with which he was armed. Coatlicue was an earth-goddess, patron of flower-sellers, and, as her name implies, is distinguished by a skirt woven of snakes (Pl. III); the brothers are identified with the stars of the southern heaven. Very similar is the legend of Mixcoatl (Fig. 4, _a_), according to which this god was attacked and killed by the Centzon Mimizcoa (also stellar deities), but was avenged by his son Ce Acatl, who slew the latter with the _tezcacoatl_ (“mirror-snake”). In the person of Mixcoatl we find a direct connection with the Tarascan Curicaveri, whose symbol was a stone knife kept in a box by the priest, since the same legend relates that Mixcoatl always carried with him a stone knife as a fetish. It may also be mentioned in passing that the date of Uitzilopochtli’s (and Camaxtli’s) movable feast was 1. tecpatl (tecpatl being the stone-knife day-sign), and, as will be explained later, gods were often known by calendrical names. Mixcoatl’s knife was said to be a symbol of the peculiar female deity Itzpapalotl (“obsidian butterfly”), a star-goddess associated with fire and lightning, and occasionally identified with a mythological two-headed deer called Itzcueye which figures in the legends of Mixcoatl and Camaxtli as the captive and wife of the god. This two-headed deer was again identified at Cuitlauac and Xochimilco with the Colhuacan earth and warrior goddess Ciuacoatl (Tonantzin or Quilaztli), invoked in childbirth, whose symbol was an obsidian knife; but, and here is a good instance of the confused nature of the myths with which we have to deal, Ciuacoatl was regarded as the mother of Mixcoatl (as also the other earth-goddess Coatlicue the mother of Uitzilopochtli), and as sister of the Mimizcoa. The planet Venus was a war-god in Michoacan, and, under the name Urendequa Vecara, was the especial deity of Curinguaro, a town hostile to the votaries of Curicaveri. In Mexico this planet was known as Tlauizcalpantecutli, and was connected in some respects with prisoners destined for sacrifice. Representations of Uitzilopochtli are very rare in Mexican art of pre-Spanish date, but we are told that his face-paint consisted of blue and yellow horizontal stripes. Mixcoatl and Camaxtli are usually shown with black paint around the eye, rather in the form of a highway-man’s mask, and Uitzilopochtli also appears with this occasionally. The distinguishing feature of Tlauizcalpantecutli is a series of five dots, arranged quincunx fashion on a dark ground, with the central spot on the nose (Fig. 4, _c_). [Illustration: FIG. 3.--Mexican deities from various MSS. A. Tlazolteotl. B. Tlaloc. C. Xiuhtecutli. D. Ciuapipiltin. E. Tezcatlipoca. F. Uitzilopochtli.] [Illustration: FIG. 4.--Mexican deities from various MSS. A. Mixcoatl. B. Mictlantecutli. C. Tlauizcalpantecutli. D. Quetzalcoatl as Eecatl. E. Tonatiuh. F. Ome Tochtli.]