Ch. 3: Turquoise

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	UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO	63

	laces and girdles. They were called Cacona by the Indians, and were obtained from the kingdom. On arriving at this place De Nica observes that " the people have emeralds and other jewels, although they esteem none so much as turquoises, wherewith they adorn the walls of the porches of their houses and apparel and vessels, and they use them instead of money through all the country." Coronado, who visited Civola in 1540, denies De Nica's statement respecting the turquoises upon the porches of the houses, but he obtained turquoise ear-rings and tablets set with the stones. The turquoise has always been the favorite jewel of the western tribes of Indians and was extensively in use at the time of the Conquest by Coronado, in 1541. Fra Saverio Claverigo,¹ alluding to the minor kingdom states tributary to the main kingdom, says: " Among articles of tribute annually required from these natives, mention is made of ten small measures of fine turquoises and one carga of ordinary turquoises," and elsewhere the first present from Montezuma to Charles V. of Spain, through Cortez, is thus referred to : " The present of the Catholic king consisted of various works of gold, ten bales of most curious rolls of feathers and fair gems, so highly valued by the Mexicans that, as Tehuitlile himself, the ambassador of Montezuma to Cortez, affirmed, each gem was worth a load of gold." According to the Mexican system of weights, 240 pounds constituted a load of gold. Estimating gold at $20 an ounce, the value of these gems was over $57,000. It is a well authenticated fact that these gems referred to were turquoises, and it is believed that they are now among the crown jewels of Spain. In the memoir on ancient turquoise mosaics, recently published by Luigi Pigoni, director of the Ethnographic Museum in Rome," it is stated that the objects of this kind known as Mexican are distributed as follows: five in the Museum in Rome; seven in the Christy ^Collection in London; one in a private collection in England; two in the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin ; and one in Gotha. Those in the Christy Collection have been described by E. B.

	¹ History of Mexico, Cesena, 1780-1881. * Gli Antichi Oggette Messicani Incrostati di Mosaico Isistenti Nel Museo Preistorico-Etnografico di Roma. Roma, 1885.

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