2a2i CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING. 
HERRARA describes HUITZILOPOCHTLI and TEZCATLIPOCA together, 
and says they were “beset with pieces of gold wrought like birds, beasts, 
and fishes.” “For collars, they had ten hearts of men,” “and in their 
necks Death painted.” 
TORQUEMADA derives the name of the war god in two ways. <Ac- 
cording to some it is composed of two words, one signifying “a humming 
bird” and the other “‘a sorcerer that spits fire.” Others say that the 
last word means “the left hand,” so that the whole name would mean 
“the shining feathered left hand.” “This god it was that led out the 
Mexicans from their own land and brought them into Andhuac.” Be- 
sides his regular statue, set up in Mexico, “ there was another renewed 
every year, made of different kinds of grains and seeds, moistened with 
the blood of children.” This was in allusion to the nature side of the 
god, as fully explained by MULLER (Americanische Urreligionen). 
No deseription will give a better idea of the general features of this 
god than the following cuts from BANCROFW’s Native Races, which are 
copied from Leon y GAMA, Las Dos Piedras, etc. Figs. 53 and 54 are 
= = 
FG. 53.—H UITZILOPOCHTLE (front). 
the war god himself; Fig. 55 is the back of the former statue on a larger 
scale; Fig. 56 is the god of hell, and was engraved on the bottom of the 
block. 
These three were a trinity well nigh inseparable. 
It has been doubted whether they were not differ- @e! 
ent attributes of the same personage. In the nat- 
ural course of things the primitive idea would become 
differentiated into its parts, and in process of time { 
the most important of the parts would each receive 
a separate pictorial representation. 
By referring back a few pages the reader will find 
summarized the principal characteristics of the Cen- 
tral American figure represented in Fig. 52. He will also have noticed 
the remarkable agreement between the attributes of this figure and 
Fic. 56.—MIcLANTECUTLI. 
