CONCLUSION--SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF CORTES
APPENDIX
CONTENTS OF VOL. I
BOOK I
INTRODUCTION--VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT MEXICO--CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS--PRIMITIVE RACES--AZTEC
EMPIRE
PAGE
Extent of the Aztec Territory 4
The Hot Region 5
Volcanic Scenery 7
Cordillera of the Andes 8
Table-land in the Days of the Aztecs 9
Valley of Mexico 10
The Toltecs 12
Their mysterious Disappearance 16
Races from the Northwest 17
Their Hostilities 19
Foundation of Mexico 21
Domestic Feuds 22
League of the kindred Tribes 23
Rapid Rise of Mexico 25
Prosperity of the Empire 26
Criticism on Veytia’s History 27
CHAPTER II
SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN--AZTEC NOBILITY--JUDICIAL SYSTEM--LAWS
AND REVENUES--MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
Election of the Sovereign 34
His Coronation 37
Aztec Nobles 38
Their barbaric Pomp 39
Tenure of their Estates 40
Legislative Power 41
Judicial System 42
Independent Judges 43
Their Mode of Procedure 44
Showy Tribunal 45
Hieroglyphical Paintings 46
Marriage Rites 49
Slavery in Mexico 49
Royal Revenues 51
Burdensome Imposts 54
Public Couriers 55
Military Enthusiasm 56
Aztec Ambassadors 57
Orders of Knighthood 57
Gorgeous Armor 58
National Standard 59
Military Code 60
Hospitals for the Wounded 61
Influence of Conquest on a Nation 63
Criticism on Torquemada’s History 64
Abbé Clavigero 65
CHAPTER III
MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY--THE SACERDOTAL ORDER--THE TEMPLES--HUMAN
SACRIFICES
Systems of Mythology 67
Mythology of the Aztecs 68
Ideas of a God 69
Sanguinary War-god 70
God of the Air 71
Mystic Legends 72
Division of Time 75
Future State 76
Funeral Ceremonies 77
Baptismal Rites 78
Monastic Orders 80
Feasts and Flagellation 82
Aztec Confessional 82
Education of the Youth 83
Revenue of the Priests 85
Mexican Temples 86
Religious Festivals 88
Human Sacrifices 89
The Captive’s Doom 90
Ceremonies of Sacrifice 91
Torturing of the Victim 92
Sacrifice of Infants 92
Cannibal Banquets 93
Number of Victims 94
Houses of Skulls 95
Cannibalism of the Aztecs 99
Criticism on Sahagun’s History 101
CHAPTER IV
MEXICAN HIEROGLYPHICS--MANUSCRIPTS--ARITHMETIC--CHRONOLOGY--ASTRONOMY
Dawning of Science 105
Picture-writing 106
Aztec Hieroglyphics 108
Manuscripts of the Mexicans 109
Emblematic Symbols 110
Phonetic Signs 111
Materials of the Aztec Manuscripts 114
Form of their Volumes 115
Destruction of most of them 116
Remaining Manuscripts 117
Difficulty of deciphering them 120
Minstrelsy of the Aztecs 123
Theatrical Entertainments 124
System of Notation 124
Their Chronology 126
The Aztec Era 129
Calendar of the Priests 132
Science of Astrology 135
Astrology of the Aztecs 136
Their Astronomy 137
Wonderful Attainments in this Science 138
Remarkable Festival 140
Carnival of the Aztecs 142
Lord Kingsborough’s Work 143
Criticism on Gama 144
CHAPTER V
AZTEC AGRICULTURE--MECHANICAL ARTS--MERCHANTS--DOMESTIC
MANNERS
Mechanical Genius 146
Agriculture 147
Mexican Husbandry 148
Vegetable Products 150
Mineral Treasures 153
Skill of the Aztec Jewellers 155
Sculpture 156
Huge Calendar-stone 157
Aztec Dyes 159
Beautiful Feather-work 160
Fairs of Mexico 161
National Currency 161
Trades 162
Aztec Merchants 163
Militant Traders 163
Domestic Life 165
Kindness to Children 166
Polygamy 166
Condition of the Sex 167
Social Entertainments 167
Use of Tobacco 168
Culinary Art 169
Agreeable Drinks 170
Dancing 171
Intoxication 172
Criticism on Boturini’s Work 173
CHAPTER VI
TEZCUCANS--THEIR GOLDEN AGE--ACCOMPLISHED PRINCES--DECLINE
OF THEIR MONARCHY
The Alcolhuans or Tezcucans 176
Prince Nezahualcoyotl 177
His Persecution 178
His Hair-breadth Escapes 179
His wandering Life 180
Fidelity of his Subjects 181
Triumphs over his Enemies 182
Remarkable League 183
General Amnesty 183
The Tezcucan Code 184
Departments of Government 184
Council of Music 185
Its Censorial Office 185
Literary Taste 186
Tezcucan Bards 188
Royal Ode 188
Resources of Nezahualcoyotl 191
His magnificent Palace 192
His Gardens and Villas 193
Address of the Priest 195
His Baths 197
Luxurious Residence 198
Existing Remains of it 199
Royal Amours 200
Marriage of the King 202
Forest Laws 203
Strolling Adventures 204
Munificence of the Monarch 205
His Religion 206
Temple to the _Unknown God_ 208
Philosophic Retirement 209
His plaintive Verses 209
Last Hours of Nezahualcoyotl 211
His Character 213
Succeeded by Nezahualpilli 214
The Lady of Tula 215
Executes his Son 216
Effeminacy of the King 217
His consequent Misfortunes 217
Death of Nezahualpilli 218
Tezcucan Civilization 219
Criticism on Ixtlilxochitl’s Writings 220
ORIGIN OF THE MEXICAN CIVILIZATION--ANALOGIES
WITH THE OLD WORLD
PRELIMINARY NOTICE
Speculations on the New World 225
Manner of its Population 225
Plato’s Atlantis 226
Modern Theory 227
Communication with the Old World 228
Origin of American Civilization 230
Plan of the Essay 231
Analogies suggested by the Mexicans to the Old World 232
Their Traditions of the Deluge 233
Resemble the Hebrew Accounts 234
Temple of Cholula 234
Analogy to the Tower of Babel 235
The Mexican Eve 236
The God Quetzalcoatl 236
Natural Errors of the Missionaries 237
The Cross in Anahuac 238
Eucharist and Baptism 239
Chroniclers strive for Coincidences 241
Argument drawn from these 242
Resemblance of social Usages 245
Analogies from Science 246
Chronological System 247
Hieroglyphics and Symbols 247
Adjustment of Time 248
Affinities of Language 248
Difficulties of Comparison 251
Traditions of Migration 252
Tests of their Truth 253
Physical Analogies 254
Architectural Remains 256
Destructive Spirit of the Spaniards 257
Ruins in Chiapa and Yucatan 258
Works of Art 259
Tools for Building 260
Little Resemblance to Egyptian Art 261
Sculpture 262
Hieroglyphics 263
Probable Age of these Monuments 265
Their probable Architects 267
Difficulties in forming a Conclusion 269
Ignorance of Iron and of Milk 270
Unsatisfactory Explanations 271
General Conclusions 272
BOOK II
DISCOVERY OF MEXICO
CHAPTER I
SPAIN UNDER CHARLES V.--PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY--COLONIAL
POLICY--CONQUEST OF CUBA--EXPEDITIONS TO YUCATAN
Condition of Spain 277
Increase of Empire 278
Cardinal Ximénes 279
Arrival of Charles the Fifth 279
Swarm of Flemings 280
Opposition of the Cortes 281
Colonial Administration 282
Spirit of Chivalry 283
Progress of Discovery 284
Advancement of Colonization 285
System of _Repartimientos_ 285
Colonial Policy 286
Discovery of Cuba 287
Its Conquest by Velasquez 288
Cordova’s Expedition to Yucatan 289
His Reception by the Natives 291
Grijalva’s Expedition 292
Civilization in Yucatan 292
Traffic with the Indians 293
His Return to Cuba 294
His cool Reception 294
Ambitious Schemes of the Governor 295
Preparations for an Expedition 296
CHAPTER II
HERNANDO CORTÉS--HIS EARLY LIFE--VISITS THE NEW WORLD--HIS
RESIDENCE IN CUBA--DIFFICULTIES WITH VELASQUEZ--ARMADA
INTRUSTED TO CORTÉS
Hernando Cortés 297
His Education 298
Choice of a Profession 299
Departure for America 300
Arrival at Hispaniola 301
His Mode of Life 302
Enlists under Velasquez 303
Habits of Gallantry 304
Disaffected towards Velasquez 304
Cortés in Confinement 305
Flies into a Sanctuary 306
Again put in Irons 307
His perilous Escape 307
His Marriage 308
Reconciled with the Governor 308
Retires to his Plantation 309
Armada intrusted to Cortés 311
Preparations for the Voyage 313
Instructions to Cortés 314
CHAPTER III
JEALOUSY OF VELASQUEZ--CORTÉS EMBARKS--EQUIPMENT OF HIS
FLEET--HIS PERSON AND CHARACTER--RENDEZVOUS AT HAVANA--STRENGTH
OF HIS ARMAMENT
Jealousy of Velasquez 317
Intrigues against Cortés 318
His clandestine Embarkation 319
Arrives at Macaca 320
Accession of Volunteers 321
Stores and Ammunition 322
Orders from Velasquez to arrest Cortés 323
He raises the Standard at Havana 324
Person of Cortés 325
His Character 326
Strength of Armament 327
Stirring Address to his Troops 329
Fleet weighs Anchor 330
Remarks on Estrella’s Manuscript 331
CHAPTER IV
VOYAGE TO COZUMEL--CONVERSION OF THE NATIVES--JERONIMO
DE AGUILAR--ARMY ARRIVES AT TABASCO--GREAT BATTLE
WITH THE INDIANS--CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCED
Disastrous Voyage to Cozumel 332
Humane Policy of Cortés 333
Cross found in the Island 334
Religious Zeal of the Spaniards 335
Attempts at Conversion 336
Overthrow of the Idols 338
Jerónimo de Aguilar 339
His Adventures 340
Employed as an Interpreter 342
Fleet arrives at Tabasco 342
Hostile Reception 343
Fierce Defiance of the Natives 344
Desperate Conflict 345
Effect of the Fire-arms 345
Cortés takes Tabasco 346
Ambush of the Indians 348
The Country in Arms 348
Preparations for Battle 349
March on the Enemy 350
Joins Battle with the Indians 351
Doubtful Struggle 352
Terror at the War-horse 352
Victory of the Spaniards 354
Number of Slain 355
Treaty with the Natives 356
Conversion of the Heathen 357
Catholic Communion 357
Spaniards embark for Mexico 358
CHAPTER V
VOYAGE ALONG THE COAST--DOÑA MARINA--SPANIARDS LAND IN
MEXICO--INTERVIEW WITH THE AZTECS
Voyage along the Coast 359
Natives come on Board 360
Doña Marina 361
Her History 361
Her Beauty and Character 362
First Tidings of Montezuma 364
Spaniards land in Mexico 365
First Interview with the Aztecs 366
Their magnificent Presents 368
Cupidity of the Spaniards 369
Cortés displays his Cavalry 370
Aztec Paintings 370
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE LANDING OF CORTÉS AT VERA CRUZ _Frontispiece_
From a painting especially made for this edition by L. Kowalsky.
