CHAPTER XII—THE MAYA: DRESS, DAILY LIFE AND CRAFTS
THE historical Maya were of fair height and sturdy, qualities which appear also upon the monuments. A peculiar appearance was given to the head by the practice of cranial deformation which prevailed from the earliest times. Boards were applied to the heads of infants so that the forehead and occiput were flattened, and the crown assumed in profile a "sugar-loaf" aspect. Individuals exhibiting this form of distortion in a marked degree are shown in Figs. 49, 61, 82, and Pis. XXII and XXIV, pp. 294 and 310. Cranial deformation is relatively common in America, and the practice extended northwards along the west coast, and southwards into Peru, but the Maya were peculiar in considering a squint a mark of beauty. Landa states that the Yucatec mothers were accustomed to suspend some small object from the forelock of a child in order to produce the desired result. We have seen that tooth-chipping was characteristic of the Huaxtec, Totonac and Mixtec in Mexico, and that the Huaxtec and Mixtec were also accustomed to ornament the teeth further by means of inlay. Both these practices were widespread among the Maya. Allusion has already been made to the chipped teeth which appear as attributes of the sun-god (see Fig. 72; p. 316, and the cover-design), and it may now be mentioned that teeth mutilated in exactly the same fashion have been found in burials at Copan, in the Uloa valley, and in caves at Loltun. Teeth inlaid with small circular plugs of jadeite have also been found at the first of these sites. Tooth-filing 294
294
