186 



sex of the offender. A mother exposes her 

 daughter to the smoke of pimento (capsicum 

 baccatum) : a father pricks his son eight years 

 old with agave leaves, which are terminated by 

 thorns. The painting indicates in what cases 

 the hand only of the child should be pricked, 

 and in what other cases parents are permitted 

 to extend this painful operation over the whole 

 of the body. A priest, teopixqui, chastises a 

 novice, by throwing burning coals on his head, 

 because he has passed the night beyond the 

 boundary of the temple. Another priest is re- 

 presented as sitting in the attitude of observing 

 the stars, to indicate the hour of midnight. 

 We here perceive, in the Mexican painting, 

 the hieroglyphics of midnight placed above the 

 head of the priest, and a dotted line from the 

 eye of the observer pointing towards a star*. 

 We see also figures, which represent women 

 spinning with a distaff, and weaving at a loom 

 the warp of which is perpendicular : a gold- 

 smith blowing a charcoal fire through a pipe ; 

 an old man of seventy, to whom the law allows 

 the privilege of intoxication, as it did to a wo- 

 man when she became a grandmother : a match- 

 maker, called cihuatlanque, who carries the 

 young virgin on her back to the house of the 

 bridegroom ; and lastly the nuptial benedic- 



* Thevenot, vol. % PL 4, fig. 49, 51, 65, 61. 



