suLKul MEXICAN PICTURK WRITINGS FRAGMENT VIU 207 



ill {{iK'stioii. These 2)ers()iis, as 1 have said, are desio'iialed phiiuly, 

 not only by a hierogWph, but also by the name written beside it. 

 Here, therefore, it is easy to decipher the hieroglyphs. But it should 

 be uoticed that, as a matter of course, the Spanish name is not taken 

 into account. Moreover, we must omit some letters, which stand after 

 the names and are probably an abbreviation of a Nauatl word. After 

 the names of the persons in the second and third row we read the 

 syllables omo; after those of the person in the fourth row and of the 

 one on the right of the fi-agment, the syllables ayii". I am inclined to 

 regard the latter as an abbreviation of ayamo, "" not yet *", and, accord- 

 ingly, the former must be an abbreviation of omotlali, "he was 

 installed ", " he has l)een confirmed ", or something similar. 



The hieroglyphs are of complex structure, and the pictures em- 

 ployed, like those in the Vergara codex, are not alwaj^s used according 

 to the full value of their syllables, so that there is presented a phase 

 of transition from the old symbolic and syllabic mode of Avriting to a 

 kind of phonetic writing. 



The first person, the one in the second row, according to the explan- 

 atory note, bears the name Damian xotlanj. The hieroglyph is com- 

 posed of some flowers, two roAvs of teeth, and the figure of a sitting 

 man. The flowers (xoch-tli) give the syllabic xo; the teeth (tlantli), 

 the syllable tlan. The seated man I take to mean omotlalli, "'he was 

 installed ", into which, as I said, the omo after the name xotlani 

 should be expanded. 



The second person, the one in the third row, bears the name Luys 

 Netlacahujl. The hieroglyph shows us a doll, a row of teeth, a basket 

 of tamales (filled dumi)lings made of Indian corn), and a utensil like 

 a skillet. Beside it is the same seated figure. The doll (nenetl) 

 gives the syllable ne; the teeth (tlan-tli), the syllable tla. The 

 tamales and the skillet, which is doubtless supposed to be filled with 

 chili, or red pepper, sauce give the syllable cauil. Nino tlacauilia 

 (derived from caua, " to stay behind '') means " I keep something for 

 myself ", or " I am taking a meal "; netlacauiliztli. " the meal (meri- 

 enda)". The person seated is again to be' taken as an expression of 

 omo, that is, omotlali, " he was installed ". 



The luune of the person in the fourth row is IVdro "^'lliuj. The 

 hieroglyph is a remarkal)ly conventionalized repeated verticillate 

 figure in bright colors, red and yellow with a blue diagonal part, and 

 a yellow feather. Here the yellow feather probably denotes an ele- 

 ment not expressed in the name as it is written. The man's name 

 may really have been Ilhuitoz, for toztli is the yellow parrot feather 

 (or one artificially dyed yellow). The front part consists of two 

 squares, each of which shows two little tongues ])ut together after the 

 manner of a swastika, or fylfot, which is undoubtedly meant, like h 



