Aztec mythology; Indian mythology -- Mexico; Mexico -- Religion
In this feast of toxcatl, in the cu called Uitznahuac, where the image
of Uitzilopochtli was always kept, the priests made a bust of this god
out of tzoalli dough, with pieces of mizquitl [121]-wood inserted by
way of bones. They decorated it with his ornaments; putting on a jacket
wrought over with human bones, a mantle of very thin nequen, and
another mantle called the Tlaquaquallo, covered with rich feathers,
fitting the head below and widening out above; in the middle of this
stood up a little rod, also decorated with feathers, and sticking into
the top of the rod was a flint knife half covered with blood. The image
was set on a platform made of pieces of wood resembling snakes, and so
arranged that heads and tails alternated all the way round; the whole
borne by many captains and men of war. Before this image and platform a
number of strong youths carried an enormous sheet of paper resembling
pasteboard, twenty fathoms long, one fathom broad, and a little less
than an inch thick; it was supported by spear-shafts arranged in pairs
of one shaft above and one below the paper, while persons on either
side of the paper held one of these pairs in one hand. When the
procession, with dancing and singing, reached the cu to be ascended,
the platform was carefully and cautiously hoisted up by cords attached
to its four corners, the image was set on a seat, and those who carried
the paper rolled it up and set down the roll before the bust of the
god. It was sunset when the image was so set up; and the following
morning everyone offered food in his own house before the image of
Uitzilopochtli, incensing also such images of the other gods as he had,
and then went to offer quails’ blood before the image set up on the cu.
The king began, wringing off the heads of four quails; the priests
offered next, then all the people; the whole multitude carrying clay
fire-pans and burning copal incense of every kind, after which everyone
threw his live coals on a great hearth in the temple yard. The virgins
painted their faces, put on their heads garlands of parched maize, with
strings of the same across their breasts, decorated their arms and legs
with red feathers, and carried black paper flags stuck into split
canes. The flags of the daughters of the nobles were not of paper, but
of a thin cloth called canauac, painted with vertical black stripes.
These girls, joining hands, danced round the great hearth, upon or over
which, on an elevated place of some kind, there danced, giving the time
and step, two men, having each a kind of pine cage covered with paper
flags on his shoulders, the strap supporting which passed, not across
the forehead—the usual way for men to carry a burden—but across the
chest, as was the fashion with women. They bore shields of paper,
crumpled up like great flowers, their heads were adorned with white
feathers, their lips and part of the face were smeared with sugar-cane
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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