Without the knowledge of iron, in the working of hard precious and semi-precious stones into idols and personal ornaments, their craftsmanship was equal to that of the best lapidaries of Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the lapidarian art they had advanced so far as to fashion and adorn many objects with designs, both geometric and realistic, in stone mosaic, employing turquois chiefly for this purpose, but also making use of other stones—marcasite and shell. But the supreme esthetic achievement of the Aztecs was the production of a class of mosaics in which they used tiny bits of colored feathers instead of stones in making the designs. This unique art was employed in adorning objects for personal use, for warfare, or for priestly ceremonies. The patterns were produced by applying the tiny bits of feathers with glue either directly on wood or on wooden objects covered with skin or with native paper. From descriptions of feather mosaics in the writings of early chroniclers, and from a study of the handful of specimens which have escaped the ravages of time, it is evident that this art reached the highest artistic level attained by any of the aboriginal tribes of America.
We will not enter into a discussion of feather mosaics at this time, but will consider primarily the parallel art of turquois mosaic. Aside from the numerous historical notices contained in the early chronicles and in the inventories of the loot of the Aztecs sent to Europe by Cortés, there is little of this art upon which to base a careful study that has survived. It is one of the most interesting and highly developed arts of ancient America, but it was practised by only a few tribes. Apart from the Mexican region where turquois mosaic was most highly developed, excellent examples have been found with other ancient remains of the Pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico, and incrusted objects have also been found with ancient burials on the coast of Peru, indicating a somewhat similar technique though far less skill in application. The materials usually employed in Mexico were turquois, jadeite, malachite, quartz, beryl, garnet, obsidian, marcasite, gold, bits of red and other colored shell, and nacre. The base upon which the incrustation was laid was wood, stone, gold, shell, pottery, and possibly leather and native paper, the mosaic being held in place by means of a tenacious vegetal pitch or gum, or a kind of cement.
EARLIEST HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF TURQUOIS MOSAIC IN MEXICO
The Grijalva Expedition, 1518
The first knowledge received by Europeans of the existence of turquois mosaic objects among the Mexicans was by members of the expedition sent out from Cuba by the governor, Diego Velásquez, during the spring of 1518, under the command of Juan de Grijalva. After reaching the shores of Yucatan near the island of Cozumel, the party coasted the Yucatan peninsula, reaching the territory of the present State of Campeche, which had been discovered the previous year by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. Proceeding westward along unknown lands, they reached a great river in the State of Tabasco, to which the name of the commandant was given, and it is still known as Rio de Grijalva. Here, according to some accounts, the expedition obtained the first specimens of turquois mosaic. We shall consider this point later. Leaving the Rio de Grijalva they went westward and arrived at the site of the present city of Vera Cruz, where they obtained by barter with the Indians a considerable treasure, including some objects of turquois mosaic, which Grijalva decided to send immediately to the governor in Cuba with a report of his discoveries up to that time. Consequently, on June 24, 1518, one of Grijalva’s captains, Pedro de Alvarado, set out on the return voyage to Fernandina (Cuba), while Grijalva himself continued the exploration of the eastern coast of Mexico.
The provenience of the treasure obtained by Grijalva on this first expedition of discovery to the coasts of Tabasco and Vera Cruz in 1518 is not at all clear from the accounts of this voyage in the writings both of the eye-witnesses themselves and of those who shortly afterward wrote of the conquest from the reports of the participants in the events. It has been generally assumed that Grijalva obtained mosaic objects from the Indians of Tabasco; this is specifically stated by both Oviedo and Gomara, who recorded detailed accounts of the Grijalva expedition. The account by Oviedo[2] is even more extended and valuable than the narrations of the eye-witnesses, namely, Juan Díaz[3] the chaplain, and the redoubtable Bernal Díaz. Oviedo states that his account is from the report forwarded to the King of Spain by the governor Velásquez, who sent out the expedition from Cuba. Gomara, who for a time was chaplain of Cortés in Spain, never visited the New World, but had access to the various reports sent to Spain regarding the conquest.
