(M214) By no people does the custom of sacrificing the human
representative of a god appear to have been observed so commonly and with
so much solemnity as by the Aztecs of ancient Mexico. With the ritual of
these remarkable sacrifices we are well acquainted, for it has been fully
described by the Spaniards who conquered Mexico in the sixteenth century,
and whose curiosity was naturally excited by the discovery in this distant
region of a barbarous and cruel religion which presented many curious
points of analogy to the doctrine and ritual of their own church. “They
took a captive,” says the Jesuit Acosta, “such as they thought good; and
afore they did sacrifice him unto their idols, they gave him the name of
the idol, to whom he should be sacrificed, and apparelled him with the
same ornaments like their idol, saying, that he did represent the same
idol. And during the time that this representation lasted, which was for a
year in some feasts, in others six months, and in others less, they
reverenced and worshipped him in the same manner as the proper idol; and
in the meantime he did eat, drink, and was merry. When he went through the
streets, the people came forth to worship him, and every one brought him
an alms, with children and sick folks, that he might cure them, and bless
them, suffering him to do all things at his pleasure, only he was
accompanied with ten or twelve men lest he should fly. And he (to the end
he might be reverenced as he passed) sometimes sounded upon a small flute,
that the people might prepare to worship him. The feast being come, and he
grown fat, they killed him, opened him, and ate him, making a solemn
sacrifice of him.”(673)
(M215) This general description of the custom may now be illustrated by
particular examples. Thus at the festival called Toxcatl, the greatest
festival of the Mexican year, a young man was annually sacrificed in the
character of Tezcatlipoca, “the god of gods,” after having been maintained
and worshipped as that great deity in person for a whole year. According
to the old Franciscan monk Sahagun, our best authority on the Aztec
religion, the sacrifice of the human god fell at Easter or a few days
later, so that, if he is right, it would correspond in date as well as in
character to the Christian festival of the death and resurrection of the
Redeemer.(674) More exactly he tells us that the sacrifice took place on
the first day of the fifth Aztec month, which according to him began on
the twenty-third or twenty-seventh day of April.(675) However, according
to other Spanish authorities of the sixteenth century the festival lasted
from the ninth to the nineteenth day of May, and the sacrifice of the
human victim in the character of the god was performed on the last of
these days.(676) An eminent modern authority, Professor E. Seler, is of
opinion that the festival originally celebrated the beginning of the year,
and that it fell on the day when the sun on his passage northward to the
tropic of Cancer stood in the zenith over the city of Mexico, which in the
early part of the sixteenth century would be the ninth or tenth day of May
(old style) or the nineteenth or twentieth day of May (new style).(677)
Whatever the exact date of the celebration may have been, we are told that
the “feast was not made to any other end, but to demand rain, in the same
manner that we solemnize the Rogations; and this feast was always in May,
which is the time that they have most need of rain in those
countries.”(678)
(M216) At this festival the great god died in the person of one human
representative and came to life again in the person of another, who was
destined to enjoy the fatal honour of divinity for a year and to perish,
like all his predecessors, at the end of it. The young man singled out for
this high dignity was carefully chosen from among the captives on the
ground of his personal beauty. He had to be of unblemished body, slim as a
reed and straight as a pillar, neither too tall nor too short. If through
high living he grew too fat, he was obliged to reduce himself by drinking
salt water. And in order that he might behave in his lofty station with
becoming grace and dignity he was carefully trained to comport himself
like a gentleman of the first quality, to speak correctly and elegantly,
to play the flute, to smoke cigars and to snuff at flowers with a
dandified air. He was honourably lodged in the temple where the nobles
waited on him and paid him homage, bringing him meat and serving like a
prince. The king himself saw to it that he was apparelled in gorgeous
attire, “for already he esteemed him as a god.” Eagle down was gummed to
his head and white cock’s feathers were stuck in his hair, which drooped
to his girdle. A wreath of flowers like roasted maize crowned his brows,
and a garland of the same flowers passed over his shoulders and under his
arm-pits. Golden ornaments hung from his nose, golden armlets adorned his
arms, golden bells jingled on his legs at every step he took; earrings of
turquoise dangled from his ears, bracelets of turquoise bedecked his
wrists; necklaces of shells encircled his neck and depended on his breast;
he wore a mantle of network, and round his middle a rich waist-cloth. When
this bejewelled exquisite lounged through the streets playing on his
flute, puffing at a cigar, and smelling at a nosegay, the people whom he
met threw themselves on the earth before him and prayed to him with sighs
and tears, taking up the dust in their hands and putting it in their
mouths in token of the deepest humiliation and subjection. Women came
forth with children in their arms and presented them to him, saluting him
as a god. For “he passed for our Lord God; the people acknowledged him as
the Lord.” All who thus worshipped him on his passage he saluted gravely
and courteously. Lest he should flee, he was everywhere attended by a
guard of eight pages in the royal livery, four of them with shaven crowns
like the palace-slaves, and four of them with the flowing locks of
warriors; and if he contrived to escape, the captain of the guard had to
take his place as the representative of the god and to die in his stead.
Twenty days before he was to die, his costume was changed, and four
damsels, delicately nurtured and bearing the names of four goddesses—the
Goddess of Flowers, the Goddess of the Young Maize, the Goddess “Our
Mother among the Water,” and the Goddess of Salt—were given him to be his
brides, and with them he consorted. During the last five days divine
honours were showered on the destined victim. The king remained in his
palace while the whole court went after the human god. Solemn banquets and
dances followed each other in regular succession and at appointed places.
On the last day the young man, attended by his wives and pages, embarked
in a canoe covered with a royal canopy and was ferried across the lake to
a spot where a little hill rose from the edge of the water. It was called
the Mountain of Parting, because here his wives bade him a last farewell.
