MANUSCRIPTS OF MEXICO SPINDEN 



433 



MAJOR EVENTS IN THE LI\TES OF INDIVIDUALS 



Given, then, the year and day of birth for many persons of his- 

 torical importance in southern Mexico, we next find tliem making 

 offerings at temples, getting married, fighting battles, and finally 

 wrapped up for burial, all in connection with dates which enable us 

 to construct the chronology of their lives. In figure 3, I combine 

 references to One Monkey relating to his birth, his marriage to Lady 

 Seven "Water, an attack on his city made by Three Monkey, and 

 finally to his death. The life of this One Monkey covered 65 years. 



Important heirs make offerings at the temple at a tender age. On 

 pages 4 and 5 of the Selden codex three persons destined to rule in 

 succession at a certain city, which is indicated by a place-name hiero- 

 glyph attached to a temple, come in turn and burn incense before a 

 sacred bundle on the temple platform on which rests a head of the 

 Kain God. 



FiGUEE 3. — Events in the life of One Monkey. 



Marriage is represented in the Selden and Bodley codices by a 

 man and women facing each other on a mat, while in the Zouche 

 codex they usually face each other within a house. Sometimes the 

 wedding ceremony is pictured including the carrying in of the 

 bride, the bath which bride and groom take together, etc. A com- 

 plete marriage ceremony is gorgeously portrayed on the double 

 page 19 of the Zouche manuscript. Often a line of footprints leads 

 from the parents to the bride or groom who has changed residence, 

 as the case may be. When the text runs, as it usually does, in a 

 narrow zone, children are commonly placed after the mother, with 

 the years of birth recorded only for the older ones, except when 

 the families are very prominent. It is a curious point that children 

 at birth are rarely represented as actual children; instead they are 

 pictured as of adult stature and wearing the dress and insignia of 

 later life. I show in figure 4 the birth of Four Dog, also called 

 Coyote, who was the eldest son of the famous Eight Deer, together 

 with that of his sister Ton Flower." The former was born on the 

 day 4 Dog in the year 7 Eabbit, and the latter on the day 10 Flower 

 in the next year 8 Reed. But although the date of Ten Flower's 



» I follow the excellent suggestion of Long In spelling out numbers in cnlendarlal 

 names while leaving them as numerals in dates. 



