Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/96

88 for Tezcaltipoca. At the time corresponding with our month of October, during a feast called "the Coming of the Gods," the priests scattered cornmeal on the floor in the place where the gods were expected to enter, hoping to find the sacred footprints of this chief deity. They were not likely to be disappointed for want of contrivance on the part of these "medicine-men."

How far the priests were able to deceive themselves is shown by their long and severe penances. They fasted sometimes to the verge of starvation. They pierced themselves with thorns, bled their ears and cut holes in their tongues, through which sticks were thrust. It must have been difficult for a priest thus maimed to speak intelligibly. In times of great calamity an Aztec chief and a number of his followers are said to have offered their lives as a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of their country. Priests have been known to retire to the wilderness for a year's mortification of the flesh. Building a small hut, the devotee lived there alone, without light or fire and with scarcely enough of uncooked maize to keep himself alive. No man could go through this "great fast" more than once in a lifetime.

The manner of the victims' death afforded scope for variety. They were often dressed in fancy costumes and made to dance in character. Sometimes, like gladiators, they fought for their lives on a large stone platform in the great square of the city. The goddess of harvests