It was on Friday that the Koshare made their little excursion to the
Shalam settlement, and the next evening they gathered in full
force,--with the exception of the Hemmenshaws and the Harvard man, who
still remained at Hilton Ranch, losing thereby two of the most
interesting of the Antiquary's papers; but "time and tide" and Saturday
clubs "stay for no man," and now came the second Aztec paper.
"The Aztec government," began Mr. Morehouse, "in a few minor points is
said to have borne some resemblance to the aristocratic system evolved
by the higher civilization of the Middle Ages.
"Beyond a few accidental forms and ceremonies, the correspondence was,
however, of the slightest. The legislative power both in Mexico and
Tezcuco had this feature of despotism; it rested wholly with the
monarch. The constitution of the judicial tribunals in some degree
counteracted the evil tendency of this despotism. Supreme judges
appointed over each of the principal cities by the crown had original
and final jurisdiction over both civil and criminal cases. From the
sentence of such a judge there was no appeal to any other tribunal, not
even to that of the King.
"It is worthy of notice as showing that some sense of justice is inborn;
as even among this comparatively rude people we read that under a
Tezcucan prince a judge was put to death for taking a bribe, and another
for determining suits in his own house (a capital offence also, by law.)
According to a national chronicler, the statement of the case, the
testimony, and proceedings of the trial were all set forth by a clerk,
in hieroglyphical paintings, and handed to the court.
"In Montezuma's day the tardiness of legal processes must have gone
miles beyond the red tape of a nineteenth-century court of justice.
"This vivid picture of the pomp and circumstance attendant upon the
confirmation of a capital sentence by the king is presented by one of
the Mexican native chroniclers:
"'The King, attended by fourteen great lords of the realm, passed into
one of the halls of justice opening from the courtyard of the palace,
which was called "the tribunal of God," and was furnished with a throne
of pure gold, inlaid with turquoises and other precious stones.
"'The walls were hung with tapestry, made of the hair of different wild
animals, of rich and various colors, festooned by gold rings, and
embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Putting on his mitred
crown, incrusted with precious stones, and holding, by way of sceptre, a
golden arrow in his left hand, the King laid his right upon a human
skull, placed for the occasion on a stool before the throne, and
pronounced judgment. No counsel was employed and no jury. The case had
been stated by plaintiff and defendant, and, as with us, supported on
either side by witnesses. The oath of the accused was, with the Aztecs,
also admitted in evidence.
"'The great crimes against society were all made capital.
"'Among them murder (even of a slave) was punishable with death.
Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according
to the degree of the offence, was punished with slavery or death. It was
a capital offence to remove the boundaries of an estate, and for a
guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property.
"'Prodigals, who squandered their patrimony, were punished. Intemperance
in the young was punished with death; in older persons, with loss of
rank, and confiscation of property.
"'The marriage institution was held in reverence among the Aztecs, and
its rites celebrated with formality. Polygamy was permitted; but
divorces were not easily obtainable. Slavery was sanctioned among the
ancient Mexicans, but with this distinction unknown to any civilized
slave-holding community: no one could be _born_ to slavery. The
_children_ of the slave were _free_. Criminals, public debtors, persons
who from extreme poverty voluntarily resigned their freedom, and
children who were sold by their parents through poverty, constituted one
class of slaves. These were allowed to have their own families, to hold
property, and even other slaves. Prisoners taken in war were held as
slaves, and were almost invariably devoted to the dreadful doom of
sacrifice. A refractory or vicious slave might be led into the market
with a collar round his neck, as an indication of his badness, and
there publicly sold. If incorrigible, a second sale devoted him to
sacrifice.
"'Thus severe, almost ferocious, was the Aztec code, framed by a
comparatively rude people, who relied rather on physical than moral
means for the correction of evil. In its profound respect for the
cardinal principles of morality, and a clear perception of human
justice, it may favorably compare with that of most civilized nations.'
