these vampire-witches from obtaining entrance. Occasionally, however, they would attack human dwellings, and did they obtain ingress the children of the household would pine and dwindle away owing to the blight that these loathsome creatures cast upon them. Accordingly in their shrines where four cross-roads met men heaped up enticing and substantial food offerings, in order that these malignant dead might so satisfy their hunger that they would not seek to make an onset upon the living. One explanation why the shrine should be at cross-roads was in order that the Ciuateteo might be confused and not knowing which way to take to the nearest human habitation, be surprised by dawn before she could set out to seize her prey. We find this exact reason is given in Greece and in other countries for burying the body of a suicide, who will almost certainly become a vampire, at four cross-roads.
With regard to Mexican Vampire-witches, who it appears partook in almost equal quantities the nature of both these evil things, Sahagun records: “It was said that they vented their wrath on people and bewitched them. When anyone is possessed by the demons, with a wry mouth and disturbed eyes, with clenched hands and inturned feet, wringing his hands and foaming at the mouth, they say that he has linked himself to a demon; the Ciuateteo, housed by the cross-ways, has taken his form.”
But this was not the only vampire known to the mythology of Mexico. The Lord of Mictlampa (the Region of the Dead) certainly has vampirish attributes. He is often depicted as a complete skeleton (Codex Borgia, sheet 14), and sometimes he has a bunch or broom of malinalli grass, which was associated with witchcraft. In another representation he appears with a skeleton head but a black body, and at the side is seen a skull swallowing a man who falls into its bony jaws. In the Codex Magliabecchiano[56] he is depicted as a blue-grey form with enormous talons upon his hands that are markedly reminiscent of the claws of a Vampire. He sits in the portico of a dark temple and before him are his worshippers, a number of men and women, who feast upon human flesh, tearing heads, legs, and arms which they snatch from several earthen vessels. His wife was Mictecaciuatl, “Lady of the Place of the Dead,” and she is often represented as wearing for ornaments the paper
