Another two weeks of lighter Koshare festivities had again brought round
the more solid fortnightly entertainment of the Club.
Its members duly assembled, the president in his chair, and the
secretary at attention, Mr. Morehouse thus began his second paper.
"Before Texas," said he, "became a part of an independent republic, and
until after the Mexican war (when we forced Mexico to sell us all
California, New Mexico, and Arizona, nearly all of Utah and Nevada,
besides Texas, and the greater part of Colorado), Mexico proper reached
way up here; and it is thought by some archaeologists that the mesas or
table-mountain land especially characterizing the New Mexican landscape
may have afforded the suggestion for the Teocallis of the great
pyramid-like mounds, with terraced sides, built by the Aztecs. Some
scholars have even convinced themselves that the Aztec culture must have
originated here in the North. Others wholly discard the conclusion.
"Mr. Baxter, in his valuable and interesting book of Mexican travel,
says, decidedly, 'The New Mexican Indians were not Aztecs, and Montezuma
had no more to do with New Mexico than he did with New England.' And
with this assertion I think we must all, perforce, agree.
"Of the Toltecs, the probable predecessors in Mexico of the Aztecs, all
written records," said the Antiquary, "have long since perished. They
are known to us only through traditionary legends orally handed down by
the races that succeeded them.
"They are said to have entered the Valley of Anahnac from a northerly
direction, coming from a mysterious unknown region, and probably before
the close of the seventh century. They appear to have been a far more
gentle and refined nation than their immediate successors, the
half-savage Aztecs, who, at last, with their semi-civilization,
dominated Mexico. By general archæological agreement, the Toltecs were
well instructed in agriculture, and many of the most useful mechanic
arts.
"'They were,' declares Prescott, 'nice workers in metals.' They invented
the complex arrangement of time adopted by the Aztecs, who are said to
have been largely indebted to them for the beginnings of that
incongruous civilization which reached its high-water mark in the reign
of the Montezumas. So late as the time of the Spanish Conquest the
remains of extensive Toltec buildings were to be found in Mexico.
"'The noble ruins of religious and other edifices,' says the same
writer, 'still to be seen in Mexico, are referred to this people, whose
name, _Toltec_, has passed into a synonym for _Architect_.'
"After a period of four centuries--having succumbed to famine,
pestilence, and unsuccessful wars--this remarkable people disappeared
from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it. It
is conjectured that some of them may have spread over the region of
Central America and the neighboring isles; and that the majestic ruins
of Mitla and Paleque are the work of this vanished race. Tradition
affirms that a remnant of Toltecs still lingering in Anahnac 'gave
points' to the next inhabitants; and the Tezcucans are thought to have
derived their gentle manners and comparatively mild religion from the
handful of Toltecs who still remained in the country. A Spanish priest,
with that keen relish for the marvellous common to his kind, accounts
for this mysterious disappearance by supernatural stories of giants and
demons.
"According to good authorities, more than a hundred years elapsed
between the strange disappearance of the Toltecs from the land of
Anahnac and the arrival on its borders of the Aztecs.
"After the nomadic fashion of barbarous races, this people did not at
once make a permanent settlement, but pitched their tents in various
parts of the Mexican valley, enduring many casualties and hardships, and
being at one time enslaved by a more powerful tribe, whom their prowess
subsequently dominated.
"Some of these wanderings and adventures are perpetuated in their oral
traditional lore.
"One of these legends is well substantiated, and current at this day,
having been the origin of the device of the eagle and cactus, which form
the arms of the present Mexican republic, and may be found on the face
of the Mexican silver dollar. Thus it runs: 'Having in 1325 halted on
the southwestern borders of the larger Mexican lakes, the Aztecs there
beheld, perched on the stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from a
crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of
extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and his
broad wings open to the rising sun.
"'They hailed the auspicious omen, which the oracle announced as an
indication of the site of their future city.'
"The low marshes were then half buried in water; yet, nothing daunted,
they at once proceeded to lay the sloppy foundation of their capital, by
sinking piles into the shallows. On these they erected the light
dwelling-fabrics of reeds and rushes,--the frail beginnings of that
solid Aztec architecture carried to such elegant elaboration in the time
of the Montezumas. In token of its miraculous origin they called their
city Tenochtitlan. Later it was known as Mexico, a name derived from the
Aztec war-god, Mexitil.
"It has been shown that the Aztec race, once permanently established in
Mexico, finally attained to a civilization far in advance of the other
wandering tribes of North America.
"'The degree of civilization which they had reached,' says Prescott, 'as
inferred by their political institutions, may be considered not far
short of that enjoyed by our Saxon ancestors under Alfred. In respect to
the nature of it, they may better be compared to the Egyptians; and the
examination of their social relations and culture may suggest still
stronger points of resemblance to that ancient people.
