In feathery breastplates, of more gorgeous hue
Than the gay plumage of the mountain-cock,
Than the pheasant’s glittering pride. But what were these,
Or what the thin gold hauberk, when opposed
To arms like ours in battle?”
Madoc, Part 1, canto 7.
Beautiful painting! One may doubt, however, the propriety of the
Welshman’s vaunt, before the use of fire-arms.
[89] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 27; lib. 8,
cap. 12.--Relatione d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. p.
305.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ubi supra.
[90] Relatione d’un gentil’ huomo, ubi supra.
[91] [That they might offer them as living sacrifices to their
gods.--M.]
[92] Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 65, 66; vol.
vi. p. 73.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 12.--Toribio,
Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte I. cap. 7.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind.,
lib. 14, cap. 3.--Relatione d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, loc.
cit.--Scalping may claim high authority, or, at least, antiquity. The
Father of History gives an account of it among the Scythians, showing
that they performed the operation, and wore the hideous trophy, in the
same manner as our North American Indians. (Herodot., Hist., Melpomene,
sec. 64.) Traces of the same savage custom are also found in the laws
of the Visigoths, among the Franks, and even the Anglo-Saxons. (See
Guizot, Cours d’Histoire moderne (Paris, 1829), tom. i. p. 283.)
[93] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 67.
[94] [The sick and the disabled were quartered and cared for in some of
the great communal houses.--M.]
[95] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 12, cap. 6; lib. 14, cap.
3.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.
[96] Zurita is indignant at the epithet of _barbarians_ bestowed
on the Aztecs; an epithet, he says, “which could come from no one
who had personal knowledge of the capacity of the people, or their
institutions, and which in some respects is quite as well merited
by the European nations.” (Rapport, p. 200, et seq.) This is strong
language. Yet no one had better means of knowing than this eminent
jurist, who for nineteen years held a post in the royal _audiences_
of New Spain. During his long residence in the country he had ample
opportunity of acquainting himself with its usages, both through his
own personal observation and intercourse with the natives, and through
the first missionaries who came over after the Conquest. On his return
to Spain, probably about 1560, he occupied himself with an answer to
queries which had been propounded by the government, on the character
of the Aztec laws and institutions, and on that of the modifications
introduced by the Spaniards. Much of his treatise is taken up with the
latter subject. In what relates to the former he is more brief than
could be wished, from the difficulty, perhaps, of obtaining full and
satisfactory information as to the details. As far as he goes, however,
he manifests a sound and discriminating judgment. He is very rarely
betrayed into the extravagance of expression so visible in the writers
of the time; and this temperance, combined with his uncommon sources
of information, makes his work one of highest authority on the limited
topics within its range. The original manuscript was consulted by
Clavigero, and, indeed, has been used by other writers. The work is now
accessible to all, as one of the series of translations from the pen of
the indefatigable Ternaux.
[97] ποιήσαντες θεογονίην Ἐλλησι. Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 53.--Heeren
hazards a remark equally strong, respecting the epic poets of India,
“who,” says he, “have supplied the numerous gods that fill her
Pantheon.” Historical Researches, Eng. trans. (Oxford, 1833), vol. iii.
p. 139.
[98] The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone has fallen into a similar train
of thought, in a comparison of the Hindoo and Greek mythology, in his
History of India, published since the remarks in the text were written.
(See Book I. ch. 4.) The same chapter of this truly philosophic work
suggests some curious points of resemblance to the Aztec religious
institutions, that may furnish pertinent illustrations to the mind bent
on tracing the affinities of the Asiatic and American races.
[99] Ritter has well shown, by the example of the Hindoo system, how
the idea of unity suggests, of itself, that of plurality. History of
Ancient Philosophy, Eng. trans. (Oxford, 1838), Book II. ch. 1.
[100] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, passim.--Acosta, lib. 5,
ch. 9.--Boturini, Idea, p. 8, et seq.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich.,
MS., cap. 1.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--The Mexicans, according
to Clavigero, believed in an evil Spirit, the enemy of the human race,
whose barbarous name signified “Rational Owl.” (Stor. del Messico, tom.
ii. p. 2.) The curate Bernaldez speaks of the Devil being embroidered
on the dresses of Columbus’s Indians, in the likeness of an owl.
(Historia de los Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 131.) This must not be
confounded, however, with the evil Spirit in the mythology of the North
American Indians (see Heckewelder’s Account, ap. Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, vol. i. p. 205), still
less with the evil Principle of the Oriental nations of the Old World.
It was only one among many deities, for evil was found too liberally
mingled in the natures of most of the Aztec gods--in the same manner as
with the Greeks--to admit of its personification by any one.
[101] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, cap. 1, et seq.--Acosta,
lib. 5. ch. 9.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 6, cap. 21.--Boturini,
Idea, pp. 27, 28.--Huitzilopochtli is compounded of two words,
signifying “humming-bird,” and “left,” from his image having the
feathers of this bird on its left foot (Clavigero, Stor. del Messico,
tom. ii. p. 17); an amiable etymology for so ruffian a deity.{*}--The
fantastic forms of the Mexican idols were in the highest degree
symbolical. See Gama’s learned exposition of the devices on the statue
of the goddess found in the great square of Mexico. (Descripcion de
las Dos Piedras (México, 1832), Parte 1, pp. 34-44.) The tradition
respecting the origin of this god, or, at least, his appearance on
earth, is curious. He was born of a woman. His mother, a devout person,
one day, in her attendance on the temple, saw a ball of bright-colored
feathers floating in the air. She took it, and deposited it in her
bosom. She soon after found herself pregnant, and the dread deity was
born, coming into the world, like Minerva, all armed,--with a spear
in the right hand, a shield in the left, and his head surmounted by a
crest of green plumes. (See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p.
19, et seq.) A similar notion in respect to the incarnation of their
principal deity existed among the people of India beyond the Ganges, of
China, and of Thibet. “Budh,” says Milman, in his learned and luminous
work on the history of Christianity, “according to a tradition known
in the West, was born of a virgin. So were the Fohi of China, and the
Schakaof of Thibet, no doubt the same, whether a mythic or a real
personage. The Jesuits in China, says Barrow, were appalled at finding
in the mythology of that country the counterpart of the Virgo Deipara.”
(Vol. i. p. 99, note.) The existence of similar religious ideas in
remote regions, inhabited by different races, is an interesting subject
of study, furnishing, as it does, one of the most important links in
the great chain of communication which binds together the distant
families of nations.
{*} [The name may possibly have referred to the whispered oracles
and intimations in dreams--such as “a little bird of the air” is
still fabled to convey--by which, according to the legend, the deity
had guided his people in their migrations and conquests. That it
had a symbolical meaning will hardly be doubted, and M. Brasseur
de Bourbourg, who had originally explained it as “Huitzil the
Left-handed,”--the proper name of a deified hero with the addition
of a descriptive epithet,--has since found one of too deep an import
to be briefly expounded or easily understood. (Quatre Lettres sur le
Mexique (Paris, 1868), p. 201, et al.) _Mexitl_, another name of the
same deity, is translated “the hare of the aloes.” In some accounts the
two are distinct personages. Mythological science rejects the legend,
and regards the Aztec war-god as a “nature-deity,” a personification of
the lightning, this being a natural type of warlike might, of which the
common symbol, the serpent, was represented among the decorations of
the idol. (Myths of the New World, p. 118.) More commonly he has been
identified with the sun, and Mr. Tylor, while declining “to attempt a
general solution of this inextricable compound parthenogenetic deity,”
notices the association of his principal festival with the winter’s
solstice, and the fact that his paste idol was then shot through with
an arrow, as tending to show that the life and death of the deity were
emblematic of the year’s, “while his functions of war-god may have been
of later addition.” Primitive Culture, tom. ii. 279.--K.]
[102] [For the Aztec myths our most valuable authority is the Historia
de los Méxicanos por sus Pinturas, by Ramirez de Fuen-leal. This is
taken directly from the sacred books of the Aztecs as explained by
survivors of the Conquest. Bandelier, Archæological Tour, calls it
the earliest statement of the Nahua myths. The other “sources” are
Motolinía, Mendieta, Sahagun, Ixtlilxochitl, and Torquemada. Bancroft,
Native Races, vol. iii. ch. 7, sums them up admirably.
Brinton, Myths of the New World, thinks Quetzalcoatl “a pure creature
of the fancy.” Bandelier, whose presentation of the subject is most
full and complete (Archæological Tour), agrees with Prescott that
Quetzalcoatl began his career as leader of a migration southward. His
principal sojourn was at Cholula. See also Payne, New World Called
America, vol. i. pp. 588-596. P. de Roo, History of America before
Columbus, vol. i. ch. xxii and xxiii, gives a very full presentation of
the legend. He writes from the point of view of a priest of the Roman
Catholic Church. His conclusion is that Quetzalcoatl was a Christian
prelate, and that Christian doctrines were introduced into aboriginal
America by European immigrants.--M.]
[103] Codex Vaticanus, Pl. 15, and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Part
2, Pl. 2, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vols. i., vi.--Sahagun, Hist. de
Nueva-España, lib. 3, cap. 3, 4, 13, 14.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind.,
lib. 6, cap. 24.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 1.--Gomara,
Crónica de la Nueva-España, cap. 222, ap. Barcia, Historiadores
primitivos de las Indias Occidentales (Madrid, 1749), tom.
ii.--Quetzalcoatl signifies “feathered serpent.” The last syllable
means, likewise, a “twin;” which furnished an argument for Dr. Siguenza
to identify this god with the apostle Thomas (Didymus signifying
also a twin), who, he supposes, came over to America to preach the
gospel. In this rather startling conjecture he is supported by several
of his devout countrymen, who appear to have as little doubt of the
fact as of the advent of St. James, for a similar purpose, in the
mother-country. See the various authorities and arguments set forth
with becoming gravity in Dr. Mier’s dissertation in Bustamante’s
edition of Sahagun (lib. 3, Suplem.), and Veytia (tom. i. pp. 160-200).
Our ingenious countryman McCulloh carries the Aztec god up to a still
more respectable antiquity, by identifying him with the patriarch Noah.
Researches, Philosophical and Antiquarian, concerning the Aboriginal
History of America (Baltimore, 1829), p. 233.{*}
{*} [Under the modern system of mythical interpretation, which has
been applied by Dr. Brinton with singular force and ingenuity to
the traditions of the New World, Quetzalcoatl, “the central figure
of Toltec mythology,” with the corresponding figures found in the
legends of the Mayas, Quichés, Peruvians, and other races, loses all
personal existence, and becomes a creation of that primitive religious
sentiment which clothed the uncomprehending powers of nature with the
attributes of divinity. His name, “Bird-Serpent,” unites the emblems
of the wind and the lightning. “He is both lord of the eastern light
and the winds. As the former, he was born of a virgin in the land of
Tula or Tlapallan, in the distant Orient, and was high-priest of that
happy realm. The morning star was his symbol.... Like all the dawn
heroes, he too was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long
white robes, and, as most of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing
beard. When his earthly work was done, he too returned to the east,
assigning as a reason that the sun, the ruler of Tlapallan, demanded
his presence. But the real motive was that he had been overcome by
Tezcatlipoca, otherwise called Yoalliehecatl, the wind or spirit of the
night, who had descended from heaven by a spider’s web and presented
his rival with a draught pretended to confer immortality, but, in fact,
producing uncontrollable longing for home. For the wind and the light
both depart when the gloaming draws near, or when the clouds spread
their dark and shadowy webs along the mountains and pour the vivifying
rain upon the fields.... Wherever he went, all manner of singing birds
bore him company, emblems of the whistling breezes. When he finally
disappeared in the far east, he sent back four trusty youths, who had
ever shared his fortunes, incomparably swift and light of foot, with
directions to divide the earth between them and rule it till he should
return and resume his power.” (The Myths of the New World, p. 180, et
seq.) So far as mere physical attributes are concerned, this analysis
may be accepted as a satisfactory elucidation of the class of figures
to which it relates. But the grand and distinguishing characteristic of
these figures is the moral and intellectual eminence ascribed to them.
They are invested with the highest qualities of humanity,--attributes
neither drawn from the external phenomena of nature nor born of any
rude sentiment of wonder and fear. Their lives and doctrines are in
strong contrast with those of the ordinary divinities of the same or
other lands, and they are objects not of a propitiatory worship, but
of a pious veneration. Can we, then, assent to the conclusion that
under this aspect also they were “wholly mythical,” “creations of the
religious fancy,” “ideals summing up in themselves the best traits,
the most approved virtues, of whole nations”? (Ibid., pp. 293, 294.)
This would seem to imply that nations may attain to lofty conceptions
of moral truth and excellence by a process of selection, without any
standard or point of view furnished by living embodiments of the ideal.
