HOUSES OF THE AZTECS OR ANCIENT MEXICANS.
The first accounts of the pueblo of Mexico created a powerful
sensation in Europe. In the West India Islands the Spanish
discoverers found small Indian tribes under the government of chiefs,
but on the continent, in the Valley of Mexico, they found a
confederacy of three Indian tribes under a more advanced but similar
government. In the midst of the valley was a large pueblo, the
largest in America, surrounded with water, approached by causeways;
in fine, a water-girt fortress impregnable to Indian assault. This
pueblo presented to the Spanish adventurers the extraordinary
spectacle of an Indian society lying two ethnical periods back of
European society, but with a government and plan of life at once
intelligent, orderly, and complete. There was aroused an insatiable
curiosity for additional particulars, which has continued for three
centuries, and which has called into existence a larger number of
works than were ever before written upon any people of the same
number and of the same importance.
The Spanish adventurers who captured the pueblo of Mexico saw a king
in Montezuma, lords in Aztec chiefs, and a palace in the large
joint-tenement house occupied, Indian fashion, by Montezuma and his
fellow-householders. It was, perhaps, an unavoidable self-deception
at the time, because they knew nothing of the Aztec social system.
Unfortunately it inaugurated American aboriginal history upon a
misconception of Indian life which has remained substantially
unquestioned until recently. The first eye-witnesses gave the
keynote to this history by introducing Montezuma as a king,
occupying a palace of great extent crowded with retainers, and
situated in the midst of a grand and populous city, over which, and
much beside, he was reputed master. But king and kingdom were in
time found too common to express all the glory and splendor the
imagination was beginning to conceive of Aztec society; and emperor
and empire gradually superseded the more humble conception of the
conquerors. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote 1 relocated to
chapter end.]
A psychological fact, which deserves a moment's notice, is revealed
by these works, written as they were with a desire for the truth and
without intending to deceive. These writers ought to have known that
every Indian tribe in America was an organized society, with
definite institutions, usages, and customs, which, when ascertained,
would have perfectly explained its government, the social relations
of the people, and their plan of life. Indian society could be
explained as completely and understood as perfectly as the civilized
society of Europe or America by finding its exact organization. This,
strange to say, was never attempted, or at least never accomplished,
by any one of these numerous and voluminous writers. To every author,
from Cortes and Bernal Diaz to Brasseur de Bourbourg and Hubert H.
Bancroft, Indian society was an unfathomable mystery, and their
works have left it a mystery still. Ignorant of its structure and
principles, and unable to comprehend its peculiarities, they invoked
the imagination to supply whatever was necessary to fill out the
picture. When the reason, from want of facts, is unable to
understand and therefore unable to explain the structure of a given
society, imagination walks bravely in and fearlessly rears its
glittering fabric to the skies. Thus in this case, we have a grand
historical romance, strung upon the conquest of Mexico as upon a
thread; the acts of the Spaniards, the pueblo of Mexico, and its
capture, are historical, while the descriptions of Indian society
and government are imaginary and delusive. These picturesque tales
have been read with wonder and admiration, as they successively
appeared, for three hundred and fifty years; though shown to be
romances, they will continue to be read as Robinson Crusoe is read,
not because they are true, but because they are pleasing. The
psychological revelation is the eager, undefinable interest aroused
by any picture of ancient society. It is felt by every stranger when
he first walks the streets of Pompeii, and, standing within the
walls of its roofless houses, strives to picture to himself the life
and the society which flourished there eighteen hundred years ago.
In Mexico the Spaniards found an organized society several thousand
years further back of their own than Pompeian society, in its arts,
institutions, and state of advancement. It was this revelation of a
phase of the ancient life of mankind which possessed and still
possesses such power to kindle the imagination and inspire enthusiasm.
It caught the imagination and overcame the critical judgment of
Prescott, our most charming writer; it ravaged the sprightly brain
of Brasseur de Bourbourg, and it carried up in a whirlwind our
author at the Golden Gate.
The commendation these works have received from critical journals
reveals with painful distinctness the fact that we have no science
of American ethnology. Such a science, resting as it must upon
verified facts, and dealing with the institutions, arts and
inventions, usages and customs, languages, religious beliefs, and
plan of government of the Indian tribes, would, were it fairly
established, command as well as deserve the respect of the American
people. With the exception of an amateur here and there, American
scholars have not been willing to devote themselves to so vast a work.
It may be truly said at this moment that the structure and
principles of Indian society are but partially known, and that the
American Indian himself is still an enigma among us. The question is
still before us as a nation whether we will undertake the work of
furnishing to the world a scientific exposition of Indian society,
or leave it as it now appears, crude, unmeaning, unintelligible, a
chaos of contradictions and puerile absurdities. With a field of
unequaled richness and of vast extent, with the same Red Race in all
the stages of advancement indicated by three great ethnical periods,
namely the Status of savagery, the Lower Status of barbarism, and
the Middle Status of barbarism, [Footnote: See ante, page 43, note,
for a definition of proposed ethnical or culture periods, and
Ancient Society, chapter 1, "Ethnical Periods."] more persons ought
to be found willing to work upon this material for the credit of
American scholarship. It will be necessary for them to do as
Herodotus did in Asia and Africa, to visit the native tribes at
their villages and encampments, and study their institutions as
living organisms, their condition, and their plan of life. When this
has been done from the region of the Arctic Sea to Patagonia, Indian
society will become intelligible, because its structure and
principles will be understood. It exhibits three distinct phases,
each with a culture peculiar to itself, lying back of civilization,
and back of the Upper Status of barbarism, having very little in
common with European society of three hundred years ago, and very
little in common with American society of to-day. Its institutions,
inventions, and customs find no analogues in those of civilized
nations, and cannot be explained in terms adapted to such a society.
Our later investigators are doing their work more and more on the
plan of direct visitation, and I make no doubt a science of American
ethnology will yet come into existence among us and rise high in
public estimation from the important results it will rapidly achieve.
Precisely what is now needed is the ascertainment and scientific
treatment of this material.
After so general a condemnation of Spanish and American writers, so
far as they represent Aztec society and government, some facts and
some reasons ought to be presented to justify the charge.
Recognizing the obligation, I propose to question the credibility of
so much of the second volume of "The Native Races" and of so much of
other Spanish histories as relate to two subjects--the character of
the house in which Montezuma resided, which is styled a palace; and
the account of the celebrated dinner of Montezuma, which is
represented as the daily banquet of an imperial potentate. Neither
subject, considered in itself, is of much importance; but if the
accounts in these two particulars are found to be fictitious and
delusive, a breach will be made in a vital section of the fabric of
Aztec romance, now the most deadly encumbrance upon American
ethnology.
It may be premised that there is a strong probability, from what is
known of Indian life and society, that the house in which Montezuma
lived was a joint-tenement house of the aboriginal American model,
owned by a large number of related families, and occupied by them in
common as joint proprietors; that the dinner in question was the
usual single daily meal of a communal household, prepared in a
common cook-house from common stores, and divided, Indian fashion,
from the kettle; and that all the Spaniards found in Mexico was a
simple confederacy of three Indian tribes, the counterpart of which
was found in all parts of America.
