SELEK] VENUS PERIOD IN PICTURE WRITINGS 367 



sented on this page, and they are evidently meant to be assigned here 

 to the five cardinal points. Tlauizcalpan tecutli, the lord of the morn- 

 ing dawn, as we have seen, officiates as regent of the first period, the 

 one beginning with 1 Cipactli, which wonid therefore corresj)ond to 

 the east. In the second division, as indicated by the rotary movement, 

 Xipe Totec, " our lord, the flayed one ", is represented, brandishing 

 his rattle board (chicauaztli), as lord of the second period (begin- 

 ning with 13 Coatl), which would correspond to the north; in the 

 third j)eriod (beginning with 12 Atl), which must correspond to the 

 west, is Tlaloc, the rain god; and in the fourth (beginning with 11 

 x\catl), belonging to the south, is a remarkable and rarely represented 

 god that I formerly, but probably incorrectly, identified with 

 Tepoyollotl, who has the bicolored, half red and half black, face 

 painting of Quetzalcoatl, heavy beard and ej^ebrows, and a bundle 

 of stone knives before his mouth. The fifth period is only desig- 

 nated by its initial date, 10 Ollin. The fifth cardinal point, the 

 center, or direction from above downward, would belong to it. The 

 name of the day may have been designation enough for it, since 

 Olin, or more correctly tlal-olin, signified earthquake to the Mexicans. 



I think I am able also to recognize the Venus period in a series of 

 very remarkable representations which occur in like manner in three 

 manuscripts of this gi-ouj) — in the Borgian codex, on pages 15 to 17 

 (Kingsborough, pages 21 to 22), in Codex Vaticanus B, on the upper 

 half of pages 33 to 42 (Kingsborough, pages 81 to 90), and iu the 

 Fejervary codex (Kingsborough, pages 22 to 16). There are four 

 rows of five gods each. The figures in each row are represented as 

 engaged in the same act. The actions themselves I am forced to 

 designate as symbolic representations of sacredotal functions. 



In the first row the gods are each represented as boring out, with 

 a pointed bone, the eye of a naked human figure standing before them 

 (e, figure 94). This is a familiar symbol of priesth^ castigation, 

 self-infliction of wounds and letting of blood in honor of the gods, 

 which were the most usual religious acts among the Mexicans, and 

 were necessary as a preparation for every serious undertaking." The 

 Mexicans called it nezoliztli, " to prick one's self "; nenacaztequiliztli 

 nenenepiltequiliztli, " to make incisions in one's ear and tongue ". 



In the second row the gods are oifering a miniature representation 

 of themselves with a gesture which unmistakably expresi^-es giving, 

 presenting (« to d, figure 95). This is doubtless a symbolic expres- 

 sion of tlacamictiliztli, "human sacrifice"; for at all feasts where 



" In my treatise on the TonalamatI of the Aubin collection (Comptes rendiis dii Congr&s 

 International des Americanistes. Berlin, 1888) I have spoken in different places (pp. 548 

 and 689) in regard to this boring out of the eye as a syml)()l of castigation and bloodlet- 

 ting. The strongest proof is obtained by comparing the hon'ologous re]iresentations in 

 Codex Telleriano-Remensis II, |>p. l.'(i, 27, (seventeenth tonalamatl division, ce Atl, "1 

 water") and the Borgian codex, p. 10 (Kingsborongh, p. 29), above on the right (eight- 

 eenth day sign, TecpatI, "flint"). 



