He worshipped his barbaric deities after the fashion of his mother, and built here a teocalli to the war-god, wherein was preserved the devil stone.
When Cortez conquered Mexico, he found the stone adorning the statue of the war god in his famous teocalli in the city of the Aztecs.
The Conquistadores pulled down the teocalli and built thereon this church to the glory of Our Lady, at the command of Fray Medina, who afterwards became the first Bishop of Tlatonac.
On reaching the summit of the teocalli the victim was met by six priests, five of whom led him to the sacrificial stone, a great block of jasper with a convex surface.
On the teocalli of Mexico the Spaniards could count one hundred and thirty-six thousand human skulls piled in a horrid pyramid.
Inside these were kept the idols of the gods to whom the teocalli was sacred.
The great teocalli at Mexico, for example, was three hundred and seventy-five feet long at the base, and three hundred feet in width.
He was then conducted to a teocalli some three miles from the city of Mexico.
In the centre rose the great teocallidedicated to the god Huitzilopochtli.
Here, weary and discouraged as he was, he attacked with his little band the natives who were defending the teocalli there was there, and drove them out.
Ahuitzotl, his brother and successor, hastened to bring the great teocalli to completion, and its dedication was the occasion of a great feast and celebration.
Cortez, suspecting that all was not right, ascended one of the Teocalli in the neighborhood, to ascertain if any hostile movement was contemplated.
But, more portentous than all to the mind of the devout Montezuma, the priest, who had charge of the great altar on the Teocalli of Huitzilopotchli, had been seized with convulsions during the preceding night, and fallen dead at his post.
This feature was observed in many of the Teocalli of the Mexicans.
Their slopes are regular, and the aspect of the structure that of a Mexican teocalli of four stages.
A new teocalli holds his image, and they say he is happy and that he comes from the place of sunrise with a canoe filled with blessings.
On top there is an acre of ground on which once stood a wonderful teocalli or temple, built by the wise men, and dedicated to the Golden Hearted.
They led him to the great teocallinear their own quarters.
As it was not yet dusk he ascended the principal teocalli to reconnoitre the surrounding country, and there beheld a sight which could but cause him grave anxiety.
The teocalli itself was of the usual pyramidal shape, and five stories high, coated on the outside with hewn stones.
To this end they requested that the great teocalli should be given up to them as a fit place where their worship might be conducted in the presence of the whole city.
The caciques asked the permission of Alvarado to perform their rites in the teocalli which contained the chapel of the Spaniards, and to be allowed the presence of Montezuma.
This latter request was refused, but he consented to their using the teocalli provided they came unarmed and held no human sacrifice.
When the teocalli was captured and the priests slain, the Indians, deprived at one blow of gods and leaders, yielded in despair to their conquerors.
At the foot of the teocalli they stumbled over a nude corpse with a ragged wound in the breast.
A yell arose from friend and foe alike as they saw the glint of the stone, and the Indians closed resolutely round the base of the teocalli in a vain attempt to prevent the enemy from taking it by storm.
Scarcely had they established themselves when the serpent-skin drums on the summit of the teocalli began to roll out the alarm.
On the summit of the teocallihe saw a vast crowd of priests crying on the war-god to defend his shrine, and thought for a moment, as the black mass parted, that a man was lying on the stone of sacrifice.
The drums rolled, the trumpets shrilled, and the priests on the platform of the teocalli frantically invoked the god, while those whom they had aroused desperately attempted to force the bridges.
Below the tumult continued, the incense still rolled upward; but the last sacrifice had taken place in the teocalli of Totatzine, and Tim was the victim.
On the teocalli of the moon we found a number of recent sea-shells, which mystified us extremely; and the only explanation we could give of their presence there was that they might have been brought up as offerings.
There is little doubt that this is the famous war-idol which stood on the great teocalli of Mexico, and before which so many thousands of human victims were sacrificed.
Speaking of the greatteocalli of the city of Mexico, he says, quoting an old description, that the Moon had a little temple in the great courtyard, which was built of shells.
The summit of the teocalli was unoccupied, as the priests in their sable vestments were waiting for the victim at the foot of the great staircase.
The teocalli was as an island in the midst of a sea, and against its huge base these living waves beat without intermission.
Some cut themselves with knives, others climbing up to the summit of the teocalli flung themselves headlong down the staircase.
It is said by the priests that at the dedication of the great Teocalli in Mexico seventy thousand victims were offered to Huitzilopochtli.
They discovered that loss on returning to theteocalli for the morning sacrifice.
Here, there, and everywhere torches flashed out like falling stars, wild notes were blown on horns and shells, and above all arose the booming of the snakeskin drum which the priests upon the teocalli beat furiously.
The last sacrifice, except one only, the most terrible of them all, of which I will tell afterwards, that was ever celebrated on the teocalli in front of the palace, took place after the defeat of the Spaniards in the pass.
Afterwards Otomie, Guatemoc, and I went into the garden of the palace and sat upon the crest of a small pyramid, a teocalli in miniature that Montezuma had built for a place of outlook on the market and the courts of the temple.
The great drum on the teocalli beat for the last time, and for the last time the wild scream of the Aztec warriors went up to heaven.
Tell us how is it, woman, that you and your lover alone escaped from the teocalli yonder when all the rest were killed.
Now the road to the summit of the teocalli winds round and round the pyramid, ever mounting higher as it winds, and along this road we went in solemn state.
They were all dug up in the Plaza Mayor where the great teocalli is supposed to have stood, and where they were doubtless thrown down and buried from the sight of the natives at the time of the Conquest.
On entering the gates, to the right are seen those artificial tumuli, the teocalli of unburnt brick so common in most Indian towns.
The construction of the teocalli recalls the oldest monuments to which the history of the civilization of our race reaches.
The most remarkable feature of this structure is its stairway, which is different from any yet noticed, and similar to that of the grand teocalli of Mexico-Tenochtitlan as reported by the conquerors.
It is a mass of basaltic rock nine feet in diameter and three in height, and was found in the great square in 1790, near the site of the large teocalli or pyramid.
Within the enclosure of the Teocalli there were forty other temples dedicated to various Aztec gods.
These stones were perfectly plain or beautifully sculptured, like the one under notice, according to the teocalli it was destined for, or the degree and importance of the donor.
Enormous masses of masonry show where palaces and teocalli once stood.
He had a great pyramidal teocalli of nine stages erected in his capital for the worship of the god of heaven, to whom he brought no offerings except flowers and perfumes.
The teocalli which Fernando Cortes and his companions saw at Mexico, and which the conqueror razed to the ground, to replace it by a Catholic church, was not of any great antiquity.
The great teocalli of Mexico commanded the four chief roads that parted from its base to unite the capital to all the countries beneath the sceptre of its rulers.
At set of sun, all who had prisoners of war or slaves to offer to the deity brought forward their victims, painted with the colours of the god, danced along by their side, and shut them up in a building attached to the teocalli of Fire.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "teocalli" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
