§ 16.—Killing the god in Mexico.
But the religion of ancient Mexico, as it was found and described by the Spanish conquerors in the sixteenth century, offers perhaps the closest parallels to the rule of the Arician priesthood, as I conceive that rule to have been originally observed. Certainly nowhere does the custom of killing the human representative of a god appear to have been carried out so systematically and on so extensive a scale as in Mexico. “They tooke a captive,” says Acosta, “such as they thought good; and afore they did sacrifice him unto their idolls, they gave him the name of the idoll, to whom hee should be sacrificed, and apparelled him with the same ornaments like their idoll, saying that he did represent the same idoll. And during the time that this representation lasted, which was for a yeere in some feasts, in others six moneths, and in others lesse, they reverenced and worshipped him in the same maner as the proper idoll; and in the meane time he did eate, drincke, and was merry. When hee went through the streetes the people came forth to worship him, and every one brought him an almes, with children and sicke folkes, that he might cure them, and bless them, suffering him to doe all things at his pleasure, onely hee was accompanied with tenne or twelve men lest he should flie. And he (to the end he might be reverenced as he passed) sometimes sounded upon a small flute, that the people might prepare to worship him. The feast being come, and hee growne fatte, they killed him, opened him, and eat him, making a solempne sacrifice [pg 219] of him.”[598] For example, at the annual festival of the great god Tezcatlipoca, which fell about Easter or a few days later, a young man was chosen to be the living image of Tezcatlipoca for a whole year. He had to be of unblemished body, and he was carefully trained to sustain his lofty role with becoming grace and dignity. During the year he was lapped in luxury, and the king himself took care that the future victim was apparelled in gorgeous attire, “for already he esteemed him as a god.” Attended by eight pages clad in the royal livery, the young man roamed the streets of the capital day and night at his pleasure, carrying flowers and playing the flute. All who saw him fell on their knees before him and adored him, and he graciously acknowledged their homage. Twenty days before the festival at which he was to be sacrificed, four damsels, delicately nurtured, and bearing the names of four goddesses, were given him to be his brides. For five days before the sacrifice divine honours were showered on him more abundantly than ever. The king remained in his palace, while the whole court went after the destined victim. Everywhere there were solemn banquets and balls. On the last day the young man, still attended by his pages, was ferried across the lake in a covered barge to a small and lonely temple, which, like the Mexican temples in general, rose in the form of a pyramid. As he ascended the stairs of the temple he broke at every step one of the flutes on which he had played in the days of his glory. On reaching the summit he was seized and held down on a block of stone, while a priest cut open his breast with a stone knife, and plucking out his heart, offered it to the sun. [pg 220] His head was hung among the skulls of previous victims, and his legs and arms were cooked and prepared for the table of the lords. His place was immediately filled up by another young man, who for a year was treated with the same profound respect, and at the end of it shared the same fate.[599]
The idea that the god thus slain in the person of his representative comes to life again immediately, was graphically represented in the Mexican ritual by skinning the slain man-god and clothing in his skin a living man, who thus became the new representative of the godhead. Thus at an annual festival a woman was sacrificed who represented Toci or the Mother of the Gods. She was dressed with the ornaments, and bore the name of the goddess, whose living image she was believed to be. After being feasted and diverted with sham fights for several days, she was taken at midnight to the summit of a temple, and beheaded on the shoulders of a man. The body was immediately flayed, and one of the priests, clothing himself in the skin, became the representative of the goddess Toci. The skin of the woman's thigh was removed separately, and a young man who represented the god Cinteotl, the son of the goddess Toci, wrapt it round his face like a mask. Various ceremonies then followed, in which the two men, clad in the woman's skin, played the parts respectively of the god and goddess.[600] Again, at the annual festival of the [pg 221] god Totec, a number of captives having been killed and skinned, a priest clothed himself in one of their skins, and thus became the image of the god Totec. Then wearing the ornaments of the god—a crown of feathers, golden necklaces and ear-rings, scarlet shoes, etc.—he was enthroned, and received offerings of the first fruits and first flowers of the season, together with bunches of the maize which had been kept for seed.[601] Every fourth year the Quauhtitlans offered sacrifices in honour of the god of fire. On the eve of the festival they sacrificed two slaves, skinned them, and took out their thigh bones. Next day two priests clothed themselves in the skins, took the bones in their hands, and with solemn steps and dismal howlings descended the stairs of the temple. The people, who were assembled in crowds below, called out, “Behold, there come our gods.”[602]
Thus it appears that human sacrifices of the sort I suppose to have prevailed at Aricia were, as a matter of fact, systematically offered on a large scale by a people whose level of culture was probably not inferior, if indeed it was not distinctly superior, to that occupied by the Italian races at the early period to which the origin of the Arician priesthood must be referred. The positive and indubitable evidence of the prevalence of such sacrifices in one part of the world may reasonably be allowed to strengthen the probability of their prevalence in places for which the evidence is less full and trustworthy. Taken all together, the evidence affords a fair presumption that the custom of killing men whom their worshippers [pg 222] regard as divine has prevailed in many parts of the world. Whether the general explanation which I have offered of that custom is adequate, and whether the rule that the priest of Aricia had to die a violent death is, as I have tried to show, a particular instance of the general custom, are questions which I must now leave to the judgment of the reader.
Chapter IV—The Golden Bough.
“Und grün des Lebens goldner Baum.”—Faust.