[V-37] _Ten Broeck_, in _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. iv., pp. 85-6.
[V-38] _Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner's Rept._, pp. 42-3, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol. iii.; _Dodt_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1870, p. 129.
GODS AND RELIGIOUS RITES OF CHIHUAHUA, SONORA, DURANGO, AND SINALOA -- THE MEXICAN RELIGION, RECEIVED WITH DIFFERENT DEGREES OF CREDULITY BY DIFFERENT CLASSES OF THE PEOPLE -- OPINIONS OF DIFFERENT WRITERS AS TO ITS NATURE -- MONOTHEISM OF NEZAHUALCOYOTL -- PRESENT CONDITION OF THE STUDY OF MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY -- TEZCATLIPOCA -- PRAYERS TO HIM IN TIME OF PESTILENCE, OF WAR, FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY -- PRAYER USED BY AN ABSOLVING PRIEST -- GENUINENESS OF THE FOREGOING PRAYERS -- CHARACTER AND WORKS OF SAHAGUN.
From the Pueblo cities let us now pass down into Mexico, glancing first at the northern and north-western neighbors of this great people that ruled on the plateau of Anáhuac. The Chihuahuans worshiped a great god called by them the 'captain of heaven' and recognized a lesser divinity as abiding in and inspiring their priests and medicine-men. They rendered homage to the sun; and when any comet or other phenomenon appeared in the heavens they offered sacrifice thereto; their sacrifice being much after the Mexican fashion--fruits, herbs, and such things as they had, together with blood drawn from their bodies by the pricks of a thorn.[VI-1]
In Sonora--the great central heart of Mexico making its beatings more and more clearly felt as we approach it nearer--the vague feelings of awe and reverence with which the savage regards the unseen, unknown, and unknowable powers, begin at last to somewhat lose their vagueness and to crystallize into the recognition of a power to be represented and symbolized by a god made with hands. The offerings thereto begin also, more and more, to lose their primitive simple shape, and the blood, without which is no remission of sins, stains the rude altar that a more Arcadian race had only heaped with flowers and fruit. The natives of Sonora bring, says Las Casas, "many deer, wolves, hares, and birds before a large idol, with music of many flutes and other instruments of theirs; then cutting open the animals through the middle, they take out their hearts and hang them round the neck of the image, wetting it with the flowing blood. It is certain that the only offering made in all this province of Sonora was the hearts of brutes."[VI-2] All this they did more especially in two great festivals they had, the one at seed-time, the other at harvest; and we have reason to rejoice that the thing was no worse, reason to be glad that the hearts of brave men and fair women, and soft children not knowing their right hand from their left, were not called for, as in the land of the eagle and cactus banner, to feed that devil's Minotaur, superstition.