Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/330

322 been handed down from father to son, guarded as a secret so closely that but few of the Mexican Indians of the present day are adepts at it. The feather pictures produced by them are as much works of art as the best paintings; and the beautiful feathers of trogon, paroquet, and humming-bird are as delicately laid on and as skilfully blended as the colors from the hand of a master.

Another evidence of refinement of taste in the Indian is to be found in the "rag figures," which have a reputation that is not less than world-wide. The French, in their invasion of Mexico, went into raptures over these marvellous imitations of life scenes that were passing before their eyes every day, and declared they excelled the work of the best Chinese, Genoese, and Japanese workmen. The Aztec is patient; therein lies the secret of his success. Whether he be engaged in blending the metallic scales from the humming-bird's throat in one of those wonderful feather pictures, or whether moulding an image from plastic material, he puts his whole soul into the work, and considers not time nor labor till the thing is accomplished. The vast multitudes that throng the streets and markets of Mexico furnish him with subjects for his patient fingers. Upon a core of carefully-manipulated wax he moulds a skin of thin, specially-prepared cloth, tinted the exact color of the tawny people he purposes to represent. He does not draw upon his imagination for material, but imitates exactly the figures that move through the street before his workshop door.

Thus we have speaking likenesses of every type in Mexico, from the poor Indian, whose nakedness is barely concealed by a tattered shirt or leather breeches, to the gayly decorated caballero, mounted upon his silver-bespangled steed. There is the charcoal-seller, with a donkey-load of coal upon his back; it may be man or woman, and if the latter, she will have, in