Then, accompanied only by his pages, he repaired to a small and lonely
temple by the wayside. Like the Mexican temples in general, it was built
in the form of a pyramid; and as the young man ascended the stairs he
broke at every step one of the flutes on which he had played in the days
of his glory. On reaching the summit he was seized and held down by the
priests on his back upon a block of stone, while one of them cut open his
breast, thrust his hand into the wound, and wrenching out his heart held
it up in sacrifice to the sun. The body of the dead god was not, like the
bodies of common victims, sent rolling down the steps of the temple, but
was carried down to the foot, where the head was cut off and spitted on a
pike. Such was the regular end of the man who personated the greatest god
of the Mexican pantheon.(679)
(M217) But he was not the only man who played the part of a god and was
sacrificed as such in the month of May. The great god Vitzilopochtli or
Huitzilopochtli was also worshipped at the same season. An image of him
was made out of dough in human shape, arrayed in all the ornaments of the
deity, and set up in his temple. But the god had also his living
representative in the person of a young man, who, like the human
representative of Tezcatlipoca, personated the divinity for a whole year
and was sacrificed at the end. In the month of May it was the duty of the
divine man, destined so soon to die, to lead the dances which formed a
conspicuous feature of the festivities. Courtiers and warriors, old and
young, danced in winding figures, holding each other by the hand; and with
them danced young women, who had taken a vow to dance with roasted maize.
On their heads these damsels wore crowns of roasted maize; festoons of
maize hung from their shoulders and crossed on their breasts; their faces
were painted, and their arms and legs were covered with red feathers.
Dancing in this attire the damsels were said to hold the god
Vitzilopochtli in their arms; but they conducted themselves with the
utmost gravity and decorum. If any man so far forgot himself as to toy
with one of the maidens, the elder warriors dealt with him promptly and
severely, reproaching him for the sacrilege of which he had been guilty.
Sahagun compares these May dances to the dances of peasant men and women
in old Castile, and the crowns of maize worn by the girls he compares to
the garlands of flowers worn by rustic Castilian maidens in the month of
May. So they danced till nightfall. Next morning they danced again, and in
the course of the day the man who represented the god Vitzilopochtli was
put to death. He had the privilege of choosing the hour when he was to
die. When the fatal moment drew near, they clothed him in a curious dress
of paper painted all over with black circles; on his head they clapped a
paper mitre decked with eagle feathers and nodding plumes, among which was
fastened a blood-stained obsidian knife. Thus attired, with golden bells
jingling at his ankles, he led the dance at all the balls of the festival,
and thus attired he went to his death. The priests seized him, stretched
him out, gripped him tight, cut out his heart, and held it up to the sun.
His head was severed from the trunk and spiked beside the head of the
other human god, who had been sacrificed not long before.(680)
(M218) In Cholula, a wealthy trading city of Mexico, the merchants
worshipped a god named Quetzalcoatl. His image, set upon a richly
decorated altar or pedestal in a spacious temple, had the body of a man
but the head of a bird, with a red beak surmounted by a crest, the face
dyed yellow, with a black band running from the eyes to below the beak,
and the tongue lolling out. On its head was a paper mitre painted black,
white, and red; on its neck a large golden jewel in the shape of butterfly
wings; about its body a feather mantle, black, red, and white; golden
socks and golden sandals encased its legs and feet. In the right hand the
image wielded a wooden instrument like a sickle, and in the left a buckler
covered with the black and white plumage of sea-birds.(681) The festival
of this god was celebrated on the third day of February. Forty days before
the festival “the merchants bought a slave well proportioned, without any
fault or blemish, either of sickness or of hurt, whom they did attire with
the ornaments of the idol, that he might represent it forty days. Before
his clothing they did cleanse him, washing him twice in a lake, which they
called the lake of the gods; and being purified, they attired him like the
idol. During these forty days, he was much respected for his sake whom he
represented. By night they did imprison him (as hath been said) lest he
should fly, and in the morning they took him out of prison, setting him
upon an eminent place, where they served him, giving him exquisite meats
to eat. After he had eaten, they put a chain of flowers about his neck,
and many nosegays in his hands. He had a well-appointed guard, with much
people to accompany him. When he went through the city, he went dancing
and singing through all the streets, that he might be known for the
resemblance of their god, and when he began to sing, the women and little
children came forth of their houses to salute him, and to offer unto him
as to their god. Two old men of the ancients of the temple came unto him
nine days before the feast, and humbling themselves before him, they said
with a low and submissive voice, ‘Sir, you must understand that nine days
hence the exercise of dancing and singing doth end, and thou must then
die’; and then he must answer, ‘In a good hour.’ They call this ceremony
_Neyòlo Maxilt Ileztli_, which is to say, the advertisement; and when they
did thus advertise him, they took very careful heed whether he were sad,
or if he danced as joyfully as he was accustomed, the which if he did not
as cheerfully as they desired, they made a foolish superstition in this
manner. They presently took the sacrifizing razors, the which they washed
and cleansed from the blood of men which remained of the former
sacrifices. Of this washing they made a drink mingled with another liquor
made of cacao, giving it him to drink; they said that this would make him
forget what had been said unto him, and would make him in a manner
insensible, returning to his former dancing and mirth. They said,
moreover, that he would offer himself cheerfully to death, being enchanted
with this drink. The cause why they sought to take from him this
heaviness, was, for that they held it for an ill augury, and a
fore-telling of some great harm. The day of the feast being come, after
they had done him much honour, sung, and given him incense, the
sacrificers took him about midnight and did sacrifice him, as hath been
said, offering his heart unto the Moon, the which they did afterwards cast
against the idol, letting the body fall to the bottom of the stairs of the
temple, where such as had offered him took him up, which were the
merchants, whose feast it was. Then having carried him into the chiefest
man’s house amongst them, the body was drest with diverse sauces, to
celebrate (at the break of day) the banquet and dinner of the feast,
having first bid the idol good morrow, with a small dance, which they made
whilst the day did break, and that they prepared the sacrifice. Then did
all the merchants assemble at this banquet, especially those which made it
a trafick to buy and sell slaves, who were bound every year to offer one,
for the resemblance of their god. This idol was one of the most honoured
in all the land; and therefore the temple where he was, was of great
authority.”(682)
(M219) The honour of living for a short time in the character of a god and
