Chapter 61 Mexico's custom of killing gods

No nation followed the custom of sacrificing human beings in place of gods as commonly and solemnly as the Aztecs of ancient Mexico.We are familiar with these extraordinary sacrificial rituals. These ceremonies were well described by the Spaniards who conquered Mexico in the sixteenth century.It was natural to arouse their curiosity to discover in this remote country a savage and cruel religion which had so many curious similarities with the dogmas and ceremonies of their own church.Acosta, a member of the Jesuits, said: "They choose a captive they think is good; before they sacrifice him to their idol, they call him by the name of the idol to which he must be sacrificed, and they give him Put on the same clothes as the idol, saying that he represents that idol, and the period of time varies from one year, half a year, or three months. During the period of being the representative of God, they worship him and worship him in the same way as the idol itself At the same time, he also eats and drinks, and seeks pleasure. When he walks through the streets, people come out to worship him, and everyone offers tribute to him, as well as children and sick people, hoping that he will heal them and bless them. They, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, but he had to be accompanied by ten or twelve, in case he ran away. Sometimes he played the flute when he was walking outside, so that people could hear the sound of the flute, so that they could come to him. He worships. When the festival comes, he grows fat, and they kill him, dissect him, eat him, and make him a solemn sacrifice."

The above general description of this custom can also be illustrated by the following specific examples.For example, there is a festival called Tox Cartel, the largest festival of the year in Mexico, dedicated every year to a young man dressed as Tezcatripoca (“God of the Gods”).People made offerings and worshiped the young man as the great god himself for a whole year.According to the old Franciscan monk Tusa Hagen, who was the highest authority in the religion of the Aztecs, the time for the sacrifice of this human god was Easter or a few days after Easter, so if If he is right, the festival coincides both in date and in character with the Christian feast of the death and resurrection of the Savior.He tells us more precisely that the ritual took place on the first day of May in the Aztec calendar, which according to him began about April 23rd or 27th in our calendar .

On this festival, the great God dies in one representative and rises in another, who again enjoys the fatal honor of the god for a year, and then, like all the representatives before him, arrives at Die at the end of the year.This high and dignified office was filled by young men of fit and body carefully selected from among the captives.His body must be flawless, slender as a reed, straight as a branch, neither too tall nor too short.If you eat well and get too fat, you have to drink salt water to lose some weight.In order to make him behave with grace and dignity in his lofty position, he was carefully trained to speak correctly and elegantly like a first-class gentleman, to play the flute, to smoke a cigar, and to smell flowers with the manner of a rich man.He lived in dignity in a temple, and the nobles waited on him, worshiped him, sent him meat, and served him like a monarch.The king himself took care of him to wear splendid clothes "because he had made him a god".On his head was the down of an eagle, and in his hair was the feather of a white rooster, which hung down to his girdle.A wreath like roasted corn was worn on the head, and a wreath of some kind of flower was hung from the shoulders and passed under the ribs.He had gold jewels on his nose, gold bracelets on his arms, golden bells on his legs jingling at every step, turquoise earrings on his ears, turquoise bracelets on his wrists; shells round his neck. Necklace, hanging down to the chest; wearing a knit gown with a gorgeous belt around the waist.As the beaded figure passed through the streets, playing flutes, puffing cigars, and smelling bouquets, all who met him fell to the ground, sighed and shed tears, and prayed to him, and they seized him with their hands. Tu Lai put it in his mouth to show his extreme respect and obedience.The woman came out with the child in her arms, offered the child to him, and called him a god.For "he is our Lord God; he is acknowledged as Lord".He greeted all who thus worshiped him as he passed, with dignity and courteousness.In order to prevent him from escaping, he is accompanied by eight servants in royal livery wherever he goes, four of them have their heads shaved like court slaves, and the other four have long hair. If he designs to escape, the captain of the guard He has to replace him as God's representative and go to death on his behalf.Twenty days before his death, he changed his clothes and was carefully cared for by four maidens, who were called after the names of four goddesses: the flower god, the little corn god, the "mother of our water" god and the salt god, Give them to him as a bride to be married to him.During the last five days, the honor of the gods fell heavily on the doomed victim.The king himself remained in the palace, and the rest of the court followed closely beside the man-god.Banquets and dances are held one after another at a certain time and place.On the last day the young victim, accompanied by his wife and servants, boarded a canoe covered with a royal canopy, and rowed across the lake to a hill by the water's edge.The mountain is called "Farewell Mountain" because his wife bid him her last farewell here.Then only the servant accompanied him into a lonely small temple by the road.The little temple was built in the shape of a pyramid like most Mexican temples; as the young man ascended the steps, every step crushed a flute which he had played in glorious days.When they climbed to the last level, the priests grabbed him and pushed him face up on a stone. One priest cut open his chest, took out his heart and held it to sacrifice to the sun.The corpse of the god of death was not rolled down the steps of the temple, as is the case with other victims, but was carried below the temple, and the head was beheaded and pierced on the point of a spear.That's the fixed ending for the player who plays the biggest god in the Mexican pantheon.The honor of living a short time as a god and receiving a violent death as such was not restricted to men in Mexico;For example, there is a big festival in September every year. Before the festival, there is a strict seven-day fast. During the festival, they consecrate a twelve or thirteen-year-old female slave. They try to find the most beautiful girl and let her dress up as Chikomi, the goddess of corn. Kehuat.They dressed her in the clothes of a goddess, with a crown on her head, a corn shaft around her neck and hands, and a green feather on her head, like a corn.It is said that they did this to show that the corn was nearly ripe for the festival, but because it was still tender, a young girl was chosen to be the goddess of the corn.All day long they led the poor well-dressed child from house to house, with green feathers quivering on his head, dancing with joy, and cheering up the people after a dreary fast.

