SCHELLHASI FOOT GEAR 603 



one hand, the dress was far more varied and manifold, and that, on 

 (he other, Landa's description is not entirely accurate, nor do the 

 remains correspond among themselves. Brassenr de Bonrljonrg's 

 assertion: " Le vetement chez la plupart des Americains etait immu- 

 able " (Hist, des nat. civ., volume 3, page 647) is contradicted b}^ the 

 antiquities. Herrera's remark that " the Mayas dress like the Mex- 

 icans " is not wholly accurate, and we can by no means draw the con- 

 clusion from the remains, as Bancroft does, that the dress of people 

 of various ranks among the Maya was very uniform. 



FOOT GEAR 



Let us begin with the foot gear. According to Landa the Mayas 

 wore sandals. While these occur constantly in the Mexican manu- 

 scripts, they are almost wholly wanting in the Maya manuscripts. 

 Cogolludo (page 187) says, indeed, that the Maya mostly Avent bare- 

 foot ; however, if they used sandals at all we might expect to find them 

 frequently on the persons represented in the numuscripts (priests, 

 warriors, gods, etc.). Cogolludo's remark plainly refers to the daily 

 custom of the common people. In the Dresden manuscript the feet 

 are almost always bare and quite carefully drawn. There are but few 



ah c d e f 



Fig. 117. Representations of sandals, from Dresden codex and inscriptions. 



places where we find sandals (pages 2('), 28, 40, 47, and 50). On 

 pages 26 and 28 they have the form of r/, figure 117; on pages 46, 47, 

 and 50 that of h. 



This is the same form that this foot gear lias in the ^lexican manu- 

 scripts (see c, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, and (h Fejervary codex). 

 On the other hand, not a single sandal occurs either in the Troano 

 codex or in Codex Cortesianus; all the feet are uncovered; ja^t san- 

 dals are apparently quite common in the very badly i)reserved Codex 

 Peresianus, usually in the form of h above. They are certainly far 

 more frequent on the reliefs than in the Maya manuscri[)ts. l)ut here 

 of an entirely different form (see e, bas-relief at Labphak, after 

 Stephens, and /, drawing on a door at Chichen, after the same). 

 These forms of foot gear occurring on Yucatec reliefs are, to all ap- 

 pearances, not sandals, but complete slioes coveiMug the entire foot, 

 no mention of which is made l)y Spanish authors. Besides these, 

 sim])le sandals also occur on the reliefs. 



In tlie figures of the Yucatan collection iit the l^x-rlin Museum the 

 feet are, for the most j)art. -o very slightly treated that it is not jjos- 



