Note 32 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

When the nomadic Chichimec adopted an agricultural condition, obsidian had doubtless been regarded as sacred for many generations. It was by virtue of this magical stone that the nourishment of the gods was maintained by the sacrifice of deer; but when the Chichimec came to embrace a more settled existence within an agricultural community where deer must certainly have been more scarce, the nourishment of the gods had necessarily to be maintained by other means. The manner in which this was effected is quite clear. Slaves and war-captives were sacrificed instead of beasts of the chase, and at the festival of Mixcoatl, the greatest of the Chichimec gods, women were sacrificed in the place of deer, and after being slain were carried down the steps of the teocalli, their wrists and ankles tied together precisely in the manner in which a deer is trussed by the hunter.32 The transition from deer-sacrifice to a human holocaust and from the hunting to the agricultural condition is well illustrated by an ancient hymn relating to the goddess Itzpapalotl (“Obsidian Butterfly”), who was associated with Mixcoatl.