was also practised by the later Yucatec, by rubbing with a stone dipped in water. The ears and nose were pierced and ornaments worn in the apertures. Plugs with long pendants were carried in the ears, and the monuments and manuscripts show figures with the lobes considerably lengthened by the weight of the ornaments inserted in them (e.g. Pl. XXII; p. 294). In the nose a bar was worn, of the same pattern as is occasionally seen in Totonac pottery (Pl. XVIII, 5; p. 194). Sometimes the bar terminated each end in a long tuft of feathers, as among the Huaxtec, and ornaments of this description are common on the stelæ at Menché. The peculiar curved nose-ornament associated with the sun-god has already been mentioned. As a rule the ears of the men were much scarified from ceremonial bloodletting.
Paint was much used as a body-decoration by the historical Yucatec, red being the favourite colour for women and married men; bachelors usually painted themselves black. Pottery stamps are among the remains commonly found throughout the Maya region, and no doubt some of these were used to impress designs upon the body as in Mexico. Tatu was also practised, and Landa states that the more ornamented a man was in this way, the more respect he won from his associates. The decoration was usually applied at marriage, the design being first painted on and then pricked in. Women also covered the body with tatu from the waist upwards, with the exception of the breasts. Probably the custom was of long standing, since ornament simulating tatu is often seen on the faces of the figures on the monuments. The Yucatec were fond of perfumes, and the women were in the habit of rubbing the body with a pottery brick impregnated with a sweet-smelling gum
The men of Yucatan at any rate wore no hair on their faces in Spanish times, and it is said that mothers
