of the Cross. It rises from a truncated pyramid, and forms a
quadrilateral separated by pilasters, ornamented with hieroglyphics and
human figures. The openings lead through an inside gallery to three
little rooms, of which the middle one contains an altar, ornamented with
a frieze. Above this altar until recently stood three marble slabs, of
which one is now in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, the central
stone at the National Museum in the city of Mexico, and the third still
remains at Palenque. They are six feet four inches in height, four feet
wide, and six inches thick, of cream-colored stone of a fine grain. The
central stone now in Mexico gives a striking representation of the
Christian cross on a pedestal in the midst of a tangle of hieroglyphics,
with a priestly figure, nearly life size, which in the stone still at
Palenque is continued by another figure of a priest and six rows of
hieroglyphics running from top to bottom. The piece at Washington is
covered with similar rows of hieroglyphics, and contains ornaments to
match the human figure on the left of the central stone. The startling
resemblance to a cross on this tablet has excited much discussion; it is
said that the presence of the emblem of the Christian faith caused it to
be torn down and cast forth into the forest, which crowds around the
ruins of the ancient city. But such representations of the symbol of an
earlier date than the Christian era, have been found elsewhere in
America. The cross was looked upon by the Mayas as the sign of the
creative and fertilizing powers of nature, and has no affinity with the
Christian one. Some attempts have been made to decipher the meaning of
the Palenque tablets, considering the three pieces as a whole. The
figure on the left (still at Palenque) is said to be the Sun with his
grand mitre. He presents an offering in his hand, and appears to be
blowing with his mouth or breathing incense. At his back are two
astronomical signs, representing, one the four phases of the moon, and
the other the great Period of the Sun. The figure at the right (in the
museum at Mexico) is larger than the other. It stands erect with
outstretched arms offering a child before the cross. This priest differs
from the other in being without the sacred mask and the robe of
_ocelotl_ skin. Both figures open their lips in prayer to the deity, the
cross, here united with the sign Acatl, an arrow thrust through the
upper half making another smaller cross. At the right of the cross are
the signs of the four seasons of the year, vernal equinox, summer
solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice. The bird above the
cross is the star of the morning, and the strange figure below may be a
skull, to represent the star of the evening. According to this
explanation the famous tablet of Palenque, with its accidental likeness
to the Christian cross, was dedicated to the Sun as the great creative
power, and to the Year with its four seasons, and change of morning and
evening. Palenque is by no means the only monument of the ancient people
in this region. Yucatan is covered with interesting ruins, the remains
of different branches of the mighty Mayan race. It can hardly be
doubted, moreover, that extensive ruins lie yet hidden in the unexplored
regions of the peninsula. Chichen-Itza is one of the few towns which has
preserved its ancient Mayan name, from _chichen_, opening of a well, and
Itza, one of the chief branches of Mayapan confederacy. Itza maintained
its independence, after the destruction of the confederacy, for two
centuries after the Conquest. It was then taken by the Spaniards and
completely destroyed.
[Illustration: MAYAN BAS-RELIEF.]
Over an extent of several miles are seen masses of rubbish, broken
sculptures, overturned columns, of which nearly five hundred bases have
been counted. Chichen was one of the religious centres of Yucatan, which
accounts for the number and magnificence of its temples. The walls, in
many cases, are covered with paintings, in black, red, yellow, and
white; they represent processions of warriors or priests, with black
heads, strange head-dresses, and wide tunics on their shoulders. The
faces on the bas-reliefs are remarkable as giving a different type from
the pointed heads and retreating foreheads of those at Palenque. The
heads on the Yucatan monuments as those of the present inhabitants are
better developed. The sculpture is rich; the bas-reliefs give an idea of
the head-dress of the natives.
A flight of steps is ornamented with a balustrade of interlaced
serpents.
Chaak Mool, also known under the name of Balam, the tiger-chief, was one
of three brothers who shared between them the government of Yucatan. He
was married to Kinich Katmò, a woman of marvellous beauty.
