MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. HI 
given him by the Mexicans ; and at the close of the festival in his honor 
the fires in the temples and dwellings were extinguished, and rekindled 
from the one lighted before the idol. 
Centeotl, the " goddess of the Earth and Corn ;" and known, also, by 
another word which signifies " she who supports us." This was a god- 
dess devotedly worshipped by the Totonacos, who believed that in the 
course of time she would free them from the slavery of the other gods, 
and abolish the horrors of human sacrifice. To her only were offered 
doves, quails, leverets, and such harmless animals. She was a Mexican 
Ceres. 
MicTLANiEUCTLi, " the god of Hell," and his female companion. Sac- 
rifices were made to him at night, and his priests were clad in black 
during their ministrations at the altars. 
JoALTEUcTLi, " the god of Night ;" was the divinity who gave sleep 
to children, while Joalticitl was the goddess of cradles, and presided 
over their infants in the watches of the night. 
The next deity was the one most honored by the Mexicans, and re- 
garded as their chief protector — Huitzilipotchtli, or Mexitli, " the god 
of War," the Mexican Mars. 
This was the mighty power who became, (according to their tradition,) 
the protector of the Mexicans ; conducted them through the years of their 
pilgrimage, and at length, settled them on the spot where they afterward 
founded the great city of Mexico. 
" To him they raised that superb Temple so much celebrated by the 
Spaniards. His statue was of gigantic size, in the posture of a man seated 
on a blue-colored bench, from the corners of which issued four gigantic 
snakes. His forehead was blue, and his face and the back of his head 
were covered with golden masks. He wore a crest shaped like the beak 
of a bird. On his neck was a collar of ten fgures of the human heart. 
In his right hand he bore a blue club, huge and twisted — in his left a 
shield, on which appeared five balls of feathers disposed in the form of a 
cross, while from the upper part of it rose a golden flag with four arrows, 
which the Mexicans pretend to have been sent from heaven to perform 
the glorious actions of his history. His body was girt with a large 
golden snake, and adorned with various lesser figures of animals, made 
of gold and silver and precious stones, each of which ornaments had a 
peculiar meaning."* 
Whenever war was contemplated by the Mexicans, this god was im- 
plored for protection, and they offered up to him a greater number of 
human victims than to any of the other deities. The only figure I found 
in Mexico upon which the antiquarians seemed agreed as to its represen- 
tation of this god, (though not with all the splendor described by Clavi- 
gero,) was the following : it is in bas-relief, and is in the collection of 
Don Mariano Sanchez y Mora, ex-Conde del Penasco. 
• Vide Clavigero and McCuIloh. 
