ASPECT AND INSIGNIA
Codex Borgia.—Sheet 9: His nose-plug has the colours of the chalchihuitl. The ornament attached to the nape and back is a large rosette or disk painted in the chalchihuitl colours, as is the wrap which falls over the back. The ends of the loin-cloth also show the elements of this hieroglyph, and such a loin-cloth painting was usually indicative of the rank of the wearer in ancient Mexico. On his breast is a large gold disk. From his hollow ear-plug depends a jewelled band, and his collar consists of a solar disk (?). Sheet 70: in this picture he is seated on a platform covered with a jaguar-skin. His face-paint and body-paint are yellow, with a rectangular stripe from the end of the nose-plug and above the eye across the forehead. His hair or wig is yellow, and is held by a jewelled band ornamented with a bird’s head. His [[301]]headdress is further equipped with eagle’s feathers, and three tasselled cords edged with cotton hang from it. On his breast lies the solar disk. The head of a grey parrot protrudes from his back, and on the face is a small red disk. Sheet 14: Here he is depicted as a red Tezcatlipocâ with the face-paint of the Sun-god, but is without the small red disk on the face, having instead the small, four-cornered white-and-red patch characteristic of the Maize-god, of Xochipilli and Tonacatecutli.
Codex Vaticanus B.—Sheet 20: Here he is painted with flame-coloured hair, bound by a fillet, on the front of which is the usual bird’s-head ornament. His panache consists chiefly of two eagle’s feathers, from which hang two long bands, one side of which is hairy as if formed of skin, and this may be taken as a characteristic sign of him in the MSS. of the Codex Borgia group. His nose-plug has a plate depending from it, which falls over the mouth, as in some representations of Tezcatlipocâ, and on his breast he wears an ornament which recalls that worn by the Fire-god in this codex. In this MS., as in Codex Borgia, he is represented as standing before a temple, with a burnt-offering of wood and rubber in his hand, and here the temple is painted in the chalchihuitl colour-elements, and its roof covered by jewelled disks. Sheet 94: In this picture he is shown as wearing a long, flame-like beard, which strongly resembles that worn by Quetzalcoatl and Tonacatecutli in some MSS., save that it is the colour of fire.
Aubin-Goupil Tonalamatl.—Sheet 10: In this manuscript the upper portion of the face is light red, and the lower a darker red. The outer corner of the eye is encircled by three red lines, which are rounded. He wears a jewelled fillet, feathered crown, collar, breast-ornament, butterfly’s wing neck-ornament, the net-pouch of the hunting tribes, and the sword-fish pattern sword.
MEXICAN IDEA OF SACRIFICE TO THE SUN-GOD.
Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—The face is yellow with no lines. He wears the fillet with turquoise jewels, and a wheel-shaped ornament at the nape of the neck, probably symbolic of the solar disk. Elsewhere in this MS. he is red, wears the [[302]]solar disk on his back, and holds the cotinga bird in one hand and a shield and a bundle of spears in the other.
Codex Borbonicus.—The face is half yellow, half red, and is surmounted by a flame-coloured wig bound by the jewelled fillet with its usual ornament. Elsewhere in this codex he represents the sun by night, with the body and upper part of the face dark, no nasal rod, but a crescent like that of the Earth-goddess and the octli-gods. The sea-snail’s shell is above him, and the symbol of the eye in a dark patch.
General.—As second member of the third row in Codex Borgia, Vaticanus B, and Fejérváry-Mayer, he is recognized by his red body and face-painting, and flame-coloured hair bound up by a jewelled chain or strap, with the conventional bird figure on the frontal side.