When the frightful overture had concluded, a captive was placed on the stone by the person who devoted him to sacrifice, and a beaker of octli was given him to hearten him to fight well. This he presented to the four points of the compass, and then sucked its contents through a reed. A priest then took up his stand in front of the doomed man, and holding a living quail before him as before a god, tore off its head. Another priest clad in a bear-skin secured the captive to the stone and handed him his weapons, and then his captor danced before him, as before a divinity. The combat then took place, and in the unusual event of a victim overcoming the four well-appointed warriors who opposed him, a fifth, who must be a left-handed man, rushed in, raised the exhausted victor in his arms and threw him to the ground, where he was dispatched by the Youallauan. The victim’s heart was then thrown into the wooden tub before alluded to, after it had been held up to the sun. Another priest now took a hollow reed and introduced it into the opening from which the heart had been removed. Having drawn off a sufficient quantity of blood, he went to offer it up to the sun. The master of the captive who had been slain then filled a bowl with the blood of his victim, which vessel was gaily decorated with feathers and which contained a tube, similarly ornamented. With this he went the round of the temples, smearing the blood upon the lips of the idols with the feathered tube. He next divested himself of the gay feather cloak he wore for the occasion and carried the flayed corpse of his captive, or what remained of it, to his house, after royal and other requirements had been met. As has been said, he feasted his family and friends on the body, but did not himself partake of it, as he was regarded as the ritual father of the deceased. “The skin of a victim also belonged to his captor, and this he gave to those who dressed themselves in skins (in consequence of a vow), and so attired, paraded the streets of the town. Others wore the heads of wolves.” [228] “When the captive had been slain, all who were present, priests, warriors and others, began to dance the areyto round the temalacatl, the captors of the victims carrying the heads of the slain. This areyto, or dance, was called motzontecomaitotia (dance with decapitated heads). The cuitlachueue (old jackal [229]), godfather of the captives, took in his hands the cords which had held them to the temalacatl and raised them to the four cardinal points in sign of adoration. After that ‘he groaned, he wept for the dead.’