pieces looked as if they were of solid metal.”[231] The Mayas wore cotton armour similar to that of the Mexicans, and bore a shield also. Breastplates of copper have been found in the Atlantic region, and many of the Amerinds there used body armour of wood, skins, and bark. [Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT] [Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT BLUNT ARROW-HEAD, GEORGIA] [Illustration: CHIPPED FLINT IMPLEMENT, TENNESSEE] [Illustration: SPECIMEN “CORES,” OR BLOCKS OF FLINT From which flakes were struck off for making arrow-heads, etc. Usually about 3 in. long in the U. S., but longer elsewhere ] [Illustration: SPECIMEN OF CHIPPED FLINT DISCS, CALLED “TURTLEBACK,” MISSISSIPPI VALLEY] [Illustration: GROOVED STONE AXE, TENNESSEE (GROUND)] Another kind of defensive armour, though its qualities were purely imaginary, is the so-called “ghost-shirt” (see illustration, page 157) made of cloth or skin, and resembling the ordinary war-shirt of the Dakota. This shirt came into notice during the “Ghost Dance”[232] excitement that began about 1890 and lasted for six or eight years. It was worn by all men, women, and children who accepted the “Ghost” doctrine, either as an outside or under garment, and it was implicitly believed that no bullet or other weapon could penetrate its sacred material.[233] As already remarked in another chapter, the Amerinds in modern times, of at least the United States region, usually went into battle naked. The only defensive armour was, as Mooney records, “his protecting medicine,” which consisted of “a feather, a tiny bag of some sacred powder, the claw of an animal, the head of a bird, or some other small object, which could be readily twisted into his hair or hidden between the covers of his shield.... Its virtue depended entirely on the ceremony of the consecration, and not on size or texture. The war-paint had the same magic power of protection.... The so-called ‘war-shirt’ was worn chiefly in ceremonial dress parades and only rarely on the warpath.”[234] Just when the armour which protected by its intrinsic strength was abandoned for the protection of the “medicine” is not, so far as I am aware, at present known. At one time, it seems quite certain, the material protection of armour was almost universal over the whole of North America, while in our latter day no one ever saw an Amerind fight with armour on. The idea of going into battle nude was that the warrior’s movements were unincumbered, while his “medicine” afforded him ample protection. A Navajo who posed for me for a picture in Arizona described the Navajo manner of going to battle, but never mentioned armour, or any kind of protection. He said they always went naked, with even their hair untied from its customary knot and falling loose on the shoulders.