174 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



In division 18 is a head with hair hanging straight down, which, 

 according to the marginal note, bears the name Imexayacatzin. 

 The hieroglyph is a hnman leg, upon the thigh of which is painted a 

 face. This exactly reproduces the meaning of the name. Xayacatl 

 means " the face ", and imexayacatl is literally imex-xayacatl, which 

 is derived, with syncopation of the final consonant of the first word, 

 from imetzxayacatl, that is, " the face made of her thigh (metz-tli)''. 

 The name refers to a ceremony which was performed at the broom 

 feast, Ochpaniztli, the feast of the goddess Teteo-innan, or Toci. A 

 woman was sacrificed at this feast, who, as was customary at the feasts 

 of the Mexicans, was considered an image of the divinity in whose 

 honor the feast was held, and who represented this deity in dress and 

 action. This woman was sacrificed by decapitation, a priest hold- 

 ing her on his l)ack, and was then immediately flayed. A priest 

 dressed himself in the skin, and represented the goddess during the 

 remainder of the feast. From the skin of the thigh a mask was 

 made, which was called mexayacatl, or more correctly i-mex-xayacatl, 

 " the face made of her thigh "'. It was woiii, together with a peculiar 

 headdress, which was called itztlacoliuhqui, '^ the sharply curved '\ 

 particularly described in the respective chapter of Sahagun (volume 

 2, chapter 30). It was considered the symbol of coldness and hard- 

 ness, of infatuation, of evil, and of sin. I reproduce this mask and 

 headdress, /, from the Sahagun manuscript of the Academia de la 

 Historia, where the two combined are depicted as the insignia of a 

 warrior, under the name mexayacatl. The mask (mexayacatl) and 

 the headdress (itztlacoliuhqui) were put on by Cinteotl, the god of 

 the maize plant, or more exactly of the ripe, hard, dry ear of corn, 

 which was called cintli, who was the son of the old earth mother, 

 Teteoinnan, and a battle then ensued between him and his followers 

 on the one hand, and the priest clad in the human skin, representing 

 the goddess, on the other, which was undoubtedly meant to symbolize 

 the driving away of frost and other harmful things which threaten 

 the Indian corn. These harmful things were supposed to be conjured 

 into the mexayacatl. Therefore at the close of the feast a chosen 

 band of warriors carried it at a running pace somewhere across the 

 borders into hostile country." 



In the next division, II), the note gives the name xipanoctzin. This 

 should really read xip-panoc-tzin, derived by assimilation from xiuh- 

 panoc-tzin, just as xip-palli, "color turquesado", is derived from xiuh- 

 palli. Accordingly, the name contains the elements xiuh (or, with the 

 article, xiuitl); "turquoise", and panoc, "he who crosses a river" 

 (from pano, " to cross a river "). Both elements are cleai-ly expressed 

 in the hieroglyph. Xiuh is expressed by the hieroglyph foi- tur- 



° Sahagun, v. 2, chap. 30. 