MAP OF THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED BY THE SPANIARDS ON THEIR
MARCH TO MEXICO 1
FRA BARTOLOMÉ DE LAS CASAS 94
After an engraving in “Ritratos de los Espagnoles illustres,
1791.”
OUR LADY OF GUADALOUPE 172
From a photograph by Waite, of Mexico.
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES V. 276
After the painting by Titian at Munich.
PORTRAIT OF HERNANDO CORTÉS 296
From an engraving by Masson, after the painting by Ant. Moro.
BOOK I
INTRODUCTION
VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION
[Illustration: MAP OF THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED BY THE
FOR PRESCOTT’S HISTORY]
[Illustration: SPANIARDS ON THEIR MARCH TO MEXICO.
ON THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO.]
CONQUEST OF MEXICO
CHAPTER I
ANCIENT MEXICO--CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS--PRIMITIVE RACES--AZTEC EMPIRE
Of all that extensive empire which once acknowledged the authority of
Spain in the New World, no portion, for interest and importance, can be
compared with Mexico;--and this equally, whether we consider the variety
of its soil and climate; the inexhaustible stores of its mineral wealth;
its scenery, grand and picturesque beyond example; the character of its
ancient inhabitants, not only far surpassing in intelligence that of the
other North American races, but reminding us, by their monuments, of the
primitive civilization of Egypt and Hindostan; or, lastly, the peculiar
circumstances of its Conquest, adventurous and romantic as any legend
devised by Norman or Italian bard of chivalry. It is the purpose of the
present narrative to exhibit the history of this Conquest, and that of
the remarkable man by whom it was achieved.
But, in order that the reader may have a better understanding of the
subject, it will be well, before entering on it, to take a general
survey of the political and social institutions of the races who
occupied the land at the time of its discovery.
The country of the ancient Mexicans, or Aztecs as they were called,
formed but a very small part of the extensive territories comprehended
in the modern republic of Mexico.[4] Its boundaries cannot be defined
with certainty. They were much enlarged in the latter days of the
empire, when they may be considered as reaching from about the
eighteenth degree north, to the twenty-first, on the Atlantic; and from
the fourteenth to the nineteenth, including a very narrow strip, on the
Pacific.[5] In its greatest breadth, it could not exceed five degrees
and a half, dwindling, as it approached its southeastern limits, to less
than two. It covered, probably, less than sixteen thousand square
leagues.[6] Yet such is the remarkable formation of this country, that,
though not more than twice as large as New England, it presented every
variety of climate, and was capable of yielding nearly every fruit,
found between the equator and the Arctic circle.
All along the Atlantic, the country is bordered by a broad tract, called
the _tierra caliente_, or hot region, which has the usual high
temperature of equinoctial lands. Parched and sandy plains are
intermingled with others, of exuberant fertility, almost impervious from
thickets of aromatic shrubs and wild flowers, in the midst of which
tower up trees of that magnificent growth which is found only within
the tropics. In this wilderness of sweets lurks the fatal _malaria_,
engendered, probably, by the decomposition of rank vegetable substances
in a hot and humid soil.[7] The season of the bilious fever,--_vómito_,
as it is called,--which scourges these coasts, continues from the spring
to the autumnal equinox, when it is checked by the cold winds that
descend from Hudson’s Bay. These winds in the winter season frequently
freshen into tempests, and sweeping down the Atlantic coast and the
winding Gulf of Mexico, burst with the fury of a hurricane on its
unprotected shores, and on the neighboring West India islands. Such are
the mighty spells with which Nature has surrounded this land of
enchantment, as if to guard the golden treasures locked up within its
bosom. The genius and enterprise of man have proved more potent than her
spells.
After passing some twenty leagues across this burning region, the
traveller finds himself rising into a purer atmosphere. His limbs
recover their elasticity. He breathes more freely, for his senses are
not now oppressed by the sultry heats and intoxicating perfumes of the
valley. The aspect of nature, too, has changed, and his eye no longer
revels among the gay variety of colors with which the landscape was
painted there. The vanilla, the indigo, and the flowering cacao-groves
disappear as he advances. The sugar-cane and the glossy-leaved banana
still accompany him; and, when he has ascended about four thousand
feet, he sees in the unchanging verdure, and the rich foliage of the
liquid-amber tree, that he has reached the height where clouds and mists
settle, in their passage from the Mexican Gulf. This is the region of
perpetual humidity; but he welcomes it with pleasure, as announcing his
escape from the influence of the deadly _vómito_.[8] He has entered the
_tierra templada_, or temperate region, whose character resembles that
of the temperate zone of the globe. The features of the scenery become
grand, and even terrible. His road sweeps along the base of mighty
mountains, once gleaming with volcanic fires, and still resplendent in
their mantles of snow, which serve as beacons to the mariner, for many a
league at sea. All around he beholds traces of their ancient combustion,
as his road passes along vast tracts of lava, bristling in the
innumerable fantastic forms into which the fiery torrent has been thrown
by the obstacles in its career. Perhaps, at the same moment, as he casts
his eye down some steep slope, or almost unfathomable ravine, on the
margin of the road, he sees their depths glowing with the rich blooms
and enamelled vegetation of the tropics. Such are the singular contrasts
presented, at the same time, to the senses, in this picturesque region!
Still pressing upwards, the traveller mounts into other climates,
favorable to other kinds of cultivation. The yellow maize, or Indian
corn, as we usually call it, has continued to follow him up from the
lowest level; but he now first sees fields of wheat, and the other
European grains brought into the country by the Conquerors. Mingled with
them, he views the plantations of the aloe or maguey (_agave
Americana_), applied to such various and important uses by the Aztecs.
The oaks now acquire a sturdier growth, and the dark forests of pine
announce that he has entered the _tierra fria_, or cold region,--the
third and last of the great natural terraces into which the country is
divided. When he has climbed to the height of between seven and eight
thousand feet, the weary traveller sets his foot on the summit of the
Cordillera of the Andes,--the colossal range that, after traversing
South America and the Isthmus of Darien, spreads out, as it enters
Mexico, into that vast sheet of table-land which maintains an elevation
of more than six thousand feet, for the distance of nearly two hundred
leagues, until it gradually declines in the higher latitudes of the
north.[9]
Across this mountain rampart a chain of volcanic hills stretches, in a
westerly direction, of still more stupendous dimensions, forming,
indeed, some of the highest land on the globe. Their peaks, entering the
limits of perpetual snow, diffuse a grateful coolness over the elevated
plateaus below; for these last, though termed “cold,” enjoy a climate
the mean temperature of which is not lower than that of the central
parts of Italy.[10] The air is exceedingly dry; the soil, though
naturally good, is rarely clothed with the luxuriant vegetation of the
lower regions. It frequently, indeed, has a parched and barren aspect,
owing partly to the greater evaporation which takes place on these lofty
plains, through the diminished pressure of the atmosphere, and partly,
no doubt, to the want of trees to shelter the soil from the fierce
influence of the summer sun. In the time of the Aztecs, the table-land
was thickly covered with larch, oak, cypress, and other forest trees,
the extraordinary dimensions of some of which, remaining to the present
day, show that the curse of barrenness in later times is chargeable more
on man than on nature. Indeed, the early Spaniards made as
indiscriminate war on the forest as did our Puritan ancestors, though
with much less reason. After once conquering the country, they had no
lurking ambush to fear from the submissive, semi-civilized Indian, and
were not, like our forefathers, obliged to keep watch and ward for a
century. This spoliation of the ground, however, is said to have been
pleasing to their imaginations, as it reminded them of the plains of
their own Castile,--the table-land of Europe;[11] where the nakedness of
the landscape forms the burden of every traveller’s lament who visits
that country.
Midway across the continent, somewhat nearer the Pacific than the
Atlantic Ocean, at an elevation of nearly seven thousand five hundred
feet, is the celebrated Valley of Mexico. It is of an oval form, about
sixty-seven leagues in circumference,[12] and is encompassed by a
towering rampart of porphyritic rock, which nature seems to have
provided, though ineffectually, to protect it from invasion.
The soil, once carpeted with a beautiful verdure and thickly sprinkled
with stately trees, is often bare, and, in many places, white with the
incrustation of salts caused by the draining of the waters. Five lakes
are spread over the Valley, occupying one-tenth of its surface.[13] On
the opposite borders of the largest of these basins, much shrunk in its
dimensions[14] since the days of the Aztecs, stood the cities of Mexico
and Tezcuco, the capitals of the two most potent and flourishing states
of Anahuac, whose history, with that of the mysterious races that
preceded them in the country,[15] exhibits some of the nearest
approaches to civilization to be met with anciently on the North
American continent.
