of a _coyotl_,--an animal resembling a fox,--which, according to
tradition, represented an Indian famous for his fasts. It was destroyed
by that stanch iconoclast, Bishop Zumárraga, as a relic of idolatry.
(Hist. de Santiago, lib. 2, cap. 81.) This figure was, no doubt, the
emblem of Nezahualcoyotl himself, whose name, as elsewhere noticed,
signified “hungry fox.”{*}
{*} [“Fasting coyote.” This animal, “resembling a fox,” is familiar
enough to those who dwell in our far Western States.--M.]
[308] [Bancroft, Native Races, ii. p. 171, says these figures were not
statues but were all cut on the face of the rock border.--M.]
[309] “Hecho de una peña un leon de mas de dos brazas de largo con
sus alas y plumas: estaba hechado y mirando á la parte del oriente,
en cuia boca asomaba un rostro, que era el mismo retrato del Rey.”
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 42.
[310] Bullock speaks of a beautiful basin, twelve feet long by eight
wide, having a well five feet by four deep in the centre, etc., etc.
Whether truth lies in the bottom of this well is not so clear. Latrobe
describes the baths as “two singular basins, perhaps two feet and a
half in diameter, not large enough for any monarch bigger than Oberon
to take a duck in.” (Comp. Six Months in Mexico, chap. 26; and Rambler
in Mexico, Let. 7.) Ward speaks much to the same purpose (Mexico
in 1827 (London, 1828), vol. ii. p. 296), which agrees with verbal
accounts I have received of the same spot.{*}
{*} [Mayer, “Mexico as it Was and Is,” gives a picture of this “bath,”
p. 234.--M.]
[311] “Gradas hechas de la misma peña tan bien gravadas y lizas que
parecian espejos.” (Ixtlilxochitl, MS., ubi supra.) The travellers just
cited notice the beautiful polish still visible in the porphyry.
[312] Padilla saw entire pieces of cedar among the ruins, ninety feet
long and four in diameter. Some of the massive portals, he observed,
were made of a single stone. (Hist. de Santiago, lib. 11, cap. 81.)
Peter Martyr notices an enormous wooden beam, used in the construction
of the palaces of Tezcuco, which was one hundred and twenty feet long
by eight feet in diameter! The accounts of this and similar huge pieces
of timber were so astonishing, he adds, that he could not have received
them except on the most unexceptionable testimony. De Orbe Novo, dec.
5, cap. 10.{*}
{*} [Those who have seen the giant Sequoias of California can easily
believe in those “enormous wooden beams.” The “Grizzly Giant,” still
standing in the Mariposa grove, is two hundred and seventy-five
feet high and considerably more than thirty feet in diameter at the
ground. Eleven feet from the ground it is more than sixty-four feet in
circumference. The Sequoias were not discovered until almost ten years
after Prescott wrote this note.--M.]
[313] It is much to be regretted that the Mexican government should
not take a deeper interest in the Indian antiquities. What might not
be effected by a few hands drawn from the idle garrisons of some of
the neighboring towns and employed in excavating this ground, “the
Mount Palatine” of Mexico! But, unhappily, the age of violence has been
succeeded by one of apathy.
[314] “They are doubtless,” says Mr. Latrobe, speaking of what he calls
“these inexplicable ruins,” “rather of Toltec than Aztec origin, and,
perhaps, with still more probability, attributable to a people of an
age yet more remote.” (Rambler in Mexico, Let. 7.) “I am of opinion,”
says Mr. Bullock, “that these were antiquities prior to the discovery
of America, and erected by a people whose history was lost even before
the building of the city of Mexico.--Who can solve this difficulty?”
(Six Months in Mexico, ubi supra.) The reader who takes Ixtlilxochitl
for his guide will have no great trouble in solving it. He will find
here, as he might, probably, in some other instances, that one need go
little higher than the Conquest for the origin of antiquities which
claim to be coeval with Phœnicia and ancient Egypt.
[315] Zurita, Rapport, p. 12.
[316] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[317] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[318] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 43.
[319] “En traje de cazador (que lo acostumbraba á hacer muy de
ordinario), saliendo á solas, y disfrazado para que no fuese conocido,
á reconocer las faltas y necesidad que havia en la república para
remediarlas.” Idem, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.
[320] “Un hombresillo miserable, pues quita á los hombres lo que Dios á
manos llenas les da.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.
[321] Ibid., cap. 46.
[322] “Porque las paredes oian.” (Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.) A European
proverb among the American aborigines looks too strange not to make one
suspect the hand of the chronicler.
[323] “Le dijo, que con aquello poco le bastaba, y viviria bien
aventurado; y él, con toda la máquina que le parecia que tenia arto, no
tenia nada; y así lo despidió.” Ixtlilxochitl, loc. cit.
[324] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 46.
[325] “Verdaderamente los Dioses que io adoro, que son ídolos de piedra
que no hablan, ni sienten, no pudiéron hacer ni formar la hermosura
del cielo, el sol, luna, y estrellas que lo hermosean, y dan luz á la
tierra, rios, aguas y fuentes, árboles, y plantas que la hermosean,
las gentes que la poseen, y todo lo criado; algun Dios muy poderoso,
oculto, y no conocido es el Criador de todo el universo. El solo es
él que puede consolarme en mi afliccion, y socorrerme en tan grande
angustia como mi corazon siente.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.
[326] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.--The manuscript here quoted is one of the
many left by the author on the antiquities of his country, and forms
part of a voluminous compilation made in Mexico by Father Vega, in
1792, by order of the Spanish government. See Appendix, Part 2, No. 2.
[327] “Al Dios no conocido, causa de las causas.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.
[328] Their earliest temples were dedicated to the sun. The moon they
worshipped as his wife, and the stars as his sisters. (Veytia, Hist.
antig., tom. i. cap. 25.) The ruins still existing at Teotihuacan,
about seven leagues from Mexico, are supposed to have been temples
raised by this ancient people in honor of the two great deities.
Boturini, Idea, p. 42.
[329] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.--“This was evidently a _gong_,” says Mr.
Ranking, who treads with enviable confidence over the “suppositos
cineres” in the path of the antiquary. See his Historical Researches on
the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, etc., by the Mongols (London, 1827), p.
310.
[330] “Toda la redondez de la tierra es un sepulcro: no hay cosa que
sustente que con título de piedad no la esconda y entierre. Corren los
rios, los arroyos, las fuentes, y las aguas, y ningunas retroceden para
sus alegres nacimientos: aceléranse con ansia para los vastos dominios
de Tlulóca [Neptuno], y cuanto mas se arriman á sus dilatadas márgenes,
tanto mas van labrando las melancólicas urnas para sepultarse. Lo que
fué ayer no es hoy, ni lo de hoy se afianza que será mañana.”
[331] “Aspiremos al cielo, que allí todo es eterno y nada se corrompe.”
[332] “El horror del sepulcro es lisongera cuna para él, y las funestas
sombras, brillantes luces para los astros.”--The original text and a
Spanish translation of this poem first appeared, I believe, in a work
of Grenados y Galvez. (Tardes Americanas (México, 1778), p. 90, et
seq.) The original is in the Otomi tongue, and both, together with
a French version, have been inserted by M. Ternaux-Compans in the
Appendix to his translation of Ixtlilxochitl’s Hist. des Chichimèques
(tom. i. pp. 359-367). Bustamante, who has, also, published the Spanish
version in his Galería de antiguos Príncipes Mejicanos (Puebla, 1821,
pp. 16, 17), calls it the “Ode of the Flower,” which was recited at
a banquet of the great Tezcucan nobles. If this last, however, be
the same mentioned by Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 45),
it must have been written in the Tezcucan tongue; and, indeed, it is
not probable that the Otomi, an Indian dialect, so distinct from the
languages of Anahuac, however well understood by the royal poet, could
have been comprehended by a miscellaneous audience of his countrymen.
[333] An approximation to a date is the most one can hope to arrive at
with Ixtlilxochitl, who has entangled his chronology in a manner beyond
my skill to unravel. Thus, after telling us that Nezahualcoyotl was
fifteen years old when his father was slain in 1418, he says he died at
the age of seventy-one, in 1462. _Instar omnium._ Comp. Hist. Chich.,
MS., cap. 18, 19, 49.
[334] MS. de Ixtlilxochitl,--also Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.
[335] “No consentiendo que haya sacrificios de gente humana, que Dios
se enoja de ello, castigando con rigor á los que lo hicieren; que el
dolor que llevo es no tener luz, ni conocimiento, ni ser merecedor
de conocer tan gran Dios, el qual tengo por cierto que ya que los
presentes no lo conozcan, _ha de venir tiempo en que sea conocido y
adorado en esta tierra_.” MS. de Ixtlilxochitl.
[336] Idem, ubi supra; also Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.
[337] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 49.
[338] “Solia amonestar á sus hijos en secreto que no adorasen á
aquellas figuras de ídolos, y que aquello que hiciesen en público fuese
_solo por cumplimiento_.” Ixtlilxochitl.
[339] Idem, ubi supra.
[340] The name _Nezahualpilli_ signifies “the prince for whom one
has fasted,”--in allusion, no doubt, to the long fast of his father
previous to his birth. (See Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45.)
I have explained the meaning of the equally euphonious name of his
parent, Nezahualcoyotl. (_Ante_, ch. 4.) If it be true that
“Cæsar or Epaminondas
Could ne’er without names have been known to us,”
it is no less certain that such names as those of the two Tezcucan
princes, so difficult to be pronounced or remembered by a European, are
most unfavorable to immortality.
[341] “De las concubinas la que mas privó con el rey fué la que
llamaban la Señora de Tula, no por linage, sino porque era hija de un
mercader, y era tan sabia que competia con el rey y con los mas sabios
de su reyno, y era en la poesía muy aventajada, que con estas gracias
y dones naturales tenia al rey muy sugeto á su voluntad de tal manera
que lo que queria alcanzaba de él, y así vivia sola por si con grande
aparato y magestad en unos palacios que el rey le mandó edificar.”
Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 57.
[342] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 67.--The Tezcucan
historian records several appalling examples of this severity,--one in
particular, in relation to his guilty wife. The story, reminding one of
the tales of an Oriental harem, has been translated for the Appendix,
Part 2, No. 4. See also Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 66),
and Zurita (Rapport, pp. 108, 109). He was the terror, in particular,
of all unjust magistrates. They had little favor to expect from the
man who could stifle the voice of nature in his own bosom in obedience
to the laws. As Suetonius said of a prince who had not his virtue,
“Vehemens et in coercendis quidem delictis immodicus.” Vita Galbæ, sec.
9.
[343] Torquemada saw the remains of this, _or what passed for such_, in
his day. Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 64.
[344] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 73, 74.--This sudden
transfer of empire from the Tezcucans, at the close of the reigns
of two of their ablest monarchs, is so improbable that one cannot
but doubt if they ever possessed it,--at least to the extent claimed
by the patriotic historian. See _ante_, chap. 1, note 25, and the
corresponding text.
[345] Ibid., cap. 72.--The reader will find a particular account of
these prodigies, better authenticated than most miracles, in a future
page of this history.
[346] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 75.--Or, rather, at the
age of fifty, if the historian is right in placing his birth, as he
does in a preceding chapter, in 1465. (See cap. 46.) It is not easy to
decide what is true, when the writer does not take the trouble to be
true to himself.
[347] His obsequies were celebrated with sanguinary pomp. Two hundred
male and one hundred female slaves were sacrificed at his tomb. His
body was consumed, amidst a heap of jewels, precious stuffs, and
incense, on a funeral pile; and the ashes, deposited in a golden
urn, were placed in the great temple of Huitzilopochtli, for whose
worship the king, notwithstanding the lessons of his father, had some
partiality. Ixtlilxochitl.
[348] [Ixtlilxochitl (born about 1568) wrote in the early part of the
seventeenth century. A certificate which he presented to the viceroy
bears the date of November 18, 1608. The error is apparently a clerical
one; though a previous passage in the text seems to indicate some
confusion on the author’s part.]
[349] [Señor Ramirez objects to this remark, on the ground that,
however obscure the hieroglyphics may now seem, at the time of
Ixtlilxochitl they were, in his language, “as plain as our letters to
those who were acquainted with them.” Notas y Esclarecimientos, p.
10.--K.]
[350] The names of many animals in the New World, indeed, have been
frequently borrowed from the Old; but the species are very different.
“When the Spaniards landed in America,” says an eminent naturalist,
“they did not find a single animal they were acquainted with; not one
of the quadrupeds of Europe, Asia, or Africa.” Lawrence, Lectures on
Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man (London, 1819), p.
250.
[351] Acosta, lib. 1, cap. 16.
[352] [The existence at some former period of such an island, or rather
continent, seems to be regarded by geologists as a well-attested fact.
