Yucatan Before and After the Conquest: XXXVII. Sacrifices For the New Year With the Sign Ix. Sinister Prognostics, and Manner of Conjuring Their Effects
SEC. XXXVII. SACRIFICES FOR THE NEW YEAR WITH THE SIGN IX. SINISTER PROGNOSTICS, AND MANNER OF CONJURING THEIR EFFECTS.
In the year whose dominical letter was Ix and the augury Sac-sini, after the election of the president for the celebration of the festival, they made an image of the demon called Sac-uvayeyab, and carried it to the piles of stone at the North, where they had left the other one the year before. They then made a statue of the god Itzamná and set that in the president's house, then all together, with the roadway prepared, they went devoutly to the image of Sac-uvayeyab. On arrival they offered incense in the usual way, cut of the head of a fowl, and placed the image on a wooden stand called Sac-hia, and then carried it ceremoniously and with dances they called alcab-tan kam-ahau. * They brought to the road the usual drinks, and on arriving at the house they set this image before the statue of Itzamná, and there made their offerings, and distributed them; to the
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Others drew blood and with it anointed the stone of the demon Sac-acantun, and they then kept the idols as they had done the year before, offering them incense until the last day. Then they carried Itzamná to the temple and Sac-uvayeyab to the place of the West to leave him there to be gotten the next year.
The evils the Indians feared for the ensuing year if they were negligent in these ceremonies were loss of strength, fainting and ailments of the eyes; it
65:* This may be rendered: "Hasten to receive the Lord."