[IX-66] These human sacrifices were begun, according to Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., pp. 165-7, by the Mexicans, before the foundation of their city, while yet slaves of the Culhuas. These Mexicans had done good service to their rulers in a battle against the Xochimilcas. The masters were expected to furnish their serfs with a thank-offering for the war god. They sent a filthy rag and a rotten fowl. The Mexicans received and were silent. The day of festival came; and with it the Culhua nobles to see the sport—the Helots and their vile sacrifice. But the filth did not appear, only a coarse altar, wreathed with a fragrant herb, bearing a great flake of keen-ground obsidian. The dance began, the frenzy mounted up, the priests advanced to the altar, and with them they dragged four Xochimilca prisoners. There is a quick struggle, and over a prisoner bruised, doubled back supine on the altar-block gleams and falls the itzli, driven with a two-handed blow. The blood spurts like a recoil into the bent face of the high priest, who grabbles, grasps, tears out and flings the heart to the god. Another, another, another, and there are four hearts beating in the lap of the grim image. There are more dances but there is no more sport for the Culhuas: with lips considerably whitened they return to their place. After this there could be no more mastership, nor thought of mastership over such a people; there was too much of the wild beast in them; they had already tasted blood. And the Mexicans were allowed to leave the land of their bondage, and journey north toward the future Tenochtitlan.
[IX-67] See this vol., [p. 415].
[IX-68] Further notice of this stone appears in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 94, or Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., ap., pp. 207-8: 'El sesenta y dos edificio se llamaba Temalacatl. Era una piedra como muela de molino grande, y estaba agujereada en el medio como muela de molino. Sobre esta piedra ponian los esclavos y acuchillabanse con ellos: estaban atados por medio de tal manera que podian llegar hasta la circumferencia de la piedra, y dabanles armas con que peleasen. Era este un espectaculo muy frequente, y donde concurria gente de todas las comarcas á verle. Un satrapa vestido de un pellejo de oso ó Cuetlachtli, era alli el padrino de los captivos que alli mataban, que los llevaba á la piedra y los ataba alli, y los daba las armas, y los lloraba entre tanto que peleaban, y quando caian los entregaba al que les habia de sacar el corazon, que era otro satrapa vestido con otro pellejo que se llamaba Tooallaoan. Esta relacion queda escrita en la fiesta de Tlacaxipeoaliztli.'
[IX-69] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 23, 37-43; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 51-3, 86-97; Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, pt. i., lam. iii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 133; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. lxiii., in Id., vol. v., p. 191; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 154, 252-4; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. ii., pp. 50-4; Prescott's Mex., vol. i., p. 78, note; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 481. We learn from Clavigero, Ibid., tom. i., pp. 281-2, that this great gladiatorial block was sometimes to an extraordinary extent a 'stone of sacrifice' to the executioners as well as to the doomed victim. In the last year of the reign of the last Montezuma, a famous Tlascaltec general, Tlahuicol, was captured by the merest accident. His strength of arm was such that few men could lift his maquahuil, or sword of the Mexican type, from the ground. Montezuma, too proud to use such an inglorious triumph, or perhaps moved by a sincere admiration of the terrible and dignified warrior, offered him his liberty, either to return to Tlascala, or to accept high office in Mexico. But the honor of the chief was at stake, as he understood it; and not even a favor would he accept from the hated Mexican; the death, the death! he said, and, if you dare, by battle on the gladiatorial stone. So they tied him, (by the foot says Clavigero), upon the temalacatl, armed with a great staff only, and chose out champions to kill him from the most renowned of the warriors; but the grim Tlascaltec dashed out the brains of eight with his club, and hurt twenty more, before he fell, dying like himself. They tore out his heart, as of wont, and a costlier heart to Mexico never smoked before the sun.
[IX-70] This last name means, Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 57, being followed, 'the hook-nosed;' and it is curious enough that this type of face, so generally connected with the Hebrew race and through them with particular astuteness in trade, should be the characteristic of the Mexican god of trade: 'Los mercaderes tuvieron Dios particular, al qual llamaron Iyacatecuhtli, y por otro nombre se llamò Yacacoliuhqui, que quiere decir: El que tiene la nariz aguileña, que propriamente representa persona que tiene viveça, ò habilidad, para mofar graciosamente, ò engañar, y es sabio, y sagàz (que es propia condicion de mercaderes.)'