dying a violent death in the same capacity was not restricted to men in
Mexico; women were allowed, or rather compelled, to enjoy the glory and to
share the doom as representatives of goddesses. Thus in the seventh month
of their year, which corresponded roughly to June, the Aztecs celebrated a
festival in honour of Huixtocihuatl, the Goddess of Salt. She was said to
be a sister of the Rain Gods, but having quarrelled with them she was
banished and driven to take up her abode in the salt water. Being of an
ingenious turn of mind, she invented the process of extracting salt by
means of pans; hence she was worshipped by all salt-makers as their patron
goddess. Her garments were yellow; on her head she wore a mitre surmounted
by bunches of waving green plumes, which shone with greenish iridescent
hues in the sun. Her robe and petticoats were embroidered with patterns
simulating the waves of the sea. Golden ear-rings in the form of flowers
dangled at her ears; golden bells jingled at her ankles. In one hand she
carried a round shield painted with the leaves of a certain plant and
adorned with drooping fringes of parrots’ feathers; in the other hand she
carried a stout baton ending in a knob and bedecked with paper, artificial
flowers, and feathers. For ten days before her festival a woman personated
the goddess and wore her gorgeous costume. It was her duty during these
days to lead the dances which at this season were danced by the women and
girls of the salt-makers. They danced, young, old, and children, in a
ring, all holding a cord, their heads crowned with garlands of a fragrant
flower (_Artemisia laciniata_) and singing airs in a shrill soprano. In
the middle of the ring danced the woman who represented the goddess, with
her golden bells jingling at every step, brandishing her shield, and
marking the time of the dance and song with her baton. On the last day,
the eve of the festival, she had to dance all night without resting till
break of day, when she was to die. Old women supported her in the weary
task, and they all danced together, arm in arm. With her, too, danced the
slaves who were to die with her in the morning. When the hour was come,
they led her, still personating the goddess, up the steps of the temple of
Tlaloc, followed by the doomed captives. Arrived at the summit of the
pyramid, the butchery began with the captives, while the woman stood
looking on. Her turn being come, they threw her on her back on the block,
and while five men held her down and two others compressed her throat with
a billet of wood or the sword of a sword-fish to prevent her from
screaming, the priest cut open her breast with his knife, and thrusting
his hand into the wound tore out her heart and flung it into a bowl. When
all was over, the salt-makers who had witnessed the sacrifice went home to
drink and make merry.(683)
(M220) Again, in the eighth month of the Mexican year, which answered to
the latter end of June and the early part of July, the Aztecs sacrificed a
woman who personated Xilonen, the goddess of the young maize-cobs
(_xilotl_). The festival at which the sacrifice took place was held on the
tenth day of the month about the time when the maize is nearly ripe, and
when fibres shooting forth from the green ear shew that the grain is fully
formed. For eight days before the festival men and women, clad in rich
garments and decked with jewels, danced and sang together in the courts of
the temples, which were brilliantly illuminated for the purpose. Rows of
tall braziers sent up a flickering blaze, and torchbearers held aloft huge
torches of pinewood. Some of the dancers themselves carried heavy torches,
which flared and spluttered as they danced. The dances began at sundown
and lasted till about nine o’clock. None but tried and distinguished
warriors might take part in them. The women wore their long hair hanging
loose on their back and shoulders, in order that the tassels of the maize
might likewise grow long and loose, for the more tassels the more grain in
the ear. Men and women danced holding each other by the hand or with their
arms round each other’s waists, marking time exactly with their feet to
the music of the drums and moving out and in among the flaming braziers
and torches. The dances were strictly decorous. If any man was detected
making love to one of the women dancers, he was publicly disgraced,
severely punished, and never allowed to dance and sing in public again. On
the eve of the festival the woman who was to die in the character of the
Goddess of the Young Maize was arrayed in the rich robes and splendid
jewels of the divinity whom she personated. The upper part of her face was
painted red and the lower part yellow, probably to assimilate her to the
ruddy and orange hues of the ripe maize. Her legs and arms were covered
with red feathers. She wore a paper crown decked with a bunch of feathers;
necklaces of gems and gold encircled her neck; her garments were
embroidered with quaint figures; her shoes were striped with red. In her
left hand she held a round shield, in her right a crimson baton. Thus
arrayed, she was led by other women to offer incense in four different
places. All the rest of the night she and they danced and sang in front of
the temple of the goddess Xilonen, whose living image she was supposed to
be. In the morning the nobles danced a solemn dance by themselves,
leaning, or making believe to lean, on stalks of maize. The women, pranked
with garlands and festoons of yellow flowers, danced also by themselves
along with the victim. Among the priests the one who was to act as
executioner wore a fine bunch of feathers on his back. Another shook a
rattle before the doomed woman as she mounted up the steps of the temple
of Cinteotl, the Goddess of the Maize. On reaching the summit she was
seized by a priest, who threw her on his back, while the sacrificer
severed her head from her body, tore out her heart, and threw it in a
saucer. When this sacrifice had been performed in honour of Xilonen, the
Goddess of the Young Maize, the people were free to eat the green ears of
maize and the bread that was baked of it. No one would have dared to eat
of these things before the sacrifice.(684)
(M221) Again, in the seventeenth month of the Mexican year,(685) which
corresponded to the latter part of December and the early part of January,
the Aztecs sacrificed a woman, who personated the goddess Ilamatecutli or
Tonan, which means “Our Mother.” Her festival fell on Christmas Day, the
twenty-fifth of December. The image of the goddess wore a two-faced mask
with large mouths and protruding eyes. The woman who represented her was
dressed in white robes and shod with white sandals. Over her white mantle
she wore a leathern jerkin, the lower edge of which was cut into a fringe
of straps, and to the end of each strap was fastened a small shell. As she
walked, the shells clashed together and made a noise which was heard afar
off. The upper half of her face was painted yellow and the lower half
black; and she wore a wig. In her hand she carried a round whitewashed
shield decorated in the middle with a circle of eagle feathers, while
white heron plumes, ending in eagle feathers, drooped from it. Thus
arrayed and personating the goddess, the woman danced alone to music
played by old men, and as she danced she sighed and wept at the thought of
the death that was so near. At noon or a little later the dance ceased;
and when the sun was declining in the west, they led her up the long
ascent to the summit of Huitzilopochtli’s temple. Behind her marched the
priests clad in the trappings of all the gods, with masks on their faces.