"'In Mexico,' says Prescott, 'as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the
priest the highest consideration. The King must be an experienced
warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the God of war. The great
object of their military expeditions was to gather hecatombs of captives
for his altars.' The Aztec, like the (so-called) _Christian crusader_,
invoked the holy name of religion as a motive for the perpetration of
human butchery. He, too, after his own crude fashion, had his order of
knighthood as the reward of military prowess. Whoever had not reached it
was debarred from using ornaments on his arms or on his person, and was
obliged to wear a coarse white stuff, made from the threads of the aloe,
called _nequen_. Even the members of the royal family were not excepted
from this law. As in Christian knighthood, plain armor and a shield
without device were worn till the soldier had achieved some doughty feat
of chivalry. After twenty brilliant actions officers might shave their
heads, and had, moreover, won the fantastic privilege of painting half
of the face red and the other half yellow. The panoply of the higher
warriors is thus described. Their bodies were clothed with a close vest
of quilted cotton, so thick as to be impenetrable to the light missiles
of Indian warfare. This garment was found so light and serviceable that
it was adopted by the Spaniards.
"The wealthier chiefs sometimes wore, instead of this cotton mail, a
cuirass made of thin plates of gold or silver. Over it was thrown a
surcoat of the gorgeous feather work in which they excelled. Their
helmets were sometimes of wood, fashioned like the heads of wild
animals, and sometimes of silver, on the top of which waved a panache of
variegated plumes, sprinkled with precious stones. They also wore
collars, bracelets, and earrings of the same rich materials.
"'A beautiful sight it was,' says one of the Spanish conquerors, 'to see
them set out on their march, all moving forward so gayly, and in so
admirable order!'
"Their military code had the cruel sternness of their other laws.
Disobedience of orders was punished with death.
"It was death to plunder another's booty or prisoners. It is related of
a Tezcucan prince that, in the spirit of ancient Roman, he put two of
his sons to death--after having cured their wounds--for violating this
last-mentioned law. A beneficent institution, which might seem to belong
to a higher civilization, is said to have flourished in this semi-pagan
land.
"Hospitals, we are told, were established in their principal cities for
the cure of the sick, and as permanent homes for the disabled soldier;
and surgeons were placed over them who 'were,' says a shrewd old
chronicler, 'so far better than those in Europe that they did not
_protract the cure in order to increase the pay_.'
"The horse, mule, ox, ass, or any other beast of burden, was unknown to
the Aztecs. Communication with remotest parts of the country was
maintained by means of couriers, trained from childhood to travel with
incredible swiftness.
"Post-houses were established on all the great roads, at about ten
leagues distance apart. The courier, bearing his despatches in the form
of hieroglyphical painting, ran with them to the first station, where
they were taken by another messenger, and so on, till they reached the
capital. Despatches were thus carried at the rate of from one to two
hundred miles a day.
"A traveller tells us of an Indian who, singly, made a record of a
hundred miles in twenty-four hours. A still greater feat in walking is
recorded by Plutarch. _His_ Greek runner brought the news of a victory
of a hundred and twenty-five miles in a single day!
"In the funeral rites of this ruder people one traces a slight
resemblance to those of the more cultivated Greek. They burned the body
after death, and the ashes of their dead, collected in vases, were
preserved in one of the apartments of the home. After death they dressed
the person's body in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It
was then strewed with pieces of paper, which operated as a charm against
the dangers of the dark road he was to travel. If a chief died he was
still spoken of as living. One of his slaves, dressed in his master's
clothes, was placed before his corpse. The face of this ill-starred
wretch was covered with a mask, and during a whole day such homage as
had been due to the chief was paid to him. At midnight the body of the
master was burnt, or interred, and the slave who had personated him was
sacrificed. Thereafter, every anniversary of the chief's birthday was
celebrated with a feast, but his death was never mentioned.
