Of all the stocks on the North American Continent, that which I call the
_Uto-Aztecan_ merits the closest study, on account of its wide extension
and the high development of some of its members. Tribes speaking its
dialects were found from the Isthmus of Panama to the banks of the
Columbia River, and from the coast of the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.
The relationship of these numerous bands is unquestionable, although many
of them have freely adopted words from other stocks. This, however, will
not surprise us if we recall that most of the Aryac languages of the old
world owe about one third of their radicals to non-Aryac sources.
The principal members of this stock are the Utes, Shoshonees and
Comanches in the north, various tribes in Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and
Durango in the center, and the Nahuas or Aztecs in the south. It is not
to be understood that the one of these derived its idioms from the other,
but rather that at some remote epoch all three were offshoots from some
one ancestral stem. This was at a period before the grammatical forms
of the tongue had reached full development, and probably when it was
in a stage of isolation, with tendencies to suffix agglutination and
incorporation. Since then the stages of growth which the several dialects
have reached have been various. The one which far outstripped all others
was the Nahuatl, which arrived at clear and harmonious sounds, fixed
forms, and even some recognizable traces of inflection, though always
retaining its incorporative character.
The establishment of the unity of this linguistic family we owe to the
admirable labors of Joh. Carl Ed. Buschmann, who devoted years of patient
investigation to examining the traces of the Nahuatl, or as he preferred
to call it, the Aztec language, in Mexico and throughout the continent
to the north. In spite of deficient materials, his sharp-sighted acumen
discovered the relationship of the chief tongues of the group, and later
investigations have amply confirmed his conclusions.[133]
Long before his day, however, the Spanish missionaries to the tribes
of Sonora and Sinaloa had recognized their kinship to the Aztecs, and
Father Ribas, in his history of the missions established by the Jesuits
in Mexico, published in 1645, stated that the root-words and much of the
grammar of all these dialects was substantially the same as those of the
Nahuatl.[134]
It is without doubt the most numerous stock now surviving. According to
the census figures of the governments of the United States and Mexico for
1880, the numbers were as follows:[135]
Shoshonian group, including Pimas in U. S. 26,200
Sonoran group in Mexican Territory 84,000
Aztecan group 1,626,000
_a. The Ute or Shoshonian Branch._
The northern, or Ute branch, which I so call from its most prominent
member, includes the Shoshonees, Utes and Comanches, with their numerous
sub-tribes and affiliated bands. They occupied at the beginning of this
century an immense area, now included in south-eastern Oregon, Wyoming,
Montana, Idaho, Nevada, parts of California, New Mexico and Arizona,
northern and western Texas, and the states of Durango and Chihuahua in
Mexico. Other names by which they are known in this area are Snakes,
Bannocks, Moquis, etc. Everywhere their tongue is unmistakably the same.
“Any one speaking the Shoshonee language may travel without difficulty
among the wild tribes from Durango, in Mexico, to the banks of the
Columbia River.”[136] Their war parties scoured the country from the
Black Hills of Dakota far into the interior of Mexico.
So far as can be ascertained, the course of migration of this group,
like that of the whole stock, has been in a general southerly direction.
The Comanche traditions state that about two hundred winters ago they
lived as one people with the Shoshonees somewhere to the north of the
head-waters of the Arkansas River.[137] This is borne out by similar
traditions among the northern Shoshonees.[138] That very careful student,
Mr. George Gibbs, from a review of all the indications, reached the
conclusion that the whole group came originally from the east of the
Rocky Mountain chain, and that the home of its ancestral horde was
somewhere between these mountains and the Great Lakes.[139] This is the
opinion I have also reached from an independent study of the subject,
and I believe it is as near as we can get to the birth-place of this
important stock.
This stock presents the extreme of both linguistic and physical
development. No tongue on the continent was more cultured than the
Nahuatl, and so were those who spoke it. The wretched root-digging Utes,
on the other hand, present the lowest type of skulls anywhere found in
America.[140] The explanation is easy. It was owing to their lack of
nutrition. Living on the arid plains of the interior, little better
than deserts, they had for generations been half starved. They were not
agricultural, but lived along the streams, catching fish, and making a
poor bread from the seeds of the wild sun-flower and the chenopodium.
Their houses were brush huts, or lodges of dressed buffalo skins; and
where the winters were cold, they dug holes in the ground in which they
huddled in indescribable filth.
