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THE NATIVE RACES 
 
 01 THE 
 
 PACIFIC STATES. 
 
/ 
 
 THE 
 
 NATIVE RACES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PACIFIC STATES 
 
 OF 
 
 J^OETH AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. 
 
 VOLUME n. 
 CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 1875. 
 

 fi'^7f)7 
 
 Entered according to Act of CongresMn the year one thousand e,«tt hundred .nd 
 
 HUBEKT H. BANCROFT, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 UIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDOe: 
 PRDITED Br B. 0. OOOaaTON AND COXFAIIT. 
 
COIS^TENTS OF THIS VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Detiiiitioii of the TerniH — Tlie Universal Soul of Progress — Man the In- 
 striiinont and not the Element of Progress — Origin of Progressionul 
 Plicnoiiieiiii The Agency of Evil— Is Civilization Conducive to 
 Happiness? -Olijei-tive and Subjective Humanity — Conditions Es- 
 sential to Progress — Continental Configurations — Food and Climate 
 — Wealth and Incisure — Association — War, Slavery, Religion, and 
 Government — The Development of Progressional Law 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENEHAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 The American Civilization of the Sixteenth Century — Its Disappear- 
 ance — The Past, a New Element — Dividing line between Savage 
 and Civilized Tribes— Bounds of American Civilization — Phys'-.i-al 
 Features of the Country — Maya and Nahua Pranches of .ilMirigi- 
 nal Culture— The Nahua Civilization — The Aztecs its Representa- 
 tives—Limits of the Aztec Empire — Ancient History of Amihuan 
 in Outline -The Toltec Era— The Chichimec Era— The Aztec Era 
 — E.xtentof the Aztec Language — Civilized Peojdes outside of Ana- 
 huac — Central American Nations —The Maya Culture — Tlie Primi- 
 tive Maya Empire — Nahua Intluence in the South— Yucatan and 
 the Mayas — The Nations of Chiapas— The Quiche Emjjire in (iua- 
 temala — The Nahuas in Nicaragua and Salvador — Etymology of 
 Names 81 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 System of Government — The Aztec Confederacy — Order of Succession 
 — Election of Kings among the Mexicans— Royal Prerogatives — 
 Government and Laws of Succession among the Toltecs, and in 
 Michoacan, Tlaseala, Cholula, Huexotzinco, and Oajaca — Magnifi- 
 cence of the Nahua Mtmarchs — Ceremony of Anointment — Ascent 
 to tlie T. iiiple The Holy Unction — Address of the High-Priest to 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQE. 
 
 the King — Penance uvA Fasting in the, Houbo called Tlacatccco — 
 Homage of the Nobles — General Rejoicing throughout the King- 
 dom — Ceremony of Coronation — Tlie Procuring of Sacrifices — 
 Descrijdion of the Crown— Coronation Feasts and Entertainments 
 — Hospitality extended to Enemies — Coronation Sijcech of Neza- 
 hualpilli, King of Tezcnco, to Montezuma II. of Mexico — Oration 
 of a Noble to a Newly elected King 133 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PALACES AND HOUSEHOLDS OF THE NAHUA KINGS. 
 
 Extent and Interior of the Great Palace in Mexico — The Palace of 
 Nezahualcoyotl, Kitig of Tezt'uco — The Zoological Collections of 
 the Nahua Monarchs — Montezuma's Oratory— Uoj'al Gardens and 
 Pleasure-Grounds — The Hill of Chapnlteiiec — Nezahualcoyotl's 
 Country Residence at Tezcozinco — Toltec Palaces — The Roj'al 
 Guard — The King's Meals— .\n Aztec Cuisine — The Audience 
 Chamber -After-dinner Amusements — The Royal Wardrobe — The 
 King Among his People — Meeting of Montezuma II. and Cortes — 
 The King's Harem — Revenues of the Royal Household — Policy of 
 Aztec Kings 158 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PBIVILEGED CLASSES AMONG THE NAHUAS. 
 
 Titles of the Nobility and Gentry— The Power of the Nobles— The 
 Aristocracy of Tezcuco — The Policy of King Tcehotlalatzin — Privi- 
 leges of the Nobles — Montezuma's Policy — Rivalry between Nobles 
 and Commons — The Knightly Order of Tecuhtli — Ceremony of 
 Initiation — Origin of the Order — The Nahua Priesthood — The 
 Priests of Mexico — Dedication of Children — Priestesses — Priest- 
 hood of Miztecapan — The Pontiff of Yopaa — Tradition of Wixipe- 
 cocha — The Cave of Yopaa — The Zapotec Priests — Toltec Priests — 
 Totonac Priests — Priests of Michoacan, Puebla, and Tlascula 18G 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PLEBEIANS, SLAVES, TENUUE OF LANDS, AND TAXATION. 
 
 Influence of the Commoners — Oppression by Nobles — Deprived of Office 
 by Montezuma II. — -Classes of Slaves — Penal Slaves— Voluntary 
 Slavery — -Slave Market at Azcapuzalco— Punishment and Privi- 
 leges of Slaves — Division of Lands — Crown I.auds — Lands of the 
 Nobles — Municipal Property — Property of the Temples— Tenure 
 of Lands in Zapotecapan, Miztecapan, Michoacan, Tlascala, Cho- 
 lula, and Huexotzinco — Similarity to Feudal System of Europe — 
 System of Taxation — Municipal Taxes — Lice Tribute — Tribute 
 from Conquered Provinces— Revenue Officers — Injustice of Monte- 
 zuma II 2ir. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PA«iE. 
 
 EDUCATION, MAURIAOF., CONCUBINAGE, CHILDBIRTH, AND BAPTISM. 
 
 Education of the Niihuu Youth — Manner of Punishment — Marriage 
 I'rcliniinaricH — Nuptial Ceremony — Observance alter Marria};e — 
 ^layatcc, Otomi, Chichimec, and Toltec Marriages — Divorce — 
 Concubinage— Ceremonies Preliminary to Ciiildbirtb -Treatment 
 of Pregnant Women -Proceedings of Midwife- Superstitions with 
 regard to Women who Died in Childbed— Abortion -Baptism - 
 Siteeches of Midwife— Naming of Children^Baptism among the 
 Tlascaltecs, Miztecs, and Zapotecs — Circumcision and Scarification 
 of Infants 240 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MAHUA FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 Excessive Fondness for Feasts — Manner of Giving Feasts — Serving 
 tlie Meal — Professional Jesters— Parting Presents to Guests — lloyal 
 Banquets — Tobacco Smoking— Public Dances — Manner of Syiging 
 u;id Dancing— The Neteteli/tli— The Drama among the Nahuas — 
 Music and Musical Instruments — Nahua Poetry — Acrobatic Feats 
 — The Netololiztli, or 'Bird Dance' — Professional Runners — The 
 (iunie of Tlactli — Ciames of Chance — The Patoliztli, or 'Bean 
 Game' — Totoloque, Montezuma's Favorite Game 283 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PUBLIC FESTIVALS. 
 
 Frequent Occurrence of Religious Feasts— Human Sacrifices — Fea.sts 
 of the Foijrth Year — Monthly Festivals— Sacrifice of Children — 
 Feast of Xipe — Manner of Sacrifice — Feasts of Camaxtli, of the 
 Flower Dealers, of Centeotl, of Tezcatlipoca, and of Huitzilopochtli 
 — Festival of the Salt Makers — ^The Sacrifice by Fire — Feast of the 
 Dead — The Coming of the Gods —The Footprints on the Mat- 
 Hunting Feast — The Month of Love — Hard Times — Nahua Luper- 
 calia — Feasts of the Sun, of the Winter Solstice — Harvest and 
 Eight- Year Festivals— The Binding of the Sheaf 302 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOOD OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Origin of Agriculture — Floating Gardens— Agricultural Products — 
 Manner of preparing the Soil— Description of Agricultural Imi)le- 
 ments — Irrigation — Granaries — Gardens — Tlie Harvest Feast — 
 Manner of Hunting — Fishing — Methods of procuring Salt- -Nahua 
 Cookery — Various kinds of Bread — Beans — Pepper- -Fruit — Ta- 
 
i t 
 
 • i 
 1 j 
 
 Vl CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK. 
 
 niiilcH Misccllancoim Artirlcs of Food— Entinp of Humnn FIohH— 
 Miiiiiifiictiiru of I'ulijuc I'roiHimtioii of Cliocolutl Otlior IJi'ver- 
 iij^L'H liitdxiL'atiii;^ Drinks -Drmikeniie.sx -Time uiid Miinner of 
 Taking Meals 342 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DRESH OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Progress in Dress — Dross of the IVe-Aztcc Nations- -Onrnicnts of the 
 ("liiciiiniecs ami Toltecs- -Introduction of Cotton Tiic Maxtli — 
 Tlie Tilinatli — Dress of tlie Acoihnas — Origin of tliu Tarascun Cos- 
 tiinie Dress of tlie Zapotecs and Taliascans Dress of Women 
 Tlie lluipil and Cueitl — Sandals -Manner of Wearingtiic Mair - 
 Painting and Tattooing -Ornaments used by the Nahnas Cor- 
 geons Dress of the Noldes —Dress of the lloyal Attendants Nam -s 
 of the Various Mantles— Tlie Uoyal Diadem — The Uoyal Wardrohe 
 — Costly Decorations .%3 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COMMERCE OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The Main Features of Nahtiii •!ommerce— Commerce in Pre-Aztcc 
 Times— Outrages ('ommitted by Aztec Merchants Privileges of 
 the Merchants of TKitelulco — Jealousy between Merchants and 
 Nobles -Articles used as ('urrency — The Markets of Anahuac — 
 Arrangement and Kegulations of the Market-Places — Number of 
 Ituyers •and Sellers — Transportation of Wares — Traveling Mer- 
 chants Commercial Routes — Setting out on a Journey —Caravans 
 of Traders— The Ueturn— Customs and Feasts of the Merclnints — 
 Nahua Boats and Navigation 378 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WAR-CIISTOJIH OF THE NAHUA? 
 
 Importance of the Military Profession -Indicatioi , of Rank— Educa- 
 tion of Warriors — Rewards for Valor — Military Orders and their 
 Dress — ( Jorgeous War-T)resses of Montezuma and the Aztec No- 
 bility — Dress of the Common Soldiers— Arnmr and Defensive 
 Weapons — Oti'ensi ve Weapons — Standards — Ambassadors and 
 Couriers- Fort ilications— The Military Council— Articles of War 
 — Declaration of War — Spies — Order of March and Battle — War 
 Customs of the Tlascaltecs and Tarascos — Return of the Conquer- 
 ing Army — Celebration of Feats of Arms 40() 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NAHUA LAWS AND LAW COURTS. 
 
 General Remarks — the Cihuacoatl, or Su])rcmc Judge — the Court of 
 theTlacatecatl— Jurisdiction of the Tecuhtlis— the Centectlapix(iues 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Tli 
 
 and TopilliH — Law Courts and Judges of Tczcnco— Ei}»lity-I)uy 
 .Council — Tribunal of the King — Court Proceedings — Lawyers 
 — Witnesses— Ucniuneratioii of iludges— Justice of King Ne/ahual- 
 pilli— lie orders his Son's Execution— Montezuma and the Farmer 
 — Jails — Laws against Theft, Murder, Treason, Kiilnapping, 
 Drunkenness, Witchcraft, Adultery, Incest, Sodomy, Fornication, 
 and other Crimes— Story of Nezahualcoyotl and the Uoy 433 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NAUUA AUT8 AND MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Mctala Used and Manner of Obtaining Them — Working of Gol'l ind 
 Silver — Wonderful Skill in Inutating (iilding and Plating— Work 
 iiig in Stone — Lapidary Work — Wood Carving — Manufacture of 
 Pottery — Various Kinds of Cloth — Manufacture of Paper and 
 Leather — Preparation of Dyes and Paints— The Art of l'. inting 
 — Feather Mosaic Work — Leaf-Mats — Manner of Kinuimg Fire 
 — Torches- Soap — Council of Arts in Tezcuco— Oratory and Poet- 
 ry — Ni /.4.iii..ilcoyotrs Odes on the Mutability of Life, and thi' Ty- 
 rant Tezozonioe — Aztec Arithmetical System 473 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE AZTEC CALENDAR. 
 
 Astronomical Knowledge of the Aztecs— Contradictions of Authors re- 
 sjiecting the Calendar — A'alue of the Researches of Various Writ- 
 ers—The First Regular Calendar — Tlie Mexican Cycle— The Civil 
 Year — The Aztec Months — Names of the Days and their Signilica- 
 tion — The Commencement of the Aztec Year — The Ritual Calendar 
 — Ganui's Arrangement of the Months — The Caleiular-Stoue — The 
 Four Destructions of the World — The Calendar of MiclKjacau— 
 Reckoning of the Zapotecs -. 502 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE AZTEC PICTURE-WRITING. 
 
 Hieroglyphic Records — The Native Rooks — Authorities — Destruction 
 of the Native Archives by Zunuirraga and his Confreres — Picture- 
 Writings used after the Concjuest for Confession and Law-Suits — 
 . Value of the Records — Documents sent to Spain in the Sixteenth 
 Centurj- — European Collections — Lord Kingsborough's Work — 
 Picture- Writings retained in Mexico — Collections of Ixtlilxochitl, 
 Siguiinza, CJemelli Careri, Roturini, Veytia, Leon y Gama, Pichardo, 
 Aubin, and the National Museum of Mexico — Process of Hiero- 
 glyphic Development — Representative, Symbjlic, and Phonetic 
 Picture-Writing — Origin of Modern Alphabets — The Aztec System 
 — Specimen from the Codex Mendoza — Specimen from Gemelli 
 Careri— Specimen from the Boturini Collection— Probable lu.ure 
 Success of Interpreters — The Nepohualtzitzin 523 
 
vili 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVni. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ARCHITECTBRE AND DWELLINGS OF THE NAHUAS. 
 
 Architeeturu (if the Ancient Nations— General Features of Nahua Arch- 
 itecture — The Arch — Exterior and Interior Decorations — Method 
 of Building — ^Inclincd Planes — Scaffolds— The use of the Plummet 
 — Building Materials — Position and Fortification of Towns — Mex- 
 ico Tenochtitlan — The Great Causeways — Quarters and Wards of 
 Mexico — The Market Place — Fountains and Aqueducts— Light- 
 houses and Street- work — City of Tezcuco — Dwellings — Aztec Gar- 
 dens — Temple of Huit .ilopochtli — Temple of Mexico — Other Tem- 
 ples — Teocalli at Cholula and Tezcuco 553 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MEDICINE AND FDNEEAL BITE8 AMONG THE NAHUAS, 
 
 Mexican (Contributions to Medical Science — The Botanical Gardens — 
 Longevity — Prevalent Diseases — Introduction of Small-Pox and 
 Syphilis — Medical Treatment — The Temazcalli — Aboriginal Physi- 
 cians — The Aztec Faculty — Standard Ucmedics — Surgery — Super- 
 stitious Ceremonies in Healing — Funeral Kites of Aztecs — Crema- 
 tion — Royal Obsequies — Embalming — The Funeral Pyre — Human 
 Sacrifice — Disposal of the Ashes and Ornaments — Mourners — Fu- 
 neral t!erc!nonies of the People — Certain Classes Buried— Rites for 
 the Slain in Battle — Burial among the Teo-Chichimecs and Tabas- 
 cans — Cremation Ceremonies in Michoacan — Burial by the Miztecs 
 in Oajaca 591 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 GOVERNMENT, SOCIAL CLASSES, PROPERTY, AND LAWS OF THE MAYA 
 
 NATIONS. 
 
 Introductory Remarks — Votan's Empire — Zamnd's Reign — The Royal 
 Families of Yucatan, (vocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas, and Cheles — 
 Titles and Order of Succession — Classes of Nobles — The Quiche- 
 Cakchiquel Empire in Guatemala — The Ahau Ahpops and Succes- 
 sion to the Throne— Privileged Classes — Government of the Prov- 
 inces — The Royal Council — The Chiapanecs — The Pipiles — Nations 
 of Nicaragua — The Maya Priesthood — Plebeian Classes — Slaves — 
 Tenure of Lands— Inheritance of Property — Taxation — Debtors 
 and Creditors — Laws and the Administration of Justice 630 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 EDUCATION AND FAMILY MATTERS AMONG THE MAYAS. 
 
 Education of Youth — Public Schools of Guatemala- Bri.nclie9of Study 
 in Yucatan— Marrying- Age — Degrees of Consanguinity allowed in 
 Marriage — Preliminaries of Marriage — Marriage Ceremonies — The 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Custom of the Droit dii Seigneur in Nicaragua — Widows — Monog- 
 amy — Concubinage — Divorce — Laws Concerning Adultery— Forni- 
 cation — Uape — Prostitution — Unnatural Crimes — Desire for Chil- 
 dren — Child-birth Ceremonies — Kite of Circumcision— Manner of 
 Naming Children — Baptismal Ceremonies G61 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 Special Observances — Fixed Feasts — Sacrifice of Slaves ^ — Monthly 
 Feasts of the Yucatecs - Kcnewal of the Idols — Feast of the 
 Chacs — Hunting Festival — The Tuppkuk — Feast of the Cacao- 
 Planters- -War Feast — The Maya New Year's Day -Feasts of the 
 Hunters, Fishers, and A])iarists — Ceremonies in honor of Cuknlcan 
 — Feast of tlic' Month of Mol — Feasts of the Years Kan, Muluc, Ix, 
 and Cauac — Yucatec Sacrifices — The Pit of Chichen — Sacrifices of 
 the Pipiles — Feast of Victory — Feasts and Sacrifices in Nicaragua 
 — banquets — Dances — Musical Instruments -(James 687 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FOOD, DRESS, COMMERCE, AND WAR CUSTOMS OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 Introduction of Agriculture — Quiche Traditicm of the Discovery of 
 Maize — Maize Culture — Superstitious of Farmers — -Hunting and 
 Fishing — Domestic Animals, Fowl, and IJees — Preservation and 
 Cooking of Food — Meals — Drinks and Drinking- Habits— Cannibal- 
 ism — Dress of the Mayas — Maxtlis, Mantles, and Sandals — Dress 
 of Kings and Priests — Women's Dress — Hair and Heard — Personal 
 Decoration — Head- Flattening, Perforation, Tattooing, and Paint- 
 ing — Personal Haitits ( 'onnnerce -Currency — Markets- -Supersti- 
 tions of Travelers ("anoes and Kalsas -War -Military Leaders — 
 Insignia -Armor — Weapons — Fortifications - ISattles — Treatment 
 of Captives 715 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MAYA ARTS, CALENDAR, AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 Scarcity of Information -I'se of Metals (iold and Precious Stones— 
 Ini|)lemcnts of Stone Sculpture--Pottery--Manufacture of Cloth 
 — Dyeing — System of Numeration -Maya Calendar in Yucatan — 
 Days, Weeks, Months, and Years -Indictions and Katunes — Perez' 
 System of Ahau Katu;ies--Statements of Landa ami Cogolludo - 
 Intercalary Days anil Years -Days and Months in (iuatemala, 
 Chiapas, and Suconusco— Maya Hieroglyphic System — Testimony 
 of Early Writers on the Use of Picture-Writing — Destruction of 
 Documents Specime:is which have Survived--The Dresden Codex 
 — Manuscript Troano -Tablets of Palenque, Copau, and Yucatan 
 — Bishop Lau'la's Key— Brasseur de Buurbuurg's Interpretation. .. 748 
 
m 
 
 \ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 BUILDINGS, MEDICINE, BURIAL, PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES, AND CHARAC- 
 TER OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 Scanty Information given by the Early Voyagers— Private Houses of 
 the Mayas — Interior Arrangement, Decoration, and Furniture — 
 Maya Cities— Description of Utatlan — Patinamit, the Cakchiquel 
 Capital — Cities of Nicaragua — Maya Roads — Temples at Chichen 
 Itza and Cozumel — Temples of Nicaragua and Guatemala— Dis- 
 eases of the Mayas— Medicines used — Treatment of the Sick — Pro- 
 pitiatory Offerings and Vows — Superstitions — Dreams — Omens — 
 Witchcraft — Snake-Charniers — Funeral Rites and Ceremonies — 
 Physical Peculiarities — Character 783 
 
 II 
 
 I i 
 
783 
 
THE NATIA^E RACES 
 
 PACIFIC STATES. 
 
 CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Definition of the Tkrms— FoRnE and Nature— The Universal 
 Soul of Progress— Man the Instrument and not the Element 
 OF Progress— Oriuin of ProgressionalPhenomena— The Agency 
 OK Evil — Is Civilization Conducive to Hai'1'INEss?-Oiijectivb 
 and Suiuective Humanity -Conditions Essential to Progress 
 — continpntal configurations— food and climate— wealth 
 AND Leisure— Association — War, Slavery, Religion, and (Jov- 
 ERNMENT— Morality and Fashion— The Development of Pro- 
 
 URESSIONAL LAW. 
 
 The terms Savage and Civilized, as applied to races 
 of tnen, are relative and not absolute terms. At best 
 these words mark onlv bro;.J shif'tinof staijes in human 
 progrcf \e one near the point of departure, the other 
 farther on toward the unattainable end. This jjrogress 
 is one and universal, though of varying rapidity and 
 extent; there are decrees in savajjism a'ld there are 
 degrees in civilization; indeed, though placed in opposi- 
 tion, the one is but a degree of the other. The Hai- 
 dah, whom we call savage, is as much superior to the 
 Shoshone, the lowest of Americans, as the Aztec is 
 superior to the Haidah, or the European to the Aztec. 
 
«lf 
 
 PACIFIC STATES 
 
 sliowiriL' llic litciilioii (if 
 THE CIVILIZED NATIONS 
 
 Sruli- 
 
 1 
 7 :l rt fi (J II II 
 //.» ■Strilntf tiitlrfr t /• ii n iitrh 
 
 Q 
 
 xaa 
 
 M 
 
 «• 
 
 •4 
 
SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Looking back some thousands of ages, we of to-day 
 are civilized; looking forward through the same dura- 
 tion of time, we are savages. 
 
 Nor is it, in the absence of fixed conditions, and 
 amidst the many shades of difference presented by the 
 nations along our western seaboard, an easy matter to 
 tell where even comparative savagism ends and civil- 
 ization begins. In the common acceptation of these 
 terms, we may safely call the Central Califomians 
 savage, and the Quiches of Guatemala civilized; but 
 between these two extremes are hundreds of peoples, 
 each of which presents some claim for both distinctions. 
 Thus, if the doiTiestication of ruminants, or some knowl- 
 edge of arts and metals, constitute civilization, then 
 are the ingenious but half-torpid Hyperboreans civil- 
 ized, for the Eskimos tame reindeer, and the Thlinkeets 
 are skillful carvers and make use of copper; if the 
 cultivation of the soil, the building of substantial 
 houses of adobe, wood, and stone, with the manufacture 
 of cloth and pottery, denote an exodus from savagism, 
 then are the Pueblos of New Mexico no longer savages; 
 yet in both these instances enough may be seen, either 
 of stupidity or brutishness, to forbid our ranking them 
 with the more advanced Aztecs, Mayas, and Quichds. 
 
 We know what savages are ; how, like wild animals, 
 they depend for food and raiment upon the spontane- 
 ous products of nature, migrating with the beasts and 
 birds and fishes, burrowing beneath the ground, hiding 
 in ca\ es, or throwing over themselves a shelter of bark 
 or skins or branches or boards, eating or starving as 
 food is abundant or scarce ; nevertheless, all of them 
 have made some advancement from their original 
 naked, helpless condition, and have acquired some aids 
 in the procurement of their poor necessities. Prime- 
 val man, the only real point of departure, and hence 
 the only true savage, nowhere exists on the globe to- 
 day. Be the animal man never so low — lower in skill 
 and wisdom than the brute, less active in obtaining 
 food, less ingenious in building his den — the first step 
 
 I 
 
DEFINITION OF THE TERMS. 
 
 out of his houseless, comfortless condition, the first 
 fashioninj]^ of a tool, the first attempt to cover naked- 
 ness and wall out the wind, if this endeavor spring 
 from intellect and not from instinct, is the first step 
 toward civilization. Hence the modem savage is not 
 the pre-historic or primitive man ; nor is it among the 
 barbarous nations of to-day that we must look for the 
 rudest barbarism. 
 
 Often is the question asked. What is civilization? 
 and the answer comes. The act of civilizing; the state 
 of being civilized. What is the act of civilizing? To 
 reclaim from a savage or barbarous state ; to educate ; 
 to refine. What is a savage or barbarous state? A 
 wild uncultivated state ; a state of nature. Thus far 
 the dictionaries. The term civilization, then, popular- 
 ly implies both the transition from a natural to an artifi- 
 cial state, and the artificial condition attained. The 
 derivation of the word civilization, from civis, citizen, 
 ci vitas, city, and originally from cat us, union, seems 
 to indicate that culture which, in feudal times, distin- 
 guished the occupants of cities from the ill-mannered 
 boors of the country. The word savage, on the other 
 hand, from silva, a wood, points to man primeval; 
 silvcstres homines, men of the forest, not necessarily 
 ferocious or brutal, but children of nature. From 
 these simple beginnings both words have gradually 
 acquired a broader significance, until by one is under- 
 stood a state of comfort, intelligence, and refinement; 
 and by the other, humanity wild and bestial. 
 
 Guizot defines civilization as an "improved condi- 
 tion of man resulting from the establishment of social 
 order in place of the individual independence and 
 lawlessness of the savage or barbarous life;" Buckle 
 as "the triumph of mind over external agents;" Virey 
 as "the development more or less absolute of the moral 
 and intellectual faculties of man united in society;" 
 Burke as the exponent of two principles, "the spirit of 
 a gentleman and the spirit of religion." "Whatever 
 be the characteristics of what we call savage life," says 
 
4 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, "the contrary of these, or the 
 <]ualitios which society puts on as it throws off those, 
 constitute civilization;" and, remarks Emerson, "a 
 nation that has no clothing, no iron, no alphabet, no 
 marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract thought, we 
 call barbarous," 
 
 Men talk of civilization and call it liberty, religion, 
 government, morality. Now liberty is no more a sign 
 of civilization than tyranny ; for the lowest savages are 
 the least governed of all people. Civilized liberty, it 
 is true, marks a more advanced stage than savage 
 liberty, but between these two extremes of liberty 
 there is a necessary age of t^^ranny, no less significant 
 of an advance on primitive liberty than is constitu- 
 tional liberty an advance on tyranny. Nor is religion 
 civilization, except in so far as the fonn and machinery 
 of sacerdotal rites, and the abandonment of fetichism 
 for monotheism become significant of intenser thought 
 and expansion of intellect. No nation ever practiced 
 grosser immorality, or what we of the present day 
 hold to be immorality, than Greece during the height 
 of her intellectual refinement. Peace is no more 
 civilization th.ii war, virtue than vice, good than evil. 
 All these are the incidents, not the essence, of civili- 
 zation. 
 
 That which we commonly call civilization is not an 
 adjunct nor an acquirement of man; it is neither a 
 creed nor a polity, neither science nor philosophy nor 
 industry ; it is rather the measure of progressional 
 force implanted in man, the general fund of the 
 nation's wealth, learning, and refinement, the store- 
 house of accumulated results, the essence of all best 
 worth preserving from the distillations of good and 
 the distillations of evil. It is a something between 
 men, no less than a something within them ; for neither 
 an isolated man nor an asociation of brutes can by 
 any possibility become civilized. 
 
 Further than this, civilization is not only the meas- 
 ure of aggregated human experiences, but it is a living 
 
CIVILIZATION A WORKING PRINCIPLE. 
 
 living 
 
 working principle. It is a social transition; a moving 
 forward rather than an end attained; a developing 
 vitality i-ather than a fixed entity ; it is the effort or 
 aim at refinement rather than refinement itself; it is 
 labor with a view to improvement and not improve- 
 ment consummated, although it may be and is the metre 
 of such improvement. And this accords with latter- 
 day teachings. Although in its infancy, and, moreover, 
 unable to explain things unexplainable, the science of 
 evolution thus far has proved that the normal condi- 
 tion of the human race, as well as that of physical 
 nature, is progressional ; that the plant in a congenial 
 soil is not more sure to grow than is humanity with 
 favorable surroundings certain to advance. Nay, more, 
 we speak of the progress of civilization as of some- 
 thing that moves on of its own accord ; we may, if we 
 will, recognize in this onward movement, the same 
 principle of life manifest in nature and in the individual 
 man. 
 
 To things we do not understand we give names, 
 with which by frequent UbO we become familiar, when 
 we fancy that we know all about the things themselves. 
 At the first glance civilization appears to be a simple 
 matter; to be well clad, well housed, and well fed, to 
 be intelligent and cultured are better than nakedness 
 and ignorance; therefore it is a good thing, a thing 
 that men do well to strive for, — and that is all. 
 But once attempt to go below this placid surface, 
 and investigate the nature of progressional i)henomena, 
 and we find ourselves launched upon an eternity of 
 ocean, and in pursuit of the same occult Cause, which 
 has been sought alike by philosophic and barbaric of 
 every age and nation ; we find ourselves face to face 
 with a great mystery, to which we stand in the same 
 relation as to other great mysteries, such as the origin 
 of things, the principle of life, the soul-nature. When 
 such questions are answered as What is attraction, 
 heat, electricity ; what instinct, intellect, soul ? Why 
 are plants forced to grow and molecules to conglomer- 
 
6 8AVA0ISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ate and go whirling in huge masses through space ? — 
 then we may know why society moves ever onward 
 Uke a river in channels predetonuined. At present, 
 these phenomena we may understand in their action 
 partially, in their essence not at all; we may mark 
 effects, we may recognize the same principle under 
 widely different conditions though we may not be able 
 to discover what that principle is. Science tells us 
 that these things are so; that certain combinations of 
 certain elements are inevitably followed by certain 
 results, but science does not attempt to explain why 
 they are so. Nevertheless, a summary of such few 
 simple thoughts as I have been able to gather upon 
 the subject, may be not wholly valueless. 
 
 And first, to assist our reflections, let us look for a 
 moment at some of the primal principles in nature, not 
 with a view to instruct in that direction, but rather to 
 compare some of the energies of the material world 
 with the intellectual or progressional energy in man ; 
 and of these I will mention such only as are currently 
 accepted by latter-day science. 
 
 Within the confines of the conceivable universe one 
 element alone is all-potential, all-pervading, — Force. 
 Throughout the realms of space, in and round all 
 forms of matter, binding minutest atoms, balancing sys- 
 tems of worlds, rioting in life, rotting in death, under 
 its various aspects mechanical and chemical, attractive 
 and repulsive, this mighty power is manifest; a unify- 
 ing, coalescing, anfd flowing power, older than time, 
 quicker than thought, sa urating all suns and planets 
 and filling to repletion all molecules and masses. 
 Worlds and systems oi worlds are sent whirling, 
 worlds round worlds and s^ 4ems round systems, in a 
 mazy planetary dance, whe in the slightest tripping, 
 the least excess of momentu i or inertia, of tension or 
 traction, in any part, and chaos were come again. 
 Every conceivable entity, ponderable and impondera- 
 ble, material and immaterial, is replete with force. 
 
FORCE AND MATTER. 
 
 B}' it all moving bodies are set in motion, all motion- 
 less bodies held at rest; by it the infinitesimal atom 
 is held an atom and the mass is held concrete, vapory 
 moisture overspreads the land, light and heat animate 
 senseless substance; bv it forms of matter change, 
 rocks grow and dissolve, mountains are made and 
 unmade, the ocean heaves and swells, the eternal hills 
 pidsate, the foundations of the deep use up, and seas 
 displace continents. 
 
 One other thing we know, which with the first 
 comprises all our knowledge, — Matter. Now force and 
 matter are interdependent, one cannot exist without 
 the other; as fox example, all substance, unless held 
 together — which term obviously implies force — would 
 speedily dissolve into inconceivable nothingness. But 
 no less force is required to annihilate substance than to 
 create it; force, therefore, is alike necessary to the ex- 
 istence or non-existence of matter, which reduces the 
 idea of a possible absence of either force or matter to 
 an absurdity; or, in other words, it is impossible for 
 the human mind to conceive of a state of things where- 
 in there is no matter, and consequently no force. 
 
 Force has been called the soul of nature, and matter 
 the body, for by force matter lives and moves and has 
 its being. 
 
 Force like matter, is divisible, infinitely so, as far as 
 human experience goes; for, though ultimates may 
 exist, they have never yet been reached; and it would 
 seem that all physical phenomena, endlessly varied 
 and bewildering as they may appear, spring from a few 
 simple incomprehensible forces, the bases of which are 
 attraction and repulsion ; which may yet, indeed, 
 derive their origin fr ^m One Only Source. In the 
 morphological and geometrical displays of matter 
 these phenomena assume a multitude of phases; all 
 are interactive and interdependent, few are original or 
 primary, — for example, heat and electricity are the 
 offspring of motion which is the result of attractive 
 and repulsive force. 
 
V 
 
 8 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 What is force and what matter, whether the one is 
 the essence of a self-conscious Creator and the other 
 his handiwork, or whether both are the offspring of a 
 blind chance or fate — which latter hypothesis is simply 
 unthinkable — it is not my purpose here to consider. 
 I propose in this analysis to take things as I find 
 them, to study the operations rather than the origin 
 of phenomena, to determine what man does rather 
 than what he ought to do, and to drop the subject at 
 the confines of transcendentalism. When, therefore, I 
 speak of force as the life of matter, it no more implies 
 a self-existant materialism in man, than the soul of 
 man implies a pantheistic self-existant soul in nature. 
 Omnipotence can as easily create and sustain a universe 
 through the media of antagonistic and interdepend- 
 ent forces as through any other means, can as easily 
 place nature and man under the governance of fixed 
 laws as to hold all under varying arbitrary dispensa- 
 tions, and can reconcile these laws with man's volition. 
 Wells of bitterness are dug by disputants under mean- 
 ingless words; scientists are charged with materialism 
 and religionists with fanaticism, in their vain attempts 
 to fathom the ways of the Almighty and restrict his 
 powers to the limits of our weak understanding. 
 
 It has been said that, in the beginning, the 
 sixty and odd supposed several elements of matter 
 were in a chaotic state ; that matter and force were 
 poised in equilibrium or rioted at random throughout 
 space, that out of this condition of things sprang form 
 and development; regular motion and time began; 
 matter condensed into revolving masses and marked 
 off the days, and months, and years ; organization and 
 organisms were initiated and intellectual design became 
 manifest. The infinitesimal molecules, balanced by 
 universal equilibrium of forces, which before motion 
 and time were but chaotic matter and force, were 
 finally supposed to have been each endowed with an 
 innate individuality. However this may be, we now 
 see every atom in the universe athrill with force, and 
 
 * ■ 
 
 II 
 
THEORIES OF NEWTON AND LAPLACE. 
 
 possessed of chemical virtues, and, under conditions, 
 with the faculty of activity. As to the Force behind 
 force, or how or by what means this innate energy 
 was or is implanted in molecules, we have here nothing 
 to do. It is sufficient for our purjjose that we find it 
 there ; yet, the teachings of philosophy imply that this 
 innate force is neither self- implanted nor self-operative; 
 that whether, in pre-stellar times, infinitesimal par- 
 ticles of matter floated in space as nebulous fluid or 
 objectless vapor without form or consistence, or whether 
 all matter was united in one mass which was set revolv- 
 ing, and Isecame br jicen into fragments, which were sent 
 whirling as suns and planets in every direction; that 
 in either case, or in any other conceivable case, matter, 
 whether as molecules or masses, was primordially, and 
 is, endowed and actuated by a Creative Intelligence, 
 which implanting force, vitality, intellect, soul, pro- 
 gress, is ever acting, moving, mixing, unfolding, and 
 this in every part and in all the multitudinous combi- 
 nations of matter; and that all forces and vitalities 
 must have co-existed in the mass, innate in and around 
 every atom. 
 
 Thus, in his great theory of the projectile impulse 
 given to heavenly bodies in counteraction of the attrac- 
 tive impulse, Sir Isaac Newton assumes that both 
 impulses were giv^en from without; that some power 
 foreign to themselves projected into space these heav- 
 enly bodies and holds tliem there. So, too, when 
 Laplace promulgated the idea that in pre-planetary 
 times space was filled with particles and vapors, solar 
 systems existing only in n nebulous state and this 
 nebula set revolving in one mass upon its own axis 
 from west to east, and that as the velocity of this 
 mas^s increased suns and planets were, by centrifugal 
 force, thrown off and condensed into habitable but still 
 whirling worlds, some impulse foreign to the revolving 
 mass setting it in motion is implied. 
 
 With organization and motion, the phases of force, 
 called heat, light, electriei<-y and magnetism, hitherto 
 
10 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 held dormant in molecules are engendered; composi- 
 tion and decomposition ensue; matter assumes new 
 and varying forms ; a progressional development, which 
 is nothing but intelligently directed motion, is initiated, 
 and motion becomes eternal. 
 
 It is a well-established principle of physics that 
 force cannot be created or lost. The conservation of 
 force is not affected by the action or energies of 
 moving bodies. Force is not created to set a body in 
 motion, nor when expended, as we say, is it lost. The 
 sum of all potential energies throughout the universe 
 is always the same, whether matter is at rest or in 
 motion. It is evident that so long as every molecule 
 is charged with attractive force no atom can drop out 
 into the depths of unoccupied and absolute space and 
 become lost or annihilated ; and so long as force is 
 dependent on matter for its perceivable existence, force 
 cannot escape beyond the confines of space and become 
 lost in absolute void. 
 
 Not only are forces interdependent, but they are 
 capable of being metamorphosed one into another. 
 Thus intellectual energy invents a machine which 
 drives a steamship across the ocean. This invention 
 or creation of the mind is nothing else than a vitaliza- 
 tion or setting at liberty of mechanical forces, and 
 without this vitalization or applied intellectual force 
 such mechanical force lies dormant as in so-called dead 
 matter. Gravitation is employed to turn a water- 
 wheel, caloric to drive a steam-engine, by means of 
 eithei of which weights may be raised, heat, electricity, 
 and light produced, and these new-created forces 
 husbanded and made to produce still other forces or 
 turned back into their original channels. And so in 
 chemical and capillary action, the correlation of forces 
 everywhere is found. 
 
 Between mind and matter there exists the most 
 intimate relationship. Immateriality, in its various 
 phases of force, life, intellect, so far as human con- 
 sciousness can grasp it, is inseparable from materiality. 
 
INTIMACY OF MIND AND MATTER. 
 
 11 
 
 most 
 various 
 n con- 
 riality. 
 
 The body is but part of the soil on which it treads, 
 and the mind can receive no impressions except 
 through the organs of the body. The brain is the 
 seat of thought and the organ of thought; neither 
 can exist in a normal state apart from the other. As 
 a rule, the power of the intellect is in proportion to 
 the size and quality of the brain. Among animals, 
 those of lowest order have the least brains; man, the 
 most intellectual of animals, has relatively, if not 
 absolutely, the largest brain. True, in some of the 
 largest animals the cerebral mass is larger than in 
 man, but, in its chemical composition, its convolutions, 
 shape, and quality, that in man is superior; and it is 
 in the quality, rather than in the quantity of the nerv- 
 ous tissues, that their superiority consists. Intelli- 
 gence enters the brain by the organs of the senses, and 
 through the nervous system its subtle influence radiates 
 to every part of the body. All human activities are 
 either mental or mechanical; nor will it be denied 
 that mental activity is produced by mechanical means, 
 or, that mechanical activity is the result of mental 
 force. Corporeal motion is mental force distributed to 
 the various parts of the body. 
 
 The action of immaterial forces on the material sub- 
 stances of the human body manifestly accords with 
 the action of immaterial forces elsewhere. All the 
 physical and mechanical actions of the human body 
 accord with the physical and mechanical forces else- 
 where displayed. Man, we are told, was the last of 
 all created things, but in the making of man no new 
 matter was employed; nor in setting the body in 
 motion can we discover that any new force was in- 
 vented. Thus the heart beats upon mechanical princi- 
 ples; the eye sees, and the voice speaks in accordance 
 with the general laws of optics and acoustics. 
 
 To the observer, organic activity is but the product 
 of combined inorganic forces. The same processes are 
 at work, and in the same manner, in living and in so- 
 called dead matter. Life, to all appearance, is but the 
 
la 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 result of combined chemical and mechanical processes. 
 Assimilation, digestion, secretion, are explainable by 
 chemistry, and by chemistry alone. The stomach is a 
 chemical retort, the body a chemical laboratory. Car- 
 bon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, combine and separate 
 in the body a^ out of the body. The blood circulates 
 upon purely mechanical principles; all muscular action 
 is mechanical. In the phenomena of life, the only 
 perceptible difference is in the combinations of funda- 
 mental elements; yet chemistiy and mechanics cannot 
 produce a live body. 
 
 With the foregoing well-recognized principles before 
 us, let us now notice some few parallelisms between 
 mechanical and social energetics. 
 
 Man, like every other natural substance, is a com- 
 pound of force and matter. " Respiration," says Liebig, 
 "is the falling weight, the bent spring, which keeps 
 the clock in motion; the inspirations and respirations 
 are the strokes of the pendulum which regulates." 
 Atoms of matter, through the instrumentality of liv- 
 ing force, cohere and coalesce under endless complex 
 conditions into endless varieties of form and substance ; 
 so also the activities of man, corporeal and intellectual, 
 result in vast accumulations of experiences, which accu- 
 mulations become the property of the whole society. 
 Society, like matter, is composed of units, each possess- 
 ing certain forces, attractive and repulsive; societies 
 act upon each other, like celestial bodies, in proportioh 
 to their volume and proximity, and the power of the 
 unit increases with the increase of the mass. In asso- 
 ciation there ist a force as silent and as subtle as that 
 which governs atoms and holds worlds in equipoise; 
 its grosser forms are known as government, worship, 
 fashion, and the like; its finer essence is more delicate 
 than thought. It is this social force, attractive and 
 repulsive, that binds men together, tears them asun- 
 der, kneads, and knits, and shapes, and evolves; it is 
 the origin of every birth, the ultimate of every activity. 
 Mechanical forces are manifest in machines, as the 
 
MATERIALITY ACTING ON MIND. 
 
 13 
 
 lever, the wheel, the inclined plane ; progressional force 
 is manifest in intellectual ingenuity, literature, art, 
 science, which are the machines of human progress. 
 
 How many of all our joys and sorrows, our loves 
 and hates, our good and evil actions, spring from 
 physical causes only ? Even material substances dis- 
 play moods and affections, as when heated, electrified, 
 decomposed, or set in motion ; the sea at rest pre- 
 sents a diiferent mood from the sea raging. Jean- 
 Jacques Rousseau's idea tliat the soul might be gov- 
 erned for its good by material things working through 
 the media of the senses, is not so extravagant after all. 
 'The gospel according to Jean- Jacques,' as Carlyle 
 puts it, runs as follows on this point — and, indeed, the 
 great Genevan evangelist at one time intended to 
 devote a book to- the subject under the title of La 
 Morale Sensitive: — "The striking and numerous obser- 
 vations that I had collected were beyond all dispute ; 
 and, in their physical origin, they appeared to me 
 proper for furnishmg an exterior regimen, which, varied 
 according to circumstances, should be able to place or 
 maintain the soul in the state most favorable to virtue. 
 How many wanderings one might save the reason, 
 how many vices might be hindered birth, if one could 
 but force the animal economy to favor the moral order 
 that it troubles so often. Climates, seasons, sounds, 
 colors, darkness, light, the elements, food, noise, silence, 
 movement, repose, all act on our bodily frame, and, 
 by consequence, on our soul ; all offer us a thousand 
 firm holds to govern, in their origin, those sentiments 
 by which we allow ourselves to be dominated." 
 
 In contemplating the numerous activities by which 
 we are surrounded, again and again we are called upon 
 to wonder at the marvelous regularity which charac- 
 terizes all their movements. So regular are these 
 movements, so sure are certain conditions to accompany 
 certain results, that in physics, in cheraistrv, in physi- 
 ology, and even in society, facts are collected and 
 classified, and from them laws are discovered as fixed 
 
u 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 and irrevocable as the facts the' aselves, which laws, 
 indeed, are themselves facts, no less than the facts 
 from which they are deduced. 
 
 Highly cultivated nations frame laws that pro- 
 vide for many contingencies, but the code of nature 
 has yet finer provisions. There are conditions that 
 neither political nor social laws reach, there are none 
 not reached by physical law ; in society, criminals some- 
 times evade the law; in nature, never. So subtle 
 are the laws of nature, that even thought cannot follow 
 them; when we see that every molecule, by virtue 
 of its own hidden force, attracts every other molecule, 
 up to a certain point, and then from the same inherent 
 influence every atom repels every other atom; when 
 by experiments of physicists it has been proved that 
 in polarization, crystallization, and chemical act' n, 
 there is not the slightest deviation from an almost 
 startling regularity, with many other facts of like im- 
 port, how many natural laws do we feel to be yet un- 
 revealed and, from the exquisite delicacy of their na- 
 ture, unrevealable to our present coarse understanding. 
 
 It would be indeed strange, if, when all the universe 
 is under the governance of fixed laws — laws which 
 regulate the motion of every molecule, no I iS than 
 the revolutions of suns — laws of such subtle import, 
 as for instance, regulate the transformations of heat, 
 the convertibility and correlation of force ; it would be 
 strange, I say, if such laws as these, when they reached 
 the domain of human affairs should pause and leave 
 the world of man alone in purposeless wanderings. 
 
 To continue our analogies. As, latent in the atom, 
 or in the mass, there are energies releasable only by 
 heat or friction, — as in charcoal, which holds, locked 
 up, muriatic acid gas equivalent to ninety times its vol- 
 ume ; or in spongy platinum, which holds in like manner 
 oxygen, equal to eight hundred times its volume ; so, 
 latent in every individual, are numberless energies, 
 which demand the friction of society to call them out. 
 
 Force comprises two elements, attraction and repul- 
 
ANALOGIES BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE. 
 
 15 
 
 1 laws, 
 e facts 
 
 it pro- 
 nature 
 IS that 
 re none 
 s some- 
 subtle 
 t follow 
 virtue 
 olecule, 
 nherent 
 ; when 
 ed that 
 acti n, 
 almost 
 like im- 
 yet un- 
 eir na- 
 ianding, 
 niverse 
 which 
 iS than 
 [import, 
 if heat, 
 •uld be 
 cached 
 leave 
 igs. 
 
 atom, 
 knly by 
 1 locked 
 its vol- 
 lanner 
 le; so, 
 |ergies, 
 out. 
 1 repul- 
 
 sion, analagous to the principles commonly called good 
 and evil in the affairs of human society ; take away 
 from mechanical force either of these two oppugnant 
 elements, and there could be neither organism nor life, 
 so without both good and evil in human affairs there 
 could be no progress. 
 
 If none of the forces of nature are dissipated or lost, 
 and if force can no more be extinguished than matter, 
 and like matter passes from one form into another, we 
 may conclude that intellectual force is never dissipated 
 or lost, but that the potential energies of mind and soul 
 perpetually vibrate between man and nature. 
 
 Or, again, if, as we have seen, energy of every kind 
 is clothed in matter, and when employed and expended 
 returns again to its place in matter ; and if the mind 
 draws its forces from the body, as it appears to do, 
 both growing, acting, and declining simultaneously; 
 and if the body draws its energy from the earth, which 
 is no less possible ; then may not intellectual and pro- 
 gressional force be derived from man's environment, and 
 return thither when expended ? Every created being 
 borrows its material from the storehouse of matter, and 
 when uncreated restores it again; so every individual 
 born into society becomes charged with social force, 
 with progressional energy, which, when expended, 
 rests with society. Winslow's opinion on this sub- 
 ject is, that "all electric and magnetic currents origi- 
 nate in — are inducted from — ^and radiate either di^ 
 rectly or indirectly out of the globe as the fountain 
 of every form and constituency of mechanical force, 
 and that abstract immaterial mechanical energy, as we 
 have thus far discussed and developed its dual princi- 
 ples, is absolutely convertible through molecular mo- 
 tion into every form and expansion of secondary force, 
 passing successively from heat through electricity, 
 magnetism, etc., and ince versa, it follows that this 
 same mechanical energy itself, as hypostatical motive 
 power, must proceed out of the globe also." 
 
 Thus is loaded with potential energy the universe of 
 
■■■■ 
 
 16 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 matter, generating life, mind, civilization, and hence we 
 may conclude that whatever else it is, civilization is a 
 force ; that it is the sum of all the forces employed to 
 drive humanity onward ; that it acts on man as me- 
 chanical force acts dn matter, attracting, repelling, 
 pressing forward yet holding in equilibrium, and all 
 under fixed and determined laws. 
 
 From all which it would appear that nothing is found 
 in man that has not its counterpart in nature, and that 
 all things that are related to man are related to each 
 other; even immortal mind itself is not unlike that sub- 
 tle force, inherent in, and working round every atom. 
 
 In this respect physical science is the precursor of 
 social science. Nature produces man; man in his 
 earlier conception of nature, that is in his gods, repro- 
 duces himself; and later, his knowledge of intrinsic 
 self depends upon his knowledge of extrinsic agencies, 
 so that as the laws that govern external nature are 
 bettor understood, the laws that govern society are 
 more definitely determined. The conditions of human 
 progress can be wrought into a science only by pur- 
 suing the same course that raises into a science any 
 branch of knowledge ; that is, by collecting, classifying, 
 and comparing facts, and therefrom discovering laws. 
 Society must be studied as chemistry is studied; 
 it must be analyzed, and its component parts — the 
 solubilities, interactions, and crystallizations of religions 
 go /ernments and fashions, ascertained. As in the 
 earlier contemplations of physical nature, the action of 
 the elements was deemed fortuitous, so in a superficial 
 survey of society, all events appear to happen by 
 chance ; but on deeper investigation, in society as in 
 physics, events apparently fortuitous, may be reduced 
 to immutable law. To this end the life of mankind 
 on the globe must be regarded as the life of one man, 
 successions of societies as successions of days in that 
 life; for the activities of nations are but the sum of 
 the activities of the individual members thereof 
 
PHYSICAL LAWS AND SOCIAL LAWS. 
 
 17 
 
 We have seen that man's organism, as far as it may 
 be brought under exact observation, is governed by 
 th( same processes that govern elemental principles in 
 inorganic nature. The will of man attemptmg to 
 exert itself in antagonism to these laws of nature is 
 wholly ineffectual. We are all conscious of a will, 
 conscious of a certain freedom in the exercise of our 
 will, but wholly unconscious as to the line of separation 
 between volition and environment. Part of our ac- 
 tions arise from fixed necessity, part are the result of 
 free will. Statistics, as they are accumulated and ar- 
 ranged, tend more and more to show that by far the 
 greater part of human actions are not under individual 
 control, and that the actions of masses are, in the main, 
 wholly beyond the province of the human will. 
 
 Take the weather for a single day, and note the 
 effect on the will. The direction of the wind not un- 
 frequently governs one's train of thought; resolution 
 often depends upon the dryness of the atmosphere, 
 benevolence upon the state of the stomach; misfor- 
 tunes, arising from physical causes, have ere now 
 changed the character of a ruler from one of lofty 
 self-sacrifice, to one of peevish fretfulness, whereat his 
 followers became estranged and his empire lost in 
 consequence. In the prosecution of an enterprise, how 
 often we find ourselves drifting far from the antici- 
 pated goal. The mind is governed by the condition 
 of the body, the body by the conditions of climate and 
 food ; hence it is that many of our actions, which we 
 conceive to be the result of free choice, arise from 
 accidental circumstances. 
 
 It is only in the broader view of humanity that 
 
 general laws are to be recognized, as Dr Draper 
 
 remarks: "He who is immersed in the turmoil of a 
 
 crowded city sees nothing but the acts of men; and, if 
 
 he formed his opinion from his experience alone, must 
 
 conclude that the course of events altogether depends 
 
 on the uncertainties of human volition. But he who 
 
 ascends to a sufficient elevation loses sight of the pass- 
 Voi. II. a. o *. 
 
KW 
 
 18 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 li 
 
 ing conflicts, and no longer hears the contentions. He 
 discovers that the importance of individual action is 
 diminishing as the panorama beneath him is extend- 
 ing; and if he could attain to the truly philosophical, 
 the general point of view, disengage himself from all 
 terrestrial influences and entanglements, rising high 
 enough to see the whole at a glance, his acutest vision 
 would fail to discern the slightest indication of man, 
 his free will, or his works." 
 
 Let us now glance at some of the manifestations of 
 this progressional influence ; first in its general aspects, 
 after which we will notice its bearing on a few of the 
 more important severalties intimately atfecting human- 
 ity, such as religion, morality, government, and com- 
 merce, — for there is nothing that touches man's 
 welfare, no matter how lightly, in all his long journey 
 from naked wildness to clothed and cultured intelli- 
 gence, that is not placed upon him by this pro- 
 gressional impulse. 
 
 In every living thing there is an element of continu- 
 ous growth ; in every aggregation of living things 
 there is an element of continuous improvement. In 
 the first instance, a vital actuality appears ; whence, 
 no one can tell. As the organism matures, a new germ 
 is formed, which, as the parent stock decays, takes its 
 place and becomes in like manner the parent of a suc- 
 cessor. Thus even death is but the door to new 
 forms of life. In the second instance, a body corporate 
 appears, no less a vital actuality than the first; a 
 social organism in which, notwithstanding ceaseless 
 births and deaths, there is a living principle. For while 
 individuals are born and die, families live; while fam- 
 ilies are born and die, species live; while species are 
 born and die, organic being ' assumes ne^w forms and 
 features. Herein the all-pervading principle of life, 
 while flitting, is nevertheless permanent, while tran- 
 sient is yet eternal. But above and independent of 
 perpetual birth and death is this element of continuous 
 
MANIFESTATIONS OF PROGRESSIONAL IMPULSE. 
 
 19 
 
 growth, which, like a spirit, walks abroad and mingles 
 in the affairs of men. "All our progress," says Em- 
 erson, "is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You 
 have first an instinct; then an opinion, then a knowl- 
 edge, as the plant has root bud and fruit." 
 
 Under favorable conditions, and up to a certain 
 point, stocks improve; by a law of natural selection 
 the strongest and fittest survive, while the ill-favored 
 and deformed perish ; under conditions unfavorable to 
 development, stocks remain stationary or deteriorate. 
 Paradoxically, so far as we know, organs and organ- 
 isms are no more perfect now than in the beginning ; 
 animal instincts are no keener, nor are their habitudes 
 essentially changed. No one denies that stocks im- 
 prove, for such improvement is perceptible and perma- 
 nent ; many deny that organisms improve, for if there 
 be improvement it is imperceptible, and has thus far 
 escaped proof. But, however this may be, it is palpa- 
 ble that the mind, and not the body, is the instrument 
 and object of the progressional impulse. 
 
 Man in the duality of his nature is brought under 
 two distinct dominions; materially he is subject to 
 the laws that govern matter, mentally to the laws 
 that govern mind ; physiologically he is perfectly made 
 and non-progressive, psychologically he is embryonic 
 and progressive. Between these internal and external 
 forces, between moral and material activities there 
 may be, in some instances, an apparent antagonism. 
 The mind may be developed in excess and to the detri- 
 ment of the body, and the body may be developed in 
 excess and to the detriment of the mind. 
 
 The animal man is a bundle of organs, with instincts 
 implanted that set them in motion; man intellectual 
 is a bundle of sentiments, with an implanted soul that 
 keeps them effervescent; mankind in the mass, so- 
 ciety, — ^we see the fermentations, we mark the transi- 
 tions; is there, then, a soul in aggregated humanity as 
 there is in individual humanity? 
 
 The instincts of man's animality teach the organs 
 
90 SAVAOISM AND CIVILIZATION 
 
 to perform their functions as perfectly at the first as at 
 the last; the instincts of man s intellectuality urge him 
 on in an eternal race for something better, in which 
 perfection is never attained nor attainable ; in society, 
 we see the constant growth, the higher and yet higher 
 development; now in this ever-onward movement are 
 there mstincts which originate and govern action in 
 the body social as in the body individual ? Is not 
 society a bundle of organs, with an implanted Soul of 
 Progress, which moves mankind along in a resistless 
 predetermined march? 
 
 Nations are born and die; they appear first in a 
 state of infancy or savagism ; many die in their child- 
 hood, some grow into manhood and rule for a time the 
 destinies of the world ; finally, by sudden extinction, 
 or a lingering decrepitude^ they disappear, and others 
 take their place. But in this ceaseless coming and 
 going there is somewhere a mysterious agency at work, 
 makmg men better, wiser, nobler, whether they will 
 or not. This improvement is not the effect of volition ; 
 Ijhe plan,t does not will to unfold, nor tho immature 
 animal to grow; neither can the world of human kind 
 cease to advance in mind and in manners. Develop- 
 ment is the inevitable incident of being. Nations, 
 under normal conditions, can no more help advanc- 
 ing than they can throw themselves into a state of 
 non-existence; than can the individual stop his cor- 
 poreal growth, or shut out from the intellect every 
 perception of knowledge, and become a living petrifi- 
 cation. And in whatever percs ; ns to intellectual man 
 this fundamental principle is apparent. It underlies 
 all moralities, govemmeritS; and religions, all indus- 
 tries, arts, and commerce ; it is the mainspring of every 
 action, the consequence of every cause; it is the great 
 central idea toward which all things converge; it is 
 the object of all efforts, the end of all successes; it 
 absorbs all forces, and is the combined results of innu- 
 merable agencies, good and evil. 
 
 Before the theory of Dr von Martius and his follow- 
 
BRUTES CANNOT PROGRESS. 
 
 31 
 
 crs, that the savage state is but a degeneration from 
 something higher, can become tenable, the whole order 
 of nature must be revereed. Kaces may deteriorate, 
 civilized peoples relapse into barbarism, but such 
 relapse cannot take place except under abnormal con- 
 ditions. We caimot believe that any nation, once 
 learning the use of iron would cast it away for stone. 
 Driven from an iron-yielding land, the knowledge of 
 iron might at last be forgotten, but its use would 
 nevei" be voluntarily relinquished. And so with any 
 of the arts or inventions of man. Societies, like indi- 
 viduals, are born, mature, and decay; they grow old 
 and die; they may pause in their progress, become 
 diseased, and thereby lose their strength and retrogade, 
 but they never turn around and grow backward or 
 ungrow, — they could :ioi if they would. 
 
 In the brute creation this element of progress is 
 wanting. The bird builds its nest, the bee its cell, 
 the beaver its darn, with no more skill or elaboration 
 to-day, than did the bird or bee or beaver primeval. 
 The instinct of animals does not with time become 
 intellect; their comforts do not increase, their sphere 
 of action does not enlarge. By domestication, stocks 
 may be improved, but nowhere do we see animals 
 uniting for mutual improvement, or creating for them- 
 selves an artificial existence. So in man, whose nature 
 comprises both the animal and the intellectual, the 
 physical organism neither perceptibly advances nor 
 deteriorates. The features may, indeed, beam brighter 
 from the light of a purer intellectuality cast upon them 
 from within, but the hand, the eye, the heart, so far as 
 we know, is no more perfect now than in the days of 
 Adam. 
 
 As viewed by Mr Bagehot, the body of the accom- 
 plished man "becomes, by training, different from 
 what it ome was, and different from that of the rude 
 man, becomes charged with stored virtue and acquired 
 faculty which come away from it unconsciously." But 
 the body of the accomplished man dies, and the son can 
 
22 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 in no wist mherit it, whereas the soul of his accomplish- 
 ments does not die, but lives in the air, and becomes 
 part of the vital breath of society. And, again, "power 
 that has been laboriously acquired and stored up as stati- 
 cal in one generation" sometimes, says Maudsley, 
 "becomes the inborn faculty of the next; and the 
 development takes place in accordance with that law of 
 increasing speciality and complexity of adaption to 
 external nature which is traceable through the animal 
 kingdom; or, in other words, that law of progress, 
 from the general to the- special, in development, which 
 the aj)pearance of nerve force amongst natural forces 
 and the complexity of the nervous system of man 
 both illustrate." On the other side John Stuart Mill 
 is just as positive that culture is not inherent. "Of 
 all vulgar modes," he remarks, "of escaping from the 
 consideration of the effect of social and moral intluences 
 on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attribut- 
 ing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent 
 natural diiferences;" and, says Mr Buckle, "we cannot 
 safely assume that there has been any permanent im- 
 provement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man, 
 nor have we any decisive ground for saying that those 
 faculties are likely to be greater in an infant born in 
 the most civilized part of Europe, than in one born in 
 the wildest region of a barbarous country." 
 
 Whether or not the nervous system, which is the 
 connective tissue between man's animality and his 
 intellectuality, transmits its subtle forces from one 
 generation to another, we may be sure that the mind 
 acts on the nerves, and the nerves on every part of the 
 system, and that the intelligence of the mind intluences 
 and governs the materialism of the body, and the con- 
 sequences in some way' are felt by succeeding genera- 
 tions; but that the mind becomes material, and its 
 qualities transmitted to posterity, is an hypothesis yet 
 unestablished. 
 
 Moreover we may safely conclude that the improve- 
 ment of mankind is a phenomenon purely intellectual. 
 
IMPROVEMENT PURELY INTELLECTUAL. 
 
 23 
 
 Not that the improvement of the mind is wholly inde- 
 pendent of the condition of the body ; for, as we shall 
 hereafter see, so intimate is the connection between 
 the mind and the body, that the first step toward 
 intellectual advancement cannot be taken until the 
 demands of the body are satisfied. Nervous phe- 
 nomena aredependent upon the same nutritive processes 
 that go ern physical development ; and that this nerve 
 force, through whose agency the system is charged 
 with intellectuality, as the molecule is charged with 
 mechanical force, does exist, is capable, to some extent, 
 of transmitting acquirements or artificial instincts 
 from parent to child, we have every reason to believe; 
 but, so far as we know, intellectual force, per se, is no 
 more a transmittable entity than is the flesh-quivering 
 of the slain ox life. 
 
 The strangest part of it all is, that though wrought 
 out by man as the instrument, and while acting in the 
 capacity of a free agent, this spirit of progress is 
 wholly independent of the will ^f man. Though in 
 our individual actions we imagine ourselves directed 
 only by our free will, yet in the end it is most 
 difticult to determine what is the result of free will, 
 and what of inexorable environment. While we think 
 we are regulating our aftairs, our affairs are regulating 
 us. We plan out improvements, predetermine the 
 best course and follow it, sometimes; yet, for all that, 
 the principle of social progress in not the man, is not 
 in the man, forms no con^tituont of liis j)hysical or 
 psychical individual being; it is the social atmosphere 
 into which the man is born, into which he brings noth- 
 ing and {rom which he takes nothing. While a mem- 
 ber of society he adds his quota to the general fund 
 and there leaves it; while act' ng as a free agent he 
 performs his part in working out this prol)lem of social 
 development, performs it unconsciously, willing or 
 unwilling ,i performs it, his baser passions being as 
 powerful instruments of progress as his nobler; for 
 avarice drives on intellect as effectually as benevolence, 
 
TT 
 
 24 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 hate as love, and selfishness does infinitely more for 
 the progress of mankind than philanthroj^y. Thus is 
 humanity played upon by this principle of progress, 
 and the music sometimes is wonderful ; green fields as 
 if by magic take the place of wild forests, magnificent 
 cities rise out of the ground, the forces of nature are 
 brought under the dominion of man's intelligence, and 
 senseless substances endowed with speech and action. 
 
 It is verily as Carlyle says; "under the strangest 
 new vesture, the old great truth (since no vesture can 
 hide it) begins again to be revealed : That man is what 
 we call a miraculous creature, with miraculous power 
 over men ; and, on the whole, with such a Life in him, 
 and such a World round him, as victorious Analysis, 
 with her Physiologies, Nervous Systems, Physic and 
 Metaphysic, will never completely name, to say noth- 
 ing of explaining." 
 
 Thus, to sum up the foregoing premises : in society, 
 between two or more individuals, there is at work a 
 mysterious energy, not unlike that of force between 
 molecules or life in the organism ; this social energy is 
 under intelligent governance, not fortuitous nor cause- 
 less, but reducible to fixed law, and capable of being 
 wrought into a science ; is, moreover, a vital actuality, 
 not an incident nor an accident, but an entity, as 
 attraction and- repulsion are entities ; under this agency 
 society, perforce, develops like the plant from a germ. 
 This energy acts on the intellect, and through the intel- 
 lect on the organism; acts independently of the will, 
 and cannot be created or destroyed by man; is not 
 found in the brute creation, is not transmittable by 
 generation through individuals, is Avrought out by 
 man as a free-will agent, though acting unconsciously, 
 and is the prrjduct alike of good and evil. 
 
 As to the causes which originate progressional phe- 
 nomena there are differences of opinion. One sees in 
 the intellect the germ of an eternal unfolding ; another 
 recognizes in the soul-element the vital principle of 
 
 
CAUSES OF MAN'S DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 as 
 
 progress, and attributes to religion all the benefits of 
 enlightenment; one builds a theory on the ground- work 
 of a fundamental and innate morality; another dis- 
 covers in the forces of nature the controlling influence 
 upon man's destiny; while yet others, as we have seen, 
 believe accumulative and inherent nervous force to be 
 the media through which culture is transmitted. 
 Some believe that moral causes create the physical, 
 others that physical causes create the moral. 
 
 Thus Mr Buckle attempts to prove that man's 
 development is wholly dependent upon his physical 
 surroundings. Huxley points to a system of reflex 
 a»^t'ons, — mind acting on matter, and matter on mind, — 
 .:> be possible culture-basis. Darwin advances the 
 (1 ane of an evolution from vivified matter as the 
 p.iin'iple of progressive development. In the trans- 
 mution of nerve-element from parents to children, 
 Bagehot sees "the continuous force which binds age 
 to age, which enables each to begin with some im- 
 provement on the last, if the last did itself improve ; 
 which makes each civilization not a set of detached 
 dots, but a line of color, surely enhancing shade by 
 shade." Some see in human progress the ever-ruling 
 hand of a divine providence, others the results of man's 
 skill ; with some it is free will, with others necessity ; 
 some beliovv) that intellectual development springs 
 from bette) sjBt ms of government, others that wealth 
 lies at tb-. t'onr iationof all culture; every philosopher 
 recognj :e,s sv>ine cause, invents some system, or brings 
 human iictii )■& under the dominion of some species 
 of law. 
 
 As in animals of the same genus or species, inhab- 
 iting widely different localities, we see the results of 
 common instincts, so in the evolutions of the human 
 race, divided by time or space, we see the same gen- 
 eral principles at work. So too it would seem, whetlier 
 species are one or many, whether man is a perfectly 
 create;' Seing or an evolution from a lower form, that 
 all til V uxman races of the globe are formed on one 
 
98 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 model and governed by the same laws. In the cus- 
 toms, languages, and myths of ages and nations far 
 removed from each other in social, moral, and mental 
 characteristics, innumerable and striking analogies 
 exist. Not only have all nations weapons, but many 
 who are separated from each '^^her by a hemisphere 
 use the same weapon ; not only is belief universal, but 
 many relate the same myth; and to suppose the bow 
 and arrow to have had a common origin, or that all 
 flood-myths, and myths of a future life are but off- 
 shoots from ^[oacb;'^ ind Biblical narratives is scarcely 
 reasonable. 
 
 It is easier to tell \, civilization is not, and what 
 it does not spring from, than what it is and what its 
 origin. To attribute its rise to any of the principles, 
 ethical, political, or material, that come under the 
 cognizance of man, is fallacy, for it is as much an entity 
 as any other primeval principle; nor may we, with 
 Archbishop Whately, entertain the doctrine that civ- 
 ilization never could have arisen had not the Creator 
 appeared upon earth as the first instructor; for, unfor- 
 tunately for this hypothesis, the aboriginals supposedly 
 so taught, were scarcely civilized at all, and compare 
 unfavorably with the other all-perfect works of crea- 
 tion; so that this sort of reasoning, like innumerable 
 other attempts of man to limit the powers of Omnipo- 
 tence, and narrow them down to our weak understand- 
 ings, is little else than puerility. 
 
 Nor, as we have seen, is this act of civilizing the 
 effect of volition; nor, as will hereafter more clearly 
 appear, does it arise from an mherent principle of good 
 any more than from an inherent principle of evil. 
 The ultimate result, though difficult of proof, we take 
 for granted to be good, but the agencies employed for 
 its consummation number among them more of those 
 we call evil than of those we call good. The isolated 
 individual never, by any possibility, can become civil- 
 ized like the social man; he cannot even speak, and 
 without a flow of words there can be no complete flow 
 
SOCIETY ESSENTIAL TO INTELLECT. 
 
 27 
 
 of thought. Send him forth away from his fellow-man 
 to roam the forest with the wild beasts, and he would 
 be almost as wild and beastlike as his companions; it 
 is doubtful if he would ever fashion a tool, but would 
 not rathey with his claws alone procure his food, and 
 forever remain as he now is, the most impotent of 
 animals. The intellect, by which means alone man 
 rises above other animals, never could work, because 
 the intellect is quickened only as it comes in contact 
 with intellect. The germ of development therein 
 implanted cannot unfold singly any more than the 
 organism can bear fruit singly. It is a well-established 
 fact that the mind without language cannot fully de- 
 velop; it is likewise established that language is not 
 inherent, that it springs up between men, not in them. 
 Language, like civilization, belongs to society, and is 
 in no wise a part or the property of the individual. 
 "For strangely in this so solid-seeming World," says 
 Carlyle, "which nevertheless is in continual restless 
 flux, it is appointed that Sound, to appearance the 
 most fleeting, should be the most continuing of all 
 things." And further, as remarked by Herbert Spen- 
 cer: "Now that the transformation and equivalence of 
 forces is seen by men of science to hold not only 
 throughout all inorganic actions, but throughout all 
 organic actions; now that even mental changes are 
 recognized as the correlatives of cerebral changes, 
 which also conform to this princple; and now that 
 there must be admitted the corollary, that aU actions 
 going on in a society are measured by certain antecedent 
 energies, which disappear in eflecting them, while they 
 themselves become actual or potential energies from 
 which subsequent actions arise ; it is strange that there 
 should not have arisen the consciousness that these 
 higher phenomena are to be studied as lower phe- 
 nomena have been studied — not, of course, after the 
 same physical methods, but in conformity with the 
 same principles." 
 
 We may hold then, a priori, that this progressional 
 
28 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 principle exists; that it exists not more in the man 
 than around him; that it requires an atmosphere in 
 which to live, as life in the body requires an atmos- 
 phere which is its vital breath, and that this atmos- 
 phere is generated only by the contact of man with 
 man. Under analysis this social atmosphere appears 
 to be composed of two opposing principles — ^good and 
 evil — which, like attraction and repulsion, or positive 
 and negative electricity, underlie all activities. One 
 is as essential to progress as the other; either, in excess 
 or disproportionately administered, like an excess of 
 oxygen or of hydrogen in the air, becomes pernicious, 
 engenders social disruptions and decay which continue 
 until the equilibrium is restored; yet all the while 
 with the progress of humanity the good increases while 
 the evil diminishes. Every impulse incident to hu- 
 manity is born of the union of these two opposing 
 principles. For example, as I have said, and will 
 attempt more fully to show further on, association is 
 the first requisite of progress. But what is to bring 
 about association ? Naked nomads will not voluntarily 
 yield up their freedom, quit their wanderings, hold 
 conventions and pass resolutions concerning the great- 
 est good to the grertest number; patriotism, love, 
 benevolence, brotherly kindness, will not bring savage 
 men together; extrinsic force must be employed, an 
 iron hand must be laid upon them which will compel 
 them to unite, else there can be no civilization ; and to 
 accomplish this first great good to man, — to compel 
 mankind to take the initial step toward the ameliora- 
 tion of their condition, — it is ordained that an evil, or 
 what to us of these latter times is surely an evil, come 
 forward, — and that evil is War. 
 
 Primeval man, in his social organization, is patri- 
 archal, spreading out over vast domains in little bands 
 or families, just large enough to be able successfully 
 to cope with wild beasts. And in that state human- 
 ity would forever remain did not some terrible cause 
 force these bands to confederate. War is an evil, 
 
EVIL AS A STIMULANT OF PROGRESS. 
 
 originating in hateful passions and ending in dire 
 misery; yet without war, without this evil, man would 
 forever remain primitive. But something more is 
 necessary. War brings men together for a purpose, 
 but it is insufficient to hold them together; for when 
 the cause which compacted them no longer exists, they 
 speedily scatter, each going his own way. Then 
 comes in superstition to the aid of progress. A suc- 
 cessful leader is first feared as a man, then reverenced 
 as a supernatural being, and finally himself, or his 
 descendant, in the flesh or in tradition, is worshiped 
 as a god. Then an unearthly fear comes upon man- 
 kind, and the ruler, perceiving his power, begins to 
 tyrannize over his fellows. Both superstition and 
 tyranny are evils ; yet, without war superstition and 
 tyranny, dire evils, civilization, which many deem the 
 highest good, never by any possibility, as human 
 nature is, could be. But more of the conditions of 
 progress hereafter; what I wish to establish here is, 
 that evil is no less a stimulant of development than 
 good, and that in this principle of progress are mani- 
 fest the same antagonism of forces apparent through- 
 out physical nature; the same oppugnant energies, 
 attractive and repulsive, positive and negative, every- 
 where existing. It is impossible for two or more 
 individuals to be brought into contact with each other, 
 whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, 
 without ultimate improvement to both. I say whether 
 through causes or for purposes good or evil, for, to the 
 all-pervading principle of evil, civilization is as nmch 
 indebted as to the all-pervading principle of good. 
 Indeed, the beneficial influences of this unwelcome 
 element have never been generally recognized. What- 
 ever be this principle of evil, whatever man would be 
 without it, the fact is clearly evident that to it civiliza- 
 tion, whatever that may be, owes its existence. "The 
 whole tendency of political economy and philosophical 
 history," says Lecky, "which reveal the physiology 
 of society, is to show that the happiness and welfare 
 
30 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 of mankind are evolved much more from out selfish 
 than what are termed our virtuous acts." No wonder 
 that devil-worship obtains, in certain parts, when to 
 his demon the savage finds himself indebted for skill 
 not only to overthrow subordinate deities, but to cure 
 diseases, to will an enemy to death, to minister to the 
 welfare of departed friends, as well as to add mate- 
 rially to his earthly store of comforts. The world, such 
 as it is, man finds himself destined for a time to 
 inhabit. Within him and around him the involuntary 
 occupant perceives two agencies at work; agencies 
 apparently oppugnant, yet both tending to one end — 
 improvement; and Night or Day, Love or Crime, 
 leads all souls to the Good, as Emerson sings. The 
 principle of evil acts as a perpetual stimulant, the 
 principle of good as a reward of merit. United in 
 their operation, there is a constant tendency toward a 
 better condition, a higher state; apart, the result 
 would be inaction. For, civilization being a progres- 
 sion and not a fixed condition, without incentives, that 
 is without something to escape from and something to 
 escape to, there could be no transition, and hence no 
 civilization. 
 
 Had man been placed in the world perfected and 
 sinless, obviously there would be no such thing as 
 progress. The absence of evil implies perfect good, 
 and perfect good perfect happiness. Were man sinless 
 and yet capable of increasing knowledge, the incentive 
 would be wanting, for, if perfectly happy, why should 
 he struggle to become happier ? The advent of civili- 
 zation is in the appearance of a want, and the first act 
 of civilization springs from the attempt to supply the 
 want. The man or nation that wants nothing remains 
 inactive, and hence does not advance; so that it is not 
 in what we have but in what we have not that civiliz- 
 ation consists. These wants are forced upon us, im- 
 planted within us, inseparable from our being; they 
 increase with an increasing supply, grow hungry from 
 what they feed on; in quick succession, aspirations, 
 
LABOR A CIVILIZING AGENT. 
 
 81 
 
 emulations, and ambitions spring up and chase each 
 other, keeping the fire of discontent ever glowing, and 
 the whole human race effervescent. 
 
 Tlie tendency of civilizing force, like the tendency of 
 mechanical force, is toward an equilibrium, toward a 
 never-attainable rest. Obviously there can be no 
 perfect equilibrium, no perfect rest, until all evil dis- 
 appears, but in that event the end of progress would 
 be attained, and humanity would be perfect and sinless. 
 
 Man at the outset is not what he may be, he is 
 capable of improvement or rather of growth; but 
 childlike, the savage does not care to improve, and 
 consequently must be scourged into it. Advancement 
 is the ultimate natural or normal state of man ; hu- 
 manity on this earth is destined some day to be Rela- 
 tively, if not absolutely, good and happy. 
 
 The healthy body has appetites, in the gratification 
 of which lies its chiefest enjoyment ; the healthy mind 
 has proclivities, the healthy soul intuitions, in the exer- 
 cise and activities of which the happiest life is attaina- 
 ble ; and in as far as the immaterial and immortal in our 
 nature is superior to the materlu-1 and mortal, in so far 
 does the education and development of our higher 
 nature contribute in a higher degree to our present 
 benefit and our future well-being. 
 
 There is another thought in this connection well 
 worthy our attention. In orthodox and popular par- 
 lance, labor is a curse entailed on man by vindictive 
 justice; yet viewed as a civilizing agent, labor is 
 Uian's greatest blessing. Throughout all nature there 
 is no such thing found as absolute inertness ; and, as 
 in matter, so with regard to our faculties, no sooner do 
 they begin to rest than they begin to rot, and even in 
 the rotting they can obtain no rest. One of the chief 
 objects of labor is to get gain, and Dr Johnson holds 
 that "men are seldom more innocently employed than 
 when they are making money." 
 
 Human experience teaches, that in the effort is 
 greater pleasure than in the end attained ; that labor 
 
n 
 
 32 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 is the normal condition of man ; that in acquisition, 
 that is progress, is the highest happiness ; that passive 
 enjoyment is inferior to the exhilaration of active 
 attempt. Now imagine the absence from the world 
 of this spirit of evil, and what would be the result ? 
 Total inaction. But before inaction can become more 
 pleasurable than action, man's nature must be changed. 
 Not to say that evil is a good thing, clearly there is a 
 goodness in things evil; and in as far as the state of 
 escaping from evil is more pleasurable than the state of 
 evil escaped from, in so far is evil conducive to hap- 
 piness. 
 
 The effect of well-directed labor is twofold ; by exer- 
 cise our faculties strengthen and expand, and at the 
 same time the reitums of that labor give us leisure in 
 which to direct our improved faculties to yet higher 
 aims. By continual efforts to increase material com- 
 forts, greater skill is constantly acquired, and the mind 
 asserts more and more its independence. Increasing 
 skill yields ever increased delights, which encourage 
 and reward our labor. This, up to a certain point ; but 
 with wealth and luxury comes relaxed energy. With- 
 out necessity there is no labor; without labor no ad- 
 vancement. Corporeal necessity first forces corporeal 
 activity ; then the intellect goes to work to contrive 
 means whereby labor may be lessened and made more 
 productive. 
 
 The discontent which arises from discomfort, lies 
 at the root of every movement; but then comfort is a 
 relative term and complete satisfaction is never 
 attained. Indeed, as a rule, the more squalid and 
 miserable the race, the more are they disposed to 
 settle down and content themselves in their state of 
 discomfort. What is discomfort to one is luxury to 
 another; "the mark of rank in nature is capacity for 
 pain"; in following the intellectual life, the higher the 
 culture the greater the discontent; the greater the 
 acquisition, the more eagerly do men press forward 
 toward some higher and greater imaginary good. We 
 
EVIL TENDS TO DISAPPEAR. 
 
 88 
 
 all know that blessings in excess become the direst 
 curses; but few are conscious where the benefit of a 
 blessing terminates and the curse begins, and fewer 
 still of those who are able thus to discriminate have 
 the moral strength to act upon that knowledge. As 
 a good in excess is an evil, so evil as it enlarges out- 
 does itself and tends toward self-annihilation. If we 
 but look about us, we must see that to burn up the 
 world in order to rid it of gross evil — a dogma held by 
 some — is unnecessary, for accumulative evils ever tend 
 towards reaction. Excessive evils are soonest remedied ; 
 the equilibrium of the evil must be maintained, or the 
 annihilation of the evil ensues. 
 
 Institutions and principles essentially good at one 
 time are essential evils at another time. The very 
 aids and agencies of civilization become afterward the 
 greatest drags upon progress. At one time it would 
 seem that blind faith was essential to improvement, at 
 another time skepticism, at one time order and moral- 
 ity, at another time lawlessness and rapine ; for so it 
 h.as ever been, and whether peace and smiling plenty, 
 or fierce upheavals and dismemberments predominate, 
 from every social spasm as well as fecund leisure, 
 civilization shoots forward in its endless course. The 
 very evils which are regarded as infamous by a higher 
 culture were the necessary stepping-stones to that 
 higher life. As we have seen, no nation ever did or 
 can emerge from barbarism without first placing its 
 neck under the yokes of despotism and superstition ; 
 therefore, despotism and supei^stition, now dire evils, 
 were once essential benefits. No religion ever attained 
 its full development except under persecution. Our 
 present evils are constantly working out for humanity 
 unforseen good. All systems of wrongs and fanati- 
 cisms are but preparing us for and urging us on to a 
 higher state. 
 
 If then civilization is a predestined, ineluctable, and 
 eternal march away from things evil toward that 
 which is good, it must be that throughout the world 
 
 Vol. II. 3 
 
84 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 1 
 
 the principle of good is ever increasinj^ and that of 
 evil decreasing. And this is true. Not only does 
 evil decrease, but the tendency is ever toward its 
 disappearance. Gradually the confines of civilization 
 broaden; the central principle of human progress 
 attains greater intensity, and the mind assumes more 
 and more its lordly jwwer over matter. 
 
 The moment we attempt to search out the cause of 
 any onward movement we at once encounter this prin- 
 ciple of evil. The old-time aphorism that life is a 
 perpetual struggle; the first maxim of social ethics 
 ' the greatest happiness to the greatest number' ; indeed, 
 every thought and action of our lives points in the 
 same direction. From what is it mankind is so 
 eager to escape; with what do we wrestle; for what 
 do we strive? We fly from that which gives pain to 
 that which gives pleasure; we wrestle with agencies 
 which bar our escape from a state of infelicity; we 
 long for hapi)ines8. 
 
 Then comes the question, What is happiness? Is 
 man jjolished and refined happier than man wild and 
 unfettered; is civilization a blessing or a curse? 
 Rousseau, we know, held it to be the latter; but not 
 so Virey. "What!" he exclaims, "is he happier than 
 the social man, this being abandoned in his maladies, 
 uncared for even by his children in his improvident 
 old age, exj)osed to ferocious beasts, in fear of his own 
 kind, even of the cannibal's tooth? The civilized man, 
 surrounded in his feebleness bj' affectionate attention, 
 sustains a longer existence, enjoys more pleasure and 
 daily comforts, is better protected against inclemencies 
 of weather and all external ills. The isolated man 
 must suffice for himself, must harden himself to endure 
 any privation; his very existence depends upon his 
 strength, and if necessity requires it of him, he must 
 be ready to abandon wife and children and life itself 
 at any moment. Such cruel misery is rare in social 
 life, where the sympathies of humanity are awakened, 
 and freely exercised." 
 
IS CIVILIZATION CONDUCIVE TO HAPriNESS? 
 
 85 
 
 Continue these simple interrogatories a little farther 
 and see where we land. Is the wild bird, forced t<) 
 \ouir migrations for endurable climates and food, hap- 
 pier than the caged bird which buys a daily plentiful 
 8U]>ply for a song? Is the wild beast, ofttimes hungry 
 and hunted, happier than its chained brother of the 
 menagerie? Is the wild horse, galloping with its fel- 
 lows over the broad prairie, happier than the civilized 
 horse of carriage, cart, or plow { May we not question 
 whether the merchant, deep in his speculating ven- 
 tures, or the man of law, poring over his brain-tear- 
 ing brief, derives a keener sense of enjoyment than 
 does the free forest-native, following the war-path or 
 pursuing his game? 
 
 As I liave attempted to show, civilization is not an 
 end attained, for man is never wholly civilized,- but 
 only the effort to escape from an evil, or an imaginary 
 evil — savagism. I say an evil real or imaginary, for 
 as we have seen, the question has been seriously dis- 
 cussed whether civilization is better or worse than 
 savagism. For every advantage which culture affords, 
 a price must be paid, — some say too great a price. 
 The growth of the mind is dependent upon its cultiva- 
 tion, but this cultivation may be voluntary or involun- 
 tary, it may be a thing desired or a thing abhorred. 
 
 Every nation, every society, and every person has 
 its or his own standard of happiness. The miser delights 
 in wealth, the city belle in finery, the scholar in learn- 
 ing. The Christian's heaven is a spiritual city, where 
 they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; 
 the Norse-man's a Valhalla of alternate battle and 
 wassail; the Mahometan's, a paradise of houris and 
 lazy sensuality. The martyr at the stake, triumi)hant 
 in his faith, may be happier than the man of fashion 
 dying of ennui and gout; the savage, wandering through 
 forest and over plain in pursuit of game, or huddled in 
 his hut with wives and children, may be happier than 
 the care-laden speculator or the wrangling politician. 
 Content, the essence of all happiness, is as prevalent 
 
i 
 
 36 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 among the poor and ill-mannered, as among the rich, 
 refined and civilized. Uhi bene, ihi pcitna, where it is 
 well with me, there is my country, is the motto of- the 
 Indian, — and to be well with him signifies only to be 
 beyond the reach of hunger and enemies. Ask the 
 savage which is preferable, a native or a cultured state, 
 and he will answer the former; ask the civilized man, 
 and he will say the latter. I do not see any greater 
 absurdity in the wild man saying to the tamed one: 
 Give up the despotisms and diseases of society and 
 throw yourself with me upon befl'jteous, bounteous 
 nature ; than in the European saying to the American : 
 If you would find happiness, abandon your filth and 
 naked freedom, accept Christianity and cotton shirts, 
 go to work in a mission, rot on a reservation, or beg 
 and starve in civilized fashion ! 
 
 Of all animals, man alone has broken down the bar- 
 riers of his nature in civilizing, or, as Rousseau 
 expresses it, in denaturalizing himself; and for this de- 
 naturalization some natural good must be relinquished ; 
 to every infringment of nature's law, there is a pen- 
 alty attached; for a more delicate organism the price 
 is numberless new diseases; for political institutions 
 the price is native freedom. With polished manners 
 the candidate for civilization must accept affectation, 
 social despotism; with increasing wealth, increasing 
 wants; civilization engenders complexity in society, 
 and in its turn is engendered thereby. Peoples the 
 most highly cultured are moved by the most delicate 
 springs; a finer touch, the result of greater skill, with a 
 finer tone, the result of greater experience, produces 
 music more and yet more exquisite. 
 
 Were man only an animal, this denaturalization 
 and more, would be true. The tamed brute gives up 
 all the benefits of savagism for few of the blessings 
 of civilization; in a cultured state, as compared to a 
 state of wild freedom, its ills are numberless, its ad- 
 vantages infinitesimal. But human nature is two-fold, 
 objective and subjective, the f>rmei typical of the 
 
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE HUMANITY. 
 
 87 
 
 manners 
 
 sava^^e state, the latter of the civilized. Man is not 
 wholly animal; and by cultivating the mind, that is, 
 by civilizing- himself, he is no more denaturalized than 
 by cultivating the body, and thereby acquiring greater 
 physical perfection. We cannot escape our natr^-e ; wo 
 cannot re-create ourselves; we can only submit our- 
 selves to be polished and improved by the eternal spirit 
 of progress. The moral and the intellectual are as 
 much constituents of human nature as the physical ; 
 civilization, therefore, is as much the natural state of 
 man as savagism. 
 
 Another more plausible and partially correct asser- 
 tion is, that by the development of the subjective part 
 of our nature, objective humanity becomes degenerated. 
 The intellectual cannot be wrought up to the highest 
 state of cultivation except at the expense of the phys- 
 ical, nor the physical fully developed without limiting 
 the mental. The efforts of the mind draw from the 
 energies of the body ; the highest and healthiest vigor 
 of the body can only be attained when the mind is at 
 rest, or in a state of careless activity. In answer to 
 which I should say that beyond a certain point, it is 
 true; <•>> e Avould hardly train successfully for a prize 
 fight and the ti'ipos at the same time ; but that the 
 non-intellectual savage, as a race, is physically superior, 
 capable of enduring greater fatigue, or more skillful in 
 muscular exercise than the civilized man is inconsistent 
 with facts. Civilization has its vices as well as its 
 virtues, savagism has its a^lvantages as well as its 
 demerits. 
 
 The evils of savagism are not so great as we imagine ; 
 its ]>leasures more than we are apt to think. As we 
 become more and more removed from evils their mag- 
 nitude enlarges; the fear of suffering increases as 
 suffering is less experienced and witnessed. If savag- 
 ism holds human life in light esteem, civilization 
 makes death more hideous than it really is ; if savag- 
 ism is more cruel, it is less sensitive. Combatants 
 iiccustomed to frequent encounter think lightly of 
 
38 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 wounds, and those whose Hfe is oftenest imperiled 
 think least of losing it. Indifference to pain is not 
 necessarily the result of cruelty; it may arise as well 
 from the most exalted sentiment as from the basest. 
 
 Civilization not only engenders new vices, but proves 
 the destroyer of many virtues. Among the wealthier 
 classes energy gi>'es way to enjoyment, luxury saps 
 the foundation of labor, progress becomes paralyzed, 
 and with now^find then a noble exception, but few 
 earnest workers in the paths of literature, science, or 
 any of the departments which tend to the improve- 
 ment of mankind, are to be found among the powerful 
 and the affluent, while the middle classes are absorbed 
 in money-getting, unconsciously thereby, it is true, 
 working toward the ends of civilization. 
 
 That civilization is expedient, that it is a good, that 
 it is better than savagism, we who profess to be civilized 
 entertain no doubt. Those who believe otherwise must 
 be ready to deny that health is better than disease, truth 
 than superstition, intellectua-1 power than stupid ignor- 
 ance ; but whether the miseries and vices of savagism, or 
 those of civilization are the greater, is another question. 
 The tendency of civilization is, on the whole, to purify 
 the morals, to give equal rights to man, to distribute 
 more equally among men the benefits of this world, to 
 meloriate wholesale misery and degradation, offer a 
 higher aim and the means of accomplishing a nobler 
 destiny, to increase the power of the mind and give it 
 domini ii over the forces of nature, to place the mate- 
 rial in subservience to the mental, to elevate the 
 individual and regulate society. True, it may be 
 urged that this heaping uj) of intellectual fruits tends 
 toward monoj)oly, toward making the rich richer and 
 the poor poorer, but I still hold that the benefits of 
 civilizatitm are for the most part evenly distributed; 
 that wealth beyond one's necessity is gen irally a curse 
 to the possessor greater than the extremt of poverty, 
 and that the true blessings of culture anc refinement 
 like air and sunshine are free to all. 
 
 U' 
 
CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS 89 
 
 Civilization, it is said, multiplies wants, but then 
 they are ennobling wants, better called aspirations, and 
 many of these civilization satisfies. 
 
 If civilization breeds new vices, old ones are extin- 
 guished by it. Decency and decorum hide the hide- 
 ousness of vice, drive it into dark corners, and thereby 
 raise the tone of morals and weaken vice. Thus 
 civilization promotes chastity, elevates woman, breaks 
 down the barriers of hate and superstition between 
 ancient nations and religions; individual energy, the 
 influence of one over the many, becomes less and less 
 felt, and the power of the people becomes stronger. 
 
 Civilization in itself can not but be beneficial to 
 man; that which makes society more refined, more 
 intellectual, less bestial, more courteous; that which 
 cures physical and mental diseases, increases the com- 
 forts and luxury of life, purifies religions, makes juster 
 governments, must surely be beneficial : it is the uni- 
 versal principle of evil which impregnates all human 
 affairs, alloying even current coin, which raises the 
 question. That there are evils attending civilization as 
 all other benefits, none can deny, but civilization itself 
 is no evil. 
 
 If I have succeeded in presenting clearly the fore- 
 going thoughts, enough has been said as to the nature 
 and essence of civilization ; let us now examine some 
 of the conditions essential to intellectual development. 
 For it must not be forgotten that, while every depart- 
 ment of human progress is but the unfolding of a 
 germ; while every tendency of our life, every custom 
 and creed of our civilization finds its rudiment in 
 savagism ; while, as man develops, no new elements of 
 human nature are created by the process; while, as the 
 organism of the child is as complex and complete as the 
 organism of the man, so is humanity in a savage state 
 the perfect germ of humanity civilized, — it must not 
 be forgotten in all this, that civilization cannot unfold 
 except under favorable conditions. Just as the plant. 
 
40 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 though endowed with life which corresponds to the 
 mind-principle in progress, requires for its growth a 
 suitable soil and climate, so this progressional phe- 
 nomenon must have soil and sunshine before it yields 
 fruit ; and this is another proof that civilization is not 
 in the man more than around him ; for if the principle 
 were inherent in the individual, then the Hyperborean, 
 with his half year of light and half year of under- 
 ground darkness, must of necessity become civilized 
 equally with the man born amidst the sharpening 
 jostles of a European capital, for in all those parts that 
 appertain solely to the intrinsic individual, the one 
 develops as perfectly as the other. A people undergo- 
 ing the civilizing process need not necessarily, does not 
 indeed, advance in every species of improvement at 
 the same time; in some respects the nation may be 
 stationary, in others even retrograde. Every age and 
 every nation has its special line of march. Literature 
 and the fine arts reached their height in pagan Greece ; 
 monotheism among the Hebrews; science unfolded in 
 Egypt, and government in Rome. 
 
 In every individual there is some one talent that can 
 be cultivated more advantageously than any other; so 
 it is with nations, every people possesses some natural 
 advantage for development in some certain direction 
 over every other people, and often the early history 
 of a nation, like the precocious proclivities of the child, 
 points toward its future; and in such arts and indus- 
 tries as its climate and geographical position best 
 enable it to develop, is discovered the germ of national 
 character. Seldom is the commercial spirit developed 
 in the interior of a continent, or the despotic spirit 
 on the border of the sea, or the predatory spirit in a 
 country wholly devoid of mountains and fastnesses. 
 It cannot be said that one nation or race is inherently 
 better fitted for civilization than another; all may not 
 be equally fitted for exactly the same civilization, but 
 all are alike fitted for that civilization which, if left to 
 itself, each will work out. 
 
CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS. 
 
 41 
 
 Mankind, moreover, advances spasmodically, and in 
 certain directions only at a time, which is the greatest 
 drawback to progi'ess. As Lecky remarks: "Special 
 agencies, such as religious or political institutions, 
 geographical conditions, traditions, antipathies, and 
 affinities, exercise a certain retarding, accelerating, or 
 deflecting influence, and somewhat modify the normal 
 progress." Perfect development only is permanent, 
 and that alone is perfect which develops the whole 
 man and the whole society equally in all its parts ; all 
 the activities, mental, moral, and physical, must needs 
 grow in unison and simultaneously, and this alone is 
 perfect and permanent development. Should all the 
 world become civilized there will still be minor differ- 
 ences; some will advance further in one direction and 
 some in another, all together will form the complete 
 whole. 
 
 Civilization as an exotic seldom flourishes. Often 
 has the attempt been made by a cultivated people to 
 civilize a barbarous nation, and as often has it failed. 
 True, one nation may force its arts or religion upon 
 another, but to civilize is neither to subjugate nor anni- 
 hilate; foreigners may introduce new industries and 
 new philosophies, which the uncultured may do well 
 to accept, but as civilization is an unfolding, and not 
 a creation, he who would advance civilization must 
 teach society how to grow, how to enlarge its better 
 self; must teach in what direction its highest inter- 
 ests lie. 
 
 Thus it appears that, while this germ of progress is 
 innate in every human society, certain conditions are 
 more favorable to its development than others, — con- 
 ditions which act as stimulants or impediments to pro- 
 gress. Often we see nations remain apparently sta- 
 tionary', the elements of progress evenly balanced by 
 opposing influences, and thus they remain until by 
 internal force, or external pressure, their system 
 expands or explodes, until they absorb or are absorbed 
 
Jff 
 
 
 ! i li 
 
 42 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 by antagonistic elements. The intrinsic force of the 
 body social appears to demand extrinsic prompting 
 before it will manifest itself Like the grains of wheat 
 in the hand of Belzoni's mummy, which held life 
 slumbering for three thousand years, and awoke to 
 growth when buried in the ground, so the element of 
 human progress lies dormant until planted in a con- 
 genial soil and surrounded by those influences which 
 provoke development. 
 
 This stimulant, which acts upon and imfolds the 
 intellect, can be administered only through the medium 
 of the senses. Nerve force, which precedes intellectual 
 force, is supplied by the body ; the cravings of man's 
 corporeal nature, therefore, must be quieted before the 
 mind can fix itself on higher tbmgs. The first step 
 toward teaching a savage is to feed him; the stomach 
 satisfied he will listen to instruction, not before. 
 
 Cultivation of at least the most necessary of the 
 industrial arts invariably precedes cultivation of the 
 fine arts ; the intellect must be implanted in a satisfied 
 body before it will take root and grow. The mind must 
 be allowed some respite from its attendance dh the body, 
 before culture can commence ; it must abandon its state 
 of servitude, and become master; in other words, leis- 
 ure is an essential of culture. 
 
 As association is the primal condition of progress, 
 let us see how nature throws societies together or 
 holds them asunder. In some directions there are 
 greater facilities for intercommunication (another essen- 
 tial of improvement) than in other directions. Wher- 
 ever man is most in harmony with nature, there he 
 progresses most rapidly; wherever nature offers the 
 greatest advantages, such as a sea that invites to com- 
 merce, an elevated plateau lifting its occupants above 
 the malaria of a tropical lowland, a sheltering mountain 
 range that wards off inclement winds and bars out 
 hostile neighbors, there culture flourishes best. 
 
 So that humanity, in its two-fold nature, is depend- 
 
 I 
 
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE STIMULANTS. 
 
 43 
 
 lere are 
 
 ent for its development upon two distinct species of 
 stimulants, objective and subjective. Material causa- 
 tions, or those forces which minister to the requirements 
 of man's material nature but upon which his intellect- 
 ual progress is dependent, are configurations of surface, 
 S)i], climate, and food. Those physical conditions 
 which, when favorable, give to their possessors wealth 
 and leisure, are the inevitable precursors of culture. 
 Immaterial causations are those forces which act more 
 directly upon man's immaterial nature, as association, 
 religion, wealth, leisure, and government. Continuing 
 the analysis, let us first examine physical stimulants. 
 Admitting readily two of M. Taine's primordial hu- 
 manity-moving forces, 'le milieu' or environment, and 
 his 'le moment' or inherited impulse, we will pass over 
 third force *la race';— for inherent differences in race, 
 in the present stage of science, are purely hypothetical ; 
 it remains yet to be proved that one nation is primarily 
 inherently inferior or superior to another nation. That 
 man once created is moulded and modified by his 
 environment, there can be no doubt. Even a cursory 
 survey of the globe presents some indications favorable 
 and unfavorable to the unfolding of the different forms 
 of organic being. 
 
 Great continents, for instance, appear to be conge- 
 nial to the development of animal life; islands and 
 lesser continents to the growth of exuberant vegeta- 
 tion. Thus, in the eastern hemisphere, which is a 
 compact oval, essentially continental, with vast areas 
 far removed from the influence of the ocean, flourish 
 the elephant, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, tb« 
 courageous lion, the fierce tiger, the largest and lord- 
 liest of animal kind, while in the more oceanic 
 western hemisphere inferior types prevail. Cold and 
 dryness characterize the one ; heat and humidity the 
 other ; in one are the greatest deserts, in the other the 
 greatest lakes and rivers. Warm oceanic currents 
 bathe the frosty shores of the northern extremities of 
 the continents and render them habitable ; the moist- 
 
u 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 i .1 
 
 ure-laden equatorial atmosphere clothes the adjacent 
 islands and firm land in emerald verdure. Upon the 
 same parallel of latitude are the great Sahara Desert 
 of Africa, and the wilderness of luxuriant billowy fo- 
 liage of the American Isthmus. In warm, moist 
 climates, such species of animal life attain the fullest 
 development as are dependent upon the aqueous and 
 herbous agencies. In tropical America are seen the 
 largest reptiles, the most gorgeous insects, — there the 
 inhabitants of warm marshes and sluggish waters 
 assume gigantic proportions, while only upon the 
 broad inland prairies or upon elevated mountain ranges, 
 away from the influences of warm waters and humid 
 atmospheres, are found the buffalo, bear, and elk. The 
 very complexion and temperament of man are affected 
 by these vegetative and umbrageous elements. Unpro- 
 tected from the perpendicular rays of the sun, the 
 African is black, muscular, and cheerful; under the 
 shadow of primeval forest, man assumes a coppery hue, 
 lacking the endurance of the negro, and becomes in 
 disposition cold and melancholy. 
 
 And again, if we look for the natural causes which 
 tend to promote or retard association, we find in 
 climates and continental configurations the chief 
 agencies. The continent of the two Americas, in its 
 greatest length, lies north and south, the eastern con- 
 tinental group extends east and west. Primitive 
 people naturally would spread out in those directions 
 which offered the least change of climate from that of 
 the primitive centre. Obviously, variations of climate 
 are greater in following a meridian than along a paral- 
 lel of latitude. Thus, the tropical man passing along 
 a meridian is driven back by unendurable cold, while a 
 continent may be traversed on any parallel, elevations 
 excepted, with but little variation in temperature. A 
 savage, exposed and inexperienced, not knowing how to 
 protect himself against severe changes of climate, 
 could not travel far in a northerly or southerly direc- 
 tion without suffering severely from the cold or heat; 
 
CLIMATL AND MOUNTAIN RANGES. 
 
 40 
 
 hence, other things being equal, the inhabitants of a 
 country whose greatest length lay east and west, would 
 intermingle more readily than those whose territory 
 extended north and south. 
 
 That the eastern hemisphere attained a higher de- 
 gree of civilization than the western, may be partly 
 due to the fact, that the former presents wider spaces 
 of uniform climate than the latter. The climatic zones 
 of the New World, besides being shorter, are inter- 
 sected by mountain barriers, which tend to retard 
 the intercourse that would otherwise naturally follow. 
 Thus the Mexican table-land, the seat of Aztec civili- 
 zation, is a t terra fria situated above the insalubrious 
 tierra caliente of either coast and the healthful tierra 
 templada of the slopes, but below the mountain ranges 
 which rise from this table-land, forming a tierra 
 friijida, a region of perpetual snow. To this day, the 
 natives of the Mexican plateau cannot live on the 
 sea-coast, though less than a day's journey distant. 
 
 Between the climatic zones which extend through 
 Europe and Asia, there are contrasts as marked and 
 changes as sudden, but these differences are between 
 the different zones rather than between longitudinal 
 sections of the same zone. Hence, in the old world, 
 where climatic zones are separated by mountain ranges 
 which make the transition from one to the other sudden 
 and abrupt, we see a greater diversity of race than in 
 America, where the natural barriers extend north and 
 south and intersect the climatic zones, thereby bringing 
 the inhabitants along a meridian in easier communica- 
 tion than those who live in the same latitude but who 
 are separated by mountains, table-lands and large riv- 
 ers. That is, if color and race are dependent on climate, 
 America should offer greater varieties in color and 
 race than Europe, for America traverses the most 
 latitudes ; but the mountain barriers of America extend 
 north and south, thereby forcing its people to inter- 
 mingle, if at all, in that direction, while the chief 
 ranges of the eastern continent extend east and west, 
 
40 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 parallel with climatic zones, thereby forminj^ in them- 
 selves distinctly marked lines between peoples, forcing 
 the African to remain under his burning sun, and the 
 northnien in their cooler latitudes; so that in the 
 several climatic zones of the old world, we see the 
 human race distinctly marked, Aryan, Semitic, and 
 Turanian — white, black, and yellow— while throughout 
 the two Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, 
 type and color are singularly uniform. 
 
 Who can picture the mighty tide of humanity, 
 which, while the eastern hemisphere has been develop- 
 ing so high a state of culture, in America has ebbed 
 and flowed between barbarisms and civilizations? 
 Through what long and desperate struggles, continuing 
 age after age through the lives of nations, now advanc- 
 ing, now receding, have these peoples passed? Asia, 
 from its central position and favorable climate, would 
 seem naturally to encourage a redundant population 
 and a spontaneous civilization; the waters of the 
 Mediterranean invite commerce and intercommunica- 
 tion of nations, while the British Isles, from their 
 insular situation and distance from hypothetical prim- 
 itive centres, would seem necessarily to remain longer 
 in a state of barbarism. In the Pacific States of 
 North America we find the densest population north 
 along the shores of the ocean, and south on the Cordil- 
 lera table-land, from the fact that the former ofters 
 the best facilities for food and locomotion until the 
 latter is reached, when the interior presents the most 
 favorable dwelling-place for man. 
 
 Climate affects both mental and moral endowments, 
 the temperament of the body, and the texture of the 
 brain ; physical energy, and mental vigor. Temperate 
 climates are more conducive to civilization, not for the 
 reason given by Mr Harris, "as developing the higher 
 qualities, and not invigorating the baser feelings," for 
 the Hyperborean is as unchaste and as great a slave 
 tp passion as the sub-equatorial man — but because a 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF FOOD. 
 
 47 
 
 1 them- 
 
 
 forcing 
 
 
 md the 
 
 
 in the 
 
 
 see the 
 
 
 AC, and 
 
 
 )Ughout 
 
 
 Fuego, 
 
 
 manity, 
 
 
 levelop- 
 
 
 Ls ebbed 
 
 
 zations ? 
 
 
 itinuing 
 
 
 advanc- 
 
 
 ' Asia, 
 
 
 3, would 
 
 
 iulation 
 
 
 of the 
 
 
 munica- 
 
 1 
 
 ui their 
 
 h-. 
 
 il prini- 
 
 % 
 
 1 longer 
 
 '4"i 
 
 bates of 
 
 
 1 north 
 
 
 ! cordil- 
 
 ^ I 
 
 r offers 
 
 
 itil the 
 
 
 le most 
 
 
 mients, 
 
 
 of the 
 
 
 [iperate 
 
 , 
 
 for the 
 
 
 higher 
 
 
 Ts," for 
 
 
 a slave 
 
 J^ 
 
 lause a 
 
 
 temperate climate, while it lures to exertion, rewards 
 the laborer. 
 
 Next, let us consider the agency of food in human 
 development. The effect of food is to supply the body 
 with caloric, which is essential to its life, and to repair 
 the muscular fibres which are c(mstantly undergoing 
 >yaste in our daily activities. These two effects are 
 produced by two different kinds of diet; carbonized 
 food, such as animal flesh, fish, oils and fats, and oxi- 
 dized food, which consists chiefly of vegetables. In hot 
 climates, obviously, less carbonized food is required to 
 keep uj) the necessary temperature of the body than 
 in cold climates. Hence it is, that hyperborean nations 
 subsist on whale's blubber, oil, and flesh, while the 
 tropical man confines himself almost exclusively to a 
 vegetable diet. 
 
 It is not my purpose here to enter into the relative 
 effects of the different kinds of food on physiological 
 and mental development; T desire, however, to call 
 attention to the comparative facility with which car- 
 bonized and oxidized food is procured by man, and to 
 note the effect of this ease or difficulty in obtaining a 
 food supply, upon his progress. In warm, humid 
 climates vegetation is spontaneous and abundant; a 
 plentiful supply of food may, therefore, be obtained 
 with the smallest expenditure of labor. The inhabitants 
 of cold climate?, however, are obliged to pursue, by 
 land and water^ wild and powerful animals, to put 
 forth all their strength and skill in order to secure a 
 precarious supply of the necessary food. Then, again, 
 besides being more difficult to obtain, and more uncer- 
 tain as to a steady supply, the quantity of food con- 
 sumed in a cold climate is much greater than that 
 consumed in a hot climate. Now as leisure is essen- 
 tial to cultivation, and as without a surplus of food 
 and clothing there can be no leisure, it would seem to 
 follow naturally that in those countries where food 
 and clothing are most easily obtained culture should 
 
I 
 
 48 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 be the highest; since, so little time and labor are 
 necessary to satisfy the necessities of the body, the 
 mind would have opportunity to expand. It would 
 seem that a fertile soil, an exuberant vegetation, soft 
 skies and balmy air, a country where raiment was 
 scarcely essential to comfort, and where for food the 
 favored inhabitant had but to pluck and eat, should 
 become the seat of a numerous population and a high 
 development. Is this the fact? "Wherever snow 
 falls," Emerson remarks, "there is usually civil free- 
 dom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is 
 indolent, and pampered at the cost of higher qualities; 
 the man is sensual and cruel;" and we may add that 
 where wheat grows, there is civilization, where rice is 
 the staple, there mental vigor is relaxed. 
 
 Heat and moisture being the great vegetative 
 stimulants, tropical lands in proximity to the sea are 
 covered with eternal verdure. Little or no labor is 
 required to sustain life ; for food there is the perjiet- 
 ually ripening fruit, a few hours' planting, f mietimes, 
 being sufficient to supply a family for months; for 
 shelter, little more than the dense foliage is necessary, 
 while scarcely any clothing is required. 
 
 But although heat and moisture, the great vegeta- 
 tive stimulants, lie at the root of primitive progress, 
 these elements in superabundance defeat their own 
 ends, and in two ways : First, excessive heat enervates 
 the body and prostrates the mind, languor and inertia 
 become chronic, while cold is invigorating and prompts 
 to activity. And in tropical climates certain hours of 
 the day are too hot for work, and are, consequently, 
 devoted to sleep. The day is broken into fragments ; 
 continuous application, which alone produces imi)or- 
 tant results, is prevented, and habits of slackness an*' 
 laxity become the rule of life Satisfied, moreovei 
 with the provisions of nature for their support, the 
 people live with out labor, vegetating, plant-like, through 
 a listless and objectless life. Secondly, vegetation, 
 stimulated by excessive heat and moisture, grows with 
 
 %\ 
 
UNMANAGEABLENES8 OE REDUNDANT NATURE. 
 
 49 
 
 8uch strength and rapidity as to defy the efforts of 
 inexperienced primitive man; nature becomes domi- 
 neerin<^, unnianageablo, and man sinks into insignifi- 
 cance. Indeed the most skillful industn' of anned 
 and disciplined civilization is unable to keep under 
 control this redundancy of tropical vegetation. The 
 path cleared by the pioneer on penetrating the dense 
 undergrowth, closes after him like the waters of the sea 
 behind a ship ; before the grain has time to spring up, 
 the plowed field is covered with rank weeds, wild flowers, 
 and poisonous plants no less beautiful than pernicious. 
 I have seen the very fence-posts sprouting up and 
 growing into trees. So J-istructive is the vegetation 
 of the Central American lowlands, that in their 
 triumphal march the persistent roots penetrate the 
 crevices of masonry, demolish strong walls, and oblit- 
 erate stupendous tumuli. The people whose climate 
 makes carbonized food a necessity, are obliged to call 
 into action their bolder and stronger faculties in order 
 to obiai I their supplies, while the vegetable-eater may 
 trail. jHiIiy rest on bounteous nature. The Eskimo 
 struggles manfully with whale, and bear, and ice, and 
 darkness, until his capacious stomach is well filled 
 with heat-producing food, then he dozes torpidly in 
 liis don while the supply lasts ; the equatorial man 
 phicks and eats, basks in the open air, and sleeps. 
 
 Here we have a medley of heterogeneous and an- 
 tagonistic elements. Leisure is essential to culture; 
 before leisure there must be an accumulation of wealth ; 
 the accumulation of wealth is dependent upon the food- 
 supply; a surplus of food can only be easily obtained 
 in warm climates. But labor is also essential to devel- 
 opment, and excessive heat is opposed to labor. Labor, 
 moreover, in order to produce leisure must be remu- 
 1 lative, and excessive cold is opposed to accumulation. 
 It appears, therefore, that an excess of I'ibor and an 
 excess of leisure are alike detrimental to Improvement. 
 Again, heat and moisture are essential to an abundant 
 supply of wxidized food. But heat and moisture. 
 
 Vol. II. 4 
 
60 
 
 SA^'^AGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 especially in tropical climates, act as a stimulant upon 
 other rank productions, engendering dense forests, 
 tangled brush-wood, and poisonous shrubs, and tilling 
 miasmatic marshes with noxious reptiles. These ene- 
 mies to human progres i the weaponless savage is unable 
 to overcome. 
 
 It is, therefore, neither in hot and humid countries, 
 nor in excesrfively cold climates, that we are to look for 
 a primitie civilization; for in the latter nature lies 
 dormant, while in the former the redundancy of nature 
 becomes unmanageable. It is true that in the trop- 
 ics of America and Asia are found the seats of many 
 ancient civilizations, but if we examine them one 
 after the other, we shall see, in nearly eveiy in- 
 stance, some opposite or counteracting agency. Thus, 
 the Aztecs, though choosing a low latitude in prox- 
 imity to both oceans, occupied an elevated table-land, 
 in a cool, dry atmosphere, seven or eight thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea. The river Nile, by 
 its periodic inundations, forced the ancient Egypt- 
 ians to lay by a store of food, which is the very first 
 step toward wealth. The rivers of India are, some of 
 them, subject to like overflowings, while the more 
 elevated parts are dry and fertile. 
 
 Egypt was the cradle of European development. 
 Long before the advent of Christianity, the fertile 
 banks of the Nile, for their pyramidal tombs, their 
 colossi, their obelisks and catacombs and sphinxes and 
 temples, were regarded by surrounding barbarians as 
 a land of miracles and marvels. Thence Greece de- 
 rived her earliest arts and maxims. The climate of 
 Egypt was unchangeable, and the inundations of the 
 Nile offered a less uncertain water-8Ui)ply than the 
 rains of many other districts, and thus agriculture, 
 while offering to the laborer the greater part of the 
 year for leisure, was almost certain to be remunerative. 
 Common instincts and common efforts, uniformity of 
 climate and identity of interests produced a homoge- 
 neous people, and forty centuries of such changeless 
 
MR BUCKLE'S THEORY. 
 
 .61 
 
 coming and going could not fail to result in improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr Buckle, in his attempt to establish a universal 
 theory that heat and moisture inevitably engender 
 civilization, and that without those combined agencies 
 no civilization can arise, somewhat overreaches him- 
 self. " In America, as in Asia and Africa," he says, 
 "all the original civilizations were seated in hot coun- 
 tries; the whole of Peru, proper, being within the 
 southern tropic, the whole of Central America and 
 Mexico within the northern tropic." The fact is, that 
 Cuzco, the capital city of the Incas, is in the Cordil- 
 leras, three hundred miles from and eleven thousand 
 feet above the sea. For the latitude the climate is 
 both cold and dry. The valley of Mexico is warmer 
 and moister, but cannot be called hot and humid. 
 Palenque and Copan approach nearer Mr Buckle's 
 ideal than Cuzco or Mexico, being above the tierra 
 caliente proper, and yet in a truly hot and humid 
 climate. 
 
 The Hawaiian Islands, — an isolated group of lava 
 piles, thrown up into the trade winds on the twentieth 
 parallel, and by these winds deluged on one side with 
 rain, while the other is left almost dry, with but little 
 alluvial soil, and that little exceedingly fertile, — at the 
 time of their discovery by Captain Cook appeared to 
 have made no inconsiderable advance toward feudal- 
 ism. Systems of land tenure alid vassalage were in 
 oi)erati()n, and some works for the public we.il had 
 been constructed. Here were the essentials for a low 
 order of improvement such as was found there, but 
 which never, in all probability, would have risen much 
 higher. 
 
 Again, Mr Buckle declares that, "owing to the 
 presence of physical phenomena, the civilization of 
 America was, of necessity, confined to those parts 
 where alone it was found by the discoverers of the New 
 World." An apparently safe postulate; but, upon 
 any conceivable hypothesis, there are very many 
 
' 
 
 '■ 
 
 52 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 places as well adapted to development as those in which 
 it was found. Once more: "The two great conditions 
 of fertility have not been united in any part of the 
 continent north of Mexico." When we consider what 
 it is, namely, heat and humidity, upon which Mr Buckle 
 makes intellectual evolution dependent, and that not 
 only the Mexican plateau lacked both these essentials, 
 in the full meaning of the term, but that both are 
 found in many places northward, as for instance, in 
 some parts of Texas arid in Louisiana, a discrepancy in 
 his theory becomes apparent. "The peculiar config- 
 uration of the land," he continues, "secured a very 
 large amount of coast, and thus gave to the southern 
 part of North America the character of an island. " An 
 island, yes, but, as M. Guyot terms it, an "aerial 
 island;" bordered on either side by sea-coast, but by 
 such sea-coast as formed an almost impassable barrier 
 between the table-land and the ocean. 
 
 "While, therefore," adds Mr Buckle, "the position 
 of Mexico near the equator gave it heat, the shape of 
 the land gave it humidtty ; and this being the only part 
 of North America in which these two conditions were 
 united it was likewise the only part which was at all 
 civilized. There can be no doubt, that if the sandy 
 plains of California and Southern Columbia, instead of 
 being scorched into sterility, had been irrigated by the 
 rivers of the east, or if the rivers of the east had been 
 accompanied by the heat of the west, the result of either 
 combination would have been that exuberance of soil, 
 by which, as the history of the world decisively proves, 
 every early civilization was preceded. But inasmuch 
 as, of the two elements of fertility, one was deficient in 
 every part of America north of the twentieth parallel, 
 it followed that, until that line was passed, civilization 
 could gain no resting place; and there never has been 
 found, and we may confidently assert never will be 
 found, any evidence tiiat even a single ancient nation, 
 in the whole of that enormous continent, was able to 
 make much progress in the arts of life, or organize 
 
WHY WERE CALIFORNIANS NOT CIVILIZED? 
 
 53 
 
 organize 
 
 itself into a fixed and permanent society." This is a 
 broad statement embodying precipitate deductions 
 from false premises, and one which betrays singular 
 ignorance of the country and its climate. These same 
 "sandy plains of California" so far from being "scorched 
 into sterility," are to-day sending their cereals in every 
 direction — ^to the east and to the west — and are capable 
 of feeding <tl) Europe. 
 
 I have often wondered why California was not the 
 seat of a primitive civilization; why, upon every con- 
 verging line the race deteriorates as this centre is 
 u})proached; why, with a cool, salubrious seaboard, a 
 hot and healthful interior, with alternate rainy and 
 dry seasons, alternate seasons of labor and leisure 
 which encourage producing and hoarding and which 
 are the primary incentives to accumulation and wealth, 
 in this hot and cool, moist and dry, and invigorating 
 atmosphere, with a fertile soil, a climate which in no 
 part of the year can be called cold or inhospitable, 
 should be found one of the lowest phases of humanity 
 on the North American continent. The cause must be 
 sought in periods more remote, in the convulsions of 
 nature now stilled; in the tumults of nations whose 
 history lies forgotten, forever buried in the past. The- 
 ories never will solve the mystery. Indeed, there is 
 no reason why the foundations of the Aztec and 
 Maya-Quiche civilizations may not have been laid 
 north of the thirty-fifth parallel, although no archi- 
 tectural remains have been discovered there, nor other 
 proof of such an origin; but upon the banks of the 
 Gila, the Colorado, and the Rio Grande, in Chihuahua, 
 and on the hot dry plains of Arizona and New Mexico, 
 far beyond the limits of Mr Buckle's territory where 
 "there never has been found, and we may confidently 
 assert never will be found" any evidence of progress, 
 are to-day walled towns inhabited by an industrial and 
 agricultural people, whose existence we can trace back 
 for more than three centuries, besidoy ruins of massive 
 buildings of whose history nothing is known. 
 
' 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 
 SAVAGISM ANH CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Thus, that California and many other part^ of North 
 America could not have been the seat of a primitive 
 civilization, cannot be proved upon the baais of any 
 physical hypothesis; and, indeed, in our attempt to 
 elucidate the principles of universal progress, where 
 the mysterious and antagonistic activities of humanity 
 have been fermenting all unseen for thousands of ages, 
 unknown and unknowable, among peoples of whom our 
 utmost knowledge can be only such as is derived from 
 a transient glimpse of a disappearing race, it is w ith 
 the utmost difficulty that satisfactory conclusions can 
 in any instance be reached. 
 
 It is in a temperate climate, therefore, that man 
 attains the highest development. On the peninsulas 
 of Greece and Italy, where the Mediterranean invites 
 intercourse ; in Iran and Armenia, where the climate 
 is cold enough to stimulate labor, but not so cold as to 
 require the use of all the energies of body and mind in 
 order to acquire a bare subsistence ; warm enough to 
 make leisure possible, but not so wann as to enervate 
 and prostrate the faculties; with a soil of sufficient 
 fertility to yield a surplus and promote the accumulation 
 of wealth, without producing such a redundancy of 
 vegetation as to be unmanageable by unskilled, priliii- 
 tive man — there it is that we find the highest intel- 
 lectual culture. 
 
 It sometimes happens that, in those climates which 
 are too vigorous for the unfolding of the tender germ, 
 cultivation is stimulated into greater activity than in 
 its original seats. It sometimes happens that, when 
 the shell of savagism is once fairly broken, a people 
 may overcome a domineering vegetation, and flourish 
 in a climate where by no possibility could their de- 
 velopment have originated. Even in the frozen regions 
 of the north, as in Scandanavia, man, by the intensity 
 of his nature, was enabled to surmount the difficul- 
 ties of climate and attain a fierce, rude cultivation. 
 The regions of Northern Europe and Northern Amer- 
 ica, notwithstanding their original opposition to man, 
 
ASSOCIATION AN ELEMENT OF PROGRESS. 
 
 55 
 
 aro to-day the most fruitful of all lands in industrial 
 discoveries and intellectual activities, but 'in the polar 
 regions, as in the equatorial, the highest development 
 never can be reached. 
 
 The conditions which encourage indigenous civiliza- 
 tion are not always those that encourage permanent 
 development, and vice versa. Thus, Great Britain in 
 her insulation, remained barbarous long after Greece 
 and Italy had attained a high degree of cultivation, 
 yet when once the seed took rooi,, that very insulation 
 acted as a wall of defense, within which a mighty 
 power germinated and with its influence overspread 
 the whole earth. 
 
 Thus we have seen that a combination of physical 
 conditions is essential to intellectual development. 
 Without leisure, there can be no culture, without 
 wealth no leisure, without labor no wealth, and with- 
 out a suitable soil and climate no remunerative labor. 
 
 Now, throughout the material universe, there is no 
 object or element which holds its place, whether at 
 rest or in motion, except under fixed laws ; no atom of 
 matter nor subtle mysterious force, no breath of air, 
 nor cloudy vapor nor streak of light, but in existing 
 obeys a law. The Almighty fiat: Be fruitful and mul- 
 tiply, fruitful in increase, intellectual as well as physi- 
 cal, was given alike to all mankind ; seeds of progress 
 were sown broadcast throughout all the races human; 
 some fell on stony places, others were choked with 
 weeds, others found good soil. When we see a people 
 in the full enjoyment of all these physical essentials to 
 progress yet in a state of savagism, we may be sure 
 that elements detrimental to progress have, at some 
 period of their history, interposed to prevent natural 
 growth. War, famine, pestilence, convulsions of nature, 
 have nipped in the bud many an incipient civilization, 
 whose history lies deep buried in the. unrecorded past. 
 
 The obvious necessity of association as a primary 
 condition of development leaves little to be said on 
 
56 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 that subject. To the manifestation of this Soul of 
 Progress a body social is requisite, as without an indi- 
 vidual body there can be no manifestation of an indi- 
 vidual soul. This body social, like the body individual, 
 is composed of numberless organs, each having its 
 special functions to perform, each acting on the others, 
 and all under the general government of the progres- 
 sional idea. Civilization is not an individual attribute, 
 and though the atom, man, may be charged with stored 
 energy, yet progress constitutes no part of individual 
 nature ; it is something that lies between men and not 
 within them ; it belongs to society and not to the indi- 
 vidual; man, the molecule of society, isolate, is inert 
 and forceless. The isolated man, as I have said, never 
 can become cultivated, never can form a language, 
 does not possess in its fullness the faculty of abstrac- 
 tion, nor can his mind enter the realm of higher 
 thought. All those characteristics which distinguish 
 mankind from animal-kind become almost inoperative. 
 Without association there is no speech, for speech is but 
 the conductor of thought between two or more indi- 
 viduals; without words abstract thought cannot flow, 
 for words, or some other form of expression, are the 
 channels of thought, and with the absence of words the 
 fountain of thought is in a measure sealed. 
 
 At the very threshold of progress social crystalliza- 
 tion sets in; something there is in every man that 
 draws him to other men. In the relationship of the 
 sexes, this principle of human attraction reaches its 
 height, where the husband and wife, as it were, coalesce, 
 like the union of one drop of water with another, form- 
 ing one globule. As unconsciously and as positively 
 are men constrained to band together into societies as 
 are particles forced to unite and form crystals. And 
 herein is a law as palpaple and as fixed as any law in 
 nature ; a law, which if unfulfilled, would result in the 
 extermination of the race. But the law of human 
 attraction is not perfect, does not fulfill its purpose 
 apart from the law of human repulsion, for as we have 
 
COOPERATION AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR. 
 
 67 
 
 seen, until war and despotism and superstition and 
 other dire evils come, there is no progress. Solitude 
 is insupportable, even beasts will not live alone; and 
 men are more dependent on each other than beasts. 
 Solitude carries with it a sense of inferiority and 
 insufficiency ; the faculties are stinted, lacking com- 
 pleteness, whereas volume is added to every individual 
 faculty by union. 
 
 But association simply, is not enough; nothing 
 materially great can be accomplished without union 
 and cooperation. It is only when aggregations of 
 families intermingle with other aggregations, each 
 contributing its quota of original knowledge to the 
 other; when the individual gives up some portion of 
 his individual will and property for the better protec- 
 tion of other rights and property ; when he entrusts 
 society with the vindication of his rights; when he 
 depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not 
 alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that 
 progress is truly made. And with union and cooper- 
 ation comes the division of labor by which means each, 
 in some special department, is enabled to excel. By 
 fixing the mind wholly upon one thing, by constant 
 repetition and practice, the father hands down his 
 art to the son, who likewise, improves it for his de- 
 scendants. It is only by doing a new thing, or by 
 doing an old thing better than it has ever l)een done 
 before, that progress is made. Under the regime of 
 universal mediocrity the nation does not advance ; it 
 is to the great men, — great in things great or small, 
 that progress is due ; it is to the few who think, to the 
 few who dare to face the infinite universe of things and 
 step, if need be, outside an old-time boundary, that 
 the world owes most. 
 
 Originally implanted is the germ of intelligence, at 
 the first but little more than brute instinct. This 
 germ in unfolding undergoes a double process; it 
 throws off its own intuitions and receives in return 
 those of another. By an interchange of ideas, the expe- 
 
88 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 riences of one are made known for the benefit of another, 
 the inventions of one are added to the inventions of 
 another ; without intercommunication of ideas the in- 
 tellect must lie dormant. Thus it is with individuals, 
 and with societies it is the same. Acquisitions are 
 eminentlv reciprocal. In society, wealth, art, litera- 
 ture, polity, and religion act and react on each other; 
 •in science a fusion of antagonistic hypotheses is sure 
 to result in important developments. Before much 
 progress can be made, there must be established a 
 commerce between nations for the interchange of 
 aggregated human experiences, so that the arts and 
 industries acquired by each may become the property 
 of all the rest, and thus knowledge become scattered 
 by exchange, in place of each having to work out every 
 problem for himself. Thus viewed, civilization is a 
 partnership entered into for mutual improvement; 
 a joint stock operation, in which the product of every 
 brain contributes to a general fund for the benefit 
 of all. No one can add to his own store of knowledge 
 without adding to the general store ; every invention 
 and discovery, however insignificant, is a contribution 
 to civilization. 
 
 In savagism, union and cooperation are imperfectly 
 displayed. The warriors of one tribe unite against 
 the warriors of another; a band will cooperate in pur- 
 suing a herd of buffalo ; even one nation will sometimes 
 unite with another nation against a third, but such 
 combinations are temporary, and no sooner is the par- 
 ticular object accomplished than the confederation 
 disbands, and every man is again his own master. The 
 moment two or more persons unite for the accomplish- 
 ment of some purpose which shall tend permanently 
 to meliorate the condition of themselves and others, 
 that moment progress begins. The wild beasts of the 
 forest, acting in unison, were physically able to rise up 
 and extirpate primitive man, but could beasts in reality 
 confederate and do this, such confederation of wild 
 beasts could become civilized. 
 
 ,;iiil 
 
THE SAVAGE HATES CIVILIZATION. 
 
 BO 
 
 But why does primitive man desire to abandon his 
 original state and set out upon an arduous never-end- 
 ing journey? Why does he wish to change his mild 
 paternal government, to relinquish his title to lands as 
 broad as his arm can defend, with all therein contained, 
 the common property of his people? Why does he 
 wish to give up his wild freedom, his native independ- 
 ence, and place upon his limbs the fetters of a social 
 and political despotism? He does not. The savage 
 hates civilization as he hates his deadliest foe; its 
 choicest benefits he hates more than the direst ills of 
 his own unfettered life. He is driven to it ; driven to 
 it by extraneous influences, without his knowledge 
 and against his will ; he is driven to it by this Soul of 
 Progress. It is here that this progressional phenome- 
 non again appears outside of man and in direct oppo- 
 sition to the will of man ; it is here that the principle 
 of evil again comes in and stirs men up to the accom- 
 plishment of a higher destiny. By it Adam, the first 
 of recorded savages, was driven from Eden, where 
 otherwise he would have remained forever, and re- 
 mained uncivilized. By it our ancestors were impelled 
 to abandon their simi)le state, and organize more 
 heterogeneous complex forms of social life. And it is 
 a problem for each nation to work out for itself Mil- 
 lions of money are expended for merely proselyting 
 purposes, when if the first principles of civilization 
 were well understood, a more liberal manner of teach- 
 ing would prevail. 
 
 Every civilization has its peculiarities, its idiosyn- 
 crasies. Two individuals attempting the same thinij 
 diner m the performance; so civilization evolving under 
 incidental and extraneous causes takes an individuality 
 in every instance. This is why civilizations will not 
 coalesce; this is why the Spaniards could make the 
 Aztecs accept their civilization only at the point of the 
 sword. Development engendered by one set of phe- 
 nomena will not suit the developments of other cir- 
 cumstances. The government, religion, and customs 
 

 I 
 
 60 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 of one people will not fit another people any more than 
 the coat of one person will suit the fonn of another. 
 Thought runs in diffei'ent channels; the happiness of 
 one is not the happiness of another; development 
 springs from inherent necessity, and one species cannot 
 be engrafted on another. 
 
 Let us now examine the phenomena of government 
 and religion in their application to the evolution of 
 societies, and we shall better understand how the 
 wheels of progress are first set in motion, — and by 
 religion I do not mean creed or credulity, but that 
 natural cultus inherent in humanity, which is a very 
 different thing. Government is early felt to be a neea 
 of society ; the enforcement of laws which shall bring 
 order out of social chaos; laws which shall restrain the 
 vicious, protect the innocent, and punish the guilty; 
 which shall act as a shield to inherent budding moral- 
 ity. But before government, there must arise some 
 influence which will band men together. An early evil 
 to which civilization is indebted is war; the propensity 
 of man — unhappily not yet entirely overcome — for kill- 
 ing his fellow-man. 
 
 The human race has not yet attained that state of 
 homogeneous felicity which we sometimes imagine; 
 upon the surface, we yet bear many of the relics of 
 barbarism ; under cover of manners, we hide still more. 
 War is a barbarism which civilization only intensifies, 
 as indeed civilization intensifies evenr barbarism which 
 it does not eradicate or cover up. The right of every 
 individual to act as his own avenger ; trial by combat ; 
 justice dependent upon the passion or caprice of the 
 judge or ruler and not upon fixed law; hereditary feuds 
 and migratory skirmishes; these and the like are 
 deemed barbarous, while every nation of the civilized 
 world maintains a standing army, applies all the arts 
 and inventions of civilization to the science of killing, 
 and upon sufficient provocation, as a disputed boundary 
 or a fancied insult, no greater nor more important than 
 
GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION. 
 
 ei 
 
 that which moved our savage ancestors to like conduct, 
 falls to, and after a respectable civilized butchery of 
 fifty or a hundred thousand men, ceases fighting, and 
 returns, perhaps, to right and reason as a basis for the 
 settlement of the difficulty. War, like other evils 
 which have proved instruments of good, should by 
 this time have had its day, should have served its 
 purpose. Standing armies, whose formation was one 
 of the first and most important steps in association and 
 partition of labor, are but the manifestation of a linger- 
 nig necessity for the use of brute force in place of 
 moral force in the settlement of national disputes. 
 Surely, rational beings who retain the most irrational 
 
 fjractices conceniing the simplest principles of social 
 ife cannot boast of a very high order of what we are 
 pleased to call civilization. Morality, commerce, lit- 
 erature, and industry, all that tends toward elevation of 
 intellect, is directly opposed to the warlike spirit. As 
 intellectual activity mcreases, the taste for war 
 decreases, for an appeal to war in the settlement of 
 difficulties is an appeal from the intellectual to the 
 physical, from reason to brute force. 
 
 Despotism is an evil, but despotism is as essential 
 to progress as any good. In some form despotism is 
 an inseparable adjunct of war. An individual or an 
 idea may be the despot, but without cohesion, without 
 a strong central power, real or imaginary, there can be 
 no unity, and without unity no protracted warfare. 
 In the first stages of government despotism is aa 
 essential as in the last it is noxious. It holds society 
 together when nothing else would hold it, and at a time 
 when its very existence depends upon its being so held. 
 And not until a moral inherent strength arises suffi- 
 cient to burst the fetters of despotism, is a people fit 
 for a better or milder form of government ; for not until 
 this inherent power is manifest is there sufficient cohe- 
 sive force in society to hold it together without being 
 hooped by some such band as despotism. Besides thus 
 cementing society, war generates many virtues, such 
 
8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 fi 
 
 
 as couraj,'e, discipline, obedience, chivalrous bearing, 
 noble thought ; and the virtues of war, as well as its 
 vices, help to mould national character. 
 
 Slavery to the present day has its defenders, and 
 from the first it has been a preventive of a worse 
 evil, — slaughter. Savages make slaves of their pris- 
 oners of war, and if they do not preserve them for 
 slaves they kill them. The origin of the word, semis, 
 from servare, to preserve, denotes humane thought 
 rather than cruelty. Discipline is always necessary to 
 development, and slavery is another form of savage 
 disciplme. Then, by systems of slavery, great works 
 were accomplished, which, in the absence of arts and 
 inventions, would not have been possible without slavery. 
 And again, in early societies where leisure is so neces- 
 sary to mental cultivation and so difficult to obtain, 
 slavery, by promoting leisure, aids elevation and refine- 
 ment. Slaves constitute a distinct class, devoted 
 wholly to labor, thereby enabling another class to live 
 without labor, or to labor with the intellect rather 
 than with the hands. 
 
 Primordially, society was an aggregation of nomadic 
 families, every head of a family having equal rights, 
 and every individual such power and influence as he 
 could acquire and maintain. In all the ordinary avo- 
 cations of savage life this was sufllicient; there was 
 room for all, and the widest liberty was possessed by 
 each. And in this happy state does mankind ever 
 remain until forced out of it. In unity and coopera- 
 tion alone can great things be accomplished; but men 
 will not unite until forced to it. Now in times of war 
 — and with savages >^'ar is the rule and not the excep- 
 tion — some closer union is necessary to avoid extinction ; 
 for other things being equal, the people who are most 
 firmly united and most strongly ruled are sure to pre- 
 vail in war. The idea of unity in order to be effectual 
 must be embodied in a unit ; some one must be made 
 chief, and the others must obey, as in a band of wild 
 beasts that follow the one most conspicuous for its 
 
GOVERNMENT FORCED UPON MAN. 
 
 6» 
 
 prowess and cunning. But the military principle alone 
 would never lay the foundation of a strong government, 
 for with every cessation from hostilities tnere would be 
 a corre8|X)ndmg relaxation of government. 
 
 Another necessity for goveniment here arises, but 
 which likewise is not the cause of government, for 
 government springs from force and not from utility. 
 These men do not want government, they do not want 
 culture ; how then is an arm to be found sufficiently 
 strong to bridle their wild passions? In reason they 
 are children, in passion men; to restrain the strong 
 passions of strong non-reasoning men requires a power; 
 whence is this power to come? It is in the earlier 
 stage of government that des[)otism assumes its most 
 intense fonns. The more passionate, and lawless, and- 
 cruel the people, the more completely do they submit to 
 a passionate, lawless, ana cruel prince ; the more un- 
 governable their nature, the more slavish are they in 
 their submission to government; the stronger the 
 element to be governed, the stronger must be the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Tile primitive man, whoever or whatever thai may 
 be, lives in harmony with nature; that is, he ii /es as 
 other animals live, drawing his supplies immediately 
 from the general storehouse of nature. His food he 
 plucks from a sheltering tree, or draws from a spark- 
 ling stream, or captures from a prolific forest. The 
 remnants of his capture, unfit for fixxi, supply his 
 other wants; with the skin he clothes himself, and 
 with the bones makes implements and points his 
 weapons. I n this there are no antagonisms, no opposing 
 principles of good and evil; animals are kilted not 
 with a view of extermination, but through necessity, 
 as animals kill animals in order to supply actual wants. 
 But no sooner does the leaven of progress begin to work 
 than war is declared between man and nature. To 
 make room for denser populations and increasing com- 
 forts, forests must be hewn down, their primeval 
 inhabitants extirpated or domesticated, and the soil 
 
64 
 
 . SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 laid under more direct cor.tribution. Union and coop- 
 eration spring up for purposes of protection and aggres- 
 sion, for the acconiplishnient of purj)oses l)eyond the 
 capacity of the individual. Gradually manufactures 
 and commerce increase; th** products of one IxKly of 
 laborers are exchanged for the i)roducts of another, and 
 thus the aggregate comforts produced are doubled to 
 each. Absolute power is taken from the luuids of the 
 many and placed in the hands of one, who becoL 38 the 
 representative power of all. Men are no longer de- 
 pendent upon the chase for a daily supply of fcKHl ; even 
 agriculture no longer is a necessity which each must 
 follow for himself, for the intellectual [iroductn of one 
 perst)n or people may be exchanged for the agricultural 
 •products of another. With these changes of occuj)a- 
 tion new institutions spring up, new ideax originate, 
 and new habits are fonned. Human lift ceases to l)e 
 a purely material existence; another element finds 
 exercise, the other part of man is permitted to grow. 
 The energies of society now assume a differetit shape ; 
 hitherto the daily struggle was for daily necessities, 
 now the accumulation of wealth constitutes the chief 
 inrentivo to labor. Wealth becomes a power and 
 absorbs all other powers. The possessor <*f unlimited 
 wealth connuaiids the j)roducts of every other man's 
 labor. 
 
 But ill time, and to a certain extent, a chiss arises 
 already ])()ssosst!<l of wealth sufficient to satisfy even 
 the deniiuids of avarice, and something still better, 
 some greater good is yet sought for. Money -getting 
 gives way before intellectual cravings. The self-de- 
 ni lis and labor necessary to the acquisition of wealth 
 are abandoned for the enjoyment of wealth alrejuly 
 accjuired and the arcjuisitiou of a yet higher good. 
 Sensual })leasure yields in a measure to intellectual 
 pleasure, the a^tjuisition of money to the accjuisition 
 of learning. 
 
 Where brute intelligeuLe is the order of the day, 
 man retjuires no more governing than brutes, but when 
 
TIIK SUPEUNATUHAL IN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 65 
 
 lands are divided, and the soil cultivated, when wealth 
 boffins to aoeuniulato and commerce and industry to 
 flourinh, then protection and lawful punishment liecome 
 necessary. Like the wild horse, leave him free, and 
 he will take care of himself; but catch him and curb 
 him, and the wilder and stronjjfer he is the stronjj^er 
 must be tlie curb until he is subdued and trained, and 
 then he is lyfuided by a lijifht rein. The kind of govern- 
 ment makes little difference so that it be stronjf enoi irh. 
 
 fJrantetl that it is absolutely essential to the first 
 stej) toward culture that society sliould Ins stronj^ly 
 fifoverned, how is the first government to be accom- 
 plished; how is one member of a i>assionate, unbridled 
 hetero«(eneous connnunity to obtain dominion absolute 
 over all the others? Here comes in an<>*)u)r evil to 
 the assistiuicc of the former evils, all for future j;^(mm1, — 
 Superstition. Never <'ould physical force alone com- 
 press and hold the necessary power with whicli to burst 
 the shell of savai>ism. The ^overmnent is but a reflex 
 of the governed. Not \mtil one man is ]»hysically or 
 intellectually stronu^i-r than ten thousand, will an inde- 
 jH'iulent people submit to a tyraimiial «>^overnment, or 
 a humane people submit to a cruel jj^overnment, or a 
 p»'oplc accustomed to free discussion to an intolerant 
 pricstliot»(l. 
 
 At tht! outset, if man is to be l 'Vcrned at all, there 
 nuist be no <livision of (j^overnmentul force. The cause 
 {'or fear arisin;^^ from botli ihe ]»hysical and the super- 
 njitunil must bo unittnl in one individual. In the al)- 
 simce of th«' moral sentiment tlie fear of lot^'-al and that 
 of siiiritual punishments are identical, for the spiritual 
 is feared only as it works tenjjxmil or corporal evil. 
 Freedom of thou<rl)t at this staj^e is incompatible with 
 pro»ifre.ss, for thou,«,^ht without expt.'rience is <lan<(erous, 
 tendin<; towards anarchy. Before men can {rovern 
 themselves they must be subjected to the sternest dis- 
 ci|)line of {jfovernmont, and whether this jrovermnent 
 be just or humane or pleasant is of small ctmseiiuence 
 
 Vol. U. S ' 
 
66 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 SO that it be only stronfi^ enoucyh. As with pK)Hty so 
 with moraHty and rehjfion ; conjointly with despotism 
 there nuist he an arbitrary central clunvh (j^overnnient, 
 or moral anarchy is the inevitable con.>-e<iuence. At 
 th(! outset it is not for man to rule but to obey; it is 
 not for savaui^es, who are children in intellect to think 
 and reason, but to believe. 
 
 And thus we see how wonderfully man is jirovidcd 
 with the essentials of jLi^rowth. This tender j>erm of 
 proji^ress is ])reserved in hard shells and prickly cover- 
 inu^s, which, wiien they have served their |)urpose are 
 thrown jiside as not only useless but detrimental to 
 further develo])ment. We know not what will come 
 hereafter, but u]) to the j)resent time a state of bondage 
 appears to be the normal state of humanity ; Inrndage, 
 at first severe and irrational, ttien ever loosening, 
 and expanding into a broader freedom. As mankind 
 progresses, moral anarchy no more follows freedom of 
 thought than does political anar<'by follow freedom of 
 action. In Germany, in England, m America, wher- 
 ever secular power has in any measure cut l<x>sc from 
 ecclesiastical jjower and thrown religi<;fi \m<'k u]>on 
 public sentiment for support, a moral a*i well as an 
 intellectual advance has always followed. Wliat the 
 mild and persuasive teachings and la.x discij)hne of 
 the ])resent epoch would have been to the ( hristians 
 of the fourteenth century, the free and lax government 
 of republican America would have been to republican 
 Rome. Therefore, let us learn to l<K)k charitably \\\y(>n 
 the past, and not forget iiow nuich we owe to evils 
 which we now so justly hate; while we rejoice at <tur 
 release from the bigotry and fanaticism of mediunal 
 times, let us not forget the debt which civilization owes 
 to the tyranni(;s of Church and State. 
 
 Christianity , by itsexalted un-utilitarian morality and 
 philanthro])v, has greatly aided civilization. Indeed 
 HO marked lias been the effect in Europe, so great the 
 contrast between ( 'hristianity and Islamism and the 
 polytheistic creeds in general, that Churchmen claim 
 
 V 
 
 ! I 
 
MORALITY AND CUBED. 
 
 67 
 
 civilization as the offspriiiii^ of their reUij^ion. But 
 reH<»"ion and morality ninst not he confounded with 
 civilization. All these and many other activities act 
 and react on e.ach other as ])roximate principles in the 
 social oi'^anisin, hut they do not, any or all of them, 
 constitute the life of the oriifanisni. L*>n,i^ hefore mo- 
 rality is reliifion, and lonjj^ after morality relijj^ion sends 
 the j)ious dehauchee to his knees. Relit^ious culture 
 IS a j:i^reat assistant to moral culture as intellectual 
 traininjjf promotes the industrial arts, hut morality is 
 no more reli*,''ion than is industry intellect. When 
 Christianity, as in Spain durin«( the foui-teenth cen- 
 tury, joins itself to hlind hi»(otry and stands u]> in 
 (h^adly anta;:unism to liherty, then Christianity is a 
 dra<i^ upon civilization; and therefore we may conclude 
 that ill so far as (Jhristianity ijrafts on its code of pure 
 morality tlu! j)rinciple of intellectual freedom, in so far 
 is c; i;!/!«tion promoted hy Christianity, hut when 
 Chri ty eny^enders superstition and persecution, 
 
 civilization is r4-4Hrded therohy. 
 
 Then PrZ-estantism sets u|> a claim to the authorship 
 of fiviliijiition, jxMnts to S|)ain and then to Eni>^lana, 
 coiiipiirc* Italy and Switzerland, C-atholic America 
 and Puritan Am»rica, d<.*<-laros that the intellect can 
 nt'vor attain (Mijx'riority while under tin; dominion of 
 the ('hurcli of itome; in other words, that civilization 
 is J'rotcMtantism. It is true that }»rotestation ajjfainst 
 irrational do;.;mas, or any other action that tends 
 toward tin- emancipation of the intellect, is a lifreat 
 stej) in a(! -^.n^e; hut r(;li«;^ious helief has notliin<.( what- 
 ever to do wjf\i intellectual culture. lieli<jion from iia 
 very nature i^^ Keyond the limits of reason; it is emo- 
 tional rather than intellectual, a.n instinct and not an 
 acfjuisition. Ji !tw»;('n reasim and reliyfion lies a domain 
 of ( «nnmon j^'iound upon which lK»th may im et and join 
 hands, hut heyond the houndaries of which neither 
 may pass. The moment the intellect atteinj)t.-' to pene- 
 trate the domain of the Supernatural all intelK .Luality 
 vanishes, and emotion and ima<^ination till its place. 
 
68 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 There can be no real conflict between the two, for 
 neither, by any possibiUty, can pass this neutral ground. 
 Before the mind can receive Christianity, or Mahom- 
 etanism, or any other creed, it must be ready to accept 
 dogmas in the analysis of which human reason is power- 
 less. Among the most brilliant intellects are found 
 Protestants, Komanists, Unitarians, Deists, and Athe- 
 ists; judging from the experiences of mankind in ages 
 past, creeds and formulas, orthodoxy and lieterodoxy, 
 have no inherent power to advance or retard the intel- 
 lect. Some claim, indeed, that strong doctrinal bias 
 stifles thought, fosters superstition, and fetters the 
 intellect; still religious thought, in some form, is insep- 
 arable from the human mind, and it would be very 
 difficult to prt)ve that belief is more debasing than 
 non-belief 
 
 Religion at first is a gross fetichism, which endows 
 every wonder with a concrete personality. Within 
 every appearance is a several personal cause, and to 
 embody this personal cause in some material form is 
 the first effort of the savage mind. Hence, images are 
 made in representaion of these imaginary su})ernatural 
 powers. Man, of necessity, must clothe these super- 
 natural powers in the elements of some lower form. 
 The imagination cannot grasp an object or an idea be- 
 yond the realms of human experience. Unheard-of 
 combinations of character may be made, but the con- 
 stituent parts must, at some time and in some form, 
 have had an existence in order to be conceivable. It 
 is impossible for the human mind to array in forms of 
 thought anything wholly and absolutely new. This 
 state is the farthest remove possible from a recogni- 
 tion of those universal laws of causation toward which 
 every department of knowledge is now so rapidly tend- 
 ing. Gods 110 made in the likeness of man and beast, 
 endowed with earthly passions, and a sensual i)oly- 
 theism, in which blind fate is a prominent element, be- 
 comes the religious ideal. Religious conceptions are 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEAL. 
 
 69 
 
 essentially material; all punishments and rewards are 
 such as effect man as a material being; morality, the 
 innate sense of right and wrong, lies stifled, almost 
 donnant. 
 
 Thrown wholly upon himself, without experience to 
 guide him, the savage must, of necessity, invest nature 
 with his own qualities, for his mind can grasp none 
 other. But when experience dispels the nearer illu- 
 sions, objects more remote are made gods; in the sun 
 and stars he sees his controlling destinies ; the number 
 of his gods is lessened until at last all merge into one 
 God, the author of all law, the great and only ruler of 
 the universe. In every mythology we see this imper- 
 sonation of natural j)henomena; frost and fire, earth 
 and air and water, in their displays of mysterious 
 powers, are at once deified and humanized. These 
 emlMxlinients of i>hysical force are then naturally fonned 
 into families, and their supposed descendants worshiped 
 as children of the gods. Thus, in the childhcjod of so- 
 ciety, when incipient thought takes up its lodgment 
 in old men's brains, shadows of departed heroes min- 
 gle with shallows of mysterious nature, and admiration 
 turns to adoration. 
 
 Next arises the desire to propitiate these unseen 
 powers, to accomplish which some means of conimuni- 
 tion nuist be opened up between n)an and his deities. 
 Now, as man in his gods rei)ro(hu'('s himself, as all his 
 conceptions of supernatural ]H)\vt'r must, of necessity, 
 be formed on the skeleton of human powtn-, naturally it 
 follows that the strongest and most cunning of the 
 tribe, he upon whom leatlership most naturally falls, 
 comes to be regarded as specially favorrd i>f the gods. 
 Powei-s supernatural are joineil to powei-s temporal, 
 and embodied in tlu- chieftain of the nation. A grate- 
 ful posterity reveres and propitiates departed ancestors. 
 The earlier rulers are made gods, and their descend- 
 ants lesser di\ iiiiti»>s: the founder of a dynasty. i)er- 
 haps, the supreme ifml. his pntgeny subordinate deities, 
 riie priesthoLKl vttid kingship thus become united; 
 
70 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 rellpfion and civil government join forces to press man- 
 kind t ),u;ether, and the loose sands of the new strata 
 cohere into the firm rock, that shall one day bear 
 alone the wash of time and tide. 
 
 Hence arise divine kinjj^ship, and the divine rij^ht 
 of kings, and with the desire to win tlio favor of this 
 divine king, arise the courtesies of society, the first 
 step toward polish of manners. Titles of respect and 
 worship are given him, some of which are subsequently 
 applied to the Deity, while others drop down into the 
 common-place compliments of every -day life. 
 
 Hero then, we have as one of the first essentials of 
 progress the union of Church and State, of supersti- 
 tion and despotism, a union still necessarily kej)t up 
 in some of the more backward civilizations. Excessive 
 loyalty and blind faith ever march hand in hand, The 
 very basis of association is credulity, blind loyalty to 
 political powers and blind faith in sacerdotal terrors. 
 In all mythologies at some stage temporal and spirit- 
 ual government are united, tlie supernatural {)ower 
 being incarnated in the temj>oral chief; political des- 
 potism and an awful sanguinary religion, — a government 
 and a belief, to disobey which was never so much as 
 thouglit possible. 
 
 See how every one of these primary essentials of 
 civilization bet-omes, as man advances, a drag u[)on 
 his progress; see how he now struggles to IVee himself 
 from what, at the outset, he was led by ways he knew 
 not to endure so patiently. (Jovernment, in early 
 stages always strong and despotic, whether monarchi- 
 cal, oligarchical, or republican, holding mankind under 
 the dominion of caste, ])lacing restrictions upon com- 
 merce and manufactures, regulating social customs, 
 food, dress, -how men have fought to break bxise 
 these bonds! Uelifion, not that natural cultus in- 
 stinctive in humanity, the bond of union as well under 
 its most disgusting form of fetichism, as under its 
 latest, loveliest form of C'liristianity ; but those forms 
 and dogmas of sect and creed which stifle thought 
 
RELATION OF GOVERNMENT TO CIVILIZATION. 
 
 71 
 
 and fetter intellect, — how men have lived lives of sac- 
 ritiee Jind self-denial as well as died for the right to 
 free themselves from unwelcome belief! 
 
 In primeval ages, government and religion lay lightly 
 on the human race; ethnology, as well as history, 
 discloses the patriarchal as the earliest fonn of govern- 
 ment, and a rude materialism as the earliest religious 
 ideal; these two simple elements, under the form of 
 monsters, liecame huge alK)rtions, begotten of ignorance, 
 that lield the intellect in abject slavery for thousands 
 of years, and from these we, of this generation, more 
 than any other, are granted emancipation. Even 
 wealth, kind giver of grateful leisure, m the guise of 
 avarice becomes a hideous thing, which he who would 
 attain the higher intellectual life, nmst learn to despise. 
 
 Government, as we have seen, is not an essential 
 element of collective humanity. Civilization must 
 first l)e awakened, must even luive passed the primary 
 stages before government appears. Despotism, feudal- 
 ism, divine kingship, .slavery, war, superstition, each 
 marks certain stages of development, and as civiliza- 
 tion advances alil tend to disappear; and, as in the 
 early history »rf* nations the state antedates the gov- 
 ernment, so tht time may come in the progress of 
 mankind when govrrmnent will be no hmger necessary, 
 (iovemment alwavs irrows out of necessitv; the inten- 
 sity ot" government inevitably following neeessity. The 
 form of government is a natural selection; its several 
 ])hasi's always the survival of the fittest. When the 
 federali.st says to the monarchist, or the monan-liist to 
 the federalist: My government is U'tter than yours, 
 it is as if the Eskimo xixd to the Kafhr: My coat, my 
 house, my fcMxl, is better than youiu 
 
 Tiie government is made for the man, and not the 
 man for tlie govt- rmneiit. ( iovemment is as tlie prop 
 for the growiu},' jilant ; at Hrst the y< >ung shoot stands 
 alone, then in its rapid advancement for a time it 
 retjuires support, after whicli it is ai.le again to stand 
 
72 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 alone. What we .term the evils of government arc 
 rather its necessities, and are, indeed, no evils at all. 
 The heavy l)it which ccmtrols the mouth of an un- 
 tamed horse is to that horse an evil, yet to the driver a 
 necessity which may he laid aside as the temper of the 
 animal is suhdued. So despotism, feudalism, slavery, 
 are evils to those under their dominion, yet are they 
 as necessary for the prevention of anarchy, for the 
 restraint of unbridled passions, as the powerful hit 
 to the horse, and will as surely be laid aside when no 
 longer re(iuired. Shallow-minded politicians talk of 
 kingcrail, arbitrary nde, tyrants, the down-trodden 
 masses, the withholding of just rights; as though the 
 goveniment was some independent, adverse element, 
 wholly foreign to the character of the pet)ple; as 
 though one man was stronger than ten thousand; as 
 though, if these j)hases of society were not the fittest, 
 they would bo tolerated for a moment. The days of 
 rigorous rule were ever the Ijost (hiys of France and 
 Spain, and so it will be until the peojile become 
 stronger than tlie stniigth of rulers. lve|nil)licanism 
 is as unfit for stupid and unintellectual populations, 
 as despotism would be for tlie advanced ideas and lil)- 
 eral institutions of Anglo-Saxon America. The sub- 
 ject of a liberal rule sneeringly crying down to the 
 subject of an absolute rule his form of government, is 
 like the ass crying to the tiger: Leave l>lo<»d and meat; 
 feed on grass and tliistles, t!ie only diet fit for civilized 
 beasts! Our federal government is the very best f«)r 
 our people, when it is not so it will speedily change; 
 it fits the tenjper of American intelligence, but before 
 it can be planted in Japan or China the traditions and 
 temper of the Asiatics must change. 
 
 We of to-day are undergoing an important epoch in 
 the history of civilization. Feudalism, despotism, and 
 fanaticism have luul each its day, have each accom- 
 plished its necessary purpose, and are fast fading away. 
 Ours is the age of democracy, of scientific investiga- 
 tion, and freedom of religious thought; what these may 
 
LATTER-DAY PROGKESSION. 
 
 78 
 
 cnt arc 
 » at all. 
 
 an uii- 
 drivcr a 
 sr of the 
 slavery, 
 iro they 
 
 for the 
 irful bit 
 kvlien no 
 
 talk of 
 ■trodden 
 >u^]\ the 
 element, 
 )j)le; as 
 )and; as 
 L' fittest, 
 
 days of 
 nee and 
 
 boCflllK! 
 
 lioanisni 
 dations, 
 and lil)- 
 le suh- 
 to the 
 lent, is 
 1 meat ; 
 ivilizcd 
 )est for 
 hangc; 
 before 
 Ions and 
 
 loc'h in 
 ni, and 
 aeeoni- 
 away. 
 ,'estiga- 
 ;se may 
 
 accomplish for the advancing intellect remains to he 
 seen. Our ancestors loved to dwell upon the past, now 
 we all UM)k toward the future. 
 
 The sea of ice, over which our forefathers glided so 
 serenely in their trustful reliance, is breaking up. 
 One after another traditions evaporate; in their appli- 
 cation to proximate events they fail us, history ceases 
 to repeat itself as in times past. Old things are pass- 
 ing away, all things are becoming new ; new philoso- 
 phies, new religions, new sciences; the industrial spirit 
 springs up and overturns time-honored customs; 
 theories of government must be reconstructed. Thus, 
 says experience, republicanism, as a form of govern- 
 ment, can exist only in small states; but steam and 
 electricity step in and annihilate time and space. The 
 Honian rei)ublic, from a lack of cohesive energy, from 
 failure of central vital power sufficient to send the 
 blood of the nation from the heart to the extremities, 
 died a natural death. The American republic, cover- 
 iiii( nearly twice the territory of republican Rome in 
 liur p.ihniost days, is endowed with a different 8i)ecies 
 of ()r^'Jlllisln ; in its phj'siological system is found a new 
 series of veins and arteries, the railway, the telegraph, 
 a!i(l the daily press, - through which pulsates the life's 
 bI(K»(l of the nation, millions inhaling and exhaling 
 intelligence as one man. By means of these inven- 
 tions all the world, once every day, are brought 
 tojfether. By telegraphic wires and railroad iron 
 men are now bound as in times past they were bound 
 by war, di'spotism, and superstition, ^fhe remotest 
 corners of the largest republics of to-day, are brought 
 into closer communication than were the adjoining 
 states of the smallest confederations of anti(juity. A 
 united (lernuuiy, from its past history held to be an 
 imp(»ssibility, is, with the present facilities of com- 
 munifation, an accomplished fact. England could 
 as easily have possessed colonies in the moon, as 
 have held her present possessions, three hundred years 
 ago. Practically, San Francisco is nearer Washing- 
 
 J 
 
74 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ton than was Philadelphia when the foundations of 
 the Capitol were laid. What m to prevent republics 
 from jjfrowinj^, ho lon«f as intelli<fencQ keeps pace with 
 extension ? The general of an army may now sit be- 
 fore his maps, and manoeuvre half a score of annies a 
 hundred or a thousand miles apart, know hourly the 
 situation of every division, the success of every battle, 
 order an advance or a retreat, lay plots and make com- 
 binations, with more exactness than was once possible 
 in the conduct of an ordinary campaign. 
 
 A few words about morals, manners, and fashion, 
 will further illustrate how man is played upon by his 
 environment, which here takes the shape of habit. In 
 their l)earing on civilization, these phenomena all 
 come under the same category; and this, without 
 regard to the rival theories of intuition and utility in 
 morals. Experience teaches, blindly at first yet daily 
 with clearer vision, that right conduct is beneficial, 
 and wrong conduct detrimental ; that the consequences 
 of sin invariably rest on the evil-doer; that for an 
 unjust act, though the knowledge of it be forever 
 locked in the bosom of the offender, punishment is 
 sure to follow; yet there are those who question the 
 existence of innate moral perceptions, and call it all 
 custom and training. And if we look alone to primi- 
 tive people for innate ideas of morality and justice I 
 fear we shall meet with disappointment. Some we find 
 who value female chastity only before marriage, others 
 only after marriage, — that is, after the woman and 
 her chastity both alike become the tangible property 
 of somebcjdy. Some kindly kill their aged parents, 
 others their female infants; the successful Apache 
 horse-thief is the darling of his mother, and the hero 
 of the tribe; often these American Arabs will remain 
 from home half-starved for weeks, rather than suffer 
 the ignominy of returning empty-handed. Good, in the 
 mind of the savage, is when he steals wives ; bad, is when 
 his own wives are stolen. Where it is that inherent 
 
MORALS, MANNERS, AND FASHION. 
 
 76 
 
 morality in savajyos first makes its appearance, and in 
 what manner, it is often difficult to Hay; the most 
 hideous vices are everywhere practiced with unblunhing 
 ertr(»ntery. 
 
 Take the phenomena of Shame. Go back to the 
 childhood of our race, or even to our own cluldluKxl, 
 and it will be hard to discover any inherent (juality 
 which make men ashamed of one thin^; more than 
 another. Nor can the wisest of us jj;ive any jj^jkkI and 
 sufficient reason why we should be ashamed of our 
 b(Kly any more than of our face. The whole man was 
 fashioned by one Creator, and all parts ecjually are 
 perfect and alike honorable. We cover our pei*son 
 with drai)ery, and think thereby to hide our faults 
 frtun ourselves and others, as the ostrich hides its 
 hujid under a leaf, and fancies its Ixnly concealed 
 from the hunter. What is this quality of shame if '*, 
 be not habit? A female savaj^e will stand unb'ush- 
 inj^ly before you naked, but strip her of her ornaments 
 and she will manifest the same appearance of shame, 
 thouifh not perhaps so jjfreat in de«free, that a Euro- 
 j)ean woman will manifest if strijiped of her clothes. 
 It is well known how civilized and semi-civilized 
 nations rei^ard this quality of propriety. C/Ustom, 
 conventional usat»'e, dress and behavior, are inHuences 
 as subtle and as stron<|f as any that jjovern us, weav- 
 ing,' their net-work round man more and more as he 
 throws off allegiance to other powers; and we know 
 but little more of their orij^i-in and nature than we do 
 of the orit^in and nature of time and space, of life and 
 death, of orijjfin and end. 
 
 Every a«^e and every society has its own standard 
 of morality, holds u}) some certain conduct or (puility 
 as a model, sayinj^ to all Do this, and receive the much- 
 coveted praise of your fellows. ( )ften what one j)eo- 
 ple deem virtue is to another vice ; what to one n^o is 
 religion is to another superstition ; but underlying all 
 this are living fires, kindled by Omnipotence, and des- 
 tined to burn throughout all time. In the Si)artan 
 
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76 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 
 and Roman republics the moral ideal was patriot- 
 ism; among mediaeval Churchmen it took the form 
 of asceticism and self-flagellations; after the eleva- 
 tion of woman the central idea was female chastity. 
 
 In this national morality, which is the cohesive 
 force of the body social, we find the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the progressional impulse, and herein is the 
 most hopeful feature of humanity ; mankind must pro- 
 gress, and progress in the right direction. There is 
 no help for it until God changes the universal order of 
 things; man must become better in spite of himself; 
 it is the good in us that grows and ultimately prevails. 
 
 As a race we are yet in our nonage; fearful of the 
 freedom given us by progress we cling tenaciously to 
 our leading-strings; hugging our mother, Custom, we 
 refuse to be left alone. Liberty and high attainments 
 must be meted out to us as we are able to receive 
 them, for social retchings and vomitings inevitably 
 follow over-feedings. Hence it is, that we find our- 
 selves escaped from primeval and mediaeval tyrannies 
 only to fall under greater ones ; society is none the less 
 inexorable in her d<.ipotisni8 because of the sophistry 
 which gives her victims fancied freedom. For do we 
 not now set up forms and fashions, the works of our 
 own hands, and bow down to them as reverently as 
 ever our heathen ancestors did to their gods of wood 
 and stone? Who made us? is not the first question 
 of our catechism, but What will people say ? 
 
 Of all tyrannies, the tyranny of fashion is the most 
 implacable; of all slaveries the slavery to fashion is 
 the most abject; of all fears the fear of our fellows 
 is the most overwhelming; of all tlie influences that 
 surround and govern man the forms and customs which 
 he encounters in society are the most domineering. 
 It is the old story, only another turn of the wheel 
 that grinds and sharpens and polishes humanity, — at 
 the first a benefit, now a drag. Forms and fashions 
 are essential; we cannot live without them. If we 
 
 i' 
 
 {I 
 
ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE OF DRESS. 
 
 77 
 
 ie most 
 lion is 
 fellows 
 3S that 
 
 which 
 jering. 
 
 wheel 
 ty,~at 
 Vshions 
 
 If we 
 
 ■M 
 
 m 
 
 have worship, government, commerce, or clothes, we 
 must have forms; or if we have them not we still must 
 act and do after some fashion ; costume, which is but 
 another word for custom, we must have, but is it 
 necessary to make the form the chief concern of our 
 lives while we pay so little heed to the substance ? and 
 may we not hope while rejoicing over our past eman- 
 cipations, that wo shall some day be free from our 
 present despotisms ? 
 
 Dress has ever exercised a powerful influence on 
 morals and on progress; but this vesture-phenomenon 
 is a thing but imperfectly understood. Clothes serve 
 as a covering to the body of which we are ashamed, 
 and protect it against the weather, and these, we infer, 
 are the reasons of our being clothed. But the fact is, 
 aboriginally, except in extreme cases, dress is not 
 essential to the comfort of man until it becomes a 
 habit, and as for shame, until told of his nakedness, 
 the primitive man has none. The origin of dress lies 
 behind all this; it is found in one of the most deep- 
 rooted elements of our nature, namely, in our love of 
 approbation. Before dress is decoration. The suc- 
 cessful warrior, proud of his achievement, besmears 
 his face and body with the blood of the slain, and 
 straightway imitators, who also would be thought 
 strong and brave, daub themselves in like manner ; and 
 80 painting and tatooing become fashionable, and [)ig- 
 ments supply the place of blood. The naked, houseless 
 Californian would undergo every hardship, travel a 
 hundred miles, and light a round with every opposing 
 band he met, in order to obtain cinnabar from the 
 New Almaden quicksilver mine. So when the hunter 
 kills a wild beast, and with the tail or skin decorates 
 his Ixxly as a trophy of his prowess, others follow his 
 example, and soon it is a shame to that savage who 
 has neither paint, nor belt, nor necklace of bears' claws. 
 And so follow head-flattenings, and nose-piercings, and 
 lip-cuttings, and, later, chignons, and breast-paddings, 
 and bustles. Some say that jealousy prompted the 
 
78 
 
 SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 
 first Benedicks to hide their wives' charms from their 
 rivals, and so originated female dress, which, from its 
 being so common to all aborigines, is usually regarded 
 as the result of innate modesty. But whatever gave 
 us dress, dress has given much to human progress. 
 Beneath dress arose modesty and refinement, like the 
 courtesies that chivalry threw over feudalism, covering 
 the coarse brutality of the barons, and paving the way 
 to real politeness. 
 
 From the artificial grimaces of fashion have sprung 
 many of the natural courtesies of life: though here, 
 too, we are sent back at once to the beginning for the 
 cause. From the ages of superetition and despotism 
 have descended the expressions of every-day politeness. 
 Thus we have sir, from. sieitr, sire, seigneur, signifying 
 ruler, king, lord, and aboriginally father. So madam, 
 ma dame, my lady, formerly applied only to women of 
 rank. I n place of throwing ourselves upon the ground, 
 as before a god or prince, we only partially prostrate 
 ourselves in bowing, and the hat which we touch to an 
 acquaintance we take off on entering a church in token 
 of our humility. Again, the captive in war is made 
 a slave, and as such is required to do obeisance to his 
 master, which forms of servility are copied by the peo- 
 ple in addressing their superiors, and finally become 
 the established usage of ordinary intercourse. Our 
 daily salutations are but modified acts of worship, and 
 our parting word a benediction; and from blood, toma- 
 hawks, and senseless superstitions we turn and find all 
 the world of humanity, with its still strong passions 
 and subtle cravings, held in restraint by a force of 
 which its victims ai "^ almost wholly unconscious, — 
 and this force is Fashion. In tribunals of justice, in 
 court and camp etiq; ette, everywhere these relics of 
 barbarism remain witu us. Even we of this latter-day 
 American republicanism, elevate one of our fellows to 
 the chieftainship of a federation or state, and call him 
 Excellency; we set a man upon the bench and plead 
 our cause before him ; we send a loafer to a legislature. 
 
ETIQUETTE, MORALITY, LAWS. 79 
 
 and straightway call hira Honorable, — such divinity 
 doth hedge all semblance of power. 
 
 Self-denial and abstinence lie at the bottom of eti- 
 quette and good manners. If you woidd be moral, 
 says Kant, you must "act always so that the imme- 
 diate motive of thy will may become a universal rule 
 for all intelligent beings," and Goethe teaches that, 
 "there is no outward sign of courtesy that does not 
 rest on a deep, moral foundation." 
 
 Fine manners, though but the shell of the individ- 
 ual, are, to society, the best actions of the best men 
 crystallized into a mode; not only the best thing, but 
 the best way of doing the best thing. Good society 
 is, or ought to be, the society of the good ; but fashion 
 is more than good society, or good actions; it is more 
 than wealth, or beauty, or genius, and so arbitrary in 
 its sway that, not unfrequently, the form absorbs the 
 substance, and a breach of decorum becomes a deadly 
 sin. 
 
 Thus we see in every phase of development the 
 result of a social evolution; we see men coming and go- 
 ing, receiving their leaven from the society into which 
 by their destiny they are projected, only to fling it 
 back into the general fund interpenetrated with their 
 own quota of force. Meanwhile, this aggregation of 
 human experiences, this compounding of age with age, 
 one generation heaping up knowledge upon another; 
 this begetting of knowledge by knowledge, the seed so 
 infinitesimal, the tree now so rapidly sending forth its 
 branches, whither does it tend? Running the eye 
 along the line of progress, from the beginning to the 
 end, the measure of our knowledge seems nearly full ; 
 resolving the matter, experience assures us that, as 
 compared with those who shall come after us, we 
 are the veriest barbarians. The end is not yet; not 
 until infinity is spanned and eternity brought to an end, 
 will mankind cease to improve. 
 
 Out of this conglomeration- of interminable relation- 
 
80 
 
 8AVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ships concordant and antagonistic laws are ever 
 evolving themselves. Like all other progressional 
 phenomena, they wait not upon man; they are self- 
 creative, and force themselves upon the mind age 
 after age, slowly but surely, as the intellect is able 
 to receive them; laws without law, laws unto them- 
 selves, gradually appearing as from behind the mists 
 of eternity. At first, man and his universe appear 
 to be regulated by arbitrary volitions, by a multitude 
 of individual minds; each governs absolutely his 
 own actions ; every phenemenon of jiature is but the 
 expression of some single will. As these phenomena, 
 one after another, become stripped of their mystery, 
 there stands revealed not a god, but a law ; seasons 
 come and go, and never fail ; sunshine follows rain, 
 not because a pacified deity smiles, but because the 
 rain-clouds have fallen and the sun cannot help shin- 
 ing. Proximate events first are thus made godless, 
 then the whole host of deities is driven farther and 
 farther back. Finally the actions of man himself are 
 found to be subject to laws. Left to his own will, he 
 wills to do like things under like conditions. 
 
 As to the nature of these laws, the subtle workings 
 of which we see manifest in every phase of society, 
 1 cannot even so much as speak. An infinite ocean 
 of phenomena awaits the inquirer; an ocean bottom- 
 less, over wr.ose surface spreads an eternity of pro- 
 gress, and beneath whose glittering waves the keenest 
 intellect can scarcely hope to penetrate far. The uni- 
 verse of man and matter must be anatomized; the 
 functions of innumerable and complex organs studied ; 
 the exercise and influence of every part on every other 
 part ascertained, and events apparently the most ca- 
 pricious traced to natural causes ; then, when we know 
 all, when we know as God knoweth, shall we under- 
 stand what it is, this Soul of Progress. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OP THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 The American Civilization of the Sixte jnth Century— Its Disap- 
 pearance—The Past, a New Element— Dividing line between 
 Savage and Civilized Tribes — Bounds of American Civiliza- 
 tion—Physical Features of the Country— Maya and Nahua 
 Branches of Aboriginal Culture — The Nahua Civilization- 
 The Aztecs its Representatives— Limits of the Aztec Empire- 
 Ancient History ok AnAhuac in Outline— The Toltec Era— The 
 Chichimec Era— The Aztec Era— Extent of the Aztec Language 
 — Civilized Peoples outside of AnAhuac — Ckntral American 
 Nations— The Maya Culture— The Primitive Maya Empire— 
 Nahua Influence in the South— Yucatan and the Mayas— The 
 Nations of Chiapas— The Quiche Empire in Guatemala— The 
 Nahuas in Nicaragua and Salvador— Etymology of Names. 
 
 In the preceding volume I have had occasion sev- 
 eral times to remark that, in the delineation of the 
 Wild Tribes of the Pacific States, no attempt is 
 made to follow them in their rapid decline, no at- 
 tempt to penetrate their past or prophesy a possible 
 future, no profitless lingerings over those misfortunes 
 that wrought among them such swift destruction. To 
 us the savage nations of America have neither past 
 nor future; only a brief present, from which indeed 
 we may judge somewhat of their past; for the rest, 
 foreign avarice and interference, European piety and 
 greed, saltpetre, steel, small-pox, and syphilis, tell a 
 speedy tale. Swifter still must be the hand that 
 sketches the incipient civilization of the Mexican and 
 
 Vol. II. 
 
82 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 Central Anierican table-lands. For although here we 
 have more past, there is still less present, and scarcely 
 any future. Those nations raised the highest by their 
 wealth and culture, were the first to fall before the 
 invader, their superior attainments offering a more 
 shining mark to a rapacious foe; and falling, they 
 were the soonest lost, — absorbed by the conquering 
 race, or disappearing in the surrounding darkness. 
 Although the savage nations were rapidly annihil- 
 ated, traces of savagism lingered, and yet linger; but 
 the higher American culture, a plant of more deli- 
 cate growth and more sensitive nature, withered at 
 the first rude touch of foreign interference. Instead 
 of being left to its own intuitive unfoldings, or instead 
 of being fostered by the new-comers, who might have 
 elevated by interfusion both their own culture and 
 that of the conquered race, the spirit of progress was 
 effectually stifled on both sides by fanatical attempts 
 to substitute by force foreign creeds and polities for 
 those of indigenous origin and growth. And now be- 
 hold them both, the descendants of conquerors and of 
 conquered, the one scarcely less denaturalized than 
 the other, the curse inflicted by the invaders on a 
 flourishing empire returning and resting with crush- 
 ing weight on their own head. Scarce four centuries 
 ago the empire of Charles the Fifth, and the empire 
 of Montezuma the Second, were brought by the force 
 of progress most suddenly and unexpectedly face to 
 face; the one then the grandest and strongest of the 
 old world as was the other of the new. Since which 
 time the fierce fanaticism that overwhelmed the New 
 World empire, has pressed like an incubus upon the 
 dominant race, and held it fast while all the world 
 around were making the most rapid strides forward. 
 No indigenous civilization exists in America to-day, 
 yet the efiects of a fonner culture are not altogether 
 absent. The descendant of the Aztec, Maya, and Qui- 
 che, is still of superior mind and haughtier spirit than his 
 roving brother who boasts of none but a savage ances- 
 
THE PAST, A NEW ELEMENT. 88 
 
 try. Still, so complete has been the substitution of for- 
 eign civil and ecclesiastical polities, and so far-reaching 
 their influence on native character and conduct; so inti- 
 mate the association for three and more centuries with 
 the Spanish element; so closely guarded from foreign 
 gaze has been every manifestation of the few surviv- 
 ing sparks of aboriginal modes of thought, that a study 
 of the native condition in modern times yields, by it- 
 self, few satisfactory results. This study, however, as 
 part of an investigation of their original or normal 
 condition, should by no means be neglected, since it 
 may furnish illustrative material of no little value. 
 
 Back of all this lies another element which lends to 
 our subject yet grander proportions. Scattered over 
 the southern plateaux are heaps of architectural re- 
 mains and monumental piles. Furthermore, native 
 traditions, both orally transmitted and hieroglyph- 
 ically recorded by means of legible picture-writings, 
 aftbrd us a tolerably clear view of the civilized na- 
 tions during a period of several centuries preceding 
 the Spanish conquest, together with passing glances, 
 through momentary clearings in the mythologic clouds, 
 at historical epochs much more remote. Here we 
 have as aids to this analysis, — aids almost wholly 
 wanting among the so-called savage tribes, antiqui- 
 ties, tradition, history, carrying the student far back 
 into the mysterious New World past; and hence it 
 is that from its simultaneous revelation and eclipse, 
 American civilization would otherwise offer a more 
 limited field for investijjation than American savag- 
 ism, yet by the introduction of this new element the 
 field is widely extended. 
 
 Nor have we even yet reached the limits of our re- 
 sources for the investigation of this New World civil- 
 ization. In these relics of architecture and literature, 
 of mythology and tradition, there are clear indications 
 of an older and higher type of culture than that brought 
 immediately to the knowledge of the invaders; of a type 
 that had temporarily deteriorated, perhaps through the 
 
M 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 influence of long-continued and bloody conflicts, civil 
 and foreign, by which the more warlike rather than the 
 more higlily cultured nations had been brought into 
 prominence and power. But this anterior and superior 
 civilization, resting largely as it does on vague tradi- 
 tion, and preserved to our knowledge in general allu- 
 sions rather than in detail, may, like the native con- 
 dition since the conquest, be utilized to the best 
 advantage here as illustrative of the later and bet- 
 ter-known, if somewhat inferior civilization of the 
 sixteenth century, described by the conqueror, the 
 missionary, and the Spanish historian. 
 
 Antique remains of native skill, which have been 
 preserved for our examination, may also be largely 
 used in illustration of more modern art, whose products 
 have disappeared. These relics of the past are also 
 of the highest value as confirming the truth of the 
 reports made by Spanish writers, very many, or per- 
 haps most, of whose statements respecting the wonder- 
 ful phenomena of the New World, without this incon- 
 trovertible material proof, would find few believers 
 among the sceptical students of the present day. 
 These remains of antiquity, however, being fully de- 
 scribed in another volume of this work, may be referred 
 to in very general terms for present purposes. 
 
 Of ' Ivilization in general, the nature of its phe- 
 nomena, the causes and processes by which it is 
 evolved from savagism, I have spoken sufficiently in 
 the foregoing chapter. As for the many theories re- 
 specting the American civilization in particular, its 
 origin and growth, it is not my purpose to discuss 
 them in this volume. No theory on these questions 
 could be of any practical value in the elucidation of 
 the subject, save one that should stand out among the 
 rest so preeminently well-founded as to be generally ac- 
 cepted among scientific men, and no one of all the mul- 
 titude proposed has acquired any such preeminence. 
 A complete resume of all the theories on the subject, 
 with the foundations which support them, is given else- 
 
OUIfilN OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 85 
 
 where in connection with the ancient traditionary his- 
 tory of the aboriginal nations. It is well, however, 
 to remark that our lack of definite knowledge about 
 the origin ©f this civilization is not practically so im- 
 
 {)ortant as might appear at first thought. True, we 
 aiow not for certain wliether it is indigenous or exotic; 
 and if the former, whether to ascribe its cradle to the 
 north or south, to one locality or many ; or if the lat- 
 ter, whether contact with the old world was effected 
 at one or many points, on one occasion or at divers 
 epochs, through the agency of migrating peoples or 
 by the advent of individual civilizers and teachers. 
 Yet the tendency of modern research is to prove the 
 great antiquity of the American civilization as well as 
 of the American people; and if either was drawn 
 from a foreign source, it was at a time probably so 
 remote as to antedate any old-world culture now ex- 
 isting, and to prevent any light being thrown on the 
 offspring by a study of the parent stock; while if in- 
 digenous, little hope is afforded of, following rationally 
 their development through the political convulsions of 
 tlio distant past down to even a traditionally historic 
 epoch. 
 
 1 may then dispense with theories of origin and de- 
 tails of past history as confusing rather than aiding 
 my present purpose, and as being fully treated else- 
 where in this work. Neither am I required in this 
 treatment of the civilized races to make an accurate 
 division between them and their more savage neigh- 
 bors, to determine the exact standard by which savag- 
 ism and civilization are to be measured, or to vindicate 
 the use of the word civilized as applied to the Ameri- 
 can nations in preference to that of semi-civilized, pre- 
 ferred by many writers. We have seen that civilization 
 is at best only a comparative tenn, applied to some of 
 the ever-shifting phases of human progress. In many 
 of the Wild Tribes already described some of its charac- 
 teristics have been observed, and the opposite elements 
 of savagism will not be wanting among what I proceed 
 
86 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 
 to describe as the Civilized Nations. There is not a sav- 
 age people between Anslhuac and Nicaragua that has 
 not Deen influenced in its institutions by intercourse, 
 warlike, social, or commercial, with neighbors of higher 
 culture, and has not exerted in its turn a reflex influence 
 on the latter. The difliculty of drawing division-lines 
 between nations thus mutually acting on each other is 
 further increased in America by the fact that two or 
 three nations constitute the central figure of nearly 
 all that has been observed or written by the few that 
 canie in actual contact with the natives. This volume 
 will, therefore, deal rather with the native civilization 
 than with the nations that possessed it. 
 
 While, however, details on all the points mentioned, 
 outside of actual institutions found existing in the six- 
 teenth century, would tend to confusion rather than 
 to clearness, besides leading in many cases to endless 
 repetition, yet a general view of the whole subject, of 
 the number, extent, location, and mutual relations of 
 the nations occupying the central portions of the con- 
 tinent at its discovery, as well as of their relations to 
 those of the more immediate past, a])pears necessary 
 to an intelligent perusal of the following pages. In 
 this general view I shall avoid all discussion of dis- 
 puted questions, reserving arguments and details for 
 future volumes on antiquities and aboriginal history. 
 
 That portion of what we call the Pacific States a .lich 
 was the home of American civilization within historic or 
 traditionally historic times, extends along the continent 
 from north-west to south-east, between latitudes 22° 
 and 1 1". On the Atlantic side the territory stretches 
 from Tamaulipas to Honduras, on the Pacific from Co- 
 lima to Nicaragua. Not that these are definitely drawn 
 bouudaries, but outside of these limits, disregarding the 
 New Mexican Pueblo culture, this civilization had left 
 little for Europeans to observe, while v/ithin them 
 lived i'ow tribes uninfluenced or unimproved by con- 
 tact with it. No portion of the globe, perhaps, era- 
 
HOME OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE. 
 
 87 
 
 braces within equal latitudinal limits so {^eat a variety 
 of climate, soil, and vegetation; a variety whose im- 
 portant bearing on the native development can be un- 
 derstood in some degree, and which would doubtless 
 account satisfaqtorily for most of the conn)lications of 
 progressional phenomena observed within the terri- 
 tory, were the connection between environment and 
 progress fully within the grasp of our knowledge. All 
 the gradations from a torrid to a temperate clime are 
 here found in a region that lies wholly within the 
 northern tropic, altitudinal variations taking the place 
 of and j»rt)duoing all the effects elsewhere attributable 
 to latitude alone. These variations result from the 
 toiX)grapliy of the country as determined by the con- 
 formation given to the contitv nt by the central Cordil- 
 lera. The Sierra Madre enters this territory from the 
 north in two princi;. 1 ranges, one stretching along the 
 coast of the Pacific, while the other and more lofty 
 range trends nearer the Atlantic, the two again unit- 
 ing before reaching the isthnms of Tehuantepec. This 
 eastern branch between 18° 40' and 20° 30' opens out 
 into a table-land of some seventy-five by two hundred 
 miles area, with an altitude of from six to eight thou- 
 sand feet above the sea level. This broad plateau or 
 series of plateaux is known as the tierra fria, while the 
 lower valleys, with a band of the surrounding slopes, 
 at an elevation of from three to five thousand feet, in- 
 cluding large portions of the western lands of Micho- 
 acan, Guerrero, and Oajaca, between the two mountain 
 branches, constitute the tierra templada. From the 
 surface of the upper table-land rise sierras and isolated 
 peaks of volcanic origin, the highest in North America, 
 their summits covered with eternal snow, which shel- 
 ter, temper, and protect the fertile plateaux lying at 
 their base. Centrally located on this table-land, sur- 
 rounded by a wall of lofty volcanic cliffs and peaks, is 
 the most famous of all the valley plateaux, something 
 more than one hundred and sixty miles in circuit, the 
 valley of Mexico, Anahuac, that is to say, 'country by 
 
i' 
 
 M.ii 
 
 hi 
 
 
 88 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 the waters,' taking its name from the lakes that form- 
 erly occupied one tenth of its area. Andhuac, with an 
 elevation of 7,500 feet, may be taken as representative 
 of the tierra fria. It has a mean temperature of 62°, a 
 climate much like that of southern Europe, although 
 dryer, and to which the term 'cold' can only be com- 
 paratively applied. The soil is fertile and productive, 
 though now generally presenting a bare and parched 
 surface, by reason of the excessiv^e evaporation on lofty 
 plains exposed to the full force of a tropical sun, its 
 natural forest-covering having been removed since the 
 Spanish conquest, chiefly, it is believed, through arti- 
 ficial agencies. Oak and pine are prominent features 
 of the native forest-growth, while wheat, barley, and 
 all the European cereals and fruits flourish side by side 
 with plantations of the indigenous maize, maguey, and 
 cactus. From May to October of each year, corres- 
 ponding nearly with the hot season of the coast, rains 
 or showers are frequent, but rarely occur during the 
 remaining months. Trees retain their foliage for ten 
 months in the year, and indeed their fading is scarcely 
 noticeable. Southward of 18^, as the continent nar- 
 rows, this eastern table-land contracts into a mountain 
 range proper, presenting a succession of smaller ter- 
 races, valleys, and sierras, in place of the broader 
 plateaux of the region about Andhuac. Trending 
 south-eastward toward the Pacific, and uniting with 
 the western Sierra Madre, the chain crosses the 
 isthmus of Tehuantepec at a diminished altitude, 
 only to rise again and expand laterally into the 
 lofty Guatemalan ranges which stretch still south- 
 eastward to Lake Nicaragua, where for the second 
 time a break occurs in the continental Cordillera at 
 the southern limit of the territory now under con- 
 sideration. From this central cordillera lateral sub- 
 ordinate branches jut out at right angles north and 
 south toward either ocean. As we go southward the 
 vegetation becomes more dense, and the temperature 
 higher at equal altitudes, but the same gradations of 
 
THE TIERRA CALIENTE. 
 
 89 
 
 'fria' and 'templada' are continued, blending into each 
 other at a height of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. The charac- 
 teristics of the Cordillera south of the Mexican table- 
 land are lofty volcanic peaks whose lower bases are 
 clothed with dense forests, fertile plateaux bounded by 
 precipitous cliffs, vertical fissures or ravines of immense 
 depth torn in the solid rock by volcanic action, and 
 mountain torrents flowing in deep beds of porphyry 
 and forming picturesque lakes in the lower valleys. 
 Indeed, in Guatemala, where more than twenty vol- 
 canoes are in active operation, all these characteristic 
 features appear to unite in their highest degree of 
 perfection. One of the lateral ranges extends north- 
 eastward from the continental chain, forming with a 
 comparatively slight elevation the back-bone of the 
 peninsula of Yucatan. 
 
 At the bases of the central continental heights, on 
 the shores of either ocean, is the tierra caliente, a name 
 applied to all the coast region with an elevation of less 
 than 1,500 feet, and also by the inhabitants to many 
 interior valleys of high temperature. So abruptly do 
 the mountains rise on the Pacific side that the western 
 torrid band does not perhaps exceed twenty miles in 
 average width for its whole length, and has exerted 
 comparatively little influence on the history and de- 
 velopment of the native races. But on the Atlantic 
 or gulf coast is a broad tract of level i)lain and marsh, 
 and farther inland a more gradual ascent to the inte- 
 rior heiglits. This region presents all the features of 
 an extreme tropical climate and vegetation. In the 
 latitude of Vera Cruz barren and sandy tracts are seen; 
 elsewhere the tierra caliente is covered with the dens- 
 est tropical growth of trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers, 
 forming in their natural state an almost impenetrable 
 tliicket. Cocoa, cotton, cacao, sugar-cane, indigo, va- 
 nilla, bananas, and the various palms are prominent 
 among the flora; while the fauna include birds in infi- 
 nite variety of brilliant plumage, with myrijids of tor- 
 menting and deadly insects and reptiles. The atmos- 
 
90 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 phere is deadly to all but natives. The moist soil, en- 
 riched by the decay of vegetable suKstances, breathes 
 pestilence and malaria from every pore, except during 
 the winter months of inct^sant winds, which blow from 
 October to March. Southern Vera Cruz and Tabasco, 
 the tierra caliente par excellence, exhibit the most luxu- 
 riant display of nature's prodigality. Of alluvial and 
 comparatively recent fonnation this region is traversed 
 by the Goazacoalco, Alvarado, Usumacinta, and other 
 noble rivers, which rise in the mountains of Guatemala, 
 Chiapas, and Tehuantepec. River-banks are crowded 
 with magnificent forest-trees, and the broad savanas 
 farther back marked off into natural plantations of the 
 valuable dye-woods which abound there, by a network 
 of branch streams and canals, which serve both for 
 inigation and as a medium of transj)ort for the native 
 products that play no unimportant role in the world's 
 commerce. Each year inundations are expected be- 
 tween June and October, and these transform the 
 whole system of lagoons into a broad lake. Farther 
 up the course of the rivers on the foothills of the Cor- 
 dillera, are extensive forests of cedar, mahogany, za- 
 pote, Brazil, and other precious woods, together with 
 a variety of medicinal plants and aromatic resins. 
 
 The whole of Yucatan may, by reason of its tem- 
 jierature and elevation above the sea, be included in 
 the tierra caliente, but its climate is one of the most 
 healthful in all tropical America. The whole north 
 and west of the })eninsula are of fossil shell forma- 
 tion, Bhowing that at no very distant date this region 
 was covered by the waters of the sea. There are no 
 rivers that do not dry up in winter, but by a wonder- 
 ful system of small ponds and natural wells the country 
 is supplied with water, the soil being moreover always 
 moist, and supporting a rich and vigorous vegetation. 
 
 Notwithstanding evident marks of similarity in 
 nearly all the manifestations of the progressional spirit 
 in aboriginal America, in art, thought, and religion, 
 
 i 
 
THE NAHUA AND MAYA ELEMENTS, 
 
 91 
 
 there is much reason for and convenience in referring 
 all the native civilization to two branches, the Maya 
 and the Nahua, the former the more ancient, the latter 
 the more recent and wide-spread. It is important, 
 however, to understand the nature and extent of this 
 division, and just how far it may be considered real 
 and how far ideal. Of all the languages spoken among 
 these nations, the two named are the most wide-spread, 
 and are likewise entirely distinct. In their traditional 
 history, their material relics, and, above all, in their 
 methods of recording events by hieroglyphics, as well 
 as in their several lesser characteristics, these two 
 stocks show so many and so clear points of difference 
 standing prominently out from their many resem- 
 blances, as to indicate either a separate culture from 
 the beginning, or what is more probable and for us 
 practically the same thing, a progress in different 
 paths for a long time prior to the coming of the Eu- 
 ropeans. A^ery many of the nations not clearly affili- 
 ated with either branch show evident traces of both 
 cultures, and may be reasonably supposed to have de- 
 veloped their condition from contact and intermixture 
 of the parent stocks with each other, and with the neigh- 
 boring savage tribes. It is only, however, in a very gen- 
 eral sense that this classification can be accepted, and 
 then only for practical convenience in elucidating the 
 subject; since there are several nations that nmst bo 
 ranked among our civilized peoples, which, particularly 
 in the matter of language, show no Maya nor Nahua 
 affinities. Nor is too much importance to be attached 
 to the names Maya and Nahua by which I designate 
 these parallel civilizations. The former is adopted for 
 the reason that the Maya people and tongue are com- 
 monly regarded as among the most ancient in all the 
 Central American region, a region where fonuerly 
 flourished the civilization that left such wonderful 
 remains at Palenquo, IJxmal, and Copan; the latter 
 as being an older desi<^nation than either Aztec or 
 Toltec, both of which stocks the race Nahua include.s. 
 
'3 1 
 
 *i 
 
 ^'ii 
 
 i; 
 
 
 
 1 1 :i 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 
 III 
 
 Ij. 
 
 92 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 The civilization of what is now the Mexican Repubhc, 
 north of Tehuantepec, belonged to the Nahiia branch, 
 both at the time of the conquest and throughout the 
 historic period precedin;^. Very few traces of the 
 Maya element occur north of Chiapas, and these are 
 chiefly linguistic, appearing in two or three nations 
 dwelling along the shores of the Mexican gulf In 
 published works upon the subject the Aztecs are the 
 representatives of the Naliua element; indeed, what 
 is known of the Aztecs has furnished material for nine 
 tenths of all that has been written on the American 
 civilized nations in general. The truth of the matter 
 is that the Aztecs were only the most powerful of a 
 league or confederation of three nations, which in the 
 sixteenth century, from their capitals in the valley, 
 ruled central Mexico. This confederation, moreover, 
 was of comparatively recent date. These three nations 
 were the Acolhuas, the Aztecs, and the Tepanecs, and 
 tlioir respective capitals, Tezcuco, Mexico, and Tlaco- 
 
 E;in (Tacuba) were located near each other on the lake 
 orders, where, except Mexico, they still are found in 
 a sad state of dilapidation. Within the valley, in gen- 
 eral terms, the eastern section belonged to Tezcuco, 
 the southern and western to Mexico, and a limited 
 territory in the north-west to Tlacopan. At the time 
 when the confederation was formed, which was about 
 one hundred years before the advent of the Spaniards, 
 Tezcuco was the most advanced and powerful of the 
 allies, maintaining her precedence nearly to the end of 
 the fifteenth century. Tlacopan was far inferior to 
 the other two. Her possessions were small, and ac- 
 cording to the terms of the compact, which seem 
 always to have been strictly observed, she received 
 but one fifth of the spoils obtained by successful war. 
 While keeping Avithin the boundaries of their respect- 
 ive provinces, so far as tlic valley of Mexico was con- 
 cerned, these three chief powers united their forces to 
 extend their conquests be^'ond the limits of the valley 
 in every direction. Thus under the leadership of a line 
 
 I 
 
THE AZTECS THE NAHUA REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 93 
 
 of warlike kings Mexico extended her domain to the 
 shores of either ocean, and rendered the tribes therein 
 tributary to her. Durinj^ this period of foreign con- 
 quest, the Aztec kings, more energetic, ambitious, war- 
 like, a' ' unscrupulous than their allies, acquired a 
 decided preponderance in the confederate councils and 
 possessions; so that, originally but a small tribe, one of 
 the many which had settled in the valley of Andhuac, 
 by its valor and success in war, by the comparatively 
 broad extent of its domain, by the magnificence of its 
 capital, the only aboriginal town in America rebuilt 
 by the conquerors in anything like its pristine splen- 
 dor, and especially by being the people that came di- 
 rectly into contact with the invaders in the desperate 
 struggles of the conquest, the Aztecs became to Eu- 
 ropeans, and to the whole modern world, the repre- 
 sentatives of the American civilized peoples. Hence, 
 in the observations of those who were personally ac- 
 (juainted with these people, little or no distinction is 
 made between the many different nations of Central 
 Mexico, all being described as Aztecs. Indeed, many 
 of the lesser nations favored this error, being proud to 
 claim identity with the brave and powerful peo])le to 
 wliose valor they had been forced to succumb. While 
 this state of things doubtless creates some confusion 
 by failing to show clearly the slight tribal differences 
 that existed, yet the difficulty is not a serious one, 
 from the fact that very many of these nations were 
 unquestionably of the same blood as the Aztecs, and 
 that all drew what civilization they possessed from 
 the same Nahua sou "'^ I may therefore continue to 
 speak of the Aztecs .a their representative character, 
 including directly in this term all the nations perma- 
 nently subjected to the three ruling powers in And- 
 huac, due care being taken to point out such differ- 
 ences as may have been noticed and recorded. 
 
 To fix the limits of the Aztec Empire with any ap- 
 
 Kroximation to accuracy is exceedingly difficult, both 
 y reason of conflicting statements, and because the 
 
3i:i ■ 
 
 ? ;' ' 
 
 ' 
 
 TV: 
 i 5^ ;. 
 
 ||i 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 ' 
 
 ;i- :; i'. 
 
 
 : tii 
 
 i 'i 
 
 if F 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 94 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 boundaries were constantly changing as new tribes 
 were brought under Aztec rule, or by successful revolt 
 threw off the Mexican yoke. Clavigero, followed by 
 Prescott, gives to the empire the territory from 18° 
 to 21° on the Atlantic, and 14° to 19° on the Pacific, 
 exclusive, according to the latter author, of the posses- 
 sions of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. But this extent of 
 territory, estimated at nearly twice that of the state 
 of California, gives an exaggerated idea of Anahuac, 
 even when that term is applied to the conquered ter- 
 ritory of the Avhole confederacy. The limits men- 
 tioned are in reality the extreme points reached by 
 the allied armies in their successful wars, or rather, 
 raids, during the most palmy days of Aztec rule. 
 Within these bounds were several nations that were 
 never conquered, even temporarily, by the arms of 
 Anahuac, as for example the Tlascaltecs, the Taras- 
 cos, and the Chiapanecs. Many nations, indeed most 
 of those whose home was far from the central capitals, 
 were simply forced on different occasions by the pres- 
 ence of a conquering army to pay tribute and allegi- 
 ance to the Aztec kings, an allegiance which they were 
 not slow to throw off as soon as the invaders had with- 
 drawn. Such were the nations of northern Guate- 
 mala and Soconusco, whose conquest was in reality 
 but a successful raid for plunder and captives; such 
 the nations of Tehuantepec, such the Miztecs and Za- 
 potecs of Oajaca, the latter having completely regained 
 their independence and driven the Aztecs from their soil 
 before the coming of the Spaniards. Other nations 
 were conquered only in the years immediately preced- 
 ing theSpanish conquest; instance the Matlaltzincas just 
 westof Andhuac,and the Huastecs and Totonacsof Vera 
 Cruz. By their successful raids among these latter 
 peoples, the Aztecs only sealed their own doom, mak- 
 ing inveterate foes of the coast iiations, whose services 
 would have been most efficacious in resisting the fatal 
 progress of the Castilian arms. But other tribes less 
 warlike and powerful, or nearer the strongholds of 
 
EXTENT OF THE AZTEC EMPIRE. 
 
 95 
 
 their conquerors, were, by means of frequent military 
 expeditions made to check outbreaking rebellion, kept 
 nominally subject to the Aztecs durinij fifty years, 
 more or less, preceding the coming of the Spaniards, 
 paying their annual tribute with some regularity. 
 Outside the rocky barriers of their valley, the Mexi- 
 cans maintained their supremacy only by constant 
 war; and oven within the valley their sway was far 
 from undisputed, since several tribes, notably the Chal- 
 cas on the southern lake, broke out in open rebellion 
 whenever the imperial armies were elsewhere occupied. 
 The Aztec empire proper, not restricting it to its 
 original seat in the valley of Mexico, nor including 
 within its limits all the nations which were by the 
 fortunes of war forced at one time or another to pay • 
 tribute, may then be said to have extended from the 
 valley of Mexico and its immediate environs, over the 
 territories comprised in the present States of ^lexico 
 (with its modern subdivisions of Hidalgo and More- 
 los), Puebla, southern Vera Cruz, and Guerrero. Of 
 all the nations that occupied this territory, most of 
 them, as I have said, were of one blood and language 
 with their masters, and all, by their character and in- 
 stitutions, possessed in greater or less degree the Na- 
 hua culture. Of many of the multitudinous nations 
 occuj)ying the vast territory surrounding the valley of 
 Mexico, nothing is known beyond their names and 
 their likeness, near or remote, to the Aztecs. For a 
 statement of their names and localities in detail, the 
 reader is referred to the Tribal Boundaries following 
 the clia])ter on the Central Mexicans in the first vol- 
 ume of this work. Let it be understood, therefore, 
 that the description of Aztec institutions contained in 
 this volume applies to all the nations of the empire as 
 ^)ounded above, except where special limitation is in- 
 dicated; besides which it has a general application to 
 a much wider region, in fact to the whole country 
 north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec. 
 
 In this connection, and before attempting a descrip- 
 
96 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 !! 
 
 t : *! 
 
 tion of the Mexican nations beyond the limits of the 
 empire, nations more or less independent of Aztec 
 sway, a glance at ancient Mexican history seems ne- 
 cessary, as well to throw light on the mutual relations 
 of the peoples of Andhuac, as to partially explain the 
 broad extent of the Nahua civilization and of the Az- 
 tec idiom. The old-time story, how the Toltecs in 
 the sixth century appeared on the Mexican table-land, 
 how they were driven out and scattered in the elev- 
 enth century, how after a brief interval the Chichimecs 
 followed their footsteps, and how these last were suc- 
 ceeded by the Aztecs who were found in possession, — 
 the last two, and probably the first, migrating in im- 
 mense hordes from the far north-west, — all this is 
 sufficiently familiar to readers of Mexican history, and 
 is furthermore fully set forth in the fifth volume of 
 this work. It is probable, however, that this account, 
 accurate to a certain degree, has been by many writers 
 too literally construed; since the once popular theory 
 of wholesale national migrations of American peoples 
 within historic times, and particularly of such migra- 
 tions from the north-west, may now be regarded as 
 practically unfounded. The sixth century is the most 
 remote period to which we are carried in the annals of 
 Anahuac by traditions sufficiently definite to be con- . 
 sidered in any proper sense as historic records. At 
 this period we find the Nahua civilization and insti- 
 tutions established on the table-land, occupied then as 
 at every subsequent time by many tribes more or less 
 distinct from each other. And there this culture re- 
 mained witliout intermixture of essentially foreign ele- 
 ments down to the sixteenth century; there the suc- 
 cessive phases of its development appeared, and there 
 the progressional spirit continued to ferment for a 
 period of ten centuries, which fermentation constitutes 
 the ancient Mexican history. During the course of 
 these ten centuries we may follow now definitely now 
 vaguely the social, religious, and political convulsions 
 through which these aboriginals were doomed to pass. 
 
THE NAHUAS IN ANAHUAC. 
 
 97 
 
 J of the 
 ' Aztec 
 Bins ne- 
 •elations 
 )lain the 
 the Az- 
 )ltec8 in 
 ble-land, 
 he elev- 
 lichnnecs 
 vere suc- 
 ession, — 
 ig in im- 
 il this is 
 tory, and 
 'olume of 
 3 account, 
 [\j writers 
 iar theory 
 tn peoples 
 Ich migra- 
 [trarded as 
 the most 
 annals of 
 ;o be con- 
 jrds. At 
 and insti- 
 sd then as 
 ire or less 
 ;ulture re- 
 jreign ele- 
 |e the suc- 
 and there 
 tent for a 
 ;onstitute8 
 course of 
 litely now 
 mvulsions 
 to pass. 
 
 From small beginnings we see mighty political powers 
 evolved, and these overturned and thrown into ob- 
 scurity l)y other and rival unfoldings. Religious sects 
 in like manner we see succeed each other, coloring 
 tlit'ir progress with frequent persecutions and reforma- 
 tions, not unworthy of old-world medijBval fanaticism, 
 as partisans of rival deities shape the poj)ular suj)ersti- 
 tion in conformity with their creeds. Wars, long and 
 bloody, are waged for j)lunder, for territory, and for 
 souls; now, to quell the insurrection of a tributary 
 prince, now to repel the invasion of outer barbarian 
 hordes. Leaders, pt)litical and religious, rising to 
 power with their nation, faction, city, or sect, are 
 driven at their fall into exile, and thereby forced to 
 seek their fortunes and introduce their culture among 
 distant tribes. Outside bands, more or less barbarous, 
 but brave and powerful, come to settle in Andhuac, 
 and to receive, voluntarily or involuntarily, the ben- 
 efits of its arts and science. 
 
 1 have no disposition unduly to magnify the New 
 World civilization, nor to under-rate old world culture, 
 but during these ten centuries of almost universal 
 mediaeval gloom, the difference between the two civil- 
 izations was less than most people imagine. On both 
 sides of the Dark Sea humanity lay floundering in be- 
 sotted ignorance; the respective qualities of that ig- 
 norance it is hardly profitable to analyze. The history 
 of all these complicated changes, so far as it may be 
 traced, separates naturally into three chronologic ])e- 
 riods, corresponding with what are known as the Tol- 
 tec, the Chichimec, and the Aztec empires. Prior to 
 the sixth century doubtless there were other periods 
 of Nahua greatness, for there is little evidence to in- 
 dicate that this was the first appearance in Mexico of 
 this progressive people, but previous developments can 
 not be definitely followed, although affording occa- 
 sional glimpses which furnish interesting matter for 
 antiquarian speculation. 
 
 At the opening then, of the historic times, we find 
 
 Voi,. II. 7 
 
98 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 the Toltecs in possession of Andhuac and the sur- 
 rounding country. Though the civilization was old, 
 the name was new, derived probably, although not so 
 regarded by all, from Tollan, a capital city of the em- 
 pire, but afterward becoming synonymous Avith all that 
 18 excellent in art and high culture. Tradition im- 
 putes to the Toltecs a higher civilization than that 
 found among the Aztecs, who had degenerated with 
 the growth of the warlike spirit, and especially by the 
 introduction of more cruel and sanguinary religious 
 rites. But this superiority, in some respects not im- 
 probable, rests on no very strong eviden e, since this 
 people left no relics of that artistic skill which gave 
 them so great traditional fame: there is, however, much 
 reason to ascribe the construction of the pyramids at 
 Teotihuacan and Cholula to the Toltec or a still earlier 
 period. Among the civilized peoples of the sixteenth 
 century, however, and among their descendants down 
 to the present day, nearly every ancient relic of archi- 
 tecture or sculpture is accredited to the Toltecs, from 
 whom all claim descent. In fact the term Toltec be- 
 came synonymous in later times with all that was 
 w^onderful or mysterious in the past; and so confus- 
 ing has been the effect of this universal reference of 
 all traditional events to a Toltec source, that, while 
 we can not doubt the actual existence of this great 
 empire, the details of its history, into which the super- 
 natural so largely enters, must be regarded as to a 
 great extent mythical. 
 
 There are no data for fixing accurately the bounds 
 of the Toltec domain, particularly in the south. 
 There is, very little, however, to indicate that it was 
 more extensive in this direction than that of the Az- 
 tecs in later times, although it seems to have extended 
 somewhat farther northward. On the west there is 
 some evidence that it included the territory of Micho- 
 acan, never subdued by the Aztecs; and it probably 
 stretched eastward to the Atlantic, including the To- 
 tonac territory of Vera Cruz. Of the tribes or nations 
 
THE TOLTEC EM PIKE. 
 
 99 
 
 that made up the empire none can be positively iden- 
 tified by name with any of the hiter peoples found in 
 Anilhuac, thoujjfh there can be little doubt that several 
 of the latter were descended directly from the Toltecs 
 and contemporary tribes; and indeed it is believed 
 with much reason that the semi-barbarous Otomfs of 
 Anilhuac, and several nations beyond the limits of 
 the valley, may date their tribal history back to a pe- 
 riod even preceding the Toltec era. During the most 
 flourishing period of its traditional five centuries of 
 duration, the Toltec empire was ruled l)y a confed- 
 eracy similar in some respects to the alliance of later 
 date between Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan. The 
 capitals were Culhuacan, Utompan, and Tollan, the 
 two former corresponding somewhat in territory with 
 Mexico and Tezcuco, while the latter was just beyond 
 the limits of the valley toward the north-west. Each 
 of these capital cities became in turn the leading pow- 
 er in the confederacy. Tollan reached the highest 
 eminence in culture, splendor, and fame, and Culhua- 
 can was the only one of the three to survive by name 
 the bloody convulsions by which the empire was at 
 last overthrown, and retain anything of her former 
 greatness. 
 
 Long-continued civil wars, arising chiefly from dis- 
 sensions between rival religious factions, resulting nat- 
 urally in pestilence and famine, which in the aboriginal 
 annals are attributed to the direct interposition of irate 
 deities, gradually undermine the imperial thrones. 
 Cities and nations previously held in subjection or 
 overshadowed by the splendor and power of Tollan, 
 take advantage of her civil troubles to enlarge their 
 respective domains and to establish independent pow- 
 ers. Distant tribes, more or less barbarous, but strong 
 and warlike, come and establish themselves in de- 
 sirable localities within the limits of an empire whose 
 rulers are now powerless to repel invasion. So the 
 kings of Tollan, Culhuacan, and (^)tompan lose, year 
 by year, their prestige, and finally, in the middle of 
 
100 
 
 (JKNEKAI. VIEW OF THK CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 y 
 
 / 
 
 the eleventh contuiy, are completely overthrown, leav- 
 ing; the Mexican tahle-land to be ruled by new conihi- 
 nationH of risinjjf powers. Tluus ends the Toltec period 
 of ancient Aiuihuac history. 
 
 The popular account pictures the whole Toltec pop- 
 ulation, or such part of it as had been spared by war, 
 pestilence, and famine, as niijjfratinjj^ en nuisse south- 
 ward, and leaving Anilhuac desolate and unpeopled 
 I'or nearly a half century, to be settled anew by tribes 
 that crowded in from the north-west when they learned 
 that this fair land had been so stran«j^ely abandoned. 
 This account, like all other national mijjfration-narra- 
 tives pertaining to the Americans, has little founda- 
 tion in fact or in probability. 
 
 The royal families and religious leaders of the Tol- 
 tecs were doubtless driven into perpetual exile, and 
 were accompanied by such of the nobility as i)re- 
 ferred, rather than content themselves with subordi- 
 nate positions at home, to try their fortunes in new 
 lands, some of which were j)erhaps included in the 
 southern parts of the empire concerning which so little 
 is known. That tiiere was any essential or imme- 
 diate change in the population of the table-land be- 
 yond the irruption of a few tribes, is highly im- 
 probable. The exiled princes and priests, as I have 
 said, went southward, where doubtless they played 
 an important part in the subsequent history of the 
 Maya-Quiche nations of Central America, a history 
 less fully recorded than that of Aiuihuac. Tliat thf se 
 exiles were the founders of the Centr; 1 American civil- 
 ization, a popular belief supported v many writers, 
 I cannot but regard as another pin 3 of that tend- 
 ency above-mentioned to attribute u that is unde- 
 fined and ill-understood to the great nd wonderful 
 Toltecs; nor do J believe that the evi* snce warrants 
 such an hypothesis. If the pioneer ci ilizers of the 
 south, the builders of Palenque, Cop<in, and other 
 cities of the more ancient type, were imbued with or 
 influenced by the Nahua culture, as is not improbable, 
 
THE (•IIICIIIMEC EMIMUE. 
 
 101 
 
 it certainly was not that culture hh carried south- 
 ward in the eleventh century, hut a development or 
 jihase of it lon<if preocdin*'' that which to(»k the name 
 of Toltec on the Mexican plateaux. With the de- 
 struction of the empire the term Toltec, as applied to 
 an existinjif people, dinafipeared. TIuh disappearance 
 of the name while the institutions of the nation ct"»- 
 tinued to Hourish, may indicate that the desiijfnati(.n 
 of the people — or possihly of the rulinu; family of 
 ToUan, was not applied contemporaneously to the 
 whole empire, and that in the traditions and records 
 of later times, it has incident;'My accpiired a fictitious 
 importance. Of the Toltec cities, Culhuacan, on the 
 lake horder, recovered under the new political combi- 
 nations somethin*^ of her old jmaninence; the name 
 Culhuas applied to its people appears much more 
 ancient than that of Toltecs, and indeed the Mexican 
 civilization as a whole mijjfht perhaps as appropriately 
 he termed Culhua as Nahua. 
 
 The new era succeedini^ the Toltec rule is that of 
 the Chichimec empire, which endured with some vari- 
 ations down to the coming ol Cortes. The ordinary 
 version of the early annals has it, that the Chichimecs, 
 a wild tribe living far in the north-west, learning that 
 the fertile regions of Central Mexico had been aban- 
 doned by the Toltecs, came down in immense hordes 
 to occupy the land. Numerous other tribes came 
 after them at short intervals, were kindly received 
 and granted lands for settlement, and tlie more pow- 
 erful of the new comers, in confederation with the 
 original Chichimec settlers, developed into the so- 
 called empire. Now, although this ("j;cupation of the 
 central table-lands by successive migrations of foreign 
 tribes cannot l>e accepterl by the sober historian, and 
 alciio.?gh we m^sX conclude that very many of the so- 
 ctilled new comers were tribes that had occupied the 
 country during the Toltec period, — their names now 
 coming into notice with their increasing importance 
 and power, — yet it is probable that some new tribes, 
 
102 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 sufficiently powerful to exercise a great if not a con- 
 trolling influence in building up the new empire, did 
 at this time enter Andhuac from the immediately 
 bordering regions, and play a prominent part, in con- 
 junction witli the rising nations within the valley, in 
 the overthrow of the kings of Tollan. These in-com- 
 ing nations, by alliance with the original inhabitants, 
 infused fresh life and vigor into the worn-out mon- 
 arcliies, furnishing the strength by which new powers 
 were built up on the ruins of the old, and receiving 
 on the other hand the advantages of the more j)erfect 
 Nahua culture. 
 
 If one, and the most powerful, of these new nations 
 was, {IS the annals state, called the Chichimec, noth- 
 ing whatever is known of its race or lamjuaij-e. The 
 Chichimecs, their identity, their idiom, and their insti- 
 tutions, if any such there were, their name even, as a 
 national appellation, were merged into those of the 
 Nahua nations that accompanied or followed them, 
 and were there lost. The ease and rapidity with 
 which this tribal fusion of tongue and culture is rep- 
 resented to have been accomplished would indicate at 
 least that the Chichimecs, if a separate tribe, were of 
 the same race and language as the Toltecs; but how- 
 ever this may be, it must be conceded that, while they 
 can not have been the wild cave-dwellinjj barbarians 
 painted by some of the historians, they did not intro- 
 duce into Anahuac any new element of civilization. 
 
 The name Chichimec at the time of the Spanish 
 conquest, and subsequentlj% was used with two sig- 
 nifications, first, as applied to the line of kings that 
 reigned at Tezcuco, and second, to all the wild hunt- 
 ing tribes, particularly in the broad and little-known 
 regions of the north. Traditionally or historically the 
 name has been applied to nearly every people men- 
 tioned in the ancient liistory of America. Tiiis has 
 caused the greatest confusion among writers on the 
 subject, a confusion which I believe can only be cleared 
 up by the supposition that the name Chichimec, like 
 
NO SUCH NATION AS THE CHICHIMEC. 
 
 103 
 
 that of Toltec, never was applied as a tribal or na- 
 tional desijjfnation proper to any j)eople, wliile such 
 j)eopIe were living. It seems probable that among 
 the Nahua peoples that occupied the country from the 
 sixth to the eleventh centuries, a few of the leading 
 powers appropriated to themselves the title Toltecs, 
 which had been at first employed by the inhabitants 
 of Tollan, whose artistic excellence scwm rendered it 
 a designation of honor. To the other Nahua peo- 
 j)les, by whom these leading powers were surrounded, 
 whose institutions were identical but whose polish and 
 elegance of manner were dee'.ied by those self-consti- 
 tuted autocrats somewhat inferior, the term Chichi- 
 mecs, barbarians, etymologically 'dogs,' was applied. 
 After the convulsions that overthrew Tollan and re- 
 versed the condition of the Nahua nations, the 'dogs' 
 in their turn assumed an air of superiority .and re- 
 tained their designation Chichimecs as a title of honor 
 and nobility. 
 
 The names of the tribes represented as entering And- 
 huac after the Chichimecs, but respecting the order of 
 whose coming there is little agreement among authors, 
 are the following: Matlaltzincas, Tepanecs, Acolhuas, 
 Teo-Chichimecs (Tlascaltecs), Malinalcas, Cholultocs, 
 Xcchimilcas, Chalcas, Huexotzincas, Cuitlahuacs, Cui- 
 catecs, Mizquicas, Tlahuicafc., Cohuixcas, and Aztecs. 
 Some of these, as I have said, may have entered the 
 valley from the immediate north. Which these were 
 I shall not attempt to decide, but they were nearly 
 all of the same race and language, all lived under 
 Nahua institutions, and their descendant-^ were found 
 living on and about the Aztec plateau in the six- 
 teeiith century, speaking, with one or two exceptions, 
 the \ztec tonsjue. 
 
 In the new era of prosperity that now dawned on 
 Anahuac, Culhuacan, where some remnants even of 
 the Toltec nobility remained, under Chichimec ausj)i- 
 ces regained to a great extent its old position as a 
 centre of crlture and power. Among the new na- 
 
104 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 tions whose name now first appears in history, the 
 Acolhuas and Tepanecs soon rose to poHtical promi- 
 nence in the valley. The Acolhuas were the Chi- 
 chimecs par excellence, or, as tradition has it, the 
 Chichimec nation was absorbed by them, giving up 
 its name, language, and institutions. The capitals 
 which ruled the destinies of Andhuac down to the 
 fifteenth century, besides Culhuacan, were Tenayo- 
 can, Xaltocan, Coatlychan, Tezcuco,and Azcapuzalco. 
 These capitals being governed for the most part by 
 branches of the same royal Chichimec family, the era 
 was one of civil intrigue for the balance of power and 
 for succession to tlie throne, rather than one of foreign 
 conquest. During the latter part of the period, Tez- 
 cuco, the Acolhua capital under the Chichimec kings 
 proper, Azcapuzalco the capital of the Tepanecs, and 
 Culhuacan held the country under their sway, some- 
 times allied to meet the forces of foreign foes, but 
 oftener plotting against each other, each, by alliance 
 with a second against the third, aiming at universal 
 dominion. At last in this series of political manoeu- 
 vres Culhuacan was permanently overthrown, and 
 the Chichimec ruler at Tezcuco was driven from his 
 possessions by the warlike chief of the Tepanecs, 
 who thus for a short time was absolute master of 
 Anjihuac. 
 
 But with the decadence of the Culhua power at 
 Culhuacan, another of the tribes that came into notice 
 in the valley after the fall of the Toltecs, had been 
 gradually gaining a position among the nations. This 
 rising power was the Aztecs, a people traditionally 
 from the far north-west, whose wanderings are de- 
 scribed in picture-writings shown in another part of 
 this volume. Their migration is more definitely de- 
 scribed than that of any other of the many who are 
 said to have come from the same direction, and has 
 been considered by different writers to be a migra- 
 tion from California, New Mexico, or Asia. Later 
 researches indicate that the pictured annals are in- 
 
 4; 
 
 .al-'-l 
 
THE AZTEC ERA. 
 
 lOS 
 
 tended simply as a record of the Aztec wanderings in 
 the valley of Mexico and its vicinity. Whatever their 
 origin, by their fierce and warlike nature and bloody 
 religious rites, from the first they made themselves the 
 pests of Andhuac, and later its tyrants. For some cen- 
 turies they acquired no national influence, but were 
 often conquered, enslaved, and driven from place to 
 ]>lace, until early in the fourteenth century, when 
 Mexico or Tenochtitlan was founded, and under a line 
 of able warlike kinofs started forward in its career of 
 prosperity unecpialed in the annals of aboriginal Ameri- 
 ca. At the fall of Culhuacan, Mexico ranked next to 
 Tezcuco and Azca{)uzalco, and when the armies of the 
 latter prevailed against the former, Mexico was the 
 most powerful of all the nations that sprang to arms, 
 and j)ressed forward to Iwmble the Tepanec tyrant, 
 to reinstate the Acolhua monarch on his throne, and 
 to restore Tezcuco to her former commanding position. 
 The result was the utter defeat of the Tepanecs, and 
 the glory of Azcapuzalco departed forever. 
 
 TIuis ended in the early part of the fifteenth centu- 
 ry the Chichimec empire, — that is, it nominally ended, 
 for the Chichimec kings proper lost nothing of their 
 j)ower,— and, b}'^ the establishment of the confederacy 
 already described, the Aztec empire was inaugurated. 
 Under the new dispensation of affairs, Mexico, by 
 whose aid chiefiy Azcapuzalco had been humbled, 
 received rank and dominion at least equal to that of 
 Tezcuco, while from motives of policy, and in order, 
 so far as possible, to conciliate the good will of a 
 strong though conquered ])eople, Tlacopan, under a 
 l)ranch of the Tepanecs, with a less extensive domain, 
 was admitted to the alliance. The terms of the con- 
 federacy seem, as I have said, never to have been 
 (ipenly violated; but in the first years of the six- 
 teenth century the Aztecs had not only excited the 
 hatred of the most powerful nations outside the 
 bounds of Anilhuac by their foreign raids, but by their 
 arrogant overbearing spirit had made themselves ob- 
 
ii 
 
 ii 
 
 'Vi 
 
 106 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 noxious at home. Their aim at supreme power was 
 apparent, and both Tezcuco and the independent re- 
 public of Tlascala began to tremble at the dangerous 
 progress of their mighty neighbor, A desperate strug- 
 gle was imminent, in which the Aztecs, pitted against 
 all central Mexico, by victory would have grasped the 
 coveted prize of imperial power, or crushed as were 
 the Tepanecs before them by a coalition of nations, 
 would have yielded their place in the confederacy to 
 some less dangerous rival. At this juncture Cortes 
 appeared. This renowned chieftain aided Montezu- 
 ma's foes to triumph, and in turn fastened the shackles 
 of European "despotism on all alike, with a partial ex- 
 ception in favor of brave Tlascala. The nations which 
 formed the Aztec empire proper, were the tribes for 
 the most part that have beeti named as springing into 
 existence or notice in Anahuac early in the Chichimec 
 period, and the names of most of them have been 
 preserved in the names of modem localities. It will 
 be seen, in treating of the languages of the Pacific 
 States, that the Aztec tongue, in a pure state, in dis- 
 tinct verbal or grammatical traces, and in names of 
 places, is spread over a much wider extent of territory 
 than can be supposed to have ever been brought under 
 subjection to Andhuac during either the Toltec, Chi- 
 chimec, or Aztec phases of the Nahua domination. 
 To account for this we have the commercial connec- 
 tions of the Aztecs, whose traders are known to have 
 pushed their mercantile ventures far beyond the re- 
 gions subjected by foi ;e of arms; colonies which, both 
 in Toltec and Aztec times, may be reasonably sup- 
 posed to have sought new homes; the exile of nobles 
 and priests at the fall of the Toltec empire, and other 
 probable migrations, voluntary and involuntary, of 
 princes and teachers; the large detachments of Aztecs 
 who accompanied the Spaniards in the expeditions by 
 which the continent was brought under subjection; 
 and finally, if all these are not sufficient, the unknown 
 
THE TARASCOS OF MICHOACAN. 
 
 107 
 
 history and migrations of the Nahua peoples during 
 the centuries preceding the Toltec era. 
 
 I will now briefly notice the civilized nations beyond 
 the limits of Andhuac, and more or less independent 
 of the Aztec rule, concerning whose institutions and 
 history comparatively little or nothing is known, ex- 
 cept what is drawn from the Aztec annals, with some 
 very general observations on their condition made by 
 their Spanish conquerors. Westward of the Mexican 
 valley was the flourishing independent kingdom of 
 Michoacan, in possession of the Tarascos, whose cap- 
 ital was Tzintzuntzan on Lake Patzcuaro. Their 
 country, lying for the most part between the rivers 
 Mexcala and Tololotlan, is by its altitude chiefly in the 
 tierra templada, and enjoys all the advantages of a 
 tropical climate, soil, and vegetation. Topographically 
 it presents a surface of undulating plains, intersected 
 by frequent mountain chains and by the characteristic 
 ravines, and well watered by many streams and beauti- 
 ful lakes; hence the name Michoacan, which signifies 
 'land abounding in fish.' The lake region of Patzcu- 
 aro, the seat of the Tarasco kings, is described as un- 
 surpassed in picturesque beauty, while in the variety 
 of its agricultural products and in its yield of mineral 
 wealth, Michoacan was equaled by few of the states of 
 New Spain. 
 
 If we may credit the general statements of early au- 
 thors, who give us but few details, in their institutions, 
 their manners, wealth, and power, the Tarascos were at 
 least fully the equals of the Aztecs, and in their phy- 
 sical development were even superior. That they suc- 
 cessfully resisted and defeated the allied armies of 
 Andhuac is sufficient proof of their military prowess, 
 although they yielded almost without a struggle to 
 the Spaniards after the fall of Mexico. With respect 
 to their civilization we must accept the statements of 
 their superiority as the probably correct impression of 
 those who came first in contact with this people, not- 
 withstanding which 1 find no architectural or artistic 
 
108 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 relics of a high culture within their territory. A \ that 
 is known on the subject indicates that their civilization 
 was of the Naliua type, although tlie language is al- 
 together distinct from the Aztec, the representative 
 Nahua tongue. The history of Michoacan, in the 
 form of any but the vaguest traditions, does not reach 
 back farther than the thirteenth century; nevertheless, 
 as I have said, there is some reason to sup[)ose that it 
 formed part of the Toltec empire. The theory has 
 even been advanced that the Tarascos, forming a j)art 
 of that emj)ire, were not disturbed by its fall, and 
 were therefore the best representatives of the oldest 
 Nahua culture. Their reported physical superiority 
 might favor this view, but their distinct language on 
 the contrary would render it improbable. A careful 
 study of all that is known of this people convinces me 
 that they had long been settled in the lands where 
 they were found, but leaves on the mind no definite 
 idea of their earlier history. Their later annals are 
 made up of tales, partaking largely of the marvelous 
 and supernatural, of the doings of certain demi-gods 
 or priests, and of wars waged against the omnipresent 
 Chichimecs, Branches of the great and primitive 
 Otomi family are mentioned as having their homes in 
 the mountains, and there are traditions that fragments 
 of the Aztecs and other tribes which followed the Chi- 
 chimecs into Andhuac, lingered on the route of their 
 migration and settled in the fertile valleys of Micho- 
 acan. Between the Tarascos and the Aztecs, speak- 
 ing a language different from either but allied more 
 or less intimately with the former, were the Matlalt- 
 zincas, whose capital was in the plateau valley of To- 
 luca, just outside the bounds of Andhuac. This was 
 one of tlie tribes that have already been named as 
 coming traditionally from the north-west. For a long 
 time they maintained tlieir independence, but in the 
 li- . • .rter of the fifteenth century were forced to 
 ' ro the victorious arms of Axayacatl, the Aztec 
 
 WiVi ,Mr iving. 
 
MIZTECS AND ZAPOTECS. 
 
