The goddess of Sahagun's description most resembling the Toci of other writers, is the one that he calls 'the mother of the gods, the heart of the earth, and our ancestor or grandmother (abuela).' She is described as the goddess of medicine and of medicinal herbs, as worshiped by doctors, surgeons, blood-letters, of those that gave herbs to produce abortions, and also of the diviners that pronounced upon the fortune of children according to their birth. They worshiped her also that cast lots with grains of maize, those that augured by looking into water in a bowl, those that cast lots with bits of cord tied together, those that drew little worms or maggots from the mouth or eyes, those that extracted little stones from other parts of the body, and those that had sweat-baths, temazcallis, in their houses. These last always set the image of this goddess in the baths, calling her Temazcalteci, that is to say, 'the grandmother of the baths.' Her adorers made this goddess a feast every year, buying a woman for a sacrifice, decorating this victim with the ornaments proper to the goddess. Every evening they danced with this unfortunate, and regaled her delicately, praying her to eat as they would a great lady, and amusing her in every way that she might not weep nor be sad at the prospect of death. When the dreadful hour did come, having slain her, together with two others that accompanied her to death, they flayed her; then a man clothed himself in her skin, and went about all the city playing many pranks—by all of which her identity with Tozi seems sufficiently clear. This goddess was represented with the mouth and chin stained with ulli, and a round patch of the same on her face; on her head she had a kind of turban made of cloth rolled round and knotted behind. In this knot were stuck plumes which issued from it like flames, and the ends of the cloth fell behind over the shoulders. She wore sandals, a shirt with a kind of broad serrated lower border, and white petticoats. In her left hand she held a shield with a round plate of gold in the centre thereof; in her right hand she held a broom.[IX-6]
The festival in which divers of the various manifestations of the mother-goddess were honored, was held in the beginning of the eleventh Aztec month, beginning on the 14th of September; Centeotl, or Cinteotl, or Centeutl, or Tzinteutl, is however represented therein as a male and not a female.
SACRIFICE TO THE MOTHER-GODDESS.
Fifteen days before the commencement of the festival those that took part in it began to dance, if dancing it could be called, in which the feet and body were hardly moved, and in which the time was kept by raising and lowering the hands to the beat of the drum. This went on for eight days, beginning in the afternoon and finishing with the set of sun, the dancers being perfectly silent, arranged in four lines, and each having both hands full of flowers, cut branches and all. Some of the youths, indeed, too restless to bear the silence, imitated with their mouths the sound of the drum; but all were forced to keep, as well in motion as in voice, the exactest time and good order. On the expiration of these eight days the medical women, both old and young, divided themselves into two parties, and fought a kind of mock battle before the woman that had to die in this festival, to amuse her and keep tears away; for they held it of bad augury if this miserable creature gave way to her grief, and as a sign that many women had to die in childbirth. This woman who was called for the time being, 'the image of the mother of the gods,' led in person the first attack upon one of the two parties of fighters, being accompanied by three old women that were to her as mothers and never left her side, called respectively Aoa, Tlavitezqui, and Xocuauhtli.[IX-7] The fight consisted in pelting each other with handfuls of red leaves, or leaves of the nopal, or of yellow flowers called cempoalsuchitl, the same sort as had been carried by the actors in the preceding dance. These women all wore girdles, to which were suspended little gourds filled with powder of the herb called yietl. When the pelting-match was over, the woman that had to die was led back to the house where she was guarded; and all this was repeated during four successive days. Then the victim representing Toci, that is to say, 'our grandmother or ancestor,' for so was called the mother of the gods, was led for the last time through the market-place by the medical woman. This ceremony was called 'the farewell to the market-place;' for never more should she see it who this day passed through, decorated in such mournful frippery, surrounded by the pomp of such hollow mirth. She went sowing maize on every side as she walked, and having passed through the market she was received by the priests who took her to a house near the cu