SELER] MEXICAN PICTURE WRITINGS FRAGMENTS III, IV 



179 



drawn (see «, figure 40), may be seen in the headdress of the god 

 Camaxtli, the war god of the Tlaxcaltecs, who is opposite the fire 

 god, the ruler of the ninth week, which begins with ce Coatl, on 

 page of the Tonalamatl in the Aubin-Goupil collection. I have 

 shown that the tonalamatl occurs in the most diverse Mexican picture 

 writings with the same regents and essentially the same symbols or 

 symbols derived from the same idea." If we take the Borgian codex, 

 for instance, we find here, too, the fire god depicted as the ruler of the 

 ninth week, ce Coatl. But opposite him we have not the effigy of 

 Camaxtli, the war god of Tlaxcala, but a design (5, figure 40) in 

 which we clearly recognize, besides a scorpion and flying arrows, the 



7777=. 



Fig. 40. Symbols and ligiuvs from the Moxiivin codices. 



stream of water and the ascending smoke of fire. In another parallel 

 passage in the same manuscript there is again drawn opposite the fire 

 god, instead of the war god, merely a scorpion, a stream of water, and 

 a burning house, c^ teoatl tlachinolli, the symbol of war. 



The bodies of the warriors on our fragment (plate viii) , to the right 

 of the teoatl tlachinolli, the symbol of war, are painted brown and 

 the faces yellow, like the other figures on this fragment. ISIoreover, 

 all the warriors have a characteristic red face painting, which con- 

 sists of one vertical stripe and two horizontal stripes. This painting 

 undoubtedly has some special ethnic significance. At least it differs 



" tJber den Codex Borgia und die verwandten aztekischen Bilderschriften. 



