general destruction, and from which is gleaned whatever is surmised of
the earliest life of the tribes of Anahuac.
Texcuco led all the other nations in its literary culture, or rather
pictorial skill, since letters were unknown. The Texcucan idiom was the
purest of all the many dialects from the Nahuatl root. Among its poets,
the king himself, Nezahualcoyotl, was distinguished. He not only
belonged to the Council of Music, but appeared before it with other
competitors. Perhaps some folded screen enclosing an ode by his hand
lies hidden yet somewhere in Mexico, or even among the dusty archives of
Old Spain. Some few have come to light, and one of them exists in
Spanish, translated by a Mexican. It is hard to be sure of the import of
the original through the change of expression inevitable in translating,
but we may guess something of it.
"Rejoice," he says, "O Nezahualcoyotl, in the enjoyable, which now you
grasp. With the flowers of this lovely garden crown thy illustrious
brows, and draw pleasure from those things from which pleasure is to be
drawn."
This garden of the no longer hungry Fox was a wonderful Place of
Delights, and the remains of it may be seen to this day. About three
miles from the capital rises the Laughing Hill of Tezcotzinco. Here are
left the remains of terraced walls, and stairways wind around the hill
from the bottom to the top. In shady nooks among the rocks seats are
hollowed out of the stone, and ingenious contrivances can be traced on
all sides for enhancing the natural advantages of the situation. The
most curious of all the vestiges of Nezahualcoyotl's garden is a round
reservoir for water at an elevation of eighty or one hundred feet. It is
about five feet across and three feet deep. Channels led from it in all
directions to water and refresh the terrace-gardens below.
The country all about is full of artificial embankments, reservoirs and
aqueducts for leading water about, and developing the attractions of the
place. A magnificent grove of lofty _ahuehuetes_, at some distance from
the central part of the grounds, surrounds a large quadrangle, now dry,
which was probably an artificial lake in the time of the great king, for
whose pleasure these things were planned. He was rich enough to pay for
all the costly works he commanded, by reason of successful wars and
judicious management of domestic industry, and so was justified in
indulging his taste for magnificence in architecture. The ruins of
Tezcotzinco faintly attest the truth of the descriptions of this royal
residence, which tell of hanging gardens approached by steps of
porphyry, reservoirs sculptured with the achievements of the monarch,
and adorned with marble statues. There stood a lion of solid stone more
than twelve feet long, with wings and feathers carved upon them. He was
placed to face the east, and in his mouth he held a stone face, which
was the very likeness of the king himself. This was his favorite
portrait, although many other representations of him had been made in
gold, wood, or feather-work. On the summit of the hill was the carved
representation of a _coyotl_, the hungry fox which gave to the monarch
his name so tedious to us to pronounce.
The remains of Tezcotzinco are now shown as the Baths of Montezuma; but
this is a purely modern application of the title of a chief more
commonly known. The baths belonged to Nezahualcoyotl, and if by chance
any Montezuma made use of them, it was only as a passing guest.
Nezahualcoyotl, this wise, good, æsthetic king, committed a deed which
his descendant and historian regards as a great blot upon his fame. He
remained unmarried for a long time, on account of an early
disappointment in love, and was no longer young when he conceived a
violent passion for a noble maiden whom he met at the house of one of
his vassals. This vassal wished the fair lady for his own bride; he had
in fact brought her up with that intent, but the king, regardless of the
laws of honor, caused the old man to be killed by his own men in a
battle with the Tlaxcallans, which he set on foot chiefly for this
purpose. The young princess was then invited to the royal palace, where
she received in due form and time an offer of marriage from the
monarch. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp, not long after the
funeral of the vassal.
This is the only anecdote that reflects discredit on the monarch, and
there are many which tell to his advantage. It was his custom, as with
the Eastern Khalif, to go about in disguise among his people to find out
their wants in order to alleviate them.
One day as he was walking through a field with one of his friends he met
a small boy picking up sticks here and there. "There are many more in
the forest yonder," he said; "why do not you go there to get them?"
