132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



calendars, from whicli I reproduce the figure with the legend in 

 e and /, figure 30, and also in our picture c, plate ii, which illustrates 

 the fifteenth annual festival, the feast Panquetzaliztli. 



Finally, the fourth picture, which I designated by d, plate ii, shows 

 us the head of a well-known deity, the red god Xipe, whose original 

 home was near Yopi, in the deep ravines of the Pacific slope, but 

 whose worship Avas widely spread throughout the highlands, and par- 

 ticularly in the capital, where it was celebrated with special pomp. 

 It is a peculiar characteristic of this god that he goes about clad in a 

 flayed human skin. Therefore, at his feast victims were not onlj^^ 

 slaughtered in the usual manner by tearing out the heart, which was 

 offered up to him, but afterward the corpse was flayed and its skin 

 put on by such persons as, for any reason, wished to show the god 

 special devotion. It was worn by them continually during the twenty 

 days following the festival. This feast, called Tlacaxipeualiztli, 

 " man flaying " — the second, according to the usual reckoning — is 

 represented in our picture d Iw the head of the god Xipe. 



Thus we have in a, b, c, and d of column b, plates ii and iii, the pic- 

 tures of four yearly festivals, namely, the sixth, eleventh, fifteenth, 

 and second, according to the usual reckoning. The sixth feast was 

 separated from the eleA^enth by 5X20, or 100, days: the eleventh 

 from the fifteenth by IX^O, or 80, days; the fifteenth from the second 

 by 5X^0-f5, or 105, clays (in this interval fall the nemontemi, 

 the five superfluous days, which were counted at the end of Izcalli), 

 and, lastly, the second was 4X20, or 80, days, distant from the sixth, 

 giving a total of 100+80+105+80, or 365. These four festivals, it 

 is true, do not divide the year into four quarters, except approxi- 

 mately. It is as exact and regular as is possible in a year composed 

 of eighteen parts of 20 days each and 5 superfluous days. 



We will now consider column a (see plates ii and iii), the first on 

 the right hand of the strip. Here we invariably find, together with 

 the feast Etzalqualiztli (a of column b), a picture and several small 

 circles, which express a certain number. Here, again, we have four 

 pictures, which follow one another from below upward in regu- 

 lar alternation. I will designate these, beginning at the bottom, by 

 a, ft, y, and S. 



The first character, a, is composed of an eye, a vertical ray, and 

 two lateral parts, probably derived from the drawing of a cross, the 

 arms of which cut each other at a somewhat acute angle. This is 

 the symbol of the four cardinal points (see the variant of this char- 

 acter, e, figure 31, from the Sahagun manuscript of the Biblioteca 

 Laurenziana), but may, perhaps, have some connection with the 

 drawing often found on spindle whorls (see a, b, c, and d, same figure) 