But few would admit that its subsidence can have taken place through
any sudden convulsion or within the period of human existence. Such,
however, is the theory maintained by M. Brasseur de Bourbourg, who
dates the event “six or seven thousand years ago,” and believes that
the traditions of it have been faithfully preserved. This is the great
cataclysm with which all mythology begins. It may be traced through
the myths of Greece, Egypt, India, and America, all being identical
and having a common origin. It is the subject of the _Teo-Amoxtli_,
of which several of the Mexican manuscripts, the Borgian and Dresden
Codices in particular, are the hieroglyphical transcriptions, and
of which “the actual letter,” “in the Nahuatlac language,” is found
in a manuscript in Boturini’s Collection. This manuscript is “in
appearance” a history of the Toltecs and of the kings of Colhuacan and
Mexico; but “under the ciphers of a fastidious chronology, under the
recital more or less animated of the Toltec history, are concealed the
profoundest mysteries concerning the geological origin of the world in
its existing form and the cradle of the religions of antiquity.” The
Toltecs are “telluric powers, agents of the subterranean fire;” they
are identical with the Cabiri, who reappear as the Cyclops, having
“hollowed an eye in their forehead; that is to say, raised themselves
with masses of earth above the surface and filled the craters of
the volcanoes with fire.” “The Chichimecs and the Aztecs are also
symbolical names, borrowed from the forces of nature.” Tollan, “the
marshy or reedy place,” was “the low, fertile region” now covered by
the Gulf of Mexico. Quetzalcoatl is “merely the personification of the
land swallowed up by the ocean.” Tlapallan, Aztlan, and other names
are similarly explained. Osiris, Pan, Hercules, and Bacchus have their
respective parts assigned to them; for “not only all the sources of
ancient mythology, but even the most mysterious details, even the
obscurest enigmas, with which that mythology is enveloped, are to be
sought in the two mediterraneans hollowed out by the cataclysm, and
in the islands, great and small, which separate them from the ocean.”
(Quatre Lettres sur le Mexique.) There can be no refutation of such a
theory, or of the assumptions on which it rests; but it may be proper
to remark that its author has not succeeded in deciphering a single
hierogiyphical character, and has published no translation of the real
or supposed _Teo-Amoxtli_,--a point on which some misapprehension seems
to exist.--K.]
[353] Count Carli shows much ingenuity and learning in support of the
famous Egyptian tradition, recorded by Plato in his “Timæus,”--of the
good faith of which the Italian philosopher nothing doubts. Lettres
Améric., tom. ii. let. 36-39.
[354] Garcia, Orígen de los Indios de el nuevo Mundo (Madrid, 1729),
cap. 4.
[355] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 1, cap. 8.
[356] Prichard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind
(London, 1826), vol. i. p. 81, et seq.--He may find an orthodox
authority of respectable antiquity, for a similar hypothesis, in St.
Augustine, who plainly intimates his belief that, “as by God’s command,
at the time of the creation, the earth brought forth the living
creature after his kind, so a similar process must have taken place
after the deluge, in islands too remote to be reached by animals from
the continent.” De Civitate Dei, ap. Opera (Parisiis, 1636), tom. v. p.
987.
[357] Beechey, Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait (London,
1831), Part 2, Appendix.--Humboldt, Examen critique de l’Histoire de la
Géographie du Nouveau-Continent (Paris, 1837), tom. ii. p. 58.
[358] Whatever skepticism may have been entertained as to the visit
of the Northmen, in the eleventh century, to the coasts of the great
continent, it is probably set at rest in the minds of most scholars
since the publication of the original documents by the Royal Society at
Copenhagen. (See, in particular, Antiquitates Americanæ (Hafniæ, 1837),
pp. 79-200.) How far south they penetrated is not so easily settled.
[359] The most remarkable example, probably, of a direct intercourse
between remote points is furnished us by Captain Cook, who found
the inhabitants of New Zealand not only with the same religion, but
speaking the same language, as the people of Otaheite, distant more
than 2000 miles. The comparison of the two vocabularies establishes the
fact. Cook’s Voyages (Dublin, 1784), vol. i. book 1, chap. 8.
[360] The eloquent Lyell closes an enumeration of some extraordinary
and well-attested instances of this kind with remarking, “Were the
whole of mankind now cut off, with the exception of one family,
inhabiting the old or new continent, or Australia, or even some coral
islet of the Pacific, we should expect their descendants, though they
should never become more enlightened than the South Sea Islanders or
the Esquimaux, to spread, in the course of ages, over the whole earth,
diffused partly by the tendency of population to increase beyond
the means of subsistence in a limited district, and partly by the
accidental drifting of canoes by tides and currents to distant shores.”
Principles of Geology (London, 1832), vol. ii. p. 121.
[361] “La question générale de la première origine des habitans d’un
continent est au-delà des limites prescrites à l’histoire; peut-être
même n’est-elle pas une question philosophique.” Humboldt, Essai
politique, tom. i. p. 349.
[362] _Ante_, p. 75.
[363] The fanciful division of time into four or five cycles or ages
was found among the Hindoos (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. mem. 7),
the Thibetians (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 210), the Persians
(Bailly, Traité de l’Astronomie (Paris, 1787), tom. i. discours
préliminaire), the Greeks (Hesiod, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, v. 108, et seq.),
and other people, doubtless. The five ages in the Grecian cosmogony had
reference to moral rather than physical phenomena,--a proof of higher
civilization.
[364] The Chaldean and Hebrew accounts of the Deluge are nearly the
same. The parallel is pursued in Palfrey’s ingenious Lectures on the
Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities (Boston, 1840), vol. ii. lect. 21,
22. Among the pagan writers, none approach so near to the Scripture
narrative as Lucian, who, in his account of the Greek traditions,
speaks of the ark, and the pairs of different kinds of animals. (De
Deâ Syriâ, sec. 12.) The same thing is found in the Bhagawatn Purana,
a Hindoo poem of great antiquity. (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. mem.
7.) The simple tradition of a universal inundation was preserved among
most of the aborigines, probably, of the Western World. See McCulloh,
Researches, p. 147.
[365] This tradition of the Aztecs is recorded in an ancient
hieroglyphical map, first published in Gemelli Carreri’s Giro del
Mondo. (See tom. vi. p. 38, ed. Napoli, 1700.) Its authenticity, as
well as the integrity of Carreri himself, on which some suspicions
have been thrown (see Robertson’s America (London, 1796), vol. iii.
note 26), has been successfully vindicated by Boturini, Clavigero,
and Humboldt, all of whom trod in the steps of the Italian traveller.
(Boturini, Idea, p. 54.--Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp. 223,
224.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 24.) The map is a
copy from one in the curious collection of Siguenza. It has all the
character of a genuine Aztec picture, with the appearance of being
retouched, especially in the costumes, by some later artist. The
painting of the four ages, in the Vatican Codex, No. 3730, represents,
also, the two figures in the boat, escaping the great cataclysm. Antiq.
of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 7.
[366] I have met with no other voucher for this remarkable tradition
than Clavigero (Stor. del Messico, dissert. 1), a good, though
certainly not the best, authority, when he gives us no reason for
our faith. Humboldt, however, does not distrust the tradition. (See
Vues des Cordillères, p. 226.) He is not so skeptical as Vater; who,
in allusion to the stories of the Flood, remarks, “I have purposely
omitted noticing the resemblance of religious notions, for I do not
see how it is possible to separate from such views every influence
of Christian ideas, if it be only from an imperceptible confusion in
the mind of the narrator.” Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde
(Berlin, 1812), Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 82, note.
[367] This story, so irreconcilable with the vulgar Aztec tradition,
which admits only two survivors of the Deluge, was still lingering
among the natives of the place on M. de Humboldt’s visit there.
(Vues des Cordillères, pp. 31, 32.) It agrees with that given by the
interpreter of the Vatican Codex (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 192,
et seq.); a writer--probably a monk of the sixteenth century--in whom
ignorance and dogmatism contend for mastery. See a precious specimen of
both, in his account of the Aztec chronology, in the very pages above
referred to.
[368] A tradition, very similar to the Hebrew one, existed among the
Chaldeans and the Hindoos. (Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. mem. 16.)
The natives of Chiapa, also, according to the bishop Nuñez de la Vega,
had a story, cited as genuine by Humboldt (Vues des Cordillères, p.
148), which not only agrees with the Scripture account of the manner in
which Babel was built, but with that of the subsequent dispersion and
the confusion of tongues. A very marvellous coincidence! But who shall
vouch for the authenticity of the tradition? The bishop flourished
towards the close of the seventeenth century. He drew his information
from hieroglyphical maps, and an Indian MS., which Boturini in vain
endeavored to recover. In exploring these, he borrowed the aid of the
natives, who, as Boturini informs us, frequently led the good man into
errors and absurdities; of which he gives several specimens. (Idea, p.
116, et seq.)--Boturini himself has fallen into an error equally great,
in regard to a map of this same Cholulan pyramid, which Clavigero
shows, far from being a genuine antique, was the forgery of a later
day. (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 130, nota.) It is impossible to
get a firm footing in the quicksands of tradition. The further we are
removed from the Conquest, the more difficult it becomes to decide what
belongs to the primitive Aztec and what to the Christian convert.
[369] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 1, cap. 6; lib. 6, cap. 28,
33.--Torquemada, not content with the honest record of his predecessor,
whose MS. lay before him, tells us that the Mexican Eve had two
sons, Cain and Abel. (Monarch, Ind., lib. 6, cap. 31.) The ancient
interpreters of the Vatican and Tellerian Codices add the further
tradition of her bringing sin and sorrow into the world by plucking the
forbidden _rose_ (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi., explan. of Pl. 7, 20);
and Veytia remembers to have seen a Toltec or Aztec map representing
a garden with a single tree in it, round which was coiled the serpent
with a human face! (Hist. antig., lib. 1, cap. 1.) After this we may be
prepared for Lord Kingsborough’s deliberate conviction that the “Aztecs
had a clear knowledge of the Old Testament, and, most probably, of the
New, though somewhat corrupted by time and hieroglyphics”! Antiq. of
Mexico, vol. vi. p. 409.
[370] _Ante_, pp. 71-73.
[371] Veytia, Hist. antig., lib. 1, cap. 15.
[372] Ibid., lib. 1, cap. 19.--A sorry argument, even for a casuist.
See, also, the elaborate dissertation of Dr. Mier (apud Sahagun, lib.
3, Suplem.), which settles the question entirely to the satisfaction of
his reporter, Bustamante.{*}
{*} [P. De Roo, in his History of America before Columbus
(Philadelphia, 1900), has set forth with great learning the St. Thomas
legend. Of the writers upon the subject he says, “They all establish
their opinion upon identical foundations,--to wit, upon the authority
of ancient and revered writers, who may have had a knowledge of
America’s existence and of its religious condition from human sources,
yet especially drew their conclusions from the statements of Holy Writ;
and again, upon the vestiges and traditions of the New World that are
adduced as evidences of St. Thomas’s mission in our hemisphere.”--M.]
[373] See, among others, Lord Kingsborough’s reading of the Borgian
Codex, and the interpreters of the Vatican (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi.,
explan. of Pl. 3, 10, 41), equally well skilled with his lordship--and
Sir Hudibras--in unravelling mysteries
“Whose primitive tradition reaches
As far as Adam’s first green breeches.”
[374] [See note, _ante_, p. 73.]
[375] [The Cross symbol has been the subject of endless controversy.
As usual, we find that Bancroft has given the subject careful
consideration. (Native Races, iii.) Brinton (Myths of the New World,
pp. 95, 96) quotes authorities to demonstrate in it the four cardinal
points, the rain-bringers, the symbol of life and health. He was the
first writer to connect the Palenque cross with the four cardinal
points. Charles Rau (Palenque Tablet in U. S. National Museum, in No.
331 Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge) concludes that it is a
Phallic symbol. Bandelier thinks it was the emblem of fire. Squier
calls it the tree of life of the Mexicans. Payne (America, ii. p.
86) thinks it was a representation of a human sacrifice to the sun.
The “cross” is simply the conventional representation of a tree. At
Palenque the bird which surmounts the tree is a turkey. The celebrant,
decorated with a necklace, makes an offering to the winged deity. The
living fetish was called Quetzalhuexolotl, and the tree was called “the
tree of the plumed turkey.” The sacrifice presented is a diminutive
human figure. The monstrous head which the roots of the tree surround
is human, but with serpentine details. It represents the “Female
Serpent,” the earth goddess to whom the tree owes its growth and
nutrition.
Father De Roo (America before Columbus, vol. i. ch. xvii, pp. 423-455)
concludes that “Christ and his cross were known in ancient America.” In
his subsequent chapters he describes remains of Christian ceremonies,
baptism, confirmation, a eucharist, confession, penance, etc.--M.]
[376] Antiquités Mexicaines, exped. 3, Pl. 36.--The figures are
surrounded by hieroglyphics of most arbitrary character, perhaps
phonetic. (See, also, Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap.
