TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE NAHUA NATIONS.
The Early Inhabitants of Mexico — Quinames — Miztecs and Zapotecs
— Totonacs and Huastecs — Olmecs and Xicalancas — The Nahuas —
The Cholula Pyramid — Its Origin Explained in the Duran MS. —
No Relation to a Flood — Ixtlilxochitl’s Deluge Tradition — The
first Toltecs — The Codex Chimalpopoca Account — The Discovery
of Maize — Sahagun’s Origin of the Nahuas — They came from
Florida — Their Settlement in Tamoanchan — Their Migrations
— Hue Hue Tlapalan — Its Location, according to the Sources
— Not Identical with Tlapallan de Cortés — Not in Central
America — Probably in the Mississippi Valley — Beginning of the
Toltec Annals — The Chichimecs not Nahuas — The Nahuatlacas —
The Aztecs — Aztlan — As Described by Early Writers — Aztec
Migration — Aztec Maps — Señor Ramirez on Migration Maps — The
Seven Caves — Three Claims for the Location of Aztlan — The
Culture Hero — Quetzalcoatl.
In considering the origin of the Nahua nations, especially of the
Toltecs and Aztecs, it is common to look upon the former as the first
inhabitants of Mexico. Such a conclusion is, however, erroneous, since
the Toltecs were preceded in Central-Southern Mexico, and even in
Anahuac, both by people of different extraction from themselves and
by scattering tribes of their own linguistic family, the Nahua. Of
the former class, the most conspicuous are the so-called Quinametin
(or Quinames), otherwise known as giants. These fierce and powerful
people were encountered by the Olmecs, the first Nahuas to colonize
the region north of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. All the early writers
refer to them in terms which indicate that they were disposed to accept
the existence of a race of giants as a fact. Veytia and Clavigero,
however, are convinced that the report is not to be accepted literally.
The widest possible difference of opinion as to their origin and
relationship to existing tribes prevails with different authors. All
agree, however, that they were the first inhabitants of the country.
These cruel monsters, addicted to the most disgusting vices, the
terror of the immigrating peoples, at last met their fate, according
to Ixtlilxochitl, in a great convulsion of nature which shook the
earth and caused the mountains and volcanoes to swallow up and kill
them.[362] It is probable that this account was figurative. Duran
says they were destroyed by the Tlascaltecs while eating.[363] Veytia
attributes the destruction to the Olmec chiefs, who made a feast for
their enemies and when they were stupid and drunken fell upon them
and slew them. We think that in this allusion to the giants, “the
first inhabitants of the land,” we see the Votanic colonists from
Xibalba that are supposed to have penetrated Anahuac at an early
day. They may not have carried any special degree of refinement with
them from their old home, and if they did, they probably lapsed into
a state of semi-barbarism. Their power as a people, their enmity to
the immigrants, and their traditional connection with the hated and
all-powerful Xibalba, may have won for them the name of giants because
of the fear that was entertained of them; or, as Mr. Bancroft thinks,
they may not have been savages at all, but a civilized branch of the
Xibalbans, carrying on the warfare in the North which had been waged
farther South.[364] It is quite probable that we have here a figurative
allusion, from a Nahua standpoint, to the fall of the Xibalban power
itself—the new-world Babylon, which, like the old, may have met its
fate during a drunken revel.[365]
To the tribes which figured conspicuously in Mexico prior to the
Toltecs and not related to the Nahuas, we may add the Miztecs and
Zapotecs, whose language, though not Maya, is in some respects similar
to it, while the architectural remains and traditional origin of
this people associates them with the Nahuas. Their civilization in
Oajaca rivalled that of the Aztecs in its degree of advancement.[366]
The Totonacs were formerly, according to Torquemada, of Nahua
extraction; but the authority in the face of linguistic difficulties
is doubtful.[367] According to Torquemada’s claim, they were the
builders of the temple of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan near Lake
Tezcuco.[368] The Huastecs of northern Vera Cruz were a Maya branch
of the power at the south; they mark the most northern point reached
by the Maya tongue. Of the Nahua predecessors of the Toltecs in
Mexico the Olmecs and Xicalancas were the most important. They were
the forerunners of the great nations which followed. According to
Ixtlilxochitl, these people—which are conceded to be one—occupied the
new world in the third age; they came from the East in ships or barks
to the land of Potonchan, which they commenced to populate, and on
the shores of the River Atoyac, between the Ciudad de los Angeles and
Cholula, they found some giants who had escaped the calamity which
overtook that race in the second age of the world.[369] Here then comes
the destruction of the giants referred to above. The first settlement
of the Olmecs and Xicalancas in Mexico is supposed to have been on the
site of the ancient city of Xicalanco at the point which still bears
the name, at the entrance of the Laguna de Terminos, while a second
city, built probably a little later, was situated on the coast a short
distance below Vera Cruz; the entire region bore the name of Anahuac
Xicalanco.[370] The first great exploit of the Olmec chiefs, the
destruction of the giants, we observe was performed at some distance
from their earliest settlement. The state of Puebla became their chosen
ground, and quite soon after the above achievement they undertook the
building of the famous tower of Cholula, which is so closely allied in
its traditional history with the Tower of Babel. Several authors state
that the erection of the pyramid of Cholula was done in memory of the
erection of the tower of Babel, at which it is claimed the ancestors
of the Olmec chiefs were present. Boturini is probably one of the
most sanguine advocates of this view.[371] Others consider that the
knowledge which the ancestors of this people transmitted to them with
reference to Babel, in time became associated with the Cholula edifice
and confounded with its history.
The Toltecs possessed a deluge tradition, which we will notice
hereafter, which unquestionably had reference to a very general and
devastating flood; perhaps the scriptural one, but it is clear, as we
think we have the authority to show, that the Cholula pyramid and its
origin had no relation to that tradition, though so often confounded
with it and the tower referred to by the Nahua chroniclers. The
generally accepted origin of the pyramid is as follows: from the great
cataclysm which destroyed the giants, seven of that race of monsters
escaped by shutting themselves up in a mountain cavern. After the
waters subsided, Xelhua, one of their number, went to Cholula and began
the construction of this pyramid “to escape a second flood, should
another occur,” according to Kingsborough, or as a “memorial of the
mountain called Tlaloc which had sheltered him,” according to Pedro
de los Rios. The bricks which were manufactured at the foot of the
Sierra de Cocotl were transported to Cholula by being passed through
the hands of a file of men extending between the two localities. But
the angered gods seeing the presumption of mortals, smote both the
tower and its architects with thunderbolts and stopped their work.[372]
Lord Kingsborough so intimately connects the erection of the tower
with the Toltec deluge legend as to derive Xelhua, the builder of
the tower, from the Toltecs rather than from the race of giants, by
claiming that he escaped from the deluge with Paticatle the Mexican
Noah in an ark, and adds that when the tower was destroyed and the
tongues of the builders confounded, Xelhua led a colony to the new
world. This last will serve as a specimen of how the Cholula legend
has been misunderstood and confounded with the tower of Babel. Father
Duran in his MS.,[373] _Historia Antigua de la Nueva España_, 1585 A.
D., quotes from the lips of a native of Cholula, over an hundred years
old, a version of the legend which assigns quite a different object
for building the Pyramid, one which shows that it never was erected
as a memorial of Babel nor ever had any reference to an escape from
any flood either past or in anticipation. It is as follows: “In the
beginning before the light of the sun had been created, this land
was in obscurity and darkness and void of any created thing; all was
a plain without hill or elevation, encircled in every part by water
without tree or created thing; and immediately after the light and the
sun arose in the east, there appeared gigantic men of deformed stature,
and possessed the land, who desiring to see the nativity of the sun as
well as his occident, proposed to go and seek them. Dividing themselves
into two parties, some journeyed toward the West and others toward
the East; these travelled until the sea cut off their road, whereupon
they determined to return to the place from which they started, and
arriving at this place (Cholula), not finding the means of reaching the
sun, enamored of his light and beauty, they determined to build a tower
so high that its summit should reach the sky. Having collected material
for the purpose, they found a very adhesive clay and bitumen, with
which they speedily commenced to build the tower, and having reared
it to the greatest possible altitude, so that they say it reached to
the sky, the Lord of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of
the sky, ‘Have you observed how they of the earth have built a high
and haughty tower to mount hither, being enamored of the light of the
sun and his beauty? Come! and confound them; because it is not right
that they of the earth, living in the flesh, should mingle with us.’
