590 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 
the mouths of the dying to receive their souls: ‘‘que era para que 
recibiese su Anima.”! 
One of the Mexican myths of the birth of Quetzalcoatl narrates that 
his mother, Chimalma, while sweeping, found a chalchihuitl, swallowed 
it, and became pregnant: ‘“‘Andando barriendo la dicha Chimalma 
hallé un chalehihuitl, (que es una pedrezuela verde) y que la tragé y 
de esto se empreno, y que asi parid al dicho Quetzalcoatl.”? The same 
author tells us that the chalchihuitl (which he calls “ pedrezuela 
verde”) are mentioned in the earliest myths of the Mexicans.’ 
In South America the emerald seems to have taken the place of the 
chalehihuitl Bollaert* makes frequent mention of the use of the emerald 
by the natives of Ecuador and Peru, ‘‘a drilled emerald, such as the 
Incas wore;” ‘large emeralds, emblematic of their {the Incas’| soy- 
ereignty.” 
From Torquemada we learn that the Mexicans adorned their idols 
with the chalchihuitl, and also that they buried a chalchihuitl with their 
dead, saying that it was the dead man’s heart.’ 
“Whenever rain comes the Indians |Pima and Maricopa] resort to 
these old houses [ruins] to look for trinkets of shells, and a peculiar 
green stone.”® The idols which the people of Yucatan gave to Juan de 
Grijalva in 1518 were covered with these stones, ‘‘cubierta de pedre- 
cicas.”7 Among the first presents made to Cortes in Tabasco were 
“unas turquesas de poco valor.”* The fact that the Mexicans buried a 
“oem” with the bodies of their dead is mentioned by Squier, but he 
says it was when the body was cremated.? 
The people of Cibola are said to have offered in sacrifice to their 
fountains ‘algunas turquesas que las tienen, aunque ruines.”!” 
‘“Turquesas” were given to the Spaniards under Coronado by the 
people of the pueblo of Acoma.!! . 
‘The Mexicans were accustomed to say that at one time all men have 
been stones, and that at last they would all return to stones; and, act- 
ing literally on this conviction, they interred with the bones of the dead 
a small green stone, which was called the principle of life.” ” 
The great value set upon the chalchihuitl by the Aztecs is alluded 
to by Bernal Diaz, who was with the expedition of Grijalva to Yucatan 
1 Ximenez, Hist. Orig. Indios, p. 211. 
2 Mendieta, p. 83. 
3 Tbid., p. 78. 
4 Researches in South America, p. 83. 
5 Monarchia Indiana, vol. 2, lib. 13, cap. 45, and elsewhere. 
6 Emory, Reconnoissance, p. 88. 
7Gomara, Historia de la Conquista de Méjico, Veytia’s edition, p, 299. 
8Tbid., p. 310. 
2Smithsonian Contributions, *‘Ancient monuments of New York,” vol. 2. 
10 Buckingham Smith, Relacion de la Jornada de Coronado 4 Cibola, Coleccion de Documentos para la 
Historia de Florida, London, 1857, vol. 1, p. 148. 
 Thid., vol. 1, p. 150. 
4 Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 253. 
