THE DAWN OF MEXICO: TOLTECS AND AZTECS
Lake Texcoco--Valley of Anahuac--Seat of the Aztec civilisation--
Snow-capped peaks--Pyramids of Teotihuacan--Toltecs--The first
Aztecs--The eagle, cactus, and serpent--Aztec oracle and wanderings--
Tenochtitlan--Prehistoric American civilisations--Maya, Incas--Quito
and Peru--The dawn of history--The Toltec empire--Rise, _regime_,
fall--Quetzalcoatl--Otomies--Chichemecas--Nezahualcoyotl--Astlan--The
seven tribes and their wanderings--Mexican war-god--The Teocallis--
Human sacrifices--Prehistoric City of Mexico--The Causeways--Aztec
arts, kings, and civilisation--Montezuma--Guatemoc--Impressions of the
Spaniards--The golden age of Texcoco--Vandalism of Spanish
archbishop--The poet-king and his religion--Temple to the Unknown
God--Aztecs and Incas compared--The Tlascalans--The Otomies--Cholula--
Mexican tribes--Aztec buildings--Prehistoric art--Origin of American
prehistoric civilisation--Biblical analogies--Supposed Asiatic and
Egyptian origins--Aboriginal theory.
Like the misty cloud-streaks of the early dawn, the beginning of the
story of the strange empire of prehistoric Mexico unfolds from fable
and fact as we look back upon it. We are to imagine ourselves upon the
shores of Lake Texcoco, in the high valley-plateau of Anahuac, "the
land amid the waters." It is the year 1300, or a little later, of the
Christian era. The borders of the lake are marshy and sedgy, the
surrounding plain is bare and open, and there is no vestige of man and
his habitation. Far away, east, west, and north, faint mountain ranges
rise, shimmering to the view in the sun's rays through the clear upland
air, whilst to the south two beautiful gleaming snow-capped peaks are
seen,[3] and over all is the deep blue vault of the tropic highland
sky.
[Footnote 3: Ixtaccihuatl and Popocatepetl.]
We have said that there are no vestiges of man or his structures to be
seen, yet upon gazing penetratingly towards the north-east there might
be observed the tops of two high ruined pyramids,[4] the vestiges of
the civilisation of the shadowy Toltecs. But we are not for the moment
concerned with these ruined structures, for, as we watch, a band of
dusky warriors, strangely clad, comes over the plain. They come like
men on some set purpose, glancing about them, at the shores of the
lake, at the horizon, expectantly, yet with a certain vague wistfulness
as of deferred hope. Suddenly their leader halts and utters an
ejaculation; and with one hand shading the sun's rays from his eyes he
points with outstretched arm towards the water's edge. His companions
gaze intently in the direction indicated, and then run forward with
joyous shouts and gesticulations. What is it that has aroused their
emotions? Near the lake-shore a rock arises, overgrown with a thorny
_nopal_, or prickly-pear cactus, and perched upon this is an eagle with
a serpent in its beak.
[Footnote 4: Teotihuacan: pyramids of the sun and moon.]
Who are these men and whence have they come? They are the first Aztecs,
and they have come "from the north"; and for centuries they have been
wandering from place to place, seeking a promised land which their
deity had offered them, a land where they should found a city and an
empire. The hoped-for oracle is before them, the promised symbol which
they had been bidden to seek, by which they should know the destined
spot--an eagle perched upon a _nopal_ with a serpent in its beak: and
their wanderings are at an end. Here they pitched their camp, and here
as time went on the wonderful city of Tenochtitlan arose, the centre of
the strange Aztec civilisation. Thus, fable records, was first
established the site of Mexico City; prehistoric, despotic, barbaric,
first; mediaeval, dark, romantic, later; handsome and interesting
to-day.
[Illustration: THE FINDING OF THE SITE FOR THE PREHISTORIC CITY OF
MEXICO BY THE FIRST AZTECS. (From the painting in Mexico.)]
But whence came these men? That, indeed, who shall say? Whence came the
strange civilisation of the American races--Maya, Toltec, Aztec, Inca?
