Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/302

294 leperos because I did not do the same. As I turned, there swept by a coach drawn by four horses, containing the holy symbol, which the majority of the people yet respect, if they do not reverence.

Now, not all the feasts and festivals of Mexico are of Romish origin. Upon the remains of Aztec idolatry, says a writer, now dead, have been engrafted the baser ceremonies of the Romish Church. Let us go back to the pre-Spanish days, when the empire of Montezuma was in the height of its prosperity. Eighteen months of twenty days each composed the ancient Mexican year, which commenced in February, and every month had its festival. That of February was in honor of Tlaloc, god of storms; in March followed the cruel sacrifice to Xipé, god of the goldsmiths, and a second to Tlaloc, of children, who were drowned to insure abundant rains. In April, the flower-merchants offered garlands to Coatlicue, the Mexican Flora, and later to Centeotl, goddess of maize. On the fifth month fell the solemn festival in honor of Tezcatlipoca, the chief deity, when the bravest and handsomest of the prisoners in Aztec possession were sacrificed. In the same month occurred the feast of Huitzilopochtli, the Mexican war-god, during which another faultless victim was offered up. Tlaloc had a third and last festival in June, and the goddess of salt, Huixtocihuatl, claimed a female victim, when also the populace went hunting in the mountains and upon the lakes. In July a second feast to Centeotl, the Mexican Ceres, came to pass, when another female was sacrificed at the close of the day's rejoicings, just as the sun went down behind the purple hills. Then came the god of trade, and the god of fire, Xiuteuctli, and on the eleventh month the festival of Teteoinan, "mother of all the gods," when a female prisoner was beheaded, then flayed, and the bloody trophy presented to the god of war. In October came the great feast of Teotleco, "the coming of the gods," when the priests scattered maize meal in front of the sanctuary and watched for the sacred footprints of the principal deity. In November, the goddess of the chase, Mixcoatl, was honored, and then followed another great feast to the war-god and his brother, on the last of December. In the seventeenth month the god of hell,