The Ritual of Quecholli

by Sam Leo

"And in a little while, we will go up the pyramid's steps and go inside," the man is saying. "The overseer will take a little blood from your ear. It will hurt some, but you must give no sign. This blood shall serve to strengthen Mixcoatl. Everyone in the city will draw their blood this day."

"What will happen then, papa?" the boy asks eagerly, apparently not at all disturbed about the prospect of someone cutting his ear. You wonder if he really understands. He's very young, about five or so.

"After all the arrows are made, the hunters will be chosen; and tomorrow, they will hunt the deer. Then we shall feast. Afterwards, the man who has been named Mixcoatl and the woman who is called Yeuatlicue will give their service in the temple. It is a most solemn occasion, my son."

"Why do they have to give their service?"

"To give the Teotl Mixcoatl and Yeuatlicue the strength they'll need in the days to come. But enough. Come now. We must go to the Teocallis."

"Yes, papa," the boy says, climbing to his feet and taking his father's hand. Together they begin to mount the stairs. At a little distance, you follow them. The pyramid is low and broad, the climb is short; at the top you enter the Teocallis, and you find it to be a larger building than you'd imagined it to be when you were looking up at it from below. Across the back, opposite the entrance, is a raised stagelike area, open to the outside and close to the edge of the pyramid, where it would be visible from below. At one side there is a beaded curtain, creating a sizable "backstage" space shielded from the view of the audience. At each end of the stage are stone braziers, and a silent Indian wearing only a maxtlatl--a white, tied loincloth--stands guard over each. The floor in front of the stage is tiered, a series of steps rising toward the back, allowing everyone to have a clear view of the stage.

A long line of children and parents stretches across the floor. At the center of the stage a man whose body is painted black cuts tiny nicks in the ears of the children, then daubs the blood onto their temples; if any drips it is collected in a wooden tub. The children, stoic, are silent as their ears are cut, though a few of the younger ones show their pain with grimaces, some exaggerated, and weep as they move away.

Behind the priest is a large rock, shaped only by nature, its surface carved with odd patterns. On beyond this is an open area, and in the center of it is a precisely-carved piece of stone, shaped like a truncated cone, between three and four feet tall, its round flat top seven or eight inches in diameter. Set on a platform so that it rises above the rock, it's clearly visible from the floor. You do not have to ask what this stone is for.

Down on the sunken floor itself, alongside the lines of patient children, a group of men are busily engaged in the manufacture of arrows. They are carefully cutting reed shafts according to a model they have, and they are taking great pains to insure that all the shafts are of the same length--and they are unusually small, only about eighteen or twenty inches in length. Others are chipping out flint arrowheads from prepared cores, and others still are fastening the arrowheads to the shafts with pitch and twine. Yet another group is fletching the shafts, which completes their manufacture. The uniformity of the finished products is quite amazing; each is exactly like the next. As they're completed, they're tied into bundles of twenty each, carried up to the stage and added to the piles already there. The men must have been at it since sunrise at least, considering the quantity of arrows on the stage.

For several hours, nothing else happens. You become somewhat bored with watching the arrows being made and watching the seemingly endless chain of children waiting to be bloodied. You quit watching for awhile.

But, after a while, a young man comes up and taps you on the shoulder. "What are you doing, Ce Cipactli?" he demands. You frown at him; somehow, you understand that that's your name. "Aren't you planning to offer blood?" You start to answer, but he doesn't give you a chance. Pulling you to your feet, he steers you toward the line. The children are now gone, and a similar chain of adults has replaced them. It isn't long before you step up onto the stage yourself. Expertly, a priest nicks your ear; there's a small pain, not much. He then daubs dots of blood on your temples, and you're done. You return to watching; the other young man, who seems to know you somehow, stays with you. He asks you if you're ready for the "competition." You don't know what he's talking about, but you nod your head anyhow. He worries if he can do well enough himself; he seems to consider it a foregone conclusion that you will.

After what seems like an endless time, the line of people thins out and stops, and this seems to be a signal to the arrow-makers. They finish their last bundles of twenty, tie them up, and put away their manufacturing paraphernalia. Then they begin to string bows, which have been made at some previous time. When they'd done forty, they stop this as well, they carry them on the stage and lay them out in neat rows. As hunting or combat bows they look very inefficient; they're less than thirty inches long, too short to put much power behind the little arrows.

Most of the arrowmakers then leave. Your new friend--you wish you knew what his name might be, especially since he knows yours--gets up and quickly heads for the stage. You follow him; he picks up one of the bows that were just strung and then waits expectantly. Obviously, you are meant to pick up one as well, and so you do. Other young men are also picking them up, and soon all forty have been taken.

