Dispatch from Mexico

Peasants discovered an enormous ear of corn in a field outside of Mexico City last Thursday. Theologians think the colossal cob harbingers the return of Chicomecoatl, the Aztec goddess of maize. Once a year the Aztecs would select a lucky girl to symbolically represent Chicomecoatl in a sacred ritual:

"Every September a young girl...was sacrificed. The priests decapitated the girl, collected her blood and poured it over a figurine of the goddess. The corpse was then flayed and the skin was worn by a priest."

Aztecs called this “being given the usual.” Chicomecoatl was married to a fellow named Tezcatlipoca who had a snake for a foot, which seems strange now, but that was the style back then.