To Mexico and Yucatan and Guatemala, to Quito and Peru, whence came the
peoples who built stone temples, pyramids, halls, tombs, inscribed
hieroglyphics, and wrought cunning arts, such as by their ruins,
relics, and traditions arouse our admiration even to-day. History does
not say, yet what glimmerings of history and legend there are serve to
take us farther back in time, although scarcely to a fixed
starting-point, for the thread of the tale of wanderings and
developments of these people of Mexico--a thread which seems traceable
among the ruined structures of Anahuac.
The first glimmerings of this history-legend refer to an unknown
country "in the north." About the middle of the third century of the
Christian era there proceeded thence the people known as the Mayas, who
traversed Mexico and arrived in Yucatan; and they are the reputed
originators of the singular and beautiful temples encountered there,
and the teachers of the stone-shaping art whose results arouse the
admiration of the archaeologist and traveller of to-day, in that part
of Mexico. The descendants of the Mayas are among the most intelligent
of the native tribes inhabiting the Republic, doubtless due to the
influence of the polity and work of their ancestors. Time went on.
About the middle of the sixth century A.D. another people came "out of
the north"--the famous Toltecs, and in their southward migration they
founded successive cities, ultimately remaining at Tollan, or Tula, and
to them are attributed the remarkable pyramids of Teotihuacan, Cholula,
and other structures. Tula is some fifty miles to the north of the
modern city of Mexico, and it formed the centre of the powerful empire
and civilisation of this cultured people. Eleven monarchs reigned, but
the Toltec Empire was overthrown; the people dispersed, and they
mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the twelfth century A.D.,
after some 450 years of existence. None of these dates, however, can be
looked upon as really belonging to the realm of exact history.
[Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: TOLTEC PYRAMID OR TEOCALLI OF THE
SUN AT SAN JUAN, TEOTIHUACAN. (Exploration and restoration work being
carried on.)]
Tradition also has it that the Toltecs were dispersed by reason of a
great famine due to drought, followed by pestilence, only a few people
surviving. Banished from the scene of their civilisation by these
disasters, the few remaining inhabitants made their way to Yucatan and
Central America; and their names and traditions seem to be stamped
there. Beyond this little is known of the Toltecs. Possibly some of
them found their way still further south to Ecuador and Peru, and
influenced the Inca civilisations of the South American continent. To
the Toltecs is ascribed the most refined civilisation of prehistoric
America, a culture which was indeed the source of the far inferior one
of the Aztecs, which we shall presently observe. The Toltecs wrought
cleverly in gold and silver, and in cotton fabrics; whilst the
remarkable character of their buildings and structures is shown by the
ruins of these to-day, as at Cholula and Teotihuacan. The art of
picture-writing is attributed to them; and the famous Calendar stone of
Mexico has also been ascribed to these people. From amid the shadowy
history of the Toltecs the traditions of the deity which so largely
influenced prehistoric Mexican religion arose: the mystic Quetzalcoatl,
the "god of the air," "the feathered serpent." This strange personage
was impressed upon the people's mind as a white man of a foreign race,
with noble features, long beard, and flowing garments; and he taught
them a sane religion, in which virtue and austerity were dominant, and
the sacrifice of human beings and animals forbidden. This singular
personage, runs the fable, disappeared after twenty years' sojourn
among them, in the direction of the rising sun, having promised to
return. When the Spaniards came out of the East their coming was hailed
as the return of Quetzalcoatl, and the reverence and superstition
surrounding these supposed "children of the sun" protected the
Spaniards and permitted their advance into the country, and indeed, was
at length conducive to the downfall of Montezuma and the Aztec Empire.
So pass the cultured, shadowy Toltecs from our vision. They had been
preceded in their southward migration by the Otomies, in the seventh
century A.D., an exceedingly numerous and primitive people who almost
annihilated the Spaniards during the Conquest, and whose descendants
to-day occupy a vast region, and still largely speak their own
language, rather than Spanish. The Toltecs were succeeded by yet
another tribe "from the north," the Chichemecas, who came down and
occupied their civilisation of Tula. These people, warlike and inferior
in culture to the Toltecs, allied themselves with the neighbouring
Nahua tribes, and an empire came into being, with its capital at
Texcoco, on the shore of the great lake. The famous Nezahualcoyotl, the
poet-king of this empire, who ascended the throne of Texcoco in 1431,
was one of the most remarkable figures of prehistoric Anahuac, and his
genius and fortunes recall the history of Alfred of England, to the
student's mind. He built a splendid palace at Texcotzinco, and ruins of
its walls and aqueducts remain to this day. His life is sketched in
these pages subsequently, and something of the beauty of his philosophy
set forth.
