Agriculture played an important role in the development of the Mesoamerican peoples. Thanks to it, its inhabitants were able to feed themselves, become sedentary, establish cities and, some of them, develop well-organized and powerful states. Corn, along with other products, was the pre-Hispanic man's food base; however, the quantity and quality of harvest was subject to rain.
The rain arrived on time and in a sufficient way, was translated into a good production, while the lack of it resulted in shortages of food. That is why the Indian peoples made offerings to the rain god so that they would not need to eat. Offerings that could consist of food, songs, dances, or the sacrifice of a child or an animal.
Associated with fertility, rain and life-death duality, the dog contains a unique symbolism for the Mesoamerican peoples. In the case at hand, the xoloitzcuintle is present as a propitiatory animal in a Nahua region, located in the center of our country: Tlaxcala. Lordship that shares Nahuatl as its mother tongue with its neighbors. Place never conquered by the Mexica, allied to Cortés and which receives, for that matter, certain privileges of the Spanish Crown.
Diego Muñoz Camargo is a chronicler of mestizo origin, married to a main Indian and then appointed governor of Tlaxcala by the viceroy. He writes his chronicle after 1576, where he talks about ancient history, myths, religion and customs of the Tlaxcalans [1].
In chapter XIX of his Historia de Tlaxcala - written based on oral tradition - he says the following [2] about the use that was given to bald dogs:
"When there was a lack of water and it became big dry and it was not raining, they made great processions, fasts and penances, and brought out in procession a large number of bald dogs that are of their nature stripped without any hair, of which they had formerly their many Gentiles who had them to eat, and ate them.
I have at present the caste of them that are very strange indeed and very much to see, and of this kind -of dogs as a referral we have, they took out in procession and walk very decorated, and they took them to sacrifice to a temple that you had them dedicated that they called it Xoloteupan; and when they arrived there, they sacrificed them, and took their hearts out and offered them to the god of waters, and when they returned from this sacrifice, before they reached the main temple, it rained and flashed in such a way that they could not reach their homes with much water that rained, and after death the dogs ate them.
I remember that less than thirty years ago there were butchers of dogs in great crowds, sacrificed and removed the hearts by the left side as a sacrifice ... and we informed them, and ordered them to be removed, and thus uprooted this error. We already referred to how they had other meats to eat fighters and hunts, and how old there were many of them "[3].
Privileged person, official and possessor of bald dogs, does not fail to mention the edible use that was given to bald dogs sacrificed to the god of rain and on the processions that had them as protagonists, processions that make us remember, those that still Today, they are carried out carrying saints, virgins and even Jesus himself during some festivity or to ask for rain in some of the original peoples of central Mexico.
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