STONE FIGURE OF MACUILXOCHITL.
(In the Uhde Collection, Berlin.)
ASPECT AND INSIGNIA (as Macuilxochitl)
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 15: In this place the god wears as breast-ornament a human lower jaw, which, combined with the green band to which it is tied up, may possibly express the day-count malinalli. He has a large feather nape-ornament. The upper part of his face is white, with a dark band over the nose and cheek, and white painting over the mouth, in the semblance of an outspread hand. He wears a cap with vertically projecting bands painted in the colours of the green jewel chalchihuitl.
Sahagun MS.—Here he is represented with a white hand painted on his mouth and a feather crown surmounted by a crest.
General.—Like the other gods of dance and sport, Macuilxochitl wears the four balls of the toualli emblem on his shield and sometimes carries the staff with the heart. Like Ixtlilton, he had probably once a bird’s-head mask, which in the course of his evolution degenerated into a feather crest and a wing [[197]]on his back. The deterioration of this feature can be observed in the stone effigies of his counterpart Xochipilli.
STONE FIGURE OF MACUILXOCHITL.
(In the Uhde Collection, Berlin.)