One of them wore the costume and the mask of the goddess Ilamatecutli,
whom the victim also represented. On reaching the lofty platform which
crowned the pyramidal temple, they slew her in the usual fashion, wrenched
out her heart, and cut off her head. The dripping head was given to the
priest who wore the costume and mask of the goddess and waving it up and
down he danced round the platform, followed by all the other priests in
the attire and masks of the gods. When the dance had lasted a certain
time, the leader gave the signal, and they all trooped down the long
flight of stairs to disrobe themselves and deposit the masks and costumes
in the chapels where they were usually kept. Next day the people indulged
in a certain pastime. Men and boys furnished themselves with little bags
or nets stuffed with paper, flowers of galingale, or green leaves of
maize, which they tied to strings, and used them as instruments to strike
any girl or woman they might meet in the streets. Sometimes three or four
urchins would gather round one girl, beating her till she cried; but some
shrewd wenches went about that day armed with sticks, with which they
retaliated smartly on their assailants. It was a penal offence to put
stones or anything else that could hurt in the bags.(686)
(M222) In the preceding custom, what are we to make of the sacrifice of a
woman, who personated the goddess, by a man who also wore the costume and
mask of the goddess, and who immediately after the sacrifice danced with
the bleeding head of the victim? Perhaps the intention of the strange rite
was to represent the resurrection of the slain goddess in the person of
the priest who wore her costume and mask and dangled the severed head of
her slaughtered representative. If that was so, it would explain another
and still ghastlier rite, in which the Mexicans seem to have set forth the
doctrine of the divine resurrection. This was to skin the slain woman who
had personated the goddess and then to clothe in the bloody skin a man,
who pranced about in it, as if he were the dead woman or rather goddess
come to life again. Thus in the eleventh Mexican month, which corresponded
to the latter part of August and the early part of September, they
celebrated a festival in honour of a goddess called the Mother of the Gods
(_Teteo innan_) or Our Ancestress (_Toci_), or the Heart of the Earth, and
they sacrificed a woman clad in the costume and ornaments of the goddess.
She was a slave bought for the purpose by the guilds of physicians,
surgeons, blood-letters, midwives and fortune-tellers, who particularly
worshipped this deity. When the poor wretch came forth decked in all the
trappings of the goddess, the people, we are told, looked on her as
equivalent to the Mother of the Gods herself and paid her as much honour
and reverence as if she had indeed been that great divinity. For eight
days they danced silently in four rows, if dance it could be called in
which the dancers scarcely stirred their legs and bodies, but contented
themselves with moving their hands, in which they held branches of
blossoms, up and down in time to the tuck of drum. These dances began in
the afternoon and lasted till the sun went down. No one might speak during
their performance; only some lively youths mimicked by a booming murmur of
the lips the rub-a-dub of the drums. When the dances were over, the
medical women, young and old, divided themselves into two parties and
engaged in a sham fight before the woman who acted the part of the Mother
of the Gods. This they did to divert her and keep her from being sad and
shedding tears; for if she wept, they deemed it an omen that many men
would die in battle and many women in childbed. The fight between the
women consisted in throwing balls of moss, leaves, or flowers at each
other; and she who personated the goddess led one of the parties to the
attack. These mock battles lasted four days.
(M223) After that they led the woman who was to die to the market-place,
that she might bid it farewell; and by way of doing so she scattered the
flour of maize wherever she went. The priests then attended her to a
building near the temple in which she was to be sacrificed. The knowledge
of her doom was kept from her as far as possible. The medical women and
the midwives comforted her, saying, “Be not cast down, sweetheart; this
night thou shalt sleep with the king; therefore rejoice.” Then they put on
her the ornaments of the goddess, and at midnight led her to the temple
where she was to die. On the passage not a word was spoken, not a cough
was heard; crowds were gathered to see her pass, but all kept a profound
silence. Arrived at the summit of the temple she was hoisted on to the
back of one priest, while another adroitly cut off her head. The body,
still warm, was skinned, and a tall robust young man clothed himself in
the bleeding skin and so became in turn a living image of the goddess. One
of the woman’s thighs was flayed separately, and the skin carried to
another temple, where a young man put it over his face as a mask and so
personated the maize-goddess Cinteotl, daughter of the Mother of the Gods.
Meantime the other, clad in the rest of the woman’s skin, hurried down the
steps of the temple. The nobles and warriors fled before him, carrying
blood-stained besoms of couchgrass, but turned to look back at him from
time to time and smote upon their shields as if to bid him come on. He
followed hard after them and all who saw that flight and pursuit quaked
with fear. On arriving at the foot of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, the
man who wore the skin of the dead woman and personated the Mother of the
Gods, lifted up his arms and stood like a cross before the image of the
god; this action he repeated four times. Then he joined the man who
personated the maize-goddess Cinteotl, and together they went slowly to
the temple of the Mother of the Gods, where the woman had been sacrificed.
