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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[BULL. 28 



explain awa}^ the Bilimec picture, an attempt which must seem in the 

 highest degree fantastic to all who are familiar with Mexican subjects, 

 is proved by our figure 6 to be false in all its premises. So, too, is the 

 argument recently set forth by Doctor Uhle, that "warriors in battle, 

 who, like the Mexicans, carried their own banners, would not have car- 

 ried a banner likely to prove a hindrance in battle from its size or the 

 manner of carrying it"". The Mexicans did not consider such "practi- 

 cal points of view". The armor which the more prominent warriors 

 assumed for battle was the dress of a deity of whose power they 

 became possessed when they put on his array, and to be assured of this 

 power was probably the first "practical point of view" for the Mexi- 

 cans. If the costume of the god required a bird with outspread wings 



Fig. 12. Mexican feather ornaments. 



to be worn, it would have been woru without much question as to 

 whether it was practical or not. As far as form is concerned, how- 

 ever, the banner which King Axayacatl and the Bilimec warriors wore 

 on their backs, and also the bat dancer (a, figure 12) from the Duran 

 Atlas (Tratado 2, plate 8), to which 1 drew attention in my first com- 

 munication, ma}^ of course l)e used for purposes of comparison in 

 studying the meaning of the Vienna ornament quite as well as the 

 headdress apanecayotl of the god Tezcatlipoca in the manuscripts in 

 the Biblioteca Nazionale. The horseshoe-shaped curve, on which Uhle 

 lays such especial stress, prolialily onl}' occurs in the Vienna ornament 

 in consequence of its imperfect state of preservation, the golden beak 

 which originally belonged on tlip front ha\ing now disappeared. 



