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SCIEiMCE. 



[Vol. XX. No. 503 



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ANCIENT MEXICAN HERALDEY. 



BT AGNES CRANE. 



There can be no more striking instance of separate evo- 

 lutions on the same plane of thought in different grades of 

 culture than the independent development of a system of 

 heraldry, or "armory" as it should be rightly called, in 

 the western hemisphere by the aborigines of ancient Mexico 

 long anterior to the epoch of the Spanish Conquest in 1521. 

 It was based, like the heraldic systems of Europe, on per- 

 sonal distinction in battle, which seems to have been origi- 

 nally the sole source of ennoblement among all people, and 

 possessed the same intent to blazon forth personal exploits 

 and record individual achievements. 



It may seem a strange anomaly to refer to the " coat ar- 

 mour" of painted warriors not overburdened with clothing, 

 adorned with labrets, nose-crescents of gold and other bar- 

 baric ornaments, whose personal prowess in warfare was ex- 

 erted to capture their enemies alive in order that they might 

 be ofEered as living sacrifices to the gods of the victor in the 

 combat. Yet we have the authority of Logan, the historian 

 of the "Scottish Gael," for the statement thatsolate as 1644 

 the Highlanders under Montrose fought divested of most of 

 their clothing at the battle of Tippermuir. It is equally true 

 that the war-shields and gala-shields of the ancient Mexican 

 warriors were "charged," in many instances, with "ani- 

 mate designs " and various emblems recording the gallant 

 deeds of arms, of the individuals who bore them, and the 

 distinctions and " augmentations " granted them in recog- 

 nition thereof by their so-called " emperor" or chief-priestly 

 ruler. In others, again, they carried phonetic symbols 

 rudely expressing the name and rank of the owner, like the 

 "canting arms" or armes parlantes which formed the 

 larger proportion of the early coats in European heral-dry 

 with as great an effect as the spear in the much discussed coat 

 of Shakespeare, the padlocked heart of the Lockharts, the 

 four emblazoned hands of the Quatermaines. the three cocks 

 of Cockaigne, and the whelk shells of Shelley. A similar 

 canting-shield was carried by the leader of the Tlaxcallan 

 forces which accompanied Cortes on his way to Tetzcoco. It 



is depicted in a native chronicle as exhibiting a monstrous 

 face with eyes borne on the palms of severed hands and 

 belongs evidently to the same category. The name of this 

 Tlaxcallan ruler, Maxixcatl, is expressed in the same pictorial 

 record by the hieroglyph of an eye on the palm of a hand, 

 and the symbol for water which yields in the Aztec or 

 Nahuatl language the elements ma. ix, atl from maiil, hand; 

 ixtli, eye; and atl, water. It is obvious that the elements 

 maix are conveyed by the eyes on the palms of the severed 

 bands on the shield to which we refer. 



Much that is both interesting and suggestive on this sub- 

 ject will be found in the remarkable memoir " On Ancient 

 Mexican Shields," from which this example is taken, con- 

 tributed by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, special assistant in Mexican 

 archseology of the Peabody Museum of Cambridge, Massa- 

 chusetts, to a recent issue of the "Internationales Archiv 

 fiir Ethnographic," Vol. V., Part I., 1892. It gives full 

 details with colored illustrations of the heraldic devices on 

 war-shields and gala-shields borne in religious dances as 

 figured in various native MSS. and Codices, described in 

 the Spanish inventories, or dppicted on ancient Mexican 

 shields still preserved in the museums of Mexico City, 

 Vienna, Stuttgart, London, and at Castle Ambras in the 

 Tyrol. The supplemental accounts derived from native 

 sources and old Spanish chronicles of the system of rewards 

 granted by the chief ruler to successful Mexican braves in 

 savage warfare are of special interest and value. 



This system was, to say the least, peculiar. The neophyte 

 went forth to battle clad in white raiment, with a blank 

 shield. On capturing an enemy alive he was granted the 

 privilege of painting his body yellow, his face red and his 

 temples yellow, and the right to wear a colored uniform and 

 a shield to match his war-paint. The Mexican war-shield 

 was round, like the Highland Targe 



' ' Whose brazen studds and tough bull hide 

 Had death so often dashed aside," 



and described by bards more ancient than Sir Walter Scott 

 as painted red, spotted, varied, or chequered. In Old 

 Mexico the capture of two foes was rewarded with a more 

 elaborate costume, a gold yacumetz or nose-crescent and a 

 shield decorated with feather pellets. The warrior who 

 took three prisoners alive reeeived a wooden shield with a 

 border of blue, the royal color, or one displaying parti-col- 

 ored stripes with a fringe attached to it. Further captures 

 were rewarded with ornaments of gold, or precious stones, 

 and the images of these quartered on the shields " in aug- 

 mentation " record the nose-crescents and labrets won and 

 worn by those who had performed such signal deeds of 

 valor.^ One shield bears four, and another ten of these de- 

 signs which present some resemblance to the thirty-seven 

 crescent-shaped ornaments of beaten gold adorning the mag- 

 nificent feather headdress of the time of Montezuma described 

 by Mrs. Nuttall in the first number of the first volume of 

 "The Peabody Museum Papers." They recall, also, the 

 buckles considered by recent authorities on European 

 heraldry as a military badge, one of which is actually borne 

 on the shield of the Pelhams, Earls of Chichester, to com- 

 memorate the ancestral share in the capture of King John 

 of France at Poictiers. In the same manner a negro's head 

 is quartered on the family shield of a " highly well-born " 

 German family as a record that an ancestor took prisoner a 

 black princess during one of the crusades. 



1 It would be interesting to know if the additional labrets and nose- 

 crescents were quartered on the shield because of the personal inconvenience 

 of wearing more than one of these distinctions. 



