OCTOBEB 29, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



611 



chief's burial of his wives and servants. Small 

 jadeite heads and figures, also found in tombs, 

 show strongly marked types. If there are few 

 specimens in gold, it is because throughout the 

 country the Spaniards ransacked the tombs for 

 gold. In painting there are the picture manu- 

 scripts, the fescoes at Chichen Itza, Chacmultun 

 and Teotihuacan and a number of vases with 

 figures from Guatemala and British Honduras. 



This material is now available for students in 

 Mr. A. Maudslay's " Biologia Centrali-Americana, 

 Archeology," Dr. E. Seler's collected works, the 

 publications of the Peabody Museum, and the 

 reproductions of the Codices by the Due de Loubat, 

 also in the splendid collections of the Museum 

 fiir Volkerkunde at Berlin, the Mexican Hall of 

 the Natural History Museum at New York and 

 the Peabody Museum. 



Among distinctive types are: the chiefs in the 

 reliefs at Xochicales, who sit cross-legged; the 

 little shaven clay heads at Teotihuacan; the tall, 

 well-built priests, with protruding lower lip, of 

 the Palenque reliefs; the fifteen caryatid statues 

 in feather mantles, of the Upper Temple of the 

 Tigers, at Chichen Itza; and the sixteen stern 

 warriors carved at its doors, these last similar in 

 type to some of the modern Indians of the villages 

 near Tlaxcala. 



There are portraits of the Mexican kings on the 

 border of a picture-map which represents the 

 western quarter of Tenoehtitlan, and of the 

 householders in that part of the city. Of female 

 types there are the painted clay figures of Jalises 

 with compressed heads. Some of them have short, 

 broad figures, others are slender. Both types still 

 survive. The queenly women in Codex Nuttall- 

 Zouche, and the women-chiefs of the Guatemalan 

 stelae belonged to a diflerent caste to the obviously 

 inferior women on those stelae, fattened in prepa- 

 ration for sacrifice. 



Herr T. Maler's most recent explorations on the 

 borders of Guatemala have given magnificent re- 

 sults in the finding of thirty-seven steliE at Piedras 

 Negras, and at Yaxchilan twenty stelae and forty- 

 six sculptured lintels. The superb figures of 

 warriors and priests indicate a race of men of 

 tall, slender stature and oval face, with large 

 aquiline nose, whilst the captives appear to be 

 of a different race. 



A second paper by Miss Breton dealt with the 

 " Arms and Accoutrements of the Ancient War- 

 riors at Chichen Itza." Chichen Itza, in Yucatan, 

 is as yet the principal place in the region of 

 Mexico and Central America where representatives 



of armed warriors are found. There was a re- 

 markable development in the later history of the 

 buildings there of painted sculptures and wall- 

 paintings, mostly of battle scenes and gatherings 

 of armed chiefs. 



The stone walls of the ruined lower hall of the 

 Temple of the Tigers are covered with sculptured 

 rows of chiefs, who carry a variety of weapons. 

 Of the sixty-four personages left, half a dozen 

 have ground or polished stone implements; others 

 hold formidable harpoons (two of them double) 

 or lances adorned with feathers; whilst the ma- 

 jority have from three to five spears and an 

 atlatl (f. e., throwing stick). These are of dif- 

 ferent shapes. One figure has armlets with pro- 

 jecting rounded stones. Some have kilts, spor- 

 rans, leggings and sandals. Eleven personages 

 have tail appendages. There are protective sleeves 

 in a series of puffs, breastplates, helmets and 

 feather head-dresses, necklaces of stone beads, 

 masks, ear and nose ornaments in variety. Small 

 round back-shields, always painted green and 

 fastened on by a broad red belt, may have been of 

 bronze attached to leather, as a bronze disc has 

 been found. Round or oblong shields were carried 

 by two thongs, one held in the left hand, the 

 other slipped over the arm. 



The two upper chambers of the same building 

 have reliefs on the door jambs of sixteen warriors 

 life size. They carry a sort of boomerang in addi- 

 tion to spears and atlatls. In the outer chamlM>r 

 was a great stone table or altar, supported by 

 fifteen caryatid figures. Upon its surface was a 

 relief of a standing chief, holding out his atlatl 

 over a kneeling enemy who offers a weapon. The 

 walls of both chambers were covered with painted 

 battle scenes, in which several hundred figures are 

 still visible. They carry spears, atlatls, round or 

 oblong shields, and a kind of boomerang which was 

 used by the natives in Australia about eighty 

 years ago. It was intended for striking rather 

 than throwing. On one wall the method of at- 

 tacking high places by means of long notched tree- 

 trunks as ladders and scaffold towers is shown. 



The building at the north end of the great Ball 

 Court is evidently very ancient, and its sculptured 

 walls have chiefs with spears and atlatls. The 

 temple on the great pyramid called the Castillo 

 also has warriors on its doorposts and pillars, 

 with boomerangs, spears and atlatls, and so has 

 a building in the great Square of Columns. In 

 an upper chamber of the palace of the Monjes are 

 painting.s in which are men with spears and 

 atlatls, and also spears with lighted grass at- 



