THOMAs.j THE TITLE PAGE. UJ 



"during this month (YaxJcin) they commenced to prepare themselves, accord- 

 ing to custom, for a general festival which was celebrated in Mol, on a day 

 which the priest designated, in honor of all the gods. They called it Oloh- 

 zab-ham-yax. After the ceremonies and usual incensing which they wished 

 to do, they smeared with their blue paint the instruments of all the pro- 

 fessions from those the priest used, even to their wives' spindle and the 

 doors of their houses." Here we see the priests dressed up to represent 

 certain deities, with paint-pot in one hand and strip of yucca or maguey leaf 

 in the other, applying the blue paint to their vessels (see Fig 2.5). 



The following statement, by Col. James Stevenson, regarding the 

 method in use among the Zuni Indians in making and applying paints to 

 their pottery, will illustrate this: "When the pigment is properly reduced 

 and mixed with water so as to form a thin solution, it is applied with brushes 

 made of the leaves of the yucca. These brushes are made of flat pieces of 

 the leaf, which are stripped off and bruised at one end, and are of different 

 sizes adapted to the coarse or fine lines the artist may wish to draw. In 

 this manner all the fine lines on the pottery are produced." 



The figures in the upper division of these two plates perhaps represent 

 priests with calendar wheels, determining the time at which the coming fes- 

 tival shall be held. 



Those in the second division of Plate XXXV are probably in the act 

 of prejoaring the paint. 



PART SECOND OF THE MANUSCRIPT. 



The title-page. — Although this is occupied almost wholly by characters, 

 I think it is best to discuss its general import in this connection. 



One of the first things that strikes us as somewhat singular, and as 

 having some hidden meaning, is the fact that there are ten transverse lines 

 (the numerals are not considered separately from the characters to which 

 they belong) and seven characters or groups of cliaracters in each line, 

 making seventy in all — exactly the number of plates in the Manuscript. 

 Tills arrangement by sevens cannot be accidental, and must therefore have 

 had some particular meaning understood by the author and those for whose 

 use the work was composed. That it does not refer to any of their divis- 