Immediately at that very instant the inhabitants of the sky sallied
forth like flashes of lightning; they destroyed the edifice and divided
and scattered its builders to all parts of the earth.”[374] This
account, the most ancient on record, makes no reference to a flood,
and is quite distinct from the Mexican deluge tradition. Its value as
an interpreter of the tendency of the American tribes not only of the
United States and Mexico, but of both Americas, to erect mounds and
truncated pyramids is not inconsiderable, since it confirms the opinion
long entertained that they were connected with sun-worship. The great
culture-hero, Quetzalcoatl, the white saintly personage from the East,
said to have been the leader of the Nahuas, appeared during the Olmec
rule, and to his honor the Cholulans erected a temple upon the pyramid
which their countrymen or predecessors had failed to complete.[375]
Quetzalcoatl was, however, no tribal hero, but was so intimately
identified with the institutions and civilization of the entire Nahua
race that we purposely defer a consideration of his character at
present in order that we may hasten to the traditional origin of the
Toltecs.
It is not our purpose to go back to the several traditions of the
creation of man, preserved in as many localities in Mexico, each with
its own variations, but simply to take up tradition where it first
relates to the Toltec families. We are fully aware of the wide range
of opinion with reference to what properly constitutes this tradition,
and of the irreconcilable variations in dates and numeric details
among the several Spanish writers. Probably all will agree that the
native writer Ixtlilxochitl, who inherited the rich collection of royal
archives and hieroglyphic paintings belonging to his ancestors (and
which fortunately escaped the wholesale vandalism of the conquerors),
though both contradictory and negligent, has furnished us the most
reliable narrative which has yet been brought to light. Without
attempting to correct or unravel his chronology, we simply translate
his account of the origin of the Toltecs. Speaking of the first age
of the world, the pre-diluvial period, he says: “It is found in the
histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world as they call
it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and
lightning from the sky, and even all the land without the exception of
anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in
water ‘caxtolmoletlti,’ or _fifteen cubits_, and here they add other
fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this
destruction in a ‘toptlipetlacali,’ that this word nearly signifies a
close chest; and how after men had multiplied they erected a very high
‘zacuali,’ which is to say a tower of great height, in order to take
refuge in it, should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently
their languages were confused; and not able to understand each other,
they went to different parts of the earth. The Toltecs, consisting
of seven friends with their wives, who understood the same language,
came to these parts, having first passed great land and seas, having
lived in caves, and having endured great hardships in order to reach
this land, which they found good and fertile for their habitation; and
relate that they wandered one hundred and four years through different
parts of the world before they reached Hue hue Tlapalan, which was in
Ce Tecpatl, five hundred and twenty years after the flood. Seventeen
hundred and fifteen years after the flood, there was a terrible
hurricane that carried away trees, mounds, houses and the largest
edifices, notwithstanding which many men and women escaped principally
in caves and places where the great hurricane could not reach them.
A few days having passed, they set out to see what had become of the
earth, when they found it all covered and populated with monkeys. All
this time they were in darkness without seeing the light of the sun
nor the moon that the wind had brought them. The Indians invented a
fable which says that men were changed into monkeys. * * * One hundred
and fifty-eight years after the great hurricane and 4994 from the
creation of the world, there was another destruction of this land,
which was of the Quinametin, giants who lived in New Spain, which
destruction was a great trembling of the earth, which swallowed up and
killed them, the mountains and volcanoes burst upon them, that for a
certainty none should escape. At the same time many of the Toltecs
perished and the Chichimecs their neighbors. That was in the year Ce
Tecpatl; and this age they call Tlachilonatnip, that is to say, sun [or
age] of earth.”[376] Here follows an account of the construction of
the calendar by the assembly of Lords in Hue hue Tlapalan in the year
5097 of the creation of the world and 104 after the destruction of the
giants.
The singular agreement of this account with the Mosaic description,
in some of its details, such as the height attained by the waters
above the mountains, the escape of certain persons in an ark, and
the erection of a high tower, together with the subsequent confusion
of tongues, Lord Kingsborough is convinced furnishes proof that the
Toltecs were of Jewish descent.[377] While we are not prepared to
believe the sanguine speculations of that eminent author in this
case, still one of two views must be true: either the Toltecs were
of old world origin, and at a remote period treasured up among their
traditional histories notices of the Mosaic deluge, traditions of
which are so generally current among the Asiatic nations, or the
Mexican traditions of local inundation were warped by the teachings
of the Spanish priests in a degree beyond any precedent in history
or reasonable expectation, and that within a comparatively few years
after the conquest. Our authority in this case is a native of Tezcuco,
a son of the queen; and because of his acquaintance with both the
hieroglyphic writings and the Castilian, served as interpreter to
the viceroy. His _Relacions_ were composed from the archives of
his family and compared with the testimony of the oldest and best
informed natives. It does not seem to us that the sense of historic
integrity cultivated to so nice a point at Tezcuco, where the censorial
council, just prior to the advent of the conquerors, punished with
death any who should willfully pervert the truth, could have so
sadly degenerated that Ixtlilxochitl and the venerable natives who
were conscious of the representations contained in his work, should
proclaim a falsehood which would not meet with contradiction.[378] We
are aware that this author’s chronology is an inextricable maze of
contradictions which cannot be unravelled or reconstructed. The Toltec
families, seven in number, are, however, said to have reached Hue hue
Tlapalan five hundred and twenty years after the flood. The journey,
however, occupied only one hundred and four years of that time. Their
wanderings, attended with severe experiences, nakedness, and hunger and
cold, were over many lands, across expanses of sea and through untold
hardships.[379]
The date of the migration to Hue hue Tlapalan cannot be approximated
from available data, but it is evident that Ixtlilxochitl fixes it
at 520 years after the flood, or 2236 years after the creation—a
period which must have antedated the Christian era by a score of
centuries or more, even if we accept his chronology, which (on p.
322 of his _Relacions_), implies that more than five thousand years
elapsed between the creation and the birth of Christ. The _Codex
Chimalpopoca_, a Nahua record written in Spanish letters, which
occupies probably the same relation to early Mexican history that
the _Popol Vuh_ does to the Maya history, has been made known to us
through the writings of Brasseur de Bourbourg, but as yet it has not
been published. Ixtlilxochitl was the copyist of this document, and of
course used it in composing his _Relacions_. Mr. Bancroft has attempted
to collect from scattered passages, taken from the _Codex Chimalpopoca_
and found in Brasseur’s writings, a continuous narrative, but with
little success. “The division of the earth,” by the sun, “six times
four hundred, plus one hundred, plus thirteen years ago to-day, the
twenty-second of May, 1558;” in other words, in the year 955 B. C., is
a date obtained which seems to refer to the division of the land among
the followers of Votan.[380] In the _Popol Vuh_, Gucumatz (whose name
signifies plumed serpent) is described as going in search of maize,
while the _Codex Chimalpopoca_ describes Quetzalcoatl, whose name is
identical in meaning with that of Gucumatz, as entering upon the same
undertaking, though under somewhat different circumstances, and states
that when he had found it, he brought it to Tamoanchan.[381] We shall
see hereafter that Sahagun locates Tamoanchan in Tabasco, a fact of
considerable value in studying the Toltec migration. The reader will
not, however, associate Quetzalcoatl with the above date, since such
is not the purport of the record. The _Chimalpopoca_ implies that
Quetzalcoatl afterwards becoming obnoxious to his companions forsook
them, a statement noted by Mr. Bancroft, though its full value does
not seem to have been observed by that author.[382] The account
clearly refers to the role of Quetzalcoatl among the Quichés, when he
was known as Gucumatz, and prior to his appearance among the Olmec
(Nahua) tribes. It indicates that the _Codex Chimalpopoca_ account of
the discovery of maize is purely Quiché, and has no reference to the
Nahuas whatever. The search for maize by the plumed serpent, call
him by either his Quiché or Nahua name if you wish, was prior to the
advent of that remarkable personage among the Nahuas. The reputed
discovery we consider nothing more than a figurative allusion to
the introduction of agriculture by this culture-hero, the knowledge
of which he afterwards communicated to the Nahuas at Tamoanchan. If
these inferences are true, the _Codex Chimalpopoca_, so far as we
are acquainted with its contents, can render us no assistance with
reference to the question in hand. We will now return to the beginning
of the subject and cite additional authorities, chief among them
Sahagun. In the introduction to his _Historia General_, in speaking
of the origin of this people, he expresses the opinion that it is
impossible to definitely determine more than that they report “that all
the natives came from seven caves, and that these seven caves are the
seven ships or galleys in which the first populators of the land came.”
