In Plate IV, just above each wrist, is a sign composed of ellipse and bars; a little above each of these signs, among coils which may be serpent coils, and on the horizontal line through the top of the necklace pendant, are two surfaces cross-hatched all over. What do these mean? Referring to Plate I, we find, in exactly the same relative situation, the forked tongue and the rattles of the crotalus. These are, then, synonyms, and the guess is confirmed. The cross-hatching means serpent-skin. Is this always so? We must examine other plates to decide.
The same ornament is found in Plates IX, XIV, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXXV (of Stephens’), but its situation does not allow us to gain any additional light.
In Plate XII (Stephens’) none of the ornaments below the belt will help us. At the level of the mouth are four patches of it. Take the upper right-hand one of these. Immediately to its right is a serpent’s head; below the curve and above the frog’s (?) head are the rattles. Here is another confirmation. In Plate XVIII I refer the cross-hatching to the jaw of the crocodile. In Plate XXII I have numbered the chiffres as follows:
| 4201 | 4202 | 4203 | 4204. |
| 4211 | 4212 | 4213 | 4214. |
| * | * | * | * |
| * | * | * | * |
| * | * | * | * |
| 4311 | 4312 | 4313 | 4314. |
4204 has the cross-hatching at its top, and to its left in 4203 is the serpent’s head. The same is true in 4233-4. In 4264 we have the same symbol that we are trying to interpret; it is in its perfect form here and in No. 1865 of the Palenque series. In the caryatides of Plate XXIV ([Fig. 60]) the cross-hatching is included in the spots of the leopard’s skin; in the ornaments at the base, in and near the masks which they are supporting, it is again serpent skin. Take the lower mask; its jaws, forked-tongue, and teeth prove it to be a serpent-mask, as well as the ornament just above it. In Plate LX ([Fig. 59]) it is to be noticed that the leopard spots are not cross-hatched, but that this ornament is given at the lower end of the leopard robe, which ends moreover in a crotalus tongue marked with the sign of the jaw (near the top of this ornament) and of the rattles (near the bottom). This again confirms the theory of the rebus meaning of the cross-hatching. In Plate XXIV (Fig. 60) the cross-hatching on the leopard spots probably is meant to add the serpent attribute to the leopard symbol, and not simply to denote the latter.
Thus an examination of the whole of the material available, shows that the preceding half of the hieroglyph 2021 and its congeners is nothing but the rebus for Quetzalcoatl, or rather for Cukulcan, the Maya name for this god. Brasseur de Bourbourg, as quoted in Bancroft’s Native Races, vol. ii, p. 699, foot note, says Cukulcan, comes from kuk or kukul, a bird, which appears to be the same as the quetzal, and from can, serpent; so that Cukulcan in Maya is the same as Quetzalcoatl in Aztec. It is to be noticed how checks on the accuracy of any deciphering of hieroglyphs occur at every point, if we will only use them.
The Maya equivalents of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc are undoubtedly buried in the chiffres already deciphered, but we have no means of getting their names in Maya from the rebus of the chiffres.
In the cases of these two gods we got the chiffre, and the rebus is still to seek. In the case of Quetzalcoatl or Cukulcan, the rebus was the means of getting the name; and if the names of this divinity had not been equivalent in the two tongues, our results would have led us to the (almost absurd) conclusion that a god of certain attributes was called by his Aztec name in the Maya nations.
Thus every correct conclusion confirms every former one and is a basis for subsequent progress. The results of this analysis are that the Maya god Cukulcan is named in each one of the following chiffres, viz: Nos. 1009, 265, 2090, 2073, 2021, 3085, 2045, 3073, 3070, 3032, 1865, 265, 268?, 4291? 73?? I give the numbers in the order in which they are arranged in the card-catalogue. There is, of course, a reason for this order.
Bancroft, vol. iii, p. 268, says of Quetzalcoatl that “his symbols were the bird, the serpent, the cross, and the flint, representing the clouds, the lightning, the four winds, and the thunderbolt.”