Lang

(Illustrated London News, 7th Jany. 1893), “cakes were kneaded, and eaten, so that the believers might then incorporate the divine e ence with their own” (this also is a Tibetan custom). Baptism was a solemn Aztek rite: the lips and bosom of the infant were sprinkled with water, and the “Lord of Perfection and Purity” was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away sin, that the ‘child might be born anew.” So wrote the Spanish priests of the 15th and 16th centuries (see Brocklehurst’s Mexico of To-day, and the Quarterly Review, April 1833, as also Pre scott’s Conquest of Mexico). At the annual festival of Hiutzilo-poch-tli the human victim ought, according to the Aztek priests, to be eaten and the blood reverently drunk. This god was worshiped not only in gorgeous temples, but also in sylvan retreats, for he was a deity of vegetation. 250