The turkey, which was introduced into Europe from Mexico, was called huexolotl from the gobbling noise it makes. (It must be remembered that x and j in Spanish are not the same letters as in English, but a hard guttural aspirate, like the German ch).  The name, slightly altered into guajalote, is still used in Mexico; but when these birds were brought to Europe, the Spaniards called them peacocks (pavos).  To get rid of the confusion, it became necessary to call the real peacock “pavon” (big peacock), or “pavo real” (royal peacock).  The German name for a turkey, “Waelscher Hahn,” “Italian fowl,” is reasonable, for the Germans got them from Italy; but our name “turkey” is wonderfully absurd.

There may be other Mexican words to be found in our language, but not many.  The Mexicans were cultivating maize and tobacco when the Spaniards invaded the country, and had done so for ages; but these vegetables had been found already in the West India islands, and had got their name from the language of Hayti, mahiz and tabaco; the latter word, it seems, meaning not the tobacco itself, but the cigars made of it.

I do not recollect anything else worthy of note that Europe has borrowed from Ancient Mexico, except Botanic Gardens, and dishes made to keep hot at dinner-time, which the Aztecs managed by having a pan of burning charcoal underneath them.

To return to the Museum.  There are stamps in terra-cotta with geometrical patterns, for making lines and ornaments on the vases before they were baked, and for stamping patterns upon the cotton cloth which was one of their principal manufactures, as it is now.  Connected with the same art are the malacates, or winders, which I have already described.  Little grotesque heads made of baked clay, like those I have mentioned as being found in such immense numbers on the sites of old Mexican cities, are here by hundreds.  I think there were, besides, some of the moulds, also in terra-cotta, in which they were formed; at any rate, they are to be seen, so that making the little heads must have been a regular trade.  What they were for is not so easy to say.  Some have bodies, and are made with flat backs to stand against a wall, and these were probably idols.  The ancient Mexicans, we read, had household-gods in great numbers, and called them Tepitotons, “little ones.”  The greatest proportion, however, are mere heads which never had had bodies, and will not stand anyhow.  They could not have been personal ornaments, for there is nothing to fasten them on by.  They are rather a puzzle.  I have seen a suggestion somewhere, that when a man was buried, each surviving member of his family put one of these heads into his grave.  This sounds plausible enough, especially as both male and female heads are found.