Ome Acatl was the god of banquets and of guests; his name signified 'two canes.' When a man made a feast to his friends, he had the image of this deity carried to his house by certain of its priests; and if the host did not do this, the deity appeared to him in a dream, rebuking him in such words as these: Thou bad man, because thou hast withheld from me my due honor, know that I will forsake thee and that thou shalt pay dearly for this insult. When this god was excessively angered, he was accustomed to mix hairs with the food and drink of the guests of the object of his wrath, so that the giver of the feast should be disgraced. As in the case of Huitzilopochtli, there was a kind of communion sacrament in connection with the adoration of this god of feasts: in each ward dough was taken and kneaded by the principal men into the figure of a bone of about a cubit long, called the bone of Ome Acatl. A night seems to have been spent in eating and in drinking pulque; then at break of day an unfortunate person, set up as the living image of the god, had his belly pricked with pins, or some such articles; being hurt thereby, as we are told. This done the bone was divided and each one ate what of it fell to his lot; and when those that had insulted this god ate, they often grew sick, and almost choked, and went stumbling and falling. Ome Acatl was represented as a man seated on a bunch of cyperus-sedges. His face was painted white and black; upon his head was a paper crown surrounded by a long and broad fillet of divers colors, knotted up at the back of the head; and again round and over the fillet, was wound a string of chalchiuite beads. His blanket was made like a net, and had a broad border of flowers woven into it. He bore a shield, from the lower part of which hung a kind of fringe of broad tassels. In the right hand he held a sceptre called the tlachielonique, or 'looker,'[IX-59] because it was furnished with a round plate through which a hole was pierced, and the god kept his face covered with the plate and looked through the hole.[IX-60]
IXTLILTON, HEALER OF CHILDREN.
Yxtliton, or Ixtlilton—that is to say 'the little negro,' according to Sahagun, and 'the black-faced,' according to Clavigero—was a god who cured children of various diseases.[IX-61] His 'oratory' was a kind of temporary building made of painted boards; his image was neither graven nor painted; it was a living man decorated with certain vestments. In this temple or oratory were kept many pans and jars, covered with boards, and containing a fluid which was called 'black water.' When a child sickened, it was brought to this temple and one of these jars was uncovered, upon which the child drank of the black water and was healed of its disease—the cure being probably most prompt and complete when the priests as well as the god knew something of physic. When one made a feast to this god—which seems to have been when one made new pulque—the man that was the image of Ixtlilton came to the house of the feast-giver with music and dancing, and preceded by the smoke of copal incense. The representative of the deity having arrived, the first thing he did was to eat and drink; there were more dances and festivities in his honor, in which he took part, and then he entered the cellar of the house, where were many jars of pulque that had been covered for four days with boards or lids of some kind. He opened one or many of these jars, a ceremony called 'the opening of the first, or of the new wine,' and himself with those that were with him drank thereof. This done, he went out into the court-yard of the house, where there were prepared certain jars of the above-mentioned black water, which also had been kept covered four days; these he opened, and if there was found therein any dirt, or piece of straw, or hair, or ash, it was taken as a sign that the giver of the feast was a man of evil life, an adulterer, or a thief, or a quarrelsome person, and he was affronted with the charge accordingly. When the representative of the god set out from the house where all this occurred, he was presented with certain blankets called yxguen, or ixquen, that is to say, 'covering of the face,' because when any fault had been found in the black water, the giver of the feast was put to shame.[IX-62]
OPUCHTLI, GOD OF FISHING.
Opuchtli, or Opochtli, 'the left-handed,' was venerated by fishermen as their protector and the inventor of their nets, fish-spears, oars, and other gear. In Cuitlahuac, an island of lake Chalco, there was a god of fishing called Amimitl, who, according to Clavigero, differed from the first-mentioned only in name. Sahagun says that Opuchtli was counted among the number of the Tlaloques, and that the offerings made to him were composed of pulque, stalks of green maize, flowers, the smoking-canes, or pipes called yietl, copal incense, the odorous herb yiauhtli, and parched maize. These things seem to have been strewed before him as rushes used to be strewed before a procession. There were used in these solemnities certain rattles enclosed in hollow walking-sticks. The image of this god was like a man, almost naked, with the face of that grey tint seen in quails' feathers; on the head was a paper crown of divers colors, made like a rose, as it were, of leaves overlapping each other, topped by green feathers issuing from a yellow tassel; other long tassels hung from this crown to the shoulders of the idol. Crossed over the breast was a green stole resembling that worn by the Christian priest when saying mass; on the feet were white sandals; on the left arm was a red shield, and in the centre of its field a white flower with four leaves disposed like a cross; and in the left hand was a sceptre of a peculiar fashion.[IX-63]
Xipe, or Totec, or Xipetotec, or Thipetotec, is, according to Clavigero, a god whose name has no meaning,[IX-64] who was the deity of the goldsmiths, and who was much venerated by the Mexicans, they being persuaded that those that neglected his worship would be smitten with diseases; especially the boils, the itch, and pains of the head and eyes. They excelled themselves therefore in cruelty at his festival time, occurring ordinarily in the second month.
