Fig. 55.—Huitzilopochtli (back).
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.[2]
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.
IV. The claws of the Mexican statue may be symbolized by the spikes on the back of the birds in [Fig. 52], but these latter appear to me to relate rather to the fangs and teeth of the various crotalus heads of the statues.
V. The mask, with tusks, of Fig. 52, is the same as that at the top of [Fig. 55], where we see that they represent the teeth of a serpent, and not the tusks of an animal. This is shown by the forked tongue beneath. The three groups of four dots each on Huitzilopochtli’s statue are references to his relationship with Tlaloc.