AMERICAN ABORIGINAL PIPES AND SMOKING CUSTOMS. 371 



also had them of gold, aud no bouse was witbout them nor wanted 

 idols.' 



These censers or pipes and idols or fetiches appear to the writer the 

 same things under different names, tbe variance being due to differ- 

 ence in time aud to tbe nationality of those describing the one aud tbe 

 other. Clavigero on one occasion refers to ambassadors making their 

 offerings "by touching the earth with their bands," ^ which Antonio de 

 Solis tlcscribes minutely in his reference to tbe ambassadors from Tlas- 

 cala, "who every now and then stopped aud made signs of respect with 

 humility toward the quarters, bowing their bodies till they touched the 

 ground with their hands; then, raising themselves and putting them 

 to their lips, i)aid greater respect with the smoke of their censers."-' 



This is a similar exhibition to that spoken of when Cortez made 

 peace with the Cacique of Tabasco, after first repulsing an embassy of 

 an inferior quality of persons who returned in niimbers with their orna- 

 ments, aud, having approached with great submission, they perfumed 

 him "with their fire pans, in which they burned gum anime (a white 

 resin), gum copal, and other sweet scents."^ 



These savages "in their festival given in honor of their war god, 

 Huitzilopochtli, were, by permission of Alvarado, allowed to come 

 unarmed, and having done so, were set upon by his orders and not an 

 Aztec was left alive."'' 



Tbese natives were idolatrous and low among the races of men, 

 according to the belief of the period, and the puuishment of death was 

 considered light for their inherited wickedness; yet some of the Spanish 

 practices are as barbarous as anything noted of the Aztec, especially 

 that of dressing their wounds with the fat of dead Indians, to which 

 Diaz quaintly refers, a practice apparently common at that period, for, 

 according to Biedma. De Soto's soldiers, about 154:0, who were wounded 

 "had their wounds dressed with the fat of the slain, because our medi- 

 cine was burnt with the baggage." " 



In fig. 3 is again seen a conical object, similar to that on the Paleuque 

 tablet, which Prof. Cyrus Thomas takes to be a cigar. Its similarity 

 to the primitive conical pipe is, however, so striking as to impress one 

 witb tbe idea that this figure, wherever encountered, is intended for a 

 pipe. Tbe illustration is taken from Tbe Manuscrijit Troano, Plate 

 XXI,' and is doubly interesting because antedating European contact. 



'Diaz. True History of the Comiuest of Mexico, I, pp. 44, 261. 



- History of Mexico, p. 281. 



^Autouio de Solis, History of tbe Conquest of Mexico, p. 158, Lomlou, 1724. 



•"Idem, I, p. 64. 



^William H. Prescott, History of the Cou(|uest of Mexico, II, p. 282, Philadel- 

 phia, 1860. 



•*B. F. French, Expedition of Hernando de Soto, Historical Collections of Louisi- 

 ana, p. 103. 



" Cyrus Thomas, Contribution to North American Ethnology, V, p. 134, fig. 46, U. S. 

 Geographical and Geological Survey. 



