both thighs and arms were barred with blue.”6
The Sahagun MS. states that “he wears a panache of yellow parrot feathers stuck together, and having a bunch of quetzal-feathers at the tip. His espitzalli is over his forehead. The face or mask is striped in various colours, and the ear-plug is made of the feathers of the blue cotinga. On his back is the fire-snake dress and on his arm he has a quetzal-feather. At the back he is girded with a blue net cloth, and his leg is striped with blue. Bells and shells decorate his feet, and he is shod with sandals of the type usually worn by persons of high degree. His shield is the teueuelli with a bundle of arrows without points stuck in it, and in one hand he holds a serpent-staff.”
Sahagun (c. xxii, bk. iv) describes the insignia employed at the god’s festival of ce tecpatl. These were the quetzalquemitl, or mantle of green quetzal-feathers, the tozquemitl, the mantle made of the yellow feathers of the toztli, a bird of the parrot species, the Uitzitzilquemitl, or mantle of humming-bird’s feathers, “and others less rich.”
FESTIVALS
The first festival of Uitzilopochtli was the tlaxochimaco, of which Sahagun says: “The ninth month was styled tlaxochimaco. A festival was held on the first day of this month in honour of Huitzilopochtli, god of war, when he was offered the first flowers of the year. The night before this festival everybody killed chickens and dogs with which to make tamalli and other things good to eat. Very soon after the first glimmerings of dawn on the day of the festival, the attendants of the idols adorned the statue of Huitzilopochtli with flowers. The images of the other gods were decked with garlands and wreaths of flowers,