Very much superior to these are the Comanches. A generation or two ago
they numbered about fifteen thousand, and were one of the most formidable
nations of the west. Now they have diminished to that many hundreds, and
live peaceably on reservations. They are tall (1.70) and well formed, the
skull mesocephalic, the eyes horizontal, the nose thin, the color light.
Agriculture is not a favorite occupation, but they are more reasonable
and willing to accept a civilized life than their neighbors, the Apaches
or the Kioways. They had little government, and though polygamists,
the women among them exercised considerable influence. Like the Utes,
they are sun-worshippers, applying to that orb the term “father sun,”
_taab-apa_, and performing various dances and other rites in his honor.
The serpent would seem also to come in for a share of their reverence,
their tribal sign in the gesture speech of the plain being that for a
snake,[141] and indeed they are often called Snake Indians. Not less
interesting is it to find throughout all these tribes, Ute and Comanche,
the deification of the coyote, which occupies so prominent a niche in
the pantheon of the Aztecan tribes and those who have borrowed from
them. According to the Ute myths, the wolf and the coyote were the first
two brothers from whom the race had its origin, and to the latter were
attributed all the good things in the world.
As we approach the southern border of the group, the stage of culture
becomes higher. The natives of the Pueblo of Moqui, whose curious
serpent-worship has been so well described by Captain Bourke,[142] are
of this stock, and illustrate its capacity for developing a respectable
civilization. The Kizh and Netela, who were attached to the mission of
San Capistrano, were also Shoshonees.
_b. The Sonoran Branch._
In the valley of the Gila river the Shoshonian and Sonoran branches of
the Uto-Aztecan stock were in contact from time immemorial. The Sonoran
branch begins on the north with the Pimas, who occupied the middle valley
of the Gila, and the land south of it quite to the Rio Yaqui. I continue
for it the name of _Sonoran_ given by Buschmann, although it extended far
beyond the bounds of that province.
The Pima tribe merits our special attention, because of the remarkable
ruins and relics of a dense former population, sedentary and
agricultural, in the region inhabited by it when the river basin was
first explored. These are the large structures known as the Great Houses
or Casas Grandes, and the remains of the numerous towns, extensive
irrigating trenches, and ruined enclosures, brought to light by the
Hemenway exploring expedition in the Salt river valley. Their walls were
built of adobes or sun-dried bricks of large size, the clay probably
placed in baskets upon the wall and allowed to dry there. The extent of
these remains is surprising, and in the Salt river valley alone, in an
area of half a million acres, it is estimated that two hundred thousand
people may have found support. Making every allowance, there is no doubt
that at some remote epoch the arable land in the valleys of the Gila and
its affluents was under close cultivation.
Who these busy planters were has supplied material for much speculation.
As usual, the simplest explanation has been the last to be welcomed. In
fact, there is no occasion for us to look elsewhere than to the ancestors
of these Pimas, who lived in the valley when the whites first traveled
it. There is nothing in the ruins and relics which demands a higher
culture than the Pimas possessed. There is no sign of a knowledge of
metals beyond hammered copper; the structures are such as the Pueblo
Indians of the same stock live in now; and the Pimas have a historic
tradition which claims these ruins and these old fields as the work of
their ancestors, from which they were driven by the repeated attacks of
the Apaches and other savage tribes of the north.[143] Some of them, a
sub-tribe called the Sobaypuris (Sabaguis), and doubtless many others,
took refuge in the deep cañons and constructed along their precipitous
sides those “cliff houses,” which have been often described. About a
hundred years ago the Apaches drove them out of these last resorts and
forced them to flee to the main body of the Pimas in the south.[144] In
conclusion, we may safely attribute most of the ruins in the Gila Basin,
as well as most of the cliff houses in the various cañons, to these
tribes of the Uto-Aztecan stock. When the early missionaries reached the
Pimas they found them in precisely the condition of culture of which we
see the remains in the Salt River valley. Their houses were built of
large adobes, sometimes roofed with tiles; they were agricultural and
industrious; their fields were irrigated by like extensive canals or
trenches, and their weapons, utensils and clothing were just such as the
Hemenway expedition showed were those of the early accolents of the Gila
and the Salado.[145]
Most of the other tribes of this group were, from the first knowledge we
have of them, inclined to sedentary and agricultural lives. The Opatas,
on the head-waters of the Rio Yaqui, and the Tarahumaras, in the valleys
of the Sierra Madre, are quiet, laborious peoples, who accepted without
difficulty the teachings of the early missionaries. They cultivate the
ground and build houses of adobes or of wood plastered.
