His poems, novels and comedies are full of wit and exuberant vitality.
His principal works are: _Poèmes de prison_ (1875), written during his detention, _Soirs de bataille_ (1883); _Jours de combat_ (1883); and _Le Travail_ (1889); the novels, _Madame Phaéton_ (1885) and _Monsieur le gendarme_ (1891); and the dramas, _Une étoile_ (1888) and _Le sommeil de Danton_ (1888).
HUICHOL (pronounced Veetchol--a corruption of the native name _Vishalika_ or _Virarika_, doctors or healers), a tribe of Mexican Indians living in a mountainous region on the eastern side of the Chapalagana river, Jalisco. Huichol tradition assigns the south as their place of origin. Their name of "healers" is deserved, for about one-fourth of the men are Shamans. The Huichols are in much the same social condition as at the time of the Aztec empire. They were conquered by the Spaniards in 1722.
For full description of the people and their habits see Carl Lumholtz, _Unknown Mexico_ (1903).
HUITZILOPOCHTLI, the supreme being in the religions of ancient Mexico, and as a specialized deity, the god of war. He was the mythic leader and chief divinity of the Aztecs, dominant tribe of the Nahua nation. As a humming-bird Huitzilopochtli was alleged to have led the Aztecs to a new home. E. B. Tylor (_Primitive Culture_, 4th ed., vol. ii. p. 307) calls him an "inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity"; and finds, in the fact that his chief festival (when his paste idol was shot through with an arrow, and afterwards eaten) was at the winter solstice, ground for believing that he was at first a nature-god, whose life and death were connected with the year's. His idol was a huge block of basalt (still thought to be preserved in Mexico), on one side of which he is sculptured in hideous form, adorned with the feathers of the humming-bird. The ceremonies of his worship were of the most bloodthirsty character, and hundreds of human beings were murdered annually before his shrine, their limbs being eaten by his worshippers. When his temple was dedicated in 1486 it is traditionally reported that 70,000 people were killed. See MEXICO.
HULDA, in Teutonic mythology, goddess of marriage. She was a beneficent deity, the patroness and guardian of all maidens (see BERCHTA).