It may be premised further that the Spanish adventures who thronged
to the New World after its discovery found the same race of Red
Indians in the West India Islands, in Central and South America, in
Florida, and in Mexico.
[Footnote: "But among all the other inhabitants of America there is
such a striking similitude in the form of their bodies, and the
qualities of their minds, that notwithstanding the diversities
occasioned by the influence of climate, or unequal progress in
improvement, we must pronounce them to be descended from one source."--
Robertson's History of America, Law's ed., p. 69.]
In their mode of life and means of subsistence, in their weapons,
arts, usages, and customs, in their institutions, and in their
mental and physical characteristics, they were the same people in
different stages of advancement. No distinction of race was observed,
and none in fact existed. They were broken up into numerous
independent tribes, each under the government of a council of chiefs.
Among the more advanced tribes, confederacies existed, which
represented the highest stage their governmental institutions had
attained. In some of them, as in the Aztec confederacy, they had a
principal war-chief, elected for life or during good behavior, who
was the general commander of the military bands. His powers were
those of a general, and necessarily arbitrary when in the field.
Behind this war-chief--noticed, it is true, by Spanish writers, but
without explaining or even ascertaining its functions--was the
council of chiefs, "the great council without whose authority,"
Acosta remarks, Montezuma "might not do anything of importance".
[Footnote: The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies,
Lond. ed., 1604, Grimstone's Trans., p. 485.]
The civil and military powers of the government were in a certain
sense coordinated between the council of chiefs and the military
commander. The government of the Aztec confederacy was essentially
democratic, because its organization and institutions were so. If a
more special designation is needed, it will be sufficient to
describe it as a military democracy.
The Spaniards who overran Mexico and Peru gave a very different
interpretation of these two organizations. Having found, as they
supposed, two absolute monarchies with feudal characteristics, the
history of American Indian institutions was cast in this mold. The
chief attention of Europeans in the sixteenth century was directed
to these two governments, to which the affairs of the numerous
remaining tribes and confederacies were made subordinate. Subsequent
history has run in the same grooves for more than three centuries,
striving diligently to confirm that of which confirmation was
impossible. The generalization was perhaps proper enough, that if
the institutions of the Aztecs and Peruvians, such well-advanced
Indian tribes, culminated in monarchy, those of the Indian tribes
generally were essentially monarchical, and therefore those of
Mexico and Peru should represent the institutions of the Red Race.
It may be premised, finally, that the histories of Spanish America
may be trusted in whatever relates to the acts of the Spaniards, and
to the acts and personal characteristics of the Indians; in whatever
relates to their weapons, implements, and utensils, fabrics, food,
and raiment, and things of a similar character. But in whatever
relates to Indian society and government, their social relations and
plan of life, they are nearly worthless, because they learned
nothing and knew nothing of either. We are at full liberty to reject
them in these respects, and commence anew; using any facts they may
contain which harmonize with what is known of Indian society. It was
a calamity to the entire Red Race that the achievements of the
Village Indians of Mexico and Central America, in the development of
their institutions, should have suffered a shipwreck so nearly total.
The only remedy for the evil done them is to recover, if possible, a
knowledge of their institutions, which alone can place them in their
proper position in the history of mankind.
In order to understand so simple an event in Indian life as
Montezuma's dinner, it is necessary to know certain usages and
customs, and even certain institutions of the Indian tribes generally,
which had a direct bearing upon the dinner of every Indian in
America at the epoch of the Spanish conquest. Although it may seem
strange to the reader, it requires a knowledge of several classes of
facts to comprehend this dinner, such as: 1. The organization in
gentes, phratries, and tribes. 2. The ownership of lands in common. 3.
The law of hospitality. 4. The practice of communism in living. 5.
The communal character of their houses. 6. Their custom of having
but one prepared meal each day, a dinner. 7. Their separation at
meals, the men eating first, and the women and children afterwards.
These several topics have been considered in previous chapters.
Not a vestige of the ancient pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) remains
to assist us to a knowledge of its architecture. Its structures,
which were useless to a people of European habits, were speedily
destroyed to make room for a city adapted to the wants of a
civilized race. We must seek for its characteristics in contemporary
Indian houses which still remain in ruins, and in such of the early
descriptions as have come down to us, and then leave the subject
with but little accurate knowledge. Its situation, partly on dry
land and partly in the waters of a shallow artificial pond formed by
causeways and dikes, led to the formation of streets and squares,
which were unusual in Indian pueblos, and gave to it a remarkable
appearance. "There were three sorts of broad and spacious streets,"
Herrera remarks; "one sort all water with bridges, another all earth,
and a third of earth and water, there being a space to walk along on
land and the rest for canoes to pass, so that most of the streets
had walks on the sides and water in the middle". [Footnote: History
of America, ii, 361.]
Many of the houses were large, far beyond the supposable wants of a
single Indian family. They were constructed of adobe brick and of
stone, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum, which made them
a brilliant white; and some were constructed of a red porous stone.
In cutting and dressing this stone flint implements were used.
[Footnote: Clavigero, ii, 238.]
The fact that the houses were plastered externally leads us to infer
that they had not learned to dress stone and lay them in courses. It
is not certainly established that they had learned the use of a
mortar of lime and sand. In the final attack and capture, it is said
that Cortes, in the course of seventeen days, destroyed and leveled
three-quarters of the pueblo, which demonstrates the flimsy
character of the masonry. Some of the houses were constructed on
three sides of a court, like those on the Rio Chaco in New Mexico,
others probably surrounded an open court or quadrangle, like the
House of the Nuns at Uxmal; but this is not clearly shown. The best
houses were usually two stories high, an upper and lower floor being
mentioned. The second story receded from the first, probably in the
terraced form. Clavigero remarks that "the houses of the lords and
people of circumstance were built of stone and lime. They consisted
of two floors, having halls, large court-yards, and the chambers
fitly disposed; the roofs were flat and terraced; the walls were so
well whitened, polished, and shining that they appeared to the
Spaniards when at a distance to have been silver. The pavement or
floor was plaster, perfectly level, plain, and smooth.... The large
houses of the capital had in general two entrances, the principal
one to the street, the other to the canal. They had no wooden doors
to their houses." [Footnote: History of Mexico, ii, 232.]
The house was entered through doorways from the street, or from the
court, on the ground-floor. Not a house in Mexico is mentioned by
any of the early writers as occupied by a single family. They were
evidently joint-tenement houses of the aboriginal American model,
each occupied by a number of families ranging from five and ten to
one hundred, and perhaps in some cases two hundred families in a
house.
Before considering the house architecture of the Aztecs, it remains
to notice, briefly, the general character of the houses of the
Village Indians within the areas of Spanish visitation. They were
joint-tenement houses, usually, of the American model, adapted to
communism in living, like those previously described, and will aid
us to understand the houses of the pueblo of Mexico.
Herrera, speaking of the natives of Cuba, remarks that "they had
caciques and towns of two hundred houses, with several families in
each of them, as was usual in Hispaniola". [Footnote: ib., ii, 15.]