While this was going on, the arrowmakers remaining have set up a maguey leaf as a target; it's eight feet tall, thick and dark green, thorny on the edge with a single giant thorn at the tip. One at a time, the men step up to a line some seventy-five feet distant from the leaf and launch the tiny arrows at it. At the start, you cannot quite believe the little arrows will even fly that far, but they do. The first man to shoot misses. He steps to his left as another takes his place; as the second man is shooting he returns his bow and his remaining arrows to the stage and then leaves the building. The second man scores a hit, though so lightly the arrow bounces off the leaf. Even so, he steps to his right and moves to the back of the line.

After several others have shot, your new friend takes his turn. He's elated when he does score a hit, though his arrow, like the others, does not pierce the leaf. Then it's your turn. You set the arrow on the string, the odd fletch of the three inward toward the bow, and you balance the arrow by holding the string with two fingers under it. Aiming instinctively, you draw the string until the flint head is just beyond the rest on the bow, then let it fly.

Not only do you score a hit, your arrow actually sticks in the leaf, the first one to do so. The other men cheer you; you move to your right and go to the end of the line.

For a long while the tournament continues. The men are good archers, the first pass only eliminates two. Your turn comes again, you score another hit; your friend, though, misses on his third try. With a dejected sigh, he returns his bow, but he does not leave; he remains, watching you shoot, and you score another hit. Seven times in all you must shoot, and seven times you hit the leaf. Others miss, though, and when your numbers have been reduced to ten, the competition has ended. All the bows and arrows are now distributed to the men remaining.

The other men then sit down with their bundles of arrows and, using jars of paint and feather-brushes provided to them by the arrow-makers, they began to paint the shafts. You follow their lead, noting that each man is using a different color pattern of rings. You select your own, your favorite colors, and, again following the other men, you paint the same patterns on your bows. When the painting is done, they each take one bow and one bundle of arrows to the stage, where they are first censed by a black-painted priest, then placed in a brazier and, with considerable ceremony, burnt. As usual, you follow their lead.

After this, everyone except the silent guards of the braziers and the black-painted men leaves the building. For a little while nothing happens; but, just you're beginning to think that perhaps the day's proceedings are over, a group of young women enters the building and sits down as a group in the middle of the sunken floor. Two more men, both with their bodies painted black, also come in; they sit on the stage, seemingly waiting for something. After another short hiatus, another man comes in. His face is also painted black, but he wears a headdress and heavy black robes that clearly mark him as some sort of leader. You hear someone address him as "Xolotl." He's carrying a wrapped bundle with him, which he deposits on the stone altar.

All eyes are on him as he turns to face the group of women seated on the floor. "The men are at the hunt," he says solemnly. His voice is deep and impressive, he's clearly experienced at public speaking. "Tomorrow, ten of you shall be Mixcoacihuatl. Is there anyone here by other than their own free will?"

The girls look around at each other, but no one says anything; evidently no one is.

"Good," Xolotl says, after giving them ample time for a response. He steps down from the stage and passes among them; there are probably thirty or forty women there, and he carefully looks each one in the face. Then he passes among them again, and as he goes he touches ten of them on the shoulder. These look delighted, and they bound up to the stage; the others look crestfallen as they get up and shuffle out of the building.

They remaining ten gathered closely around Xolotl, and he begins talking to them in a low voice. Though you strain your ears, you cannot make out what is being said. The black-robed man periodically points to one of them and shows them some small object he's taken from a pouch. You can't see what it might be, since Xolotl keeps it cupped in his hands.

Finally the ten leave, all smiling faces; you imagine that they've been granted some singular honor by Xolotl, possibly leading parts in some ceremonial dance. Xolotl and the black-painted priests confer for a long time, obviously planning tomorrow's festivities. You cannot hear it all, and the few snatches you do get are mostly uninteresting:

"--here is where the deer will be brought when--"

"--don't forget to have the cloths out here, and--"

and so on. You yawn, it's getting late and you're feeling tired, and now you're sure that the day's festivities are over. Your friend leads you out, asking you if anything is wrong; you say no, but he continues to act concerned about you, and he takes you to his home, tells you you'll sleep there. You do. The next morning, when you arise, you're hungry--but your friend tells you that a fast is in effect until the "fiesta" later today, at which time there will be plenty of food. Your friend then leads you back to the Teocallis.

You walk inside. A number of priests, all dressed in robes and their faces painted black, are on the stage, waiting silently, their arms crossed across their chests. The young women selected yesterday are milling about behind the curtain, and they've been joined by four young men, also priests to judge from their long hair and black-painted faces. People are coming in in large groups, arraying themselves around the stepped area of the floor. Finally, as if in response to some silent signal, two door-keepers go to the large doors and close them. Evidently, everyone who is coming in is in.

