The Nahua women used paint freely to beautify their person, and among some nations they also tattooed. Among the Aztecs they painted their faces with a red, yellow, or black color, made, as Sahagun tells us, of burnt incense mixed with dye. They also dyed their feet black with the same mixture. Their teeth they cleaned and painted with cochineal; hands, neck, and breast were also painted.[391] Among the Tlascaltecs the men painted their faces with a dye made of the xagua and bixa.[392] The Otomís tattooed their breasts and arms by making incisions with a knife and rubbing a blue powder therein. They also covered the body with a species of pitch called teocahuitl, and over this again they applied some other color. Their teeth they dyed black.[393]

The Nahuas, like all semi-barbarous people, had a passion for loading themselves with ornaments. Those worn by the kings, nobles, and rich persons, were of gold or silver, set with precious stones; those of the poorer classes were of copper, stone, or bone, set with imitations in crystal of the rarer jewels. These ornaments took the shape of bracelets, armlets, anklets, and rings for the nose, ears, and fingers. The lower lip was also pierced, and precious stones, or crystals, inserted. The richer classes used principally for this purpose the chalchiuite, which is generally designated as an emerald. There existed very stringent laws regarding the class of ornaments which the different classes of people were allowed to wear, and it was prohibited, on pain of death, for a subject to use the same dress or ornaments as the king. Duran relates that to certain very brave but low-born warriors permission was accorded to wear a cheap garland or crown on the head, but on no account might it be made of gold.[394] Gomara tells us that the claws and beaks of the eagle and also fish-bones were worn as ornaments in the ears, nose, and lips.[395]

The Otomís used ear-ornaments made of burned clay, nicely browned, and others of cane.[396] The Tarascos chiefly relied on feathers for their personal adornment.[397] Of the natives encountered by Cortés when he landed at Vera Cruz, Peter Martyr tells us that in the "hole of the lippes, they weare a broad plate within fastened to another on the outside of the lippe, and the iewell they hang thereat is as great as a siluer Caroline doller and as thicke as a mans finger."[398]

In Oajaca more ornaments were worn than in any other part of the country, owing, perhaps, as the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg remarks, to the plentiful supply of precious metals in that state.[399]

DRESS OF THE NOBLES.

The dress of the nobles and members of the royal household differed from that of the lower classes only in fineness of material and profusion of ornaments. The kings appear to have worn garments of the same shape as those of their subjects, but, in other respects, a particular style of dress was reserved for royalty, and he who presumed to imitate it was put to death. On occasions, however, when the monarch wished to bestow a special mark of favor upon a brave soldier or distinguished statesman, he would graciously bestow upon him one of his garments, which, even though the recipient were a great noble, was received with joy, and the wearer respected as a man whom the king delighted to honor.[400] In Tlascala differences of rank among the nobles were easily recognized by the style of dress. The common people were strictly forbidden to wear cotton clothes with fringes or other trimmings, unless with special permission, granted in consideration of services rendered.[401]

The court laws of etiquette prescribed the dress to be worn by the royal attendants, who could only appear without sandals, barefooted, and in coarse mantles before the king, and even the apparel of the sovereign was in like manner fixed by custom, if not by law. The different kinds of tilmatlis, or mantles, had each its appropriate name, and varied in material as well as in ornament and color. The cotton mantles are described as being of exceeding fineness of texture, so much so that it required an expert to determine whether they were cotton or silk.[402] The mantle worn as every-day dress in the palace was white and blue and called the xiuhtilmatli.[403] There were many other kinds of mantles, of which the following are the principal: A yellowish, heavily fringed mantle, on which monstrous heads were painted, was called coazayacaiotilmatli; another, blue, ornamented with red shells, with three borders, one light, another dark blue, and a third of white feather-work, and fringed with the same kind of shells, was named tecuciciotilmatli; another, dark yellow, with alternate black and white circles painted on it, and a border representing eyes, was the temalcacaiotilmatlitenisio; a similar one, differing only in the figures and shape of the ornaments, was the itzcayotilmatli; a very gaudy one, worked in many colors, was the umetechtecomaiotilmatli; another, with a yellow ground, on which were butterflies made of feathers, and with scalloped edges, was called papaloiotilmatlitenisio; the xaoalquauhiotilmatlitenisio, was embroidered with designs representing the flower called ecacazcatl, and further ornamented with white feather-work and feather edges; the ocelotentlapalliyiticycacocelotl was an imitation of a tiger-skin, also ornamented with an edge of white feathers; the ixnextlacuilolli was worked in many colors, and had a sun painted on it.[404] Other mantles, differing mainly in their style of ornamentation, were the coaxacayo and tlacalhuaztilmatli, the latter worn when the king went into his gardens or to the chase. In the same manner there are also various kinds of maxtlis mentioned, such as the ynyaomaxaliuhqui, ytzahuazalmaxtlatl and yacahualiuqui.[405] In fact there appears to have been a different dress for every occasion. We are told, for instance, that when going to the temple the king wore a white mantle, another when going to preside at the court of justice, and here he again changed his dress, according as the case before the court was a civil or criminal suit.[406] The sandals of the kings were always richly ornamented with precious stones, and had golden soles.[407]

DRESS OF THE KINGS.

Whenever the sovereign appeared in public he wore the royal crown, called copilli, which was of solid gold, and is described by most writers as having been shaped like a bishop's mitre; but in the hieroglyphical paintings, in which the Mexican kings are represented, it is simply a golden band, wider in front than at the back, the front running up to a point; on some occasions it was ornamented with long feathers.[408] The following description of ornaments, worn by the Mexican kings and nobles, I extract from Sahagun:—

ABORIGINAL DRESS.