A clue to the truth and significance of this emblematic sceptre is furnished by the fact that, in order to express the divine title Tlachiuale, meaning "the Maker or Lord of all creatures or of young life," the native scribes were naturally obliged to employ the verb tlachia=to look or see, in order to convey its sound. It is obvious that they cleverly agreed to express this verb by picturing some object which could be or was looked through. They therefore adopted a sceptre with a hollow disc, as an emblem, which was carried by the living representative of certain divinities, whose entire costume was in reality a sort of rebus, and in the case of Tlaloc, the lord of earthwine and fertility and the Tlachiuale or "Creator of young life," par excellence, they once and for all designated his title by surrounding his eyes with two blue rings, accentuating thereby the action of seeing or looking. But this probably conveyed even more than the above title, for there is a Nahuatl noun tlachiuhtli, which means, "something made or formed or engendered," or "earth which is ploughed and sown." Then there is the verb tlachipaua which means, "the smile of dawn, the break of day, the clearing up of the weather," also the purification and cleansing, all of which were supposed to be under the dominion of the rain-god and of his living representatives on earth, the rain-priests. The seemingly conflicting fact that the tlachieloni sceptre was also assigned to the god of fire is explained by the existence of the verb tiachinoa=to burn up the fields or forests, and of the noun tlachi-noliztli=the act of burning up or scorching the fields or forests, and finally, metaphorically, tlachinoli-teuotl=war or battle=destruction. It is only when we thus realize all the natives could express by the image of an eye, looking through a circle, that we begin to grasp its full meaning when employed as a symbol in their picture writings.
As to the obsidian mirror, which undoubtedly was the symbol of Tezcatlipoca and, consequently, must have pertained to his representative, the priest of the Night, we find that it played a most prominent rôle in the cult he presided over. In the first case it appears as though it was resorted to in Mexico as in the conquered province of Guatemala, as the oracle which rendered final judgment. A series of illustrations, etc., to be published in my final work on the Calendar System, will prove satisfactorily that the Mexican astronomers extensively employed black obsidian mirrors as an aid to astronomical observations, by means of reflection. Besides mirrors on the summits of temples and mountains, certain square columns, placed on an elevation and faced with a broad band of polished obsidian, are pictured in some Codices. It is obvious that the latter in particular, if carefully oriented, would have served as an admirable means of registering the periodical return of planets, stars or constellations to certain positions; they would then be reflected on the polished surface, as in a frame. In certain Codices the double, tau-shaped courtyard or enclosure surrounded by a high wall with battlements, which was employed in the daytime for the national game of ball, figures in combination with obsidian mirrors. I draw attention to the fact that the name of these courtyards was tlach-tli, which literally means the looking place=the observatory and that, amongst the edifices of the great temple, a tezca-tlachtli=obsidian-mirror-observatory, is described. I shall demonstrate more fully, on another occasion, that the chief purpose of these enclosures was to serve as astronomical observatories. Dr. Brinton, Señor Troncoso and other authorities have already observed that the game of ball itself was intended to represent the idea of the perpetual motion of the heavenly bodies. (See American Hero-myths, p. 119.)