And thus history has brought us again to the Aztecs, the founders of
Tenochtitlan by the lake-shore, on the spot indicated by their oracle.
They had come "from the north," one of seven tribes or families, all of
which spoke the Nahuatl or Mexican tongue. This unknown country, called
Astlan, or "the land of the herons," was the home of these seven
tribes--the Mexicas, or Aztecs, the Tlascalans, Xochimilcas, Tepanecas,
Colhuas, Chalcas and Tlahincas--and has been varyingly assigned a
locality in California, and in Sinaloa. Why the Aztecs left their
northern home is not known, even in legend, but they were instigated to
their wanderings, tradition says, by their fabled war-god,
Huitzilopochtli, or Mexitl, from whom came the name "Mexica" or
"Azteca," by which these people called themselves. From the beginning
of the tenth to the beginning of the thirteenth century A.D. this tribe
journeyed and sojourned on its southward way, from valley to valley,
from lake to lake, from Chapala to Patzcuaro, and thence to Tula, the
old Toltec capital. Once more dispersed, they wandered on, and, guided
by their oracle, reached their final resting-place at Tenochtitlan.
This name, by which they designated their capital, was derived either
from that of Tenoch, their venerated high priest, or from the Aztec
words meaning "stone-serpent," in reference to the emblem they had
followed.
The first work of the people was to raise a great temple to their
god--the bloodthirsty Huitzilopochtli--who had led them on. It was
begun at once, and around it grew the habitations of the people, the
huts made of reeds and mud called _xacali_, such as indeed to-day form
the habitations of a large part of Mexican people under the name of
_jacales_.[5] This great Teocalli, or "house of god," at the time of
the arrival of the Spaniards, was a structure pyramidal in form, built
of earth and pebbles and faced with cut stone, square at base, its
sides--300 to 400 feet long--facing the cardinal points of the heavens.
Flights of steps on the outside, winding round the truncated pyramid,
gave access to the summit. Here in the sanctuary was the colossal image
of the Aztec war-god--the abominable conception of a barbaric
people--and the stone of sacrifice upon which the sacrificial captives
were laid. Upon its convex surface the unhappy wretches were
successively bound, their breasts cut open with obsidian knives, and
the still beating hearts, torn forth by the hand of the priest, were
flung smoking before the deity!
[Footnote 5: _X_ and _j_ are often interchangeable in Spanish.]
Upon the marshy borders of this lake, set in the beautiful and fertile
valley of Anahuac, the city rose to elegance and splendour. The
_jacales_ gave place to buildings of brick and stone, founded in many
cases upon piles, and between them were streets and canals, giving
access to the city from the lake. Centre of all was the great Teocalli.
The position of the city was peculiar. It was founded upon an island,
and was subject to inundations from the salt waters of the lake; for
the Valley of Mexico had at that time no outlet for its streams. It
formed a hydrographic entity; and in this connection it reminds the
traveller of the birthplace of that other strange, prehistoric American
civilisation, three thousand miles away to the south-east--Lake
Titicaca and the cradle of the Incas. To protect the city from these
inundations embankments were made, and other works which attest the
engineering capabilities of the people. Four great causeways gave
access to the marshy island upon which the capital was
situated--structures of stones and mortar, the longest being some four
or five miles in length. To-day one of these forms part of a modern
street, and the waters of the lake have retired more than two miles
from the city.
[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF MEXICO: VIEW ON LAKE TEXCOCO; THE MODERN
CITY OF MEXICO IN THE DISTANCE.]
The habitations of the principal people were built of stone, and the
interior of polished marbles and rare woods. Painting and sculpture
embellished these interiors and exteriors, although these were
generally crude and barbaric in their execution and representation.
Around the city and upon the shores of the lakes, numerous villages
arose, surrounded by luxurious gardens and orchards, and the singular
_chinampas_, or floating gardens, were made, with their wealth of
flowers, such as the early Mexicans both loved and demanded for
sacrificial ceremonies.
