94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



this collection through the kindness of Mr Dieseldorli', and have 

 reproduced it in a. The nose is remarkably long, and one is almost 

 tempted to think of the Tzimin-Chac, the horse of Cortes, which 

 remained in Peten and was worshipped as a god. But I believe another 

 comparison lies nearer. In h 1 reproduce in outline a large piece of 

 sculpture from Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa, which is found in our 

 Royal Museum and which I believe corresponds to the head in n, and 

 probably also to the one in c. This stone head is especially interesting, 

 Ijecause it is represented with weeping eyes or, perhaps more correctly, 

 with eyes fallen out of the sockets. 



In the Mexican calendar writings, whose models doubtless came 

 from the south, the empty eye sockets are the special sign of a certain 

 mythologic personage to whom the interpreters give the name Xolotl. 

 This is a person who has no place in the worship of the plateau tribes 

 and is evidently a stranger to them. Something mysterious and unnat- 

 ural pertained to him. By the interpi-eters he was called the "god of 

 monstrosities", and "monstrosity'' is probabl}^ the most suitable trans- 

 lation of his name. The empty eye sockets are explained by the Mexican 

 legend which says that, when in Teotihuacan the gods had decided to 

 sacriiice themselves in order to give strength and life to the newly 

 created sun, Xolotl withdrew from this sacrifice and wept so that his 

 eyes started from their sockets. This explanation was invented only 

 to make the imintelligible characteristic of a strange personality com- 

 prehensible to themselves and others. In an earlier work I have sought 

 to make it clear that, since in Zapotec the hairless native dog is called 

 peco-xolo, by Xolotl was originally meant the lightning beast of the 

 Maya tribes, the dog. A dog, or, more correctly, perhaps, a coyote, 

 is, in fact, in certain picture writings, the direct equivalent of Xolotl. 

 But I was later convinced that in the above-mentioned Zapotec expres- 

 sion xolo is only the attribute, and in this case designates a special, 

 really unnatural, kind of dog. Thus the dog or coyote has become the 

 representative of Xolotl in a roundabout way, by a secondary train 

 of thought — perhaps, indeed, through the false interpretation of an 

 unknown, uncomprehended animal form. 



I am inclined to see the true Xolotl in an animal which the Zapotecs 

 likewise designate by xolo, in full, as peche-xolo,'^' suggesting the sense 

 of "sinister being", also known to the Mexicans under this name, 

 their tlaca- xolotl.'' This is the tapir, whose mythologic role is estab- 



" "Pecho-xolo", "danta animal silvestre", Juan de C6rdoba, Vocabulario Zapoteco. 



^Sahagun and Hernandez describe under the name of tlaca-xolotl an animal which is said to live 

 in the provinces of Atzaecan, Tepotzotzontlan, and Tlanquilapan, "not far from Honduras". It is as 

 large as an ox, has a long snout, large teeth, hoofs like an ox, a thick hide, and reddish hair. Itlives 

 upon wild cocoa, fruits, and leaves of trees, lays waste the maize fields, and is caught in pits and 

 eaten. The name tlaca-xolotl is moreover nothing more than a translation of the Zapotec p^ehe- 

 xolo, for in Zapotec p^che is probably a secondary form of peni, "human being", "rational living 

 being" (Mexican tlacatl) as mache is a secondary form of mani, "animal ". The description of Her- 

 nandez contains some conspicuous errors. He translates " pero de la forma de una persona", which 

 in Sahagun refers only to the preceding "los diente.s y muelas muy grandes". that is, " very large 

 incisors and molar teeth, but of the same shape as those of men" by " humana psene facie". 