But this would be as impossible as to arrive at conceptions of the
highest forms and ideas of art independently of the special genius and
actual productions of the artist. In the one case, as in the other, the
ideal is derived originally from examples shaped by finer and deeper
intuitions than those of the masses. “Im Anfang war die That.” The mere
fact, therefore, that the Mexican people recognized an exalted ideal of
purity and wisdom is a sufficient proof that men had existed among them
who displayed these qualities in an eminent degree. The status of their
civilization, imperfect as it was, can be accounted for only in the
same way. Comparative mythology may resolve into its original elements
a personification of the forces of nature woven by the religious fancy
of primitive races, but it cannot sever that chain of discoverers and
civilizers by which mankind has been drawn from the abysses of savage
ignorance, and by which its progress, when uninterrupted, has been
always maintained.--K.]
[104] Cod. Vat., Pl. 7-10, Antiq. of Mexico, vols. i.,
vi.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 1.--M. de Humboldt has been
at some pains to trace the analogy between the Aztec cosmogony and
that of Eastern Asia. He has tried, though in vain, to find a multiple
which might serve as the key to the calculations of the former.
(Vues des Cordillères, pp. 202-212.) In truth, there seems to be a
material discordance in the Mexican statements, both in regard to the
number of revolutions and their duration. A manuscript before me, of
Ixtlilxochitl, reduces them to three, before the present state of the
world, and allows only 4394 years for them (Sumaria Relacion, MS., No.
1); Gama, on the faith of an ancient Indian MS. in Boturini’s Catalogue
(viii. 13), reduces the duration still lower (Descripcion de las Dos
Piedras, Parte 1, p. 49, et seq.); while the cycles of the Vatican
paintings take up near 18,000 years.--It is interesting to observe how
the wild _conjectures_ of an ignorant age have been confirmed by the
more recent _discoveries_ in geology, making it probable that the earth
has experienced a number of convulsions, possibly thousands of years
distant from each other, which have swept away the races then existing,
and given a new aspect to the globe.
[105] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, Apend.--Cod. Vat., ap.
Antiq. of Mexico, Pl. 1-5.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap.
48.--The last writer assures us “that, as to what the Aztecs said of
their going to hell, they were right; for, as they died in ignorance of
the true faith, they have, without question, all gone there to suffer
everlasting punishment”! Ubi supra.
[106] It conveys but a poor idea of these pleasures, that the shade
of Achilles can say “he had rather be the slave of the meanest man
on earth, than sovereign among the dead.” (Odyss., A. 488-490.) The
Mahometans believe that the souls of martyrs pass, after death,
into the bodies of birds, that haunt the sweet waters and bowers of
Paradise. (Sale’s Koran (London, 1825), vol. i. p. 106.)--The Mexican
heaven may remind one of Dante’s, in its _material_ enjoyments; which,
in both, are made up of light, music, and motion. The sun, it must also
be remembered, was a spiritual conception with the Aztec:
“He sees with other eyes than theirs; where they
Behold a sun, he spies a deity.”
[107] It is singular that the Tuscan bard, while exhausting his
invention in devising modes of bodily torture, in his “Inferno,” should
have made so little use of the _moral_ sources of misery. That he has
not done so might be reckoned a strong proof of the rudeness of time,
did we not meet with examples of it in a later day; in which a serious
and sublime writer, like Dr. Watts, does not disdain to employ the same
coarse machinery for moving the conscience of the reader.
[108] [It should perhaps be regarded rather as evidence of a low
civilization, since the absence of any strict ideas of retribution is a
characteristic of the notions in regard to a future life entertained by
savage races. See Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 76, et seq.--K.]
[109] Carta del Lic. Zuazo (Nov. 1521), MS.--Acosta, lib. 5, cap.
8.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 45.--Sahagun, Hist. de
Nueva-España, lib. 3, Apend.--Sometimes the body was buried entire,
with valuable treasures, if the deceased was rich. The “Anonymous
Conqueror,” as he is called, saw gold to the value of 3000 castellanos
drawn from one of these tombs. Relatione d’un gentil’ huomo, ap.
Ramusio, tom. iii. p. 310.
[110] This interesting rite, usually solemnized with great formality,
in the presence of the assembled friends and relatives, is detailed
with minuteness by Sahagun (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 37),
and by Zuazo (Carta, MS.), both of them eye-witnesses. For a version of
part of Sahagun’s account, see Appendix, Part 1, note 26.{*}
{*} [A similar rite of baptism, founded on the natural symbolism of
the purifying power of water, was practised by other races in America,
and had existed in the East, as the reader need hardly be told, long
anterior to Christianity.--K.]
[111] “¿Es posible que este azote y este castigo no se nos dá
para nuestra correccion y enmienda, sino para total destruccion y
asolamiento?” (Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 1.) “Y
esto por sola vuestra liberalidad y magnificencia lo habeis de hacer,
que ninguno es digno ni merecedor de recibir vuestra larguezas por su
dignidad y merecimiento, sino que por vuestra benignidad.” (Ibid.,
lib. 6, cap. 2.) “Sed sufridos y reportados, que Dios bien os vé y
responderá por vosotros, y él os vengará (á) sed humildes con todos,
y con esto os hará Dios merced y tambien honra.” (Ibid., lib. 6, cap.
17.) “Tampoco mires con curiosidad el gesto y disposicion de la gente
principal, mayormente de las mugeres, y sobre todo de las casadas,
porque dice el refran que él que curiosamente mira á la muger adultera
con la vista.” (Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 22.)
[112] [On reviewing the remarkable coincidences shown in the above
pages with the sentiments and even the phraseology of Scripture,
we cannot but admit there is plausible ground for Mr. Gallatin’s
conjecture that the Mexicans, after the Conquest, attributed to their
remote ancestors ideas which more properly belonged to a generation
coeval with the Conquest, and brought into contact with the Europeans.
“The substance,” he remarks, “may be true; but several of the prayers
convey elevated and correct notions of a Supreme Being, which appear
to me altogether inconsistent with that which we know to have been
their practical religion and worship.”{*} Transactions of the American
Ethnological Society, i. 210.]
{*} [It is evident that an inconsistency such as belongs to all
religions, and to human nature in general, affords no sufficient ground
for doubting the authenticity of the prayers reported by Sahagun.
Similar specimens of prayers used by the Peruvians have been preserved,
and, like those of the Aztecs, exhibit, in their recognition of
spiritual as distinct from material blessings, a contrast to the forms
of petition employed by the wholly uncivilized races of the north.
They are in harmony with the purer conceptions of morality which those
nations are admitted to have possessed, and which formed the real basis
of their civilization.--K.]
[113] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, Apend.; lib. 3, cap.
9.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 20; lib. 9, cap. 3,
56.--Gomara, Crón., cap. 215, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Toribio, Hist. de
los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4.--Clavigero says that the high-priest
was necessarily a person of rank. (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 37.)
I find no authority for this, not even in his oracle, Torquemada,
who expressly says, “There is no warrant for the assertion, however
probable the fact may be.” (Monarch. Ind., lib. 9, cap. 5.) It is
contradicted by Sahagun, whom I have followed as the highest authority
in these matters. Clavigero had no other knowledge of Sahagun’s work
than what was filtered through the writings of Torquemada and later
authors.
[114] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, ubi supra.--Torquemada, Monarch.
Ind., lib. 9, cap. 25.--Gomara, Crón., ap. Barcia, ubi supra.--Acosta,
lib. 5, cap. 14, 17.
[115] [So, in the fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine
deferred his baptism until he felt that his end was approaching.--M.]
[116] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 12; lib. 6, cap.
7.--The address of the confessor, on these occasions, contains some
things too remarkable to be omitted. “O merciful Lord,” he says, in
his prayer, “thou who knowest the secrets of all hearts, let thy
forgiveness and favor descend, like the pure waters of heaven, to wash
away the stains from the soul. Thou knowest that this poor man _has
sinned, not from his own free will_, but from the influence of the sign
under which he was born.” After a copious exhortation to the penitent,
enjoining a variety of mortifications and minute ceremonies by way of
penance, and particularly urging the necessity of instantly procuring
_a slave for sacrifice_ to the Deity, the priest concludes with
inculcating charity to the poor. “Clothe the naked and feed the hungry,
whatever privations it may cost thee; for remember, _their flesh is
like thine, and they are men like thee_.” Such is the strange medley of
truly Christian benevolence and heathenish abominations which pervades
the Aztec litany,--intimating sources widely different.
[117] The Egyptian gods were also served by priestesses. (See
Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 54.) Tales of scandal similar to those which
the Greeks circulated respecting them, have been told of the Aztec
virgins. (See Le Noir’s dissertation, ap. Antiquités Mexicaines (Paris,
1834), tom. ii. p. 7, note.) The early missionaries, credulous enough
certainly, give no countenance to such reports; and Father Acosta, on
the contrary, exclaims, “In truth, it is very strange to see that this
false opinion of religion hath so great force among these young men and
maidens of Mexico, that they will serve the Divell with so great rigor
and austerity, which many of us doe not in the service of the most high
God; the which is a great shame and confusion.” Eng. trans., lib. 5,
cap. 16.
[118] Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 9.--Sahagun,
Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, Apend.; lib. 3, cap. 4-8.--Zurita,
Rapport, pp. 123-126.--Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 15, 16.--Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 9, cap. 11-14, 30, 31.--“They were taught,”
says the good father last cited, “to eschew vice, and cleave to
virtue,--_according to their notions of them_; namely, to abstain from
wrath to offer violence and do wrong to no man,--in short, to perform
the duties plainly pointed out by natural religion.”
[119] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 8, cap. 20, 21.--Camargo, Hist.
de Tlascala, MS.--It is impossible not to be struck with the great
resemblance, not merely in a few empty forms, but in the whole way
of life, of the Mexican and Egyptian priesthood. Compare Herodotus
(Euterpe, passim) and Diodorus (lib. 1, sec. 73, 81). The English
reader may consult, for the same purpose, Heeren (Hist. Res., vol.
v. chap. 2), Wilkinson (Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians
(London, 1837), vol. i. pp. 257-279), the last writer especially,--who
has contributed, more than all others, towards opening to us the
interior of the social life of this interesting people.
[120] [Humboldt has noticed the curious similarity of the word
_teocalli_ with the Greek compound--actual or possible--θεόκαλία; and
Buschmann observes, “Die Ubereinstimmung des mex. teotl und θεός,
arithmetisch sehr hoch anzuschlagen wegen des Doppelvocals, zeigt wie
weit es der Zufall in Wortähnlichkeiten zwischen ganz verschiedenen
Sprachen bringen kann.” Uber die aztekischen Ortsnamen, S. 627.--K.]
[121] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol.
307.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Acosta, lib. 5, cap.
13.--Gomara, Crón., cap. 80, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Toribio, Hist. de
los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4.--Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--This last
writer, who visited Mexico immediately after the Conquest, in 1521,
assures us that some of the smaller temples, or pyramids, were filled
with earth impregnated with odoriferous gums and gold dust; the latter
sometimes in such quantities as probably to be worth a million of
_castellanos_! (Ubi supra.) These were the temples of Mammon, indeed!
But I find no confirmation of such golden reports.
[122] [The _teocallis_ could be used as fortresses, as the Spaniards
ascertained to their sorrow.]
[123] Cod. Tel.-Rem., Pl. 1, and Cod. Vat., passim, ap. Antiq. of
Mexico, vols. i., vi.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 10,
et seq.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, passim.--Among the
offerings, quails may be particularly noticed, for the incredible
quantities of them sacrificed and consumed at many of the festivals.
[124] The traditions of their origin have somewhat of a fabulous tinge.
But, whether true or false, they are equally indicative of unparalleled
ferocity in the people who could be the subject of them. Clavigero,
Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 167, et seq.; also Humboldt (who does not
appear to doubt them), Vues des Cordillères, p. 95.
[125] [According to Payne, New World Called America, i. p. 78,
Tezcatlipoca, or _Fiery Mirror_, was so called because of the shield
of polished metal which was almost always a conspicuous adjunct of
the idol which represented him. Probably the correct form of his name
is Tezcatlipopoca, or Fiery Smoking Mirror. He had many names: “Night
Wind,”--“whose servants we are,”--“The Impatient,”--“The Provident
Disposer,”--“who does what he will.” His best-known appellation was
Telpochtli, or “Youthful Warrior,” because his vital force was never
diminished. He was also called the “Enemy,” and the “Hungry Chief.”--He
always had a living representative; when one was sacrificed another
took his place, and this representative was invested with the dress,
functions, and attributes of the God himself.--M.]
[126] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 2, 5, 24, et
alibi.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 2, cap. 16.--Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 7, cap. 19; lib. 10, cap. 14.--Rel. d’un gentil’
huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.--Acosta, lib. 5, cap.
9-21.--Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--Relacion por el Regimiento de Vera
Cruz (Julio, 1519), MS.--Few readers, probably, will sympathize with
the sentence of Torquemada, who concludes his tale of woe by coolly
dismissing “the soul of the victim, to sleep with those of his false
gods, in hell!” Lib. 10, cap. 23.