Sahagun describes this god as specially honored by dwellers on the sea-shore, and as having had his origin at Zapotlan in Jalisco. He was supposed to afflict people with sore eyes and with various skin-diseases, such as small-pox, abscesses, and itch. His image was made like a human form, one side or flank of it being painted yellow, and the other of a tawny color; down each side of the face from the brow to the jaw a thin stripe was wrought; and on the head was a little cap with hanging tassels. The upper part of the body was clothed with the flayed skin of a man; round the loins was girt a kind of green skirt. It had on one arm a yellow shield with a red border, and held in both hands a scepter shaped like the calix of a poppy and tipped with an arrow-head.[IX-65]
EATING THE BODIES OF THE SACRIFICED.
On the last day of the second month—or, according to some authors, of the first—Tlacaxipehualiztli, there was celebrated a solemn feast in honor at once of Xipetotec and of Huitzilopochtli. It was preceded by a very solemn dance at noon of the day before. As the night of the vigil fell, the captives were shut up and guarded; at midnight—the time when it was usual to draw blood from the ears—the hair of the middle of the head of each was shaven away before a fire. When the dawn appeared they were led by their owners to the foot of the stairs of the temple of Huitzilopochtli—and if they would not ascend willingly the priests dragged them up by the hair. The priests threw them down one by one on the back on a stone of three quarters of a yard or more high, and square on the top something more than a foot every way. Two assistants held the victim down by the feet, two by the hands, and one by the head—this last according to many accounts putting a yoke over the neck of the man and so pressing it down. Then the priest, holding with both hands a splinter of flint, or a stone resembling flint, like a large lance-head, struck across the breast therewith, and tore out the heart through the gash so made; which, after offering it to the sun and other gods by holding it up toward the four quarters of heaven, he threw into a wooden vessel.[IX-66] The blood was collected also in a vessel and given to the owner of the dead captive, while the body, thrown down the temple steps, was taken to the calpule by certain old men, called quaquacuiltin, flayed, cut into pieces, and divided for eating; the king receiving the flesh of the thigh, while the rest of the carcass was eaten at the house of the owner of the captive, though, as will appear by a remark hereafter,[IX-67] it is improbable that the captor or owner himself ate any of it. With the skin of these flayed persons, a party of youths called the tototecli clothed themselves, and fought in sham fight with another party of young men; prisoners being taken on both sides, who were not released without a ransom of some kind or other. This sham battle was succeeded by combats of a terribly real sort, the famous so-called gladiatorial fights of Mexico. On a great round stone, like an enormous mill-stone, a captive was tied by a cord, passing round his waist and through the hole of the stone, long enough to permit him freedom of motion everywhere about the block—set near or at a temple called yopico, of the god Totec, or Xipe.[IX-68] With various ceremonies, more particularly described in the preceding volume, the bound man furnished with inferior weapons was made to fight with a picked Mexican champion—the latter holding up his sword and shield to the sun before engaging. If, as sometimes happened, the desperate though hampered and ill-armed captive—whose club-sword was, by a refinement of mockery, deprived of its jagged flint edging and set with feathers—slew his opponent, another champion was sent against him, and so on to the number of five, at which point, according to some, the captive was set free; though according to other authorities, he was not allowed so to escape, but champions were sent against him till he fell. Upon which a priest called the yooallaoa opened his breast, tore out his heart, offered it to the sun, and threw it into the usual wooden vessel; while the ropes used for binding to the fighting-stone were carried to the four quarters of the world, reverently with weeping and sighing. A second priest thrust a piece of cane into the gash in the victim's breast and held it up stained with blood to the sun. Then the owner of the captive came and received the blood into a vessel bordered with feathers; this vessel he took with a little cane-and-feather broom or aspergillum and went about all the temples and calpules, giving to each of the idols, as it were to taste of the blood of his captive. The slain body was then carried to the calpulco—where, while alive, it had been confined the night before the sacrifice—and there skinned. Thence it was brought to the house of its owner, who divided and made presents of it to his superiors, relatives, and friends; not however tasting thereof himself, for, we are told, "he counted it as the flesh of his own body," because from the hour that he took the prisoner "he held him to be his son, and the captive looked up to his captor as to a father."
RELATIONS BETWEEN CAPTOR AND CAPTIVE.