Ayya, I would not be the first to cast a stone at my Aztec ancestors.

There was more to the story of the Aztecs, the return of Quetzalcoatl, and the attack by G.o.ds astride great animals, but that must wait for another time. But there was one custom of my indio ancestors that I found more repugnant than ripping out beating hearts. Aztec priests often slit their pene so that they could not have relations with women. And if they did have relations despite the cut, their virile juice spilled onto the ground. And many of their warriors cut off a piece of the skin at the front of their pene and offered the skin in sacrifice.

Eh, you think it was just a dream? This tale of Huitzilopochtli and blood, that I had walked with the G.o.ds? Perhaps so, but I carried away from that "dream" a mark placed upon me by the G.o.ds: The skin at the tip of my pene was severed. I had made the sacrifice of an Aztec warrior.

I learned more than indio ways and legends from the Healer. Besides practical facts about the plants and animals of New Spain, information that I could use if I ever had to survive from what I could find on the land, watching his wise and smooth manners gave me insights into dealing with people. Fray Antonio had dealt bluntly with people he had controversies with, often as a battering ram, driven by his pa.s.sions. The Healer was a man of cleverness and cunning. Had he not deprived a master liar and thief of two reales? How he caught a thief with a snake trap gave me fresh perception about how greed can snarl a criminal. Later in life I would use the same trick. He called it "the snake trap."

In a village where we had stopped to heal local ailments, someone stole the Healer's prize pipe, the one that fed the belly of Chac-Mool. Only a fool would steal from a sorcerer, but fool he may have been. The Healer had had the pipe long before I was born. I could tell from the quiet intensity of his eyes that he was more upset about the loss than his impa.s.sive facial features revealed.

To catch the thief, he told me, he would use a snake trap.

"What's a snake trap?" I asked him.

"A snake trap is two eggs and a ring. The ring is attached upright to a piece of wood. Close to a snake hole, an egg is placed on each side of the ring. When the snake sees the egg, it swallows the first one. Snakes, like people, are greedy, and rather than stealing just one egg, as soon as the egg is worked down its body a little, it slips through the ring and swallows the second egg. It is now trapped because it can't go any farther forward or backward because the ring won't slip past either egg until they digest."

"You can't get a man to slip through a ring for an egg."

He twittered. "Not for an egg, but perhaps for tobacco to smoke in the pipe he stole."

The Healer placed a pouch of tobacco in our campsite at the spot where the pipe had been taken. He smeared red chili powder on the underside of some of the tobacco leaves.

"The thief already has his head through the ring, he did that when he slipped into our camp to steal my pipe. Now we shall see if instead of backing out of the ring, he takes the tobacco."

We left our camp for the cacique's hut, where those requiring the Healer's services had gathered. After an hour I went back to the camp under the pretense of getting something. The tobacco was gone. I ran and told the Healer.

Moments later the cacique ordered every person in the village out into the street and instructed them to hold up their hands.

One man had red powder on his hands. We found the pipe under the straw bedding in his hut.

We left the thief to his fellow villagers for punishment. I got another lesson in the Aztec Ways when the Healer explained how a punishment would be devised.

"Our people believe that a crime should be punished with the same instrument that the crime was committed with. If a man murders another with a knife, the killer will be stabbed with a knife, the same one if possible; that returns the evil the killer gave to the knife back to the killer himself."

Tobacco theft presented a less clear choice of punishment than murder. I wondered what punishment the cacique and village elders would devise.

They consulted in a circle while they drank pulque-and smoked the ever-present tobacco, of course.

Finally, they came to a conclusion.

The thief was tied to a tree and a cloth sack placed over his head. A small hole was cut in the sack and one by one the men of the village went up to the sack with their burning pipes and blew smoke into the hole.

At first I heard the tied man coughing. The coughing became a gasping hack. When it began to sound like a death rattle, I left and returned to our camp.

FIFTY.

I was to learn that there was a dark side to Aztec magic, a side as gruesome and b.l.o.o.d.y as anything imagined by Huitzilopochtli, evil so perverse, it was uncontrollable, even by the wielders. The fray used to accuse me of finding trouble like a bee finds pollen. Because of the tragic consequences that would follow, this was a time when I wished that I had not found trouble.

My introduction to the dark side of magic came when I encountered someone else I had also met at the treasure fleet fair.

We had come to a small town during the time of dia de los muertos, the Day of the Dead festivities. This was a day the indios remembered their dead with food and drink and much gaiety in the cemetery where their dead are buried.

There are actually two days of the dead. The first day is called el dia de los angelitos, the Day of the Little Angels, a day set aside for honoring children who have died. The next day honors adults.

After we unloaded the donkey and made camp, I wandered around the town, watching the festivities. The town square was crowded with people and music and fun. The town was much smaller than Veracruz, hardly more than a large village, but many people had come from the countryside to partic.i.p.ate. Children ran around with candy "toys" in the shape of skulls, coffins, and other macabre items. Street vendors sold pan de muerto, the bread of the dead, small loafs with a decoration of cross and bones.

