idently applied to the identical statue. He relates that "the
bodies of the idols are made of a dough consisting of all the kinds of
seeds and vegetables that these people ate. These are ground, mixed with
each other and then moistened with the blood of the hearts of human
victims ..." (_op. cit._ p. 105). Sahagun relates that an image of the
earth goddess, under the title of Seven-serpents or twins, was made of
this sacred dough and that offerings of all kinds of maize, beans, etc.,
were made before it "because she is the author and giver of all these
things which sustain the life of the people" (book II, 4). It is well
known that the dough images were broken into small pieces and these were
distributed to the priests and people, who partook of the substance after
having prepared themselves by fasting, for the sacred rite. I draw
attention to the fact that the above sacred substance is but the natural
outcome of the primitive notion already mentioned, which led the hunters
to spill blood upon the earth, to obtain its increased fruitfulness. An
insight having been thus obtained of the origin of blood sacrifices in
ancient America, it is possible to understand the meaning of certain
representations showing the performance of ritual blood-offerings.

On the well-known bas-relief preserved in the National Museum of Mexico,
and illustrated in the Anales (vol. I, p. 63), the two historical rulers
of ancient Mexico, who figure as Quequetzalcoas, or divine twins, in
exactly the same costume, are sculptured with blood flowing from their
shins and in the act of piercing their ears with a sharp bone instrument.
Two streams of blood descend from these and meet before falling into the
open jaws figured beneath an altar, on which two conventionalized flowers
appear. The two rows of teeth=tlantli, convey the sound of the affix
tlan=land of, or tlalli=earth. But the most remarkable and striking
instance of the group of ideas we have been studying is found on p. 62 of
the Borgian Codex. On a background formed by a pool of water, there is a
group which represents the "earth-mother" lying on a band of lizard-skin,
with two maize plants issuing from her body and growing into a large
two-branched tree, in the centre of which is a flint-knife or tecpatl. A
bird stands on its summit and its branches terminate in maize plants. Its
growth is being furthered by the two streams of blood which proceed from
two human figures, standing at each side o