The most brilliant plumage of the birds of the tropics were sought out with which to imi tate the colors of nature. Shortly after the Conquest a Great Christian-Pagan feather mo saic was sent to Pope Paul III; and so excel lent was its workmanship that his Holiness would not believe it had not been painted in oil until he had tested it by examining it closely and carefully. This work so impressed him that he expedited a bull, in 1537, rehabilitating the Indian races of Mexico, the greater part of whom had already been reduced to slavery in the 16 years that had elapsed since the Conquest.
Feather-work mosaics and other forms of ornamentation and decorative feather art en tered into the very life of the Mexican people prior to the Conquest. All the land of the Aztecs was searched for artists who showed special talent in this difficult and exacting kind of work Children were trained from childhood in special schools of art and their masters were themselves the most skilled artists of the land. Picture-making was, however, but a part of their instruction. They•were schooled in the art of making princely garments for the em peror, the princes, the nobles and the priests and the noble ladies of the court: so highly was the art esteemed that the sovereigns them selves considered it high honor to be classed as even passably good feather artists. Clazonai, king of Michoacan, next to Textoco, the great est centre of feather-work, enjoyed the dis tinction of being the best artist in his kingdom; and he was inordinately proud of his skill, probably more so than of his royal honors.
The Feather Market— The work of the feather artists developed a great commercial business for the Aztec merchants. The most highly appreciated feathers were bought and sold daily in the market, where they were so esteemed that they brought literally several times their weight in gold. They passed as currency among the Aztecs and neighboring nations; and nothing more valuable with which to pay the ransom of captured princes or con quered kingdoms existed than they. Captives who were good feather artists brought high prices in the market and, for this reason, their lives were spared from the sacrificial altar. Merchants devoted themselves especially to the buying and selling of art feathers; and the chief purchaser for the court held the title of purveyor of feathers to the sovereign. Men
of fine artistic tastes were trained to sort feathers and to arrange them into classes ac cording to their color, fineness, merit and mar ket value. They held office under the govern ment and were highly paid officials.
Throughout the Aztec Empire, very stringent laws protected the birds from which the most esteemed feathers were obtained for the work of the artist; and the quetzal, the most highly valued of these favored ones, grew into a sacred bird, and as such his feathers could be worn only by the king and the high priest, both of whom represented their gods upon earth. The Aztec monarchs maintained great aviaries in the capital where birds of rare plumage were reared with the greatest care; and the stealing of feathers from' these royal aviaries was pun ished with death.
Centuries of training in art work of such an exacting nature as feather mosaics developed the artistic sense strongly in the artist caste of the Mexican people; and it is not at all strange that this ability began to show itself in a new way shortly after the Conquest, when Spanish friars and missionaries, many of them no mean artists themselves, began to teach the prin ciples of European art to the pupils of the Mexican convents and schools, nearly all of whom belonged to the native nobility or to families dedicated to trade, to the arts, the crafts or to literature and music, all of which were held just a little lower than noble rank. The merchants who brought the precious feathers to the capital and distributed the manu factured product to the furthermost confines of the empire and to the countries beyond formed a guild unto themselves, over which presided Quetzalcoatl, the first half of whose name is formed from the the sacred bird and the symbol of divinity. It is still preserved upon the coat of arms of Guatemala_ But the very enthusiasm with which the natives threw themselves into the new learning called for the restraining hand of Spain, which gradu ally shut out from them almost every field of endeavor except that of painting, or so con trolled the workmen that the Spaniards got the profits and the glory from every accomplish ment.