File:The myths of Mexico and Peru (1913) (14803976773).jpg

Identifier: mythsofmexicoper01spen (find matches)
Title: The myths of Mexico and Peru
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955
Subjects: Indians of Mexico Indian mythology Indians of Mexico Indians of South America Indian mythology Indians of South America
Publisher: New York, T. Y. Crowell company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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pictures of wild beasts and birds ; and they put acap on his head, and on his feet a kind of shoe wovenof many coloured feathers. And when he had put onthese garments he walked with solemn mien andmeasured step to the altar, bowed low before the idols,renewed the incense, and then in quite unintelligiblemurmurs he began to converse with these images,these depositories of infernal spirits, and continued inthis sort of prayer with hideous grimaces and writhings,uttering inarticulate sounds, which filled all presentwith fear and terror, till he came out of that diabolicaltrance and told those standing around the lies andfabrications which the spirit had imparted to him orwhich he had invented himself. When human beingswere sacrificed the ceremonies were multiplied, and theassistants of the high-priest stretched the victim outupon a large stone, baring his breast, which they toreopen with a great stone knife, while the body writhedin fearful convulsions, and they laid the heart bare, 202
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Pu ^ e ^ o - LIVING SACRIFICES ripping it out, and with it the soul, which the deviltook, while they carried the heart to the high-priestthat he might offer it to the idols by holding it to theirmouths, among other ceremonies ; and the body wasthrown into the burial-place of their * blessed, as theycalled them. And if after the sacrifice he felt inclinedto detain those who begged any favour he sent themword by the subordinate priests not to leave theirhouses till their gods were appeased, and he com-manded them to do penance meanwhile, to fast and tospeak with no woman, so that, until this father of sinhad interceded for the absolution of the penitents andhad declared the gods appeased, they did not dare tocross their thresholds. The second (underground) chamber was the burial-place of these high-priests, the third that of the kingsof Theozapotlan, whom they brought hither richlydressed in their best attire, feathers, jewels, goldennecklaces, and precious stones, placing a shield in t

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