656 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



the moment." In this picture the figni'e //, the companion of the 

 visitor, has tucked the fan, which he originally held in his right hand, 

 under his left arm in a rather comical manner, in order to perform the 

 salute. The reason why but two of the seven figures in our picture 

 perform the salute is that this gesture is here made only by the fol- 

 lowers of the chief personages. These chief personages are, on the 

 one side, the strange chieftain just arriving; on the other side, the four 

 princes of the tribe visited, who, if they were of the Kiche tribe, for 

 instance, would bear the titles Ahpop, Ahpop Camha, Ahau Kalel, 

 and Ahtzic Vinak. The kneeling person, therefore, marked for sacri- 

 fice by Mr Dieseldorff, regarded by Mr Fiirstemann as a wounded, 

 bleeding captive claimed as a victim by the priest against tlie wnll 

 of the real victor, I consider simply as the attendant, the servant, the 

 folloAver — the slave, if you will — of the four princes who are i-eceiv- 

 ing the strange chieftain into their territory. It is possible that he 

 IS represented kneeling merely for the sake of economizing space, 

 since the attitude of a person advancing in rapid action left a gap 

 not other Avise to be filled. Moreover, a greater degree of submissive- 

 ness is justifiable or at any rate courteous on the part of those receiv- 

 ing a guest. 



Mr Forstemann is quite correct in assuming, contrary to Mr Diesel- 

 dorff's view, that the personage advancing from the right can only 

 be a Avarrior. I would like to be more explicit and assert that he is 

 a w^arrior chief. The common soldier among the Mexicans carried 

 the maquauitl, the wooden sword with an edge of obsidian splinters. 

 The chieftains, as figure 131 and other pictures in the Mendoza codex 

 show^, carried long pikes, which had at the point a bladelike expansion 

 armed with obsidian splinters. The common soldier among the 

 Mayas was armed with bow and arrows and the chief carried a long 

 pike. In the passage which I cited in confirmation of the gesture of 

 salutation these pikes which were carried by the Maya chiefs are 

 exactly described. I will quote the description here, because it puts 

 into words precisely what we see in the Chama picture. The refer- 

 ence is to the two leaders whom Canek, the chieftain of the Itzas, 

 sent to Tipu in 1618 to meet the tAvo Franciscan monks, Bartholo- 

 mew^ de Fuensalida and Juan de Orbita: " They carried pikes with 

 blades of flint, quite aftel* the manner of ours, only that ours have 

 blades of steel, and they have at the base of the blade many feathers 

 of bright and beautiful colors, just as our ensigns have tassels wound 

 about at the head. The blades are about one-fourth of an ell long, 



"In the same way the North American Indians hold out the riglit hand, palm upward, 

 or raise botli hands empty, in sign of peace and friendship, while the Natchez, who met 

 La Salle's column in 1682, expressed the same idea by clasping- their hands together. 

 See Garrick Mallery in First Annual Report. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 530 and 531. 



