SACRIFICIAL STONE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO. 337 



of this stone's history ; many assert that it was not the sacrificial stone of the 

 Aztecs used in the city of Mexico. No doubt the basin in the center, and groove 

 running from it across the top and down the sides were made after the ornamen- 

 tation was completed. As this is claimed to represent the journeying of the 

 Aztecs to the city of Mexico, why did they not cut the groove first, then the his- 

 torical representation? As it is, the figures through which the groove is cut, are 

 partially effaced. The groove was evidently cut after the completion of the stone, 

 and in a very rough, uneven manner, passing through the figures in order to give 

 a false importance to a carved stone, which, if allowed to tell its own tale, or, 

 rather, if its history had not been destroyed so as to attach a false representation 

 to it, would still be a valuable monument. 



One would think that an object designed for so important a purpose, would 

 have been dressed into shape at the same time, without having to pick up an ac- 

 cidental stone and improvise it for an occasion. If the figures on the surface 

 represent the journeying of the Aztecs to the valley of Mexico, then it did not 

 take many to form the procession. Is there not a great probability that this so- 

 called sacrificial stone had a useful purpose ? We are led to this conclusion by 

 seeing scattered about many large round stones, both plain and ornamented, 

 yet without grooves. In the old mills of the early Spaniards, are to be found 

 the very counterparts of these. And why did the Indians want a stone with a 

 hole in it, to retain the heads of prisoners as they were severed? A round 

 object allowing the head to hang over so as to bare the neck for the knife, would 

 be better adapted for the purpose, than to lay the head in a hole with the neck 

 contracted. Is it |. roved that the Aztecs cut off the heads of their victims? All 

 the stone knives the writer has seen with edges of sufficient length, strength and 

 sharpness, would be poor, slow tools for the cutting off of the numerous heads 

 said to have been daily removed by Montezuma. In the collection of antiquities 

 are several obsidian knives marked " sacrificial knives used by the Aztecs," all of 

 which are better adapted to cut off the tops from turnips and carrots, than human 

 heads, especially if bones were suddenly hit, as the brittleness of these knives 

 would be their speedy destruction. If these so-called Aztecs burnt their dead 

 as a national custom, why accuse them of cutting off human beads to appease 

 their gods ? It was only giving the Spanish priests a pretext to call them idola- 

 tors ; so they called it sacrificing human beings. It was good religious capital to 

 work upon. One proof of their burning their dead is, that no graves have been 

 found in the country they occupied, that are older than the Spanish conquest. 

 The Chichimecs, called Aztecs, could not cut off the heads of all their victims; 

 some would die. Why are they not found? There are three skeletons in the 

 museum of the city of Mexico, which were obtained in the old Inquisition build- 

 ing of the city, of those who were starved to death because of their refusal to 

 yield to church dictation. They find no bodies because they were all burnt ac- 

 cording to custom, a usage continued to the present day by their kin the Apache, 

 the Yuma, Mojave and others, — plain, simple Indians, not fond of the pageantry 