Of these races the most conspicuous were the Toltecs. Advancing from a
northerly direction, but from what region is uncertain,[16] they entered
the territory of Anahuac,[17] probably before the close of the seventh
century. Of course, little can be gleaned with certainty respecting a
people whose written records have perished, and who are known to us only
through the traditionary legends of the nations that succeeded them.[18]
By the general agreement of these, however, the Toltecs were well
instructed in agriculture and many of the most useful mechanic arts;
were nice workers of metals; invented the complex arrangement of time
adopted by the Aztecs; and, in short, were the true fountains of the
civilization which distinguished this part of the continent in later
times.[19] They established their capital at Tula, north of the Mexican
Valley, and the remains of extensive buildings were to be discerned
there at the time of the Conquest.[20] The noble ruins of religious and
other edifices, still to be seen in various parts of New Spain, are
referred to this people, whose name, _Toltec_, has passed into a synonym
for _architect_.[21] Their shadowy history reminds us of those primitive
races who preceded the ancient Egyptians in the march of civilization;
fragments of whose monuments, as they are seen at this day, incorporated
with the buildings of the Egyptians themselves, give to these latter the
appearance of almost modern constructions.[22]
After a period of four centuries, the Toltecs, who had extended their
sway over the remotest borders of Anahuac,[23] having been greatly
reduced, it is said, by famine, pestilence, and unsuccessful wars,
disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had
entered it. A few of them still lingered behind, but much the greater
number, probably, spread over the region of Central America and the
neighboring isles; and the traveller now speculates on the majestic
ruins of Mitla and Palenque, as possibly the work of this extraordinary
people.[24][25]
After the lapse of another hundred years, a numerous and rude tribe,
called the Chichimecs, entered the deserted country from the regions of
the far Northwest. They were speedily followed by other races, of higher
civilization, perhaps of the same family with the Toltecs, whose
language they appear to have spoken. The most noted of these were the
Aztecs or Mexicans, and the Acolhuans. The latter, better known in later
times by the name of Tezcucans, from their capital, Tezcuco,[26] on the
eastern border of the Mexican lake, were peculiarly fitted, by their
comparatively mild religion and manners, for receiving the tincture of
civilization which could be derived from the few Toltecs that still
remained in the country.[27] This, in their turn, they communicated to
the barbarous Chichimecs, a large portion of whom became amalgamated
with the new settlers as one nation.[28]
Availing themselves of the strength derived, not only from this
increase of numbers, but from their own superior refinement, the
Acolhuans gradually stretched their empire over the ruder tribes in the
north; while their capital was filled with a numerous population, busily
employed in many of the more useful and even elegant arts of a civilized
community. In this palmy state, they were suddenly assaulted by a
warlike neighbor, the Tepanecs, their own kindred, and inhabitants of
the same valley as themselves. Their provinces were overrun, their
armies beaten, their king assassinated, and the flourishing city of
Tezcuco became the prize of the victor. From this abject condition the
uncommon abilities of the young prince, Nezahualcoyotl, the rightful
heir to the crown, backed by the efficient aid of his Mexican allies, at
length redeemed the state, and opened to it a new career of prosperity,
even more brilliant than the former.[29]
The Mexicans, with whom our history is principally concerned, came also,
as we have seen, from the remote regions of the North,--the populous
hive of nations in the New World, as it has been in the Old.[30] They
arrived on the borders of Anahuac towards the beginning of the
thirteenth century, some time after the occupation of the land by the
kindred races. For a long time they did not establish themselves in any
permanent residence, but continued shifting their quarters to different
parts of the Mexican Valley, enduring all the casualties and hardships
of a migratory life. On one occasion they were enslaved by a more
powerful tribe; but their ferocity soon made them formidable to their
masters.[31] After a series of wanderings and adventures which need not
shrink from comparison with the most extravagant legends of the heroic
ages of antiquity, they at length halted on the southwestern borders of
the principal lake, in the year 1325. They there beheld, perched on the
stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from the crevice of a rock that
was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty,
with a serpent in his talons, and his broad wings opened to the rising
sun. They hailed the auspicious omen, announced by an oracle as
indicating the site of their future city, and laid its foundations by
sinking piles into the shallows; for the low marshes were half buried
under water. On these they erected their light fabrics of reeds and
rushes, and sought a precarious subsistence from fishing, and from the
wild fowl which frequented the waters, as well as from the cultivation
of such simple vegetables as they could raise on their floating gardens.
The place was called Tenochtitlan, in token of its miraculous origin,
though only known to Europeans by its other name of Mexico,[32] derived
from their war-god, Mexitli.[33] The legend of its foundation is still
further commemorated by the device of the eagle and the cactus, which
form the arms of the modern Mexican republic. Such were the humble
beginnings of the Venice of the Western World.[34][35]
The forlorn condition of the new settlers was made still worse by
domestic feuds. A part of the citizens seceded from the main body, and
formed a separate community on the neighboring marshes. Thus divided, it
was long before they could aspire to the acquisition of territory on the
main land. They gradually increased, however, in numbers, and
strengthened themselves yet more by various improvements in their polity
and military discipline, while they established a reputation for courage
as well as cruelty in war which made their name terrible throughout the
Valley. In the early part of the fifteenth century, nearly a hundred
years from the foundation of the city, an event took place which created
an entire revolution in the circumstances and, to some extent, in the
character of the Aztecs. This was the subversion of the Tezcucan
monarchy by the Tepanecs, already noticed. When the oppressive conduct
of the victors had at length aroused a spirit of resistance, its prince,
Nezahualcoyotl, succeeded, after incredible perils and escapes, in
mustering such a force as, with the aid of the Mexicans, placed him on a
level with his enemies. In two successive battles, these were defeated
with great slaughter, their chief slain, and their territory, by one of
those sudden reverses which characterize the wars of petty states,
passed into the hands of the conquerors. It was awarded to Mexico, in
return for its important services.[36]
Then was formed that remarkable league, which, indeed, has no parallel
in history. It was agreed between the states of Mexico, Tezcuco, and the
neighboring little kingdom of Tlacopan, that they should mutually
support each other in their wars, offensive and defensive, and that in
the distribution of the spoil one-fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan,
and the remainder be divided, in what proportions is uncertain, between
the other powers. The Tezcucan writers claim an equal share for their
nation with the Aztecs. But this does not seem to be warranted by the
immense increase of territory subsequently appropriated by the latter.
And we may account for any advantage conceded to them by the treaty, on
the supposition that, however inferior they may have been originally,
they were, at the time of making it, in a more prosperous condition than
their allies, broken and dispirited by long oppression. What is more
extraordinary than the treaty itself, however, is the fidelity with
which it was maintained. During a century of uninterrupted warfare that
ensued, no instance occurred where the parties quarrelled over the
division of the spoil, which so often makes shipwreck of similar
confederacies among civilized states.[37]
The allies for some time found sufficient occupation for their arms in
their own valley; but they soon overleaped its rocky ramparts, and by
the middle of the fifteenth century, under the first Montezuma, had
spread down the sides of the table-land to the borders of the Gulf of
Mexico. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, gave evidence of the public
prosperity. Its frail tenements were supplanted by solid structures of
stone and lime. Its population rapidly increased. Its old feuds were
healed. The citizens who had seceded were again brought under a common
government with the main body, and the quarter they occupied was
permanently connected with the parent city; the dimensions of which,
covering the same ground, were much larger than those of the modern
capital of Mexico.[38][39]
Fortunately, the throne was filled by a succession of able princes, who
knew how to profit by their enlarged resources and by the martial
enthusiasm of the nation. Year after year saw them return, loaded with
the spoils of conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives, to
their capital. No state was able long to resist the accumulated strength
of the confederates. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, just
before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across
the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, under the bold and
bloody Ahuitzotl, its arms had been carried far over the limits already
noticed as defining its permanent territory, into the farthest corners
of Guatemala and Nicaragua. This extent of empire, however limited in
comparison with that of many other states, is truly wonderful,
considering it as the acquisition of a people whose whole population and
resources had so recently been comprised within the walls of their own
petty city, and considering, moreover, that the conquered territory was
thickly settled by various races, bred to arms like the Mexicans, and
little inferior to them in social organization. The history of the
Aztecs suggests some strong points of resemblance to that of the ancient
Romans, not only in their military successes, but in the policy which
led to them.[40]
The most important contribution, of late years, to the early
history of Mexico is the _Historia antigua_ of the Lic. Don.
Mariano Veytia, published in the city of Mexico, in 1836. This
scholar was born of an ancient and highly respectable family at
Puebla, 1718. After finishing his academic education, he went to
Spain, where he was kindly received at court. He afterwards visited
several other countries of Europe, made himself acquainted with
their languages, and returned home well stored with the fruits of a
discriminating observation and diligent study. The rest of his life
he devoted to letters; especially to the illustration of the
national history and antiquities. As the executor of the
unfortunate Boturini, with whom he had contracted an intimacy in
Madrid, he obtained access to his valuable collection of
manuscripts in Mexico, and from them, and every other source which
his position in society and his eminent character opened to him, he
composed various works, none of which, however, except the one
before us, has been admitted to the honors of the press. The time
of his death is not given by his editor, but it was probably not
later than 1780.
Veytia’s history covers the whole period from the first occupation
of Anahuac to the middle of the fifteenth century, at which point
his labors were unfortunately terminated by his death. In the early
portion he has endeavored to trace the migratory movements and
historical annals of the principal races who entered the country.
Every page bears testimony to the extent and fidelity of his
researches; and, if we feel but moderate confidence in the results,
the fault is not imputable to him, so much as to the dark and
doubtful nature of the subject. As he descends to later ages, he is
more occupied with the fortunes of the Tezcucan than with those of
the Aztec dynasty, which have been amply discussed by others of his
countrymen. The premature close of his labors prevented him,
probably, from giving that attention to the domestic institutions
of the people he describes, to which they are entitled as the most
important subject of inquiry to the historian. The deficiency has
been supplied by his judicious editor, Orteaga, from other sources.
In the early part of his work, Veytia has explained the
chronological system of the Aztecs, but, like most writers
preceding the accurate Gama, with indifferent success. As a critic,
he certainly ranks much higher than the annalists who preceded him,
and, when his own religion is not involved, shows a discriminating
judgment. When it is, he betrays a full measure of the credulity
which still maintains its hold on too many even of the
well-informed of his countrymen. The editor of the work has given a
very interesting letter from the Abbé Clavigero to Veytia, written
when the former was a poor and humble exile, and in the tone of one
addressing a person of high standing and literary eminence. Both
were employed on the same subject. The writings of the poor abbé,
published again and again, and translated into various languages,
have spread his fame throughout Europe; while the name of Veytia,
whose works have been locked up in their primitive manuscript, is
scarcely known beyond the boundaries of Mexico.
[The opinions set forth by Mr. Prescott respecting the Mexican
empire were attacked with much vigor by Lewis H. Morgan. Mr. Morgan
demonstrated conclusively that many of those opinions were
erroneous. But, as Payne says in his History of the New World
called America, vol i. p. 306, “his results cannot be regarded as
satisfactory, much less as final.” The Spanish chroniclers Prescott
consulted were correct ordinarily in their statement of facts, but
were misleading in their conclusions because of their inability to
comprehend the Aztec institutions.
On the pueblo as the unit of aboriginal history, see Payne, vol. i.
pp. 36-47.
In his Ancient Society, p. 186, Mr. Morgan says: “The histories of
Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates to the acts of
the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristics of the
Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons, implements and
utensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a similar
character. But in whatever relates to Indian society and
government, their social relations and plan of life, they are
nearly worthless, because they learned nothing and knew nothing of
either. We are at full liberty to reject them in these respects and
commence anew, using any facts they may contain which harmonize
with what is known of Indian society.” He does not, however, always
observe his own rules if those rules seem to militate against the
thesis he is endeavoring to establish. Moreover, he is so dogmatic
in his statements and so confident in the infallibility of his own
judgment, that the reader who is seeking simply to ascertain the
truth about the whole matter is oftentimes intensely exasperated
with him. This is especially true with respect to the famous essay
on “Montezuma’s Dinner,” where he writes almost as though he had
been a guest at the banquet and had partaken of the viands which
were there consumed. As Mr. Morgan may justly be regarded as the
founder of a school, it is well to state his views at length.
According to him, then, there was no kingdom or empire of Mexico.
There was simply a confederacy of three tribes, and this
confederacy was a military democracy. The governmental powers were
vested in a council of chiefs with a general commander. The council
exercised all civil power, the military power being left in the
hands of the war chief. There were no feudal castles inhabited by
lawless lords. There were only great communal houses tenanted by
clans.
In his brilliant work on Ancient Society, Mr. Morgan places below
civilization two stages of development--savagery and barbarism. The
invention of pottery marks the difference between these two stages.