The Tehuecos, Zuaques, Mayos and Yaquis are sub-tribes of the Cahitas,
and speak a dialect the most akin of any to the Nahuatl. They are
tall, vigorous men, active and laborious, trading in salt and woolen
stuffs, cheerful, and much given to music. South of the Tarahumaras and
immediately adjoining them, in the State of Chihuahua, are the Tepehuanas
on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre, from 25° to 27° latitude north.
They are a people of unusual intelligence, of excellent memory, and when
first met were living in solid houses of logs or of stone and clay, or
as genuine troglodytes in artificial caves, and cultivating abundant
crops of maize and cotton, which latter they wove and dyed with much
skill.[146] The chroniclers speak of them as the most valiant of all the
tribes of New Spain, but laborious and devoted to their fields.[147]
The tribe of the Sonoran group which reached the point furthest to the
south was the Coras, who dwelt in the Sierra of Nayarit, in the State of
Jalisco. From their location they are sometimes called Nayerits. They
were a warlike but agricultural people, about the same level as the
Tepehuanas.
The Tubares were a peaceable nation living in the Sierra of Sinaloa. They
received the missionaries willingly and seem to have been an industrious
tribe, their principal object of commerce being articles of clothing. It
is said that they spoke two entirely distinct languages, one a dialect of
Nahuatl, the other of unknown affinities.[148] The Guazapares and the
Varogios are described as living near the Tubares, on the head-waters of
the Rio del Fuerte, and speaking the same or a similar dialect.[149]
In the defiles of the lofty range, which is sometimes called the Sierra
de Topia, resided the Acaxees, Xiximes and other wild tribes, speaking
related tongues. By some authorities they are alleged to belong to the
Sonoran group, but as the material is lacking for comparison, their
ethnographic position must be left undetermined.
The Guaymas, on the coast of the Gulf of California, south of the Ceris
(a Yuma folk), have been ascertained by Mr. Pinart to speak a dialect
allied to that of the southern Pimas, and are therefore to be added
to this group. Another Pima dialect was the Bacorehui, spoken by the
Batucaris and Comoparis on the lower Rio del Fuerte; as it was also that
of the Ahomes, a distinctly Pima people.[150]
The uniform tradition of all the tribes of this stock in Sonora and
Sinaloa, so far as they were obtained by the early missionaries, was to
the effect that their ancestors had migrated from localities further to
the north.[151]
_c. The Nahuatl Branch._
Under the term _Nahuas_, which has the excellent authority of Sahagun
in its favor, I shall include all the tribes of the Uto-Aztecan stock
who spoke the Nahuatl language, that called by Buschmann the Aztec,
and often referred to as the Mexican. These tribes occupied the slope
of the Pacific coast from about the Rio del Fuerte in Sinaloa, N. lat.
26°, to the frontiers of Guatemala, except a portion at the isthmus
of Tehuantepec. Beyond this line, they had colonies under the name of
Pipiles on the coast of Guatemala, and in the interior the Alaguilacs.
The Cuitlatecos, or Tecos, “dung-hill people,” was a term of depreciation
applied to those in Michoacan and Guerrero. On the borders of the lakes
in the valley of Mexico were the three important states Tezcuco, Tlacopan
and Tenochtitlan, who at the time of the conquest were formed into a
confederacy of wide sway.
The last mentioned, Tenochtitlan, had its chief town where the city of
Mexico now stands, and its inhabitants were the Azteca. East of the
valley were the Tlascaltecs, an independent tribe; south of and along
the shore of the gulf from Vera Cruz almost to the mouth of the Rio de
Grijalva, were Nahuatl tribes under the dominion of the confederacy. An
isolated, but distinctly affiliated band, had wandered down to Nicaragua,
where under the name Nicaraos they were found on the narrow strip of land
between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, which they had conquered from
tribes of Chapanec lineage. The most distant of all were the Seguas,
who at the time of the conquest resided in the Valle Coaza, on the Rio
Telorio, and later moved to Chiriqui Lagoon. After the conquest they were
scattered still further by the transportation of colonies of Tlascalans
to Saltillo in the north, and to Isalco in San Salvador in the south.
I omit entirely from this group the Toltecs and the Chichimecs. These
were never tribal designations, and it is impossible to identify them
with any known communities. The Toltecs may have been one of the early
and unimportant gentes of the Azteca, but even this is doubtful. The
term was properly applied to the inhabitants of the small town of Tula,
north of the valley of Mexico. In later story they were referred to as a
mythical people of singular gifts and wide domain. Modern and uncritical
writers have been misled by these tales, and have represented the Toltecs
as a potent nation and ancestors of the Aztecs. There is no foundation
for such statements, and they have no historic position.[152]
The term Chichimeca was applied to many barbarous hordes as a term of
contempt, “dogs,” “dog people.”[153] It has no ethnic signification, and
never had, but was used in much the same way as _Cuitlateca_, above
referred to.[154]
The government of these states did not differ in principle from that of
the northern tribes, though its development had reached a later stage.