I.--Gomara, Crónica de la Nueva-España, cap. 15, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.)
Mr. Stephens considers that the celebrated “Cozumel Cross,” preserved
at Merida, which claims the credit of being the same originally
worshipped by the natives of Cozumel, is, after all, nothing but a
cross that was erected by the Spaniards in one of their own temples
in that island after the Conquest. The fact he regards as “completely
invalidating the strongest proof offered at this day that the Cross was
recognized by the Indians as a symbol of worship.” (Travels in Yucatan,
vol. ii. chap. 20.) But, admitting the truth of this statement, that
the Cozumel Cross is only a Christian relic, which the ingenious
traveller has made extremely probable, his inference is by no means
admissible. Nothing could be more natural than that the friars in
Merida should endeavor to give celebrity to their convent by making
it the possessor of so remarkable a monument as the very relic which
proved, in their eyes, that Christianity had been preached at some
earlier date among the natives. But the real proof of the existence of
the Cross, as an object of worship, in the New World, does not rest on
such spurious monuments as these, but on the unequivocal testimony of
the Spanish discoverers themselves.
[377] “Lo recibian con gran reverencia, humiliacion, y lágrimas,
diciendo que comian la carne de su Dios.” Veytia, Hist. antig. lib. 1,
cap. 18.--Also, Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 24.
[378] _Ante_, p. 78.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap.
37.--That the reader may see for himself how like, yet how unlike, the
Aztec rite was to the Christian, I give the translation of Sahagun’s
account, at length: “When everything necessary for the baptism had been
made ready, all the relations of the child were assembled, and the
midwife, who was the person that performed the rite of baptism, was
summoned. At early dawn, they met together in the court-yard of the
house. When the sun had risen, the midwife, taking the child in her
arms, called for a little earthen vessel of water, while those about
her placed the ornaments which had been prepared for the baptism in the
midst of the court. To perform the rite of baptism, she placed herself
with her face towards the west, and immediately began to go through
certain ceremonies.... After this she sprinkled water on the head of
the infant, saying, ‘O my child! take and receive the water of the Lord
of the world, which is our life, and is given for the increasing and
renewing of our body. It is to wash and to purify. I pray that these
heavenly drops may enter into your body, and dwell there; that they may
destroy and remove from you all the evil and sin which was given to you
before the beginning of the world; since all of us are under its power,
being all the children of Chalchivitlycue’ [the goddess of water]. She
then washed the body of the child with water, and spoke in this manner:
‘Whencesoever thou comest, thou that art hurtful to this child, leave
him and depart from him, for he now liveth anew, and is born anew; now
is he purified and cleansed afresh, and our mother Chalchivitlycue
again bringeth him into the world.’ Having thus prayed, the midwife
took the child in both hands, and, lifting him towards heaven, said,
‘O Lord, thou seest here thy creature, whom thou hast sent into this
world, this place of sorrow, suffering, and penitence. Grant him, O
Lord, thy gifts and thine inspiration, for thou art the great God, and
with thee is the great goddess.’ Torches of pine were kept burning
during the performance of these ceremonies. When these things were
ended, they gave the child the name of some one of his ancestors, in
the hope that he might shed a new lustre over it. The name was given by
the same midwife, or priestess, who baptized him.”
[379] Among Egyptian symbols we meet with several specimens of the
Cross. One, according to Justus Lipsius, signified “life to come.” (See
his treatise, De Cruce (Lutetiæ Parisiorum, 1598), lib. 3, cap. 8.) We
find another in Champollion’s catalogue, which he interprets “support
or saviour.” (Précis, tom. ii., Tableau gén., Nos. 277, 348.) Some
curious examples of the reverence paid to this sign by the ancients
have been collected by McCulloh (Researches, p. 330, et seq.), and by
Humboldt, in his late work, Géographie du Nouveau-Continent, tom. ii.
p. 354, et seq.
[380]
“Ante, Deos homini quod conciliare valeret
_Far_ erat,”
says Ovid. (Fastorum, lib. 1, v. 337.) Count Carli has pointed out a
similar use of consecrated bread, and wine or water, in the Greek and
Egyptian mysteries. (Lettres Améric., tom. i. let. 27.) See, also,
McCulloh, Researches, p. 240, et seq.
[381] Water for purification and other religious rites is frequently
noticed by the classical writers. Thus, Euripides:
“Ἀγνοἴς καθαρμοἴς πρῶτά νιν νίψαι θέλω.
θάλασσα κλύϛει πάντα τἀνθρώπων κακά.”
IPHIG. IN TAUR., vv. 1192, 1194.
The notes on this place, in the admirable Variorum edition of Glasgow,
1821, contain references to several passages of similar import in
different authors.
[382] The difficulty of obtaining anything like a faithful report from
the natives is the subject of complaint from more than one writer, and
explains the great care taken by Sahagun to compare their narratives
with each other. See Hist. de Nueva-España, Prólogo,--Ixtlilxochitl,
Hist. Chich., MS., Pról.,--Boturini, Idea, p. 116.
[383] The parallel was so closely pressed by Torquemada that he was
compelled to suppress the chapter containing it, on the publication of
his book. See the Proemio to the edition of 1723, sec. 2.
[384] “The devil,” says Herrera, “chose to imitate, in everything,
the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their subsequent
wanderings.” (Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 3, cap. 10.) But all that has
been done by monkish annalist and missionary to establish the parallel
with the children of Israel falls far short of Lord Kingsborough’s
learned labors, spread over nearly two hundred folio pages. (See Antiq.
of Mexico, tom. vi. pp. 282-410.) _Quantum inane!_
[385] The word משיח from which is derived _Christ_, “the anointed,” is
still more nearly--not “precisely,” as Lord Kingsborough states (Antiq.
of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 186)--identical with that of Mexi, or Mesi, the
chief who was said to have led the Aztecs on the plains of Anahuac.
[386] Interp. of Cod. Tel.-Rem. et Vat., Antiq. of Mexico, vol.
vi.--Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, Suplem.--Veytia, Hist.
antig., lib. 1, cap. 16.
[387] This opinion finds favor with the best Spanish and Mexican
writers, from the Conquest downwards. Solís sees nothing improbable in
the fact that “the malignant influence, so frequently noticed in sacred
history, should be found equally in profane.” Hist. de la Conquista,
lib. 2, cap. 4.
[388] D. G. Brinton, International Congress of Anthropology, 1893
(Harper’s Magazine, March, 1903, p. 534). “Up to the present time there
has not been shown a single dialect, not an art or an institution, not
a myth or religious rite, not a domesticated plant or animal, not a
tool, weapon, game, or symbol, in use in America at the time of the
discovery, which had been previously imported from Asia, or from any
other continent of the Old World.”--M.
[389] The bridal ceremony of the Hindoos, in particular, contains
curious points of analogy with the Mexican. (See Asiatic Researches,
vol. vii. mem. 9.) The institution of a numerous priesthood, with the
practices of confession and penance, was familiar to the Tartar people.
(Maundeville, Voiage, chap. 23.) And monastic establishments were
found in Thibet and Japan from the earliest ages. Humboldt, Vues des
Cordillères, p. 179.
[390] “Doubtless,” says the ingenious Carli, “the fashion of burning
the corpse, collecting the ashes in a vase, burying them under
pyramidal mounds, with the immolation of wives and servants at the
funeral, all remind one of the customs of Egypt and Hindostan.” Lettres
Améric., tom. ii. let. 10.
[391] Marco Polo notices a civilized people in Southeastern China,
and another in Japan, who drank the blood and ate the flesh of their
captives, esteeming it the most savory food in the world,--“la più
saporita et migliore, che si possa truovar al mondo.” (Viaggi, lib.
2, cap. 75; lib. 3, 13, 14.) The Mongols, according to Sir John
Maundeville, regarded the ears “sowced in vynegre” as a particular
dainty. Voiage, chap. 23.
[392] Marco Polo, Viaggi, lib. 2, cap. 10.--Maundeville, Voiage, cap.
20, et alibi.--See, also, a striking parallel between the Eastern
Asiatics and Americans, in the Supplement to Ranking’s “Historical
Researches;” a work embodying many curious details of Oriental history
and manners in support of a whimsical theory.
[393] Morton, Crania Americana (Philadelphia, 1839), pp. 224-246.--The
industrious author establishes this singular fact by examples drawn
from a great number of nations in North and South America.
[394] Gomara, Crónica de la Nueva-España, cap. 202, ap. Barcia, tom.
ii.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. pp. 94, 95.--McCulloh
(Researches, p. 198), who cites the Asiatic Researches.--Dr. McCulloh,
in his single volume, has probably brought together a larger mass
of materials for the illustration of the aboriginal history of the
continent than any other writer in the language. In the selection
of his facts he has shown much sagacity, as well as industry; and,
if the formal and somewhat repulsive character of the style has
been unfavorable to a popular interest, the work must always have
an interest for those who are engaged in the study of the Indian
antiquities. His fanciful speculations on the subject of Mexican
mythology may amuse those whom they fail to convince.
[395] _Ante_, p. 126, et seq.
[396] This will be better shown by enumerating the zodiacal signs, used
as the _names of the years_ by the Eastern Asiatics. Among the Mongols,
these were--1, mouse; 2, ox; 3, leopard; 4, hare; 5, crocodile; 6,
serpent; 7, horse; 8, sheep; 9, monkey; 10, hen; 11, dog; 12, hog.
The Mantchou Tartars, Japanese, and Thibetians have nearly the same
terms, substituting, however, for No. 3, tiger; 5, dragon; 8, goat. In
the Mexican signs for the names of the days we also meet with _hare_,
_serpent_, _monkey_, _dog_. Instead of the “leopard,” “crocodile,”
and “hen,”--neither of which animals was known in Mexico at the
time of the Conquest,--we find the _ocelotl_, the _lizard_, and the
_eagle_.--The lunar calendar of the Hindoos exhibits a correspondence
equally extraordinary. Six of the terms agree with those of the Aztecs,
namely, _serpent_, _cane_, _razor_, _path of the sun_, _dog’s tail_,
_house_. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 152.) These terms, it will
be observed, are still more arbitrarily selected, not being confined
to animals; as, indeed, the hieroglyphics of the Aztec calendar were
derived indifferently from them, and other objects, like the signs
of our zodiac. These scientific analogies are set in the strongest
light by M. de Humboldt, and occupy a large and, to the philosophical
inquirer, the most interesting portion of his great work. (Vues des
Cordillères, pp. 125-194.) He has not embraced in his tables, however,
the Mongol calendar, which affords even a closer approximation to the
Mexican than that of the other Tartar races. Comp. Ranking, Researches,
pp. 370, 371, note.
[397] There is some inaccuracy in Humboldt’s definition of the
_ocelotl_ as “the tiger,” “the jaguar.” (Ibid., p. 159.) It is smaller
than the jaguar, though quite as ferocious, and is as graceful and
beautiful as the leopard, which it more nearly resembles. It is a
native of New Spain, where the tiger is not known. (See Buffon,
Histoire naturelle (Paris, An VIII), tom. ii., _vox Ocelotl_.) The
adoption of this latter name, therefore, in the Aztec calendar, leads
to an inference somewhat exaggerated.
[398] Both the Tartars and the Aztecs indicated the year by its
sign; as the “year of the hare” or “rabbit,” etc. The Asiatic signs,
likewise, far from being limited to the years and months, presided also
over days, and even hours. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, p. 165.)
The Mexicans had also astrological symbols appropriated to the hours.
Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, p. 117.
[399] _Ante_, p. 127, note.
[400] Achilles Tatius notices a custom of the Egyptians,--who, as the
sun descended towards Capricorn, put on mourning, but, as the days
lengthened, their fears subsided, they robed themselves in white, and,
crowned with flowers, gave themselves up to jubilee, like the Aztecs.
This account, transcribed by Carli’s French translator, and by M.
de Humboldt, is more fully criticized by M. Jomard in the Vues des
Cordillères, p. 309, et seq.
[401] [See note, _ante_, p. 373.]
[402] Jefferson (Notes on Virginia (London, 1787), p. 164), confirmed
by Humboldt (Essai politique, tom. i. p. 353). Mr. Gallatin comes to
a different conclusion. (Transactions of American Antiquarian Society
(Cambridge, 1836), vol. ii. p. 161.) The great number of American
dialects and languages is well explained by the unsocial nature of a
hunter’s life, requiring the country to be parcelled out into small and
separate territories for the means of subsistence.
[403] Philologists have, indeed, detected two curious exceptions,
in the Congo and primitive Basque; from which, however, the Indian
languages differ in many essential points. See Du Ponceau’s Report, ap.
Transactions of the Lit. and Hist. Committee of the Am. Phil. Society,
vol. i.
