At 



86 



THE MUSEUM 



ed by the vexations and innumerable 

 difficulties which opposed me on every 

 hand in my archaeological research in- 

 iluenced me to be too harsh and scath- 

 ing in my criticisms of the course pur- 

 sued by theMexican government relative 

 to Aztec antiquities. I very cheerfully 

 and gracefully concede that there ex- 

 ists a bare shadow of a possibility that 

 those edicts may have been prompted 

 by incentives other than purely selfish 

 motives though I am by no means sat- 

 isfied that that shadow is anything 

 more than a shadow. 



As perhaps few of our readers have 

 enjoyed the privilege of collecting the 

 personal remains, household and agri- 

 cultural chattels and instruments of 

 war of whilom noble children of the 

 Montezumas, and endured the entailed 

 hardships of said privilege, I will this 

 watery afternoon, recount a few of my 

 personal experiences, in lieu of bask- 

 ing my devoted shines in 'laboriously 

 ascending a moss-festooned and rough- 

 sided live oak, seeking to disposses a 

 wild-eyed Bubo of her globular treas- 

 ures. 



As the majority of the modern de- 

 cendants of the Aztecs speak the Span- 

 ish language, a speaking knowledge of 

 that tongue is one of the most valuable 

 and important ascessories to your suc- 

 cess. To be sure, in conversing 

 among themselves, the Indians drop 

 La Costillana employing only their 

 own dialect but I could never bring 

 myself to the point of attempting to 

 gain an extensive vocobulary in their 

 queer jargon. Two additional requis- 

 ites are a big six-shooter and barrels 

 of nerve, that is, if you intend pene- 

 trating far into the interior and ex- 

 hume personally or superintend the 

 excavations and be positive that you 

 are really procuring relics of a van- 

 quished people 



In Mexico City and environments 

 are relic factories by scores and a 

 tyro's eye can scarce distinguish the 

 bona fide article from the spurious 

 counterfieit. In fact, I have placed 

 them side by side — relics that I knew 



to be genuine and clever imitations 

 that I knew to be imitations and their 

 appearances were dangerously similar. 

 They have attained a perfection in the 

 art of imitation that is truly marvelous, 

 producing articles which in form, con- 

 tour, feature and material are almost 

 exact fac similes of the much-sought 

 Aztec relic. They even bury their 

 imitations for a short period that the 

 earth may fill the purposely left chinks 

 and cracks, and cling to the object 

 and impart to it an ancient appear- 

 ance. I svould advise no novice to 

 purchase "relics" of mendicants nor 

 itinerant peddlars in Mexico for the 

 chances are ten to one that he will 

 bargain for a worthless copy. I do 

 not think that it would be an exag- 

 geration to assert that the large major- 

 ity of so-called relics purchased by 

 tourists are the products of relic fac- 

 tories and over whose heads have not 

 passed half a dozen birthdays. 



I know of no better expedient for 

 securing authentic material than the 

 plan adapted by me in Southern Mex- 

 ica during my travels in that country 

 in the winter and spring of 1897. I 

 studiously avoided professional venders 

 of Aztec ware but repaired to the an- 

 cient Indian villiages, where maneder 

 directly beneath the feet of their pos- 

 terity, the mortal remains of the abor- 

 igines as Hernando Cortez discovered 

 and subjugated them in the sixteenth 

 century. Numbers of these C]uaint 

 but squalid and long populated towns 

 are still inhabited solely by full-blood- 

 ed Indians. 



It may surprise some as greatly as 

 it did me when first I was made aware 

 of the fact, that three-fourths of the 

 present entire population of the Mex- 

 ican Republic are Indians, through 

 whose viens there courses not a drop 

 of alien blood. My explorations were 

 mainly in the beautiful and fertile 

 Toluca Valley in Indian pueblos con- 

 tiguous to the sprightly and in some 

 respects, the progressive city of Tolu- 

 ca, the capital and metropolis of the 

 State of Mexico. In this valley lie 



