-18] Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 14; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt i., p. 101, pt ii., pp. 76-9.

[VIII-19] Sahagun, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 372-6; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., vol. ii., pp. 64-70.

[VIII-20] Camargo, Hist. de Tlaxcallan, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, tom. 99, pp. 133, 135-7. Camargo, being a Tlascaltec, most of his writings have particular reference to his own province, but in this as in other places he seems to be describing general Mexican customs.

[VIII-21] The text, without saying directly that these unfortunate children were closed there alive, appears to infer it: 'Cuando el maiz estaba á la rodilla, para un dia repartian y echaban pecho, con que compraban cuatro niños esclavos de edad de cinco á seis años, y sacrificábanlos á Tlaloc, dios del agua, poniéndolos en una cueva, y cerrábanla hasta otro año que hacian lo mismo. Este cruel sacrificio.' Motolinia, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 45.

[VIII-22] 'Tambien tenian ídolos junto á los aguas, mayormente cerca de las fuentes, á do hacian sus altares con sus gradas cubiertas por encima, y en muchas principales fuentes cuatro altares de estos á manera de cruz unos enfrente de otros, y allí en el agua echaban mucho encienso ofrecido y papel.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 87, 102.

[VIII-23] 'In questo mese ritornavano ad ornare li tempj, e le immagini come nello passato, ed in fine delli venti dí sacrificavano un putto al Dio dell' acqua, e lo mettevano infra il maiz, a fine che non si guastasse la provisione di tutto l' anno.' Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. lx., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 191.

[VIII-24] 'Whence is derived the name cocoles, by which the boys of the choir of the cathedral of Mexico are now known.' Bustamante, note to Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., p. 85.

[VIII-25] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 37-8; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 84-7.

[VIII-26] 'En aquellas talegas llevaban una manera de harina hecha á la manera de estiercol de ratones, que ellos llamaban yyaqualli, que era conficionada con tinta y con polvos de una yerva que ellos llaman yietll; és como veleños de Castilla.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 51.

[VIII-27] Sahagun gives two different accounts of this instrument: 'Una tabla tan larga como dos varas, y ancha como un palmo ó poco mas. Yvan dentro de estas tablas unas sonajas, y el que le llevaba iva sonando con ellas. Llamaban á esta tabla Axochicaoaliztli, ó Nacatlquoavitl.' The second description is: 'Una tabla de anchura de un palmo y de largura de dos brazas; á trechos ivan unos sonajas en esta tabla unos pedazuelos de madero rollizos y atados á la misma tabla, y dentro de ella ivan sonando los unos con los otros. Esta tabla se llamaba aiauhchicaoaztli.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 51 and 53.

[VIII-28] 'Comenzaban á vocear y á gritar y a contrahacer las aves del agua, unos á los anades, otros á unas aves zancudas del agua que llama pipititi, otros á los cuervos marinos, otros á las garzotas blancas, otros á las garzas. Aquellas palabras que decia el satrapa parece que eran invocacion del Demonio para hablar aquellos lenguages de aves en al agua.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 51.

[VIII-29] 'Yauhtlaulli or Yauitl, mayz moreno o negro.' Molina, Vocabulario.

[VIII-30] 'Comenzaban luego á matar á los captivos; aquellos que primero mataban decian que eran el fundamento de los que eran imagen de los Tlaloques, que ivan aderezados con los ornamentos de los mismos Tlaloques que (ivan aderezados) decian eran sus imagenes, y asi los que morian á la postre ivanse á sentar sobre los que primero habian muerto.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 54.

[VIII-31] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 49-55; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 111-124.

[VIII-32] This passage relating to the making of images of the mountains is such a chaotic jumble in the original that one is forced to use largely any constructive imagination one may possess to reproduce even a comprehensible description. I give the original; if any one can make rhyme or reason out of it by a closer following of the words of Sahagun, he shall not want the opportunity: 'Al trece mes llamaban Tepeilhuitl. En la fiesta que se hacia en este mes cubrian de masa de bledos unos palos que tenian hechos como culebras, y hacian imagenes de montes fundadas sobre unos palos hechos á manera de niños que llamaban Hecatotonti: era la imagen del monte de masa de bledos. Ponianle delante junto unas masas rollizas y larguillas de masa de bledos á manera de bezos, y estos llamaban Yomiio. Hacian estas imagenes á honra de los montes altos donde se juntan las nubes, y en memoria de los que habian muerto en agua ó heridos de rayo, y de los que no se quemaban sus cuerpos sino que los enterraban. Estos montes hacianlos sobre unos rodeos ó roscas hechas de heno atadas con zacate, y guardabanlas de un año para otro. La vigilia de esta fiesta llevaban á lavar estas roscas al rio ó á la fuente, y quando las llevaban ivanlas tañendo con unos pitos hechos de barro cocido ó con unos caracoles mariscos. Lavabanlas en unas casas ú oratorias que estaban hechos á la orilla del agua que se llama Ayauh calli. Lavabanlas con unas ojas de cañas verdes; algunos con el agua que pasaba por su casa las lavaban. En acabandolas de lavar volvianlas á su casa con la misma musica; luego hacian sobre ellas las imagenes de los montes como está dicho. Algunos hacian estas imagenes de noche antes de amanecer cerca del dia; la cabeza de cada un monte, tenia dos caras, una de persona y otra de culebra, y untaban la cara de persona con ulli derretido, y hacian unas tortillas prequeñuelas de masa de bledos amarillos, y ponianlas en las mexillas de la cara de persona de una parte y de otra; cubrianlos con unos papeles que llamaban Tetcuitli; ponianlos unas coronas en las cabezas con sus penachos. Tambien á los imagenes de los muertos las ponian sobre aquellas roscas de zacate, y luego en amaneciendo ponian estas imagenes en sus oratorios, sobre unos lechos de espadañas ó de juncias ó juncos.' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 71-2.

[VIII-33] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 71-3; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 159-162.

[VIII-34] 'Tzotzopaztli, palo ancho como cuchilla con que tupen y aprietan la tela que se texe.' Molina, Vocabulario.

[VIII-35] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 80-1; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 176-9, 198, 210. Farther notice of Tlaloc and his worship will be found in the Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano, tav. xxviii., lvii., lx., lxii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 179, 190-2; Boturini, Idea, pp. 12-3, 99, 101; Amer. Ethnol. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 305; Motolinia, Hist. Ind., in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., pp. 32, 39, 42, 44-5; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 290, and tom. ii., pp. 45-6, 119, 121, 147, 151, 212, 251-4; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xv.; Gomara, Hist. Conq. Mex., fol. 216; Tylor's Prim. Cult., vol. ii., pp. 235, 243; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, pp. 500-4 et passim.