The seed and radicle, horse-shoe and rain-drops, are also distinguishable on a vessel on page 35 of the Dresden Codex and on a small three-legged vase, which is figured by Doctor Brinton (Primer, 118) as the day sign ch'en. This vase is surmounted by two in-curving projections and offers a close analogy to a sacred vase with superstructure (fig. 33, II) from which projects a peculiar open and double receptacle, into which a priest is sowing small seeds. The interior of this bowl is represented as hollow, and containing what I shall show further on to be a native symbol for Earth: three little mounds. On another bowl, in front of this one, a bird is sitting and presumably hatching. In another portion of the same MS. a similar bowl is figured containing three seed fruits and capsules, resembling pomegranates or poppy-heads (fig. 33, III).
The tree next to which the first two symbolical bowls are placed deserves to be carefully studied, for the trunk is crowned by four stems bearing single leaves and is encircled by a serpent, _can_, the homonym for the numeral four=kan. A fringed mantle and a scroll hang from the coils of the serpent's body, two footsteps are painted on the scroll and, pointing downwards, express "descent," as do also the falling drops of liquid on the stems of the tree which grows from a peculiar glyph with subdivisions, which has points of resemblance with the glyph under the footless divinity (fig. 33, I). An obsidian mirror, with cross bars, is painted in front of the latter, which displays the same descending footsteps on its mantle. The head and eyes of a snail, the symbol of parturition, are above its face and a wreath of flowers crowns its head. Tedious as such a minute analysis may seem, it is nevertheless necessary, in order to gain a perception of the extent to which symbolism was practised in the picture writings found in the Maya MSS., accompanied by the cursive calculiform glyphs. It seems that, in no. II, we have a presentation of the Maya "tree of life," and that scrolls, on which descending footsteps are depicted, are intended to convey the meaning that life is descending from Above into the egg and seeds by virtue or decree of the celestial power. It should be noted here that the phenomenon of a living bird issuing from the hard and inanimate egg-shell had made as deep an impression upon the ancient philosophers in Mexico as elsewhere, and that the power "to form the chicken in the shell" was deemed one of the most marvellous attributes of "the divine Moulder or Former," as is further set forth in the "Lyfe of the Indians."