clearly indicated by the small tongues placed at 
some distance from the mouth. A dead maii^ 
say the natives, is reduced to eternal silence : 
according to them, to livoj is to speak * and, as 
we shall see presently, to speak much is a mark 
of power and nobility. These figures of tongues 
are also met with in the Mexican picture of the 
Deluge, which Gemelli published from a manu- 
script at Siguenza ; in which we see men born 
dumb, who disperse themselves to repeople the 
Earth ; and a bird, that distributes among them 
thirty-three diflferent tongues. In the same man- 
ner a volcano, on account of the subterraneous 
noise heard sometimes in its neighbourhood, is 
figured by the Mexicans as a cone with several 
tongues hovering over its top : a volcano is 
called the mountain that speaks. 
It is remarkable enough, that the Mexican ‘ 
painter should have given only to the three per- 
sons, who were living in his time, the diadem 
{copilli) which is a sign of sovereignty. We 
meet with the same headdress, but without the 
knot which reaches towards the back, in the 
figures of the kings of the Azteck dynasty, pub- 
lished by the Abbe Clavigero. The last branch 
of the lords of Azcapozalco is represented sitting 
on an Indian chair, with his feet at liberty : 
dead kings, on the contrary, are figured not only 
without tongues, but with their feet wrapped up 
in the royal cloak (xiuht Uniat li) which gives 
