When he went
through the streets, the people came forth to worship him, and every
one brought him an alms, with children and sick folks, that he might
cure them, and bless them, suffering him to do all things at his
pleasure, only he was accompanied with ten or twelve men lest he
should fly. And he (to the end he might be reverenced as he passed)
sometimes sounded upon a small flute, that the people might prepare
to worship him. The feast being come, and he grown fat, they killed
him, opened him, and ate him, making a solemn sacrifice of him."
This general description of the custom may now be illustrated by
particular examples. Thus at the festival called Toxcatl, the
greatest festival of the Mexican year, a young man was annually
sacrificed in the character of Tezcatlipoca, "the god of gods,"
after having been maintained and worshipped as that great deity in
person for a whole year. According to the old Franciscan monk
Sahagun, our best authority on the Aztec religion, the sacrifice of
the human god fell at Easter or a few days later, so that, if he is
right, it would correspond in date as well as in character to the
Christian festival of the death and resurrection of the Redeemer.
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