"The forest belongs to the king," said the boy, "and it would be worth
my life to take his property."
The king advised him to disregard the law and go and take what wood he
wanted, as nobody would find him out, but the boy was too honest or too
cautious to follow the advice, and steadily went a gleaning as he could
in the open field.
When the king returned to the palace he sent for the boy and his
parents. The parents were praised for bringing up such a boy, the boy
was praised and rewarded, and the king passed a law allowing unlimited
picking up chips.
In short, Nezahualcoyotl was a model monarch. He pardoned all his
enemies, was humane and clement; he formed a code of wise and just laws,
and instituted tribunals for the prompt administration of justice; he
established schools and academies for the diffusion of all sorts of
knowledge, and generously encouraged science and art. As for his
religious belief, he abjured the barbarous creed which prevailed at the
time, and announced his conviction of the existence of one God, author
of the universe. He erected a superb temple to this deity, and composed
hymns in his praise.
Nezahualcoyotl died in 1472. It was nearly half a century since he had
rescued his throne from the usurper. He had raised his kingdom from the
anarchy in which he found it to a brilliant station, and saw it, at the
close of his life, growing stronger and going farther in the path of
advanced civilization. He had brought this about by his wise and
judicious rule and might well contemplate with satisfaction the results
of his wisdom and judgment.
His only legitimate son was about eight years old at the time of his
father's death. His name was Nezahualpilli. He became as learned as his
father, was liberal and charitable; even more severe in the
administration of justice, going so far as to condemn to death two of
his own sons who had infringed the law. In his time he was held to be
the wisest monarch of the epoch, and amongst his subjects he had
moreover the reputation of being a magician.
He reigned forty-four years, and died in 1516, leaving the kingdom to
the oldest of his four legitimate sons.
The reign of Nezahualcoyotl is the most glorious period of the kingdom
of Texcuco, and of all the kingdoms of Anahuac.
Its splendors have been confounded with those of the Aztec Court, and,
as we see in the names now given to the ruins of the king's garden, even
the name of the Montezumas is mixed up with the Texcucan annals. It is
well, however, to keep the different dynasties distinct, in order to
understand, when we come to the Conquest, the various parts these
distinct peoples played in that exciting drama.
Texcuco maintained for some time its place and distinction, but never
surpassed the height it reached in the fifteenth century. After that it
began to diminish; family dissensions in the royal house, and external
warfare, together with too much prosperity and the relaxation that comes
with it, were preparing this nation for the tempest and change already
gathering afar off.
This glowing account of the splendors of Texcuco is gathered by Prescott
from the writings of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who traced his
descent, in direct line, from the royal house of Texcuco. He lived in
the sixteenth century, occupying the position of interpreter to the
Viceroy, being familiar with the Indian dialects, and of course with the
Spanish language.
He was in other respects a man of cultivation and learning, had a
library of his own, and pursued diligently the study of the
picture-writings, hieroglyphics, and legends of his ancestors, with the
object of throwing light on the obscure places of their story. He wrote,
in Spanish, various books about the primitive races of Anahuac, among
them the "Historia Chichimeca," which has been used as a source of
authority since it was first written.
As a Christian, Ixtlilxochitl has given to the legends of the
Quetzalcoatl and other mysteries of the early Mexican races, a color
evidently borrowed from the light of Christian traditions, and the
author has cast over his picture of the Golden Age a glow which is
hardly justified by the cold light of modern research. His story is now
regarded as unreliable in many particulars. Yet as a legend it retains
its charm; and as history the graceful fabric need not be utterly
destroyed while the monuments at Texcuco and the manuscripts of
Nezahualcoyotl attest the existence of such a king and such a court.
Until the diligent research of those explorers who are now busy in
searching for the facts of early Mexican history, have fully established
them, we may enjoy the tale of past magnificence upon the plateau of
Anahuac.
The period of the Golden Age of Texcuco is ascribed to the fifteenth
century; the date assigned to Nezahualcoyotl's accession being 1430. The
Spanish invasion took place in 1516 A. D.
