in, and presents of wearing apparel distributed to friends and dependants (bk. ii, c. 34).
This festival took place at the period of the winter solstice, when the sun has removed farthest to the south. The burning of the papers by the xiuhcoatl, and the fact that the fire-festival of the new period of fifty-two years, the making of the new fire, was usually postponed to coincide with it, show it to be a fire-feast; for in his “avatar” of the sun Uitzilopochtli was a fire-god.
Torquemada states that the priest of Quetzalcoatl hurled a dart into the breast of the paste image of Uitzilopochtli, which fell. He then pulled the “heart” out of it, giving it to the king. The body was then divided among the men, no woman being allowed to eat of it. The ceremony was called teoqualo, i.e. “god is eaten.”14
MYTHS
Regarding Uitzilopochtli, Clavigero says: “Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitli, was the god of war; the deity the most honoured by the Mexicans, and their chief protector. Of this god some said he was a pure spirit, others that he was born of a woman, but without the assistance of a man, and described his birth in the following manner: There lived, said they, in Coatepec, a place near to the ancient city of Tula, a woman called Coatlicue, mother of the Centzonhuiznahuas, who was extremely devoted to the worship of the gods. One day, as she was employed, according to her usual custom, in walking in the temple, she beheld descending in the air a ball made of various feathers. She seized it and kept it in her bosom, intending afterwards to employ the feathers in decoration of the altar; but when she wanted it after her walk was at an end she could not find it, at which she was