322 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bill. 2H 



death, are naturally clothed in the livery of this god. Finally, the 

 morning star, according to the interpreter, Avas also the first light 

 which illuminated the world, before the sun was created. Hence this 

 god is the primal deity, the creator of the world and of men, the Tztac 

 Mixcoatl, who, as Motolinia reports, lived in the north, in Chicom- 

 oztoc, and from whom and his wife, Ilancueye, descended the differ- 

 ent nations of the world, that is, of Mexico. 



The deities of the evening twilight, who are represented on the west 

 side of the court of Palace I (fragments to 9 of plate xxxix), have, 

 almost all of them, a beard of the kind that is given to Quetzalcoatl, 

 to the creative god Tonacatecutli, and occasionally also to the moon 

 god, and several of the figures Avear a tusklike curved peg in the under 

 lip. The Mexicans called this tez-^'aca-necuilli, and in the historical 

 picture writings the warriors of Uexotzinco and Tlaxcallan are gen- 

 erally drawn with it (see 7>, figure 81). The st^de of dressing the 

 hair and the adornment varv somewhat in other particulars, but one 

 has the impression that these were mere calligraphic variants or 

 different forms of the same deity. Each held a spear thrower in one 

 hand and spears in the other. The gods are probably thus character- 

 ized as gods of war and of the chase. 



As for the rest of the figures, we have, first, in fragment (>, on the 

 left side, a deer facing downwards (recognizable by the hoofs) and 

 clothed in a petticoat bordered with stone knives. Then comes an 

 eagle, then a second form facing downwards Avhich has the feet and 

 claws of the jaguar; in fragment 7, a deer with two heads; in frag- 

 ment 8, a figure difficult of interpretation, in which the petticoat bor- 

 dered with stone knives occurs again; finally, in fragment 10. are 

 intertwined blossoming branches set with thorns or points. 



The south side of the court of Palace I, from which I have been 

 able to copy fragment 10 of jjlate xxxix, is the most uniform. The 

 border, like that on the north side, consists of simple disks. The per- 

 sonages represented beloAv the border are all different forms or calli- 

 graphic variants of the sun god. The characteristic features here are 

 again the headband set Avith disks representing precious stones and 

 bearing on the front a conventionalized bird's head and the lines 

 around the outer corners of the eyes. The headband in all the fig- 

 ures without exception is almost exactly the same. The lines around 

 the outer corners of the eyes of the third figure in fragment 10 are the 

 only ones drawn in the characteristic manner to be seen in the picture 

 of the sun god of the Borgian codex (figure 82) and also in fragment 

 8 of plate xxxviii. The fourth personage has a broad rectangular 

 latticework stripe. The others seem to have onlj^ a line of demar- 

 cation between the parts surrounding the eyes and the upper por- 



