Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/156

92 I strongly suspect that it is the symbol for Am, the sacred stone by means of which they cast the horoscope, and which was doubtless the same as those named by Landa Acantun. The loop or knot on Plates XXI and XXII probably signifies the tying of the years, the close of one cycle or other period and the commencement of another. There are but two of these, and they probably correspond with the figures on which the Chacs in Plates 27 and 28 of the Codex are walking. These appear to be bundles of cords or reeds bound at four points, representing the four dominical days (the four years), each representing thirteen years of the cycle, or possibly only one year of the luster.

Plate XX, which has Ix as the dominical day, appears to bear one or two of the tokens mentioned by Landa in his description of the festival of the Cauac years. This author remarks that, "after they have placed the images in the temple, they perfume them, as is their custom, and present to them two pellets of resin from a tree called kik, for the purpose of burning them, also some iguanas, bread, a mitre, a bouquet of flowers, and a stone which they hold in great honor." We see projecting from the head dress of the figure in the lower right-hand corner of the lower division what appears to be a flower. In the upper division we see at the left an individual burning incense. In the corresponding plate of the Codex (25), middle division, is this figure (Fig. 12), which I have concluded is a symbol of the particular incense here mentioned.