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THE CUSTOM of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great Mexican god Huitzilopochtli or Vitzilipuztli was made of dough, then broken in pieces, and solemnly eaten by his worshippers.
Exodus xxxiv. 20. Deut. xii. 31. 2 Kings iii. 27. The Golden Bough, vol. "The Dying God," p. 167. The awful sacrifices made by the Aztecs in Mexico to their gods Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipoca, and others are described in much detail by Sahagun, the Spanish missionary of the sixteenth century. The victims were mostly prisoners of war or young children; they were numbered by thousands.
Montezuma, attended by a high priest, came forward to receive Cortés. After conferring with the priests the emperor conducted the Spaniards into the building, which was adorned with sculptured figures; at one end was a recess, with a roof of timber richly carved and gilt, and here stood a colossal image of Huitzilopochtli, the war-god.
The darkness of the storm outside shrouded the oratory in a dusky twilight; but even through the shadows which lay thick about us we could see that there had been within this chamber some outbreak of extraordinary and tremendous violence; for the image of the god Huitzilopochtli had been cast down and broken into fragments, and just behind where it had stood there was a dark rift in the gold-plating of the walls, where several plates had been wrenched bodily away.
For this name not only is given in the Aztec traditions as that of the sacred spot in which their god Huitzilopochtli spoke to them, but survives until this present day in the name of the village that lies at the foot of the sacred mountain, in the Valley of Mexico, called by the Aztecs the Hill of Huitzachtla, and by the Spaniards the Hill of the Star on which, at the end of each cycle of fifty-two years, the sacred fire was renewed.
His voice shook, and his whole person trembled, as he asked, "Are ye the children of Chac-Mool, the God of Fire, and therefore the chosen servants of Huitzilopochtli the Terrible, that ye thus can do what among us is done only by our Priest Captain Itzacoatl?"
Here stood the Christian cross; there was planted the war-god, Huitzilopochtli; there the two faiths fought out their battle, and the vanquished were tossed dying down the sides of the Teocalli. Then the Spaniard was victorious; fire was set to the Teocalli, and the cannibal Aztec religion rolled away in the clouds of smoke and vapour of flame.
Near the sacrificial block were the altars, and sanctuaries of the gods, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, and others, with idols as hideous as their names. On these altars smoked fresh human hearts, of which the gods were fond, while other parts of the bodies were ready for the kitchens of the communal houses below. The gods were voracious as wolves, and the victims as numerous.
The Indians had, of course, been converted en masse, and churches were being built in all directions. The great pyramid where Huitzilopochtli, the God of war, was worshipped, had been razed to the ground, and its great sculptured blocks of basalt were sunk in the earth as a foundation for a cathedral.
People don't print such books, nowadays. Nobody would have time enough to read them, I suppose, and they couldn't sell 'em cheap enough. This is wonderful! It's a picture of the old Mexican god, Huitzilopochtli."
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