"'Their civilization,' he goes on to say, 'was, at the first, of the
hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of
the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European
culture--to be engrafted on a foreign stock. They gradually increased in
numbers, made marked improvements both in polity and military
discipline, and ultimately established a reputation for courage as well
as cruelty in war which made their name terrible throughout the valley.'
In the early part of the fifteenth century--nearly a hundred years after
the foundation of the city--that remarkable league--of which it has been
affirmed that 'it has no parallel in history'--was formed between the
states of Mexico and Tezcuco, and the neighboring little kingdom of
Tlacopan, by which they agreed mutually to support each other in their
wars, offensive and defensive, and that in the distribution of the spoil
one-fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan and the remainder be
divided--in what proportions is uncertain--between the two other powers.
"What is considered more remarkable than the treaty itself, however, is
the fidelity with which it was kept.
"During a century of uninterrupted warfare that ensued no instance, it
is declared, occurred in which the parties quarrelled over the
distribution of the spoil. By the middle of the fifteenth century the
allies, overleaping the rocky ramparts of their own valley, found wider
occupation for their army, and under the first Montezuma, year after
year saw their return to the Mexican capital, loaded with the spoils of
conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives.
"No State was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the
confederates; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, on the
arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the
continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific."
Here Mr. Morehouse ended his paper on the Toltecs, and the Koshare, with
many thanks for his interesting account of these ancient races,
supplemented his information by a general discussion of the genuineness
of the accepted authorities for the early history of the Aztecs and of
the time of Montezuma.
"Prescott," said the Minister, "traces some points of resemblance
between the history of the Aztecs and that of the ancient Romans;
especially in polity and military success does he compare them."
"Unfortunately," observed the Antiquary, "the earlier records of the
Mexican people can only be scantily gleaned from oral tradition and
hiero-graphical paintings."
"Later, however," remarked the Journalist, "we have the seemingly more
definite and reliable accounts of the Spanish chronicles."
"These," returned the Minister, "being usually ecclesiastic, have warped
their record to suit their own bigoted views; consequently, much of the
narrative popularly known as Mexican history is to be taken with more
than the proverbial pinch of salt."
"It has," said the Journalist, "been urged by realistic critics of our
own fascinating historian--Prescott--that since he drew his historic
data, with the exception of the military record of the Spaniards, from
these unreliable sources, his history is little other than the merest
romance. Plainly, the assertions of some of the chroniclers are scarce
more worthy of credence than the equally fascinating adventures of
Sinbad the Sailor, and the impossible stories of Baron Munchausen.
'Bernard Diaz'--that enigmatical personage from whom many of Prescott's
data are drawn--tells us that the Aztecs actually fattened men and women
in cages, like spring chickens, for their sacrifice, and asserts that at
the dedication of one of their temples a procession of captives two
miles long, and numbering seventy-two thousand persons, were led to
sacrifice! By the way, it has, however, been latterly proved that the
so-called sacrificial stone, now exhibited in the National Museum of
Mexico, is not a relic of the Aztecs, but of the earlier Toltecs (who
were not addicted to human sacrifice), and is as innocent of human blood
as the Calendar Stone, referred to the same period. The critics of Diaz
have detected in his account constant blunders in many important
matters, and his glaring geographical errors would seem to prove that,
though he claims to have been, all through the Conquest, the very shadow
of Hernando Cortez, he has never even been in the country he describes!"
"From what I have read of Bernald," said Leon, "I think we may finish
him off with 'Betsy Prig's' very conclusive objection to Sairey Gamp's
'Mrs. Harris'--there ain't no sich person!"
"Even so," exclaimed the Minister, "I, for one, agree with certain
downright critics who contend that Diaz was a pure fabrication, a
priestly scheme of the Roman Church to screen the cruel enormities of
their agent, Cortez. Father Torquemada, another of Prescott's
authorities, is thought to be scarcely more reliable. Las Casas, another
of our historian authorities, whose history was, at the time, promptly
suppressed by the all-powerful Inquisition, declares these Spanish
histories of the Conquest to be 'wicked and false.'"
"And yet, in spite of these strictures," contended Leon, "I, for one,
still pin my faith to Prescott and his implicit honesty of purpose. He
gave us, in his own learned and fascinating way, the narrative of these
priestly chroniclers as he found it. If the chroniclers lied, why, so
much the worse for the chroniclers."
"Lying," complained the Grumbler, "is a malady most incident to
historians;" and thereupon rose to open the parlor door for the
gray-eyed school teacher, who just then bade the Koshare good-night,
adding that she had already been too long away from her sister.
And now the chairman announced the next paper in the Koshare course for
the second Saturday in February, and the members, one and all,
dispersed.
Sholto, roused from a most enjoyable series of naps, brought his wagon
to the side door, and with a friendly grasp from the hand of Miss
Paulina, and a shy, tremulous clasp from that of her niece, the Harvard
man saw the ladies off.