360 ANIMAL FIGURES IN THE MAYA CODICES 



The dog played a large part in the religion both of the 

 Mayas and the Mexican peoples. It was connected especially 

 with the idea of death and destruction. The Lacandones of 

 the present time make a small figure of a dog to place on 

 the grave (Tozzer, 1907, p. 47). This is but one of the many 

 survivals of the ancient pre-Columbian religion found among 

 this people. The dog was regarded as the messenger to 

 prepare the way to the other world. Seler (1900-1901, pp. 

 82-83) gives an interesting parallel of the Nahua idea of the 

 dog and his connection with death. He paraphrases Sahagun 

 as follows: ''The native Mexican dogs barked, wagged their 

 tails, in a word, behaved in all respects like our own dogs, 

 were kept by the Mexicans not only as house companions, 

 but above all, for the shambles, and also in Yucatan and on 

 the coast land for sacrifice. The importance that the dog 

 had acquired in the funeral rites may perhaps have originated 

 in the fact that, as the departed of both sexes were accom- 

 panied by their effects, the prince by the women and slaves 

 in his service, so the dog was assigned to the grave as his 

 master's associate, friend, and guard, and that the persistence 

 of this custom in course of time created the belief that the 

 dog stood in some special relation to the kingdom of the dead. 

 It may also be that, simply because it was the practice to 

 burn the dead, the dog was looked on as the Fire God's ani- 

 mal and the emblem of fire, the natives got accustomed to 

 speak of him as the messenger to prepare the way in the 

 kingdom of the dead, and thus eventually to regard him as 

 such. At the time when the Spaniards made their acquaint- 

 ance, it was the constant practice of the Mexicans to commit 

 to the grave with the dead a dog who had to be of a red- 

 yellow color, and had a string of unspun cotton round his 

 neck, and was first killed by the thrust of a dart in his throat. 

 The Mexicans believed that four years after death, when the 

 soul had already passed through many dangers on its way 

 to the underworld, it came at last to the bank of a great river/ 

 the Chicunauhapan, which encircled the underworld proper. 

 The souls could get across this river only when they were 



