prayer to Tezcatlipocâ, speaks of Xiuhtecutli as “the ancient god, the father of all the gods, the god of fire, who is in the pond of water among turrets surrounded with stones like roses, who is called Xiuhtecutli, who determines, examines, and settles the business and law-suits of the nation and of the common people, as it were washing them with water.”5
Clavigero says of Xiuhtecutli:
“Xiuhtecutli (master of the year and of the grass) was among these nations the god of fire, to whom they likewise gave the name of Ixcozauhqui, which expresses the colour of fire. This god was greatly revered in the Mexican empire. At their dinner they made an offering to him of the first morsel of their food, and the first draught of their beverage, by throwing both into the fire; and burned incense to him at certain times of the day. In honour of him they held two fixed festivals of the most solemn kind, one in the tenth, and another in the eighteenth month; and one movable feast, at which they created the usual magistrates and renewed the ceremony of the investiture of the fiefs of the kingdom. He had a temple in Mexico, and some other palaces.”
FESTIVALS
Xocohuetzi.—Sahagun’s account of this festival is substantially as follows6:
A great tree of five and twenty fathoms long was cut down and the branches lopped off except a few at the top. The tree was then dragged by ropes into the city, great precautions being taken against damaging it. The women met the procession, giving those who had helped cocoa to drink. The tree, which was called zocotl, was received into the court of a teocalli with acclamation, and there set up in a hole in the ground and allowed to remain for twenty days. On the eve of the festival they lowered the