The Cubans were below the Sedentary Indians. In Yucatan, the houses
of the Mayas, and of the tribes of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Honduras,
remain in ruins to speak for themselves, and will form the subject
of the ensuing chapter. On the march to Mexico, Cortez and his men,
"being come down into the plain, took up their quarters in a country
house that had many apartments." [Footnote: ib., ii, 320.]
"At Iztapalapa he was entertained in a house that had large courts,
upper and lower floors and very delightful gardens. The walls were
of stone, the timber work well wrought, there were many and spacious
rooms, hung with cotton hangings extraordinary rich in their way."
[Footnote: "History of America", 325.]
His accommodations in the pueblo of Mexico will elsewhere be noticed.
After the capture of the pueblo Alvaredo was sent southward with two
hundred foot and forty horse to the province of Tututlepec on the
Pacific. "When he arrived the lord of Tututlepec offered to quarter
the Spaniards in his palace which was very magnificent."
"In 1525 Cortez made his celebrated march to Guatemala with one
hundred and fifty horse, the same number of foot, and three hundred
Indians. Being well received in the city of Apoxpalan, Cortez and
all the Spaniards with their horses were quartered in one house, the
Mexicans being dispersed into others, and all of them plentifully
supplied with provisions during their stay. The first 'palace'
described by Herrera was discovered by Balboa somewhere in the
present Costa Rica, and Comagre has gone into history as its
proprietor. This palace was more remarkable and better built than
any that had been yet seen on the islands or the little that was
then known of the continent, being one hundred and fifty paces in
length and eighty in breadth founded on very large posts inclosed by
a stone wall with timber intermixed at the top and hollow spaces so
beautifully wrought that the Spaniards were amazed at the sight of
it and could not express the manner and curiosity of it. There were
in it several chambers and apartments and one that was like a
buttery and full of such provisions as the country afforded, as bread,
venison, swine's flesh, &c. There was another large room like a
cellar full of earthen vessel containing several sorts of white and
red liquors made of Indian wheat etc. The noticeable fact in this
description is the two chambers containing provisions and stores for
the household which was undoubtedly the case with all of those named.
Zempoala near Vera Cruz is described as a very large town with
stately buildings of good timber work and every house had a garden
with water so that it looked like a terrestrial paradise.... The
scouts advancing on horseback came to the great square and courts
where the prime houses were, which having been lately new plastered
over, were very light, the Indians being extraordinary expert at
that work", [Footnote: History of America, ii, 211.] and further
states that "the houses were built of 'lime and stone'."
These pueblos were generally small, consisting of three or four
large joint-tenement houses, with other houses smaller in size, the
different grades of houses representing the relative thrift and
prosperity of the several groups by whom they were owned and occupied.
It is doubtful whether there was a single pueblo in North America,
with the exception of Tlascala, Cholula, Tezcuco, and Mexico, which
contained ten thousand inhabitants. There is no occasion to apply
the term "city" to any of them. None of the Spanish descriptions
enable us to realize the exact form and structure of these houses,
or their relations to each other in forming a pueblo. But for the
pueblos, occupied or in ruins, in New Mexico, and the more
remarkable pueblos in ruins in Yucatan and Central America, we would
know very little concerning the house architecture of the Sedentary
Village Indians. It is evident from the citations made that the
largest of these joint-tenement houses would accommodate from five
hundred to a thousand or more people, living in the fashion of
Indians; and that the courts were probably quadrangles, formed by
constructing the building on three sides of an inclosed space, as in
the New Mexican pueblos, or upon the four sides, as in the House of
the Nuns, at Uxmal.
The writers on the conquest have failed to describe the Aztec house
in such a manner that it can be fairly comprehended. They have also
failed to explain the mode of life within it. But it can safely be
said that most of these houses were large, far beyond any supposable
wants of a single Indian family; that they were constructed, when on
dry land, of adobe brick, and when in the water, of stone imbedded
in some kind of mortar, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum,
which made them a brilliant white. Some also were constructed of a
red porous stone. Some of these houses were built on three sides of
a court, like those on the Chaco, but the court opened on a street
or causeway. Others not unlikely surrounded an open court or
quadrangle, which must have been entered through a gateway; but this
is not clearly shown. The large houses were probably two stories high;
an upper and a lower floor are mentioned in some cases, but rarely a
third.
Communism in living in large households, the communism being
confined to the household, was probably the rule of life among the
ancient Mexicans at the time of the Conquest.
[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote 2 relocated to chapter end.]
Two of the houses in Mexico were more particularly noted by the
soldiers of Cortes than others--that in which they were quartered,
and that in which Montezuma lived. Neither can be said to have been
described. I shall confine myself to these two structures.
Cortes made his first entry into Mexico in November, 1519, with four
hundred and fifty Spaniards, according to Bernal Diaz, [Footnote:
Diaz Conquest of Mex., ed. 1803, Keatinge's Trans., i, 181, 189.
Herrera says, 300, ii, 327.] accompanied by a thousand Tlaxcallan
allies. They were lodged in a vacant palace of Montezuma's late
father, Diaz naively remarks, observing that "the whole of this
palace was very light, airy, clean, and pleasant, the entry being
through a great court." [Footnote: Diaz, I, 191.] Cortes, after
describing his reception, informs us that Montezuma "returned along
the street in the order already described, until he reached a very
large and splendid palace in which we were to be quartered. He then
took me by the hand and led me into a spacious saloon, in front of
which was a court through which we had entered." [Footnote:
Dispatches of Cortes, Folsom's Trans., p. 86.]
So much for the statements of two eye-witnesses. Herrera gathered
some additional particulars. He states that "they came to a very
large court, which was the wardrobe of the idols, and had been the
house of Axayacatzin, Montezuma's father.... Being lodged in so
large a house, that, though it seems incredible, contained so many
capacious rooms, with bedchambers, that one hundred and fifty
Spaniards could all lie single. It was also worth observing that
though the house was so big, every part of it to the last corner was
very clean, neat, matted, and hung with hangings of cotton and
feather work of several colors, and had beds and mats with pavilions
over them. No man of whatsoever quality having any other sort of bed,
no other being used." [Footnote: History of America, ii, 330.] In
the tidiness of these rooms we gain some evidence of the character
of Aztec women.
Joint-tenement houses, and the mode of life they indicate, were at
this time unknown in Europe. They belonged to a more ancient
condition of society. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
Spaniards, astonished at their magnitude, should have styled them
palaces, and having been received with a great array by Montezuma,
as the general commander of the Aztec forces, should have regarded
him as a king, since monarchical government was the form with which
they were chiefly acquainted. Suffice it then, to say that one of
the great houses of the Aztecs was large enough to accommodate
Cortes and his fourteen hundred and fifty men including Indian
allies as they had previously been accommodated in one Cholulan
house and elsewhere, on the way to Mexico. From New Mexico to the
Isthmus of Panama there was scarcely a principal village in which an
equal number could not have found accommodations in a single house.
