Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/196

130 "For sleeping-places they had bedsteads made in a trellis of canes, covered with mats, and on these they stretched themselves covered with their clothes of cotton. During the summer they usually slept on the front extended on their mats, principally the men."

What is shown in Fig. 26 possibly represents a small wooden adoratorio, niche, or canopied seat, in which we see an idol. I judge the side wall to be wooden by its form and by the characters on it. That these characters are used to signify wood, and possibly a particular species, I think is evident from the following facts: Running through the Manuscript we first observe them in this figure on what we may justly assume to be an upright wooden beam. "We see the crosses or &#x2715;&#x2715; on what are evidently the ends of beams in the upper division of Plate IX; and in another figure (Plate XXII*), intended to represent the same thing, we see on the ends of the beams both the squares and crosses. They are also on a tree in the right of the upper division of Plate XV*.

In the last-mentioned figure we notice that the tree is severed by a machete or hatchet in the hands of a priest representing the god of death. In the upper divisions of Plates XIII and XIV the same character is on the benches upon which the personages are seated. The blocks, boxes, hives, or whatever they may be, in the first division of Plate IX*, and the blocks in the hands of the individuals figured in the middle division of Plate XXII* are marked with the same character.

The widely different forms and the diversity of uses to which the things bearing this character are applied make it evident that if the character refers at all to the thing on which it is placed, it must be to the substance. As it is found, in some cases, on figures that we know must represent trees, the necessary conclusion is that it denotes wood. Whether it is meant as a general term, or applies to a particular species, is a question I am unable to answer with certainty.

I will call attention to the character itself and its probable interpretation a little further on.

The houses shown in Plate XVI* (see Fig. 28) are probably the temporary cabins mentioned by Landa in which the artists manufactured their