ot possess them before, is indicated
by the fact that at the ceremony of his induction into office he
ascended to the summit of the pyramid sacred to the war-god
Huitzilopochtli, where he was anointed by the high-priest with a black
ointment, and sprinkled with sanctified water; having thus become
consecrated he took a censer of live coals and a bag of copal, and as
his first official act offered incense to the war-god.[125]

[Footnote 125: H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific
States_, vol. ii. p. 145. Hence the accounts of the reverent
demeanour of the people toward Montezuma, though perhaps
overcoloured, are not so absurd as Mr. Morgan deemed them. Mr.
Morgan was sometimes too anxious to reduce Montezuma to the
level of an Iroquois war-chief.]

[Sidenote: Manner of collecting tribute.]

As the "chief-of-men" was elected, so too he could be deposed for
misbehaviour. He was _ex officio_ a member of the tribal council, and he
had his official residence in the _tecpan_, or tribal house, where the
meetings of the council were held, and where the hospitalities of the
tribe were extended to strangers. As an administrative officer, the
"chief-of-men" had little to do within the limits of the tribe; that, as
already observed, was the business of the "snake-woman." But outside of
the confederacy the "chief-of-men" exercised administrative functions.
He superintended the collection of tribute. Each of the three
confederate tribes appointed, through its tribal council, agents to
visit the subjected pueblos and gather in the tribute. These agents were
expressively termed _calpixqui_, "crop-gatherers." As these men were
obliged to spend considerable time in the vanquished pueblos in the
double character of tax-collectors and spies, we can imagine how hateful
their position was. Their security from injury depended upon the
reputation of their tribes for ruthless ferocity.[126] The tiger-like
confederacy was only too ready to take offence; in the lack of a decent
pretext it often went to war without one, simply in order to get human
victims for sacrifice.

[Footnote 126: As I have elsewhere observed in a similar
case:--"Each summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the
dread that Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and
down the Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons
and wampum, and proclaime