SELKRl MEXICAN PICTURE WRITINGS FRAGMENT VI 193 



plan of the city in the middle of the picture, which, as we have seen, 

 is that of the city of Tezcuco, as the ground plan of an ordinary estate 

 and as the object in dispute. He says in Vue des Cordilleres et Monu- 

 ments des peuples indigenes d'Amerique, page 56: Le tableau qui 

 presente la douzieme Planche parait indiquer un proces entre des 

 naturels et des Espagnols. L'objet en litige est une metaine, dont 

 on voit le dessin en jirojection orthographique. On y reconnoit le 

 grand chemin marque par les traces des pieds; des maisons dessinees 

 en profil; un Indien dont le nom indique un arc; et des juges espa- 

 gnoles assis sur des chaises, et ayant les lois devant leurs yeux. L'Es- 

 pagnol place immediatement au-dessus de I'Indien, s'appelle pro- 

 bablement Aquaverde, car Thieroglyphe de I'eau, peint en verd, se 

 trouve figure derriere sa tete. Les langues sont tres inegalement 

 rf'parties dans ce tableau. Tout y annonce I'etat d'un pays conquis; 

 rindigene ose a peine defendre sa cause, tandis que les etrangers a 

 longues barbes y parlent beaucoup et a haut voix, comme descendans 

 d'un peuple conquerant (" The picture seen in the twelfth plate 

 seems to indicate a laAV suit between the natives and the Spanish. 

 The object of the dispute is a farm, a plan of which we see. We see 

 the high road marked out by footprints, houses drawn in jirofile, an 

 Indian whose name means a bow, and tlie Spanish judges seated on 

 chairs, with the laws before <*hem. The Spaniard immediately above 

 the Indian is probalily named Aquaverde, for the hieroglyph for 

 water, painted green, figures behind his head. The tongues are very 

 unequally distributed in this picture. Everything declares it to be a 

 conquered country. The native hardly ventures to plead his cause, 

 while the long-bearded strangers talk much and in loud voices, like 

 descendants of a conquering race'"). 



The three figures on the left side of the page are undoubtedly three 

 judges, in fact the president of the audiencia and the two oydores. 

 We must thus explain the relation in which the three stand to one 

 another, for the judge in the middle is distinguished from the other 

 two bv a richer cap. The illustration as a whole corresponds per- 

 fectl}^ wath the manner in which the oydores are represented in the 

 Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Eegidores de Mexico (Osuna 

 codex). The chair and the statT are their badges of office (see g^ h, /, 

 figure 43, the picture of Doctor Horozco, oydor, from page 3 [465] 

 of the above-mentioned manuscript). The papers lying before them 

 are probably not meant for the statute books, but for the written rec- 

 ords of the suit. It is worthy of note that there are absolutely unin- 

 telligible characters on these papers. They represent the confused 

 impression of writing made on one Avho can not read. The two men 

 sitting beside the Mexican are his vouchers, the witnesses summoned 



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