Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/95

Rh weight to their influence, the tide of battle began to turn against the three confederate tribes, and Hungry Fox was obliged to yield to the popular clamor for human victims wherewith to appease the anger of Humming-Bird, the insatiable war-god.

Every month in the year had its bloody festivals. At one of these the handsomest and bravest of all the captives was for one year named Tezcaltipoca, after one of the principal gods, and was obliged to illustrate by his life and death the vanity of all earthly things. For one year he was dressed in the most elegant and costly robes, housed in the most luxurious dwelling the city afforded, married to four beautiful girls and regaled with flowers, music and sweet odors; his table was loaded with dainties and his couch was royal in its comfort and decoration. At the end of that time he was carried away from his splendid home and gay attendants, stripped of his raiment and led with solemn burial-chants to a little temple outside the city to die on the altar. As the fatal knife descended the old priest called on the gazing crowd to note this scene as the end of his sermon on life. Three times a year, Tlaloc, god of storms, demanded a human sacrifice. His home was in the fiery crater of Popocatepetl. In March, when the people prayed that the clouds which overhung his throne might pour out an abundance of rain on the ever-thirsty earth, little children were offered. Three times each year women were sacrificed. Once, in its closing days, when Talconian, mother of all gods, held high festival, a female prisoner suffered. She was obliged to dance until the last moment, then was beheaded and skinned and had her body thrown at the feet of the war-god. At one time two perfect victims were called for at once—one for the war-god, the other