46 BFRKAIT OF AMERICAN P:THN()L()GY [bull. 28 



with a skull mask, is derived. And if the rain god Chac is distin- 

 guished in the Maya manuscript by a i)eculiarly long nose, curving 

 over the mouth (see the hieroglyph in e^ tigure 8, page 36), and if in 

 the other form of the rain god, to which, as it seems, the name Bolon 

 Zacab belongs, the nose widens out and sends out shoots, I believe 

 that the tapir, which was employed identically with Chac, the rain god, 

 furnished the model for this also. 



The tapir is called in Zapotec peche-xolo, and the native hairless 

 dog peco-x(Mo. Dog and tapir, then, the two animals darting from 

 heaven, who carry lightning and thunderbolts in their hands, are 

 brouoht tooether here in the conniion designation xolo. This word 

 Xolo itself is the familiar name of a demon, the demon Xolotl, who 

 rules over the sixteenth week (Ce Cozcaquauhtli), and the seventeenth 

 day sign (Olin), and who is represented directly as a dog (Codex 

 Vatican us B, pages 4 and 77) or at least with the cropped ears of a dog 

 (Borgian codex, page 50, and Codex Vaticanus B, page 33), and who is 

 distinguished as the deity of air and of the four directions of the wind 

 I)}' QuetzalcoatFs breast ornament, and h\ the fact that the four colors, 

 symbols of the four cardinal points, and the sign naui olin (''the four 

 movements"), are represented close beside him. There is therefore no 

 doubt that this demon is to be considered as equivalent to the beast 

 darting from heaven of the Maya manuscript. The spirit Xolotl is usu- 

 ally described by translators as the '^'god of abortions". He is actu- 

 ally also depicted in the Borgian codex, page 127, as crooked-limbed and 

 blear-eyed. And in Mexico all sorts of mongrel figures, which were 

 regarded as abortions, were descril>ed by the word Xolotl. 



If we now return to the word tela, by which the tenth day sign is 

 denoted in the Zapotec calendar, it appears that we can find no mean- 

 ing for it if we simply employ the word "dog", corresponding to the 

 Mexican itzcuintli, but that the word at once becomes intelligible if 

 we think of the dog darting from heaven, as represented in the Maj^a 

 manuscript. For tela is tee-lao, boca abajo, "with the head down'', 

 hence answering to the Mexican Tzontemoc. The contracted form 

 tela occurs in Zapotec in various derivatives, such as ti-tela-nii, used 

 of the kicking out behind of animals; tiniiij-natela, "to hold perverse 

 speech"; totela, "to shake the dice from the cup (with its mouth 

 downward)"; quela-natela-lachi,"" "confusion (when everything is upside 

 down and topsy-turvy in our minds)." 



For the eleventh day sign the Zapotec calendar, after removing the 

 prefix, gives the form loo or (in 1 XI) goloo. This answers to the 

 Mexican Ozomatli. " ape", for the v^ocabulary gives pillao, pilleo, pilloo 

 gonna, mona anim: 1 (gonna is only the feminine designation). I have 

 shown in my foimer work that the other calendars, as well as the 

 Maya glyphs of this day sign, agree with this meaning. 



For tli^ twelfth day sign the Zapotec calendar gives the form pija. 