He adds, “The first people came to populate this land from towards
Florida, and came coasting and disembarked at the port of Pánuco, which
they called Panco, which signifies a place to which they come who pass
the water. This people came in quest of the terrestrial paradise, and
were known by the name Tamoanchan, by which they mean, ‘we seek our
home.’ They settled around the highest mountains that they found. In
coming toward the midday to find the terrestrial paradise, they did
not err, because it is the opinion of the knowing that it is under the
equinoctial line.”[383] The above account is rendered more definite
in the following passage from his third volume:[384] “Countless years
ago the first settlers arrived in these parts of New Spain—which is
nearly another world—coming with ships by sea, approached a port at
the North, and because they disembarked there, it is called Panutla or
Panaoia, place where they arrive who come by the sea; at present it
is corruptly called Pantlan. From that port they commenced to journey
by the shores of the sea, ever beholding the snow-capped Sierras and
the volcanoes, until they came to the province of Guatemala, being
guided by their priest who carried with him their god, with whom he
always counseled concerning what he should do. They settled down in
Tamoanchan, where they were a long time, and never ceased to have their
wise men or prophets, called Amoxoaqui, which signifies ‘men learned
in the ancient paintings,’ who, although they came at the same time,
did not remain with the rest in Tamoanchan, for leaving them there,
they re-embarked and took with them all the paintings of the rites
and mechanic arts which they had brought.” The account continues by
stating that the priests informed their companions before leaving them,
that their God had made them masters of the land, and that they should
inhabit it and await his return. The priests then departed towards
the East with their idol wrapped in blankets. Whereupon the people
invented judicial astrology and the art of interpreting dreams. They
there also constructed the calendar which was followed during the time
of the Toltecs, Mexicans, Tepanecs and Chichimecs. The first migratory
movement was to Teotihuacan, where they erected two mountains in honor
of the sun and moon. Here they elected their rulers and buried their
princes, erecting mounds over their graves. This seems to have become
their holy city. The main power which had remained for a long time in
Tamoanchan was changed to Xumiltepec. From this latter place they,
however, at the instance of their priests, started again on their
migrations. First going to Teotihuacan in order to choose their wise
men. Notwithstanding the remarks of Sahagun that the seven caves were
the seven ships in which the first settlers came to New Spain, he here
affirms that in the course of their migration they came to the valley
of the seven caves. How long they remained in this national centre
we have no means of knowing, but eventually their god told them to
retrace their steps, which they did, going to Tollancingo (Tulancingo)
and finally to Tulan (Tollan). Ixtlilxochitl, if he can be relied
upon (and if he is unreliable we might as well give up the task of
tracing the early history of this or any other Mexican people) shows
clearly that the ancestors of the Toltecs were possessed of certain
traditions which point to an Asiatic origin; that at a remote period
they set out from that common home of so many peoples, possessing the
same traditions, in search of a suitable country in which to live;
that after one hundred and four years occupied in traversing broad
lands and seas, they arrived in a country called Hue hue Tlapalan.
This event, according to his chronology, must have occurred upwards
of twenty centuries before Christ. He tells us also that in Hue hue
Tlapalan, the Toltecs regulated their calendar. Sahagun says that
countless years ago the first inhabitants of the country (Mexico)
came by sea from the direction of Florida on the North, and landing
at Pánuco, journeyed down the coast to Guatemala (which is supposed
to have embraced Chiapas and perhaps Tabasco, though such is only the
conjecture of an earnest advocate of the Southern location of Hue hue
Tlapalan, _i. e._, Mr. Bancroft) where they established a city called
Tamoanchan—there the calendar was regulated or corrected. Whether this
was the same construction of the calendar referred to by Ixtlilxochitl
as having taken place in Hue hue Tlapalan is questionable. If positive
proof of the identity of these occurrences could be produced, the
identity of Tamoanchan and Hue hue Tlapalan would be complete, and the
disputed location of the latter would be fixed in the Chiapan region or
the country of the Xibalbans. The fact that Quetzalcoatl brought maize
to Tamoanchan seems to indicate a comparative proximity of that country
to the Southern region where that culture-hero figured so conspicuously
under the Quiché name of Gucumatz. If no other testimony need be
introduced the disputed locality might be fixed as above indicated.
However, the contradictory records of Ixtlilxochitl, which we are now
about to cite, unsettle this conclusion. The Toltec migration from Hue
hue Tlapalan is briefly as follows: Three hundred and thirty-eight
years after Christ a revolt occurred among the Toltecs in Hue hue
Tlapalan, in which two rebel princes attempted to depose the legitimate
successor to the throne. These rebel chiefs, named Chalcatzin and
Tlacamihtzin respectively, were unsuccessful, and together with five
other chiefs and their numerous allies and people, were driven out of
their city Tlachicatzin in Hue hue Tlapalan. After a journey of sixty
leagues, they arrived at a place which they called Tlapallanconco, or
Little Tlapalan. Their departure from their old home did not occur till
they had withstood a contest of eight years—or, according to Veytia,
thirteen years—duration.[385] At Tlapallanconco they lived three years,
at the end of which time there arose among them a great astrologer,
named Hueman or Huematzin, who counseled them to forsake the land of
their misfortunes and journey toward the rising sun, where there was
a happy land formerly occupied by Quinames, but now depopulated. This
advice seeming good they set out on their journey at the end of the
three years, or eleven years after leaving Hue hue Tlapalan. After
traveling twelve days and accomplishing seventy leagues they arrived
at Hueyxalan, and remained there four years. From thence a twenty days
journey toward the East, or according to Veytia, toward the West, and
of one hundred leagues in length, brought them to Xalisco, near the
sea-shore. Here they remained eight years. Twenty days journey and 100
leagues more brought them to Chimalhuacan on the coast opposite certain
islands, where they resided five years. Eighteen days or 80 leagues
traversed toward the East, and they arrived at Toxpan, where they
dwelt five years more. Proceeding eastward twenty days’ journey or 100
leagues, they came to Quiyahuitztlan Anahuac, situated on the coast.
Here they were obliged to pass inlets of the sea in boats. During a
six years’ sojourn at this point, they suffered many hardships. An
eighteen days’ journey or 80 leagues brought them to Zacatlan where
they dwelt seven years. From thence they journeyed eighty leagues to
Totzapan and dwelt there six years. They next journeyed to Tepetla,
distant twenty-eight days, or 140 leagues, where they dwelt seven
years. Eighteen days’ journey or 80 leagues brought them to Mazatepec,
where they remained eight years, and a similar journey brought them
to Ziuhcohuatl where they tarried also eight years. Turning northward
from this unknown point, they journeyed twenty days or 100 leagues
and halted at Yztachuexucha, where they dwelt twenty-six years.
At last, after a journey of eighteen days or eighty leagues, they
arrived at Tulancingo (Tulantzinco, or Tollantzinco) a name already
familiar to us. Here the Toltecs emerge from what has been to us an
unknown wilderness without geographic guide-post or even a polar
star by which to reckon. Their itinerary, full of so many gaps and
inconsistencies, its frequent omission of the directions traversed,
with its starting-point so indefinitely located, is meaningless and
confusing, and so far as the reader is concerned, practically begins
nowhere and ends in nothing. At Tulancingo they remained eighteen
years, living in a house sufficiently large to accommodate them all.
Their knowledge of architecture must have been quite advanced to have
enabled them to construct such an edifice. The third year after their
arrival at Tulancingo, marked a Toltec age of 104 years from the time
they left their home in Hue hue Tlapalan. Finally, eighteen years
having elapsed, they transferred the capital to Tollan, afterwards the
centre of the Toltec empire. Tollan is stated to have been eastward
of Tulancingo (in all probability a mistake).[386] In this migration
we have a distance of 1150 leagues traversed; the first two moves,
aggregating 130 leagues, is in an unknown direction; the next advance
is 100 leagues in an easterly direction, according to one author, and
westerly according to another; however, it is agreed that the point
was on the sea-shore. The next move of 100 leagues is still along the
sea-shore, but the direction is not stated. We then have two advances
amounting to 180 leagues, in an easterly direction. The confusion
is completed in the following advances, aggregating 460 leagues in
unknown directions. Of the remaining 180 leagues, 100 were traveled in
a northern direction, while the remaining 80 leagues were taken toward
an unknown quarter. It is quite plain to any one, that the distances
traversed in the directions stated could not be traced consistently
with the geography of Mexico and Central America, upon the assumption
that Tamoanchan and Hue hue Tlapalan are identical and situated in the
Rio Usumacinta region. The itinerary would carry the emigrants far
out upon the Gulf of Mexico. It is evident that a broader territory
than that of Southern Mexico and Central America is required for the
realization of such distances. The account of the migration is no doubt
faulty; but even if we disregard the gaps, it presents insuperable
difficulties when applied to the South-Mexican region. It is manifest
that Sahagun and Ixtlilxochitl refer to different migrations. The
former to the Olmecs, who came by sea to Pánuco and thence to Tabasco,
from which they migrated north to Teotihuacan. The latter narrates the
wanderings of the Toltecs who subsequently came into Mexico by land.
