TEZCUCO. MIRAFLORES. POPOCATEPETL. CHOLULA.
[Illustration: WALKING AND RIDING COSTUMES IN MEXICO.
_(After Nebel.)_]
The wet season was fast coming on when we left Mexico for the last
time. We had to pass through Vera Cruz, where the rain and the yellow
fever generally set in together; so that to stay longer would have been
too great a risk.
Our first stage was to Tezcuco, across the lake in a canoe, just as we
had been before. We noticed on our way to the canoes, a church,
apparently from one to two centuries old, with the following doggerel
inscription in huge letters over the portico, which shows that the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception is by no means a recent institution
in Mexico:
_Antes de entrar afirma con tu vida,
S. Maria fué sin pecado concebida:_
Which may be translated into verse of equal quality,
_Confess on thy life before coming in,
That blessed Saint Mary was conceived without sin._
Nothing particular happened on our journey, except that a well-dressed
Mexican turned up at the landing-place, wanting a passage, and as we
had taken a canoe for ourselves, we offered to let him come with us. He
was a well-bred young man, speaking one or two languages besides his
own; and he presently informed us that he was going on a visit to a
rich old lady at Tezcuco, whose name was Doña Maria Lopez, or something
of the kind. When we drove away from the other end of the lake, towards
Tezcuco, we took him as far as the road leading to the old lady’s
house; when he rather astonished us by hinting that he should like to
go on with us to the Casa Grande, and could walk back. At the same
time, it struck us that the youth, though so well dressed, had no
luggage; and we began to understand the queer expression of the
coachman’s face when he saw him get into the carriage with us. So we
stopped at the corner of the road, and the young gentleman had to get
out.
At the Casa Grande, our friends laughed at us immensely when we told
them of the incident, and offered us twenty to one that he would come
to ask for money within twenty-four hours. He came the same evening,
and brought a wonderful story about his passport not being _en règle_,
and that unless we could lend him ten dollars to bribe the police, he
should be in a dreadful scrape. We referred him to the master of the
house, who said something to him which caused him to depart
precipitately, and we never saw him again; but we heard afterwards that
he had been to the other foreigners in the neighbourhood with various
histories. We made more enquiries about him in the town, and it
appeared that his expedition to Tezcuco was improvised when he saw us
going down to the boat, and of course the visit to the rich old lady
was purely imaginary. Now this youth was not more than eighteen, and
looked and spoke like a gentleman. They say that the class he belonged
to is to be counted rather by thousands than by hundreds in Mexico.
They are the children of white Creoles, or nearly white mestizos; they
get a superficial education and the art of dressing, and with this
slender capital go out into the world to live by their wits, until they
get a government appointment or set up as political adventurers, and so
have a chance of helping themselves out of the public purse, which is
naturally easier and more profitable than mere sponging upon
individuals. One gets to understand the course of Mexican affairs much
better by knowing what sort of raw material the politicians are
recruited from.
We saw some good things in a small collection of antiquities, on this
second visit to Tezcuco. Among them was a nude female figure in
alabaster, four or five feet high, and—comparatively speaking—of high
artistic merit. Such figures are not common in Mexico, and they are
supposed to represent the Aztec Venus, who was called _Tlazolteocihua_,
“Goddess of Pleasure.” A figure, laboriously cut in hard stone,
representing a man wearing a jackal’s head as a mask, was supposed to
be a figurative representation of the celebrated king of Tezcuco,
_Nezahualcoyotl_, “hungry jackal,” of whom Mexican history relates that
he walked about the streets of his capital in disguise, after the
manner of the Caliph in the Arabian Nights. The explanation is
plausible, but I think not correct. The _coyote_ or jackal was a sacred
animal among the Aztecs, as the Anubis-jackal was among the Egyptians.
