Franciscans were revolted by the demands of sacrifice imposed by the Mexica’s gods. None doubted they were demons. There was Huitzilopochtli, the great patron of the Mexica, whose temple in Tenochtitlan, it was said, had been consecrated with the blood of eighty thousand victims; Xipe Totec, ‘the Flayed One’, whose devotees wore the skins of those offered to their patron, and stabbed their penises with cactus thorns; Tlaloc, the god of the rains, whose favours could be won only by the sacrifice of small children who had first been made to weep.