Mounting the stage, Xolotl picks up the bundle he'd brought the previous day and faces the audience, which falls silent in response. He folds back the cloth and shows them four arrows. "The arrows of Mixcoatl," he says in a strong, solemn voice. They don't look much different from the ones that you've seen being made, except that these have hardwood, not reed, shafts.

"We will go to the east, we will shoot an arrow," Xolotl says with a chanting cadence. "We will go to the center, toward Mictlan, and we will shoot again. We will go toward Huitzlampa, and we will shoot again. We will go to the fields of flowers and we shall shoot again. When our arrows have been shot we will have found that we have struck the real thing, the real thing."

As he chants, two more men wearing only cotton loincloths set up drums on the left edge of the stage. As Xolotl finishes, they began a soft rhythm. "THEY were the Chichimecs!" Xolotl continues, the first word being accented by a sharp strike on the drum. "THEY were our forefathers! THEY learned the ways of Mixcoatl, of Itzpapalotl, of Quilaztli, of Yeuatlicue, of Xiuhnel, of Mimich! WE will do them honor! WE will shoot our arrows! WE will hunt the deer!"

The drumming dies down to a quiet background as Xolotl replaces the four unwrapped arrows on the altar. Now, as he steps to the side, the ten young women and four men who've been hiding behind the curtain come out, walking slowly in single file. They array themselves on either side of the rock in the center, the men on the right, the women on the left. For a short time they just stand there, while the drums play and the audience gazes at them.

Then one of the black-painted priests steps up in front of them, and some command is given. The young people respond by removing their clothing, standing naked before the onlookers. The priest goes to the rear of the stage and gathers up some pieces of fur; at first you think they might be blankets.

But, as they're distributed to the nude men and women, it becomes obvious that they're deerskin costumes. Each has a buck or doe head attached, as was appropriate to the sex of the wearer. The painted men help them into the costumes, which have sweater-like sleeves but no legs; they're attached by lacings across the front and by a pair of belts passing between the legs. When the body costume is in place, the head, missing the lower jaw, is pulled down over the person's forehead like a helmet. A broad "tail," hanging to the knees, remains attached in back.

The drum rhythms come up to a higher volume, and the costumed people begin cavorting about the stage as if they really are deer, drawing laughter from the audience. One of the men gets down on his hands and knees and noses around the stage as if searching for grass. A girl runs off the stage and across the sunken floor, leaping into the air with amazing agility, as if just for the pleasure of it. Another pair, a "stag" and a "doe," rub the noses of their deer-masks together, and you notice that the young man is getting an erection; his penis, refusing to be denied, pushes out alongside the belt that holds his costume in place. The girl, noticing, turns around and drops to her hands and knees, her rear end high. The young man uses his teeth to push her "tail" aside and undo her belts, with enough incidental contact to cause her to squirm with pleasure. Still without using his hands, the man leans over her back, his arms stiffly down alongside her sides like a deer's front legs, and pushes his erection into her. Then his hips begin moving rapidly. They really do look like rutting animals, and the audience thinks it's hilarious. They laugh and applaud.

Finally they are finished; the girl requires help from one of the priests to refasten her belts. He ignores the streak of semen running down the inside of her right leg. Once her costume has been fixed, two of the black-painted men go to the doors and fling them open again.

This too seems to be a signal; from places scattered in the audience, the other nine men who'd survived the archery contest start toward the front. As they rise, the women who're dressed in doe costumes run for the door at full speed, and they vanish outside. Only the women run out; the "stags" remain on the stage.

You don't move right away, and your friend jerks you to your feet. "What's the matter with you, Ce Cipactli?" he demands. "The hunt has begun! Quickly, you must go after the deer!" He pulls you toward the door.

"The deer?" you ask blankly. "You mean those girls in the deer costumes?"

"Yes, of course! The Mixcoacihuatl! Go after them!"

You nod and you start moving faster. When you reach the doorway, though, the girls in the costumes have all vanished. "Okay. Where'd they go?"

He rolls his eyes. "They're hiding! You have to find them! You have to catch one, you have bring her back to the Teocallis! Hurry, or someone else will take your place--only four may be taken!"

You hurry down the steps, looking left and right but seeing none of the girls. "Okay," you say. "How to I catch one?"

He stares at your face. "Something is wrong with you," he says slowly. "You know how you catch her." He touches the three bows you're still carrying. "You shoot her. With your arrows. She is your deer, your prey. Find her, shoot her, bring her down!"