[127] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 10, 29.--Gomara,
Crón., cap. 219, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.--Toribio, Hist. de los Indios,
MS., Parte 1, cap. 6-11.--The reader will find a tolerably exact
picture of the nature of these tortures in the twenty-first canto of
the “Inferno.” The fantastic creations of the Florentine poet were
nearly realized, at the very time he was writing, by the barbarians
of an unknown world. One sacrifice, of a less revolting character,
deserves to be mentioned. The Spaniards called it the “gladiatorial
sacrifice,” and it may remind one of the bloody games of antiquity. A
captive of distinction was sometimes furnished with arms, and brought
against a number of Mexicans in succession. If he defeated them all, as
did occasionally happen, he was allowed to escape. If vanquished, he
was dragged to the block and sacrificed in the usual manner. The combat
was fought on a huge circular stone, before the assembled capital.
Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 21.--Rel. d’un gentil’
huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305.
[128] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 1, 4, 21, et
alibi.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 10.--Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 76, 82.
[129] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 7,
cap. 19.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 2, cap. 17.--Sahagun,
Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 2, cap. 21, et alibi.--Toribio, Hist. de
los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 2.
[130] To say nothing of Egypt, where, notwithstanding the indications
on the monuments, there is strong reason for doubting it. (Comp.
Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 45.) It was of frequent occurrence among the
Greeks, as every schoolboy knows. In Rome, it was so common as to
require to be interdicted by an express law, less than a hundred years
before the Christian era,--a law recorded in a very honest strain of
exultation by Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. 30, sec. 3, 4); notwithstanding
which, traces of the existence of the practice may be discerned to a
much later period. See, among others, Horace, Epod., In Canidiam.
[131] See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 49.--Bishop
Zumárraga, in a letter written a few years after the Conquest, states
that 20,000 victims were yearly slaughtered in the capital. Torquemada
turns this into 20,000 _infants_. (Monarch. Ind., lib. 7, cap. 21.)
Herrera, following Acosta, says 20,000 victims on a specified day of
the year, throughout the kingdom. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 2,
cap. 16.) Clavigero, more cautious, infers that this number may have
been sacrificed annually throughout Anahuac. (Ubi supra.) Las Casas,
however, in his reply to Sepulveda’s assertion, that no one who had
visited the New World put the number of yearly sacrifices at less than
20,000, declares that “this is the estimate of brigands, who wish to
find an apology for their own atrocities, and that the real number was
not above 50”! (Œuvres, ed. Llorente (Paris, 1822), tom. i. pp. 365,
386.) Probably the good Bishop’s arithmetic here, as in most other
instances, came more from his heart than his head. With such loose
and contradictory data, it is clear that any specific number is mere
conjecture, undeserving the name of calculation.
[132] I am within bounds. Torquemada states the number, most precisely,
at 72,344 (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 63); Ixtlilxochitl, with equal
precision, at 80,400. (Hist. Chich., MS.) _¿Quien sabe?_ The latter
adds that the captives massacred in the capital, in the course of that
memorable year, exceeded 100,000! (Loc. cit.) One, however, has to read
but a little way, to find out that the science of numbers--at least
where the party was not an eyewitness--is anything but an exact science
with these ancient chroniclers. The Codex Telleriano-Remensis, written
some fifty years after the Conquest, reduces the amount to 20,000.
(Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 19; vol. vi. p. 141, Eng. note.) Even
this hardly warrants the Spanish interpreter in calling king Ahuitzotl
a man “of a mild and moderate disposition,” _templada y benigna
condicion_! Ibid., vol. v. p. 49.
[133] Gomara states the number on the authority of two soldiers, whose
names he gives, who took the trouble to count the grinning horrors in
one of these Golgothas, where they were so arranged as to produce the
most hideous effect. The existence of these conservatories is attested
by every writer of the time.
[134] The “Anonymous Conqueror” assures us, as a fact beyond dispute,
that the Devil introduced himself into the bodies of the idols, and
persuaded the silly priests that his only diet was human hearts! It
furnishes a very satisfactory solution, to his mind, of the frequency
of sacrifices in Mexico. Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom.
iii. fol. 307.
[135] The Tezcucan priests would fain have persuaded the good king
Nezahualcoyotl, on occasion of a pestilence, to appease the gods by
the sacrifice of some of his own subjects, instead of his enemies; on
the ground that they would not only be obtained more easily, but would
be fresher victims, and more acceptable. (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich.,
MS., cap. 41.) This writer mentions a cool arrangement entered into by
the allied monarchs with the republic of Tlascala and her confederates.
A battle-field was marked out, on which the troops of the hostile
nations were to engage at stated seasons, and thus supply themselves
with subjects for sacrifice. The victorious party was not to pursue his
advantage by invading the other’s territory, and they were to continue,
in all other respects, on the most amicable footing. (Ubi supra.) The
historian, who follows in the track of the Tezcucan Chronicler, may
often find occasion to shelter himself, like Ariosto, with
“Mettendolo Turpin, lo metto anch’ io.”
[136] [Don José F. Ramirez, the distinguished Mexican scholar, has
made this sentence the text for a disquisition of fifty pages or
more, one object of which is to show that the existence of human
sacrifices is not irreconcilable with an advance in civilization. This
leads him into an argument of much length, covering a broad range of
historical inquiry, and displaying much learning as well as a careful
consideration of the subject. In one respect, however, he has been led
into an important error by misunderstanding the drift of my remarks,
where, speaking of cannibalism, I say, “It is impossible the people who
practise it should make any great progress in moral or intellectual
culture” (p. 100). This observation, referring solely to cannibalism,
the critic cites as if applied by me to human sacrifices. Whatever
force, therefore, his reasoning may have in respect to the latter, it
cannot be admitted to apply to the former. The distance is wide between
human sacrifices and cannibalism; though Señor Ramirez diminishes
this distance by regarding both one and the other simply as religious
exercises, springing from the devotional principle in our nature.{*}
He enforces his views by a multitude of examples from history, which
show how extensively these revolting usages of the Aztecs--on a much
less gigantic scale indeed--have been practised by the primitive races
of the Old World, some of whom, at a later period, made high advances
in civilization. Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos á la Historia del
Conquista de México del Señor W. Prescott, appended to Navarro’s
translation.]
{*} [The practise of eating, or tasting, the victim has been generally
associated with sacrifice, from the idea either of the sacredness of
the offering or of the deity’s accepting the soul, the immaterial part,
or the blood as containing the principle of life and leaving the flesh
to his worshippers.--K.]
[137] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.--Among
other instances is that of Chimalpopoca, third king of Mexico, who
doomed himself, with a number of his lords, to this death, to wipe off
an indignity offered him by a brother monarch. (Torquemada, Monarch.
Ind., lib. 2, cap. 28.) This was the law of honor with the Aztecs.
[138] [“The advancement of Mexico rested for support on ... a system of
perpetual war, remorselessly maintained against neighboring peoples,
ostensibly to procure victims for sacrifice, but really to provide
animal food for consumption by the privileged class engaged in it; and
the religious ritual had been so expanded as to ensure for them, by a
sacred and permanent sanction, an almost continuous cannibal carnival.”
Payne, New World Called America, vol. i. p. 300. Mr. Payne shows that
this continuous cannibalism prevailed because Anahuac possessed no
large animals capable of furnishing a regular food supply. “Organized
cannibalism, fortified by its religious sanction, was in fact a natural
if not a necessary outgrowth of circumstances.”--M.]
[139] Voltaire, doubtless, intends this, when he says, “Ils n’étaient
point anthropophages, comme un très-petit nombre de peuplades
Américaines.” (Essai sur les Mœurs, chap. 147.)
[140] [The remark in the text admits of some qualification. According
to an ancient Tezcucan chronicler, quoted by Señor Ramirez, the Toltecs
celebrated occasionally the worship of the god Tlaloc with human
sacrifices. The most important of these was the offering up once a
year of five or six maidens, who were immolated in the usual horrid
way of tearing out their hearts. It does not appear that the Toltecs
consummated the sacrifice by devouring the flesh of the victim. This
seems to have been the only exception to the blameless character of
the Toltec rites. Tlaloc was the oldest deity in the Aztec mythology,
in which he found a suitable place. Yet, as the knowledge of him was
originally derived from the Toltecs, it cannot be denied that this
people, as Ramirez says, possessed in their peculiar civilization the
germs of those sanguinary institutions which existed on so appalling a
scale in Mexico. See Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos, ubi supra.]
[141] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45, et alibi.
[142] No doubt the ferocity of character engendered by their sanguinary
rites greatly facilitated their conquests. Machiavelli attributes to a
similar cause, in part, the military successes of the Romans. (Discorsi
sopra T. Livio, lib. 2, cap. 2.) The same chapter contains some
ingenious reflections--much more ingenious than candid--on the opposite
tendencies of Christianity.{*}
{*} [“It was high time that an end should be put to those hecatombs
of human victims, slashed, torn open, and devoured on all the little
occasions of life. It sounds quite pithy to say that the Inquisition,
as conducted in Mexico, was as great an evil as the human sacrifices
and the cannibalism; but it is not true.” Fiske, The Discovery of
America, vol. ii. p. 293.--M.]
[143] “An Egyptian temple,” says Denon, strikingly, “is an open volume,
in which the teachings of science, morality, and the arts are recorded.
Every thing seems to speak one and the same language, and breathes one
and the same spirit.” The passage is cited by Heeren, Hist. Res., vol.
v. p. 178.
[144] Divine Legation, ap. Works (London, 1811), vol. iv. b. 4,
sec. 4.--The Bishop of Gloucester, in his comparison of the various
hieroglyphical systems of the world, shows his characteristic sagacity
and boldness by announcing opinions little credited then, though since
established. He affirmed the existence of an Egyptian alphabet, but
was not aware of the phonetic property of hieroglyphics,--the great
literary discovery of our age.
[145] It appears that the hieroglyphics on the most recent monuments
of Egypt contain no larger infusion of phonetic characters than those
which existed eighteen centuries before Christ; showing no advance, in
this respect, for twenty-two hundred years! (See Champollion, Précis du
Système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens (Paris, 1824), pp. 242,
281.) It may seem more strange that the enchorial alphabet, so much
more commodious, should not have been substituted. But the Egyptians
were familiar with their hieroglyphics from infancy, which, moreover,
took the fancies of the most illiterate, probably in the same manner as
our children are attracted and taught by the picture-alphabets in an
ordinary spelling-book.
[146] Descripcion histórica y cronológica de las Dos Piedras (México,
1832), Parte 2, p. 39.
[147] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 32, 44.--Acosta, lib. 6, cap.
7.--The continuation of Gama’s work, recently edited by Bustamante, in
Mexico, contains, among other things, some interesting remarks on the
Aztec hieroglyphics. The editor has rendered a good service by this
further publication of the writings of this estimable scholar, who has
done more than any of his countrymen to explain the mysteries of Aztec
science.
[148] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 32.--Warburton, with his
usual penetration, rejects the idea of mystery in the figurative
hieroglyphics. (Divine Legation, b. 4, sec. 4.) If there was any
mystery reserved for the initiated, Champollion thinks it may have
been the system of the anaglyphs. (Précis, p. 360.) Why may not this
be true, likewise, of the monstrous symbolical combinations which
represented the Mexican deities?
[149] Boturini, Idea, pp. 77-83.--Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp.
34-43.--Heeren is not aware, or does not allow, that the Mexicans
used phonetic characters of any kind. (Hist. Res., vol. v. p. 45.)
They, indeed, reversed the usual order of proceeding, and, instead of
adapting the hieroglyphic to the name of the object, accommodated the
name of the object to the hieroglyphic. This, of course, could not
admit of great extension. We find phonetic characters, however, applied
in some instances to common as well as proper names.
[150] Boturini, Idea, ubi supra.
[151] Clavigero has given a catalogue of the Mexican historians
of the sixteenth century,--some of whom are often cited in this
history,--which bears honorable testimony to the literary ardor
and intelligence of the native races. Stor. del Messico, tom. i.,
Pref.--Also, Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, passim.
[152] M. de Humboldt’s remark, that the Aztec annals, from the close
of the eleventh century, “exhibit the greatest method and astonishing
minuteness” (Vues des Cordillères, p. 137), must be received with
some qualification. The reader would scarcely understand from it that
there are rarely more than one or two facts recorded in any year,
and sometimes not one in a dozen or more. The necessary looseness
and uncertainty of these historical records are made apparent by the
remarks of the Spanish interpreter of the Mendoza Codex, who tells us
that the natives, to whom it was submitted, were very long in coming to
an agreement about the proper signification of the paintings. Antiq. of
Mexico, vol. vi. p. 87.
[153] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 30.--Acosta, lib. 6, cap.
