At midday they beheaded a great number of quails and made offerings of their blood before the image of the god. They also pierced their ears in his presence. Others pierced the tongue with the spines of the maguey, and passed through it a great number of osier reeds. Another ceremony consisted of making five tamalli (cakes) of maize, which they called “fasting bread.” These were placed beneath an arrow called xochimitl (“flower-dart”) and were offered to the idol as from the whole community. Those who wished to make a separate offering gave the god five tamalli upon a wooden platter, and chilmolli soup in a vase. Maize in all shapes and forms was also offered up. On the same day all the great folk in Mexico who lived near the frontiers of an enemy brought the slaves whom they had captured to the capital for sacrifice. NATURE AND STATUS This god appears to have had a highly developed cult among the peoples of Tehuacan, Cozcatlan, and Teotitlan del Camino. He is primarily a god of flowers and food, that is of abundance, and as such he equates with the god Cinteotl, with whom some of the sacred hymns even seem to confound him. But there are strong reasons why he should not be wholly identified with Cinteotl, as Seler attempts to do, and as the Mexicans certainly did not do, unless in later times. (See Cinteotl.) It may be, however, that he was originally a god of vegetation, who later became more especially a god of flowers, the cult of which was one particularly favoured by the people of Mexico. However this may be, there is no doubt that the joyous and sportive side of the god developed at the expense of all others, and we find Sahagun speaking of him under his two names as “the god of those who served for the amusement or pastime of the great.” [217] He is, indeed, the god of merriment, of dance and sport, of the ball-game, the jester or buffoon, and moreover presides over the gambling game of patolli, which he is seen patronizing in the Magliabecchiano MS. According to Jacinto de la Serna, he is the god of the great gamblers who frittered away their substance. As the god of sport he is frequently represented by the ape, the beast of mimicry and diversion. But he had also a more worthy side, for to artists of all kinds, painters, weavers, and musicians in especial, he stood as the patron of all artistic effort, and those engaged in it celebrated their worship of him at the xochilhuitl festival. Several of the mantle designs in the Codex Magliabecchiano indicate that as a flower-god he was not forgotten by the weavers’ caste.