542 PICTURE-WRITING OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
h, a pine tree upon which a porcupine is crawling upward. 
i, a pine tree, from which a bird (woodpecker) is extracting larve 
for food. 
Jj, & bear. 
k, the designer in his boat holding aloft his double-bladed paddle to 
drive fish into a net. 
l, an assistant fisherman driving fish into the net. 
m, the net. ; 
The figure over the man (/) represents a whale, with harpoon and 
line attached, caught by the narrator. 
Many customs, such, for instance, as the peculiar arrangement of 
hair in any tribe, are embodied in their pictorial designation by other 
tribes and often by themselves. Numerous examples are presented in 
this paper. 
In Lord Kingsborough, Vol. vi, p. 45 et seq., is the text relating to 
the collection of Mendoza, in Vol. 1, Pls. Lyi, to LX, inclusive, here 
presented as Pls. xxx1v toxxxvul. The textuallanguage is preserved 
with some condensation. 
Pl. xxxry exhibits the customs of the Mexicans at the birth of a male 
or female infant; the right and ceremony of naming the children and 
of afterwards dedicating and offering them at their temples or to the 
military profession. 
As soon as the mother was delivered of the infant they put it into a cradle and 
when it was 4 days old the midwife took the infant in her arms, naked, and carried 
it into the court of the mother’s house, in which court was strewed reeds, or rushes, 
which they call tule, upon which was placed a small vessel of water in which the 
midwife bathed the infant; and after she had bathed it 3 boys being seated near the 
said rushes, eating roasted maize mixed with boiled beans, which kind of food they 
named yxcue, which provision or paste they set before the said boys in order that 
they might eat it. After the bathing, or washing, the midwife desired the boys to 
pronounce the name aloud, bestowing a new name on the infant which had been 
thus bathed; and the name that they gave it was that which the midwife wished. 
They first carried out the infant to bathe it. [fit was a boy they carried him, hold- 
ing his symbol in his hand, which symbol was the instrument which the father of 
the infant employed either in the military profession or in his trade, whether it was 
that of a goldsmith, jeweller, or any other; and the said ceremony having been gone 
through, the midwife delivered the infant to his mother. But if the infant was a 
girl the symbol with which they carried her to be bathed was a spinning wheel and 
distatt, with a small basket and a handful of brooms which were the things which 
would afford her occupation when she arrived at a proper age. 
They offered the umbilical cord of the male infant together with the shield and 
arrows, the symbols with which they carried him to be bathed, in that spot and 
place where war was likely to happen with their enemies, where they buried them 
in the earth; and they did the same with that of the female infant, which they in | 
the same way buried beneath the metate or stone on which they ground meal. 
After these ceremonies, when twenty days had expired, the parents of the infant 
went with it to the temple, or mesquita, which they called calmecac, and in the 
presence of their alfaquis presented the infant with its offering of mantles and 
maxtles, together with some provision; and after the infant had been brought up 
by its parents, as soon as it arrived at the proper age, they delivered him to the 
a 