All this time it was night. Next morning at break of day the man who
personated the Mother of the Gods took up his post on the highest point of
the temple; there they decked him in all the gorgeous trappings of the
goddess and set a splendid crown on his head. Then the captives were set
in a row before him, and arrayed in all his finery he slaughtered four of
them with his own hand: the rest he left to be butchered by the priests. A
variety of ceremonies and dances followed. Amongst others, the blood of
the human victims was collected in a bowl and set before the man who
personated the Mother of the Gods. He dipped his finger into the blood and
then sucked his bloody finger; and when he had sucked it he bowed his head
and uttered a dolorous groan, whereat the Indians believed the earth
itself shook and trembled, as did all who heard it. Finally the skin of
the slain woman and the skin of her thigh were carried away and deposited
separately at two towers, one of which stood on the border of the enemy’s
country.(687)
(M224) This remarkable festival in honour of the Mother of the Gods is
said to have been immediately preceded by a similar festival in honour of
the Maize Goddess Chicomecohuatl.(688) The image of this goddess was of
wood and represented her as a girl of about twelve years of age wearing
feminine ornaments painted in gay colours. On her head was a pasteboard
mitre; her long hair fell on her shoulders; in her ears she had golden
earrings; round her neck she wore a necklace of golden maize-cobs strung
on a blue ribbon, and in her hands she held the likeness of maize-cobs
made of feathers and garnished with gold. Her festival, which was observed
throughout the whole country with great devotion on the fifteenth day of
September, was preceded by a strict fast of seven days, during which old
and young, sick and whole, ate nothing but broken victuals and dry bread
and drank nothing but water, and did penance by drawing blood from their
ears. The blood so drawn was kept in vessels, which were not scoured, so
that a dry crust formed over it. On the day before the fast began the
people ate and drank to their heart’s content, and they sanctified a woman
to represent Atlatatonan, the Goddess of Lepers, dressing her up in an
appropriate costume. When the fast was over, the high priest of the temple
of Tlaloc sacrificed the woman in the usual way by tearing out her heart
and holding it up as an offering to the sun. Her body, with all the robes
and ornaments she had worn, was cast into a well or vault in the temple,
and along with the corpse were thrown in all the plates and dishes out of
which the people had eaten, and all the mats on which they had sat or
slept during the fast, as if, says the historian, they had been infected
with the plague of leprosy. After that the people were free to eat bread,
salt, and tomatoes; and immediately after the sacrifice of the woman who
personated the Goddess of Leprosy they sanctified a young slave girl of
twelve or thirteen years, the prettiest they could find, to represent the
Maize Goddess Chicomecohuatl. They invested her with the ornaments of the
goddess, putting the mitre on her head and the maize-cobs round her neck
and in her hands, and fastening a green feather upright on the crown of
her head to imitate an ear of maize. This they did, we are told, in order
to signify that the maize was almost ripe at the time of the festival, but
because it was still tender they chose a girl of tender years to play the
part of the Maize Goddess. The whole long day they led the poor child in
all her finery, with the green plume nodding on her head, from house to
house dancing merrily to cheer people after the dulness and privations of
the fast.
(M225) In the evening all the people assembled at the temple, the courts
of which they lit up by a multitude of lanterns and candles. There they
passed the night without sleeping, and at midnight, while the trumpets,
flutes, and horns discoursed solemn music, a portable framework or
palanquin was brought forth, bedecked with festoons of maize-cobs and
peppers and filled with seeds of all sorts. This the bearers set down at
the door of the chamber in which the wooden image of the goddess stood.
Now the chamber was adorned and wreathed, both outside and inside, with
wreaths of maize-cobs, peppers, pumpkins, roses, and seeds of every kind,
a wonder to behold; the whole floor was covered deep with these verdant
offerings of the pious. When the music ceased, a solemn procession came
forth of priests and dignitaries, with flaring lights and smoking censers,
leading in their midst the girl who played the part of the goddess. Then
they made her mount the framework, where she stood upright on the maize
and peppers and pumpkins with which it was strewed, her hands resting on
two bannisters to keep her from falling. Then the priests swung the
smoking censers round her; the music struck up again, and while it played,
a great dignitary of the temple suddenly stepped up to her with a razor in
his hand and adroitly shore off the green feather she wore on her head,
together with the hair in which it was fastened, snipping the lock off by
the root. The feather and the hair he then presented to the wooden image
of the goddess with great solemnity and elaborate ceremonies, weeping and
giving her thanks for the fruits of the earth and the abundant crops which
she had bestowed on the people that year; and as he wept and prayed, all
the people, standing in the courts of the temple, wept and prayed with
him. When that ceremony was over, the girl descended from the framework
and was escorted to the place where she was to spend the rest of the
night. But all the people kept watch in the courts of the temple by the
light of torches till break of day.