Humboldt found in Mexico the tomb of a coyote, which had been carefully
interred with an earthen vase, and a number of the little cast-bronze
bells which I noticed in the last chapter. The Mexicans used actually
to make a kind of fetish—or charm—of a jackal’s skin, prepared in a
peculiar way, and called by the same name, _nezahualcoyotl_, and very
likely they do so still. From this fetish the king’s name was, no
doubt, borrowed; and it is not improbable that the whole story of the
king’s walking in disguise may have grown up out of his name being the
same as that of the figure we saw, muffled up in a jackal’s skin.
It is curious that the jackal, or the human figure in a jackal-mask,
should have been an object of superstitious veneration both in Mexico
and in Egypt. This, the extraordinary serpent-crown of Xochicalco, and
the pyramids, are the three most striking resemblances to be found
between the two countries; all probably accidental, but not the less
noteworthy on that account.
The collection contained a number of spherical beads in green jade,
highly polished, and some as large as pigeon’s eggs. They were found in
an alabaster box, of such elaborate and beautiful workmanship that the
owner deemed it worthy to be presented as a sort of peace-offering to
the wife of President Santa Ana.
The word _coyotl_ in the name of the Tezcucan king is the present word
_coyote_—a jackal. Though unknown in English, it has passed, with
several Spanish words, into what we may call the American dialect of
our language. Prairie-hunters and Californians have introduced several
other words in this way, such as _ranch_, _gulch, corral_, &c.
The word _lariat_ one is constantly meeting with in books about
American prairies. A horse-rope, or a lazo, is called in Spanish
_reata_; and, by absorbing the article, _la reata_ is made into lariat,
just as such words as _alligator_, _alcove_, and _pyramid_ were formed.
The flexible leather riding-whip or _cuarta_ is apparently the _quirt_
that some American politicians use in arguing with their opponents.
Our last day at Tezcuco was spent in packing up antiquities to be sent
to England, the express orders of the Government against such
exportation to the contrary notwithstanding. Next morning we rode off
to Miraflores, passing on our way the curious stratum of alluvial soil
containing pottery, &c., which I have described already. Miraflores is
a cotton-factory, in the opening of a picturesque gorge just at the
edge of the plain of Mexico. The machinery is American, for the mill
dates from the time when it was considered expedient to prohibit the
exportation of cotton-mill machinery from England; and having begun
with American work, it naturally suits them to go on with it. It is
driven by a great Barker’s mill, which works in a sort of well, having
an outlet into the valley, and roars as though it would tear the place
down. It is not common to see this kind of machine working on a large
scale; but here, with a great fall of water, it does very well.
Otherwise the place was like an ordinary cotton-factory, and one cannot
be surprised at people thinking that such establishments are a source
of prosperity to the country. They see a population hard at work and
getting good wages, masters making great profits, and no end of bales
going off to town; and do not consider that half the price of the cloth
is wasted, and that the protection-duty sets the people to work which
they cannot do to advantage, while it takes them away from occupations
which their country is fit for.
Next morning took us to Amecameca, a town in a little plain at the foot
of Popocatepetl, whose snow-covered top towers high up in the clouds,
like Mont Blanc over Sallanches. We had at one time cherished hopes of
getting to the top of this grand volcano, but had heard such frightful
reports of difficulties and dangers that we had concluded not to do
more than look at it from a distance, the more especially as there had
been a heavy fall of snow upon it a day or two before. We presented our
letter to the Spaniard who kept the great shop at Amecameca, and asked
him, casually, about the mountain. He assured us that the surface of
the snow would be frozen over, and that instead of being a disadvantage
the fall of snow was in our favour, for it was easier to climb over
frozen snow than up a loose heap of volcanic ashes. So we sent for the
guide, a big man, who used to manage the sulphur-workings in the crater
until that undertaking was given up. He set to work to get things ready
for the expedition, and we strolled out for a walk.