You stare at him, incredulous. But then you remember how tiny these bows and arrows are. You look around at the townspeople, who are like children playing a game. Almost constantly laughing, they're running through the streets, looking into houses, beating the bushes with thin sticks. This is in fact a game of some sort, you decide. You can't really hurt someone with these little toylike bows and arrows. Probably they won't even go through those deerskin costumes.

Just as you're thinking this, a group of townspeople nearby locates one of the "does". She was hiding in a clump of bushes, and when they beat it with their sticks, she erupts from it, running at top speed toward an area where a number of the large, thick-leafed, and formidably-thorned maguey plants are growing. The group gives immediate chase, several of them calling out to you that a doe has been found. You follow them at a run. The girl, running at top speed, disappears momentarily around one of the cottages. Rounding the corner of the house, you see that the group had again flushed the woman, and she is again running, for the cover of the maguey plants now. Your friend urges you to shoot at her. You unsling your bow, string an arrow, and fire it at her, but the bow is so small that your shot falls hopelessly short. You grin. If this was serious, you tell yourself, you'd have been given more efficient bows.

But there is no doubt that the young woman is desperately trying to escape. She races out among the maguey plants, easily outdistancing most of her pursuers. You find yourself running ahead of the group now, loping along with long strides, and slowly gaining ground on the girl. She snags the tail of her costume on the thorns of a maguey, and she's jerked backward. With a fluid motion, she slips out of it, and she runs on naked. She only lost a minute, but it allowed you to gain a few strides. She turns into the maguey patch, you follow, and you laugh.

She's run into an area where the big plants grow thickly but where there's a little clearing among them, a clearing with only one entrance; she's accidentally trapped herself. She has to either run by very close to you or risk much of her skin among the heavy thorns. Her coppery skin is gleaming with the sweat of the chase; she keeps moving around, just as a real deer might. Keeping to the center of the broad entranceway to the natural trap, you approach her slowly. The rest of the group remains outside, watching. Some are yelling encouragement to the girl, some to you. You string one of the little arrows on his bow, but you can't really see how, as yet, you're supposed to "bring her down" with it. Maybe, you think, if you score any sort of glancing blow, if you can scratch her skin with the point, she'll just fall down.

You loose an arrow at her. She sees it coming, she twists her body sideways and avoids it. It strikes a maguey leaf behind her and remains there, deeply imbedded, vibrating. You hardly notice; playing the game fully now you fire again. Moving like a gymnast, the girl jumps and twists away, avoiding your arrow. But, in doing so, she comes down somewhat off-balance--and facing the wrong way. You don't hesitate to take advantage, and your next arrow strikes her in the small of her back, far to one side.

She stops, she looks back over her shoulder at the arrow. It is not deeply imbedded--even the flint point is not fully buried--but a little trickle of blood runs down below it. She flutters her hands, as if she wants to pull it out. But, in the end, she doesn't touch it--and she does not, as you hoped she might, fall down and act like a dying deer. Clearly she's expecting you to shoot at her again, and the crowd is roaring, cheering you on. Less certain about this now, you nevertheless nock another arrow to your string.

You aim carefully, then feint to your right with the bow, the direction she's facing. She takes the bait and jumps too soon. You fire, a good clean shot, but you miss. Apparently trying to take advantage, she runs right at you, attempting to dart by you while you're fitting another to your bowstring. She is sure, you think, to succeed.

But you get it ready quicker than either you or she expects. Given no time to think about what you're doing, you loose the arrow just as she closes on you. It strikes her bare body with a solid thunk! and, to your amazement, it sinks several inches deep into her lower abdomen, just inside her leg. She gasps, she stumbles, but she tries to keep running. As she goes the shallowly-buried arrow in her back strikes a maguey leaf and falls out.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," you call to her as she runs by. "I didn't mean to..." You run after her, realizing as you go that everyone seemed to expect you to apologize for hurting her, but that some are staring at you in amazement because of your second remark. You're confused, but your hands seem to know what they're doing, and they're stringing another arrow on your bow. The crowd is yelling at you to shoot; at a run, you do, but you miss again.

But now she is free from her trap, and the chase is on again. She's running reasonably fast, but it's pretty obvious that she's being slowed substantially by the arrow sticking in her belly. The shaft waves around wildly as she runs--and you understand that this means that the point is moving around inside her, causing more damage and undoubtedly causing her pain, but she doesn't show it. The crowd, still laughing and yelling, follows along behind you, and you catch up with her again near a cornfield. She runs along, glancing down the rows as she goes by, trying to find a way to lose herself in there.

But you overtake her before she gets a chance. Twice you fire, and your second shot hits her in the back of her right thigh. Blood wells out; she stumbles again and this time she actually falls. The crowd closes on her quickly, but they only make a half circle, they are careful to give her an escape route if she manages to run.