During that century the red rose of Lancaster was warring with the white
rose of York; Joan of Arc, in France, grew up in her village home, to
win back for the French king his lost provinces. Isabella and Ferdinand,
by uniting the two houses of Castile and Aragon, made Spain the powerful
kingdom, which was to discover the New World.
All these princes and potentates, busy with their own wars and
marriages, lived their lives without thought of any form of high
civilization across an untravelled ocean. Even Columbus, as he urged
upon the queen his longing to cross that ocean to find out what was
beyond it, did not suggest to her the vision of a cultivated court with
a king who wrote poetry in an unknown tongue, and had carved lions upon
his marble stairways.
VII.
MICHOACAN.
West of the city of Mexico and the state of the same name lies
Michoacan, one of the largest of the present divisions of the country.
It begins on the plateau, but stretches down the steep western slope to
the shores of the Pacific Ocean, seamed with deep _barrancas_ between
the upper and the lower portions, so steep and impassable that the
railway which is already engineered to connect the capital with Colima
on the western coast, waits long to gather courage for the leap. On the
higher land mountain-peaks divide fertile lofty valleys, in which large
lakes sparkle in the soft light of the climate. Michoacan signifies in
Tarascan Land of Fish. These broad sheets of water are even now as still
and lonely as when the early wanderers from the unknown North settled
upon their borders, except when the shriek of a modern steam-engine
disturbs their silence, and frightens the many birds who live there. As
the train passes along the edge of Lake Cuitzao, eighteen miles long,
clouds of winged creatures start up surprised, but not much frightened
from the rushes by the water. Perhaps a rose-colored flamingo may be
seen standing on one leg, undisturbed by the noise, because he is
unaccustomed to fear. Across the lake glows a brilliant scarlet behind
graceful mountain outlines. By the many curves of the road these forms
appear, vanish, and recur, till the day has faded.
[Illustration: VASE IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON.]
Farther from the capital, Patzcuaro and its lake have hidden their
charms still longer. It was only in 1886 that the railroad penetrated to
them. They are nearer the middle of the upper part of Michoacan, at an
elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea. The heights in this
region, though they seem hills, because their base is on so high a
level, attain to numbers of measurement belonging to mountains. The
Place of Delights, as the name of Patzcuaro is translated from the
Tarascan language of its old inhabitants, is a lonely little city now,
containing no more than eight thousand natives, many of whom are
descended from the first inhabitants, and speak the Tarascan tongue. The
town is built on hilly broken ground, with narrow crooked streets, from
which glimpses are constantly to be had of the beautiful lake stretching
out below. Abundant springs water the town and flow through the
fountains in the market-place, an open square surrounded by noble
ash-trees. Just outside the town stone seats have been placed at a point
overlooking a lovely view of the clustering town, the long irregular
lake with jutting points clothed throughout the year with verdure, and
dotting islands upon its surface.
This place of delights was long the seat of the native chiefs of
Michoacan, who, though they did not attain such a reputation for
learning and cultivation as Ixtlilxochitl the Texcucan narrator has
given his ancestors, had yet taste and intelligence enough to enjoy the
beauty of their home.
In the beginning, wandering tribes may have settled on the borders of
the lake for the mere casual advantages of satisfying their hunger, for
the lake abounds with fish, and feathered game frequent its shores from
time immemorial. The first have been supposed to be Chichimecs, either
before or after their dealings with the Toltecs. The region was too
attractive for one tribe to possess it unmolested. Other men, perhaps
fresh from the same mysterious North, perhaps driven out by force or
discontent from former homes upon Anahuac, came to dispute the fruitful
territory. Such contests were decided by the triumph of the stronger;
intermarriages healed the wound, and brief peace settled on the shore of
the lake, to be broken by and by with similar incursions, followed by
similar results. Out of such sequence, a name and date emerge as pegs to
hang some facts on, in the hitherto accepted story.
