The Daughters of Mexico in the Dress of the Daughters of the Nile

Did the Pharaohs, the Babylonians, and the Indians borrow civilization from Mexico?

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Opportunity allowed me to visit the land of Mexico three months before the last war, and a friend invited me to take dinner at one of the great restaurants of Mexico City, the capital. My eye was caught by the dress of the young ladies working in the restaurant, for this dress reminded me of what I had so often seen in the Cairo Museum among the Pharaonic mummies — especially since it did not differ, from head-covering down to sandal, from the attire of woman in the age of the Pharaohs, whether in its cut, its colors, or its patterns.

And why had the owner of the restaurant chosen for his working girls the garments of the daughters of the Nile in the Pharaonic age? I put this question to my companion, and he smiled and said: "This costume is nothing other than the costume of the women of Mexico in olden times."

This answer stirred my attention and my eagerness to discover the historical link between Egypt and Mexico, and my interest in it grew when I saw, in the plain of Teotihuacán at the bend of the Valley of Mexico, fifty kilometers from the capital, and at Xochicalco and Cholula, pyramids standing like the pyramids of Egypt, built upon a geometric base so as to serve as a sundial marking the seasons of the year, like the Great Pyramid of Giza. I asked myself, too, whether Egyptian culture had reached the American continent, carrying with it the design of the pyramids; indeed I let my thinking run further than that — to wondering whether the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the art of embalming that went with it, had also accompanied, on its journey from Egypt to Mexico, the scheme of the pyramids, given the bond between the two — the more so because the method of embalming was one and the same among the Pharaohs and the inhabitants of South America, differing not even in the smallest details.

This interest in the past aroused in me a curiosity to observe the living of today as well, to inquire into their circumstances and to see whether a resemblance still exists between Egypt and Mexico in the present age.

One would suppose any likeness between the two countries to be ruled out, for the land of Mexico stands upon lofty mountains cut through by deep valleys, and in its people appear the hardness of rocks and the fierceness of eagles, while Egypt spreads out around the fertile, well-watered valley of the Nile, and in its inhabitants appear the softness of rivers and the sweetness of the birds' song. And yet I have noticed many points of resemblance, down to our own day, between Egyptians and Mexicans, especially in farming circles. How often they resemble one another in the choice of colors and the shapes of the women's garments and their golden necklaces! And how closely they come together in their reliance on the old agricultural methods and their implements! This is besides their resemblance in certain old customs, such as betrothal and certain popular festivities. Indeed, the likeness between the two peoples often appears in certain foods as well: stewed fava beans are the popular dish among the Egyptians, and likewise in Mexico corn seasoned with sour and pepper is the popular dish too. Corn is, for the Mexicans, the most important element of food; they depend on it as the Egyptian peasant depends on beans, and they use the transparent leaves of its ears as wrappers for tobacco.

Add to this that just as the Egyptian is by nature fond of hot spices, and relishes dishes laden with all sorts of peppers and allspice, so the Mexican too takes the greatest care over these spices, especially the hot ones; and their passion for them goes so far that in the city of Mérida they make fruit condiments laden with hot pepper.

Moreover, for all the differences between the Mexican and the Egyptian in certain traits of character, there are between them points of resemblance in other innate respects. Lightheartedness, love of amusement, and unconcern for the morrow are of the Mexican's nature just as they are of the nature of Egyptians of old stock. The Mexican spends his day's earnings without any reckoning for the morrow, going by the rule "spend what is in the pocket, and what is in the unseen will come."

It may be said: let us attribute this abundant resemblance between the two peoples to the effect of climate and heat in both countries, since each of them lies near the equator. Very well — if

we take that view, and still wish history to have some connection with that resemblance, how then are we to explain the resemblance between them in their distinctive national crafts?

If you enter the shop of a dealer in Mexican curios and national handicrafts, and glance right and left, observing the native textiles and all the other manufactures that keep the Mexican style, and see the rugs and the pottery and the shapes of the boats, and ponder the patterns, dyes, colors, designs, and tastes before you, you would imagine yourself entering one of the curio shops of Cairo, or a museum among the Pharaonic museums.

Beyond this, I have noticed that the Indians of Mexico, who are the mass of the people, resemble the East not only in what lies between them and the inhabitants of the countryside of Egypt and Iraq, but further still, in the many resemblances between them and the people of the deserts of the other Arab lands.

By coincidence, while writing these words I came upon a letter I had addressed to my wife from Mexico City on April 11, 1939, in which I touched on this subject and said: We would cross long distances and see in them only a few scattered Indians — and they are still a majority in Mexico, perhaps two thirds of the population. As for their dress, it is a white shirt and white trousers, and over their shoulders a striped woolen blanket, most like the rugs of the Bedouin in the lands of Syria — the work of their own hands. They walk with swords drawn, and sometimes gird on bow and arrows.

Those are the people of the mountains. In the flat country the inhabitants are country folk, most like the settled Bedouin of our lands and the peasants of Egypt: they carry laban on donkeys, and on them and on their own backs they transport their villages' crops and produce to sell in the markets. Often I would see the woman carrying these burdens alone, while her husband walked beside her with the gait of a lord, or walked on ahead of her.

Often I would see the peasant women carrying their children on their backs, wrapped in their waist-cloths after the fashion of the Bedouin women in our lands, or with threads of fluffed wool thrown over their shoulders, spinning it with the spindle as they walked. As for the houses of these Indians, they are huts of palm fronds roofed with straw, or huts built of fronds resembling banana leaves and roofed with certain plants.

On the men's heads are great broad hats. As for the women, they wrap themselves from the crown of the head to the foot in garments like the izars of the women of the village of Douma in Syria, some striped and some black.