Page:Pedagogía Tolteca.djvu/31

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they received an education similar to the Telpochcalli, although with relevant female education.

Parents took them there, a prior ceremony was made in the parental home, with the participation of family and friends, but in which grandparents and godparents occupied a very important place.

This "farewell from the family" was very emotional and full of speeches, some of which have been collected in the Huehuetlahtolli, given that they were learned and used from one generation to another. This way the boy or girls were motivated, to assume the start of their formal education with joy and responsibility. In the same way parents gave their children to the telpochcalli or the Ichpochcalli in a ceremony, where speeches were eloquent, in the sense of education values:

"Here you are my daughter, my collar and fine feather, my creature and my making, the red of my blood, my portrait. You have come to life, you were born, our Lord Tloque Nahuaque sent you here, the doer, the creator of people on earth.

Now you realize things, you see how it is here; there is no joy there is no happiness, but sorrow and unhappiness and tiredness and misery; sorrow and misfortunes in excess. Hard place is earth, place of tears and suffering, where sorrow and bitterness are known; it happens, the icy wind glides, it is said that wind and heat are really calmed, but there is hunger and thirst; just like that things are.


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