Note 38 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

At the epoch of the Conquest it is abundantly clear that the Aztecâ had succeeded in establishing their tribal cult, enriched with the beliefs of the peoples they had conquered, over a wide area. They had adopted into their pantheon such deities of the surrounding tribes as appealed to their imagination, or were too powerful to be ignored, and actually “imprisoned” many others of lesser puissance, whose idols were kept in confinement in a building within the precincts of the great temple at Mexico-Tenochtitlan.38