7.--“Tenian para cada género,” says Ixtlilxochitl, “sus Escritores,
unos que trataban de los Anales, poniendo por su órden las cosas que
acaecian en cada un año, con dia, mes, y hora; otros tenian á su cargo
las Genealogías, y descendencia de los Reyes, Señores, y Personas de
linaje, asentando por cuenta y razon los que nacian, y borraban los que
morian con la misma cuenta. Unos tenian cuidado de las pinturas, de los
términos, límites, y mojoneras de las Ciudades, Provincias, Pueblos, y
Lugares, y de las suertes, y repartimiento de las tierras cuyas eran, y
á quien pertenecian; otros de los libros de Leyes, ritos, y ceremonias
que usaban.” Hist. Chich., MS., Prólogo.
[154] According to Boturini, the ancient Mexicans were acquainted
with the Peruvian method of recording events by means of the
_quippus_,--knotted strings of various colors,--which were afterwards
superseded by hieroglyphical painting. (Idea, p. 86.) He could
discover, however, but a single specimen, which he met with in
Tlascala, and that had nearly fallen to pieces with age. McCulloh
suggests that it may have been only a wampum belt, such as is
common among our North American Indians. (Researches, p. 201.)
The conjecture is plausible enough. Strings of wampum, of various
colors, were used by the latter people for the similar purpose of
registering events. The insulated fact, recorded by Boturini, is hardly
sufficient--unsupported, so far as I know, by any other testimony--to
establish the existence of _quippus_ among the Aztecs, who had but
little in common with the Peruvians.
[155] Pliny, who gives a minute account of the _papyrus_ reed of Egypt,
notices the various manufactures obtained from it, as ropes, cloth,
paper, etc. It also served as a thatch for the roofs of houses, and as
food and drink for the natives. (Hist. Nat., lib. 11, cap. 20-22.) It
is singular that the American _agave_, a plant so totally different,
should also have been applied to all these various uses.
[156] Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 8.--Boturini, Idea, p.
96.--Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 52.--Peter Martyr Anglerius,
De Orbe Novo (Compluti, 1530), dec. 3, cap. 8; dec. 5, cap 10.--Martyr
has given a minute description of the Indian maps sent home soon after
the invasion of New Spain. His inquisitive mind was struck with the
evidence they afforded of a positive civilization. Ribera, the friend
of Cortés, brought back a story that the paintings were designed as
patterns for embroiderers and jewellers. But Martyr had been in Egypt,
and he felt little hesitation in placing the Indian drawings in the
same class with those he had seen on the obelisks and temples of that
country.
[157] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Prólogo.--Idem, Sum. Relac.,
MS.--[“The name of Zumárraga,” says Señor Alaman, “has other and
very different titles to immortality from that mentioned by Mr.
Prescott,--titles founded on his virtues and apostolic labors,
especially on the fervid zeal with which he defended the natives
and the manifold benefits he secured to them. The loss that history
suffered by the destruction of the Indian manuscripts by the
missionaries has been in a great measure repaired by the writings of
the missionaries themselves.” Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega),
tom. i. p. 60.]--Writers are not agreed whether the conflagration took
place in the square of Tlatelolco or Tezcuco. Comp. Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. ii. p. 188, and Bustamante’s Pref. to Ixtlilxochitl,
Cruautés des Conquérans, trad. de Ternaux, p. xvii.
[158] It has been my lot to record both these displays of human
infirmity, so humbling to the pride of intellect. See the History of
Ferdinand and Isabella, Part 2, chap. 6.
[159] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 10, cap. 27.--Bustamante,
Mañanas de Alameda (México, 1836), tom. ii., Prólogo.
[160] [“After the zeal of the priests had somewhat abated, or rather
when the harmless nature of the paintings was better understood, the
natives were permitted to use their hieroglyphics again. Among other
things they wrote down in this way their sins when the priests were too
busy to hear their verbal confessions.” Bancroft, Native Races, vol.
ii. p. 526.--M.]
[161] Very many of the documents thus painfully amassed in the archives
of the Audience of Mexico were sold, according to Bustamante, as
wrapping-paper, to apothecaries, shopkeepers, and rocket-makers!
Boturini’s noble collection has not fared much better.
[162] The history of this famous collection is familiar to scholars. It
was sent to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, not long after the Conquest,
by the viceroy Mendoza, Marques de Mondejar. The vessel fell into the
hands of a French cruiser, and the manuscript was taken to Paris. It
was afterwards bought by the chaplain of the English embassy, and,
coming into the possession of the antiquary Purchas, was engraved,
_in extenso_, by him, in the third volume of his “Pilgrimage.” After
its publication, in 1625, the Aztec original lost its importance,
and fell into oblivion so completely that, when at length the public
curiosity was excited in regard to its fate, no trace of it could
be discovered. Many were the speculations of scholars, at home and
abroad, respecting it, and Dr. Robertson settled the question as to
its existence in England, by declaring that there was no Mexican relic
in that country, except a golden goblet of Montezuma. (History of
America (London, 1796), vol. iii. p. 370.) Nevertheless, the identical
Codex, and several other Mexican paintings, have been since discovered
in the Bodleian Library. The circumstance has brought some obloquy
on the historian, who, while prying into the collections of Vienna
and the Escorial, could be so blind to those under his own eyes.
The oversight will not appear so extraordinary to a thorough-bred
collector, whether of manuscripts, or medals, or any other rarity. The
Mendoza Codex is, after all, but a copy, coarsely done with a pen on
European paper. Another copy, from which Archbishop Lorenzana engraved
his tribute-rolls in Mexico, existed in Boturini’s collection. A third
is in the Escorial, according to the Marquis of Spineto. (Lectures on
the Elements of Hieroglyphics (London), Lect. 7.) This may possibly be
the original painting. The entire Codex, copied from the Bodleian maps,
with its Spanish and English interpretations, is included in the noble
compilation of Lord Kingsborough. (Vols. i., v., vi.) It is distributed
into three parts, embracing the civil history of the nation, the
tributes paid by the cities, and the domestic economy and discipline of
the Mexicans, and, from the fulness of the interpretation, is of much
importance in regard to these several topics.
[163] It formerly belonged to the Giustiniani family, but was so
little cared for that it was suffered to fall into the mischievous
hands of the domestics’ children, who made sundry attempts to burn it.
Fortunately, it was painted on deerskin, and, though somewhat singed,
was not destroyed. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 89, et seq.) It
is impossible to cast the eye over this brilliant assemblage of forms
and colors without feeling how hopeless must be the attempt to recover
a key to the Aztec mythological symbols; which are here distributed
with the symmetry, indeed, but in all the endless combinations, of the
kaleidoscope. It is in the third volume of Lord Kingsborough’s work.
[164] Humboldt, who has copied some pages of it in his “Atlas
pittoresque,” intimates no doubt of its Aztec origin. (Vues des
Cordillères, pp. 266, 267.) M. Le Noir even reads in it an exposition
of Mexican Mythology, with occasional analogies to that of Egypt and
of Hindostan. (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom, ii., Introd.) The fantastic
forms of hieroglyphic symbols may afford analogies for almost anything.
[165] The history of this Codex, engraved entire in the third volume
of the “Antiquities of Mexico,” goes no further back than 1739, when
it was purchased at Vienna for the Dresden Library. It is made of the
American _agave_. The figures painted on it bear little resemblance,
either in feature or form, to the Mexican. They are surmounted by a
sort of head-gear, which looks something like a modern peruke. On the
chin of one we may notice a beard, a sign often used after the Conquest
to denote a European. Many of the persons are sitting cross-legged. The
profiles of the faces, and the whole contour of the limbs, are sketched
with a spirit and freedom very unlike the hard, angular outlines of the
Aztecs. The characters, also, are delicately traced, generally in an
irregular but circular form, and are very minute. They are arranged,
like the Egyptian, both horizontally and perpendicularly, mostly in
the former manner, and, from the prevalent direction of the profiles,
would seem to have been read from right to left. Whether phonetic
or ideographic, they are of that compact and purely conventional
sort which belongs to a well-digested system for the communication
of thought. One cannot but regret that no trace should exist of the
quarter whence this MS. was obtained; perhaps some part of Central
America, from the region of the mysterious races who built the
monuments of Mitla and Palenque; though, in truth, there seems scarcely
more resemblance in the symbols to the Palenque _bas-reliefs_ than to
the Aztec paintings.{*}
{*} [Mr. Stephens, who, like Humboldt, considered the Dresden Codex
a Mexican manuscript, compared the characters of it with those on
the altar of Copan, and drew the conclusion that the inhabitants of
that place and of Palenque must have spoken the same language as the
Aztecs. Prescott’s opinion has, however, been confirmed by later
critics, who have shown that the hieroglyphics of the Dresden Codex are
quite different from those at Copan and Palenque, while the Mexican
writing bears not the least resemblance to either. See Orozco y Berra,
Geografia de las Lenguas de México, p. 101.-K.]
[166] There are three of these: the Mendoza Codex; the
Telleriano-Remensis,--formerly the property of Archbishop Teller,--in
the Royal Library of Paris; and the Vatican MS., No. 3738. The
interpretation of the last bears evident marks of its recent origin;
probably as late as the close of the sixteenth or the beginning of the
seventeenth century, when the ancient hieroglyphics were read with the
eye of faith rather than of reason. Whoever was the commentator (comp.
Vues des Cordillères, pp. 203, 204; and Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. pp.
155, 222), he has given such an exposition as shows the Aztecs to have
been as orthodox Christians as any subjects of the Pope.
[167] The total number of Egyptian hieroglyphics discovered by
Champollion amounts to 864; and of these 130 only are phonetic,
notwithstanding that this kind of character is used far more frequently
than both the others. Précis, p. 263;--also Spineto, Lectures, Lect. 3.
[168] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Dedic.--Boturini, who travelled
through every part of the country in the middle of the last century,
could not meet with an individual who could afford him the least clue
to the Aztec hieroglyphics. So completely had every vestige of their
ancient language been swept away from the memory of the natives. (Idea,
p. 116.) If we are to believe Bustamante, however, a complete key to
the whole system is, at this moment, _somewhere_ in Spain. It was
carried home, at the time of the process against Father Mier, in 1795.
The name of the Mexican Champollion who discovered it is Borunda. Gama,
Descripcion, tom. ii. p. 33, nota.
[169] [After the ancient picture-writings had been destroyed in
Yucatan, and their harmlessness had been recognized, attempts were
made to record once more the history they contained. These restored
chronicles are called the Chilan Balam. From them Professor Daniel G.
Brinton selected the stories he published as the “Maya Chronicles.” One
of them, the “Chronicle of Chicxulub,” was written in Roman characters
by a native Maya chief, Nakuk Pech, about the year 1562. It is a short
account of the Spanish conquest of Yucatan and refers to Izamal and
Chichen-Itza as inhabited towns in the first half of the sixteenth
century.--M.]
[170] _Teoamoxtli_, “the divine book,” as it was called. According to
Ixtlilxochitl, it was composed by a Tezcucan doctor, named Huematzin,
towards the close of the seventeenth century. (Relaciones, MS.) It gave
an account of the migrations of his nation from Asia, of the various
stations on their journey, of their social and religious institutions,
their science, arts, etc., etc., a good deal too much for one book.
_Ignotum pro mirifico._ It has never been seen by a European.{*} A
copy is said to have been in possession of the Tezcucan chroniclers on
the taking of their capital. (Bustamante, Crónica Mexicana (México,
1822), carta 3.) Lord Kingsborough, who can scent out a Hebrew root be
it buried never so deep, has discovered that the _Teoamoxtli_ was the
Pentateuch. Thus, _teo_ means “divine,” _amotl_, “paper” or “book,”
and _moxtli_ “appears to be Moses;”--“Divine Book of Moses”! Antiq. of
Mexico, vol. vi. p. 204, nota.
{*} [It must have been seen by many Europeans, if we accept either
the statement of the Baron de Waldeck, in 1838 (Voyage pittoresque et
arçhéologique dans la Province d’Yucatan), that it was then in his
possession, or the theories of Brasseur de Bourbourg, who identifies it
with the Dresden Codex and certain other hieroglyphical manuscripts,
and who believes himself to have found the key to it, and consequently
to the origin of the Mexican history and civilization, in one of the
documents in Boturini’s collection, to which he has given the name
of the Codex Chimalpopoca. Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique (Paris,
1868).--K.]
[171] [Such a supposition would require a “stretch of fancy” greater
than any which the mind of the mere historical inquirer is capable of
taking. To admit the probability of the Asiatic origin of the American
races, and of the indefinite antiquity of Mexican civilization, is
something very different from believing that this civilization, already
developed in the degree required for the existence and preservation of
its own records during so long a period and so great a migration, can
have been transplanted from the one continent to the other. It would be
easier to accept the theory, now generally abandoned, that the original
settlers owed their civilization to a body of colonists from Phœnicia.
