sacrifice.

In Dresden 39b (Pl. 8, fig. 7), 43b (Pl. 8, fig. 9), and 70, a similar
serpent head-dress is shown on a female figure in the act of pouring
water from a jar. In Tro-Cortesianus, the serpent head-dresses differ in
type only, and in two out of the four cases where they appear, water is
shown flowing from the breasts (30b) of the female figure or from the
mouth (32b). The woman thus represented in connection with the water is
god I, the water goddess of Schellhas. She is, as he notes (1904, p. 31)
usually the figure of an old woman. "Evidently, we have here the
personification of water in its quality of destroyer, a goddess of
floods and cloud-bursts." We are not at all sure that we have here a
distinct god as similar female figures with serpent head-dresses occur
frequently in the Dresden Codex with no suggestion of water. The failure
to find any distinct glyph for this goddess seems to strengthen the view
of not considering her as a separate deity. Finally, in our
consideration of head-dresses, the serpent is to be seen in
Tro-Cortesianus 79c on the head of the first woman who is weaving.
Possibly, a conventionalized serpent forms the head covering of the
second figure who is represented as dead.

The serpent in Dresden 26c-28c (Pl. 10, fig. 1) coiled around the altar
which rises from a _Tun_ sign is not easily explained. In 25c, the altar
is replaced by god B and in the former cases, the reptiles may stand for
this god with whom they are often associated.[316-*] The serpent seems
closely connected with the idea of offerings as the body of a snake is
shown in several instances as the support of the jar containing the
various gifts in Tro-Cortesianus 34a, 34b, 35a, 35b, 36a, 36b, and
possibly 52c (Pl. 9, fig. 3).

Finally the serpent is to be noted in a number of miscellaneous
connections:--in Dresden 36b (Pl. 19, fig. 11), as being attacked by a
black vulture,[317-*] in Tro-Cortesianus 40b (Pl. 9, fig. 4) a
rattlesnake is biting the foot of one of the hunters, and in
Tro-Cortesianus 66b, where the serpent has a human head and arm coming
from its open jaws. This is a very frequent method of representing the
serpent in the Maya stone carvings. In Tro-Cortesianus 60c, 100d (Pl. 9,
fig. 8), twice, 106a, and 111b, the rattlesnake is shown as a sprinkler
for the holy water in the hand (in the first, second and fourth
examples) of god D. Landa (1864, p. 150)[317-[+]] describes in the
ceremony of the baptism of c