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More exactly he tells us that the sacrifice took place on the first
day of the fifth Aztec month, which according to him began on the
twenty-third or twenty-seventh day of April.
At this festival the great god died in the person of one human
representative and came to life again in the person of another, who
was destined to enjoy the fatal honour of divinity for a year and to
perish, like all his predecessors, at the end of it. The young man
singled out for this high dignity was carefully chosen from among
the captives on the ground of his personal beauty. He had to be of
unblemished body, slim as a reed and straight as a pillar, neither
too tall nor too short. If through high living he grew too fat, he
was obliged to reduce himself by drinking salt water. And in order
that he might behave in his lofty station with becoming grace and
dignity he was carefully trained to comport himself like a gentleman
of the first quality, to speak correctly and elegantly, to play the
flute, to smoke cigars and to snuff at flowers with a dandified air.


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