In each of the five sections B is pictured in a sitting posture, the first four times on a tree (the tree of life rather than the sacrificial tree).
In the first picture he holds in one hand the haunch of venison, so often occurring as an offering, the last time on page 28; the object above it is probably the Kan sign. There is a vessel at the god's feet, probably a receptacle for the venison, bearing the hieroglyph of the 13th day Cib, which, however, refers rather to a bird.
In the second picture an animal with a protruding tongue lies on its back at the feet of the god, who kneels upon its stomach. This probably represents the lightning-dog as vanquished. The same animal is pictured on the next page and also on page 40b and perhaps on page 60. There are a number of small dots around B's head, which on page 11c we attempted to interpret as the starry sky.
I can find nothing of special importance in the third and fourth pictures, but in the fifth, B is sitting in a house, which is marked repeatedly with the sign Caban (ground). Here the god is holding the hatchet (machete) in his hand, as if prepared for some terrestrial activity. Four hieroglyphs in the usual order belong to each of the five pictures. They are almost entirely destroyed, but the vestiges show that the fourth sign was always that of B, while the third sign with the first picture had the abbreviated hieroglyph of the west as a prefix; with the second picture it had that of the south, and therefore with the third and fourth it must certainly have had the signs of the east and north. We should expect the signs with these
prefixes to contain references to Ix, Cauac, Kan and Muluc, but they are not distinguishable.
Thus B is represented in pictures 1-4 as ruler of the four cardinal points and in 5 as the ruler of the earth in general.
Pages 30a—31a.
This passage looks like an amplification of the middle picture on page 29a. Here B is represented with the hatchet in his left hand and holding aloft by the tail with his right hand the animal, which is spitting out something upon a stepped pyramidal structure, probably the pyramid of a teocalli. That this is probably meant to represent lightning is rendered almost a certainty by the picture on page 40b. In this passage there are several red and black numerals scattered around the animal in an irregular manner, which we find nowhere else in our Manuscript, but with which the Tro-Cortesianus has made us familiar. The sum of the black numbers still legible is 23, probably a 3 is effaced and the sum should be 26, the sum which so often occurs in the Cod. Troano 8-13 with the animal represented there. The red numbers likewise do not admit of exact determination. This passage also contained hieroglyphs, four standing side by side on each of the two pages. The legible portion is limited to the Cimi sign in the third place, perhaps an Imix in the second, and possibly an Ahau in the first.
Pages 31a—32a.
In my article "Zur Entzifferung, etc., VI," published in the year 1897, I discussed this passage more in detail, and the following will be in continuation of what I stated there.