MANUSCRIPTS OF MEXICO SPINDEN 437 



in the case of a young suitor named One House. In figure 5 I 

 show this rejection scene. Her mother and father are seated before 

 the hieroglyph of their city (drawn in somewhat different fashion 

 than before) and One House presents them with jewelry while 

 Six Monkey gives him the cold shoulder. 



WOMAN'S POSITION IN ANCIENT MEXICO 



It is appropriate at this time to cast an eye at the social position 

 which women occupied among the nations of southern Mexico. 

 Even today Zapotecan and Mixtecan women have a name for self- 

 reliance and personal independence, and it seems that in ancient 

 times their social position was no less assured. We have already seen 

 that Lady Six Monkey could handle both martial and marital situa- 

 tions. We need not understand that she captured men with her own 



Figure 6. — IIow womon went to war in southorn Mexico (Bodley and Zouche codices). 



hands on the field of battle, but at least she led her soldiers into 

 action. The three pictures of militant feminism in figure 6 speak 

 for themselves. 



Also it is apparent that descent through the female line was recog- 

 nized as legal, and that an eldest-born daughter sometimes succeeded 

 to what we call the throne. In passages where the marriage of a 

 woman of higher rank to an inferior male is pictured she may be 

 seated on a stool or on the official mat, while he squats on the ground 

 before her or uses a stone. (See One Monkey and his superior wife 

 in fig. 3.) In cases where the male has the superior rank the wife 

 may kneel before him. 



Throughout all Central America and Mexico the mat rather than 

 the throne was the ordinary symbol of administrative power, perhaps 

 because it was used for conferences. That there were also ceremonial 

 thrones among the early Mayas is clear enough from their sculptures 

 and the right of the canopy is mentioned in Guatemalan histories 

 among the prerogatives of royalty. The Aztec rulers are sometimes 



