It will not be necessary to say many words on the subject of Mexican ritual, since much can be gathered from the description of the various feasts given above. In early times human sacrifice seems to have been far from prevalent, and the Chichimec were reputed to have made offerings only of animals and produce until they came into contact with other tribes. But according to the “Annals of Quauhtitlan,” human sacrifice had already made its appearance under the Toltec _régime_. The first rite of this nature is said to have been the offering of children to Tlaloc in 1018, while the arrow-sacrifice was introduced from the Huaxtec country in 1058, and the flaying-sacrifice in 1063. But the arrow-sacrifice is mentioned elsewhere at a very early stage of the Nahua migration, in connection with the earth-goddesses. Once introduced into the valley of Mexico, the practice of making human offerings became more and more prevalent, until we find the number of individuals slain during the four-day ceremonies at the dedication of the great temple to Uitzilopochtli by Auitzotl given in two manuscripts as twenty thousand (see Fig. 12; p. 87). The Tezcocan ruler Nezahualcoyotl is said to have forbidden it, and later to have limited it to prisoners of war, but at the time of the conquest it showed no signs of abatement, and Bernal Diaz is constantly referring to the sacrifices which he and his companions were compelled to witness. Spaniards taken prisoner in the hostilities with the Mexicans were invariably devoted to death, and the same chronicler relates the grisly discovery in a temple at Pueblo Morisco of the remains of two of his compatriots, where Sandoval found two “faces which had been flayed, and the skin tanned like skin for gloves, the beards left on, and they had been placed as offerings on one of the altars.” The hides of four horses were found at the same place. But terrible as such rites may seem to us, it may be taken as certain that they were regarded almost with equanimity by the Mexicans. Death by sacrifice was considered the normal death of a fighting man, and ensured entrance to the paradise of the Sun. Instances occur where men have deliberately demanded death on the sacrificial stone, notably the king Chimamalpopoca is said to have made arrangements for his own immolation, clad in the _insignia_ of Uitzilopochtli. Or again, the Tlaxcalan general Tlahuicol, captured by the Mexicans, who refused his freedom at the hands of Montecuzoma, and subsequently even the rank of general in the Mexican army, and was so persistent in his demands for death on the gladiatorial stone that it was at length granted him. The very cannibalism which, to a limited extent, formed the occasional sequel to human sacrifice, becomes divested of much of its horror when it is remembered that the rite was, in essentials, an act of communion with the deity, with whom the victim was identified. Instances of this