[404] Vater (Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 70), who fixes
on the Rio Gila and the Isthmus of Darien as the boundaries within
which traces of the Mexican language were to be discerned. Clavigero
estimates the number of dialects at thirty-five. I have used the more
guarded statement of M. de Humboldt, who adds that fourteen of these
languages have been digested into dictionaries and grammars. Essai
politique, tom. i. p. 352.
[405] No one has done so much towards establishing this important fact
as that estimable scholar, Mr. Du Ponceau. And the frankness with which
he has admitted the exception that disturbed his favorite hypothesis
shows that he is far more wedded to science than to system. See an
interesting account of it, in his prize essay before the Institute,
Mémoire sur le Système grammaticale des Langues de quelques Nations
Indiennes de l’Amérique. (Paris, 1838.)
[406] The Mexican language, in particular, is most flexible; admitting
of combinations so easily that the most simple ideas are often
buried under a load of accessories. The forms of expression, though
picturesque, were thus made exceedingly cumbrous. A “priest,” for
example, was called _notlazomahuizteopixcatatzin_, meaning “venerable
minister of God, that I love as my father.” A still more comprehensive
word is _amatlacuilolitquitcatlaxtlahuitli_, signifying “the reward
given to a messenger who bears a hieroglyphical map conveying
intelligence.”
[407] See, in particular, for the latter view of the subject, the
arguments of Mr. Gallatin, in his acute and masterly disquisition
on the Indian tribes; a disquisition that throws more light on the
intricate topics of which it treats than whole volumes that have
preceded it. Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. ii.
Introd., sec. 6.
[408] This comparative anatomy of the languages of the two hemispheres,
begun by Barton (Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America
(Philadelphia, 1797)), has been extended by Vater (Mithridates, Theil
iii. Abtheil. 1, p. 348, et seq.). A selection of the most striking
analogies may be found, also, in Malte Brun, book 75, table.
[409] _Othomi_, from _otho_, “stationary,” and _mi_, “nothing.”
(Najera, Dissert., _ut infra_.) The etymology intimates the condition
of this rude nation of warriors, who, imperfectly reduced by the Aztec
arms, roamed over the high lands north of the Valley of Mexico.
[410] See Najera’s Dissertatio de Lingua Othomitorum, ap. Transactions
of the American Philosophical Society, vol. v. New Series.--The
author, a learned Mexican, has given a most satisfactory analysis of
this remarkable language, which stands alone among the idioms of the
New World, as the Basque--the solitary wreck, perhaps, of a primitive
age--exists among those of the Old.
[411] Barton, p. 92.--Heckewelder, chap. 1, ap. Transactions of the
Hist. and Lit. Committee of the Am. Phil. Soc., vol. i.--The various
traditions have been assembled by M. Warden, in the Antiquités
Mexicaines, part 2, p. 185, et seq.
[412] The recent work of Mr. Delafield (Inquiry into the Origin of
the Antiquities of America (Cincinnati, 1839)) has an engraving of
one of these maps, said to have been obtained by Mr. Bullock from
Boturini’s collection. Two such are specified on page 10 of that
antiquary’s Catalogue. This map has all the appearance of a genuine
Aztec painting, of the rudest character. We may recognize, indeed,
the symbols of some dates and places, with others denoting the aspect
of the country, whether fertile or barren, a state of war or peace,
etc. But it is altogether too vague, and we know too little of the
allusions, to gather any knowledge from it of the course of the Aztec
migration.--Gemelli Carreri’s celebrated chart contains the names of
many places on the route, interpreted, perhaps, by Siguenza himself,
to whom it belonged (Giro del Mondo, tom. vi. 56); and Clavigero has
endeavored to ascertain the various localities with some precision.
(Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 160, et seq.) But, as they are all
within the boundaries of New Spain, and, indeed, south of the Rio
Gila, they throw little light, of course, on the vexed question of the
primitive abodes of the Aztecs.
[413] This may be fairly gathered from the agreement of the
_traditionary_ interpretations of the maps of the various people of
Anahuac, according to Veytia; who, however, admits that it is “next
to impossible,” with the lights of the present day, to determine the
precise route taken by the Mexicans. (Hist, antig., tom. i. cap. 2.)
Lorenzana is not so modest. “Los Mexicanos por tradicion viniéron por
el norte,” says he, “y se saben ciertamente sus mansiones.” (Hist. de
Nueva-España, p. 81, nota.) There are some antiquaries who see best in
the dark.
[414] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 2, et seq.--Idem,
Relaciones, MS.--Veytia, Hist. antig., ubi supra.--Torquemada, Monarch.
Ind., tom. i. lib. 1.
[415] In the province of Sonora, especially along the California Gulf.
The Cora language, above all, of which a regular grammar has been
published, and which is spoken in New Biscay, about 30° north, so much
resembles the Mexican that Vater refers them both to a common stock.
Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 143.
[416] On the southern bank of this river are ruins of large dimensions,
described by the missionary Pedro Font on his visit there in 1775.
(Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 538.)--At a place of the same name,
Casas Grandes, about 33° north, and, like the former, a supposed
station of the Aztecs, still more extensive remains are to be found;
large enough, indeed, according to a late traveller, Lieut. Hardy, for
a population of 20,000 or 30,000 souls. The country for leagues is
covered with these remains, as well as with utensils of earthenware,
obsidian, and other relics. A drawing which the author has given of a
painted jar or vase may remind one of the Etruscan. “There were, also,
good specimens of earthen images in the Egyptian style,” he observes,
“which are, _to me at least, so perfectly uninteresting_ that I was at
no pains to procure any of them.” (Travels in the Interior of Mexico
(London, 1829), pp. 464-466.) The lieutenant was neither a Boturini nor
a Belzoni.
[417] Vater has examined the languages of three of these nations,
between 50° and 60° north, and collated their vocabularies with the
Mexican, showing the probability of a common origin of many of the
words in each. Mithridates, Theil iii. Abtheil. 3, p. 212.
[418] The Mexicans are noticed by M. de Humboldt as distinguished from
the other aborigines whom he had seen, by the quantity both of beard
and moustaches. (Essai politique, tom. i. p. 361.) The modern Mexican,
however, broken in spirit and fortunes, bears as little resemblance,
probably, in physical as in moral characteristics to his ancestors, the
fierce and independent Aztecs.
[419] Prichard, Physical History, vol. i. pp. 167-169, 182, et
seq.--Morton, Crania Americana, p. 66.--McCulloh, Researches, p.
18.--Lawrence, Lectures, pp. 317, 565.
[420] Thus we find, amidst the generally prevalent copper or cinnamon
tint, nearly all gradations of color, from the European white, to a
black, almost African; while the complexion capriciously varies among
different tribes in the neighborhood of each other. See examples
in Humboldt (Essai politique, tom. i. pp. 358, 359), also Prichard
(Physical History, vol. ii. pp. 452, 522, et alibi), a writer whose
various research and dispassionate judgment have made his work a
text-book in this department of science.
[421] Such is the conclusion of Dr. Warren, whose excellent collection
has afforded him ample means for study and comparison. (See his Remarks
before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, ap.
London Athenæum, Oct., 1837.) In the specimens collected by Dr. Morton,
however, the barbarous tribes would seem to have a somewhat larger
facial angle, and a greater quantity of brain, than the semi-civilized.
Crania Americana, p. 259.
[422] “On ne peut se refuser d’admettre que l’espèce humaine n’offre
pas de races plus voisines que le sont celles des Américaines, des
Mongols, des Mantchoux, et des Malais.” Humboldt, Essai politique, tom.
i. p. 367.--Also, Prichard, Physical History, vol. i. pp. 184-186; vol.
ii. pp. 365-367.--Lawrence, Lectures, p. 365.
[423] Dr. Morton’s splendid work on American crania has gone far to
supply the requisite information. Out of about one hundred and fifty
specimens of skulls, of which he has ascertained the dimensions
with admirable precision, one-third belong to the semi-civilized
races; and of them thirteen are Mexican. The number of these last
is too small to found any general conclusions upon, considering the
great diversity found in individuals of the same nation, not to say
kindred.--Blumenbach’s observations on American skulls were chiefly
made, according to Prichard (Physical History, vol. i. pp. 183, 184),
from specimens of the Carib tribes, as unfavorable, perhaps, as any on
the continent.
[424] Yet these specimens are not so easy to be obtained. With uncommon
advantages for procuring these myself in Mexico, I have not succeeded
in obtaining any specimens of the genuine Aztec skull. The difficulty
of this may be readily comprehended by any one who considers the length
of time that has elapsed since the Conquest, and that the burial-places
of the ancient Mexicans have continued to be used by their descendants.
Dr. Morton more than once refers to his specimens as those of the
“genuine Toltec skull, from cemeteries in Mexico, older than the
Conquest.” (Crania Americana, pp. 152, 155, 231, et alibi.) But how
does he know that the heads are Toltec? That nation is reported to
have left the country about the middle of the eleventh century, nearly
eight hundred years ago,--according to Ixtlilxochitl, indeed, a century
earlier; and it seems much more probable that the specimens now found
in these burial-places should belong to some of the races who have
since occupied the country, than to one so far removed. The presumption
is manifestly too feeble to authorize any positive inference.
[425] The tower of Belus, with its retreating stories, described by
Herodotus (Clio, sec. 181), has been selected as the model of the
_teocalli_; which leads Vater somewhat shrewdly to remark that it is
strange no evidence of this should appear in the erection of similar
structures by the Aztecs in the whole course of their journey to
Anahuac. (Mithridates, Theil. iii. Abtheil. 3, pp. 74, 75.) The learned
Niebuhr finds the elements of the Mexican temple in the mythic tomb of
Porsenna. (Roman History, Eng. trans. (London, 1827), vol. i. p. 88.)
The resemblance to the accumulated pyramids composing this monument is
not very obvious. Com. Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. 36, sec. 19). Indeed,
the antiquarian may be thought to encroach on the poet’s province when
he finds in Etruscan _fable_--“cum omnia excedat fabulositas,” as Pliny
characterizes this--the origin of Aztec science.
[426] See the powerful description of Lucan, Pharsalia, lib. 9,
v. 966.--The Latin bard has been surpassed by the Italian, in the
beautiful stanza beginning _Giace l’ alta Cartago_ (Gerusalemme
Liberata, c. 15, s. 20), which may be said to have been expanded by
Lord Byron into a canto,--the fourth of Childe Harold.
[427] The most remarkable remains on the proper Mexican soil are the
temple or fortress of Xochicalco, not many miles from the capital. It
stands on a rocky eminence, nearly a league in circumference, cut into
terraces faced with stone. The building on the summit is seventy-five
feet long and sixty-six broad. It is of hewn granite, put together
without cement, but with great exactness. It was constructed in the
usual pyramidal, terraced form, rising by a succession of stories, each
smaller than that below it. The number of these is now uncertain; the
lower one alone remaining entire. This is sufficient, however, to show
the nice style of execution, from the sharp, salient cornices, and the
hieroglyphical emblems with which it is covered, all cut in the hard
stone. As the detached blocks found among the ruins are sculptured with
bas-reliefs in like manner, it is probable that the whole building
was covered with them. It seems probable, also, as the same pattern
extends over different stones, that the work was executed after the
walls were raised.--In the hill beneath, subterraneous galleries, six
feet wide and high, have been cut to the length of one hundred and
eighty feet, where they terminate in two halls, the vaulted ceilings
of which connect by a sort of tunnel with the buildings above. These
subterraneous works are also lined with hewn stone. The size of the
blocks, and the hard quality of the granite of which they consist, have
made the buildings of Xochicalco a choice quarry for the proprietors of
a neighboring sugar-refinery, who have appropriated the upper stories
of the temple to this ignoble purpose! The Barberini at least built
palaces, beautiful themselves, as works of art, with the plunder of the
Coliseum. See the full description of this remarkable building, both by
Dupaix and Alzate. (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. Exp. 1, pp. 15-20;
tom. iii. Exp. 1, Pl. 33.) A recent investigation has been made by
order of the Mexican government, the report of which differs, in some
of its details, from the preceding. Revista Mexicana, tom. i. mem. 5.
[428] _Ante_, pp. 196-199.
[429] It is impossible to look at Waldeck’s finished drawings of
buildings, where Time seems scarcely to have set his mark on the
nicely chiselled stone, and the clear tints are hardly defaced by a
weather-stain, without regarding the artist’s work as a _restoration_;
a picture true, it may be, of those buildings in the day of their
glory, but not of their decay.--Cogolludo, who saw them in the middle
of the seventeenth century, speaks of them with admiration, as works of
“accomplished architects,” of whom history has preserved no tradition.
Historia de Yucatan (Madrid, 1688), lib. 4, cap. 2.{*}
{*} [The age of these ancient cities is still an unsolved problem, but
the conviction seems to be growing that many of them were inhabited at
the time of the Conquest. The sacred edifices at Uxmal did not cease
to be used until some time after the Spaniards had become lords of
the land. Charnay (Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 328) thinks
Chichen Itza was inhabited “scarcely sixty years before the Conquest.”