 109 
 
 Immediately below the mouth of the Mexcala, on 
 the border of the PaciHc, were the lands of the Cui- 
 tlatecs, and also the province or kingdom of Zaeatollan, 
 whose capital was the modern Zacatula. Uf these two 
 peoples absolutely nothing is known, save that they 
 were tributary to the Aztec empire, the latter having 
 been added to the domain of Tezcuco in the very last 
 years of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The j>rovinces that extended south-westward from 
 Anahuac to the ocean, belonging chiefiy to the modern 
 state of Guerrero and included in what 1 have de- 
 scribed as the Aztec empire proper, were those of the 
 TIahuicas, whose ca[)ital was Cuernavaca, the CoJmix- 
 cas, capital at Acapulco, the Yoppi on the coast south 
 of Acapulco, and the province of Mazatlan farther in- 
 land or north-east. The name Tlapanecs is also rather 
 indefinitely applied to the people of a portion of this 
 territory in the south, including probably the Yoj)pi, 
 Of the names mentioned we have met those of the 
 TIahuicas and Cohuixcas among the tribes newly 
 springing into notice at the begiiming of the Chichi- 
 mec j)eriod. It is j)robable that nearly all were more 
 or less closely allied in race and language to their 
 Mexican masters, their political subjection to whom 
 dates from about the middle of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The western slope of the cordillera still farther 
 south-west, comprising in general terms the modem 
 state of Onjaca, was ruled and to a great extent in- 
 habited by the Miztecs and Zapotecs, two powerful 
 nati6ns distinct in tongue from the Aztecs and from 
 each other. Western Oajaca, the home of the Miz- 
 tecs, was divided into Uj)per and Lower Miztecapan, 
 the latter toward the coast, and the former higher up 
 in the mountains, and sometimes termed Cohuaixtla- 
 huacan. The Zapotecs in eastern Oajaca, when first 
 definitely known to history, liad extended their jiower 
 over nearly all the tribes of Tehuantepec, besides en- 
 croaching somewhat on the Miztec boundaries. The 
 Miztecs, notwithstandinof the foreign aid of Tlascaltecs 
 
 1 - 
 
i? 
 
 no 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 and other eastern foes of the Aztec king, were first 
 defeated by the allied forces of Andhuac about 1458; 
 and from that date the conquerors succeeded in hold- 
 ing their stronger towns and more commanding posi- 
 tions down to the conquest, thus enforcing the pay- 
 ment of tribute and controlling the commerce of the 
 southern coast, which was their primary object. Te- 
 huantepec and Soconusco yielded some years after to 
 the conquering Axayacatl, and Zapotecapan still later 
 to his successor Ahuitzotl; but in the closing years 
 of the fifteenth century the Zapotecs recovered their 
 country with Tehuantepec, leaving Socunusco, how- 
 ever, permanently in Aztec possession. ' The history 
 of the two nations takes us no farther back than the 
 fourteenth century, when they first came into contact 
 with the peoples of Anilhuac; it gives a record of their 
 rulers and their deeds of valor in wars waged against 
 each other, against the neighboring tribes, and agamst 
 the Mexicans. Prior to that time we have a few tra- 
 ditions of the vaguest character preserved by Burgoa, 
 the historian of Oajaca. These picture both Miztecs 
 and Zapotecs as originally wild, but civilized by the 
 influence of teachers, priests, or beings of supernatural 
 powers, who came among them, one from tiie south, 
 and others from the direction of Andhuac. Their civ- 
 ilization, however received, was surely Nahua, as is 
 shown by the resemblances which their institutions, 
 and particularly their religious rites, bear to those of 
 the Aztecs. Being of the Nahua type, its origin has 
 of course been referred to that inexhaustible source, 
 the dispersion of the Toltecs, or to proselyting teach- 
 ers sent southward by that wonderful people. Indeed, 
 the Miztec and Zapotec royal families claimed a direct 
 Toltec descent. It is very probable, however, that 
 the Nahua element here was at least contemporaneous 
 in its introduction with the same element known as 
 Toltec in Andhuac, rather than implanted in Oajaca 
 by missionaries, voluntaiy or involuntary, from Tol- 
 lan. I have already remarked that the presence of 
 
NATIONS OF TEHUANTEPEC. 
 
 Ill 
 
 leir civ- 
 
 Nahua institutions in different regions is too often 
 attributed to the Toltec exiles, and too seldom to 
 historical eve i its preceding the sixth century. The 
 (Jajacan coast region or tierra caliente, if we may 
 credit the result of researches by the Abbd Brasseur 
 de Bourbourg, was sometimes known as Andhuac Ay- 
 otlan, as the opposite coast of Tabasco was called 
 Andhuac Xicalanco. Both these Andhuacs were in- 
 habited by enterprising commercial peoi)le8, whose 
 flourishing centres of trade were located at short in- 
 tervals along the coast. Material relics of past excel- 
 lence in architecture and other arts of civilization 
 abound in Oajaca, chief among which stand the re- 
 markable structures at Mitla. 
 
 Although Tehuantepec in the later aboriginal times 
 was subject to the kings of Zapotecapan, yet within 
 its limits, besides the Chontales, — a name resembling 
 in its uncertainty of application that of Chichimecs 
 farther north, — were the remnants of two old nations 
 that still preserved their independence. These were 
 the Mijes, living chiefly by the chase in the mountain 
 fastnesses of the north, and thfe Huaves, who held a 
 small territory on the coast and islands of the lagoons 
 just east of the city of Tehuantepec. The Mijes, so 
 far as the vague traditions of the country reveal any- 
 thing of their past, were once the possessors of Zapo- 
 tecapan and the isthmus of Tehuantepec, antedating the 
 Zapotecs and perhaps the Nahua culture in this region, 
 being affiliated, as some believe, in institutions and 
 possibly in language, with the Maya element of Cen- 
 tral America. While this connection must be regarded 
 as somewhat conjectural, we may nevertheless accept 
 as probably authentic the antiquity, civilization, and 
 power of this brave people. The Huaves were tradi- 
 tionally of southern origin, having come to Tehuante- 
 pec by sea from Nicaragua or a point still farther south. 
 In navigation and in commerce they were enterpris- 
 ing, as were indeed all the tribes of this southern-coast 
 Andhuac, and they took gradually from the Mijes, 
 
112 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 
 : 
 ! 
 
 whom they found in possession, a large extent of terri- 
 tory, which as we have seen they were finally forced 
 to yield up to their Zapotec conquerors. 
 
 Crossin«( now to the Atlantic or Gulf shores we have 
 from the past nothinj^ but a confused account of Ul- 
 mecs, Xicalancas, and Nonohualcas, who may have 
 l)een distinct peoples, or the same people under differ- 
 ent names at different ei)ochs, and who at some time 
 inhabited the lowlands of Tehuantepec and Vera Cruz, 
 as well us those of Tabasco farther south. At tlie 
 time of the conquest we know that this region was 
 thickly inhabited by a peoj)le scarcely less advanced 
 than those of Andhuac, and dotted with flourishing 
 towns devoted to commerce. But neither in the six- 
 teenth nor innnediately preceding centuries cun any 
 one civilized nation be definitely named as occupy- 
 ing this Aniihuac Xicalanco. We know, however, that 
 this c(jimtry north of the Goazacoalco River formed a 
 portion of the Aztec empire, and that its inhabitants 
 spoke for the most part the Aztec tongue. These 
 provinces, known as Cuetlachtlan and Goazacoalco, 
 were conquered, chiefly with a view to the extension 
 of the Aztec commerce, as early as the middle of the 
 flfteenth century, notwithstanding the assistance ren- 
 dered by the armies of Tlascala. 
 
 The plateau east of Aniihuac sometimes known as 
 Huitzilapan was found by the Spaniards in the pos- 
 session of the independent republics, or cities, of Tlas- 
 cala, Huexotzinco, and Cholula. The people who 
 occupied this part of the table-land were the Teo-Chi- 
 ehimecs, of the same language and of the same tradi- 
 tional north-western origin as the Aztecs, whom they 
 preceded in Andhuac. Late in the thirteenth century 
 they left the valley of Mexico, and in several detach- 
 ments established themselves on the eastern plateau, 
 where they successfully maintained their independence 
 of all foreign powers. As allies of the Chichimec 
 king of Tezcuco they aided in overturning the Tepanec 
 tymnt of Azcapuzalco; but after the subsequent dan- 
 
THE TLASCALTECS. 
 
 113 
 
 lown as 
 
 jrerous development of Aztec ambition, the Tlascaltec 
 armies aided in nearly every attempt of other nations 
 to arrest the j)rogreH8 of the Mexicans toward uni- 
 versal don'iinion. Their assistance, as we have seen, 
 was unavailing except in the iinal successful alliance 
 with the forces of Cortes; for, althoufi^h secure in their 
 small domain ai^ainst foreij^n invasion, their armies 
 were often defeated abroad. Tlascala has retained 
 very nearly its ori<i^inal Iwunds, and the details of its 
 history from the foundation of the city are, by the 
 writings of the native historian Camarcco, more fully 
 known tlian those of most other nations outside of 
 Anjlhuac. This author, however, gives us the annals 
 of his own and the surrounding peoples from a Tlas- 
 caltec stand-point only. Before the Teo-Chichimec 
 invasion of Huitzilapan, Cholula had already acquired 
 great prominence as a Toltec city, and as the residence 
 of the great Naliua apostle Quetzalcoatl, of which era, 
 or a preceding one, the famous pyramid remains as a 
 memento. Outside of Cholula, however, the ancient 
 histor}'^ of this region presents but a blank page, or one 
 vaguely filled with tales of giants, its first reputed in- 
 habitants, and of the mysterious Olmecs, from some 
 remaining fragments of which people the Tlascaltecs 
 are said to have won their new homes. These Olmecs 
 seem to have been a very ancient people who occupied 
 the whole eastern region, bordering on or mixed with 
 the Xicalancas in the south; or rather the name Olmec 
 seems to have been the designation of a ])hase or era 
 of the Nahua civilization preceding that known as 
 the Toltec. It is impossible to detennine accurately 
 whether the Xicalancas should be classed with the 
 Nahua or Maya element, although probably with the 
 former. 
 
 The coast region east of Tlascala, comprising the 
 northern half of the state of Vera Cruz, was the home 
 of the Totonacs, whose capital was the famous Cem- 
 poala, and who were conquered by the Aztecs at the 
 close of the fifteenth century. They were probably 
 
 Vol. II. 8 
 
114 
 
 GENKItAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED Nv^TIONS. 
 
 one of the ancient pre-Toltec peoples like the Otomfs 
 and Olmecs, and they claimed to have occupied in 
 former times Andliuac and the adjoinintr territory, 
 where they erected the pyramids of the 8un and moon 
 at Teotihuacan. Their inHtitutioim when first observed 
 by Europeans seem to have been essentially Nahua, 
 and the abundant architectural remains found in To- 
 tonac territory, as at Papantla, Misantla, and Tusapan, 
 show no well-defined difterences from Aztec construc- 
 tions proper. Whether this Nahua culture was that 
 orii^inally possessed by them or was introduced at a 
 comparatively late period throuj^h the intiuence of the 
 Teo-Chichimecs, with whom they became largely con- 
 solidated, is uncertain. The Totonac languajje is, 
 however, distinct from the Aztec, and is thought to 
 have some affinity with the Maya. 
 
 North of the Totonacs on the gulf coast, in the 
 present state of Tamaulipas, lived the Huastecs, con- 
 cerning whose early history nothing whatever is 
 known. Their language is allied to the IVIaya dia- 
 lects. They were a brave peoj)le, looked upon by the 
 Mexicans as semi-barbarous, but were defeated and 
 forced to pay tribute by the king of Tezcuco in the 
 middle of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The difficulties experienced in rendering to any de- 
 gree satisfactory a general view of the northern na- 
 tions, are very greatly augmented now that I come to 
 treat of the Central American tribes. The causes of 
 this increased difficulty are many.* I have air ady 
 noticed the prominence of the Aztecs in most th-it has 
 been recorded of American civilization. During the 
 conquest of the central portions of the continent fol- 
 lowing that of Mexico, the Spaniards found an ad- 
 vanced culture, great cities, magnificent temples, a 
 complicated system of religious and political institu- 
 tions; but all these had been met before in the north, 
 and consequently mere mention in general terms of 
 these later wonders was deemed sufficient by the con- 
 
NATIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 
 
 11& 
 
 querora, who were a class of men not disposed to make 
 niinutu obsorvations or Coinparisuns respeetinjf what 
 Hconiod to them unimportant details. Ah to the 
 priests, their duty was cleivrly to destroy rather than 
 to closely investiy-ate these institutions of the devil. 
 And in the years foUowiui,' the conquest, the associa- 
 tion between the natives and the conquerors was much 
 less intimate than in Anilhuac. These nations in many 
 instances fought until 'nearly annihilated, or after do- 
 feat retired in national frajjments to the inaccessible 
 fastnesses of the cordillera, retaining for several gen- 
 erations — some of them permanently — their independ- 
 ence, and affording the Spaniards little opportunity of 
 becoming acquainted with their aboriginal institutions. 
 In the south, as in Anilhuac, native Hvriters, after their 
 language had been fitted to the Spanish alphabet, 
 wrote more or less fully of their national history; but 
 all such writinjjs whose existence is known are in the 
 possession of one or two individuals, and, excepting 
 the Po})ol Vuh translated by Ximenes as well as 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg, and the Perez Maya manu- 
 script, their contents are only vaguely known to the 
 public through the writings of their owners. Another 
 difficulty respecting these writings is that their de- 
 pendence on any original authority more trustworthy 
 than that of orally transmitted traditions, is at least 
 doubtful. The key to the hieroglyphics engraved on 
 the stones of Palenque and Copan, and painted on the 
 pages of the very few ancient manuscripts preserved, 
 is now practically lost; that it was possessed by the 
 writers referred to is, although not impossible, still far 
 from proven. Again, chronology, so complicated and 
 uncertain in the atmals of Andhuac, is here, through 
 the absence of legible written records, almost entirely 
 wanting, so that it is in many cases absolutely imi)os- 
 sible to fix even an approximate date for historical 
 events of great importance. The attempts of authors 
 to attach some of these events, without sufficient data. 
 
116 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 [ 
 
 11 
 
 
 t- 
 
 ■■; ' 
 
 i 
 
 to tliC Nn'uia chronology, have done much to compli- 
 cate the matter still further. 
 
 Tlie only author who has attempted to treat of the 
 subject of Central American civilization and antiquity 
 com[)rehensively as a whole is the Abbe Brasseur do 
 Bourbourg. The learned ahh6, liowever, with all his 
 research and undoubted knowledge of the subject, and 
 with his well-known enthusiasm and tact in antiquari- 
 an engineering, by wliich he is wont to level difficul- 
 ties, a[)parently insurmountable, to a grade which offers 
 no obstruction to his theoretical construction-trains, 
 has been forced to acknowledge nt many points liis 
 inability to construct a perfect whole from data so 
 mea<rre and conflicting. Such being the case, the fu- 
 tility nuist be apparent of attempting here any outline 
 of history v/hich may throw light on the institutions 
 of the sixteenth century. I must be content, for the 
 purposes of this cha})ter, with a mention of the civil- 
 ized nations found in ])ossession of the country, and a 
 brief statement of such prominent points in their past 
 as seem well-authenticated and important. 
 
 Closely enveloped in the dense forests of Chiapas, 
 Guatemala, Yucatan, and Honduras, the ruins of sev- 
 eral ancient cities have been discovered, which are far 
 superior in extent and magniticence to any seen in Aztec 
 territory, and of which a detailed descri[)tion may be 
 found in the fourth volume of this work. Most of these 
 cities were abandoned and more or less unknown at the 
 time of the concjuest. They bear hieroglyphic inscrip- 
 tions apparently identical in character; in other respects 
 they resemble each other more than they resemble the 
 Aztec ruins— or even other and apparently later works 
 in Guatemala and Honduras. All these remains bear 
 evident marks of great antiquity. Their existence 
 and similarity, in the absence of any evidence to the 
 contrary, would indicate the occupation of the whole 
 country at some remote [)eriod by nations far advanced 
 in civilization, and closely allied in manners and cus- 
 toms, if not in blood and language. Furthermore, the 
 
THE ANCIENT MAYA EMPIRE. 
 
 117 
 
 traditions of several of the most advanced nations 
 point to a wide-spread civilization introduced among a 
 numerous and powerful people by Votan and Zamnd, 
 who, or their successors, built the cities referred to, 
 and founded great allied empires in Chiapas, Yucatan 
 and Guatemala; and moreover, the tradition is con- 
 firmed by the imiversality of one family of languages 
 or dialects spoken among the civilized nations, and 
 among their descendants to this day. I deem the 
 grounds sufficient, therefore, for accepting this Central 
 American civilization of the past as a fact, referring 
 it not to an extinct ancient race, but to the direct an- 
 cestors of the peoj)les still occupying the country with 
 the Spaniards, and applying to it the name Maya as 
 that of the lansruaije which has claims as strong as 
 any to be considered the mother tongue of the hn- 
 guistic family mentioned. As I have said before, the 
 phenomena of civilization in North America may be 
 accounted for witli tolerable consistency by the friction 
 and mixture of this Maya culture and people with the 
 Nahua element of the north; while that either, by 
 migrations northward or southward, can have been 
 the parent of the other within the traditionally his- 
 toric past, I regard as extremely improbable. That 
 the two elements were identical in their origin and 
 early development is by no means impossible; all that 
 we can safely presume is that within historic times 
 they have been practically distinct in th* ir workings. 
 There are also some rather vajjue trad!Lit)ns of the 
 first appearance of the Nahua civiliz;itit)ii in the re- 
 gions of Tabasco and Chiapas, of its growth, the grad- 
 ual establishment of a power rivalling that of the 
 po(>ple I call Mayas, and of a struggle by whicli the 
 Naluias were scattered in ditterent directions, chielly 
 northward, to rea})pear ]n history some centuries later 
 as the Toltecs of A* -i uac. While the ])ositive evi- 
 dence in favor of this migration from the south is very 
 meagre, it must be admitted that a southern origin of 
 the Nahua culture is far more consistent with fact and 
 
118 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 tradition than was the north-western origin, so lo*^^ 
 implicitly accepted. There aie no data by which to 
 fix the period of the original Maya empire, or its 
 downfall or breaking-up into rival factions by civil 
 and foreign wars. The cities of Yucatan, as is clearly 
 shown by Mr Stephens, were, many of them, occupied 
 by the descendants of the builders down to the con- 
 quest, and contain some remnants of wood-work still 
 in good preservation, although some of the structures 
 appear to be built on the ruins of others of a some- 
 what different type. Palenque and Copan, on tlie 
 contrary, have no traces of wood or other perishable 
 material, and were uninhabited and probably unknown 
 in the sixteenth century. The loss of the key to what 
 must have been an advanced system of hieroglyi)hics, 
 while the spoken language survived, is also an indica- 
 tion of great anticjuity, confirmed by the fact that the 
 Quichd structures of Guatemala differed materially 
 from those of the inore ancient epoch. It is not likely 
 that the Maya empire in its integrity continued later 
 than the third or fourth centurv, although its cities 
 may have been inhabited much later, and I should fix 
 the epoch of its highest i)ower at a date preceding 
 rather than following the Christian era. A Maya 
 manuscript fixes the date of the first appearance in 
 Yucatan of the Tutul Xius at 171 a. d. The Abbd 
 Brasseur therefore makes this the date of the Nahua 
 dispersion, believing, on apparently very slight found- 
 ation, the Tutul Xius to be one of the Nahua frag- 
 ments. With the breaking-up of this empire into 
 separate nations at an unknown date, the ancient his- 
 tory of Central America as a whole ceases, and down 
 to a period closely preceding the con<juest we have 
 oidy ati occasional event preserved in the traditions of 
 two o^ three nations. 
 
 Yucatan was occupied in the sixteeiith century by 
 the Mayas proper, all speaking the same language, 
 and living under practically the same institutions, re- 
 ligious and political. The chief divisions were the 
 
MAYA NATIONS OF YUCATAN. 
 
 119 
 
 Cocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas, and Cheles, which seem 
 to have been originally the designations of royal or 
 priestly families, rather than tribal names proper of 
 the peoples over whom they held sway. Each of 
 these had their origin-traditions of immigrating tribes 
 r. teachers who came in the distant past to seek new 
 homes, escape persecution, or introduce new religious 
 ideas, in the fertile Maya plains. Some of these 
 stranger apostles of new creeds are identified by au- 
 thors with Toltec missionaries or exiles from Anilhuac. 
 The evidence in favor of this identity in any particular 
 case is of course unsatisfactory, but that it was well- 
 four .lo. I i.i some cases is both probable,— connnercial 
 iiilo •(' Ki. having undoubtedly made the two peoples 
 miuuilly f.cquainted with each other, — and is sup- 
 ported by the presence of Nahua names of rulers and 
 priests, and of Nahua elements in the Yucatec religion, 
 the same remark applying to all Central America. The 
 ancient history of Yucatan is an account of the strug- 
 gles, alliances, and successive domination of the fac- 
 tions mentioned. To enumerate here, in outline even, 
 these successive changes so vaguely and confusedly re- 
 corded would be useless, especially as their institutions, 
 so far as can be known, were but sliglitly affected by 
 political changes .vmong people of the same blood, 
 language, and rel'-jjion. 
 
 The Cocomes vert traditionally the original Maya 
 rulers of the laud, ra' i the Tutul Xius first came into 
 notice in the & ci.;»j ( viury, the Itzas and Cheles ap- 
 pearing at a luitcOi i ter late. One of the most pros- 
 perous errts in the iult history of the peninsula of 
 Yucatan is represented to have followed the appear- 
 ance of Cuculcan, a mysterious stranger corresponding 
 closely in his teachings, as in the etymology of his 
 name, with the Toltec Quetzalcoatl. He liecame the 
 head of the Cocome dynasty at Mayapan, and ruled 
 the country o* did his successors after him in alliance 
 with the Ti'ir Xius at Uxmal, the Itzas at Chichen 
 Itza, and the ( i" '- ^ at 1 zamal. But later the Cocomes 
 
190 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 !i ''3i 
 
 !i 1: 
 
 were overthrown, and Mayapan destroyed by a revo- 
 lution of the alUes. The Tutul Xius now became the 
 leading power, a position which they held down to 
 the time, not long before the conquest, when tlie coun- 
 try was divided by war and civil dissensions into nu- 
 merous petty domains, each ruled by i^,^ "hief and 
 independent of the rest, all in a weak and exhausted 
 condition coujpared with their former state, and un- 
 able to resist by united effort the progress of the 
 Spanish invaders whom individually they fought most 
 bravely. Three other comp iTtively recent events 
 of some importance in Yucat( • )ry may be no- 
 
 ticed. The Cocomes in the stru^ . preceding their 
 fall called in the aid of a large force of Xicalancas, 
 probably a Nahua i)eo})lo, from the Tabascan coast 
 region, who after their defeat were permitted by the 
 conquerors to settle in the country. A successful raid 
 by some foreign people, supposed with some reason to 
 be the Quiches from Guatemala, is reported to have 
 been made against the Mayas with, however, no im- 
 portant permanent results. Finally a portion of the 
 Itzas miufrated southward and settled in thd reiLfion of 
 Lake Peten, establishing their capital city on an island 
 in the lake. Here they were found, a powerful and 
 advanced nation, by Hernan Cortes in the sixteenth 
 century, and traces of their cities still remain, although 
 it must be noted that another and older class of ruins 
 are found in the same region, dating back perhaps to 
 a time when the glory of the Maya empire had not 
 wholly departed. 
 
 Chiapas, politically a part of the Mexican Republic, 
 but belonging geographically to Central America, was 
 occupied by the Chiapanecs, Tzendales, and Quelenes. 
 The Tzendales lived in the region about Palen(jue, and 
 were presumably the direct descendants of its builders, 
 their language having nearly an equal claim with the 
 Maya to be considered the mother tongue. The Chi- 
 apanecs of the interior were a warlike tribe, and had 
 before the coming of the Spaniards conquered the 
 
CHIAPAS AND GUATEMALA. 
 
 121 
 
 •ublic, 
 
 other nations, forcing them to pay tribute, and suc- 
 cessfully resisting the attacks of the Aztec allies. 
 They also are a very old people, having been referred 
 even to the tribes that preceded the establishment of 
 Votan'si empire. Statements concerning their history 
 are immorous juid irreconcilable; they have some tra- 
 ditions of having como from the south; their linguistic 
 affinity with the Mayas is at least very slight. The 
 Quelenes or Zotziles, whose past is equally mysterious, 
 inhabited the southern or Guatemalan frontier. 
 
 Guatemala and northern Honduras were found in 
 possession of the Mames in the north-west, the Poco- 
 niams in the south-east, the Quiches in the interior, 
 and the Cakchiquels in the south. The two latter 
 were the most powerful and ruled the country from 
 their ca})itals of Utatlan and Patinamit, where they re- 
 sisted the Spaniards almost to the point of annihila- 
 tion, retiring for the most part after defeat to live by 
 the chase in the distant mountain gorges. Guatema- 
 lan history from the Votan empire down to an indefi- 
 nite date not many centuries before the conquest is a 
 blank. It recommences with the first traditions of 
 the nations just mentioned. Tiiese traditions, as in 
 the case of every American people, begin with the 
 immigration of foreign tribes into the country as the 
 first in tlic series of events leading to the establish- 
 ment of the Quiche-Cakchiquel empire. Assuming 
 the Toltec dispersion from Antihuac in the eleventh 
 century as a well-authenticated fact, most writers 
 have identified tlie Guatemalan nations, except per- 
 haps tlie Mames by some considered the descendants 
 of the original inhabitants, with the migrating Toltecs 
 who lied southward to fi)und a new empire. I have 
 already made known my scepticism resjjecting national 
 American migrations in general, and the Toltec migra- 
 tion southward in particular, and there is nothing in 
 the annals of Guaten»ala to modify the views previ- 
 ously expressed. The Quiche traditions are vague and 
 without chronologic order, nmch less definite than 
 
122 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 those relating to the mythical ^ztec wanderings. 
 The sum and substance of the Quicho and Toltec 
 identity is the traditional statement that the former 
 people entered Guatemala at an unknown period in 
 the past, while the latter left Andhuac in the elev- 
 enth century. That the Toltecs should have mi- 
 grated en masse southward, taken possession of Gua- 
 temala, established a mighty empire, and yet have 
 abandoned their language for dialects of the origi- 
 nal Maya tongue is in the highest degree improb- 
 able. It is safer to suppose that the mass of the 
 Quichds and other nations of Guatemala, Chiapas, 
 and Honduras, were descended directly from the 
 Maya builders of Palenque, and from contemporary- 
 peoples. Yet the differences between the Quiche- 
 Cakchiquel structures, and the older architectural re- 
 mains of the Maya empire indicate a new era of Maya 
 culture, originated not unlikely by the introduction of 
 foreign elements. Moreover, the apparent identity in 
 name and teachings between the early civilizers of the 
 Quiche tradition and the Nahua followers of Quetzal- 
 coatl, together with reported resemblances between 
 actual Quichd and Aztec institutions as observed by 
 Europeans, indicate farther that the new element was 
 engrafted on Maya civilization by contact with the 
 Nahuas, a contact of which the presence of the exiled 
 Toltec nobility may have been a prominent feature. 
 After the overthrow of the original empire we may 
 suppose the people to have been subdivided during the 
 course of centuries by civil wars and sectarian strug- 
 gles into petty states, the glory of their former great- 
 ness vanished and partially forgotten, the spirit of 
 progress dormant, to be roused again by the presence 
 of the Nahua chiefs. These gathered and infused new 
 life into the scattered remnants; they introduced some 
 new institutions, and thus aided the ancient people to 
 rebuild their empire on the old foundations, retaining 
 the dialects of the original language. 
 
 In addition to the peoples thus far mentioned, there 
 
NICAEAGUANS AND PIPILES. 
 
 123 
 
 were undoubtedly in Nicaragua, and probably in Sal- 
 vador, nations of nearly pure Aztec blood and language. 
 The former are known among different authors as Nic- 
 araguans, Niquirans, or Cholutecs, and they occupied 
 the coast between lake Nicaragua and the ocean, with 
 the lake islands. Their institutions, political and re- 
 ligious, were nearly the same as those of the Aztecs 
 of Aniihuac, and they have left abundant relics in the 
 form of idols and sepulchral deposits, but no archi- 
 tectural remains. These relics are moreover hardly 
 less abundant in the territory of the adjoining tribes, 
 nor do they differ essentially in their nature; hence we 
 must conclude that some other Nicaraguan peoples, 
 either by Aztec or other influence, were considerably 
 advanced in civilization. The Nahua tribes of Salva- 
 dor, the ancient Cuscatlan, were known as Pipiles, and 
 their culture appears, not to have been of a high order. 
 Both of these nations probably owe their existence to 
 a colony sent southward from Anahuac; but whether 
 in Aztec or pre- Aztec times, the native traditions, like 
 their interpretation by writers on the subject, are in- 
 extricably confused and at variance. For further de- 
 tails on the location of Central American nations I 
 refer to the statement of tribal boundaries at the end 
 of Chapter VII., Volume I., of this work. 
 
 I here close this general view of the subject, and if 
 it is in some respects unsatisfactory, I cannot believu 
 that a different method of treatment would have ren- 
 dered it less so. To have gone more into detail would 
 have tended to confuse rather than elucidate the mat- 
 ter in the reader's mind, unless with the sup})ort of 
 extensive quotations from ever-conflicting authorities, 
 which would have swollen this general view from a 
 chapter to a volume. As far as antiquity is concerned, 
 the most intricate element of the subject, 1 shall at- 
 tempt to present — if I cannot reconcile — all the im- 
 portant variations of opinion in another division of 
 this work. 
 
124 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 In the treatment of my subject, truth and ac- 
 curacy are tlie principal aim, and these are never 
 sacrificed to graphic style or glowing diction. As 
 much of interest is thrown into the recital as the au- 
 thorities justify, and no more. Often may be seen the 
 more striking characteristics of these nations dashed 
 off with a skill and brilliance equaled only by their 
 distance from the facts; disputed jioints and unplcas- 
 ing traits glossed over or thrown aside whenever they 
 interfere with style and effect. It is my sincere de- 
 sire, above all others, to present these people as they 
 were, not to make them as I would have them, nor to 
 romance at the expense of truth: nevertheless, it is 
 to be hoped that in the truth enough of interest will 
 remain to command the attention of the reader. My 
 treatment of the subject is essentially as follows: The 
 civilized peoples of North America naturally group 
 themselves in two great divisions, which for conveni- 
 ence may be called the Nahuas and the Mayas re- 
 spectively; the first representing the Aztec civilization 
 of Mexico, and the second the Maya-Quiche civiliza- 
 tion of Central America. In describing their man- 
 ners and customs, five large divisions may be made 
 of each group. The first may be said to include the 
 systems of government, the order of succession, the 
 ceremonies of election, coronation, and anointment, 
 the magnificence, power, and manner of life of their 
 kings; court forms and observances; the royal pal- 
 aces and gardens. The second comprises the social 
 system; the classes of nobles, gentry, plebeians and 
 slaves; taxation, tenure, and distribution of lands; 
 vassalage and feudal service; the inner life of the 
 people; their family and private relations, such as 
 marriage, divorce, and education of youth; other 
 matters, such as their dress, food, games, feasts and 
 dances, knowledge of medicine, and manner of burial. 
 The third division includes their system of war, their 
 relations with foreign powers, their warriors and orders 
 of knighthood, their treatment of prisoners of war and 
 
ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 125 
 
 their weapons. The fourth division embraces their 
 system of trade and commerce, the community of 
 merchants, their sciences, arts, and manufactures. 
 The fifth and Ipst considers their judiciary, law- 
 courts, and legal officials. I append as more appro- 
 priately placed here than elsewhere, a note on the 
 etymological meaning and derivation, so far as known, 
 of the names of the Civilized Nations. 
 
 ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 AcoLlllTAS; — Possibly from coloa, 'to l)end,' meaning with the prefix 
 all, 'wftter-colhuas,' or 'people at the bend of the water.' Not from acolli, 
 'shoulder,' nor from colli, 'grandfather.' Bmchmann, Ortsiinmcii, jip. 8.'>, 89. 
 'Colon, enconiar, o entortar algo, o rodear yendo camino.' 'Acolli, onibro.* 
 'Culhnia, lleuar a otro por rodeos a alguna parte.' Molina, Vocubulnrio. 
 Colli, 'grand-father,' plural rolhvan. Colhvacan, or Culiacan, may then 
 mean 'the land of our ancestors. ' Gallatin, in Amcr. Ethno. Soc, Transact., 
 vol. i., pp. 204-5. 'El nombre de aculhuas, o scguii la ortografia nicxica- 
 na, aciilhuaquc, en plural, y no acidlmacancs, ni aciilhtics.' Dire. Univ., 
 toni. i., p. 39. 'Col, chose courbe, faisant coloa, colun, ou riilhiia, noni ap- 
 plique plus tard dans le sens d'ancfitre, parce que du Colhuacun priniitif, 
 des ilcs dc la Courbe, vinrent les emigres qui civilisJjrent les habitants de la 
 vullee d'Anahuac' Brasscur tie Bourboiirrf, Qiiatrc Lcttrcs, p. 407. 'Col- 
 hua, ou culhua, ctiliia, de coltic, chose courbee. De la 1l i.om de la cite de 
 Collniacan, qu'on traduit indiffercmment, ville dc la courbe, dc choscs 
 recourses (des serpents), et aussi des aicux, de colfziii, ai'eul.' Id., Popol 
 Vuh, p. xxix. 
 
 Aztecs;— From Aztlan, the name of their ancient home, from a root 
 Aztli, which is lost. It has no connection with azcatl, 'ant,' but may have 
 sonic reference to iztac, 'white.' Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, pp. 5-6. 'De 
 Aztlan se dcriva el iiacional Aztccatl.' Pimentcl, Cnadro, tom. i., p. 158. 
 'Az, priniitif tVazcatl, fourmi, est le mot qui designe, a la fois, d'une nia- 
 nifcie gciidiale, la vapour, le gaz, ou toute chose legere, comiiic le vent ou 
 la pluie; c'est I'aile, aztli qui designe aussi la vapeuv, c'est le hdron dans 
 aztatl. II se vetrouve, avec une legfcre variaiite, dans le mot nahuatl com- 
 pose, tcni-az-calli, bain de vapour, dans cz-tli, le sang ou la lave; dans les 
 voLUibles quiches atz, bouflee du fumee, epnuvantail, feu-foUet. . . .Ainsi les 
 fuiiriiiis de la tradition haiticnne, uomnie de la tradition mexicaine, sont 
 h la fois des images des feux intcrieurs dc la terrc et de Icurs cxhalaisoiis, 
 contnie du travail des mines et dc ragiirulturc. Du iii6me iiriinitif az vient 
 Aztlan "'e Payssur ou dans le gaz, az-tan, az-dan, la terrc sfeclie, soulevuo 
 par les gaz ou rcmplic de vapcurs." ' Brasscur de Bourbourg, Quatre Let- 
 trc.1, p. 311. 
 
 Ch ALCA.S; — ' II nomc Chalcho vale, Nella gemma. II P. Acosta dice, die 
 CArt/co vuol dire. Nolle bocche.' Claviffcro, StoriaAnt. del Mcsstco, tom. ii, 
 p. 253. Buschmann believes Acosta'a definition 'in the mouths' to be morr 
 
126 
 
 F'^YMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 correct. Orlanamen, p. 83. 'Chalrn, Cc qui est lo colcairo; c'est rexamcn 
 do tniiB IcH vocables mcxicains, coiiinienfant en chal, qui ni'a fait ilucim- 
 vrir le «enH exact do ce mot; il se trouve surtout dan chal-chi-huitl, le jade, 
 1itt(irnlenient t-e qui ewt sorti du fond du calcaire.' Braaseur de Bourbourg, 
 Quntrc Lcttrcs, pji. 401, 4()fl. 
 
 CIIELE.S;— 'Le Chcl dans la langiic niayacst uno espice d'oiseaux par- 
 ticulicra k cettc centric.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., 
 p. 19. 
 
 CniAl'ANECS;— CAia;>n«, 'locality of the cht'a' (oil-seed). Buachmann, 
 Ortsnainni, p. 187. 'Chiapatu^qur, du nuhuatl c/iiapnnceat/, c'cHt-f»-diro 
 honiinc de la rivii;re Chiapan (eau douce), n'est pas Ic nom veritable de ce 
 pcuplc; c'est celui que lui donn^rent les Mcxicains.' Brasseurdc Bourbourg, 
 Iliat. Nat. Civ., toni. ii., p. 87. 
 
 CmoiliMECS; — ^Chichi, perro, o pcrra.' Molina, Vocabulario. Chichi, 
 'dog;' perhaps as inhabitants of Chichiinccan, 'jtlacc of dogs.' Mccutl may 
 moan 'line,' 'row,' 'race,' and Chichiimcatl, therefore 'one of the race of 
 dogs.' Bmchmann, Orlsnamen, pp. 79, 81. 'Chichimfeque vcut dire, Ji pro- 
 prenient parlor, liomme sauvage Ce mot ddsigne des honinies qui man- 
 gent de la viande crue et sucent le sang des animaux; car chichiliztli veut 
 dire, en mcxicain, succr; chichinaliztli, la chose que Ton suce, et Chichi- 
 
 hunlli, manioUe Toutes les autres nations les redoutaient ct lour don- 
 
 naient le nom de Succurs, en mexicain, ' Chichimccatechinani. ' Les Mcxi- 
 cains nommcnt aussi les chiens chichime, parce qu'ils Ibchcnt le sang des 
 animaux ct le sucent.' Camargo, Hist. Tlaxcallan,inNoHvellcsAniiales des 
 Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 140. ' Teuchichimccas, que quiere dccir del todo 
 barbados, que por otro nonibre se dccian Cacachimccas, 6 sea hombres sil- 
 vestres.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., p. 110. ' Chiehimec ou chichimetl, 
 siiceur de maguey, et de la les Chichimbques.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., toni. i., pp. 171, 56. Other derivations arc from Chichcn, a city 
 of Yucatan, and from chiehiltic 'red,' referring to the color of all Indians. 
 
 Id., Popol Vuh, p. Ixiii. 'Chi scion Vetaucourt, c'est une preposition, 
 
 exprimant cc qui est tout en bas, au plus profond, comme aco signifie ce 
 
 qui est au plus haut Chichi est un petit chien (chi-cn), de ceux qu'on 
 
 appcUc de Chihuahua, qui se crcusent des tanibrcs souterraines Chichi 
 
 dnouce tout ce qui est amer, aigre ou Acre, tout ce qui fait tache: il a le 
 sens de sneer, d'absorbcr; c'est la salivc, c'est le poumon et la niamcllc. Si 
 
 maintenant j'ajoute me, primitif de inetl, alofcs, chose courbce, vous au- 
 
 roz Chichime, choscs courbes, tortueuses, sufantes, absorbantes, ambres, 
 &crcs ou acidcs, se cachant, comme les pctits chiens terriers, sous le sol 
 
 oil elles se concentrent, commcs des poumons ou des mamcUes Or, puis- 
 
 qu'il est acquis, d'aprfes ccs peintures et ces explications, que tout cela doit 
 s'appliquer h une puissance tcllurique, errante, d'ordinaire, comme les popu- 
 lations nomades, auxquelles on attacha le nom de Chiehimeca.^ Id., Quatre 
 Lettres, pp. 111-12. 
 
 Cholultecs;— From choloa, meaning 'to spring,' 'to run,' 'to flee,' or 
 'place where water springs up,' 'place of flight,' or 'fugitives.' Buschmann, 
 Ortsnamcn, p. 100. 'C'est du lieu d'oii ils (itaient sortis primitiveraent, ou 
 plutOt k cause de leur quality actuelle d'exil^s, qu'ils prireut eusuite le nom 
 
CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 127 
 
 flee,' or 
 rnann, 
 cnt, on 
 le nom 
 
 de Choluteeaa.' ' Cholulccas, tniciix Cholitltecas, c'eat-k-dire, Exilds, ct 
 aum, Habitants de Cholullan.' Jirasscur de Bourbovrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 toiii. ii., p. 79. 
 
 CuONTAi-ES;— 'CTAo«te/W, estrnngci'o o forostcro.' Molina, Vocahulario: 
 Ovuzco y Jicrra, Gcogrn/ia, p. 21; liuschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 133; Brasscur 
 de liourbourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 47. 
 
 CocOMES; — 'Cocotn signific vcoiitcur, croyunt.' Landa, Bel. de las Cosas 
 de Yucatan, p, 39. 'Cocom est un noni d'oiigine iiuliimtl ; il est le pliiricl do 
 
 cohnntl, serpent Dans la languc niaya, le mot cocom a lu signilication 
 
 d'dcoutciir, celui qui entend; cctte <itymologie nous parutt plus rationnclle 
 que la preniifcre.' Brasscur dc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. i., p. 78. 
 
 Coiii'ixcAS;— Ayala translates the name of their province Cuixca, 'ticr- 
 ra de lagur'ijas.' Orozco y Bcrra, Gcografia, p. 48. 
 
 CuiTL/HUACS; — 'Cuitlatl, cxcremeuto, y gendricamente cosa sucia.' 
 Orozco y Jicrra, Geogrofia, p. 47. 'Cuitlahuae, Dans celui qiii a Ics Ex- 
 crdmcnts, de cuitlatl, excrtSment, dujcction dc I'hommc ou de I'animal, niaia 
 que le chroniste mexicain applique ici aux dtijcctions du volcan voisin do 
 
 la Grande-Hasc de 1^ le nom dc tco-cuitlatl, cxcrdnients divins, donn^ 
 
 aux mutaux prdcieux, Tor avec I'adjectif jaune, I'argent avec I'adjcctif 
 blanc' Brasscur de Bourbourg, Quatrc Lettres, p. 407. Cuitlatlan, 'local- 
 ity of dirt.* Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 15. 'Cuitlatl, niierda.' Molina, 
 Vocahulario. The name of the Cuitlatecs seems to have no separate ety- 
 niological meaning. 
 
 CuLHUAS; — See Acolhuas. The two people are not supposed to have 
 been the same, but it is probable that they are identical in the derivation 
 of their names. 
 
 HuASTECS; — 'Huaxtlan es una palabra mexicana que significa, "dondo 
 hay, 6 abunda el huaxi," fruto muy conocido en Mdxico con el nombrc cas* 
 tellanizado de guaje. CompiSnese aquella palabra de huaxin, perdiendo t» por 
 contrnccion, muy usada en mexicano al componersc las palabras, y de tlan, 
 particulaquc significa "donde hay, 6 abunda algo," y que sirve para formar 
 colectivos. Dc huaxtlan es de donde, segun parcce, viene el nombre genti- 
 licio huaxtecatl, que los csimfiolcs convirtieron en huaxteca 6 huaxteco.^ Pi- 
 mentcl, Cuadro, tom. i., pp. 5-6; Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 12-13. 'El 
 
 que es inhdbil 6 tosco, le llanian cuextecatl.' From the name of their 
 
 ruler, who took too much wine. ' Asi jwr injuria, y como alocado, le llama- 
 ban de Cuextccatl.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 134-5, 143-4. 
 
 HuEXOTZiNCAS; — Diminutive of hucxotla, 'willow-forest.' Buschmann, 
 Ortsnamcn, p. 100. 
 
 Itzas ;— From the name of Zamnd, the first Yucatan civilizer. ' Le llama- 
 ban tanibicn Ytzamni, y le adoraban por Dios.' Cogolludo, Hist, de Yuca- 
 than, p. 196. 'Itzmat-ul, que quiere dezir el quo recibe y jiosee la gracia, 
 6 rozio, 6 sustancia del cielo.' ' Ytzen caan, ytzcn muyal, que era dezir yo 
 soy el rozio 6 sustancia del cielo y huIkss.' Lizana, in Landa, Bel. de laa 
 Cosas de Yucatan, p. 356. 'Suivant Ordoilez, le mot itza est compost de 
 itz, doux, et de hd, eau.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., 
 p. 15. 
 
 Malimalcas;— '.Afd^tna, nitla, torccr cordel encima del muslo.' 'Ma- 
 
128 
 
 ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 linqui, com torcida.' Afolina, Vocabulario. ' Malinal etX Ic nom commun 
 dc III lianc, ou dcs cordcs torducM.' 'Malina, tordro, qui fuit nialitial, liaiie 
 oil cunlc. Ou bicn plus littdrulcincnt dc cho.sca tournecs, pcrcec ti jour, do 
 iHul, itrhuitif dc mamali, iMsrccr, tiiraudcr, et dc iial, dc purt cii purt, tout 
 uutour.' lirasscnr tU Ihurbourg, Qmitre Lctlirs, pp. -lOT-S. 
 
 Mames; — 'El vcrdudcru iionibrc dc In Iciij^a y dc lu tribu c» mem, que 
 quicrc dccir turtnuiudus porquo los pueblos que primcro les oycruu hublur, 
 vucoutrnron scmcjanza cntro los tardos \m,m pronuni'iur, y lit niuueru con 
 quo uquello.-4 dcciun su lcu;;uu.' Orozco y Derra, Gcognifia, p. 24. 'A csta 
 lcn;,'uii lliinian Maine, 4 indios mamcs A lus do CHtu sicrru, purqiic ordinari- 
 niucntc hubluu y rcspoudcn con esta palubni man, que quicic dutir padre' 
 RaynoHo, in Pimentcl, Cuailro, toiii. i., pp. 83-4. 'Mciu vcut dire bbjjue et 
 iiiuct. ' ' " Mem, " mal h prupoa diitigurd dans Manic par les Espa^nols, ttcrvit 
 depuis {'(intirnlcmcnt h du8i<;ner lea nations qui conservl-rcnt leur uncienne 
 lungue et dcnicurbrcnt plus ou moins indiipcndcntcs dv./i envuliiMHeurs t^-trun- 
 yers.' Mam 'vcut dire ancicn, veillard.' lirasseurdc liouiboiirrj, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., tom. ii., p. 110. Mam sometimes means grand-son. Jd., I'opol Viih, 
 p. 41. 
 
 M.\TLAi.TZiNCAS; — 'El uombrc Mallalcincatl, tom6so dc MatlatI que es 
 la red con la cual dcs<,'ranal)an el maiz, y liacian otrus cusas. . . .Tanibien so 
 llarnun Mutlntzittcas dc liondas que se diccn tlcmatlatc, y asi Mutlutzinvaa 
 por otra iiiter]>rctai-iun quicrc decir, honderos 6 foiidiljuhirius; ]iorquc los 
 diclios MatlotsiHcas cuundo mucbnclios, usabau muuiio truer lu8 brjiidas, y 
 dc ordinario las truian consigo, como los Chichinwcus sus arcos, y sicnipre 
 anduban tirundo eon cllas. Tunibien les llanmbun del nonibre dc red i)or 
 otra razon que es la nius principal, porquc cuando ii su idnlo ^acrilicabau 
 algunu persona, Ic ccliaban deiitru en una red, y ulli le retorciun y cstruja- 
 bau con la diclia red, hasta <iuc Ic liacian cellar los iiitcstinos. La causa 
 de lluniarsc coatl (Uainircz dice que "del)e Iccrsc cuaitl (cnliczu). Coatl sig- 
 iiifica culcbra," cuando es uiio, y qiiaqiiatas cuando son mucbos cs, porquo 
 siempre traian la cabeza ceuida con la lionda; por lo cual el voiiiblo se decia 
 qiia por abrcviatura, (iiie quicrc decir quaitl que cs la culieza, yta que quicre 
 decir tainatlatl (^lolina says 'Honda para tirar cs teinatlatl, tlalcinutlaui- 
 loni') ques es la lionda, y asi quicrc dccir, qiiatlatl liombrc que trae la lion- 
 da en la cabeza por guirnalda: tanibien se intcrprcta dc otra mancra, quo 
 quicrc dccir lioinbrc de eul)cza dc piedia.' Sahagiin, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., 
 lib. X., p. l'2S,.and Orozco y Bcrra, Gcografia, jip. 29-30. ' Mutlatzinia, 
 dar palniadas.' ' Matlatepito, red pcqucna.' Molina, Vocabulario. From 
 matlatl, 'net,' incaniiig tlierefore 'small place of nets.' Busehmann, Oris- 
 namen, p. 13. 'De Matlatl, le filet, les maillcs.' Brasscur de Bourboiirg, 
 Quatrc Lcttrcs, p. 408. 'Matlatzinco es una palabra mexicana (jue significa 
 "lugarcito dc las redes," pues sc compone dc matlat, red, y la particula 
 tzineo que cxpresa diminuciun. Fdcilmentc se comprciide, pues, que w»o- 
 tlatzinca viene dc matlatzinco, y que la etimologia exige <iue est as palabms 
 Bc cscriban con c (mcjor k) y no con g como hacen algunos uutorcs,' Pimen- 
 tel, Citadro, tom. i., p. 500. 
 
 Mayasj— ' "Mai," une divinit«S ou un pcraonnagc des temps antiques, sans 
 doute celui k Foccasion duquel lo pays fut appele Maya.' Brasscur de Bour- 
 
CIVILIZED NATIONS, 
 
 129 
 
 honrg, in Landn, Rd. de lu» Cosns tie Yucatan, p. 42. 'Mayn ou Mma, 
 noin niitiqiic «l'une jxirtio dii Yiii-atun, parutt Hijfiiillcr ansM la tcrrc.' Ji',, 
 |), Ixx. 'Miiayhh, non ndcst nqua, Niiiviuit Onlofioz, t'cHt-h-diro, Tt'irt! mum 
 enu.' Iff., Hint. Nnt. Civ., toiii. i., p. 7(J. Thi' ti'rriiinations a and o of this 
 nunic arc .SiMinish. Pimcutrl, Ciimlro. toni. ii., p. 3!i. 
 
 M[/.(iyiiAH;—Wfizqtiitl, nrh(d de ^'ixuii pnrutinta.' .}foliiin, Vocahulario. 
 Mizijuitl, II tree yieldin;; the jmre gum uruliic, .i HiK'i-ien of uciieiii. liu-ich' 
 maim, Ortniiameii, \y 104. 
 
 MlZTECS;— 'La luilabrn mexienna Mlrtrratl, e« nonibrc nacinnal, dcriva- 
 do de mixtlan, liijfar de niilics o nebiiloMo, oonipiieHto de tiiixtli, n\\\m, y de 
 la terniinaeion //««.' Pimcutrl, Ciinifro, toiu. i., p. 39. Mixlluit, 'jilace of 
 <'l<iudn.' Bmchmann, Ortsnamcii, p. 18. ' Mixternimn . . . .\wyn des brouil- 
 lards.' Brnimeur th Bourbourg, Hist. Nnt. Civ., toni. i., p. 146. 
 
 Naiitas; -'TodoH loH quo lialilan cinro la Icngua niexiraua que len lla> 
 man nahOns, son desfeudieutoH de los Tultecas.' Siihaguii, Hint. Gen., tom. 
 iii., lib. X., p. 114. ' Nahontl 6 nahuatl, segnu el diccionario de Molina, sig- 
 nifica rona que siicna liicii, de modo (jue viene ii ser un adjetivo que aplicado ul 
 Hustantivo idiomn, creo (jue puede tra<lucirse por armoniom.' J'imcntcl, Ciia- 
 dro, tom. i., p. loS. Something of fine, or clear, or loud sound; nahuatlato 
 means an interpreter; nahiinti, to speak loud; na/iuatia, to comnuind. 
 The name ha.s no connection whatever with Andhuac. Busrhmanii, OrtnuU' 
 mm, p 7-8. 'Molina le traduit par Ladiiio, instniit, expert, civilise, et 
 lui d lussi un sens qui se rapporte aux sciences occultcs. Ou n'en 
 
 trom toutefois, la racinc dans Ic mexicain. La ianguc quiuhi^c en 
 
 donne unc explication parfaite: il vient du verbe Nao ou Naw, eonnattre, 
 sentir, savoir, penser; Tin nao, je sais; Naoh, sagesse, intelligence. II y u 
 encore le verl)e radical Na, sentir, soupponner. Lc mot Nahiial dans son 
 sens primitif et veritable, signific done litteralcmcnt "qui sait tout;" c'est 
 la mCme chose absolument que le mot anglais Know-all, avec lequci il a 
 tant d'identit<S. Le Quichd et le Cakchiquel I'emploient frequemment aussi 
 dans le sens de my8t«5rieux, extraordinaire, merveilleux.' Branscur de Bout- 
 honrg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., pp. 101-2, 194. 
 
 NoNOiiUALCAS; — The Tutul-Xius, chiefs of a Nahuatl liouse in Tulan, 
 seem to have borne the name of Nonoual, which nmy have given rise to 
 Nonohualco or Onohualco. 'Nonoual no serait-il pas une alteration de 
 Nanaual on Nanahuatl?' Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Jlcl. de las 
 Cosas de Yucatan, p. 420. 
 
 Olmecs; — Olmecatl was the name of their first traditionary leader. Bras- 
 scur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 152. Olmecatl may mean an 
 inhabitant of the town of Olman; but as viecatl is also used for 'slioot,' 
 'offspring,' 'branch,' the word probably comes from olli, and means 'jjeop'e 
 of the gum.' Buschmanu, Ortsnamcn, p. 10. 
 
 OTOMfS; — 'El vocablo Otoniitl, que es el nombre de los Otomies, tomd- 
 ronlo dc su caudillo, el cual se llanmlui Oton.^ Sahagiin, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., 
 lib. X., p. 122. Not a native word, but Mexican, derived perhaps from otli, 
 'road,' and tomitl, 'animal hair,' referring possibly to some peculiar mode 
 of wearing the hair. Bmchmann, Ortsnamcn, pp. 18-19. 'Otho en la mis- 
 ma lengua othomi quierc decir nada, y mi, quieto, 6 seutado, de manera quo 
 Vol. II. 8 
 
130 
 
 ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 traducida literalmcntc la paluhra, significa nada-quicto, cuya idea pudi^ra- 
 inos cxprcsar diciciido pcregrino 6 crretntc/ Pimcntel, Cuadro, torn, i., p. 
 118; Niixcra, Discrktcion, p. 4. 'Son Etymologic mexicainc, Otoinitl, sig- 
 nifie la flfeche d'Otoii.' Jirasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., 
 p. 158. 
 
 PiriLES;~A reduplication of pilli, which has two meanings, 'noble' and 
 'child,' the latter being generally regarded aa its meaning in the tribal 
 name. Buschinann, Ortsnamcti, pp. 137-8. So called Injcause they spoke 
 tlic Mexican language with a childish pronunciation. Juurros' Hist. Guat., 
 p. 224. 
 
 PoKOMAMS; — ' Pokom, dont la racine pok d(isignc une sorte de tuf blanc 
 
 et sablonneux La termination om est ur participe present. De Pokom 
 
 vient Ic noni de Pokomani et de Pokomchi, qui fut donnd h ces tribns de la 
 qualit<i du sol oil ils biltirent leur ville.' Brasseurde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., toni. ii., p. 122. 
 
 Quiches; — 'La palabra quichd, kicM, 6 quitsc, significa murhos drbolos.' 
 Pimcntel, Cuadro, torn, ii., p. 124. 'De qui Iteaucoup, plusicurs, ct de che, 
 arbre; on de qucchc, quechelah, qechelah, la foret.' Ximcnez, in Brasscur 
 dc Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. cclxv. 
 
 Tarascos;— 'Tarasco viene de tarhascuc, que cu la longu:'. do Michoacan 
 significa sucgro, 6 ycrno segun dice el P. Lagunas en su Grannltica.' Pitucn- 
 tcl, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 273. 'Tarns en la lengua niexicanasedice Mixvoatl, 
 que era el dios de los Chichimecas.^ Sahagun, Hist. Gcii., torn, iii., lib. \., p. 
 138. 'A quienes dieron el nombre de tarascos, por el sonido que les hacian 
 las partes genitalcs en los niuslos al andar.' Vcytia, Hist. Ant. Mtj., tom. 
 ii., p. lOo; Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hist, dcs Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 57. 
 
 TkpanecS;— Tr^an, 'stony place,' from tetl, or tccpan, 'royal palace.' 
 Buschinann, Ortsnamcn, p. 92. 'Tecpantlan signi* r? auprbs dcs jmlais.' 
 Brasscur dc Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. ex. 'Cailloux roulcs sur la rochc, 
 te-pa-nc-ca, litteralemcnt ce qui est mel6 ensemble sur la picrre; «>u bien tc- 
 pan-c-ca, c'est-fi-dire avec des petites pierrcs sur la roche ou le solide, e, pour 
 etl, le haricot, frijol, dtant pris souvent dans le sens d'une petite pierrc sur 
 une surface, etc' Id., Quatre Lettrcs, p. 408. 
 
 Tlahuicas;— From tlahuitl, 'cinnabar,' from this mineral Iwing plenti- 
 ful in their country. Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 93. Tlahuilli, 'poudres 
 brillantes.' Brasscur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lcttres, p. 422. 'Tlauia, alum- 
 brar a otros con candela o hacha.' Molina, Vocabulario. 
 
 Tlapanecs; — 'Y lldmanlos tambien tiapanccus que quiere decir horn- 
 brcs almagrados, porque se cmbijaban con color.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, 
 iii., lib. x., p. 135. From tlafpantli, 'ground;' may also come from llalli, 
 'land.' Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 102. Tlapallan, 'terre colorde.' Bras- 
 scur dc Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. Ixiii. Tla, 'feu.' /f/., Quatre Lettrcs, p. 416. 
 'Tlapani, qucbrarse algo, o el tintorero que tiiie pafios.' Molina, Vocabula- 
 rio. Probably a synonym o' Yoppi, q. v Orozco y Bcrra, Gcografia, pp, 
 26-7. 
 
 TlascaltecS; — ' Tlaxcalli, tortillas de mayz, o pan gencralmcnte.' Moli- 
 na, Vocabulario. Tlaxcalli, 'place of bread or tortillas,' the post participle 
 of ixca, 'to bake or broil.' Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 93. 
 
CIVILIZED NATIONS. 
 
 131 
 
 TOLTZC";—'Tollecayotl, macstria de arte mceanica. Toltccatl, officiul 
 de arte mecanica. Toltecauia, fabricar o Iiazcr algo el maestro.' Molina, 
 Vocabtdario. 'Los tultccas todo.s se nonibraljan chichimecas, y no teiii- 
 an otro nombrc particular sino cstc que toniaron de la ciiriosidad, y primor 
 de las obras que hacian, que se llaiiiaron oltras tiiitccrts 6 sea como si dige- 
 semos, oficiales pulidos y curiosos como aliora loa de Flandes, y con razon, 
 porque eran sutiles y primorosos en cuanto cllos (Ktnian la mano, que todo 
 cramny bueno.' Sa/uttjun, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., lib. x., p. 107. Toltecs, 'peo- 
 ple of Tollan.' Tollan, 'place of willows or reeds,' from tolin, 'willow, reed.' 
 Bitschmann, Orlsnamcn, p. 7C. ' Toltecall etait le titrc qu'on donnait Ji un 
 artiste habile.' Brasscttr de Bourboiiry, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. i., p. 194. 
 
 Tollan: 'Ellc est frappante par I'identite qn'elle pr(5sente avec Ic nom 
 
 de Mcfztli ou le Croissant. En effct, ce qn'elle c.xprinie, d'ordinaire, c'est 
 I'idee d'un "pays recourbe" ou inelino. Sa premifcre syllabe tol, primitif 
 de toloa, "abaxar, inclinarlacalwca," dit Molina, "entortar, encorvar," dit- 
 il aillcurs, signific done bais.ser, incliuer la tCte, se tortuer, courbcr, ce qui, 
 avec la particulc locale Ian |>our tlaii ou fan, la tcrre, I'cndroit, announce 
 une terre ou xm pays recourW, sens exact du mot tollan. Du m6mc verbc 
 vifcnt tollin, le jonc, le roseau, dont la tCtc s'inoline rai moindre vent; de Ml, 
 le sens de Jonquiferc, de linmti, que pent prendre tollnn, dont la hicroglyplie 
 represcnte pr«5cisement le son et la chose, ct qui parait cxjjrimer doublcment 
 I'idee de cctte terre fameusc de la Courlie ou du Croissant, basse et maruca- 
 
 geuse en beancoup d'en droits suivant la tradition Dans sa (the word toloa) 
 
 signification active, Molina le traduit par "tragar," avaler, cngloutir, ce 
 qui donne alors pour tollan, le sens de tcrre cngloiitie, abtmee, qui, comme 
 vous le voycz, convient on ne pen' mieux dans Ic cas present. jMais si tol- 
 lan est la terre engloutie, si c'est en mtfine temps le pays do la Courlx;, 
 Metztli ou le Croiss:.!' -, ces deu.v nomri, reuiarqucz-lo, pcuvent s'appliquer 
 aussi bicn au lieu oi; il a 6tA cnglonti, h I't-au qui se courbait le long dea ri- 
 vages du Croissant, soit Ji rinterienr des grandcs golfes du nonl et du midi, 
 Koit au rivage convexo, toumu comme le gcnou de la jan<l>c, vera I'Orient. 
 C'est ainsi qu'on retronvo ridcntification continuclle de Tidt^e niillo uvec 
 I'ldt'c femcUe, dn (ionteuu et du contenant, de tollan, le pays englouti, avec 
 tollnn, roceau engloutisscur, de I'eau qui est contenuc et des continents qui 
 renserrent dans Icurs limites. Ajoutons, pour completer cettc analyse, quo 
 tol, dans la langue quichce, est un verbe, dont lolan est Ic passe, et qu'ainsi 
 que tnlan il signific I'abandon, la nuditi^, cit-. Do tol, faitcs tor, dans laiue- 
 nie langue, ct vo»is aurez avec toran, ce qui est tourne ou retourn«5, conimc en 
 mcxicain, de mi^nic que <lans turan (touran) vous trouvercz ce qui a «5td ren- 
 versd, boulcverse dc fond en eonible, noye sous Ics eaux, etc. Dans la lan- 
 gue niaya, tnl signific rcmplir, coniblcr, et an, coninic en qui(h«5, est le jjasse 
 du vcrlw: niais si h. tnl on ajoutc ha ou a, I'eau, nousavons Tnlha ou Tula, 
 rcmpli, submerge d'eau. En dcmiferc analyse, tol ou tul paraft avoir pour 
 I'originc ol, ul, couler, vcnir, suivant le quiihd encore; primitif d'olli, ou 
 bicn d'l/Wi, en langue nahuatl, la goumic clastiiiuc liquidc, la lioule noire du 
 jeu de paume, qui duvicnt lo hiL^roglyplic de I'eau, reniplissant les dtux 
 golfes. Le priSfixc t pour ti scrait une prejiosition; faisant to, il signific 
 Torbite de I'ltil, en quich(S, image dc I'abtnic que la boulc noire romplit com- 
 
132 
 
 ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES. 
 
 
 
 
 me sa prunelle, co dont voiis pouvcz vous assurer dnns la figure de lu page 
 auivaiite; to est, en outre, I'aide, riiistrnineiit, deveiiaiit tool; inais eu iiiexi- 
 cain, t», prhnitif de ton, est la chalcur dc I'eau Itouilluiite. Tol, coiitractti de 
 to-ol, jmurrait done avoir signifitS "le liquidc Iwuillant," ou la venue de la 
 chaleur bouillante, de renibrascnicnt. Avee terM, etendre, le mot entier tol- 
 teca, nous aurions done, «^tcndre le courbu, etc., et tol-teeatl, le toltbque, 
 serait cc qui dtcnd le courlte ou I'englouti, ou bicn I'cau liuuillante, etc. Ces 
 etymologies rcntrent done toutes dans la nienie \d6e <iui, sous bicn des rap- 
 ports, fait dcs Tolteques, uue des puissances telluriques, destructrices de la 
 tcrre '.u Croissant.' Id., Qiiatrc Lettrcs, pp. 118-20. 
 
 ToTONACS; — From tototl and nacatl, 'bird-flesb;' or from tona, 'to be 
 wann.' liuschmanH, Ortsnamcn, p. 13. 'Tototiaco significa & la Ictra, tres 
 corazones eu iiu sentido, y tres i)analcscn otro,' from totp, 'tbrce,' and naco, 
 'heart,' in the Totonac language. Domingucz, in Pimentcl, Citadro, tom. i., 
 pp. 22C-7. 'Totoiial, el signo, en que alguuo nasce, o el alniii y espiritu.' 
 Molina, Vorabnlario. 
 
 TlTUL-Xll'S;— 'Le nom des Tutul-Xiu paruft d'origine nahuatl; il serait 
 d(5rive de toiol, tototl, oiseau, et de xiuitl, ou xi/iuitl, herltc.' lirasscur de 
 Bourbourg, in Landn, Rcl. dc las Cosas dc Yucatan, p. 47. 
 
 Xr'ALANCAS; — ' Xicalli, vaso de calabafa.' Molina, Vocabulario. Xi- 
 calli, 'place of this si^eciesof calabash o' drinking-shell.' iiu -hmann, Orts- 
 namcn, p. 17. 'Xicalanco, la Ville des courges ou des tasses faitcs de la 
 courge et appelce Xicalli dans ces contrecs, et dont Ics Espagnols ont fait 
 Xicara.' lirasscur dc Bourbourg, Hist. Xat. dr., tom. i., i>. 110. 
 
 XocillMlLCAS; — From xoc/titl, 'flower,' and milli, 'piece of hind,' mean- 
 ing 'place of flower-fields.' Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 94. 'Xochimicque 
 captiuos en guerra.' Molina, Vocabulario. 'Xorhiniilca, habitants de Xo- 
 chimilco, lieu oil Ton sfcme tout on has de la Base, nom de la terre v»5g«S- 
 tale et fertile oil Ton enscmcn^-ait, wt'//, qu'oii rctourne, d'oii le mot mil ou 
 milli, champ, terre ensemcnctJe, et sans (h)utc aussi le latin milium, notro 
 mil et millet.^ 'J'ajouterai seulcmcnt que ce nom sigiiifie dans le langugo 
 ordinaire, ceux qui cultivcnt de fleiirs, do xuchM, fleur, littcralcmcnt, cc qui 
 vit sous la Imse.' Brasscur de Bourbourg, Quatrc Lcttns, pp. 406-8. 
 
 Voppi; — 'Lhimanles yopcs jMiniue su tiorra sc llama Yopinsinco.' Saha- 
 
 gun. Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. .\., p. 13.5. 'Inferimos que yoiMj, yojii, jope, 
 
 scguii scencuentra escrita i.i palabru en vurios lugarcs, es sinonimo de tlapa- 
 neca.' Oroscoy Bcrra, Gcografia, pp. 2G-7. Yopaa, 'Laud of Tombs.' Bras- 
 scur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Cii\, tom. iii., p. 9. 
 
 Zapotecs; — 'I'za/mtl, cicrta fruta coiiocida.' Molina, Vocabulario. Tza- 
 potlan, 'place of the zai)otes, trees or fruits.' Buschmann, Ortsnamcn, p. 16. 
 'Derivadode hi pahibra mc.\icuna tzajmtlan, que significa "lugar dc los zajyo- 
 tes," nombre castcllaiiizudo de una fruta niuy conocida.' Pimentcl, Cuat'ro, 
 tom. i., p. 319. ' Zajmtrcapan est le nom que les Me.xicains avaicnt donnd 
 \i cette contree, h, cause de la (piantite ct de la qualite su|)erieure de ses fruiti'. 
 Brasscur dc Bourbourg, Hist. Xat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 38. 
 
 Z0TZILE.S; — '/otzil, murc'i61ago.' Pimentcl, C'uadro, torn, ii., p. 245. 
 Zotzillm 'signifie la ville dcs Chauves-Souris.' Brasscur dc Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 88. 
 
CHAPTER TIL 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 System of Govkkxmext -The Aztec Confedeuacy— Order of Suc- 
 cession— Klkction OF KfXGS AMONG THE MEXICANS— ROYAL PRE- 
 ROGATIVES— GOVERNMENT- ANI> Laws of Succession among the 
 ToLTEcs and in Miciioacan, Tlascala, Cholula, Hlexotzinco, 
 and OAuAca— Magnificence of the Nahi;a Monakchs — Cere- 
 mony OF Anointment— Ascent to the Temi'LE— The Holy I'nc- 
 TioN— Address of the High-Priest to the Kino— Penance and 
 Fasting in the House called Tlacatecco- Homage of the No- 
 bles-General Rejoicing throughout the Kingdom— Ceremony 
 OF Coronation— The Procuring of Sacrifices— Description of 
 the Crown— Coronations, Feasts, and Entertainments— Hospi- 
 tality EXTENDED TO ENEMIES — CORONATION-SPEECH OF NEZAHUAL- 
 
 pilli, King of Tezcuco, to Montezuma II. of Mexico — Oration 
 
 OF A NOULE to a NEWLV ELECTED KiNG. 
 
 The prevailing form of government among the civ- 
 ilized nations of Mexico and Central America was 
 monarchical and nearly absolute, although some of the 
 smaller and less powerful states, as for instance, Tlas- 
 cala, affected an aristocratic republican system. The 
 three great confederated states of ^lexico, Tezcuco, and 
 Tlacopan were each governed by a king, who had su- 
 l)reme authority in his own dominion, and in matters 
 touching it alone. Where, however, the welfare of 
 the whole allied comnumity was involved, no one king 
 could act without the concurrence of the others ; never- 
 theless, the judgment of one who was held to be 
 especially skilful and wise iri any question under con- 
 
 (133) 
 
134 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 sideration, was usually deferred to by his colleagues. 
 Thus in matters of war, or foreign relations, the opin- 
 ion of the king of Mexico had most weight, while in 
 the administration of home government, and in deci- 
 sions respecting the rights of persons, it was customary 
 during the reigns of ]the two royal sages of Tezcuco, 
 Nezahualcoyotl and Nezahualpilli, to respect their 
 counsel above all other. ^ The relative importance of 
 these three kingdoms must, however, have shown 
 greater disparity as fresh conquests were made, since 
 in the division of territory acquired by force of arms, 
 Tlacopan received only one fifth, and of the remainder, 
 judging by the relative power and extent of the states 
 when the Spaniards arrived, it is probable that Mex- 
 ico took the larger share. ^ 
 
 In Tezcuco and Tlacopan the order of succession 
 was lineal and hereditary, in Mexico it was collateral 
 and elective. In the two former kingdoms, however, 
 
 '■ 
 
 * Las Casas, Hist. Apoloffi'fica, MS., cap. ccxi. ; Zurita, Rapport, in Tcr- 
 naux-C'ompaiis, Voy., seric ii., toiii. i., p. 1)5; Torqucmada, Moiiarq. Itid., 
 toni. u., p. 354. 
 
 ''' Ixtlilxocliitl, for wlio.sc putriutisni due allowance must l>c inatlc, writes : 
 'Es verdad, que el de Mexico y Tezcuco fucrou iguales en dignidud 
 scuoriu y rentas; y el dc Tlaco])an solu tenia cierta parte conio la quin- 
 ta, en lo que era rentas y despues en los otros dos.' Hist. Ckic'iimcca, in 
 Kiiigsboroiigh's Mrx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 238. Zurita also aHirnis this: 
 'Dans ccrtaines, les tributs <5tuicnt repurtis en p')rtions dgalcs, ct dans 
 d'ttutrcs on en faisait cinq narts: le souverain de Mexico et celui dc Tez- 
 cuco en prelevaient cliacun deux, celui de Tacuba une seule.' Itappovt, in 
 Tcrnaux-ComjMHs, Voy., serie ii., toni. i., p. 12. 'Qucdo pues detenninado 
 que )l los estados de Tlacopan sc agregase la quinta parte dc las ticrras 
 nuevanientc comiuistados, y el resto se dividiesc i^ualniente entrc el principc 
 yelreyde Mi^jico.' Vcytia, llist. Aiif. Mfj.,ton\. iii., n. 164. Bra.sseurde Bour- 
 bourg agrees with and takes his inforniatiun from Ixtlilxocliitl. Ni.st. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii., p. 191. Torqueniuda makes a fardiflcrent division: 'Concur- 
 riendo los tres, se diese la quinta parte al Jiei de TIacupa, y el Tereio de lo 
 que quedase, h Ncfalhualcoiotl; y los demas, a Itzcohuatzin, como il Cabc^a 
 Maior, y Suprema.' Monarq. I»f/., torn, i., p. 140. As also does Clavigero: 
 'Si dictlc quella Corona (Tlacopan) a Totoquihuatzin sotto la condizione 
 di scrvir con tutte le sue trupiie al Ke di Messico, ogni volta die il ricliie- 
 dessc, assegnando a lui medesinm \HiT cih la quinta parte delle spoglie, cho 
 si avessero dui neniici. .Siniilniente Nezaluialcojotl fu messo in ])osscsso 
 del trono d'Acolhuacan sotto la condizione di dover soccorrere i Mcssicani 
 ncllu gueiTO, e itcrcio gli fu aasegnatu la terza iNirtc della preda, cavatane 
 prima quella del Uc di Tacuba, restando I'altrc due tcrze parti ])cl lie Mcs- 
 sicano. 5^^orjrt Ant. del Mes,iico, torn, i., p. 224. Prescott snys it was ajp^ced 
 that 'one fifth should be assigned to Tlacopan, and the remainder l>e divided, 
 in what projiortion is uncertain, between the other {towers.' 3fcx., vol. 1., 
 p. 18. 
 
ORDER OF SUCCESSION. 
 
 185 
 
 although the sons succeeded their fathers, it was not 
 according to birth, but according to rank; the sons 
 of the queen, or principal wife, who was generally a 
 daughter of the royal house of Mexico, being al- 
 ways preferred to the rest.'' In Mexico, the eldest 
 surviving brother of the deceased monarch was gen- 
 erally elected to the throne, and when there were no 
 more brothers, then the nephews, commencing with 
 the eldest son of the first brother that had died; but 
 this order was not necessarily observed, since the elec- 
 tors, though restricted in their choice to one family, 
 could set aside the claims of those whom they con- 
 sidered incompetent to reign; and, indeed, it was 
 their particular duty to select from among the rela- 
 tives of the deceased king the one best fitted 
 to bear the dignity and responsibility of supreme 
 lord.* During the early days of the Mexican mon- 
 
 ' Torquciiiada, Monarq. Titd., torn, ii., i>. ""'»; Zurita, Rapport, in Ter- 
 timix-Coiupaiis, Voi/., seric ii., toni. i., pp. I'JI-l.S; Clavigcro, Storia Ant, del 
 Mcsm'co, toin. ii., p. 116; Brasseur de liourbourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., iom. iii., 
 p 577. 
 
 * Torqucinadiv writes: 'csta fue costuinhrc de estos Mexicanos, en las 
 Eleccioncs, que luiciiin, (jiic fiiesen Reiuando succsivanientc, Ids Hennanos, 
 viios desniics de otro8, y acabando de Rcinar el vltiino, eutraba en su lugar, 
 el Hijo uc Hermano Alaior, nuc prinicro avia Hcinado, que era Sobrinu de 
 los otros Reies, qui iv su r.utre avian sucedido.' Monarq. Iiid., toni. i., p. 
 107. 'Loa Reies (of Mexico) no hcrcdaban, niuo que eran elej^idos, y como 
 vinios en el Libro de los Reies, quando el Rei nioria, si tenia lierniano, cn- 
 traba heredando; y niuerto estc, otro, si lo avia; y quando faltaba, le suce- 
 dia el sobrino, Hijo de su hermano niaior, h, qnien, por su niucrte, uvia su- 
 cedido, y lue};o el hermano de este, y asl dt.scurrian iwr los dcmas.' Id., 
 toiu. ii., p. 177. Zurita states that in Tezcuco and IMaoopan, and their 
 dependent nrovinces, 'le droit de succes.sion le phis ordiiniire etait celui 
 du sanf? en lij,'ne directe de pere en tils; mais tons les fils n'lieritaient jKiint, 
 il n'y avait que le tils aine de I'epouse princi|)ale que le souverain avait 
 choisie dans cette intention. Elle jouissait dune plus ;;rande considera- 
 tion que les autres, et les sujets la resi»ectaient davantai^e. Lorsciue le 
 S(»uverain prenuient une de ses femmcs dans hi famille de Mexico, elle occu- 
 pait le premier ranp, et son Ills succedait, s'il etait ('ai)able.' Tiien, without 
 detiuitely statin<; wiietlier he is sjieakiuK of all or part of the three kiuf^- 
 doms ill question, tiie author };oes on to say, that in default of direct lieirs 
 tiie succession Iwcanie collateral; and filially, speaking in tliis instance of 
 Jlexico alone, he says, that in the event of the kiiij? dyinj,' without heirs, 
 his successor was elected by the principal nobles. In a previous i>ara{,'raph 
 he writes: 'L'ordre de succession variait suivant les provinces; les memes 
 usages, 11 pen de ditterence pies, tStaient re\!U8 ii Mexico, ii Te/cuco et a. 
 Tacuba.' Afterward we read: 'Dans quelques i)roviiices, conime par ex- 
 einple t\ Mexico, les frbres tSfaient adinis li la succession, mioiqn'il y eilt des 
 fils, et iU gouvcriiaiciit Buccessivement.' Rapport, in Ternuiix-Oomjmiis, 
 
186 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 archy the king was elected by vote of the whole peo- 
 ple, who were guided in their choice by their leaders; 
 even the women appear to have had a voice in the 
 
 Vol/., 8«Sric ii., torn, i., pp. 12-18. M. I'AbW Brosseurdc Bourbourg, tak- 
 iii<; liis information from Zurita, and, indeed, almost quoting literally from 
 the French translation of that author, agrees that the direct line of succes- 
 siou obtained in Tlacopan and Tezcuco, but asserts, regarding Mexico, that 
 the sovereign was elected by the five principal ministers of the state, who 
 were, however, restricted in their choice to the brothers, nephews, or sons 
 of the deceased monarch. Hist. Nat, Civ., toni. iii., pp. 576-7. Pimentel 
 also follows Zurita. Memoria, p. 26. Prescutt atlirms that 'the sovereign 
 was selected from the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in default of 
 them, from his nephews.' Mcx., vol. i., p. 23. Sahagun merely says: 'Esco- 
 gian uno de los mas nobles de la linea de los senorcs antepasados,' who 
 <<br"ild lie a valiant, wise, aud accomplished man. Hint. Gen., torn, ii., lib. 
 viii., p. 318. 'Per non lasciar troppa liberty agli Elettori, e per impcdire, 
 quauto fosse possibile, griuconvenienti de' |iartiti, o fazioni, fissurono la co- 
 rona ncUa casa d'Acamnpitzin; c poi stabiliroiio per Icggc, die al Ue morto 
 dovesse succedere uno de'suoi fratelli, c muncando i fratelli, uno de'suoi 
 nipoti, e sc mai non ve nc fossero neppur di qiiesti, uno de'Hiioi cugini res- 
 tando in Imlia de<;li Elettori lo sccglierc tra i fratelli, o trii iiipoti del Re 
 morto cului, clie ricouoscessero piii idoneo pel governo, schivuudo con si fatta 
 legge parecchj inconvenient! da noi altrove accennati.' Clavigcro, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 112. Leon Carlmjal quotes this almost 
 literally. Discurso, pp. 54-5. That the eldest son could put forward no 
 claim to the crown by right of primogeniture, is evident from the following: 
 'Quando algun Scnor moria y ucxava muchos hijos, si alguno se alzava en 
 palacio y se queria |)rcfcrir d los otros, aunque fuese el mayor, no lo con- 
 scntia ei Senor A, quicn pertenecia la confirmacion, y nienos el pueblo. Antes 
 dexavan iHisar un uno, 6 mas de otro, en cl qual consideravan bieii que era 
 mejor para regir 6 governar el estado, y oquel [lennanecia por senor.' Las 
 Casas, Hist. ApologHica, MS., cap. ccxiii. Seilor Carlmjal Espinosa says 
 that from the election of ChimaljMtpoca, who succeeded liis brother Huit- 
 zilihuitl, and was the third king ot Mexico, 'qued6 establecida la ley de 
 clegir uno de los liennanos del rey difunto, y & falta de dstos un so- 
 brino, cuya prilctica se observ6 constautcmente, conio lo har^mos ver, 
 hasta la ruina del imperio niexicano.' Hist, do Mex., torn, i., p. 334. 'El 
 Impcrio era montirquico, ]iero no hercditario. Muricndo el Emperador 
 los gefes del Imiicrio antiguamente se juntaban y elegian entre si mismos 
 al que creian mas digno, y por el cual la intriga, el niancjo, la suiier- 
 sticion, eran nuis fclizmente reconocidas.' Carli, Cartas, pt i., p. 114. 
 'Tambieii aula sucession ]Mtr sangrc, sucedia cl hi jo mayor, sienilo imm 
 ello, y sino el otro: en defeto de los hijos sucedian nietos, y en defeto 
 dcUos yua por elecion.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. xv. As 
 the order in wliirli the Mexican kings actually did follow each other should 
 be stronger proof of what was the law than any other evidence, I take from 
 the Codex Mendoza the foUowinjg list: Acamapichtli, who is usually spoken 
 of as the first king, succeeded Tcnuch, althou^^h it is not stated that he 
 was related to him in any way; then came Huicilyhuitl, son of Acamapich- 
 tli; Chinutlpupuca, son ot Huicilyhuitl; Yzcoaci, son of Acamapichtli; Hue- 
 liucmoteccunia, son of Huicilyhuitl; Axayacaci, son of Tecocomochtli, and 
 •mindson of Yzcoaci; Ti9ov'icatzi, son of Axayacaci; Ahuipo^in, brother of 
 ri909icatzi; Motecpunui, sou of Axayacaci; tlius, acconling to this author, 
 we sec, out of nine monurchs, tiiicc succeeded directly ])y their sons, and 
 three by their brothers. Esplicacion, in Kingsborouffh's Mcx. Antiq., vol. v., 
 )p. 42-53. See further, Vei/tia, Hist. Ant. Mei., and Ilrasseur de Botir- 
 tourtf. Hist. Nat. Civ. These writers diiTer slightly from the collection above 
 quoted, but iu uo important respect. 
 
 I 
 
ELECTION OF KINGS. 
 
 187 
 
 matter at this period." Afterwards, the duty of elect- 
 ing the king of Mexico devolved upon four or five of 
 the chief men of the empire. The kings of Tezcuco 
 and Tlacopan were also electors, but with merely an 
 honorary rank ; they ratified the decision of the others, 
 but probably took no direct part in the election, al- 
 though their influence and wishes doubtless carried 
 great weight with the council. As soon as the new 
 king had been chosen tae body of electors was dis- 
 solved, and others were appointed in their place, whose 
 duties also tenninated with their first electoral vote." 
 
 osa says 
 Huit- 
 ley de 
 un so- 
 
 suiMjr- 
 
 114. 
 
 o ])ara 
 
 defeto 
 
 cv. As 
 
 should 
 
 fc from 
 
 spoken 
 
 }\at he 
 
 iiapich- 
 
 Hiic- 
 
 rli, and 
 
 thcr of 
 
 tuthor, 
 
 IS, and 
 
 vol. v., 
 
 Bour- 
 
 abovo 
 
 2 After the death of Acamapichtli, the first king of Mexico, a general 
 council was held, and the i)copIe were addressed as follows: 'Ya es fuUido 
 nuostro rey Acamapichtli, a ({uicn pondrenios en su lugar, que rija y gohicr- 
 ne cste pueblo Mexicuiio? Pohres de los viejos, ninos y mugercs viejus que 
 hay: que serii dc nosotros d doiule ir^mos d dcniandar rey que sea de nucstra 
 patria y nacion Mexicana? hablen todos parade cual parte elegirdmos rey, 6 
 ninguno pucde dcjar de hablar, pucs & todos nos imiiorta pura el reparo, y 
 cal)cza <lc nuestra patria Mexicana est^.' Uiwn Huitzilihuitl lieiug pro- 
 posed, 'todos juntos, mancebos, viejus y viejas respondieron & una: que sea 
 niucho de enhombuena, que d el quiercn jior sefiur y rey.' Tezozomoc, Crv- 
 iHca Mcx., in Kingshorough^a Mrx. Aiitiq., vol. ix., p. 10. Sahagun's de- 
 scription of their manner of electing kings, apiiears also to be more appro- 
 priate to this early periotl than to a later date: 'Cuando moria el scnor 6 rey 
 f)ara clcgir otro, juntiibanse los scnadores one Uamaban tccutlutoque, jr tam- 
 »ien los viejos del pueblo cjuc Uanialmn achcacauhti, y tambien los capitanes 
 sokludos viejos dc la gucrra que Ihiniaban lauiequioaqiie, v otros cajiitanea 
 one cran ])rincipales en las cosas de la guerra, y tambien los Sdtrapas quo 
 llainaban Tlenamacuzquc 6 jHi/moaque: todos estos se juntabiui en las cusas 
 rcalcs, y alii dclibcratiau y detenninalHin quicn habia de ser seflor.' Hist. 
 Gen., tom. ii., lib. viii., p. 318; Acosta, Hist, de las Yntl., p. 439. 
 
 s The exact numlwr and rank of these electors is hard to detei-mine. 
 'Si Ic souverain de Mexico mourait sans hdritier, les priuciiMiux chefs lui 
 choisissaicnt un succcsseur dont I'clection ciait confirmee par ics chefs sujxi- 
 ricurs de Tezcuco et Tacuba.' Ziirita, Rapport, in Tcniaux-Comuaiis, Voy., 
 serie ii., torn, i., pp. 15-l(i, Pinientel follows this, Mem. suhre la Raza in- 
 (Hqena, p. 26: 'Tutti e due i He (of Tezcuco and Tlacopan) furonu creati 
 Eiettori onorarj del Ke di Messico, il qual ouore soltanto riducevasi a rat- 
 ificare I'elezion fatta daquattro Nobili Messicani, ch'erano i vori Eiettori.' 
 Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del Messino, tom. i., p. 224. 'Despues en tiem)>odc 
 Izcoatl quarto Key, iwr cousejo y orden de vn sabio y valeroso hombre, que 
 tuuieron llamado Tlacaellcl se sefndaron quatro elcctores, y a estos junta- 
 niente con dos seuores, o Ueyes sujetos al Mexicano, que eran el de Tez- 
 ciico, y cl de TucuImi, tocaua hazer la elcciou.' Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., 
 1». 439. These four electors 'de ordinario eran hermanos, o parientcs muy 
 cercanos del Uey. Llamauan a estos Tlacohccalcktl, que significu el Prin- 
 cipe de las lanyas arrojadizas, que era vn gcnero de arnuis que cllos mu- 
 clio vsauan.' Id. p. 441. 'Seis elcctores clegian el Enii>erador, dos de 
 cuales eran sicniprc los principes de Tescuco d de Acolhuacan y de Ta- 
 cuba, y un prluciiMJ de la sangre real' Carli, Cartas, pt i., p. 114. 'Four of 
 the principal nobles, who had been chosen by their own body in the pre- 
 ceding reign, filled the office of electors, to whom were tulded, with merely 
 an honorary rank however, the two royal allies of Tezcuco and TIaco{ian.' 
 
188 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 This plan of election was not without its advantages. 
 As the persons to whom the choice was entrusted were 
 great ministers or lords who lived at court, they had 
 better opportunities of observing the true character of 
 the future candidates for the throne than the common 
 people, who are ever too apt to judge, by pleasing ex- 
 terior rather than by real merit, those with whose 
 private life they can have no acquaintance. In the 
 next place, the high private rank of the Mexican 
 electors placed them beyond the ordinary influence of 
 bribery or threats; and thus the state was in a meas- 
 ure free from that system of corruption which makes 
 the voice of the people a mockery in more democratic 
 communities, and which would have prevailed to a far 
 greater extent in a country where feudal relations ex- 
 isted between lord and vassal. Then again, the free- 
 dom of choice accorded to electors enabled them to 
 prevent imbeciles from assuming the responsibilities 
 of kingship, and thus the most conspicuous evil of an 
 hereditary monarchy was avoided. 
 
 The almost absolute authority vested in the person 
 
 PrescotVs Mex., vol. i., p. 23. Brosseur de Bourbonrg gives the style and 
 title of cacli elector, and says they were five in nuniwr, but does not state 
 his authority; *Les principaux dignitaires du royaume, le Cihuacohuatl ou 
 Ministre supreme de la justice ct de la maison du roi, le Tlacochcalcatl, 
 Guntiralissinie ou Maitre de la maison des Amies, I'Atenipanecatl, ou 
 Grand-Ma'itre des Eaux, I'Ezhuahuacatl, ou le Mattre du Sang, et le Tli- 
 llancalqui, ou chef de la Maison-Noire, coniposant entre eux le conseii 
 de la nionarchie, elisaicnt celui qui leur paraissait le plus aptc aux affaires 
 
 publiqucs, ct lui donnaient la couronne II est douteux que Ics rois de 
 
 Tetzcuco et de TIacopan aient jamais oris une parte directe h ce clioix.' Hist. 
 Nat. Cic, torn, iii., wp. 577-8. At the foot of the same page is the follow- 
 
 ing note: 'Si havia duda 6 diferencia quien debia de ser rey, averiguase lo 
 mas aina que pcxlian, y sino poco tenian que hacer (los seuores de Tetzcuco 
 y Tlacapan). Goinnra, Crdnica de Nucva-EspaHa, ap. Barcia, cap. 99. 
 This quotation is not to be found, however in the place indicated. 'Crearon 
 cuatro clectores, en cuya opinion se comprometian todos los votos del reino. 
 Eran aquellos funcionarios, magnates y seiiores de la primera nobleza, co- 
 niuniuente de sangre real, y de tanta pnidencia y probidad, cuanta se nece- 
 sitaba para un car^o tan importante.' Carbajal Esjrinosa, Hist. Mcx., toin. 
 i,, p. 578. 'File el quinto Key, Motezuma priniero deste nombre; y {wrque, 
 
 Sara la eleciou auia quatro eletores, con los quales inl;erueiiian los lieyes 
 e Tezcuco y de Tacuba. Se junt6 con ellos Tlacaellcl como Capitan'i^c- 
 neral, y salib elegido su sobrino Motezuma.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., 
 lib. ii., cap. xiii. After the king in rank, 'eran los quatro electores del Rey, 
 que tambien sucedian por elecion, y I'e ordinario eran hermanos, o pari- 
 eiites cercanos del Key, y a estos llaniauan en su Iciigua, Priucipes de las 
 lan9as arrojadizas, annas que ellos vsauan.' Id., cap. xix. 
 
POWER OF MEXICAN KINGS. 
 
 180 
 
 style and 
 not state 
 luhuatl ou 
 hcalcatl, 
 iccatl, ou 
 et le Tli- 
 le conseil 
 IX affaires 
 es rois do 
 oix.' Hist. 
 he foUow- 
 riguasc lo 
 Tetzcuco 
 cap. 99. 
 'Crearon 
 del reino. 
 blcza, co- 
 a se nece- 
 lex., torn, 
 y jwrque, 
 Ids Reyes 
 upitau ^c- 
 , dec. iii., 
 del Rey, 
 8, o pari- 
 pes de las 
 
 of the sovereign rendered great discrimination neces- 
 sary in his selection. It was essential that the ruler 
 of a people surrounded by enemies and continually 
 bent upon conquest, should be an approved and vali- 
 ant warrior; having the personal direction of state 
 affairs, it was necessary that he should be a deep and 
 subtle politician; the gross superstition and theocratic 
 tendencies of the governed required the governor to 
 be versed in religion, holding the gods in reverence; 
 and the records of the nation prove that he was gen- 
 erally a man of culture, and a patron of art and sci- 
 ence. 
 
 In its first stages the Mexican monarchy partook 
 rather of an aristocratic than of an absolute nature. 
 Though the king was ostensibly the supreme head of 
 the state, he was expected to confer with his council, 
 which was composed of the royal electors, and other 
 exalted personages, before deciding upon any impor- 
 tant step;'' and though the legislative power rested 
 entirely in his hands, the executive government was 
 entrusted to legularly appointed officials and courts of 
 justice. As the empire, owing to the able administra- 
 tion of a succession of conquering princes, increased in 
 greatness, the royal power gradually increased, al- 
 though I find nothing of constitutional amendments or 
 reconstructions until the time of Montezuma II., when 
 the authority of all tribunals was reduced almost to a, 
 dead letter, if opposed to the desires or commands of 
 the king. 
 
 The neighboring independent and powerful king- 
 
 ^Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 441, gives the namcn of three militaiy 
 orders, of which the four royal electors foniicd one; and of a fourth, which 
 was of a sacerdotal character. All tliese were of tlie royal council, and 
 without their advice the king could do notliing of inipoi-tance. Herrera 
 helps himself to this from Acosta almost word for word: dec. iii., lib. ii., 
 cap. xix. Sahagun implies tliat this supreme council was composed of only 
 four members: 'Elegido el sefior, lucgo elegian otros cuatro que eran como 
 senadores que siempre habian de estar al lado de ^1, y entcnder en todos los 
 ncgocios graves de reino, (estos cuatro tenian en diversos lugares divcrsos 
 nombres). Hist. Gen., tom. ii., lib. viii., p. 318. According to Ixtlilxochitl 
 the council whose duties corres]H>nded to this in Tczcuco, was com]x>sed of 
 fourteen members. Hist. Chichimeca, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 ix., p. 243; Veytia, Hist, Ant. Mcj., torn. 11., y, 132. 
 
140 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 doni of Michoacan was governed by an absolute mon- 
 arch, who usually resided at his capital, on lake 
 Patzcuaio. Over each province was placed a gover- 
 nor, chosen from the first ranks of the nobility, who 
 ruled with great if not absolute authority, in the name 
 of the king, and maintained a court that was in almost 
 every respect a miniature of that of his sovereign. 
 The order of succession was hereditary and lineal, the 
 eldest son generally succeeding to the throne. The 
 selection of a successor, however, was left to the reign- 
 ing king, who, when he felt himself to be near his end, 
 was at liberty to choose from among his sons the one 
 whom he thought best fitted to govern. In order 
 to test his capability and accustom him to handling 
 the reigns of government, and that he might have the 
 old monarch's advice, the chosen heir immediately 
 began to exercise the functions of king. A custom 
 similar to this existed among the ancient Toltecs. 
 Their kings were only permitted to reign for a xinh- 
 molpilli, that is to say an 'age,' which was fifty-two 
 years, after which time the eldest son was invested 
 with royal authority and commenced to reign.* When 
 the old Michoacan monarch fell sick, the son who 
 had been nominated as his successor immediately dis- 
 patched messengers to all the grandees of the king- 
 dom, with orders to repair immediately to the capital. 
 None was exempt from being present, and a failure to 
 comply with the summons was held to be l^se-majest^. 
 Having assembled at the palace, if the invalid is able 
 to receive them, the nobles pass one by one through 
 his chamber and with words of condolence and en- 
 couragement seek to comfort him. Before leaving 
 the palace each mourner deposits in the throne-room 
 certain presents, brought for the occasion as a more 
 substantial testimonial of his sorrow. If, however, 
 the physicians pronounce the royal patient beyond 
 hope of recovery, no one is allowed to see him.' 
 
 • Torquemada, Monarq. Tnd., torn, i., p. 37. 
 
 9 Beaumont, Crdn. de Mcchoamn, pp. 52, 54-6; Torquemada, Monarq. 
 
GOVERNMENt IN TLASCALA. 
 
 141 
 
 He who reads the romantic gtory of the conquest, 
 feels his heart warm towards that staunch little nation 
 of warriors, the Tlascaltees. There is that about the 
 men who ute their meat saltless for fifty years rather 
 than humble themselves before the mighty despots of 
 Mexico, that savors of the same material that defied 
 the Persian host at Thermopylse. Had the Tlascal- 
 tees steadily opposed the Spaniards, Cortes never could 
 have gone forward to look upon the face of King Mon- 
 tezuma, nor backward to King Charles as the con- 
 queror of New Spain; the warriors who routed their 
 allied enemies on the bloody plains of Poyauhtlan, as- 
 suredly could have offered the hearts of the invaders 
 an acceptable sacrifice to the gods of Tlascala. The 
 state of Tlascala, though invariably spoken of as a 
 republic, was certainly not so in the modern accept- 
 ation of the term. At the time of the conquest 
 it was governed by four supreme lords, each inde- 
 pendent in his own territory, and possessed of equal 
 authority with the others in matters concerning the 
 welfare of all.*" A parliament or senate, composed of 
 these four lords and the rest of the nobility, settled 
 the affairs of government, especially those relating to 
 peace and war. The law of succession was much the 
 same as in Michoacan. The chief before his death 
 named the son whom he wished to succeed him, who, 
 however, did not, as in Michoacan, commence to gov- 
 ern until after his fathoi'b death. The old chief's 
 choice was restricted in two ways: in the first place 
 the approval of his three colleagues was necessary; 
 
 Ind., torn, ii., pp. 3.38, 523; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 138; 
 Zurita, Rapport, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., sdrie ii., toin. i., p. 17; Go- 
 mam, Coiiq. Mcx., fol. 310-11; Pimentel, Mem. Razd Indiyciia,n. 27; Bras- 
 ieiir (le Bourbourg, Hht. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 82. In the iVvsl-Itidische 
 Spicg/tel, pp. 265-^5, wc read: 'Dese Stadt ende Provincie wicrden voor de 
 coinste der Spacnjacrdcn soo treffelick gheregecrt, al» ceniirhe van die Lan- 
 ilcii, daer was een Cacique die absolutelick regeerdc, staentYe ondcr de ghe- 
 hoorsaeniheydt van de grootc Hecre van Tenoxtitlan.' The old chronicler 
 is mistaken here, however, as the kingdom of Michoacan was never in 
 ony way subject to Mexico. 
 
 1* Clavigero says that the city of Tlascala was divided into four parts, 
 each division having its lord, to whom all places dependent on such division 
 were likewise subject. Storia Ant. del Messico, toni. i., p. 155. 
 
t4l 
 
 THE NAHl'A NATIONS. 
 
 and secondly, legitimate sons, that is the sons of a 
 wife to whom he had been united according to certain 
 forms, must take precedence of his other children. In 
 default of sons, the brothers of the deceased chief suc- 
 ceeded." In any event the property of the late ruler 
 was inherited by his brothers, who also, according to 
 a custom which we shall find to be almost universal 
 among the civilized peoples of the New World, mar- 
 ried his widows." Such infonuation as I find upon 
 the subject ascribes the same form of government to 
 Cholula and Huexotzinco, that was found in Tlas- 
 cala." The Miztecs and Zapotecs acknowledged one 
 supreme chief or king; the law of inheritance with 
 them was similar to that of Tlascala, except that in 
 default of sons a daughter could inherit." The Zapo- 
 tecs appear, at least in the more ancient times, to 
 have been, if possible, even more priest-ridden than 
 their neighbors; the orders of priests existing among 
 them were, as will be seen elsewhere, numerous, and 
 seem to have possessed great power, secular as well as 
 sacerdotal. Yopaa, one of their principal cities, was 
 ruled absolutely by a pontiff, in whom the Zapotec 
 monarchs had a powerful rival. It is impossible to 
 overrate the reverence in which this spiritual king 
 was held. He was looked upon as a god, whom the 
 earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine 
 upon. He profaned his sanctity if he so much as 
 touched the ground with his foot. The officers who 
 bore his palanquin upon their shoulders were mem- 
 bers of the first Zapotec families; he scarcely deigned 
 to look upon anything abo'it him. He never appeared 
 in public, except with the most extraordinary pomp, 
 
 " Torqttenuula, Monarq. Iiid., torn, i., pp. 200, 276, toiii. ii., pp. 347-9; 
 Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. ii. ; Laet, Noviis Orbis, p. 262; Pintentel, Mem. 
 Rctzn Indigena, p. 27; Prescott's Mex., vol. i., p. 4ll. 
 
 11 Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvellcs Annates des Voy., 1849, torn, xcviii., 
 p. 197. 
 
 }^ Torqiiemada, Monarq. Ltd., torn, ii., pp. 350-1. 
 
 I* Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. xii. Brasseur de Boiir- 
 Imurg writes: 'Dans Ics divers dtnts du Mixtecapan, les heritages pass>aient 
 de inftle en m&le, sans que les fcmmes pusscnt y avoir droit.' Hist. Nat, 
 Civ., torn, ill., p. 39; this may, however, refer merely to private property. 
 
THE PONTIFF OF YOPAA. 
 
 143 
 
 jomp, 
 
 347-9; 
 \l, Mem. 
 
 XCVUI., 
 
 and all who met him fell with their faces to the qfround, 
 fearing that death would overtake them were they to 
 look upon the face of the holy Wiyatao, as he was 
 called. The most powerful lords never entered his 
 presence except with eyes lowered and feet bared, 
 and even the Zapotec pnnces of the blood nmst occu- 
 py a seat before him lower than his own. Continence 
 was strictly imposed upon the Zapotec priests, and 
 especially was it incumbent upon the pontiff of Yopaa, 
 from the eminence of his position, to be a shininjr lighl 
 of chastity for the guidance of those who looked up 
 to him; yot was the pontifical dignity hereditary in 
 the family of the Wiyatao. TiO way in which this 
 paradox is explained is as follows: on certain days 
 m each year, which were generally celebrated with 
 feasts and dances, it was customary for the high- 
 priest to become drunk. While in this state, seemmg 
 to belong neither to heaven nor to earth, one of the 
 most beautiful <'f the virgins consecrated to the service 
 of the gods \v .s brought to him. If the result of 
 this holy deli Aich proved to be a male infant, the child 
 was brought up with great care as a prince of the 
 royal family. The eldest son of the reigning pontiff 
 inherited the throne of Yopaa, or in default of chil- 
 dren, the high-priest's nearest relative succeeded. 
 The j'^ounger children devoted themselves to the serv- 
 ice of the gods, or married and remained laymen, 
 according to their inclination or the paternal wish; in 
 either case the most honorable and important positions 
 usually fell to their lot." 
 
 T' omp and circumstance which surrounded the 
 Aztec nionarchs, and the magnificence of their every- 
 day life was most impressive. From the moment of 
 ills corui..ition the Aztec sovereign lived in an atmos- 
 1 iiere of adulation unknown to the mightiest Tjoten- 
 tate of the old world. Reverenced as a god, the 
 
 ^ Burgoa, Geog. Desci ., cap. 53; Brasseur de Bourbourff, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii., pp. 29-30. 
 
144 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 haughtiest nobles, sovereit^ns in their own land, hum- 
 bled themselves before hiui ; absolute in j>o\ver, the 
 fate of thousands depended u})or a jresture of his 
 hi»nd. 
 
 The ceremony of anointment, which preceded and 
 was entirely distiiict iVom that of coronation, was an 
 occasion of much display. In Mexico, as soon as 
 the new king was elected, which was immediately 
 after the funeral cf his {)redecessor, the kings of 
 Tezcuco and Thico[)an were sent for to be present 
 at th<^ ceremony of anointment; all tlie great feuda- 
 atory lords, who had been i)resent at the funeral of 
 the liiie king, were also invited to attend. When 
 all are assembled the procession sets out for the 
 temple of Huitzilopochtli, the gcnl of war. The kings 
 of Tezcuco and Tlacopan, surrounded by all the most 
 powerful nobles of the realm, bearing their ensigns and 
 insignia of rank, lead the van. Next conies the king 
 elect, naked, excej)ting only the maxtli, or cloth al)out 
 the loins; following these are the lesser nobles, and 
 after them the conunon [)eople. Silently the pro- 
 cession wends its way along the streets; no beat of 
 drum nor shout of people is heard above the tramping. 
 The road in advance is .as free from obstruction as a 
 corridor in the royal j>alace; no one moves among the 
 multitude that string along its odji^oa, but all stand 
 with bended head and eyes downcast until the solemn 
 pageant has passed, wlion they close in with the jost- 
 ling and whispering crowd that follows. Arrived at 
 the temple the king and that part of the i)rocession 
 which j)recedes him ascend to the sununit. During 
 the ascent he is supported on either side by a great 
 lord, and such aid is not su[)erfluous, for the staircases, 
 having in all one hundred and fourteen steps, each a 
 foot high, are so arranged that it is necessary to go 
 completely round the building several times before 
 reaching the top. On the summit the king is met by 
 the high-priest and his colleagues, the people mean- 
 while waiting below. His first action uj»on reaching 
 
CEREMONY OF ANOINTMENT. 
 
 145 
 
 I and 
 iiH an 
 ju as 
 iatoly 
 
 \rti Ot" 
 
 "osent 
 
 eiida- 
 
 ral of 
 
 When 
 
 r the 
 
 kinj^s 
 
 ; most 
 
 ns and 
 
 e king 
 aV)out 
 
 's, and 
 
 J i)ro- 
 it of 
 l>in«,'. 
 
 •n as a 
 vr the 
 stand 
 lenm 
 jost- 
 ed at 
 cssion 
 )uiin«]j 
 j^reat 
 eases, 
 3aeh a 
 to g-o 
 hefoio 
 let by 
 Imean- 
 u'hiiis; 
 
 .() 
 
 the summit is to pay reverence to the image of the god 
 of battles by touching the earth with his liatid and then 
 carrying it to his mouth. Tlie high-priest now anoints 
 the king through.out his entire l>ody with a certain 
 bhick ointment, and sprinkles him with water which 
 has been blessed at the grand feast of Huitzilo])och- 
 tli, using for this purpose branches of cedar and willow 
 and leaves of maize;" at the same time he addresses 
 a few words of counsel to him. The newly anointed 
 monarch is next clothed with a mantle, on which are 
 represented skulls and lx>nes, to remind him, we are 
 told, that even kings are mortal ; his head is covered 
 with two cloths, or veils, one blue and the other black, 
 and decorated in a similar manner; about his neck is 
 tied a small gourd, containing a certain ])owder, which 
 is esteemed a strong preservative against disease, sor- 
 cery, and treason. A censer containing live coals is 
 put into his right hand, and into his left a bag of copal, 
 and thus accoutred and providetl he pnn'ei'ds to incense 
 the god Huitzilopochtli." This act of worshi}) he i)er- 
 
 " Acosta, Ifisf ffr his Viii/., p. 474, writes: 'PiiHicri)nIc roronu UvtH, y 
 viijjieroiile, I'onio fue i-ostiiinliro luuerlo r<ni ti«l<>s sus Iti-yrs, rnii vim viii'iun 
 r|ui- lliiiiiiiuiiiidiiiiiia, puniiiefra la iniHiiiucoii i|Uo vii);iaii hu ytlolii.' Ton|iio- 
 iiiada, MoiKin/. Iii</., toiii. ii., p. '.V\t}, savH that Acosta is mistaken, for, ho 
 observes that 'la <'iirona<|ue ihiiiiahaCopilli, iiosi'iialia en esta ocasioii, Minn 
 <{uu en hi;;ar (le ella, le jMiiiian hts niantas tlichas Mihre la Calieva, ni tani- 
 
 IiiH'o era la vncion la inisnia i|ue la <le los Itlulos; )Hn'iiiu> la l>ivina, iine 61 
 Acosta] nonihra, era de I'lli, y Sa'n^re <le Nifios, con (jne taniliien vn^^ian ul 
 Siiino Sacerilote;' but Toniiieniaila here •lircclly contradicts a previous state- 
 ment of his own, t'wn. i., p. lOJ, where he says that immediately after the 
 election, havin}^ seated the kinj; elect upon a throne, 'le pnsieron la Corona 
 Heal en su ('a)H>ya, y le vntaron ttnio el <'uer|H>, con la N'licion, que despiies 
 acostuinliraron, ((tie era la misma eon i|ue vn;^'ian a sn l>ios,' thus usin){ 
 almost the same witrds as Acosta. I.eon y (iama, Ilox I'iiilnis, says that 
 the water used at th<« anointing was drawn from the fountain To/.iialatI, 
 whi<^li was held in jrrcat veneration, aixl that it was (irst used for this pur- 
 pose at the anointment of lluitxilihiiitl, seconti kin^' of Mexico. 
 
 >'' Salia;.;un states that the kin;; was drcsseil upon this occasion in a tunic 
 of dark ;;reeii cloth, with lM>nes painted n|Hiii it; this tunic rescinhled the 
 fiuipil, or <'lieiiiise of the women, and was usually worn hy the iioliles when 
 they oH'ereil iiu'eiise to llie pwls. The veil was also of j;reen cloth orna- 
 inentud with skulls and iMtnes, and in addition to the articles descriU-d hy 
 other writers, this author mentions that they placed dark ^rrccii sandals upon 
 his feet. !le also atlirins that the four niyiil electors were conlirincd in tlieir 
 otiiee at the saiiie time as the kiii;j, Ikmii;; similarly dresseil, save that the 
 odor of their costn:ne was Mack, aini ^.roin;; throu;;h the Mime |M'r.''ormaneeH 
 after him, exi-ept, of course, the aiiointiiiuiit. Snhiujiui, Hist-UcH., toiii. ii., 
 Vol. U. to 
 
148 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 forms on his knees, amid the cheers of the people be- 
 low, and the playing of musical instruments. He has 
 concluded now, and the high-priest again addresses a 
 short speech to him. Consider well, Sire, he says, the 
 great honor which your subjects have conferred upon 
 you, and remember now that you are king, that it 
 is your duty to watch over your people with great care, 
 to look upon them as your children, to preserve them 
 from suffering, and to protect the weak from the op- 
 pression of the strong. Behold before you the chiefs 
 of your kingdom together with all your subjects, to 
 whom you are both father and mother, for it is to you 
 they turn for protection. It is now your place to com- 
 mand and to govern, and most especially is it your 
 duty to bestow great attention upon all matters relating 
 to war, to search out and punish criminals without re- 
 gard to rank, to put down rebellion, and t(j chastise 
 the seditious. Let not the strenofth of relijjion decline 
 durmg your reign, see that the temples are well cared 
 for, let there be ever an abundance of victims for sac- 
 rifice, and so will you prosper in all your undertakings 
 and be beloved of the gods. Gomara affirms that tlie 
 high-priest imposed an oath upon the king that during 
 his reign he would maintain the religion of his ances- 
 tors, and observe their laws ; that he would give offence 
 to none, and be valiant in war; that he would make the 
 sun to shine, the clouds to give rain, the rivers to flow, 
 and the earth to bring forth fruits in abundance.^* The 
 allied kings and the nobles next address him to the 
 same purpose ; to which the king answers with thanks 
 and promises to exert himself to the utmost of his 
 power for the happiness of the state. 
 
 The speeches being ended the procession again winds 
 round the temple until, following terrace after terrace, 
 it finally reaches the ground in the same order that it 
 went up. The king now receives homage and gifts 
 
 p. 319. Gomara says they hung upon the kind's neck 'vnaa corrona colora- 
 (las largas y <lc inuchan rurimlcH: de cuius cubus colgauun cicrtus insigniustle 
 rei, conio pinjuntcs.' Conq. Mcx., fol. 305. 
 ^*Gotnara, Conq. Mex,, fol. 30G. 
 
CORONATION CEREMONY. 
 
 147 
 
 from the rest of the nobility, amidst the loud acclaims 
 of the people. He is next conducted to a temple 
 called Tlacatecco, where during four days he remains 
 alone, doing penance and eating but once a day, with 
 the liberty, however, of choosing his own food. Twice 
 in each twenty-four hours he bathes, once at noon and 
 once at midniijht. and after each bath he draws blood 
 from liis ears aui offers it, together with some burnt 
 copal, to Huitzilopochtli. The remainder of his time 
 during these four days he occupies in praying the gods 
 to endow him with the wisdom and prudence necessary 
 to the ruler of a mighty kingdom. On the fifth day 
 he is conducted in state to the royal palace, where the 
 feudatory lords come to renew the investiture of their 
 feifs. Then follow great public rejoicings, with games, 
 feasts, dances, and illuminations. 
 
 The coronation was, as I have stated, a ceremony 
 distinct from the anointment. To prepare for it, it 
 was necessary that the newly elected king should go 
 out to war, to procure victims for the sacrifices neces- 
 sary on such an occasion. They were never without 
 enemies upon whom war might be made ; either some 
 province of the kingdom had rebelled, or Mexican 
 merchants had been unjustly put to death, or insult 
 had boon offered to the royal ambassadors, or, if none 
 of these excuses was at hand, the importance of the 
 occasion alone rendered war justifiable. Of the man- 
 ner in which war was waged, and of the triumphal re- 
 turn of the victorious army, I shall speak in another 
 place. It appears that when a king of Mexico was 
 crowned, the diadem was placed upon his head by the 
 king of Tozcuco. The crown, which was called by the 
 Mexicans copilli, was in shape like a small initio, the 
 fore part of which stood erect and terminated in a 
 point, while the hinder part hung down over the neck. 
 It was composed of difierent materials, j. coord ing to 
 the pleasure of the wearer; sometimes it was of thin 
 plates of gold, sometimes it was woven of golden thread 
 
 ^ 
 
148 
 
 THE NAIIUA NATIONS. 
 
 ih -: 
 
 and adorned with beautiful feathers.^" Accounts of the 
 particular ceremonies used at the coronation are want- 
 ing, but all agree that they were of unparalleled splen- 
 dor. The new king entertained most sumptuously at 
 his own palace all the great nobles of his realm ; honors 
 were conferred with a lavish hand, and gifts were made 
 in profusion both by and to the king. Splendid ban- 
 quets were given in which all the nobility of the king- 
 dom participated, and the lower classes were fojisted 
 and entertained with the greatest liberality. The 
 fondness of the Aztecs for all kinds of public games 
 and festivals is evidenced in the frequency of their 
 feasts, and in no way could a newly elected monarch 
 better secure a place in the affections of his subjects 
 than by inaugurating his reign with a series of splen- 
 did entertainments. The strange fascination which 
 this species of enjoyment possessed for them is shown 
 by the fact that strangers and foreigners came from 
 afar to witness the coronation feasirf, and it is related 
 that members of hostile nations were frequently dis- 
 covered disguised among the crowd, and were not only 
 allowed by the clemency of the king to pass umuo- 
 lested, but were provided with seats, from which they 
 could obtain a good view t>f the proceedings and where 
 they would bo secure from insult.'* One of the prin- 
 
 •9 Tlic crown used hy the early Chicliiincc sovcrcij^s was composed of a 
 licrb culled pnclijcochill, which srew on the rocks, snrnionnted hy plumes of 
 the royal eayle, and green fathers culled Tec.piloll, the whole Ijcing mounted 
 with gold and precious stones, and hound to the head with strips of deer- 
 skin. Ixtlilxorhitl, Hist. Chichi iitrca, in KingaboroKqli's Mcx. Aiifii/., toni. 
 xi, p. 213. In an another jilace, liducioncs, in id., p. 336, the same writer says 
 that the crown dilt'ered according to time and season. In time of war it was 
 composed of royal eagle feathers, placed at the hack of the head, and held 
 to;.fetlier with clasi)s of gold and precious stones; in time of iwace tliecmwn 
 wAn made of laurel and green feathers of a very rare bird calle<l < juezalto- 
 tolc; in the dry season it was made of a whitish moss which grew on the 
 rocks, with a flower at the junction called teoxurhiti . 
 
 *• Concerning anointment and coronation, see Torqiirmniln, Monnrq . fnil ., 
 torn, i., p. 102; toni. ii., pp. 8.3, .^SiV-fiO; Zuriln, Rmrport, in Tcrixnix- 
 i'oiapniis. Vol/., Hcrie ii., toin. i., pp. '20-9; C/nriijrro, Stiirin Ant. del Mrs- 
 Kirn, lom. ii., I>p. 113-1.'); Siih«rfiiii, Ilisf. Gcii., tom. ii., lib. viii., pp. 318- 
 '21; llcrrern. Hist. Gen., dec. ill., lil).iv.. cap. xv; Gomarii, Conq. Mr.v., fol. 
 305-15; Aeostn, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. ,3.56, 4.30-40, 474; (Mcfjn, in Vr;ifiit, 
 Hist. Ant. Mvj., tom. iii., p. .301); Trzr.-.cinor, Crrin. Afrx.,' in Kintf.slicr- 
 oiigh'8 Mex. Antiq., tgni. ix., p. l4'2-3. lu addition to the nnmerout> 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KING. 
 
 149 
 
 only 
 mmo- 
 they 
 hero 
 prin- 
 
 q.Inil., 
 jt'iniiix- 
 'cl Mrs- 
 It. 318- 
 (•.)•., fol. 
 Viiffm, 
 iif/nlior- 
 iiiorou? 
 
 cipal feature of the day was the congratulatory speech 
 of one monarch to another, which was courteous and 
 flattering and filled with good advice; the following 
 address of Nezahualpilli, king of Tezcuco, to Monte- 
 zuma II., on the occasion of the accession of the latter 
 to the throne of Mexico, will illustrate. 
 
 The great good fortune, most mighty lord, which 
 has befallen this kingdom in deserving thee for its 
 monarch, is plainly shown by the unanimity with 
 which thou wast elected, and by the general rejoicing 
 of thy people thereat. And they have reason to re- 
 joice; for so great is the Mexican empire that none 
 possessed of less wisdom, prudence, and courage, than 
 thou, were fit to govern it. Truly is this people be- 
 loved of the gods, in that they have given it light to 
 choose that which is best; for who can doubt that a 
 prince who, before he came to the throne, made the 
 nine heavens his study,^* will, now that he is king, 
 obtain the good things of the earth for his people? 
 
 works of acknowledged authority on the Hul)iect of aboriginal American 
 Civilization there arc a munl)ers of otherM, cliieny uf modern date, that treat 
 inoru or less conipletely of the matter. Many of these are mere compila- 
 tions, put together witlioiit regard to accnracy or consistency; others are 
 works which deal ostensihly with other Spanish American matters and only 
 refer to the ancient civilization in passing; their accounts are usually co](ica 
 Imdily from one or two of the old writers; some few profess to exhaust the 
 suUject; in these latter, however, the authors have failed to cite their au- 
 thorities, or at l)cst have merely given a list of them. To attempt to note 
 all the |Miiuts on which these writers have fallen into error, or where they 
 ditrer from my text, would prove as tiresome to the reader as the result would 
 he useless, ft will therefore l>e sullicient to refer to this class of hooks ut 
 the conclusion of the large divisions into which this work naturally falls. 
 AlKHit the system of government, laws of succession, ceremonies of election, 
 anointment and coronation, of the Aztecs and other nations included in this 
 division, see: Carlmjal Espinosa, Jlist. Mcx., tom. i., i)p. 578-83, .^)1H}; Sodcii, 
 S/ianier in. Peru, tom. ii., pp. 8-14, 51-2; Toiiron, itist. Gen., torn, iii., pp. 
 (>-7, 25-.38; linrit, Mcxiqne, pp. 204-7; Itnssierre, L''Empire Mrxirinii, jij). 1 19, 
 l.')()-8, 220-30,244; Lufoiid, Voynffes, torn, i., p. 119; J'oinsrtt's Xote.s Mex., 
 «/»/>., |tp. 22-3; Macgregor'n Prorfrcs.i of Anienen, \t. 2\; JUllvii, llixt. Mex., 
 l)p. 24-1), 41-3; Hassel, Mex. dual., p. 247; Dilirorth, Conq. Mex., p. 45, 
 Pmdf.Cnrta.s; pp. 106, 176; Montjlave, Ristnnf, pp. k9, 14-19, 22-3, 32-6, 
 (>S; Kleinm, Ciilhir-Gese/tichfe, tom. v., pp. 59-75, lS(i; Cord's, Arentiirns, 
 pre/., j>p. 7-13; Chamber's Jour., vol. iv., p. 2.')3; West niid Ost Indiseher 
 I.iuitffurt, p. 97. 
 
 " 'Que antes dc Ueinar avia invcstigado los nucvc doblcces dc cl Ciclo.' 
 Torqticiiuida, Monnrq. Iiid., tom. i., p. 194. Ortega, in Vcytin, Hist. Ant. 
 Mej., tom. iii., p. .306, writes: 'Quel cl que sicndo particular supo ncnetrar 
 los secretos del cielo;' - that he who, licing a )>rivate individual, coiud pene- 
 trate the Kccrcts of hcuvcu,' which apiicars luvrc iutclUgible. 
 
160 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Who can doubt that his well-tried courage will be 
 even greater now that it is so much needed? Who 
 can believe that so mighty and powerful a prince will 
 be found wanting in charity toward the orphan and 
 the widow ? Who can doubt that the Mexican people 
 are favored of the gods, in having for a king one to 
 whom the great Creator has imparted so much of 
 his own glory that by simply looking upon his face 
 we are made to partake of that glory? Rejoice, O 
 happy land! for the gods have given thee a prince 
 who will be a firm pillar for thy support, a father and 
 a refuge for thy succor, a more than brother in pity 
 and mercy toward his people. Verily thou hast a 
 king who will not avail himself of his high place to 
 give himself up to sloth and pleasure, but who, rather, 
 will lie sleepless through the night, pondering thy 
 welfare. Tell me, then, most fortunate land, have I 
 not reason for saying. Rejoice and be happy 1 And 
 thou most noble and puissant lord, be of good heart, 
 for as the high gods have appointed thee to this office, 
 so will they grant thee strength to fill it; and be well 
 assured that the gods who have been so gracious to 
 thee during these many years, will not now fail in 
 their goodness ; by them hast thou been raised to thy 
 present exalted position; we pray that with their help 
 thou mayest continue to hold it during many happy 
 years to come.** 
 
 It is probable that the orations used upon those oc- 
 casions by the Aztecs were, like their prayers, not 
 spoken ex tempore, nor even prepared beforehand by 
 the speaker; most likely they were in the form of a 
 fixed ritual, each being prepared to suit a special occa- 
 sion, such as the coronation or burial of a monarch, 
 and repeated as often as such an occasion occurred. 
 Some orations must be delivered by particular per- 
 sons; others needed only an eloquent speaker. Sa- 
 hagun gives us a speech which was addressed to a 
 newly elected king. It could be delivered, he says, 
 
 <* Torquemaila, Monarq. I ml., tuni. i., pp. 194-6. 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KING. 
 
 151 
 
 by one of the high-priests, or by a noble noted for his 
 eloquence, or by some delegate from the provinces who 
 was an eloquent speaker, or possibly by some learned 
 senator, or other person well versed in the art of 
 speecli-making. The language is constrained and 
 quaint, and possibly tiresome, but as a specimen of 
 Aztec oratory I give it in full, adhering to the sense, 
 and as clearly as possible to the words of the original : 
 O king, most pitiful, most devout, and best beloved, 
 more worthy to be esteemed than precious stones or 
 choice feathers, thou art here by the will of the Lord 
 our (jrod, who has appointed thee to rule over us in 
 the place of the kings thy ancestors, who, dying, have 
 let fall from their shoulders the burden of government 
 under which they labored, even as one who toils up a 
 hill heavy-laden. Perchance these dead ones still re- 
 member and care for the land which they governed, 
 now, by the will of God, a desert, in darkness, and 
 desolate without a king; peradventure they look with 
 pity upon their country, which is become a place of 
 briars and barren, and upon their poor people who are 
 orphans, fatherless and motherless, knowing not nor 
 understanding those things which are best; who are 
 unable to speak for dumbness, who are as a body with- 
 out a head. He who has lately left us was strong 
 and valorous: for a few short days he was lent to us, 
 then like a vision he slipped from our midst, and his 
 passing was as a dream, for the Lord our God hath 
 called him to rest with the dead kings, his ancestors, 
 who are to-day in a manner shut from our sight in a 
 coffer. Thus was he gathered to his people, and is 
 even now with our father and mother, the God of 
 Hell, who is called Mictlantecutli. Will he, perad- 
 venture, return from the place to which he is gone? 
 May it not be that he will come back to us? Gone 
 is he forever, and his kingdom has lost him. Never 
 again, through all coming time, may we see his face, 
 nor those who come after us. He is gone from our 
 sight forever. Our light is put out; we, whom he 
 
152 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 illumined, whom he carried, as it were, upon his shoul- 
 ders, are abandoned, and in darkness, and in great 
 peril of destruction. Behold he has left his people 
 and the throne and seat whereon our Lord G<k1 placed 
 him, and which he made it his constant aim to hold in 
 peace and quietness. He did not cover his hands and 
 feet with his mantle for laziness, but with diligence 
 did he work for the good of his people. In thee, O 
 most compassionate king, we have a great solace and 
 joy; in thee hath the Lord God given us a sun-like 
 glory and splendor. God points at thee with his 
 finger, he hath written down thy name in red letters. 
 It is fixed above and below, in heaven and in hell, 
 that thou shalt be king and possess the throne and 
 seat and dignity of this kingdom, the root of which 
 was deep planted long ago by thine ancestors, they 
 themselves being its first branches. To thee. Sire, is 
 entrusted the care of the seignory. Thou art the suc- 
 cessor of the lords, thy predecessors, and must bear 
 the burden they bore ; upon thy back must thou place 
 the load of this kingdom; to the strength of thy 
 thighs and thine arms does the Lord God entrust the 
 government of the common people, who are capricious 
 and hard to please. For many years must thou sup- 
 port and amuse them as though they were young chil- 
 dren; during all thy life must thou dandle them in 
 thine arms, nurse them on thy lap and soothe them to 
 sleep with a lullaby. O, our lord, most serene and 
 estimable, this thing was determined in heaven and 
 in hell; this matter was considered and thou wast 
 signaled out, upon thee fell the choice of the Lord 
 our God. Was it possible that thou couldst hide thy- 
 self or escape this decision ? In what esteem dost thou 
 hold the Lord God? With what respect dost thou 
 consider the kings and great nobles who have been 
 inspired by God to choose thee for our father and 
 mother, whose election is divine and irrevocable? 
 
 This being so, O our lord, see that thou girdest thy- 
 self for thy task, that thou puttest thy shoulder to the 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KING. 
 
 168 
 
 burden which has been imposed upon thee. Let the 
 will of (iod be obeyed. Perchance thou wilt carry this 
 load for a space, or it may be that death will cut thuu off, 
 and thy election be as a dream. Take heed, therefore, 
 that thou art not ungrateful, setting small store by the 
 benefits of God. Be assured that he sees all secret 
 things, and that he will afilict thee in such manner as 
 may seem good to him. Peradventure he will send 
 thee into the mountains and waste places, or he will 
 cast thee upon dirt and filthiness, or some fearful and 
 ugly thing will happen to thee ; perchance thou shalt 
 be defamed and covered with shame, or discord and 
 revolt shall arise in thy kingdom, so that thou shalt 
 fall into contempt and be cast down; perhaps other 
 kings, thine enemies, may rise up against thee and 
 conquer thee ; or possibly the Lord may suffer famine 
 and want to desolate thy kingdom. What wilt thou 
 do if in thy time thy kingdom should be destroyed, 
 and the wrath of our God should visit thee in a pesti- 
 lence? Or if the light of thy splendor should be 
 turned into utter darkness, and thy dominions laid 
 waste? Or if death should come upon thee while 
 thou art yet young, or the Lord God should set his 
 foot upon thee before thou hast fully gathered up the 
 reins of government? What wilt thou do if God on 
 a sudden should send forth armies of enemies against 
 thee, from the wilderness or from the sea, from the 
 waste and barren places where men wage war and 
 slied blood that the thirst of the sun and the earth 
 may be slaked? Manifold are the punishments of 
 God for those that offend him. Wherefore, O our 
 king, it behoves thee with all thy strength to do 
 that which is right in the fulfilment of thine office, 
 taking care that this be done with tears and sighs, 
 and continual prayer to the Lord our God, the invisi- 
 ble, the impalpable. Draw near to him. Sire, weep- 
 ing, and in all sincerity, that he may help thee to 
 govern in peace. Beware that thou receivest with 
 kindness and humility those that approach thee in 
 
154 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 grief and despair. Neither speak nor act rashly, but 
 hear cahnly and to the end all complaints hrou«^ht be- 
 fore thee; do not harshly interrupt the words of the 
 speaker, for thou art the image of the Lord God, in 
 thee is represented his person, thou art his reliance, 
 with thy mouth he speaks, with thine ear he listens. 
 Be no respecter of persons, Sire, but punish all alike, 
 and justly, for thou hast thy power of God, thy right 
 hand to punish is as the claws and teeth of God, for 
 thou art his judge and executioner. Do justice, 
 therefore, heeding the wrath of none; this is the com- 
 mand of God, who hath given the doing of these 
 things into thine hand. Take care that in the high 
 places of the lords and judges there be nothing done 
 snatchingly nor in haste, that there be no hot words 
 nor deeds done in anger. Say not now in thine heart, 
 I am the lord, my will is law, but rather let this be 
 an occasion for the humbling of thy valor and the 
 lowering of thy self-esteem. Look to it that thy new 
 dignities be not the means of puffing thee up with 
 pride and haughtiness, but in place thereof ponder 
 often on thy former lowly estate, from which, without 
 desert, thou wast taken and placed where thou now 
 art. Say to thine heart. Who was I ? Who am I ? 
 Not by mine own deserts did I attain this high place, 
 but by the will of God ; verily all this is a dream, and 
 not sober truth. Be watchful, Sire, that thou dost not 
 rest free from care, that thou dost not grow heedless 
 with pleasure, and become a glutton and wine-bibber, 
 spending in feasting and drunkenness that which is 
 earned by the sweat of thy subjects; let not the gra- 
 ciousness which God has shown in electing thee king, 
 be repaid with profanity, folly, and disturbances. 
 
 King and grandchild of ours, God watches over 
 those that govern his kingdoms, and when they do 
 wrong he laughs at them; he mocks and is silent; 
 for he is the Lord our God, he does what he pleases, 
 he scoffs at whom he pleases; we are the work of his 
 hand, in the hollow of his palm he tosses us to and fro 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KINO. 
 
 168 
 
 even as balls and playthings, he makes a mockery of us 
 as we stumble and fall, he uses us fbr his ends as wo 
 roll from side to side. Strive hard, (,) kinjj!', to do 
 what thou hast to do little by little. lY'rchanee the 
 number of our sins has rendered us unworthy, and thy 
 election will be to us a vision that passes; or perchance 
 it may be the will of the Lord that thou possess the 
 royal dignity for a time ; perchance he will ])rove thee, 
 and put thee to the test, and, if thou art found want- 
 ing will set up another in thy place. Are not the 
 friends of the Lord great in number? Art thou the 
 only one whom he holds dear? Many are the friends 
 of the Lord; many are those that call upon him; 
 many are those that lift up their voices before him; 
 many are those that weep before him; many are those 
 that tearfully pray to him; many are those that 
 sigh in his presence ; verily all these arc uncountable. 
 There are many generous and prudent men of great 
 ability and power, who pray to the Lord and cry aloud to 
 him; behold, therefore, there are not lacking others be- 
 side thyself on whom to confer the dignity of king. 
 Peradventure as a thing that endures not, as a thing 
 seen in sleep, the Lord gives thee this great honor and 
 glory ; peradventure he gives thee to smell of his ten- 
 der sweetness, and passes it quickly over thy lips. O 
 king, most fortunate, bow down and humble thyself; 
 weep with sadness and sigh ; pray fervently and do the 
 will of the Lord by night us well as by day, during 
 the time he sees fit to spare thee. Act thy part with 
 calmness, continually praying on thy throne with kind- 
 ness and softness. Take heed that thou givest none 
 cause for pain or weariness or sorrow, that thou settest 
 thy foot upon none, that thou frightest none with an- 
 gry words or fierce looks. Refrain also, C) our king, 
 from all lewd jests and converse, lest thou bring 
 thy person into contempt; levity and buftbonery are 
 not fit for one of thy dignity. I ricline not thine ear 
 to ribaldry, even though it come from a near rela- 
 tive, for though as a man thou art mortal, yet in respect 
 
186 
 
 THE NAIIUA NATIONS. 
 
 to thine office thou art as God. Though thou art our 
 fellow-creature and friend, our 8on and our brother, yet 
 are we not tiiine e(|ual8, nor do we look upon thee as 
 a nmn, in that thou now art the image of the Lord 
 God; he it is that speaks within thee, instructing us 
 and making himself heard through thy lips ; thy mouth 
 is his mouth, thy tongue is his tongue, thy face is his 
 face. Already lie has graced thee with his authority, 
 he has given thee teeth and claws that thou may est he 
 feared and respected. See to it. Sire, that thy former 
 levity be now laid aside, that thou take to thyself 
 the heart of an old man, of one who is austere and 
 grave. Look closely to thine honor, to the decency of 
 thy person, and the majesty of thine office; let thy 
 words be few and serious, for thou art now another 
 being. Behold the place on which thou standest 
 is exceeding high, and the fall therefrom is peril- 
 ous. Consider that thou goest on a lofty ridge and 
 upon a narrow path having a fearful depth sheer 
 down on either side, so that it is imposssible to 
 swerve to the right or to the left witliout falling 
 headlong into the abyss. Jt also behoves thee. Sire, 
 to guard thyself against being cross-grained and fierce 
 and dreaded as a wild beast by all. Combine modera- 
 tion with rigor, inclining rather to mercy than to piti- 
 lessnesH. Never show all thy teeth nor put forth the 
 full length of thy claws. Never appear startled or in 
 fear, harsh or dangen-us; conceal thy teeth and claws; 
 assemble thy chief men together, make thyself accept- 
 able to them with gii'ts and kind words. Provide also 
 for the entertainment of the conmion people according 
 to their quality and rank; adapt thyself to the differ- 
 ent classes of the people and ingratiate thyself with 
 them. Have a care and concern thyself about the 
 dances, and about the ornaments and instruments used 
 at them, for they are the means of infusing a warlike 
 spirit into men. Gladden the hearts of the common 
 people with games and amusements, for thus wilt thou 
 become famous and be beloved, and even after death 
 
ADDRESS TO THE KINO. 
 
 157 
 
 thy fame will live and tlie olil men and women who 
 knew theo will shed tears of sorrow for tiiino absence. 
 (> most fortunate and happy kinj?, most precious treas- 
 ure, bear in mind that thou j^oest I y a cra«»'^»'y and 
 danj^erous road, whereon thou must step with Hrmness, 
 for in the path of k'mrrs and princes there are many 
 yawning gulfs, and slippery j)laces, and steej), pathless 
 slopes, where the matted thorn-bushes and long grass 
 liiJe pitfalls having pointed stakes set upright in them. 
 Wherefore it behoves thee to call upon thy (lod with 
 moanings and lamentations, to watch constantly, and 
 to shun the harlot, who is a curse and a sickness to 
 man. Sleep not lightly in thy bed, Sire, but rather 
 lie and ponder the affairs of thy kingdom ; even in thy 
 slumbers let thy dreams be of the good things in 
 thy charge, that thou maycst kr '" how best to dis- 
 tribute them among thy lords and courtiers, for there 
 are many who envy the king, and would fain eat as 
 he eats and drink as he drinks, wherefore is it said 
 that kings 'eat the bread of grief Think not. Sire, 
 that the royal throne is a soft and pleasant seat, for 
 there is nothing but trouble and penitence. blessed 
 and most precious king, it is not my wish to cause pain 
 to thine heart nor to excite thy wrath and indignation ; 
 it is sufficient for me that I have many times stumbled 
 and slipped, aye, and have even fallen, during this dis- 
 course of mine ; enough for ine are the faults of the 
 speech which I have spoken, going, in a manner, with 
 jumps like a frog before our Lord God, the invisible, 
 the imjjalpable, who is here and listening to us, who 
 has heard distinctly the slightest of the words which 
 I have spoken stammeringly and with hesitation, in 
 bad order and with unapt gestures; but in doing this 
 I have complied with the custom which obliges the 
 aged men of the state to address a newly elected king. 
 In like manner have I done my duty to our God who 
 hears me, to whom I make an offering of this my 
 sjieech. Long may est thou live and reign, O lord and 
 king. I have spoken. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PALACES AND HOUSEHOLDS OF THE NAHUA KINOS. 
 
 Extent and Interior of the Great Pala«'e in Mexico— The Pal- 
 ace (»K Nezahiai.coyotl, Kin(j of Tkzii CO The Zntn.or.uM. 
 
 COM-ECTIONS OK THE XaHIA MoNAUtllS MoNTEZIMA'S Ol!Arf»RY 
 
 — KoYAi. Gardens and Pi.EA.sritE-GitoiNDS — The Hii.i. ok Cha- 
 ri'.'.TEi'EC— Nezahi:alcovoti.'s t^ouNTRV Kksidkxck at Tezcozinco 
 — 1oi/rE«; Palaces the Uoval (iiARO— The Kino's .Mkai.s An 
 Aztec Ccisine The Acdiknce Ciiamiikr Akter-dinner Amcse- 
 ments The Uoyal Wardroiie- The Kino Am»in(j his Peoi-i.e— 
 Meetino ok Montezuma II. and Cortes the Kino's Harem— 
 
 llEVENUES OK THE UOYAL HOLSEHOLD— POLICY OK AZTEC KiNOS. 
 
 i 
 
 In the precedinj:^ chapter we have seen how the 
 nioiiiip lis were ehoH«'n, and anointed, and crowned, 
 and linsted, and lectured; now let uh follow them to 
 their lioines. And liere I must cont'ess I am some- 
 what HtaL^ovred hy the recitals. It is written that as 
 soon as the new kiiiijf was forniiillv invested with the 
 Yijs\\t of sovereignty, he took possessitdi of the royal 
 palaces and onnlens, and that these ahodes of royalty 
 were on a scale of mai^niHcence almost unj)aralleli'«l in 
 the annals of nations. How far we may rely on these 
 accounts it is difficult to say; liow wc are to determine 
 disj>uted (piestions is yet more difficult. In the testi- 
 mony hefore us, there are two classes of evidence: one 
 havin<^ as its hase selfishness, superstition, and juitri- 
 otism ; the other disaffection, jealousy, and hatred. 
 Between these contending' evils, fortunately, we may 
 
RELIABILITY OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 180 
 
 at least approximate to the truth. To illustrate : there 
 can be no doubt that much concerning the Aztec civ- 
 ilization has Ixjen greatly exaggerated by the old 
 Spanish writers, and for obvious reasons. It was 
 manifestly to the advantage of some, both priests and 
 adventurers, to magnify the power and consetjuence of 
 the people conquered, and the cities demolished by 
 them, knowing full well th.at tales of mighty realms, 
 with Christless man-eaters and fabulous riches, would 
 soonest rouse the zeal and cupidity of their m»)st Cath 
 olic prince, and bust secure to them both honors and 
 su|)plies. Gathered from the lips of illiterate soldiers 
 little prone to diminish the glory of their achieve- 
 ments in the narration, or from the manuscripts of 
 native historians whose j)atriotic statements re<>ardin<; 
 rival states no longer in existence could with difficulty 
 be disproved, these accounts [mssed into tie hands of 
 credulous monks of fertile iuiagination, who drank in 
 with avidity the marvels that were told them, and 
 wrote them down with superhuman <liscrimination — 
 with a discrimination which made every so-called fact 
 tallv with the writings of the Fathers. Tiiese writers 
 possessed in an eminent <legree the faculty called by 
 latter-day scholars the imaginative in history-writing. 
 Whatever was told them that was contrary to tradi- 
 tion was certainly erroneous, a snare of the devil; if 
 any facts were wanting in the dir ction jiointed out 
 by doctrines or dogmas, it was their rigliteous duty to 
 fill them in. Thus it was t.i certain instances. But 
 to the truth of the greater part of tliese relations, 
 t(.'stimony is borne by the unanimity of the authors, 
 though this is partly owing t«» their co|)ying each from 
 the writings of tlie others, and, more conclusively, by 
 the architectural remains which survived the attacks 
 ()f the iconoclastic coiupierors, and the golden and be- 
 jeweled ornaments of such ex(juisite workmanshij) as 
 to equal if not surpiuss anything of the kind in Kurope, 
 which ornaments were sent to Spain as proofs of the 
 richness of the country. At this distance of time it 
 
160 
 
 THE NAI'UA NATIONS. 
 
 is impossible to draw a dofiiiite line between the true 
 and the false; nor do I feel it my duty to do!j;niatize 
 in these matters, hut rather to tell the tale as I find 
 it, at the same time layinj^- every shade of evideote 
 before the reader. 
 
 A 
 
 'ti 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 The principal palace in the city of Mexico was 
 an irreiji-ular pile of low buildini»'S, enormous in ex- 
 tent, constructed of hu<>e blocks of tctzoiif/i, a kind of 
 /n)rous stone common to that country, (-emented 
 with mortar. The arraui^ement of the buildin<,''s was 
 such that they enclosed three <^reat plazas or ])ublic 
 stjuares, in one of which a beautiful fountain inces- 
 santly phiyed. Twenty jjfreat doors opened on the 
 stpiares, and on the streets, and over tivese was 
 sculptured in stone the coat of arms of tlie kiui^cs of 
 Mexico, — an eaiji'le jj-rippiiiii^ in his talons a jajj^uar.' 
 In the interior were many iialls, each of immen.se size, 
 and one in j)articuhir is said by a writer who accom- 
 jKUiied Cortes, known as the Anonymous ( on(juer«;r, 
 to liave been of sufficient extent to contain tliree th<>«i- 
 sand men; while uj)on the terrace that formed its r^/ 
 thirty men on hors^^back could have jj^one through tli« 
 spear exercise.' hi addition to these there were mor« 
 than one hundred smaller rooms, and the same num- 
 ber of marble haths, wliit'h tojtiether with the fountains, 
 ponds, and basins in the j>ardens, were sii])plied with 
 water from the nei;L;hborin<^' hill of ('hapultepec. 
 There were also splendid suites of ajwrtments re- 
 tained for the use of the kiniu^s of Tezciu o and Tlaco- 
 pan, and their attendants when they visited Mexico, 
 
 ' Ifnrrrn, Hist. Cm., iler. ii., lib. vii.. cap. ix. Tliongli it is more tlinn 
 |irii))iil)lc flint (liiinnrn iiifiiiis tin- .<iiiiu' tliiii};, yet tiic iiiiinncr in wliicli iip 
 rx|iicM.-<i's it. leaves uh in stiiiie doiiltt wliefher tlie tip'r iiiijjht not iiave lioen 
 slaudin;.' over the <'a;^le. 'Kl esciulo tie arnias, (|ue estaua por las puertas 
 lie paiac'io v ciiie traeii las vamleras de Mutei'viinia. \ las de sus anteeessores, 
 es vnu a;;uila aliatitia a vm ti};re, las nianos y vnas puestas conio paru lia/.er 
 jiresa.' d'H'l- Mi.f., fol. lOH. ' llet Waiien ilat lioveii «le I'oorte stout, was 
 ••en .\reiit (lie op een (iriHiiM-n netlenlai-lile, mot o|>oii Claiiwen liein fxliereet 
 Miaei'kende, oni syn Koof te vatten.' l\'riffin/i>ir/o' S/tin/Zirl, p. *24(i. 
 
 2 RiliilHittf /(tttii iiir rii ijiiiUI 'hii'iiiii) ill I Siijiior tcrnunili) Cortcse, in 
 llamnitiv, Xiii iikiIiuik'. toni. iii., fol. UIK). 
 
IIOYAL PALACE AT MEXICO. 
 
 161 
 
 and for the ministers and counselors, and the ^eat 
 lords and their suites, who constantly resided at the 
 capital. Besides these, the private attendants of the 
 king — and their name was legion — had to 1)C provided 
 for; so tiiat when we consider the other extensive 
 buildings, such as the harem, in which, according to 
 some authorities, were nearly three thousand women; 
 the armory, tlie granaries, storehouses, menageries, 
 and aviaries, which either formed part or were in the 
 immediate vicinity of the palace buildings, we are 
 prepared somewhat to credit the Anonymous Con- 
 queror aforesaid wlien he affirms that, although lie 
 four times wandered about the palace until he was 
 tired, with no o^^her purpose than to view its interior, 
 yet he never succeeded in seeing the whole of it.* 
 The walls .aid floors of halls and apartments were 
 many of them faced with polished slabs of marble, 
 por})hyrv, j wper, obsidian, and white tecali;* lofty 
 «^i</himn« f the same fine stones supported marble bal- 
 conies aj«d porti<<»<^ every niche and corner of which 
 was filhid witfi wondrous ornamental carving, or held 
 * grinning grotes(jU( Iv sculptured head. The beams 
 Hftd casings wtm of cedar, cj'jiress, and other valuable 
 woods, profusely c-arved and put together without 
 nails. The roofs of the palace buildings formed a 
 suite of iinuK'Use terraces, from wliicli a magnificent 
 view of tiu! whole city could be ol)taincd. Superb 
 mats of most ex(|uisite finish were sjnead upon the 
 marble floors; tlie tajHistry that draped the walls and 
 the curtains ih>ri' hung before the windows were made 
 of a fabric most I'^onderful for its deliciite texture, ele- 
 gant designs and l/rilliant colors; througli the halls and 
 corridors a thousand golden censers, in wliicli burned 
 precious spices and perfumes, difl^lised a subtle odor.* 
 
 * 'Lc tcciili parait 6trc la pierre transparcnte seinbliiUlo ii I'alUi'itro ori- 
 oiitul, (lout oil fai^ait iiii graiitl usiige k Mexico, i-l dont Ich r(>li<;ieii\ so scr- 
 virtMit rnf'iiio pour faire uiie enpeco tic vitres ii leiirs feiU'tiv.-> On cii irmivo 
 encorr de ce ji;ciire dans plimiciirs couvciitM de la I'linhla do los Angeles.' 
 
 encorr de ce ji;ciire dans plimiciirs couvciiim ue la riu 
 iirft.i.ii i/f fir Jtdiirlioiir;/, J1i.il. Nnt. dr., toiii. iv.. p. 8. 
 * IiM-^iise-otroriiij.; uiiiuiig thn Mcxiciine, uiid otiicr 
 
 Vol II. U 
 
 iijklldim uf Andiiuac, 
 
162 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The palace built by Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tez- 
 cuco, even surpassed that of Montezuma in many 
 respects. The Tezcucan historian, Ixtlilxochitl, has 
 given a full description of it, which I partially 
 translate. The collection of buildings, which com- 
 posed not only the royal residence, but also the 
 public offices and courts of law, extended from east 
 to west twelve hundred and thirty-four and a half 
 yards, and from north to south, nine hundred and sev- 
 enty-eight yards. These were encompassed by a wall 
 made of adobes strongly cemented together, and stand- 
 ing on a foundation of very hard mortar, six feet in 
 width at the base. On its southern and eastern sides 
 the wall was three times a man's stature in height; on 
 the western side, towards the lake, and on the north- 
 ern side it rose to the height of five times a man's 
 stature." For one third of the distance from the base 
 to the top, the wall grew gradually thinner, while the 
 remainder was of one thickness.'' Within this in- 
 closure were the royal dwelling, the council -chambers, 
 and otlier halls and apartments. There were also two 
 large plazas, the outer one of which served as the 
 public market-place. The inner court-yard was sur- 
 rounded by the various courts of justice, and other halls 
 where matters relative to science, art, and the army 
 were judicially and otherwise considered, all of wliich 
 will be described in their place, and also a hall where 
 the archives of the kingdom were preserved. In the 
 centre of the court-yard, which was also used as a 
 market-})lai'e, was a tennis-court; on the west side 
 were tiie apartments of the king, more than tiiree 
 hundred in number, all admirably arranged; here 
 
 wiiH iKit only an act of rcli^^ion towards tlieir pmIs, but also a niero of civil 
 courtt'sy to lords and aniluiMsiuIorM, Clfiritfcro, Stori'n Ant. del Alrssivo, toni. 
 ii., p. r>l. Cortex durin;; Iiih niari'li to tliu cajtital was on nmru tlian unu oc- 
 casion met l)y a demitation of nobles, bearing censers which they swung 
 before him as a murk of courtcxv. 
 
 c I'rescott, Mrr., vol. i., ]>. 177, makes in both ca.ses the 'cslado' the 
 same measure as the 'vara,' tiiat is three feet, a clumsy error certainly, 
 when translating sui;h a sentence as this: 'que tenia de grueso do.s varas, y 
 do alto trcs estudos.' 
 
 ' 'A nianera de estrilm,' writen Ixtlilxochitl. 
 
MONTEZUMA'S MENAGERIE. 
 
 163 
 
 sur- 
 halls 
 
 as a 
 side 
 
 three 
 here 
 
 J of civil 
 
 ■CO, toin. 
 
 \ one oc- 
 
 swuny 
 
 Llo' the 
 Jrtaiiily, 
 Ivuraa, y 
 
 were also storehouses for tribute, and splendid suites 
 of aj)artnients reserved for the use of the kings of 
 Mexico and Tlacopan when they visited Tezcuco. 
 These apartments led into the royal j)leasure-garden8, 
 which were artistically laid out with labyrinthian 
 walks winding through the dark foliage, where often 
 the uninitiated would lose themselves; then there 
 were sparkling fouutains, and inviting baths, and sha- 
 dy graves of ced ir and cypress, and ponds well stocked 
 with fish, and aviaries filled with birds of every hue 
 and species, besides extensive menageries.* The city 
 of Mexico, however, furnished the largest collection 
 of animals, or at all events it is more fully described 
 by the conquerors than others. The Aztec monarchs 
 took s[)ecial pleasure in maintaining zoological col- 
 lections on an immense scale, which fancy was prob- 
 ably more fully indulged by Montezuma II. than by 
 any other. That prince caused to be erected in the 
 city of Mexico an immense edifice, surrounded by 
 extensive gardens, which was used for no other pur- 
 pose than to keep and display all kinds of birds and 
 beasts. 
 
 One portion of this building consisted of a large 
 open court, paved with stones of dift'erent colors, and 
 divided into several compartments, in which were 
 kept wild beasts, birds of prey, and reptiles. The 
 larger animals were confined in low wooden cages 
 made of massive beams. They were fed upon the in- 
 testines of human sacrifices, and upon deer, nilihits, 
 and other animals. The birds of prey were distrib- 
 uted according to their species, in subterranean cham- 
 bers, which were more than seven feet deej), and up- 
 wards of seventeen feet in length an<l breadth. Half 
 of each chamber was roofed with slabs ui' stone, under 
 which perches were fixed in the wall, where the birds 
 might sleep and be protected from the raiii ; the other 
 half was covered only with a winnlen grating, whicli 
 
 ^ Ixtlilxochitl, Hill. Chich. 
 l)p. 242-3. 
 
 m KinffiSoriiiigh'.t \fcx. Antiq , toiii. ix., 
 
164 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 admitted air and sunlight. Five hundred turkeys 
 were daily killed for food for these birds. Alligators 
 were kept in ponds walled round to prevent their 
 escape, and serpents in long cages or vessels, large 
 enough to allow them to move about freely. These 
 reptiles were also fed on human blood and intestines. 
 Mr Prescott tells us that the whole of this menagerie 
 "was placed under the charge of numerous keepers, 
 who acquainted themselves with the habits of their 
 prisonei-s, and provided for their comfort and cleanli- 
 ness." 
 
 Thomas Gage, the shrewd old English heretic, takes 
 another view. In his quaint though free and slashing 
 style he writes: "But what was wonderful to behold, 
 horrid to see, hideous to hear in this house, was the 
 Officers' daily occupations about these beasts, the floor 
 with blood like a gelly, stinking like a slaughter-house, 
 and the roaring of the Lions, the fearful hissing of tlio 
 Snakes and Adders, the doleful howling and barking 
 of the Wolves, the sorrowful yelling of the (Jwnzes 
 and Tigros, wlien they would have meat. And yet in 
 this place, which in the night season seemed a dungeon 
 of hell, and a dwelling place for the Devil, could a 
 heathen Prince pray unto his Gods and Idols; for 
 near unto this Hall was another of a hundred and fifty 
 foot long and thirty foot broad, where was a chappel 
 with a roof of silver and gold in leaf, wainscotted and 
 docked with great store of pearl and stone, as Agats, 
 Cornorines, Emeralds, Rubies, and divers other sorts; 
 and this was the Oratory where Montezuma prayed in 
 the night season, and in that chappel the Devil did 
 appear unto him, and gave liim answer according to 
 his prayers, which as they were uttered among so many 
 ugly and deformed beasts, and with the noise of them 
 which represented Hell it self, were fitted for a Devil's 
 answer."^ 
 
 In another part of the building was an immense hall 
 which served as an aviary, in which were collected 
 
 • Oaye's New Survey, p. 99. Coiiconiing tliis (irutory, see Laa Ciuas, 
 
 if 
 
ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTION OF MONTEZUMA. 
 
 166 
 
 keys 
 
 itors 
 
 iheir 
 
 arge 
 
 'hese 
 
 lines. 
 
 gerie 
 
 ipers, 
 
 their 
 
 3anli- 
 
 takes 
 
 ,shing 
 
 ahold, 
 
 IS the 
 
 3 floor 
 
 house, 
 
 of the 
 
 arking 
 
 hvnzes 
 yet in 
 
 nigeon 
 uld a 
 s; for 
 d fifty 
 happel 
 d and 
 Agats, 
 • sorts; 
 yod in 
 vil did 
 ing to 
 ) many 
 them 
 evil's 
 
 me hall 
 Lllected 
 
 las Ciuas, 
 
 O' 
 
 specimens of all the birds in the empire, exceptin; 
 those of prey. They were of infinite variety an 
 splendid plumage; many specimens were so difficult 
 to obtain that their feathers brought almost fabulous 
 prices in the Mexican market; while some few, either 
 because of their extreme rarity or their inability to 
 live in confinement, did not appear even in the royal 
 aviary, except in imitation, for we are told that, both 
 in Mexico and Tezcuco, all kinds of birds and ani- 
 mals that could not be obtained alive were repre- 
 sented in gold and silver so skillfully that they are said 
 to have served the naturalist Hernandez for models. 
 But to attain this honor, a bird must indeed have been a 
 rara avis, a very phoenix, for it is related by Torque- 
 mada and many others, on the authority of a Spanish 
 eye-witness, that the Emperor Montezuma II. happen- 
 ing one day to see a sparrow-hawk soaring through 
 the air, and "taking a fancy to its beauty and mode 
 of flight," ordered his followers to catch it without de- 
 lay and bring it alive to his hand ; and such were the 
 efibrts made and care used, that in an incredibly short 
 space of time "tliey captured that fierce and haughty 
 hawk as though it had been but a gentle domestic 
 pigeon, and brought it to the king.""" 
 
 iVIarble galleries, supported upon jasper pillars, all 
 of one piece, surrounded this building, and looked out 
 upon a large garden, wherein were groves of rare trees, 
 choice shrubbery and flowers, and fountains filled with 
 fish. But the prominent feature of the garden was 
 ten large ])onds for the use of water-fowl, some of which 
 were filled with fresh and some with salt water, accord- 
 ing to the nature of the birds tliat frequented them. 
 Each pond was surrounded with tessellated marble 
 
 Hi.it. A/m/oiji'/icn, M.'^., toni. i., cap. 1 Torfinoniiuln. Mnitarq. hid., ttnii. i., 
 p. '2%. u.ssiTts tliiit the j^ultl iind silver ])lut<'N with whicii tlie walls and 
 roof were routed, were ulitxiHt as tlii(!k ius a tiii;;er, anm tiiat thf lirst cnn- 
 querorM did not sec this cliapel or oratory, liersiimc MonUizuiii.i alway.s went 
 to thi' t.(Miiplc to l)ray, mid itrwlMiWy, as tiic luitives deciaiieil, kuowin;; the 
 covetousiiess of tiie Siianiards. Ii;- puriMisciy c<»ii(;i'aled all this wealth from 
 thcin ; it is also naid tliat when .Mexieo was taUeii the natives dextroyetl thi* 
 chapel, and threw its treaHure»> intto the lake. 
 "• Torque inada, Mom rq. Ind., toni. i., p. 2*7. 
 
166 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 „ I 
 
 pavement and shaded by clumps of trees. As often 
 as the water began to stagnate it was drained off and 
 renewed. Montezuma is said to have passed much of 
 his time here, alone or with his women, seated in the 
 shade, amid the plashing of fountains and odor of flow- 
 ers, musing upon affairs of state or diverting his mind 
 from sucl cares by watching the motions of the strange 
 birds upon the water. 
 
 No less than three hundred persons were employed 
 in attending upon the water-fowl and the birds in the 
 aviary ; feeding them and in the moulting season care- 
 fully gathering the gorgeous plumes, which served as 
 material for the celebrated Aztec feather- work. The 
 habits of the birds were closely studied, and great care 
 was taken that every species should be supplied with 
 the foi)d Ijest suited to its taste, whether it consisted 
 of worms, insects, or seeds. The fish with which the 
 water-fowl were suj)plied amounted to one hundred 
 a'.d fifty pounds daily. In another hall a collection 
 of human monstrosities was kept. As we shall pres- 
 ently see, many of these unfortunate creatures were 
 tramfcd to play the part of jesters at the royal table. 
 Yet anoi/her hall contained a number of albinos, or 
 white Indians, who were considered a great curiosity. 
 
 In addition to these city palaces the Aztec monarchs 
 had numerous equally splendid country residences, be- 
 sides whole tracts of country set a|)art us royal hunting- 
 grounds. In these parts timl)er was not allowed to be 
 cut nor game disturbed, whicli regulations were en- 
 forced with great rigor. 
 
 The principal country villa of Montezuma II., and 
 the only one of whicli any signs are yet visible, was 
 situated upon the hill of Chai)ulte})ec, which stood in 
 a westerly direction from tlie city of Mexico. In the 
 days t>f the Aztec kings, the lake of Tezcuco washed 
 the base of the hill, round which the royal grounds 
 stretclied for miles in every direction. The gardens 
 were laid out in terraces, that wound down the hillside 
 amid dense groves of pepper-trees, myrtles, and cy- 
 
THE HILL OF CHAPULTEPEC. 
 
 167 
 
 3 en- 
 
 and 
 
 was 
 
 od in 
 
 the 
 
 shed 
 
 mnds 
 
 dens 
 
 Iside 
 
 I cy- 
 
 presses, innumerable fountains and artificial cascades. 
 Little of the ancient glory of either palace or gardens 
 is now left, except the natural beauty of the foliage 
 that clothes the hill, and the magnificent view to be 
 obtained from the summit. Two statues of Mon- 
 tezuma II. and his father, cut in has relief on the 
 porphyry rock, were still to be seen, Gama tells us, in 
 the middle of the last century, but these are now gone, 
 swept away by the same ruthless hands that laid waste 
 the hanging gardens and tore down halls and monu- 
 ments until the groves of gigantic cypresses are all 
 that is left standing in the gardens of Chapultepec 
 that ministered to the pleasure of the ancient owners. 
 Peter Martyr, describing the palace at Iztapalapan, 
 writes, in the language of an early translator: "That 
 house also hath orchardes, finely planted with diuers 
 trees, and herbes, and flourishing fiowers, of a sweete 
 smell. There are also in the same, great standing 
 pooles of water with many kindes of fish, in the which 
 diuers kiiulos of all sortes of waterfoule are swimminge. 
 To the bottome of these lakes, a man may descend by 
 marble steppes brought farr of. They re})urt strange 
 thinges of a walke inclosed with nettinges of Canes, 
 least any one should freely come witliin the voyde 
 
 1)lattes of grounde, or to the fruite of the trees. Those 
 ledges are made with a thousande pleasant deuises, as 
 it falleth out in those delicate purple crosse alleyes, of 
 mirtle, rosemary, or boxe, al very delightfull to be- 
 hold."" 
 
 Nezahualcoyotl, the Tezcucan Solomon, was no wit 
 behind his royal brother of Mexico in tlie matter of 
 splendid country residences and gardens. Not content 
 with the royal pleasure-grounds called Huectecpan, 
 writes the Chichimec historian," this great king made 
 others, such as the forest so famous in Tezcotzincan 
 history, and those called Cauchiacac, Tzinacamoztoc, 
 
 " Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. ii. 
 
 " Ixllilxuchitl, Hint. Chich., in Kingsborough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 251-2. 
 
im 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Cozcaquauhco, Cuctlachatitlan, or Tlateitec, and those 
 of the lake Acatelelco, and Topetzinco; he Hkewise 
 marked out a large tract, where ho might pass his 
 leisure moments m hunting. These gardens were 
 adorned with fountains, drains, sewers, ponds, and 
 labyrinths, and were planted with all kinds of Howers 
 and trees, both indigenous and foreign. 
 
 But Nezahualcoyotl was not one to overlook utility 
 in laying out his grounds. Five large patches of the 
 most fertile lands lying near the capital were brought 
 under cultivation and the products appropriated ex- 
 clusively to the use of the royal household. 
 
 Certain towns and provinces in the vicinity of the 
 court furnislied attendants and laborers for the palaces, 
 gardens, and plantations. In return for such service 
 said towns and provinces were exempt from taxation 
 and enjoyed certain privileges. The manner of service 
 was divided ; thus twenty-eight towns supplied those 
 who attended to the cleanliness and order of the royal 
 buildings and waited upon the king and his suite; 
 fourteen of these towns" did service during one half 
 of the year and the remainder" during the other half 
 Five towns provided attendants for the king's cham- 
 ber," and eight provinces," with their dependent towns, 
 furnished, each in its turn, foresters, gardeners, and 
 agricultural laborers for the woods and gardens, orna- 
 mental or otherwise. 
 
 King Nezahualcoyotl's favorite country residence, 
 
 " Their names, as given hy Ixtlilxocliitl, Hist. Chirh., in Kingsborotiffh'a 
 Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 251,' were: Hucxotla, Coatlirlian, Coatn|)ec, Chi- 
 nialliuacan, Ytxtannlucaii, Tcpctlaoztoc, Acolniau, Tc|)cclii)an, Chiiilmauh- 
 tlan, Tcioiocan, (Jliiauhtia, I'imalotlan, Xaltouan, and Clialco. 
 
 •* Otonipan, Teotiliuacan, Tcj|)cpolco, CeiniMialon, Aztaqucniecan, Ahna- 
 tepec, Axa]M>cIioc, Oztoticpac, Tizuyocan, Tlalanapan, Coioac, (juatlatlauh- 
 can, Quaulitlacca, and ijuatlatzinco. lb. 
 
 IS 'Para la reeilniara del rey,' namely: Calpolalpan, Mazaapan, Yalnm- 
 linhcan, Atencn, and Tzihuinquilocan. lb. It is nnroasunable to suppose 
 that these so-called 'towns' were really more than mere villages, since the 
 kingdoms projicr of Mexico, Tezcueo, and Tlacopan, of which they fonned 
 only a fraction, were all contained in a valley not two hundred miles in cir- 
 cunifercncc. 
 
 '6 Tolantzinco, Quauhchinanco, XicotejKic, Panhatln, Yauhtepec, Tepcch- 
 CO, Ahuuoaiocan, and Quauliahuac. lb.; see also Torqmmada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn, i., p. 167. 
 
SUMMER PALACE AT TEZCOZINCO. 
 
 169 
 
 some remains of which are still visible, waa at Tezco- 
 zinco, on a conical hill lying about two leagues from 
 Tezcuco. A broad road, running between high hedges, 
 and probably winding spirally round the hill, a])pears 
 to have led up to the summit," which, however, could 
 be reached in a shorter time by means of a flight of 
 steps, many of which were cut into the living rock, 
 and the remainder made of pieces of stone finnly 
 cemented together. Ddvila Padilla, who wrote in the 
 latter part of the sixteenth century, says that ho 
 counted five hundred and twenty of these steps, with- 
 out reckoning those that had already crumbled to 
 pieces." He furthermore adds that for the last twelve 
 steps in the ascent the staircase was tunneled through 
 the solid rock, and became so narrow that only one 
 person could pass at a time. Diivila Padilla inquired 
 the reason of this of the natives, and was told by them, 
 as they had heard it from their fathers, that this nar- 
 row passage enabled the Tezcucan monarch to assert 
 his rank by taking precedence of his royal visitors 
 when they went in a body to worship the idol that 
 stood upon the summit; not a very polite proceeding 
 certainly." Water was brought over hill and dale to 
 the top of the mountain by means of a solid stone 
 aqueduct. Here it was received in a large basin, 
 having in its centre a great rock, upon which were in- 
 scribed in a circle the hieroglyphics representing the 
 years that had elapsed since Nezalmalcoyotl's birth, with 
 a list of his most noteworthy achievements in each.^ 
 Within this circle the royal coat of arms was sculptured, 
 
 " ' La ccrca tan gramlc que tenia para suhir A la cumhre dc el y andurlo 
 todo.' Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, t'hich., in KiiiffsborottglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 
 p. ar.i. 
 
 '* 'Para siibir hasta csta cuinbre sc puHsan quinicntos y veynte cscaloncs, 
 nin aI<;uno.s que estan ya dcslieuhos, \wr auer biiIo de |)ic(ira8 sucltas y pues- 
 tus h niani): ([ue otros niuchoH escalones ay, labrados en la ])rupia ]>eria cun 
 nuicha curiusidad. El afio pasado los anduiie todoa, y los c(>nt6, para dcponer 
 lie vista.' Diivila Padilla, Hist. Fvnd. Mex., p. 619. Prescott, Mcx., vol. 
 i., p. 186, citinj; the aliove author, p;ive8 five hundred and twenty as the 
 whole nunilHjr of .steps, without further remark. 
 
 >' Torquentada aisu mentions this staircase. Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 
 436 
 
 *D 'Eaculpida en ella en circunfercneia los aiios desdc que habia nacido el 
 
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 Photographic 
 
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 23 WEST ma:n street 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. t »»S0 
 (716) 673-4503 
 

 
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170 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the elaborate device of which it is almost impossible 
 to imagine from the clumsy description of it given by 
 Ixtlilxochitl. As nearly as I can make it out, certain 
 figures representing a deer's foot adorned with feathers 
 and having a precious stone tied to it, a hind support- 
 ing an arm which grasps a bow and arrows, and a corse- 
 leted warrior, wearing a helmet with its ear pieces, 
 formed the centre; these were flanked by two houses, 
 one in flames and falling to pieces, the other whole and 
 highly ornamented; two tigers of the country, vomit- 
 ing fire and water, served as supporters; the whole 
 was surrounded by a border composed of twelve heads 
 of kings and great nobles. From this basin the water 
 was distributed through the gardens in two streams, 
 one of which meandered down the northern side of the 
 hill, and the other down the southern side. Davila 
 Padilla relates that there also stood upon the summit 
 an image of a coyote, hewn from the living rock, which 
 represented a celebrated fasting Indian.'^^ There were 
 likewise several towers or columns of stone, havinsr 
 their capitals made in the shape of a pot, from which 
 protruded plumes oi feathers, which signified the name 
 of the place. Lower down was the colossal figure of 
 a winged beast, called by Ixtlilxochitl a lion,'" lying 
 down, with its face toward the east, and bearing in 
 its mouth a sculptured portrait of the king; this statue 
 was generally covered with a canopy adorned with 
 gold and feather- work.'" 
 
 A little lower yet were three basins of water, em- 
 blematic of the great lake, and on the borders of the 
 middle one three female figures were sculptured on 
 the solid rock, representing the heads of the confed- 
 
 rey Nezahualcoiotzin, hasta la cdad tie nqucl ticmr>o.' Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. 
 Chic.li., ill Kiiiffsborough's Mcx. Aiitiq., vol. ix., p. 252. Prescott says that 
 the hieroglvphics represented the 'years of Mczaluialcoyotrs reign.' Mex., 
 vol. i., p. 182. 
 
 *' Htst. Fvnd. Mex., p. 619. 'Thi>5 figure was, no doubt, the enihlein 
 
 of Nezahualcoyotl hiniHetf, whose name sigiiiKed "hungry fo.\."' Prcs- 
 
 cott's Mcx., vol. i., p. 18.S, note 42. 
 
 I' ' Un leon do mas de do-; brazas de largo con sus alas y plunias.' Hist. 
 Chick., in KingsborouffKn Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 252. 
 
 s> These figures wrro destroyed by order of t r Juan de Zuntdrraga, first 
 
ORNAMENTAL GARDENS AT TEZCOZINCO. 
 
 171 
 
 erated states of Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan.** Up- 
 on the northern side of the hill was another pond; and 
 here upon the rock was carved the coat of arms of the 
 city of ToUan, which was formerly the chief town of 
 the Toltecs; upon the southern slope of the hill was 
 yet another pond, bearing the coat of arms and the 
 name of the city of Tenayuca, which was formerly 
 the head town of the Chichimecs. From this basin a 
 stream of water flowed continually over the precipice, 
 and being dashed into spray upon the rocks, was scat- 
 tered like rain over a garden of odorous tropical 
 plants.'^ In the garden were two baths, dug out of 
 
 Bishop of Mexico. Ddvila Padilla, Hist. Fvnd. Mcx., p. 619; IxtUlxo- 
 chitl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsborounh's Mcx. Autiq., vol. ix., p. 252. The 
 injury wrought by this holy iconoclast ia incalculable. Blinded by the mad 
 fanaticism of tlie aye, he saw a devil in every Aztec image and hieroglyph; 
 Iiis hammers did more in a few years to eflface all vestiges of Aztec art and 
 greatness than time and decay could have done in as many centuries. It is 
 a few such men as this that the world has to tliank for tlie utter extinction 
 in a few short years of a mighty civilization. In a letter to the Franciscan 
 Chapter at Tolosa, date«l June 12, 1531, wc find the old bigot exulting over 
 his vandalism. 'Very reverend Fathers,* he writes: 'l)e it known to you 
 that we are very busy ia the work of converting the hcatlien; of whom, by 
 the gnice of Uod, Howards of one million have l>eeu baptized at the hands 
 of the brethren of tlie order of our seraphic Father Saint Francis; five hun- 
 dred temples have been leveled to the ground, and more than twenty thous- 
 and figures of the deviU they woi-shiped have lieen broken to pieces and 
 burned.' And it appears that the woithy zealot had even succeeded in 
 bringing the natives themselves to his way of thinking, for further on lie 
 writes: 'They watch with great care to .see where their fathers hide the idols, 
 and then with great fitlelity they bring them to the reli";ious of our order 
 that they may lie destroyed; and for this many of them have l)een brutally 
 murdered by their parents, or, to speak more jiroperly, have been crowned 
 in glory with Christ.' Dice. Univ., App., toni. iii., p. 1131. 
 
 ** 'I'here is a singular confusion alwut this passage. In KiunshoroiigtCa 
 Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 252, IxtJilxiicliitl is made to write: 'Un poqnito 
 mas abujo estaban trcs all)ercas de ugiia, y cii la del medio estaban en sus 
 bordus tres danias csculpidas y lubradas en la misma i>cna, que significa- 
 ban Itt gran lacuna; y las raitaa las ca1)czas del iiiipcrio.' In Prcscott's 
 Mcx., App., vol. iii., pp. 430-2, IxtliLxochitl's description of Tezcoziiico is 
 given in full; the almve-quoted ])assage is exactly the same here except 
 that for raiias, fro<{s, we read ramus, branches. Either of these Avords 
 would render the ocscription incomprehensible, and in my description I 
 have assumed that they are Iwth misprints for dainas. Mr Prescott, Mcx., 
 vol. i., pp. 182-3, surmounts the difficulty as follows: 'On a h>wer level 
 were three other reservoirs, in each of which stood a marble statue of a 
 woman, emblematic of the three states of the empire.' This is inaccurate 
 as well as iiiconiplete, inasmuch as the figures were not statues, each stand- 
 ing in a basin, but were all three cut upon the face of the rock-border of 
 the middle basin. 
 
 >^ I have no doubt that this is the basin known to modern travelers as 
 the 'Baths of Montezuma,' of which Ward says that it ia neither of 
 the proper shaiie, nor large enough for a bath, but that it more probably 
 
172 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 one large piece of porphyry ,** and a flight of steps 
 also cut from the solid rock, worked and polished so 
 smooth that they looked like mirrors, and on the front 
 of the stairs were carved. the year, month, day, and 
 hour in which information was brought to King Neza- 
 hualcoyotl of the death of a certain lord of Huexot- 
 zinco, whom he esteemed very highly, and who died 
 while the said staircase was being built." The garden 
 is said to have been a perfect little paradise. The 
 gorgeous flowers were all transplanted from the dis- 
 tant tierra caliente; marble pavilions, supported on 
 slender columns, with tesselated pavements and spark- 
 ling fountains, nestled among the shady groves and 
 afforded a cool retreat during the long summer days. 
 At the end of the garden, almost hidden by the groups 
 of gigantic cedars and cypresses that surrounded it, 
 
 ' served to receive the waters of a spring, since dried up, as its depth 
 is considerable, wliilc the edge on one side is formed into a spout.* Mex- 
 ico, vol. ii., p. 297. Of late years this excavation has l)een repeatedly 
 described by men who claim to have visited it, but whose statements it is 
 hard to reconcile. Bullock mentions having seen on this spot 'a 1)eautiful 
 basin about twelve feet lung by eight wide, having a well about five feet 
 by four deep in the centre, surrounded by a parapet or rim two feet six 
 inches high, with a throne or chair, such as is represented in ancient pictures 
 to have been used by the kings. There are steps to descend into the basin 
 or bath; the whole cut out of the living jiorphyry rock with the most math- 
 ematical precision, and polished in the most beautiful manner.' Mexico, 
 vol. ii., pp. 125-6. Latrolie says there were 'two singular Imsins, of iier- 
 liaps two feet and a half in diameter, not big enough for any monarch bis- 
 ger than Oberon to take a duck in.' Rambler, p. 187; Vigne's Travels, vol. 
 
 I., p. 27, mentions 'the remains of a circular stone Imth about a foot 
 
 deep and iive in diameter, with a small snrrounding and smoothed space cut 
 out of the solid rock.' Brtuitz Mayer, who both saw it and gives a sketch 
 of it, writes: 'The rock is smoothed to a perfect level for several yards, 
 around which, seats and grooves are carved from the adjacent masses. In 
 the centre there is a circular sink, about a yard and a half in diameter, and 
 a yard in depth, and a square pii)e, with a small ancrtnre, led the water from 
 un aqueduct, wliich appears to terminate in this iNisin.' Mex. as it Was, p. 
 23(. Beaufoy rniys that two^hirds up the southern side of the hill was a 
 mass of fine red porphyry, in Vrh'ch was an excavation six feet square, with 
 steps leading down tlirce feet, having in the centre a circular lias'n four 
 ana a half feet in diameter and five deep, also with steps. Mex. Illustr., p. 
 195. 'On the side of the hill ,re two little circular baths, cut in the solid 
 rock. The lower of the two has a flight of steps down to it; the seat for 
 the bather, and the stone pine which brought the water, are still quite 
 perfect.' Ty/or's yl«nAi«rtC, p. 152. 
 
 *6 'TroB este jardin se scguian los bafios hechos y lahrados dc pefia viva, 
 que con dividirs*^ <fn dos bailos era de una pieza.' Ixtlilxochitl, Htat. Chick., 
 in KinqahorouffiCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 252. 
 
 "/6. 
 
TOLTEC PALACES. 
 
 173 
 
 was the royal palace,** so situated that while its spa- 
 cious halls were filled with the sensuous odors of the 
 tropics, blown in from the gardens, it remained shel- 
 tered from the heat.® 
 
 If the ancient traditions may be believed, the Tol- 
 tec monarchs built as magnificent palaces as their 
 Aztec successors. The sacred palace of that mysteri- 
 ous Toltec priest-king, Quetzalcoatl, had four prmcipal 
 halls, facing the four cardinal points. That on the 
 east was called the Hall of Gold, because its halls 
 were ornamented with plates of that metal, delicately 
 chased and finished; the apartment lying toward the 
 west was named the Hall of Emeralds and Turquoises, 
 and its walls were profusely adorned with all kinds of 
 precious stones; the hall facing the south was deco- 
 rated with plates of silver and with brilliant-colored 
 sea-shells, which were fitted together with great skill. 
 The walls of the fourth hall, which was on the north, 
 were red jasper, covered with carving and ornamented 
 with shells. Another of these palaces or temples, for 
 it is not clear which they were, had also four principal 
 
 '" DAvil.-i Padilla says that some of the gateways of this palace were 
 formed of one piece of stone, and he saw one Mam of cedar tlicre which wo-' 
 almost ninety feet in length and four in breadth. Hist. Fend. Mex., p.' G20. 
 
 '3 Concerning; the royal buildings, gardens, &c., of the Aztecs, compare 
 Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., torn, i., cap. 1.; Torquemcula, Monarq. 
 IiuL, toni. i., pp. 107, 2!)6-8; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., m Kinmborongnrs 
 Mcx. Aiitiq., vol. i.K., pj). 243-4, 251-2; IMoila Padilla, Hist. Fond. Mex., 
 pp. 619-20; Relatione Jatta per vn gentiPhuomo del Signer Fernando Cor- 
 tcsc, in Raniusio, Navigationi, tom.'iii., fol. 309; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, 
 ii., lib. viii., pp. 302-9; Cainargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvclles Annales dcs 
 Vot/., 1843, toni. xcviii., p. 196; Acosta^s Hist. Nat. Ind.,n. 484; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Messico, toui. !., pp. 271-4; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., pp. 
 305-7, .504; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq. fol. 69; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in 
 hazbalceta. Col. de Doc., torn, i., pp. 181-5; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 107-11; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. iii., pp. 315-19; Cortis, 
 Cur/a.i, pj». 110-11; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. ix.-xi.; West- 
 Indisc/ie Sjnecfhel, pp. 245-6, 343; Gage's New Survey, pp. 97-9; Peter Mar- 
 tyr, dec. v., lib. iii., iv., x.; Chevalier, Mexiquc, pp. 30-2; PrcscotCs Mrx., 
 vol. i., pp. 177-84, vol. ii., pp. 65, 115-21; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Cio., tom. iv., pp. 8-1 1; Pimcntel, Rata Indigena, p. 57; Tdpia, Re- 
 lacion, in Icazbaleeta Col. de Doe., tom. ii., pp. 581-3. Other works of no 
 original value, which touch on this subject, are: Klemm, Cultur-Gcschichtc, 
 torn, v., pp. 15,244, 65-6, 234-7; RanXing's Hist. Researehes, pp. 347-51; 
 Bitss'ierre, V Empire Mexieain, pp. 90-4, 109; Maegregor's Progress of Amer- 
 iea, p. 22; Dilworth'a Cotiq. Mex., pp. 66, 70; Wtst und Oat Indiaclter Lutt- 
 gart, pt i., p. 126. 
 
174 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 halls decorated entirely with feather-work tapestry. 
 In the eastern division the feathers were yellow; in 
 the western they were blue, taken from a bird called 
 Xiuhtototl; in the southern hall the feathers were 
 white, and in that on the north they were red.** 
 
 The number of attendants attached to the royal 
 houses was very great. Every day from sunrise until 
 sunset the antechambers of Montezuma's palace in 
 Mexico were occupied by six hundred noblemen and 
 gentlemen, who passed the time lounging about and 
 discussing the gossip of the day in low tones, for it 
 was considered disrespectful to speak loudly or make 
 any noise within the palace limits. They were pro- 
 vided with apartments in the palace,'^ and took their 
 meals from what remained of the superabundance of 
 the royal table, as did, after them, their own servants, 
 of whom each pernon of quality was entitled to from 
 one to thirty, according to his rank. These retainers, 
 numbering two or three thousand, filled several outer 
 courts during the day. 
 
 The king took his meals alone, in one of the largest 
 halls of the palace. If the weather was cold, a fire 
 was kindled with a kind of charcoal mjide of the bark 
 of trees, which emitted no smoke, but threw out a de- 
 licious perfume; and that his majesty might suffer no 
 inconven.'ence from the heat, a screen ornamented with 
 gold and carved with figures of the idols** was placed 
 between his person and the fire. He was seated upon 
 a low leather cushion, upon which were thrown vari- 
 ous soft skins, and his table was of a similar descrip- 
 tion, except that it was larger and rather higher, and 
 was covered with white cotton cloths of the finest 
 texture. The dinner-service was of the finest ware of 
 Cholula, and many of the goblets were of gold and 
 
 ^1 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 107-S. 
 
 31 Close to the great audience hall was a verj: large court-yard, 'en ouo 
 avia fieiit aposeiitos de veyntc i f inco 6 trej nta pies de largo cada uno sonre 
 si en torno de dicho patio, & alii estaban los sefiorcs prin^ipalca aj)os8entado8, 
 como miardaa del pala^io ordinarias.' Ovicdo, Hist. Gen., torn, lii., p. 601. 
 
 3* ' Vna como tabla labrada con oro, y otras figuras de idolos. Bemal 
 Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68. 
 
MONTEZUMA AT TABLE. 
 
 175 
 
 silver, or fashioned of beautiful shells. He is said to 
 have possessed a complete service of solid gold, but as 
 it was considered below a king's dignity to use any- 
 thing at table twice, Montezuma with all his extrava- 
 gance, was obliged to keep this costly dinner-set in 
 the temple. The bill of fare comprised everything 
 edible of fish, flesh, and fowl, that could be procured 
 in the empire or imported from beyond it. Relays of 
 couriers were employed in bringing delicacies from 
 afar, and as the royal table was every day supplied 
 witli fresh fish brought, without the modern aids of 
 ice and air-tight packing, from a sea-toast more than 
 a hundred miles distant, by a road passing chiefly 
 through a tropical climate, we can form some idea of 
 the speed with which f nese couriers traveled. There 
 were cunning cooks among the Aztecs, and at those 
 extravagant meals there was almost as much variety 
 in the cooking as in the matter cooked. Sahagun^ 
 gives a most formidable list of roast, stewed, and boiled 
 dishes of meat, fish, and poultry, seasoned with many 
 kinds of herbs, of which, however, the most frequently 
 mentioned is chile.'* He further describes many kinds 
 of bread, all bearing a more or less close resemblance 
 to the modern Mexican tortilla,'® and all most tre- 
 mendously named; imagine, for instance, when one 
 wished for a piece of bread, having to ask one's neigh- 
 bor to be good enough to pass the totanquitlaxcallil- 
 laquelpacholli ; then there were tamales of all kinds,** 
 
 " Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 297-.S02. 
 
 3< This imngent condiment is at tlie jnesent day as omnipresent in Span- 
 ish American disJies as it was at the time of the conquest; and I am seri- 
 ously informed by a Spanisli gentleman wlio resided for many years in Mex- 
 ico, and was an otKcer in Maximilian's army, that while the wolves would 
 feed upon the dead bodies of the French that lajr all night upon the battle- 
 field, tlicy never touched the bodies of the Mexicans, because the flesh of 
 the latter was completely impregnated with chile. Which, if true, may bo 
 thought to show that Widves do not object to a diet seasoned with garlic. 
 
 31 Described too frequently in vol. i., of this series, to need repetition. 
 
 3B The tamalc is another very favorite modern Mexican dish. The na- 
 tives generally make them with pork; the bones are crushed almost to 
 powder; the meat is cut up in small pieces, and the whole washed; a small 
 quantity of maize paste, seasoned with cinnamon, saffron, cloves, pimento, 
 tomatoes, coarse penper, salt, red coloring matter, and some lard added to 
 it, is placed uu the fire in a pan; as soon as it has acquired the consistency 
 
176 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 and many other curious messes, such as frog-spawn, 
 and stewed ants cooked with chile, but more loath- 
 some to us than even such as these, and strangest 
 of all the strange compounds that went to make up 
 the royal carte, was one highly seasoned, and probably 
 savory-smelling dish, so exquisitely prepared that its 
 principal ingredient was completely disguised, yet that 
 ingredient was nothing else than human flesh." Each 
 dish was kept warm by a chafing-dish placed under it. 
 Writers do not agree as to the exact quantity of food 
 served up at each meal, but it must have been im- 
 mense, since the lowest number of dishes given is 
 three hundred,^ and the highest three thousand.** 
 They were brought into the hall by four hundred 
 pages of noble birth, who placed their burdens upon 
 the matted floor and retired noiselessly. The king 
 then pointed out such viands as he wished to partake 
 of, or left the selection to his steward, who doubtless 
 took pains to study the likes and dislikes of the royal 
 palate. This steward was a functionary of the highest 
 rank and importance ; he alone was privileged to place 
 vhe designated delicacies before the king upon the 
 
 of a thick gruel it i3 removed, mixed vith the meat, some more lard and 
 salt added, and tlie mass kneaded for a few moments; it is then divided into 
 small portions, which are enveloped in a thin paste of maize. The taniales 
 thus prepared are covered with a Imnana-leaf or a corn-lii.sk, and niaecd in 
 a pot or pan over which large leaves are laid. They are allowed to trail from 
 one hour and a half to two liours. Game, poultry, vegetables, or sweet- 
 meats are often used instead of iiork. 
 
 3' Torquemada, Monarq. Ina., torn. i.. p. 229, regrets that certain per- 
 sons, out of the ill-will they bore tlic Mexicans, have falsely imputed to 
 Montezuma the crime of eating hum^n flesh without its being well seasoned, 
 but he admits that when proixsrly cooked and disguised, the flesh of those 
 sacrificed to the gods appeared at the royal btiard. Some modem writers 
 seem to doubt even tliis; it is, however, certain that cannibalism existed 
 among the people, not as a means of allaying amwtite, but from partly re- 
 ligious' motives, and there seems no reason to uoubt that the kiu^; shared 
 the superstitions of the people. I do not, however, base the opinion upon 
 Ovicdo s assertion, which smacks strongly of the 'giant stories' of the nur- 
 sery, that certain 'dishes of tender children' graced the monarch's table. 
 Hist. Gen., Una. iii., p. 501. Benial Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. G8, also cannot 
 withstand the temptation to deal in the marvelous, and mentions 'carncs de 
 muchachosdc pocaedad;' though it is true the soldier-like bluntuess tho 
 veteran so prided himself upon, comes to his aid, and he admits that per- 
 haps after all Montezuma was not an ogre. 
 
 M Bemal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68. 
 
 » Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 501. 
 
MONTEZUMA'S TABLE. 
 
 177 
 
 table; he appears to have done duty both as royal 
 carver and cupbearer, and, according to Torquemada, 
 to have done it barefooted and on his knees.*" Every- 
 thing being in readiness, a number of the most beauti- 
 ful of the king's women*' entered, bearing water in 
 round vessels called xicales, for the king to wash his 
 hands in, and towels that he might dry them, other 
 vessels being placed upon the ground to catch the drip- 
 pings. Two other women at the same time brought 
 him some small loaves of a very delicate kind of bread 
 made of the finest maize-flour, beaten up with eggs. 
 This done, a wooden screen, carved and gilt, was 
 placed before him, that no one might see him while 
 eati iig.** There were always present five or six aged 
 lor(?s, who stood near the royal chair barefooted, and 
 witn bowed heads. To these, as a special mark of 
 fa^or, the king occasionally sent a choice morsel from 
 his own plate. During the meal the monarch some- 
 times amused himself by watching the performances 
 of his jugglers and tumblers, whose marvelous feats 
 of strength and dexterity I shall describe in another 
 place ; at other times there was dancing, accompanied 
 by singing and music ; there were also present dwarfs, 
 and professional jesters, who were allowed to speak, 
 a privilege denied all others under penalty of death, 
 and, after the manner of their kind, to tell sharp 
 truths in the shape of jests. The more solid food 
 was followed by pastry, sweetmeats, and a magnificent 
 dessert of fruit. The only beverage drank at the meal 
 was chocolate,*' of which about fifty jars were pro- 
 
 « Monarq. hid., torn, i., p. 229. 
 
 *i Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. (58, says there were four of these women; 
 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 229, says there were twenty. 
 
 " ' Jil ya que comen^aua d comer, echauanle delante vna como puerta do 
 niadera muy pintada de ore, porque no le viessen comer.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 68. 'Luego que se sentaba h la Mesa, cerraba el Maestre-Sala 
 vnaVaranda de Madera, que dividia la Sala, para que la Noblcfa de los 
 CnlHiIleros, qiie acudia A verle comer, no emturafase la Mesa.' Torquemada, 
 Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 229. 'Tosto che il Re si metteva a tavola, cliiude- 
 va lo Scalco la porta delta Sala, acciocch^ nessuno degli altri Nobili lo 
 vedesse mangiare.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., p. 270. 
 
 *^ 'A potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and other spices, and 
 so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which 
 Voi.n. w 
 
178 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 vided,'** it was taken with a spoon, finely wrought of 
 gold or shell, from a goblet of the same material. 
 Having finished his dinner, the king again washed 
 his hands in water brought to him, as before, by 
 the women. After this, several painted and gilt 
 pipes were brought, from which he inhaled, through 
 his mouth or nose, as suited him best, the smoke 
 of a mixture of liquid-amber, and an herb called 
 tobacco.** His siesta over, he devoted himself to 
 business, and proceeded to give audience to foreign 
 ambassadors, deputations from cities in the empire, 
 and to such of his lords and ministers as had business 
 to transact with him. Before entering the presence- 
 chamber, all, no matter what their rank might be, 
 unless they were of the blood-royal, were obliged to 
 leave their sandals at the door, to cover their rich 
 dresses with a large coarse mantle, and to approach 
 the monarch barefooted and with downcast eyes, for 
 it was death to the subject who should dare to look 
 his sovereign in the face.** The king usually answered 
 through his secretaries,*^ or when he deigned to speak 
 
 gradually dissolved in the mouth.' Prescolt's Mex., vol. ii., p. 125. 'This 
 was soniethiiig like our chocolate, and prepared in the same way, but with 
 this difference, that it was mixed with the boiled dough of nmise, and was 
 drunk cold.' Beriial Diaz, Hist. Conq., [Lockhart's translation Lond., 
 1844, vol. i., note, p. 393]. 'La bcbida.es agua mezclada con cierta harina 
 de imas almcndras que llaman cacao. Esta es dc mucha sustancia, muy 
 fresca, y sabrosa y agradable, y no embriaga.' Laa Casus, Hist. Apologitica, 
 MS., cap. ccxi. 
 
 ^* 'Entonces no mirauamos en ello; mas lo que yo vi, que traian sobre 
 cincuenta jarros grandes hechos de buen cacao con su cspuma, y de lo (^ue 
 bebia.' Bcrnal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68. Oviedo, as usual, is content with 
 no number less than three thousand: 'K luego venian tres mill xicalos (cdn- 
 taros 6 dnforas) de brevage.' Hist. Gen., iom. iii., p. 501. Las Casaa makes 
 it three hundred: 'A su tiempo, en medio 6 en fin de los manjares segun la 
 costumbre que tenian, entravan otroa trescientos pajcs, cada uno con un 
 vaso urandc que cabia medio azumbre, (about a quart), y auu tres quartillos 
 de la ucbida en el mismo, v servia el un vaso al rey el maestresala, de que 
 bebia loque le agradava.' Las Casus, Hist. Apoloqitica, MS., cap. ccxi. 
 
 *5 ' Vnas yervas que se dize tabaco.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68. 
 
 *6 Only five {Ksrsons enjoyed the privilege of looking Montezuma II. in 
 the face: the kings of Tezcuco and Tlacopan, and the lords of Quauhtitlan, 
 Coyouacan, and Azcapuzalco. Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxi. 
 Bernal Diaz says that all who approached the royal seat made three rev- 
 erences, saying in succession, 'Lord,* 'my lord,' 'sublime lord.' Hist. Conq., 
 fol. 68. 
 
 ^1 This custom of speaking through a secretary was adopted by the other 
 Aztec monarchs as well as Montezuma, aud was also imitated by many of 
 
THE ROYAL WARDROBE. 
 
 179 
 
 G8. 
 II. in 
 bitlan, 
 ccxi. 
 rev- 
 Cong-., 
 
 other 
 »ny of 
 
 directly to the person who addressed him, it was in 
 such a low tone as scarcely to be heard ;** at the same 
 time he listened very attentively to all that was com- 
 municated to him, and encouraged those who, from 
 embarrassment, found difficulty in speaking. Each 
 applicant, when dismissed, retired backward, keeping 
 his face always toward the royal seat. The time set 
 apart for business having elapsed, he again gave him- 
 self up to pleasure, and usually passed the time in 
 familiar badinage with his jesters, or in listening to 
 ballad-singers who sang of war and the glorious deeds 
 of his ancestors, or he amused himself by looking on 
 at the feats of strength and legerdemain of his jug- 
 glers and acrobats; or, sometimes, at this hour, he 
 would retire to the softer pleasures of the harem. 
 He changed his dress four times each day, and a dress 
 once worn could never be used again. Concerning 
 this custom, Peter Martyr, translated into the quaint- 
 est of English, writes: "Arising from his bed, he is 
 cloathed after one maner, as he commeth forth to bee 
 scene, and returning backe into his chamber after he 
 hath dined, he changeth his garments: and when he 
 commeth forthe againe to supper, hee taketh another, 
 and returning backe againe the fourth which he wear- 
 eth vntill he goe to bed. But concerning 3. garments, 
 which he changeth euery day, many of them that re- 
 turned haue reported the same vnto me, with their 
 owne mouth: but howsoeuer it be, all agree in the 
 changing of garmentes, that being once taken into the 
 wardrope, they are there piled vp on heaps, not likely 
 to see the face of Muteczuma any more: but what 
 manner of garmentes they be, we will elswhere de- 
 clare, for they are very light. These things being 
 
 the ffreat trihutaiy lords and goveniors of provinces who wished to make as 
 much display of their rank and dignity as possible. See Motolinia, Hist 
 Iiidios, in Icazbaleeta, Col. de Doe., torn, i., p. 184; Laa Cascu, Hist. Apolo- 
 gUica, MS., cap. ccxL; Tmntmmmda, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 206. 
 
 ** 'Lo que los SBfl M w a haWahao y la palabra que niaa ordinariamente de- 
 oian al fin de laa plM«a ]f neflDcioa qae aa les comunicaban, eran decir con 
 muy baja voz tlan, <t— ■uwialUck "ai 4 Irian, bien." ' Motolinia, Hist. In- 
 '* CWTtiaJlae 
 
 dios, in Iccubaledtt, 
 
 K»pklH 
 
180 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 obserued, it wil not be wodred at, that we made men-* 
 tion before concerning so many garments presented.; 
 For accounting the yeares, and the dayes of the yeares, 
 especially, wherein Muteczuma hath inioyed peace & 
 howe often he changeth his garments eueiy aaye, all 
 admiration will cease. But the readers will demand, 
 why he heapeth vp so great a pile of garments, & that 
 iustly. Let them knowe that Muteczuma vsed to 
 giue a certeine portion of ganiients to his familiar 
 friends, or well deseruing soldiers, in steed of a beneu- 
 olence, or stipend, when they go to the wars, or re- 
 turne from y* victory, as Augustus Ccesar lord of the 
 world, a mightier Prince than Muteczuma, commaded 
 only a poore reward of bread to be giuen ouer & aboue 
 to such as performed any notable exployt, while being 
 by Maro admonished, that so smal a larges of bread 
 was an argumet y* he was a bakers son: then al- 
 though it be recorded in writig that Ctesar liked y* 
 mery coceit, yet it is to be beleued y* he blushed at 
 that diuinatio, because he promised Virgil to alter 
 his dispositio & that hereafter he would bestow gifts 
 worthy a great king, & not a bakers son."*' 
 
 The kings did not often appear among their peo- 
 ple,* though we are told that they would sometimes 
 go forth in disguise to see that no part of the religious 
 feasts and ceremonies was omitted, to make sure that 
 the laws were observed, and probably, as is usual in 
 such cases, to ascertain the true state of public opinion 
 with regard to themselves."* Whenever t' 3y did ap- 
 pear abroad, however, it was with a parade that cor- 
 responded with their other observances. Upon these 
 occasions the king was seated in a magnificent litter, 
 overshadowed by a canopy of feather- work, the whole 
 being adorned with gold and precious stones, and car- 
 ried upon the shoulders of four noblemen. He was 
 
 ** Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv. 
 
 M Torquemada writes of Montezuma II.: 'Su trato con los Suios, era 
 poco: raras veces se dejaba vbr, y estabase encerrado mucho tienipo, pen- 
 8ando en el Qpyierno de su Ileino.' Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 205. 
 
 ^^ Torquemada, Monarq. Ind. ,iom.i„^.W&. 
 
THE KINO OUT OF DOOUS. 
 
 m 
 
 era 
 
 pen- 
 
 attended by a vast multitude of courtiers of all ranks, 
 who walked without speaking, and with their eyes 
 bent upon the ground. The procession was headed 
 by an official carrying three wands, whose duty it was 
 to give warning of the king's approach, and by others 
 who cleared the road of all obstructions.''' All who 
 chanced to meet the royal party, instantly stopped, 
 and remained motionless with heads bent down, like 
 friars chanting the Gloria Patri, says Father Motoli- 
 nia, until the procession had passed. When the mon- 
 arch alighted, a carpet was spread upon the ground 
 for him to step on. The meeting of Montezuma II, 
 and Cortds, as described by Bemal Diaz, will show 
 the manner in which the Aztec kings were attended 
 when out of doors: 
 
 "When we arrived at a spot where another narrow 
 causeway led ♦^ow.irds Cuyoacan we were met by a 
 number of caciques and distinguished personages, all 
 splenditi! > dressed. They had been sent by Monte- 
 zuma to meet us and welcome us in his name; and as 
 a sign of peace each touched the earth with his hand 
 and then kissed it."* While we were thus detained, 
 the lords of Tezcuco, Iztapalapa, Tacuba, and Cuyoa- 
 can, advanced to meet the mighty Montezuma, who 
 was approaching seated on a splendid litter, and es- 
 corted by a number of powerful nobles. When we 
 arrived at a place not far from the capital, where were 
 certain fortifications, Montezuma, descending from his 
 litter, came forward leaning on the arms of some of 
 the attendant lords, while others held over him a can- 
 opy of rich feather-work ornamented with silver and 
 gold, having an embroidered border from which hung 
 pearls and chalchihuis stones.** Montezuma was very 
 sumptuously dressed, according to his custom, and 
 
 "* Picking up straws, says Las Casas: '£ iban estos oficiales delante 
 quitando las j^.'ajas del suelo por finas que fuesen.' Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 cap. ccxi. 
 
 ^3 This was the Aztec manner of salutation, and is doubtless what Ber- 
 nal Diaz means where he writes: 'Y en sefial de paz tocavan con la mano 
 en el suelo, y besauan la tierra con la mesma mano.' Hist, "onq., fol. 66. 
 
 M Green stones, more valued than any other among the Aztecs. 
 
182 
 
 THE NAHI'A NATIONS. 
 
 had on hi^ feet a kind of sandals, with soles of gold, 
 the upper part being studded with precious stones. 
 The four grandees** who supported him were also very 
 richly attired, and it seemed to us that the clothes 
 they now wore must have been held in readiness for 
 them somewhere upon the road, for they were not 
 thus dressed when they first came out to meet us. 
 And besides these great lords there were many others, 
 some of whom held the cai.opy over the king's head, 
 while others went in advance, sweeping the ground 
 over which he was to walk, and spreading down cotton 
 cloths that his feet might not touch the earth. Ex- 
 cepting only the four nobles upon whose arms he 
 leaned, and who were his near relatives, none of all 
 his followers presumed to look in the king's face, but 
 all kept their eyes lowered to the ground in token of 
 respect."* 
 
 Besides the host of retainers already mentioned 
 therewere innumerable other officers attached to the 
 royal household, such as butlers, stewards, and cooks 
 of all grades, treasurers, secretaries, scribes, military 
 officers, superintendents of the royal granaries and ar- 
 senals, and those employed under them. A great num- 
 ber of artisans were constantly kept busy repairing old 
 buildings and erecting new ones, and a little army of 
 jewelers and workers in precious metals resided per- 
 manently at the palace for the purpose of supplying the 
 king and court with the costly ornaments that were 
 eventually such a windfall for the conquerors, and over 
 the description of which they one and all so lovingly 
 linger. Nor was the softer sex unrepresented at court. 
 The Aztec sovereigns were notorious for their uxori- 
 ousness. Montezuma II. had in his harem at least 
 one thousand women, and this number is increased by 
 most of the historians to three thousand, including 
 the female attendants and slaves. Of these wo are 
 
 w CorWs himself says that the king was supported bv two grundeca only; 
 one of whom was his nephew, the king of Tezcuco, and the other hu brother, 
 the lord of Iztapalapa. Cartas, p. 85. 
 
 M Bernal Ihaz, uiat. Conq., fol. 66. 
 
THE ROYAL HAREM. 
 
 183 
 
 were 
 
 toM on good authority that he had one hundred and 
 fifty pregnant at one time, all of whom killed their 
 offspring in the womb,**^ yet notwithstanding this 
 wholesale abortion, he had more than fifty sons and 
 daughters. His father had one hundred and fifty 
 children, of whom Montezuma II. killed all his bro- 
 thers and forced his sisters to marry whom he pleased ; 
 — at least such is the import of Oviedo's statement.* 
 Nezahualpilli, of Tezcuco, had between seventy and one 
 hundred children.*'' Camargo tells us that Xicotencatl, 
 one of the chiefs of Tlascala had a great number of sons 
 by more than fifty wives or concubines.* These women 
 were the daughters of the nobles, who thought them- 
 selves honored by having a child in the royal harem. 
 Occasionally the monarch presented one of his concu- 
 bines to some great lord or renowned warrior, a mark of 
 favor which thenceforth distinguished the recipient as 
 a man whom the king delighted to honor. The ser- 
 aglio was presided over by a number of noble matrons, 
 who kept close watch and ward over the conduct of 
 their charges and made daily reports to the king, who 
 invariably caused the slightest indiscretion to be se- 
 verely punished. Whether eunuchs were employed 
 in the Aztec harems is uncertain; this, however, we 
 read in Motolinia: "Moteuczomatzin had in his palace 
 dwarfs and little hunchbacks, who when children were 
 with great ingenuity made crook-backed, ruptured,"* 
 and disjointed, because the lords in this country made 
 the same use of them as at the present day the Grand 
 Turk does of eunuchs.""* 
 
 " Torquemnda, Monarq. Itid., torn, i., p. 230; Gotnara, Coiiq. Mex., fol. 
 107; Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. ix. ; Denial Diaz, Jlist. Conq., 
 fol. 67; IVest-Indische Spicghct, p. 24(i. CIavi<;ero disbelieves the report 
 that ftrontczHiiia hud one huiidrcu and tifiy women prc<;nant at once. Slo- 
 ria Ant. del Mcs.iico, torn, i., p. 5?f38. Oviedo makes the number of women 
 four thousand. Hist. Gen., toni. iii., p. 505. 
 
 ** Ooiedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 505. 
 
 *9 Torqiiemada, Monarq. Ind., ioni. ii., p. 435. 
 
 *• Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annalcs dcs Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 169. 
 
 *' 'Quebniban,' which probably here means 'castrated.' 
 
 <i2 'Tenia Motcuczoniatzin en su palacio cnanos y corcobadillos, quo do 
 industria sicndo nifios los liacian jibosos, y los quebraban y descoynntaban, 
 porquo do ostos so Servian los aefioi'CB on csta tierra conio ahora haco el Gran 
 
184 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The enormous expenditure incurred in the mainte- 
 nance of such a household as this, was defrayed by the 
 people, who, as we shall see in a future chapter, were 
 sorely oppressed by car- taxation. The management 
 of the whole was entrusted to a head steward or major- 
 domo, who, with the help of his secretaries, kept 
 minute hieroglyphic accounts of the royal revenue. 
 Bernal Diaz tells us that a whole apartment was filled 
 with these account-books. ** In Tezcuco, writes Ixtlil- 
 xochitl, the food consumed by the court was supplied 
 by certain districts of the kingdom, in each of which 
 was a gatherer of taxes, who besides collecting the 
 regular tributes, was obliged to furnish the royal 
 household, in his turn, with a certain quantity of spe- 
 cified articles, for a greater or less number of days, 
 according to the wealth and extent of his department. 
 The daily supply amounted to thirty -one and a quarter 
 bushels of grain; nearly three bushels and three quar- 
 ters of beans;" four hundred thousand ready-made 
 tortillas; four Xiquipiles"* of cocoa, making in all 
 thirty-two thousand cocoa-beans ;** one hundred cocks 
 of the country;"'' twenty loaves of salt; twenty great 
 baskets of large chiles, and twenty of small chiles ; ten 
 baskets of tomatoes; and ten of seed.®* All this was 
 furnished daily for seventy days by the city of Tezcu- 
 co and its suburbs, and by the districts of Atenco, and 
 Tepepulco; for sixty-five days by the district of Qua- 
 uhtlatzinco ; and for forty-five days by the districts of 
 Azapocho and Ahuatepec.®® 
 
 Such, as full in detail as it is handed down to us, was 
 
 Turco dc eunucos.' Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., tcni. i., pp. 
 184-5. Turqucmada, Monarq. Jnd., torn, i., p. 298, uses nearly the same 
 words. 
 
 « Hist. Conq., fol. 08. 
 
 <'' 'Otros tres TIacopintlix de frisoles.' The Tlacopintlix was one 'fane- 
 ga,' and three 'alinudes,' or, one bushel and a quarter. 
 
 <i* 'Xiquipilli, costal, talega, alforja, o bolsa.' Molina, Vocabulario. 
 
 ^ 'Trcinta y doa mil cacaos,' possibly cocoa-pods instead of cocoa-beans. 
 
 *' 'Cien gallos.' ProWbly turkeys. 
 
 ^ Probably pumpkin or melon seed. 
 
 ^ Ixtlilxochttl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 p. 241. 
 
AZTEC KINGS AND THEIR SUBJECTS. 
 
 185 
 
 the manner in which the Aztec monarchs lived. The 
 policy they pursued toward their subjects was to en- 
 force obedience and submission by enacting laws that 
 were calculated rather to excite awe and dread than to 
 inspire love and reverence. To this end they kept the 
 people at a distance by surrounding themselves with 
 an impassable barrier of pomp and courtly etiquette, 
 and enforced obedience by enacting laws that made 
 death the penalty of the most trivial offenses. There 
 was little in common between king and people; as is 
 ever the case between a despot and his subjects. The 
 good that the kings did by their liberality and love of 
 justice, and the success they nearly all achieved by 
 their courage and generalship, merited the admiration 
 of their subjects. On the other hand, the oppression 
 which they made their vassals feel, the heavy burdens 
 they imposed upon them, their own pride and arro- 
 gance, and their excessive severity in punishments, 
 engendered what we should now call a debasing fear, 
 but which is none the less an essential element of 
 progress at certain stages.''*' 
 
 '"> Concernin<r the king's manner of living and the domestic economy of 
 the royal houseliold, see: Cortis, Cartan, pp. 84-5, 109-13; Bernal Diaz, 
 Hist. Vonq., fol. 66-8; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 286-322; 
 Las Casus, Hist. Apoloqitica, MS., cap. ccxi. ; Torqitemada, Monarij. Intl., 
 torn, i., pp. 167-8, 205-6, 228-31, 298, toni. ii., p. 435; Motolinia, Uist.Indios, 
 iu Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., pp. 184-5; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iii., 
 iv.; Gonuira, Conq. Mex., fol. 103-4, 107-8; Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 507; 
 
 On'edo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii,, pp. 307, 501, 505; Clarigcro, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, i., pp. 268-71; nerrera. Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. v., 
 vii., ix., xii-xiii., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xiv. ; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. 
 
 iii., pp. 189-91; Ortega, in Id., pp. 310-17; West-Indischc Snieghcl, p. 246; 
 Gage's New Survey, pp. 97, 100-1; Brasseur de Bonrhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, i., p. 284, torn, iv., pp. 9-13; PrescotVs Mex., torn, ii., pp. 121-9; Zuazo, 
 Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. .S62; Carli, Cartas, pt i., pp. 
 117-18. Other works of more or less value Itcariiig on this subject are: 
 Touron, Hist. Gfn., tom. iii., pp. 25-.38, 355-7, 359; Bussierre, L'Empire 
 Mex., pp. 109, 119-22, 264-5; Baril, Mexiqttc, pp. 204-7; Dii/ey, Rcsnmf, 
 torn, i., pp. 136-7; BrowneWs Ind. Races, pp. 83, 93-5; Banking's Hist. 
 Rcseardws, pj). 315-16, 321-3, 342-7, 350; Sodcn, Spanier in Peru, p. 136; 
 Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 582-4; Lafond, Voyages, tom. 
 i., pp. 104-5; Cooper's Hist. N.Amr.r., pp. 112-13; Dihforth's Conq. Mex., 
 pp. 65-6, 70-1; Hawks, in Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii., p. 469; Monglave, Ri- 
 ««)»<!, pp. 19,82-3; Incidents and Sketches, p. CiO; Klemm, Cultur-Geschiehte, 
 tom. v., pp. 63-6, 209-11, 234, 242; Dillon, Hist. Mex., p. 52; West und Ost 
 Indischer Lustgart, pp. 123-5. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AMONG THE NAHUA8. 
 
 Titles of the Nobility and Gentry— The Power of the Nobles— 
 The Aristocracy of Tezcuco— The Policy of Kino Techotlal- 
 atzin— Privileges of the Nobles — Montezuma's Policy- Ri- 
 valry between Nobles and Commons— The Knioiitly Order of 
 Tecuhtli — Ceremony of Initiation— Origin of the Order— 
 The Nahua Priesthood— The Priests of Mexico— Dedication of 
 Children— Priestesses— Priesthood of Miztecapan— The Pon- 
 tiff of Yopaa — Tradition of Wixipecocha— The Cave of Yopaa 
 — The Zapotec Priests- Toltec Priests— Totonac Priests — 
 Priests of Michoacan, Puebla, and Tlascala. 
 
 Descending in due order the social scale of the Az- 
 tecs, we now come to the nobility, or, more properly 
 speaking, the privileged classes. The nobles of Mex- 
 ico, and of the other Nahua nations, were divided into 
 several classes, each having its own peculiar privileges 
 and badges of rank. The distinctions that existed be- 
 tween the various grades, and their titles, are not, 
 however, clearly defined. The title of Tlatoani was 
 the highest and most respected; it signified an abso- 
 lute and sovereign power, an hereditary and divine 
 right to govern. The kings, and the great feudatory 
 lords who were governors of provinces, and could 
 prove their princely descent and the ancient independ- 
 ence of their families, belonged to this order. The 
 title of Tlatopilzintli was given to the eldest son of 
 the king, and that of Tlatoque to all the princes in 
 
 (180) 
 
THE AZTEC ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 187 
 
 general. Tlacahua signified a lord without sover- 
 eignty, but who had vassals under his orders, and was, 
 to a certain extent, master of his people. The appel- 
 lation of Pilli was given to all who were noble, with- 
 out regard to rank. Axcahua, was a rich man, a 
 proprietor of wealth in general, and Tlaquihua, a 
 landed proprietor, or almost the same thing as an 
 English country gentleman. 
 
 The title of Tlatoani was invariably hereditary, but 
 many of the others were conferred only for life, as a 
 reward for important military or other services to the 
 state. Of the tenure by which they held their lands 
 I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. 
 
 The power of the nobles, as a body, was very great; 
 according to some accounts there were, in Montezu- 
 ma's realms, thirty great lords who each controlled 
 one hundred thousand vassals, and three thousand 
 other lords also very powerful. A number of nobles 
 possessing such formidable power as this, would, if 
 permitted to live on their estates, some of which were 
 a long distance from the capital, have been a con- 
 stantly threatening source of danger to the crown ; at 
 any moment an Aztec Runnimede might have been 
 expected. To guard against any such catastrophe, 
 the more powerful nobles were required to reside in 
 the capital, at least during the greater part of each 
 year; and permission to return to their homes for a 
 short time, could only be obtained on condition that 
 they left a son or brother as a guarantee of good faith 
 during their absence.^ 
 
 In the kingdom of Tezcuco were twenty-six great 
 fiefs,'' eacl ' ' opendent of the rest and having several 
 fiefs of less importance subjected to it. The greater 
 part of these great chiefs bore the sovereign title of 
 Tlatoani, or a similar one. They recognized no pre- 
 rogative of the king except his right to preside at 
 
 ' Torqnemada, Monar^. Ind., torn, i., p. 231; Hen'era, Hist. Gen., dec. 
 ii., lib. vii., cap. xii.; Omcdo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii.,p.&02. 
 
 » Torqnemada, Monarq. Ind., toiii. i., p. 88; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., 
 torn, ii., p. 182, makes the number twenty -seven. 
 
188 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 1 
 
 their grand assemblies, to receive their homage upon 
 his accession to the throne, to levy certain tributes in 
 their provinces, and to call upon them to appear in 
 the field with a contingent of troops in case of war. 
 For the rest, each Tlatoani was perfectly independent 
 in his own domain, which he governed with the same 
 omnipotence as the king of Tezcuco himself Not- 
 withstanding the precautions taken, it frequently hap- 
 pened that one of these great feudatories would feel 
 himself strong enough to set the authority of the king 
 at defiance, but as their private feuds generally pre- 
 vented any number of the Tlatoanis from uniting their 
 forces against the crown, the rebels were in most in- 
 stances speedily reduced to subjection; in which event 
 the leaders either suffered death or were degraded 
 from their rank. 
 
 They were an unruly family, these overgrown vas- 
 sals, and the Aztec monarchs were often at their wit's 
 end in endeavors to conciliate and keep them within 
 bounds. Torquemada tells us that Techotlalatzin, 
 king of Tezcuco, was sorely harrassed by the powerful 
 nobles of his realm. He accordingly set about reme- 
 dying the evil with great prudence and perseverance. 
 His first step was to unite, by strong bonds of interest, 
 the less important nobles to the crown. To this end 
 he heaped favors upon all. The vanity of some he 
 flattered by conferring the dignity and title of Tlato- 
 ani upon them, to others he gave wealth and lands. 
 By this means he weakened the individual power of 
 the great vassals by increasing their number, a policy 
 the efficiency of which has been frequently proved in 
 the old world as well as in the new. Techotlalatzin 
 next proceeded to summon them one after another to 
 court, and then under pretense of being in constant 
 need of their advice, he formed twenty-six of their 
 number into a council of state, obliging them by this 
 means to reside constantly in the capital. With this 
 council he conferred upon all grave and difficult ques- 
 tions, whatever might be their nature. It was the 
 
ORDERS OF NOBILITY. 
 
 189 
 
 duty of its members to dmw up and issue ordinances, 
 both for the general government and for the ad- 
 ministration of affairs in particular provinces; and to 
 enact laws for enforcing good order in towns and 
 villages, as well as those relating to agriculture, 
 science and art, military discipline, and the tribunals 
 of justice. 
 
 At the same time Techotlalatzin created a large 
 number of new offices and honorary trusts, which were 
 dependent on the crown. Four of the most powerful 
 nobles were invested with the highest dignities. The 
 first, with the title Telahto, was made commander-in- 
 chief of the army, and president of the military coun- 
 cil. The second was entitled Yolqui; his office was 
 that of grand master of ceremonies; it was his duty 
 to receive and introduce the ambassadors and minis- 
 ters of foreign princes, to conduct them to court, to 
 lodge them and provide for their comfort, and to offer 
 them the presents appointed by the king. The third 
 lord received the title of Tlami or Calpixcontli ; he 
 was master of the royal household, and minister of 
 finance, and was assisted in his functions by a council 
 of other nobles. It was the duty of this body to keep 
 strict account of all taxes paid by the people; its 
 members were required to be well informed as to 
 the exact condition of each town and province, with 
 the nature of its produce, and the fertility of its soil ; 
 they had also to distribute the taxes with equality 
 and justice, and in proportion to the resources of the 
 people. The care and management of the interior of 
 the palace was also intrusted to them, and it was their 
 place to provide all the food for the consumption of 
 the royal household. The fourth great officer was 
 styled Amechichi; he acted as grand chamberlain, 
 and attended to the king's private apartments. Like 
 the Tlami, he was assisted by other nobles. A fifth 
 officer was afterward appointed, who bore the title of 
 Cohuatl, and superintended the workers in precious 
 metals, jewels, and fea£hers, who were employed by 
 
190 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the court. At first sight it may appear that such 
 duties as these would be below the dignity of a 
 haughty Aztec grandee, yet we find the nobles of 
 Europe during the middle ages not only filling the 
 same positions, but jealous of their right to do so, 
 and complaining loudly if deprived of them. Sis- 
 mondi tells us that the count of Anjou, under Louis 
 VL, claimed the office of grand seneschal of France; 
 that is, to carry dishes to the king's table on state 
 days. The court of Charlemagne was crowded with 
 officers of every rank, some of the most eminent of 
 whom exercised functions about the royal person 
 which would have been thought fit only for slaves in 
 the palace of Augustus or Antonine. The free-born 
 Franks saw nothing menial in the titles of cup-bearer, 
 steward, marshal, and master of the horse, which are 
 still borne by some of the noblest families in many 
 parts of Europe. 
 
 As soon as habits of submission and an appreciation 
 of the honors showered upon them had taken root 
 among his great vassals, Techotlalatzin subdivided 
 the twenty-six provinces of his kingdom into sixty-five 
 departments. The ancient lords were not by this 
 measure despoiled of all their authority, nor of those 
 estates which were their private property; but the 
 jurisdiction they exercised in person or through their 
 officials was greatly diminished by the nomination of 
 thirty-five new governors, chosen by the king, and of 
 whose fidelity he was well assured. This was a mortal 
 blow to the great aristocrats, and a preliminary step 
 toward the total abolition of feudal power. But the 
 master-stroke was yet to come. The inhabitants of 
 each province were carefully counted and divided into 
 sections. They were then changed about from place 
 to place, in numbers proportioned to the size and pop- 
 ulation of the territory. For example, from a division 
 containing six thousand people, two thousand were 
 taken and transported into the territory of another 
 lord, from the number of whose vassals two thousand 
 
PRIVILEGES OF THE NOBLES. 
 
 101 
 
 were also taken and placed upon the vacated land in 
 the first lord's possessions; each noble, however, re- 
 tained his authority over that portion of his vassals 
 which had been removed. By this means, although 
 the number of each lord's subjects remained the same, 
 yet as a large portion of each territory was occupied 
 by the vassals of another, a revolt would be difficult. 
 Nor could two nobles unite their forces against the 
 crown, as care was taken that the interchange of de- 
 pendents should not be effected between two estates 
 adjoining each other. 
 
 These measures, despotic as they were, were never- 
 theless executed without opposition from either nobles 
 or people, — such was the awe in which the sovereign 
 was held and his complete ascendancy over his sub- 
 jects.^ 
 
 The privileges of the nobles were numerous. They 
 alone were allowed to wear ornaments of gold and 
 gems upon their clothes, and, indeed, in their entire 
 dress, as we shall presently see, they were distin- 
 guished from the lower classes. The exact limits of 
 the power they possessed over their vassals is not 
 known, but it was doubtless nearly absolute. Fuen- 
 leal, bishop of Santo Domingo, writes to Charles V. 
 of the lower orders, that "they were, and still are, so 
 submissive that they allow themselves to be killed or 
 sold into slavery without complaining."* In Mexico 
 their power and privileges were greatly augmented by 
 Montezuma II., who we are told ousted every plebeian 
 that l\eld a position of high rank, and would allow 
 none who were not of noble birth to be employed in 
 his palace or about his person. At the time of this 
 monarch's accession there were many members of the 
 royal council who were men of low extraction; all 
 
 ' Tor(^ucmadn, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 88, etseq.: sec also Veytia, Hist. 
 Ant. Mej., toiu. ii., p. 182, f.tscq.; lirasxciir dc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, ii., pn. 428, et seq.; IxtUlxochitl, Relaciones, in KingsboroiigKs Mex. 
 Anti(j., vol. ix., p. 333, etseq.; Ooiedo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., p. 502; Herrera, 
 dec. li., lib. vii., cap. xii. 
 
 * Letlre, in Tcrnaux-Compans, Voy., sdrie i., torn, x., p. 251. 
 
192 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 these he dismissed and supplied their places with 
 creatures of his own. 
 
 It is related that an old man who had formerly been 
 his guardian or tutor had the boldness to remonstrate 
 with him against such a course; telling him with firm- 
 ness that he acted contrary to his own interests, and 
 ad^'ising him to weigh well the consequences of the 
 measures he was adopting. To banish the plebeians 
 from the palace, added the old man, was to estrange 
 them forever from the king; and the time would come 
 when the common people would no longer either wish 
 or dare to look upon him. Montezuma haughtily 
 made answer, that this was precisely what he wished; 
 it was a burning shame, he said, chat the low and 
 common people should be allowed to mix with the 
 nobles in the royal service ; he was astonished and in- 
 dignant that his royal predecessors had so long suf- 
 fered such a state of things to be.' 
 
 By these measures the services of many brave sol- 
 diers, promoted, as a reward for their gallantry, from 
 the ranks of the people, were lost to the crown ; nor 
 were such men likely to be slow to show their discon- 
 tent. The new policy, incited by a proud aristocracy, 
 struck exactly those uen who had the best right to a 
 share in the government. It was the officers pro- 
 moted for their merits from the ranks who had con- 
 tributed most to the success of the Mexican arms; 
 it was the great merchants who, by their extended 
 commerce, had made the wealth of the country. A 
 spirit of rivalry had long existed between the poor 
 well-born nobles, and the wealthy base-born mer- 
 chants. During many successive reigns the import- 
 ance of the latter class had been steadily increasing, 
 owing to the valuable services they had rendered the 
 state. From the earliest times they were permitted a 
 certain degree of familiarity with the kings, who tool", 
 great delight in hearing them recount the wonderful 
 adventures they had met with while on their long 
 
 * Torquemacla, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 196. 
 
CLASS CONFLICTS. 
 
 193 
 
 expeditions into strange parts. Doubtless the royal 
 ear did not always meet the truth unombellished, any 
 more than did that of Haroun Alraschid upon similar 
 occasions, but probably the monarchs learned many 
 little secrets in this way that they could never know 
 by other means. Afterward these merchants were 
 admitted to the royal councils, and during the latter 
 years of the reign of Ahuitzotl we find them enjoying 
 many of the exclusive privileges hitherto reserved to 
 the warrior aristocracy. 
 
 The merchants appear to have partly brought upon 
 themselves the misfortunes which subsequently over- 
 took them, by aggravating the envious feelings with 
 which they were already regarded. Not content with 
 being admitted to equal j)rivilegcs with the nobles, 
 and vexed at not beinjy able to vie with them in bril- 
 liant titles and long lines of illustrious ancestry, they 
 did their utmost to surpass them in the magnificence of 
 their houses, and in the pomp which they displayed up- 
 on every occasion. At the public feasts and ceremonies 
 these parvenus outshone the proudest nobles by the 
 profuseness of their expendiUire; they strove for and 
 obtained honors and exalted positions which the aris- 
 tocracy could not accej)t for lack of wealth ; they were 
 sparing of money in no place where it could be used 
 for their own advancement. It is easy to conceive 
 the effect such a state of things had on the proud and 
 overbearing nobles of Mexico. On several occasions 
 they complained to their kings that their order was los- 
 ing its prestige by being obliged to mix on equal terms 
 with the plebeians; but the services that the great 
 commercial body rendered every day to the crown 
 were too material to allow the kings to listen patiently 
 to such complaints. During the reign of Ahuitzotl, 
 the pride of the merchants had reached its zenith; 
 it is not therefore surprising that the leaders of the 
 aristocratic party, when that monarch was dead, elect- 
 ed as his successor Montezuma II., a prince well 
 known for his partiality for the higher classes. His 
 
 Vol. II. 13 
 
104 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 ■I 
 
 policy, as events proved, was a far less wise one than 
 that of Techotlalatzin of Tezcuco, of which we have 
 already spoken. By not restraining his overweening 
 pride he prepared the way for disaffection and revolt ; 
 he furnished his enemies with weapons which they 
 were not slow to use; he alienated the affections of 
 his subjects, so that when aid was most needed there 
 was none to help him, and when, fettered and a pris- 
 oner in the hand of the Spaniards, he called upon his 
 people, the only replies were hoots and missiles. 
 
 Tlie generals of the army and military officers of 
 the higher ranks, must of course be included among 
 the privileged classes; usually, indeed, they were 
 noble by birth as well as influential by position, and 
 in Mexico, from the time of Montezuma's innovations 
 this was always the case. There were several mili- 
 tary orders and titles which were bestowed upon dis- 
 tinguished solders for services in the field or the coun- 
 cil. Of those which were purely the reward of merit, 
 and such as could be attained by a plebeian, I shall 
 speak in a future chapter. There was one, however, 
 the membership of which was confined to the nobility ; 
 this was the celebrated and knightly order of the Te- 
 cuhtli. 
 
 To obtain this rank it was necessary to be of noble 
 birth, to have given proof in several battles of the 
 utmost courage, to have arrived at a certain age, and 
 to have sufficient wealth to support the enormous ex- 
 penses incurred by members of the order. 
 
 For three years before he was admitted, the candi- 
 date and his parents busied themselves abo it making 
 ready for the grand ceremor /, and collecting rich gar- 
 ments, jewels, and golden o laments, for presents to 
 the guests. When the time oproached, the auguries 
 were consulted, and a luck} lay having been fixed 
 upon, the relations and frien« of the candidate, as 
 well as all the great nobles ar Tecuhtlis that could 
 be brought together, were in Ited to a sumptuous 
 banquet. On the morning of the all-important day 
 
CEREMONY OF INITIATIN(J A TECUIITLI. 
 
 195 
 
 I 
 
 andi- 
 king 
 
 gar- 
 ts to 
 uries 
 fixed 
 ,e, as 
 ■could 
 
 uous 
 day 
 
 the company set out in a body for the temple of Ca- 
 maxtli,* followed by a multitude of curious spectators, 
 chiefly of the lower orders, intent upon seeing all there 
 is to see. Arrived at the summit of the pyramid conse- 
 crated to Camaxtli, the aspirant to knightly honors 
 bows down reverently before the altar of the god. The 
 high-priest now api)roache8 him, and with a ])ointed 
 timer's bone or an eagle's claw perforates the cartilage 
 of his nose in two places, inserting into t'le holes thus 
 made small pieces of jet or obsidian,'' which remain 
 there until the year of probation is passed, when they 
 are exchanged for beacls of gold and precious stones. 
 This piercing the nose with an eagle's claw or a tiger's 
 bone, signifies, says Torquemada, that he who aspires 
 to the dignity of Tecuhtli must be as swift to over- 
 take an enemy as the eagle, as strong in fight as the 
 tiger. The high-priest, speaking in a loud voice, now 
 begins to heap insults and injurious epithets upon 
 the man standing meekly before him. His voice 
 grows louder and louder; he brandishes his aims 
 aloft, he waxes furious. The assistant priests are 
 catching his mood; they gather closer about the ob- 
 ject of the pontifTs wrath; they jostle him, they 
 point their fingers sneeringly at him, and call him 
 coward. For a moment the dark eyes of the victim 
 gleam savagely, his hands close involuntarily, he 
 seems about to spring upon his tormentors; then with 
 an effort he calms himself and is passive as ever. 
 That look made the taunters draw back, but it was 
 only for a moment; they are upon him again; they 
 know now that he is strong to endure, and they will 
 j>rove him to the uttermost. Screaming insults in his 
 ears, they tear his garments piece by piece from his 
 body until nothing but the maxtli is left, and the man 
 
 ^ Camaxtli was the Tlascaltec god of war, corresponding with and prob- 
 ably the same as tlic Mexican Huitzilopochtli. The order of Tecuhtli being 
 helil in higher esteem in Tlascala than elsewhere, the ceremony of initiation 
 is generally described as it took place in that state. 
 
 7 ' Unas piedras chemiitaa de piedra negra, y creo eran de la piedra de 
 que hacen las navajas.' Las Casas, Hiat Apologitica, MS., cap. Ixvii. 
 
196 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 h i 
 
 
 stands bruised and naked in their midst. But all is 
 useless, their victim is immovable, so at lenj^th they 
 leave him in peace. He has passed safely through 
 one of the severest ordeals of the day, but that fierce 
 look a while ago was a narrow escape ; had he lifted a 
 finger in resistance, he must have gone down from the 
 temple to be scorned and jeered at by the crowd below 
 as one who had aspired to the dignity of Tecuhtli, yet 
 who could restrain his temper no better than a woman. 
 The long months of careful preparation would have 
 been all in vain, his parents would have spat upon 
 him for vexation and shame, perchance he would have 
 been punished for sacrilege. But he is by no means 
 a member of the coveted order yet. He is next con- 
 ducted to another hall of the temple,® where he com- 
 mences his noviciate, which is to last from one to two 
 years, by four days of penance, prayer, and fasting. 
 As soon as he is conducted to this hall the banquet 
 which has been prepared for the guests commences, 
 and after a few hours of conviviality each returns to 
 his home. 
 