At dusk, all the people gathered in the temple, and countless lanterns and candles were lit in the courtyard.They don't sleep, but spend the whole night there. At midnight, trumpets, flutes, and horns blow solemn music, and a movable frame or sedan chair is lifted out, decorated with colored balls made of corn cobs, peppers, etc., filled with Various types of seeds.The person who carried it put it at the door of the house with the puppets of the goddess.At this time, the inside and outside of the house were also decorated, and there were beautiful wreaths made of corn cobs, peppercorns, pumpkins, roses and various seeds; the ground was covered with a thick layer of green offerings from believers.After the music stopped, priests and nobles came out in a solemn procession, holding dazzling lights and cigarettes in their hands, and the girl who played the goddess was caught in the middle of the procession.They let her walk into a litter-like frame filled with corn, peppercorns, and pumpkins, and she stood upright on it, holding on to two railings so she wouldn't fall.Priests walked around her with incense.At this time, the music started again, and the priest with the highest position in the temple, holding a razor in his hand, suddenly walked up to her, quickly shaved off the feathers on her head, and shaved off the hair that had been inserted with feathers.Then, performing cumbersome etiquette very solemnly, dedicating feathers and hair to the puppets of the goddess, weeping, rewarding the goddess for giving people abundant fruits and grains in that year.When he cried and prayed, all the people standing in the courtyard wept with him and prayed with him.After this ceremony, the girl steps down from the litter and is escorted to a place where she spends the rest of the night.All the people kept vigil until dawn in the courtyard of the temple by the light of torches.At daybreak, the courtyard of the temple was still full of people. They thought it was disrespectful to leave here, and the priest brought out the girl who was dressed as a goddess. She wore a crown on her head and a corn spool around her neck.She stepped onto the movable frame or sedan chair again, and stood on it, leaning on the railing for support.Then the elders of the temple carried the palanquin on their shoulders, some shook the burning incense, some played music and sang, they carried the palanquin, and they marched through the compound to the temple of the god Huiziropochtri. Then came back to the room where the idol of the Corn Goddess was placed, and the girl played the goddess.So they let the girl get down from the sedan chair and stand on the pile of grains and vegetables that covered the ground of the shrine.There she stood, and all the elders and nobles came in a single file, one after the other, carrying trays full of dried and clotted blood (which was drawn from their ears during the seven-day fast as atonement of).One by one they knelt down before her as we do, and scraped clots of blood from their pans, and laid them before her as offerings, in return for the favor bestowed upon them by the incarnation of the goddess of maize. .When the men offered their blood to the personal representation of the goddess, the women also formed a long line and acted like the men.They also squatted in front of the girl, scraping the blood from the plate.This ceremony will take a long time, because, regardless of age, old or young, without exception, they all have to pass before this flesh god and offer their sacrifices.After that, people go home with joy and eat meat and all kinds of food.According to the material, their pleasure is exactly the same as that of Christians, after abstinence during Lent, eating meat and satisfying other desires at Easter.They rested after eating and drinking enough to watch the night, and returned to the temple to watch the ceremony end.This is how the ceremony ended.The crowd assembled, the priests solemnly incensed the girl representing the goddess, then they threw her on her back on a heap of grain and seeds, cut off her head, caught the spout of blood in a bucket, and poured it on the goddess puppet , Sprayed on the walls of the house and on the grain, pepper, pumpkin, seeds, vegetables and other offerings piled on the ground.After this they flayed her, and clothed her temporarily with a priest, who clothed him with all the clothes the girl wore; put on a mitre, and put about her neck a necklace of golden corncobs. , with feathered cobs and gold.After he was dressed, the priests led him into the crowd, and everyone danced to the beat of the drums. He took the lead in dancing in front of the team while doing various postures, trying to be as lively as possible.In fact he moved very ugly and inconvenient, for he was bound to be too small for a grown man in the tight, wet skin and clothes of the girl.