where she had to be killed. There the medical women and midwives consoled her: Daughter, be joyful and not sad, this night thou shalt sleep with the king. Then they adorned her with the ornaments of the goddess Toci, striving all the while to keep the fact of her death in the back-ground, that she might die suddenly and without knowing it. At midnight, in darkness, not so much as a cough breaking the silence, she was led to the holy temple-top, and caught up swiftly on the shoulders of a man. There was hardly a struggle; her bearer felt himself deluged with blood, while she was beheaded with all despatch, and flayed, still warm. The skin of the thighs was first taken off and carried, for a purpose to be presently revealed, to the cu of Centeotl, who was the son of Toci. With the remainder of the skin, next taken off, a priest clothed himself, drawing it on, it would appear from other records, like a glove; this priest who was a young man chosen for his bodily forces and size, thus clothed represented Toci, the goddess herself. The Toci priest, with this horrible jacket sticking to his sinewy bust, then came down from the temple amid the chanting of the singers of the cu. On each side of him went two persons, who had made a vow to help him in this service, and behind came several other priests. In front there ran a number of principal men and soldiers, armed with besoms of blood-stained grass, who looked back from time to time, and struck their shields as if provoking a fight; these he pretended to pursue with great fury, and all that saw this play (which was called cacacalli) feared and trembled exceedingly. On reaching the cu of Huitzilopochtli, the Toci priest spread out his arms and stood like a cross before the image of the war god; this he did four times and then went on to the cu of Centeotl, whither, as we remember, the skin of the thighs of the flayed woman had been sent. This skin of the thighs another young priest, representing the god Centeotl, son of Toci, had put on over his face like a mask. In addition to this loathsome veil, he wore a jacket of feathers and a hood of feathers attached to the jacket. This hood ran out into a peak of a spiral form falling behind; and the back-bone or spine of this spiral resembled the comb of a cock; this hood was called ytztlacoliuhqui, that is to say 'god of frost.'
The Toci priest and the Centeotl priest next went together to the cu of Toci, where the first waited for the morning (for all this already described took place at night) to have certain trappings put on over his horrid under-vest. When the morning broke, amid the chanting of the singers, all the principal men, who had been waiting below, ran with great swiftness up the steps of the temple carrying their offerings. Some of these principal men began to cover the feet and the head of the Toci priest with the white downy inner feathers of the eagle; others painted his face red; others put on him a rather short shirt with the figure of an eagle wrought or woven into the breast of it, and certain painted petticoats; others beheaded quails and offered copal. All this done quickly, these men took their departure.
THE SKIN-BEARERS.
Then were brought forth and put on the Toci priest all his rich vestures, and a kind of square crown very wide above and ornamented with five little banners, one in each corner, and in the centre one higher than the others. All the captives that had to die were brought out and set in line, and he took four of them one after the other, threw them down on the sacrificial stone and took out their hearts; the rest of the captives he handed over to the other priests to complete the work he had begun. After this he set out with the Centeotl priest for the cu of the latter. In advance of these a little way there walked a party of their devotees, called ycuexoan, decorated with papers, girt for breech-clout with twisted paper, carrying at their shoulders a crumpled paper, round like a shield, and tassels of untwisted cotton. On either side also there went those that sold lime[IX-8] in the market, and the medical women, moving to the singing of the priests and the beat of drum. Having come to the place where heads were spitted at the cu of Centeotl, the Toci priest set one foot on the drum and waited there for the Centeotl priest. The two being come together it would seem that he who represented Centeotl now set out alone, with much haste and accompanied by many soldiers, for a place on the enemy's frontier where there was a kind of small hut built. There at last was deposited and left the skin of the thighs of the sacrificed woman which had served such ghastly use. And often, it is said, it happened, this ceremony taking place on the border of a hostile territory, that the enemy sallied out against the procession, and there was fighting and many were slain.