Close by the town is a “sacred mount,” with little stations, and on one
day in the year numbers of pilgrims come to visit the place. Near the
top, the Indian lad who came with us showed us the mouth of a cavern,
which leads by subterranean passages under the sea to Rome—as caverns
not unfrequently do in Roman Catholic countries! What was more worth
noticing was that here there was a cypress-tree, covered with votive
offerings, like the great ahuchuete in the valley above Chalma; so that
it is likely that the place was sacred long before chapels and stations
were built upon it. Our guide told us that whenever a man touched the
tree, all feeling of weariness left him. How characteristic this
superstition is of a nation of carriers of burdens!
In the afternoon we started—ourselves, our guide, and an Indian to
carry cloaks, &c. up the mountain. We soon left the cultivated region,
and entered upon the pine-forest, which we never left during our
afternoon journey. One of the first showers of the rainy season came
down upon us as we rode through the forest. It only lasted half an
hour, but it was a deluge. In a shower of the same kind at Tezcuco, a
day or two before, rain to the amount of 1-1/10 inches fell in the
hour. By dusk we reached the highest habitation in North America, the
place where the sulphur used to be sublimed from the pumice brought
down from the crater. This place was shut up, for the undertaking has
been abandoned; but in a _rancho_ close by we found some Indian women
and children, and there we took up our quarters. The _rancho_ was a
circular hut, built and thatched with reeds, though in the midst of a
pine-forest; and presently a smart shower began, which came in upon us
as though the roof had been a sieve.
The Indian women were kneeling all the evening round the wood-fire in
the centre of the hut, baking _tortillas_ and boiling beans and coffee
in earthen pots. The wood was green, and the place was full of
suffocating smoke, except within eighteen inches of the ground, where
lay a stratum of purer air. We were obliged to lie down at once, upon
mats and serapes, for we could not exist in the smoke; and as often as
we raised ourselves into a sitting posture, we had to dive down again,
half suffocated. The line of demarcation was so accurately drawn that
it was like the Grotto del Cane, only reversed.
After a primitive supper in earthen bowls, we lay round the fire,
listening to the talk of our men and the Indian women. It was mostly
about adventures with wolves, and about the sulphur-workings, now
discontinued. The weather had cleared, and as we lay we could see the
stars shining in through the roof. About three in the morning I awoke,
feeling bruised all over, as was natural after sleeping on a mat on the
ground. Moreover, the fire had gone out, and it was horribly cold, as
well it might be at 13,000 feet above the sea. I shook some one up to
make up the fire, and went out into the open air. It was nearly full
moon; but the moonlight was very different from what we can see in
England, even on the clearest nights. On the plateau of Mexico, the
rarity and dryness of the air are such that distant objects are seen
far more distinctly than at the level of the sea, and the European
traveller’s measurements of distance by the eye are always too small.
The sunlight and moonlight, for the same reason, are more intense than
at lower levels. Here, at about the same elevation as the top of the
Jungfrau, the effect was far more striking, and I shall never forget
the brilliant flood of light that illuminated that grand scene. Far
down below I could see the plain, with houses and fields dimly visible.
At the bottom of the slope began the dark pine-forest, which enveloped
the mountains up to the level at which I stood, and there broke into an
uneven line, with straggling patches running up a few hundred feet
higher in sheltered crevices. Above the forest came a region of bare
volcanic sand, and then began the snow. The highest peak no longer
looked steep and pointed as from below, but seemed to rise from the
darker line of sand in a gentle swelling curve up into the sky. There
did not seem to be a speck or a wrinkle on this smooth snowy dome, the
brilliant whiteness of which contrasted so wonderfully with the dark
pine-forest below.