"The Spanish chroniclers have told us (and in reading these statements
due allowance must be made for their habit of 'stretching the truth')
that to the principal temple--or Teocallis--in the capital five thousand
priests were in some way attached. These, in their several departments,
not only arranged the religious festivals in conformity to the Aztec
calendar, and had charge of the hieroglyphical paintings and oral
traditions of the nation, but undertook the responsibility of
instructing its youth. While the cruel and bloody rites of sacrifice
were reserved for the chief dignitaries of the order, each priest was
allotted to the service of some particular diety, and had quarters
provided for him while in attendance upon the service of the temple.
"Though in many respects subject to strict sacerdotal discipline, Aztec
priests were allowed to marry and have families of their own. Thrice
during the day, and once at night, they were called to prayers. They
were frequent in ablutions and vigils, and were required to mortify the
flesh by fasting and penance, in good Roman Catholic fashion, drawing
their own blood by flagellation, or by piercing with thorns of aloes.
They also, like Catholic priests, administered the rites of confession
and absolution; but with this time-saving improvement: confession was
made but _once_ in a man's life,--the long arrears of iniquity, past and
present, thus settled, after offences were held inexpiable.
"Priestly absolution was received in place of legal punishment for
offences. It is recorded that, long after the Conquest, the simple
natives, when under arrest, sought escape by producing the certificate
of their confession.
"The address of the Aztec confessor to his penitent, with his prayer on
this occasion, has come down to us. As an evidence of the odd medley of
Christianity and paganism that marked this queer civilization, it is
quaintly interesting. 'O merciful Lord,' prayed he, 'thou who knowest
the secrets of all hearts, let thy forgiveness and favor descend, like
the pure waters of heaven, to wash away the stains from the soul. Thou
knowest that this poor man has sinned, not from his own will, but from
the influences of the sign under which he was born.'
"In his address to the penitent he urges the necessity of instantly
procuring a slave for sacrifice to the Deity. After this sanguinary
exhortation he enjoins upon his disciple this beautiful precept of
Christian benevolence: 'Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, whatever
privations it may cost thee, for, remember, their flesh is like thine,
and they are men like thee.'
"Sacerdotal functions (excepting those of sacrifice) were allowed to
women.
"At a very tender age these priestess girls were committed for
instruction to seminaries of learning, in which, it is recorded, a
strict moral discipline for both sexes was maintained, and that, in some
instances, offences were punished by death itself.
"Thus were these crafty Mexican priests (the Jesuits of their age)
enabled to mould young and plastic minds, and to gain a firm hold upon
the moral nature of their pupils. The priests had (as we are told) their
own especial calendar, by which they kept their records, and regulated,
to their liking, their religious festivals and seasons of sacrifice, and
made all their astrological calculations; for, like many imperfectly
civilized peoples, the Aztecs had their astrology. This priestly
calendar is said to have roused the holy indignation of the Spanish
missionaries.
"They condemned it as 'unhallowed, founded neither on natural reason,
nor on the influence of the planets, nor on the course of the year; but
plainly the work of necromancy, and the fruit of a contract with the
devil.'
"We are told that not even in ancient Egypt were the dreams of the
astrologer more implicitly referred to than in Aztec Mexico.
"On the birth of a child he (the astrologer) was instantly summoned, and
the horoscope--supposed to unroll the occult volume of destiny--was hung
upon by the parent in trembling suspense and implicit faith. No
Millerite in his ascension robe, awaiting the general break-up of
mundane affairs, ever looked forward with more confidence to the final
catastrophe than did the ancient Mexican to the predicted destruction of
the world at the termination of one of their four successive cycles of
fifty-two years.
"Prescott gives us this romantic account of the festival marking that
traditional epoch:
"'The cycle would end in the latter part of December; as the diminished
light gave melancholy presage of that time when the sun was to be
effaced from the heavens, and the darkness of chaos settle over the
habitable globe, these apprehensions increased, and on the arrival of
the five "unlucky days" that closed the year they abandoned themselves
to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household
gods, in whom they no longer trusted.
