FEATHERED PART OF AN ARROW. Positioned above the draped cloth in some caves, Simons interprets a pictorial element as "part of an arrow decorated with a feather and plume".

Again citing Simons, "in its middle (of the cave doorway) the characteristic draped cloth can be seen with the feathered part of the arrow on top".

At yet another site, Simons writes, "a cave with a raised lintel...which contains the ...draped cloth on top of which the feathered part of an arrow is located".

An arrow is a straight shaft, often a hollow reed, with a sharp point on one end and a cluster of feathers as flight-stabilizing vanes on the other. Next to these vanes is a nock carved into two or three prongs. In our MC2 example, by the prongs are brown feathers with a circle at their base. This style of arrow seems to be made from a cattail variety of reeds as shown in the place sign of Tula (Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca) and 1581 Relación Geográfica a map of Cholula.

Yoneda has done a stylistic analysis of the acatl (reed) glyphs. Designated as the "acatl prototype of MC2," she describes them with "two leaves on each side of the stem, a circle (feather used on arrows) in the middle, and part of the stem appears cut as a square." She adds that, "the stem is cut on a square with a circle in the middle of the stem." Comparative examples are cited from the Calendario Azteca, Tonalamatl de Aubin, Borbonico, and the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca.

Featured at some MC2 caves are calendrical signs. For "la Cueva del Aguila - cave of the eagle" between Amoxoc and Cuauhtinchan, the sign is 9 Tecpatl. At a cave east of Ixtiyucan, Simons writes, "This site is related to a cave with a raised lintel. In its midpoint entrance, there is the Tecpatl sign without numerals..." Eagle Canyon (Barranca del Aguila) begins under a hill named Oxtotipan, translated as "place of caves." It is marked by the sign 3 Reed. And, by the mortuary cave at Ixtiyucan is a calendar sign 7 Reed.

	Mictlantecuhtli, 1 Flint (Tecpatl) Lord of the Region of the Dead

Regarding the composite nature of preHispanic motifs, many are ideographic symbols with a dual meaning. The glyphs may represent one identity yet became conventionalized to be (or include) something else.

"Tlalli, nelhuayotl, xochitl - the earth, the roots, the flowers," is a composite of symbols that include a stepped design alluding to a cave in the earth below.

"Tonantzin in tlalli - our mother the earth," a dual meaning signifying our physical earth and an anthropomorphic mother.

"Ca xochitl in tlacatl - man is a flower," a botanical motif like a flower or tree may represent a human being.

Symbols of nature used to illustrate calendar signs. For example, acatl in Nahuatl for the reed was used to depict an arrow, the day-sign Reed. The word ce for "one" combined with the word acatl for "reed" gives the birthdate of Quetzalcoatl (Smith 1973:23). It raises a question of whether this feathered part of an arrow could be an early variant of the Acatl calendar sign.

Figure of the priest Quetzalcoatl. To the right, he is identified by his calendar date as a "reed" sign.

A German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, wrote in "Being and Time", that "Time must be brought to light and genuinely grasped as the horizon of every understanding and interpretation of being." A person's being is interwoven with the time of his existence. He cannot express himself without representing time. What's on a tombstone or carved on a sepulchre? The defunct's name and dates of birth & death.

Again, an inquiry about the feathered part of an arrow and a reed calendar sign. Are they mutually exclusive? Or was it a process of transformation where the representation of one image was disguised within another? Like when the name of a Toltec king or priest was transformed into his birth date. Obviously, their life revolved around the calendar. It can be said that man is in the image of time. As such, number or calendrical dates were embodied into an anthropomorphic image. This idea is reinforced by the Zuna Indian prayer that says, "They gave their day counts human form."