Aubin Tonalamatl.—In this MS. he again takes on a canine appearance and is clothed in many respects like Quetzalcoatl. This frequent similarity in dress between the gods may have its origin in the diverse meaning of the word coatl, which, besides meaning “snake,” also denotes “comrade” or “twin.” This dog-like creature is usually portrayed as of a dark colour, black, with the distinctive cropped ear, while in Codex Borgia he is depicted with jaguar-claws. Xolotl has the face-painting of Quetzalcoatl in the Mexican MSS. proper, that is in the middle front it is yellow and black at the sides. He wears the two-coloured white and brown (jaguar-skin) head-loop with rounded-off ends, which latter form is also continued in the loin-cloth. Both these articles of dress he has in common with Quetzalcoatl.
Codex Telleriano-Remensis.—Here he is depicted with Tlazolteotl’s spindles in his hair and an ichcaxochitl of unspun cotton, as well as the head-loop previously described. Only in this MS. is he so adorned. The instrument of self-mortification, the bone dagger, juts out from above his forehead, whence issues a trickle of blood, sometimes delineated symbolically as a feather-ball string completed with a flower, and at others represented as real blood. He grasps an obsidian knife, which implement also projects from his mouth along with a flower, while a copal bag is portrayed in front of him. In some MSS., as in Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Vaticanus A, he is represented as wearing a mask on his girdle.
WALL-PAINTINGS
Xolotl seems to be represented on one of the wall-paintings at Mitla, where he is characterized by the physiognomy of an animal with projecting upper teeth. He wears Quetzalcoatl’s conical cap of jaguar-skin and his necklace of snail-shells. The dog’s ears seem in this place to be merged into tufts of feathers.