CHAPTER 6 INDIGENOUS LITERATURE FROM COLONIAL MESOAMERICA 225Figure 6.2 Codex Borgia.
On this page of the screen-
fold book are depicted the
deities associated with four
of the twenty day-signs in
the 260-day calendar.
Reprinted with permission
from Codex Borgia.Graz,
Austria: Akademische
Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,
1976, folio 12.tion, and the deities and religious rites associated with the different days (Fig-
ure 6.2). Other calendrical cycles are also represented, particularly the cycle of the
planet Venus, which was identified with the deity Quetzalcoatl.
One of the codices in the group, the Codex Laud,includes a series of twenty-five
pictures to be used for advising couples who planned to marry (Figure 6.3). Each pic-
ture shows a man and a woman, depicted with different features, poses, and gestures
and accompanied by different objects. The diviner would add together the numeri-
cal signs of the prospective bride’s and groom’s birth dates in the 260-day ritual cal-
endar. This would yield a number from 2 to 26. He or she would then consult the
corresponding picture in this section of the codex and make a pronouncement re-
garding the couple’s future prospects. Given the ambiguous nature of the pictures,
the diviner could make a wide variety of predictions combining the interpretation of
the signs with knowledge of the two individuals and their families.
Another of the codices, the Fejérváry-Mayer,shows on its first page a map of the
world, as Mesoamericans conceived of it (Figure 6.4). Space is divided among four
quadrants representing the four directions. In the space at the middle stands the
fire deity, who stands at the axis mundior center of the cosmos, just as the hearth lay
at the center of the Mesoamerican home. Each of the four directional quadrants