HoriiKK.] 



TULE MATS. 527 



meal to be used on these occasions to tlic accompaniment of sing-ing- by 

 the medicine-men and much dramming by :i band of assistants selected 

 from among the young men and boys. 



Mr. Francis La Fleche, a nearly full-blood Omaha Indian, read be 

 fore the Anthropological Society of Washington, D.C., in 1S88, a paper 

 descriptive of the funeral customs of his people, in which he related that 

 when an lndian_was supposed to be threatened with death the medi- 

 cin^nTieirvvouldr go hi a lodge s weaWuTfTi with him and sing, and at the 

 same time &quot; pronouncing- certain incantations and sprinkling the body 

 of the client with the powder of the artemisia, supposed to be the food 



nftlie ghosts.&quot; 1 



To say that a certain powder is the food of the ghosts of ;i tribe is to 

 say indirectly that the same powder was once the food of the tribe s 

 ancestors. 



The Peruvians seem to have made use of the same kind of sacrificial 

 cakes kneaded with the blood of the human victim. We are told that 

 in the month of January no strangers were allowed to enter the city of 

 Cuzco, and that there was then a distribution of corn cakes made with 

 the blood of the victim, which were to be eaten as a mark of alliance 

 with the Inca. &quot;Les daban unos Bollos de Maiz, con sangre de el 

 sacrincio, que comian, en seiial de confederation con el Inga.&quot; 2 



Balboa says that the Peruvians had a festival intended to signalize 

 the arrival of their young men at manhood, in which occurred a sort of 

 communion consisting of bread kneaded by the young virgins of the 

 sun with the blood of victims. This same kind of communion was also 

 noted at another festival occurring in our month of September of each 

 year. (&quot;Unfestin compose&quot; de pain petri par les jennes vierges du 

 Soleil avecle sang des victlmes.&quot; 3 ) There were other ceremonial usages 

 among the Aztecs, in which the tule rush itself, &quot; espadaiia,&quot; was 

 employed, as at childbirth, marriage, the festivals in honor of Tlaloc, 

 and in the rough games played by boys. It is possible, that from being 

 a prehistoric food the pollen of the tale, or the plant which furnished 

 it, became associated with the idea of sustenance, fertility, reproduction, 

 and therefore very properly formed part of the ritual necessary in wed 

 dings or connected with the earliest hours of a child s life, much as rice 

 has been used so freely in other parts of the world. 4 



Among the Aztecs the newly born babe was laid upon fresh green tule 

 rushes, with great ceremony, while its name was given to it. 4 



Gomara says that the mats used in the marriage ceremonies of the 

 Aztecs were made of tules. &quot;Esteras verdes de espadaiias.&quot; 5 



&quot;They both sat down upon a new and curiously wrought mat, which 

 was spread in the middle of the chamber close to the tire.&quot; jThe mar 

 riage bed was made &quot;of mats of rushes, covered with small sheets, 



1 From the account of lecture appearing in the, Evening Star, Washington, I). C.. May 19 1888. 



Hcrrera, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 5, p. 92. 



3 Balboa, Histoiro du Perou, in Temaiix-CompanB, Voyages, vol.15, pp. 124 anil 127. 



See the explanatory t.-xt to tin- Codex Mendoza. in Kingsborough, vol. 5. p. 90, et seq. 



Historia dc Meiico. p. 439. 



