660 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [hull. 28 



111 one of llic fiunoiis relict's of vSanta Liu-ia de C'ozunuiliHiapa the 

 sacrificial priest is seen in the center, and in the four corners his four 

 assistants, who are variously costumed according to the cai'dinal 

 points to which they belong, and arc in j)art represented as skeletons. 

 Each of the tive personages l)ears in his ann, that is, in his hand, the 

 head of a human being, and each of these heads has peculiar features, 

 a peculiar style of wearing the hair, etc. Oidy the head held b}' the 

 chief priest agrees in features and coiffure with that carried by the 

 skeleton in the lower right-hand corner. Both heads have an aged, 

 bearded face. Were not the distinguishing marks of old age clearly 

 exhibited by both these heads, together with the beard, we should be 

 justified in thinking that the four cut-oti' heads were meant to indicate 

 the four tribes living at the four cardinal points, and that the tribe in 

 the lower right-hand corner was distinguished by a growth of beard 

 and was also the chief enemy of the builders of the monuments of 

 Cozinnalhuapa. 



To return to our Chama picture, both Dieseldorff and Fiirstemann 

 especially call attention to the knobby excrescences on the forehead 

 and nose of several of the charactei's on the left hand. Both, without 

 hesitation, declare them to be warts. I do not think such growths 

 were deemed particularly beautiful l)y any tribe, much less that the 

 ancient Indian artist would have felt oljliged to make them thus 

 ])romincnt. I am rather inclined to believe that we here have to deal 

 with a kind of decoration with inserted knobs, similar to those on the 

 head in the lower left corner of the relief just described and especially 

 evident on the nostrils and above the root of the nose of />, figure 134, 

 which I have also taken from a relief of Cozumalhuapa. 



I will not enter into the details of dress and ornament, but I will 

 only add that thereby the chief dignitaries of a tribe are evidently 

 characterized, of whom there W'Cre always four among the Kiches 

 and other Guatemala tribes, distinguished by special titles. Mr 

 Dieseldorff, in describing the black-painted figure (^/, j^late xlviii), 

 mentions that he wears bound on the back of the head " a pointed, 

 checkered cap, such as chief priests usually wore ". I do not remem- 

 ber to have found this described anywhere as the dress of a " chief 

 priest ", nor to have seen it anywhere. The object projecting from 

 the back of the neck of the chief personage /, advancing from the 

 right, which looks like a staff, I will not venture definitely to interpret. 

 It may be connected in some way with the ear ornament or Avith the 

 back bow of the neck ornament. The ear ornament is sometimes of 

 monstrous size on the figures of Maya art, one of the deities in the 

 Maya manuscripts having an entire bird as an ear peg. 



The glyphs still remain to be discussed. Messrs Dieseldorff and 

 Forstemann have numbered them as folloAA's, according to their order 

 in the picture : 



