a Codex there is a remarkable picture of the earth-vase
resting on a slab with five divisions. A profusion of puffs or breaths of
air or vapor issue from it and, branching off in two directions, form what
is like the conventional tree of life, also met with in Maya bas-reliefs
and documents. At the extremities of the branches which turn downwards, a
serpent's eye is visible and a forked-tongue issues above the middle (fig.
32, no. 1). The intention to express an exuberant vitality and growth
issuing from the symbolical vase in the centre of the earth, seems
obvious. This idea is still more clearly conveyed, however, in two
symbolic pictures on pp. 21 and 29 of the Codex Borgia, which are
reproduced as nos. 1 and 4 in fig. 1 of this publication. The first
represents the vase overflowing with water and containing a flint-knife,
the generator of the vital spark. The central group is surrounded by water
and by sun-rays and obviously symbolizes the union of air, light and
water, constituting the Above, with the flint the emblem of the
earth-mother and of Tezcatlipoca, the lord of the Under-world. Fig. 1, no.
4, represents the vase overflowing with a liquid, which is designated as
being the sacred octli or earth-wine by the presence of the rabbit, which
expresses the sound of its name=tochtli. This rebus is surrounded by the
nocturnal heaven strewn with stars and the reference to the union of rain
or earth-wine with earth and darkness is evident. It has been generally
assumed that these images of the vase, containing the rabbit or
flint-knife, represented the moon. As the latter was intimately associated
with the cult of night, of the earth-mother and ideas of growth, it is not
impossible that by an extension of symbolism, this was the case, but only
in the same way as the sun was the emblem of the cult of the Above. On the
other hand the native drawings of the moon in Sahagun's Academia MS.
represent it as a crescent with a human profile on the inner side, and in
a specimen preserved at the Trocadero Museum, Paris, it is similarly
carved in rock crystal.

Before proceeding to investigate the symbol further, I would point out the
general resemblance of the vase, especially as a conventionalized
serpent's jaw, to the "horse-shoe" shape of the problematical stone
"yokes" which have been so thoroughly studied by Dr. Hermann Strebel of
Hamburg (Studien ueber Steinjoche aus Mexico and Mittel-Amerika.
Internationales Archiv, bd. III