If this distinction is borne in mind, much of the obscurity attending
the subject is cleared away. We are inclined to think that the accounts
of the two distinct migrations have become confused, and the details
of one substituted for the details of the other. Every one familiar
with the study of traditional histories is aware of this danger, or
even more, this tendency among semi-civilized peoples. No better
illustration of this fact can be presented than the sad confusion which
has been wrought by nearly every writer who has attempted to describe
the two distinct personages in Mexican history, known by the name of
Quetzalcoatl. Only Sahagun of all the early writers has seemed to have
any clear conception of their individual and independent attributes.
The demi-god, and the Toltec king, and the achievements of each, have
been made to change places so often by Spanish writers, that the result
has, with each new treatment of the subject, been confusion worse
confounded. Sahagun’s account of the arrival of the Nahuas in ships,
from the direction of Florida, their landing in Pánuco, their journey
toward Guatemala, their residence in Tamoanchan (probably somewhere
in the Chiapan region) and their subsequent migration northward to
Teotihuacan with its well-known pyramids, and finally their removal
to Tollan, north of the City of Mexico, by the way of Tolancingo,
is a straightforward account which finds support in the best of
evidence, both of a material and linguistic character. Sr. Orozco y
Berra has clearly shown by linguistic testimony that the Nahua nations
entered the country somewhere between the nineteenth and twenty-first
degrees of north latitude, on the Gulf coast, migrated southward to
a point seventeen and one-half degrees north latitude, almost to the
Chiapan region, and then retracing their steps northward, almost to a
point opposite Vera Cruz, they crossed Mexico to the Pacific coast,
along which they extended their language northward nearly to the
twenty-seventh degree north latitude.[387] Sahagun says nothing of Hue
hue Tlapalan in his account of the migration from Tamoanchan to Tollan
or from Chiapas to Anahuac, for his account refers to the Olmecs, the
first Nahuas to reach Mexico.
Mr. John H. Becker, of Berlin, in an able paper addressed to the
Congrès des Américainistes at Luxembourg (_Compte Rendu de la Seconde
Session_, tom. i, pp. 325–50), after offering plausible arguments for
the identification of Tulan Zuiva of the Quichés, Hue hue Tlapalan of
the Toltecs, Amaquemecan of the Chichimecs, and Oztotlan of the Aztecs,
with the region of the upper Rio Grande del Norte and Rio Colorado—the
land of the ravines, of grottoes, and of cañons—attempts to trace the
Toltec migration as given by Ixtlilxochitl. His interesting solution
of the difficult problem is as follows: “The Toltecs driven out of Hue
hue Tlapalan by civil wars (towards the end of the fourth century of
our era?) move in a westerly direction sixty leagues to Tlapalanconco
(northern Sinaloa and Sonora on the Rio Yaqui, where distinct traces
of the Nahua language exist?); thence, after eleven years, they go
to Hueyxalan, seventy leagues distant (perhaps the northern part of
Durango, where the Tepehuana language shows strong Nahua affinities);
thence to Xalisco on the coast, one hundred leagues distant; thence
to Chimalhuacan Atenco on the coast opposite some islands, one
hundred leagues (opposite the islands in the southern end of the Gulf
of California)? In that case they did undoubtedly suffer a reverse
in Xalisco (where they touched upon the more thickly populated and
civilized country, and by which they were forced to retire); thence
eastward eighty leagues to Toxpan (in the neighborhood of the Laguna
de Tlahuila and on the upper Sabina River). In that country there is
even now a tribe of Tochos, and the Tarahumara language there spoken,
shows distinct affinities to the Nahua tongue; thence eastward one
hundred leagues to Quahuitzlan Anahuac, on the coast with inlets—the
coast-land of the state of Tamaulipas, on the Gulf of Mexico? About
this locality there can scarcely be a doubt, since this eastern coast
country and the eastern plateau bore the general name Quetzalapan or
Huitzilapan, until the Nahuas took possession of them, when the plateau
was designated as _Huitznahuac_, and the name above given would be
the natural one to apply to the coast, since while _nahuac_ (_an_)
means simply the Nahualand, _Anahuac_ (_an_) means the ‘Nahua land on
the water,’ while Quahuitzlan is the old name retained in order to
distinguish this Anahuac on the Gulf coast from the Anahuac around the
Mexican lakes. Here they ‘suffered great hardships,’ and finally went
westward eighty leagues to Zacatlan (the northern part of the State
of Zacatecas?); from there eighty leagues to Totzapan, probably again
in the neighborhood of Toxpan before mentioned (where the Tusanes are
located even to-day); thence one hundred and forty leagues to Tepetla
(the extraordinary distance shows that at last they gained a decisive
victory, and broke through the frontier of the more civilized country
which they had hitherto felt). Tepetla, mountainland, must consequently
be sought in the neighborhood of the high mountains of Anahuac; thence
eighty leagues to Mazatepec (the mountain of the Mazahuas, skirting
the valley of Mexico towards north and west); thence eighty leagues to
Ziuhcohuatl, where they probably suffered another defeat, for they move
full one hundred leagues northward to Yztachuechucha, and stop there
twenty-three years, a sufficient time to raise another generation of
warriors; thence eighty leagues to Tollantzingo, and then finally to
‘Tollan,’ the capital of their future empire, which if Ixtlilxochitl’s
dates can be trusted, they built about 500 B. C., on the site of a
former city of the Otomis.” This ingenious and thoughtful review of the
route commends itself to all who are interested in this subject. Mr.
Becker considers that one great argument for the correctness of the
starting-point which he has chosen is “the fact that even the distances
as given by Ixtlilxochitl agree with the actual situation of the
various localities here indicated.” Ixtlilxochitl, obscure as he is,
gives in another part of his work an additional account, besides the
one we have already quoted, which greatly strengthens our conviction
that the Toltecs came into Mexico from the north, and confirms the
investigations of both Mr. Becker and of Sr. Orozco. The account is
as follows: “In this fourth age there came to this land of Anahuac,
which is at present called New Spain, those of the Toltec nations who,
according to the accounts of their histories, were expelled from their
land, and after having navigated and coasted on the South Sea along
various lands as far as the present California, they came to what is
called Huitlapalan, that which at present they call after Cortés. This
locality they passed in the year called Ce Tecpatl, which was in the
year 387 of the incarnation of our Lord. Having coasted the land of
Xalisco, and all the coast of the south, they set out from the port
of Huatulco, and went through various lands as far as the province of
Tochtepec, situated on the coast of the North Sea, and having traversed
and viewed it they came to stop in the province of Tulantzinco, having
left some people in most of their stopping-places in order to populate
them.”[388]
It will be observed that in this migration part of the same general
route above referred to, along the Pacific coast nearly opposite the
extremity of the California peninsula, and then returning southward
and inland, is clearly marked out. The Pacific ocean, called the South
Sea, seems to have facilitated their movements northward. Xalisco
was coasted, and the entire width of Mexico traversed, the Gulf of
Mexico reached (Sea of the North), and finally Tolancingo chosen as a
suitable home. It will be observed that the Huitlapalan named above is
not identical with Hue hue Tlapalan, the earliest home of the nations.
Mr. Bancroft has apparently confounded the two names, and endeavors to
find in the Tlapallan de Cortés (so named because of Cortés’ expedition
to a Tlapallan) the ancient Hue hue Tlapalan.[389] The Abbé Brasseur
de Bourbourg attempts precisely the same thing. The investigations of
both these writers on this point are interesting, though without any
result, unless unintentionally to strengthen the above distinction
between Huitlapalan and Hue hue Tlapalan. Substantially the facts are
as follows: Pedro de Alvarado, writing from Santiago or old Guatemala
to Cortés in 1524, refers to Tlapallan as fifteen days march inland,
and Mr. Bancroft thinks that the name must have been applied to a
region corresponding to either Honduras, Peten or Tabasco. Cortés’ name
was affixed to a Tlapallan said to lie towards Ihueras or Ibueras, the
former name of Honduras, because of his expedition to that country.