Bandelier (Peabody Museum Report, ii. 126) says of the Tablet of the
Cross at Palenque, “These tablets and figures show in dress such a
striking analogy of what we know of the military accoutrements of the
Mexicans, that it is a strong approach to identity.” Bancroft (Native
Races, vol. iv.) specifies the literature dealing with Palenque. For
a while scholars were mystified by Waldeck’s absurd elephants on the
walls of Palenque. But after a time these animal representations were
shown to have existed only in the artist’s brain.--M.]
[430] In the original text is a description of some of these ruins,
especially of those of Mitla and Palenque. It would have had novelty
at the time in which it was written, since the only accounts of these
buildings were in the colossal publications of Lord Kingsborough, and
in the Antiquités Mexicaines, not very accessible to most readers. But
it is unnecessary to repeat descriptions now familiar to every one, and
so much better executed than they can be by me, in the spirited pages
of Stephens.
[431] [Bandelier (Archæological Tour in Mexico) gives an account of the
statues, etc., found in Mexico up to the year 1881.--M.]
[432] See, in particular, two terra-cotta busts with helmets, found in
Oaxaca, which might well pass for Greek, both in the style of the heads
and the casques that cover them. Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. iii. Exp.
2, Pl. 36.
[433] Dupaix speaks of these tools as made of pure copper. But
doubtless there was some alloy mixed with it, as was practised by the
Aztecs and Egyptians; otherwise their edges must have been easily
turned by the hard substances on which they were employed.
[434] Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii. pp. 246-254.
[435] _Ante_, p. 155
[436] Waldeck, Atlas pittoresque, p. 73.--The fortress of Xochicalco
was also colored with a red paint (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. p.
20); and a cement of the same color covered the Toltec pyramid at
Teotihuacan, according to Mr. Bullock, Six Months in Mexico, vol. ii.
p. 143.
[437] Description de l’Egypte, Antiq., tom. ii. cap. 9, sec. 4.--The
huge image of the Sphinx was originally colored red. (Clarke’s Travels,
vol. v. p. 202.) Indeed, many of the edifices, as well as statues, of
ancient Greece, also, still exhibit traces of having been painted.
[438] The various causes of the stationary condition of art in Egypt,
for so many ages, are clearly exposed by the Duke di Serradifalco, in
his _Antichità della Sicilia_ (Palermo, 1834, tom. ii. pp. 33, 34);
a work in which the author, while illustrating the antiquities of a
little island, has thrown a flood of light on the arts and literary
culture of ancient Greece.
[439] “The ideal is not always the beautiful,” as Winckelmann truly
says, referring to the Egyptian figures. (Histoire de l’Art chez les
Anciens, liv. 4, chap. 2, trad. Fr.) It is not impossible, however,
that the portraits mentioned in the text may be copies from life. Some
of the rude tribes of America distorted their infants’ heads into
forms quite as fantastic; and Garcilaso de la Vega speaks of a nation
discovered by the Spaniards in Florida, with a formation apparently not
unlike the Palenque: “_Tienen cabezas increiblemente largas, y ahusadas
para arriba_, que las ponen así con artificio, atándoselas desde el
punto, que nascen las criaturas, hasta que son de nueve ó diez años.”
La Florida (Madrid, 1723), p. 190.
[440] For a notice of this remarkable codex, see _ante_, p. 119. There
is, indeed, a resemblance, in the use of straight lines and dots,
between the Palenque writing and the Dresden MS. Possibly these dots
denoted years, like the rounds in the Mexican system.
[441] The hieroglyphics are arranged in perpendicular lines. The heads
are uniformly turned towards the right, as in the Dresden MS.
[442] “Les ruines,” says the enthusiastic chevalier Le Noir, “sans
nom, à qui l’on a donné celui de _Palenque_, peuvent remonter comme
les plus anciennes ruines du monde à trois mille ans. Ceci n’est point
mon opinion seule; c’est celle de _tous_ les voyageurs qui ont vu les
ruines dont il s’agit, de _tous_ les archéologues qui en ont examiné
les dessins ou lu les descriptions, enfin des historiens qui ont fait
des recherches, et qui n’ont rien trouvé dans les annales du monde
qui fasse soupçonner l’époque de la fondation de tels monuments, dont
l’origine se perd dans la nuit des temps.” (Antiquités Mexicaines, tom.
ii., Examen, p. 73.) Colonel Galindo, fired with the contemplation
of the American ruins, pronounces this country the true cradle of
civilization, whence it passed over to China, and latterly to Europe,
which, whatever “its foolish vanity” may pretend, has but just started
in the march of improvement! See his Letter on Copan, ap. Trans, of Am.
Ant. Soc., vol. ii.
[443] From these sources of information, and especially from the
number of the concentric rings in some old trees, and the incrustation
of stalactites found on the ruins of Palenque, M. Waldeck computes
their age at between two and three thousand years. (Voyage en Yucatan,
p. 78.) The criterion, as far as the trees are concerned, cannot
be relied on in an advanced stage of their growth; and as to the
stalactite formations, they are obviously affected by too many casual
circumstances, to afford the basis of an accurate calculation.{*}
{*} [Charnay (Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 260) shows the
worthlessness of the argument from tree growth. He says, “In my
first expedition to Palenque in 1859, I had the eastern side of the
palace cleared of the dense vegetation to secure a good photograph.
Consequently, the trees that have grown since cannot be more than
twenty-two years old; now one of the cuttings, measuring some two feet
in diameter, had upwards of 230 concentric circles, that is, at the
rate of one in a month, or even less.” Reasoning on the idea that a
concentric circle upon a tree represents a growth of one year, Waldeck
had calculated the age of the structures at 2000 years.--M.]
[444] Waldeck, Voyage en Yucatan, ubi supra.
[445] Antiquités Mexicaines, Examen, p. 76.--Hardly deep enough,
however, to justify Captain Dupaix’s surmise of the antediluvian
existence of these buildings; especially considering that the
accumulation was in the sheltered position of an interior court.
[446] [Ober, Travels in Mexico, p. 76. This granite pavement with its
carven tortoises has never been seen by mortal man, although described
by the unreliable and wonder-seeking Waldeck. It is true that there
are many sculptures of this kind in Uxmal, but only on the doors and
cornices. Ancona in his history says, “Estes tortugas, expuestas a
las piedras de la muchedumbre, solo han existido en la imaginacion de
Waldeck.” Ancona was the native historian of Yucatan.--M.]
[447] Waldeck, Voyage en Yucatan, p. 97.
[448] The chaplain of Grijalva speaks with admiration of the “lofty
towers of stone and lime, some of them very ancient,” found in Yucatan.
(Itinerario, MS. (1518).) Bernal Diaz, with similar expressions of
wonder, refers the curious antique relics found there to the Jews.
(Hist, de la Conquista, cap. 2, 6.) Alvarado, in a letter to Cortés,
expatiates on the “maravillosos et grandes edificios” to be seen
in Guatemala. (Oviedo, Hist, de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 42.)
According to Cogolludo, the Spaniards, who could get no tradition of
their origin, referred them to the Phœnicians or Carthaginians. (Hist,
de Yucatan, lib. 4, cap. 2.) He cites the following emphatic notice of
these remains from Las Casas: “Ciertamente la tierra de Yucathan da á
entender cosas mui especiales, y de mayor antiguedad, por las grandes,
admirables, y excessivas maneras de edificios, y letreros de ciertos
caracteres, que en otra ninguna parte se hallan.” (Loc. cit.) Even
the inquisitive Martyr has collected no particulars respecting them,
merely noticing the buildings of this region with general expressions
of admiration. (De Insulis nuper Inventis, pp. 334-340.) What is quite
as surprising is the silence of Cortés, who traversed the country
forming the base of Yucatan, in his famous expedition to Honduras, of
which he has given many details we would gladly have exchanged for a
word respecting these interesting memorials. Carta Quinta de Cortés,
MS.--I must add that some remarks in the above paragraph in the text
would have been omitted, had I enjoyed the benefit of Mr. Stephens’s
researches when it was originally written. This is especially the case
with the reflections on the probable condition of these structures at
the time of the Conquest; when some of them would appear to have been
still used for their original purposes.
[449] “Asimismo los Tultecas que escapáron se fuéron por las costas del
Mar del Sur y Norte, como son Huatimala, Tecuantepec, Cuauhzacualco,
Campechy, Tecolotlan, y los de las Islas y Costas de una mar y otra,
que despues se viniéron á multiplicar.” Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS.,
No. 5.
[450] Herrera, Hist, general, dec. 4, lib. 10, cap. 1-4.--Cogolludo,
Hist, de Yucatan, lib. 4, cap. 5.--Pet. Martyr, De Insulis, ubi
supra.--M. Waldeck comes to just the opposite inference, namely, that
the inhabitants of Yucatan were the true sources of the Toltec and
Aztec civilization. (Voyage en Yucatan, p. 72.) “Doubt must be our lot
in everything,” exclaims the honest Captain Dupaix,--“_the true faith
always excepted_.” Antiquités Mexicaines, tom. i. p. 21.
[451] “Inter omnes eos non constat a quibus factæ sint, justissimo
casu, obliteratis tantæ vanitatis auctoribus.” Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib.
36, cap. 17.
[452] _Ante_, p. 200.
[453] At least, this is true of the etymology of these languages, and,
as such, was adduced by Mr. Edward Everett, in his Lectures on the
Aboriginal Civilization of America, forming part of a course delivered
some years since by that acute and highly accomplished scholar.
[454] The mixed breed, from the buffalo and the European stock, was
known formerly in the northwestern counties of Virginia, says Mr.
Gallatin (Synopsis, sec. 5); who is, however, mistaken in asserting
that “the bison is not known to have ever been domesticated by the
Indians.” (Ubi supra.) Gomara speaks of a nation, dwelling about 40°
north latitude, on the northwestern borders of New Spain, whose chief
wealth was in droves of these cattle (_buyes con una giba sobre la
cruz_, “oxen with a hump on the shoulders”), from which they got their
clothing, food, and drink, which last, however, appears to have been
only the blood of the animal. Historia de las Indias, cap. 214, ap.
Barcia, tom. ii.
[455] The people of parts of China, for example, and, above all, of
Cochin China, who never milk their cows, according to Macartney, cited
by Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. p. 58, note. See, also, p. 118.
[456] The native regions of the buffalo were the vast prairies of the
Missouri, and they wandered over the long reach of country east of
the Rocky Mountains, from 55° north, to the headwaters of the streams
between the Mississippi and the Rio del Norte. The Columbia plains,
says Gallatin, were as naked of game as of trees. (Synopsis, sec.
5.) That the bison was sometimes found also on the other side of the
mountains, is plain from Gomara’s statement. (Hist. de las Ind., loc.
cit.) See, also, Laet, who traces their southern wanderings to the
river Vaquimi (?), in the province of Cinaloa, on the California Gulf.
Novus Orbis (Lugd. Bat., 1633), p. 286.
[457] _Ante_, p. 155.
Thus Lucretius:
“Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus,
Quo facilis magis est natura, et copia major.
Ære solum terræ tractabant, æreque belli
Miscebant fluctus.”
DE RERUM NATURA, lib. 5.
According to Carli, the Chinese were acquainted with iron 3000 years
before Christ. (Lettres Améric., tom. ii. p. 63.) Sir J. G. Wilkinson,
in an elaborate inquiry into its first appearance among the people
of Europe and Western Asia, finds no traces of it earlier than the
sixteenth century before the Christian era. (Ancient Egyptians, vol.
iii. pp. 241-246.) The origin of the most useful arts is lost in
darkness. Their very utility is one cause of this, from the rapidity
with which they are diffused among distant nations. Another cause is,
that in the first ages of the discovery men are more occupied with
availing themselves of it than with recording its history; until time
turns history into fiction. Instances are familiar to every school-boy.
[458] [And in this connection also the reader may do well to consider
these words of the distinguished Americanist, D. G. Brinton, uttered
in the International Congress of Anthropology in 1893: “Up to the
present time there has not been shown a single dialect, not an art or
an institution, not a myth or a religious rite, not a domesticated
plant or animal, not a tool, weapon, game, or symbol, in use in America
at the time of the discovery, which had been previously imported from
Asia, or from any other continent of the Old World.”--M.]
[459] [The grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella was not Charles the
Fifth when the sceptre of Spain was thrust into his hands because his
mother Joanna was unfit to rule. Charles called himself king when he
made his triumphal entry into Valladolid in 1517. But it was only with
the greatest difficulty that the Cortes of Castile was induced to
accept him as titular sovereign _in conjunction with his mother_. Her
name was to take precedence of his in all royal documents. Until her
death in 1555, the year before her son’s abdication, Joanna was the
rightful sovereign of Spain. Charles was elected emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire in 1519, only two years after he had assumed the control
of Spanish affairs. It is not remarkable, therefore, that he should be
known to most people only by the more important title. Charles was born
in Ghent, February 24, 1500. His father was Philip the Fair, the heir
of the German possessions of the house of Hapsburg, and the territories
of the house of Burgundy. When the marriage of Philip and Joanna was
arranged no one dreamed that their son would succeed to the crown of
Spain, for Joanna’s elder brother and elder sister were both alive.
