HUICHOL (pronounced Veetchol--a corruption of the native name _Vishalika_ or _Virarika_, doctors or healers), a tribe of Mexican Indians living in a mountainous region on the eastern side of the Chapalagana river, Jalisco. Huichol tradition assigns the south as their place of origin. Their name of "healers" is deserved, for about one-fourth of the men are Shamans. The Huichols are in much the same social condition as at the time of the Aztec empire. They were conquered by the Spaniards in 1722. Entry: HUICHOL
A capacity to understand the nature of maps is possessed even by peoples whom we are in the habit of describing as "savages." Wandering tribes naturally enjoy a great advantage in this respect over sedentary ones. Our arctic voyagers--Sir E. W. Parry, Sir J. Ross, Sir F. L. MacClintock and others--have profited from rough maps drawn for them by Eskimos. Specimens of such maps are given in C. F. Hall's _Life with the Esquimaux_ (London, 1864). Henry Youle Hind, in his work on the Labrador Peninsula (London, 1863) praises the map which the Montagnais and Nasquapee Indians drew upon bark. Similar essays at map-making are reported in connexion with Australians, Maoris and Polynesians. Tupaya, a Tahitian, who accompanied Captain Cook in the "Endeavour" to Europe, supplied his patron with maps; Raraka drew a map in chalk of the Paumotu archipelago on the deck of Captain Wilkes's vessel; the Marshall islanders, according to Captain Winkler (_Marine Rundschau_, Oct. 1893) possess maps upon which the bearings of the islands are indicated by small strokes. Far superior were the maps found among the semi-civilized Mexicans when the Spaniards first discovered and invaded their country. Among them were cadastral plans of villages, maps of the provinces of the empire of the Aztecs, of towns and of the coast. Montezuma presented Cortes with a map, painted on Nequen cloth, of the Gulf coast. Another map did the Conquistador good service on his campaign against Honduras (Lorenzana, _Historia de nueva España_, Mexico, 1770; W. H. Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, New York, 1843). Peru, the empire of the Incas, had not only ordinary maps, but also maps in relief, for Pedro Sarmiento da Gamboa (_History of the Incas_, translated by A. R. Markham, 1907) tells us that the 9th Inca (who died in 1191) ordered such reliefs to be produced of certain localities in a district which he had recently conquered and intended to colonize. These were the first relief maps on record. It is possible that these primitive efforts of American Indians might have been further developed, but the Spanish conquest put a stop to all progress, and for a consecutive history of the map and map-making we must turn to the Old World, and trace this history from Egypt and Babylon, through Greece, to our own age. Entry: A
_History of Armorial Bearings._--In all ages and in all quarters of the world distinguishing symbols have been adopted by tribes or nations, by families or by chieftains. Greek and Roman poets describe the devices borne on the shields of heroes, and many such painted shields are pictured on antique vases. Rabbinical writers have supported the fancy that the standards of the tribes set up in their camps bore figures devised from the prophecy of Jacob, the ravening wolf for Benjamin, the lion's whelp for Judah and the ship of Zebulon. In the East we have such ancient symbols as the five-clawed dragon of the Chinese empire and the chrysanthemum of the emperor of Japan. In Japan, indeed, the systematized badges borne by the noble clans may be regarded as akin to the heraldry of the West, and the circle with the three asarum leaves of the Tokugawa shoguns has been made as familiar to us by Japanese lacquer and porcelain as the red pellets of the Medici by old Italian fabrics. Before the landing of the Spaniards in Mexico the Aztec chiefs carried shields and banners, some of whose devices showed after the fashion of a phonetic writing the names of their bearers; and the eagle on the new banner of Mexico may be traced to the eagle that was once carved over the palace of Montezuma. That mysterious business of totemism, which students of folk-lore have discovered among most primitive peoples, must be regarded as another of the forerunners of true heraldry, the totem of a tribe supplying a badge which was sometimes displayed on the body of the tribesman in paint, scars or tattooing. Totemism so far touches our heraldry that some would trace to its symbols the white horse of Westphalia, the bull's head of the Mecklenburgers and many other ancient armories. Entry: HERALDRY