CHAPTER XV

.

NAHUA ARTS AND MANUFACTURES.

METALS USED AND MANNER OF OBTAINING THEM--WORKING OF GOLD AND SILVER--WONDERFUL SKILL IN IMITATING--GILDING AND PLATING--WORKING IN STONE--LAPIDARY WORK--WOOD CARVING--MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY--VARIOUS KINDS OF CLOTH--MANUFACTURE OF PAPER AND LEATHER--PREPARATION OF DYES AND PAINTS--THE ART OF PAINTING--FEATHER MOSAIC WORK--LEAF-MATS--MANNER OF KINDLING FIRE--TORCHES--SOAP--COUNCIL OF ARTS IN TEZCUCO--ORATORY AND POETRY--NEZAHUALCOYOTL'S ODES ON THE MUTABILITY OF LIFE AND THE TYRANT TEZOZOMOC--AZTEC ARITHMETICAL SYSTEM.

Gold, silver, copper, tin, and lead were the metals known to and used by the Nahuas. The latter, however, is merely mentioned, and nothing is known about where it was obtained or for what purposes it was employed. We have only very slight information respecting the processes by which any of the metals were obtained. Gold came to the cities of Anáhuac chiefly from the southern Nahua provinces, through the agency of traders and tax-gatherers; silver and tin were taken from the mines of Taxco and Tzompanco; copper was obtained from the mountains of Zacatollan, the province of the Cohuixcas, and from Michoacan. Nuggets of gold and masses of native copper were found on the surface of the ground in certain regions; gold was chiefly obtained, however, from the sand in the bed of rivers by divers. It was kept, in the form of dust, in small tubes or quills, or was melted in small pots, by the aid of hollow bamboo blow-pipes used instead of bellows, and cast in small bars. Prescott tells us that these metals were also mined from veins in the solid rock, extensive galleries being opened for the purpose. Quicksilver, sulphur, alum, ochre, and other minerals were collected to a certain extent and employed by the natives in the preparation of colors and for other purposes.[584] The use of iron, though that metal was abundant in the country, was unknown. Such metals as they had they were most skillful in working, chiefly by melting and casting, and by carving, but also to some extent by the use of the hammer. We have no details of the means employed to melt the harder metals, besides the rude blow-pipe and furnace mentioned in connection with gold.

For cutting implements copper was the only metal used, but it was hardened with an alloy of tin until it sufficed to cut the hardest substances nearly as well as steel.[585] The pure and softer metal was used to make kettles and other vessels. Copper tools were, however, rare compared with those of stone, and seem to have been used chiefly in working wood where a sharp and enduring edge was required. Such tools usually took the form of axes and chisels. Sticks for working the ground, the nearest Nahua approach to the plow, were also often tipped with copper, as we have seen. Metal was not much used in making weapons, not being found in swords or arrow-heads, but employed with obsidian in spearheads and on the _maza_, or club. Both copper and tin dishes and plates are mentioned but were not in common use. In the manufacture of implements of copper and tin these metals were wrought by means of stone hammers and not cast.[586]

[Sidenote: GOLD AND SILVER SMITHS.]

No branch of Nahua art was carried to a higher degree of perfection than the ornamental working of gold and silver. The conquerors were struck with admiration on beholding the work of the native goldsmiths; they even in some cases frankly acknowledge that they admired the work more than the material, and saved the most beautiful specimens from the melting furnace, the greatest compliment these gold-greedy adventurers could pay to native art. Many of the finer articles were sent as presents and curiosities to European princes, who added their testimony to that of the conquerors, pronouncing the jewelry in many instances superior to the work of old-world artists. Azcapuzalco was the headquarters of the workers in gold and silver.[587] The imitation of natural objects, particularly animals, birds, and fishes, was a favorite field for the display of this branch of Nahua talent. The conqueror Cortés tells us that Montezuma had in his collection a counterfeit in gold, silver, stones, or feathers, of every object under heaven in his dominions, so skillfully made, so far as the work in metal was concerned, that no smith in the world could excel them. This statement is repeated by every writer on the subject. Dr Hernandez, the naturalist, in preparing a treatise on Mexican zoology for Philip II., is said to have supplied his want of real specimens of certain rare species by a resort to these imitations.[588] The native artists are said to have fashioned animals and birds with movable heads, legs, wings, and tongues, an ape with a spindle in its hands in the act of spinning and in certain comic attitudes; and what

## particularly interested and surprised the Spaniards was the

art--spoken of by them as a lost art--of casting the parts of an object of different metals each distinct from the rest but all forming a complete whole, and this, as the authorities say, without soldering. Thus a fish was molded with alternate scales of gold and silver, plates were cast in sections of the same metal, and loose handles were attached to different vessels.[589]

[Sidenote: GILDING AND PLATING.]