When it is found to be unnecessary to call it a palace in order to
account for its size, we are led to the conclusion that an ordinary
Aztec house was emptied of its inhabitants to make room for their
unwelcome visitors. After their reception, Aztec hospitality
supplied them with provisions. Mr. Bandelier has, in the article
above referred to, explained this house in a very satisfactory
manner as "the tecpan, or official house of the tribe." He says:
"The house where the Spaniards were quartered was the 'tecpan,' or
official house of the tribe, vacated by the official household for
that purpose." In sallying forth to greet the newcomers at the dike,
"Wrathy chief (Montezuma) acted simply as the representative of the
tribal hospitality, extending unusual courtesies to unusual,
mysterious, and therefore dreaded guests. Leaving these in
possession of the 'tecpan,' he retired to another of the large
communal buildings surrounding the central square, where the
official business was, meanwhile, transacted. His return to the
Spanish quarters, even if compulsory, had less in it to strike the
natives than is commonly believed. It was a re-installation in old
quarters, and therefore the 'Tlatocan (Council of Chiefs) itself
felt no hesitancy in meeting there again, until the real nature of
the dangerous visitors was ascertained, when the council gradually
withdrew from the snare, leaving the unfortunate 'chief of men' in
Spanish hands." [Footnote: 12 Annual Report of Peabody Museum, p.
680.]
We are next to consider the second so-called palace, that in which
Montezuma lived, and the dinner of Montezuma which these soldiers
witnessed, and which has gone into history as a part of the evidence
that a monarchy of the feudal type existed in Mexico. They had but
little time to make their observations, for this imaginary kingdom
perished almost immediately, and the people, in the main, dispersed.
The so-called palace of Montezuma is not described by Diaz, for the
reason, probably, that there was nothing to distinguish it from a
number of similar structures in the pueblo. Neither is it described
by Cortes or the Anonymous Conqueror; Cortes merely remarking
generally that "within the city his palaces were so wonderful that
it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent; I can
only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them." [Footnote:
Despatches, p. 121.]
Gothic cathedrals were then standing in Spain, the Alhambra in
Grenada, and, without doubt, public and private buildings of dressed
stone laid in courses. While the comparison was mendacious, we can
understand the desire of the conqueror to magnify his exploits.
Herrera, who came later and had additional resources, remarks that
the palace in which Montezuma resided "had twenty gates, all of them
to the square or market-place, and the principal streets, and three
spacious courts, and in one of them a very large fountain.... There
were many halls one hundred feet in length, and rooms of twenty-five
and thirty, and one hundred baths. The timber-work was small,
without nails, but very fine and strong, which the Spaniards much
admired. The walls were of marble, jasper, porphyry, a black sort of
stone with red veins like blood, white stone, and another sort that
is transparent. The roofs were of wood, well wrought and carved....
The rooms were painted and matted, and many of them had rich
hangings of cotton and coney wool, or of feather-work. The beds were
not answerable to the grandeur of the house and furniture, being
poor and wretched, consisting of blankets upon mats or on hay....
Few men lie in this palace, but there were one thousand women in it,
and some say three thousand, which is reckoned most likely....
Montezuma took to himself the ladies that were the daughters of
great men, being many in number." [Footnote: History of America, ii,
345.]
The external walls of the houses were covered with plaster. From the
description it seems probable that in the interior of the large
rooms the natural faces of the stone in the walls were seen here and
there, some of the red porous stone, some of marble, and some
resembling porphyry, for it is not supposable that they could cut
this stone with flint implements. Large stones used on the inner
faces of the walls might have been left uncovered, and thus have
presented the mottled appearance mentioned. The Aztecs had no
structures comparable with those of Yucatan. Their architecture
resembles that of New Mexico wherever its features distinctly appear
upon evidence that can be trusted. The best rooms found in the
latter region are of thin pieces of sandstone prepared by fracture
and laid up with a uniform face. Herrera had no occasion to speak of
the use of marble and porphyry in the walls of this house in such a
vague manner and upon more vague information. The reference to the
thousand or more women as forming the harem of Montezuma is a gross
libel.
Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft, the last of the long line of writers who
have treated the affairs of the Aztecs, has put the finishing touch
to this picture in the following language: "The principal palace of
the king of Mexico was an irregular pile of low buildings enormous
in extent, constructed of huge blocks of tetzontli, a kind of porous
stone common to that country, cemented with mortar. The arrangement
of the buildings was such that they enclosed three great plazas or
public squares, in one of which a beautiful fountain incessantly
played. Twenty great doors opened on the squares and on the streets,
and over these was sculptured in stone the coat-of-arms of the king
of Mexico, an eagle griping in his talons a jaguar. In the interior
were many halls, and one in particular is said by a writer who
accompanied Cortes, known as the Anonymous Conqueror, to have been
of sufficient extent to contain three thousand men.... In addition
to these were more than one hundred smaller rooms, and the same
number of marble baths.... The walls and floors of halls and
apartments were many of them faced with polished slabs of marble,
jasper, obsidian, and white tecali; lofty columns of the same fine
stones supported marble balconies and porticos, every inch and
corner of which was filled with wondrous ornamental carving, or held
a grinning, grotesquely sculptured head. The beams and casings were
of cedar, cypress, and other valuable woods profusely carved and put
together without nails.... Superb mats of most exquisite finish were
spread upon the marble floors; the tapestry that draped the walls
and the curtains that hung before the windows were made of a fabric
most wonderful for its delicate texture, elegant designs, and
brilliant colors; through the halls and corridors a thousand golden
censers, in which burned precious spices and perfumes, diffused a
subtle odor." [Footnote: Native Races of the Pacific States, ii, 160.]
Upon this rhapsody it will be sufficient to remark that halls were
entirely unknown in Indian architecture. Neither a hall, as that
term is used by us, has ever been seen in an Indian house, nor has
one been found in the ruins of any Indian structure. An external
corridor has occasionally been found in ruins of houses in Central
America. The great doors open on the squares and streets; Aztec
window-curtains of delicate texture, marble baths and porticos, and
floors of polished slabs of marble, as figments of a troubled
imagination, recall the glowing description of the great kingdom of
the Sandwich Islands--with its king, its cabinet ministers, its
parliament, its army and navy, which Mark Twain has fitly
characterized as "an attempt to navigate a sardine dish with Great
Eastern machinery"; and it suggested also the Indian chief
humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked
hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and
leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at
bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by
credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo,
its houses and its breech-cloth people, cannot conceal the "ragged
Indian" therein by dressing him in a European costume.
On the seventh day after the entry into Mexico, Montezuma was
induced by intimidation to leave the house in which he lived and
take up his quarters with Cortes, where he was held a prisoner until
his death, which occurred a few weeks later. Whatever was seen of
his mode of life in his usual place of residence was practically
limited to the five days between the coming of the Spaniards and his
capture. Our knowledge of the facts is in the main derived from what
these soldiers reported upon slight and imperfect means of
observation. Bernal Diaz and Cortes have left us an extraordinary
description, not of his residence, but of his daily life, and more
particularly of the dinner, which will now be considered. It is
worth the attempt to take up the pictures of these and succeeding
authors, and see whether the real truth of the matter cannot be
elicited from their own statements. There was undoubtedly a basis of
facts underneath them, because without such a basis the
superstructure could not have been created.
It may with reason be supposed that the Spaniards found Montezuma,
with his gentile kindred, in a large joint-tenement house,
containing perhaps fifty or a hundred families united in a communal
household. The dinner they witnessed was the single daily meal of
this household, prepared in a common cook-house from common stores,
and divided at the kettle. The dinner of each person was placed in
an earthen bowl, with which in his hand an Indian needed neither
chair nor table, and, moreover, had neither the one nor the other.
