BOURKE. ] THE YIAUHTLI OF THE AZTECS. 521 
bread of it. Whilst the root is fresh it is harsh and acrid, but, being dried, it loses 
the greater part of its acrimony. To judge by these qualities, the tuckahoe may 
very likely be the Arum virginianum. 
The Shoshoni and Bannock of Idaho and Montana eat the tule bulb.! 
Something analogous to hoddentin is mentioned by the chronicler of 
Drake’s voyage along the California coast about A. D. 1540. Speak- 
ing of the decorations of the chiefs of the Indians seen near where San 
Francisco now stands, he says another mark of distinction was “ a cer- 
tain downe, which groweth up in the countrey upon an herbe much like 
our lectuce, which exceeds any other downe in the world for finenesse 
and beeing layed upon their cawles, by no winds can be removed. Of 
such estimation is this herbe amongst them that the downe thereof is 
not lawfull to be worne, but of such persons as are about the king, 
. . . and the seeds are not used but onely in sacrifice to their 
gods.”? 
Mr. Cushing informs me that hoddentin is mentioned as a food in the 
myths of the Zuni under the name of oneya, from oellu, “ food.” 
In Kamtchatka the people dig and cook the bulbs of the Kamtchatka 
lily, which seems to be some sort of a tuber very similar to that of the 
tule. 
“ Bread is now made of rye, which the Kamtchadals raise and grind 
for themselves; but previous to the settlement of the country by the 
Russians the only native substitute for bread was a sort of baked paste, 
consisting chiefly of the grated tubers of the purple Kamtchatkan lily.” 
HODDENTIN THE YIAUHTLI OF THE AZTECS. 
There would seem to be the best of reason for an identification of 
hoddentin with the ‘“ yiauhtli” which Sahagun and Torquemada tell 
us was thrown by the Aztecs in the faces of victims preparatory to sac- 
rificing them to the God of Fire, but the explanation given by those 
authors is not at all satisfactory. The Aztecs did not care much whether 
the victim suffered or not; he was sprinkled with this sacred powder 
because he had assumed a sacred character. 
Padre Sahagun ‘ says that the Aztecs, when about to offer human 
sacrifice, threw ‘‘a powder named ‘yiauhtli’ on the faces of those whom 
they were about tosacrifice, that they might become deprived of sensa- 
tion and not suffer much pain in dying.” 
In sacrificing slaves to the God of Fire, the Aztec priests “ tomaban 
ciertos polvos de una semilla, llamada Yauhtli, y polvoreaban las caras 
‘Personal notes, April 5, 1881. 
?Drake, World Encompassed, pp. 124-126, quoted by H. H. Bancroft, Native Races, vol. 1, pp. 387-388. 
(This chaplain stated so many things ignorantly that nothing is more probable than that he attempted 
to describe, withont seeing it, the plant from which the Indians told him that hoddentin (or downe) 
was obtained. The principal chief or ‘‘ king’ would, on such an awe-inspiring occasion as meeting 
with strange Europeans, naturally want to cover himself and followers with all the hoddentin the 
country afforded.) 
3 Kennan, Tent Life in Siberia, p. 66. 
* Quoted by Kingsborough, vol. 6. p. 100. 
