Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/131

Rh cycle of fifty years, her little one should live on as a mouse.

The temple of the goddess Sentol, who was supposed to preside over the harvests, was visited in May by troops of little girls; who came bringing ears of corn to be blessed. These ears were afterward taken home and put in the granary, in order to sanctify all that was in it.

In time of famine poor parents were taught by the priests that they would win special favor of the gods by selling their little ones for sacrifice. The price of a boy-baby was but a basket of corn, and a girl brought still less. Tlaloc, god of storms, received most of these offerings. The poor little creatures had their faces painted, brightly-tinted paper wings were fastened to their shoulders, and, dressed in gay clothing, they were borne along the streets in litters fancifully decorated with feathers and flowers, to be drowned in a whirlpool or exposed to birds of prey on the mountains. If the frightened children cried on the way to their death, so much the better. A din was kept up in the streets as they passed along, to drown their piteous wail. At the water's edge the priests received them and carried them to their doom. For their comfort the weeping mothers were told that the souls of children thus devoted to Tlaloc went after death to a cool, delightful place where they were happier than they could possibly have been on earth. There was a hall in the inner part of the great temple where these souls of the little ones were supposed to come on a certain day each year to assist in the service, and thither went these poor mothers to commune with the departed spirits or to think over their meritorious act of devotion.