t persons
partaking of common food became united by a common bond, have come to
be regarded as constituting a fresh bond and a more intimate
communion between the god and his worshippers who alike partook of the
sacrificial meal. But this belief is probably far from being, or
having been, universal; and it is unnecessary to assume that this
belief must have existed, wherever we find the accomplishment of the
sacrificial rite accompanied by rejoicing. The performance of the
sacrificial rite is prompted by the desire to restore the normal
relation between the community and its god. It is carried out in the
conviction that the god is willing to return to the normal relation;
when it has been performed, the community is relieved and rejoices,
whether the rejoicing does or does not take form in a feast; and the
essence of the rejoicing is the conviction that all now is well, a
conviction which arises from the performance of the sacrificial rite
and not from the meal which may or may not follow it.

Where the institution of the sacrificial feast did grow up, the
natural tendency would be for it to become the most important feature
in the whole rite. The original and the fundamental purpose of the
rite was to reconcile the god and his worshippers and to make them at
one: the feast, therefore, which marked the accomplishment of the very
purpose of the rite, would come to be regarded as the object of the
rite. In that, however, there is nothing more than the shifting
forward of the centre of religious interest from the sacrifice to the
feast: there is nothing in it to change the character or conception
of the feast. Yet, in the case of some peoples, its character and
conception did change in a remarkable way. In the case of some
peoples, we find that the feast is not an occasion of 'eating with the
god' but what has been crudely called 'eating the god.' This
conception existed, as is generally agreed, beyond the possibility of
doubt, in Mexico amongst the Aztecs, and perhaps--though not beyond
the possibility of doubt--elsewhere.

The Aztecs were a barbarous or semi-civilised people, with a long
history behind them. The circumstances under which the belief and
practice in question existed and had grown up amongst them are clear
enough. The Aztecs worshipped deities, and amongst those deities were
plants and vegetables, such as maize. It was, of course, not any one
individual specimen that they worshipped: it was the spirit, th