Tlazolteotl, as we shall find when we attempt our elucidation of her characteristics, was regarded as the goddess of sexual indulgence, a not inappropriate rôle for the wild, wanton, and riotous goddess of earth, so prodigal in her bringing forth and (naturally in the eyes of a primitive people) so bountiful in her favours, for to the barbarian mind productiveness is the outcome of lustfulness. By an easy transition, then, she became the goddess of sexual immorality, the patron of prostitutes, and the archetype of female wantonness. But, rather strangely, although she presided over salacious vice, she alone could pardon it, and once in a lifetime the Mexican adulterer or libertine might approach her to obtain by a full confession remission of his sins. This he generally did late in life, for absolution could not be obtained on a subsequent occasion. The ritual associated with his cleansing was a prolonged and involved one, and is described by Sahagun in the twelfth chapter of his first book. There is no reason to believe that the account of the ritual as furnished by Sahagun is otherwise than genuine, and he remarks upon the facility with which the native Mexicans embraced the Catholic confession as a proof that the rite was not unknown to them. TEMPLE We know from the descriptions of the ochpaniztli festivals in the Sahagun Aztec MS., and the illustrations accompanying them, that the temple of Tlazolteotl, the Toctitlan, was a scaffolding of poles on which was set a representation of the goddess. PRIESTHOOD That Tlazolteotl possessed a priesthood of her own is obvious from the repeated mention of the adolescent youths known as Cuecuesteca (“Her Huaxtecs”), who figured in the festival of ochpaniztli. But that these were only priests ad hoc, or employed temporarily for that celebration, is likely, as Sahagun states (Appendix to bk. ii) that the Atempan teohuatzin, or the Chief of Rites connected with the Atempan, had the task of assembling them, as well as charge of the insignia used at the festival. Tlazolteotl’s priests, according to Sahagun (bk. i, c. xii), were “the augurs who possessed the books with the prognostications and the destinies of the new-born and the spells and the omens and the traditions of the ancients, as they were handed down and came unto them.” NATURE AND STATUS