SELBK] THE VASE OF CHAMA 057 



Iwo-edged, and Avith points as sharp as a dagger j:)oint. The other 

 Itzas carried bows and arrows, witliout which they nev^er venture 

 out of their town ''. 



With the view I hold in regard to the kneeling figure in our 

 picture, e, I can not, of course, suppose the object which this person 

 holds in his left hand and seems to be presenting to be a part of a fire 

 drill. Owing to the indistinctness of the (h-awing I can not say what 

 it realh' represents. 



On the other hand, I can only regard as a misapprehension the 

 statement of Messrs Dieseldortf and Forstemann that the companion 

 of the advancing chief {</. plate xlviii) has a scourge in his hand. 

 The Avhip is familiar to us, peoples of the Old World, as an instru- 

 ment for inflicting pain, because we have saddle and draft horses 

 which are driven aa ith the whip, liut among the ancient Central 

 Americans, who Avere unfamiliar with the use of animals for such 

 purposes, there Avas, ordinarily, no reason for the nn^ention of such 

 an .instrument. The onl}' instance I know of a whip in Mexico and 

 Central America {h, figure 133) is, in fact, contained in a picture in 

 Avhich an animal is being led. It is one of the interesting clay reliefs 

 from Chiapas, preserved in the Museo Xacional of Mexico, which 

 shows the sacred tapir led by two richly clad priests." But this is the 

 only instance of Avhich T know. I ha\'e never thus far found a 

 scourge in the long list of instruments used by the Mexicans and Cen- 

 tral Americans to inflict torture upon themseh'es or others, and these 

 lists are recorded Avith pedantic exactness in various passages of the 

 picture Avritings. 



"VA-liat Messrs Dieseldortf and Forstemann regard as a whij) brand- 

 ished in the hand of r/, i:)late xlviii, in the Chama i)icture, is, if the 

 draAving is indeed correct, nothing more than a necklace, somewhat 

 displaced by the energetic motion of the right hand, and consisting 

 of a large, four-cornered prisuuitic or cylindric stone bead, strung 

 on a tAvisted cord. We IvUoav from actual specimens in our collections 

 that such long cylindric or prismatic beads Avere Avorn, and this is 

 shoAvn, for instance, by various clay figures and fragments in Doctor 

 Sapper's collection. Whoever compares this sui)posed whip of r/ 

 with the cord on Avhich a ring, apparently cut from a mussel shell, 

 is hung about the neck of b must be convinced, it seems to me, of the 

 correctness of my vieAv. 



I need hardly dwell upon the fact that I am equally unwilling to 

 regard the object held in the hand of d as a scourge. This black- 

 painted figure is apparently the spokesman of the group represented 



"These clay tiles are reproduced in the splendid souvenir publication issued by the .Tunta 

 Columbina iii Mexico three years ago for the celebration of the four hundredth anniver- 

 sary of the discovery of .\merica. 



7238— No. 28—0.5 12 