In view of so hazardous a conjecture, it is difficult to understand
why Buschmann has taken exception to the “sharp criticism” to which
Prescott has subjected the sources of Mexican history, and his “low
estimate of their value and credibility.”--K.]
[172] Boturini, Idea, pp. 90-97.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom.
ii. pp. 174-178.
[173] “Los cantos con que las observaban Autores muy graves en su modo
de ciencia y facultad, pues fuéron los mismos Reyes, y de la gente mas
ilustre y entendida, que siempre observáron y adquiriéron la verdad, y
esta con tanta razon, quanta pudiéron tener los mas graves y fidedignos
Autores.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Prologo.
[174] See chap. 6 of this Introduction.
[175] See some account of these mummeries in Acosta (lib. 5, cap.
30),--also Clavigero (Stor. del Messico, ubi supra). Stone models
of masks are sometimes found among the Indian ruins, and engravings
of them are both in Lord Kingsborough’s work and in the Antiquités
Mexicaines.
[176] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, Apend. 2.--Gama, in comparing the
language of Mexican notation with the decimal system of the Europeans
and the ingenious binary system of Leibnitz, confounds oral with
written arithmetic.
[177] Ibid., ubi supra.--This learned Mexican has given a very
satisfactory treatise on the arithmetic of the Aztecs, in his second
part.
[178] Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 4.{*}
{*} [And in France. In France the five extra days were called
sans-cullottides.--M.]
[179] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, Apend.--According to
Clavigero, the fairs were held on the days bearing the sign of the
year. Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 62.
[180] The people of Java, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, regulated
their markets, also, by a week of five days. They had, besides, our
week of seven (History of Java (London, 1830), vol. i. pp. 531, 532.)
The latter division of time, of general use throughout the East, is
the oldest monument existing of astronomical science. See La Place,
Exposition du Système du Monde (Paris, 1808), lib. 5, chap. 1.
[181] Veytia, Historia antigua de Méjico (Méjico, 1806), tom. i. cap.
6, 7.--Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 33, 34, et alibi.--Boturini,
Idea, pp. 4, 44, et seq.--Cod. Tel.-Rem., ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol.
vi. p. 104.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--Toribio, Hist. de los
Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 5.
[182] Sahagun intimates doubts of this. “They celebrated another feast
every four years in honor of the elements of fire, and it is probable
and has been conjectured that it was on these occasions that they made
their intercalation, counting six days of _nemontemi_,” as the unlucky
complementary days were called. (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, Apend.)
But this author, however good an authority for the superstitions, is an
indifferent one for the science of the Mexicans.
[183] The Persians had a cycle of one hundred and twenty years, of
three hundred and sixty-five days each, at the end of which they
intercalated thirty days. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillèras, p. 177.)
This was the same as thirteen after the cycle of fifty-two years of the
Mexicans, but was less accurate than their probable intercalation of
twelve days and a half. It is obviously indifferent, as far as accuracy
is concerned, which multiple of four is selected to form the cycle;
though, the shorter the interval of intercalation, the less, of course,
will be the temporary departure from the true time.
[184] This is the conclusion to which Gama arrives, after a very
careful investigation of the subject. He supposes that the “bundles,”
or cycles, of fifty-two years--by which, as we shall see, the Mexicans
computed time--ended alternately at midnight and midday. (Descripcion,
Parte 1, p. 52, et seq.) He finds some warrant for this in Acosta’s
account (lib. 6, cap. 2), though contradicted by Torquemada (Monarch.
Ind., lib. 5, cap. 33), and, as it appears, by Sahagun,--whose work,
however, Gama never saw (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 7, cap. 9),--both
of whom place the close of the year at midnight. Gama’s hypothesis
derives confirmation from a circumstance I have not seen noticed.
Besides the “bundle” of fifty-two years, the Mexicans had a larger
cycle of one hundred and four years, called “an old age.” As this was
not used in their reckonings, which were carried on by their “bundles,”
it seems highly probable that it was designed to express the period
which would bring round the commencement of the smaller cycles to the
same hour, and in which the intercalary days, amounting to twenty-five,
might be comprehended without a fraction.
[185] This length, as computed by Zach, at 365d. 5h. 48m. 48sec.,
is only 2m. 9sec. longer than the Mexican; which corresponds with
the celebrated calculation of the astronomers of the Caliph Almamon,
that fell short about two minutes of the true time. See La Place,
Exposition, p. 350.
[186] “El corto exceso de 4hor. 38min. 40seg., que hay de mas de los 25
dias en el período de 104 años, no puede componer un dia entero, hasta
que pasen mas de cinco de estos períodos máximos ó 538 años.” (Gama,
Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 23.) Gama estimates the solar year at 365d.
5h. 48m. 50sec.
[187] The ancient Etruscans arranged their calendar in cycles of 110
solar years, and reckoned the year at 365d. 5h. 40m.; at least this
seems probable, says Niebuhr. (History of Rome, Eng. trans. (Cambridge,
1828), vol. i. pp. 113, 238.) The early Romans had not wit enough
to avail themselves of this accurate measurement, which came within
nine minutes of the true time. The Julian reform, which assumed 365d.
5¼h. as the length of the year, erred as much, or rather more, on
the other side. And when the Europeans, who adopted this calendar,
landed in Mexico, their reckoning was nearly eleven days in advance of
the exact time,--or, in other words, of the reckoning of the barbarous
Aztecs;{*} a remarkable fact.--Gama’s researches led to the conclusion
that the year of the new cycle began with the Aztecs on the ninth of
January; a date considerably earlier than that usually assigned by
the Mexican writers. (Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 49-52.) By postponing
the intercalation to the end of fifty-two years, the annual loss of
six hours made every fourth year begin a day earlier. Thus, the cycle
commencing on the ninth of January, the fifth year of it began on the
eighth, the ninth year on the seventh, and so on; so that the last day
of the series of fifty-two years fell on the twenty-sixth of December,
when the intercalation of thirteen days rectified the chronology and
carried the commencement of the new year to the ninth of January again.
Torquemada, puzzled by the irregularity of the new-year’s day, asserts
that the Mexicans were unacquainted with the annual excess of six
hours, and therefore never intercalated! (Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap.
36.) The interpreter of the Vatican Codex has fallen into a series of
blunders on the same subject, still more ludicrous. (Antiq. of Mexico,
vol. vi. Pl. 16.) So soon had Aztec science fallen into oblivion after
the Conquest!
{*} [See also Wilson, Prehistoric Man, i. p. 246.--M.]
[188] These hieroglyphics were a “rabbit,” a “reed,” a “flint,” a
“house.” They were taken as symbolical of the four elements, air,
water, fire, earth, according to Veytia. (Hist. antig., tom. i. cap.
5.) It is not easy to see the connection between the terms “rabbit” and
“air,” which lead the respective series.{*}
{*} [The fleet and noiseless motions of the animal seem to offer an
obvious explanation of the symbol.--K.]
[189] The following table of two of the four indictions of thirteen
years each will make the text more clear. The first column shows
the actual year of the great cycle, or “bundle.” The second, the
numerical dots used in their arithmetic. The third is composed of their
hieroglyphics for rabbit, reed, flint, house, in their regular order.
[Illustration]
By pursuing the combinations through the two remaining indictions, it
will be found that the same number of dots will never coincide with
the same hieroglyphic. These tables are generally thrown into the
form of wheels, as are those also of their months and days, having a
very pretty effect. Several have been published, at different times,
from the collections of Siguenza and Boturini. The wheel of the great
cycle of fifty-two years is encompassed by a serpent, which was also
the symbol of “an age,” both with the Persians and Egyptians. Father
Toribio seems to misapprehend the nature of these chronological wheels:
“Tenian rodelas y escudos, y en ellas pintadas las figuras y armas de
sus Demonios con su blason.” Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4.
[190] Among the Chinese, Japanese, Moghols, Mantchous, and other
families of the Tartar race. Their series are composed of symbols of
their five elements, and the twelve zodiacal signs, making a cycle
of sixty years’ duration. Their several systems are exhibited, in
connection with the Mexican, in the luminous pages of Humboldt (Vues
des Cordillères, p. 149), who draws important consequences from the
comparison, to which we shall have occasion to return hereafter.
[191] In this calendar, the months of the tropical year were
distributed into cycles of thirteen days, which, being repeated twenty
times,--the number of days in a solar month,--completed the lunar, or
astrological, year of 260 days; when the reckoning began again. “By
the contrivance of these _trecenas_ (terms of thirteen days) and the
cycle of fifty-two years,” says Gama, “they formed a luni-solar period,
most exact for astronomical purposes.” (Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 27.)
He adds that these _trecenas_ were suggested by the periods in which
the moon is visible before and after conjunction. (Loc. cit.) It seems
hardly possible that a people capable of constructing a calendar so
accurately on the true principles of solar time should so grossly err
as to suppose that in this reckoning they really “represented the daily
revolutions of the moon.” “The whole Eastern world,” says the learned
Niebuhr, “has followed the moon in its calendar; the free scientific
division of a vast portion of time is peculiar to the West. Connected
with the West is that primeval extinct world which we call the New.”
History of Rome, vol. i. p. 239.
[192] They were named “companions,” and “lords of the night,” and were
supposed to preside over the night, as the other signs did over the
day. Boturini, Idea, p. 57.
[193] Thus, their astrological year was divided into months of thirteen
days; there were thirteen years in their indictions, which contained
each three hundred and sixty-five periods of thirteen days, etc. It
is a curious fact that the number of lunar months of thirteen days
contained in a cycle of fifty-two years, with the intercalation,
should correspond precisely with the number of years in the great
Sothic period of the Egyptians, namely, 1491; a period in which the
seasons and festivals came round to the same place in the year again.
The coincidence may be accidental. But a people employing periodical
series and astrological calculations have generally some meaning in the
numbers they select and the combinations to which they lead.
[194] According to Gama (Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 75, 76), because 369
can be divided by nine without a fraction; the nine “companions” not
being attached to the five complementary days. But 4, a mystic number
much used in their arithmetical combinations, would have answered the
same purpose equally well. In regard to this, McCulloh observes, with
much shrewdness, “It seems impossible that the Mexicans, so careful
in constructing their cycle, should abruptly terminate it with 360
revolutions, whose natural period of termination is 2340.” And he
supposes the nine “companions” were used in connection with the cycles
of 260 days, in order to throw them into the larger ones, of 2340;
eight of which, with a ninth of 260 days, he ascertains to be equal to
the great solar period of 52 years. (Researches, pp. 207, 208.) This is
very plausible. But in fact the combinations of the two first series,
forming the cycle of 260 days, were always interrupted at the end of
the year, since each new year began with the same hieroglyphic of the
days. The third series of the “companions” was intermitted, as above
stated, on the five unlucky days which closed the year, in order, if we
may believe Boturini, that the first day of the solar year might have
annexed to it the first of the nine “companions,” which signified “lord
of the year” (Idea, p. 57); a result which might have been equally
well secured, without any intermission at all, by taking 5, another
favorite number, instead of 9, as the divisor. As it was, however, the
cycle, as far as the third series was concerned, did terminate with 360
revolutions. The subject is a perplexing one, and I can hardly hope to
have presented it in such a manner as to make it perfectly clear to the
reader.
[195] Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, Introd.
[196] “Dans les pays les plus différents,” says Benjamin Constant,
concluding some sensible reflections on the sources of the sacerdotal
power, “chez les peuples de mœurs les plus opposées, le sacerdoce a dû
au culte des éléments et des astres un pouvoir dont aujourd’hui nous
concevons à peine l’idée.” De la Religion (Paris, 1825), lib. 3, ch. 5.
[197]
“It is a gentle and affectionate thought.
That, in immeasurable heights above us,
At our first birth the wreath of love was woven
With sparkling stars for flowers.”
COLERIDGE: Translation of Wallenstein, act 2, sc. 4.
Schiller is more true to poetry than history, when he tells us, in the
beautiful passage of which this is part, that the worship of the stars
took the place of classic mythology. It existed long before it.
[198] Gama has given us a complete almanac of the astrological year,
with the appropriate signs and divisions, showing with what scientific
skill it was adapted to its various uses. (Descripcion, Parte 1,
pp. 25-31, 62-76.) Sahagun has devoted a whole book to explaining
the mystic import and value of these signs, with a minuteness that
may enable one to cast up a scheme of nativity for himself. (Hist.
de Nueva-España, lib. 4.) It is evident he fully believed the magic
wonders which he told. “It was a deceitful art,” he says, “pernicious
and idolatrous, and was never contrived by human reason.” The good
father was certainly no philosopher.
[199] See, among others, the Cod. Tel.-Rem., Part 4, Pl. 22, ap. Antiq.
of Mexico, vol. i.
