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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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281
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and
friezes of their structures. Achau is also the name of the nineteenth
day of the Maya month. Each of the eyes is represented by a circle
with two flattened sides. Below these is a beard or tattooing. A circle
with a central dot represents a mouth, and the nose is an oblong
between the eyes, extending below the tattooing. From the ears, which
are quite natural, are suspended feather pendants. Feathers also cover
the top of the head, and probably ornament the chin as well.
In 1879 Mrs. Erminnie A. Smith exhibited an interesting jadeite mask, having a specific gravity of 3*3 at the Saratoga
meeting of the American Association.1
It represented a crying baby-face (see Fig. 13.) and is almost
identical with one made of quartzite in the Peabody Museum of
Archaeology at Cambridge, Mass.
The
Codex Mendoza, a copy of the tribute-roll of the ancient Mexican Empire
published in Lord Kingsborough's "Antiquities of Mexico" (London,
1830), defines the tax from each district, naming the cities. Strings
of chalchihuitl are mentioned as part of the tribute from a number of
localities, and refer evidently to small rounded pieces used as beads,
and obtained from the sands of streams. Only from one district were
large pieces of chalchihuitl demanded. These, three in number each
year, were required from Totoltepec, Chinantlan, and other towns
situated in the present State of Oaxaca, and principally in the
department of Valalta (Zoochila). Mühlenpfordt describes this region as
mountainous and wild, inhabited by the Mixe Indians and the Chinantecas.2
Dr.
Daniel G. Brinton suggests that in Valalta (Zoochila), in the State of
Oaxaca, if jadeite exists in Mexico, it may be found in large pieces,
and that this is the locality \vhich the explorer
1 Proc. Am. Asso. Adv. Sci., 1879, Vol. 28, p. 523.
2 Schilderung der Republik Mejico, Vol. 2, p. 213.
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