Iré-Titatacamé was this first chief of this first people with a name
which could last. He made friends with a neighboring chief, and married
his daughter, the Princess of Naranjan. We may imagine her, like her
remote descendants, a dusky maiden, rather small, with straight black
hair, which she knew how to braid in two long tresses to hang along her
back. Did her grandmother learn the art from the same coiffeur that
prepared the mother of Ramses for her morning care? Her eyes were
intelligent, piercing, but soft, two rows of brilliant white teeth
lighted her face when she smiled, as she gathered herself poppies for a
wreath on the borders of the Lake of Delights.
This princess became the mother of Sicuiracha, who was born in 1202,
they say, about the time that the little English prince, Arthur, was
being murdered at Rouen by the order of his wicked uncle. The little
prince of Naranjan-Chichimeca was not ten years old when a tribe of
Tarascans assaulted his father's city, and slew that monarch. He grew
up to console his mother, avenge the deed, and to control his own
subjects and the conquered tribe, which however impressed its language
and dialect upon the nation, so that in that region, Tarascan survived.
Sicuiracha lived to a good old age, and in peace. He died at the close
of the thirteenth century, leaving two sons.
One of these married an island woman of the lake, and her son preserved
the royal line; for his father and uncle were put to death by a
chieftain of the neighborhood who desired the fair Place of Delights for
his own. But Tixiacurí was hidden by priests, who taught him the great
art of war, so that in due time he came forth at the head of armies,
destroyed his enemies, took to himself all the territory of the king who
slew his father, and extended his own even beyond these, thus first
really governing the wide kingdom of Michoacan, which goes down to the
sea.
Tixiacurí, at his death, divided the territory, giving parts of it to
two nephews, one of whom, Hicuxaxé, got Patzcuaro, and called himself
king of it. Tangoxoan, the son of the late king summoned his court to
Tzintzuntzan, fifteen miles up the lake. He is counted the fifth of the
chiefs of Michoacan, and leaves no other record but that all his sons
died violent deaths.
In the next period the provinces given to Tixiacurí's nephews came
together again under one head, and the tribes thus united grew and
prospered. Zovanga, the seventh ruler, held sway over the whole extent
of Michoacan. Its capital was Tzintzuntzan, and its fullest limit
touched the waters of the western ocean. This king constructed the
celebrated walls of Michoacan to shut in his territories; he advanced
agriculture, and brought his army to such excellence that it triumphed
over his enemies, even the Mexicans, who, by this time powerful rivals,
undertook an expedition into Michoacan in 1481. In a bloody battle which
lasted two whole days the Mexicans were utterly routed.
The reign of Zovanga is described as long and glorious, and he left his
country in a state of peace and prosperity when he died, near the
beginning of the sixteenth century. The eighth and last Tarascan monarch
of Michoacan, Tangoxoan II., was the contemporary of Montezuma; like
him, unfortunate enough to live to see the invasion of the
Conquistadores. He was called by them Calzonzi, which is only the
Tarascan word for any chief or leader.
His capital was at Tzintzuntzan, a city with a population of forty
thousand inhabitants, it is said, at the time of the conquest. Its name
is an imitation of the noise of humming birds, which, in the Tarascan
days, as now, darted in multitudes over the gay flowers that border the
lake in profusion. This people loved birds as they did flowers, and
excelled in the delicate feather-work still practised in Mexico, in
which bright-colored plumage is daintily made to serve instead of
paints. The monarch of Michoacan held court at Tzintzuntzan, but his
pleasure-house was at Patzcuaro, eighteen miles away. Legend says that
when he chose to have a collation there, a line of servants was
stationed all along the way between the two palaces, to pass the dishes
from the royal kitchen to the royal table. However this may be, there
are traces of a subterranean passage which perhaps connected the capital
with the other town. Some years ago an excavation was attempted at
Tzintzuntzan, with the hope of discovering this passage, but the natives
quietly resisted this work by always filling up the place as soon as it
was dug out. From generation to generation these people transmit the
traditions of the ancient grandeur of their race, and silently preserve
what they can of its traces. They have no written language of their own,
and no orators. What they know of the past they do not wish to tell to
outsiders; but their villages are full of legends, which the old people
hand down to the younger ones in their strange Tarascan speech. They are
tenacious of their manners and customs, and preserve in their church
festivals the forms and rites which the early priests allowed them to
transfer from their old religion to the ceremonials of the newly
acquired Catholic faith. The Tarascans are skilful in carving in bone.