(M226) The morning being come, and the courts of the temple being still
crowded by the multitude, who would have deemed it sacrilege to quit the
precincts, the priests again brought forth the damsel attired in the
costume of the goddess, with the mitre on her head and the cobs of maize
about her neck. Again she mounted the portable framework or palanquin and
stood on it, supporting herself by her hands on the bannisters. Then the
elders of the temple lifted it on their shoulders, and while some swung
burning censers and others played on instruments or sang, they carried it
in procession through the great courtyard to the hall of the god
Huitzilopochtli and then back to the chamber, where stood the wooden image
of the Maize Goddess, whom the girl personated. There they caused the
damsel to descend from the palanquin and to stand on the heaps of corn and
vegetables that had been spread in profusion on the floor of the sacred
chamber. While she stood there all the elders and nobles came in a line,
one behind the other, carrying the saucers of dry and clotted blood which
they had drawn from their ears by way of penance during the seven days’
fast. One by one they squatted on their haunches before her, which was the
equivalent of falling on their knees with us, and scraping the crust of
blood from the saucer cast it down before her as an offering in return for
the benefits which she, as the embodiment of the Maize Goddess, had
conferred upon them. When the men had thus humbly offered their blood to
the human representative of the goddess, the women, forming a long line,
did so likewise, each of them dropping on her hams before the girl and
scraping her blood from the saucer. The ceremony lasted a long time, for
great and small, young and old, all without exception had to pass before
the incarnate deity and make their offering. When it was over, the people
returned home with glad hearts to feast on flesh and viands of every sort
as merrily, we are told, as good Christians at Easter partake of meat and
other carnal mercies after the long abstinence of Lent. And when they had
eaten and drunk their fill and rested after the night watch, they returned
quite refreshed to the temple to see the end of the festival. And the end
of the festival was this. The multitude being assembled, the priests
solemnly incensed the girl who personated the goddess; then they threw her
on her back on the heap of corn and seeds, cut off her head, caught the
gushing blood in a tub, and sprinkled the blood on the wooden image of the
goddess, the walls of the chamber, and the offerings of corn, peppers,
pumpkins, seeds, and vegetables which cumbered the floor. After that they
flayed the headless trunk, and one of the priests made shift to squeeze
himself into the bloody skin. Having done so they clad him in all the
robes which the girl had worn; they put the mitre on his head, the
necklace of golden maize-cobs about his neck, the maize-cobs of feathers
and gold in his hands; and thus arrayed they led him forth in public, all
of them dancing to the tuck of drum, while he acted as fugleman, skipping
and posturing at the head of the procession as briskly as he could be
expected to do, incommoded as he was by the tight and clammy skin of the
girl and by her clothes, which must have been much too small for a grown
man.(689)
(M227) In the foregoing custom the identification of the young girl with
the Maize Goddess appears to be complete. The golden maize cobs which she
wore round her neck, the artificial maize cobs which she carried in her
hands, the green feather which was stuck in her hair in imitation (we are
told) of a green ear of maize, all set her forth as a personification of
the corn-spirit; and we are expressly informed that she was specially
chosen as a young girl to represent the young maize, which at the time of
the festival had not yet fully ripened. Further, her identification with
the corn and the corn-goddess was clearly announced by making her stand on
the heaps of maize and there receive the homage and blood-offerings of the
whole people, who thereby returned her thanks for the benefits which in
her character of a divinity she was supposed to have conferred upon them.
Once more, the practice of beheading her on a heap of corn and seeds and
sprinkling her blood, not only on the image of the Maize Goddess, but on
the piles of maize, peppers, pumpkins, seeds, and vegetables, can
seemingly have had no other object but to quicken and strengthen the crops
of corn and the fruits of the earth in general by infusing into their
representatives the blood of the Corn Goddess herself. The analogy of this
Mexican sacrifice, the meaning of which appears to be indisputable, may be
allowed to strengthen the interpretation which I have given of other human
sacrifices offered for the crops.(690) If the Mexican girl, whose blood
was sprinkled on the maize, indeed personated the Maize Goddess, it
becomes more than ever probable that the girl whose blood the Pawnees
similarly sprinkled on the seed corn personated in like manner the female
Spirit of the Corn; and so with the other human beings whom other races
have slaughtered for the sake of promoting the growth of the crops.
(M228) Lastly, the concluding act of the sacred drama, in which the body
of the dead Maize Goddess was flayed and her skin worn, together with all
her sacred insignia, by a man who danced before the people in this grim
attire, seems to be best explained on the hypothesis that it was intended
to ensure that the divine death should be immediately followed by the
divine resurrection. If that was so, we may infer with some degree of
probability that the practice of killing a human representative of a deity
has commonly, perhaps always, been regarded merely as a means of
perpetuating the divine energies in the fulness of youthful vigour,
untainted by the weakness and frailty of age, from which they must have
suffered if the deity had been allowed to die a natural death.
(M229) This interpretation of the Mexican custom of flaying human beings
and permitting or requiring other persons to parade publicly in the skins
of the victims may perhaps be confirmed by a consideration of the festival
at which this strange rite was observed on the largest scale, and which
accordingly went by the name of the Festival of the Flaying of Men
(_Tlacaxipeualiztli_). It was celebrated in the second month of the Aztec
year, which corresponded to the last days of February and the early part
of March. The exact day of the festival was the twentieth of March,
according to one pious chronicler, who notes with unction that the bloody
rite fell only one day later than the feast which Holy Church solemnizes
in honour of the glorious St. Joseph. The god whom the Aztecs worshipped
in this strange fashion was named Xipe, “the Flayed One,” or Totec, “Our
Lord.” On this occasion he also bore the solemn name of Youallauan, “He
who drinks in the Night.” His image was of stone and represented him in
human form with his mouth open as if in the act of speaking; his body was
painted yellow on the one side and drab on the other; he wore the skin of
a flayed man over his own, with the hands of the victim dangling at his
wrists. On his head he had a hood of various colours, and about his loins
a green petticoat reaching to his knees with a fringe of small shells. In
his two hands he grasped a rattle like the head of a poppy with the seeds
in it; while on his left arm he supported a yellow shield with a red rim.
At his festival the Mexicans killed all the prisoners they had taken in
war, men, women, and children. The number of the victims was very great. A
Spanish historian of the sixteenth century estimated that in Mexico more
people used to be sacrificed on the altar than died a natural death. All
who were sacrificed to Xipe, “the Flayed God,” were themselves flayed, and
men who had made a special vow to the god put on the skins of the human
victims and went about the city in that guise for twenty days, being
everywhere welcomed and revered as living images of the deity. Forty days
before the festival, according to the historian Duran, they chose a man to
personate the god, clothed him in all the insignia of the divinity, and
led him about in public, doing him as much reverence all these days as if
he had really been what he pretended to be. Moreover, every parish of the
capital did the same; each of them had its own temple and appointed its
own human representative of the deity, who received the homage and worship
of the parishioners for the forty days.
