Page:A Study of the Manuscript Troano.djvu/197

Rh wooden idols. We observe that the character with the cross is wanting, and hence presume that the walls were too slender to bear the weight of a beam. They were probably built of slender poles or of canes, as was common in Guatemala, and covered perhaps with palm-leaves.

Instead of the figures at the top always being marked in the peculiar manner which I have supposed to indicate matting, it is sometimes marked with bent lines, similar to those on the figures representing cords or ropes. On some of the plates, as, for example, XIII* and XIV*, the figure of a bent tree appears to be used to denote a dwelling of some kind, possibly only a temporary booth. It is true figures of this kind are given in a number of other places for a very different purpose, as on Plates VIII to XIII, where they are used to represent the method of capturing deer; but a little examination will show a marked difference between the two kinds.

If I am correct in reference to the houses, then it is probable the Manuscript relates to a section of country where the dwellings and the temples were of a primitive character.

But few houses or dwellings are represented in the Dresden Codex. In the lower division of Plate 8 there are figures of two, one of which is copied in our Fig. 30. These may represent temples placed on pyramids or elevated platforms ascending by steps, as indicated in the figure.

The different forms of their vases are given in our Plates I-IV (Ms. XX-XXIII).

The leg of a deer, to which allusion has already been made, is shown by the yellow figure with a double, white band and black tips in the upper left-hand corner of the lower division of Plate I (Ms. XX).

The machine or apparatus used for, and the method of making, ropes or cords, is represented on Plate XI* and in our Figs. 31 and 32. The first (Fig. 31) shows the method of preparing the material. Strips of the substance used, probably the inner bark of some tree, or aloe fiber, is placed on a bench of the form shown, which has pieces extending upward from