 During these first four days the candidate's powers of 
 endurance are sorely taxed. Tlie only articles of furni- 
 ture allowed him are a coarse mat and a low stool; his 
 garments are of the coarsest description. When night 
 con\es, the priests bring him a black preparation with 
 which to besmear his face, some spines of the maguey- 
 plant to draw blood from his body with, a censer and 
 some incense. His only companions are three veteran 
 war iors, who instruct him in his duties and keep him 
 awake, for during the four days he is only allowed to 
 sleep for a few minutes at a time, and then it must be 
 sitting upon his stool. If, overcome by drowsiness, he 
 exceed this time, his guardians thrust the maguey- 
 
 » 'Sc iba a vna do los Salas, f) Aposcntos dc los Ministroa que Servian 
 al Dcinonio, que sc llaniaba TIaniacazealco.' Torqw.mada, Moiiarq. Ind^, 
 toin. ii., p. 362. It scenio unlikely, however, that tlic candidate wouhl be 
 taicen to another temple at thiei juncture. Brasscnr explains the ininie of 
 the hall to wtiich he was taken as '!c Lieu des habitations des Ministres, 
 pretres de Camaxtli.' Hint. Nnt. Civ., toni. iii., p. 587. 
 
FINAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 197 
 
 thorns into his flesh, crying : Awake, awake I learn to 
 1)6 vigilant and watchful ; keep your eyes open that 
 you may look to the interests of your vassals. At 
 midnight he goes to burn incense before the idol, and 
 to draw blood from different parts of his body ay a 
 sacrifice. He then walks round the temple, and as he 
 goes he burns paper and copal in four holes in the 
 ground, which he makes at the four sides of the build- 
 ing, facing the cardinal points; upon each of these 
 fires he lets fall a few drops of blood drawn from his 
 body. These ceremonies he repeats at dawn and sun- 
 set. He breaks his fast only once in twenty-four 
 hours, at midnight : and then his repast consists merely 
 of four little dumplings of maize-meal, each about the 
 size of a nut, and a small quantity of water; but even 
 this he leaves untasted if he wishes to evince extraor- 
 dinary powers of enduranca The four days having 
 elapsed, he obtains permission from the high-priest to 
 complete his time of probation in some temple of his 
 own district or parish; but he is not allowed to go 
 home, nor, if married, to see his wife during this 
 period. 
 
 For two or three months preceding his formal ad- 
 mission into the order, the home of the postulant is 
 in a bustle of preparation for the coming ceremony. 
 A grand display is made of rich stuffs and dresses, and 
 costly jewels, for the use of the new knight when he 
 shall cast off his present chrysalis-husk of coarse 
 nequen and emerge a full-blown Tecuhtli. A great 
 number of presents are provided for the guests; a 
 sumptuous banquet is prepared, and the whole house 
 is decorated for the occasion. The oracles are again 
 consulted, and upon the lucky day appointed the com- 
 pany assemble once more at the house of the candi- 
 date, in the same manner as at the commencement of 
 his noviciate. In the morning the new knight is con- 
 ducted to a bath, and after having undergone a good 
 scrubbing, he is again carried, in the midst of music 
 and dancing, to the temple of Camaxtli. Accompa- 
 
i 
 
 ii 
 
 198 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 nied by his brother Tecuhtlis he ascends the steps of 
 the teocalli. After he has respectfully saluted the 
 idol, the mean garments he has worn so long are taken 
 off, and his hair is bound up in a knot on the top of 
 his head with a red cord, from the ends of which hang 
 some fine feathers ; he is next clad in garments of rich 
 and fine materials, the principal of which is a kind of 
 tunic, ornamented with a delicately embroidered de- 
 vice, which is the insignia of his new rank; in his 
 right hand he receives some arrows and in his left a 
 bow. The high-priest completes the ceremony with a 
 discourse, in which he instructs the new knight in his 
 duties, tells him the names which he is to add to his 
 own, as a member of the order ; describes to him the 
 signs and devices which he must emblazon on his 
 escutcheon, and impresses upon his memory the ad- 
 vantages of being liberal and just, of loving his coun- 
 try and his gods. As soon as the newly made 
 Tecuhtli has descended into the court of the temple, 
 the music and dancing recommence, and are kept up 
 until it is time to begin the banquet. This is served 
 with great magnificence and liberality, and, to the 
 guests at least, is probably the most interesting feature 
 of the day. In front of each person at table are 
 placed the presents intended for him, consisting of 
 costly stuffs and ornaments in such quantity that each 
 bundle was carried with difficulty by two slaves ; each 
 guest is also given a new garment, which he wears at 
 table. 
 
 The value of the gifts was proportioned to the rank 
 of the receiver, and such distinctions must be made 
 with great care, for the Aztec nobility were very jeal- 
 ous of their rights of precedence. The places of such 
 nobles as had been invited to the feast but were from 
 illness or other cause unable to attend were left vacant, 
 and their share of presents and food was placed upon 
 the table exactly as if they had been present; Tor- 
 quemada tells us, moreover, that the same courtesy 
 was extended to the empty sef.t as to the actual 
 
 
ORIGIN OF THE ORDER. 
 
 199 
 
 guest.' Upon these occasions the absent noble gen- 
 erally sent a substitute, whose seat was placed next to 
 that of the person he represented. On the following 
 day the servants and followers of the guests were 
 feasted and presented with gifts, according to the 
 means and liberality of the donor. 
 
 The privileges of the Tecuhtlis were important and 
 numerous. In council they took the first places, and 
 their votes outweighed all others ; in the same man- 
 ner at all feasts and ceremonies, in peace or in war, 
 they were always granted preeminence. As before 
 remarked, the vast expenses entailed upon a Tecuhtli 
 debarred the honor from many who were really worthy 
 of it. In some instances, however, when a noble had 
 greatly distinguished himself in war, but was too poor 
 to bear the expenses of initiation, these were defrayed 
 by the governor of his province, or by the other Te- 
 cuhtlis.*" 
 
 The origin of the order of Tecuhtli is not known. 
 Both the Toltecs and the Tlascaltecs claim to have 
 established it. Veytia, however, asserts that this was 
 not the case, but that it was first instituted by Xolotl, 
 king of the Chichimecs." M. I'Abbd Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg infers from ancient Toltec history that the 
 ceremony of initiation and the probation of the can- 
 didate derive their origin from the mysterious rites of 
 which traces are still found among the nations of 
 Mexico and Central America. The traditions relating 
 to Votan and Quetzalcoatl, or Gucumatz, evidently 
 allude to it. The birth of Ceacatl-Quetzalcoatl is cele- 
 brated by his father, Mixcohua-Camaxtli, at Culhua- 
 can, with great rejoicings and the creation of a great 
 
 ' ' Y ii las Sillas solaa quo rcprcHcntaban las Personas auncntes, hacian 
 tanta cortesia, y le captalMiii Bencvolencia, conio si realniente estuvicrau 
 prcscntes los Senorcs que faltaban.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind,, toiu. ii., 
 p. 364. 
 
 '*> Concerning the ceremony of initiation see: Torquemada, Monar^. 
 Ind., torn, ii., pp. 361-6; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. Ixvii. ; 
 Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 306-8; Ctavigero, Sloria Ant. del Messtco, torn, 
 ii., pp. 120-1; Catruirgo, Hist. Tlax., m Houvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, 
 torn, xcviii., pt>. 147-9. 
 
 " Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, ii., pp. 58-60. 
 
) 
 
 aoo 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 number of knights; it is these same knights who are 
 afterwards sent to avenge his death upon his assassins 
 at Cuitlahuac, a town which appears, since that time, 
 to have been always the principal place of residence of 
 the order. After the separation of Cholula from the 
 rest of the Toltec empire by Ceacatl-Quetzalcoatl, that 
 town, together with Huexotzinco and Tlascala, appears 
 to have had special privileges in this particular. It is 
 in these places that after the conquest of the Aztec 
 plateau by the Teo-Chichimecs, we find most of their 
 chiefs bearing the title of Tecuhtli ; it may be that the 
 priests were forced into confirming their warlike con- 
 querors in the honor, or it may be that they did so 
 voluntarily, hoping by this means to submit the war- 
 riors to their spiritual power. This, however, is cer- 
 tain, that the rank of Tecuhtli remained to the last 
 the highest honor that a prince or soldier could acquire 
 in the states of Tlascala, Cholula, and Huexotzinco." 
 
 The priesthood filled a very important place among 
 the privileged classes, but as a succeeding volume has 
 been set apart for all matters relating to religion, I 
 will confine myself here to such an outline of the 
 sacerdotal system as is necessary to make our view of 
 Aztec social distinctions complete. The learned Abbd, 
 M. Brasseur de Bourbourg, gives us a very correct 
 and concise account of the Mexican priesthood, a par- 
 tial translation of which will answer the present pur- 
 pose. ( 
 
 Among the nations of Mexico and Central America, 
 whose civilization is identical, the priesthood always 
 occupied a high rank in the state, and up to the last 
 moment its members continued to exercise a powerful 
 influence in both public and private affairs. In And- 
 huac the priestly offices do not appear to have been 
 appropriated exclusively by an hereditary caste; all 
 had an equal right to fill them, with the exception of 
 the offices about the temple of Huitzilopochtli, at 
 Mexico, which were granted to some families dwelling 
 
 '* Brasseur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat, Civ., torn, iii., p. 586. 
 
THE MEXICAN PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 201 
 
 in certain quarters of that city." The ministers of 
 the various temples, to be fitted for an ecclesiastical 
 career, must be graduates of the Calmecac, colleges or 
 seminaries to which they had been sent by their 
 parents in their infancy. The dignities of their order 
 were conferred by vote; but it is evident that the 
 priests of noble birth obtained almost invariably the 
 highest honors. The quarrels between the priest and 
 warrior classes, which, in former times, had brought 
 so much harm to the Mexican nation, had taught the 
 kings to do their best to effect a balance of power be- 
 tween the rival bodies ; to this end they appropriated 
 to themselves the privilege of electing priests, and 
 placed at the head of the clergy a priest or a warrior 
 of high rank, as they saw fit; this could be all the 
 more easily done, as both classes received the ,«ame 
 education in the same schools. 
 
 The august title of Topiltzin, which in ancient times 
 expressed the supreme military and priestly power, 
 came to mean, in after years, a purely ecclesiastical 
 authority. In Tezcuco and Tlacopan, where the crown 
 was inherited in a direct line by one of the sons of 
 the deceased monarch, the supreme pontiff was usually 
 selected from among the members of the royal family ; 
 but in Mexico, where it involved, almost always, the 
 duties of Tlacochcalcatl, or commander-in-chief of the 
 army, and, eventually, succession to the throne, the 
 office of high-priest, like that of king, was elective. 
 The election of the spiritual king, for so we may call 
 him, generally followed close upon that of the tem- 
 poral monarch, and such Avas the honor in which the 
 former was held, that he was consecrated with the 
 same sacred unguent with which the king was anointed. 
 In this manner Axayacatl, Montezuma II., and Qua- 
 uhtemoc, were each made pontiff before the royal 
 crown was placed upon their head. The title of him 
 who held this dignity was Mexicatl-Teohuatzin, that 
 is to say, the 'Mexican lord of sacred things;' he 
 
 " Ifcrrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xv. 
 
ao2 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 added also, besides a great number of other titles, that 
 of Teotecuhtli, or 'divine master,' ai.d he was, by 
 right, high-priest of Huitzilopochtli ; he was the 'head 
 of the church,' and of all its branches, not only at 
 Mexico, but in all the provinces of the Mexican em- 
 pire; he had absolute authority over all priests, of 
 whatever rank, and the colleges and monasteries of 
 every class were under his control. He was elected 
 by the two dignitaries ranking next to himself in the 
 aboriginal hierarchy. The Mexicatl-Teohuatzin was 
 looked upon as the right arm of the king, particularly 
 in all matters of war and religion, and it rarely hap- 
 pened that any important enterprise was set on foot 
 without his advice. At the same time it is evident 
 that the high-priest was, after all, only the vicar and 
 lieutenant of the king, for on certain solemn occasions 
 the monarch himself performed the functions of grand 
 sacrificer. 
 
 The Quei-zalcoatl, that is, the high-priest of the god 
 of that name, was almost equal in rank to the Mexi- 
 catl-Teohuatzin ; but his political influence was far 
 inferior. The ordinary title of the priests was Teo- 
 pixqui, or 'sacred guardian;' those who were clothed 
 with a higher dignity were called Huey-Teopixqui, or 
 'great sacred guardian.' The Huitznahuac-Teo- 
 huatzin and the Tepan-Teohuatzin followed, in priestly 
 rank, the high-priest of Huitzilopochtli; they were 
 his vicars, and superintended the colleges and monas- 
 teries in every part of his kingdom. The Tlaquimi- 
 lol-Tecuhtli, or 'grand master of relics,'" took charge 
 of the ornaments, furniture, and other articles specially 
 relating to worship. The Tlillancalcatl, or 'chief of 
 the house of Tlillan,' exercised the functions of prin- 
 cipal sacristan ; he took care of the robes and utensils 
 used by the high-priest. The choristers were under 
 the orders of the Ometochtli, the high-priest of the 
 god so named, who had, as director of the singing- 
 
 '• The Tlaquimilloli, from whence the title is derived, was a sacred 
 {lackoge or bundle, contuning relics of gods and heroes. 
 
SACERDOTAL OFFICES. 
 
 schools, an assistant styled Tlapitzcatzin ; it was this 
 latter officer's duty to instruct his pupils in the hymns 
 which were chanted at the principal solemnities. The 
 Tlamacazcatlotl, or 'divine minister' overlooked the 
 studies in the schools; another priest discharged the 
 duties of grand master of the pontifical ceremonies; 
 another was archdeacon and judge of the ecclesias- 
 tical courts; the latter had power to employ and dis- 
 charge the attendants in the temples; besides these 
 there was a crowd of other dignitaries, following each 
 other rank below rank in perfect order. 
 
 In Mexico and the other towns of the empire, there 
 were as many complete sets of priests as there were 
 temples. Besides the seventy-eight sanctuaries ded- 
 icated to Huitzilopochtli, which were in part directed 
 by the priests we have already enumerated, the capi- 
 tal contained many others. Each had jurisdiction 
 in its own section, which corresponded to our parish; 
 the priests and their pupils dwelling in a school or col- 
 lege which adjoined the temple. 
 
 It was the province of the priests to attend to all 
 matters relating to religion and the instruction of 
 youth. Some took charge of the sacrifices, others 
 were skilled in the art of divination; certain of them 
 were entrusted with the arrangement of the festivals 
 and the care of the temple and sacred vessels, others 
 applied themselves to the composition of hymns and 
 attended to the singing and music. The priests who 
 were learned in science superintended the schools and 
 colleges, made the calculations for the annual calendar, 
 and fixed the feast-days; those who possessed literary 
 talent compiled the historical works, and collected ma- 
 terial for the libraries. To each temple was attached 
 a monastery, or we might call it a chapter, the mem- 
 bers of which enjoyed privileges similar to those of 
 our canons. 
 
 The Tlamacazqui, 'deacons' or 'ministers' and the 
 Quaquacuiltin, 'herb-eaters,' were those who dedi- 
 cated themselves to the service of the gods for life. 
 
9M 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 They led a very ascetic life; continence was strictly 
 imposed upon them, and they mortified the flesh by 
 deeds of penance in imitation of Quetzalcoatl, who 
 was iheir patron deity. The name of Tlamacazcayotl, 
 signifying 'government of the religious,' was given 
 to these orders, and they had monasteries for the recep- 
 tion of both sexes. The high-priest of the god Quet- 
 zalcoatl was their supreme lord; he was a man of 
 great authority, and never deigned to put his foot out 
 of doors unless it was to confer with the king. When 
 a father of a family wished to dedicate one of his chil- 
 dren to the service of Quetzalcoatl, he with great 
 humility advised the high-priest of his intention. 
 That dignitary deputed a Tlamacasqui to represent 
 him at the feast which was given in his honor, and to 
 bring away the child. If at this time the infant 
 was under four years of age, a slight incision was 
 made on his chest, and a few drops of blood were 
 drawn as a token of his future position. Four years 
 was the age requisite for admission into the monastery. 
 Some remained there until they were of an age to 
 enter the world, some dedicated their whole lives to 
 the service of the gods; others vowed themselves 
 to perpetual continence. All were poorly clothed, 
 wore their hair long, lived upon coarse and scanty 
 fare, and did all kinds of work. At midnight they 
 arose and went to the bath ; after washing, they drew 
 blood from their bodies v. ith spines of the maguey- 
 plant; then they watched and chanted praises of the 
 gods until two in the morning. Notwithstanding this 
 austerity, however, these monks could betake them- 
 selves alone to the woods, or wander through the 
 mountains and deserts, there in solitude to spend the 
 time in holy contemplation. 
 
 Females were consecrated to the service of the gods 
 in several ways. When a girl was forty days old, the 
 father carried her to the neighboring temple; he 
 I)laced in her little hands a broom and a censer, and 
 thus presented her to the Teopixqui, or priest; who by 
 
MEXICAN PIUESTESSES. 
 
 906 
 
 accepting these symbols of his future state, bound him- 
 self to perform his part of the engagement. As soon 
 as the little one was able to do so in person, she carried 
 a l)room and a censer to the temple, witli some pres- 
 ents for the priest ; at the required age she entered 
 the monastery. Some of the girls took an oath of 
 perpetual continence; others, on account of some vow 
 which they had made during sickness, or that the 
 gods might send them a good husband, entered the 
 monastery for one, two, three, or four years. They 
 were called Cihuatlamacasque, 'deaconesses,' orCihua- 
 quaquilli, 'eaters of vegetables.' They were under 
 the surveillance of a number of staid matrons of good 
 character; upon entering the monastery each girl had 
 her hair cut short." They all slept in one dormitory, 
 and were not allowed to disrobe befoi'e retiring to rest, 
 in order that they might always be ready when the 
 signal was given to rise. They occupied themselves 
 with the usual labors of their sex; weaving and em- 
 broidering the tapestry and ornamental work for the 
 temple. Three times during the night they rose to 
 renew the incense in the braziers, at ten o'clock, at 
 midnight, and at dawn.^* On these occasions a matron 
 led the procession ; with eyes modestly bent upon the 
 ground, and without daring to cast a glance to one 
 side or the other, the maidens filed up one side of the 
 temple, while the priests did the same on the other, 
 so that all met before the altar. In returning to the 
 dormitory the same order was observed. They spent 
 part of the morning in preparing bread and confec- 
 tionery, which they placed, while warm, in the tem- 
 ple, where the priests partook of it after sacrifice." 
 
 '* Clavigero asserts that the hair of such only as entered the scr\ifc on 
 account of some private vow, was cut. 
 
 •o (Jhiviycro says that only a part of tlicni rose upon each occasion. 
 'S'alzavano alcune due ore incirca innanzi alia niezzanotte, altrc alia nirzza 
 notte, ed altre alio sjiuntar del dl per attizzar, e niantcncr vivo il fuoco, o 
 per incensare gl'Idoh.' Storin Ant. del Messico, toni. ii., p. 42. 
 
 " 'Ellcs passaient une partie do la matiniie h preparer Ic pain en galctto 
 et les p.ltisseries qu'elles prcscntaicnt, toutes chaudcs, dans Ic temple, oil 
 lea pretres allaient les prendre apriis I'oblatioii.' Brasseur dc liourbonrg. 
 
906 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The young women, for their part, fasted strictly; they 
 first broke their fast at noon, and with the exception 
 of a scanty meal in the evening, this was all they ate 
 during the twenty-four hours. On feast-days they 
 were permitted to taste meat, but at all other times 
 their diet was extremely meagre. While sweeping 
 the temple they took great care never to turn their 
 back to the idol, lest the god should be insulted. 
 
 If one of these young women unhappily violated 
 her vows of chastity she redoubled her fasting and 
 severity, in the fear that her flesh would rot, and in 
 order to appease the gods and induce them to conceal 
 her crime, for death was the punishment inflicted on 
 the Mexican vestal who was convicted of such a tres- 
 pass. The maiden who entered the service of the 
 gods for a certain period only, and hot for life, did not 
 usually leave the monastery until she was about to be 
 married. At that time the parents, having chosen a 
 husband for the girl, and gotten everything in readi- 
 ness, repaired to the monastery, taking care first to 
 provide themselves with quails, copal, hollow canes 
 filled with perfume, which Torquemada says they 
 called poquietl, a brasier for incense, and some flowers. 
 The girl was then clothed in a new dress, and the 
 party went up to the temple ; the altar was covered 
 with a cloth, upon which were placed the presents 
 they had brought with them, accompanied by sundry 
 dishes of meats and pastry. A complimentary speech 
 was next made by the parents to the Tequaquilli, or 
 chief priest of the temple, and when this was con- 
 cluded the girl was taken away to her father's house. 
 But of those young men and maidens who stayed in 
 the temple-schools for a time only, and received a 
 regular course of instruction at the hands of the 
 priests, it is my intention to speak further when treat- 
 ing of the education of the Mexican youth. The 
 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 556. Clavigero says tliey prepared the offer- 
 ing of provisions which was presented to tlie idols: 'Tiittc Ic niattine pra- 
 paravano I'obblazioni di coniniestibili da presentarsi ogl'Idoli.' Storia Ant. 
 del Messico, toin. ii., p. 42. 
 
DRESS OF THE MEXICAN PRIESTS. 
 
 907 
 
 original accounts are rather confused on this point, so 
 that it is difficult to separate with accuracy those who 
 entered with the intention of becoming* permanent 
 priests from those who were merely temporary scholars. 
 
 The ordinary dress of the Mexican priests differed 
 little from that of other citizens; the only distinctive 
 feature being a black cotton mantle, which they wore 
 in the manner of a veil thrown back upon the head. 
 Those, however, who professed a more austere life, 
 such as the Quaquaquiltin and Tlamacazqui before 
 mentioned, wore long black robes ; many among them 
 never cut their hair, but allowed it to grow as long as 
 it would; it was twisted with thick cotton cords, and 
 bedaubed with unctuous matter, the whole forming a 
 weighty mass, as inconvenient to carry as it was dis- 
 gusting to look at. The high-priest usually wore, as 
 a badge of his rank, a kind of fringe which hung 
 down over his breast, called Xicolli ; on feast-days he 
 was clothed in a long robe, over which he wore a sort 
 of chasuble or cope, which varied in color, shape, and 
 ornamentation, according to the sacrifices he made and 
 the divinity to which he offered them." 
 
 Among the Miztecs and Zapotecs the priests had as 
 much or even more influence than among the Mexi- 
 cans. In briefly reviewing the sacerdotal system of 
 these nations, let us once more take M. Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg for our guide. 
 
 The kingdom of lilantongo, which comprised upper 
 Miztecapan, was spiritually governed by the high- 
 priest of Achiuhtla; he l.ad the title of Taysacaa,^" 
 
 '8 Clavigero AXTites: 'L'insegna de' Sommi Sacerdoti di Messico era un 
 fiocco, o nappa di cotonc pendente dal petto, e nellc festc prineipali vesti- 
 vaiisi abiti sfnrzosi, ne' qiiali vcdevansi fi^uratc Ic insej^ne di quel Dio, la 
 cui festa celebravano.' Storia Ant. del Alcssico, torn, ii., p. 38. The most 
 important works tliat can 1>c consulted concerning the Mexican priesthood 
 are: Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 549-59; from 
 which I have principally taken n»y account; Torqnemada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn, ii., pp. 163-5, 175-91; Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, caps, cxxxiii., 
 cxxxix., cxl. ; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 112et8eq., 218- 
 23, lib. iii., pp. 276-7; Gon\tra, Conq. Mex., fol. 323-5; Acosta, Hi.it. delns 
 Ynd., pp. 3.35-42; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xv-xvii.; 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 36 et seq. 
 
 ''This is the title given by the Spanish authors; it is probably derived 
 
906 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 and his power equalled, if it did not surpass, that of 
 the sovereiijn. f liis office, it appears, was reserved 
 for the royal family, and was transmitted I'rom male 
 to male; a memher of any free family could, however, 
 become a sacaa, or simple priest. All, even to the 
 successor of the Taysacaa, had to submit to a vigor- 
 ous noviciate of one year's duration, and to this rule 
 no exceptions were made. Up to the time of com- 
 mencing his noviciate, and for four years after it was 
 ended, the candidate for the priesthood was supposed 
 to have led a perfectly chaste life, otherwise he was 
 judged unworthy to be admitted into the order. His 
 only food during the year of probation was herbs, 
 wild honey, and roasted maize; his life was passed in 
 silence and retirement, and the monotony of his exist- 
 ence was only relieved by waiting on the priests, tak- 
 ing care of the altars, sweeping the temple, and 
 gathering wood for the fires. 
 
 When four years after his admission to the priest- 
 hood had elapsed, during which time he seems to have 
 served a sort of apprenticeship, he was pennitted to 
 marry if he saw fit, and at the same time to perform 
 his priestly functions. If he did not marry he entered 
 one of the monasteries which were dependent on the 
 temples, and while performing his regular duties, in- 
 creased the austerity of his life. Those priests who 
 were entrusted with the higher and more important 
 offices, such as the instruction of youth or a seat in 
 the royal council, were selected from the latter class. 
 The king, or the nobles, each in his own state, pro- 
 vided for their wants, and certain uonien, sworn to 
 chastity, prepared their food. They never left the 
 monastery except on special occabJ ms, to assist at 
 some feast, to play at ball in the court of their sov- 
 ereign lord, to go on a pilgrimage for the accomplish- 
 ment of a vow made by the king or by themselves, or 
 to take their place at the head of the army, which, on 
 
 from lay, a man, and sacaa, a priest. Vocabul. en lengva Mixteca, etc., 
 according to Braaseur tie Bourbovrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 17, note. 
 
THE PONTIFF OF YOPAA. 
 
 200 
 
 certain occasions, they commanded. If one of these 
 monks fell sick, he was well cared for in the monas- 
 tery; if he died he was interred in the court of the 
 building. If one of them violated his vow of chastity, 
 he was bastinadoed to death. 
 
 In Zapotecapan the supreme pontiff was called the 
 Wiyatao;'" his residence was in the city of Yopaa," 
 and there he was from time immemorial spiritual and 
 temporal lord, though, indeed, he made his temporal 
 power felt more or less throughout the whole king- 
 dom ; and he appears in the earliest history of this 
 country as master and lord of both the princes and the 
 people of those nations who acknowledged him as the 
 supreme head of their religion. The origin of the 
 city of Yopaa is not known ; it was situated on the 
 slope of Mount Teutitlan," which in this place formed 
 a valley, shut in by overshadowing rocks, and watered 
 by a stream which lower down flowed into the river 
 Xalatlaco. The original inhabitants of this region 
 were the disciples and followers of a mysterious, 
 white-skinned personage named Wixipecocha. What 
 race he uelonged to, or from what land he came when 
 he presented himself to the Zapotecs, is not known ; 
 a certain vague tradition relates that he came by sea 
 from the south, bearing a cross in his hand, and de- 
 barked in the neighborhood of Tehuantepec ; '^^ a 
 statue representing him is still to be seen, on a high 
 rock near the village of Magdalona. He is described 
 as a man of a venerable aspect, having a bushy, 
 white beard, dressed in a long robe and a cloak, and 
 wearing a covering upon his head resembling a monk's 
 
 *« Wiyatao, Burgoa writes Ami;Vi/oo, and translates, 'great watchman;* 
 the Zanotec vocabulary translates it by the word papa, or jiriest. 
 
 *' Vojpaa, Biirgoa also writes Lyobaa and Yoboa; it signifies the Place of 
 Tombs, trum Yo, place, or ground, and paa, tomb, in the Zapotcc tongue, 
 'the centre of rest.' 
 
 '' Teutitlan was its name in the Nahuatl language. Its Zapotecan name 
 was Xaquiya. 
 
 *' Rasqos y st,?ales tie la primera predicacion en el Nuevo-Mundo, 
 MS. de l)on Isidro Gondra; Uarriedo, Estudioa histdricos y estadisticot 
 del Estado Oaxaqveilo, Mexico, 1850, tom. i., cap. i.; quotea in Brasseur 
 de Bourbovrq, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 9. 
 Vol. 11. 14 
 
i 
 
 i 
 
 210 
 
 THE NAHIJA NATIONS. 
 
 cowl. The statue represents liim seated in a pensive 
 attitude, apparently occupied in hearin<jf the confession 
 of a woman who kneels by his side.''* His voice, to 
 accord with his appearance, must have been of remark- 
 able sweetness. Wixipecocha taujrht liis disciples to 
 deny themselves the vanities of this world, to mortify 
 the flesh with penance and fasting, and to abstain 
 from all sensual pleasures. Addin»if example to pre- 
 cej)t, he utterly abjured female society, and sufl'ered 
 no woman to approach him except in the act of auri- 
 cular confession, which formed j)art of his doctrine.'" 
 This extraordinary conduct caused him to be much 
 re8[)ected ; esj)ecially as it was an unheard-of thinj^ 
 amon<r these peo[»le for a man to devote his life to 
 celibacy. Nevertheless, he was frecpiently j)ersecuted 
 by those whose vices and superstitions he attacked. 
 Passin*^ throu<i;'h one province after another he at 
 lenj.fth arrived in the Zapotec valley, a lar<jfe ])ortion 
 of which was at that time occupied by a lake named 
 Kualo. Afterwards, beinjjf entered into the country 
 of the Miztecs, to labor for their conversion, the peo- 
 ple souLfht to take his life. Those who were sent to 
 take him prisoner, overtook him at the footof (empo- 
 altepec, the most lofty peak in the country; but ai 
 the moment they thought to lay hands uj)(»n him, he 
 disap|)eared suddenly from their si<^ht, and soon after- 
 wards, adds the tradition, his tii^ure was seen standin<if 
 on the sunmiit «»^' the hij^hest peak of the mountain. 
 Filled with astonishment, his persecutors hastened to 
 scale the rocky hei<^ht. When after ^reat labor they 
 arrived at the i)oint where they had seen the H^^ure, 
 Wixi[)ecocha apj)earcd to them a«^ain for a few in- 
 stants, then as suddenly vanished, leavinjjf no traces 
 of his presence save the imprints of his i'eut deeply 
 impressed upon the rock where he had stood."" Since 
 
 •♦ Hiirr/on, Geoff. Dcscrip., torn, ii., pt ii., caj). Ixxii. 
 
 *■* liaHfioH y srilnles de la primera prcdicnrion en el Nurvo-Mundo, 
 M8. do l>(>ii IhuIi'o (ioiidra; <iu<)tcd in lirasneur dc liuurbourij, Hist. 
 Nat. Viv., toiii. iii., p. 1». 
 
 w Uurtjoa, Uevg. Dcscrip., torn, ii., pt ii,, cap. Ixxii. 
 
THE CAVE OF YOPAA. 
 
 211 
 
 tlien we do not know that Wixipecocha reappeared in 
 the ordinary world, tJiotij^h tradition relates that he 
 afterwards HJiowed hirnselt' in the enchanted island of 
 MonapoHtiac, near Teh uan tepee, whither he [)rohaV)ly 
 went for the purpose of ohtainin<( new proselytes. In 
 spite of the silence which history maintains concem- 
 in<if the time of his advent and the disciples which he 
 left hehii^d him, there can he no douht that the jiriests 
 of Yopaa did not continue to promul<(ate his doctrines, 
 or that the Wiyatao, the su[)reme pontiff in Zap<)teca- 
 pan, was not there as the vicar and successor of the 
 prophet of Monapostiac. Like the ancient Brahmans 
 of Hindustan, the firr^t disciples of Wixipecocha cele- 
 brated the rites of their reli<(ion in a deep cavo, which 
 M. de Bourl)our<j^ thinks was most probably hollowed 
 out in the side of the mountain by the waters of the 
 flood. This was afterwards used as a place of wor- 
 ship by the Wiyataos, who, as the number of their 
 proselytes increased, broUjL^ht art to the aid of nature, 
 an<l under the hands of able 'irchitecits the vuva of 
 Yopaa was soon turned into a tetnple, haviiii'' halls, 
 ffallerioH, and numerous apartments all <!ut in the 
 solid rock, it was into the j^Ioomy recesses of this 
 temple that the priests des<^ended on solemn feast- 
 days to assist at those mysterious sacrifices which 
 were sacred from the profane j^aze of the vul^jfar, or 
 to take ]>art in the burial rites at the death of a kiu;^.''^ 
 The classes of relijjfious men wcsre as numerous and 
 their names and duties as varied amon;.*' the Za|)otecs 
 as elstiwhere. A certain order of priests who made 
 the interpreting^ of dreams tiijir spi'cial provinc(j were 
 called (Jolanii (jobee l*ecala. Each form of divina- 
 tion was made a special study. Some professed to 
 foretell the future by the aid (»!' stars, earth, win<l, fire, 
 or water; others, by the fli;^ht of bird.-s, the entrails of 
 Hacrifi(;ial victims, or by mai^ic sijij^ns and <;ircles. 
 Amonj^ ot'.^r divinities a sj)ecies of parro(piet, with 
 
 " Ihirffoa, Geog. Dettrip., torn, 'v,., pt ii., cap. iiii. 
 
2ia 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 flaming plumage, called the ara,^ was worshiped in 
 some districts. In thi i bird a god was incai;.ate, who 
 was said to have descended from the sky like a meteor. 
 There were among the Zapotecs hermits or fakirs, 
 who passed their entire lives in religious extasy and 
 meditation, shut up in dark caves, or rude huts, with 
 no other companion but an ara, which they fed respect- 
 fully upon a species of altar; in honor of the bird 
 they lacerated their flesh and drew blood from their 
 bodies; upon their knees they kissed it morning and 
 evening, and offered it with their prayers sacrifices of 
 flowers and copal. 
 
 Priests of a lower order were styled Wiyana and 
 Wizaechi, and the monks Copapitas. The influence 
 which they were supposed to have with the gods, and 
 the care which they took to keep their number con- 
 stantly recruited with scions of the most illustrious 
 families, gained them great aut)iority among the peo- 
 ple. No noble was so great but he would be honored 
 by having a son in the temple. They added, also, to 
 the credit of their profession by the strict i)ropriety 
 of their manners, and the excessive rigor with which 
 they guarded their chastity. Parents who wished to 
 consecrate one of their children to the service of the 
 gods, led hin), while still an infant, to the chief priest 
 of the district, who after carefully catechizing the lit- 
 tle one, deliveied him over to the charge of the master 
 of the novices. Besides the care of the sanctuary, 
 which fell to their lot, these children v^ere taught 
 singing, the history of their country, and such sciences 
 as were within their comprehension. 
 
 These religious bodies were looked upon witli much 
 respect. Their members were taught to bear them- 
 selves properly at home and in the street, and to pre- 
 serve a modest and humble demeanor. The least 
 infraction of the rules was severely punished ; a glance 
 or a sign which might be construed into a carnal de- 
 
 ^ So called from the cry of ara, ara, which it constantly repeats. 
 
ZAPOTEC PRIESTS. 
 
 218 
 
 siro, was punished as criminal, and those who showed 
 by their actions a strong disposition to violate their 
 vow of chastity were relentlessly castrated. 
 
 The Wivanas were divided into several orders, but 
 all were ruled in the most absolute manner by the 
 pontiff of Yopaa. I have already spoken of the ven- 
 eration in which this spiritual monarch was held, and 
 of the manner in which he surmounted the difficulty 
 of having children to inherit the pontifical chair, when 
 continence was strictly imposed upon him.'® 
 
 The ordinary dress of the Zapotec priests was a full 
 white robe, with openings to pass the arms through, 
 b;«* no sleeves; this was girt at the waist with a col- 
 oft 1 cord. During the ceremony of sacrifice, and on 
 fciv.?,c-days, the Wiyatao wore, over all, a kind of 
 t jtiic, with full sleeves, adorned with tassels and em- 
 broidered in various colors with representations of 
 birds and animals. On his head he wore a mitre of 
 feather-work, ornamented with a very rich crown of 
 gold; his neck, arms, and wrists were laden with 
 costly necklaces and bracelets; upon his feet were 
 golden sandals, bound to his legs with cords of gold 
 and bright-colored thread.** 
 
 The Toltec sacerdotal system so closely resembled 
 the Mexican already described that it needs no further 
 description ia this volume. Their priests wore a long 
 
 29 See this vol,, 
 
 30 
 
 Ih' ijo.i. C-:o'i bcscrip.,Uim\\., cap. liii. Of the Miztec high-priest 1 
 iuL wri;-.- ';■•>! vcstia, para celebnir sus Fiestas, de Puiitilical, de ( 
 
 i)p. 142-3. 
 
 -- - -- ,p^^ 
 
 para celcbrar 8us t'lestas, ae t'uiitilical, dc esta 
 Jiiaiiera Uii;i^ ' iwitiis i.",ui variiwlaa de colores, niati<;ada», y pintados de 
 Histinias u^'^eui'. ^s ii i<;,Lr«nus de sus Diuacs: poiiiase viias coiiin (JaniisoH, 6 
 11'. ^iietes, sill ii, ■ •;. .s (ii difereucia de lo,^ Alexiaiiios) que llega)>aii nios 
 al>iij» de la roiltUa, y cii las picriias vuus coiuo aiiti|Hiras, que le cubriaii la 
 ]iaiiti>rrilla; y cm cuia casi coiuiin {i tudos lus Sacerdutes btiinos, y caifado, 
 C(>;i(|uc adoriiaUaii las Estatiias de los Dioscs; y en el brafo izquicnki, vn 
 ]>cdavi> dc manta labrada, i\ niancra de listoii, como Riicleii atarsc algiinoB 
 al brago, (piaiido salcii a Fiestas, o Canos, con vna boria osida dc clla, que 
 )»arcuia niuiiipulo. Vcstia cnciniu dc tndo vna Capa, como la nticstra de 
 Ci>ro, con vna borIa col<rando ii las CHpaldas, y vna K''*^'* ^litra en la calwfa, 
 hcc.lia dc plunius verdes, con niucho artiticio, y toda scmhruda, y labrada 
 dc los w s prin'.^inalcs Dioses, que tenian. Quando hailaban, en otras oca- 
 BioncH, ,)atios ae los Teniplos (que era el niodo ordinario dc cantar sua 
 Hortv' ^ co.-ir hu UHcio) se vestian de ropa blanua pintado, y vnos roiietaa, 
 como .:n .;-<' t(!4 do Galeote.' Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 217. 
 
214 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 ill I' 
 
 ■ii 
 
 ■f]; 
 
 black robe reaching to the ground; their heads were 
 covered with a hood, and their hair fell down over their 
 shoulders and was braided. They rarely put sandals 
 on their feet, except when about to start on a long 
 journey." Among the Totonacs six great ecclesiastics 
 were elected, one as high-priest, one next to him 
 in rank, and so on with the other four. When 
 the high-priest died, the second priest succeeded him. 
 He was anointed and consecrated with great cere- 
 mony; the urction used upon the occasion was a 
 mixture of a fluid called in the Totonac tongue ole, 
 and blood drawn a "'' ' circumcision of children.*" 
 There existed also aiu these people an order of 
 monks devoted to their gc Jess Centeotl. They lived 
 a very austere and retired life, and thoir character, 
 according to the Totonac standard, was irreproachable. 
 None but men above sixty years of age, who were 
 widowers of virtuous life and estranged from the so- 
 ciety of women, were admitted into this order. Their 
 number was fixed, and when one of them died another 
 was received in his stead. They were so much rcT 
 spected that they were not only consulted by the 
 common people, but likewise by the great nobles and 
 the high-priest. They listened to those who consulted 
 them, sitting upon their heels, with their eyes fixed 
 upon the ground, and their answers were received as 
 oracles even by the kings of Mexico. They were em- 
 ployed in making historical paintings, which they gave 
 to the high-priest that he might exhibit them to the 
 people. The common Totonac priests wore long black 
 cotton robes with hoods; their hair was braided like 
 the other common priests of Mexico, and anointed 
 with the blood of human sacrifices, but those who 
 served the goddess Centeotl were always dressed in 
 the skins of foxes or coyotes. '^ At Izacapu, in Mi- 
 
 I! 
 ■I 
 
 327. 
 
 'I Ixtlilxochitl, Rclaciones, in Kingsborottgh'a Mex. Antiq., torn, ix., p. 
 
 '* Las Cusas, Hist. Apolofftlica, MS., cop. cxxxiii. 
 
 3' Las Caaas, Hist. Apolofftlica, MS., cap. cxxi.; Torqt4einada, Monarq. 
 
PRIESTS OF MICHOACAN. 
 
 215 
 
 choacan, there was a pontiff named Curinacanery, who 
 was looked upon with such deep veneration that the 
 king himself visited him once a year to ofter him the 
 first-fruits of the season, which he did upon his knees, 
 having first respectfully kissed his hand. The com- 
 mon priests of Michoacan wore their hair loose and 
 disheveled; a leathern band encircled their foreheads; 
 their robes were white, embroidered with black, and 
 in their hands they carried feather fans.'** In Puebla 
 they also wore white robes, with sleeves, and fringed 
 on the edges.^ The papas, or sacrificing priests of 
 Tlascala, allowed their hair to grow long and anointed 
 it with the blood of their victims.^ Much more might 
 be written concerning the priests of these countries, 
 but as it does not strictly come within the province of 
 this volume, it is omitted here." 
 
 Ind., torn, ii., p. 181; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 44; 
 Ilcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. xiv. 
 
 3* Beaumont, Crdn. Mcchoacan, MS., pp. 52-3; Herrera says of the 
 priests of Mechuacan, ' trahian los vabellos largos, y coronas abiertas en la 
 cabefa, conio \oa de la Yglcsia Catolica, y guirnaldas de tluccos colorados.' 
 Hist, lien., Dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. x. 
 
 3* Torqucnmda, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 438. 
 
 '* Gamargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates dcs Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcviii., p. 201. 
 
 " Less important, or more modern, authorities that treat of the priv- 
 ileged classes among the Aztecs, are: Pimentcl, Mem. sobre la Raza In- 
 difjena, pp. 19-22; Garbnjal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 495-504; 
 Garli, Cartas, pt i., pp. 114-15; Carbajal, Discurso, pp. 108-14; Chaves, 
 Ranport, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., serie ii., tom. v., pp. 303-6, 337; 
 DilwortlCs Gonq. Mex., p. 36; Mon<jlave, R^.sumf, pp. 14-19, 32-5; Hazart, 
 Kirchen-Ge^chirhte, torn, ii., pp. 503-5; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, pp. 
 74, 235-6, 264-5; West nnd Ost Indischer Lnsfijnrt, pt i., pp. 73-7, 98- 
 100; Cortes, Avcntvras, pref., p. 6; Baril, Mexique, pp. 201-2; Klemm, 
 Cultur-Gcschichte, tom. v., pp. 55^-70, 88-98, 209-10; Soden, Spanier in 
 Peru, tom. ii., pp. 12-13, 19; Chevalier, Mex. Ancien ct Mod., pp. 116- 
 120. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PLEBEIANS, SLAVES, TENURE OF LANDS, AND TAXATION. 
 
 Influence of the Commoners — Oppression by Nobles— Deprived 
 OF Office by Montezuma II.— Classes of Slaves— Penal Slaves 
 — Voluntary Slavery— Slave Market at Azcapuzalco— Pun- 
 ishment AND Pmvii ;aESOF Slaves— Division of Lands— Crown 
 Lands— Lands of the Nobli^s- Municipal Property— Property 
 OF the Temples— Tenure of Lands in Zapotecapan, Mizteca- 
 PAN, Michoacan, Tlascala, Cholula, and Huexotzinco— Simi. 
 larity to Feudal System of Europe — System of Taxation- 
 Municipal Taxes — Lice Tribute — Tribute from Conquered 
 Provinces— Revenue Officers— Injustice of Montezuma II. 
 
 I " i 
 
 No writer seems to have thought it worth v/hile to 
 define the exact condition of the lower orders of free 
 citizens among the Aztecs. In Mexico, under the 
 earlier kings, they appear to have enjoyed considerable 
 privileges. They were represented in the royal coun- 
 cils, they held high offices at court and about the 
 king's person, their wishes were consulted in all affairs 
 of moment, and they were generally recognized as an 
 important part of the community. Gradually, how- 
 ever, their power lessened as that of the nobles 
 increased, until, in the time of Montezuma II., they 
 were, as we have seen, deprived of all offices that were 
 not absolutely menial, and driven from the palace. 
 Still, there is no doubt that from the earliest times 
 the plebeians were always much oppressed by the 
 nobles, or that, as the Bishop of Santo Domingo, 
 
 (216) 
 
PLEBEIANS AND SLAVES. 
 
 217 
 
 before quoted,* remarks, "they were, and still are, so 
 submissive that they allow themselves to be killed or 
 sold into slavery without complaining. " Father Acosta, 
 also, writes that "so great is the authority which the 
 caciques have assumed over their vassals that these 
 latter dare not open their lips to complain of any order 
 given them, no matter how difficult or disagreeable it 
 may be to fulfill ; indeed, they would rather die and 
 perish than incur the wrath of their lord ; for this rea- 
 son the nobles frequently abuse their power, and are 
 often guilty of extortion, robbery, and violence towards 
 their vassals."' Camargo tells us that the plebeians 
 were content to work without pay for the nobles, if 
 they could only insure their protection by so doing.^ 
 Of those who stood below the macehuales, as the 
 plebeians were called, and lowest of all in the social 
 scale, the slaves, we have more definite information. 
 Slavery was enforced and recognized by law and usage 
 throughout the entire country inhabited by the Nahua 
 nations. There were in ancient Mexico three classes 
 of slaves; namely, prisoners of war, persons con- 
 demned for crime to lose their freedom, and those who 
 sold themselves, or children sold by their parents. 
 The captor of a prisoner of war had an undisputed 
 right to doom his prize to be sacrificed to the gods; 
 this power he almost invariably exerted, and it was 
 held a punishable crime for another to deprive him of 
 it by rescuing the prisoner or setting him free.* Sa- 
 hagun tells us that the captor could, if he chose, 
 either sell or hold his prisoners as sLves; and if 
 among them any man or woman showed unusual 
 ability in music, embroidering, weaving, or other do- 
 mestic occupation, he or she was frequently purchased 
 by the king or some noble or wealthy man, and em- 
 
 * See page 191 of this volume. 
 
 * Aco.ifa, De procnranda indorum salute; quoted in Pimentel, Mem. 
 tohre In Rasa Inutgcna, p. 81. 
 
 3 Hkl. Tlnx., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcix., p. 130. 
 
 * C'lnmocro, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 134-6; Cortis, Carta 
 Inid., in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 474. 
 

 218 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 ployed in his house, and thus saved from the sacrifice." 
 The offences which the Aztecs punished with slavery 
 were the following: firstly, failure on the part of any 
 relation of a person convicted of high treason, to give 
 timely information of the plot to the proper authori- 
 ties, provided he or she had knowledge of it, the 
 wives a id children of the traitor being also enslaved; 
 secondly, the unauthorized sale of a free man or 
 woman or of a free child kidnapped or found astray, 
 the kidnapper fraudulently asserting such person to 
 be a slave, or such child to be his own; thirdly, the 
 sale or disposal, by a tenant or depositary, of another's 
 property, without the permission of the owner or his 
 representative, or of a proper legal authority ; fourthly, 
 hindering a collared slave from reaching the asylum 
 of the sovereign's palace, provided it was the act of 
 one who was not the owner or the owner's son ; fifthly, 
 stealing things of value, or being an inveterate thief; 
 sixthly, stealing from a field a certain number of ears 
 of corn or of useful plants, exception being made to 
 this law when the act was committed by a child under 
 ten years of age, or when the stolen property was 
 paid for; seventhly, the impregnating, by a free man, 
 of another's female slave, if the woman died during 
 her pregnancy, or in consequence of it. This latter 
 statement is contradicted by Torquemada, upon the 
 strength of information given him, as he alleges, by 
 Aztecs well acquainted with the laws of their country.* 
 
 ^ Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. i., pp. 32-3; sec also, torn, ii., lib. vii., pp. 
 258-9, lib. ix., pp. 333, 370. The Anonyrnoua Conqueror agrees with 8alia- 
 gun; 'Tutti quei chc si pigliauano nella guerra, 6 erano niagiati <ln loro, 6 
 crano tcnuti per schiaui.' Relatione fatta per vn gentiPhuomo del Siffnor 
 Fernando Cortege, in Ramusio, Navigationi, torn. lii., fol. 304. Motolinia, 
 however, asserts that all prisoners of war were sacrificed: 'por que ningun 
 esclavo se haciun en ellas, ni rescataban ninguno de los que en las guerraa 
 prendian, mas todos los giiardavan para sacrificar.' Carta al Enifterador 
 Cdrlos v., Jan. 2, 1555, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 272. Go- 
 niaraalso confirms this with a grim joke: 'Los catiuos en gnerra no siruian 
 de esclauos, sino de sacrificados: y no hazian mas de comer para scr comi- 
 dos.' Conq. Mex., fol. 320-1; see also fol. 309. 
 
 <> 'Algunos quisieron deeir, que si vn libre tenia acccso & algnna Es- 
 clavo, y quedaba preilada de la copula, era Esclavo el Varon que cometib 
 auto cou Esclavo, y scrvia ol Se&or de lo Esclova; pero esto uo fue osi, 
 
PENAL AND VOLUNTARY SLAVERY. 
 
 219 
 
 Gomara asserts, though he allows that others deny it, 
 that when a man died insolvent, his son or his wife be- 
 came the property of his creditors.' Torquemada 
 affirms that it was customary for a creditor to look for 
 payment of his claim to the estate, real or personal, if 
 any there was, but no member of the debtor's family 
 was awarded to him to cancel the debt.* It sometimes 
 happened that persons too poor to pay their taxes 
 were put up for sale, but this mostly occurred in con- 
 quered provinces. Penal slaves did not become the 
 property of the king or the state, but were publicly 
 sold to private persons, or assigned to the parties 
 whom they had injured; nor were such offenders held 
 to be slaves, or their punishment considered to have 
 commenced until they had been formally delivered to 
 the new owner. 
 
 Among those who voluntarily surrendered their 
 freedom for a consideration, besides such as were driven 
 by extreme poverty to do so, were the indolent who 
 would not trust to their own exertions for a livelihood, 
 gamesters, to obtain the wherewithal to satisfy their 
 passion for gambling," and harlots, to provide them- 
 selves with showy clothing <ind finery. The two lat- 
 ter classes were not obliged to go into service until 
 after the expiration of a year from the time of receiving 
 the consideration for which they sold themselves. 
 
 Slaves were continually offered for sale in the pub- 
 lic market-place of every town, but the principal 
 slave-mart in the Mexican empire seems to have been 
 the town of Azcapuzalco, which was situated about 
 two leagues from the city of Mexico ; it occupied the 
 site of the ancient capital of the Tepanec kingdom, 
 which was destroyed by King Nezahualcoyotl of Tez- 
 cuco. Great numbers of slaves were brought to 
 Azcapuzalco from all the provinces; and it is said that 
 
 scgun ronfcsion de los mismos Indios Sabios, que sabian sub Leier y las 
 pructicuban.' Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 566. 
 
 1 Conq. Mex.,to\. 320. 
 
 * Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 566. 
 
 » Duvan, Hist. Indiaa, MS., torn, iii., cap. xxii., xxiii. 
 
m 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 the merchants who traded in them had to adopt great 
 precautions to prevent their property from being stolen 
 or rescued on the journey. With a view to advan- 
 tageous sales the slaves thus exposed in the public 
 markets Avere kept well clothed and fed, and were 
 forced to dance and look cheerful. 
 
 Parents could pawn or sell a son as a slave, but 
 were allowed to take him back on surrendering another 
 son to serve in his stead ; on such occasions the mas- 
 ter was wont to show his generosity by allowing an 
 extra compensation for the new servant. There was 
 yet another kind of slavery, called by the Mexicans 
 huehuetlatlacolli, meaning 'ancient servitude.' When 
 one or more families were entirely destitute and fam- 
 ine-stricken, they sold a son to some noble, and bound 
 themselves to always 'keep that slave alive,' that is 
 to say, to supply another to fill his place if he died or 
 became incapacitated. This obligation was binding 
 upon each member of the families making the con- 
 tract, but was null and void if the man who was 
 actually serving died in his master's house, or if his 
 employer took from him anything that he had law- 
 fully acquired; therefore, to prevent this forfeiture of 
 ownership, the master neither took from his slave any- 
 thing but personal service, nor allowed him to dvvell 
 in his house. It frequently happened that as many 
 as four or five families were bound in this manner to 
 supply a noble and his heirs with a slave. But in 
 1505 or 150G, a year of famine in the country, Neza- 
 hualpilli of Tezcuco, foreseeing the evils that this sys- 
 tem of perpetual contract would entail upon his 
 subjects if the scarcity of food continued long, repealed 
 the law, and declared all families exempt from its ob- 
 ligations; it is recorded that Montezuma II. soon 
 after followed his example.*" 
 
 Slavery in Mexico was, according to all accounts, 
 
 " Torqucmada, Monarq. Iiid., torn, ii., pp. 564-5; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., 
 torn, ii., lib. viii., p. .S03. Brassciir de Bourbourg asserts that tliesc con- 
 tracts remained in force down to tlie time of the Spanisli conquest. Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. Cll. 
 
CONDITION AND TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 
 
 221 
 
 a moderate subjection, consisting merely of an obliga- 
 tion to render personal service, nor could that be 
 exacted without allowing the slave a certain amount 
 of time to labor for his own advantage. Slaves were 
 kindly treated and were allowed far greater j)rivileges 
 than any in the old world; they could marry and 
 bring up families, hold property, including other slaves 
 to serve them, and their children were invariably born 
 free. There is, however, some obscurity on this point, 
 as Sahagun tells us that in the year Ce Tochtli, which 
 came round every fifty-two years, there was generally 
 a great famine in the land, and at that time many 
 persons, driven to it by hunger, sold not only them- 
 selves as slaves, but also their children and descend- 
 ants for countless generations." Very young or poor 
 slaves lived at the home of their master, and were 
 treated almost as members of the fomilv: the other 
 slaves lived independently, either on their owner's 
 land, or upon their own. It frequently happened that 
 a master succumbed to the charms of one of his female 
 slaves and made her his wife, or that a comely bond- 
 man found favor in the sight of his mistress, and 
 became her lord ; nor was this so strange as it may 
 at first appear, there being no dift'erence of race or 
 color to make such alliances repugnant or shameful. 
 Feelings of afl^ection and respect existed, as a rule, 
 between master and servant. A slave who had served 
 long and faithfully was often entrusted with the stew- 
 ardship of his owner's household and property, and, 
 on the other hand, if the master through misfortune 
 should become poor, his bondmen would cheerfully 
 labor for his support. No well-behaved slave could 
 
 ^1 ' Y cimndo acoiitccia la dicha hambrc, cnt6nccs sc vcndiaii pnr csclavos 
 nmchos jMjbres hunibrea y inugercs, y coinprdbunlus los rioos que tenian 
 imiclias provisioncs allc<^ada.s, y no solanicnte los dichos ]H)brcs sc vciidian 
 a si misiiioa, sino que tambieu vendian & bub hijos, y d bub dcsccudicntes, y 
 A todo 811 liimjc, y mi cran csclavos perpetuamcntc, porquc dcuiun que esta 
 servidumbrc que 'sc cobraba en tal ticni])0, no tenia rcniedio para acabaree 
 en alp;un ticmno, porquc bus padres se habiau vcndido por cscapar de la 
 inuertc, 6 por librar su vida dc la liltiina nccesidad.' Hist. Gen., toin. ii., 
 lib. vii., pp. 258-9. 
 
222 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 i 
 
 be sold without liis consent unless his owner could 
 prove that jioverty or debt made such sale unavoida- 
 ble; nor could such faults as laziness, disobedience, or 
 running away, be punished without due warning, 
 which the master for his own justification usually gave 
 in the presence of respectable witnesses. If atter this 
 had occurred two or three times the slave continued 
 refractory, a wooden collar was placed on his neck, and 
 thea his master was authorized to transfer him against 
 his will. Purchasers of a collared slave always in- 
 quired how many times he had been so disposed of 
 before, and if after two or three such sales he 
 continued incorrigible, he could be sold for the sac- 
 rifice. But even yet he has one chance left; if he 
 can escape from his master's premises and gain the 
 courtyard of the royal palace, he not only avoids 
 punishment, but he is from that day forth a free 
 man; moreover, no person, save his owner or his 
 owner's sons, is allowed in any manner to prevent him 
 froin reaching the asylum, under penalty of being 
 made the slave of him whom he attempts to deprive 
 of his chance for freedom. 
 
 The sale of a slave was conducted with much 
 formality, and nmst be made in the presence of at 
 least four respectable witnesses; in cases of self-sale 
 the witnesses acted as conscientious arbitrators to 
 secure the highest price and most favorable conditions 
 for him who sold himself. The usual price lor an 
 average slave was twenty mantles, equivalent to one 
 load of cotton cloth; some were worth less, while 
 others brought as many as forty mantles. 
 
 Slavery among the Nahua nations appears, then, to 
 have been only a partial deprivation of a freeman's 
 rights. As a slave was permitted to possess property 
 and even other slaves of his own, and as his children 
 were born free and he had complete control of his own 
 family, we can scarcely say he lost his citizenship, 
 although it is true he was not eligible for public office. 
 It was a common practice for a master during his 
 
TENURE OF LANDS. 
 
 22B 
 
 lifotimo, or on hia death-bed, to emancipate his slaves, 
 but if no such provision were made they went to the 
 heirn with the rest of the property. Murder of a 
 slave, even by his master, was a capital offence. 
 
 Yet in spite of all this testimony in favor of the 
 mildness of slavery among the Nahua nations, there 
 is still room for some reasonable doubt concerning the 
 patriarchal character of the system; inasmuch as we 
 are told that many slaves, not mentioned as being 
 prisoners of war or criminals, as well as servants, 
 dwarfs, or deformed persons, and purchased children, 
 were i)ut to death at religious feasts and royal 
 funerals." 
 
 The lands were divided between the crown, the 
 nobility, the various tribes or clans of the people, and 
 the temples. The division, however, was by no means 
 equal, by fur the greater portion being appropriated 
 
 i> 'Vcndian niilosrccien nacidos, y de dos afios, para ciiinplir hub pro- 
 mesas, y ofrcucr cii lo8 tciiiplos, coiiio nosotnis las caiidclas, y sacriticarloa 
 para ulcanijar sua pretcnniuncs.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., can. 
 xvi. ' Pontic cuiuu aiidabuii todus los Keiiios, con sua inercaiicias, traiuii uo 
 todos cllos iiiiiclios csiilavou, los qiiales, si no erau todos, h lu incnoa, loa man, 
 sacrilicaban.' Turifitemada, Monara. Ind., toni. ii., p. 272. 'Porqiio cosi 
 todoa los que aacrificubau d los idolos craii los que prcndiiiii en Iuh giicrrua 
 
 inui |>i)quitos erau los otros que sacrilicovan.' Motolinia, Vitrln al J-Jin- 
 
 perndor Lkbios V., Jan. 2, 1555, in Icuzbalceta, Col. dc Doc, torn, i., pp. 
 '2(jl, 272. 'Luego proponian tin parlaniento & los csclavos, cnanos y corco- 
 bados, dicicnilo: hijos niios, id d la bucna ventura con vuestro sefior Axayaca 
 
 & la otra vida Lucgo Ic abrieron cl pecho, tcnicndolo scis 6 siete saccr- 
 
 dotcs, y el mayoral le sacaba el corazon, y todo el dia y toda la noche ardiu 
 cl cucrpo del rcy, con los corazones dc los miscrables csclalras que niorian 
 sin culi)a.' Tezozmoc, Crditica Mex., in Kmr/sborouyh's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 \\., pp. 90, 142. 'Sacriticando en sus honros doscientos csclavos, y cieu 
 csdavas.' Ixllilxochitl, Hist. Chichimcca, in Id., pp. 282, 250. 'Quaiido 
 muria algun principal, niatavan juntamentc con 61 un csclavo, y cnterra- 
 van con el para que le fuese & servir.' Codex Teller iano-Rcmen.ii,i, in /(/., 
 vol. v., p. 1.30. 'Avee lui, de jcunes fdles, des eselaves ct des bossus.' 
 Cainargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Animlcs des Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., 
 p. 202. '8c quemaba junto con sus cuer]M)s y con los corazones dc los cuu- 
 tivos y csclavos que mataban.' Leon y Gama, Dos Picdrns, p. 35; lirassctir 
 dc Uonrbourff, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. iii., pp. 453, 57.3-4; Veytia, Hist. Ant. 
 Mrj., ton>. iii., pp. 6, 8; Pimentel, Mem, sobre la Raza Indigena, p. 65; 
 Among those wlio in later times have treated of slavery amon^ the Nuliua 
 naUons are the following: Montamts, Nieuwe Wecreld, p. 261; Dapper, Neue 
 \yyit, p. 294; Chevalier, Mex., Ancien et Mod., p. 62; Bussierre, L'Einpire 
 
 Mex., pp. 1.55-6; Miiller, A »ierikanisc/ic Urreligtotien, p. 541; Klcmm, Cul- 
 
 tur-Gesehichte, pp. f"^ ""• ''—'-- " .•—-•- n — * — :- — i,i le. c<.-, — »- 
 
 Ten Tribes, p. 273. 
 
 tur-Geschichte, pp. 69-70; Soden, Spanicr in Peru, torn, if., pp. 14-15; SiinonU 
 ~ ~ ■ 273. 
 
23i 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 4 
 
 by the king and the aristocracy." All landed prop- 
 erty was duly surveyed, and each estate was accurately 
 marked, out on maps, or paintings, kept on file by a 
 competent officer in the district where they were sit- 
 uated. The crown lands were painted in purple, 
 those of the nobility in scarlet, and those of the cal- 
 pullis, or wards, in light yellow. Certain portions 
 of the croAvn property called tecpantlalU, or 'lands 
 of the palace,' were granted to nobles of the rank of 
 of Tecuhtli, who were called tecpanpouhque or tec- 
 pantia^a, 'people of the palace.' They had the free 
 use and enjoyment of such lands, and in return cer- 
 tain servio<^s were expected of them. It was their 
 duty to attend to the repairs and proper arrangement 
 of the royal residences, and to cultivate and keep in 
 order the royal gardens, for all of which they had to 
 provide the necessary number of woikmen; besides 
 this they were obliged to wait on the kiig and accom- 
 pany him whenever he appeared iii public. Although 
 m consideration of these services t'le 'people of the 
 palace' paid no rent, yet the eminent domain of their 
 lands was vested in the sovereign. When one of them 
 died his eldest son inherited his privileges, subject to 
 the same obligations, but if he changed his residence 
 to another part of the country, or died without male 
 issue, the usufruct was forfeited and the land reverted 
 to the sovereign, who transferred it to another usufruc- 
 tuary, or left the choice of one to the community in 
 whose district the property was situated." The pro- 
 duce of other lands belonging to the crown was set 
 apart for the support of the royal household, and for 
 benevolent purposes. 
 
 In conquered provinces, the habits and customs and 
 established form of government of the vanquished 
 were usually respected. The sovereigns of Anslhuac 
 retained the native princes in power, and allowed the 
 
 » Tovibio and Olarte, Hi Ternaux-Compana, Voy., wSrie i., torn, x., 
 p. 405. 
 
 " Torqurmnda, Monarq. fnd., torn, ii., j ^. 645-'^; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del measico, torn, ii., p. 122. 
 
LANDED PROPERTY OF THE NOBLES. 
 
 225 
 
 people to keep their property; but they invariably 
 set apart a certain part of the territory, proportioned 
 to the conquest, which became the property of the 
 conquering monarch. These lands, called yaotlalli, 
 which means 'war lands,' were cultivated by the con- 
 quered people for the benefit of their conqueror. If 
 they belonged to Mexico their name was mexica- 
 tlalii; if to Acolhuacan, acolhua-tltdli, and so on." 
 
 The lands of the nobility were called jnllalli, and 
 were either ancient possessions of the nobles trans- 
 mitted by inheritance from father to son, or were 
 rewards of valor granted by the king. They were 
 held by various tenures; some of them could be alien- 
 ated at the will of the owner, subject only to the 
 restriction that they should not pass into the hands of 
 a plebeian ; others were entailed upon the eldest male 
 issue and could not be otherwise disposed of. Man^ 
 of the Aztec estates were of very ancient origin. 
 After the Chichimecs obtained undisputed possession 
 of the vallej'^ of Mexico, their chief or sovereign 
 Xolotl made grants of land to his own people, and to 
 others who acknowledged him as their supreme lord, 
 ui. ler the condition that the grantees should render 
 sei vice to the crown with their persons, vassals, and 
 estates, whenever he should require it of them, and 
 the same policy was adopted by his successors."' Sons 
 generally inherited their father's estates by right of 
 primogeniture, but if the eldest son was judged inca- 
 pable of taking proper care of the property, the father 
 left it to whichever sou he pleased, stipulating, how- 
 ever, that the heir should insure a competency to him 
 he had supplanted." In the republic of Tlascala 
 
 ^^ Zuritn, Rapport, in Tcrnaux-Compmui, Voy., scric ii., torn, i., p. (57; 
 lirasscur de Uourbourg, Hint. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. (iO.1; Carhajal, Dis- 
 fiirso, p. 61; I'ezozomoc, Crdnica Mcx., in Kin(jsborovgh\<i Mcx. Antiq., 
 torn, ix., p. 40. 
 
 '8 lioturitU, Idea, p. 165; Ixtlilxor Mtl, His* Chick., in Kinffshorouffh'n 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 208, 216, 224-5, 241; Id., Relariones, in Id., 
 }. 339-43, 346, 353, 386-7, 395, 451, 463; Hcredia y Sarmiento. Sermon, 
 ^,., pp. 51-2; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. iii. p. 189; Vetancvrt, 
 
 l\ 
 
 Tentrn, Mex., pt ii., pp. 13-14. 
 
 '^ Hcrrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. 11., lib. vi., cap. xvii., saya that brothers 
 Vol. II. IS 
 
226 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 daughters could not inherit an estate, the object being 
 to prevent landed property from going into the hands 
 of strangers. In the kingdoms of Mexico, Tezcuco, 
 and Tlacopan it is probable !:hat the law was the same 
 in this respect, but the authorities give us no informa- 
 tion concerning the matter." These feudatories paid 
 no rent for their lands, but were bound to assist their 
 suzerain, the king, with their persons, vassals, and 
 fortunes in all cases of foreign or civil war. Each 
 king, on his accession, confirmed the investiture of 
 estates derived from the crown." The lands of the 
 people were called calpulli, and every city was divided 
 mto as many of these as there were wards in it, and 
 the whole number of calpulli being collectively named 
 altepatlalli. The calpulli, as well as the tlaxicalli, or 
 streets, were all measured out and their boundaries 
 marked, so that the inhabittits of one ward or street 
 could not invade the possessions of another. Each of 
 these divisions belonged to its respective community, 
 and was of greater or less extent and importance 
 according to the partition which had been made by the 
 first settlers in Andhuac. The owners of a calpulli 
 were all members of the same clan or tribe, and their 
 district bore their name. The right of tenure was 
 perpetual and inalienable, and was the common prop- 
 erty of the community and not of individuals. Any 
 member of the community not possessed of any land, 
 had the right to ask for a portion suitable to his posi- 
 tion ind requirements, \^ich was granted him. This 
 portion he was entitled to hold as long as he culti- 
 vated and improved it, and he could transmit it to his . 
 
 inherited estates and not sons; but this assertion is not hornn out by 
 any otiier authority. 
 
 'i* Torqtieitiada, Mnnarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 348; Clavigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Measico, toni. ii., p. 123. 
 
 '> Fueideal, Lettre, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., &4riei., torn, x., pp. 252- 
 4; Cor Us, Cartas, p. 68; Witt, Lettre, in Ternaux-'Jompans, Voy., sdrio 
 ii., torn, v., p. 287; Carhajal, Discurso, j). 63; OoUdo, Hist. Gen., torn. 
 Hi., p. 535; Torqueinada, Monarq^ Ind., torn, i., p. 231; Ziirita, Raj^ort, 
 in TernaxtX'CompaHs, Voy., s^ne ii., toni. i., pp. -iS-O, 65; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., pp. 122-4; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 304; 
 Vttancwt, Teatro, Mex., pt ii., pp. 63-4. 
 
 I 
 
INHERITANCE OF ESTATES. 
 
 227 
 
 ti- 
 lls 
 
 by 
 
 heirs ; he had no authority to sell his portion, but he 
 could let it to another for a number of years. If he 
 neglected to cultivate it for two years the head man 
 of the calpulli remonstrated with him ; if he paid no 
 heed to t^ns warning he was ousted the following year 
 in favor of some other person ; a reasonable excuse for 
 such neglect was, however, always accepted. If the 
 land assigned to anyone proved unfruitful and barren, 
 he was at liberty to abandon it and another portion 
 was granted him. Under no pretext whatever could 
 any person settle upon the land lawfully occupied by 
 another, nor could the authorities of the calpulli de- 
 prive the latter of his right. If a land-owner died 
 without heirs, his portion was considered vacant and 
 assigned to the first applicant for it. If a calpulli was 
 in great need the authorities were allowed to lease its 
 lands, but under no circumstances were the inhabitants 
 permitted to work on the lands of another district. The 
 elders of the tribe formed the council of the calpulli ; 
 this body elected a principal, called calpullec, whose 
 duty is was to watch over the interests of the com- 
 munity; he acted only with the advice and consent of 
 the council. Each city set apart a piece of land in 
 the suburbs wherefrom to supply the needs of the 
 army in time of war. These portions were called 
 milchimalli, or caccdomilli, according to the kind 
 of grain they produced, and were cultivated jointly 
 by all the calpullis. It was not unusual for the kings 
 to make a life-grant of a portion of the people's prop- 
 erty to some favorite noble, for though there is no 
 doubt that the calpulli lands of right belonged to the 
 j)eople, yet in this respect as in others, the kings were 
 wont to usurp a power not their own.* Every tem- 
 
 '•'Cc n'est pas qu'ils eussent ccs tcrres en propre; car, conime les 
 MsigncurH cxcrfaicnt uii pouvoir tyranniquc, iis dispusaient den terrains et 
 (Ics vossaux Buivant leiir bon plaisir. Les Indicns n'etnicnt done, propre- 
 meiit dit, ni propri^taires ni maftres de ces villages; ilii n'etaicnt que Ics 
 labuurcurg ou lea aniodiateurs des seigneurs terriers, de telle fapon que Ton 
 pourrait dire que tout Ic territoirc, soit des plaines, soit des niontagiies, d6- 
 pendait du caprice des seigneurs et qu'il Icur uppartcnait, puisqii'ils y 
 exercaient un pouvoir tyraunique, et que les Inuiens vivuient au jour le 
 
228 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 pie, great and insignificant, had its own lands and 
 country estates, the produce of which was applied to 
 the support of the priests and of public worship; the 
 tenants who occupied these lands were looked upon as 
 vassals of the temples. The chief priests, who, on 
 the temple lands, exercised a power similar to that of 
 the royal governors, frequently visited these festates 
 to inspect their condition and to administer justice to 
 their tenants. The temple of Huitzilopochtli was 
 considered the wealthiest in Mexico. Torquemada 
 says that in Tezcuco fifteen large cities furnished the 
 temples of that kingdom with wood, provisions, and 
 other necessaries.^^ Clavigero makes the number of 
 towns twenty-nine.*' 
 
 Throughout Zapotecapan and Miztecapan landed 
 property was invariably transmitted from male to 
 male, females being excluded from the succession. No 
 one had the right to sell his land in perpetuity ; the 
 law forbade its transfer out of a family either by mar- 
 riage or otherwise ; and if a proprietor was compelled 
 by the force of necessity to dispose of his real estate, 
 it returned after the lapse of some years to his son 
 or his nearest relative, who paid to the holder the 
 consideration for which it had been pledged or its 
 equivalent.** In Miztecapan the first-born son, before 
 taking possession of his inheritance, had to do pen- 
 ance for a year; he was confined in a religious house, 
 clothed in rags, daubed with India-rubber juice, and 
 
 jour; les seigneurs partascant ontre eux toua leuni produitB.* Simancas, De 
 TOrdredc Siicrcssioii, in rernaiix-Vompans, Vot/., serie i., toni. x., pn. 224-5; 
 Zuritn, Rapport, in Id., B«5rie ii., torn, i., pp. 51-7; Fuenleal, Lettre, in 
 Id., torn, v., p. 221; Brasseur de Bourbotirtj, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn iii., pp. 
 603-7; Carbajtd Espinosa, Hist. Mex., toni. i., p. 590; Variedades Civ., 
 toni. i., pp. 158-9; i'imcntel, Mem. sobre la Raza Indigena, pp. 35-C; Bus- 
 sierve, DEinpire Mex., pp. 153-5. 
 
 «' Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. Itt4. 
 
 ** Clatfiijero, Storin Ant. ael Messico, torn, ii., p. 36. Sec furtlier: Lns 
 Casas, Hist. Apoloffftiea, MS., cap. 141; Brasseur de Bourbottrg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., toni. iii., pp. 5.58-9; Carbaial, Diseurso, p. 36; Sodcii, Spanicr 
 in Peru, torn, ii., p. 13; Dillon, Hist. Alex., p. 43; Chevalier, Mex. Ancien 
 el Mod., pp. 117-18. 
 
 « Bur^oa, Geog. Descrip., torn, i., pt ii., fol, 188; Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg, Htst. Nat, Civ., toni. iii., pp. 39-40. 
 
ESTATES IN MICHOACAN. 
 
 229 
 
 his face and body rubbed with fetid herbs ; during that 
 time he had to draw blood repeatedly from his body 
 and limbs, and was subjected to hard labor and pri- 
 vation. At the expiration of the year he was washed 
 with odorous water by four girls, and then conducted 
 by friends to his house with great pomp and fes- 
 tivity.** 
 
 Early writers say nothing about the tenure of lands 
 among the Tarascos of Michoacan, but merely state 
 in general terms that the sovereign's power over the 
 lives and property of his subjects was unlimited.*' 
 
 The tenure of lands in the republic of Tlascala 
 had its origin in the division made at the time when 
 the country was first settled; which was as follows: 
 Any Tecuhtli who established an entail, called teccalli, 
 or pilcalli, took for his own use the best and largest 
 part of the lands that fell to his lot or were awarded 
 to him in the partition, including woods, springs, 
 rivers, and lakes ; of the remainder a fair division was 
 made among his servitors and vassals, or, in other 
 wordii, his soldiers, friends, and kinsmen. All were 
 bound to keep the manor-house in repair and to sup- 
 ply their lord with game, flowers, and other comforts, 
 and he in his turn, was expected to entertain, protect, 
 and feed them in his house. To these kinsmen, 
 friends, and servitors, was given the name of teix- 
 huihuan, meaning the 'grand-children of the manor- 
 house.' In this manner all the nobles divided their 
 land. All were greatly respected by their vassals. 
 They derived their income from the taxes that their 
 tenants paid them out of what they obtained from 
 the chase, from the soil, and by raising domestic ani- 
 mals.*' 
 
 No information has reached us respecting the pro- 
 visions under which land was held in Cholula and 
 
 ** Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del Messieo, torn, ii., p. 64; Klemtn, Cultur- 
 Geschichti, torn, v., pp. 95-6. 
 
 *i Jkiunioiit, CrtSa. Mechoacan, MS. p. 52. 
 
 ** Canutrqo, Hist. Tlux., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcviii., p. ifO; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 276-7. 
 
aao 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Huexotzinco, or among the Totonacs. In the province 
 of Pdnuco, the eldest son was the sole inheritor of 
 land and, therefore, the only one that paid tribute; the 
 other sons had to rent land from those who were in 
 possession of it.*" 
 
 There can be no doubt that in all this there is, as 
 so many writers have observed, a strong resemblance 
 to the feudal systems of Europe. The obligation of 
 military service, and other relations of lord and vas- 
 sal smack strongly of the institutions of the Middle 
 Ages, but, as Mr Prescott says, the minor points 
 of resemblance "fall far short of that harmonious 
 system of reciprocal service and protection, which 
 embraced, in nice gradation, every order of a feudal 
 monarchy. The kingdoms of Anahuac were, in their 
 nature, despotic, attended, indeuii, with many mitigat- 
 ing circumstances, unknown to the despotisms of the 
 East ; but it is chimerical to look for much in com- 
 mon — ^beyond a few accidental forms and ceremonies — 
 with those aristocratic institutions of the Middle 
 Ages, which made the court of every petty baron the 
 precise image in miniature of that of his sovereign." 
 I have no inclination to draw analogies, believing 
 thenl, at least in a work of this kind, to be futile ; and 
 were I disposed to do so, space would not permit it. 
 Nations in their infancy are almost as much alike as 
 are human beings in their earlier years, and in study- 
 ing these people I am struck at every turn by the 
 similarity between certain of their customs and insti- 
 tutions and those of other nations; comparisons might 
 be happily drawn between the division of lands in 
 Andhuac and that made by Lycurgus and Numa in 
 Laconia and Rome, or between the relations of Aztec 
 master and slave and those of" Roman patron and 
 client, for the former were nearly as mild as the latter; 
 but the list of such comparisons would never be com- 
 plete, and I am fain to leave them to the reader. 
 
 " Witt, Ltttre, in Ternattx-Compant, Voy., B^rie ii., torn, v., p. 289. 
 
SYSTEM OF TAXATION. 
 
 281 
 
 The people of Andhuac and of the surrounding 
 countries paid taxes to the crown and to the tem- 
 ples, either with personal service or with the produc- 
 tions or results of their labor; in short, with every- 
 thing useful. We have seen that in the kingdom of 
 Tezcuco twenty-nine cities were appointed to pro- 
 vide the king's household with everything requisite of 
 food, furniture, and so forth, and were, consequently, 
 exempt from pU other taxes. Fourteen of these cities 
 served in this manner during one half of the year, and 
 fifteen during the other half. They likewise furnished 
 the workingmen and laborers, such as water-carriers, 
 sweepers, tillers of the palace lands, and gardeners. 
 Boys who were too young to do men's work were re- 
 quired to provide annually four hundred armfuls of 
 wood for the fires which were kept up day and night in 
 the principal rooms of the palace. The young men of 
 ToUantzinco, either themselves or through their ser- 
 vants supplied fine rushes for mats, stools, or seats, 
 called icpalli, pine-wood splinters for lighting fires, 
 other wood for torches, acayetl, or pipes with tobacco, 
 various kinds of dyes, liquid amber both in cakes and 
 in vessels, copal incense in their golden cylinders, and 
 a large quantity of other articles, which it is unneces- 
 sary to specify.'" Manufacturers paid their taxes with 
 the objects produced by their industry. Journejmaen 
 mechanics, such as carpenters, masons, workers in 
 feathers and precious metals, and musicians, were, 
 according to Oviedo, exempt from such tax, and in 
 lieu thereof rendered personal service to the sovereign 
 without remuneration.* Merchants paid their taxes 
 with such articles as they traded in. The last c ass of 
 tribute-payers were the tlamaitl, tenants attached to a 
 nobleman's land, who tilled the same for their own 
 benefit. They were obliged to do a certain amount of 
 work every year for the landlord, and to render mili- 
 
 » Ixllilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in KingsborougK'a Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 241-2. 
 
 o Hiat. Gen., torn, iii., pp. 535, 305-6. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 tary service when it was required of them by the 
 sovereign. Brasseur says that these tenants paid no 
 tribute to the king, but his statement is contradicted 
 by Clavigero.* Taxes paid in fruit and grain were 
 collected immediately after harvest; other tributes 
 were collected at different times through the year. In 
 each town there was a magazine for storing the rev- 
 enues, from which supplies were drawn as required. 
 In the vicinity of Mexico it was customary to convey 
 the agricultural produce into the capital, in order that 
 the inhabitants, who, being surrounded with the waters 
 of the lake, had no land of their own to cultivate, 
 might be regularly supplied with food. There was no 
 uniform system of collecting taxes from the merchants 
 and manufacturers. Payments were made by them in 
 accordance with their circumstances and the nature of 
 the articles they contributed. There were about three 
 hundred and seventy tributary towns in the Mexican 
 empire, some of which paid their taxes every twenty 
 days, and some every four days, while others only did 
 so once in six months, or even only once a year. The 
 people of Tlatelulco, says Purchas,*^ "were charged for 
 tribute, alwayes to repaire the Church called Huizna- 
 huac. Item, fortie great Baskets (of the bignesse of 
 half a Bushell) of cacao ground, with the Meale of 
 Maiz (which they called ChianpinoU,) and euery Bas- 
 ket had sixteene hundred Almonds of Cacao. Item, 
 other fortie Baskets of Chianpinoli. ' Item, eight hun- 
 dred burthens of great Mantels. Item, eightie pieces 
 of Armour, of slight Feathers, and as many Targets 
 of the same Feathers, of the deuices & colours as 
 they are pictured. All the which tribute, except the 
 said armes and targets they gaue euery 24. dayes," 
 and the said armes and targets they gaue for tribute 
 
 >o 'N^ i Yaaalli de' Feudatari erano esenti da' tributi, che pagavano al 
 Re gli altri Vassalli della Corona.' Clavigero, StoriaAnt. del Messico, torn, 
 ii., pp. 122-7. 
 
 " His Pilgrimea, vol. iv., p. 1080. 
 
 '• In the Codex Mendoza, in Kingsborotigh'a Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 54, 
 we read that it was pa.d every eighty days. 
 
TAXES PAID BY CITIES. 
 
 but once in the whole yeere. The said tribute had 
 his beginning since the time of Quauhtlatoa and Mo- 
 quihuix, which were Lords of Tlatilulco. The Lords 
 of Mexico, which first enioyned to those of Tlatilulco, 
 to pay tribute, and to acknowledge their subiection, 
 were Yzcoat9i and Axiaca^i." Sometimes merchants' 
 guilds or individuals did not pay their taxes at the 
 regular assessment of the town in which they lived, 
 but did so according to prior arrangement made with 
 the revenue officers. 
 
 In addition to the taxes levied upon private indi- 
 viduals, each town contributed a large number of cot- 
 ton garments, with a certain quantity of breadstuffs 
 and feathers and such other productions as were a 
 specialty of the province in which it was situated. 
 Mazatlan, Xoconocho, Huehuetlan, and other towns on 
 the Pacific coast, paid, besides the cotton garments, 
 four thousand bundles of fine feathers of divers colors, 
 two hundred sacks of cocoa, forty tiger-skins, and one 
 hundred and sixty birds of a certain species. Coyola- 
 pan, Atlacuechahuaxan, Huaxyacac, and other towns 
 of the Zapotecs, forty pieces of gold of a specified size, 
 and twenty sacks of cochineal. Tlachquiauhco, Ayot- 
 lan, and Teotzapotlan, twenty vessels of a fixed size 
 filled with gold dust. Tochtepec, Otlatitlan, Coza- 
 malloapan, Michapan and other places on the gulf of 
 Mexico, besides cotton garments, cocoa, and gold, paid 
 twenty-four thousand bundles of exquisite feathers of 
 various qualities and colors, six necklaces, two of 
 which were of the finest emerald, and four of the com- 
 moner description, twenty ear-rings of amber set in 
 gold, and an equal number made of crystal rock, one 
 hundred pots of liquid amber, and sixteen thousand 
 loads of India-rubber. Tepeyacac, Quecholac, Teca- 
 machalco, Acatzinco and other towns of that region 
 of country, each contributed four thousand sacks of 
 lime, four thousand loads of solid reed for building 
 purposes, with as many of smaller reed for making 
 darts, and eight thousand loads of reeds filled with 
 
284 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 aromatic substances. Malinaltepec, Tlalcozauhtitlan, 
 Olinallan, Ichcatlan, Qualac, and other southern towns 
 situated in the warm region, paid each six hundred 
 measures of honey, forty large jars of yellow ochre 
 for paint, one hundred and sixty copper shields, forty 
 round plates of gold of fixed dimensions, ten small 
 measures of fine turquoises, and one load of smaller 
 turquoises. Quauhnahuac, Panchimalco, Atlacholo- 
 ayan, Xiuhtepec, Huitzilac, and other towns of the 
 Tlahuicas, paid each sixteen thousand large leaves 
 of paper, and four thousand xicalli, or gourds, of dif- 
 ferent sizes. Quauhtitlan, Tehuilloyocan, and other 
 neighboring towns, each gave eight thousand mats 
 and eight thousand icpalli, or stools. Some cities paid 
 their taxes with fire- wood, stone, and beams for build- 
 ing; others with copal-gum; others sent to the royal 
 houses and forests a certain number of birds and 
 animals, such as Xilotepec, Michmaloyan, and other 
 cities of the Otomis, which were each compelled to 
 furnish yearly forty live eagles to the king. After 
 the Matlaltzincas were made subject to the Mexican 
 crown by King Axayacatl, they were required not only 
 to pay a heavy tax in kind, but also to keep under 
 cultivation a field of seven hundred toesas^ by three 
 hundred and fifty, for the benefit of the army. As 
 the Saxon king imposed a tax of wolves' heads upon 
 his subjects for the purpose of ridding his kingdom of 
 those ravenous animals, so did the Mexican monarchs 
 exact from those who were too poor to pay the regular 
 taxes a certain quantity of snakes, scorpions, centi- 
 pedes and other obnoxious creatures. Lice, especially, 
 were contributed in large numbers in Mexico." It is 
 related that soon after Cortds arrived in the city of 
 Mexico, certain cavaliers of his force, among whom 
 
 3,3 xhe tocsa is the same thing as the French toise, which is 6.3945 Eng- 
 lish feet, or seven Castilian feet. 
 
 ^* Tezozomoc, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsborow/h's Mex. Antiq., torn, ix., 
 pp. 17-18; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 206; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del Mesneo, torn, i., p. 275; Zutuo, Carta, in Jcazbalceta, Col. de 
 Doc, torn, i., p. 366; Cortia, Hist. N. Espaiia, p. 173. 
 
TAXES PAID IN Y^KMIN 
 
 were Alonso de Ojeda and Alonso de Mata, were 
 roaming through the royal palace, admiring its great 
 extent and all its wonders, doubtless with an eye 
 to plunder, when they came across some ba^s, filled 
 with some soft, fine, and weighty material; never 
 doubting but that it umst bo valuable, they hastened 
 to untie the mouth of one of the sacks, when to their 
 disgust and disappointment they found its contents to 
 consist of nothing but lice, which, as they afterwards 
 ascertained, had been paid as tribute by the poor.** 
 Duties were levied upon property, manufactures, and 
 articles exposed for sale in the market-places, in pro- 
 portion to the wealth of the person taxed or the value 
 of the merchandize sold. Produce and merchandize 
 of every description, carried into the city of Mexico, 
 was subject to toll duties, which were paid into the 
 royal treasury. 
 
 The proportion in which taxes were paid is stated 
 at from thirty to thirty-three per cent., or about one 
 third of everything made and produced. Oviedo affirms 
 that each taxpayer, in addition to one third of his 
 property, delivered one out of every three of his chil- 
 dren, or in lieu thereof a slave, for the sacrifice; if he 
 failed to do this he forfeited his own life.* 
 
 The government had in the head town of each 
 province large warehouses for the storage of bread- 
 stuffs and merchandize received by the tax-gatherers; 
 
 ^ Torquetnada adds; ' Ai qiiien diga, que no eran Pioios, sino Gusanillos; 
 pero A'o""": de Ojeda en sua Menioriales, lo certifica de vista, y lo misnio 
 Aiuaso de Mata.' Monarq. Lid., ton", i., p. 461. 
 
 30 'Ddbanle sus vassallos en tribute ordinario de tres hiios uno, y el 
 que no tenia hijos avia de dar un indio 6 india para sacrificar a sus dieses, 6 
 si no lo daban, avian de sacriticarle d 61.' Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 
 502. Nowhere else do I find mention of such a custom, although in Mi- 
 choacan the despotic power of the king, and his tyrannous abuse of it, led 
 to almost the same results. In Michoacan: 'Tributauan al Key quanto 
 tcnian y el queria, hasta las mugeres y hijos, si los queria; do manera quo 
 eran mas que esclauos, y viuian en terrible seruidumbre.' Herrera, Hist. 
 Gen.,Aec. lii., lib. iii., cap. x., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xiii. 'Si bien toda.s las 
 atenciones dedicadas & los decorosos mugeriles privilegios destruian la su- 
 jecion del tributo li sus Monarcas, sirviendolos en la ceguedad de of recerles 
 no solo la hacienda, y la vida, sinud sus proprias mugeres, en caso de discur- 
 rir aceptable el vergonzoso obsequio.' balazary Olarle, Hist. Conq. Mex., 
 torn, ii., pp. 69-70. 
 
THE JIAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 also auditing ofRces to which the calpixques, or stew- 
 ards of the revenue, were required to render a very 
 strict account of their collections, and such as were 
 convicted of embezzlement, were immediately put to 
 death and their property confiscated.*' In the royal 
 treasury were pamtings by which were recorded the 
 tributary towns, and the quantity and kind of tribute 
 paid by each. In the Codex Mendoza may be seen 
 thirty-six such paintings, each one of which represents 
 the principal towns of one or of several provinces of 
 the empire, together with the quantity and quality of 
 the taxes and the time when they were paid.** 
 
 The personal and ordinary service consisted in pro- 
 viding every day iAie water and wood needed at the 
 chiefs' houses; this was distributed from day to day 
 among the towns or wards, and thus each individual 
 was occupied in rendering such service once or twice 
 in the year at the utmost. Residents in the vicinity 
 were the only ones so subjected, and then, in considera- 
 tion of such service, were exempted from paying a 
 portion of the imposts. Other labor wa mostly done 
 by slaves, of whom there were large numbers. 
 Foreign provinces subjected by the empire without 
 having made any resistance, were not required to pay 
 a fixed tribute, but sent several times in the year 
 whatever they thought proper, as a present to the 
 king, who showed himself more or less gracious accord- 
 ing to the value of the presents. No calpixques or 
 tax-gatherers were placed in such provinces by the 
 Mexican sovereign, but they continued under the rule 
 of their own chiefs. Such countries as were reduced 
 by war, had to submit to the rigorous conditions im- 
 posed by the conqueror, and bore the name of tequitin 
 tlacotl, which means 'paying tribute like slaves.' Ov 
 them were stationed stewards and calpixques, wh< 
 authority even over the lords of the country, and o 
 
 " Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lilt, viii., p. 307. 
 
 ^i Codex Mendoza, in Purchas hiit Pilgrtmes, vol. iv., pp. 1080-1101; 
 Id., in Kingshorouqh'a Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp, 54-89, vol. i., plates xix- 
 Ivii; Cortia, Hist. N. Espaila, p. 176; Cortfs, t^artas, p. 110, 
 
TAXATION UNDEIl MONTEZUMA H. 
 
 987 
 
 besides recovering the tributes forced men to cultivate 
 land, and women to spin, weave, and embroider Cor 
 their private benefit; indeed, so great was their 
 tyranny, that whatever they coveted they were sure 
 to obtain by fair means or foul. Tlie kings of Tezcuco 
 and TIacopan, and other sovereign lords, allies of the 
 king of Mexico, shared these tributes if they aided in 
 the co.iquest." 
 
 The sovereigns selected the calpixques from among 
 the Aztec p'dli, or nobles of inferior rank. They were 
 under the supervision of the chief treasurers or huey- 
 calpix(juen, who resided at the several capitals, and 
 it was their duty to gather the tributes or taxes, and 
 to see that the lands belonging to the municipalities or 
 to private persoas were kept under cultivation. The 
 duties of these calpixques were not very arduous at 
 first, as the people generally hastened to pay their 
 taxes before being called upon ; but during the reign 
 of Montezuma 1 1, the taxes increased so enonnously, 
 owing to the great extravagance of the court, that this 
 commendable zeal cooled down very considerably. The 
 bulk of tlie immense wealth which the conquerors saw 
 with so much admiration at Montezuma's court was 
 the result of this excessive taxation, and it was one 
 of the main causes of that alienation of the people 
 from their sovereign which rendered the conquest a 
 possible achievement. Notwithstanding the easy dis- 
 position of the taxpayers, they could not submit 
 patiently to a yoke so onerous. The merchants, 
 whose trading expeditions had been so useful to the 
 state in former times, were no less overwhelmed by 
 the taxes than the inhabitants of conquered prov- 
 inces by the tributes. It was among that powerful 
 class that the first symptoms of defection were noticed. 
 To the main grievance was addod tiiv?! tyranny and 
 harshness exhibited by the revenue officei£ in collect- 
 ing the taxes. They carried a small rod in one hand 
 
 ^ Tdpia, Relacion, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, ii., p. 692. 
 
 mm 
 
 ■ 
 
988 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 and a feather fan in the other, and, accompanied by a 
 large retinue of understrappers, went throujSfh cities 
 and fields, unmercifully maltreating the unfortunate 
 beings who could njt promptly comply with their 
 demands, and even ielling them into slavery ; at least 
 it is certain that such sales occurred in conquered 
 provinces. 
 
 From the first years of his reign Montezuma II. 
 began to oppress the merchants with heavy taxation, 
 even upon the most trifling things. The greatest suf- 
 ferers were the retail dealers, who had to pay excess- 
 ive duties upon the merchandise they introduced into 
 the principal tiangueZy or market-place, from which 
 such merchandise was taken to the lesser market-places. 
 But the king and his creatures finding that this did 
 not directly injure the wholesale traders, among whom 
 were the judges of the mercantile court, — that is to 
 say, the consuls and syndics, so to name them, of the 
 company of Tlatelulco, — witnesses were soon found to 
 trump up charges of high treason against them, which 
 ended in their being put to death, and their goods 
 and chattels confiscated and distributed among the 
 people of the royal household. A very large por- 
 tion of the taxes and tributes was expended in sup- 
 porting the army, the public employees, the poor and 
 destitute, such as widows, orphans, and the aged, and 
 also in providing food for the people in times of great 
 scarcity, but almost as large a portion was appropri- 
 ated by the king to his own uses.*" It was by such 
 
 <• Torqiiemnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 147, 206, 231, 461, tom.ii., pp. 
 845-7, 560; Gomara, Conq. Mer.,{o\. 111-13; LasUasas, Hist. Apologihca, 
 MS., cap. cxli.; Toribio and Olarfe, in Ternaux-Coinpana, Voy., serie i., 
 
 torn. X., pp. 401-8; Fucnlcal, in Id., pp. 244-54; Chaves, Rapport, in Id., 
 wSric ii., torn, v., p. 301; Simnucas, in 7a., e&ne i., torn, x., pp. 229-31; Ca- 
 marrjo, Hi»t. Tlax., in Nouvclles Annale.t de» Voy., 1843, toin. xcviii., 
 
 pp. 180, 198-9; Witt, Lettre in Tcrnaux-thtiipans, Vot/., wirie ii., toin. 
 v., pp. 284-93; Aemta, Hist, dr las Yud.. pp. 481 2; ikrnal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 08; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., toin. iii., pfj. 189-90, 193-3; 
 PrcJicotCs Mex., vol. i., pp. 38-40; Solis, Hist. Conq. xex., toni. i., pp. 
 417-19; Pimentel, Mem. sobre la Raza Indigcna, pp. .36-7; Carhajnl E^- 
 no.in, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 99, 101, 437, 496, 589-9.^, 631, ton-, ii., p. 
 203; Laet, Xovtu Orhis, n. 240; Dice. Univ., torn, x., p. 637; B'asseurde 
 Jiourbourg, Hist, Nat. uiv., torn, iii., pp. 600-0; Cariujal, IH'ictirso, pp. 
 
SELFISHNESS OF MONTEZUMA II. 
 
 acts as these that Montezuma II. undid the work of 
 his fathers, and spoiled the harmony of his realm by 
 caring only for his own glory and that of his court. 
 
 36, 45-6, 58; Dillon, Hist. Mex., pp. 42-5; Klcmtn, Cnltur-Gcsr.hichte, pp. 
 65, 59, 68-72, 211; Baril, Mcxique, pp. 206-8; Busaieire, L'Empire Mex., 
 pp. 153-8; Soden, Spanierin Peru, torn, ii., p. 13; Latiifa Polynesian Nat., 
 p. 99; BrotvneU'g Iiid. Races, p. 83; Touron, Hist. Gin., torn, iii., pp. 25-9, 
 38; Monglave, Bimmi, pp. 23, 65. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EDUCATION, BiARRIAGE, CONCUBINAGE, CHILDBIRTH, AND 
 
 BAPTISM. 
 
 Education of the Nahua Youth— Manner of Punishment— Mar- 
 RiAOE Preliminaries— Nuptial Ceremony— Observance after 
 Marriage- Mazateo, OtomI, Ciiichimec, andToltec Marriages 
 —Divorce— CoNcuniNAOE— Ceremonies Preliminary to Child- 
 birth—Treatment OF Pregnant Women— Proceedings of Mid- 
 wife-Superstitions WITH REGARD TO WoMEN WHO DiED IN 
 Childbed— Abortion— Baptism— Speeches of Midwife— Naming 
 OF Children— Baptism amon(} the Tlascaltecs, Miztecs, and 
 Zapotecs— Circumcision and Scarification of Infants. 
 
 In examininj^ the domestic customs of the Nahua 
 nations it will be as well to first inquire how their 
 children were reared and instructed. The education 
 of a child was commenced hy its j)aronts as soon as it 
 was able to walk, and was finished by the priests. 
 Aside from the superstitious and idolatrous flavor with 
 which everything Aztec was more or less tainted, the 
 care taken to mold aright the minds of the youth of 
 both sexes is worthy of admiration. Both parents 
 and priests strenuously endeavored to inspire their 
 pupils with a horror of vice and a love of truth. Re- 
 spect for their elders and nuKlesty in their actions was 
 one of their first lessons, an»l lying was severely pun- 
 ished. 
 
 In a series of ancient Aztec ])aintings, which give 
 
 a hieroglyphical history of the Aztecs, are represented 
 (a«o) 
 
EDUCATION OF YOUTH. 
 
 Ml 
 
 la 
 
 r 
 ti 
 t 
 
 r 
 
 the manner in which children were brought up, the 
 portion of food allowed them, the labors they were 
 employed in, and the punishments resorted to by 
 parents for purposes of correction. Purchas relates 
 that the book containing this picture-history with in- 
 terpretations made by natives, was obtained by the 
 Spanish governor, who intended it for a present to the 
 emppror Charles V. The ship on which it was carried 
 was ci*ptured by a French man-of-war, and the book 
 fell into the hands of the French king's geographer, 
 Andrew Thevet. At his death it was purchased for 
 twenty French crowns by Richard Hakluyt, then 
 chaplain to the English ambassador at the French 
 court, and was left by him in his last will and testa- 
 ment to Samuel Purchas, who had woodcut copies 
 made from the original and published them, with 
 explanatory text, for the benefit of science and 
 learning. In that part of the work which relates 
 to the bringing up and education of children, — a 
 specimen page of whicih is given in the chapter of 
 this volume which treats of hieroglyphics, — a boy 
 and girl with their father and mother are depict- 
 ed ; three small circles, each of which represents one 
 year, show that the children are three years of age, 
 while the good counsel they are receiving issues vis- 
 ibly from the father's lips; half an oval divided in 
 its breadth shows that at this age they were allowed 
 half a cake of bread at each meal. During their 
 fourth and fifth years the Iwys are accustomed to light 
 ln)dily labor, such as carrying light burdens, while the 
 girl is shown a distaff by her mother, and instructed 
 in its use. At this age their ration of bread is a 
 whole cake. During their sixth and seventh years the 
 pictures show how the parents begin to make their 
 children useful. The boy follows his father to the 
 market-place, carrying a light load, and while there 
 occupies himself in gathering up grains of com or 
 other trifles that hapjxjn to be spilt alwut the stalls. 
 The girl is represented as spinning, under the close 
 
 Vol. II. 10 
 
m4 
 
 242 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 surveillance of her mother, who lectures and directs 
 her at the same time. The allowance of bread is now 
 a cake and a half, and continues to be so until the 
 children have reached their thirteenth year. We 
 are next shown the various modes of punishing un- 
 ruly children. When eight years old they are merely 
 shown the instruments of punishment as a warning. 
 At ten, boys who were disobedient or rebellious were 
 bound hand and foot and pricked in difturent parts of 
 the body with thorns of the maguey; girls were only 
 pricked in the hands and wrists ; if this did not suffice 
 they were beaten with sticks. If they were unruly 
 when eleven years old they were held over a pile of 
 burning chile, and forced to inhale the smoke, which 
 caused great pain.* At twelve years of age a bad 
 boy was bound hand and foot and exposed naked in a 
 damp i)lace during an entire day ; the naughty girl of 
 the same ajye was oblisfed to rise in the nioht and 
 sweep the whole house.'' From the age of thirteen 
 years the allowance of bread was increased to two 
 cakes. Between the ages of thirteen and fifteen the 
 boys were employed in bringing wood from the mount- 
 ains by land or in canoes, or in catching fish ; the girls 
 spent their time in grinding corn, cooking, and weav- 
 ing. At fifteen, the boys were delivered to the priests 
 to receive religious instruction, or were educated as 
 soldiers by an officer called Achcauhtli.^ 
 
 The schools and seminaries were annexed to the 
 temples, and the instruction of the young of both 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 • riiivijjcro writes: 'NcUa dijiintiimciiiqiiantcHimaHccoiulusi rapprcscn- 
 tano due i'a;;a%zi (I'miiUci aiiiii, ai quali |M>r iioii CHsersi eiiioiulati eim altri 
 Ka!tti;;lii, faiiiio i lor I'adri ricevcrc iicl iiutto il fmiio del VliiUi, o uia ]M!vc- 
 Duc' I'lariifrro, Sforia Ant. (/el Mcssico, toin. ii., p. 103. Hut thin is a 
 mistake; in this picture we see a ;;;irl iMiinj; punished hy her niutlier in tiie 
 manner dcscriliod, and a Inty hy his fatlicr. 
 
 * ('lavit^ero mentions tliiM}rirl as 'una putta. . . .cui fasuaMadrcspazzar 
 la notte tutta la easa, c parte della strada.' Storia Ant. del Mn.ssico, toni. 
 ii., p. 103. 
 
 ^ For these picture-writings and the interpretations of thcni, sec: Pur- 
 r.hnn hi» PilgriiMs, vcd. iv., pp. 1103-7; Codex llmUcinn, in Kiiignhoronff/t'a 
 Afex. Antiq., vol. i., idatcs 5U-62; Codex Mendoza, in Id., vol. i., and vol. v., 
 pp. 92-7; Carhnjnl Ktpinom, Hist. Mcx., torn, i., pp. TiCO-STo; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Meutiw, tuni. ii., pp. lOS-3. 
 
SCHOOLS FOR YOUTHS. 
 
 243 
 
 sexes was a monopoly in the hands of the priests. In 
 general boys were sent to the colleges between the 
 ages of six and nine years; they were dressed in 
 black, their hair was left uncut,* and they were placed 
 under the charge of priests specially appointed for 
 that purpose, who instructed them m the branches 
 most suitable to their future calling. All were in- 
 structed in religion and particular attention was given 
 to good behavior and morals. No women were per- 
 mitted to enter the college, nor could the youths on 
 any account have communication with the other sex. 
 At certain seasons they were required to abstain from 
 various kinds of food. 
 
 The schools, or colleges, were of two distinct classes. 
 Those attended by the common people were called 
 telpjchcalli, or 'houses of the youths;' there was one 
 of these in each quarter of the city, after the manner 
 of our public schools, and the parents of the district 
 were required to enter their children at the age of four 
 or five years. The telpochtlato, or 'chief of youth,' 
 instructed them how to sweep the sanctuary, to replen- 
 ish the fire in the sacred censers, to clean the school- 
 house, to do penance, more or less severe according to 
 tlieir age, and to go in parties to the forest to gather 
 wood for the temple. Each pupil took his meals at 
 the house of his parents, but all were obliged to sleep 
 in the seminary. At nightfall all assembled in the 
 citicacalco, or 'house of song,' and were there taught 
 the arts of singing and dancing, which formed part of 
 a Mexican education; they were also exercised here 
 
 * 'Tcninn cstoa fitenton tainbicn por ley que todon los nifioH llcgnclos h 
 lo» Rcis txiMn liuHta Ins iiiicve luiliiiin <lc etiviur Ids )iu<lres ii los Tuniplos piirn 
 Hcr iiistriiidos en In doctrina y noticia dc huh Icycs Ins cunles contcniun (Msi 
 todiis Ins virtudcseHplirndnslucu Icy nuturnl.' Litu f V«.v«.v, /lisf. A/mloi/clicn, 
 Ms , van. clxxv., ccxv. 'Tixlos cstos rclijjioHos vistou de neyro y nnnca 
 cortun cl caliello. . . .y todoH Ioh liijos do Ins ]icrfu>nuH piinripalcH, nsi sFflorcs 
 ennui ciudadanos luiiirados, cstau en miuclhis rcli(riuncs y liiiMto desdu edad 
 de KJete \\ oohn nuns fasta <|iu! los Htu^an imra l«)s casar.* Cortrs, ('ar/nx, n. 
 IOr>. 'Cuando cl nifio lleji^alia li dicis A (locc auoH, nietiaiilc en In casa (ic 
 cduoAcion A t'nlmccac.' Suhnquii, llisf. Gen., toni. ii., lib. viii., \i. .T2(>; 
 Omedo, Hitt. Gen., torn, iii., p. 302; Torqvemada, Monarq. IiuL, torn, ii., 
 p. 187. 
 
244 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 in the use of arms.' At the age of fifteen or sixteen, 
 or sometimes earlier, it was customary for the parents 
 to withdraw their children from the telpochcalli that 
 they might follow a trade or profession, but this wa« 
 never done without first making a present to the tel- 
 pochtlato. The schools at which the sons of the 
 nobility and those destined to be priests were educated, 
 were called calmecac, which means a college, or mon- 
 astery. The pupils did not do as much manual labor 
 as those educated in the telpochcalli, nor did they 
 take their meals at home, but in the building. They 
 were under the supervision of priests of the Tlama- 
 cazqui order, who instructed them in all that the ple- 
 beians learned, besides many of the arts and sciences, 
 such as the study of heroic songs and sacred hynms, 
 which they had to learn by heart, history, religion, 
 philosophy, law, astronomy, astrology, and the writing 
 and interpreting of hieroglyphics. If not quick and 
 diligent, they were given less food and more work; 
 they were admonished to be virtuous and chaste, and 
 were not allowed to leave the temple, until with their 
 father's permission they went out from it to be mar- 
 ried, or, in the case of a youth of strength and courage, 
 to go to the wars ; those who showed qualities fitted 
 for a military life were exercised in gymnastics and 
 trained to the use of weapons, to shoot with the bow, 
 manage the shield, and to cast darts at a mark. Their 
 courage, strengtli, and endurance underwent severe 
 tests; they were early aflbrded opportunities of real- 
 izing the hardships of camp life, and, while boys, were 
 sent to carry provisions to the soldiers, upon which 
 occasions their behavior was closely watched, and a 
 display of courage met with suitable promotion and 
 reward.® 
 
 * A native author asserts that this Miouse of song' was frequently the 
 si't-ne of debauch and licentiouiftiess. Brusseur de Bourbonrg, Hist. Nat. 
 Cii'., toin. iii., i». S.'i.S. 
 
 * 'Los hijos de los nobles no se libraban tampoco de facnas corporales, 
 pues hacian zanjas, conHtniian paredcs y dcscnipeflatmn otnw traliajos seme- 
 jantes, aunquc tanibieu no le.s i-nsefiulHi d iiablur b'.cn, saludar, haccr revcr- 
 
FEMALE SEMINARIES. 
 
 246 
 
 Annexed to the temples were large buildings used 
 as seminaries for girls. The maidens who were edu- 
 cated in them were principally the daughters of lords 
 and [)rinee8. They were presided over by matrons or 
 vestal priestesses, brought up in the temple, who 
 watched over those committed to their care with 
 great vigilance. Day and night the exterior of the 
 building was strictly guarded by old men, to prevent 
 any intercourse between the sexes from taking place ; 
 the maidens could not even leave their apartments 
 without a guard ; if any one broke this rule and went 
 out alone, her feet were pricked with thorns till the 
 blood flowed. When they went out, it was together 
 and accompanied by the matrons ; upon such occasions 
 they were not allowed to raise their eyes, or in any 
 way take notice of anyone ; any infringement of these 
 rules was visited with severe punishment. The maid- 
 ens had to sweep those precincts of the temple occu- 
 pied by them, and attend to the sacred fire ; they were 
 taught the tenets of their religion and shown how to 
 draw blood from their bodies when offering sacrifice 
 to the gods. They also learned how to make feather- 
 work, and to spin, and weave mantles; particular at- 
 tention was given to their personal cleanliness; they 
 were obliged to bathe frequently, and to be skil- 
 ful and diligent in all household affairs. They were 
 taught to speak with reverence, and to humble them- 
 selves in the presence of their elders, and to observe 
 a modest and bashful demeanor at all times. They 
 rose at day-break, and whenever they showed them- 
 selves idle or rude, punishment was inflicted. At 
 night the pupils slept in large rooms in sight of the 
 matrons, who watched them closely. The daughters 
 of nobles, who entered the seminaries at an early age, 
 remained there until taken away by their parents to 
 be married.' 
 
 cncios y, lo ^ue es mas importante, aprcndian la ostronoinia, la liintoria y 
 (Icinos conociinientoB que aquellas Kcntes alcanzaban.' Pimentcl, Mem. sohre 
 In Raza Jmfiffeua, p. CO; Acoafn, Hist, de las Yiid., pp. 444-6. 
 
 7 ' Iban tail huuestas que no alzabau Ioh ojua del suelo, y hi se descuida- 
 
246 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Children brought up in the house of their parents 
 were taught the worship of the gods, and were fre- 
 quently conducted to the temple in order that they 
 might witness the religious performances. Military 
 men instructed their sons in the use of weapons and 
 the art of war, and lost no opportunity of inuring 
 them to danger, always endeavoring to inspire cour- 
 age and daring. Laborers and artizans usually taught 
 their children their own trade. The sons of the 
 nobles who were placed in the seminaries were never 
 permitted to go out unless accompanied by one of 
 the superiors of the temple; their food was brought 
 to them by their parents. The punishments inflicted 
 were excessively severe. Liars had thorns thrust into 
 their lips; and sometimes, if the fault was frequent, 
 their lips were slightly split. Those who were negli- 
 gent or disobedient were bound hand and foot, and 
 pricked with thorns or badly pinched. A girl who 
 was detected looking at or speaking to a man was 
 severely punished; and if addicted to walking the 
 streets, her feet were tied together, and pricked 
 with sharp thorns.' 
 
 There was in Tezcuco, during the reign of Neza- 
 hualcoyotl, a large seminary, built upon the west side 
 of the temple, which consisted of several spacious 
 halls and rooms, with a courtyard, and was called 
 the tlacoteo. Here the king's sons were brought up 
 and instructed. The guardians and tutors who had 
 charge of them took much pains to instruct them in 
 
 ban, luego les hacian sefial que recogiesen la vista las mujeres estaban 
 
 por si en piezus apartudus, no salian las doncellas de sus aposentos d la 
 
 nuerta 6 verjeles sin ir acompafladas con bus guardas Siendo las nifias de 
 
 cinco aflos las conicnzal>an & enseilar d hilar, teier y labrar, y no las dcjaban 
 andar ociosas, y d la que se Icvantaba de labor f uera de tiempo, atdbanlc los 
 pi^s, porque ascntasc jr estuvicse queda.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 121-2. 
 B See further, for information on the education of the Mexicans: So- 
 lis, Hist. Couq. Mcx., torn, i., pp. 421-3; Carbajal, Discurm, pp. 17-18; 
 Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, lii., pp. 563-4; Bussierre, 
 L'Empire Mex., pp. 144-5; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. in., lib. ii., cap. xi.x.; 
 Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, pp. 267-8; Fuenleal, in Temaux-Cmupana, 
 Voy., B^rie i., torn, x., p. 251; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv.; Laet, Novut 
 Orbis, p. 239; Klemm, Cultur-Getehickte, torn, v., pp. 38-47; Chevalier, 
 Mex. Ancien et Mod., pp. 119-20. 
 
A PARENTS DISCOURSE TO HIS SONS. 
 
 MT 
 
 everything becoming their high estate. Besides the 
 use of arms, they were taught all the arts and sciences 
 as far as then known, and were made fully acquainted 
 with the practical working of precious metals and 
 stones. Separate rooms were devoted to the use of 
 the king's daughters, where they were given an edu- 
 cation fitting their station. In accordance with a law 
 of the realm, the king, his children and relatives, with 
 their guardians and masters, and the grandees of the 
 kingdom, came together every eighty days, in a large 
 hall of the tlacoteo; all were seated according to 
 rank; the males on one side, and the females on the 
 other. All the men, even those of royal blood, were 
 dressed in coarse garments of nequen, or maguey-fibre. 
 An orator ascended a sort of pulpit and commenced 
 a discourse, in which he censured those who had done 
 badly during the last eighty days, and praised those 
 who had done well; this he did without favor, not 
 even hesitating to blame the king if he saw fit. The 
 discourse was delivered with such eloquence and feel- 
 ing as generally to move the audience to tears.* 
 
 Sahagun, Motolinia, Mendieta, and other early wri- 
 ters, who were well acquainted with the Mexican 
 language, give us specimens of the exhortations deliv- 
 ered by parents to their children. I select one from 
 the first-mentioned author, as an example: "Give ear 
 unto me and hearken, O my sons," says the Mexican 
 parent, "because I am your father; and I, though 
 unworthy, am chosen by the gods to rule and govern 
 this city. Thou who art my first-born and the eldest 
 of thy brothers; and thou the second, and thou the 
 third, and thou the last and least — know that I am 
 anxious and concerned, lest some of you should prove 
 worthless in after life; lest, perad venture, not one 
 among you should prove worthy to bear my dignities 
 and honors after me ; perhaps it is the will of the gods 
 that the house which I have with so great labor built 
 
 * Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chieh., in Kingtborough'a Mtx. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 pp. 244-6. 
 
948 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 up, shall fall to the ground and remain a ruin aiid a 
 dung-hill ; that my name shall be no more remembered 
 among men ; that after my death no man shall speak 
 well of me. Hear now the words that I shall speak 
 unto you, that you may learn how to be of use in the 
 world, and how to draw near unto the gods that they 
 may show favor to you ; for this I say unto you, that 
 those who weep and are grieved; those who sigh, pray 
 and ponder; those who are watchful at night, and 
 wakeful in the morning ,*^ those who diligently keep 
 the temples cleanly and in order; those who are rev- 
 erent and prayerful — all these find favor with the 
 gods; to all such the gods give riches, honor, and 
 prosperity, even as they give them to those who are 
 strong in battle. It is by such deeds the gods know 
 their friends, and to such they give high rank and 
 military distinctions; success in battle, and an hon- 
 orable place in the hall of justice ; making thevn par- 
 ents of the sun, that they may give meat and drink 
 not only to the gods of heaven, but also to the gods 
 of hell ; and such as are thus honored are revered by 
 all brave men and warriors: all men look on them as 
 their parents, because the gods have shown them fa- 
 vor; and have rendered them fit to hold high ofiices and 
 dignities and to govern with justice ; they are placed 
 near the god of fire, the father of all the gods, whose 
 dwelling is in the water surrounded by turreted walls 
 of flowers, and who is called Ayamictlan and Xiuh- 
 tecutli; or they are made lords of the rank of Tla- 
 catecutli or Tlacochtecutli, or they are given some 
 lower post of honor. Perchance they are given some 
 such office as I now hold, not through any merit of my 
 own, but because the gods know not my unworthiness. 
 I am not what I am by my own asking; never did I say, 
 I wish to be so and so, I desire this or that honor; the 
 gods have done me this honor of their own will, for 
 surely all is theirs, and all that is given comes from 
 their hand ; nor shall any one say, I desire this or that 
 honor, for the gods give as they please and to whom 
 
A FATHER'S ADVICE TO HIS SONS. 
 
 349 
 
 they please, and stand in need of counsel from none. 
 Harken, my sons, to another sorrow that afflicts me 
 when I arise at midnight to pray and do penance. 
 Then I ponder many things, and my heart riseH and 
 sinks even as one who goes up and down mountains, 
 for I am satisfied with no one of you. Thou, my eld- 
 est son, dost not give any sign of improvement, 1 see 
 in thee nothing manly, thou remainest ever a boy, thy 
 conduct does not become an elder brother. And thou, 
 my second son, and thou, my third, I see in you no 
 discretion or manliness; perad venture it is because 
 you are second and third that you have become care- 
 less. What will become of you in the world? Lo, 
 now, are you not the children of noble parents? Your 
 parents are not tillers of the soil or woodcutters. 
 What, I say again, will become of you? Do you 
 wish to be nothing but merchants, to carry a staff 
 in your hands and a load on your backs? Will 
 you become laborers and work with your hands? 
 Harken, my sons, and give heed unto my words, and 
 I will point out to you those things which you shall 
 do. See to the proper observance of the danct s, and 
 the music, and the singing, for thus will you please 
 both the people and the gods; for with music and 
 singing are favors and riches gained. Endeavor to 
 learn some honorable trade or profession, such as work- 
 ing in feathers or precious metals; for by such means 
 bread, can be obtained in time of necessity. Pay atten- 
 tion to every branch of agriculture, for the earth desires 
 not food or drink, but only to bring forth and produce. 
 Your fathers sought to understand these things, for 
 though they were gentlemen and nobles they took 
 care that their estate should be properly cultivated. 
 If you think only of your high rank and are unmind- 
 ful of these things, how will you support your family, 
 in no part of the world does anyone support himself by 
 his gentility only. But above all study well to pro- 
 vide all those things which are necessary for the sus- 
 tenance of the body, for these are the very foundation 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 of our being, and rightly are they called tonacaiutlto- 
 mio, that is to say our flesh and bones, because it is 
 by them that we work, live, and are strong. There 
 is no man in the world but what eats, for each one has 
 a stomach and intestines. The greatest lords need 
 food, the most valiant warrior must carry a bag of 
 victuals. By the sustenance of the body life is up- 
 held, by it the world is peopled. See, therefore, my 
 sons, that you be careful to plant the corn and the 
 magueys, for do we not know that fruit is the delight 
 of children ; truly it cools and quenches the thirst of 
 the little ones. And you, boys, do you not like fruit ? 
 But how will vou get it if you do not plant and grow 
 it. Give heed, my sons, to the conclusion of my dis- 
 course, and let it bo written upon your hearts. Many 
 more things could I say, but my task would never be 
 ended. A few more words only will I add that have 
 been handed down to us from our forefathers. 
 Firstly, I counsel you to propitiate the gods, who are 
 invisible and impalpable, giving them your whole soul 
 and body. Look to it that you are not puffed up with 
 pride, that you are neither obstinate, nor of a weak, 
 vacillating mind, but take heed to be meek and hum- 
 ble and to put your trust in the gods, lest they visit 
 your transgressions upon you, for from them nothing 
 can be hidden, they punish how and whom they 
 please. Secondly, my sons, endeavor to live at peace 
 with your fellow-men. Treat all with deference and 
 respect; if any speak ill of you answer them not 
 again ; be kind and affable to all, yet converse not too 
 freely with any ; slander no man ; be patient, return- 
 ing good for evil, and the gods will amply avenge your 
 wrongs. Lastly, my children, be not wasteful of 
 your goods nor of your time, for both are precious ; at 
 all seasons pray to the gods and take counsel with 
 them ; be diligent about those things which are useful. 
 I have spoken enough, my duty is done. Peradven- 
 ture you will forget or take no heed of mv words. As 
 
 my 
 
MARRIAGE. 
 
 you will. I have done my duty, let him profit by my 
 discourse who chooses. " *" 
 
 The customary murrying-age for young men was 
 from twenty to twenty-two, and for girls from eleven 
 to eighteen." Marriages between blood relations or 
 those descended from a common ancestor were not 
 allowed. A brother could, and was enjoined to, marnr 
 his deceased brother's wife, but this was only consid- 
 ered a duty if the widow had offspring by the first 
 marriage, in order that the children might not be 
 fatherless." When a youth reached a marriageable 
 age, he or his parents asked permission of his teacher. 
 He seldom was allowed any choice of his own, but 
 was expected to abide by the selection of his parents. 
 It rarely happened that a marriage took place without 
 the sanction of parents or relatives, and he who pre- 
 sumed to choose his own wife, or married without 
 such cons'"' * had to undergo penance, and was 
 looked upon as ungrateful, ill-bred, and . apostate. 
 In some parts the high priest commanded them to 
 marry when they arrived at the proper age, and he 
 who refused to comply was obliged to remain conti- 
 nent through life, and dedicate the remainder of his 
 days to the service of the gods. Should he afterward 
 repent and desire to marry, he wf^ despised by all 
 his friends and publicly denounced as infamous, inas- 
 much as he had shown himself to be devoid of firm- 
 ness, and unable to keep the vow of chastity to which 
 he had voluntarily bound himself; nor would any re- 
 spectable woman afterward accept him as a husband. 
 In Tlascala, if any one carelessly allowed the time to 
 pass by without taking a wife, or deciding upon a life 
 
 ^0 Sahaaim, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 113-19. A literal transla- 
 tion of Sanagun would bo uniiitelligiblo to the reader. I tlierefurc have 
 merely followed oa closely as possible the spirit and sense of tiiis discourHC. 
 For further exhortations and advice to children see Id., pp. 119-52; Men- 
 diela. Hist. Ecles.,pp. 112; Torqiteuytda, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 403-9; 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. i01-9. 
 
 " Although Goniara savs 'casan ellos a lus veinte aflos, y aun antes: y 
 ellas 4 diez.' Conq. Mex., tol. 314. 
 
 >* Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 380; Carbajal, Diacurio, p. 
 16. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 of chastity, his hair was cut short and he was driven 
 out from the cf>mpaTiy of the youths with whom he 
 was educated. 
 
 Cutting the hair fomitd a part of the marriage cer- 
 emony, but the mode of cutting was different from 
 that of the penalty.^* When the time came for the 
 parents to choose a wife for their son, all the relations 
 were called together and informed by the father that 
 the youth had now reached an age when 'le should Ikj 
 provided with a wife ; for that he was now a man, and 
 must learn how to perform the duties of a man, and 
 refrain from boyish tricks and promiscuous intercourse 
 with women. The youth was then summoned before 
 his parents, and his father addressed him, saying: 
 "My son, thou art now a man, and it seems to us 
 proper to search among the maidens for a wife for 
 thee. Ask thy tutors for permission to separate thy- 
 self from thy friends, the youths with whom thou 
 hast Ikjou educated. Make known our wishes to 
 those called Telpuchtlatotjue, who have the charge 
 of thee." The youth in answer expressed his willing- 
 ness and desire to enter into their plans. The parents 
 then set alxMit preparing a Quantity of food, su(;h as 
 tamales, chocolate, and other dishes ; and also ])rovided 
 a small axe, which wjis to Iwar a part in the next pro- 
 ceeding. The repast l>eing prepared, an invitation 
 w;iM sent to the priests who were instructors of the 
 youth, acc()mj)anied with presents of fixxl and i)i[)es 
 of tobacco; all the relations were also invited. When 
 the meal was finished, the relations, and guardians of 
 the ward in which the parents of the pair lived, seated 
 luemselves. Then one of the youth's relations, ad- 
 dressing the jmestly instructors of the youth said : 
 
 13 'Pfir otro rcHpi'ctfl no itu ponn triiH({iiilar Ioh tiilcft nmncctHm, Riiio corc- 
 inoiiiii d« HUH cusuiiiieiitim: iihIo era, |Nir i|ii«! ili'jiiiiilo la culN^llera HitriiifK-iilta 
 ilojar lu lozuiiia y liviuii<i»<l ih* iiiunci>lM>; y uhI roiiin iIuhiIi! utU'lantc halna 
 lie I'riar iiiicva forma du vuliellos, tiiviuHu iiiicva m'ho y t'ordiini |>aru ntgir mii 
 iiiu}(or y cawi. Itiim crco <|ii«> (leltiit ile IiuInt alKuna ilifercncia on chIoh 
 traH<|iiim(loH cuaiKlo so tniH-^iilaliaii |i4ir ciTcioonia 6 |Mtr |mmi>i.' Lnii (.'aitus, 
 Jfiiif. A fwUujHivAi, MS., cap. cxxxix.; CiirltnjiU KMfitnosu, IHhI. Mr.x., toin. 
 i. p. 577. 
 
PRELIMINARIES TO MARRIACE CEREMONY. 
 
 2&8 
 
 " Here, in the presence of all, we Ikj^ of you not to be 
 troubled because this lad, our son, desires to withdraw 
 from your company, and to take a wife ; i)eho]d this 
 axe, it is a si^n that he is anxious to separate from 
 you; accordinj^ to our Mexican custom, take it, and leave 
 us the youth." Then tlie priest answered: "I, and 
 the youn^ n>en with whom your son has been educated 
 have heard how that you have determined to marry 
 him and that from henceforward, forever, he will be 
 parted from us; let everythinj( be d/ne as you M'ish." 
 The tutor of the youth next dddres-cd him, entreat- 
 injif hitn to persevere in the paths of virtue, not to for- 
 j(et the teachings he has received, and to continue to 
 be a zealous servant of the i^ods ; he advised him that 
 as he was now about to take a wife he nuist hi careful 
 to [)rovido for her sup])ort, and to briiij»; up and instruct 
 his children in the same ma»-;ier as he luid been edu- 
 cated. He adjured him to l)e courageous in battle, to 
 honor and ol)ey his parents, to show rosj)ect to his 
 seniors and all aij^ed j)ersons ; and so the speaker am- 
 bled morally alonij at some length, but 1 spare the 
 reader the remainder of the discourse." The priests 
 then took their leave, bearinjf the axe with them, and 
 the youn<^ man remained in his father's liouse. 
 
 Soon after this the ])arents called the relations 
 tojrethor once more to consult upon the selection of a 
 maiden suitable to be the wife of their H)n. Their 
 Hrst act, and otm' ti. it w»is of ])aramount importance, 
 was to ascertain the <lay and sit>ii of hi^: birth. If 
 they were niable to remember or «alculate the si<i^n 
 tiiey calle<l in the aid of aHtrolojLfers, or soothsayers, 
 who by certain reckonings and ceremonies interpreted 
 all they Moujfht to know. The birtluhiy an«l sinnn of 
 the damsel were in likt; maimer ascertained.. If the 
 horosco|»e of both was favorable, the astrolojuj-ers ])re- 
 dicttid a happy union with prosperity and j^ood fortune 
 to both, but if the h'\<*uh did not aj^ree they foretold 
 
 ** Snhfiifun, Hist, (tvu., tiiiii. ii., \\h. vi., ji|.. ir)'2-H; iVnnfiitii, 
 Kflnx., p. i'iri; J.II.1 1'lixus, Hint. Apolui/^tiru, MS., cup. exxxix. 
 
 Hint 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 adversity and evil fortune, and it became iwcessary to 
 choose another maiden. Once asHured of a favorable 
 combination according to the auguries, stejis were 
 taken to obtain tlie consent of tlie girl's parents. For 
 this i)ur[)oso the ])arent8 and relatives of the youth 
 connnissioned two old women, chosen from among the 
 most discreet and virtuous of the district, who were 
 to act as negotiators in the affair; these were called 
 ciliuathtiKjni'. I'hey went on the part of the bride- 
 groom and (ronveyed the message to the parents or 
 nearest relatives of the young girl. Their first visit 
 was made shortly after midnight or upon the follow- 
 ing morning, upon which occjision they took with them 
 some presents to offer to the girl's juirents. Upon 
 their arrival they c(mimenced a suitable address, in 
 which <^hey formally solicited the hand of the girl in 
 niarrir.ge. The first overture was invariably n'je(;ted 
 and some frivolous excuse given, even though the 
 girl's relatives might be niore desirous of the niateh 
 than those who solicited it. Tiie emimssy was told 
 that the girl was not yet of an agf- to marry, or that 
 she was not worthy of the honor (jilerod )ier. AfW 
 some few more such compliments \\h4 U>ji \mu\, tl*t 
 nnitrons retunmd to tho.se who had M-nt them. A 
 few days having elapsed, the old women were sent 
 ba<'k bearing more presents, and with irwtructions to 
 again solicit tbe alliance, and to define clearly the 
 position of tbe suitor, his (|ualificationH and riches. 
 U[K>n this secon<l intervi. w the negotiations assumed 
 a more business-like asj#«!ct; the conversation turned 
 ujKm the portion that each would bring to i\\v other, 
 and finally the relatives of the girl consented U> ron- 
 nider tiie affair; yet they still maintained a semblan<!e 
 of reluctan<'e, insisting that the girl was not worthy 
 to Inicome the wife of so estimable a young man; but 
 adding that, as the matter wjis urged with so nnich 
 im|M>rtunity, they would on the morrow assemble all 
 the relations of the young woman, that they nught 
 consult together about the affair; they then closed 
 
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 986 
 
 the conference by invitin}]f their visitors to be present 
 on that occasion and receive their final decision. 
 
 The next day the parents of the j^-irl called a. meeting 
 of all her relatives, at which the proposed alliance was 
 discussed with due deliberation; and the «ifirl bein<2f 
 called hdbre them, nmch jfood advice was j^iven her; 
 her duties as a wife were defined, she was charged to 
 serve and j»lease her husband, and not brintf distj^race 
 upon her parents. Informatioii of their decision was 
 then sent to the parents of the yonnjr man, and prep- 
 arations for a tittinjt^ celebration of the wtiddin;^ coni- 
 meu<«^;d. The aujLfurs were consulted and requested 
 to name a lucky day for the ceremony ; the sij^ns 
 AcatI, Ozomatli, Clpactli, Quau/ifii, or Calli, were 
 deemed most favorable, and one or other of them was 
 j'-enerally selected for the celebratii)n of the nuptials. 
 Several ensuinjL( days were spent by both families in 
 preparin<{' for the maniatfe celebration, and in issuinif 
 invitations to friends and relations. The ceremony 
 was always perftjrmed at the house of the bride- 
 ifT'-'UiH parents, where the best rtK>m was put in 
 ord*r for tlu; occasion; the roof and walls were fes 
 t^KHH-fJ with ;^reet» branches and garlands of Howers, 
 diM|>.«s(;d with great taste, and the Hoor was strewn 
 with the same. In the- centre st(K)d a brazier con- 
 t«iijiing fire. When all the arrangements were com- 
 pleted, certain <»f the hridegroom's friends and relatives 
 went t^) the houst! of his intended to conduct her to 
 the r<«>iu. if the distanct; was great, or the bride 
 the dautfhter of a l<»rd or gre-it personage, she was 
 h«»riie upon a litter, otherwise she was carried on the 
 k>a<'k of the bridcM- woman, or sponsor, a<«'ompaiiied by 
 a large concourse of people, disjxised in two rows and 
 iM-aring tor(!hes. The i>ri<le occuj)ied the centre of 
 th(! prcM-ession, and innnediately about her walked her 
 nj'arest relatives. As the procession passed, many of 
 the lookers-on profited by th»> occasion, to point her 
 out to their own daughters as an example worthy of 
 emulation. 
 
286 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The bridegroom met his betrothed at the entrance 
 of his house, preceded by four women bearing lighted 
 torches; in his hands he carried a censer with burning 
 incense, and another was given to the bride; with 
 these they at once perfumed each other, and the 
 groom, taking lier by the hand, led her into the room 
 prepared for the ceremony. They were then seated 
 upon an ornamented and i)ainted mat spread close to 
 the fireplace, the woman being placed on the left of 
 the man." The bridegroom's mother then came for- 
 ward with presents for her daughter-in-law, and 
 dressed her in a huipil, or short chemise, at the same 
 time laying at her feet a ciiatli, or skirt, richly em- 
 broidered and worked. Next the bride's mother gave 
 presents to the bridegroom ; she covered him with a 
 mantle, which she fastened at the shoulder, and placed 
 a maxtli or breech-clout at his feet. The most im- 
 portant part in the ceremony was next performed by 
 the priest, who made a long address to the betrothed 
 couple, in which ho defined the duties of the married 
 state, and pointed out to them the obedience a wife 
 should observe towards her husband, and the care and 
 attention the latter should give to her, how that he 
 was bound to maintain and supjjort her, and the chil- 
 dren they might have. He was enjoined to bring up 
 and educate his children near him, teaching all accord- 
 ing to their abilities, to iiuiko them useful members of 
 society, and to instruct them in habits of industry. 
 A wife's duties, he said, were to lalmr and aid her 
 husband in obtaining sustenance for their family. 
 
 >^ * Vcninn Ior dc la cnnn del niozn A llovnr d In mnzn dc parte do nnchc: 
 llcviitmiila con gruii solctiinidud itcufHttis do una inatmnn, y eon niueliiiH 
 hacliUH de tcuM euccndiduH en dim rcncles delantu du ellu.' f^ufiat/ioi, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. 82, 157. 'Pronubn, <juum AtiiuHlemm \ocuhant, 
 Hponnani tergo KoxtnuH, niiatuor f«uniiniH coniitantil>uii quw pinois ta>diH, 
 prii'luecrcnt. illani jMwt SoUh oecHMiini, nd linicn doniUH in qua parentcs 
 H|MinHi nmnebunt, HiHtclmt.' Loff, Noi-iis Orhin, |i. 2.30. ' La eelebraeion era 
 quo lu deH|M>Mudtt lu llevalm d cucHttm & prima nm^lic una uniantcea, «iuo ch 
 nicdien, e hi bun con clIttM euutro niujereH con huh acluiM doitino rexinaao en- 
 cenilidiu), < on quo la liitmn alunibrando, y lle^rndn li euwi iicl deH|N>Ha<lo, I<m 
 pailreH del dcHiMmado la Halian li r«ciliir iil |Mitio tie lu cunu, y lu nietinn en 
 nnii Hula domic el deM|Mi8ndo lu cst^jvii u^unrdundu.' Codex Menduza, in 
 KiiiyHboruinjh's Mex. Anliq., vol. v., p IW. 
 
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 267 
 
 Both were exhorted to be faithful to one another, to 
 maintain peace and .harmony between themselves, to 
 overlook each other's failings, and to help one another, 
 ever bearing in mind that they were united for life by 
 a tie which only death could sever. The rites of 
 marriage were always conducted with much solem- 
 nity, and during the ceremony nothing was said or 
 done contrary to the rules of modesty and decorum. 
 At the conclusion of the address the couple stood up, 
 and the priest tied the end of the man's mantle tt) the 
 dress of the woman; they then walked seven times 
 round the fire, casting therein copal and incense, and 
 giving presents to each other, while tlieir friends and 
 relatives threw chains of flowers about their necks 
 and crowned them with garlands." The mother-in- 
 law of the bride now brought some footl, and gave 
 four mouthfuls to the bride to eat and ai'teiwards gave 
 the same quantity to the bridegnwm. They then 
 received the congratulations of their friends, while at 
 the same time a dance was performed to the sound of 
 musical instruments. Accompanied by the (hincers 
 and musicians, the newly wedded pair was conduttod 
 to the temple, at the door of which the tlamacax<]iies, 
 or priests, appeared to receive them. While the com- 
 pany remained below, the wedded cou})le witli their 
 sponsors and parents ascended the stei)s of the temple. 
 The priest Avore his robes of ceremony, and eanieJ in 
 his hand an incensory filled with incense, with which 
 
 '• 'I'll sftcordoto atabii una piinta dnl ftiiripilli, <'> caniisa do la floncclja, 
 col) ntra ild /i/iii<ifti\ o rapa <lel jovoii.' I'nrlitijnl Kk/>iii(>s(i, Hist. Mrx., 
 toll), i., |). TmT. 'Al tioiii|>ii ([lie los iiovioH si> avian dc aciiHtar e doniiir en 
 iiiKi, tunialiaii la lialda delantera dc la caiiiisa do la nuvia, i' atiibaiila it la 
 niaiita de al^txloii tyac tenia ciibierJ-a (•! Mt>vio.' (h-,'i(/o. Hist, ({in., toni. iii., 
 |>. .')48. ' I'liax viejuH ([ue hc llaniuu tifiri, ntahaii la t-Miiuina de la niaiita del 
 ino/u, eon la falda del vipil de lu nto/a.' Snhaijitu, lii.it. tirn., toiii. i., lili. 
 ii., i>. WA. 'ileelios Ion truld«UiH, t'<)ni|iareeian aniltos contrayentes en el 
 leinplo, y "no de los sneenlotes cxaniinalia su volnntad con |iie;;nntaH 
 ritualoH; V doHOiieH toniaKii eon una niano el vein de la n)n>;>'r, y con otra el 
 nianto del luarido, y los aAudalta por lus exireinos, sijfnilirando el vinculo 
 interior ile hiN dos vidnntades. Con este ^enerode yup> iiupcial volvian li 
 NU casa, en eonipania del inistno sjieenlote: doudu . . eiilrahan a visitar el 
 fuoiio doinentico, nue A sn pareeer, inodiaban en la i)a/. de los <'asudo8, y 
 "JMhan siete viielttui A 61 siguieiulo al saccrdote.' SoUs, Hint. Cunq. Mf.r., 
 torn. i.. up -Ut^-vt. 
 
 Vol. U. 17 
 
268 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 he proceeded to perfume them. He then placed him- 
 self between the two, with the man on his right and 
 the woman on his left, and taking them by the hands 
 led thum to the altar of the idol, nmttering prayers 
 as he went. The altar reached, he placed u[)on each 
 of the parties a very fine and showy shawl woven and 
 variegated with many colors, in the centre of which 
 was painted a skeleton, as a symbol that death only 
 could now separate them from each other. He tii«n 
 
 Eeifumed them again with the incensory, and led them 
 ack to the door of the temple, where they were re- 
 ceived by the assemblage and accompanied to their 
 home with dancing and music. The marriage cere- 
 monies being finished, the relatives and friends partook 
 of a banquet, and amidst much rejoicing congratulated 
 each other on the new relations they had acquired. 
 In the feasting, drinking, and dancing the bridal pair 
 took no part; they had now to enter upon a season of 
 fasting and penance, which lasted four days, in the 
 strict retirement of their room, where they were 
 closely guarded by old women; on no account were 
 they permitted to leave their room except for the 
 necessary calls of nature, or to otter sacrifice to the 
 gods; the time was to be passed in prayer, and on no 
 account were they to allow their passions to get the 
 better of them or indulge in carnal intercourse. Such 
 weakness on their part would, they believed, bring 
 discord or death or some other dire misfortune between 
 thoni. The close confinement, the watchful guard and 
 imposed penances were intended to calm their passions 
 and purify their inmds, whereby they would be more 
 fitted to undertake the duties before them, and not be 
 led astray by unruly desires. What small suj)i)ly of 
 sustenance they received in the four days of their 
 retirement wjis carried t<> them by the old women wlio 
 had charge of them, and during this time they neitluT 
 washed noi bathed themselves; they were dressed in 
 new yfanuents and wore certain charms and 
 
 regalia 
 
 pertaining to their patron idol. At midnight they 
 
CONSUMMATION OK MARRIAGE. 
 
 280 
 
 came forth to offer sacrifice and bum incense on the 
 altar in their house, in front of which thev also left 
 food offerinj^s for their god ; this they did during the 
 four days of abstinence, while their friends and rela- 
 tives continued their rejoicings, festivities, and danc- 
 ing." Upon the fourth night, when the marriage was 
 to be consummated, two priests of tlie temple pre- 
 pared a couch of two mats, between which were placed 
 some feathers and a stone somewhat the color of an 
 emerald, called dmlchiuite; underneath they put a 
 piece of tiger-skin, and on top of all they spread some 
 cotton cloths. At the four corners of the bed were 
 placed green reeds perfumed, and thorns of the ma- 
 guey with which the pair were to draw blood from their 
 tongues and ears when they sacrificed to the gods." 
 The following morning the bridal pair t<x)k the bed 
 on which they had lain, with the cloths, reeds, and 
 food they had offered to their god during the four days 
 of penance, to the temple and left them as a thanks- 
 giving ofl'ering.*" If any charcoal or ashes were found 
 
 '^ ' Quc(lan<lo log c8m>sos en aqiiclla cstanciii dumntc Ioh riiatro diu 
 Bi)ruiciitcM, sin siilir dc clla, Hino li media noclii* |Nira itu-viiwir li Km idtdos y 
 hncerles (thIacidiieH dc divvrsiUi, CH|H!uieH do iiiuijaroH.' ('iirlttijal Kitpinusa, 
 Ilixt. \frx., toil), i.. p. •'V)7. 'A la media iioche y al medio tlia saliun de on 
 aiMiiMiiitiit li potior oiicienmt mdiro nn altar (|iio on hu cmmi tonian.' Mendietn, 
 Mtist.. Erli's., ]). I'JH. ' LuH padrinoH ilovaltan a Ioh novioK a otra pieza Hcpa- 
 iMtu. donde li)H dojalnin mdKis, cncernliidtdiiH por la jiarto dc afuera, luiHta la 
 mniiuiiii !ti;^iiontc, que venian il ahrirles, y IihIo cI oiiiienixo rc|)etia las cnlio- 
 raitiitMias, Miiponiondo ya cunHumudo el niatrinionio.' Vi'ijtiii, Hist. Ant. 
 My., torn, ii., p. '2(i. 
 
 "* Till- position of the ti<;er-Hkiii is doiilitfiil: 'I'onian tamliicn vn i)cda90 
 de eii(!ii» (le Ti;;re, delmjo do las csieras.' 7'<iri/iiriti)ii/ii, Moiiart/. IiuL, torn. 
 ii.. p. 41."). ' I'onian iin ]M>da/o do oiioro dc ti^'ro oiioima do Ian estcras.' 
 Mriidirtn. Hist. Kvlts., p. 1:18. ' La ostorii soliro (|iio lialiiaii dormido, que 
 M- Ilaiiialia />f/r>//, la saoalmii al medio <lol [tutio, y iilli lasaciidiiiii oon cicrta 
 oorciiioiiia. y dcsinios toriialMiii il nonoria on el liiirar doiido kiabian dc dur- 
 iiiir.' Sdhiii/Hii, lli.st. (frii., Uhii. li., lil>. vi., p. MS. 
 
 " 'Otrii coroiiioiiia, casi ooiiio osta, vshIhiii Ioh hi I'lioliUt do Israbl, at'creu 
 do] aiMislar lim Novios. la priniera iioi-lio do huh Itodas, qno los |Miniaii vna 
 Kiibaiui, It iionoo, para (|iic on el so ostuiiip«Ho ol toi^tiiiioiiio do la vii'Kiiiidad, 
 i|iieoni la siui<rro, quo del |irinicr acto ho vort\a, la qual so <|uitaKa ile In 
 iMuia (Ielaiit4- do tosti<;«is, «|uc pudiostMi atirnmr liavcria visto, eon lanofial dc 
 i.i saii};re, i|iio oomprohalMi la oorru)H-ioii do la DoiioolU y eiiiliuolta, 6 do- 
 iiliulii, ia punian on cierto lu<riir, difmtndo intra onto, donde qiiedalia ;;iinr- 
 (liula. oil iiiomoria ilo la limpie^-a, \ puridiKi. ooiiquo la diolia l)oiioolla voiiin 
 11 (loder do sii .MMrido. S«Tia pamildo. (|iio qiiisioHo si;;iiitioar ontro ostos Ill- 
 dins lo iiUHnui, etiti* ouidado do Uw viojos, de traor niantai. <'i saliana, y ton- 
 detla 8obrc la cauw dc low deupwitadoH, para Iuk primerus actos matriiiioiiialoM; 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 ill the bridal chamber they considered it an evil omen, 
 but if, on the other hand, a grain of corn or other 
 seed was found, they considered it a .oignof a lonj^ and 
 prosperous life and a happy union. A baptismal 
 ceremony was next performed, the wedded pair being 
 placed on green reed mats, while the priests poured 
 water over them. Nol)les received four ablutions with 
 water in honor of Chalchihuitlicue, the goddess of 
 waters, and four of wine, in reverence to TezccUzoncatl, 
 the god of wine. After the bath they were dressed 
 in new vestments, the bride's head was adorned with 
 white featiiei-8 and her hands and feet with red. To 
 her husband was given a thurible, filled with incense 
 wherewith to ])eriume his household gods. At the 
 conclusion of tiiese ceremonies a further distribution 
 of drossos and presents was made, and the company 
 partook of food and wine, while the scene was enliv- 
 ened with songs and dances. Some more good advice, 
 of which the Aztecs seem to have had a never- failing 
 store, was then given to the wedded pair by tlie 
 mothors-in-law or nearest relatives, nnd thus ended 
 the nuptial ceremonies, which were conducted in 
 accordance with the means of tlie [jrineipal parties 
 concerned.* In some places, proof of the maiden's 
 virginity was required on the morning following the 
 consummation of the marriage. In such case the 
 sponsors entered the room where the wedded i)air had 
 passed the night and demanded the bride's chemise ; 
 if they found it stained with blood they brought it 
 out, placed it on a stick, and exhibited it to all present 
 as an evidence that the bride Avas a virgin ; then a 
 dance was formed and the procession went through all 
 the place, carrying the chemise on a stick, dancing and 
 
 y ea crcibic, que scriii cstc cl intcnto, nucs la ropa, y cstcra«, qnc sirvicron 
 on estc Stierilicio, se lluvultun al Tcinplo, y iiu Herviuii iiiiim cii cuhu, coiiiu ni 
 mils, ni iiiciios la c-crcnionia untiKUU ilu K»ardnr lu Hulwiia, eon sanirrc, cntrc 
 los lIubreuB, en Uigat particular, y gcgiiro.' I'urquemaila, Monarq. Intl., 
 tuni. ii., p. 410. 
 
 *» Afendieta, Hist. Erica., pn. 11(1-20, 127-8; Torqiifmnda, Monarq. 
 tml., torn, ii., p. 410; Ovieilo, Hist. Grn., torn, iii., pp. 548-9; Sahaguti, 
 Hi$t. Oen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 158-00; Carbujal, DiKiirao, p. 19. 
 
DANCING THE CHEMISE. 
 
 2G1 
 
 expressing their joy, and this was called 'dancing the 
 chemise.' If it happened that the chemise was un- 
 stained, tears and lamentations took the place of re- 
 joicing, abuse and insults were heaped upon the bride, 
 and her husband was at liberty to repudiate her." In 
 the kingdom of Miztecapan, before the ceremony of 
 tying their mantles together was performed it was 
 customary to cut a lock of hair from the bridegroom's 
 head and from the bride's, after which they took each 
 other by the hand and their dresses were tied by the 
 etids. The man then took the girl on his back and 
 carried her a short distance ; which proceeding termi- 
 nated the nuptials. 
 
 In Ixcatlan, he who desired to fjet married pre- 
 sented himself before the priests, and they took him 
 to the temple, where in presence of the idols he wor- 
 shiped they cut off some of his hair, and showing it 
 to the people, shouted "This man wishes to get mar- 
 ried." From thence he was obliged to descend and 
 take the first unmarried woman he met, in the belief 
 that she was especially destined for him by the gods. 
 They were then married according to the customai-y 
 Mexican rites. The Mazatec bridegroom abstained 
 for the first fifteen days of his wedded life from carnal 
 knowledge of his wife, and both spent the time in 
 fasting and penance. Among the Utomfs it was 
 not considered an offence for an unmarried man to de- 
 flower a single woman. The husband was permitted 
 to repudiate the woman the day following his mar- 
 riage if slie did not please him; but if hfe remained 
 satisfied upon that occasion he was not afterwards 
 allowed to send her away. They had then to undergo 
 a period of penance and abstinence and remain se- 
 cluded for twenty or thirty days, during which time 
 they Wtire to abstain from all sexual intercourse, to 
 draw blood from themselves as a sacrifice, and to bathe 
 frequently. The Chichimecs, although they contracted 
 marriage at a very early age, could not have legitimate 
 
 " Vcytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., toiii. ii., pp. 26-7. 
 
262 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 connection with their wives until the woman was forty 
 years old. After their intercourse with the Toltecs 
 this custom began to be abolished, although the 
 princes and nobles observed it rigorously for some 
 time longer. Marriage with near relatives was never 
 permitted among them, and polygamy was strictly 
 prohibited." 
 
 Among tlie Mexicans divorce was permitted, but as 
 a general rule was discouraged. In the event of dis- 
 cord arising between man and wife so that they could 
 not live together peacefully, or where one or other of 
 the parties had just cause of complaint, they applied 
 to a judge for permission to separate. Such permis- 
 sion was not granted unless good and sufficient cause 
 was shown in support of the application. The judge 
 investigated the case with much care and attention, 
 closely examining the parties in reference to their 
 marital relations ; whether they had been married with 
 the consent of their parents, and if all the ceremonies 
 of marriage had been fully observed. If the answers 
 proved that the parties had not been married according 
 to the usual rites and ceremonies, or if they had been 
 living together in a state of fornication, the judge 
 refused to interfere between them; but if he found 
 they had properly complied with the regulations gov- 
 emmg marriage, he used his best efforts to reconcile 
 them; he reminded them of the solemn obligations 
 
 ** For further information relating to marriage ceremonies and customs 
 see Mfndifta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 125^J; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., pp. 83, 186,' 412-20, 496-7; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 81-3, 
 torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 162-62, tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 116-17; Veylia, Hist. 
 Ant. Mej., tom. ii., pp. 23-7, 178; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 cap. cxxxix, clxxv; Jxtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in KingsborouglCs Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. ix., p. 214; Id., Belaciones, in Id., pp. 327, .335, .140, 400; 
 Acosta, Hist, de fas Ynd., pp. 374-5; Brasseur de iiourbotirg. Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., tom. ii., p. 189, tom. lii., pp. 79, 566-7; Klemin, Cultur-Gesehichte, 
 tom. v., pp. 33-5; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 298, 314-16; Herrera, Hist. 
 Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cop. xvi., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xvii; Chaves, Bap- 
 port, in Ternaux-Compans, \oy., s^rie ii., tom. v., pp. 308-9; Montanus, 
 Niemce Weereld, p. 266; Gemetli Careri, in ChurchilFs Col. Voyages, vol. 
 iv., p. 484; Alegre, Hist. Cotnp. de Jesus, tom. i., p. 279; Carbajal Es- 
 pinosa. Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 655-9, 577; Baril, Mexiqiie, pp. 202-3; 
 Touron, Hist. Gin,, tom. iii., pp. 11-12; Simons Ten Tribes, pj). 274-5; 
 tiussierre, L" Empire Mex., pp. 145-7; Carbajal, Discurso, pp. 15-30; 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., pp. 89-93, 111. 
 
DIVORCE AND DIVISION OF PROPERTY. 
 
 968 
 
 appertaining to the marriage contract, and warned 
 them not to bring disgrace upon thouiHelves and their 
 parents by breaking the bonds by which they were 
 united, thereby creating a scandal in the community. 
 If his endeavors to effect a reconciliation were of no 
 avail, and he found that one or other of the parties 
 had just cause of complaint, a license to separate could 
 be issued, but more frequently the judge refused to 
 interfere in the matter, and dismissed them with a 
 stern reproval. Marriage was looked upon as a sol- 
 emn and binding tie only to be dissolved by death, 
 and any attempt or desire to annul the contract was 
 deemed a disgrace and a bad example. Under these 
 circumstances divorce was always discouraged both by 
 the magistrates and the community. A judge was 
 generally unwilling to sanction with the authority of 
 the law the annulment of so binding an engagement ; 
 therefore only a tacit consent was given by the court, 
 by which the whole onus of the disgrace attending a 
 separation was thrown upon the parties themselves. 
 When a dissolution took place between man and wife, 
 they could not again under any circumstances be 
 united ; the divorce once effected, no subsequent con- 
 donation could authorize their living together. "^ 
 
 We have no information how or on what terms a 
 division of property was made in the event of a dis- 
 solution of marriage, or to which of the parties the 
 custody of the children belonged. The ancient his- 
 torians throw no light upon the subject. As much 
 
 ^ 'Nunca sentenciaban en disfavor del Matrimonio, ni consentian, ^ue 
 por autoridad de Justicia, cllos ne apartasen; porqiie dccian ser cosa iliuita, 
 y de inucho escandalo para el Pueblo, favorecer, con autoridad publica, cosa 
 contraria k la ra^on; pero ellos sc apartaban de hcclio, y cste hecho se tole- 
 raba, aunque no en todos, se^run el mas, b inenos escandalo, que se enj^cn- 
 draba en el Pueblo. Otros dicen, que por Sentencia diKnitiva, sc hacia 
 
 cHte Ucpudio, y Divorcio los Jueces sentenciaban (si acaso conccdcmos, 
 
 que liavia sentencia) que se apartasen, y quedascn libres, y sin obligacioii 
 el vno, al otro; pero no de la murinuracion del Pueblo, que buclto contra 
 cllos, dccian ser dignos de grandisima pena, por haver quebrado la Vb b 
 integridod del Matrimonio, y haver dado tan malexemplo h la Kepublica.' 
 Torquctnada, Monarq. Iiid., tom. ii., p. 442; Carbaj'al, Disctirso, pp. 20-1; 
 Monglave, Sisumi, p. 31; Clavigero, Storia Ant, aet Messico, torn, ii., p. 
 131. 
 

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 264 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 deference and respect was shown to old age, it is 
 probable that the decision of such matters was left to 
 the influence and wisdom of the friends and relatives, 
 and that through their intervention equitable arrange- 
 ments were made. 
 
 Concubinage, of which there were three classes, was 
 permitted throughout the Mexican empire. The first 
 class was the union of young men with unmarried 
 women, before they arrived at the age when they were 
 expected to marry. All young men, with the excep- 
 tion of those who were consecrated to a perpetual 
 chastity, were allowed to have concubines. The youth 
 usually asked his parents to select a girl for him, and 
 the one upon whom their choice fell cohabited with 
 him. Such women were called tlacacavili. No con- 
 tract was made nor any ceremony performed; the 
 connection was a simple private arrangement of the 
 relatives on both sides. When a girl lived with an 
 unmarried man as his concubine without the consent 
 of her parents she was called temecauh, which had a 
 more general signification. It does not appear, how- 
 ever, that concubinage among the unmarried men was 
 common ; on the contrary, the manner in which parents 
 are reputed to have brought up their children, and the 
 care taken by the priests in their education would 
 seem, to show that such a practice was discouraged, 
 or rather tolerated than allowed, and it is probable 
 the custom was chiefly confined to the sons of nobles 
 and wealthy men. When a young man arrived at the 
 age when he should marry, he was expected to dis- 
 pense with his concubine that he might marry the girl 
 selected by his parents to be his lawful wife. He 
 could, however, legitimatize the connection between 
 his concubine and himself by notifying his parents of 
 his wishes and having the usual marriage ceremonies 
 performed; she then became his lawful wife and was 
 called ciuatlantli. If while they lived together in 
 concubinage the woman had a child, her parents then 
 required that he should at once restore her to them, 
 
CONCUBINES IN MEXICO. 
 
 265 
 
 or make her his wife, as they considered it proper that 
 having a child she should also have a husband as a 
 legal protector. Young women were not dishonored 
 by living in a state of concubinage, nor were their 
 chances of contracting advantageous marriages in any 
 degree lessened. 
 
 The second order of concubines might rather be 
 termed, perhaps, the less legitimate wives of married 
 men; with them the tying of garments constituted 
 the entire marriage ceremony; the husband could not 
 repudiate them without just cause and the sanction 
 of the courts, but neither they nor their children could 
 inherit property ; in this respect they were treated as 
 concubines, but nevertheless they were called cuia- 
 tlaiitU, which corresponds with the latin word uxor, 
 and was the title borne by the first and legitimate wife. 
 
 The third class of concubines were merely kept 
 mistresses ; with them no marriage rite of any kind 
 was performed. They were kept usually by the 
 nobles and chief men who could afford to maintain 
 large establishments; they occupied a third rank in 
 the domestic circle after the principal wife and less 
 legitimite ones, and were called ciiianemactli, or tla- 
 cmantli, if their master had obtained them from their 
 parents ; those whom he took without such permission 
 were called tlaciacuxntin.^ 
 
 The Toltec kings could only marry one woman, and 
 in case of her death could not marry again or live in 
 concubinage with any woman; the same rule held 
 
 *• 'Teiij»nno molto moglie, & tante quanto ne possono mantenerc come 
 i mori, psnS coinc si 6 dctto, vna ^ la priiicipalc ic patrona & i figliuoli di 
 qiita licrcditaiii), & quct dcU'altru no, (;lic noii njssono uiizi sou tciiuti per 
 Bastardi. Nolle iiozze di jucsta patrona itrincipale fan no alcime cirinio- 
 nie, il cho non si oascrua nolle nozzo doiraltrc.' Jidatione fatta per vn 
 (jentil'huom'i del Sigimr Fernando Corlese, \\\ Rcimusio, Navigationi, torn, 
 lii., fol. 310. See further, Torqueinmln, Monarq^. Ind., torn, ii., p. 376; 
 Las Casus, Hist. Apologilica, cap. ccxiii., ccxiv., in Kingsboroitgh'a Mcx. 
 Aiitiq., vol. viii., pp. 127-S; Carm/al, Discurso, pp. 20-7; Cainargo. H>.s!. 
 Tlax., in Noumflcs Annalea des Vog., 18*3, torn, xcviii., pp. 169, 197; Oo- 
 mara, Conq. jif ;»;., fol. 107; Carbajal Ei/nnosa, Hist. Alex., torn, i., pp. 
 430-1; Orierlo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 260; Peter Marttjr, dec. iv., lib. iv., 
 dec. v., lib. x. 
 
266 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 good with their queens in the event of the king dying 
 first. Prostitution among the Mexicans was tolerated, 
 but at the same time was restrained within certain 
 bounds; that is, the law took cognizance of the prac- 
 tice as regarded the women engaged in such traffic. 
 It was looked upon as a necessary evil, and the law 
 did not interfere with men who consorted with prosti- 
 tutes; but the latter, if they plied their traffic too 
 openly, or with too great frequency, so as to create a 
 public scandal and become a nuisance, were punished 
 according to the extent of the offence.** 
 
 We may suppose that, the marriage ceremonies 
 being concluded, the young couple were left in peace, 
 and that for a time there was a truce to the speech- 
 making and ever-ready advice of anxious parents and 
 meddling relatives. But this respite was generally 
 of brief duration. As soon as the woman found 
 herself to be pregnant, all her friends and relations 
 were immediately upon the tiptoe of expectation and 
 interest again. The parents were at once informed of 
 the interesting event, and a .feast was prepared, of 
 which all who had been present at the wedding par- 
 took. After the repast the inevitable speeches com- 
 menced. An old man, squatting on his hams, first 
 spoke in behalf of the husband, referring to the pre- 
 cious burden carried by the pregnant woman and to 
 the future prospects of the child; after a while 
 another relieved the speaker and pursued the subject 
 in the same strain; the man and his wife then re- 
 sponded, dwelling upon the pleasure in store for them, 
 and expressing their hopes that, with the favor of the 
 gods, it might be realized. The parents of the pair 
 were next addressed directly by one of the guests 
 upon the same theme and made a reply. Certain 
 
 M Las Casas, Hist. Apoloqitica, cap. ccxiii., ccxiv., in Kinffshorough's 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 127; Torqttemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 
 370; Carbajal, Discurso, pp. 27-8; Sah'tgun, Hist. Gen., toin. iii., lib. x., 
 pp. 37-8j Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 132-3. 
 
PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH. 
 
 267 
 
 
 elderly relatives then seized the opportunity to ad- 
 monish and instruct the young woman, to which she 
 made a suitable answer, thanking them for their soli- 
 citude on her behalf.^ 
 
 During the months of her pregnancy the mother 
 was very careful to insure the safety and health of the 
 child, though many of the rules observed for this pur- 
 pose were of a partly superstitious nature. Thus, 
 sleeping in the day-time would contort the child's face ; 
 approaching too near the fire or standing in the hot 
 sun would parch the foetus ; hard and continued work, 
 lifting weights, running, mental excitement, such as 
 grief, anger, or alarm, were particularly avoided; in 
 case of an earthquake all the pots in the house were 
 covered up or broken to stop the shaking; eating 
 tzictli, or chicle, was thought to harden the palate of 
 the unborn child, and to make its gums thick so that it 
 would be unable to suck, and also to communicate to it 
 a disease called netentzzoponiztli; neither must the edi- 
 ble earth, of which, as we shall see in a future chapter, 
 the Mexicans were very fond, be eaten by the mother, 
 lest the child should prove weak and sickly; but 
 everything else the woman fancied was to be given 
 her, because any interference with her caprices might 
 be hurtful to her offspring.'" Moderation in sexual 
 connection with her husband was recommended to a 
 woman from one to three months advanced in preg- 
 nancy, but total abstinence in this respect was thought 
 to be injurious to the unborn child; during the later 
 stages of the woman's pregnancy, however, the hus- 
 band abstained entirely from having intercourse with 
 her.^ When the time for the confinement drew near 
 
 2* I have thought it unnecessary to give these speeches in full, but the reader 
 can find them all together in Sahagun, Hist. Gen., toin. ii., lib. vi., pp. 161-73. 
 
 '^ Sahagun adds: ' inaudaba que d la preuada lu dicseii dc comer suti- 
 cientementc y buenos nmiijares, calientes y bien guisados, con especialidad 
 cuando & la prefiada Ic vietie su purgacion, 6 conio diccn la regla, y esto 
 llaman que lu criatura se laba los pies, porque no se halle data en vacio, o 
 haya alguna vacicdad 6 falta de sangre 6 numor necesario, y asi rcciba 
 algun dafio.' Hist. Gen., toni. ii., lib. vi., p. 182. 
 
 '^ Sahagun's original MS. contains twenty-four additional lines on this 
 subject, but these his editor dcc::m too indelicate to print. Id., p. 181. 
 
268 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 another feast was prepared and the usual invitations 
 were issued. When all were gathered an old man was 
 the first to speak, on behalf of the married couple. 
 By virtue of his long experience in these matters he 
 recommended that the pregnant woman be placed in 
 the xuchicalli, or bath, under the protection of Xuchi- 
 caltzin, the god of the bath, and of Yoalticitl, goddess 
 of the bath and of childbirth. He further advised the 
 parents to select a competent ticitl, or midwife. This 
 functionary having been named, a female relative of 
 the husband addressed her, asking her to accept the 
 trust, praising her qualifications, and exhorting her to 
 exert her utmost skill and care. The mother and 
 relatives of the wife also made brief speeches to the 
 same purpose. The midwife-elect then expressed her 
 wish and intention to do all in her power.** Wealthy 
 people frequently employed several midwives, who for 
 some days prior to the birth busied themselves in 
 waiting on their patient and putting everything in 
 readiness for the important hour. Zuazo states that 
 some of these acted merely as witnesses to the fact of 
 the birth.^" 
 
 The 'hour of death,' as the time of confinement 
 was named, having arrived, the patient was carried 
 to a room previously set in order for the purpose; 
 hero her hair was soaped and she was placed in 
 a bath to be washed. Care was taken that the water 
 should not be too hot, lest the foetus should be scalded ; 
 in some cases the woman was beaten on the back with 
 maize leaves which had been boiled in the water used 
 for the bath. The midwife next proceeded to rub and 
 press the abdomen of the putiont in order to set the 
 child in place. If the ])ain grew worse, soothing 
 remedies were administered. A decoction of cihoapatli 
 
 » For these addresses see iS'a/(a7K/t, Hist. Gen., tom.ii., lib.vi., pp. 174-8.3. 
 
 30 'Sc llegan alguims nuijeres conio parteraa, y otras conio testi^os para 
 ver si el ))arto cs siipiicsto 6 natural ; y al tienipo del iiacer no peniiiten (][iie 
 la criatiiru lleguc d la ticrra con la vida; 6 antes que sc la cortenie liacen cier- 
 tas scnalcs en el corpu/uelo.' Zuaso, Carta, in Icazbalccta, Col. de Doc, 
 toin. i., pp. 36:{-4. 
 
GHASTLY TALISMANS. 
 
 269 
 
 herbs was given to promote the delivery; should this not 
 prove effective, however, a small piece, about an inch 
 and. a half long, of the tail of the tlaquatzin, or tla- 
 quatly was given, which is a very powerful emetic. If 
 after all the woman got no ease, it was concluded that 
 she would die. In cases of great danger prayers were 
 addressed to Cioacoatl, Quilaztli, Yoalticitl, and other 
 deities. Should the child die in the womb it was 
 removed piecemeal, unless the parents objected, in 
 which case the mother was left to die. 
 
 Mocioaquezque, 'brave woman,' was the name 
 given to her who died in childbed. After death the 
 body was washed, dressed in good, new clothes, and 
 buried with gre <,t ceremony in the courtyard of the 
 temple dedicated to the 'celestial women. '^' Talis- 
 manic virtues were supposed to reside in tb.e corpse; 
 thus, the middle fingers of the left hand, and the hair, 
 were thought to make their possessor irresistible in 
 battle; soldiers, therefore, sought by every means, 
 fair or foul, to procure them. Thieves believed that 
 the left hand and arm of the corpse would strike ter- 
 ror into their victims, and they therefore engaged sor- 
 cerers to procure it. The birth of twins was believed 
 to foretell the death of one of the parents at the 
 hands of their child; to prevent this, one of the in- 
 fants was killed.^^ Abortion was not unusual, and 
 was procured by taking a decoction of certain herbs; 
 the crime was nevertheless punished with death.** If 
 everything went well, and the woman was easily de- 
 livered, the midwife gave a loud cry of triumph. She 
 next addressed some words of counsel to the child, and 
 
 '• CihunpipilHn, or Ciuapipilli. A long description of the burial rites 
 unon these occasions in Sa/uu/uii, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 186-91. 
 Tlicsc will, however, be described in a future chapter. 
 
 '•* Motolinia, Hist. Indio.i, in Icazbalccta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 130, 
 and Torquenuiiia, Monary. Ind., torn, ii., p. 84, who seems to have copied 
 from him, arc the authorities for this, but the custom could not have 1>een 
 very ^'encral, for it is said that in Tloscala the mother assigned a breast to 
 each of the twins. 
 
 ^^ The principal aiithority on the matter of pregnancy and childbirth, 
 and the one whom I have thus far followed, is Sahugun, Hist, Gen., torn, 
 ii., lib. vi., pp. lCO-92. 
 
270 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 then proceeded to wash it. Turning to the water, she 
 addressed the goddess of waters, Chalchihuitlicue, ask- 
 ing her favor and protection for the child. Then 
 taking some water, the midwife breathed upon it, gave 
 some to the infant to taste, and then touclied its head 
 and chest therewith: saying. Come, my son (or 
 daughter) to Chalchihuitlicue ; it is for her to bear you 
 on the back and in her arms throughout this life! 
 Then, placing the infant in the water, she continued: 
 Enter thou into the water called metlalac and tuspalac; 
 may it wash thee, and may the Omnipotent cleanse 
 from thee all ill that is inherent in thee from the be- 
 ginning of the world and from before the beginning. 
 Begone, all evil imparted to thee by thy father and 
 thy mother.'" Having v/ashed the child, the midwife 
 clothed it, addressing it meanwhile in whispers of 
 welcome and admonition. Then, raising her voice, 
 she complimented the mother on her bravery and en- 
 durance.** A female relative next praised the forti- 
 tude of the patient, who in her response dilated on the 
 trouble and pain she had gone through, and expressed 
 her joy at the treasure vouchsafed her by the gods. 
 The midwife then closed the ceremony by congratu- 
 lating the grandparents and assembled friends. A few 
 days after the confinement the mother took a bath in 
 the temazcalli, and indulged in rich food and wine ; on 
 this occasion a feast was also tendered to invited 
 friends, who partook of it near the spot where the 
 woman bathed. 
 
 All these elaborate preparations and midwife cere- 
 monies at birth could, however, only have been in 
 vogue among the well-to-do classes, for the Mexican 
 women, were, as a rule, little affected by the troubles 
 of child-bearing; their training and manner of life 
 
 '* Clavipfcro, Storia Ant. del Mcxsieo, torn, ii., p. 86, differs from Salia- 
 giiii in tliC8C iiruyers or iiivocutioiiH; Torqucnmda, Monarq. Ind., toin. ii., 
 1). 445, Klemni, Cultur-Geschic/Ue, torn, v., p. 30, and Brasseur dc Bour- 
 nourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 560, follow Clavigero more or less 
 closely. 
 
 w Sahaffun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 199-200; Torquemada, 
 Monarq. Jnd., turn, ii., pp. 445-6. 
 
CASTING THE NATIVITY OF INFANTS. 
 
 371 
 
 were not calculated to make them delicate. Moto- 
 linia, and many with him, say, for instance, that the 
 Tlascaltoc women delivered themselves, the mother 
 apply injj^ to a neighbor only at the birth of her first 
 child.^ 
 
 It was now time to cast the nativity of the infant. 
 For this purpose the services of a tonalpouhqui, or 
 horoscopist, were engaged. These tonalpouhquis were 
 a highly respected class, and were therefore approached 
 with much respect and liberally feed with mantles, 
 food, and other articles. Having been told the hour 
 of birth, the horoscoper consulted his book for the 
 sign of the day on which the infant was born.^ If 
 the birth had taken place exactly at midnight, the 
 signs for the closing and breaking day were combined. 
 Comparing the birthday sign with the other twelve 
 signs, as well as with the principal sign of the group, 
 he deduced the required fortune, and, if the augury 
 was favorable, dwelt on the honors and happiness in 
 store for the infant. Should the augury prove unfa- 
 vorable, as well as the sign for the fifth day after 
 birth, which was the occasion of the second bath, or 
 baptism, this ceremony was postponed to another day, 
 generally the most favorable of the thirteen, in order 
 
 "> The Teochichimec liusband undertook tlic office of midwife when the 
 hirtli tooii ])hice on tiie road. He heated tlie hack of his wife with fire, 
 tlirew water over her in lieu of a batli, and gave her two or three kickn in 
 tlie back after the delivery, in order to promote the issue of superfluous 
 blood. The new-born babe was placed in a wicker basket, and thrown over 
 the back of the mother, who proceeded on her journey. Sahagtm, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 191-20.3; also Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., pp. 445-6; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, ton>. ii., p. 86; Brasseur 
 dc liourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 560; Carbajal Espiiwsa, Hist. 
 Mcx., torn, i., pp. 551-2, 67.3, etc. The utensils which served at the birth 
 of tiie child were, • according to Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. 
 clxxix., oftercd at the fountain or river where the motiier washed herself. 
 
 " By Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 282-.328, and Duran, 
 Hist. Indian, SiS., tom. iii., cap. ii., the signs of the calendar and their 
 subdivisions are described at length. Each sign had thirteen sub-signs, 
 representing the same number of days, by whom its good or bad import was 
 moderated to a certain extent. Under certain signs the child was liable to 
 become a drunkard, under another a jester, under a tiiird a warrior, and so 
 on. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Not. Civ., tom. iii., p. 560, and Espi- 
 nosa, Hist. Mcx., torn, i., p. 552, state that the sign which had been most 
 frequent at this period during the past thirteen years was also considered by 
 the astrologer. 
 
272 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 to moderate, if possible, the threatened misfortune. 
 The fortune-teller dilated upon the troubles in store 
 for the infant and the vices it would develop, but 
 'hedged' his oracle by adding that the adjoining signs 
 contained certain redeeming features which might have 
 power to counterbalance the evil import of the birth- 
 day sign.^ 
 
 Preparations are now made for the baptism. The 
 portals of the dwelling are decorated with green 
 branches, flowers, and sweet-smelling herbs are scat- 
 tered over the floors and courtyard, and the approaches 
 to the hous^ are carefully swept ; tamales are cooked, 
 maize and cacao ground, and delicacies of every de- 
 scription prepared for the table, not forgetting the 
 liquors; for any shortcoming in this respect would 
 reflect severely on the hospitality of the host.** The 
 relatives of the family assemble before sunrise, and 
 other friends drop in as the day advances; each, as he 
 congratulates the host, presents a gift of clothing for 
 the infant, and receives in his turn a present of man- 
 tles, flowers, and choice food.*" In the course of the 
 morning the midwife carries the infant to the court- 
 yard, and places it upon a heap of leaves, beside which 
 are set a new apaxtle, or earthenware vessel, filled 
 with clear water, and several miniature implements, 
 insignia of the father's trade or profession. If he is 
 a noble or a warrior, the articles consist of a small 
 shield, and a bow with arrows of a corresponding size, 
 placed with their heads directed toward the four car- 
 dinal points. Another set of arms made from dough 
 of amaranth-seed, and bound together with the dried 
 navel-string of the child, is also prepared. If the 
 child is a girl, there are placed beside it, instead of the 
 
 '* Safingun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., pp. 215-7; Torquemada, Mo- 
 narq. IiicL, torn, ii., p. 449. 
 
 59 A long description of this feast, the table, attendance, etc., is given by 
 Saliagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 332-6, and by Torquemada, Mo- 
 narq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 457-8. I shall have occasion to describe it in a 
 future chapter of this volume, devoted to such matters. 
 
 *" The poorer classes contented themselves with an interchange of flowers 
 and food. 
 
BAPTISM OF INFANTS 
 
 278 
 
 en by 
 Ma- 
 in a 
 
 little weapons, a spindle and distaff, and some articles 
 of girl's clothing. When the sun rises the midwife 
 sets her face and the face of the child toward the west, 
 and addressing the infant, says: "O eagle, tiger, O 
 brave little man and grandson of mine, thou hast been 
 brought into the world by thy father and mother, the 
 great lord and the great lady. Thou wast created in 
 that house which is the abode of the supreme godp 
 that are above the nine heavens. Thou art a gift from 
 our son Quetzalcoatl, the omnipresent; be joined to 
 thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the goddess of water." 
 Then placing her dripping fingers on the lips of the 
 child, she continues: "Take this, for upon it thou hast 
 to live, to wax strong, and flourish ; by it we obtain all 
 necessary things; take it!" Then touching the child 
 on the breast with her moistened fingers, she says: 
 "Take this holy and pure water that thine heart may 
 be cleansed." Then the midwife pours water on the 
 child's head, saying: "Receive, my son, the water 
 of the Lord of the World, which is our life, with 
 which we wash and are clean ; may this celestial light- 
 blue water enter into thy body, and there remain; 
 may it destroy and remove from thee all evil and ad- 
 verse things that were given thee before the beginning 
 of the world; behold, all of us are in the hands of 
 Chalchihuitlicue, our mother." She now washes the 
 body of the child, exclaiming: "Evil, wheresoever 
 thou art, begone, avaunt; for the child liveth anew 
 and is born again; once more it is purified; a second 
 time is it renewed of our mother, Chalchihuitlicue." 
 Then lifting up the little one toward heaven, she ad- 
 dresses Ometochtli and Omecioatl:" "Behold, O Lord, 
 the creature which thou hast sent to this place of sor- 
 row, aftiiction, and anguish, to this world; give it, O 
 Lord, of thy gifts and inspiration, for thou art the 
 great god and the great goddess." Then stooping as 
 if to set the child down, she raises it a second time, 
 
 *^ A dual deitv, uniting both sexes in one person. 
 Vol. II.' 18 
 
274 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 crying upon the goddess of the waters:" "0 lady- 
 goddess, mother of the gods, inspire this child with 
 thy virtue." A third time she stoops and raising 
 the child toward heaven, addresses the gods: "O lords 
 celestial, and gods who dwell in heaven, behold this 
 creature whom ye have sent among men, till it with 
 your spirit and mercy, that it may live." A fourth 
 time she sets down and raises the babe, and calling 
 now upon the sun and the earth she says:*' "0 our 
 Lord, Sun, father of all, and thou, O Earth, our 
 mother, take ye this child for your own, and, as it 
 is born for war,** so let it die defending the cause of 
 the gods, and be permitted to enjoy the delight.s pre- 
 pared in heaven for the brave." 
 
 The midwife now takes the implements and prays 
 to the patron deity of the trade or })rofe8sion they 
 represent on behalf of the child ; then nlie places the 
 mantle upon the shoulders of the infant, girds on the 
 little raaxtli, and asks the boys present to give the 
 child a name. This was, however, merely a matter of 
 form; the parents really had the choosing of the 
 name and told it to the boys. It was usually taken 
 either from the sign of the day, or from a bird or ani- 
 mal, in the case of a boy ; the girls were named from 
 flowers, and this rule was especially observed by the 
 Toltecs and Miztecs. Sometimes a child took its 
 name from some important event which occurred at 
 the time of its birth; as when the T.ascaltec chief Cit- 
 lalpopoca, 'smoking star,' was so named because at his 
 birth a flaming comet was seen in the sky. Sometimes 
 children were named after the feast held at the time 
 of their nativity; thus, boys born during the festival 
 of the renewal of the sacred fire, called toxilmolpilia, 
 
 <* Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., p. 220, makes the midwife, in 
 this instance, call upon Citlalatonac. This goddess was, however, identical 
 witii Ometochtli and Omecioatl (see, more especially, Carbajal Espinosa, 
 Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 472), to whom the preceding prayer was directed. 
 Clavigero and Torquemada assert that the prayer was addressed to the 
 water-goddess. 
 
 ^3 Sahagun addresses the Sun-God only. 
 
 <* We may presume that the midwife is here addressing the child of a 
 warrior. 
 
BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 
 
 276 
 
 were named molpilli, 'a tied object,' and girls xiuhne- 
 netl, 'little doll of the year of* fire.' Occasionally a 
 child was named after some renowned ancestor. A 
 second name could bo acquired by valiant deeds in 
 battle. Motolinia adds that sons of prominent men 
 took a surname from the dignity or office held by the 
 father, either in youth or manhood ; or they inherited 
 it with the estate at the death of the parent. Chil- 
 dren born during the last five days of the year, called 
 neiiwntemi, 'unlucky days,' were considered unforH^;- 
 ato; boys born under such circumstances were oftin 
 named nemoquichtli, 'unlucky man,' and girls nenci- 
 huatl, 'unlucky woman.'" 
 
 The midvvil'o, having baptized the child, no.v calls 
 upon it three tines by its new name; admonishing it to 
 make good use of the implements or weapons pinned 
 in it? ^ ands.** It is thereupon carried into the liousc, 
 I)receded by torchbearers, and placed in the cradle, 
 before which the midwife offers prayers to Yoalticitl, 
 'goddess of the cradle,' commending the child to her 
 care, and beseeching her to nourish and protect it; 
 then, turning to the cradle, she adds: "O thou, the 
 mother of the child, receive this babe with gentleness, 
 taking heed not to injure it." Then she })laces the 
 child in the cradle, the parents meanwhile calling upon 
 Yoalticitl to protect it, and upon Yoaltecutli, 'the 
 god of night,' to lull it to sleep." During this cere- 
 
 *' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mr.isi'co, torn, ii., p. 84, Torquemada, Mo- 
 iiarq. Iik/., toiii. ii., p. 287, and Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hint. Nat. Cir., 
 <oin. iii., p. 287, traiiMlate Neinoiiuiclitli and Nencihuatl 'useless man' and 
 'useless woman. Torquemada, Monar(Ji. Iiid., torn, ii., p. 454-6, discusses 
 names, why and how they were applied, in Mexico and elsewhere. Motolinia, 
 in Icazbakcta, Col. de I)oc., torn, i., p. .37, states that the name given at bap- 
 tism was discarded for one applied by the priest, when the parents carried 
 the child to the temple in the third month. See also liitos Antiguos, p. 22, 
 in KiugsboroiigK's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 31'2, saya 
 tliut the name given by the priest was the surname, nobles sometimes tak- 
 ing a third name. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 
 tH>'2, 8,ays that several additional names could be taken under various cir- 
 cumstances. In Codex Mciidoza, in Khi'jshorough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., 
 p. 90, it is stated that the name was given by three bo,,i who sat by eating 
 yxcur. 
 
 ^^ Boturini states that the infant is thereupon passed four times through 
 the fire. Claviqero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 88; but tliis 'cre- 
 mony is described elsewhere in this volume as taking place in the temple. 
 
276 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 mony, which is termed tlacoculaquilo, or 'the act of 
 placing the child in the cradle,' the boys of the village, 
 dressed to imitate soldiers, enter the house, seize cer- 
 tain food previously prepared for them, called the 
 'child's navel,' scatter the rest, and rush forth, munch- 
 ing and shouting the child's name and future des- 
 tinies. The lights, called ocote, which have been used 
 during the ceremorJes, must be left to burn out, and 
 the fire that was lighted on the birthday must be 
 kept brightly burning until after the baptizing, nor 
 is any one allowed to borrow from its flame, for that 
 would injure the prospects of the child. The um- 
 bilical cord is buried with the mimic weapons in a 
 place where a battle may be expected to take place 
 on a future day. The girl's instruments and navel- 
 string are buried under a metate. The afterbirth is 
 interred in a corner of the house. After the cradlinsr 
 ceremony the guests proceed to the bantpieting-room, 
 where they seat themselves according to age and rank. 
 The festivities lasted twenty days," or even longer, 
 if the father was wealthy, during which time the 
 house was kept open to all comers. Each visitor pre- 
 sented his gifts and made a speech to the infant on 
 the duties, honors, and happiness in store for it, and 
 adorning his discourse according to tlie rank of the 
 parents, or his own courtesy. He next congratulated 
 the mother, then the midwife, urging her further care 
 of the infant, and lastly the father, referring to his 
 character and services, and wishing him joy. If the 
 father was a lord, the neighboring princes sent an em- 
 bassy, preceded by numerous presents, and .a chosen 
 orator delivered a congratulatory address before the 
 father and those present, to which an old man re- 
 sponded on behalf of all, commenting upon the gocxl 
 wishes of the neighboring nobles. The orator of the 
 embassy then begged that the shortcomings of his for- 
 mer speech might be excused, and was answered by the 
 oldest or most respected person present, on the parent's 
 
 *' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 330-6. 
 
BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 
 
 277 
 
 behalf. The female friends who came to inspect the 
 infant, rubbed the joints of the body, especially the 
 knees, with ashes, thinking that this would strengthen 
 them and prevent the bones from becoming loose. 
 The same was done to the children who accompanied 
 them.** In some parts the baptismal ceremony con- 
 sisted in putting some quicklime upon the child's 
 knee, and saying to it: "0 thou little one, that hast 
 come into the world to suffer, suffer and be silent. 
 Thou livest, but thou shalt die; much pain and 
 anguish shall come upon thee ; thou shalt become dust, 
 even as this lime, which was once stone."*® If a boy, 
 an arrow or dart was then placed in the child's left 
 hand, to indicate that he must be brave and defend 
 his countrj'^; if a girl, she was given a distaff, as a 
 sign that she must become industrious in all womanly 
 pursuits.™ In Tlascala and Miztecapan the infant was 
 bathed in a sacred spring, which, it was thought, 
 would avert misfortune. Mendieta says that the mid- 
 wife merely sprinkled the child a certain number of 
 times, first with wine and then with water." Among 
 the Zapotecs both mother and child were washed in a 
 river, and invocations were addressed to all land and 
 aquatic animals, entreating their favor and deprecating 
 their anger ;°^ it was also customary to assign some 
 animal or bird to a child, as its nagual, or tutelary 
 genius, and with the fortune of such creature its 
 fate was supposed to be so intimately connected, that 
 the death of one involved the death of the other.'* 
 Burgoa adds further that this was assigned by lot, but 
 it is stated elsewhere, and with greater probability if 
 we may judge by similar superstitions in the old 
 world, that the first bird or beast that appeared after 
 
 ** It was believed, Buys Tnrqiicmada, that this rubbing of their own 
 limbs had a Btrcngthenin;; effect upon the new-bom. Mouarq. Ind., torn. 
 ii., p. 457. 
 
 ♦» Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 312. 
 
 " Ddvila, Teatro Eden., torn, i., p. 18. 
 
 " Hist. Ecles., p. 107. 
 
 *» Uurffoa, Geog. Deserip., torn, ii., pt ii., fol. 329. 
 
 M Id., fol. 396. 
 
I 
 
 ji 
 
 / 
 
 278 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the birth of the child was appointed its spiritual pro- 
 tector.** 
 
 Whether the custom of circumcision, which has 
 been the great prop of argument in favor of the Jew- 
 ish origin of the Aztecs, really obtained among these 
 people, has been doubted by numerous authors. Al- 
 though circumcision was certainly not by any means 
 general, yet sufficient proof exists to show that it was 
 in use in some form among certain tribes. Las Casas 
 and Mendieta state that the Aztecs and Totonacs 
 practiced it, and Braseeur de Bourbourg has discov- 
 ered traces of it among the Mijes. Las Casas affirms 
 that the child was carried to the temple on the twen- 
 ty-eighth or twenty -ninth day after birth ; there the 
 high-priest and his assistant placed it upon a stone, 
 and cut of the prepuce at the root; the part ampu- 
 tated they afterward burned to ashes. Girls of the 
 
 ** The following are contradictory accounts of baptism. On the fourth 
 day the child and mother took a purification bath, and the assembled guests 
 were feasted on zamorra, a dish made from maize and the flesh of hens, 
 deer, etc. Three days after, the mother carried the child to the adjoining 
 ward, accompanied by six little boys, if it was a male child, otherwise six 
 girls went with her, to carry the implements or insignia of the father's 
 trade. Here she washed the child in a stream, and then returned home. 
 Two years after a feast was served in the house of the most intimate neigh- 
 bor, who was asked to name the child, and with him it remained and was 
 held as a member of his family. Chaves, Rapport, in Tcrnavx-Compans, 
 Votj., s^rie ii., tom. v., pp. 306-8. The infant was carried to the temple, 
 where the priest made an oration on the miseries to be endured in this 
 world, and placed a sword in the right hand of the child and a buckler in the 
 left; or, if it was destined to be a mechanic, an artizan's tool; if a girl it 
 received a distaff. The priest then took the child to the altar and drew a few 
 drops of blood from its Dody with a maguey-thorn or knife, after which he 
 threw water over it, delivering certain imprecations the while. Touroii, Hist. 
 Gin., tom. iii., pp. 12-13. The implements were placed in the han<lr. of the 
 child by the priest before the idol, Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 374. Also 
 Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xvii. The child underwent three 
 baptisms or baths. Zuazo, Carta, in tcazbalceta. Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 
 364. On the seventh day the baptism took place, and a dart was placed m 
 the hand of the child to signify that he should become a defender of nis coun- ' 
 try. Motolinia, Hist. Jndios, in Id., p. 37. In Spiegazione delle Tavole del 
 Codice Mexieano (Vaticano), tav. xxxi. in Kingsoorouqh's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 T., p. 181, it is stated that the child was sprinkled with a bunch of ficitle 
 dipped in water, and fumigated with incense before receiving its name. 
 Offerings were made at the temple which the priest divided among the 
 school children. Tylor, in his .^naAuac, p. 279, onA Primitive Culture, vol. 
 ii., pp. 429-36 gives short reviews of the baptismal ceremony and its moral 
 import 
 
CIRCUMCISION AND SCARIFICATION. 
 
 279 
 
 same age were defloured by the finger of the priest, 
 who ordered the mother to repeat the operation at the 
 sixth year. Zuazo adds that these rites were only 
 performed upon the children of great men, and that 
 there was no compulsion in the matter, the parents 
 having the option of having their children defloured 
 or circumcised at any time within five years." 
 
 In the fifth month, at Huitzilopochtli's festival, all 
 children born during the year were scarified on the 
 breast, stomach, or arms, and by this means received 
 as followers of their god.*' At the festival in honor 
 of Teteionan or Toci, 'mother of the gods,' in the elev- 
 enth month, the women delivered during the year 
 underwent purification and presented their children. 
 In the evening a signal was sounded from the temple, 
 and the mothers, dressed in their best, accompanied 
 by friends, and preceded by torch-bearers and serv- 
 ants carrying the babes, made the tour of the town or 
 quarter; a halt was made at every temple to leave an 
 offering and a lighted torch for the presiding goddess. 
 At the temple of Toci extra offerings were made, in- 
 cluding tzocoyotl, cakes of flour and honey; and here 
 the priest performed the ceremony of purification by 
 pronouncing certain prayers over the women." In 
 
 , M Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxv. ; Torq%iemada, Monary. 
 Ind., torn, ii., pp. 83-4; Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 107-8; Zuazo, Carta, in 
 Ir.azhalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 364; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii.j p. 35. Clavigero, Sloria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 73, re- 
 views tlie subject of circumcision and denies that it was ever practiced. Ter- 
 nuux-Conipans, Foi/., s^rie i., p. 45, torn, x., referring to Diaz' statement that 
 all Indians of the Vera Cruz Islands are circumcizcd, savs that he must 
 have confounded the custom of drawing blood from the secret organs 
 with circumcision. Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., p. 191, says circumcision was 
 unknown to the Indians of Yucatan. Duran and Brasseur evidently con- 
 sider the slight incisions made for the purpose of drawing blood from the 
 prepuce or ear, in the eleventh month, as the act. Carbajal Kspinosa, Hist. 
 Mcx., tom. i., p. 538, following Clavigero, holds the scarification of breast, 
 stomach and arms to be the circumcision referred to by other authors. 
 Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib, ii., cap. xvii., and especially Acosta, Hist. 
 de las Ynd., p. 374, consider the incision on the prepuce and ear to have 
 been mistaken for circumcision, and state that it was chiefly performed 
 upon sons of great men; they do not state when the ceremony took place. 
 
 ** Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 266; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. 
 Mcx., tom. i., p. 538. 
 
 ^' This rite was followed by another, which usually ' ok place in the 
 temple of Huitzilopochtli. The priest made a alight incision on the ear of 
 
980 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the eighteenth month of every fourth year, the chil- 
 dren born since the last corresponding feast, were 
 taken to the temple, where their ears were pierced 
 with a sharp bone, and macaw-feathers, tlachcayotl, in- 
 serted; the god-father and god-mother, or, as they 
 are termed, uncles and aunts, whose duty it was to 
 initiate the children into the service of the gods, 
 holding them during the operation.** 
 
 An offering of flour of the chian seed was made, 
 and the godfather was presented with a red robe, 
 the godmother with a huipil. Each child was then 
 passed through the flames of a fire prepared for the 
 purpose; the priest next took its head b'^tween his 
 hands, and in that manner lifted it bodily from the 
 ground. Everyone thereupon went home to feast, 
 but at noon the godfather and godmother returned 
 to the temple and executed a dance, holding the 
 children on their backs, and giving them pulque to 
 drink, in very small cups. This went on till dusk, 
 when the^' retired to their houses to continue the 
 dancing and drinking. This feast and month, Itzcalli, 
 'growth,' obtained its name from the ceremony of 
 squeezing the heads of children, which, it was thought, 
 would make them grow; but it was also called the 
 'feast of the intoxication of boys and girls.'** 
 
 Among the Miztecs, the mother took hot baths for 
 twenty days after delivery, at the end of which time 
 a feast was held in honor of the goddess of the bath, 
 the child sharing in the honors of the occasion.* 
 
 the female child, and on the ear and prepuee of the male, with a new ob- 
 sidian knife handed to him by the mother, then, throwing the knife at the 
 feet of the idol, he gave a name to the infant, at the request of the parent, 
 after duly considering the horoscope and signs of the time. Ditran, Hist. 
 Indian, MS., tom. iii., cap. iii., quoted by Brassetirde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., tom. iii., pp. 625-6. Duran really states that these ceremonies took 
 place in the fourth month, but as Toci's festival occurs in the eleventh 
 month, Brasseur alters the evident mistake. The naming of the infant 
 may have been a mere coiifirmatioii of the name given by the midwife. 
 
 M Torquemada, Monarq. Jnd., tom. ii. p. 286. 
 
 ^ Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., |)]). 189-90. Sahagun translates 
 Itzcalli by 'growth,' but other authors differ from him, as we shall see in a 
 future chapter on tlic Calendar. 
 
 ^ Herrera, Hist. Oen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. xii. 
 
HEAD-FLATTENING. 
 
 281 
 
 They also gave the child a feast on its first birthday. 
 Great care was exercised to make children hardy and 
 strong, and no mother, however high in rank, allowed 
 her child to be given to a nurse, unless her own health 
 demanded such a step. The test of a wet nurse was 
 to press out a drop of milk upon the nail, when if it 
 did not run the milk was considered good." No food 
 was given to the child the first day, in order to create 
 an appetite."'' It was suckled for three years, in some 
 places much longer;"* and, during this time the mother 
 adhered to a diet that would keep up the quality of 
 the milk ; many abstained from intercourse with their 
 husbands for the same period, to prevent the possi- 
 bility of another child interfering with the proper nur- 
 ture of the first one. Another feast was given at the 
 weaning of the child. Gomara mentions that a kind 
 of head-flattening was practiced ; he says that the in- 
 fants were so placed in the cradle as not to allow the 
 occiput to grow, for such a development was consid- 
 ered ugly." Humboldt, however, says that the Aztecs 
 never flattened the head. That it was practiced to a 
 considerable extent in remote times by people inhabit- 
 ing the country, seems to be shown by the deformed 
 skulls found in their graves, and by the sculptured 
 figures upon the ruins. Klemm states that the cradle 
 consisted of a hard board to which the infant was 
 bound in such a manner as to cause the malfonnation. 
 The cradle among the poor Aztecs was generally of 
 light cane, and could be tied to the back of the 
 mother."* 
 
 «' iV ia, Hist. Indios, in Icazhalcctn, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 77; 
 
 Torqiii;\. A-ifa, Monarq. Ind., toiii. ii., pp. 46(>-l. 
 
 62 Gomara, Citnq. Mcx., fol. 312. 
 
 ^ Carbajal Esi>inosn, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 553. 
 
 •>* Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 318. 
 
 ^ The authorities on childbirth, baptism, and circr incision are: Salia- 
 nun. Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. 187-90, lib. iv., pp. 281-337, torn, ii., 
 lib. vi., pp. 160-222, torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 119-20; Cfavigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Mcssico, torn, ii., pp. 2-73, 86-89; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., toin. 
 ii., pp. 83-4, 266, 286, 446-61; Herrera, Hist Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., <up. 
 xvii., lib. iii., cap. xii., lib. iv.< cap. xvi.; Las Casas, Hist Apohxjctica, 
 MS., cap. clxxv., clxxix. ; Codex Mendozn, pp. 90-1, in KingsborougWs 
 Mex. Antiq. vol. v.; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. tie Doc, 
 
282 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 torn, i., pp. 37-8, 77, 108; Zuazo, Carta, in Id., pp. 363-4; Mendieta, Hiat. 
 Eclea., p]). 107-^, 139; Burgoa, Geog. Deacrip., torn, ii., pt ii., fol. 329, 
 395; Ddi'ila, Teatro Eclea., torn, i., p. 18; Camargo, Hiat. flax., in Nou- 
 vellea Annalca dea Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., j>. WIA; Carbajal Espinoaa, Hiat. 
 Mex., toni. i., pp. 538, 551-5, 673; Brasaeur de Bourbourg, Hiat. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, i., p. 240, torn, iii., pp. 35, 525-6, 560-3; Acoata, Hiat. de laa Ynd., 
 p. 374; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 312, 317-18; Touron, Hist. G6n., torn, 
 lii., pp. 12-13; Chavea, Support, in Temaux-Compaiia, Voy., s^rie ii., 
 torn, v., pp. 306-8; Montanua, Nieuwe Weereld, pp. 32, 265; Klemm, Cut- 
 tur-Geschtchte, torn, v., pp. 36-9; Buaaierre, L" Empire Mex., pp. 140-1; 
 lyAvity, L'AnUrique, toin. ii., p. 73; Baril, Mexique, pp. 199-200; Bitoa 
 Antigttoa pp. 22-3, in Kingaborow/Ka Mex. An tig., vol. ix.; Laet, Novua 
 Orbia, p. 239; Adair'a Amer. Iiia., p. 217; Miilter, Rciaen, torn, iii., pp. 
 118-20; Purchaa hia Pilgrimea, vol. iv., pp. 1102-3, 1140; Carli, Cartaa, 
 pti., p. 101; Duran, Hiat. Indias, MS., toni. iii., cap. iii.; Diaz, Itiniraire, 
 in Ternaux-Compana, Voy., siSriei., torn, x., p. 45; Humboldt, Eaaai Pol., 
 torn. L, p. 90; Morton'a Crania Amer., p. 147; Delajield'a Antiq. Avier., 
 p. 19. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NAHUA FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 Excessive Fondness for Feasts— Manner of Giving Feasts— Serv- 
 ing THE Meal— Professional Jesters — Parting Presents to 
 Guests— Royal Banquets— Tobacco Smoking- Public Dances- 
 Manner OF Singing and Dancing — The Neteteliztli — The 
 Drama among the Nahuas— Music and Musical Instruments — 
 Nahua Poetry— Acrobatic Feats— The Netololiztli, or 'Bird 
 Dance'— Professional Runners— The Game of Tlactli— Games 
 of Chance— The Patoliztli, or 'Bean Game'— 1'otoloque, Mon- 
 tezuma's Favorite Game. 
 
 The excessive fondness of the Aztecs for feasts and 
 amusements of every kind seems to have extended 
 through all ranks of society. Every man feasted his 
 neighbor and was himself in turn feasted. Birthdays, 
 victories, house-warmings, successful voyages or spec- 
 ulations, and other events too numerous to enumerate 
 were celebrated with feasts. Every man, from king to 
 peasant, considered it incumbent upon him to be second 
 to none among his equals in the giving of banquets and 
 entertainments, and as these involved the distribution 
 of costly presents aniong liis guests, it often hap})ened 
 that the host ruined himself by his hospitality; ia- 
 deed, it is said that many sold themselves into 
 slavery that they might be able to prepare at least one 
 feast that would immortalize their memory.* More- 
 
 I Bitos Antiguos, p. 20, in KingshorougKa Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. 
 
 (283) 
 
284 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 over the priests, with the subtle policy characteristic 
 of their class, took advantaj^e of this disposition to 
 ordain long and frequent celebrations in honor of in- 
 numerable gods; in short, it is difficult to conceive 
 what part of the year could have been saved for busi- 
 ness from what seems to have been a continual round 
 of merry-making. 
 
 The grandeur of the feast depended, of course, upon 
 the wealth of the host, the rank of the guests, and 
 the importance of the event celebrated. For many 
 days before a noble or wealthy man entertained his 
 friends, an army of servants were employed in sweep- 
 ing the approaches to the house, decorating the halls 
 and courts with branches and garlands, erecting chi- 
 namas, or arbors, and strewing the floors with flowers 
 and sweet herbs; others prepared the table service, 
 killed and dressed dogs, plucked fowls, cooked tama- 
 les, baked bread, ground cacao, brewed drinks, and 
 manufactured perfumed cigarettes. Invitations were 
 in the meantime sent to the guests. These on their 
 arrival were presented with flowers as a token of 
 welcome. Those of a superior condition to the host 
 were saluted after the Aztec fashion by touching the 
 hand to the earth and then carrying it to the lips. 
 On some occasions garlands were placed upon the 
 heads of the guests and strings of roses about their 
 necks, while copal was burnt before those whom the 
 host delighted specially to honor. While waiting for 
 the meal the guests employed their time in walking 
 freely about the place, complimenting their host on the 
 tasteful manner in which the house was decorated, or ad- 
 miring the fine shrubbery, green grass plats, well-kept 
 flower-beds, and sparkling fountains in the gardens. 
 
 Dinner being announced, all took their seats, accord- 
 ing to rank and age, upon mats or icpalli, stools, 
 ranged close along the walls.^ Servants then entered 
 
 > The highest in rank or consideration sat on tlie right side, and those 
 of inferior degree on tlie loft; young men sat at the ends on both sides, 
 accordiugto tneir ranli. Sahaguii, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. ix., pp. 347-8. 
 
FEASTS AND ENTERTAINMENTS. 
 
 with water and towels, with which each guest washed 
 his hands and mouth. Sinoking-canes were next pre- 
 sented on molcaxetes, or plates, to stimulate the ajjpe- 
 tite. The viands, kept warm by chafing dishes, were 
 then brought in upon artistically worked plates of gold, 
 silver, tortoise-shell, or earthenware. Each person 
 before beginning to eat threw a small piece of food 
 into a lighted brazier, in honor of Xiuhtecutli, the 
 god of fire,^ probably by way of grace. The numer- 
 ous highly seasoned dishes of meat and fish having 
 been duly discussed, the servants cleared the tables 
 and feasted upon the remains of the banquet in com- 
 pany with the attendants of the guests.* Vessels 
 called teutecomatls, filled with chocolate, each provided 
 with a spoon to stir the fluid with, were then brought 
 on, together with water for washing the hands and 
 rinsing the mouth. The women who were present on 
 these occasions, although they sat apart from the men, 
 received a kind of spiced gruel instead of cacao. The 
 old people, however, were plied with octli, a very potent 
 beverage, until they became drunk, and this was held 
 to be an indispensable part of the ceremony. 
 
 The smoking-canes were now once more produced, 
 and while the guests reclined luxuriously upon their 
 mats enjoying the grateful influence of the fragrant 
 leaf which we are told by Bernal Diaz they called 
 'tobacco,' and sipping their drinks, the music suddenly 
 struck up, and the young folks, or perhaps some pro- 
 fessionals, executed a dance, singing at the same time 
 an ode prepared for the occasion, as well as other songs. 
 Dwarfs, deformed beings, and curious objects were 
 
 ' Speaking of this Xiuhtecutli, Torquemada says: ' honrahanlo como h 
 Dioa, porquc los ualcntabu, cocia el Pun y {juisaba la Caiiie, y por esto en 
 ca<la Casa le veneraban; y en el niisnio Fogon, J) Hogar, qiiando querian 
 comer, le daban el primer bocado de la vianda, para que alii sc qucniaiie; y 
 lo que avian dc beber, lo avia de gustar priniero, hechando en el fuego parte 
 de el licor.' Motiarq. Intl., torn, ii., p. 57. Sahagun saysthe morsel of food 
 was tlirown into the fire in honor of the god Tlaltecutli: 'antes ciuc comen- 
 zascn li comer los convidados la coniida que Ics habian puesto, tomaban uu 
 Imcado de la coniida, y arrojdbanlo al fuego d honra del dios Tlaltecutli, y 
 luego comenzaban d comer. Hist. Gcm., torn, i., lib. iv., p. 333. 
 ♦ Torqrtemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 457. 
 
Wi 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 also introduced to vary the entertainment; but the 
 professional jesters were the favorites, and the jokes 
 made by them raised many a Uiuj^yh, thouja^h tliis was 
 rather forced perhaps by those at whose expense said 
 jokes were cracked, for these fools were fully as privi- 
 leged as tlieir contemporary Eurojjean brothers of 
 motley, and sometimes spoke very biting truths in the 
 shape of a jest; in some cases they were disguised in 
 the costume of a foreign nation, whose dialect and 
 peculiarities they imitated; at other times they would 
 mimic old women, well-know" eccentric individuals, 
 and so forth. 
 
 The nobles kept a number of these jesters for their 
 own amusement, and often sent them to a neighboring 
 brother-noble to propound riddles ; taking care to pro- 
 vide them with means to pay forfeit should the riddle 
 be solved/ 
 
 These private banquets generally lasted till mid- 
 night, when the party broke up. Each guest received 
 at parting presents of dresses, gourds, cacao-beans, 
 flowers, or articles of food. Should any accident or 
 shortcoming huso marred the pleasure of the party, 
 the host would sooner repeat the entertainment than 
 have any slur rest upon his great social venture. 1 n 
 any case it was doubtless difficult for the good man to 
 escai)e censure either for extravagance or stinginess. 
 
 At the royal feasts given when tlie great vassals 
 came to the capital to render homage to their sov- 
 ereign, the people flocked in from the provinces in 
 great numbers to see the sights, which consisted of 
 theatrical representations, gladiatorial combats, fights 
 between wild beasts, athletic sports, musical perform- 
 ances, and poetical recitations in honor of kings, gods, 
 and heroes. The nobles, in addition to this, partook 
 daily of banquets at the palace, and were presented by 
 the monarch with costly gifts.* 
 
 * Sahnqun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., p. 292. 
 
 * For Hescriptiuii of feiists see: Torque maila, Afonarq. Ind., torn ii., pp. 
 457-8; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., toni. i., lib. iv., pp. 332-6, torn, ii., lib. ix., 
 
TOBACCO IN THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 287 
 
 To the tohacco-lovin{]f reader it will be interestinjjf to 
 learn how the weed was Hiiioked in the New World 
 before it was introduced into the Old by the immortal 
 Jean Nicot, whoBe name be forever bleHHed. The habit 
 of smokinjf did not possess amonj^ the Nahuas the 
 peculiar character attached to it by the North Ameri- 
 vtm natives, as an indispensable accessory to treaties, 
 the cementing of friendship, and so forth, but was in- 
 dulged in chiefly by the sick, as a pastime and for its 
 stimulating efl'ect. The origin of the custom among 
 tlie Naluias may be traced to the use of reed-grass, 
 tilled with aromatic herbs, which was lighted and 
 given to guests that they might diffuse tlie perfume 
 about them; gradually they came to puff the reeds 
 and swallow the smoke, pretending to find therein a 
 remedy against headache, fatigue, phlegm, sleepless- 
 ness, etc. Three kinds of tobacco were used, the i/ctl, 
 signifying tobacco in general, obtained from a large 
 leaved plant, the picyetl, from a small but stronger 
 species, and quaiujetl, a less esteemed kind known later 
 on as wild tobacco. ^ lavigero asserts that the jyicyetl 
 and quaayetl were the only species known among the 
 Mexicans. It was generally smoked after dinner in 
 the form of paper, reed, or maize-leaf cigarettes, called 
 pori/cfl, 'smoking tobacco,' or arayetl, * tobacco-reed,' 
 the leaf being mixed in a paste, says Veytia, with 
 xovhioc.otzotl, liquid amber, aromatic herbs, and pulver- 
 ized charcoal, so as to keep smouldering when once 
 lighted, and shed a perfume. The picyetl tobacco was 
 sni;)ked later in the day, without admixture, and some- 
 wliat in the shape of cigars. The smoke was inhaled, 
 and the nose closed, in order that none of the grateful 
 qualities should be lost. Wooden, metal, or bamboo 
 tubes were sometimes used instead of cigarettes. Snuff- 
 
 pp. .359-60, 364-.5; Brasseur de Bonrhourij, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 
 Gt'i-O; fd., in Nouodles Annates des Voj/., 1858, toni. clix., pp. 74-6; Go- 
 marrt, Conq. Mex., fol. .318; Prr.scotfs Mex., vol. i., pp. 1.52-7; liussicrre, 
 VEmpire Met., p. 178; Baril, Mcxiqite, pp. 210-11; Jiitos Antiguos, p. 20, 
 'mKiiigshoroujlC'i Mex. Antiq., vol. i.\. 
 
388 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 
 
 ing the pulverized leaf is an ancient custom which we 
 owe to them.'' 
 
 Dancing was the favorite Aztec amusement, and the 
 fanciful arrangement of their dances, as well as the 
 peculiar grace of their motions, is highly praised bv 
 all the old chroniclers. Dancing, and especially reli- 
 gious dances, formed an important part of an Aztec 
 youth's education, and much trouble was taken by the 
 priests to instruct them in it. 
 
 The preparations for the great public dances, when 
 the performers numbered thousands,* were on an im- 
 mense scale. The choirs and bands attached to the 
 service of the various temples were placed under the 
 supervision of a leader, usually a priest, who composed 
 the ode of the day, set it to music, instructed the mu- 
 sicians, appointed the leaders of the dance, perfected 
 the arrangements generally, observed that all did their 
 duty, and caused every fault or negligence to be se- 
 verely punished." The NeteteliztU dance took place 
 either in the plaza or in the courtyard of the temple, in 
 the centre of which mats were spread for the musicians. 
 The nobles and aged men formed a circle nearest to the 
 drums, the people of less importance formed another 
 circle a little distance behind, and the young people 
 composed the third ring. Two leading dancers directed 
 the movements, and whatever steps they made were 
 imitated by the performers. When all was ready, a 
 whistle gave the signal and the drums were beaten 
 lightly to a well-known tune started by the leaders 
 and taken up by the dancers, who at the same time 
 began to move their fei \ arms, heads and bodies in 
 perfect accord. Each \ < "se or couplet was repeated 
 
 7 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn. '., pp. 49-.51; Clavigero, Stnrin Ant. 
 del MesHtco, torn, ii., p. 227. Her, irfez, Nora J'lnnt., )». 173; Oviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., tmn. i., |). .525; Brassciir Bourbourg, Hi.if. Nat. Civ., torn, 
 iii., p. 646; L'arbajal Espiiiosa, Hist, ex., toin. i., p. 684; Klemm, C'vltur- 
 Geschichte, torn, v., pp. 12-13. 
 
 * ' luntauansc a cstc bayle, no in hombres, como dize Comara, pero 
 mas de ocho mil.' Herrcra. Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. viii. 
 
 ^ Saha'^nn, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., p. 315, ever prepared with 
 capital puniHhment, states that 'cl aeilor les mandaba prender, y otro dia 
 los mandaba niatar.' 
 
THE MITOTE AND RIBBON DANCE. M 
 
 throo or four times, tlie dancers kee])inflf time with 
 thuir ai/acacktli, or rattles. Each must keep his rela- 
 tive position in the circle, and complete the circuit at 
 the siinio time ; the inner circle, therefore, moved at a 
 slow, di«(niHed pace, suited to the rank and ajje of the 
 men composing it; the second i)roceeded somewhat 
 faster, while the dancers in the outer circle approached 
 a run as the dance became liveliei . The motions were 
 varied ; at one time the dancers held one another by 
 the hand, at another, round the waist; now they took 
 the left hand neighbor for partner, now the right, 
 sometimes facing one way, sometimes another. The 
 first song e.iaed, which referred to the event of the 
 day, a })opular ode, treating of their gods, kings, or 
 heroes, was taken up and sung in a higlier scale and 
 to a livelier measure, the dance meanwhile constantly, 
 increasing in animation. This was the case with all 
 the succeeding songs, each one becoming higher and 
 shriller as it proceeded; flutes, trumpets, and sharp 
 whistles were sometimes added to the band to increase 
 the effect. When one set of dancers became tired, 
 another took its place, and so the dance continued 
 through the whole day, each song taking about an 
 hour. Jesters and clowns in various disguises circu- 
 lated between the lines, cutting capers, cracking jokes, 
 and servinjr refreshments. Herrera states that the 
 solenm mitote was danced by twos in the outer circle.*" 
 At private dances, two parallel lines were usually 
 formed, the dancers turning in various directions, 
 changing partners, and crossing from line to line." 
 Sometimes one stepped from each line, and performed 
 a pas de deux while the others looked on. The 'rib- 
 bon dance,' resemMed the English may-pole dance to a 
 certain extent. A pole, fifteen to twenty feet high, 
 was erected on a smooth piece of ground, and twenty 
 or more persons, each seizing the end of a colored rib- 
 bon attached to its summit, began to dance about the 
 
 " Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xix. 
 " Claviqcro, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 180. 
 Vol. II. 19 
 
200 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 mast, crossing each other and winding in apparent con- 
 fusion, until the pole was covered with a motley text- 
 ure of a certain desijjn. When the hand hecanie too 
 short, the plaiting was unwound hy reversing the order 
 of the dance. They had a numher of other mitotes, 
 or dances, varying chiefly in the colors worn by the 
 dancers, the finery, painting, and disguises, and con- 
 forming to the text of the songs, such as the hiiexot- 
 zincaiutl, anaoacaiutl,. cuextecaiutl, tocotiii, and others 
 to be described under religious festivals." Children 
 from four to eight years of age, the sons of nobles, 
 took part in some dances and sang the soprano, 
 and the priests joined in the solemn performances. 
 Certain dances, as the netecuitotoli,^^ could only be 
 performed by the king and nobles," a space being 
 always set apart for the sovereign when he danced. 
 Women joined the men in some dances, but generally 
 danced apart. Certain dancing-houses of bad repute 
 termed cuicoj/an, 'great joy of women,' were o})en to 
 females at night, and were then scenes of unmitigated 
 debauch.*" Great pains was taken to appear as tine as 
 possible at the dances; noted warriors appeared mag- 
 nificently dressed, and occasionally bearing shields set 
 with feathers; nobles in court dress of rich mantles 
 knotted at the shoulders, fanciful maxtlis round the 
 loins, tassels of feathers and gold in the hair, lip- 
 ornaments of gold and precious stones, gold rings in 
 the ears, bracelets of the same metal set with plumes, 
 or strings of chalchiuites and turquoises round the 
 wrists and other parts of the arms, and some had gold 
 bells attached to the ankles ; the gaily coK)red dresses 
 of the lower class were decorated with feathers and 
 embroidery; garlands and flowers encircled the head, 
 necklaces of shells and beans hung about the neck, 
 
 ^* SahnffUH, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 308-9; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. drl Messiro, to-n. ii., pp. 181-2. 
 
 >'' Nctccuhytotiliztii, according to Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind,, torn, ii., 
 p. 280. 
 
 ■* Sahatfun, Hint. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 189. 
 
 1* Tezozomoc, Jlitt. Mex., torn, i., p. 87 
 
THE ABORIGINAL DRAMA. 
 
 291 
 
 to 
 
 bracelets clasped the arms and legs, and all carried 
 nosegays. The women also shone in huipiles, gaily 
 colored, fancifully embroidered, and set with fringes." 
 The drama scarcely equaled in excellence the cho- 
 ral dance, j'et in this respect, as in others, the Nahuas 
 showed considerable advancement. Thalia presided 
 more frequently than Melpomene over the play, which 
 generally took the character of a burlesque. The per- 
 formers mostly wore masks of wood, or were disguised 
 as animals. No special building was devoted to the 
 drama, but the lower porch of a temple usually served 
 as the stage; some large towns, however, boasted of a 
 permanent stage, erected in the centre of the plaza. 
 The principal of these was at Tlatelulco, and consisted 
 of a terrace of stone and lime, thirteen feet high, by 
 thirty in breadth. When in use it was decorated with 
 foliage, and mats of various colors, whereon was embla- 
 zoned the coat of arms of the city, were hung all round 
 it. At Cholula the porch of the temple of Quetzaicoatl 
 served as a stage ; this was whitewashed and adorned 
 with arches of branches, featliers, and flowers, from 
 which hung birds, rabbits, and other curious objects. 
 Here the peo})le congregated after dinner on gala-days 
 to witness the performance, in which deaf, lame, blind, 
 deformed, or sick pe()[)le, or, sometimes, merchants, 
 mechanics, or prominent citizens, were mimicked, bur- 
 lesqued, and made fu?i of. Each actor endeavored to 
 represent his r6\e in the most grotesque manner possi- 
 ble. He who was for the moment deaf irave nonsen- 
 
 '" ' I PIcbci si travcativano in viirie figure d'animali con aViti fatti di 
 carta, cili |>ciinc, o di ]>clli' — iiii doubt to distiiipiiHli them from the gentry 
 when they joined in the dani'o. ('/ariifcro, l:itoria Ant. ttrt Mexnico, torn, ii., 
 pp. 179-Hl, and others who follow iiiin. In Sahuffiiu, Hint. (Jen., torn, i., 
 lili. ii., |i|i. 1.30-3, if! a \on>^ doBCfiption of feaHt-day dress. For description 
 ofdaneessec Id., torn, li., lih. viii. pp. 308-9, 314-1.5; Torqucvmdit, Mo- 
 nun/. Inil., toni. ii., pn. JmO-'J; I)\ivilj/, L'AmH-iqne, toni. ii.,p. 68; Mon- 
 tanuH, Nkinm Wcercld, op. '2()7-8; AmHn, Hist, de la.t Ynd., pp. 44<i-9; 
 Purciuts his I'ilqriiMH, vol. iv., pp. 1004-5; Cnrhnjal Espinosa, lust. Mrr., 
 torn, i., pp. 043-.'); Ihiissrur de tiourhoiirg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 
 (M)9-71; Mendinta, Hist. Ecles,, pp. 140-3; Tezozomoc, Hist. Mex., toni. i., 
 pp. 01, 87; (inmnrn, Conq. Mex., fol. 106-7; Klemm, Cullur-Geschichte, 
 toni. v., pp. 5fl-S; Hrrrern, Hist. Gen,, dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. viii., dec. iii., 
 lib. ii., cap. xix., and TranBk>.ion, Lond. 1726, vol. iii., p. 227, with cut 
 
292 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 sical answers to questions put to him ; the sick man 
 depicted the effects of pain, and so forth. When these 
 had exhausted their stock of jokes, others entered as 
 beetles, frogs, or hzards, croaking, whistUng, and skip- 
 ping about the stage after the manner of the creatures 
 they represented. Tlie boys from the temples also 
 appeared as birds and butterflies, and flocked into the 
 trees in the courtyard. Each performer rehearsed his 
 part before appearing in public, and great care was 
 taken that no blunder should mar the beauty of the 
 plot. The priests added to the fun by blowing nmd- 
 balls at the actors through wooden tubes, and praising 
 or censuring the performance in a jocular manner. 
 The entertainment concluded with a ball, which was 
 attended by all the actors." 
 
 Some authors have spoken very favorably of the 
 dramatic skill of the Nahuas. Clavigero is not in- 
 clined to indorse this opinion, although he thinks a 
 great advance would have been made in this direction 
 had the Mexican Empire survived another century; a 
 very natural conclusion, certainly. The ceremonies at 
 the religious festivals often partook of a dramatic 
 character, as will be seen presently.^* 
 
 Music, a principal attraction at our theatrical enter- 
 tainments, did not play an important part on the 
 Nflhua stage, and, though we hear of singers appear- 
 ing, instrumental concert is not mentioned. Aside 
 from this, the high importance attached to music is 
 evident from the myth of its origin. According to 
 this myth no less a personage than Tezcatlipoca'" 
 brought, or sent for, music from the sun, and con- 
 structed a bridge of whales and turtles, symbols of 
 strength, by which to convey it to the earth. 
 
 Drums, horns, shells, trumpets, and shrill whistles 
 
 ^1 Klemm, Cultur-Gcschichtc, torn, v., i>p. 144-5, has it that tho audience 
 also attended this bnll. 
 
 '8 Aaosfa, Hist de las Ynd., pp. .391-2; Claviflcro, Sloria Ant. del Mcs- 
 tico, torn, ii., i)p. 7(1-8; Pimentrl, Mem. sobre In Itaza IndOfena, pp. 59-CO; 
 Braxseur dc liourboiirtf. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn. ili.,pp. 6(4-0. 
 
 '* For au account of Tezcatlipoca see Vol. III. of this work. 
 
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 293 
 
 to 
 
 ,19 
 
 made from cleft bones were the instruments most used. 
 The drum was the favorite, and the beating of several 
 in nice accord sufficed alone for an accompaniment to 
 the song and the dance. Two kinds of drum are men- 
 tioned : of these, the huehuetl'^ was a hollow cylinder of 
 wood, about three feet high, and a foot and a half in 
 diameter, curiously carved and painted, and having its 
 upper end covered with a dressed deer-skin, tightened 
 or loosened in tuning, and played upon with the hands. 
 The other kind of drum was called the teponaztli, 
 'wing of the stone-vapor;' this was entirely of wood, 
 and had no opening but two parallel slits in one side, 
 the enclosed piece being divided in the centre so as to 
 form two tongues, each of which increased in thickness 
 towards its extremity ; the drum was placed in a hori- 
 zontal position and the sound was produced by beating 
 the tongues with sticks tipped with rubber balls. This 
 drum varied in length from a toy of a few inches to 
 five feet. Sometimes it was carved in the shape of a 
 man, woman, or animal, and lay lengthways on tres- 
 tles. The huehuetl gave forth a dull sound resem- 
 blinfif that of the East Indian tom-tom. These drums, 
 when of the largest size, could be heard at a distance 
 of two miles. '^^ The teponaztli produced a melan- 
 choly sound, which is considered by Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg to have been a symbol of the hollow warning 
 noise preceding the annihilation of Earth, which was 
 symbolized by the instrument itself.** The tetzilacatl 
 was a kind of gong made of copper and struck with a 
 hammer of the same material. The ayacachtli was a 
 rattle of copper, perforated and filled with pebbles, 
 used by dancers. 
 
 The ancient writers unite in praising the perfect 
 unison and good time observed by the singers, both in 
 solo and quartette, with chorus and responses, and 
 they mention particularly the little boys of from four 
 
 *" Called tlapanhuchuctl by Tezozomoc and nraasciir de Bourbourg. 
 " Clnviffcro, Sloria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 179, etc. 
 " Quatre Lettrea, p. 04. 
 
i 
 
 294 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 to eight years of age, who rendered the soprano in a 
 manner that reflected great credit on the training of 
 their priestly tutors. Each temple, and many noble- 
 men kept choirs and bands of professional musicians, 
 usually led b^ a priest, who composed odes appropri- 
 ate to every occasion, and set them to music, Bass 
 singers were rare, and were prized in proportion to 
 their rarity. They had a great number of popular 
 sonofs or ballads, which were well known in all classes. 
 Young people were obliged to learn by heart long epics, 
 in which were recounted the glorious deeds of heroes 
 in battle and the chase; or didactic pieces, pointing 
 some moral and inculcating a useful lesson; or hymns 
 of praise and appeal for sacred festivals. Clavigero, 
 Pimentel, and other authors extol the aboriginal muse 
 highly, and describe the language used as pure, bril- 
 liant, figurative, and interwoven with allusions to the 
 beauties of nature; unmeaning interjections scattered 
 here and there to assist the metre, evince a lack of 
 finish, however, and the long, compound words, a sin- 
 gle one of which often formed a whole verse, certainly 
 did not add to the harmony, yet they observed good 
 metre and cadence.'" 
 
 The art of music was under royal protection, and 
 singers as well as musicians were exempt from taxa- 
 tion. Nezahualcoyotl, the great Tezcucan patron of 
 art, himself composed a number of odes and elegies, 
 and founded an academy of sciences and music, where 
 the allied kings of Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan 
 presided, and distributed prizes to the successful com- 
 petitors. Toltec son^s are highly praised for their 
 beauty and variety. The Totonacs and Tepanecs are 
 said to have been as far advanced in music and sing- 
 ing as the Aztecs;** but concerning these arts I shall 
 speak more at length in a future chapter. 
 
 w Gomara, Conq. Max., fol. 106, states, 'y csto va todo en conla por sub 
 consonaiites,' but it is not likely that they were anytliing else tlian blank 
 verso, for such a thin^r as rhynio is not mentioned by any other writer. 
 
 " Conce.-iing music and singinu see: Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mes- 
 nco, torn, ii., pp. 174-9; Torquemaaa, Monarq. Intl., torn, i., p. 220, torn. 
 
GYMNASTIC PERFORMANCES. 
 
 Mes- 
 toin. 
 
 The acrobatic feats performed by tlie Nahuas ex- 
 cited the surprise and admiration of the conquerors, 
 and the court of Spain, before which some of these 
 athletes were introduced, was no less astounded at the 
 grace, daring, and strength displayed by them. 
 
 Some of these gymnastic performances have only of 
 late become known to us; thus, the so-called Chinese 
 foot-balancing trick, in which a man lying on his back 
 spins a heavy pole on the soles of his raised feet, 
 throws i« up, catches it, and twirls it in eveyy direc- 
 tion, was a common feat with the Naliua acrobat, who, 
 indeed, excelled the circus-man of to-day, in that he 
 twirled the pole while a man sat at each end of it. 
 Another feat was performed by three. One having 
 braced himself firmly, another mounted on his should- 
 ers, while the third climbed up and stood upon the 
 head of the second. In this position the human col- 
 timn moved slowly about, the man on the top perform- 
 ing a kind of dance at the same time. Again, a man 
 would dance on the top of a beam, the lower end of 
 which was forked and rested upon the shoulders of 
 two other dancers. Some raised a stick from the 
 ground while a man balanced at the end of it; others 
 leaped upon a stick set upright in the ground, or danced 
 upon tlio tight-rope. Another game involving an 
 equal display of grace and daring was the netotoUztli, 
 or 'bird dance,' known to the Spaniards as the 'flying- 
 game,' and performed especially during the laymen's 
 feast. In the centre of an open place, generally a 
 public square, a lofty pole was erected. On the top 
 of this pole was placed a wooden, moveable cap, re- 
 sembling an inverted mortar; to this were fastened 
 
 >i., pp. 551-2; Acosta, Hist, dc las Ynd., p. 447; Mendieta. Ui.it. Erles.,\m- 
 140-1; Gnnmra, Conq. Mcx., fol. 106; Ptuwntel, Mem. sobre la liuzaln- 
 digciin, \^\t. 57-0; lirasHrnr <lc Bonrhounj, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. i., \). 282, 
 torn, iii., pp. 270, 660, 672-74; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mcx., torn, i., pp. 
 G41-2; J'lorlias his Pil(frimcs, vol. iv., pp. 1064-5; Tczozomoc, Hist. Mcx., 
 toiii. i., p.Ol; Kkinin, Cultnr-Geschichtc, torn, v., pn. 145-50; Miiller, Amer- 
 iknnisr.hc Urrcligioiicii, p. 545; Banking's Hist, iiescarches, i>. .^4; Prcs- 
 cott's Mcx., vol. I., i)p. 170-5, 194; Lenoir, Parallile, p. 64; JJupaix, Jicl., 
 2'''Exp<!.l., pi. 62-3, ill Antiq. Mcx., torn, iii.; Fucnlcal, in Tcrnuux- 
 Compans, Voij., sdrie it., torn, v., pp. 218-19; Bolurini, Idea, pp. 85-99. 
 
296 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 • 
 
 .? 
 
 four stout ropes which supported a wooden frame 
 about twelve feet square. Four other, longer ropes 
 were carefully wound thirteen times about the pole 
 just below the cap, and were thence passed through 
 holes made one in each of the four sides of the frame. 
 The ends of these ropes, while wound about the pole, 
 hung several feet below the frame. Four gymnasts, 
 who had practiced some time previously, and were 
 disguised as birds of different form, ascended by means 
 of loops of cord tied about the pole, and each having 
 fastened one of the ropes round his waist, they 
 started on their circular flight with spread wings. 
 The impulse of the start and the weight of the men 
 set the frame in motion, and the rope unwound quicker 
 and quicker, enabling the flyers to describe larger and 
 larger circles. A number of other men, all : ^hly 
 dressed, sat perched upon the frame, whence they 
 ascciided in turn to the top of the revolving cap, anii 
 there danced and beat a drum, or waved a flag, each 
 man endeavoring to surpass his predecessor in daring 
 and skill.** As the flyers neared the ground, and the 
 ropes were almost untwisted, the men on the frame 
 glided down the ropes so as to gain the ground at the 
 same time, sometimes passing from one iope to the 
 other in their descent and performing other tricks. 
 The thirteen turns of the rope, with the four flyers, 
 represented the cycle with its four divisions of thir- 
 teen years. 
 
 Running was practiced, not only for exercise, but 
 as a profession; as the government employed a large 
 number of couriers to run with messages, who were 
 trained for the purpose from early childhood. To 
 these I shall have occasion to refer again. Races 
 were held at the chief temple in Mexico under the 
 auspices of the priests,^ at which prizes were awarded 
 
 t^ Espinosa sccnis to think that one man did all the dancing on the sum- 
 mit, and HrasHCur says tiiat each of the flyers porfoniicd on the top of the 
 mast l)cforc talcing their flight 
 
 M Acosta, Hist, de la* Ynd., pp. 387-8. 
 
THE TLACHTLI, OR NATIONAL GAME. 
 
