Sacrifices to the gods were made by the Mayas at the sacred _cenoté_ of Chichen Itza, and similar places.[331] This sacred well was one of the openings to the subterranean waters of Yucatan, and was about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter and sixty-five feet deep from the brink to the surface of the water, with perpendicular sides. Pilgrims came here to make offerings and Landa states that in time of drought they would cast live men into it as a tribute to the gods, believing that though they disappeared they would not die. Valuable property was also thrown in and still lies with the bones at the bottom. Charnay tried to work some automatic sounding machines there, but he failed to obtain satisfactory results. Among the Aztecs a person to be sacrificed was extended full length over a convex stone, and the priest with a long obsidian knife made a gash in the breast through which he extracted the living heart and laid it at the feet of the idol. Parts of the victim were afterward served at a grand ceremonial banquet. “Forty days previous to the festival of Quetzalcohuatl,” says Bandelier, “a slave was selected, who must be in perfect health and of faultless body. He was dressed in the same manner as the idol, and, after having been carefully bathed, and kept in ‘honourable confinement,’ as an object of worship for that length of time, he was sacrificed at midnight. The heart was tendered to the moon, and afterwards thrown at the idol, and the body cut up, cooked and publicly devoured.”[332] In times of drought children from six to ten years old were offered up; they were not eaten, but buried before the idol. The priests who officiated were medicine-men, or shamans. Every tribe on the continent had shamans. These individuals held a peculiar power, and among tribes known to us now they still exercise it. Even among the Christian Pueblos of New Mexico, the authority of the shaman has not altogether waned and ancient rites are said to be still enacted in secret. For some of these it is believed rattlesnakes have been carefully guarded for years. “Among Indians,” Mooney states,[333] “the professions of medicine and religion are inseparable. The doctor is always a priest and the priest is always a doctor. Hence to the whites in the Indian country the Indian priest-doctor has come to be known as the ‘medicine-man’ and anything sacred, mysterious, or of wonderful power or efficacy in Indian life or belief is designated as ‘medicine,’ this term being the nearest equivalent of the aboriginal expression in various languages. To make ‘medicine’ is to perform some sacred ceremony, from the curing of a sick child to the consecration of the Sun-dance lodge.” An Iroquois student states,[334] that, “among the Indians, the knowledge of the medicine-man and the more expert sorceress is little above that of the body of the tribe. Their success depends entirely on their own belief in being supernaturally gifted and on the faith and fear of their followers.