and many military guilds or brotherhoods dedicated to the task of securing a large supply of sacrificial victims. The warlike character of the Earth-goddess was assumed as a matter of course.
This chase continued until the priest who personated Tlazolteotl came to the teocalli of Uitzilopochtli, the War-god. Here he lay down and stretched himself out in the female posture for sexual intercourse. Says the Aztec text of Sahagun: “Then she broadens herself [that is the priest personating the goddess], expands, stretches arms and legs out at the feet of Uitzilopochtli, her face turned towards him.” This ceremony undoubtedly had reference to a supposed impregnation of the goddess by the god Uitzilopochtli, and that the myth relating to it was enacted is shown by the symbolic presence of her son, Cinteotl, or a priest dressed to represent that god, who had placed over his face a mask made from the skin of the thighs of the flayed woman which had been sent to his temple, and who was now regarded as the son conceived.9
In addition to the skin-mask, the Cinteotl priest wore a hat or cap, also made of the skin of the sacrificed victim, which had a vandyked edging of the crown, or a crest like the comb of a cock, symbolic of the stone knife of sacrifice.
Together, the priests of Tlazolteotl and Cinteotl now proceeded to the temple of the former, where they awaited the morning. At dawn