ky Way," literally, The
shining stars. The dual divinity is figured (fig. 25, no. 4) as two
persons with the shaft of an arrow over each of their heads and with the
symbol Tecpatl=flint, between them as the issue of their union. In the
Borgian Codex (fig. 25, no. 1), a barbed arrowpoint, instead of the
Tecpatl, figures between the celestial parents. Their union is symbolized
by a covering, the shape of which, in further representations (fig. 25,
nos. 3 and 5) in the same MS., offers resemblance to the tau-shaped
windows which are such a common feature in Maya and also in Pueblo
architecture (fig. 25, no. 2_b_). The preceding data, which could be
amplified, seem to show that the natives associated the tau-shape not
merely with the idea of the Male and Female principles, but also with the
Above and the Below, or Heaven (air and water) and Earth (earth and fire).
I shall have occasion, further on, to refer again to the symbolism of the
native tau.

The above illustrations, however, definitely prove that the flint knife
and the arrow (with a flint point, presumably), were indiscriminately
designated as the medium by means of which the spark of life was created
and imparted to earth-born beings.

It will be proved further that, at the period of the Conquest, the arrow
was revered as an image of life-producing force in Yucatan and Mexico. The
flint knife cased in wrappings was called "the son" of Cihuacoatl, the
earth-mother, and was regarded as her special symbol. It is significant,
therefore, to find that it was the emblem of office of one of the two high
priests, who alone employed it, as a sacrificial knife, in performing his
awful duty of immolating human victims.

The fact that the cane-shaft of an arrow figures above the head of the
celestial couple in the Vatican Codex is particularly interesting because
the name Ome-Acatl=Two-Cane, is given as the name of a divinity by Sahagun
(book I, chap. 15) and that the ceremony of kindling the New Fire, at the
commencement of a cycle of years was also associated with the calendar
sign Ome-Acatl (Sahagun, book VII, chap. 10).

At a certain festival images of Omacatl were manufactured and carried by
the devout to their houses in order to receive from them "blessings and
multiplication of possessions" (Sahagun, book II, chap. 19).

I draw attention to the fact that life is supposed to have proceeded from
the union of stellar divinities, that the Tecpatl and flint are the
well