Mexican archæology : $b an introduction to the archæology of the Mexican and Mayan civilizations of pre-Spanish AmericaJoyce, Thomas Athol
History
Mexican archæology : $b an introduction to the archæology of the Mexican and Mayan civilizations of pre-Spanish America
Joyce, Thomas Athol
Mayas -- Antiquities; Mexico -- Antiquities
and coxcoxtli-birds were especially favourite designs. The Tarascans
of Tzintzuntzan used black body-paint, like the priestly orders in
Mexico, and the Tlalhuica red. The question of tatu is more difficult
to settle, certainly this form of adornment was not common. Sahagun
states that in the month of Toxcatl the priests “with a stone knife
made scars on children of both sexes, on the breast, the stomach, the
middle of the arms and the wrists,” and also that the Otomi women
“made on their breasts and arms designs in a blue colour, by means of
small instruments which fixed the colour in the flesh.” The latter
statement at any rate seems to point to the practice of tatu. Sahagun
states that the Huaxtec and Totonac tatued, and the slab illustrated
in Fig. 11; p. 83, shows a man whose limbs are apparently ornamented
in this manner. Otomi women stained the teeth black, a practice found
also among the Huaxtec, while tooth-filing was found among the latter
people, the Tarascans and the Mixtec. Pottery heads showing the Maya
form of tooth-filing have been found in the Totonac area. The actual
inlaying of teeth seems to have been confined to those peoples of
definite Maya affinities, such as the Huaxtec, though teeth ornamented
in this fashion have been found in the Mixtec area, at Xoxo. Mexican
women of rank filed the teeth and painted them red. This practice seems
to have been borrowed from the Huaxtec, and tooth-mutilation as a whole
does not seem to have been a characteristic of the Nahua-speaking
peoples. Methods of dressing the hair show slight variations, though
the ordinary method was to cut it short on the forehead and temples,
and allow it to grow at the back. The Tarascans however for the most
part cropped it close all over, while the Chichimec did not cut it
at all, but wore it in plaits. Among the Otomi the child’s head was
cropped close, men and young girls cut the locks on the forehead, and
women after becoming mothers allowed it to grow all over the head and
dressed it on the top. Zapotec chiefs and warriors wore long hair
gathered at the back in a pigtail. In Mexico men of rank, being
warriors, cut the hair, and brushed it up on the right side (Pl. IX,
4), while chiefs cropped most of the head, leaving a long lock on the
forehead which they kept erect by means of a fillet (Pl. IX, 5). Of
Montecuzoma we read, “He did not wear his hair long, but so as just
to cover his ears.” In Mexico women of rank sometimes wore the hair
plaited and crossed on the forehead in two “horns,” but ordinarily
it was allowed to grow and was worn loose. Ear-ornaments were almost
universal, in the form of plugs of stone, gold and turquoise; while
lip-plugs were found among the Mexicans, Otomi and Totonac (see Fig.
18, _b_; p. 118). At Mexico the lips of children were pierced on
admission to the Calmecac, and the status of a man could be judged
by the quality of his lip-plug. Shell and obsidian marked the lower
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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