526 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
Dr. Edwin James, the editor of Tanner’s Narrative,! cites the “ Calica 
Puran” to show that medicinal images are employed by the people of 
the East Indies when revenge is sought upon an enemy; “ water must 
be sprinkled on the meal or earthen victim which represents the sacri- 
ficer’s enemy.” 
In those parts of India where human sacrifice had been abolished, a 
substitutive ceremony was practiced “by forming a human figure of 
flour-paste, or clay, which they carry into the temples, and there cut 
off its head or mutilate it, in various ways, in presence of the idols.” 
Gomara describes the festival in honor of the Mexican God of Fire, 
called ‘* Xocothuecl,” when an idol was used made of every kind of 
seed and was then enwrapped in sacred blankets to keep it from break- 
ing. “ Hacian aquella noche un idolo de toda suerte de semillas, en- 
volvianlo en mantas benditas, y liabanlo, porque no se deshiciese.”* 
These blessed blankets are also to be seen at the Zuni feast of the 
Little God of Fire, which occurs in the month of December. It is a 
curious thing that the blessed blankets of the Zuni are decorated with 
the butterfly, which appeared upon the royal robes of Montezuma. 
What other seeds were used in the fabrication of these idols is not 
very essential to our purpose, but it may be pointed out that one of 
them was the seed of the ‘‘agenjo,” which was the “ chenopodium” or 
“ artemisia,” known to us as the “ sagebrush.” 
Of the Mexicans we learn from a trustworthy author: “Tambien 
usaban alguna manera de comunion 6 recepcion del sacramento, y es 
que hacian unos idolitos chiquitos de semilla de bledos 6 cenizos, 6 de 
otras yerbas, y ellos mismos se los recibian, como cuerpo 6 memoria 
de sus dioses.” 4 
Mendieta wrote his Historia Eclesidstica Indiana in 1596, “al 
tiempo que esto escribo (que es por Abril del ano de noventa y seis)”® 
and again,® “al tiempo que yo esto escribo.” 
The Mexicans, in the month of November, had a festival in honor of 
Tezeatlipuca. “ Hacian unos bollos de masa de maiz y semejante de 
agenjos, aunque son de otra suerte que los de aca, y echabanlos 4 cocer 
en ollas con agua sola. Entre tanto que hervian y se cocian los bollos, 
tanian los muchachos un atabal . . . . y después comianselos con 
gran devocion.”? 
Gomara’s statement, that while these cakes of maize and wormwood 
seed were cooking the young men were beating on drums, would find 
its parallel in any account that might be written of the behavior of the 
'New York, 1830, p. 191. 
“Dubois, People of India, London, 1817, p. 490. 
8Gomara, Historia de Méjico, p. 445. 
4 Mendieta, Hist. Eclesidstica Ind., p. 108. 
5Tbid., p. 402. 
®Tbid., p. 515. 
7Gomara, Historia de Méjico, p. 446. 