Naturally, all this development took time. Yet the rise of this
civilisation must be considered rapid--probably it was largely
inherited in principle. The first Aztec government was the theocratic
and military _regime_ established in the fourteenth century under
Tenoch, a military priest and leader who died in 1343. Less than two
hundred years afterwards the city of Tenochtitlan was in the zenith of
power and culture at the moment when it fell before the Spaniards. Ten
kings followed Tenoch, the first being Itzcoatl, who may be considered
the real founder of the empire. He was followed by the first Montezuma,
who greatly extended its sway, dying in 1469. Then came Axayacatl, who
is considered to be the constructor of the famous Mexican Calendar
stone. Tizoc, his successor, hoped to win the favour of the war-god by
the reconstruction of the great Teocalli, whose service was inaugurated
by the infamous Ahuizotl in 1487 and at whose dedication an appalling
number of human sacrifices were made. Then at the beginning of 1500 the
throne was ascended by Montezuma the Second, who further extended the
beauty and power of the Aztec capital, but who, vacillating and weighed
down by the fear of destiny, lived but to witness the beginning of the
fall of Mexico before the Spaniards in 1519. The brave Guatemoc, the
last of his line, strove vainly to uphold the dynasty against the
invaders.
There is no doubt that the Aztecs created a remarkable centre of
semi-barbaric civilisation, and the descriptions given by the Spanish
historians--whether those who accompanied Cortes, as Bernal Diaz, or
those who drew their colouring from these accounts--are such as to
arouse the interest and enthusiasm even of the reader of to-day. In
this connection, of course, it is to be recollected that Cortes and his
followers were not all men of education or trained knowledge of the
great cities of the civilised world, and there is no doubt that they
lacked somewhat the faculty of comparison, and over-estimated what they
beheld. Let us translate from Clavijero, a Spanish historian and Jesuit
who wrote later, and who describes the scene which the Spaniards beheld
from the summit of the great Teocalli as "many beautiful buildings,
gleaming, whitened, and burnished; the tall minarets of the temples
scattered over the various quarters of the city; the canals; verdant
plantations and gardens--all forming a beautiful whole which the
Spaniards never ceased to admire, especially observing it from the
summits of the great temples which dominated not only the city
immediately below, but its environs and the large towns beyond. No less
marvellous were the royal palaces and the infinite variety of plants
and animals kept there; but nothing caused them greater admiration than
the great market plaza." "Not a Spaniard of them," according to Bernal
Diaz, the soldier-historian of the Conquest, who was there and saw it
all, although he wrote about it long afterwards, "but held it in high
praise, and some of them who had journeyed among European cities swore
they had never seen so vast a concourse of merchants and merchandise."
Returning to our history, it is not to be supposed that this powerful
Aztec nation, with their fine capital of Tenochtitlan, were the only
people inhabiting the land of Anahuac at that time. Several other
peoples held sway there. On the eastern side of Lake Texcoco, a few
leagues away, lived the Texcocans, already mentioned; one of the tribes
who also had come "from the north" in early days and who had settled
there. They also had developed or inherited a civilisation akin to that
of the Toltecs, far more refined and important than that of their
neighbours and kindred, the Aztecs. It was about the end of the twelfth
century when the Texcocans established themselves, building a splendid
capital and developing an extensive empire. But misfortune fell upon
them as the centuries went on. Soon after the beginning of the
fifteenth century they were attacked and overwhelmed by the Tepanecas,
another of the seven kindred tribes: their city reduced and their
monarch assassinated. But there arose a picturesque figure, the saviour
of his country--Prince Nezahualcoyotl, son of the dead king. The prince
passed years in disguise, as a fugitive, but at length was permitted to
return to the capital, where he led a life of study. But his talents
aroused the jealousy of the Tepanec usurper, who saw a danger of the
people acclaiming him as their rightful lord and throwing off the yoke
of the strangers. Nezahualcoyotl again became a fugitive, having
escaped with his life by a stratagem, disappearing through a cloud of
incense into a secret passage. But as the years went on the Texcocans,
goaded to revolt by grievous taxation, arose: and seizing the moment,
the outlawed prince put himself at the head of his people and regained
his rightful position, largely with the assistance of the neighbouring
Mexicans of Tenochtitlan.
Then followed what has been termed the golden age of Texcoco. Its art,
poets, and historians became renowned throughout Anahuac, and its
collected literature was the centre of historical lore. Indeed, this it
was that was so perversely destroyed by the first Archbishop of Mexico,
Zumarraga, after the Conquest--an irremediable loss. The prince or
emperor was a philosopher and a poet, and he has left some remarkable
examples of his philosophical prayers to the "Unknown God," in whom he
believed, abhorring the human sacrifices of his neighbours the Aztecs.
