These three were a trinity well nigh inseparable. It has been doubted whether they were not different attributes of the same personage. In the natural course of things the primitive idea would become differentiated into its parts, and in process of time the most important of the parts would each receive a separate pictorial representation.
By referring back a few pages the reader will find summarized the principal characteristics of the Central American figure represented in [Fig. 52]. He will also have noticed the remarkable agreement between the attributes of this figure and those contained in the cuts or in the descriptions of the Mexican gods. Thus—
I. The symbol of both was the cross.
II. [Fig. 52] and [Fig. 55] each have four hands.[233-*]
III. Both have birds as symbols.
It is difficult to regard the bird of [Fig. 52] as a humming bird, as it more resembles the parrot, which, as is well known, was a symbol of some of the Central American gods. Its occurrence here in connection with the four arms fixes it, however, as the bird symbol of Huitzilopochtli. In the Ms. Troano, plate xxxi (lower right-hand figure), we find this same personage with his two parrots, along with Tlaloc, the god of rain.