Charles scarcely knew his parents. When Isabella of Castile died his
father and mother went to Spain to take possession of the kingdom she
had left to her daughter. This was in 1506, and from that time until
1517 Charles did not see his mother. His character was slow in forming.
Only in athletic sports did he early achieve success. In 1517 the Papal
legate Campeggi declared him more fit to be governed than to govern. He
was never a good scholar, and was a singularly bad linguist. French was
the language he first learned to speak. His native tongue, Flemish, he
did not begin to learn until he was thirteen. When he went to Spain he
knew so little Spanish that one of the first demands made by the Cortes
of Castile was that he should learn that language. He never thoroughly
mastered German.--M.]
[460] The following passage--one among many--from that faithful mirror
of the times, Peter Martyr’s correspondence, does ample justice to the
intemperance, avarice, and intolerable arrogance of the Flemings. The
testimony is worth the more, as coming from one who, though resident
in Spain, was not a Spaniard. “Crumenas auro fulcire inhiant; huic uni
studio invigilant. Nec detrectat juvenis Rex. Farcit quacunque posse
datur; non satiat tamen. Quæ qualisve sit gens hæc, depingere adhuc
nescio. Insufflat vulgus hic in omne genus hominum non arctoum. Minores
faciunt Hispanos, quam si nati essent inter eorum cloacas. Rugiunt jam
Hispani, labra mordent, submurmurant taciti, fatorum vices tales esse
conqueruntur, quod ipsi domitores regnorum ita floccifiant ab his,
quorum Deus unicus (sub rege temperato) Bacchus est cum Citherea.” Opus
Epistolarum (Amstelodami, 1610), ep. 608.
[461] Yet the nobles were not all backward in manifesting their
disgust. When Charles would have conferred the famous Burgundian order
of the Golden Fleece on the Count of Benavente, that lord refused it,
proudly telling him, “I am a Castilian. I desire no honors but those
of my own country, in my opinion quite as good as--indeed, better
than--those of any other.” Sandoval, Historia de la Vida y Hechos del
Emperador Cárlos V. (Ambéres, 1681), tom. i. p. 103.
[462] [The tone of the preceding paragraphs is that of the Spanish
chroniclers of the seventeenth century, and shows how the author,
despite his natural candor and impartiality of mind, had acquired
insensibly the habit of considering questions that affected Spain
from the national point of view of the class of writers with whom
his studies had made him most familiar. Spain is called the “native
country” of Charles V., and the “land of his fathers,” although,
as hardly any reader will need to be reminded, he was born in the
Netherlands and was of Spanish descent only on the maternal side. The
term “foreigner” is applied to him as if it indicated some vicious
trait in his nature; and the training which he had received as the heir
to the Austro-Burgundian dominions is spoken of as erroneous, merely
because it had not fitted him for a different position. His manners
are contrasted with those of native Spanish sovereigns, as if wanting
in graciousness and affability; yet the Spaniards, who alone ever made
this complaint, recognized their own ideal of royal demeanor in that
of the taciturn and phlegmatic Philip II. In like manner, Charles is
supposed to have made his first acquaintance with free institutions on
his arrival in Spain; whereas he had been brought up in a country where
the power of the sovereign was perhaps more closely restricted by the
chartered rights and immunities of the subject than was the case in any
other part of Europe. That the union of Spain and the Netherlands was
a most incongruous one, disastrous to the freedom, the independence,
and the development of both countries, is undeniable; but it was
not Charles’s early partiality for the one, but his successor’s far
stronger partiality for the other, which rendered the incompatibility
apparent and led to a rupture of the connection.--K.]
[463] I will take the liberty to refer the reader who is desirous of
being more minutely acquainted with the Spanish colonial administration
and the state of discovery previous to Charles V., to the “History of
the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella” (Part 2, ch. 9, 26), where the
subject is treated _in extenso_.{*}
{*} [All the documents relative to the commission sent out by Ximenes,
including many reports from the commissioners, have been printed
in the Col. de Doc. inéd. relativos al Descubrimiento, Conquista y
Colonizacion de las Posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía, tom.
i.--K.]
[464] See the curious document attesting this, and drawn up by order of
Columbus, ap. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y de Descubrimientos
(Madrid, 1825), tom. ii. Col. Dip., No. 76.
[465] [Now Haiti and Santo Domingo.--M.]
[466] The island was originally called by Columbus Juana, in honor of
Prince John, heir to the Castilian crown. After his death it received
the name of Fernandina, at the king’s desire. The Indian name has
survived both. Herrera, Hist. general, Descrip., cap. 6.
[467] “Erat Didacus, ut hoc in loco de eo semel tantum dicamus,
veteranus miles, rei militaris gnarus, quippe qui septem et decem annos
in Hispania militiam exercitus fuerat, homo probus, opibus, genere et
fama clarus, honoris cupidus, pecuniæ aliquanto cupidior.” De Rebus
gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, MS.
[468] The story is told by Las Casas in his appalling record of the
cruelties of his countrymen in the New World, which charity--and
common sense--may excuse us for believing the good father has greatly
overcharged. Brevíssima Relacion de la Destruycion de las Indias
(Venetia, 1643), p. 28.
[469] [Santiago de Cuba.--M.]
[470] Among the most ancient of these establishments we find the
Havana, Puerto del Príncipe, Trinidad, St. Salvador, and Matanzas, or
_the Slaughter_, so called from a massacre of the Spaniards there by
the Indians. Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 8.
[471] [This statement is erroneous. Prescott did not know that the
Havana, or San Cristobal, whence Cordova sailed, was on the south side
of Cuba. All authorities agree that the expedition sailed directly
westward, that the storm did not occur until Cape San Antonio had
been passed, and that the fleet sailed westward by the will of its
commander. See Bancroft’s Mexico, vol. i. p. 7.--M.]
[472] Gomara, Historia de las Indias, cap. 52, ap. Barcia, tom.
ii.--Bernal Diaz says the word came from the vegetable _yuca_, and
_tale_ the name for a hillock in which it is planted. (Hist. de la
Conquista, cap. 6.) M. Waldeck finds a much more plausible derivation
in the Indian word _Ouyouckatan_, “listen to what they say.” Voyage
pittoresque, p. 25.
[473] Two navigators, Solís and Pinzon, had descried the coast as
far back as 1506, according to Herrera, though they had not taken
possession of it. (Hist. general, dec. 1, lib. 6, cap. 17.) It is,
indeed, remarkable it should so long have eluded discovery, considering
that it is but two degrees distant from Cuba.
[474] Oviedo, General y natural Historia de las Indias, MS., lib.
33, cap. 1.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Carta del Cabildo de Vera Cruz
(July 10, 1519), MS.--Bernal Diaz denies that the original object of
the expedition, in which he took part, was to procure slaves, though
Velasquez had proposed it. (Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 2.) But he is
contradicted in this by the other contemporary records above cited.
[475] Itinerario de la Isola de Iuchathan, novamente ritrovata per il
Signor Joan de Grijalva, per il suo Capellano, MS.--The chaplain’s word
may be taken for the date, which is usually put at the eighth of April.
[476] [The fleet left Santiago, April 8, 1518, and Cape San Antonio,
May 1.--M.]
[477] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Itinerario del Capellano, MS.
[478] According to the Spanish authorities, the cacique was sent with
these presents from the Mexican sovereign, who had received previous
tidings of the approach of the Spaniards. I have followed Sahagun, who
obtained his intelligence directly from the natives. Historia de la
Conquista, MS., cap. 2.
[479] Gomara has given the _per_ and _contra_ of this negotiation, in
which gold and jewels of the value of fifteen or twenty thousand _pesos
de oro_ were exchanged for glass beads, pins, scissors, and other
trinkets common in an assorted cargo for savages. Crónica, cap. 6.
[480] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.
[481] “Hombre de terrible condicion,” says Herrera, citing the
good Bishop of Chiapa, “para los que le servian, i aiudaban, i que
facilmente se indignaba contra aquellos.” Hist. general, dec. 2, lib.
3, cap. 10.
[482] At least, such is the testimony of Las Casas, who knew both the
parties well, and had often conversed with Grijalva upon his voyage.
Historia general de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.
[483] Itinerario del Capellano, MS.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias,
MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.--The most circumstantial account of Grijalva’s
expedition is to be found in the _Itinerary_ of his chaplain above
quoted. The original is lost, but an indifferent Italian version was
published at Venice in 1522. A copy, which belonged to Ferdinand
Columbus, is still extant in the library of the great church of
Seville. The book had become so exceedingly rare, however, that the
historiographer Muñoz made a transcript of it with his own hand; and
from his manuscript that in my possession was taken.{*}
{*} [Several editions of the Itinerario have been published. The most
easily accessible may be found in the _Coleccion de documentos para la
historia de Mexico, etc._, tom. i.--M.]
[484] [The house in which he was born, in the Calle de la Feria, was
preserved until the present century, and many a traveller has lodged
there, desirous, says Alaman, of sleeping in the mansion where the
hero was born. In the year 1809 the building was destroyed by the
French, and only a few fragments of wall now remain to commemorate the
birthplace of the Conqueror. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii.
p. 2.]
[485] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 1.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista,
cap. 203. I find no more precise notice of the date of his birth,
except, indeed, by Pizarro y Orellana, who tells us that “Cortés came
into the world the same day that that _infernal beast, the false
heretic Luther_, entered it,--by way of compensation, no doubt, since
the labors of the one to pull down the true faith were counterbalanced
by those of the other to maintain and extend it”! (Varones ilustres
del Nuevo-Mundo (Madrid, 1639), p. 66.) But this statement of the good
cavalier, which places the birth of our hero in 1483, looks rather more
like a zeal for “the true faith” than for historic.
[486] Argensola, in particular, has bestowed great pains on the
_prosapia_ of the house of Cortés; which he traces up, nothing
doubting, to Narnes Cortés, king of Lombardy and Tuscany. Anales de
Aragon (Zaragoza, 1630), pp. 621-625.--Also, Caro de Torres, Historia
de las Ordenes militares (Madrid, 1629), fol. 103.
[487] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Las Casas, who knew the father, bears
stronger testimony to his poverty than to his noble birth. “Un
escudero,” he says of him, “que yo conocí harto pobre y humilde, aunque
cristiano, viejo _y dizen que hidalgo_.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib.
3, cap. 27.
[488] [His parents had cast lots to decide which of the apostles should
be chosen as his patron saint. The lot fell upon Peter, which explains
the especial devotion which Cortés professed, through his whole life,
to that saint, to whose watchful care he attributed the improvement in
his health. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 4.]
[489] Argensola, Anales, p. 220.--Las Casas and Bernal Diaz both state
that he was Bachelor of Laws at Salamanca. (Hist. de las Indias, MS.,
ubi supra.--Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203.) The degree was given
probably in later life, when the University might feel a pride in
claiming him among her sons.
[490] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 1.
[491] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Ibid.--Argensola states the cause
of his detention concisely enough: “Suspendió el viaje, _por enamorado
y por quartanario_.” Anales, p. 621.
[492] Some thought it was the Holy Ghost in the form of this dove.
“Sanctum esse Spiritum, qui, in illius alitis specie, ut mœstos et
afflictos solaretur, venire erat dignatus” (De Rebus gestis, MS.); a
conjecture which seems very reasonable to Pizarro y Orellana, since the
expedition was to “redound so much to the spread of the Catholic faith,
and the Castilian monarchy”! Varones ilustres, p. 70.
[493] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 2.
[494] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 203.
[495] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 3, 4.--Las Casas,
Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.
[496] Hist. de las Indias, MS., loc. cit.--“Res omnes arduas
difficilesque per Cortesium, quem in dies magis magisque amplectebatur,
Velasquius agit. Ex eo ducis favore et gratia magna Cortesio invidia
est orta.” De Rebus gestis, MS.
[497] Solís has found a patent of nobility for this lady
also,--“doncella noble y recatada.” (Historia de la Conquista de
Méjico (Paris, 1838), lib. 1, cap. 9.) Las Casas treats her with less
ceremony: “Una hermana de _un_ Juan Xuarez, _gente pobre_.” Hist. de
las Indias, MS., lib. 5, cap. 17.
[498] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS.,
ubi supra.--De Rebus gestis, MS.--Memorial de Benito Martinez, Capellan
de D. Velasquez, contra H. Cortés, MS.
[499] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.
[500] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., loc. cit.--Memorial de
Martinez, MS.
