[208] A long description of this feast, the table, attendance, etc., is given by Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. iv., pp. 332-6, and by Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 457-8. I shall have occasion to describe it in a future chapter of this volume, devoted to such matters.
[209] The poorer classes contented themselves with an interchange of flowers and food.
[210] A dual deity, uniting both sexes in one person.
[211] Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. ii., lib. vi., p. 220, makes the midwife, in this instance, call upon Citlalatonac. This goddess was, however, identical with Ometochtli and Omecioatl (see, more especially, Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., p. 472), to whom the preceding prayer was directed. Clavigero and Torquemada assert that the prayer was addressed to the water-goddess.
[212] Sahagun addresses the Sun-God only.
[213] We may presume that the midwife is here addressing the child of a warrior.
[214] Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 84, Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 287, and Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 287, translate Nemoquichtli and Nencihuatl 'useless man' and 'useless woman.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 454-6, discusses names, why and how they were applied, in Mexico and elsewhere. Motolinia, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 37, states that the name given at baptism was discarded for one applied by the priest, when the parents carried the child to the temple in the third month. See also Ritos Antiguos, p. 22, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 312, says that the name given by the priest was the surname, nobles sometimes taking a third name. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 562, says that several additional names could be taken under various circumstances. In Codex Mendoza, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 90, it is stated that the name was given by three boys who sat by eating yxcue.
[215] Boturini states that the infant is thereupon passed four times through the fire. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 88; but this ceremony is described elsewhere in this volume as taking place in the temple.
[216] Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. iv., pp. 330-6.
[217] It was believed, says Torquemada, that this rubbing of their own limbs had a strengthening effect upon the new-born. Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 457.