Now Aak, the brother of Chaak Mool, fell in love with the fair Kinich,
the wife of his brother. In order to possess her, he caused her husband
to be assassinated, hoping thus to win the hand of the widow. But
Kinich, far from yielding to the persuasions of Aak, remained faithful
to the memory of Chaak, and out of conjugal devotion caused his statue
to be made. Moreover she caused her palace to be adorned with paintings
representing the chief events in the life of her departed spouse, and
the sad scene of his death. In one of these paintings we may see the
wicked Aak, holding in his hand three spears, to symbolize the three
wounds, by means of which his brother was despatched.
The painting is accompanied by hieroglyphics, which an explorer in 1875,
Dr. Le Plongeon, succeeded in deciphering far enough to learn that the
tomb of Chaak Mool was to be found at a place some four hundred yards
from the palace. He at once set about excavations at this spot. At first
were found several bas-reliefs representing cats and birds of prey;
about twenty feet lower down was an urn of stone containing ashes, and
last of all the statue of a man reclining upon a slab of stone. This
statue is now in the National Museum of Mexico, under the title of Chaak
Mool, as if it were the image made by order of the devoted Kinich Katmò;
but the type of the face, the costume, head-dress, and sandals are
altogether different from the usual Yucatan models, and moreover other
little Chaak Mools have been found in different parts of Mexico, so that
the wise are led to suppose that it represents some unknown divinity
rather than a king of Yucatan.
[Illustration: STATUE OF CHAAK MOOL.]
The Spaniards found throughout Yucatan roads made for the convenience of
travellers, probably to the religious centres of the country. Some of
these roads are _calzadas_, like those of which traces exist in many
parts of Mexico, dating far beyond the Spaniards. The remains of one of
these were used in building the modern city of Merida in Yucatan. This
highway measured from between seven and eight yards in width; it was
made of blocks of stone covered with mortar, and a layer of cement about
two inches thick. Solid bridges of masonry spanned the rivers of Mexico
and Yucatan, of which the massive piers have been seen standing during
the last century.
Such are the monuments of the Mayan people, of whom not many facts are
to be disentangled from the early legends. Like the traditions of the
Mexican tribes, the Mayas tell of a supernatural being, who came from
the other side of the Caribbean seas, from a land of shadows. His name
was Votan, in the Mayan tradition. He found a people in the extreme of
barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they
killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example,
and for generations after he left them by his precepts, they advanced to
high civilization. According to his instructions, the only sacrifices
offered to the gods were the flowers and incense, sometimes birds and
animals. Votan is described as a great warrior, leading his people to
one triumph after another. Votan, it would seem, had a companion and
disciple called Zamna, to whom also the inhabitants of Yucatan ascribe
their ancient progress. It was he, they say, who invented hieroglyphics,
and he was the first to attach names to men and things. He was buried,
according to the account of the natives, at Izamal, one of the sacred
towns of Yucatan, beneath three different pyramids. Under one is his
right hand, the head under another, and the heart is beneath the third.
A huge head carved in stone has been found at Izamal, which perhaps
represents the Prophet Zamna.
[Illustration: ZAMNA.]
The Mayas used copper and gold. Their weapons were slings, spears, and
arrows with points made of obsidian or bone. Their warriors wore armor
of well-padded cotton, their shields were round and decorated with
feathers, or the skins of animals. They made boats by hollowing out the
trunks of trees, large enough to hold fifty people, which they guided
with great skill. Votan was regarded as a god after his death, like
Quetzalcoatl, with the Toltecs. Fierce wars waged between votaries of
the two as time went on. The Mayan legends and the few manuscripts
preserved tell of nothing but wars and conquests, struggles and defeats.
The confederation invaded by other tribes who triumphed over it
declined. Their religion deteriorated, as the traditions of Votan and
his precepts faded away, and the people returned to the custom of human
sacrifice, as bloody and terrible with them as with the other American
races.
In their monuments we can trace these evidences of their civilization;
they are remarkable for number and dimension, and the taste and skill
shown in their ornamentation implies a condition above that of savage
tribes warring against each other to defend the necessities of mere
existence.