The men ate first, and by themselves, Indian fashion; and the women,
of whom only a few were seen, afterwards and by themselves. On this
hypothesis the dinner in question is susceptible of a satisfactory
explanation.
It has been shown that each Aztec community of persons owned lands
in common, from which they derived their support. Their mode of
tillage and of distribution of the products, whatever it may have
been, would have returned to each family or household, large or small,
its rightful share. Communism in living in large households composed
of related families springs naturally from such a soil. It may be
considered a law of their condition, and, plainly enough, the most
economical mode of life they could adopt until the idea of property
had been sufficiently developed in their minds to lead to the
division of lands among individuals with ownership in fee, and power
of alienation. Their social system, which tended to unite kindred
families in a common household, their ownership of lands in common,
and their ownership, as a group, of a joint-tenement house, which
would necessarily follow, would not admit a right in persons to sell,
and thus to introduce strangers into the ownership of such lands or
such houses. Lands and houses were owned and held under a common
system which entered into their plan of life. The idea of property
was forming in their minds, but it was still in that immature state
which pertains to the Middle Status of barbarism. They had no money,
but traded by barter of commodities; very little personal property,
and scarcely anything of value to Europeans. They were still a
breech-cloth people, wearing this rag of barbarism as the
unmistakable evidence of their condition; and the family was in the
syndyasmian or pairing form, with separation at any moment at the
option of either party. It was the weakness of the family, its
inability to face alone the struggle of life, which led to the
construction of joint-tenement houses throughout North and South
America by the Indian tribes; and it was the gentile organization
which led them to fill these houses, on the principle of kin, with
related families.
In a pueblo as large as that of Mexico, which was the largest found
in America, and may possibly have contained thirty thousand
inhabitants, there must have been a number of large communal houses
of different sizes, from those that were called palaces, because of
their size, to those filled by a few families. Degrees of prosperity
are shown in barbarous as well as in civilized life in the quarters
of the people. Herrera states that the houses of the poorer sort of
people were "small, low, and mean," but that, "as small as the
houses were, they commonly contained two, four, and six families."
[Footnote: History of America, ii, 360.]
Wherever a household is found in Indian life, be the married pairs
composing it few or many, that household practiced communism in
living. In the largest of these houses it would not follow
necessarily that all its inmates lived from common stores, because
they might form several household groups in the same house; but in
the large household of which Montezuma was a member, it is plain
that it was fed from common stores prepared in a common cook-house,
and divided from the kettle, in earthen bowls, each containing the
dinner of a single person. Montezuma was supposed to be absolute
master of Mexico, and what they saw at this dinner was interpreted
with exclusive reference to him as the central figure. The result is
remarkably grotesque. It was their own self-deception, without any
assistance from the Aztecs. The accounts given by Diaz and Cortes,
and which subsequent writers have built upon with glowing enthusiasm
and free additions, is simply the gossip of a camp of soldiers
suddenly cast into an earlier form of society, which the Village
Indians of America, of all mankind, then best represented. That they
could understand it was not to have been expected. Accustomed to
monarchy and to privileged classes, the principal Aztec war-chief
seemed to them quite naturally a king, and sachems and chiefs
followed in their vision as princes and lords. But that they should
have remained in history as such for three centuries is an amusing
commentary upon the value of historical writings in general.
The dinner of Montezuma, witnessed within the five days named by the
Spanish soldiers, comes down to us with a slender proportion of
reliable facts. The accounts of Bernal Diaz and of Cortes form the
basis of all subsequent descriptions [Footnote: The Anonymous
Conqueror does not notice it.]. Montezuma was the central figure
around whom all the others are made to move. A number of men, as
Diaz states, were to be seen in the house and in the courts, going
to and fro; a part of whom were thought to be chiefs in attendance
upon Montezuma, and the remainder were supposed to be guards. Better
proof of the use of guards is needed than the suggestion of Diaz. It
implies a knowledge of military discipline unknown by Indian tribes.
It was noticed that Indians went barefooted into the presence of
Montezuma, which was interpreted as an act of servility and deference,
although bare feet must have been the rule rather than the exception
in Tenochtitlan. Diaz further informs us that "his cooks had upwards
of thirty different ways of dressing meats, and they had earthen
vessels so contrived as to keep them always hot. For the table of
Montezuma himself above three hundred dishes were dressed, and for
his guards above a thousand. Before dinner Montezuma would go out
and inspect the preparations, and his officers would point out to
him which were the best, and explain of what birds and flesh they
were composed, and of these he would eat.... Montezuma was seated on
a low throne or chair at a table proportionate to the height of his
seat. The table was covered with white cloth and napkins, and four
beautiful women presented him with water for his hands in vessels
which they called xicales, with other vessels under them like plates
to catch the water; they also presented him with towels. Then two
other women brought him small cakes of bread, and when the king
began to eat, a large screen of wood-gilt was placed before him, so
that people should not during that time see him. The women having
retired to a little distance, four ancient lords stood by the throne,
to whom Montezuma from time to time spoke or addressed questions,
and as a matter of particular favor gave to each of them a plate of
that which he was eating.... This was served on earthenware of
Cholula, red and black.... I observed a number of jars, about fifty,
brought in filled with foaming chocolate, of which he took some
which the women presented to him. During the time Montezuma was at
dinner, two very beautiful women were busily employed making small
cakes, with eggs and other things mixed therein. These were
delicately white, and when made they presented them to him on plates
covered with napkins. Also another kind of bread was brought to him
in long loaves, and plates of cakes resembling wafers. After he had
dined they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented,
containing liquid amber mixed with an herb they call tobacco; and
when he had sufficiently viewed the singers, dancers, and buffoons,
he took a little of the smoke of one of these canes and then laid
himself down to sleep; and thus his principal meal concluded. After
this was over, all his guards and domestics sat down to dinner, and
as near as I can judge, above a thousand plates of these eatables
that I have mentioned were laid before them, with vessels of foaming
chocolate, and fruit in immense quantity. For his women and various
inferior servants, his establishment was a prodigious expense, and
we were astonished, amid such a profusion, at the vast regularity
that prevailed." [Footnote: History of the Conquest of Mexico, i,
198-202.] Diaz wrote his history more than thirty years after the
conquest (he says he was writing it in 1568), [Footnote: ib., ii,
423.] which may serve to excuse him for implying the use of
veritable chairs and a table where neither existed, and for
describing the remainder as sitting down to dinner. Tezozomoc, who
is followed by Herrera, says the table of Montezuma consisted of two
skins. How they were fastened together and supported does not appear.
