116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull.28 



and drought. The old women danced at her festivals, sacrificed a 3'oung 

 female dog to her, and brought her a simple, unembroidered white 

 garment. I think that it certainly follows from these characteristics 

 that it was a form of the ancient earth goddess who was worshipped 

 under this name. I call to mind that the earth goddess is also repre- 

 sented repeatedly in the form of a bird in the Borgian codex and the 

 Codex Vaticanus B; that in Maya the word cox, or cocox, means not 

 only "pheasant", but also "dry, withered, woody fruit", and that the 

 mythical king of Colhuacan, where Ciauocuatl, the earth goddess, was 

 tribal goddess, is called Coxcoxtli. 



I find the sixth hieroglyph of our picture, f, again in n from the 

 Troano codex, page 19*6', where it appears interchangeably with the 

 hieroglyph o as companion of the hieroglyph p. The latter hieroglyph, 

 which is the leading hieroglyph in this passage, appears to me to 

 express the ofi'ering of copal or incense. In the former I think I 

 recognize the rattle which regularly accompanies such acts of worship. 

 Compare the pictures of the rattle which I have given in q. I call to 

 mind that in Mexican representations, both in stone and picture 

 painting, and also in the Borgian codex and in Codex Vaticanus B, 

 the earth goddess is alwaj's represented with the Chicauaztli, the rattle 

 board, in her hand. 



The remaining hieroglyphs of our picture, g and h, are not clear to 

 me, but I notice that the hrst element of the hieroglyph g appears in 

 the chief hieroglyph, r, of the bat god on the vessel from Chama," pub- 

 lished by Mr Dieseldorff , and that another hieroglyph of this vessel, s, 

 is perhaps directly analogous to our hieroglyph g. 



The hieroglyphs as a whole appear to me to express an ancient earth 

 goddess who received in her lap the sun and the light and everything 

 living. 



We will now pass to the vessel t, figure 27. The figure which, with 

 the hieroglyph tablet, is repeated on this vessel three times is that of a 

 man. This is shown by the breechcloth, with ends hanging far down, 

 but which is here accompanied by a short cloth about the hips made 

 of thin veiling or netlike woven material. The body is painted yellow. 

 The position of the arms and hands corresponds to that of the female 

 figures in the vessel just discussed, and probably has the same mean- 

 ing. Two appendages hang out from the gigantic headdress formed of 

 loops and bands, and these have apparently at their ends two jaguar 

 ears. The reading of the hieroglyphs begins at the right with g. It 

 is evident that the hieroglyphs g, e, c and, in a similar way, r, d, b 

 seem to be related, while a is apparentl}^ identical with the two heads 

 of birds on the vertical hieroglyph tablet of the lower principal part 

 of the vessel. Thus we have here a case similar to that presented in 

 the curious varnished vessel of Jaina, near Campeche,'' described by 



aZeitschrift fvir Ethnologie, 1894, v. 26, pi. xiii. 



6 Verhandlungen des Vereins fiir Naturwissenschaftliehe Unterhaltung, Hamburg, 1881, v. 5. 



