Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/189

Rh always to indicate that the individual is to be sacrificed. Repeated examples may be found in the Mexican Codices.

On the former there is also the figure of a bird plucking the eye out of one of the slain; but here, as I think, something more is intended than simply that a vulture is devouring a dead man. The peculiar eye and black body show very clearly that this is the same bird as that on the right in the upper division of Plate XXVIII*. In the latter we see the figures of two birds in deadly conflict. What is the meaning of this picture? I believe it is a kind of pictograph, somewhat similar to those drawn by modern Indians, and that it signifies a battle between two tribes, represented by these two birds. The bird with the red circle around the eye denotes that tribe to which the author of the Manuscript belonged, and which, as a matter of course, was victorious. This is shown by the figure on Plate XXVI* previously referred to. As further evidence of this we see the other bird a captive in the hands of the individual at the right hand of the upper division of Plate XXIII*.

On Plate XXIV* we observe the god of the conquered tribe a captive in the hands of the deity of the victors, and in front of them a soldier running away with captured spoils, and the priest with the captured woman. On Plate XXIII* is the figure of a Chac firing the dwellings of the conquered village. The last-mentioned figure is the one Brasseur interpreted as signifying the craters of a double volcano.

The reader is not to understand that I claim that the order in which these figures are mentioned is that in which they should come, nor is it claimed that they denote here a real battle, as it is probable they represent only a kind of play enacted during some festival; yet there is doubtless an allusion to some real battle or war. My principal reason for believing it represents only a play is the significant absence of weapons.

The following account of the celebration of a Pipil victory is taken from Bancroft's Native Races:

"When information was received from their war chief that he had gained a victory, the diviner ascertained to which of the gods sacrifice was to be made. If to Quetzalcoatl, the ceremony lasted fifteen days, and upon each day they sacrificed a prisoner. These sacrifices were made as follows: