554 SCULPTURES OF SANTA LUCIA COZUMAHUALPA. 



may ))o that the mask is the distiiu-tive mark of the priest, and has 

 some reference to the divinity whom he serves. 



After these genei'al exphinations, short descriptions of the single 

 pieces must suftice. Among the originals of the Berlin Museum there 

 are eight blocks which hiive approximately equal dimensions. Habel, 

 who measured them in their original condition in situ, gives the height 

 as 1'2 English feet, the breadth of the sculptured surface as 3, and the 

 thickness of the stone as 2 feet; and he remarks that the face of each 

 is plane in the lower 3 feet, so that the sculptured part is onl}?^ 9 

 feet high. The blocks must have stood on end, and probably, with 

 open interspaces, formed the favade of a temple or temples. For, 

 had they been joined together, the sculpture Wv)uld. in the ornamenta- 

 tion or somewhere, have been continuous from i)j()ck to block; while, 

 in fact, each is a separate represcMitation. having, in some cases, a border 

 of its own. Tliert' is no further connection between them than tkatof 

 the subjects they represent, wiiich ar«' all religious pei-formances, 

 especially the worship of ditt'eriMit divinities. This again agrees with 

 the hypothesis that the blocks aw remains of temples. 



Of theso eight blocks our nuiseum ])ossesses casts of the sculptured 

 faces of thre(> oidy. the first tliree of the following eiunneration: 



No. 1. I'pon this plinth we see in the middle a priest, characterized 

 by the sacrilicial knife in his right hand and by the cut-ofi' head of the 

 sacritice in his left. This kind of sacrilice l)elongs to the jNIayas, not 

 to tile Xahoas, who. as is well known, otfered the heart of the victim; 

 and the whole composition nuist be interpreted in the light of Ma^'a 

 customs and conceptions. Land tells us that the high priest is the 

 reprcsentiitive of tln^ sun and that his four assistants answer to the 

 foui" (juarters of the horizon. The four assistants occupy hvvo tho four 

 corners of the plinth; ))ut in order to tix their orientation we nnist 

 considt Nahuatlan ideas. The north is the place whither the dead 

 go and where the god of death abides, which corresponds best with 

 the assistant in the right lower corner, who appears as a skeleton. 

 It is to be noticed that Death is not commonly represented by an 

 entire carcass, but is incarnate only in arms and legs, or even only in 

 hands and feet. This being settled, the assistant of the lower left- 

 hand corner should be the east, that of the upper right-hand corner 

 the west, and that of the upper left-hand corner the south. The last 

 has also a death's head. Before the bridge of his nose there is a hooked 

 object. The south was also regarded as the place of dearth and hunger; 

 so that the reference to death is suita))le to it. Like the high priest 

 himself, each of the foui' assistants bears in his hands the head of a 

 victim. These five heads differ from each other and from their bearers 

 by the ornamentation and the anthropological type. We may reason- 

 ably infer that these heads represent races hostile to the inhabitants of 

 Santa Lucia, and may correspond to the directions in which their 



