IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
251 
forms, traced from the copies in Kingsborough’s “ Antiqui¬ 
ties.” The first, two interlocked elbows, signifies the 
fourth day of the month; one of the elbows was colored 
red in the manuscript, while the other was green, both 
having an inner border of yellow. The simple hinge 
was of blue and red, with a yellow articulation; the 
Ideographs. 
hinge enclosing a dagger was yellow and green with 
red inner borders, and the dagger was red, yellow, and 
blue. The character denoting or representing a temple 
is readily recognized, and its usual colors are red and 
yellow; but it must not be supposed that these colors 
were always the same, they evidently depended on the 
taste of the scribe. A 
rude figure of a censer 
with a long handle 
through which the priest 
could blow upon the burn¬ 
ing gum copal used as 
incense, always denoted 
a sacrifice. This art of 
pictorial representation could not strictly be called writ¬ 
ing, but was a very useful substitute for it, and it was 
continued long after the Conquest. I have thought, after 
looking at some of the caricatures of the priests of the 
new worship which was forced upon these Indios, of the 
rite of baptism, and of the sacrifice of the Mass, that per- 