The Abbé says the name was applied to a region between the tributaries
of the Rio Usumacinta and Honduras. Finally, the fact that the second
Quetzalcoatl, when he embarked on the Gulf coast near the Goazacoalco
River, announced his intention of going to Tlapallan, is cited as
proof that the name was applied to a southern locality.[390] The
entire argument is perfectly satisfactory in locating a Tlapallan in
the Usumacinta region, but it does not have the slightest value in
proving that Hue hue Tlapalan was identical with that locality. On
the other hand, Cabrera, in referring to the ancient country of the
Toltecs, calls it Hue Hue Tlapalan, and states that the simple name was
Tlapallan, but that it was called Hue hue—old—to distinguish it from
three other Tlapalans which they founded in the new districts which
they came to inhabit. This statement is confirmed by Torquemada.[391]
It is therefore probable that Bancroft’s and Brasseur’s investigations
were all expended on one or more of these three Tlapalans. The
undoubted residence of a tribe of the Nahuas (Olmecs) in the Tabasco
region for a considerable period—one which is measured relatively in
the language of Sahugun between the “countless years ago when they
arrived from towards Florida” and their departure towards Anahuac in
the fourth or fifth century—has led many writers to suppose that they
were of southern origin, notwithstanding the statement of Sahagun,
Ixtlilxochitl and all the early writers to the contrary. Supposing
that the sweeping assumption of the northern origin so persistently
adhered to by native and Spanish writers is nothing but a priestly
fabrication, be admitted, simply that our attention may be turned to
other testimony, still the evidence is against the southern origin
theory. The material relics of Honduras and Nicaragua absolutely
disprove the positive supposition that they were ever the work of the
people who figured in Anahuac, and no transition from one style of
sculpture to the other has ever been discovered, nor could be imagined.
An examination of the first few chapters of Mr. Bancroft’s fourth
volume and the works from which it has been drawn will fully satisfy
the reader of this fact. The evidence from the linguistic standpoint is
even more satisfactory, since the Nahua language as spoken in Central
America, in the states of San Salvador and Nicaragua, is dialectic,
indicating a fragmentary migration southward.[392]
It has been the common custom of Spanish writers and those who
followed them down to the middle of this century, to locate Hue hue
Tlapalan on the Californian coast. Vater and Humboldt from their
standpoints of investigation fell in with this view. The former,
basing his convictions on seeming linguistic affinities in the
north-west, which, while they are quite significant, indicative of
Nahua influences if not of Nahua residence, are too few to prove any
lengthy sojourn. Humboldt based his opinion chiefly on the traditions
and certain ethnological and geographical facts. Buschmann[393] has
completely overthrown the arguments of Vater in his series of works
on American languages, while Mr. Bancroft has shown conclusively that
there are no material remains assignable to the Toltecs to be found on
the Californian coast or the adjoining region.[394] When he asserts,
however, that there are no remains farther north than California, he
overlooks a well-known fact. We refer to the mounds of Oregon and
their extension eastward into the Yellowstone and North Missouri River
region. The most reasonable conjecture as to the locality of Hue hue
Tlapalan is that which places it in the Mississippi Valley, and assigns
the works of our Mound-builders to the Nahua nations. In previous
chapters we have shown the close resemblance of the mound crania to
the ancient Mexican, and have pointed out the gradual transition from
the rude and simple mounds of the north to the truncated pyramid of
the south, constructed on strict geometrical principles, having one
or more graded ways, and so closely resembling the Mexican teocallis.
Besides the testimony of Sahagun that the first settlers of Mexico
came from towards Florida, and the universal report of a northern
origin prevalent among the Aztecs at the time of the conquest, there
are other evidences of a racial identity common to Mound-builders and
Mexicans, such as pottery, sculptured portraitures of the facial type,
indications of commercial intercourse between the two countries, such
as the discovery of Mexican obsidian in the mounds of the Ohio Valley,
and the probability that both worshipped the sun and offered human
sacrifices.[395]
With the Toltec annals proper we have nothing to do; only the most
primitive period of the growth of this people concerns us here, and
that period is conceded to have closed with the establishment of the
great capital at Tollan, on the site of the present village of Tula,
thirty miles north-west of the city of Mexico. Seven years after the
arrival of the Toltecs in Tollan, the government was a theocratic
republic, with the seven chiefs who had conducted them thither acting
as their rulers, under the advice of the venerable Huemen. Finally,
in the beginning of the eighth century, somewhere between 710 and 720
A. D., the republic was changed into a monarchy and the throne given
to the son of their dreaded enemies and former neighbors, the warlike
Chichimecs, as a peace-offering, on condition that the Toltecs should
always be a free people and in no way tributary to the Chichimecs. The
history of the Toltec monarchy during the three and a half centuries
of its duration to the final overthrow of Tollan (1062 A. D.) as well
as the power of the remarkable people who built the ancient capital,
has often been sketched, and for us to repeat what has been recorded
in almost every language of modern Europe, would add nothing to the
cause of science. This part of ancient American history, so replete
with the romantic and marvellous, so confusing at times, because of our
ignorance of many geographic and archæologic features entering into
it (which, in time, will probably be brought to light), so saddening
because of its stories of wholesale misfortunes to a people whose
civilization rivalled that of Europe in the middle ages; and yet, after
all, so fresh and novel, must continue to receive increased attention,
if only as a means of recreation to the student of history, wearied
with the beaten paths from Rome to Greece, and from Greece to Rome. Mr.
Bancroft has given an excellent _resumé_ of the annals of the Toltec
period, accompanying it with an ample literary apparatus in the notes.
During the last century of the Toltec power, Anahuac was overrun by
the incursions of a fierce and dreaded people—the Chichimecs. These
semi-barbarians, taking advantage of the internal dissensions in
the Toltec monarchy, became a powerful factor, either on their own
part or in the hands of the enemies of Tollan, in the overthrow of
the empire. In the Toltec traditions we read of the Chichimecs being
their neighbors in Hue hue Tlapalan.[396] In the annals as given
in Ixtlilxochitl, Torquemada and many writers, the Chichimecs are
represented as having pursued and annoyed the Toltecs, to have followed
them up in their wanderings. This probably is not literally true, but
their arrival upon the borders of Anahuac, soon after its occupation
by the Toltecs, is quite certain. It has been common to consider the
Chichimecs as a Nahua people, and even so critical a writer as Mr.
Bancroft adopts this popular error. As long ago as 1855, Sr. Francisco
Pimentel undertook to show the mistake into which many had fallen, and
in his _Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico_ (published in 1862), has furnished
conclusive proof that the Chichimecs originally spoke a different
language from the Nahua nations, but subsequently adopted the Nahua
tongue, on the principle set forth by Balbi: “It is not the language
of the conquering people that invariably dominates, but that which
is most regular and cultured.” On the testimony of Torquemada,[397]
Ixtlilxochitl[398] and Juan Bautista Pomar,[399] Sr. Pimentel shows
that the Chichimec language was once distinct and different from the
Nahua, and that these people came under the civilizing influences of
the Toltecs during their golden age, but in their declining period
availed themselves of the opportunity of possessing their country and
advanced civilization.[400] If the Chichimecs were the neighbors of the
Toltecs in Hue hue Tlapalan, it is reasonable to expect some light on
the situation of that disputed locality in the Chichimec traditions;
but in this expectation we are disappointed. There is no mention of
that ancient home of the Nahuas, nor of any route pursued in their
migrations. Amaquemecan is the only name which is applied to their
most primitive land or history; one of the cities which they occupied
at some remote period seems to have borne the name. When the Toltecs
sent to the Chichimecs for their first king, they were, according to
Ixtlilxochitl, in the neighborhood of Panuco. Panes describes them as
having passed the sea, and, according to their reckoning, in the year
Five Tolti to have arrived at the seven caves. Thence they journeyed
to Amacatepeque, and certain persons left that province to go to
Tepenec, which is to say “the Mountain of Echo.”[401] Ixtlilxochitl
and some other authors derive them from Chicomoztoc, a rendezvous
of the nations, which has been located by Clavigero at about twenty
miles south of Zacatecas but is considered by Duran and Acosta as
identical with Aztlan in the region of Florida.[402] It is impossible
to determine either the starting-point or route of this people, who
subsequently became amalgamated with the scattered Toltecs after the
fall of Tollan, and whose rule in Anahuac may properly be dated from
the (1062) middle of the eleventh until nearly the middle of the
fifteenth (1431) century.
