THOMAS] EXPLANATION OF FIGURES ON PLATES XII*-XVII*. 119 



have some particular significcation especial!}^ applicable to what is here sym- 

 bolized. As some of the cognate words, especially where the aspirate is 

 used, denote "certainty," it is possible that it is used here to signify the 

 certainty of death. 



Plates XII* to XVII* undoubtedly relate to the manufacture of idols. 

 In the second division of XII* (see Fig. 34) we see the artists painting 

 them with the slip of yucca or maguey leaf, as described by Colonel Ste- 

 venson, and also by Mrs. Stevenson in her admirable little pamphlet on the 

 manners and customs of the Zuni Indians. 



In the third division we observe the priests consecrating the implements 

 and the wood out of which their wooden idols are to be made. These 

 plates, I think, refer to the manufacture of both kinds of idols, those of 

 burnt clay and those of wood. The wooden block is here represented by 

 the oblong figure with Cauac characters on it; the implement by the twisted 

 figure on or against the block. My reasons for believing that this is a tool 

 of some kind used in working wood is that in the third division of Plate 

 XXIII*, I see it in the hands of individuals who are evidently doing some- 

 thing to trees. The trees appear to be severed as though cut off by a rude 

 saw of some kind. 



The figures in the second division of Plates XIII* and XIV* probably 

 represent the idols in the kilns, or in their positions for baking; what the 

 birds on them signify I am unable to say; possibly they relate to auguries. 



The figures of bent trees in the third and lower divisions of Plate 

 XIII* may denote the temporary cabins in which they 

 worked. 



The figures in the lower division pi-obably represent what 

 Landa alludes to when he says, "where they placed the wood 

 with a great urn (tinaja) for to keep shut up (or inclosed) the 

 idols all the time they were at work upon them."^ i^'io i^. 



We see here the priests offering incense in a singular!}^ shaped burner 

 (Fig. 1 7) over these unfinished idols. 



The wood of which the images were formed was probably placed in 



' See Appendix No. 3 H. 