Unfortunately in the writings of the eye-witnesses no detailed descriptive lists are to be found relating just what pieces of mosaic-work were obtained by Grijalva from the Mayan Indians of Tabasco and the people of the coast of the present State of Vera Cruz. The extended account given by Oviedo recites the voyage from day to day and the character of various objects received from the Tabasco Indians, followed by the list of specimens obtained from the Mexican Indians near the Isla de Sacrificios, Vera Cruz. We will quote from these lists later. Gomara’s list is quite extended. In the first part of his Historia de las Indias he describes various articles procured by Grijalva from the Indians at the mouth of the river in Tabasco, to which his name was applied, followed in turn by the inventory of objects obtained at San Juan de Ulua, Vera Cruz. In the second part of his history, the Conquista de Mexico, he gives only a single long inventory of the barter obtained, as he says, “from the Indians of Potonchan [Tabasco], San Juan de Ulua, and other places of that coast.” It seems highly probable, however, that such interesting and valuable loot must have been accompanied with an inventory when it was sent to Spain late in 1518 or early in 1519 by Governor Velásquez. Oviedo mentions seeing the things, apparently in Barcelona, in May 1519. It is possible that both Oviedo and Gomara may have had access to such an inventory, or if not, they wrote their own descriptions of the objects after seeing them.
Bernal Díaz, who accompanied both Grijalva and Cortés to Mexico, wrote his history nearly fifty years after the stirring events of the discovery and conquest. He was a prejudiced writer, and seems to have been largely animated in his old age to tell the story of the conquest primarily to refute many of the statements of Gomara. Bernal Díaz writes bluntly at the very outset of his invaluable history, which he calls the “True History,” that he speaks “here in reply to all that has been said and written by persons who themselves knowing nothing, have received no true account from others of what really took place, but who nevertheless now put forward any statements that happen to suit their fancy.” While not describing the treasure obtained by Grijalva, he mentions “some gold jewels some (of which) were diadems and others were in the shape of ducks like those of Castile, and other jewels like lizards, and three necklaces of hollow beads, and other articles of gold not of much value, for they were not worth more than two hundred pesos.”[4] These he states were obtained from the Indians of Potonchan. For some reason he apparently was not greatly impressed either by the technical excellence or by the esthetic beauty of the objects procured by barter from the vicinity of the present city of Vera Cruz; he simply writes that the Spaniards were engaged for six days in trading with the Indians and got more than sixteen thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry of low-grade gold worked into various forms. He then says: “This must be the gold which the historians Gomara, Yllescas, and Jovio say was given by the natives of Tabasco, and they have written it down as though it were true, although it is well known to eye-witnesses that there is no gold in the province of the Rio de Grijalva or anywhere near it, and very few jewels.”[5] Torquemada wrote in later years to the same effect.
In none of the accounts by the participants of this expedition are mosaic pieces specifically mentioned. The chaplain of Grijalva’s fleet, Juan Díaz, states merely that they were given “a mask of gold beautifully wrought, and a little figure of a man with a little mask of gold, and a crown of gold beads with other jewels and stone of various colors.” This report was first printed in Venice, March 3, 1520, appearing in Italian as an appendix to the Itinerario of Ludovico de Varthema.
An anonymous independent relation in Italian of this voyage seems to have been printed at Venice in the same year under the title Littera Mãdata della Insula de Cuba, etc., the copy in the Marciana Library, Venice, being the only one known. From a photostat copy of the Italian we are able to present a translation of the mention of these objects, somewhat similar to that given by Juan Díaz. The Littera Mãdata states that the Spaniards obtained “a mask of gold, and the figure of a man all of gold, seemingly of the age of twelve, and a fan of gold, and other jewels of divers colors.”[6]