You move in close as the girl struggles to her feet. Amazingly, though her face twists and she clenches her eyes closed periodically against the pain, she is actually laughing, as well! Unsure of what is going on, you hold your fire for a moment, and she does succeed in getting up.

On her feet again, she starts to run once more, but the arrow in her thigh hampers her considerably. The best she can manage is a limping trot; it seems incredible that she can manage that.

"Bring her down!" your friend yells at you from the crowd. "Run ahead of her, shoot her!"

You do as he says, it's easy to pass her now, she can't move fast any more. Once well ahead you spin around and fire another, again instinctively. This one strikes her belly, just above her navel, and it goes in deep. Again she falls to her knees, staring down at the blood flowing from her wounds, and again you wait. You are waiting, you realize, for her to say something to you, and she hasn't said it yet. After a moment, she forces herself to her feet again and, turning away you, she starts off again. You decide to end this now. As she goes you take very careful aim and shoot an arrow into the back of her left knee. This time she screams, and she falls once more, grabbing at her leg. When she tries to get up, she finds that her left leg will not support her, no matter how hard she tries to force it. Sitting on the ground, she looks up at you.

"I can run no more, my Chichimec," she says, wincing and holding onto the shafts in her belly. "I am yours, as you will."

That was, you realize, what you were waiting for. You nod to her and sling your bow on your shoulder. "I am sorry I hurt you," you say. "I just wasn't sure what else to... to..." Becoming aware that people are giving you strange looks--and the girl is, as well--you fall silent. You wave your hand, and the crowd seems to take that as a signal. Two women come forward; your friend joins them. Each of the four of you take one of her feet and hands, and you pick her up gently. You began to carry her away toward the Teocallis. Her head bobs up and down gently as you go. One of the women helping to carry her seems to know her, and they talk as you walk along. The injured woman even laughs once, but that provokes a new flow of blood from her stomach wound and her laughter is brief.

As you go, you keep looking back at the girl. She is very pretty, very pretty indeed, and she has a fine body. Although you don't, you feel you know her somehow; you can sense her strong personality, her charming ways, her quick and incisive mind, her sense of humor, her affectionate nature, her capacity for love. There is a connection between the two of you, something powerful, and when she catches your eye you can see that she feels it too.

But you continue on, you carry her directly to the Teocallis and take her inside. As soon as you're in you can see that they've now erected a wooden frame of some sort up on the stage; the top beam has four large wooden hooks attached to it. You carry the woman up on the stage. Once you're there, one of the black-painted men ties a short length of rope around both her wrists, leaving a connecting loop about a foot long between them. He helps you hoist her up, looping the rope over the wooden hook so that she's left dangling from her wrists. Then you and the rest of your group leave her there; some of the others pause to pat her hip with seeming affection, and your friend does the same. She smiles at him as he goes, though her smile is strained and doesn't last long.

You remain beside her, looking up at her. At the moment her eyes are closed. Her body is relaxed, her shapely legs extended and her toes, which are only a couple of inches off the floor, pointing down. Four arrows remain in her body, one in the back of her right thigh, one in the back of her left knee, one in her smooth flat abdomen just above her navel, and the last just inside the joint of her left leg. Both of those piercing her belly are deep inside her, at least three inches deep, and both are still bleeding, the first especially. It's crystal clear to you now that this was no game; without some kind of prompt medical attention these wounds are sure to be fatal.

The girl opens her eyes and looks down at you. Her full lips are slightly parted and her eyes are soulful. "Please, could I have some water?" she asks you.

"Certainly," you answer. You seem to know where it is, a barrel of it, with a number of little pottery jars sitting about. You fill one, bring it to her, and hold it to her lips. "Not too much," you warn. "Drinking water when you have a belly wound isn't a good idea..."

She sips the water, then laughs very briefly. "Funny," she says.

You stare at her, and she at you. It's as if you've known her for a very long time. You touch her cheek gently and give her some more water; you wish there was a way you could make her more comfortable, you know it cannot be pleasant for her, dangling from her wrists as she is.

"What is your name?" you ask her suddenly. "I'd like to know. I'm Ce--"

"No names," she interrupts. "You are a hunter. I am Mixcoacihuatl, I am a deer of Mixcoatl. Nothing more. I have no name, not now." She gazes at you steadily. "I am glad," she tells you, "that you were the one who brought me down. I knew, I had dreamed, that I would be taken. You were very skillful, hunter. Very skillful and very strong. I felt your strength when your arrows struck my body, when they came deep inside me."