After the Spaniards came, the native artisans had a new and wide field for the display of their skill, in imitating the numerous products of European art. A slight examination, often obtained by stealthily looking into the shop windows, enabled them to reproduce and not unfrequently to improve upon the finest articles of jewelry and plate.[590]

Clavigero says that vessels of copper or other inferior metal were gilded, by employing an unknown process in which certain herbs were used, and which would have made the fortune of a goldsmith in Spain and Italy. Oviedo also tells us that various ornamental articles were covered with thin gold plate.[591] To enumerate the articles manufactured by the Nahua gold and silver smiths, and included in the long lists of presents made by Montezuma and other chieftains to their conquerors is impracticable; they included finely modeled goblets, pitchers, and other vessels for the tables of the kings and nobility; frames for stone mirrors and rich settings for various precious stones; personal ornaments for the wealthy, and especially for warriors, including rings, bracelets, eardrops, beads, helmets and various other portions of armor; small figures in human form worn as charms or venerated as idols; and finally the most gorgeous and complicated decorations for the larger idols, and their temples and altars.[592]

Little is known of the methods or implements by which the workers in gold accomplished such marvelous results. The authors tell us that they excelled particularly in working the precious metals by means of fire; and the furnaces already mentioned are pictured in several of the Aztec picture-writings as simple vessels, perhaps of earthen ware, various in form, heaped with lumps of metal, and possibly with wood and coal, from which the tongues of flame protrude, as the workman sits by his furnace with his bamboo blow-pipe. How they cast or molded the molten gold into numerous graceful and ornamental forms is absolutely unknown. The process by which these patient workers carved or engraved ornamental figures on gold and silver vessels by means of their implements of stone and hardened copper, although not explained, may in a general way be easily imagined. They worked also to some extent with the hammer, but as gold-beaters they were regarded as inferior workmen, using only stone implements. The art of working in the precious metals was derived traditionally from the Toltecs, and the gold and silversmiths formed in Mexico a kind of corporation under the divine guidance of the god Xipe.[593]

[Sidenote: WORKING IN STONE.]

Stone was the material of most Nahua implements. For this purpose all the harder kinds found in the country were worked, flint, porphyry, basalt, but especially obsidian, the native _iztli_. Of this hard material, extensively quarried some distance north of Mexico, nearly all the sharp-edged tools were made. These tools, such as knives, razors, lancets, spear and arrow heads, were simply flakes from an obsidian block. The knives were double-edged and the best of them slightly curved at the point. The maker held a round block of iztli between his bare feet, pressed with his chest and hands on a long wooden instrument, one end of which was applied near the edge of the block, and thus split off knife after knife with great rapidity, which required only to be fitted to a wooden handle to be ready for use. The edge thus produced was at first as sharp as one of steel, but became blunted by slight use, when the instrument must be thrown away. Thus Las Casas tells us that ten or fifteen obsidian razors were required to shave one man's beard. Stone knives seem rarely if ever to have been sharpened by grinding.[594] Of obsidian were made the knives used in the sacrifice of human victims, and the lancets used in bleeding for medicinal purposes and in drawing blood in the service of the gods. For bleeding, similar knives are said to be still used in Mexico.[595] The use of stone in the manufacture of weapons has been mentioned in another chapter. Masks and even rings and cups were sometimes worked from obsidian and other kinds of stone. Axes were of flint, jade, or basalt, and were bound with cords to a handle of hard wood, the end of which was split to receive it.[596] Torquemada says that agricultural implements were made of stone.[597] Mirrors were of obsidian, or of _margajita_,--spoken of by some as a metal, by others as a stone,--often double-faced, and richly set in gold.[598]

The quarrying of stone for building and sculpture was done by means of wooden and stone implements, by methods unknown but adequate to the working of the hardest material. Stone implements alone seem to have been used for the sculpture of idols, statues, and architectural decorations. A better idea of the excellence of the Nahuas in the art of stone-carving may be formed from the consideration of antiquarian relics in another volume than from the remarks of the early chroniclers. Most of the sculptured designs were executed in soft material, in working which flint instruments would be almost as effective as those of steel; but some of the preserved specimens are carved in the hardest stone, and must have taxed the sculptor's patience to the utmost even with hard copper chisels. The idols and hieroglyphics on which the native art was chiefly exercised, present purposely distorted figures and are a poor test of the artists' skill; according to traditional history portrait-statues of the kings were made, and although none of these are known to have survived, yet a few specimens in the various collections indicate that the human face and form in true proportions were not beyond the scope of American art; and the native sculptors were, moreover, extremely successful in the modeling of animals in stone.[599]

[Sidenote: WORKING OF PRECIOUS STONES.]

