Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/96

month, in which captives, tethered one by one by a rope to the centre of a circular stone (Fig. 5, b; p. 41), were attacked by four warriors in ocelot and eagle dresses. If the victim could defend himself against these, a fifth opponent attacked him, a left-handed man being selected for this purpose. When overpowered, the victim was sacrificed, either by having his heart torn out, or by being fastened to a framework and shot with darts (Fig. 5, a). The gladiatorial sacrifice is symbolical of war, and the creation myths relate how the gods called into being special bands of warriors whose blood and hearts should be devoted to the nourishment of the sun and the earth. War, therefore, was necessary, in order that the processes of nature might continue without hindrance, and war amongst the Mexicans had thus assumed a ceremonial character. The arrow-sacrifice was apparently introduced from the Huaxtec country, together with the worship of the earth-goddesses Ixcuinamé, of whom Tlazolteotl was the chief. It was practised also at Tlaxcala and Uexotzinco, as explained above. Both this and the flaying sacrifice partook of the nature of imitative magic, and had as their object the promotion of fertility, a matter which at this time of the year was of considerable importance to the Mexicans. For the ordinary form of sacrifice (Fig. 5, c) the victim, stripped of his ornaments, was stretched on the sacrificial stone, which was slightly convex in shape. Five priests, called Chalmeca, held his arms, legs and head, while the sacrificer slashed open his breast with a stone knife, and, inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the heart, which was held for a moment to the lips of the idol, or offered to the sun, and then cast into a stone vase, called quauhxicalli, or burnt. Many of the so-called "calendar stones" are possibly elaborate quauhxicalli; a good example of the normal type is figured on PI. VII, i. In most cases