[IX-71] Without laying any particular stress on this lighting a fire before Yiacatecutli—perhaps here necessary as a camp-fire and probably, at any rate, a thing done before many other gods—it may be noticed that the fire god seems to be particularly connected with the merchant god and indeed with the merchants themselves. Describing a certain coming down or arrival of the gods among men, believed to take place in the twelfth Mexican month, Sahagun—after describing the coming, first of Tezcatlipoca, who, 'being a youth, and light and strong, walked fastest,' and then the coming of all the rest (their arrival being known to the priests by the marks of their feet on a little heap of maize flour, specially prepared for the purpose)—says that a day after all the rest of the gods, came the god of fire and the god of the merchants, together; they being old and unable to walk as fast as their younger divine brethren: 'El dia siguiente llegaba el dios de los Mercaderes llamado Yiaiacapitzaoac, ó Yiacatecutli, y otro Dios llamado Hiscocauzqui (Yxcocauhqui), ó Xiveteuctli (Xiuhtecutli), que és el Dios del fuego á quien los mercaderes tienen grande devocion. Estos dos llegaban á la postre un dia despues de los otros, porque decian que eran viejos y no andaban tanto como los otros:' Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 71, or Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., p. 158. See also, for the connection of the fire god Xiuhtecutli with business, this vol. [p. 226]; and for the high position of the merchants themselves besides Tezcatlipoca see this vol., [p. 228].
[IX-72] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 14-16; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., pp. 29-33; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 20. The Nahuihehecatli, or Nauiehecatl, mentioned by the interpreters of the codices, as a god honored by the merchants, is either some air god like Quetzalcoatl, or, as Sahagun gives it, merely the name of a sign; see Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. xxvii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 179; also, pp. 139-40; Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, lam. xii.; also, Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. iv., pp. 304-5, and Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 135-6.
[IX-73] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 16-17; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., pp. 33-5; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 59-60; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 22.
[IX-74] Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 7, 19, 90, 93; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. i., pp. 14, 39-40, lib. ii., pp. 200, 205; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 58, 152, 184, 416; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. xxxv., and Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, lam. xvi., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 141, 182; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 344, 350; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 87, 315; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 21. 'Otros tenian figuras de hombres; tenian estos en la cabeza un mortero en lugar de mitra, y allí les echaban vino, por ser el dios del vino.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 33. 'Otros con un mortero en la cabeza, y este parece que era el dios del vino, y así le echaban vino en aquel como mortero.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 88. 'Papaztla ó Papaztac.... Este era uno de los tres pueblos de donde se sacaban los esclavos para el sacrificio que se hacia de dia, al idolo Centzentotochtin, Dios del vino en el mes nombrado Hueipachtli, ó tepeilhuitl en su templo propio que es el cuadragesimo cuarto edificio de los que se contenian en la area del mayor, como dice el Dr. Hernandez: "Templum erat dicatum vini deo, in cujus honorem tres captivos interdiu tamen, et nonnoctu jugulabant, quorum primum Tepuztecatl nuncupabant secundum toltecatl, tertium vero Papaztac quod fiebat quotanni circa festum Tepeilhuiltl." Apud P. Nieremberg, pag. 144.' Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt ii., p. 35. 'Les buveurs et les ivrognes avaient cependant, parmi les Aztèques, plusieurs divinités particulières: la principale était Izquitecatl; mais le plus connu devait être Tezcatzoncatl, appelé aussi Tequechmecaniani, ou le Pendeur.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 493.
[IX-75] Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 64; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 23. These were what the Spaniards called 'oratorios' in the houses of the Mexicans. In or before these oratories the people offered cooked food to such images of the gods as they had there. Every morning the good-wife of the house woke up the members of her family and took care that they made the proper offering, as above, to these deities. Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., p. 95; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., ap. p. 211.