VIATICUM AND FUNERAL RITES. 227 
On the plain which had been the scene of this wonderful incantation and 
miraculous result, the descendants of the race consecrated two temples to the 
Sun and Moon, and the pyramids I have just described were, doubtless, the 
bases of their shrines and altars.^ 
It was late when we turned our horses' heads homeward, from the pyr- 
amids. At the base of that of the Moon, I met several old Indians who 
brought me a number of obsidian sacrificial knives, and small heads of a 
finely tempered clay, of which the opposite figures are specimens. They 
have evidently never been attached to bodies, and their purposes are en- 
tirely unknown by the Mexican antiquarians, although they have hitherto 
been discovered in great quantities at the foot of these Teocallis. 
As we were just departing, an old woman lugged from beneath her 
petticoat a singular box of mottled marble, divided into four compart- 
ments, and covered on its exterior with very elaborate carving. The fig- 
ures appeared to be those of Spaniards, and, in one place, there was a 
symbol resembling the cross. She said it had been dug up in an old 
field by her husband, when planting his last year's crop. Having pur- 
chased it for a dollar, it was forthwith deposited in the folds of a serape 
on my pillion, with the sonorous title of " Montezuma's inkstand f" 
We rode merrily home, and reached Tezcoco by a brilliant moonlight, 
meeting troops of Indians returning from their Sunday's frolic in the town. 
As we passed through the numerous corn-fields with which the road-side 
is bordered, we heard the loud crack of the milperos'' whip, as, seated 
on his high perch in the midst of the acres, he waved it, during the whole 
night, in ierrorem, over the flocks of robber black-birds that infest the 
neighborhood as the grain is ripening. 
VIATICUM AND FUNERAL RITES. 
10^^ October. — Monday. An idle day, as Tio Ignacio, (as he is famil- 
iarly called,) was unable to accompany us to Tezcosingo. 
Last night a young woman died in the house next to us, and her body 
is exposed to-day on a bier, surrounded with flowers and candles, in the 
entrance of the dwelling, so that it may be seen by every passer. 
Approaching death, and the funeral services, are matters of considera- 
ble pomp in Mexico with almost all classes — and, especially, with the 
rich. 
• Vide McCuIloh. 329, 230, 231. 