A few years after the Chichimec power was established there came
from the North (at least their last move is admitted to have been
from that quarter) six tribes of Nahuatlacas, who arrived in the
country adjoining Tollan. There were altogether seven tribes, namely,
the Xochimilcos, Chalcas, Tepanecs, Tlahuicas, Acolhuas, Tlascatecs
and Aztecs or Mexicans. The latter people, however, had separated
themselves from the remaining six tribes at Chicomoztoc and did
not reach Anahuac until about 1196 A. D. These people all acted as
tributary to the Chichimecs at first; and of the seven tribes, two
eventually arose to great political importance, the Tlascatecs who
founded an independent republic, and the Aztecs whose empire has been
the wonder of students of antiquity and the subject of histories
as romantic as the purest fiction. Some authors add a number of
tribal names to those already given as belonging to fragments of
the Nahuatlaca family, but the probability is that these minor and
unimportant tribes were offshoots from the others, after their
arrival on the central plateau. The representative branch of all the
Nahuatlacas was the Aztec nation, who separated from their brethren
in Chicomoztoc, and whose arrival at the Lake region of Mexico, is
dated subsequent to that of the other tribes. All of these tribes
are said to have come from the unknown Aztlan, their early home. The
question of its locality has been as much a subject of controversy
as the location of Hue hue Tlapalan, since, in fact, the question is
possibly one and the same, for the Nahua speaking people who migrated
into Mexico at intervals, extending over a period of a thousand years,
must have had a common origin. Aztlan is described by Duran as a most
attractive land and the presumption is that the Nahuas were forcibly
driven from their fair heritage by the gradual encroachments of their
enemies. The account of this delightful country given by Cueuhcoatl to
the elder Montezuma, is as follows: “Our fathers dwelt in that happy
and prosperous place which they called Aztlan, which means “whiteness.”
In this place there is a great mountain in the middle of the water,
which is called Culhuacan, because it has the point somewhat turned
over toward the bottom, and for this cause it is called Culhuacan,
which means “crooked mountain.” In this mountain were some openings,
or caves or hollows, where our fathers and ancestors dwelt for many
years; there, under this name Mexitin and Aztec, they had much repose;
there they enjoyed a great plenty of geese; of all species of marine
birds and water fowls; enjoyed the song and melody of birds with yellow
crests; enjoyed many kinds of large and beautiful fish; enjoyed the
freshness of trees that were upon those shores, and fountains enclosed
with elders, and savins (junipers) and aldertrees, both large and
beautiful. They went about in canoes, and made furrows in which they
planted maize, red-peppers, tomatoes, beans and all kinds of seed that
we eat.”[403] The location of Aztlan is not a philosophical question
for our consideration, since scarcely sufficient data of a definite
character are available on which to base a process of reasoning. The
report common among the Aztecs was that they had come from the North,
and this was no doubt true of the final move prior to their settlement
in Anahuac, but whether it was true of their starting-point and the
general course of the Aztec migration, is a question which cannot
be satisfactorily answered. Most Spanish writers and others of the
earlier school, locate Aztlan directly north of the present boundary
line of Mexico,[404] others again California,[405] while some favor
the North-western Mexican States.[406] A recent school of Americanists
assign Aztlan a southern location, placing it in the Central American
region.[407] Duran and Brasseur de Bourbourg, both celebrated
authorities, on the other hand locate Aztlan in the United States; the
former in Florida, by which we are to understand the region of the Gulf
States,[408] while the latter simply expresses the conviction that
Aztlan was situated to the north-east of California.[409]
The Aztec migration and the itinerary as generally accepted demands
consideration before forming any judgment on the location of Aztlan.
In this primitive abode we are told that each year the Aztecs crossed
a great river or channel to Teo-Culhuacan for the purpose of offering
sacrifices in honor of their god Tetzauch. But it happened that a
bird appeared to Huitziton, one of the greatest of their chiefs (whom
Bancroft thinks was identical with Mecitl or Mexi—hence the name
Mexicans), and constantly reiterated the word _tihui_, _tihui_, meaning
“let us go, let us go.” This singular occurrence was interpreted by
Huitziton as a command from the gods for them to seek a new country,
and after persuading the chief Tecpatzin to his view, the divine oracle
was announced to the people. Accordingly, in the year 1064, according
to some authors,[410] or in 1090 according to others,[411] or a century
later than the first-named date according to some of the interpreters
of the Aztec migration maps, the Nahuatlaca tribes left their ancient
home and entered upon one of those strange and aimless journeys so
characteristic of semi-civilized and superstitious peoples. The Aztec
migration as given by several authorities is scarcely more satisfactory
than that of the Toltecs, nor can any additional light be thrown on
the route pursued until Sr. Orozco y Berra publishes the results of
his critical examination of the subject.[412] The unimportance of
the itinerary in the solution of any question is apparent, since it
contributes but little to our knowledge of the location of Aztlan.
Mr. Bancroft has greatly facilitated the comparison of the lists of
stations as given by different authors, in a note of great length
on pp. 322–4, thus presenting to the eye at a glance the diversity
of opinion which meets the reader of this subject. As an example,
we select two or three of the itineraries, simply to show the wide
range that opinion has taken on the subject. According to Veytia, the
tribes left Aztlan in I Tecpatl, 1064 A. D., and one hundred and four
years afterwards reached Chicomoztoc, where they dwelt nine years;
the subsequent stations and the duration of their sojourn in each as
follows: Cohuatlicamac three years, Matlahuacallan six, Apanco five,
Chimalco six, Pipiolcomic three, Tollan six, Cohuactepec (Coatepec)
three, Atlitlalacayan two, Atotonilco one, Tepexic five, Apasco three,
Tozonpanco seven, Tizayocan one, Ecatepec one, Tolpetlac three,
Chimalpan four, Cohuatitlan two, Huexachtitlan three, Tecpayocan three,
Tepeyacac (Guadalupe) three, Pantitlan two, and thence to Chapultepec,
arriving in 1298, after a journey of one hundred and eighty-five
years, reckoning an additional forty-nine years for their stay at
Michoachan.[413] According to Tezozomoc, the stations are as follows:
Aztlan, Culhuacan, Jalisco, Mechoacan, Malinalco (Lake Patzcuaro),
Ocopipilla, Acahualcingo, Coatepec (in Tonalan), Atlitlanquin, or
Atitalaquia, Tequisquiac, Atengo, Tzompan, Cuachilgo, Xaltocan, and
Lake Chnamitl, Eycoac, Ecatepc, Aculhuacan, Tultepetlac, Huixachtitlan,
Tecpayuca (in two Calli), Atepetlac, Coatlayauhcan, Tetepanco,
Acolnahuac, Popotla (Tacuba), Chapultepec in two Tochtli.[414]
Clavigero states that they left Aztlan in 1160, crossed the Colorado
River, stayed three years in Hucicolhuacan, went east to Chicomoztoc,
reached Tula in 1196, and finally Chapultepec in 1245.[415] Acosta,
Herrera and Duran state that Nahuatlaca tribes left Aztlan in 820 A.
D., and eighty years later reached Mexico; that the Aztecs, however,
did not start until 1122 A. D.[416] Duran identifies Aztlan with
Teo-Culhuacan, and locates it towards our Mississippi Valley. He
in common with other writers identifies Chicomostoc with the seven
caves.[417]
The Tarascos, though speaking a different language, are said to have
separated from the Nahuatlacas at Michoacan. They describe the route
to the seven caves as across a sea, which they passed in balsas and
the trunks of trees.[418] This statement may be of some value in
locating that disputed rendezvous of so many tribes; and certainly
is more important than a mass of groundless speculation. The next
source of interest in this connection is the much perverted and sadly
misunderstood migration map first published by Gemelli Carreri, in
Churchill’s collection of voyages (vol. iv). Humboldt has given an
interpretation which, with the exception of that part which connects it
with a deluge and Colhuacan, “the Ararat of the Mexicans,” is generally
received.[419]
Gemelli Carreri, Humboldt and many others were quite certain that
they could read in this map the account of the Mosaic deluge.[420] Don
José Fernando Ramirez, of the Mexican Museum, however, pointed out the
fact that the Gemelli Carreri map, copied from one owned by Sigüenza,
and published by Humboldt, Clavigero and Kingsborough, was in each
case incorrectly represented, and states that the copy contained in
the _Atlas_ of Garcia y Cubas is the first correct reproduction of the
original presented to the public.[421] Sr. Ramirez explains away the
illusion of the Mexican Ararat and deluge in a manner both simple and
conclusive.[422] The dove with commas proceeding from its beak, is not
talking, nor giving tongues, but is repeating the word _tihui_, “let
us go,” referring to the legend already cited, of the bird in Aztlan
incessantly uttering this word in the hearing of Huitziton the chief.
A little bird called _tihuitochan_ is still heard in Mexico, having
a note which is interpreted by the common people to mean the same as
their ancestors interpreted it in Aztlan. Sr. Ramirez is convinced that
the map referred to is only a record of the wanderings of the Aztecs
among the lakes of the Mexican Valley, and that it has no reference
whatever to any deluge, not even to one of the former traditional
destructions of the world found in the Nahua cosmogony. Mr. Bancroft
has added the valuable argument that the story of Cox-cox and the
deluge is only the product of false interpretation, or else some of
the earlier writers would have been acquainted with the legend. On
the contrary, Olmos, Sahagun, Motolinia, Mendieta, Ixtlilxochitl, and
Camergo are all silent with regard to it. The mountain and boat and
their several adjuncts are found to be nothing but hieroglyphics for
proper names.
