114 PR0CEEDIN08 OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.42. 



the head and seems, like many others from this region, to be a vase 

 or torch bearer.^ 



At Teotihuacan braziers were recently found representing a human 

 figure bending forward with hands on the ground and bearing a basin 

 on the back. The specimen shown is in the Museo Nacional de 

 Mexico. The material is-andesite, of light color. (PL 4.) 



The George G. Heye expedition has recently discovered in Ecuador 

 an old form of monolithic censer consisting of a seated figure with 

 hands raised bearing a bowl in which there still remains half-burned 

 incense. 



The "sacrificial stone" of Mexico, which has a cavity in the middle 

 from which leads a gutter passing over the flat surface and down the 

 side, obviously worked out since the completion of the relief decora- 

 tion, appears to have had a secondary use as a brazier. The function 

 of the trough would be to facilitate drawing out the ashes, which, as 

 Sahagun states, were carefully preserved for deposit in a place set 

 apart for the purpose, and it is obvious that the thorough removal of 

 every particle of the ashes could not well be accomplished over the 

 rough, sculptured surface of the stone. The following references to 

 Sahagun describe the care with which ashes were preserved: 



When they had finished the incensing they went to deposit the ashes in a round 

 hearth called tlexictli (fire navel), whifch was placed in the midst of the court where 

 it was elevated two spans above the surface.^ 



This having been done, the ashes and the objecta which had been employed in the 

 Ber\'ice of the gods were carried to the oratories called ayauhcalco (in the house of fogs 

 or vapors). 



(These oratories, also called ayauhcalli, were ordinarily placed on 

 the banks of water courses.^) 



WTien the aurora appeared and when one could see the morning star they interred 

 the ashes belonging to the offering, likewise the flowers, the reeds where they burnt 

 the perfumes, in the belief that these objects should not be seen by anyone addicted 

 to vices as would be a man living in concubinage, an adulterer, a gambler or a drunk- 

 ard; for they held all that kind as blemished and they forbid that they should see 

 the interring of the ashes of the sacrifice. After they had put them in the ground, 

 they began to sing and dance to the sound of the tambour and the teponaztli. ■* 



A number of altars have been discovered in Mexico and Central 

 America, especially by the field parties sent out by the Peabody 

 Museum. These are apparently not fire altars or censers, but the 

 altar block of Stela M in the hieroglyphic stairway of Copan'^ in- 

 corporated a figure (snake) as in the animal and mask vases like 

 those of the Lacandones, for example,^ figured by Maler and repro- 



1 Dupaix in Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities, vol. 4, pi. 43. 



» Sahagun, work cited, p. 101. 



' Translator's note, Sahagun, work cited, p. 74. 



* Sahagun, work cited, p. 570. 



» Mem. Peabody Mus., vol. 1, No. 6. pi. 16. 



« Idem, vol. 2, No. 1, p. 28. 



