Stone head from Amatlan.
Sacrificial Yoke from Orizava.
At Orizava two relics were seen, one of them a triangular stone five feet thick and ninety feet in circumference, used in modern times as the floor of a native's cabin. On one of the triangular surfaces was incised in rude outline a colossal human figure twenty-seven feet high, standing with legs spread apart and arms outstretched. A girdle appears at the waist, plumes decorate the head, and the mouth is wide open. On one side a fish stands on its tail; on the other is a rabbit with ten small circles, very likely expressing some date after the Aztec manner,—ten tochtli. Some carvings not described were noticed on the edges also. The other relic was a kind of yoke carved from green jasper and supposed to have been used in connection with the Aztec sacrifices. It is shown in the cut according to Castañeda's drawing. The original yoke was carried by Dupaix to Mexico and deposited in one of the antiquarian collections there, where it was afterwards sketched by Mayer and Gondra.[VIII-12] Near Jalapa, Rivera states that a serpent fifteen feet long and nine feet broad, may be seen carved in the rock.[VIII-13] Half a day's journey from Vera Cruz towards Mexico, at a point which he calls Rinconado, Robert Tomson saw "a great pinacle made of lime and stone, fast by a riuer side, where the Indians were wont to doe their sacrifices vnto their gods."[VIII-14] About the location of Cempoala, a famous city in the time of the Conquest, there has been much discussion. Lorenzana says that the place "still retains the same name; it is situated four leagues from Vera Cruz, and the extent of its ruins indicates its former greatness." Rivera tells us, however, that "to-day not even the ruins of this capital of the Totonac power remain," although some human bones have been dug up about its site.[VIII-15]
Pyramid near Puente Nacional.
RUINS AT PUENTE NACIONAL.