SBLER] THE MAYA BAT GOD 241 



head of the god is combined with an open jaw, which is occasionally 

 replaced by a stone knife, h. Hence the correspondence to which I 

 allude above is also apparent here. 



In conclusion, I give in ?>, figure 5'2, a very remarkable form of this 

 hieroglyph which occurs on Stela D of Copan (Maudslay's nomen- 

 clature) . This stela is peculiar inasmuch as the hieroglyphic elements, 

 which elsewhere are reproduced in conventional characters, are here 

 carried out in full fig]ire. This particular stela is, therefore, of the 

 first imjjortance as an aid to the discovery of the true meaning of these 

 elements. In A, figure 52, the form of the bat, the nose leaf, and the 

 wing membrane are distinctly recognizable. The element which I 

 interpret as the devouring of light is indicated by a series of drops 

 and a piece that looks like a ring cut out of a shell. This element, 

 which answers to kan, or kin, also has the same form in the hiero- 

 glyphs reproduced in (i^ figure 53. The Ben-Ik group is wanting 

 in 5, figure 53, probably because it expresses onl}^ a secondary meaning. 



On the heads and the body in a, figure 52, as m several of the bat 

 heads brought together in ^/, figure 53, the elements of the day sign 

 Cauac are given, which in the last of the hieroglyphs in a, figure 53, 

 is seen in full below the bat's ear. The character Cauac corresponds 

 to the Mexican Quiauitl, " rain ", and to Ayotl, '' the tortoise ", of the 

 Guatemalan calendar. It combines within itself, as I have shown 

 elsewhere," the idea of opaque covering and of stone. 



We have in the vase excavated by Mr ])ieseldorti' a very character- 

 istic figure of the bat god. In this connection, I would like to mention 

 that the god described by Dieseldorff as having been found as a deco- 

 ration on pottery, the god in the snail shell,'' does not answer to the 

 old god, the sixteenth in the Dresden manuscript, but rather to the 

 third one of the gods represented on plates 4 to 10 of the Dresden 

 manuscript. If I were still somewhat uncertain as to wdiether the bat 

 god can be recognized among the five deities given in the hieroglyphs 

 on page 24 of the Dresden manuscript, the god in the snail shell 

 is unquestionably represented. As I am forced to conclude from the 

 other places where it occurs that the latter god corresponds to the 

 south, so the bat god, if he is really represented by hieroglyph a, figure 

 50, must answer to the cardinal point of the east. This would form a 

 fresh link and furnish another proof, either that even in slight details 

 tliere existed a fundamental agreement between the mythic represen- 

 tations of the Central American and Mexican peoples, or that with 

 the calendar and everything connected with it an exchange or dis- 

 semination of such mythic elements took place throughout the whole 

 of the ancient cultural region. 



? Zeitschrlft fiir Ethnologie, v. 'l'\. p. 1.S2. 



* Zeitschi-ift fiir Ethnolosrie. v. LT). Verhandliinfren, 189:i. pp. ;?70 and .")-lS. 



7238— No. 28—05 16 