You aren't sure what to say. "I--I don't understand," you tell her finally. "I didn't mean to hurt you like this, I--"

She manages a little smile. "There is a fog upon your mind, hunter, this I can see," she tells you. "So I will tell you this: I was glad I could not escape from you. I tried, believe me! I was happy when I felt your hard arrows bite into me... it was my tonalli, my destiny, to be taken..."

You caress her face again, she coughs and you give her a little more water. Her chin is wet, you wipe the moisture away. Your own cheeks are wet too, you realize, and not from water...

A short time later, another group comes in, bringing another captive. This one is much less severely injured; she has only one arrow in her leg, in her calf. But her ankle is twisted at an odd angle, obviously broken. You surmise that she probably fell when she was struck by the arrow and broke the bone, and thus she'd been unable to run. That seems to be the key, and you find yourself wondering why the woman you brought in didn't just fall down after the first arrow had struck her; she'd be in a lot better shape if she had.

As they hang the second woman on the frame, a third girl is brought in. She's much worse off than the first two; her body is pierced by at least a dozen arrows in various places. She seems to be only half-conscious as they hang her up. In both cases, the archers that had downed them stay with them, attending to their needs, treating them very tenderly.

A half hour passes, and finally another captive arrives. She's been hit by only two arrows, but one of them is buried deeply in her chest. The end of it is splintered and covered with soil as if she fell on it. She's definitely not conscious, her head rolls to the side and blood runs from the corner of her mouth as they hang her up. The archer offers her water, but she's unresponsive; the only indication that she's alive is the ragged jerking motion of her breathing. All of the captives have at some point discarded their deerskin costumes; all are completely naked.

From outside, you hear someone calling in a loud voice, saying the hunt was over. You've assumed that was the case, since there are only four hooks. Obviously, these four were the unlucky ones, the ones who had been discovered first and run down. The other six impersonators obviously were free.

There's a long pause while the townspeople, followed by the archers and the remaining deer impersonators, come back in. A few of these still have their costumes on. They enter cautiously, as though they think this might be a ruse, until they see the four hanging on the rack. Then they relax and mingle with the others. Two of the impersonators, you notice, are themselves wounded; one girl has an arrow standing in her thigh, another has one in her hip and another between her ribs. You watch these two; they seat themselves on the floor and rather casually go about pulling the arrows out of their bodies. After removing the arrow from her hip herself, the girl who'd been hit twice asks a young man to help her with the one piercing her chest. Holding her with his left hand, he carefully pulls the arrow--which was deeply buried--straight out. She groans a little as it comes; once it's free blood foamy with air streams down her side. She leans against the young man after he lays the arrow aside, her breathing labored and blood pooling around her hips. She makes no effort whatever to tend the wound or stop the bleeding. The townspeople keep filtering in; a couple pause to pat the wounded girls on their backs or shoulders as they pass them.

When the audience is in and has settled down, one of the black-painted men unwraps some new objects from a white cloth. They're little jade figurines, each in the shape of a human in a crouching posture, except that the head is that of a deer. He hands one to you and one to each of the other successful archers. Then he stands in front of the four captives and addresses them, apologizing once again for their pain; you, following the other archers' lead, stand at the side of your captive as he gives his speech. He explains to them how it was necessary, going through a long speech about how the deer was identical to the maize and how that was identical to man, to the villagers.

"And more," he says, "We honor the memory of the Teotl Xiuhnel and Mimich, they who with Mixcoatl and Itzpapalotl defeated the Mimixcoa, they who hunted the deer, they who were successful hunters! We honor them with the arrows of Mixcoatl!"

So saying, he picks up one of the short bows and the hardwood arrows that Xolotl had brought in at the beginning. Starting with the woman who seemed so near death, he moves to within six feet of her and, without warning, shoots the arrow deep into her left side, just below her ribs. She stiffens, then slowly relaxes. Apparently the shock is too much; her breathing has stopped. The archer who was attending her stretches up to her, holding her head and putting his face quite close to hers. It looks like he's about to kiss her, but he doesn't. After a moment he pulls away, then holds the figurine close to his face. Then he sits it on the floor in front of her limp body.

Moving down the line, the black-painted man shoots the next one into the badly-wounded woman's side; the arrow's placement is exactly the same. The woman reacts only a little, her body flexing, then relaxing. She, however, continues to breathe.

Next, he aims his arrow at the girl with the broken ankle. She looks down at him, then closes her eyes; her face is calm, she does not appear to be afraid. The bow twangs, the arrow tears into her body; she frowns, but, beyond a low grunt, she doesn't cry out. As he moves toward the last captive, her face has already become expressionless once more.

Now, he's aiming the bow at the girl you brought in. You bite your lip; all you can do is wait and watch. The girl's face is impassive as she watches him draw the bow.

