Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/128

120 with which the priests rubbed themselves, offering it also to the idols in sacrifice.

Many of a boy's occupations were such as might be classed among amusements. Once in their month of twenty days the Aztecs had a religious festival, when the braves of the tribe appeared in their gay costumes, each in the color of his clan, to engage in feats of arms. The boys, with their teachers, were obliged to attend this rehearsal, which generally took place in the public square surrounding the great temple.

Everything was regulated by government orders. The tenth day of February was set apart for what the Mexican boys knew as "fishing-day." It was a great holiday, even when the sport was so carefully regulated by the elders that in our free-and-easy times it would not be called sport at all. These Indian boys were taught to catch water-fowls by a very ingenious stratagem. An empty gourd was left floating on the water so long that the birds became used to the sight of it. The fowler then came quietly among the birds, wearing on his head another gourd, pierced with eyeholes, his hands being free to drag his hapless victims under water by their legs. They also snared game as our Indians do—by driving the wild animals they used for food into a net or pitfall, or by surrounding them.

Some of the occupations of these Indian boys deserve the name of play. They had a ball-game like tennis, for which courts were built. In some of the communal houses still found in the southern part of Mexico the elegant rooms which were used for this purpose are found, showing the luxurious character of the people who built them. They played with india-rubber balls, and managed to carry on the game without using their