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92 them in Cempoala. The sacrificial priest constituted an exception in so far as his garment was red, but his five assistants, the Chalmeca, wore black, and were distinguished by a headband ornamented with paper discs.

The Tarascan priests differed in several essentials from those of the Aztec. Since the office was hereditary they formed a caste, their heads were carefully shaved, and their principal insignia were a pair of golden tweezers, used for epilation, and a calabash containing tobacco, employed to produce a state of ecstasy during which they were supposed to hold communion with the gods. Among the Totonac were two high-priests consecrated to Cinteotl, who were regarded with especial veneration; they were widowers, over sixty years of age, wore garments of jackal-skins, ate no fish, and their functions were the delivery of oracles, and the preparation of manuscripts.

In Tehuacan there was an especially holy order of priests who spent four years at a time in perpetual prayer (by relays) and observed a continual fast, abstaining from meat, fish, fruit, honey and pepper, and taking but one meal a day. They were supposed to commune directly with the gods, and were held in especial estimation by Montecuzoma. But perhaps the most generally revered priest in Mexico was the priest of Quetzalcoatl at Cholula, who was regarded as the direct successor of the god, and who lived a life of particular austerity. Among the Mixtec the high-priest wore a short coat embroidered with mythological figures, and over this a garment described as a "surplice," while his head was crowned with feathers interwoven with small figures of the gods. But one of the holiest priests was the high-priest of the sacred Zapotec city of Mitla, who was kept in retirement, for it was feared that death would seize any of the ordinary folk who might set eyes upon him. He was regarded as an