ANIMAL FIGURES IN THE MAYA CODICES 353 



is pictured in Tro-Cortesianus 27b (PL 33, fig. 5) seated on 

 the left hand of the goddess from whose breasts water is 

 flowing. 



The peccary seems to be associated with the sky, as it 

 is seen in a conventionaHzed form in four instances (Dresden 

 44b, 45b, (PL 32, fig. 4) coming from a band of constellation 

 signs and in Dresden 68a (PL 32, fig. 2) coming from a similar 

 band with god E sitting underneath.* Above each of these 

 conventionalized figures occur the corresponding glyph 

 forms (PL 33, figs. 7, 8), which show merely the head with 

 the exaggerated upturned snout. There is a striking resem- 

 blance between these snouts and those of the stone mask- 

 like figures so frequently represented as a fa9ade decoration 

 in northern Yucatan. The presence in the mouths of the 

 faces there represented of a recurved tusk in addition to other 

 teeth is a further resemblance to the drawings of peccaries. 

 Stempell (1908, p. 718) has reproduced a photograph of these 

 extraordinary carvings and considers them the heads of mas- 

 todons, apparently solely on account of the shape of the up- 

 turned snout, whose tip in many of the carvings turns forward. 

 They certainly do not represent the heads of mastodons, but 

 we are not ready to say that the peccary is the prototype of 

 these carvings, although the similarity between the glyphs 

 (PL 33, figs. 7, 8) and the masks is worthy of note. One 

 point which does not favor this explanation is the fact that 

 on the eastern fa9ade of the Monjas at Chichen Itza where the 

 mask-like panel is seen at its best, we find a reaHstic drawing 

 of a peccary (PL 33, fig. 2) on the band of glyphs over the 

 doorway, and it in no way suggests the head on the panel 

 and is quite different from the head already noted as the 

 glyph of the peccary in the codices. 



Baird's Tapir (Tapirella bairdi). No undoubted repre- 

 sentations of tapirs occur in the manuscripts here considered. 



♦Attention is called to the curious half-human, half-animal figure in 

 Tro-Cortesianus 2a which may suggest the figures in Dresden 44a, 45a and 

 which are here identified as peccaries. Both are descending from the band 

 of constellation signs and the heads of each are not greatly dissimilar. 

 IV. 23 