Descent was generally reckoned in the male line, and the male children
of the deceased were regarded as the natural heirs both to his property
and his dignities. Where the latter, however, belonged rather to the gens
than the individual, a form of election was held, the children of the
deceased being given the preference. In this sense, which was the usual
limitation in America, many positions were hereditary, including that of
the chieftaincy of the tribe or confederation. The Montezuma who was the
ruler who received Cortez, was the grandson of Axayacatl, who in turn was
the son of the first Montezuma, each of whom exercised the chief power.
The land was held by the gens and allotted to its members for
cultivation. Marriage was also an affair regulated by the gentile laws of
consanguinity, but the position of woman was not specially inferior, and
in the instance of the daughter of the first Montezuma, one seems to have
occupied the position of head chief for a time.
The general condition of the arts in ancient Mexico is familiar to all
who have turned their attention to American history. It has indeed
received more than its due share of attention from the number and
prominence of the Nahuas at the conquest. They were little if at all
superior to many of their neighbors in cultural progress. Even in
architecture, where they excelled, the Zapotecs, Totonacos and Tarascos
were but little behind them. Numerous artificial pyramids and structures
of hewn stone remain in the territories of all these to prove their skill
as builders. The Mexicans may be said to have reached the age of bronze.
Many weapons, utensils and implements, were manufactured of this alloy
of copper and tin. Gold, silver, lead and copper, were likewise deftly
worked by founding and smelting into objects of ornament or use. Lead was
also known, but not utilized. The majority of implements continued to be
of stone. They were fortunate in having for this purpose a most excellent
material, obsidian, which volcanic product is abundant in Mexico. From
it they flaked off arrow points, knives and scrapers, and by polishing
worked it into labrets and mirrors. A variety of nephrite or jade was
highly esteemed, and some of the most elaborate specimens of Mexican art
in stone are in this hard, greenish material. Fragments of colored stones
were set in mosaic, either as masks, knife handles or the like, with
excellent effect.
With the undoubtedly dense population of many districts, the tillage
of the ground was a necessary source of the food supply. The principal
crop was as usual maize, but beans, peppers, gourds and fruit were also
cultivated. Cotton was largely employed for clothing, being neatly woven
and dyed in brilliant colors.
The religious rites were elaborate and prescribed with minuteness.
Priests and priestesses were vowed to the cult of certain deities. Their
duties consisted in sweeping and decorating the temples, in preparing the
sacrifices, and in chanting at certain periods of the day and night. The
offerings were usually of quails, rabbits or flowers, but, especially
in Tenochtitlan, human sacrifices were not infrequent. The victims were
slaves or captives taken in war. At times their flesh was distributed to
the votaries, and was consumed as part of the ceremony; but as this was a
rite, the Aztecs cannot be said to have been anthropophagous.
The priestly class had charge of the education of the youth of the better
class. This was conducted with care and severity. Large buildings were
set apart for the purpose, some for boys, others for girls. The boys
were taught martial exercises, the history of the nation, the chants and
dances of the religious worship, forms of salutation, the art of writing,
etc. The girls were instructed in household duties, the preparation of
food, the manufacture of garments, and the morals of domestic life.[155]
The literature which represented this education was large. It was
preserved in books written upon parchment, or upon paper manufactured
from the fibrous leaves of the maguey. This was furnished in great
quantities from different parts of the realm, as much as 24,000 bundles
being required by the government annually as tribute. A book consisted
of a strip of paper perhaps twenty feet long, folded like a screen into
pages about six inches wide, on both sides of which were painted the
hieroglyphic characters. These were partly ideographic, partly phonetic;
the latter were upon the principle of the rebus, conveying the name or
word by the representation of some object, the word for which had a
similar sound. I have called this the _ikonomatic_ method of writing, and
have explained it in detail in several essays on the subject.[156]
Their calendar recognized the length of the year as 365 days. The
mathematical difficulties in the way of a complete understanding of it
have not yet been worked out, and it may have differed in the various
tribes. Its elements were a common property of all the Nahua peoples, as
well as many of their neighbors; which of them first devised it has not
been ascertained.