47 



miqui. The mutilated hands alternate with the 

 figure of certain vases, in which incense was 

 burnt. These vases were called top-xicalli, bags 

 in the form of calebashes, (from toptli, a purse 

 woven with the thread of the pita, and xicalli, a 

 calebash) . 



This idol being sculptured on every side, even 

 beneath (Fig. 5), where we see represented 

 Mictlanteuhtli, the lord of the place of the dead, 

 we cannot doubt, but that it was supported in the 

 air by means of two columns, on which rested 

 the parts A and B in figures 1 and 3. Accord- 

 ing to this uncouth arrangement, the head of the 

 idol was probably elevated five or six metres above 

 the pavement of the temple, so that the priests 

 (teopixqui) dragged the unhappy victims to the 

 altar, making them pass beneath the figure 

 Mictlanteuchtli. 



The Viceroy, count Revillagigedo, transport- 

 ed this monument to the university of Mexico, 

 which he considered as the most proper place 

 for the preservation of the curious remains 

 of American antiquity *. The professors of this 

 University, of the order of St. Dominic, were 

 unwilling to expose this idol to the sight of the 

 Mexican youth ; and buried it anew in one of 

 the passages of the college two feet deep. I 

 should not have had the means of examining this 



* Officio del 5 Sept. 1790. 



