[Aztlan] About those banners and standard beaers

[Jerry Offner]

Regarding:  

"Respecto a la pregunta  de Ed  No es especulación la existencia  de
portaestndartes.
 Los estandartes o banderas  eran tan importantes y significativos 
ritualmente que entre los nahoas  que
una de las veintenas del calendario ritual de 18 fiestas se llamaba Fiesta
de las Banderas o Panquetzalistli. "

This is an interesting one.  With all the extant indigenous depictions and
descriptions of architecture as well as the various festivals as celebrated
in times much closer to 1519, is there direct written or pictorial evidence
of statues holding poles for banners?  We often see warriors depicted with
banners, as in the Vaticanus A where they are usually in the same hand as
the shield.  Compare this to the stolid two-handed grasp (without shield,
unless it is behind?) of "something" by the "standard bearers" of Tula--

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/tula-bearers.htm

Which leads to the question:  are all of the "standard bearers" from
Tenochtitlan and environs in fact standard bearers?  

or is it a just a case of "they must have been" and "what else could they
have been?" 

If anyone can pin this down for the times around 1519, it would be
appreciated.  And it still might not explain the Toltec figures.  

Jerry Offner