He has been termed the "Solomon of Anahuac," although the severe code
of laws he instituted have earned him a harsher name in addition.
Under this _regime_ agriculture prospered exceedingly, and a large
population cultivated all the available ground, just as under the Incas
of Peru the Andine slopes were terraced and cultivated. Splendid
buildings were erected, and a style of luxurious living inaugurated
somewhat after the fashion of Oriental history, and the descriptions of
the magnificence of the royal appurtenances fill pages of the
historians' accounts. Most of this history was written by the famous
Ixtlilxochitl, son of this great emperor, who occupied the throne at
the time of the Conquest and became an ally of the Spaniards against
the Aztec. It is upon the writings of this prince-historian that much
of the material of the later writers of the history of Mexico and the
Conquest is founded.
In the construction of his palaces and buildings Nezahualcoyotl
employed vast bodies of natives, after the manner of an Egyptian
potentate of old. Baths, hanging-gardens, groves of cedar, harems,
villas, temples formed the beautiful and luxurious Texcotzinco, the
prince's residence, as described by its historian. To-day the mounds
and _debris_ of sculptured stone which formed the place scarcely arrest
the traveller's attention. In the midst of his luxury the emperor fell
a prey to a passion for the betrothed of one of his subjects, a
beautiful maiden. The unhappy individual who had thus become his
monarch's rival--he was a veteran chief in the army--was needlessly
sent on a military expedition, where he fell, and the hand of his
promised bride was free for the monarch's taking. So was enacted upon
these high regions of Anahuac a tragic episode, as of David and Uriah,
to the blemish of an otherwise noble name and of a mind above the
superstitions of his time.
"Truly, the gods which I adore; idols of stone and wood: speak not, nor
feel, neither could they fashion the beauty of the heavens--the sun,
the moon, and the stars ... nor yet the earth and the streams, the
trees and the plants which beautify it. Some powerful, hidden, and
unknown God must be the Creator of the universe, and he alone can
console me in my affliction or still the bitter anguish of this
heart."[6] So spake Nezahualcoyotl.
[Footnote 6: I have translated this from the Spanish of Ixtlilxochitl
as quoted by Prescott.--C. R. E.]
Urged probably by the feelings of the philosopher (whose ponderings on
the infinite may occasion him more anguish perhaps than the ordinary
vicissitudes of life), the monarch raised up a temple to the "Unknown
God," in which neither images nor sacrifices were permitted.
After somewhat more than half a century of his reign, and at a time
calculated as the beginning of the last quarter of the fifteenth
century, this remarkable philosopher-king died, and was succeeded by
his son Nezahualpilli, who in a measure followed in his father's
footsteps. But he also passed away, his life having been overshadowed
to some extent by the singular belief or prediction of the fall of his
people in the coming of the white man from the East--a belief which
influenced both the Texcocans and the Aztecs. His son Ixtlilxochitl,
the historian above named, was in power at the time of the conquest by
the Spaniards, but he hated the Aztecs with a bitter hatred in
consequence of their influence upon his people, and the installing by
the machinations of Montezuma of an elder brother upon the throne,
which had plunged the kingdom into civil war. This was in the second
decade of the sixteenth century.
The Texcocans, in conjunction with yet another and smaller people
living on the west side of the lake at Tlacopan, formed with the Aztecs
a confederation or triple alliance of three republics, by which they
agreed to stand together against all comers, and to divide all
territory and results of conquest in agreed proportion. They carried on
war and annexation around them for a considerable period, extending
their sway far beyond the Valley of Mexico, or Anahuac, which formed
their home, passing the Sierra Madre mountains to the east, until about
the middle of the fifteenth century--under Montezuma--the land and
tribes acknowledging their sway reached to the shores of the Gulf of
Mexico. To the south their arms and influence penetrated into what are
now Guatemala and Nicaragua, whilst to the west they exercised
sovereignty to the shores of the Pacific.
[Illustration: THE LAND OF THE AZTEC CONQUEST: MAIZE FIELDS NEAR
ESPERANZA, STATE OF PUEBLA.]
These conquered territories were not necessarily of easy subjugation.