About seven in the morning we started on horseback, rode up across the
sandy district, and entered upon the snow. After we left the pines,
small bushes and tufts of coarse Alpine grass succeeded. Where rocks of
basaltic lava stood out from the heaps of crumbling ashes, after the
grass had ceased, lichens—the occupants of the highest zone—were still
to be seen. Before we reached the snow, we were in the midst of utter
desolation, where no sign of life was visible. From this point we sent
back the horses, and started for the ascent of the cone. On our
yesterday’s ride we had cut young pine-trees in the forest, for
alpenstocks; and we tied silk handkerchiefs completely over our faces,
to keep off the glare of the sun. Our guide did the same; but the
Indian, who had been many times before up to the crater to get sulphur,
had brought no protection for his face. We marched in a line, the guide
first, sounding the depth of the snow with his pole, and keeping as
nearly as he could along ridges just covered with snow, where we did
not sink far. It was from the lower part of the snow that we began to
understand the magnificent proportions of Iztaccihuatl—the “White
Woman,” the twin mountain which is connected with Popocatepetl by an
immense col, which stretches across below the snow-line. This mountain
is not conical like Popocatepetl, but its shoulders are broader, and
break into grand peaks, like some of the _Dents_ of Switzerland, and it
has no crater.[23] Indeed, the two mountains, joined together like
Siamese twins, look as though they had been set up, side by side, to
illustrate the two contending theories of the formation of volcanos.
Von Buch and Humboldt might have made Iztaccihuatl on the “upheaval
theory,” by a force pushing up from below, without breaking through the
crust to form a crater; while Poulett Scrope was building Popocatepetl
on the “accumulation theory,” by throwing up lava and volcanic ashes
out of an open vent, until he had formed a conical heap some five
thousand feet high, with a great crater at the top.
[23] I was surprised to find Iztaccihuatl classed among the active
volcanos in Johnston’s Physical Atlas, and supposed at first that a
crater had really been found. But it is likely to be only a mistake,
caused by the name of “Volcan” being given to both mountains by the
Mexicans, who used the word in a very loose way.
As we toiled slowly up the snow, we took off our veils from time to
time, to look more clearly about us. The glare of the sun upon the snow
was dazzling, and its intense whiteness contrasted wonderfully with the
cloudless dark indigo-blue of the sky. Between twelve and one we
reached the edge of the crater, 17,884 feet above the sea. The ridge
upon which we stood was only a few feet wide, and covered with snow;
but it seemed that there was still heat enough to keep the crater
itself clear, for none lay on the bottom, or in clefts on the steep
sides.
The crater was oval, full a mile in its longest diameter, and perhaps
700 to 800 feet in depth; and its almost perpendicular walls of
basaltic lava are covered with red and yellow patches of sublimed
sulphur. We climbed a little way down into it to get protection from
the wind, but to descend further unassisted was not possible, so we sat
there, with our legs dangling down into the abyss. Part of the
_malacate_, or winder, used by the Indians in descending, was still
there; but it was not complete, and even if it had been, so many months
had elapsed since it was last used that we should not have cared to try
it. It consisted of a rope of hide, descending into the bottom of the
crater in a slanting direction; and the sulphur-collectors were lowered
and drawn up it by a windlass, in a basket to which another rope was
attached. A few years back, the volcano used to send up showers of
ashes, and even large stones; but now it has sunk to the condition of a
mere _solfatara_, sending out, from two crevices in the floor, great
volumes of sulphurous acid and steam, with a loud roaring noise. The
sulphur-working merely consisted in looking for places where the
pumice-stone was fully impregnated with sulphur, and breaking out
pieces, which were hauled up in the basket. The chief risk which the
labourers ran was from the terrific snow-storms, which come on suddenly
and without the slightest notice. Men at work collecting sulphur have
once or twice been caught by such storms in parts of the crater at a
distance from the rope, and buried in the snow.
The appearance of the “White Woman,” but little lower than the point
where we stood, was very grand, but all other objects looked small. The
two great plains of Mexico and Puebla, with their lakes and towns, were
laid out like a map; and the ranges of mountains which hem them in made
them look like Roman encampments surrounded by earthworks. Even now
that the lakes have shrunk to a fraction of their former size, we could
see the fitness of the name given in old times to the Valley of Mexico,
_Anahuac_, that is, “By the Water-side.” The peaks of Orizaba and
Perote were conspicuous to the east; to the north lay the
silver-mountains of Pachuca; and to the south-west a darker shade of
green indicated the forests and plantations of the _tierra caliente_,
below Cuernavaca.
