[42-‡] Thomas Coto, Vocabulario de la lengua Cakchiquel, MS., sub voce, Rayo.
[42-§] Herrera, Historia de las Indias, Dec. IV, Lib. viii, cap. 10.
[42-‖] Diccionario Universal, Appendice, ubi suprá.
[42-¶] ‘Señor de los Animales.” Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Parte ii, Lam. iv.
[43-*] See Dr. Seler’s minute description in the Compte Rendu of the Eighth Session of the Congrés International des Américanistes, pp. 588, 589. In one of the conjuration formulas given by de la Serna (Manual de Ministros, p. 212) the priest says: “Yo soy el sacerdote, el dios Quetzalcoatl, que se bajará al infierno, y subiré á lo superior, y hasta los nueve infiernos.” This writer, who was very competent in the Nahuatl, translates the name Quetzalcoatl by “culebra con cresta” (id., p. 171), an unusual, but perhaps a correct rendering.
[43-†] His words here are somewhat obscure. They are, “El baptismo de fuego, en donde las ponen los sobre nombres que llaman yahuiltoca, quando nacen.” This may be translated, “The baptism of fire in which they confer the names which they call yahuiltoca.” The obscurity is in the Nahuatl, as the word toca may be a plural of tocaitl, name, as well as the verb toca, to throw upon. The passage is from the Camino del Cielo, fol. 100, verso.
[43-‡] Sahagun, Historia de la Nueva España, Lib. iv, cap. 25.
[43-§] It is mentioned as useful for this purpose by the early physicians, Francisco Ximenes, Cuatro Libros de la Naturaleza, p. 144; Hernandez, Hist. Plant. Novæ Hispaniæ, Tom. ii, p. 200. Capt. Bourke, in his recent article on “The Medicine Men of the Apaches” (in Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 521), suggests that the yiahuitli of the Aztecs is the same as the “hoddentin,” the pollen of a variety of cat-tail rush which the Apaches in a similar manner throw into the fire as an offering. Hernandez, however, describes the yiahuitli as a plant with red flowers, growing on mountains and hill-sides—no species of rush, therefore. De la Serna says it is the anise plant, and that with it the natives perform the conjuration of the “yellow spirit” (conjuro de amarillo espiritado), that is, of the Fire (Manual de Ministros, p. 197).
[44-*] From the verb apeua. Vetancurt’s description is in his Teatro Mexicano, Tom. i, pp. 462, 463 (Ed. Mexico, 1870).
[44-†] His frequent references to it show this. See his Manual de Ministros, pp. 16, 20, 22, 24, 36, 40, 66, 174, 217, etc. The word tlecuixtliliztli is compounded of tlecuilli, the hearth or fireplace, and ixtliluia, to darken with smoke.