The eye-balls are nodules of iron-pyrites, cut hemispherically and highly polished, and are surrounded by circles of hard white shell, similar to that forming the teeth of the wooden mask.

The Aztecs made their mirrors of iron-pyrites polished, and are the only people who are known to have put this material to ornamental use.

The mixture of art, civilization, and barbarism which the hideous aspect of this green and black skull-mask presents accords with the condition of Mexico at the time of the Conquest, under which human sacrifices on a gigantic scale were coincident with much refinement in arts and manners.

The European history of these three specimens is somewhat curious.  With the exception of two in the Museum at Copenhagen, obtained many years ago by Professor Thomsen from a convent in Rome, and, though greatly dilapidated, presenting some traces of the game kind of ornamentation, they are believed to be unique.

The Wooden Mask and the Knife were long known in a collection at Florence.  Thirty years ago the mask was brought into England from that city, as Egyptian:  and, somewhat later, the knife was obtained from Venice.

Subsequently the Skull-mask, with a wig of hair said to be a scalp, was found at Bruges; a locality which leads to the presumption that the mask was brought from Mexico soon after the Conquest in 1521, and prior to the expulsion of the Spaniards from Flanders consequent on the revolt of the Low Countries in 1579.

Note.—­It happens singularly enough, that a curious old work, Aldrorandus, Musaeum Metallicum, Bologna, 1613, contains drawings of a knife and wooden mask ornamented with mosaic-work of stone, made just in the came way as those described above, and only differing from them in the design.  What became of them I cannot tell.

* * * * *

VI.  DASENT’S ESSAY ON THE ETHNOGRAPHICAL VALUE OF POPULAR TALES AND LEGENDS.

Whilst treating of legendary lore in connection with Ethnographry, we must not forget to refer the reader to the highly useful and philosophical remarks on this subject in Dasent’s Introduction to his Popular Tales from the Norse.[25] Here we see that not only are the popular tales of any nation indicative of its early condition and its later progress, but also that the legends, fables, and tales of the Indo-European nations, at least, bear internal evidence of their having grown out of a few simple notes—­of having sprung from primaeval germs originating with the old Aryan family, from whom successive migrations carried away the original myth to be elaborated or degraded according to the genius and habits of the people.

Thus other means of resolving the relations of the early races of Man are added to those previously afforded by ethnographical and philological research.

INDEX.