Chalco Lake is, in the opinion of Señor Ramirez, the point of
departure for the fifteen chiefs at the end of their first cycle. His
interpretation of the Boturini map of the migration results in the same
conclusion. The fifteen chiefs left their island home, passing through
Coloacan (Colhuacan, according to Gondra’s interpretation) as their
second station. It appears that the first move and point of departure
are both unknown, and no satisfactory solution of the question has yet
been offered. The prevailing tradition that it is in the north has
been perplexing, since no material remains undoubtedly attributable
to the Aztecs are found north of the central plateau of Mexico, nor
indeed in the territories of the United States. If we adopt the general
theory that the Aztecs came from the Mississippi Valley, possibly the
original home of the Nahuas, occupied by the Olmecs prior to their
arrival at Panuco and their descent into the Chiapan region, and by
the Toltecs before their migration to Anahuac, we have a theory which
agrees with the testimony of Duran and Sahagun, and seems to find
support in the pyramidal mounds of the Lower Mississippi, which we
have already seen are almost as perfect in their plan and construction
as those found in Mexico, which do not furnish evidence of as great
antiquity as those of the Ohio and Missouri Valleys. According to most
accounts, a considerable period elapses between their departure and
their arrival at Chicomoztoc—the seven caves. According to Veytia it
was 104 years, but Brasseur adopts twenty-six years, which is also
the opinion of the majority of writers. Chicomoztoc has some features
which remind us of the Tulan Zuiva of the Quichés—their seven caves,
from which so many tribes derived their origin. Chicomoztoc is the
point at which the six Nahuatlaca tribes separated from the Aztecs, and
thence proceeded to the Mexican lake region. It is quite probable that
a considerable distance may have been traversed in this interval of
twenty-six years, a distance which could have brought the Aztecs from
a comparatively northern latitude to the Chiapan region. Opposed to
this, however, is the fact that the Tulan Zuiva of the Quichés was in a
cold, inhospitable region, no doubt at the North. Mr. Bancroft suggests
that the first part of the migration tradition may refer vaguely
back to the events which followed the Toltecs’ destruction.[423] We
have already referred to the tendency to confusion in histories that
are chiefly traditional. In opposition to the view that Aztlan and
Chicomoztoc were remote from each of these, we have the statement of
Duran[424] that these caves are in Teo-Culhuacan, otherwise called
Aztlan, which implies that both Teo-Culhuacan and Chicomoztoc were
points in the region of Aztlan. Every year it was the custom of the
Aztecs, while in Aztlan, to cross a river or channel to Teo-Culhuacan
in order to sacrifice to their god Tetzauh, and after their arrival
at Chicomoztoc they continued the occupation of boatmen, which they
had followed while in Aztlan.[425] By way of summary, then, we may
venture the following: 1. Viewed from the standpoint of Sr. Ramirez,
Aztlan may be located somewhere not far distant from Chalco Lake. The
islands which it encircles may correspond to the description of the
ancient home of the Aztecs, given by Duran as quoted on page 257 and
described as Culhuacan. Teo-Culhuacan, where the Aztecs sacrificed
yearly, may be the city of Culhuacan situated in that neighborhood. As
additional testimony we have the fact that most of the stations named
in the migrations can be located in the Central Mexican region. The
report that they came from the north may refer only to the scattering
of the Nahua or Toltec people from Tollan, just north of the valley.
2. The statements of all the writers that the Aztecs came from the
north, the fact that Duran and Sahagun assign the primitive Nahua home
to the region of Florida, and the prevalence of mounds and shell-heaps
in great numbers in the Gulf States, together with the extension of
those mounds through Texas into Mexico, may warrant the opinion that
Aztlan was in the Mississippi Valley, or, looking in another direction,
the rock or cave dwellings recently discovered in Southern Utah and
the Rocky Mountain region (of which we shall give a description in
the next chapter) may indicate the locality of the ancient and
much-sought-for land. The identity in meaning of Chicomoztoc (seven
caves) and Tulan Zuiva (seven caves) together with the fact that both
places in Quiché and Nahua history were the point of separation for
many tribes, is a singular coincidence, if they are not one and the
same. In the preceding chapter we have seen that Tulan Zuiva of the
Quichés was in a northern or at least a colder climate, where they
suffered greatly for want of fire, a fact of no little significance. On
the other hand Teo-Culhuacan, the place of yearly sacrifice, may have
been a city of the Chiapan region, since Sahagun located Tamoanchan the
first city of the Nahuas (Olmec) after their arrival from Florida in
Mexico, somewhere in the Usumacinta Valley. It is possible that a large
number of the immigrants remained behind the company which migrated
northward to Teotihuacan and thence to the seven caves, subsequently
uniting with the Toltecs at Tollan. This view has had quite a number
of advocates.[426] We will not undertake, in the present state of
knowledge on the subject, to decide which of these three claims is the
true one, if either one of them is correct. Our only wish is to furnish
the reader a margin for his choice. It seems to us that it would be
unscientific to attempt to decide a question based upon such slender
and contradictory data.
It is unnecessary for us to follow the Aztecs farther in their
history. The magnificent empire of the Montezumas, with its advanced
civilization, but at the same time cursed with its horrid worship, in
which thousands of human victims bathed the altars of Mexico yearly
with their life-blood, has been described and its glory handed down to
history by that most graceful and romantic of American writers, William
H. Prescott. We cannot, however, dismiss this the most primitive period
of the growth of the Nahua nations without a reference to the reputed
author of the higher phases of their civilization. We refer to that
semi-mythical and semi-divine personage, Quetzalcoatl. The numerous
legends concerning this culture-hero, scattered chronologically over
hundreds of years of Nahua history, may have originated in the life and
character of some noted personage—the leader and civilizer of the most
ancient branches of the Nahua family, or in the personification of an
ideal deity, a nature-god whose chief attribute, whose distinguishing
office, was the fertilization of the earth, the revivification of the
slumbering forces in nature and consequently the author of prosperity,
agriculture, and the arts of peace. In either case the name of the
original Quetzalcoatl, were he either man or deity, was eventually
inherited by a line of individuals who became the priests of his
worship, or the representatives of his teachings, and the inculcators
of the most humane and noble principles which entered into the ancient
civilization. Without entering into a lengthy discussion of the
probabilities in the case, we give the substance of the traditions,
arranged in what appears to us not only the most consistent, but also
the proper order. We have already acquainted the reader with the
meaning of Quetzalcoatl, namely, “plumed serpent.”
From the distant East, from the fabulous Hue hue Tlapalan, this
mysterious personage came to Tulla, and became the patron god and
high-priest of the ancestors of the Toltecs.[427] He is described
as having been a white man, with a strong formation of body, broad
forehead, large eyes, and flowing beard. He wore a mitre on his head,
and was dressed in a long, white robe, reaching to his feet, and
covered with red crosses. In his hand he held a sickle. His habits were
ascetic; he never married, was most chaste and pure in his life, and
is said to have endured penance in a neighboring mountain, not for its
effects upon himself, but as an example to others. Some have here found
a parallel for Christ’s temptation. He condemned sacrifices, except
of fruits and flowers, and was known as the god of peace; for when
addressed on the subject of war, he is reported to have stopped his
ears with his fingers.[428]
Quetzalcoatl was skilled in many arts, having invented gem-cutting
and metal-casting. He furthermore originated letters and invented the
Mexican calendar. The legend which describes the latter states that the
gods, having made men, thought it advisable that their creatures should
have some means of reckoning time, and of regulating the order of
religious ceremonies. Therefore two of these celestial personages, one
of them a goddess, called Quetzalcoatl to counsel with them, and the
three contrived a system which they recorded on tables, each bearing
a single sign. That sign, however, was accompanied with all necessary
explanations of its meaning. It is noticeable that the goddess was
assigned the privilege of writing the first sign, and that she chose a
serpent as her favorite symbol.
Some accounts represent that Huemac was the temporal king, or at least
associated with Quetzalcoatl in the government; the latter occupying
the priestly as well as the kingly office. Sahagun calls the associate
ruler Vemac. At all events, Quetzalcoatl had an enemy, the deity
Tezcatlipoca, whose worship was quite opposite in its character to
that of Quetzalcoatl, being sanguine and celebrated with horrid human
sacrifices. A struggle ensued in Tulla (Tollan) between the opposing
systems which resulted favorably to the bloody deity and the faction
who sought to establish his worship in preference to the peaceful and
ascetic service of Quetzalcoatl.
