134 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
of these chronicles, one known as the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, the other as the 
Codex Vaticanus, I turn to the year numbered ‘‘ten” under the sign of the rabbit 
and I find that both present the same record which I copy in the following figure. 
The figure so copied is entitled “Extract from the Vatican Codex,” 
which is a slight error, It is a copy from the Codex Telleriano-Re- 
mensis, Kingsborough, 1, Pt. 4, p. 23, year 1502, which is here repro- 
duced as Fig. 99. The record in the Vatican Codex, Kingsborough, It, 
p- 130, differs in some unimportant details. It may also be noted that 
in the text relating to the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Kingsborough, 
VI, p. 141, the word Ahnitzotl is given as “the name of an aquatic 
animal famous in Mexican mythology.” The present opportunity is 
embraced to recognize the acumen displayed by Prof. Brinton in his 
interpretation of the petroglyph. He proceeds as follows: 
SES 
Fic, 99.—The Emperor Ahuitzotzin. 
The sign of the year (the rabbit) is shown merely by his head for brevity. The 
ten dots, which give its number, are beside it. Immediately beneath is a curious 
quadruped, with what are intended as water-drops dripping from him. The animal 
is the hedgehog, and the figure is to be constructed iconomatically; that is, it must 
be read asa rebus through the medium of the Nahuatl language. In that language 
water is ail, in composition a, and hedgehog is wilzotl. Combine these and you get 
ahuitzotl, or, with the reverential termination, ahuitzolzin. This was the name of 
the ruler or emperor, if you allow the word, of ancient Mexico before the accession : 
to the throne of that Montezuma whom the Spanish conquistador, Cortes, put to 
death. 
Returning to the page from the chronicle, we observe that the hieroglypn of 
Ahuitzotzin is placed immediately over a corpse swathed in its mummy cloths, as 
was the custom of interment with the highest classes in Mexico. This signifies that 
the death of Ahuitzotzin took place in that year. Adjacent to it is the figure of his 
t 
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