226 
INHABITANTS. 
more athletic, and easily distinguished by the prominence of 
their features and the singular custom they have of shaving the 
crown of the head. Their love of liquor is inordinate, and their 
manners are coarse and vulgar, but they are patient, enduring, 
and industrious. On the cleared portions of the Sierra, they 
cultivate large quantities of delicious oranges, maize, and to- 
bacco ; and their manufacture of articles from the tactile and pita 
is justly celebrated over the Isthmus. Mentally, they are de- 
plorably ignorant, and their conceptions of the Deity and of re- 
ligion are vague and indefinite. Like the Guichicovi Indians, 
their knowledge of Spanish is limited. 
The Zapotecos constitute the greater part of the population of 
the southern division of the Isthmus, and are incomparably su- 
perior to those of any other portion. The salubrity of the cli- 
mate, the surpassing fertility of the soil, and the variety and 
richness of its productions, all minister to the prosperity of the 
inhabitants, who have from the most remote periods of their 
history been distinguished for their advances in civilization.* 
Their knowledge of the mechanic arts was not limited, even in 
the days of the Conquest, and their well-fortified towns did not 
fail to attract the admiration or excite the jealousies of the an- 
cient kings of Anahuac. Bernal Diaz, in recounting the la- 
bors of the expedition in 1522, to Tehuantepec, says : " When 
Alvarado found what a quantity of gold the inhabitants pos- 
sessed, he ordered them to make him a pair of stirrups of the 
finest gold, and gave them a couple of his own for a pattern ; 
and, indeed, they were turned out very good." 
Intellectually, the aborigines of Tehuantepec exhibit qualities 
of no mean order, and they are found intelligent, docile, and 
lively. In personal appearance, they are noted for the symme- 
* Clavigero remarks that they " were civilized and industrious : they had their 
laws, exercised the arts of the Mexicans, and made use of the same method to com- 
pute time, and the same paintings to perpetuate the memory of events, in which 
they represented the creation of the world, the universal deluge, and the confusion 
of tongues, although the whole was intermixed with various fables. Since the Con- 
quest the Zapotecos have been the most industrious people of New Spain. While 
the commerce of silk lasted, they were the feeders of the worms, and to their labors 
is owing all the cochineal which, for many years until the present time, has been 
imported from Mexico into Europe." Vol. L, Book TT. r». 10ft. 
