represented his country and its four
quarters. The tearing out of his heart by the high-priest, armed with the
tecpatl, the emblem of supreme authority, signified the destruction of the
independent life of his tribe as much as did the burning of the teocalli,
and of its capital. It would seem as though the horrible custom of
annually sacrificing one or more representatives of each conquered tribe,
had been adopted as a means of upholding the assumed authority, inspiring
awe and terror and impressing the realization of conquest and utter
subjection. It is known that sometimes a member of a conquered tribe
voluntarily offered himself as a victim in order to release his people
from their obligation, and thus earned for himself immortality.

An insight into the native association of ideas is afforded by Sahagun's
note that the lord or chieftain was "the heart of his Pueblo," which means
town as well as population. The death of the sacrificed chief, therefore,
actually conveyed the idea of the destruction of the tribal government to
his vanquished subjects. It remains to be seen whether the subsequent
partition of portions of his dead body amongst the priesthood and their
ritual cannibalism did not signify the absorption of the conquered
population into the communal life of their victors. The preservation of
the victim's skull on the Tzompantli, as a register of the conquest of a
chieftain, would also be the logical outcome of the native line of thought
and symbolism.

At the risk of making a somewhat lengthy digression I will again refer
here to a point I have already touched upon, namely, the Mexican
employment of the human figure as an allegorical image of their Empire or
State, the idea being that the four limbs represented its four
governmental and territorial divisions and that these were governed by the
head=the lord of the Above or heaven, and the heart=the lord of the Below
or earth. A careful study of the native Codices has shown me that such was
the native allegory which indeed can be further traced. The territory of a
state reproduced the organization of the human body with its four limbs,
each of these terminating in minor groups of five.

According to the same set of ideas the cursive image of a state could be
conveyed by a main group of five dots, situated in the centre of four
minor similar groups. Cross-lines expressing the partition into four
quarters would complete such a graphic and cursive presentation