About ten miles from Tempe, Arizona, in ruins designated as Los Muertos,
there was found enclosed in asbestos, in a decorated Zuñi jar, a
sea-shell coated with black pitch, in which were incrusted turquoise and
garnets, in the form of a toad, the sacred emblem of the Zuñi. Incrusted
clam shells, representing toads, may be seen in the Brunswick
Collection, the Christie Collection in the British Museum, and in the
Pitorini Museum, Rome.
At the annual Fiesta which is attended by the San Felipe, the Navajo,
the Isleta, the Acoma, the Jicorrilla, Apache and other Indians at the
Pueblo of Santo Domingo, a place situated about three miles west by
south of Wallace Station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad,
a carved wooden image of the saint, about four feet in height, and said
to date from the time of the conquest in 1692, is carried in procession
through the principal streets to a small tent made of the finest Navajo
blankets, where it is placed on an improvised altar. Here various
offerings are made. Among them strings of turquoise beads, both round
and flat, of the choicest color, are suspended from the ears of the
figure, and from a string which encircles its neck. On the centre of the
breast is one of the curious turquoise-encrusted marine clam-shells
similar to the one found by Lieutenant F. H. Cushing in the excavations
near Tempe, Arizona. The writer saw a fine example of this ornamental
object suspended from the neck of the Virgin of Santo Domingo, at the
Annual Fiesta, August 4, 1890. With the exception of a black band of
obsidian running across the centre, the entire exterior of the shell is
covered with a sort of miniature pavement of little squares of turquoise
which are cemented to it with a black shellac-like substance obtained
from “the grease-wood” plant common in New Mexico.[557]
It has been suggested that the types of ornamentation used by the
aborigines of Central America may become fashionable at the time of the
opening of the Panama Canal. In jewelry the crawfish model, as shown in
a gold-plated ornament discovered in the Chiriqui district of Panama,
offers a striking and peculiar form which might win favor; a curious
frog pattern could also be used. If the local usage in ancient times is
to be considered, the emerald and other green stones would be given the
preference for decoration, as stones of this color were the most in
favor among the primitive inhabitants of Central America because it
symbolized the verdure of field and forest, and hence youth and vigor.
When set in gold these stones gained in symbolic value, for gold, having
the color of the sun, was regarded as typical of force, courage, and
vitality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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