We celebrated the Day of the Dead in Veracruz and I knew its history from Fray Antonio. When the Spanish conquered the indios, they discovered that the Aztecs celebrated their dead children and adults in late summer. The celebration was similar to the All Souls Day and All Saints Day that the Church celebrated in November. The clever priests, wanting to ensure that it is a Christian holiday and not a pagan one that gets celebrated, moved the Aztec holiday to merge it with the Christian festivities.

The celebrations are partly done in the privacy of home, where altars are constructed for the dead, and partly at the graveyard, where friends and family hold candlelight vigils and el lloron, the weeping. Sometimes the vigils continue throughout the night; in other places church bells toll at midnight to call people home.

Many Spaniards are shocked by the macabre nature of this Aztec-Christian festival. They miss the point of the celebration. The indios believe that they can communicate their love to their departed loved ones by expressing the love at the deceased's grave site and in the home.

Like most festivals and fairs, the celebration enjoyed a carnival atmosphere. Late afternoon there would be a parade, with many people in costumes, like a mascara, but the costumes would emphasize skeletons, bishops, and devils.

In the center of the square, indios were putting on a play. Not the kind the picaro Mateo would recognize as a comedia, but one the indios understood well. The performers were men dressed as knights of the two great Aztec warrior orders, the Jaguar Knights and the Eagle Knights. Entrance into these n.o.ble orders was reserved for only those warriors who excelled on the field of battle, killing and taking prisoners.

Both sets of knights wore the traditional capes of bright feathers and heavy, quilted cotton armor, but each order had its own unique headdress. The Jaguar Knights wore headdresses of actual jaguar skins, a snarling face and teeth on top of the head with the rest of the dressed hide falling down the back. The Eagle Knights wore the head and feathers of eagles, the great, obsidian-sharp beaks of the birds of prey gaped open in a scream, their talons hanging down from around the neck of the warrior.

The jaguar and the eagle were appropriate symbols for the two greatest warrior castes of the Aztec Empire-the great cat ruled the ground, and the eagle was the king of the skies.

A tall religious monument, a tribute to some saint or another, was in the center of the square, and the mock battle took place around it. Lepero youths had climbed on the monument, and I dashed through the battling knights to climb up to get the best view. One of the leperos, believing I was an indio invading his territory, kicked at me. I grabbed his foot and dragged him off the monument. I took his place and glared at the others with Veracruz street toughness. No one else bothered me.

The knights fought with wooden swords and shields, swinging hard at each other, blocking, swinging again. The only purpose seemed to be battering each other since the swords could not inflict a serious injury.

Watching the mock battle, I spotted a person I had conflicted with at the treasure fleet fair: the caster of bones. The evil-looking creature was standing at the inner edge of the circle of people watching the fighting. His black hair hung down almost to his waist. Encrusted with dirt and grease, the hair was dirtier and no doubt smellier than a stable floor.

As the fighting went on, I noticed a curious phenomena: The combatants would continue until blood was drawn, usually a small cut on the hand, face, or legs that were bare from the knees down. The moment blood was seen, the victor and the bleeder would leave the battle. The curious thing was that each time it occurred, the victor looked to the magician. In return he got a nod of approval.

"Mestizo. Your heart will be ripped out on the sacrificial block when the jaguars rise."

That anonymous threat came to mind as I watched the magician giving silent blessing to the victors. Unlike the Healer, who had an aura of wisdom and knowledge of secret ways, the magician reeked of evil and malice.

I was staring at him, glaring at him, when he suddenly looked up and caught me. I jerked back and looked away. I felt like I had just locked eyes with a snake. I sneaked another look at him, and he was still staring at me.

He had an evil eye that could burn through stone. I did not know if he recognized me from the fair or he had seen the contempt on my face when he caught me staring down a moment before. I was sure that he would not recognize me. Over two years had pa.s.sed since the fair, and I had barely spoken to him at the time.

Whatever the reason, I had caught his attention; and that was unwelcome in my life. I got down from the statue base and slipped through the warriors to get away. As I was hurrying from the battling knights, a fray on a mule rode into the square. Behind him an indio rode another mule, dragging something behind on the ground with a rope. When they reached the area where the mock battle was taking place, they rode into it, scattering the warriors. It was then that I could see what the indio was dragging.

A body.

The priest stopped his mule and shouted to the crowd. "This man," he pointed down at the body, "died yesterday and was not buried with the rites of the Church. He was put into the ground with the blasphemy of pagan rites."

He paused to let his words sink in.

"I only learned of the disgrace because there are indios among you who are true to the Lord and tell me when such heresy occurs. His body has been dug up. It will be dragged through every street in this community for all to see what will happen to them when they offend G.o.d and the servants of the Church who serve Him.

"Afterward, the body will be chopped up and fed to dogs."