Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/78

72 biting their lips and gnawing their nails for the hunger that is in them. They look on one side and on the other at the mouths of those who pass by, hoping, peradventure, that some one will speak some word to them." Hungry Fox, a great Tezcucan chief, built a temple to this god toward the close of his long life, when he had become heartsick at the abominations of the religion of the Mexicans. This temple was nine stories high. A tenth story, overhanging the others like a canopy, was painted black, to represent the sky at night, gilded with stars outside and decorated within with precious gems and metals in the highest style of art known to his people. This temple he dedicated "To the Unknown God." No image of him was allowed in this beautiful shrine, and nothing but incense, fruit and flowers was offered upon its altar. A sonorous piece of metal struck by a mallet called the worshipers together.

The common people seem to have known but very little of this good and great being. The gods they served were like those who made them—fierce, unholy and delighting in blood. Thirteen of these were superior to the rest, and two hundred were of lower rank. At the head of all these the Aztecs put their frightful war-god, Huitizilapochtli, or "Humming-Bird." This god was represented as a man with a broad face, a wide mouth and terrible eyes. He was girt about with a golden serpent ablaze with jewels, and held a bow in one hand and a bunch of golden arrows in the other. His dress glittered with gold, pearls and precious stones. He wore a necklace of human faces wrought in silver and hearts of gold. His left foot was shod with the feathers of the tiny humming-birds which gave him his name. At the feet of this god stood a little one called Milziton, or