[200] “It can hardly be doubted,” says Lord Kingsborough, “that the
Mexicans were acquainted with many scientific instruments of strange
invention, as compared with our own; whether the _telescope_ may not
have been of the number is uncertain; but the thirteenth plate of M.
Dupaix’s _Monuments_, Part Second, which represents a man holding
something of a similar nature to his eye, affords reason to suppose
that they knew how to improve the powers of vision.” (Antiq. of Mexico,
vol. vi. p. 15, note.) The instrument alluded to is rudely carved on
a conical rock. It is raised no higher than the neck of the person
who holds it, and looks--to my thinking--as much like a musket as a
telescope; though I shall not infer the use of fire-arms among the
Aztecs from this circumstance. (See vol. iv. Pl. 15.) Captain Dupaix,
however, in his commentary on the drawing, sees quite as much in it as
his lordship. Ibid., vol. v. p. 241.
[201] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, sec. 4; Parte 2, Apend.--Besides
this colossal fragment, Gama met with some others, designed, probably,
for similar scientific uses, at Chapoltepec. Before he had leisure
to examine them, however, they were broken up for materials to build
a furnace,--a fate not unlike that which has too often befallen the
monuments of ancient art in the Old World.
[202] [For additional light upon the Mexican astronomical and
calendar system and the “calendar stone,” easily accessible authors
are: Bandelier, Archæological Tour, Peabody Museum Reports, ii. 572;
Valentini, American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, April, 1878;
Squier, Some New Discoveries respecting Dates on the Great Calendar
Stone, etc.; American Journal of Science and Arts, Second Series,
March, 1849; Bancroft, Native Races, ii. chap. 16 and v. p. 192;
Short, North Americans of Antiquity, chap, ix.; Wilson, Prehistoric
Man, i; Brasseur, Chronologie historiques des Méxicaines, in Actes de
la Soc. d’Ethnographie, vol vi.; Payne, New World Called America, ii.
310 seq. Mrs. Nuttall claims that this calendar stone stood in the
great market-place in Mexico, and that its purpose was to regulate the
market-days.--M.]
[203] In his second treatise on the cylindrical stone, Gama dwells
more at large on its scientific construction, as a vertical sun-dial,
in order to dispel the doubts of some sturdy skeptics on this point.
(Descripcion, Parte 2, Apend. 1.) The civil day was distributed by
the Mexicans into sixteen parts, and began, like that of most of the
Asiatic nations, with sunrise. M. de Humboldt, who probably never
saw Gama’s second treatise, allows only eight intervals. Vues des
Cordillères, p. 128.
[204] “Un calendrier,” exclaims the enthusiastic Carli, “qui est réglé
sur la révolution annuelle du soleil, non-seulement par l’addition de
cinq jours tous les ans, mais encore par la correction du bissextile,
doit sans doute être regardé comme une opération déduite d’une étude
réfléchie, et d’une grande combinaison. Il faut donc supposer chez ces
peuples une suite d’observations astronomiques, une idée distincte de
la sphère, de la déclinaison de l’écliptique, et l’usage d’un calcul
concernant les jours et les heures des apparitions solaires.” Lettres
Américaines, tom. i. let. 23.
[205] La Place, who suggests the analogy, frankly admits the
difficulty. Système du Monde, lib. 5, ch. 3.
[206] M. Jomard errs in placing the _new fire_, with which ceremony the
old cycle properly concluded, at the winter solstice. It was not till
the 26th of December, if Gama is right. The cause of M. Jomard’s error
is his fixing it before, instead of after, the complementary days. See
his sensible letter on the Aztec calendar, in the Vues des Cordillères,
p. 309.
[207] At the actual moment of their culmination, according to both
Sahagun (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, Apend.) and Torquemada
(Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 33, 36). But this could not be, as that
took place at midnight, in November, so late as the last secular
festival, which was early in Montezuma’s reign, in 1507. (Gama,
Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 50, nota.--Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp.
181, 182.) The longer we postpone the beginning of the new cycle, the
greater must be the discrepancy.
[208]
“On his bare breast the cedar boughs are laid;
On his bare breast, dry sedge and odorous gums,
Laid ready to receive the sacred spark,
And blaze, to herald the ascending Sun,
Upon his living altar.”
SOUTHEY’S Madoc, part 2, canto 26.
[209] I borrow the words of the summons by which the people were called
to the _ludi seculares_, the secular games of ancient Rome, “_quos nec
spectâsset quisquam, nec spectaturus esset_.” (Suetonius, Vita Tib.
Claudii, lib. 5.) The old Mexican chroniclers warm into something like
eloquence in their descriptions of the Aztec festival. (Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 33.--Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS.,
Parte 1, cap. 5.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 7, cap. 9-12.
See, also, Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 52-54,--Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 84-86.) The English reader will find a more
brilliant coloring of the same scene in the canto of Madoc above
cited,--“On the Close of the Century.”
[210] _E.g._, gunpowder and the compass.--M.
[211] This latter grain, according to Humboldt, was found by the
Europeans in the New World, from the South of Chili to Pennsylvania
(Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 408); he might have added, to the St.
Lawrence. Our Puritan fathers found it in abundance on the New England
coast, wherever they landed. See Morton, New England’s Memorial
(Boston, 1826), p. 68.--Gookin, Massachusetts Historical Collections,
chap. 3.
[212] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 31.--“Admirable example
for our times,” exclaims the good father, “when women are not only
unfit for the labors of the field, but have too much levity to attend
to their own household!”
[213] A striking contrast also to the Egyptians, with whom some
antiquaries are disposed to identify the ancient Mexicans. Sophocles
notices the effeminacy of the men in Egypt, who stayed at home tending
the loom, while their wives were employed in severe labors out of doors:
“ΟΙ. ὦ πάντʹ ἐκείνω τοῖς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ νόμοις
φύσιν κατεικασθέντε καὶ βίου τροφάς·
ἐκεῖ γὰρ οἱ μὲν ἄρσενες κατὰ στέγας
θακοῦσιν ἱστουργοῦντες, αἱ δὲ σύννομοι
τἄξω βίου τροφεῖα πορσύνουσʹ ἀεί.”
SOPHOCL., Œdip. Col. v. 337-341.
[214] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 32.--Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 153-155.--“Jamas padeciéron hambre,” says
the former writer, “sino en pocas ocasiones.” If these famines were
rare, they were very distressing, however, and lasted very long. Comp.
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41, 71, et alibi.
[215] Oviedo considers the _musa_ an imported plant; and Hernandez, in
his copious catalogue, makes no mention of it at all. But Humboldt, who
has given much attention to it, concludes that, if some species were
brought into the country, others were indigenous. (Essai politique,
tom. ii. pp. 382-388.) If we may credit Clavigero, the banana was the
forbidden fruit that tempted our poor mother Eve! Stor. del Messico,
tom. i. p. 49, nota.
[216] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol.
306.--Hernandez, De Historiâ Plantarum Novæ Hispaniæ (Matriti, 1790),
lib. 6, cap. 87.
[217] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 13, et alibi.
[218] The farmer’s preparation for his crop of Indian corn was of the
simplest. He simply cut away the dense growth from his corn-field and
burned it. The ashes thus secured were the only fertilizer used. Just
before the first rain in May or June he made holes with a sharpened
stick, and at regular intervals, in the prepared ground, and into them
dropped four or five grains of corn. In the later days of the Aztec
domination considerable care was taken of the growing crops. They were
kept free from weeds and in some cases irrigated. Boys stationed on
elevated platforms or trees frightened away the birds.--M.
[219] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--He extols the honey of the maize, as
equal to that of bees. (Also Oviedo, Hist. natural de las Indias, cap.
4, ap. Barcia, tom. i.) Hernandez, who celebrates the manifold ways in
which the maize was prepared, derives it from the Haytian word _mahiz_.
Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 44, 45.
[220] And is still, in one spot at least, San Ángel,--three leagues
from the capital. Another mill was to have been established, a few
years since, in Puebla. Whether this has actually been done, I am
ignorant. See the Report of the Committee on Agriculture to the Senate
of the United States, March 12, 1838.
[221] Before the Revolution, the duties on the _pulque_ formed so
important a branch of revenue that the cities of Mexico, Puebla, and
Toluca alone paid $817,739 to government. (Humboldt, Essai politique,
tom. ii. p. 47.) It requires time to reconcile Europeans to the
peculiar flavor of this liquor, on the merits of which they are
consequently much divided. There is but one opinion among the natives.
The English reader will find a good account of its manufacture in
Ward’s Mexico, vol. ii. pp. 55-60.
[222] [Ober (Travels in Mexico) gives a very full account of the uses
to which the maguey is put. On the maguey plantations the plants have
an average value of five dollars. “A long train departs every day from
the stations on the plains of Apam, loaded exclusively with _pulque_,
from the carriage of which the railroad derives a revenue of above
$1000 a day,” p. 345. The _pulque_ “tastes like stale buttermilk and
has an odor at times like that of putrid meat.” It is wholesome and
refreshing. Mexicans ascribe to it the same beneficent properties which
Scotsmen assign to their whiskey.--M.]
[223] Hernandez enumerates the several species of the maguey, which are
turned to these manifold uses, in his learned work, De Hist. Plantarum.
(Lib. 7, cap. 71, et seq.) M. de Humboldt considers them all varieties
of the _agave Americana_, familiar in the southern parts both of
the United States and Europe. (Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 487, et
seq.) This opinion has brought on him a rather sour rebuke from our
countryman the late Dr. Perrine, who pronounces them a distinct species
from the American _agave_, and regards one of the kinds, the _pita_,
from which the fine thread is obtained, as a totally distinct genus.
(See the Report of the Committee on Agriculture.) Yet the Baron may
find authority for all the properties ascribed by him to the maguey,
in the most accredited writers who have resided more or less time in
Mexico. See, among others, Hernandez, ubi supra.--Sahagun, Hist, de
Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2; lib. 11, cap. 7.--Toribio, Hist, de los
Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 19.--Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS. The last,
speaking of the maguey, which produces the fermented drink, says
expressly, “With what remain of these leaves they manufacture excellent
and very fine cloth, resembling holland, or the finest linen.” It
cannot be denied, however, that Dr. Perrine shows himself intimately
acquainted with the structure and habits of the tropical plants, which,
with such patriotic spirit, he proposed to introduce into Florida.
[224] The first regular establishment of this kind, according to Carli,
was at Padua, in 1545. Lettres Américaines, tom. i. chap. 21.
[225] [Though I have conformed to the views of Humboldt in regard
to the knowledge of mining possessed by the ancient Mexicans, Señor
Ramirez thinks the conclusions to which I have been led are not
warranted by the ancient writers. From the language of Bernal Diaz and
of Sahagun, in particular, he infers that their only means of obtaining
the precious metals was by gathering such detached masses as were
found on the surface of the ground or in the beds of the rivers. The
small amount of silver in their possession he regards as an additional
proof of their ignorance of the proper method and their want of the
requisite tools for extracting it from the earth. See Ramirez, Notas y
Esclarecimientos, p. 73.]
[226] P. Martyr, De Orbe Novo, Decades (Compluti, 1530), dec. 5, p.
191.--Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 3.--Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. pp.
114-125.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.
“Men wrought in brass,” says Hesiod, “when iron did not exist.”
χαλκῴ δʹ ἐργάϛοντο μέλας δʹ οὐκ ἒσκε σίδηρο
HESIOD, Ἒργα καὶ Ἥμεραι.
The Abbé Raynal contends that the ignorance of iron must necessarily
have kept the Mexicans in a low state of civilization, since without
it “they could have produced no work in metal, worth looking at, no
masonry nor architecture, engraving nor sculpture.” (History of the
Indies, Eng. trans., vol. iii. b. 6.) Iron, however, if known, was
little used by the ancient Egyptians, whose mighty monuments were hewn
with bronze tools; while their weapons and domestic utensils were of
the same material, as appears from the green color given to them in
their paintings.
[227] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 25-29.--Torquemada, Monarch.
Ind., ubi supra.
[228] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 15-17.--Boturini,
Idea, p. 77.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., loc. cit.--Herrera, who says
they could also enamel, commends the skill of the Mexican goldsmiths
in making birds and animals with movable wings and limbs, in a most
curious fashion. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 15.) Sir John
Maundeville, as usual,
“with his hair on end
At his own wonders,”
notices the “gret marvayle” of similar pieces of mechanism at the court
of the grand Chane of Cathay. See his Voiage and Travaile, chap. 20.
[229] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 11.--Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.--Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 27,
28.
[230] “Parece, que permitia Dios, que la figura de sus cuerpos se
asimilase á la que tenian sus almas por el pecado, en que siempre
permanecian.” Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.
[231] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 195.
[232] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 1. Besides the _plaza mayor_, Gama
points out the Square of Tlatelolco, as a great cemetery of ancient
relics. It was the quarter to which the Mexicans retreated, on the
siege of the capital.
