188 BUREAU OF AMERfCAN ETHNOLOGY | iuli.. lis 



collection), at the bottom, and to have proceeded upward, for there 

 appears to have been nothing above the topmost line. It is to be 

 noted that the drawings are made in a different ink, blaclver and more 

 ])ermanent, than that in which the names were entered. 



Abont the middle of the fragment, in the sixth division from below, 

 we have the hieroglyph of a place. I think the explanatory note 

 shonld be read tezontepec. The hieroglyph is in the familiai^dorm of 

 a mountain (tepe-tl) bearing a tree. But the mountain is here 

 divided, as it w^ere, into a series of cliffs and prominences, which are 

 painted a light bluish green in the middle and reddish at the edges, 

 and its surface is diagonally crossed by a band contrasting sharply 

 with the rest of the coloring. The light diagonal band is prob- 

 ably intended to recall the familiar hieroglyph of the stone (tetl) 

 (see 71, figure ^^7, and a. figui'e 4o, the hieroglyph of Tepoxauac, 

 "where the stones are loose''). The alternately lighter and darker 

 portions in this hieroglyph reproduce the various veinings of <tone. 

 In our hieroglyph irregular black stripes occur, both on the diagonal 

 band and on the various clitfs and prominences of the mountain. 

 This, I believe, is meant to indicate the porous (piality of the stone, for 

 tezontli means " stone froth ". This was the Mexican name for a 

 porous stone which occurs in the valley of Mexico, and wdiich, like 

 the Roman travertine, has been much used foi- building purposes from 

 the earliest times. In the Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regi- 

 dores de Mexico, which is preserved in the archives of the Duke of 

 Osuna, a village called Tezontepec {h, same figure) is mentioned in a 

 list with Hueypochtlan, Tequisquiac, Nestlalapan, TIemaco, etc., as 

 subject to a '' comandero ". It is very likely the place in the dis-^« 

 trict of Tula, state of Hidalgo, which is still known by that namely 

 The report pul)lished by Doctor Penafiel, concerning the municipal 

 divisions of the Republic of Mexico in 1S84, mentions still another 

 Tezontepec in the district of Pachuca. Of course it is impossible to 

 state with certainty which Tezontepec may be meant here. 



In the other divisions (plate x) there is a man on the left and a 

 woman on the right, except the two uppermost tlivisions, in which 

 there is only a woman. The woman is always recognized by the 

 manner of wearing the haii', which is marked by a bunch on the neck 

 and two braids standing erect above the forehead, like horns. The 

 names of the pei'sons are written over them, and behind some of 

 the heads a name hieroglyph is given. Several i"ed dots are 

 painted between the man and the woman in each division, varying 

 from 4 to 8 in number. They are usually arranged in two rows, 

 arid where the number is uneven the row containing the smaller 

 number of dots is placed uppermost. Here again the writer seems 

 to have proceeded from below upward. The whole was probably 

 a sort of parish register of the village of Tezontepec, in which the 