The savage makes no pottery. When the women of the savage tribes
used vessels of fire-hardened clay for boiling their food they had
passed into the first stage of barbarism. Elsewhere there were
pastoral stages of development. In North America there were none.
The only domesticated animal its inhabitants possessed when the
Europeans landed on the continent was the dog. The first stage of
barbarism in North America was marked by the cultivation of maize
or Indian corn. This grain can be cultivated more easily than any
other cereal. No other yields such enormous returns. In virgin soil
it is only necessary to drop the seed into the earth. Nature cares
for its complete development. But virgin soil becomes exhausted in
a few years. As population becomes denser and migrations cease to
be practicable, the land must be more carefully tilled, and, where
rains are comparatively infrequent, must be irrigated. Irrigation
and the use of adobe (sun-dried brick) and stone in building mark
the beginning of the second period of barbarism. In this period
also tools of stone give place to those of metal, the metal used in
America being copper. The Aztecs, the Mayas, and, in South America,
the Peruvians were in the second period. But to the third period,
when the smelting of iron ore was invented, these people never
passed.
The invention of a phonetic alphabet and the use of written
records, Mr. Morgan thinks, mark the beginning of civilization.
But, as John Fiske points out, it will not do to insist too
narrowly upon the phonetic alphabet. Hieroglyphics have perpetuated
much historic record in Egypt and China. Although the Mexicans and
Central Americans did not smelt iron ore, they yet possessed
historic records in their hieroglyphics (hieroglyphics which may
still be read). They were then enjoying civilization of an
extremely rude type, combined with a marvellously developed
barbarism. For though their barbarism was marked by human
sacrifices and by cannibalism, yet, according to testimony which
Mr. Morgan says may be taken at its face value, these barbarians
had pleasure-gardens and fountains, baths, menageries, feather-work
that was marvellously beautiful, pottery that showed admirable
taste, vessels of gold and silver, and many other accessories of an
advanced civilization.
Mr. Morgan was adopted into the Seneca tribe of North American
Indians, and he was able to study Indian institutions from an
inside point of view. Unquestionably he had a more profound
knowledge of those institutions than any other scholar of his time.
But he went too far when he confined the Aztecs to the narrow
limits in development to which the Senecas had attained. Moreover,
he does not make due allowance for the changes in development which
the more favorable climate of the Mexican table-lands brought
about. The “long house” of the Iroquois may have been constructed
on the same general plan, but it could hardly have been mistaken
for the building in which Montezuma quartered Cortés and his
allies. The one meal, freshly cooked and eaten about midday, bore
but little resemblance to the banquets in Mexico described with
such watery appreciation by the Spanish chroniclers. (Morgan admits
that these same chroniclers may be trusted when they write of food
and other such palpable matters.)
But Mr. Morgan is unquestionably right in saying that Montezuma’s
so-called “empire” was really a confederacy of tribes--living in
pueblos, governed by a council of chiefs, and levying tribute upon
other pueblos. The Aztec confederacy dominated the Mexican land as
the Iroquois confederacy dominated the region between the
Connecticut and the Mississippi. To assert that otherwise the two
nations were alike both in their institutions and in their
development is as unwarranted as to say that the governmental
institutions and the political development of the United States and
Venezuela are identical.
How did this confederacy come to be formed?
The earliest family group was the clan. As Sir Henry Maine points
out in his Ancient Law, the individual was nothing in ancient
society, the state was nothing, the family was everything. This
statement holds good everywhere, for America as well as for India.
A group of clans made up a phratry or brotherhood; a group of
phratries made a tribe. This threefold grouping was universal. The
Greek phratry, the Roman curia, the Teutonic hundred were analogous
institutions. In the clans kinship was always derived through the
female line. The _Mutterrecht_ everywhere prevailed.{*}
{*} [This subject Mr. Morgan treats with a master’s hand in his
Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines.]
μήτηρ μεύ τʹ ἐμέ ψησι Του ἑμμεναι ᾶυτὰρ ἐγωγε
οὐκ ὀιδ, ὀυ γαρ πώ τις ἐον γόνον ἀυτὸς ἀνέγνω
Odyssey, I, 215-6.
In that middle stage of barbarism when men began to acquire
property, when warriors of valor converted to their uses what had
once been common property,--herds of cattle, wives, etc.,--when
polygamy became a custom, kinship came to be reckoned through the
male line. In this way relationship was mightily changed. But in
aboriginal America where domesticated animals were unknown this
change did not take place as early as it did elsewhere. In Mexico
the change did not probably come much before the century of the
Conquest. Kinship was through females only. The exogamous clan (the
system which required that the spouse should be taken from another
clan) was the unit of the social structure, not the family.
House life found expression in architecture. One underlying
principle was everywhere apparent--namely, adaptation to communal
living. Gradations in culture were evident from the buildings.{*}
Thus, the “long house” of the Iroquois, from fifty to one hundred
feet long, divided into compartments every six or eight feet, and
roughly constructed from timber and bark, betokened very different
conditions from those which prevailed among the pueblos of the Zuñi
Indians, with their immense structures of adobe and of stone.
{*} [This subject Mr. Morgan treats with a master’s hand in his
Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines.]
In the communal house woman ruled. To her belonged the personal
property. Because it was derived through her, this property
remained always with the exogamous clan. Thus, marriage made very
little difference to woman’s maintenance. If the husband who had
come into the house proved to be lazy and otherwise worthless,
divorce was easy, and he was sent back to his own.
From its own members the clan elected a sachem to attend to civil
matters, and a chief to direct its military affairs.
The son could not succeed his father in these offices, but a
brother might succeed a brother. (This was true of the Indian tribe
to which Powhatan belonged. Had James I of England been aware of
this fact, he would not have looked with such jealous eyes upon his
subject Rolfe who had married the Indian princess Pocahontas.) The
clan was always known by some distinctive name, usually that of
some animal--beaver, fox, wolf, etc.
When the clan became so large as to be unwieldy, it split up into
phratries. The “phratry” was at first a religious and social
organization; and one of its chief duties was the prosecution of
criminals. (The Teutonic hundred was ever ready to exact
“wehrgeld.”) “The tribe” was usually the highest attainment in
organization of which the aborigines of America were capable. The
Mexican confederacy was the most interesting and important of their
permanent organizations. The Spaniards did not understand the
principles on which this confederacy was founded, because it was
entirely unlike anything with which they were familiar.--M.]
CHAPTER II
SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN--AZTEC NOBILITY--JUDICIAL SYSTEM--LAWS AND
REVENUES--MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
The form of government differed in the different states of Anahuac. With
the Aztecs and Tezcucans it was monarchical and nearly absolute. The two
nations resembled each other so much in their political institutions
that one of their historians has remarked, in too unqualified a manner
indeed, that what is told of one may be always understood as applying to
the other.[41] I shall direct my inquiries to the Mexican polity,
borrowing an illustration occasionally from that of the rival
kingdom.[42]
The government was an elective monarchy. Four of the principal nobles,
who had been chosen by their own body in the preceding reign, filled
the office of electors, to whom were added, with merely an honorary
rank, however, the two royal allies of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The
sovereign was selected from the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in
default of them, from his nephews. Thus the election was always
restricted to the same family. The candidate preferred must have
distinguished himself in war, though, as in the case of the last
Montezuma, he were a member of the priesthood.[43] This singular mode of
supplying the throne had some advantages. The candidates received an
education which fitted them for the royal dignity, while the age at
which they were chosen not only secured the nation against the evils of
minority, but afforded ample means for estimating their qualifications
for the office. The result, at all events, was favorable; since the
throne, as already noticed, was filled by a succession of able princes,
well qualified to rule over a warlike and ambitious people. The scheme
of election, however defective, argues a more refined and calculating
policy than was to have been expected from a barbarous nation.[44]
The new monarch[45] was installed in his regal dignity with much parade
of religious ceremony, but not until, by a victorious campaign, he had
obtained a sufficient number of captives to grace his triumphal entry
into the capital and to furnish victims for the dark and bloody rites
which stained the Aztec superstition. Amidst this pomp of human
sacrifice he was crowned. The crown, resembling a mitre in its form, and
curiously ornamented with gold, gems, and feathers, was placed on his
head by the lord of Tezcuco, the most powerful of his royal allies. The
title of _King_, by which the earlier Aztec princes are distinguished by
Spanish writers, is supplanted by that of _Emperor_ in the later reigns,
intimating, perhaps, his superiority over the confederated monarchies of
Tlacopan and Tezcuco.[46]
The Aztec princes, especially towards the close of the dynasty, lived in
a barbaric pomp, truly Oriental. Their spacious palaces[47] were
provided with halls for the different councils who aided the monarch in
the transaction of business. The chief of these was a sort of privy
council, composed in part, probably, of the four electors chosen by the
nobles after the accession, whose places, when made vacant by death,
were immediately supplied as before. It was the business of this body,
so far as can be gathered from the very loose accounts given of it, to
advise the king, in respect to the government of the provinces, the
administration of the revenues, and, indeed, on all great matters of
public interest.[48]
In the royal buildings were accommodations, also, for a numerous
body-guard[49] of the sovereign, made up of the chief nobility. It is
not easy to determine with precision, in these barbarian governments,
the limits of the several orders. It is certain there was a distinct
class of nobles, with large landed possessions, who held the most
important offices near the person of the prince, and engrossed the
administration of the provinces and cities.[50] Many of these could
trace their descent from the founders of the Aztec monarchy. According
to some writers of authority, there were thirty great _caciques_, who
had their residence, at least a part of the year, in the capital, and
who could muster a hundred thousand vassals each on their estates.[51]
Without relying on such wild statements, it is clear, from the testimony
of the Conquerors, that the country was occupied by numerous powerful
chieftains, who lived like independent princes on their domains. If it
be true that the kings encouraged, or, indeed, exacted, the residence of
these nobles in the capital, and required hostages in their absence, it
is evident that their power must have been very formidable.[52]
Their estates appear to have been held by various tenures, and to have
been subject to different restrictions. Some of them, earned by their
own good swords or received as the recompense of public services, were
held without any limitation, except that the possessors could not
dispose of them to a plebeian.[53] Others were entailed on the eldest
male issue, and, in default of such, reverted to the crown. Most of them
seem to have been burdened with the obligation of military service. The
principal chiefs of Tezcuco, according to its chronicler, were expressly
obliged to support their prince with their armed vassals, to attend his
court, and aid him in the council. Some, instead of these services, were
to provide for the repairs of his buildings, and to keep the royal
demesnes in order, with an annual offering, by way of homage, of fruits
and flowers. It was usual, if we are to believe historians, for a new
king, on his accession, to confirm the investiture of estates derived
from the crown.[54]
It cannot be denied that we recognize, in all this, several features of
the feudal system,[55] which, no doubt, lose nothing of their effect
under the hands of the Spanish writers, who are fond of tracing
analogies to European institutions. But such analogies lead sometimes to
very erroneous conclusions. The obligation of military service, for
instance, the most essential principle of a fief, seems to be naturally
demanded by every government from its subjects. As to minor points of
resemblance, they fall far short of that harmonious system of reciprocal
service and protection which embraced, in nice gradation, every order of
a feudal monarchy. The kingdoms of Anahuac were in their nature
despotic, attended, indeed, with many mitigating circumstances unknown
to the despotisms of the East; but it is chimerical to look for much in
common--beyond a few accidental forms and ceremonies--with those
aristocratic institutions of the Middle Ages which made the court of
every petty baron the precise image in miniature of that of his
sovereign.
