308 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



to ascribe to them a special meaning. If the eyes mean stars, this 

 eye surounded by otlier radiating eyes might be intended to 

 indicate an especially brilliant star; jDerhaps Citlalpol, the "great 

 star ", that is, the planet Venns, But the conjecture is contradicted 

 by the fact that where the planet Venus is jilainly expressed in the 

 picture writings as an astronomic body it is designated by the date. 

 " 1 reed " ; as, for example, in the group m a, figure 72, the symbol of 

 the morning star and the moon," which, in the Borgiaii codex, page 

 44, is drawn beside the great picture of the sun god, and in «, figure 

 ('3, from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, beside the deity of the morn- 

 ing star. The gleaming eye of fragment 1 is generally represented in 

 a blue field, a clear sky, as in Z>, figure 72, and a, figure 73, from the Vi- 

 enna codex, pages 47 and 48, and in similar pictures in the same codex, 

 page 52, where the creative gods are seen enthroned in the clear blue 

 sky. In the Borgian codex, pages ()2 to GO, are found a number of 

 complicated representations which refer to the deities of the four 

 points of the compass and of the center, the fifth point of the compass, 

 or the interior of the earth. Here the house of the sun, in the east, is 

 designated by c, figure 74, in which the yellow-straw roof is seen to be 

 provided with a cornice of flowers, while the house of the eartli or of 

 .•^tone, in the north, is crowned with a row of stone kniv^es, and the 

 house of the oavI, in the south, is formed entirely' of human bones. 

 Now, there are houses exactly like this house of the sun in the east on 

 certain pages of the Borgian codex, <t and h, figure 75, and in one of 

 these is represented Quetzalcoatl, painted red, . as the sun god, it 

 would seem; in the other, his brother Xolotl, with the image of the 

 sun on his back. Here, however, the roof, instead of being painted 

 with the yellow color of straw, as in <:-, figure 74, has tlie clear sky 

 painted ujjon it, stripes of many colors in which are drawn stone 

 Icnives, eyes, and the e^'e surrounded b}- radiating eyes of fragment 1 

 of our plate, while (&, figure 75) the border is supported from below 

 by female figures with death's-heads and jaguar claws, which are in 

 all probability the Tzitzimime Ilhuicatzitzquique or Petlacotzit- 

 zquique, " the winged forms of the air Avho support the sky " (angeles 

 de aire sostenedores del cielo) or "holders of the reed mat"' (tene- 

 dores del tapete de cana), mentioned by Tezozomoc.^ In these pic- 

 tures the palace of the sun is placed opposite another house, out of 

 which tongues of flame curl high in the air and in which dwell dark 

 forms of night. The roof is pointed like the cave temple, which, in 



" The moon is represented here, as ahove in figure 65, by the picture of a -rabbit in a 

 vessel of water, the walls of which are formed of bones ; that is, the bones of the dead. The 

 ancient Mexicans recognized the form of a rabbit in our " man in the moon "', as did the 

 ancient Hindoos. The story runs that originally the moon shone with a light equal 

 to that of the sun ; that on this account the gods threw a rabbit into its face and thus 

 diminished its brilliancy to its present glow. 



<> Cronica Mexicana, chap. 38. 