He then releases the arrow. At close range you see it strike her left side under her ribs, you see the arrowhead part her skin. It, along with five inches of the hardwood shaft, disappears into her body. Her body jerks with the impact. She frowns, she moans a little, and she squirms a little, but that's the extent of her reaction. The painted man then steps back and examines each of them in turn. A steady red line runs down each body, though much more slowly in the case of the dead woman.

Bowing to the captives, he replaces the bow on the altar. In all of these cases, the other three archers attending each girl watched them very closely as the arrows struck them, but there was no repetition of the odd behavior of the first one. He seems dejected, as if that was not exactly what was supposed to happen. You watched your captive as well; you just weren't very sure what you were watching for.

After another long pause, a four men dressed in loincloths bring four wooden tubs from behind the curtain. These they slide into place under each of the captives. When that's done, they go to the center of the stage and go about building a fire on a set of flat stones evidently laid out for that purpose. After the fire is built, they set a group of four large pots partly filled with water on them.

Once again, the black-painted man who had shot the dangling captives with the ceremonial arrows comes to stand in front of them, again examining each one carefully. He gives a sign, and the four men dressed as stags take positions behind each girl--including yours. They hold them by their waists, holding their bodies steady. For guidance, you glance at the others, and you see that they are pulling the arrows out of the captives, starting with the reed ones they'd put there themselves.

The badly-injured woman is almost as unresponsive to this as the dead one; her body only twitches a few times as the arrows were ripped free. The girl with the broken ankle also doesn't show pain as the single reed arrow in her leg was removed. You look up at "your" girl, and she looks back down at you; she nods and looks at the arrows piercing her, it's perfectly clear she expects you to do the same thing.

Unsure of yourself, you start with the ones in her legs, with the one you shot into the back of her thigh. You tug on it; it's obvious immediately it isn't going to come out easily, and so you pull harder. It begins to move, the girl groans louder, you pull faster, and it comes tearing out of her thigh, leaving a considerably larger hole that it made going in. Blood streams out of it, running freely down her leg and dripping into the tub. You go to work on the one in her knee next. It isn't as deep, and it comes out more easily, but it draws a soft sound of pain from her as it does.

"Damn, I know this is hurting you, I'm sorry..." you say as you come back to the front and prepare to extract the arrows piercing her belly. You grab the lower one first, the one near the joint of her hip, and pull on it. It isn't quite as tight as the one in her thigh was; it comes sliding back, covered with blood. The girl moans and trembles, and again you speed up. The arrow finally pops free, and a little spurt of blood announces the steady flow that now begins. Working more quickly, you pull out the one above her navel, too, and it brings with it a chunk of her flesh. She groans and tosses her head; gritting your teeth, you manage to get the arrow free. Three little streams of blood are flowing from her now, and red liquid covers the bottom of the tub.

Again, you look to the others. They've been waiting on you, it seems, and now all of them wrap their fingers around the shafts of the ceremonial hardwood arrows. You start to pull straight back on it, as you did with the others.

"No!" the "stag" holding the girl whispers. "What's the matter with you? Twist it, twist it out!"

Again you grit your teeth, but, as instructed, you begin twisting it, spiraling it backwards. The girl stiffens and moans; you know the twisting action is causing more damage internally, and you can see that the arrow is buried in her liver.

"I know this hurts," you say to her. "I'm sorry, I'll get it out as quick as I can..."

She looks down at you. "No, take it slowly," she asks, her voice ragged. "Let me feel it, I should feel it..."

You pause, but then you nod, and, even though she does cry out with the pain, you slowly twist the arrow, gradually freeing it. Another spurt of blood follows, missing the tub at first but then settling down into another steady stream. You glance at the others, see that they are laying the hardwood arrows on a clean white cloth, and again you follow suite.

There's another hiatus, as if to allow the anticipation to develop. You watch "your" girl carefully; she looks very beautiful to you with the four streams of blood decorating her torso. Then, while the "stags" hold the hanging bodies tightly by their waists, each of the archers, including you, is handed one of the familiar tecpatls, the obsidian knives. Yet again you look at the other three. Your eyes fly wide open. Standing close in front of their captives, they start slitting open the abdomens of the captives, beginning just under their breastbones, working slowly and carefully downward.

You look up at "your" girl quickly, and she nods. Her eyes are very bright. "Yes, cut me open now," she urges you. "Take what is inside me out. It must be done..."