The statements in the Despatches of Cortes, as they now appear, are
an improvement upon Diaz, the pitch being on a higher key. He
remarks that Montezuma "was served in the following manner: Every day,
as soon as it was light, six hundred nobles and men of rank were in
attendance at the palace, who either sat or walked about in the
halls and galleries, and passed their time in conversation, but
without entering the apartment where his person was. The servants
and attendants of these nobles remained in the courtyards, of which
there were two or three of great extent, and in the adjoining street,
which was also very spacious. They all remained in attendance from
morning till night; and when his meals were served, the nobles were
likewise served with equal profusion, and their servants and
secretaries also had their allowance. Daily his larder and
wine-cellar were open to all who wished to eat or drink. The meals
were served by three or four hundred youths, who brought in an
infinite number of dishes; indeed, whenever he dined or supped the
table was loaded with every kind of flesh, fish, fruits and
vegetables that the country produced. As the climate is cold, they
put a chafing-dish with live coals under every plate and dish, to
keep them warm. The meals were served in a large hall in which
Montezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room,
which was covered with mats and kept very clean. He sat on a small
cushion, curiously wrought of leather. During the meal there were
present, at a little distance from him, five or six elderly caciques,
to whom he presented some of the food. And there was constantly in
attendance one of the servants, who arranged and handed the dishes,
and who received from others whatever was wanted for the supply of
the table. Both at the beginning and end of every meal, they
furnished water for the hands, and the napkins used on these
occasions were never used a second time, and this was the case also
with the plates and dishes, which were not brought again, but new
ones in place of them; it was the same with the chafing-dishes."
[Footnote: Despatches of Cortes, Folsom's Trans, p. 123]
Since cursive writing was unknown among the Aztecs, the presence of
these secretaries is an amusing feature in the account. The
wine-cellar also is remarkable for two reasons; firstly, because the
level of the streets and courts was but four feet above the level of
the water, which made cellars impossible; and, secondly, because the
Aztecs had no knowledge of wine. An acid beer (pulque), made by
fermenting the juice of the maguey, was a common beverage of the
Aztecs, but it is hardly supposable that even this was used at dinner.
It will he noticed that according to this account the dinner was
served to all at the same time, Montezuma and several chiefs eating
at one end of the room, but no mention is made of the manner in
which the remainder ate. The six hundred men (or less) who remained
about the house and courts during the day, we may well suppose, were,
with their families, joint residents and joint proprietors with
Montezuma of the establishment. Two or three structures are mingled
in these descriptions, which were probably entirely distinct in
their uses.
Herrera gathered up the subsequent growth of the story, which
undoubtedly made a great sensation in Europe as a part of the
picture of life in the New World; and embellished it from sheer
delight in a marvelous tale. The few facts stated by Bernal Diaz,
expressing the interpretation of the Spanish soldiers, were fruitful
seeds planted three hundred years ago, which the imaginations of
enthusiastic authors have developed into a glowing and picturesque
narrative. The principal part of Herrera'a account runs as follows:
"Montezuma did always eat alone, and so great a quantity of meat was
served up to his table, such great variety, and so richly dressed,
that there was sufficient for all the prime men of his household.
His table was a cushion, or two pieces of colored leather; instead
of a chair, a little low stool, made of one piece, the seat hollowed
out, carved and painted in the best manner that could be; the
table-cloth, napkins, and towels of very fine cotton as white as snow,
and never served any more than once, being the fees of the proper
officers. The meat was brought in by four hundred pages, all
gentlemen, sons of lords, and set down together in a hall; the king
went thither, and with a rod, or his hand, pointed to what he liked,
and then the sewer set it upon the chafing-dishes that it might not
be cold; and this he never failed to do, unless the steward at any
time very much recommended to him some particular dishes. Before he
sat down, twenty of the most beautiful women came and brought him
water to wash his hands, and when seated the sewer did shut a wooded
rail that divided the room, lest the nobility that went to see him
dine should encumber the table, and he alone set on and took off the
dishes, for the pages neither came near nor spoke a word. Strict
silence was observed, none daring to speak unless it was some jester,
or the person of whom he asked a question. The sewer was always upon
his knees and barefooted, attending him without lifting up his eyes.
No man with shoes on was to come into the room upon pain of death.
The sewer also gave him drink in a cup of several shapes, sometimes
of gold, and sometimes of silver, sometimes of gourd, and sometimes
of the shells of fishes." [Footnote: Solis, thinking a cocoanut shell
altogether too plain, embellishes the shell with jewels: "He had
cups of gold, and salvers of the same; and sometimes he drank out of
cocoas and natural shells very richly set with jewels."--History of
the Conquest of Mexico, Lond., ed. 1738, Townshend's Trans., I, 417.]
"Six ancient lords attended at a distance, to whom he gave some
dishes of what he liked best, which they did eat there with much
respect. He had always music of flutes, reeds, horns, shells,
kettle-drums, and other instruments, nothing agreeable to the ears
of the Spaniards.... There were always at dinner dwarfs, crooked and
other deformed persons, to provoke laughter, and they did eat of
what was left at the further end of the hall, with the jesters and
buffoons. What remained was given to three thousand Indians, that
were constantly upon guard in the courts and squares, and therefore
there were always three thousand dishes of meat and as many cups of
liquor; the larder and cellar were never shut, by reason of their
continual carrying in and out. In the kitchen they dressed all sorts
of meat that were sold in the market, being a prodigious quantity,
besides what was brought in by hunters, tenants, and tributaries.
The dishes and all utensils were all of good earthenware, and served
the king but once. He had abundance of vessels of gold and silver,
yet made no use of them, because they should not serve twice."
[Footnote: History of America, ii, 336.] Further on, and out of its
place, Herrera gives us what seems to have been a call of the
scattered household to dinner. "When it was dinner-time," he remarks,
"eight or ten men whistled very loud, beating the kettle-drums hard,
as it were to warn those that were to dance after dinner; then the
dancers came, who, to entertain their great sovereign, were all to
be men of quality, clad as richly as they could, with costly
mantles, white, red, green, yellow, and some of several colors."
[Footnote: ib., 443.]
The four women of Diaz who brought water to Montezuma have now
increased to twenty; but, as the Spanish writers claimed a wide
latitude in the matter of numbers, fivefold is not, perhaps,
unreasonable, especially as it did not occur to Herrera that Diaz may,
at the outset, have quadrupled the actual number. The "three or four
hundred youths" who brought in the dinner, according to Cortes,
settle down under Herrera to "four hundred pages, all gentlemen,
sons of lords"; and here we must recognize the discrimination of the
historian in that he found the highest number stated by Cortes fully
adequate to the occasion. Two other things may be noticed: shoes
have disappeared from all Indian feet in the face of a terrific
penalty, and three thousand hungry Indians stand in peaceful quietude,
while their dinner grows cold upon the floor, as Montezuma eats
alone in solitary grandeur. No American Indian could be made to
comprehend this picture. It lacks the realism of Indian life, and
embodies an amount of puerility of which the Indian nature is not
susceptible. Europeans and Americans may rise to the height of the
occasion because their mental range is wider, and their imaginations
have fed more deeply upon nursery tales. Diaz had contented himself
with saying that Montezuma "had two hundred of his nobility on guard
in apartments adjoining his own," [Footnote: History of the Conquest
of Mexico, I, 198.] in whom may be recognized his fellow-householders;
but Cortes generously increased the number to "six hundred nobles
and men of rank," who appeared at daylight and remained in
attendance during the day. Neither number, however, was quite
sufficient to meet the conceptions of the historiographer of Spain,
and accordingly three thousand, all guards, were adopted by Herrera
as a suitable number to give eclat to Montezuma's dinner. If any man
conversant with Indian character could show by what instrumentality
five hundred Indians could be kept together twelve hours in
attendance upon any human being from a sense of duty, he would add
something to our knowledge of the Red Race; and could he prove
further that they had actually waited, in the presence of as many
earthen bowls, smoking with their several dinners, while their
war-chief in the same room was making his repast alone, the verifier
would thereby endow the Indian character with an element of
forbearance he has never since been known to display. The block of
wood hollowed out for a stool or seat may be accepted, for it savors
of the simplicity of Indian art. That the Aztecs had napkins of
coarse texture, woven by hand, is probable; as also that they were
white, because cotton is white.