After this the young man who represented the goddess Toci was taken to the house that is called Atempan. The king took his seat on a throne with a mat of eagle-skin and feathers under his feet, and a tiger-skin over the back of his seat, and there was a grand review of the army, and a distribution from the royal treasury of raiment, ornaments, and arms; and it was understood that those who received such arms had to die with them in war. This done, dancing was begun in the court-yard of the temple of Toci; and all who had received presents, as above, repaired thither. This dancing, as in the first part of the festival, consisted for the most part in keeping time to the beat of the drum with hands filled with flowers; so that the whole court looked like a living garden; and there was so much gold, for the king and all the princes were there, that the sun flashed through all as on water. This began at mid-day and went on for two days. On the evening of the second day, the priests of the goddess Chicomecoatl, clothed with the skins of the captives that had died in a former day, ascended a small cu called the table of Huitzilopochtli and sowed maize of all kinds, white and yellow and red, and calabash-seeds, upon the heads of the people that were below. The people tried to gather up these as they fell, and elbowed each other a good deal. The damsels, called cioatlamacazque, that served the goddess Chicomecoatl, carried each one on her shoulder, rolled in a rich mantle, seven ears of maize, striped with melted ulli and wrapped in white paper; their legs and arms were decorated with feathers sprinkled over with marcasite. These sang with the priest of their goddess. This done, one of the priests descended from the above-mentioned cu of Huitzilopochtli, carrying in his hand a large basket filled with powdered chalk and feather-down, which he set in a small chamber, or little cave, called coaxalpan, between the temple-stairs and the temple itself. This cavity was reached from below by four or five steps, and when the basket was put down there was a general rush of the soldiers to be first to secure some of the contents. Every one, as he got his hands filled, with much elbowing, returned running to the place whence he had set out. All this time the Toci priest had been looking on, and now he pretended to chase those that ran, while they pelted him back with the down and powdered chalk they had in their hands; the king himself running a little way and pelting him like the rest. After this fashion they all ran away from him and left him alone, except some priests, who followed him to a place called Tocititlan, when he took off the skin of the sacrificed woman and hung it up in a little hut that was there; taking care that its arms were stretched out, and that the head (or, surely, the neck—for have we not read that the head was cut off the woman on the fatal night which terminated her life?), was turned toward the road, or street. And this was the last of the ceremonies of the feast of Ochpaniztli.[IX-9]
THE XILONEN FESTIVAL.
The intimate connection of the goddess Xilonen (from xilotl, a young or tender ear of maize) with Centeotl is shown by the fact that in the cu of Centeotl was killed the unfortunate woman who was decorated to resemble the goddess Xilonen. The festival of Xilonen commenced on the eleventh day of the eighth Mexican month, which month begins on the 16th of July. The victim was made to resemble the image of the goddess by having her face painted yellow from the nose downward, and her brow red. On her head was put a crown of paper with four corners, from the centre and top of which issued many plumes. Round her neck and over her breasts hung strings of precious stones, and over these was put a round medal of gold. Her garments and sandals were curiously wrought, the latter painted with red stripes. On her left arm was a shield, and in the right hand she held a stick, or baton, painted yellow. The women led her to death dancing round her, and the priests and the principal men danced before them, sowing incense as they went. The priest who was to act as executioner had on his shoulders a bunch of feathers held there in the grip of an eagle's talons, artificial; another of the priests carried the hollow board filled with rattles, so often mentioned. At the foot of the cu of Centeotl, this latter stopped in front of the Xilonen woman, scattered incense before her, and rattled with his board, waving it from side to side. They ascended the cu, and one of the priests caught the victim up, twisting her backwards, her shoulders against his shoulders; on which living altar her heart was cut out through her breast, and put into a cup. After that there was more dancing, in which the women, old and young, took part in a body by themselves, their arms and legs decorated with red macaw feathers, and their faces painted yellow and dusted with marcasite. There was also a banquet of small pies called xocotamalli, during which to the old men and women license was given to drink pulque; the young, however, being restrained from the bacchanalian part of this enjoyment by severe and sometimes capital punishment.[IX-10]