Page:The American Indian.djvu/132

90 of the Spanish conquest practically obliterated the native culture. No doubt careful research would still reveal many surviving traits in the present populations of these countries but such studies have not been sufficiently numerous to assist us. As suggestions we may cite Tozzer's study of the Lacandones as a surviving Maya people.

With numerous dense groups of people, as in ancient Mexico and Peru, where a political organization gradually overflowed and submerged the successive local groups, there must have been a great variety of art types that persisted in the homely affairs of life; but the succeednigsucceeding [sic] centuries of European trade



seem to have swept them into oblivion. For Mexico and southward we have no clear idea of the aboriginal textile development. Among the present Huichol we find considerable weaving in which the designs have a marked realistic tendency. So far as known, this is a trait of the modern textile art for the whole stretch of country from the Rio Grande to Panama. While it is certain that we have here a result due in part to contact with Spanish culture, there is no reason for assuming that a new textile art was created since the conquest. The general similarity to Peru, in the range and direction of conventionalization, is sufficient warrant for assuming an original textile art of a similar level. We may, however, get some idea of Maya textile design from the known sculptures and codices. According to early Spanish authorities, the Maya peoples were the most expert weavers in New Spain, which statement, if true, enables us to gauge the whole state of the art from the illustrations the native artists have left us. From these the specific resemblances to modern