 2B7 
 
 to the four competitors who succeeded in first gaining 
 the topmost of the one hundred and twenty steps. 
 The Nahuas must have been able swimmers, too, for 
 it is said that travelers usually took to the water when 
 cross] ns? rivers, leavinj' the bridges to those who car- 
 ried burdens. There were also sham fights and public 
 reviews, both for the exercise of the army and the 
 delectation of the masses. At these times the soldiers 
 competed for prizes in shooting with the arrow or 
 throwing the dart.'^^ On grand occasions, such as the 
 coronation of a king, soldiers fought with wild beasts, 
 or wrestled with one another, and animals were pitted 
 against each other in fenced enclosures.'* 
 
 The national game of the Nahuas was the tlachtli, 
 which strongly resembled in many points our game of 
 football, and was quite as lively and full of scuffle. 
 It was common among all the nations whose cult was 
 similar to the Toltec, and was under special divine 
 protection, though what original religious significance 
 it had is not clear. Indeed, for that matter, nearly 
 every game enjoyed divine patronage, and Ometochtli, 
 'two rabbits,' the god of games, according to Duran, 
 was generally invoked by athletes as well as gamblers^ 
 in conjunction with some special god. Instruments of 
 play, and natural objects were also conjured to grant 
 good luck to the ai^plicant. As an instance of the 
 popularity of the game of tlachtli,'" it may be men- 
 tioned that a certain number of towns contributed 
 anruially sixteen thousand balls in taxes, that each 
 town of any size had a special play -ground devoted to 
 the game, and that kings kept professionals to play 
 before them, occasionally challenging each other to a 
 game besides. The ground in which it was played, 
 called the tlacheo,^ was an alley whose shape is shown 
 
 ^1 Sahnffiin, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., p. 292. 
 
 s^ Torqneinndn, Monarq. Iiid., torn, i., pp. 53, 87; Carbajal Espinosa, 
 Hist. Mix., torn, i., p. 238. 
 
 '^ Saha'(un culls it tlaxtli, or tlachtl; and Tczozomoc tlachco, but this is 
 shown by others to be the name of the play-ground. 
 
 ^•i (ioniara says tlachtli, or tlachco: Herrcra, Hist. Oen., dec. ii., lib. vii., 
 cap. viii., tlachtli. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 in the cut; one hundred feet long*^ and half 
 pavP as wide, except at each end where there were 
 rectanj^ular nooks, which doubtless served as 
 resting-places for the players. The whole was enclosed 
 by smooth whitewashed walls, from nine to twelve feet 
 high on the sides, and somewhat lower at the ends, 
 with battlements and turrets, and decreasing in thick- 
 ness toward the top.** At midnight, previous to the 
 day fixed for the game, which was always fixed favor- 
 ably by the augurs, the priests with much ceremony 
 placed two idols — one representing the god of play, 
 the other the god of the tlachtli^ — upon the side 
 walls, blessed the edifice, and consecrated the game by 
 throwing the ball four times round the ground, mut- 
 tering the while a formula. The owner of the tlachco, 
 usually the lord of the place, also performed certain 
 ceremonies and presented offerings, before opening the 
 game. The balls, called ullamaloni, were of solid 
 India-rubber, three to four inches in diameter. The 
 players were simply attired in the maxtli, or breech- 
 clout, and sometime? wore a skin to protect the parts 
 coming in contact with the ball, and gloves; they 
 played in parties, usually two or three on each side. 
 The rule was to hit the ball only with knee, elbow, 
 shoulder, or buttock, as agreed upon, the latter was 
 however the favorite way, and to touch the wall of 
 the opposite side with the ball, or to send it over, 
 either of which counted a point. He who struck the 
 ball with his hand or foot, or with any part of his 
 body not previously agreed upon, lost a point; to set- 
 tle such matters without dispute a priest acted as 
 referee. On each side-wall, equidistant from the ends. 
 
 31 Duran makes it one hundred to two hundred feet, Espinosa fifty varas, 
 Brasseur, Hist. Nat. Civ., vol. iii., p. 667, sixty to eighty feet. 
 
 " Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mcx., toin. i., p. 647, says that the side walls 
 arc lowest, *dc mcnos altura los latcrales que los dos de los extremes,' but 
 this agrees neither with other statements, nor with the requirements of the 
 play. Sahagun's description of the tlachco gives two walls, forty to fifty 
 reet long, twenty to thirty feet apart, and about nine feet high. 
 
 33 Carbajal Espinosa thinks that one of them was Omca-.atl, 'the god of 
 joy.' 
 
BALL-PLAYING AND GAMBLINU. 
 
 909 
 
 was a large stone, carved with images of idols, pierced 
 through the centre with a hole large enough to just 
 admit the passage of the ball;"* the player who by 
 chance or skill drove the ball through one of these 
 openings not only won the game for his side, but was 
 entitled to the cloaks of all present, and the haste 
 with which the spectators scrambled off in order to 
 save their garments is said to have been the most 
 amusing part of the entertainment. A feat so diffi- 
 cult was, of course, rarely accomplished, save by 
 chance, and the successful player was made as much 
 of as a prize-winner at the Olympic games, nor did 
 he omit to present thank offerings to the god of the 
 game for the good fortune vouchsafed him. 
 
 The possession of much property depended upon the 
 issue of the game; the rich staked their gold and jew- 
 els, the poor their dresses, their food, or even their 
 liberty.*' 
 
 Gambling, the lowest yet most infatuating of amuse- 
 ments, was a passion with the Nahuas, and property 
 of all kinds, from ears of corn or cacao-beans, to costly 
 jewelry and personal liberty, were betted upon the 
 issue of the various games. Professional gamesters 
 
 3« Carbajal Espinosa, ITist. Mcx., torn, i., p. 647, states that the stones 
 were ill the centre of the ground, 'en el espacio que incdialia entrc los jnga- 
 (lores,' but no other author confirms this. It is not uiiliiiely that these 
 stones are the idols placed upon tlic walls hy the priests, for tiiey are dc- 
 scribed as lM;ing decorated witli iigurcs of idols. I' or description and cuts 
 of the ruins of wliat seem to have been similar structures in Yucatan, see 
 Vol. IV., pp. 172, 230-1, of this work. 
 
 35 Vcytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toin. ii., p. 107, says that the hall had to bo 
 kept up in the air a long time, and he who let it drop lost, Avhich is unlikely, 
 since the point was to drive it against the opiwnent's wall; it is possible, 
 however, that this trial of skill formed a part of the play, at times. Ho 
 also states that in the centre of the play-iiround was a hole tilled with water, 
 and the player who sent the ball into itlost his ch>thes and had opprobious 
 epithets liurled at him, among which 'great adulterer' was the most frc- 
 (liicnt; moreover, it was lielieved that he would die by the hand of an 
 injured husband. A hole filled with water docs not, however, seem appro- 
 |iriate to a nice play -ground; besides, the ball would be very likely to roll 
 into the pool, for the opponents would not prevent it. Camargo, Hist. 
 Tlux., in Noiivdles Annates des Voi/., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 196, and Bras- 
 sciir dc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 123, say that nobles only 
 were allowed to play the game, which can only refer to certain play-grounds 
 or occasions, for the number of the balls paid in taxes proves tlie game too 
 general to have been reserved for nobles. 
 
800 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 went from house to house with dice and play-mats, 
 seeking fresh victims. All gambling tools were for- 
 mally charmed, and this charm was renewed and 
 strengthened at intervals by presenting the instru- 
 ments in the temple, with prayers that the blessing of 
 the idol might descend upon them. 
 
 Patoliztli, which somewhat resembled our backgam- 
 mon, appears to have been the most popular game of 
 chance. Patolli, or large beans marked with dots, 
 like dice, were shaken in the hand arid thrown upon a 
 mat, upon which was traced a square marked with 
 certain transverse and diag lal lines. The thrower of 
 the beans marked his points on these Ihies according 
 to the number of spots which fell upward. He who 
 first gained a certain score won the game. The 
 players were usually surrounded by a crowd of inter- 
 ested spectators, who betted heavily on the result, and 
 called loudly for the favor of Macuilxochitl, the 
 patron deity of the game. Golden and jewelled dice 
 were often used instead of beans by the rich.^" They 
 had another game in whicli reeds took the place of 
 dice. Two players, each with ten pebbles by his side, 
 shot split reeds in turn towards small holes made in 
 the ground, by bending them between the fingers ; if 
 a reed fell over a hole a marker was placed on a 
 square; this continued until the markers were all ex- 
 hausted by the winner." Montezuma's favorite game 
 
 36 I 
 
 ' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 105, is" the authority for the names of the 
 game and beans, f ornneinatla attirms, liowever. 'ydicenle J ucyo Patolli, 
 porquecstos dados, 8C llanian asi.' Monarq. /i(«^., torn, ii., p. 554. Clavi- 
 gero, on tlie other hand, says: 'I'atolli h un nomegenericosignificante o^ni 
 Borta di ginoco.' Carltajal EspinoMa translates him. deferring to the dice, 
 Suhagun says that tliey were 'cuatro frisoles grandes, y cada imo tiene un 
 ahngero;' afterwards he contradicts this by saying tliat 1 hey consisted of 
 three large ticans with ' ciertos puntos en cllos'' Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. 
 viii., pp. 292, 317. Brasseur de Bourbourg describes the playing process us 
 follows: 'Us jetaient Ics dds en I'air avec Ics deux mams, niarquant Ics 
 cases avec de pctits signaux dc diverses coulcurs, et cclui qui rctournait Ic 
 premier dans les cases gagnait la partie,' which agrees with Torqueniada's 
 acconnt. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. C71. 
 
 3^ ' Hacian cncima de un encalado unos hoyos pcquefiitos y con unns 
 
 cai'iuelas hendid.is ])or medio dalKin en el suelo y saltaban en alto, y tantns 
 cuantas en las cailuelas caian lo hueco por arriba tantos casus odeloutaba 
 BUS picdrus.' Ditran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, iii., cap. xxii. 
 
POPULAR AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 801 
 
 was called totoloque, and consisted in throwing small 
 golden balls at pieces of the same metal set up as tar- 
 gets at a certain distance. Five points won the stakes. 
 Peter Martyr jumps at the conclusion that chess must 
 have been known to the Nahuas, because they pos- 
 sessed checkered mats.^ 
 
 '* For Nahiia games and amusements, see: Torquemada, Monttrq. Ltd., 
 toni. i., pp., 5.% 87, torn, ii., pp. 305-0, .552-4; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del 
 Mfssim, torn, li., pp. 182-6; iiakagun. Hist. Gen., toin. ii., lib. viii., pp. 
 201-3, 316-17; Gomura, Conq.Mex., fol. 104-6; Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., 
 torn. HI., cap. 22-3; Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. vii-viii.j 
 Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x.; Purchas his Pilgrinies, vol. iv., pp. HHW, 
 1127-S; Brnsseitrde llourhourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., jtp. 123, 129, toni. 
 lii., pp. 665-9; Cnrlmjal Es/unosn, Hist. Mex., toni. i., pp. 045-9; Klemm, 
 Cidlur-Gcschiehte, toni. v., pp. 54-6; Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 387-8; 
 Meiidieta, Hist. Erlr.i., p. 407; Las Cnsas, Hist. Ap(do<iitiea, MS., cap. 64; 
 West inid Ost Indischer Lnstgarl, pt i., pp. 100-1; Varies, Aven.yConq., p. 
 3l)li; Veglia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. ii., pp. 107-8; Dilworth's C'onq. Mex., 
 p. 80; Lenoir, Parallile, pp. 47-8, q^uotiiig Picarl, Cirdinonies Relig., toui. 
 11., p. 81. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PUBLIC FESTIVALS. 
 
 Frequent OccuRnENCE of Religious Feasts— Human Sacrifices- 
 Feasts OF the Fourth Year— Monthly Festivals— Sacrifice 
 OF Children— Feast of Xipe— Manner of Sacrifice— Feasts 
 OF Camaxtli, of the Floweh-Dealers, of Centeotl, of Tez- 
 
 CATLIPOCA, AND OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI — FESTIVAL OF THE SALT- 
 
 Makers— The Sacrifice by Fire — Feast of the Dead— The 
 Coming of the Gods— The Footprints on the Mat— Hunting 
 Feast— The Month of Love— Hard Times— Nahia Lupercalia 
 —Feasts of the Sun, of the Winter Solstice— Harvest and 
 Eight-Year Festivals— The Binding of the Sheaf. 
 
 The amusements described in the preceding chap- 
 ter were chiefly indulged in during the great religious 
 festivals, when the people flocked together from all 
 quarters to propitiate or offer up thanks to some par- 
 ticular god. 
 
 These festivals were of v«rj frequent occurrence. 
 The Nahuas were close observcT;) of nature; but like 
 other nations in a similar or !m en more advanced stage 
 of culture, the Greeks and Northmen for example, 
 they entirely misunderstood the laws which govern 
 the phenomena of nature, and looked upon every nat- 
 ural occurrence as the direct act of some particular 
 divinity. The coming of the rains was held to be the 
 coming of the rain-gods, with their heralds the 
 thunder and lightning; the varying condition of the 
 crops was ascribed to their Ceres; drought, storms, 
 
 (303) 
 
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS. 
 
 eclipses, all were considered the acts of special deities. 
 
 llie reli<jfiou8 machinery required to propitiate the 
 anger, humor the whims, and beseech the I'avor of 
 such a vasb number of capricious divinities, was as 
 intricate as it was ponderous. Besides the daily ser- 
 vices held in the various temples, prayers were 
 ottered several times during each day in that of the 
 sun, sj)ecial rites attended every undertaking, from 
 the departure of a private traveler to the setting forth 
 of an army for war, and fixed as well as moveable 
 feasts were held, the number of which was continually 
 increased as opportunity offered. The priests observed 
 fasts among themselves, attended with penance, scari- 
 fications, and mutilations sometimes so severe as to 
 result fatally. Thus, at the festival in honor of Ca- 
 maxtli, the j)riests fasted one hundred and sixty days, 
 and passed several hundred sticks, varying in thick- 
 ness from half an inch to an inch and a half through 
 a hole freshly made in the tongue.* The people imi- 
 tated these penances in a less degree, and scarified 
 the members of their bodies that had been the means 
 of committing a sin. Blood was drawn from the 
 ears for inattention, or for conveying evil utterances 
 to the mind; from the tongue for giving expression to 
 bad words; tlie eyes, the arms, the legs, all suffered 
 for any reprehensible act or neglect. The people of 
 each ]>rovince, says Las Casas, had a manner of draw- 
 ing blood ])eculiar to themselves.' 
 
 At the public festivals each private person brought 
 such offering to the god as his means allowed. The 
 poor had often nothing to give but a flower, a cake, 
 
 * See tlie Totonac daily temple serviee, in Lax Casan, Hist. Apologftica, 
 Ms., ca]>. clxxv. ' Luego aqiicl vicjo mas principal nietia y sacaba por su 
 
 Icuf^iia i>ii aqnci dia euatro cicntos y cincucnta palos de aqnelios otros 
 
 no tan viejos sacahan trcscicntos Estos palos que nietian y sacaban por 
 
 las Icn^'uati eraii tan {rordos coino el dcdo pul<rar dc la inano y otros 
 
 taiito ;,'ruez(. < ••onio las dos dedos dc la niauo pulgar y cl con que scfiala- 
 mos |)();lian ahrazar.' /</., cap. clxxii. 
 
 ' ' Hit cada proviiicia tciiian difercnte costumbrc porquc unos dc los 
 braznsi y otros de los peclio.s y otros dc los musics, &c. x en esto se co<jnos- 
 ciai) ta.nbicn dc qt'c Provincia eran.' Lcis Casas, Hist. Apolog6tica, MS., 
 cap. clxx. 
 
304 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 or personal service, but the wealthy gave rich robes, 
 jewels, gold, and slaves. But no great feast neonis to 
 have been complete without human sacriHce. This 
 was always the great event of the day, to wliich the 
 people looked eagerly forward, and for wliich victims 
 were carefully preserved. Most of these njiserable 
 beings were captives taken in war, .and it was rarely 
 that the supply failed to be sufficient to the occasion, 
 especially among the Mexicans, since, as I have be- 
 fore said, there was nearly always trouble in some 
 part of the empire, if not, a lack of victims for sacri- 
 fice was held good cau.so for |)icking a quarrel with a 
 neighboring nation ; besides, if the number of war pris- 
 oners was not sufficient there were never wanting re- 
 fractory slaves to swell the number. We have it upon 
 good authority that upon almost every monthly feast, 
 and upon numerous other grand celebrations, several 
 hundred human hearts were torn hot from living 
 breasts as an acceptable offering to the Naliua gods 
 and a |)leasant sight to the j)eople.' 
 
 The grandest festivals wore celel)rated during the 
 fourth year, called Teoxihuitl, or ' divine year,* and at 
 the commencement of every thirteenth year. On 
 these occasions a greater number of victims bled and 
 the penances were more severe than at other times. 
 The Nahuas also observed a grand festival every 
 month in the year; but, as these feasts were closely 
 connected with their religion, and therefore will be 
 necessarily descril)ed at length in the next volume. 1 
 will confine myself here to such an outline description 
 of them as will suffice to give the reader an idea of 
 what they were.* 
 
 ' ' En csta Fiesta, y en todan Ian (iciiihs, <lnndc no so liicicrc iiicncion dc 
 partiinilarcH SacritirioH d(! llomltrcH, lim avia, por 'lor ccma ^eniTal harcrlog 
 <>n tudas laH KcHtividadcH, y no era la que carecia dc cllo.' Tonjucniadn, 
 Afonarij. I ml., toni. ii., p. 'I'tT). 
 
 * 'Le fcHte, clic annnalnientc hi cclcbravano, crano piii Holiuini iirl 
 Teoxihuitl, <i Anno divino, <|iiali erann tutti )rli aniii, 4-lie avoano ]H>r carat- 
 tcre il (7iini}{lio.' ('l'ui:iifero, Sloria Ant. t(cljifi:s.si)-o, toni. ii., ji. 84; Cur- 
 bajal Jispiiiona, Hint. Shx., t«»ni. i., p. 541). 'Kn cada prinnipio del nios en 
 el dia que nonibraniua cabeza dc sicrpo celehralian una fiesta HulcniniHliim 
 
RELIGIOUS FEASTS. 
 
 805 
 
 |i)UMini w\ 
 \ iKT t lunt- 
 
 Lid iiiow •'" 
 LlciuiiiH>»>» 
 
 The Aztec feast that is mentioned first by the old 
 writers, namely that of the month Atlcalmalco, 
 *tho diminishing of the waters,' or, as it was called in 
 some p.rrts, Quahuitlehua, 'burning of the trees or 
 mountains,' was celebrated in honor of the Tialocs, 
 gods of rains and waters. At this feast a great number 
 of sucking infants were sacrificed, some upon certain 
 high mountains, others in a whirlpool in the lake of 
 Mexico. The little ones were mostly bought from their 
 mothers, though sometimes they were voluntarily pre- 
 sented by parents who wished to gain the particular 
 favor of the god. Those only who had two curls on 
 tiie head, and who had been l)orn under a lucky sign 
 were tliought acceptable to the gods. The sacrifices 
 were not all made in one place, but upon six several 
 mountains and in the lake. These were visited one 
 after another by a great [)rocesHion of })riusts attended 
 by the music of flutes and trumpets, and Ibllowed by 
 a vast multitude of people thirsting for the sight of 
 blood; nay, more, literally luuigoring for the flesh of 
 the babes, if we may credit the assertion of some 
 authors, that the bodies were actually l)rought back 
 and the flesh eaten as a choice delicacy by the priests 
 and chief men. But of cannibalism more anon. 
 
 The little ones were carried to their death upon 
 gorgeous litters adorned with plumes and jewels, and 
 were themselves dressed in a s|)lendi(l manner in em- 
 broidered and jeweled mantlt s.md sandals, and colored 
 paper wings. Their faws v.are stained with oil of 
 India-rubber, and upon each <;heek was jjainted a round 
 white spot. No wonder that, as the old chroniclers 
 say, the people wept as the doomed l)abes j)assed by; 
 suruly there was good cause for weej)ing in such a 
 sight. Gladiatorial combats alid sacrifice of prisoners 
 of war at the temple completed this feast." 
 
 Ill cnn' an |:;imrda(In y fcstoia<la que ni ann burrcr la cnsa ni hacer 
 iliM-oiiipr lu) >i, i»orinitift.' Diirun, Iii.sf. Iiidins, MS., toin. iii., nip. ii. 
 
 * S;i!mi,'iiti III liis Mliort ri^suinij of t!in frsliva! HtatcM tliat hoiuo hold 
 tli'iH <;plclir,ilitm to liiivc Iweii in honor of Clialchihiiitiiruc, the v;i'.."r};od- 
 •lesH, and others in honor of Quctzaleoatl ; but Uiinka that it mi"ht havo 
 Vol. II. iw 
 
306 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The next fe ist, that in the montL of Tlacaxipehu- 
 aliztli, 'the flaying of men,' was held in honor of Xipe, 
 who was especially the patron deity of the gold- 
 smiths.* This god was thought to inflict sore eyes, 
 itch, and other diseases upon those who offended him, 
 and they were therefore careful to observe his feast 
 with all due regularity and honor. On this occasion 
 thieves convicted for the second time of stealing gold 
 or jewels'' were sacrificed, besides the usual number of 
 prisoners of war. The vigil of the feast, on the last 
 day of the preceding month, began with solemn 
 dances. At midnight the victims were taken from 
 the chapel, where they had been compelled to watch, 
 and brought before the sacred fire. Here the hair 
 was shaven from the top of their heads, the captors 
 at the same time drawing blood from their own ears 
 in honor of the idol; tlie severed topknot of each war 
 prisoner was afterwards hung up at the house of his 
 captor as a token and memorial of the father's bravery. 
 Towards daybreak some of the prisoners were taken 
 up to the great temple to be sacrificed. But before 
 we proceed farther it will be necessary to see how 
 these human offerings were made. 
 
 Sacrifices varied in number, place, and manner, 
 according: to the circumstances of the festival. In 
 general the victims suffered death by having the 
 breast opened, and the heart torn out; but others 
 were drowned, others were shiit up in caves and 
 starved to death, others fell in the' gladiatorial sacri- 
 fice, which will be described elsewhere. The cus- 
 
 bccn in honor of all these deities, namely, the Tlnlocs, Clialchilmitlicue, 
 and Quctzalcoatl. Sahuffiin, Hist. Gen., torn, i., liij. ii., pj). 49-50, 83-7. 
 See also Torqtiemada, Monarq. lud., torn, ii.'pp. 250-2, 295. 
 
 « Although Saha^un states that Huitzilopochtli also received honors 
 this month, yet no direct ceremonies were oi)8erved before his image. The 
 large number of captives sacriticed, however, tlie universality and length 
 of the festivities, the royal dance, etc., would certainly jMjint to a celebrii- 
 tion in honor of a greater deity than Xipc. He also says; 'En esta (icstii 
 mataban todos los cautivos, honibres, mugcres, y nifios, which is not very 
 probable. Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 88. 
 
 ' Thieves convicted the seccnd time of stealing gold articles were sac- 
 rificed. Brasaeur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 503. 
 
SACRIFICIAL RITES. 
 
 307 
 
 led honors 
 
 Ivnd le"«"» 
 . a cclcbni- 
 Insta tti'*t'^ 
 Is not very 
 
 L were sac- 
 Is. 
 
 tomary place was the temple, on the topmost plat- 
 form of which stood the altar used for ordinary sacri- 
 fices. The altar of the great temple at Mexico, says 
 Clavigero, was a green stone, probably jasper, convex 
 above, and about three feet high and as many broad, 
 and more than five feet long. The usual ministers of 
 the sacrifice were six priests, the chief of whom was 
 the Topiltzin, whose dignity was preeminent and 
 hereditary; but at every sacrifice he assumed the 
 name of that god to whom it was made. When sac- 
 rificing he was clothed in a red habit, similar in shape 
 to a modern scapulary, fringed with cotton; on his 
 head he wore a crown of green and yellow feathers, 
 from his ears hung golden ear-ornaments and green 
 jewels, and from his under lip a pendant of turquoise. 
 His five assistants were dressed in white habits of the 
 same make, but embroidered with black; their hair 
 was plaited and bound with leather thongs, upon their 
 foreheads were little patches of various-colored paper ; 
 their entire bodies were dyed black. The victim was 
 carried naked up to the temple, where the assisting 
 priests seized him and threw him prostrate on his back 
 upon the altar, two holding his legs, two his feet, and 
 the fifth his head ; the high-priest then approached, 
 and V. ith a heavy knife of obsidian cut open the mis- 
 eral»!.: iiu»n's breast; then with a dexterity acquired 
 by loi.ii practice the sacrificer tore forth the yet 
 |.ai;>)>ai.iiig heart, which he first offered to the sun 
 ii id iliju threw at the foot of the idol; taking it up 
 h'. <igu ^ of^L'-ed it to the god and afterwards burned 
 it, pre'icr zing the ashes with great care and venera- 
 tion. Sometimes the heart was placed in the mouth 
 of the idol with a golden spoon. It was customary 
 also to anoint the lips of the image and the cornices 
 of the door with the victim's blood. If he was a 
 prisoner of war, as soon as he was sacrificed they cut 
 < ^ his head to preserve the skull, and threw the body 
 ' wn tbe temple steps, whence it was carried to the 
 ht-'j of the warrior by whom the victim had been 
 
308 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 taken captive, and cooked and eaten at a feast given 
 by him to his friends ; tlie body of a slave purchased 
 for sacrifice was carried off by the former proprietor 
 for the same purpose. This is Clavigero's account. 
 The same writer asserts that the Otomis having killed 
 the victim, tore the bouj In pieces, which they sold at 
 market. The Zapotecs sacrificed men to their gods, 
 women to their goddesses, and children to some other 
 diminutive deities. At the festival of Teteionan the 
 woman who represented this goddess was beheaded 
 on the sho. 'Jcrs of another woman. At the feast 
 celebrating i.) ival of the gods, the victims were 
 
 burned to deal. We have seen that they drowned 
 children at one feast in honor of Tlaloc; at another 
 feast of the same god several little boys were shut up 
 in a cavern, and left to die of fear and hunger.® 
 
 Let us now proceed with the feast of Xipe. We 
 left a part of the doomed captives on their way to 
 death. Arrived at the summit of the temple each 
 one is led in turn to the altar of sacrifice, seized by 
 the grim, merciless priests, and thrown upon the 
 stone; the high-priest draws near, the knife is lifted, 
 there is one great cry of agony, a shuffle of feet as 
 the assistants are swayed to and fro by the death 
 struggles of their victim, then all is silent save the 
 
 * Clavigcro, Sloria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 45-9. The same 
 author says with regard to the miniber of sacrifices made annually in the 
 Mexican Etnpire, tliat he can atiirni notliing, as the reports vary greatly. 
 'Zumarraga, the first bishop of Mexico, says, in a letter of the 12tli of 
 June, 1531, addressed to the general chapter of his order, that in that 
 capital alone twenty thousapu human victims were annually sanriftced. 
 Some authors, (quoted by Gomara, attirm, that the number of the sacrificed 
 amounted to fifty thousand. Acosta writes, that there was a certain day 
 of the year on which five thousand were sacrificed in difl'erent places of the 
 empire; and another day on which they sacrificed twenty thousand. Some 
 authors believe, that on the mountain Tepeyacac alone, twenty thousand 
 were sacrificed to the goddess Tonantzin. Torauemada, in quoting, though 
 unfaithfully, the letter of Zumarraga, says, tiiat there were twenty thou- 
 sand infants annually sacrificed. But, on tlie contrary. Las Casas, in his 
 refutation of the bloody btmk, wrote by Dr. Sepulvcda, reduces the sac- 
 rifices to so small a number, that wo are left to lielieve, they amounted 
 not to fifty, or at most not to a hundred. We are strongly of opinion that 
 all these authors liave erred in the number, Las Casas by diminution, the 
 rest by exaggeration of the truth.' Id., Translation, Lonii. 1807, vol. i., p. 
 281. 
 
SACRIFICES IN HONOR OF XIPE. 
 
 809 
 
 muttering of the high-priest as high in air he holds 
 the smoking heart, while from far down beneath comes 
 a low hum of admiration from the thousands of up- 
 turned faces. 
 
 The still quivering bodies were cast down the tem- 
 ple steps, as at other times, but on this occasion they 
 were not taken away until they had been flayed, for 
 which reason these victims were called xipeme, 
 'flayed,' or tototecti, 'one who dies in honor of Totec' 
 The remains were then delivered over to the captor 
 by certain priests, at the chapel where he had made 
 his vow of offering, a vow which involved a fast of 
 twenty days previous to the festival. A thigh was 
 sent to the king's table, and the remainder was cooked 
 with maize and served up at the banquet given by 
 the captors, to which their friends were invited. This 
 dish was called tlacatlaoUi ; the giver of the feast, 
 says Sahagun, did not taste the flesh of his own cap- 
 tive, who was held, in a manner, to be his son, but ate 
 of others. 
 
 The next day another batch of prisoners, called 
 oavanti, whose top hair had also been shaved, were 
 brought out for eacrifice. In the meantime a number 
 of young men also termed tototecti, began a gladia- 
 torial game, a burlesque on the real com 1 tat to follow; 
 dressing themselves in the skins of the flayed victims, 
 they were teased to fight by a number of their com- 
 rades ; these they pursued and put to flight, and there- 
 upon turned against one another, dragging the van- 
 quished to the guard-house, whence they were not 
 discharged until a fine had been paid. A number of 
 priests, each representing a god, now descended from 
 the summit of the temple, and directed their steps to 
 the stone of sacrifice, which stood below and must 
 not be confounded with the altar, and seated them- 
 selves upon stools round about it, the high-priest 
 taking the place of honor. After them came four 
 braves, two disguised as eagles, and two as tigers, who 
 performed fencing tactics as they advanced, and were 
 
3 
 
 : 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 810 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 destined to fight the captives. A band of singers and 
 musicians, who were seated behind the priests, and 
 bore streamers of white feathers mounted on long poles 
 which were strapped to their shoulders, now began 
 to sound flutes, shells, and trumpets, to whistle and 
 to sing, while others approached, each dragging his 
 own captive along by the hair. A cup of pulque was 
 given to each of these poor wretches, which he pre- 
 sented toward the four quarters of the earth, and then 
 sucked up the fluid by means of a tube, A priest 
 thereupon took a quail, cut off its head before the 
 captive, and taking the shield which he carried from 
 Lim he raised it upwards, at the same time throwing 
 the quail behind him — a symbol, perhaps, of his fate. 
 Another priest arrayed in a bear-skin, who stood as 
 godfather tc tlie doomed men, now proceeded to tie 
 one of the captives to a ring fixed in the elevated flat 
 stone upon which the combat took place; he then 
 handed him a sword edged with feathers instead of 
 flint, and four pine sticks wherewith to defend him- 
 self against the four braves who were appointed to 
 fight with him, one by one. These advanced against 
 him with shield and sword raised toward the sky, and 
 executing all manner of capers ; if the captive proved 
 too strong for them, a fifth man who fought both with 
 the right and left hand was called in.® Those who 
 were too faint-hearted to attempt this hopeless combat, 
 had their hearts torn out at once, whilst the others 
 were sacrificed only after having been subdued by the 
 braves. The bleeding and quivering heart was lield up 
 to the sun and then thrown into a bowl, prepared for 
 its reception. An assistant priest sucked the blood 
 from the gash in the chest through a hollow cane, the 
 end of which he elevated towards the sun, and then 
 discharged its contents into a plume-bordered cup held 
 by the captor of the prisoner just slain. This cup 
 was carried round to all the idols in the temples and 
 
 < This farce difTered from the regular gladiatorial combat which will be 
 described elsewhere. 
 
GHASTLY BEGGARS. 
 
 811 
 
 chapels, before whom another blood-filled tube was 
 held up as if to give them a taste of the contents; 
 this ceremony performed, the cup was left at the pal- 
 The corpse was taken to the chapel where the 
 
 ace 
 
 captive had watched and there flayed, the flesh being 
 consumed at a banquet as before.*** The skin was 
 given to certain priests, or college youths, who went 
 from house to house dressed in the ghastly garb, with 
 the arms swinging, singing, dancing, and asking for 
 contributions; those who refused to give anything 
 received a stroke in the face from the dangling arm. 
 The money collected was at the disposal of the cap- 
 tor, who gave it to the performers, and, no doubt, it 
 eventually found its way to the temple or school 
 treasury." After the sacrifice, the priests, chiefs, and 
 owners of the captives commenced to dance the mot- 
 zontecomaitotia, circling round the stone of combat, 
 weeping and lamenting as if going to their death, the 
 captors holding the heads of the dead men by the 
 hair in their right hands, and the priests sv.inging the 
 cords which had held them toward the four quarters of 
 the compass, amid many ceremonies. The next morn- 
 ing solemn dances were held everywhere, beginning at 
 the royal palaces, at which everybody appeared in 
 his best finery, holding tamales or cakes in his 
 hands in lieu of flowers, and wearing dry maize, in- 
 stead of garlands, as appropriate to the season. They 
 also carried imitations of amaranths made of feathers 
 and maize-stalks with the ears. At noon the priests 
 retired from the dance, whereupon the lords and no- 
 
 ^'^ 'Quedanan las cabecas coracones paralos sacerdotes.' Gomara, Cono, 
 Mcx., fol. 327. 
 
 " ' Guardaban alguno que fiiese principal sefior para eatc dia; el cual 
 dcssolaban para que se vestiese Montezuma gran Key de la tierra y con «Sl 
 baylaba con sus reales contenencias.' Las Casas, Hist. Apolog6tica, MS., 
 cap. clxx. ' Einbutian los cueros dc alj^odon o paja, y, o los colgauan en el 
 teinplo, o en palacio,' in the case of a prisoner of rank. Goinnra, Conq. 
 Mcx., fol. 327. It is not stated that the persons who wore the skins and 
 made the collection were connected with the temple, but this was no doubt 
 the case, especially as many authors mention that priests had to dress them- 
 selves in the uhastly ^arb {or a certain time. For representation of priest 
 dressed in a flayed skin see Nebel, Viaje, pi. xxxiv. 
 
812 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 \A 
 
 \'-[ 
 
 bles arranofed themselves in front of the palace by 
 threes, with the king at their head, holding the lord 
 of Tezcuco by the right hand and the lord of Tlaco- 
 pan by the left, and danced solemnly till sunset. 
 Other dances by warriors, and women, chiefly prosti- 
 tul.f^s, followed at the temple and lasted till midnight, 
 the motions consisting of swinging of arms and inter- 
 winding. The festivities were varied by military 
 reviews, sports, and concerts, and extended over the 
 whole month. It was held incumbent upon everyone 
 at this time to eat a kind of uncooked cake called 
 huilocpalli. The Tlascaltecs called this month Cohuail- 
 huitl, 'feast of the snake,' a name which truly indi- 
 cates rejoicings, such as carnivals, sports, and banquets, 
 participated in by all classes. Celebrations in honor 
 of Camaxtli were also held at this time here as well 
 as in Huexotzinco and many other places, for which 
 the priests prepared themselves by a severe fast. The 
 ceremonies when they took place in the fourth year, 
 called 'God's year,' were especially imposing. When 
 the time came for the long fast which preceded the 
 feast to begin, those of the priests who had sufficient 
 courage to undergo the severe penance then exacted 
 from the devout were called upon to assemble at the 
 temple. Here the eldest arose and exhorted them to 
 be faithful to their vows, giving notice to those who 
 were faint-hearted to leave the company of penance- 
 doers within five days, for, if they failed, after that time 
 by the rules of the fast they would be disgraced and 
 deprived of their estates. On the fifth day they 
 again met to the number of two or three hundred, 
 although many had already deserted, fearing the 
 severity of the rules, and repaired to Mount Mat- 
 lalcueje, stopping half-way up to pray, while the 
 high-priest ascended alone to the top, where stood a 
 temple devoted to the divinity of this name. Here 
 he offered chalchiuite-stones and quetzal -feathers, 
 paper and incense, praying to Matlalcueje and Ca- 
 maxtli to give his servants strength and courage to 
 
 1 
 
THE FEAST OF CAMAXTLL 
 
 818 
 
 keep the fast. Other priests belonging to various tem- 
 ples in the meantime gathered loads of sticks, two 
 feet long and as thick as the wrist, which they piled 
 up in the chief temple of Camaxtli. These were fash- 
 ioned to the required form and size and polished by 
 carpenters who had undergone a five days' fast, and 
 were, in return for their services, fed outside the tem- 
 ple. Flint-cutters, who had also undergone a fast to 
 ensure the success of their work, were now summoned 
 to prepare knives, which were placed upon clean cloths, 
 exposed to the sun and perfumed; a broken blade was 
 held as a sign of bad fasting, and the one who broke it 
 was reprimanded. At sunset, on the day of the great 
 penance, the achcauhtli, ' eldest brothers,' began chant- 
 ing in a solemn tone and playing upon their drums." 
 On the termination of the last hymn, which was of a 
 very lugubrious character and delivered without 
 accompaniment, the self-torture commenced. Certain 
 penance-doers seized each a knife and cut a hole in the 
 tongue of each man, through which the prepared 
 sticks were inserted, the smaller first and then the 
 stouter, the number varying according to the piety and 
 endurance of the penitent. The chief set the example 
 by passing four hundred and fifty through his tongue,*' 
 singing a hymn at the same time in spite of all. This 
 was repeated every twenty days during the fast, the 
 sticks decreasing in size and number as the time for 
 the feast drew near. The sticks which had been used 
 were thrown as an offering to the idol within a circle 
 formed in the courtyard of the temple with a number 
 of poles, six fathoms in height, and were afterwards 
 burnt. After the lapse of eighty days, a branch was 
 placed in the temple-yard, as a sign that all the peo- 
 ple had to join in the fast for the remaining eighty 
 
 >' 'Citatro tie ciloa cantaban & las navajas.' Motolinia, Hist. In os, in 
 Icazbalrctd, Col. dc Doc, torn, i., p. 57. 
 
 ^^ * Estos palos que nietiun y sacabaii por las lengiias erun tan gordos 
 como cl (icdo piilgar de la niano, y otros conio cl dcdo nulgar del pie : y 
 otros tanto ^ruezos conio los dos dcdos dc la niano pulsar y il con que 
 Befialamos podian abrazar.' Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxii. 
 
314 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 days, during which nothing but maize-cakes, without 
 chile — a severe infliction, indeed, for this people — 
 were to be eaten, no baths taken and no communion 
 with women indulged in," Fires were to be kept 
 alight the whole time, and so strict was this rule that 
 the life of the slaves in great houses depended upon 
 the proper attention paid to it. The chief achcauhtli 
 went once more to the Matlalcueje mountain" escorted 
 by four others, where, alone and at night, he offered 
 copal, paper, and quails; he also made a tour round 
 the province, carrying a green branch in his hand, and 
 exhorting all to observe the fast. The devout seized 
 this opportunity to make him presents of clothes and 
 other valuables. Shortly before the end of the fast 
 all the temples were repaired and adorned, and three 
 days previous to the festival the achcauhtlis painted 
 themselves with figures of animals in various colors, 
 and danced solemnly the whole day in the temple- 
 yard. Afterwards they adorned the image of Ca- 
 maxtli, which stood about seventeen feet high, and 
 dressed the small idol by his side in the raiments of 
 the god Quetzalcoatl, who was held to be the son of 
 Camaxtli. This idol was said to have been brought 
 to the country by the first settlers. The raiment was 
 borrowed from the Cholultecs, who asked the same 
 favor when they celebrated Camaxtli's feast. Ca- 
 maxtli was adorned with a mask of turquoise mosaic," 
 green and red plumes waved upon his head, a shield 
 of gold and rich feathers was fastened to his left arm, 
 and in his right hand he held a dart of fine workman- 
 ship pointed with flint. He was dressed in several 
 
 1^ Motolinia conveys the idea that the people also iicrfornied t)ic inflic- 
 tion on the tongue: 'aauella dcvota gente sacaban jior siis lenguos otros 
 
 palillos de A jeme y del gordor de un caiion de pate' Iliiit. Indios, in Icaz- 
 oalceta. Col. de Doc,, torn, i., p. 68. 
 
 1^ 'Cada dia de estosiba el vieiode noche d la sierra ya dicha y ofrccia 
 al denionio mucho panel, y copalfi, y cordonices.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, 
 in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 58. 
 
 I* ' La cual decian que habia venido con el idolo pequeiio, de un pueblo 
 que se dice ToIIan, y dc otro que se dice Poyauhtlan, de dondc se afirma 
 que fu^ natural el mismo idolo.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, 
 Col. de Doc., torn, i., pp. 58-9. 
 
FEAST OF THE FLOWER-DEALERS. 
 
 815 
 
 robes and a tecucxicolU, like a priest's vestment, open 
 in front and finely bordered with cotton and rabbit- 
 hair, which was spun and dyed like silk. A number 
 of birds, reptiles, and insects were killed before him, 
 and flowers offered. At midnight, a priest dressed in 
 the vestments of the idol lighted a new fire, which 
 was consecrated with the blood of the principal cap- 
 tive, called the Son of the Sun. All the other tem- 
 ples were supplied from this flame. A great number 
 of captives were thereupon sacrificed to Camaxtli as 
 well as to other gods, and the bodies consumed at the 
 banquets that followed. The number killed in the 
 various towns of the province amounted to over one 
 thousand, a number greatly increased by the numer- 
 ous sacrifices offered at the same time in other places 
 where Camaxtli was worshiped." 
 
 The next feast, which was that of the month called 
 Tozoztontli, or 'short vigil,' was characterized by a 
 constant night watch observed by the priests in the 
 various temples, where they kept fires burning and 
 sounded the gongs to prevent napping. More of the 
 children bought in the first month were now sacrificed, 
 and offerings of fruit and flowers were made to induce 
 the Tlalocs to send rain." The chief event, however, 
 of this month, was a fast given in honor of Cohuatlicue, 
 or Coatlantona, by the xochimanques, or flower-dealers, 
 of Mexico. The celebration took place in the temple 
 of Yopico, which was under the special care and pro- 
 tection of the people of Xochimilco and Quauhnahuac, 
 whose lands were renowned for the beauty and abun- 
 dance of their flowers. Here were offered the first flow- 
 ers of the season, of which hitherto none might inhale 
 the perfume, and here the j)eople sat down and chanted 
 hymns of praise to the goddess. Cakes made of wild 
 
 " See also Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 288-90, 252-3, 296. 
 
 '^ ' Echaban por el pueblo cierto i)eclio 6 derraina recogientlo taiito habcr 
 que pudicsen coiiiprar cuatro ninoa esclavos dc cinco li scis afios. Estos 
 coinprados poiiianlos en una cueva y cerrabania liasta otro afio que hacian 
 otro tunto.' Laa Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxx. 
 
!| 
 
 816 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 amaranth or savory, called tzatzapaltamale, were also 
 offered. In this temple of Yopico was a grotto in 
 which the skins of the victims sacrificed at the feast 
 of the preceeding month were now deposited by the 
 priests who had worn them continuously until this 
 time. These marched in solemn procession to the 
 grotto, accompanied by a number of people whom 
 the angered Xipe had smitten with itch, or eye dis- 
 eases; this act of devotion would, it was thought, 
 induce the god to relent and remove the curse. The 
 owners of the captives to whom the skins had 
 belonged, and their fctmilies, of whom none was per- 
 mitted to wash his head during the month, in token 
 of sorrow for the slain, followed the procession. The 
 priests doffed their strange and filthy attire and depos- 
 ited it in the grotto ; they were then washed in water 
 mixed with flour, their bodies at the same time being 
 belabored and slapped with the moist hands of their 
 assistants, to bring out the unhealthy matter left by 
 the rotting skins. This was followed by a lustration in 
 pure water. The diseased underwent the same washing 
 and slapping. On returning home feasting and anmse- 
 ments broke out anew. Among other sports the owners 
 of the late prisoners gave the paper ornaments which 
 had been worn by them to certain young men, who, 
 having put them on, took each a shield in one hand 
 and a bludgeon in the other; thus armed they ran 
 about threatening to maltreat those whom tliey met. 
 Everybody fled before them, calling out "here comes 
 the tetzonpac." Those who were caught forfeited their 
 mantles, which were taken to the house of the war- 
 rior, to be redeemed, perhaps, after the conclusion of 
 the game. The paper ornaments were afterwards 
 wrapped in a mat and placed upon a tripod in front of 
 the wearer's house. By the side of the tripod a 
 wooden pillar was erected, to which the thigh-bone of 
 a victim, adorned with gaudy papers, was attached 
 amid many ceremonies, and in the presence of the 
 captor's friends. Both these trophies commemorated 
 
FEAST OF CENTEOTL. 
 
 817 
 
 the bravery of the owner. This lasted six days. 
 About this time, says Duran, certain old diviners 
 went about provided with talismans, generally small 
 idols, which they hung round the necks of boys by 
 means of colored thread, as a security against evil, 
 and for this service received presents from the 
 parents." 
 
 The following month, which was called Huey-To- 
 zoztli, 'great vigil,'" a feast was celebrated in honor of 
 Centeotl, the god of cereals, and Chicomecoatl, god- 
 dess of provisions. At this time both people and 
 priest fasted four days. Offerings of various kinds 
 were made to the gods of the feast, and afterwards a 
 procession of virgins strangely and gaudily attired 
 carried ears of corn to be used as seed, to the temple 
 to be blersed." 
 
 The first half of the succeeding mcith, called 
 Toxcatl, was, among the Mexicans, taken up with 
 a continuous series of festivals in honor of Tezcat- 
 lipoca; the latter half of the month was devoted to 
 the worship of his brother-god Huitzilopochtli. Ten 
 days before the feast began, a priest, arrayed in the 
 vestments of TezcatHpoca, and holding a nosegay in 
 one hand and a clay flute in the other, came out 
 from the temple, and turning first to the east and then 
 to the other three quarters, blew a shrill note on his 
 instrument ; then, stooping, he gathered some dust on 
 
 " Duran adds that all male children under twelve years of age were 
 punctured in the ears, tongue, and leg, and kept on sliort allowance on the 
 day of festival, but this is not very probable, for other authors name tho 
 fifth month for the scarification of infants. Hist. Indiiis, MS., tom. iii., 
 appendix, cap. iii. For particulars of the feast see Sahagun, Hist. Gen., 
 tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 52-4, 95-7; Torquenmda, Monarq. Intl., torn, ii., pp. 
 25.3-5, 296; Boturini, Idea, pp. 51-2. 
 
 '» Boturini, Idea, n. 52, translates this name as 'the great bleeding,' 
 referring to the scarifications in expiation of sins. 
 
 " Tonjiieinada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii,, pp. 255-6; Sahagun, Hist. 
 Gen., torn. L, lib. ii., pp. 97-100. According to Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., 
 tom. iii., appendix, cap. iii., the Tlalocs were worshiped this month also, 
 and this involved bloody rites. KingsborotigK's Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 
 43-4. Motolinia states that food was offered to the stalks: 'delante do 
 aquellas cafias ofrccian comida y atolli.' Hist. Indies, in Icazbalceta, Col. 
 de Doc, tom. i., p. 46. For a more detailed description of this feast see 
 VoL III. of this work, pp. 360-2. 
 
318 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 his finger and swallowed it, in token of humility and 
 submission. On hearing the whistle all the people 
 knelt, ate dust, and implored the clemency and favor 
 of the god. On the eve of the festival the nobles 
 brought to the temple a present of a new set of robes, 
 in which the priests clothed the idol, adorning it be- 
 sides with its proper ornaments of gold and feathers ; 
 the old dress was deposited in the temple coffers as a 
 relic. The sanctuary was then thrown open to the 
 multitude. In the evening certain fancifully attired 
 priests carried the idol on a litter round the court- 
 yard of the temple, which was strewn with flowers 
 for the occasion. Here the young men and maidens 
 devoted to the service of the temple formed a circle 
 round the procession, bearing between them a long 
 string of withered maize as a symbol of drought. 
 Some decked the idol with garlands, others strewed 
 the ground with maguey-thorns, that the devout might 
 step upon them and draw blood in honor of the god. 
 The girls wore lich dresses, and their arms and cheeks 
 were dyed; the boys were clothed in a kind of net- 
 work, and all were adoiaed with strings of withered 
 mpize. Two priests marched beside the idol, swing- 
 ing their lighted censers now towards the image, now 
 towards the sun, and praying that their appeals might 
 rise to heaven, even as the smoke of the burning 
 copal; and as the people heard and saw they knelt 
 and beat their backs with knotted cords. 
 
 As soon as the idol was replaced, offerings poured 
 in of gold, jewels, flowers, and feathers, as well as 
 toasted quails, corn, and other articles of food pre- 
 pared by women who had solicited and obtained the 
 privilege. This food was afterwards divided among 
 the priests, who, in fact, seem to have really reaped 
 the benefit on most religious occasions. It was car- 
 ried to them by a procession of virgins who served in 
 the temple. At the head of the procession marched 
 a priest strangely attired in a whice-bordered surplice, 
 reaching to the knee, and a sleeveless jacket of red 
 
FEAST OF TEZCATLIPOCA. 
 
 319 
 
 skin, with a "pair of wings attached, to which hung a 
 number of ribbons, suspending a gourd filled with 
 charms. The food was set down at the temple stair- 
 way, whence it was carried to the priests by attendant 
 boys. After a fast of five days these divine viands 
 were doubtless doubly welcome. 
 
 Among the captives brought out for sacrifice at the 
 same festival a year before, the one who possessed the 
 finest form, the most agreeable disposition, and the 
 highest culture, had been selected to be the mortal 
 representative of the god till this day. It was abso- 
 lutely necessary, however, that he should be of spot- 
 less physique, and, to render him still more worthy of 
 the divine one whom he personated, the calpixques, 
 under whose care he was placed, taught him all the 
 accomplishments that distinguished the higher clnss. 
 He was regaled upon the fat of the land, but was 
 obliged to take doses of salted water to counteract 
 any tendency toward obesity; he was allowed to go 
 out into the town day and night, escorted by eight 
 pages of rank dressed in the royal livery, and received 
 the adoration of the people as he passed along. His 
 dress corresponded with liis high })08ition; a rich and 
 curiously bordered mantle, like a fine net, and a max- 
 tli with wide, embroidered margin, covered his body; 
 white cock-feathers, fastened with gum, and a garland 
 of izquixnchitl flowers, encircled the helmet of sea- 
 shells which covered his head; strings of flowers 
 crossed his breast; gold rings hung from his ears, and 
 from a necklace of precious stones about his neck dan- 
 gled a valuable stone; upon his shoulders were pouch- 
 like ornaments of white linen with fringes and tassels; 
 golden brcacelets encircled the up[)er ])art of his arms, 
 while the lower part was almost covered with others 
 of precious stones, called macucortli ; upon his ancles 
 golden bells jingled as he walked, and prettily painted 
 sli[)pers covered his feet. 
 
 Twenty days before the feast he was bathed, and his 
 dress changed ; the hair being cut in the style used by 
 
820 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 captains, and tied with a curious fringe which formed a 
 tassel falling from the top of the head, from which two 
 other tassels, made of feathers, gold, and tochomitl, and 
 called aztaxelli, were suspended. He was then married 
 to four accomplished damsels, to whom the names of 
 four goddesses, Xochiquetzal, Xilonen, Atlatonan, 
 and Huixtocioatl were given, and these remained with 
 him until his death, endeavoring to render him as 
 happy as possible. The last five days the divine honors 
 paid to him became still more imposing, and celebrations 
 were held in his honor, the first day in the Tecanman 
 district, the second in the ward where the image of 
 Tezcatlipoca stood, the third in the woods of the ward 
 of Tepetzinco, and the fourth in the woods of Tepe- 
 pulco; the lords and nobles gave, besides, solemn ban- 
 quets followed by recreations of all kinds. At the 
 end of the fourth feast, the victim was placed with 
 his wives in one of the finest awning-covered canoes 
 belonging to the king, and sent from Tepepulco to 
 Tlapitzaoayan, where he was left alone with the 
 eight pages who attended him during tlie year. These 
 conducted him to the Tlacochcalco, a small and plain 
 temple standing near the road, about a league from 
 Mexico,'" which he ascended, breaking a flute against 
 every step of the staircase. At the summit lie was 
 received by the sacrificing ministers, who served him 
 after their manner, and held up his heart exultingly 
 to ' ho sun ; .the body was carried down to the court- 
 yard on tlie arms of priests, and the liead having been 
 cni off was spitted at the Tzonipantli, or 'place of 
 skulls;' tlio legs and arms Avere set apart as sacred 
 food for the lords and people of the temple. This 
 
 ^ 'Le Tlacochcalco, ou maison d'armea, dtai'. nn arsenal, consocrd i\ 
 Hnitziloporlitli, dans I'cnccintc dii grand temple. 11 so tronvait Ji cOte un 
 teooalli oil Ton offrait des Racrificcs sixSciaux h, cc dii'ju ct t\ Tetzeatlipoca.' 
 Brasseur dc liourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toin. iii., p 510. This sanctwary 
 outside the town was also dependent on the great temple, and, as the fate 
 of the youth was to illustrate the miserable end to w lich riches and pleas- 
 ures may come, it is, perhaps, more likely that this iii>or and lonely edifice 
 was the place of sacriiicc. Clavigcro, Storia Aiit. Oct. Memco, torn, ii., p. 
 70, Miys 'cuaducevanlo. . . .al tonipio di Tezcatlipoca,' 
 
FEAST OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI. 
 
 831 
 
 end, so terrible, signified that riches and pleasures 
 may turn into poverty and sorrow; a pretty moral, 
 truly, to adorn so gentle a tale. 
 
 After the sacrifice, the college youths, nobles, and 
 priests commenced a grand ball for which the older 
 priests supplied the music; and at sunset the vir- 
 gins brought another offering of bread made with 
 honey. This was placed upon clay plates, covered 
 with skulls and dead men's bones, carried in pro- 
 cession to the altar of Tezcatlipoca, and destined for 
 the winners in the race up the temple steps, who 
 were dressed in robes of honor, and, after undergo- 
 ing a lustration, were invited to a banquet by the 
 temple dignitaries. The feast was closed by giving 
 an opportunity to boys and girls in the college, of a 
 suitable age, to marry. Their remaining comrades 
 took advantage of this to joke and make sport of 
 them, pelting them with soft balls and reproving 
 them for leaving the service of the god for the pleas- 
 ures of matrimony.** Tezcatlipoca's representative 
 was the only victim sacrificed at this festival, but 
 every leap-year the blood flowed in torrents. 
 
 After this celebration commenced the festival in 
 honor of the younger brother of Tezcatlipoca, Huit- 
 zilopoehtli, the Mexican god of war. The priests of 
 the god prepared a life-size statue like his original 
 image, the bones of which were composed of mez- 
 quite-wood, the flesh of tzoalli, a dough made from 
 amaranth and other seeds. This they dressed in the 
 raiments of the idol, viz: a coat decorated with 
 human bones, and a net-like mantle of cotton and ne- 
 i|uen, covered by another mantle, the tlaqmupiallo, 
 adorned with feather- work, and bearing a gold plate 
 upon its front; its wide folds were painted with 
 tlio bones and members of a human being, and fell 
 •tver a number of men's bones made of dough, which 
 
 ^ Rrassciir dc Bourboiirp indicates that the race in the temple, and the 
 lilioration of the marriageable took place in leap-yeuni only, but he evi- 
 •If'iitly misunderstands his authority. Freacott, olex., vol, i., pp. 75-7, 
 KivoH un account of this festival. 
 Vol. U. 31 
 
322 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 
 represented his power over death. A paper crown, 
 very wide at the top and set with plumes, covered 
 this head, and attached to its feather-covered summit 
 was a bloody flint-knife, signifying his fury in battle. 
 The image was placed upon a stage of logs, formed to 
 resemble four snakes whose heads and tails protruded 
 at the four corners, and borne by four of the principal 
 warriors^* to the temple of Huitznahuac, attended by 
 a vast number of people, who sang and danced along 
 the road. A sheet of maguey-paper, twenty fathoms 
 in length, one in breadth, and one finger in thickness, 
 upon which were depicted the glorious deeds of the 
 god, was carried before the procession on the points of 
 darts ornamented with feathers, the bearers singing 
 the praises of the deity to the sound of music.** At 
 sunset the stage was raised to the summit of the tem- 
 ple by means of ropes attached to the four corners, 
 and placed in position. The paper painting was then 
 rolled up in front of it, and the darts made into a 
 bundle. After a presentation of offerings consisting 
 of tamales and other food, the idol was left in charge 
 of its priests. At dawn the next morning similar 
 offerings, accompanied with incense, were made to the 
 family image of the god at every house. That day 
 the king himself appeared in the sacerdotal character. 
 Taking four quails, he wrenched their heads ott* one 
 after another, and threw the quivering bodies before 
 the idol ; the priests did the same, and then the peo- 
 ple. Some of the birds were prepared and eaten by 
 the king, priest, and principal men at the feast, the 
 rest were preserved for another occasion. Each min- 
 ister then placed coals and chapopotli incense** in his 
 
 ** Contrary to the statement of others, Brasaenr <le Bourbours; says that 
 the stage was borne by temple officers; surely, warriors were tne lit per- 
 sons to attend the god of war. 
 
 «* ' Lleviibanle entablado con unas saetas que ellos llamaban (cumttl, las 
 cualcs teiiian plumas en trcs partes junto el casquiilo, y en el medio, y el 
 cabo, iban estiis saetas una debajo, y otra encinia del pai)el; tomiibanla-i 
 doB, uno de una parte, y otro de otra,' llevdndolas asidas ambas juntas con 
 las manos, y con ellas apretaban el paplon una por encima, y otra por de- 
 bajo.' Sahagun, Hist. Geii., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. lOS-ft. 
 
 *^ ' El Incienso no era del ordinario, que llaman Copal bianco, ni de el 
 
INCENSING OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI. 
 
 823 
 
 tleinaitl^ and wafted the disagreeable odor towards 
 the idol. The ashes were then emptied from the cen- 
 sers into an immense brazier, called the tlexictli, or 
 'fire-navel.' This ceremony gave the name to the 
 festival, which was known as the 'incensing of Huit- 
 zilopochtli.' The girls devoted to the service of the 
 temple now appeared, having their anns and legs 
 decorated with red feathers, their faces painted, and 
 garlands of toasted maize on their heads; in their 
 hands they held split canes, upon which were flags of 
 paper or cloth painted with vertical black bars. Link- 
 ing hands they joined the priests in the grand dance 
 called toxcaehocholoa. Upon the large brazier, round 
 which the dancers whirled, stood two shield-bearers 
 with blackened faces, who directed the motions. 
 These men had cages of candlewood tied to their 
 backs after the manner of women. The priests who 
 joined in the dance wore paper rosettes upon their 
 foreheads, yellow and white plumes on their heads, 
 and had their lips and their blackened faces smeared 
 with honey. They also wore undergarments of paper, 
 called amasmaxtli, and each held a palm wand in his 
 hand, the upper part of which was adorned with flow- 
 ers, while the lower end was tipped with a ball, both 
 balls and flowers being made of black feathers; the 
 part of the wand grasped in the hand was rolled in 
 strips of black-striped paper. When dancing, they 
 touched the ground with their wands as if to support 
 themselves. The musicians were hidden from view 
 in the temple. The courtiers and vvarriors danced in 
 another part of the courtyard, apart from the priests, 
 with girls attired somewhat like those already de- 
 scribed. 
 
 At the same time that the representative of Tez- 
 
 Incicnso cnniiin .... ^tno de vna Gomo, h Betun negro, il inancra do Fez, el 
 (|iiiil lic(>r Hc ciigcndrn en la Mar, y sua Agnas, y oToa, lo licclian en algunos 
 partci^ il 8U8 riberas, y orillos, y le llaman Chapopotii, el qual lieuha de »\ 
 null olor, para quien no le acostunibra & oler, y es intenso, y fucrte.' Tor- 
 qucmnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 266. 
 
 ^ A kind of perforated and ornamented censer, shaped like a large 
 spoon. 
 
324 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 catlipoca was chosen, the year before, another youth 
 was appointed to represent Huitzilopochtli, to whom 
 was given the name of Ixteocale, that is, 'eyes of the 
 lord of the divine house.'^ He always associated 
 with the other doomed one of Tezcatlipoca, and shared 
 his enjoyments; but, as the representative of a less 
 esteemed god, he was paid no divine honors. His 
 dress was characteristic of the deity for whom he 
 was fated to die. Papers painted with black circles 
 covered his body, a mitre of eagle-feathers, with wav- 
 ing plumes and a flint knife in the centre adorned his 
 head, and a fine piece of cloth, a hand square, with a 
 bag called patoxin above it, was tied to his breast; 
 on one of his anns he hjul an ornament made of the 
 hair of wild beasts, like a maniple, called imatacax, 
 and golden bells jingled about his ankles. Thus ar- 
 rayed he led the dance of the plebeians,* like the 
 god conducting his warriors to battle. This youth 
 had the privilege of choosing the hour of his death, 
 but any delay involved the loss to him of a propor- 
 tionate amount of glory and happiness in the other 
 world. When he delivered himself up to the sacri- 
 ficers, they raised him on their arms, tore out his 
 heart, beheaded him, and spitted the head at the place 
 of skulls. After him several other captives were im- 
 molated, and then the priests started another dance, 
 the atepocaxixilihua, which lasted the remainder of 
 the day, certain intervals being devoted to incensing 
 the idol. On this day the male and female children 
 born during the year were taken to the temple and 
 scarified on the chest, stomach, and arms, to mark 
 them as followers of the god. 
 
 The feast in honor of Quetzalcoatl, as it was cele- 
 brated during this month in Cholula, and the feast of 
 the following month, called Etzalqualiztli, dedicated 
 
 *" riavigero writes: 'Ixteocale, che vale, Savio Signor del Cielo.' Storin 
 A tit. del Mensico, toiu. ii., p. 72. Several other names are also applied to 
 him. 
 
 *9 'Mischiavasi nel ballo de'Corti^ani.' Clarigero, Storia Ant. del Men- 
 tico, torn, ii., p. 72. 
 
SMALL FEAST OF THE LORDS, 
 
 325 
 
 to the Tlalocs, or rain gods, the reader will find fully 
 described in the next volume." 
 
 The next month was one of general rejoicing among 
 the Nahuas, and was for this reason called Tecuilhuit- 
 zintli, or Tecuilhuitontli, 'small feast of the lords.' 
 The nobles and warriors exercised with arms to pre- 
 pare for coming wars ; hunting parties, open-air sports, 
 and theatricals divided the time with banquets and in- 
 door parties; and there was much interchanging of 
 roses out of compliment. Yet the amusements this 
 month were mostly confined to the lower classes, the 
 more imposing celebrations of the nobility taking place 
 in the following month. The religious celebrations 
 were in honor of Huixtocihuatl, the goddess of salt, 
 said to have been a sister to the rain gods, who quar- 
 reled with her, and drove her into the salt water, 
 where she invented the art of making salt. Her 
 chief devotees were, of course, the salt-makers, mostly 
 females, who held a ten-days' festival in her temple, 
 singing and dancing every evening from dusk till 
 midnight in company with the doomed captives. 
 They were all adorned with garlands of a sweet-snitl' 
 ing herb called iztauhiatJ, and danced in a ring lornicu 
 by cords of flowers, led by some of their own sex; the 
 nmsic was furnished by two old men. The female 
 who represented the goddess and was to die in her 
 honor danced with them, generally in the centre of 
 the circle, and accompanied by an old man holding a 
 beautiful plume, called hi(ixt(>j>('tlaeotl; if very nervous 
 .she was suppoited by old women.''* She was dressed 
 in the yellow robes of the goddess, and wore oj her 
 head a mitre surmounted by a number ot green 
 plumes ; her huipil and skirt with net covering were 
 worked in wavy outlines, and bordered with chalchi- 
 uites; ear-rings of gold in imitation of flowers hung 
 from her ears; golden bells and white shells held by 
 
 3» Pp. 286-7, 334-43. 
 
 ^[ ' Se juntauan todos lo8 caualleroB y principalcH pcrsonaB de cada pro- 
 
 uincia ve.Hian vna mu^cr dc la ropa y iiiBignias de la diosa de la mu, y 
 
 baylauan con ella todos.' Goiiiara, Conq. Mex., fol. 327. 
 
326 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 straps of tiger-skin, jingled and clattered about her 
 ancles; her sandals were fastened with buttons and 
 cords of cotton. On her arm she bore a shield painted 
 with broad leaves, from which hung bits of parrot- 
 feathers, tipped with flowers formed of eagle-plumage; 
 it was also fringed with bright quetzal-feathers. 
 In her hand she held a round bludgeon, one or two 
 hands broad at the end, adorned with rubber-stained 
 paper, and three flowers, at equal distances apart, 
 filled with incense and set with quetzal-feathers; this 
 shield she flourished as she danced. The priests 
 who performed the sacrifice were dressed in an ap- 
 propriate costume; on the great day, the priests per- 
 formed another and solemn dance, devoting intervals 
 to the sacrifice of captives, who were called Huixtoti 
 in honor of the deity. Finally, towards evening, the 
 female victim was thrown upon the stone by five young 
 men, who held her while the priests cut open her 
 breast, pressing a stick or a swordfish-bone against her 
 throat to prevent her from screaming. The heart was 
 held up to the sun and then thrown into a bowl. The 
 music struck up and the people went home to feast.** 
 The feast of the following month, Hueytecuilhuitl, 
 or 'great feast of the lords,' occurred at the time of 
 the year when food was most scarce, the grain from 
 the preceding harvest being nearly exhausted and the 
 new crop not yet ripe for cutting. The nobles at this 
 time gave great and solemn banquets among them- 
 selves, and provided at their persqpal expense feasts 
 for the poor and needy. On the eleventh day a reli- 
 gious celebration took place in honor of Centeotl, 
 under the name of Xilonen, derived from xilotl, which 
 means a tender maize-ear, for this goddess changed 
 her name according to the state of the grain. On 
 this occasion, a woman who represented the goddess 
 
 '* ' Era esta fiesta de nuiy poca solemnidad ysin ceremoiiias, ni coinidas, 
 y sin niuertc" de huinbrcs; en fin no era mas dc una prenaracion jjara la 
 nesta venidcia del mes que viene.' Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, lii., ap- 
 pendix, cap. iii. ; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., toni. i., lib. ii., pp. 124-8; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Messico, toui. ii., pp. 74-5. 
 
GREAT FEAST OF THE LORDS. 
 
 327 
 
 and was dressed in a similar manner, was sacrificed. 
 The day before her death a number of women took 
 her with them to offer incense in four places, which 
 were sacred to the four characters of the divisions of 
 the cycle, the reed, the flint, the house, and the rab- 
 bit. The night was spent in singing', dancing, and 
 praying before the temple of the goddess.** On the 
 day of sacrifice certain priestesses and lay women 
 whirled in a ring about the victim, and a number of 
 priests and principal men who danced before her. The 
 priests blew their shells and horns, shook their rattles 
 and scattered incense as they danced, the nobles held 
 stalks of maize in their hands which they extended 
 toward the woman. The priest who acted as execu- 
 tioner wore a bunch of feathers on his shoulders, held 
 by the claws of an eagle inserted in an artificial leg. 
 Towards the close of the dance this priest stopped at 
 the foot of the temple, shook the rattle-board before the 
 victim, scattered more incense, and turned to lead the 
 way to the summit. This reached, another priest 
 seized the woman, twisted her shoulders against his, 
 and stooped over, so that her breast lay exposed. On 
 this living altar she was beheaded and het heart torn 
 out. After the sacrifice there was more dancing, in 
 which the women, old and young, took part by them- 
 selves, their arms and legs decorated with red macaw- 
 feathers, and their faces painted yellow and dusted 
 with marcasite. The whole pleasantly finished with 
 a feast. Offerings were also presented to the house- 
 This festival inaugurated the eating of 
 
 During the next month, which was called Tlaxo- 
 
 33 Duran says that the women took the victim to mount Chapultepec, to 
 the very summit, and said, ' My dauj^hter, let us liiistcn back to the place 
 whence we came,' whereupon all started back to the temple, chasing the 
 doomed woman before them. Hist. Indias, MS., toni. iii., appendix, cap. 
 iii. 
 
 ^^ Sa/iagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. 128-39; Torquemada, Mo- 
 narq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 269-71, 297-8; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., tom. iii., p. 518, says: 'Les rois eux-ni6mes prenaient alors part 
 k la danse, qui avait lieu dans lea endroits oil ils puuvait s'assenibler le plus 
 lie spectatcurs.' 
 
 hold gods 
 corn.^ 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 chimaco, or 'the distribution of flowers,'" gifts of flow- 
 ers were presented to the gods and mutually inter- 
 changed among friends. At noon on the day of the 
 great feast, the signal sounded and a pompous dance 
 was begun in the courtyard of the temple of Huitzi- 
 lopochtli, to whom the honors of the day were paid, 
 in which the performers consisted of various orders of 
 warriors led by the bravest among them. Public 
 women joined these dances, one woman going hand in 
 hand with two men, and the contrary, or with their 
 hands resting on each other's shoulders, or thrown 
 round the waist* The musicians were stationed at 
 a round altar, called momuztli. The motions consisted 
 of a mere interwinding walk, to the time of a slow 
 song. At sunset, after the usual sacrifices, the peo- 
 ple went home to perform the same dance before their 
 household idol; the old indulging in liquor as usual. 
 The festival in honor of lyacacoliuhqui, the god of 
 commerce, was, however, the event of the month, 
 owing to the number and solemnity of the sacrifices of 
 slaves, brought from all quarters by the wealthy mer- 
 chants for the purpose, and the splendor of the attend- 
 ant banquets. The Tlascaltecs called this month 
 Miccailhuitzintli, 'the small festival of the dead,' and 
 gathered in the temples to sing sorrowful odes to the 
 dead, the priests, dressed in black mantles, making 
 offerings of food to the spirit of the departed. This 
 seems to have been a commemoration of the ordinary 
 class only, for the departed heroes and great men were 
 honored in the following month. Duran and others 
 assert, however, that the festival was devoted to the 
 memory of the little ones who had died, and adds that 
 the mothers performed thousands of superstitious cere- 
 monies with their children, placing talismans upon 
 them and the like, to prevent their death." 
 
 s* Torqiiemadn, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 271. 
 
 '* 'Salian los Hombres Nobles, y niuehas Mii);crc8 Principales, y asianse 
 
 (le las munoB los vnos, dc los otros, inezclodos Hombres, y Mugeres iiiiii por 
 
 ordcn, y liiego se lieclmban los brakes al ciicUo, y osi abra9auos, coiiiciifa- 
 
 ban h, moversc niiii paso h, paso.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 271. 
 
 ^ Duran, Hist, Indtvu, MS., torn, iii., appenaix, cap. iii.; Veytia, 
 
FEAST OF THE FALL OF FRUIT. 
 
 329 
 
 The feast of the next month, called Xocotlhuetzin, 
 'fall, or maturity of fruit,' was dedicated to Xiuhte- 
 cutli, the god of fire. At the beginning of the month 
 certain priests went out into the mountains and 
 selected the tallest and straightest tree they could 
 find. This was cut down and trimmed of all except 
 its top branches.'" It was then moved carefully into 
 the town upon rollers, and set up firmly in the court- 
 yard of the temple, where it st<x)d for twenty days. 
 On the eve of the feast-day the tree was gently low- 
 ered to the ground ; early the next morning carpen- 
 ters dressed it perfectly smooth, and fastened a cross- 
 yard five fathoms long, near the top, where the 
 branches had been left. The priests now adorned the 
 pole with colored papers, and placed upon the summit 
 a statue of the god of fire, made of dough of am- 
 aranth-seeds, and curiously dressed in a maxtli, sashes, 
 and strips of paper. Three rods were stuck into its 
 head, upon each of which was spitted a tamale, or 
 native pie. The pole was then again hoisted into an 
 erect position. 
 
 Those who had captives to offer now appeared, 
 dancing side by side with the victims, and most gro- 
 tesquely dressed and painted. At sunset the dance 
 ceased, and the doomed men v/ere shut up in the tem- 
 ple, while their captors kept guard outside, and sang 
 hymns to the god. About midnight every owner 
 brought out his captive and shaved off his top hair, 
 which he carefully kept as a token of his valor. At 
 dawn the human offerings were taken to the Tzom- 
 pantli, where the skulls of the sacrificed were spitted, 
 and there stripped by the priests of their dress and 
 ornaments. At a certain signal each owner seized his 
 captive by the hair and dragged or led him to the 
 
 HiM. Ant. Mrj., torn, i., p. 65; Torqiieniada, Monarq. hid., torn, ii., pp. 
 '"i; Sa/iagiiii, Hist. Gen., toin. i., lib. ii., pp. 61-2, 1,^~ 
 
 271-.% 298; 
 
 1.39-41. 
 
 3' 'Cortabanun ffcan drbol en cl inontc, dc veiiitc y cinco brazas dc 
 larjjo.' Sahaffun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 141. ' L'eniportaient (the 
 tree) proccssionnclIc:iictit au temple dc Hiiitzilopuchtli, sans rien lui enle- 
 vcr uc sea ranicaux ni dc son fcuillagc' Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hint. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 521. 
 
330 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 foot of the temple-steps. Thereupon those priests 
 who were appointed to execute the fearful saeritice 
 descended from the temple, each hearing in his hand 
 a bag filled with certain stupefying powder extracted 
 from the yiauhtli plant, which they threw into the 
 faces of the victims to deaden somewhat the agony 
 before them. Each naked and bound captive was 
 then borne upon the shoulders of a priest uj) to the 
 summit of the temple, where smoldered a great heap 
 of glowing coal. Into this the bearers cast their liv- 
 ing burdens, and when the cloud of dust was blown 
 oft* the dull red mass could be seen to heave, human 
 forms could be seen writhing and twisting in agony, 
 the crackling of flesh could be distinttiy heard.** But 
 the victims were not to die by fire ; in a few moments, 
 and before life was extinct, the blackened and blistered 
 wretches were raked out by the watching priests, cast 
 one after another upon the stone of sacrifice, and in a 
 few moments all that remained upon the sunnnit of 
 the temple was a heap of human Hearts smoking 
 at the feet of the god of fire. 
 
 These bloody rites over, the people came together 
 and danced and sang in the courtyard of the temple. 
 Presently all adjourned to the place where the pole 
 before mentioned stood. At a given signal the 
 youths made a grand scramble for the pole, and he 
 who first reached the summit and scattered the 
 image and its accoutrements among the applauding 
 crowd below, was reckoned the hero of the day. With 
 this the festival ended, and the pole was dragged 
 down by the multitude amid much rejoicing. 
 
 The Tepanecs, according to Duran, had a \evy sim 
 ilar ceremony. A huge tree was carried to +'' 
 trance of the town, and to it offerings and 
 were presented every day during the month pi iling 
 the festival. Then it was raised with many cei mo- 
 nies, and a bird of dough placed at the top. Food 
 
 " Clavigero says that the captors sprinkled the victims and threw them 
 into the fire. Storia Ant. del Messico, toiii. ii., p. 77. 
 
 •Ml 
 
 .liSt; 
 
FEASTS OF TEPANEC8 AND TLASCALTEC8. 
 
 831 
 
 and wine wore offered, and then the warriors and 
 women, dressed in the finest gannents and holding 
 small dougli idols in their hands, danced round the 
 
 I)ole, while the youths struggled wildly to reach and 
 Luock down the bird image. Lastly, the pole was 
 overthrown.*" 
 
 The Tlascaltecs called the same month Hueymiccail- 
 huitl, 'the great fcHtival of the dead,' and commemo- 
 rated the event with much solemnity, painting their 
 bodies black and making much lamentation. Both 
 here and in other j)arts of Mexico the priests and no- 
 bles passed several days in the temple, weeping for 
 their ancestors ?,nd singing their heroic deeds. The 
 families of lately deceased persons assembled upon the 
 terraces of their houses, and prayed with their faces 
 turned towards the noiih, where the dead were sup- 
 posed to sojourn. Heroes who had fallen in battle, or 
 died in captivity, defunct princes, and other persons 
 of merit were, in a manner, canonized, and their stat- 
 ues placed among the images of the gods, whom, 
 it was believed, they had joined to live in eternal 
 bliss." 
 
 The festival of the next month, called Ochpaniztli, 
 was held in honor of Centeotl, the mother-goddess. 
 Fifteen days before the festival began those who were 
 to take part in it connnenced a dance, which they 
 repeated every afternoon for eight daj's. At the ex- 
 piration of this time the medical women and midwives 
 brought forth the woman who was to die on this oc- 
 casion, and dividing themselves into two parties, 
 fought a sham battle by pelting each other with 
 leaves. The doomed woman, who was called 'the 
 image of the mother of the gods," placed herself at 
 the head of one party of the combatants, sup})orted 
 
 <» Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., appendix, torn, iii., cap. iii. 
 
 *' 'C'etait lY'poquo oil la noblesse ccldhrait la commemoration des princes 
 c't (les (fuerriers <jui les avaicnt pr^cjdes.' Jirassevr de Bonrboiirtf, Hist, 
 '''if. Civ., toni. ill., p. .522; Torruemada, Monarq. Ind., toni. ii., pp. 21(8, 
 ..:i-5; Codex Telkriano-Reiuerma, in Kingsborough's Mcx. Anliq., vol. v., 
 pp. 130-1. 
 
S32 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 by three old women who guarded and attended upon 
 her continually. This was repeated durim^ tour suc- 
 cessive days. On tlie fifth day the unfortunate crea- 
 ture was conductecl by her guardians and the medical 
 women through the market-place. As fjhe walked 
 she scattered maize, and at the end of her journey 
 she was received by the priests, who delivered her 
 again uO the women that they might console her (for 
 it was necessary that she should be in a good humor, 
 say the old chroniclers) and adorn her with the orna- 
 ments of the mother-goddess. At midnight she was 
 carried to the summit of the temple, caught up upon 
 the shoulders of a priest, and in this position beheaded. 
 The body while yet warm was flayed, and the skin 
 used in certain reliorious ceremonies which will be de- 
 scribed at length elsewhere." In this month the tem- 
 pies and idols underwent a thorough cleansing and 
 repairing, a sacred work in which everyone was eager 
 to share according to his means and ability, believing 
 that divine blessings would ensue. To this commend- 
 able custom is no doubt to be attributed the good con- 
 dition in which the religious edifices were found by 
 the Conquerors, liojids, public buildings, and private 
 houses also shared in this renovation, and special 
 prayers were offered up to the gods for the preserva- 
 tion of health and j)ro[)erty. 
 
 The festival of the succeeding month, called Teot- 
 leco, 'coming of the gods,' was sacred to all the deities, 
 though the principal honors were paid to Tezcatlipoca 
 as the supreme head. Fifteen days of the month 
 being ])assed, the college-boys prepared for the great 
 event by decorating the altars in the temples, orato- 
 ries, and public buildings, with green branches tied in 
 bunches of three. In the same manner they decked 
 the idols in private ho'ises, receiving from the inmates, 
 as their reward, baskets containing from two to four 
 ears of maize ; this gift was called cacalotl. 
 
 ** Sec volume iii., of thix work, pp. .364-9, wlivrc t\ tlitailcd (lo8cri|>tion 
 of this festival m givi'ii. 
 
FOOTSTEPS OF THE GODS. 
 
 333 
 
 Tezcatlipoca, being younger and stronger than the 
 other gods, and therefore able to travel faster, was 
 expected to arrive during the night of the eighteenth. 
 • A mat, sprinkled with flour, was therefore placed on 
 the threshold of his temple, and a priest set to watch 
 for the footprints which would indicate the august 
 arrival.*^ He did not, however, remain constantly 
 close to the mat ; had he done so he would probably 
 never have seen the longed-for marks, but he ap- 
 proached the spot from time to time, and immediately 
 on perceiving the tracks he shoutsd: "His majesty 
 has arrived;" whereupon the other priests arose in 
 haste, and soon their shells and trumpets resounded 
 through all the temples, proclaiming the joyful tidings 
 to the expectant people. These now flocked in with 
 their offerings, each person bringing four balls made of 
 roasted and ground amaranth -seed kneaded M'ith 
 water; they then returned to their homes to feast and 
 drink pulque. Others beside the old peo[)le appear 
 to have been permitted to indulge in libations on this 
 occasion, which they euphoniously called 'washing the 
 feet of the god' after his long journey. On the follow- 
 ing day other deities arrived, and so they kept com- 
 ing until the last divine laggard had left his footprints 
 on the mat. Every evening the people danced, feasted, 
 * wjished the feet of the gods,' and made a sacrifice of 
 slaves, who were thrown alive upon a great bed of 
 live coal which glowed on the tccaleo.** At the head 
 of the steps leading uj) to the place of sacrifice stoml 
 two young men, one of whom wore long, false hair, 
 and a crown adorned with rich plumes; his face was 
 })ainted black, with white curved stripes drawn from 
 ear to forehead, and f roiu the inner corner of tlie eye 
 
 *' SnhnKtin writes: 'A la meclin noclie de cMe miniiio din, inolian iiii 
 ixico (le hiiriiia de iiiiiiz, y hnciaii iiii montoncillo dc ella liicn tiipidu: y In 
 tiiltricabnn dc liariiin. redoiido cuinn tin q\tcHi>, sobro iiii pctatc. En ol 
 iimnin vcian ciiundo habiaii llegado todox los dioHcs, p4)r<iiio aparccin iiiin 
 pisada do un pie |)cqucilu Bobro la liariiiu.' Hint. Gen., toiii. i., lib. ii., p. 
 l.J7. 
 
 ** These sacrifices by fire apncar to liavc been made upon the siuiunit of 
 a Hniall temple which stood wiUiin the ruurtyard of the iar)(er one. 
 
88A 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 to the cheek ; down his back hung a long feather, with 
 a dried rabbit attached to it. The other nian was 
 dressed to resemble an immense bat, and held rattles 
 like poppy-heads in his hands. Whenever a victim 
 was cast into the fire these weird figures daii'ed and 
 leaped, the one whistling with his fingers and mouth, 
 the other shaking his rattles.*® 
 
 After the sacrificing was ended, the priests placed 
 themselves in order, dressed in paper stoles which 
 crossed the chest from shoulder to armpit, and 
 ascended the steps of the small edifice devoted to fire 
 sacrifices; hand in hand they walked round, and then 
 rushed suddenly down the steps, releasing each other 
 in such a manner as to cause many to tumble. This 
 game, which certainly was not very dignified for 
 priests to play at, was called mamatlavicoa, and gave 
 rise to much merriment, especially if any of the rev- 
 erend players should lose his temper, or limp, or make 
 a wry face after a fall. The festival closed with a 
 general dance, which lasted from noon till night. At 
 this season all males, young and old, wore feathers of 
 various colors gummed to the arms and body, as talis- 
 mans to avert evil.** 
 
 The festival of the next month, called Tepeilhuitl, 
 was sacred to the Tlalocs, and is fully described else- 
 where." The Mexican Bacchus, CJentzontotoclitin, 
 was also especially honored during this month, accord- 
 ing t^> Torquemada, and slaves were sacrificed to him. 
 A captive was also sacrificed by night to a deity 
 named Nappatecutli." 
 
 The festivals of the ensuing month, which was 
 
 ** 'Ballnvano attorno ad un gran fuoco niolti ciovaiii travestiti in iMirec- 
 chi<! forme di iiumtri, cfrattaiit(>aiidavani>Kettun(lude'|irigi<)iiieri iiel nioco. ' 
 Clavuftro, Storia Ant. del Measico, toiii. ii., p. 78; BrasscHr tie Bourbuinuj, 
 Hist. },at. Viv., toiii. iii., p. 527. 
 
 « The burning an<l dancing took place on the first two days of the fol- 
 lowing month, according to Sahagun. 'Kstos dos dias jjostreros (run del 
 mes que oc siguc.' Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 150; Torquemada, Mo- 
 vara. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 278-9. 
 
 « See vol. iii., p. 343-6. 
 
 M Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., toni. ii., pp. 152-3. 
 
FESTIVAL OF THE MONTH QUECHOLLI. 
 
 fol- 
 
 n Ae\ 
 
 Mo- 
 
 called Quecholli,*' were devoted to various deities, 
 though Mixcoatl, god of the chase, seems to have car- 
 ried the honors in most parts of Mexico. The first 
 five days of the month were passed in repose, so far 
 as rehgious celebrations were concerned, but on the 
 sixth day the authorities of the city wards ordered 
 canes to be gathered and carried to the temple of Hu- 
 itz'lc iochtli; there young and old assembled during 
 the four days following, to share in the sacred work 
 of making arrows. The arrows, which were all of 
 uniform length, were then formed into bundles of 
 twenty, carried in procession to the temple of Huit- 
 zilopochtli, and piled up in front of the idol. The 
 four days were, moreover, devoted to fasting and 
 penance, involving abstinence from strong liquors, and 
 separation of husbands from wives. On the second 
 day of the fast, the boys were summoned to the tem- 
 ple, where, having first blown upon shells and trump- 
 ets, their faces were smeared with blood drawn from 
 their ears. This sacrifice, called momacaico, was made 
 to the deer which they proposed to hunt. The rest of 
 the people drew blood from their own ears, and if any 
 one omitted tliis act he was deprived of his mantle by 
 the overseers. 
 
 On the second day following, darts were made to 
 be used in games and exercises, and shooting matches 
 were held at which maguev-leaves served for targets. 
 The next day was devoted to ceremonies in honor of 
 the dead by rich and poor. The day after, a great 
 quantity of hay was brought from the hills to the 
 temple of Mixcoatl. Upon this certain old priestesses 
 seated themselves, while mothers brought their chil- 
 dren before them, accompanied by five sweet tamales. 
 On this day were also ceremonies in honor of the god 
 of wine, to whom sacrifices of male and female slaves 
 were nuide by the pulque-dealers. 
 
 On the tenth day of the month a number of lumt- 
 ers set out for mount Cacatepec, near Tacubaya, to 
 
 *' The nttiiie uf a bird witli red and blue plumage. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 celebrate the hunting festival of Mixcoatl, god of the 
 chase. On the first day they erected straw huts, in 
 which they passed the night. The next morning, 
 having broken their fast, they formed themselves into 
 a great circle, and all advancing toward a common 
 centre, the game was hemmed in and killed with ease. 
 The spirits of the children sacrificed to the rain-gods, 
 whose dwelling was upon the high mountains, were 
 supposed to descend upon the hunters and make t'hem 
 strong and fortunate. Having secured their game, 
 the hunters started for home in grand procession, sing- 
 ing songs of triumph, and hymns to the mighty Mix- 
 coatl. After a solemn sacrifice of a portion of the 
 game to the god, each took his share home and feasted 
 upon it.* The Tlascaltecs sacrificed to the god at the 
 place where the hunt took place, which was upon a 
 neighboring liill. The way leading to the spot was 
 strewn with leaves over which the idol was carried 
 with great pomp and ceremony." Towards the close 
 of the month male and female slaves were sacrificed 
 before Mixcoatl."^ 
 
 In Tlascala and the neighboring republics this was 
 the 'month of love,' and great numbers of young girls 
 were sacrificed to Xochiquetzal, Xochitecatl, and Tla- 
 zolteotl, goddesses of sensual delights. Among the 
 victims were many courtesans, who voluntarily offered 
 themselves, some to die in the temple, others on the 
 battlefield, where they rushed in recklessly among the 
 enemy. As no particular disgrace attended a life of 
 prostitution, it seems improbable that remorse or re- 
 pentance could have prompted this self-sacrifice, it 
 must therefore be attributed to pure religious fervor. 
 
 ** ' Al undtioimo dia de este mes, iban & hocer una casa d aquella sierra 
 que estahii cncinia dc Atlacuioaynn, y esta era fiesta p<>r si, de inaiiera quo 
 en este nies Iui1>ia dos fiestas.' Saha(jini, Hist. Gen., toni. i., lib. ii., p. _I6!». 
 'No sacritii-alNin estc dia hcinibrcs sino eaza, y asi la caza scrvia de yiutinias 
 & los Uioscs.' Durim, IUhL Indian, MS., appendix, turn, iii., cap. iii.; Tor- 
 quetnadtt, Motiarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 148-9. 
 
 i' Acostti, Hist, de lu» Ynd., pp. .127-S; Montnnua, Nieuwe Weereld, p. 
 221; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., li)». ii., cap. xv. 
 
 >*Sahagun, Hiat. Gen., turn, i., lib. ii., p. IG7. 
 
FEAST OF THE MONTH OF HARD TIMES. 
 
 387 
 
 As a recompense for their devotion, these women be- 
 fore they went to their death had the privilege of 
 insulting with impunity their chaster sisteiu It is 
 further said that a certain class of young men addicted 
 to unnatural lusts, were allowed at this period to 
 solicit custom on the public streets. At Quauhtitlan, 
 every fourth year, during this month, a festival was 
 celebrated in honor of Mitl, when a slave was bound 
 to a cross and shot to death with arrows.** 
 
 The feast of the next month, called Panquetzaliz- 
 tli, was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, god of war; that 
 of the following month, called Atemoztli, was sacred 
 to the Tlalocs. Both these festivals will be described 
 elsewhere." 
 
 The ensuing month was named Tititl, or the month 
 of 'hard times,' owing to the inclement weather. The 
 celebrations of this period were chiefly in honor of an 
 aged goddess, named Ilamatecutli, to whom a female 
 slave was sacrificed. This woman represented the 
 goddess and was dressed in white garments decorated 
 with dangling shells and sandals of the same color: 
 upon her head was a crown of feathers; the lower 
 part of her face was painted black, the upper, yellow ; 
 in one hand she carried a white shield ornamented 
 with feathers of the eagle and the night-heron, in the 
 other she held a knitting stick. Before going to her 
 death she performed a dance, and was permitted, con- 
 trary to usual custom, to express her grief and fear in 
 loud lamentations. In the afternoon she was con- 
 ducted to the temple of Huitzilopochtli, accompanied 
 by a procession of priests, among whom was one 
 dressed after the manner of the goddess Ilamatecutli, 
 After the heart of the victim had been torn from her 
 breast, her head was cut off and given to this person- 
 age, who immediately placed himself at the head of 
 the other priests and led them in a dance round the 
 
 " Torquemnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 299, 280-1; Brasaeur de 
 Bourlmirtf, Hist. Nnt. Civ., toin. iii., p. 5.30, trnn. ii., pp. 402-3. 
 " ISee vol. iii. of thin work, pp. 297-300, 323-4, 346-8. 
 Vol. II. 23 
 
888 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 temple, brandishing the head by the hair the whil6. 
 As soon as the performers of the vecula, as this dance 
 was named, had left the summit of the temple, a priest 
 curiously attired descended, and, proceeding to a spot 
 where stood a cage made of candlewood adorned with 
 papers, set fire to it. Immediately upon seeing the 
 tlames the other priests,, who stood waiting, rushed 
 one and all up again to the temple-top ; here lay a 
 Hower, which was secured by the first who could put 
 hands upon it, carried back to the fire, and there 
 burned. On the following day a game was played 
 which resembled in some respects the Roman Luper- 
 (talia. The players were armed with little bags filled 
 with paper, leaves, or flour, and attached to cords 
 three feet long. With these they struck each other, 
 and any girl or woman who chanced to come in their 
 way was attacked by the boys, who, approaching 
 quietly with their bags hidden, fell suddenly upon her, 
 crying out: "This is the sack of the game." It some- 
 times happened, however, that the woman had pro- 
 vided herself with a stick, and used it freely, to the 
 great discomfiture and utter rout of the urchins."" A 
 captive was sacrificed during this month to Mictlan- 
 tecutli, the Mexican Pluto, and the traders celebrated 
 a granci feast in honor of Yacatecutli.'^ During the 
 last Aztec month, which was called Itzcalli, imposing 
 rite? were observed throughout Mexico in honor of 
 Xiuhtecutli, god of fire;" in the surrounding states, 
 such as Tlacopan, Coyuhuacan, Azcapuzalco," Quauh- 
 titlan,* and Tlascala,™ ceremonies more or less similar 
 
 h« 
 
 i 
 
 *^ Gomara aays men and women danced two nights with the gods and 
 drank until they were all drunk. Couq. Mtx., fol. 3*28. Aeeordiu); to Du- 
 ron, Cainaxtli waH fdted in this month, and a bread railed yocotainally was 
 oaten exclusively on the day of the feMtival. Hint. Imtias, MS., torn, iii., 
 appendix, cap. iii. ; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tuni. i., lib. ii., pp. 179-82. 
 
 *> Clavigero, Sloria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 83; Torquemada, Mo- 
 ttarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 153. 
 
 " Sec vol. jii. of ilm work, pp. 390-3. 
 
 M See Tortuemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 286; Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg. Hint. Nat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 539; £a« C'a«a«, Htst. Apologitica, MS., 
 cap. clxxi. 
 
 i*8ee Qomara, Conq. Sfex., fol. 329; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn. 
 
 f 
 
MISCELLANEOUS FEAST& 
 
 8to 
 
 Bour- 
 
 k MS.. 
 
 were gone through, accompanied by much roasting and 
 flaying of men and women. 
 
 Besides these monthly festivals there were many 
 others devoted to the patron deities of particular 
 trades, to whom the priests and people interested in 
 their worship made offerings, and, in some cases, 
 human sacrifices. There were also many movable 
 feasts, held in honor of the celestial bodies, at harvest 
 time* and on other like occasions. These sometimes 
 happened to fall on the same day as a fixed festival, 
 in which case the less important was either set aside 
 or postponed. It is related of the Culhuas that on 
 one occasion when a movable feast in honor of Tezcat- 
 lipoca chanced to fall upon the day fixed for the cele- 
 bration of Huitzilopochtli, they postponed the former, 
 and thereby so offended the god that he predicted the 
 destruction of the monarchy and the subjugation of 
 the people by a strange nation who would introduce a 
 monotheistic worship." 
 
 One of the most solemn of the movable feasts was 
 that given to the sun, which took place at intervals 
 of two or three hundred days, and was called Netona- 
 tiuhqualo, or 'the sun eclipsed.' Another festival 
 took place when the sun appeared in the sign called 
 Nahui Ollin Tonatiuh,®* a sign much respected by 
 kings and princes, and regarded as concerning them 
 especially. 
 
 At the great festival of the winter solstice, which 
 took place either in the month of Atemoztli or in that 
 of Tititl, all the people watched and fasted four days, 
 and a number of captives were sacrificed, two of whom 
 represented the sun and moon.*^ About the same 
 
 ii., pp. 28C-7; Lcta Ctisas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxi; Motolinia, 
 Hist. InUios, in fcazbalceta, Col. tte Doc., t«»ni. i., pp. 4.3-4. 
 
 ''"See Las Cases, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxi.; Torquemada, 
 Moiiarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 291. 
 
 *' lirasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 538. 
 
 <•< ' Naltiii Ollin Tonatiuh, esto es, el sol en rhb cuatro movientos, 
 aconipaAodn de la Via lactca.' Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, -oi i., p. 91. 
 
 ^ 'Mataban quatro Cautivos de urn que se Uainalian Chaclianie, que 
 quicre dccir: Toutos; y mataban tanibieu la inia<;cn del Sol, y de la Luna, 
 que eri^n doB Honibrea.' Torquemtula, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 148. 'Od 
 
840 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 time a series of celebrations were held in honor of 
 Iztacacenteotl, goddess of white maize; the victims 
 sacrificed on this occasion were lepers and others suf- 
 fering from contagious diseases.** Whenever the sign 
 of Ce MiquiztlijOr One Death, occurred, Mictlantecutli, 
 god of hades, was f^ted, and honors were paid to the 
 dead.*" Of the heavenly bodies, they esteemed next 
 to the sun a certain star, into which Quetzalcoatl was 
 supposed to have converted himself on leaving' the 
 earth. It was visible during about two hundred and 
 sixty days of the year, and on the day of its first ap- 
 pearance above the horizon, the king gave a slave to 
 be sacrificed, and many other ceremonies were per- 
 formed. The priests, also, offered incense to this star 
 every day, and drew blood from their bodies in its 
 honor, acts which many of the devout imitated." 
 
 At harvest-time the first-fruits of the season were 
 offered to tlie sun. The sacrifice on this occasion was 
 called Tetlimonamiquian, 'the meeting of the stones.' 
 The victim, who was the most atrocious criminal to 
 be found in the jails, was placed between two im- 
 mense stones, balanced opposite each other; these 
 were then allowed to fall together. After the remains 
 had been buried, the principal men took part in a 
 dance:; the people also danced and feasted during the 
 day and night." 
 
 Every eight years a grand festival took place, called 
 
 immolait ensuite un grand nombre de captifs, dont les principaux, appclds 
 Chachainu, figuraicnt le soleil ct la lunc' Brasseur dc Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 535. 
 
 *< Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 160-2; Leon y Gama, Dos 
 Piedras, pt i., p. 91. 
 
 ** Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 538. 
 
 '« 'Creen que Topilciii su rey primcro so coiiuertio en aquella cstrclla.' 
 Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 331; Las Casus, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. 
 clxxiv. 
 
 «' Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., pp. 249-50. * Papahua-tlamacazqui, 
 on Ministrca aux longs clieveux. C'eat par Icura mains que pa^saient Ics 
 pr^mices dcs fruits dc la tern; qu'on offrait aux astres du iour ct dc |a nuit 
 
 On immolait nn grand nombre dc captifs ct, h Icur dcfaut, Ics criininels 
 
 Sur leur sepulture on executait un ballet.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., pp. 274-5. For description of Zapotec harvest- 
 feast see Burqoa, Geog. Descrip., torn, ii., pt ii., fol. 332-3; Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, tiist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 40-2. 
 
THE BINDING OF THE YEARS. 
 
 841 
 
 Atamalqualiztli, 'the fast of bread and water/ the 
 principal feature of which was a mask ball, at which 
 people appeared disguised as various animals whose 
 actions and cries they imitated with great skill." 
 The most solemn of all the Mexican festivals was 
 that called Xiuhmolpilli, that is to say, 'the binding- 
 up of the years.' Every fifty-two years was called a 
 'sheaf of years,' and it was universally believed that at 
 the end of some 'sheaf the world would be destroyed. 
 The renewal of the cycle was therefore hailed with 
 great rejoicing and many ceremonies.** 
 
 <8 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn i., lib. ii., pp. 195-7. 
 
 ^ For description of this feust see vol. iii. of this work, pp. 393-6. 
 The authorities on Aztec festivals arc: Sahaaun, Hist. Gen., toin. i., lib. 
 ii., pp. 49-218, lib. i., pp. 1-40; Kingsborougltfs Mex. Antiq., vol. vii., pp. 
 1-98; Torqitemada, Monarq. Jnd., torn, ii., pp. 147-56, 246-300; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., pp. 66-86; Las Casas, Hist. Apoloqitica, 
 MS., cap. clxix-clxxvii. ; Motolinta, Hist. Indies, in Icazbalccta, Col. de 
 Doe., torn, i., pp. 38-62; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 326-36; Duran, Hist. In- 
 dicts, M8., torn, iii., appendix, can. iii.; Leon, Caminodel Cielo, pp. 96-100; 
 Cainurgo, Hist. Tlnx., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcix., pp. 
 130-7; Mendiela, Hist. Ecles., pp. 99-107; Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 
 327-9, 354-6, 360-4, 332-93; Boturini, Idea, pt i., pp. 50-3, 90-3; Tezozomoc, 
 Hi.it. Mex., torn, i., pp. 161-6; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. 
 xv-xvii. ; Purrhas his Pilgrimes, vol. iv., pp. 1040-8; Gemelli Careri, in 
 ChurchilVs Col. Voyages, vol. iv., pp. 490-1; Montamts, Nietnve Weereld, 
 pp. 221, 248, 265-7; IVest und Ost Indisehcr Lnsfgart, pt i., pp. 71-2; Codex 
 
 Tellcriano-Remcnsis, in Kingsboroiigli's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 129-34; 
 Bvasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., pp. 234-5, 5274-5, torn, 
 ii., pp. 462-3, torn, iii., pp. 40-2, 498-547; Klemm, CtUtur-Geschichte, torn. 
 
 v., pp. 104-14; Carbajal Espincin, Hist. Me.v., torn, i., pp. 515-17, 531-51; 
 Bussierre, L'Empire Mex., pp. 128-38; Lenoir, ParalUle, pp, 9-11. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 POOD OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Obioin of Aoricultube— Floatinq Gardens— Aoricc't.tural Prod* 
 UCT8— Manner of preparing the Soil— Description of Agri- 
 cultural Implements— Irrigation- Granaries — 'J ARDENS — 
 THE Harvest Feast— Manner of Hunting— Fishing— Methods 
 OF procuring Salt- Nahua Cookery— Various kinds of Bread 
 —Beans— Pepper— Fruit— Tam ALES— Miscellaneous Articles 
 OF Food— Eating of Human Flesh— Manufacture of Pulque 
 — Preparation of Chocolatl — Other Beverages — Intoxi- 
 cating Drinks— Drunkenness— Time and Manner of Taking 
 Meals. 
 
 Huntinj]^, fishing, and agriculture furnished the 
 Nahua nations with means of subsistence, besides 
 which they had, in common with their unciviUzed 
 brethren of the sierras and forests, the uncultivated 
 edible products of the soil. Among the coast nations, 
 the dwellers on the banks of large streams, and the 
 inhabitants of the lake regions of Andhuac and Mi- 
 choacan, fish constituted an important article of food. 
 But agriculture, here as elsewhere, distinguished sav- 
 agism from civilization, and of the lands of the so- 
 called civilized nations few fertile tracts were found 
 uncultivated at the coming of the Spaniards. Culti- 
 vation of the soil was doubtless the first tangible step 
 in the progressive development of these nations, and 
 this is indicated in their traditionary annals, which 
 point, more or less vaguely, to a remote period when 
 
 (3*9) 
 
AGRICULTURE AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 848 
 
 the Quinames, or giants, occupied the land as yet un- 
 tilled ; which means that the inhabitants were savat^es, 
 whose progress liad not yet exhibited any change suf- 
 ficiently marked to leave its imprint on tradition. At 
 a time still more remote, however, the invention of 
 bows and arrows is traditionally referred to.* 
 
 The gradual discovery and introduction of agricul- 
 tural arts according to the laws of development, wore 
 of course unintelligible to the aboriginal mind; con- 
 sequently their traditions tell us wondrous tales of 
 divine intervention and instruction. Nevertheless, 
 the introduction of agriculture was doubtless of very 
 ancient date. The Olmecs and Xicalancas, tradition- 
 ally the oldest civilized peoples in Mexico, were far- 
 mers back to the limit of traditional history, as were 
 the lineal ancestors of all the nations which form the 
 subject of this volume. Indeed, as the Nahua na- 
 tions were living when the Spaniards found them, so 
 had they probably been living for at least ten centu- 
 ries, and not improbably for a nmch longer period. 
 
 It was, however, according to tradition, during tlie 
 Toltec period of Nahua culture that husbandry and 
 all the arts pertaining to the production and prepara- 
 tion of food, were brought to the highest degree of 
 perfection. Many traditions even attribute to the 
 Toltecs the invention or first introduction of agri- 
 culture.' 
 
 ;i: 
 
 > ' Dicen que en oquellos principios del mnndo ee mantenian los Iiom- 
 bres Bolaniente con frutas y ycrbaa, hastaque nno (i ^nien llanian Tlaoniin- 
 iii, que quiere dccir, el que niatd eonflecna hall6 la invcncion del iirco y la 
 lecha, y que desde ent6nce8 conienzaron & ejercitaree en la caza y nian- 
 tencrsc de carnes de loa animales que niataban en ella.' Vejflia, Hint. Aiit 
 Mrj., torn, i., p. 10. The giants lived 'mas como bruton que conio raciona- 
 Ics: gu alimento cnin las carnca crudas de las aves y fieras qiie cazavan sin 
 (listincion alguna, las frutas y ycrbas silvcstrcs porque nana cultivaban;' 
 yet they knew how to make pufque to get drunk with. /(/., p. l.'il. 
 
 * The Olmecs raised at least maize, chile, and beans 1>efore the time of 
 the Tnltecs. Vei/tia, Hist. Ant. Afej., torn, i., p. 154. The Toltec 'comida 
 era el mismo manteniniiento que ahora sc usa del maiz que sembraban -y 
 l)cncticiaban asi el bianco como el de mas colores.' Sa/uigwi, Hist. Gen., 
 torn, iii., lib. x., p. 112. To the Toltec i^iculture 'debitrici si riconob- 
 l)erole posteriori Nazioni del frumentone, detcotone, del pcveronc, e d'altri 
 utilissimi fnitti.' Claviffero, Storia Ant. del Mesdro, torn, i., p. 127. The 
 Toltecs 'truxeron mays, algodon, y denias semillas.' Vetancvrt, Teatro 
 
344 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 But even during this Toltec period hunting tribes, 
 both of Nahua and other blooa, were purHuing their 
 game in the forests and mountains, especially in the 
 northern region. Despised by their more civilized, 
 corn-eating brethren, they were known as barbarians, 
 dogs, Cliichimecs, 'suckers of blo^jd,' from the custom 
 attributed to them of drinking blood and eating raw 
 flesh. Many tribes, indeed, although very far from 
 being savages, were known to the aristocratic Toltecs 
 as Chichimecs, by reason of some real or imaginary in- 
 feriority. By the revolutions of the tenth century, 
 some of these Chichimec nations, probably of the 
 Nahua blood and tillers of the soil, although at the 
 same time l)old hunters and valiant warriors, gained 
 the ascendancy in Andhuac. Hence the absurd ver- 
 sions of native traditions which represent the Valley 
 of Mexico as occupied during the Chichimec period 
 by a people who, until taught better by the Acolhuas, 
 lived in caverns and subsisted oii wild fruits and raw 
 meat, while at the same time they were ruled by em- 
 perors, and possessed y most complicated and advanced 
 system of government and laws. Their bar))arisni 
 probably consisted for the most part in resisting for a 
 time the enervating influences of Toltec luxury, espe- 
 cially in the pleasures of the table.* 
 
 Mex., pt ii., p. 11. 'Tenian el maiz, algodon, chile, frijolca y las dcnias 
 iienullas de la ticrra que hay.' Ixililxochitl, Rclacioiicn, in Kiiiffsborough's 
 Mex. Antiq., torn, ix., pp. 327, 393-4. 
 
 3 'Su comida era toda espeeie de caza, tanto cuadriipeda como voldtil. 
 
 sin dititincion ni otro coiidiinento que asada, y las frutas |ieru iiadu Hcni- 
 
 braban, ni cultivalmn.* Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toiii. ii., p. 6. 'Nu tteni- 
 braban, ni cocian, ni asaban laa Carnes do la caza.' Their kings and nuhlcs 
 kept forests of deer and hare to sup]>ly the ^teople with food, until in No- 
 naltzin's reign they were taught to plant by a tlesrendant of tiie Toltcrs. 
 Torqtiemada, Moiiarq. Ind., toni. i., pp. 32, 3*-9, 67, 279. They were the 
 first inliabitants of the country and 'solo se niantenian de cafa.* 'Cayauan 
 venados, liebrcs, concjos, coniadrejas, topos, gatos inontCHCs, paxaros, 
 y ann inmundicias coino culebras, lagartos, ratones, langostas, y gusanos, y 
 desto y de yeruas y rayzes sc sustentauan.* Acosta, Hist de las Ynd., pp. 
 45.3-fi. And to the same effect C'lavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. i., 
 pp. 132-3; Brasaeur de Jiourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., i). 203; Her- 
 redia y Sarmiento, Sermon, p. 74; Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles An- 
 nates des Voif., 1843, torn, xmiii., pp. 140, ir»l; Vclancvrt, Teulro Mex., pt 
 ii., p. 12. I'hcy began to till the ground in llotzin's reign, but before that 
 thoy roasted their meat and did not, as many claim, eat it raw. Ixtlilxo- 
 
CHINAMPA8, OR FLOATING OARDENa 
 
 845 
 
 The Aztecs were traditionally com-eatera from the 
 first, but while shut up fur lung years on an island in 
 the lake, they had littlo opportunity for agricultural 
 pursuits. During this period of their history, the fish, 
 birds, insects, plants, and mud of the lake supplied 
 them with food, until floating gardens were invented 
 and subsequent conquests on the main land afforded 
 them broad fields for tillage. As a rule no details are 
 preserved concerning the pre- Aztec peoples; where 
 such details are known they will be introduced in 
 their proper place as illustrative of later Nahua food- 
 customs. 
 
 The chinampas, or floating gardens, cultivated by 
 the Aztecs on the surface of the lakes in Andhuac, 
 were a most extraordinary source of food. Driven in 
 the days of their national weakness to the lake islands, 
 too small for the i-illage which on the main had sup- 
 ported them, these ingenious people devised the chi- 
 nampa. They observed small portions of the shore, 
 detached by the high water and held together by 
 fibrous roots, floating about on the surface of the 
 water. Acting on the suggestion, they constructed 
 rafts of light wood, covered with ,^inaii«;r sticks, 
 rushes, and reeds, bound together with fibrous aipiatic 
 plants, and on this foundation they hea]>ed two or 
 three feet of black mud from the bottom of' the lake. 
 Thus the broad surface around their island home was 
 dotted with fertile gardens, self-irrigating and inde- 
 pendent of rains, easily moved from place to place 
 according to the fancy of the proprietor. They usually 
 took the form of parallelograms and were often over a 
 hundred feet long. All the agricultural products of 
 the country, particularly maize, chile, and beans were 
 soon produced in abundance on the chinampas, while 
 the larger ones even bore fruit and shade trees of con- 
 siderable size, and a hut for the convenience of the 
 
 rhill. Hist. Chich., in KingsboroitqKa Mex. Antia., vol. ix., pp. 213-14; Id., 
 Rlueinnes, p. 3.35. Agriculture introduced in Nopaltzin'a reign. Id., p. 
 344. But Sahagun, Hist. Geii., toni. iii., lib. x., p. It!), says some of the 
 Chichimccs 'hacian tambien alguna sementerilla ae niaiz.' 
 
■ 
 
 ii 
 
 846 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 owner, or gardener. The floating gardens have re- 
 mained in use dowu to modern times, but since the 
 waters of the lakes receded so much from their former 
 limits, they have befji generally attached to the 
 shore, being separated by narrow canals navigated 
 by the canoes which bear their produce to the mar- 
 kets. In later times, however, only flowers and gar- 
 den vegetables have been raised in thi» manner.* 
 
 On the mainland throughout the Nahua territory 
 few fertile spots were left uncultivated. The land 
 was densely p<»pulated, and agriculture was an hon- 
 orable j)rofe8Hiou in which all, except the king, the 
 nobility, and soldiers in time of actual war, were 
 more or less engaged." 
 
 Agricultural products in the shape of f(K)d were 
 not a prominent feature among articles of ex[)ort and 
 impt)rt, excej)ting, of course, luxuries for the tables of 
 the kings and nobles. Each province, as a rule, raised 
 only sufficient supplies for its own ordinary necessi- 
 ties; consequently, when by reason of drought or 
 
 * *S<ibr« jiincia y espiulurin nc crlin tiorra en tul forma, que nn la dcs- 
 ho^a v\ mfua, y alii m'. Hiviiihra, y fiiltiiin, y crceu, y inadiira, y hv llciiu dc 
 Vila fiarti! d otra.' The iiriMluotu are iiiui/c, chile, wild aiiiaruiitli, toiiiatim, 
 liouim, chiuii, pumpkins, etc. A^osta, Hist, de Ian Yiiil., p. 47'.!. ' l.n l«ii- 
 (i;;iirM r<')((>lai'e b <|tiii<lriliiiii;a: la liiiiglicsHa, c la largliczza miii variu; iiiii 
 ]>vr lo nil! liaiiiKi, Mcroiido clic mi pare, otto iH-rticlie in circa di liiiiKiiczxa, 
 lion (liu di tre di lur;;lic/.%a. c iiiciio d'uii picilc d'ulc\azi(iiie Hulla HUpcrlicii; 
 d(>irac<|na.' ('lorii/r/i>, Sturin Aiil. ilrl Mr.ssiro, Utm. ii., pp. l.VJI-.'l. I'n»- 
 diice not mily |iliiiitH useful for ftMMl, dress, and niedicinc, nut llowers and 
 
 (laiits that serve only fur deeonition and lu.xury. /(/., tom. iv., p. '2:1'. <'ar- 
 liajal Ksiilnosa. Hist. Mrj-., toiii. i., p. f)'2(», traiiMlates ('lavi;,'cio's deserip- 
 tioii. 'I'airy IslandM of llowers, overshadowed occasionally ly trees 'if coii- 
 siderahlc si/.c' 'Tliat ar('liipelaj.;o of vvaii(leriii(; islands.' '.'(N) or .'{(N) feet 
 Ion;;, .1 or 4 feet ilecp. I'lr.smtr.i Mix., vol. ii., )ip. 70, 107-H. ''he Mack 
 mud of the cliiiiiimpaH is imprc^riiated with muriate of soda, whii li is grad- 
 ual I v washed out as the surface is watered, lliintliuhll, K.s.siii J'of. toui. 
 
 i., pp. 2(K)-'i. Mention liy (iayan^^os in i'tirlfs, ('iirtn,i, p. 7'.*; Ilriri/i)i i/ 
 Sitriitivnio, Sfriiioii, pp. 9't-i\. '('amcHoneH, que ellos llamaii <'liiiiaiii- 
 jias.' Torqiieni'iila, Mumtrq. lint., toin. ii., p. 48H; Ciirli, Carta.s, pt i., 
 pp. .•J8«. 
 
 * 'Ks csfa provineia (Tlaseala) de iihk'Iiom vallcs llanos y hcrmosos, y 
 todos laliradoH y semltrados.' In Cholula 'iii un palnio de tierra hay i|iip 
 no est^ lahrado.' Cortes, <'iirt)i.i, pp. (W, 7'». 'Tout le nioiidc, plus on 
 moiiiH, H'adonnait h la culture, et se faisait lionneiir (ie travailler ii la cam- 
 |ia;;iic.' Uruxufur dr. Luiirhnurtj, lli-sl. Snt. Cir., torn, iii., p. (5.H; Tiin/nr- 
 mtulii, Motiarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 4Si. 'ilusta los inonteH y sierras fraj^'osas 
 las teniaii ocupadas con semhrados y otrosaprovechamieiitoH.' IxUiixochitl, 
 Hist Chick., ill Kintjsboromjh'a .\f)x. Anliq., vol. i.\., p. 'J50. 
 
ABORIGINAL AGRICULTURE. 
 
 847 
 
 other cause, a famine desolated one province, it was 
 with the greatest difficulty that food could be ob- 
 tained from abroad. The Mexicans were an improv- 
 ident people, and want was no stranger to them.' 
 
 The chief products of Nahua tillage were maize, 
 beans, inagueyes, cacao, chian, chile, and various na- 
 tive fruits.^ The maize, or Indian corn, the dried 
 ears of which were called by the Aztecs centli, and 
 the dried kernelH separated from the cob, llaoUi* was 
 the standard and universal Nahua food Indigenous 
 to America, in the development of whoso civilization, 
 traditionally at least, it played an impoilant part, it 
 has since been introduced to the world. It is the sub- 
 ject of the New- World traditions respecting the intro- 
 duction of agriculture among men. Tortillas, of maize, 
 accompanied l)y the inevitable frijoles, or beans, sea- 
 soned with chile, or pej)per, a»id washed down with 
 drinks prepared from the maguey and cacao, were 
 then, as now, the all-sustaining diet, and we are t«jld 
 that corn grew so strong and high in tiie Holds that 
 
 « Corlis, Carlan, p. 75; Ixtlilxorhitl, Ifisf. Chick., in Kiiiffsborough'ji 
 Mcu: Auti'/., vol. ix., p. 'liiit; I'liffid, Ifisf. Ant. Mrj., toiii. iii., p. 331. 
 
 * A full lint mill de.scr'ptioii of tlic iiiiiiiy eililtlu Mexican pluiitH whicli 
 witrv ciiltivutvd liy the NtiliiiaH in the ^sixteenth un<l earlier eenturieH, an 
 they have \h'v\\ ever Hiiu-e liy their il<<seen(lants, is jjiven by the lM)tnnist, 
 llernande/, in his Xum J'litutdnim; nee also ('/nn'fferti, Storia Ant. ilr.l 
 .Mi.isiro, toMi. i., pp. 4."» OS; re|>eHte(l in ('iirlmjal K.s/iitioxa, Hint. Mrx., 
 toni. i., pp. I()_'-I!t; Arusta, Hist. dr. ln.i )'iii/., p. '2'M\, ft sfij. Maize, n>u- 
 L'liey, cacao, hananax, and vuu.'!u. i'ri:s<:ot€x Mvx., v«»l. i., pp. l.Sj-<i. Tho 
 I'oloiiacH raixi-il fruits, luii, no , ri-ao or rriiifiniztli. Sithaifiin, Hint, (len., 
 tiini. iii., lilt, x., p. 131. T!ie |HMiple of Mirhoacan raised 'inaii!. frisolen, 
 pepitii.s V friilu, y he. sciiiillas <li> nianteniitiicntos, llanniduH miitl.tli, y 
 '■/liiin.' til., p. 137. i'he Matlull/iiicas also ruised the hixnilitli. Id., p. 
 130. Ilesides corn, the most iniiiortant prodncts were cotton, <'acao, nui- 
 ;iiiey (nietl), frijole.s, <'liia, and eliile. ('loriijmi, Storia Ant. di'l Mn.i.sico, 
 titui. ii., u. \i>H; t'tirhajid l\.i/iino.in, Hint. Mix., toni. 1., p. (»'2t. ' l.cs Mexi- 
 cuins cnltivaient non-senleinent tonics les tieurs et tontes les ]>lantes <|U« 
 
 |iroi|iiit lenr I'.ays, nuiis encon; niie inlinitc d'antrcs iin'ils y avai<>nt trans 
 |iliiiit('es lies coiitrccs les pins cloi;;n('cs.' T-'zozdniiir, Ili.it. ]\li.i., toni. i., p. 
 44. /(/. Cniiiim, in Kin</.sooroii<f/i'.i .l/»v. Aiitiif., vol. ix., p. IH. 'Hay frulas 
 
 de niiiclias nianeras, en ipie h,iy cere/as, y ciriiehts que son seniejaliies a Ins 
 lie Iv.ipaiiiL' ('Hi-fi's, t'(irta.s, p. KM. I'ruil was ntore ahuiidant anioni; the 
 lliiastecs khan '.-Lsewlierc. Tfzmomuf, lli.sf. Mi-x., toin. i., p. 147. ' I'hey 
 liiiiic also many kindes of ]iot hcrU's, as Icllice, raddiith, cresHCH, (;arlicke, 
 "Miyons, and many other herlH;s Itcsides.' I'rtir Martyr, dee. v., lih. iii. 
 Iliiihle fruits, Sahaijiin, Jli.it. Urn., toni. ii., lib. viii., p. 3(K). 
 
 " Miilina, liiiriunitriii. 'Centli, o TIaulli, i|ue otros dizen niayz.' (Jo- 
 iiutra. Com/. Mix., j». 3-<3. 
 
■^ 
 
 '5 1 
 
 348 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 covered the surface of the country in some parts, as 
 to seriously embarrass the conqueror Cortes in his 
 movements aj^ainst the natives hidden in these nat- 
 ural labyrinths.* 
 
 Respecting the particular methods of cultivation 
 practiced by the Nahuas, except in the raisin*^ of corn, 
 early observers have left no definite information."' 
 The valleys were of course the favorite localities for 
 cornfields, but the hij^hlands were also cultivated. 
 In the latter case the trees and bushes were cut 
 down, the land burned over, and the seed put in 
 amonjic the ashes. Such lands were allowed to rest 
 several years — Torquemada says five or six — after 
 each crop, until the surfjice was covered with grass 
 and bushes for a new burning. No other fertilizer 
 than ashes, so far as known, was ever employed. 
 Fields were enclosed by stone walls and hedges of 
 maguey, which were carefully njpaired each year in 
 the month of Panquetzaliztli. Tluy had no laboring 
 animals, and their farming impUMnents were ex« • < •! 
 ingly few and rude. Three of tb's. .niy arc i 
 tioned. The hnictli was a kind </ -iit-cn hhcnui w 
 spade, in handling which Inith haiMl> and feet were 
 used. The conf/, or cok (serpent), so called |)roba- 
 bly from itn shape, was a copper iniplr-nieiit with a 
 wooden handle, used somewhat as a hoe is us«'d by 
 modern farmers in breaking the surface of the soil. 
 Another copper instrument, shaped lik<' a sickle, with 
 a wooden handh;, was used for pruning fruit-trees. A 
 simple •jharp stick, the point of whicli was hardened 
 in the fire, or more rarely tipped with copper, was the 
 im)>iement in most conmion use. To plant corn, the 
 farmer dropped a few kernels into a hole made with 
 this stick, and covered them with his f(K>t, taking tlu; 
 
 * Cort^n, Cnrlnt, p. (14; Tnrqitrmailn, Moiinrq. Intl., toin. i., p..")!.') In 
 Tlascala 'no tionon otni rii|uoza iii |;;ranjeria, hjiio ceiitii que cm hii ,>Hn.' 
 itoinnrn, Coiiq. Mi'x., fol. Hi. 
 
 '• Peter MarJvr iiinl tlic AiionyinnuR Conqueror rwy, however, that cnctto- 
 trecH were iiliuited under lar;;('r trecH, '.vhicli were eut down when the |dunt 
 gained Hutliuieut titrunj,'th. Dec. v., lib. iv. i fcasbakcla, ('ol. dr. iJoc, io»\. 
 I., p. 380. 
 
CORNFIELDS AND GRANARIES. 
 
 349 
 
 greatest pains to make the rows perfectly straiglit and 
 parallel; tlio intervalH between the hills were always 
 uuit'onu, thoujj^h tiie space was re<j^ulated attcordins^ 
 to the nature and fertility of the soil. The Held was 
 kept carefully weeded, and at a certain ai(e the stalks 
 were supported by heapin»r up the soil round tlieni. 
 At maturity the stalks were often broken two thirds 
 up, that the husks mitjfht protect the hanj^iniif ear 
 from rain. Durinj^ the growth and ripening of the 
 maize, a watchman or boy was kept constantly on 
 guard in a .sheltered station connmmding the Held, 
 who.se duty it was to drive away, with Ht<»nes and 
 shouts, tile Hocks of feathered robbers which abound- 
 ed in the country. Women and children aided the 
 men in the lighter farm labors, such as dropping the 
 .seeds, weeding the plants, and husking and cleaning 
 the grain. To irrigate the Helds the water of rivers 
 and of mountain streams was utilized by means of 
 canals, dams, and ditches. The network of canals by 
 whi^'J* tile cacao plantations of the tierra caliente in 
 T*biw«o were watered, ottered to Cortes' army even 
 niore H»-rious obstructions than the dense growth of 
 the maizales, or cornHelds. 
 
 (i.-Hfiaries for storing maize were built of oyamcti, 
 or o^iiiiK'tl, a tree whosi? long branches were regular, 
 tough, and Hexible. Tb*' .sticks were laid in log-house 
 fashion, one alnive an<jther, and close together, so as 
 to form a tight sfpiare ro(»m, which was covered with a 
 W;»t<'r tight roof, and had only two openings or win- 
 4i'.^s, one at the to|) arnl another at the bottom. Many 
 t4 the.se granaries had a <'a|)a('ity t)f seveial thou.sand 
 busheJH, and in them corn was preserved for several, 
 or, as iJrasseur says, for Hfteen or twenty, years, 
 liesides the regular and extensive plantations of sta- 
 ])h' prodiu'ts, gardens wen' common, tastefidly laid 
 out an<l <le\oted to the cultivati«)n of fruits, vegeta- 
 bles, nie<licinal herbs, and parti<ularly flowers, of 
 which the Mexicans were very Ibnd, and which W(Te 
 in demand for teujple decorations and bou<iuet8. The 
 
860 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 
 gardens connected with the palaces of kings and no- 
 bles, particularly those of Tezcuco, Iztapalapan, and 
 Huaxtepec, excited great wonder and admiration in 
 the minds of the first European visitors, but these 
 have been already mentioned in a preceding chapter." 
 
 We shall find the planting and growth of maize not 
 without influence in the development of the Nahua 
 calendars, and that it was closely connected with the 
 worship of the gods and with religious ideas and cere- 
 monies. Father Burgoa relates that in Oajaca, the 
 cultivation of this grain, the people's chief support, 
 was attended by some peculiar ceremonies. At har- 
 vest-time the priests of the maize god in Quegolani, 
 ceremonially visited the cornfields followed by a pro- 
 cession of the people, and sought diligently the fairest 
 and best-filled ear. This they bore to the village, 
 placed it on an altar decked for the occasion with flow- 
 ers and precious chalchiuites, sang and danced before 
 it, and wrapped it with care in a white cotton cloth, 
 in which it was preserved until the next seed-time. 
 Then with renewed processions and solemn rites the 
 magic ear with its white covering was wrapped in a 
 deer-skin and buried in the midst of the cornfields in 
 a small hole lined with stones. When another har- 
 vest came, if it were a fruitful one, the precious offer- 
 ing to the earth was dug uj) and its decayed remains 
 distributed in small parcels to the haj)py populace as 
 talismans a<;ainst all kinds of evil." 
 
 The game most abundant was deer, hare, rabbits, 
 wild hogs, wolves, foxes, jaguars, or tigers, Mex- 
 ican lions, coyotes, • pigeons, i)artridges, (juails, and 
 many aquatic birds. The usual weapon was the bow 
 
 » On tlic culture of maize nnd other points mentioned above kcc Tor- 
 quemada, Monarq. Intl., toni. ii., pp. 481-2, M4, toni. i., p. HM5; Clarigrro, 
 Storia Ant. del JUfniiiro, toni. ii., pp. 153-6; brasscur ilc Uourhourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Cir torn iii., pp. (5.3.1-7, toin. iv., p. (U; Varhtijnl Esintioaa, tlist. 
 Hex., toni. i., pp. 621-4; ('orti!.i. Cartas, n. 75; Denial Diaz, Hist. Couq., 
 p. 128; L'amnrgo, Hist. Tlax., in Noumlcs Aimales ties Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xeviii., p. 196; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. ii. ; Gagern, \n Soc. Mcx. Geog., 
 Botetin, i^^Kjwca, torn, i., pp. 815-16. 
 
 '• Burqoa, Geog. Descrip., torn, ii., pt ii., pp. 332-3; Ura.iseur de Hour- 
 bourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 40-2. 
 
THE CHASE IN ANAHUAC. 
 
 SU: 
 
 and arrow, to the invention of which tradition ascribes 
 the origin of the chase; but spears, snares, and nets 
 were also employed, and the sarbacan, a tube through 
 which pellets or darts were blown, was an effective 
 bird-killer. Game in the royal forests was protected 
 by law, and many hunters were employed in taking 
 animals and birds alive for the king's collections. 
 Among the peculiar devices employed for taking 
 water-birds was that already mentioned in connection 
 with the Wild Tribes; the hunter floating in the 
 wiiter, with only his head, covered with a gourd, above 
 the surface, and thus approaching his prey unsus- 
 pected. Young monkeys were caught by putting in 
 a concealed tire a peculiar black stone which exploded 
 when heated. Corn was scattered about as a bait, 
 and when the old monkoys brought their young to 
 feed they were frightened by the explosion and ran 
 away, leaving the young ones an easy prey. The na- 
 tive hunters are represented as particularly skillful in 
 following an indistinct trail. According to Sahagun, 
 a superstition prevailed that only four arrows might be 
 shot at a tiger, but to secure success a leaf was 
 attached to one of the arrows, which, making a pecu- 
 liar whizzing sound, fell short and attracted the beast's 
 attention while the hunter took deliberate aim. Croc- 
 odiles were taken with a noose round the neck and 
 also, by the boldest hunters, by inserting a stick sharp- 
 ened and barbed at both ends in the ariinial's open 
 mouth. It is probable that, while a small portion of 
 the common peo[»le in certain j)arts of the country 
 sought game for food alone, the chase among the Na- 
 huas was for the most part a diversion of the nobles 
 and soldiers. There were also certain hunts estab- 
 lished by law or custom at certain periods of tlie year, 
 the products of which were devoted to sacrificial pur- 
 poses, although most likely oaten eventually. 
 
 In the month Quecholli a day's hunt was cele- 
 hrated bv the warriors in honor of Mixcojitl. A large 
 forest 4httt of Zacatepec, near Mexico, being a favor- 
 

 862 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 iJt: 
 
 
 n i 
 
 ite resort — was surrounded by a line of hunters many 
 miles in extent. In the centre of the forest various 
 snares and traps were set. When all was ready, the 
 living circle began to contract, and the hunters with 
 shouts pressed forward toward the centre. To aid in 
 the work, the grass was sometimes fired. The various 
 animals were driven from their retreats into the snar*"" 
 j)repared for them, or fell victims to the huntsmen's 
 arrows. Immense quantities of game were thus se- 
 cured and borne to the city and to the neighboring 
 towns, the inhabitants of which had assisted in the 
 hunt, as an offering to the god. Each hunter carried 
 to his own home the heads of such animals as he had 
 killed, and a prize was awarded to the most successful. 
 In the month Tecuilhuitontli also, while the warriors 
 practiced in sham fights for actual war, the common 
 people gave their attention to the chase. Large num- 
 bers of birds were taken in nets spread on poles like 
 spear-shafts. In earlier times, when the chase was 
 more depended on for food, the first game taken was 
 offered to the gods; or, by the Chichimecs and Xochi- 
 milcas, to the sun, as Ixtlilxochitl informs us," 
 
 Fish was much more universally used for food than 
 game. Torquemada tells us that the Aztecs first in- 
 vented the art of fishing prompted by the mother of 
 invention when forced by their enemies to live on the 
 lake islands; and it wtis the smell of roasted tisii, 
 wafted to the shore, that revealed their preseni'e. 
 This tradition is somewhat absurd, and it is difftcult 
 to believe that the art was entirely unknown during 
 the ])re('oding Toltec and Olmec periods of Nahua 
 civilization. Besides the supply in lake and river, 
 
 1' On hunting »rc MotoUnin, Hist. ladios, in Teazhnlceta, Col. dr Dm:, 
 torn, i., p. 48; Snhaf/iiH, Hist. <ifii.. Xnnx. i., lib. ii.. ii. 1(>5, toni. iii., lib. xi.. 
 pp. 140-2*20, ini'ludiuK » full liHt and ilcHcription uf Muxican uninial.>i; Tor- 
 quemntlii, ilona,.^. /(tW., toni. i., j). 208, torn, ii., pp. 281,207; Piter Murtyr. 
 aec, v., liU. iii.; Cortes, Cartas, p. 22; Canuirrfo, Hist. Tlax., in \oui'rlli:i 
 Aniutlrs ilf.i Votf., 184.3, torn, xcviii., p. 106; Ixtlilxochitl, Jirlnrtoiii:t, in 
 Kinijshonmrfh'ti Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 2iX>, S40, 4.')8; Claritfrro. Stnrin 
 Ant. (M .Mr.mro, torn, ii., pp. 160-2. List of Mexican aninwls in Id., toiii. 
 i., pp. 6«-0}>; Carbajnl tspinosa. Hist. Mex., Umi. i. m*. (536-7, 12(1-44, 
 
 I*' 
 th 
 
 with same lint; Braxaeur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., Umi. L, p. 235. 
 
FISHERIES AND SALT. 
 
 853 
 
 artificial ponds in the royal gardens were also stocked 
 with fish, and we have seen that fresh fish from the 
 ocean were brought to Mexico for the king's table. 
 Respecting the particular methods employed by the 
 Nahua fishermen, save that they used both nets and 
 hooks, the authorities say nothing. The Tarascos 
 had such an abundance of food in their lakes that 
 their country was named Michoacan, 'land of fish;' 
 and the rivers of Huastecapan are also mentioned as 
 richly stocked with finny food." 
 
 The Nahuas had, as I have said, no herds or flocks, 
 but besides the royal collections of animals, which in- 
 cluded nearly every known variety of quadrupeds, 
 birds, and reptiles, tlie common people kept and bred 
 techichi (a native animal resembling a dog), turkeys, 
 quails, geese, ducks, and many other birds. The no- 
 bles also kept deer, hares, and rabbits." 
 
 Next to chile, salt, or iztatl, was the condiment 
 most used, and most of ilie supply came from the Val- 
 ley of Mexico. The best was made by Ixtiling the 
 water from the salt lake in large pots, and was pre- 
 served in white cakes or balls. It was oftener, how- 
 ever, led by trenches into shallow pools and evaporated 
 
 •* Clarnqami, Sforia Ant. del Messiro, torn, i., pp. 90-10.')., torn, ii., p. 
 1(52, with iiHt and description of Mexican fishes, of wliioh iiver ItK) vurie- 
 lies fit for fiMHl are mentioned; rejieated in Vnrbajal EsfiiiioHa, Hint. Mex., 
 turn, i., pp. I4r>-."»0, 6'28; I'eter Afiirti/r, dec. v., lib. li., iii.; Tezozomoc, 
 Hint. Mex., toni. i., pp. fi<), 147; Torrfiiemaila, Monarq. Intl., toin. i., p. 93; 
 I'amarffo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles A nnale.<i de» V")/., 1843, toni. xcviii., p. 
 IH'2; Acosla, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 4*i0. List uf tittlieH in Salutgun, Hist. 
 (kn., torn, iii., lib. xi., pp. 19<^207. 
 
 " 'Crian nnichaH pilhnus . . . .que son tan grandesconio jtavos.' 'Conejos, 
 liehrcs, vcnadoM y perros petiuenos, cjiie crian para comer (!a8tradcm.' Cortes, 
 ( 'itrtas, pp. '2,3, 94, 104, '2'2'2. ' V'oun); whelpes flesh is vsuuii there .... which 
 tiiev ^cld and fatte for footle.' I'ctir Mnrti/r, dec. v., .'ib. iii. The same 
 luitlior, dec. v., lil). iii., nives some (jueer information rcspectin}; the turk- 
 eys. 'The fcmalles •■ometimes lay :a). or HO. ejjjji-s. »o tiiat it is a niulti- 
 plyin}! company. The males, arc alwuyes in loue, and therefore they say, 
 ilifv are verj' Iifjht nieate of di)restion.' A i-ertain iiriest rejMirts that 'the 
 iiiaie is tnuihlcd with certayne impedimentes in tne le^^^es, that he can 
 si'iirse allure the lienne to treade her. vnlesse s<»me knownc iK'nwm take her 
 in his hand, and hohl her . .AssoMMttut hee perceia«th the iienne which he 
 liMiclh, is lichl, hce pn^sentJy ctmimeth vnto her, and performes his husinesse 
 ill tiie hantt of the ludder ' See tJlavt^ro, Storiit An-t. del Messir.o, toni. 
 ii., pp. l.VM). tom. iv., p. :!28; Cnrbajtil Espt-uomt, Hist. Mex., turn, i., pp. 
 tiJf-6: Owdo. Hint. Gen., wm. iii., pp. 291-2. 
 Vol. II. 'U 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 ! 
 
 by the nun. The work would seem to have been done 
 by women, since Saha^un speaks of the women and 
 ^irls employed in this industry as dancing at the feast 
 in honor of the ji^oddess of salt in the month Tecuil- 
 huitontli. A {Mxjr quality of salt, tequizquitl, brick- 
 colored and strongly impregnated with saltpetre, was 
 scraped up on the Hats around the lakes, and largely 
 used in salting meats. Las Casas mentions salt springs 
 in the heA of fresh-water streams, the water of which 
 was [Kiinped out through hollow canes, and yielded on 
 evapiiration a fine white salt; but it is not certain what 
 part of the country he refers to. The Aztec kings 
 practically monopolized the salt market and refused 
 to sell it to any except tributary nations. In conse- 
 quence of this disposition, republican Tlascala, one of 
 the few nations that maintained its independence, was 
 forced for many years to eat its food unsalted; and 
 so habituated did the people become t(j this diet, that 
 in later times, if we may credit Camargo, very little 
 salt was consumed." 
 
 We now come to the methods adopted by the Na- 
 hujis in preparing and cooking fcKKj. Maize, when 
 in the milk, was eaten boiled, and called elotl; when 
 dry it was often prepared for food by simply parciiing 
 or roa-sting, and then named mumtiehiti But it usu- 
 ally came to the Aztec table in the shape of tlaxcalli, 
 the Spanish tortillas, the standard bread, then as now, 
 in all 8[)anish America. It would be difficult to 
 name a book in any way treating of Mexico in wiiicli 
 tortillas are not fully described. The aborigines boiled 
 the corn in water, to which lime, or sometimes nitre, 
 was added. When sufficiently soft and free from 
 hulls it was crushed on the metlatl, or metate, with a 
 stone roller, and the dough, after being kneaded also 
 
 '« Peter Martur, dec. v., lib. iii. ; Torqttcmada, Momir^. Ind., torn, i., 
 p. 4.")0; Herrern, Hist. (!eii., dec. ii., lib. vii., caj). v.; Oviedo, Hist. Geii., 
 torn, iii., p. 284; Cortts, Cartas, p. 66; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., 111), 
 ii., pp. 124-8, torn, iii., lib. x., p. 1.10; Alho'rnoz, in Intzbalceta, Vol. dv. 
 Dor., t(Hii. i., p. fi07; Camnrgo, Hist. Ttax., in Nouvelles Annates d>s 
 Vojf., 184.S, toni. xcviii., p. 180; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 100; Solis, Hist. 
 Conq. Mex., toin. i., pp. 390-1. 
 
THE NAHUA CUISINE. 
 
 8B5 
 
 on the metate, was formed by the hands of the women 
 into very thin round cakes which were quickly baked 
 on eartnen pans, or comalli, and piled up one on 
 another that they might retain their warmth, for 
 when cold they lost their savor. Peter Martyr speaks 
 of these tortillas as "bread made of Maizium." They 
 were sometimes, but rarely, flavored with different 
 native plants and flowers. There was, however, some 
 variety in their preparation, according to which they 
 bore different names. For example totanquitlaxcal- 
 litlaquelpackolli were very white, being folded and cov- 
 ered with napkins; huietlaxcalli were lan^e, thin, and 
 soft; qnaHhtlfujualli were thick and rough; tlaxcal- 
 fmcholli, grayish; and tldcepoallitlaxvalli presented a 
 blistered surface. There were many other kinds. In 
 addition to the tlaxcalli, thicker corn-bread in the form 
 of long cakes and balls were made. Atolli varied in 
 consistency from porridge, or gruel, to mush, and may 
 consequently be classed either as a drink or as food. 
 To make it, the hulled corn was mashed, mixed with 
 water, and boiled down to the required consistency ; 
 it was variously sweetened and seasoned, and eaten 
 both hot and cold. According to its condition and 
 Koasoning it received about seventeen names; thus 
 totonqaiatoUi was eaten hot, nequatoUi was sweetened 
 with honey, ch'dneqnatoUi was seasoned with chile, 
 iuul qimnhnexatoUi with saltj)etre. 
 
 Beans, the etl of the Aztecs, the frijoles of the 
 Spaniards, were while yet green boiled in the pod, 
 and were then called exotl; when dry they were also 
 i^unerally boiled; but Ixtlilxochitl mentions flour made 
 from beans. 
 
 Chilli, chile, or pepper, was eaten both green and 
 dry, whole and ground. A sauce was also made 
 tVoin it into which hot tortillas were dipped, and which 
 formed a part of the seasoning in nearly every Nahua 
 tlish. " It is the principal sauce and the only spice 
 of the Indias," as Acosta tells us. 
 
 Flesh, fowl, and fish, both fresh and salted, were 
 
866 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 stewed, boiled, and roasted, with the fat of the 
 tochichi, and seasoned with chile, tmnatl (since called 
 toinatos), etc. The larjjer roasted game preserved for 
 eating from the sacrifices in the month of Itzcalli is 
 termed calpuleque by Sahagun. Pipimi was a stew 
 of fowl with chile, tomatos, and ground pumpkin- 
 seeds. Deer and rabbits were barbecued. Peter Mar- 
 tyr speaks of "rest and sodden meates of foule." 
 
 Fruits, for the most part, were eaten as with ua, 
 raw, but some, as the plantain and banana, were 
 roasted and stewed. 
 
 So much for the plain Nahua cookery. Into the 
 labyrinthine mysteries of the mixed dishes I shall 
 not penetrate tar. It is easier for the writer, and 
 not less satisfactory to the reader, to dismiss the sub- 
 ject with the remark that all the articles of food that 
 have been mentioned, fish, flesh, and fowl, were mixed 
 and cooked in every conceivable proportion, the pro- 
 duct taking a different name with each change in the 
 ingredients. The two principal classes of these mixed 
 dishes were the pot-stews, or cazuelas, of various 
 meats with multitudinous seasonings ; and the tamnfli, 
 or tamales, meat pies, to make which meats were boiled, 
 chopped fine, and seasoned, then mixed with maize- 
 dough, coated with the same, wrai)ped in a corn-husk, 
 and boiled again. These also took different names 
 according to the ingredients and seasoning. The ta- 
 male is still a favorite dish, like tortillas and frijoles. 
 
 Miscellaneous articles of food, not already spoken 
 of, were axaifiwatl, flies of the Mexican lakes, dried, 
 ground, boiled, and eaten in the form of cakes; aJin- 
 auhtli, the eggs of the same fly, a kind of native 
 caviar; many kinds of insects, ants, maguey-worms, 
 and even lice; tecuitlatl, 'excrement of stone,' a slime 
 that was gathered on the surface of the lakes, and 
 dried till it resembled cheese ; eggs of turkeys, igua- 
 nas, and turtles, roasted, boiled, and in omelettes ; vari- 
 ous reptiles, frogs, and frog-spawn ; shrimps, sardines, 
 and crabs; conj-silk, wild -amaranth seeds, cherry- 
 
EATING OF HUMAN FLESH. 
 
 857 
 
 stones, tule-roots, and very many other articles inex- 
 pressible; yucca flour, potoyucca, tunas; honey from 
 maize, from l)ees, and from the maguey; and roasted 
 portions of the maguey stalks and leaves. 
 
 The women did all the work in preparing and cook- 
 ing food; in Tlascala, however, the men felt that an 
 apology was due for allowing this work to be done by 
 women, and claimed, as Sahogun says, that the smoke 
 of cooking would impair their eye-sight and make 
 them less successful in the hunt. All these articles 
 of food, both c«)oked and uncooked, were offered for 
 sale in the market-places of each large town, of which 
 I shall speak further when I come to treat of com- 
 merce. Eating-houses were also generally found near 
 the markets, where all the substantial and delicacies 
 of the Nahua cuisine might be obtained." 
 
 One article of Nahua food demands special men- 
 tion — human flesh. That they ate the arms and legs 
 of the victims sacrificed to their gods, there is no room 
 for doubt. This religious cannibalism — perhaps human 
 sacrifice itself — was probably not practiced before the 
 cruel-minded Aztec devoteesof Huitzilopochtli came in*^ 
 to power, or at least was of rare occurrence; but during 
 the Aztec dominion, the custom of eating the flesh of 
 sacrificed enemies became almost universal. That can- 
 nibalism, as a source of food, unconnected with religious 
 
 " On the preparation of food, and for mention more or less extensive of 
 miscellaneous articles of food, see Sahagun, Ilist. (icn., torn, i., lib. ii., pp. 
 l2»-.30, 184-6, toni. ii., lib. vii., p. 258, lib. viii., pp. 207, .302-5, torn, 
 iii., lib. X., pp. 118-19, 130, 132; Acosta, Hist, tk las Yud., pp. 237-68; 
 250-1, 254, 2o7-8; Beriial Diaz, Hist. Cony., fol. 68-9; Cortds, Cartas, pp. 
 23, 68, 103-5; Relacion dc Algunas Cosas, in Ivazhalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, 
 i., pp. 378-9; Peter Mnrtj/r, dec. v., lib. ii., iii.; La.i Casas, Hist. Apolo- 
 gitica, MS., cap. 43, 175; Torqtiemada, Moiiart/. Ltd., toni. i., pp. 9.3, 353, 
 373, torn, ii., p. 297; Goiiuxra, Conq. Mex., fol. 39, 318-19; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, toni. ii., pp. 158, 217, etc., toni. iv., p. 228; Solis, Hist. 
 Conq. Mex., torn, i., p. 394; Tezozomoc, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 44, 48-9, 60, 
 88, 133, 141-3; Sniegazionc delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), in 
 Kingsborougli's ilex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 191; Carhajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., 
 torn, i., pp. 624, 628-30, 674-9; Diaz, Itinerario, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., 
 toni. i., pp. 298-9; Zuazo, Carta, in Id., pp. 359-61; Brasseur de Bour- 
 liinirg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 234, torn, iii., pp. 031, G41-4; Camargo, 
 Ilist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, turn, xcviii., pp. 142, 
 151-2. 
 
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358 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 
 rites, was ever practiced, there is little evidence. The 
 Anonymous Conqueror tells us that they esteemed 
 the flesh of men above all other food, and risked their 
 lives in battle solely to obtain it. Bemal Diaz says 
 that they sold it at retail in the markets; and Veytia 
 also states that this was true of the Otomls. Father 
 Gand assures us that there were many priests that 
 ate and drank nothing but the flesh and blood of chil- 
 dren. But these ogreish tales are probably exaggera- 
 tions, since those who knew most of the natives, 
 Sahagun, Motolinia, and Las Casas, regard the canni- 
 balism of the Nahuas rathier as an abhorrent feature 
 of their religion than as the result of an unnatural ap- 
 petite. That by long usage they became fond of this 
 food, may well be believed; but that their prejudice 
 was strong against eating the flesh of any but their 
 sacrificed foes, is proven, as Gomara says, by the fact 
 that multitudes died of starvation during the siege 
 of Mexico by Cortes. Even the victims of sacrifice 
 seem only to have been eaten in banquets, more or 
 less public, accompanied with ceremonial rites. A 
 number of infants sacrificed to the Tlalocs were eaten 
 each year, and the blood of these and of other victims 
 was employed in mixing certain cakes, some of which 
 were at one time sent as a propitiatory offering to 
 Cortes." 
 
 i> 'Oi dezir, que le (for Montezuma) Bolian guisar cames de mucha- 
 ohos de poca edad.' Bemal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68, 35, 37. A slave 
 'elaborately dressed' was a prominent feature of the banquet. Preacotfs 
 Mex., vol. i., p. 156. They ate the arms and legs of the Spaniards cap- 
 tured. Gemelli Careri, in Churchill's Qol. Voyages, vol. iv., p. 527. 'They 
 draw so much blood, as in stead of luke warme water may suffice to temper 
 the lumpe, which by the hellJHh butchers of that art, without any perturba- 
 tion of the stomacke being sutticiently kneaded, while it is nioytit, and soft 
 euen as a potter of the clay, or a wax chandler of wax, so doth this image 
 maker, admitted and chosen to be maister of this damned and cursed worke.' 
 Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv., i. 'Cocian aquella came con maiz, y daban 
 d cada uno un pedazo de ella en una escudilla 6 cajete con su caldo, y su 
 maiz cocida, y llamaban aquella comida tlacatlaolli. Sahagun, Hist. Gen., 
 tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 89, 14, 84, 93, 97. ' La tenian por cosa, como sagrada, y 
 mas se niovian a esto por Religion, que por vicio.' Torquemada, Monarq. 
 Ind., tom. ii., pp. 684-8. See also Albomoz,Sn leazbafceta, Col. de Doc., 
 torn, i., p 488; Zuazo, Carta, in Id., pp. 363, 385; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, 
 in Id., pp. 40-1, 59; Belacion de Algunas Cosas, in Id., p. 398; Veytia, 
 Hist. Ant Mej., torn, iii., pp. 282-3; Gand, in Temaux-t'ompans, Voy., 
 
DRINKS AND DRUNKENNESS. 
 
 8B» 
 
 The most popular Nahua beverages were thc^ie since 
 known as pulque and chocolate. The former, called 
 by the natives octli — pulque, or pulcre, being a South 
 American aboriginal term applied to the liquor in 
 some unaccountable way by the Spaniards — ^was the 
 fermented juice of the maguey. One plant is said to 
 yield about one hundred pounds in a month. A cavity 
 is cut at the base of the larger leaves, and allowed 
 to fill with juice, which is removed to a vessel of 
 earthen ware or of skin, where it ferments rapidly 
 and is ready for use. In a pure state it is of a 
 light color, wholesome, and somewhat less intox- 
 icating than gr?.pe wine; but the aborigines mixed 
 with it various herbs, some to merely change its color 
 or flavor, and others to increase its intoxicating prop- 
 erties. This national drink was honored with a spe- 
 cial divinity, Ometochtli, one of the numerous Nahua 
 gods of wine. According to some traditions the 
 Quinames, or giants, knew how to prepare it, but its 
 invention is oftener attributed to the Toltecs, its first 
 recorded use having been to aid in the seduction of 
 a mighty monarch from his royal duties.^' 
 
 Chocolatl — the foundation of our chocolate — was 
 made by pounding cacao to a powder, adding an equal 
 quantity of a seed called pochotl, also powdered, and 
 stirring or beating the mixture briskly in a dish of 
 water. The oily foam which rose to the surface was 
 
 B^rie i., torn, x., p. 197; Bologne, in Id., p. 215; Duran, Hitt, Indiaa, MS., 
 torn, iii., appendix, cap. iil; Carbajal, Diacurso, p. 60; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del McHsico, toin. ii., p. 47; Brai>seur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, iii., pp. 502-3, torn, iv., p. 90; La» Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 cap. 175-6. 
 
 " Tcaxaleevia, texcalcevilo, and malaluhtli are some of the names given 
 to pulc^ue according to its hue and condition. Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, 
 i., lib. li., pp, 175, 179, 186. Pulque from Chilian language, Clavigero, Slo- 
 ria Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., pp. 221-2. See Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. 
 Mex., tom. i., pp. 679-80; Brasseur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat, Civ., torn, 
 iii., pp. 643-4, torn, i., pp. 340-5; Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., tom. iii., 
 cap. xxii; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. i., p. 151. 'Antes que d su vino lo 
 cuezan con unas raices que le ecnan, es claro y dulce como i^uamiel. Des- 
 nues de cocido, hdcese al^ espeso y tiene nial olor, y los que con ^1 se em- 
 Deodan, mucho peor.' Stotolinia, Hist. Indies, in Icazbalceta, Col. deDoe., 
 tom. i., pp. 22-3; and Ritos Antiguos, pp. 16-17, in Kingsborough's Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. ix. ' No hay perros muertos, ni bomba, aue assi hiedan como 
 el haliento del borracho deste vino.' Oomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 319. 
 
360 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 then .separated, a small quantity of maize flour was 
 added, and the liquid which was set before the fire. 
 The oily portion was finally restored and the beverage 
 was drunk lukewarm, sweetened with honey and often 
 seasoned with vanilla. This drink was nutritious, 
 refreshing, and cooling, and was especially a favorite 
 with those called upon to perform fatiguing labor with 
 scant food.** 
 
 Miscellaneous drinks were water, plantain -juice, 
 the various kinds of porridge known as atolli, already 
 mentioned, the juice of maize-stalks, those prepared 
 from chian and other seeds by boiling, and fermented 
 water in which corn had been boiled — a favorite Ta- 
 rasco drink. Among the ingredients used to make 
 their drinks more intoxicating the most powerful was 
 the teonanacatl, 'flesh of god,' a kind of mushroom 
 which excited the passions and caused the partaker 
 to see snakes and divers other visions.'* 
 
 The Aztec laws against drunkenness were very se- 
 vere, yet nearly all the authors represent the people 
 as delighting in all manner of intoxication, and as 
 giving way on every opportunity to the vice when 
 the power of their rulers over them was destroyed 
 by the coming of the Spaniards. Drinking to ex- 
 
 *" 'Esta bebida ea el mas sano y mas sustancioso aliinento de cuantos se 
 conocen en el inundo, pues el que bebe una taza de ella, aunque haga una 
 Jornada, puede pasarse todo el dia sin tomar otra cosa; y siendo frio por 
 su naturaleza, es mejor en tienipo caliente que frio.' Belacion de Algunaa 
 Cosas, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 381. 'La mejor, maa dclicada 
 y cara beuida que tienen es de liarina de cacao y agua. Algunas vezes le 
 mezclan miel, y harina de otras legunibres. Esto no emborracha, antes re- 
 fresca mucho.' Gomara, Conq. JUex., fol. 319. 'Of ccrtaine almondes.... 
 they make wonderfull drinke.' Peter Martyr, dec. v,, lib. ii., iv. 'Cierta 
 bebida hecha del mismi/ cacao, que dezian era para tener acceso con mu- 
 geres.' Bernal Diaz, His'. Conq., fol. 68. Red, vermilion, orange, black, 
 and white. Sahagun, JUat. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 301-2. See Acosta, 
 Hist, de las Ytia., p.iil; Clavigero Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 
 219-20; Brasseur de Buurbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 642-3. 
 
 <> Chicha and sendfchd, fermented drinks. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, tom. ii., p. 221. Sendech6, an Otomi drink, for a full description 
 see Mendoza, in Soe. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da epoca, tom. ii., pp. 25-8. 
 'Ale, and syder.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv. 'Pr.nicap que es cierto 
 brebaie que ellos beben.' Cortis, Cartas, p. 76. See besides references in 
 note 19; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazoalceta, Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 
 23; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 118, 130; Mendieta, Hist. 
 Eaet., p. 139; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 67G, 673-9. 
 
MEALS OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 
 
 86t 
 
 ex- 
 
 cess seems to have been with them a social vice, 
 confined mostly to public feasts and private ban- 
 quets. It may have been chiefly against intemperance 
 among the working classes, and ofiicials when on duty, 
 that the stringent laws were directed. Mendieta 
 speaks of the people as very temperate, using pulque 
 only under the direction of the chiefs and judges for 
 medicinal pui-poses chiefly. The nobles made it a 
 point of honor not to drink to excess, and al' feared 
 punishment. But Motolinia and other good author- 
 ities take an opposite view of the native character in 
 this respect.** 
 
 Concerning the manner of serving the king's meals, 
 as well as the banquets and feasts of nobles and the 
 richer classes, enough has been already said. Of the 
 daily meals among the masses little is known. The 
 Nahuas seem to have confined their indulgence in rich 
 and varied viands to the oft-recurring feasts, while at 
 their homes they were content with plain fare. This 
 is a peculiarity that is still observable in the country, 
 both among the descendants of the Nahuas and of 
 their conquerors. The poorer people had in each 
 house a metate for grinding maize, and a few earthen 
 dishes for cooking tortillas and frijoles. They ate 
 three meals a day, morning, noon, and night, using 
 the ground for table, table-cloth, napkins, and chairs, 
 conveying their tlaxcalli and chile to the mouth with 
 the fingers, and washing down their simple food with 
 water or atole. The richer Nahuas were served with 
 a greater variety on palm-mats often richly decorated, 
 
 ^ Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 138-40. 'Comunmente comenzaban d be- 
 1)er despues de viaperas, y dabanse taiita prisa & beber de diez en diez, 6 
 quince en quince, y los escanciadores que no cesaban, y la coniida que no 
 era mucha, a prima noche ya van perdiendo el sentido, ya cayendo ya useu- 
 tundo, cantando y dando voces Uaniando al denionio.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, 
 in Icazbalceta, Vol. de Doc, torn, i., pp. 23, 32. 'Bcben con tanto exceso, 
 que no paran basta caer como niuertos de pure ebrios, y tienen & grande 
 honra beber niucho y embriagarse.' Relacion de Algutias Cosas, in Id., pp. 
 582, 587. Drinkers and druntcards had several special divinities. Brasseur 
 de bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., totn. iii., p. 493. Drank less before the con- 
 quest. Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, iii., cap. xxii. ; Clavigero, StoriaAnt. 
 del Messico, toni. i., p. 119. 
 
wa 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 around which low seats were placed for their conveni- 
 ence; napkins were also furnished.^ 
 
 *> 'Comen en el suelo, y soziamente. . . .parten los hueuos en vn cabello 
 que Be arrancan,' whatever that operation ma^ be. Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 319. . 'Es gente que con muv poco mantenimiento vive, y la que menos come 
 de cuantas nay en el mundo. Relacion deAlgunas Coaat, in Icazhalceta, Col. 
 de Doc., torn, i., pp. 379-80. ' Molto Bobrj nel mangiare.' Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, torn, i., p. 119. 'It is notlawfuU for any that ia vnmaried to 
 sit at table with such as are maried, or to eate of the same dish, or drinke of 
 the same cup, and make themseluca equall with such as are married.' Peter 
 Martyr, dec. iv., lib. iv. The nobles gave feasts at certain periods of the 
 year tor the relief of the poor. Torquemada, Moiiarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 270. 
 See also Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 138; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., 
 torn, iii., p. 535; Brasseurde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 644-5, 
 Additional references for the whole subject of Nahua food are: — Montanus, 
 Nieuwe Weercld, pp. 74, 80, 247, 251; Dapper, Neue Welt, pp. 83, 91, 
 278-9, 283; Klemm, Cultur-Geschiehte, torn, v., pp. 10-13, 20-6, 102, 104, 
 180-3, 189, 196; Wdppaus, Geog. «. Stat., pp. 44-9; Tylor'a Anahuac, pp. 
 62, 103, 145-6, 173-4; Fossey, Mexique, pp. 44, 215, 485-6; Malte-Brun, Pr6- 
 cis de la G6og., tom. vi., p. 456; Monglave, Risumi, pp. 37-8, 261; Delaporte 
 Reisen, tom. x., pp. 257, 268-9; Dillon, Hist. Mex., p. 45; Chevalier, Mex. 
 Ancien y Mod., pp. 15-27; MiUler, Amerikanisclie Urreligionen, p. 538; 
 Boyle's Ride, vol. i., pp. 278-9; Macgregor's Progress of Amer., vol. i., 
 p. 22; Gibhs, in Hist. Mag., vol. vii., p. 99; Hazart, Kirchen-Geschichte, 
 tom. ii., p. 502; Helps' Span. Conq., vol. ii., p. 455; Lafond, Voyages, tom. 
 i., p. 107; Baril, Mexique, pp. 20S-9; Bussierre, L'Empire Mex., pp. 164-6, 
 178, 230; Lenoir, Parallile, p. 39; Long, Porter, andYucker's America, p. 
 162; Soden, Spanier in Peru, tom. ii., pp. 16-17. 
 
CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 DRESS OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 Prooress in Dress— Dress of the Pre-Aztec Nations— Garments 
 
 OF THE CHICHIMECS AND TOLTECS— INTRODUCTION OF COTTON— 
 
 The Maxtli— The Tilmatli— Dress of the Acolhuas— Origin 
 
 OF THE TaRASCAN COSTUME— DRESS OF THE ZAPOTECS AND TABAS- 
 
 CANS— Dress of Women— The Huipil and Cueitl— Sandals- 
 Manner OF WearinA the Hair— Painting and Tattooing- Or- 
 naments used bv the Nahuas — Gorgeous Dress of the Nobles- 
 Dress OF the Koyal Attendants— Names of the Various 
 Mantles— The Royal Diadem— The Royal Wardrobe— Costly 
 Decorations. 
 
 With but few exceptions the dress of all the civi- 
 lized nations of Mexico appears to have been the same. 
 The earliest people, the historians inform us, went en- 
 tirely naked or covered only the lower portion of the 
 body with the skins of wild animals. Afterwards, as 
 by degrees civilization advanced, this scanty covering 
 grew into a regular costume, though still, at first, 
 made only of skins. From this we can note a farther 
 advance to garments manufactured first out of tanned 
 and prepared skins, later of maguey and palm-tree 
 fibres, and lastly of cotton. From the latter no further 
 progress was made, excepting in the various modes of 
 ornamenting and enriching the garments with feather- 
 work, painting, embroidery, gold-work, and jewelry. 
 The common people were obliged to content them- 
 selves with plain clothing, but the dress of the richer 
 
 1363) 
 
364 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 classes, nobles, princes, and sovereigns, was of finer 
 texture and richer ornamentation.^ 
 
 The descriptions of the dresses of the nations which 
 occupied the Valley of Mexico before the Aztecs 
 vary according to different authors. While some de- 
 scribe them as gorgeously decked out in painted and 
 embroidered garments of cotton and nequen, others 
 say, that they went either wholly naked or were only 
 partially covered with skins. Thus Sahagun and 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg describe the Toltecs as dressed 
 in undergarments and mantles on which blue scor- 
 pions were painted,' while the latter author in another 
 place says that they went entirely naked.' Veytia 
 goes even farther than Sahagun, affirming that they 
 knew well how to manufacture clothing of cotton, that 
 a great difference existed between the dress of the 
 nobles and that of the plebeians, and that they even 
 varied their clothing with the seasons. He describes 
 them as wearing in summer a kind* of breech-cloth or 
 drawers and a square mantle tied across the breast 
 and descending to the ankles, while in winter in addi- 
 tion to the above they clothed themselves in a kind of 
 sack, which reached down as far as the thighs, with- 
 out sleeves but with a hole for the head and two 
 others for the arms.* 
 
 The Chichimecs, generally mentioned as the suc- 
 cessors of the Toltecs, are mostly described as going 
 naked, or only partly dressed in skins.* This appears, 
 
 ^ 'La gcnte pobrc vestia de nequen, que es la tela que se haze del ma- 
 guey, y los ricos vestian de algodon, con orlaa labradas de plunia, y pelo de 
 conejoB.' Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec ii., lib. vii., cap. ii. 
 
 * Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 112; Brassevr de Bour- 
 bourp. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 233. 'Maxtli enrichide broderies, et 
 
 tunique d'unc grande finesse.' Id., p. 350. 'En tiempo de calor con sua 
 mantas y pauetcs de algodon, y en tiempo de frio se ponian unos jaque- 
 tones sin mangus que los llevaban hasta las rodillas con bus mantaB y pa- 
 fietes.' Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, in Kingsborough's Mcx. Antirj., vol. ix., p. 
 327. 
 
 3 'Nu Buivant la coutume des indigenes qui travaillaient aux champs.' 
 Brasseur dc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 348. 
 
 * 'Algodon, que sabian beneficiar y fabricar de ^1 las ropas dc que se 
 vestian.' Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. ii., p. 43, Id., tom. i., p. 253. 
 
 i 'Su vestuario eran las pieles. . . .que las ablandaban y curabau para 
 el efecto, troyendo en tiempo de f rios el pelo adentro, y en tiempo do calo- 
 
DRESS OF THE AZTECS, TABASCOS, AND HUASTECS. 865 
 
 however, only to relate to the people spoken of as 
 wild Chichimecs; those who inhabited Tezcuco and 
 others in that neighborhood as civilized as the Aztecs, 
 dressed probably in a similar fashion to theirs; at 
 least, as we shall presently see, this was the case with 
 their sovereigns and nobles. All the Nahuas, with the 
 exception of the Tarascos and Huastecs, made use of 
 the breech-cloth, or maxtli.* This with the Mexicans 
 in very early i imes is said to have been a kind of mat, 
 woven of the roots of a plant which grew in the Lake 
 of Mexico, and was called amoxtli'' Later, the fibre 
 of the palm-tree and the maguey furnished the mate- 
 rial "or their clothing, and it was only during the reign 
 of S^ing Huitzilihuitl that cotton was introduced." 
 
 res . . .el pelo por la parte afuera.' Ixtlilxochitl, Hut Chich., in Kingabor- 
 ough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 214; Motoliiiia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, 
 Col.dc Doc, torn, i., p. 4; Gomara, C'onq. Mex., fol. 298; Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, torn, i., p. 133; Torquemcuta, Monarq. Iiid., torn, i., p. 38. 
 Por lo frio de su clima vestian todos pieles de aniniales odubndas y curtidas, 
 nin que perdiesen el pelo, las que acomodaban d maiiera de un sayo, que por 
 detras les Ile;;aba hasta las corvas, y por delante & medio inuslo.' Veytia, 
 
 Hist. Ant. Met., torn, ii., p. 5, toin. i., p. 25. 'S'liabillaient depeauxde 
 
 bStes fauves, Ic poil en deiiors durant V&i&, el en dedans en liivcr. . . .Chez 
 
 Icb cla£r"'.is aisles ces peaux dtaient tann^ea ou maroquin^es avec art; on 
 
 y usait aussi des toilcs de ncquen, et quelquefois des cotonnadcs d'une grando 
 finesse.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 186. 
 
 ^ 'Maxtlatl, bragas, o cosa scnieiante.' Molina, Vocabulario. The 
 Tarascos 'n'adoptferent jamais I'usage des eale^ons.' Camargo, Hist. Tlax., 
 In Noitvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, toni. xcviii., p. 132. The maxtii is 
 frequently spoken of as drawers or pantaloons. The Huastecs 'no traen 
 maxtlcs con que cubrir sus vergiienzas.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., 
 lib. X., p. 134. 
 
 ' Torqtiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 84. 
 
 8 'Cominciarono in questo tempo a vestirsi di cotone, del quale erano 
 innanxi aflfatto privi per la loro miseria, n^ d'altro vestivansi, se non delle 
 tele grosse di flio di maguei, o di palma salvatica.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Messico, torn, i., p. ISl. 'Lcs Mexicains, les Tecpaneques etlesautres 
 tribus qui restferent en arri^re, conservferent I'usage des Atones de coton, do 
 fil de palmier, de maguey ixohcle, de poil de lapiu et de lifevre, ainsi que 
 des peai.x d'animaux.' Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvellcs Annales des 
 Voy., 1843, xcviii., p. 132. 'Non aveano lana, nfe ssta comune, ni; lino, 
 nb canapa; ma sapplivano alia lana col cotone, alia seta colla piuma, e col 
 pelo del coniglio, e della lepre, ed al lino, ed alia canapa coll' Icxotl, o 
 
 nalma montana, col QuetzeUtehUi, col Pati, e con altre spezie di Maguei 
 
 II modo, che avevano di preparer qoesti materiali, era ^uello stesso, che 
 hanno gli Europci nel lino, e nella canapa. Macerevano m acqua le foglie. 
 c poi Ic nettavano, le mettcvano al Sole, e le ammaccavano, hnattantoch^ 
 Ic mettevano in istatodi poterle filare.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, 
 torn, ii., pp. 207-8. Yc^otl, Palma Montana. 'Non videtur fileudum, h 
 foliis huius arboris fila parari, linteis, storisq. intexendis perquam accom- 
 moda, politiora, firmioraq. eis quaa ex Metl passim fieri consueuere, ma- 
 
866 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The maxtli was about, twenty-four feet long and 
 nine inches wide, and was generally more or less orna- 
 mented at the ends with colored fringes and tassels, 
 the latter sometimes nine inches long. The manner 
 of wearing it was to pass the middle between the 
 legs and to wind it about the hips, leaving the ends 
 hanging one in front and the other at the back, a^i 
 is done at this day by the Malays and other East 
 Indian natives. It was at the ends usually that the 
 greatest display of embroidery, fancy fringes, and tas- 
 sels was made.' 
 
 As a further covering the men wore the tilmatli, or 
 ayatl, a mantle, which was nothing more than a square 
 piece of cloth about four feet long. If worn over 
 both shoulders, the two upper ends were tied in a knot 
 across the breast, but more frequently it was only 
 thrown over one shoulder and knotted under one of 
 the arms. Sometimes two or three of these mantles 
 were worn at one time. This, however, was only done 
 by the l>etter classes. The older Spanish writers gen- 
 erally compare this mantle to the Moorish albomoz. 
 It was usually colored or painted, frequently richly 
 embroidered or ornamented with feathers and furs. 
 
 dentibus in primis aqua, mox protritia, ac lotis, iteTum<][. et iterum macera- 
 tis, et insolatis, donee aptaredauntur, vt ncri possint, et in usus accommodari 
 n: iteries est leuis, ac lenta.' Hernandez, Nova. Plant., p. 76. 
 
 * ' Maxtles, c'est ainsi qu'on nomme en langue mexicaine des esp^ces 
 d'almai/sales ([iii sont loneuea de quatre brasses, larges d'une palme et 
 demie et terniin^es par des Moderies de diversescouleurs, qui out plus d'une 
 palme et demie de naut.' Camargo. Hist. Tlax., in Notivellea Annates des 
 Voy., 1843, tom. xcviii., p. 132. 'Cuoprono le loro jiarti vergogno se cosi 
 di dietro come dinanzi, con certi sciugatoi molto galanti, che sono come gran 
 fazzuoli che si legano il capo per via^o, di diuersi colori, e orlati di varie 
 foggie, e di colori similmente diuersi, con i suoi iiocclii, che nel cingersegli, 
 viene I'un capo dauanti e I'altro di dietro.' Relatione fa tta far vn qentiV 
 huomo del Stgnor Fernando Cortese, in Eamusio, Navigationi, tom. iii., fol. 
 305. In Meztitlan, 'les uns et les autres couvraient leur nudit^s d'une 
 longuebande d'^toffe, semblable & un a/matzar , qui leur faisait plusieursfois 
 Ic tour du corps et passait ensuite entre les janibes, les extr^mit^s retoni- 
 bant par-devant jusqu'auxgenoux.' Chaves, JRapport, in Ternaux-Compaiis, 
 Koy., s^rie iL, tom. v.,p.316. 'Losvestido8quetraen(Totonacs)es comode 
 almaizales muy pintados, y los hombrestraen tapadas sus verguenzas.' Cor- 
 tts, Cartas, p. 23. In Oajaca, 'Maxtles conque se cubrian sus vcrgiienzas.' 
 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib.x., pp. 136, 123, 131. The Miztecs 'por 
 caraguelles trahian matzles, que los Castellanos dizen mastiles.' Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii, cap. xii.; Clavigera, SU>ria Ant. del Messico, 
 torn. iL, p. 223. 
 
GARMENTS OP THE TABASCOS. 
 
 807 
 
 The edges were scolloped or fringed with tufts of cot- 
 ton and sometimes with gold. Kich people had, be- 
 sides these, mantles made of rabbit or other skins, or of 
 beautiful feathers, and others of fine cotton into which 
 was woven rabbit-hair, which latter were used in cold 
 weather.*" 
 
 In only one instance garments with sleeves are 
 mentioned. Ixtlilxochitl, in describing the dress of 
 the Acolhuas, says that they wore a kind of long 
 coat reaching to the heels with long sleeves." 
 
 The dress of the Tarascos differed considerably 
 from that of the other Nahua nations. This difference 
 
 10 II Tilmatli era un mantello quadro, Iiingo quattro piedi in circa; due 
 
 esitremit^ d'esso annodavano buI petto, o sopra una spalla Gli Uomini 
 
 solevano portar due, o tre mantelli.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mesisico, 
 toni. ii., p. 223, and plate, p. 224. 'I vestimenti loro aon certi manti di 
 bambagia come lenzuola, ma non cosi grande, lauoratori di gentili lauori di 
 diuerse maniere, e con le lor franze e orletti, e di ^uesti ciascun n 'ha duoi b 
 tre e se gli liga per dananti al petto.' Relatione ^atta per un gentil 'hvomo 
 del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Ramusio, Namgationi, torn, iii., fol. 30.'>; 
 Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 
 131. 'Todos traen albornoces encima de la otra ropa, aunque son diferen- 
 ciados de los de Africa, porque tienen maneras; pero en la liechura y tela y 
 los rapacejos son muy semejables.' Cortis, Cartas, pp. 75, 23. 'Leur v6te- 
 mcnt consistait anciennement dans deux ou trois manteaux d'une vare et 
 demi en carr^, nou^s par en haut, le nceud se niettant pour les uus sur la 
 poitrine, })our les autres h, I'^paule gauche, et souvent par derri^re.' Chaves, 
 Rapport, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., s^rie ii., torn, v., jjp. 315-16. 'Nin- 
 gun plebeyo vestia de algodon, con franja, ni guamicion, ni ropa roza- 
 gante, sino senzilla, liana, corta, y sin ribete, y assi era conocido cada vno 
 en el trage.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xvii; Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv., p. 174. 'Otras hacian de pelo de 
 
 Conejo, entretcxido de hilo de Algodon con que se defendian del frio.' 
 
 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 488; Diaz, Itinerario, in Icaz- 
 balceta. Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 298. The Totonacs; 'algunos con ropas 
 de algodon, ricas a su costumbre. Los otros casi desnudos.' Gomara, Cong. 
 Mex., fol. 39, 95; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 131. Huas- 
 tecs 'andan bien vestidos: y sus ropas y niantas son muy pulidas y curiosas 
 con lindas labores, porque en su tierra haccn las mantas que llaman cent- 
 zontilmatli, cemonquaehtli, que quiere dezir, mantas de tnu colores: de alld 
 se traen las mantas que tienen unas cabczas de monstruos pintadas, y- las 
 de remolinos de agua engeridas unas con otras, en las cuales y en otras mn- 
 chas, se esmerabau las tejedoras.' Id., p. 134. 'Una manta cuadrada 
 anudada sobre el pecho, hdcia el hombro siniestro, que dcscendia hasta los 
 tobillos; pero en tiempo de invierno cubrian mas el cuerpo con un sayo cer- 
 rodo sin mancas, y con una sola abertura en la sumida para entrar'la ca- 
 beza, y dos d los lados para los brazos, y eon ^I se cubrian nasta los muslos.' 
 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. i., p. 263; Zuazo, Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. 
 de Doc., tom., i., p. 360. 
 
 " 'Vestianse unas tdnicas largas de pellejos cnrtidos hasta los carcafia- 
 les, abiertas por delante y atadas con unas d manera de agugetas, y sus 
 manos que llegaban hasta las mufiecas, y las manos.' Ixtlilxochitl, Mela- 
 donet, in Kingsborough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 341. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 is said to have originated in ancient times, when they 
 together with other tribes, as the legend relates, immi- 
 grated into Mexico. While on their wanderings be- 
 ing obliged to cross a river, and having no ropes with 
 which to construct rafts, they used for this purpose 
 their maxtlis and mantles. Not being able to procure 
 other clothing immediately, they were under the ne- 
 cessity of putting on the huipiles, or chemises, of the 
 women, leaving to the latter only their naguas, or 
 
 {)etticoats. In commemoration of this event, they 
 ater adopted this as their national costume, discard- 
 ing the maxtli and wearing the huipil and a mantle." 
 The tilmatli, or ayatl, was by the Tarascos called 
 tlanatzi. It was worn over one shoulder and was 
 knotted under the other arm. They frequently trimmed 
 it with hare-skins and painted it gaudily. The young 
 wore it considerably shorter than old people. The 
 manufacture of feather garments seems to have been 
 a specialty of the Tarascos." 
 
 The Zapotecs chiefly dressed in skins, while others 
 in Oajaca are said to have worn small jackets, and 
 Cortds reports these people to have been better dressed 
 than any he had previously seen." In Tabasco but 
 little covering was used, the greater part of the popu- 
 lation going almost naked." 
 
 There was no difference in the dress of the women 
 throughout Andhuac. The huipil and cudtl were the 
 the chief articles, and were universally u ;d. Be- 
 sides these, mantles of various shapes and materials 
 were worn. The huipil was a kind of chemise, with 
 
 I* Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvellea Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xoviii., p. 132; Srasseiir de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 57. 
 
 " Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., JMS, torn, 
 xcviii., pp. 130-1; Beaumont, Crdn. Mechoacan, MS., pp. 49-50; Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix. 
 
 1* '£1 trage de ellos era de diversus maneras, tinos traian mantas, otros 
 oouio Unas xaquctillas.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 136. 
 ' Era mas vestida qtie estotra que habemos visto.' Cortis, Cartas, v. 93. 
 'La mayor parte nndauan en cueros.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., 
 cap. xiv. The Miztecs 'vestian mantas blancas de ulj^on, texidas, pinta- 
 daii, y matizadas con flores, roHas, y aves de diferentes colorea: no trahian 
 camisas.' Id., cap. xii. 
 
 i> 'Andan caaideanudos,* Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 36. 
 
DRESS OF WOMEN. 
 
 93. 
 
 iii., 
 inta- 
 ihian 
 
 either no sleeves at all or very short ones ; it cov- 
 ered the upper part of the body to a little below 
 the thighs. The lower part of the body was covered 
 by the cueitl, a petticoat, reaching to about half-way 
 hotween the knees and ankles, and often nicely em- 
 broidered and ornamented. Skins, ixcotl, or palm- 
 fibre, nequen, and cotton were the materials used for 
 these garments. Out of doors they frequently put 
 on another over-dress similar to the huipil, only 
 longer and with more ornamental fringes and tassels. 
 Sometimes they wore two or three of these at the 
 same time, one over the other, but in that case they 
 wore of different lengths, the longest one being worn 
 vmdcrneath. A mantle similar in size and shape to 
 that used by the men, white and painted in various 
 designs on the outside, >> ..s also used by the females. 
 To the upper edo-e of this, on thai portion which was 
 at the back of lue neck, a capuchin, like that worn 
 by the Dominican and other monks, was fastened, 
 with which they covered their head." 
 
 To protect their feet they used sandals, by the Az- 
 tecs called cactli, which were made of deer or other 
 skins, and frequently also of nequen and cotton. The 
 strings or straps used to fasten them were of the same 
 material." I do not find any description of the manner 
 in which they were fastened, but in an old Mexican 
 manuscript on maguey paper, in which some of the 
 
 10 'Traen camisas dc mcdias mancas.' Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 317; Re- 
 latione fntta per un GentiPhuomo del Signor Fernando Cortcse, in Ramnsio, 
 Narkjationi, torn, iii., fol. 305; IxtlUxochitl, Relarioiies, in Kingsboroiigh'a 
 Mcx. Antitf., vol. ix., p. 327; Cortis, Cartas, p. 23. In Jalisco they had 
 'vn Huipilillo corto, que llaman Ixqueniitl, 6 tcapxoloton. ' Tor^vemada, 
 Monarq. ItuL, torn, i., p. 339. ' Una soprav vesta . . .con nianiclie piu lunghe.' 
 Ctafigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 223; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., 
 torn, ii., p. 6, torn, i., pp. 253-4; Ihasxeur de Bonrbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, i., p.283. In Michoacan 'notraian vimles.' Sahag tin. Hist. Gen., torn. 
 iii., lib. X., pp. 138, 123; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codicc Mexicano (Va- 
 
 Ucn., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. xii. 
 
 " Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 112, 123; IxtlUxochitl, Rela- 
 done-s, in KingsborougKs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 336, 341; Herrera, Hist. 
 Gc«.,dec. ii.,Iib. vi., cap. xvii. ; Id., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix., xii.; Beau ont 
 Vrdii Mcchoacan, MS., p. 60; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., p. 259; Go- 
 mam, Conq. Mex., fol. 317; Chaves, Rajtport, in Ternavx-Compans, F< 
 Bcrie ii., torn. v. , p. 316; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toni. ii., p. ' 
 Vol. XI. a* 
 
870 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i i 
 
 natives are painted in various colors, I find that the 
 sandals were fastened in three places; first by a strap 
 running across the foot immediately behind the toes, 
 then another over the instep and running toward the 
 heel, and lastly by a strap from the heel round the 
 ankle. 
 
 As a general thing Mexicans wore the hair long, 
 and in many parts of the empire it was considered 
 a disgrace to cut the hair of a free man or woman." 
 Unlike most of the American natives they wore mous- 
 taches, but in other parts of the body they eradi- 
 cated all hair very carefully." There were public 
 barber-shops and baths in all the principal cities. ''° 
 The Aztecs had various ways of dressing the hair, 
 differing according to rank and office. Generally it 
 was left hanging loose down the back. The women also 
 frequently wore it in this way, but oftener had it done 
 up or trimmed after various fashions; thus some 
 wore it long on the temples and had the rest of the 
 head shaved, others twisted it with dark cotton 
 thread, others again had almost the whole head 
 shaved. Among them it was also fashionable to dye 
 the hair with a species of black clay, or with an herb 
 called xiiihquilitl, the latter giving it a violet shade. 
 Unmarried girls wore the hair always loose; they con- 
 sidered it as especially graceful to wear the hair low" 
 
 '8 'Aveanoadisonorc Tcsser toaati.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, 
 torn. ii. , p. 224. 
 
 ^^ Brasseur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 350. 'Ni bicn 
 baruiidos, porque se arrancan y vntaii los pelos para que no nazcaii.' Go- 
 mara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 317. The Mistec8 'las barbaa sc arrancauan con 
 teiiazillas do ore' Herrera, Hint. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. xii. 
 
 «o Cort<</i, Cartas, pp. 68, 104; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., toin. iii., p. 300. 
 
 '■ ' Hazcn lu iie<^ro con ticrra por gentileza y porque Ics mate lus pinjos. 
 Las casadas se lo rodean a la cabe9a con vn fludo a la frcnte. Las virj^incs 
 y por casar, lo traen auclto, y cchado atras y adelantc. Pelan se y vntan so 
 todas para no tener pclo sine en la cabeca y cejas, y assi ticnen por liernio- 
 Bura tcner chica frcntc, y llena dc cabcllo, y no tener coloilriilo.' Gomara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 317; i>ahagun. Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 309-10, 
 torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 11.3, 120, lib. xl., p. 309; Clamfcro, Storta Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, ii., p. 224; Chaves, Rapport, in Tcrnanx-Comnans, Voy., 
 sdrie ii., torn, v., p. 316. The Chichiniccswore it, 'largo hasta las cspaldii-s, 
 y por dclante se lo cortan.' Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones, in Kingsborough's 
 Alex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 335. 
 
HAIR-DRESSING AND PAINTING. 
 
 «n 
 
 on the forehead. The virgins who served in the tem- 
 ples had their hair cut short.** 
 
 The Otomi's shaved the fore part of the heads of 
 children, leaving only a tuft behind, which they called 
 piochtli, while the men wore the hair cut short as far 
 as the middle of the back of the head, but left it to 
 grow long behind ; and these long locks they called 
 piocheque. Girls did not have their hair cut until 
 after marriage, when it was worn in the same style as 
 by the men.'" The Tarascos, or as they were also 
 called Quaochpanme, derived this last name from an 
 old fashion of having their heads shaved, both men 
 and women.'" Later they wore the hair long, the 
 common people simply letting it hang down the back, 
 while the rich braided it with cotton threads of vari- 
 ous colors.'" The Miztecs wore the hair braided, and 
 ornamented with many feathers. ** 
 
 The Nahua women used paint freely to beautify 
 their person, and among some nations they also 
 tattooed. Among the Aztecs they painted their 
 faces with a red, yellow, or black color, made, 
 as Sahagun tells us, of burnt incense mixed with 
 dye. They also dyed their feet black with the same 
 mixture. Their teeth they cleaned and painted with 
 cochineal ; hands, neck, and breast were also painted." 
 Among the Tlascaltecs the men painted their faces 
 with a dye made of the xagua and bixa.^ The Oto- 
 mfs tattooed their breasts and arms by making in- 
 cisions with a knife and rubbing a blue powder 
 therein. They also covered the body with a spe- 
 
 niojos. 
 vir^jines 
 
 •* Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 224. 
 
 ^ Sa/uiffitn, Hint. Gen., toin. iii., lib. x. , p. 124. 
 
 <* 'Lldinose taiiibieii Qiiaochpannio, que quiere decir hombres de cabeza 
 rapada 6 ruida, porque anti^^iiaiiiente estos talcs no traian cabelloa lar^^os, 
 aiit«s Rc rapaimn la cabeza asi loa hornltres, conio las mugerea.' Sahagun, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 137; Brusseur de Bourbourg, Hiit. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii., p. 57. 
 
 ^ Beaumont, Cnfn. Mechoacan, MS., p. 60. 
 
 * Herrera, Hist. Gen,, dec. iii., lib iii., cap. xlv. . 
 
 " 'Se raiaban las Caras.' Torqtiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 26A; 
 Sahagun, Hi»t. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., p. 310. 
 
 ** Gomara, Conq. Hex. , fol. 7I^. 
 
ar72 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 cies of pitch called teocahuitl, and over this again 
 they applied some other color. Their teeth they 
 dyed black.'® 
 
 The Nahuas, like all semi -barbarous people, had a 
 passion for loading themselves with ornaments. Those 
 worn by the kings, nobles, and rich persons, were of 
 gold or silver, set with precious stones; those of the 
 poorer classes were of copper, stone, or bone, set with 
 imitations in crystal of the rarer jewels. These orna- 
 ments took the shape of bracelets, armlets, anklets, 
 and rings for the nose, ears, and fingers. The lower 
 lip was also pierced, and precious stones, or crystals, 
 inserted. The richer classes used principally for this 
 purpose the chalchiuite, which is generally desig- 
 nated as an emerald. There existed very stringent 
 laws reijardinor the class of ornaments which the dif- 
 ferent classes of people were allowed to wear, and it 
 was prohibited, on pain of death, for a subject to use 
 the same dress or ornaments as the king. Duran re- 
 lates that to certain very brave but low-born warriors 
 permission was accorded to wear a cheap garland or 
 crown on the head, but on no account might it be 
 made of gold.** Gomara tells us that the claws and 
 beaks of the eagle and also fish-bones were worn as 
 ornaments in the ears, nose, and lips.^* 
 
 The Otomfs used ear-ornaments made of burned 
 clay, nicely browned, and others of cane.** The Ta- 
 rascos chiefly relied on feathers for their personal 
 adornment.^ Of the natives encountered by Cortes 
 
 ^ Sahagun, Hist. Gen., iom. iii. ,lib. x., pp. 124-6. 
 
 30 Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., toiu. i., cap. xxvi. 
 
 " Gomara, Conq. Max., fol. 317; Hcrrern, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., 
 cap. xii. ; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toiii. ii., p. 224, describes the 
 nrnanients, but in his accompanying plate fails to show any of tiicin. Te- 
 BozoMoc, Crdnica Mex., in KingshorougKs Mex. Antiq., vol., ix. pp. 79- 
 80; Purchas his Pilfjrimes, vol. iv., p. 1119. 
 
 3> 'Do barro cocido bien bruilidaa, 6 de cafia.' Sahagun, Hist Gen., torn. 
 iii., lib. X., p. 124. 
 
 " Id., p. 137. The Totonacs 'traian vnos giandes agujeros en los be908 
 do abaxo, y en ellos vnas rodajas do piedras pintadillas do aznl, y otros con 
 vnaa hojad do oro delgadus, y en laH orojas muy grandcs agujeros, y en clloa 
 pucstas otniB rodajas de oro, y piedras. BernaV Diaz, Hist, Conq., fol. 28; 
 Corttt, Cartas, p. 23. 
 
DRESS OF TQE NOBLES. 
 
 378 
 
 when he landed at Vera Cruz, Peter Martyr tells us 
 that in the "hole of the lippes, they weare a broad 
 plate within fastened to another on the outside of the 
 lippe, and the iewell they hang thereat is as great as 
 a siluer Caroline doUer and as thicke as a mans 
 finger."^ 
 
 In Oajaca more ornaments were worn than in any 
 other part of the country, owing, perhaps, as the Al bj 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg remarks, to the plentiful sup- 
 ply of precious metals in that state.** 
 
 The dress of the nobles and members of the royal 
 household differed from that of the lower classes only 
 in fineness of material and profusion of ornaments. 
 The kings appear to have worn garments of the same 
 shape as those of their subjects, but, in other respects, 
 a particular style of dress was reserved for royalty, 
 and he who presumed to imitate it was put to death. 
 On occasions, however, when the monarch w^ished to 
 bestow a special mark of favor upon a brave soldier or 
 distinguished statesman, he would graciously bestow 
 upon him one of his garments, which, even though 
 the recipient were a, great noble, was received with 
 joy, and the wearer respected as a man whom the 
 king delighted to honor.^ In Tlascala differences of 
 rank among the nobles were easily recognized by the 
 style of dress. The common people were strictly for- 
 bidden to wear cotton clothes with fringes or other 
 trimmings, unless with special permission, granted in 
 consideration of services rendered.^ 
 
 The court laws of etiquette prescribed the dress to 
 be worn by the royal attendants, who could only appear 
 without sandals, barefooted, and in coarse mantles 
 
 '* Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. vii. 
 
 " The Miztecs 'tracn iniilii, axorcosmiiy anchasdeoro, ysnrtales de pie- 
 (Ira li las niuftecas. y joyeles do ^stas y de oro al cuello.' Sahaffiiii, Jlisl. 
 Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 136; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist, Nat. Civ., 
 torn, iii., p. 30. 
 
 3B 'Ninguna Peraona (aiinque fnesen siis propios Hijos) podia vcstirlo, bo 
 pcna de la vida.' Torqucmada, Monarq. ind., torn, ii., p. 642; Duran, 
 Hist. Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. xxvi. 
 
 " Camarffo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvellet Annalet dtt Voff., 1843, t^m. 
 xcviii., p. 198. 
 
874 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 
 before the king, and even the apparel of the sovereign 
 was in like manner fixed by custom, if not by law. 
 The different kinds of tilmatlis, or mantles, had each 
 its appropriate name, and varied in material as well 
 as in ornament and color. The cotton mantles are 
 described as being of exceeding fineness of texture, so 
 much so that it required an expert to determine 
 whether they were cotton or silk.* The mantle worn 
 as every-day dress in the palace was white and blue 
 and called the xiuhtilmatli.^ There were many other 
 kinds of mantles, of which the following are the 
 principal: A yellowish, heavily fringed mantle, on 
 which monstrous heads were painted, was called 
 coazayacaiotilmatli; another, blue, ornamented with 
 red shells, with three borders, one light, another 
 dark blue, and a third of white feather- work, and 
 fringed with the same kind of shells, was named 
 tecuciciotilmatli; another, dark yellow, with alternate 
 black and white circles painted on it, and a border 
 representing v/es, was the teinalcacaiotilmatlitenisio: 
 a similar one, differing only in the figures and shape 
 of the ornaments, was the itzcayotilmatli; a very 
 gaudy one, worked in many colors, was the umetech- 
 tecomaiotilmatli; another, with a yellow ground, on 
 which were butterflies made of feathers, and with 
 scolloped edges, was called papaloiotilmatlitenisio; the 
 xaoalquauhiotilmatlitenisio, was embroidered with de- 
 signs representing the flower called ecaeazcatl, and 
 further ornamented with white feather-work and feath- 
 er edges; the ocelotentlapalliyiticycacocelotl was an 
 imitation of a tiger-skin, also ornamented with an 
 edge of white feathers; the ixnextlacuilolli was 
 worked in many colors, and had a sun painted on it." 
 Other mantles, differing mainly in their style of orna- 
 
 ^ * Tan delgada» y bicn texidas que necesitalian del tacto para diferen- 
 ciarsc dc la seda.' Solis, Hist. Conq. Mex., torn, i., p. 132; Acosta, Hist, 
 do las Ynd., p. 607. 
 
 3' Glaviqero, Sloria Ant. del Mesaieo, torn, ii., pp. 116-16; Torqutmada, 
 Monarq., ind., torn, ii., p. 542. 
 
 *<> Saliagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 286-8. 
 
DRESS OF THE KINGS. 
 
 875 
 
 mentation, were the coaxacayo and tlacolhuaztihnatli, 
 the latter worn when the king went into his gardens 
 or to the chase. In the same manner there are also 
 various kinds of maxtlis mentioned, such as the ynya- 
 0' '" nxaliuhqui, ytzahuazalmaxtlatl and yacahualiuqui.*^ 
 Ill fact there appears to have been a different dress 
 for every occasion. We are told, for instance, that 
 when going to the temple the king wore a white 
 mantle, another when going to preside at the court 
 of justice, and here he again changed his dress, ac- 
 cording as the case before the court was a civil or 
 criminal suit.*' The sandals of the kings were always 
 richly ornamented with precious stones, and had golden 
 soles.** 
 
 Whenever the sovereign appeared in public he 
 wore the royal crown, called copilli, which was of 
 
 *• Tezozomoc, Crdniea Mex., in KingsborougKs Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 p. 57. 
 
 ** 'Para salir de Palacio los Reies k visitar los Teniplos, se vestian de 
 bianco; pero para entrar en los Consejos, y asistir en otros ActOB publicos, se 
 vestian de diferentes colores, conformc la ocasion.' Torquemada, Monarq. 
 Iiid., torn, ii., p. 643. 'Les rois s'habillaient tantdt de blanc, tant6t d'e- 
 toffes d'un jaune obscur onides de f ranges de mille couleurs.' Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 284, torn, iv., pp. 210-11. 'Mantas 
 de & dos liaces, labradas de pluniaa de papos de aves, tan suaves, que tray- 
 endo la mano por eneima d pelo y A pospelo, no era mas que una marta cebel- 
 lina inuy bien adobada: hice pesar una dellas, no pe86 mas de seis onzas.' 
 Zitazo, Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 360. Vestidos de 
 pelo de cone jo y de algodon de mucha curiosidad, y estas eron vestiduras de 
 Caciques y de gente muy principal' in Michoacan. Beaumont, Crdn. MechO' 
 oacan, MS., pp. 49-50; IxtUlxochitl, Hist. Chick., in KiHf/sborough'a Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 336, 240,2&5;Id., IielacioHes,\nId.,\>. 836; Oviedo, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, iii., p. 298. Description of Montezuma's dress when meeting Cor- 
 tes, in Solis, Hist. Conq. Mcx., torn, i., p. 369; Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, iii, p. 77; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., torn, iii., p. 386; Prescott's 
 Mcx., vol. ii., p. 317. Representations of tiie dresses of the Mexican kings 
 and nobles are also in the Codex Mendoza, in KingshorovglCs Mex. Antiq., 
 vol. i. 
 
 " ' Traia cakr :08 como eotnras, que assi se dize lo que se calfan, las 
 
 suclos de oro, y iv \y jLirsciada pedreria eneima en ellos.' Birnal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 65. 'Portoit nne chanssure do pcau de chevreuil.' Nouvelles 
 Annates des Voy., 1824, torn, xxiv., p. 137. 'Capatos de oro, que filos 
 llanian zagles, y son a la munera antigua de los Komunos, tcninn eti\n pe- 
 dreria de mucho valor, las suelas cstauan prendidas con corrcas.' uerrera. 
 Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. v. 'Cotaras de cuero de tigro j.' Tezozo- 
 moc, Crdniea Mex., in Kingsbor oughts Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 79; Solis, 
 Hist. Conq. Mex., torn, i., p. 369; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 
 525; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv., pp. 210-11; Cortfs, 
 Cartas, p. 85; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej. ,iom. iii., p. 386; IxtUlxochitl, Beta- 
 Clones, in KingsborouttKs Mex, Antiq., voL ix., p. 327; Prescotd Mex., 
 vol. u., pp. 73-4, 317. 
 
97« 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 solid gold, and is described by most writers as having 
 been shaped like a bishop's mitre; but in the hiero- 
 glyphical paintings, in which the Mexican kings are 
 represented, it is simply a golden band, wider in front 
 than at the back, the front running up to a point; on 
 some occasions it was ornamented with long feathers." 
 The following description of ornaments, worn by the 
 Mexican kings and nobles, I extract from Sahagun: — 
 The quetzalalpitoai consisted of two tassels of fine 
 feathers garnished with gold, which they wore bound 
 to the hair on the crown of the head, and hanging 
 down to the temples. The tlauhquecholtzontli was a 
 handsome garment of feathers worn on the shoulders. 
 On the arms they placed gold rings; on the wrists a 
 thick black strap made soft with balsam, and upon it 
 a large chalchiuite or other precious stone. They 
 also had a harhote, or chin-piece, of chalchiuite or other 
 precious stone, set in gold, inserted in the chin. 
 These chin-ornaments were made long, of crystal, 
 with some blue feathers in the centre, which made 
 them look like sapphire. The lip had a hole bored in 
 it, from which precious stones or gold crescents were 
 suspended. The great lords likewise had holes in 
 their nose, and placed therein very fine turquoises or 
 other precious stones, one on each side of the nose. 
 On their necks they wore strings of precious stones, or 
 a medal suspended by a gold chain, with pearl pend- 
 ants hanging from its edge, and a flat jewel in the 
 centre of it. They used bracelets of mosaic work 
 
 ** ' La corona de Rey, que tiene semejan^a a la corona de la Scfioria dc 
 Venecia.' Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 471. 'Unas tiaras de oro y pedre- 
 rio.' IxtlUxochitl, Hist. Chick., in Ktngsborough's Mex, Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 295. 'En la Cabcpa vnos Plumajes rices, que ataban tantos cabcllos dc la 
 Corona, quanto tonia el cspacio de la Corona Clerical : estos Plumajes prcndi- 
 aii y ataban con vna corrca colorada, y de ella colgaban con sua pinjantes do 
 Oro, que i>endian ^ manera de chias de Mitra de Obispo.' Tortfuemada, 
 Monarq. IiuL, torn, ii., pp. 642-3. 'Era di varic materie giusta il piaccrc 
 dei Ke, or di lame sottili d'oro or tessuta di filo d'oro, c figurata con vaghe 
 penne. Clavigero, Stwia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 115, torn, iii., p. 77. 
 'Before like a Myter, and behinde it was cut, so as it was not round, for the 
 forepart was higlier, and did rise like a point.' Purchas, his Pilgrimes, toni. 
 iv., p. 1062; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 386; PreseotVs Mex., vol. 
 ii., p. 317; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Uiv., torn, iv., p. 210. 
 
ABORIGINAL DRESS. 
 
 877 
 
 made with turquoises. On their legs they wore, from 
 the knee down, greaves of very thin gold. They car- 
 ried in the right hand a little golden flag with a tuft 
 of gaudy feathers on the top. Upon their heads they 
 wore a bird made of rich feathers, with its head and 
 beak resting on the forehead, its tail toward the back 
 of the head, its wings falling over the temples.* 
 
 45 
 
 *5 Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, vii., lib. ii., pp. 288-90; Tezozomoc, Crdnica 
 Mex., in Kingsborovgh^s Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 57, 79; Jxtlilxochitl, 
 Hist. Chich., in Id., p. 327; Torquemada, Motiarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 525; 
 Veytia, Hist. A at. Mej., torn, i., p. 259, torn, iii., p. 392; Camargo, Hist. 
 Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcix., p. 178. Fur- 
 ther mention of ornamenta in the enumeration of presents given by Monte- 
 zuma to Cortds in Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iii., pp. 65, 80; 
 Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. v.; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., 
 pp. 279, 283, 285, 292, 298; Solis, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. i., pp. 125, 132-3; 
 Purchas, his Pilgriines, vol. iv., pp. 1118-9, 1124; Corlds, Cartas, pp. 69, 85; 
 Brasseur de Bourbonrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv., pp. 76, 84, 214, 2^-4; 
 
 PrcscotVs Mex., vol. ii., p. 83. Among the modern authors who have writ- 
 ten upon the subject of dress may be mentioned: Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. 
 Mex., tom. i., pp. 326, 680-2, tom. ii., pp. 91, 224-5, with numerous cuts; 
 liussierre, L" Empire Mex., p. 145; C/ievnlter, Mex., Ancien et Mod., pp. 57-8; 
 Dillon, Hist. Mex., p. 47; Klemm, Cultnr-Geschichte, tom. v., pp. 13-14, 22, 
 28, 189; Monglave, R6sumi, p. 36; BroxonelPs Ind. Races, pp. 65, 79; Barili 
 Mexiq'ie, p. 209; Pimentel, Mem. sobre la Baza Indigena, p. 61. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COMMERCE OF THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The Main Features of Nahua Commerce— Commerce in Pre-Aztec 
 Times— Outrages Committed by Aztec Merchants— Privileges 
 OF the Merchants of Tlatelulco— Jealousy between Mer- 
 chants and Nobles— Articles used as Currency — the Mar- 
 kets OF AnAhuac — Arrangement and Regulations of the 
 Market-Places — Number of Buyers and Sellers— Transpor- 
 tation OF Wares— Traveling Merchants— Commercial Routes 
 — Setting out on a Journey — Caravans of Traders — The 
 Return — Customs and Feasts of the Merchants— Nahua 
 Boats and Navigation. 
 
 Traditional history tells us but little respecting 
 American commerce previous to the formation of the 
 great Aztec alliance, or empire, but the faint light 
 thrown on the subject would indicate little or no 
 change in the system within the limits of Nahua his- 
 tory. The main features of the commercial system in 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were: markets 
 in one or more of the public squares of every town, 
 where eatables and other articles of immediate neces- 
 sity were daily sold — shops proper being unknown; 
 frequently recurring fairs in each of the large towns, 
 where the products of agriculture, manufacture, and 
 art in the surrounding country were displayed before 
 consumers and merchants from home and from abroad; 
 similar fairs but on a grander scale in the great com- 
 mercial centres, where home products were exchanged 
 
 (878) 
 
COMMERCE IN PRE-AZTEC TIMES. 
 
 vn 
 
 for foreign merchandise, or sold for export to mer- 
 chants from distant nations who attended these fairs 
 in large numbers; itinerant traders continually tra- 
 versing the country in companies, or caravans ; and the 
 existence of a separate class exclusively devoted to 
 commerce. 
 
 From the earliest times the two southern Andhuacs 
 of Ayotlan and Xicalanco, corresponding to what are 
 now the southern coast of Oajaca and the tierra caliente 
 of Tabasco and southern Vera Cruz, were inhabited 
 by commercial peoples, and were noted for their fairs 
 and the rich wares therein exposed for sale. These 
 nations, the Xicalancas, Mijes, Huaves, and Zapotecs 
 even engaged to some extent in a maritime coasting 
 trade, mostly confined, however, as it would appear, 
 to the coasts of their own territories and those imme- 
 diately adjacent ; and in this branch of commerce little 
 or no advance had been made at the time when the 
 Spaniards came.* 
 
 The Toltecs are reported to have excelled in com- 
 merce as in all other respects, and the. markets of 
 ToUan and Cholula are pictured in glowing colors; but 
 all traditions on this subject are exceedingly vague.' 
 In the new era of prosperity that followed the Toltec 
 disasters Cholula seems to have held the first place 
 as a commercial centre, her fairs were the most famous, 
 and her merchants controlled the trade of the south- 
 ern coasts on either ocean. After the coming of the 
 Teo-Chichimec hordes to the eastern plateau, Tlascala 
 became in her turn the commercial metropolis of the 
 north, a position which she retained until forced to 
 yield it to the merchants of the Mexican valley, who 
 were supported by the warlike hordes of the Aztec 
 confederacy. Before the Aztec supremacy, trade 
 seems to have been conducted with some show of fair- 
 ness, and commerce and politics Were kept to a great 
 
 ' Bur^oa, Geog. Dcscrip., torn, i., pt ii., fol. 181; Brasseur de Bour- 
 hourg, Htst. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 42-3. 
 
 • Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. N^at. Civ., torn, i., pp. 271-3; IxtlilxO' 
 chill, Relaciones, in Kingsborough'a Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 332. 
 
.880 
 
 THE MAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 extent separate. But the Aztecs introduced a new 
 order of things. Their merchants, instead of peace- 
 ful, industrious, unassuming travelers, became insolent 
 and overbearing, meddling without scruple in the pub- 
 lic affairs of the nations through whose territory they 
 had i.D pass, and trusting to the dread of the armies 
 of Mexico for their own safety ; caravans became little 
 less than armed bodies of robbers. The confederate 
 kings were ever ready to extend by war the field of 
 their ccmmerce, and to avenge by the hands of their 
 warriors any insult, real or imaginary, offered to their 
 merchants. The traveling bands of 'laders were in- 
 structed to prepare maps of countries traversed, to 
 observe carefully their condition for defence, and their 
 resources. If any province was reported rich and de- 
 sirable, its people were easily aggravated to coinmit 
 some act of insolence which served as a pretext to lay 
 waste their lands, and make them tributary to the 
 kings of Andhuac. Within the provinces that were 
 permanently and submissively tributary to Mexico, 
 Tezcuco, and Tlacopan, traffic may be supposed to have 
 been as a rule fairly conducted. The merchants had 
 in turn to pay into the royal treasury a large percent- 
 age of their gains, but this, under the circumstances, 
 they could well afford. 
 
 Tlatelulco while an independent city was noted for 
 her commerce, as was Tenochtitlan for the prowess of 
 her warriors, and when mercantile enterprise was 
 forced to yield to the power of arms, Tlatelulco, as a 
 part of Mexico, retained her former preeminence in 
 trade, and became the commercial centre of Andhuac. 
 Her merchants, who were a separate class of the 
 population, were highly honored, and, so far as the 
 higher grades were concerned, the merchant princes, 
 the pochtecas, dwellers in the aristocratic quarter of 
 Pochtlan, had privileges fully equal to those of the 
 nobles. They had tribunals of their own, to which 
 alone they were responsible, for the regulation of all 
 matters of trade. They formed indeed, to all intents 
 
THE TLATELULCAN COMPANY. 
 
 881 
 
 and purposes, a commercial corporation controling the 
 whole trade of the country, of which all the leading 
 merchants of other cities were in a sense subordinate 
 members. Jealousy betwfeen this honored class of 
 merchants and the nobility proper, brought about the 
 many complications during the last years of the Az- 
 tec empire, to which I have referred in a preceding 
 chapter. Throughout the Nahua dominion commerce 
 was in the hands of a distinct class, educated for their 
 calling, and everywhere honored both by people and 
 by kings; in many regions the highest nobles thought 
 it no disgrace to engage in commercial pursuits. 
 
 Besides the pochtecas, two other classes of merch- 
 ants are mentioned in Tlatelulco, the nahualoztome- 
 cas, those who made a specialty of visiting the lands 
 of enemies in disguise, and the teyaohualohuani or 
 traders in slaves.' The merchants were exempt from 
 military and other public service, and had the right 
 not only to make laws for the regulation of trade, but 
 to punish even those who were not of their class for 
 offenses against such laws. Sa^agun gives an account 
 of the gradual development and history of the Tlate- 
 lulcan company, stating the names of the leading 
 merchants under the successive kings, with details 
 respecting the various articles dealt in at different 
 periods, all of which is not deemed of sufficient in- 
 terest to be reproduced in these pages. 
 
 Nahua trade was as a rule carried on by means of 
 barter, one article of merchandise being ej^changed 
 for another of equivalent value. Still, regular pur- 
 chase and sale were not uncommon, particularly in the 
 business of retailing the various commodities to con- 
 sumers. Although no regular coined money was 
 used, yet several more or less convenient substitutes 
 furnished a medium of circulation. CLIef among 
 these were nibs, or grains, of the cacao, of a species 
 somewhat different from that employed in making the 
 favorite drink, chocolate. This money, known as pat- 
 
 ) 'Teyaoyaualoani. el que cerca a los enemigos.' Molina, Vocabulario. 
 
882 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 lachtS, passed current anywhere, and payments of it 
 were made by count up to eiffht thousand, which con- 
 stituted a xiquipilli. In Targe transactions sacks 
 containing three xiquipilli were used to save labor in 
 counting. Patolquachtli were small pieces of cotton 
 cloth used as money in the purchase of articles of im- 
 mediate necessity or of little value. Another circu- 
 lating medium was gold-dust kept in translucent 
 quills, that the quantity might be readily seen. Cop- 
 per was also cut into small pieces shaped like a T> 
 which constituted perhaps the nearest approach to 
 coined money. Cortds, in search of materials for the 
 manufacture of artillery, found that in several prov- 
 inces pieces of tin circulated as money, and that a 
 mine of that metal was worked in Taxco. Sahagun 
 says the Mexican king gave to the merchant-soldiers, 
 dispatched on one of their politico-commercial expedi- 
 tions, sixteen hundred quauhtli, or eagles, to trade 
 with. Bustamante, Sahagun's editor, supposes these 
 to have been the copper pieces already mentioned, but 
 Brasseur believes, from the small value of the copper 
 and the large amount of rich fabrics purchased with 
 the eagles, that they were of gold. The same au- 
 thority believes that the golden quoits with which 
 Montezuma paid his losses at gambling also served as 
 money.* 
 
 The Nahuas bought and sold their merchandise by 
 count and by measures both of length and capacity, 
 but not by weight; at least, such is the general opin- 
 
 * The Toltecs ' usaban de una cierta inonec de cobre de largo de dos dcdos 
 y dc ancho uno d mancra de achitas pequefiait y de grueso, conio iin real de 
 a oclio. Esta moiieda no lia niucho tiempo \ i la nan dejado los de TutU- 
 
 pec del mar del sun' Ixtlilxochitl, Belach 
 
 Antiq., vol. ix., p. 332. 'No saben que cosa 
 
 ninguno.' Gomara, Coiiq. Mex., fol. 87, 342. 
 
 come vn mezzo marchetto (about three cents) fra 
 
 aentifhuomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in h 
 
 lii., fol. 306. See CorUa, Carta*, p. 311; Sahafi 
 
 ix., p. 342; Brasseur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat 
 
 Id. Quatre Lettres, p. 276; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn. ii',,p 
 
 666. Salt used as money. Chaves, in Temaux-Compans, Voy., sdrie ii., 
 
 tom. v., p. 328. I omit a long list of references to authors who merely 
 
 mention cacao and the other articles us used for money. 
 
 in KivgsborouglCs Mex. 
 8 moneda batida de metal 
 n cacao nibs ' val ciascuno 
 >i.' Belationefalta pervn 
 •nusio, Navigationt, toin. 
 t, Hist. Gen., tom. ii., lib. 
 "¥»., torn, iii., pp. 627-9; 
 
THE MARKETS OF ANAHUAC. 
 
 818 
 
 ion of the authorities. Sahagun, however, says of the 
 skillful merchant that he knows "the value of gold 
 and silver, according to tlie weight and fineness, is 
 diligent and solicitous in his duty, and defrauds not in 
 weighing, but rather gives overweight," and this too 
 in the "time of their infidelity." Native words also 
 appear in several vocabularies for weights and scales. 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg regards this as ample proof 
 that scales were used. Clavigero thinks w« ights may 
 have been employed and mention of the fact omitted 
 in the narratives.' The market, tianquiztli, of Tlate- 
 lulco was the grandest in the country and may be 
 taken as a representative of all. Its grandeur con- 
 sisted, however, in the abundance and variety of the 
 merchandise offered for sale and in the crowd of buy- 
 ers and sellers, not in the magnificence of the buildings 
 connected with it; for the market-place was simply an 
 open plaza, surrounded as all the authorities say with 
 'porticoes' where merchandise was exhibited. What 
 these porticoes were we are left to conjecture. Prob- 
 ably they were nothing more than simple booths 
 arranged in streets and covering the whole plaza, 
 where merchants and their wares were sheltered from 
 the rays of a tropical sun. Whatever may have been 
 the nature and arrangement of these shelters, we know 
 that the space was systematically apportioned among 
 the different industries represented. Fishermen, hunt- 
 ers, farmers, and artists, each had their allotted space 
 for the transaction of business. Hither, as Torque- 
 mada tells us, came the potters and jewelers from 
 Cholula, the workers in gold from Azcapuzalco, the 
 painters from Tezcuco, the shoe-makers from Tenayo- 
 can, the huntsmen from Xilotepec, tlie fishermen from 
 Cuitlahuac, the fruit-growers of the tierra caliente, the 
 
 > 'No tenian peso (que yo sepa) log Mexicanos, falta grandissima para 
 la contratacion. Quicn dizc qne no lo vsaiiaii fiorescusur los cnj^auoH, quion 
 
 Sor que no lo auian mcncster, quien por ignorancia, que cs lo cicrto. Por 
 onde parecc que no auian oido conic hizo Dies todos las cosas en cucnto, 
 peso, y niedida.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 342; Clavitjcro, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, toni. ii., p. 1C6; Sahantm, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp, 42, 40; 
 Brasaeur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. C29-30. 
 
884 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 mat-makers of Quauhtitlan, the flower-dealers of Xo- 
 chimilco, and yet so great was the market that to each 
 of these was afforded an opportunity to display his 
 wares. 
 
 All kinds of food, animal and vegetable, cooked and 
 uncooked, were arranged in the most attractive man- 
 ner; eating-houses were also attached to the tian- 
 quiztli and much patronized by the poorer classes. 
 Here were to be found all the native cloths and fab- 
 rics, in the piece and made up into garments coarse 
 and fine, plain and elaborately embroidered, to suit the 
 taste and means of purchasers; precious stones, and 
 ornaments of metal, feathers, or shells; implements 
 and weapons of metal, stone, and wood ; building ma- 
 terial, lime, stone, wood, and brick; articles of house- 
 hold furniture; matting of various degrees of fineness; 
 medicinal herbs and prepared medicines; wood and 
 coal ; incense and censers ; cotton and cochineal ; tanned 
 skins; numerous beverages; and an infinite variety of 
 pottery; but to enumerate all the articles noticed in 
 the market-place by the conquerors would make a very 
 long list, and would involve, beside, the repetition of 
 many names which have been or will be mentioned 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Cortes speaks of this market as being twice as large 
 as that of Salamanca, and all the conquistadores are en- 
 thusiastic in their expressions of wonder not only at 
 the variety of products offered for sale, but at the per- 
 fect order and system which prevailed, notwithstand- 
 ing the crowd of buyers and sellers. The judges of 
 the commercial tribunal, twelve in number according 
 to Torquemada, four, according to Zuazo, held their 
 court in connection with the market buildings, where 
 they regulated prices and measures, and settled dis- 
 putes. Watchmen acting under their authority, con- 
 stantly patroled the tianquiztli to prevent disorder. 
 Any attempt at extortionate charges, or at passing off 
 injured or inferior goods, or any infringement on anoth- 
 er's rights was immediately reported and severely pun- 
 
BUYERS AND SELLERS. 
 
 885 
 
 jghed. The judges had even the right to enforce the 
 death penalty. Other markets in the Nahua regions 
 were on a similar plan, those of Tlascala and Tezcuco 
 coming next to that of Tlatelulco in importance.* 
 
 Trade was carried on daily in the tianquiztli, chiefly 
 for the convenience of the inhabitants of the city, but 
 every fifth day was set apart as a special market-day, 
 on which a fair was held, crowded not only by local 
 customers, but by buyers and sellers from all the 
 country round, and from foreign lands. In Tlatelulco 
 these special market-davs were those that fell under 
 the signs calli, tochtli, acatl, and tecpatl. In other 
 large cities, days with other signs were chosen, in 
 order that the fairs might not occur on the same day 
 in neighboring towns. Las Casas says that each of 
 the two market-places in the city of Mexico would 
 contain 200,000 persons, 100,000 being present each 
 fifth day; and Cortes tells us that more than 60,000 
 persons assembled daily in the Tlatelulco market. 
 According to the same authority 30,000 was the 
 number of daily visitors to the market of Tlascala. 
 Perhaps, however, he refers to the fair-days, on which 
 occasion at Tlatelulco, the Anonymous Conqueror puts 
 the number at 50,000, limiting the daily concourse to 
 about 25,000.'' Considering the population of the 
 cities and surrounding country, together with the 
 limited facilities for transportation, these accounts of 
 the daily attendance at the markets, as also of the 
 abundance and variety of the merchandise, need not 
 be regarded as exaggerations. 
 
 « On the Nahua markets and the articles offered for sale, sec: Cortia, 
 Cartas, pp. 03, 103-5; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 70; Relatione /alia 
 ]>cr VH gentil ^huomo del Siqnor Fernando Cortcsc, in Ramusio, Nnviga- 
 lioiii, torn, iii., fol. 309; Sahamn, Hist. Gen., tmn. ii., lib. viii., pp. .323-8, 
 lih. ix., p. 357; Las Casas, Htst. Apoloifitien, MS., cap. Ixx; Torquemada, 
 Mininrq. Ltd., torn, ii., pp. 554-60; Ofiedo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., pp. 272, 
 290-301; Gonmra, Conq. Mex., fol. 87-8, 116-18; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. 
 ii., lib. vii., cap. xv., xvi. ; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iii., iv.; Zuazo, 
 Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doe., toni. i., pp. 359-61. 
 
 ' Cortis, Cartas, pp. 10.3, 68; Relatione falta per vn pentiPhuomo del 
 fHqnor Fernando Cortese, in Ramusio, Navie/atiom, torn, iii., fol. 300. 'Es 
 tnnta la gente que concurrc d vender y comprar, que no pucde facilmente 
 deolararac.' Las Camts, Hist. ApoUuiltra, mH., cap Ixx. 
 Vol. II. m 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 On the lakes about the city of Mexico merchandise 
 of all kinds was transported to and from the markets 
 by boats, 50,000 of which, as Zuazo tells us, were 
 employed daily in bringing provisions to the city.' 
 The heavier or more bulky articles of trade, such as 
 building material, were often offered for sale in the 
 boats to save the labor of repeated handling. Boats 
 were also used for transportation on the southern 
 coasts, to some extent on navigable rivers, and also 
 by traveling merchants in crossing such streams as 
 could not conveniently be bridged. The only other 
 means of transportation known in the country was 
 that afforded by the carriers. Large numbers of these 
 carriers, or porters, were in attendance at the markets 
 to move goods to and from the boats, or to carry par- 
 cels to the houses of consumers. For transportation 
 from town to town, or to distant lands, merchandise 
 was packed in bales, wrapped in skins and mats, or in 
 bamboo cases covered with skin, known as petlacalli. 
 Cases, or cages, for the transportation of the more 
 fragile wares were called cacaxtli. The tlamama, or 
 regular carriers, were trained to their work of carrying 
 burdens from childhood, seventy or eighty pounds was 
 the usual burden carried, placed on the back and sup- 
 ported by the mecapalli, a strap passing round the fore- 
 head ; twelve or fifteen miles was the ordinary day's 
 journey. The tlamama, clad in a maxtli, carried on 
 long trips, besides his bale of merchandise, a sort of 
 palm-leaf umbrella, a bag of provisions, and a blanket. 
 
 Expeditions to distant provinces were undertaken 
 by the company of Tlatelulco for purposes of com- 
 mercial gain ; or by order of the king, when political 
 gains were the object in view, and the traders in 
 reality armed soldiers; or more rarely by individual 
 merchants on their own private account. For pro- 
 tection large numbers usually traveled in company, 
 
 ■ Carta, in Icazbalcela, Col. de Doe., torn, i., p. 359. 'Sobrc cincucnta 
 mill canoos y cicnt mill segiiii 8c crcc' Las Casas, Hist. Apologdtica, MS., 
 cap. Ixx. ' The lake day ami night is plyed with boateb going and return- 
 ing.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. uL 
 
TRAVELING MERCHANTS. 
 
 387 
 
 choosing some one of the company to act as leader. 
 Previous to departure they gave a banquet to the old 
 merchants of the town, who by reason of their age 
 had ceased to travel; at this feast they made known 
 their plans, anci spoke of the places they intended to 
 visit and roads by which they would travel. The old 
 merchants applauded the spirit and enterprise of 
 those who were going on the expedition, and, if they 
 were young and inexperienced, encouraged them 
 and spoke of the fame they would gain for having 
 left their homes to undertake a dangerous journey and 
 suffer privations and hardships. They reminded them 
 of the wealth and honored name acquired by their 
 fathers in similar expeditions, and gave them advice 
 as to the best manner of conducting themselves on 
 the road.' 
 
 On the route the carriers marched in single file, and 
 at every camping-place the strictest watch was kept 
 ai^ainst enemies, and especially against robbers, who 
 then as now infested the dangerous passes to lie in 
 wait for the richly laden caravans. Rulers of the 
 different friendly provinces, mindful of the benefits 
 resulting from such expeditions, constructed roads and 
 kept them in repair; furnished bridges or boats for 
 crossing unfordable streams; and at certain points, 
 remote from towns, placed houses for the travelers' 
 accommodation. Expeditions in hostile provinces 
 were undertaken by the nahualoztomecas, who dis- 
 guised themselves in the dress of the province visited, 
 and endeavored to imitate the manners and to speak 
 the language of its people, with which it was a quali- 
 fication of their profession to make themselves ac- 
 quainted. Extraordinary pains was taken to guard 
 against robbers on the return to Mexico, and it is also 
 said to have been customary for the merchants on 
 Hearing the city, to dress in rags, affecting poverty, 
 
 * For specimens of the exhortations of old merchants to young men see 
 Sniiagun, llitt. Gen., torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 310-314; Torquemtula, Monarq. 
 IiiU., torn. iL, pp. 685-& 
 
388 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i I 
 
 and an unsuccessful trip. The motive for this latter 
 proceeding is not very apparent, nor for the invariable 
 introduction of goods into the city by night; they 
 had not even the hope of evading the payment of 
 taxes which in later times prompts men to similar 
 conduct, since merchandise could only be sold in the 
 public market, where it could not be oft'ered without 
 paying the royal percentage of duties. 
 
 The usual route of commercial expeditions was 
 south-eastward to Tochtepec near the banks of the 
 Rio Alvarado, whence the caravans took separate 
 roads according as their destination was the coast re- 
 gion of Goazacoalco, the Miztec and Zapotec towns 
 on the Pacific, or the still more distant regions across 
 the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The southern limit 
 reached by the traders of the Aztec empire, it is im- 
 possible accurately to determine. The merchants of 
 Xicalanco furnished Cortds, when about to undertake 
 the conquest of Honduras, tolerably correct maps of 
 the whole region as far south as the isthmus of Pa- 
 nama;'" the raiders from And,huac are known to have 
 penetrated to Chiapa, Soconusco, and Guatemala; it 
 is by no means improbable that her merchants reached 
 on more than one occasion the Isthnms." 
 
 The preceding pages contain all that has been pre- 
 served concerning Nahua trade and traders except 
 what may be termed the mythology of commerce, a 
 branch of the subject not without importance, em- 
 bracing the eremonies, sacrifices, and superstitions 
 connected with the setting-out, journey, and return of 
 the Tlatelulcan caravans. Commerce, like every other 
 
 ^0 Herrera, Hist, Geit., dec. iii., lib. vi., cap. xii.; Bernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conn., fol. 197. 
 
 '' A very full account of the Nahua commerce is given in Claviqero, 
 Storia Ant, del Mcssico, torn, ii., pp. 163-70, and the same is transluted 
 with slight changes, in Carhnjal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 6i28-.35, 
 in lirasscur de Bourbourg, Hist^ Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 612-32, and in Id., 
 in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1868, torn, clix., pp. 4o-58. See also llelits' 
 Span. Con^., vol. ii., pi>. 329-31; Gage's New Stmmj, pp. 109-12; Midler, 
 Amerikantsr.he Urveltgionen, p. 641; Klemm, Cultvr-Uesr.hichte, torn, v., 
 pp. 25-8; West-Indische Spieghel, pp. 247-8; ^»/««V»rc, UEmnire Mex., 
 pp. 166-71; Touroii, Hist. Gtit,, torn, iii., pp. 43-6. See altto Note 12. 
 
SETTING-OUT OF THE MERCHANTS. 
 
 889 
 
 feature of Nahua civilization, was under the care of a 
 special deity, and no merchant dared to set out on an 
 expedition in quest of gain, without fully complying 
 with all the requirements of the god as interpreted 
 by the priesthood. The particular divinity of the 
 traders was lyacatecutli, or lyacacoliuhqui, 'lord with 
 the aquiline nose' — that nasal type being, as the Abbd 
 Brasseur thinks, symbolic of mercantile cunning and 
 skill. Services in his honor were held regularly in the 
 month of Tlaxochimaco ; but the ceremonies performed 
 by traveling merchants, seem to have been mostly de- 
 voted to the god of fire and the god of the roads. 
 
 First a day was selected for the start whose sign 
 was deemed favorable — Ce Cohuatl, 'one serpent,' 
 was a favorite. The day before they departed the 
 hair was cropped close, and the head soaped ; during 
 all their absence, even should it last for years, these 
 operations must not be repeated, nor might they wash 
 more than the neck, face, and hands, bathing the body 
 being strictly prohibited. At midnight they cut flag- 
 shaped papers for Xiuhtecutli, the god of fire, fastened 
 them to sticks painted with vermilion, and marked on 
 them the face of the god with drops of melted ulli, 
 or India-rubber. Other papers also marked with ulli, 
 were cut in honor of Tlaltecutli, to be worn on the 
 breast. Others, for the god of the merchants, were 
 used to cover a bamboo stick, which they worshiped 
 and carried with them. The gods of the roads, Za- 
 catzontli and Tlacotzontli, also had their papers orna- 
 mented with ulli-drops and painted butterflies; while 
 the papers for Cecoatlutlimelaoatl, one of the signs 
 of the divining art, were decorated with snake-like 
 figures. When all the papers were ready, those of the 
 fire-god were placed before the fire in the house, the 
 others being arranged in systematic order in the court- 
 yard. Then the merchants, standing before the fire, 
 offered to it some quails which they first beheaded, 
 and forthwith, drawing blood from their own ears and 
 tongue, they repeated some mystic word and sprinkled 
 
890 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the blood four times on the fire. 'Jlood was then 
 sprinkled in turn on the papers in the house, towards 
 the heavens and cardinal points, and finally on the 
 papers in the courtyard. The fire-god's papers, after 
 a few appropriate words to the deity, were burned in 
 a brasier with pure white copal. If they burned with 
 a clear fiame, it was a good omen ; otherwise ill for- 
 tune and disaster were betokened. The papers left 
 outside were burned together — save those of the mer- 
 chants' god — in a fire which was kindled in the court, 
 and the ashes were carefully buried there. 
 
 All this at midnight. At early dawn the principal 
 merchants of the city or of the neighborhood, or 
 simply friends and relatives of the party about to set 
 out on the journey, according to the wealth of tlie 
 party, with youths and old women, were invited to 
 assemble and, after a washing of mouths and hands, 
 to partake of food. After the repast, concluded by 
 another washing and by smoking of pipes and drink- 
 ing of chocolate, the host spoke a few words of wel- 
 come to the guests, and explained his plans. To this 
 some one of the chief merchants briefly responded 
 with wishes for the success of the expedition, advice 
 respecting the route to be followed and behavior while 
 abroad, applause for the spirit and enterprise shown, 
 and words of encouragement to those about to under- 
 take their first commercial journey, picturing to them 
 in vivid colors both the hardships and the honors that 
 were before them. Then the merchandise and pro- 
 visions for the trip were made ready in bales and 
 placed in the canoes, if the start was to be made by 
 water, under the direction of the leader who, after 
 attending to this matter, made a farewell address of 
 thanks for advice and good wishes, recommending to 
 the care of those that remained behind their wives 
 and children. The friends again replied briefly and 
 all was ready for the departure. A fire was built in 
 the courtyard and a vase of copal was placed near it. 
 As a final parting ceremony each of the departing 
 
CARAVANS OF TRADER& 
 
 891 
 
 by 
 
 merchants took a portion of the copal and threw it 
 on the fire, stepping at once toward his canoe. Not 
 another word of farewell must be spoken, nor a part- 
 ing glance be directed backward to friends behind. 
 To look back or speak would be a most unpropitious 
 augury. 
 
 Thus they set out, generally at night, as Sahagun 
 implies. On the journey each merchant carried con- 
 tinually in his hand a smooth black stick representing 
 his god lyacatecutli — probably the same sticks that 
 have been mentioned as being covered with papers in 
 honor of this god the night before the departure from 
 home. When they halted for the night the sticks of 
 the company were bound together in a bundle, form- 
 ing a kind of combination divinity to whose protect- 
 ing care the encampment was piously entrusted. To 
 this god offerings of ulli and paper were made by the 
 leaders, and to the gods of the roads as well. Blood 
 must also be drawn and mingled with the offering, 
 else it were of no avail ; and, a most inconvenient rule 
 for poor weak humanity, the sacrificial offering had to 
 be repeated twice again each night, so that one or 
 another of the chiefs must be continually on the watch. 
 The caravans, when their destination was a friendly 
 province, usually bore some presents from the sov- 
 ereigns of Mexico as tokens of their good will, and 
 they were received by the authorities of such prov- 
 inces with some public ceremonies not definitely de- 
 scribed. 
 
 When the merchants returned home, after consulta- 
 tion with a tonalpouhqui, they awaited a favorable sign, 
 such as Ce Calli, or Chicome Calli, ' one, or seven house,' 
 and then entered the city under shade of night. 
 They repaired immediately to the house of the lead- 
 ing merchant of the corporation, or to that of the 
 merchant under whose direction their trip had been 
 made, formally announcing their safe arrival, and also 
 their intention to invite all the merchants on the fol- 
 lowing day to partake of "a little chocolate in their 
 
an 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 poor house," that is, to be present at a most sumptu- 
 ous banquet. Papers were then cut and at midnight 
 offered with ulH, much after the manner already de- 
 scribed, to the gods as a thank-offering for their pro- 
 tection. The feast that took place next day, when all 
 the guests were assembled, was accompanied by addi- 
 tional offerings to the gods of fire and trade, and, of 
 course, by speeches of the returned travelers and their 
 guests, but presented no particularly noticeable con- 
 trasts with the many feasts that have been described. 
 