The legislative power, both in Mexico and Tezcuco, resided wholly with
the monarch.[56] This feature of despotism, however, was in some measure
counteracted by the constitution of the judicial tribunals,--of more
importance, among a rude people, than the legislative, since it is
easier to make good laws for such a community than to enforce them, and
the best laws, badly administered, are but a mockery. Over each of the
principal cities, with its dependent territories, was placed a supreme
judge, appointed by the crown, with original and final jurisdiction in
both civil and criminal cases. There was no appeal from his sentence to
any other tribunal, nor even to the king. He held his office during
life; and any one who usurped his ensigns was punished with death.[57]
Below this magistrate was a court, established in each province, and
consisting of three members. It held concurrent jurisdiction with the
supreme judge in civil suits, but in criminal an appeal lay to his
tribunal. Besides these courts, there was a body of inferior
magistrates, distributed through the country, chosen by the people
themselves in their several districts. Their authority was limited to
smaller causes, while the more important were carried up to the higher
courts. There was still another class of subordinate officers, appointed
also by the people, each of whom was to watch over the conduct of a
certain number of families and report any disorder or breach of the laws
to the higher authorities.[58]
In Tezcuco the judicial arrangements were of a more refined
character;[59] and a gradation of tribunals finally terminated in a
general meeting or parliament, consisting of all the judges, great and
petty, throughout the kingdom, held every eighty days in the capital,
over which the king presided in person. This body determined all suits
which, from their importance or difficulty, had been reserved for its
consideration by the lower tribunals. It served, moreover, as a council
of state, to assist the monarch in the transaction of public
business.[60]
Such are the vague and imperfect notices that can be gleaned, respecting
the Aztec tribunals, from the hieroglyphical paintings still preserved,
and from the most accredited Spanish writers. These, being usually
ecclesiastics, have taken much less interest in this subject than in
matters connected with religion. They find some apology, certainly, in
the early destruction of most of the Indian paintings, from which their
information was, in part, to be gathered.
On the whole, however, it must be inferred that the Aztecs were
sufficiently civilized to evince a solicitude for the rights both of
property and of persons. The law, authorizing an appeal to the highest
judicature in criminal matters only, shows an attention to personal
security, rendered the more obligatory by the extreme severity of their
penal code, which would naturally have made them more cautious of a
wrong conviction. The existence of a number of co-ordinate tribunals,
without a central one of supreme authority to control the whole, must
have given rise to very discordant interpretations of the law in
different districts. But this is an evil which they shared in common
with most of the nations of Europe.
The provision for making the superior judges wholly independent of the
crown was worthy of an enlightened people. It presented the strongest
barrier that a mere constitution could afford against tyranny. It is
not, indeed, to be supposed that, in a government otherwise so despotic,
means could not be found for influencing the magistrate. But it was a
great step to fence round his authority with the sanction of the law;
and no one of the Aztec monarchs, so far as I know, is accused of an
attempt to violate it.
To receive presents or a bribe, to be guilty of collusion in any way
with a suitor, was punished, in a judge, with death. Who, or what
tribunal, decided as to his guilt, does not appear. In Tezcuco this was
done by the rest of the court. But the king presided over that body. The
Tezcucan prince Nezahualpilli, who rarely tempered justice with mercy,
put one judge to death for taking a bribe, and another for determining
suits in his own house,--a capital offence, also, by law.[61]
The judges of the higher tribunals were maintained from the produce of a
part of the crown lands, reserved for this purpose. They, as well as the
supreme judge, held their offices for life. The proceedings in the
courts were conducted with decency and order. The judges wore an
appropriate dress, and attended to business both parts of the day,
dining always, for the sake of despatch, in an apartment of the same
building where they held their session; a method of proceeding much
commended by the Spanish chroniclers, to whom despatch was not very
familiar in their own tribunals. Officers attended to preserve order,
and others summoned the parties and produced them in court. No counsel
was employed; the parties stated their own case and supported it by
their witnesses. The oath of the accused was also admitted in
evidence.[62] The statement of the case, the testimony, and the
proceedings of the trial were all set forth by a clerk, in
hieroglyphical paintings, and handed over to the court. The paintings
were executed with so much accuracy that in all suits respecting real
property they were allowed to be produced as good authority in the
Spanish tribunals, very long after the Conquest; and a chair for their
study and interpretation was established at Mexico in 1553, which has
long since shared the fate of most other provisions for learning in that
unfortunate country.[63]
A capital sentence was indicated by a line traced with an arrow across
the portrait of the accused. In Tezcuco, where the king presided in the
court, this, according to the national chronicler, was done with
extraordinary parade. His description, which is of rather a poetical
cast, I give in his own words. “In the royal palace of Tezcuco was a
court-yard, on the opposite sides of which were two halls of justice. In
the principal one, called the ‘tribunal of God,’ was a throne of pure
gold, inlaid with turquoises and other precious stones. On a stool in
front was placed a human skull, crowned with an immense emerald of a
pyramidal form, and surmounted by an aigrette of brilliant plumes and
precious stones. The skull was laid on a heap of military weapons,
shields, quivers, bows, and arrows. The walls were hung with tapestry,
made of the hair of different wild animals, of rich and various colors,
festooned by gold rings and embroidered with figures of birds and
flowers. Above the throne was a canopy of variegated plumage, from the
centre of which shot forth resplendent rays of gold and jewels. The
other tribunal, called ‘the King’s,’ was also surmounted by a gorgeous
canopy of feathers, on which were emblazoned the royal arms. Here the
sovereign gave public audience and communicated his despatches. But when
he decided important causes, or confirmed a capital sentence, he passed
to the ‘tribunal of God,’ attended by the fourteen great lords of the
realm, marshalled according to their rank. Then, putting on his mitred
crown, incrusted with precious stones, and holding a golden arrow, by
way of sceptre, in his left hand, he laid his right upon the skull, and
pronounced judgment.”[64] All this looks rather fine for a court of
justice, it must be owned. But it is certain that the Tezcucans, as we
shall see hereafter, possessed both the materials and the skill
requisite to work them up in this manner. Had they been a little further
advanced in refinement, one might well doubt their having the bad taste
to do so.
The laws of the Aztecs were registered, and exhibited to the people, in
their hieroglyphical paintings. Much the larger part of them, as in
every nation imperfectly civilized, relates rather to the security of
persons than of property.[65] The great crimes against society were all
made capital. Even the murder of a slave was punished with death.
Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according
to the degree of the offence, was punished by slavery or death. Yet the
Mexicans could have been under no great apprehension of this crime,
since the entrances to their dwellings were not secured by bolts or
fastenings of any kind. It was a capital offence to remove the
boundaries of another’s lands; to alter the established measures; and
for a guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward’s
property. These regulations evince a regard for equity in dealings, and
for private rights, which argues a considerable progress in
civilization. Prodigals, who squandered their patrimony, were punished
in like manner; a severe sentence, since the crime brought its adequate
punishment along with it. Intemperance, which was the burden, moreover,
of their religious homilies, was visited with the severest penalties; as
if they had foreseen in it the consuming canker of their own as well as
of the other Indian races in later times. It was punished in the young
with death, and in older persons with loss of rank and confiscation of
property. Yet a decent conviviality was not meant to be proscribed at
their festivals, and they possessed the means of indulging it, in a mild
fermented liquor, called _pulque_, which is still popular, not only with
the Indian, but the European population of the country.[66]
The rites of marriage were celebrated with as much formality as in any
Christian country; and the institution was held in such reverence that a
tribunal was instituted for the sole purpose of determining questions
relating to it. Divorces could not be obtained until authorized by a
sentence of this court, after a patient hearing of the parties.
But the most remarkable part of the Aztec code was that relating to
slavery. There were several descriptions of slaves: prisoners taken in
war, who were almost always reserved for the dreadful doom of sacrifice;
criminals, public debtors, persons who, from extreme poverty,
voluntarily resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their
own parents. In the last instance, usually occasioned also by poverty,
it was common for the parents, with the master’s consent, to substitute
others of their children successively, as they grew up; thus
distributing the burden as equally as possible among the different
members of the family. The willingness of freemen to incur the penalties
of this condition is explained by the mild form in which it existed. The
contract of sale was executed in the presence of at least four
witnesses. The services to be exacted were limited with great
precision. The slave was allowed to have his own family, to hold
property, and even other slaves. His children were free. No one could be
born to slavery in Mexico;[67] an honorable distinction, not known, I
believe, in any civilized community where slavery has been
sanctioned.[68] Slaves were not sold by their masters, unless when these
were driven to it by poverty. They were often liberated by them at their
death, and sometimes, as there was no natural repugnance founded on
difference of blood and race, were married to them. Yet a refractory or
vicious slave might be led into the market, with a collar round his
neck,[69] which intimated his bad character, and there be publicly sold,
and, on a second sale, reserved for sacrifice.[70]
Such are some of the most striking features of the Aztec code, to which
the Tezcucan bore great resemblance.[71] With some exceptions, it is
stamped with the severity, the ferocity indeed, of a rude people,
hardened by familiarity with scenes of blood, and relying on physical
instead of moral means for the correction of evil.[72] Still, it evinces
a profound respect for the great principles of morality, and as clear a
perception of these principles as is to be found in the most cultivated
nations.
The royal revenues were derived from various sources. The crown
lands,[73] which appear to have been extensive, made their returns in
kind. The places in the neighborhood of the capital were bound to supply
workmen and materials for building the king’s palaces and keeping them
in repair. They were also to furnish fuel, provisions, and whatever was
necessary for his ordinary domestic expenditure, which was certainly on
no stinted scale.[74] The principal cities, which had numerous villages
and a large territory dependent on them, were distributed into
districts, with each a share of the lands allotted to it, for its
support. The inhabitants paid a stipulated part of the produce to the
crown. The vassals of the great chiefs, also, paid a portion of their
earnings into the public treasury; an arrangement not at all in the
spirit of the feudal institutions.[75]
In addition to this tax on all the agricultural produce of the kingdom,
there was another on its manufactures. The nature and the variety of the
tributes will be best shown by an enumeration of some of the principal
articles. These were cotton dresses, and mantles of feather-work
exquisitely made; ornamented armor; vases and plates of gold; gold dust,
bands and bracelets; crystal, gilt, and varnished jars and goblets;
bells, arms, and utensils of copper; reams of paper; grain, fruits,
copal, amber, cochineal, cacao, wild animals and birds, timber, lime,
mats, etc.[76] In this curious medley of the most homely commodities
and the elegant superfluities of luxury, it is singular that no mention
should be made of silver, the great staple of the country in later
times, and the use of which was certainly known to the Aztecs.[77]
Garrisons were established in the larger cities,--probably those at a
distance and recently conquered,--to keep down revolt, and to enforce
the payment of the tribute.[78][79] Tax-gatherers were also distributed
throughout the kingdom, who were recognized by their official badges,
and dreaded from the merciless rigor of their exactions. By a stern law,
every defaulter was liable to be taken and sold as a slave. In the
capital were spacious granaries and warehouses for the reception of the
tributes. A receiver-general was quartered in the palace, who rendered
in an exact account of the various contributions, and watched over the
conduct of the inferior agents, in whom the least malversation was
summarily punished. This functionary was furnished with a map of the
whole empire, with a minute specification of the imposts assessed on
every part of it. These imposts, moderate under the reigns of the early
princes, became so burdensome under those at the close of the dynasty,
being rendered still more oppressive by the manner of collection, that
they bred disaffection throughout the land, and prepared the way for its
conquest by the Spaniards.[80]
Communication was maintained with the remotest parts of the country by
means of couriers. Post-houses were established on the great roads,
about two leagues distant from each other. The courier, bearing his
despatches in the form of a hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to
the first station, where they were taken by another messenger and
carried forward to the next, and so on till they reached the capital.
