52 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 



Further illustrations of the use of the shell-trumpet by 

 the Aztecs are seen in Codex Borgia 14, where Tepeyollotli, 

 the Heart of the Mountains, God of the Caves, is figured 

 blowing the shell-horn, and in Codex Vaticanus, No. 3,7/3, 

 sheet 22, where the same god wears the shell-horn as a 

 breast ornament and a second horn lies before him at the 

 threshold of the temple. 91 



In the Codex Vaticanus and elsewhere the Mexican 

 Moon God, Tecciztecatl, is represented in association with 

 a large conch-shell as its symbol. This appears either on 

 the brow of the god or at the back of the neck. As the 

 emblem of the moon the shell also appears with the 

 figure of a man holding in his hand a blood-stained agave- 

 leaf spike, or merely a hand holding a bone dagger and 

 agave-leaf spike, emerging from the mouth the God in 

 the shell which might have reference to the waters being 

 pent up, or possibly to different phases of the moon. The 

 Rain God, Tlaloc, is thus seen at the mouth of the shell, 

 or emerging from it, holding lightning in both hands. 

 (See Figs. 2 5 on plate facing.) 



The snail-shell was also brought into association by 

 the Aztecs with conception, pregnancy and birth ; for, as 

 the interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis says : 

 " asi como sale del hueso el caracol, asi sale el hombre del 

 vicntre de su madre." 



The Moon God is thought by Seler to bear this name 

 " perhaps on the one hand because he has his phases, at 

 times withdrawing half or altogether into his shell." But 

 on the other hand and this is what the interpreters 

 lay stress upon it seems as if he owed this name to the 

 relation in which the moon stands towards women, to the 

 influence which it exercises on the bodies of women. In 



<J1 Seler, op. cit., p. 103, figs. 295, and p. 105, sheet 22. Here the shell 

 is like that of the Fasting-man, i.e., Fasciolaria gigantea. 