 Not only was the traveler obliged, according to the 
 Nahua superstition, to abstain from baths during his 
 absence, but even his family during tho same period, 
 while allowed to bathe the body, must not wash the 
 head or face oftener than once in eighty days; thus 
 were the gods propitiated to watch kindly over their 
 absent relative wandering in distant lands. If a mer- 
 chant died Wtile on a journey, his body, at least if 
 he belonged to the highest rank, was neither buried 
 nor burned, but, clad in fine apparel, and decorated 
 with certain mystical papers and painted devices, it 
 was put in a wooden cage, or cacaxtli, and secured to 
 a tree on the top of a high mountain. Advice of the 
 death was forwarded to the old merchants, who in 
 turn informed the family of the deceased, and regu- 
 lar funeral ceremonies were performed either immedi- 
 ately or on the return of the caravan. If the deceased 
 met his death at the hands of an enemy, a wooden 
 image was prepared, dressed in the clothing of the 
 dead merchant, and made the subject of the usual 
 funeral rites. 
 
 Besides the regular feasts attending the departure 
 and return of caravans, many others took place under 
 the auspices of the mercantile class. We have noticed 
 the fondness of the Nahua people for entertainments 
 of this kind, and it is natural that the merchants, as 
 the richest class in the community, should have been 
 foremost in contributing to this popular taste. Each 
 merchant, when he had acquired great wealth by 
 
FEASTS OF THE MERCHANTS. 
 
 good fortune in his trading ventures, deemed it, as 
 Sahagun tells us, a most disgraceful thing "to die 
 without having made some splendid expenditure" by 
 entertaining ' his friends and fellow-merchants in a 
 banquet, which should be remembered as the event 
 of his career. A long time was devoted to making 
 ready for the feast, to the purchase of provisions and 
 decorations, and to engaging dancers and singers, that 
 no item might be neglected, nor any oversight be 
 allowed to mar the perfect enjoyment of the invited 
 guests. All being ready, a propitious sign was se- 
 lected, and invitations issued. The object of the dis- 
 play of hospitality being not only the entertainment 
 of friends, but a thanksgiving to the gods for favors 
 shown to the host, the first ceremonies were naturally 
 in honor of the deities. These began in the night 
 preceding the feast-day, with offerings of flowers in 
 the shrine of Huitzilopochtli, in the chapels of other 
 gods, and finally in the courtyard of the host, where 
 were placed drums and two plates, on which perfumed 
 canes were burning. Those officiating whistled in a 
 peculiar manner, and all, stooping, put some earth in 
 their mouth, crying "our lord has sounded." Then 
 all burned perfumed copal, and a priest beheaded a 
 quail before the drum, throwing it on the ground and 
 watching in what direction it might flutter. If north- 
 ward, it was a bad omen, foretelling sickness, or per- 
 haps death. But the west and south were fortunate 
 directions, indicating a peaceful and friendly disposi- 
 tion on the part of the gods. Incense was burned 
 toward the cardinal points, the burning coals were 
 thrown from the censer into the fire, and then the 
 performers engaged for the areito, including, it would 
 seem, soldiers of several classes, led by the tlacatecatl, 
 began to dance and sing. Neither the host nor mer- 
 chant guests joined in the dance, but remained in the 
 house to receive the company and present them with 
 bouquets of flowers. At midnight ulli-marked paper 
 was ofiered to the gods, and its ashes buried to pro- 
 
894 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 mote the prosperity of future generations. Before 
 the light of day chocolate was drunk and the na7iacatl, 
 or intoxicating mushroom, was eaten, which caused 
 some to dance, others to sing, and yet others to sit pen- 
 sive in their rooms dreaming dreams and seeing visions 
 of horrid import, whose 'narration at a later hour, when 
 the effects of the drug had passed away, formed a 
 prominent feature of tlie entertainment. At the ap- 
 pearance of the morning star all the ashes of the 
 sacrifices, the flowers, the burning canes, and all the 
 implements used in the foregoing ceremonies, were 
 buried, that they might not be seen by any visitor 
 polluted by any kind of vice or uncleanness. The 
 rising sun was greeted with songs, dancing, and beat- 
 ing of the teponaztli. The day was passed in feast- 
 ing and music, and at the close of the day's banouet 
 food was distributed to the common people. The 
 banquet was often continued more than one day, and 
 if after the first day's feast the provision of food was 
 exhausted, it was regarded by the guests as a bad 
 sign — a very sensible superstition truly. 
 
 There was another merchant's feast in the month of 
 Panquetzaliztli, in which a number of slaves were killed 
 and eaten. The victims were purchased sometime be- 
 forehand at the slave mart in Azcapuzalco, kept clean, 
 — being therefore called tlctaltilzin, 'washed' — and fat- 
 tened for the occasion. The male slaves meantime 
 had no work but to dance daily on the housetop, but 
 the women had to spin. The articles collected for 
 this feast embraced large numbers of rich mantles, 
 maxtlis, and huipiles, which were to be presented to 
 guests. Not only the residents of Mexico were in- 
 vited but members of the Tlatelulcan company who 
 lived in other towns. The giver of the feast went 
 personally to many towns, especially to Tochtepec, to 
 issue invitations and distribute gifts. On his arrival 
 he went first to the shrine of lyacatecutli, before whose 
 image he performed certain ceremonies and left some 
 offerings. Then he went to the house of the Tlate- 
 
SACRIFICE OF SLAVES. 
 
 806 
 
 lulcan company, prepared a feast and summoned the 
 rich traders, who came at midnight. Washing of the 
 hands and -mouth preceded and followed the eating, 
 presents were made, chocolate drunk, pipes smoked, 
 quails offered in the courtyard, and incense burned. 
 One of the best speakers then announced the purpose 
 of their visitor to kill a few slaves in honor of Huit- 
 zilopochtli, and in his name invited the company to 
 be present at the pleasing spectacle, and partake of 
 the human flesh and other choice viands. Another 
 speaker responded in a speech of acceptance, and the 
 'feast-giver directed his steps homeward to Mexico. 
 After resting awhile the merchant ceremonially in- 
 vited those of his own city to be present at the feast, 
 and the latter, after many precautions, including an 
 inspection by the older merchants to satisfy them- 
 selves that food enough had been provided and that 
 the aftair could not be a failure, deigned to accept, 
 although they warned the would-be host of the fear- 
 ful responsibility he would incur should the feast be 
 in any respect improperly managed, through his un- 
 willingness to spend money enough. Ce Calli, Ome 
 Xochitl, and Ome Ozomatli, were good signs for this 
 feast. 
 
 On the first day the male slaves, richly attired and 
 decorated, were made to dance and perform the areito, 
 carrying garlands of flowers and also pipes from which 
 they were continually puffing smoke. The females, 
 in equally rich attire were stationed with plenty of 
 food in one of the rooms where all could readily see 
 them. The eating, drinking, and distribution of gifts 
 were kept up all night. The following day's feast 
 was a repetition of the first, and was called tlaixnexia; 
 that of the third day was called tetevaltia, and on this 
 day they made many changes in the dress of the slaves, 
 putting on wigs of many-colored feathers, painted ear- 
 flaps, stone nose-ornaments like butterflies, jackets 
 with fringed borders and death's heads for decoration, 
 hawks' wings, thmaitl, on the shoulders, rings, mata- 
 
806 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 caastli, on the anns, stained sandals, and girdles called 
 xiuhtlal'pilli. From this time forward strict guard was 
 kept over them day and night until their death. 
 
 On yet a fourth occasion, apparently some days, or 
 perhaps weeks, later, the merchant assembled his 
 guests, and then just before sunset the victims were 
 made drunk with teuvetli, and carried to Huitzilo- 
 pochtli's temple, where they were made to dance and 
 sing, and kept awake all night. At midnight they 
 were placed on a mat before the fire, and the master 
 of the banquet, dressed much like the slaves them- 
 selves, put out the fire, and in the darkness gave to 
 each four mouthfuls of a dough moistened with honey^ 
 called tzoalli. Then a man dancing before them 
 played upon an instrument called chichtli, hairs were 
 pulled out of the top of each slave's head and put in 
 a plate, quacaodtl, held by the dancer, and the master 
 threw incense toward the east, west, north, and south. 
 The slaves were offered food, but could not be in- 
 duced to eat, expecting each moment the messenger 
 of death. They were first taken to the ward of Co- 
 atlan, and in the courtyard of the temple of Huitz- 
 calco were forced to fight against certain persons, the 
 most valiant of whom were called tlaamaviques. If 
 by force of arms these persons captured any of the 
 slaves, they were entitled to receive their full value 
 from the owner, or in default of such payment to 
 take the bodies after the sacrifice and eat the same. 
 After the contest the victims were sacrificed on the 
 shrine of Huitzilopochtli, the complicated <i<«tail8 of 
 the ceremonies which followed differing only very 
 slightly from those of similar sacrifices a'leady several 
 times described. The bodies were thrown down the 
 steps as usual, carried home by the owner, cooked 
 with maize, seasoned with salt without chile, and 
 were finally eaten by the guests. With this horrible 
 repast the great feast of the month of Panquetzaliztli 
 ended; but he who had given it carefully preserved 
 the clothing, and other relics of the slaughtered slaves, 
 
BOATS AND NAVIGATION. 
 
 897 
 
 e 
 i 
 
 guarding them in a basket as most precious and pleas- 
 ant souvenirs all the days of his life; and after his 
 death the basket and its contents were bunied at his 
 obsequies. 
 
 Acosta tells us that in Cholula the merchants, es- 
 pecially those that dealt in slaves, furnished each year 
 a slave of fine physique to represent their god Quet- 
 zalcoatl, in whose honor he was sacrificed, with appro- 
 priate and complicated ceremonies, his flesh' being 
 afterwards eaten in a banquet.*' 
 
 The little to be said of Nahua watercraft may be 
 as appropriately inserted here as elsewhere. I have 
 already referred to the important use made of canoes 
 in the transportation of merchandise upon the lakes 
 of And,huac. In the art of navigation, however, no 
 progress was made by the Nahuas at all in proportion 
 to their advancement in other respects. As navi- 
 gators they were altogether inferior to their savage 
 brethren of *he Columbian and Hyperborean groups 
 on the north-west coasts, whose skill in the manu- 
 facture and management of boats has been described 
 in a preceding volume of this work. The reason is 
 obvious: their progress in agriculture enabled them 
 to obtain a food supply without risking their lives 
 habitually on the sea; their sunny clime obviated the 
 necessity of whale-blubber and seal-skins. In the 
 earlier stages of civilization men make progress only 
 when impelled by some actual necessity ; consequently 
 among the Nahuas, when means were supplied of 
 crossing streams, and of transporting goods on the 
 lakes and for short distances along the coast at the 
 mouth of large rivers, progress in this direction ceased. 
 
 Clavigero's investigations led him to believe that 
 the use of sails was unknown, and although Brasseur 
 
 li On merchants' feasU;, ceremonies, and superstitions, see Sahagun, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. ix., pp. 335-86, torn, i., lib. iv., pp. 310^15; 
 Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 388-92; Torquemada, Monarq, Ina., torn, ii., 
 pp. 685-7. See also account of a feast of flower-dealers in this volume, p. 
 315, and account of the Choluliec feast in honor of Quetzalcoatl, in vol. iii., 
 pp. 286-7 of this work. 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 de Bourbourg in one place speaks of such aids to nav- 
 igation, yet he gives no authority for his statement." 
 
 Rafts and 'dug-out' canoes were the vessels em- 
 ployed ; the former were used for the most part in 
 crossing streams and were of various material and 
 construction. Those of the ruder kind were simply a 
 number of poles tied together with strings." Those 
 called by the Spaniards balsas were of superior con- 
 struction, made of otlatl reeds, or titles, and rushes of 
 different kinds in bundles. The best balsas were 
 about five feet square, made of bamboos and supported 
 by hollow gourds closed by a water and air tight cov- 
 ering. The rafts were propelled by swimmers, one in 
 front and another behind." 
 
 The canoes — acalli, 'water-houses' among the Az- 
 tecs, called also tahucup in Tabasco — were hollowed 
 out from the trunk of a single tree, were generally 
 flat-bottomed and without keel, somewhat narrower 
 at the bow^ than at the stem as Las Casas says, and 
 would carry from two to sixty persons. As to the in- 
 struments employed in hollowing out and finishing 
 the acalli we have no information, neither do we know 
 whether fire was one of the agents made use of.*° 
 
 " ClttviRcro's description of Nahna boats and navigation is in his Sloria 
 Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 168-9. 'Leiirs barques, dont les plus gran- 
 des mesuraient jusqu'k soixantc picds dc longueur, couvertcs et abritecs 
 contre le niauvais temps, marchaicnt h. la voile et ii la ramc," probably re- 
 ferring to a boat met r;; Columbus some distance out at sea. Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 632. 
 
 ■* Invented, according to tradition, by the Tarascos of Michoacan during 
 their early migrations. Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates dcs 
 Voij., 1843, torn, xcviii., pp. 131-2. 
 
 '-^ 'Mettcvansi a sedere in questa maccliina quattro, o sei passaggieri 
 alia volta.' Claviqero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 168. 'Ces 
 radeaux sont fort lugers et tr^s-solides; ils sont encore en usage dans I'Amd- 
 rique, ct nous avons passe ainsi plus d'unerivi6re.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 295. 
 
 "> Las Casas, Hist. Apologitiea, MS., cap. Ixx. 'En coda vna cabian 
 sesenta Hombres.' Torquemada, Moiiarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 4C0, and Her- 
 rcra. Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. viii., cap. iv. 'TheCanowes are litle burkes, 
 made of one tree.* Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. iii. Called Acafes. Id., dec. 
 v., lib. ii. ' Estas acallis 6 barcas cada una es de una sola pieza, dc uu 
 arbol tan grandc y tan grueso conio lo dcnmnda la longitud, y coniorme al 
 audio quo Ic puedcn dar, que es dc lo grueso del lirbol dc que se haccn, y 
 para esto hay bus maostros como en Vizcaya los hay de navios.' Motolinia, 
 Jjist. Jndios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc,, torn, i., p. ?00. 
 
BOATS USED IN WAR. 
 
 3.-9 
 
 The use of boats was not altogether confined to 
 traffic, but extended to war and the transportation of 
 troops. Fierce conflicts on the waters of the lakes 
 are recorded in the ancient annals of And,huac ; canoe 
 fleets of armed natives came out to meet the Span- 
 iards at various points along the coast ; and we read 
 of the vain efforts to defend the approaches to the 
 Aztec capital, by thousands of boats which could offer 
 little resistance to the advance of Cortes' brigantines." 
 
 These fleets, so inefficient against Spanish vessels 
 and arms, must have been of great service to the Az- 
 tecs in maintaining their domination over the many 
 towns on the lake shores. To increase the efficiency 
 of boats and boatmen, races and sham fights were es- 
 tablished, which, besides affording useful training to 
 paddlers and warriors, furnished an additional means 
 of entertainment to the people who gathered in crowds 
 to watch the struggles of the competitors, applaud 
 the ducking of each vanquishe'l boat's crew, and to 
 reward the victors with honors and prizes." 
 
 " 'The sides of the Indian boats were fortified with bulwarks.' Pres- 
 eotVs Mcx., vol. iii., p. 100-, Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 140; Cortis, 
 Cartas, p. 211. 
 
 >'< 'Sriesso s'csercitavano in questogenere di combattimenti.' Clavigero, 
 Star ia Ant. del Messico. torn. ii. , p. 151; Wcst-Irulische Spieghel, p. 251. 
 20U,U^0 cunoes on the lako about Mexico. Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 115. 
 Sec also note 8 of this chapter. Additional notes on Nahua boats. ' Habia 
 en Mexico niuchaa acallis o barcas para servicio de las casos, y otras niu> 
 chas dc tratantcs que vcnian con bastinicntos & la ciudad, y todos los pue- 
 blos tie la redonda, que estdn lleiios do bnrcas tue nunca cesan de entrar y 
 salir &. la ciudad, las cuales eran innuni.'>r;>>>lca.' 'Con CBius salen d la mar, 
 y con lus {jrundea de cstas ucallis nuvc^an de u\ia isia d otra, y se atrevcn 4 
 atruvc8araljrungolfo])equeflo.' Mololinia. Jlit*. Iiulios, in Icazhakcta, Col. 
 de Doc, toni. i., pp. 187, 200. 'Lo mas del irnto, y camino dc los Indios, en 
 afiuclla Tierra, e.s por Agua, en Acules, o Cuiioas.' Toraiiemada, Mouarq. 
 Ltd., torn, ii., p. 613; Herrera, His',. Gen., dec. ii., lib. viii., cap. iv.; 
 Montantts, Nieuvoe Weereld, p. 247; Carbajnl Espinoaa, Hitt. Mex., torn. 
 i., p. G33, torn, ii., p. 591; Kit mm, C ultur-Genchichte, torn, v., pp. 75-6. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 WAR CUSTOMS OF THE NAHUAS. 
 
 
 Importance of the Military Profession— Indications of Rank- 
 Education OF Warriors— Rewards for Valor— Military Or- 
 ders and their Dress— Gorgeous War-Dressks of Montezuma 
 AND the Aztec Nobility— Dress of ti e Common Soldiers— Ar- 
 mor AND Defensive Weapons— Offensive Weapons— Standards 
 —Ambassadors and Couriers— Fortifications— The Military 
 Council— Articles of War— Declaration of War— Spies— Or- 
 der OF March and Battle— War Customs of the Tlascaltkcs 
 and Tarascos-Keturn of the Conquei^ing Army— Celebra- 
 tion of Feats of Arms. 
 
 As might be expected from a people so warlike and 
 ambitious as the Nahuas, the profession of arms 
 ranked high above all other callings, save that of the 
 priests. This was especially tne case in the later 
 days, under the Aztec kings, whose unscrup'dous am- 
 bition and passion for conquest could only be gratified 
 by their warriors. Huitzdopochtli, god of war, pro- 
 tector of the empire, was glorified and honored above 
 all other gods; his altars must be red with blood, for 
 blood alone could extort his favor, and wars were 
 frequently waged solely for his propitiation; valor 
 was the loftiest virtue, the highest honors were paid 
 to those who distinguished themselves in battle; no 
 dignities, positions, or decorations, under the govern- 
 ment, were given to any but approved soldiers. Chil- 
 dren were taught by parent and priest the chivalrous 
 
 (400) 
 
THE MILITARY PROFESSION. 
 
 401 
 
 deeds of their ancestors, whom they were urged to 
 emulate in daring; titles, rewards, and posts of honor 
 were offered to stimulate the ambition of the young 
 men. The king might not receive his crown until 
 with his own hand he had taken captives to be sacri- 
 ficed at the feast of his coronation. The priests were 
 the foremost inciters to war and carnage. All wars 
 were i'eligious crusades. The highest earthly rewards 
 were in store for the victor, while the soul of him that 
 fell in battle took immediate flight to heaven. Only 
 defeat and cowardice were to be dreaded. 
 
 Thf^ Nahua warrior's services were rewarded only 
 •>y -notion, since no paid troops were employed. 
 Bui ^ vjinotion was sure to follow brilliant exploits 
 per''oimed by even the humblest soldier, while with- 
 out such daring deeds the sons of the highest nobles 
 could hope for no advancement. Dress and orna- 
 ments were the indications of rank, and were changed 
 in some detail for every new achievement. To escape 
 from the coarse nequen garments of the common 
 soldier, and to put on successively the decorative 
 mantles of the higher grades, was deemed a sufficient 
 reward and incentive. The costume of each warrior 
 indicated the exact number of prisoners captured by 
 the wearer. 
 
 Especial care \i'a.s taken, however, with the sons of 
 lords intendx;-^ for 'he profession of arms. At an early 
 age their h ^a I ; >"ere shaved, except a tuft on the back 
 of tlie head ':a\i< A mocuexpaltia, a designation changed 
 to ciu'xpLUchivi'<"2"^ 'ben the boy was fifteen years old. 
 At this age he was sent to war in charge of veteran 
 warriors, and if with their aid he took a prisoner, the 
 tuft was cut off and another given to be worn over 
 the ear with feather plumes; on his return he was 
 addressed after the following manner by his grand- 
 parents or uncles: "My child, the Sun and the 
 Earth ha • washed and renewed thy face, because 
 thou dide:. '..ve to attempt the capture of an enemy 
 in compan V , 4ch athers. Lo, now it were better to 
 
 Vol. II. 20 
 
402 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 abandon thee to the mercies of the enemy than that 
 thou shouldst again take a prisoner with the aid of 
 others, because, should it so happen, they will place 
 another tuft over thine other ear and thou wilt appear 
 like a girl ; truly, it were better thou shouldst die than 
 that this should happen to thee." If after a fair trial 
 the youth failed to take a captive, he was disgraced, 
 and ceased to be a warrior in the eyes of his com- 
 rades: but if, unaided, he was successful, he was 
 called a warlike youth, telpuchtlitaquitlamani, and 
 was presented to th» V'^ ' whose stewards dyed his 
 face red, his temples ca tdy yellow, and bestowed 
 upon him mantles and ni .itlis of the colors and de- 
 signs which his achievements gave him the right to 
 wear. If he took two captives, the honors were of 
 course greater; three entitled him to a command over 
 others; four made him a captain who might wear long 
 lip-ornaments, leathern ear-rings, and gaudy tassels. 
 With five prisoners the young man became a quauh- 
 tacatl, 'eagle that guides,' with corresponding insignia, 
 a head-plume with silver threads, the mantle called 
 cuechintli, another called chicoapalnacazminqui of 
 two colors, and still another decorated with straps. 
 The prisoners must, however, be from nations of ac- 
 knowledged prowess, such as those of Atlixco, the 
 Huexotzincas, or Tlascaltecs; double or triple the 
 number of Cuextecas or Tenimes must be captured, 
 and no number of these could entitle a youth to the 
 highest honors.* 
 
 In the Mexican picture-writings are delineated the 
 successive grades by which a graduate from the tem- 
 ple school advanced, with the costumes and defensive 
 armor he was permitted to wear. First we see him 
 leaving for the war, carrying the impedimenta of the 
 chief priest, who goes into the field to embolden the 
 troops, enforce orders, and perfonn other duties. The 
 pictures that follow portray the devices on the shields, 
 manner of painting, armor, head-dresses, and orna- 
 
 i SaKagun, HuL Oen,, torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 329-32. 
 
THREE MILITARY ORDERS, 
 
 403 
 
 ments they were allowed to assume, according to the 
 number of captives each had taken. The warrior- 
 priests were rewarded, in like manner, with accoutre- 
 ments and insignia of peculiar designs, and with 
 important commands in the army.' 
 
 Three military orders were established by the Aztec 
 monarchs, the members of which were granted cer- 
 tain privileges, and entitled to wear badges of distinc- 
 tion ; they also had apartments allotted to them in the 
 royal palace and formed the royal guard. Promotion 
 to the order was open to all, but could only be won by 
 some notable feat of arms. The members of the first 
 of these three orders were called Achcauhtin.or Princes, 
 of the second, Quauhtin, or Eagles, of the third, Oce- 
 lome, or Tigers. The distinctive mark of the Princes 
 was their manner of dressing the hair, which was tied 
 on the crown of the head with a red thong, and worked 
 into as many braids, each terminating in a cotton tas- 
 sel, as were the deeds of valor performed by the 
 wearer; the Eagles wore a kind of casque, in the form 
 of an eagle's head ; the Tigers wore a particular armor, 
 spotted like the skin of the animal whose name they 
 bore. These insignia were only used in war; at court 
 all military officers wore the tlacJiquauhj/o, a dress of 
 many colors. The members of these three military 
 orders had the privilege of wearing garments of much 
 finer texture than the common people, as well as suph 
 feathers and jewels as they could afford to buy. An 
 inferior order of knighthood appears also to have ex- 
 isted, the members of which had their hair cropped 
 close about their ears, and wore skull-caps and split 
 collars; these were only armed for defence from the 
 girdle upwards, whereas their superiors fought in com- 
 
 * Codex Mendoza, in Kiiufsboronyh's Mex. Antiq., vol. i., pi. Ixiv- 
 Ixvi. In explanation of plate Ixv., No. 19, it is Btatcil that the warrior was 
 culled Quachic by reason of having taken five prisoners in war. ' Halicr 
 caiitivado en la guerra cinco, demos de que en otras gucrrus a cautivado 
 otros muchos de sus eneinigos.' Explanation of Id., vol. v., p. 104; while 
 
 Purchus says such a one was 'called Quagchil shewing that lice had 
 
 taken flue at the Wars of Guexo, besides that in other Wars be tooko many 
 of hia enemies.' Purchat hit Pilgrimes, vol. iv., p. U 10-11. 
 
'4M 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 plete armor. All these privileged warriors were per- 
 mitted to use pfiinted and gilt vessels, but the common 
 soldiers might use none but plain earthen ones.' 
 
 Montezuma, who was a member of the order of 
 Princes, when he went in person against the enemy, 
 wore upon his legs greaves of gold, and upon his arms 
 thin plates of the same metal, as well as bracelets; 
 about his neck were a cellar and chains of gold and 
 precious stones; from his ears and lower lip hung or- 
 naments of gold set with precious chalchiuites ; and 
 from the back of his head to his waist was suspended 
 the glittering decoration of royalty, only worn by 
 kings, the quachictli. This was an ornament of ex- 
 quisite workmanship, wrought with great labor of 
 costly feathers and jewels, and shaped somewhat like 
 a butterfly. In addition to this he was distinguished 
 from his retinue by a shield upon which was displayed 
 the royal coat of arms in feather- work ; and he car- 
 ried also a small drum, upon which he beat the sig- 
 nal for battle.* 
 
 On the occasion when the sovereigns and nobility 
 of Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan came out to receive 
 Cortds, there was little, Svi far as dress was concerned, 
 by which king might be distinguished from subject; 
 the only difference was that the monarchs wore crowns 
 
 3 Torqueinada and Brasseur speak of a yet higher rank among the 
 princes. ' Vna de las niaiores graude^as, k quo Ilegaba, era atarse el ca- 
 iiello, que era denionstracion de Gran Capitan, y estos se Ilaniaban Quachic- 
 tin, que era el mas honroso nombre, que a Ids Capitanes se Ids daba. y \tocQ» 
 lo alcan9aban.' Torquemada, Monarq. Iiid., torn, ii., p. 543. 'Dont Ibh 
 menibres se nominaient "Quachictin," c'est-ii-dire, Couronn^s. Leurs iii- 
 nignes consistaient dans la courroie ^carlate dont nous avons parl<i plus haiit, 
 niais dunt le bout, avec sa houpne de plumes, pendait alors jusqu ii la eeiii- 
 ture.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 590-1. Herrerii 
 and Acosta both mention a fourth order: 'Aula otros conio caualleros Par- 
 dos, que no eran de tanta cuenta, como estos, los quales tenian vnas coletiiM 
 cortanas por encima de la oreja en redondo.' Acosta, Hist, de las Viid., \tp. 
 443-4; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xix; West vnd Ost In- 
 discher Lustgart, pt i., p. 99; Monfauus, Nicuwe Weereld, pp. 2C7-8; 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 140. 
 
 *The greaves were called cozehnatl, tlie brachials matemecatl, tlie 
 bracelets matzopctztli, the lip ornament tetitetl, the ear-rings nacochtU, 
 and the collar or necklace cmnnprtlitfl. Torqueinada, Monarq. Ind., toni. 
 ii., p. 543; Brasseur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 695; Cla- 
 vigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 141. 
 
MILITAUY DRESS AND ORNAMENTS. 
 
 406 
 
 of gold and precious stones, bejeweled sandals with 
 golden soles, and tassels at the end of the ribbon with 
 which their hair was bound.' A prince of the blood- 
 royal, on his debut upon the battle-tield, was clad in 
 plain white; his behavior was closely watched, and 
 after the action such insignia and colors sm he had 
 merited by his conduct were bestowed upon him. 
 
 Sahagun gives an extended description of the gor- 
 geous war-costumes of the noble Aztec warriors, with 
 the native name for each fraction of the equipments. 
 Here are described head-dresses composed of rich 
 feathers, prominent among which were the quetzal; 
 corselets of red and green feathers, worked with gold 
 thread; head-dresses of green feathers set in gold 
 bands, or of tiger-skin; helmets of silver; a garment 
 called tocivitl reaching to the knees, made of yellow 
 macaw-feathers, embroidered with gold, and worn with 
 a golden casque plumed with quetzal-feathers; and 
 other equally gorgeous attire. As a means of direct- 
 ing their men some officers bore small drums, painted 
 and ornamented with feathers so as to correspond with 
 their dress, in a net at their backs ; others carried lit- 
 tle flags made of feathers held together with bands 
 of gold or silver. Many noble warriors had their 
 armorial bearings, devils, monsters, and what not, 
 painted or embroidered upon their backs. Truly such 
 spolia opima were worthy of a hero's toil.* 
 
 The rank and file of the Aztec army wore no ( loth- 
 ing but the maxtli in battle, but by painting their 
 faces and bodies in grotesque patterns with brilliant 
 colors, and covering their heads with raw cotton, they 
 presented a sufficiently fierce and gaudy appearance.' 
 
 The Tlascaltec leaders wore a quilted cotton tunic 
 two fingers in thickness that fitted closely to the body 
 
 
 i Iztlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kin gaborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 '295-«. 
 
 * Sahagun, Hist. Gen,, torn, ii., lib. viii., pp. 293-7. 
 
 ^ Las Caaas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. Ixvi.; Brasaeur de Bour- 
 bourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 593; Clavtgero, Storia Ant. del Mesaico, 
 torn, ii., p. 143; Torquemada, Monarq, Ind,, torn, ii., p. 643. 
 
406 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 and also protected the shoulders and thighs; the 
 wealthier class wore over the tunic a cuirass of thin 
 gold or silver plates, and over all they threw a rich 
 mantle of feather- work elegantly embroidered ; to pro- 
 tect their legs they put on leathern boots or wooden 
 greaves ornamented with gold. On their heads they 
 wore a morion made of hide or wood representing the 
 head of some animal, bird, or serpent. From the 
 crown waved a magnificent tuft of richly variegated 
 plumes, a conspicuous mark, that served to denote the 
 warrior's rank. 
 
 The armor and defensive weapons of the Nahua 
 knights, though of little service against the firearms 
 and swordsmanship of the Spaniards, yet were admi- 
 rably suited for protection from the weapons in use 
 among themselves. The chimalli, or Mexican shield, 
 was made of various materials and in divers forms; 
 sometimes it was round, sometimes oval, sometimes 
 rounded only on the lower side; it was commonly 
 constructed of flexible bamboo canes, bound firmly 
 together, and covered with hide. The face of the 
 shield was ornamented according to the rank and taste 
 of the bearer; that of a noble was generally covered 
 with thin plates of gold, with a heavy boss in the 
 centre. In Tabasco, and along the coast, tortoise- 
 shells, inlaid with gold, silver, or copper, were com- 
 monly used as shields. Reed-grass, hides, or ne- 
 quen-cloth, coated with India-rubber, served to protect 
 an Aztec common soldier. Some shields were of 
 an ordinary size, others were intended to cover tlie 
 entire body, and were so constructed that when not in 
 use they could be folded up and carried under the 
 arm. The body-armor of the nobles and higher grades 
 of warriors consisted of a breast-piece made of quilted 
 cotton, one or two fingers in thickness, called ichca- 
 huepilH; over this was ;i thick cotton coat, which 
 covered part of the arms and thighs, made in one 
 piece, fastened behind, and decorated with feathers of 
 whatever colors the uniform of the company to which 
 
ARMOR AND DEFENSIVE WEAPONS. 
 
 m 
 
 the wearer belonged might be. This cotton armor 
 was completely arrow-proof, and was of great service 
 to the Spanish Conquerors, who lost no time in adopt- 
 ing it in place of their heavy steel armor. Arm and 
 leg guards made of wood covered with leather or gold 
 plates and trimmed with feathers, and morions of the 
 same material shaped and painted to represent the 
 head of a tiger, serpent, or monster, with mouth open 
 and teeth bared, complete the defensive equipment. 
 Over a cuirass of gold and silver plates some lords 
 wore a garment of feathers which is said to have been 
 proof against arrows and javelins. Nobles and offi- 
 cers also wore lofty plumes so as to present the appear- 
 ance of increased stature.' 
 
 The shields used by the Toltecs were made of skins 
 ornamented with feathers of various colors; on their 
 heads they wore helmets of gold, silver, or skins. 
 The body-armor worn by the principal warriors was 
 made of double cloth padded with cotton; it differed 
 from that of the Aztecs inasmuch as it reached down 
 to the ankles and was worn over a .hin white tunic. 
 The private soldiers, like those of the Aztec army, also 
 painted the upper part of the body to represent ar- 
 mor, but from the waist to the thighs they wore short 
 drawers and over them, fastened round the waist, a 
 kind of kilt that reached to the knees and availed 
 them somewhat for defence. Across the body was a 
 sash made of feathers that passed from the right 
 shoulder to the left side of the waist. They wore 
 sandals on their feet and had feather-ornaments upon 
 their heads, more or less rich according to the quality 
 of the warrior. When going to battle they adorned 
 their necks, breasts, arms, and legs with their most 
 valuable trinkets of gold or precious stones.* Tezozo- 
 moc mentions that the Tarascos wore steel helmets, 
 but, as I have already stated, none of these nations 
 
 ' Claviffero, Sloria Ant del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 141-3; Relationefaf.ta 
 per va gcntiPhuomo del Sigtior Fernando Cortest, in Bamusio, Navigationi, 
 torn, iii., fol. 305. 
 
 9 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mrj., to:ii. i., pp. 289-90. 
 
408 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 were acquainted with the use of iron in any shape.*" 
 Some of the armor in use among the Tabascans must 
 have been exceedingly rich, judging by that which 
 was presented to Juan de Grijalva by the cacique of 
 that province. It consisted of greaves for the knees 
 and legs made of wood and covered with sheets of 
 gold, head-pieces covered with gold plates and pre- 
 cious stones, among which was a visor, of which the 
 upper half was of jewels linked together, and the 
 lower half of gold plates ; then there were cuirasses of 
 solid gold, besides a quantity of armor-plates sufficient 
 to cover the whole body." 
 
 The offensive weapons of the Aztecs consisted of 
 bows and arrows, slings, clubs, spears, light javelins, 
 and swords; and in the use of all of these the soldiers 
 were well skilled. The bows were made of tough, 
 elastic wood, and were about five feet in length; for 
 strings they used the sinews of animals or stags' 
 hair twisted. The arrows were light canes, with 
 about six inches of oak or other hard wood inserted 
 in the end ; at the extremity a piece of iztli was fast- 
 ened with twisted nequen-fibre, and further secured 
 by a paste of resin or other adhesive substance. Some- 
 times instead of iztli they used the bones of animals 
 or fish; the bone of a fish called libisa is said to have 
 caused by its venomous properties" a wound very dif- 
 ficult to heal. It is well known that none of the 
 Nahua nations used poisoned arrows; such weapons 
 
 "• Tezozomoc, CrdnicaMex., in Kingahorougk'a Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 83. 
 
 '1 Carli, Cartas, pt i., pp. 17-21; Torfj^itemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 
 354; Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. iii., cap. ii. ; Gomara, Conq. Mcx., 
 fol. 37; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., toni. i., p. 519; VogoUudo, Hist. Yuc, p. 14. 
 For further reference to defensive weapons and armor, see: Carbajal Es])i- 
 nosa. Hist. Mcx., torn, i., pp. 608-19; West-Indische Spieghel, p. 246; 
 Montanus, Nieiiwe Weereld, p. 267; Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, torn, v., 
 pp. 81-3; Mcxique, Etudes Hist., p. 8; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras, pt ii., 
 p. 28; liussiare, L" Empire Mex., p. 161; Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nou- 
 velles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 133; Miiller, Amerikanische 
 Urreligionen, p. 642. 
 
 " Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. viL, cap. xi.; Gage's New Survey, 
 pp. 99-100. 
 
OFFENSIVE WEAPONS. 
 
 409 
 
 10 
 
 would have defeated the object for which they often 
 engaged in war, namely that of taking their enemies 
 alive for the purpose of immolating them upon the 
 altars of their gods. It is reasonable to believe that 
 many of them attained to great accuracy in shooting 
 with the bow, but there is room to doubt the asser- 
 tion that some of them were able to shoot with three 
 or four arrows at a time; or to throw an ear of com 
 into the air and pierce every kernel before it reached 
 the ground ; or to throw up a coin of the size of half 
 a d 3llar, and keep it in the air as long as they pleased 
 witii their arrows." The sling was a braid of pita- 
 thread or other fibre, broader in the middle than at 
 the ends, with which stones were thrown with much 
 force and accuracy; the missiles were carried in a 
 pouch filled with stones and suspended from the waist 
 in front. The maza was a club similar to the Roman 
 clava, tapering from the handle towards the end and 
 terminating in a knotty head, filled with points of 
 iztli or tempered copper." The macana, or macua- 
 hiiitl, called by the Spaniards, espada, a sword, was 
 made of tough wood, about three and a half feet long, 
 with a flat blade four fingers in width armed upon 
 both sides with sharp pieces of iztli about three 
 fingers long by three wide, which were inserted into 
 the grooved edge at intervals, and cemented with 
 some adhesive compound." This weapon, when not 
 
 " ' I Tehuacanesi erano singolarmente rinomati per la lor destrezza nel 
 
 tirur tre, o quatro frecce insieme La destrezza di quel PopoH nel tirar Ic 
 
 frcccc non sarcbbc credibile, se noii fosse accertata per la deposizionc di 
 ccntinaja di testimonj oculati. Hadunatisi parecehj frecciatori gettaiio in 
 sii una pannoccliia di frumentone, c si inettono a saettarla con una tal pron- 
 tczza, c con una tal desteritii, che non la lasciano venite a terra, finattan- 
 tochfe non le hanno levati tutti i grani. Gettano similniente una moneta 
 d'argcnto non piii grande d'un giulio, e Baettandola la trattengono in aria, 
 quanto voglioni.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, torn, ii., p. 143. 
 
 i< IxtliTxGchitl mentions clubs studded with iron, but it is well known 
 tliat the Aztec nations had no knowledge of that mineral, although it is said 
 they possessed the art of being able to temper copper to the hardness of 
 steel, 'porras claveteadas de hierro, cobre y oro.' Ixtlilxochitl, Eelaeiones, 
 in Kinf/sborougKt Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 332. 
 
 1^ According to Gomara it was made of 'cierta rayz que llaman facoti, 
 y de teuxalli, que es vna arena rezia, y come de vena de diamantes, 
 mezclan y amassan con sangre de morcielagos, y no ge que otra« aues.' 
 nmra, Conq. Mex., fol. 110. 
 
 que 
 Go. 
 
410 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 in immediate use, was carried slung to the arm with 
 a cord. Many of these swords were two-handed and 
 very heavy, and it is asseiied that with them the 
 Aztec warrior could at one blow cut a man in two or 
 sever a horse's head. The one with which the fa- 
 mous Tlascaltec commander Tlahuicol fought was so 
 weighty that a man of ordinary strength could hardly 
 raise it from the ground." The Mexican spears were 
 very strong, and were pointed with iztli or copper. 
 Spears were the principal weapon used by the Zapo- 
 tecs and other tribes of Oajaca. The tlacochtli, or 
 Mexican javelin, was like a long arrow made of otlatl 
 or bamboo; the point was usually hardened in the fire 
 or armed with iztli, copper, or bone; many had three 
 points, thus inflicting a very severe wound; they were 
 hurled with great force, and had a cord attached, so 
 that when thrown they could be recovered for another 
 cast. Some writers mention a ballesta as being used 
 with which to launch the javelin, but I do not find 
 any description of its form or of the manner of using 
 it;" certainly the javelin was projected with great ve- 
 
 '* In reference to the macana, which all assert to have Ixjcn amost fomiid- 
 able weapon, I quote only u few authorities. 'Sua es|)U(laH Ue ]ialo lar<,'as, do 
 un pale nuiy fuerte, en;;ci'i<!as de pedernales agudisinios, que dc una eucliil- 
 lada cortttbau & ccrceii cl pescuczo de un cabaUo.' Motoliiiin, Hist. Iiulios, 
 in Icazbtdceta, Col. ilc Doc, torn, i., p. 188. Bemal Diaz describing a Imt- 
 tic with the TIascaltecs where Pedro de Moron was Mounded and had his 
 horse killed, says 'dicron vna cuchillada &, la yej^ua, que le cortaron el pes- 
 cue90 rcdondo, y alii qucd6 inuerta.' Bemal Diaz, Hist. Coiiq., fol. 44. 
 'Ta<;lia come vn rasoio di Tolofia. lo viddi die conibattendosi vn dl, dicdc 
 vn Indiano vna cortellatu a vn cauallo sopra il qual era vn catialliero con clii 
 conibatteua, nel petto, die ^lielo aperse nn alle interiora, et cadde inconliin- 
 cnte niorto, <& il uicdesinio {;iorno viddi die vn'altro cortellata a vn'altro caual- 
 lo su il coUoche sc lo gettb niorto a i piedi.' Relatione fatta pervngeittiriivo- 
 mo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Ramwsio, Naviqationi, torn, iii., fol. 
 305. The Anonymous Concjueror docs not say the head was cut ott", but 
 that one horse was killed with a cut on the breast that opened it to the en- 
 trails, and the other from a cut on the neck was laid dead at his feet. 'Lo 
 que poilriin efectuar con aquclla espada en cl {lescuezo del caballo sera de la 
 lieriua cuanto cntraren los filos en la came, que no pasardn de un cantode 
 real de plata, porque todo lo otro es gnieso, por tener el lonio que arriba 
 referinios las navajos.' Las Casas, Hist. Apologftiea, MS., cap. Ixvi.; Her- 
 nandez, Nova Plant., p. 340; Purchas his Pilqrimes, vol. iv., p. 1129. 
 
 17 It may be that this Imllesta was a somewhat similar implement to that 
 used by the Aleuts and Isthmians. Sec vol. i., pp. 90, 7G1. 'Dardi chc 
 essi tiruno con vn manga no fatto di vn'altro bastnine. Relatione fatta per rn 
 tj/entifhtiomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Ramvsio, Naviqationt, toni. 
 lii., fol. 305; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 594-5. 
 
THE BLOWPIPE AND STANDARDS. 
 
 411 
 
 locity, if it be true, as asserted, that they would pass 
 throujufh a man's body; tliey were much dreadoa by 
 the Spanish Conquerors. 
 
 When the Chichimecs first settled in the valley of 
 Andhuac the only weapons were the bow and arrow 
 and blow-pipe, in the use of which they were very ex- 
 pert. The blow-pipe was a long hollow tube through 
 which clay pellets were projected, and it is affirmed 
 that with them the Chichimecs could kill a man or 
 wild beast at a moderate distance; afterwards this 
 weajKin came to be generally used by other nations, 
 but was only employed for shooting small birds. 
 Among other things, Cortes was presented by Mon- 
 tezuma with a dozen blow-pipes beautifully orna- 
 mented and painted with figures of birds and animals; 
 the mouth-piece of each was made of gold, five or six 
 inches long; they were also ornamented in the centre 
 with gold, and accompanying them were gold net-work 
 ouches to cany the pellets." The Matlaltzincas and 
 labascans used weapons similar to those of the na- 
 tions of the Anahuac valley , the former were especially 
 dexterous in their practice with the sling, which, when 
 not in actual use, was carried wound about the head." 
 The fighting men among the Jaliscans, were similarly 
 armed, but the lords and captains carried only long 
 staves with which to urge their men to fight and pun- 
 ish any who were disorderly or showed symptoms of 
 cowardice.** 
 
 Each nation had its own particular standard on 
 which were painted or embroidered the armorial 
 bearings of the state. That of the Mexican empire, 
 as we have seen, bore an eagle in the act of seizing a 
 tiger, or jaguar. That of the republic of Tlascala, 
 a bird with its wings spread as in the act of fly- 
 ing, which some authors call an eagle, others a white 
 bird or crane. Each of the four lordships of the re- 
 's Cortis, Cartas, p. 101; Veytia, Hist. An!. Mej., torn, ii., p. 5; Oviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 299; Torqiiemada, Moiiarq. hid., torn, i., p. 4ti0. 
 *^ Sahaffun, Hist. Gen., torn, ili., lib. x., pp. 128-9. 
 '" Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. .S39. 
 
412 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 public had also its appropriate ensign ; Tizatlan had a 
 crane upon a rock, Tepeticpac a wolf with a bunch of 
 arrows in his paws, Ocotelulco a green bird upon a 
 rock, and Quiahuiztlan a parasol made of green feath- 
 ers." Each company or command had also a distinct 
 standard, the colors of which corresponded to that of 
 the armor and plumes of the chief The great stand- 
 ard of the Tlascaltec army was carried by the general 
 commanding, and the smaller banners of the compa- 
 nies by their respective captains; they were carried on 
 the back and were so firmly tied there that they could 
 not be detached without great difficulty.** When 
 upon a march and not in presence of the enemy the 
 standard of the Tlasealtecs was carried in the van, but 
 in action it was always placed in the rear. The Mex- 
 ican standard was borne in the centre of the army. 
 Instruments of music, consisting of drums, horns, and 
 large sea-shells, were sounded while fighting to en- 
 courage and animate the men. 
 
 The office of ambassador was one of much conse- 
 quence, and persons of the highest rank, selected for 
 their courteous manners and Oiatorical powers, were 
 appointed to the position. Their persons were held 
 sacred and they were usually received by those to 
 
 *> In regard to the armorial ensign of the Tloscaltecs, authors differ. It 
 is admitted that the general-in-chict carried the standuni of the rejmblic, 
 and important authorities say that the one borne by XicotcncatI in his 
 battle with Cortes liad emblazoned n])on it a white bird resembling an 
 ostrich or heron, but Clavigero and Frescott incline to the opinion that the 
 emblem was an eagle. In regard to this we have the following accounts. 
 Ucrnal Diaz, an actor in the battle, says the Tlascaltec armv was ranged 
 under the banner of XicotencatI, 'qua era vn aue blanca tendidas las alas, 
 conio que queria bolar, que parece conio auestruz.' Hist. Conq., fol. -VS. 
 ' Llcuuua el estandarte de la ciudad, qiie es vna grua dc oro con las alas tendi- 
 das.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 75. 'Esta bandera de Tascaltecle es una grua 
 que troc por divisa, 6 armas al natural, de oro, 6 teniUdas las alas.' Oria/o, 
 
 Hint. Gen., tom. iii., p. 409. 'XicotencatI ilcvaba el Estandarte de la 
 
 Itepublica, que era vn Aguila de Oro, con las Alas estcndidas.' Torqurinadu, 
 Moitarq. Ina., tom. i., p. 423; Cfariffcro, Stot-ia Ant. del Messieo, tom. ii., 
 p. 14.5; Prewotl's Mex., vol. i., \t. 439; Biissierre, L'Empire Alex., p. 234. 
 
 X 'Ha ogni compagnia il suo Alliere con la sua insegna inhastatu, <& in 
 tal niodo ligata soprale snailc, chc non gli da alcun disturbo di ]>otcr cum- 
 battere ne ror ci6 chc vuolc, & la porta cosi ligata b'.ne al corpo, che ae nun 
 fanno del stio curuo |iczzi, non segli puoslignre, ne argliela nmi.' Relatione 
 fatta per vn gentil'hiiomo del Siffiior Fernando Cot Use, in Bamuno, Navi- 
 gationi, tom. iii., fol. 303. 
 
AMBASSADORS AND COURIERS. 
 
 418 
 
 whom they were sent with honor and respect, per- 
 fumed with incense, presented with flowers, and well 
 lodged and entertained; in case any insult or indig- 
 nity was offered them, it constituted a sufficient ''ause 
 of war. Such an instance occurred when the Tepa- 
 necs, during the reign of their king Mnxtlaton, in- 
 vited the Mexican monarch Itzcoatl and his chiefs to 
 visit their province and partake of their hospitality. 
 Itzcoatl declined at the advice of his chiefs, but the 
 latter went, carrying presents. They were accepted 
 by the Tepanecs and the chiefs sent back in women's 
 apparel, which they were compelled to wear; the 
 indignity brought about a war between the two na- 
 tions. The proper courtesy and protection due to 
 their position was, however, only accorded them when 
 on the high road that led to thc'r destination; if they 
 deviated from it they lost their rights and privileges 
 as ambassadors. When on duty they wore a special 
 garb that denoted their office ; it consisted of a green 
 habit resembling a scapulary, or small cloak; handsome 
 feathers w^ere twisted in the hair with tufts of divers 
 colors ; i> the right hand they carried an arrow with 
 the point towards the ground, and in the left a shield; 
 a small net containing provisions hung from the left 
 arm. 
 
 A complete courier-system was established through- 
 out the empire; these couriers were employed to carry 
 messages in peace and war, and fresh provisions for the 
 king's table ; as we have seen in a former chapter, it is 
 asserted that Montezuma had fresh fish brought to his 
 palace daily from the gulf coast. They were exceed- 
 ingly swift runners, being exercised from childhood and 
 encouraged by rewards to excel in speed. Stations were 
 fixed at distances of about six miles apart, where 
 small towers were built, in which dwelt one or more 
 couriers ready at all times to set out with dispatches. 
 As soon as a courier arrived at one of these towers, 
 one of those waiting received from him the message 
 he bore, usually expressed in paintings, and at once 
 
414 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 started for the next stage, and thus the tidings were 
 conveyed to the capital in an incredibly short time. 
 When the dispatches were of an important nature, 
 the courier wore some badge or was dressed in a man- 
 ner indicative of the intelligence entrusted to him. 
 For instance, if it related to a defeat in battle, he 
 traveled with hair dishevelled, preserving a strict 
 silence until the message was delivered to the person 
 to whom it was directed; on the other hand, if he 
 brought news of a victory, his hair was neatly tied 
 with a colored string, about his body was wrai)ped a 
 white cotton cloth, on his left arm he carried a shield 
 and in his right hand a sword which he brandished as 
 if in combat, singing at the same time the glorious 
 deeds of the. victors.'^ 
 
 The Mexicans and other Nahua i.ntions, favored by 
 the general features of the country, adopted a system 
 of fortifications and entrenchments admirably adapted 
 to secure them from the attacks of internal enemies, 
 though insufficient as a defense against the superior 
 tactics and indomitable perseverance of Cortes. The 
 position of the city of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico, gave it 
 all the advantages of a fortified town. There was no 
 avenue of approach to it but the causeways, which 
 were defended by towers and ditches spanned by 
 draw-bridges ; it was the untimely raising of one of 
 these draw-bridges that caused such destruction to the 
 Spaniards ad their allies on the 'noche triste.' Be- 
 sides this, the inhabitants prepared themselves to 
 defend their city by means of boats, and were fre- 
 quently exercised in sham naval engagements. The 
 temples of Mexico served all the purposes of citadels, 
 especially the great temple built by the Emperor 
 Tizoc. Jt occupied the centre of the city and was 
 
 f 'Respetaban & los Embaxadorcs de bub mortalea cnemigos, conio h 
 DioBes, teiMeiido por mejor violur qualquicr rito dc su Religion, que pecar 
 contra la tee dada ii lo8 EnibaxodoreB, Torquemada, Monarq. Jiid,, torn, 
 ii., pp. S36-6. 'Los Correos, h MenttogeroB, que se despacliaban de las 
 GuerroB, tambicn piisalian scguroB, nor todoa portei.' lb.: Clavigitro, Storia 
 Ant, del Meaaico, ti<m ii., pp. 118-20. 
 
NAHUA FORTIFICATIONS. 
 
 416 
 
 surrounded by a stone wall eight feet high and very 
 thick, having turrets and stone figures upon it; the 
 wall was pierced by four principal entrances, over each 
 of which were fortified apartments, well stocked with 
 weapons, offensive and defensive, ready for immediate 
 service; here, in case of a revolt or sudden alarm, 
 the garrison went and armed themselves.** One of 
 the royal palaces also contained a large armory where 
 great quantities of arms were kept and armorers em- 
 ployed in their manufacture. The peculiar archi- 
 tecture of the temple rendered the ascent to its top 
 very slow and difficult; during the battles of the 
 Mexicans with Cortes' troops after Montezuma's 
 death, five hundred Mexican nobles took possession 
 of this summit, whence they hurled darts, arrows, and 
 stones against the Spaniards, many of whom lost their 
 lives during the assault before the position was taken 
 by Cortds in person. In his dispatch to the Emperor 
 Charles the Fifth he says: "so arduous was the at- 
 tempt to take this tower that if God had not broken 
 their spirits, twenty of them would have been suffi- 
 cient to resist the ascent of a thousand men, although 
 they fought with the greatest valor even unto 
 death. "^ 
 
 Besides the arsenal and general rendezvous there 
 were many turreted towers and strong buildings 
 throughout the city, from the top of which men could 
 shoot their arrows and hurl darts and stones with 
 great effect. The lofty teocalli served as watch- 
 towers, whence the movements of the enemy could be 
 observed. Naturally impregnable localities, such as 
 the vicinity of impassable rivers or ravines were se- 
 lected as sites for cities, which they further strength- 
 
 *> ' A coda parte y piicrta tic las ciiatro del patio del temjilo grande va 
 dicho hubia una gran sala con muy bucuos apuHcntus alUm y bajo8 en n;dc- 
 dor. Kn eutus tcnian muchas arnias, iNti-quc conio log Teinploa tcngnn nor 
 fortAlczos de los pueblos ticnen en ellos toda su municion.' Las Casas, Iltst, 
 Apologftica, MS., cap. li. 
 
 '^ 'Si Dios no les quobrara las alas.' Cortis, Cartas, p. 132. Sec also 
 Claviyero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 161-2; Ortega, in Veytia, 
 Hut. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 319. 
 
416 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 ened with forts or surrounded with stone walls. 
 The city of Guacachula, taken by Cortds shortly 
 after his retreat from Mexico on the 'noche triste,' 
 is thus described by him in his letter to Charles 
 the Fifth: "This city of Guacachula is situated 
 upon a plain bounded upon one side by some very 
 lofty and craggy hills; encircling the plain, on the 
 other sides, about two cross-bow shots apart, are 
 two rivers that run through large and deep ravines. 
 There are but few means of entrance to the city, 
 and those extremely difficult both in the ascent and 
 descent so that they can hardly be passed on horse- 
 back. The whole city is surrounded by a very strong 
 wall of stone and lime about twenty-two feet high on 
 the outside and almost level with the ground upon 
 the inside. Around the whole wall runs a battle- 
 ment, half the height of a man, as a protection when 
 fighting; it has four entrances of sufficient width to 
 admit a man on horseback, and in each entrance are 
 three or four curves in the wall that lap one over the 
 other and in the course of the curves, on the top of 
 the wall are parapets for fighting. In the whole cir- 
 cuit of the wall is a large quantity of stones large 
 and small and of different shapes for use in action." 
 Four leagues distant from Guacachula was another 
 city called Izucan, also strongly fortified with breast- 
 works, towers, and a deep river that encircled a great 
 part of the city.* 
 
 One of the most celebrated structures built for de- 
 fence was the stone wall erected by the Tlascaltecs to 
 secure themselves from the incursions of the Mexicans. 
 This wall was six miles long, extending across a val- 
 ley from one mountain to another; it was nearly nine 
 feet high and twenty feet thick, surmounted along its 
 whole length by a breastwork that enabled its defend- 
 ers to fight in comparative security from the top. 
 There was only one entrance, about ten paces wide, 
 where one part of the wall overlapped the other in 
 
 » Cortit, Cartat, pp. 150, 162. 
 
NAHUA FORTIFICATIONS. 
 
 417 
 
 curvilinear form in the manner of a ravelin for a dis- 
 tance of forty paces. Bernal Diaz and Cortds differ 
 as to the materials of which the wall was built. The 
 former affirms that it was built of stones cemented 
 together with lime and a bitumen so strongly that it 
 was necessary to use pick-axes to separate them, while 
 the latter says it was built of dry stone. 
 
 Cortes, describing the residence of the cacique of 
 Iztacmaxtitlan, a garrison of the Mexicans, says it 
 was situated on a lofty eminence, with a better fort- 
 ress than there was in half Spain, defended by a wall, 
 barbican, and moats.*' In many other parts of the 
 country were stone fortifications, wooden stockades 
 and intrenchments. A short distance from the vil- 
 lage of Molcaxac stood a strong fortress built on the 
 top of a mountain ; it was surrounded by four walls, 
 erected at certain intervals between the base of the 
 mountain and the top. Twenty-five miles from C6r- 
 dova was the fortress of Quauhtochco, now Guatusco, 
 encircled by high stone walls in which were no en- 
 trance gates; the interior could only be gained by 
 means of steep narrow steps, a method commonly 
 adopted in the country.*" The nations of Michoacan 
 and Jalisco employed heavy tree-trunks in fortifying 
 their positions against the Spanish invaders, or cut 
 deep intrenchments in which they fixed sharpened 
 stakes. Previous to an attack led by Pedro Alvarado 
 against the inhabitants of Jalisco, the latter took up 
 a strong position on a hill which they fortified by 
 placing large stones in such a manner, that upon cut- 
 ting the cords that held them they would be precipi- 
 tated upon the assailants ; in the assault many Span- 
 iards were killed and Alvarado was thrown from his 
 
 " 'Una gran cercadepiedraseca.' Cortes, Carlos, pft. 59-&). 'Unafuer^a 
 jnfucrte liccha de cal y canto, y de otro bctun tan rezio, que con picos 
 dc hicrro era for9080 dcshazerla.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq.,ioi. 4S; Torque- 
 mnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 418-19; Bussierre, L'Et, 
 
 l)ien fiicrte liccha de cal y canto, y de otro bctun tan rezio, que con picos 
 
 ' ■■ ■ - - - - - ■ .,fol. 43; Torque- 
 
 'mjfire Mex., pp. 
 
 2'29, 2.32; Brdsseur de Bourboiirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iv., pp. 134-S; 
 
 , Mex., fol. 70; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. i.; Clavigero, Sto- 
 
 'Jessica, tonri. ii., p. 160; Solis, Hitl. Conq. Mex., torn, i., p. 
 
 llomara, Con 
 ria Ant. del 
 241. 
 
 •» Claviaero, Storia Ant. del Memco, torn, ii, p. 150. 
 
 Vol. II. 2T 
 
418 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 horse with such violence that he died two days after- 
 wards." 
 
 Under the tripartite treaty made by the kingdoms 
 of Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan, a military council 
 was established consisting of a president and twenty- 
 one members. During the reign of the emperor Ne- 
 zahualcoyotl their deliberations were held in a hall of 
 his palace in Tezcuco. The president belonged to the 
 highest rank of the nobility and commanders of the 
 army, the other members were composed of six of the 
 principal men of Tezcuco, three nobles and three com- 
 moners, and fifteen selected from the other chief prov- 
 inces. Ail were veteran officers of recognized courage 
 and good conduct. To this court were referred all mat- 
 ters relating to war. The council assembled when re- 
 quired, to discuss and decide all affairs of the service, 
 whether for the punishment of offenses subversive of 
 military discipline, or to transact the business relative 
 to a declaration of war against other powers. In the 
 latter case the consultation always took place in pres- 
 ence of the sovereign, or of the three heads of the 
 empire. All ambassadors and soldiers were subject 
 to this tribunal, which meted out reward as well as 
 punishment. The following were the articles of war: 
 
 First: any general or other military officer who, 
 accompanying the king on a campaign, should forsake 
 him, or leave him in the power of the enemy, thereby 
 failing in his duty, which was to bring back his sov- 
 ereign dead or alive, suffered death by decapitation. 
 
 Second: any officer who formed the prince's guard 
 and deserted his trust, suffered death by decapitation. 
 
 Third : any soldier who disobeyed his superior offi- 
 cer, or abandoned his post, or turned his back ui)on 
 the enemy, or showed them favor, suffered death by 
 decapitation. 
 
 *• Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nuovo, p. 107; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., 
 p. 567; Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcviii., p. 133. 
 
ARTICLES OF WAR. 
 
 419 
 
 jruartl 
 
 Fourth: any officer or soldier who usurped the 
 captive or spoil of another, or who ceded to another 
 the prisoner he himself had taken, suffered death by 
 hanging. 
 
 Fifth: any soldier who in war caused injury to the 
 enemy without permission of his officer, or who at- 
 tacked before the signal was given, or who abandoned 
 the standard or headqu ^rters, or broke or violated any 
 order issued by his captain, suffered death by decapi- 
 tation. 
 
 Sixth: the traitor who revealed to the enemy the 
 secrets of the array or orders communicated for the 
 success thereof, suffered death by being torn to pieces; 
 his property was forfeited to the crown and all his 
 children and relations were made slaves in perpetuity. 
 
 Seventh: any person who protected or concealed 
 an enemy in time of war, whether noble or plebeian, 
 suffered death by being torn to pieces in the middle of 
 the public square, and his limbs were given to the 
 populace to be treated as objects of derision and con- 
 tempt. 
 
 Eighth : any noble or person of distinction who, in 
 action, or at any dance or festival, exhibited the in- 
 signia or badges of the kings of Mexico, Tezcuco, or 
 Tlacopan, suffered death and forfeiture of property. 
 
 Ninth: any nobleman who, being captured by the 
 enemy fled from prison and returned to his country 
 suffered death by decapitation ; but, if he fought and 
 vanquished seven soldiers in gladiatorial combat pre- 
 vious to return, he was free and was rewarded as a 
 brave man. The private soldier who fled from an 
 enemy's prison and returned to his country was well 
 received. 
 
 Tenth: any ambassador who failed to discharge his 
 trust in accordance with the orders and instructions 
 given to him or who returned without an answer, suf- 
 fered death by decapitation. 
 
 30 
 
 " Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., pp. 203-4, 422-3; Torquemada, 
 Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 384-5, 540; La» Caaas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 
420 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 As I have already stated, the primary object of 
 most wars was to procure victims for sacrifices to 
 Huitzilopochtli and other gods, and the Mexicans 
 were never at a loss for an excuse to pick a quarrel. 
 The refusal of a neij^hboring power to receive in its 
 temple one of the Mexican gods, neglect to pay trib- 
 ute demanded, insults offered to ambassadors or trav- 
 eling merchants, or symptoms of rebellion in a city 
 or a province, furnished sufficient pretext to take up 
 arms. The rulers of Mexico, however, always en- 
 deavored to justify their conduct before they made 
 war, and never commenced hostilities without send- 
 ing due notice of their intention to the adversary. 
 Before an actual challenge was sent or war declared 
 against any nation, the council met in presence of the 
 three heads of the empire, and gravely discussed the 
 equity of the case. If the difficulty lay with a prov- 
 ince subject to the empire, secret emissaries were sent 
 to inquire whether the fault originated solely with 
 the governor or if he was sustained by his subjects. 
 If it appeared that the whole blame rested with the 
 governor, a force was sent to arrest him, and he was 
 publicly punished, together with all others implicated ; 
 but if the rising was with the consent of the people, 
 they were summoned to submit and place themselves 
 in obedience to the king whose vassals they were, and 
 a fine, proportionate to the magnitude of the case, 
 was imposed. It was customary for the rulers of 
 Mexico or Tezcuco to send messengers to distant 
 provinces with a demand that they should receive one 
 or more of their gods and worship them in their tem- 
 ples. If the messenger was killed or the proposed 
 god rejected, a war ensued. 
 
 As I have said, it was a breach of international 
 etiquette to proceed to war without giving due notice 
 to the enemy, and military law prescribed that three 
 embassies should be despatched before commencins^ 
 
 cap. ccxv; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kinffsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 ix., pp. 243, 24C; Mendieta, Hint. Ecles., p. 132. 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 421 
 
 hostilities. The number of ambassadors varied ac- 
 cording to the circumstances and rank of the princes 
 against whom war was to be made, for the higher his 
 rank the fewer in number were the envoys. If he 
 was a great king only one was sent, and he was 
 generally of the blood-royal or a famous general. 
 Sometimes the ambassadors were instructed to de- 
 liver their message directly to the hostile prince, at 
 other times to the people of the province. In the 
 first case upon entering into the prince's presence 
 they paid their respects with reverence, and having 
 seated themselves in the centre of the audience- 
 hall, waited till permission was given them to speak. 
 The signal made, the principal among them deliv- 
 ered his messaijfe in a low tone of voice and with a 
 studied address, the audience preserving a decorous 
 silence, and listening attentively. As a general thing, 
 in all embassies an interchange of presents was made, 
 and if the message was from one friendly power to 
 another, a refusal of such gifts was a serious affront. 
 I f, however, it was to an enemy, the ambassador could 
 not receive a present without express orders from his 
 master. When the three powers of Mexico, Tezcuco, 
 and Tlacopan acted in unison, in the event of a diffi- 
 culty with another nation, the first ambassadors sent 
 were of the Mexican nation and were called quaquauh- 
 nochtzin. Upon arriving at the capital of the king- 
 dom or province they proceeded at once to the public 
 square and summoned before them the ministers and 
 aged men, to whom they made known the several cir- 
 cumstances of the case, warning them that, in case 
 their lord refused to accede to their propositions, upon 
 them and their families would fall the evils and hard- 
 ships produced by war, and exhorting them to counsel 
 and persuade their lord to maintain the good will and 
 l)rotection of the empire; for this purpose they granted 
 twenty days, within which time they would expect 
 an answer, and in order that there might be no com- 
 [)laint of being surprised and taken unprepared they 
 
 •*. 
 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 left a supply of weapons and then retired outside 
 the town to await the answer. If within the twenty 
 days it was decided to accept the terms of the ambas- 
 sadors, the ministers went to the place where they 
 were in waiting and conducted them into the city, 
 where they were received with every mark of respect, 
 and in a short time were sent back to their own coun- 
 try, accompanied by other ambassadors, bearing costly 
 presents in token of friendship and esteem. If, how- 
 ever, twenty days passed without a satisfactory ad- 
 justment of the difficulty, a second set of ambassa- 
 dors, held in readiness for the occasion, who had to be 
 of the kingdom of Tezcuco and were called achca- 
 cauhtzin, were sent into the city. These carried with 
 them a quantity of arms, some feathers of a bird 
 called tecpilotl, and a small earthen-ware jar con- 
 taining a certain balsamic and aromatic ointment, 
 compounded of various herbs and gums. They went 
 directly to tlie palace of the prince and in presence of 
 the gentlemen of his court delivered their message. 
 They then represented to him the miseries of war, 
 and warned him, that if within the space of twenty 
 days he did not agree to their terms, in the event of 
 his being taken captive during the war which would 
 ensue he would be put to death under the penalty of 
 the law, which sentenced him to have his head 
 smashed with a club, and that his vassals would be 
 chastised in proportion to the oftence each had com- 
 mitted. If the refractory prince or noble refused 
 immediate compliance, the ambassadors anointed his 
 right arm and his head with the ointment brought 
 with them, telling him to be strong and of good 
 courage and to fight bravely against the troops of 
 the empire, whose valor in war they greatly extolled. 
 They then tied the tecpilotl-plumes at the back of 
 his head with red strings, handed him the weapons 
 they had brought with them, and retired to the 
 place where the first ambassadors were, to await tlio 
 expiration of the twenty days. If he surrendered 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 423 
 
 within the time, he was required to pay a stipulated 
 annual tribute of small amount, but if he refused to 
 surrender, there came a third sot of ambassadors, who 
 were of the kingdom of Tlaeopan; they appeared be- 
 fore the lord in the presence of his ministers and 
 court, and delivered their message with 8tron<>er 
 threats and warnings, to the effect that if he did not 
 surrender at the expiration of a further twenty days, 
 the aiTiiy of the empire would march against his 
 territory and punish the inhabitants regardless of 
 age or sex, and that altiiough they might implore its 
 clemency they would not be heard; they then gave 
 theui a larger supply of arms than on the preced- 
 ing occasions, telling them to avail themselves of 
 them and not to say at a future time that they had 
 been assailed unprepared. If the lord of the prov- 
 ince surrendered within the last twenty days, he was 
 punished according to the pleasure of the three pow- 
 ers, but not with death nor with the confiscation of 
 his rank or property; he was usually condemned to 
 pay an extraordinary tribute out of his own revenues; 
 should he continue rebellious, war broke out, and the 
 anny of the empire, already prepared on the frontiers, ' 
 commenced its operations. ^^ 
 
 It was usual to send a formal challenge or declara- 
 tion of war, accompanied by some presents, either of 
 arms, clothing, or food, as it was held to be a discredit- 
 able act to attack any unarmed or defenseless people. 
 A notable instance of this spirit was thown by the 
 Tlascaltecs when they confronted the army of Cortes ; 
 
 31 Las Cosas says that very old women were admitted to war councils. 
 *\unca movian guerra sin dar parte al pueblo, y sin mucho consejo de los 
 uias ancianos y caballeros ejereitados en la guerra, al cual consejo se ad- 
 niitiau las mujercs nniy vicjas conio personus que liabian visto y uido 
 muclias cosas y asi esperimcntadas de lo pasado,' Las Casus, hist. Apolo- 
 gHica, MS., cap. Ixvi. According to the Chevalier lioturini tiic iirst ambas- 
 sadors were accredited to the king or lord of the province, the second were 
 dispatched to the nobilitv requiring them to persuade their lord, and the 
 third convoked the people and advised them of the motives their monarch 
 had for waging war against them. Boturini, Idea, pp. 162-3. See also Fcy- 
 tin. Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. iii., pp. 424-7; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in 
 Kingsborough^s Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 246-7; Tezozomoc, Crdnica Mex., 
 n id., pp. 40, 73; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 382-3, 534-5. 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
424 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 their general is reported to have exclaimed : " Who 
 are these presumptuous men, so few in number that 
 they attempt to enter our country in spite of us ? Lest 
 they think we want to take them by hunger rather 
 than by force of arms, let us send them food, that we 
 may find tliem savory after the sacrifice, for they come 
 starved and worn out." Before the battle they sent 
 three hundred turkeys and two hundred baskets of 
 centli or tamales, each basket weighing' about twenty- 
 five pounds, a gift most acceptable to the Castilians.^ 
 When war against another nation was decided upon, 
 the first care of the Mexicans was to investigate the 
 character and resources of the region they were about 
 to invade. Certain spies called quimichtm, who were 
 selected for their knowledge of the language and 
 customs of the enemy's country, were sent thither, 
 dressed after the manner of the inhabitants. These 
 spies were directed to prepare maps of the districts 
 they passed through, showing the plains, rivers, mount- 
 ains, and dangerous passes as well as the most p: icti- 
 cable routes, and were to take notice of all means of 
 defense possessed by the enemy. The sketches and 
 ■information thus obtained were given to the chiefs of 
 the army to guide them in their march and enable 
 them to make the best disposition of their forces. 
 Such spies as brought valuable news were reward- 
 ed with the grant of a piece of land, and if one 
 came over from the enemy s side and gave advice of 
 their preparations and force, he was well paid and 
 given presents of mantles.** When a war was to be 
 conducted jointly by the three allied powers, procla- 
 mation was made by heralds in the public thorough- 
 fares of the capital cities. Commissariat officers 
 called calpixques collected the necessary stores and 
 provisions for the campaign, and distributed weapons 
 
 M Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 423; (lomara, Conq. Mcx., fol. 
 75; Ilerrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. vi. 
 
 33 'A cstas Eapios, que embiaban delante, Uamiiban Ra^toncb, aiie andaii 
 dc noche, 6 escoiididos, yil liurtadillas.' Torquemada, Mcnarq. Iitd., torn, 
 ii., p. 5.38. 
 
ORDER OF MARCH AND BATTLE. 
 
 425 
 
 and coarse mantles of nequen to the rrmy. The 
 troops then went to the temple and performed the 
 ceremony of scarifying their bodies, while the custom- 
 ary sacrifices were offered by the priests to ITuitzilo- 
 pochtli. 
 
 If the expedition was an important one and the 
 army large, it was composed of several divisions, 
 called xiquipilH, each consisting of eight thousand 
 men under their respective commanders. When all 
 was in readiness the order of march was thus formed: 
 the prifists with their idols started one day's march in 
 advance; next came the captains and flower of the 
 army, followed by the soldic.s of Mexico; after them 
 the Tezcucans, and then tiiose of Tlacopan, the rear 
 l)eing closed by the troops of other provinces; one 
 day's march separated each division. Perfect order 
 was maintained on the route, and when near the ene- 
 my's country the chiefs traced out the camping-ground 
 each divis'an should occupy, and directed all to en- 
 trench anJ fortify their positions.^ 
 
 The Ijattle was sometimes fought on a piece of 
 neutral ground lying between the confines of two ter- 
 ritories. Such a place was known by the name yauh- 
 tlalli, and was especially reserved for the purpose, 
 and always left uncultivated." Before the action 
 commenced each soldier received from the royal mag- 
 azine a handful of pinole and a kii:d of cake called 
 tlnxcaltotopochtli; afterwards the high-priest or chief 
 addressed the troops, reminding them of the glory to 
 be gained by victory, and the eternal bliss in store for 
 tliose who fell, and concluded by counseling them to 
 J ... •' their trust in Huitzilopochtli and fight valiantly. 
 If the king was present on the field the signal foi 
 
 ^ .imargo says: ' L'arm^e ^tait divis^e par bataillons de cr nt honinies.' 
 Hist. Tlax., ill Nouvelles Anuales des Voy., 1843, torn, xfviii., p. 134. 
 ' ijiiando I'escrcito era nume^so, si contava per XiquipilH: <,d ogiii Xiqui- 
 pilH si coin]M>nova d'otto mila uomini.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, 
 torn, ii., p. 147. 
 
 M Also spelt qui ' Hale, jaoflalli, meaning a place for war. Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Mcj-uco, torn, ii., pp. 147-8; Gomura, Conq. Mex., fol. 322; 
 Torqueinada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 538. 
 
4aa 
 
 THF. NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 attax;k was given by him. The Mexican monarch 
 issued his orders to commence the action by sounding 
 on a large shell maJcing a noise like a trumpet; the 
 lords of Tezcuco beat UT>on a small drum, and lords of 
 other provinces struck two bones together. The sig- 
 nals for retreat were given upon similar insti-uments. 
 When the battle commenced, the shrieking of musical 
 instruments, the clashing of swords against bucklers, 
 and shouting of the combatants made a noise so great 
 as to strike terror into those unused to it. While 
 fighting the warriors shouted the names of their re- 
 spective towns or districts to enable them to recognize 
 each other and prevent confusion.** 
 
 In fighting there appears to have been no special 
 tactics; the commanders of divisions and the captains 
 used every effort to keep their men together, and were 
 very careful to protect the standard, as, if that was 
 taken, the battle was considered lost and all fled. 
 They observed the wise policy of keeping a number 
 of men in reserve to replace any who were wearied or 
 had exhausted their weapons. The archers, slingerss, 
 and javelin men commenced the action at a distance 
 and gradually drew nearer, until they came to close 
 quarters, when they took to their swords and spears. 
 AH movements, both in advance and retreat, were 
 rapidly executed; sometimes a retreat was feigned in 
 order to draw the enemy into an ambuscade which 
 had been prepared beforehand. The chief object was 
 to take prisoners and not to slay; when an enemy re- 
 fused to surrender, they endeavored to wound thcni 
 in the foot or leg so as to prevent escape, but they 
 never accepted a ransom for a prisoner. Certain men 
 were attached to the army whose duty it was to re- 
 move the killed and wounded during the action, so 
 that the enemy might not ':now the losses ond take 
 fresh heart." 
 
 M Tczozomoc, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsborougk's Mex. Antin.. vol. ix., pp. 
 31, 41. 50, 147. 
 
 " For further acconnt of their manner of conducting a war, see: Cl<tn- 
 gero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., pp. 147-9; Sahagun, Hist, Gen., um\. 
 
TLASCALTECS AND TARASCOS. 
 
 437 
 
 The Tlascaltecs formed their army into battalions, 
 each having its appointed chief, the whole being under 
 the command of a general-in-chief, who was elected 
 from among those of tlie four seigniories into which 
 the republic was divided. Their mode of fighting 
 differed little from that of the Mexicans, with tlie ex- 
 ception of a certain practice which they observed 
 upon first coming in contact with the enemy , This 
 consisted in carrying with them two darts which they 
 believed would presage victory or defeat according to 
 the result of their delivery into the hostile ranks. 
 Accordinsr to Motolinia the tradition among them in 
 regard to this belief was, that their ancestors came 
 from the north-west, and that in order to reach the 
 land they navigated eight or ten days; from the 
 oldest among them they then received two darts 
 which they guarded as precious relics, and regarded 
 as an infallible augury by wliich to know whether 
 they would gain a victory or ought to retreat in time.^ 
 When a victory was won the great standard was 
 brought to the front and placed upon a rising ground 
 or in some conspicuous position, and all were obliged 
 to assemble around it ; he who neglected to do so was 
 punished. 
 
 The Tarascos fought with great courage to the 
 sound <^f numerous horns and sea-shells, and carried 
 to battle banners made of feathers of iiiany colors. 
 Their skill and valor is best proven by the fact that 
 the Mexicans were never able to subdue them. They 
 showed especial strategy in luring the foe into ambush. 
 Like the Mexicans their chief object in battle was to 
 take prisoners to sacrifice to their godf.** 
 
 ii., lib. viii., pp. 311-12; Lns Cnmn, IlUt. Apologitica, ISIS., cap. Ixvii. ; 
 Mmdictn, Hist. Eclci., pn. 129 31; Gom-ira, Vonq. Mi-x., fol. 32.J-3; Jims- 
 sctir (In liourhouvg, llisl. Nat. Cii\, Idiu. iii., pp. .WS-COl ; Torque inuila. Mo- 
 nnrq. fnd., torn, ii., pp. 537-40; Charc.i, llniiport, in Tcriniux-Coiii/iaiis, Vvij., 
 sdrle ii., torn, v., np. 313-14; Klcinm, Viutw-diaihirhte, toin. v., pp. 8«J-8. 
 
 ^^ MotoUnia, Ilist. I'lUios, in Icazlxilccla, Col. <lc Doc, t.oiii. >., p. II; 
 Ilerrrra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cup. xvii.; Gomara, Coiiq. Mix., fol. 
 87; Torqucmada, Mounrq. liid., torn, i., p. 34; Gage's New Survey, p. 77; 
 Bwniierrc, L'Empire Mrx., i>. 230. 
 
 ^"^ Beaumont, Crtin. Mevhoacan, MS., pp. 51, CO-1. 
 
428 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Among the Mexicans, when the battle was over, 
 the first prisoners taken were given to the priests to 
 be sacrificed before the idols they carried with them. 
 An account was taken of the losses sustained and of 
 the number of prisoners and other booty gained. Re- 
 wards were distributed to all who had distinguished 
 themselves and punishment inflicted on any who had 
 misbehaved. All disputes relative to the capture of 
 prisoners were inquired into and adjusted. If a case 
 arose where "either of the disputants could prove 
 their title, the prisoner was taken from them and 
 given to the priests to be sacrificed. Those inhabi- 
 tants of the conquered province who could prove that 
 they had taken no active part in the war were pun- 
 ished at the discretion of their conqueror; usually 
 they were condemned to pay a certain annual tribute, 
 or to construct public works; meantime, the van- 
 quished province v.'as supplied with a governor and 
 officers, appointed from among the conquerors.*" 
 
 When the king or a feudatory lord captured a pris- 
 oner for the first time, his success was made the occa- 
 sion of much rejoicing. The captive, dressed in showy 
 apparel and mounted on a litter, was borne to the 
 town in great triumph, accompanied by a host of war- 
 riors shouting and singing; at the outskirts of the 
 city the procession v/as met by the inhabitants, some 
 playing on jnusical instruments, others dancing and 
 singing songi composed for the occasion. The pris- 
 oner was saluted with mimic honors, and his captor 
 greatly extolled and congratulated. Numbers of peo- 
 ple arrived from the adjoining towns and villages to 
 assist in the general hilarity, bringing with them 
 presents of gold, jewels, and rich dresses. Upon the 
 day appointed for the sacrifice a grand festival was 
 held, previous to and after whicli the lord fasted and 
 performed certain prescribed ceremonies. Tlie victhu 
 was usually dressed for the occasion in the robes of 
 
 *" Sahaffun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. viii., p. 313j Las Caaas, Hist. 
 Apologttica, MS., cap. Ixvii. 
 
GLADIATORIAL COMBAT. 
 
 429 
 
 the god of the sun, and sacrificed in the usual man- 
 ner. With some of the blood that flowed, the priest 
 sprinkled the four sides of the temple ; the remainder 
 was collected in a vessel and sent to the noble 
 captor, who with it sprinkled all the gods in the 
 court yard of the temple as a thank-offering for the 
 victory ^e had gained. After the heart was taken 
 out the uody was rolled down the steps and received 
 below; the head was then cut off" and placed upon a 
 high pole, afterwards the body was flayed, and the 
 skin stuffed with cotton and hung up in the captor's 
 house as a memento of his prowess." 
 
 When a renowned captain or noble was made pris- 
 oner, the right of fighting for his liberty was granted 
 him — an honor not permitted to warriors of an inferior 
 rank. Near the temple was an open space capable of 
 containing a large multitude; in the niiddle was a cir- 
 cular mound built of stone and mortar, about eight 
 feet high, with steps leading to the top, where was 
 fixed a large round stone, three feet high, smooth, and 
 adorned with figures. This stone was called the te- 
 malacatl; upon it the prisoner was placed, tied at the 
 ankle with a cord, which passed through a hole in the 
 centre of the stone. His weapons consisted of a 
 shield and macana." He who had taken him pris- 
 oner then mounted the stone, better armed, to combat 
 with him. Both the combatants were animated with 
 the strongest motives to fight desperately. The pris- 
 oner fought for his life and liberty, and his adversary 
 to sustain his reputation. If the former was con- 
 
 *' Mendicta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 131-4; Torijnrnuula, Monarq. Ind., toni. 
 ii., pp. 541-2; Claviffcro, Stona Ant. del Mcsxiro, («)m. ii., n. 149. 
 
 " Ciinmruo says the prisoner was given IiIh rlioice of every kind of 
 ofTcnsive ana defensive weapons. Hist. Tlax., in yourcllcs A unities den 
 Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., pp. 188-9, bnt all other authors tttate that he watt 
 onlv given a short sword and shield. Itoturini suys a servant wlio waH 
 under the stone drew the cord and so controlled tlic prisoner that he could 
 not move. Idea, p. 164. Uuran says: 'el modo que en celelirarlo tenian; 
 que era atar li los I'rcsos con una soga al pi^ por un ahugcro uuc aquclia 
 piedra tenia por medio, y desnudo en cuoio'i le daban una nMiela y una 
 espada dc solo palo cmpluniado en las manos, y unas pelotas de palo con que 
 se dcfcndian de los quo salian d combatir con i\, que eran cuatro r.:r.y 
 liicn arniadoB.' Hist. Iiidias, M8., torn, i., cap. 30. 
 
430 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 quered, a priest, called chalchiuhtepehua, immedi- 
 ately seized him, hurried him dead or alive to the 
 sacrificial stone and tore out his heart. The victor 
 was then publicly congratulated and rewarded with 
 military honors. If, however, the prisoner van- 
 quished his first opponent and six others, by whom, in 
 succession, he was attacked, he was granted his free- 
 dom, all spoil taken from him in battle was restored 
 to him, and he returned to his country covered with 
 glory. A notable violation of this law is recorded of 
 the Huexotzincas. In a battle between them and 
 the (Jholultecs, the leader of the latter nation became 
 separated from his own persple during the heat of 
 battle, and was, after a gallant resistance, made pris- 
 oner and conducted to the capital. Being placed on 
 the gladiatorial stone he conquered the seven adver- 
 saries that were brought against him, but the Huex- 
 otzincas, dreading to liberate so famous a warrior, 
 contrary to their universal law, put him to death, and 
 thereby covered themselves with ignominy.** 
 
 If the prisoner was a person of very high rank, he 
 was taken before the king, who ordered that he should 
 be sumj)tuously fed and lodged for forty days. At 
 the end of that time he was accorded the right of 
 combat, and if conquered, after the usual sacrificial 
 ceremonies' the body was cut into small pieces ; these 
 were sent to the relations and friends of the deceased, 
 who received them as relics of great value and ac- 
 knowledged the favor by returning gold, jewels, and 
 rich plumes." If we are to believe Gonuira and 
 others, the number of victims, chiefly prisoners of 
 war, sacrificed at some of the festivals, was enor- 
 mous. The historians relate that in front of the 
 principal gate of the temple there was a mound 
 built of stone and lime with innumerable skulls 
 of prisoners inserted between the stones. At the 
 
 *' Relatione fatla per vn gcntiVhuomo del Siijnor Fernando Cortcse, in 
 liammio, Nuriifationt, torn, iii., fol. 305; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, 
 turn, ii., pp. 47-8. 
 
 ** Toi-qucmada, Monarq, Ind., torn, ii., p. 63C. 
 
PRISONERS OF WAR. 
 
 481 
 
 head and foot of the mound were two towers built 
 entirely of skulls and lime; on the top of the mound 
 were seventy or more upright poles, each with many 
 other sticks fastened crossways to it, at intervals, 
 from top to bottom ; on the points of each cross stick 
 were five skulls. They go on to say that two soldiers 
 of Cortes counted these skulls and found them to 
 amount to one hundred and thirty-six thousand. 
 Those that composed the towers they could not count." 
 
 The nations contiguous to tiie Mexicans imitated to 
 a great extent their manner of disposing of pris- 
 oners of war, and kept them to be sacrificed at their 
 festivals. The first prisoner taken in battle by the 
 Tlascaltecs was flayed alive and he who captured 
 him dressed himself in the horrid trophy, and so cov- 
 ered served the god of battles during a certain num- 
 ber of days. He paraded from one temple to another 
 followed by a crowd that shrieked for joy ; but had, 
 however, to run from his pursuers, for if they caught 
 him they beat him till he was nearly dead. This cere- 
 mony was called exquinan, and was sometimes observed 
 by two or three at the same time." At one of their 
 festivals they bound their prisoners to high crosses and 
 shot them to death with arrows; at other timies they 
 killed them with the bastinado. Thev had also solemn 
 banquets, at which they ate the flesh of their prisoners. 
 At the taking of Mexico, the Tlascaltec soldiery 
 feasted upon the bodies of the slain Mexicans, and 
 Cortes, although shocked at the revolting practice, 
 was unable to prevent it." 
 
 The Mexicans, Tlascaltecs, and neighboring nations 
 
 <^ Gomara, Conq. Mcx., fiil. 121-2; Acostn, Hist, dc las Ynd:, pp. 333-5; 
 Ilr.rrrra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xviii. ; Montanus, Nicmce 
 Wecrdil, p. 242. 
 
 *•> Vamanjo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvcllcs Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcix., j>. 1.34. 
 
 *' Ctangcro, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 51; Torquemada, Mo- 
 ttarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 423. For further reference to treatment of priHon- 
 en*, see: Ixflilxorhitl, Hist. Chick., in Kinasborovgh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 pp. 250-1; Tezozomoc, Crdnicn Mex., in id., p. 164; Klemm, Cultur-Ge- 
 scliirhte, torn, v., pp. 102-3; Miiller, Amcrikanisch.e Urreligionen, p. 634; 
 Fosscy, Mexique, pp. 215-16; Peter Martyr, dec. v., iih. viii. 
 
432 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 always made the return of a successful army the occa- 
 sion of great festivity and rejoicing; the loud sound 
 of drums and musical instruments greeted the entry 
 of the victorious troops into the capital; triumphal 
 arches were erected in the streets and the houses 
 decorated with flowers; an abundance of copal was 
 burned and sumptuous banquets were prepared; all 
 were dressed in their gayest attire, and the warriors put 
 on all the insignia of their rank ; gifts were distributed 
 to those who had performed any deed of gallantry, 
 and minstrels sung or recited poems in their praise. 
 Many went to the temples to observe especial acts of 
 devotion to the gods, and numbers of the prisoners 
 were then sacrificed. All these ceremonies tended to 
 inspire the youths with courage and make them am- 
 bitious to gain distinction in war.* 
 
 ,48 
 
 ** Instances of how the Mexicans received their victorious armies are 
 given in Tczozomoc, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 pp. 39, 61, 177-8; Brasseur de Botirbourg, Hist. Nat Civ., torn, iii., pp. 
 321-2. See further, Cnmargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelks Annalesdes Voy., 
 1843, torn, xcix., p. 136; Herrrra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xvii.; 
 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tuni. ii., p. 574; Acosta, Hist.delas itid., pp. 
 489-90. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NAHUA LAWS AND LAW COURTS. 
 General Remarks— the Cihuacoatl, or Supreme Judge— the Court 
 
 OF THE TLACATECATL — JURISDICTION OF THE TECUTLIS— THE CEN- 
 
 tectlapixques and Topillis— Law Courts and Judges of Tez- 
 cuco — Eighty -Day Council — Tribunal of the King — Court 
 Proceedings— Lawyers— Witnesses— Remuneration of Judges 
 —Justice of King Nezahualpilli— He orders his Son's Execu- 
 tion— Montezuma and the Farmer — Jails — Laws against 
 Theft, Murder, Treason, Kidnapping, Drunkenness, Witch- 
 craft, Adultery, Incest, Sodomy, Fornication, and other 
 Crimes— Story of Nezahualcoyotl and the Boy. 
 
 It has already been stated that among the Nahuas 
 the supreme legislative power belonged to the king; 
 the lawful share tliat he took in the administration of 
 justice we shall see as we examine the system of juris- 
 prudence adopted by them. 
 
 When treating of the Nahua judiciary the majority 
 of historians have preferred to discuss almost exclu- 
 sively the system in vogue at Tezcuco, partly, per- 
 haps, because it presents a nicer gradation of legal 
 tribunals, and consequently a closer resemblance to 
 European institutions than did the more simple rou- 
 tine of the Mexicans, but mainly because the mate- 
 rials of information were more accessible and abundant. 
 Many writers, however, have not followed this rule, 
 but throwing all the information they could obtain 
 into a general fund, they have applied the whole in- 
 
 VoL. II.-28 (433) 
 
434 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 discriininately to the 'Mexicans,' by which tenn they 
 mean all the inhabitants of the regions conquered by 
 Cortes. Las Casas, speaking of the allied Kingdoms 
 of Mexico, Tezcuco, and TIacopan, says that "their 
 government and laws scarcely differed, so that what- 
 ever may be said of those parts concerning which the 
 most information can be obtained, may be understood, 
 and perhaps it is best to say it, as applying to all."* 
 Although the number and jurisdiction of the law- 
 courts of Mexico and Tezcuco differed, there is reason 
 to believe that the laws themselves and the penalties 
 inflicted were the same, or nearly so. 
 
 In Mexico, and in each of the principal cities of the 
 empire, there was a supreme judge, called cihuacoatl^ 
 who was considered second only to the king in rank 
 and authority. He heard appeals in criminal cases 
 from the court immediately below him, and from his 
 decision no appeal was allowed, not even to the king.^ 
 
 1 'El govierno y las Icyes quasi no difcrian, por mancra que por lo que 
 de Unas partes dijcrcmos, y adoiide tuvinios mayor notifia, se pmlru cntcii- 
 der, y quiza sera nicjur, decirlo en coiiiun y general nicnte.' Lan Casan, 
 Hist. Apologilica, MS., cap. ecxii. It is also stated that many Mexican 
 cases, presenting more than ordinary difficulty, were tried in the Tczciicaii 
 law-courts; see Ztirita, Rapport, in Teniaux-Compans, Voy., sdric ii., toiii. 
 i., J). 95; Las Casas, Jiist. Ajmloyetica, MS., cop. ccxii. ; torquemada, Mo- 
 ■narq. Iiid., torn, ii., )>. 354. Si)eaking of Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopun, 
 Zurita says: 'Les lois et la procedure etaicnt Ics mCnies dansccstroisutntM, 
 dc sorte qii'en exirasant les usages (itablis dans I'un d'eux, on fera coniiaitru 
 ce qui se passait dans les autres.' Support, in Tcrnaiix-Compans, Voy., 
 sdrie ii., torn, i., pp. 93-4. 
 
 ' The title ciliuucoati, meaning 'serpent-woman,' appears incompre- 
 hensible as applied to a judge, but M. I'AbW Brasseurde Boiirl)ourg, Jiisf. 
 Nat. Cir., Utni. iii., pp. 579-80, sees reason to believe that the MexicuiiH, 
 when tlicy succeeded to tlie rights of the Toltec kings of Culhuacan, adopted 
 also the titles of the court, and that the name cihuacoati had l)cen given 
 to the prime minister in memory of Cihuucoatl, the sister of t'aniaxtli, 
 who cared for the infancy of i^uetzalcoatl. The learned Abl>6 translates 
 cihuncoatl, serpent femclle, which is literally a seqient of the female sex. 
 Molina, however, in his Vorabnlario, gives 'ciua* as a substantive, mean- 
 ing 'women' (inugeres), and 'coatl' as another substantive, meaning '^rr- 
 ]ieiit' (culebra), the two as a comirauiid he docs not give. I translate the 
 word 'serpent-woman,' because the sister of Camaxtli would more proba- 
 bly lie thus distinguished among women, than among serpents as the ' wu- 
 man-serpent.' 
 
 3 Although all other historians agree that the judgment of the cihnn- 
 coatl was final, the interpreter of Meiidoza's collection states that an apiieal 
 lay from the judges (he does not state wlii«h) to the king. tJjplieacioii dc 
 la Coleceion de Mendoza, in KinqshorotifilCs Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 109. 
 Prescott, Mex., vol. i., p. 29, attributes this to the changes made during 
 
 pun 
 Boii 
 
THE CIHUACOATL, SUPREME JUDGE. 
 
 MS 
 
 Whether or not the cihuacoatl pronounced judgment 
 in civil cases is uncertain. According to Clavigero 
 he did ;* Prescott," Brasseur de Bourbourg," and Car- 
 bajal Espinosa' agree with Clavigero, and Leon Car- 
 bajal* cites Torquemada as an authority for this state- 
 ment, but the fact is Torquemada distinctly aflirms 
 the contrary,' as does Las Casas,^" from whom Tor- 
 quemada takes his information. It appears, however, 
 reasonable to suppose that in some exceptional cases, 
 as, for instance, where the title to large possessions 
 was involved, or when the litigants were powerful no- 
 bles, the supreme judge may have taken cognizance 
 of civil aifairs. Whether the jurisdiction of the ci- 
 huacoatl was ever original, as well as final, as Pres- 
 cott" asserts it to have been, I do not find stated by 
 the earlier authorities, although this may have hap- 
 pened exceptionally, but in that case there could have 
 been but one hearing, for the king, who was the only 
 superior of the supreme judge, had no authority to 
 reverse the , decisions of the latter. The cihuacoatl 
 was appointed by the king, and he in turn appointed 
 
 Montezuma's reiun, the period which the Mendoza paintin!|^ repreacnt, and 
 Leon Carbajal, Discurso, p. 98, totally denies the truth of the 8tutenicnt. 
 
 * 'Dalle Bcntenzc da lui pronunziatc o nel civile, o nel criniinale, non 
 si potcva appellare ad un altro tribuuale,' &c. Storia Ant. del Mesnico, 
 toni. ii., p. 1*27. 
 
 * Mex., vol. i., p. 29. 
 
 « //*■*/. Nat. Oil'., torn, iii., p. 580. 
 T Ifist. Mcx., toni. i., p. 693. 
 
 * Disrumo, p. 97. 
 
 ' 'Uhi de cttusas, <^ue se dcbolvian, y remitian & hX, por apelacion; y 
 csfas eran solns las criminales, pornm dc las civilrs no se apclabn de «im 
 Jitslidas ordinarias.' Monara. I ml., torn, ii., p. .352. It is possible that 
 Scnor Carhojul may have reaa only a suhsecjucnt possa^^c in the same cliap- 
 tcr, where T'ormicmada, speaking of the tribunal of the tlacatecatl, says: 
 'De este se apelabu, para el Tribunal, y Audienria del Cihuacohuutl, que 
 era Juez Suprenu), despues del Kci.' From what has^rone Ituforc, it is, how- 
 ever, evident that the author here refers onlv to the criminal cases that 
 were amicttled from the court of the tlacatecatl, 
 
 '* llist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxii. 
 
 " Mfx., vol. i., p. 29. Clavijjero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 
 127-8, also affirms, indirectly, that cases were sometimes laid in the first in- 
 stance liefore the supreme judge, inasmuch t.s he first says that the cihua- 
 coatl took cognizance of both civil and criminal cases, and afterwards, 
 when spcakinff of the court of the tlacatecatl, he writes: 'Se la causa era 
 
 Suramente civile, non v'era appellazione.' The same applies to llrasseur de 
 lourbourg. Hiit. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 680. 
 
486 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the inferior judges. He held his office for life, and 
 in addition to his regular judicial duties had charge of 
 the most important affairs of government, and of the 
 roval revenues. He was without a colleague, and 
 nmst administer justice in person. Such was the 
 rospeot paid to this exalted personage, that whoever 
 had the audacity to usurp his power or insignia suf- 
 fered death, lus property was confiscated and his 
 family enslaved." 
 
 The next court was supreme in civil matters and 
 could only be appealed from to the cihuacoatl in cases 
 of a criminal nature. It was presided over by three 
 judges, the chief of whom was styled tlacatecatl, and 
 from him the court took its name ; liis colleagues were 
 called qitauhnochtli and tlanotlac?^ Each of thetie 
 had his deputies and assistants. Affairs of import- 
 ance were laid in the first instance before this tri- 
 bunal, but appeals from the inferior courts were also 
 heard. Sentence was pronounced by a crier entitled 
 tecpoijotl in the name of the tlacatecatl, and was 
 carried into execution by the quauhnochtli with his 
 own hands. The office of tecpoyotl was considered 
 
 '* Herein lies the only difference Ijctwcen Lns Cnsas and Torqucnmda on 
 the Hubject of the Cihuacoutl. Tiic former writes: 'Qiialqnieru que cste 
 olicio puru si usurpara, 6 lu conecdiera d otro, avia de niorir por ello, y siis 
 padres y detidoa eran dcsnatwados del pueblo doude acacciexc haka lo 
 quarta gciieracioii. Allcnde (\xie todos los biencs avian de scr coniiscados, y 
 aplicadus para la republica.' Hist. Apolugitica, MS., cap. ccxii. Toniucinuda 
 says: 'era tiin aiitori^-udo este oficio, que el que lo vsurpara pura si, h lo 
 i;oniunicilra h, otro en al{(una i>arte del Ueino, niuriera )K>r ello, y siis Ilijos, 
 y Muger/ueran vendidos, por pcrnctuos csclavos, y contiscados sus biencs, 
 por Lei, que para esto havia. Aloiiarq. Ltd., toni. ii., p. 352. Notwith- 
 standiag all other historians distinctly atfinu that the cihuacoatl wu4, in 
 the exercise of his functions perfectly independent of the king, Brasseur 
 de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 580, nuikes the following extra- 
 ordinary sttitcnient: *H jugeait en dernier ressort ct donnait dcs ordrcs en 
 lieu ct place du aouverain, chaquefoin que eclui-ci ne le/ai.suit pas direetc- 
 meiit etpar lui-miine.' This must be from one of the original manuscripts 
 iu the possession of M. I'Abbd. 
 
 " Las Casas, Hist. Apolnqitiea, MS., cap. ccxii., spells these names Taea- 
 tecatl, acoahunotl, and tlaylotlat; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., toni. ii., p. 
 352, tlacateccatl, quauhnuchtli, and tiaylotlac; and Clavigero, Sloria Ant. 
 <iel Messico, torn, ii., p. 127, tlacatecatl, ouauhnochtli, and tlaniitlac, or 
 tlaiiotlac, a defect in the im|>ression makes it difficult to tell which. 
 Scarcely two of the old writers follow the same system of orthography, 
 and in future I shall follow the style which appears simplest, endeavoring 
 only to be consistent with myself. 
 
THE TECUHTLI AND CENTECTLAPIXtJUE. 
 
 437 
 
 one of hi^fh honor because he declared the will of the 
 kin<^ as represented by his judges. 
 
 In each ward of the city there was a magistrate 
 called tecuhtli who was anniuilly elected by the in- 
 habitants of his district; he judged minor cases in 
 the first instance only, and probably the office some- 
 what resembled that of our police judge. Appeal 
 lay from him to the tlacatecatl." It was the dutj' 
 of the tecuhtlis to give a daily report of affairs that 
 had been submitted to them, and of the judgments 
 they had rendered thereon, to the tlacatecatl, who 
 reviewed their proceedings. Whether the tlacatecatl 
 could reverse the decision of a teuchtli when no 
 appeal had been made, is uncertain, but it appears 
 improbable, inasmuch as a failure to exercise the 
 right of appeal would imply recognition of justice in 
 the judgment passed by the lower tribunal. In each 
 ward, and elected in the same manner as the tecuh- 
 tlis, were officers whose title was centectlapixque, 
 whose province it was to watch over the behavior and 
 welfare of a certain number of families committed to 
 their charge, and to acquaint the magistrates with 
 everything that passed. Although the centectla- 
 pixques could not exercise judicial authority, yet it 
 is probable that petty disputes were often submitted 
 to them for arbitration, and that their arbitrament 
 was abided by. In case the parties could not be 
 brought to any friendly settlement, however, the 
 centectlapixque immediately reported the matter to 
 the tecuhtli of his district, and a regular trial ensued. 
 
 The tecuhtlis had their bailiffs, who carried their 
 messages and served summonses. In addition to 
 these there were constables styled topilli, who ar- 
 rested prisoners and enforced order." 
 
 •* Clavigero, Storia Ant. del. Mesaieo, torn, ii., p. 128, writes 'egiomal- 
 mentc si portava al CihuacoatI, od al Tlacatecatl per avvcrtirlo di tutto cio, 
 clic occorreva, c riccver gli ordiiii da !ui;' but it would nrobably be only in 
 cuflci of great imirartancc that the reports uf the teuchtli would be carried 
 to the cihuacoatl. 
 
 1^ Las Canas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxii. ; Torquemada, Monarq. 
 
488 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 In Tezcuco, although the kingdom was divided into 
 many provinces," the higher courts of justice were 
 placed in six of the principal cities only." Each of 
 these tribunals was presided over bv two judges, who 
 were very high nmgnates and usually relatives of the 
 king, and from these an appeal lay to two supreme 
 judges who resided at the capital." These twelve 
 judges were assisted by twelve sherift's," whose duty 
 it was to arrest prisoners of exalted rank in their 
 own district, or to go in search of offenders in other 
 provinces. The peculiar badge of these officers 
 was a certain ornamented mantle; wherever they 
 went they were held in great awe and respect, 
 as representatives of the king, and seldom encoun- 
 tered resistance in the exercise of their functions. 
 There were also constables in attendance on the 
 courts, who acted with great diligence in carrying 
 messages or making arrests. Every ten or twelve 
 days all the judges met in council with the king,*" 
 
 Ind., torn, ii., p. 355; Clavigero, Sloriu Ant. del Meanco, torn, ii., pp. 
 127-8. 
 
 i« Tor«jnemada, Monara. Ind., torn, it, p. 364, says that there were lif- 
 tecii pniviiiceM Hiibjcct to tiie king of Tczciico. 
 
 >^ The Kii<;lii«h edition of Clavigero reads: 'the judicial p«)wer was di- 
 vided amongst iienen principal cities, p. 354; but the ori^^inat agrees with the 
 other authorities: 'nel Kegno d'Acoliiuacan era lagiurisdizionc conipartita 
 tra «ct ('itth principali.' Storia Ant. del Mesgico, toni. ii., p. 128. 
 
 w Las Vfnum, Jliat. AjtologHica, MS., cap. ccxii. Torqucniada, however, 
 asserts that there were 'en la Ciudad de Tetzcuco (que era la Cortc) dcntro 
 
 de la Casti Keal dos Salas de Consejo y en ca<la Sala dos Juccch. Ila- 
 
 via difercncia entre los diclios Jueces; porque losde la vna Sulu emu <le mas 
 autoridad, que los de la otra; estos se liamaban Jueces niaiores, y csotros 
 menores; los maiores olan de causas graves, y que pertenecian h'lu dcter- 
 minacion del Kei; los segundos, de otras, no tan graves, sinu mas Icvcs, y 
 livianas.' Monarq. hid., tom. ii., p. 354. The lowerof these two pruhaMy 
 either formed one of the si.\ superior courts above mentioned, or corre- 
 sponded with them in jurisdiction. According to Zurita, 'chacune des 
 nombreuses provinces soumises h ces souverains cntretenait h Mexico, h 
 Tezcuco et h, Tlacopan, qui 6taient les trois cupitales, deux jugcs, (lerson- 
 nes de sens choisies a cet effet, et qui quclquefois etaient parents des sou- 
 verains,' and adds: 'les appels «$taient portes devant dovze autrca jugcH 
 SHpfrieitrs qui prononpaicnt d'aprfes I'avis du souverain.' Bajt^jort, in 'Jcr- 
 naux-Compans, Voy., s^rie ii., tom. i., pp. 95, 100. 
 
 •9 Torqucnutda, Monarq. Ind., tom. li., p. 355, writes: 'Tenia cada Sala 
 de estas dichas otro Ministro, que hacia oficiode Alguacil Maior,'&c., while 
 other writers assign one to each judge, of whom there were two in each 
 court. 
 
 «> Clavigero differs on this point from other writers, in making this 
 meeting occur every Mexican month of twenty days. Zurita, Bapport, in 
 
THE EIGHTYDAY COUNCIL. 
 
 when cases of importance were discussed, and eitlier 
 finally settled, or laid over for decision at a j^rand 
 council which convened every four Mexican months, 
 makiujL,' in all eighty days. On these occasions all 
 the judges, without exception, met together, the king 
 presiding in person. All being seated according to 
 their order -of precedence, an orator opened the pro- 
 ceedings with a speech, in which he ])raised virtue 
 and severely reprimanded vice; he reviewed all the 
 events of the past eighty days, and commented very 
 severely even upon the acts of the king himself. In 
 this council all suits were terminated, the sentences 
 being carried out on the spot," and affairs of state and 
 policy were discussed and transacted; it generally sat 
 during eight or ten days.** In addition to these 
 judges there were magistrates of a lower order in all 
 the provinces, who took cognizance of cases of minor 
 imjmrtance, and who also heard and considered those 
 of greater consequence preparatory to laying them 
 before the Eighty-Day Council." The historian Ix- 
 
 Tcrnatix-Compana, Voy., sdrie ii., torn, i., p. 101, writes: 'Toua Ics <lnuze 
 joiini il y iivuit iinc asscnibluc f^iidrnlc <lc8 ju);cH pr<$Hi(lcc ])ar Ic pr'ncc;' to 
 this the editor attaches the folUiwiii;; note: 'il est Evident, coiiiiiic on le 
 verra iia^^e lOG, qii'il y u ici unc errcur, ct qne ccs nsscniblees, dont Ics sea- 
 sions duraicnt douzu jours, ne se tennient que tnus Ics quatrc-vin<^s jours.' 
 It is, however, the learned editor who is mistaken, liecausc, as we hava 
 seen a)H>ve, there were two distinct nieetin^^s of the jud{;es; u lesser one 
 everj' ten or twelve d».y8, <ind a fjreater every eighty days, and it is of the 
 latter that Zurita sjMS'iks on n. 100. 
 
 " ' Al one «Sl sei'tenciavalt arrojava una flechn de aquellas.' Trzozomoe, 
 Crdnicn Mrx., in Kinnsboroitffh's Mci. Anliq., toni. ix., p. SI. 'A cui>ital 
 sentence was indicated by a line traced with an arrow across the jMjrtrait of 
 the licensed.' Prrsrotl's Mex., vol. i., n. 3.1. 
 
 '' It is ]iroba1de that as matters of government, as well as legal aflairs, 
 were discussed at their Kightv-Day Council, it was not exclusively com- 
 piised of judges, but that nobles and statesmen were admitted to member- 
 ship. Torqucnuida is, however, the only writer who distinctly states this: 
 'tcnian Andicncia General, (\ue lu llnmaban Napualtlutolli, como decir, 
 Pulabra ochentena, que era Dui, en cl qual se juntaban todos los dc la C'iu- 
 dad, y los Asistentcs de tmlas las Provincias, con todo el Pueblo, asi nobles, 
 como Comunes, y Pielteios,' &c. Monarq. Iiul., tom. i., p. 1(>8; Ixtlilxo- 
 cliitl, Hist. Chicn., in KingsboroiiqlCs Atitiq. Mcx., vol. ix., \t\). 244-.'>, says 
 that the king was accompanied by all his sons and relatives, with their 
 tutors and suites. 
 
 ^ Concerning this judicial system of Tezcuco, see: Las Casas, IIi.it. Apo- 
 Ingiticn, MS., cap. ccxii. ; Torquemnda, Monarq. Intl., tom. i., p. 108, tom. 
 ii., pp. 354-5; Zurita, Rapport, in Ternaux-Compans, Voij., seric ii., tom. 
 i., pp. 90, ctseq.; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mesaico, turn, ii., ])p. 128-9; 
 
440 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 tlilxochitl gives a fciomevvhat different account of the 
 Te».cucan triHunals, which, as it contains the only de- 
 scription given by the ancient writers of the halls in 
 which the judges sat, I translate in full. 
 
 In the palace were two principal courtyards, the 
 larger of which served as the market-place. The 
 second courtyard was. smaller than the firet, and was 
 situated more in the interior of the palace; in the cen- 
 tre of it a fire was kept continually burning. Here 
 were the tw(/ most important tribunals in the king- 
 dom. To the right of this courtyard, writes Ixtlilxo- 
 chitl, was the supreme tribunal, which was called 
 teohicpalpan, meaning, Tribunal of God. Here was. 
 a throne of gold, set with turquoises and other pre- 
 cious stones; before the throne stood a stool, upon 
 which were a shield, a macana, and a bow with its 
 quiver of arrows ; upon these was placed a skull, sur- 
 mounted by an emerald of a pyramidal shape, in the 
 apex of which was fixed a plume of feathers and pre- 
 cious stones; at the sides, serving as carpets, were the 
 skins of tigers and lions (tigres y leones), and mats 
 (mantas) made of the feathers of the royal eagle, 
 where a (juantity of bracelets and anklets (grevas) of 
 gold were likewise placed in regular order.** Tlie 
 walls were tapestried with cloth of all colors, made (>f 
 rabbits' hair, adorned with figures of divers birds, 
 animals, and flowers.'^' Attached to the throne Avas 
 
 Mrndlrtn, Ilisl. Erhx., j)p. 134-fi; Snfiafjini, TTixf. Grn., torn, ii., liU viii., 
 pp. 3<)2-.'>; riiiKitli-l, Mem. sohir lu Itaza Inilnjiiia, pp. 'JS-St; Ciirhajal E.s- 
 piiio.iii, Hint. Mfx., toiii. i., p. '•)',)'). 
 
 -'■ i'hi.s soiiti'Hi'e rends us folldWM ill tlu! i>ri;;iiml: 'il )oh lailos scHiiiin tlo 
 alfoinlira.s uiiii.s pielen <lo ti},'res y Icoiu-h, y iiiiiiitii.s IiccIiuh ilo i)liiiims do 
 ligiiilu roiil, I'll doiidi! asiiiiiHiud eHtuiian por sii orilt'ii cuiitidad de iniicek'tes, 
 y greviis do oro.' I.c/lilxorhitl, HUI. Vhic/i., m Kiiii/.shoroiiii/i'.'i .Mf.i\ Aiitii/., 
 vol ix., p. 24M. It is dlHicult t<i iiuttgiiie why MniMX'Ieti's, y jjil'vu.s do oro* 
 bIiouM Ih' placer! ii[)i>ii tiic floor, but certainly the historian ^'ives uts to iiii- 
 derstan<l as iiii:.('ii. I'rescott, wiio affects to pve Ixtlilxocliitl's description 
 'in his own winds,' and who, fnrthcrniorc, encloses the extract in ijiiotation 
 marks, trets over this dilllenlty )»y oniittin*^ the above-inioleii sentence en- 
 tirely. ]\/i:f., vol. i., p, .'?4; and Veytia, ffinf. Aiit. Mij., toni. iii , p. 
 20.">, adopts the sanie convenient Itut soniewliat unsatisfactory coiirHe. 'J'liis 
 latter author's version of the whole matter is, however, like much other of 
 his work, inextricably <'onfused, when ecniiparcd with the ori;;inal. 
 
 i^ ' Las jiarcdes estalian entapizadas v adorna<las de uiios ])arios liechos 
 de pclo dc couejo, do todoa coluius, con iigurus do divuriiu» uves, uniniule.s y 
 
THE TRIBUNAL OF THE KING. 
 
 441 
 
 a canopy of rich plumage, in the centre of which was 
 a glittering ornament of gold and precious stones. 
 
 The otlier tribunal was called that of the king; it 
 also had a throne, which was lower than that of the 
 Tribunal of God, and a canopy adorned with the royal 
 coat of arms. Here the kings transacted ordinary 
 business and gave public audience; but when they 
 rendered decisions upon grave and important oa;ses, or 
 pronounced sentence of death, they removed io the 
 Tribunal of God, placing the right hand upon the 
 skull, and holding in the left the golden arrow which 
 served as a sceptre, and on these occasions they put 
 on the tiara (tiara) which they used, wliich resembled 
 a half mitre. There were on the same stool three of 
 these tiaras; one was of precious stones set in gold, 
 another of feathers, and the third woven of cotton 
 and ral)bit-hair, of a blue color. This tribunal was 
 composed of fourteen grandees of the kingdom, who 
 sat in three divisions of tlie hall, according to their 
 rank and seniority. In the first division was the 
 king; in the second division were seated six grandees; 
 the first of these six, on the right hand, was the lord 
 of Teotihuacan, the second the lord of Acolman, tlie 
 third tlio lord of Tepetlaoztoc ; on the loft side sat, 
 first, the lord of Huexotla, secjond, the lord of Coat- 
 licluin, tliird, he of Cliimalhuacan. In the third di- 
 visitHi of the hall, which w is the exterior one, sat 
 eight otlier lords, according to their rank and senior- 
 ty; on tlie right side tlie first was the lord of Otom- 
 jtan, the second was the lord of Tollantzinco, the third 
 the lord of Quauhchinanco, the fourth the lord of Xi- 
 c()tepe(*, and on liie left side were, first, the lord of Te- 
 pechpan, siKH^id, the lord of Cliiauhtla, third, the 
 lord of (Jhiuhiiauhtla, and fourth, he of Teiotocan. 
 
 rtiHcs.' Tliis is roiulnrcwi hy Prcsrott: 'The walls wpro hung with tapestry, 
 iiiiidc cif the htiir nf iliiltTcnt wild aiiiiimlH, tif rifh uiiil various colors, frs- 
 till, iiri/ III/ ifolil riiif/s,tiiu[ fuihroideri'd with ti;;nrL's of hinls and (lowers.' 
 A few lines aliove, 'la silhi y espaldar era de oro,' is construed into 'a 
 throne or° imie ;,'(dd.' It seems scarcely fair to style the ancient (,'hiclii- 
 luce's description on(> 'of rather ii iioeticul cast,' at the same time making 
 tiiicli additions as these. 
 
 Sr if 
 
 I- 
 
442 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 There followed, also, another hall, which adjoined 
 this on the ojistern side, and was dividf-d into two 
 parts; in the inner and principal division, were eijj^ht 
 judi^es, who were nobles and gentlemen, and four oth- 
 ers who were of the citizen class;'" these were followed 
 by fifteen provincial judg^es, natives of all the cities 
 and chief towns of Tezcuco; the latter took coj^iii- 
 zance of all suits, civil or criminal, which were em- 
 braced in the ei«^hty laws that Nt'Z<ihualct)yotl 
 established; the duration of the moist important of 
 these cases was never more than eijj^hty days. In 
 the other, or exterior, division of the hall, was a tri- 
 bunal composed of four supreme judjifes, who were 
 presidents of the councils; and tiiere was a wicket, 
 throui^h which they entered and went out to commu- 
 nicate with the kintr.^T 
 
 Besides these various tribunals for the jreneral ad- 
 ministration of justice, there were others that had 
 jurisdiction in cases of a ])eculiar nature only. There 
 was a court of divorce, and another wlii'<'li <l(alt only 
 with military matters; by it military m«;fi W' r. tried 
 and punished, and it had also the powtrr to confer 
 rewards and honors upon the deservinj<; th<; especial 
 jurisdiction of another tribunal extended ov»!r mat- 
 ters pertaininjLf to art and science, while a fourth court 
 luul charj^e of the royal exclufjuer, of taxes and trib- 
 utes, and </ those emi)loyed m coUectinj^ tlwjm. Of 
 some of these institutions i have already had <><• 
 casion to speak. The mod*^ of [irocedure, or daily 
 routine, in the law courts of Mexico and Tezcu<<) 
 was strict aiid formal. At sunrise, or as some sav, 
 
 *• Ixtlilxochitl, tilii mipra, writes: 'En los primeroR pucatoR oclio jtircox 
 qui! eraii ni>hl('« y caltaluMOH, y Um oiTos oiiatru (■run <lf Ids ciinlacfuiKiH.' 
 Veytia nayH: "I^oh cuatro priiiicrim craii rabullcruH dc la iioblvza il«' primer 
 orilun, loH cuatro Hit^iiicnteM ciududanoH dc Tczuocu.' Hi-it. Ant. Mfj., toiii. 
 iii., p. MH). 
 
 ''' Jj-t/i/.rurhil/, IliHt. Vhich., ill Aiiiifxhorouffh'M MfJ". Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 24'J X TIh! whole of tlic above deHeriptioii jh very difiieiilt to iraiiwlate 
 literally, owinj^f to (lie eonfiiHed xtyle in wliieli it is written; and if in 
 ida(H>H it Ih Huiiiewliat niiintelli>;ilile, the reader will recollect that I trans- 
 late merely wliat Ixtlilxtx-hitl Huys, and not what he inuy, or may nut, have 
 infant to any. 
 
COURT PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 443 
 
 at daybreak, the judges took their places in court, 
 8quattin<; upon nuitn spread for the pui"})ose, usually 
 upon an elevated platform. Here they administered 
 justice until noon, when they j)artook of a meal 
 suj (plied from the royal kitchen. When this was over 
 and they had rested for a short s))ace, business was 
 resumed, and carried on durinj^ the ji-reater part 
 of the afternoon. Punctuality on the part of the 
 judges was strictly enforced, and he who absented 
 himself from court without good cause, such as ill- 
 ness, or royal permission, was severely punished. 
 This order was observed every day', except when the 
 presenc*^ of the judges was required at the public 
 sacrifices or solemn festivities, at which time the 
 coi;.-ts of justice remained closed.'" 
 
 Minor cases were conducted verbally, the parties 
 jii 'ucing their witnesses, who testified under oath 
 i'oi ae complaint or the defence. The testimony, 
 under oarth t)f' the ])rincipals was also admitted as 
 evi<l<-r*«;e; and one writer even asserts that the de- 
 fendant could clear himself by his oath;^ but it is 
 plain that if su<h were the case conviction would be 
 very rare. In cases of greater importance, esj)ecially 
 in civil units v;here the possession of real estate was 
 involved, paintings, in which the j)n)perty in dispute 
 was rej)rehented, were pnxluced as authentic docu- 
 jnents, and the whole of the proceedings, such as the 
 the object of the claim, the evidence, the names of 
 the ■> •♦^ies and their resj)e*-tive witnesses, as well as 
 tlx <)• -iion or sentence, were recorded in court by 
 n<jtarie», or clerks, a])pointed for that purpose.* A 
 
 ** Torqufmaffii, Monarq. Iiirf., toni. ii.. |>. .V>4; /Lrt.v Casns, Hist Apolo- 
 (fftira, MS., cap. cfxii.; \f\jtin, llixt. Aiii Mj . loin, iii., jt. I'.lit, ( lavi- 
 ijetui. Xtofiii Ant. ikl Mcsnico, toni. ii., j) I'ih; /.uiti- Jinjijiurl, in Tiriiaxix- 
 ('uiii/iiiiiK, Voif., si-rip ii.. toiii. i., ]\. lOti; Mfitdirto. Hixl. Kili.i., p. 1,34. 
 
 ''■' C/tirif/rro, Storia Ant. del MfK.s-icn, toin. ii., p I'i'.t. 
 
 3'i I'rcNfott, Mrx., vol. i., p Xi, suyn: 'Tlio paiiiliiij{s were cxorutcil 
 with HO much accunic.v. that, in ull suitx r<'«|>«'riinj{ iciil jirtijiorty, tlu'y v,v\v, 
 iiiidWPil to he priMliicetl um kihh\ iiiitlinrity in llio Spanish trihniuilN, very 
 liuii.' lifter th<' ('iint|(ieKt: and a rhair fur th«>ir Nln<ly aixi interpretation >vaH 
 CHtiiliMKheil at Mexico in i'lTi'A, which hatt hmt; nince Hinircil the fate of most 
 uthcr pruvisiuUH fur k'iiruiujj in thitt Jiif«/rtunute country.' iioturini thuH 
 
 -'it 
 
iU 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 witness in an Aztec court of law occupied a serious 
 position. In the first place the judges are by all 
 writers said to have been particularly skillful in cross- 
 examination. They seem to have made it an especial 
 study to harass witnesses with pertinent questions 
 and minute details; in the next place the punishment 
 for perjury was death, and perjiuy among these peo- 
 ple consisted in making a false statement when under 
 oath, without the possibility of being saved by a legal 
 ({uibble; in addition to this, superstition attached 
 great weight to the oath which every witness was 
 obliged to take, and which consisted in touching the 
 forefinger to the earth and then to the tongue, as if to 
 say, as Las Casas expresses it : By tlie goddess Earth, 
 who supports and affords me sustenance, I swear to 
 speak truth. This oath was considered to be very 
 sacred and binding, and is said to have been rarely 
 violated. Whetlier counsel or advocates were em- 
 ployed is a disputed point, some writers asserting dis- 
 tinctly that they were, and others that they were 
 not.^' Veytia states that the complainant and de- 
 
 describes the paper used l>y the Aztecs: 'El Pnpcl Iiidiuno kc ci>inponla de 
 Itts peiicas del MarfitH/, que en lcii<;ua Niicionul sc llama Miil, y cii CuHtel- 
 huio Pita. l/os cchahaii ii jwdrir, y lavnhan el liilo de ellas, el que liavi- 
 cndose ablandado estendian, para coniponer sii papcl }{rue!<iso, h deJL'adn, 
 
 3 lie dcspiies brufiian para |>iiitar en bl. Taiiibicii luiciaii ]iupcl de las ii<>ja» 
 e Paliiia, y Yo tengo al^iinos de estos delgados, y blandos taiitu cunio la 
 seda.' ViiMloffo, in Id., Idea, pp. 95-C. 
 
 31 Veytia writes very jjositivcly on this point: 'Habia tanibien abojtndos 
 y procuradores; il los ])riinero8 llaniaban tenantlatoani, que quicre decir cl 
 que habhi por otro, y d los se^nndos tlniiciniliaiii, que en lo stistaiu-iiil t-jcr- 
 ciaii Hus ininiHterios casi del niisino inod(» que en niieHtnm tribuiia!cs. . . . 
 Dalian ti'miinos A las partes para que sns abogados liablasen jior ollus, y 
 estos lo liacian del inisino inodo que eii iiucstros tribiiiialcs.' Hint. Ant. 
 Mej., toni. iii., pp. 207-8. Sahagun relates the qualities which wore suji- 
 posed by the Aztecs to constitute a good or bad pmrnradur or .lulirita- 
 dor, and descril)es their duties: 'Kl prociirador favorecc h una banda de 
 los pleyteaiitcs, por quieii en sii negocio vuelvc nuicho y apela, toiiieiido 
 poder, y llovando salario por ello. lil buen prociinidor es vivo y solicito, 
 osado, diligeiite, coiistaiite, y perscverante en los iiegocios, en los cualcs no 
 sc doja veneer; siii^ que alega de su dcrecho, apela, lacha los tcsti};<)s, ni 
 sc cansa liasta vcnci-r li la jiarte contraria y triuiifar de cl!a. El iiial j:n)- 
 curador es interesable, gran jtedigiicfio, y de nuilicia sncle dilalar los iicp)- 
 cios: liace alharacas, es inuy iiegligciite y tU-si'uidado en cl picito, y fraiidii- 
 lento de tal niodo, que de entranibas partem llcva nalario. I'.l t«tlicitii<l<)r 
 nnnca para, aiida sienipre solicito y listo. El buen solicitador cs niny ciii- 
 daduBo, deterniinado, y soHcitu en todo, y por liacer bicn sii olicio, inuchos 
 
EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES. 
 
 440 
 
 fendant were sometimes confronted with each other, 
 and compelled to argue the case before the court, no 
 other person being allowed to speak the while. The 
 judges heard and passed sentence l>y a majority of 
 votes,** each giving his decision aloud. If the trial 
 took place in an inferior court, a disagreement sent 
 the matter on appeal to a higher gourt; if it took 
 place in the first instance before a superior tribunal, 
 it was appealed to the great council of the emperor. 
 The same writer also says that where a serious public 
 offense had been committed, the witnesses were ex- 
 amined, and sentence was immediately passed without 
 giving the accused time to defend himself.** We 
 have already seen that the duration of suits was lim- 
 ited to eighty days, and generally thuy terminated 
 much sooner than this, all po.ssible expedition being 
 always used. The better to avoid bribery and cor- 
 ruption, it was expressly forbidden for a judge to 
 receive presents, no matter how triHing, and he who 
 violated this rule was deposed from office, and other- 
 wise punished with exceeding rigor. 
 
 The way in which the judges were paid for their serv- 
 ices was peculiar. A certain ]K)rtion of land was set 
 apart for their exclusive benefit, which was c\iltivated 
 and harvested by tenants, who doubtless were allowed 
 to retain a part of the produce in return for their hihor. 
 These lands were not inherited b\ the son on the 
 death of the fathe'v but ]»assed to the judge H|)p()inted 
 
 veccs (loja <lc roiiior y <lc (loriiiir, y ftiulii de ciisa rii casu solicituiido l<m 
 iic;;ocio!*, Icih cikiIch trntii (U- Imoiiii tiiitii, v cnii tt'iimr I'l rocf' >, dc i|ii«> por 
 su (Icscuiilo no tonpiii iiiiil hiu'osd los iii'^iui«ie«. l'!| imil HoliiitiKlor os Hojo 
 y descuiilailo, lenlo, v ciicaiiililador paru satur liiiii'iiis, y fa<'iliiioiito sr ilcjn 
 colii'diar, |ii>r(]uc no iialtlf iiiul rl ncpH-in <• nuo iiiicnta, y iisi rsnclc i-fliur li 
 ptTilcr loH pK'iloH.' ]li.st. (Icti., toni. iii., Iit>. x.. pp. 'l',\-i. ('Iavif.;oio taki's the 
 opposite Mi<lc> of tlieciiichtion: 'Neijriii<lizj dci .^I^'^^i<•alli racfvaiio la ]iiii'ti ilu 
 jK'r ise Hte.sHC le Inro allegazioni: alinoiio noii siipi^iunto, die vi fosseio Av\o- 
 rati.' Sfiiri)! Aiif. (frl Mrsstm, toni. ii., p. I2'.>. 'No coiinxel was (-inployt>il; 
 tlie parties stated their <»vn ease, and supported it hy their witnesses.' /Vc.v- 
 rott'n Mcx., vol. i., |). :12. l/olHee d'aviMiit etail itu'onnii: les parties etul»- 
 hssaient ellesiiieines lour raiise, en se fai^<alll at'eoni|ia^MU'r de leure 
 tenioiiiH.' /';v/.v,v(i/c (/<■ IttiiirhttHi^f. Hist. Siil. ''"'., toni. iii., p. .'iKi. 
 
 ^^ 'I'l'iO reader wilt Iiave ivnu>rke<I in a previous note that Veytia ussiyns 
 more jiid^res to eii<-^ eourt than aii\ other writer. 
 
 " I'v^fiti, His Anl. My., toin. iii., )i. "JOS. 
 
 tl 
 
446 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 in the place of the latter."* Veytia does not mention 
 these lands; he says that the judges had no fixed 
 salary, but were paid according to the king's pleasure, 
 more or less, in proportion to the size of their families, 
 besides which the king made valuable presents when 
 the Eighty-Day Council met, to those who had per- 
 formed their duty to his satisfaction.** The allowance 
 was in all cases made amply sufficient, that there 
 might be no excuse on the ground of poverty for a 
 judge receiving presents or bribes. They held their 
 office for life, and were selected from the higher 
 classes, especially the superior judges, who were gen- 
 erally relatives of the king, or even members of the 
 royal family. None were eligible for the office who 
 were not sober, upright men, brought up in the tem- 
 ples, and who were well acquainted with court life and 
 manners. A judge who became drunk, or received a 
 bribe, was three times severely reprimanded by his 
 fellow-judges; if the offense was repeated, his head 
 was shaved publicly, a great disgrace among the Az- 
 tecs, and he was deprived of his office with ignominy. 
 A judge making a false report to the king, or con- 
 victed of receiving a large bribe, or of rendering a 
 manifestly unjust decision, was punished with death."" 
 All this machinery of the law was dispensed with in 
 Tlascala, where all disputes and difficulties were 
 promptly settled by certain old men appointed for 
 that purpose." 
 
 A love of impartial justice seems to have charac- 
 terized all the Aztec nionarchs, and, as we have seen, 
 the laws they enacted to ensure this to their subjects 
 
 '< Torgtirmada, Muiinrq. hid., torn, ii., pp .SiM-fu Mrndieta, Hist. Ecles., 
 p. l.V); Chtn'fffro, Sforin Ant. drl Mcusicn, tuiii. ii., pp. HS8-9. 
 
 3i Veytiii,'lli.sl. A lit. .yfij., torn, iii., i>. '2m. 
 
 '6 f,n.s CasnD, Ui.st. A/io. v"'''""- MS., rap. ccxv., ccxii.; Sahnrfuii, Hint. 
 Gen., toiii. ii., lilt, viii., jip. 3()4, SI.S; M<»(li<t(i, llixt. Erlr.s., p. IS.'i; Vri/tiir, 
 Hist. Ant. Mrj., toiii. iii., )>. 423; Znritii, liftii/iorf. in Tenia iij--<'tinij)nii.i, 
 i'oif., NL-ric ii., torn, i., i>ii. l(tl-'2. T<iri|iu>iniulu mivs the unjust juilfrt- wild 
 warned twice, and Mlinved at the third ott'eiise. Moiiarq. hid., toni. iL. p 
 3.'>fi. Sec also /(A, p. .■18.\ 
 
 '*^ Catiuirgo, Hint. Ttux., in NouvelUtt Amntleades Voy., 1843, toni.xcix-, 
 p. 136. 
 
ANECDOTES OF NE7AHUALPILLI. 
 
 447 
 
 were severe in the extreme. No favoritism wa« al- 
 lowed; all, from the highest to the lowest were held 
 amenable to the law. A story, illustrating this, is 
 repeated by nearly all the old writers. In the reign 
 of Nezahualpilli, the son of Nezahualcoyotl, who were 
 accounted the two wisest kings of Tezcuco, a suit 
 sprang up between a rich and powerful noble and a 
 poor man of the people. The judge decided against 
 the poor man, who thereby lost what little he had, 
 and was in danger of having to sell himself as a slave 
 to procure subsistence for his family. But suspicion 
 of foul play having been aroused, the king ordered 
 the matter to be thoroughly investigated, wlien it 
 transpired that the judge had been guilty of collusion 
 with the rich man ; so the king commanded that the 
 unjust judge should be hanged at once, and that the 
 poor man's j)roperty should be restored to him. 
 
 Neither were the rulers themselves, nor their fami- 
 lies, exempt from observance of the law, and instances 
 are not wanting where fathers have, Brutus-like, con- 
 demned their cliildren to death, rather than allow the 
 law to be violated, and the offender to go unpunished. 
 NezahuaUfWotl caused four of his own sons to be pub- 
 licly execDfflied because they had sinned with their 
 step-mothers, the wives of their father.^ A very 
 touching incident is narrated by Torquemada, show- 
 ing to what an extent this love of impartial justice 
 was carried by a Tezcucan sovereign. 
 
 Nezahualpilli, king of Tezeucu, had married two 
 sisters, whom he dearly loved, and especially did he 
 dote upon the younger, whose njune was Xocotzincat- 
 zin. By her he had several ••hildren, the eldest being 
 a son, named Huexotzincatzin, who was beloved by 
 all who knew him, on account of his amiable disposi- 
 tion and noble ((ualities, and who was besides a very 
 valiant young man and a great warrior. No wonder 
 that he wais the king s pride, iWid beloved even more 
 
 ^\\ 
 
 '" Turquemada, Moiiarq. Ind., torn. i.. p. IfiS. 
 
448 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 than his brotheiH and Kisters, for his own and his 
 mother's sake. So much had Hucxotzincatziii dis- 
 tinguished himself, that, although he was but a young 
 man, his father determined to bestow upon him the 
 office and title of tlacatecatl, which was a post of the 
 highest honor and importance.'" For this purpose the 
 king one day ordered that the j)rince be sent for and 
 brought into his i)resence. With a light heart, and 
 much elated, Huexotzincatzin, acconjj)anied by his 
 suite, and the ntibles who were his tutors, set out for 
 the rt>yal }>alacc. As he was about to enter, the prince 
 met one t>f his father's concubines, attended by her 
 ladies. This concubine was a very beautiful and 
 proud woman, yet withal of a free and easy carriage, 
 tliat encouraged Huexotzincatzin, who perha|)s did 
 not know who .'^he was, to address her ni a familiar 
 and disrespectful maiuier. The woman, who, the his- 
 torian remarks, could not have Ixu-n possessed of much 
 sense, either because she felt offended at his conduct 
 towards her, or because she dreaded the conse(juence 
 if the king should discover what had happi-ncd, turned 
 from the prince without a word, and entered the pal- 
 ace. The king's concubines, as we have seen in a for- 
 mi!r chapter, were always accom|)anied by ccrtfiin 
 elderly women, whose duty it was to instruct them in 
 discreet behavior and to watch continually over their 
 actions. One of these women, who had been with the 
 concubine at the time of her meeting with }{uexot- 
 zincatzin, and had overheard the j)rince's remarks, 
 went straightway to the king, and informed him of all 
 that had hai>pencd. The king immediately sent for 
 his concubine, and inquired of her if the prince had 
 spoken lewdly to her publicly and in the presence of 
 the ladies and courtiers, or if he had intended his 
 
 w Torqiicmada trniiMlatcR tincntocati, rnptniii (Ipnornl, (rn|)itnn Ocn- 
 crul). Wc have already hccii that it was tlic title of tin- pruHiilin^ }^*'^liO 
 of tiie second Mexican court of justice, hut it was prohahly in this case a 
 military title, both hccauHe military promotion would lie more likely to he 
 conferred u|Mm a renowned warrior than a judj^csliii), and hccauHC the 
 prince is s|M)kcn of as a younjj man, while only nuMi of mature years and 
 ;;ri<at experience were entrusted with the higher judiuial olliccs. 
 
PUNISHMENT OF THE KING'S SON. 
 
 44ii 
 
 words to reach her ear alone; for Nezahualpilli would 
 fain have discovered some excuse for his son, the pun- 
 ishincnt for s]ieaking lewdly in public to the kini^'s 
 concubines bein«]f, accordinjr to law, death; but the 
 frightened woman replied that Huexotzincatzin had 
 spoken openly to her, before all that were present. 
 Then the king di.smi8sed tlie concubine, and retired, 
 mourning, into certain apartments which were called 
 the 'rooms of sorrow.' 
 
 When these things came to the ears of the friends 
 and tutors of the prince, they were much troubled on 
 his account, because the severity of the king, ind his 
 strict adherence to the law were as a proverb among 
 the peoj)le, and their apprelKMisions increased when, 
 upon arriving at the royal apartments, the prince was 
 denied admission, although his attendants were or- 
 dered to appear at once before the king. There they 
 were closely questioned by him, and although they 
 would willingly have saved the prince from the conse- 
 quences of his folly, yet they dared not speak anything 
 but truth, for he who was convicted of wilfully deceiving 
 the king, suffered death. All they could do was to 
 make excuses for the jirince, and ask pardon for his 
 crime, and this they did with many prayers and en- 
 treaties, advancing, as extenuating circumstances, his 
 youth, his previous good conduct, and his possible ig- 
 norance of the fact that the lady was his father's 
 concubine. The king listened patiently to the end, 
 answering nothing, and then he connnanded that Hu- 
 exotzincatzin be forthwith arrested and placed in con- 
 finement. Later in that same day he pronounced 
 sentence of death against his S(m. When it became 
 known that Huexotzincatzin was to die, all the pow- 
 erful nobles who were at court went in a body to the 
 king and earnestly conjured him not to insist upon 
 carrying out his sentence, telling him that it was bar- 
 barous and unnatural, and that future generations 
 would hold in horror and hatred the memory of the 
 man who had condemned his own son to death. Their 
 
 VuL. II. 2» 
 
450 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 prayers and arguments seemed, however, to render the 
 old kint;^ only the more implacable, and he dismissed 
 them, saying that it' the law forbade such things, and 
 if that law was inviolably observed throughout the 
 kingdom, how could he justify his conduct to his sub- 
 jects, were he to allow the same to be infringed upon 
 in his own palace, and the offender to remain unpun- 
 ished merely because he was his son; that it should 
 never be said of him that he made laws for his sub- 
 jects which did not apply to his own family. 
 
 When Xocotzincatzin, the prince's mother, heard 
 that he was condenmed to death, she gathered the 
 rest of her sons about her, and coming suddenly be- 
 fore her husband, she fell on her knees and besought 
 him with many tears, to spare the life of her darling 
 son, the first pledge of love that she, his favorite wife 
 had given him. Finding all her entreaties fruitless, 
 she then implored him for the sake of the love he had 
 once borne her, to slay her and her other sons with 
 Huexotzincatzin, since life without her first-born was 
 unbearable. But the stern old king still sat to all aji- 
 pearance unmoved and immovable, and coldly directed 
 the attendant ladies to convey the wretched mother to 
 her apartments. 
 
 The execution of the prince was delayed in every 
 possible manner by those who had charge of it, in the 
 hope that the king might even yet relent; but Neza- 
 hualpilli having been informed of this, immediately 
 ordered that the sentence should be carried out with- 
 out further delay. So Huexotzincatzin died. As soon 
 as the news of his son's death was carried to the king, 
 he shut himself up in certain apartments called the 
 'rooms of sorrow,' and there remained forty days, 
 mourning for his first-born and seeing no one. Tho 
 house of the late prince was then walled up, and 
 none were allowed to enter it, and so all tokens of 
 the unhappy young man were destroyed.*" 
 
 " Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 189-90. 
 
MONTEZUMA AND THE FARMER. 
 
 Another anecdote, which is written in execrable 
 Spanish by the native historian, Tezozoinoc, may nut 
 be out of place here. It is told of the emperor Mon- 
 tezuma of Mexico, and the reader will at once recog- 
 nize a resemblance between this and many other anec- 
 dotes with which he is familiar, where a bold and 
 merited rebuke from a subject to his sovereign is 
 received with respect and even favor. 
 
 it happened one summer, that the king, being 
 wearied with the cares of government, went for rest 
 and recreation to his country palace at Tacubaya. 
 One day, when out shooting birds, he came to an or- 
 chard, and having told his attendants to remain out- 
 sidii, he entered alone. He succeeded in killing a 
 bird, and as he was returning, bearing his game in his 
 hand, he turned aside into a field where a remarkably 
 fine crop of corn was growing. Having plucked a 
 few ears, he went towards the house of the owner of 
 the field, which stood hard by, for the purpose of show- 
 ing him the ears that he had plucked, and of praising 
 his crop, but as by law it was death to look upon the 
 king's face, the occupants of the house had fied, and 
 there was no one therein. Now the owner of the 
 field had seen the king pluck the corn from afar off, 
 and, notwithstanding it was against the law, he ven- 
 tured to approach the monarch in such a way as to 
 make the meeting appear accidental. Making a deep 
 obeisance, he thus addressed the king: "How is it, 
 most high and mighty prince, that thou hast thus 
 stolen my corn? Didst thou not thyself establish 
 a law that he who should steal one ear of corn, or 
 its value, should suffer death?" And Montezuma an- 
 swered; "Truly I did make such a law." Then said 
 the farmer: "How is it then, that thou breakest thine 
 own law?" And the king replied: "Here is thy corn, 
 take back that which I have stolen from thee." But 
 the owner of the field began to be alarmed at his own 
 boldness, and tried to excuse himself, saying that he 
 had spoken merely in jest, for, said he: "Are not my 
 
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i52 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 fields, and myself, and my wife, and my children, all 
 thine, to do with as thou wilt;" and he refused to take 
 back the ears of com. Then the king took off his 
 mantle of net- work and precious stones, which was 
 called xiuhayatl and was worth a whole city, and 
 offered it to the farmer, who at first was afraid to ac- 
 cept so precious a gift, but Montezuma insisted, so he 
 took the mantle, promising to preserve it with great 
 care as a remembrance of the king. When Monte- 
 zuma returned to his attendants, the precious mantle 
 was at once missed, and they began to intjuire what 
 had become of it ; which the king perceiving, he told 
 them that he had been set upon by robbers, when 
 alone, who had robbed him of his mantle, at the same 
 time he ordered them, upon pain of death, to say 
 nothing more about the matter. The next day, hav- 
 ing arrived at his royal palace in Mexico, when all his 
 great nobles were about him, he ordered one of his 
 captains to repair to Tacubaya, and inquire for a cer- 
 tain Xocliitlacotzin, whom they should at once bring 
 to his presence, but nnder penalty of death they should 
 not injure or abuse him in any way. When the king's 
 messengers told Xochitlacotzin their errand, he was 
 greatly alarmed, and tried to escape, but they caught 
 him, and telling him to fear nothing, for that the king 
 was kindly disposed towards him, they brought him 
 before Montezuma. The king, having bidden him wel- 
 come, asked him what had become of his mantle. At 
 this the nobles who were present became much ex- 
 cited, but Montezuma quieted them, saying: "This 
 poor man has more courage and boldness than any of 
 you who are here, for he dared to speak the truth and 
 tell me that I had broken my laws. Of such men 
 have I greater need, than of those who speak only 
 with honeyed words to me." Then having inquired 
 what principal offices were vacant, he ordered his at- 
 tendant lords to shelter and take care of Xochitlacot- 
 zin, whq was henceforth his relative and one of the 
 chief men of the realm. Afterwards he who had so 
 
PUNISHMENT OF CRIMES. 
 
 468 
 
 lately been a poor farmer was given a principal horse 
 of Olae for his own, and it was long the boast of his 
 descendants that they were relatives of Montezuma." 
 The Aztecs adopted numerous ways of punishing, 
 offenders against the law, as we shall see presently, 
 but I do not think that imprisonment was largely re- 
 sorted to. They had prisons, it is true, and very cruel 
 ones, according to all accounts, but it appears that 
 they were more for the purpose of confining prisoners 
 previous to their trial, or between their condemnation 
 and execution, than permanently , for punishment. 
 These jails were of two classes, one called teilpiloyan 
 for those imprisoned on a civil charge, another called 
 quaiiJicalco*^ for prisoners condemned to death. The 
 cells were made like cages, and the prison was so con- 
 structed as to admit very little light or air ;*^ the food 
 was scanty and of a bad quality, so that, as Las Casas 
 expresses it, the prisoners soon became thin and yel- 
 low, and commenced at the prison to suffer the death 
 that was afterwards adjudged them. Clavigero, how- 
 ever, asserts that those condemned to the s&crificial 
 stone were well fed in order that they might appear 
 in good flesh at the sacrifice." A very close watch 
 was kept upon the captives, so much so, indeed, that 
 if through the negligence of the guard a prisoner of 
 war escaped from the cage, the community of the 
 district, whose duty it was to supply the prisoners 
 witli guards, was obliged to pay to the owner of the 
 fugitive, a female slave, a load of cotton garments, 
 and a shield.*" Mendieta says that these prisons were 
 only used for persons awaiting trial on very grave 
 
 *i Tezozomoc, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsborotigh's Max. Antiq., torn, ix., p. 
 146. 
 
 *' These names are spelled ilelpiloia and qnahucalco by Las Casas, and 
 Teilpilo;/an and QuaHhcalli, by Brasscur de Bourbourg. 
 
 *} Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxii,, says that the jails 
 called quahucalco resembled tne stocks; the other writers do not notice this 
 difference. 
 
 <* Clavipero, Sloria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 138. 
 
 ■•* Claviqero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 138-9; Torqnemada, 
 Monarq. Ind., toni. ii-, p. 353; Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. 
 ccxii.; Mendieta, Hist. Eclea., p. 138. 
 
iM 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 charges; for, he writes, in the case of one held to 
 answer on an ordinary charge, "it was sufficient for 
 the minister of justice to place the prisoner in a cor- 
 ner with a few light sticks before him; indeed, I be- 
 lieve that to have merely drawn a line and told him 
 not to pass it would have sufficed, even though he 
 might have reason to believe that there was a heavy 
 punishment in store for him> because to flee from 
 justice, and escape, was an impossibility. At all 
 events, I with my own eyes have seen a prisoner 
 standing entirely unguarded save for the before-men- 
 tioned sticks."*® 
 
 Like most semi -barbarous nations, the Aztecs 
 were more prone to punish crime than to recom- 
 pense virtue, and even when merit was rewarded, 
 it was of the coarser arid more material kind, such 
 as valor in war or successful statesmanship. The 
 greater part of their code might, like Dracon's, have 
 been written in blood — so severe were the penalties 
 inflicted for crimes that were comparatively slight, 
 and so brutal and bloody were the ways of carrying 
 those punishments into execution. In the strongest 
 sense of the phrase the Aztecs were ruled with a rod 
 of iron; but that such severity was necessary I have 
 no doubt, inasmuch as whatever form of government 
 exists, be it good or bad, that form of government is 
 the necessary one, or it could have no existence. All 
 young states must adopt harsh laws to secure the 
 peace and well-being of the community, while as yet 
 the laws of habit and usage are unestablished ; and as 
 that community profjresses and improves, it will of 
 itself mold its system of government to fit itself. 
 The code of Dracon v/as superseded by that of Solon 
 when the improved itate of the Athenian community 
 warranted a mitigation of the severity of the former, 
 and in like manner the laws of Montezuma and Neza- 
 hualcoyotl would have given place to others less 
 harsh had Aztec civilization been allowed to progress. 
 
 «• Mettdiela, Hist. Eclca., p. 138. 
 
CODE OF LAWS. 
 
 456 
 
 The laws of the several Aztec kingdoms were essen- 
 tially the same; some slight differences existed, how- 
 ever, and in these instances the code of Tezcuco proves 
 the most rigid and severe, while more of lenience is 
 exhibited in that of Mexico. I have before remarked 
 that the majority of writers treat of the legislation of 
 Tezcuco, but, as in other matters, many authorities 
 who should be reliable surmount the difficulty of dis- 
 tinguishing that which belongs to one system of juris- 
 prudence from that which belongs to another, by 
 speaking generally of the code that existed in Nueva 
 Espaiia, or among 'these people.' Most of the sub- 
 jected provinces adopted the laws of the state to which 
 they became subject. But this was by no means 
 obligatory, because as conquered nations were not 
 compelled to speak the language of their conquerors, 
 neither were they forced to make use of their laws." 
 Let us now see what these laws were. 
 
 Theft was punished in various ways, and, it ap- 
 pears, not at all in proportion to the magnitude of 
 the crime. Thus he who stole a certain number of 
 ears of corn,*^ suffered death, while he who broke 
 into the temples and stole therefrom, was enslaved 
 for the first offence and hanged for the second, and 
 it is distinctly stated** that in order to merit either 
 of these punishments the theft must be an exten- 
 
 *' Clavigero, Sloria Aft. del Messico, tom.ii., p. 137. 
 
 *8 Torqiiemada, Moiiarq., Ind., toiii. i., p. 166, toni. ii., p. 381; Ortega, 
 in Veiftia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toin. iii., p. 2125; Boturini, Idea, p. 27. The 
 miniber of ears of corn varies according to the different writers from three 
 or four to seven, except Las Casus, who makes the number twenty one or 
 over, stating, however, that tills and some other laws that he gives are pos- 
 sibly not authentic. Hist. ApologHica, MS., cap. ccxv. The Anonymous 
 Conqueror writes: 'quando ultri cntrauano nellc possessioni altrui per rub- 
 bare frutti, 6 il gruno chc essi luvnno, che per entrar in vn campo, c rubbarc 
 trc 6 quattro mazzocchc 6 spighe de quel loro grano, lo faceuano schiauo del 
 patronc di quel campo rubbato.' Relatione fa tta per vn gentiV hiiomo del Sig- 
 ner Fernando Cortese, in Ramusio, Navigotiont, tom. lii., fol. 300. Clavi- 
 gero agrees wi(h the Anonymous Conqueror, that the thief of com liccume the 
 slave of the owner of the field from which he had stolen, and adds in a 
 foot-note: 'Torquemada ag^iunge, che avea pena di morte; ma ci6 fu nel 
 Regno d'AcoIhuacan, non giit in quello di MesBico.' Storia Ant. del Mes- 
 sico, tom. ii., p. 133. 
 
 *'* Las Uasas, Hist. ApologHica, MS., cap. ccxiii. ; Mendieta, Hist. 
 Ecles., p. 138. 
 
466 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 sive one. In cases not specially provided for, it 
 appears that a petty thief became the slave of the 
 person from whom he had stolen ; according to Or- 
 tega, however, the injured party had the • privilege 
 of refusing to accept the thief as a slave, in which 
 case the latter was sold by the judges, and with the 
 proceeds of the sale the complainant was reimbursed. 
 The same writer states that in some cases a compro- 
 mise could be effected by the offended party agreeing 
 to be indemnified by the thief, in which case the latter 
 paid into the treasury a sum equal to the amount 
 stolen. This statement is somewhat obscure, inasmuch 
 as it would be but poor satisfaction to the party robbed 
 to see the equivalent of that robbery paid into the 
 public treasury; but I understand the writer to mean 
 that the loser had his loss made good, and that for 
 the satisfaction of justice an equal amount was im- 
 posed as a fine upon the prisoner.** Theft of a large 
 amount was almost invariably punished with death, 
 which was inflicted in various ways. Usually the 
 culprit was dragged ignominiously through the streets 
 and then hanged;" sometimes he was stoned to 
 death.®* He who robbed on the highway was killed 
 by having his head smashed with a club;®' he who 
 was caught in the act of pilfering in the market-place, 
 no matter how trivial the theft, was beaten to death 
 with sticks on the spot by the assembled multitude, 
 for this was considered a most heinous sin ; but not- 
 withstanding the fearful risk incurred, it is asserted 
 that many were so light-fingered that it was only 
 necessary for a market woman to turn her head away, 
 and her stall would be robbed in a trice. There was 
 
 5* Ortega's statement reads: 'Casi siempre se castigaba con pcna do 
 muerte, d iiit^nos de que la parte ofcndida conviniecc en ser iudeninizuda iH>r 
 el ladron, en cuyo caso pagaba este al lisco una cantidad igual il la robaua.' 
 Veytia, Hist. Ant. McJ., torn, iii., p. 225. 
 
 i' Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt li., p. 33; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn, i., p. 166. 
 
 ** Explicacion dc la Collcccion do Mendoza, in Kingsborough's Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. v., p. 112. 
 
 M Ixtlilxochitl, hist. Chich., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., torn, ix., 
 p. 246. 
 
PUNISHMENT OP THEFT. 
 
 457 
 
 a regular judicial tribunal established for the settling 
 of disputes in the general government of the market- 
 place, of which I have had occasion to speak before; 
 but this 'tribunal does not appear to have troubled 
 itself much with persons who were caught in the act 
 of stealing, as it seems to have been tacitly allowed 
 to the people assembled in the market-place to exer- 
 cise lynch law upon the culprit." 
 
 Besides these general laws for the prevention of 
 theft, there were others which prescribed special pen- 
 alties for those who stole certain particular articles. 
 For instance, Ortega tells us that the thief of silver 
 or gold was skinned alive and sacrificed to Xipe, the 
 tutelary divinity of the workers in precious metals, 
 such a theft being considered a direct insult to the 
 god."" In some of these cases fines were imposed. 
 Among a collection of laws given by Las Casas, for 
 the authenticity of which he does not vouch, "be- 
 cause," he says, "they were taken out of a little In- 
 dian book of no authority," we find the following relat- 
 ing to theft : If any one stole the plants, called maguey, 
 from which they manufactured more than twenty 
 articles, and which were used for making syrup, he 
 was compelled to pay as a fine as many cotton cloths 
 as the judges might decree, and if he was unable to 
 pay the fine imposed, or if he had stolen more than 
 twenty plants, he was enslaved. Whoever stole a 
 fishing-net or a canoe was punished in the same man- 
 ner. Whoever stole corn to the amount of twenty 
 ears or upward, died for it, and if he took a less 
 quantity, he paid that which he was sentenced to fcy. 
 He that plucked the corn before it had formed f ied, 
 
 5* Mcndicta, Hist. Ecles., p. 138; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. McJ., 
 torn, lit., p. 225; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, li., yt. 381. Las Casus, 
 Hist. Apoiogddca, MS. , cap. ccxiii. , says that he wlio stole in the market-place 
 was hanjred there and then by order of the judges of the place, and in cap. 
 cexv., he writes: 'El que en el niercado algo liurtava, era ley que lucgo 
 publicanientc alii en el niismo mercado lo niatasen & palos.* Again in the 
 same chapter he gives a law, for the authenticity of which he does not 
 vouch, however, which reads as follows: 'el que en el mercado liurtava 
 algo, los inisnios del niercado tenian licencia para lo matar d pedradus.* 
 
 4* Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. MeJ., torn. iiL, p. 225. 
 
458 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 suffered death. Whoever stole a tecomatl, "which is 
 a little gourd tied at the top with strips of red hide, 
 and having feather tassels at the end, used by the 
 lords for carrying a green powder, from which they 
 take in smoke through the mouth, the powder l)eing 
 called in the island of Espanola 'tabacos' — whoever 
 stole one of these died for it." He that stole precious 
 stones, and more especially the stone called chalchiuite, 
 no matter from whence he took it, was stoned to 
 death in the market-place, because no man of the 
 lower orders was allowed to possess this stcnie.^" 
 
 In Mexico, a distinction seems to have been inade 
 between the thief who reaped the benefit of his crime 
 and him who did not ; in other words, if the stolen 
 property was recovered intact from the thief he was 
 only enslaved, but if he had already disposed of his 
 plunder he suffered death," Whether the ultimate 
 recovery of the property after it had passed from the 
 thief's hands, would answer the same end, we are not 
 told, but if not, then it would ai)pear that according 
 to Aztec jurisprudence the culprit was punished not 
 so much in proportion to the actual injury he inflicted 
 upon others, as in accordance with the actual extent 
 of the crime he committed. In Michoacan, the first 
 theft was not severely punished, but for the second 
 offence the thief was thrown down a precipice and his 
 carcass left to the birds of pr€)y.°* 
 
 The murderer suffered death even though he should 
 be a noble and his victim but a slave.®" In Michoa- 
 
 * Las Cams, Hist. Apolog6tica, MS., cap. ccxv. 
 
 " Torqucmada , Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 381; Las Casus, Hist. Apolo- 
 gitica, MS., cap. ccxv. 
 
 ^^ Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. x.; Beaumont, Crdn. Me- 
 choaean, MS., p. 51. 
 
 ^ ' L'omicida pagava coUa propria vita il suo delitto, qiiantiinque I'uc- 
 ciso fosse uno schiavc' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssivo, toiu. ii., p. 130. 
 The manner of putting the murderer to deatli is ditfercntly stated: 'El ho- 
 micidio, bien fuese ejecutado por noble 6 plebeyo, bien por liombrc 6 muger, 
 8e ctistigaba con pena dc muerte, depedazando al honiicida.' Ortega, in 
 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. iii., p. 226. 'Al que niataba ii otro, nacian 
 degoUar.' Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 160. ' Al matador lo de- 
 gollaban.' Vetnncvrt, TeatroMex., pt ii., p. 33. Other writers merely say 
 that the murderer suffered death, without stating the manner of execution; 
 
THE FATE OF TRAITORS AND CONSPIRATORS. 463 
 
 can, we are told by Herrera,** that there was no pun- 
 ishment for murder, since, through fear, the crime was 
 never committed. Beaumont allows that for a time 
 there were no murders, but says that afterwards they 
 became frequent, and then the criminal was dragged 
 along the ground until he died." He who adminis- 
 tered poison to another, thereby causing death, died 
 for it, and the same punishment was awarded to him 
 who furnished the poison.®' 
 
 Traitors, conspirators, and those who stirred up sedi- 
 tion among the people or created ill feeling between 
 nations, were broken to pieces at the joints, their 
 house.^ razed to the ground, their property confiscated, 
 and tieir children and relations made slaves to the 
 fourtli generation. The lord of vassals wlio rebelled, 
 unless taken captive in battle, was killed by having 
 his head smashed with a club; the common rebel was 
 tied to an oaken s[)it and roasted alive.^ 
 
 In Tezcuco, he who kidnapped a child and sold it into 
 slavery, was hanged; in Mexico, the kidnapper was 
 himself sold as a slave, and of the price he brought 
 one half was given to the stolen child, or its parents, 
 
 sec, Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxiii. ; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. 
 Chich., in Kiuffsborovqh's Mex. Antiq., vol. '\\., p. .S87; Mendieta, Hist. 
 Edes., p. 136. Diego l!)uran, in his incuitcd ' History of New Biiin, ' asscrtH 
 that the murderer did not suffer death, hut hecunie the slave for life of the 
 wife or relatives of the deceased. Kingsborough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. viii., 
 pp. 240-1. 
 
 *• Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lih. iii., cap. x. 
 
 «' Beaumont, Crdii. Mechoacan, MS., pp. 51-2. 
 
 6* Mendieta, Hist. Eclcs., p. 136; Ortega, in Veytiu, Hist Ant. Mej., 
 torn, iii., p. 226; Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxiii. In cap. 
 ccxv., among his unauthenticatcd laws, we read that if the victim of \m\- 
 son wp.<3 a slave, the person who caused his death was nnide a slave, in the 
 place of suffering the extreme penalty, but the opposite to this is expressly 
 stated by Clavigero and implied by Ortega. 
 
 ^'^ Relatione fatta per vn gentiChvomo del Signer Fernando Cortese, in 
 Hamnsio, Navigationi, torn, iii., fol. 307; Las Casas, llixf. Apologitica, 
 MS., cap. ccxiii.; Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., \ii'\\., p. 33; Turqiieniadu, Mo- 
 narq. Ind., tom. i., p. 166; Mendieta, Hist. Evles., p. 138; Vnjiia, Hist. 
 Ant. Mej., tom. iii., p. 421. Ixtlilxochitl writes that the children and relations 
 of the traitor were enslaved till the Ji/th generation, and that salt was scat- 
 tered upon his lands. Hist. Chich., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., tom. ix., 
 p. 245. ' II traditore del Re, o dello Stato, era sbranato, ed i suoi parenti, che 
 consanevoli del tradimento non lo aveano per tempo scojwrto, crano privati 
 dellalibertii.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. li., p. 130. 
 
460 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 and the other half became the property of the pur- 
 chaser; if several persons were implicated in the 
 crime, they were all sold as slaves.^'* 
 
 Drunkenness was punished with excessive rigor; 
 indeed, intoxicating liquor was not allowed to be 
 drunk, except by express permission from the judges, 
 and this license was only granted to invalids and per- 
 sons over fifty years of age, who, it was considered, 
 needed strong drink in order to warm their blood; and 
 even they were only permitted to partake of a limited 
 quantity, at each meal,*" though according to the ex- 
 planation of Mendoza's collection old men of seventy 
 years were allowed to drink as much as they pleased. * 
 Moderate conviviality at weddings and public feasts, 
 was not forbidden, and upon these occasions the young 
 people were allowed to partake of the wine-cup spar- 
 mgly;*^ the same license was granted to those whose 
 daily occupation necessitated great bodily exertion, 
 such as masons, carpenters, and the like.'* Women 
 in childbed were allowed to use stronsf drink as a 
 
 '* IxlUlxochitl, Bdaciones, in Kingshorough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 387; Torquemada, Monarq. Ltd., toni. ii., p. .382; Las Casas, Hist. Apofo- 
 gdtica, MS., cap. ccxv., among tlie collection of unautheuticatcd lawa so 
 jfrequcntly mentioned heretofore, gives the following: 'Si algunos vendieron 
 algun nifio por escluvo, y despues se saltc, todos los que entendieron en ello 
 eran esclavos, y dellos davan uno al que lo conipr6, y los otros repartinn en- 
 tre la niadre del nifio y entre 6\ que lo descubri6.' In the same chapter, 
 among anoi^'.er list of laws which, says Las Casus, 'son tenidastodasporan- 
 tenticas y verdaderas,' we read: 'Era ley, y con rigor guardada, que si 
 alguno vendia por esclavo algun niiio perdido, que se hicicsc csclavo ul que 
 lo vendia, y su hacienda se partiese en dos partes, la una era para el nifio, 
 y la otra al aue lo liavia cutnprado, y si quizas lo avian vendido y eran 
 muchos, d toaos hacian esclavos.' 
 
 65 Zurita writes: 'ils n'avaient droit d'en prendre que trois petites tasses 
 K chaquc repas.' Rapport, in Ternavx-Compans, Voy., sdrie ii., torn, i., p. 
 110; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. xvi. 
 
 ••6 Codex Mcndoza, in Kiiigsborongh's Mex. Antiq., vol. i., pi. 72; Espli- 
 cacion, in Id., vol. v., pp. 112-13; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. 
 xvi.; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 134. 
 
 6' 'Dans les noccs publiqucs et les fetes, les hommes ftgds de plus de 
 trcnte ans dtaient ordinaireinent autoriscs ii en boire deux tasses.' Zurita, 
 Rapport, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., serie ii. , toin. i., p. 110; Clavigero, 
 Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., p. 134; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. 
 iv., cap. xvi. 
 
 68 Ortega says that the privilege was also extended to private soldiers. 
 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 227. Zurita, however, writes 'les 
 gucrriers rcgardaieiit coninie uii dcHhoiiiieur d'en boire.' Rapport, in Ter- 
 naux-Compans, Voy., s^rie ii., toin. i., p. lU. 
 
LAWS AGAINST INTOX[CATION. 
 
 461 
 
 stimulant, but only during the first days of their con- 
 finement. With these exceptions, the law against 
 drinking was strictly enforced. The young man who 
 became drunk was conveyed to the jail, and there 
 beaten to death with clubs; the young woman was 
 stoned to death. In some parts, if the drunkard was 
 a plebeian, he was sold for a slave for the first offence, 
 and suffered death for the second; at other times the 
 offender's hair was cut off in the public market-place, 
 he was then lashed through the principal streets, and 
 finally his house was razed to the ground, because, 
 they said, one who would give up his reason to the 
 influence of strong drink, was unworthy to possess a 
 house, and be numbered among respectable citizens. 
 Cutting off the hair was, as we shall see, a mode of 
 punishment frequently resorted to by these people, 
 and so deep was the degradation supposed to be at- 
 tached to it, that it was dreaded almost equally with 
 death itself. Should a military man, who had gained 
 distinction in the wars, become drunk, he was deprived 
 of his rank and honors, and considered thenceforth as 
 infamous. Conviction of this crime rendered the cul- 
 prit ineligible for all future emoluments, and especially 
 was he debarred from holding any public office. A 
 noble was invariably hanged for the first offence, his 
 body being afterwards dragged without the limits of 
 the town and cast into a stream used for that purpose 
 only. But a mightier influence than mere fear of the 
 penal law restrained the Aztec nobility and gentry 
 from drinking to excess ; this influence was social law. 
 It was considered degrading for a person of quality to 
 touch wine at all, even in seasons of festivity when, 
 as I have sf.id, it was customary and lawful for the 
 lower classes to indulge to a certain extent. Wine- 
 bibbing was looked upon as a coarse pleasure, peculiar 
 exclusively to the common people, and a member of 
 the higher orders, who was suspected of practicing 
 the habit, would have forfeited his social position, 
 even though the law had suffered him to remain un- 
 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 punished.* These heathens, however, seem to have 
 recognized the natural incongruity existing between 
 precept and practice, fully as much as the most ad- 
 vanced Christian.'"* 
 
 He who employed witchcraft, charms, or incanta- 
 tions for the purpose of doing injury to the commu- 
 nity or to individuals, was sacrificed to the gods, by 
 having his breast opened and his heart torn out." 
 
 Wlioever made use of the royal insignia or ensigns, 
 suffered death, and his property was confiscated.'" 
 The reader will recollect that the same penalty was 
 inflicted upon him who should usurp the insignia or 
 oflBce of the Mexican cihuacoatl, or supreme judge. 
 Whoever maltreated an ambassador, minister, or cou- 
 rier, belonging to the king, suffered death; but am- 
 bassadors and couriers were on their part forbiddeL to 
 leave the high road, under pain of losing their privi- 
 leges." He who by force took possession of land not 
 belonging to him, suffered death'* He who sold the 
 land of another, or that which he held in trust, with- 
 out judicial authority, or permission from such as had 
 power to grant it to him, was enslaved." If a piece 
 of land was fraudulently sold twice over, the first pur- 
 chaser held it, and the vendor was punished.'" He 
 who squandered his patrimony suffered death." The 
 
 ^ Las Casas, Hist. ApoloffHica, MS., cap. ccxiii., ccxv. ; Torqvemada, 
 Monarq. Ind., toiii. i., p. 160, torn, ii., p. ,386; Vctancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., 
 p. 33; Codex Memloza, in KingsboroiiglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. i., pi 72; Es- 
 plicacioH, in Id., vol. v., pp. ll'i-lS; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., ' Id., vol. 
 IX., p. 246; Id., Belaciones, p. 387; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Aiil. Mej., torn, 
 iii., pp. 22G-7; Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del Mesaico, torn, ii., p. 134; Zurita, 
 Riipfwrt, in Ternaiix-Compans,Voy., a^rie ii., torn.!., pp. 110-11; herrcra, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. xvL 
 
 ""> Sec this vol. pp. 360-1. 
 
 " L(ts Casus, Hi.it. Apoloqttica, MS., cap. ccxv. ; Torqvemada, Monarq. 
 Ind., torn, ii., p. 386; Ixtlilxochitl, Belaciones, in KingshoroufjJCs Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. ix., p. 387; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mrj., torn, iii., jj. 226. 
 
 '* Ixllilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in KingsborougtCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 246; Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del Messico,tom. ii-.p. 130. 
 
 " Vlumgero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 130. 
 
 '* Ixtlilxochitl, Belaciones, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 387; Orte^ja, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. Me/., torn, iii., p. 226. 
 
 ■" Las Casas, Hist. Ajtologttica, MS., cap. ccxv. 
 
 "• Ixtlilxochitl, Belaciones, in KinqsborouglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 388. 
 
 11 Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxv., gives two laMs on this 
 
MISCELLANEOUS LAWS. 
 
 4G3 
 
 son that raised his hand against his father or mother, 
 suffered death, and his children were prevented from 
 inheriting the property of their grand-parents. Jn 
 the same manner a father could disinherit a son 
 who was cowardly or cruel.''^ He who removed 
 boundary-marks, died for it.™ Those who disturbed 
 the peace by engaging in petty fights and H<iuabbles, 
 without using weapons, were confined in jail for a few 
 days, and obliged to make good whatever damage they 
 had done; for, says Las Casas, they generally re- 
 venged themselves by breaking somethmg. If any 
 one was wounded in a brawl, he who made the assault 
 had to defray all the expenses of curing the injured 
 party. But those who fought in the market-place, 
 were dealt with far more severely.** Slanderers wer<^ 
 treated with great severity. In Mexico, he who wil- 
 fully calumniatea another, thereby seriously injuring 
 his reputat" :i, was condemned to have his lips cut off, 
 and sometimes his ears also. In Tezcuco, the sland- 
 erer suffered death. The false witness had the same 
 penalty adjudged to him that would have been awarded 
 to the accused, if convicted. So great a lover of truth 
 was king Nezahualcoyotl, that he is said to have made 
 a law prescribing the death penalty to historians who 
 should record fictitious events.*^ Whoever obtained 
 
 f»oint. To the first, which is among the collection of unauthenticatcd laws, 
 le adds: ' Y si era plcheyo 6 de buja suerte hncian lo esclavo.' Ixtlilxo- 
 cliitl aI»o gives two laws: 'Aloshijos du los senorcs si nialbaratahan sus 
 riqueziis, 6 bicn mueblcs que sus padres tenian, Ics dabaii garrotc.' Hist. 
 Chick., iw Kiugsborough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 246. 'Si algun princi- 
 
 1>al niayorazgo fuese desbaratado,6 travicso, d si entre dos de estos talcs 
 iul)ici!iu alguna diferencia sobre tierras ii otras cosas, el que no quisiese 
 cstarse (^ucdo con la averiguacion que entre ellos se hiciese por ser soberbio 
 y nuU mirado, Ic fuesen quitados sus bienes y niayorazgo, y fuese puesto en 
 dcp6sito en alguna persona que diesc cuenta de ello para el tieni|)u que Ic 
 fuese pedido, de cual niayorazgo estubiese desposeido todo el tienipo que la 
 voluntad del seiior fuese. Relacioiies, in Ld., p. 387; Torquemada, Moiiarq. 
 lad., toni. ii., p. .385; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 1.34. 
 
 ™ Vcytia, Hii.l. Ant. Mei., torn, iii., p. 423. 
 
 ''^ Las Casus, Hist. Apoloffitica, MS.,tai>. cexv. ; Torquemada, Monarq. 
 Ind., toni. ii., p. 386; Ixtltlxochitl, Belacioncs, in Kingaborough's Mex, 
 Aiitiq., vol. ix., p. 387. 
 
 *" Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxiii. 
 
 *' Ixtlilxochill, Rclaciones, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., «ol. ix., p. 
 337; Carbajal Espinoaa, Hist. Mex,,iom, i., p. 604; Clavigero, Storia Ant. 
 
 
464 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 goods on credit and did not pay for them, was en- 
 slaved, and the delinquent taxpayer met with the 
 same punishment.** 
 
 Concerning the way in which adulterers were 
 treated scarcely two of the ancient writers agree,^ 
 and it is probable that the law on this point 
 differed more or less in various parts of the Az- 
 tec kingdoms; indeed, we have Clavigero's testi- 
 mony that in some parts of the Mexican empire 
 the crime af adultery was punished with greater se- 
 verity than in others, and Las Casas and Mendieta 
 both speak of several penalties attaching to the of- 
 fence in different localities. According to what can 
 be gathered on this point, it appears that adulterers 
 taken in flagrante delicto, or under circumstances 
 which made their guilt a moral certainty, were stoned 
 to death. A species of trial was granted to the cul- 
 prits, but if, as some writers assert, confession of guilt 
 was extorted by torture,"* this trial must have been as 
 much a mockery of justice as were the proceedings of 
 most European courts of law at that period. The 
 amount of evidence necessarv to convict is uncertain. 
 Veytia says that accusation by the husband was in 
 itself sufficient proof *^ Las Casas and Torquemada, 
 however, who are both far older authorities, tell us 
 that no man or woman was punished for adultery upon 
 
 
 del Mcssico, torn, ii., p. 134; Ortcaa, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., 
 pp. 227-0; Chaves, Itammrt, in Ternaux-t'ompans, Voy., surie ii., torn, v., 
 p. 313; Torquemada, Moiiarq. I'td., toni. i., p. 1C5. 
 
 82 Oriedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 502; Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 cnp. ccxv. 
 
 "" Concerning adultery see: LasCasas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. ccxiii., 
 ccxv.; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 166, torn, ii., pj). 378, 380; 
 Ixtlilxnehitl, Hist. Chich., in KinqshorougKs Mex. Autiii.,\o\. ix., p. 246; 
 R^laeiones, in Id., p. 387; Codex Mendoza, in Kingshorougli's Mex. Atitiq., 
 vol. i., pi. 72; Esplicacioii, in Id., vol. v., p. 112; Veytia, Hist. Aiit. Mej., toni. 
 iii., p. 423; Mendieta, Hist. Ecle^t., pp. 136-7; Clamgero, Storin Ant. del Mes- 
 sieii, torn, ii., pp. 130-1 ; Bologne, in Teniaux-Compans, Voy., serie i., torn, x., 
 p. 211; Zurita, Rapport, in Id., sdrie ii., torn, i., pp. 107-10; Ortega, in Vey- 
 tia Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 224; Vetancvrt, Tcatro Mex., pt ii., p. 33; 
 Duran, in Kingsborougli's Mex, Anfiq., torn, viii., pp. 242-3; Valades, Rhe- 
 toriea Christiana, in Id., p. 129, note. 
 
 *• Las Casas and Mendieta, as in preceding note. 
 
 *^ 'Para la justificacion fueso bastante la denunciadel niarido.' Ibid. 
 
PENALTY FOR ADULTERY. 
 
 465 
 
 the unsupported testimony of the husband, but that 
 other witnesses, and the confession of the defendants 
 were necessary to procure their conviction.*' Usually 
 if the condemned adulterers were of the lower orders, 
 they were taken out into a public place and there 
 stoned to death by the assembled multitude, and few 
 of the old writers omit to remark that this manner of 
 death was almost painless, since no sooner was the 
 first stone thrown than the poor wretch was immedi- 
 ately covered with a pile of missiles, so great was the 
 number of his executioners, and so eager was each to 
 take a hand in the kilUng. Another common mode 
 of execution consisted in placing the head of the con- 
 demned upon a stone, and smashing his skull by let- 
 ting another stone fall upon it.*^ The noble convicted 
 of the same crime was not killed in this public man- 
 ner, but was strangled in jail: and as a mark of re- 
 spect to his rank, his head, after death, was adorned 
 Avith plumes of green feathers, and the body was then 
 burned. Adulterers who were found guilty merely 
 upon circumstantial evidence also suffered death by 
 strangulation. It was strictly forbidden for a husband 
 to take the law into his own hands, and he who should 
 seek to avenge his honor by slaying his wife or her 
 paramour, even though he took them in the act of 
 adultery, suffered death; in the same manner should 
 the criminal endeavor to save himself by killing the 
 injured husband, his fate was to be roasted alive before 
 a slow fire, his body being basted with salt and water 
 tliat death mijjfht not come to his relief too soon.* 
 An adulterer could not escape the law on the plea of 
 drunkenness,** and, indeed, had such an excuse been 
 
 '' 
 
 ** Ijis Casas writes: 'A ningtma miiger iii hombrc castigavnn por ndul- 
 tcrio, si solo cl intiriilu dolla lus aciisalMt, sino que havia de haver testigos v 
 confesioii dcllos.' Hist. Apologitica, M.S., cap. ccxv. Torqiicniada uses al- 
 most the same words. 
 
 ^' Father Francisco de Bolocne says that this mode of niinishment was 
 only resorted to in the case of Ute man, and that the femalo adulterer was 
 impaled. Tcrnaux-Comjmiis, Voy., st'rie i., torn, x., p. 211. 
 
 ** This Ht4itenicnt is made by Ixtlilxochitl and Voytia, uhi sup. 
 
 *> Las Casas, Hist, Apolo'f^tica, MS., cap. ccxiii. ; Mcndieta, ubitup. 
 Vol. n. 30 
 
466 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 held admissible, little would have been gained by ex- 
 changing the fate of the adulterer for that of the 
 drunkard. The trespasL. af a married man with a free 
 unmarried woman was not considered to constitute 
 adultery, nor punished as such, so that the husband 
 was not bound to so much fidelity as was exacted 
 from the wife. I have before remarked that although 
 the crime of adultery was punished in all parts of the 
 Aztec empire, yet the penalty inflicted differed in point 
 of severity and in manner of execution. Thus, in the 
 province of Ixcatlan, if we may believe Clavigero, a 
 woman accused of this crime was summoned before 
 the judges, and if the proofs of her guilt were satis- 
 factory, she was there and then torn to pieces, and lier 
 limbs were divided among the witnesses, while in 
 Itztepec the guilty woman's husband cut off her ears 
 and nose, thus branding her as infamous for life.*' In 
 some parts of the empire the husband who cohabited 
 with his wife after it had been proved that she had 
 violated her fidelity, was severely punished."^ 
 
 Carnal connection with mother, sister, step-mother 
 or step-sister, was punished by hanging ; Torquemada 
 says the same penalty was incurred by him who had 
 connection with his mother-in-law, because they consid- 
 ered it a sin for a man to have access to both mother 
 and daughter. Intercourse between brother-in-law 
 and sister-in-law was, however, not criminal, and, in- 
 deed, it was customary for a man to raise up seed to 
 his deceased brother by marrying his widow."^ He 
 who attempted to ravish a maiden, whether in the 
 field, or in her father's house, suffered deatl^"^ In 
 Michoacan, the ravisher's mouth was split from eai* 
 
 w Ilndem. Among the Miztecs, when extenuating circumstances coulil 
 ho proved, tlic imnishnient of death was commuted to mutilation of cars, 
 noae, and lips. Ilcrrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lih. iii., cap. xii. 
 
 91 Torquemada, Moiiarq. Intl., torn, ii., p. 380; Clavtgero, vhi sup. 
 
 " Las Casus, Hist. ApoloqHica, MS., cap. ccxiii., ccxv; Torquemada 
 Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 377-8, 380j Ortega, in Veylia, Ihst. Ant. 
 Mej., torn, iii., p. 224. 
 
 *> Las Coma, Jfial. Apologttica, MS., cap. ccxiii.; Meudicta, Hist. Ecles., 
 p. 136. 
 
UNNATURAL CRIMES. 
 
 467 
 
 to ear with a flint knife, and he was afterwards im- 
 paled."* In Mexico, those who committed sodomy 
 were hanged ; in Tezcuco, the punishment for unnat- 
 ural crime was characteristically brutal. The active 
 agent was bound to a stake, completely covered 
 with ashes and so left to die; the entrails of the pas- 
 sive agent were drawn out through his anus, he also 
 was then covered with ashes, and, v;ood bemg added, 
 the pile was ignited.'" In Tlascaia, the sodomite was 
 not punished by law, but was scouted by society, and 
 treated Avith scorn and contempt by all who knew 
 him."* From the extreme severity of the laws en- 
 acted by the later sovereigns for the suppression of 
 this revolting vice, and from the fact that persons 
 were especially appointed by the judicial authorities 
 to search the provinces for offenders of this class, it is 
 evident that unnatural love had attained a frightful 
 popularity among the Aztecs. Father Pierre de 
 Gand, or, as he is sometimes known, de Mura, bears 
 terrible testimony to this; he writes: "Un certain 
 hombre de pretres n'avaient point de femmes, sed 
 eorum loco j^ncros qiiibus ahutehantur. Ce peche dtait 
 si commun dans ce pays, que, jeunes ou vieux, tons en 
 ^taient infectds; ils y etaient si adonnds, que m6mes 
 des enfants de six ans s'y livraient."" 
 
 Las Casas relates that in several of the more remote 
 provinces of Mexico unnatural vice was tolerated, it 
 not actually permitted,"* and it is not improbable that 
 
 9' ITm'cra, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. x.; Beaumont, Cr6n. Me- 
 choaccm, MS., p. 51. 
 
 9J Torifueiuaila, Monarq. Ltd., torn, i., p. 166, torn, ii., p. .380; Las 
 Canas, hint. ApulogMca, MS., caj). ccxv. ; Veytia, Hist. Ant, Mrj., torn, 
 iii., p. 423; Ortega, in Id., p. 224; Vctancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., p. 3.3; 
 Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 137; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kinnshorough't 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 245. Caibajal EspinoHU differs from these in say* 
 iiig: 'al posivo le arrancaban las entrailas, se Uenaba sii vicntrc de ceniza y 
 cl cadilvcr era queniado. ' Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 603. 
 
 ** Camargo, Hi.'it. Tlax., in Noiivelles Annates des Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcviii., p. 19H. Carli is therefore mistaken in saying this crime was punished 
 with death. Cartas, p. 122. 
 
 ^ Lettre, in Ternniix-Compana, Voy., sdrie i., torn, x., p. 197. 
 
 9* Hist. ApologMea, MS., cap. ccxiii. Clavigcro writes: 'Appressotntte 
 leNozioni di Anahuac, fiuirchfe appresso i Panuchesi, era in abboniinR-'ione 
 si fatto delitto, c da tuttc si puniva con rigore.' This writer is very bitter 
 
468 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 in earlier times this was the case in the entire empire. 
 Inexpressibly revolting as the sin must appear to a 
 modern mind, yet we know that pederasty has ob- 
 tained among peoples possessed of a more advanced 
 civilization than the Aztecs. In ancient Greece this 
 unnatural passion prevailed to such an extent that it 
 was regarded as heroic to resist it. Plutarch, in his 
 FAfe of A<jesilaus, cannot praise too highly the self- 
 control manifested by that great man in refraining 
 from gratifying a passioii he had conceived for a boy 
 named Megabates, which Maximus Tyrius says de- 
 serves greater praise than the heroism of Leonidas; 
 Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Zeno, the founder 
 of stoicism, the most austere of all ancient sects, 
 praises that philosopher for being but little addicted 
 to this vice; Sophocles, the Tragic Homer, and the 
 Attic Bee, is said by Athenseus to have been espe- 
 cially addicted to it. Moralists were known to praise 
 it as the bond of friendship, and it was spoken of as 
 inspiring the enth-: jiasm of the heroic legion of 
 Epaminondas. The defeat of the Romans by Hanni- 
 bal at CannsB was said to be caused by the jealousy 
 of Juno, because a beautiful boy had been introduced 
 into the temple of Jupiter. Las Casas tells us that 
 pederasty was tolerated because they believed that 
 their gods practiced it.** In precisely the same man- 
 
 against M. de Pauw for stating that this pederasty was common among the 
 Mexicans, and adds: 'madcllu falsitti di tal calunnia, clic con troppu, ed 
 assai biiisimevolc facility addottarono parccchj Autori Euronei, ci consta 
 per la testinionianza di moltri altri Autori iniparziarli, e nieglio infonnati.' 
 Clavigero docs not, however, state wlio these 'more impartial and better 
 informed writers' are. That tlie crime of sodomy was prevalent in Ta- 
 basco, we have the testimony of Oviedo, who writes that aiii()ii<r the idols 
 that the Christians saw there 'dixeron que avian hallado eiitro aqucllos 
 9emis 6 yulos, dos personus hcchas de copcy (que es un drhol assi llanmdo), 
 cl uno caballcro 6 cabalgando sobre el otro, en figuradc aquel abominable y 
 ncfando iiccado de sodomia, e otro de barro que tenia la natura asida con 
 
 ambas manos, la qual tenia como ^ircunpiso y no es cste jMJcado entro 
 
 aquellas nial aventuradasgentesde8i)re89iaao, ni sumarinmcnte averiguado: 
 antes cs mucha verdad quanto dellos se pucde decir 6 culjinr en tal caso.' 
 Ilist. Gen., torn, i., p. 633. Zuazo, spcaKing of the Mexicans, says: 'estas 
 gontes tionon la tria pecsatela que dccia el Italiano: no crcqn en Dios; son 
 cast todoa godotnitas: comen carne humana.' Carta, in Irazbalceta, Col. de 
 Doc, (,om. i., p. 365. 
 
 w Hist. Ajtoloffitica, MS., cup. ccxiu. 
 
LAWS KESPECTING CHASTITY. 
 
 409 
 
 ner did the ancient Greeks make the popular religion 
 bend to the new vice, and, by substituting Ganymede 
 for Hebe as heavenly cup-bearer, make the head of all 
 Olympus set an example of unnatural love. 
 
 The priest who violated his vow of chastity was 
 banished; his house was demolished and his prop- 
 erty confiscated.^* Pimps were publicly disgraced m 
 the market-place, by having their hair burnt off so 
 close to the head that the drops of resin falling from 
 the burning pitch-pine chips fell upon and seared the 
 scalp; if the persons for whom the panderage was 
 committed were of high rank, a greater penalty was 
 inflicted upon the pander."^ This was the law in 
 Mexico; in Tezcuco, according to the historian of the 
 Chichi mecs, the pimp suffered death in all cases. ^"* 
 
 Simple fornication was not punished, unless it was 
 committed by a noble lady, or with a maiden conse- 
 crated to the service of the gods, in which cases it 
 was death. Fornication with the concubine of an- 
 other also went unpunished, unless they had been 
 living a long time together, and were in consequence, 
 according to custom, considered man and wife. If 
 any one had connection with a slave, and the woman 
 died during her pregnancy, or in giving bii'th to the 
 child, then the offender became a slave; but if she 
 was safely delivered, the child was free and was taken 
 care of by the father.^"* The woman who took any 
 drug to procure an abortion, and she who furnished 
 
 ■oo Las Casas, ainon<; his unauthentic laws has one which prescribes death 
 in this ca'ic, but in another list, which he says is composed of authentic 
 hiws, banishmcni iiid confiscation of property is given fts the penalty. Hist. 
 Apologitira, Ms ecxv. ; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 380; 
 
 Vcytin, Hist. An . <><:j., toni. iii., p. 423. 
 
 "" Tor-Jiiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn. ii-.P. 380; Las Ca.ias, Hist. Apolo- 
 gitica, MS., cap. ccxiii.; Mmdieta, Hist. Ecles., p. 137. Ortega adds tiiat 
 their heads were rubbed with ashes; 'sc lea untaba con ceniza ca'iente.' 
 Veiftia, Hist. Ant. M"j., torn, iii., p. 225. 
 
 '"^ Ixflilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in KingshorougVs Mex. Antiq,, vol. ix., p. 
 246; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., p. 224. 
 
 ^"'^Ixflilxochitl, Rclar.imies, in Kingsborongh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 387; Veijtia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 423; Dnran, in Kingsborongh't 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 243-4; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., toni. ii., p. 
 380; Zrt» Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ocxv. ; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. 
 Ant, Mej., torn, iii., pp. 224-5. 
 
470 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the drug, both suffered death.*"* If one woman sinned 
 carnally with another, both died for it.** The man 
 who went about the streets dressed as a woman, or 
 the woman who dressed as a man, was slain.*"" 
 
 In this account are comprised nearly all the special 
 laws of the Aztecs which have been preserved, with 
 the exception of those relating to military matters, 
 marriage, divorce, and slavery, all of which I have 
 already had occasion to consider. 
 
 That the Aztec code was a severe and brutal one 
 there can be no denial, but that it was more severe 
 and brutal than was necessary, is, as I have before 
 remarked, doubtful. We have already seen that a 
 horrible death was the inevitable fate of those de- 
 tected stealing in the market-place, yet we are told 
 that did the owner of a stall but turn away his head 
 for a moment, his wares would be pilfered. A people 
 accustomed almost daily to see human blood poured 
 out like water in sacrifice to their gods, must of 
 necessity have been hardened to the sight of suffer- 
 ing, and upon such none but an execution of the 
 most revolting description could create an impression 
 of awe or fear. It appears remarkable that punish- 
 ments involving only disgrace should have been 
 adopted by such a people, yet it is doubtful whether 
 slavery was not considered a lighter punishment 
 than having the hair burned off in the public market. 
 Some of the Aztec monarchs evinced a desire to be 
 as lenient as the stubborn nature of their subjects 
 would allow, but the yoke upon the people, if it were 
 in any degree to control them, must at best be a heavy 
 one; in short, despotism of the harshest was neces- 
 sary and indispensable to them in their stage of civil- 
 ization. 
 
 '"* Zflw Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. ccxiii., ccxv.; Mendieta, Hist. 
 Ecles., p. 136. 
 
 ">* Lcia Casas, Ibid.; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 380-1. 
 
 "» Las Casas, Ibid.; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 380; Men- 
 dieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 137-8; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., 
 p. 133. 
 
NEZAHUALCOYOTL AND THE BOY. 
 
 471 
 
 Nezahualcoyotl, kinjj of Tezcuco, was especially 
 mercit'ul and considerate towards his subjects. For 
 instance, he ordered that corn should be planted, at 
 the expense of government, by the roadside, in order 
 that none who were guilty of stealing from the fields, 
 might excuse thomselves on the ground of hunger.*" 
 It is related that this monarch went frequently among 
 his people in disguise, for the purpose of discovering 
 their grievances and general condition, and some of 
 the adventures he met with on these occasions are as 
 entertaining as any told by Sheherezade of the Good 
 Caliph. I select one, not because it is the best, but 
 because it points more particularly to Nezahualco- 
 yotl's benevolence and love of justice. During the 
 reiorn of this monarch, owinsf to the immense con- 
 sumption of wood, the use of oil and tallow being 
 then unknown, the forests began to grow thin, and 
 the king foreseeing that unless some precautions were 
 taken, there would soon be a scarcity of wood in tho 
 kingdom, ordered that within certain limits no wood 
 should be touched. Now it happened one day, when 
 the king was abroad in disguise, and accompanied 
 only by his brother Quauhtlehuanitzin, that they 
 passed by the skirts of a forest wherein it was pro- 
 hibited to cut or gather wood. Here they found a 
 boy who was engaged in picking up the light chips 
 and twigs that had been carried by the wind outside 
 of the enclosure, because in this locality the inhabit- 
 ants were very numerous, and had exhausted all the 
 timber that was not reserved by law. Nezahualcoyotl, 
 seeing that under the trees of the forest there lay 
 a great quantity of fallen wood, asked the boy why 
 he contented himself with dry leaves and scattered 
 twigs when so great an abundance of fuel lay close at 
 hand. The boy answered that the king had forbid- 
 den the people to gather wood in the forest, and 
 
 'w Torqtiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 381; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. 
 Ant. Mej., torn, iii., pp. 225-6; Clavigero, Storia Ant. ctel Messico, torn, ii., 
 p. 133. 
 
472 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 therefore he was obliged to take whatever he could 
 get. The king told him to go, nevertheless, into the 
 forest and help himself to fuel, and none would be 
 the wiser, for that he and his companion would say 
 nothing of the matter. But the boy rebuked them, 
 saying that they must be traitors to the king who 
 would persuade him to do this thing, or that they 
 sought to avenge themselves upon his parents by 
 bringing misfortune upon their son, and he refused to 
 enter the forbidden ground. Then was the king 
 much pleased with the boy's loyalty, and seeing the 
 distress to which the people were reduced by the 
 severity of the forest laws, he afterwards had them 
 altered."" 
 
 W Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 165. In the following works 
 more or less mention is made of the system of jurisprudence that existed 
 among the Nuhua peoples. Pimentel, Mem. soore la Baza Indigena, pp. 
 31-5; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist Mex., torn, i., pp. 593-605; Amcr. Ethno. 
 Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 153; Klemm, Cultur-Ucschichte, torn, v., pp. 36-6, 
 63-4, 69-75, 96-7, 105, 205; Cortis, Aven. y Cong, pref., p. 13; Ddajnorte, Rei 
 ten, torn, x., pp. 264-7; Incidcntsand Sketches, pp. 60-1; Simon's Ten Tribes, 
 pp. 263-70; Bnssierre L'Eiiipire Mex., pp. 1.50-8; Chambers' Jovr., 18.^5, 
 vol. iv. ,p. 253; Bard, Mexiqne, pp. 205-7; Tonron, Hist. Gin., tom. iii., 
 pp. 29-31; Soden, Spanicr in Peru, tom. ii., p. 14. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NAHUA ARTS AND MANUFACTURES. 
 
 Metals Used and Manner of Obtaining Them— Working of Gold 
 AND Silver— Wonderful Skill in Imitating— Gilding and Plat- 
 ing—Working IN Stone— Lai'IDARy Work— Wood Carving— 
 Manufactlre of Pottery— Various Kinds of Cloth— Manu- 
 facture OF Paper and Leather— Preparation of Dyes and 
 Paints— The Art of Painting — Feather Mosaic Work— Leaf- 
 Mats— Manner of Kindling Fire— Torches— Soap— Council of 
 Arts in Tezcuco— Oratory and Poetry— Nezahualcoyotl's 
 Odes on the Mutability of Life and the Tyrant Tezozomoc — 
 Aztec Arithmetical System. 
 
 Gold, silver, copper, tin, and lead were th6 metals 
 known to and used by the Nahuas. The latter, how- 
 ever, is merely mentioned, and nothing is known about 
 where it was obtained or for what purposes it was em- 
 ployed. We have only very slight information respect- 
 ing the processes by which any of the metals were 
 obtained. Gold came to the cities of Anahuac chiefly 
 from the southern Nahua provinces, through the 
 agency of traders and tax-gatherers; silver and tin 
 were taken from the mines of Taxco and Tzompaneo; 
 copper was obtained from the mountains of Zacatol- 
 lan, the province of the Cohuixcas, and from Micho- 
 acan. Nuggets of gold and masses of native copper 
 were found on the surface of the ground in certain 
 regions; gold was chiefly obtained, however, from the 
 sand in the bed of rivers by divers. It was kept, in 
 
 (473) 
 
474 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the form of dust, in small tubes or quills, or was 
 melted in small pots, by the aid of hollow bamboo 
 blow-pipes used instead of bellows, and cast in small 
 bars. Frescott tells us that these metals were also 
 mined from veins in the solid rock, extensive gal- 
 leries being opened for the purpose. Quicksilver, sul- 
 phur, alum, ochre, and other minerals were collected 
 to a certain extent and employed by the natives in the 
 preparation of colors and for other purposes.* The 
 use of iron, though that metal was abundant in the 
 country, was unknown. Such metals as they had they 
 were most skillful in working, chiefly ^y melting and 
 casting, and by carving, but also to some extent by 
 the use of the hammer. We have no details of the 
 means employed to melt the harder metals, besides 
 the rude blow-pipe and furnace mentioned in connec- 
 tion with gold. 
 
 For cutting implements copper was the only metal 
 used, but it was hardened with an alloy of tin until 
 it sufficed to cut the hardest substances nearly as 
 well as steel.* The pure and softer metal was used 
 to make kettles and other vessels. Copper tools 
 were, however, rare compared with those of stone, 
 and seem to have been used chiefly in working wood 
 where a sharp and enduring edge was required. 
 Such tools usually took the form of axes and chisels. 
 
 1 'Tambien las minas de plata y oro, cobre, plomo, oropel natural, es- 
 tafio y otros nietaleH, que tmlos los sacaron, labraron, y dejaron Befiales y 
 incnioriu.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tuin. iii., lib. x., pp. 110-11. To obtain 
 gold 'se nictian al fondo del agua y Hacaban las inanos Ucnas de oreiia, pura 
 buscar luego en ella los granos, los que se guardaban enlaboca.' iJiaz, 
 Itinerario, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 299. In Michoacan 
 'tnibajaban minas de cobre.' Beaumont, Crdn. Mcchoacan, MS., p. 48. 
 'Tlie traces of their labors furnished the best indications for the early Span- 
 ish miners.' PrescotVs Mex., vol. i., pp. 138-9; Carhajal Espinosa, Hist. 
 Mcx., torn, i., pp. 99-100; Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 198 et seq. 
 
 < ' Whether a man desire the rude mettall, or to haue it molten, or beaten 
 out, and cunningly made into any kinde of lewell, hee shall find them 
 ready wrought.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv. Gomara and Gnma state 
 that they mixed gold and silver, as well as tin, with copper, for the manu- 
 facture of gimlets, axes, and chisels. Conq. Mex., fol. 318; Dos Piedras, pt 
 ii., p. 26. Clavigero states that in ZacatoUan two kinds of copper were found, 
 hard and soft, so that there was no need of any hardening process. Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, torn, iv., pp. 210-11. 
 
GOLD AND SILVER SMITHS. 
 
 475 
 
 Sticks for working the ground, the nearest Nahua 
 approach to the plow, were also often tipped with 
 copper, as we have seen. Metal was not much used 
 in making weapons, not being found in swords or 
 arrow-heads, but employed with obsidian in spear- 
 heads and on the niaza, or club. Both copper and 
 tin dishes and plates are mentioned but were not 
 in common use. In the manufacture of implements 
 of copper and tin these metals were wrought by means 
 of stone hanmiers and not cast.' 
 
 No branch of Nahua art was carried to a higher de- 
 gree of perfection than the ornamental working of 
 gold and silver. The conquerors were struck with 
 admiration on beholding the work of the native gold- 
 smiths; they even in some cases frankly acknowledge 
 that they admired the work more than the material, 
 and saved the most beautiful specimens from the melt- 
 ing furnace, the greatest comj^liment these gold-greedy 
 adventurers could pay to native art. Many of the 
 finer articles were sent as presents and curiosities to 
 European princes, who added their testimony to that 
 of the conquerors, pronoui. .ing the jewelry in many 
 instances superior to the work of old-world artists. 
 Azcapuzalco was the headquarters of the workers in 
 gold and silver.* The imitation of natural objects, 
 
 ' ' Porras clavcteadas do liicrro, cobre y oro.' Ixtlilxochitl, Rclaciones, 
 in Kingsborough's Mcx. Autiq., vol. ix., p. 332. 'Nous avons cu eiitic lea 
 mains de beaux outils de cuivrc rosette.' Viollct-lc-Duc, in Chariiay, liiUues 
 Amir., pp. 86-7. 'Hazeu niucbas co»as, conio los mcjorcs caldereros del 
 niundo.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cup. ix. Sonic bad plates 
 and otbcr vessels of tin. Ociedo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., p. 4C5. 'Contutto- 
 ci6 si sa, clic lavoravano bene il ranie, c clic piacquero assai a<^Ii Spagniioli 
 lo loro sciiri, e le loro picclie.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toni. ii., 
 p. 19G. Peter Martyr Hpcaks of large copper stands or candlesticks wbich 
 supported pine torcbes to liylit tbe courts of tbc l»etter bouses. Dec. v., lib. 
 X. ' II existait de si grands vases d'argent qu'un boninie pouvait Ji peine 
 les cntourer de scsbras.' liaril, Mcxiquc, p. 209; lirowncU's Ind. Races, p. 
 94; Edinburgh Review, July 1867. 
 
 * 'Todo variadizo, que en nucstra Espafia los grandcs Plateros tiencn 
 queniiraren ello.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 09. 'Los Plateros do 
 Madrid, viendu algunas Piczas, Brazaletes de oro, con que se arniaban en 
 guerru los Reyes, ^ Capitanes Indianos, confessaron ^ue eran ininiitablcs en 
 Europa.' Boturint, Idea, \\ 78. 'Non sarcbbero vensimili Ic niaraviglic di 
 cotal arte, sc oltre alia testimonianza di quanti le videro, non fosscro state 
 mandate in Europa in gran coiiia si fatte raritii.' 'Finalmcntc erano tali si 
 fattc opere, che ancke que' Sotdatl spagnuoli, che si sentivano travagliati 
 
476 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 particularly animals, birds, and fisheB, wras a favorite 
 field for the display of this branch of Nahua talent. 
 The conqueror Oortt% tells us that Montezuma had in 
 his collection a counterfeit in f?old, silver, stones, or 
 feathers, of every object under heaven in his domin- 
 ions, so skillfully made, so far as the work in metal 
 was concerned, that no smith in the world could excel 
 them. This statement is repeated by every writer on 
 the subject. Dr Hernandez, the naturalist, in pre- 
 paring a treatise on Mexican zoology for Philip 11., is 
 said to have supplied his want of real specimens of 
 certain rare species by a resort to these imitations." 
 The native artists are said to have fashioned animals 
 and birds with movable heads, legs, wings, and tongues, 
 an ape with a spindle in its hands in the act of spin- 
 ning and in certain comic attitudes; and what particu- 
 larly interested and surprised the Spaniards was the 
 art — spoken of by them as a lost art — of casting the 
 parts of an object of different metals each distinct 
 from the rest but all forming a complete whole, and 
 this, as the authorities say, without soldering. Thus 
 a fish was molded with alternate scales of gold and 
 silver, plates were cast in sections of the same metal, 
 and loose handles were attached to different vessels.* 
 
 dalla sacra fame dcir oro, prcgiavano in esse piii I'artc, chc la materia.' 
 Clariffcro, Storia Ant, del Mcssico, torn, ii., pp. 195-6. 
 
 * Cartas, Cartas, pp. 109, 100-1. In the collection of Nezohimlcoyot- 
 zin 'no fultava alii ave, pcz ni animal de toda csta tierra, que no estuv'iese 
 vivo, 6hecho Hgiira y talle, en piedras de oro y pcdreria.' Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. 
 Chich., in KingsborouglCs Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 244. 'There is no 
 fourefooted beast, no foule, no fyslie, which their Artificers have once seene, 
 but they arc able to drawc, and cutte in niettall the likenesse and iiroportion 
 thereof, eucn to the lyfe.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x., iv. Ei<;ht ^old 
 shrimps of much perfection. On'cdo, Hist. Gen., ♦ )m. iii., p. 285; Pimentel, 
 Mem. sobre la Baza Indigcna, p. 56. 
 
 6 'Sacan un ave, como un papagayo que se Ic nda la lengua como si 
 vivo la mencase y tambien la cabcza y las alas. ' rostro de aguila lo mis- 
 mo, una rana, y un pescado.senalada muchascscai una deplata y otra de 
 oro, todo de vaciado, que espanta a todos nuestros o, lies. ' Las Casas, Hist. 
 Apologftica, MS., cap. Ixiii. * Funden vna niona, qi, juegue pies y caltcfa, 
 y tenga en las manos vn huso, que parezca que liih o vna maufana, que 
 come. Esto tuuicron a mucho nuestros Espanolcs, y ts plateros de aca no 
 alcanpan el primer.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 117. «' lo que mas es, que 
 sacaban de la fundicion vna pie^a, la niitad de Oro, la mitad de Plat^a.' 
 Torquemadn, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 487; Vetancvrl, Teatro Mex., pt ii., 
 
 S. 59; Mcndicta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 403-7. 'Sacauan al mercado los oficialcs 
 estearte, plates, ochauados de vn quarto de oro, y otro de plata, no solda- 
 
GILDING AND PLATING. 
 
 477 
 
 After tho Spaniards came the native artizanH had 
 a now and wide Held for the display of their skill, in 
 imitating' the numerous products of European art. 
 A slij^ht examination, often obtahied hy stealthily 
 looking into the shop windows, enabled them to re- 
 produce and not unfrequently to improve upon the 
 finest articles of jewelry and plate.' 
 
 Clavigero says that vessels of copper or other in- 
 ferior metal were gilded, by employing a: unknown 
 process in which certain herbs were used, and which 
 would have made the fortune of a goldsmith in Spain 
 and Italy. Oviedo also tells us that various orna- 
 mental articles were covered with thin gold plate." 
 To enumerate tlie articles manufactured by the Na- 
 hua gold and silver smiths, and included in the long 
 lists of presents made by Montezuma and other chief- 
 tains to their conquerors is impracticable; they in- 
 cluded finely modeled goblets, pitchers, and other 
 vessels for the tables of the kings and nobility ; frames 
 for stone mirrors and rich settings for various precious 
 stones; personal ornaments for the wealthy, and es- 
 pecially for warriors, including rings, bracelets, ear- 
 drops, beads, helu ets and various other portions 
 of armor; small figures in human form worn as 
 charms or venerated as idols; and finally the most 
 gorgeous and complicated decorations for the larger 
 idols, and their temples and altars." 
 
 dos, Hino fiiiululns, y en In fiindicion pe^do, cosa dificultosa dc entcnder. 
 Sneiiimii vim ciildcrctn dc plutii, con cxcclentcs laborca, y su assa dc vna 
 fiiiidicioii, y lo que era dc inuruuillur que la osa cstuua sueltu.' Herrera, 
 Hixt. Gcii., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xv. 
 
 "I ' Acuci'iulcs & los priucipios eutar un indio cnvuclto en una manta que 
 no 8e le parecian si no los ojos, conio cllos se poncn no muy cerca dc una 
 tienda dc algun platcro dc los nucstros disiniuladunicntc, conio no prc- 
 tcndiu niirar nada y el platero estai- labrando dc oro y dc ]data ulguna joya 
 6 pieza dc niucho artiticio v muy dolicada, y dc solo veric Iiaccr algiina 
 parte dclla irsc d su casa y hacelfo tanto y mas perfccto y traello desdc & 
 poco en la niano para lo vender.' Las Casus, Hist. ApologdUca, MS., cap. 
 ixiii. Zuazo, however, pronounces some of the native work inferior to tho 
 European. 'Yo vi algunas piezaay no me parecicron tan priniamente la- 
 bradas conio las nuestras.' Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. deDoc, toni. i., p. 362. 
 
 * Clai-igero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. iv., p. 211; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., 
 torn, i., p. 520. 
 
 9 'Vna rueda de hechura de Sol, tan grandc eomo dc vna carreta, con 
 muchas labores, todo de oro muy iino, gran obra de mirar; otra mayor 
 
478 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Little is known of the methods or implements by 
 which the workers in gold accomplished such marvel- 
 ous results. The authors tell us that they excelled 
 particularly in working the precious metals by means 
 of fire; and the furnaces already mentioned are pic- 
 tured in several of the Aztec picture-writings as 
 simple vessels, perhaps of earthen ware, various in 
 form, heaped with lumps of metal, and possibly with 
 wood and coal, from which the tongues of flame pro- 
 trude, as the workman sits by his furnace with his 
 bamboo blow-pipe. How they cast or molded the 
 molten gold into numerous graceful and ornamental 
 forms is absolutely unknown. The process by which 
 these patient workers carved or engraved ornamental 
 figures on gold and silver vessels by means of their 
 implements of stone and hardened copper, although 
 not explained, may in a general way be easily imag- 
 ined. They worked also to some extent with the 
 hammer, but as gold-beaters they Avere regarded as 
 inferior workmen, using only stone implements. The 
 art of working in the precious metals was derived 
 traditionally from the Toltecs, and the gold and silver- 
 smiths formed in Mexico a kind of corporation under 
 the divine guidance of the god Xipe.'" 
 
 nieda dc niata, figiirada la Luna, con muchos rcsplandores, y otras figuraa 
 en ella.' Jicrnal Dinz, Hist. Coiiq., fol. 26-7. 'Espejos liechos de Marga- 
 jita, que C8 vn metal herniosissinio, conio plata muy rcsplaudecieutc y estos 
 grandes eonio vu puiio redimdos conio vna Iwla, engastados en oro.' Jler- 
 rem, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. v., caji. v. 'Doze zcbratanas de fustay plata, 
 con ([ue 8()lia ol tirar. Las unas puitadas y inatizadas de aves, aninialcs, 
 rosas, llorcs, yarboles. . . .Laa utras cran variada.s, y sinzeladas con mas pri- 
 mor y sotilcza que la pintura.' Gomara, Uoiiq. Mex., fol. 135-6, 42; Ociedo, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. 259; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. 
 cxxxii. 
 
 '•'Vnas fundidas, otras labradas de Piedra.' Torquemada, Monarq. 
 Ind., t«ni. ii. , p. 557; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xv. 'V 
 lo que mas las Iiace odmirables, es que las obron y labran con solo fuego y 
 con una jjiedra 6 pedernal.' Las Casas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. Ixiii. 
 Hammered work inferior to that of European artizans. Clavigero, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 196. 'Los ohciales que labran oro son de dos 
 mancras, unoH de ellos sc llanian martilladores 6 aniajadorcs, porqne estos 
 labran oro de niartillo majiindoiv* con piedras 6 con niartillos, para haccrlo 
 delgado como papcl: otros se llanian tlaflaliani, que quiere decir, que asi- 
 cntan cl oro 6 alguna cosa en <S1, 6 en la ]>lata, estos son yerdaderos oficiales 
 6 por otro nomhre so llanian tulteca; pcro estdn divididos en doa partes, 
 porquc labran cl oro car''> nno de 8U manera.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen,, torn. 
 
WORKING IN STONE. 
 
 479 
 
 Stone was the material of moat Nahua implements. 
 For this purpose all the harder kinds found in the 
 country were worked, flint, porphyry, basalt, but espe- 
 cially obsidian, the native iztli. Of this hard material, 
 extensively quarried some distance north of Mexico, 
 nearly all the sharp-edged tools were made. These 
 tools, such as knives, razors, lancets, spear and art-ow 
 heads, were simply flakes from an obsidian block. 
 The knives were double-edged and the best of them 
 slightly curved at the point. The maker held a round 
 block of iztli between his bare feet, pressed with his 
 chest and hands on a long wooden instrument, one end 
 of which was applied near the edge of the block, and 
 thus split off knife after knife with great rapidity, 
 which required only to be fitted to a wooden handle to 
 be ready for use. The edge thus produced was at first 
 as sharp as one of steel, but became blunted by slight 
 use, when the instrument must be thrown away. 
 Thus Las Casas tells us that ten or fifteen obsidian 
 razors were required to shave one man's beard. Stone 
 knives seem rarely if ever to have been sharpened by 
 grinding." Of obsidian were made the knives used 
 in the sacrifice of human victims, and the lancets used 
 in bleeding for medicinal purposes and in drawing 
 blood in the service of the gods. For bleeding, simi- 
 
 ii., lib. ix., p. 387, et scq. For pictures of furnaces and of some manu- 
 factured articles from the hieroglyphic MSS., ace Ewhank, in Sc/ioolcrnft'» 
 Arch., vol. iv., p. 448, et seq. 'The,v cast, also, vessels of gold and silver, 
 carving them with their metallic chisels in a very delicate manner.' Prcs- 
 cotCs Mcx., vol. i., i)p. 1.39-40. 
 
 " 'Siontaiise en el suelo y toman un pcdaro de aquella piedra negra 
 
 Aqucl pcdazo que toman cs dc un i>almo I't poco mas largo, y de grucso como 
 la pieriia 6 poco iiienos, y roUizo. Tionen un palo del grucso de una lanza 
 y largo coino tres codos o poco mas, y al principio de cstc palo noiicn pegado 
 y bicn atado uii trozo de palo dc un palino, grucso como el mollcdo del 
 brazo, y algo mas, y cst« ticiie su frentc llaiui y tajada, y sirve cste trozo 
 para (pic ]k;sc mas aquella parte. Juntan ainbos pies descalzos, y con ellos 
 aprietan la ])icdra con el pccho, y con aiiibas liM inanos toman cl palo que 
 diju era como vara de lanza (que tumbicn cs llano y tajado) y ponciilo d 
 besar con el canto de la frciitc de la piedra (que tambicn es liana y tajada), 
 y entonces aprietan hdciael pecho, y luego salta de la piedra una navaja 
 con su puntu y sus filos dc ambas partes.' Mcndieta, I/tst. Edes., p. 406; 
 repeated in nearly the same words in Torqucmada, Monara. Ind., tom. ii., 
 
 p. 433-30; Las Casas, Hist. Apolog6tifa, MS., cap. Ixii., Ixvi: Velancvrt, 
 
 eatro Mcx., pt ii., p. 60. 
 
 7. 
 
480 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 lar knives are said to be still used in Mexico." The 
 use of stone in the manufacture of weapons has been 
 mentioned in another chapter. Masks and even rings 
 and cups were sometimes worked from obsidian and 
 other kinds of stone. Axes were of flint, jade, or 
 basalt, and were bound with cords to a handle of hard 
 wdbd, the end of which was split to receive it." Tor- 
 quemada says that agricultural implements were made 
 of stone." Mirrors were of obsidian, or of marga- 
 jita, — spoken of by some as a metal, by others as a 
 stone, — often double-faced, and richly set in gold." 
 
 The quarrying of stone for building and sculpture 
 was done by means of wooden and stone implements, 
 by methods unknown but adequate to the working of 
 the hardest material. Stone implements alone seem 
 to have been used for the sculpture of idols, statues, 
 and architectural decorations. A better idea of the 
 excellence of the Nuhuas in the art of stone-carving 
 may be formed from the consideration of antiquarian 
 relics in another volume than from the remarks of the 
 early chronic^lers. Most of the sculptured designs 
 were executed in soft material, in working v.'hich flint 
 instruments would be almost as effective as those of 
 steel ; but some of the preserved specimens are carved 
 in the hardest stone, and must have taxed the sculp- 
 tor's patience to the utmost even with hard copper 
 chisels. The idols and hieroglyphics on which the 
 native art was chiefly exercised, present puri)osely dis- 
 
 •' Tylor's Researches, p. 194. 'Tienen lancetas de azubachc negro, y 
 vnos nauajos dc axenic, licchas coiiio jtuniil, iiiuh ^^ordas cii medio que & los 
 iilos, con quese jasaan y sangran dc la lengua, bra^os, y piernas.' Gomara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 324-5; Acosla, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 491. 
 
 '3 Lenoir, ParalUle, pp. 64-5. 'In the beginning of this so rare inuen> 
 tion, I gotte one of them, which Christopltorus Colonus, Adniirall of the Sea 
 ganc inee. This stone was of a greene darkisho colour, fastened in most 
 nrme and harde woode, wliich was the handle or heluc thereof. I stroke 
 with all my force V|M>n Iron barres and dented the Iron with my strokes 
 without spoyling or hurting of the stone in any part thereof. With these 
 atones therefore they make their instruments, for hewing of stone, or cutting 
 of timber, or any workcmanship in gold or siluer.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., 
 lib. iv. 
 
 '* Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 231. 
 
 •' Las Gasas, Hist. Apologftim, MS., cap. Ixii. See note 9 of this 
 chapter. 
 
WORKING OF PRECIOUS STONES. 
 
 481 
 
 torted figures and are a poor test of the artists' skill ; 
 according to traditional history portrait-statues of the 
 kings were made, and although none of these are 
 known to have survived, yet a few specimens in the 
 various collections indicate that the human face and 
 form in true proportions were not beyond the scope of 
 American art; and the native sculptors were, more- 
 over, extremely successful in the modeling of animals 
 in stone." 
 
 The Nahuas were no less skillful in working pre- 
 cious stones than gold and silver. Their Toltec an- 
 cestors possessed the same skill and used to search for 
 the stones at sunrise, being directed to ihe hidden 
 treasure by the vapor which rose from the place that 
 concealed it. All the stones found in the country 
 were used for ornamental purposes, but emeralds, 
 amethysts, and turquoises were most abundant. The 
 jewels were cut with copper tools with the aid of a 
 silicious sand. Single stones were carved in various 
 forms, often those of animals, and set in gold, or some- 
 times formed into small cups or boxes. Pearls, moth- 
 er of pearl, and bright-colored shells were used with 
 the precious stones in the formation of necklaces, 
 bracelets, ear-rings, and other decorations, for the 
 nobles or for the idols. Various articles of dress or 
 armor were completely studded with gems tastefully 
 
 '* 'Sculptured images were so numerous, that the foundations of the 
 cathedral in the plaza mayor, the great square of Mexico, are said to be en- 
 tirely composed of them.' Prescotfs Mcx., vol. i., pp. 140-1. Two statues 
 in likeness of Montezuma and his brother cut in the cliiT at Cliapultcpcc. 
 Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. iii. The idols destroyed by Cortes 
 'cran de manera de dragones cspantables, tan grandes como beccrros, y otraa 
 liguras de manera de medio hombre, y de perros grandes, y de nialas seme- 
 jan^as.' Bcrnal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 35. 'Sapevano csprimcrc nelle lore 
 statue tutti gli attcggiamcuti, e positure, di cui h capace il corjio, osservavano 
 esattamente le proporzioni, e faeevano, dove si riciiiedcva, i piii niinuti, e 
 ililicati intaglj.' Viavigero, Storia Ant. del Afussico, imn. ii., p. 195. 'Ha- 
 l)ia cntre ellos grandes escultores de canteria, que labralian cuanto qucriaii 
 en piedra, con guijarros 6 pedernales, tan prima y curiosamente como en 
 nuestra Castilla los muy nuenos oficiales con escodas y nicos de acero.' 
 Mendieta, Hist. Erles., p. 403; Torquemada, Monara. Jnd., torn, ii., pp. 
 486-8; Portrait-statues of the Tezcucan kings. Ixtlitxochitl, Hist. ChicK., 
 m KingshorouglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 264; Id., Relaciones, p. 440. 
 Statues of Montezuma and brother. Bustamante, in Cnvo, Trea Siglos, torn. 
 iii., p. 49. 
 
 Vol. II. 31 
 
482 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 arranged, and a kind of mosaic, with which wooden 
 masks for the idols were often covered, attracted 
 much attention among the Spaniards. Mirrors of 
 rock crystal, obsidian, and other stones, brightly pol- 
 ished and encased in rich frames, were said to reflect 
 the human face as clearly as the best of European 
 manufacture." 
 
 Trees were felled with copper hatchets, hewn with 
 the same instruments into beams, and dragged ,hj 
 slaves over rollers to the place where they were 
 needed for building. Some of the chief idols, as for 
 instance that of Huitzilopochtli, according to Acosta, 
 were of wood, but wood-carving was n^it apparently 
 carried to a high degree of perfectiqv,! Some boxes, 
 furnished with lids and hinges, also tables and chairs, 
 were made of wood, which was the chief material of 
 weapons and agricultural implements. The authori- 
 ties devote but few words to the workers in wood, 
 who, however, after the conquest seem to have be- 
 come quite skillful under Spanish instruction, and 
 with the aid of European tools. Fire-wood was sold 
 
 IT 'Gli smeraldi erano tanto comuni, che non v'era Signore, che non ne 
 avesse.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., pp. 206-7. 'Esmaltan 
 assi inesmo, eiigastan y labran esnicraldas, turquesas, y otros piedras, v 
 aj^ujeran perlos pero no tatiibicn como por aca.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 117. 'Ambar, cristal, y las piedras Uaniadas amatista i)erlas, y todo ;;dncro 
 de ellas, y demas que traiaii por joyas que ahora se usan.' Sahagun, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 109-11, 117-18. 'Un enculado nmy pulido, que 
 era de ver, y piedras de que estaban hechas, tambicn labradas y pegadas, 
 que purecia scr cosa de iniisaico.' Id., p. 107. Shields adorned with 'perlaa 
 menudas coiuo aljofar, y no se puecic dczir su artificio, lindeza, y hermoaura.' 
 Sandals having 'por suelas vna picdra blanca y azul, cosa prcciosa y nuiy 
 delgada.' Herrera, Hist 'ien., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. v. Guaric^ucs of blue 
 stones set in gold; a stciic face surrounded with gold; a string of stone 
 beads. * Dos mascaras do piedras incnudas, como turquesas, sentadas sobre 
 madcra do otra nmsdyca.' Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pn. 626-8, torn, iii., 
 pp. 285, 305. Idol covered with n.osaic work of motncr of pearl, tur- 
 quoises, emeralds, and chalcedonies. Las Casus, Hist. Apologttica, MS., 
 cap. cxxxii. 'Excellent glasses may bee made thereof by smoothing and 
 polishing them, so that we all confessed that none of ours did better shcwe 
 the naturall and liucly face of a manne.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x. 
 ' lis avaicnt des masques garnis de pierres pr^cieuses, rcpn^sentant des lions, 
 des tigres, des ours, et«.' Camarao, Hist. Ttax., in Nonvelles Annates des 
 Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 133. Emerald altar t-o the Miztcc god. Burgoa, 
 Geo^. Descrip., tom. i. , pt ii., fol. 156. 'Y lo de las piedras, que no Iwsta 
 juicio d comprehender con qu^ instrumentos se hiciesc tan {terfecto.' Cortis, 
 Cartas, p. 109. 
 
MANUFACTURE OF POTTERY. 
 
 483 
 
 in the markets ; and Las Casas also tells us that char- 
 coal was burned." 
 
 At Cholula the best pottery was made, but 
 throughout the whole country nearly all the dishes 
 used were of clay. Pots, kettles, vases, plates for 
 domestic use, as well as censers and other utensils for 
 the temple service, also idols, beads, and various orna- 
 ments were modeled from this material. The early 
 Spaniards were enthusiastic in praising the native 
 potters' skill, but beyond the statement that vessels 
 of earthen ware were glazed and often tastefully dec- 
 orated, tliev give no definite information respecting 
 this branch of manufactures. Many small earthen 
 trumpets, or i. igeolets, capable of producing various 
 sounds, and of iinitating the cries of different bi^-ds, 
 have been found in different parts of the Mexican 
 Republic. Fortunately relics of pottery in every form 
 are of frequent occurrence in the museums, and from 
 the description of such relics in another volume the 
 excellence of Aztec pottery may be estimated. Be- 
 sides the earthen dishes, and vessels of metal and 
 carved wood, some baskets were made, and drinking- 
 cups or bowls of different sizes and shapes were 
 
 18 Huitzilopochtli's idol 'era vna cstatua de madcra entrctullada en 
 semejan^a dc vn liombre sentado en vn escario azul.' Acosta, IJi.st. dc las 
 Ynd. , p. 324. Large chests ' hcchas de niadera con sus tapaderaa que bc abrcn 
 y cierran con unos colKadizos.' Zuazo, Carta, in Icazlalceta, Col. de Doc, 
 torn, i., pp. 361-2. ' I Tategnami lavoravano bene pareccliie spezio di Icgni 
 co'loro strumcnti di rame, de'quali se ne vedono alcuni anche oggidl.' Clavi- 
 gero, Storia Ant. del Mcmco, torn, ii., pp. 207, 194-5. 'Los carpinteros y 
 entulladores labraban la inadcra con instrumcntos dc cobre, pero no sc da- 
 ban <i labrar cosas curiosas como los canteros.' Mendieta, Hist. Eclcs., p. 
 403. 'Labravan lazos, y animales tan curiosos (^ue causaron adniiracion k 
 los primeroa Espanoles.' Vctanarrt, 7'ca<ro ^/ipx., pt ii., p. 59. 'With their 
 Copper Hatchets, and Axes, cunnyngly tempered, they fell those trees, and 
 hcwc them smooth, taking away the chyppes, that they may more easily 
 bc drawne. They haiie also ccrtaync hcarlics, with the which, in steed of 
 brooiiie, and hempe, they make ropes, cordca, and cables: and bonring a 
 hole in one of the edges of the Iwame, they fasten the rope, then scttc their 
 slaucs vnto it, like yoakes of oxen, and lastly instecde of wheels, putting 
 round blocks vnder the timber, whether it be to lie drawn steepc vp, or 
 directly downc the hill, the matter is performed by ilic neckesof the slaucs, 
 the carpenters onely directing the carriage.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. 
 X. 'Hazen caxas, escritorios, mesas, escruianias, y otras cosas dc mucho 
 primor.' Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix. 'They made cups 
 and vases of a lackered or painted wood, impervious to wet and gaudily 
 colored.' PreKotCs Mex., vol. i., p. 143. 
 
484 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 foimed from the hollow shells of gov ds. These were 
 known as xicalli, later jicaras, and tecoinatl}* Sea- 
 shells were also used as dishes to some extent." 
 
 The finer kinds of cloth were made of cotton, of 
 rabbit-hair, of the two mixed, or of cotton mixed with 
 feathers. The rabbit-hair fabrics were pronounced 
 equal in finish and texture to silk, and cotton cloths 
 were also fine and white. Fabrics of this better class 
 were used for articles of dress by the rich, nobles, and 
 priests ; they were both woven and dyed in variegated 
 colors. The cloths in the inahufacture of which feath- 
 ers were employed often served for carpets, tapestry, 
 and bed-coverings. Maguey-fibre, and that of the 
 palm-leaves icxotl and izhuatl were woven into coarse 
 cloths, the maguey-cloth being known as nequen. 
 This nequen and the coarser kinds of cotton were 
 the materials with which the poorer classes clothed 
 themselves. The palm and maguey fibres were pre- 
 pared for use in the same manner as flax in other 
 countries, being soaked in water, pounded, and dried. 
 The same material served also for cords, ropes, and 
 mats. A coarser kind of matting was, however, 
 made of different varieties of reeds. All the work of 
 spinning and weaving was i)erformed by the wc-aen, 
 
 w Molina, Diceionario, says, however that, tlio teconiatl was an earthen 
 vase. Sec also ]). 458 of this volume. 
 
 ^ 'Siete sartas dc qiientas nicnudas de barro, redondas y doradas niuy 
 bien.' Ovicdo, Hist. Gen., toni. i., pp. 526, 533. 'I Pentolai faceva- 
 no d'arjnlla non solo gli stovi^lj necessarj per I'uso dclle case, ma ezi- 
 andio altri lavori di mcra cunoaitii.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssi- 
 CO, tom. ii., p. 207, torn, iv., pp. 211-2. 'La loza tan hennosa, y dclicada 
 como lade I^acnza en Italia.' Hcrrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. 
 ii., vii. 'Los incensarios con que incensaban cran dc barro, }i nianera ue 
 cuchara, cuio reniatc era hueco, y dentro tenian metidos pclotillus del mis- 
 mo barro, qne sonaban como cascavcles, h, los golpes del Incieuso, como 
 Buenan las cadenas dc nuestros incensarios.' Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn', ii., p. 264. The jicara was of gold, silver, courd-shclls, or fish- 
 aliclls. 'Aanquc estbu cicn Alios en el Agiia, luinca la pinturasc les bor- 
 ra.' Id., p. 488. 'Para C4iger la sangre tienen cscudillas de calaba^a.' Go- 
 niara, Conq. Mex. , fol. 324-5. ' Many sorts also of earthen vessels are sold 
 there, as water pots, greatc iuggs, chargers, gobblets, dishes, colcnders, 
 boscns, frying pans, porringers, pitchers.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iv. 
 ' Vasos qne Daman xicalll, y teconiatl, que son do vnos arlwics, que so dan 
 en tierras rnlicntes.' 'A estas les dan vn bamiz con flores, y animales dc 
 divei-sos colores, hernioseadas, que no se quita, ni sc despinta aunquc ostb 
 cii ol agua muchoj diau.' Vetancin-f, Tcntro Mex., pt ii., p. CO. 
 
 ^-...i ,M 
 
MAKING OF CLOTH AND PAPER. 
 
 486 
 
 forming indeed their chief employment. The spin- 
 dle used in spinning, shown in many of the Aztec 
 manuscripts, was like a top, which was set whirling in 
 a shallow dish, the fibre being applied tt) its pointed 
 upper extremity until the impetus was exliausted. 
 All we know of the native process of weaving is de- 
 rived from the native paintings, a sample of which 
 from the Mendoza Collection, showing a woman en- 
 gaged in weaving, may be seen in chapter xvii. of this 
 volume.'*' 
 
 Paper, in Aztec a/matl, used chiefly as a material on 
 which to paint the hieroglyphic records to be described 
 in a future chapter, was made for the most part of 
 maguey-fibre, although the other fibres used in the 
 mamifacture of cloth were occasionally mixed with 
 those of this plant. The material must have been 
 pressed together when wet, and the product was gen- 
 erally very thick, more like a soft paste-board than 
 our paper. The surface was smooth and well adapted 
 to the painting which it was to bear. Certain gums 
 are said to have been used for the more perfect cohe- 
 rence of the fibre, and the amatl was made in long 
 narrow sheets suitable for rolling or folding. Hum- 
 boldt describes certain bags of oval form, the work of 
 a species of caterpillars, on the trees in Michoacan. 
 They are white and may be separated into thin layers, 
 which, as the author states, were used by the ancient 
 
 21 'Non avcano lana, nh seta conmnc, nh lino, nbcanapa; ma supjilivano 
 alia lana col eotonc, alia seta coUa pinnia, e col polo del coni{;li(>, e dclla 
 Icpre, c<l al lino, ed alia canupa coll Icxoll, o palnia montana, col Quctea- 
 lichtli, ct>\ I'ati, e con altre spezie di Ma}j;uei.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del 
 Mcssico, torn, ii., pp. 207-8, 210. 'En toclo el niundo no se podia hacer ni 
 tejer otra tal, ni ae tantas ni tun diversas y natnrales colores ni labores.' 
 Corlis, Cartas, p. 101. 'Una Vest idiira del Gran Sacerdote Achcauhquit- 
 liiiarnncdni sc embib h, Roma en ticmpo dc la Conquista, que dexhpasmada 
 at^ucUa Corte.' Boturini, Idea, p. 77. The Olmecs used the hair of dogs 
 and other animals. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. i., pp. l.'J4, '2Si2-S. 
 'Incredible matters of Cotton, honsholde-stuffc, tapestry or arras hangings, 
 garments, and couerlets.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. iii. Humboldt states 
 that silk made by a species of indigenous worms was an article of com- 
 merce among the Miztecs, in the time of Montezuma. Essai Pol., tom. ii., 
 p. 454. 'HUan teniendo el copo en vna mano, y el huso en otra. Tuercen 
 al ruuea que aca, estando el huso en vna escudilla. No tiene hucca el liuso, 
 mas hilan a prissa y no mal.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 318. 
 
