302 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bill. 28 



particulars as to their position or importance in the system of wor- 

 ship. Thus was Co(iui-Lao, the '"lord of poultry"; Pitao-Peeze, 

 Pitao-Quille, or Pitao-Yaxe, the god of merchants and the lord of 

 wealth: Pitao-Zij, Pitao-Yaa, or Pitao-Tee, the god of poverty and 

 misfortune; Pixee, or Pecala (properly " sleep ", " dream "), the god 

 of desire (luxuria, el asmodeo, 6 demonio que incita, como dicen, el 

 dios de amor, "lust, Asmodeus, or the demon who entices, as they say, 

 the god of love '') ; Pitao-Xicala. or Pecala, the god of dreams; Pitao- 

 Piji, Peezi, or Pijze, the god of omens; and Pitao-Pezelao, the god 

 of the underworld. 



P'inally, we have an abundant and unsophisticated source of infor- 

 mation, wdiich ought to give us the key to the mythical conceptions of 

 the Zapotecs, in the antiquities of the country, the images of stone 

 and especially those of pottery, the large and small figures, the figure 

 vessels, the pottery Avhistles and small pottery heads, found in great 

 numbers in the country, which Avas once thickly populated and 

 abounds in graves. In an earlier work " I have discussed in detail 

 one of the principal tj'pes of these antiquities, the remarkable great 

 figure vases, distinguished by gigantic head ornaments and a pecu- 

 liarly conventionalized face, in which the most conspicuous features 

 are i)uffings over the eyebrows and under the eyes and a serpent's 

 jaw set into the human countenance. As to the form of the vessels, 

 I refer to plate xxxvi, where three vessels from Mitla. now in the 

 Museo Nacional de Mexico, are reproduced. The vessel standing 

 on the right side of the page shows the human face with the inserted 

 serpent's jaw. I have represented other forms in my treatise referred 

 to above. They were probably all burial vessels. I have selected 

 tAvo figures of the picture writings to exiDlain the deity represented 

 on these vessels. On pages 5, 30, and 33 of the Vienna codex a 

 deity is represented who is painted in a dark color and, like Ixtlilton 

 (see <", figure 67), wears a crest decorated with stone knives, and 

 about this are wound a couple of serpents, while a serpent crawls 

 out of his mouth. The deity is designated in each of the three 

 passages by the day, "4 snake", and in one of them (page 30) he is 

 accompanied by a dragon, which bears a sun disk on its back. Oppo- 

 site him, as the companion figure, is the wind god Quetzalcoatl, 

 who is designated by the day " 9 wind " and accompanied by a kind 

 of serpent with a dog's or a jaguar's head («, figure 71). Identical 

 with this figure of the deity " -i snake'' is another (6, figure 71), 

 which forms in the Borgian codex, page 14, one of the four deities 

 wdio are evidently distributed according to the four points of the 

 compass: Tlaloc, this god with the serpent in his mouth, Mix- 



« Die sogenannten sakralen Gefiisse der Zapoteken ( VeroffentUchungen aus dem KOnig- 

 lichen Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Bund I, Heft 4, pp. 182-188). 



