shows
perhaps the most elaborate representation of this bird. It is found on
the sculptured tablet of the Temple of the Cross at Palenque. The
quetzal is shown seated on top of a branching tree which was long taken
to represent a cross. A similar representation is seen on the tablet of
the Temple of the Foliated Cross from the same ruined city. In the Codex
Fejervary-Mayer, there are four trees in each of which there is a bird.
A quetzal is perched in the one corresponding to the east, which is
regarded as the region of opulence and moisture. Seler (1901, p. 17)
suggests that the quetzal in the tree on the two bas-reliefs at Palenque
may represent a similar idea and that temples which would show the other
three trees and their respective birds had not been built in that
center.

The representation of the quetzal as an entire bird is, after all,
comparatively rare. The most realistic drawing is seen on a jar from
Copan in the collections of the Peabody Museum. The whole body of the
bird is shown as a head-dress in a few places in the codices where birth
and the naming of children are pictured. In Dresden 16c (Pl. 24, fig. 3)
and Tro-Cortesianus 94c (Pl. 24, fig. 6), the quetzal is the head-dress
of women. In Dresden 13b (Pl. 24, fig. 2), a partial drawing of the bird
is shown as a part of the head-dress of god E, in Dresden 7c (Pl. 24,
fig. 1) of god H, and in Tro-Cortesianus 110c of god F. The feathers
alone appear as a female head decoration in Dresden 20c (Pl. 24, fig.
8). It occurs as a sacrifice among the rites of the four years in
Tro-Cortesianus 36b (Pl. 24, fig. 12). In Tro-Cortesianus 70a (Pl. 24,
fig. 5), it is found in the act of eating fruit growing over the "young
god." In Tro-Cortesianus 100b (Pl. 24, fig. 4), the bird is perched over
the encased head of god C.

There seems to be a glyph used for the quetzal. In those drawn in Pl.
24, figs. 10, 17, it is noticeable that the anterior part only of the
head is shown. The first is a glyph from the tablet of the Temple of the
Sun at Palenque, and at least suggests the quetzal by the feathers on
the top of the head, as also Pl. 24, fig. 13, a glyph from Copan, Stela
10, where the entire head appears in a much conventionalized form. Other
glyphs are shown in Pl. 24, figs. 14-16, in which there is a single
prominent recurved feather shown over the eye, succeeded by a few
conventionalized feathers, then one or more directed posteriorly. It is
to be noted that whe