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. Sahagun in the Appendix to his third book, the first chapter of which treats of burial, gives a prayer or address to the dead which mentions Mictlantecutli, and which states that he and his wife Mictecaciuatl await the deceased, who goes to dwell among the shadows, “where there is no light or window.” It is further explained that when he arrived in the realm of the god of the dead (which has already been described in the chapter on Cosmogony), he makes him an offering of the papers which he carries, of faggots or torches of pinewood, and of perfumed reeds, cotton, mantles, and costly apparel. Boturini and Brasseur give a great deal of matter regarding this god which is absolutely worthless, as does Leon y Gama, and the deity has been in some manner confounded with a god Teoyaomiqui, who seems to be quite supposititious in character and never to have had no other existence in the minds of Gama and his copyists. NATURE AND STATUS