to be reproduced upon the wrists, knees, and one ankle, and, perhaps, make this phase of the god a parallel to the Greek Argus, the “eye-spotted” night. On the breast depends an ornament which is not sufficiently clear to justify its description. On page 82 the god is depicted as wearing a garment covered with crosses, and on page 88 as standing on the skull-altar (see Tezcatlipocâ). His wavy hair is surrounded by a red and yellow cotton fillet, and he is being anointed by a priest from a vessel of blood, whilst other priests stand before him with pots full of blood and human hearts. He wears a curious blue necklace almost of the “masonry” type seen in Egyptian, Greek, and Asiatic deific ornaments, and a cotton garment with red bows. A cotton web depends from his blue ear-plug.
MYTHS
The interpreter of Codex Vaticanus A says of Mictlantecutli: “He descends for souls as a spider lowers itself with its head downwards from the web.” Later on he states that “he is the great lord of the dead below in hell, who alone after Tonacatecutli was painted with a crown.… They painted this demon near the sun, for in the same way as they believed that the one conducted souls to heaven, so they supposed that the other carried them to hell. He is here represented [that is in the codex] with his hands open and stretched towards the sun to seize on any soul that might escape from him.” Later he states that Ixcuina, “the goddess of salt, dirt, and immodesty,” was the wife of Mictlantecutli. The commentator of Codex Telleriano-Remensis seems to regard Mictlantecutli as rescuing souls from the realm of the dead. He says: “They place him opposite to the sun to see if he can rescue any of those seized upon by the lord of the dead.” The two interpretative codices were almost certainly edited, if not copied one from the other, by the same hand, and it is such passages as this which show the great dubiety existing in the minds of the priestly commentators regarding the precise nature of the Mexican deities.