The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

198 HISTORY OF INITIATION
of uncouth and horrible figures, compounded of men and
animals.
"
They had dark houses full of idols, great and
small, and wrought of sundry metals. These were all
bathed and washed with human blood an inch thick on
the walls of the houses, and a foot thick on the floors." 24
Their sacred chapel at Mexico was decorated with the
skulls of those unhappy wretches w r ho had been slain in
sacrifice and their priests were clad in garments made
of their skins. 25
The celebration of their mysterious rites was preceded
by long and painful fastings and mortification. The candidate
was subjected to all the terrors, sufferings, and
penances which attended the purifications of the eastern
world. He was scourged with knotted cords ; his flesh
was cut with knives, 26 or cauterized with red hot cinders ;
and many other severities was he compelled to undergo,
that his fortitude might be fully proved before he was
admitted to those distinctions which conferred the high
privilege of personally sacrificing
his fellow men. The
probation was pressed with such unrelenting cruelty,
that many perished under it. And should the wretched
candidate, even under the most excruciating infliction,
leading principles of the universe and as such ;
they were invariably
introduced both into the Temples, and into the due celebration of the
Mysteries The real ground of their being accounted the greatest of
the gods was this : they were employed, according to their sexes, to
symbolize the great father and the great mother. And in this manner
we find them venerated in every quarter of the globe." (Fab. Pag.
Idol., b. ii., c. 7.
24
Gage. Surv. of the West Indies, p. 12.
25 Human victims were sacrificed in Tlacaxipehualitztli the first
month of the Mexican year, for the purpose of procuring their skins
for the priests. (Humb. Res., vol. i., p. 290.) The origin of this revolting
custom may be found in the following legend, which is recorded
in a folio, entitled, "The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of various
"
Nations," (p. 310). Tozi, that is to say, our Grand Mother, was of
mortal extraction. Vitzliputzli procured her divine honours by enjoining
the Mexicans to demand her of her father, who was King of Culhucacan,
for their queen ; this being done, they also commanded him
to put her to death, afterwards to flay her, and to cover a young man
with her skin. It was in this manner she was stripped of her humani-
ty, to be translated among the gods."
26 Quetzalcoatl " introduced the custom of piercing the lips and ears,
and lacerating the rest of the body with the prickles of the agave leaf,
or the thorns of the cactus, and of putting reeds into the wounds, in
order that the blood might be seen to trickle more copiously." (Humb.
Res., vol. i. ; p. 92.)