SELER] MEXICAN PICTURE WRITINGS FRAGMENT XIV 217 



valuable dociinient b}^ which to judge the manuscript in the posses- 

 sion of the American Philosophical Societ3^ 



I have already mentioned that fragment VII (plate xii) of our 

 collection, which, like fragment XIII (plate xviii), now under dis- 

 cussion, came from the village of Mizquiyauallan, seems to have 

 belonged to the Boturini collection. I quoted the passage in Botu- 

 rini's Museo Indiano (Catalogo, number 1, section 21) which de- 

 scribes these manuscripts from Mizquiyauallan : Tres mapas en papel 

 Indiano como faxas. Tratan de los tributos que pagaba el pueblo de 

 Mizquiahuallan, y en el se ven las cifras numericas de cada cosa, que 

 entregaban los vecinos ("Three maps on Indian paper like bands. 

 They treat of the tribute paid by the village of Mizquiyauallan, and 

 contain the numerical statement of each article furnished by the 

 hou.seholders "). 



Now, if the one page of the Poinsett collection, at present belong- 

 ing to the Amei'ican Philosophical Society, is so closely related to 

 fragment VII (plate xi) of our collection, and the other to our frag- 

 ment XIII (plate xviii) that we feel tempted to attribute them to the 

 same place and date, then the question arises whether the two Amer- 

 ican manuscripts are not also mentioned in Boturini. This seems, 

 indeed, to be the case; for, directly after the jjassage quoted above, 

 two other and longer manuscripts from the same village are men- 

 tioned in section 21 of the Museo Indiano, under mnnbers 2 and 4 : 



2. Otro [mapa] de la misma materia y mas largo, de dicho pueblo 

 [Mizquiahuallan] ("Another [map] of the same material and larger 

 from the same village [Mizquiyauallan]"), 



4. Otro del mismo jDapel y mas largo del mismo pueblo ("Another 

 on the same paper and larger from the same village"). 



FRAGMENT XIV 



This (plate xix) is a piece of tolerably thick, firm agave paper, 34 

 by 15 cm. Near the upper end two strips have been pasted one over 

 the other. The frayed end of the strip underneath is plainly visible. 

 Below the top row are the words estangia de tlatonpan. 



The fragment may be divided into two essentially different parts, 

 an upjjer and a lower one. In the upper part everything is painted 

 crimson and in the lower yellow predominates. The base of the 

 upper part is formed by a strip inclosed Avithin two transverse lines, 

 in which are three men's heads, each having a remarkable character 

 behind it which looks like a key. Two of them are, moreover, pro- 

 vided with special hieroglvphs. I take the character which looks 

 like a key actually to be one, and consider it as an exjjression of the 

 word tlatlati, which means " he who hides something, or shuts up or 

 guards something " (el (pie guarda alguna cosa, o el que esconde algo. 



