ome form of sacred marriage rite must have
been annually performed. The consecrated character of their union must
have naturally caused their offspring to be regarded as of a holy and
almost divine origin. It is easy to realize, therefore, how, in ancient
Mexico, the artificial idea of "superior birth" came into existence, how a
family or caste of rulers gradually developed, the members of which were
entitled "teotl"=divine, whilst the men were regarded as "the sons of
Heaven" and the women "the daughters of Earth." It is obvious from this
that the periodical union of the sexes, accompanied as it was, by sacred
dances and the distribution of sacred wine, must have gradually assumed a
semi-religious character, whilst the ritual nuptials of the "divine"
rulers, typifying, as it obviously did, the grand and impressive
phenomenon of the rainy season, must have caused this marriage to assume
the character of a hallowed rite and surrounded it with the most elevated
and intense religious sentiments of which the native mind was capable.

After this recognition of the diverging influences which guided the
development of primitive marriage institutions, we will return to the
rain-priests or "octli-lords," of whom it is repeatedly stated that there
were four hundred, a number corresponding to an assignment of 100 or 5x20
to each of the four provinces or divisions of the commonwealth. Their
emblem was the sacred vase or receptacle and in the "Lyfe of the Indians"
this will be seen figured on their mantas and shields (no. 6_a_). A small
gold plate, of the same shape, is represented as worn by these "lords,"
attached to the nose (no. 6_b_); and, in the same MS., the symbolical
ornament is also carried by the "sister of Tlaloc." It was evidently worn,
like similar ornaments in other countries, hanging from the septum of the
nose, and seems to have indicated a consecration of the breath as the
substance of life. As an inference, merely based on an insight gained into
the native modes of thought, I suggest that the explanation for the
adoption of this ornament may have been the religious idea that the breath
of life, dividing itself as it issues through the nostrils and uniting
when inhaled, appeared to the native thinkers as a marvellous illustration
of unity and duality, both ideas having constantly been present in their
minds.

[Illustration.]

Figure 32.

In the Vienn