scHELLHASi HEADDRESS 017 



In the Yiiciitec reliefs, on the contrary, we have quite different 

 styles of collars, which have little resemblance to those of the manu- 

 scripts and the clay figures. They are usually far more elaborate 

 and larger, and cover the shoulders like a shawl ; they therefore seem 

 to have consisted of some softer material than those represented al)ove. 

 On the other hand, necklaces are very unusual on the reliefs, while 

 they appear more frequently on the figures from Palenque, and here, 

 too, in familiar forms, as, for instance, with the addition of the 

 locket-shaped middle piece. (lenerally speaking, the representations 

 in the Yucatec reliefs exhibit a strikingly different type in this 

 respect, as in many others. 



HEADDRESS 



The overloaded headdress, often most fantastically exaggerated 

 and scarcely recognizable as such, is a characteristic feature of Cen- 

 tral American rei^resentations. These headdresses are most colossal 

 in the Yucatec reliefs, where they often develop into architectural 

 ornaments pure and simple. Spanisli authors record the fact that the 

 ancient Mayas paid great attention to the fashion of wearing the hair, 

 jjishop Landa says in chapter 20 of his Relacion : " They wore their 

 hair long, like women. On the top they burnt a sort of large tonsure; 

 they let the hair grow around it, while the hair of the tonsure 

 remained short. They bound the hair in braids about the head with 

 the exception of one lock, which they allowed to hang down beliind 

 like a tassel '\ 



"All the authorities agree", adds Bancroft (Native Kaces, volume 

 2), "that the priests in Yucatan wore the hair long, uncombed, and 

 often saturated with sacrificial blood. Plumes of feathers seem to 

 have been their usual headdress ''. 



Here, too, we can onl}^ accept Landa's description Avith many reser- 

 vations and as a very general characterization of the style of hair- 

 dressing when we comjjare this description with the existing antiqui- 

 ties. Among the latter, the various styles of ornamenting and cover- 

 ing the head and dressing the hair are so extremely numerous, and 

 Ave find such manifold foruis and fashions, that an exhaustive 

 description of them avouIcI be an extensiA'e Avork in itself. We 

 must definitely accept the Adew that differences of rank in Yucatan 

 found especial expression in the mode of dressing and ornamenting 

 the hair, for only thus can we explain the countless different forms. 

 Warriors and priests or persons of high rank and people of the loAver 

 class Avere, most probably, cliiefly distinguished from each other by the 

 style of w^earing the hair. The rest of the dress was suitable to the 

 climate, usually simple, and thus the faA'orite and carefully treated 

 'headdress afforded an opportunity for eA-ery kind of particularity. 



We shall touch only upon the most important points of the ex- 

 tremely rich material before us. The hair partly bound about the 