486 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 inhabitants . in the manufacture of a superior kind 
 of paper. *• 
 
 The skins of animals killed by the Nahua hunters 
 were tanned both with and without the hair, by a pro- 
 cess of which the authorities say nothing, although 
 universally praising its results. The leather was 
 used in some cases as a sort of parchment for hiero- 
 glyphic writings, but oftener for articles of dress, 
 ornament, or armor."* 
 
 In the preparation of dyes and paints, both min- 
 eral, animal, and vegetable colors were employed, the 
 latter extracted from woods, barks, leaves, flowers, 
 and fruits. In the art of dyeing they probably ex- 
 celled the Europeans, and many of their dyes have 
 since the conquest been introduced throughout the 
 world. Chief among these was the cochineal, nochiz- 
 tli, an insect fed by the Nahuas on the leaves of the 
 nopal, from which they obtained beautiful and perma- 
 nent red and purple colors for their cotton fabrics. 
 The flower of the matlalxihuitl supplied blue shades; 
 indigo was the sediment of water in which branches 
 of the xiuliquilipitzahucvc had been soaked ; seeds of 
 the achiotl boiled in water yielded a red, the French 
 
 *s Humboldt, Essai Pol., torn, ii., pp. 454-5, Maguey -paper 'resembling 
 somewhat the Egyptian joajoyrM«.' PrescotfsMex., vol. i., pp. 99-100. Some 
 paper of palm-lcat, as thin and soft as silk. Botvrini, Catmogo, mid.. Idea, 
 pp. 95-6. Native paper called cauAantat/. Tezozomoc,Cr<inica Mcx., in Kin^s- 
 hoi'ough's Mcx. Antiq., torn, ix., p. 65. They made paper of a certain species 
 of aloe, steeped together like hemp, and afterwards washed, stretched, and 
 smoothed; also of the palm icxotl, and thin barks united and prepared with 
 a certain gum. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 189, torn, 
 iv., p. 239. Torquemoda speaks of a sheet 20 fathoms long, one wide, and 
 as thick as the finger. Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 263. 
 
 '3 ' Habia oficiales de curtir cueros y muchos de adovarlos niaravillosa- 
 mente.' Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. Ixii. 'Cueros de Venado, 
 Tigres, y leones. . . .con pefo, y sin pelo, de todos colores.' Tt^-qucmada, 
 Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 488. 'Tan suaves que de ellos se vestian, y saca- 
 ban correas.' Vetancvrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., p. 60; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., 
 torn, iii., lib. x., p. 118. Cortes found the skins of some of his horses slain 
 in battle 'tan bien adobados como entodoelniundolopudieranhacer.' Car- 
 tas, p. 183. lied skins resembling parchment. Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., 
 p. 526. 'No se puede bien dezir su hermosura, y hechura.' Hcrrera, Hist. 
 Gen., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. v. 'Los tarascos curtian perfectamente las pieles 
 de los auimales.' Payno, in Soc. Mex. Geog., liolettn, 2da cpoca, torn, i., p. 
 721. 'Des tapis de cuir maroqnain^s avec la demifere perfection.' Bras- 
 seur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. i., p. 271. 
 
DYEING AND PAINTING. 
 
 487 
 
 roucou; ochre, or tecozahuitl, furnished yellow, as did 
 also the plant xochipalli, the latter being changed to 
 oraTi';o by the use of nitre; other shades were pro- 
 duced by the use of alum; the stones chimaltizatl and 
 tizatlalli being calcined, produced something like 
 Spanish white; black was obtained from a stinking 
 mineral, tlaliac, or from the soot of a pine called 
 ocotl. In mixing paints they used chian-oil, or some- 
 times the glutinous juice of the tzauhtli. The numer- 
 ous dye-woods of the tierra caliente, now the chief 
 exports from that region, were all employed by the 
 native dyers. It is probable that many of the secrets 
 of this branch of Nahua art were never learned by 
 the Spaniards.''^ 
 
 The Nahua paintings showed no great artistic 
 merit, being chiefly noticeable for the excellence of 
 the colors. Very few specimens have been preserved 
 for modern examination, except the hieroglyphic 
 paintings in which most of the figures are hideously 
 and, as it is supposed, purposely distorted, and con- 
 sequently no criterion of tlie artist's skill. It is not 
 known that the Nahuas ever attempted to paint 
 natural scenery, except that they prepared maps of 
 sections of their territory on which they rudely rep- 
 resented the mountains, rivers, and forests, indicating 
 the lands of different owners or lords by the use of 
 different colors. They sometimes made portraits of 
 the kings and nobles, but the Spanish chroniclers 
 admit that they exhibited much less skill in picturing 
 the human form and face than in drawing animals, 
 birds, trees, and flowers. Some niodern critics of 
 lively imagination have, however, detected indications 
 of great artistic genius in the awkward figures of the 
 
 ** Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 18{>-90; Carhajal Espi- 
 nosa. Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 652-3. Method of raising cochineal. Id., jij). 
 625-6. 'En parcourant le palaiti de Montuzuina les Castillans furent tr^s- 
 dtonn^B d'y voir des sacs de punaiscs dont on se servait a tcindre et nidme h 
 badigeonner les niurs.' Bostty, in Comiti d'Arch. Amir., 1866-7, pp. 15- 
 16. See p. 235 of this volume. They possessed the art of dyeing a fabric 
 without impairing its strength, an art unknown to Europeans of the 18th 
 century. Carli, Cartas, pt ii., pp. 95-7. 
 
488 
 
 TilE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 picture-writings. Native painters, when Cortds ar- 
 rived on the coast, painted his ships, men, horses, 
 cannon, in fact everything new and strange in the 
 white men's equipment, and hurried with the canvas 
 to Montezuma at the capital. Very little is known 
 of ornamental painting on the walls of private dwell- 
 ings, but that on the temples naturally partook to a 
 great extent of a hieroglyphic character. The dura- 
 bility of the paintings on cloth and paper, especially 
 when rubbed occasionally with oil, was remarked by 
 many observers, as was also the skill displayed by the 
 natives later under Spanish instruction.'" 
 
 The mixture of feathers with cotton and other fibres 
 in the manufacture of clothing, tapestry, carjjet >, and 
 bed-coverings has already been mentioned. For such 
 fabrics plain colors from ducks and other aquatic birds 
 were generally employed, brighter hues being occa- 
 sionally introduced for ornamental purposes. Feath- 
 ers also played an important part in the decoration of 
 warriors' annor, the tail-feathers of the bright-hued 
 quetzal being the favorites. These were formed into 
 brilliant plumes, often tipped with gold and set in 
 precious stones. Beautiful fans were made of the 
 same material. But the art which of all those prac- 
 ticed by the Nahuas most delighted and astonished 
 the Europeans, was the use of feathers in the making 
 of what has been called feather-mosaic. The myriads 
 
 ss ' Y pintorcs ha habido entre cllos tan sefialados, que sobre muchos de 
 los scfialados dondc qiiicra que Be hallasen se podian sefialar.' Las Casus, 
 Hist. Apologitica, M8., cap. Ixii. The same author speaks of their skill 
 in reducing or cnhir^iii^ drawings. 'Havia Piutores buenos, que retrata- 
 ban al natural, en especial Aves, Animales, Arboles, Flores, y Verduras, y 
 otras seinejantes, que vsaban pintar, en los aposentos de los Keies, y Seflores; 
 pero formas hunianas, asi couio rostros, y cuerpos <le Hombres, y Mngcres, 
 no los pintaban al natural.' I'orqnemaaa, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 487, 
 torn, i., p. 388; Mendieta, Hist. Eclcs., p. 404. 'Dans leur grotesque et 
 leur raccourci, on trouve encore cependant une dt^lieatesse de pinceau, fort 
 remarquable, une purctti et une finesse dans les esquisses, qu'on ne saurait 
 s'enipficher d'adiuirer; on voit, d'ailleurs, tin grand nonibrc de portraits de 
 rois et de princes, qui sent ^videniment faits d'apres nature.' Brasscitr de 
 Boiirbourg, Hist. ISat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 653-4. 'Wee sawe a Mappe of 
 those countreyes 30. foote long, and little lesse in breadth, made of white 
 cotton, wouen: wherein the whole playne was at large described.' Peter 
 Martyr, dec. v., lib. x., iii., v. 
 
FEATHER-MOSAIC. 
 
 4» 
 
 of tropical birds in which the forests of the tierra 
 caliente abounded, chief among which were the quet- 
 zal, many varieties of the parrot kind, and the nuit- 
 zilin, or humming-bird, supplied feathers, fine and 
 coarse, of every desired color and shade. It was for 
 this use chiefly that the royal and other collections of 
 birds, already described, were so carefully kept. These 
 captive birds were plucked each year at the proj)er 
 season, and their plumage sorted according to color 
 and quality. Some shades only to be obtained from 
 the rarest birds, were for ordinary feather- work arti- 
 ficially produced by dyeing the white plumage of more 
 common birds. 
 
 To prepare for work the amanteca, or artist, ar- 
 ranged his colors in small earthen dishes within easy 
 reach of his hand, stretched a piece of cloth on a board 
 before him, and provided himself with a pot of glue 
 — called by Clavigero tzauhtli, — and a pair of very 
 delicate pincers. The design he wished to execute 
 was first sketched roughly on the cloth, and then with 
 the aid of the pincers feather after feather was taken 
 from its dish and glued to the canvas. The Spanish 
 writers marvel at the care with which this work was 
 done ; sometimes, they say, a whole day was consumed 
 in properly choosing and adjusting one delicate feather, 
 the artist patiently experimenting until the hue and 
 position of the feather, viewed from different points 
 and under different lights, became satisfactory to his 
 eye. When a large piece was to be done, many work- 
 men assembled, a part of the work was given to each, 
 and so skillfully was the task performed that the parts 
 rarely failed at the end to blend into an harmonious 
 whole; but if the effect of any part was unsatisfac- 
 tory it must be commenced anew. By this method a 
 great variety of graceful patterns were wrought, either 
 fanciful, or taken from natural objects, flowers, ani- 
 mals, and even the human face, which latter the na- 
 tive artists are said to have successfully portrayed. 
 Las Casas tells us they made these feather-fabrics so 
 
490 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Hkillfully that they appeared of different colors accord - 
 in«i^ to the direction from which they were viewed. 
 Tiie Spaniards declare that the feather-pictures were 
 fully equal to the best works of European painters, 
 and are at a loss for words to express their admiration 
 of this wonderful Nahua invention ; specimens of great 
 beauty have also been preserved and are to be seen in 
 the museums. Besides mantles and other garments, 
 tapestry, bed-coverings, and other ornamental fabrics 
 for the use of the noble and wealthy classes, to which 
 this art was applied, the feather-mosaic was a favorite 
 covering for the shields and armor of noted war- 
 riors. By the same process masks were made repre- 
 senting in a manner true to nature the faces of tierce 
 animals; and even the whole bodies of such animals 
 were sometimes counterfeited, as Zuazo says, so faith- 
 fully as to deceive the ignorant observer. The Taras- 
 cos of Michoacan were reputed to be the most skillful 
 in feather-work.*' 
 
 The feather-workers were called amantecas from 
 Amantla, the name of the ward of Mexico in which 
 
 *• 'La Natura ad essi somministrava qnanti colori fa adnpcrar I'Arte, c 
 alcuni ancora, que esaa non b capnce d' iinitarc' The Hpecimeiis made aft(*r 
 the conquest were very inferior. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, 
 ii., pp. 197-9. 'Hazense las mejores yniagince de phima en la prouincia 
 dc Mechoacan en el pueblo de Pascaro.' Acoata, Hist, de las Y'na., p. 286. 
 'Vi ciertos follajes, pdjaros, niariposas, abejones sobre unas varan teni- 
 blantes, negras 6 tan delgadas, que apenas se veian, A de tal nianera que 
 rcalinente se hacian vivas & los que las niiraban un poquito de lejos: todolo 
 dcnias que estaba cerca de las dichas ninriposas, pdjaros 6 abejones corres- 
 pondia naturalniente d boscajes de yerbas, ranios e ilores dc diversas colo- 
 res 6 fornias.' Zuazo, Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 360. 
 'Figuras, y iniagenes de Principes, y de sua idolos, iKn vistosas, y tan acerta- 
 das, i^ue hazian ventaja a las pinturas Castellanus.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., 
 dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xv. 'Muchas cosasde Plimva, foi; o Aves, Animales, 
 Hombres, y otras cosas niui delieadas, CnpaH, y Manias para cubrirse, y 
 vestiduras para los Sacerdotes de sub Templos, Coro.as, Mitras, Kodclas, 
 y Mosqueadores.' Torqnemada, Monarq. Iiid., t-sii. ii., pp. 488-9; Vetan- 
 evrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., p. 59; Mendicta, Hist. Eeits., pp. 405-6; Las Casas, 
 Hist. Attologitica, MS., cap. Ixii. 'Acontece les no comer en todo vn dia, 
 poniendo, quitando y assentando la pluma, y mirando k una parte, y h otra, 
 al sol, a la sombra,' etc. Goinara, Cong. Mcx., fol. 116-17. Mention of the 
 birds which furnished bright-colored feathers. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Cong., 
 fol. 68-9. ' lis en faisaient des rondaches et d'autres insignes, compris sous 
 le nom d' " Apanecayotl," dont rien n'approchait pour la richcsse et le iini.' 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. C»v., torn, i., p. 285; Sahagun, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 109. Mention of some specimens preserved iu 
 Europe. Kletnm, Cultur-Geschichte, torn, v., p. 30. 
 
 I 
 
THE COUNCIL OF ARTS IN TEZCUCO. 
 
 m 
 
 they chiefly lived. This ward adjoined that of Poch- 
 tlan, where Hved the chief merchants called })ochtecas, 
 and the shrine of the ainantecas' god Ciotlinahuatl, 
 was also joined to that of the merchants' god lyacate- 
 cutli. The feather- workers and merchants were closely 
 united, there was great similarity in all their idola- 
 trous rites, and they often sat together at the same 
 banquet." 
 
 Another art, similar in its nature to that of the 
 feather-mosaics, was that of pasting leaves and flow- 
 ers upon mats so as to form attractive designs for tem- 
 porary use on the occasion of special festivals. The 
 natives made great use of these flower-pictures after 
 the conquest in the decoration of the churches for 
 Catholic holidays.** 
 
 The Nahuas kindled a fire like their more savage 
 brethren by friction between two pieces of wood, 
 achiotl being the kind of wood preferred for this pur- 
 pose. Boturini, followed by later writers, states that 
 the use of the flint was also known. Once kindled, 
 the fla aes were fanned by the use of a blow-pipe. 
 For lights, torches of resinous wo )d were employed, 
 especially the oeotl, which emitted a pleasing odor. 
 The use of wicks with oil or wax was apparently un- 
 known until after the coming of Europeans. Substi- 
 tutes for soap were found in tlie fruit of the copalxo- 
 cotl and root of the amolli. 
 
 All the branches of art among the Nahuas were 
 placed under the control of a council or academy 
 which was instituted to favor the development of poe- 
 try, oratory, history, painting, and also to some extent 
 of sculpture and work in gold, precious stones, and 
 feathers. Tezcuco was the centre of all high art and 
 refinement during the })aliny days of the Chichimec 
 empire, and retained its preeminence to a great extent 
 down to the coming of the Spaniards; consequently 
 
 " Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. \x., pp. 392-0. 
 
 *8 Tor^uemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 489; Vetancurt, Teatro 
 Mex., pt li., p. R9; Mendieict, Uist. Ecles., p. 405; Las Casas, Hist. Apolo- 
 gHica, MS., cap. 1. 
 
492 
 
 T ,.ii NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 its school of arts is better known than others that 
 probably existed in other cities. It was called the 
 Council of Music, although taking cognizance of other 
 arts and sciences, chiefly by controlling the education 
 of the young, since no teacher of arts could exercise 
 his profession without a certificate of his qualifications 
 from the council. Before the same body all pupils 
 must be brought for examination. TJie greatest care 
 was taken that no defective work of lapidary, gold- 
 smith, or worker in feathers should be exposed for 
 sale in the markets, and that no imperfectly instructed 
 artists should be allowed to vitiate the public taste. 
 But it was above all with literary arts, poetry, oratory, 
 and historical paintings, that this tribunal, composed 
 of the best talent and culture of the kingdom, had to 
 do, and every literary work was subject to its revision. 
 The members, nominated by the emperor of Tezcuco, 
 held daily meetings, and seats of honor were reserved 
 for the kings of the three allied kingdoms, although a 
 presiding officer was elected from the nobility with 
 reference to his literary acquirements. At certain 
 sessions of the council, poems and historical essays 
 were read by their authors, and new inventions were 
 exhibited for inspection, rich prizes being awarded for 
 excellence in any branch of learning.^ 
 
 Speech-making is a prominent feature in the life 
 of most aboriginal tribes, and in their fondness for 
 oratory the Nahuas were no exceptions to the rule. 
 Many and long addresses accompanied the installa- 
 tion of kings and all public officers; all diplomatic 
 correspondence between different nations was carried 
 on by orators; prayers to the gods were in aboriginal 
 as in modern times elaborate elocutionary efftirts; the 
 departing and returning traveler was dismissed and 
 welcomed with a speech; condolence for misfortune 
 and congratulation for success were expressed in pub- 
 
 » Veytin, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., pp. 201-3; Torquemada, Monarq. 
 Iml., toiii. i., p. 147; Jxllilxoc/utl, Ilist. Chich., in Kingsborough^s Mcx. 
 Antiq., vol. ix., p. 244. 
 
ORATORY AND POESY. 
 
 lie and private by the friends most skillful in the art 
 of speaking; social intercourse in feasts and banquets 
 was but a succession of speeches; and parents even 
 employed long- discourses to impart to their children 
 instruction and advice. Consequently children were 
 instructed at an early age in the art of public speak- 
 ing; some were even specially educated as orators. 
 They were obliged to commit to memory, and taught 
 to repeat as declamations, the speeches of their most 
 famous ancestors, handed down from father to son for 
 many generations. Specimens of the orations de- 
 livered by Nahua speakers on dift'erent occasions are 
 so numerous in this and the following volume, that 
 the reader may judge for himself respecting their 
 merit. It is impossible, however, to decide how far 
 these compositions have been modified in passing 
 through Spanish hands, although it is probable, ac- 
 cording to the judgment of the best critics, that they 
 retain much of the original spirit of their reputed 
 authors.** 
 
 Poets, if somewhat less numerous, were no less 
 honored than orators. Their compositions were also 
 recited, or sung, before the Council of Music in Tez- 
 cuco, and the most talented bards were honored with 
 prizes. The heroic deeds of warlike ancestors, national 
 annals and traditions, praise of the gods, moral les- 
 sons drawn from actual events, allegorical produc- 
 tions with illustrations drawn IVom the beauties of 
 nature, and even love and tiio chmns ot" woman were 
 the common themes. The cnijieror Nezahualeoyotl, 
 the protector and promoter of all tlie arts and sci- 
 ences, was himself a poet of groat renown. Several 
 
 " ' Av^-e^achfe i lor |)iu cclcbri Aringutori nou siciio da parii<;i>imrsi 
 co}?li Oraton dclle Xuzioni culte doU'Europii, \ioii piifi pcraltro lU'j^ai'Mi, olio 
 i loro ra(;ioiiaiiieiiti itoii fosscro };™vi, sodi, cd eleganti, come si kcoivc dagli 
 avaiixi elie ci restano della loro eloiiiuMi/a.' Clavigrro, Sfon'a Aiif. ad Mrs- 
 nico, torn, ii., yv '7 -5. 'Lcs rai»<oiuiciiiont8 y sont graves, los ar{L;iiiuciitH 
 Bididca, et pleii;. • .('"anct-.' Brassi'iir de liourbourg, Hint. Xnf. Civ., toni. 
 iii., p. 672; Prcsr.ott'.i Mex., vol. i., pp. 172-.S. Moiiteziinia's sncfcli to Tor- 
 tds, 111 Ovicdo, Jlist. GfU., toiii. iii., i)p. 285-0. 'Tliu Spaniards have ffivcii 
 us nuiny fine polished Indian oratioiis, but they weru certainly fabricated 
 at Madrid.' Adair, Aiiier. I ml., p. •202. 
 
494 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 of his compositions, or fragments of such, },".ve been 
 preserved ; that is, the poems were written from mem- 
 ory in Aztec with Koman letters after the conquest, 
 and translated into Spanish by Ixtlilxochitl, a lineal 
 descendant of the royal poet. They have also been 
 translated into other languages by various authors. 
 The following will serve as specimens.'^ 
 
 SONO OF NEZAHUALCOYOTL, KING OF TEZCUCO; ON THE MUTABILITY 
 
 OF LIFE. 
 
 Now will I sing for a moment, 
 Since time and occasion offer, 
 And I trust to be lienrd with favor 
 If my effort proveth deserving; 
 Wherefore thus I begin my singing, 
 Or rather my lamentotion. 
 
 O thou, my friend, and beloved. 
 Enjoy the sweet flowers I bring thee; 
 Let us be joyful together 
 And banish each care and each forrow; 
 ' For although life's pleasures are. fleeting, 
 Life's bitterness also mu£t leave us. 
 
 I will strike, to help me in singing. 
 
 The instrument deep and sonorous; 
 
 Dance thou, while enjoying these flowers. 
 
 Before the great Lord who is mighty ; 
 
 Let us grasp the sweet things of the present, 
 
 For the life of a man is soon over. 
 
 Fair Acolhuacdn thou hast chosen 
 
 As thy dwelling-place and thy palace; 
 
 Thou hast set up thy royal throne there, 
 
 With thine own hand hast thou enriched it; 
 
 Wherefore it seems to Ik; certain 
 
 That thy kingdom shall prosper and flourish . 
 
 'I Four poems or fragments are given in Spanish in Kingshoronf/h's 
 Mcx. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 110-15. No. 1 has for its subject the tyrant Te- 
 zozomoc; No. 2 is an ode on the mutability of life; No. 3 is an oilc recited 
 at a feast, comparing the ^reat kings of Anahuac to precious stones; No. 4 
 was composed for the dedication of the author's palace and treats of the un- 
 satisfactory nature of earthly honors. Nos. 2 and 3 arc also found in Doc. 
 I fist. Mcx., serie iii., torn, iv., pp. 286-93. No. 2 is given in PrescofCa 
 Max., vol. iii., pp. 425-30, in Spanish and English verse. A French trans- 
 lation of No. 1 is given by Brasseur do Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. C'ii:, torn, 
 iii., pp. 672-4, who also gives an additional specimen from Carochi's 
 grammar, in Aztec and Spanish. Nos. 1, 2, and 4 in French, in Bu.s,ti'Tre, 
 L' Empire Mex., pp. 411-17. No. 4 is to be found in Granados y Galvcz, 
 Tarda Aincr., pp. 90^. Nos. 1 and 4, in German, in Midler, Reisen, torn, 
 iii., pp. 138-41, where are also two additional odes. No. 2 is also given in 
 German by Klemm, CtUtur-Geschichfn, tom. v., pp. 146-61. 
 
NEZAHUALCOYOTL'S ODES. 
 
 495 
 
 3en 
 
 sm- 
 
 3St, 
 
 leal 
 3en 
 |)rs. 
 
 Uty 
 
 And thou, wise Prince Oyojrotzin, 
 Mighty monarcli, und King without equal, 
 Rejoice in the beauty of Hpring-time, 
 Be happy while spring abides with thee, 
 For the day creepeth nearer and nearer 
 When thou shalt seek joy and not find it. 
 
 A day when dark Fate, the destroyer. 
 Shall tear from thine hand the proud sceptre, 
 When the moon of thy glory shall lensen, 
 Thy pride and thy strength be diminished. 
 The spoil from thy servants be taken. 
 Thy kingdom and honor go from thee. 
 
 Ah, then in this day of great sorrow 
 
 The lords of thy line will lie mournful, 
 
 The princes of might will be downcast, 
 
 Tlic pride of high birth will avail not; 
 
 When thou, their great Head, hast liccn smitten 
 
 The pains of grim Want will assail them. 
 
 Then with bitterness will they remember 
 The glory and fame of thy greatness. 
 Thy triuiDPhs so worthy of envy. 
 Until, while comparing the present 
 With years that are gone now forever, 
 Their tears shall be more than the ocean. 
 
 The vassals that cluster about thee 
 
 And arc us a crown to thy kingdom. 
 
 When thine arm doth no lonj^er uphold them. 
 
 Will suffer the fate of the exile; 
 
 In strange lands their pride will be humbled. 
 
 Their rank and their name be forgotten. 
 
 Tl'.i ttiiiie of the race that is mighty, 
 
 A'l') w ;Ttliy a thousand fair kingdoms, 
 
 Wii? \uA 1. 1 the future be heeded; 
 
 T'le imli U18 will only remember 
 
 The j':".ice with which they were governed 
 
 III Ui? vears when the kingdom was threefold. 
 
 lu M- -'ico 7)r<»udest of cities. 
 
 Reign cu lie mighty and bruve Montezuma, 
 
 Nezahualcoyotl, the just one 
 
 Of blest Culhiiaciin wus the monarch, 
 
 To strong Totoqull fell the ])ortion 
 
 Of Acatlapdn, the third kingdom. 
 
 But yet thou shalt not be forgotten. 
 
 Nor the good thou hast ever accomplished; 
 
 Fo.-, is not the throne that thou fillest 
 
 The gift of the god without equal, 
 
 I'he mighty Creator of all thiiifjs, 
 
 V,:e maker of Kings and of Princes? 
 
 I 
 
496 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Nezahualcoyotl, be happy 
 
 With the pleasant things that thou knowest, 
 
 Rejoice in the lieautiful garden, 
 
 \yreatlie thy front with a garland of floweni, 
 
 Give heed to my song and my music. 
 
 For I care but to pleasure thy fancy. 
 
 The sweet things of life are but shadows; 
 The triumphs, ihe honors, what are they 
 But dreams that arc idle and last not 
 Though clothed in a semblance of being? 
 And so great is the truth that I utter, 
 I pray thee to answer this question. 
 
 Cihuapdn, the valiant, "i -^ '= he. 
 And QuauhtzintecomtKih, o'^ity. 
 
 The great Cohualuiatzin, >> .;ro they? 
 
 They are dead, and have lei; i no token. 
 Save their names, and the fame of their valor; 
 They are gone from this world to another. 
 
 I wo\ild that those living in friendship. 
 Whom the thread of strong love doth encircle. 
 Could see the sharp sword of the Death-god. 
 For, verily, pleasure is fleeting. 
 All sweetness must change in the future. 
 The good things of life are inconstant. 
 
 ODE ON THE TYRANT TEZOZOMOC BY NEZAHUALCOYOTL THE KINO. 
 
 Give ear unto the lamentation which I, Nezahualcoyotl the King, make 
 within myself for the fate of the Empire, and set forth for an example unto 
 others. 
 
 O King, unstable and restless, when thou art dead then shall thy people 
 Im3 overthrown and confcmnded; thy place shall l>e no more; the Creator, 
 the All-powerful shall reign. 
 
 Who could have thought, having seen the palaces and the court, the 
 glory and the power of the old King Tezozomoc, that these things could 
 have an end? Yet have they withered and perished. Verily, life giveth 
 naught but disappointment and vexation; all that is, wcareth out and pass- 
 eth away. 
 
 Who will not Imj sorrowful at the remembrance of the ancient splendor 
 of this tyrant, this withered old man; who, like a thirsty willow, nourished 
 by the nu>isturc of his ambition and avarice, lorded it over the lowly mead- 
 ows and flowery fields while spring-time lasted, but at length, dried up and 
 decayed, the storms of winter tore him up by the roots and scattered him 
 in pieces upon the ground. 
 
 Itut now, with tliis mournful song, I bring to mind the things that flour- 
 ish for an hour, and jircsent, in the fate of Tezozomoc, an example of the 
 brevity of human greatness. Who, that listens to me, can retrain from 
 weeping? Verily, the enjoyments and pleasures of life are as a Iwuquet of 
 flowers, that is passed from hand to hand until it fades, withers, and is dead. 
 
 Hearken unto me, ye sons of kings and of princes, take good heed and 
 ponder the theme of niy mournful song, the things that flourish for an hour, 
 and the end of the King Tezozomoc. Who is he, I say again, that can hear 
 me and not weej)? Verily, the enjoyments and pleasures of life are as a 
 handful of flowers, blooming fur a space, but soon withered and dead. 
 
AZTEC ARITHMETICAL SYSTEM. 
 
 497 
 
 Let the joyous birds sing on and rejoice in the beauty of spring, and the 
 butterflies enjoy the lioney and perfume of the flowers, for lite is as a ten- 
 der plant that is plucked and withereth away. 
 
 Granados tells us that Nezahualcoyotl's poems were 
 all in iambic verse, resembling in style the works of 
 Manilius, Seneca, Pomponius, Euripides, and Lilius. 
 In one of his songs he compared the shortness of life 
 and of its pleasures with the fleeting bloom of a 
 flower, so pathetically as to draw tears from the au- 
 dience, as Clavigero relates. Ixtlilxochitl narrates 
 that a prisoner condemned to death obtained pardon 
 by reciting a poem before the king. There is not 
 much evidence that verses were ever written in rhyme, 
 but the authors say that due attention was paid to 
 cadence and metre, and that some unmeaning syllables 
 were added to certain lines to accommodate the meas- 
 ure. By their system of combination a single word 
 often suflSced for a line in the longest measure. 
 Many of their poetical compositions were intended for 
 the dramatic representations which have been spoken 
 of elsewhere.** 
 
 The Nahua system of numeration was very simple 
 and comprehensive, there being no limit to the num- 
 bers that could be expressed by it. The following 
 table wilS give a clear idea of the method as em- 
 ployed l>y the Aztecs: 
 
 One, ce, or cetu 
 
 Two, otne. 
 
 Three, yey, or ei. 
 
 Four, nahui. 
 
 Five, maciUlli, — signifying the 'clenched hand,' one finger having been 
 
 originally doubled, ns is ujpposcd, Tot each unit in 
 
 counting from one to five. 
 
 »« Boturini, Idea, pp. 90-7. The language of their poetry was brilliant, 
 pure, and agreeable, ngurutiye, and cniljollislicd with frequent comparisons 
 to the most pleasing objects in nature. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, 
 tom.j'i., pp. 174-6. Nezahualcoyotl left sixty hymns composed in honor of 
 
 the Creator of Heaven. Id., torn, i., pp. 232, 246-7; Pimentd, Mem. xobte 
 la Baza Indi^ena, pp. 57-9; PrescotfsMex., vol. i., pp. 108, 171-5; Carbajal 
 Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 639-40. 'Cantauan lamentaciones, y 
 endechas. Tenian pronosticos, especialmente que se aula de acabar el 
 mundo, y los cantauan lastimosamente: y tambien tenian memoria de bus 
 grandczas, en cantares ypinturas.* Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., 
 cap. xvi.; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., ia Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 ix., p. 275. 
 
 Vol. II. 33 
 
498 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 8ix, chico a ee. 
 
 Seven, chic ome. 
 
 Eight, chico ey. 
 
 Nine, chico nahui, - These names from six to nine are simply those 
 from one to four, with a prefix whose meaning is not 
 altogether clear, but which is said to be composed of 
 chico, 'at one side,' and ihitan or huan, meaning 
 'near another,' 'with,' or simply 'and.' These names 
 may conse(]^uently be interpreted perhaps, 'one side 
 (or nand) with one,' 'one hand with two,' etc., or one 
 two, etc., 'with the other side.' 
 
 Ten, tnatlactli — that is the upper part of the body, or all the fingers of 
 the hands. 
 
 Eleven, matlactli oc ce, ten and one. 
 
 Twelve, matlactli om ome, ten and two. 
 
 Thirteen, matlactli om ey, ten and three. 
 
 Fourteen, mMtlacili o nahui, ten and four. 
 
 In these names oc, om, o, or on as Molina gives it, 
 seems to be used as a connective particle, equivalent 
 to 'and,' but I am not ac(^uaintcd with its derivation. 
 
 Fifteen, caxtolli, a word to which the authorities give no derivative mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Sixteen, caxtolli oc ee, fifteen and one, etc. 
 
 Twenty, ccm j/ohualli, ouce twenty. 
 
 The vord pohuulU means 'a count,' the number 
 twenty being in a sense the foundation of the whole 
 numerical system. 
 
 Twenty-one, cem pohualli oc ce, once twenty and one, etc. 
 
 Thirty, cem pohualli, ihuan (or om as Molina has it) matlactli, once twenty 
 and ten. 
 
 Thirty-five, cem pohualli ihuan (or on) caxtolli, once twenty and fifteen, 
 etc. 
 
 Forty, ome pohualli, twice twenty, etc. 
 
 One "hundred, macuil pohualli, five times twenty. 
 
 Two hundred, matlactli pohualli, ten times twenty. 
 
 Four hundred, cen tzontlt, once four hundred, 'the hair of the head.' 
 
 Eight hundred, ome tzontli, twice four hundred. 
 
 One thousand, ome tzontli ihuan matlactli pohualli, twice four hundred 
 and ten times twenty. 
 
 Eight thousand, xiquipilli, a purse or sack, already mentioned as contain- 
 ing eight thousand cacao-nibs. 
 
 Sixteen thousand, ome xiquipilli, twice eight thousand. 
 
 It will be seen from the table that the only num- 
 bers having simple names are one, two, three, four, 
 five, ten, fifteen, twenty, four hundred, and eight 
 thousand; all the rest are compounds of these con- 
 structed on the principle that when the smaller num- 
 ber follows the larger the sum of the two is expressed, 
 but when the smaller precedes the larger, their prod- 
 uct is indicated. Molina and Leon y Gama are the 
 chief authorities on the Nahua arithmetical system. 
 All the writers agree perfectly respecting its details, 
 but difier considerably in orthography. Molina writes 
 
SYSTEM OF NUMERATION. 
 
 489 
 
 each compound name together as a single word, while 
 Gaina often separates a word into its parts as I have 
 done in every case, following his spelling. 
 
 The manner in which the numbers were written 
 was as simple as the system itself. A point or small 
 circle indicated a unit, and these points sufficed for 
 the numbers from one to nineteen. Twenty was in- 
 dicated by a flag, four hundred by a feather, and eight 
 thousand by a purse. One character placed above 
 another indicated that the product was to be taken; 
 for instance, 160,000 might be expressed either by 
 twenty purses, or by a flag over a purse. To avoid 
 the excessive use of the unit points in writing large 
 and fractional numbers, each flag, feather, and purse 
 was divided into four quarters, and only those quar- 
 ters which were colored were to be counted. Thus 
 five might be expressed by five points or by a flag 
 with but one quarter colored; three hundred and 
 fifty-six would be indicated by a feather with three 
 quarters colored, two complete flags, three quarters 
 of another flag, and one point. 
 
 We have seen that twenties were used, much as 
 dozens are by us, as the foundation of all numeration, 
 but strangely enough these twenties took difierent 
 names in counting different classes of articles. The 
 regular name, as given in the table, is pohualH; in 
 counting sheets of paper, tortillas, small skins, and 
 other thin objects capable of being packed one above 
 another in small parcels, each twenty was c.iUed pilli; 
 in counting cloths and other articles usually formed 
 into large rolls, quiinilli was the name applied to 
 twenty; and in counting persons, lines, walls, and 
 other things ranged in order, the term tecpantli was 
 sometimes employed. In reckoning birds, eggs, fruits, 
 seeds, and round or plump objects, generally tetl, 'a 
 stone,' was affixed to each one of the numerals in the 
 table ; pantli was in the same way added for objects 
 arranged in regular order, and also for surface meas- 
 urements; tlamantli likewise was joined to the nu- 
 
soo 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 merals for articles sold in pairs or sets, as shoes, 
 dishes, etc.; while ears of corn, cacao in bunches, and 
 other bulky articles required the termination olotl. 
 
 Among all the Nahua nations, so far as known, 
 the arithmetical system was practically the same, and 
 was essentially decimal. Nearly all gave great prom- 
 inence to the number twenty; the Huastec lan- 
 guage had simple names for the numbers from one to 
 ten, twenty, and one thousand ; the Otomi approached 
 still nearer our modern system by making one hun- 
 dred also one of its fundamental numbers with an 
 uncompounded name as well as a compounded one.'' 
 
 Astrology, soothsaying, the interpretation of dreams, 
 and of auguries such as the flight or song of birds, 
 the sudden meeting of wild animals, or the occurrence 
 of other unlooked-for events, were regarded by the 
 Nahuas as of the greatest importance, and the prac- 
 tice of such arts was entrusted to the tonalpouhqui, 
 'those who count by the sun,' a class of men held in 
 high esteem, to whom was attributed a perfect knowl- 
 edge of future events. We have seen that no under- 
 taking, public or private, of any importance, could be 
 engaged in except under a suitable and propitious sign, 
 and to determine this sign the tonalpouhqui was ap- 
 pealed to. The science of astrology was written down 
 in books kept with great secrecy and mystery, alto- 
 gether unintelligible to the common crowd, whose 
 good or bad fortune was therein supposed to be painted. 
 The details of the methods employed in the mysterious 
 rites of divination are nowhere recorded, and the con- 
 tinual mention of the seer's services throughout the 
 chapters of this and the following volume render this 
 paragraph on the subject sufficient here. 
 
 In addition to the miscellaneous arts described in 
 the preceding pages, separate chapters will be devoted 
 
 ** Molina, Vocabulario; Leon y Gatna, Dos Piedras, pt ii., pp. 128-47; 
 Soc. Mex, Geog., Bolvtin, 2da ^poca, torn, iv., Sept., 1872; Gallatin, in 
 Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 49-57; Pimentel, Mem. sobre la 
 Raza Indigena, pp. 45-7; Prescotft Mex., vol. i., pp. 10&-10. 
 
AUTHORITIES ON NAHUA ARTS. 
 
 601 
 
 to the Nahua calendar, hieroglyphics, architecture, 
 and medicine.** 
 
 ^ My authorities for the matter in this chapter are: Sahagun, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, ii., lib. ix., pp. 282-337, 387-96, torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 107-12, 
 117-18, 122, 131, 137; Las Caaaa, Hist. Apohaetica, MS., cap. 1., Ixii-lxiii., 
 Ixv., cxxi., cxxxii., clxxii., ccxi. ; Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 403-7; Cortts, 
 Cartas, pp. 29-34, 94, 100-1, 109, 183, 192; Acosta, Hist, de Itu Ynd., pp. 
 198, 286, 324; Vetanevrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., pp. 59-60; Beaumont, Crdn. 
 JdecAoacan, MS., pp. 48-50; Boturini, Idea, p|>. 77-8, 90-7; Peter Martyr, 
 dec. iv., lib. iv., oec. v., lib. i-v., x., dec. viii., lib. iv.; Gomara, Conq. 
 Mex., fol. 39, 42, 60-2, 75, 116-18, 135-6, 318, 324-5, 342-3; Duran, Hist 
 Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. iii.; Leony Gama, Dos Piedras, ptii., pp. 26, 
 128-47; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn. L, pp. 232, 245-7, torn, ii., 
 pp. 174-8, 189-99, 205-10, 224-8, torn, iv., pp. 210-11, 232, 239; Torque- 
 mada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 37, 72, 146-7, 168, 228-31, torn, ii., pp. 
 263, 486-90, 657-8; Ixtlilxochitl , Hist. Chieh., in Kingshorough's Mex. An- 
 tig., vol ix., pp. 243-4, 264; Id., Belaciones, pp. 327, 332, 440-1, 455; Herrera, 
 Uist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. iv., v., lib. vi., cap. xi., xvi., lib. vii., 
 cap. iL, vii., ix., xv., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix.; Camargo, Hist. Tlax., 
 in Nouvelles Annates lies Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 133; Tezozomoc, Crd- 
 nica Mex., in Kingshorough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 17, 41, 46, 49, 64, 
 171; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 620-1, 626-8, 533, torn, iii., pp. 269, 
 272, 285-92, 298-300, 305, 464-5, 499; Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., torn, i., pt 
 ii., foL 156, 160-1; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 26-7, 68-9; Veytia, Hist 
 Ant Mej., torn, i., pp. 154, 238, 252-3, torn, iii., pp. 201-3, 319; Zuazo, 
 Carta, in leazbaleeta. Col. de Doc, torn. »-, PP- 360-2; Diaa, Itinerario, in 
 Id., p. 299; Belacion de Algunas Cosas, in la., pp. 378-9; Motolinia, Hist. 
 Indios, in Id., pp. 204, 211; Hernandez, Nova Plant, p. 339; Granados 
 y Galvez, Tariles Amer., pp. 90-4; PrescotVs Mex., vol. i., pp. 99-100, 
 108-10, 138-45, 170-5, vol. lii., pp. 425-30; E\obank, in Schoolcraft's Arch., 
 vol. iv., pp. 44-56; Miiller, Reinen, torn, iii., pp. 125-8, 134; Carbajal 
 Espinosa, Hist Mex., torn, i., pp. 62, 9f 02, 378, 431-2, 498, 588-9, 638- 
 40, 652-3, 657-60, 666-7, 682-3, i^ax. ii., pp. 60, 69-70, 74, 103-4, 198, 230-1; 
 Soe. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da ^poca, torn, i., p. 721, torn, iv., Sept. 1872; 
 Bosny, inComiti d^Arch. Ain^r., 1866-7, pp. 15-16; Gallatin, in Amer. Eth- 
 no. Soc, Transact, vol. i., pp. 49-57; Tytor's Researches, pp. 165, 194, 201, 
 
 Bosny, inComiti d^Arch. Ainir., 1866-7, pp. 15-16; Gallatin, in Amer. Eth- 
 no. Soc, Transact, vol. i., pp. 49-57; Tytor's Researches, pp. 165, 194, 201, 
 267; Id. Anahuae, pp. 95-101, 107-9; Humboldt, Essai Pot., torn, ii., pp. 
 
 454, 486; Carli, Cartas, pt ii., pp. 94-7; Lenoir, ParalUle, pp. 48, 56, 62, 
 64-5; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat Civ., torn, i., pp. 130, 271-2, 286- 
 6, 288, torn, iii., pp. 648-54, 672-4; Id., in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 1858, 
 
 torn, clix., pp. 77-86; Pimentel, Mem. sohre la Baza Indigena, pp. 44-7, 64- 
 9; Cavo, Tres Sighs, torn, iii., p. 49; Viollet-le-Duc, in Charnay, Buines 
 Amir., pp. 86-7; BrowneWs Ind. Baces, p. 94; Edinburgh Beview, .July, 
 1S67; Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, torn, v., pp. 13-20, 24, 26-32, 144-61, 
 162-3, 181; Baril, Jfextoue, pp. 209-10; Busaierre, L'Empire Mex., pp. 168- 
 72, 244, 270, 411-17; KingsborougKs Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 110-15; 
 West-Indische Spieghcl, pp. 218, 220, 225 6, 238-9, 246, 250-1, 343; Chevalier, 
 Mex, Anden et Mod., pp. 19, 28, 36-7; Mill's Hist Mex., p. 150; Herredin 
 y Sarmiento, Sermon, pp. 73, 83; Gage's New Survey, pp. 110-11; Lafond, 
 Voyages, torn, i., pp. 161-2; Touron, Hist. Gin., torn, iii., pp. 142, 146; 
 Fransham's World in Miniature, vol. ii., p. 9; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, 
 pp. 221-2; Dapper, Neue Welt, pp. 248-50; Malte-Brun, Pricis de laGiog., 
 torn, vi., pp. 435, 456; Dupaix, Bel., 2de Expid., pp. 25,28; Soden, Spanie- 
 in Peru, torn, ii., pp. 27-9; Wappdus, Geog. u. Stat, p. 47; Monglave, Bt 
 sumi, pp. 43, 52, 57; Delaporte, Beisen, torn, x., p. 268; Gordon, Hist, 
 and Geog. Mem., p. 76; Helps' Span. Conq., voL ii., pp. 268-9, 450; Alzatt 
 y Bamirez, Mem. sobre Grana., MS. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE AZTEC CALENDAR. 
 
 Astronomical Knowledge op the Aztecs— Contradictions of Au- 
 thors RESPECTING THE CALENDAR— VALUE OF THE RESEARCHES OF 
 
 Various Writers— The First Regular Calendar— The Mexi- 
 can Cycle— The Civil Year— The Aztec Months— Names of the 
 Days and their Signification— The Commencement of the Az- 
 tec Year— The Ritual Calendar— Gama's Arrangement of 
 THE Months— The Calendar-Stone— The Four Destructions 
 OF THE World— The Calendar of Michoacan— Reckoning of 
 the Zapotecs. 
 
 Perhaps the strongest proof of the advanced civili- 
 zation of the Nahuas was their method of computing- 
 time, which, for ingenuity and correctness, equaled, 
 if it did not surpass, the systems adopted by contem- 
 poraneous European and Asiatic nations. 
 
 The Nahuas were well acquainted with the move- 
 ments of the sun and moon, and even of some of the 
 planets, while celestial phenomena, such as eclipses, 
 although attributed to unnatural causes, were never- 
 theless carefully observed and recorded. They had, 
 moreover, an accurate system of dividing the day into 
 fixed periods, corresponding somewhat to our hours; 
 indeed, as the learned Sr Leon y Gama has shown, 
 the Aztec calendar-stone which was found in the 
 plaza of the city of Mexico, was used not only as a 
 durable register, but also as a sun-dial. 
 
 (803) 
 
THE AZTEC CALENDAR. 
 
 608 
 
 Although the system of the Aztec calendar as a 
 whole is clear and easily understood, yet it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to describe with certainty many of 
 its details, owing to the contradictory statements of 
 nearly all the earlier writers, who visited Mexico and 
 there in different localities picked up scraps of what 
 they afterwards described as being the 'calendar of 
 the Mexicans,' not taking into consideration that the 
 many and distinct kingdoms surrounding the Aztec 
 territory, although using essentially the same sys- 
 tem, differed on many important points, such as the 
 names of years, months, days, the season of begin- 
 ning the year, etc. This difficulty increases when we 
 attempt to make Mexican dates agree with our own. 
 Even Boturini, who gathered his information in Mex- 
 ico, makes many mistakes ; and Veytia, although we 
 must accord him the credit of having thoroughly 
 studied the subject, and of having reduced it to a 
 clear system, is at fault in many points. Of the older 
 writers, such as Sahagun, Las Casas, Duran, Moto- 
 linia, and others, no one is explicit enough on all 
 points to enable us to follow him; and such details 
 as they unite in giving are mostly contradictory. 
 Torquemada, who draws a great portion of his ma- 
 terial from Motolinia, contradicts himself too fre- 
 quently to be reliable. Leon y Gama, although he 
 spent much labor in trying to clearly expound the 
 system, has also fallen into some errors, attributable, 
 perhaps, to his not having the valuable aid of Saha- 
 gun's writings, and to his having placed too much trust 
 in the writings of Torquemada and the manuscript of 
 the Indian Cri8t6bal del Castillo, as is shown in the 
 review of Gama's work by Sr Josd Antonio Alzate in 
 the Gacetas de Literatura. Baron von Humboldt's 
 description, valuable as it is on account of the ex- 
 tended comparisons which he draws between the 
 Mexican, Asiatic and Egyptian calendars, is on that 
 account too intricate to be easily understood. From 
 all these descriptions Gallatin, McCuUoh, and Muller, 
 
604 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 with perhaps a few others, have each given us a very 
 good rdsumd, but without attempting to reconcile all 
 the contradictions. 
 
 The first notice we have of any regular calendar is 
 given by Ixtlilxochitl, who states that in the year 
 5097 from the creation of the world, an assembly of 
 learned men met at the city of Huehuetlapallan, and 
 determined the reckoning of the years, days, and 
 months, leap years and intercalary days, in the order 
 in which they were found at the time of the con- 
 quest* Previous to this time it is said that the only 
 reckoning kept was regulated by the yearly growth 
 of the fresh grass and herbs from which the name of 
 the Mexican year xihuitl, 'new grass,' is derived. It 
 is also said that a rough computation of time was 
 made by the moon, from its appearance to its disap- 
 pearance, and that this period called metztli, 'the 
 moon,' was divided into two equal parts, named re- 
 spectively mextozolitzli, the time when the moon was 
 awake or visible, and mecochiliztli, the sleep of the 
 moon, or the time when it was invisible.' Of the 
 larger divisions of time, accounts are very conflicting. 
 Two, three, four, and five ages are said by various 
 writers to have existed, at the end of each of which 
 the world was said to have been destroyed, and re- 
 created at the beginning of the age next following. 
 The common aboriginal belief was, however, that at 
 the time of the conquest, the world had passed 
 through three ages, and was then in the fourth. The 
 first age, or 'sun,' as it is also called, was the Sun of 
 Water, atonatiuh; the second, the Sun of Earth, tlal- 
 chitouatiuh; the third, the Sun of Air, ehecatonatiuh.^ 
 
 ^Ixtlilxochitl, Selaeiones, in Kingsborflugh's Mex. Antiq., torn, ix., p. 
 322. 'En un ailo qtie fu6 sefialado con el geroglifico de un pedcrnal, que 
 xegun las tablas parece haber sido el de 3^1 oel mundo, se convoco una 
 
 Kran junta de astr61ogoB para hacer la corrccion de bu calendario y re- 
 
 formar bus c6mputos, que conocian errados segim el sistema que hosta en- 
 tdnccs habian seguido. Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. i., p. 32. 
 
 «M, pp. 31-2. 
 
 ' Ixtlilxochitl,^ Hist. Chich., in KinfjsborougKs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 205; Id., Relaciones, in Id., pp. 331-2, 459; Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in 
 
THE MEXICAN CYCLE. 
 
 606 
 
 This is about all we know of any division of time, 
 before the assembly at Huehuetlapallan which is said 
 to have introduced the regular calendar. 
 
 The Mexican calendar contains the following divi- 
 sions of time: The 'age,' consisting of two periods of 
 fifty-two years each, was called huehuetiliztli; the 
 'cycle,' consisting of four periods of thirteen years each, 
 was named xiuhmolpilli, xiuhmolpia or xiuhtlalpilli, 
 meaning the 'binding up of the years.' Each period 
 of thirteen years or, as it was called by the Spanish 
 historians, 'indiccion,' was known as a tlalpilli, or 'knot,' 
 and, as stated above, each single year was named xi- 
 huitl, or 'new grass.' The age was not used in the 
 regular reckoning, and is only rarely mentioned to 
 designate a long space of time. The numeral pre- 
 fixed to the name of any year in the cycle, or xiuh- 
 molpilli, never exceeded four, and to carry out this 
 plan, four signs, respectively named tochtli, 'rabbit,' 
 calli, 'house,' tecpatl, 'flint,' and acatl, 'cane,' were 
 used. Thus the Aztecs commenced to count the 
 first year of their first cycle with the name or hiero- 
 glyphic Ce Tochtli, meaning 'one (with the sign of) 
 rabbit;' and the second year was Ome Acatl, 'two, 
 cane;' the third, Yey Tecpatl, 'three, flint;' the fourth, 
 Nahui Calli, 'four, house;' the fifth, Macuilli Tochtli, 
 'five, rabbit;' the sixth, Chicoace Acatl, 'six, cane;' 
 
 Nouvellea Annales des Voy., 1843, torn, xcix., p. 132; Ternnux-Compana, 
 in Id., 1840, torn. Ixxxvi., pp. 5-6; Boturini, idea, p. 3; Cladf/cro, Storia 
 Anl. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 57; Brasseur de Bourbourg, S'il existe dea 
 Sourcea de Vllist. Prim., pp. 26-7; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice 
 Mexicano (Vaticano), in Kingaborough'a Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 164-7; 
 Explicacion del Codex Telleriano-Rcmensis, in Id., pp. 134-6. 'Cinco 
 
 Soles que son edadcs el primer Sol se pcrdiopor agua El segiindo Sol 
 
 perecio cayendoel cielosobre la tierra El Sol tercero falto y se consuniio 
 
 por fuego. . . .El quarto Sol fcnccio con aire Del ^uinto Sol, que al pre- 
 
 sente tienen.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 297. 'Le ciel et la terre s'etaient 
 faits, quatre fois.' Codex Chimalpopoca, in Brasaeur de Bonrbmtrg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 53. 'Creyeron que el Sol liabia muerto cuatro veces, 
 6 que hubo cuatro soles, que habian acabado en otros tantos ticnipos 6 
 cdades; y que el quinto sol era el que actualmente les alumbraba.' Leon y 
 Gama, Dos Piedra.i, pt i., p. 94. 'Hubo cinco soles en los tiempos pasa- 
 dos.' Mendieta, Hist. Eclea., p. 81, repeated lit«rally by Torqiicmada, Mo- 
 narq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 79; Humboldt, Viiea, torn, ii., pp. 118-29; Gallatin, 
 in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Tranaact., vol. 1., p. 325; Midler, Amerikanische 
 Urreliyionen, pp. 610-12. 
 
 
506 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the seventh, Chicome Tecpatl, 'seven, flint ;' the eighth, 
 Chico ey Calli, 'eight, house;' the ninth, Chico nahui 
 Tochtli, 'nine, rabbit;' the tenth, Matlactli Acatl, 'ten, 
 cane;' the eleventh, Matlactli occe Tecpatl, 'eleven, 
 flint;' the twelfth, Matlactli omome Calli, 'twelve, 
 house;' and the thirteenth, Matlactli omey Tochtli, 
 'thirteen, rabbit.' This numeration continued in the 
 same manner, the second tlalpilli commencing again 
 with 'one, cane,' the third tlalpilli with 'one, flint,' 
 the foarth with 'one, house,' and so on to the end 
 of the cycle of fifty-two years. It will easily be seen 
 that during the fifty-two years none of these four 
 signs could be accompanied by the same number 
 twice, and therefore no confusion could arise. Instead, 
 therefore, of saying au event happened in the year 
 1850, as we do in our reckoning, they spoke of it as 
 happening, for instance, in the year of 'three, rabbit' 
 in the twelfth cycle.* Still, some confusion has been 
 caused among different writers by the fact that the 
 different nations of Andhuac did not all commence 
 their cycles with the same hieroglyphic sign. Thus 
 the Toltecs commenced with the pign tecpatl, 'flint;' 
 and the Mexicans, or Aztecs, with tochtli, 'rabbit;' 
 while some again used acatl, 'cane;' and others calli, 
 'house,' as their first name," A cycle was represented 
 in their paintings by the figures of tochtli, acatl, tec- 
 patl, and calli, repeated each thirteen times and placed 
 in a circle, round which was painted a snake holding 
 its tail in its mouth, and making at each of the four 
 cardinal points a kink with its own body, as shown in 
 the plate on the opposite page, which served to divide 
 
 * Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 296-7; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. 
 vi., pp. 256-7; Acosfa, Hist, de las Yud., pp. 397-8; Leon y Gaina, Dos Pie- 
 dras, pt i., p. 16 et seq. ; Vci/tii^, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., p. 42 et seq. 
 
 * 'No todos cuineiixabaii d contnr e! ciclo por uii misino nflo: los tnltc- 
 cos lo empezalMin desde Tccjmtl; lots de Tcotiliuocaii dcmlc Calli: los iiioxi- 
 canoB desde Tochtli: y los tczcocanos dcstle Aratl.^ Lron y Gama, Dos 
 Pitdraa, pt i., p. 16; Peytia, Hist. Ant. Mef., toni. i., p. 58. 'So Iwgftiiiioii 
 die Aciilhuns von Texcoco iliro Uniliinfe nut dcni Zoichcn Cc Tecpatl, die 
 Mexicaner dogc^en im Co Tochtli.' Miiller, Beisen, t lUi. iii., p. 66; Botu- 
 rini, Idea, p. 125. 
 
 
 
PAINTING OF THE AZTEC CYCLE. 
 
 607 
 
 The Aztec Cycle. 
 
 the cycle into four tlalpillis.* These four signs, rahbit, 
 cane, flint, and house were also, aceordini}^ to Botu- 
 rini, used to desij^nate the four seasons of the year, 
 the four cardinal points, and lastly, the four elements. 
 Thus, for instance, tecpatl also sii^niKed south ; calli, 
 east; tochtli, north; and acatl, west. In the same 
 
 'Esto circulo rodoinlose dividiii en niiitni jmrtcs. . . Lti primera parte 
 que i)ertoneciaii Oricntc lluiiialmiile lim trcce anim do Iuh canaH, y axi on cada 
 t'usa dc> Ids treco tcnian iiintada iinucana, y el niiniem d'.-'. unoforriontc. . . . 
 La HCKunda ]iartc aplicatian al Hcptentriui;. i|iie era do otraH trot-o ciisas, d 
 laM ctialex llaniatMn Ian trccc coHaH del |)crterr.:;i ; y axi teniar. pintadn eii 
 
 eada caMi un i>odcrnal A la tereera parte Occidental, llanialMinIc las 
 
 troce casas, y aMi vrrdnios en cada parte do las trecc una oaNilla pintada 
 
 A la cuartA y lUtinm parte niie era de otms trccc aflot, llaiiialHinIa Ioh treco 
 casas del concjo; y atii en caila cafui dc aqncllas vert'nioH pintada una calic/^i 
 dc coiiejo.' Duran, Hist. //t</«a«,MS., tow. iii., u)>iH>ndix, cap. i. 
 
608 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 manner tecpatl was used to designate fire; calli, 
 earth; tochtli, air; and acatl, water.' 
 
 The civil year was again divided into eighteen 
 month and five days. Each mc th had its particular 
 name, but the five extra days were only designated 
 as nemontemi or 'unlucky days,' and children born at 
 this time, or enterprises undertaken, were considered 
 unlucky. In hieroglyphical paintings these months 
 were also placed in a circle, in the middle of which a 
 face, representing either the sun or moon, was paint- 
 ed. This circle was called a xiuhtlapohualli, or 'count 
 of the year.' Concerning the order in which these 
 months followed one another, and the name of the 
 first month, hardly two authors agree; in the same 
 manner we find three or four various names given to 
 many of the months. It would appear reasonable to 
 suppose that the month immediat'^ly following the ne- 
 montemi, which were always added at the end of the 
 year, would be the first, and the only difficulty here 
 is to know which way the Aztecs wrote; whether 
 from right to left or from left to right. On the circle 
 of the month given by Veytia, and supposed to have 
 been copied from an original, these five days are in- 
 serted between the months Panquetzaliztli and Ate- 
 moztli, and counting from left to right, this would 
 make Atemoztli the first month, which would agree 
 with Veytia's statement. But Gama and others de- 
 cidedly dissent from this opinion, and name other 
 months as the first. I reserve further consideration 
 of this subject for another place in this chapter, where 
 in connection with other matters it can be more clearly 
 discussed, and content myself with simply inserting 
 here a table of the names of the months as enumer- 
 ated by the principal authors, in order to show at a 
 
 1- ■ 
 
 1 . 
 1. 
 
 jr 
 II. 
 
 T (JemclH Carcri gives thonc naincB in a different order, ci llinc tochtli 
 south, acatl cast, t«cpatl mirth, and calli went; further, tichtli earth, 
 acatl water, tecpatl air, and calli fire. Gcmelli Carcri, in Chn.-chilVa Col. 
 Voyages, vol. iv., pp. 487-8; lioturitii. Idea, pp. 64-6. The ahove are 
 only figurative names, .-vs the words for the cnniinal points and also for 
 the elements ore entirely different in the Mexican language. 
 
 lit 
 
TO VARIOUS 
 
 11. 
 
 OchpulzUl 
 
 PacbtU, or He- 
 
 (OZtli. 
 
 Ochpaniztli 
 
 Ochpanlztly 
 
 Ochpaniztl , 
 Vchpanlztll. 
 
 (ohpanlztU. 
 
 »C»itll 
 
 achtli, or He- 
 
 IDZtU. 
 
 l^eytecuilbuUl . 
 Hey Tecuilhuitl 
 <|ip»Dlztll . . . 
 
 Teo4 
 
 sicailbnltzintli 
 t Tlaxochima 
 ). 
 
 (^panltztli. 
 
 ttll, or Ezoz- 
 or Teotleco. 
 
 i. 
 
 iltl 
 
 tniztlt 
 
 'Ihpuiallztli . . 
 (t>aiilztlt 
 
 Hue 
 
 Teol 
 
 Pac) 
 
 Pad 
 Teu 
 
 Teol 
 
 Hu( 
 
 Hui 
 
 Mic 
 Mlc 
 Teo 
 
 Hue 
 or! 
 
 Pac 
 
 Uui 
 Pi 
 pe 
 
 Te« 
 
 Te< 
 
NAMES OF MEXICAN MONTHS ACCOR 
 
 AUTHORS. 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 
 5. 
 
 6. 
 
 7. 
 
 8. 
 
 9. 
 
 IG 
 
 SaBaoum 
 
 Atlacahualco, or 
 
 Tlacazipeoaliztli . 
 
 Tozoztontlt 
 
 Veytocoztli.. 
 
 Tozcatl 
 
 EtzacuallzUi .... 
 
 TecnllbultontU . . 
 
 VeytecuilbulU... 
 
 Tlaxocbimaco . . . 
 
 Xocobuet 
 
 MOTOUMIA 
 
 QuavlUeloa. 
 
 
 
 
 
 AOOITA 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 QOMAMA ...... 
 
 TlacBxlpeualiztli 
 
 Tozfuztli 
 
 Hueltoz^ttztli.... 
 
 Toxcalt, or Tepu- 
 pocbuiliztli. 
 
 E«alcoallztU 
 
 TecnllbulclntU . . 
 
 Hueltecnllbuitl.. 
 
 MlccailbulclntU . 
 
 VeymtccallbulU . 
 
 Vcbpantz 
 Tenauat 
 
 
 U iBTiM DX Leon* 
 
 Atlcahualo 
 
 Tlacazipebualiz- 
 
 tu. 
 
 To^oxtontll 
 
 Hueltofoztontll . 
 
 Tocbcatl 
 
 EtzalouallztU.... 
 
 TecuilbuitonUl.. 
 
 Hueltaucyilbultl 
 
 Tlazocbimancn . . 
 
 Xocotlbm 
 
 DOEAN 
 
 Xuchitzitzquiln, 
 or Quauitlehus, 
 or Atlmotzacus- 
 ga, or Xiloma- 
 uiztly. 
 
 Tlacaxipabualiz- 
 
 tu. 
 
 Tocoitontly 
 
 Ocbpanlztly, or 
 Cueytozoztly. 
 
 Tozcatl .... 
 
 EtzalcualUtly . . . 
 
 Tecuilultontly, or 
 Tlaxocbimaco. 
 
 Hueytecttilbultl.. 
 
 HlccaUbultontly. 
 
 Tocotluet 
 
 
 
 OODEX Vatiganvs . 
 
 Atlcaualo 
 
 Tlacaxlpeualiztli . 
 
 TocozlntU 
 
 Teitozcoctll 
 
 Toxcatl 
 
 Hetzalquallztl. . . 
 EtzalquallztU . . . 
 
 TecullTltontl ... 
 
 Vnltecnilnitl 
 
 Hlccailhultl 
 
 Veymlcca 
 Xocotlbue 
 
 TOBQVEMADA 
 
 Atlacabualco, or 
 Quahuitlehua. 
 
 Tlacaxlpehualiz- 
 
 tli. 
 
 Tov-oztontli 
 
 HueytofoztU . . . 
 
 Tozcatl 
 
 TecubUbuttontli. 
 
 Hueytecubjlbuitl 
 
 Tlaxucblmaco, or 
 Hueymiccaylbultl 
 
 
 
 VCTAXOrKT 
 
 AtlachuaU-o, or 
 QuabuiU'biia. 
 
 Tlacaxlpebualiz- 
 tii. 
 
 Tocoztontli 
 
 Hueytocoztll .... 
 
 Teozcalt 
 
 EtzaqualizUt .... 
 
 TecuylhultonUl.. 
 
 Hueytecuyllbuitl 
 
 Tlaxocbimaco. . . . 
 
 Xocotlbue 
 
 
 
 Vetahcvbi (TUb- 
 Mlteo names,) 
 
 XilomaUbuitzili. 
 
 Coylhultl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 MlcaylbultziuUl. 
 
 Hueymica 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tlacaxlpebualitz 
 
 tu. 
 
 Tlacaxlpenaliztli 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 Atemoztli 
 
 Atlacabualco 
 
 Tozoztli 
 
 Hueytozoztli .... 
 
 Tozcstl 
 
 EtzalcualiztU.... 
 
 Tlcuyllbnltl 
 
 TacuUbulctntU... 
 
 Tozcotzlntli 
 
 TozootzlntU 
 
 EtzalcualiztU. 
 
 HueytecuUbultl . 
 
 Huebtecnilbultl . 
 
 HueytozcoztU.... 
 Buey TozcoztU . . 
 TecuUhultontU .. 
 
 Mlcaylbultl. ... 
 MiccatbulcintU.. 
 Toxcatl 
 
 Bueymloailbultl. 
 
 Vetmlccallbultl.. 
 
 ExolqualtzMl .... 
 EzalqualUztU.... 
 Tlaxocbimaco . . . 
 
 Ocbpanlzt 
 Vcbpaniz! 
 
 La»t 
 
 Tozcactll 
 
 TitUl 
 
 Huettozcuztli.... 
 
 Itzcalll 
 
 TzcalU 
 
 Toxcalt, or Tepu- 
 pocbuUiztli. 
 
 XilomaniztU 
 
 XilomanUte 
 
 Hueitozoztli 
 
 EzalloallztU 
 
 C!obuallbuitl .... 
 Cohaullbuitl .... 
 Toxcatl 
 
 Veytia 
 
 Tenavati 
 Tecultbui 
 
 
 Titltl 
 
 Toxcatl 
 
 Tecuilbul 
 
 
 Tlacaxlpehualiz- 
 tli. 
 
 (tzcalli.orXocbtl- 
 buitl. 
 
 Tlacaxlpebualitz- 
 tli. 
 
 Tozoztonlli 
 
 Tozoztontll 
 
 Hueltecnllbuitl . . 
 
 Xocohuetz 
 
 Q\UA t 
 
 TiUU.orltzcBlU. 
 
 XilomaDaliztU.or 
 Atlcabualco, or 
 QuabuUlehua, 
 or Cihnailbultl. 
 
 Tlacaxipebuallz. 
 tu, or Cobuall- 
 biUtl. 
 
 Hueltozoptli .... 
 
 Toxcatl.orTepo- 
 pochiUliztU. 
 
 Tozoztontll 
 
 Uuey Tozoztli... 
 Etzalaualitztli 
 
 Toxcatl, or Tepo- 
 pocbuillztli. 
 
 EtzalquallzUl.... 
 
 TecullbultzlntU. 
 
 Hueytecui 
 
 
 
 Huuxcn 
 
 Tlacaxipcbuallz- 
 tU.or Cobuall- 
 buitl. 
 
 Huey Tozoztli. . . . 
 
 EUalquallztli.... 
 
 TecuilbttitzintU . 
 
 Haeytecuilbultl . 
 
 MlccBllbultzlntly, 
 or Tlalxocblma 
 
 CO. 
 
 Hueymtccailhultl, 
 or Xolotlbuetziii. 
 
 Ocbpanlzt 
 Tenabua 
 
 BBAUnmDlBOUB- 
 BOUBO. 
 
 Atlacabualco .... 
 
 Tlacaxipebualiz- 
 
 tu. 
 
 TotottontU 
 
 Huey-Tosottll. .. 
 
 Toxcatl 
 
 EtzacualiztU .... 
 
 Tecullbultontll.. 
 
 Hney TecuUbuitl 
 
 Tlaxocbimaco . . . 
 
 Xocobueti 
 
 ■A. 
 
 Atlacabualco .... 
 
 Tlacaxipehualiz- 
 
 tu. 
 
 Tozoztontll 
 
 Hueitozoztli 
 
 Toxcatl, or Oox- 
 catl. 
 
 EtzalcoaliztU.... 
 
 TeucuUbuitontli. 
 
 HueituecuUbultl. 
 
 Tlaxocbimaco.... 
 
 Xocotlbue 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Teculluitontl.... 
 
 VeytecuUultl .... 
 
 Micbaylbultl.... 
 
 Huej-mtcci 
 
 AMO-RXKBMIU. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Buturlul repeat* Martin do Leon and UemelU Careri, 
 
MONTHS ACCORDING TO VARIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 
 9. 
 
 10. 
 
 11. 
 
 12. 
 
 13. 
 
 14. 
 
 15. 
 
 16. 
 
 17. 
 
 18. 
 
 Commencement of 
 Mexican year, ac- 
 cording to our reck- 
 oning. 
 
 tl... 
 
 TUzoohlmsoo . . . 
 
 Xocohnetzl 
 
 OchpanlzUl 
 
 Teotleco 
 
 TepellbniU 
 
 QuechoUi 
 
 Panqnetsaliztil.. 
 
 AtemozUi 
 
 TitiU 
 
 YzcaUi 
 
 tad February. 
 
 Commencement of 
 March. 
 
 26th February. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tli. 
 
 TeymiccailhuiU . 
 TUzichlmanco . . 
 MlccaUhultonUr. 
 
 Micctilhuitl 
 
 Tlaxucblmsoo, or 
 Hueyinlccaylhuitl 
 
 TUzochimaco 
 
 MlcaylhttltzluUi . 
 Hueymk^ailhultl. 
 
 ExolqualiztU .... 
 EzalqualUztU.... 
 Tlazochlmaco . . . 
 
 TecuilhuitzlDtli. 
 
 Vchpanlztli, or 
 TenauatilUJl. 
 
 Xocotlbaetzl .... 
 Tocotluetz 
 
 Teymlccailhuitl . 
 Xocotlhuetzi .... 
 
 Xocotlhuetzl .... 
 
 Hueymicaylhuitl. 
 
 OchpaniztU 
 
 VchpaniziU, or 
 TenavatillztU. 
 
 TecuUhultzlntU . 
 
 Tecullhultzlntli 
 
 Xocohuetzl 
 
 Hueytecuilhultl 
 
 PachtU, or He. 
 
 fOZtli. 
 
 OchpaniztU 
 
 Ochpanictly 
 
 ochpanixtl 
 
 Tchpanizttl 
 
 (DhpanlztU 
 
 HueipachUl, or 
 PachUl. 
 
 Teotleco 
 
 QnecboUi 
 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 Veypachtly, or 
 CoailhttlU. 
 
 Velpachth 
 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 Tepeylhuttl 
 
 Pachtzintll 
 
 Panque^aUatll .. 
 
 QuechDlU 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 Quecholl 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 QuecholU 
 
 Hatemuztll 
 
 PanqnetzaUztU.. 
 Panquetializtly.. 
 
 Panquetaaliztli... 
 PanquetzaliztU . . 
 
 PanquetzaUztli . . 
 
 TiUtlh 
 
 AtemuztU 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 AtemuztU 
 
 AtemozUique.... 
 
 Izcalll 
 
 Coauitleuac, or 
 Ciuiilhuilt. 
 
 Ytzcall 
 
 lltl 
 
 Tititl 
 
 2nd February. 
 l8t March 
 
 itl. 
 
 Pachtontly 
 
 PachtonU 
 
 Teutleco 
 
 Teotleco 
 
 TiUO 
 
 Yzcalll, or Xilo- 
 maniztlv, or 
 Queuitlena. 
 
 Yk*\U 
 
 Izcalll 
 
 
 TitlU 
 
 34th February. 
 1st February. 
 
 February. 
 
 niti 
 
 TIUU 
 
 ttiti 
 
 Titiotl 
 
 Izcalll 
 
 
 
 
 
 li.. 
 tl.. 
 
 »chtll 
 
 Hueypachtli 
 
 HuelpachtU 
 
 Mlcallhuitzintll . 
 MlctallhutlzlutU. 
 
 Checiogli 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 Hueymlcailhuitl. 
 Hueymictailhuitl 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 OchpaniztU, or 
 TenahuaUUztli. 
 
 PanchetzaliztU . . 
 
 Fanquecallztlt.. 
 
 Huepaniztli 
 
 OchpaniztU 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 Pachtii. or Ezoz- 
 tll, or Teotleco. 
 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 AtemozUi 
 
 HatemuztU 
 
 PachtelnUi 
 
 PachtlizintU .... 
 Panquetzaliztli . . 
 
 Hueypachtli, or 
 Pachtii, or Te- 
 peilhuitl. 
 
 TltiU 
 
 Tititl 
 
 IzcasU 
 
 AUacoalo 
 
 Coavltlevac 
 
 Panquetzaliztli . . 
 PanquetzalliztU . 
 IzcalU 
 
 Flrat year of cen- 
 tury, 10th April. 
 
 March or ffith of 
 
 HchtU, or He- 
 ipztU. 
 
 Ifeytecullhultl . 
 
 liey Tecullhultl 
 
 uhpanlztU 
 
 Mtcailhnttzlntll. 
 « Tlazochima- 
 
 (^pantUtU 
 
 Ii«htll, or Ezoz- 
 .U, or Teotleco. 
 
 CltpanlztU 
 
 'iwhpanaliztli . . 
 ukpantztli 
 
 Izcalll 
 
 Hueypachtli 
 
 Hueypachtli 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 QuecholU 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 TiUtl 
 
 Februaiy. 
 2nd Februat ; . 
 
 First y«sr of centu- 
 ry, 36th February. 
 
 9th January. 
 36th February. 
 
 Bueymiccallhuitl, 
 or Xocotlhuetzi. 
 
 Pachtii 
 
 PanqnetzaUzUi.. 
 TitlH 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 IzcalU 
 
 tiy. 
 
 ua 
 
 lltl 
 Itl. 
 
 Hueytniccailhultl, 
 or Xolotlhuetziii. 
 
 Tlasochimaco . . . 
 TUzochimaco.... 
 Mlchaylhuitl.... 
 
 OchpaniztU, or 
 TenahuaUUztli. 
 
 Xocohuetzl 
 
 Xocotlhuetzl 
 
 Hueymlccaylbuttl 
 
 Hueypachtli, or 
 Pachtii, or Te- 
 peilhuitl. 
 
 Teotleco 
 
 Teotleco 
 
 Pactontly 
 
 QuecholU 
 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 Tepeilhuitl 
 
 Veypactli 
 
 Panquetzaliztli.. 
 
 QuecBoiM 
 
 Quecholli 
 
 QuechoU 
 
 AtemozUi 
 
 Panquetaliztll . . 
 Panquetzaliztli... 
 Panquetzaliztli,.. 
 
 TiUU.orltecaUi. 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 AtemozUi 
 
 AtemoztU 
 
 lUcalU. or Xo- 
 chilhultl, 
 
 TiUU 
 
 Xllomanaliztli.or 
 Atlcahualco, or 
 Quahuitlehua, 
 orClhuallhultl. 
 
 IzcalU 
 
 IzcalU 
 
 Yzcatll . 
 
 30th March. 
 
 TltiU 
 
 First year of centu- 
 
 TitlU 
 
 ry. 36th February. 
 S4th February. 
 
 
 t Homboldt and Oallatin repeat Leon y Qama. 
 
! i 
 
 I ! 
 
NAMES OF THE AZTEC MONTH. 
 
 500 
 
 glance the many variations. I also append to it the 
 different dates given for the first day of the year, in 
 which there are as many contradictions as in the 
 names and position of the months. 
 
 Each month, as before stated, was represented by 
 its proper hieroglyph, having a certain meaning, and 
 generally referring to some feast or natural event, 
 such as the ripening of fruit, or falling of rain, hap- 
 pening during the month, although in this case also 
 there are many differences between authors regarding 
 the meaning of the names. 
 
 Tititl, which according to Gama was the first month, 
 is translated by Boturini as 'our mother,' or 'mother 
 of the gods,' while Cabrera calls it 'fire.'* Itzcalli, 
 according to Boturini, means 'regeneration;' the Co- 
 dex Vaticanus translates it 'skill;' and Veytia, 'the 
 sprouting of the grass.'' Atlcahualco means the 
 'abatins: of the waters.' The TlascaUec name of this 
 month, Xilomanaliztli, signifies the 'offermg of green 
 maize.' In other localities this month was also known 
 by the name of Quahuitlehua, the 'burning of the 
 mountains,' or rather of the trees on the mountains, 
 previous to sowing.*" Tlacaxipehualiztli means the 
 'flaying of the people;' the other name of this month, 
 Cohuailhuitl, is the 'feast of the snake.' Tozoztontli, 
 Tozcotzintli, and Hueytozoztli are respectively the 
 small and great fast or vigil; while some translate 
 these words by 'pricking of veins,' ' shedding of blood,* 
 or 'great and small penance.'" Toxcatl is a 'collar' 
 or 'necklace.'" Etzalqualiztli is translated by Bo- 
 turini 'bean stew,' or 'the eating of beans,' while Vey- 
 tia calls it 'the eating of maize gruel.' TerrlUiuit- 
 
 * 'Itctl, Ititl, barriga o vientre.' Molina, Vocabulario. 'Vientre, la 
 
 madre, A excepcion del padre.' <S'a/va, Nuevo Dice. 'Titl signiiica 
 
 fuego. Tititl escrito en dos eilabas y seis letras nada signitioa en el idionia 
 mexicano.' Cabrera, in Ilustracion Mex., torn, iv., p. 4^- 
 
 > ' Izcalia, abiuar, tornar en si, o resuacitar.' Molina, Vocabulario. 
 
 10 'Quiahuitl-ehua significa la lluvia levanta.^ Cabrera, in Ilustra- 
 cion Mex., torn, iv., p. 464. 
 
 11 'Tofoliztii vela, el acto de velarode nodonnir.' Molina, Vocabulario. 
 1* 'Garganta totuzcatlau, tuzquitl.' lb. 
 
610 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 zintli and Hueytecuilhuitl mean respectively the 
 small and great 'feast of the Lord.' Miccailhuitzintli 
 is explained both as 'the feast of dead children,' and 
 'the small feast of the dead;' another name for this 
 month is Tlaxochimaco, meaning 'distribution of flow- 
 
 The Aztec Year. 
 
 ers.' Hueymiccailhuitl is either 'the feast of dead 
 adults/ or 'the great feast of the dead.' Xocotlhu- 
 etzin, another name for this month, means 'the ripen- 
 ing of the fruit. ' Ochpaniztli is ' the cleaning of streets. * 
 Teotleco, or 'the arrival of the gods,' was the next 
 
NAMES OF THE AZTEC DAYa 
 
 611 
 
 month, and was also named Pachtli, or Pachtontli, the 
 latter being translated by 'humiliation/ and the former 
 by 'moss hanging from trees.' Hueypachtli was 'the 
 great feast of humiliation/ also called Tepeilhuitl, or 
 'feast of the mountains.' Quecholli means 'peacock/ 
 but the interpreter of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis 
 calls it the 'serpent of the clouda.' Panquetzaliztli is 
 'the raising of flags and banners.' Atemoztli, the 
 last month, means the 'drying up of the waters.'*' 
 The plate on the preceding page shows the order of the 
 months and the pictures by which they were repre- 
 sented. 
 
 Each month contained twenty days, which werft 
 divided into four groups or weeks, as we may for con- 
 venience call them; and at the end of each group a 
 public market or fair was held. There is no differ- 
 ence of opinion as to the names of the days or the 
 order in which they follow one another, but it is very 
 difficult, and in many cases impossible, to reconcile 
 one with another the different hieroglyphic signs 
 denoting these days given in the codices or in the 
 various representations of the calendar. The names 
 of the days are: Cipactli, a name of which it is al- 
 most impossible to give the correct meaning, it be- 
 ing variously represented as an animal's head with 
 open mouth armed with long tusks, as a fish with a 
 number of flint knives on its back, as a kind of lizard 
 with a very long tail curled up over its back, and 
 in many other monstrous shapes. It is called the 
 'sea-animal,' the 'sword-fish,' the 'serpent armed with 
 harpoons,' and other names. Ehecatl is 'wind;' Calli, 
 'house;' Cuetzpalin, 'lizard;' Coatl,' 'snake;' Mi- 
 quiztli, 'death;' Mazatl, 'deer;' Tochtli, 'rabbit;' Atl, 
 
 " For the various etymologies of the names of months, see: Spiegaziotie 
 (Idle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), in KingshovotigKs Mex. An- 
 tio., vol. v., pp. 190-97; Explicacion del Codex "telleriano-Remenais, in 
 la., pp. 129-34; Leon, Catnitw del Cielo, fol. 96-100; Boturini, Idea, pp. 
 60 52; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., pp. 64-5; Clavigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Measico, torn, ii., pp. 66-^; Humboldt, Vues, torn. i-. PP- 349-362; 
 Brassenr de Bourboura, Hist. Nat. Cm, torn, iii., pp. 602-36; Torquemada, 
 Monarq. Ittd., torn, ii., pp. 260-30a 
 
512 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 * water;' Itzcuintli, *dog;' Ozomatli, 'monkey;' Mali- 
 nalli, 'brushwood,' or 'tangled grass;' Acatl, 'cane;' 
 Ocelotl, 'tiger;' Quauhtli, 'eagle;' Cozcaquauhtli, a 
 species of vulture, known in Mexico as 'rey de los 
 zopilotes;' Ollin, 'movement;' Tecpatl, 'flint;' Quia- 
 
 The Aztec Month. 
 
 huitl, 'rain;' and Xochitl, 'flower.* It will be seen 
 that the days having the names or signs of the years, 
 — nainely: Tochtli, Calli, Tecpatl, and Acatl — stand 
 first in each week. The five nemontemi had no 
 particular name. The cut given above shows the 
 
INTEUCALARY DAYS. 
 
 B18 
 
 method by which the Aztecs represented their month, 
 with the hieroglyphic names of each day." 
 
 As three hundred and sixty-five days do not make 
 the year complete, the Mexicans added the missing 
 thirteen days at the end of the cycle of fifty-two 
 years. But Gania asserts that they came still nearer 
 to our more correct calculations, and added only twelve 
 days and a half." It has been frequently attempted 
 
 M This order is varied by a few authors. Veytia gives the following en- 
 tirely different system: 'Si cl afio era del carActcr Tcciiatl, con este se 
 sefialaba el primer dia de cada mes, y seguian anotdndoso los dcnias con 
 los gero<;liticoH s-guientes en el 6rden en one los he ]>ueMto; do manera quo 
 el vigdsimo dia de cada mes sc hallnba Ollin. . . .Si el afio era del scgundo 
 
 Serogiifico Calli, por este se comenzaba & contar, y & todos los dias primeros 
 e cada mes se les daha este nombre.' The same method he contends is 
 followed also in those years of each tialpilli which commence with Tochtli 
 and Acatl. Vor cozcaqitauhtli he uiscs the name temeztlatl, orinetate. Hi»t. 
 Ant. Mej.,inm.'\., pp. 76-80; Gomara, Conn. Mcx., fol. 294-5. Gcnielli Ca- 
 reri states that Cipactli was not always the nrst day of the month. Chvrchiirs 
 Col. Voyaqr.s, torn, iv., p. 489; Ditran, Hist. Indios, MS., tom. iii., appendix, 
 cap. ii.; RUosAntigtios, p. 22, m KinqsborougKs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix.; Mote- 
 linia. Hist. Iudios,\\\ Icazbnlceta, Col.deDoc, tom. i.,p.36. Boturini adds to 
 Ollin the word Tonatiuh, and translates it 'movement of the sun.' Idea, p. 
 45. Gama places Ollin between Atl and Itzcuintli. DosPiedras, jit i., p. 26; 
 Gallatin, '\\\ Amcr. Ethno. Soc, Transact, tom. i., p. 59; Brassrur de Bmir^ 
 hourg. Hist. Nat. Cii'., tom. iii., p. 463. See also hieroglyphics in Codex Tel- 
 Icriano-Rcmensis, pi. ix., in Kingshorough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. i., and Co- 
 dex Borgian., in Id., vol. iii., pi 24; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., tom. 
 ii., p. 304. In Nicaragua where the Aztec language was spoken by a 
 largo portion of the population, the calendar and the names of the days 
 were the same as Aztec, with but some slight differences in spelling. 
 Ovicdo gives the names of the days as follows: 'aqat, ocelot, oate, coscago- 
 ate, olin, tapecat, quiaiiit, sochit, gip<it, acat, cali, qticspal, coat, misiste, 
 magat, tostc, at, izquindi, or.omate, malinal, acato. . . .lln afio. . . .tiene diez 
 9cmpuales, 6 cada cempual es veynte dias.' Hist. Gen., tom. iv., p. 52. 
 
 '* Sahagun, and after him several others, do not agree with this, but 
 pretend that one day was added every fourth year, on which occasion a 
 certain feast was celebrated, but Ganui has clearly demonstrated that this 
 is a mistol'.c. Kl afio visiesto, que era de cuatro en cuatro anos.' Hist. 
 Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., p. 75. *Otra fiestri hacian dc cuatro en cuatro afios d 
 honradel fuego, en la que ahugeraban las orejan li todos los ninos; y la llama- 
 lian Pillabanaliztli, y en esta nesta es vcrosimil, y hay congcturns que hacian 
 su visiesto contandoseis dias de nrmnntemi.^ Id., lib. iv., pp. 347-8. lioturini 
 expresses the same opinion. ' Determinnron cada quatro afios anadir un dia 
 mas, que recogies.sc las lioras, qiie se despcrdiciaban, loquesupongo exccuta- 
 ron contando dos veccs uno de los Syniholos de el ultimo mes de el afio, d la 
 manera dc los llomanos. ' Idea, p. 137. ' £1 afio de visiesto que era dc ({uatro 
 k quatro afios. ' Leon, Camino del Cielo, fol. 100. ' They order d the bissextile, 
 or leap-year, after this manner. The first vear of the age becan on the tenth 
 of April, and so did the second and third, out the fourth or leap-year, on the 
 nintii, the eighth on the eighth, the twelfth on the seventh, the sixteenth on 
 the sixth, till the end of the age, which was on the twenty -eighth of March, 
 when the thirteen days of the leap-years, till the tenth of April, were spent in 
 rejoicing.' Gemclli Careri, in ChiirchilVs Col. Voyages, voL iv., p. 490. Veytia 
 Vol. II. S3 
 
6U 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 to fix accurately the time when the Mexican year 
 commenced accordinuf to our dates, but there is no 
 agreement un this point between the old historiang, as 
 will be seen from the table given, and although many 
 elaborate calculations have been made for the purpose 
 
 following Botiirini adds one day every fourtli year by repeatinjj[ the last da\'. 
 Ilisf. Ant. Mt'j., toni. i., pp. ll()-20. 'La correccion no 8e hucia hoHta el fin 
 del cielo, en que Me iutcrcalubaa juntos Ioh 13 diaH.' LeonyGnma, Dos I'iedras, 
 pt i., p. 24. ' l^cs Mexicains ont (^-vidcninicnt suivi Ic syHtiiniu Ac» I'erHcn: iU 
 couHervoicnt I'unnd vague juMpi'ti cc ([ue Ics hcures exc<^dantcH forniasDcnt 
 une deniilunaiiion ; iifl intcrculoient, par contu^quent, treize iourH toutcH \e» lig- 
 atures ou eyi-icH dc cinquuntv-dcux ans . . . h cliaquc annexe au oigne tochlli, leH 
 Mcxicaina ]icrdoient un jour; ct, pur I'efl'et de rcttc n'trograaalion. Tannine 
 ealli dc In ([uutrit^nic indivtion conimcufoit Ic 27 deccnibre, et finisHoit au 
 solstice d'liiver, Ic 21 dcccmbrc, en iu> faJHant pas ontrer en ligno do conipte 
 
 Ics cinq jourH inutiles ou conipldnientuircH. II en rt^sulte quo trcize 
 
 mnn iiitcrcaluircM runi^ncnt Ic coninienecnicnt do I'anniie au 9 junvier.* 
 HiimbolUt, Vues, torn, ii., pp. GO-1. 'Non frnniniettcvano un giorno ogni 
 quattru aiini, nta trcdici |rionii. . .ogni cinquantnduc anni.' Uarir/ero, Storia 
 Ant. del Messico, tuni. ii., p. 02. 'They waited till the expiration of fifty- 
 two vague ycara, when they intprj>oHcd thirteen days, or rather twelve and 
 a half, this Itcing the nuniltcr v.liioh had fallen in urrear.' PrescotVs Mex,. 
 vol. i., p. 112; Bras.srur de lioKrhoiirg, Hist. Nat. Cit\, toni. iii., p. 469. 
 In this connection I also give the remarkable statenieut of Pedro de los 
 Rios in his interpretation of the Codex Vuticanus: 'Item, si lui da notare, 
 che il loro bisesto aiiduva solo in qiiattro lettere, anni.oscgni die sono Can- 
 na, Pietra, Casa, e Coniglio, pcrclie conic liunno bisesio dcTii giorni a fare di 
 quattro in quuttro anni un nicse di quclli cinque giorni niorti die avanza- 
 vanodi ciascunanno, cosi avevano bisesto di anni ](erchfe - i cinquantadue in 
 cincjuantaduc nnni, che b una loro £tt\, aggiun,<;evuno un anno, il quale senipre 
 veniva in una di qucstc lettere o scgni pcrclid come ogni lettera o segno di 
 questi vinti habbiu trcdici del suo gencre clio le servano, rcrhi gratid.'' Kings- 
 Sorovgli's Mex. Aiilii/., vol. v., pp. 174-5. In the Explieacion del Codex lei- 
 leriano-Ucnicnsis we read: *A 19 de Fcvrcro los cinco dias niuertos que no 
 aviasacriiicios; eatos eran los dias que sfibravan de los de veynte en veynte del 
 afio: y sicnipre en cuniplicndose los 3G5 dias, dexavan pasurestos, v luego tor- 
 navanatoniarclanoculalctraquecntrava.' Jd.,\>. 134. Tothis Lord Kings- 
 borough adds in a note: 'The Mexicans reckoned 3G5 days to their year; the 
 last five of which had no sign or place n])propriated to them in the calendar; 
 since, if they had been admitted, the order of the signs would have been 
 inverted, and the new year would not always have coniniciiced with Co 
 Cipactli. These days, therefore, although included in the computation of 
 the year, were rejected from the calendar, until at the expiration of four 
 years an intercalation of twenty corresponding signs might Im) effected 
 without producing any confusion in it. It would appear, however, that 
 this intercalation did not actually take place till at the expiration of .')2 
 years; for it is impossible, except on this supposition, to understand the 
 intcrraliition of years nientioneu in the V^atican MS. as occurring at flie 
 expiration of every period of 52 years, when an entire year was in 
 calated: but admitting the i)08tponcmcnt of an intercalation of n 
 every four years during a period (.f 52 years, such an intcrculatioi 
 then become quite intelligible; since thirteen Mexican months, of °. v t 
 each, exactly constitute a ritual year of the Mexicans which contaiih lii) 
 days, and was shorter than the civil year by 105 days; and this is the jh 
 cise number of months of which tho intercalation would have been post- 
 poned.' Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., jtp. lOS-4. 
 
THE RITUAL CALENDAU. 
 
 BIS 
 
 of verifying the one or the other statement, the result 
 is in no two cases the same. Gama calculated, and 
 Humboldt and Gallatin confirmed liis statement, that 
 the first year of a Mexican cycle commenced on the 
 
 3 1st day of December, old style, or on the 9th day 
 
 ■ ■ th ' 
 
 day Cipactli." 
 
 of January, new style, with the m(;ath Tititl and the 
 
 Wo come now to another mode of reckoning known 
 as the ritual calendar, which, as its name implies, 
 was used for adjusting all religious feasts and rites 
 and everything pertaining thereto. The previously 
 described reckonmg was solar, while that of the ritual 
 calendar was lunar. The periods into which it was 
 divided were of thirteen days each, thus 'epresenting 
 about half the time that the moon was visible. The 
 year contained as many days as the solar calendar, 
 but they were divided into entirely different periods. 
 Thus, in reality there were no months at all, but only 
 twenty weeks of thirteen days each ; and these not 
 constituting a full year, the same kind of reckoning 
 was continued for one hundred and five days more, and 
 at the end of a tlalpilli thirteen days were intercalated 
 to make up for the lost days. The names of the days 
 were the same as in the solar calendar but they were 
 counted as follows. To the first day the number one 
 was prefixed, to the second, two, to the third, three, 
 and so on to thirteen ; when the fourteenth name was 
 again called one, the fifteenth, two, and so on to thir- 
 teen again, after which the same count was continued 
 to the end of the year. But as in this reckoning it 
 naturally hapi)ens that one name has the same num- 
 ber twice, accompanying signs were added to the 
 regular names, which were called quecholli, 'lords or 
 rulers of the night.' Of these there were nine. 
 
 1* LeonyGama, Dos Piedras, pt i., pp. 62-8?; Gallatin, in Amer. Elhno. 
 Soc, Transact, vol. i., pp. 69-86. Veytia's rer^on for romineiicing the year 
 with Atcino.^tli, is, that on the calendar circlr which he saw. and of wliich I 
 insert n copy, this was the month following; the five nemontemi. This ap- 
 pears very reasonable, but nevcrthclcHf uama and Gallatin's calculations 
 sho' it to be an error. See Veytia. Hint. Ant. Mej., torn, i., pp. 74-6. 
 
^^ 
 
 516 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 il ! 
 
 I! I 
 
 xiuhtecutli, tletl, 'lord of the year, fire;' tecpatl, 
 'flint;' xochitl, 'flower;' centeotl, 'goddess of maize;* 
 miquiztli, 'death;' atf, 'water,' represented by the 
 goddess Chalchihuitlicue ; tlazoUeotl, 'goddess of love;' 
 tepeyollotli, a deity fAipi)osed to inhabit the centre 
 of the moiintains; quiahuitl, 'rain,' represented by 
 the god Tlaljc." As stated above, one of these signs 
 was understood to accompany the regular name of each 
 day, coni nencing with the first day of the year; but 
 they were never written or mentioned with the first 
 two hundred and sixty days, but only with the last 
 one hundred and five days, to distinguish them from 
 the former." For the purpose of making this sys- 
 tem more comprehensible, I insert a few months of 
 tlie Mexican calendar, showing the solar and lunar 
 system together, as arranged by Gama. 
 
 Months Hiid days of 
 our era. 
 
 January 
 
 . 9 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 14 
 IS 
 111 
 17 
 
 18 
 19 
 20 
 91 
 
 22 
 21 
 94 
 9A 
 96 
 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 
 •jn 
 
 31 
 
 Months and dayR of 
 the MexJi'an civil, 
 or solar, calendar. 
 
 'litltl 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 a 
 
 4 
 
 fi 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 .. 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 in 
 
 18 
 
 17 
 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 VO 
 
 
 ItzralU 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 Da>B and weeks ot 
 the Mexican ritual, 
 or lunar, calendar. 
 
 l..Clpaotll.... 
 2..£hecatl .... 
 
 3. .Call! 
 
 4..Cuetzpalin , 
 
 5..Coatl 
 
 fi..Mlqui7.tli .. 
 
 7..Maxatl 
 
 H..Tochtll 
 
 9..Atl 
 
 10. ItzruintU. 
 ll..Uzoniatli. 
 ri..M«Unalli. 
 13..Acatl 
 
 1..0pelotl 
 
 2..guauhtU 
 
 S.C'rzcaquauhtll. 
 
 4..0llln 
 
 5. .Tecpatl 
 
 fi.. Quiahuitl. 
 7.. Xochitl... 
 
 8..fipactU.. 
 9..thecatl . 
 10..C'*1U.... 
 
 Accompanyinf! signs, 
 oriordHof the night.' 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 Ti'cpati '.' 
 
 Xochitl :< 
 
 Centeotl -i 
 
 MlquiztU 
 
 Atl (i 
 
 Tlazolteotl 7 
 
 Tepeyollotli 8 
 
 QuiahiUtl 
 
 Tlrtl 1 
 
 Tecpatl 2 
 
 Xochitl 3 
 
 i:enteotl 4 
 
 Miquiztll 5 
 
 Atl « 
 
 Tlazolteotl 7 
 
 Tepeyollotli n 
 
 Quiahuitl 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 Teci atl 2 
 
 X<Mhm 3 
 
 t.'entiHitl 4 
 
 Miquiztll 5 
 
 tiirini jjivcH llic nik-rs of the night as folUnva- Xiuhteiicyhhuu, 
 I ol Alio; Ytztfiicy<)hiui, Seizor do el Kiijgo; I'iltzintcucvohua, SSe- 
 
 »••<» ^ /-<•.» r.ii i-t..r„..i I \i..:-. »i:..4i <„. »...vl...« u..."...!. 
 
 " notii 
 
 Seilor cle ( _, ^ — - -. „ , - . 
 
 ilor dc losNiftos; Ciiitiueyhhua, Scno' deel Mai*: Micthiiitcu-ybhua, Sefior 
 decl Inlieriio; Chttlfhihuitliciiejohiia, Scnor de eJ Auiia; Tlaz>>ly6hiia, Se- 
 flor de el Amor deshonesto; Teiicyoloybhua, Sefior de los Eiitranaa de los 
 Montcs; Quiauhteucybhua, Sefior dc laa LliivioH. /den, n. 58, 
 
 i» Leon y Gama, Don Piedras,ni i., Pp. 2S»-31, 52-3; Satniini, Idea, pp. 
 57-9; Gallatin, in Amer. Elhtio. Soc, Transact., vol. i., p. 61. 
 
TABLE OF MONTHS, WEEKS, AND DAYS. 
 
 &17 
 
 llooths and days of 
 our era. 
 
 Mentha and dayR of 
 the Mexican civil 
 calendar. 
 
 Days ami ««eka of 
 the Mexican ritual 
 calendar. 
 
 Accompanying algns, 
 or ' lorda (if the night' 
 
 February 1 
 
 ■1 
 
 4 
 
 ll..Cnetzpalln 
 
 12..Ci.atl 
 
 13..M!quiztli 
 
 l..llazatl 
 
 Atl 6 
 
 5 
 
 1 lazolteotl 7 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 TepeyoUutli 8 
 
 Quiahuitl 9 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 3..TochtU 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 S 
 
 7 
 8 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 3 Atl 
 
 4..Itzcuintll ... 
 
 S..Ozoinatll 
 
 6..Halinalli 
 
 7..Acatl 
 
 Tecpatl 2 
 
 Xwhitl.. a 
 
 Ceiiteotl 4 
 
 Hiquiztii ft 
 
 10 
 
 13 
 
 Atl « 
 
 11 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 8 Ocelotl 
 
 Tla/:oltcotl 7 
 
 13 
 
 9..QnauhtU 
 
 10..Cozca(iuaubtU .. 
 
 IL.OIlin 
 
 TepeyollotU 8 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 Quiahuitl 9 
 
 U 
 
 17 
 
 Tletl ~1 
 
 IS 
 
 18 
 
 12 'lerpati 
 
 ecpatl 3 
 
 16 
 
 19 
 
 13..Qiiialiuitl 
 
 Xochitl a 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 17 
 
 L.Xochitl 
 
 Ceuteotl 4 
 
 
 
 2..ripacm 
 
 3..Bhevatl 
 
 4..CuIII 
 
 
 H 
 19 
 
 Atlcahiulco 1 
 
 a 
 
 Miquiztli A 
 
 Atl (1 
 
 2(1 
 
 3 
 
 '1 lazolteotl 7 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 S..C.'net7.palin 
 
 O..Coatl 
 
 Tepeyollotli 8 
 
 Quiahuitl 9 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 32 
 
 6 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 7..Hiqniztli 
 
 H..Waztttl 
 
 9 Ttu'htli 
 
 24 
 2S 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 '.» 
 
 Tecpatl 3 
 
 Xochitl 3 
 
 26 
 
 10. .Atl 
 
 Ceuteotl 4 
 
 27 
 38 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 ll.Itzciiintll 
 
 12..Uzouiatli .. 
 
 13 .Mallnalll- 
 
 L.Aoatl 
 
 Miqui/tU 5 
 
 Atl 6 
 
 
 
 March 1 
 
 TIazolteotI 7 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 3 
 
 Tepeyollotli 8 
 
 Quiahuitl 9 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 3 
 
 U 
 
 2..Ucelotl 
 
 4 
 
 1.^1 
 
 S.Qiiauhtli 
 
 4..Cuzcaiiuauhtli.. . 
 S..()llin 
 
 6 
 
 Hi 
 
 Tecpatl 3 
 
 6 
 
 17 
 
 Xochitl 3 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 6. .Tecpatl 
 
 
 8 
 
 11) 
 
 7..yulalniit! 
 
 8..Xochitl 
 
 Miquiztli 6 
 
 Atl « 
 
 9 
 
 ■•[} 
 
 10 
 Jl 
 
 TlacaxipchiiuUztli 1 
 
 2 
 
 9..Cipactli 
 
 :ii..Khpcatl. . .. 
 11 i;»lli 
 
 Tla/olteotl 7 
 
 •I epeycillotU 8 
 
 Qui^huiU » 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
 13 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 12,.Cuet7.paliil 
 
 1,1 CoatI 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 Tecpatl a 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 LMiqul/tU 
 
 2 ..\la/.atl 
 
 IS 
 16 
 
 X.HhttI 3 
 
 (Vutciitl 4 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 3..Tochtll 
 
 4. .Atl 
 
 5 It/ciiintli 
 
 •:. .Oziiiaatll 
 
 7..UaliualU 
 
 g Acatl 
 
 Miquiztli B 
 
 A»I 6 
 
 IH 
 19 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 21 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 Tepeyllotll 8 
 
 Quiah^Utl 9 
 
 Tlotl 1 
 
 33 
 
 13 
 
 21 
 
 '4 
 
 9. t>cel. tl 
 
 IO..(juaulttli 
 
 11. .('ii/.caquKuhtli . . 
 12 (lliin . 
 
 'Icipiifl 3 
 
 Xochitl 3 
 
 2i 
 
 I.l 
 
 2S 
 
 10 
 
 I'e iteotl 4 
 
 36 
 
 17 
 
 Miqui/tli S 
 
 Atl « 
 
 37 
 
 18 
 
 1.1 Tecpatt 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 l..QuiahntU 
 
 2. XochlU 
 
 n..Cipa<-tU 
 
 TIazolteotI 7 
 
 39 
 
 'iO 
 
 Tepeyollotli 8 
 
 Quiahuitl 9 
 
 30 
 
 Toiortoutli 1 
 
 a 
 
 31 
 
 4..Ehucatl 
 
 Tletl 1 
 
f m ';'?!"'l^^!Br" 
 
 618 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The five nemontemi were counted in. this calendar 
 as other days, that is, they received the names which 
 came in the regular order, but, nevertheless, they 
 were believed to be unlucky days and had no accom- 
 panying signs. 
 
 Besides the preceding cuts of the Mexican cal- 
 endar systems, as they were represented by Gemelli 
 Careri, Veytia, and others, the calendar-stone is the 
 most reliable source by which the extent of the astro- 
 nomical science of the Aztecs can be shown. Gama, 
 and after him Gallatin, give very accurate descriptions 
 of this stone ; I insert here a r^sumd from the latter 
 author. On this stone there is engraved in high-relief 
 a circle, in which are represented by certain hiero- 
 glyphics the sun and its several motions, the twenty 
 days of the month, some principal fast-days, and other 
 matters. The central figure represents the sun as it 
 is usually painted by the Mexicans. Around it, out- 
 side of a small circle, are four parallelograms with th6 
 signs of the days, Nahui Ocelotl, Nahui Ehecatl, Na- 
 hui Quiahuitl, and Nahui Atl. Between the two upper 
 and lower parallelograms are two figures, which Gama 
 explains as being two claws, which are the hieroglyphics 
 representing two eminent astrologers, man and wife. 
 Gama further explains these four signs of the days in 
 this place, as having reference to the four epochs of 
 nature, of which the Aztec traditions speak. The 
 first destruction of the sun is said to have taken place 
 in the year Ce Acatl and on the day Nahui Ocelotl. 
 The second sun was supposed to have died in the year 
 Ce Tecpatl and on the day Nahui Ehecatl ; the third 
 destruction occurred also in the year Ce Tecpatl and 
 on the day Nahui Quiahuitl; and lastly, the fourth de- 
 struction took place in the year Ce CalH, on the day 
 Nahui Atl. But Mr Gallatin thinks that these four 
 parallelograms had yet some other purpose ; for on the 
 twenty-second of May and on the twenty-sixth of 
 July, which days are K^ahui Ocelotl and Nahui Quia- 
 huitl, if we accept the thirty-first of December as the 
 
THE AZTEC CALENDAR-STONH. 
 
 619 
 
 first day of the Mexican cycle, the sun passed the me- 
 ridian of the city of Mexico. But in this case the 
 other two days, Nahui Ehecatl and Nahui Atl cannot 
 be explained in connection with any other astronomi- 
 cal event. Between the lower parallelograms are two 
 small squares, in each of which are five oblong marks, 
 signifiying the number ten ; and as the central figure 
 is 'in ollin tonatiuh, or sun, the number ten in these 
 two squares is supposed to mean the day Matlactli 
 Ollin. Below this again are the hieroglyphics Ce 
 Quiahuitl, and Ome Ozomatli. The day Matlactli 
 Ollin in the first year of the cycle is the twenty- 
 second of September; Ce Quiahuitl in the year Mat- 
 lactli omey Acatl, which year is inscribed at the head 
 of the stone, is our twenty-second of March; and 
 Ome Ozomatli in the same year would be our twenty- 
 second of June. Here are therefore designated three 
 of the principal phenomena as they happened in the 
 first year of the cycle, viz : two transits of the sun by 
 the zenith and the autumnal equinox. In the year 
 designated on the stone Matlactli omey Acatl, there 
 are given the spring equinox and summer solstice. 
 In a circle surrounding these figures are represented 
 the twenty days of the months. From the central 
 figure of the sun there runs upward, as far as the circle 
 of days, a triangle, the upper and smallest angle of 
 which points between the days Cipactli and Xochitl, 
 thus confirming the idea that Cipactli was always 
 the first day of the month. But Gama, Gallatin, 
 Humboldt, Dupaix, and all others who have copied 
 from them, do not represent the characters on this 
 stone as they really appear. By a photograj)!! taken 
 by M. Charnay, of which the cut on the next page is 
 a copy, it will be seen that all the figures, days as well 
 as parallelograms, are reversed on the representations 
 given by the above-mentioned authors; that is, the 
 engraver, when making his tracing, did not reverse 
 the figures before drawing them on tlie stone ; an error 
 corrected in the foUowmg cut. Therefore, instead 
 
' 
 
 630 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 of running from right to left, the days really run from 
 left to right. From the circle of days, four triangles, 
 or rays, project, exactly dividing the stone into four 
 quarters, each of which has ten visible squares, and, as 
 the rays cover twelve more, there would be fifty-two in 
 all. In each square are five oblong marks, which mul- 
 
 The Calendar-Stone. 
 
 tiplied by fifty-two, give two hundred and sixty, or 
 the first period of the Mexican ritual year. Outside of 
 the circle of these squares the four quarters are each 
 again divided by a smaller ray, and, as stated before, 
 at the head of the stone, over the principal triangle is 
 the sign of the year Matlactli Omey Acatl. Round 
 the outer edge are a number of other figures and hiero- 
 
CALENDAR OF THE TABASCOS. 
 
 621 
 
 m 
 ir 
 
 18 
 
 n 
 1- 
 
 glyphics, which have not yet been deciphered, or 
 whose interpretations by difterent writers present so 
 many contradictions that they would have no value 
 here.^' 
 
 The only information we have of the calendar used 
 in Michoacan is furnished by Veytia, and this is only 
 fragmentary. Enough is known, however, to show 
 that their system was the same as that of the Aztecs. 
 Instead of the four principal signs of the Aztecs, tec- 
 patl, calli, tochtli, and acatl, in Mechoacan the names 
 inodon, inhani, inchon, and intihui were used. Of 
 the eighteen months only fourteen are mentioned by 
 name. These are: Intacaci, Indehuni, Intecamom, 
 Interunihi, Intamohui, Inizcatolohui, Imatatohui, 
 Itzbachaa, Intoxihui, Intaxihui, Intechaqui, Inte- 
 chotahui, Inteyabchitzin, Intaxitohui. The five in- 
 
 1* Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc, Transact., vol. i., pp. 94-103; Leon y 
 Gama, Dos Piedras, pt i., pp. 89-114. Further description, and mention 
 of the astrononiical system will be found in Humboldt, Viies, torn, i., pp. 
 ■132-92, and torn, ii., pp. 1-99, 356-80; Tor^uemada, Mouarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., pp. 295-305; !,«« Uasas, Hist. Apolog^ttca, MS., cap. cxli; Sahagun, 
 Hist. Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., pp. 49-76, lib. iv., pp. 282-309, 338-49, torn, ii., 
 lib. vii., pp. 256-60, 264-5; Explanation of the Codex Vatieanus, in Kings- 
 borough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., pp. 196, 200; liolurini. Idea, pp. 42-59, 
 109 10, 122-4, 137-40, 153-5; Id., Catdlopo, pp. 57-72; Motolinia, Hist. In- 
 dios, in Irazltalirta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., pj». 35-8; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mrj., 
 torn, i., pp. .10-13S; Carbaial Espinosa, Hist. Mrx., torn, i., pp. 517-31; 
 Brasseur de liourboiirg, Hist. hat. Civ., toni. iii., pp. 457-82; Goinara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 294-97; Gcmelli Careri, in ChurchilFs Col. Voyages, tom. 
 iv., pp. 487-90; Leon y Gama, Dos Piedras; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. 
 Sor., Transact., vol. i., pp. 57-115; Laet, Novvs Orbis, pp. ?41-2; Pres- 
 cott's Affx.,\n\. i., pp. liO-27; Pimentel, Mem. soln-e la liaza Indiyena, 
 pp. 41-3; Xrhcl, Viaje, pi. I.; Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. 
 xviii. ; Ixtlilxochitl, liclaciones, in KingsborougWs Mex. Antiq., tom. ix., 
 j)p. 322-4; Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 397-9; Clavigiro, Sloria Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, ii., pp. 56-65; Midler, licisen, tom. iii., pji.fi3-90; McCnlloh's 
 RcHcurches in. Amer., pp. 201-25; Klemm, Cnltur-Ge.schichte, torn. v., i)p. 
 128-30; I'l/lor's lic^enrrXes, pp. 92-4; Id., Aitahuae, p. 103; Schoolcrn'fTs 
 Arch., vol. i., lip. 44-5; Montanns, Niewnr Wecrcld, pp. 266-7; PeterMar- 
 tyr, dec. iv., lii». viii., pp. 537-8; Baril, Mrxiqne, pp. 194-5, 211-15; Mor- 
 ton's Crania Amer., p. 150; Malte-Iirun, Precis dela Giog., torn, vi., pp. 
 445,293; Macgrcgor's Progress of Amer., \{A. i., p. 22; Chambers' Jour., 
 1835, vol. iv., p. 254; Laf'ond, Voyaaes, tom. i.,p. 118; Tuuron, Hist. 6V«., 
 tom. iii., pp. 21-2, 24-5; Poinsett s S'otes Mex., pp. Ill, 75-6; Simon's Ten 
 Tribes, pp. 149-57; Kendall's Nar.,\o\. ii., p. 328; Prichard's Nat. Hist. 
 Man, vol. ii., p. 507; Cabrera, in Ilnstracion Mex., torn, iv., pp. 461-70; 
 Midler, A mcrikanische Urreligionen, pp. 93-4; Humboldt, Essat Pol., tom. 
 i., p. 92; Thompson's Mex., p. 213; FallUs, £tudes Hist, sur les CivilisationI, 
 Paris, (n. d.) pp. 67-62. 
 
! 
 
 ii J' i 
 
 522 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 tercalary days were named intasiabire* The days 
 of the month, divided into four equal parts by the 
 above-mentioned four principal signs, were called: 
 Inodon, Inicebi, Inettuni, Inbeari, Inethaati, Inbani, 
 Inxichari, Inchini, Inrini, Inpari, Inchon, Inthahui, 
 Intzini, Intzoniabi, Intzimbi, Inthihui, Inixotzini, 
 Inichini, Iniabi, Intaniri.*^ 
 
 The Zapotecs in Oajaca, according to the descrip- 
 tion of Burgoa, used the same calendar as the Aztecs, 
 with this difference, that the year always commenced 
 on the twelfth day of March, and that the bissextile 
 year was corrected every fourth year, by adding, in- 
 stead of five, six intercalary days."" 
 
 23 
 
 I* 'Los cuatro mescs que faltan son losque corresponden d nuestro enero, 
 febrero y niurzo, porque ul innnuacrito le fulta la priiiieru hoju, y solo comi- 
 enza desde el dia 2*2 dc niarzo, y concluye en 31 dicieinbre, confrontando 
 BUS nieses con los nuestros.* Vei/tia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. i., p. 138. 'II 
 est dit que Tannine coninien9ait aii 22 innrsavcc le premier jour In Thacari.' 
 Brasaeur de Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 467. 
 
 " Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., pp. 137-8; Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 463, 467; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc, 
 TraMoet., vol. i., pp. 104-5. 
 
 ** 'Dabanle diez y ocho ineses de h 20. diaa, y otro mas do cinco, y 
 estc al cabo dc quatro auos conic nuestro Bisiesto lo variaban h seis dios, 
 pos las seis boras que sobran cada afio.' Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., torn, i., 
 pt ii., ful. 136. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE AZTEC PICTURE -WRITING. 
 
 Hieroglyphic Records — The Native Books — Authorities — De- 
 struction OF THE Native Archives by ZumArraoa and his 
 CoNFRbREs— Picture-writings used after the Conquest for 
 Confession and Law -Suits —Value of the Records — Docu- 
 ments sent to Spain in the Sixteenth Century — European 
 Collections — Lord Kingsborough's Work— Picture-writings 
 retained in mexico— collections of ixtlilxochitl, slgutsnza, 
 Gemelli Careri, Boturini, Veytia, Leon y Gama, Pichardo, 
 aubin, and the national museuh of mexico — process of 
 Hieroglyphic Development — Representative, Symbolic, and 
 Phonetic Picture-writing — Origin of Modern Alphabets — 
 the Aztec System — Specimen from the Codex Mkndoza — 
 Specimen from Gemelli Careri— Specimen from the Boturini 
 Collection— Probable future success of Interpreters— The 
 Nepohualtzitzin. 
 
 The Nahua nations possessed an original hiero- 
 glyphic system by which they were able to record all 
 that they deemed worthy of preservation. The art 
 of picture-writing was one of those most highly 
 prized and most zealously cultivated and protected, 
 being entrusted to a class of men educated for the 
 purpose and much honored. The written records 
 mcluded national, historic, and traditional annals, 
 names and genealogical tables of kings and nobles, 
 lists and tribute-rolls of provinces and cities, land- 
 titles, law codes, court records, the calendar and 
 succession of feasts, religious ceremonies of the tem- 
 
 (au) 
 
' 
 
 624 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 pie service, names and attributes of the gods, the 
 mysteries of augury and sooth-saying, with some de- 
 scription of social customs, mechanical employments, 
 and educational processes. The preparation and 
 guardianship of records of the higher class, such as 
 historical annals and ecclesiastical mysteries, were 
 under the control of the highest ranks of the priest- 
 hood, and such records, comparatively few in number, 
 were carefully guarded in the temple archives of a 
 few of the larger cities. These writings were a sealed 
 book to the masses, and even to the educated classes, 
 who looked with superstitious reverence on the priest- 
 ly writers and their magic scrolls. It is probable 
 that the art as applied to names of persons and places 
 or to ordinary records was understood by all educated 
 persons, although by no means a popular art, and 
 looked upon as a great mystery by the common 
 people. The hieroglyphics were painted in bright 
 colors on long strips of cotton cloth, prepared skins, 
 or maguey-paper — ^generally the latter — rolled up or, 
 preferably, folded fan-like into convenient books called 
 amatl, and furnished often with thin wooden covers. 
 The same characters were also carved on the stones 
 of public buildings, and probably also in some cases 
 on natural cliffs. The early authorities are unanimous 
 in crediting these people with the possession of a hie- 
 roglyphic system sufficiently perfect to meet all their 
 requirements.* 
 
 1 'Todas las cosas one conferimos me las dieron por pintnras, que aquella 
 era la escritura que ellos antiguamcnte usaban: los {nucndticos las declara- 
 r»n en su lengiia, escribiendo la dcclaracion al pie de la pintura. Tcngo 
 aun ahora estos originalcH.' Sahaffitii, Hist. Gen., torn, i., p. iv. ' Aiinqiic no 
 tenian escritura coniu numtrus tcniiin einpero bus iiguras y caractcrett que 
 todas las cosas qui querian, significaban; y destas suslibros grandes por tan 
 agudo y sutil nrtiticio, que podriamos decir que nueHtras letras en aquello 
 no les hicieron niuclia ventaja.' Las Casas, Hist. A/iologelica, M8., cap. 
 ccxxxv. 'Tenian sus figuros, y Hieroglyficas con que ])intauan las cosas en 
 esta forma, que las cosas que tenian nguras, las ponian con sus jtroprias 
 ymagines, y para las cosas que no auia ymagen propria, tenian otros ca- 
 racteres signincatiuos de aquello, y con este modo figurauan quanto querian.' 
 Acosta, Hist. de laa Ynd., p. 408. 'Letras Kcales de cosas pintadas, como 
 cran las pintnras, en one Ici^ Eneas la destruicion de Troya.' 'Y esto que 
 afimio, es tomado de las niisuias Historias Mexicanas, y Tetzcucanas, que 
 
DESTRUCTION OF ABORIGINAL RECORDS. 
 
 525 
 
 Unfortunately the picture-writings, particularly 
 those in the hands of priests — those most highly 
 prized by the native scholar, those which would, if 
 preserved, have been of priceless value to the students 
 of later times — while in common with the products of 
 other arts they excited the admiration of the foreign 
 invaders, at the same time they aroused the pious 
 feare of the European priesthood. The nature of the 
 writings was little understood. Their contents were 
 deemed to be for the most part religious mysteries, 
 painted devices of the devil, the strongest bund that 
 held the people to their aboriginal faith, and the most 
 formidable obstacle in the way of their conversion to 
 the true faith. The destruction of the pagan scrolls 
 was deemed essential to the progress of the Church, 
 and was consequently ordered and most successfully 
 carried out under the direction of tlie bishops and 
 their subordinates, the most famous of these fanatical 
 destroyers of a new world's literature being Juan de 
 Zumdrraga, who made a public bonfire of the native 
 archives. The fact already noticed, that the national 
 
 son las que sigo en este discureo, y las que tengo en mi poder.' Torqiiema- 
 da, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 29, 149, also pp. 30-1, 36, 253, toiii. li., pp. 
 263, 544-6. ' I liaue lieeretofore aaydc, that tlicy haue books whereof they 
 brought nianv: but this Ribcra saith, that tlicy are not made for the vse of 
 
 readinge What I shouhl thinke in this variety I knowo not. I suppose 
 
 them to l)ee bookes.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x!, dec. iii., lib. viii. ' Y en- 
 tre la barbaridiul destas naciones (dc Oajuca) sc liallaron muchos libros h su 
 niodo, en hojos, 6 telos de especiales cortc.'^as dc arholcs . . . . Y destos mes- 
 mos instrunientos he tenido en niia manos, y oydoh>sexplicar h algunos viejoa 
 con bastanto adniiraciun.' Burgoa, Palestra Hist., pt i., p. 89. 'I'intaban 
 en vnos papeles de hi tierra que dan los arlioles pegados vnos con otrus con 
 engrudos, que Ilaniaban Tcxnmalll sushistorias, y Iwtallas.' Vctanevrt, Tea- 
 tro Mex., pt ii., p. 60. 'Lodiciio lo c<>in))ruebau clarauicnte las Historias de 
 las Naciones Tultcca y Chichinieca, fi^uradas con pinturas, y Ucroglificos, 
 cspecialmentcenaquel Libro, queen Tula hicieronde suorigcn, y Ic lluniaron 
 Teoniaxtli, esto cs, Libro divino.' Lorrmann, in Corlis, Hist. N. Esjtaiia, pp. 
 6, 8-9. ' It is now proven beyond cavil, that both Mexico and Yucatan had 
 for centuries before ('oluinbus a phcuietic system of writing, which insured 
 the perpetuation of their histories and legends.' Brinton's Mjftlis. See also 
 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chkh., in Kingslwrouqh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 203-4, 
 235, 287; Id., Rclacionrs, in Id., p. 325; bitos Antiqiios, p. 4, in Id. ; Garcia, 
 in /rf., vol. viii., pp. 190-1; Gomara, Conq. Mex., itol. 299; Motolinia, Hist. 
 Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., pp. 186, 209; Fiicideal, in Ter- 
 navx-Compniia, Fbi/.iSorie i., torn, x., p. 230; Veiftia, Hist. Ant. Met., torn, 
 i., pp. 6-7, 251-2; Jternal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 68; Purchat his Pilgrinws, 
 vol. IV., p. 1135. 
 
526 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 annals were preserved together in a few of the larger 
 cities, made the task of Zumdrraga and his confreres 
 comparatively an easy one, and all the more important 
 records, with very few probable exceptions, were blot- 
 ted from existence. The priests, however, sent some 
 specimens, either originals or copies, home to Europe, 
 where they attracted momentary curiosity and were 
 then lost ani forgotten. Many of the tribute-rolls 
 and other paintings of the more ordinary class, with 
 perhaps a few of the historical writings, were hidden 
 by the natives and thus saved from destruction. Of 
 these I shall speak hereafter.' 
 
 After the zeal of the priests had somewhat abated, 
 or rather when the harmless nature of the paintings 
 was better understood, the natives were permitted to 
 use their hieroglyphics again. Among other things 
 they wrote down in this way their sins when the 
 priests were too busy to hear their verbal confessions. 
 The native writing was also extensively employed in 
 the many lawsuits between Aztecs and Spaniards 
 during the sixteenth century, as it had been employed 
 in the courts before the conquest. Thus the early 
 part of the centuiy produced many hieroglyphic docu- 
 ments, not a few of which have been preserved, and 
 several of which I have in my library. During the 
 same period some fragments that had survived the 
 general destruction were copied and supplied with ex- 
 
 1 * Aunque por haverse qiiemado estos Libros, al principio de la conver- 
 
 Bion no ha quetlatUt, para aora, miii averigiiado todo lo que ellos hicieron.' 
 
 Torquemada, Munarq. Iiid., torn, ii., p. 544, torn, i., prologo. Some of 
 them burned by order of the monks, in the fear that in tlie matter of reli- 
 gion these boolKa might prove injurious. LasCnsas, Hint. Apologttica, MS., 
 cap. ccxxxv. UoyaT archives of Tezcuco burned inadrertenlly by the first 
 pncsta Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. C/iich., in Kiiujsbaroufffi's Afcx. Antiq.,\o\. ix., 
 
 f). 20.*). ' Principalniente habiendo pereeido lo mejor de sus historias entrc his 
 lamas, p«)r no tenersc conocimiento de lo que signiticalmn bub pinturax.' 
 Leoti y Gniiia, Don Piedras, pt i., np. 2, 5. 'Por descracia loB misioneros 
 confundicron con los objetos ncl culto idoldtrico todos los gerogliiicos crono- 
 
 16gicos 6 hist4trico8, y en una misma hogucra so consumia el Idolo y cl 
 
 manuBcrito.' Alaman, Diaertacioiits, tom. ii., p. 154. See also PrescotCa 
 Mcx., vol. i., p. 101; Sahanuii, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 139-41; 
 Claviqero, Storia Ant. del Afaiaico, torn, ii., p. 18S; Duatumante, Mailanaa, 
 torn, li., prdlogo; Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., p. 226; Wilton's Conq. Hex., p. 
 24. 
 
VALUE OF THE NATIVE RECORDS. 
 
 wr 
 
 rger 
 
 r^res 
 
 tant 
 
 )lot- 
 
 >me 
 
 >pe, 
 
 '^ere 
 
 rolJs 
 
 ith 
 
 [den 
 
 Of 
 
 planations written with European letters in Aztec, or 
 dictated to the priests who wrote in Spanish. The 
 documents, copies, and explanations of this time are 
 of course strongly tinctured with Catholic ideas wher- 
 ever any question of rcliirion is involved, but other- 
 wise there is no reason to doubt their authenticity.* 
 
 To discuss the historical value of such Aztec writ- 
 ings as have been preserved, or even of those that 
 were destroyed by the Spaniards, or the accuracy of 
 the various interpretations that have been given to tlie 
 former, fonns no part of my i)urj)ose in this chapior. 
 Here I shall give a brief account of the preserved 
 documents, with plates representing a few of them as 
 specimens, and as clear an idea as possible of the sys- 
 tem according to which they were painted. Respect- 
 ing the theory, supported by a few writers, that the 
 Aztecs had no system of writing except the habit 
 conmion to all savage tribes of drawing rude pictures 
 on the rocks and trees, that the statements of the con- 
 querors on the subject are unfounded fabrications, the 
 specimens handed down to us mere inventions of the 
 priests, and their interpretations consequently purely 
 imaginary, it is well to remark that all this is a mani- 
 fest absurdity. On the use of hieroglyphics the au- 
 thorities, as we have seen, all agree ; on their destruc- 
 tion by the bishops they are no less unanimous; even 
 the destroyers themselves mention the act in their 
 correspondence, glorying in it as a most meritorious 
 
 ' 'It is to this transition-period that we owe many, perhaps most, of the 
 picture-documents still preserved.' Ti/lor's Researches, p. 97. 'There was 
 
 until late in the last century, a professor in the University of Mexico, 
 
 especially devoted to the study of the national picturc-writinu. But, as this 
 was with a viewtolepil procccdinp4, his information, pro1)abiy, was limited 
 to deciphcrin(r titles.' J'rescott's Mex., vol. i., p. 106. 'L'usage de ces pein- 
 tures, servant de pifeces de proces, c'est conservtS dans Ics tribunaux es- 
 pagnols long-temps apr^s la conqufite.' Humboldt, I'?<f.«, torn, i., pp. 109-70. 
 'Escriltcn toda la doctrina ellos por sus figuras y caracteres niuy ingeniosa- 
 nientc, poaieiido la tigura quo corrcs|>ondia en la voz y sonido d nuestro 
 vocahlo. Asi como si dijeremos Amen, poiiian pintada una conio fuentc y 
 luego un maguey que en su lengiia correspoude con Amen, porque lluniada 
 Ametl, y asl de todo lo dentas.' Las Casus, I fist. AiwloaHira, MS., cap. 
 
 ccxxxv. ^e aXao Ritos Antic — ~ "" "" ''" — *■ *' — .•-*.•- 
 
 vol. ix.; Ramirez, I'rovcso at 
 linia. Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, 
 
 intas. Las Vasas, lltst. Apolonttira, MS., cap. 
 itigvos, p. 63, in Kingsboroiigh's Mex. Antiq., 
 de Restd.; Carhajal, IHscuiso, p. 115; Moto- 
 \alceta, Col. de Doc., toui. i., p. 122. 
 
538 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 deed. The burning was moreover perfectly consistent 
 with the policy of the Church at that time, and its 
 success does not seem extraordinary when we consider 
 the success of the priests in destroying monuments of 
 solid stone. The use of the aboriginal records in the 
 Spanish courts for a long period is undeniable. The 
 priests had neither the motive nor the ability to in- 
 vent and teach such a system. Respecting the liis- 
 torical value of the destroyed documents, it is safe to 
 believe that they contained all that the Aztecs knew 
 of their past. Having once conceived the idea of 
 recording their annals, and having a system of writing 
 adequate to the purpose, it is inconceivable that they 
 failed to record all they knew. The Aztecs derived 
 their system traditionally from the Toltecs, whose 
 written annals they also inherited ; but none of the 
 latter were ever seen by any European, and, according 
 to tradition, they were destroyed by a warlike Aztec 
 king, who wished the glory of his own kingdom to 
 overshadow that of all others, past, present, or future. 
 If the hieroglyphics of the Nahua nations beyond the 
 limits of Andhuac differed in any respect from those 
 of the Aztecs, such differences have not been recorded.* 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 * 'Au Mexique, rusoge dcs peintnres et celni du papier de maguey 
 s'etcndoient bien au dclii dcs liinitCH de I'enipire de Montezuma, jusqu uux 
 bordH dn lac de Nicaragua.' 'On voit que les pcuples de I'Aniferiquc etnicnt 
 bien uIoigu6s de cctte perfection qu'avoient atteintc les £gypticu8.' Hum- 
 boldt, Kmcs, torn, i., pp. 208, 193-4. 'Clumsy as it was, however, the Az- 
 tec picture-writing seems to have been adequate to the demands of the 
 nation.' PreacotCs Mex., vol. i., pp. 07-8, 108. 'The Mexicans may have 
 advanced, but, we believe, not a great v;ay, Iteyond the village children, 
 the landlady (with her ale-scores), or the Uosjcsnians.' Quarterly Review, 
 I81G, vol. XV., pp. 451, 449. ''i\M picture writings copied into the monster 
 volumes of Lora Kingsltorough, we have denounceu as Spanish fabrica- 
 tions.' Wilson's Conq. Mex., pp. 21-24. ' Until some evidence, or shadow 
 of evidence, can be found that these quasi records are of Aztec origin, it 
 would be useless to examine the contradictions, absurdities and nonsense 
 they present. . . .The whole story must be considered as one of Zumarraga's 
 pious frauds.' Id,, pp. 91-2. 'Las pinturas, que sc qucmaron en tieniiN) 
 del sefior de Mexico, que se decia Itzcdatl, en cuya d]M)ca los senores, y los 
 principales que liabia ent6nces, acordaron y mandaron que se quemasen 
 todas, para que no vinicsen d manos del vulgo, y f ucscn mcnospreciados.' Sa- 
 hagun. Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 140-1; Brasscur de Bourhourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 209. See also Waldcck, Voij. Pitt., pp. 46-7; 
 Gallatin, in A mer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 144; Orozco y Bcrra, 
 Qeogrtrfia, p. 100; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. L, p. 93. 
 
EUROPEAN COLLECTIONS. m 
 
 I have said that many hieroglyphic manuHcripts, 
 saved from the fires kindled by Zumdrraga's bigotry, 
 or copied by ecclesiastical permission before servmg as 
 food for their purifying iiames, were sent to Spain by 
 the conquerors. After lying forgotten for a few cen- 
 turies, attention wab again directed to these rel- 
 ics of an extinct civilization, and their importance 
 began to be appreciated ; search was made throughout 
 Europe, and such scattered remnants as survived their 
 long neglect were gathered and deposited in public 
 and private libraries. Eight or ten such collections 
 were formed and their contents were for the most part 
 published by Lord Kingsborough. 
 
 The Codex Mendoza was sent by the viceroy Men- 
 doza to Charles V., and is now in the Bodleian Library 
 at Oxford. It is a copy on European paper, coarsely 
 done with a pen, and rolled instead of folded. Another 
 manuscript in tuo Escurial Library is thought by 
 Prescott to be the original of this codex, but Hum- 
 boldt calls it also a copy. Au explanation of the 
 codex in Aztec and Spanish accompanies it, added by 
 natives at the order of Mendoza. It has been sev- 
 eral times published, and is divided in three parts, the 
 first being historical, the second composv^d of tribute- 
 rolls, and the third illustrative of domestic life and 
 manners." 
 
 The Codex Vaticanus (No. 3738) is preserved at 
 Rome in the Vatican Library, and nothmg is known 
 of its origin further than that it was copied by Pedro 
 de los Rios, who was in Mexico in 1566. It is di- 
 
 * See Mexican MSS.. in the list of authorities in vol. i. of this work, for 
 the location of this and other codices in Kingsborough 's work. This codex 
 was published also in Purchas his I'ilgrimet, vol. iv. ; Thevenot, Col. de 
 Voy., 169C, torn. ii. ; and by Loremana, in Cortis, Hist. N. EspaAa. 'D'aprfes 
 les recherches que j'ai faites, il parolt qu'il n'cxistc aujourd Jiui en Eunipe 
 
 3uesix collections de peintnres mexicamcc: celles de rEscurial, deBologne, 
 e Veletri, de Rome, de Vienne et de Berlin.' Humbcldt, Vues, torn, i., 
 p. 215. See also on the Codex Mendoza: Id., torn, ii., pp. 30&-22; Robert- 
 son's Hist. Amer., (Lond., 1777), vol. ii.,P. 480; PreseotVs Mex., vol. i., PP* 
 40, 103-4; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del mesaieo, torn. i>, JPP- 22-3, 26; UOi- 
 latin, in Amer. Ethno. Soe., Transact., vol. i., pp. 116-S29; Kingsborough^ 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., p. 299. 
 Vol. II. M 
 
880 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 vided into two |ia»^i/H, mytholoj^ical and historical, and 
 luiH a partial c'\|>l'inatii>n in Italian. Anotlier nianu- 
 t:jri[)t, (No. 377()) preserved in the same lihnirv, is 
 written on skin, hjiH been interpreted to Home e.\tent 
 by Humboldt, and is supposed to pertain to relij.>ioU8 
 rites. The Vodt'.c Tvllvnano-lii'meiisi)*, formerly in 
 the possession t>f M. Le Tellier, and now in the 
 Koyal Library at Paris, is nearly identical with tlie 
 (Jodex Vaticanus (No. 37Ji8), havin«r onl> one fij^ure 
 not tbund in that cihIc.x, but itself iackinjL>- many. It 
 has, however, an explanation in Aztec and Spjuiish." 
 The Cixh'x lioi'ijiou was deposited in the Collei»"e 
 of the Propaj^anda at Home by Cardinal .!>(>rtfia, who 
 found it used as a playtliin«( 'oy the children in the 
 (iiistiniani family. It is written <tn skin, and appears 
 to be a ritual and astroli>^ic ahiianai; very similar to 
 the Vatican manuscript (No. .'{77(»). It is accompa- 
 nied by an interpretation or connnentary by Fabre«fa. 
 The CV/f'.r /it»/<>;/iio, preserved in the libiary of the 
 Seientitic Institute, was presente«l in MWJ;) tt> the 
 Manpiis (le Caspi, by C ount Valeri(» Zani. It is writ- 
 ten on badly pre|)ared skin, and ap]>ears to treat of 
 astroloi^y. A copy exists in the Museum of Cardinal 
 J^or>;ia at Veletri. Of the (/oiAr I'lcnmt iiotliinn' is 
 known exce|>t that it was j^iven in 1(577 to the Km- 
 pfior Leopold by the l)uk< of Saxe-Kiseiiach, and 
 that its resemblance to tlie mamisci'ipts at Home aiul 
 N^'lctri Would indicate a connnon ori]nin. Four ad- 
 ditional manusi ri|)ts jroin the Hodleian Lib ary at 
 ()xford, and one luilonyiui,^ to M. de Fejcrvary in 
 Hungary, arc published by Kin^^sborouj^h. Xothini;' 
 is known of the oriijin ol" these, nor has any intcipii^ 
 ta,ti(tn Ikjcu attejupted, althoui^di the last named seems 
 to be historical or chronolojLfical in its Jiature.^ 
 
 '• Uiimhnlill, Vitis, toil), i., p).. 17;i. I'MAl; Mhm. |il. V.}, U, 'Jf.. .".«!. (U». 
 tiMll. ii., |i. IIS; I'ftin'ifi rii, Slm/ir .l;(^ (/('/ Mrsxiru, tulil. i.. |i '2'.i: >iii//iiliii. 
 ill Aniir. ICf/iiiit. Snr., 7'(7(^■•'»>'•^, Mil. i., jiji. I Hi, I2.'>, I.TJ-IH; Kiixixhiir- 
 vinili's Mr.r. Aiifi'/., M>\. vi., |i|>. !>.'», I.m; II ilxun's <'i,iii/. Mix., |i iH. ■Till' 
 firlioii of sdiiic SiuiiiiMli inidlk.' (Jiinrtirh/ /{i riiii\ IHUi, vol, xv., p. IIH. 
 
 ' IliimliitUlt, Viiis, toiii. i., p|i. ■-•It)-I!>, 'JW-.'rfi, with |MiitiiiiiH ol llii- llor- 
 
 I 
 
rU'TUUE-WHITINfJS i'UESERVKn IN MKXKO. 
 
 Thll 
 
 I h ive said that nmny manuHcripts, mostly cojjieH, 
 but |) irliuhly some ori^j^inalH, were preserved from de- 
 striK^tioii, and retaiiie<l m Mexico. Material is not 
 ai'<!essil>le for a complete «letailed history of these 
 doeuments, nor does it seem desirahle to attempt here 
 to disei!taii,i»'le the mimeroiis contradictory statements 
 on the snhject. The survivinjir remnants of the 'IVz- 
 cucan archives, with a<lditions from various sounds, 
 Were inherited hy IxtlilxocliitI, the line; i descendant 
 of Tezcu(!o's last kiny\ who used them ; .lensively if 
 not always judit'iously in his voluminoUH historical 
 writini;s. Tlie collection of which these documents 
 formed a nucleus may he traced m«»re or less cltarly 
 to the successive possessicni of Sit^iienza, the ( V»lley;e 
 of San Pe(ho y San l*ahlo, iioturini Benaduci, tlie 
 Vice-re<jfal Palace, Vtytia, ()r*e^'a, Leon y (Jama, 
 Pichardo, Sanchez, and jit last to the Nati(»nal Mu- 
 seum of the Hniversity of Mexii-o, its pri'sent and 
 appropriiite restin^^-j>lac(\ FretpU'ut interventions of 
 «fovernment and private law-suits interrupted this 
 line of succession, and thi^ colhction hy n(» m(tans 
 passed down the line intact. I'lidcr the care ol' sev- 
 eral of the owners larj^e portions of the accumulation 
 were scattered; hut on the otlan* hand, several l»y 
 persitnal research oreatly enlarsj^ed their store of ah- 
 ori-jfinal literature. While in Siijiienzas possession 
 the (IfHumeiits were e\. nniu'd hy the Italian traveler 
 (Jemelli Careri, through whose puhlish«'<l work one of 
 the most important t)f the j»ictured na-ords was made 
 known to the world. This latter has Iummi often re- 
 puhlished and will he n'lven as a specimen in this 
 chaitter." ('lavit,^'ro studied the maimscripts in the 
 .Kssuit Col'ejre of San I*e<lro y San F*al>lo in \7^)\h^ 
 
 ii'y.iu CimIcx ill |ilati'M 1."", '.'7, '17. Sunic |iji;.'c.s of llic \'i<Miiiii ('mlcN wciv 
 |iul>liKlii'i| ill lliihrrt^'iiii's lli.it. Anirr., (I.iiihI , 17771, vil. ii., |>. IS'J. 
 
 " Ciiriri, (liriiilil Moin/n, (Nii|ilcs, ItJiMI- ITlHt), toiii. \i,; Ihuiilni/i//, ]'iii:<i, 
 toiil. ii., |tii. KJS S,'i, Alius, |il. xwii.; Ixniiisliiiriiiiiili's Mix. .{iili'i.. Mil, iv.; 
 Si-hiiiihrnfl'.'i Arr/i., vol. i., |i. 'JO; I'livn.l/'s Hist. I'liiii/. .Mi.r {\iv\. IsUi), 
 ti)iii. iii.; iiitri'iti 1/ I'liliii.v, .if/iit; Siiiiiiii'.s '/'ill Triliis, frniiliH|iii-rc; ( •iillaliii, 
 ill Aiiin-. Klhiin. S<ir., Trmisivl. , veil, i., ii. l'J7, |>ioiii>iiin'cs it an iiiiitaliini 
 ami not a coitv of a Mcxiraii |>aiiitiii|{, nlxmr aiitlioiitieity may lii.' (louhtu<l. 
 
 '■> Storiu A)il. ifil Mr.t.stcu, torn, i., pp. *i2-('i. 
 
532 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 Boturini was a most indefatigable collector, his accu- 
 mulation in eight yeai's amounting to over five hun- 
 dred specimens, some of them probably ante -dating 
 the S})ani«h conijuest. He published a catalogue of 
 his treasures, which were for the most part confiscated 
 by the government and deposited in the })alace of the 
 viceroy, where many of the documents are said to 
 have l)een destroyed or damaged l)y damj^ness and 
 want of care. Those retained bv the collector were 
 even more unfortunate, since the vessel on which they 
 were sent to Europe was taken by an English pirate, 
 and the papers have never since l)een heard of. Only 
 a few fragments from the Boturini collection have 
 ever been published, the most imjwrtant of which, a 
 history of the Aztec migration, has been often re- 
 produced, and will be given »n this chapter. The 
 original was seen by HumlK)ldt in tl»*! palace of the 
 vicerov, and is now in the Mexican Museum.'" 
 
 The confiscated documents pHJ*t*ed by order of the 
 Spanish government hito the hands of \'»vtia. or at 
 least lie was permitted to use them in tin- preparation 
 of his history," and after his death ar*d tti* cf/rnple- 
 tion of his work by Ortega, they passt/J, mA without 
 a lawsuit, into the j)ossession of f^'on y Oama, the 
 astronomer." ( )ii tlio death of (iama a part of his 
 mamiscripts were K<»ld to Humboldt to ft)rm the Ber- 
 lin collection published by KingslM)rougb;'^ the rest 
 
 n Botiiriiti. CaMlogo, in /</., /r/ru, Aiihiii, in Rv(is»fiir dr Jiourhourg, 
 Ili-it. Nut. dr., toMi. i.. pp. xxxiii.; frrnroff'/i Mrj;., v«»l. i., pp. I.'»*-4I0; 
 HinnhnMt, Vtirn, ttini. i., pp KW 3, 'Z-ilfr-A; ('l>n-i/firv, Storia Aiif. drl \tf»- 
 ulri,, toiii. !., pp. '15-17, '.'3-.'); <riit/<i(ni, in Aiaer. Klhno. So<:, Tranxurt , 
 vol. i., pp. I'20-I; I'fi/fin, Hist. Ant. Mr/., toni. i., p. xxi., et scq., p. 1 1« 
 'I'iuit portion of tiic rcMlt'X M<MHlo/.a jfivon in Vortfn, Hist. N. En/mrin, »«« 
 fiMMi II rops ii' till* llotnrini colU'.-tion. Tliv n)anuHcript ilcHcriliiii}; tli*> 
 Aztec hii;;rati<>ii wtin piihliMlii-il in KinptlM>rnu};li, Srli«Milcmft, I'rcscott. 
 (MfX. IH4(ll, lliinilMildt M .l^/f(.v, Dcliilii'lirH Antiq. Amir., (ianlii v Culms' 
 A tins, anil I liavo in ni\ lihrury two copiuH on long tttripH of ]>u|)(;r fol<ic(l in 
 tiie ori;.'inul form. 
 
 '• Ortc;;a, in I'ruti/i. Hist. j\ *. Mrj., toni. I., pp. xxii-xxiv., Ha\« thi'V 
 wiTo not jfiviMi to Vcvtia iIm Hotnrini a executor, but winiply entruHteU to 
 him for \\*v in liis work, and aftfrwanJM ri<tnrne<l to the areliivuH. 
 
 '* (iomlra. in I'irsi-off. /fist, t'otiq. Ulrjr. (M«;x., 1840), toHi. iii., p. ii., H4iyH 
 that ( ianni waH Si)r(keny.a'H heir. 
 
 ii Humboldt, luut, toni. i., pp. IC). ■i.'M 1. 
 
hip:roglyphic development. 
 
 533 
 
 came into the hands of Pichardo, (Jrama's executor, 
 who spent his j)rivate fortune in iniprovinji^ his collec- 
 tion, described by Humboldt as the richest in Mexico. 
 Many of Pichardo's papers were scattered durin«; the 
 revolution, and the remainder descended throuufli his 
 executor Sanchez to the Museum." It is not unlikely 
 either that the French intervention in later years was 
 also the means of sendinj^ some picture- writ! n«^s to 
 Europe. Of the documents removed from the Mexi- 
 can collections on difterent occasions and under ditfer- 
 ent T>retexts, M. Aubin claims to have secured the 
 larffer part, which are now in his collection in J^aris, 
 with co])ies of such maimscripts as he has l)een unable 
 to cbtain in the orijfinal form." 
 
 In order to form a clear idea of the Aztec system 
 of picture-writinjjc, it will be well to consider first the 
 -'eneral principles of hiero«)flyphic development, which 
 ire remarkably uniform and simple, and which may 
 l)eHt f*- illustrated l>y our own langua*»'e, supposin*^ it, 
 f<f»r C(Mivenience, to be only a spoken timyue. 
 
 ft is ♦•vidt'iit that the first attempt at expressing? 
 Wi«'as with the brush, [)encil, or knife, would be the 
 reprcs»rritatioti of visible objects by j)ictures as accti- 
 rately <irawn .'is jK)ssible; a house, man, bird, or Hower 
 are Jravvn true to the life in all their details. But 
 very s<M»n, if a frecjuent repetition of the pictures were 
 needed, a desire to save labor would prompt the artist 
 to simplify his drawing, makiiiLj only the liiu^s neces- 
 mi4f to show that a lnHiwe, man, etc., were meant, -a 
 rt!<f'>yfnide movement artisti<ally considerel. but intel- 
 lectually the first step towaids an Ml]>iiabet. The 
 rej»resentation of action.^ aiul conditions, such as a 
 house on fire, a dead man, a flvini>- bird, or a red flower 
 Would naturally follow. 
 
 '* /hmtfiinfinfr, in Leon y damn, Ikm PifArax, pt i., pp. ii-iii. ~_- 
 
 '■* St'c li»t of part iif M. AuUin'- iiiniiii'U'riptH in lirnssrurih' RouftioHrr/, 
 Ilixt, S'lif. f '//'., toMi. i., |ip. Ivvxi lxx^iil ; uIho a very ••Diiiplt'to acrdimt of 
 llic ilirt'tTfiit oillcriiiiiiM of A/tcM- pii-liiiV'Wriliii;>N ' ill tiic iiitnxlurtory 
 ••hapti'r of l){jin€ii'ih, Atnuiuint J'oloyruj)/ii<jU(. 
 
534 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The three j^rades of cleveh)pment mentioned helong 
 to what may he tenned representative picture-writiiiju^. 
 It is tt) he noted that this writing has no rehition to 
 hin<;uaufe; that is, the signs re})resent only visihle oh- 
 jects and actions Avithout reference to tlie words l)y 
 which the oiyects are named or the actions expressed 
 in our hinguage. The pictures would have the same 
 meaning to a Frenchman or Cjermanas to the painter. 
 
 The next higher phase of the art is known as svm- 
 bolic picture-writing. It springs from the need that 
 would soon he experienced of some method hy which 
 to express abstract (pialities or invisible oiyects. The 
 symbolic system is closely analogous in its earlier 
 stages to the represiiutative, as when the act of swim- 
 ming is symbolized by a fish, a journey by a succes- 
 sion of f<K>tprints, night by a black s<|uare, light by 
 an eye, power by a hand, the connection between the 
 picture anil the idea to be expressed being more or less 
 obvious, Such a comiection, real or imaginary, must 
 always be supposed to have existed originally, since it 
 is not likely that purely arbitrary symbols would be 
 adopted, but nearly all the symbols would be practi- 
 cally arbitrary and meaningless to a would-be inter- 
 preter ignorant of the circumstances which originated 
 their signification. 
 
 We have seen that the symbolic and representative 
 stages of development are in many res])ects very like 
 one to the other, and there* are many hieroglyphic 
 metluKls between the two, which it is verv difiicult to 
 assign altogether to eitlier. For instance, when a 
 large j>ainted heart expresses the name of a chief 
 'Big Heart;' or when a j>eculiarly formed nose is 
 painted to rej)resent the man to whom it belongs; or 
 when tbe outlines of the house, man, bird, or fiower 
 already mentioned are so very much simplified as to 
 lose all their a]>parent resemblance to the objects 
 represents!, ft is also to be noted that the symbolic 
 writing, as well as the re})resentative, is entirely in- 
 dependent of language. 
 
HHPItESENTATIVE AND SYMBOLIC WUITING. 
 
 &35 
 
 Pictiire-writinjr of the two classes descrilHjd has l)eeii 
 praeti(;ed uiore or less, i)robal)ly, hy every savajje 
 tribe. By its aid records of events, such as tribal 
 inij>rations, and tlie warlike achievements of noted 
 chiefs, may be anil doubtless have been made intelli- 
 gible to those for wluwe ]»erusal they wtjre intended. 
 But the key to such hierojLflyphics is the actual ac- 
 (juaintance of the nation with eacli chara<*ter and 
 symbol, and it cannot loni»' survive the practice of the 
 art. Jn only two ways can the meanin*.^ <'f >^i>*h 
 records be i>reserved, — the study of the art while 
 actually in use by a peo]>le of superior culture, or its 
 devel<)pment into a hierojflypbic system of a liiyher 
 jjfrade. Neither of these conditions were fulfilled in 
 the case of our Wild Tribes, but both were so to some 
 extent, as we shall see, in the case of the C'ivili/ed 
 Nations. Throughout the Pacific States rock-carvinii^s 
 and painted devices will be noted in a subseipient vol- 
 ume of this work ; most of them doubtless bad a me.in- 
 ui^ to their authors, althouoch many may be attributed 
 to the characteristic common to savau^es and iliildren 
 of whilinj^ away time by tracinjjc unmeaniniif sketches 
 from fancy. All are meaninucless now and must evi i- 
 remain so. Full of meaniiii^ to the ^feneration whose 
 work they were, they served t«) keep alive in the tol- 
 lowinif ^feneration the memory <»f some distinuiiished 
 warrior, or some element of aboriti'inal worship, but 
 to the third <jeneration thev became nt)t]iinL:- but ob- 
 jects of superstitious wonder. Kven after cominif 
 into contact with h^:>"opeans the siiva<;e often indicates 
 by an arrow and otluT fiLTures cjirved on a forest-tree 
 the number of an enemy and the dire<tion tluy have 
 taken, or leaves some other e<|ually simple representa- 
 tive record. 
 
 The next and most important step in hierooly]»hic 
 develojtnient is taktii when a phonetic element is in- 
 troduced; wJien the pictures come into a ndation, not 
 bef«»ir attaininl, with sounds or spoken liin;4ii!ii^e ; 
 when a pictui*e of thr luunaii form sinrnifies ntai:, 
 
636 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 not homme or hombre; a painted house, house, not 
 caxa or maison. Of this phonetic picture-writing 
 in its simplest form, the illustrated rebuses — chil- 
 dren's hieroglyphics — present a familiar example; as 
 when charity is written by drawing in succession a 
 chair, an eye, and a chest ef tea, * chair-eye-tea.' In 
 pronouncing the whole word thus written, the sounds 
 of the words represented by the pictures are used 
 without the slightest reference to their meaning. To 
 the Frenchman the same pictures 'chaise -ceil -the' 
 would have no meaning. 
 
 In the example given the whole name of each word 
 pictured is pronounced, but the number of Mords that 
 could be produced by such combinations is limited, 
 and the first improvement of the system would per- 
 haps be to pronounce only the leading syllable or 
 sound of the pictured word, and then charity might 
 be painted 'cha (pel)-ri (ng)-tee (th).' By this sys- 
 tem the same word might he written in a great many 
 ways, and tlu3 next natural improvement would l)e 
 the conventional adoption of certain easily pictured 
 words to represent certain sounds, as *hat,' 'hand,' or 
 'ham,' for the sound ha, or simply the aspirated h. 
 The next development would be effected by simplify- 
 ing the outlines of the numerous pictures employed, 
 which have now become too complicated and bulky 
 for rapid writing. For a time this process of siiii])li- 
 fit'ation would still leave a rude resemblance to the 
 original picture; but at last the resemblance would 
 become very faint, or only imaginary, and j)erha|»s 
 some arbitrary signs would be added — in other words, 
 a phonetic alphal)et would be invented, the highest 
 degree of perfection yet aciiieved in this direction. 
 
 To recapitulate bricHy: picture-writing may be di- 
 vided, according to the successive stages of its devel- 
 opment, into three classes, re[)resentative, symbolic, 
 and phonetic, \h -mw of which except the last in its 
 highest or alphabetic, and the first in its rudest, state, 
 would be used alone by any people, but rather all 
 
HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING. 
 
 687 
 
 would be employed together. In the representative 
 stage a ^ might express a human hand, or as the 
 system is perfected, a large, small, closed, black, or 
 red hand; and finally 'Big Hand,' an Indian chief; 
 and all this would be equally intelligible to American 
 or Asiatic, savage or civilized, without respect to 
 language. 
 
 Symbolic picture-writing indicates invisible or ab- 
 stract objects, actions, or conditions, by the use of 
 pictures sui)posed to be suggestive of them ; the sym- 
 bols are originally in a manner representative, and 
 rarely, if ever, arbitrarily adupted. As a symbol the 
 {j might express power, a blow, murder, the number 
 one or five. These symbols are also independent of 
 language. 
 
 Phonetic picture-writing represents not objects, but 
 sounds by the picture of objects in whose names the 
 sound occurs; first words, then syllables, then ele- 
 mentary sounds, and last — by modification of the 
 pictures or the substitution of simpler ones — letters 
 and an alphui»et. According to this system the ^ 
 siirnifies successivelv the word 'hand,' the svlial)le 
 'hand' in handsome, the sound 'ha' in happy, the 
 aspiration 'h' in head, and finally, by simpHfying its 
 form «r writing it rsipidly, the ^ becomes h, and then 
 the 'h of the alphabet. 
 
 The process of development which I have attempted 
 to explain by iniaginarv exiimples and iiiustrations in 
 our own language, is probably applicable to a greater 
 or less extent to all hieroglyphic systems; vt-t such 
 hierogly|)hics as have been preserved are of a mixed 
 class, uniting in one word, or senterno, or d<K'unu!ut, 
 iill the forms, representative, symlK»liv, an<l phonetic; 
 the Egyptians first sj>elled a wtuxi phonetieally aM<l 
 then, to make the meaning clear, re[)resente(l the 
 word by a picture or sviuIh)! ; the Chinese characters 
 were originally j)ictures of visible objects, though 
 they would m^ now be recognize<i Jis such, if the 
 originals were not in existence. What j)roj)ortion of 
 
588 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the letters in modern alphabets are simplified pictures, 
 or roj)re8entative characters, and what arbitrary, it is 
 of course iini)()HHible to determine; many of them, 
 however, are known to be of the former class." 
 
 In the Aztec picture-writings all the grades or 
 classes of pictures are found, except the last and high- 
 est — the al|)habet. A very large pait of the charac- 
 ters employed were representative ; many conventional 
 syml)ols are known; and the Aztecs undoubtedly em- 
 ployed plionetic paintings, though perhaps not very 
 extensively in the higher grades of development. 
 
 The plate on the opj)08ite page is a reproduction of 
 a part of the Codex Mendoza from Kingsborough's 
 work. Its four grouj)s describe the education of the 
 Aztec child under the care of its parents. In the first 
 group the father (fig. .'{) is punishing his son by hold- 
 ing him over the fumes of burning chile (fig. 5); while 
 the mother threatens her daughter with the same 
 punishment. Figures 2 and 8 represent, like 11,1 (>, 
 20, 24, 30 and 34 in the other groups, the child's al- 
 lowan<'e of tortillas at each meal. In the secitiid 
 group the son is punished by being stretched naked 
 on the wet ground, having his luunls tied, while the 
 girl is foncd to swee|), or, as she has no tear in her 
 eye, jierhaps is merely being taught to sweep instead 
 of being })ui)i.shed. In the third grouj) the father em- 
 ploys his boys in luinging wo«)d (fig. 21) or reeds 
 either on the back or in a can»)e; and the mother 
 tea<;hes her daughter to make tortillas (fig. 27) and 
 the use of the metate and other household utensils 
 (figs. 23, 25, 26, 28). In the last group the son learns 
 the art of fishing, and the daughter that of weaving. 
 
 '6 In the Egyptian development, ft i)ict.iiretl mouth first Rignificd the 
 word rn, then the syUahle ro, and tinally the h'tter or Hound r, ultlioii^di it 
 Ih thMil>tful if thev nuu\i' much use of tlie third t<ta!.'e, except in writiii}.' 
 Home foreijfn wonU. Many of the Ciiiiiese ])icturcM are douhie, one iM-in;^ 
 determinative of sound, tlic otiier of HcuHe; as if in Knglish >ve shouhl e.\- 
 iirews tiie xound jmir hy a picture of the fruit of that name, the fruit jxar 
 liy (lie same picture nccomiianied by a tree, tlie wtuii jmrr hy the name pic- 
 ture and a knife, the word i«»/> hy the jiicture and two points, ete. Hum- 
 boldt, Viiex, toni. )., pp. 17<-'.»; Tj/lor's ilinninhr.i, pp. OS-IOl. 
 
SPECIMEN FKOM CUDEX MENUOZA. 
 
 '"GO 
 COOQO 
 00000 
 
 coooo f^ 
 coooo 
 
 Education of Aztec CItildrcn. 
 
 Thus far all the pictures are purely representative; 
 the remainder are more or less symbolic. Tlie small 
 circles (H<,^ 1, 10, H), 29) are numerals, as explained 
 in a juecedini^ chai)ter, and indicate the aye of the 
 
640 
 
 THE N AH II A NATIONS. 
 
 children, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years 
 respectively; the character isHuin^ from the mouth of 
 the parents is the 8yml)ol of siK'ech, and indicates that 
 the person to whom it is attached is speakinjir; the 
 tears in the children's eyes, are symlnils of the weep- 
 inir naturally caused by the punishment inflicted; and 
 fiffure 14 is interpreted to be a syml>ol of nijjht, indi- 
 cating that the child was forced to sweep at nijjfht." 
 
 Many of the Aztec symbols are of clearly repre- 
 sentative ori»^in, as foot-prints, symb<ilw of travelmjf; 
 tongues, of speech; a man sitting on the ground, of 
 an earth(}uake ; painted drops, of water; and other signs 
 for day, night, air, movement, etc., which are more or 
 less clear. But of others, as the serpent, symbol of 
 time, the origin is not affirmed. To define the extent 
 to which the symbolic writing prevailed is very ditticult, 
 Injcause many of the characters which were, originally 
 at least, representative, would appear to the unini- 
 tiated purely arbitrary ; and it is not improbable that 
 many signs may have had a double meanuig according 
 to tiio connection in which they were employed. The 
 system is ca)»able of indefinite expansion in the hands 
 of the [)riesthood for purpiises of religious mystifica- 
 tion; and the fact that the religious and astrologic 
 documents seem to contain but few of the representa- 
 tive and phonetic signs by which other paintings are 
 interpreted, lends some probability to the theory that 
 the priests had a partially distinct symbolic system of 
 their own. The Abbe Brasseur goes so far as to say 
 that all the historical documents had a double mean- 
 ing, one for the initiated, another for the masses. 
 The use of symbols doubtless accounts for the difii- 
 cultv experienced in tlie inteqirotation of the j)icturo- 
 writings which have been j)reserved, and for the 
 variety of extravagant theories that have been founded 
 on them. 
 
 The intermediate method already mentioned as 
 
 " Codtx Mcndozn, in Kiiiffiihoruiii//i\i .l/lx. Autiq., vol. i., pi. Ixi. Ex- 
 planation, vol. v., pp. 9tt-7. See p. '1\\ of tliiH voliiiiie. 
 
AZTEC PHONETIC WRITING. 
 
 541 
 
 coming between the purely representative and the 
 8ynil)olic, was very extensively employed by the Az- 
 tecs in writing the names uf ])laces and persons, 
 nearly all of which were derived from natural objects. 
 Examples of this method are: Itzcoatl, 'stone (or ob- 
 sidian) serpent;' Chapultepec, 'hill of the grasshop- 
 per;' Tz«>mpanco, 'place of skulls;' ChimaljKipoca, 
 'smoking shield;' Acamapitzin, 'hand holding reeds;' 
 Macuilxochitl, 'five flowers;' Quauhtinchan, 'house of 
 the eagle;' all written by the simple pictures of the 
 objects named. The picture expressing a person's 
 name was attached by a fine line to his head. 
 
 The use of the phonetic element by the Aztecs was 
 first noticed by the early missionaries in their efforts 
 to teach Church forms. The natives, eager or obliged 
 to learn the words so essential to their salvation but 
 so new to their ear, aided their memory by writing 
 phonetically in a rude way the strange words. Amen 
 was ex[»ressed by the symbol of water, att, joined to 
 a maguey, tncfl, forming the sounds atl-metl or a-m^, 
 sufficiently accurate for their purpose. Pater noster 
 was likewise written with a flag, ptintli, and a prickly 
 pear, nm'htli; or sometimes a stone, tetl^ was intro- 
 duced before and after the prickly pear, the whole 
 reiuling pa (ntfi) • te (tl) - noch (tli) - te (tl). Here it 
 will be observed that the sound only of the objects 
 employed is considered, with no reference to their 
 meaning. The name Teocaltitlan is an excellent 
 specimen of the syllabic -phonetic writing. It is 
 written in one of the manuscripts of the Boturini 
 collection by a pictured pair of li{)H, tentU, for the 
 syllable te; footste|)s, syml>olic of a road, otli, for o; a 
 house, <•«///, f<jr cnl; and teeth, tlantli, for thin, ti being 
 a common connective syllable. The termination coatl 
 is a very frecpient one in Aztec words, and is often 
 written phonetically by a 'pot,' comitl, surmounted by 
 the symbol of water, att, co-atl; but coatl means 
 'serpent' and is also written representatively by a 
 simple picture of that reptile. Matlatlan 'net-place,' 
 
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 (716) 872-4503 
 
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542 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 is written by pictured teeth, tlantli, phonetic, and a 
 net, matia, representative. Mixcoatl, 'cloudy ser- 
 pent,' is expressed by the representative sio;n of a 
 cloud, mixtli, and by the word coatl phonetically writ- 
 ten as before explained. These examples suffice to 
 illustrate the system. There is no evidence that the 
 Aztecs ever reached the highest or alphabetic stage 
 of hieroglyphics, and so far as is known they only 
 used the syllabic method in writing names, and for- 
 eign words after the coming of the Spaniards. Still 
 there is some reason to suspect that the phonetic ele- 
 ment was much more in use than has been supposed, 
 and that many characters which, hitherto considered 
 by students as representative and symbolic signs, have 
 yielded no meaning, may yet prove to be phonetic, 
 and may throw much light on a complex and myste- 
 rious subject.^* 
 
 •8 'Oil trouve ini^ine cliez les Mexicaiiis des vestiges de ce genre d'liiero- 
 glyphes que Ton aitpelle ])lioiictii[iies, et qui nniioiive des rapports, iioii avee 
 meiiose, iiiais avec la laiigue parlee.' Humboldt, Vuc.ti, torn, i., p. 191, also 
 pp. l(>'2-'202. ' IJut, alt'Tougli the Aztecs were instructed in all tlie varieties of 
 iiieroglypliical n'liiitiiig, tliey cliierty resorted to tiie clumsy nietliod of direct 
 representation. I'lrsr.olfs Mex., vol. i., p. 97, also i)p. 88-107. 'It is to M. 
 Aubin, of Paris, a most zealous student of Mexican antiquities, that we owe 
 our first clear knowledge of a piieuomenon of great scientiKc interest in the 
 liisto\v of writing. This is a well-defined system of ]>hoiietic characters, 
 which Ciavigero and Humlioldt do not seem to have been aware of.' Ti/lor\t 
 Bciicarrhes, p. 95, also pp. 89-I0(). 'Dans les compositions grossihres, dont 
 les auteurs se sont jiresmie e.\clusiveinent occuptJs jusqu'ici, elle (I'ecriture 
 Azt^que) est fort senibialile au.v rebus que I'enfance inC'le ii ses jenx. Coiii- 
 inc ces rebus elle est gcneraleiiient phonutique, niais souvent aiissi coiifus^- 
 nieiit ideograpliique et syiubolique. Tels sont les noiiis de villcs et de rois, 
 cites liar Ciavigero, d'aprbs Purchaa ct Lorenzaiia et d'apres Ciavigero, par 
 line foule d'auteurs.' Aiduii, in Brasseitr dc Bourlmurq, Hist.Nnt. Civ., 
 torn. ' , pp. xliv., <xx-lxxiv. See also on Aztec hieroglyphics and their 
 explanation: ISiixrhinunn, Ortxuamen, toni. i., ]q). 37-48; uoiidm, in Ptrs- 
 coff, Hist. Com/. Mcx., (Mex. 1841)), totn. iii. ; Lmn y Gamu, Dos I'iedras, 
 pt ii., pp. 29-45; Ell hank, in Srhoolcrnft'.i Arrh., vol. iv., pp. 453-«); ^h•ll^ 
 dozn, in Sor. M''X. (frotf., Bofctin,2t\n 6yn>ci\., toni. i., jqi. 89(!-9()4; Rinnirez, 
 in Id., toni. iii.. pp. ()9-70; lioturini. Idea, jip. 5, 77-87, 9('). ll'J-13; CUiriqcm, 
 Ston'a Aiif.. del Mc.i.siro, toin. ii., ]>i). 187-94; I'imnitii, M'ni. sohrcla Miiza 
 Indiiji'iKi, pj(. 49-50; Carbtijn/. fH.iriirso, p. 5; Klemm, Ciiltiir-Gfse/iii'./ite, 
 toni. v., pp. 131-7; Vhei'itlir'r, M .r. Aiiricn. ct Mod., \\\>. 37-8,58; Hmiiholdt, 
 Ksmi Pol., torn, i., pp. 77, 93; Foster's Pre-Hist. Rnres, p. 322; Gidlatiii, 
 in Anier. Ethno. Sac,, Transact., vol. i., pp. 12(i, l()5-08; Ramirez, Proccso dc 
 Resld.; Lenoir, PiiralUle,m\ 1.3-16; Luhhoek's Pre- Hist. 7Vwr.«, p. 279; N. 
 Amvr. Rerieir, 1839, vol. xlviii., p. '289, 1831, vol. xxxii., pp. 98-107; ..4«ic;-. 
 Quart. Review, June 1827, vol. i., p. 438. 
 
RECORD OF AN AZTEC MIGRATION. 
 
 543 
 
 On the two following pages is a copy of tlie paint- 
 ing already referred to as having been published by 
 Genielli Careri, Humboldt, Kingsborough, Prescott, 
 and others, and which 1 take from the work of iia- 
 mirez as being probably the most reliable source.*" 
 This painting, preserved in the National Museum, is 
 about twenty by twenty-seven inches, on maguey 
 paper of the finest (juality, now mounted on linen. 
 I do not propose to attempt in this chapter any inter- 
 pretation of the painting, to discuss the interpreta- 
 tions of others, or to invest gate its historical import- 
 ance. I simply present the document as an illustra- 
 tion of the Aztec picture-writing, with interpretations 
 of some of the figures as given by Senor Ramirez, 
 leaving to another volume all consideration of the old 
 absurd theory that a part of the painting (fig. 1-G) 
 pictures the flood, the preservation of Coxcox, the Az- 
 tec Noah, and the confusion of tongues. 
 
 The winding parallel lines, with frequent foot-prints, 
 by which the different groups of figures are united, 
 are symbols of a journey, and there is little doubt 
 that the whole [)ainting describes the migrations or 
 wanderings of the Aztec people. The square at the 
 right represents the place from which they started. 
 Fig. 1, 2, perhaps express phonetically its name, but 
 their interpretation is doubtful. It was evidently a 
 water}' region, probably a lake island in the valley of 
 Mexico. Fig. 3 is a xii(limo/pill{, 'bundle of grass,' 
 symbol of the Aztec cycle of fifty-two years; fig. 4 
 is a 'curved mountain,' or the city of Culhuacan, on 
 the borders of the lake; fig. 5 is a bird speaking to 
 the people (fig. 0), the tongues issuhig from its njouth 
 l)eing, as I have said, the usual symbols of speech. 
 It was a popular tradition among the Aztecs that the 
 voice of a bird started them on their wanderings. 
 The fifteen human forms (fig. 7, 12,) are the chiefs of 
 the migrating tribes, whose names are hieroglyphically 
 
 '* In Gnrcia y Ciihas, Atlat, with an interpretation. 
 
544 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The Altec Migration. 
 
PICTURE-WRITING FROM GEMELLI CARERI. 645 
 
 A'-t»-.^ 
 
 Vol. II. £6 
 
 The Aztec Migration. 
 
Hi 
 
 I I 
 
 i 
 
 516 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 expressed by the figures connected with their heads. 
 At their first stopping-place they completed another 
 'sheaf of fifty-two years (fig. 8), and perhaps built a 
 temple (fig. 11). The stay at Cincotlan (fig. 15) was 
 ten years as indicated by the ten circles; fig. 17 is 
 interpreted by Gemelli Careri Tocolco, 'humiliation,' 
 and fig. 18, Oztotlan, 'place of caves.' At the next 
 stopping-place fig. 20 represents a body wrapped in 
 the Mexican manner for burial ; his name as shown by 
 the character over his head is that of the central 
 figure in the group shown in fig. 7. As this name 
 does not appear again, the meaning is perhaps that 
 one of the tribes here became extinct. Fig. 25 is 
 Tetzapotlan, 'place of the tree tetzapotl.' The gen- 
 eric name of the tree is tzapotl (modern zapote), but a 
 particular species is tetzapotl, and the prefix te is pho- 
 netically expressed by the stone, tetl, at the base of 
 the tree. Fig. 28 is Tzompanco, 'place of skulls,' 
 representing supposably a skull impaled on a stick ; 
 fig. 29 is Apazco, 'earthen vase;' fig. 31, Quauhtitlan 
 'place of the eagle,' and here one of the chiefs of 
 tribes, the right hand figure of group 7, separates 
 from the rest to form a settlement at fig. 33. The 
 time of stopping at each place and the completion of 
 each fifty-two years are clearly indicated and need not 
 be mentioned here. Fig. 34 is Azcapuzalco, 'The ant- 
 hill;' fig. 83 is Chalco, 'the chalchiuite-stone;' fig. 36, 
 Tlecohuatl, tletl-cohuatl, or 'fire-serpent;' fig. 39, Chi- 
 comoztoc, 'chicome-oztotl,' 'seven caves;' the lower 
 part of fig. 47 is the symbol of water; fig. 48, Teozo- 
 maco, 'the monkey of stone.' Fig. 50 is Chapultepec, 
 'hill of the locust or grasshopper.' After the arrival 
 at Chapultepec a great variety of events, most of 
 which can be identified with traditional occurrences in 
 the early history of the Aztecs, are pictured. I shall 
 not attempt to ibllow them. The route seems to con- 
 tinue towards fig. 80, Tlatelolco; but five tribes (fig. 
 53), all but one identical with those of the group in fig. 
 7, 12, return as fugitives or prisoners (fig. 51) to Cul- 
 
CHRONOLOGIC RECORD. 
 
 547 
 
 huacan (fig. 54), the original starting-point. Fig. 61, 
 and one of the characters of fig. 65, are tlie symbols 
 of combat or war. Fig. 67 is Inixiuhcan, 'birth- 
 place,' the picture representing a woman who has just 
 given birth to a child. Fig. 74 is Tenochtitlan, 'place 
 of tenochtli,' the tenochtli being a species of nopal 
 represented in the figure, and being also the sign of 
 the name of Tenoch, one of the original chiefs of the 
 group in fig. 12, and also seen in the group in fig. 81. 
 Six of the original tribes seem to have reached Te- 
 nochtitlan, afterwards Mexico, with the tribe that 
 joined them at Chapultepec; nine having perished or 
 been scattered on the wr.y, which agrees with the his- 
 torical tradition. The preceding brief sketch will give 
 an idea of a document whose full description and in- 
 terpretation, even if possible, would require much 
 space and would not be appropriately included here. 
 The picture-writing shown on the following pages 
 is the one already mentioned as having formed part 
 of the Boturini collection, is equally important with 
 the one already described, and is preserved like the 
 former in the National Museum. This painting, like 
 the other, describes a migration, indicated by the line 
 of foot-prints. Starting from an island, a passage by 
 boat is indicated to Culhuacan, 'the curved mountain,' 
 on the mainland. In this painting we hav^ not only 
 the number of years spent in the migration, and at 
 each stopping-place, but the years are named accord- 
 ing to the system described in the last chapter, .and 
 the migration began in the year Ce Tecpatl. The 
 character within that of Culhuacan is the name of 
 Huitzilopochtli, the great Aztec god. Next we 
 have in a vertical line the names of the eight tribes, 
 hieroglyphically written, who started on the mi- 
 gration, the Chalcas, Matlaltzincas, Tepanecs, etc., 
 agreeing with the tradition, except tliree which can- 
 not be accurately interpreted. The first stopping- 
 place after Culhuacan was Coatlicamac, the first fig- 
 ure in the lower column of the first page. Here 
 
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 518 
 
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 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 
 
 HHBMH 
 
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THE AZTEC MIGRATION. 
 
 549 
 
 
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 660 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 they remained twenty-eight years from Oine Calli to 
 Yey Tecpatl as indicated by tlie squares connected by 
 a line. The last but one of these years completed the 
 cycle and is represented by a picture showing the 
 process of kindling fire by friction, instead of the 
 bundle of grass as before. Between the groups of 
 small squares are the hieroglyphic names of the stop- 
 ping-places, which are in the following order, begin- 
 ning with the second column of the first page, Coatli- 
 camac, Tollan, Atlicalaquiam, Tlemaco, Atotonilco, 
 Apazco, Tzompanco, Xaltocan, Acolhuacan, Eheca- 
 tepec, Tolpetlac, Coatitlan (where they first cultivated 
 the maguey), Huixachtitlan (where they made pulque 
 from the maguey), Tecpayocan, Pantitlan, 'place of 
 the flag,' Amalinalpan, Azcapuzalco, Pantitlan, Acol- 
 
 nahuac, Popotla, , Atlacuihuayan (Tacubaya), 
 
 Chapultepec, Acocolco, and Culhuacan (as prisoners). 
 The migration is not brought down to the arrival in 
 Tenochtitlan, but the chronology is perfectly recorded. 
 Several of the names of places are indicated by tlie 
 same hieroglyphic signs as in the other painting. It 
 will be observed that there is nothing to locate the 
 starting-place in the north-west. It was probably 
 either on the lakes of Andhuac, or in the south be- 
 yond what is now the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Both 
 oT these paintings will be noticed in the historical in- 
 vestigations to be given in volume V. of this work. 
 
 The hieroglyphic paintings afford no test of the 
 Aztec painter's skill; in an artistic point of view the 
 picture-writing had probably been nearly stationary 
 for a long time before the conquest. The pictures 
 were in most cases conventionally distorted; indeed, 
 to permit different painters to exercise their skill and 
 fancy in depicting the various objects required would 
 have destroyed the value of the paintings as records. 
 The first progressional steps had taught the native 
 scribes to paint only so much of representative and 
 symbolic objects as was necessary to their being un- 
 derstood; convenience and custom would naturally 
 
THE NEPOHUALTZITZIN. 
 
 561 
 
 tend to fix the forms at an early period. Bold out- 
 lines, and bright contrasted colors were the desiderata; 
 elegance was not aimed at. Hence no argument re- 
 specting the Aztec civilization can be drawn from the 
 rude mechanical execution of these painted charac- 
 ters. 
 
 The American hieroglyphics contain no element to 
 prove their foreign origin, and there is no reason to 
 look upon them as other than the result of original 
 native development. Whether enough of the painted 
 records have been preserved to throw nmch additional 
 light on aboriginal history, may well be doubted; but 
 it is certain that great progress will be made in the 
 art of interpreting such as have been saved, when able 
 men shall devote their lives to a faithful study of this 
 indigenous American literature as they have to the 
 study of old-world hieroglyphics.** 
 
 I will in conclusion call attention to Boturini's 
 statement that knotted cords, similar to the aboriginal 
 Peruvian quipus, but called in Aztec nepohualtzitzin, 
 were also employed to record events in early times, 
 but had gone out of use probably before the Aztec 
 supremacy. This author even claims to have found 
 one of these knotted records in a very dilapidated con- 
 dition in Tlascala. His statement is repeated by 
 many writers; if any information on the subject is 
 
 20 ' On distingue dans les peintures mexicaines des t6tes d'une grandeur 
 <5norme, un corps excessivement court, et des pieds qui, par la longueur des 
 
 doigts, ressemblent h des griffes d'oiseau Tout ceci indiquc I'enfance de 
 
 I'art; mais il ne faut pas onblier que des pcuples qui cxprinient leurs idees 
 
 par des peintures attachent aussi peu d'lniportanec a peindre correcte- 
 
 nient que les savans d'Europe h employer une belle ecnture dans leurs 
 nianuscrits." Humboldt, Vites, torn, i., pp. 198-200; Brasseur de Bourbovrg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 653-4. Valades in 1579 gave an American 
 phonetic alphabet, representing each letter by an object of whose name it 
 was the initial in some language not the Aztec. Nothing is known of it. 
 Id., torn, i., p. Ixx. Borunda gives a Clave General de GerogUJicos Ameri- 
 canos, in Voz de la Patria, 1830, torn, iv.. No. iii. — an extract in Leon y 
 Gama, Dos Piedras, pt ii., p. 33. Sr Eufemio Mendoza, in Soe. Mex. Geog., 
 Boletin, 2da 6poca, tom. i., p. 899, attaches some importance to Bonmda's 
 efforts. On the difficulty of interpretation see Boturitii, Idea, p. 1 16; Kinga' 
 borough's Mex. Antiq., vol. vi., p. 87; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind,, tom. i., 
 p. 149; Ixtlilxochill, Hist, Ghich., in KingsborottgKs Mex, Antiq,, vol. ix,, 
 p. 201; Preacott's Mex,, vol. i., p. 107. 
 
6B2 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 contained in the old authorities, it has escaped my 
 notice.** 
 
 *> Boturini, Idea, pp. 85-7; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., p. 6; Cla- 
 viaero, Storia Ant. del JHe»Hico, torn, ii., p. 104; Carhajal Epinosa, Hi»t. 
 Mex., torn, i., p. 6fi6. Home additional reforcnceson liicroglypliicH are: Id., 
 pp. 244, 5»l-2, 650-6, toiii. ii., p. 86; Noritmn's RnmhU« in Yuc, pp. 293- 
 6; Domenech's Desertfi, vol. i., pp. 407-8; Soden, Spanier in Peru, toni. ii., 
 pp. 27-8; Huiuierre, V Empire Mex., pp. 175-6; Montnn%ts, Nieuwe Wee- 
 reld, pp. 206-7; Dappir, Neue Welt, p. 300; Dela field's Antiq. Anur., p. 
 42; Bonnyeastle's Span. Amer., vol. i., p. 62. 
 
CHAPTER XVI IT. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AND DWELLINGS OF THE NAHUAS. 
 
 Architecture of the .^.ncient Nations — General Featurks of 
 Nahl'a Architl^i . ii— The Arch — Exterior and Interior 
 Decorations— Method of Building— Inclined Planes— Scaf- 
 folds— 'iiu. USE OF the Plummet— BuiLDiNG-MATtaiALS— Posi- 
 tion AND Fortification ok Towns— Mexico Tenochtitlan— 
 The Great Causeways— Quarters and Wards of Mexico- 
 Tub Market-Place— Fountains and Aqueducts— Light-houhics 
 AND Street- work— City of Tezcuco— Dwellings— Aztec Gar- 
 dens—Temple OF HuiTziLorocHTLi— Temple of Mexico— Other 
 Temples— Teoc A LLi at Cholula and Tezcuco. 
 
 I shall describe in this chapter the cities, towns, 
 temples, palaces, dwellinj^s, roads, bridges, aqueducts, 
 and other products of Nahua architectural and con- 
 structive art, as they were found and described by the 
 Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Monuments of 
 this branch of Nahua art chiefly in the form of ruined 
 temples, or teocallis, are still standing and have been 
 examined in detail by modern travelers. The results 
 of these later observations will be given in Volume IV. 
 of this work, and I have therefore thought it best to 
 omit them altogether here. In order to fully com- 
 prehend the subject the reader will find it advantage- 
 ous to study and compare the two views taken from 
 different standpoints. It is for a general i ^d doubt- 
 less exaggerated account of the grandeur and extent 
 of the Nahua structures, rather than any details o\ 
 
 (S.'>3) 
 
554 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 their construction that we must look to the Spanish 
 chronicles ; and it is also to be noted that the descrip- 
 tions by the conquerors are confined almost entirely to 
 the lake region of Andhuac, the buildings of other 
 regions being dismissed with a mere mention. In 
 this connection, therefore, the supplementary view in 
 another volume will be of great value, since the grand- 
 est relics of Nahua antiquity have been found outside 
 of Andhu.'ic proper, while the oft-mentioned magnifi- 
 cent temples and palaces of the lake cities have left 
 no traces of their original splendor. 
 
 The Oliuecs, Totonacs, and others of the earlier 
 Nahua nations are credited by tradition with the erec- 
 tion of grand edifices, but the Toltecs, in this as in all 
 other arts, far surpassed their pVedecessors, and even 
 the nations that succeeded them. I have in a preced- 
 ing chapter sufficiently explained the process by which 
 this ancient people has been credited with all that is 
 wonderful in the past, and it will be readily under- 
 stood how a magnifying veneration for past glories, 
 handed down from father to son with ever accumulat- 
 ing exaggeration, has transformed the Toltec build- 
 ings into the most exquisite fairy structures, incom- 
 parably superior to anything that met the Spanish 
 gaze. With architectural as with other traditions, 
 however, I have little or nothing to do in this chapter, 
 but pass on to a consideration of this branch of art in 
 later times. 
 
 Respect for the gods made it necessary that the 
 temples should be raised above the ordinary build- 
 ings, besides which their height made them more 
 conspicuous to the immense multitudes which fre- 
 quently gathered about them on feast-days, render- 
 ing them also more secure from desecration and 
 easier of defence when used as citadels of refuge, 
 as they often were. But as the primitive ideas of 
 engineering possessed by the Aztecs and their insuf- 
 ficient tools did not permit them to combine strength 
 with slightness, the only way the required elevation 
 
NAHUA ARCHITECTURE 
 
 656 
 
 could be attained was by placing the building proper 
 upon a raised, solid, pyramidal substructure. The 
 prevalence of earthquakes may also have had some- 
 thing to do with this solid form of construction. In 
 the vicinity of the lake of Mexico, the swampy na- 
 ture of the soil called for a broad, secure foundation ; 
 here, then, the substructure was not confined to the 
 temples, but was used in building public edifices, 
 palaces, and private dwellings. 
 
 Another general feature of Nahua architecture was 
 the small elevation of the buildings proper, compared 
 with their extent and solidity. These rarely exceeded 
 one story in height, except some of the chapels, which 
 had two or even three stories, but in these cases the 
 upper floors were invariably of wcxjd. 
 
 Whether the Aztecs were acquainted with our arch, 
 with a vertical key-stone, is a mooted point. Clavi- 
 gero gives plates of a semi-spherical estufa constructed 
 in this manner, and asserts, further, thai an arch of 
 this description was found among the Tezcucan ruins, 
 but I find no authority for either picture or assertion. 
 The relics that have been examined in modern times, 
 moreover, seem to show conclusively that key-stone 
 arches were unknown in America before the advent 
 of the Europeans, though arches made of overlapping 
 stones were often cut in such a manner as to resem- 
 ble them. The chaplain Diaz, who accompanied 
 Grijalva, mentions an 'arc antique' on the east coast, 
 but gives no description of it. Nevertheless, as the 
 'antique' would in this connection imj)ly a peculiar, if 
 not a primitive, construction, it is not probable that 
 the arch he saw had a key-stone.* 
 
 As decorations, we find balconies and galleries sup- 
 ported by square or round pillars, which were often 
 monoliths; but as they were adorned with neitlier caj)- 
 ital nor base the effect must have been rather bare. 
 
 ' Clangero, Storia Ant. drl Mcssico, toin. iv., p. 212; Dinz, Itiniraire, 
 , ill TinKitije-Vompans, Voy., serie i., toin. x., p. 27; Braaaeur de liourbourg, 
 JlUt. Nat. Civ,, torn, iii., p. 6R8. 
 
I 
 
 
 6K6 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Battlements and turrets, doubtless first used as means 
 of defense, became later incorporated with decorative 
 art. The bareness of *he walls was relieved by cornices 
 and stucco-work of various designs, the favorite fig- 
 ures being coiled snakes, executed in low relief, which 
 probably had a religious meaning. Sometimes they 
 were placed in groups, as upon the temple walls at 
 Mexico, at other times one serpent twined and twisted 
 round every door and window of an apartment until 
 head and tail met. Carved lintels and doorposts were 
 common, and statues frequently adorned the court and 
 approaches. Glossy surfaces seem to have had a spe- 
 cial attraction for the Nahuas, and they made floors, 
 walls, and even streets, extremely smooth. The walls 
 and floors were first coated with lime, gypsum, or 
 ochre, and then polished. 
 
 No clear accounts are given of the method of 
 erecting houses. Brasseur de Bourbourg thinks that 
 because the natives of Vera Paz were seen by him 
 to use scaffolds like ours, that these were also 
 employed in Mexico in former times, and that stones 
 were raised on inclined beams passing from scaffold 
 to scaffold, which is not very satisfactory reasoning.' 
 
 However this may be, we are told by Torque- 
 mada that the Aztecs used derricks to hoist heavy 
 timbers with,' Others, again, say that walls were 
 erected by piling earth on both sides, which served 
 both as scaffolds and as inclined planes up which 
 heavy masses might be drawn or rolled,* but al- 
 though this was undoubtedly the method adopted by 
 the Miztecs, it was too laborious and primitive to have 
 been general," and certainly could not have been em- 
 
 * Brasseur de Bourbourg, Jlisf. Nat. Cir., torn, iii., p. 658. 
 
 ' Torqticmada, Monnrq. Iiid., toiii. ii., p. 274. Sahagun, in describing 
 how the people miscd a nitutt to the god of fire, says: 'AtAbanle diez nia- 
 
 romas por la mitad de 61 y como fe iban levantando, {mnianle inios ma- 
 
 deros atados dc dos en dos, y unos puntales sobre que descanzase.' Hist. 
 Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 143. 
 
 * Herrera, Hist. Gen., (Translation, Lond. 1726), vol. iii., p. 280. 
 
 * Cnrhajnl Esf>inosa, Hist. 3fex., torn, i., p. 663; Clacigero, Storia Ant, 
 del Mcssico, torn, li., pp. 201-2. 
 
BUILDING MATERIAL. 
 
 557 
 
 ployed in building the three-story chapels upon Huit- 
 zilopochtli's pyramid. The perfectly straight walls 
 built by the Nahuas would seem to indicate the use 
 of the plummet, and we are told that the line was 
 used in making roads." Trees were felled with copper 
 and flint axes, and drawn upon rollers to their destina- 
 tion,'' a mode of transport used, no doubt, with other 
 cumbrous material. The implements used to cut 
 stone blocks seem to have been entirely of flint.* 
 
 The wood for roofs, turrets, and posts, was either 
 white or yellow cedar, palm, pine, cypress, or oyametl, 
 of which beams and fine boards were made. Nails 
 they had none ; the smaller pieces must therefore have 
 been secured by notches, lapping, or pressure." The 
 different kinds of stone used in building were granite, 
 alabaster, jasper, porphyry, certain 'black, shining 
 stones,' and a red, light, porous, yet hard stone, of 
 which rich quarries were discovered near Mexico in 
 Ahuitzotl's reign.*" After the overflow of the lake, 
 which happened at this time, the king gave orders 
 that this should be used ever after for buildings in 
 the city." Tecali, a transparent stone resembling 
 alabaster, was sometimes used in the temples for win- 
 dow-glass." Adobes, or sun-dried bricks, were chiefly 
 used in the dwellings of the poorer classes, but burnt 
 bricks and tiles are mentioned as being sold in the 
 
 ^ Motolinia, Ilist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 63; 
 Clavigero, Storia Aiit. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 201. 
 
 T ' With their Copier Hutchcts, and Axes cunnyngly tempered, they fell 
 those trees, and hcwc thcni smooth. .. .and boiirinir a hole in one of the 
 
 edges of the beame, they fasten the roiie, then MCttc their slaues vnto it 
 
 putting round blocivs vnder tiie timber.' Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x. ; 
 Sahaffttn, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lib. ii., p. 141. 
 
 « Clavigero, Sforia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 205; Gomara, Conq. 
 Mex., fol. .318. 
 
 » Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. x., states that they bored holes in l)canis. 
 They may thereiore have known the use of wooden bolts, but ttiis is doubt- 
 ful. 
 
 '" 'Le Tctzontli (pierre de cheveux), espbcc d'amygdaloidc poreuse, fort 
 dure, CMt une lave refroidie. On la trouve en grandc uuuntittS aupr^s do la 
 petite ville de San-Agostin Tlalpan, ou de las Cuovas, a 4 1. S. de Mexico.' 
 Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 381. 
 
 " Clamgrro, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 202; Carbajal Espi- 
 nosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p|>. fiG.3-4. 
 
 ^* Brasseur de Bourbotirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iv., p. 8. 
 
658 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 markets.*' Roofs were covered with clay, straw, and 
 pahn-leaves. Lime was used for mortar, which was 
 so skillfully used, say the old writers, that the joints 
 were scarcely perceptible," but probably this was 
 partly owing to the fact that the walls were almost 
 always either white-washed, or covered with ochre, 
 gypsum, or other substances. 
 
 Frequent wars and the generally unsettled state 
 of the country, made it desirable that the towns 
 should be situated near enough each other to afford 
 mutual protection, which accounts for the great num- 
 ber of towns scattered over the plateau. The same 
 causes made a defensible position the primary obiect 
 in the choice of a site. Thus we find them situated 
 on rocks accessible only by a difficult and narrow 
 pathway, raised on piles over the water, or sur- 
 rounded by strong walls, palisades, earth-works and 
 ditches." Although they fully understood the neces- 
 sity of settling near lakes and rivers to facilitate in- 
 tercourse, yet the ^^owns on the sea-coast were usually 
 a league or two from the shore, and, as they had no 
 maritime trade, harbors were not sought for.^® 
 
 The towns extended over a comparatively large sur- 
 face, owing to the houses being low and detached, and 
 each provided with a court and garden. The larger 
 cities seem to have been layed out on a regular plan, 
 especially in the centre, but the streets were narrow, 
 indeed there was no need of wider ones as all trans- 
 
 ' 
 
 ^ Clm'iffcro, Storia Ant del Mcssico, torn, ii., p. 205. Cortes mentions 
 a 'siielo ladrillado' at Ixtu]*ala|Nin, Vartas, p. 83, and Herrera, Hist. Gen., 
 (lee. ii., lib. vi., cap. xii., both adobes and ladrillos in speaking of building- 
 material. 
 
 '* IMi'ila Padilla, Hist. Fvnd. Mex., p. 75; Cnrbajal Espinosa, Hist. 
 Mcx., torn, i., p. 6(53. 'L'ignorante Kicercatore ncga a' Messicani la cog- 
 nizionc, c rnso della calcina; ma consta per la teHtimonianza di tiitti gii 
 Storici del Mcssico, per la matricola de' tribiiti, e soiwatutto jier gli cdinzj 
 auticlii finora sussistenti, die tutte ({uellc Nacioni taccaiio dclla calcina il 
 mcdccimo use, che fanno gli Etiropex.' Clnvigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, 
 t im. ii., p. 205, torn, iv., pp. 212-1.3. Both dortiJs, Cartas, p. GO, and Her- 
 rera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., (in. vi., cap. iv., mention walls of dry stone, which 
 would show that mortar was sometimes dispensed with, in heavy structures; 
 b'.it Kernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 43, contradicts this instance. 
 
 '^ .\t Sienchimalcn. Vortis, Cartas, p. 57. 
 
 "' Hnisseur dc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Cir., toni. iv., pp. 89-90. 
 
MEXICO TENOCHTITLAN. 
 
 569 
 
 portation was done by carriers, and there were.no ve- 
 hicles. At intervals a market-place with a fountain 
 in the centre, a square filled with temples, or a line of 
 shady trees relieved the monotony of the long rows 
 "»f low houses. 
 
 The largest and most celebrated of the Nahua cities 
 was Mexico Tenoehtitlan." It seems that about the 
 year 1325 the Aztecs, weary of their unsettled condi- 
 tion and hard pressed by the Culhuas, sought the 
 marshy western shore of the lake of Mexico. Here, 
 on the swamp of Tlalcocomocco, they came upon a 
 stone, upon which it was said a Mexican priest had 
 forty years before sacrificed a certain prince Copil. 
 From this stone had 8i)rung a nopal, upon which, at 
 the time it was seen by the Mexican advance guard, 
 sat an eagle, holding in his beak a serpent. Impelled 
 by a divine power, a priest dived into a pool near the 
 
 " Mexico is generally taken to be derived from Mexitl, or Mexi, the 
 other name of Huitzilopochtii, the favorite god and leader of the Aztecs; 
 many, however, think that it comes from vwxico, springs, which were plen- 
 tiful in the neighborhood. Tenoehtitlan comes from tconochtli, divine noch- 
 tli, the fruit of the nopal, a species of wild cactus, and titlan, composed of 
 tetl, stone or rock, and an, an affix to denote a place, a derivation which is 
 officially accepted, as may l>e seen from the arms of the city. Others say 
 that it IS taken from Teiiiich, one of the leaders of the Aztecs, who settled 
 upon the small island of Pantitlan, both of which names would together 
 form the wor.l. ' Ce nom, qui veut dire Villc de la Tuna. . . .Le fruit de cet 
 
 arhre est appcle norhtli en mexicain, car le nom de tuna est tire de la 
 
 langue des insulaires de I'ile de Cuba On a aussi prdtendu que le veri- 
 table nom dc Mexico dtait Quauhnochtitlan, ce (^ui veut dire Fir/uicr de 
 VAigle. . . .D'autres, enfin, prdtcndent que ce figuier d'Inde n'otait pus un 
 » ocA//t propremcnt dit, mais d'une espfece sauvage qu'on appelle fcnorhtli, 
 ou de celle que les naturels nommcnt tconochtli ou figue divine.' 'Elle 
 avait nris du dieu Mcxix celui dc Mexico.' Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in 
 Nomrlks Annales dr.s Vo;/., 1843, tom. xcix., i)p. 174-5. 'Los Indios, 
 dcziun; y dizen oy Mexico Tcnuchtitluu; y assi se pone en las Proui- 
 siones lleales." Ihrrc'-a, Hist. Gcii., dec li., lib. vii., cap.xiv. 'Tenox- 
 titlan, que si; , i'uual en picdra.' Acosta, Hist, dc las Ynd., p. 
 466. The nati »■?» ui llaman Mexico, sino Tcnuchtitlan.' Torquemada, 
 Monani. Iiid., tom. i., p. 29.3. 'Tcnuchtitlan, que significa fruta do 
 piedra, 'Tambien dizen algunos, que tuuo esta ciudad nonibre de su 
 j>rimer fundador, que fue Tenuch, hijo scgundo dc Iztacmixcopti, cuyos 
 nijos y dccendientes poblaron. . .esta tierra. . .Tampoco falta quien ])iense 
 que se dixo de la grana, que llaman N'.ichiztli, la qual sale de' mcsmo car- 
 ditn nopal y fruta nuuhtii. . . .Tambien afirnian otros que sc llama Mexico 
 dc ios prinieros fundadorcs que se dixeron Mexiti.' uomara, Conq. Mex., 
 fol. Il.'i-l.'); Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Ir.azhalceta, Col. dc Doc, torn, i., 
 
 f». 180; Vlnrigcro, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., pp. 168-9. 'Tenoch- 
 Ulan, c'est-fi-dire, a'lprfes des nopals du rocher.' 'Ti-tlau est pris pour le 
 lieu.' lirasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 44(5-9. 
 
560 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I : 
 
 stone^ and there had an interview with Tlaloc, god of 
 waters," who gave his permission to the people to set- 
 tle on the spot.*' Another legend relates that Huit- 
 zilopochtli appeared to a priest in a dream, and told 
 him to search for a nopal growing out of a stone in 
 the lake with an eagle and serpent upon it, and there 
 found a city.* 
 
 The temple, at first a mere hut, was the first build- 
 ing erected, and by trading fish and fowl for stone, 
 they were soon enabled to form a considerable town 
 about it. Piles were driven into the soft bottom of 
 the lake, and the intermediate spaces filled with stones, 
 branches, and earth, to serve as a foundation for 
 houses. '^^ 
 
 Each succeeding ruler took pains to extend and 
 beautify the city. Later on, Tlatelulco,** which had 
 early separated from Mexico Tenochtitlan, was re- 
 united to it by king Axayacatl, which greatly increased 
 the size of the latter city. Tezcuco is said to have 
 exceeded it in size and in the culture of its people, 
 but from its important position, imposing architecture, 
 and general renown, Mexico Tenochtitlan stood pre- 
 eminent. A number of surrounding towns and vil- 
 lages formed the suburbs of the city, as Aztacalco, 
 Acatlan, Malcuitlapilco, Atenco, Iztacalco, Zanco- 
 pinco, Huitznahuac, Xocotitlan or Xocotlan, Coltonco, 
 Necatitlan, Huitzitlan, etc.'^ The circumference of 
 the city has been estimated at about twelve miles, and 
 the number of houses at sixty thousand, which would 
 
 18 He is also termed god of the earth in the fable. 
 
 •9 Torqueinada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 91-4, 289-91; Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 443-9. 
 
 *• Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 465-7. See also Clavigcro, Storia Ant. 
 del Messico, torn, i., pp. 167-8. Nearly all the authors give the whole of 
 the above meanings, without deciding upon any one. 
 
 «• Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn. L, p. 313; Heredia y Sarmiento, 
 Sermon, p. 95. 
 
 ** It means islet, from tlatelli, island. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. 
 vii., cap. xiv. Veytia says it is a corruption of xalteloleo, sandy ground. 
 Hist. Ant. Mei., tom. ii., p. 141; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 115. 
 
 w Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. ii., p. 218; Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv., p. 5. 
 
CITIES OF ANAHUAC. 
 
 661 
 
 (r- 
 
 give a population of three liundred thousand.'** It 
 was situated in the salty part of the lake of Mexico, 
 fifteen miles west of its celebrated rival Tezcuco, 
 about one mile from the eastern shore, and close to the 
 channel throu'::;h which the volumes of the sweet water 
 lake pour into the briny waters of the lake of Mex- 
 ico, washinnf, in their outward flow, the southern and 
 western parts of the city. The waters have, however, 
 evaporated considerably since the time of the Aztecs, 
 and left the modern Mexico some distance from the 
 beach.'"' 
 
 Fifty other towns, many of them consisting of over 
 three thousand dwellings, were scattered on and 
 around the lake, the shallow waters of which were 
 skimmed by two hundred thousand canoes.^ Four 
 grand avenues, paved with a smooth, hard crust of 
 cement,^^ ran east, west, north, and south, crosswise, 
 forming the boundary lines of four quarters; at the 
 meeting-point of these was the grand temple-court. 
 Three of these roads connected in a straight line with 
 large causeways leading from the city to the lake 
 shores; constructed by driving in piles, filling up the 
 intervening spaces witli earth, branches, and stones, 
 and covering the surface with stone secured by mor- 
 
 '* The Anonymous Conqueror says two and a half to three leagues in cir- 
 cumference, winch is accepted by most autliors. Relatione fattd per %m(f en- 
 tiVhuomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Raniusio, Nariijationi, toin. iii., 
 fol. 309. But as tlie cnibanlvment whicli formed a semi-circle round the 
 town was three leagues in length, the circumference of the city would not 
 have been less. Brasscur de Boiirboiivfj, Hist. Nat. C'io., torn, iv., p. 4. 
 Cortds says that it was as large as Seville or Cordovi-, Cartas, p. KKS. Ay- 
 Ion, in Id., p. 4,S, j)laces the nuniber of houses as low as ,30,000. Las 
 Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. I., who is usually so extravagant in his 
 descriptions, confines himself to 'mas dc cinquenta mil casas.' (ioniara, 
 Conq. Mcv., fol. ll.S, f)0,(M)0, each of which contained two to ten occu- 
 pants. Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., toni.i., p. "201, places the number as 
 liigh OS 120,000, which may include outlying 8\iburbs. The size and busi- 
 ness of the nmrkcts, the remains of ruins to be seen round modern Mexico, 
 and its fame, sustain the idea of a very large po])ulation. 
 
 ^■> Hvii Carbajal E-ifiinosd, Hist. Mex., toni. li., pp. 216-17, on former 
 aiul present surroundings. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. li., lib. vii., cap. xiv. ; 
 Cortes, Cartas, p. 10.S. 
 
 ** Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 115. 
 
 ^ 'Erano di terra come mattonata.' Relatione fatta per ?•« gentif 
 
 huomo del Siijnor Fernando Cortese, in Ramusio, Navigationi, torn, iii., 
 fol. 309j PreseotVs Mex., vol. ii., p. 110. 
 Vol. II. 3« 
 
I i 
 
 ill 
 
 I 
 
 562 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 tar. They were broad enough to allow ten horse- 
 men to ride abreast with ease, and were defended by 
 drawbridj^es and breastworks. *" 
 
 The southern road, two leagues in length, com- 
 menced half a league from Iztapalapan, and was 
 bordered on one side by Mexicaltzinco, a town of 
 about four thousand houses, and on the other, first by 
 Coyuhuacan with six thousand, and further on by 
 Huitzilopochco with five thousand dwellings. Half 
 a league before reaching the city this causeway was 
 joined by the Xoloc road, coming from Xochimilco, 
 the point of junction being defended by a fort named 
 Acachinanco, which consisted of two turrets sur- 
 rounded by a battlemented v. all, eleven or twelve feet 
 high, and was provided with two gates, through which 
 the road passed.^ The northern road led from Tepey- 
 acac, about a league off; the western, from Tlacopan, 
 half a league distant; this road was bordered with 
 houses as far as the shore.* A fourth causeway from 
 
 28 'Fueron hechas k mano, de Tierra, y Cespedes, y mui qiiajadus de 
 Piedra; son anchas, que pucden pasar por cada vna de cllas, trcs Oarretas 
 juntas, b dicz Honibres h, Caballo.' Torqttemada, Motiarq. Ind., toni. i., j». 
 292; Las Casas, Hist. Apoloqetica, Mb., cap. 1.; Prescotfs Mex., vol. ii., 
 
 S. 69; Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, li., p. 217. 'Tan ancha conio 
 08 lanzas jmetas. Cortes, Cartas, p. 103. He mentions four causeways 
 or entrances, but this must include either the branch which joins the south- 
 ern road, or the aqueduct. 'Pueden ir por toda ello echo de caballo & 
 la par.' Id., p. 8,3. The view of Mexico published in the Luxemburg edi- 
 tion of Cortis, Cartas, points to four causeways besides the aqueduct, but 
 little reliance can be placed on these fanciful cuts. Helps thinks, however, 
 that there must have been more causeways than are mentioned by the 
 conqtierors. Span. Conq., vol. ii., pp. Aata, 4l12. 'Entrano in essa per tre 
 strade alte di pictra& ai terra, ciascuna largatrenta ptissi.' Relatione fatta 
 per I'll ffcntir/moino del Sigiior Fernando Cortese, in Jiamiisio, Natugationi, 
 tom. iii., fol. 309. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iv., p. 4. 
 'Las puentes que teniau hechas de trecho & trccho.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 70. 
 
 » 'Dos uuertas, una por do entran y otra por do salen.' Cortis, Cartas, 
 84, which means, no doubt, that passengers nad to pass through the fort. 
 e calls the second town along the road Niciaca, and the third Huchilo- 
 huchico. Brasseur de Bourbourg states that within the fort was a teocalli 
 dedicated to Toci, on which a l)eacon blazed all night to guide travelers. 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iv., pp. 209-10. But this is a mistake, for Tezozo- 
 nioc. Hist. Mex., pt ii., p. l84, his authority for this, says that the beacon 
 was at a hill 'avant d'arriver h, Acuchinanco.' 
 
 M Torqiiemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 292; Las Casas, Hist. Apolo- 
 gitira, MS., cap. 1.; Cortes, Cartas, p. 84. The Anonymous Conqueror 
 calls them two leagues, one league and a half, and a quarter of a league 
 
 & 
 
QUARTERS AND WARDS OF MEXICO. 
 
 C63 
 
 Chapultepec served to support the aqueduct which 
 suj)plied the city with water.'* 
 
 The names of the four quarters of the city, which 
 were thus disposed according to divine command, were 
 Thiquechiuhcan, Cuecopan, or Quepopan, now Santa 
 Maria, lying between the northern and western ave- 
 nues; Atzacualco, now San Sebastian, between the 
 eastern and northern; Teopan, now San Pablo, be- 
 tween the eastern and southern; and Moyotlan, or 
 Mayotla, now San Juan, between the western and 
 southern; these, again, were divided into a number 
 of wards.** Owing to the position of the city in 
 the midst of the lake, traffic was chiefly conducted 
 by means of canals, which led into almost every 
 ward, and had on one or both sides quays for the 
 reception and landing of goods and })assengers. Many 
 of these were provided with basins and locks to 
 retain the water within them ;^ while at the mouth 
 were small buildings which served as offices for the 
 custom-house officials. Bridges, many of which were 
 upwards of thirty feet wide, and could be drawn up 
 so as to cut off^ communication between the different 
 parts, connected the numerous cross-streets and lanes, 
 some of which were mere dry and paved canals.^ 
 
 long respectively. Relatione fatta per vn gentiVhttomo del Signor Fernando 
 Cortcsc, ill Eamtmo, Navigatioui, toni. iii., fol. 309; Brasscurde Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iv., p. 4, makes the shortest a league. 
 
 31 'Habia otra algo mas estrecha para losdos acueductos.' Carbajal Enpi- 
 nosa. Hist. Mex., toiii. ii., p. 217. 
 
 ^* In Tezcuco the wards were each occupied by a distinct class of trades- 
 people, and this was doubtless the case in Alexico also, to a certain extent. 
 'Cada Oticio se vsasc en Barrios dc porsl; de suerte, que losoue cran Plate- 
 ros dc Oro, avian de estkr juntos, y todos los de aquel Barrio, lo avian de ser, 
 y no se avian de niczclar utros con ellos; y los de Plata, en otro Barrio,' etc. 
 Torqucmada, Monarq. Ltd., torn, i., p. 147; lirasscur de Bourbnnrg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iv., p. 3; Curhaiat Espinosn, Hist. Mex., torn, ii., p. 218. 
 
 33 'AI rededor de la ciudad habia muclios ditpies y esclusas para conte- 
 ner las aguascn caso necesario. . . .no pocas que tenian en medio una ace- 
 quia eiitre dos terraplenes.' Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. ii., pp. 
 218-19. 
 
 3* 'Hay BUS puentes de muy anchas y miiv grandes vigas juntas y 
 recias y bicn labradas; y tales, que por inucha» dellas pueden pasar dicz de 
 caballo juntos k la par. In case of necessity ' qiiitatlas las puentes de las 
 entradas y salidas.' With this facility for cutting off retreat, Cortes found 
 it best to construct brigantines. Cartas, j). 103; Alotolinia, Hist. Indios, in 
 Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 187; Denial Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 73. 
 
664 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The chief resort of the people was the levee which 
 stretched in a semi-circle round the southern part of 
 the city, forming a harbor from half to three quarters 
 of a leatjue in breadth. Here during the day the 
 merchants bustled about the cargoes and the custom- 
 houses, while at night the promenaders resorted 
 there to enjoy the fresh breezes from tiie lake. The 
 construction of this embankment was owing to an in- 
 undation which did serious harm during the reign of 
 Montezuma 1. This energetic monarch at once took 
 steps to i)revent a recurrence of the catastroj)he, and 
 called u[)on the neighboring towns to assist with peo- 
 ple and material in the construction of an outer wall, 
 to check and turn aside the waters of the fresh lake, 
 which, after the heavy rains of winter, rushed in vol- 
 umes upon the city as they sought the lower salt lake. 
 The length of the levee was about three leagues, and 
 its breadth thirty feet. In 141)8, fifty -two years after 
 its construction, it was further strengthened and en- 
 larged. ** 
 
 Although the Spaniards met with no very impos- 
 ing edifices as they nassed along to the central part of 
 the city where the temple stood, yet they must have 
 found enough to admire in the fine smooth streets, 
 the neat though low stone buildings surmounted by 
 parapets which but half concealed the flowers behind 
 them, the elegantly arranged gardens, gorgeous with 
 the flora of the tropics, the broad squares, the lofty 
 tem]»les, and the canals teeming with canoes. 
 
 Among the public edifices, the markets are espe- 
 cially worthy of note. The largest in Mexico Tenoch- 
 
 'Otra Calle avia. . . .miii angosta, y tanto, que apenas podian ir dos Perso- 
 iiaa juntas, sou iinahncntc vnos Callejones nuii cstredius.' Torqucmadn, 
 Moiiarq. Ind., toin. i., p. 2!)1; Relatione fatta pcrvii tfriitil'/iuoino del Sifftior 
 Fernando C'ortesc, in Jtmntisio, Navigationi, toni. iii., fol. 309; Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xiii. 
 
 35 Torquemadn, Monarq. Ind., toni. i., pp. 157-8. It is here said to be 
 four fathoniH broad. Brasseur de Boiirbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 
 231-2; Klcmm, Cidtiir-Genrhirhte, toni. v., p. 32; Muhlenpfordt, Mej'iro, 
 
 toni. ii., pt ii., p. 255, says: 'Ueste des gegen 39,400 Fuss langenau(lC5 
 
 Fuss breiten Daniines aus Steincu in Lehni, zu beiden Seiteu init Pallisa- 
 den verbranit.' 
 
FOUNTAINS AND AQUEDUCTS. 
 
 665 
 
 titlan, was twice as large as the sauare of Salamanca, 
 says Cortds, and was surrounded oy porticoes, in and 
 about which from sixty thousand to one hundred 
 thousand buyers and sellers found room.*" The mar- 
 ket-place at Tlatelulco was still lari^er, and in the 
 midst of it was a square stone terrace, fifteen feet 
 high and thirty feet long, which served as a theatre.*' 
 The numerous fountains which adorned the city 
 were fed by the aqueduct which brought water from 
 the hill of Cha])ultepec, about two miles oft', and was 
 constructed upon a causeway of solid masonry five feet 
 high and five feet broad, running parallel to the Tla- 
 copan road.** This aqueduct consisted of two pipes 
 of masonry, each carrying a volume of water equal 
 in bulk to a man's body,** which was conducted by 
 branch pipes to different parts of the town to supply 
 fountains, tanks, ponds, and baths. At the different 
 canal -bridges there were reservoirs, into which the 
 pipes emptied on their course, and here the boatmen 
 who made it a business to supply the inhai)itants 
 with water received their cargoes on the payment of 
 a fixed price. A vigilant police watched over the 
 distribution of the water and the care of the })ipes, 
 only one of which was in use at a time, while the 
 other was cleansed.*" The supply was obtained from 
 
 36 Cortis, Cartas, p. 103; Gonmra, Conq. Mex., fol. 116; Oviedo, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, iii., p. 299; Carbajal E.iptnom, Hist. Mex., torn, i., ]>. 008. 
 
 3' 'Cosi graiide come sarebbe tre volte lu piazzn cli Salamanca.' Rela- 
 tione fatta per vn fjentiriiuomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Hamusio, 
 Nafir/ationi, torn, lii., fol. 309; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazhalcefn, 
 Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 181. 
 
 '8 The Anonymous Conqueror states that this road carried the aqueduct 
 wliicli was three quarters of a league in length. Relatione fatta jier vn 
 qcntiVhnomo del iiiffnor Fernando Cortege, in Ramusio, Nai-ig-dioni, torn, 
 lii., fol. 309; Cortis, Cartas, p. 108; lirasscur de Bourbonrg, Hist. Nat. Cie., 
 toiu. iv., p. 4; Torqueniada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 207; Prcseoft's Mex., 
 vol. ii., p. 114. 
 
 39 ' Los cailos, que eran de madera y de cal y canto.' Cortes, Cartas, pp. 
 209, 108; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., p. .S04. Other writers make the 
 pipes larger. *Tan gordos como vn buey cada vno.' Goniara, Conq. Mex., 
 fol. 113. 'Tan anchas como tres hombres juntos y mas.' Las Casus, Hist. 
 Apologitica, MS. , cap. 1. 
 
 *' Cortes, Cartas, p. 108, says ' echan la duloe por unas canales tan gnie- 
 sas como un buey, que son de la longura de las dichas puentes.' Torqtte- 
 viada, Monarq. Ina., torn, i., p. 207; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 
506 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 n 
 
 a fine spring on the summit of Mount Chapultepec, 
 which was guarded by two fit^ures cut in the sohd 
 stone, representing; Montezuma and his father, armed 
 with lances and shields.*' The present aqueduct was 
 partly reconstructed by Montezuma II. on the old 
 one erected by the first kin«if of that name. Its in- 
 aujufu ration was attended by imposing ceremonies, 
 otfurinj^s of quails, and burning of incense." 
 
 During Ahuitzotl's reign, an attempt was made to 
 bring water into the city from an immense spring at 
 Coyuhuacan. The lord of that place consented, as 
 became a loyal vassal, to let the water go, but pre- 
 dicted disastrous consequences to the city from the 
 overHow which would be sure to follow if the water 
 were taken there. This warning, however, so enraged 
 the king that he ordered the execution of the noble, 
 and inmiediately levied men and material from the 
 neighboring towns to build the aqueduct. The ma- 
 sons and laborers swarmed like ants and soon finished 
 the work. When everything was ready, a grand pro- 
 cession of priests, princes, nobles, and plebeians 
 marched forth to open the gates of the aqueduct and 
 receive the waters into the city. Speeches were made, 
 slaves and children were sacrificed, the wealthy cast 
 precious articles into the rolling waters with words of 
 thanks and welcome. But the hour of sorrow was at 
 hand. The prediction of the dead lord was fulfilled; 
 the waters, once loosed, could not be fettered again; 
 a great part of the city was inundated and n. ich dam- 
 SLiXe was done. Then the dist "acted king called once 
 
 • • • 
 
 more upon the neighboring to ms to furnish men, but 
 this time to tear down insteac' >f to build up.*' 
 
 Among the arrangements " the convenience of 
 the public may be mentioned li^ thouses to guide the 
 
 cap. 1.; Prescotfs Mex., vol. ii., p. 114; Ca. ij'al Espinosa, Hist. Mex., 
 toil), i., p. 664. 
 
 *i Goinara, Conq. Mex., fol. 113; Herrera, Hat. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., 
 cap. xiii. 
 
 ^'^ Acosta, Hist, de las Viiff., pp. 500-1; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn. i. , p. 207; Brasseur de lioiirbonrif. Hist. Nnt. Cii>., toni. iv., p. 4. 
 
 43 Duraii, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, ii., cap. xlviii., xlix. 
 
LI(;HTH0U8K8 and STIlEETWOnK. 
 
 667 
 
 canoes which brouj^ht supplies to the great metropolis. 
 These were erected at (liferent points upon towers 
 and heights; the principal one seems to have been on 
 Mount Tocitlan, where a wooden turret was erected 
 to hold the Haming beacon." The streets were also 
 lighted by burning braziers placed at convenient inter- 
 vals, which were tended by the night j>atrol. A force 
 of over a thousand men kept the canals in order, swept 
 the streets and sprinkled them several times a day.*" 
 Public closets were placed at distances along the 
 canals.*" The care of buildings also received tlie at- 
 tention of the government, and every eleventh month 
 was devoted to repairing and cleaning the tem})les, 
 public edifices, and roads generally.*^ A number of 
 towns on the lake were built on piles, in imitation of 
 Mexico, chiefly for the sake of security. Thus, Izta- 
 palapan stood half on land, half over the water, and 
 
 <* Bransoir rlc lioHrhotirfi, JTi.sl. Nnt. Civ., toin. iii., i». 4'J7, toin. iv., pp. 
 209-10; Tczuzomor, Hint. Mex., toiii. ii., jt. 184. 
 
 ** Ortena, in Veyliu, Jiisf, Ant. Mej., toni. iii., p. 319, Torquemada, 
 Monarq. Ind., toni. i., pp. 206, 4(50. 
 
 *^ Brasaeur de Bourooiirg, Hint. Nnt. Civ., torn. iv. , p. 7. 'En Union 
 loH ciiininos qne tcninn heclios de cuniiH, it pnja, it ycrvus, ]M>rquc no Ium 
 vicssen Ioh que piiH8aH<:n por ellos, y iilli hc nietiun. Hi teniiui ^anu du piir- 
 »ar loa vicntrcH, ]M)rquo no su lea pcrdicsHC u<iiiullu 8ucicdad.' Bcrnat Diaz, 
 llist. Coiiq., fol. 70. 
 
 <T Torquemada, Afonarq. Ind., toni. ii.. p. 298. The authoritieH for the 
 description of the city ure: Relatione futta per vn (fentiVhuomo del Sionor 
 Fernando Cortene, in Eainnsia, Naeigationi, toni. iii., fol. 309, and in le.uz- 
 Ixdceta, Col. de Doe., toni. i., p. 390-2, with ])hins; Cortt'n, Vartns, pp. 
 43, 83-4, 102-9, 209; Id., Despatches, t». 333, plan; Ikrnal Diaz, Htst. 
 Con(i., fol. 70-3; Ton/ncmada, Monarq. Ind., toni. i., pp. 91-4, 147, ir)7-8, 
 200-7, 288-98, 306 7, 460; Acosta, Hint, de las Ynd., pp. 46.')-8, 500-1; 
 Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Ivazhalecfa, Col. de Doc., toin. i., pp. 180-3, 187- 
 8; Las Casas, Hist. Apologdica, MS., cap. 1.; Gomara, Conn. Mex., fol. 
 113-16; Ovicdo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., pp. 28.3-4, 29J», SO.'i; Vei/tia, Hist. 
 Ant. Mej., toni. ii., p. 141; Ortega, in Id., toni. iii., p. 319; Herrera, Hist. 
 Gen., due. ii., lib. vii., cap. xiii., xiv., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. .\i.; Id., 
 (Translation, Lond. 1725), vol. ii., p. 372, vol. iii., p. 194, view and plan; 
 Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in No'vellcs Annalrs des Voy., 1843, toni. xcix., 
 pp. 174-5; Clavigero, Sforia Ant. del Messico, toni., i., pp. 168-9; Hercdia 
 y Sarmiento, Sermon, pp. 95-6; Tezozomor, Hist. Mex., toni. ii., p. 184; 
 Montanns, Niemcc Weereld, pp. 81, 238-9; lirasscur de liourhourg. Hist. 
 Nut. Civ., torn, ii., pj). 443-9, torn, iii., pp. 231-2, 427, toin. iv., pp. 3-7, 
 209-10; Carhajal Espinoaa, Hist. Mex.,inm. i., pp. 310-14, 664, torn, ii., 
 pp. 216-28, with plan; Pre.scotVa Mix., vol. i., pp. 16-17, vol. ii., pp. 69, 
 76-86; Miihlenpfordt, Mejico, toni. ii., pt ii., p. 255; Alaman, Ihserta- 
 eiones, toni. i., i). 184-8; Ilelps' Span. Conq., vol. ii., pp. 310-14, 456, 471- 
 2, 490-1, with plans; Carli, Cartas, pt i., pp. 33-6; Peter Martyr, dec. v., 
 lib. X. 
 
568 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS, 
 
 i ■! 
 
 ; 
 
 \i 
 
 Ayotzinco was founded entirely on piles, and had 
 canals instead of streets.*^ 
 
 Other towns had recourse to strong walls and deep 
 ditches to secure their protection. Tlascala especially 
 was well defended from its ancient Aztec enemy, by 
 a wall of stone and mortar** which stretched for six 
 miles across a valley, from mountain to mountain, 
 and formed the boundary line of the republic. This 
 wall was nine feet high, twenty feet broad,*" and sur- 
 mounted by a breastwork a foot and a htrlf in thick- 
 ness, behind which the defenders could stand while 
 figliting. The only entrance was in the centre, wliere 
 the walls did not meet, but described a semi-circle, 
 one overlapping the other, with a space ten paces 
 wide and forty long between them." The other side 
 also was defended by breastworks and ditches. '^^ The 
 city itself stood upon four hills, and was crossed by 
 narrow streets/^ the houses being scattered in irregu- 
 lar groups. In size it was even larger than Granada, 
 says Cortes, which is not unlikely, for the market had 
 accommodation for thirty thousand people, and in one 
 of the temples four hundred Spaniards with their at- 
 tendants found ample room." At Huejutla tliere 
 was a curious wall of masonry, the outside of wliich 
 was faced witli small blocks of tetzontli, each about 
 nine inches in diameter on the face, which was round- 
 ed ; the end of each block was pointed, and inserted in 
 the wall.'" 
 
 <* Cnrbttjal Espinosa, Hist. Mcx., torn, ii., p, 197; PrescotCt Mix., vol. 
 
 *9 ("orti's says 'niedra seca.' Cartas, p. fi((, hut tliis is cniitradicttMl 1>y 
 Heriiul Diaz, wliolouiul it to he of stoni' and mortar. Hist. l'oiiq.,UA. 43. 
 'Sill iiiezcia de cal iii harro.' Urrvera, Hist, (int., dec. ii. , lil>. vi., fap. iv. 
 
 M C/ariifrro, Stnria Aiit. ilrl ^^r.1siM, toiii. ii., p. l.")0, give the measure- 
 ment at ei;;iit feet in hei;;ht and ei;rhteeu in widtii. 
 
 51 Cortrs, Cartas, p. GO; Jkriial JJias, Hist. Vono., fol. 4.1; M'e.it-In(fi.ir/ie 
 Spir-jhrl, pp. 2'25-<j. Vlarigcro, Utoria Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., i>. 150, 
 with a e:it. 
 
 52 Klriiim, Ciiltiir-(Tf.srhir/itc, torn, v., p. 180. 
 
 53 Delapurte says that streets met on the hills, lirisen, toui. x., p. 2.">(i. 
 
 5* C'«r/«'.«, Cartas, ]). (i~; ]l-''ttionc fatta jirr rii iji'iitiVhiainiii ilrl Sitjnor 
 Frraundo Curtcsr, in Jiaiiiiisio, Xaviijationi, toni. iii., fol. 3(IS; Hrnrrn, 
 Hist, (icii., dee. ii., lilt, vi., cap. xii. 
 
 " Cortis, Cartas, p. 171. See iVanlen, Rechcrchcs, pp. C7-8, on fortiti- 
 
THE CITY OF TEZCUCO. 
 
 669 
 
 The city next in fame and rank to Mexico Te- 
 nochtitlan was Tezcuco,®" which Torquemada affirms 
 contained one hundred and forty thousand houses 
 within a circumference of from three to four leagues." 
 It was divided into six divisions, and crossed by a 
 series of fine straight streets lined with elegant build- 
 ings. The old palace stood on the border of the lake 
 ui)on a triple terrace, guarding the town, as it were; 
 the newer structure, in the construction of which 
 two hundred thousand men had been employed, stood 
 at the northern end; it was a magnificent building 
 and contained three hundred rooms. This city was 
 the seat of refinement and elegance, and occupied 
 relatively the same position in Mexico as Paris does 
 in Europe.** 
 
 The style of architecture for houses did not exhibit 
 much variety; the difierence between one house and 
 another being chiefiy in extent and material."" The 
 
 oatitins. In Miclionran, Hoino towns had wjills of planks two futlionis high 
 and one broad, llcnrra, Jlixt. Gen., dec. iii., lib. lii., eajt. iii. 
 
 i" Meaning place of detention, Iweanse here the ininiigrating trilnss used 
 to halt, while deciding ujwn their .settlement. Ixtlilxochill, Hint. Chick., in 
 Kia<isboronffh\i Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 214. 
 
 •" Las C'asas, Hist. Apolog^fieci, MS., cap. xlix., says that it was nearly 
 as large as Mexico. Gomara, C'oiiq. MfX., fol. 115. Motcdinia, Ili.if. Indios, 
 in Iruzhtdvvta, Col. tic Doc, toni. i., p. 182, gives it a league in width and 
 six in lengtii. Peter Martyr, dec. viii., lib. iv., gives it 20,()0() houses. 
 (Sarltajal Kspinosa, Ifist. Mrx., toni. i.. pp. 87-8, estinwites it at 30,00() 
 hiiiises, and thinks that Tormicniuda niU!4 nave included the three outlying 
 towns to attain his figure. Toivitcnindu, Moiittn/. Iiid., toni. i., p. ,S()4. 
 
 M lii-dSKi'iivdc BourboHr<i, Hist. Nat. Civ., toai. iv., pp. 89-iH), .S()3-4; Car- 
 lirniil Kspinosa, Hi.it. Mex., toni. i., pp. 87-8; Ixtlilxoe/iitl, Hist. Cliicli., in 
 hiiitf.ilioroiiijh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 242-4. For further references to 
 Mexican towns, foils, etc., see: Cartas, Carta,i. \m. 24, 57-<'>t), 07-8, 74-.5, 
 'J2-.S, ir»3, 171, 186, 19(); Bernal Diaz, Hist. Coii'f., fol. 43; Relafonrfatta per 
 VII gentiVhiwmo del Siijiior Fernando Corte.ir, in lianiusio, Xarii/nfioni, 
 toin. iii., fol. 308; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kinifstmro Hi/It's Mcx. Antiq., 
 toni. ix. , pp. 214, 242, 251-2, 2.57; Las Casas, Uist. Apolot/cfica, M.S., cap. 
 xlix.; Torqncniada, Moiiarq. fnd., torn. i.. pp. 251-2, .104, 44i>-.50; Gomara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 2(i,51, 115; Ih'crcra, Hist, (leu., dec. ii., lib. v., cap. viii., 
 lii>. vi., caji. iv., xii.. xvi., lilt, vii., civp. iv., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. iii.; Clari- 
 ifcro, Storta Ant. del M'ssico, toni. ii., |>. 1.50, with cut; I'ctcr Martyr, dec. 
 IV., lib. iv., vii., dec. viii., lib. iv.; Ociedo, Utst. Gen., toni. iii., p. 283; 
 Wcit-Indischc Spieijhel, pp. 221, 225-(); lioloi/nc, in Tcrnanx-Coniinnm, 
 Vol/., serie i., toin. x., p. 212i Montanits, Nieiinr Weereld, j). 23(1; Klcinni, 
 Cnltur-Geschichte, toni. v., p. 186; Dclaparte, Ilciscn, toin. x., j). 2.56; Car- 
 liajnl Espinosa, Hist. Mcx., toin. i., pp. 87-8, 2.5!», 6*53, toni. ii., pp. 51, 161; 
 narden, Recherches, m\. (57-8; Prcseott's Mcx., vol. ii., p. 65; Helps' Span. 
 Conq., vol. ii., p. 2%; liii-isierrc, U Empire Mex., pp. 2 JO, 2J3. 
 
 ^ Lus Cusas states that when u warrior distinguished himself abroad 
 
570 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 In 
 
 dwellings of the nobles were situated upon terraces 
 of various heights, which in swampy j)laces like 
 Mexico, rested upon tiera of heavy piles.* They were 
 usually a group of buildings in the form of a paral- 
 lelogram, built of stone or in Mexico of tetzontli, 
 joined with fine cement, and finely polished and white- 
 washed." Every house stood by itself, separated from 
 its neighbor by narrow lanes, and enclosed one or 
 more courts which extended over a large space of 
 ground."^ One story was the most common form, and 
 there are no accounts of any palaces or private houses 
 exceeding two stories."* Broad steps led up the ter- 
 race to two gates which gave entrance to the courts; 
 one opening upon the main street, the other upon the 
 back lane, or canal, that often lay beneath it. The 
 terrace platform of the houses of chiefs often had a 
 wide walk round it and was especially spacious in front, 
 where there was occasionally a small oratorio facing 
 the entrance. This style was particularly noticed on 
 the east coast."* The court was surrounded by numerous 
 
 he was allowed to Imild his house in the style used hy the enemy, a privi- 
 lege allowed to none else. Hist. Apologi'tiaf, MS., cap. Ixvi. 
 