You wonder why this cannot wait until the girls are dead--they are all clearly bleeding to death from the arrow wounds--but it is not, you decide, for you to say. Laying your hand against the girl's ribs under her breast, you press the point of the obsidian knife into her skin and her solar plexus. She watches you, and you feel the knife break through her skin and sink in a little; it feels very soft, very sensual. More blood appears, but you, following the example of the others, begin pulling the knife downward. It's very sharp, it passes through her smooth soft skin very easily. She pulls up her legs against the pain, her face draws tight, and her body quivers; you cut on, on down until the edge of the blade is in her pubic hair. You glance at the others, see what they're doing, and you do the same--you push your fingers into the long slit and pull sideways. The girl's abdomen opens and her internal organs, glistening with blood, sag into view.

The girl with the broken ankle starts to scream and thrash, and her assailant stops, caressing her face until she calms down again. You wait too, you can see him speaking to her though you cannot hear what is being said, and you see her nod her head, several times, vigorously. Once she's been quieted the archer thrusts his hands into her body cavity and pulls her entrails out in a mass. Her eyes fly wide open; he uses his knife to quickly cut them free, first at the bottom, then at the top.

Your girl is more under control--or perhaps just weaker. She trembles when you reach your hands inside her and pull her intestines out, and she groans loudly and twitches when you cut them free. The other two men have done the same, and the organs from all four victims is piled on the stage. The archers stay very close, watching the girls' faces as their blood drains rapidly into the tubs. For a long time, three of the bodies continued to jerk and spasm.

Then your girl startles you by speaking again. "Now," she whispers in a very weak voice. You stand up and put your face very close to her. "I die now, my hunter..." she murmurs, her voice almost inaudible. She opens her lips and stretches her head toward you; then she breathes out, long and slow, right into your mouth. She does not draw another breath; her eyes are fixed on yours as they start to glaze. You aren't sure why, but you lift the deer-idol then, and you breathe onto it.

You look around. Now, only the girl with the broken ankle seems conscious. She has been whipping her head from side to side, but abruptly she stops. She says something to her attendant, and, just as you had, he puts his lips near hers. Finally you understand what he's doing, and it's what you did yourself, instinctively; he's inhaling her dying breath and blowing it onto the figurine of the deer. She watches him as he does, but then her body relaxes and her head hangs. The only movement, the only sound now, is that of the blood dripping into the tubs.

When this girl has finished her dying, the "stags" help you and the other three archers take the bodies down from the hooks. They then retire from the stage, and once again you take your cue from the other archers. Using their obsidian knives, they begin cutting the bodies up. You do the same; you pull the girl's abdomen open wide, you use the knife to hack through her ribs and you open her chest. Once her body is wide open, you use your hands to remove any remaining entrails, her lungs, her heart, and her liver. Then you cut off her arms and legs, working your knife blade into the joints to separate the limbs.

Finally, it's time to sever her head. You lift it by the hair; her eyes, though glassy, are open and they seem in a way to be watching you as you use the keen blade to cut into the side of her soft neck. There is a hard crunch as your blade passes through her windpipe, and you have to work to get through the spine, but after a moment her torso flops back, leaving her head dangling from your hand. Setting it aside, you keep working, splitting the body into sections, skinning each piece out, separating them at the joints, and then cutting the flesh into strips. The work is hard, and it takes quite a while. Her thighs alone you leave intact; you don't know why, all you know is that this is what the other archers have done.

Once it's done, the pieces of the bodies--looking remarkably like beef or venison--are carried to the fire where the cooking pots are now steaming. Large flat pans like skillets are set on the flames, and the pieces of meat, along with generous handfuls of dried and fresh chili peppers, are tossed in. Meanwhile, other loincloth-clad men are filling the pots with tomatoes, corn, and beans--and even more chilies. It's pretty clear what's being cooked, and even more so when the "venison," now browned, is scooped into the huge pots. Once the skillets are cleared of meat, they are used to cook ordinary tortillas, and stacks of these begin to accumulate.

Not all of the meat has been put into the skillets and pots, though. The girls' skinned thighs have been saved whole, they are hung on racks like hams, presumably to be later cured. The four "stags" were eating the girls' livers raw, and little cups full of blood, taken from the tubs, were being distributed among the villagers. Meanwhile, some women were cleaning the intestines; nothing was to be wasted.

The girls' heads, though, are to be put to a different use. They've been placed on the stage beside the tubs after they'd been severed, and now the black-painted priests pick them up. Using a sharply-pointed rod, each girl's head is pierced through, ear to ear, so that the ends of the rods emerged equally from each ear. They are then hung on a rack, as if to allow the dead girls to observe the feast that was about to start.

A group of men and women, the men dressed in white loincloths and the women dressed in loose white dresses, makes their appearance, and they are carrying pottery bowls and cups, and jugs of some liquid. These are passed out among the onlookers; you yourself are given a set, of course. The people are lining up in front of the steaming pots, and now you must decide if you mean to partake in the feast.