208 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 
number and each came on the last day of a twenty-day 
period and gave its name to that period. These eight- 
een periods correspond roughly with the Mayan uinals 
or months, but since dates were rarely given in relation 
to them, they do not have the same calendrical im- 
portance. ‘The five days that rounded out the 365-day 
year were considered unlucky. 
Each of the eighteen feasts of the year was under the 
patronage of a special divinity and each had a set of 
ceremonies all its own. In some cases the ceremonies 
were really culminations of long periods of preparation. 
Thus, on the last day of the month, Toxcatl, there was 
sacrificed a young man, chosen from captured chief- 
tains for his beauty and accomplishments, who for an 
entire year had been fitting himself for his one turn 
on the stage of blood and death. ‘This intended vic- 
tim, gayly attired and accompanied by a retinue of 
pages, was granted the freedom of the city. _When the 
month of Toxcatl entered he was given brides, whose 
names were those of goddesses, and in his honor were 
held a succession of brilliant festivals. On the last day 
there was a parade of canoes across Lake Tezcoco and 
when a certain piece of desert land was reached, the 
brides and courtiers bade farewell to the victim. His 
pages accompanied him by a little-used trail to the base 
of an apparently ruined temple. Here he was stripped 
of his splendid garments and of the jewels that were 
symbols of divinity. With only a necklace of flutes 
he mounted the steps of the pyramid. At each step he 
broke one of the flutes and he arrived at the summit, 
where the priests waited, knife in hand, a naked man 
whose heart was to be offered to the very god he had 
impersonated. This ceremony is given only as an ex- 
ample, but it illustrates two characteristics that are 
