Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/13

Rh In planting their corn (maize) it was dibbled in with a curved stick, five grains to a hill being the established number. While at this work they wore a peculiar head-covering, apparently a kind of matting. The other cultivated plants noticed in the work appear to be cacao, cotton, and a leguminous species, probably a climbing bean, as it is supported by a stake.

I judge, from a number of the figures, that their corn while growing was subject to the attacks of numerous insects (represented as worms or snakes), which ate foliage, ear, and root, and was frequently injured by severe storms, and also that the planted grains were pulled up by birds and a small quadruped. Their crops were also subject to injury by severe droughts, accompanied by great heat.

The production of honey seems to have been a very important industry in the section to which the work relates, but so far I have succeeded in interpreting but few of the figures which refer to it.

Rope-making (or possibly weaving) is represented on Plate XI*—a very simple process, which will be found described in my paper.

Their chief mechanical work, as I judge from this Manuscript, was the manufacture of idols, some being made of clay and others carved of wood Two implements used in making their wooden images appear, from the figures, to have been of metal, one a hatchet, the other sharp-pointed and shaped much like a pair of shears.

Spears and arrows (if such they be, for there is no figure of a bow in the entire work), or darts, are the only implements of warfare shown. The spears or darts seem to have been often thrown by means of a kind of hook, and-guided by a piece of wood with a notch at the end.

5th. The taking of life, apparently of a slave, is indicated in one place, but whether as a sacrificial offering is uncertain. It is evidently not in the manner described by the early writers, as in this case it is by decapitation with a machete or hatchet, the arms being bound behind the back, and what is presumed to be a yoke fixed on the back of the head. This is the only thing in the Manuscript, except holding captives by the hair, as in the Mexican Codices, which can possibly be construed to indicate human sacrifice. In the Dresden Codex human sacrifice in the usual way—by opening the breast—is clearly indicated.