absorption. God B himself is pictured with the body of a serpent in Dr.
35b and 36a (compare No. 2 of the Mythological Animals). He likewise
occurs sitting on the serpent and in Dr. 66a he is twice (1st and 3d
figures) pictured with a snake in his hand.

God B sits on the moan head in Dr. 38c, on a head with the Cauac-sign in
Dr. 39c, 66c, and on the dog in Dr. 29a. All these pictures are meant
to typify his abode in the air, above rain, storm and death-bringing
clouds, from which the lightning falls. The object with the cross-bones
of the death-god, on which he sits in Dr. 66c, can perhaps be explained
in the same manner. As the fish belongs to god B in a symbolic sense, so
the god is represented fishing in Dr. 44 (1). His face with the large
nose and the tongue (or fangs) hanging out on the side in Dr. 44 (1)a
(1st figure) is supposed to be a mask which the priest, representing the
god, assumes during the religious ceremony.

Furthermore the following four well-known symbols of sacrificial gifts
appear in connection with god B in the Dresden manuscript; a sprouting
kernel of maize (or, according to Förstemann, parts of a mammal, game), a
fish, a lizard and a vulture's head, as symbols of the four elements.
They seem to occur, however, in relation also to other deities and
evidently are general symbols of sacrificial gifts. Thus they occur on
the two companion initial pages of the Codex Tro.-Cortesianus, on which
the hieroglyphs of gods C and K are repeated in rows (Tro. 36-Cort. 22.
Compare Förstemann, Kommentar zur Madrider Handschrift, pp. 102, 103).
God B is also connected with the four colors--yellow, red, white and
black--which, according to the conception of the Mayas, correspond to the
cardinal points (yellow, air; red, fire; white, water; black, earth) and
the god himself is occasionally represented with a black body, for
example on Dr. 29c, 31c and 69. This is expressed in the hieroglyphs by