Imagination might easily expand a napkin into a table-cloth,
provided a table existed to spread it upon; but in this case,
without duly considering the relation between the two, the
table-cloth has been created, but the table refuses to appear. The
napkin business, therefore, seems to have been slightly overdone.
Finally, the call of the scattered household to dinner by
kettle-drums and whistling savors too strongly of Indian ways and
usages to be diverted into a summons to the dancers, as Herrera
suggests. This Aztec dinner-call, on a scale commensurate with a
large communal household, would have been lost to history but for
the special use discerned in it to decorate a tale. It recognizes
the loitering habits of an Aztec household, and perhaps the
irregularity of the dinner-hour.
Passing over the descriptions of Sahagun, Clavigero, and Prescott,
who have kindled into enthusiasm over this dinner of Montezuma,
Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft shall be allowed to furnish us with the very
latest version. "Every day," he remarks, "from sunrise until sunset
the antechambers of Montezuma's palace in Mexico were occupied by
six hundred noblemen and gentlemen, who passed their time lounging
about and discussing the gossip of the day in low tones, for it was
considered disrespectful to speak loudly or make any noise within
the palace limits. They were provided with apartments in the palace,
and took their meals from what remained of the superabundance of the
royal table, as did after them their own servants, of whom each
person of quality was entitled to from one to thirty according to
his rank. These retainers, numbering two or three thousand, filled
several outer courts during the day. The king took his meals alone
in one of the largest halls of the palace.... He was seated upon a
low leather cushion, upon which were thrown various soft skins, and
his table was of a similar description, except that it was larger
and rather higher, and was covered with white cotton cloths of the
finest texture. The dinner-service was of the finest ware of Cholula,
and many of the goblets were of gold and silver, or fashioned with
beautiful shells. He is said to have possessed a complete service of
solid gold, but as it was considered below a king's dignity to use
anything at table twice, Montezuma, with all his extravagance, was
obliged to keep this costly dinner-set in the temple. The bill of
fare comprised everything edible of fish, flesh, and fowl that could
be procured in the empire or imported beyond it. Relays of couriers
were employed in bringing delicacies from afar.... There were
cunning cooks among the Aztecs, and at these extravagant meals there
was almost as much variety in the cookery as in the matter cooked.
Sahagun gives a most formidable list of roast, stewed, and broiled
dishes, of meat, fish, and poultry, seasoned with many kinds of herbs,
of which, however, that most frequently mentioned is chile. He
further describes many kinds of bread, all bearing a more or less
close resemblance to the Mexican tortilla ... then tamales of all
kinds, and many other curious messes, such as frog spawn and stewed
ants, cooked with chile.... Each dish was kept warm on a
chafing-dish placed under it. Writers do not agree as to the exact
quantity of food served up at each meal, but it must have been
immense, since the lowest number of dishes given is three hundred
and the highest three thousand. They were brought into the hall by
four hundred pages of noble birth, who placed their burdens upon the
matted floor and retired noiselessly. The king then pointed out such
viands as he wished to partake of, or left the selection to his
steward, who doubtless took pains to study the likes and dislikes of
the royal palate. The steward was a functionary of the highest rank
and importance; he alone was privileged to place the designated
delicacies before the king upon the table; he appears to have done
duty both as royal carver and cup-bearer; and, according to
Torquemada, to have done it barefooted and on his knees. [Footnote:
The 'cup-bearer' agrees reasonably well with the 'window-curtains.']
Everything being in readiness, a number of the most beautiful of the
king's women entered, bearing water in round vessels called Xicales,
for the king to wash his hands in, and towels that he might dry them,
other vessels being placed upon the ground to catch the drippings.
Two other women at the same time brought him some small loaves of a
very delicate kind of bread, made of the finest maize flour, beaten
up with eggs. This done, a wooden screen, carved and gilt, was
placed before him that no one might see him while eating. There were
always present five or six aged lords, who stood near the royal
chair barefooted and with bowed heads. To these, as a special mark
of favor, the king occasionally sent a choice morsel from his own
plate. During the meal the monarch amused himself by watching the
performances of his jugglers and tumblers, whose marvellous feats of
strength and dexterity I shall describe in another place; at other
times there was dancing, accompanied by singing and music.... The
more solid food was followed by pastry, sweetmeats, and a
magnificent dessert of fruit. The only beverage drank was chocolate,
of which about fifty jars were provided; it was taken with a spoon,
finely wrought of gold or shell, from a goblet of the same material.
Having finished his dinner, the king again washed his hands in water
brought to him, as before, by the women. After this, several painted
and gilt pipes were brought, from which he inhaled, through his
mouth or nose, as best suited him, the smoke of a mixture of liquid
amber and an herb called tobacco. This siesta over, he devoted
himself to business, and proceeded to give audience to foreign
ambassadors or deputations from cities in the empire, and to such of
his lords and ministers as had business to transact with him."
[Footnote: Native Races of the Pacific States, ii, 174-178.]
In this account, although founded upon those of Diaz and Cortes, and
showing nothing essentially new, we have the final growth of the
story to the present time, but without any assurance that the limits
of its possible expansion have been reached. The purification of our
aboriginal history, by casting out the mass of trash with which it
is so heavily freighted, is forced upon us to save American
intelligence from deserved disgrace. Whatever may be said of the
American aborigines in general, or of the Aztecs in particular, they
were endowed with common sense in the matter of their daily food,
which cost them labor, forethought, and care to provide. The picture
of Indian life here presented is simply impossible. Village Indians
in the Middle Status of barbarism were below the age of tables and
chairs for dinner service; neither had they learned to arrange a
dinner to be eaten socially at a common table, or even to share
their dinner with their wives and children. Their joint-tenement
houses, their common stores, their communism in living, and the
separation of the sexes at their meals, are genuine Indian customs
and usages which explain this dinner. It was misconceived by the
Spaniards quite naturally, and with the grotesque results herein
presented; but there is no excuse for continuing this misconception
in the presence of known facts accessible to all.
There is no doubt whatever that Montezuma was treated with great
consideration by all classes of persons. Indians respect and
venerate their chiefs. As their principal war-chief, Montezuma held
the highest official position among them. He is represented as
amiable, generous, and manly, although unnerved by the sudden
appearance and the novel and deadly arms of the Spaniards. He had
charge of the reception and entertainment of Cortes and his men,
who requited him savagely for his hospitality and kindness. But
when his home-life is considered, he fared no better than his
fellow-householders, sharing with them their common dinner. These
accounts, when divested of their misconceptions, render it probable
that Montezuma was living with his gentle kinsmen in a house they
owned in common; and that what the Spaniards saw was a dinner in
common by this household, which, with the women and children, may
have numbered from five hundred to a thousand persons. When the
scattered members of the household had been summoned, the single
daily meal was brought in by a number of persons from the common
cook-house in earthen bowls and dishes, and set down upon the floor
of an apartment used as a place for dinner in the fashion of Indians.