They make tiny boxes, neatly fitted with lock and key, of wood. Their
canoes are dug out of tree-trunks, and they kill the wild fowl which
swarm and herd in quantities upon their lake, with a long wooden javelin
hurled with skill. Their pottery, like that of all the Mexicans, is
simple in design, graceful in form, and tasteful in color. From time
immemorial they have possessed the knowledge of handling clay and
making their utensils of it.
Such are the descendants of the old Tarascan tribes, little changed as
yet by the changes of government that have swept over their country
since the invasion of the Conquistadores.
VIII.
MAYAS.
There is another race of which something must be said before we begin
upon the Aztecs, that branch of the Nahuatl family which took the
leading part in the struggle with the Conquistadores.
Although the Mayan civilization was established outside the limits of
the present Mexico, it is necessary to know something of it in
connection with the other tribes who built up the civilization of
Anahuac.
The Mayas are thought to have been the earliest of the Nahuatl family to
migrate from their northern home. Their language differs from the other
Nahua dialects, and so do their traditions, monuments, and
hieroglyphics, but these differences were probably caused by the
difference in time in the departure of these races from their common
starting-point. The resemblance outweighs the disparity, and we can only
imagine that the deviations were caused by a long separation from the
original stock. Their descendants live in Yucatan, and the early
monuments of the Mayas are found in that country and its neighborhood.
[Illustration: CASA DEL GOBERNADOR, UXMAL.]
They are supposed to have migrated from the shores of the Atlantic to
the region now the state of Chiapas, the farthest south of all the
states, adjoining Guatemala, in the midst of a rich and fertile country.
Their empire grew to be one of great importance, so that at one time
even the proud Tula was tributary to it. It extended over the greater
part of Central America. Mayapan and Copan were the other chief tribes
of their confederacy, of which Nachan, or Town of Serpents, was the
capital or chief.
This great city was already in ruins, buried in the thick wilderness,
its site and very existence forgotten before the arrival of the
Conquistadores. Cortés must have marched close to it once when he was on
his way to Honduras, but he probably had no notion of its existence. The
ruins were discovered by chance in the middle of the eighteenth century,
by a curate of the little town Palenque in the neighborhood.
In 1764, the Spanish government sent explorers to visit these ruins, and
since then they have been carefully studied. The importance and extent
of the buildings seem to show that the ancient city was once the capital
and centre of the ancient state of Mayapan. Traces of streets extend for
a length of six leagues or more, following the course of mountain
streams, which doubtless furnished the inhabitants with water.
The most important building at Palenque is the Palace. It rests on a
truncated pyramid about fifty feet high, of which the base measures
three hundred and ten feet by two hundred and sixty. Subterranean
galleries penetrated the interior of the pyramid. It is made of earth,
with external faces of large slabs; steps lead up to the top, on which
is the chief building, a quadrilateral of two hundred and twenty-eight
feet by one hundred and eighty; the walls are from two to three feet
thick, ornamented with a frieze between two double cornices, covered
with painted stucco, either red, blue, black, or white. There are
fourteen entrances in the eastern front, which is the principal one,
separated by pillars ornamented with figures more than six feet in
height. Over their heads are hieroglyphics which contain the key to
their meaning, still hidden to us.
The inside of the palace corresponds with the outside, galleries run all
round the court, and the lofty chambers are decorated with strange
bas-reliefs in granite thirteen feet high or more, strange and grotesque
to us, but full of meaning and expression to the race which understood
them.
[Illustration: STATUE FROM PALENQUE.]
Over the palace rises a tower of three stories, thirty feet square at
the base, decorated profusely with symbols no longer suggestive. A
strange thing about the palace is that the staircases look new, the
steps whole and unworn, as if the people who built it had suddenly taken
flight soon after they erected their chief buildings.
[Illustration: TABLET OF CROSS AT PALENQUE.]