The Nahuas were no less skillful in working precious stones than gold and silver. Their Toltec ancestors possessed the same skill and used to search for the stones at sunrise, being directed to the hidden treasure by the vapor which rose from the place that concealed it. All the stones found in the country were used for ornamental purposes, but emeralds, amethysts, and turquoises were most abundant. The jewels were cut with copper tools with the aid of a silicious sand. Single stones were carved in various forms, often those of animals, and set in gold, or sometimes formed into small cups or boxes. Pearls, mother of pearl, and bright-colored shells were used with the precious stones in the formation of necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings, and other decorations for the nobles or for the idols. Various articles of dress or armor were completely studded with gems tastefully arranged, and a kind of mosaic, with which wooden masks for the idols were often covered, attracted much attention among the Spaniards. Mirrors of rock crystal, obsidian, and other stones, brightly polished and encased in rich frames, were said to reflect the human face as clearly as the best of European manufacture.[600]

Trees were felled with copper hatchets, hewn with the same instruments into beams, and dragged by slaves over rollers to the place where they were needed for building. Some of the chief idols, as for instance that of Huitzilopochtli, according to Acosta, were of wood, but wood-carving was not apparently carried to a high degree of perfection. Some boxes, furnished with lids and hinges, also tables and chairs, were made of wood, which was the chief material of weapons and agricultural implements. The authorities devote but few words to the workers in wood, who, however, after the conquest seem to have become quite skillful under Spanish instruction, and with the aid of European tools. Fire-wood was sold in the markets; and Las Casas also tells us that charcoal was burned.[601]

[Sidenote: MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY.]

At Cholula the best pottery was made, but throughout the whole country nearly all the dishes used were of clay. Pots, kettles, vases, plates for domestic use, as well as censers and other utensils for the temple service, also idols, beads, and various ornaments were modeled from this material. The early Spaniards were enthusiastic in praising the native potters' skill, but beyond the statement that vessels of earthen ware were glazed and often tastefully decorated, they give no definite information respecting this branch of manufactures. Many small earthen trumpets, or flageolets, capable of producing various sounds, and of imitating the cries of different birds, have been found in different parts of the Mexican Republic. Fortunately relics of pottery in every form are of frequent occurrence in the museums, and from the description of such relics in another volume the excellence of Aztec pottery may be estimated. Besides the earthen dishes, and vessels of metal and carved wood, some baskets were made, and drinking-cups or bowls of different sizes and shapes were formed from the hollow shells of gourds. These were known as _xicalli_, later jicaras, and _tecomatl_.[602] Seashells were also used as dishes to some extent.[603]

The finer kinds of cloth were made of cotton, of rabbit-hair, of the two mixed, or of cotton mixed with feathers. The rabbit-hair fabrics were pronounced equal in finish and texture to silk, and cotton cloths were also fine and white. Fabrics of this better class were used for articles of dress by the rich, nobles, and priests; they were both woven and dyed in variegated colors. The cloths in the manufacture of which feathers were employed often served for carpets, tapestry, and bed-coverings. Maguey-fibre, and that of the palm-leaves _icxotl_ and _izhuatl_ were woven into coarse cloths, the maguey-cloth being known as _nequen_. This nequen and the coarser kinds of cotton were the materials with which the poorer classes clothed themselves. The palm and maguey fibres were prepared for use in the same manner as flax in other countries, being soaked in water, pounded, and dried. The same material served also for cords, ropes, and mats. A coarser kind of matting was, however, made of different varieties of reeds. All the work of spinning and weaving was performed by the women, forming indeed their chief employment. The spindle used in spinning, shown in many of the Aztec manuscripts, was like a top, which was set whirling in a shallow dish, the fibre being applied to its pointed upper extremity until the impetus was exhausted. All we know of the native process of weaving is derived from the native paintings, a sample of which from the Mendoza Collection, showing a woman engaged in weaving, may be seen in