These couriers, trained from childhood, travelled with incredible
swiftness,--not four or five leagues an hour, as an old chronicler would
make us believe, but with such speed that despatches were carried from
one to two hundred miles a day.[81] Fresh fish was frequently served at
Montezuma’s table in twenty-four hours from the time it had been taken
in the Gulf of Mexico, two hundred miles from the capital. In this way
intelligence of the movements of the royal armies was rapidly brought
to court; and the dress of the courier, denoting by its color the
nature of his tidings, spread joy or consternation in the towns through
which he passed.[82]
But the great aim of the Aztec institutions, to which private discipline
and public honors were alike directed, was the profession of arms. In
Mexico, as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the priest the highest
consideration. The king, as we have seen, must be an experienced
warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of war. A great
object of their military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives
for his altars. The soldier who fell in battle was transported at once
to the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the Sun.[83]
Every war, therefore, became a crusade; and the warrior, animated by a
religious enthusiasm like that of the early Saracen or the Christian
crusader, was not only raised to a contempt of danger, but courted it,
for the imperishable crown of martyrdom. Thus we find the same impulse
acting in the most opposite quarters of the globe, and the Asiatic, the
European, and the American, each earnestly invoking the holy name of
religion in the perpetration of human butchery.
The question of war was discussed in a council of the king and his chief
nobles.[84] Ambassadors were sent, previously to its declaration, to
require the hostile state to receive the Mexican gods and to pay the
customary tribute. The persons of ambassadors were held sacred
throughout Anahuac. They were lodged and entertained in the great towns
at the public charge, and were everywhere received with courtesy, so
long as they did not deviate from the high-roads on their route. When
they did, they forfeited their privileges. If the embassy proved
unsuccessful, a defiance, or open declaration of war, was sent; quotas
were drawn from the conquered provinces, which were always subjected to
military service, as well as the payment of taxes; and the royal army,
usually with the monarch at its head, began its march.[85]
The Aztec princes made use of the incentives employed by European
monarchs to excite the ambition of their followers. They established
various military orders, each having its privileges and peculiar
insignia. There seems, also, to have existed a sort of knighthood of
inferior degree.[86] It was the cheapest reward of martial prowess, and
whoever had not reached it was excluded from using ornaments on his arms
or his person, and obliged to wear a coarse white stuff, made from the
threads of the aloe, called _nequen_. Even the members of the royal
family were not excepted from this law, which reminds one of the
occasional practice of Christian knights, to wear plain armor, or
shields without device, till they had achieved some doughty feat of
chivalry. Although the military orders were thrown open to all, it is
probable that they were chiefly filled with persons of rank, who, by
their previous training and connections, were able to come into the
field under peculiar advantages.[87]
The dress of the higher warriors was picturesque and often magnificent.
Their bodies were covered with a close vest of quilted cotton, so thick
as to be impenetrable to the light missiles of Indian warfare. This
garment was so light and serviceable that it was adopted by the
Spaniards. The wealthier chiefs sometimes wore, instead of this cotton
mail, a cuirass made of thin plates of gold or silver. Over it was
thrown a surcoat of the gorgeous feather-work in which they
excelled.[88] Their helmets were sometimes of wood, fashioned like the
heads of wild animals, and sometimes of silver, on the top of which
waved a _panache_ of variegated plumes, sprinkled with precious stones
and ornaments of gold. They wore also collars, bracelets, and ear-rings
of the same rich materials.[89]
Their armies were divided into bodies of eight thousand men; and these,
again, into companies of three or four hundred, each with its own
commander. The national standard, which has been compared to the ancient
Roman, displayed, in its embroidery of gold and feather-work, the
armorial ensigns of the state. These were significant of its name,
which, as the names of both persons and places were borrowed from some
material object, was easily expressed by hieroglyphical symbols. The
companies and the great chiefs had also their appropriate banners and
devices, and the gaudy hues of their many-colored plumes gave a dazzling
splendor to the spectacle.
Their tactics were such as belong to a nation with whom war, though a
trade, is not elevated to the rank of a science. They advanced singing,
and shouting their war-cries, briskly charging the enemy, as rapidly
retreating, and making use of ambuscades, sudden surprises, and the
light skirmish of guerilla warfare. Yet their discipline was such as to
draw forth the encomiums of the Spanish conquerors. “A beautiful sight
it was,” says one of them, “to see them set out on their march, all
moving forward so gayly, and in so admirable order!”[90] In battle they
did not seek to kill their enemies, so much as to take them
prisoners;[91] and they never scalped, like other North American tribes.
The valor of a warrior was estimated by the number of his prisoners; and
no ransom was large enough to save the devoted captive.[92]
Their military code bore the same stern features as their other laws.
Disobedience of orders was punished with death. It was death, also, for
a soldier to leave his colors, to attack the enemy before the signal was
given, or to plunder another’s booty or prisoners. One of the last
Tezcucan princes, in the spirit of an ancient Roman, put two sons to
death--after having cured their wounds--for violating the last-mentioned
law.[93]
I must not omit to notice here an institution the introduction of which
in the Old World is ranked among the beneficent fruits of Christianity.
Hospitals were established in the principal cities, for the cure of the
sick and the permanent refuge of the disabled soldier;[94] and surgeons
were placed over them, “who were so far better than those in Europe,”
says an old chronicler, “that they did not protract the cure in order to
increase the pay.”[95]
Such is the brief outline of the civil and military polity of the
ancient Mexicans; less perfect than could be desired in regard to the
former, from the imperfection of the sources whence it is drawn. Whoever
has had occasion to explore the early history of modern Europe has found
how vague and unsatisfactory is the political information which can be
gleaned from the gossip of monkish annalists. How much is the difficulty
increased in the present instance, where this information, first
recorded in the dubious language of hieroglyphics, was interpreted in
another language, with which the Spanish chroniclers were imperfectly
acquainted, while it related to institutions of which their past
experience enabled them to form no adequate conception! Amidst such
uncertain lights, it is in vain to expect nice accuracy of detail. All
that can be done is to attempt an outline of the more prominent
features, that a correct impression, so far as it goes, may be produced
on the mind of the reader.
Enough has been said, however, to show that the Aztec and Tezcucan races
were advanced in civilization very far beyond the wandering tribes of
North America.[96] The degree of civilization which they had reached, as
inferred by their political institutions, may be considered, perhaps,
not much short of that enjoyed by our Saxon ancestors under Alfred. In
respect to the nature of it, they may be better compared with the
Egyptians; and the examination of their social relations and culture may
suggest still stronger points of resemblance to that ancient people.
Those familiar with the modern Mexicans will find it difficult to
conceive that the nation should ever have been capable of devising the
enlightened polity which we have been considering. But they should
remember that in the Mexicans of our day they see only a conquered
race; as different from their ancestors as are the modern Egyptians from
those who built,--I will not say, the tasteless pyramids,--but the
temples and palaces whose magnificent wrecks strew the borders of the
Nile, at Luxor and Karnac. The difference is not so great as between the
ancient Greek, and his degenerate descendant, lounging among the
masterpieces of art which he has scarcely taste enough to
admire,--speaking the language of those still more imperishable
monuments of literature which he has hardly capacity to comprehend. Yet
he breathes the same atmosphere, is warmed by the same sun, nourished by
the same scenes, as those who fell at Marathon and won the trophies of
Olympic Pisa. The same blood flows in his veins that flowed in theirs.
But ages of tyranny have passed over him; he belongs to a conquered
race.
The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. He
shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. Even when
this foreign influence comes in the form of civilization, he seems to
sink and pine away beneath it. It has been so with the Mexicans. Under
the Spanish domination, their numbers have silently melted away. Their
energies are broken. They no longer tread their mountain plains with the
conscious independence of their ancestors. In their faltering step and
meek and melancholy aspect we read the sad characters of the conquered
race. The cause of humanity, indeed, has gained. They live under a
better system of laws, a more assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But
all does not avail. Their civilization was of the hardy character which
belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his
own. They refused to submit to European culture,--to be engrafted on a
foreign stock. His outward form, his complexion, his lineaments, are
substantially the same; but the moral characteristics of the nation, all
that constituted its individuality as a race, are effaced forever.
Two of the principal authorities for this chapter are Torquemada
and Clavigero. The former, a Provincial of the Franciscan order,
came to the New World about the middle of the sixteenth century. As
the generation of the Conquerors had not then passed away, he had
ample opportunities of gathering the particulars of their
enterprise from their own lips. Fifty years, during which he
continued in the country, put him in possession of the traditions
and usages of the natives, and enabled him to collect their history
from the earliest missionaries, as well as from such monuments as
the fanaticism of his own countrymen had not then destroyed. From
these ample sources he compiled his bulky tomes, beginning, after
the approved fashion of the ancient Castilian chroniclers, with the
creation of the world, and embracing the whole circle of the
Mexican institutions, political, religious, and social, from the
earliest period to his own time. In handling these fruitful themes,
the worthy father has shown a full measure of the bigotry which
belonged to his order at that period. Every page, too, is loaded
with illustrations from Scripture or profane history, which form a
whimsical contrast to the barbaric staple of his story; and he has
sometimes fallen into serious errors, from his misconception of the
chronological system of the Aztecs. But, notwithstanding these
glaring defects in the composition of the work, the student, aware
of his author’s infirmities, will find few better guides than
Torquemada in tracing the stream of historic truth up to the
fountain-head; such is his manifest integrity, and so great were
his facilities for information on the most curious points of
Mexican antiquity. No work, accordingly, has been more largely
consulted and copied, even by some who, like Herrera, have affected
to set little value on the sources whence its information was
drawn. (Hist. general, dec. 6, lib. 6, cap. 19.) The _Monarchía
Indiana_ was first published at Seville, 1615 (Nic. Antonio,
Bibliotheca Nova (Matriti, 1783), tom. ii. p. 787), and since, in a
better style, in three volumes folio, at Madrid, in 1723.
