Note IX-69 — Chapter IX · GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP. (continued 2)

Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 23, 37-43; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 51-3, 86-97; Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Remensis, pt. i., lam. iii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 133; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. lxiii., in Id., vol. v., p. 191; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 154, 252-4; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt. ii., pp. 50-4; Prescott's Mex., vol. i., p. 78, note; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 481. We learn from Clavigero, Ibid., tom. i., pp. 281-2, that this great gladiatorial block was sometimes to an extraordinary extent a 'stone of sacrifice' to the executioners as well as to the doomed victim. In the last year of the reign of the last Montezuma, a famous Tlascaltec general, Tlahuicol, was captured by the merest accident. His strength of arm was such that few men could lift his maquahuil, or sword of the Mexican type, from the ground. Montezuma, too proud to use such an inglorious triumph, or perhaps moved by a sincere admiration of the terrible and dignified warrior, offered him his liberty, either to return to Tlascala, or to accept high office in Mexico. But the honor of the chief was at stake, as he understood it; and not even a favor would he accept from the hated Mexican; the death, the death! he said, and, if you dare, by battle on the gladiatorial stone. So they tied him, (by the foot says Clavigero), upon the temalacatl, armed with a great staff only, and chose out champions to kill him from the most renowned of the warriors; but the grim Tlascaltec dashed out the brains of eight with his club, and hurt twenty more, before he fell, dying like himself. They tore out his heart, as of wont, and a costlier heart to Mexico never smoked before the sun.