Their defensive arms were equaIly suited to their needs. Round or oval shields, chimalli, were made of sturdy bambo overIaid with leather, tortoise shelI, copper, gold, or silver and adorned with precious stones in designs that accorded with the rank of the owner. A padded cotton shirt, ichcahuipilli, offered near-perfect protection against enemy spears, arrows, and stones. Over this was worn a tunie, ehuatl, that hung to the knees and was adorned with feathers. Some warriors wore padded suits, like jump suits, which were also frequentIy adorned with feathers. So effective was this padded cotton armor that the Spaniards soon discarded their own heavy metal armor in favor of it, for as BernaI Díaz del Castillo remarks, "son buenos para entre indios, porque es mucha la vara, y fleche y lanzadas que daban, pues piedra era como granizo". Unhappily for the Indians, their wonderful cotton armor did not avail against Spanish missiles. One could say that the adoption of the ichcahuipilli by the Spaniards is the symbol par excel1ence of the inevitability of the Conquest of Mexico.