Note 7 — Chapter V · DEITIES OF THE EARTH AND GROWTH PROPER

Ochpaniztli.—This, the great festival of Tlazolteotl, was held in the opening of the eleventh Aztec month, commencing, says Sahagun,7 about September 14th. Fifteen days before the festival began, those who were to celebrate it danced the sacred dances, which they continued for eight days. In complete silence they ranged themselves in four lines, and danced with their hands full of flowers, keeping time most precisely. At the end of eight days those women who practised medicine, the mid wives, leech-women, and steam-bath keepers probably, divided themselves into two companies and presented themselves before a female victim who represented the goddess and who was destined for sacrifice. Their object was, says Sahagun, to amuse her and to keep her from pondering upon her fate. The victim herself, accompanied by three old women called her “mothers,” headed one of these parties, who pelted each other with the red leaves of the cactus flower. In the whole performance we can see some such concept as survives in a manner in the modern “battle of flowers,” which in certain towns in Southern France ushers in the season of Lent. The victim was then led back to the place of detention, and the ceremony was repeated for several days in succession. Then the “mothers” who guarded her led her through the public market-place for the last time, on which occasion she sowed maize on every side, and on that day she was taken to a place near the teocalli8 where she was to be sacrificed. As it was of importance that she should not mourn, she was informed that she was to become the bride of the king, and for this imaginary honour she was adorned with the full insignia of the goddess Tlazolteotl.