The other authority, frequently cited in the preceding pages, is
the Abbé Clavigero’s _Storia antica del Messico_. It was originally
printed towards the close of the last century, in the Italian
language, and in Italy, whither the author, a native of Vera Cruz,
and a member of the order of the Jesuits, had retired, on the
expulsion of that body from Spanish America, in 1767. During a
residence of thirty-five years in his own country, Clavigero had
made himself intimately acquainted with its antiquities, by the
careful examination of paintings, manuscripts, and such other
remains as were to be found in his day. The plan of his work is
nearly as comprehensive as that of his predecessor, Torquemada; but
the later and more cultivated period in which he wrote is visible
in the superior address with which he has managed his complicated
subject. In the elaborate disquisitions in his concluding volume,
he has done much to rectify the chronology and the various
inaccuracies of preceding writers. Indeed, an avowed object of his
work was to vindicate his countrymen from what he conceived to be
the misrepresentations of Robertson, Raynal, and De Pau. In regard
to the last two he was perfectly successful. Such an ostensible
design might naturally suggest unfavorable ideas of his
impartiality. But, on the whole, he seems to have conducted the
discussion with good faith; and, if he has been led by national
zeal to overcharge the picture with brilliant colors, he will be
found much more temperate, in this respect, than those who preceded
him, while he has applied sound principles of criticism, of which
they were incapable. In a word, the diligence of his researches has
gathered into one focus the scattered lights of tradition and
antiquarian lore, purified in a great measure from the mists of
superstition which obscure the best productions of an earlier
period. From these causes, the work, notwithstanding its occasional
prolixity, and the disagreeable aspect given to it by the profusion
of uncouth names in the Mexican orthography, which bristle over
every page, has found merited favor with the public, and created
something like a popular interest in the subject. Soon after its
publication at Cesena, in 1780, it was translated into English, and
more lately into Spanish and German.
CHAPTER III
MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY--THE SACERDOTAL ORDER--THE TEMPLES--HUMAN SACRIFICES
The civil polity of the Aztecs is so closely blended with their religion
that without understanding the latter it is impossible to form correct
ideas of their government or their social institutions. I shall pass
over, for the present, some remarkable traditions, bearing a singular
resemblance to those found in the Scriptures, and endeavor to give a
brief sketch of their mythology and their careful provisions for
maintaining a national worship.
Mythology may be regarded as the poetry of religion, or rather as the
poetic development of the religious principle in a primitive age. It is
the effort of untutored man to explain the mysteries of existence, and
the secret agencies by which the operations of nature are conducted.
Although the growth of similar conditions of society, its character must
vary with that of the rude tribes in which it originates; and the
ferocious Goth, quaffing mead from the skulls of his slaughtered
enemies, must have a very different mythology from that of the
effeminate native of Hispaniola, loitering away his hours in idle
pastimes, under the shadow of his bananas.
At a later and more refined period, we sometimes find these primitive
legends combined into a regular system under the hands of the poet, and
the rude outline moulded into forms of ideal beauty, which are the
objects of adoration in a credulous age, and the delight of all
succeeding ones. Such were the beautiful inventions of Hesiod and Homer,
“who,” says the Father of History, “created the theogony of the Greeks;”
an assertion not to be taken too literally, since it is hardly possible
that any man should create a religious system for his nation.[97] They
only filled up the shadowy outlines of tradition with the bright touches
of their own imaginations, until they had clothed them in beauty which
kindled the imaginations of others. The power of the poet, indeed, may
be felt in a similar way in a much riper period of society. To say
nothing of the “Divina Commedia,” who is there that rises from the
perusal of “Paradise Lost” without feeling his own conceptions of the
angelic hierarchy quickened by those of the inspired artist, and a new
and sensible form, as it were, given to images which had before floated
dim and undefined before him?
The last-mentioned period is succeeded by that of philosophy; which,
disclaiming alike the legends of the primitive age and the poetical
embellishments of the succeeding one, seeks to shelter itself from the
charge of impiety by giving an allegorical interpretation to the popular
mythology, and thus to reconcile the latter with the genuine deductions
of science.
The Mexican religion had emerged from the first of the schools we have
been considering, and, although little affected by poetical influences,
had received a peculiar complexion from the priests, who had digested as
thorough and burdensome a ceremonial as ever existed in any nation. They
had, moreover, thrown the veil of allegory over early tradition, and
invested their deities with attributes savoring much more of the
grotesque conceptions of the Eastern nations in the Old World, than of
the lighter fictions of Greek mythology, in which the features of
humanity, however exaggerated, were never wholly abandoned.[98]
In contemplating the religious system of the Aztecs, one is struck with
its apparent incongruity, as if some portion of it had emanated from a
comparatively refined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest
breathes a spirit of unmitigated ferocity. It naturally suggests the
idea of two distinct sources, and authorizes the belief that the Aztecs
had inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was
afterwards engrafted their own mythology. The latter soon became
dominant, and gave its dark coloring to the creeds of the conquered
nations,--which the Mexicans, like the ancient Romans, seem willingly to
have incorporated into their own,--until the same funereal superstition
settled over the farthest borders of Anahuac.
The Aztecs recognized the existence of a supreme Creator and Lord of the
universe. They addressed him, in their prayers, as “the God by whom we
live,” “omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts,”
“without whom man is as nothing,” “invisible, incorporeal, one God, of
_perfect perfection_ and purity,” “under whose wings we find repose and
a sure defence.” These sublime attributes infer no inadequate conception
of the true God. But the idea of unity--of a being with whom volition is
action, who has no need of inferior ministers to execute his
purposes--was too simple, or too vast, for their understandings; and
they sought relief, as usual, in a plurality of deities, who presided
over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various
occupations of man.[99] Of these, there were thirteen principal deities,
and more than two hundred inferior; to each of whom some special day or
appropriate festival was consecrated.[100]
At the head of all stood the terrible Huitzilopochtli, the Mexican Mars;
although it is doing injustice to the heroic war-god of antiquity to
identify him with this sanguinary monster. This was the patron deity of
the nation. His fantastic image was loaded with costly ornaments. His
temples were the most stately and august of the public edifices; and his
altars reeked with the blood of human hecatombs in every city of the
empire. Disastrous indeed must have been the influence of such a
superstition on the character of the people.[101]
A far more interesting personage in their mythology was Quetzalcoatl,
god of the air, a divinity who, during his residence on earth,
instructed the natives in the use of metals, in agriculture, and in the
arts of government. He was one of those benefactors of their species,
doubtless, who have been deified by the gratitude of posterity. Under
him, the earth teemed with fruits and flowers, without the pains of
culture. An ear of Indian corn was as much as a single man could carry.
The cotton, as it grew, took, of its own accord, the rich dyes of human
art. The air was filled with intoxicating perfumes and the sweet melody
of birds. In short, these were the halcyon days, which find a place in
the mythic systems of so many nations in the Old World. It was the
_golden age_ of Anahuac.[102]
From some cause, not explained, Quetzalcoatl incurred the wrath of one
of the principal gods, and was compelled to abandon the country. On his
way he stopped at the city of Cholula, where a temple was dedicated to
his worship, the massy ruins of which still form one of the interesting
relics of antiquity in Mexico. When he reached the shores of the Mexican
Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his
descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his wizard
skiff, made of serpents’ skins, embarked on the great ocean for the
fabled land of Tlapallan. He was said to have been tall in stature, with
a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. The Mexicans looked
confidently to the return of the benevolent deity; and this remarkable
tradition, deeply cherished in their hearts, prepared the way, as we
shall see hereafter, for the future success of the Spaniards.[103]
We have not space for further details respecting the Mexican divinities,
the attributes of many of whom were carefully defined, as they
descended, in regular gradation, to the _penates_ or household gods,
whose little images were to be found in the humblest dwelling.
The Aztecs felt the curiosity, common to man in almost every stage of
civilization, to lift the veil which covers the mysterious past and the
more awful future. They sought relief, like the nations of the Old
Continent, from the oppressive idea of eternity, by breaking it up into
distinct cycles, or periods of time, each of several thousand years’
duration. There were four of these cycles, and at the end of each, by
the agency of one of the elements, the human family was swept from the
earth, and the sun blotted out from the heavens, to be again
rekindled.[104]
They imagined three separate states of existence in the future life. The
wicked, comprehending the greater part of mankind, were to expiate their
sins in a place of everlasting darkness. Another class, with no other
merit than that of having died of certain diseases, capriciously
selected, were to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment.
The highest place was reserved, as in most warlike nations, for the
heroes who fell in battle, or in sacrifice. They passed at once into the
presence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and choral dances
in his bright progress through the heavens; and, after some years, their
spirits went to animate the clouds and singing-birds of beautiful
plumage, and to revel amidst the rich blossoms and odors of the gardens
of paradise.[105] Such was the heaven of the Aztecs; more refined in its
character than that of the more polished pagan, whose elysium reflected
only the martial sports or sensual gratifications of this life.[106] In
the destiny they assigned to the wicked, we discern similar traces of
refinement; since the absence of all physical torture forms a striking
contrast to the schemes of suffering so ingeniously devised by the
fancies of the most enlightened nations.[107] In all this, so contrary
to the natural suggestions of the ferocious Aztec, we see the evidences
of a higher civilization,[108] inherited from their predecessors in the
land.
Our limits will allow only a brief allusion to one or two of their most
interesting ceremonies. On the death of a person, his corpse was dressed
in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It was strewed with
pieces of paper, which operated as charms against the dangers of the
dark road he was to travel. A throng of slaves, if he were rich, was
sacrificed at his obsequies. His body was burned, and the ashes,
collected in a vase, were preserved in one of the apartments of his
house. Here we have successively the usages of the Roman Catholic, the
Mussulman, the Tartar, and the ancient Greek and Roman; curious
coincidences, which may show how cautious we should be in adopting
conclusions founded on analogy.[109]
A more extraordinary coincidence may be traced with Christian rites, in
the ceremony of naming their children. The lips and bosom of the infant
were sprinkled with water, and “the Lord was implored to permit the holy
drops to wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of
the world; so that the child might be born anew.”[110] We are reminded
of Christian morals, in more than one of their prayers, in which they
used regular forms. “Wilt thou blot us out, O Lord, forever? Is this
punishment intended, not for our reformation, but for our destruction?”
