r captives taken in war; or, if
the theft were committed in the market-place. Murder and homicide were
always punished with death. According to their teaching, there was a
great gulf between the two sexes. Hence, for a person of one sex to
assume the dress of the other sex was an insult to the whole gens--the
penalty was death. Drunkenness was an offense severely punished--though
aged persons could indulge their appetite, and, during times of
festivities, others could. Chiefs and other officials were publicly
degraded for this crime. Common warriors had their heads shaved in
punishment.

These various penalties necessarily suppose judicial officers to
determine the offense and decree the punishment. Having established, on
a satisfactory basis, the Mexican empire, the historians did not
scruple to fit it out with the necessary working machinery of such an
organization. Accordingly we are presented with a judiciary as nicely
proportioned as in the most favored nations of to-day. But when, under
the more searching light of modern scholarship, this empire is seen to
be something quite different, we find the whole judicial machinery to be
a much more simple affair.

Not much need be added on this point to what we have already mentioned.
Each gens, through its council, would regulate its own affairs, and
would punish all offenses against the law committed by one of its
members against another. Of necessity the decision of this council had
to be final. There was no appeal from its decision. The council of the
tribe had jurisdiction in all other cases--such as might arise between
members of different gentes, or among outcasts not connected with any
gens, or such as were committed on territory not belonging to any gens.

For this work, the twenty chiefs composing the council were subdivided
into two bodies, sitting simultaneously in the different halls of
the tecpan. This division was for the purpose of greater dispatch in
business. They did not form a higher and lower court, with power of the
one to review the decisions of the other. They were equal in power and
the decisions of both were final. The decision of the council, when
acting in a judicial capacity, would be announced by their foreman, who
was, as we have seen, the head-chief of the Mexicans--the Snake-woman.
It is for this act that the historian speaks of him as the supreme
judge, and makes him the head of judicial authority.<24> His decisions
were, of course, fin