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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



gladiator wears the characteristic blood- 

 red dress of the god Xipe Totec. Before 

 a temple at the right is the scaffold, the 

 cross bars of which are tied with ropes. 

 To this scaffold a victim, also wearing 

 the costume of Xipe Totec, is bound. 

 A priest, whose body is painted black, 

 has pierced the sacrifice with several 

 arrows and the blood is streaming down. 

 In the Codex Nuttall the contest on 

 the stone disk is more fully represented 

 and that on the scaffold is somewhat 



with four cross beams at the bottom and 

 one at the top. The victim is stretched 

 across the open space and his body i.s 

 pierced by arrows. In one picture we see 

 a priest in the act of shooting. Behind 

 the temple is a pole with some sort of 

 framework at the top and with a rope 

 hanging to the ground. Various indi- 

 viduals are also shown, each with his 

 name hieroglyph above his head. There 

 is nothing to indicate that the scaffold 

 sacrifice is here connected with the feast 



The Mexican feast to Xipe Totec, the Lord of the Flayed, representation from the Manascril du Cacique. 

 A temple is depicted at the right, before which a captive taken in war is being sacrificed on a scaffold. A priest 

 garbed in black is throwing arrows at the victim with an allall, or throwing stick. At the left is shown the contest 

 of the stone disk, in which another captive fights four armed warriors. Both victims wear the blood-red costume 

 and head-dress of Xipe Totec 



al)breviated. There is a remarkable 

 uniformity however, in essential details. 

 The day Six House is recorded in both 

 pictures and there are also figured eight 

 sacrificial knives. Under the sacrifice on 

 the scaffold is an object which may 

 represent the sacred bowl used to catch 

 the blood. 



Two human sacrifices on scaffolds 

 are drawn in a somewhat more realistic 

 fashion in the Codex Porfirio Diaz. In 

 each picture we see a temple (drawn out 

 of scale as always) and before it a scaffold 



of Tlacaxipehualiztli. Above the upper 

 cross bar in one case there is a heart, 

 which may indicate that this vital organ 

 was offered to the divinity in whose 

 honor the ceremony was celebrated; in 

 the other case there is a disk-shaped 

 object which doubtless represents the 

 sun or some other heavenly body. There 

 is good reason to believe that the scaffold 

 sacrifice originated in southern Mexico 

 and that it was connected primarily 

 with the sun or some important planet 

 and secon(laril^' with war. Most of the 



