This was called "killing the god
Huitzilopochtli so that his body might be eaten." One of the priests
cut out the heart of the image and gave it to the king to eat. The
rest of the image was divided into minute pieces, of which every man
great and small, down to the male children in the cradle, receive
one to eat. But no woman might taste a morsel. The ceremony was
called _teoqualo,_ that is, "god is eaten."
At another festival the Mexicans made little images like men, which
stood for the cloud-capped mountains. These images were moulded of a
paste of various seeds and were dressed in paper ornaments. Some
people fashioned five, others ten, others as many as fifteen of
them. Having been made, they were placed in the oratory of each
house and worshipped. Four times in the course of the night
offerings of food were brought to them in tiny vessels; and people
sang and played the flute before them through all the hours of
darkness. At break of day the priests stabbed the images with a
weaver's instrument, cut off their heads, and tore out their hearts,
which they presented to the master of the house on a green saucer.
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