Solemn banquets and dances followed
each other in regular succession and at appointed places. On the
last day the young man, attended by his wives and pages, embarked in
a canoe covered with a royal canopy and was ferried across the lake
to a spot where a little hill rose from the edge of the water. It
was called the Mountain of Parting, because there his wives bade him
a last farewell. Then, accompanied only by his pages, he repaired to
a small and lonely temple by the wayside. Like the Mexican temples
in general, it was built in the form of a pyramid; and as the young
man ascended the stairs he broke at every step one of the flutes on
which he had played in the days of his glory. On reaching the summit
he was seized and held down by the priests on his back upon a block
of stone, while one of them cut open his breast, thrust his hand
into the wound, and wrenching out his heart held it up in sacrifice
to the sun. The body of the dead god was not, like the bodies of
common victims, sent rolling down the steps of the temple, but was
carried down to the foot, where the head was cut off and spitted on
a pike.
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