187 
tion, 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 {huepilli). 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 at the top. But the most com-^ 
plicated painting, as well as the most ingenious 
of this Codex MeocicanuSy 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 . 
