No. 2 is the “medicine rattle.” Sometimes it was a gourd, at others of earthenware, as we see by the “pottery decoration” in Cod. Tro., 34, 35, etc. Sometimes it looks like a fan or a mirror.[[132]]
No. 3 is the hatchet, and No. 4 the chisel. The peculiar shape and mode of use of the latter are seen Cod. Tro., 34, etc. Both of these implements were made of metal obtained from Tabasco, and Landa especially says that the latter was that with which they carved their idols, exactly as we see in the MSS.[[133]]
The word for the tomahawk in Maya was bat; and from the same root come batul, “to fight;” batab, “a chief;” batan, “first or in front of;” bat, “hail;” for any of which ideas the weapon might be a symbol or a rebus. It is of frequent occurrence in the texts. One of its uses, I am persuaded, was to indicate a thunderbolt or stroke of lightning. The name for this in Maya was “the blow of the cloud,”[[134]] and in the group of the moan sign and the tomahawk we have this well expressed.
The first design in Fig. [60] shows the aspersorium, lilābal, with which the high priest sprinkled the holy water (which was the dew collected in the early morning) during the ceremonies. To it were attached the rattles of the rattlesnake and tails of poisonous serpents.[[135]] It is often portrayed in the Codices and inscriptions.
The second design is the throwing-stick, in Nahuatl, atlatl. The admirable monograph of Mrs. Zelia Nuttall explains its important symbolic uses.[[136]] Examples where it is well portrayed are: Cod. Dres., p. 60, 65; Cod. Tro., pp. 21* and 22*.
Fig. 60.—The Aspersorium, the Atlatl, and the Mimosa.
The third design in Fig. [60] is what Seler calls a broom (Spanish, escobilla, Nahuatl, mallinalli,) and Schellhas, a feather. But that it is, as Brasseur said, a mimosa, seems clear from Cod. Tro., p. 29, where it is shown growing. In id., p. 32*c, where it is above the turtle, it has an astronomic significance.
Other objects sometimes depicted are fans, ual or picit; mirrors, nen; shields, chimal; and planting sticks, xul.
The designs shown in Fig. [61] recur in all the Codices, and I agree with Dr. Förstemann that they must refer to the celestial bodies and their relative motions (contrary to the view of Dr. Seler). That they have not all been identified is perhaps because none of the students of the subject has been astronomer enough to understand the lessons they convey.