CHAPTER XI.
DRESS OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.

Progress in Dress—Dress of the Pre-Aztec Nations—Garments of the Chichimecs and Toltecs—Introduction of Cotton—The Maxtli—The Tilmatli—Dress of the Acolhuas—Origin of the Tarascan Costume—Dress of the Zapotecs and Tabascans—Dress of Women—The Huipil and Cueitl—Sandals—Manner of Wearing the Hair—Painting and Tattooing—Ornaments Used by the Nahuas—Gorgeous Dress of the Nobles—Dress of the Royal Attendants—Names of the Various Mantles—The Royal Diadem—The Royal Wardrobe—Costly Decorations.

With but few exceptions the dress of all the civilized nations of Mexico appears to have been the same. The earliest people, the historians inform us, went entirely naked or covered only the lower portion of the body with the skins of wild animals. Afterwards, as by degrees civilization advanced, this scanty covering grew into a regular costume, though still, at first, made only of skins. From this we can note a farther advance to garments manufactured first out of tanned and prepared skins, later of maguey and palm-tree fibres, and lastly of cotton. From the latter no further progress was made, excepting in the various modes of ornamenting and enriching the garments with feather-work, painting, embroidery, gold-work, and jewelry. The common people were obliged to content themselves with plain clothing, but the dress of the richer classes, nobles, princes, and sovereigns, was of finer texture and richer ornamentation.[365]

The descriptions of the dresses of the nations which occupied the Valley of Mexico before the Aztecs vary according to different authors. While some describe them as gorgeously decked out in painted and embroidered garments of cotton and nequen, others say, that they went either wholly naked or were only partially covered with skins. Thus Sahagun and Brasseur de Bourbourg describe the Toltecs as dressed in undergarments and mantles on which blue scorpions were painted,[366] while the latter author in another place says that they went entirely naked.[367] Veytia goes even farther than Sahagun, affirming that they knew well how to manufacture clothing of cotton, that a great difference existed between the dress of the nobles and that of the plebeians, and that they even varied their clothing with the seasons. He describes them as wearing in summer a kind of breech-cloth or drawers and a square mantle tied across the breast and descending to the ankles, while in winter in addition to the above they clothed themselves in a kind of sack, which reached down as far as the thighs, without sleeves but with a hole for the head and two others for the arms.[368]

DRESS OF THE AZTECS, TARASCOS, AND HUASTECS.

The Chichimecs, generally mentioned as the successors of the Toltecs, are mostly described as going naked, or only partly dressed in skins.[369] This appears, however, only to relate to the people spoken of as wild Chichimecs; those who inhabited Tezcuco and others in that neighborhood as civilized as the Aztecs, dressed probably in a similar fashion to theirs; at least, as we shall presently see, this was the case with their sovereigns and nobles. All the Nahuas, with the exception of the Tarascos and Huastecs, made use of the breech-cloth, or maxtli.[370] This with the Mexicans in very early times is said to have been a kind of mat, woven of the roots of a plant which grew in the Lake of Mexico, and was called amoxtli.[371] Later, the fibre of the palm-tree and the maguey furnished the material for their clothing, and it was only during the reign of King Huitzilihuitl that cotton was introduced.[372]

The maxtli was about twenty-four feet long and nine inches wide, and was generally more or less ornamented at the ends with colored fringes and tassels, the latter sometimes nine inches long. The manner of wearing it was to pass the middle between the legs and to wind it about the hips, leaving the ends hanging one in front and the other at the back, as is done at this day by the Malays and other East Indian natives. It was at the ends usually that the greatest display of embroidery, fancy fringes, and tassels was made.[373]

GARMENTS OF THE TARASCOS.