An Aztec Macana.
In 1831 a report was made to the French Geographical Society on a collection of drawings of Mexican antiquities executed by M. Franck. This collection embraced drawings of about six hundred objects, most of them from the National Museum in Mexico; eighty in the museum of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia; forty in the Peñasco collection in Mexico, and others belonging to Castañeda and other private individuals. They were classified as follows: one hundred and eighty figures of men and women; fifty-five human heads in stone or clay; thirty masks and busts; twenty heads of different animals; seventy-five vases; forty ornaments; six bas-reliefs; six fragments; thirty-three flageolets and whistles; and a miscellaneous collection of weapons, implements, and divers objects.[IX-118]
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
Aztec Flageolet.
Terra-Cotta Musical Instrument.
Sixteen specimens of Mexican relics, in the possession of M. Latour-Allard in Paris, are represented by Kingsborough unaccompanied by explanations. The objects are mostly sculptured heads, idols, and animals. Bullock also gives plates of six Mexican idols, about which nothing definite is said; Humboldt pictures an idol carried by him from Mexico to Berlin; and Nebel's plates show about thirty miscellaneous relics, in addition to those that have been already mentioned. Humboldt also gives an Aztec hatchet of green feldspath or jade, which has incised figures on its surface. He remarks that he never has found this material 'in place' in Mexico, although axes made of it are common enough.[IX-119] The two musical instruments shown in the cuts are taken from Waldeck's plates. Their material is terra cotta.[IX-120] Other miscellaneous cuts and descriptions are given in the work of the German traveler Müller, and in the appendix to the German translation of Del Rio and Cabrera.[IX-121] José María Bustamante told Mr Lyon of an obsidian ring, carried away by Humboldt, which was perforated round the circumference so that a straw introduced at one side would traverse the circle and come out again at the same opening.[IX-122] The two idols shown in the cut were copied by Kingsborough's artist in the British Museum. The figures of the cut are one sixth of the original size.[IX-123] Prescott tells us that "a great collection of ancient pottery, with various other specimens of Aztec art, the gift of Messrs Poinsett and Keating, is deposited in the cabinet of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia," a list of the relics having been printed in the Transactions of that Society.[IX-124]