In the above-mentioned customs, the young girl and the corn goddess are almost identical.The golden cob of corn she wears around her neck, the artificial cob she holds in her hand, and the imitation (supposedly so) green ears of corn in her hair all indicate that she is the embodiment of the corn-spirit.The materials we got also clearly tell us that she is a young girl specially chosen to represent the young corn.The corn was not fully ripe at the time of the festival.In addition, during the festival, she was ceremonially made to stand on the corn pile and accept the adoration and blood sacrifice of all, so that people thanked her for the blessings she bestowed on them as a god.All these clearly declare that she is the corn, the corn goddess.Also, beheading her on a heap of corn and seeds, and pouring her blood not only on the idol of the corn goddess, but on the heaps of corn, peppers, pumpkins, seeds, and vegetables, seems like nothing else The purpose, was to infuse the representatives of these things with the blood of the Goddess of Corn, to promote and strengthen the growth of the crops and the general products of the earth.The significance of this Mexican ritual analogy seems indisputable, and it strongly illustrates my interpretation of other customs of offering human victims to corn.If the Mexican girl who sprinkled her blood on the corn really represented the corn goddess, then the Pawnee likewise sprinkled the blood of a girl who also represented the corn-spirit; The same is true for some human sacrifices in China, and they are all to promote the growth of crops.

Finally, in the final scene of the oracle, the goddess of dead corn is skinned, another man puts on her skin and all her divine garments, and leads the people in a dance.The best explanation for this scene seems to be the assumption that the scene was intended to ensure that the death of the god would immediately bring about the resurrection of the god.If this is so, we may presume with some degree of confidence that the killing of the personal representations of the gods has generally been (perhaps always been) seen as purely for the purpose of perpetuating the youthfulness of the divine The debilitating effects of old age; if God is allowed to enjoy his days, then man must suffer.

The ceremonies of the Mexicans mentioned above suffice to prove that the custom of human sacrifice which I suppose to have prevailed in Aricia was in fact also customary among other peoples.The cultural level of these peoples was by no means lower, if not significantly higher, than that of those in ancient Italy. (The origin of the Arician priesthood, of course, goes back to the cultures of the ancient Italian nations).The indisputable evidence that such rituals were practiced in one part of the world would of course also reasonably support the possibility that they were practiced elsewhere.In short, the facts which we have examined seem to show that the custom of killing those who worship worshipers as gods has prevailed in many parts of the world.