Sacrifices varied in number, place, and manner, according to the
circumstances of the festival. In general the victims suffered death by having
the breast opened, and the heart torn out; but others were drowned, others were
shut up in caves and starved to death, others fell in the gladiatorial
sacrifice, which will be described elsewhere. The customary place was the
temple, on the topmost platform of which stood the altar used for ordinary
sacrifices. The altar of the great temple at Mexico, says Clavigero, was a
green stone, probably jasper, convex above, and about three feet high and as
many broad, and more than five feet long. The usual ministers of the sacrifice
were six priests, the chief of whom was the Topiltzin, whose dignity was
preëminent and hereditary; but at every sacrifice he assumed the name of that
god to whom it was made. When sacrificing he was clothed in a red habit,
similar in shape to a modern scapulary, fringed with cotton; on his head he
wore a crown of green and yellow feathers, from his ears hung golden
ear-ornaments and green jewels, and from his under lip a pendant of turquoise.
His five assistants were dressed in white habits of the same make, but
embroidered with black; their hair was plaited and bound with leather thongs,
upon their foreheads were little patches of various-colored paper; their entire
bodies were dyed black. The victim was carried naked up to the temple, where
the assisting priests seized him and threw him prostrate on his back upon the
altar, two holding his legs, two his feet, and the fifth his head; the
high-priest then approached, and with a heavy knife of obsidian cut open the
miserable man's breast; then with a dexterity acquired by long practice the
sacrificer tore forth the yet palpitating heart, which he first offered to the
sun and then threw at the foot of the idol; taking it up he again offered it to
the god and afterwards burned it, preserving the ashes with great care and
veneration. Sometimes the heart was placed in the mouth of the idol with a
golden spoon. It was customary also to anoint the lips of the image and the
cornices of the door with the victim's blood. If he was a prisoner of war, as
soon as he was sacrificed they cut off his head to preserve the skull, and
threw the body down the temple steps, whence it was carried to the house of the
warrior by whom the victim had been 308taken captive, and cooked and eaten at a
feast given by him to his friends; the body of a slave purchased for sacrifice
was carried off by the former proprietor for the same purpose. This is
Clavigero's account. The same writer asserts that the Otomís having killed the
victim, tore the body in pieces, which they sold at market. The Zapotecs
sacrificed men to their gods, women to their goddesses, and children to some
other diminutive deities. At the festival of Teteionan the woman who
represented this goddess was beheaded on the shoulders of another woman. At the
feast celebrating the arrival of the gods, the victims were burned to death. We
have seen that they drowned children at one feast in honor of Tlaloc; at
another feast of the same god several little boys were shut up in a cavern, and
left to die of fear and hunger. (Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Native Races of
the Pacific States [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875], 2:306-8)
The Pipiles had two idols, one in the figure of a man, called
Quetzalcoatl, the other in the shape of a woman, called Itzqueye. Certain days
of their calendar were specially set apart for each of the deities, and on
these the sacrifices were made. Two very solemn sacrifices were held in each
year, one at the commencement of summer, the other at the beginning of winter.
At these, Herrera says, only the lords were present. The sacrifice was made in
the interior of the temple, and the victims were boys between the ages of six
and twelve years, bastards, born among themselves. For a day and a night
previous to the sacrifice, drums and trumpets were sounded and on the day following
the people assembled. Four priests then came out from the temple, each bearing
a small brazier with burning incense; together they turned in the direction of
the sun, and kneeling down offered up incense and prayers; they then did the
same toward the four cardinal points. Their prayers finished, they retired
within four small chapels built at the four corners of the temple, and there
rested. They next went to the house of the high-priest, and took thence the boy
who was to be sacrificed and conducted him four times round the court of the
temple, dancing and singing. When this ceremony was finished, the high-priest
came out of his house, with the diviner and guardian of the sanctuary, and
ascended the steps of the temple, with the cacique and principal men, who,
however, remained at the door of the sanctuary. The four priests now seized the
boy by the arms and legs, and the guardian of the temple coming out with little
bells on his wrists and ankles, opened the left breast of the victim, tore out
the heart, and handed it to the high-priest, who placed it in a small
embroidered purse which he carried. The four priests received the blood of the
victim in four jicaras, or bowls, made from the shell of a certain fruit, and
descending one after the other to the courtyard, sprinkled the blood with their
right hands in the direction of the cardinal points. If any blood remained over
they returned it to the high-priest, who placed it with the purse containing
the heart in the body of the victim through the wound that had been made, and
the body was interred in the temple. This was the ceremony of sacrifice at the
beginning of each of the two seasons. PIPILE FEAST OF VICTORY. When information
was received from their war chief that he had gained a victory, the diviner
ascertained to which of the gods sacrifice was to be made. If to Quetzalcoatl,
the ceremony lasted fifteen days; if to Itzqueye, five days; and upon each day
they sacrificed a prisoner. These sacrifices were made as follows: All those
who had been in the battle returned home in procession, singing and dancing,
bringing with them the captives who were to be sacrificed, their wrists and
ankles decorated with feathers and chalchiuites, and their necks with strings
of cacao-nibs. The high-priests and other ministers went out at the head of the
populace to meet them with music and dancing, and the caciques and captains
delivered over those who were to be sacrificed to the high-priest. Then they
all went together to the courtyard of their teupa, or temple, where they
continued dancing day and night during the time the sacrifices lasted. In the
middle of the court was a stone bench on which the victim was stretched, four
priests holding him by the feet and hands. The sacrificing priest then came
forward, adorned with many feathers and loaded with little bells, holding in
his hand a flint knife, with which he opened the breast of the victim, tore out
the heart, brandished it toward the cardinal points, and finally threw it into
the air with sufficient force to cause it to fall directly in the middle of the
court, saying: "Receive, Oh God, this thank-offering for the victory."
This sacrifice was public and beheld by all the people. The men drew blood from
their private parts, and the women from their ears, tongue, and other parts of
the body; as the blood flowed it was taken up with cotton and offered by the
men to Quetzalcoatl, by the women to Itzqueye. (Hubert Howe Bancroft, The
Native Races of the Pacific States [New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1875],
2:706-8)