"'The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were
lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic utensils
were destroyed, and their garments torn in pieces, and everything was
thrown into disorder. On the evening of the last day, a procession of
priests moved from the capital towards a lofty mountain, about two
leagues distant. They carried with them as a victim for the sacrificial
altar the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the
new fire, the success of which was an augury for the renewal of the
cycle.
"'On the funeral pile of their slaughtered victim, the _new fire_ was
started by means of sticks placed on the victim's wounded breast. As the
light soared towards heaven on the midnight sky, a shout of joy and
triumph burst forth from the multitudes, who covered the hills, the
terraces of the temples, and the housetops with eyes anxiously bent upon
the mountain of sacrifice. Couriers with torches lighted at the blazing
beacon bore the cheering element far and near; and long before the sun
rose to pursue his accustomed track, giving assurance that a new cycle
had commenced its march, altar and hearthstone again brightened with
flame for leagues around.
"'All was now festivity. Joy had replaced despair. Houses were cleansed
and refurnished. Dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with
chaplets and garlands of flowers, the people thronged in gay procession
to the temples to offer up their oblations and thanksgivings. It was the
great secular national festival, which few alive had witnessed before,
or could expect to see again.'
"Although we find in the counsels of an Aztec father to his son the
following assertion, 'For the multiplication of the species God ordained
_one_ man _only_ for _one_ woman,' polygamy was nevertheless permitted
among this people, chiefly among the wealthiest classes.
"Marriage was recognized as a religious ceremony, and its obligations
strictly enjoined. Their women, we are told, were treated with a
consideration uncommon among Indian tribes. It is recorded that their
tranquil days were diversified by the feminine occupations of spinning,
feather-work, and embroidery, and that they also beguiled the hours by
the rehearsal of traditionary tales and ballads, and partook with their
lords in social festivities.
"Their entertainments seem to have been grand and costly affairs.
Numerous attendants, of both sexes, waited at the banquet; the halls
were scented with perfumes, flowers strewed the courts, and were
profusely distributed among the arriving guests.
"As they took their seats at the board, cotton napkins and ewers of
water were placed before them; for, as in the heroic days of Greece, the
ceremony of ablution before and after eating was punctiliously observed
by the Aztecs. The table was well provided with meats, especially game,
among which our own Thanksgiving bird, the turkey, was conspicuous.
These more solid dishes were flanked by others of vegetables, and with
fruits of every variety found on the North American Continent.
"The different viands were skilfully prepared, with delicate sauces and
pungent seasoning, of which the Mexicans were especially fond. They were
further regaled with confections and pastry; and the whole was crowned
by an 'afterclap' of tobacco mixed with aromatic substances, to be
enjoyed in pipes, or in the form of cigars, inserted in holders of
tortoise shell or silver. The meats were kept warm by chafing-dishes.
The table was ornamented with vases of silver (and sometimes of gold) of
delicate workmanship.
"We are told by the chroniclers that agriculture was, before the
Conquest, in an advanced state. There were peculiar deities to preside
over it, and the names of the months and of the religious festivals had
more or less reference to it. The public taxes were often paid in
agricultural produce. As among the Pueblos, Aztec women took part in
only the lighter labors of the field,--as the scattering of the seed,
the husking of the ripened corn.
"Maize, or Indian corn, the great staple of the North American
continent, grew freely along the valleys, and up the steep sides of the
Cordilleras, to the high table-land. Aztecs were, we are told, well
instructed in its uses, and their women as skilled in its preparation as
the most expert New England or Southern housewife.
"In these equinoctial regions, its gigantic stalk afforded a saccharine
matter which supplied them with a sugar but little inferior to that of
the cane itself (which, after the Conquest, was introduced among them).
Passing by all their varieties of superbly gorgeous flowers, of
luxuriously growing plants, many of them of medicinal value, and since
introduced from Mexico to Europe, we come to that 'miracle of nature,'
the great Mexican aloe, or _maguey_, which was, in short, meat, drink,
clothing, and writing material for the Aztec, as from its leaves was
made their paper, somewhat resembling Egyptian _papyrus_, but more soft
and beautiful.