IX.
AZTECS.
We now come to the tribe best known among those who lived on the great
plateau of Anahuac, the Aztecs, also called Mexicans. The latter name
has come so generally to include the inhabitants of the whole country,
that a distinction must be made.
This people was one of those which formed the great family of the
Nahuas; its emigration from the mysterious regions of the northeast
towards Anahuac, like that of the other tribes which recognize the same
traditions, rests on the same authority. Their origin is no clearer than
that of the rest. It seems certain that previous to migrating they dwelt
in a land far to the northeast of Lake Chapala. This region, hallowed in
their traditions with all the memories and all the attractions of a
far-off, long-lost home, they called Aztlan, and from this name were
they called Aztecs.
Why they abandoned this delightful home is entirely unknown, except to
conjecture and the probabilities of human life; the date is equally
uncertain, but to it has been assigned the middle of the seventh
century, and even the year 648 of our era is given.
The Aztecs having left their old habitations wandered vaguely off
towards the southwest, guided by the inspirations or indications of
their priests. They paused whole years in different places, building in
each houses and temples, of which traces are still found to mark their
path. They left behind them, indeed, settlements which still exist. But
the great body of these emigrants had not yet found a permanent
resting-place. They continued to move on, with intervals of pause, from
generation to generation, always impelled by the restlessness which
caused their first fathers, and the priests, their guides, to leave
Aztlan. It was six hundred years after the date commonly given for their
exodus that the Aztecs came to their final resting-place in 1243. The
tribe was already called Mexicas as well as Aztec, because the priests
received an order from one of their gods, Mexitli, that they should
receive a name like his. From Mexi or Mexicas was derived the word
Mexican. This name has attached itself, not only to the town they
founded, but to the broad valley in which it lies, and to the whole
country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; yet when they came
there the ancient tribe of the Toltecs already possessed the land, and
farther south the Mayas had attained a high degree of civilization. They
themselves were but a handful of men, despised by surrounding races for
the customs of their religion, even then regarded as barbarous and
horrible by the older inhabitants. They gained and maintained a foothold
in the place they had chosen against many enemies and countless
difficulties, triumphed over all these, and established themselves so
firmly as to imprint a name upon the whole region.
[Illustration: ORGAN CACTUS.]
It is no wonder that the broad, lofty valley where they found themselves
made so strong an impression upon them that they at once decided to
adopt it; though the exact spot they selected for their capital has been
often condemned by posterity.
They saw a vast oval of more than forty leagues' circumference,
surrounded, like an amphitheatre, with a girdle of mountains. On the
east rose the two proud volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl,
covered with perpetual snow, their sides clothed with forests. When the
Aztecs came, one vast lake occupied the basin of the broad plateau, too
wide to be called a valley, as well as too elevated, for the lowest part
is more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea.
They saw a rocky height rising above the wet soil near the lake, out of
which were doubtless even then growing huge cypress-trees, _ahuehuetl_,
making a dense and pleasant shade; a large spring of water flowed
constantly from the rock. Here they stopped and named the place
Chapultepec, which means the Hill of the Grasshopper. In the
picture-writings of the Aztecs it is depicted as a small hill with a
huge grasshopper standing all over it.
Here the Mexicans, or Aztecs, remained for a few years, but their place
was contested by the neighboring tribes, who also all of them saw the
merits of the site, and valued as much as the new-comers the spring of
sparkling water. The Mexicans made themselves odious by their religious
practices, and a combined array of Chichimecs and other tribes
dispossessed them of the Grasshopper Hill. They betook themselves to a
group of low islands in the lake, and there led a miserable existence
for many years, covered with rags, living on such fishes and insects as
they could lay hold of from the lake, and dwelling in wretched huts made
out of reeds and rushes. They were nothing more than the slaves of the
Tepanecs and Culhuas, surrounding tribes, and it is extraordinary that
from such a life they roused themselves to any thing better. In the
course of a battle between two of their tyrant tribes, they, the
miserable slaves, the despised eaters of insects, gave such proof of
unconquerable valor on the side of their masters, that these were
terrified and gave them their liberty. This was nearly one hundred years
after they had been driven from Chapultepec. They now shook off the yoke
of their oppressors, gathered themselves together, and leaving the
wretched island where they had languished so long, set forth once more
in search of a permanent dwelling-place.