 6* ' 1 fondauicnti delle case grandi della Capitale si gettavano a eagione 
 della poca sodezza di quel tcrreno sopra un piano di grosse stanghe di codro 
 ficcate in terra.' Clavigcro, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, toni. ii., p. 'HYl. 'I'or- 
 que la huniedad no lea causase enferniedad, alzahan los aposentos iiast^i uu 
 estado poco mas 6 inenos, y asi qncdahan comu eiitresuelos.' Mrm/icta, 
 Hist. Erics., p. 121. Speaking of Cenipoalla, Peter Martyr says: 'Vnto 
 these hou.ses or hahitations they ascend hy 10. or 12. steppes or stayres.' 
 Dec. iv.. lih. vii. The floor of the palace at Mitla consisted of slahs of stone 
 three feet tli'ck, which rested on ten feet piles. Brtisseiir ilc lioiirlwiira, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 2(>. Houses with elevated terraces were only 
 allowed to chiefs. Tczozoiiior, I fist. Mex., toni. i., p. 188. 
 
 61 Las Ca.ias, Hist. A/ioloifctim, MS., cap. xli.x. This mode of white- 
 washing the walls and ])olishing them with gypsum seems to have hccn very 
 common in all parts of Mexico, for we repeatedly meet with mentions of 
 the dazzling white walls, like silver, which the Spaniards noticed all through 
 their nnirch. Torqiianniht, Moiiarq. IiiiL, torn, i., p. 251; Clavigcro, Stvvia 
 Ant. <M Mfssiro, toui. ii., p. 202. 
 
 ** In Cenipoalla, says Peter Martyr, 'none nuvy charge his neighliourswall 
 with l>eames or rafter.^. All the houses arc seperatcd the distance of 3. 
 paces asunder.' Dec. iv., lih. 7. Cortes, Cartas, p. 24, mentions as many 
 as five courts. 
 
 63 Torqiiemnda, Moitarq. Ltd., tom. i., p. 291; Las Casas, Hist. A/tohi- 
 gftica, MS., cap. 1.; Prescotfs Mex., v<d. ii., pp. 70-7; t'/tertdiei; Mr.r. 
 Anrien et Mod., p. 173. ' N'avaient gnere qu'un etage, ix cause de la frJ- 
 (luence des tremhlement de terre.' Jiussierrc, VEmpirc Mex., p. 173. 
 
 «< Corti's, Cartas, p. 24. 
 
DWELLINGS OF THE RICHEU CLASSES. 
 
 671 
 
 porticos decorated with porphyry, jasper, and alabas- 
 ter ornaments, which, again, led to various chambers, 
 and halls, lighted by large windows. Two great halls 
 and several reception-rooms were situated in front ; the 
 sleeping-chambers, kitchen, baths, and store-rooms 
 weie in the rear, forming at times quite a complicated 
 labyrinth."' The court was paved with flags of stone, 
 tesselated marble, or hard cement, polished with ochre 
 or gypsum,^ and usually contained a sparkling fount- 
 ain ; occasionally there was a flower-garden, in which 
 a pyramidal altar gave an air of sanctity to the place."^ 
 The stairway which led to the second stoiy or to the 
 roof, was often on the outside of the house, and by its 
 grand proportions and graceful form contributed not a 
 little to the good appearance of the house."* The roof 
 Avas a flat terrace of beams, with a slight slope towards 
 the back,*® covered with a coat of cement or clay,™ and 
 surrounded by a battlemented parapet, surmounted at 
 times by small turrets." There were generally flow- 
 ers in pots upon the roofs, or even a small garden; 
 and here the members of the household assembled in 
 
 ^'> Chares, Rapporl, in Tfrnanx-Conipanx, Vo;/., sdrie ii., toin. v., p. 
 328. Tlie palace at TecptMjuo, savH Las Casas, was a very la))yriiith, ni 
 which visitors were liaUle to lose theinselves without a guide. In the pul> 
 ape allotted to Cortes at Mexico he found conifortaUle quarters for 40() of 
 his own men, 20I)U allies, and a number of attendants. Hist. Apologctku, 
 MS., caj(). lii., I. 'Ania salas con sus caniuras, ijuc cahia cada vn(» en su 
 cama, cientoy cincuentaCastellanos.' Ucnrm, Itisf. t'rcii., dec. ii., lili. vii., 
 en]). V. ' Intorno d'una j?rau corti fosscro ]>rima j^randissime sale & stantie, 
 ncro' v'cra vna sala cosi ;!;rande die vi poteano star dentro senza dar Tun 
 tastidio all'altro pin di tre mila persone. Relatione fnttu per rn. geiitiVhtio- 
 mo del Siffiior Fcriiaiulo Cortese, in Ramusio, Navigatioui, torn, iii., fol. 
 .309. 
 
 66 Clarigrro, Storin Ant. <fel Mes-sico, torn, ii., pp. 2()0, 202; Torqitemada, 
 Monarq. Iiid., tom. i., p. 251. 
 
 ^ Tezozomoc, J list. Me.r., ton» i., j). 188, says that chiefs were permitted 
 to erect towers i>ierced with arrows in tlio coiirtyaril. Prrseotfs Mex., vol. 
 ii., J). 120. The houses wert often quite sunonnded with trees. West-Iii- 
 t/isfhc Spieghel, p. 220. 
 
 6* lirasseiir dc liourbourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 056. 
 
 69 Tiflor's Annhiifir, pp. i:i5-(5. 
 
 'O 'lorqucmada, Moiuirq. Iiid., tom. i., p. 291. Las Casas, Hist. Apoln- 
 (ji'lica, MS., cap. 1., savs: ' Kucalados por encima, que no se pueden Hover.' 
 'Conered with reede, tnatcli, or marish sedjje: yet numy of them are couered 
 with slate, or shiii<;le stone.' I'eter Martyr, dec. iv,, lili. vii., dec. v., lih.x. 
 
 ''^ Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lih. iv., dec. v., lib. x. ; Cathajul Espinoaa, 
 Hist. Mex., tom. ii., p, 219. 
 
572 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 the cool of the evening to enjoy the fresh air and 
 charming prospect." Some houses had galleries, 
 which, like most work added to the main structure, 
 were of wood,'^ though supported upon columns of 
 marble, porphyry, or alabaster. These pillars were 
 either round or square, and were generally monoliths; 
 they were without base or capital, though ornamented 
 with fiofures cut in low relief Buildinifs were further 
 adorned with elegant cornices and stucco desijjfns of 
 flowers and animals, which were often painted with 
 brilliant colors. Prominent among these figures was 
 the coiling serpent before mentioned. Lintels and 
 door-posts were also elaborately carved.''* 
 
 The interior displayed the same rude magnificence. 
 The floors were covered with hard, smooth cement 
 like the courtyard and streets, rubbed with ochre or 
 gypsum, and polished.^' The glossy walls were 
 painted and hung with cotton or feather tapestry, to 
 which Las Casas adds silver plating and jewels. The 
 furniture was scanty. It consisted chiefly of soft 
 mats and cushions of palm-leaves or fur, low tables, 
 and small stools with palm-leaf backs. The beds 
 were mats piled one upon another, with a block or a 
 palm-leaf or cotton cushion for a pillow; occasionally 
 they were furnished with coverlets and canopies of 
 
 '8 Helps' Span. Conq., vol. ii., p. 314. 
 
 73 Brasscur dc Itaurbonrff, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 658. 
 
 '< Vlarigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, toin. ii., pp. 2(KM2; Bussierre, 
 VEmpirc Mex., pp. 17. -4; Vurbujal Enpiiiosa, Hist. Me.i:., toin. i., pp. 
 (562 3, 665. 
 
 'i ' Emu los Patios, y Siielos de ellos, de argamasa, y desi)ucs de eiica- 
 IndoR, ciibrian la supcrfieie, y liaz, con Alnia^rre, y despues briiniaiiios, eoii 
 vnoH guijarroH, y ]iicdras miii lisas, y quedtu>aii con tan buena ti;z, y tan 
 liennosaniente brunidoM, mic no {lodia estarlo mas vn IMato du Phita; piics 
 coino fuese de nianana, y el Sol couien^ase t\ derraniar, y CNparoir la Lunibre 
 de Hiis UaioM, y I'ouieni^asen h reberverar en los Suelos, eni'endianios de 
 nianera, que h quien llcvaba tan buen deseo, y ansia de lialier (,)ro, y I'lata, 
 le jMido parecer, que era Oro el Suelo; y cs nuii cierto, que los sucloa de las 
 t'asas, y de los I'ation (en especial, de los Tcniplns, y de los Sefiores, y IVr- 
 Konas I'rincipalcs) se hacian, y aderc^'abau, en a<iucllos Tienipos, talcs, quo 
 eran niui de v^r, y algunos de cstos hcnios visto tan lisos, y lininios, que sin 
 asco se podia comer en ellos, sin Mantelcs, qualquicrMamar.' Tovquemada, 
 Monarq. lad., torn, i., pp. 251-2; Las Casas, Hist. Apoioijetica, mH., cap. 
 xlix. 
 
HOUSES OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 
 
 673 
 
 cotton or feather-work.'^ Vases filled with smolder- 
 ing incense diffused their peifume through the cham- 
 bers. The rooms which were used in winter were 
 provided with hearths and fire-screens, and were 
 lighted by torches." There Avere no doors, properly 
 called such, to the houses, but where privacy was re- 
 quired, a bamboo or wicker-work screen was sus- 
 pended across the entrance, and secured at night with 
 a bar. To this was attached a string of shells, which 
 the visitor rattled to call the host or his attendants to 
 the entrance. The interior rooms were separated by 
 hangings, which probably also served to cover the 
 windows of ordinary dwellings,''^ although the trans- 
 parent tecali stone, as before stated, answered the 
 purpose of window-glass in certain parts of some of 
 the temples.™ 
 
 The houses of the poorer classes were built of 
 adobe, wood, cane, or reeds and stones, mixed with 
 mud, well plastered and polished,*^ and, in Mexico, 
 raised on stone foundations, to prevent dami)ness,** 
 though the elevation was less than that of the houses 
 of the richer people. They were generally of an 
 oblong shape, were divided into several apartments, 
 and occasionally had a gallery in front. They could 
 not aflford a central court, but had instead a flower or 
 vegetable garden wherever space permitted. Terrace 
 roofs were not unconnuon in the towns, but more 
 generally the houses of the poorer people were 
 
 7« 'Toldillos cncinia.' licnml Dim, Hint. Conq., fol. 66. 
 ''^ Las Cttxii.1, Hist. Apoloiji'ticn, AIS., wip. 1.; Gomarn, Coiiq. Mrx., fol. 
 :U8; Jicrtinl Diaz, Jlist. C'oiitj., fol. 66, 68; llerrrra. Hist. <lcn., dec. ii., 
 
 lib. viL, flip, v., vii.; Jiussicirc, VEmpiic Mex., pp. 174-5; Corle.t, Cartas, 
 pp. 79, 174-5. Klciiiin, Vitltitr-Gesmichtc, toiii. v., pp. lii-U*, ineiitiuiis 
 stools of cane niid reed; and tirehujpt which were u.sed for li};htt>. 
 
 1^ Torque mndn, Moiiarq. Diil., totn. ii., p. .381; Clari(jcro, Storia Ant. 
 del Mi'ssiro, toin. ii., p. 201; Vurhajal Espiiiosa, Hist. Max., toiii. i., p. 6t)'i. 
 'Xo ay piiertas iii ventaiiaH que cerrar, todo C8 abierto.' Gosnura, Conq. 
 Mex., fol. 318. 
 
 '9 lirasseur de Dourbourq, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iv., p. 8. 
 
 "« Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xii.; I'rft-r Martyr, dec. v., 
 lib. X.; Las Casus, Hist. Apoloqitica, MS., cap. xli.\-l.; PrcscotCs Mex., 
 Mil. ii., ]>. 70. 
 
 I*! I'cttr Marti/r, dec. v., lib. x. 
 
S74 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 thatched with a kind of long thijk grass, or with 
 overlapping maguey-leaves." 
 
 Besides the oratory and store-house with which 
 most houses were prdvided, a temazcalli, or bath, was 
 generally added to the dwelling. This, according to 
 Clavigero, consisted of a hemisphere of adobe, having 
 a slightly convex paved floor sunk a little below the 
 level of the surrounding ground. The entrance was 
 a small hole just large enough to admit a man. On 
 the outside of the bath-house, and on the opposite side 
 to the entrance, was a furnace made of stone or brick, 
 separated from the interior by a thin slab of tetzontli, 
 or other porous stone, through which the heat was 
 communicated. On entering, the door was closed, 
 and the suffocating vapors were allowed to escape 
 slowly through a small opening in the top. Tho 
 largest bath-houses were eight feet in diameter, and 
 six feet i"^. height. Some were mere square chambers 
 without a furnace, and were doubtless heated and the 
 fire raked out before the bather entered." 
 
 The storehouses and granaries which were attached 
 to farms, temples, and palaces, were usually square 
 buildings of oxametl-wood, with thatched roofs. The 
 logs had notches near the ends to give them a secure 
 hold. Two windows, or doors, one above the other, 
 gave access to the interior, which was often large 
 enough to contain many thousand bushels of grain.^ 
 
 M Motolinia, Hist Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 199; 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 200; Gomara, Cong. Mex., 
 fol. SiS; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Ctv., toin. iii., p. 657; Carbajal 
 Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 661-2. 
 
 85 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 214-15, with cut; 
 Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 662, v]\-2, with cut The 
 poorer had tioubtless resort to public baths; they certainly existed in Tlas- 
 caio. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xvi.; Bussierre, L' Empire 
 Mex.,jp. 240. 
 
 8* Clavigero, Storia. Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 165; Brasseur de Bour- 
 bonrg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 636; Torqttemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., p. 564. For description of houses, see: Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn, i., pp. 251-2, 291, torn, ii., ^p. 381, 564; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. 
 ii., lib. VI., cap. xii., xvi., lib. vii., cap. v.; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, ii., pp. 156, 200-2, 214-15, with cut; Las Casas, Hist. Apolo- 
 g'tiea, MS., cap. xlix-lii; Cortes, Cartas, p. 24; Relatione fatta jter vn 
 gtntirhuomo del Signor Fernatido Cortese, in Bamvmo, Navigationi, torn. 
 
AZTEC GARDENS. 
 
 676 
 
 Love of flowers was a passion with the Aztecs, and 
 they bestowed great care upon the cultivation of gar- 
 dens. The finest and largest of these were at Izta- 
 palapan and Huastepec. The garden at Iztapalapan 
 was divided into four squares, each traversed by 
 shaded walks, meandering among fruit-trees, blossom- 
 ing hedges, and borders of sweet herbs." In the centre 
 of the garden was an immense reservoir of hewn 
 stone, four hundred paces square, and fed by naviga- 
 ble canals. A tiled pavement," wide enough for four 
 persons walking abreast, surrounded the reservoir, and 
 at intervals steps led down to the water, upon the 
 surface of which innumerable water-fowl sported. A 
 large pavilion, with halls and corridors, overlooked 
 the grounds.*' 
 
 The Huastepec garden was two leagues in circuit, 
 and was situated on a stream; it contained an im- 
 mense variety of plants and trees, to which additions 
 were continually made." The chinampas, or floating 
 gardens, have been described elsewhere." 
 
 The Mexicans required no solid roads for heavy 
 traffic, since goods were carried upon the shouldere of 
 slaves, but a number of pathways crossed the country 
 in various directions, which underwent repair every 
 year on the cessation of the rains. Here and there 
 
 M 
 
 iii., fol. 309; Bemal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 66, 68; Gomara, Cong. Mex., 
 fol. 318; Motolinia, Hist. Iiidios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., 
 p. 199; Mendiela, Hist. Ecles., \t. 121; Tezozomoe, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 
 188; Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. iv., vii., dec v., cap. x. ; Chaves, Haftport, 
 in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., s^rie ii., torn, v., p. 328; West-Indischc Spteghel, 
 p. 2:21; Brasseur de Bourbovrq, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 26, 222, 636, 
 656-8, iv., p. 8; Prescotfs Jitex., vol. ii., pp. 76-7, 120; chevalier, Mex., 
 Ancien et Mod., p. 31; Bussierre, V Empire Mex., pp. 173-5, 240; Gar- 
 bajul Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 661-3, 671-2, with cut, toni. ii., p. 
 219; Tutor's Anahutic, pp. 135-6; Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, torn, v., pp. 
 15-16. 
 
 ^ 'El anden, hdcia la pared de la huerta, va todo labrado de cafias con 
 Unas vergas.' Cortis, Cartas, p. 83. 
 
 * 'Un anden de muy buen suelo ladrillado.' Covtts, Cartas, p. 83. 
 
 ^ Oviedo, Hist. Gen., toni. iii., p. 283; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 636; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messieo, torn, ii., p. 
 166. 
 
 «* Cortes, Cartas, p. 196; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messieo, torn, ii., p. 
 157. 
 
 » See this vol., p. 345. 
 
576 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 country roads crossed streams by means of suspen- 
 sion-bridges, or fixed structures mostly of wood, but 
 sometimes of stone, with small spans. The suspen- 
 sion-bridges were made of ropes, twisted canes, or 
 tough branches, attached to trees and connected by 
 a netting. The Spaniards were rather fearful of cross- 
 ing them, on account of their i^winging motion when 
 stepped upon and the gaping rents in them."* 
 
 Almost the only specimen of Nahua architecture 
 which has withstood the ravasfes of time until our 
 day is the temple structure, teocalli, 'house of God,' 
 or teopan, 'place of God,' of which Torquemada asserts 
 there were at least forty thousand ii. Mexico. Clavi- 
 gero regards this as a good deal below the real num- 
 ber, and if we consider the extremely religious charac- 
 ter of the people, and accept the statements of the 
 early chroniclers, who say that at distances of from a 
 quarter to half a league, in every town and village, 
 were open places containing one or more temples,®^ 
 and on every isolated rock or hill, along the country 
 roads, even in the fields, were substantial structures 
 devoted to some idol, then Clavigero's assertion may 
 be correct.*" 
 
 The larger temples were usually built upon pyrami- 
 dal parallelograms, square, or oblong, and consisted of 
 a series of super-imposed terraces with perpendicular 
 or sloping sides."^ The celebrated temple at Mexico 
 
 00 ' Hay sus puentes cle muy anchas y muv grandcs vigas juntas y recias 
 V bien labradtis; y tales, que por muchas dellas pueden pasar diez de ca- 
 Wllo juntos & la par.' Cortes, Cartas, p 103. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 632, says that stone bridges were most coniinon, 
 which is doubtless a mistake. Speaking of swinging bridges, Kleniin says: 
 'Manche waren so fest angespannt, dasa sie gar kcine schwankende Bewe- 
 gung batten.' Cttltur-Geschichte, torn, v., p. 75; Clavigero, Storiu Ant. del 
 Messico, torn, ii., p. 169. 
 
 91 'En los niismos patios de los pueblos principales habiaotros cadadoce 
 6 quince teocallis harto grandes, unos mayores que otros.' Motolinia, Hist. 
 Iiuiios, in Icazbalceta, Vol. de Doc, toni. L, p. 64. 'Entre nmitro, 6 einco 
 barrios tenian vn Adoratorio, y sus idolos.' Bernul Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 
 7-2. 
 
 9* Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 84-6, Torqwmada, Moiiarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., p. 141; Las Casus, Hiit. Ajioloff^tica, MS., cap. cxxiv. : Clavigero, Sto- 
 ria Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. 35. 
 
 93 Clavi'jero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 26, 34, cuts; Her.'.ra, 
 Hist. Oen.', (Translation, Loud. 1725), vol. ii., pp. 372, 378, cuts. 
 
TEMPLE OF HUITZILOPOCHTLI. 
 
 677 
 
 forms a fair type of the latter kind and its detailed 
 description will give the best idea of this class of edi- 
 fices. 
 
 When the Aztecs halted on the site of Mexico after 
 their long wanderings, the first care was to erect an 
 abode for their chief divinity Huitzilopochtli. The 
 spot chosen for the humble structure, which at first 
 consisted of a mere hut, was over the stone whereon 
 the sacred nochtli grew that had been pointed out by 
 the oracle. A building more worthy of the god was 
 soon erected, and, later on, Ahuitzotl constructed the 
 edifice from whose summit Cortds looked down upon 
 the scenes of his conquest. The labor bestowed upon 
 it was immense, and notwithstanding that the mate- 
 rial had to be brought from a distance of three or four 
 leagues — a serious matter to a people who were sup- 
 plied with no adequate means of transport — the tem- 
 ple was completed in two years.** The inauguration 
 tdok place in 148G, in the presence of the chief princes 
 and an immense concourse of people from all quarters, 
 and 72,344 captives, arranged in two long files, were 
 sacrificed during the four days of its duration." The 
 site of the building was indeed worthy of its charac- 
 ter, standing as it did in an immense square forming 
 the centre of the town, from which radiated the four 
 chief thoroughfares." The idea of thus keeping the 
 god before the people at all times had, doubtless, as 
 much to do with this arrangement as that of giving 
 him the place of honor. A square walP about four 
 
 adoce 
 Hist. 
 cinco 
 
 (., fol. 
 
 torn. 
 », Sto- 
 
 •* Tezozomop,, Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 151-3. 
 
 ^ Torqiicmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 186; Vetanevrt, Teatro Mex., 
 pt. ii., p. .37. Other authors tpvc the number at 60,460, and the attend- 
 ance at 6,000,000. Claingero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, i., p. 257. 
 
 ^ 'Uecihia dentro do su hueco todo el Huelo en que aora estk edificada 
 la Iglesia Maior, Casos del Marques del Valle, Casos Kealcs, y Casaa Ar^o- 
 bispales, con mucha parte de lo que aora es Pla^a, que parece cosa incre- 
 ible.' Sahagun, quoted in Torquenuida, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 146. 
 To-day the Cathedral stands upon the Plaza, and many liouaeH occupy the 
 spot; see Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, ii., pp. 226-7, 2.33-5. Oppo- 
 site the south gate was the market and ' en face du grand temple se trou- 
 vait lo italais.' Tezozomoc, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 152. 
 
 9' ' Dos cercas al rededor de cal, y canto.' Sernal Diaz, Hitt. C'onq., fol. 
 70-1. 
 
 Vol. II. 37 
 
I 
 
 578 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 thousand eight hundred feet in circumference, from 
 eight to nine feet in height and of great thickness, 
 with its sides facing the cardinal points, formed the 
 courtyard of the temple.** It was built of stone and 
 lime, plastered and polished,"* crowned with battle- 
 ments in the form of snails, and turreted and adorned 
 with many stone serpents, — a very common ornament 
 on- edifices in Egypt as well as Andhuac — for which 
 reason it was called coatepantli, 'wall of snakes.'*** 
 At the centre of each wall stood a large two-story 
 building, divided into a number of rooms, in which the 
 military stores and weapons were kept. These faced 
 the four chief thoroughfares of the town, and their 
 lower stories formed the portals of the gateways which 
 gave entrance to the courtyard."* This was partly 
 paved with large smooth flag -stones, partly with 
 
 w 'Mayores que la pla^a que ay en Salamanca.' Bernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 70. Cort^a, Cartas, p. 106, states that a town of 500 houses 
 could be located within its compass. Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., 
 p. 144, Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 119, Las Casas, Hist. Aftologttica, MS., 
 cap. Ii., and Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xvii., agree upon a 
 length to each side of one cross-bow or musket shot, and this, according to 
 Las Cosas, cap. cxxxii., is 750 paces; in the same places he gives the length 
 at four shots, or 3000 paces, an evident mistake, unless bv this is meant the 
 circumference. Hernandez estimates it at about 86 percnes, or 1,420 feet. 
 Sahogun, Hist. Gen., tom. i. , lib. ii., p. 197, who seems to have investigated 
 the matter more closely, places it at 200 fathoms, which cannot be too nigh, 
 when we consider that the court enclosed 77 or more edifice), besides the 
 great temple. Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. IL, p. 226, gives a 
 length of 250 varas. 
 
 >* 'Eratodo cercado de piedra de manposterla mui bien labrado.' Tor- 
 quemada, Moiiari. Ind., tom. ii., p. 144. 'Estaban mui bien encaladas, 
 blancas, y bruaidas.' Id., p. 141. 
 
 ■oo Ctamgero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 27; Brasaeur de Hour- 
 hourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 661; Prescotts Mex., vol. ii., p. 142. 
 ' Era labroda depiedros grandcs a manera de culebras asidas las vnas a las 
 otras.' Aeosta, Hist, delas Ynd., p. 333; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icaz- 
 balceta. Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 63. 
 
 ■01 Aeosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 333, says an idol stood over each gate, 
 facing the road. It is not statea by any author that tlie arsenals formed 
 the gatewav, but as they rose over the entrance, and nearly all mention 
 upper and lower rooms, and as buildings of this size could not have rested 
 upon the walls alone, it follows that the lower story must have formed the 
 sides of the entrance. 'A cada parte y puerta de las cuatro del patio del 
 templo grande ya dicho habia una gran sala con muy buenos aposentos altos 
 ybajoB en rededor.' Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. Ii.; Torque- 
 mada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 146; Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 120. Te- 
 zozomoc. Hist. Mex., tom. i., p. 152, mentions three (^tes. 'A I'orient et k 
 I'occident d'une petite porte et d'une grande vis-ii-vis de Tescalier mdridi- 
 onaL' 
 
THE GREAT TEMPLE OF MEXICO. 
 
 B79 
 
 >ioo 
 
 cement, plastered and polished, and so slippery that 
 the horses of the Spaniards could scarcely keep their 
 footing.'"* In the centre stood the great temple, an 
 oblong, parallelogramic pyramid, about three hundred 
 and seventy-five feet long and three hundred feet 
 broad at the base, three hundred and twenty-five by 
 two hundred and fifty at the summit, and rising in 
 five superimposed, perpendicular terraces to the height 
 of eighty-six feet.**® The terraces were of equal 
 
 101 'Y el misino patio, y sitio todo empedrado de piednw grandes de losaa 
 blancos, y inuy lisas: y adonde no auia de aquellas piedras, cstaua encalado, 
 yhrnUHlo,' Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 70. The white stones had no 
 doubt received that coler from plaster. 'Los patios y suelos eran teiiidoB 
 de Almagre bruflido, y incorporado con la niisma cal.' Torquemada, Mo^ 
 narq. Iiut., torn, ii., p. 141; Laa Casaa, Hist. Apologttica, \i8., cap. xlix. 
 The dimensions given by the diihrent authors are extremely varied; the 
 Anonymous Conqueror, as the only eye-witness who has given any measure- 
 ments, certainly deserves credit for those that appear reasonable, namely 
 the length and width; the height seems out of proportion. 
 
 IDS 'Cento & cin^uanta ]iiis.si, 6 poco piu di lunghezza, & cento quindici, 
 b cento & venti di largliezza.' Relatione fatta per vn gentiPhuomo del 
 Signor Fernando Cortese, in Bammio, Sfavigationi, torn, iii., fol. 307. 
 This would give the length and breadth of the base in the text, assuming 
 two and a half feet to the pace. With a decrease of two good paces for 
 each of the four ledges which surround the pyramid, the summit measure- 
 ment is arrived at. The terraces are stated by the same author to be two 
 men's stature in height, but this scarcely agrees with the height indicated 
 by the 120 or 30 steps given. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 70, counted 114 
 steps, and as most authors estimate each of these at a span, or nine inches in 
 height, this would give an altitude of 86 feet. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del 
 Messico, tom. ii., pp. 28-9, gives about .50 fathoms (perches, he calls them) 
 by 43 to the base, and, allowing a perch to the ledges, he places the 
 summit dimensions at 43 by 34 fatnoma. The height he estimates at 
 19 fathoms, giving the height of each step as one foot To prove that 
 he has not over-estimated tlic summit dimensions, at least, he refers to 
 the statements of Cortes, who affirms that he fought 500 Mexicans on 
 the top platform, and of Diaz, who says that over 4,000 men garrisoned 
 the temple. Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., pp. 144-5, who fol- 
 lows Sanagim, states it to be 360 feet square at the base, and over 70 
 at the top; the steps he says are 'vna tercia, y mas' in height, which 
 closely approaciics a foot. Las Casas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. Ii., says: 
 'Una torre triangular 6 de trcs esquinas de tierra y piedra maciza; y ancha 
 
 de esquina & esquina de ciento y viente pasos 6 cuasi con un llano 6 
 
 plaza de obra de setenta pies.' In cap. cxxxii. he calls it 100 men's stature 
 in height. Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 119, says 50 fathoms square at the 
 Imse and 18 at the top. IxtlilxochitI, Hist. Chic.h., in Kingsborough's 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 245, d<>8cribes a temple which seems to be that of 
 Mexico, and states it to be 80 fathoms square, with a height of 27 men's 
 stature. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xvii., places the dimen- 
 sions as low as 30 varas square at the Imsc and from 12 to 15 at the top. Of 
 modem authors Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iiL, p. 659, 
 gives the dimensions at 300 by 250 feet for the base, and 60 feet tor the 
 summit, after allowing from 5 to 6 feet for the ledges, a rather extraordinary 
 computation; unless, indeed, we assume that the terraces were sloping, but 
 
580 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 height,'** the lowest, according to Tezozomoc, having 
 a foundation a fathom or more in depth, and each re- 
 ceded about six feet from the edge of the one beneath 
 it, leaving a flat ledge round its base.'*'' At the 
 north-west corner the ledges were graded to form a 
 series of steps, one hundred and fourteen in all, and 
 each about nine inches high, which led from terrace to 
 terrace, so that it was necessary to walk completely 
 round the ediHce to gain the succeeding flight. *'" This 
 style of building was probably devised for show as 
 well as for defence, for by this means the gorgeously 
 dressed procession of priests was obliged to pass in 
 sight of the entire multitude gathered on all sides of 
 the temple, winding at a solemn pace round each ter- 
 race. The structure was composed of well-rammed 
 earth, stones, and clay, covered with a layer of large 
 
 there is no reliable cut or description to confirm ouch a supposition. 
 Humboldt, Eumi Pol., torn, i., pj>. lGO-71), bas 07 metres for the scjuare, 
 and 37 fur the iieight. Orteua, in Vcijtia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., pp. 
 280-82, is positive that the heit{ht was certainly no less than 38 varas. 
 Prescott, Mex., vol. ii., p. 144, remarks that there is no authority for 
 describing the tem^e as oblong, except the contemptible cut of the Anony- 
 mous Conqueror. This may be just enough as regards the cut, but if he 
 had exammed the description attached to it it, he would have found the 
 dimensions of an obloufj structure given. We must consider that the 
 Anonymous Conqueror is the only eye-witness who gives any measure- 
 ment, and, further, that as two chapels were situated at one end of the 
 platform the structure ought to have oeen oblong to give the space in front 
 a fair outline. 
 
 iM 'Alto come due stature dVn huomo.' Relatione fatta per vnqentiVhuo- 
 mo del Sii/iior Fernando Cortese, in Ramusio, Navigationi, torn, iii., fol. 307. 
 
 loi 'I^ciano vna strada di largbezza di duo passi.' Relatione fatta per 
 vn gentifhuoino del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Ramtuio, Navigationi, 
 torn, iii., fol. 307. See note 87; Motolinia, Hif(. Indiot, in Icazbalceta, 
 Col. de Doc., tom. i., p. 64. 
 
 116 The Anonymous Conqueror, Relatione, etc, \)bi supriL Las Casas, 
 Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. cxxiv., Gomara, donq. Mex., fol. 119, and 
 Torquemada, Monar<f. Itut., tom. ii., p. 14^, nV say that there was no 
 ledge on the west side, merely steps, but thi>i is, doubtless, a careless 
 expression, for 23 steps allotted to each terrace would scarcely have ex- 
 tended over a length of about 300 feet, the breadth of the pyramid. Near- 
 ly all agree upon the number of the steps, namely 1 14. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. 
 Ohich., in Kingxhorotigh'a Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 245, however, gives ICO 
 steps; Oviedo,*ii««<. Gen., tom. iii., pp. 502-3, 60 steps; and Acosta, Hist, 
 de Ins Ynd. , p. 333, 30 steps, 30 fathoms wide, but the latter author ha.s 
 evidently mixed up the accounts of two ditt'erent temples. Tezozomoc, 
 Hist. Itfrx., tom. i., p. 152, states that the temple had three stairways, 
 with 360 steps in all, one for every day in the Mexican year. According 
 to Klemm, Cidtur-GescAichte, tom. v., p. 155, the stejis are on the soutli 
 comer, but there is no authority for this statement; in the cuts they ap- 
 pear on the north. 
 
THE GREAT TEMPLE OP MEXICO. 
 
 Ml 
 
 square pieces of tetzontli, all of equal size, hewn 
 smooth and joined with a fine cement, which scarcely 
 left a mark to be seen ; it was besides covered with a 
 polished coating of lime, or gypsum."" The steps 
 were of solid stone and the platform of the same slip- 
 pery character as the court.*" At its eastern end 
 stood two three-story towers, fifty-six feet in height,** 
 separated from the edjy^e by a walk barely wide enough 
 for one person. The lower story was of masonry with 
 the floor raised a few feet above the platform and an 
 entrance on the west; the two upj)er stories were of 
 wood, with windows, to which access was had by mov- 
 able ladders.**" A wooden cupola well painted and 
 
 ic^ 'De tierra y piedra, me^olida con cal muy macizAila.' Hfrrera, Hi»t. 
 Om., dec. ii., lib. vii., ciin. xvii. 'Purlu parte do fuera i^a »a imred de 
 piedra: lo de dentro hciiuiiiaiilu de piedra todo, 6 de barro y adolie; otrosde 
 tierra bien taniada.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in leuzhalceta, Col. de Doe., 
 torn. i.. pp. 63-4. ' Heclia de inanpoHtoria.' TorqiKinada, Monarq. Ind., 
 torn, ii., p. 144. The pyramid of Teutihuacan, which, according to some 
 authors, has been a nio.lel for othent, is built of clay mixed with small 
 stones, covered by a heavy wall of tetzoutli, which is coated with lime. 
 Humbolut, EssaiPol., turn, i., p. 187. 'Todus las piedras estauan assen- 
 tadas de tal suerte, que la mezcla casi no parecia, sino todas las piedras 
 vna.' Ddvila Padilla, Ilist. Fond. Mex., p. 75. The whitewash may, how- 
 ever, have given it this solid api>carance. ' Todos aquellus Tcniplos, y Salas; 
 y tmlas sus paredes que los cercaban, estaban mui bien encalauas, blancas, 
 y bruuidas.' Torqiteiitada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 141; The mortar was 
 mixed with precious stones and gold-dust. Tezozomoc, Cronica Mex., in 
 KingsborougKa Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 60. 
 
 'w Brasseurde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 659, states that 
 three sides of the platform were protected bv a balustrade of sculptured 
 stone, and this is not unlikely when we consider the slippery nature of the 
 floor and the dizzy height. See Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 
 141, Las Casas, I'liat. Ajwioqilica, MS., cap. xlix., cxxiv, and note 76 on 
 polished floors. Carbajal lilspinosa. Hist, mex., tom. i., p. 664, states that 
 the summit was paved with nu'rble. 
 
 "" 'In alto dieci, 6 dodeci stature d'huomo.* Relatione fattapervn gen- 
 tiPhitomo del Sipnor Fernando Cortege, in Ramusio, Navigationi, tom. iii., 
 fol. 307. This is followed bv Olavigero, Storia Ant. del Meisico, tom. ii., 
 p. 29, who says 56 feet, or aooiit 9 perches. No other dimensions are men- 
 tiouf^d by the old chroniclers; Brasseurde Bourbourg, however, gives thsm a 
 base of 20 feet square. Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 659-60, but this becomes 
 absurd when we consider the height of the buildings, and the accommoda- 
 tion required for the gigantic idols thev contained. This author hazards the 
 opinion that the chapels were placed close to the edge, to enable the people 
 to see the ido!-* from below, but there is no mention of any doors on 
 the east side, and it is stated that the chapels were placed at this end so that 
 the people in praying might face the rising sun. Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 119; Las Casas, Hist. Apologttiea, MS., cap. Ii. 
 
 110 < Que se maud-- ban por la parte de adentro, por unas escaleras de ma- 
 dera movedizns. ' Ixtlilxochitl. Hist. Chich., in Kingsboro ugh' s Mex. Antiq., 
 vol. ix., p. 245. Acosta states that the towers were ascended by 120 steps. 
 
682 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 adorned formed the roof.*" The sanctuaries were in 
 the lower storv, the one on the ri<A\t hand dedicated 
 to Huitzilopochtli with his partner and lieutenant, the 
 other to Tezcatlipoca.*" The gicjantic images of these 
 gods rested upon large stone altars three to four feet 
 high,"' their monstrous grandeur shielded from the 
 vulgar gaze of the multitude by rich curtains hung 
 with tassels and golden pellets like bells, which rattled 
 as the hangings moved. Before the altar stood the 
 terrible stone of sacrifice, a green block about five feet 
 in length, and three in breadth and height, rising in 
 a ridge on the top so as to bend the body of the vic- 
 tim upwards and allow the easy extraction of the 
 heart."* The walls and ceilings were painted with 
 monstrous figures, and ornamented with stucco and 
 
 Hist, de las Ynd., p. 334. The towers were miide of 'artesones.' Gowam, 
 Gonq. Mex., fol. 119. Brasseur de ]iourl)oiirg Htates that the outside of the 
 walls was painted with various fi<;ures and monsters, but this seems to Ijc a 
 misinterpretation of Goniara, who places tlic paintings on the inside. Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 6G0. Bernal Diaz says, besides, that the towers were 
 'todas blanqueando. Hist. Conq., fol. 70. 
 
 '" The eaves or the domes of the temples were decorated with fine red 
 and white pillars, set with jet black stones and holding two figures of stone 
 with torches in their hands, which supported a battlement in fonn of spiral 
 shells; the torches were adorned with yellow and green feathers and fringes. 
 Acosta, Hist, de las Yiid., p. 333? Montaniis, Nieuwe Weercld, p. 242. 
 
 '1' Most of the old authors say that Tlaloc occupied the second chapel, 
 but as the next largest temple in the court is dedicated to this god, I am 
 inclined to think, with Clavigero, that TezcatliiMica shared the chief pyra- 
 mid with Huitzilopochtli. Another reason for this 1>clief is that Tezcatli- 
 poca was held to oe the half-brother of Huitzilopochtli, and their feasts 
 were sometimes attended with similar ceremonies. Tezcatlipoca was also one 
 of the highest if not the highest god, and, accordingly, entitled to the place of 
 honor by the side of *'• j favorite god of the Aztecs. Tlaloc, on the other 
 hand, had nothing in common with Huitzilo|xichtIi, and the only possible 
 ground that can be found for his promotion to the chief pyramid is to be 
 seen in the fable of the foundation of Mexico, in which Tluloc, a.8 the lord 
 of the site, gives the Aztecs permission fo settle there. We have, besides, 
 the testimony of Bernal Diaz, who saw Tezcatlipoca, adorned with the 
 tezcatl, or mirror ornament, seated in the left hand temple. Hist. Conq., fol. 
 71; Ortega, in Vcytin, Hist. Ant. MeJ., torn, iii., p. 281. Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 660, thinks it possible that the second 
 temiHe was occupied by different idols, in turn, according to the festival. 
 
 113 'No eran mas altos que cinco palmos.' Goniara, Conq. Mix., fol. 11'.). 
 Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, torn, ii., p. 2ft. 
 
 •'♦ Clavigero thinks that the stone was of jasper. Storia A nt. del Mcssico, 
 tom. ii., p. 46, with cut. It is difficult to define the ixtsition of this stone; some 
 place it Defore the idol within the cha|iel, others at the western extremity 
 of the platform. Uefcrring to the idols in the chapel, Sahagun says: 'Dc- 
 lante de cada una de estas estaba una piedra redonda il manera de tajon 
 que llamau texcatl, donde matabau los que sacriticabuu & houra de aquel 
 
THE SACRIFICIAL STONE. 
 
 688 
 
 carved wood-work, and, according to Las Casas, the 
 gold and jewel-decked interior exceeded even Thebe's 
 ^famed temple in beauty;"" but the venerable bishop 
 was evidently led away by his well-known enthusiasm 
 for whatever concerned the natives, for Bernal Diaz 
 and others state that the floors and walls were steeped 
 with blood, diffusing a fetid odor which made the 
 visitors glad to escape to the fresh air."® The upper 
 stories were used as receptacles for the ashes of de- 
 ceased kings and lords,"'' and for the instruments con- 
 nected with the service of the temple, but Diaz also 
 noticed idols, half human half monstrous in form, and 
 found the rooms blood-stained like the lower apart- 
 ment."® Before each chapel stood a stone hearth of 
 a man's height, and of the same shape as the piscina in 
 Catholic churches, upon which a fire was continually 
 kept burning by the virgins and priests, and great 
 misfortunes were apprehended if it became extin- 
 guished."' Here was also the large drum covered 
 
 dios, y dcsclc la piedra hasta abajo un regaxal de sangre dc los que mata- 
 ban cii 61' — he dci^cribes the stone as round. Hist. Gen., toni. i., lib. ii., p. 
 198. And this I am inclined tu accept as correct, csnecially as several 
 points indicate that the stones stood inside the chapel. Their noor, we are 
 told, were steeped in blood that must have flown from the victims; further, 
 we know that the reeking licurt was held up before or thrown at the feet of 
 the idol, immediately after being torn out. The act of sacrilice wa-s in itself 
 a ceremony which could only have been performed before the idol. Acosta, 
 Ilist. de las Yiid., p. 334, and Solis, Hist. Cimq. Mex., toni. i., p. 397, place 
 it in the middle of the platform. Prescott, Mcx., vol. ii., p. 143, states 
 that the stone (one only) stood near the head of the stairway, but this is 
 most likely a hasty interpretation of Diaz' vngue account. There nmy, 
 however, have liecn a large stone at this ]> ace, whifh wa.s used for the 
 
 freat and general sacrifices. Bcnia! Dim, II' it. Conq., fol. 70; Las Casas, 
 list. Apologitica, MS., cap. cx.xiv. Brassrur de Bourl>ourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., tom. iii., pp. 6(!()-i, manages ver/ dexterously to place the two stones 
 before the chapel, and at the same time neat- the head of the steps. Klenim, 
 Cultur-Geschichte, tom. v., p. 98, mentions one stone with a hollow in the 
 middle. 
 
 '" Lrt« Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. cxxxii.; Gomara, Conq. 
 Mex., fol. 119. 
 
 •18 liernal Diaz, Hist. Comj., fol. 71. 
 
 '" Cortes, Cartas, p. 106. It is also stated that certain chapels in the 
 streets were used for burial places by the lords. ' Inde Straten waren veel 
 Cappellen, die .<■ st diendeden tot l)egravin^'be van de groote Heeren.' 
 Wcst-Indisrht ,,; ,.ghel, p. 248. 
 
 '" 'Dezian, que era el Dios do las scmentcras' (called Centeotl). Bernal 
 Diaz, Hist. Co'iq., fol. 71. 
 
 "» Clnvigero, Storia Ant. del Messiro, tom. ii., pp. 29-30; Cnrhaj'd Es- 
 pinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, ii., p. 228; Torquemcda, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii , 
 
684 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS 
 
 with snake-skins,™ whose sombre notes resounded o^'er 
 a distance of two miles on feast-days and other extca- 
 ordinary occasions — many a death-knell it struck for 
 the Spaniards before they became masters of it. 
 From this height the Spaniards gazed down upoTi be- 
 tween seventy and eighty other edifices withii the 
 enclosure, with their six hundred braziers of stone, 
 some round, some square, and from two to five feet 
 high,"* whose bright fires flared in perpetual adoration 
 of their idols, and turned the night into day. About 
 forty of these were temples, each with its idols, scat- 
 tered round the court and facing the great pyramid as 
 if in adoration.**" They were considerably smaller 
 than the central temple, and differed chiefly in the 
 form of the roof which was round, square, or pyrami- 
 dal, according to the character of the idol.*'" The 
 largest was that of Tlaloc, which stood nearest the 
 pyramid, and was ascended by fifty steps.*" Quetzal- 
 coatl's was the most singular in form, being circular 
 
 p. 145; on p. 141, he says, in contradiction: 'Delante de los Altares en 
 estos Templos avia vnos braseros Iiechos de piedra, v cal, de tres quartas en 
 alto, de fi^ura circular, b redondo, y otros quodrauos, donde de dia, y de 
 noche ardia coiitinuo fuego, tenian bus fogones, y braseros todos las 8alas 
 de los dichos Templos, donde encendian fuego, para calentarse los Sefiores, 
 quando iban tt ellos, y para los Saccrdotes.' 'Tan altos conio tres palmos 
 y cuatro.' Las Casas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. cxxiv. 
 
 IM Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 70. 
 
 '*! See note 119; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col, de Doc, 
 torn, i., p. 65. 
 
 '** Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, to.n. ii., p. 30. Las Casas, Hist. 
 Apologitica, MS., cap. li., and Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. 
 de Doc., torn, i., p. 64, say that they face in all directions, .vhich lends to 
 prove that they must have faced the temple of the supreme and iiatron 
 gods. 'Estando encontrados, y puestos vnos contra otros,' adds Torque- 
 tiiada, Monarq. Ind., toni. ii., pp. 141, 146. Gomara, Conq. Mrx., fol. 119, 
 states that they were turned against all points but the east, so as to difler 
 from the chief temple. 'Tenian la cara dcia el occidcnte.' Sahaijini, Hist, 
 Gen., tom. i., lib. ii., p. 198. Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 334, states that 
 the court held eight or nine temples facing all quarters. 
 
 "J 'Todos eran vnos; pero difcrenciabanse en el asicnto, y postura.' 
 
 Torqttcmada, Monarq. Intl., torn, ii., p. 145. 'Lacuhierta eradediver- 
 
 sas, y varias formas, que aunque eran vnas de madera, y otras de paja, 
 como de Centeno, eran miii primamente l&>:rada8, vnas coiterturus piriinii' 
 dales, y quadradas, y otras redondas, y de otras formas.' lb. Gomara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 118-19; Brasseurdc Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., 
 pp. 662-3. 
 
 12^ 'La menor dellas tiene ^in(][iicnta escaloncs para subir al cuerpo de la 
 torre.' Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. ill., p. 302; Cortes, Cartas, p. lOG. 
 
TEMPLES OF MEXICO, 
 
 586 
 
 and surmounted by a dome, symbolic of the abode 
 of the god of air ; a snake's jaws with exposed fangs 
 formed the low entrance, and made the stranger shud- 
 der as he stooped to pass in.'** Among other notable 
 edifices were the tezcacalli, or 'house of mirrors,' so 
 called from the mirrors which covered its walls, and 
 the teccizvalli 'house of shells,' to which the king re- 
 tired at certain times to perform penance. The high- 
 priest also had a house of retirement called poiaithtla, 
 and there were several others for the use of cer- 
 tain other priests. Among these was a splendid 
 building, provided with baths, fountains, and every 
 "^lu^'oit, in which notable strangers who visited the 
 tut r ^e or the court were entertained. The Ilhuicatit- 
 la»i temple, dedicated to the planet Venus, contained 
 a large column painted or sculptured with the image 
 of the star, before which captives were sacrificed on 
 the appearance of the planet. Another temple took 
 the form of a cage, in which the idols of conquered 
 nations were confined, to prevent them from assisting 
 their worshipers in regaining their liberty.*'" The 
 quauhxicalco was used as a receptacle for the bones 
 of victims sacrificed at various sanctuaries. The 
 skulls of those killed at the great temple were depos- 
 ited in the fzompantli, ^'" which stood just outside the 
 court, near the western or main gate. This consisted 
 of an obl/iig .^loping parallelogram of earth and ma- 
 sonry, one liLaidred and fifty -four feet at the base, 
 a.icendt.'l !;;; thirty steps, on each of which were 
 skulb.^^' R( ind the summit were upwards of seventy 
 raised poles ul mt four feet apart, connected by nu- 
 merous rows of cross-poles passed through holes in 
 the masts, on each of which five skulls were filed, the 
 
 iM Torquemndn, Mbnarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 145. 
 
 126 TorqueiiKuIn, Monnrq. Ind., U»iii. ii., i)p. 147-50. 
 
 '«' Salmgun, Hist. Gen., toni. i., lib. ii., jjp. 201-7; Torquemada, Mo- 
 narq. fnr', ton ii., p. 149; Clavigero, Stona Ant. del Messico, toiii. ii., 
 p. .32, I. . it Hiicitzonipiiii. 
 
 iw ' '' II ,.H csciiloiies habia tambien wn crdneo entre piedra y j)ie(lra.' 
 Orfefft, i ]■ Iff ill, Hi.if. Ant. Met., torn, iii., p. 287. But this is unlikely. 
 Sec ulttu (x',-: ..rci, Conq. Mex., fol. 121. 
 
 mi 
 
 % I 
 
THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 sticks being passed through the temples.*'* In the 
 centre** stood two towers, or columns, made of skulls 
 and lime, the face of each skull being turned outwards, 
 and giving a horrible appearance to the whole. This 
 effect was heightened by leaving the heads of dis- 
 tinguished captives in their naiaral state, with hair 
 and skin on. As the skulls decayed, or fell from the 
 towers or poles, they were replaced by others, so that 
 no vacant place was left. The Spaniards are said to 
 have counted one liundred and thirty-six thousand 
 skulls on the step.; i^- - noles alone, but this number 
 is, no doubt, greatly iggerated."* In the court 
 was a large open space, hich stretched to the foot of 
 the stairway of the great temple. Here the great 
 dances were held in which thousands took part,*** and 
 here, in full view of the multitude gathered to join 
 in the festive ring, stood the gladiatorial stone, the 
 temalacatl, upon which the captives were placed to 
 fight with Aztec warriors, for their liberty as it was 
 termed, but rather for the delectation of the masses, 
 for their chance of victory, as we have seen, was very 
 small. It consisted of an immense flat circular stone, 
 three feet in height, very smooth, with sculptured 
 edge, placed upon a small pyramid eight f.^et in 
 height.*^ In another part of the court wer** three 
 large halls with flat roofs and plastered walls, painted 
 on the inside, which contained a number of low, dark 
 chambers, each the abode of an idol; the walls were 
 
 "9 ' Estos paloH hazian mucliaa ospos p' r las vigas, y cada tcrcio de aspa 
 o palo, tenia ciiico cabe9as ensartadas por las sienes.' Gomara, Com/. Mrj-., 
 fol. 121-2. AcoBta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. 334, places the maata a fntliDin 
 apart, and twenty skulls upon each cross-pole, which is, to say the least, 
 very close packing. 
 
 "' At each end of the platform. Warden, Eechcrches, p. 66. 
 
 "' Clavigcro, S'nriii Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., p. .32; Gomara, Coiiq. 
 Mex., fol. 121-2; Hcrnra, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xviii; Acostn, 
 Hist, de Ins Ynd., pp. 3,33-5. The account of the latter author is so mixed 
 up with that of the chief temple as to bo of little value; Montanus, Nicitwe 
 nccrcld, pp. 242-3, follows him. 
 
 "« Acosta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. .3.33, says that 8,000 to 10,000 persons 
 could dance with joined hands in this place. 
 
 "' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 48, with cut; Torqiir- 
 mada, Monarq. Ind., tont. ii., p. 154; Ortega, in Vei/tin, Hist. Ant. Mej., 
 tom. iii., p. 283; Brtuseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 662. 
 
THE TEMPLE COURT. 
 
 6S7 
 
 covered with blood, two lingers in thickness, and the 
 floors to the depth of a foot almost.*" The court also 
 contained a <>rove in which birds were raised for sacri- 
 fices, and whence the procession started on the day 
 devoted to the great hunt in honor of Mixcoatl ; there 
 were also a number of gardens, where flowers and 
 herbs for offerings were grown. There were several 
 bathing-places, one of which, the tetzaapan, 'cleans- 
 ing water,'*** was set apart for those who had made 
 vows of penance, and another, at Mixcoatl's temple, 
 filled with black water, for the priests. The toxpalatl 
 was a fine fountain, the waters of which were only 
 drunk at solemn festivals. It was supposed to have 
 been the identical spring in which the Aztec priest 
 had the interview with Tlaloc and obtained permis- 
 sion for the nation to settle. The care of all the 
 temple buildings devolved upon a perfect army of 
 priests, monks, nuns, sch(X)l children, and other peo- 
 ple, estimated at from five to ten thousand, who all 
 slept within the sacred precincts.*" The passing and 
 repassing of such numbers must have made the place 
 teem with life, yet everything was in such perfect 
 order and kept so sciuijulously clean, says Diaz, that 
 not a speck or a straw could he discover.*" 
 
 "* Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 120; Torqucmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., 
 pp. 146-7; Las Casus, Hist, Apologitka, MS., cap. li. 
 
 •'J* Torqtietnada, Monarq. Ind., toin. ii., p. 151; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. 
 Chich., in Kingsboro lights Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 244. 
 
 136 'llesideii en el a la contina uinco mil persunas, y toda^ duennen 
 dentro, y cunicn a su costa del.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 120. 'V'liauea 
 vnu guarnigione di dieci niila honiini di gucrra.' Relatione fatta per vn 
 genttt'huomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, in Bamusio, Navigationt, torn, 
 lii., fol. 309. 
 
 "' The authorities on the temple of Mexico are: Jiernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 70-2; Relatione fatta per vn gentil'huomo del Signor Fei'nanJo 
 Cortese, in Ramnsio, Navigationt, torn, iii., fol. 307, 309, and in Irazbal- 
 ceta. Col. de Doc., torn, i., pp. 384-5, 394-5, with cuts; Torqucmada, Monarq. 
 Ind., torn, i., p. 186, torn, ii., pp. 140-56; Sahaqun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., 
 lib. ii., pp. 197-211; Cort^, Cartas, p. 106; (Honiara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 118-22; Las Casus, Hist. Ajwlogiticu, MS., cap. xlix., Ii., cxxiv. ; Vetun- 
 cvrt, Teatro Mex., pt ii., p. 37; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messieo, torn, 
 i., pp. 257-8, torn, ii., pp. 25-32, 46-8, with cuts made up from the various 
 dcscriptiona of Diaz and others; see his remarks, p. 26. Acosta, Hist, de 
 las Ynd., pp. 3.S.)-5; this author mixes up the descriptions of the chief 
 temple and the Tzompantli, and represents this account as that of Hui- 
 tzilopochtli's sanctuary; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. viL, cap. xvii., 
 
868 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Besides this there were several other temples and 
 public oratorres in the city, situated either in groups 
 within a square, or scattered throughout the wards, 
 and attended to by their special priests and servants. 
 Torquemada thinks that their number equaled the 
 days in the Aztec year, namely, three hundred and 
 sixty, and Clavigero believes that there were two 
 thousand chapels besides.^** 
 
 The temples in other towns were pretty much like 
 the foregoing, three being usually grouped around a 
 central pyramid in a square, each with its idol and one 
 or two braziers. Others were mounds of earth cased 
 with stone, with one broad stairway in the centre of 
 the western side, or with steps on three sides, some- 
 times at each corner.^* The chapels on the platform 
 were usually tw«. or three stories in height, often pro- 
 vided with balconies, the whole edifice being plastered 
 and polished.'*" 
 
 The pyramid at Mexico, large as it was, did not 
 equal that at Cholula, which Humboldt estimates at 
 five thousand seven hundred and sixty feet in circum- 
 ference and one hundred and seventy-seven feet in 
 
 xviii.; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazhalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., pp. 
 63-5; Ortega, in Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., toni. iii., pp. 279-89; Tczozomoc, 
 Hist. Mex., torn, i., pp. 151-3, 193; Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsbor- 
 ovglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 245; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., pp. 
 302-3, 502-3; Ddvila Padilla, Hist. Fvnd. Mex., p. 75; Solis, Hist. Conq. 
 Mex., toin. i., pp. 394-98; Montanus, Nieuwe Weereld, p. 242; West-In- 
 dische Spieghel, p. 248; Humboldt, Essai Pol., torn, i., p. 187; Klcmm, 
 Cultur-Ueschichte, torn, v., pp. 154-5; Btasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii., pp. G59-65; Uarbaial Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. WW, 
 torn, ii., pp. 22G-35, with cuts; Warden, Becherehea, p. 66; PrescotVs Mex., 
 vol. ii., pp. 142-5. 
 
 138 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 145; Clatfigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Mcssico, toni. ii., p. 33. Uonmra, Conq. Mex., fol 120, sjiys that there 
 were 2U0U idols, each of which is supposed to have lind a separate cha]>cl. 
 Caro, Tres Siglos, torn, i., p. 2; Las Casas, Hist. AjmlogHtca, MS., caj). 
 cxx.xii. ; in cap. cxxiv., he adds that 100 of these were great temples. 
 
 •39 Cfomara, Conq. Mex. , fol. 120. Some temple pyramids, saya DAvila 
 PiuUlla, formed a perfect cone, the casing being composed of large stoncn 
 at the bottom; as the wall rose, the stones decreased in size; the summit 
 was crowned with a precious stone. Hist. Fvnd. Mex., p. 75; Prescott's 
 Mex., vol. i., }). 72. 
 
 "• ' Los grandes tenian tres sohrados encima de loe altarcs, todos de ter- 
 radosyhKn altos.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icuzbaleeta, Col. de Doe., 
 tom. i., p. 64; Las Casas, Hist. Apologitiea, MS., cap. cxxiv.; Torque- 
 tnada, Monarq. Ind., tom. ii., p. 141. 
 
TEOCALLI AT CHOLULA AND TEZCUCO. 
 
 height. It consisted of four square terraces facing 
 the cardinal points, which seem to have been com- 
 posed of alternate layers of adobe and clay, and was 
 surrounded by a double wall, according to Diaz. On 
 the top stood the semi-spherical chapel of Quetzal- 
 coatl, with its door made low so that all who entered 
 should bend in humility."* This city contained, be- 
 sides, a great number of smaller temples, the total 
 equaling the number of days in the Mexican year."^ 
 The temple at Tezcuco was also several steps higher 
 than the Mexican pyramid.**' King Nezahualcoyotl, 
 who is said to have believed in one supreme god, 
 erected in his honor a nine-story building, to indicate 
 the nine heavens, the roof of which was studded with 
 stars and surmounted by three pinnacles ; the interior 
 was decorated with gold and feather-work and pre- 
 cious stones. The upper floor was a receptacle for mu- 
 sical instruments, from one of which, the chiliUtli, 
 the edifice was named.*" The traditional temjiles of 
 early times, very fairy creations according to the ac- 
 counts of the natives, were far superior to the later 
 ones ; but these relations are little more than super- 
 natural fables.**" 
 
 •*i Las Casas, Hist. ApologHica, MS., cap. cxxiv; Humboldt, EssaiPol., 
 torn, i., i)j». 239-40; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. .3.3-4. 
 Bernal Diaz counted 120 steps, whicli scarcely agrees with the height of the 
 pyramid. Hist. Cotiq., fol. 72. Acostu, Hist, de las Ynd., pp. 390-1, men- 
 tions 60 steps only. 'Alto bien mas de qiiarenta estados: fue hecho de 
 Adove, y Piedra.' Torqvemada, Monurq. Ind., torn, i., p. 281. Montanns 
 adds that on the summit stood a square stnicture, suppor', \n\ ]>y 28 itilicrs, 
 within which were thousands of skulls; he mentions two clinpels. Nicirwe 
 Weereld, p. 236. It had 1508 steps; in the wall was a lurjje diamond. 
 West-Indische Spief/hel, p. 238. 
 
 "' Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cap. xlix. Some of these had two 
 chapels, which would make the number of towers about 400. Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. ii. 
 
 ^^ IxtUlxoehitl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsboroiigh^s Mex. Antiq., yo\. ix., 
 pp. 243. The description of the temple as given by this writer is almost 
 identical with that of the great temple at Mexico. Bernal Diaz, Hist. 
 Conq., fol. 72; Torqueinada, Monarq. Ind., tom. i., p. 305. 
 
 ^** Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., in Kingsborongh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., 
 p. 257. 
 
 ^*^ Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 107-;8. Further authori- 
 ties on Mexican buildings: Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. iv-v., 
 viii-xi., xiii-xviii., dec. iii., lib. i., cap. viii.. lib. ii., cap. xi., xv. ; Pefrr 
 Martyr, dec. v., lib. ii-iii., viii., x.; dec. viii., lib. iv.; Mendieta, Hist. 
 
 ! 
 
oeo 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 Eda^ pp. 84-7, 121; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mcj., torn, i., p. 155; Ziuuo, Carta, 
 in leazoaleeta. Col. ae Doe., torn, i., pp. 359, 362; West-Jtiduche Spieghel, pp. 
 240-^; MuHster, Cosmographia, p. 1410; MoiUanus, Niemm Weereld, j>p. 
 80-5, 236-7, 242-3; CortiH, Aven. y Conq., pp. 120, 128-33; Bussierre, 
 VEmpire Mex., pp. 123-7, 172-5, 252-3, 25»-9, M8; Klemm, Cultur-Ge- 
 schichte, torn, v., pp. 31-2, 75, 84-5, 97-9, 152-62; Monglcmt, Riaumi, pp. 
 20-1, 24-5, 36-7; Touron, Hist. Gin., toin. iii., pp. 40-8; Cooper's Hist. N. 
 Amer., pt ii., p. 164; Lafond, Voyage, tom. i., pp. 106-7; BrownelVs Ind. 
 Races, pp. 92-5; Banking's Hist. Researches, pp. 336-7; Domenech, Mex- 
 ique, pp. 70-2; Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, p. 391; Dilworth'a Conq. Mex., pp. 
 64, 70i; Lenoir, ParalUle, pp. 20-1; Ptmentel, Mem. sobre la Rata Indi- 
 gena, pp. 66-7; Chevalier, Mex. Ancien et Mod., pp. 30-3; Purchaa his 
 Pilgrimes, vol. iv., pp. 1033, 1123-4, 1133. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MEDICINE AND FUNERAL RITES AMONG THE NAHUAS. 
 
 Mexican Contributions to Medical Science — The Botanical 
 Gardens— Longevity— Prevalent Diseases— Introduction of 
 Small-pox and Syphilis- Medical Treatment -The Temaz- 
 CALLi — Aboriginal Physicians — The Aztec Faculty— Stand- 
 ard Remedies— Surgery— Superstitious Ceremonies in Heal- 
 ing — Funeral Rites of Aztecs— Cremation— Royal Obsequies- 
 Embalming— The Funeral Pyre— Human Sacrifice- Disposal 
 of the Ashes and Ornaments — Mourners — Funeral Cere- 
 monies OF THE People — Certat'- Classes Buried — Rites for 
 the Slain in Battle— i>urial among the Teo-Chichimecs and 
 Tabascans— Cremation Ceremonies in Michoacan— Burial by 
 the Miztecs in Oajaca. 
 
 Writers on Mexico have paid but slight attention 
 to aboriginal medical science, although the greatest 
 benefit which Europe derived from that part of the 
 New World came doubtless in the form of medicinal 
 substances. Most of the additions to the world's 
 stock of remedies since the sixteenth century were 
 indigenous to tropical America, and in few instances, 
 if any, were their curative properties unknown or 
 unfamiliar to the native doctors. Jalap, sarsaparilla, 
 tobacco, with numerous gums and balsams, were 
 among the simples of American origin. Dr Hern i- 
 dez, physician to Phillip II., was sent to Mexico by 
 his king to investigate the natural history of the 
 country. The results of his researches, in which he 
 
692 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 II 
 
 i 
 
 was assisted by native experts, were published in a 
 large work, which contains long lists of plants with 
 their medicinal properties, and which L.-'s been much 
 used by later writers. I shall not, however^ attempt 
 in this chapter to give any catalogue of medicinal 
 plants.* The healing art was protected by royalty, 
 and the numerous rare plants in the royal gardens, 
 collected at great expense from all parts of the 
 country, were placed at the disposal of the doctors in 
 the large cities, who were ordered to experiment with 
 each variety, that its curative or injurious properties 
 might be utilized or shunned. Thus the court physi- 
 cians derived from these constantly increasing collec- 
 tions all the advantages of travel through distant 
 provinces.* 
 
 The Nahuas were a healthy race ; naturally so with 
 their fine climate, their hardy training, active habits, 
 frequent bathing, and temperate diet. The extraordi- 
 nary statements respecting the great age attained by 
 their kings in the earlier periods of Nahua history are 
 of course absurdly exaggerated; but as centenarians 
 are often met with among their descendants at the 
 present day, there is no doubt that they were a long- 
 lived race, and that those who did not attain a hun- 
 dred years, succumbed for the most part to acutG 
 diseases.' Indigestion and its accompanying ills were 
 unknown, and deformed people were so rare tliat 
 Montezuma kept a collection of them as a curiosity. 
 The diseases most prevalent were acute fevers, colds, 
 pleurisy, catarrh, diarrhea, and, in the coast districts. 
 
 ' Hernandez, Nova Plantarum, etc. The MSS., comprising 24 books of 
 text niul 11 books of plates, were sent to the Escurial in Spain, and from 
 them abridged editions were published in Mexico, 1615, and Home, 1G51. 
 The latter edition is the one in my collection. Salmgun also devotes con- 
 siderable space to a description of herbs and their properties. Hist. Gen., 
 tom. iii., lib. x., xi. 
 
 * Claviaero, Storia Ant. del Me^sico, tom. ii-, P- 157; Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., 
 dec. ii., lib. vii., cap. xi.; Carbajnl Esjtinosa, Hist. Mex., tom. i., pp. 02.3-4. 
 
 3 'E'da maravigliare, che i Alcssicani, e mussiniamentc i povcri, non fos- 
 sero a niolte malattle sottoposti atteso la qualith de'loro alimenti. Clavi- 
 aero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 217; Humbold, Essai Pol., tom. 
 I., p. 88. 
 
EPIDEMICS AND THEIR RAVAGES. 
 
 is, 
 
 intermittent fever, spasms, and consumption, aggra- 
 vated by exposure.* 
 
 Deadly epidemics swept the country at intervals, 
 the traditional accounts of which are so intermingled 
 with fable that we can form no idea of their nature. 
 One of the most fatal and wide-spread recorded was 
 that brought on by famine, war, and the anger of the 
 gods at the breaking-up of the Toltec empire." The 
 matlazahuatl was a pestilence said to be conHned en- 
 tirely in its ravages to the natives, and which made 
 great havoc even after the Spaniards came. It is 
 thought by some to have attacked the people periodic- 
 ally in former times, and to have been similar in its 
 nature to the yellow fever. While the Aztecs were 
 shut up in their island home, a curious malady, con- 
 sisting of a swelling of the eyelids, followed by a vio- 
 lent dysentery ending in death, or, as others say, by 
 a swelling of the throat and -body, attacked the na- 
 tions on the main land, especially the Tepanecs. The 
 popular tradition was that the fumes of roasted fish 
 and insects wafted from the island to the shore, cre- 
 ated a powerful longing for this new and, to them, 
 unobtainable food, and that the pangs of an unsatisfied 
 appetite originated the pestilence." Ixtlilxochitl re- 
 lates that a catarrhic scourge fell upon the people 
 during the unusually severe winter of 1450 and car- 
 ried off large numbers, especially of the aged.'' 
 
 The vices introduced by the Spaniards, their op- 
 pression of the natives, and the consequent disregard 
 of the ancient regulations respecting cleanliness and 
 
 < 'Las principales cnfcrniedades qiie corrian entre esta gente, ernn de 
 ubuiidancia de culeni, y Heiiia, o otrus iiialos huinorcs, caiisudus do mala 
 comida, y falta de abrij^o.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dee. ii., lib. x., cap. x.xi. 
 
 * Tezozomoc, Vrdii. Mex., in Kingsboroiigh's Mcx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 64; 
 lirasseur dr. liourbiturg. Hist. Nat. Civ., toin. i., p. .365. 
 
 6 'Hacia tiialparir las Mufferes, de antojo de coiner de ufjiiello que awi- 
 
 ban daban caniazas (i los Viejos de desco de comer de aqiicllo; y it lax 
 
 ftltigcres se los hinchaban los brazos, las manos, y las piernas, que adolecian 
 inucho, y morian con oquel dcseo.' Ihiran, Hist. Itidtas, MS., toni. i., cap. 
 X. Torquemada qualifies this by 'Esto dicho, pase por cucnto.' Monarq. 
 Iiid., torn, i., p. 93; Tezozomoc, t'rdn. Mex., in Kingsborough's Mex. Ah- 
 ti'j., vol. ix., pi). 21-2. 64. 
 
 ' Hist. Chirh., in KingshorouglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 2.50. 
 Vol. II. 38 • 
 
004 
 
 THE NAHLA NATIONS. 
 
 the use of liquors, prepared the way for new mala- 
 dies. With the Spaniards came the sniall-pox, 
 measles, and as some believe, the syphilis. Small-pox 
 is said to have been introduced by a negro from one 
 of Narvaez' ships and spread with frightful rapidity 
 over the whole country, destroying whole households 
 who died and found no other graves than their houses. 
 Measles were introduced some ten or eleven years 
 later also from the Spanish ships. The yellow fever 
 has never prevailed to any great extent among the 
 natives.* Respecting syphilitic diseases and their ori- 
 gin there has been much discussion. The first api)ear- 
 ance of the malady has been attributed to the old 
 world and the new, and to many localities in the for- 
 mer. But naturally neither continent, nor any nation 
 has been willing to accept the so-regarded dishonor of 
 inflicting on the world this loathsome plague. The 
 discussion of the subject seems unprofitable and I 
 shall not reopen it here. The testimony in the matter 
 appears to me to prove that syphilis existed in Europe 
 long before the discovery of America; but there are 
 also some indications in the traditional history of the 
 Nahua peoples that the disease in some of its forms 
 was not unknown to the aboriginal Americans before 
 their intercourse with foreigners.* 
 
 Accustomed to look on death in its most terrible 
 form in connection with their oft-recurring religious 
 festivals, the people seem to have become somewhat 
 callous to its dread presence, and to have met its 
 approach with less fear of the dark and unknown 
 hereafter than might have been expected from their 
 superstitious nature. An attack of illness did not 
 
 8 Motolinia, Hist. Indioa, in Icazhalccta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 15; 
 Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 148. 
 
 ^ Claviqero, Storia Ant. del Messico, torn, i., pp. 117-19, toni. iv., pp. 
 303-28; Herreru, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. x., cap. xxi.; Gomara, Conq. 
 Mex., fol. 148; Patiw, Rech. Phil., torn, i., pp. 46-9; Pimentel, Mem. sobre la 
 Baza Indigena, pp. 99-101; PrescotCs Mex., vol. ii., pp. 434-5; Humboldt, 
 Essai Pol., toni. i., pp. 66-71; Chevalier, Mex. Ancien et Mod., p. 53; 
 Brasseur de Boxtrbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., p. 182; Id., in Nouvelles 
 Annates des Voy., 1858, torn, clx., p. 280; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., 
 lib. vii., p. 246. 
 
ATTENTIONS TO THE SICK. 
 
 696 
 
 are 
 
 p. 15; 
 
 necesHarily produce ^reat anxiety, or an immediate 
 recourse to the doctor's services; but the common 
 people resorted for the most part to simple home 
 cures, which were the more eftective as the curative 
 properties of herbs and their modes of application were 
 generally well known.*" The unconcern with which 
 they regarded sickness did not result from want of 
 affection, fur the Aztecs are said to have been very 
 attentive to their sick, and spent their wealth without 
 stint to save the life of friends. Yet the Tlascaltecs, 
 a hardier race, are reported by Motolinia to have 
 been less attentive, and some other Teo-Chichimec 
 tribes did not hesitate to kill a patient whose malady 
 did not soon yield to their treatment, under pretense 
 of putting him out of his misery, but really to get 
 him oft* their hands. This work of charity w is per- 
 formed by thrusting an arrow down the throat of the 
 invalid, and old people were especially the recipients 
 of such favors." 
 
 The favorite remedy for almost every ill of the 
 flesh was the vapor-bath, or temazcalli. No w<»ll-to- 
 do citizen's house was complete without conveniences 
 for indulging in these baths, and the poorer families 
 of each community owned one or more temazcalli in 
 common. The reader is already sufficiently familiar 
 with the general features of these baths, a confined 
 space with facilities for converting water into steam 
 being all that was required. Clavigero describes and 
 pictures a very graceful structure for this purpose, for 
 which, as it seems to involve the then-unknown prin- 
 ciple of the arch, he probably drew somewhat upon 
 his imagination. It is of adobes, semi-globular in 
 
 i' 'Both men, women, and children, had great knowledge in herbs. . . . 
 Tliey did spend little among Physicians.' Gage^a New Survey, j). 111. 'Casi 
 todos BUS males curan conyeruas.' Gomarn, Coiiq. Mex., fol. 117. 'No so 
 guardauan de males contagiosos, y enfermcdades, y bestialmentc se dexavan 
 niorir.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. vi., cap. xvi. 
 
 " Sahagun, HLt. Gen., t«m. iii., lib. x., p. 119. 'Si aljom medico entre 
 ellos (Tlascaltecs) fdcilmente se puede haber, sin mncho ruido ni costa, van 
 lo A ver, y si no, mas paciencia tienen que Job.' Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in 
 Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc,, torn, i., p. 76. 
 
696 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 form, about eight feet in diameter, six feet high, with 
 a convex floor a little below the level of the ground. 
 On one side was an opening sufficiently large to admit 
 a man's body, on the opposite side a square furnace 
 separated from the interior by a slab of tetzontli, and 
 at the top an air-hole. Most of the bath-houses, how- 
 ever, were simply square or oblong chambers with no 
 furnace attached, in which case the fire had of course 
 to be removed before the apartment was ready for use. 
 When the apparatus was properly heated a mat was 
 spread on the floor, and the patient entered, sometimes 
 accompanied by an assistant, bearing a dish of water 
 to be thrown on the floor and walls to produce steam, 
 and a bunch of maize-leaves with which his body, 
 and especially the part affected, was to be beaten. A 
 plunge into cold water after a profuse perspiration 
 was frequently but not always resoited to. As I 
 have said, there were scarcely any maladies for which 
 this treatment was not recommended, but it was re- 
 garded as ]>articularly efficacious in the case of fevers 
 brought on by costiveness, bites of venomous serpents 
 and insects, bruises, and unstrung nerves, and to re- 
 lieve the pains and purify the system of child-bearing 
 women. The steam-baths were also much used to 
 promote cleanliness and to refresh the weary bodies 
 of those in good health." 
 
 The beneficial effects of a change of climate upon 
 invalids seem to have been ai)preciated, if we may 
 credit Herrera, who states that Michoacan was much 
 resorted to by the sick from all parts of the country." 
 For severe cases, the expenses of treating which could 
 not be borne except by the wealthy classes, hos[>itals 
 were established by the government in all the larger 
 cities, endowed with ample revenues, where patients 
 from the surrounding country were cared for by ex- 
 
 ^* Claviffero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tam. ii., pp. 214-10, with ctits, 
 copied ill Carbnjal Kspimmi, Hist. Mex., 1 >in. i., pj). 071-3; Snhagun, Hist. 
 Gen., torn, iii., lib. xl., |>p. 280-7. 
 
 " Ilcrrcm, Hist, (feu., liec. iii., lib. iii., cap. ix. 
 
THE NAHUA ESCULAPIUS. 
 
 597 
 
 perienced doctors, surgeons, and nurses well versed in 
 all the native healing arts." Medical practitioners 
 were numerous, who attended patients for a small 
 remuneration; the jealousy of Spanish phvsicians, 
 however, brought them into disrepute soon after the 
 conquest, and the healing art, like otliers, greatly de- 
 generated. It is related that a famous me(licine-man 
 of Michoacan was summoned before the college of Jihy- 
 sicians in Mexico on the charge of being a quack. In 
 reply to the accusation he asked his judges to smell a 
 certain herb, which produced a severe hemorrhage, and 
 then invited them to check the ilow of blood. Seeinsj 
 that they were unable to do this promptly, he admin- 
 istered a powder that immediately had the desired 
 effect. "These are my attainments," he exclaimed, 
 "and this the manner in which I cure the ailings of 
 my patients."" 
 
 The Esculapius of the Nahuas was embodied in the 
 persons of Oxomococipactonatl and Tlatecuinxochi- 
 caoaca, who were traditionally tli"? inventors of medi- 
 cine and the first herbalists among the Toltecs. Soon 
 after ts invention the healing profession became one 
 of the most highly honored, and its followers consti- 
 tuted a regular faculty, handing down their knowledge 
 aud practice from generation to generation, according to 
 the Naliua caste-system, according to which the son 
 almost invariably adopted the profession of his father, 
 by whom he was educated. This system of education 
 from early childhood under the father's guidance, the 
 opportunities for j>ractice in the public hosj>itals, free 
 access to the botanical gardens, and the numerous sub- 
 jects for anatomical dissection sup[»li»jd by sacrificial 
 rites, certaiidy offered to the Nahua doctor abundant 
 opportunities of acquiring great knowledge and skill. 
 
 '< 'Kn liiM CiHiladeM jirincipales. . . .Iinbia lioRpitnloH dotathiH dc reiitas y 
 vasalloM <loiitle hi- rusabiaii y cunibaii los eiifcrniuH jMiliies.' L(ts Vnsns, Hist. 
 Apologttivit, MS., cap. cxli. ' De ciiaiulo en cuamlo van jtor ttwla la pro- 
 vinc^ia li Iniscar loH cnfcrinoH.' Motoliiiia, Hint. Iiufioii, in laijMlrrta, Col. 
 <ff Dor., toni. i., p. 1.31; Torque ninda, Monatq, Intl., toni. ii., j). 165; Car- 
 bajnl, Ditirurso, pp. .37-8. 
 
 '* liustamaiitr, in Sulmijuit, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. xi., p. 282. 
 
«08 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 The profession was not altogether in the hands of the 
 sterner sex ; for female pliysicians were in high repute, 
 especially on the eastern coant. In certain cases, as 
 of childbirth, we find the patient attended by none 
 but women, who administer medicines and baths and 
 render other necessary assistance, even going so far as 
 to cut out the infant in order to save the mother's 
 
 16 
 
 life. 
 
 Medicines were given in all the usual forms of 
 draught, powder, injection, ointment, plaster, etc. ; the 
 material for which was gathered from the three nat- 
 ural kingdoms in great variety. Many of the herbs 
 were doubtless obtained from the gardens, but large 
 quantities were obtained in the forests of different 
 provinces by wandering collectors who brought their 
 herbs to the market-places f».^ sale, or even peddled 
 them, it is said, from house to house. Each ailment 
 had its particular corrective, the knowledge of which 
 was not entrusted to the luemory alone, but was also 
 recorded in [)ainted books." Doubtless many of the 
 vegetable and other medicines employed were mere 
 nostrums administered to give an exalted opinion of 
 the doctor's knowledge and skill rather than with any 
 hope of effecting a cure. 
 
 Saha^un gives pagt! after page of native recipes for 
 every ailment of the human body, wliich cannot be 
 reproduced here. Many of the remedies and methods 
 of ap! Hcation are as absurd as any of those which 
 
 '<• Safiiit/ini, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vi., p. 185; Hcrrera, Hint. Geii., 
 dec. iv., lili. ix., cap. vii. ; Vlnvifjci'o, Slona Ant. (M Mrssirn, turn, ii., pp. 
 '211-r2, 216-17; Motolinia, Hist. Indios, iu Icazbalceta, Vol. dc Dot:, toiu. 
 i., p, m. 
 
 " ' Hiiy mile tie hcrhoInrioR dondc hay todas liw mlt-es y ycrlMis niwlici- 
 milcH *[uc en la tierra se liallnn. Hay casaM coiiio do lM>ticario8 dniide nc 
 vomica laH nu'diciiiax Iieclias, asi ]MitaliIeH I'lmio uii;;Uei,~tos einplastoa.' Cnr- 
 ten, Viirtas, n. I(U. They ' ponxudaieiit des livivs da.is lesqueU t'taii'iit 
 eoiisijfiieeH iiiiiiiitietiseiuoiit toiites Icuw iihservatiniis reii.'tivcs aux soieiicfw 
 imtitvellc's.' lininsciirdf Hiiurlmur;/, Hist. Nut. Cii'., toju. iii., pp. (!37-S. 
 Sec aWt Si'hiii/iiH, ///.s'. (rni., U»i\. iii., lib. x., p. 110; Oriedo, Hist. Gni., 
 toin. iii., p. ;W(»; Goiiinrii, t'oiiq. M<x.,fo\. 117; Kilntione ,'atta per vn ffeii- 
 til'hiinmi) di't Sif/Hor FrriKiiido Curltse, in Riimusio, Nurii'iitioni, toin. iii., 
 fol. .SOi). 'Teiiiaii ttiote, o ocho iiiaiieraH de rayzcs «le ycruati y flores: do 
 yeriuiM y arltoiei*, (lue eran laM niio mas coimiiiiiicnto vsauLii imra ciirarse.' 
 Hcrrcra, Hixt. Gen., dec. ii., lio. x., cap. xxi. 
 
 i! 
 
TREATMENT OF VARIOUS DISEASES. 
 
 •Ic 
 
 have been noticed among the wild tribes. For dis- 
 eases of the scalp a wash of urine, an ointment of 
 soot, and an application of black clay were prescribed, 
 to<^ether with vegetable specifics too numerous to 
 mention. The white of an egg was much used in 
 mixing remedies for wounds and bruises; a certain 
 animal tapaiaxiii was eaten for a swollen face; the 
 broth of a boiled fowl was recommended for conva- 
 lescents. Cataracts on the eye were rasped and 
 scraped with certain roots; for bloodshot eyes the 
 membrane was cut, raised with a thorn, and anointed 
 with woman's milk; clouded eyes were treated with 
 lizard's dung. Morning dew cured catarrh in newly 
 born children. Hoarseness was treated by drinking 
 honey, and an external application of India-rubber. 
 Wounds in the lips must be sewn up with a hair; a 
 certain insect pounded and hot pepper were among 
 the remedies for toothache, and great care of the 
 teeth Avas recommended. Stammering in children 
 was supposed to be caused by too long suckling. 
 Remedies for a cold were nearly as numerous as in 
 our day. Copper-filings were applied to bubos, which 
 may or may not have been syphilitic sores. For 
 looseness of the bowels in infants, the remedy was 
 given not only to the child but to the nurse. For a 
 severe blow on the chest, urine in which lizards had 
 been boiled must be drunk. The necessity of regu- 
 lating the bowels to sustain health was well under- 
 stood, and the doctor usually ott'ected his purpose by 
 injecting a herl»ul decoction from his mouth through 
 the leg-bone of a heron. Purgatives in common use 
 were jalap, [)ine-cones, tacudclic, amamaxthi, and 
 other roots; diuretics, axiximtli and axixtlitcotl; emet- 
 ics, mexochitl and neixcothpatli. IzficpatH, and cha- 
 talludc, are mentioned among the remedies for fevers. 
 Balsams were obtained from the huitzUoxitl by distil- 
 lation, from the huaconex by soaking the bark in 
 water, and from the man'penda, by boiling the fruit 
 and tender stones. Oils were made from tlapatl, 
 
600 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 chile, chian, ocotl (a kind of pine), and the India-rub- 
 ber tree. Octli, or Avine, was often prescribed to 
 strengthen the system, and was also mixed with other 
 medicines to render them more palatable, for which 
 latter purpose cacao was also much used. 
 
 Several stones possessed medicinal properties: the 
 aztetl, held in the hand or applied to the neck, 
 stopped bleeding at the nose ; the xiuhtomoltetl, taken 
 in the form of a powder, cured heartburn and internal 
 heat. This latter stone fell from the clouds in stormy 
 weather, sunk into the earth, and grew continually 
 larger and larger, a solitary tuft of grass alone indi- 
 cating to the collector its whereabouts. The bones of 
 giants dug up at the foot of the mountains, were col- 
 lected by their dwarfish successors, ground to powder, 
 mixed with cacao, and drunk as a cure for diarrhea 
 and dysentery. Persons suffering from fever, or wish- 
 ing to allay carnal desires, ate jaguar's flesh; while 
 the skin, bones, and excrement of the same animal, 
 burnt, powdered, and mixed with resin, formed an 
 antidote for insanity. Certain horny-skinned worms, 
 similarly powdered and mixed, were a specific for the 
 gout, decayed teeth, and divers other ailments. 
 
 Surgery was no less advanced than other branches 
 of the healing art, and Cortes himself had occasion 
 to acknowledge the skill and speed with which they 
 cured wounds. Snake-bites, common enough among 
 a barefooted people, were cured by sucking and scari- 
 fying the wound, covering it with a thin transparent 
 pellicle from the maguey-plant. Rubbing with snuff, 
 together with heat, was another treatment, and the 
 coanenepilK and coapatli were also considered anti- 
 dotes. Fractures were treated with certain herbs 
 and gums, different kinds for different limbs, and 
 bound up with splints; if the healing did not pro- 
 gress satisfactorily the bone was scraped before the 
 operation of resetting. For painful operations of 
 this nature it is possible that narcotics were admin- 
 istered, for at certain of the sacrifices it is related 
 
SUPERSTITIOUS CURATIVE RITES. 
 
 601 
 
 that the victims were sprinkled with yauhtli powder 
 to render them less sensitive to pain. Mendieta 
 states that a stupefying drink was given on similar 
 occasions; and Acosta mentions that oliliuhqui was 
 taken by persons who desired to see visions. This 
 latter was a seed, which was also an ingredient of the 
 teopatii, or divine medicine, composed besides of India- 
 rubber gum, ocotl-resin, tobacco, and sacred water. 
 This medicine could only be obtained from the priests. 
 Blood-lotting was much in vogue for various ills, the 
 lancets used being iztli knives, porcupine-quills, or 
 maguey-thorns. Ulli-marked pajiers were burned l)y 
 the recovered patient as a thank-offering to the gods. 
 Veterinary surgeons are mentioned by Oviedo as hav- 
 ing been employed in the zoological gardens of Mon- 
 tezuma.** 
 
 The medicines, though prepared and applied by the 
 doctors themselves, were not deemed sufficient for the 
 patient; superstitious ceremonies were held to be in- 
 dispensable to effect a cure, and to enhance the value 
 of professional services. Evil beings and things had 
 to be exorcised, the gods must be invoked, especially 
 the patron deity, known chiefly by the name of Te- 
 teionan, who was esteemed the inventor of many 
 valuable specifics, as the ocotl-oil and others, and con- 
 fessions were extorted to ease the conscience and ap- 
 pease the offended deity. The affected parts were 
 rubbed and pressed amid mutterings and strange ges- 
 tures, and to work the more upon the simple-minded 
 
 w Acosta adds that the nsheR of divers poisonous insects weic r.iixed with 
 the teopatii composition, which 1>enum1)cd the part to which it wi s applied. 
 ' Aplicado por via de cuiphisto aniortigua his carncs esto solo nor si, '(Uanto 
 nios con tanto <;eiicni dc ponvoiias, y conio les aniorti<;naua el dolor, ]iarccia- 
 Ics efectode sanidad, y de virtud dinina.' Ilisf. de hut Ynd., pp. .370-1. For 
 details of medical practice ^-ce Sn/iaffitii, Hist. Gch., toin. lii., lih. x., i>p. 
 fW-lOS, 109, lih. xi.,pn. 21'2, 23G-80, t<mi. i., lih. ii.,pp. 214-1"); Lns Cams, 
 Hist. Apologitira, MS., cap. cxii., ccxiii. ; Meiulieta, Hist. Edcs., pp. 100, 
 13!); Torqiicinada, Monnrq. Ltd., tom. ii., pj». 274, 550, 558; Ormfo, Hist. 
 IiuL, tom. iii., p. ;W6; Peter Martyr, dec. v., lib. ii-iii. ; Herrera, IIi.it. Gin., 
 dec. ii., lib. x., cap. xxi., dec. iii., lib. ii,, cap. xvii, , dec. iv., lib. ix., cup. 
 viii. ; CVrtc/Vwf*, Storta Ant. del Messico, torn, ii., pp. 77, 212-16; lirassrur 
 de Bourbourij, Uisl. Nat, Civ,, tom. ii., p. 180, torn, iii., pp. 638-40, tom. 
 iv., p. 366. 
 
11 
 
 ii 
 
 I 
 
 602 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 patient, they pretended to extract a piece of coal, bone, 
 wood, or other object, the supposed cause of the ail- 
 ment. A favorite treatment in certain prostrating 
 cases was to form a figure of corn dough, which was 
 laid upon a prickly maguey-leaf a id placed in the 
 road, with the view of letting the first passer-by carry 
 away the disease — a charitable hope that seems to 
 have afforded much relief to the afHicted. However 
 absurd this jugglery may appear, it no doubt gave a 
 powerful stimulus to the imagination, which must 
 have aided the working of the medicine. In critical 
 cases, chance was often consulted as to the fate of 
 the sufferer. A handful of the largest grains or beans 
 were thrown on the ground, ir d if any happened to 
 fall upright it was regarded as a sure sign that the 
 patient would die, and he received little or no atten- 
 tion after that ; otherwise prescriptions and encourag- 
 ing words were not spared. Sometimes a number of 
 cord riuijs were thrown in the same manner, and if 
 they fell in a heap, death was expected to result; but 
 if any fell ai)art, a change for the better was looked for. 
 To encounter a snake or lizard was held to be a sign 
 of death for the person himself or for his sick friend. 
 Although no curative process, probal)ly, in the case of 
 a serious illness was altogether free from superstitious 
 rites, yet it is surprising that these played so unim- 
 portant a role. Among a people so addicted on every 
 occasion to complicated ceremonies, the most compli- 
 cated might naturally be sought in their efforts to 
 combat disease; but it is just here that the least reli- 
 ance seems to have been placed in supernatural agen- 
 
 19 
 
 cies. 
 
 " Laa Casas, Hist. Apologitira, MS., cap. cxli. ; Id., in Kiiirf.sbornuffh'i< 
 yfcx. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 234. ' Luiuuhanloa (iinos conlclcH coiiio llnvero) 
 en el suelo, y si qiicduban rcvueltoH, dei-iuii que era hcAuI de miierte. Y »i 
 uljiuiiu d nl};iiii08 salian cxtendidus, tciiiuiilo por senal dc vida, diciendi»: 
 niic ya coiiicnzaba el cnferiiio & extender los ^i^s ylasnianos.' Mendida, 
 Hist. Erics., p. 110; Mofoliiiia, Hist. Jiidios, m Icazbalevta, Col. de Dor., 
 toni. i., pp. 1.30-1; Torqiiemadu, Monnrq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 491-2; //<■/•- 
 rcra. Hist. Gen., dec. iv. , lib. ix.. cap. yii. ; Clnviqero, Sloriu A iif. del Mrssiro, 
 torn. ii. , pp. 216-17. Other authorities on medicine arc: Putv/ins his Pit- 
 ffriitiea, vol. iv., p. 1133; Gage's New Survey, p. Ill; West- Indische Sjrie- 
 
FUNERAL RITES OF KINGS. 
 
 603 
 
 The Aztecs were very particular about the disposal 
 of their dead, and conducted funeral rites with the 
 pomp that attended all their ceremonials. The ob- 
 sequies of kings were especially imposing, and their 
 description, embracing as it does nearly all the cere- 
 monies used on such occasions by these nations, will 
 present the most complete view of the proceedings. 
 
 When the serious condition of the monarch became 
 apparent, a veil** was thrown over the face of the 
 patron god, to be removed on his death, and notice 
 was sent to all the friendly princes, the grandees and 
 nobles of the empire, to attend the obsequies; those 
 who were unable to attend in person sent representa- 
 tives to deliver their condolence and presents. As 
 soon as the king had breathed his last, certain mas- 
 ters of ceremonies, generally old men whose business 
 it was to attend on these occasions, and who were 
 doubtless connected with the priesthood,''' were sum- 
 moned to prepare the body for the funeral. The 
 corpse was washed with aromatic water, extracted 
 chiefly from trefoil,** and occasionally a process of 
 embalming was resorted to. The bowels were taken 
 
 ghel, p. 247; PrescotCs Mcx., vol. i., p. 48, vol. ii., pp. 119-20, 137, 434-5; 
 Carbajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., toiii. i., pp. 6tt8-74; MiMcitpfonlt, Me- 
 jico, torn, i., pp. 132-4; Klcinm, Cultur-GcsaiirJUe, toni. v., pp. 90-1; Che- 
 valier, Mex. Aneien et Mod., p. 16; Baril, Mexique, p. 208; Piinentel, 
 Mem. sohrc la Baza lurliaeiia, p. 51. I further have in my iioasesHioii a 
 very rare and curious medical work by Dr Monardes, treating; of the vari- 
 ous medicinal plants, etc., found in ^Icxicu and Central America, printed 
 in Seville in 1574. 
 
 *• 'Ponen miiscaras a Tezcatlipuca, o Vitziloi)uchtli, o a otro idolo.' 
 Goinara, Coiiq. Jfcr., fol. 309. As the idols wore masks, it is more likely that 
 a veil was thrown over the face, than that another mask should have licen 
 put on. 'Suivant unc coutnme antique attribuee h Toi>iltzin-Acx'' 'pr- 
 uicr roi do Tolliiii, on mcttait un nnisquc an visage des principalcs idoles, 
 ct Ton couvrait le« autres d'uue voile.' Jirasseiir dc liourbourq, llinl. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, iii., p. 572. 'Mcttcvan una maschcra all' Idolo di Huitzilopoch- 
 tli, ed un'altra aquello di Te/catlipoca.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messieo, 
 torn, ii., p. 95. 
 
 *' 'Ciertas mujcres y honibres que csbin salariados de piiblico.' Znazo, 
 Ctntn, in Irmhnlpcta, Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 304. Brassenr de IJoiir- 
 bourg thinks that they were only employed by the common iteojdc. Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 569. Tezozomoc states that princes dre.iscd the body. 
 Crdiiica Mcx., in Kinqsboroiig/i's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 142. 
 
 ^ Znazo says that the corpse was held on the knees of one of the male 
 or female shrouders, while o'liers washed it. Carta, in Jcazbalceta, Col. de 
 Doc., tom. i., p. 304. 
 
604 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 ; i 
 
 ; M 
 
 : i 
 
 out and replaced by aromatic substances, but the 
 method does not seem to have been very complete, 
 and may only have been intended to serve while the 
 body lay in state, for no remains of embalmed nmm- 
 mies have been found. The art was an ancient one, 
 however, dating from the Toltecs as usual, yet gen- 
 erally known and practiced throughout the whole 
 country. A curious int)de of preserving bodies was 
 used by the lord of Chalco who captured two Tezcu- 
 can princes, and, in order that he might feast his eyes 
 upon their hated forms, had them dried and placed as 
 lijjht-holders in his ball-room.'*' When the invited 
 guests had arrived the body was dressed in many 
 mantles, often to the number of fifteen or twenty, 
 such as the king had worn on the most solemn occa- 
 sions, and consequently richly embroidered and glit- 
 tering with jewels.'** While some were shrouding 
 the body, others cut pajiers of different colors into 
 strips of various forms, and adorned the corpse there- 
 with. Water was then poured upon its head with 
 these words: ''This is the water which thou usedst 
 in this world;"** and a jug of water was placed among 
 the shrouds, the priest saying: "This is the water 
 wherewith thou art to perform the journey." More 
 papers were now delivered to the deceased in bunches, 
 the priest explaining the import of each, as he placed 
 it with the body. On delivering the first bunch he 
 said: "With these thou art to pass between two 
 mountains that confront each other." The second 
 bunch, he was told, would pass him safely over a 
 road guarded by a large snake; the third would con- 
 duct him by a place held by an alligator, xochilonal; 
 
 *5 Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 151, 87; Vetancvrt, Teatro 
 Mkx., pt ii., p. 16; Clai'igcro, Sloria Aiif. :lrl Mcusico, torn, i., p. 145, toin. 
 ii., p. !)!); Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. xiv. 
 
 ** Tlic chapter on dress furiiiHhcs all the iiitnrniation respecting the 
 royal wardrobe. It is not unlikely that princes assisted in robing the king, 
 for such was the custom in Michoacan, and that the mantles brought b^' 
 them were used for shrouding, but authors are not very explicit on this 
 point. 
 
 *^ Brasseur de Bourbourg uses the expression ' C'est cette eau que tu as 
 re9ue en venant au nionde.' Hist. Xnt. Civ., toni. iii., p. 569. 
 
PREPARATION FOR FUTURE EXISTENCE. 
 
 (06 
 
 the fourth would protect and aid him in traversing 
 the 'eight de.suit.s;' other papers would facilitate the 
 passage of the 'eight hills,' and still others atford pro- 
 tection against the cutting winds termed itzehecai/an, 
 which were so strong as to tear out rocks and cut like 
 very razors; here the wearing-apparel buried with 
 him would also be of great service. A little red dog 
 was thereupon slain by thrusting an arrow down its 
 throat, and the body j)laced by the side of the de- 
 ceased, with a cotton string about its neck. The dog 
 was to perform the part of Charon, and carry the 
 king on his back across the deep stream called Chicu- 
 nahuapan, 'nine waters,'^ a name which points to the 
 nine heavens of the Mexicans. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the dead had a difficult 
 road to travel before reaching their future abode, 
 which was on the fifth day after the burial, and that 
 they needed the articles of comfort and necessity, as 
 food, dresses, and slaves, with which affectionate 
 friends provided for them. The ideas entertained by 
 the Nahuas respecting a future life belong to another 
 department of my work, and will only be alluded to 
 incidentally in this chapter. After the defunct had 
 received his passports, he was covered with a mantle 
 like that of the god which his condition and mode of 
 death rendered appropriate, and decorated with its 
 image. As most kings were warriors, he would be 
 dressed in a mantle of Huitzilopochtli, and would, in 
 addition, wear the mantle of liis favorite god.*' A 
 lock of hair was cut off and placed, with one that had 
 been cut at his birth, as well as small idols, in a 
 casket painted inside and out with the images of the 
 
 *6 Torqacmada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 527; Clavigero, Storia Ant. 
 del Messico, torn, ii., p. U4. Uomiira says the dog Hcrved «b guide: 'vii 
 perro que lo guiosse adondo auia de yr.' Vonq. Mrx., fol. 309. 
 
 " 'Le ponian los vestidus del Dion, ^uc toiiiu pur mas Principal en su 
 Pueblo, en cuia Casa, 6 Templo, 6 Patio se havia <le enterrar.' Torque- 
 nuida, Monai'q. Ind., toni. ii., p. 521; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del ^tenxico, 
 toni. ii., pp. 93-5. Duran mentions an instance where a king wan dressed 
 in the mantles uf four different gods. Hist. Indias, MS., turn, i., cap. 
 xxxix. ; Gomara, Conq. ilfct:., fol. 309. 
 
doe 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 patron deity. The casket used for this purpose in 
 the case of some of the Chichim^c kings is described 
 to have been of emerald or other fine stone, three 
 feet square, and covered by a gold lid set with 
 precious stones. A mask either painted, or of gold, 
 or of turquoise mosaic was placed over the face,** and 
 a chalchiuite, which was to serve for a heart, between 
 the lips. According to Tezozomoc and Duran a statue 
 was placed with the king, dressed in royal insignia by 
 the hands of princes. The chiefs of the senate re- 
 dressed it in other robes after painting it blue. It 
 was then honored with addresses and presents, and 
 again undressed, painted black, and arrayed in a robe 
 of Quetzalcoatl ; a garland of heron -feathers was 
 placed upon its head, bracelets and jewelry about its 
 body, a small gilded shield by its side, and a stick in 
 the hand. This figure shared the honors given to the 
 body and was burned with it." 
 
 The arrayed corpse was either laid upon a litter 
 covered with rich cloths, or seated upon a throne, and 
 watched over by a guard of honor, while princes and 
 courtiers came to pay their last respects.* They ap- 
 proached with great manifestations of grief, weeping, 
 lamenting, clapping their hands, bending the body or 
 exhibiting neglect of person, and addressed the de- 
 
 *s 'Sobre la mortaja le ponian vna mascara pintada.' Torquemada, Mo- 
 narq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 521. Perhara he confounds the idol image on the 
 robe with the mask, tor it is unlikely that the mask should be placed upon 
 the shroud. 'Visage decouvert' Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nonvelles An- 
 nates des Voy., 1843, torn, xcviii., p. 201. Speaking of the obsequies of 
 Tezozomoc of Azcapuzalco, Ixtlilxochitl says that a turquoise mask was put 
 over his face, 'conforme lo iisonomia de su rostro. Esto no se usaba sino 
 con los monarcas de esta tierra; d los demas reyes les ponian una nidscara 
 de oro.' Relaciones, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 370. Veytia 
 states that it was a gold mask 'garnecida de turquezas.' Hist. Ant. Mej., 
 torn. iii. , p. 6. The hair, says Gomara, 'quedaua la memoria de su anima.' 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 309. 
 
 " Tezozomoc, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 90, 38-9; Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. xxxix. 'On placait sur 
 le lit de parade la statue que Ton faisait toujours k Timagc du roi.' Brasseur 
 de Bouroourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., t»m. iii., p. 572. The only statue referred 
 to by other authors is that made of the ashes after the cremation. 
 
 '0 Some of the early Chichimec kings lay five days in state, and Tlalte- 
 catzin, forty days, his body being buried on theeightieth day. Torquemada, 
 MotMvq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 61, 72, 87. 
 
ROYAL OBSEQUIES. 
 
 GOT 
 
 funct, referring to his present happiness, the loss his 
 departure had caused, his goodness and bravery, and 
 begged his acceptance of the presents they had brought. 
 This performance was enacted by all, those of higher 
 rank taking precedence and leaving offerings of ten 
 slaves, a hundred robes, and other things, while others 
 brought gifts of less value. Then came the women, 
 and while they were leaving their presents of food, 
 the aged courtiers intoned the funeral chant, the mic- 
 cacuicatl. Addresses of condolence were also made to 
 the royal family or the senate. The human sacrifices 
 were inaugurated at this time by the immolation of 
 the sacerdotal slave under whose charge the house- 
 hold idols stood.'* On the fifth day, before daybreak, 
 a grand procession formed for the temple, preceded by 
 an enormous paper banner, four fathoms in length, and 
 richly adorned with feathers, on which the deeds of 
 the defunct were doubtless inscribed, and attended by 
 priests who wafted incense and chanted his glory, 
 though in mournful strains, and without instrumental 
 accompaniment.*' The corpse was borne upon the 
 state litter by the most trusted of the noble servitors, 
 while at the sides walked the chief lords and princes 
 dressed in mourning, their attire consisting of long, 
 square mantles of dark color, trailing on the ground, 
 without any ornaments; some, however, were painted 
 with figures of skulls, bones, and skeletons. Behind 
 them ca'nc Ihe ambassadors of absent princes, the 
 grandees and nobles from all parts of the country, each 
 carrying some insignia, weapons, or jewels to be offered 
 on the pyre." In the procession were also a large 
 
 11 Acosta, Hist, delaa Ynd., p. 321, among others, calls this slave a priest. 
 
 ^ Although Acosta says, 'tafiendo tristcs flautos y atani bores.* Hut. de 
 las Ynd., p. 322; Uerrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. ii., cap. xviii. *0n 
 faisait deux grandes banniferes de papier bhinc.' Chaves, Rapport, in Ter- 
 naux-Compans, Voy., s^rie ii., torn, v., p. 309. 
 
 ^ IxtUlxochitl, Uelaciones, iti Kin^morouffKs Mex. Anfiq., vol. ix., p. 
 ."JTO; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., pp. fr-7. Durau states that kings 
 Imre the corpse and that tne mourners were dressed as \vater-goddcsses. 
 Hist. Indias, MS., tom. 1., cap. xxxix., xl., torn, ii., cap. Ii. Acosta says 
 that the arms and insignia were carried before the body by knights. Hist. 
 de las Ynd., p. 321. 
 
608 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 number of slaves, all newly attired in the royal liv- 
 ery,** and carrying clothes, implements, and other 
 articles, according to the duties assigned them. On 
 reaching the courtyard of the temple, the i>riest who 
 directed the burning came to receive the procession, 
 and conducted it to the altar devoted to cremation, all 
 chanting the while a moral song, in which they re- 
 minded the mourners that as they wore now carrying 
 a senseless body to its last resting-place, so would they 
 be carried; they also reminded them that good deeds 
 alone would remain to keo}) their remembrance green, 
 and pictured the glories in store for the deserving. 
 These priests were called coaeuiles, and their office 
 was held to be of such importance that they prepared 
 for it by fasting and confession. They appeared in 
 the same idol dress as the dead king, though with 
 more elaborate ornaments. We find them on one oc- 
 casion as demons with faces at different parts of their 
 dress, set with eyes of mirrors and gaping mouths ; 
 and at another time with blackened or dyed bodies 
 and paper maxtlis, swinging the yellow sticks used to 
 stir the ashes. According to Ixtlilxochitl, the high- 
 priest of Cihuacoatl, who was supposed to gather the 
 dead, came out to receive the procession.^ 
 
 The opinions as to the introduction of cremation are 
 extremely varied, but it seems to have been practiced 
 in very ancient times by the migrating tribes, who 
 took this means to secure the remains of honored 
 chiefs from desecration; their ashes could thus be car- 
 ried along and serve as talismanio relics. Ixtlilxo- 
 chitl gives an instance of this in the case of a Chi- 
 chimec king who died in battle and whose body was 
 
 ^ Tezozomoc, Cttfnica Mex., in Ki'iffsbovongh's Mex. Antiq., vol. i 
 90, 142, states that they were dressed in royal insignia and jewels, ^ 
 is not very likely; a nnmber of them, l\owever, were loaded with the i 
 wardrobe, which fact may have awan i ise to this statement. 
 
 " Rdaciones, in KingsborougKg Men. Antiq., vol. ix., p. .370; Sjnegazione 
 delle Tamle del Codice Mexicano (Vnticano), in /rf., vol. v., pp. 200-1; 
 Aeosta, Hist, de la* Ynd., p. 322; Jhtran. '.iut. Inditts, MS., toiii. i., cap. 
 xl. 'Salia el gran Sacerdote, con los oiton Miuistros, k recibirlo.' Torque- 
 mada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 521. 
 
CREMATION AND INTERMENT. 
 
 600 
 
 burned, so that the ashes might be carried home with 
 convenience and safety. Brasseur do Bourbourg also 
 holds that cremation was an ancient Tultec custom, 
 but the first recorded case is that of the last Toltec 
 king, Topiltzin.* Others assert that the Toltecs who 
 remained in the country after the destruction of their 
 empire adhered to interment, as did the early Chichi- 
 mecs. Veytia affirms that Ixtlilxoehitl or lezozomoc 
 was the first to be deposited according to the forms in- 
 stituted by Topiltzin and used by the Mexicans, 
 namely, burning; Torquemada distinctly states that 
 the Chichimecs used cremation, and Clavigero agrees 
 with him."^ Veytia also thinks that the first Aztec 
 kings were buried, but this is contrary to all other 
 reliable accounts. The custom may not have been 
 very general, for Saha^un states that during Itzcoatl's 
 reign it was resolved by the chiefs that all should be 
 burned, indicating at the same time that cremation was 
 tlieii already in use. The later established usage was 
 to I'urn all except those who died a violent death, or 
 oi' incurable diseases, and those under seventeen years 
 of age, who were all interred. The Tlascaltecs and 
 Tarascos practiced burning like the Aztecs.* 
 
 The altar devoted to the burning was doubtless one 
 attached to the temple consecrated to the deity to 
 whose abode the deceased was supposed to go. Cha- 
 
 ^Ixtlilxoehill, Relaciones, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 332, 325, 327, 388. 
 
 " 'El (the inu(Ic) que estos Chichiinecas vsaron, fuequemarlos.' Monarq. 
 
 Ind., torn, i., pp. 60, 72, 87; Ixtlilxoehitl, Relaciones, in KiiigshorougK'a 
 Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. .369, 388; Id., Hist. Chich., pp. 214, 223, 261-2. 
 Veytia, who introduces some argunieutH on this point, thinks that Tczozo- 
 
 niDC introduced burning, yet he describes ceremonial cremations in the case 
 •if several kings before him. Hist. Ant. Mej., toni. iii., pp. 3-4, tom. ii., p. 
 113. Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., p. 140, torn. u.. pp. 97 -S. 
 38 Caniargo, Hist. Tlax., in Nouvelles Annates Jes Voy:, \t>\% torn, 
 xcviii., pp. 165, 202. 'La gcnte menuda comunmc ite se entcrniua.' Go- 
 iimru, Uonq. Mex., fol. 308; Spiegazione delle TavJe del C'odice Mexicano 
 (Vtiticano), in Kingshorough's Mex. Antiq., vol. i., p. 200; Torquemada, 
 Monarq, Ind., toui. ii., p. 528; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej,, tom. lii., p. 4; 
 Brasseur de Bourbonrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toP'. iiL, p. 129. 'Sabiapor las 
 pinturos, <\\w se quemaron en tiempo del oefior de Mexico ^ue se decia 
 Itzndatl, 1 cuya epoca loa seAores, y )js nrincipales que habia ent6nccs, 
 acordaron y mandaron que se qnemasou touas, para que no viniesen & ma- 
 nos del vulgo.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., pp. 140-1. 
 Vox.. U 89 
 
610 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 ves describes it as three feet in height and the same 
 in width,^ on which r, heap of ocotl was piled. Upon 
 this pyre the body wj\s laid in full array, together with 
 the dog. and, as the fire flared up, the mourners added 
 insignia, jewels, weapons, food, and other tributes. 
 Two of tho demon- like coacuiles stirred the fire while 
 others stood by chanting appropriate songs and sprink- 
 ling blessed water and incense upon the remains, as 
 well as upon the mourners. Now began the sacrifice 
 of those doomed to follow the deceased to the other 
 world and there administer to his wants and i)leasure. 
 These were at first but few in number, but during the 
 bloody dominion of the Aztecs they increased to sev- 
 eral hundred, as at the funeral of Nezahualpilli, when 
 two hundred males and one hundred females were im- 
 molated ; they consisted chiefly of slaves and deformed 
 beings from the royal retinue, and such as had been 
 presented. Duran says that all slaves and deformed 
 persons belonging to the household were killed, and 
 Acosta goes so far as to state that the whole royal 
 household was dispatched, including the favorite 
 brother of the king; but this must be taken with a 
 grain of allowance, for, at this rate, the nobles, who 
 crowded the service of the monarch, even in menial 
 positions, would soon have been exterminated. Some 
 courtiers were, no doubt, expected to prove the sin- 
 cerity of their life-long adulations by either offering 
 themselves as victims, or submitting to a selection 
 made from their number. Sometimes a chief would 
 signify his preference for those among his concubines 
 whom he wished to have with him, a mark of favor 
 often received with great joy, for they would thus be 
 sure of entering into the supreme heaven, where the 
 warlike lords usually went, while they might other- 
 wise be doomed to di,rk Michlan. Solf-inmiolation 
 of wives was, accordingly, not uncommon, althoU;j;h 
 not prescribed by law as in India. Brasseur says 
 
 * Rapport, in Ternaux-Compant, Voy., tAfw ii., torn, v., p. JOO. 
 
DISPOSITION OF THE REMAINS. 
 
 611 
 
 that captives were sacrificed, but Duran states that 
 they were not oftered except to the gods. Persons born 
 during the last five days of the year — the unlucky 
 days — were, however, reserved for royal obsequies.*" 
 
 This array of victims was harangued by a relative of 
 the deceased, who dilated on the happiness before 
 them in being allowed to join their master, and ad- 
 monished them to serve him as faithfully in the next 
 world as they had done here. They were then con- 
 signed to the priests, who laid them upon a teponaz- 
 tli," cut open the breast and tore out the heart, which 
 was thrown upon the pyre, while the bodies were cast 
 upon another blazing hearth near by.** Gomara and 
 others state that the bodies were interred, but as the 
 dog and the property were burned, it is not likely that 
 the more important and useful human servants were 
 buried.** 
 
 When the body had been thoroughly burned, the 
 fire was quenched, the blood collected from the vic- 
 tims being used for this purpose, according to Duran, 
 and the ashes, sprinkled with holy water, were placed 
 with the charred bones, stones, and melted jewelry in 
 the urn, or casket, which contained also the hair of 
 the deceased. On the top of this was placed a statue 
 of wood or stone, attired in the royal habiliments, 
 and bearing the mask and insignia, and the casket 
 was deposited at the feet of the patron deity, in the 
 
 ♦" Ixtlilxochitl, RelacioHcs, in Kiiiffsboroufjh's ^feJ;. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 .S79, .388; Duran, Hint. Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. xxxix., xl. ; Bolitgiir, in 
 Trrnaux-ComjKtiin, F'oi/., serie i., t«m. x., pp. 213-14; Solin, Hi/if. Cotiq. 
 Mcr., torn, i., p. 4.12; t'nm'u-fio. Hint. Tlnx., in Nonwllcs AtinalesdM Vot/., 
 184.3, torn, xcviii., p. '2()i; liruiMeiir dc liourbourg. Hint. Nat. Civ., toia. ill., 
 p. 573; Veytia, Hint. Ant. M'j., toni. iii., pp. 8-9. 
 
 <• Tezozomoc, Crdiiica Mex., in Kingsbovou^lCs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 
 90; Duran, Hist. Indian, MS., toni. i., cup. xxxix., toni. il., cnp. li. 
 
 " Torquemada,Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. .')21; Acosta, Hist, dr Itts Vnd., 
 p 321. Caniar^to indicates that the tiodieH were thrown uiMtn the same 
 >.vre togetiicr with the presentH. Hist. Tlnx., in Xoinrl/cn Annalrn dcs 
 Vol/., 1843, toin. xcviii., p. 202. ' SacilndoleH loft corazoncn, y la NaiiKr«> dc 
 cllo.H en una iNitea 6 eran xicara, con la cual roriavan li Huitzilopocntii, (i 
 onlen le presentaron Ji>i* corazoneHdetodoHloHniuertoH.' Tezozomoc, Crdnica 
 M>'x., in Kingtboroiigli'n Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 90. 
 
 *' Gomnrd, Conq. Mex., fol. 301; IxflUxoehitl, Relneiones, in Kings- 
 borough's Mex, Antiq., vol. ix., p. 370; Tezozomoc, ubi 8up. 
 
i 
 
 612 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 i 
 
 chapel.** On the return of the procession a grand 
 banquet was given to the guests, ending, as usual, 
 with a presentation of gifts. For four days the 
 mourners paid constant visits to the shrine to manifest 
 their sorrow and to present the offerings ol" food, 
 clothes, or jewels, termed quitonaltia, *to give good 
 luck.' These were either placed hy the urn or upon 
 the altar of the god, and removed by the priests, who 
 ate the food and sent the valuables to the temple 
 treasury. These ceremonies closed Avith the sacrifice 
 of ten to liiteen slaves, and then the casket was de- 
 posited in that part of the temple appointed for its 
 permanent reception.** Among the Chichimecs the 
 royal casket often remained forty days on view in the 
 palace, whence it was carried in procession to its final 
 resting-place.** 
 
 In cases of interment the deceased was deposited 
 in the grave, seated on a throne in full array, facing the 
 north,*' with his property and victims around him. 
 In early times, when the practice of interment was 
 more general, the victims were few, if not dispensed 
 with entirely, and consisted usually of two favorite 
 concul)ines, placed one on each side of their master, 
 who, it is said, were entombed alive, though it is more 
 
 ** 'La colocaroii en el inisnio liigur en que anlio la pira.' Veytia, Hint. 
 Ant. Mej., torn, iii., )i. 9. This uiitlior miys that tlie iiioiith-Btonc of the 
 deceasea tOKether with the mauk, nilMis, and ornanientH were taken off l>e- 
 forc tlie IhnI)' was placed npon the i>yrc; tlilM cuiild only have licen for the 
 pnrjKtsc of 'iressing tlie wtNulen Htatne tlicrein; the ntoiie was, however, 
 ])laeed inside the urn. IxtlUxoehitl, uhi Hup. Itratwenr do DourlKtur); cnll.-* 
 tills l>uiidle of Imnes tlaquimiloUi, wliieli he says was sjicre<lly preserved, 
 whether of kin<,'s or braves. Nnuvtllvn Aiiuales drs Voi/., 1858, toni. fix., 
 p. 'H'iS. In the ease of Nanhyotl of Cnlhuacan, the hones were cxhnnied 
 and phtced in a statne, which was made in his honor, and deposited in a 
 teiii])ie consecrated to jiiiii. Diiran, Hint. IiuHas, MS., toni. i., cup. xxxix. 
 
 <^ 'Al cnurto dia, al unoclicccr, eargaron lus sacerdotes lit area do las 
 eeniii.'ts y la estatua, y la coloearon en niia cspecie dc luclio, dentro del tcin- 
 plo.' Vcjitia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, iii., p. 10. 'Sous le pave niCine du 
 sanctuaire, i!evant la statue du dieu.' Iira.<i.srur de Boiirbnunj, Hist. Nnt. 
 Cii'., toni. ii.., p. 574. Duran mentions that the oshes of one king were 
 deposited at the foot of the stone of sacrilice. Hist. Indian, MS., toni. i., 
 cap. li.; Ti'zozoinoe, Crdnica Mex., in KiiigsftorougKs Mex. Antii/., vol. ix., 
 p. 142; Cortes, Cnrtn.<t, p. 106, Las Cams, Hist. Apologitica, MS., cop. li. 
 
 « Tornimnnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., pp. 72, 87j Vetancvrt, Tcatro 
 Mex., pt li., pp. 15-16. 
 
 " SahaguH, Hist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. vii., p. 257. 
 
NAHUA SEPULCHRES. 
 
 613 
 
 pi'dbable that they were stupefied by narcotic drinks, 
 or clubbed, as in Michoacan. This practice of bury- 
 ing aHve is ascribed to the Toltecs.** The graves were 
 usually large subterranean vaults of stone and lime, sit- 
 uated in the temple court, palace, or some favorite spot 
 near the city, as Chapultepec. It is related that the 
 temple py.oniid in Mexico was the superstructure of 
 royal graves, the remains being deposited on the sum- 
 mit, and the successor to the crown erecting upon this 
 another platform. On destroying the temple, the 
 Spaniards found several vaults, one beneath the other, 
 with their valuable contents of jewelry.*® The Tol- 
 tecs also buried their dead in and near the temples, 
 and, according to some authors, the mounds at Teoti- 
 huacan, to the number of several hundred, which will 
 be described in Vol. IV. of this work, are the graves 
 of Toltec chiefs.* The Chichimec kings were usually 
 buried in round holes, five to six feet deep, situated in 
 caves beneath the palace or in the mountains; in later 
 times, however, they chose the temples."* 
 
 Twenty days after the burial further offerings were 
 made, together with a sacrifice of from four to 
 five slaves; on the fortieth day two or three more 
 died; on the sixtieth, one or two; while the final im- 
 molation consisting of ten to twelve slaves took })lace 
 at the end of eighty days, and put an end to the 
 mourning. Motolinia adds, however, that testimo- 
 
 *^BraJ>seur de liourhoiirg, Jlist. Nut. Civ., torn, i., p]>. .310, .131; lio- 
 loffiie, in Tcniaitx-Cum/iniis, Vutj., seric i., toin. x., i>p. i!l;i-14; ('(imiinjo, 
 itist. Tlax., in Nouvclles Annates ties Voij., 1843, toni. xcviii., jip. 11(2, 
 202. 
 
 *' 'La mucrte sc Im^ian cnterrar en la mAs alta )j;rada, 6 dcspues el sub- 
 cc8»or mihia otras (los ^rradas.' Oi'icdo, Hist. (ie)i.,{nm. iii., J). ."jO-S. 'Loh 
 rrincirws neccsitaliaii do ;;raii Ht'imltiira, jionjiic se llevaban trassi la mayor 
 parte ue BUS riqucza» y faniilia.' .SV(>, lli.tt. Cmio. Mi:r., timi. i., j). 432. 
 '[o aiiitai a cauar d'vna sepoltiira tre niila Casti^liaiii poeo piii b nieno.' 
 lidationc fatta per vn (fcntiVhuomo del Signor Fernando Cortcse, in liamn- 
 sio, Nnviijnfioni, torn, lii., £(il. .SIO. 
 
 ^'> Sa/iiiffun,Hisf. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 141; Ixtlihorhitl, Itrlitrin- 
 ncs, in Kinifshorottgh's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. , »> 327; Itumlmldt, Esuni I'ol., 
 torn. i.,p. 189. 
 
 ^' txtiilxorliitl, Ifi.lL Chirh., in Kiii(fshoroiiffh'.i Mex, Aiitiq., vol. ix., 
 p. 214; /(/., Itclaeinne.s, pp. 3.15, 344; Clnvigero, Sloria Ant, del Messie't, 
 toni. ii., p. 98. 
 
■ '■ 
 
 614 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 it 
 
 I 
 
 nials of sorrow accompanied by offerings continued 
 to be made every eightieth day for the space of a 
 year."^ 
 
 The obsequies of the subjects were, of course, on a 
 scale of much less grandeur, though the rich and no- 
 bles ventured to exhibit a certain pomp. The common 
 man, after having been washed in aromatic waters, 
 was dressed in his best garments; a cheap stone called 
 the tenteti, 'mouth-stone,' was inserted between the 
 lips; the passport papers for the dark journey were 
 handed to him with the usual address ; and by his side 
 were placed the water, the dog, the insignia of his 
 trade, as arms, spade, or the like — spindle or broom in 
 the case of a woman — with the dresses and other 
 things required for comfort. Lastly the mantle of the 
 god which his condition in life and manner of death 
 rendered appropriate, was placed upon him ; thus, a 
 warrior would wear the mantle of Huitzilopot;htli 
 with the image of the war god upon it ; a merchant 
 the mantle of lyacatecutli ; the ai*tisan that of the 
 patron deity of his trade. A drunkard would, in ad- 
 dition, be covered with the robe of the god of wine; a 
 person who had died by drowning, with that of the 
 water gods ; the man executed for adultery, with that 
 of the god of lasciviousness ; and so on."* According 
 
 i I 
 
 ! r 
 
 . r 
 
 ^'^ Hist. Itidios, in Icazbalcela, Col. de Doc. , torn, i., p. ,31; Rilo.i Aiiti- 
 guos, p. 20, ill KiiiffshorouifWs Mex. Antiq., vol. ix. IxtlilxiR*hitl, Kcla- 
 cioncK, ill KuKjshoroiif/h's Mi'x. AHtiq.,\o\. ix., p. 371,8tute!4 tliat the fuic- 
 rificett on the fourth <liiy coiiHisted of Hvc to six hIiivca, on tiic tenth of one, 
 on tiie ci;;htieth of three. 'Lc ciuquiciiic on Hueritiuit plusieurs cm;hivet*, ct 
 cette iniiiiohitioii so rejuituit eiicoro quiitre foi», de <lix en <lix jours.' llrun- 
 geur dc lioiirboiny. Hist. Nat. Cit'., toin. iii., i>. .")74. Duriiii, Jlist. Indkts, 
 MS., toni. i., cup. xiv., xxxix., mentions u fust of eighty duys, at tlie lmkI 
 of which a stutuc wus made, lil(c one whii-li he states wus hnrncd with (lie 
 corpse, niid to tliis exactly the same ceremonies were puid us totlie defunct, 
 tlio stutue Iwiii); hurned with uu eqiiuUy large number of slaves us lieforo. 
 The fullest descriptions of royal ottsequies are given in Torr/uciiutdti, Mn- 
 nnrq. Ind., tom. li., pp. 5'2l-,3; Vei/tia, Hist. Ant. Mej., toin. iii., pp. .S-ll; 
 Clariijero, Storia Ant. del Mcssico, torn, ii., pp. 95-8; Goinara, Cuiiq. .Mi:r., 
 fol. 309-10; lirassriir ili: Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pj). •'•"I-^; 
 Duran, Hist. Iitdias, MS., torn, i., cap. xxxix., xl,, tom. ii., cap. xlviii.; 
 Tezozomoc, CrdnicaMex,, inKtHgsboroiigh's Mex. Aittiq., \ol. ix., pp. Hii- 
 90, 99. 
 
 ^ After describing the robing of drnnkards and others, noninra says: 
 'V finulmcntca coda oflciul duiiuii el traje del idolo dc uquel olicio,' which 
 
PLEBEIAN FUNERAL RITES. 
 
 616 
 
 to Zuazo, the corpse waa further decorated with feath- 
 ers of various colors, and seated in a chair to receive 
 the expressions of sorrow and respect of friends, and 
 their humble offerings of flowers, food, or dresses. 
 After a couple of hours a second set of shrouders 
 removed the garments, washed the body again, re- 
 dressed it in red mantles, with feathers of the same 
 color, and left it to be viewed for an hour or more, ac- 
 cording to the number of the visitors. A third time 
 the l)ody was washed, by a fresh corps of attendants, 
 and arrayed, this time, in black garments, with feath- 
 ers of the same sombre color. These suits were either 
 given to the temple or buried with the body." No- 
 bles had the large banner borne in their procession, 
 and seem to have been allowed the use of sacrifices." 
 According to Chaves the common people were also 
 burned in their own premises or in the forest, a state- 
 ment which Acosta and others indirectly confirm by 
 saying that they had no regular burial-places, but 
 their ashes were deposited in the yards of their 
 houses, in the temple courts, in the mountains, or in 
 the field. Upon the graves were placed flags, orna- 
 ments, and various offerings of OxkI during the four 
 days of mourning. Visits of condolence with attend- 
 ant feasting extended over a period of several days, 
 however. °" People who had died a violent death, by 
 lightning or other natural causes or of incurable dis- 
 
 ccrtainly indicates that a drowned or Iwftottcd nrtiwin M'ould wear the man- 
 tle due to his position in life as well as that due to his niuniici of death. 
 Coiiq. Afex., fol. 309. Clavi}?cro, Storia Ant. dd Mrssico, toni. ii., j))). 93-4, 
 uses the following expression : ' Vestivanio d'un ahito corris|>ondente ulla 
 sua condizione, alle sue fucoltil, r</ullc eircostunzc dclhi sua niorte.' 
 
 ** Xnnzo, Carta, in Irazhaleeta, Col. dr I>o<:, toni. i., pp. 364-5. 
 
 " Caninrgo savs, with reference to sacrillccs and ^MtniJMjus ceremonies, 
 'tout rehi nvait lieu, plus ou nioins, h touted les fundraillcs, selou larichessc 
 du defunt.' Hint, Tlax., in Nouvrlles Annalis dea Toy., 1843, toni. xcviii., 
 p. 2()2; PrescotCs Mex., vol. i., p. 03. 
 
 ^ Ziiazo, Carta, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, toni. i., p. 30.5; Chaves, 
 Rapport, in Tcrnaux-Compans, Voy., w&ne ii., torn, v., p. 310; 'Durauan 
 Itts cxequiiiH diez dias.' Aeo»ta, Hist, de las Ynd., p. .121. 'On pnssnit vin^t 
 ou treiitn jours au milieu des fiites ct des festins.' Camargo, Hist. Tlax., in 
 Nouwlles Annalcs des Voy., 1843, tom. xcviii., p. 'iO'2. Hrnrra, Hist. 
 Gr.n., dec. iii., lih. ii., cap. xviii.: Clavigero, Storiu .■liit. del Mcs.sieo, toiii. 
 ii., pp. 93-5. 
 
1 
 
 'I 
 
 616 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 eases, such as leprosy, tumors, itch, gout, or dropsy, 
 were not burned but interred in sjiecial graves. Branches 
 or shoots of amaranth were placed upon their cheeks, 
 the brow was rubbed with texutli, certain papers were 
 laid over the brain, and in one hand was placed a 
 wooden rod which was supposed to become L^reen and 
 throw out branches in the other world. The bodies of 
 women who died in childbed were also buried; and 
 the burial was attended by great difficulty, since war- 
 riors and sorcerers fought bravely to obtain possession 
 of some part of her body, as has been stated in a pre- 
 ceding chapter." 
 
 A trader of the rank of pochteca, who died on a 
 journey, was dressed in the garb of his class, with 
 eyes painted black, red circles round the mouth, and 
 with strips of paper all over his person. The body 
 was then deposited in a cacaxtli, or square basket, 
 well secured by cords, and carried to the top of a 
 mountain, whore it was fixed to a tree, or |jJole driven 
 into the ground, and left to wither. The spirit was 
 supposed to have entered the abode of the sun.** On 
 the return of the caravan the death was reported to 
 the guild, who broke the news to the family of the 
 deceased. A puppet made of candlewood, and adorned 
 with the usual paper ornaments, was left at the tem- 
 ple for a day, during which the friends mourned over 
 it as if the body was actually before them. At mid- 
 night the puppet was burned, in the quauhxicalco and 
 the ashes buried in the usual manner. Funeral cere- 
 monies were held lor four days, after which the rela- 
 tives washed the faces, that had remained untouched 
 by water during the absence of the trader, and put 
 an end to the mourning. The practice of paying 
 honors to the dead in effigy was especially in vogue 
 among the warrior class.* 
 
 *T Torquemnda, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 629; Sahagun, Hist, Gen., 
 1. ii., Ub. vi., lip. 18(S-01. See p. 269 of this volume. 
 M Sahagun, Itist. Gen., torn, ii., lib. ix., p. 358. 
 
 ^ Sahiigiiii intiinuteM that the puppet was for those who were shiin by 
 enemies, but odds, afterwards, that a puppet was burned with the same ccr< 
 
HONORS TO THE SLAIN IN BATTLE. 
 
 617 
 
 Besides funeral honors to individuals, ceremonies 
 for all those who died in a battle or war were of fre- 
 (]uent occurrence, as that ordered by the first Mon- 
 tezuma in memory of the slain in the campaign 
 against Chalco. A procession of all the relatives and 
 friends i)f the dead, headed by the fathers bearing 
 decorated arms and armor, and terminated by the 
 children, marched through the streets, dancing and 
 chanting mournful songs in honor of those who had 
 fallen fighting for their country and their gods, and 
 for each other's mutual consolation. Towards even- 
 ing presents were distributed by the king's ofiicials, 
 clothing to the common people, ornaments to the 
 chiefs, and food to all. An effigy was then pre- 
 pared, the details of whose dress and decoration are 
 minutely described, and before it, placed in the ci- 
 liaacalli, war songs were chanted, instruments were 
 played, women danced and cried for four days; 
 then the image was burned before the temple, the 
 ceremony being called quitlepanqiietzin, 'burning the 
 dead of the last war.' Some of the ashe: were scat- 
 tered upon the relatives, who fasted for eighty days, 
 the remaining ashes being in the meantime buried; 
 but after the eighty days had passed they were dug 
 up and carried to the hill of Yahualiuhcan, on the 
 boundaries of Chalco, where they were left. Five 
 days later a feast took place, during which the gar- 
 ments of the dead warriors were burned, more offer- 
 ings were made, and as a final honor to the memory 
 of the departed all became intoxicated with pulque. 
 Very distinguished warriors were sometimes honored 
 with the funeral rites of royalty.*" 
 
 The ceremonies during the period of mourning were 
 
 cmonies in the court, of the house, if they died at home. Hist. Gen., toni. 
 i., lib. iv., pp. 314-15; Toraneuuula, Moiiarq. Intl., torn, ii., p. 587; Bras- 
 sear de Botirbourg, Hist. ifat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 621-2. See this vol., 
 p. ,S92. 
 
 *• Tezozomoe, Crdnica Mex., in Kingsboroiufli's Mex. Antiq., vol. ix., pp. 
 37-8, 8«>-7, 101-2; Duran, Hist. Indias, MS., torn, i., cap. xviii., toni. ii., 
 cap. xlviii. ; lirmseur de Bonrhourg, Hist. Nat. Cir., torn, iii., pp. 251M)1, 
 407-8. 
 
618 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 
 
 not the last honors paid to deceased friends. Every 
 year during the four years that the souls were sup- 
 posed to live in a preparatory state in the heavens," 
 offerings of choice viands, wine, flowers, and reeds of 
 perfume were placed before the casket or upon the 
 grave; songs extolling the merits of the departed 
 were sung, accompanied by dances, the whole closing 
 with feasting and drinking. After this the dead were 
 left to oblivion.** These commemorations tt>ok place 
 in the months of Tlaxochimaco and Xocotlhuetzin. 
 The former was termed 'the small festival of the 
 dead,' and seems to have been devoted to the common 
 people and children, but at the celebration in the lat- 
 ter month great demonstrations were observed by all ; 
 and certain royal personages and warriors who had 
 died for their country were awarded divine honors, 
 their statues being placed among those of the gods, 
 to whose presence they had gone. While the priests 
 were burning incense and making other offerings to 
 the dead, the people stood with blackened bodies on 
 the roofs of their houses, and, facing north, prayed to 
 their dead relatives, calling on them to visit their 
 former homes. *" 
 
 In the month of Quecholli another celebration took 
 place, which seems to have been chiefly intended for 
 warriors who had perished in battle. On the fifth 
 day certain small arrows from five to nine inches in 
 length, and torches, were tied in bundles of four each 
 and placed upon the graves, together with a pair of 
 sweet tamales. At sunset the bundles were set on 
 fire, and the ashes interred with the dead. The shield 
 of the dead, with arrow, mantle, and maxtli attached, 
 
 *' ETtplicarione del Codex Tclleriano-Remensis, in Kingshoroiigh's Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. v., p. 1.3(); Spiegazione dellc Tavole del Codice Mvxicano, (\'u- 
 tieuiio), in Id., p. 193. 
 
 ** Motolinia, Hist. Indios, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., toni. i., p. 31; 
 Tormumada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 523. 
 
 « Torqiiemadn, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 298; Spiegazione dclle Ta- 
 vole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), in KingshorougVa Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 v., pp. 193-4. 'Los tres dias ultinioB dc estc nies ayiinavan todos Ioh vivos 
 & los niuertos.' Explicacione del Codex Tcllerinno-Rcinensis, in KingsLo- 
 rough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 130. Sec this vol., pp. 328, 331. 
 
FUNERAL RITES OF THE TARASCOS. 
 
 «19 
 
 was afterwards fastened to a stalk of maize of nine 
 joints, mounted by two paper flags, one of which 
 reached the length of the stalk. On the small flag 
 was a cross, worked in red thread, and on the other 
 an ornamentation of red and white thread, from the 
 white part of which a dead humming-bird was sus- 
 pended. Bunches of white aztatl feathers, tied in 
 pairs, were also attached to the stalk by a thread 
 covered with white hen-feathers. This was burned 
 at the quauhxicalco." 
 
 Among the peoples whose funeral ceremonies differ 
 from those described, may be mentioned the Teo-Chi- 
 chimecs, who interred their dead, and danced and sang 
 for several days after.*" In Tabasco interment seems 
 also to have prevailed, for Grijalva found a grave in 
 the sand, containing a boy and a girl wrapped in cot- 
 ton cloth and adorned with jewelry.** In Goazaco- 
 alco it was the custom to place the bones in a basket, 
 as soon as the flesh was gone, and hang them up in a 
 tree, so that the spirit of the defunct might have no 
 trouble in finding them.*' 
 
 In Michoacan the funeral rites were of a very ex- 
 acting character. When the king lay on his death- 
 bed it was incumbent on all vassals and courtiers to 
 attend at the palace, and those who stayed away were 
 severely punished. While awaiting the final breath 
 they were royally entertained, but none could enter 
 the death-chamber. When the corpse was ready for 
 shrouding, the lords entered to dress it in festive robes, 
 each attending to a particular part of the attire; the 
 emerald brooch was put between the lips, and the 
 
 w Sahagun, Hist. Gen., torn, i., lil). ii., pp. 16.3-4; Torqttemada, Monnrq. 
 Iiul., torn, ii., p. 281. Ura8^scur <le BourlK>iir;i; mxya that this celebration 
 was of u ){cnenil character, and dilutCH the nieu^rre an<l doubtful informa- 
 tion of his authority considerably. The arrowa and fiMHl, ' aiirbs (lu'clles y 
 avaicnt dcnieurd un jour et une nuit, on let) enlevait ct on br(^]uit Ic tout 
 ensemble en I'honneur dc Mixcohuatl et de ses compugnons d'urnics.' Nist. 
 Nnf. Cii'., toMi. i., p. 234, torn, iii., pp. 528-9. 
 
 ^ Sdhngun, Hist. Gen., torn, iii., lib. x., p. 119. 
 
 ** lUaz, Itinernrio, in Icazbaleeta, Col. dc Doc., torn, i., p. .304; Oviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., toni. i., j». 532. 
 
 *' Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. ix., cap. vii. 
 
620 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I li 
 
 I 
 
 ii 
 
 ; : 
 
 I' 
 
 body was laid upon a litter covered with cloths of dif- 
 ferent colors. On one side of the body were placed a 
 bow and quiver, on the other was a doll made up of fine 
 mantles and dressed exactly like the king.** While 
 the courtiers were giving vent to lamentations and 
 tendering their respects, the new king proceeded to 
 select those among the servitors, who, according to 
 the inviolable law of the country, were doomed to 
 follow the dead prince. Seven of these were noble 
 women, to whom various duties were assigned; one 
 was appointed to carry the precious lip-ornament, an- 
 other to keep the rest of the jewels, a third to be cup- 
 bearer, and the others to attend at table and to cook. 
 Among the male victims, who seem to have been 
 slaves for the most part, every trade and profession 
 was represented,®" as valets, hair-dressers, perfumers, 
 fan -holders, chair -bearers, wood -cutters, boatmen, 
 sweepers, doorkeepers, and artisans; also clowns, and 
 some of the physicians who had failed to save the 
 life of the monarch. Occasionally some enthusiast 
 would offer to join his beloved master of his own ac- 
 cord, but this seems to have been prohibited; besides, 
 the new king had, doubtless, selected all that were 
 obnoxious to him, and could not afford to lose good 
 servants. At midnight the litter was carried on the 
 shoulders of the chief men to the temple, followed by 
 vassals, warriors, and courtiers, some blowing trump- 
 ets, others chanting the glories of the dead. In 
 the van of the procession were the victims, who had 
 been bathed in aromatic waters and adorned with 
 garlands stripped of their leaves and branches, and 
 with yellow streaks over the face, who marched in files, 
 
 ^ Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 310. 'Esta figiira sc la ponian enciinn nl 
 Difiinto.' I'orqiwiiuti/ti, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 524. it is not likely, 
 however, that a lite-»izc tij;ure, a» Uoiimra calls it, or any fi;;iire, for that 
 matter, should have l)eea placed over the ornaments of thckinj^und pressed 
 upon the body. Beaumont says: 'Lo cubriancon una nianta, en queestaba 
 nintado 6 realzado el cadaver con los niismos adomos.' Crdn. Aiechoacan, 
 MS., p. 55. 'Au-dcssns on asseyait une pnnj)ue de la taille du dtifnnt.' 
 Brasseurde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., totii. iii., p. 8.S. 
 
 <B 'Matauan vno, y aun mas dc caila olieio.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., fol. 
 311. 
 
CREMATION OF THE TARASCAN KINGS. 
 
 621 
 
 sounding whistles, rattling bones, and beating tor- 
 toise-shell drums. Torch-bearers attondod the party, 
 and ahead wont a number of men who swept the 
 road, singing at the same time : " Lord, here 
 thou hast to pass, see that thou dost not miss 
 the road !'""* Four turns were made round the pyre 
 before depositing the corpse upon it. While the 
 ■flames shot up, and the funeral chants fell from ilie 
 lips of the mourners, the victims were stupefied with 
 drinks and clubbed; the bodies were thrown into 
 holes behind the temple, by threes or fours, together 
 with the ornaments and other belongings of the de- 
 ceased. The ashes and valuables were gathered from 
 the smoking pyre, and made into a figure, which was 
 dressed in royal habiliments, with a mask for its 
 face, a g^olden shield on its back, bows and arrows by 
 its side; this was set upon a throne facing the east, 
 the whole being placed in a large urn, which was 
 deposited upon a bed of golden shields and silver 
 articles in a grave with stone walls, lined with mats, 
 about twelve feet square, and equally deep, situated 
 at the foot of the temple. The urn was covered with 
 a number of valuable mantles, and around it were 
 placed various implements, food, drink, and Imjxcs 
 filled with feather- work and ornaments; the grave was 
 finallv bridjfed with varnished beams and boards, 
 and covered v/ith a coating of earth and clay. 
 After the funeral, all who had taken an active 
 part in the ceremonies went to bathe, in order to 
 prevent any injury to their health," and then 
 assembled at the palace to partake of a sumptuous 
 repast. At the close of the banquet a cotton cloth 
 was given to each guest wherewith to wipe his face, 
 I)ut all remained seated for five days with lowered 
 
 ■"• Torquemada, Moitarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 525. The slaves, he says, 
 'los embudurimlMiii ttulo el cuerpo, con vim tiiitu ninnrilla.' ' VInmi las an- 
 (las (\ atahiid en hombros de los tres principales.' lieaumont, Crdn. Mechoa- 
 can, MS., p. 56. 
 
 ''■ ' Todos los que habian tocado el Caltzontzi y d los denias cuerpos se 
 ilian & bailar por preservarse de alguna enferniodad.' Beaumont, Crdn. Me- 
 vhoacan, MS., p. 67. 
 
622 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONH. 
 
 : 
 
 heads, without uttering a word, except the grandecH, 
 who went in turn hy night to watch and mourn at the 
 grave. During this period the mourning was gen- 
 eral, no corn was ground, no fires lighted, no business 
 transacted; the streets were deserted, and all re- 
 mained at home, mourning and lasting. The ob- 
 sequies of the people bore a general resemblance to 
 the above, the ceremonies being regulated by the 
 rank and means of the deceased. The graves were 
 usually situated in the fields or on the slope of a 
 hill." 
 
 Among the Miztecs, in Oajaca, where cremation 
 does not seem to have obtained, compliments and ad- 
 dresses were presented to the corpse of a chief, just as 
 if he were alive. A slave arrayed in the same splen- 
 did garments worn by his master, with mask, mitre, 
 and other insignia, was placed before it ; and while the 
 funeral procession accompanied the body to burial, he 
 represented the chief, and received the honors paid to 
 royalty. At midnigiit four priests carried the body to 
 the forest, where it was placed, in the presence of the 
 mourners, in a cave, with the feet to the east, and 
 surrounded with various weapons and implements. 
 Two male and three female slaves, who had in the 
 meantime been made drunk and strangled, were also 
 placed in the grave, together with idols to serve as 
 guides. Burgoa was told by the natives that devoted 
 servants used to follow their lord alive into the grave. 
 On the return of the funeral cortege, the slave who 
 represented the deceased was sacrificed and deposited 
 in a hole, which was left unclosed. The cave selected 
 for the grave of the chief was supposed to be the 
 gate to paradise. Burgoa found two of these resting- 
 
 {)laces. One was situated in a hill and lighted by 
 oopholes from above. Along the sides were stone 
 
 ">* Beaumont, Crdn. Mechoacan, MS., pp. 54-8; Torquemnda, Monarq. 
 I ltd., torn, ii., pp. 523-6; Gomara, Vonq. Mcx., fol. 310-12; Gane's New 
 Surveji, pp. 167-60, with a cut; Brasseur de Bourbotirg, Hint. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, iii., pp. 82-6; Payno, in Soc, Uex. Geog,, Boletin,2Aa ^poca, torn, i., 
 pp. 717-19. 
 
8EPULCHRE8 IN OAJACA. 
 
 benches,' like troughs, upon which lay the bejowelod 
 skeletons, and here and there were niches occupied 
 by idols. Another was a stone vault, with plastered 
 walls, arranged like tiit former; a stone block closed 
 the entrance." Some authors Htate that when the 
 flesh was consumed, the l>ones were taken out and 
 placed in graves in the houses or in the temples; 
 this may, however, only have applied to certain 
 chiefs, for Burgoa found skeletons, as we have seen, 
 in the caves which he explored. Every year, on the 
 anniversary of the birth of the last defunct lord, not 
 on that of his death, great ceremonies were held in his 
 honor." Like the Aztecs, they believed that the soul 
 wandered about for a number of years before entering 
 into perfect bliss, and visited its friends on earth once 
 a year." On the "« of that day the house was pre- 
 pared as if for a festive occasion, a quantity of choice 
 food was spread upon the table, and the imnates went 
 out with torches in their hands, bidding the spirits 
 enter. They then returned and squatted down round 
 the table with crossed hands and eyes lowered to the 
 ground, for it was thought that the spirits would be 
 offended if they were gazed upon. In this position 
 they remained till morning, praying their unsr.en vis- 
 itors to intercede with the gods in their favor, and 
 then arose, rejoiced at having observed due respect for 
 the departed. The food, which the spirits were sup- 
 posed to have rendered sacred by inhaling its virtue, 
 was distributed among the poor, or deposited in some 
 out-of-the-way place. During the day further cere- 
 monies, accompanied by offerings, were made at the 
 temples, and a table was spread for the priests." 
 
 " Geog. Descrip., torn, i., pt ii.. fol. 160-1, torn, ii., pt ii., fol. 320. 
 
 T* Claviqcro, Storia Ant. del MeJisico, torn, ii., pp. 98-9; Ilerrera, Hist. 
 Gen., dec. lii., lib. iii., cap. xiii. ; Explicacion del t'oiiex Telleriuno-Bemrn- 
 sin, in Kingshorough's Mex. Antiq., \o\. v., p. 130; lipiegaziotte delle Tavolt 
 del Codice Mexieano (Vaticano), in Id., p. 193; Erasteur de Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., pp. 22-4. 
 
 "i^ 'Au douzifeme mois dc Tunnde zapot^que.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, iii., p. 23. 
 
 76 Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., torn, ii., pt ii., fol. 392-3; Brasseur de Bour- 
 
624 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 The Nahiias were physically a fine race. They are 
 described by all the old writers as being tall," well- 
 formed, and of an olive or light copper color; as hav- 
 ing thick, black, coarse, though soft and glossy hair, 
 regular teeth, low, narrow, retreating foreheads,™ black 
 eyes, scant beards,^' and very little hair on their 
 
 v I 
 
 honrg. Hist. Nat. Civ., toin. iii., |i]). 'J3-4. A(l(]itioiiul .eferences to fn- 
 nurnl ceremonies arc: Vn/tia, lliitt. Ant. Mn'., tuin. i., p. 238, toin. ii., jiji. 
 79, 231-2, 2J>8; ycfaiirrr't, Ttotvo M.x., jit li., i>\>. 1">, 25, 29; I'czozomoe, 
 Vninira. Mcx., in Kitigihorouqh'a Mix. Aiitiq., vol. ix., pp. 89-91, 98-9, 
 141-2, 178-9; Purchus'/n.s Pi/iinmcf, vol. iv., pp. 1(»2<K1(), 1138-9; llcmdli 
 Carcri, in C/iiiir/n'irn Col. ]'ui/ii<if.s, vol. iv., p. 514; Montuiins, Nieunr 
 Wicrfld, pf>. 2(J1 2; Ji'Ai'ity, //Amfruiue, toni. ii., j>. 09; Ai/air, Amrr. 
 Intl., p. 21/; Touriiii, Jlixt. ({en., toni. iii., ]»p. 9-10; Iklajxirte, licisiii, 
 toni. .<., pp. 318-23; I.riioir, ParalUh: pp. 11-13, 28, 3(); Noiinllrn Anna frit 
 tffn I'oi/., 1824, toni. x.xiv., pp. 137-8; Fraim/iam^s World in Miiiiatiirr, 
 vol. ii., p. 19; Mit/irr, Amcrik(mi.irhc Unrliiiioiirn, p. 666; I'imvnlcl, 
 Mi'iii. nohrr la Jiaza liidiiji'na, pp. 64-5; Varbajal EnpiHosa, Hist, Mrx., 
 toni. i., pp. 234, 559-64, torn, li., pp. 375, 604; Jirassciir de liourhinirq, 
 Uixt. Nat. Civ., toni. ii., jip. 424-5, toni. iii., pp. 407-8, 453, 520-3, 528-9, 
 569-74; Carli, Carton, lit i., p. 107; Mnltc-ltrini, Precis de la Oiog., toni. 
 vi., p. 45<); Sinwn^a J'en Tribes, pp. 275-6; JHoiiijlare, Resumi, p. 32; 
 t'ointer'.s Hist. N.Aiiicr., vol. ii., p. 163; liaril, Mcxique, p. 203; Jiiissicnr, 
 I/hiiiiiirr .\[fx., j)p. 147-9; Jianh-iii</sHist. Rcsearrhcs, pp. 381-4; liroirmirs 
 Ind. ilare.t, jt. IHi; Klfiiiiti, Cidtiir-Gcachic/ite, toin. v., pp. 31, 49-53, 77, 
 184; Carhajal, Jti.inirso, p. .S7. 
 
 " Kxcept the Za|K>t('i'i», wlio, CiirlHijiil Espinosa says, were of low stature 
 and Itroitd-shoiiltlercti. Hist. Mex., toni. i., p. 245. 
 
 '" (loniara wiys tliev liiul wide forelieauH. Coiiq. J/cx., fol. 317. 'La 
 fortiia, o li};uni de las (^iIh-^mis, comnninente las tienen jmipiiirionadas il los 
 I'liorpoH, y h loH otro8 iiiiiMii))i'os de b\, y dcreelias; ai^niioH hm tienen cm- 
 pinadiis, v Ihh frentoH niiadradas, y llaiiaH; otroB (coiiio win estos Mexica- 
 noH, y alKiKioH del J'irii) las ti-niiin, y tienen de niejor forma, al^^o di; 
 lici'liiira de .Martiilo, o Navio, que es la niejor forma do toilas.' Torqiiemai'a, 
 Miiiiarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 5S2-3. 'Tlie Aztee skulls are dcsrrilied as lieiiig 
 reiuarkalile for tiie shortiu'sM of their axis, their hir;^!' Ihitteiied oecijiut ob- 
 liipU'Iy triineatcd lichind, the Iiei;r|il of the HOiiiicirciilar line of the teiii- 
 plen, and the sliorliicss and trapezoiilal form of the parietal jda'ie. They 
 present an elevation or rid-;!' alou^ the sa;;ittal suture; the base ot the sk'.ill 
 IS very short, mid llie fare Mli}{litly prognathic, as anioii<; the Moii;;ol-lial- 
 iiiiics. Tiiey liear a stroti},' uiialojxy to tiie skulls of a I'eruviati Mracl yce- 
 jiiudi delineated hy Morton ' Fosti'r's Prc-Hisf. Kacci, p. .126. 'The ahorigi- 
 nal Me\i('ans of our own time are of jjood stature and well jiroportioiied i.; 
 all their limiis. They have narrow foreheads, hiaek eyes, while, well-set, 
 r(V'ular teeth, thick, coarse and ^^'los.xy Ivlack hair, thin heards, and are iii 
 •rciicral wilhout any hair on their Ie;;s, thi;{hs, or nrins. Their skin is (dive 
 coi.iured, and many line youii<; women may be seen anions them with ex- 
 tremci.- lij,'ht complexions. I'lieir senses are very aeute, more es|ieciully 
 tliiit of sij-iit, whiih they enjoy unimpaired to the most aflvmiced ajre.' 
 Fiiliiiir's Hum. Rare, p. 4."). For remarkson Mexican ('riinia, ilescriptions 
 and measurements of skulls with cuts, see Morton's Crania Anirv., ]i\>. 144- 
 7, l.">_'-7, 231-3, 257, and plates xvi-xviii.', lix-lxi. 
 
 *9 Accord inj,' to llerrera. Hist. Urn., (Loud. 1726,) vol. iv., p. 125, and 
 nrasseur de llourbourj;, Uisl. Sat. Civ., toni. iii., p. 35, the Miztees hod 
 long licards. 
 
PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES. 
 
 bodies. Their senses were very acute, especially that 
 of sij^ht, which they enjoyed unimpaired to the most 
 
 I riTi_ 
 
 advanced age.* Iheir bodies they kept in training 
 by constant exercise. They were wonderful runners 
 and leapere, and, as we have seen, some of their ath- 
 letic and acrobatic feats were looked upon by the con- 
 querors as nothing short of the work of the devil. It 
 was no unusual thing to meet with people who from 
 their color could scarcely be distinguished frt- r* Euro- 
 peans. The people of Michoacan enjoy the reputa- 
 tion of having been the tallest and handsomest among 
 the Nahuas.** The women of Jalisco found great 
 favor in the eyes of the reverend Father Torquemada. 
 He was shown one there, he says, who might be con- 
 sidered a miracle of beauty; indeed, so fair was her 
 skin, so well ])roportiouod her Ivody, and so regular 
 her features, that the most skillfui portrait-painter 
 would have been put to it to do her justice.** De- 
 formed people were very uncommon; indeed, as we 
 have seen, their rarity made them valuable as objects 
 of curiosity, and kings and princes kept collections 
 of them.^ 
 
 hcv 
 
 •il 
 
 al- 
 
 ft, 
 
 in 
 
 ivc 
 
 (■\- 
 
 ally 
 
 ■TO.' 
 
 8" 'En lo8 SentidoA extcriores (cotno son los dc cl Vfer, Ok, Oler, y Gus- 
 tar) loM alcunvuu iidiiiirultleN; jioniuu \hn nuii <lc lejoH, y no vhuu dt> Anto- 
 jos, si III) Hon niui pocos, dcspiies <|ue Ioh liun visto, en niiuHtniH KspuAolcH, 
 y OHO us on In vejez, y tiencn coinnnnitMito los ojos Uuemis, y liernuisos, oien 
 niiu'lio, !iiiel(>ii taiiibicn (|iiul(|nier oumu >; niiii lojos; lo niisino es ul (!usto; 
 cl Sentitlo d(>l tacto, coninnnicnti c.s <iet; 'tido, lo iiuni sc verilica en ullos, 
 ]Mir<pie ([ualiiuier cosu, ijne pucd'V lust<niurlos, conio es frio, ualor, u^otes, <> 
 otra exterior atliecion, ios ani^e niui fat-ihnente, y en niueiko jjrado, y qual- 
 (I'.iiera enferniedad los adel^ji.^i', mas presto los enllaqneee, y inata, (jne ii 
 tiira Nacion, asi Kspafiola, eomo otra al^^una, eonio es notorio, h toilos itm 
 •(lie los <-onoemnoH, y son |Mira Mufrlr niui pouo truUajo.' Torquviiuuln, Mo- 
 iiiirq. flit/., toni. ii., p. 580. 
 
 "' li'diiiiiiiiif, Cniti, Mi'rhoar.nn, MS., j». 5(); llmnnrn, Cmiq. Mrj\, fol. 
 218; Tiiiujio'ituftfi, Mii.iirq. Iiid., ttnn. i., p. ."{37, toni. iii., p. 332; limsscur 
 ill! Hdiirliiiiiri), ifi.tt. Xitt. Cir., toni. iii., |>. 57. 
 
 "** lie adds further: ' Y esto |auni{ue no en tanto cxtrenio) corre, nini en 
 pMieral, por todos eMto.s lleinos, y eu es])ei.'ial en a<(U(d de Xalisco, en la 
 Nacion, ((ue llamai Cocn, y Teeucx, <[ue son los Toiuiltecos, v por ach en 
 lii de 'I'laxealla, y ')tras niuelias, <|ue por eseusar enfado, eallit. Momirq. 
 lull., foni. ii., p. 582; see also foin. i., p. .S3i). 
 
 *•' 'Sonovi cos! rari i defornii, <'lie tutti (jue^fli Sjta^rnuoli, e Creoj;!!, clio 
 ncl 17t>H. vennero dal Messieo in Italia, reslarono allora, e sono anehe ojj- 
 (.'idi niaravi;;liati <Iair osservarc nclle (Mttii di questa coltissinia |H>nisola uu 
 «i t;ran nuniero di ciechi, di f{obl);, di zoppi, d'attratti e<-.' ('liifiitvro, Sloria 
 .•lilt, del Mi'.siiirii, toni. iv., p. ir>3. Sc« farther, eoneerniiiK the physical 
 Vol. II. 40 
 
626 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 I \ - 
 
 ^Hli 
 
 The character of the Nahiias, althouji^h the state- 
 ments of the best authors are nearly unanimous con- 
 cerning it, is in itself strangely ciifitradictory. We 
 are told tiiat they were extremely frugal in their 
 habits, tliat wealth had no attractions for them, yet 
 we find them trafficking in the most shrewd and care- 
 ful manner, delighting in splendid pageants, gorgeous 
 dresses, and rich armor, and wasting their substance 
 in costly feasts; they were tender and kind to their 
 children, and solicitous for their welfare, yet the pun- 
 ishments they inflicted upon their offspring were cruel 
 in the ^.-xtreme;*^ they wer^ mild with their slaves, 
 and ferocious with their cajjtivew; they were a joyous 
 race, fond of feasting, dancing, jesting, and innocent 
 anmsements, yet they delighted in human saciitices, 
 and were cannibals; they possess*^! a well-advanced 
 civilization, yet every action of their lives was influ- 
 enced by gross superstition, Ur a religion inconceivably 
 dark and bloody, and utterly without one redeemin/ 
 feature; they were brave warriors, and terrible in w>«f. 
 yet servile and submissive to thtir Hiperiors; tli- v 
 had a strong imagination and, in strtit' iii»<tancex, go<Hl 
 taste, yet they represented their g«idM as monsters, 
 and their religious myths and historical legends are 
 absurd, disgunfing, and puerile. 
 
 That the NahunK were a most ingenious people in 
 abundantly proven by their work as well as by tin* 
 statements of those wlw knew them. It has been 
 
 pcciiliuritic)' of the Naluiax and earlier itcoplcH: Ixtlilxorhifl. Ri-lariuiirs, 
 111 h'i)i</»t>jritiiff/i's Mij-. Aiifitf., vol. i.\., \t\>. 32C, li'Mt-f', 341, M4-^. 'M*'>; 
 Vi'ftti'frrf, Tviilni Mf.i\, tulii. li., 1». 12; ({iniiara, Coiiq. Mij-.. M 37. 44, 
 {K), 31>i, Sahnf/nii, liml. <ifii., toiii. iii., lib. x., jt. 112, lit), 13'2; Torqiir- 
 niiiita, MiiiKirt/. Intl., toiii, i., jip. .S7, fil, '2.')5, t<»iii. ii., pp. 580-S3; ('urlix, 
 Cnrfim, toiii. i., p. '23; Vcijtiii, Hut. Ant. MrJ., toiii. i., pp. l43-t), toiii. ii., 
 p. 5; Ikrrerti, IUhI. (ifii., <ler. ii., lib. x., cuii. .\ix.; (/n'ri/o, Jli.tt. ilni , 
 torn, iii., p. 4!)9; Cfiirii/n-i). Storia Ant. del Afexm'ro, toiii. i., pp. ilH-l!(, 
 tiiiii. iv., pp, l(il-7<i; lir/tttioiir fatta per rii iffnfir/iuoiiio <til Siijii'ir fi'f- 
 Hondo <'fttit'iti\ ill 11)1 III imio, ^nvignlioni, Unn. iii., fol. 3(M; limssmr </<• 
 lionrlionrg, Ui-st. Xtit. fir., foiii. i., p. 282, toiii. ii., pp IH7, IW, tmii. iii., 
 p. ST); Curhajn/ Exiiinosn. Hint. Mrr,, toiii. i., pp. 1K>, 24."), torn, ii., pp. :t'.'<i. 
 487; ftiitmix, Ril., 2(U' Kx|hmI., ji, 25; (iordon's Hint, mid (iioif. Mnn., pp. 
 71-2; Ihllon'* Hist. Mr.r., p. 4ft; Afiicffrrtjor's I'rwjirsH of Ainer., vol. i., 
 p. 21; I'duftrr'n His:. \. Anier., vol. ii., p. 103. 
 •* Sec this volume, p. 242. 
 
chai:acter of the nahuas. 
 
 said that they were not inventive, but this Clavigero 
 indijjfnantly denies.** It is certain that their power of 
 imitation was very great,* and that they were very 
 (]uick to learn the new arts introduced among them by 
 the Spaniards." They were geiierous and remarkably 
 free from avarice.** They are said to have been very 
 temperate in their habits,*" but judging from the vjist 
 number of dishes served up at the tables of the rich, 
 and the stnngent laws which were necessary to j)re- 
 vcut drunkenness, this appears doubtful. Although 
 terrible to their enemies, and naturally warlike, they 
 were peaceable among themselves, and seldom quar- 
 reled. ! as Casas says that when a difficulty arose 
 between two of them, the disputants ditl not come at 
 oncc to blows, but contented themselves with such 
 |)or.sonal abuse as: "Go to, thou hast bad eyes; thou 
 
 '■ • ' aono niolti, clio iiccordano iii MesHicani iinii j^rnnde abiliti\ [wr 
 T,' -'' ■ oiH': iiiH lor I'lmtrintaiio <|iip11ii (lt!ir iiivt'iizione. Erri>r volgnro, 
 riir troviini smv'iitiio iiellii Storitt untU'U <li questii Nazionc' Sloriu Ant. 
 ilil Mrmtirii, t<i««. i , ]i. 1'2(). 
 
 «« H«-» K\\\v. Vi*!^!)^, Jip. 47r)-<i. 
 
 *" ' \a— iiinoH <t<- lim Iiuliiis iio Hon nioleHtos con ohHtiimcinn iii porfiu a la 
 f • Calti'ilit'u. I'oiiio In will loH .Morns y hidios; antes apruiidiMi ilc tal iiiaiu'ra 
 IttH vcr't^'lt'H d«* loM t'liriittianoit. iiuc ito Holaiiientc MaliMi con ollas, sino (mic 
 liis agirfuti. >• V* tauui «u farilida^i <iin' jiarect' <|ue «e law Ikmu-ii. .\|irvnii(>n 
 max presto i|iif V— iiifios Ks|mftok>s; y con mas contonto los Articiilos ilc la 
 l''c por su on^M, \ las dciiias oracioiu's do la doclrinaChristiaiia, rctciiiciido 
 CM la inciiiori» liehiientc lo (|iu' se leu cnsefia.' iMriln I'adilhi, Jli.il. Fnit/. 
 lf< r , p. 1^. "Il n'ctait rien (jue 1»* Indi'Mis n'apprisscnt avec uiic rapidit6 
 Mirprenanto, d s'il arrivait (nudum* mmvcHU metier tloiit ils n'eiMsenf au- 
 ciiiie I iiiinaissM.iice, ils H'aiipli<|uaieiit a \e voir faire avec taut d'intelligence, 
 i|iic. iiial;;r6 les soins de I ouvrier a leur cacher miii M-cref , ils le lui eulevai- 
 ciii ail isnit de <juel<jiw« jourw. ' Branstur de Bourhouri/, iliat, Nat. Civ., 
 lidii. iv u 728. 
 
 ** 'IV* rt«iy ladrones, mentiroHos, y liol};a/.aneH. La fcrtilidad de la 
 tierra d*""**' -••usar tuiila |K're/a, o (tor no serelloscodieiosos.' (iniiinin. Cuiiif. 
 M' .!•., fid. 'A\ '. ' l.a lilH-ialita e lo staccainento da <|iialsisiaintcressc soiio dci 
 priiici|wli MitriWiiti del lorn caratteiv. L'i»ri< iioii lia presso i Messicani 
 liiMa <|iiella sriiiia, die (.'ihIc iiresso altri. Daniio Mii/a dispiacere ouello, 
 ■ I If M priM-ai riano coll soniniaiatica. (.^uesto JoiosiiiiiMiiiento dairintcrcKse, 
 ''I d |HH'o aiiiore, die portano a i|nei die ;;li ^oxiTiiaiio, ii fa rifiiitaie i|U(dIo 
 filidie, a ciii Hono da essi costretti, e uuesta •' Mppmito la taiito esap-nita 
 l>i>;ri/ia deifli Aiiiericaiii ' Cluriijiro, Slorm Aiit. i/i/ MrK.sim. fom. i., jip. 
 1-1 -'J. 'Kstavan iilirei* de la eiifenn«M|ad de la codicia, y no |M'iisaiiaii en la 
 vaiiidad did oro, y plata, ni lia/ian entiniacion dello.' iMvitn, Tmlrn Krlr.i., 
 toiii. i., p. 18. 'Se;;iin 111 que ai|iiella edad jieriiiile, son iiicliiiadissimos it 
 «cr lilH-ralcR. Tanto iiionta <|iie lo <|im' >!■ les da, se de m \no como h inn- 
 liiiis: por(|iH' lo que viio recilK', se re]iartc liiejfo entre todos,' iHiriUi J'li- 
 dill,,, II,. if. I,„(l \l,.r . p i:«l. 
 
 "' Tlie most soIht peopU" known. Hi-hitioiufutln per m fffntiVhiiomo 
 'III SiffHur Fernuiido Cortetf. in liiniiiuiio, yarignlivni, toni. iii., j). 304. 
 
628 
 
 THE NAHUA NATIONS. 
 
 art toothless;" or they threw handfuls of dirt in each 
 other's faces and then separated and washed them- 
 selves. On rare occasions they pushed and elbowed 
 each other, or even had a scuffle, in which hair was 
 pulled out, clothes were torn, and bloody noses re- 
 ceived, but deadly weapons were never used, nor even 
 worn except by soldiers on duty. The same writer 
 relates that two women were put to death by order of 
 the king of Tezcuco for fighting in the public market- 
 
 {)lace, a scandalous outrage upon public decency, the 
 ike of which had never been heard of before. He 
 says, further, that when two young men became enam- 
 ored of the same woman, or when one carried off 
 the other's mistress, the rivals were allowed to fight 
 a duel for the possession of the woman. The ct)mbat 
 did not take place, however, until the army went 
 forth to war, when upon the first engagement they 
 sought out each other, and fought with their weapons 
 until one was vanquished.*" They seem to have been 
 very strict and jealous in all matters relating to their 
 women. "' 
 
 The Tlascaltecs were great lovers of liberty, and 
 were always ready to fight for it; they were, besides, 
 quick to take oftence, otherwise they are said to liavo 
 been of a peaceable, domustic disposition, content to 
 stay at home and listen to or tell stories in their own 
 
 M Liis Crtsas, in Kmgsboromh\i Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 124-5. 
 
 " 'Son ccloHisHiiiioH, y assi lus aitorrenu inucho.' Gomani, Cuiiq. Mix., 
 fol. 317. We have seen In a former chiipter, that Nemhiialcoyotl mit his 
 tlcuroMt Hon to death for H])eaking lewdly to hifl father's concubine, bee tiiix 
 volume, pp. 447, etneq. ; see further concerning the character of tiie Mex- 
 ican!s, alHiut whom the a)M>vc remarks, though doubtless apidlcubic to many 
 other of the Nahua nations, arc more partiuuhirlv made: Esplieacioii i/f In 
 Volrecion tic Mcndoza, In Kinffuhuroiigh'ii Mex. Antiq., vol. v., p. 4(1; Aro.stit, 
 Hist, ilf Ins Yiid., np. 458-9; DiUila Padilia, Hist. Frnil. Mix., w. l.S!», 
 'i70; Ton/nrinnfla, Monarq. Ind., tom. III., p. 2.32; Gomiirn, ('om/. Mr.r., w. 
 317-lS; /''i/illii, Conq. N. Galicia, MS., p. 8; Znrita, In Kingsboroiajh's Mix. 
 Aiifi'/., M>1. viii., p. 2.15; Tezozomor, Crdnirn Mrx., In Id., vol. ix.. ji. 107; 
 Lnn Caxtm, hist. Ajnilngdka, MS., cap. xilv., xlv., l.wii., cxl. ; ClnvKi'm, 
 Sfitria Aiif. del Mcmco, tom. I., pp. 119-23, torn, iv., pp. 177-2t)2; Smkii, 
 SiKuiicr in Pfru, tom. ii., p. 17; liraHscur de liourhourq. Hist. Xal. Cir., 
 toiii. iv., i)p. 727-.30, 810; Edinbiirrj/i Jirneu; 1867; klemm, Cidtiiv-Hi- 
 .irhiclitr, tiiin. v., iij). 8-10; Espiiiosn, ITiat. Mex., tom. i., p|>. 90-3; Gorduu'-i 
 Hist, tind Grog. Mrni., p|» 7.1-C; Ci'tfcalier, Mcxiqiir, p[>. 03-4. 
 
CHARACTER OF THE NAHUAS. 
 
 629 
 
 families, an amusement of which they were very fond. 
 They are further described as truthful, just, frugal, 
 and industrious." 
 
 The Cholultecs, so celebrated for their pottery, are 
 reported to have been very peaceful, industrious, and 
 shrewd traders, yet brave withal, and capable of de- 
 fending their rights.®^ The Zapotecs were a tierce 
 people, always at war with their neighbors.** The 
 Miztecs are said by Herrera to have been the bravest 
 people in all New Spain; the same writer asserts that 
 they were lazy and improvident, while Espinosa speaks 
 of them as an industrious race." The natives of Vera 
 Cruz are spoken of as affable and shrewd.®* The peo- 
 ple of Jalisco were witty and slothful, yet they will- 
 ingly carried burdens for the Spaniards, Herrera tells 
 
 ^ The Tarascos were exceedingly valorous, great 
 
 us 
 
 liars, and industrious.* 
 
 • For the character of tlie Tla8calt«c8 see: CorUa, Cartas, p. 68; Co- 
 margo. Hist. Tlax., in Xouvellcs Annalrf dot Voy., 184.S, toiii. xcviii., jtp. 
 197-'itM», toiii. xcix., pp. 1.S6, 149, ir)l; Mot<„.:»iti, Hint. IikHoh, in Imzhnl. 
 ceta. Col. de Doc., toiii. i., p. 7(>; (Somnra, (.,•/</. Mr.e., fol. S7; Alrnfo, 
 Ih'rr.., torn, v., p. 15S; Hereaia if Sarmknlu, Svnnvii, \t. 88; l.rtlilj'itrliitl. 
 Hist. Ghieh., in Kingsborough'.s .ifrx. Antiq., vol. ix., p. 25(4; I'ltn- Mnrlip', 
 •Ice. v., lib. i. ; Prndt, Cartas, pp. 175-fi; Varliajal Ks/iiiinaa, Hist. Mix.. 
 toni. ii., pp. 121, 129, 511; Khmm, Ciiltiir-descliirhte, torn, v., pp. 186-7; 
 Bussierre, L^Eiiifiire Mx., ]>. 230; Dillon, Hist. Mrx., ji. 7. 
 
 ^ Oviedo, Hist. Gcii., toin. iii., p. 499; Gomnrn, Com/. J/cr., fol. 'X>; 
 Pradt, Cartas, p. 17(5; lirassriir dr lioiirlioiinj, Hist. Xnt. tJir.. torn, iv., 
 1>. l.W; Carhajal Es/tiiiosii, Hist. Mrx., toiii. i., \i. 259, toiii. ii., p. 1"JI, .S,19. 
 
 9* Herrera, Hist. Gni., lU-c. iii., lit>. iii., i-ap. xiv. ; Ihivila I'at/idn, Hiit. 
 Fviid. Mi'x., p. 548: Ihln/nirfr. Ri'isrn. toin. x., p. 183. 
 
 ^Herrera, Hist, (iiii., dcr. iii., lil». iii., nin. \iii. ; Cnrfiajiil K.ff)iiiosa, 
 Hist. Mex.. torn, i., p. 244; ISrasseiir de lioiirboiinj. Hist. Xul. Cir., tnni. 
 iii., p. .35. 
 
 9* Gomnra, Hist. Tnd., fol. 57. 
 
 '^ Herrera, Hist. Gni., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. ii. 
 
 *8 lieaninout, Criiii. .Mer/ioaeaii, MR., pp. .Il-S; Torqvemada, Monnrq. 
 II. i., p. .337, foin. iii., p. ;W2; oriedo, 
 IxflilxoehitI, Hist. Chii'h., in Ki)iif.itnir<iiiiih's Mex. Aii/ii/., vol, ix.. p .S08; 
 
 Ind., toni. 
 
 Ifist. Gen., toni. iii., |<. ."ilLS; 
 
 Herrera, Hi.it. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iii., cap. x. ; Gomiira, Cmn/. Mix., fol. 
 218; Hrasseur de fioiirhoiirg, Hi-it \al. <'ii-., toni. iii., iij). .")ti 7: ('irlm/id 
 Es/iino.ia, Hi.it. Mex., toni. i., p. 291, torn, ii., p. 595; Slultr-Iinui, I'rieis 
 de la G(og., torn, vi., p. 46& 
 
! 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 GOVEHNMENT, SOCIAL CLASSES, PROPERTY, AND LAWS OF THE 
 
 MAVA NATIONS. 
 
 Introductory Remarks— Votan's Emhre— ZamnA's Reign— Thk 
 RovAL Families of Yucatan; Cocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas, 
 AND CiiELEs— Titles and Order of Succession— Classes of 
 NoiiLEs — The QuickC- CAKciiiyuEL Empire in Guatemala - 
 The Ahau Ahpoi* and Succession to the Throne— PRivii.EciEO 
 Classes -(;ovehnmext of the Provinces— The Royal Culxcil 
 —The Ciiiapanecs— The Pipiles- Nations of Ni(;ara(jua The 
 Maya Priesthood — Plebeian Classes — Slaves— Tenike of 
 Lands— Inheritance of Property — Taxation— Debtors and 
 Creditors — Laws and THE Administration of Justice. 
 
 My reasons for dividing the Civilized Nations of 
 our territory into two groups, the Nahuas and the 
 Mayas, whose institutions are separately descrihtid, 
 have been stated in the General View, to which a 
 preceding chapter has been devoted. In the same 
 place' was given an outline sketch of the nations com- 
 posing each group, and their mutual relations,* which 
 may serve as an introduction to the remainder of thJH 
 volume. Without further preliminary remarks 1 may 
 therefore enter at once upon the subject-matter ni" 
 this second division of my topic, a description of 
 Maya institutions, or the manners and customs of the 
 civilized nations whose home was south of the isthmus 
 
 1 See pp. 81-123 of this volume, aiul eHpeuiolly pp. Il4-Si, 
 natioiM. 
 
 (630) 
 
 the Miiya 
 
VOTAN'S MAYA EMPIRE. 
 
 631 
 
 of Tehuantepec. It will be evident to the reader 
 from what has been said that this account must be 
 not only much briefer, but also less complete and sat- 
 isfactory than that of the Nahua nations. Concern- 
 ing the Aztecs and kindred peoples about the lakes 
 of the Mexican valley, as we have seen, a large 
 amount of information has been preserved; I have 
 consequently been able, in treating of the northern 
 peoples, to take tliese nations of the valley as a 
 nucleus, adding in their proper places such fragments 
 of knowledge as are extant respecting tribes outside 
 the limits of Anilhuac. In the south, fragmentary 
 information is all we have; there is no nucleus round 
 which to group it; the matter of the following chapters 
 will, therefore, be very similar in its nature to what that 
 of the preceding would have been, had 1 undertaken to 
 describe the Tarascos, Totonacs, Zapotecs, etc., with- 
 out the Aztecs. In this branch t)f my subject I shall 
 follow as nearly as jjossible the same order as in the 
 preceding, bringing together into one chapter, how- 
 ever, the topics before treated in several. 1 shall 
 also include the civilized nations of Nicaragua in this 
 division, aJthough one at least of tlieni was of Nahua 
 blood amtii huiguage. In the days of ancient Maya 
 glory when Votan and his successors reigned over 
 mighty and perhaps confederated empires in Chiapas, 
 (ruatemala. and Yucatan, the kings ])layed roles to a 
 great extent n\ythical, being pictured by tiadition as 
 combining the ciiaracter and powers of legislators, 
 teachers, higli-priests, and monarclis. Details of the 
 system by which they governed ai-e altoi.'-other want- 
 ing,* but after a long term of prosj>erity this govern- 
 ment in (xuatemala Jind ( 'hiapas bei-ame weakened 
 and at last practically destroyed; the country was 
 
 * AlthiMiiih RriiHHeur iJ»» BoiirlmurK, on the authority of mrnte of bin 
 ori^'iiiiil MSS. {H>rhii|iN, staUw tliat XiliiiUm in the hci;;ht of itn ^Hory wuh 
 riilcH hy tkirteon jirincos, two of wimm wer»' kiii^M, tlic iHtToiid iK'iny; sub- 
 oniiiuttv to the fiixt; uii<t u^oo that th«Tf wu'< ii council of twelve, prissiilcil 
 iivi-r liy tlic kin;;. Hu uIho incntiouH a xiicccNKion uf tMiveuteea kiugx after 
 Votan. Ilisf. Xdt. Cir., tuuL L. pp. HZ, 123, a5-7. 
 
an THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 divided among petty chiefs, concerning whose rule 
 even less is known than of that of their predecessors, 
 but who not improbably based their forms of au- 
 thority on the ideas handed down from Votan. From 
 these governmental relics there sprung up in later 
 years, under new and perhaps foreign leaders, the 
 Quiche and C.akchicpiel empires, of whose govern- 
 ment some details are known, since these nations 
 came into direct contact with the Spaniards at the 
 conquest. Leaving these nations for the present, [ 
 will »{)eak first of another branch of the primitive 
 Maya empire. 
 
 Yucatan received its culture traditionally from 
 Zamnd, who came from abroad, governed the Mayas 
 through a long life, and loft the throne as an heritage 
 to his successors. He was doulitloss a comi)ani(»n or 
 a descendant of Votan, and founded institutions simi- 
 lar to those of the western kingdoms whence ho 
 came. The government and institutions estaldislied 
 in Yucatan njot to a certain extent the same fate as 
 those of Chiapas; that is, the country was finally split 
 up by civil wars into numerous petty indepoiulent 
 sovereignties; but this divisi«m was at a much later 
 date than that of Votan 's western empire, — not long 
 preceding the Spanish concjuest — and the govermnent 
 of the independent chieftains was substantially that 
 of their ancestors, many of whom claimed to be of 
 the royal family founded by Zamnd. Consequently 
 some scraps of information are extant resj)ecting the 
 form of government, as well as other institutions, in 
 Yucatan ; and from these we may form a faint idea of 
 the earlier institutions of Guatemala and Chiapas. 
 
 Zanmii, like Votan, united in himself the qualities 
 of ruler, law-giver, educator, and priest; he founded 
 the city of Mayapan, and divided the whole country 
 ainong the chiefs of the leading families who came 
 with him, making them vassals of the king whom he 
 left on the throne at Mayapan. The nobles of the 
 royal family were of course the highest, a family 
 
THE UOYAL FAMILIES OF YUCATAN. 
 
 033 
 
 which was perhaps that known later as the Cocomes, 
 and which lasted to the couiiujuf of the Spaniards 
 Each of the vassal ])riuces had to live in the capital 
 during a certain jmrt of every year; and Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg, following Ordoilez, thinks that Mayapan 
 may have formed a confederacy with Tulhd, and l^a- 
 lenque in Chiapas.' 
 
 Another royal family, the Tutul Xius, sprung up 
 later and liecame very powerful as allies and vassals 
 of the king reigning in Mayapan ; and still another 
 family, the Itzas, built up a strong government of 
 theocratic nature at Chichen Itza. Then came Cu- 
 kulcan with some new religious teachings — a famous 
 personage bearing a striking resemblance in his tra- 
 ditional career and in the etymology of his name to 
 the Quetzalcoatl of the Nahuas. Being finally called 
 to the throne at Mayapan, he formed a confederacy, 
 making the princes of the Tutul Xius and Itzas his 
 associate moiiarchs, subordinate nominally in rank but 
 practically independent except where mutual assistance 
 was required. Cukulcan I jft the throne to the Coco- 
 mes, seven of whom ruled during a period of great 
 prosperity, the succession being from father to son, 
 down to about the eleventh centuiy. Afterward tlie 
 Cocomes, becoming tyrannical, were deposed from 
 their higli position, Mayapan destroyed, and a new 
 confederacy established with the Tutul Xius at the 
 head, Uxmal being at first their capital, the Itzas 
 second, and the Cheles at Izamal third. The Tutul 
 Xiu rule .vas no less glorious than that of the Coco- 
 mes. They rebuilt Mayapan and made it once more 
 the capital, but tlie unfortunate city was again sacked, 
 this time by foreigners — perhaps tlie Qiii<'hL's in the 
 thirteenth century; and was finally destroycil in the 
 middle of the fifteenth century by the vassal lords of 
 the realm, who revolted, overthrew the Tutul Xiu dy- 
 nasty, obtained their complete independence, and ruled 
 
 ' Coffollmlo, Hist. !•'»«;., pp. 178-9; On/oilrz, Hist, tfcl cielo f/de la Tierra, 
 MS.; JJrHsseiirde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, i., pp. 78-80. 
 
684 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 each his petty province with sovereijfn power. This 
 was their condition when the Spaniards came, but be- 
 fore that time by civil war, and by famine and pesti- 
 lence also, OS tradition tells us, the power of the rulers 
 and the population of the country had been jjreatly 
 diminished and the ancient Maya glury had departed 
 forever. Shortly before the final destruction of the 
 monarchy a portion of the Itzas had left Chichen and 
 mii^rated southward to found a small but powerful 
 nation in what is now the province of Peten, belon*^- 
 iujuf politically to Guatemala. It is from traditionary 
 accounts of the kin<rdom under the Tutul Xius, and 
 from the meaj^re observations of the Spaniards in the 
 sixteenth century that our slij^ht knowledjje of Maya 
 institutions in the peninsula is gained. 
 
 The hij^hest title of the kinjjf at Mayapan was Ah- 
 tepal, which siijnifies in the Maya ton<^ue 'Majestic,' 
 or 'Aui^ust.' His power was absolute, but he rarely 
 acted in matters of importance without consultinjr liis 
 lords, and, in accordance with their advice and that of 
 the chief priests, he appointed all officials, secular and 
 relij^ious, in the kiiii^dom, possessing moreover the 
 right to organize all courts and to condemn to death 
 any of his subjects. The succession to the throne 
 was confined to the royal family, to the male line, and 
 to the sons of noble wives; the eldest son seems to 
 have been the acknowledged heir to the throne, and 
 Landa tells us that if the king died during the cliikl- 
 IkmkI of liis heir, then his eldest or most capal)le brother 
 ruled not only during the son's minority but during all 
 his own life ; and in case there were no brothers the 
 priests and nobles chose a suitable person to reign.* 
 
 * 'Si moriiiel Hcrior, aunqne Ic HUCCcdicHse cl liijo mayor, craii tticiiiprc 
 1(M (luiniiH liijos limy iioutudos, y nyiuhuliM y tenidos por Henoren.' Lnmhi, 
 Ri'ltirinti, p. 1 12. 'Si nuaiido et Hci'ior nioria no eran los liijos para rcjjir y 
 tenia lierinanoH, re;^ia dc los hcrinanoH cl mayor o cl moH (fcHcnliuvlto y al 
 Iicrctlero mostravan huh costiunhrcH y Kcstas para quando fnesHC homhrc y t's- 
 to« licnnanns, aiinqiic el creilero fiiesHc para regir, niandavan to<la hu vidn, 
 y nino avia licrnianoM, elcj^riaii los HacerdotcH y Kcntc principal un lionihre Hiilli- 
 cicnte para cllo.' Id., ji, 138. RrasHcur de Honrl>ourg, in Iuh Frciicli trans- 
 lation of this pussa}^, gives a ditterent meaning from what 1 ducni the cur- 
 
COIIIIT ETIQUETTE IN YUCATAN. 
 
 685 
 
 One author HiiealcM of tlie kiri<r an liavir)<]^ the rijij^ht 
 to appoint a council which Hhould naniu liiH huccuhhop, 
 and lieinesal muntiouH that in the province of Cani- 
 peche, a woman who came in the dnrct line of huc- 
 ccHHion received hi<ifh honorw, l)ut the mo8t capahle 
 of her male relativcH ruled the Htute." 
 
 Whenever the kin«( appeared in puhlic, he wa8 al- 
 wayH atten<led hy a larj^e company and wore a lonjf 
 white fiowinj^ rohe decorated with ornamentH of j^old 
 and precious stones, bracelets, a ma<;niHcent collar, 
 and sandals of ^old. His crown was a plain jjolden 
 circle somewhat wider on the forehead than behind, 
 and surmounted with a plume of (juetzal-feathers. 
 This bird was reserved for the king and highest no- 
 bles, death being the penalty, according to (Jrdonez, 
 for one of lower rank who should capture the bird or 
 wear its plumage. The monarch was borne on the 
 shoulders of his nobles reclining in a palanouin, shaded 
 by a feather canopy, and constantly fanned by attend- 
 ants of high rank. Any person who came into the 
 presence of the king or other high official, was ex- 
 pected to bring some gift proportioned t(j his means, 
 and Herrera informs us that the highest mark of re- 
 spect was to [)lace the right hand, anointed with spit- 
 tle, on the ground and then to rub it over the heart. 
 Villagutierre mentions without description a kind of 
 small throne among the Itzas, and states that the king 
 of this southern realm bore the title of ( janek, the name 
 of the leader of their migration. Our only knowlcilge 
 of the royal palaces of Yucatan is derived from their 
 examination, when more or less in ruins, by modern 
 explorers; consecjuently I refer the reader to the chap- 
 
 rcct one as piven in my text. He understands that the brother Bticcccdcd in 
 liny case. 'V,c nVtuient pas sett tiU (|ui MHcuediiicnt uu pouvcnuMiient, niuis 
 hicn I'uinu dc sch fr^rcH,' and also tliut the jierson apjMtinted l>v the pricHts if 
 there wuh no brother, ruled only durin;' the heir's minority, '|uh<[ii a hi inu- 
 jorit«5 de I'heritier,' all of which may lie very reasonable, but certainly is 
 not found in the Spanish text. 
 
 i 'Orjrnnisait les conscilsde la re1i);ion et de Tutat qui devaient, aprbs 
 lui, nominer son siiccesscnr.' lirn.surur de Itowbounj, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, 
 ii., p. 53-6; Reinesal, Hist. Vhyapa, p. 256. 
 
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G36 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 ter on Maya buildings for a general description of 
 these grand stone structures, and to another volume 
 of this work for a detailed account with illustrative 
 plates. 
 
 The nobility of the highest class belonged to mem- 
 bers of the royal families, the Cocomes, Tutul Xius, 
 Cheles, and Itzas, those of the reigning king's own 
 blood taking naturally the highest rank. Ahau was 
 the ordinary title of the princes, and Halach Winikel, 
 'most majestic men,' was a high title among the Tu- 
 tul Xius. From nobles of the royal families men- 
 tioned, governors of provinces, and all the highest 
 officials were chosen. Their positions were nominally 
 at the king's disposal, but practically they descended 
 hereditarily in the same manner as the royal power, 
 the king interfering with new appointments only on 
 extraordinary occasions. These rulers were almost 
 absolute in matters concerning their own provinces, 
 and exacted great honors, ceremonial attendance, and 
 implicit obedience from all their subjects; but they 
 we; J not exempt in matters of crime from the penal- 
 ties of the law, and were obliged to reside during a 
 part of each year in the capital, to render personal ser- 
 vice to the monarch, and to take part in the supreme 
 council by which he was guided in the administration 
 of public aifairs. They were, however, exempt from all 
 tribute except that of personal service, and lived on 
 the product of portions of the public domain assigned 
 them. Cogolludo tells us that the nobles of Maya- 
 pan were also required to perform certain services in 
 the temples, and to assist at the religious festivals. 
 They not only had the exclusive right to the govern- 
 ment of provinces, but also to the command of armies. 
 
 Nobles of a lower class, with the title Batab, gov- 
 erned cities, villages, or other subdivisions of prov- 
 inces. They were not of royal blood, or at least were 
 only connected with the reigning family thrruigh the 
 female branch. Their position was also practically 
 hereditary, although the heir could not assume his 
 
THE QUICHfi-CAKCHIQUEL EMPIRES. 
 
 687 
 
 inherited rank without the royal sanction. No gov- 
 ernment officials received any salary, but they Avere 
 obliged to maintain themselves and the poor and dis- 
 abled of their respective communities from the pro- 
 ducts of their inherited estates.* 
 
 The most powerful kingdoms in Guatemala at the 
 coming of the Spaniards were, that of the Quiches, 
 whose capital was Gumarcaah, or Utatlan, near the 
 site of the modern Santa Cruz del Quiche ; and that 
 of the Cakchiqutls, capital Iximche, or Patinamit, 
 near Tecpan Guatemala. These two nations were in- 
 dependent of and hostile to each other in the six- 
 teenth century, but they had been united in one 
 empire during the days of Guatemala's greatest glory, 
 their separation dated back only about a century, 
 and their institutions were practically identical, al- 
 though they were traditionally distinct tribes in the 
 more remote past. The same remark may be made 
 
 6 'Toilos los sefiores tenian cuenta con visitar, respetar, alegrara Cocom, 
 acompanaiulole y festejaiidole y aciulieiulo a el con los negocios arduos.' 
 Lanaa, Rclacion, p. 40. A kind of niayordonio called Caluac, whose budge 
 of office was a thicK short stick, was the agent through whom the lord per- 
 formed the routine duties of his position. lb. 'Concertavan las cosas, y 
 negocios principalmente de noche.' Id., p. 112. 'Fub todo el Ueyno de Yu- 
 catan, y sus Provini'ias, con el Nombre de Alayaphii, desde que los Indios 
 fneron a h\ y le poblaron, sujeto ii vn solo Key, y Sefior absoluto, con Go- 
 vierno Moiianjuico. No durb estopoco tiempo, sinopor muchos Afios.' ViU 
 laquticrre. Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 28. Among the Itzas Cortes was visited by 
 'el Canek, con treinta y dos Principales.' Id., p. 46. 'Despues Uanni el 
 Canek k Consejo t^ todos sus Capitanes, y Principales.' Id., p. 91. 'Vno, 
 como Ji modo, 6 forma de Trono pcqueno, en one el solia estar.' Id., p. 105. 
 'Vna Corona de Plumas, de varios colorcs.' I<1., p. 349. Yucatan 'regido 
 de Sefiores Particularos, que es el Estado de los Ueies: Governavanse por 
 Leies, y costumbres bucnus; vivian en Paz, y en Jnsticia, que es Argumento 
 de su Itueu Govicrno.' Torqi'onadu, Moiinrq. Iiid., toin. ii., p. 345. Brasseur 
 refers to Torquemada, lib. xi., cap. xix., on Vucutuu Government, Inittiiat 
 chapter relates wholly to Guatemala. 'Quando h>s Sefiores de la Ciudad 
 de Maya])iin dominaban, toda la ticrra Ics tribiitaba.' In later times they 
 attached much importance to their royal blood. Coifollndo, Hint. Yuc, p. 
 17;>. 'Dizese, que vn Sefior de la(.'iu<lad de Mayapan, cabe<;a de el Ueyno, 
 hizo niatar afrentosamcnte «\ vn hcrmano suyo, jjonjue corrompio vna don- 
 cdla.' Id., p. 182. See also on the system of government in Yucatau; 
 Hrrcra, Hist. Gen.., dec. ii., lib. iv., cap. vii., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii-iv.; 
 lii-nssriif de Bourboiirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 16-17, 38, 46, 5.3-6, 
 72; Las Cnsas, in Kiuifshoroiiiffi's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 147; Morrlet, 
 Voi/fifjfl, torn, i., pp. 182-4; Pinicntel, Mnn. sobrc In Baza Indiijcna, p. 27; 
 Carbajnl E.ijnnosit, Hist. Afcx., tom. i., p. 202; Tcriiaux-Comjmns, ui Xou- 
 relics A II naii's ties Voy., 1843, tom. xcvii., pp. 45-6, 146; Fancourt's Hist. 
 Yuc, pp. 55-6, 115-16. 
 
638 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 
 respecting the institutions of the other nations in 
 Guatemala which were wholly or partially independ- 
 ent of the powers mentioned above. All the abo- 
 riginal powers had greatly deteriorated by wars, one 
 with another, and their mutual hatred made their 
 defeat by foreigners possible, as had been the case in 
 the conquest of the Nahua nations farther north. 
 
 There is little doubt that the Quichd-Cakchiquel 
 peoples were direct descendants of Votan's subjects, 
 but the line of traditional history that unites the two 
 empires is broken at many points and cannot be satis- 
 factorily followed. There are evidences also of for- 
 eign, chiefly Nahua, influences in the molding of 
 Quiche institutions, exerted before or after the Toltec 
 era in Andhuac, probably at both periods. The tra- 
 ditional history of the Quichd empire for three or 
 four centuries before the Conquest, rests almost en- 
 tirely on manuscripts written in the native languages 
 with the Roman alphabet, which have only been 
 consulted by one modern writer. Into the labyrinth 
 of this complicated record of wars and political 
 changes I shall not attempt to enter, especially since 
 the general nature of Quichd institutions does not 
 seem to have been perceptibly modified by the events 
 recorded. 
 
 An aristocratic monarchy, similar in nearly every 
 feature to that I have described in Yucatan, seems to 
 have been the basis of Quiche government from the 
 first. All high positions, judicial, military, or sacer- 
 dotal were hereditary and restricted to noble families, 
 who tiaced their genealogy far back into the mythic 
 annals of the nations. Between noble and plebeian 
 blood the lines were sharply defined. The nobles 
 were practically independent and superior in their 
 own provinces, but owed tribute, allegiance, and mili- 
 tary aid to the monarch. At the time of Guatemala's 
 highest prosperity and glory, when King Qikab from 
 his throne in Utatlan ruled over all the country, the 
 monarch, if we may credit the traditional account, 
 
SUCCESSION TO THE QUICHfi THRONE. 
 
 made an effort to diminish the power of the nobles, 
 by conferring military commands and other high po- 
 sitions on the ablest men of plebeian blood. Thus a 
 new class of liobles, called Achihab was created. This 
 newly conferred power became, acting with the aliena- 
 tion of the old hereditary nobility, too great to be 
 restrained by the monarch who created it. The Achi- 
 hab became ambitious and insubordinate; they were 
 at last put down, but the dissolution of the empire 
 into several states was the indirect result of their 
 machinations. 
 
 Respecting the order of succession to the Quichd 
 throne Torquemada and Juarros state that the king's 
 brother was the king elect, and the direct heir to the 
 throne; the king's oldest son was the senior captain 
 and the next heir; and the latter 's first cousin, the 
 nephew of the king, was junior captain and third 
 heir. When the king died each heir was promoted 
 one degree, and the vacant post of junior captain was 
 filled by the nearest relative — loliose nearest relative 
 the authors neglect to say. Whoever may have been 
 elevated to the vacant position the whole system as a 
 regular order of succession would be a manifest ab- 
 surdity. Brasseur de Bourbourg agrees with the 
 authors cited and gives to the king, the elect, and 
 the two captains the titles of Ahau Ahpop, Ahau 
 Ahpop Camha, Nim Chocoh Cawek, and Ahau Ah 
 Tohil, respectively; but when the last position was 
 left vacant by the death of the king, the Abbe tells 
 us that "it was conferred upon the eldest son of the 
 new monarch," — that is, upon the same man who held 
 it before I Padre Ximenez implies perhaps that the 
 (^rown descended from brother to brother, and from 
 the youngest brother to a nephew who was a son of 
 the oldest brother. I have no authorities by the aid 
 of which to throw any light upon this confused sub- 
 ject; it is evident, however, that if the last^mentioned 
 system, identical with that which obtained among 
 some of the Nahua nations, be not the correct one, 
 
 
640 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 ! ; 
 
 M ' 
 
 ! I 
 
 nothing whatever is known of the matter in ques- 
 tion.' 
 
 All the authorities state that this remarkable sys- 
 tem of succession was established to prevent the power 
 from coming into the hands of young and inexperi- 
 enced men; and that an incompetent person in the 
 regular line could not succeed to the throne, but re- 
 tained throughout his life the rank to which he was 
 born. It is not clearly explained how the heir's com- 
 petency was decided upon, but it seems probable that 
 the matter was settled by the reigning king with the 
 advice of his council of princes. The king's children 
 by his first Avife were preferred above the rest, though 
 all received high honors. At Rabinal the Ahau, or 
 ruling prince, was regularly chosen by the nobles, from 
 the royal family, but was not necessarily a son or brother 
 of the last ruler. Among the Cakchiquels the suc- 
 cession alternated between two royal families. The 
 king's title was Ahpozotzil; the next heir from the 
 other branch bore the title Ahpoxahil; their eldest 
 sons, the elder of which became Ahpoxahil on the 
 king's death, had the titles Ahpop Qamahay and Ga- 
 lel Xaliil. Inferior titles were Galel Qamahay, Atzih 
 Winak, and Ahuchan Xahil, the bearers of which suc- 
 ceeded to the throne in default of nearer heirs. It 
 
 i 
 
 7 ' It was ordained that the eldest son of the king (that is, of the first king 
 who founded tiie nionarcliy) should inherit the crown; upon the second son 
 the title of Elect was conferred, as 1)eing the next heir to his elder brother; 
 tlie sons of the eldest son received the title of Captain senior, and those of 
 the second Captain junior. When the king died, his eldest son assumed 
 the sceptre, and the Elect became the immediate inheritor; the Captain 
 senior anccuded to the rank of Elecl;, the Captain junior to that of Captain 
 senior, and the next nearest relative to that of Captain junior.' Juarros, 
 Hint. Gmtt., pp. 188-9. 'Luego el Cnpitan menor, entraba i>or nutior, y 
 metian otro en el que avia vacado del Cu]iitan menor, «me oruinariamente 
 era el Pariente mas cercano.' Torqiie.mntla, Moiinrq. Jnd., torn, ii., pp. 
 338-41. 'Kcsstait alors la charge d'Aliau-Ali-Tohil; elle 6tait conferee au 
 Ills ain6 du nouveau monaruuc.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Cir., 
 torn, ii., pp. 547, 103, 496. 'Luego que el primero subi6 al reino, mand6 el 
 padre (the first king) que el segundo fuese capitain, y niand6 por ley, que 
 si fuesen cuatro, que el primero reinase, el segundo fuese como priiici|)c, 
 cl tercero cupltau general, y el cuurto capitan segundo, y que niuerto el 
 primero, rcinason todos por su 6rden, si se alcanzaseu en vitla. Note, 'Bieu 
 clara estil la dexi'endcncia de padres & hijos dc todos tres hermanos.' A7- 
 menez, Hist. Jiuf. Gnat., EhcoUos, pp. 195-C. 
 
CORONATION IN GUATEMALA. 
 
 641 
 
 will be noticed that this plan of succession is but little 
 clearer than that attributed to the Quiches." 
 
 The ceremonies of coronation in the kinordom of 
 Rabinal, and, so far as can be known, in the other king- 
 doms of Guatemala, consisted of an assemblage of all 
 the nobles at the capital, — each being obliged to attend 
 or send a representative — the presentation of gifts and 
 compliments to the new king, a discourse of congratu- 
 lation and advice addressed to him by one of the an- 
 cients, and finally a splendid feast which lasted several 
 days and usually degenerated into a drunken orgy. 
 The Quiches a' id Cakchiquels also bathed the new 
 king and anointed his body Avith perfumes before seat- 
 ing him on the throne, which was a seat, not described, 
 placed on a carpet or mat, and surmounted by four 
 canopies of feather- work placed one above another, the 
 largest at the top ; the seats of the three lower princes 
 already mentioned were also shaded by canopies, 
 three, two, and one, respectively. Whenever he ap- 
 peared in public the monarch was borne in a palan- 
 quin on the shoulders of the nobles who composed his 
 council." 
 
 The machinery of government was carried on in 
 the provinces by lieutenants of the king's appoint- 
 ment, and the monarch was advised in all matters of 
 state by a council of nobles. Juarros tells us that the 
 supreme Quiche council was composed of twenty-four 
 grandees, who enjoyed great privileges and honors, 
 
 8 Braaseur de Bourhourfi, If inf. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 549-50, 5.34, with 
 reference to Romun, Bcpub. de los Jndios, lib. ii., cap. viii. Titles in Atit- 
 lan. Ternaux-Comnans, Voy., s^rie i., torn, x., p. 416. 'Las Prouinciaade 
 Tazulatlan, getitc oelicoaa y braua, si bien con piilicia, porqiic viuian en 
 |>oblacionc8 rormadas, y gouierno de Republica.' iMrila, Tcatro Ecles., torn. 
 1., p. 148. Tazulatlan, or Tuzulutlan, was the i)ruvince of liabinal. Berne- 
 mi, Hist. Chyapa, p. 147. 
 
 • ' Aq ui havia muy grandes, y sumptuosas coniidaSjV boriacheras. ' ' Sen- 
 taban alnuevo Electo on vna estera mui pintada.' Torquemada, Monarq. 
 I lid., torn, ii., pp. 34*2, 338-45. 'In one of the saloons stood the throne, 
 under four canopies of plumage, the ascent to it was by several steps.' 
 Juarros, Hist. Guat., p. 88. Tlio twenty-four counsellors ' carried the em- 
 peror on their shoulders in his chair of state whenever he quitted his pal- 
 nee.' Id., p. 189. 'No se diferenciaba el rey de Guatemala o de Utatldn de 
 los otros en el trage, siiio en que ^1 traia horadadaa las orcjas y narices, que 
 se tenia por granilcza.' Ximenez, Hist, Ind. Guat., pp. 197, 196. 
 Vol. II. 41 
 
642 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 personally attended the king, and managed the admin- 
 istration of justice and the collection of the royal rev- 
 enue, but were liable to severe punishment if they 
 committed crime. Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks of 
 a supreme council, giving the names of the princes 
 that composed it, and also of an ordinary council whose 
 members were called ahchaoh, or 'judges,* and were 
 entrusted with the collection of tribute. The other 
 authorities, Torquemada and Ximenez, state that the 
 councils were not permanent, but were summoned by 
 the king and selected for their peculiar fitness to give 
 advice upon the subject under consideration. The 
 lieutenants had also their provincial councils to advise 
 them in matters of local importance, but all cases of 
 national import, or affecting in any way the nobles of 
 high rank, were referred to the royal council. So great 
 was the power of the nobles assembled in council, 
 that they might, under certain conditions, depose a 
 tyrannical sovereign and seat the next heir on the 
 throne. No person unless of noble blood could hold 
 any office whatever, even that of doorkeeper to the 
 council-chamber, if we may credit Juarros; conse- 
 quently the greatest pains was taken to insure a lin- 
 eage free from any plebeian stain. A noble marrying 
 a woman of the common people was degraded to her 
 rank, took her name, and his estate was forfeited to 
 the crown. Ximenez states that traveling officials 
 visited from time to time the different provinces, to 
 observe the actions of the regular judges, and to cor- 
 rect abuses. ^° 
 
 1" 'Tenia el rey ciertos varones de gran autoridad y opinion, que eran 
 come oidores, y cunocian de todos los pleitos y negocios que se orreciun;' 
 they collected the royal revenues and attended to the expenses of the royal 
 familv. 'Tenia en cada pueblo gruiide bus cancillerias con sus oidores, que 
 eran las cabczas de calpul; pero no era muy grande la couiision quctcnian.' 
 ' Poderosos Senores, los quales esperaban su confirinacion de sus estados del 
 dicho rey.* ' Aun en las cosas pequefias y de poca importancia entraban en 
 consulta.' 'Unos como alquaciles que Servian de llamar y convocar al ]>uc- 
 blc' Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Gnat., pp. 196-7, 201-2. The king's lieuteimtits 
 'tenian su jurisdicion limitada, la qual no era mas, que la que el Seflor, b 
 Rei les concedia, reservando para si, v su Consejo las cosas graves.' These 
 lieutenants held their positions for life if they were qualitied and obedient, 
 but to hold them they must have been promoted from lower offices. 'KI 
 
THE QUICHfi NOBILITY. 
 
 648 
 
 The following is the Abbd Brasseur's account of 
 the grades of nobility taken from the Quiche manu- 
 script published under the title of Popol Vuh: 
 "Three principal families having a common origin 
 constituted the high nobility of Quiche, modeled on 
 the ancient imperial family of the Toltecs. The first 
 and most illustrious was the house of Cawek, the 
 members of which composed the royal family proper; 
 the second was that of Nihaib; and the third that of 
 Ahau Quichd. Each of these houses had its titles 
 and charges perfectly distinct and fixed, which never 
 left it, like the hereditary offices of the English court 
 at the present time ; and to each of these offices were 
 attached fiefs, or particular domains, from which the 
 titularies drew their revenue, their attendants, and 
 their vassals, and a palace where they lived during 
 their stay in the capital. The house of Cawek, or 
 royal house proper, included only princes of the blood, 
 like the eldest branch of the Bourbons in Franco. It 
 was composed of nine chitiamital, or great fiefs, whose 
 names corresponded to those of the palaces occupied 
 by these princes in the capital, and whose titles were 
 as follows: — I. Ahau Ahpop, or 'lord of the princes,* 
 title of the king, corresponding nearly to 'king of 
 kings,' whose palace was called ciiha; II. Ahau Ahpop 
 Camha, or 'lord of the princes and seneschal' (camha, 
 he who cares for the house, majordomo), whom the 
 Spaniards called the second king, and whose palace was 
 
 consejo no era de qualesquiera Personas, sino de aqucllaa, que mas cursadas 
 estaban en la misma eosa, de que se trataba.' They HonietinieB called in the 
 aid of foreign nations to depose a tyrant. Torquenuula, Monarq. Ind., torn, 
 ii., pp. 339-40, 343, 386. 'There was no instance of any person hemg 
 appointed to a public office, high or low, who was not selected from the no- 
 bility.' Juarros, Hist. Guat, pp. 190-1. Some members of the counciU 
 were priests when religious interests were at stake. Herrcra, Hist. Gen., 
 dec. iv., lib. viiL, cap. x. 'Les personnes on officiers qui scrvaient le sou- 
 verain ii la court se nonimaient Lolmay, Atziluinac, Calel, Ahuchan. 
 C'etaient les factenrs, les contador, et trdsoriers.' Teruaux-Compaiis, Voy., 
 s^rie i., torn, x., p. 418. 'De I'assembl^e des princes des niaisons de 
 Cawek, d'Ahau-Quich^ et de Nihaib, rduiiis avec le Galel-Zakik, et I'Ahau- 
 Ah-Tzutuha, se composait le conscil extraordinaire du nionarquc.* Brasseiir 
 de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 548-9. The king 'constitua 
 vingt-dcux grandes dignities, auxquelles ii (^leva lea membres de la haute 
 aristot ratie. Id. , pp. 496-7. 
 
 
64A 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 called tziquinaha, or 'house of birds;' III. Nina Cho- 
 coh Cawek, or 'grand elect of Cawek;' IV, Ahau 
 Ah Tohil, or 'lord of the servants of Tohil,' priests 
 of Tohil, the principal Quichd god; V. Ahau Ah 
 Gucumatz, or 'lord of the servants of Gucumatz,' 
 (priests of Quetzal coatl); VI. Popol Winak Chituy, 
 or president of the counsellors; VII. Lolmet Queh- 
 nay, the principal receiver of royal tributes, or min- 
 ister of finance; VIII. Popol Winak Pahoni Tzalatz 
 Xcaxeba, or 'grand master of the hall of the council 
 of the game of ball;' IX. Tepeu Yaqui, 'chief or 
 lord of the Yaquis' (Toltecs, or Mexicans). 
 
 " The house of Nihaib, the second in rank, had also 
 nine chinamital, with names corresponding to their 
 palaces, and titles as follows: I. Ahau Galel, 'lord 
 of the bracelets,' or of those who have the right to 
 wear them, and chief of the house of Nihaib; II. 
 Ahau Ahtzic Winak, 'lord of those who give,' or of 
 those who made presents (especially to ambassadors, 
 who were introduced by him); III. Ahau Galel 
 Camha, 'lord of the bracelets, and seneschal;' IV. 
 Nimah Camha, 'grand seneschal;' V. Uchuch Cam- 
 ha, 'mother of the seneschals;' VI. Nima Camha 
 Nihaib, 'grand seneschal of Nihaib;' VII. Nim Cho- 
 coh Nihaib, 'grand elect of Nihaib;' VIII. Ahau 
 Awilix, 'lord of Awilix' (one of the gods of the 
 Quichd trinity); IX. Yacol Atam, 'grand master of 
 feasts.' 
 
 "The third house, that of Ahau Quiche, had only 
 four chinamital with the following titles: I. Ahlzic 
 Winak Ahau, 'great lord of givers;' II. Lolmet 
 Ahau, 'grand receiver;' III. Nim Chocoh Ahau, 
 'lord grand elect;' IV. Ahau Gagawitz, 'lord of 
 Gagawitz' (one of the gods of the Quiche trinity)."" 
 
 Respecting the Chiapanecs, who are not generally 
 considered as the descendants of the peoples who in- 
 habited the country in Votan's time, we have no 
 
 '* Lists of the nobility. Brasseuv de Bourboiirg, Popol Vuh, pp. 337-47; 
 Id., Hist. Nat. Civ., toiii. i., pp. 4.10-.S2. 
 
PIPILES AND NICARAGUANS. 
 
 645 
 
 knowledge of their government save a probably un- 
 foundod statement by Garcfa that they were ruled by 
 two chiefs, elected each year by the priests, and never 
 had a king." The Pipiles in Salvador, although tra- 
 ditionally among the partially civilized nations, seem 
 to have been governed in the sixteenth century by 
 local chieftains only, like most of the wild tiibes 
 already described. These chiefs handed down their 
 power, however, to their sons or nearest relatives. 
 Palacio tells us that to regulate marriages and the 
 planting of crops was among the ruler's duties. Squier 
 concludes that all these petty chiefs were more or less 
 allied politically, and acted together in matters affect- 
 ing the common interests." 
 
 Nicaragua, when first visited by Europeans, was 
 divided into many provinces, inhabited by several na- 
 tions linguistically distinct one from another, one of 
 them, at least, speaking the Aztec tongue ; but in re- 
 spect to their government and other institutions, the 
 very meagre information preserved by Oviedo enables 
 us to make little or no distinction between the differ- 
 ent tribes. In many of the provinces we are told the 
 people lived in communities, or little republics, gov- 
 erned by certain huehues, or 'old men,' who were 
 elected by the people. These elective rulers them- 
 selves elected a captain-general to direct their armies 
 in time of war, which official they had no hesitation 
 in putting to death when he exhibited any symptoms 
 of insubordination or acquired a power over the army 
 which seemed dangerous to the public good. In other 
 and probably in most provinces a chieftain, or teitef 
 
 J* 'Nunca tuvieron Rei, sino solo elegian los Sacerdotcs cadn Afio dos 
 Capitanes, que eran coino Uovernadores, h, ^uieii todos obcdcciaii, aiiiique 
 era maior el respeto, i veneracion, que tenian h los Sacerdotes.' Garcia, 
 Oriffen de los Ind., p. 329; a statement repeated in Pimvntel, Mem. sobre 
 la Raza Indigena, ji. 27; and Heredia ^ Sarmicnto, Sermon, p. 84. Garcia 
 r(>fers to Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. xi., where the only state- 
 ment on the subject is that 'son muy respetados los principales. ' 
 
 " ' No doubt there were individual chiefs who possessed a power biipe- 
 rior to the others, exercising a great influence over them, and perhaps 
 iirrofjating a qualiticd authority.' Squier's Cent. Amer., pp. 331-4; Pal cio. 
 Carta, p. 78. 
 
 
646 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 ruled the people of his domain with much the same 
 powers and privileges as we have noticed in Yucatan 
 and Ouatemala. These teites had their petty vassals 
 and lords to execute their orders, and to acconij)any 
 them in public di8i)lays, but it seems they could claim 
 no strictly personal services in thuir palaces from any 
 but members of their own household. Peter Martyr 
 speaks of a 'throne adorned with rich and princely 
 furniture.' These rulers affected great state, and in- 
 sisted on a strict observance of court etitjuette. They 
 would receive no message, however pressing the occa- 
 sion, except through the regularly appointed officials; 
 and one of them, in an interview with the Spaniards, 
 would not condescend to open his royal mouth to the 
 leader until a curtain was held between him and his 
 foreign hearers. On several occasions they met the 
 Spaniards in a procession of men and women gaily 
 decked in all their finery, marching to the sound of 
 shell trumpets, and bearing in their hands presents 
 for the invaders. But even in the provinces nominally 
 ruled l)y the teites, all legislative power was in the 
 hands of a council called monexico, composed of old 
 men, who were elected every four moons. Without 
 the consent of the monexico the chief could take 
 action in no public matter whatever, not even in war. 
 The council could decide agai' it the teite, but he had 
 the right to assemble or dis&oive it, and to be present 
 at all its meetings. The decisions of the monexico 
 were made known in the market-place by a crier, 
 whose badge of office was a rattle. The lords also, 
 in sending an ambassador or messenger on any public 
 business, gave him a fan, bearing which credential he 
 was implicitly trusted wherever he might go. Two 
 members of the council were chosen as executive offi- 
 cers, and one of them must be always present in the 
 market-place to regulate all dealings of the buyers 
 and sellers. Squier says that the council-houses were 
 called grepons, and its corridors or porticos galpons; 
 Oviedo in one place terms the buildings galpones, 
 
THE MAYA PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 M7 
 
 and in another applies the name to a class of vassal 
 chiefs." 
 
 It is only of the priesthood as connected with the 
 government, as an order of nobility, as a class of the 
 community, that a mention is required here : In their 
 quality of priests proper, religious teachers, oracles of 
 the gods, leaders of ceremonious rites, confessors, and 
 sacrificers, they will be treated of elsewhere. Their 
 temporal power, directly exercised, or in'1ir3ctly 
 through their influence upon kings and chielr.iins, 
 was perhaps even greater than we have found it 
 among the Nahua nations. Votan, Zamnd, Cukulcan, 
 and all the other semi-mythical founders of ;:.lie Mayn 
 civilization, united in their persons the qualities of 
 high-priesi and king, and from iheir time to tVo com- 
 i' :; of the Spaniards ecclesiastical and secular au- 
 thority marched hand in hand. In Yucatan, the 
 Itzas at Chichen were ruled in the earlier times by a 
 theocratic government, and later the high-priest of 
 the empire, of the royal family of the Cheles, became 
 king of Izamal, which became the sacred city and the 
 headquarters of ecclesiastical dignitaries. The gi- 
 gantic mounds still seen at Izamal are traditionally 
 the tombs of both kings and priests. The office of 
 chief priest was hereditary, the succession being from 
 father to son — since priests and even the vestal vir- 
 gins were permitted to marry — but regulated appar- 
 ently by the opinions of kings and nobles, as well as 
 of ecclesiastical councils. The king constantly ap- 
 plied to the high-priest for counsel in matters of 
 state, and in turn gave rich presents to the head 
 of the church; the security of the temples was also 
 confided to the highest officers of the state. The 
 rank of Ixnacan Katun, or superior of the vestals, 
 was founded by a princess of royal blood. 
 
 In Guatemala the high-priests vho presided over 
 
 " Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., pp. 36-8, 52, 54, 104. 108, 11^. torn, iii., 
 p. 231; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., pp. 340-0; Herrera, Hist. 
 Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Peter Martyr, dec. vi., lib. iii.; Scherzer, 
 Wanderiingen, p. 64. 
 
 'l ! 
 
 \ 
 
648 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 i i 
 
 
 the temples of the Quiche trinity, Tohil, Awilix, and 
 Guciimatz, were all princes of the three royal fami- 
 lies; their titles have been given in the lists of the 
 Quiche nobility; and one of the most powerful kings 
 is said to have created two priestly titles for tiie 
 family of Zakik, to each of which he attached a 
 province for its su})port. Ximenez tells us that in 
 Vera Paz th.3 chief priest, next in power to the king, 
 was elected from a certain lineage by the people. In 
 the j)rovince of Chiquimula, Mictlan is described as a 
 great religious centre, and a shrine much visited by 
 pilgrims. Here the })ower was in the hands of a 
 sacerdotal hierarchy, hereditary in one family, whose 
 chief bore the title Teoti and was aided by an ecclesi- 
 astical council of live members, which controlled all 
 the priesthood, and from whose number a successor to 
 the Teoti was appointed by the chief of the Pipiles, 
 or, as some authointies state, was chosen by lot. 
 
 Thus we see that while the priesthood had great 
 power over even the highest secular rulers in all the 
 Maya nations, yet the system by which the liigli- 
 priests were members of the royal families, rendered 
 their power a support to that of royalty rather than 
 a cause of fear. The fear which kings experienced 
 towards the priests seems consequently to have been 
 altogether superstitious on account of their suj)er- 
 natural j)owers, and not a jealous fear of any jxjssible 
 rivalry. Ordinary priests were ap[)ointed by the 
 higher authorities of the church, but whether the 
 choice was confined to certain families, we are not in- 
 formed. It is altogether probable, however, that 
 such was the case in nations whose lowest secular 
 officers must be of noble blood. ^' 
 
 In the south as in the north, the status of the 
 
 '5 On the status of the prioHfliood see: Landa, Rr/iirinii, pp. 4'2, H4, .")('), 
 114, 1(U), 354; Conolludo, llisf. Vw:, i). 19S; Hrrrrra, Hint, (irii., i\w. iii., 
 
 :u ;.. _ ;: J.. :.. l:i. ..::: ...... .. im. .. :: /i ..• . 7 //.■./ 
 
PLEBEIANS AND SLAVES. 
 
 649 
 
 lower classes, or plebeians, has received no attention 
 at the hands of the Spanish observers. We know 
 that in Yucatan the nobles were obliged to support 
 from their revenues such of the lower classes as from 
 sickness, old iyj;o, or other disabling cause were unable 
 to gain a livelihood. It has been seen also that none 
 of plebeian blood could hold any office, the only ex- 
 (teption noted being the attempt of one of the Quiche 
 kings to humiliate the aristocracy by raising plebeian 
 soldiers to the newrank of Achihab, 'men' or 'heroes.' 
 The lower classes of freemen were doubtless for the 
 most part farmers, each tilling the portion of land 
 allotted him in the domain of a noble; and beyond 
 the obligation to pay a certain tax from the product 
 of their labor, and to render military service in case 
 of necessity, they were probably independent, and 
 often wealtliy.^' 
 
 Lowest in the scale among the Mayas as elsewhere 
 in America were the slaves. Slavery was an institu- 
 tion of all the nations in the sixteenth century, and 
 had been traditionally for some centuries. In Yuca- 
 tan, tradition speaks of a time when slavery was un- 
 known; its introduction by a powerful Cocomo king 
 was one of the acts of oppression which brought about 
 a revolution and deposed him from the throne, lour- 
 ing the power of the Tutul Xius which followed, 
 slavery is said to have been abolished, but must — if 
 indeed the tradition be not altogether unfounded— 
 
 '6 ' L'idi'c do la siipi'-rioritV' do caste out tolloiiiciit i''\ idoiito dans lo I'opol- 
 Vii/i, liar oxaiiiplo, quo lo prii/t/e, o'cst-ii-diro la iiiaHso i''tiaii;^oro aiix trilius 
 t[iiiolioes, u'ost jamais dosijjiio que sous dos iioiiiiiios (raiiiiiiaiix; oo soiit 
 les fmirinis, les rats, Ion singes, les oisoaux, etc' Vitilli'l-lr-Dut'., in Vluir- 
 liny, liiiiiirs Aiii^r., p. 8H. 'Afostnnibravau biiscar en Ins piielilos los 
 iiiunoos y ciegos y que li's davan lo neeosario.' Linu/a, liilacinii, p. 40. ' Y 
 iti:s sofioros daium (tont'iiiadnres a los puohlos, a los <[uales oncoinrndauau 
 niuelio la paz, v luien Irataniiento do la gonta nionuda.' l/irrrni, His'. 
 
 lien., dec. iv., liU. x., "ai). ii. 'Achih signilie regulioreinont lioios, 
 
 jjuerrier; il semlile touSofois s'apj>Iiquor il ooux qui n'ap]iartenaient \w\\\\ ii 
 I'aristocratie, 'inais a uiie elassc intermediaire entre la noMesse et les serfs 
 ou paysans.' lirn.isriir i'c Hoitrbourrf, Popol Viih, pp. H2-.S, 324-.'); Id., Hist. 
 Nat. Gil'., toni. ii., i)p. .5r»-r>8. Among the I'ipiles 'los que no eran para la 
 guorrn, cultivaban las lierras millpas del oaziquc i papa i saoonlotes, i tic 
 las propias Huyas (tavau un tanto para la gonte do guerra.' J'nturio, Cnrtn, 
 p. 82. Hoggais mentioned iu Nieuruguu. Gomaru, Hist. Intl., fol. i:(»4. 
 
w i 
 
 ll 
 
 650 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 have been re-introduced at a still later period." In 
 the annals of other Maya nations no time seems to be 
 noted when slaves were not held. This unfortunate 
 class was composed chiefly of captives in war, or of 
 those whose parents had been such ; the condition was 
 hereditary, but, in Yucatan at least, the children had 
 the right to redeem themselves by settling on unoccu- 
 pied lands and becoming tribute-payers. Foreign 
 slaves were also brought into the country for sale; and 
 Cortes speaks of Acalan, a city of Guatemala, as a 
 place where an extensive trade in human kind was 
 carried on." In Nicaragua a father miufht sell him- 
 self or his children into bondage, when hard pressed 
 by necessity; but in such cases he seems to have had 
 the right of redemption." In Nicaragua and Yuca- 
 tan the thief was enslaved by the owner of stolen 
 property, until such time as he paid its value; he 
 could even be sold to other parties, but it is added 
 that he could only be redeemed in Nicaragua with the 
 consent of the cacique. In Yucatan, if a slave died 
 or ran away soon after his sale the purchaser was en- 
 titled to receive back a portion of the price paid.^ 
 
 Kidnapping, according to Las Casas, was common 
 in Guatemala, but the laws against the offence were 
 very severe. He who sold a free native into slavery 
 
 " Brasseur (h Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ.,iom. ii., lip. .3."), -11, 70. 'Co- 
 corn file itriinero el que hizo esclavos pero por deste inal se Hi<riiio iisnr law 
 arnios con que se defendieron para que no fiiesseii todos esclavos.' Lunda, 
 Rclacion, i>. .W. 
 
 18 'Ell Ins ^ucrras. ipic por su nnibicion liazian vnos h, otros, se cautiiialmii, 
 qiicdando lieclios cscliiuos los vciicidos, que cogiaii. En esto craii rij;iiro- 
 smsimos, y lostratalmiiconaspcreza.' Cogolfi-cio, Ifist. Y'ui\, j))). 181-2; C'ttr- 
 rillo, in Soc. Mrx. Grmj., Botetin, 2d.'i 6poca, toiii. iii., p. 2(i7; Brmscur tk 
 Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., iom. ii., {). 70; Vortfs, t'nrlns, ji. 421; Lax 
 Casas, in Kingsborouffh's Mcx. Aiitiq., vol. viii., p. 144. In Nicara^jua Helps 
 tells us tliat only tlie coniinon captives were enslaved, the chiefs bciiij; 
 killed and eaten. Span. Coiiq., vol. iii., p. 2!V7. 
 
 •9 ' .Acaesfe que veiiden los padres & los hijos, 6 auii rada uiio se pucdc 
 vender li si proprio, si quiere c por loque quisiere.' Ovicdo, Hist. Gen., tinii. 
 iv., i»p. 51, i>4; Herrrrn, Hist, (fen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Sqiiirr'n 
 Niraraffua, (Ed. l85Ct,) vol. ii., p. 345. Bienvenida says that in Yucatan iis 
 soon as the father dies the strongest of those who remain enslave the oth- 
 ers. In Ternaux-Compans, Voy., sdrie i., torn, x., p. 331. 
 
 *<> Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Gomara, Hist. Ind., 
 fol. 204; Cogolludo, Hist. Fwc, pp. 181-2; Pinientcl, Mem. sobrc la liuzc 
 Indigena, p. 34; Fancourt't Hist. Yuc, p. 117. 
 
TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 
 
 651 
 
 was clubbed to death, his own wife and children were 
 sold, and a large part of the price received went to 
 fill the public exchequer.'*^ Pimentel concludes that 
 slaves were more harshly treated in Yucatan than in 
 Mexico; Gomara and Herrera state that no punish- 
 ment was decreed to him v/ho killed a slave in Nica- 
 ragua; but in Yucatan the killer of another's slave 
 must pay the full value of the property destroyed, 
 and was also amenable to punishment if the murdered 
 slave was his own. In Guatemala if a freeman had 
 sexual intercourse with the female slave of another 
 he had to pay the owner her full value or purchase for 
 him another of equal value; but if the woman were 
 a favorite of the owner, the penalty, though still 
 pecuniaiy, was much increased. In the province of 
 Vera Paz, as Las Casas states, if slaves committed 
 fornication with women of their own condition, both 
 parties were slain by having their heads broken be- 
 tween two stones, or by a stick driven down the 
 throat, or by the garrote; the man, however, being 
 sometimes sold for sacrifice. Among the Pipiles a 
 freeman cohabiting with a slave was himself enslaved, 
 unless pardoned by the high-priest for services rendered 
 in war. In Yucatan, as it is expressly stated, and 
 elsewhere probably, the master was permitted to use 
 his female slaves as concubines, but the off*spring of 
 such connection could not inherit. Thomas Gage tells 
 us of a town in Guatemala whose inhabitants in the 
 olden time were all slaves and served the people of 
 Amatitlan as messengers. The only distinguishing 
 marks of slaves that are mentioned were the shear- 
 ing of the hair in Yucatan, and marks of powdered 
 pine charcoal, called tile, in Nicaragua.^'' 
 
 *' Las Casas, in Kiiiffsborough's Mcx. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 13fi, 144; 
 Ilr.rrrra, Gnmara, and Pimentel, ubi sup. 
 
 ;>/.t; jernnKX-vompniis , m lyouveiir.s .inntues ur.s y o;/., io-t,t, uiiii. .\rvii., 
 p)). 46-7; Coffolluifo, Hist. Viic., p. 182; Gage's New Survey, p. 414; (tviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., toiii. i., p. 204. 
 
 i 
 
652 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Respecting the tenure of landed property among 
 the Maya nations the little information extant applies 
 chiefly to Yucatan. The whole country, as we have 
 seen, was divided into many domains, or fiefs, of vary- 
 ing extent, ruled over by nobles, or lords, of different 
 rank. Although each lord had, under the king, 
 nearly absolute authority over his domain, yet he 
 does not seem to have been regarded as in any sense 
 the owner of the lands, or to have had a right to sell 
 or in any way alienate them, A certain portion of 
 these lands were set apart for the lord's support, and 
 were worked by his people in common; the rest of the 
 land seems to have been divided among the people, 
 the first occupant being regarded in a certain sense as 
 its owner, and handing it down as an inheritance from 
 generation to generation, but having no right to sell 
 it, and being also obliged to contribute a certain part 
 of its products to the lord of the domain. Cogolludo 
 and Landa speak of the land as being common prop- 
 erty, yet by this they probably do not mean to imply 
 that any man had a right to trespass on the culti- 
 vated fields of another, but simjjly that unoccupied 
 lands might be appropriated by any one for purposes 
 of cultivation. Game, fish, and the salt marshes 
 were likewise free to all, but the hunter, fisherman, 
 or salt-maker must pay a tribute to the lords and to 
 the kinL!f. In Nicaragua land could not be sold, and 
 if tlie owner wished to change his residence he had 
 to leave all his property to his relatives, since nothing 
 could be removed."' 
 
