318 IDOLS OF MEXICO. 



LTB - v - that have called the workes of mens handes gods, as golde, 



silver, and the invention of the likenes of beastes, or a 

 fruitlesse stone, which hath nothing more in it than antiqui- 

 tie.^ And hee dooth divinely follow this proposition against 

 this errour and follie of the Gentiles ; as also the Prophets 

 isa. xiiv. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruc, and King David, doe treate thereof 



lere. x. 



p^rJxiu am pty- ^ i g convenient and necessary that the ministers 

 of Christ which doe reproove the errors of idolatry, should 

 have a good sight, and consider well these reasons which 

 the holy-Ghost doth so lively set downe, being all reduced 

 viii. into a short sentence by the Prophet Hosea, &quot; He that hath 

 made them was a workeman, and therefore can they be no 

 gods, therefore the Calfe of Samaria shalbe like the Spiders 

 webbe.-&quot; Eeturning to our purpose, there hath beeue 

 great curiositie at the Indies in making of idolles and 

 pictures of diverse formes and matters, which they wor 

 shipped for gods, and in Peru they called them Huacas, 

 being commonly of fowle and deformed beasts ; at the least, 

 such as I have seene, were so. I beleeve verily that the 

 Divel, in whose honour they made these idolles, was pleased 

 to cause himselfe to be worshipped in these deformities, and 

 in trueth it was found so, that the Divell spake and answered 

 in many of these Huacas or idolls, and his priests and 

 ministers came to those Oracles of the father of lies, and 

 such as he is, such were his counsells and prophesies. In the 

 provinces of New Spaine, Mexico, Tescuco, Tlascalla, Cholula, 

 and in the neighbour countries to this realme, this kinde of 

 idolatry hath beene more practised than in any other realme 

 of the world. And it is a prodigious thing to heare the 

 superstitions rehersed that they have vsed in that poynt, of 

 the which it shall not be vnpleasant to speake something. 

 The chiefest idoll of Mexico was, as I have sayde, Vitzilipuztli. 

 It was an image of wood, like to a man, set vpon a stoole 

 of the colour of azure, in a brankard or litter ; at every 

 corner was a piece of wood in forme of a Serpant s head. 