The story has often been told of the way in which they fixed upon its
position. The priests declared that their great god, Huitzilopochtli,
had decreed for the situation of their abiding city, a _nopal_ growing
from a rock, upon which should be sitting an eagle with a snake in his
beak. The _nopal_ is one kind of cactus. When they suddenly came upon
this very combination of objects, the priests declared it to be the
preordained spot, and there they settled themselves after all the long
wanderings of their race, far from the shadowy Aztlan. The situation is
low, and too near the lake, which in those early days extended much
farther than at present. It has now been made to subside, leaving much
territory formerly under water spread out as barren marsh-land. Several
lakes, divided by low lands have taken the place of the broad inland sea
overlooked by the Mexican capital.
Here the Mexicans built their capital city, which in time grew to be the
centre of a great confederacy. They called it Tenochtitlan, which means
Place of the Stone and the Nopal. Its name was also Mexico early in its
history, from the old god Huitzilopochtli, who was also called Mexitli.
Tenochtitlan covered about one fourth of the ground now occupied by the
city of Mexico. Its founders divided it into four quarters or divisions,
to which were given the names of Cuepopan, Atzacualco, Moyotla, and
Zoquipan. In the centre rose the great teocalli dedicated to the god
Huitzilopochtli. The cathedral of the present city of Mexico stands on
the site of this ancient temple, but not a trace of the Aztec town is
now visible. The names of the quarters above given remain in those of
the suburbs of the modern town.
Little by little smaller islands were united to the larger ones by means
of stone- and earth-works. From a life of misery, by industry and energy
the Mexicans advanced their condition. They devoted themselves to
fishing and hunting, and exchanged the product of these labors with the
neighboring people for wood, stone and such things as they wanted.
Up to this time they had obeyed their priests, or certain chiefs who
controlled them. The last of these was Tenoch.
[Illustration: IDOL IN TERRA-COTTA.]
The rulers who followed have been called kings, their government a
monarchy, their homes palaces, their places of worship, temples. The
Conquistadores described the civilization they found upon Anahuac with
such wealth of words, that the Halls of the Montezumas have been ever
since the type of all that is rich and magnificent. Their realm was an
empire, their sway was absolute, their lives were one of luxury and
ease.
Later investigations take away from the early Aztec dynasty all its
splendors, one by one, until the poor Mexican kings have scarcely a
shred of regal dignity left them. Even their warfare is reduced to the
pitiful raids of one savage tribe against another, their title of
Emperor, no longer hereditary, although, it is admitted, kept in one
family, is reduced to that of chief; their capital city is a _pueblo_,
their palaces as low buildings of adobe, their teocallis are mounds.
For the sake of preserving the succession hitherto accepted, and to
avoid confusion in the mind of the reader, we will continue the
narration of the kings of Mexico, as if they still retained that title,
shorn as it is of its rays.
Tenoch died in 1363, thirty-eight years after the foundation of the
city. As his name forms part of the word Tenochtitlan, some authorities
give, as explanation, that the city was named after the chief, rather
than for reason of the nopal, the eagle, and the snake. But the valuable
legend remains, and is preserved on the national banner of the Mexicans
to-day.