On the contrary, they were plentifully inhabited by races of
warrior-peoples, many of them with strong and semi-civilised social and
military organisations. The analogy between this confederation of the
Aztecs and the extending area of their dominion and civilisation, and
the Incas of the Titicaca plateau of Peru, surrounded on all sides by
savage warlike tribes, presents itself to the observer in this as in
other respects. Like the Incas, the Aztec emperors[7] returned from
campaign after campaign loaded with trophies and embarrassed with
strings of captives from the vanquished peoples who had dared oppose
this powerful confederation. The rich tropical regions of both the
eastern and western slopes of the tableland of Anahuac thus paid
tribute to the Aztecs, as well as the boundless resources of the south.
[Footnote 7: Both these nations have been likened to the Romans in this
respect.]
But not all the nations of Anahuac fell under the dominion of the
Aztecs. Far from it. The spirits of the people of Tlascala would rise
from their graves and protest against such an assertion! Tlascala was a
brave and warlike little republic of mountaineers--a kind of
Switzerland--who inhabited the western slopes of the Eastern Sierra
Madre and the eastern part of the plateau of Anahuac, under the shadow
of the mighty Malinche, whose snow-crowned head arises on the eastern
confines of the tableland. Tlascala, indeed, was a thorn in the side of
Montezuma and the Aztecs. The latter had demanded that the little
republic pay homage and tribute, and acknowledge the hegemony of the
dominant nation, to which the Tlascalans made reply, "Neither our
ancestors nor ourselves ever have or will pay tribute to any one.
Invade us if you can. We beat you once and may do it again!" or words
to that effect, as recorded by the historians. For in the past history
of the Tlascalans--who were of the same original migratory family as
the Aztecs--a great conflict had been recorded, in which they had
vanquished their arrogant kindred.
Deadly strife and hatred followed this, but Tlascala withstood all
attacks from without, and, moreover, was strengthened by an alliance
with the Otomies, a warlike race inhabiting part of the great _mesa_ or
central tableland north of Anahuac. These were the people who so
grievously harassed the Spaniards after the _Noche Triste_ and against
whom the heroic battle of Otumba was fought. Except to the east, whence
approach was easy from the coast, the territory of Tlascala was
surrounded by mountains, and this natural defence was continued by the
building of an extraordinary wall or fortification at the pregnable
point. Through this the Spaniards passed on their journey of invasion,
and, indeed, its ruins remained until the seventeenth century. The name
of the Tlascalans well deserves to be written on the pages of the
history of primitive Mexico, for it was largely due to their alliance
with the Spaniards that the conquest of Mexico by Cortes and his band
was rendered possible.
In addition to these various and petty powers and independent republics
upon the tableland of Anahuac and its slopes, must be mentioned that of
Cholula, a state to the south of Tenochtitlan, in what now is the State
of Puebla. This region, which contains the remarkable mound or pyramid
bearing its name--Cholula--the construction of which is ascribed to the
Toltecs, was, with its people, dominated by and under tribute to the
Aztecs. So was the nation of the Cempoallas, upon the Vera Cruz coast,
who rendered assistance to the landing _Conquistadores_; and, indeed,
almost all the natives of that vast region acknowledged the sway and
lived in awe of the empire of Montezuma.
It is seen that Mexico, in prehispanic times, was fairly well
populated--comparatively speaking, of course. Indeed, at the present
time there are ten times as many Indians in that part of North America
which forms modern Mexico, as ever existed in the whole of the much
vaster area which forms the United States. The inhabitants of Mexico
were divided into two main classes--those living under a civilised or
semi-civilised organisation, such as the Aztecs and others already
enumerated, and those which may be looked upon as savages. These latter
were exceedingly numerous, and at the present day something like 220
different tribal names have been enumerated. This serves to show the
wide range of peoples who inhabited the land before the Conquest,
principally as clans, or _gentiles_, as in South America also.