[233] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.--Gama, Descripcion,
Parte 2, pp. 81-83.--These statues are repeatedly noticed by the old
writers. The last was destroyed in 1754, when it was seen by Gama, who
highly commends the execution of it. Ibid.
[234] This wantonness of destruction provokes the bitter animadversion
of Martyr, whose enlightened mind respected the vestiges of
civilization wherever found. “The conquerors,” he says, “seldom
repaired the buildings that were defaced. They would rather sack twenty
stately cities than erect one good edifice.” De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap.
10.
[235] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 110-114.--Humboldt, Essai
politique, tom. ii. p. 40.--Ten thousand men were employed in the
transportation of this enormous mass, according to Tezozomoc,
whose narrative, with all the accompanying prodigies, is minutely
transcribed by Bustamante. The Licentiate shows an appetite for the
marvellous which might excite the envy of a monk of the Middle Ages.
(See Descripcion, nota, loc. cit.) The English traveller Latrobe
accommodates the wonders of nature and art very well to each other, by
suggesting that these great masses of stone were transported by means
of the mastodon, whose remains are occasionally disinterred in the
Mexican Valley. Rambler in Mexico, p. 145.
[236] [In 1875 Dr. Augustus Le Plongeon, having successfully
interpreted certain hieroglyphic inscriptions at Chichen Itza,
unearthed, at a distance of four hundred yards from the palace at that
place, a statue of Chaac Mol, or Balam (the tiger king), the greatest
of the Itza rulers. It was seized by the Mexican officials and sent to
the city of Mexico. There, in the courtyard of the National Museum,
it may be seen to-day, just opposite its exact duplicate, which was
found buried, either in the plaza of Mexico or somewhere in Tlaxcala,
some years ago. The story of the discovery seems marvellous in the
extreme, but photographs taken at many stages of the exhumation
dispel doubt as to its truth. For a very full report upon the whole
matter, see the paper by Stephen Salisbury, president of the American
Antiquarian Society, in the Proceedings of that society for 1877-78,
pp. 70-119.--M.]
[237] A great collection of ancient pottery, with various other
specimens of Aztec art, the gift of Messrs. Poinsett and Keating, is
deposited in the Cabinet of the American Philosophical Society, at
Philadelphia. See the Catalogue, ap. Transactions, vol. iii. p. 510.
Another admirable collection may be seen in the Museum of Natural
History in New York.--M.
[238] Hernandez, Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 116.
[239] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib.
7, cap. 15.--Boturini, Idea, p. 77.--It is doubtful how far they were
acquainted with the manufacture of silk. Carli supposes that what
Cortés calls silk was only the fine texture of hair, or down, mentioned
in the text. (Lettres Américaines, tom. i. let. 21.) But it is certain
they had a species of caterpillar, unlike our silkworm, indeed, which
spun a thread that was sold in the markets of ancient Mexico. See
the Essai politique (tom. iii. pp. 66-69), where M. de Humboldt has
collected some interesting facts in regard to the culture of silk by
the Aztecs. Still, that the fabric should be a matter of uncertainty at
all shows that it could not have reached any great excellence or extent.
[240] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.--Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 37.--Sahagun,
Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 18-21.--Toribio, Hist. de los
Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 15.--Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio,
tom. iii. fol. 306.--Count Carli is in raptures with a specimen of
feather-painting which he saw in Strasbourg. “Never did I behold
anything so exquisite,” he says, “for brilliancy and nice gradation of
color, and for beauty of design. No European artist could have made
such a thing.” (Lettres Américaines, let. 21, note.) There is still one
place, Patzquaro, where, according to Bustamante, they preserve some
knowledge of this interesting art, though it is practised on a very
limited scale and at great cost. Sahagun, ubi supra, nota.
[241] “O felicem monetam, quæ suavem utilemque præbet humano generi
potum, et a tartareâ peste avaritiæ suos immunes servat possessores,
quod suffodi aut diu servari nequeat!” De Orbe Novo, dec. 5,
cap. 4.--(See, also, Carta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 100, et
seq.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 36.--Toribio, Hist.
de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 8.--Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.) The
substitute for money throughout the Chinese empire was equally simple
in Marco Polo’s time, consisting of bits of stamped paper, made from
the inner bark of the mulberry-tree. See Viaggi di Messer Marco Polo,
gentil’ huomo Venetiano, lib. 2, cap. 18, ap. Ramusio, tom. ii.
[242] “Procurad de saber algun _oficio honroso_, como es el hacer obras
de pluma y otros oficios mecánicos.... Mirad que tengais cuidado de lo
tocante á la agricultura.... En ninguna parte he visto que alguno se
mantenga por su nobleza.” Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap.
17.
[243] Col. de Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 71; vol. vi.
p. 86.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 41.
[244] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 4, 10-14.
[245] Ibid., lib. 9, cap. 2.
[246] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2, 4.--In the
Mendoza Codex is a painting representing the execution of a cacique
and his family, with the destruction of his city, for maltreating the
persons of some Aztec merchants. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 67.
[247] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 41.--Ixtlilxochitl gives
a curious story of one of the royal family of Tezcuco, who offered,
with two _other_ merchants, _otros mercaderes_, to visit the court of
a hostile cacique and bring him dead or alive to the capital. They
availed themselves of a drunken revel, at which they were to have been
sacrificed, to effect their object. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 62.
[248] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2, 5.--The ninth
book is taken up with an account of the merchants, their pilgrimages,
the religious rites on their departure, and the sumptuous way of living
on their return. The whole presents a very remarkable picture, showing
they enjoyed a consideration, among the half-civilized nations of
Anahuac, to which there is no parallel, unless it be that possessed by
the merchant-princes of an Italian republic, or the princely merchants
of our own.
[249] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 23-37.--Camargo,
Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--These complimentary attentions were paid at
stated seasons, even during pregnancy. The details are given with
abundant gravity and minuteness by Sahagun, who descends to particulars
which his Mexican editor, Bustamante, has excluded, as somewhat too
unreserved for the public eye. If they were more so than some of the
editor’s own notes, they must have been very communicative indeed.
[250] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 112-134.--The Third Part of the Col. de
Mendoza (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i.) exhibits the various ingenious
punishments devised for the refractory child. The flowery path of
knowledge was well strewed with thorns for the Mexican tyro.
[251] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 151-160.--Sahagun has given us the
admonitions of both father and mother to the Aztec maiden on her coming
to years of discretion. What can be more tender than the beginning of
the mother’s exhortation? “Hija mia muy amada, muy querida palomita: ya
has oido y notado las palabras que tu señor padre te ha dicho; ellas
son palabras preciosas, y que raramente se dicen ni se oyen, las quales
han procedido de las entrañas y corazon en que estaban atesoradas; y
tu muy amado padre bien sabe que eres su hija, engendrada de él, eres
su sangre y su carne, y sabe Dios nuestro señor que es así; aunque
eres muger, é imágen de tu padre ¿que mas te puedo decir, hija mia,
de lo que ya esta dicho? “ (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 19.)
The reader will find this interesting document, which enjoins so much
of what is deemed most essential among civilized nations, translated
entire in the Appendix, Part 2, No. 1.
[252] Yet we find the remarkable declaration, in the counsels of a
father to his son, that, for the multiplication of the species, God
ordained one man only for one woman. “Nota, hijo mio, lo que te digo,
mira que el mundo ya tiene este estilo de engendrar y multiplicar, y
para esta generacion y multiplicacion, ordenó Dios que una muger usase
de un varon, y un varon de una muger.” Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España,
lib. 6, cap. 21.
[253] Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 21-23; lib. 8, cap. 23.--Rel. d’un gentil’
huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305.--Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.
[254] As old as the heroic age of Greece, at least. We may fancy
ourselves at the table of Penelope, where water in golden ewers was
poured into silver basins for the accommodation of her guests, before
beginning the repast:
“Χέρνιβα δʹ ἀμφίπολος προχόῳ ἐπέχευε φέρουσα
Καλῇ χρυσείῃ ὑπὲρ ἀργυρέοιο λέβητος,
Νίψασθαι: παρὰ δὲ ξεστὴν ἐτάνυσσε τράπεζαν.”
ΟΔΥΣΣ. Α.
The feast affords many other points of analogy to the Aztec, inferring
a similar stage of civilization in the two nations. One may be
surprised, however, to find a greater profusion of the precious metals
in the barren isle of Ithaca than in Mexico. But the poet’s fancy was a
richer mine than either.
[255] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 22.--Amidst some
excellent advice of a parent to his son, on his general deportment,
we find the latter punctiliously enjoined not to take his seat at
the board till he has washed his face and hands, and not to leave
it till he has repeated the same thing, and _cleansed his teeth_.
The directions are given with a precision worthy of an Asiatic. “Al
principio de la comida labarte has las manos y la boca, y donde te
juntares con otros á comer, no te sientes luego; mas antes tomarás el
agua y la jícara para que se laben los otros, y echarles has agua á las
manos, y despues de esto, cojerás lo que se ha caido por el suelo y
barrerás el lugar de la comida, y también despues de comer lavarás te
las manos y la boca, y limpiarás los dientes.” Ibid., loc. cit.
[256] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol.
306.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37.--Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom.
ii. p. 227.--The Aztecs used to smoke after dinner, to prepare for
the _siesta_, in which they indulged themselves as regularly as an
old Castilian.--Tobacco, in Mexican _yetl_, is derived from a Haytian
word, _tabaco_. The natives of Hispaniola, being the first with whom
the Spaniards had much intercourse, have supplied Europe with the names
of several important plants.--Tobacco, in some form or other, was used
by almost all the tribes of the American continent, from the Northwest
Coast to Patagonia. (See McCulloh, Researches, pp. 91-94.) Its manifold
virtues, both social and medicinal, are profusely panegyrized by
Hernandez, in his Hist. Plantarum, lib. 2, cap. 109.
[257] This noble bird was introduced into Europe from Mexico. The
Spaniards called it _gallopavo_, from its resemblance to the peacock.
See Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio (tom. iii. fol. 306); also
Oviedo (Rel. Sumaria, cap. 38), the earliest naturalist who gives an
account of the bird, which he saw soon after the Conquest, in the
West Indies, whither it had been brought, as he says, from New Spain.
The Europeans, however, soon lost sight of its origin, and the name
“turkey” intimated the popular belief of its Eastern origin. Several
eminent writers have maintained its Asiatic or African descent; but
they could not impose on the sagacious and better-instructed Buffon.
(See Histoire naturelle, art. _Dindon_.) The Spaniards saw immense
numbers of turkeys in the domesticated state, on their arrival in
Mexico, where they were more common than any other poultry. They were
found wild, not only in New Spain, but all along the continent, in
the less frequented places, from the Northwestern territory of the
United States to Panamá. The wild turkey is larger, more beautiful,
and every way an incomparably finer bird than the tame. Franklin, with
some point, as well as pleasantry, insists on its preference to the
bald eagle as the national emblem. (See his Works, vol. x. p. 63, in
Sparks’s excellent edition.) Interesting notices of the history and
habits of the wild turkey may be found in the Ornithology both of
Buonaparte and of that enthusiastic lover of nature, Audubon, _vox
Meleagris_, _Gallopavo_.
[258] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37; lib. 8, cap. 13;
lib. 9, cap. 10-14.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.--Rel.
d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 306.--Father Sahagun
has gone into many particulars of the Aztec _cuisine_, and the mode of
preparing sundry savory messes, making, all together, no despicable
contribution to the noble science of gastronomy.
[259] The froth, delicately flavored with spices and some other
ingredients, was taken cold by itself. It had the consistency almost
of a solid; and the “Anonymous Conqueror” is very careful to inculcate
the importance of “opening the mouth wide, in order to facilitate
deglutition, that the foam may dissolve gradually, and descend
imperceptibly, as it were, into the stomach.” It was so nutritious that
a single cup of it was enough to sustain a man through the longest
day’s march. (Fol. 306.) The old soldier discusses the beverage _con
amore_.
[260] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37; lib. 8, cap.
13.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.--Rel. d’un gentil’
huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.
[261] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 8.--Torquemada,
Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 11.--The Mexican nobles entertained
minstrels in their houses, who composed ballads suited to the times,
or the achievements of their lord, which they chanted, to the
accompaniment of instruments, at the festivals and dances. Indeed,
there was more or less dancing at most of the festivals, and it was
performed in the court-yards of the houses, or in the open squares of
the city. (Ibid., ubi supra.) The principal men had, also, buffoons and
jugglers in their service, who amused them and astonished the Spaniards
by their feats of dexterity and strength (Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 28; also
Clavigero (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 179-186), who has designed
several representations of their exploits, truly surprising). It is
natural that a people of limited refinement should find their enjoyment
in material rather than intellectual pleasures, and, consequently,
should excel in them. The Asiatic nations, as the Hindoos and Chinese,
for example, surpass the more polished Europeans in displays of agility
and legerdemain.