"Specimens of this paper still exist, preserving their original
freshness, and holding yet unimpaired the brilliancy of color in
hieroglyphical painting. It is averred that the Aztecs were as well
acquainted with the uses of their mineral as of their vegetable kingdom,
deftly working their mines of silver, lead, and tin. It has, however,
been contended by Wilson, in his 'New Conquest of Mexico,' that, in
spite of Cortez's statement to the contrary, 'it is not to be supposed
that the Spaniards found the Aztecs in the possession of silver, since
its mining requires a combination of science and mechanical power
unknown and impossible to their crude civilization.' He considerately
allows them the capability of gathering gold from their rich soil.
"Prescott, on the contrary, tells us that 'they opened veins for the
procurement of silver in the solid rock, and that the traces of their
labors in these galleries furnished the best indications for the early
Spanish miners.'
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree? Not, indeed, a Koshare, whose
laudable purpose it is to eschew the wearisome 'gradgrinds' of history,
and accept the infinitely more charming conclusions of the romancer.
"Gold, say the chroniclers, was easily gleaned from the beds of their
rivers, and cast into bars, or in the form of dust, made part of the
regular tribute of the southern provinces of Montezuma's empire. They
cast, also, delicately and curiously wrought vessels of gold. Though
their soil was impregnated with iron, its use was unknown to this
people. As a substitute for this metal, they used, for their tools, a
bronze made from an alloy of tin and copper, or of itzli,--a dark
transparent metal, found in abundance in their hills. With the former
they could cut the hardest substances, such as emeralds and amethysts.
"It has been contended that an ignorance of the use of iron must
necessarily have kept the Mexican in a low state of civilization. On the
other hand, it is urged that iron, if even known, was but little in use
among the ancient Egyptians, whose mighty monuments were hewn with tools
of bronze, while their weapons and domestic utensils were of the same
material. For the ordinary purposes of domestic life, the ancient
Mexicans made earthenware, and fashioned cups, bowls, and vases of
lacquered wood, impervious to wet, and gorgeously colored.
"Among their dyes, obtained from both mineral and vegetable substances,
was the rich crimson of the cochineal, the modern rival of the far-famed
Tyrian purple. Later, this coloring material was introduced into Europe,
from Mexico, where the curious cochineal insect was nourished with great
care on plantations of cactus.
"The Aztecs were thus enabled to give a brilliant coloring to their webs
of cotton, which staple, in the warmer regions of their country, they
raised in abundance. With their cotton fabrics, manufactured of every
degree of fineness, they had the original art of interweaving the
delicate hair of rabbits and other animals, which made a cloth of great
warmth as well as beauty.
"On this they often laid a rich embroidery of birds, flowers, or some
other fanciful device. It is supposed that the Aztec 'silk,' mentioned
by Cortez, was nothing more than this fine texture of cotton, hair, and
down.
"But the art in which they especially excelled was their plumage or
feather-work. Some few existing specimens of this ancient art (one of
them a vestment said to have been worn by Montezuma himself) have, we
are told, 'all the charm of Florentine mosaic.'
"The gorgeous plumage of tropical birds, especially of the parrot-tribe,
afforded every variety of color, and the fine and abundant down of the
humming-bird supplied them with a finish of soft aerial tints. The
feathers pasted on a fine cotton web were wrought into dresses for the
wealthy. Hangings for apartments and ornaments for the temples were thus
fashioned. Labor was held in honorable estimation among this people. An
aged Aztec chief thus addressed his son: 'Apply thyself to agriculture,
or to feather-work, or some other honorable calling. Thus did your
ancestors before you. Else, how could they have provided for themselves
and their families? Never was it heard that nobility alone was able to
maintain its possessor.'
"The occupation of the merchant was held by them in high respect. These
were of prime consideration in the body politic, and enjoyed many of the
most essential advantages of an hereditary aristocracy. Mexico, as their
abundant use among the Aztecs testifies, is especially rich in precious
stones. It is the land of the emerald, the amethyst, the turquoise, and
the topaz; and that superbest of gems, the fire opal, is native to its
generous soil.