It was a novel sensation to be at an altitude where the barometer
stands at 15½ inches, so that the pressure on our lungs was hardly more
than one-half what we are accustomed to in England; but we did not
experience much inconvenience from it. The last thousand feet or so had
been very hard work, and we were obliged to stop every few steps, but
on the comparatively level edge of the crater we felt no difficulty in
moving about.
_Popocatepetl_ means “Smoking Mountain.” The Indians naturally enough
considered it to be the abode of evil spirits, and told Cortes and his
companions that they could never reach the top. One of the Spaniards,
Diego Ordaz, tried to climb to the summit, and got as far as the snow;
whereupon he returned, and got permission to put a burning mountain in
his coat of arms, in commemoration of the exploit! If, as he declared,
a high wind was blowing, and showers of ashes falling, his turning back
was excusable, though his bragging was not. He seems to have afterwards
told Bernal Diaz that he got to the top, which we know, by Cortes’
letters to Spain, was not true. A few years later, Francesco Montano
went up, and was lowered into the crater to get sulphur. When Humboldt
relates the story, in his _New Spain_, he seems incredulous about this;
but since the _Essai Politique_ was written the same thing has been
regularly done by the Indians, as the merest matter of business, until
the crater has been fairly worked out.
We took our last look at Mexico from the ridge of the crater, and,
descending twenty feet at a stride, soon reached the bottom of the
cone. As far as we could see, the substance of the hill seemed to be of
basaltic lava, which was mostly covered with the _lapilli_ which I have
spoken of before as ashes and volcanic sand. Even before we reached the
pine-forest there was evidence of the action of water, which had
covered the slope of the mountain with beds of thick compact tufa,
composed of these lapilli mixed with fragments of lava. The
water-courses had cut deep channels through these beds, and down into
the rock below; so that the streams from the melted snow rushed down
between walls of lava, in which traces of columnar structure were
observable.
The snow we had travelled over was sometimes dry and powdery, and
sometimes hard and compact. There were no glaciers, and no glacier-ice,
properly so called. It never rains at this elevation; and, though
evaporation goes on rapidly with half the pressure taken off the air,
and a great increase in the intensity of the sun’s rays, the snow
either passes directly into vapour, or carries the water off
instantaneously, as it is formed. Only so much water seems to be
produced and re-frozen as suffices to make the snow hard, and in some
favourable places near the rocks to form lumps of ice, and some of
those great icicles which the Spaniards brought down from the mountain
on their first expedition, so greatly astonishing their companions.
When we reached the rancho we thought of passing another night there;
but the Indians who had gone down to the valley for corn had not
returned, and everything was eaten up except beans, which are all very
well as accessories to dinner, but our English digestions could not
stand living upon them; so we started at once for San Nícolas de los
Ranchos. Our ride was down a deep ravine, by the side of a
mountain-torrent coming down from the snows of Popocatepetl; and, when
we stopped now and then to look behind us, we had one of the grandest
views which I have ever witnessed. The elements of the picture were
simple enough. A deep gorge at our feet, with a fierce torrent rushing
down it, dark pine-trees all round us, and above us—on either side—a
snow-covered mountain towering up into the sky. We were just in the
track of the Spanish invaders, who crossed most likely by this very
road between the two volcanos; and they record the amazement which they
felt that in the tropics snow should be unmelted upon the mountains.
A few hours riding down the steep descent, and we were in the flat
plain of Puebla. There were our two mountains behind us, but now they
looked as we had so often seen them before from a distance. The power
of realizing their size was gone, and with it most of their grandeur
and beauty. Nothing was left us but a vivid recollection of the
wonderful scenes that were before us a few hours ago, impressions not
likely to be ever effaced from our minds, where the picture of the
great snowy cone seen in the bright moonlight, and the descent between
the mountains, remain indelibly impressed as the types of all that is
most grand and impressive in the scenery of lofty mountains.