[262] “Y de esta manera pasaban gran rato de la noche, y se despedian,
é iban á sus casas, unos alabando la fiesta, y otros murmurando de las
demasías y excesos, cosa mui ordinaria en los que á semejantes actos se
juntan.” Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.--Sahagun, Hist.
de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 10-14.
[263] [In reading this chapter we must constantly bear in mind the
fact that it is founded almost entirely upon traditions. We must also
remember--first, that Ixtlilxochitl is the principal authority for the
legends therein chronicled; second, that Ixtlilxochitl possessed a very
fertile imagination; third, that Ixtlilxochitl’s “Historia Chichimeca”
was not written from an entirely unprejudiced point of view. To
use the words of Bandelier (Archæological Tour in Mexico, p. 192):
“Ixtlilxochitl is always a very suspicious authority, not because he is
more confused than any other Indian writer, but because he wrote for an
interested object, and with the view of sustaining tribal claims in the
eyes of the Spanish government.”--M.]
[264] For a criticism on this writer, see the Postscript to this
chapter.
[265] See Chapter I. of this Introduction, p. 17.
[266] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 9.--Idem, Hist. Chich., MS.,
cap. 19.
[267] The adventures of the former hero are told with his usual spirit
by Sismondi (Républiques Italiennes, chap. 79). It is hardly necessary,
for the latter, to refer the English reader to Chambers’s “History of
the Rebellion of 1745;” a work which proves how thin is the partition
in human life which divides romance from reality.
[268] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 10.
[269] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 10.--Hist. Chich., MS., cap.
20-24.
[270] Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 25. The contrivance was effected
by means of an extraordinary personal resemblance of the parties; a
fruitful source of comic--as every reader of the drama knows--though
rarely of tragic interest.
[271] It was customary, on entering the presence of a great lord, to
throw aromatics into the censer. “Hecho en el brasero incienso y copal,
que era uso y costumbre donde estaban los Reyes y Señores, cada vez
que los criados entraban con mucha reverencia y acatamiento echaban
sahumerio en el brasero; y así coneste perfume se obscurecia algo la
sala.” Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 11.
[272] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 26.--Relaciones, MS., No.
11.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 47.
[273] “Nezahualcoiotzin le dixo, que si viese á quien buscaban, si lo
iría á denunciar? respondió, que no; tornándole á replicar diciéndole,
que haria mui mal en perder una muger hermosa y lo demas que el rey
Maxtla prometia, el mancebo se rió de todo, no haciendo caso ni de lo
uno ni de lo otro.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 27.
[274] Ibid., MS., cap. 26, 27.--Relaciones, MS., No. 11.--Veytia, Hist.
antig., lib. 2, cap. 47, 48.
[275] Ixtlilxochitl, MSS., ubi supra.--Veytia, ubi supra.
[276] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 28-31.--Relaciones, MS.,
No. 11.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 2, cap. 51-54.
[277] See page 21 of this volume.
[278] “Que venganza no es justo la procuren los Reyes, sino castigar al
que lo mereciere.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.
[279] See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p.
247.--Nezahualcoyotl’s code consisted of eighty laws, of which
thirty-four only have come down to us, according to Veytia. (Hist.
antig., tom. iii. p. 224, nota.) Ixtlilxochitl enumerates several of
them. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 38, and Relaciones, MS., Ordenanzas.
[280] Nowhere are these principles kept more steadily in view than in
the various writings of our adopted countryman Dr. Lieber, having more
or less to do with the theory of legislation. Such works could not have
been produced before the nineteenth century.
[281] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.--Veytia, Hist.
antig., lib. 3, cap. 7.--According to Zurita, the principal judges, at
their general meetings every four months, constituted also a sort of
parliament or córtes, for advising the king on matters of state. See
his Rapport, p. 106; also _ante_, p. 33.
[282] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.--Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. ii. p. 137.--Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 3, cap.
7.--“Concurrian á este consejo las tres cabezas del imperio, en
ciertos dias, á oir cantar las poesías históricas antiguas y modernas,
para instruirse de toda su historia, y tambien cuando habia algun
nuevo invento en cualquiera facultad, para examinarlo, aprobarlo,
ó reprobarlo. Delante de las sillas de los reyes habia una gran
mesa cargada de joyas de oro y plata, pedrería, plumas, y otras
cosas estimables, y en los rincones de la sala muchas de mantas de
todas calidades, para premios de las habilidades y estímulo de los
profesores, las cuales alhajas repartian los reyes, en los dias
que concurrian, á los que se aventajaban en el ejercicio ne sus
facultades.” Ibid.
[283] Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 3, cap. 7.--Clavigero, Stor. del
Messico, tom. i. p. 247.--The latter author enumerates four historians,
some of much repute, of the royal house of Tezcuco, descendants of the
great Nezahualcoyotl. See his Account of Writers, tom. i. pp. 6-21.
[284] “En la ciudad de Tezcuco estaban los Archivos Reales de todas las
cosas referidas, por haver sido la Metrópoli de todas las ciencias,
usos, y buenas costumbres, porque los Reyes que fuéron de ella se
preciáron de esto.” (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., Prólogo.) It was
from the poor wreck of these documents, once so carefully preserved by
his ancestors, that the historian gleaned the materials, as he informs
us, for his own works.
[285] “Aunque es tenida la lengua Mejicana por materna, y la
Tezcucana por mas cortesana y pulida.” (Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala,
MS.) “Tezcuco,” says Boturini, “where the noblemen sent their sons
to acquire the most polished dialect of the Nahuatlac language, and
to study poetry, moral philosophy, the heathen theology, astronomy,
medicine, and history.” Idea, p. 142.
[286] “He composed sixty songs,” says the author last quoted, “which
have probably perished by the incendiary hands of the ignorant.”
(Idea, p. 79.) Boturini had translations of two of these in his museum
(Catálogo, p. 8), and another has since come to light.
[287] Difficult as the task may be, it has been executed by the hand
of a fair friend, who, while she has adhered to the Castilian with
singular fidelity, has shown a grace and flexibility in her poetical
movements which the Castilian version, and probably the Mexican
original, cannot boast. See both translations in Appendix, 2, No. 2.
[288] Numerous specimens of this may be found in Condé’s “Dominacion
de los Árabes en España.” None of them are superior to the plaintive
strains of the royal Abderahman on the solitary palmtree which reminded
him of the pleasant land of his birth. See Parte 2, cap. 9.
[289]
“Io tocaré cantando
El músico instrumento sonoroso,
Tú de flores gozando
Danza, y festeja á Dios que es poderoso;
O gozemos de esta gloria,
Porque la humana vida es transitoria.”
MS. DE IXTLILXOCHITL.
The sentiment, which is common enough, is expressed with uncommon
beauty by the English poet Herrick:
“Gather the rosebuds while you may;
Old Time is still a-flying;
The fairest flower that blooms to-day
To-morrow may be dying.”
And with still greater beauty, perhaps, by Racine:
“Rions, chantons, dit cette troupe impie,
De fleurs en fleurs, de plaisirs en plaisirs,
Promenons nos désirs.
Sur l’avenir insensé qui se fie.
De nos ans passagers le nombre est incertain.
Hâtons-nous aujourd’hui de jouir de la vie;
Qui sait si nous serons demain?”
ATHALIE, Acte 2.
It is interesting to see under what different forms the same sentiment
is developed by different races and in different languages. It is an
Epicurean sentiment, indeed, but its universality proves its truth to
nature.
[290] Some of the provinces and places thus conquered were held by the
allied powers in common; Tlacopan, however, only receiving one-fifth
of the tribute. It was more usual to annex the vanquished territory
to that one of the two great states to which it lay nearest. See
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 38.--Zurita, Rapport, p. 11.
[291] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41. The same writer, in
another work, calls the population of Tezcuco, at this period, double
of what it was at the Conquest; founding his estimate on the royal
registers, and on the numerous remains of edifices still visible in
his day, in places now depopulated. “Parece en las historias que en
este tiempo, antes que se destruyesen, havia doblado mas gente de la
que halló al tiempo que vino Cortés, y los demas Españoles: porque yo
hallo en los padrones reales, que el menor pueblo tenía 1100 vecinos,
y de allí para arriba, y ahora no tienen 200 vecinos, y aun en algunas
partes de todo punto se han acabado.... Como se hecha de ver en las
ruinas, hasta los mas altos montes y sierras tenian sus sementeras, y
casas principales para vivir y morar.” Relaciones, MS., No. 9.
[292] Torquemada has extracted the particulars of the yearly
expenditure of the palace from the royal account-book, which came
into the historian’s possession. The following are some of the items,
namely: 4,900,300 fanegas of maize (the _fanega_ is equal to about
one hundred pounds); 2,744,000 fanegas of cacao; 8000 turkeys; 1300
baskets of salt; besides an incredible quantity of game of every kind,
vegetables, condiments, etc. (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 53.) See,
also, Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 35.
[293] There were more than four hundred of these lordly residences:
“Así mismo hizo edificar muchas casas y palacios para los señores y
cavalleros, que asistian en su corte, cada uno conforme á la calidad y
méritos de su persona, las quales llegáron á ser mas de quatrocientas
tasas de señores y cavalleros de solar conocido.” Ibid., cap. 38.
[294] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. ii. p. 162, points out a mistake in
translation here, Prescott having made the _estado_ the same measure as
the vara. The wall was _three times a man’s stature_ for one half its
circumference and _five times a man’s stature_ for the other half.--M.
[295] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36. “Esta plaza cercada
de portales, y tenia así mismo por la parte del poniente otra sala
grande, y muchos quartos á la redonda, que era la universidad, en
donde asistian todos los poetas, históricos, y philósophos del reyno,
divididos en sus claves, y academias, conforme era la facultad de cada
uno, y así mismo estaban aquí los archivos reales.”
[296] The reader who is familiar with the history of the Moors in Spain
must inevitably be reminded of the palace in Cordova when he peruses
these pages.--M.
[297] This celebrated naturalist was sent by Philip II to New Spain,
and he employed several years in compiling a voluminous work on its
various natural productions, with drawings illustrating them. Although
the government is said to have expended sixty thousand ducats in
effecting this great object, the volumes were not published till long
after the author’s death. In 1651 a mutilated edition of the part of
the work relating to medical botany appeared at Rome.--The original
MSS. were supposed to have been destroyed by the great fire in the
Escorial, not many years after. Fortunately, another copy, in the
author’s own hand, was detected by the indefatigable Muñoz, in the
library of the Jesuits’ College at Madrid, in the latter part of the
last century; and a beautiful edition, from the famous press of Ibarra,
was published in that capital, under the patronage of government, in
1790. (Hist. Plantarum, Præfatio.--Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana
Nova (Matriti, 1790), tom. iii. p. 432.) The work of Hernandez is a
monument of industry and erudition, the more remarkable as being the
first on this difficult subject. And, after all the additional light
from the labors of later naturalists, it still holds its place as a
book of the highest authority, for the perspicuity, fidelity, and
thoroughness with which the multifarious topics in it are discussed.
[298] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.
[299] “Some of the terraces on which it stood,” says Mr. Bullock,
speaking of this palace, “are still entire, and covered with cement,
very hard, and equal in beauty to that found in ancient Roman
buildings.... The great church, which stands close by, is almost
entirely built of the materials taken from the palace, many of the
sculptured stones from which may be seen in the walls, though most of
the ornaments are turned inwards. Indeed, our guide informed us that
whoever built a house at Tezcuco made the ruins of the palace serve as
his quarry.” (Six Months in Mexico, chap. 26.) Torquemada notices the
appropriation of the materials to the same purpose. Monarch. Ind., lib.
2, cap. 45.
[300] Ixtlilxochitl, MS., ubi supra.
[301] Thus, to punish the Chalcas for their rebellion, the whole
population were compelled, women as well as men, says the chronicler so
often quoted, to labor on the royal edifices for four years together;
and large granaries were provided with stores for their maintenance in
the mean time. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.
[302] If the people in general were not much addicted to polygamy, the
sovereign, it must be confessed,--and it was the same, we shall see,
in Mexico,--made ample amends for any self-denial on the part of his
subjects.
[303] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 37.
[304] The Egyptian priests managed the affair in a more courtly style,
and, while they prayed that all sorts of kingly virtues might descend
on the prince, they threw the blame of actual delinquencies on his
ministers; thus, “not by the bitterness of reproof,” says Diodorus,
“but by the allurements of praise, enticing him to an honest way of
life.” Lib. 1, cap. 70.
[305] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 42.--See Appendix, Part 2,
No. 3, for the original description of this royal residence.
[306] “Quinientos y veynte escalones.” Davilla Padilla, Historia de la
Provincia de Santiago (Madrid, 1596), lib. 2, cap. 81.--This writer,
who lived in the sixteenth century, counted the steps himself. Those
which were not cut in the rock were crumbling into ruins, as, indeed,
every part of the establishment was even then far gone to decay.