"Sacerdotal functions (excepting those of sacrifice) were allowed to women.
"At a very tender age these priestess girls were committed for instruction to seminaries of learning, in which, it is recorded, a strict moral discipline for both sexes was maintained, and that, in some instances, offences were punished by death itself.
"Thus were these crafty Mexican priests (the Jesuits of their age) enabled to mould young and plastic minds, and to gain a firm hold upon the moral nature of their pupils. The priests had (as we are told) their own especial calendar, by which they kept their records, and regulated, to their liking, their religious festivals and seasons of sacrifice, and made all their astrological calculations; for, like many imperfectly civilized peoples, the Aztecs had their astrology. This priestly calendar is said to have roused the holy indignation of the Spanish missionaries.
"They condemned it as 'unhallowed, founded neither on natural reason, nor on the influence of the planets, nor on the course of the year; but plainly the work of necromancy, and the fruit of a contract with the devil.'
"We are told that not even in ancient Egypt were the dreams of the astrologer more implicitly referred to than in Aztec Mexico.
"On the birth of a child he (the astrologer) was instantly summoned, and the horoscope—supposed to unroll the occult volume of destiny—was hung upon by the parent in trembling suspense and implicit faith. No Millerite in his ascension robe, awaiting the general break-up of mundane affairs, ever looked forward with more confidence to the final catastrophe than did the ancient Mexican to the predicted destruction of the world at the termination of one of their four successive cycles of fifty-two years.
"Prescott gives us this romantic account of the festival marking that traditional epoch:
"'The cycle would end in the latter part of December; as the diminished light gave melancholy presage of that time when the sun was to be effaced from the heavens, and the darkness of chaos settle over the habitable globe, these apprehensions increased, and on the arrival of the five "unlucky days" that closed the year they abandoned themselves to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household gods, in whom they no longer trusted.
"'The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic utensils were destroyed, and their garments torn in pieces, and everything was thrown into disorder. On the evening of the last day, a procession of priests moved from the capital towards a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. They carried with them as a victim for the sacrificial altar the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which was an augury for the renewal of the cycle.
"'On the funeral pile of their slaughtered victim, the new fire was started by means of sticks placed on the victim's wounded breast. As the light soared towards heaven on the midnight sky, a shout of joy and triumph burst forth from the multitudes, who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the housetops with eyes anxiously bent upon the mountain of sacrifice. Couriers with torches lighted at the blazing beacon bore the cheering element far and near; and long before the sun rose to pursue his accustomed track, giving assurance that a new cycle had commenced its march, altar and hearthstone again brightened with flame for leagues around.