[501] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--Herrera tells a silly story of his
being unable to swim, and throwing himself on a plank, which, after
being carried out to sea, was washed ashore with him at flood tide.
Hist. general, dec. 1, lib. 9, cap. 8.
[502] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.--“Cœnat cubatque Cortesius cum Velasquio
eodem in lecto. Qui postero die fugæ Cortesii nuntius venerat,
Velasquium et Cortesium juxta accubantes intuitus, miratur.” De Rebus
gestis, MS.
[503] Las Casas, who remembered Cortés at this time “so poor and
lowly that he would have gladly received any favor from the least of
Velasquez’ attendants,” treats the story of the bravado with contempt.
“Por lo qual si él [Velasquez] sintiera de Cortés una puncta de alfiler
de cerviguillo ó presuncion, ó lo ahorcara ó á lo menos lo echara de la
tierra y lo sumiera en ella sin que alzara cabeza en su vida.” Hist. de
las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27.
[504] “Pecuariam primus quoque habuit, in insulamque induxit, omni
pecorum genere ex Hispania petito.” De Rebus gestis, MS.
[505] “Los que por sacarle el oro muriéron Dios abrá tenido mejor
cuenta que yo.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 27. The text is
a free translation.
[506] “Estando conmigo, me lo dixo que estava tan contento con ella
como si fuera hija de una Duquessa.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi
supra.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 4.
[507] The treasurer used to boast he had passed some two-and-twenty
years in the wars of Italy. He was a shrewd personage, and Las Casas,
thinking that country a slippery school for morals, warned the
governor, he says, more than once “to beware of the twenty-two years in
Italy.” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.
[508] “Si él no fuera por Capitan, que no fuera la tercera parte de la
gente que con él fué.” Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS. (Coruña, 30 de
Abril, 1520).
[509] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 19.--De Rebus gestis,
MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.--Las Casas, Hist. general de las Indias,
MS., lib. 3, cap. 113.
[510] Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Carta de Vera Cruz,
MS.--Probanza en la Villa Segura, MS. (4 de Oct., 1520).
[511] The letter from the Municipality of Vera Cruz, after stating that
Velasquez bore only one-third of the original expense, adds, “Y sepan
Vras. Magestades que la mayor parte de la dicha tercia parte que el
dicho Diego Velasquez gastó en hacer la dicha armada fué emplear sus
dineros en vinos y en ropas, y en otras cosas de poco valor para nos lo
vender acá en mucha mas cantidad de lo que á él le costó, por manera
que podemos decir que entre nosotros los Españoles vasallos de Vras.
Reales Altezas ha hecho Diego Velasquez su rescate y granosea de sus
dineros cobrandolos muy bien.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.) Puertocarrero
and Montejo, also, in their depositions taken in Spain, both speak
of Cortés’ having furnished two-thirds of the cost of the flotilla.
(Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Declaracion de Montejo, MS. (29 de
Abril, 1520).) The letter from Vera Cruz, however, was prepared under
the eye of Cortés; and the last two were his confidential officers.
[512] The instrument, in the original Castilian, will be found in
Appendix, No. 5. It is often referred to by writers who never saw it,
as the Agreement between Cortés and Velasquez. It is, in fact, only the
instructions given by this latter to his officer, who was no party to
it.
[513] Declaracion de Puertocarrero, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap.
7.--Velasquez soon after obtained from the crown authority to colonize
the new countries, with the title of _adelantado_ over them. The
instrument was dated at Barcelona, Nov. 13th, 1518. (Herrera, Hist.
general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 8.) Empty privileges! Las Casas gives a
caustic etymology of the title of _adelantado_, so often granted to the
Spanish discoverers. “Adelantados porque se adelantaran en hazer males
y daños tan gravísimos á gentes pacíficas.” Hist. de las Indias, MS.,
lib. 3, cap. 117.
[514] “Deterrebat,” says the anonymous biographer, “eum Cortesii natura
imperii avida, fiducia sui ingens, et nimius sumptus in classe parandâ.
Timere itaque Velasquius cœpit, si Cortesius cum eâ classe iret, nihil
ad se vel honoris vel lucri rediturum.” De Rebus gestis, MS.--Bernal
Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 19.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias,
MS., cap. 114.
[515] “Cortés no avia menester mas para entendello de mirar el gesto á
Diego Velasquez segun su astuta viveza y mundana sabiduría.” Hist. de
las Indias, MS., cap. 114.
[516] Las Casas had the story from Cortés’ own mouth. Hist. de las
Indias, MS., cap. 114.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 7.--De Rebus gestis, MS.
[517] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.--Herrera, Hist.
general, dec. 2, lib. 3, cap. 12.--Solís, who follows Bernal Diaz in
saying that Cortés parted openly and amicably from Velasquez, seems
to consider it a great slander on the character of the former to
suppose that he wanted to break with the governor so soon, when he had
received so little provocation. (Conquista, lib. 1, cap. 10.) But it
is not necessary to suppose that Cortés intended a rupture with his
employer by this clandestine movement, but only to secure himself in
the command. At all events, the text conforms in every particular to
the statement of Las Casas, who, as he knew both the parties well, and
resided on the island at the time, had ample means of information.{*}
{*} [Las Casas was not residing in Cuba, as Prescott supposes, when
Cortés sailed. The weight of authority seems to indicate that the
departure of Cortés was hasty but not clandestine. Velasquez in his
report to the Emperor does not say the Conqueror of Mexico stole
away.--M.]
[518] Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 114.
[519] [Juan Sedeño was the richest man in the fleet. His possessions
included a ship, a mare, a negro, and some cazabi bread and bacon.
Bernal Diaz very properly gives a list of the horses belonging to the
expedition, remarking that neither horses nor negroes could be had
without great expense. (See Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 23.) A horse
cost from four to five hundred _pesos de oro_.--M.]
[520] [Bancroft (Mexico, i. p. 66) thinks Prescott has made a slight
mistake as to these ships, and that Sedeño was the commander of the
second vessel. Bancroft also will have it that the standard of Cortés
was made of “taffeta,” not _velvet_.--M.]
[521] Las Casas had this, also, from the lips of Cortés in later life.
“Todo esto me dixo el mismo Cortés, con otras cosas cerca dello despues
de Marques; ... reindo y mofando é con estas formales palabras, _Á la
mi fée andube por allí como un gentil cosario_.” Hist. de las Indias,
MS., cap. 115.
[522] De Rebus gestis, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 8.--Las Casas, Hist.
de las Indias, MS., cap. 114, 115.
[523] [But not across the island. There was no need for Cortés to sail
round the westerly point of Cuba with his squadron. Havana, or San
Cristóbal de la Habana, was then upon the south side of the island. The
town where the Havana of to-day stands was not founded until 1519. Many
writers besides Prescott, knowing nothing of this fact, have fallen
into this same error. From Trinidad to the new Habana would have been
a long and difficult march for Alvarado and his party, and a long and
unnecessary voyage for the fleet of Cortés.--M.]
[524] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.--De Rebus gestis,
MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 8.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS.,
cap. 115.--The legend on the standard was, doubtless, suggested by that
on the _labarum_,--the sacred banner of Constantine.
[525] The most minute notices of the person and habits of Cortés are
to be gathered from the narrative of the old cavalier Bernal Diaz, who
served so long under him, and from Gomara, the general’s chaplain. See
in particular the last chapter of Gomara’s Crónica, and cap. 203 of the
Hist. de la Conquista.
[526] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.
[527] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 24.
[528] Ibid., loc. cit.
[529] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 26.--There is some
discrepancy among authorities in regard to the numbers of the army.
The Letter from Vera Cruz, which should have been exact, speaks in
round terms of only four hundred soldiers. (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.)
Velasquez himself, in a communication to the Chief Judge of Hispaniola,
states the number at six hundred. (Carta de Diego Velasquez al Lic.
Figueroa, MS.) I have adopted the estimates of Bernal Diaz, who, in his
long service, seems to have become intimately acquainted with every one
of his comrades, their persons, and private history.
[530] Incredibly dear indeed, since, from the statements contained in
the depositions at Villa Segura, it appears that the cost of the horses
for the expedition was from four to five hundred _pesos de oro_ each!
“Si saben que de caballos que el dicho Señor Capitan General Hernando
Cortés ha comprado para servir en la dicha Conquista, que son diez é
ocho, que le han costado á quatrocientos cinquenta é á quinientos pesos
ha pagado, é que deve mas de ocho mil pesos de oro dellos.” (Probanza
en Villa Segura, MS.) The estimation of these horses is sufficiently
shown by the minute information Bernal Diaz has thought proper to
give of every one of them; minute enough for the pages of a sporting
calendar. See Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 23.
[531] “Io vos propongo grandes premios, mas embueltos en grandes
trabajos; pero la virtud no quiere ociosidad.” (Gomara, Crónica, cap.
9.) It is the thought so finely expressed by Thomson:
“For sluggard’s brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.”
[532] The text is a very condensed abridgment of the original speech
of Cortés,--or of his chaplain, as the case may be. See it, in Gomara,
Crónica, cap. 9.
[533] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., cap. 115.--Gomara, Crónica,
cap. 10.--De ebus gestis, MS.--“Tantus fuit armorum apparatus,”
exclaims the author of the last work, “quo alterum terrarum orbem
bellis Cortesius concutit; ex tam parvis opibus tantum imperium
Carolo facit; aperitque omnium primus Hispanæ genti Hispaniam novam!”
The author of this work is unknown. It seems to have been part of a
great compilation “De Orbe Novo,” written, probably, on the plan of a
series of biographical sketches, as the introduction speaks of a life
of Columbus preceding this of Cortés. It was composed, as it states,
while many of the old Conquerors were still surviving, and is addressed
to the son of Cortés. The historian, therefore, had ample means of
verifying the truth of his own statements, although they too often
betray, in his partiality for his hero, the influence of the patronage
under which the work was produced. It runs into a prolixity of detail
which, however tedious, has its uses in a contemporary document.
Unluckily, only the first book was finished, or, at least, has
survived; terminating with the events of this chapter. It is written in
Latin, in a pure and perspicuous style, and is conjectured with some
plausibility to be the work of Calvet de Estrella, Chronicler of the
Indies. The original exists in the Archives of Simancas, where it was
discovered and transcribed by Muñoz, from whose copy that in my library
was taken.
[534] See _ante_, p. 241, note 27.
[535] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista,
cap. 25, et seq.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 10, 15.--Las Casas, Hist. de
las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 115.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2,
lib. 4, cap. 6.--Martyr, De Insulis nuper inventis (Coloniæ, 1574),
p. 344.--While these pages were passing through the press, but not
till two years after they were written, Mr. Stephens’s important
and interesting volumes appeared, containing the account of his
second expedition to Yucatan. In the latter part of the work he
describes his visit to Cozumel, now an uninhabited island covered with
impenetrable forests. Near the shore he saw the remains of ancient
Indian structures, which he conceives may possibly have been the same
that met the eyes of Grijalva and Cortés, and which suggest to him
some important inferences. He is led into further reflections on the
existence of the cross as a symbol of worship among the islanders.
(Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (New York, 1843), vol. ii. chap. 20.)
As the discussion of these matters would lead me too far from the track
of our narrative, I shall take occasion to return to them hereafter,
when I treat of the architectural remains of the country.{*}{**}
{*} [In the passages here referred to, the author has noticed various
proofs of the existence of the cross as a symbol of worship among pagan
nations both in the Old World and the New. The fact has been deemed a
very puzzling one; yet the explanation, as traced by Dr. Brinton, is
sufficiently simple: “The arms of the cross were designed to point to
the cardinal points and represent the four winds,--the rain-bringers.”
Hence the name given to it in the Mexican language, signifying “Tree of
our Life,”--a term well calculated to increase the wonderment of the
Spanish discoverers. Myths of the New World, p. 96, et al.--K.]
{**} _Ante_, p. 239.
[536] See the biographical sketch of the good bishop Las Casas, the
“Protector of the Indians,” in the Postscript at the close of the
present Book.
[537] “It may have been that the devil appeared to them as he is, and
left these forms stamped on their imagination, so that the imitative
power of the artist reveals itself in the ugliness of the image.”
Solís, Conquista, p. 39.
[538] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 13.--Herrera,
Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 4, cap. 7.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich.,
MS., cap. 78.--Las Casas, whose enlightened views in religion would
have done honor to the present age, insists on the futility of these
forced conversions, by which it was proposed in a few days to wean men
from the idolatry which they had been taught to reverence from the
cradle. “The only way of doing this,” he says, “is by long, assiduous,
and faithful preaching, until the heathen shall gather some ideas of
the true nature of the Deity and of the doctrines they are to embrace.
Above all, the lives of the Christians should be such as to exemplify
the truth of these doctrines, that, seeing this, the poor Indian may
glorify the Father, and acknowledge him, who has such worshippers, for
the true and only God.” See the original remarks, which I quote _in
extenso_, as a good specimen of the bishop’s style when kindled by his
subject into eloquence, in Appendix, No. 6.
