386 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



Borgian codex. In the Borgian codex we saw in the third period tlie 

 maize goddess struck by the spear (k, figure 99). The maize god- 

 dess, however, is here plainly not the divinity who dispenses suste- 

 nance in abundance, but the goddess called by the interpreter of the 

 Codex Telleriano-Remensis la que causava las hambres (" the one 

 who causes famine ") ; for in k, figure 99, the maize ears are devoured 

 by worms painted white and having death's-heads. Then, too, in 

 the corres])onding representation of the Bologna codex (i\ figure 95), 

 the ground beneath the maize goddess is surrounded by flames and 

 smoke ; that is, it is dry and barren. 



It is more difficult, in case the correction proposed above is really 

 admissible, to form a clear idea in regard to a possible agreement in 

 the second period between the accounts of the Anales and the repre- 

 sentations of the picture writings. For the first period, likewise, I 

 forego, for the present, an}' attempt to find a tei'tium comparationis. 

 But this much, I believe, is to be learned from the account in the 

 Anales, that it is hardly possible to see anything else in these figures 

 struck by the spear than augural speculations regarding the influence 

 of the light from the planet, suggested by the initial signs of the 

 Ijeriods. AVe shall have to accept this as true, not only for the repre- 

 sentations of the Borgian codex group, but also for the pictorial rep- 

 resentations and the hieroglyphic text of the Dresden manuscript. 



It is not wholly without interest that in the passage of the Anales 

 de Quauhtitlan quoted above mention is also made of the augural 

 significance of the signs ce Mazatl and ce Xochitl (lines 9 to 11). 

 These are not signs which have anything to do Avith the beginnings 

 of the Venus periods. The first sign denotes the day on which the 

 Ciuapipiltin, the specter women, the souls of Avomen who have died 

 in childbed, who live in the west, come down from heaven and strike 

 children with epilepsy. On this day, therefore, children are kept 

 m the house. The other sign, however, was dominated by a group 

 of gods of whom Macuilxochitl or Auiateotl, the god of merry- 

 making, may be considered typical, and who are represented on 

 pages 47 and 48 of the Borgian codex (Kingsborough, pages 68, 67) 

 with the Ciuapipiltin. It may safely be assumed, I think, that the 

 relation of these signs to these deities is based on the notion that the 

 separate divisions of the tonalamatl, which is arranged in columns of 

 five signs each, have some mysterious connection with the four cardi- 

 nal points. That it was possible in the Anales de Quauhtitlan to 

 designate whatever baleful influence of the planet Venus resulted 

 from this connection is only a proof that the wdiole arrangement 

 of the tonalamatl in columns of five signs each owes its origin to the 

 fact that the tonalamatl has been brought into accord with the 

 observed Venus period. 