We slept at San Nícolas de los Ranches, “St. Nicholas of the huts,”
where the shopkeeper, to whom we had a letter, insisted upon turning
out of his own room for us, and treated us like princes. The reason of
our often being provided with letters to the shopkeepers in small
places, was, that they are the only people who have houses fit for
entertaining travellers. Many of them are very rich, and in the United
States they would call themselves merchants. Next morning our Indian
carrier, who had ascended the mountain without a veil, was brought in
by our guide, a pitiful object. All the skin of his face was peeling
off, and his eyes were frightfully inflamed, so that he was all but
blind, and had to be led about. Fortunately, this blindness only lasts
for a time, and no doubt he got well in a few days.
We rode through the plain to Cholula. Our number was now four; for,
besides Antonio, we had engaged another servant a few days before. We
wanted some one who knew this district well; and when a friend of ours
mentioned that there was a young man to be had who had a good horse and
was a smuggler by profession, we engaged him directly, and he proved a
great acquisition. Of course, from the nature of his trade, he knew
every bypath between Mexico and the tobacco-districts towards which we
were going; he was always ready with an expedient whenever there was a
difficulty, he was never tired and never out of temper. As for the
morality of his peculiar profession, it probably does harm to the
honesty of the people; but, considering it as a question of abstract
justice, we must remember that almost the whole of the taxes which the
Mexicans are compelled to pay to the general government are utterly
wasted upon paying officials who do nothing but intrigue, and keeping
up armies which—far from being a protection to life and property—are a
permanent and most destructive nuisance. The contract between
government and subject ought to be a two-sided one; and when the
government so entirely misuses the taxes paid by the people, I am quite
inclined to sympathize with the subjects who will not pay them if they
can help it.
We scarcely entered the town of Cholula, which is a poor place now,
though it was a great city at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The
Spanish city of Puebla, only a few miles off, quite ruined it.
We went straight to the great pyramid, which lies close to the town,
and which had been rising before us like a hill during the last miles
of our journey. This extraordinary structure is perhaps the oldest ruin
in Mexico, and certainly the largest. A close examination of its
structure in places where the outline is still to some extent
preserved, and a comparison of it with better preserved structures of
the same kind, make it quite clear that it was a terraced _teocalli_,
resembling the drawing called the “Pyramid of Cholula,” in Humboldt’s
_Vues des Cordillères_. But let no one imagine that the well-defined
and symmetrical structure represented in that drawing is in the least
like what we saw, and from which Humboldt made the rough sketch, which
he and his artist afterwards “idealized” for his great work. At the
present day, the appearance of the structure is that of a shapeless
tree-grown hill; and until the traveller comes quite close to it he may
be excused for not believing that it is an artificial mound at all.
The pyramid is built of rows of bricks baked in the sun, and cemented
together with mortar in which had been stuck quantities of small
stones, fragments of pottery, and bits of obsidian knives and weapons.
Between rows of bricks are alternate layers of clay. It was built in
four terraces, of which traces are still to be distinguished; and is
about 200 feet high. Upon the platform at the top stand some trees and
a church. The sides front the four cardinal points, and the base line
is of immense length, over thirteen hundred feet, so that the ascent is
very gradual.
When we reached Cholula we sent the two men to enquire in the
neighbourhood for antiquities, of which numbers are to be found in
every ploughed field round. At the top of the pyramid we held a market,
and got some curious things, all of small size however. Among them was
a mould for making little jackal-heads in the clay, ready for baking;
the little earthen heads which are found in such quantities in the
country being evidently made by wholesale in moulds of this kind, not
modelled separately. We got also several terra-cotta stamps, used in
old times for stamping coloured patterns upon the native cloth, and
perhaps also for ornamenting vases and other articles of earthenware.