Having seen, thus, what were the anthropo-geographical conditions of
primitive Mexico, we may cast a brief glance at the arts and
institutions of these semi-civilised peoples. Their buildings--most
indelible records of these civilisations--cover a considerable range of
territory, as has been observed: yet the antiquities of less important
nature cover one very much greater. The true stone edifices, the real
mural remains, are, however confined to certain limits--between the
16th and 22nd parallel of north latitude--that is to say, the southern
half of Mexico. Roughly, these buildings may be divided into three
classes--_adobe_, or sun-dried earthen brick, unshaped stone and
mortar, and cut and carved stone. In some cases a combination of these
was used in the same structure. The best elements of construction do
not seem to have been used. Domes and arches were not known to these
builders, although they had a system of corbelling-out over openings,
which, in the case of the Maya "arch," approximates thereto. They also
used lintels of stone and wood, and these last were the weak points,
and their decaying has sometimes brought down part of the facade. The
work of the sculptor is crude, like that of the Incas of Peru, of which
it reminds the traveller in some cases, but shows signs of evolving
power and a sense of the beautiful, as has been averred by the most
learned antiquarians who have studied it. It is held that there were
several schools of architecture represented.
The various kinds of structures and relics found throughout the country
include pyramids, temples, tombs, causeways, statues, fortifications,
terraced hills, rock-sculpture, idols, painted caves, calendar stones,
sacrificial stones, habitations, canals, pottery, mummies, _cenotes_,
or wells, &c. The northernmost point where any monument in stone is
encountered is at Quemada, in the State of Zacatecas, which seems to
mark the limit of the stronger civilisation of Southern Mexico, in
contrast to the less virile civilisation which seems to be indicated by
the clay and _adobe_ structures of the northern part of Mexico and of
the adjoining territory embodied at the present day in Arizona,
California, and New Mexico, beyond the Rio Grande.
[Illustration: PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF EL FOLOC AT CHICHEN-YTZA,
YUCATAN.]
But once more we ask, "Where did these people come from originally?" It
has been said that the origin of the people of a continent belongs not
to the realm of history but of philosophy. Well may it be so, but we
are not content. What was the origin of the first peoples of the
Americas, and where did the principle of their barbaric civilisation
come from? There were the fables of the lost continent of Atlantis--of
which, geologically, part of North America is a portion--to be
considered: and perchance, so thought the earlier thinkers, these
peoples, remnants of its population. But the generally accepted theory
assigns Eastern Asia as the source, and analogies are adduced in
architecture, customs, religions, physiognomy, and a multitude of
conditions. As to language, careful study has shown, on the other hand,
that none of the numerous indigenous tongues of the present-day Mexican
aborigines bear any resemblance whatever to Asiatic tongues, except
that some likeness between Otomie and Chinese is traced: whilst some
points of similarity are adduced with the speech of the Esquimaux. Last
century an Englishman--Lord Kingsborough--spent a fortune in
endeavouring to prove the theory, which had been advanced a hundred
years earlier, that these emigrating tribes of the Mexican plateau were
those lost ten of Israel! And he published a magnificent work,
reproducing the best examples of their picture-writing, to this end.
Indeed, in earlier times, analogies have run riot in attempts to prove
a common origin for fables and for real incidents, with those of
Biblical narrative. Among the prehistoric civilisations of the
Americas--Mexico and Peru--some of these analogies are remarkable, and
might well give rise to such speculation; among them being the stories
of the Deluge, and of a virgin birth for a leader or redeemer of men.
Further similarities are adduced in matters relating to the system of
chronology--that used by the Aztecs having analogy to that of the
Mongol family, and to some extent of the Persians and Egyptians.
Indeed, in the architecture of these prehistoric American ruins
resemblance is traced to Egypt, as well as similarity in other matters;
and this more strongly perhaps in Peru than in Mexico. In general terms
it may be said that many points of prehistoric Mexican civilisation
suggest analogy with Egypt and with Hindustan, and it has been said
that, from his head-dress to his sandalled feet, the native Mexican is
Hispano-Egyptian. But be it as it may, their civilisation seems to have
come from the West, not from the East. These aboriginal people and
their attributes have nothing in common with Europeans or negroes,
whilst they are not unlike Asiatics. I have often been surprised by the
strong "Japanese" or Mongol character in the Mexican face. How and when
such prehistoric immigrants came, whether by the approaching shores of
Behring Straits, whether in that geological time when land connection
between North America and Asia was intact, is buried in oblivion.
Beyond these theories there still remains that of an autochthonous
origin; and who shall yet affirm that both the people and their
civilisation may not have sprung and evolved upon the soil of the world
which we call new? Time and advancing knowledge may yet reveal these
secrets.