Note IX-27 — Chapter IX · GODS, SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, AND WORSHIP.

Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 479-483, vol. vii., pp. 151-2; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. ii., lib. vi., pp. 215-221. According to some authors, and I think Boturini for one, this baptism was supplemented by passing the child through fire. There was such a ceremony; however, it was not connected with that of baptism, but it took place on the last night of every fourth year, before the five unlucky days. On the last night of every fourth year, parents chose god-parents for their children born during the three preceding years, and these god-fathers and god-mothers passed the children over, or near to, or about the flame of a prepared fire (rodearlos por las llamas del fuego que tenian aparejado para esto, que en el latin se dice lustrare). They also bored the children's ears, which caused no small uproar (Habia gran voceria de muchachos y muchachas por el ahugeramiento de las orejas) as may well be imagined. They clasped the children by the temples and lifted them up 'to make them grow;' wherefore they called the feast izcalli, 'growing.' They finished by giving the little things pulque in tiny cups, and for this the feast was called the 'drunkenness of children.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 189-192. In the Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. xxxi., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 181, there is given a description of the water baptism differing somewhat from that given in the text. It runs as follows: 'They took some ficitle; and having a large vessel of water near them, they made the leaves of the ficitle into a bunch, and dipped it into the water, with which they sprinkled the child; and after fumigating it with incense, they gave it a name, taken from the sign on which it was born; and they put into its hand a shield and arrow, if it was a boy, which is what the figure of Xiuatlatl denotes, who here represents the god of war; they also uttered over the child certain prayers in the manner of deprecations, that he might become a brave, intrepid, and courageous man. The offering which his parents carried to the temple the elder priests took and divided with the other children who were in the temple, who ran with it through the whole city.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 107, again describes this rite, in substance as follows: 'They had a sort of baptism: thus when the child was a few days old, an old woman was called in, who took the child out into the court of the house where it was born, and washed it a certain number of times with the wine of the country, and as many times again with water; then she put a name on it, and performed certain ceremonies with the umbilical cord. These names were taken from the idols, or from the feasts that fell about that time, or from a beast or bird.' See further Esplicacion de la Coleccion de Mendoza, pt iii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 90-1; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 445, 449-458; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., pp. 85-9; Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, tom. ii., pp. 311, 318; Gama, Dos Piedras, pt ii., pp. 39-41; Prescott's Mex., vol. iii., p. 385; Brinton's Myths, pp. 122, 130; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 652; Biart, La Terre Tempéreé, p. 274. Mr Tylor, speaking of Mexico, in his Anahuac, p. 279, says: 'Children were sprinkled with water when their names were given to them. This is certainly true, though the statement that they believed that the process purified them from original sin is probably a monkish fiction.' Farther reading, however, has shown Mr Tylor the injustice of this judgment, and in his masterly latest and greatest work (see Primitive Culture, vol. ii., pp. 429-36), he writes as follows: 'The last group of rites whose course through religious history is to be outlined here, takes in the varied dramatic acts of ceremonial purification or lustration. With all the obscurity and intricacy due to age-long modification, the primitive thought which underlies these ceremonies is still open to view. It is the transition from practical to symbolic cleansing, from removal of bodily impurity to deliverance from invisible, spiritual, and at last moral evil. (See this vol. p. 119).... In old Mexico, the first act of ceremonial lustration took place at birth. The nurse washed the infant in the name of the water-goddess, to remove the impurity of its birth, to cleanse its heart and give it a good and perfect life; then blowing on water in her right hand she washed it again, warning it of forthcoming trials and miseries and labors, and praying the invisible Deity to descend upon the water, to cleanse the child from sin and foulness, and to deliver it from misfortune. The second act took place some four days later, unless the astrologers postponed it. At a festive gathering, amid fires kept alight from the first ceremony, the nurse undressed the child sent by the gods into this sad and doleful world, bade it to receive the life-giving water, and washed it, driving out evil from each limb and offering to the deities appointed prayers for virtue and blessing. It was then that the toy instruments of war or craft or household labor were placed in the boy's or girl's hand (a custom singularly corresponding with one usual in China), and the other children, instructed by their parents, gave the new-comer its child-name, here again to be replaced by another at manhood or womanhood. There is nothing unlikely in the statement that the child was also passed four times through the fire, but the authority this is given on is not sufficient. The religious character of ablution is well shown in Mexico by its forming part of the daily service of the priests. Aztec life ended as it had begun, with the ceremonial lustration; it was one of the funeral ceremonies to sprinkle the head of the corpse with the lustral water of this life.'