Tezcatlipoca, envious of the magnificence enjoyed by Quetzalcoatl,
determined upon his destruction. His first appearance at Tulla was in
the _rôle_ of a great ball-player, and Quetzalcoatl, being very fond
of the game, engaged in play with him, when suddenly he transformed
himself into a tiger, occasioning a panic among the spectators, in
which great numbers were crowded over a precipice into a river, where
they perished. Again the vicious god appeared at Tulla. This time he
presented himself at the door of Quetzalcoatl’s palace in the guise of
an old man, and asked permission of the servants to see their master.
They attempted to drive him away, saying that their god was ill. At
last, because of his importunities, they obtained leave to admit him.
Tezcatlipoca entered, and seeing the sick deity, asked about his
health, and announced that he had brought him a medicine which would
ease his body, compose his mind, and prepare him for the journey which
Fate had decreed that he must undertake.[429] Quetzalcoatl received the
sorcerer kindly, inquiring anxiously as to the journey and the land of
his destiny. His deceiver told him that the name of the land was Tullan
Tlapalan, where his youth would be renewed, and that he must visit it
without delay. The sick king was moved greatly by the words of the
sorcerer, and was prevailed upon to taste the intoxicating medicine
which he pressed to his lips. At once he felt his malady healed, and
the desire to depart fixed itself in his mind.
“Drink again!” exclaimed the old sorcerer; and again the god-king
pressed the cup to his lips, and drank till the thought of departure
became indelible, chained his reason, and speedily drove him a wanderer
from his palace and kingdom.
Upon leaving Tulla, driven from his kingdom by the vicious enmity
of Tezcatlipoca, he ordered his palaces of gold, and silver, and
turquoise, and precious stones, to be set on fire. The myriads of
rich-plumed songsters that made the air of the capital melodious with
song accompanied him on his journey, pipers playing on pipes preceded
him, and the flowers by the way are said to have given forth unusual
volumes of perfume at his approach.
After journeying one hundred leagues southward, he rested, near a city
of Anahuac, under a great tree, and as a memorial of the event, he cast
stones at the tree, lodging them in its trunk.[430]
He then proceeded still farther southward in the same valley, until he
came to a mountain, two leagues distant from the city of Mexico. Here
he pressed his hands upon a rock on which he rested, and left their
prints imbedded in it, where they remained visible down to a very
recent date. He then turned eastward to Cholula, where he was received
with greatest reverence.[431] The great pyramid was erected to his
honor. With his advent the spirit of peace settled down upon the city.
War was not known during his sojourn within it. The reign of Saturn
repeated itself. The enemies of the Cholulans came with perfect safety
to his temple, and many wealthy princes of other countries erected
temples to his honor in the city of his choice.[432]
Here the silversmith, the sculptor, the artist, and the architect, we
are led to believe, from the testimony of both tradition and remains,
flourished under the patronage of the grand god-king.
However, after twenty years had elapsed, that subtile, feverish draught
received from the hand of Tezcatlipoca away back in Tulla, like an old
poison in the veins, renewed its power. Again his people, his palaces,
and his pyramidal temple were forsaken, that he might start on his
long and final journey.[433] He told his priests that the mysterious
Tlapalla was his destination, and turning toward the East, proceeded
on his way until he reached the sea at a point a few miles south of
Vera Cruz. Here he bestowed his blessing upon four young men, who
accompanied him from Cholula, and commanded them to go back to their
homes, bearing the promise to his people that he would return to them,
and again set up his kingdom among them. Then, embarking in a canoe
made of serpent-skins, he sailed away into the East.[434]
The Cholulans, out of respect to Quetzalcoatl, placed the government in
the hands of the recipients of his blessing. His statue was placed in
a sanctuary on the pyramid, but in a reclining position, representing
a state of repose, with the understanding that it shall be placed upon
its feet when the god returns. When Cortés landed, they believed their
hopes realized, sacrificed a man to him, and sprinkled the blood of the
unhappy victim upon the conqueror and his companions.[435]
Father Sahagun, when on his journey to Mexico, was everywhere asked
if he had not come from Tlapalla.[436] No wonder when the fleet of
Cortés hove in sight on the horizon, almost in the same place where
Quetzalcoatl’s bark had disappeared, that the Mexican, who had been
waiting centuries for the prince of peace to return, believed his
waiting to be at an end. No wonder that he inquired of the distant and
mysterious Tlapalla. In this state of expectancy we find a most natural
and fruitful soil for the operations of the Spanish conquerors.
Such is the form into which the mass of legends concerning
Quetzalcoatl have been woven. There is scarcely a doubt, however, that
it is a matter of growth—is the accumulation of several centuries.
The name Quetzalcoatl (Nahua), Gucumatz (Quiché) and Cukulcan (Maya),
translated “feathered” or “plumed” or “winged” serpent, may originally
have been applied to an intelligent princely foreigner who was cast
upon the shores of the Central American region, and who introduced the
art of casting metals, and especially taught agriculture. His doctrines
of peace and virtue may have been sufficiently wide-spread to have
brought about the prosperity which is ascribed to his age. From this
standpoint we would consider him at first to have cast his lot among
the descendants of Votan, otherwise known as the “Serpents,” from which
occurrence he may have received his name of “Feathered Serpent.” On
pages 241–42 we referred to the statements of the Codex Chimalpopoca,
that Quetzalcoatl, becoming obnoxious to his companions, who seem to
be Quichés, forsook them. The account also states that he afterwards
brought maize to Tamoanchan (the city of the Nahuas). Our next account
of him describes him as figuring among the Olmecs at Cholula. This
realistic view of the tradition applies to the first Quetzalcoatl,
who may have been an actual man. While entertaining this view, we
must not forget that centuries prior to this period (which we may as
well assign to the first or second century as to any other date), the
Quichés possessed the ideal of such a personage whom they considered
a deity, who figures so actively in their cosmogony under the name of
Gucumatz. This deity was the vivifying force in nature, the bringer of
the gentle south winds, the god of the harvest and of the air. He was
best symbolized to the mind of the savage by the vernal shower and the
return of spring.
The serpent was everywhere considered an emblem of the vernal shower,
and was thought to be in some way instrumental in bringing it, together
with its refreshing and fructifying influences. So here, in the name of
Quetzalcoatl, we find a progressive step indicated in the workings of
the mind, an advance from the lower figure of the serpent alone to that
of an aërial combination, which, while it contained all the virtues of
the serpent, is lifted to a higher element—that from which the shower
falls. The feathery vapor-clouds of summer are but the plumes or wings
of the shower which the serpent symbolized.
At last when a teacher of agriculture and the mechanic arts, so
conducive of prosperity and plenty, appeared—an individual who
discovers maize and directs the process of its reproduction and guards
an improvident people against want and famine, the attributes of the
god are recognized as dwelling in him, the ideal vaguely represented
by the vernal shower is concreted, is become incarnate, is presented
in a shape more comprehensible to the untaught mind, and at once the
name, reverence and worship of the god are attached to the man, the
culture-hero. This we believe to be the simplest interpretation of the
origin of the worship of Quetzalcoatl. A priesthood appears to have
been founded who perpetuated the doctrines of this deified man. That
part of the legend which relates to Tulla (Tollan) with the expulsion
of the king and that which followed, properly belongs to Ceacatl,
surnamed Quetzalcoatl, Toltec king of Tollan, who ascended the throne
about 873.[437] The father of this monarch had been cruelly murdered,
and in his early boyhood Ceacatl is said to have wreaked a terrible
vengeance on the murderer of his father, after which he concealed
himself for about twenty years. At about the above-named date he
reappeared, and established his claims to the throne. He espoused the
religion of Quetzalcoatl, and the peace which followed brought great
prosperity. Human sacrifices were forbidden, and a golden age seemed
to dawn in which Tollan exceeded all the cities of the Mexican valley
in importance and wealth. But a rivalry at once sprang up between the
priests of the bloody god Tezcatlipoca, worshipped in Culhuacan and at
Teotihuacan, and those of the peaceful and humane Quetzalcoatl, which
resulted in the voluntary departure of the Pontiff king, to whom the
name of his god was attached. The contest between the two sects is
symbolized in the legend by the tricks of Tezcatlipoca. Quetzalcoatl
was received at Cholula, where he remained some years, but was at last
driven away before the leader of the Tezcatlipoca faction, namely,
King Huemac, who advanced upon the peaceful king with a strong army.
Quetzalcoatl again voluntarily withdrew, rather than occasion the
bloodshed of his subjects. It is probable that he ultimately reached
Yucatan and figured there in his old character under the name of
Cukulcan.[438]