MIXCOATL, IZTAC MIXCOATL, OR CAMAXTLI AS MIXCOATL = “CLOUD SERPENT”

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 25.)

(From Codex Magliabecchiano, 3 folio, sheet 42.)

FORMS OF MIXCOATL.

ASPECT AND INSIGNIA

Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 25: In this manuscript Mixcoatl’s almost nude body is striped with white, as in the case of some of the stellar deities, and he has the half-mask stellar face-painting about the eye. His hair curls up above the brow, is covered with downy white feathers, and he wears a forked heron-feather tuft on the head. On sheet 37 his effigy is accompanied by the symbolical weapons of war.

Codex Borgia.—Sheet 50; right-hand corner, lower portion: The representation in this place is almost identical with that in Codex Vaticanus B, sheet 25. On sheet 15 the god has the implements of war and a small hand-flag, and wears a blue metal breast-plate set in gold, from which depends a chalchihuitl jewel.

Codex Fejérváry-Mayer.—Sheet 41: Mixcoatl is here depicted with body-colour half-blue, half-red, the black domino-stellar painting about the eye, his hair puffed up above the brow and surmounted by the warrior’s adornment. The body-painting in this place is merely a variant [[311]]of the striped colour, perhaps indicating the twilight. As god of the hunting tribes, he is naked like the hunter, and has an ear-plug made from a deer’s foot. He is armed with a throwing-stick (atlatl).

(From a wall-painting at Mitla, Palace I.)

(From Codex Borgia, sheet 80.) (From Codex Vaticanus B, sheet 70.)

Iztac Mixcoatl. (From Codex Borgia.)

FORMS OF MIXCOATL.

WALL-PAINTINGS

On the west side of the court of Palace I at Mitla are certain fragments, some of which undoubtedly represent Mixcoatl in his different phases. In the first of these he is represented as wearing a white wig surmounted by tufts of down in which arrows are stuck. On his face he has the familiar “domino-painting,” he is bearded, and his nose-plug is of a peculiar character, somewhat unfamiliar and expressing a serpentine motif. He wears a collar with sharp stellar edges. The fifth figure to the right from this once more represents him in the same guise, only that in his left hand he holds the atlatl, or spear-thrower. His peculiarly stellar character has not been lost upon the artist who executed these paintings, as the stellar eye-motif decorates the top of the frieze on which they appear. Not far away is seen the deer usually associated with him.

STATUARY AND PAINTINGS

An interesting stone figure of Mixcoatl was discovered in the ruins of the Castillo de Teayo, to the west of the pyramid. It is made of sandstone, and the frontal aspect shows the god wearing a high panache of feathers, a headdress flanked by tufts or puffings of some textile material from which feathers depend, and an elaborate necklace. The skirt, the upper part of which is V-shaped, hangs down to the ankles, and is tied up behind in a double knot. In his left hand he carries the bag which holds obsidian arrow-heads, his invariable symbol, and in the right the S-formed lightning symbol, with which he is often represented, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano. Another relief from the same site shows him carrying the same symbols. His hair is decorated with feather-balls, as in the Codex Magliabecchiano and Duran’s [[312]]illustration. In a painting from Teopancaxo he wears a peculiar headdress from which falls behind a large panache of feathers, and which seems to be decorated with down; a horizontal band crosses the face beneath the eye and covers the whole of the nose. In one hand he carries the lightning symbol, from which spring serpentine streaks of lightning, and in the other a small shield like a sunflower and three arrows with blunt ends.

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