2 This circular patch with the centre punched out is worn by the women of more than one Asiatic country. ↑
6 As regards these translations of hymns throughout the work, some have been translated by me from the Mexican originals, others have been translated from the German of Seler. Like that authority I have not received any enlightenment from Brinton’s “translations” in his Sacred Chants of the Ancient Mexicans. ↑
9 Seler, Commentary on Vaticanus B, p. 262, believes the ceremony to refer to the parturition of the goddess, who gives birth to Cinteotl, although he at first elucidated the ceremony as here indicated. Seler confounds the postures of sexual intercourse and parturition. ↑
16 The custom of wearing a mask of the deity worshipped (in this case the slain woman represented the goddess) is widespread. ↑
19 Who, like several of the older Spanish authorities, regarded Cinteotl as a goddess, a belief now exploded. See vol. i, bk. vi (English translation). ↑
20 It might be quoted against this view that the lewd life of pleasure of which Xochipilli and Macuilxochitl are the representatives results in that death which is the child of sin, and that these gods are therefore “brothers” to Cinteotl in this especial connection. Seler, Comm. Codex Fej.-Mayer, p. 66; Comm. Codex Vat. B, pp. 207–208. ↑
23 At the festival of Demeter, with whose worship the serpent was connected, the earth was struck with rods by the priest who called upon the goddess. This is also done during the act of divination among the Zulus, when they call upon spirits. See Callaway, Izinyanga Zokubula, p. 362. ↑
33 Idea, pp. 63–66. This myth seems to me to show vestiges of a belief in the theory of the transmigration of souls, and to indicate that the ascetic, almost on the borders of what is known in Buddhistic belief as “arahatship,” or promotion to a higher life, was condemned for his lapse to recommence existence once more under a low form of life. ↑
41 But see the song to Cinteotl in the portion dealing with that god, which in a manner refers to Xochipilli. ↑
44 Cronica Mexicana. See picture of Axayacatl in Boban’s catalogue of the Goupil collection, Paris, 1891, pp. 14, 15. ↑
48 Werenfels, Dissertation upon Superstition, p. 6 (London, 1748). Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. ii, pp. 719 ff. ↑
53 Sahagun states that the “hair” of the uauantin was kept as a trophy. This seems to me analogous to the North American Indian custom of scalping, which is sometimes spoken of as “losing one’s hair,” a phrase which, through its use among American border fighters, has passed into slang. ↑
54 Tezcatlipocâ took the form of a coyote and lay in wait for travellers. Sahagun, bk. v, c. xiii. ↑
67 This deer is two-headed; so is Quaxolotl a variant of Chantico, the Fire-goddess, with whom Itzpapalotl seems to have many points of resemblance. ↑
69 In some myths of the Old World the butterfly is the soul or ghost. This would explain her connection with the Ciuateteô, or dead women. ↑
74 It occurred to the writer that the expression tititl may have had reference to the act of sexual impregnation, as in the case of Tlazolteotl (q.v.), who “widens herself, stretches herself out” at the foot of the teocalli of Uitzilopochtli, when she is impregnated by that deity. This consideration scarcely seems to apply to the present instance, however, and that indicated above appears preferable. ↑