the waters”—the Cupressus distica). The faces of the doomed ones were painted in the colours of the god, yellow and blue in transverse bands, and adorned with his insignia.
After five days of penitential exercises mingled with dancing and singing, and on the day before the festival, the captives rose with dawn and betook themselves to the houses of those who had dedicated them to the slaughter, preceded by a man carrying a vessel full of black ink or red ochre or blue tincture. On arriving at the houses of those who had devoted them to death, they dipped their hands in the vessel and pressed them on the gates and the pillars of the dwelling, so that the imprint remained.12 They then entered the kitchen of the house and walked several times round the furnace. Then they marched in procession to the temple, accompanied by porters bearing rich attire, which the captives donned. The hair was then taken from their heads to be kept “as a relic.” They were then given cylindrical cakes to eat, which must be held on the point of a maguey thorn and not between the fingers. With the dawn of day the god Paynal, the herald of Uitzilopochtli, descended from the temple of Uitzilopochtli. Four captives were then slain, two in honour of “the god Oappatzan.” Paynal, borne by four “necromancers,” then took the road to Tlatelolco, whence he passed to Nonoalco, the priest of the temple there receiving him with the representative of the god Quauitlicac, “his companion” (see “Myths”). The images were then carried to Tlaxotlan and Popotlan, where other captives were slain. Then the procession took its way to Chapultepec, passing the hill of that name and crossing the little river Izquitlan, at the temple of which other captives called Izquiteca (“who eat roasted maize”) were