Cholula used to be a famous place for making pottery, and its
red-and-black ware was famous at the time of the Conquest, but the
trade now seems to have left it. We were struck by observing that,
though there was plenty of coloured pottery to be found in the
neighbourhood of the pyramid, the pyramid itself had only fragments of
uncoloured ware imbedded in its structure; which seems to prove that it
was built before the art of colouring pottery was invented.
They have cut a road through one corner of the pyramid, and this
cutting exposed a chamber within. Humboldt describes this chamber as
roofed with blocks, each overlapping the one before, till they can be
made to meet by a block of ordinary size. This is the false arch so
common in Egypt and Peru, and in the ruined cities of Central America.
Every child who builds houses with a box of bricks discovers it for
himself. The bridge at Tezcuco, already described, is much more
remarkable in its structure. Whether our inspection was careless, or
whether the chamber has fallen in since Humboldt’s time, I cannot say,
but we missed this peculiar roof.
There are several legends about the Pyramid of Cholula. That recorded
by Humboldt on the authority of a certain Dominican friar, Pedro de los
Rios, I mention—not because of its intrinsic value, which is very
slight, but because it will enable us to see the way in which legends
grew up under the hands of the early missionaries, who were delighted
to find fragments of Scripture-history among the traditions of the
Ancient Mexicans, and who seem to have taken down from the lips of
their converts, as native traditions, the very Bible-stories that they
had been teaching them, mixed however with other details, of which it
is hard to say whether they were imagined on purpose to fill up gaps in
the story, or whether they were really of native traditional origin.
Pedro de los Rios’ story tells us that the land of Anahuac was
inhabited by giants; that there was a great deluge, which devastated
the earth; that all the inhabitants were turned into fishes, except
seven who took refuge in a cave (apparently with their wives). Years
after the waters had subsided, and the earth had been re-peopled by
these seven men, their leader began to build a vast pyramid, whose top
should reach to heaven. He built it of bricks baked in the sun, which
were brought from a great distance, passing them from hand to hand by a
file of men. The gods were enraged at the presumption of these men, and
they sent down fire from heaven upon the pyramid, which caused its
building to be discontinued. It is stated that at the time of the
Spanish Conquest, the inhabitants of Cholula preserved with great
veneration a large aerolite, which they said was the thunderbolt that
fell upon the top of the pyramid when the fire struck it.
The history of the confusion of tongues seems also to have existed in
the country, not long after the Conquest, having very probably been
learnt from the missionaries; but it does not seem to have been
connected with the Tower-of-Babel legend of Cholula. Something like it
at least appears in the Gemelli table of Mexican migrations, reproduced
in Humboldt, where a bird in a tree is sending down a number of tongues
to a crowd of men standing below.
I think we need not hesitate in condemning the legend of Cholula, which
I have just related, as not genuine, or at least as partly of late
fabrication. But we fortunately possess another version of it, which
shows the legend to have developed itself farther than was quite
discreet. A MS. history, written by Duran in 1579, and quoted by the
Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, relates that people built the pyramid to
reach heaven, finding clay or mud _(“terre glaise”)_ and a very sticky
_bitumen (“bitume fort gluant”)_, with which they began at once to
build, &c. This is evidently the slime or bitumen of the Book of
Genesis; but I believe I may safely assert that the Mexicans never used
bitumen for any such purpose, and that it is not found anywhere near
Cholula.
The Aztec historians ascribe the building of the Pyramid of Cholula to
the prophet Quetzalcoatl. The legends which relate to this celebrated
personage are to be found in writers on Mexican history, and, more
fully than elsewhere, in the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg’s work.
I am inclined to consider Quetzalcoatl a real personage, and not a
mythical one. He is said to have been a white, bearded man, to have
come from the East, to have reigned in Tollan, and to have been driven
out from thence by the votaries of human sacrifices, which he opposed.
He took refuge in Cholollan, now called Cholula (which means the “place
of the fugitive”), and taught the inhabitants to work in metals, to
observe various fasts and festivals, to use the Toltec calendar of days
and years, and to perform penance to appease the gods.
