CINTEOTL, SON OF CHICOMECOATL.
(Codex Bologna, sheet 13.)
FESTIVALS
The Uei Tozoztli.—The first festival attributed to Chicomecoatl in the calendar was the uei tozoztli, or the “great watch,” so called because of the watch or wake kept in the houses of the people, accompanied by a general fast. The best accounts of it are those of Sahagun[13] and Torquemada.[14] In this rite the goddess was associated with Cinteotl. After a four days’ fast, certain rushes were stained with sacrificial blood and placed upon the images of the gods in both house and temple. Branches of laurel and beds or mattresses of hay were placed before the altars, and maize porridge was distributed to the young men. The people walked in the fields cutting stalks of the young maize, which they bedecked with flowers, placing them before the altars of the gods in the calpulli, or common house of the village, along with food-offerings of every kind, baskets of tortillas, or pancakes of chian flour and toasted maize mixed with beans, each surmounted by a cooked frog. On the back of the frog offered up with the tortillas they placed a joint cut from a maize-stalk filled with small pieces of every kind of the food offered up. Thus laden, the frog symbolized the earth, bearing her fruits on her back. All this victual was carried in the afternoon [[172]]to the temple of Chicomecoatl, and eaten in a general scramble. The ears of maize preserved for seed were carried in procession by virgins to the temple of the goddess, each maiden bearing seven ears of maize, sprinkled with ulli gum and wrapped in paper and cloth. The legs and arms of these girls were ornamented with red feathers and their faces were smeared with pitch and sprinkled with marcassite. To these the crowd were forbidden to speak, but much persiflage was, nevertheless, engaged in. The people then returned to their houses, and the sanctified maize was placed in every granary and corn-crib, was known as the “heart” thereof, and remained there until taken out to be used as seed. It does not appear that human sacrifice accompanied this festival, which seems to have represented ancient rustic rites, the ritual of the family and the village, handed down from very early times.
Ochpaniztli (“Sweeping of Temples”).—In this festival, held about the beginning of September, the goddess played an important although by no means the principal part, and as it is fully described in the pages dealing with Tlazolteotl, it will suffice here to mention that the rites accorded to Chicomecoatl on this occasion appear to have been almost the same as those rendered at her first festival. The nature of her connection with the other deities of maize is indicated in the introduction to the section dealing with the earth and grain gods, and her participation in the rites of the ochpaniztli perhaps exhibits the zealous activity of an ancient cult in rivalry with a later and more popular one. It would certainly seem as if Chicomecoatl had been recognized in the ochpaniztli rites as an afterthought and for the purpose of placating her priesthood, as much as for the honour of the goddess herself, or that it was a protest on the part of the ministers of her cult, who did not desire to see their divinity ignored at a season at which she had probably been worshipped from time immemorial.
PRIESTHOOD
That Chicomecoatl had a priesthood specially consecrated to her is manifest from the accounts of her festivals, and this [[173]]must have been in most respects similar in organization and character to those of Cinteotl (the Cinteotzin), Tlazolteotl, and Xipe. That she had also a corps of priestesses or holy women attached to her worship is equally clear from the same source. But we learn nothing of their precise status or polity from any of the old authorities.
TEMPLES
Chicomecoatl appears to have had two temples, both situated within the precincts of the great temple at Mexico. The first was the Chicomecoatl iteopan (“Temple of Chicomecoatl”) and the other the Cinteopan (“Maize Temple”), which, however, must not be confounded with that sacred to Cinteotl.