236 CENTRAL AMERICAN PICTURE-WRITING. 
order from left to right. We should naturally expect, then, that the sign 
for Tlaloc or for Huitzilopochtli would occupy the upper left-hand corner 
of Plate XXIV. In fact it does, and I was led to this discovery in the 
way I have indicated. 
No. 37 is the Palenque manner of writing the top sign of Fig. 52. I 
shall call the signs of Fig. 52 a, b, c, etc., in order downwards. 
The crouching face in @ occupies the lower central part of No. 37. 
Notice also that this face occurs below the small cross in the detached 
ornament to the left of the central mask of Fig. 60. The crescent moon 
of Plate LXI (Fig. 58) is on its cheek; back of this is the sun-sign; the 
cross of a is just above its eye; the three signs for the celestial concave 
are at the top of 37, Grossed with rain bands; the three seeds (?) are be- 
low these. The feathers are in the lower right-hand two-thirds. This is 
the sign or part of the sign for Huitzilopochtli. If a Maya Indian had 
seen either of these signs a few centuries ago, he would have had the 
successive ideas—a war-god, with a feather-symbol, related to sun and 
moon, to fertilizing rain and influences, to clouds and seed; that is 
Huitzilopochtli, the companion of Tlaloc. Or if he had seen the upper 
left-hand symbol of the Palenque cross tablet (1800), he would have had 
related ideas, and so on. 
What I have previously said about the faithfulness with which the Yu- 
catec artist adhered to his prototypes in signs is perfectly true, although 
apparently partly contradicted by the identification I have just made. 
When a given attribute of a god (or other personage) was to be depicted, 
the chiffres expressing this were marvellously alike. Witness the chiffres 
Nos. 2090, 2073, 2021, 2045, 3085, 3073, 3070, 3032 of the Palenque cross 
tablet. But directly afterwards some other attribute is to be brought 
out, and the chiffre changes; thus the hieroglyph 1009 of Plate LIV, or 
265, Plate LII, has the same protruding tongue as 2021, ete., and is the 
same personage, but the style is quite changed. In Fig. 52, Huitzilo- 
pochtli is the war-god, in Plate X XTV he is the rain-god’s companion ; and 
while every attribute is accounted for, prominence is given to the special 
ones worshipped or celebrated. Scores of instances of this have arisen 
in the course of my examination. 
Again, we must remember that this was no source of ambiguity to the 
Yucatecs, however much it may be to us. Each one of them, and spe- 
cially each officiating priest, was entirely familiar with every attribute of 
every god of the Yucatec pantheon. The sign of the attribute brought 
the idea of the power of the god in that special direction; the full idea 
of his divinity was the integral of all these special ideas. The limits 
were heaven and earth. 
This, then, is the first step. I consider that it is securely based, and 
that we may safely say that in proper names, at least, a kind of picture 
writing was used which was not phonetic. 
From this point we may go on. Imustagain remark that great famil- 
larity with the literature of the Aztecs and Yucatees is needed—a famil- 