Indians as they were, they doubtless took up these bowls one by one,
each containing the dinner of one person divided at the kettle. They
ate standing, or it may be sitting upon the floor, or upon the
ground in the open court. Indians as they were, the men ate first
and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards. After
dinner was over, they were diverted, probably, with music and dancing,
and made themselves merry, as well-fed Indians are apt to do. That
the same dinner, conducted in a similar manner, occurred at all the
houses in the pueblo, large and small, once a day, there can
scarcely be a doubt.
The dinner of Montezuma which has gone into history, and been read
for three centuries with wonder and admiration, is an excellent
illustration of the slender material out of which American
aboriginal history has been made. It shows, moreover, as a warning,
what results flow from great misconceptions through the constructive
faculty of authors.
A confederacy of three Indian tribes, speaking dialects of the same
language, was precisely what the Spaniards found in Mexico, and this
was all they found. They had no occasion in their accounts to
advance a step beyond this simple fact. A satisfactory explanation
of this confederacy can be found in similar Indian confederacies. It
was a growth from the common institutions of the Indian family.
Underneath these delusive pictures a council of chiefs is revealed,
which was the natural and legitimate instrument of government under
Indian institutions. No other form of government was possible among
them. They had, beside, which was an equally legitimate part of this
system, an elective and deposable war-chief (Teuchtli), the power to
elect and to depose being held by a fixed constituency ever present,
and ready to act when occasion required. The Aztec organization
stood plainly before the Spaniards as a confederacy of Indian tribes.
Nothing but the grossest perversion of obvious facts could have
enabled Spanish writers to fabricate the Aztec monarchy out of a
democratic organization.
Without ascertaining the unit of their social system, if organized
in gentes, as they probably were, and without gaining any knowledge
of the organization that did exist, they boldly invented for the
Aztecs a monarchy, with high feudal characteristics, out of the
reception of Cortes by their principal war-chief, and such other
flimsy materials as Montezuma's dinner. This misconception has stood,
through American indolence, quite as long as it deserves to stand.
Since the foregoing was written, the investigations of Mr.
Bandelier "On the Social Organization and Mode of Government of the
Ancient Mexicans" have been published. With the new light thus
thrown upon the subject, this chapter should have been re-written.
He shows that the Aztecs were composed of twenty gentes or clans.
"The existence of twenty autonomous consanguine groups is thus
revealed, and we find them again at the time of the conquest, while
their last vestiges were perpetuated until after 1690, when Fray
Augustin de Vetancurt mentions four chief quarters with their
original Indian names, comprising and subdivided into twenty
'barrios'. Now the Spanish word 'barrio' is equivalent to the
Mexican term 'calpulli.' Both indicate the kin, localized and
settled with the view to permanence." [Footnote: Twelfth Annual
Report of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge,
1880, p. 591.]
This organization, as was to have been expected, lies at the
foundation of their social system. He names the following as among
the rights, duties, and obligations of the kinship:
I. The kin claimed the right to name its members.
II. It was the duty of the kin to educate or train its members to
every branch of public life.
III. The kin had the right to regulate and to control marriage.
IV. It was one of the attributes of the kin to enjoy common burial.
V. The right of the kin to 'separate worship' appears not only
established within the kin's territory, but it is also recognized
even at the central medicine-lodge of the tribe.
VI. The kin was obligated to protect and defend the persons and
property of its members, and to resent and punish any injury done to
them, as if it were a crime committed against the kin itself.
VII. The kin had the right to elect its officers, as well as the
right to remove or depose them for misbehavior.
[Footnote: Twelfth Ann. Rept. Peabody Museum, pp. 615-638.]
He also regards the four "brotherhoods" who occupied the four
quarters of the pueblo as probably phratries. [Footnote: ib., p. 584.]
He also shows that the government was under the control of a council,
Tlatocan, composed of a body of chiefs. [Footnote: ib., p. 646, et
seq.]
One of the most interesting results of this investigation is the
discovery of a class of persons unattached to any gens, "outcasts
from the bond of kinship." [Footnote: ib., p. 608, et seq.] Such a
class grows up in every gentile society, when as far advanced as the
Aztecs were. It finds its analogue in the Roman Plebeians. This
remarkable essay will abundantly repay a careful study.
When we have learned to speak of the American Indians in language
adapted to Indian life and Indian institutions, they will become
comprehensible. So long as we apply to their social organizations
and domestic institutions terms adapted to the organizations and to
the institutions of civilized society, we caricature the Indians and
deceive ourselves. There was neither a political society, nor a state,
nor any civilization in America when it was discovered; and,
excluding the Eskimos, but one race of Indians, the Red Race.
[Relocated Footnote 1: In the Despatches of Cortes the term King
"El rey" is not used in speaking of Montezuma, but Senhor and cacique.
The Valley of Mexico, including the adjacent mountain slopes and
excluding the area covered by water, was about equal to the State at
Rhode Island, which contains thirteen hundred square miles; an
insignificant area for a single American Indian tribe. But the
confederacy had subdued a number of tribes southward and
southeastward from the valley as far as Guatemala, and placed them
under tribute. Under their plan of government it was impossible to
incorporate these tribes in the Aztec confederacy; the barrier of
language furnished an insuperable objection; and they were left to
govern themselves through their own chiefs, and according to their
own usages and customs. As they were neither under Aztec government
nor Aztec usages, there is no occasion to speak of them as a part of
the Aztec confederacy or even as an appendage of its government. The
power of the confederacy did not extend a hundred miles beyond the
Pueblo of Mexico on the west, northwest, north, northeast, or east
sides, in each of which directions they were confronted by
independent and hostile tribes.
The population of the three confederate tribes was confined to the
valley, and did not probably exceed two hundred and fifty thousand
souls, including the Moquiltes, Xochomileos, and Chaleans, if it
equaled that number, which would give nearly twice the present
population of New York to the square mile, and a greater population
to the square mile than Rhode Island now contains. The Spanish
estimates of Indian populations were gross exaggerations. Those who
claim a greater population for the Valley of Mexico than that
indicated will be bound to show how a barbarous people, without
flocks and herds and without field agriculture, could have sustained
in equal areas a larger number of inhabitants than a civilized
people armed with these advantages.]
[Relocated Footnote 2: My learned friend, Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, of
Highland, Ill., has arrived at the same conclusion, substantially,
as stated in the conclusion of his recent "Memoir on the Social
Organization and Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans," 12th
Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and
Ethnology. Cambridge, 1880, p. 699.
"Taking all this together, and adding it to the results of our
investigations into the military organization of the ancient Mexicans,
as well as of their communal mode of holding and enjoying the soil,
we feel authorized to conclude that the social organization and mode
of government of the ancient Mexicans was a military democracy,
originally based upon communism in living."]