(M230) On the day of the festival these mortal gods and all the other
prisoners, with the exception of a few who were reserved for a different
death, were killed in the usual way. The scene of the slaughter was the
platform on the summit of the god Huitzilopochtli’s temple. Some of the
poor wretches fainted when they came to the foot of the steps and had to
be dragged up the long staircase by the hair of their heads. Arrived at
the summit they were slaughtered one by one on the sacrificial stone by
the high priest, who cut open their breasts, tore out their hearts, and
held them up to the sun, in order to feed the great luminary with these
bleeding relics. Then the bodies were sent rolling down the staircase,
clattering and turning over and over like gourds as they bumped from step
to step till they reached the bottom. There they were received by other
priests, or rather human butchers, who with a dexterity acquired by
practice slit the back of each body from the nape of the neck to the heels
and peeled off the whole skin in a single piece as neatly as if it had
been a sheepskin. The skinless body was then fetched away by its owner,
that is, by the man who had captured the prisoner in war. He took it home
with him, carved it, sent one of the thighs to the king, and other joints
to friends, or invited them to come and feast on the carcase in his house.
The skins of the human victims were also a perquisite of their captors,
and were lent or hired out by them to men who had made a vow of going
about clad in the hides for twenty days. Such men clothed in the reeking
skins of the butchered prisoners were called Xixipeme or Tototectin after
the god Xipe or Totec, whose living image they were esteemed and whose
costume they wore. Among the devotees who bound themselves to this pious
exercise were persons who suffered from loathsome skin diseases, such as
smallpox, abscesses, and the itch; and among them there was a fair
sprinkling of debauchees, who had drunk themselves nearly blind and hoped
to recover the use of their precious eyes by parading for a month in this
curious mantle. Thus arrayed, they went from house to house throughout the
city, entering everywhere and asking alms for the love of God. On entering
a house each of these reverend palmers was made to sit on a heap of
leaves; festoons of maize and wreaths of flowers were placed round his
body; and he was given wine to drink and cakes to eat. And when a mother
saw one of these filthy but sanctified ruffians passing along the street,
she would run to him with her infant and put it in his arms that he might
bless it, which he did with unction, receiving an alms from the happy
mother in return. The earnings of these begging-friars on their rounds
were sometimes considerable, for the rich people rewarded them handsomely.
Whatever they were, the collectors paid them in to the owners of the
skins, who thus made a profit by hiring out these valuable articles of
property. Every night the wearers of the skins deposited them in the
temple and fetched them again next morning when they set out on their
rounds. At the end of the twenty days the skins were dry, hard, shrivelled
and shrunken, and they smelt so villainously that people held their noses
when they met the holy beggars arrayed in their fetid mantles. The time
being come to rid themselves of these encumbrances, the devotees walked in
solemn procession, wearing the rotten skins and stinking like dead dogs,
to the temple called Yopico, where they stripped themselves of the hides
and plunged them into a tub or vat, after which they washed and scrubbed
themselves thoroughly, while their friends smacked their bare bodies
loudly with wet hands in order to squeeze out the human grease with which
they were saturated. Finally, the skins were solemnly buried, as holy
relics, in a vault of the temple. The burial service was accompanied by
chanting and attended by the whole people; and when it was over, one of
the high dignitaries preached a sermon to the assembled congregation, in
which he dwelt with pathetic eloquence on the meanness and misery of human
existence and exhorted his hearers to lead a sober and quiet life, to
cultivate the virtues of reverence, modesty, humility and obedience, to be
kind and charitable to the poor and to strangers; he warned them against
the sins of robbery, fornication, adultery, and covetousness; and kindling
with the glow of his oratory, he passionately admonished, entreated, and
implored all who heard him to choose the good and shun the evil, drawing a
dreadful picture of the ills that would overtake the wicked here and
hereafter, while he painted in alluring colours the bliss in store for the
righteous and the rewards they might expect to receive at the hands of the
deity in the life to come.
(M231) While most of the men who masqueraded in the skins of the human
victims appear to have personated the Flayed God Xipe, whose name they
bore in the form Xixipeme, others assumed the ornaments and bore the names
of other Mexican deities, such as Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl; the
ceremony of investing them with the skins and the insignia of divinity was
called _netcotoquiliztli_, which means “to think themselves gods.” Amongst
the gods thus personated was Totec. His human representative wore, over
the skin of the flayed man, all the splendid trappings of the deity. On
his head was placed a curious crown decorated with rich feathers. A golden
crescent dangled from his nose, golden earrings from his ears, and a
necklace of hammered gold encircled his neck. His feet were shod in red
shoes decorated with quail’s feathers; his loins were begirt with a
petticoat of gorgeous plumage; and on his back three small paper flags
fluttered and rustled in the wind. In his left hand he carried a golden
shield and in his right a rattle, which he shook and rattled as he walked
with a majestic dancing step. Seats were always prepared for this human
god; and when he sat down, they offered him a paste made of uncooked
maize-flour. Also they presented to him little bunches of cobs of maize
chosen from the seed-corn; and he received as offerings the first fruits
and the first flowers of the season.(691)
(M232) In the eighteenth and last month of their year, which fell in
January, the Mexicans held a festival in honour of the god of fire. Every
fourth year the festival was celebrated on a grand scale by the sacrifice
of a great many men and women, husbands and wives, who were dressed in the
trappings of the fire-god and regarded as his living images. Bound hand
and foot, they were thrown alive into a great furnace, and after roasting
in it for a little were raked out of the fire before they were dead in
order to allow the priest to cut the hearts out of their scorched,
blistered, and still writhing bodies in the usual way.(692) The intention
of the sacrifice probably was to maintain the Fire-god in full vigour,
lest he should grow decrepit or even die of old age, and mankind should
thus be deprived of his valuable services. This important object was
attained by feeding the fire with live men and women, who thus as it were
poured a fresh stock of vital energy into the veins of the Fire-god and
perhaps of his wife also. But they had to be raked out of the flames
before they were dead; for clearly it would never do to let them die in
the fire, else the Fire-god whom they personated would die also. For the
same reason their hearts had to be torn from their bodies while they were
still palpitating; what use could the Fire-god make of human hearts that
were burnt to cinders?
