f certain departments of the State. It
appears that in ancient times the ceremonial of the "new birth," or
re-naming of the children, took place every four years, simultaneously
with the thanksgiving feast for the "continuation of the human race."

A careful analysis of native words and metaphors tends to show, moreover,
that the children born within each four-year-period were collectively
regarded as "a fresh growth upon the tribal tree." In Mexico the word for
leaf=atlapalli, was employed as a metaphor for the lower class, whilst in
Peru the male and female descendants of the Incas were represented by gold
and silver fruits upon the trees of their male and female ancestry. The
collection of such scattered scraps of testimony enables us to reconstruct
the drift of native thought and realize that the registration of
individuals was associated with the conception of a tribal tree bearing
four branches and covered with blossoms, fruits and leaves which faded and
fell but were replaced by fresh growths.

We learn from Duran that so careful a record was kept of the population,
by the Mexican priesthood, "that not even a newborn babe could escape
detection." The reason for this strict vigilance is clear, for the welfare
of the community and the harmonious working of the complex machinery of
state depended upon the constant renewal of vacancies caused by deaths in
each department of industry and government.

After this excursion into the realm of native thought let us now return to
the Palenque tablets, placed in detached temples which approximately face
the four cardinal points. On the tablet of the "Temple of the Cross" we
have a tribal tree with symbols of the Middle and of the Four Quarters and
of duality. A priest with a flower on his head presents a diminutive human
figure to the totemic bird perched on the tree. Another, with a leafy
branch on his head-dress, holds a conventional sceptre simulating a young
growing shoot of maize. Behind each figure are rows of glyphs and in the
upper corner to the left of the spectator is the septenary series headed
by the initial-sign.

In the "Temple of Cross II" we have a variant of the identical
representation in which the maize plant and the sea shell are prominent.
If I may hazard a suggestion of the meaning of these two tablets, I should
say that they appear to be tribal registers most probably relating to the
increase and decrease of the male and female population in all divi