Again, “Impart to us, out of thy great mercy, thy gifts, which we are
not worthy to receive through our own merits.” “Keep peace with all,”
says another petition; “bear injuries with humility; God, who sees, will
avenge you.” But the most striking parallel with Scripture is in the
remarkable declaration that “he who looks too curiously on a woman
commits adultery with his eyes.”[111] These pure and elevated maxims, it
is true, are mixed up with others of a puerile, and even brutal,
character, arguing that confusion of the moral perceptions which is
natural in the twilight of civilization. One would not expect, however,
to meet, in such a state of society, with doctrines as sublime as any
inculcated by the enlightened codes of ancient philosophy.[112]
But although the Aztec mythology gathered nothing from the beautiful
inventions of the poet or from the refinements of philosophy, it was
much indebted, as I have noticed, to the priests, who endeavored to
dazzle the imagination of the people by the most formal and pompous
ceremonial. The influence of the priesthood must be greatest in an
imperfect state of civilization, where it engrosses all the scanty
science of the time in its own body. This is particularly the case when
the science is of that spurious kind which is less occupied with the
real phenomena of nature than with the fanciful chimeras of human
superstition. Such are the sciences of astrology and divination, in
which the Aztec priests were well initiated; and, while they seemed to
hold the keys of the future in their own hands, they impressed the
ignorant people with sentiments of superstitious awe, beyond that which
has probably existed in any other country,--even in ancient Egypt.
The sacerdotal order was very numerous; as may be inferred from the
statement that five thousand priests were, in some way or other,
attached to the principal temple in the capital. The various ranks and
functions of this multitudinous body were discriminated with great
exactness. Those best instructed in music took the management of the
choirs. Others arranged the festivals conformably to the calendar. Some
superintended the education of youth, and others had charge of the
hieroglyphical paintings and oral traditions; while the dismal rites of
sacrifice were reserved for the chief dignitaries of the order. At the
head of the whole establishment were two high-priests, elected from the
order, as it would seem, by the king and principal nobles, without
reference to birth, but solely for their qualifications, as shown by
their previous conduct in a subordinate station. They were equal in
dignity, and inferior only to the sovereign, who rarely acted without
their advice in weighty matters of public concern.[113]
The priests were each devoted to the service of some particular deity,
and had quarters provided within the spacious precincts of their temple;
at least, while engaged in immediate attendance there,--for they were
allowed to marry, and have families of their own. In this monastic
residence they lived in all the stern severity of conventual
discipline. Thrice during the day, and once at night, they were called
to prayers. They were frequent in their ablutions and vigils, and
mortified the flesh by fasting and cruel penance,--drawing blood from
their bodies by flagellation, or by piercing them with the thorns of the
aloe; in short, by practising all those austerities to which fanaticism
(to borrow the strong language of the poet) has resorted, in every age
of the world,
“In hopes to merit heaven by making earth a hell.”[114]
The great cities were divided into districts, placed under the charge of
a sort of parochial clergy, who regulated every act of religion within
their precincts. It is remarkable that they administered the rites of
confession and absolution. The secrets of the confessional were held
inviolable, and penances were imposed of much the same kind as those
enjoined in the Roman Catholic Church. There were two remarkable
peculiarities in the Aztec ceremony. The first was, that, as the
repetition of an offence once atoned for was deemed inexpiable,
confession was made but once in a man’s life, and was usually deferred
to a late period of it, when the penitent unburdened his conscience and
settled at once the long arrears of iniquity.[115] Another peculiarity
was, that priestly absolution was received in place of the legal
punishment of offences, and authorized an acquittal in case of arrest.
Long after the Conquest, the simple natives, when they came under the
arm of the law, sought to escape by producing the certificate of their
confession.[116]
One of the most important duties of the priesthood was that of
education, to which certain buildings were appropriated within the
enclosure of the principal temple. Here the youth of both sexes, of the
higher and middling orders, were placed at a very tender age. The girls
were intrusted to the care of priestesses; for women were allowed to
exercise sacerdotal functions, except those of sacrifice.[117] In these
institutions the boys were drilled in the routine of monastic
discipline; they decorated the shrines of the gods with flowers, fed the
sacred fires, and took part in the religious chants and festivals. Those
in the higher school--the _Calmecac_, as it was called--were initiated
in their traditionary lore, the mysteries of hieroglyphics, the
principles of government, and such branches of astronomical and natural
science as were within the compass of the priesthood. The girls learned
various feminine employments, especially to weave and embroider rich
coverings for the altars of the gods. Great attention was paid to the
moral discipline of both sexes. The most perfect decorum prevailed; and
offences were punished with extreme rigor, in some instances with death
itself. Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the
Aztecs.[118]
At a suitable age for marrying, or for entering into the world, the
pupils were dismissed, with much ceremony, from the convent, and the
recommendation of the principal often introduced those most competent to
responsible situations in public life. Such was the crafty policy of
the Mexican priests, who, by reserving to themselves the business of
instruction, were enabled to mould the young and plastic mind according
to their own wills, and to train it early to implicit reverence for
religion and its ministers; a reverence which still maintained its hold
on the iron nature of the warrior, long after every other vestige of
education had been effaced by the rough trade to which he was devoted.
To each of the principal temples, lands were annexed for the maintenance
of the priests. These estates were augmented by the policy or devotion
of successive princes, until, under the last Montezuma, they had swollen
to an enormous extent, and covered every district of the empire. The
priests took the management of their property into their own hands; and
they seem to have treated their tenants with the liberality and
indulgence characteristic of monastic corporations. Besides the large
supplies drawn from this source, the religious order was enriched with
the first-fruits, and such other offerings as piety or superstition
dictated. The surplus beyond what was required for the support of the
national worship was distributed in alms among the poor; a duty
strenuously prescribed by their moral code. Thus we find the same
religion inculcating lessons of pure philanthropy, on the one hand, and
of merciless extermination, as we shall soon see, on the other. The
inconsistency will not appear incredible to those who are familiar with
the history of the Roman Catholic Church, in the early ages of the
Inquisition.[119]
The Mexican temples--_teocallis_, “houses of God,” as they were
called[120]--were very numerous. There were several hundreds in each of
the principal cities, many of them, doubtless, very humble edifices.
They were solid masses of earth, cased with brick or stone, and in their
form somewhat resembled the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The
bases of many of them were more than a hundred feet square, and they
towered to a still greater height. They were distributed into four or
five stories, each of smaller dimensions than that below. The ascent was
by a flight of steps, at an angle of the pyramid, on the outside. This
led to a sort of terrace, or gallery, at the base of the second story,
which passed quite round the building to another flight of stairs,
commencing also at the same angle as the preceding and directly over it,
and leading to a similar terrace; so that one had to make the circuit
of the temple several times, before reaching the summit. In some
instances the stairway led directly up the centre of the western face of
the building. The top was a broad area, on which were erected one or two
towers, forty or fifty feet high, the sanctuaries in which stood the
sacred images of the presiding deities. Before these towers stood the
dreadful stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were
kept, as inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. There were
said to be six hundred of these altars, on smaller buildings within the
enclosure of the great temple of Mexico, which, with those on the sacred
edifices in other parts of the city, shed a brilliant illumination over
its streets, through the darkest night.[121][122]
From the construction of their temples, all religious services were
public. The long processions of priests, winding round their massive
sides, as they rose higher and higher towards the summit, and the dismal
rites of sacrifice performed there, were all visible from the remotest
corners of the capital, impressing on the spectator’s mind a
superstitious veneration for the mysteries of his religion, and for the
dread ministers by whom they were interpreted.
This impression was kept in full force by their numerous festivals.
Every month was consecrated to some protecting deity; and every week,
nay, almost every day, was set down in their calendar for some
appropriate celebration; so that it is difficult to understand how the
ordinary business of life could have been compatible with the exactions
of religion. Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful
complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both
sexes joined. Processions were made of women and children crowned with
garlands and bearing offerings of fruits, the ripened maize, or the
sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of
the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals.[123] These
were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec predecessors, on which
the fierce Aztecs engrafted a superstition too loathsome to be exhibited
in all its nakedness, and one over which I would gladly draw a veil
altogether, but that it would leave the reader in ignorance of their
most striking institution, and one that had the greatest influence in
forming the national character.
Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth
century, about two hundred years before the Conquest.[124] Rare at
first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire;
till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel
abomination. These religious ceremonials were generally arranged in such
a manner as to afford a type of the most prominent circumstances in the
character or history of the deity who was the object of them. A single
example will suffice.
One of their most important festivals was that in honor of the god
Tezcatlipoca,[125] whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme
Being. He was called “the soul of the world,” and supposed to have been
its creator. He was depicted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual
youth. A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished
for his personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, was selected
to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and
instructed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and
dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and
with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans
were as fond as their descendants at the present day. When he went
abroad, he was attended by a train of the royal pages, and, as he halted
in the streets to play some favorite melody, the crowd prostrated
themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their
good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life, till within a
month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the
principal goddesses, were then selected to share the honors of his bed;
and with them he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the
banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honors of a
divinity.
At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The term of his
short-lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel,
and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal
barges transported him across the lake to a temple which rose on its
margin, about a league from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the
capital flocked, to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad
procession wound up the sides of the pyramid, the unhappy victim threw
away his gay chaplets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical
instruments with which he had solaced the hours of captivity. On the
summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks
flowed disorderly over their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic
scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge
block of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this the
prisoner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs;
while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody
office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a
sharp razor of _itztli_,--a volcanic substance, hard as flint,--and,
inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The
minister of death, first holding this up towards the sun, an object of
worship throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the
temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in
humble adoration. The tragic story of this prisoner was expounded by the
priests as the type of human destiny, which, brilliant in its
commencement, too often closes in sorrow and disaster.[126]
Such was the form of human sacrifice usually practised by the Aztecs. It
was the same that often met the indignant eyes of the Europeans in their
progress through the country, and from the dreadful doom of which they
themselves were not exempted. There were, indeed, some occasions when
preliminary tortures, of the most exquisite kind,--with which it is
unnecessary to shock the reader,--were inflicted, but they always
terminated with the bloody ceremony above described. It should be
remarked, however, that such tortures were not the spontaneous
suggestions of cruelty, as with the North American Indians, but were all
rigorously prescribed in the Aztec ritual, and doubtless were often
inflicted with the same compunctious visitings which a devout familiar
of the Holy Office might at times experience in executing its stern
decrees.[127] Women, as well as the other sex, were sometimes reserved
for sacrifice. On some occasions, particularly in seasons of drought, at
the festival of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god of rain, children, for
the most part infants, were offered up. As they were borne along in open
litters, dressed in their festal robes, and decked with the fresh
blossoms of spring, they moved the hardest heart to pity, though their
cries were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read in their
tears a favorable augury for their petition. These innocent victims were
generally bought by the priests of parents who were poor, but who
stifled the voice of nature, probably less at the suggestions of poverty
than of a wretched superstition.[128]
The most loathsome part of the story--the manner in which the body of
the sacrificed captive was disposed of--remains yet to be told. It was
delivered to the warrior who had taken him in battle, and by him, after
being dressed, was served up in an entertainment to his friends. This
was not the coarse repast of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming
with delicious beverages and delicate viands, prepared with art, and
attended by both sexes, who, as we shall see hereafter, conducted
themselves with all the decorum of civilized life. Surely, never were
refinement and the extreme of barbarism brought so closely in contact
with each other.[129]