182 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



valli, otlachimalli, naiihean tlapotonilli qiiaiihtlachcayotica, iuiclia- 

 cliapanqiii, moteneua teueuelli ; tliat is, " made of reeds, with eagle's 

 down stuck on it in four i)laces in conglomerate masses; it is called 

 teueuelli '\ Together with the shield, Uitzilopochtli bears four spears 

 that ai'e tipped with tufts of down instead of stone points, which were 

 called tlauacj'onialli." The shield with the tufts of down also appears 

 constantly in the Mendoza codex, where the symbol of war — shield, 

 spear thrower, and bundle of spears — is represented before the pic- 

 ture of the king. From this latter fact it has been concluded that 

 this shield was used by the Mexican Jvings: but I doubt whether 

 this was the case. Uitzilopochtli bears this shield, as he bears the 

 tlauacomalli (the four spears tipped with tufts of down instead of 

 stone) ; that is, he has the weapons which were placed in the hand 

 of those destined to a sacrificial death — ^to the sacrificio gladiatorio 

 (see a and h, figure 30), because to a certain extent he represents the 

 conception of a warrior's death — a death by sacrifice on the round 

 stone (temalacatl). There is an interesting statement in regard to 

 these Aveapons of Uitzilopochtli in the annals of Chinudpahin. We 

 read there that the elder IMotecuhzoma in the year 14-1:0, before he 

 was installed as a ruler, went to the Chalca to l)eg the princes of 

 Anuiquemecan to set in motion the otlanamitl and the teueuelli (ynic 

 conolinique in otlanamitl in teueuelli), in order that the Tepanecs 

 might be subdued (inic ojioiioliuh in Tepanecatl).'' Here teueuelli 

 is the name of Uitzilopochtli's shield and otlanamitl should read 

 otlanammitl. The latter word is derived by contraction from otla- 

 nauli-mitl and means "the four bamboo arrows". The whole is 

 undoubtedly only a figure of speech.'' Motecuhzoma simply asks the 

 Chalca to support him in war against the Tepanecs. But that a 

 figurative expression of this kind could be used proves that teueuelli 

 universally denoted the shield of the Avar god, for the god of the 

 Chalca was not Uitzilopochtli, l)ut Tezcatlipoca. 



The shields of the other warriors on our fragment III (plate viii) are 

 of two types, the two which occur most fre<iuently among the armor 

 depicted in the tril)ute list and in the Mendoza codex. The first. 

 third, and sixth Avarriors, from l)eloAv, in the left roAV and the lower 

 of the tAvo on the right side, have shields Avhose surface exhibits a 

 stepped meander pattern, undoubtedly executed in feather Avork, as 

 on the ancient Mexican shields in the Museimi of National Antiqui- 

 ties at Stuttgart. A shield of this kind Avas called xicalcoliuhqui 



" Veroffentlichungen aus dem Koniglichen Museum fiir Volkerkunde, v. 1, p. 122. 



& Chimalpahin, Seventh Relation, pp. 105, 100. 



" Remi Simeon translates the passage: qu'ils transportassent les engins de guerre pour 

 renverser les Tepan&ques ("that they would transport the engines of war to overthrow 

 the Tepanecs"). It does not refer to engines of war, nor would the Chaleas, if they ha<l 

 owned such a fetish, have actually given it out of their keeping, nor, finally, does ou-oli-ni 

 mean to transport to any other place. 