Mexitzin succeeded Tenoch in command, who, as by this time the people
had greatly grown in importance, counselled them to follow the example
of the nations round about them, and choose a ruler to rule over them,
after the manner of their neighbors, the Tepanecs, and those of Texcuco,
across the lake. The proposal was favorably accepted, and Acamapichtli
was made king--the first monarch of the Mexican dynasty, in
Tenochtitlan, in 1376, fifty years after the foundation of the city. He
was Mexican upon his father's side, Chichimec, through his mother's
family. He was, according to the account of his chroniclers, one of the
most prudent and illustrious personages of his time. He married a
daughter of a most noble Aculhuan, and as all the monarchs of the valley
practised polygamy, allowed himself two other wives. Of one of these
wives the son Huitzilihuitl was the immediate successor to the throne,
and his half-brother, son of another wife, reigned next, named
Chimalpopoca. A third son, born of a slave to the king, lived to reign
in his stead after the death of the half-brothers. But the father of
these sons lived himself to reign for twenty years, if reigning it can
be called, to keep in hand a handful of poor Indians just escaping from
barbarism and degeneration of the lowest sort. Their one city was but
fifty years old. They had no capital, no resources beyond the toil of
their hands in fishing and hunting. They were regarded as interlopers by
the petty kingdoms which surrounded them, and their lives were made
miserable by the tyranny of any one of their neighbors who felt himself
strong enough to exact tribute. Yet some great vital force was in them
to hold them together and bring them increase.
Their belief in their old god, Huitzilopochtli, was strong as ever;
probably their fortunes rose and fell with the intelligence or the lack
of it in the priests who transmitted to the people the will of this
deity. Through them it was decreed that the tribute demanded by the
Tepanecs should be paid. These neighbors were pacified, and the Mexicans
could go on unmolested in their work of improving their city, which they
did by building temples and houses, and cutting canals through their
island that the water of the lake might circulate freely.
In the next reign, Huitzilihuitl, son of the first king, not only
followed but improved upon the example of his father in marrying a
daughter of some rival monarch. He sent ambassadors to various courts
asking the hand of each princess in marriage. The result was good. By
marrying a daughter of the king of the Tepanecs he relieved his people
of the heavy tribute they had been forced to pay. His other wife,
Cuauhnahuac, brought with her the knowledge of cotton for making wearing
apparel, for the district she came from produced it in abundance, and
her people understood the use of it. It is due to her, therefore, that
the Mexicans became well clothed. Specimens of the wearing of their
early times are preserved in the National Museum at Mexico. Her son was
the famous Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, better known to us as Montezuma I.
This king, who married the Princess of Cloth, greatly advanced his
nation. He compiled laws, regulated religious ceremonies, systematized
the army, with his brother at its head, thus establishing a custom which
was always afterwards followed, that a brother of the monarch should be
general-in-chief. In his day canoas, hollowed from trunks of trees, were
put into general use for war as well as for traffic. The system thus
introduced made his army a valuable accession to his neighbors when they
went to battle. By the service they rendered to the Aculhuans in such a
case, the Mexicans gained a high reputation as dangerous warriors. They
were still tributary to the Tepanecs of Atzcapotzalco, then in the hands
of the tyrant Maxtla, whom careful readers will remember. This usurper,
jealous of the growing power of his vassal, and afraid of its results,
caused the death of the little son and daughter of the Mexican monarch.
"The king, Huitzilihuitl," says the authority, "dissimulated this cruel
offence, considering that this was no time to expose his people to open
war with the Tepanecs, thus giving proof of a patriotism equal to
personal sacrifice."
[Illustration: CANAL OUTSIDE THE CITY OF MEXICO.]
This was however not the end of the matter for after the death of his
father, Chimalpopoca, who reigned in his stead became implicated in a
conspiracy against Maxtla. It was discovered, and the punishment that
the young king had to endure was to assume certain garments of the style
worn by women sent him by Maxtla, as signs of effeminacy and cowardice,
while Maxtla carried off and took to himself one of his wives.
Chimalpopoca waited to avenge these insults, and life being
insupportable to him, resolved to sacrifice himself to the great god of
his fathers, Huitzilopochtli; but Maxtla anticipated his intention, and
seizing him, shut him up in a wooden case, such as was used for common
criminals. The Mexican king, however, succeeded in his intent, by
hanging himself from a bar of his disgraceful prison.
This chief had reigned but ten years; during this time he had an
aqueduct constructed to bring clear water from Chapultepec to the city,
and built a fine _calzada_, or paved road, to make direct communication
between Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan.