666 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



ing themselves on the grass; trying in every way to imitate the in- 

 habitants of the air whose plumage they wore or which they pre- 

 tended to represent. 



For the dance of the flowers, the dancers dressed themselves in 

 different leaves and flowers ; for the ball of the animals, they covered 

 themselves with skins of stags, pumas, ocelots, bears, of all the 

 animals known to them ; they ran, leaped, uttered cries, and pursued 

 the women disguised as hinds and followed by their offspring. 



It is certain that these kinds of dances should lend much to the 

 imagination, and without pretending that they could rival the ballets 

 of the opera, nevertheless in the open air under the beautiful Mexi- 

 can skies, with the setting of palm trees, liquid ambers, the hibiscus 

 and convolvulus of the Tropics, the magnolias, passion flowers, 

 mimosas, and orchids of the temperate regions; cedars, oleanders, 

 and cactuses of the cool regions ; it must have produced a marvelous 

 effect, especially if we remember the precious stones, the pearls, the 

 gold and silver ornaments with which the dancers adorned them- 

 selves, the many-colored flowers with which their garments were 

 studded, and especially the enormous glowworms and the luminous 

 beetles with which the women adorned their hair. 8 



It will be noted that, except the Cuicoycm, none of the dances of 

 which we have spoken have the licentious character of similar 

 ceremonies in ancient Egypt, in Greece, in Kome, and in India. At 

 heart the ancient Mexicans were chaste, and this is seen as well in 

 the subject we are discussing as in their monuments, their sculpture, 

 their hieroglyphic paintings which time has respected, and in which 

 are met very rarely phallic symbols and other obscene images. 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



We have mentioned above the ayacaxtU, in Spanish sonajas, a kind 

 of bell with a handle, which the Mexicans shook while dancing. The 

 other musical instruments were : 



The huehuetl, a cylindrical drum 2 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet 

 high, quite like the elongated drums of the Middle Ages. Generally 

 it was made of a single piece, hollowed out with great care. They 

 placed it vertically and beat it on the upper part with a wooden stick 

 bearing at the end a ball of wood, of rubber, or of clay in a leather 

 sheath. 9 



8 Some of these beetles, as the " coeuyos " of the Tropics, are sufficiently brilliant and 

 cast enough light around them so that, when held under a glass, they enable one on a 

 dark night to easily rend a newspaper. 



"I say that the huehuetl were beaten with mallets, and I differ in this from the opinion 

 of my excellent teacher and friend, Eugene Boban, who in his Documents pour servir a 

 l'Histoire du Mexique, Vol. II, p. 132, tells us that the huehuetl of the temples or 

 teocalli were only beaten with the back of the hand and never with drumsticks. 



