butterfly, perched among the mushrooms and concealing 
the sixth one, apparently feeding on them. Why the 
butterfly / In this world of nature mushrooms do not 
draw butterflies, but in the iconography of the Nahua 
and Mixtecs butterflies play an important mythic role, 
as we see in the butterflies of the famous mural of Tepan- 
titla, showing us Tlalocan, the paradise of the Nahua. 
Butterflies are associated with the land of fortunate de- 
parted spirits. George Cowan in Van (1958 No. 2) has 
told us that in some parts of the contemporary Mazatec 
world butterflies are still considered to be the souls of 
the departed revisiting their native haunts. On the base 
of the statue of Nochipilli the butterfly is feasting on the 
flesh of the divine mushrooms, the spirit food of the gods, 
to whose world the mushrooms transport for a brief spell 
the people of this sad work-a-day world. Mrs. Seeler has 
reproduced this mythic butterfly, the symbol that cer- 
tainly supports and. ratifies our identification of the 
sacred mushrooms: 
eo emetitd. DETAIL FRONT 
k CENTER’ BASE 
Fig. 3 
The Mythic Butterfly 
[ 814 ] 
