86 MASKS AND LABRETS. 



quite tliin usually uot exceeding 3.0 mm . through and 20.0 mm . in length. 

 It is usually coucavely arched to fit the curve of the outside of the jaw. 

 Similar labrets from Mexico are in the collection of the United States 

 National Museum, and some years since I saw a photograph of some 

 antique Mexican bas-relief human figures, of which several showed a 

 circular knob projecting from the cheek just below the outer angles of 

 the mouth, such as the Eskimo labrets produce on the face of the 

 wearers. 



Sahagun, one of the earliest and best authorities, speaking of the 

 Mexican " lords " and their ornaments, says they 



wear a chin ornament, (barbote) of ehalchiuitl set in gold fixed in the beard. Some 

 ot' th'sc barbotes are large crystals with blue feathers put in them, which give them 

 the apj «arance of sapphires. There are many other varieties of precious stones which 

 they use for barbotes. They have their lower lips slit and wear these ornaments in 

 tin- openings, where they appear as if coming out of the flesh ; and they wear in the 

 same way semilnnes of gold. The noses of the great lords are also pierced, and in 

 the openings they wear fine turquoises or other precious stones, one on each side. 1 

 (Hist, de Nueva Espafia, lib. viii, cap. ix.) 



The obsidian labrets previously referred to were doubtless worn by 

 the lower classes, to whom ohalehihuitl was not permitted. Beside 

 those of the usual u stove-pipe-hat" shape there are some slender T- 

 shaped, with the projecting stem long and taper, much like the bone 

 ones of the Innuit women near Cape Rumiautzoff, which, however, are 

 not straight, but more or less curved or J -shaped. Were these worn 

 by women or were they the initiatory labrets of boys ? 



Among the Mexican antiquities figured from Du Paix' expeditions is a 

 tom-tom, or hollow cylindrical drum, with one end carved into a human 

 head. In the upper lip two disks appear, one under each nostril. No 

 connection with the nasal septum is indicated, and they much resemble 

 the round flat ends of the hat-shaped obsidian labrets. (Ant. Mex. 2nd 

 Exp., pi. lxiii, fig. 121.) Supplementary plate ix shows an eartheu 

 vase, the front of which is a very spirited model of a human figure with 

 open mouth. There is what appears to be a hole in each cheek behind 

 the corner of the mouth as if for a pair of labrets. It came from Pa- 

 lenque. 



Between the Mexican region and that occupied by the Tlinkit there 

 is a wide gap over which no bridge has yet been found. The extracts 

 given above have, however, bridged more or less perfectly the much 

 greater gap between Mexico and that portion of the west coast of South 

 America opposite to the region occupied by the Botokudos, and which 

 is also the part nearest approached by any of the Polynesian Islands. 

 Behind this part of the coast are the Bolivian Andes, far less formida- 

 ble a barrier than those nearer the equator, among which rises the Pil- 

 coinayo River, discharging into the Paraguay close to the mouth of the 



1 The inhabitants of New Ireland, near New Guinea, pierce the nostrils, in which 

 they place the small canine teeth of a pig, one on each side (Turner); aud the same 

 practice is reported from the adjacent islands aud from the southern coast of New 

 Guinea. (Jukes, Voy. H. M. S. Fly, 1, p. 274.) 