(M233) This was the ordinary mode of sacrificing the human representatives
of the Fire-god every fourth year. But in Quauhtitlan, a city distant four
leagues from the city of Mexico, the custom was different. On the eve of
the festival two women were beheaded on the altar of the temple and
afterwards flayed, faces and all, and their thigh bones extracted. Next
morning two men of high rank clothed themselves in the skins, including
the skins of the women’s faces, which they put over their own; and thus
arrayed and carrying in their hands the thigh bones of the victims they
came down the steps of the temple roaring like wild beasts. A vast crowd
of people had assembled to witness the spectacle, and when they saw the
two men coming down the steps in the dripping skins, brandishing the
bones, and bellowing like beasts, they were filled with fear and said,
“There come our gods!” Arrived at the foot of the staircase these human
gods engaged in a dance, which they kept up for the rest of the day, never
divesting themselves of the bloody skins till the festival was over.(693)
(M234) The theory that the custom of wearing the skin of a flayed man or
woman and personating a god in that costume is intended to represent the
resurrection of the deity derives some support from the class of persons
who made a vow to masquerade in the skins. They were, as we have seen,
especially men who suffered from diseases of the skin and the eyes: they
hoped, we are told, by wearing the skins to be cured of their ailments,
and the old Spanish monk who records the belief adds dryly that some were
cured and some were not.(694) We may conjecture that by donning the skins
of men who had acted the part of gods they expected to slough off their
own diseased old skins and to acquire new and healthy skins, like those of
the deities. This notion may have been suggested to them by the
observation of certain animals, such as serpents and lizards, which seem
to renew their youth by casting their skins and appear refreshed and
renovated in new integuments. That many savages have noticed such
transformations in the animal world is proved by the tales which some of
them tell to account for the origin of death among mankind. For example,
the Arawaks of British Guiana say that man was created by a good being
whom they call Kururumany. Once on a time this kindly creator came to
earth to see how his creature man was getting on. But men were so
ungrateful that they tried to kill their Maker. Hence he took from them
the gift of immortality and bestowed it upon animals that change their
skins, such as snakes, lizards, and beetles.(695) Again, the Tamanachiers,
an Indian tribe of the Orinoco, tell how the creator kindly intended to
make men immortal by telling them that they should change their skins. He
meant to say that by so doing they should renew their youth like serpents
and beetles. But the glad tidings were received with such incredulity by
an old woman that the creator in a huff changed his tune and said very
curtly, “Ye shall die.”(696)
(M235) In Annam they say that Ngoc hoang sent a messenger from heaven to
inform men that when they reached old age they should change their skins
and live for ever, but that when serpents grew old, they must die.
Unfortunately for the human race the message was perverted in the
transmission, so that men do not change their skins and are therefore
mortal, whereas serpents do cast their old skins and accordingly live for
ever.(697) According to the natives of Nias the personage who was charged
by the creator with the duty of putting the last touches to man broke his
fast on bananas instead of on river-crabs, as he should have done; for had
he only eaten river-crabs, men would have changed their skins like crabs,
and like crabs would have never died. But the serpents, wiser in their
generation than men, ate the crabs, and that is why they too are
immortal.(698) Stories of the same sort are current among the Melanesians.
Thus the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain account for the
origin of death by a tale very like that told in Annam. The Good Spirit,
they say, loved men and wished to make them immortal, but he hated
serpents and wished to kill them. So he despatched his brother to mankind
with this cheering message: “Go to men and take them the secret of
immortality. Tell them to cast their skin every year. So will they be
protected from death, for their life will be constantly renewed. But tell
the serpents that they must henceforth die.” Through the carelessness or
treachery of the messenger this message was reversed; so that now, as we
all know, men die and serpents live for ever by annually casting their
skins.(699) Again, if we can trust the traditions of the Banks’ Islanders
and New Hebrideans, there was a time when men did really cast their skins
and renew their youth. The melancholy change to mortality was brought
about by an old woman, who most unfortunately resumed her old cast-off
skin to please an infant, which squalled at seeing her in her new
integument.(700) The Gallas of East Africa say that God sent a certain
bird (_holawaka_, “the sheep of God”) to tell men that they would not die,
but that when they grew old they would slough their skins and so renew
their youth. But the bird foolishly or maliciously delivered the message
to serpents instead of to men, and that is why ever since men have been
mortal and serpents immortal. For that evil deed God punished the bird
with a painful malady from which it suffers to this day, and it sits on
the tops of trees and moans and wails perpetually.(701)
(M236) Thus it appears that some peoples have not only observed the
curious transformations which certain animals undergo, but have imagined
that by means of such transformations the animals periodically renew their
youth and live for ever. From such observations and fancies it is an easy
step to the conclusion that man might similarly take a fresh lease of life
and renew the lease indefinitely, if only he could contrive like the
animals to get a new skin. This desirable object the Mexicans apparently
sought to accomplish by flaying men and wearing their bleeding skins like
garments thrown over their own. By so doing persons who suffered from
cutaneous diseases hoped to acquire a new and healthy skin; and by so
doing the priests attempted not merely to revive the gods whom they had
just slain in the persons of their human representatives, but also to
restore to their wasting and decaying frames all the vigour and energy of
youth.
(M237) The rites described in the preceding pages suffice to prove that
human sacrifices of the sort I suppose to have prevailed at Aricia(702)
were, as a matter of fact, systematically offered on a large scale by a
people whose level of culture was probably not inferior, if indeed it was
not distinctly superior, to that occupied by the Italian races at the
early period to which the origin of the Arician priesthood must be
referred. The positive and indubitable evidence of the prevalence of such
sacrifices in one part of the world may reasonably be allowed to
strengthen the probability of their prevalence in places for which the
evidence is less full and trustworthy. Taken all together, the facts which
we have passed in review seem to shew that the custom of killing men whom
their worshippers regard as divine has prevailed in many parts of the
world. But to clinch the argument, it is clearly desirable to prove that
the custom of putting to death a human representative of a god was known
and practised in ancient Italy elsewhere than in the Arician Grove. This
proof I now propose to adduce.