[539] “Muy gran misterio y milagro de Dios.” Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.
[540] [Not long ago, a history of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan,
written in the Maya language, but in Roman letters, by a native
chief, Nakuk Pech, about the year 1562, was brought to light. This
account, the “Chronicle of Chicxulub,” was translated by Dr. Brinton,
and was published by him in the “Maya Chronicles,” Philadelphia,
1882, pp. 187-259. This chronicle, from the pen of one who was almost
contemporary with the Conquest, corroborates the accounts given by the
Spanish historians in most particulars. It refers to Chichen Itza and
Izamal as inhabited when the Spaniards descended upon the country. It
is sometimes inaccurate as to details, as in this reference to Aguilar:
“Thus the land was discovered by Aguilar, who was eaten by Ah Naum
Ah Pat at Cuzamil in the year 1517.” We know, of course, that it was
another Spaniard who was eaten by Ah Naum Ah Pat. The matter is of
small consequence to us, though undoubtedly important to Aguilar.--M.]
[541] They are enumerated by Herrera with a minuteness which may claim
at least the merit of giving a much higher notion of Aguilar’s virtue
than the barren generalities of the text. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib.
4, cap. 6-8.) The story is prettily told by Washington Irving, Voyages
and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (London, 1833), p. 263,
et seq.
[542] Camargo, Historia de Tlascala, MS.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias,
MS., lib. 33, cap. 1.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 347.--Bernal Diaz, Hist.
de la Conquista, cap. 29.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Las Casas, Hist. de
las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 115, 116.
[543] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 31.--Carta de Vera
Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 18.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias,
MS., lib. 3, cap. 118.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 348.--There are some
discrepancies between the statements of Bernal Diaz and the Letter from
Vera Cruz; both by parties who were present.
[544] Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap.
31.
[545] “See,” exclaims the Bishop of Chiapa, in his caustic vein, “the
reasonableness of this ‘requisition,’ or, to speak more correctly,
the folly and insensibility of the Royal Council, who could find, in
the refusal of the Indians to receive it, a good pretext for war.”
(Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 118.) In another place he
pronounces an animated invective against the iniquity of those who
covered up hostilities under this empty form of words, the import of
which was utterly incomprehensible to the barbarians. (Ibid., lib. 3,
cap. 57.) The famous formula, used by the Spanish Conquerors on this
occasion, was drawn up by Dr. Palacios Reubios, a man of letters, and
a member of the King’s council. “But I laugh at him and his letters,”
exclaims Oviedo, “if he thought a word of it could be comprehended by
the untutored Indians!” (Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 29, cap. 7.) The
regular Manifesto, _requirimiento_, may be found translated in the
concluding pages of Irving’s “Voyages of the Companions of Columbus.”
[546] “Halláronlas llenas de maiz é gallinas y otros vastimentos, oro
ninguno, de lo que ellos no resciviéron mucho plazer.” Hist. de las
Indias, MS., ubi supra.
[547] Peter Martyr gives a glowing picture of this Indian capital. “Ad
fluminis ripam protentum dicunt esse oppidum, quantum non ausim dicere:
mille quingentorum passuum, ait Alaminus nauclerus, et domorum quinque
ac viginti millium: stringunt alij, ingens tamen fatentur et celebre.
Hortis intersecantur domus, quæ sunt _egregiè lapidibus et calce
fabrefactæ, maximâ industriâ et architectorum arte_.” (De Insulis, p.
349.) With his usual inquisitive spirit, he gleaned all the particulars
from the old pilot Alaminos, and from two of the officers of Cortés
who revisited Spain in the course of that year. Tabasco was in the
neighborhood of those ruined cities of Yucatan which have lately been
the theme of so much speculation. The encomiums of Martyr are not so
remarkable as the apathy of other contemporary chroniclers.
[548] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 31, 32.--Gomara,
Crónica, cap. 18.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap.
118, 119.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 78, 79.
[549] According to Solís, who quotes the address of Cortés on the
occasion, he summoned a council of his captains to advise him as to the
course he should pursue. (Conquista, cap. 19.) It is possible, but I
find no warrant for it anywhere.
[550] Las Casas, Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.--Gomara,
Crónica, cap. 19, 20.--Herrera, Hist. gen., dec. 2, lib. 4, cap.
11.--Martyr, De Insulis, p. 350.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS.,
cap. 79.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 33, 36.--Carta de
Vera Cruz, MS.
[551] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--“Cortés supposed it
was his own tutelar saint, St. Peter,” says Pizarro y Orellana; “but
the common and indubitable opinion is that it was our glorious apostle
St. James, the bulwark and safeguard of our nation.” (Varones ilustres,
p. 73.) “Sinner that I am,” exclaims honest Bernal Diaz, in a more
skeptical vein, “it was not permitted to me to see either the one or
the other of the Apostles on this occasion.” Hist. de la Conquista,
cap. 34.{*}
{*} [The remark of Bernal Diaz is not to be taken as ironical. His
faith in the same vision on subsequent occasions is expressed without
demur. In the present case he recognized the rider of the gray horse
as a Spanish cavalier, Francisco de Morla. It appears from the account
of Andrés de Tápia, another companion of Cortés, whose narrative has
been recently published, that owing to canals and other impediments,
the cavalry was unable to effect the intended détour, and it therefore
returned and joined the infantry. The latter, meanwhile, having seen a
cavalier on a gray horse charging the Indians in their rear, supposed
that the cavalry had penetrated to that quarter. Cortés, on hearing
this, exclaimed, “Adelante, compañeros, que Dios es con nosotros.”
(Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. i.) Tápia
says nothing about St. James or St. Peter, and perhaps suspected that
the incident was a ruse contrived by Cortés. Generally, however, such
legends seem to be sufficiently explained by the religious belief and
excited imagination of the narrators. See the remarks, on this point,
of Macaulay, who notices the account of Diaz, in the introduction to
his lay of the Battle of the Lake Regillus.--K.{**}
{**} [The apparition of St. James is not infrequent in the history of
Spain. The apostle first appeared as a leader of the Spanish hosts
in the battle of Clavijo, 846. He rode upon a white charger, and
carried in his left hand a snow-white banner. In his right hand was
a flashing sword. Because of his wondrous aid sixty thousand Moslems
were vanquished that day by the soldiers of King Ramiro. Mariana, Book
vii, chap, xiii, tells the story, and many writers accepted the legend.
Unfortunately, however, careful investigation has shown that the battle
itself was apocryphal.
In the tenth century he appeared again when Ramiro II defeated the
great Abderahman, and as a result pilgrims innumerable flocked to the
shrine of Santiago de Compostella.
Again his white horse led the Spanish cavalry when Fernando was
besieging Coimbra in 1058, or thereabout, as one may read in Southey’s
Chronicle of the Cid.
At Xeres, in 1237, Alfonso of Castile, with fifteen hundred men,
defeated a force seven times larger than his own because all men saw
plainly the glorious vision. The Moors fled panic-stricken at the
sight. “They could not fight against God.” The instances might be
multiplied.--M.]
[552] It was the order--as the reader may remember--given by Cæsar to
his followers in his battle with Pompey:
“Adversosque jubet ferro confundere vultus.”
LUCAN, Pharsalia, lib. 7, v. 575.
[553] “Equites,” says Paolo Giovio, “unum integrum Centaurorum specie
animal esse existimarent.” Elogia Virorum Illustrium (Basil, 1696),
lib. 6, p. 229.
[554] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 11.
[555] “Crean Vras. Reales Altezas por cierto, que esta batalla fué
vencida mas por voluntad de Dios que por nras. fuerzas, porque para
con quarenta mil hombres de guerra, poca defensa fuera quatrozientos
que nosotros eramos.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Gomara, Crónica, cap.
20.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 35.) It is Las Casas who,
regulating his mathematics, as usual, by his feelings, rates the Indian
loss at the exorbitant amount cited in the text. “This,” he concludes,
dryly, “was the first preaching of the gospel by Cortés in New Spain!”
Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.
[556] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 21, 22.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Martyr,
De Insulis, p. 351.--Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.
[557]
“Cata Francia, Montesinos,
Cata Paris la ciudad,
Cata las aguas de Duero
Do an á dar en la mar.”
They are the words of the popular old ballad, first published, I
believe, in the Romancero de Ambéres, and lately by Duran, Romances
caballerescos é históricos, Parte I, p. 82.
[558] Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37.
[559] Las Casas notices the significance of the Indian gestures as
implying a most active imagination: “Señas é meneos con que los Yndios
mucho mas que otras generaciones entienden y se dan á entender, por
tener muy bivos los sentidos exteriores y tambien los interiores,
mayormente que es admirable su imaginacion.” Hist. de las Indias, MS.,
lib. 3, cap. 120.
[560] “Hermosa como Diosa,” _beautiful as a goddess_, says Camargo
of her. (Hist. de Tlascala, MS.) A modern poet pays her charms the
following not inelegant tribute:
“Admira tan lúcida cabalgada
Y espectáculo tal Doña Marina,
India noble al caudillo presentada,
De fortuna y belleza peregrina.
* * * * *
Con despejado espíritu y viveza
Gira la vista en el concurso mudo;
Rico manto de extrema sutileza
Con chapas de oro autorizarla pudo,
Prendido con bizarra gentileza
Sobre los pechos en ayroso nudo;
Reyna parece de la Indiana Zona,
Varonil y hermosísima Amazona.”
MORATIN, Las Naves de Cortés destruidas.
[561] [“Malinche” is a corruption of the Aztec word “Malintzin,” which
is itself a corruption of the Spanish name “Marina.” The Aztecs, having
no _r_ in their alphabet, substituted _l_ for it, while the termination
_tzin_ was added in token of respect, so that the name was equivalent
to Doña or Lady Marina. Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega, anotada por
D. Lúcas Alaman), tom. ii. pp. 17, 269.]
[562] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 120.--Gomara,
Crónica, cap. 25, 26.--Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii.
pp. 12-14.--Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 33, cap.
1.--Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Camargo, Hist. de
Tlascala, MS.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 37, 38.--There
is some discordance in the notices of the early life of Marina. I
have followed Bernal Diaz,--from his means of observation, the best
authority. There is happily no difference in the estimate of her
singular merits and services.
[563] The name of the Aztec monarch, like those of most persons and
places in New Spain, has been twisted into all possible varieties of
orthography. Cortés, in his letters, calls him “Muteczuma.” Modern
Spanish historians usually spell his name “Motezuma.” I have preferred
to conform to the name by which he is usually known to English readers.
It is the one adopted by Bernal Diaz, and by most writers near the time
of the Conquest. Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. i., apénd. 2.
[564] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 79.--Clavigero, Stor.
del Messico, tom. iii. p. 16.--New Vera Cruz, as the present town is
called, is distinct, as we shall see hereafter, from that established
by Cortés, and was not founded till the close of the sixteenth century,
by the Conde de Monterey, Viceroy of Mexico. It received its privileges
as a city from Philip III. in 1615. Ibid., tom. iii. p. 30, nota.
[565] The epidemic of the _matlazahuatl_, so fatal to the Aztecs,
is shown by M. de Humboldt to have been essentially different from
the _vómito_, or bilious fever of our day. Indeed, this disease is
not noticed by the early conquerors and colonists, and, Clavigero
asserts, was not known in Mexico till 1725. (Stor. del Messico, tom.
i. p. 117, nota.) Humboldt, however, arguing that the same physical
causes must have produced similar results, carries the disease back
to a much higher antiquity, of which he discerns some traditional and
historic vestiges. “Il ne faut pas confondre l’epoque,” he remarks,
with his usual penetration, “à laquelle une maladie a été décrite
pour la première fois, parce qu’elle a fait de grands ravages dans un
court espace de temps, avec l’époque de sa première apparition.” Essai
politique, tom. iv. p. 161 et seq., and 179.
[566] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 26.
[567] Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.
[568] [According to a curious document published by Icazbalceta (Col.
de Doc. para la Hist. de México, tom. ii.), two of the principal
caciques present on this occasion communicated secretly with Cortés,
and, declaring themselves disaffected subjects of Montezuma, offered
to facilitate the advance of the Spaniards by furnishing the general
with paintings in which the various features of the country would
be correctly delineated. The offer was accepted, and on the next
visit the paintings were produced, and proved subsequently of great
service to Cortés, who rewarded the donors with certain grants. But
the genuineness of this paper, though supported by so distinguished a
scholar as Señor Ramirez, is more than questionable.--K.]
[569] Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, MS., No. 13.--Idem, Hist. Chich.,
MS., cap. 79.--Gomara, Crónica, cap. 25, 26.--Bernal Diaz, Hist. de
la Conquista, cap. 38.--Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 5, cap.
4.--Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.--Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap.
13-15.--Tezozomoc, Crón. Mexicana, MS., cap. 107.