A relic of the father of Quetzalcoatl is said to have been kept until
after the Spanish Conquest, when it was opened, and found to contain a
quantity of fair human hair. The prophet himself departed from Cholula,
and put to sea in a canoe, promising to return. So strong was the
belief in the tradition of these events among the Aztecs, that when the
Spaniards appeared on the coast, they were supposed to be of the race
of the prophet, and the strange conduct of Montezuma to Cortes is to be
ascribed to the influence of this belief.
There is a singular legend, mentioned by the Abbé Brasseur de
Bourbourg, of a white man, with a hooded robe and white beard, bearing
a cross in his hand, who lands at Tehuantepec (on the Pacific coast of
Mexico), and introduces among the Indians auricular confession,
penance, and vows of chastity.
The coming of white, bearded men from the East, centuries before the
Spanish invasion in the 16th century, and the introduction of new arts
and rites by them in Mexico, is as certain as most historical events of
which we have only legendary knowledge. As to who they were I cannot
offer an opinion. There are, however, one or two points connected with
the presence of the Irish and Northmen in America in the 9th and
following centuries—a period not very far from that ascribed to
Quetzalcoatl—which are worthy of notice.
The Scandinavian antiquarians make the “white-man’s land”
_(Hvitramannaland)_ extend down as far as Florida, on the very Gulf of
Mexico. It is curious to notice the coincidence between the remark of
Bernal Diaz, that the Mexicans called their priests _papa_ (more
properly _papahua_), and that in the old Norse Chronicle, which tells
of the first colonization of Iceland by the Northmen, and relates that
they found living there “Christian men whom the Northmen call _Papa_.”
These latter are shown by the context to have been Irish priests. The
Aztec root _teo (teo-tl, God)_ comes nearer to the Greek and Latin, but
is not unlike the Irish _dia_, and the Norse _ty-r_. The Aztec root
_col_ (charcoal) is exactly the Norse _kol_ (our word _coat_), but not
so near to the Irish _gual_. It is desirable to notice such
coincidences, even when they are too slight to ground an argument upon.
This seems to be the proper place to mention the many Christian
analogies to be found in the customs of the ancient Aztecs.
Children were sprinkled with water when their names were given to them.
This is certainly true, though the statement that they believed that
the process purified them from original sin is probably a monkish
fiction. Water was consecrated by the priests, and was supposed thus to
acquire magical qualities. In the coronation of kings, anointing was
part of the ceremony, as well as the use of holy water. The festival of
All Souls’ Day reminds us of the Aztec feasts of the Dead in the autumn
of each year; and in Mexico the Indians still keep up some of their old
rites on that day. There was a singular rite observed by the Aztecs,
which they called the _teoqualo_, that is, “the eating of the god.” A
figure of one of their gods was made in dough, and after certain
ceremonies they made a pretence of killing it, and divided it into
morsels, which were eaten by the votaries as a kind of sacred food.
We may add to the list the habitual use of incense in the ceremonies:
the existence of monasteries and nunneries, in which the monks wore
long hair, but the nuns had their hair cut off: and the use of the
cross as a religious emblem in Mexico and Central America.
Less certain is the recorded use of knotted scourges in performing
penance, and the existence of a peculiar kind of auricular confession.
It is difficult to ascribe this mass of coincidences to mere chance,
and not to see in them traces of connexion, more or less remote, with
Christians. Perhaps these peculiar rites came, with the Mexican system
of astronomy, from Asia; or perhaps the white, bearded men from the
East may have brought them. It is true that such a supposition runs
quite counter to the argument founded on the ignorance of the Mexicans
of common arts known in Europe and Asia. We should have expected
Christian missionaries to have brought with them the knowledge of the
use of iron, and the alphabet. Perhaps our increasing knowledge of the
ancient Mexicans may some day allow us to adopt a theory which shall at
least have the merit of being consistent with itself; but at present
this seems impossible.