"One of Cortez's wedding gifts to his second bride is thus described:
'This was five emeralds of wonderful size and brilliancy. These jewels
had been cut by the Aztecs into the shapes of flowers, and fishes, and
into other fanciful forms, with an exquisite style of workmanship which
enhanced their original value.'
"It was gossiped at court that the Queen of Charles the Fifth had an eye
to these magnificent gems, and that the preference given by Cortez to
his fair bride had an unfavorable influence on the Conqueror's future
fortunes. Among the 'royal fifth' of the Mexican spoils sent by Cortez
to the Spanish Emperor, we are told of a still more wonderful emerald.
It was cut in a pyramidal shape, and of so extraordinary a size that the
base of it was affirmed to have been as broad as the palm of the hand.
"This rich collection of gold and jewelry, wrought into many rare and
fanciful forms, was captured on its road to Spain by a French privateer,
and is said to have gone into the treasury of Francis the First.
Francis, we are told, looking enviously on the treasures drawn by his
rival monarch from his colonial domains, expressed a desire to 'see the
clause in Adam's testament, which entitled his brothers of Spain and
Portugal to divide the New World between them.'
"The Aztec picture writing, rude though it was, seems to have served the
nation in its early and imperfect state of civilization.
"By means of it, as an auxiliary to oral tradition, their mythology,
laws, calendars, and rituals were carried back to an early period of
their civilization.
"Their manuscripts, the material for which has already been described,
were most frequently made into volumes, in which the paper was shut up
like a folding screen. With a tablet of wood at each extremity, they
thus, when closed, had the appearance of books. A few of these Mexican
manuscripts have been saved, and are carefully preserved in the public
libraries of European capitals. The most important of these painted
records, for the light it throws on the Aztec institutions, is preserved
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The greater part of these writings,
having no native interpretation annexed to them, cannot now be
unriddled.
"A savant who, in the middle of the seventeenth century travelled
extensively through their country, asserts that, 'so completely had
every vestige of their ancient language been swept away from the land,
not an individual could be found who could afford him the least clue to
the Aztec hieroglyphics.'
"Some few Aztec compositions, which may possibly owe their survival to
oral tradition, still survive. These are poetical remains, in the form
of odes, or relics of their more elaborate prose, and consist largely of
prayers and public discourses, that show that, in common with other
native orators, the Aztecs paid much attention to rhetorical effect. The
Aztec hieroglyphics included both the representative and symbolical
forms of picture-writing.
"They had various emblems for expressing such things as, by their
nature, could not be directly represented by the painter; as, for
example, the years, months, days, the seasons, the elements, the
heavens, and so on.
"A serpent typified time, a tongue denoted speaking, a footprint
travelling, a man sitting on the ground an earthquake.
"The names of persons were often significant of their adventures and
achievement.
"Summing up this account of Aztec civilization, we find that, although
of the countries from which Toltec and Aztec in turn issued tradition
has lost the record, it is nevertheless affirmed, by so reliable an
historian as Humboldt, that the former introduced into Mexico the
cultivation of maize and cotton; that they built cities, made roads, and
constructed pyramids. 'They knew,' says this authoritative historian,
'the uses of hieroglyphical paintings; they could work metals, and cut
the hardest stones; and they had a solar system more perfect than that
of the Greeks and Romans.'
"After their mysterious disappearance from the table-lands of Mexico,
the Aztecs, who succeeded them, gradually amalgamated all that was best
in their civilization, and, engrafting upon it their own, became as a
nation what they were in the time of the second Montezuma, when Cortez
and his conquering army treacherously swept their civilization from the
face of the earth.
"A thoughtful traveller still finds in Mexico traces of this people, its
early possessors.
"The Mexicans, in their whole aspect," he observes, "give a traveller
the idea of persons of decayed fortune, who have once been more
prosperous and formidable than now, or who had been the offshoot of a
more refined and forcible people."