652 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 28 



present day in Guateniiila do not use a fan for fanning themselves is 

 also doubtless true. Neither to my knowledge are fans used among 

 the Mexican Indians of to-day, at least not as a general custom, but 

 among the ancient Mexicans the fan was an article in general use. 

 We know this from the language; we learn it from the texts and 

 from history, and we see it in the illustrations of the Mendoza codex. 

 And it was not otherwise with the Maya races, for the word exists 

 in the Maya language proper as well as in the languages of Guate- 

 mala." If we find no fans represented in the few Maya manuscripts 

 which we possess, it is simply because they treat onl}' of religious and 

 calendric matters, just as we also look in vain for fans in Mexican 

 picture writing of the same kind. But we find pictures of them in 

 the Mendoza codex, the only manuscript which treats of everyday 

 civil and political life, and they occur in Mixtec picture writings, 

 which appear principall}^ to relate to legends of the immigrations of 

 ancestors, human or divine. It strikes me as simph' inconceivable 

 that the fire fan should have been used in the ceremony of procuring 

 fire by friction or that it should have been placed in the hands of the 

 figures portrayed merely to convey to the beholder the idea of the 

 ceremony of fire-making. In the many representations of fire drill- 

 ing Avith which I am familiar in Mexican picture manuscripts, and 

 there can not be far from a hundred of them, the fan is not used for 

 this purpose in a single instance. The use of a fire fan is depicted by 

 old de liCry as familiar to the Tupinambas of Brazil, and he describes 

 it as follows: '"At night he orders the fire betimes to be blown to a 

 flame with a kind of small bellows, called tatapecona, not unlike the 

 screen which our women hold before their faces when they stand 

 by the fire ". But when he describes the fire drill he does not men- 

 tion ''a small bellows''. He says: "Such rapid and vigorous rub- 

 bing ]3roduces not only smoke, but also fire. Then they put on cotton 

 or dry leaves, instead of our tinder, and the fire kindles very easily ". 

 Two kinds of fans were in use among the ancient Mexicans. Those 

 of one kind, made of feathers, were costly. They were used at 

 festivals and served as tokens of high rank, inasmuch as kings and 

 noble warriors were entitled to wear those made of the precious green 

 tail feathers of the quetzal bird,'' the great merchants being alloAved 

 only to use those made of the feathers of the grouse'' of the tierra 



" Ual, " abanico, aventador, mosqueador " (Perez, Diccionario de la Lengua Maya). 

 Val, "aventador de pluma, o de pahna " (Brasseur, Vocabulaire do la langue Quichee). 

 Xua\, " Filcher " (in the I'okoniam tongue, according to Berendt). On the other hand, 

 hopob-kak or hopzah kak, " soplador del fuego " (Perez). 



' Usaban traer los Sefiores unos mosqiieadores en la mano que llamaban quetzal ecaceii- 

 aztli, y con unas bandas de oro que subian con las plumas (Sahagun, v. 8, cap. 9). 



<■ Cuando lleguemos a nuestra tierra sera tiempo de usar los barbotes de ambar. y las 

 orejeras que se llaman quetzalcoyolnacochtli y nuestros bficulos negros que se llaman 

 xauactopilli y los aventadores y ojeadores de moscas (coxoli yeheaeeuaztll), las mantas 

 ricas que hemes de traer y los maxtles preciados (Sahagun, v. 'J, cap. 2). 



