selkk] 



DEITIES AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS 



295 



of his grandfather, Noah ; and that he was the first man whom God sent to 

 divide and apportion this country of India, and tliat there, where he saw tlie 

 great wall, he gave to every nation its special language. It is related that he 

 tarried in Huehueta [wlilch is a city in SoeonuscoJ and that there he placed a 

 tapir and a great treasure in a sli])pery [damp, dark, suhterranean | house, 

 which he huilt iiy the breath of his nostrils, and he ajipointed a woman as 

 chieftain, with tapianes [tiiat is, Mexican tlapiani, "keepers"] to guard her. 

 This treasure consisted of jars, which were closed with covers of the same clay, 

 and of a room in which the picture of the ancient heathens who are in the cal- 

 endar were engra\cd in stone, together with chalchiuites [which are small, 

 heavy, green stones] and other superstitious images: and the chieftainess her- 

 self and the tapianes, her guardians, surrendered all these things, which were 

 pulilicly Iturned in the market jtlace of Huehueta when we insjiected the afore- 

 said province in 1091. Al! the Indians greatly revere this Votan, and in a 

 certain province they call him "heart of the cities" (Corazon de los puel)los). 



Thus writes Nunez de la Vega. I add in conclusion that the bat 

 god also, Avho was the national god of the Cakchikels, whose form is 



Fk;. ( 



h r a 



Mexican symbols and flgures of deities, from the Mendoza codex and the 

 Sahagiin manuscript. 



frequentl}^ met with on antiquities m Guatemala and Yucatan, and 

 whose picture, as I have proved," is to be found in the Borgian, Vati- 

 canus B, and Fejervsiry codices, may have had some remote connection 

 Avith this IMtao-Xoo, Tepeyollotl, or Votan. 



The sun, as f mentioned above, was called by the Zapotecs Copijcha 

 or, more briefly, Pitoo, " the god ". So also the Mexicans in familiar 

 speech frequentl}^ said Teotl, " god ", Avhen they meant the sun ; 

 Teotl ac, " the god has gone in (gone into the house)", is equivalent 

 to the " sun has gone down " ; and wherever in Mexican city hiero- 

 glyphs the syllable teo was to be represented it is always expressed 

 by the picture of the sun (a, figure 67). The cities also whose names 

 contained the syllable teo were generally ancient seats of sun worship, 



" Zeltschrift fiir [^thnoIo.s,'ie, v. !.'»!, 1804, pp. (.'■.77)-(5S.5). 



