187 



fion, the ceremony of which consisted in the 

 priest, or teopixqui, tying the skirt of the young 

 man's cloak (tilmatli) , to the young woman's 

 robe (liuepill'i). The Mendoza collection con- 

 tains also several figures of Mexican temples, 

 in which we clearly distinguish the pyramidal 

 monument divided into steps, and the little cha- 

 pel, the veos, at the top. But the most com- 

 plicated painting, as well as the most ingenious 

 of this Codex Mexicanus, is that which represents 

 a tlatoani, or governor of a province, strangled 

 for revolting against his sovereign ; for the same 

 picture records the crime of the governor, the 

 punishment of his whole family, and the ven- 

 geance exercised by his vassals against the state 

 messengers, bearers of the order of the king of 

 Tenochtitlan. 



Notwithstanding the enormous quantity of 

 paintings, which, considered as monuments of 

 Mexican idolatry, were burnt at the beginning 

 of the conquest, by order of the bishops and 

 the first missionaries, Boturini*, whose mis- 

 fortunes we have already deplored in the pre- 

 ceding pages, succeeded toward the midst of 

 the last century in collecting near 500 of their 

 hieroglyphical paintings. This collection, the fin- 

 est and the most complete of those hitherto made, 

 was dispersed like that of Siguenza; of which 



* Boturini, Tableau General, p. 1—96. 



