Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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DISCOVERIES AT THE AZTEC RUIN 175 What appear to have been snow- shoes consist of an oval frame of wil- low laced across with yucca, and stuffed with husks and grass. They were found in pairs, some of them large, others evidently fashioned for the feet of children. Numerous ornaments and perhaps ceremonial objects were mingled with the sweepings. There are disc-shaped beads of black, white, gray, and red stone, some of them only one sixteenth of an inch in diameter; a number of quartz crystals, one of them bound to a cotton cord with sinew; beaver tusks pierced and strung upon cords, and held in place by a backing of pitch; and more than three hundred sets of turquoise, shell, and coral-colored stone which had been inlaid in gum upon the surface of some object. Although these descriptions are brief and fragmentar)^, they indicate the variety and richness of the material which may be expected to reward the continued excavation of the Aztec ruin. When the work has been finished, the features of the ruin itself and the wealth of specimens from it should make possible an accurate and compre- hensive reconstruction of the material culture, as well as an instructive in- sight into the thoughts, beliefs, and customs of the people, evidences of whose handiwork caused the imagina- tive Spaniards to name the river which flows past their village Eio de las Ani- mas Perditas—the River of Lost Souls.
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These corrugated cooking vessels are found, the larger ones sitting about where they were aban- doned, sometimes in the ashes of extinguished fires; the smaller ones in the graves where they were placed to contain food for the dead. Why those who dwelt in the Aztec ruin should have used only vessels with rough exteriors for culinary purposes, is a question that is still unanswered

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