As an illustration and a description of this rite are contained in the B.N. MS. and the subject is fully treated in my commentary, I shall but allude here to its salient features. It represented a mortal combat between a prisoner, attached by a short piece of cord to the centre of a large circular stone, and five warriors, who fought him singly. The fifth, who was masked as an ocelot and always obtained victory in the unequal contest, fought with his left hand, being "left-handed," a peculiarity ascribed to Huitzilopochtli. It was he who subsequently wore the skin of the flayed victim, an action which obviously symbolized a metamorphosis. One point is obvious: this drama exhibits the victor as a warrior who was able to circumscribe the stone freely and was masked as an ocelot--Tezcatlipoca--the Ursa Major, but was endowed, at the same time, with the left-handedness identified with Huitzilopochtli. This mythical personage vanquishes and actually wears the skin of the man attached to the stone; becomes his embodiment, in point of fact, and obtains the supremacy for which he had fought so desperately. In the light shed by the Codex Fuenleal, before cited, it was easy to see that the entire performance dramatized the mythical combat between Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli for the position of the ruling power, in the heavens--the sun. At the same time it was decidedly puzzling to find celestial supremacy personified by a man, firmly fastened to one spot, the centre of a stone circle. It was impossible not to perceive the identity of thought underlying the representation of this prisoner and the pictures of Tezcatlipoca, the one-footed or lame god--Xonecuilli the Ursa Minor. It was moreover of extreme interest to note the existence of traditional records, preserved in the native myths, of changes in the relative positions of celestial bodies and of the Ursa Major in particular.
Real Estate Digest
The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations — Part 8
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