 *3 'Las tierras nor aora es de comun, y assi el que primero las ocupa las 
 possee.' Landa, Rdaeion, \t. 130. 'Las tierras eran comunes, y assi eiitre 
 los Pueblos no auia tcrmiiwis, o uioiones, que las dividiesscn: aumiuc si t'litn; 
 vua I'rovincia, y otra, jHir causa de las guerras.' Coffolliafo, Hist. Yw., \i. 
 180. Las Caaas, in KiiKjsburougKs Mex. Aiifiq., vol. viii., p. 1."?!), s]K'aivs 
 of boundary marks Iwtween the property of diHerent owners. 'Les habi- 
 tations «itait pour la plupart dispersoes sans former de village.' Tenntiix- 
 Compnns, in Nonrellrs Annalfs drs Voij., 1843, toni. xevii., p. 45. 'Limit 
 qinilitd de seigneurs heveditaires ne les rendait pas, pour cela, niaftres du 
 sol ni proprietairea des habitants.' lirnsseur de liourhourq. Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, ii., pp. 50-8. 'I'roperty was mnch respected (in Nicaragua); but.... 
 no man could put np his land for sale. If he wished to leave the district, 
 
INHERITANCE AND TAXATION. 
 
 653 
 
 At a man's death his property, in Yucatan, was 
 divided between his sons equally, except that a son 
 who had assisted his father to gain the property 
 might receive more than the rest. Daughters in- 
 herited nothing, and only received what might be 
 given from motives of kindness by the brothers. In 
 default of sons, the inheritance went to the brothers 
 or nearest male relatives. Minor heirs were en- 
 trusted to tutors who managed the estate, and from 
 it received a recompense for their services. Accord- 
 ing to Oviedo, property in Nicaragua was inherited 
 by the children, but if there were no children, it went 
 to the relatives of both father and mother. Squier 
 states that in the latter case all personal property 
 was buried with the deceased." 
 
 Taxes and tribute paid by the people for the sup- 
 port of the kings and nobles consisted of the products 
 of all the different in'^'ustries. The merchant con- 
 tributed from the wares in which he dealt; the farmer 
 from the products of the soil, chiefly maize and cacao ; 
 the hunter and fisherman from the game taken in for- 
 est and stream. Cotton garments, copal, feathers, 
 skins, fjwl, salt, honey, and gold-dust composed a 
 large part of the tribute, and slaves are also men- 
 tioned in the lists. Personal labor in working the 
 lands of the lords, and in supplying his household 
 with wood and water, was also an important element 
 of taxation in the provinces. Ofiicials were appointed 
 to assess and collect taxes from all subjects. In Yu- 
 ca^ m the tribute of tlie king and that of the local 
 loi i>. were kept separate and were attended to by dif- 
 
 liis property nussed to the nearest 1)lood relation, or, '.i default, to the mu- 
 nicipality.' lioyle's Ride, vol. i., p. 274; Sqi(ier\i Airanitjini, (Kd. 185fi,) 
 vol. ii., p. 345; Herrero, Hixt. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. 
 
 2* 'Los indios no adniittian la.s liijas a heredar con los hernianos sino era 
 por via dc piedad o voluntad.' Lamia, Relacion, pp. 13G-8. ' Mejorauan al 
 que nias notahlementc aula ayudado al padre, a ^;anar el liazienda.' Ikr- 
 rcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. .\., cap. iv., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii.; Co- 
 ifolltido. Hint. Vuc, p. 180; Carrillo, in Soc. Mex. Geoa., Boletin, 2da ejioca, 
 ti)n». iii., pp. 267-8; Jirusneur tie liourbourg. Hint. Nat. Cii\, toni. ii., p. 
 70; Pimentel, Mem. sobrc la Raza Indigena, p. 30; Oi'iedo, Hist. Gen., toni. 
 iv., p. 50; Sqxaer, in Palacio, Carta, p. 119. 
 
654 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 ferent officials ; but in Guatemala it is implied that all 
 taxes were collected together and then distributed to 
 the king and several classes of nt)bles according to 
 their rank. In the ancient times those who lived in 
 Mayapan were exempt from all taxation. In Nica- 
 ragua, we are told that the teite received no tribute or 
 taxes whatever from his subjects, but in the case of a 
 war or other event involving extraordinary expense, 
 the council decided upon the amount of revenue 
 needed, and chose by lot one of their number to assess 
 and collect it. Taxation among the Mayas does not 
 seem to liave been oppressive, and the attempt to ex- 
 tort excessive tribute contributed largely to the over- 
 throw of the Cocome power in the twelfth century.^' 
 A sale of property or other contract was legalized 
 in Yucatan by the parties drinking before witnesses. 
 A strict fulfillment of all contracts was required both 
 by the law and by public sentiment. Heirs and rel- 
 atives were liable, or at least assumed the liabilit}^ 
 for debts ; and often paid, as did the lords of the prov- 
 ince, the pecuniary penalty incurred by some poor 
 man, especially if the crime had been committed in- 
 voluntarily or without malice.^ 
 
 « ' Hanno aboiidanza di cottone, & ne fanno manti che sono come len- 
 zuoli, e cainiscttc Hciiza inaniche, e qiiesto s'^ il principal tributo die ilaiiiin 
 iV siioi patroni.' liemoni, Hist. Mondo Nuom, fol. 99. 'El tributo era 
 inantas iiequefias de alyodon, gallinaa de la tierra, algmi cacao, donde so 
 cogia, y viia resiua, que scruia de incienso en los Tcinplos, y todo se dizc 
 era nuiy poco en cantidad.' Cogolltulo, Hist. Ytic, p. 179. 'Allende de la 
 casa hazian todo el ]mebb> a los sefiores sus senienteras, y se las licnefieia- 
 van y cogian eu cantidad que le bastava a el y a su casa.' Landa, liela- 
 
 cioii, pp. 110-12, 13()-2. 'Sus mayordomos que rccibiau los tributes, 
 
 y los dauan a los sefiores.' Hrrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii. 
 Some authors speak of a tribute of virgins and of a coin called ciizcns. 
 Carhajal JCs/nnosa, Hi.it. Mex., toin. i., p. 262. 'Jamais TimpAt n'etait 
 reparti par tCtc, niais par ville, village ou hanieau.' Br(i,<iseiir de Hour- 
 hourg. Hist. Nnf. Cii\, torn, ii., pp. 57-8, .33, 553. In Guatemala, 'eii lo 
 tocantc A las rciitas del rev y Senores, habia este orden, que todo venia a 
 xin monton, y de alll le damm al rey su parte, despues daban d los Sefiores, 
 segun cada uuo era, y despues daban li los oficialcs, y & quienes el rey liiiria 
 mercedes.' Xiincnez, Hi.it. hid. Guat., pp. 201-2.' 'lis possedaient Ics 
 esclaves milles ou femelles (jue ces sujets leur payaient en tribut.' Ter- 
 naux-Cotiwaiis, Vo;/., serie i., tom. x., jm. 4Hi-\7; Id., in Nouvelles An- 
 nates des Vol/., 184.1, tom. xcvii., p. 45; Torqticmada, Monarq. Lid., torn. 
 ii., pp. 345, 386; Oviedc, Hi.it. Gen., tom. iv., p. 104; Squier's Nicaragi:(>, 
 (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 341; Morelet, Voyage, tom. i., p. 195. 
 
 ^ Cogolhido, HtsL ^«<c. , pp. ISO-l ; TernauX'Compaiis, in Xouvcllrs 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, 
 
 655 
 
 The administration of justice and the execution of 
 the laws were among the Mayas entrusted to the 
 officials that have been mentioned in what has been 
 said respecting government. Serious crimes or other 
 important matters affecting the interests of the king, 
 of the state, or of the higher ranks of nobility, were 
 referred directly to the royal council presided over by 
 the monarch. The king's lieutenants, or lords of 
 royal blood who ruled over provinces, took cognizance 
 of the more important cases of provincial interest; 
 while petty local questions were decided by subordi- 
 nate judges, one of whom was appointed in each 
 village or hamlet. But even in the case of the local 
 judges the advice of a council was sought on every 
 occasion, and persons were appointed to assist both 
 judges and parties to the suit in the character of ad- 
 vocates. Although these judges had the right to 
 consult with the lord of their province, and the latter, 
 probably, with the royal council, yet after a decision 
 was rendered, there was apparently no right of appeal 
 in any case whatever; but we are told that in Yuca- 
 tan at least a royal commissioner traveled through 
 the provinces and reported regularly on the manner 
 in which the judges performed their duties, and on 
 other matters of public import. Both judges and 
 advocates might receive presents from all the parties 
 to a suit, according to Cogolludo, and no one thought 
 of applying for justice without Ijringing some gift 
 proportioned to his means. In Guatemala, as Las 
 Casas states, the judge received half the property of 
 the convicted party ; this is probably only to be un- 
 derstood as applying to serious crimes, which involved 
 a confiscation of all property. 
 
 In Vera Paz the tax-collectors served also as con- 
 stables, being empowered to arrest accused parties 
 and witnesses, and to bring them before the judges. 
 
 .ii 
 
 in 
 
 Annnlr.i dcs Voy., 184.3, torn, xcvii., p. 46; Brassfur de Bourhourg, Hist. 
 Xat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 70-1; CarriUo, in Sue. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da 
 t'lmca, toiii. iii., p. 268. 
 
656 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Very little is known of the order of procedure in the 
 Maya courts, but great pains was apparently taken to 
 ascertain all the facts bearing on the case, and to ren- 
 der exact justice to all concerned. Court proceed- 
 ings, testimony, arguments, and decisions are said to 
 have been altogether verbal, there being no evidence 
 that written records were kept as they were by the 
 Nahuas, although the Maya system of hieroglypliic 
 writing cannot be supposed to have been in any re- 
 spect inferior to that of the northern nations. Noth- 
 ing in the nature of an oath was exacted from a 
 witness, but to guard against false testimony in Yu- 
 catan a terrible curse was launched against the per- 
 jurer, and a superstitious fear of consequences was 
 supposed to render falsehood impossible. In Guate- 
 mala so much was the perjurer despised that a fine 
 and a reprimand from the judge were deemed suffi- 
 cient punishment. Torture, if we may credit Las 
 Casas, by tying the hands, beating with clubs, and 
 the inhalation of smoke, was resorted to in Vera Paz 
 to extort confession from a person suspected of adul- 
 tery or other serious crimes. Great weight seems 
 to have been attached to material evidence; for in- 
 stance, it was deemed important to take the thief 
 while in actual possession of the stolen property; and 
 a woman to convict a man of rape must seize and 
 produce in court some portion of his wearing-apparel. 
 The announcement of the judge's decision Wjas, as I 
 have said, delivered verbally, and sometimes, when 
 the parties to the suit were numerous, Cogolludo in- 
 forms us that all were invited to a banquet, during 
 which the verdict was made known. As there was 
 no appeal to a higher tribunal, so there seems to have 
 been no pardoning power, and the judge's final deci- 
 sion was always strictly enforced. Except a mention 
 by Herrera that the Nicaraguan ministers of justice 
 bore fans and rods, I find no account of any distin- 
 guishing insignia in the Maya tribunals. 
 
 Punishments inflicted on Maya criminals took the 
 
MAYA PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 667 
 
 form of death, slavery, and pecuniary fines; impris- 
 onment was of rare occurren<'e, and apparently never 
 inflicted as a punishment, but only for the retention of 
 prisoners until their final punishment was lejy^ally de- 
 termined. Cowolludo states that culprits were never 
 beaten, hut Villaii^utierre aflirms that, at least amonjif 
 the Itzas, they were both beaten and put in shackles; 
 and the same author speaks of imprisonment for non- 
 payment of taxes at Coban. Tlie death penalty was 
 inflicted by hanging, by beating with the garrote, or 
 club, and by throwing the condemned over a preci- 
 j)ice. Ximenez mentions burning in Guatemala; 
 Oviedo speaks of impalements in Yucatan ; those con- 
 demned to death in Nicaragua seem to have been sac- 
 rificed to the gods by having their hearts cut out; and 
 throwing the body from a wall or precipice is the only 
 method attributed to the Pi[)ile8. 
 
 At a town in Yucatan called Cachi, Oviedo men- 
 tions a sharp mast standing in the centre of a square 
 and used by the people for impaling criminals alive. 
 The method of imprisonment, as described by Cogol- 
 ludo, consisted in binding the hands behind the back, 
 placing about the neck a collar of wood and cords, and 
 confining the culprit thus shackled in a wooden cage. 
 At Campeche a place of punishment is mentioned by 
 Peter Martyr and Torquemada as having been seen 
 by the early voyagers. Three beams or posts were 
 fixed in the ground, to them were attached three 
 cross-beams, and scattered about were blood-stained 
 ari'ows and spears. This apparatus would indicate, if 
 it was really a place of punishment, a method of in- 
 flicting the death-penalty not elsewhere mentioned; 
 and a stone structure adjoining, covered with sculp- 
 tured emblems of punishment is suggestive ceremo- 
 nial rites in connection with executions. The death 
 sentence generally involved the confiscation of the 
 diminal's property and the enslaving of his family. 
 All but the most heinous offences could be expiated 
 by the payment of a fine consisting of slaves or other 
 
 Vol. 11—42 
 
958 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS, 
 
 property, and the whole or a large part of this fine 
 went to the judges, the lords, or the king. 
 
 Murder was punished in all the nations hy death, 
 but '11 Yucatan and Nicaragua if there wore exten- 
 uating circumstances, such as great provocation or ab- 
 sence of malice, tlie crime was atoned by the j)ayment 
 of a fine. In Yucatan a minor who took human life 
 became a slave ; the killing <>f another's slave called 
 for payment of the value destroyed; the killing of 
 one's own slave involved a slight penalty or none at 
 all. In Nicaragua no penalty was decided upon for 
 the murder of a chief, such a crime being deemed im- 
 possible. 
 
 Theft was atoned by a return of the stolen property 
 and the payment of a fine to the public treasury. In 
 case the criminal could not pay the full value he was 
 sold as a slave until such time as he might be able to 
 redeem his freedom. In some cases the amount seems 
 to have been paid with the price he brought as a 
 slave, and in others he served the injured party. 
 Fin« s, however, in most cases seem to have been j)iii(l 
 by the relatives and friends of the guilty party, so 
 that the number of persons actually enslaved was 
 perhaps not very large. In Guatemala stolen articles 
 of trifling value went with the fine to the publii- 
 treasury, since the owner would not receive them. 
 The incorriijible thief, when his friends refused to ])av 
 his fine, was st)metimes put to death ; and death was 
 also the penalty for stealing articles of value from the 
 temple. In Nicaragua the thief who delayed too long 
 the payment of his fine was sacrificed to the gods; 
 and in Salvador, banishment was the punishment for 
 trifling theft, death for stealing larger amounts. 
 Landa informs us that in Yucatan a noble who so far 
 forgot his position as to steal had his face scarified, n 
 great disgrace. 
 
 Adultery was punished in Yucatan and Guatemala 
 with death; in the latter if the parties were of tlu' 
 common people they were thrown from a precipiif. 
 
CRIMINAL LODE. 
 
 Fornication was atoned by a fine, or if the afironted 
 relatives insiHted, by death. A woman who was un- 
 chaste was at first reprimanded, and finally, if she 
 persevered in her loose conduct, enslaved. Rape in 
 Guatemala was punished by death; an unsuccessful 
 attempt at the same, by slavery. Marria<^e with a 
 slave, as already stated, reduced the freeman to a 
 slave's condition; sexual connection with one's own 
 slave was not regarded as a crime. He who commit- 
 ted incest in Yucatan was put to death. 
 
 Treason, rebellion, inciting to rebellion, desertion, 
 interference with the payment of royal tribute, and 
 similar offences endangering the well-being of the na- 
 tions, were sufficient cause for death. 
 
 In Guatemala he who kidna[)})ed a free person and 
 sold him into slavery, lost his life. For an assault 
 resulting in wounds a fine was imposed. He who 
 killed the quetzal, a bird reserved for the kings, was 
 put to death; and the same fate was that of him who 
 took game or fish from another's premises, if the in- 
 jured party was an enemy and insisted on so severe a 
 j)enalty. 
 
 The Pipiles condemned a man to be beaten for ly- 
 ing; but the same offence in time of war demanded 
 capital punishment, as did any disrespect shown for 
 the sacred things of religion. 
 
 Ximenez states that in Guatemala the halam, or 
 sorcerer, was burned; the same offence in Vera Paz, 
 according to Torquemada, caused the guilty party to 
 be beaten to death or hanged. 
 
 A strict payment of all just debts was enforced, 
 and in Guatemala he who bought many things on 
 credit and failed to pay for them was finally enslaved 
 or even killed. Both here and in Nicaragua the bor- 
 rower was obliged to return or pay for borrowed arti- 
 cles, and, if the articles were products of the soil, 
 the lender might repay himself from the borrower's 
 Held. He who injured another's property, even serv- 
 ants in the lord's palace who broke dishes or fur- 
 
660 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 niture, must make good all damage. In Yucatan, 
 we are told that a man could not be taken for debt 
 unaccompanied by crime. Some additional laws and 
 regulations of the Maya nations will appear in their 
 appropriate places in other chapters." 
 
 IT On the Maya laws see: Landa, Relacion, pp. 132-4, 176-8; Ximetitz, 
 Hist. Ind. Guat, pp. 106-200, 208; Ton/netttada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., pp. 
 338-46, 386-02; Las Caaat, in KinynborougK's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 
 135-46; Coffolludo, Hist. Kuc.^p. 170-83; Palacio, Carta, pp. 80-2; Ovi- 
 edo. Hilt. Gen., torn, iii., pp. 229-30, torn, iv., pp. 60-1; Peter Martyr, dec. 
 iv., lib, ii. ; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 162; Herrera, Hist, Gen., 
 dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. x., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Juarros, Hist. Guat., 
 pp. 101-2; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263-4; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 59-61, 672-4; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. 
 ii., p. 345; /(/., Cent. Amer., p. 334; Ternaux-ComnaHS, Voy., a&ne i., 
 torn. X., pp. 417-18; Id., in Nouvelks Annates ties Voy., 1843, torn, 
 xcvii., pp. 46-7; Helps Span. Conq., vol. iii., pp. 266-7; Fancourfs Hist. 
 Yuc,, pp. 116-17; Pimentel, Mem. sobre la Baza Indigena, pp. 29-34. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 EDUCATION AND FAMILY MATTERS AMONG THE MAYAS. 
 
 Education of Youth— Public Schools of Guatemala — Branches 
 OF Stldy in Yucatan— Marrying Aoe — Degrees of Consan- 
 guinity allowed in Marriage — Preliminaries of Marriage 
 —Marriage Ceremonies- The Custom of the Droit du Seiqn- 
 EUR IN Nicaragua— Widows — Monogamy — Concubinage — Di- 
 vorce— Laws Concerning Adultery — Fornication- Rape- 
 Prostitution — Unnatural Crimes — Desire fob Children — 
 Child-birth Ceremonies — Rite of Circumcision — Manner of 
 Naming Children— Baptismal Ceremonies. 
 
 The Maya nations appear to have been quite as 
 strict and careful in the education of youth as the 
 Nahuas. Parents took great pains to instruct their 
 children to respect old age, to reverence the gods, and 
 to honor their father and mother.^ They were, be- 
 
 > 'They were taught, says Los Casas, 'que honrasen d los padres y lex 
 fuet<cn obedientea; que no tuviesen codicia de inuclios biones; que no adul- 
 terascn con muger agena; (}ue no fornicasen, ni llcgasen d muger, sine & la 
 que fuese suya; que no mirasen 6. las mugcres para codiciarlas, diciendo 
 que no traspasas^n r'nbral aseno; que si anduviesen de noche por el 
 ]>ueblo, que Ilevasen lunibre en la nitvno; que siguiesen su camino derecho, 
 ({ue no hajasen dc camino, ni subiescn tampoco del; que & los ciegos no les 
 ousicsen ofendiculo para que cayesen; d los lisiados no escarneciesen y de 
 los locos no se riesen, porque todo aquello era nialo; que trabajen y no 
 cstubiesen ociosos; y para esto desdc niftos les ensenavan como liavian de 
 Imeer las sementeras y como beneficiallas y cogellas.' Kiiigsboroitgh's Mex. 
 Antiq., vol. viii., p. 132. Brasseur de Bourbourg remarks that the re- 
 spectnil term of you instead of thou, is frequently used by children when 
 addressing their parents, in the Popol Vuh. Popol Vuh, p. 96. The old 
 people 'cran tan estiniados en esto que los mo^os no tratavan con viejos, 
 aiuo era en cosas inevitables, y los mofos por casar; con los casados sino 
 inuy poco.' Landa, Belacion, p. 178. 
 
 (661) 
 
 
602 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 sides, encouraged while mere infants to amuse them- 
 selves with warlike games, and to practice with the 
 bow and arrow. As they grew older, the children of 
 the poor people were taught to labor and assist their 
 parents. The boys were in their childhood educated 
 by the father, who usually taught them his own 
 trade or calling; the girls were under the especial 
 care of tlie mother, who, it is said, watched very 
 closely over the conduct of her daughters, scarcely 
 ever permitting them to be out of her sight. Chil- 
 dren of both sexes remained under the immediate 
 control of their parents until they were of an age to 
 be married, and any disobedience or contumacy was 
 severely punished, sometimes even with death. The 
 boys in Guatemala slept under the portico of the 
 house, as it was thought improper that they sliould 
 observe the conduct and hear the conversation of 
 married people." In Yucatan, also, the young people 
 were kept separate from their elders. In each vil- 
 lage was an immense white-washed shed, under the 
 shelter of which the youths of the place amused 
 themselves during the day, and slept at night.' 
 
 The various little events in a child's life whidi 
 among all peoples, savage or civilized, are regarded as 
 of so great importance by anxious mothers, sut^li as 
 its being weaned, its first step, or its first word, were 
 celebrated with feasts and rejoicing; the anniversaries 
 of its birthday were also occasions of much merry- 
 making. The first article that a child made with its 
 own hands was dedicated to the gods.* In Yu(%'itaii 
 children went naked until they were four or five yenrs 
 old, when the boys were given a breech-clout to wear 
 
 * * Dormian en los p<irtalcs no boIo riiando liuciun su ayuno, mas aim 
 casi todo el afio, ])or<iiic no Ics cru pcrniitido tratur ni saber <lc Ion iio^ocioH 
 dc los castido.s, ni aim sabian cuando habian dc casarsc, liosta el tieiiipo iiuf 
 Ics prcscntaban las niiijD^res, porquc cran niiiy siijctus y obediciitos ti siih 
 padre? Cuando aquestus niancclios iban & sus casas d ver li siis ])tulroM 
 
 tenian su cuentu dc que no hablasen los padres cosa que fucse menus 
 
 honesta.' Ximenez, Hist. hid. Guat., p. 181. 
 
 ' Landa, Rnlacion, p. 178. 
 
 * La« Casas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., cap. clxxix.; Brasaeur dc Hour- 
 hourg. Hist, Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 509. 
 
EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 
 
 and a piece of cloth to sleep under; girls began at 
 the same age to wear a petticoat reaching from the 
 waist downward." In Guatemala children were left 
 naked till they were eight or ten years of age, at 
 which time tliey were required to do light liibor.* 
 As soon as a child reached the ajje of seven years, it 
 was taken by its father to the priest, who foretold its 
 future destiny and instructed it how to draw blood 
 from its body, and perform other religious observ- 
 ances.' 
 
 The Mayas entrusted the more advanced education 
 of youth entirely to the priesthood. Jn Guatemala 
 the youths assisted the priests in their duties, and re- 
 ceived, in turn, an education suited to their position in 
 life. There were schools in every principal town, at 
 which youths were instructed in all necessary branches 
 by competent teachers. The principal of there was a 
 seminary in which were maintained seventy masters, 
 and from five to six thousand children were educated 
 and provided for at the expense of the royal treasury.* 
 Girls were placed in convents, under the superintend- 
 ence of matrons who were most strict in their guard- 
 ianship. It is said that they entered when eight 
 years old, and were not free until about to be nuir- 
 ried." 
 
 In Yucatan, social distinctions seem to have been 
 more sharply defined than in Guatemala. Here, the 
 schools of learning were only open to the children of 
 the nobility ; a poor man was content to teach his son 
 his own trade or profession. The children of the priv- 
 ileged classes were, however, very highly educated. 
 The boys were initiated, we are told, into the myste- 
 ries and strange rites of their religion ; they studied 
 
 * Landa, Relncion, p. 180. 
 
 ^ Ikrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., Hb. x., cap. xiv. ; Juatros, Hist. Guat., 
 p. 195. 
 
 ' Brasstur de Bourhonrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 569. 
 
 * Juarros, Hist. Guut., ji. 87; lirasseur de Jioitrhounj, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, ii., p. 569. 
 
 * Ximrnez, Hist. fnd. GtMf., p. 191; Junrros, Hist. Guat., p. 196; liras- 
 mnr de liourbourg. Hist. Nat. Civ., Utm. ii., p. 569. 
 
 I I 
 
 iM 
 
 
G64 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 law, morals, music, the art of war, astronomy, astrol- 
 ogy, divination, prophecy, medicine, poetry, history, 
 picture-writing, and eveiy other branch of knowledge 
 known to their people. The daughters of the nobles 
 were kept in strict seclusion, and were carefully in- 
 structed in all the accomplishments required of a 
 Maya lady.'" 
 
 In Yucatan, the young men usually married at the 
 age of twenty years." In Guatemala, Las Casas tells 
 us that the men never married until they were thirty, 
 notwithstanding he has previously made the extraor- 
 dinary assertion that the great prevalence of unnatural 
 lusts made parents anxious to get their children wed- 
 ded as early as possible." Girls among the higher 
 classes must have been married at a very early ago in 
 Guatemala, since it is related that when a young no- 
 ble espoused a maiden not yet arrived at the age of 
 puberty, her father gave him a female slave, to lie 
 with him until the wife reached maturity. The chil- 
 dren of this slave could not inherit his property, how- 
 
 ever 
 
 The Guatemalans recognized no relationship on the 
 mother's side only, and did not hesitate to marry 
 their ow^n sister, provided she was by another father." 
 
 '• Landa, Relacion, pp. 42-4; Carrillo, in Son. Mex. Gcotj., Boletin, 
 '2da «5i»oca, torn, iii., p. 269; Morelet, Voyage, toiii. i., p. 101; lirasseur 
 de Bourbowg, Hint. Nat. Viv., toin. ii., pp. 61-2. 
 
 " Ddvila, Teatro Ecles., toni. i., p. 20.3; Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., toiii. ii., p. 52; Herrern, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., caj). iv., 
 miVH thtit in later times they married at twelve or fourteen. 
 ' •* Las Casas, in Kiiigsborough's Mex. Antia., vol. viii., p. 135. 
 
 ^"^ Ximenez, Hist. Iiid. Guat., p. 208. This is the 8am« ptis.<uiKC that 
 Brassetir de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, it., p. 572, cites as lioman, 
 Rep. Ind., lib. ii. , cap. x. 
 
 '♦ 'Lo8 Indies de la Vera- Paz niuchas veces, segun el Parentesco, quo 
 vsaban, era fiierfa que casasen Hernianos con Hermnnas, y era la riiv"" 
 csta: Acostumbraban no casar los de vn Tribu, 6 Pueblo, con his Mu<;(M'("^ 
 del mismo Pueblo, y las buscaban, one fucsen de otro; porque no contnlHiii 
 por de Bu Familia, y Parentesco los Hijos que nacian en cl Tribu 6 Liiiti>;>' 
 agcno, aunque la Muger huvicse prncedido do su mismo Linaue; y era la 
 ra^on, porque aquel Parentesco sc atribula h solo los Hnnibres. Por manora, 
 que si algun Senor dalm su Ilija h otro de otro Pueblo, aunque no tuvicsc 
 otro hcredero este Sefior, sino solos los Niotos, Hijos de su ITija, no los re- 
 conocia por Nietos, ni Parientes, en ra9on de hacerlos herederos, porser Hi- 
 jos del otro Seiior de otroa Pueblos y osi se le buscaba al tal SeAor, Mu>;tr 
 
DEGREES OF KINDRED. 
 
 665 
 
 Thus, if a noble lady married aii inferior in rank or 
 even a slave, the children belonged to the order of the 
 father, and not of the mother." Torquemada adds 
 that they sometimes married their sisters-in-law and 
 step-mothers,'* 
 
 Among- the Pipiles, of Salvador, an ancestral tree, 
 with seven main branches, denoting degrees of kin- 
 dred, was painted upon cloth, and within these seven 
 branches, or degrees, none were allowed to marry, 
 except as a recompense for some great public or war- 
 like service rendered. Within four degrees of con- 
 sanguinity none, under any pretext, might marry." 
 In Yucatan there was a peculiar prejudice against a 
 man marrying a woman who bore the same name as 
 his own, and so far was this fancy carried that he 
 who did this was looked upon as a renegade and an 
 outcast. Here, also, a man could not marry the sis- 
 ter of his deceased wife, his step-mother, or his 
 mother's sister, but with all other relatives on the 
 maternal side, no matter how close, marriage was 
 perfectly legitimate. A Yucatec noble who wedded 
 a woman of inferior degree, descended to her social 
 level, and was dispossessed of a part of his property. 
 
 one fuese de otro Pueblo, y no de el proprio. Y asi succdia, que los Hijos 
 ue c.stiu) Mugcres, no tcnian \wr Parientes i\ los Dcudoa de su Madre, ynn 
 estiir en otro Pueblo, y esto se enticnde, en quanto h casarse con ellas, quo 
 lo tenian por licito, aunque en lo deniiiH xe reconocian. Y porquc la cucnta de 
 su Parentesco era entre solos los Honibres, y no por parte de las Mugcres. 
 Y por esto no tenian Inipedinicnto, para casarse, con los tales Parientes; y 
 asi sc casabau con todos los grados de Consanguinidad, porquc mas por 
 Hernuina tcnian qualquiera Muger de su Linage, aunque fuese reniotislnia, 
 y no tuviese nienioria del grado, en que le tocaba, que la Hija de su projiia 
 Madre, conio fuese havida de otro Marido, y por este error sc casaban, con 
 Ills Hcrnuinaa de Madre, yuo de Padre.' Torquemada, Monarq. Iiul., toni. 
 ii., p. 419. 
 
 '* Brajiseur de Botirhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 572. 
 
 "> Mnnnrq. Ltd., toni. ii., p. 419. 
 
 1^ ' En lo que tocava al parentesco, tcnian un arbol pintado, i en el sicte 
 ramos que signifaoava siete grados de parentesco. Kn cstos grados no se 
 |iiiclia casar nadie, i esto se cntendia por linea recta si no fuese quealguno 
 liuvjese feclio algun gran fecho en arnias, i haviu de scr del tercero ^radu 
 fiK'ra; i por linea traversa tenia otro arbol con qiuitro ramos que sigiiifica- 
 
 ));in el quarto grado, en est«>s no se podia casar nadic Ijualquiera (|ne 
 
 tenia quenta carnal con parienta en los grados susodichos niorian |)or ello 
 umbos.' Pnlaeio, Carta, p. 80; Iferrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. 
 X.; Squicr's Cent. Amer,, p. 334. 
 
666 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 and deprived of his rank.^* In Nicaragua no one 
 might marry within the first degree of relationshij), 
 but beyond that there was no restriction." 
 
 The question of dowry was settled in Guatemala by 
 the relatives of the young couple.* The Yueateo 
 son-in-law served his father-in-law for four or five 
 years, and the omission of such service was considered 
 s;;andalous;''* while in Nicaragua the dower was usu- 
 ally paid in fruit or land.*" 
 
 Each of the Maya nations seems to have had a 
 method of arranging marriages peculiar to itself In 
 Guatemala the whole affair was managed by the near- 
 est relatives of the betrothed pair, who were kept in 
 profound ignorance of the coming event, and did not 
 even know each other until the day of the wedding. 
 It seems incredible that the young men should have 
 quietly submitted to having their wives picked out for 
 them without being allowed any voice or choice in 
 the matter. Yet we are told that so great was their 
 obedience and submission to their parents, that there 
 never was any scandal in these things. If this be 
 the case, what a strange phenomenon Guatemalan 
 society must have been, with no love affairs, no woo- 
 ing })ermitted, and Cupid a banished boy. But, for 
 all that, many a Guatemalan youth may have looked 
 coldly upon his bride as he thought of another and, 
 to him, fairer face, and many a loyal young wife 
 may have been sometimes troubled with the vision of 
 a comely fortn that she had admired before she saw 
 her lord. 
 
 When 1 man of rank wished to marry his son, he 
 sent a number of his friends with presents to the; 
 
 '!* Ifenrrn, ITist. Geii., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv.; Landa, Rdncion, pp. 
 1.34-fi, 140j lirnsscurde Bouvhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toiii. ii., p. 61. 
 
 '" Torqwmada, Monarq. Ind., ton». ii., p. 419; Hquier's Nicaragua, (Eil. 
 la'X),) vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
 »• Brasaetir dc Bourhouvg, Hint. Nat. Civ., toni. ii., p. 570. 
 
 " Brasseur de Bourhoiirg, Hint. Nat. Civ., toin. ii., p. 53. ' Lo« dotrs 
 criin de vcHtidos, y cohoh de iwca siistaiiciti, lo niiis itc gusUiua en loa coiiilii- 
 tes.' Herrera, Hint. Gen., doc. iv., lib. x., cnp. iv. 
 
 ** Oricdo, Hist. Cfii., toiii. iv., p. 50; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 185fi,) 
 vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
PRELIMINARIES OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 667 
 
 parents of the yoiin*^ girl upor» whom his choice had 
 tullen. If the presents were refused it was a sign 
 that the offer of alliance was declined, and no farther 
 steps were taken in the matter; but if they were ac- 
 cepted it showed that the match was thought a desir- 
 able one. In the latter case, a few days having 
 elapsed, another embassy, bearing more costly gifts 
 than before, was dispatched to the parents of the girl, 
 who wore again asked to give their consent to the 
 marriage. Finally, a third deputation was sent, and 
 this generally succeeded in satisfactorily arranging 
 the affair. The two families then commenced to treat 
 each other as relations, and to visit each other for the 
 purposes of determining the day of the wedding and 
 making preparations for the event. Among the lower 
 classes the father usually demanded the bride of her 
 parents in person. It was customary among the 
 Pi[)iles of Salvador for the father of the boy, after 
 having obtained the consent of the girl's parents to 
 the match, to take her to his house when she was 
 twelve years of age, and his son fourteen, and there 
 educate and maintain her as if she were his own child. 
 In return he was entitled to her services and those 
 of his son, until they were able to sustain themselves, 
 and of a suitable age to marry. The parents of the 
 couple then jointly made them a present of a house 
 and gave them the means to start in life. Thereafter, 
 if the young man met his father-in-law in the street, 
 he crossed to the other side of the way, and the girl 
 paid the same courtesy to her mother-in-law."* 
 
 In the greater part of Nicaragua matches were 
 arranged by the parents, but there wore certain inde- 
 pendent towns in which the girls chose their husbands 
 tVom among the young men, while the latter were sit- 
 ting at a feast.*' 
 
 " Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Guat., pp. 204-0; Brasseuv de Bourbourg, Hiat. 
 .Vat. Civ., toin. ii., pp. 569-71. 
 
 " Palacio, Carta, p. 78; Squier'a Cent. Atner., p. 321. 
 
 " Gomara, Hist. lad., fol. 203; Itcrrera, Hint. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., 
 <'up. vii.; Spiier^s Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
668 
 
 THE i-IAYA NATIONS. 
 
 rv I'' vs! 
 
 Mip:{M^lK 
 
 I have already alluded to the fact that if in Gua- 
 temala or Yucatan a young man married into a rank 
 lower than his own he lost caste in consequence, hence 
 his parents were the more careful to select for him a 
 bride from among the maidens of his own standing in 
 society. Among the Mayas of Yucatan when the 
 day appointed for a marriage ceremony arrived, the 
 invited friends assembled at the house of the bride's 
 father, where the betrothed couple with their parents 
 and the officiating priest were already waiting. For 
 the joyful occasion a great feast was prepared, as it 
 was customary to incur a large expense in food and 
 wine for the entertainment of invited guests. When 
 all were present, the priest called the bride and 
 bridegroom with their parents before Imn and deliv- 
 ered to them an address concerning the duties of the 
 wedded state. He then offered incense and certain 
 prayers to the gods, concluding the ceremony by ask- 
 ing a blessing from heaven for the newly wedded 
 couple.^ No ceremonies took place when a widow or 
 widower was married; in such case a simple repast or 
 the giving of food and drink one to another yvus 
 deemed sufficient to solemnize the nuptials." 
 
 It was customary in Guatemala, when all prelimi- 
 naries of a marriage had been settled and the day 
 fixed for the wedding, for the bridegroom's father to 
 send a deputation of old women and principal men 
 to conduct the bride to his house. One of those sent 
 for this purpose carried her upon his shoulders, and 
 when they arrived at a certain designated point near 
 the bridegroom's home, she was met by other men 
 also chosen by her father-in-law, who offered incense 
 four or five times before her and sacrificed some quail 
 or other birds to the gods, at the same time givini;' 
 thanks for her safe arrival. As soon as she came to 
 
 <* * Haziase vna platica de como ac auia tratadu, y niirado aquel casanii- 
 cnto, y (jiic qiiadraiia: Iiecha la platica el Sacerdote sahuiiiaua la casa; y 
 con oraciones bendezia a los nouios, y quedauan easados.' Heirera, Hist. 
 Gin., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. 
 
 " lb.; Limda, Jiclacioii, p. 142. 
 
MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 969 
 
 the house she was seated with much ceremony upon 
 a couch covered with mats or rich carpets; immedi- 
 ately a number of singers began a song suited to the 
 occasion; musicians played on their instruments; 
 dancers came forth and danced before her.*® The 
 consent of the cacique had to be obtained to all mar- 
 riages that were celebrated in his territory ; before the 
 ceremony the priest desired the young man and his 
 bride to confess to him all the sins of their past life. 
 No person was allowed to marry in Yucatan until the 
 rite of baptism had been administered.*® In Gua- 
 temala, if the betrothed belonged to the higher 
 classes of society, the cacique joined their hands 
 and then tied the end of the man's mantle to a 
 corner of the woman's dress, at the same time advis- 
 ing them to be faithful and loving toward each other. 
 The ceremony ended, all partook of the wedding feast 
 and the bride and bridegroom were carried to the 
 house intended for them, upon the shoulders of some 
 of those who had assisted at the marriage ; they were 
 then conducted to the bridal chamber and, as Xime- 
 nez tells us, received instructions from two of the 
 most honored old women respecting certain marital 
 duties.* 
 
 The marriage ceremonies of the Pipiles were sim- 
 ple and unique; matches were made by the cacique 
 and carried into effect under his direction. At the 
 appointed time the kinsfolk of the bride proceeded to 
 the house of the bridegroom, whence he was borne to 
 the river and washed. The relatives of the bride 
 performed the same act of cleansing upon the person 
 of the bride. The two parties with their respective 
 
 ^ 'Llcgoda d casa, luego la ponian y usentaban en un tdlamo bien ade- 
 rczado, y comcnzaban graiides bailes y cantares y otros rcgocijoR niuchoa, 
 con que la fiesta era niuy solemne.' Xinuinez, Hist. Ind. Guat., p. 206; 
 Brasscur de Bourboufff, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 570-1. 
 
 ** 'Sin (51 ninguno se casaba.' Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., p. 183; 
 Cogolludo, Hist. Ync, p. 191; Juarros, Hist. Guat., p. 196. 
 
 ^1* ' A la noclie, dos inugcrcs honradaa y viejas nietianlos en una pieza, y 
 •niscniibanloa conio liabian de haberse en el niatrinionio.' Ximenez, Hist, 
 Ind. Guat., p. 206. 
 
670 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 charges then repaired to the house of the bride. The 
 couple were now tied together by the ends of the 
 blankets, in which they were enfolded naked and laid 
 away — married." After the ceremony an inter- 
 change of presents took place between the relatives 
 of the newly married couple and they all feasted to- 
 gether. 
 
 Among the civilized nations of Nicaragua, when a 
 match was arranged to the satisfaction of the parents, 
 some fowls were killed, cacao was prepared, and the 
 neighbors were invited to be present. The father, 
 mother, or whoever ^ve away the bride, was asked in 
 presence of the assembled guests whether or not she 
 came as a virgin ; if the answer was in the affirmative, 
 and the husband afterwards found that she had been 
 already seduced, he had the right to return her to her 
 parents and she was looked upon as a bad woman; but 
 if the parents answered that she was not a virgin, 
 and the man agreed to take her for a wife, the marriage 
 was valid.*" 
 
 When they were to be united the cacique took the 
 parties with his right hand by the little fingers of 
 their left hands and led them into the house set apart 
 for marriages, leaving them, after some words of ad- 
 vice, in a small room, where there was a fire of candle- 
 wood. While the fire lasted they were expected to 
 remain perfectly still, and not until it was burned out 
 did they proceed to consummate the marriage. The 
 following day if the husband made no objection in 
 respect to the girl's virginity, the relations and friends 
 assembled and expressed their gratification with loud 
 cries of joy, and passed the day in feasting and 
 pleasure.^ 
 
 31 Palacio says they were each wrapped in a new white mantle. 'Ain- 
 1h)8 1o.-« enbolvian cada qual en su nianta blanca nueva.' Carta, p. 78. Sec 
 also Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. x.; Squicr's Cent. Amrr., 
 p. H^3. 
 
 3* 'Si la tonio por virgen, y la lialla corronipida, desccha la, niaa n<)(le 
 otra nianera.' Goinara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263; Ocieilo, Hist. Gen., tuni. iv., 
 p. 49. 
 
 ^ *Lo8 uovios se estdn quedus, niirando c6nio aquellapoca tea sc quciiui: 
 
DROIT DE SEIGNEUR. 
 
 671 
 
 Notwithstanding the disgrace attached to a woman 
 who had lost her virginity before marriage and con- 
 cealed the fact, we are assured by Andagoya that in 
 Nicaragua a custom similar to the European 'droit du 
 seigneur' was practiced by a priest living in the tem- 
 ple, who slept with the bride during the night pre- 
 ceding her marriage.^ 
 
 A widow was looked upon as the property of the 
 family of her deceased husband, to whose brother she 
 was invariably married, even though he might have a 
 wife of his own at the time. If she had no brother- 
 in-law, then she was united to the nearest living rela- 
 tive on her husband's side.** In Yucatan, the widow 
 could not marry again until after a year from her hus- 
 band's death.^ 
 
 Monogamy seems to have been the rule among the 
 Maya nations, and many authors assert positively that 
 polygamy did not exist. It was only in the border 
 state of Chiapas that the custom is mentioned by 
 Remesal. To compensate for this, concubinage was 
 largely indulged in by the wealthy. The punishment 
 for bigamy was severe, and consisted, in Nicaragua, 
 
 i ucabada, qucdan casados 6 ponen en efetto lo domiis.' Omedo, ITist. Gen., 
 toil), iv., p. 50. *Kii iMurieiidose la luiiibrc, (|iie(lan ciixuilos.' Gomarn, 
 Hist. Iml., fol. 263; Squier's Nicuragun, (Ed. 1850,) vol. ii., p. 343; Boyle's 
 Ride, vol. i., p. 273. 
 
 34 'La iiochc diites habia dc dortnir con la novia uno que tcnian jior 
 papa.' Andagoija, in Navarretc, Col. de Viages, toni. iii., p. 414; Ifcrtrm, 
 Hint. Gen., dec. iii., lib. v., cap. xii. Uviedo jierliaps alludcM to tixia cuit- 
 toni when he says: 'Muclios hay que quicren mas las corronipidas que no 
 las vircenes.' Itist. Gen., toni. iv., p. 50; Malte-Brun, Precis de la Geog., 
 toni. VI., p. 472. 
 
 3i ' Coniunmentc cstas gcntcs conipraban la nuigcr, y aquellos denes quo 
 llevaban, era el precio, y a.si la niugcr jamas volvia & casa de sus padrc8 
 aunque enviudasc; pon^ue lue;;o cl horniano del nuicrto la toniaba por niu- 
 ger aunque (Ifuese casailo, y si el hermano no era para ello, un paricnte 
 tenia dcrccho &. ella. Los hijos dc lad talcH nui<;cre» no tcnian por dcudos 
 il los tales abuelos, ni li los dcnias deudos dc las niadrcs, ]M>rque la cucnta 
 de su pai'cntcsco vcnia por linea de varoncs, y asi no tcnian iinpcdinicntos 
 ])ara uasarse con los i>arientes dc sus niadrcs, csto sc cnticndc para contraer 
 niatrinionio; que en lo denias aniilltansc y querianse unos tl otros.' Xime- 
 nez,Hist. Ina. Gunt., p. 207; Las Casaa, in Kitigshorough's Mex, Antiq., 
 vol. viii., p. 146; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 388; Brasscur de 
 Bourhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 671-2. 
 
 '6 'No «e casavan despucsde viudos un afio, por no conocer honibrc a 
 mugcr en aqucl ticnipo, y a lo^ que esto no guardavnn, tcnian jior poco 
 tcmplados y que les vcudriu por esso alguu luaL' Landa, Relacion, p. 156. 
 
672 
 
 THE MAVA NATIONS. 
 
 of baniHhment and confiscation of the entire property 
 for the benefit of the injured wife or husband, who was 
 at liberty to marry again, a privilef^e which was not, 
 however, accorded to women who had children. Landa 
 tells us that the Chichen Itza kings lived in a state of 
 strict celibacy, and Diaz relates that a tower was 
 pointed out to him on the coast of Yucatan, which 
 was occupied by women who had dedicated themselves 
 to a single life." 
 
 With their loveless marriages it was fortunate that 
 divorce could be obtained on very slight grounds. I n 
 Yucatan, says Landa, the father would, after a final 
 separation, procure one wife alter another to suit the 
 tastes of his son. If the children were still of tender 
 age at the time the parents separated, they were left 
 with the mother; if grown up, the boys followed the 
 father, while the girls remained with the mother. It 
 was not unusual for the husband to return to the wife 
 after a while, if she was free, regardless of the fact 
 that she had belonged to another in the meantime.^ 
 In Guatemala the wife couM leave her husband on 
 the same slight grounds as the man, and if she re- 
 fused to return to him after being requested to do so, 
 he was allowed to marry again , she was then consid- 
 ered free, and held of no little consequence. In Nic- 
 
 3T Diaz, Itiniraire, in Ternmix-Compans, Voy., serie i., torn, x., p. 13. 
 'Todos toman niiichas niiigeres, einpero viia es la legitinia,' says Uomara, 
 Hist. Ind., fol. 263, in sfieaking of Nicarajgua. 'Coniunnientc cudu umi 
 tiene una sola inuger, 6 pocos son los que ticnen mds, ex9epto los prin9i- 
 pales 6 el que puede dar de comer & mds mugeres; 6 los ca^icpies quanta» 
 quieren.' Oviedo, Hist. Gen., tom. iv., p. 37. The word 'miiger' evidently 
 means women who lived with the man, the wife and concubines, fur, on i>. 
 30, it is stated that only one legitimate wife was allowed. The punisli- 
 ment for bigamy helps to bear this out. Villagutierre, Hist, Coiiq. Itza, pp. 
 310, 499. 'Nuiica los yucattmeses tomaron mas de una.' Landa, Rdarion, 
 pp. 142, 341. This view is also taken by Cogolludo, Hist. Yvc, p. 193, 
 wno adds, however: 'Contradize Aguilar en su informc lo de vna nui^'or 
 sola, diziendo, que tenian muchas;' but this may refer to concubines. 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 55, says: 'La pluralit<5 
 des femmes dtant admises par la loi,' and gives Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. 
 iv., lib. X., cap. iv., as his authority; but this author merely refers to concu- 
 binage as being lawful. 
 
 M Landa, Relacion, pp. 1.38-40. 'Tenian grandes pendencias, y muer- 
 tes sobre ello,' says Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv., referring 
 to their married life. 
 
INTERCOURSE OF THE SEXES. 
 
 C78 
 
 arasrua the husband decided whether the children 
 were to remain with him or the divorced wife.* 
 
 The Mayas seem to have dealt more leniently with 
 adulterers than the Nahuas. In Guatemala, the 
 married man who committed adultery with a maiden 
 was, upon complaint of the girl's relations, compelled 
 to pay as a fine from sixty to one hundred rare feath- 
 ers. It generally happened, however, that the friends 
 of the woman were careful to keep the matter secret, 
 as such a scandal would cause great injury to her 
 future prospects. If a married man was known to 
 sin with a married woman or a widow, both were for 
 the first or even the second offence merely warned, 
 and condemned to pay a fine of feathers; but if they 
 persevered in their crime, then their hands were 
 bound behind their backs, and they were forced to 
 inhale the smoke of a certain herb called tabacoyai/, 
 which, although very painful, was not a fatal punish- 
 ment. The single man who committed adultery with 
 a married woman was obliged to pay to the parents 
 of the latter the amount which her husband had paid 
 for her; doubtless this fine was handed over to the 
 injured husband, who, in such a case, repudiated his 
 wife. It sometimes happened, however, that the 
 husband did not report tlie matter to the authorities, 
 but gave his unfaithful wife a bird of the kind which 
 was used in sacrifices, and told her to offer it to the 
 gods, and, with her companion in crime, to confess 
 and be forgiven. Such a husband was re<jfarded as a 
 most virtuous and humane man.*" A noble lady 
 taken in adultery was reprimanded the first time, and 
 severely punished or repudiated for the second of- 
 fence. In the latter case she was free to marry 
 It was a capital crime to commit adultery 
 
 agam 
 
 41 
 
 " Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 60; Las Casas, in Kingnhorougli's 
 Mrx. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 146; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hint. Nat. Civ., 
 toin. ii., p. 572. 
 
 *" Las Casas, Hist. Apologitica, in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. 
 viii., pp. 1.37-8. 
 
 *' lirasseur de Bourbovrg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 572. 
 Vol. II. 43 
 
 m 
 
 J 
 
 III 
 
674 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 with a lord's wife; if he who did so was a nohle, 
 they strangled him, but if he was a plebeian, they 
 fluni^ him down a precipice." 
 
 Cofifolludo says that among the Itzas the man and 
 woman taken m adultery were put to death. Tlio 
 woman was taken beyond the limits of the town to a 
 place where there were many loose stones. There she 
 was bound to a post, and the priest who had jud<(ed 
 her having cast the first stone, and the injured hus- 
 band the second, the crowd that was never missing on 
 such occasions joined so eagerly in the sport that the 
 death of their target was a speedy one. The male 
 adulterer, according to the same account, was also 
 bound to a post, and shot to death in the same man- 
 ner with arrows.** 
 
 In Vera Paz, incorrigible adulterers were en- 
 slaved." In Nicaragua, the faithless wife was re})u- 
 diated by her husband, and not allowed to marry 
 again, but she had the right of retaining her dowry 
 and effects. The adulterer was severely beaten with 
 sticks, by the relations of the woman he had led 
 astray. The husband appears to have taken no part 
 in the matter.*" In Yucatan, adultery was punished 
 
 ** Torqueinada, Monnrq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 387. 'Acontecioquexiirsc vii 
 Indio contra vn Alcalde de sii imcioii, que sin pediinento snyo haiiui ctisti<;ji(lo 
 a 811 iniiger jpur ocliu adulterius, y hecliolc pagar a el lu condenacinn, de iiiii- 
 nera quo aliende de sn afrcnta, le lleuaua bu dinero.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., 
 dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. viii. 'Cuando queria que la inuger se huia y se iba 
 con otro, 6 por sencillas ne volvia en casa de sua padres, requerfala cl inurido 
 que volviese, y ai no qii'^ri;'*, el se podia casar luego con otra, porqiie en cste 
 caso las mugeres eran (looiensas y libres. Algunoe sufrian un ano a<;iinr- 
 ddndolas; pero lo tornun en.' casarse luego, porque no podian vivir sin niii- 
 geres, d causa de no tencr '^iiien les guisese de comer.' Ximenez, Hist. Ind. 
 Gnat, p. 200. 
 
 «3 Coffolludo, Hint. Yiic, p. 699. 
 
 ** 'Quando las mugeres eran halladas en adulterio, la primera vez craii 
 corregidas de palahra; y si no se enmendalmn, repudiiioanlas; y si era 
 Sefior, hennano 6 pariente del Seiior de la tierra, luego en dejiinilola, sc 
 podia casarse con quien quisiere. Losvasallos Iiacian tanibien esto lunchas 
 veces, pero tenian un poco de mas paciencia, porque las corregian dos y 
 cinco veces, y llamaban A sus parientes para que las reprehendiesen. Pcni 
 si eran incorregibles, denunciaoan ellas delantc del Sefior, el cual lus man- 
 daba comparecer ante si y hacianlas esclavas, y la niisnia pena se daba :i in» 
 que no querian hocer vida con sus mittidos.' Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Gun!., !>?• 
 208-9. 
 
 ** Oviedo asserts that the husband avenged his own honor. The Friar 
 asks: '^QuiS pena le dau al adtiltero, que se echa con la muger de otro. 
 
ADULTEUY AND FORNICATION. 
 
 675 
 
 with death. According to Cogolludo, offenders of 
 both aexes were shot to death with arrows; Landa 
 tells us that the man was killed with a stone by the 
 husband of his paramour, but the woman was pun- 
 ished with disij^race only. It is said that in nioru an- 
 cient times adulterers were impaled or disemboweled. 
 But so great was the horror in which the Yucatecs 
 held this crime, that they did not always wait for 
 conviction, but sometimes punished a suspected per- 
 son by binding him, stripping him naked, shaving off 
 his hair, and thus leaving him for a time.*" Among 
 the Pipiles of Salvador he who made advances to a 
 married woman, and did nothing worse, was banished, 
 and his propoi'ty was conHscated. The adulterer, if 
 we may believe Palacio," was put to death; Squier 
 says he became the slave of the dishonored husband.** 
 
 Simple fornication was punished with a fine, to be 
 paid in feathers of a certain rare bird, which, by the 
 laws of Vera Paz at least, it was death to kill with- 
 out express permission, as its plumage formed a most 
 valuable article of trade with the neighboring prov- 
 inces." But if any complaint was raised, such as by 
 a father in behalf of his daughter, or by a brother for 
 his sister, the seducer was put to death, or at least 
 made a slave." In Yucatan, death seems to have 
 been the inevitable fate of the seducer." 
 
 In Guatemala and Salvador, consummated rape 
 was punished with death. He who merely attemj^ted 
 
 The Indian answers: 'El marido della rifie con ^1 6 le da de palos; pcro no 
 lomata.' Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 50. Squier, Nicaragua, (Ed. 185(J,) vol. 
 ii., p. 343, says that the woman was also severely flog^d, but this does not 
 seem to have been the case. Hec Oomara, Hist. ImL, lo\. 263; Herrera, 
 Hist. Oen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Boylt^s Ride, vol. i., p. 273. 
 
 ** Cogolludo, Hist. Yue., p. 182; Lattda, Rdarion, pp. 48, 17C; Ter- 
 naux-Compans, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, toni. xcvli., p. 4^; 
 Hertcva, Hist. Oen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii.; Fancourfs Hist, y'uc, p. 117. 
 
 " Carta, p. 80. 
 
 *^Cent. Amer.,p. 334. 
 
 *» Las Casas, Hist. Apologttica, MS., in Kingsborough's Mix. Antiq., 
 vol. viii., j.n. 137, 144; Torquemada, Monarq.Ind., torn, li., p. 387. ^ 
 
 *• Las Casas, in Kingsboroitgh's Mex. Anfiq., vol. viii., p. 144; Torque- 
 tnada, Monarq. lad., toin. ii., p. 388. 
 
 " Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., p. 182. 
 
 '' ¥1 
 
 I'M 
 
676 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 rape was enslaved."' In Nicaragua, the penalty for 
 this crime was not so severe, since he who committed 
 it was only obliged to compensate pecuniarily the 
 parents of his victim; though if he could not do tliis 
 he became their slave. Ho who ravished the daughter 
 of his employer or lord was, however, always put to 
 death.*" Incest is said to have been an unknown 
 crime." 
 
 Public prostitution was tolerated, if not encourasfed, 
 among all the Maya nations. In every Nicaraguan 
 town there were establishments kept by public women, 
 who sold their favors for ten cocoa-nibs, and main- 
 tained professional bullies to protect and accomj)any 
 them at home and abroad. Parents could prostitute 
 their daughters without shame; and it is said, further, 
 that during a certain annual festival, women, of what- 
 ever condition, could abandon themselves to the em- 
 brace of whomever they i)leased, without incurring 
 any disgrace."^ It was no unusual tiling for parents 
 of the lower orders to send their daughters on a tour 
 through the land, that they might earn their marriage 
 poi-tion by prostitution.^ 
 
 All the old writers aj)pear anxious to clear the civi- 
 
 ^* Las Casas, in Kiiiqslioroiiffh^s Mcx. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 144; Torque- 
 mada, Mouarq. Iiid., toiii. ii., p. 388; Hcrirrn, Uist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. 
 viii., cap. x. ; Ptilacio, Carta, p. 82; Siiuicr's Vent. Aiiier., p. .S.34. 
 
 *5 Ootnara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263; Ovicdo, Hist. Oeii., toin. iv., p. 51; 
 Herrera, Hist. (?c»., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. ; Squier's Nicaraqua, (¥A. 
 1856,) vol. ii., p. 343. 
 
 ^Ovicdo, Hist. Oen., torn, iv., p. .51; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. ISiid,) 
 voi. li., p. 343. 
 
 5S OiHcdo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 2.''>2, 316, torn, iv., pp. .17, 51; Gomara, 
 Hist. Ind., fol. 2G3-1; Ilrrrern. Hii!. Gen., ilec. iii., lil>. iv., cap. vii.; 
 Muller, Amerikanische Urrdiijioiir.n, p. C63; Squier's Nicaragua, (VA. 
 1856,) vol. ii., pp. ,34.1-4; Bo)/le\i Ride, vol. i., p. 273. 'Dailo que e viilo 
 que en otros partes de las Indian usavan del ncfando peccado en estoit tales 
 casas, en esta tierra ( Viicatan) no e cntcndido que hizicsscn tal, ni crcu Iti 
 hazian, porquc los lla^'ados dcHta pcstilencial niiseria dizen que no .son aini- 
 gos de mugcres conio cran CHtoH, ca a e.stos higarcH Uevavan la>i nuilaH iiiii- 
 gercs publica.s, y en cllos usavau dellas, y las pobrcs que ciitie csta gento 
 accrtava a toner este officio no obstante que recibian dcllos irualurdon, 
 eran tantos los iiio^o:- que a cllas acudian quo las traian acoHsadas y nuicr- 
 tas." Landa, Jiclacioii, p. 178. 
 
 ^ Andagot/a, in Navarrc/c, Col. de Viujcs, toni. iii., p. 414; Herreni, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. v., ciU). xii. ; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. 
 ii, p. 344; Boyle's Hide, vol. \.\ pp. 273-1. 
 
UNNATURAL VICES. 
 
 677 
 
 s civi- 
 
 lized aborigines from the charge of sodomy, yet the 
 fact that no nation was without strict laws regarding 
 this unnatural vice, combined with the admissions re- 
 luctantly made by the reverend fathers themselves, 
 seems to show that pederasty certainly was not un- 
 known. Thus, Las Casas says that sodomy was 
 looked upon as a great and abominable sin in Vera 
 Paz, and was not known until a god," called by some 
 Chin, by others Cavil, and again by others Maran, in- 
 structed them by committing the act with another 
 deity. Hence it was held by many to be no sin, in- 
 asmuch as a god had introduced it among them. And 
 thus it happened that some fathers gave their sons a 
 boy to use as a woman; and if any other approached 
 this boy he was treated as an adulterer. Neverthe- 
 less, if a man committed a rape upon a boy, he was 
 punished in the same manner as if he had ravished a 
 woman. And, adds the same writer, there were al- 
 ways some who reprehended this abominable custom.** 
 [n Yucatan certain images were found by Bernal 
 Diaz which would lead us to suppose that the natives 
 were at least acquainted with stjdomy,"'' but here 
 again the good father* takes up the cudgels in be- 
 
 p. 51; 
 
 1, (Ed. 
 
 . 18.56,) 
 
 omara, 
 vii.; 
 (b:.l. 
 c viilo 
 talcs 
 crci> Id 
 )ii aini- 
 iiH uni- 
 jiiMite 
 liirdoii, 
 niuer- 
 
 '^I'Tirrii. 
 •>,) vol. 
 
 ^7 A dcmoM, Los Casas calls him, but tliesc monks spoke of all the New 
 World deities as 'demons.' 
 
 ^^ Las Casas, in Kingshoroufjh's Mcx. Aniiq., vol. viii., p. 138. Before 
 this he writes: ' Y es aqui de saber, que tenian por grave ijecado el de la 
 Hotloinia oomo abajo diremos, y comunmcntu los piidres lo aborrccian y pro- 
 liibian d los hijos. Pero por caii»>a de que fue»eu instruidos en hi religion, 
 nianduvanlcs dorn'iir en los tcinji'os donde los niozos nmyorescn aqiiel vicio 
 il los ninos corronipian. Y tlcspucs salidos do alii mal aeostunibrados, di- 
 licil era librarlos de aque) vicio. I'or esta causa eran los padres muy soli- 
 citos de casarlos quan nrcst'i poilian, por los apartar de aquclla corrupcion 
 vilissima aunquo casaltos niucl-achos contra su voluntad y forzados, y sola- 
 nientc por aiiucl rcspeto lo liacian.' Id., pp. LH-."). 
 
 M Cogolliido, Hist. I'lic, p. ISO. 
 
 ** 'Otro acerrimo infamador de cstas nacioiies, <|ue Dios Nuestro Senor 
 haya, en cuya historia crco yo que tuvo Dios harto poca imrtc, dixo ser 
 indicio noto'rio de que aquelhi). giMites eran oontaminadas del vicio nefando 
 ])or haver hallado en eierta parte de aquella tierra, licchos de barro ciertos 
 ulolos uuo encinia de otro. Como si entre nucstros pintores 6 ligidns no ne 
 liiijii" --ada dia tiguras fcas y dedi versos actos, que no hay 80|K'cha por nmlie 
 "' ,■!.• , condcnarlos todos por aqucllo, haciendolos reos de vicio tan indigno 
 dc sc liablar, no carece de mo.y culpable tcnieridad, y asi lo que ariba dije 
 fcngo por la verdiwl, y lo dcnias por falsos testiinonios dignos de divino cas- 
 tigo.' Las Casas, iu Kingsburough'n Mcx. A»Hq., vol. vi;i.,p. l47. 
 
678 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 In Nicaragua sodomites were 
 
 half of his favorites 
 stoned to death.®* 
 
 The desire to possess children seoms to have been 
 very general, and many were the prayers and oifer- 
 ings made by disappointed parents to propitiate the 
 god whose anger was supposed to have deferred their 
 hopes. To further promote the efficacy of th«..i- 
 prayers, the priest enjoined upon man and wife to 
 separate for a month or two, to adhere to a simple 
 diet, and abstain from salt.*^ Several superstitious 
 observances were also regarded; thus, among the 
 Pipiles, a husband should avoid meeting his father- 
 in-law, or a wife her mother-in-law, lest issue fail 
 them.^ These observances tend the more to ilhis 
 trate their longing to become parents, since the 
 women are said to have been very prolific. Tlio 
 women were delivered with little difficulty or pain,®* 
 yet a midwife was called in, who attended to the 
 motlier s wants, and facilitated parturition by placing 
 a heated stone upon the abdomen. In Yucatan an 
 image of Ixchel, the goddess of childbirth, was ])laced 
 beneath the bed. Among the Pipiles and in Guate- 
 mala, the woman was confessed when any difficulty 
 arose, and it not unfrequently happened that an 
 officer of justice took advantage of such opportu- 
 nities to obtain criminating evidence. If the wife's 
 confession alone did not have the desired etfect, 
 the husband was called upon to avow his sins; his 
 maxtli was besides laid over the wife, and some- 
 times blood was drawn from his tongue and ojiis, to 
 be scattered towards the four quarters with various 
 invocations.®' After delivery a turkey hen was ini- 
 
 ^ 
 
 6' Oi'icdo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 51j Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) 
 vol. ii., p. 34.3. 
 
 «* 'Que comicRcn cl pan seco 6 solo maiz, o que estuviesen tantos tliii^ 
 en el oiiiiipo nictidus en tilguna cueva.' Ximenez, Hisl. Ind. Guut., ]>. Vi'A- 
 
 «• Pidacio, Carta, |t. 78, 
 
 *♦ In V^era Paz 'las nuigcres naren conw cabras, niuchas vezes a solus, 
 tendidiis en el sucio: otra.s por los caniinott, y luego se van a lauar ul lio.' 
 Uerrcrn, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cuj). xiv. ; Lniida, Rclnrioit, )). I!'-. 
 
 ^ 'Lc liazian dezir huh pecados i si no paria, liazia que hc confcsase ol 
 
CHILDBIRTH AND CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 679 
 
 molated, and thanks rendered to the deity for the 
 happy issue. The midwife thereupon washed the 
 child, placed a bow and arrow in its hands, if a boy, a 
 spindle, if a girl, and drew a mark upon its right foot, 
 so that it might become a good mountaineer. 
 
 The birth of a son was celebrated with especial 
 rejoicings, and extensive invitations issued for the 
 feasts that took place on or about the day when the 
 umbilical cord was to be cut,"® a ceremony which 
 seems to have borne the same festive character as 
 baptism among the Nahuas and other nations. The 
 ahgih, astrologer, wsis asked to name a favorable day 
 for the rite. The cord was tlien laid upon an ear of 
 jjl maize to be cut otf with a new knife and burned. 
 
 The grains were removed from the cob and sown at 
 the proper season; one half of the yield to bo made 
 into gruel and form the first food of the child aside 
 from the mother's milk, the other half to be sent to 
 the ahgih, after reserving a few grains for the child 
 to sow with his own hands when he grew up, and 
 make an offering- thereof to his jfod. At the same 
 time a kind of circumcision may have been performod, 
 a rite which could not, however, have been very gen- 
 eral, if indeed it ever existed, for Cogolludo positively 
 asserts that it never was practiced in Yucatan, and 
 L i!>.da thinks that the custom of slitting the foreskin, 
 whiol} the devout performed before the idol, may have 
 gjvo(^ rise to the report. Palacio asserts that cer- 
 tuiij Indians in Salvador are known to have scarified 
 tiunitjclves as well as some boys in the same manner."'' 
 
 iiiar.'. 1 '. ' .,i no pndin con er'.to, si havia dicho i coiifesado que conofia alf^uiio, 
 iviir, il -.-u.sa dc iv\}wl i traiaii de hii casa la inaiita c pafietcs i ctdTiola li la 
 ])reMada piiratiiie pariesc' I'xiado, Vurltt, p. 70; Las Cuxns, in Kingsfio- 
 roiiijICs Mcx. Aiiliq., vol. viii., p. l.'V.). 
 
 •* It would seem that the I'liild reiiuiiiied with the uavel-string attached 
 to it until a favorahle day was selected for j)erforiiiini; the ceremony of cut- 
 tiny it. 'Euhahau suertes para ver (lue dia Hcria Itneiio i)ara cortar el oni- 
 1)li;j;o.' And further on: 'Muchos trious de in4lios de Centro- America con- 
 scrvau hasta hoy al naciniicnto dc un nino el uso dc iiucmarle el oinblij^o; 
 costiiiihrc ImrUara dc que mueron muchos ninos.' This would indicate 
 that t'.io cord was hurned while attached to the infant. Xiirfiifs, Hist. Ind. 
 Gnat., pp. 103-4; Torqwiwt lit, Mimnrq. Inil., to:u. ii., p. 44S. 
 
 ^' in Cczuri 'ciertoa ludioa idulutrarou eu un niuntc cu sus termiuos, i 
 
 
 i 
 
 hi; 
 
 m 
 
680 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 The naming of the child was the next import- 
 ant affair. Among the Pipiles it was taken to the 
 temple on the twelfth day, over a road strewn with 
 green branches,®^ and here the priest gave it the name 
 of its grandfather or grandmother, after which offer- 
 ings of cacao and fowl were presented to the idol, and 
 some gifts to the xiiinister. In Guatemala the child 
 was named after the god to whom the day of its birth 
 was dedicated, for it was not thought desirable to call 
 it after the parents; other names were, however, 
 applied afterwards, according to circumstances.®" Las 
 Casav 'i-\-h that the parents lost their name on the 
 birth «.r first sen and daua-hter, the father beinyf 
 
 called '{^11. c of Ek,' or whatever might be the name 
 of the son, and the m )ther receiving the cognomen of 
 'mother of Can,' etc.™ The Itzas gave their children 
 a name formed of the combined names of the father 
 and mother, that of the latter standing first; tlius, in 
 Canek, can is taken from the mother's name, ek from 
 the father's. In Yucatan, the former home of this 
 people, the custom was almost the same, exeej»t that 
 na was prefixed to the names of the parents; thus, 
 Na-Chan-Chel denoted son of Chel and Chan, but as 
 the name of the father, according to Landa, was jxn- 
 petuated in the son only, not in the daughter, it fol- 
 
 entre ellos que uno se harp6 i hcndid su nrcnbro, i que circuncidiiron 
 quutro niuchuclios ile ilozc ufius iiiini urrilia ill uso judaico, i la Haiii;rc i|Hu 
 salio (Icllns la sacrilicaroii d iin iilolo.' Palacio, Cartn, i). 84. 'Se liarpavaii 
 el Huperlhio del iiiicnibro ver^on<;oso, dcxaiidolo coino las orcjas, dc lo qiial 
 se eimafiocl liistoriador {general dc laa Iiulias, dizieiidoquc 8e circuincidian.' 
 Landa, Rclarioii, pp. 162-3. 'Ni aqucUos Keli;;iosos DoniinicoH, iii el 
 Obispo de Cliinpa, liazicndo tan particular iiiquisicion, liazcn inenioriu dc 
 aucr hallado tal uosa. . . .los Indios, ni cstos tioncn tradicion de que v.-sumscu 
 tal costumbre sus ascend ientcs.' Corfollwlo, Hint. Yiin., p. 191. 'Tlicy 'are 
 Circumcised, but not all.' Peter Mnrtj/r, dec. iv., lib. i. Circumcision was 
 'un usai^ general dans 1' Yucatan, observe de temps immemorial: elle etait 
 pratiquce sur les petits cnfants dcs Ics premiers jours de leur uaissance.' 
 lirnsseur de liourbounf, J/int. Nat. Civ., toni. ii., p. 51. This jmsitive and 
 isolated assertion of the Abbd must be founded upon some of his MSS., as 
 usual. 
 
 M 'Cortarban ramos verdcs en quo pisase.' Palacio, Carta, p. 7fl. 
 
 69 Brassour de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 568, refers only 
 to the first-born. 'Dabanlc el nonibre del Dia, en que liavia nacido, o 
 Begun lo quo precedib en su Naciniiento.' Torquciiuida, Monarq. JiuL, torn. 
 ii., p. 448. Xiiticnez, Hint. lad. Guat., p. 193. 
 
 1^ Hut. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxix. 
 
NAMING THE CHILDREN. 
 
 681 
 
 lows that the girl could not have been named in the 
 same order; it is possible that the mother's name was 
 placed last, and served as surname in their case. In 
 later years this name was not usually imposed until 
 the time of baptism ; but in earlier times a distinctive 
 name was given by the priest at the time of taking 
 the horoscope, shortly after birth. The name of the 
 father was borne till the marriage day, the names of 
 both parents being assumed after that event.''^ On 
 the conclusion of the above ceremonies, the Guate- 
 malan or Pipile infant and mother were taken to a 
 fountain or river, near a fall if possible, to be bathed, 
 and during the bath incense, birds, or cacao were 
 offered to the water, api)arently with a view of gain- 
 ing the good will of the god of that element. The 
 utensils which had served at the birth, such as warm- 
 ing stone, cups, and knife, were thrown into the water 
 at the same time." 
 
 The mothers were good and patient nurses, suck- 
 ling their infants for over three years, for the habit of 
 taking warm morning drinks, the exercise of grinding 
 maize, and the uncovered bosom, all tended to pro- 
 duce large breasts and an abundant supply of milk. 
 (Otherwise the children received a hardy training, 
 clothing being dispensed with, and the bare ground 
 serving for a couch. When working, the mother car- 
 ried them on her back; in Yucatan, however, they 
 were usually borne across the hip, and for this reason 
 
 larufe number became bow-le<2f<red. Landa also 
 
 a 
 
 •'of-i" 
 
 mentions anotlier deformity, that produced by lioad- 
 
 ''i 'A sns hijos y hijas sicnipre llaniavan del nombre del padre y do la 
 madre, el del padre coiiio propin y de la inadre apellativo.' Tlio i)re-hap- 
 tisinal name \vas abandoned wlion the father's name aHSunicd. I.iuiila, 
 Rdacion, pp. 13(5, 1!)4. Only the few who were destined to reeeive the 
 baptism obtained the distinctive name. Meilrl, in Nourr.lks Annal<:i tks 
 Vol/., 1813, toni. xcvii., pp. 44-5; ViUagulicrrc, Hist. Coiiq. Ilzit, p. 489. 
 
 " Torqurmada, Mnnarq. Ind., toni. ii., p. 448. I'alacio, Carta, p. 76, 
 states that tliis ceremony was ]>erformcd after the twelfth day, and that the 
 mother only was taken to be bathed. Jfi'rrcra, Hist. Gen. , dec. iv., lib. viii., 
 <':ip. X., aiid Sqidur^s Cent. Amer., p. 33.'1; Jirasseur tie liourbourg, Hist. 
 Xat. Civ., torn. iL, p. 568. 
 
682 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 flattening, whicli is to be noticed on the sculptures 
 of the Maya ruins." 
 
 It is related by all the old Spanish historians, that 
 when the Spaniards first visited the kingdom of Yu- 
 catan they found there traces of a bajjtisnial rite ; and, 
 strangely enough, the name given to this rite in the 
 language of the inhabitants, was zihil, signifying 'to 
 be born again.' It was the duty of all to have their 
 children baptized, for, by this ablution they believed 
 that they received a purer nature, were protected 
 against evil spirits and future misfortunes. I have 
 already mentioned that no one could marry unless he 
 had been baptised according to their customs; they 
 held, moreover, that an unbaptised person, whether 
 man or woman, could not lead a good life, nor do any- 
 thing well. The rite was administered to children of 
 b 'th sexes at any time between the ages of three and 
 twelve 3'^ears. When parents desired to have a child 
 baptised they notified the priest of their intentions. 
 The latter then published a notice throughout the 
 town of the day upon which the ceremony would take 
 place, being first careful to fix upon a day of good 
 omen. This done, the fathers of the children wlio 
 were to be baptised, selected five of the most honored 
 men of the town to assist the ])riest during the cere- 
 mony. These were called chacs.''* During the three 
 days preceding the ceremony the fathers and assist- 
 ants fasted and abstained from women. When the 
 appointed day arrived, all assembled with the children 
 who were to be baptised, in the house of the giver of 
 the feast, who was usually one of the wealthiest of 
 the parents. In the courtyard fresh leaves were 
 strewn, and there the boys were ranged in a row in 
 charge of their godfathers, while in another row weie 
 
 w 'Allniuirles las f rentes y cabepon.' 'Comunmentc todos estevndos, 
 
 porque villi aliorcnjudos en los qiiadriles.' Lamia, Belacion, pp. l!)"J-4, 
 
 112; Jniirron, Hist. Uuaf., p. 195. 
 
 "* C/iiic or Chann, was the title ^ivcii to certain laymen who were cIihIciI 
 to nHsist the priest in some of his reiijrious duties. Also the iiiinic of a 
 divinity, protector of the water and harvests. See Lamia, Il-lnrU>ii, p. 4S."). 
 
BAITISMAL CEUEMONIES. 
 
 the girls with their godmothers. The priest now pro- 
 ceeded to purify the house with the object of casting 
 out the devil. For this purpose four benches were 
 placed one in each of the four corners of the court- 
 yard, upon Avhicii were seated four of the assistants 
 holding a long cord that passed from one to the other, 
 thus enclosing part of the yard ; within this enclosure 
 were the children and those fathers and officials who 
 had fasted. A bench was placed in the centre, upon 
 which the priest was seated with a brazier, some 
 ground corn, and incense. The children were directed 
 to approach one by one, and the priest gave to each a 
 little of the ground corn and incense, which, as tfiey 
 received it, thev cast into the brazier. When this 
 had been done by all, they took the cord and brazier, 
 with a vessel of wine, and gave them to a man to 
 carry outside the town, with injunctions not to drink 
 any of the wine, and not to look behind him; with 
 such ceremony the devil was expelled.'" The yard 
 was'then swept clean, and some ler.ves of a tree called 
 cihom, and of another called cojjo, were sclittered over 
 it. The priest now clothed himself in long gaudy- 
 looking robes, consisting, according to Landa, of a 
 jacket of red feathers with flowers of various colors 
 embroidered thereon; hanging from the ends wore 
 other long feathers, and on his head a coronet of 
 j)lumes. From beneath the jacket long bands of 
 cotton hung down to the ground. In his hand he 
 held some hyssop fastened to a short stick. The 
 chacs then put white cloths upon the children's 
 heads and asked the elder if they had committed 
 any sins; such as confessed that they had, were then 
 
 " Who was selected to take the wine, brazier, and cord outside tlie town, 
 or what he did witii it afterwards, we are not told. (Joi^oUiido says: 'I)a- 
 han i\ vn Indio vn vaso del vino mie aeostunihrahan l)eber, y enihiaoaiilc 
 fiiera del Piichlo con el, niandandmc, (|ue ni lo bebiesse, ni niirasse atriis, 
 con <iue crcian quedalta totalinente cxpulso el dcnionio.' Ili.sf. Vw., p. 1{)I. 
 'En un viiso eiiviaban vino fucra del pueblo, con orden al indio que no lo 
 lieiiiese ni niirase atras, y con csto pensaban que luibian ecliado al denio- 
 nio.' Vrytin, Jlist. Aiit. 31 J., tout, i., p. 18.3; Jlcrreru, Hint. Gen., dcc.iv., 
 lib. .\., cap. iv. 
 
 I' III 
 
684 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 placed apart. The priest then ordered the people to 
 sit down and be silent; he next blessed the boys, and 
 offeriiii^ up some prayers, purified them with the hys- 
 sop with much solemnity. The principal officer who 
 had been elected by the fathers, now took a bone, 
 and having dipped it in a certain water, moistened 
 their foreheads, their features, and their finij^ers and 
 toes.'" After they had been thus sprinkled with 
 water the priest arose and removed the cloths from 
 the heads of the children, and then cut off with a 
 stone knife a certain bead that was attached to the 
 head from childhood; they were then given by one of 
 the assistants some flowers to smell, and a pipe 
 through which they drew some smoke, after which 
 they were each presented with a little fot>d, and a 
 vessel full of wine was brouLjht as an oflferinjr to the 
 gods, who were entreated to receive it as a thanks- 
 giving from the boys; it was then handed to one of 
 the officials, who had to drink it at one draught. A 
 similar ceremony took place with the female childten, 
 at the conclusion of which their mothers divested 
 them of a cord, which was worn during their child- 
 hood, fastened round the loins, having a small shell 
 that hunef in front. The removal of this sijjnified 
 that they could marry as soon as their parents per- 
 mitted." The children were then dismissed, and 
 their fathers distributed presents among those who 
 had assisted at the ceremony. A grand banquet 
 called emku, or 'the descent of god,' was then held, 
 and during the nine succeeding days the fathers of 
 the children fasted, and were not to approach their 
 
 wives, 
 
 78 
 
 76 'Esta agiia hazian de ciertas flores y de cacao inniado y desleido con 
 agiia virgcn que cllos dczian traida de los concavuss dc los arbolcs o dc los 
 iiiontcs.' Laiida, Relacioii, p. 150. 
 
 77 'Los varoncillos usavanlcs sicmpre poner pegada a la ca1)e9a en los 
 cabcllos de la eoronilla una contezuela ulanca, y a las muchachas traiaii 
 ccriidiiB iior las renes niuy abaxo con un cordel delgado y en el una con- 
 chuela asida que les veuiu a dar cncima de la parte honesta, y deltas dos 
 cosa« era entre ellos pcccado y cosa muy fea quitarla de las mochachas 
 antes del baptismo.' Landa, Relar.ion, pp. 144, 146. 
 
 78 Brasseur de Bourbourg says they leastcd nine days: 'Tous ensemble, 
 
DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE. 
 
 685 
 
 The Nicaraguan husbands are said to have been so 
 much under the control of their wives that they were 
 obliged to do the housework while the women attended 
 to the trading. The latter were, moreover, great 
 shrews, and would on the slightest provocation drive 
 their offending husbands out of the house; we are 
 told that it was no unusual occurrence for the neigh- 
 bors to be suddenly called in to appease some unfor- 
 tunate man's Xantippe.'* The women of Yucatan 
 were renowned for their modesty and conjugal faith- 
 fulness. Landa, one of the first bishops of Yucatan, 
 relates an anecdote illustrating this trait. Alonso 
 Lopez de Avila, during the war against Bacalar, took 
 prisoner a very beautiful Indian girl. Struck by her 
 beauty the captor endeavored by all means to induce 
 her to gratify his desires, but in vain. She had prom- 
 ised her warrior-husband, who during those perilous 
 
 prfitres et parents, festoyaicnt apr^s cela, pendant nenf jours, les pfercs 
 etmit obli<^(;s, diirnnt cet intervalle, dc s'abstciiir de leurs feiiinics.' Hist. 
 Xnl. Oil'., toin. ii., p. 52. He appears to liavc misunderstood CojjoUudo, to 
 wlioin he refers, since that author's words are, 'acabando la fiesta en ban- 
 ({uetcs, y en los nuevc dins si4;uieiitcs no auiaii de Uegar a sus niugeres los 
 padres de los ninos.' Hist. Vw., p. 191. 'Allende de los tres dias que se 
 avia, coino por ayno, absteaido, se avia dc abstener nueve mas y lo liazian 
 iiiviolableinente. Landa, Jivlarion, p. 154. See further: Veylia, Hist. Ant. 
 Mrj., torn, i., pp. 182-3; Ddn'lu, Teatro Edes., toni. i., p. 205; Laet, Novua 
 Of^is, p. 272; Ternaiix-Compans, in Nouvelles Annales ties Voij., 1843, 
 torn, xevii., pp. 44-5. 
 
 "i^ Aiidugoi/a, in Navarrctc, Col. de Viaj'cs, torn, iii., p. 414; Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., lib. v., cap. xii. ; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., 
 toni. iv., pp. 39, 61, 103; Malte-Briin, Pricis de la Oiog., torn, vi., p. 472; 
 Goinara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263, . In Guatemala 'il est i\ rcmarnuer ici que 
 quand il s'agit simultanement d'hommes ct de fcmmes dans le discours, les 
 fcinines out presque toujours la prusdance sur les honimes.' 'C'cst peut-6tre 
 en nicmoire de la m^rc de Hun-Alipu que les femnies-chefs en bicn des con- 
 trees devaient leurs prerogatives.' Brassciir dc Bourboiirg, J'opol Vuh, pp. 
 93-4. In Yucatan tne women 'son zclosas y algunas tanto que ponian las 
 inanos a las de (juien tcnian zelos, y tan colcricas, cnojadas, aunque harto 
 niansas, que solian dar buclta de pelo algunas a los maridos con hazerlo 
 cllos nocas vezes.' Laiidn, Rr/nrioii, ])p. 188, 190. The women of Yucatan 
 hail. However, their duties to perform. 'Son grandes travajadoras y vivi- 
 doras, porque deltas cuclgan los mayorcs y mas trabajos de la sustentacion 
 dc sus ca.sas y educacion dc sus liijos, y pnga dc sus tributos y con todocsso 
 si cs mencster llevan algunas vezes mayor carga, labrando y sembrando sus 
 niautcnimientos. Son a maravilla grangeras, velando de n( m cl rate quo 
 de servir sus casas les qucda, ycndo a los mercados a comprar y vender sua 
 cosillas.' The women joined and aided one another in the work, as weav- 
 ing, etc. 'Elles avaient leurs saillics et leurs Imns mots pour railler ct 
 conter des avcntures ct par moment aussi pour murmurer de leurs maris.* 
 Id., p. 190. 
 
 !i ; t; 
 
 itiii 
 
686 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 times was constantly face to face with death, that 
 none but he should ever call her wife; how then, 
 while perhaps he yet lived, could she become anoth- 
 er's mistress. But such arguments did not quench 
 the Spaniard's lust, and as she remained steadfast, he 
 ordered her to be cast among the bloodhounds, who 
 devoured her — a martvr at the hands of the men who 
 pretended to preach Jesus Christ, and him crucified.* 
 
 M Landa, Bdacion, p. 186. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FEASTS AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 Special Observances — Fixed Feasts — Sacrifice of Slaves- 
 Monthly Feasts of the Yucatecs — Renewal of the Idols 
 —Feast of the Chacs — Hunting Festival — The Tuppkak— 
 Feast of the Cacao-Planters— War Feast— The Maya New 
 Year's Day— Feasts of the Hunters, Fishers, and Apiarists 
 —Ceremonies in honor of Cukulcan — Feast of the Month 
 OF MoL — Feast of the Years Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac— 
 YucATEC Sacrifices— The Pit of Chichen — Sacrifices of the 
 PiPiLEs — Feast of Victory— Feasts and Sacrifices in Nicar- 
 agua-Banquets— Dances— Musical Instruments— Games. 
 
 Though the information concerning the feasts, reH- 
 gious and otherwise, of the Maya nations, is not so 
 full as that touching the Nahuas, yet there is no 
 doubt that the former people were quite as fond of 
 such matters as the latter. 
 
 The Quiches had many festivals and special observ- 
 ances, in some of which the whole people took part, 
 while others were performed by private persons 
 through excess of piety. They always made a sacri- 
 fice before commencing any work of importr - f 
 There were four special things for which they be- 
 sought the gods; namely, long life, health, progeny, 
 and the necessaries of life. They had particular ora- 
 tories where they went upon occasions of great dis- 
 tress, and drew blood from several parts of their body. 
 When they desired to have sons they sacrificed at 
 
 (687) 
 
 ► 
 
088 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 fountains. They had oratories in thick groves, and if 
 they found a spot where a larji^o tree grew over a 
 spring, they held the phice to l)p divine, because two 
 divinities met in the tree and in the i)ool.* 
 
 The religious feasts in which all the people took 
 part were held on certain fixed days of the calendar. 
 One of their most notable and solemn festivals was 
 more a time of penance and vigil than of feasting. 
 When the season of its celebration ajjproached, the loid 
 of a province with the principal men held a council and 
 sent for a diviner, and advised with him concerning the 
 day upon which the sacrifice should take ])lace. The 
 wise man at once began his sorceries, and cast lots in 
 order to ascertain what day would be the most propi- 
 tious. When the day was fixed, all men had from that 
 time to sleep in hou.ses apart from their wives during 
 a period of sixty or eighty days, or even longer, ac- 
 cording to the severity demanded. Upon each of these 
 days every one had to offer sacrifice by drawing 1 ' od 
 from his arms, thighs, tongue, and other parts "s 
 body. This they did at certain hours of the di.^. ^ 
 night, and also burned incense. They could not bathe 
 while the observances lasted. From the day when 
 this lent began, the slaves who were to be sacrificed 
 were allowed a certain freedom, and permitted to go 
 about the town wheresoever they pleased. On the 
 neck of each, however, was fastened a ring of gold, 
 silver, or copper, through which a stick was passed, 
 and as a further precaution against escape each was 
 accompanied by a guard of three or four men. They 
 were at liberty to enter any house, whether it was 
 that of the supreme lord or of the poorest man, and 
 wherever they applied for food or drink it was given 
 them. The same liberty was accorded to the guard. 
 When the day of sacrifice arrived, the high-priest 
 attired hjmself in his finest vestments. These con- 
 
 • 'Los universalcs sacrificios se ofrecian ordinariamcntc ciiando vcnian 
 las fiestas, las ciialcs habia en iinas provincias cinco, y ca otras scis, 6 su 
 ofrecian por neccsidad particular, por uno de estos dos respectos.' Ximcnez, 
 Hist Jna. Ouat., p. 177; Las Casas, Sist. Apologitica, MS., cap. clxxix. 
 
SACRIFICIAL TESTIVALS. 
 
 689 
 
 sinted of certain cloaks, with crowns of ^old, silver, 
 <»r other metal, adorned with precious .stones. The 
 idols were placed upon a frame ornamented with gold, 
 silver, and jljoius, and decked with roses and other 
 Howors. The slaves were then brought in procession 
 to the temple yard amid songs, music, and dancing; 
 and the idols were set upon altars, before which were 
 the sacrificial stones. As the holir of sacrifice drew 
 near, the supreme lord, and principal men with him, 
 repaired to the room where the slaves were waiting; 
 each then seized his slave by the hair and carried him 
 before the god, crying with a loud voice: O God our 
 Lord, remember thy servants, grant them health, off- 
 spring, and prosperity, so that they may increase and 
 serve thee. Give us rain, O Lord, and seasonable 
 weather to support us, that we may live, hearken to 
 our prayers, aid us against our enemitv , give us com- 
 fort and rest. On reaching the altar tiie sacrificing 
 priest stood ready, and the lord placed the victim in 
 his hands. He then, with his ministers, opened the 
 hreast with the sacrificial knife, tore out the heart 
 and offered it to the idol, at the same time anointing 
 it with the blood. Each idol had its holy table; the 
 Sun, the Moon, the East, the West, the North, and 
 the South had each one. The heads of the sacrificed 
 were put on stakes. The flesh was seasoned, cooked, 
 and partaken of as a holy thing. The high-priest 
 and supreme lord were given the hands and feet, as 
 the most delicate morsels, and the body was distrib- 
 uted among the other priests. All through the days 
 of the sacrificing great liberty was permitted to the 
 people, grand banquets were held, and drunken revels 
 ensued.' 
 
 II I 
 
 II 11 
 
 ' ' Aquel dia era lihcrtado pam hacer grandes banqiietes y borracheras, 
 y aai 86 mataban iiifinitas aves, iiuicha caza y vinos inuy difcrciites, liacian 
 ■nuchas danzas y bailes en prescncia dc loa idolos. Duraluiu aqiiestas 
 fietitas, tre8, cinco y Bicte diaa, segun lo que ordenaban los ininistros, y lo 
 deciiin cunudo habian de comenzar. En cstoa dias, en cada turde andaban 
 en nrocesion con grandes cantos y nn^sicas, llcvando al idolo jMir las callcs 
 y plazas, y donde habia lugar preeminente, hacian altares v ponian mesas, 
 y ulli paraban, y como nosotros representanios farsas, asi elfos jugabau d la 
 Vol. II. 44 
 
THE MAYA NATIONS, 
 
 Concerning the religious feasts u,nd observances of 
 the Yucatecs, Landa is the best and most complete 
 authority, and I will therefore take from his work 
 such scattered notices as he gives. 
 
 In the month of Chen they worked in fear and 
 trembling, making new idols. And when these were 
 finished, those for whom they were made gave pres- 
 ents of the best they had to those who had modeled 
 and carved them. The idols were then carried from 
 the building in which they had been made to a cabin 
 made of I'^aves, where the priest blessed them with 
 much solemnity and many fervent prayers, the artists 
 having previously cleansed themselves from the grease 
 wi+h which they had been besmeared, as a sign of 
 fasting, during the entire time that they remained at 
 work. Having then driven out the evil spirit, and 
 burned the sacred intense, the newly made images 
 were placed in a basket, enveloped in a linen cloth, 
 and delivered to their owners, who received them 
 with every mark of respect and devotion. The priest 
 then addressed the idol-makers for a few moments 
 on the excellence and importance of their profession, 
 and on the danger they would incur by neglecting the 
 rules of abstinence while doing such sacred work. 
 Finally, all partook of an abundant repast, and made 
 amends for their long fast by indulging freely in wine. 
 
 In one of the two months called Chen and Yax, on 
 a day determined by the priest, they celebrated a feast 
 called ocna, which means the renovation of the tem- 
 ple in honor of the Chacs, whom they regarded as 
 the gods of the fields. During this festival, they con- 
 sulted the oracle of the Bacabs.^ This feast was cel- 
 ebrated every year. Besides this, the idols of baked 
 clay and the braziers were renewed at this season, 
 because it was customary for each idol to have its own 
 little brazier, in which incense was burned before it; 
 
 pelota delante de sua dioses.' Ximencz, Hist. Ind. Giiat., p. 187; Las Casm, 
 Hisf. Apolugetica, MS., cap. clxxvii. 
 
 3 The manner in which this was done will be described elsewhere in 
 this chapter. 
 
FESTIVALS OF ZAC AND MAC. 
 
 691 
 
 work, 
 made 
 wiue. 
 ax, on 
 feast 
 e teiu- 
 led as 
 y con- 
 ■is oel- 
 baked 
 season, 
 
 re it; 
 
 %s Cnsns, 
 kvhcrc in 
 
 and, if it was necessary, they built the god a new 
 dweUing', or renovated the old one, taking care to 
 ])lace on the walls an inscription commemorating these 
 things, in the characters peculiar to them. 
 
 In the month of Zac, on a day appointed by the 
 priest, the hunters held a feast similar to that which, as 
 we shall presently see, took place in the month of Zip. 
 This was for the purpose of averting the anger of the 
 gods from them and the seed they had sown, because 
 of the blood which had been shed in the chase; for 
 they regarded as abominable all spilling of blood, ex- 
 cept in sacrifice.* They never went olit to hunt with- 
 out first invoking their gods and burning incense be- 
 fore them ; and on tlieir return from a successful hunt 
 they always anointed the grim visages of the idols 
 with the blood of the game. On another day of this 
 month a great feast was held, which lasted for ti.ree 
 days, attended with incense-burning, sacrifices, and 
 general orgies. But as this was a movaI)le feast, the 
 priests took care to give notice of it in advance, in 
 order that all might observe a becoming fast. 
 
 During the month of Mac, the old people celebrated 
 a feast in honor of the Chacs, goda of the cornfields, 
 and of another deity named Yzamna. Some days 
 before this the following ceremony, called in their lan- 
 guage tuppkak,^ was observed. Having brought 
 together all the reptiles and beasts of the field that 
 could be procured in the country, they assembled with 
 them in the court of the tem})le, in the corners of 
 which were the chacs and the })riests, to drive away 
 the evil spirit, each having by his side a jug filled 
 with water. Stjiiiding on end, in tlie centre, was an 
 enormous bundle of dry and fine wood, whidi was set 
 on fire after some incense had been burned. As the 
 
 ♦ Te qui, d'accord avcc diver? nntre^ indiros, niintiiircniit hien (jue I'cf- 
 fii><i()n dii 8UII};, ct Hiirtoiit dii snug liiiiuiiiii, duim Ich HaorilicoH, etait d'ori- 
 ftint't^rangerc, nahiiiitl probaltlenient,' lirassrur de Bourbourg, in Lantln, 
 liilacion, p. 247. 
 
 ' Meaning 'aueni^hinK of fire.' lirasunir dc fiourboitrg, in Landa, Re- 
 InrioH, p. 254. Vzanina is otlierwiM; called Zannid. 
 
THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 wood burned, the assembled crowd vied with each 
 other in tearing out the hearts of the victims they 
 had brought with them and casting them into the 
 flames. If it had been impossible to procure such 
 large game as jaguars, pumas, or alligators, they 
 typified the hearts of these animals by incense, which 
 they threw into the fire; but if they had them, they 
 were immolated like the rest. As soon as all the 
 hearts were consumed, the chacs* put out the fire 
 with the water contained in theii pitcher^. The ob- 
 ject of this feast and of that which folio ,»ed was to 
 obtain an abundance of water for their cornfields dur- 
 ing the year. This feast was celebrated in a different 
 manner from others, because no one fasted before it, 
 with the exception of the beadle (munidor) of the oc- 
 casion. On the day of the feast called tuppkak, the 
 people and the priests met once more in the court- 
 yard of the temple, where was erected a platform of 
 stone, with steps leading up to it, the whole tastefully 
 decorated with folia;jce. The priest gave some incense 
 to the beadle, who burned in a brazier enough to 
 exorcise the evil spirit. This done, the first step of 
 the platform was with great solemnity smeared with 
 mud taken from a well or cistern; the other 8tej)s 
 were stained a blue color. As usual, they ended 
 these ceremonies by eating and drinking and makini^ 
 merry, full of confidence in the efficacy of their rites 
 and ceremonies for this year. 
 
 In the month of Muan the cacao -planters held a 
 festival in honor of the gods Ekchuah, Chac, and 
 Hobnil, who were their patron deities.' To solemnize 
 it, they all went to the plantation of one of their 
 number, where they sacrificed a dog having a spot on 
 its skin of the color of cacao. They burned incense 
 
 • This word rhacs, which befot"! was interpreted as the 'cods of tlip 
 cornfields,' probably here means tlie priests of tiiose deities. In u former 
 chapter we nave seen the word applied to those who assisted at the riti- of 
 baptism. 
 
 T ' Ekchunh, evrit ailleurs Echnah, <itait le patron dcs marchaniU et iia- 
 turcllenicnf. dvsuai'uos, niarchandise et iionnaie & iafois.' Brasseurde Hour- 
 bourg, in Landu, RelacioH, p. 261. 
 
rites 
 
 d a 
 aiul 
 inize 
 thoir 
 ot oil 
 ense 
 
 of the 
 foriiior 
 ritf of 
 
 et 111*- 
 liiiiir- 
 
 WAK-FEAST IN THE MONTH OF PAX. 
 
 098 
 
 to their idols, and made offerings of blue iguanas, 
 feathers of a particular kind of bird, and game. 
 After this they gave to each of the officials* a branch 
 of the cacao-plant. The sacrifice being ended, they 
 all sat '^.own to a repast, at which, it is said, no one 
 was allowed to drink more than three glasses of wine. 
 All then went into the house of him who had given 
 the feast, and passed the time pleasantly together. 
 
 In the month of Pax, a feast was held, called 
 Pacumchac, which was celebrated by the nobles and 
 priests of the villages, together with those of the 
 great towns. Having assembled, they passed five 
 nights in the temple of Cit Chac Coh," praying and 
 offering incense. At the beginnins; of these five 
 days, they went all together to the house of the gen- 
 oral of their armies, whose title was Nacon, and 
 carried him in state to the temple, where, having 
 l)laced him on a seat, they burned incense before him 
 as though he had been a god. But though they 
 prayed during these five nights, they did not by any 
 means fast in the day-time, but ate and drank plenti- 
 fully, and executed a kind of grand war-dance, which 
 they called holkan okot, which is to say, 'dance of 
 the warriors.' The five days being passed, the real 
 business of the feast began, which, as it concerned 
 matters of war and victory, was a very solemn affair. 
 It was commenced witli ceremonies and sacrifices 
 similar to those already described as taking place in 
 the month of Mac. Then tlie evil spirit was expelled 
 in the usual manner, after which were more prayers, 
 offerings, and incensing. While all this was going 
 on, the nobles once more took the Nacon upon their 
 shoulders, and carried him in procession round the 
 temple. On their return a dog was sacrificed, its 
 
 ' 'OflfSciales;' this may mean officiating pricBts, or oversenrs on the 
 |>!antations, or almost anytliinu else. 
 
 * 'Cit parait 6tre une sorte ue cochon sauva^rc; chac est le nom gcnt'riqHO 
 •Ics dieux de la pluie, des campagnes, des fruits de la tcrre, etc. Coh est 
 li' |>uma oil ".ion aindricain; suivant d'autres, chac-coh est le leopard.' lirnn- 
 siiir de Bourboiirg, in Lanilu, Itclncion, p. '265, 
 
 lii 
 
 ^m 
 
 . ^i'. 
 
 if 
 
 'lift? ii>' 
 
 ,ii . I 
 
694 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 heart being torn out and presented to the idol be- 
 tween two dishes. Every one present then shattered 
 a large jug filled with some beverage, which com- 
 pleted this part of the festival. The usual banquet fol- 
 lowed, after which the Nacon was again placed upon 
 the shoulders of the nobles and carried to his house. 
 There, the nobles and priests partook of a grand 
 banquet, at which all got drunk, except the Nacon; 
 the people, meanwhile, returning to their homes. On 
 the morrow, having slept off the effects of the wine, 
 the guests of the Nacon received from him large pres- 
 ents of incense which had been previously blessed. 
 He also took advantage of this opportunity to deliver 
 a long discourse, in which he recommended his hear- 
 ers to observe scrupulously in both town and country 
 the feasts of the gods, in order to obtain a prosperous 
 and abundant year. As soon as the Nacon had fin- 
 ished speaking, there was a general and noisy leave- 
 taking, and the guests separated, and set out for their 
 respective homes. There they occupied themselves in 
 celebrating the festivals proper to the season, keeping 
 them up sometimes until the month of Pop. These 
 feasts were called Zabacilthan, and were observed as 
 follows. The people of each place or district sought 
 amongr the richest of their number for some who were 
 willing to defray the expenses of the celebration, and 
 recommended them to take the matter into considera- 
 tion, because it was customary to make merry during 
 the three last months of the year. This having been 
 settled, all met in the house of one of these prominent 
 men, after having driven away the evil spirit as usual. 
 Copal was burned, offerings were made, and the wine- 
 cup, which seems to have been the chief attraction on 
 these occasions, was not neglected. And all through 
 these three months, the excesses in which the people 
 indulged were pitiful to see; cuts, bruises, and eyes 
 inflamed with drink were plentiful amongst them; to 
 gratify their passion for drink they cast themselves 
 away. 
 
THE MAYA NEW YEAR'S DAY. 
 
 695 
 
 During the last five days of the month of Cumhu, 
 which were the last days of the year, the people sel- 
 dom went out of their houses, except to place offer- 
 ings in the temples, with which the priests bought 
 incense to be burned in honor of the gods. They 
 neither combed their hair nor washed themselves dur- 
 ing these five days; neither men nor women cleansed 
 themselves; they did no work of any kind lest some 
 misfortune should befall them. 
 
 The first day of the month of Pop, the Maya New 
 Year's Day, was a season of rejoicing, in which all the 
 nation took part. To give more importance to the 
 event, they renewed at this time all the articles which 
 they used, such as plates, cups, baskets, clothes, and 
 the dresses of the idols ; they swept their houses and 
 cast everything into the place where they put their 
 rubbish; and no one dared to touch what was cast 
 away, even though greatly in need of it. To prepare 
 for this feast, princes, priests, and nobles, and all who 
 wished to show their devotion, fasted and abstained 
 from their wives for la longer or shorter periixl, some 
 for three months preceding it, some for two, accord- 
 ing to their ideas of propriety, but none for less 
 than thirteen days. During this season of abstinence, 
 they ate their meat unseasoned, which was considered 
 severe discipline. At this time, also, they elected the 
 officers who were to assist the priest at the ceremony. 
 The priest prepared a number of little balls of fresh 
 incense on small boards made for the purpose, for 
 those who fasted to burn before the idols. Great care 
 was taken not to break thy fast after it had been once 
 commenced ; for if this were done it was thought that 
 misfortune must inevitablv ensue. 
 
 New Year's Dav haviniif arrived, all the men assem- 
 bled in the courtyard of the temple. Women could 
 assist at no feast which was celebrated witliin the 
 temple, except those who went to take i)art in par- 
 ticular dances; on other occasions, however, the 
 women were allowed to be present. On the day in 
 
 M 
 
 O 
 
 ' c !^ 
 
SM 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 question the men came alone, adorned with paint, and 
 cleansed from the grease with which they had been 
 bedaubed during the days of penance. When all 
 were assembled, with offerings of food and newly 
 fermented wine, the priest purified the temple and 
 seated himself in the centre of the court, clothed in 
 his robes of office, tad having by his side a brazier 
 and the balls of incense before mentioned. After thu 
 evil spirit had been expelled, all present offered up 
 prayers, while the assistants kindled the new fire for 
 the year. The priest now cast one of the balls of 
 incense into the brazier, and then distributed the 
 remainder among the assembled worshipers. The 
 nobles came first in the order of their rank, and as 
 each received a ball from the priest, who gave it with 
 great solemnity, he dropped it gently into the brazier 
 and stood still until it was consumed. The inevitable 
 banquet and orgies terminated the ceremonies. This 
 was the manner in which they celebrated the birth of 
 the new year. During the month, some of the most 
 devout anions^ them repeated the feast in their own 
 homes, and this was particularly done by the nobles 
 and priests, who were ever foremost in religious ob- 
 servances. 
 
 During the month of Uo the priests and sorcerers 
 began to prepare for a festival called pocam, which 
 was solemnized by the hunters and fishers on the sev- 
 enth day of the next month, which was Zip. Havin«^ 
 assembled, clothed in their ornaments, at the house of 
 the prince, they expelled the evil spirit, and then 
 uncovered their books and exposed them upon a 
 carpet of green leaves and branches, which had l)een 
 prepared for this purpose. They next invoked with 
 reverence a deity named Cinchau Yzamnu, who had 
 been, they said, the first priest.*" To him they offered 
 
 '* ' Cinchau- Yzamnd est wne orthographe erron^, si I'oii eii juge apros 
 lea lemons pr«5c^deiite8; c'est prol)al)lciiieiit line iiiauvaisc abreviatioii ilc 
 Kinich-AliHU-Ytzamnd, doniie, d'aillciirs, coinine I'invciiteiir des Icttres ct 
 de rdcritnrc, raiitenr de tons Ics nonis iniposds an Yucatan.' Jirasseiir (If 
 Bourbourg, in Lunda, Jiclacion, pp. 'J8I-.5. 
 
FESTIVITIES IN YUCATAN. 
 
 697 
 
 various gifts, and burned balls of incense in his honor. 
 In the meantime others took a vessel and a little 
 verdigris with some pure water, which had to be pro- 
 cured from a wood into whose recesses no woman had 
 ever penetrated. They now cleaned the leaves of 
 their books by moistening them ; this done, the wisest 
 among them opened a volume and examined the pros- 
 pects of the coming year, which he declared aloud to 
 all present. He concluded with a brief discourse, in 
 which he advised them how to avoid coming evils. 
 Jollity now reigned and the wine flowed freely — a 
 consummation which many of the old priest's hearers 
 had doubtless been long looking forward to impa- 
 tiently. The solemnities on this occasion were varied 
 at times by performing a dance called okot nil. 
 
 On the following day the doctors and sorcerers with 
 their wives came together in the house of one of their 
 number. The priests, having driven away the evil 
 spirit, brought to view their medicine-bags, in which 
 they kept a immber of charms, some little images of 
 Ixchel, goddess of medicine, from whom the feast 
 was named ihcil ixchel, and some small stones called 
 <tm, which they used in their sorceries. Then with 
 great devotion the doctors and sorcerers invoked the 
 gods of medicine, Yzanina, Citbolontum, and Ahau 
 Chamahez, while the priests burned incense, and the 
 assistants painted themselves blue, the color of the 
 books used by the priests. Bearing their medicine 
 bags in their hands, they then joined in a dance 
 called chantunyab, after which the men seated them- 
 selves in a row on one side, and the women on the 
 other; a day was appointed for holding tut. Feast dur- 
 ing the ensuing year, and then the usual drunken 
 orgies commenced. It is said that the priests ab- 
 stained from wine on this occasion, perhaps because 
 the women were present; but they took tlieir share, 
 nevertheless, and reserved it for a more private op- 
 portunity. 
 
 On another occasion the hunters, with their wives. 
 
 
 m 
 
698 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 assembled in the house of one of their number, and 
 performed there certain ceremonies. The first pro- 
 ceeding was, of course, to expel the evil influence; 
 then the priests, who were never absent from these 
 meetings, placed in the middle of the room some in- 
 cense, a brazier, and some blue coloring material. 
 Next, the huntsmen prayed with great devotion to 
 the gods of the chase, Acanum, Zuhuy Zipi, Tabai, 
 and others, and cast incense into the brazier. While 
 this was burning, each took an arrow and a deer's 
 head, which the priest's assistants had painted blue; 
 thus equipped, some danced, holding hands; others 
 pierced their ears or their tongue, and passed througli 
 the holes which they made seven leaves* of an herb 
 called etc. Then priests and their assistants made 
 offerings to the gods and joined in the dance. Fi- 
 nally, the festivities closed by all present becoming, 
 to quote the words of Bishop Landa, 'as drunk as 
 baskets.' 
 
 The next day it was the turn of the fishermen to 
 celebrate a feast, which they did in the same manner 
 as the hunters, except that instead of a deer's head, 
 they smeared their fishing implements with color; 
 neither did they pierce their ears, but cut round about 
 them, and after doing this they executed a dance 
 called cJwhom. Then they consecrated a large tree, 
 which they left standing. After the fetist had been 
 duly celebrated in the towns, it was customary for 
 the nobles and many of the people to go down to the 
 coast on a grand fishing expedition. The patron di- 
 vinities of the fishermen were Ahkak Nexoi, Ahpua, 
 Ahcitz, and Amalcum." 
 
 " 'C'etaient \h sans donte les dieux de la pficlic, h propos desqiicls Co- 
 c^lludo dit les imrolcs siiivuntes: "On dit aiissiiqiie bien apres la conciuete, 
 les Indicns de la ))rovinec <le Titzimin, quund ils allaicnt {iCclicr Ic loiijj; <lc 
 la c6tc de Ciiotlci),, avant dc sc nicttrc a la p6clic, conunen^-iiiciit par des 
 sacrifices et des oblations a Iciirs faux dieiix, leur otl'rant des chandcllcs, des 
 rdaux d'argent et des cuzvnn, qui sont leurs i^nieraudes, et d'autres pierres 
 prdcieuses, en certain endriiits, an ku et oratoires qui se voient encore dans 
 les bras <le mer (estuaires) et les la<rHnes saldes qu il y a sur cette c6te vor.-- 
 le Rio de Lagartos."^ {Hist. Yur., lib. iv., cap. iv.); Brusseiir de Bum- 
 hourg, in Landa, Relacion, pp. 292-3. 
 
FEAST OF THE APIARISTS. 
 
 699 
 
 In the month of Tzoz, the apiarists prepared for 
 a feast which was to take place in the next month, 
 called Tzec, by a fast, which was, however, optional 
 with all except the priests who were to officiate, and 
 their assistants. The day of celebration having ar- 
 rived, the participants came together in the house of 
 him who gave the feast, and performed nearly the 
 same ceremonies as the hunters and fishermen, except 
 that they drew no blood from their bodies. The ap- 
 iarists had for their patron deities the Bacabs, and 
 particularly Hobnil. They made many propitiatory 
 offerings at this time, especially to the four gods 
 of abundance, to whom they presented four dishes 
 adorned with figures of honey. The usual drunken 
 bout was not omitted. 
 
 After the mysterious departure of Cukulcan," the 
 Maya Quetzalcoatl, from Yucatan, the })eople, con- 
 vinced that he had gone to the abode of the gods, 
 deified him, and built temples and instituted feasts 
 in his honor. These latter were scrupulously (ob- 
 served throughout the entire country up to the time 
 of the destruction of Mayapan; but after that event 
 they were neglected by all the provinces but that 
 of Mani." In remembrance, liowever, of the respect 
 shown of old to Cukulcan, these provinces sent annu- 
 ally, by turn, to Mani four or five magnificent feather 
 banners, which were used in the ceremonies there. 
 On the sixteenth day of the month of Xul, all the 
 nobles and priests of Mani, being jorepared by fast 
 
 •* ' Ciiculean, ^crit qiielquefoiH Kukiilcan, vient ile kiik, oiacaii qui parait 
 6tre Ic ni6iiie que Ic quetzal; hou dutcriniuatif cnt kukul ({ui uiii ii run, ser- 
 pent, fait exacteinent le nieinc nu)t que Quetzal Cohiiatl, Herj)eiit aux 
 plumes vertes, ou tie (.Quetzal.' Urasscur de Bourbourg, in Landa, lldacion, 
 p. 35. 
 
 1* 'La province tie Mani avait ete colonisee par Ics Tutul-XiuB, dont 
 I'originc (5tait toltfeijue ou naliuatl ; les fOtes de Kukulcan se bornaut h 
 cettc province aprbs la destruction tic Mayapan, nc laisscnt ]ioint tie <loutc 
 Hur I'origine dc ce persunnagc, et donnent lieu de pcnser que le rcste du 
 Yucatan, tout en venerant jusqu'ii un certain point ce niytlie ou ce pro- 
 plifete, avait gard^ au fond la religion qui avuit pnjcc<le celle dc« Toltfeques. 
 Ce serait iiu ])oint d'liistoirc tl'une grandc inipt)rtance au point de vue plii- 
 losopliiquc. Nous troi'iverons uIuh loin d'autrcH indices du culte priniitif 
 des Mayas.' Jirasneur de Bouroourg, in Laiidu, Eelacion, pp. 300-1. 
 
 l! 
 
 ■ I 
 H 
 
 :• m 
 
 ft 
 
 
 ''I 
 
 JM 
 
 ■■I 
 
 I' 
 
700 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 and penance for the occasion, came together, and with 
 them came a considerable multitude of people. In 
 the evening all set out in procession from the house 
 of the lord, and, accompanied by a large number of 
 professional actors, proceeded slowly towards the 
 temple of Cukulcan, which had already been deco- 
 rated in a suitable manner. Upon arriving they 
 placed the banners on high in the temple, offered 
 prayers, and going into the courtyard spread out 
 their idols upon green leaves and branches; then they 
 burned incense in many places, and made offerings of 
 meat cooked without pepper or salt, bean-soup, and 
 calabashes. After this, those who had observed the 
 fast did not go home, but passed five days and five 
 nights in the temple, praying, burning copal, and exe- 
 cuting sacred dances. During this time the actors 
 went from one house to another, representing their 
 plays and receiving gifts from those whom they en- 
 tertained. At the end of the five days they carried 
 all their earnings to the temple and distributed them 
 among the watchers there. Afterwards all returned 
 to the prince's palace, taking with them the banners 
 and the idols. Thence each betook himself to his 
 home. They said, and confidently believed, that Cu- 
 kulcan descended from heaven on the last day of the 
 feast and received personally the gifts which were pre- 
 sented to him. This festival was called chic kaban. 
 During the month of Yaxkin it was the custom to 
 prepare for a general festival, called olohzabkamyax, 
 held in the month of Mol, in honor of all the gods. 
 At this feast, after the usual preliminary rites, they 
 smeared with blue coloring matter the instruments 
 used in every profession, from the sacred implements 
 of the priests to the distaffs of the women, and even 
 the doors of their houses. Children of both sexes 
 were daubed in the same manner, but instead of col- 
 oring their hands they gave them each nine gentle 
 raps on the knuckles. The little girls were brought 
 to the feast by an old woman, who for that reason 
 
FESTIVAL TO INSl UK A CHOP. 
 
 701 
 
 was called ixmol, conductress. The blows were given 
 to the children in order that they niij^ht become 
 skilled workmen in the profession ot* their fathers or 
 mothers. The usual conclusion ensued. 
 
 During the month of Mol the apiarists had another 
 festival similar to that of the month of Tzoo, in order 
 to induce their patron gods to cause the flowers to 
 grow, from which the bees gathered honey. 
 
 The Mayas depended sa much upon the produce of 
 the soil for their sustenance that a failure of the crops 
 was one of the heaviest misfortunes that could fall 
 upon them. To avoid this they made four idols, 
 named Chiehac Chob, Ek Balam Chac, Ahcan Uolcab, 
 and Ahbuluc Balam." Having placed them in the 
 temple, and, according to custom, burned incense be- 
 fore them, they presented them with two pellets of a 
 kind of resin called kik, some iguanas, some bread, a 
 mitre, a bouquet of flowers, and a stone upon which 
 they set great value. Besides this, tliey erected a 
 great wooden arch in the court, which they filled with 
 wood, taking care to leave openings through which to 
 pass backwards and forwards. The greater part of 
 the men then took each a long stick of dry wood, and 
 while a musician mounted on the top of the pile sang 
 and beat a drum, all danced reverently and in good 
 order, as they did so passing in and out the wood-pile. 
 This they kept up until evening, when, leaving their 
 sticks behind them, they went home to eat and rest. 
 During the night they returned, and each taking his 
 faggot, lit it and applied it to the pile, which burned 
 fiercely and rapidly." As soon as the heap was re- 
 duced to red-hot ashes, those who had danced gathered 
 
 I 
 
 •* ' Ek-balam-ehac signifie tigre noir dieu des champs: ce sont du reste 
 des noins doiiiK's au tigre encore aujourd'hiii. Ahcan est le serpent niAIe 
 en general. Ahhuluc- Balam signine Celui des onze tigres.' Jiraxseur de 
 Bourbourg, in Latula, Relaciou, pp. 230-1. 
 
 li 'Ne croirait-on pas lire la description de cette ffite des Scythes, rnpptor- 
 tee par Hdrodote, et one M. VioUet-Leduc a inser^e dans sea Anfiquift's 
 mexicaines, forniant rintroduction de I'Duvrage de M. Desire Charnay: 
 ('ids el Raines am^ricaines, page WV Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, 
 Relaeion, pp. 232-3. 
 
 h: 
 
709 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 about it, and (jassed barefooted ovor the coals, some 
 without injury, and some with; this they believed 
 would avert misfortune and a[H)easo the anger of the 
 gods.»« 
 
 It was customary in all the towns of Yucatan to 
 erect at the limits of each of the four quarters, east, 
 west, north, and south, two heaps of stones, facing 
 each other, and intended to be used during the cele- 
 bration of two solenui festivals, which were as fol- 
 lows. In the year of which the dominical letter was 
 kan, the sign was hobnil, and, according to the Yuca- 
 tecs, these both ruled in the south. They made this 
 year, of baked earth, an idol which they called Kiuiu 
 Uayeyab, and having made it they carried it out to 
 the hea})s of stones which lay towards the south. 
 They then selected a principal man of the j)lace, aiul 
 in his house they celebrated the feast. For this ]tur- 
 pose they made another image, of the god Bolon 
 Zacab," and placed it in the chosen house, in a prom- 
 inent place, so that all who arrived might see it. 
 This done, the nobles, pri sts, and people came to- 
 gether, and set out by a ro.id swept clean, ornamented 
 with arches, and strewed with foliage, to the southern 
 heaps of stones, where they gathered about the idol 
 Kanu LTayeyab. The priest then incensed the god 
 with forty-nine grains of maize, ground up and mixed 
 with copal; the Uvobles next placed incense in the 
 brazier, and burned it before the idol. The incense 
 burned by the priest was called zacah, that used by 
 the nobles, chahalte. When these rites were com- 
 pleted the head of a fowl was cut off and offered to 
 the idol, which was now placed on a litter ciilled 
 kajit^,^^ and upon its shoulders were placed o ler i > 
 images, as signs of abundance of wn+< hi a good 
 
 >* Landa, Relation, pp. 2.10-2. 
 
 " 'Baton est I'atljectif iiunidral neuf, zacab, u la racini' est lii<\ 
 blaiic, est le nom d'une sorte ile inais nioiilii, doiit oi, * niic ■ loce d'or- 
 gcut. Cette statue (.'tait-elle line image allcj^orique de I ' I (ir<r i otfcrt on 
 cctte occasion ? ' liritxsrur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Rrlnrioii. \>\i. 212-13. 
 
 •8 'KanU, bois j.uine; c'est probablement le cfedre.' Brasstui dc Bour- 
 bourg, in Landa, Relac%o:>, p. 213. 
 
MAYA FESTIVALS. 
 
 Toe 
 
 year, and tliese ima«^e8 were frightful to Iwhold. 
 Amid dances and jfeneral rejoicing the idol was car- 
 ried towards the house where the statue of Bolon 
 Zaca'> had heen placed, and while the [irocession 
 was on the road, the nolilrs and priests parttxik of a 
 beverage made from four iiundred and fifteen grains 
 of roasted maize, whidi they called piru/a kakla. 
 Arrived at their destiiuition, they placed the image 
 that they carried opposite the idol which they found 
 there, and made uumy offerings of food and drink, 
 which were afterwards divided among the strangers 
 who were present, the officiating })riest receiving t»idy 
 the leg of a deer. Some of the devotees drew l)h)od 
 from th.'r bodies, scarified their ears, and anointed 
 with the blood a stone idol named Kanal Acantun. 
 They modeled a heart of dough of maize and of 
 calabash-seeds, and offered it to the idol Kanu Ua- 
 yeyab. And in this manner they honored both the 
 idols during the entire time of the feast, burning 
 before them incense of copal and ground maize, for 
 they held it certain that misfortune would overwhelm 
 them if tliey neglected these rites. Finally, the 
 statue of Bolon Zacal) was carried to the temple, 
 and the other image to the western entrance of the 
 town, where it remained until the next celebration of 
 the feast. 
 
 The ceremonies of the new year, under the sign of 
 inuhic were very similar to those just described, 
 though held in honor of other deities. A dance j)er- 
 formed upon a high scaffolding, attended with sac- 
 rifices of turkeys; another executed by the old people, 
 holding little baked -clay images of dogs in tlieir 
 hands; and the sacrifice of a peculiarly marked dog, 
 were, however, additional features. The same may 
 be said of the new year under the sign of yx, and of 
 the new year under the Fign of ca?mc, when the rites 
 which were performed were sufficiently like those 
 which have gone before co need no further description.*' 
 
 19 Laudu, RclacioH, pp. 210-32. 
 
 If 
 
 il 
 
 15 
 
 r 1^ 
 ' . it 
 
 ! 
 
 i 
 
 .4, 
 
 ■It 
 
 :!t 
 
704 
 
 THE MAVA NATIONS, 
 
 The gods of the Yucatecs required far fewer hu- 
 man lives at the hands of their worshipers than those 
 of the Nahusis. The pages of Yucatec history are 
 not marr jd by the constant blood-blots that obscure 
 the Nah'ta record. An event which in Mexico would 
 be the aeath-signal to a hecatomb of human victims, 
 would in Yucatan be celebrated by the death of a 
 spotted dog. The office of sacrificer which in Mexico 
 was one of the highest honors to which a priest could 
 attain, was in Yucatan regarded as uncleai.' and de- 
 grading.^ Nevertheless, the Yucatec religion was nt)t 
 free from human sacrifice, and although captives taken 
 in war v/ere used for this purpose, yet it is said that 
 such was their devotion, that should a victim be want- 
 ing they would dedicate their children to the altar 
 rather than let the gods be deprived of their due.^' 
 But it seldom happened that more tlian one victim 
 was sacrificed at a time, at least in earlier days, and 
 even then he was not butchered as by the Nahuas, 
 but was shot through the heart with arrows before 
 being laid upon the sacrificial stone.** 
 
 At Chichen Itza human sacrifices were made in a 
 peculiar manner. In the centre of the city was an 
 immense pit, containing water, and surrounded on all 
 sides by a dense grove, which served to render the 
 spot silent and solitary, in spite of its j)osition. A 
 circular staircase, rudely cut in the rock, descended to 
 the edge of the water from the foot of an altar whicii 
 stoml upon the very brink of the pit.*^ At first, only 
 
 " 'Lii rlmrge de Xnron etiiit double: I'mi dtiiit |K!rj>«^tiic'l et jwu honora- 
 ble, imrfotiiic c'etait liii (iiiioiivi'iiit In poitriiie aiix virtiiiit's luiuiuiiie!* qn'oii 
 sacriliuit.' Lniiila, lirlacion, p. I(il. ' Kl olicio de iibrir td |iL'rlio u liw sii- 
 crilicailoB, que en Mexico era estiiiiado, aqiii era ]m)>;o liuiirom>.' IJerrcni, 
 Hist, (rfii., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. 
 
 «i lb. 
 
 *' Lniidn, Rrlacion,\y UtCr. Ilfrrera, iibi sup. 
 
 *^ Tiie present api>caraiiec oi tht* pit is thus described by Stephens : 'Set- 
 ting out from the Castillo, at fanic distance we ascended a wood- d elevation, 
 which seemed an artificial ca iseway !t;ui!<ng to the scnote. The senote whs 
 the largest and w.ldest we lia<* seen; in tho midst of a thi.-k forest, an iin 
 niensc circular hole, with crajtKed, i)erpcnd'cular sides, irees j{rowin>; out 
 of them and overhanging tho brink, and i-till as if Uie genius of silemc 
 reigned within, A liuwk was suilinir nrjund it, )joking down into the 
 
 anmii 
 
SACRIFICES AT CHICKEN ITZA. 
 
 706 
 
 animals and incense were offered here, as the teach- 
 in*^ of Cukulcan forbade the sacrifice of human vic- 
 tims, but after the departure of the great Maya 
 apostle the Yucatecs returned to the evil of their 
 ways,'** and the pit of Chichen was once more polluted 
 with human bodies. At first one victim sufficed, but 
 the number gradually increased, until, during the later 
 years of Maya independence, hundreds were immo- 
 lated at a time. If some calamity threatened the 
 country, if the crops failed or the requisite supply of 
 rain was wanting, the people hastened to the pit of 
 horror, to offer prayers and to appease the wrath of 
 the gods with gifts of human life. ( )n the day of 
 sacrifice, the victims, who wore generally young vir- 
 gins, were taken to the temple, clothed in the gar- 
 ments appropriate to the occasion, and conducted 
 thence to the sacred |)it, accompanied by a nmltitude 
 of priests and priestesses of all ranks. There, while 
 the incense burned on the altar and in the braziers, the 
 officiating priest explained to them the things for which 
 they were to implore the gods into whose presence 
 they were about to be introduced. A long cord was 
 then fastened round the body of each victim, and the 
 moment the smoke ceased to rise from the altar, all 
 were hurled into the gulf The crowd, which had 
 gathered from every part of the. country to see the 
 sacrifice, immediatelv drew back from the brink of 
 the pit and continued to pray without cessation for 
 some time. The IxKlies wrre then drawn up and 
 buried in the nei«>hborini>' y^rove.^ 
 
 water, Imt without oncp flapping; itM wiiijpi. The water was of a jjreeniwli 
 liut>. A iiiyi«teri(Mis iiitliieiice Heeiiietl tii jivrvadi; it, in tiiii/ii:! *.vitli tliv iiirt- 
 tiirical afC4iuiit that tlio well of t'hicliLMi was a plan' of pil};r\iiia);e, ami 
 tliat hiitnan victiiL.i wore thrown into it in MU'ritice. In oim> place, on the 
 very hriiik, were the remains of a stone strncture, protiahly eonniTteil with 
 ancient Hii|H>rHtitiouM rites; (H'rhaiH the i)lacc from which tlie victims were 
 thrown into the dark well heneatli.' VHi'iitmi, vol. ii., p. 'V24. 
 
 'i* We have Hceii that even the memory of Cukulean was neglected in 
 ail the pmvincra of Yucatan hut one. 
 
 ^ lirrrrrn, Hint. Gen,, t\w. iv., lih. x., cap. i.; MeiM, in Xouir/tr.i An- 
 iiiilf.i fiejt Vol/., 184.1, toin. xcvii., l>. 43; lintsmiir ile Bourbourtf, Hint. .V«^ 
 ' '>., toni. i'., pp. 44-5. 
 Vol. II. 48 
 
 \h 
 
 - - \- 
 
 1 ' ', 
 
 ¥b 
 
 ■J 
 
706 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 The Pipiles had two idols, one in the figure of a 
 man, called Quetzalcoatl, the other in the shape of a 
 woman, called Itzqueye. Certain days of their cal- 
 endar were specially set apart for each of the deities, 
 and on these the sacriHces were made. Two very sol- 
 emn sacrifices were held in each year, one at the com- 
 mencement of summer, the other at the beginning (A' 
 winter. At these, Herrera says, only the lords were 
 present.** The sacrifice was made in the interior of 
 the temple, and the victims were boys between the 
 ages of six and twelve years, bastards, born among 
 themselves. For a day and a night previous to tlie 
 sacrifice, drums and trumpets were sounded and on 
 the day following the people assembled. Four j)riests 
 then came out from the temple, each bearing a small 
 brazier with burning incense; together they turned in 
 the direction of the sun, and kneeling down offered up 
 incense and ]>rayers; they then did the same toward 
 the four cardinal points.*^ Their prayers finished, they 
 retired within four small chapels built at the four cor- 
 ners of the temple, and there rested. They next 
 went to the house of the high-priest, and took thence 
 the boy who was to be sacrificed and conducted liini 
 four times round the court of the temple, dancing 
 and singing. When this ceremony was finished, tlie 
 high-priest came out of his house, with the diviner 
 and guardian of the sanctuary, and ascended the stej)s 
 of the temple, with the caciijue and principal men, 
 who, however, remained at the door of the sanctuary. 
 The four priests now seized the boy by the arms and 
 legs, and the guardian of the temj)le coming out with 
 little bells on his wrists and ankles, opened the left 
 breast of the victim, tore out the heart, and handed it 
 to the high-priest, who placed it in a small embroid- 
 ered purse which he carried. The four priests received 
 
 *i Ilerrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. x. 
 
 " 'Ivtinsc (lorcchos toilos qiiatro jiiutus li do sale cl .si)I, i so hiiicavan de 
 rodillaa ante el, i le zamnavan diciciido palalmix d iiivocacioiics, i csto fcclm 
 3c divid'.ait liacia quatro j)arte8, lest, oest, nortc, siir, i predii.'avaii hub ricto." 
 i ccrcaiuiiiaa,' Patacio, Carta, p. 68. 
 
VIPILE FEAST OF VICTORY. 
 
 707 
 
 the blood of the victim in four jicaras, or bowls, made 
 from the shell of a certain fruit, and descending one 
 after the other to the courtyard, sprinkled the blo(xi 
 with their right hands in the direction of the cardi- 
 nal points. If any blood remained over they returned 
 it to the high-priest, who placed it with the purse 
 containing the heart in the body of the victim through 
 the wound that had been made, and the body was 
 interred in the temple. This was the ceremony of 
 sacrifice at the beginning of each of the two sea- 
 sons. 
 
 When information was received from their war 
 chief that he had gained a victory, the diviner ascer- 
 tained to which of the <;ods sacrifice was to be made. 
 If to Quetzalcoatl, the ceremony lasted fifteen days; 
 if to Itzqueye, five days ; and upon each day they sac- 
 rificed a prisoner. These sacrifices were made as fol- 
 lows: All those who had been in the battle returned 
 home in procession, singing and dancing, bringing 
 with them the captives who were to he sacrificed, 
 their wrists and anicles decorated with feathers and 
 chalchiuites, and their necks with strings of cacao- 
 nibs. The high- priests and other ministers went t»ut 
 at the head of the populace to meet them with nmsic 
 and dancing, and the caci<jues and captains delivered 
 over those who were to be sacrificed to the high-priest. 
 Then they all went together to the courtyard of their 
 feufia, or temple, where they continued dancing day 
 and night during the time the sacrifices lasted. In 
 the middle of the court was a stone bench on which 
 the victim was stretched, four priests holding him by 
 the feet and hands. The sacrificing priest then came 
 forward, adorned with many feathers and loaded with 
 little bells, holding in his hand a flint knife, with 
 which he opened the breast of the victim, tore out 
 the heart, brandished it toward the cardiiial points, 
 and finally threw it into the air with suflicient force 
 to cause it to fall directly in the middle of the court, 
 saying: " Receive, Oh God, this thank-offering for the 
 
 I . ii,.j 
 
 \ ■ 'ill 
 
 I 1 
 
706 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 victory."** This sacrifice was public and beheld by 
 all the people. The men drew blood from their pri- 
 vate parts, and the women from their ears, tongue, 
 and other parts of the body ; as the blood flowed it 
 was taken up with cotton and offered by the men to 
 Quetzalcoatl, by the women to Itzqueye. 
 
 When the Pipiles were about to undertake any 
 hunting or fishing expedition, they first made an offer- 
 ing to their gods. For this purpose they took a liv- 
 ing deer,'*' and leading it to the temple yard, they 
 there strangled and afterwards flaved it, saving the 
 blood in a vessel. The liver, lungs, and stomach 
 were chopped in small pieces, which were afterwards 
 laid aside with the heart, head, and feet. The re- 
 mainder of the deer was cooked by itself, and the blood 
 likewise, and while this was being done the people 
 danced. The high-priest with his assistant next t(X)k 
 the head by the ears, and each of the four priests one 
 of the feet, while the guardian of the sanctuary put 
 the heart into a brazier and burnt it with copal and 
 ulli to the god who was the protector of hunting. 
 After the dance, the head and feet were scorched in 
 the fire before the idol and given to the high-priest 
 to be eaten. The flesh and blood were eaten by the 
 other ministers of the temple before the idol, and the 
 same was done with other animals sacrificed. The 
 entrails of fish were burned before the idol.*' 
 
 Among the civilized nations of Nicaragua, it wyuid 
 ap[)ear there were eighteen distinct festivals, corre- 
 sponding with i,he eighteen months in their calendar.^* 
 
 ^ * Yiin cl wicristnn v wicuiialc con In nauaiii ol coruyon, y nrrojaiinlo si I 
 <lio8, o a lu tliosa, y (tezia, Tonia el fruto dcsta vitoria.' Ilrrrera, Hist. 
 Gen., (lee. iv., iili. viii., cap. x. 
 
 «» nra.H«i! 11- di' Bourbourg says: 'cerf blanc' Hist. Nat. Civ., toin. ii., 
 p. .5.'»7. 
 
 30 '[>o saorificc dii cerf blanc, d'alxml iiii des plus aujjustes, devint., plus 
 tard, rotlVaiide roniiiiuiic et exclusive des chasseurs qui desiraicnt se rciiilir 
 favoralilcs les dieux protecteurs do la chasse ct des fordts. ' /'/., p. .'m"; /''*- 
 lario. Carta, pp. 74-<5. 
 
 " ' Kchauan las fiestas (luc oran diez y ocho, couio los mcsea subidos cii cl 
 gradario, usacritieaderoque tenian los patios de los toiuplos.' Hrrrrrn, //iv'- 
 Grn., dec. iii., lib. iv., cup. vii. In tlio evi<lcuce takeu by Fray l''riinvis<<> 
 de nobodillathe number uf festivals is given a» twenty -one and eleven; I 
 
SACRIFICES IN NICAUAGUA. 
 
 709 
 
 These were proclaimed by the priest, holding the in- 
 strument of sacrifice in his hand, from the steps lead- 
 ing to the sacrificial altar in the court of the temple. 
 Ho made known who and how many were to be sac- 
 rificed, and whether they were to be prisoners taken 
 in battle or individuals reared among themselves for 
 the purpose.** When the victim was stretched upon 
 the stone, the officiating priest walked three times 
 round him, singing in a doleful tone ; he then opened 
 the victim's breast. j)lucked out his heart, and daubed 
 his face with the blood. He next dismembered the 
 body and gave the heart to the high-priest, the feet 
 and hands to the king, the thighs to him who had 
 captured him, the entrails to the trumpeters, and 
 the remainder to the ])eople, that all might eat.** 
 The heads of those sacrificed were set as trophies on 
 trees ai)pt)inted for the purpose.^ If the person sac- 
 rificed had been bought, they buried the entrails, 
 hands, and feet, in a gourd, and burned the heart 
 and all the rest.^^ As it wtis lawful for a father to 
 sell his own children, and each j)er.son himself, they 
 therefore did not eat the flesh of such sacrifices lie- 
 cause they were their own countrymen and relations. 
 
 must therefore leave the reader to decide for himself which is correct. 'Y. 
 — Ell nil lino tcncinos vcyiite e iiii diiis de ficiitas (e no juntos estos dins). . 
 ....F. — Kn el tieinpo de nquclias on\ie fiestas, que deyis que teneys cada 
 afio.' Oi'ifflo, Hist. Gcn.,UtM- iv., |>i». 47, M. 
 
 M ' For there are two Ivindcs of hiiinane sacrifices with them: the one, of 
 enemies taken in tlie warrcs, the otiicr of sucli as are brought vp and iiiuin- 
 tained at home.' Peter .^ftirti/i; dec. vi., lili. vi. 
 
 ^^ 'And whosocucr NJiouid liaue no parte nor portion of the sacrificed 
 eiicmie, would thinke he HJioulde bee ill ac<'epfed tliat yeere.' Ih. 
 
 '^* ' Euerv King iiouriHhctli his appointed trees in a tielde iieerc vnto him, 
 ohseruiiig tlk> names of euery hostile country, where they hange the heads 
 of their sacrificed enemies taken in the warres.' lb. 
 
 ^* Herrera gives a similar account of the disposal of the liody, but adds: 
 'Saluoque ]>oniaii la cabova en los nrlwles.' Jfi.st. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., 
 cap. vii. I think it improbable that the heads were treated in the same 
 manner as those of their enemies. Peter Martyr savs nothing distinctly of 
 the disiHisal of the head, but, speaking of the sacrifice, stiys 'they reiier- 
 dice all iHtrts thereof, and partly bury thcin Itceforc the dui-cs of their tem- 
 ples, as the fectc, handes, and Isiwels, which they cast together into a 
 gourde, the rest (together with the hartes, making a great fire within the 
 vi(>w of those hostile trees, with shril hynis, and applauses of the Priestes) 
 they bnrne among the ashes of the former siuTificcs, iieiicr thence remooued, 
 lying in that ficlde.' Uec. vi., lib. vi. 
 
710 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 When they ate the flesh of foreigners sacrificed, they 
 held exciting dances, and passed the days in drunken 
 revels and smoking, but had no sexual intercourse 
 with their wives while the festival lasted.^ At cer- 
 tain feasts they offered blood drawn from their own 
 bodies, with which they rubbed the beard and lips of 
 the idol. 
 
 The priests wore white cotton cloaks, some short 
 and small, others hung from the shoulders to the heels, 
 with bands having bags attached, in which they car- 
 ried sharp stone knives, papers, ground charcoal, and 
 certain herbs. The lay brothers bore in their hands 
 little flags with the idol they held most in veneration 
 painted thereon, and small purses containing powder 
 and awls; the youths had bows and arrows, darts and 
 shields. The idol, in form and ap[>earance very friglit- 
 ful, was set upon a spear and carried by the eldest 
 priest. The ascetics marched in file, singing, to the 
 place of worship. They spread mantles and strewed 
 roses and flowers, that the standards might not touch 
 the ground. The procession halted ; the singing ceased ; 
 they fell to prayer. The prelate clapped his hand; 
 some drew blood from the tongue, others from the 
 ears, from the privy member, or from whatever part 
 their devotion led them. They took the blotxl on 
 paper or on their fingers and smeared the idol's face. 
 In the meantime the youths danced, leaped about, and 
 shook their weapons. Those who had gashed them- 
 selves, cured their wounds by an application of pow- 
 dered charcoal and herbs that they carried for the 
 purpose. In these observances they sprinkled niaizf 
 with the blood from their privy parts, and it was dis- 
 tributed and eaten as blessed bread.*' 
 
 ^ 'En aqiiellas (icstas no trabaxamos ni entendemoa en nidR de cnil><>r- 
 rachuriiMs; ]M>ro no dorininios con nuestras ningercs, 6 nciucllos diiiH, j)i>r 
 quitnr la ocoNion, ducrnicn ellas dcntro en cowi e noHotnm fuera tlcllii: o iil 
 que en talcs dia8 se eclia con su niiiger, nucstros tliosei* Ics dan doiciiriii 
 luego, de que niuercn; 6 por esso nin^pino ioona ha^er, |M>r<iue aiiuellos <lias 
 8on dcdicados li uuctitroM dioaes.' Omeilo, Ifi»t. Gen., toni. iv., p. 5*2. 
 
 " Herrera, Hist, (icn., dee. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii.; Peter Martyr, dec. vi., 
 lib. vi., vii., Sqiiier, in Pulacio, Carta, p. 116. 
 
BANQUETS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 711 
 
 Like the Mexicans the Mayas had a great prodi- 
 lection for entertaining each other at banquets, and it 
 is related of them that they often spent on one such 
 occasion a sum that it had taken them many months 
 to earn. Seasons of betrothal and marriage were al- 
 ways enlivened by sumptuous feasts. Whenever any 
 contract had to })e arranged, a feast was given and the 
 act of eating and drinking together in public and be- 
 fore witnesses sufficed to make such contract valid.** 
 The lords and principal men gave feasts to each other, 
 and as it was incumbent upon all the guests to return 
 the compliment, there must have been a continual 
 round of feasting. Cogolludo states that meat was 
 eaten at banquets only, and this may in some measure 
 account for the frequency with which they occurred, 
 and the etiquette that required the invitation to be 
 returned. 
 
 They observed a certain formality at their enter- 
 tainments, seating themselves either in twos or fours. 
 Each of the guests received a roasted fowl, some 
 bread, and an abundance of cacao. When the meal 
 was finished, presents were distributed to the guests, 
 each being presented with a mantle, a small stool, 
 and a handsome cup. Beautiful women acted as cup- 
 bearers, and when one of these presented a cup of 
 wine to a guest, she turned her back to him while 
 he drank. The feast lasted until all were intoxi- 
 cated, and then the wives led their drunken husbands 
 home. When a marriage banquet, or one in com- 
 memoration of the deeds of their ancestors, was given, 
 no return invitation was expected.** Their entertain- 
 ments were usually enlivened by a company of dancers 
 and musicians, who performed dramatic representa- 
 tions under the leadership of one who was called 
 kolpop, or master of the ceremonies; he gave instruc- 
 
 M 'En las vciitns, y contratos, no auiaescritos que obligasncn, ni cartuH 
 lie pai>ago, que BatisfacieHHen; pero qucilaba el contratu valiilo con que 
 liehicsHcn publicainentc dclante dc tcHtigos.' Coijoilmfo, I fist. Yuc, pp. 
 ISO-!. 
 
 ™ Landtt, Relavioii, pp. 122-4. 
 
 ! 
 
 k:l. 
 
718 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 tions to the actors, directed the singers and musicians, 
 and from him all had to take their cue. The actors 
 were called balzam, a name corresponding to jester or 
 mimic. As women were not permitted to take part 
 in the mummeries, their places were supplied by men. 
 Their movements during the play were grave and 
 monotonous, yet they were clever in mimicry and 
 caricature, which they frequently made use of as a 
 means of reproving their chief men.*" The plays 
 were generally of a historical character, having for 
 their subject the great deeds of their ancestors ; their 
 songs consisted of ballads founded upon local tradi- 
 tions and legendary tales. *^ 
 
 A favorite dance of the Mayas was one called co- 
 lomche; a large number of men took part in it, some- 
 times as many as eight hundred. These formed a 
 ring, and were accompanied during their movements 
 by a number of musicians. WJien the dancing began, 
 two of the actors, still keeping step Avith the rest, 
 came out from the ring, one holding in his hand a 
 bunch of wands and dancing upright, while the otlier 
 cowered down, still dancing. Then he who had the 
 wands threw them with all his force at his companion, 
 who with great dexterity parried them with a short 
 stick. When the two had finished, they returned to 
 their former position in the circle, and two others 
 took their place and went through the same perform- 
 ance, the rest following in their turn. They had 
 also war dances, in which large numbers joined, the 
 performers holding small flags in their hands.*'* 
 
 They had a variety of musical instruments, prom- 
 inent among which was the tunkul, which was almost 
 
 *o 'Son graciosos en lo» motes, y chistes, que dizcn h, siis niayores, y 
 luezes: si son rijjurosos, ainbiciosus, nuarientos, rcpresentando los sucessus 
 line con cllos les passan, y auu lo que v^n i\ su Minmtro Doctrincro, lo 
 (tizen delante dfel, y^ vezes con vna sola palabra.' Cogolludo, Hist. Yiir., 
 p. 187. 
 
 *' See Carrillo, in Soc. Mcx. Geog., Boletin, 2da ^jjoca, toni. iii., j)]). -•'>''. 
 261; Brasscur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toni. ii., pp. 65-7; Hrrreni, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cajj. iv. ; Ternaux-Conipans, in Nouvelles .\n- 
 nales des Vo>/., 184.S, toni. xcvii., p. 47. 
 
 « Landa, Eelacion, pp. 126, 128. 
 
 the St 
 They 
 cover( 
 they 
 rine s 
 at tht 
 

 MUSIC AND DANCES. 
 
 718 
 
 the same thing as the teponaztli of the Mexicans.*' 
 They had other drums made of a hollow trunk and 
 covered at one end with deer-skin, tortoise shells that 
 they struck with deer's horns, trumpets, — some of ma- 
 rine shells and others of hollow canes with a calabash 
 at the end, — whistles and flutes made from bone and 
 cane, besides various kinds of rattles." Landa says 
 that in every village there was a large house or rather 
 shed, for it was open on all sides, in which the young 
 men met for amusement.** Oviedo, who witnessed 
 some dances and games among the Nicaraguans, thus 
 describes one he saw at Tecoatega after the harvest- 
 ing of the cacao. As many as sixty persons, all men, 
 though a number of them represented women, took 
 part in a dance. They were painted of various colors 
 and patterns, and wore upon their heads beautiful 
 tufts of feathers, and about their persons divers orna- 
 ments, while some wore masks like birds' heads. 
 They performed the dance going in couples and keep- 
 ing at a distance of three or four steps between pair 
 and pair. In the centre of a square was a high pole 
 of more than sixty feet in height driven firmly into 
 the ground; on the top was seated a gaudily painted 
 idol which they called the god of the caaujnat, or ca- 
 cao ; round the top were fixed four other poles in the 
 form of a square, and rolled upon it was a thick grass 
 rope at the ends of which were bound two boys of 
 seven or eight years of age. One of them had in one 
 hand a bow and in the other a bunch of arrows ; the 
 other boy carried a beautiful feather fan and a mirror. 
 
 *' ' El timbal yucateco (tankul 6 fiiiikiil, )ch cl inRtrntncnto mas notable 
 <le la miisica yucateca, y en j^eiieral de la iniisiea aincricana, que ai'Diiipa- 
 ilalmn \a» daiizaH 6 bailee .sairratloM, y cl nmiilire iiiaya dc e.sc notable in- 
 striiniento, nos rcvela hasta hoy el carilcter Ha<;rado de a<inollas (iestaM, put'H 
 el nonihrc dc tunkiil 6 (ankul, Hi<;uitica lij^eramentc la bora de laaduraeion.' 
 I'nrrillo, in Sor. Mcx. Ifcoij., Bolctin, 2«la epoea, toni. iii., p. 2.59. I bave 
 one of these inHtrunients in my ]H)s»ics8ion. 
 
 *♦ Landa, Rclarioit, pp. 124, 126; Hrnvra, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., 
 cap. iv. ; CogoUudo, Hist. Yuc, pp. 77, 18(J; Carrillo, in Son. Mix, tSrotf., 
 Boletin, 2da epoca, toni. iii., p. 260; Brtuseur de lioiirbounj. Hist. iV«/. 
 Civ., torn, ii., lip. 64-5. 
 
 *^ Landa, lielacion, p. 178. 
 
 rf: 
 
TU 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 At a certain step of the danco the boys came out from 
 the square and the rope bejjan to unroll ; they went 
 round and round in the air, always going further out 
 and counterbalancing one another, the rope still un 
 rolling. While they were descending, the sixty men 
 proceeded with their dance to the sound of singers 
 beating drums and tabors. The boys passed through 
 the air with much velocity, moving their arms and 
 legs to present the appearance of flying. When they 
 reached the ground the dancers and singers gave some 
 loud cheers and the festival was concluded.** Another 
 favorite amusement was a performance on a swinging 
 bar. For this two tall forked posts were firmly 
 planted in the ground; across them and resting in the 
 forks a pole was strongly bound. This pole passed at 
 right angles through a hole In the centre of a thick 
 bar, made to revolve upon it and of very light wood; 
 near the end of the bar were cross sticks for the per- 
 formers to take hold of A man placed himself at 
 each end, and when the bar was set in motion they 
 went tumbling round and round, to the delight of the 
 spectators.*^ 
 
 *» This is very similar t<) the Nahiia game, dcscrilicd on pu<rc 2!)5, et fH>q., 
 of UiiH volume. 
 
 ♦' Oviciio, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., pp. 93-4, 111-1'2, pi. v., lig. i., ii. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FOOD, DRESS, COMMERCE, AND WAR CUSTOMS OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 iNTnoDUt'TioN OF AGRICULTURE— QiricHi:; Tradition of thk Discov- 
 ery OF Maize— Maize Culture— Superstitions of Farmers 
 Hunting and Fishing— Domestic Animals, Fowl, and Hees— 
 
 PRESEBVATIt)N AND COOKINO OF FoOD — MEALS DlUNKS AND 
 
 Drinking-Habits—Cannidalism— Dress of the Mayas— Max- 
 TLis, Mantles, and Sandals— Dress of Kings and Priests- 
 Women's Dress— Hair and Beard — Personal Decoration — 
 Head-Flattening, Perforation, Tattooing, ani> Painting- 
 Personal Habits— Commerck—Currency—Markets— Sui'ERsTi- 
 tionsofTravelers— Canoes and Balsas— War— Military Lead- 
 ers— Insignia— Armor— Weapons— Fortifications— Battles- 
 Treatment of Captives. . 
 
 The tierm caliente and the low forest-clad foothills 
 of the Usumacinta region on the confines of Yucatan, 
 Guatemala, ChiapaH, and Tahasco, present claims as 
 stroiiif at least as those of any other locality to be 
 considered the birth-place of American civilization. 
 Here apparently Votan and Gucumatz, denii-o^ods or 
 civilizers, won their first triumphs over the powers of 
 barbarism. In the most remote times to wliich we 
 are carried by vague tradition and mythic fable, gods 
 with strangely human attributes, or men of wonder- 
 ful supernatural powers, newly arrived in this land, 
 took counsel one with another how they might sub- 
 ject to their power and reclaim from barbarism the 
 native bands of savages, or 'animals,' who roamed 
 
 (715) 
 
 ^1 
 
716 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 naked through the forests, and subsisted on roots and 
 wild fruits. The discussion of the tradition with ref- 
 erence to its historic signification, is foreign to my 
 present purpose, but as the story inchides the tradi- 
 tional origin of agriculture and the discovery of inaizu 
 luider the form of a new creation, it is an appropriate 
 introduction to the present chapter on the food, dreHs, 
 and commerce of the Maya nations. The story runs 
 as follows in the aboriginal Quiche annals:' 
 
 Behold how they began to think of man, and to 
 seek what must enter into the flesh of man. Then 
 spake he who begets, and he who gives being, Tej)euh, 
 Gucumatz, the creator and the former, and said: "Al- 
 ready the dawn is nigh; the work is finished; behold 
 the support, the foster-father, is ennobled; the son of 
 civilization, man, is honored, and humanity on the 
 face of the earth." They came, and in great num- 
 bers they assembled; in the shadows of the night 
 they joined their wise counsel. Then sought they 
 and consulted in sadness, meditating; and thus the 
 wisdom of these men was manifest ; they found and 
 were made to see what must enter into the flesh of 
 man; and the dawn was near. 
 
 In Paxil, or Cayala ('land of divided and stag- 
 nant waters') as it is called, were the ears of yellow- 
 maize and of white. These are the names of the bar- 
 barians who went to seek food; the Fox, the Jackal, 
 the Paroquet, and the Crow, — four barbarians who 
 made known to them the ears of the white maize and 
 of the yellow, who came to Paxil and guided them 
 thither. There it was they obtained at last the food 
 that was to enter into the flesh of man, of man cre- 
 ated and formed ; this it was that was his blood, that 
 
 ' This history, written with Roman characters, hut in the QniclK' lan- 
 guage, in tlie early yean* of the Con<^ueMt, was quoted hv Hrasseur tic 
 Bourbourg as tiie MS. QiiiclU itc Chic/itcanleiiaiiqo, in his liisl. Xut. Cir., 
 toni. i., pp. .59-60; a transUitioa into Spanish bjr Xinieucz apneareil in 1S.'>7, 
 Hist. Intl. Guat., pp. 79-80; and a transhition into French ny Brassenr dc 
 Bourbourg in 1861, Popol Vvfi, pp. 195-9. Ilrasseur's rendering is followed 
 for the most part in my text, but ao far as tliis extract is concerned tlicro 
 are only slight verbal diiferences between the two translations. 
 
DISCOVERY OF MAIZE. 
 
 717 
 
 l)ecaine the blood of man — this maize that entered 
 into him hy the provision of him who creates, of him 
 who ^ives heing. 
 
 And they rejoiced that they had at last arrived 
 in this most excellent land, so full of ^(mkI things, 
 where the white and yellow maize did abound, also 
 the cacao, where wore sapotes and many fruits, and 
 honey; all was ovei-flowing witli the best of food 
 in this country of Paxil, or Cayala. There was food 
 of every kind; there were large and small plants, to 
 which the barbarians had guided them. Then they 
 began to grind the yellow and white maize, and of 
 them did Xmucan<5 make nine drinks, which nour- 
 ishment was the beginning of strength, giving unto 
 man flesh and stature. Such were the deeds of the 
 begetter and giver of being, Tepeuh, Gucumatz. 
 Thereupc *H«y began to speak of creating our first 
 mother and our first father. Only yellow maize and 
 white maize entered into their flesh, and these alone 
 formed the legs and arms of man; and these were our 
 first fathers, the four men who were formed, into 
 whose flesh this food entered. 
 
 And from this time of its traditional discovery by 
 Gucumatz, or Quetzalcoatl, down to tht coiujuost by 
 the Spaniards and even down to the present tin)e, the 
 yellow and white maize, in their several varieties, 
 have been the chief reliance of the Maya as of the 
 Nahua nations for daily food. Every year during the 
 latter months of the dry season, from March to May, 
 the farmer busied himself in preparing his mi/jxi, or 
 cornfield, which he did by simply cutting or u})rooting 
 the dense growth and burning it. The aslies thus 
 produced were the only fertilizer ever employed, and 
 even this was probably never needed in this land of 
 tropical fertility. Just before the first rain fell, 
 equipped with a sack of seed-maize on his shoulder 
 and a sharpened stick in his hand, he made holes at 
 regular intervals among the ashes, and in each depos- 
 ited five or six grains, covering it with the same in- 
 
 V 
 
 n 
 
718 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 strument, aided perhaps by the foot. In Yucatan 
 the planters united in bands of twenty for mutual 
 assistance, workinjif toj^etlier until the land of all tlu' 
 ohib was properly seeded. It was not customary to 
 plant very lar«^e fields, but rather many in different 
 localities, to jifuard ajjfainst a possible partial failure of 
 the crops from local causes, Hedjj^ea, ditches, and 
 fences were constructed to enclose the milpas, so 
 effective in the liacandone country that the 8paniai<ls' 
 horses were una1»le to leap them. The corn was care 
 fully k(!pt free from weeds while "jfrowin*^, and watched 
 by boys after it had bei»'un to ripen. In Nicara,t»ua, 
 where, ( )viedo tells us, more attention was paid t<» 
 aiifriculture than in any other reifion visited by him, 
 the bt>ys took their station in trees scattered over the 
 field, or sosnetirnes on raised covered scaffolds of wo(»d 
 and reeds, called harhacoas, where they kept up a con 
 tinual shoutinuf to drive away the birds. Irri<,''ati(»n 
 was j>racticed when the rains were backward, and il" 
 we may credit Oviedo, l)y thus artificially forcini,^ tlu- 
 crop in Nicarajj^ua, well-filled corn was plucked oidy 
 forty days after plantin<>' the seed. Villajj^utierre 
 states that the Itzas Hpent most of their time in W(H 
 ship, dancin<f, and jfettiniif drunk, trustin<^ to unculti 
 vat<'d fruits and the fertility of their soil for a snb- 
 siMt,(!nce, and <'ontenting theuiselves with very small 
 milpas. 
 
 After maize, cacao was perhaps the crop to wliidi 
 most attention was ]»aid. It ^rew in hot and sIi.kIv 
 localities, and where there was lio natural shade, tret ^ 
 were s(;t out for the purpose. It was cnWad on (i;/>i<if in 
 Nicarajjfua, and was <,fathered from February to A|>ril. 
 Several varieties, of a somewhat inferior »iuality. 
 iLjrew wild, and were nuich used by the natives Tin 
 cultivati(tn of beans, ))epper, cotton, and of nunieioiis 
 native fruits, was carried on extensively, but we lia\r 
 no details res[)ectint^ the methods em|»loye(l.'^ In 
 
 * I.nnda, Rrlarion, [i. l.'iO; lirnssntr dc lloiirhoiir.f, in /'/., I>. .'Vil. On 
 till' cdiiHt uf Yucutan, 'dos rauiiica duiit ilH font li> |>aiii, I't i|ii'ils ihiiijih ;ii 
 
CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL. 
 
 719 
 
 connection with the planting and growth of tho vari- 
 ous cultivated plants, the Mayas entertained some 
 peculiar superstitions. Far from understandini^ the 
 simplest laws of nature, they recognized only super- 
 natural a-ji^encies in the growth or blighting of their 
 frojjs. In Yucatan, CogoUudo states that no meat 
 was eaten while <M)tton was growing, I'roiu fear that 
 it would fail to mature. The Nicaraguaiis, accord- 
 ing to Ditvila, ate no salt or pepper, nor did thev 
 drink any intoxicating beverage or sleep with their 
 wtunen during the time of phiijinig. Oviedo als » 
 observed certain bundles of sticks placed at th • 
 corrjcrs of each field, as well as leaves, ston«)s, and 
 cotton rags, scattered over the surface by ugly anil 
 deformed old hags, for some unknown but doubtless 
 superstitious |)urpose. Palacio tells us that the Pipi- 
 les before begiiming to pl-.nt gathered in small bowls 
 specimens of all the sc ds, which, after })erforming 
 certain rites with them before the idol, they buried 
 in the grciund, and burned copal and uUi over them. 
 Blood was drawn freely fr<jn) diti'erent j)urts of the 
 body, with which to anoint the idol; and, as Ximeiie/ 
 stati's, the blood of slain fowls was sprinkled over the 
 land to be sown. In the case of cacao the finest 
 grains of seed were exposed to the moonlight during 
 four nights; and whatever the see<l to be planted, the 
 tillers of the soil must sleep ap.irt from th(;ir wives 
 and concubines I- r several days, in order that on tlu; 
 
 mniH.' Dliiz. ffim^ruiri , in T'riiiiiir->'i:iii/i'iiis, Vnif., Hi-ric i., toni. x., p. S. 
 TIk' Liiciiiidi' it s applit'il tlicm-iclvi'M 'iil traliujoilu suh Mil|iiis, y Si'iiK'Ulcrus 
 ili> Mai/, ('hill', > I'nxoU's, ciitrc (|uc H<>iiiliriiviin riniis, I'liitikiios, ItiilatiiH 
 .\icaiiius, ,\a(-i>tcs, /apittoH. ,v otrus Friilas;' tli(>ir iiiil|tas were lar;;c. ami 
 were clcjareil witli stoiu" liutclietH. \'iltiirfu(irrrr, Hist. ('om/. f/zn, pp. 
 MIO-II. The ll/aH hail 'iiiiicha (iraiia, Cera, Ai;;<tili)ii, At-liiote, na.viiilla>«, 
 V (itnis lAjjiitnltreM.' /«/.. pp. .'i.'ill, VMl Many varieticM of lieaiH riiined in 
 N'icarr.^iia. (h'irdo, Ilis/. (Irn., tciii'. i. , p. -S."). 'Vi iniit'hos destus pera- 
 l<^s en la prtiviii(,'ia de Nieara^tna, pucMtos il inano t'n Ian herciiailes »• p|jirii.s 
 6 assieiitos <le loH indic.'s, (■ por eJloseiiltivailoH. K sou tan ^■'''■■■li''* lirliolex 
 conid U(i,,'aleH ul;;uniiH tlellos.' Id., p. 3,'>S. I'lantinu of niai/e. /(/., pp. 
 2(m-(); tiiin. iv , pp. 101-.'>. See also on aj^rieiilture: linizoiii, Jlis/. Mmulit 
 SiKiii,, pp. MYl 'A; .liiilfif/oi/n, in Xnvanrtr, Vol.de l'i(iji;i, toni. iii., lip. 
 41IJ-14; Cor/^K, t'ltrhi-i, p. 40."i; Sqiticr'.s ('rut. Aiinr., pp. TmI, f>'tt\; VinUrf- 
 If-hnr, in f'/innioji, Ituinrs Aiuvr., p. 71; Uiiiahuldt, k.uai I'oL, toni. i., 
 p. lf(il>; Gidldttn, in Aiiur. Kfhnu. Soc, Transact., vol. i., p. 8. 
 
 'ff i 
 
 ' ! 
 
 %%\ 
 
790 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 niiifht before plantinor t^ey mi^ht indulge their pas 
 sioriis to the fullest extent; certain persons are evei: 
 s ml to have been apj)ointed to perforin the sexual act 
 at the very moment when the first seeds were de- 
 posited in the ground. Before begiiming the opera- 
 tion of weeding, they burned incense at the four 
 corners of the field, and uttered fervent j^rayers t(( 
 the idols. When the com was ripe they i>!ucked the 
 finest ears and offered them to the gods, tt) the priests, 
 and sometimes also to the j)oor. At harvest time the 
 corn was heai)ed up in tlie field, and was not moved 
 until the grain itself gave the signal that it was 
 ready; the signal was, as Brasseur states it, tin- 
 s])ringing up of a fiv.'sh blade, or, aecoiding to Xi- 
 meiiez, the falling of an ear from the heaj)." 
 
 The home of the Mayas in ni>arly every part 
 abounded in many varieties of game, and the authois 
 report the natives to liave been expert liunters and 
 fishermen, but resj)o('ting the })arti<'nlar methods • in- 
 j)loyed in capturiiig 6>od i'r<nn forest, (x-ean, and riv«r, 
 little information has 1kx.'ii j»reserved. Tli«- jw^ph' of 
 Yucatan used the bow an/) arrow; were es}/e!«ii<:lly <ki\\ 
 ful at throwing a kind of strnrw or dart b-s iii> h /a 
 piece of wood three fingers thick, pierc<;d with a hole 
 at one third its length; and, a<'cording to < ogolhido. 
 they l)rcd hunting flogs which were trained to follow 
 anci wize d(^er, tigers, an<l Ixmrs, as well as badgers, rah 
 bitn. armadillos, and iifuanas. The latter animal was, 
 as it still is, a favorite food. Tradition niates that 
 the Tutul XiuM when they first came to Yu<ataii u.s(<l 
 ao weapons, Ixit were famous for their skill in taking 
 game by means of snares, traps, and similar devices. 
 In Cfuatennila, a blow-pipe and eartlun bullets wen 
 stimetimes used to shoot birds. A j>ortion of all gaiin 
 taken had to be given to the rulers of town and pro\ 
 ince, and also a large j)ortion half, I^as ( 'asas tells 
 
 ^Ximrnez, Hl.it. I ,>t. Gimt., pp. 1»0-I; Coijolhulo, Hi.', i'lo:, y. |s.<, 
 Fnlnrio, Ciuln. jip. T-'-»; Orin/o, Hint. Urn., to'iii. i , i). 'iS.'!; /Mn/ii. Jfni'' 
 Ki'Ifii., toin. i., p. i'St'A; Jiranseur Ue Jioiirbourtj, Hint. Nat. t'iu., toni. ii., J'l' 
 5fl.-> «. 
 
 a 
 
 US, m 
 
 hies, 
 in SOI 
 scri I )e( 
 from 
 also i 
 the ti< 
 the In 
 water 
 Itzas 
 alligat( 
 V^era 1 
 l)r()])er 
 favorite 
 seem to 
 at hand 
 As ai 
 little us« 
 WM nev 
 t\\*'. x"am( 
 for f''»of|. 
 Mot bark 
 Th**y we 
 V'lK-atan, 
 alr»adv i 
 and othei 
 
rSE OF MEAT AS FOOD. 
 
 791 
 
 US, in (iriiateinala — must l)e ottered to the <y(xl of hunt- 
 ini(, or, ill other words, furnished for the priests' ta- 
 hles. Fish and turtles weri' the ehief arti('k;s of food 
 iu souie coast re«(ions, and the Nicaraiifuans are de- 
 scrihed hy Oviedo as expert Hshernien, who took tish 
 from ocean and river hy means of rods, hues, and flies, 
 also in cotton nets, and hy ]>ens and cnihankments in 
 the tide waters. They are .said to liave had a plant, 
 the hi(i/i/un, a decoction of which l)einy put in the 
 water hrouiiciit the fish senseless to the surface. The 
 Itzas and ])rol»ahly others used the harjxton. Young 
 alli<,'ators just hatched were esteemed as delicacies in 
 V^era Paz, ami larye tleets of canoes were sent at the 
 proper season to take them. The tapir was also a 
 favorite article of food. Toads and other leptiles 
 stHMii to have heen eaten when other supplies were not 
 at hand.* 
 
 As an article of daily food, meat was comparatively 
 little used; (Jot^olludo even goes so far as to say it 
 waM never eatttn in Yucatan except at feasts. Besides 
 th« xanit'-supjdy. <logs of a certain species were raised 
 for f<i<Kl. riiey were of small size, without hair, loidd 
 not hark, and when castrated hecame innnensely fat. 
 TIh'V were called .ndos in Nicara*fini, and ttonu's in 
 V'in-;»tan, l»ut were prohahly the same as the tcc/ilchis 
 ah»ady nuMitioned in ^[exico. Turkeys, ducks, geese, 
 and other fowl were domesticated; and pigs, rahhits, 
 
 !i if 
 
 * In til* ))rnvin<T <if ('aiiijMV'lic the .S|»aiiinnls wore fciistod on 'T'or- 
 "•iM'kcH aiicl crHiiiiiKMl t'oiilr liotli "f ilii' Miiiintuym's. WihkI-^, ami Water, art 
 ''ttry<'lii'H, f/iiayU'M, 'riirtlt'»«. Ihuki-s, (ici'sc, ami fdurcfootcil wilde licastcs, 
 < MiiKi-t'M, FlartfM. aixl Hares: Ih'sjiIc-^ Wnlt'cs, Lyons, 'rv>;iTs. ami Koxcm.' 
 h'rf Marl i/r, <\i'i- i\., Iil>. ii. '.liMit.iiisc taiiibicii pnra la raca ilt' I. en I., 
 •NM* <i iiKMios, y la curiH' di'l vciiiulo a-^aii en jiarillas, |iori|U(' no so li'« 
 Xanl*-, y VfuiiloK al iiui-ldo, lia/m ~ii> |iri'sciit('s ai si-niir, y ilislril>iiy<Mi roirio 
 aiiiiifoM yd iiifHino lia/t'ii t-ii la iii'-ca.' Lifmln, Jii/nrim, . |i|i. l;iO-2, 4('>. 
 Ill Vpra I'ii/ ■ tcjoiu's, i|U«' iIimicii luu-na canii', el liilalx's incjor <|iit' far- 
 iicro: vtMiiMlilloN vcrini'jo.s, y otrox lMtyo>. nmclioH otros cnii' los liidioH 
 lli'i'lian. y conieii nlj;iino<< dcsollailim. otros ahiiniadoN. y asKados. on liarlMi- 
 <iia, y on <'lmrini»', v t<Ml<i inal;.'iiisado.' //. re /v/, Hisf. <!ni., doo. iv., lih. 
 X, ran. xiii., .\iv., li. At<'ozMiuol 'ol iM-soadn os .su oaMJ ])riiii'i|ial niiiii- 
 jar ■ (loiiitirii, Ciinq. ytr*-. t'ol. '11. Sc aNo ''•inlit, Hint. Gin., toin. i., 
 |>|i. ;{.5.'), VIA, 497, toin. iv.. \>. XV, i'ii;i'i/f>ii(i,, H.sl. l'«f., p. IST; l.nsl'ii- 
 ■•"I", Hi.sl. AfwliHirlird, MS.. i'«;i 177; liiffisrur ilf BoKrhiiiinj, I'l^pol Villi, 
 |i. f>3. 
 
 Vol. II. if. 
 
 r 
 
722 
 
 THK MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 and hares are mentioned as havinj^ been bred. Mul- 
 titudes of bees were kept for their honey and wax, 
 and hives are spoken of by Las Casas witliout descrip- 
 tion, (ioniara says the bees were small and the honey 
 somewhat bitter. The only methods of nuikinj^ salt 
 that I find particularly mentioned were to bake tide- 
 washed earth, l)oilinif down the brine made of tiie 
 product, and also to l»oil the lye produced by leechiii<;- 
 the ashes of a palm called xacxam. The former 
 method was practiced in (Guatemala, at ^reat cost (*f 
 laljor and wealth, as Herrera says; the second is in- 
 ferred to Yucatan. Many roots were of course util 
 ized for food, and a peculiar herb, called //««/, Wiis 
 mixed with lime and carried constantly in the mouth 
 by the Nicaraij^uans on the march or journey, as a 
 preventive of fatij^ue and thirst.' 
 
 Kespectin<»' the preservation and cookiniif of fond. 
 as well as the habits of the people in takinji;' their 
 daily meals, there are no differences to be recorded 
 from what has been said of the Nahuas. The inevi- 
 table tortillas and tamales were the standard disli, 
 made in the same way as at the north; meat was 
 dried, salted, roasted, and stewed, with pepper for tin- 
 favorite seasoning. Fruits were perhaps a more prom- 
 inent article of food, and were eaten for tlie most part 
 raw." CWolludo informs us that the Yucatei's eat 
 reijfularly once a day, just before sunset; and we are 
 also told that they took jj^reat pains to keep their 
 brii,dit-i'(dored table-cloths and napkins in a state nt' 
 perfect cleanliness. In Nicaragua, they were aeeiis- 
 
 * Lnntlfi, R'-liirinii, p. 118; Las C'axnn, in KitiffuboivHiih'x Mi\i: An'iq , 
 vol. viii., J). MS; I'tiiftiHiulo, Hist. Ynr., y\\. 184, 187-8, 7(H); ['illw/iiHnri: 
 llist. CoiK/. Itzu, pp. 41, 'AW; Vi'irilo, Ilist. Gen., toin. i,, pp. 'Joii 7, 411, 
 4»7, r>07, toiii. iii., p. 'J27; /V/rr Martyr, dec. iv., lib. vi, ii., Acv. vi., lilt, 
 iii. ; llrnrra, Ilixt. 6V/i., dec. i., lilt, v., cap. v., dec. iv., lilt, viii., tap. 
 viii,; h'limara, Coiiq. Mvx., fcil. 'iS; Id., Jlist. Intl., fol. Cl-'J; I'ortis, in,- 
 fas. p. 44'.>; Faiifourf's Ilisf. Viti-., p. 32. 
 
 « (Virtt'H, Cartas,-]}. 2.S, t«ll« us thiit no Itrciid was made in Yiicutan, I'lit 
 that maize was eaten roasted. The In-st tortiiiaH in Nicaragua were ralliMl 
 tiiiritlfiorhoii. Oiu'rdn, Tlisl. dm., torn, i., pp. '2(>7, 3.M, 3.'>'i, 411, ri I.!, •''-,'(, 
 toiii. iii., p. 227. See ulsit l.aiida, Jiclarion, pji. 110-20, 135; Ifureiii, Ilist. 
 (If I., dec. iv., lib. x.,cap. xiii. 
 
 « 
 
DRINKS PREPAHED FROM MAIZE. 
 
 723 
 
 tomed to wash the hands and mouth after eatinor; and 
 the chiefs, who sat in a circle on wtKiden henches and 
 were served hy the women, also washed at the com- 
 mencement of the meal. The men and women eat 
 always separately, the latter takin)i^ their ftRxl from 
 the jLifround, or sometimes from a palm-leaf hasket- 
 work platter. Very little food sufficed for the Mayas 
 and they could bear hunjjer for a lonj( time, hut like 
 all the abori»(inal inhabitants of America they eat 
 plentifully when well supplied, takinjf no heed for a 
 time in the future when food mijjfht be lackint»-.^ 
 
 We have seen that in the bejj^imun;jf, according to 
 the tradition, Xmucane invented nine drinks, which 
 were prepared fnmi majze. The exact comp«)sitiun of 
 these famous beveraufes of antiquity is not jj^iven; but 
 Landa .speaks of at least six, in the j)reparation of 
 which maize was used, at least is an ingredient. To 
 make the fir.st, the vovu was half-hoiled in lime-water, 
 coar.sely j^round, and jueserved in small balls, wliich 
 were simply mixed with water for use; this l)ever!j^'e 
 was much used on journeys, and was often the only 
 provision, .serving- lor food as well. Tlie secoii»! was 
 made of the same hulled corn <,n'ouiid fine and mixed 
 in water .so as to form a «»tui'1, whicii was heated and 
 thickened over the t\vv, and was a favorite drink 
 taken hot in the mornlnt^. The third was panhed 
 corn ground, niixitl in water, and seasoned with pep- 
 per or cacao. The fourth was comijosed ol" y'round 
 maize and cacao, and was <lesiijned esju'cially for 
 jaiblic festivals. For tlie tittli a gn,use, much like 
 laitter, was extracted from cacao and mixed with 
 Uiaize. The sixth was ]trepared from raw maize 
 i^'round. The fenuenttd liinior, made of mai/e and 
 cacao, wliich was «lniiik l»y the Itzas, was called -.(un. 
 \ative witjcs were made of honey !in<l water, of tiys, 
 and of a jjreat variety of fruits; tli;>t made of the 
 
 lil;' 
 
 ' Hrrnntntr lil' Bfntrhnnni, TH.st. \tit. Cii:, toili. ii.. l))i. (59; l.ntida, Ri ■ 
 hirioii. Ik lat; i'ttgtJhuli,, ll,'s/ Vitr . |i. ISO; Oriii/,,, llifl fi'ii., toiii iv.. 
 
 Ill 
 
724 
 
 THK MAYA NATION'S. 
 
 native fruit called jacofe, and one of red cherries, 
 were very popular in Nicaruj^ui. Chirha was a fer- 
 mented drink made of i)ine-app]e juice, honey or 
 8u«jfar, and water. PuUpie made from the maj^uey is 
 mentioned, but this plant does not seem to have 
 played so im])ortant a role in the south as in tlu; 
 north; at least there is very little said <»f it. A very 
 stronj*" and stinking wine is also menti '"jd as heiny 
 prepared from a certain r(M)t. Herrera tells us that 
 the maize-wines resembled beer, and Andaj^foya that 
 their intoxicatin«( properties were not very lastint^. 
 Benzoni complains that the native wines failed to 
 comfort tiie spirit, warm the stomiu'h, and sooth to 
 sleej) like those of Castile. Chocolate and otlicr 
 drinks prepared from cacao were universal favorites, 
 and were prepared both from wild and cultivated 
 varieties. Ovied() states that in Nicaraifua none but 
 the rich and noble could afford to drink it, as it was 
 literally drinkinj^ money. He describes the manner 
 of preparing the cacao, covo, or cac<t</uat. It was 
 [)icked from the trees from February to April, diitil 
 in the sun, roasted, ground in water, mixed with a 
 fjuantity of hijra until it was of a bright i)l(MHl-co|(ir, 
 and the dried paste was |)reserved in cakes. With 
 tills ;>!iste the natives deliy^hted to bedaub tiieir fjict-s. 
 To prepare the drink, they do not seem to have ciu- 
 ployed heat, at least in this part of the country, l»iit 
 simply dissolved tiie paste in water, and poured it 
 from one dish into another to raise a froth. 
 
 The Mayas seem to have been a })eople greatly ad 
 dicttMl to the vice of drunkemiess, which was much 
 less disgraceful and less severely punislied by the 
 laws than among the Nahuas. It was <juite essential 
 to the tiion)ugh enjoyment of a feast (M- wedding ti> 
 lx5come intoxicated; the wife even handed tlie ttinpt 
 ing l>everages to her husband, modestly averttd 
 her head while he drank, kindly guided Iiim lutme 
 when the festivities were over, and even U'caiue 
 intoxicated herself occasionallv, if Lauda mav he 
 
EATING HUMAN FLESH. 
 
 725 
 
 believed. The same aiithority represents the natives 
 of Yucatan as very brutal and indecent when drunk, 
 and Oviedo says that he who dropped dt>wn senseless 
 from <lrink in a banquet was allowed to remain where 
 he fell, and was rej^arded l)y his companions with feel- 
 injfs of envy.' 
 
 The custom of eating the flesh of human victims 
 who were sacrificed to the gods, was probably j)rac- 
 ticed more or less in all the Maya regions; but 
 neither this cannil>alism nor the sacrifices that gave 
 rise to it were so extensively indulged in as by the 
 Mexicans. Some authors, as Gomara, deny that 
 human flesh was ever eaten in Yucatan, but others, 
 as Herrera, Villagutierre, and Peter Martyr, con- 
 tradict this, although admitting that cases of can- 
 nibalism were rare, and the victims confined to 
 sacrificed enemies. Las Casas states that in Guate- 
 mala the hands and feet were given to the king and 
 high-priest, the rest to other {)riests, and tluit none 
 was left for the people. In Nicaragua the high- 
 priest received the heart, the king tlie feet and 
 hands, he who captured the vii'tim took the thighs, 
 til'' tripe was given to the trumpeters, an<l the rest 
 »!i,s divided among the people. The head was not 
 eaitieiL The edilde portions were cut in small pieces, 
 liM'»iled in large pots, si^asoned with salt and pe|)per, 
 and eaten together with cakes <if iiiM'ze. At certain 
 feasts also maize was sprinkled with blood from the 
 genitals, Acc<»r(ling to HerrtM'a some Spaniards 
 were eaten in Yucatan. Imt All>ornoz trlls us that 
 the natives of H<>n«lnras found the foreigners too 
 tou<^h and hitter t«» be eaten." 
 
 « Vinnifwtirrri . ///>' ''.»»iy. Ilza, np. W, 0"), .112: Lninln, Rflneion, 
 itp. llt>-2(». I'.t'J; llirni-i. Ili-i/. '/• n.. Ueiv i. lil>. v . cup. v.. di'e. iii., lili. 
 IV., nip. vii., dec, iv.. lili viii., cim ix., lili. x.,cap. iv ; Orni/o, Ifisi. '/<•((., 
 Iiilll. i., pp. 2()7, HI7-I>*, t'tiil. iv., p. Ur»; liiiizinii. Hist. Mitinlu Miioro, fol. 
 H»-i-.M, liW; La.i ''imti.i, HiM A/x^'ogHim, MS., .up. cLxxvii.; Wuhlnk, 
 I'll/. I'itt., p. 4<»; ! 'iirfi'.s' Ih:s/nifr)i'-.i, ji. 4; Jtriixni'iir lir ISoiirhiiiirif, Hi.il. 
 A'.ir '/(•., toin. II .pp. .M'JI. •«•«. 
 
 9 In Viicatnii: TIh'sc niirWiiriaiiK ('at^* iiiwly tlitMrpiiPinit'H, orHiirli stntii- 
 ll^m uH ciiiiu' vuv« tlu'iii, (itluTwiw tlu'v almtaiiif fnim inaiis fl».«li.' I'l/, r 
 Jturfi/r, dec. iv., iili. vi. lu •riiutt-iuula the lu-ad-' and iripe wi-ri- si'a><»nt'd 
 
79S 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 By reason of the warmer climate in the southern 
 lands, or of a difference in the popular taste, some- 
 what less attention seems to have been paid to dress 
 and personal adornment by the Mayas than by the 
 Nahutus, or rather the Maya dress was much more 
 sinii>le and more uniform amontf the different classes 
 t)f society; and, so far as can be determined from the 
 very scanty information extant, there was only a very 
 slii^ht variation in th^ dress of the diflerent nations — 
 much less, indeed, than would naturally be expected 
 between the tribes of the low Yucatan plains and of 
 the Guatemalan highlands. Very little of the infor- 
 mition that has been preserved, however, relates to 
 the people of Guatemala. Men wore almost univers- 
 ally the garment known in Mexico as the maxtli, a 
 long strip ot cotton cloth, wound several times round 
 the loins and passing between the legs. This strip 
 was often twisted so Jis to resemble a cord, and the 
 higher the cliuss or the greater the wealth of the 
 wearer, the greater the length of the cord and the 
 numl)er of turns about the body. Among the Itzas 
 and other tribes of Yucatan, instead of passing this 
 garment between the legs, its ends were often allowid 
 to hang, one in front and the other behind, i)eing in 
 such cjises more or less embroidered t)V otherwise! 
 decorated.'" In more modern times the maxtli seems 
 
 with wine. /,a? Ctisus, lli.it. ApolorfHicn, MS., cap. elxxvii. ; Id., in Kiinfu- 
 ti()riiiii/h\i Stix. Anil I., vol. viii., p. H7; Villixjutirrri', Hint. Com). Il~<i, pp. 
 <)!!(, (i.")l; (rDiniirn, Ifiaf. IiiiL, fol. 02; Ifrrnra, Hi.if. (}ni.,dcr. ii., lil). iv., 
 uitp. vii., (lee. iii., lilt, iv., cap. vi., vii., Iil>. vii., ciip. iii. ,<lcc. jv., lilt, x., 
 cap. IV.; Orieito, lli.'it. (ini., Utm. iv., pp. H7, 5 1-2, .50, 108; Aiiifaifoi/d, in 
 Nnviinrtr, Col. dr Viakn, toni. iii., p. 4'2(); llf.iiznni, Hist. Moiidu y'lmrn, 
 fi)i. 'Vi, 104; Alhonioz, in Icnzhalir.td, Col. di: Dor., toin. i., |). 480; Ifil/i.i' 
 S/imi. Coiiq., vol. iii., p. 88; Pimcntd, Mem. sobtx la Rnza Iiidi'jeiin, [». '.'.■(; 
 Mo relet, Voijitqe, t<»ni. i., p. 191. 
 
 '" The ltau<, men iind women, wore 'faxas' 4 varas h»ng and ^ varji 
 wide. Villoifiilirrir, Hi.st. Coikj. Itza, |)p. .312, 402, 4S)8. At Caini»fclic. a 
 Htrip of cotton one hand wide, twi)4tc<l and wound 20 or 30 times ulxiiii 
 the hody. Orirdo, Hint. tien.. torn, i., pp. 512-l.S. This garment cjillicl 
 mn.ifiite. lieriial Diaz, Ili.il. Coin/., fol. 2. Ends embroidered and tlcin- 
 rated with feathers. Laiidti, li'larion, p. 110. Alnutt/zares, culled in New 
 Spain mantil; otherwise naked. Ilerrern, Hint. Gen., dec. i., lil». v., rap. 
 v., dec. ii., lili. iv., cap. vii.; Vort(s' Despatches, p. 4. Tiie CijiapanciH 
 naked except this cloth about the loins. Jiemesal, Hist. Ghyapa, pp. 'J'.*'.', 
 
I)KE.S.S OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 727 
 
 to have been, in some cases at least, replaced by «'<)t- 
 ton drawers, fastened with a strin«( round the waist, 
 atid havinj^ the lejjfs rolled up to the middle of the 
 thijifh." A large proportion of tiie Mayas, especially 
 of the poorer classes, wore commonly no other gar- 
 ment than the one mentioned; but very few were 
 without a piece of cotton cloth about four or five feet 
 square, which was used as a covering at night and was 
 often worn in the daytime, by tying two comers on 
 the same side over the shoulders and allowing the 
 cloth to hang down the back. The Spaniards uni- 
 formly apply the somewhat indelinite term 'mantle' 
 to this garment. Those mantles are still worn." The 
 only other garment mentioned, and one not definitely 
 stated to have been worn except in Yucatan, was a 
 kind of loose sleeveless shirt reaching to the knees. 
 These shirts as well as the mantles were worn both 
 white and dyed in brilliant and variegated colors." I 
 find no mention of other material than cotton used for 
 clothing, except in the case of the Cakchi<juel8, who, 
 according to Brasseur, wore both bark and maguey- 
 fibre." 
 
 There is nothing to indicate that the dress of 
 nobles, priests, or kings, differed essentially from that 
 of the common people, except in fineness of material 
 or richness and profusion of ornaments. It is proba- 
 ble, however, that the higher classes were always 
 clad in the garments which have been described, 
 while a majority of the plebeians wore only the 
 
 " Plate showing the costume of an Indian of the interior. JValdeek, 
 Vot/. Pitt., pi. V. Trowscrs of cotton in Salvador. Squirr's Cent. Ainer., 
 1>. ij21. 
 
 '2 Called tilmas or ha;/nt<:\; a van! and a half Houare. Coifo/iuilo, Hist. 
 Viir., p. 187. Mantle.s called ziiijfii. /(/.. p. '2. 'Mantas pintadus.' Las 
 Casas, in Kiiiffuboro'Kfh'.s Mrx. Aiiti/., vol. viii., p. 147. 
 
 '3 t-otton robes oi i>riglit olors. Sriuirr'.<< Crnf. An'r., j>. .'mI. 'Tu- 
 niques.' Tfrnaux-CoiH/Kiiin, in Niiii>rilM- Aniialrn dru Voij., IS4H, toin. 
 xcvii., p. .52. 'Srtck.s.' Faiicniirt'.i Hisf. Vm;., pp. "284-5. 'Cauiisutas de 
 colores. Orirdo, Hist. Cffii., toni. i., p. 4i)7. 'Aainietasde algodon.' lier- 
 nal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 2. '('aniisette senza ntuniche.' Ik.iiznni, Hist. 
 Mondo N:>ovo, pp. 98, 104. 
 
 '< Hist. Nut. Civ., toin. ii., p. 172. Mayas dress like the Mcxipan.s. 
 Hcrrcra, Hist, Gen., dec, iii., lib. iv., c;ip. vii. 
 
 < t- 
 
728 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 inaxtli, which was Mometimes only a single strip of 
 cloth pnsHintr once rouiul the waist and between the 
 len^. As rulers and priests are often spoken of as 
 dressed in 'large white mantles' or 'flowing robes,' it 
 is probable that the mantle worn by them was much 
 larger, as well as of finer stuff, than that described. 
 Landa speaks of a priest in Yucatan who wore an 
 upper garment of colored feathers, with strips of cot- 
 ton hanging from its border to the ground. Palacio 
 tells us of priestly robes in Salvador of different col- 
 ors, black, blue, green, red, and yellow. According 
 to Remesal the priests of Guatemala were filthy, 
 alx>minable, and ugly, in fact very hogs in dress. In 
 Nicaragua, Herrera describes white cotton surplices, 
 and other priestly vestments, some small, others 
 hanging from the shoulders to the heels, with hang- 
 ing pockets, in which were carried stone lancets, with 
 various herbs and powders, indispensable in the 
 practice of sacerdotal arts. Ximenez represents the 
 Guatemalan king's dress as like that of the people, 
 except that he had his ears and nose pierced, of which 
 
 more anon 
 
 15 
 
 The women universally wore a skirt formed by 
 winding a wide piece of cotton cloth round the IkmIv 
 and fastening it at the waist. This garment reached 
 from the waist to the knee, as worn by the pleboiaii 
 women, but those of a higher class covered with it 
 their legs as low as the ankles. In some parts of 
 Nicaragua, especially on the islands, Herrera says 
 that except this skirt, which was so scanty as hanlly 
 to merit a better name than breech-clout, the women 
 were naked; but elsewhere they were always par- 
 ticular to cover their breasts from sight. This thoy 
 accomplished in some cases by a piece of cloth round 
 the neck, and fastened under the arms; but they aUo 
 
 '* Landa, Rclae.ion, pp. I48-.50; Palacio, Carta, pp. Ct'2-4; BKinc-nl, 
 Hist. Chya^m, p. 137; Herrera, Hint. Gen., dec. iii., li)>. iv., «!ap. vii., tiff. 
 iv., lib. viii., cap. .\., dec. ii., lib. ii., cup. xvii.; Ximenez, Hist. Jnil. 
 Guat., p. 197; liranneKr tie Dourdourg, Hist. .Vat. ','<('., toiii. ii., p. 54. 
 
DRESH OF WOMEN AND CHILDKEN. 
 
 720 
 
 often wore a kind of chemise, or loose sack, with holes 
 for the liead and arms, and sonietinius with short 
 sleeves. The latter garment was always worn on 
 feast-days by those who had it to wear. Aiida«;foya 
 mentions a sort of caj)e worn in Nicara«(ua, which had 
 a hole for the head, and covered the breasts and half 
 of the arms. Herrera speaks of a sack open at iMjth 
 ends, and tij^htened at the waist, worn in Nicaraifua; 
 and Landa mentions the same pirinent in Yiuratan. 
 The women, like the men, used a scpiare mantle to 
 sleep under, and carried it with them on journeys. 
 Children were allowed to remain naked in Yucatan 
 till they were four or five years old, and in (Jmite- 
 mala to the aj^e of eii^ht or nine years; but in Yuca- 
 tan, Landa tells us, that a boy at the iijre of three 
 years, had a white ornament tied in his hair, and a 
 fjfirl at the same ai^e had a shell fastened by a string 
 in such a manner as to cover certain parts of her 
 person." 
 
 It is very difficult to form any definite idea of the 
 Maya methods of dressin«( the hair, save that all al- 
 lowed it to grow long, and most })ersons separated it 
 into tresses, winding some of them about the head and 
 allowing others to hang down the back. Landa in- 
 forms us that the Yucatecs burned the hair on the 
 crown, allowing it to remain short there, but permitted 
 the rest to grow as long as it would, binding it round 
 the head exce[)t a (jueue behind. In Nicaragua, the 
 forehead was shaved, and sometimes the whole head 
 except a tuft at the crown. Tlie women everywhere 
 and men generally took great pains with the hair; the 
 former often mixed feathers with their raven locks, 
 
 '* 'lA'toffe rny»5c iriino on dp iilusiciirs coiilcurH qiip les feiiiiiiCH se nml- 
 cnt eiiooru uiitoiir tin c<ir|)ti cii la si-rriiiit a la eeiiitiirc coiiiini- iiii jiipoii, 
 tlcHCCiulaiit pliiH oil iiioiim Imis iiii-dcMHmiH dii }(eiiou, hi> troiive utrc oxacti-iiiciit 
 ill 1116111C (|iie Ton voit aiix inia^cH d'lHiM et mix feiiiiiieH t>^yi>ticiiiie!i iIch 
 ('piiqiiCH phiiraitiiiqiieH.' lirasucunle liourhotirg. Hist. Sat. (n:, tiiiii. ii., 
 |t. 07. Skirt from the waist to feet, called pit: Cogollialo, Hint. Viic, mt. 
 IS7-8, 699. 'UoiMMt de alpuloii, (lue llaiiiaii iiaj^iias.' liirnnl Diaz, Iiint. 
 I'onq., fol. 2; Aiidagoi/n, in Nararvetr, Col. de Vitijes, toin. iii., p. 414; 
 llinrrn. Hint. Grii., dec. iv., lib. x., cup. iv. ; Lunila, Jiilurion, pp. 
 184-«, 16, 144-6, 180. 
 
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 WiBSTER.M.y 14SS0 
 
 (716) 872-4S03 
 
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 <i6 
 
730 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 which were dressed differently according as the own- 
 ers were married or single, and particular oare was 
 devoted to the coiffure of a bride. All the authori- 
 ties agree that the priests in Yucatan wore the hair 
 long, uncombed, and often saturated with sacrificial 
 blood. Plumes of feathers seem to have been their 
 usual head-dress. Palacio and Herrera mention a 
 colored head-dress, mitre, or diadem with hanging 
 plumes worn by a priest in Salvador. Over the 
 hair a piece of cloth was usually worn by females, in 
 which the Ahh6 Brasseur finds a resemblance to the 
 Egyptian calantica. A tuft of hair hanging over the 
 face of children often made them cross-eyed; indeed, 
 mothers are said to have arranged it with a view to 
 this very effect, deemed by them a desirable thing, or 
 to have attached to the forehead a small hanging plas- 
 ter for the same purpose. The number of 'bizcos' 
 treated by Dr Cabot, who accompanied Mr Stephens 
 in his excursion through Yucatan, shows that though 
 squinting eyes are still common in the country, the 
 defect has at least lost its charm to the Maya moth- 
 
 ers, 
 
 17 
 
 No beard was worn, and the few hairs that made 
 their appearance on the face were immediately ex- 
 tracted. According to Landa, mothers are said to 
 have burned the faces of young children with hot 
 cloths to prevent the growth of a beard in later years. 
 After the Conquest many of the natives grew beards, 
 which, though sometimes long, were always thin and 
 
 " 'Es lo mas diiicultoso en los Indios el reduzirlos h cortarles el pelo.' 
 Villagutieire, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 498, 312. In Guatemala soniewhut less 
 attention seems to have been paid to the hair. ' Trayanlo encrespado, 6 ro- 
 bujado en la cabe9a como estopas, h. causa de que no se lo peynauan. ' Er- 
 mesal. Hist. Chyapa, p. 302; Cogolludo, Hist, rvc, p. 187, speaks of straw 
 and palm-leaf hats, but he probably refers to his own time. Hair of priests 
 filled with blood. Id., p, 5; Bernat Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 3; Sqiiier's Cent. 
 Amer., pp. 321, 551. In Nicaragua 'traen rapadas las cabc9as dc la niitad 
 adelante 6 los aladares por debaxo, 6 d^xanse una coleta de oreja & oreja 
 por detrds desde la coronilla.' Oriedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., pp. 38, 108; 
 Landa, Relacion, pp. 112-14, 184; firasseitr de Bonrhourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, ii., p. 68; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii., lib. viii., caji. 
 X. Aguiiar wore a 'corona v tren9a de cabellos, como los naturales.' Go- 
 mara, Mist, Ind., fol. 62; Ja., Conq, ilfe«., fol. 23; Puiacio, Carta, p. 62. 
 
DISFIGUREMENT OF THE PHYSIQUE. 
 
 731 
 
 coarse. Something like a beard is also to be seen on 
 some of the sculptured faces among the Maya ruins. 
 Oviedo met in Nicaragua a man about seventy years 
 of age, who had a long flowing white beard." 
 
 The Mayas, when they covered the feet at all, wore 
 a kind of sandal of coarse cloth, or more frequently of 
 dry deer-skin. These sandals were simply pieces of 
 skin, often double, covering and fitting somewhat the 
 sole, and fastened by cotton strings from the ankle to 
 the toes and perhaps also to the heel. I find no ac- 
 count of hand-coverings except in the Popol Vuh, 
 where gloves are spoken of as being used in the game 
 of ball.^" 
 
 Having provided for their comfort by the use of 
 the articles of dress already described, the Mayas, 
 like most other American aborigines, deemed it essen- 
 tial to modify and improve their physique by artificial 
 means. This they accomplished by head-flattening, 
 teeth-filing, perforation of the ears, nose, and lips, tat- 
 tooing, and painting; yet it is not probable that all 
 these methods of disfigurement were practiced by all 
 the natives. In Nicaragua!, the heads of infants were 
 flattened; the people believed that the custom had 
 been originally introduced by the gods ; that the com- 
 pressed forehead was the sign of noble blood and the 
 highest type of beauty; and besides that the head 
 was thus better adapted to the carrying of burdens. 
 Tn Yucatan, according to Landa, the same custom ob- 
 tained. Four or five days after birth the child was 
 laid with the face down on a bed and the head was 
 compressed between two pieces of wood, one on the 
 forehead and the other on the back of the head, the 
 boards being kept in place for several days until the 
 
 *^ Benzoni, Hist. Mimdo Niiovo, p. 35; Chnnini/, Ruincs Am(r., p. .341; 
 Landa, Bclneion, p. 114; llerrcra, hint. (Jen., dec. iv., lib. x., cup. iii. ; 
 Oviedo, Hist. Geii., toiii. iv., p. 111. 
 
 19 'Traiaii suiiduliuH do cafianio o cuero do vonado per cnrtirsecc' Lan- 
 da, Relacion, i>. IIG. They generally went barefoot. Cofjolludo, Hist. Yuc, 
 p. 187. Sandals in Nicara;.?ua called gutaras. Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., 
 j>p. .38-9; Squier's Nicaruqiia, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 347; Brasucur de 
 Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. 77. 
 
783 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 desired cranial conformation wa« effected. So great 
 was the pressure that the child's skull was sometimes 
 broken. I find no account of forehead-flattening in 
 Guatemala and Chiapas, though Mr Squier, follow- 
 ing Fuentes' unpublished history, says that among the 
 Quiches, Cakchiquels,and Zutugils the back of the head 
 was flattened by the practice of carrying infants tied 
 closely to a straight board. Yet from the frequent 
 occurrence of this cranial type in the sculptured pro- 
 files in Chiapas, Honduras, and Yucatan, there can 
 be no doubt that in the most ancient times a flattened 
 forehead was the ideal of manly beauty, and I think 
 we have sufficient reason to believe that the artificial 
 shaping of the skull was even more universally prac- 
 ticed in ancient than in modern times. The origin of 
 the custom is a most interesting topic for study and 
 speculation.** 
 
 The practice of filing the teeth prevailed to a cer- 
 tain extent among the women of Yucatan, whose ideal 
 of dental charms rendered a saw-teeth arrangement de- 
 sirable. The operation was performed by certain old 
 women, professors of the art, by means of sharp 
 gritty stones and water.'** The piercing of ears, nose, 
 and lips was practiced among all the nations by both 
 men and women apparently, except in Guatemala, 
 where, Ximenez tells us, it was confined to the kings, 
 who perforated the nose and ears as a mark of rank 
 and power. We have no authority for supposing that 
 persons of any class in Yucatan and Nicaragua were 
 restrained from this mutilation of their faces, or from 
 wearing in the perforated features any ornaments they 
 could afford to purchase. Such ornaments were small 
 sti viks, bones, shells, and rings of amber or gold. Other 
 ornaments besides those inserted in the ears, nose, 
 and lips, were bracelets, rings, gold beads, and medals, 
 
 ^ Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn. iv. , p. 54; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., 
 lib. iv., cap. vii., dec. iv., lib. x. , cap. iii.; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 
 1856,) vol. li., p. 345; Id., in Palacio, Carta, p. 106; Landa, Eelacion, 
 pp. 114, 180, 104. 
 
 *^ Landa, Relation, p. 182. 
 
TATTOOING AND PAINTING. 
 
 733 
 
 shell necklaces, metallic and wooden wands, gilded 
 masks, feathers and plumes, and pearls. Besides 
 this piercing for ornamental purposes, it should be 
 noted that perforation of cheeks and tongues, and 
 scarifyings of other parts of body antl limbs, were 
 common in connection with religious rites and duties.'" 
 Tattooing was effected in Yucatan and Nicaragua 
 by lacerating the body with stone lancets, and rubbing 
 the wounds with powdered coal or black earths, which 
 left indelible marks. Stripes, serpents, and birds 
 seem to have been favorite devices for this kind of 
 decoration. The process was a slow and painful one, 
 and to submit to it was deemed a sign of bravery. 
 The tattooing was done by professors who made this 
 art a specialty. Cogolludo says the Itzas had the 
 whole body tattooed, but Landa and Herrera tell us 
 that neither in Yucatan nor in Nicaragua were the 
 breasts of the women subjected to this decorative 
 mutilation.*^ Painting the face and body was uni- 
 
 ** A war party: 'Agujeradas narizea, y orejas con sus narigeras, y ore- 
 jeras de Cuzcas, y otras piedras de diuersos colores.' Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc, 
 p. 73. The Itzas wore in the nose 'una baynilla olorosa,' and in the ears, 
 *vn palo labrado.' Id., p. 699. 'Sartales de Caracoles colorados,' much 
 prized by the Itzas. Villagutierrc, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 48. Small sticks in 
 the cars, and little reeds or amber rings, or grains of vanilla, in the nose. 
 Id., pp. 312, 402. A few silver and gold ear-ornaments, id., pp. 497-9. 
 On the peninsula of Yucatan, 'trayan las orejas horadadas para farcillos. 
 Landa, Relacion, p. 114. The priest carried 'un isopo en la mano de un 
 palo corto muy labrado, y por barbas o pelos del isopo ciertas colas de nnas 
 culcbras que son como caxcaveles.' Id., pp. 149-.50. W^omen pierced nose 
 and ears. Id., p. 182. In Nicaragua 'traeu sajadas las lenguas por debaxo, 
 e las orejas, 6 algunos los miembros viriles, 6 no las mugeres nniguna cosa 
 destas, y ellos y ellas horadadas las orejas de grandes agujeros. Oviedo, 
 Hist. Oen., torn, iv., pp. 38-9, torn, i., p. 497. King in Yucatan wore 'des 
 bracelets et des mancnettcs d'une elegance ^gale Ji la bcaute de la matifere. 
 Brasseur de Bourbon rg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. .'54. 'Tecaiih, qui est 
 le bijou que les chefs indiens portaient frc^quemment it la liivre inf^rieurc on 
 an cartilage du nez.' Id., p. 92. See also Cortes, Cartas, p. 3; Camargo, 
 Hist. Tlax., in Nouvellcs Annates des Voj/., 1843, toin. xcix., p. 144; Her- 
 rera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. iv., cap. vii., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., lib. 
 vii., cap. ix., dec. iv., lib. iii., cap. iii., lib. x., cap. iii., iv. ; Ooinara, Hist, 
 Ind., fol. 60, 62; Squicr's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., i>. 347; Id., Cent. 
 Amer., p. 551; Ximene^^, Hist. Ind. Guat., p. 197; Diaz, Itiniraire, in Ter- 
 naux-Compans, Voy., s^rie i., torn, x., pp. 16, 26, 39; Las Casas, in Kings- 
 borough's mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 147. 
 
 » 'Los oiiciales dello labravan la parte ^ue querian con tinta, y despues 
 sejavanle delicadamcntc las pinturas, y assi con la sangre y tinta quedavan 
 en el cuerpo las sefiales, y que se labran pnco a poco por el tormento grande, 
 y tanibien se pouen despues malos, porquc se les euconavan los labores, y 
 
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784 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 versal, but little can be Raid respecting the details of 
 the custom, save that red and black were apparently 
 the favorite colors, and colored earths the most com- 
 mon material of the paints. Bixa was, however, 
 much used for red, and cacao tinted with bixa to a 
 blood-red hue was daubed in great profusion on the 
 faces of the Nicaraguans. In Yucatan young men 
 generally restricted themselves to black until they 
 were married, indulging afterwards in varied and 
 bright-colored figures. Black was also a favorite 
 color for war-paint. Odoriferous gums were often 
 mixed with the paints, especially by the women, 
 which rendered the decoration durable, sticky, and 
 most disagreeable to foreign olfactories. It appears 
 that in Guatemala, and probably elsewhere, a coat 
 of paint was employed, not only for ornamental pur- 
 poses, but as a protection against heat and cold. At 
 certain Nicaraguan feasts and dances the naked bodies 
 were painted in imitation of the ordinary garments, 
 cotton-fibre being mixed with the paint.^* 
 
 All were fond of perfumes, and besides the odor- 
 iferous substances mixed by the ladies in their paint, 
 copal and other gums were burned on many occasions, 
 not only in honor of the gods, but for the agreeable 
 odor of the smoke; sweet-smelling barks, herbs, and 
 flowers were also habitually carried on the person.^* 
 All the Mayas, especially females, were rather neat 
 
 liaziasc materia, y que con todo esso se mofavan de los que no se labrnvan.' 
 Landa, Relncion, pp. 120, 182; Vogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 186,(599; Jirnic- 
 sal, Hist. Chyapn, p. 293; Villagaticrre, Hist. Vonq. Itza, mi. 402,498; Ilcr- 
 rera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. ; Oviedo, Hist. Ocn., toni. iy., ]). 
 33; Ternaux-Gompaiui, in Nouvelles Annates desVoy., 184.3, torn, xcvii., p. 
 47; FancourCs Hist. Yuc, pp. 121, 28.5; Bussicrre, L'Empire Mex., p. 20.5. 
 
 ^* Reinesal, Hist. Chi/apa, p. 302; Landa, Relacion, pp. 114-16, 178-80, 
 182, 184; Cogolludo, Hist. Yvr , pp. 6, 77; Villaqutiere, Hist. Gonq. Itzu, 
 pp. 107, 402, 490, 499; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 297, 318, 498, torn. 
 IV., p. Ill; Cortds, Cartas, p. 422; Oomara, Hist. Ink., fol. 62; Brasseur dr 
 Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, pp. 71-2, 189. 
 
 *■» ' Eran amigos de b-ieuos olorea y que por esto usan de ramilletes do 
 florea y yervas olorosas, inuy curioaos y labradoa.' Landa, Relncion, p. 114. 
 'Dea roseaux longs de deux palmea, et qui r^ptindaient une excellciitc 
 odeurquand onlea brdtait.' Diaz, Itiniraire, in Ternanx-Compans, Voy., 
 Bdrie i., torn, x., p. 7; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii. ; Bras- 
 sear de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 68; Valois, Mexique, p. 
 206. 
 
PERSONAL HABITS. 
 
 735 
 
 than otherwise in their personal habits, taking great 
 
 Eains with their dress and so-called decorations. Tliey 
 athed frequently in cold water and sometimes in- 
 dulged in hot baths, perhaps in steam-baths; but of 
 the latter very little is said, although Brasseur says 
 it was used in Guatemala under the name of tuh. 
 The women were very modest and usually took much 
 pains to prevent the exposure of their persons, but in 
 bathing and on certain other occasions both sexes ap- 
 pear to have been somewhat careless in this respect. 
 In both Yucatan and Nicarajrua mirrors were em- 
 ployed by the men, but the women required or at least 
 employed no such aids.^ Although such disfigure- 
 ments as h ive been described, painting, tattooing, and 
 perforation, are reported by all the authors, and were 
 all doubtless practiced, yet one can hardly avoid form- 
 ing the idea in reading the narratives cf the conquer- 
 ors, that such hideous mutilations were confined to 
 certain classes and certain occasions, and that the 
 mass of the people in every-day life presented a much 
 less repulsive aspect. 
 
 I have already spoken of the tenure of landed prop- 
 erty and the laws of inheritance among the Mayas. 
 To the accumulation of wealth in the form of personal 
 property they do not seem to have attached much im- 
 portance. They were content for the most part with 
 a supply of simple food for their tables, the necessary 
 household utensils, and such articles of dress and or- 
 nament as were required by their social rank; with 
 
 ** 'Se vauavan miicho, no curaudo de cuhrirse de las mugeres, sino 
 qiiando podia cubrir la niano.' Landa, Relacion, p. 114. 'Selavaii las 
 iiianos y la boca dcspues de comer.' Id., p. 120. The women stripped na- 
 ked in the wells where they bathed; they took hot baths rather for health 
 than cleanliness. Id., p. 184. The women 'tiencn poco secreto, y no son 
 tan limpias en sus persoiias ni en sus cosas con qnanto se lavan como los er- 
 miiios.' Id., p. 192. 'Los hombres ha^en aguas puestos en cluquillas, «5 las 
 mu^^eres estanilo derechas de pies a d6 niiiera que ies viene la gana.' Ooiedo, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 38; Ilcrrcra, Hist. Ocii., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iii., 
 iv. ; Ddvila, Teatro Eclcs., torn, i., p. 203; Goinara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263; 
 Garhajal Espinosa, Hist. Mex., torn, i., p. 263; Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 68. 
 
 I 
 
 
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786 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 these and a sufficient surplus to entertain their friends 
 in a fitting style, they took little care for the future. 
 Yet traders were a class much honored, and their pro- 
 fession was a lucrative one. An active trade was 
 carried on in each town, as also between different 
 towns, provinces, and nations, in order that the peo- 
 ple of each locality might be supplied with the neces- 
 sary commodities both of home and foreign production. 
 Few details have been preserved respecting the manner 
 of conducting trade, but what is known on the sub- 
 ject indicates that the commercial system was identi- 
 cal with that of the Nahuas, to which a preceding 
 chapter has been devoted. Commodities of every 
 class, food, dress, ornaments, weapons, and implements, 
 were offered for sale in the market-place, or plaza, of 
 every village, where all transactions between buyers 
 and sellers were regulated by an official who had full 
 authority to correct abuses and punish offences against 
 the laws of trade. Fairs were held periodically in 
 all the larger towns, which were crowded by buyers 
 and sellers from abroad. Traveling merchants trav- 
 ersed the country in every direction busied in tlie 
 exchange and transport of varied local products. Yu- 
 catan did a. large foreign trade with Tabasco and Hon- 
 duras, from both of which regions large quantities of 
 cacao were imported. O ther international routes of com- 
 merce doubtless existed in different directions ; we have 
 seen that the Nahua merchants crossed the isthmus of 
 Tehuan tepee to traffic in Maya lands, and the south- 
 ern merchants were doubtless not unrepresented in 
 the northern fairs. Transportation was effected for 
 the most part by carriers overland, and in many parts 
 of the country, as in Yucatan, magnificent paved roads 
 offered every facility to the traveler; quite an exten- 
 sive coasting-trade was also carried on by water. 
 
 The ordinary mercantile transactions were effected 
 by exchange, or barter, of one commodity for another ; 
 but where this was inconvenient cacao passed current 
 as money among all the nations. Thus a rabbit in 
 
MARKET HEGULATI0N8. 
 
 737 
 
 Nicaragua sold for ten cacao-nibs, and one hundred of 
 these seeds would buy a tolerably good slave. Not- 
 withstanding the comparatively small value of this 
 cacao-money, Oviedo tells us that counterfeiting was 
 sometimes attempted. According to Cogolludo, cop- 
 per bells and rattles of different sizes, red shells in 
 strings, precious stones, and copper hatchets often 
 served as money, especially in foreign trade. Doubt- 
 less many other articles, valuable and of compact 
 form were used in the same way. Landa speaks of 
 net-work purses in which the money of the natives 
 was carried. 
 
 We are informed that in Yucatan articles of ordi- 
 nary consumption, like food, were sold always at a 
 fixed price, except maize, which varied slightly in 
 price according to the yield. Maize was sold by the 
 carga, or load, which was about one half of the Cas- 
 tilian fanega. In Nicaragua the matter of price was 
 left altogether to the contracting parties. The Mayas 
 of all nations were very strict in requiring the ex- 
 sSct fulfilment of contracts, which, in Yucatan, as has 
 been said, and in Guatemala also, according to Bras- 
 seur de Bourbourg, were legalized by the parties 
 drinking together, the beverage being generally col- 
 ored with certain leaves called max. In the Nicar- 
 aguan markets some extraordin&iy regulations were 
 enforced. Men could not visit the market-place of 
 their own towns, either to buy, sell, or for any other 
 purpose; they even incurred the risk of receiving a 
 sound beating, if they so much as peeped in to see 
 what was going on. All the business was transacted 
 by the women ; but boys, into whose minds, by reason 
 of their tender years, carnal thoughts were supposed 
 not to have entered, might be present to assist the 
 women, and even men from other towns or provinces, 
 were welcome, provided they did not belong to a 
 people of different language. 
 
 No peculiar ceremonies are mentioned as accompa- 
 nying the setting-out or return of trading caravans, 
 
 Vol. II. « 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 Mi-, 
 
 uk] 
 
788 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 but some customs observed by travelers, a large pro- 
 portion of whom were probably merchants, are re- 
 corded. In Yucatan all members of a household 
 prayed often and earnestly for the safe return of the 
 absent member; and the traveler himself, when he 
 chanced to come in contact with a \&rge stone which 
 had been moved in opening- the road, reverently laid 
 upon it a green branch, brushing his knees with an- 
 other at the same time as a preventive of fatigue. 
 He also carried incense on his journey, and at eacli 
 nightfall, wherever he might be, he stood on end 
 three small stones, and on three other fiat stones 
 placed before the first he burned incense and uttered 
 a prayer to Ekchua, god of travelers, whose name 
 signifies 'merchant.' When the traveler was belated, 
 and thought himself likely to arrive after dark at his 
 proposed stopping-place, he deposited a stone in a 
 hollow tree, and pulled out some hairs from his eye- 
 brows, which he proceeded to blow towards the set- 
 ting sun, hoping thereby to induce that orb to 
 retard somewhat its movements. In GuatemalS,, 
 small chapels were placed at short intervals on all 
 the lines of travel, where each passer halted for a 
 few moments at least, gathered a handful of herbs, 
 rubbed with them his legs, spat reverently upon 
 them, and placed them prayerfully upon the altar with 
 a small stone and some trifling offering of pepper, 
 salt, or cacao. The offering remained untouched, no 
 one being bold enough to disturb the sacred token." 
 
 " The following are my authorities on the Maya commerce, many refer- 
 ences to Biniplc mentions of articles boii<;ht and sold and to the use of cacao 
 aa money being omitted. Xim-enez, Ilist. Ind. Ouat., p. 203; Las Casas, in 
 KingsborouglCs Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 137, 147; Hcrrera, Hist. Gcii., 
 dec. i., lib. v., cap. v., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., lib. v., cap. xii., lib. vii., 
 cap. ix., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. iii., ix.; Landa, Relacion, pp. 32, 128-30, 
 156-8; Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 181, 183; Villagutierre, Hist. Coikj[. Itza, 
 p. 311; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., p. 316, torn. iii.. p. 253, toni. iv., i)p. 
 .S6-7, 49, 54, 104; Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. i. ; Cortes, Cartas, p. 422; 
 Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nuovo, fol. 102, 109; Brassenr de Bourbourg, Hist. 
 Nat. Civ., tom. ii., pp. 50-1, 71, 564; Id., Popol Vuh, p. 97; Sqnivr's Nic- 
 aragua (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 346; Id., Cent. Amer., p. 320; Oallaitin/m 
 .iimr. Ethno. Soe., Transact., vol. i., p. 8; Andagoi/a, in Navarrete, Col. 
 dc Viajes, torn, iii., p. 414. 
 
MAYA BOATS AND NAVIGATION. 
 
 788 
 
 Oviedo states that in Nicaragua, or at least in cer- 
 tain parts of that country, the people had no canoes, 
 but resorted to balsas when it became necessary to 
 cross the water. The balsa in this region was simply 
 a raft of five or six logs tied together at the ends with 
 grass, and covered with cross-sticks. The author re- 
 ferred to saw a fleet of these aboriginal vessels which 
 bore fifteen hundred warriors. On the coast of Yu- 
 catan and in the lakes of Peten, the natives had riany 
 canoes for use in war and commerce, and were very 
 skillful in their management. These canoes were 
 'dug-outs' made from single trunks, capable of carry- 
 ing from two to fifty persons, and propelled by pad- 
 dles. Cogolludo tells us that canoes with sails were 
 seen by Cordova during his voyage up the coast, and 
 some modern writers speak of the famous canoe met 
 by Columbus off" the Honduras coast as having been 
 fitted with sails; but in the latter case there seems to 
 be no authority for the statement, and that sails were 
 ever employed may well be considered doubtful. The 
 boat seen by Columbus was eight feet wide, "as long 
 as a galley, ' bore twenty-five men, and an awning of 
 mats in the centre protected the women and children. 
 All the information we have respecting boats in Gua- 
 temala is the statement of Peter Martyr that the 
 'dug-outs' were also in use there, and of Juarros that 
 the Lacandones had a large fleet of boats; Guatemala 
 was a country, however, whose physical conformation 
 would rarely call for navigation on an extensive scale. 
 Villagutierre says that the Chiapanecs used gourd bal- 
 sas, or 'calabazas.'^^ 
 
 
 Wars among the Maya nations were frequent, — 
 more so probably during the century preceding the 
 
 ** Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., p. 4; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Couq., fol. 2; Diaz, 
 Itititraire, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., s^rie i., torn, x., p. 21; Id., in Icaz- 
 balceta. Col. de Doc., torn, i., p. 292; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 
 353, 369, 489, 76; Peter Martyr, dec. viii., lib. v.; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., toni. 
 iii., p. 100; Juarros' Hist. Otiat., p. 271; Herrera, llist.Oen., dec. i., lib. 
 v., cap. v.; Folsom, in Corns' Despatches, pp. 3-4; Foster's Pre-Hist. Races, 
 pp. 226-7; See vol. i., p. 699, of this work. 
 
740 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Spanish conquest, when their history is partially 
 known, than in the more glorious days of the distant 
 past, — but they were also, as a rule, of short duration, 
 partaking more of the character of raids than of reg- 
 ular wars. One campaign generally decided the tribal 
 or national dispute, and the victors were content with 
 the victory and the captives taken. Landa and Her- 
 rera report that the nations ot Yucatan learned the 
 art of war from the Mexicans, having been an alto- 
 gether peaceful people before the Nahua influence was 
 brought to bear on them. The latter also suspects 
 that the Yucatec war-customs, as observed by the 
 Spaniards, may have been modified by the teaching of 
 Guerrero and Aguilar, white men held for several 
 years as prisoners before the invaders came; but nei- 
 ther theory seems to have much weight. 
 
 The profession of arms was everywhere an honor- 
 able one, but military preferment and promotion seem 
 to have been somewhat more exclusively confined to 
 the nobility than among the Nahuas. According to 
 Landa, a certain number of picked men were ap- 
 pointed in each town, who were called holcanes, 
 must be ready to take up arms whenever called for, 
 and received a small amount of money for their ser- 
 vices while in actual war. This is the only instance 
 of a paid soldiery noted in the limits of our territory.'"' 
 
 In Nicaragua Tapaligui was the most honorable 
 title a man could win by bravery, and from the num- 
 ber of those who bore th*^ title the war-captain was 
 in most provinces appoi .^ed either by the monexieo, 
 or council, or by the cacique. This captain was for 
 the most part independent of the civil ruler in time 
 of war, but Boyle speaks of certain cities where the 
 cacique himself commanded the army. The civil 
 chief, however, if he possessed the requisite bravery, 
 often accompanied the troops to the field to take com- 
 
 » Landa, Relacion, pp. 174, 48; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., 
 cap. iv., lib. iii., cap. iii. Tho Chiapauecs were among the boldest warri- 
 ors. BernalDiaz, Hist. Oonq., fol. 178. 
 
INSIGNIA OF WARRIORS. 
 
 741 
 
 so 
 
 mand at the captain's death, or appoint his successor, 
 In Yucatan they had two war-captains, one of whom 
 hold his position by inheritance, while the other was 
 chosen for a term of three years. The title of the 
 latter was Nacon, and his office seems to have been 
 attended with some inconveniences, since during the 
 three years he could know no woman, eat no meat, 
 indulge in no intoxication, and have but little to do 
 with the public. Fish and iguana-flesh were allowed 
 him, but it must be served on dishes used by no one 
 but himself, and must not be served by women. In 
 Vera Paz the captains were chosen from .t.iiong the 
 most distinguished braves, and seem to have held 
 their position for life." 
 
 In Yucatan skins and feathers, worn a cording to 
 fixed rules, not recorded, were among the most |)roiui- 
 nent insJ:^nia of warriors. The face was painted in 
 various colors; and tattooing the hands was n privi- 
 ^3ge accorded to the brave. Tho Itzas fought naked, 
 but painted face, body, and limbs black, the brave 
 tattooing the face in stripes. Feather plumes are the 
 only insignia mentioned in connection with Guatema- 
 lan warriors; but the grade of a Pipile's prowess was 
 indicated by the number of holes he had in ears, nose, 
 and other features. All officers in the Nicaraguan 
 armies had distinguishing marks, which they wore 
 both in time of war and of peace; the Tapalij^ui was 
 allowed to shave his head except on the crown, where 
 the hair was left a finger long, with a longer tuft pro- 
 jecting from the centre. The arrangement of the 
 feathers on the shield also indicated to the soldiers 
 an officer's rank.*" 
 
 so Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., pp. 38, 53; Gotnara, Hist. Ind., fol. 264; 
 Sqiiier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 342; Boyle's Ride, vol. i., p. 272. 
 
 31 Landa, Relacion, p. 172; Ximeiiez, Hist. Ind. Otiat., p. 202. 
 
 M Oeiedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., ji. 38; Landa, Relacion, t^. 172; Herrera, 
 Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. iv., cap. viii., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., lib. v., 
 cap. X., lib. vii., cap. iii., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. x. ; Palacio, Carta, pp. 
 70-2; Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 391, 498-9; Squier's Nicaragua, 
 (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. .342; Brasseur de Bourv nrg. Hist. Nat. Civ., torn. 
 iL, pp. 558-9; Boyle's Ride, vol. i., p. 270. 
 
742 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 The universal Maya armor was a thick quilted sack 
 of cotton, which fitted closely over the body and arms, 
 and reached generally to the middle of the thighs, 
 although Alvarado found the Guatemalans clad in 
 similar sacks reaching to the feet. In Yucatan, ac- 
 cording to Landa, a layer of salt was placed between 
 the thicknesses of cotton, making the garment very 
 hard and impenetrable. As the Guatemalan armor 
 is described as being three fingers thick and so heavy 
 that the .soldiers could with difficulty run or rise after 
 falling, we may suppose that salt or some similar ma- 
 terial was also used by the Quiehes. Squier men- 
 tions, apparently without sufficient authority, short 
 breeches worn to protect the legs. The Spaniards 
 were not long in recognizing the advantages of the 
 native cotton armor, and it was commonly adopted or 
 added to their own armor of steel. The head-armor, 
 when any was worn, seems to have been ordinarily a 
 kind of cap, also of quilted cotton. Landa says that 
 in Yucatan a few leaders wore wooden helmets; they 
 are also mentioned by Gomara and Las Casas. Peter 
 Martyr speaks of golden helmets and breast-plates as 
 worn in Nicaragua. Shields were made of split reeds, 
 were round in form, and were covered generally with 
 skins and decorated with feathers, though a cotton 
 coverinof was also used in Nicaragua. ** 
 
 Bows and arrows, lances, and darts were used as 
 weapons of war by all the Maya tribes, the projectiles 
 being usually pointed with flint, but often also with 
 fish-bone or copper. Arrows were carried in quivers 
 and were never poisoned. The Yucatec bow, as 
 Landa informs us, was a little shorter than the man 
 
 *> Cotton armor called in some places escaupiles. Herrera, Hist. Ocii., 
 dec. iv., lib. iii., cap. iii. Both white and colored. Id., dec. iii., lib. v., cup. 
 X., lib. iv., cap. vi., dec. ii., lib. ii., cap. xvii., lib. iii., cap. i. Called by 
 the Quiches achcayupiles. Brasseur de Bourhourq, Hist. Nat. Civ., toiii. 
 ii., p. 91; Landa, Relacion, p. 172; CogoUudo, Hist. Yuc, p. 6, Bcriial 
 Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 2; Gomara, Hist. Ind.,to\. 62; Las Cat,as,\r\ Kings- 
 borough's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 148; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iii , p. 
 484, torn, iv., p. 53; Alvarado, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., wSrie i., torn. 
 X., p. 140; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1850,) vol. ii., p. 347. 
 
ABORIGINAL WEAPONS. 
 
 743 
 
 who carried it, and was made of a very strong native 
 wood; the string was made of the fibres of certain 
 plants. The arrows were light reeds with a piece of 
 hard wood at the end. Oviedo tells us of lances, or 
 pikes, in Nicaragua, which were thirty spans long, 
 and others in Yucatan fifteen spans long; Herrera 
 says they were over twenty feet long in Guatemala, 
 and that their heads were poisoned; though Oviedo 
 denies that poison was used. In Nicaragua and Yu- 
 catan heavy wooden swords, called by the Mexicans 
 macuahuitl, were used, but I find no special mention of 
 these weapons in Guatemala. A line of sharp flints 
 were firmly set along the two edges, and, wielded 
 with both hands they were a most formidable weapon. 
 Waldeck found in modern times the horn of a saw- 
 fish covered with skin and used as a weapon. He 
 thinks the aboriginal weapon may have been fashioned 
 after this natural model. Slings were extensively 
 used in Yucatan, and also copper axes to some extent, 
 but these are supposed to have been imported from 
 Mexico, as no metals are found in the peninsula.^ 
 
 The Quich(^s, Cakchiquels, and other tribes inhabit- 
 ing the high lands of Guatemala, chose the location 
 of their towns in places naturally well nigh inaccessi- 
 ble, strengthening them besides with artificial fortifi- 
 cations in the shape of massive stone walls and deep 
 ditches. Ruins of these fortified towns are very num- 
 erous and will be described elsewhere; a few words 
 
 s* Macanas used as weapons in Nicaragua. Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., 
 pp. 53, ."JS, torn, i., pp. 511-12, torn, iii., pp. 231, 484. Crystal-poiiiiid arrows 
 used by the Itzas, and chiefs hud short flint knives, with feutlicrs on the 
 handles. Villaautieirc, Hint. Conq. Itzn, pp. 495, 41, 92. Hardened rods, 
 or pikes. Coffollwlo, Hist. Yuc, i>p. 77,2. Darts thrown from a 'tiradero.' 
 Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. ii., cap. xvii., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vi., 
 lib. v., cap. X., lib. vii., cap. iii., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. ii. A hot was the 
 sign of a Cakchiquol armory, lirassrur de liourbourg, Popol Vith, p. 225. 
 See also Maya weiiiions. Squicr's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 34i, 
 347; Peter Martyr, dec. vi., lib. v.; Boyle's Ride, vol. i., ]). 258; Sr/icrzer, 
 Wanderungen, p. &'^•, Landa, Relacion, pp. 48, 170; Lai Casus, in Kin^.s- 
 borough's itcx. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 148; Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., p. 04, with 
 cut; Morelet, Voya;ir,, torn, i., pp. 186, 194; Diaz, Jtiiivraire, in Ternaux- 
 Compans, Voy., sdrio i., toni. x., p. 25; Id., in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc., 
 torn, i., p. 295; Bernal Diaz, Hist. Conq., fol. 2; Ximene.z, Hist. lad. Ouat., 
 p. 127. 
 
 
 ! i 
 
 1 ; 
 
 . .p.* .-V 
 
 I' . 
 
744 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 respecting Utatlan, the Quichd capital, and one of the 
 most securely located and guarded cities, will suffice 
 here. Standing on a level plateau, the city was 
 bounded on every side by a deep ravine, believed to 
 have been at some points artificial, and which could 
 only be crossed at one place. Guarding this single 
 approach a line of massive stone structures connected 
 by ditches extends a long distance, and within this 
 line of fortifications, at the entrance of the pass, is El 
 Resguardo, a square-based pyramidical structure, one 
 hundred and twenty feet high, rising in three terraces, 
 and having its summit platform inclosed by a stone 
 wall, covered with hard cement. A tawor also rises 
 from the summit. The Spaniards under Alvarado 
 found 'their approach obstructed at various points in 
 Guatemala by holes in w^hich were pointed stakes 
 fixed in the ground, and carefully concealed by a slight 
 covering of turf; palisades, ditches, and walls of stone, 
 logs, plants, or earth, were thrown across the road at 
 every difficult pass; and large stones were kept ready 
 to hurl or roll down upon the invaders. Numerous 
 short pointed sticks were found on at least one occa- 
 sion fixed upright in the ground, apparently a slight 
 defense, but really a most formidable one, since the 
 points were poisoned. Doubtless all these methods of 
 defence had been practiced often before in their inter- 
 national wars against American foes. Strong defen- 
 sive works are also mentioned in Chiapas, and Anda- 
 goya tells us of a town in Nicaragua fortified by a 
 high and impenetrable hedge of cacti. In Yueataii 
 the Spaniard's progress was frequently opposed, at 
 points favorable for such a purpose, by temporary 
 trenches, barricades of stone, logs, and earth, and pro- 
 tected stations for bowmen and slingers;but in the se- 
 lection of sites for their towns, notwithstanding the 
 generally level surface of their country, facilities for 
 defence seem to have been little or not at all consid- 
 ered. One, only, of the many ruined cities which 
 have been explored, Tuloom, on the Eastern coast, 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 746 
 
 stands on an eminence overlooking the ocean, in a very 
 strong natural position; but strangely enough it is just 
 here, where artificial defenses were least needed, that 
 we find a massive wall surrounding the chief struct- 
 ures,— the only city wall standing in modern times, 
 though Mayapan was traditionally a walled town, and 
 a few slight traces of walls have been found about 
 other cities.** 
 
 Tijo ambition of the native rulers to increase their 
 dominions by encroachments upon their neighbors' 
 territory was probably the cause of most wars among 
 the Maya nations; but raids were also undertaken oc- 
 casionally, with no other object than that of obtaining 
 victims for sacrifice. In the consultations preceding 
 the declaration of war the priesthood had much to 
 say, and played a prominent part in the accompanying 
 ceremonies. In Salvador the high-priest with four 
 subordinates decided on the war by drawing of lots 
 and by various other sorceries, and even gave directions 
 how the campaign was to be carried on. The high- 
 priest was generally on the ground, in charge of cer- 
 tain idols, when an important battle was to be fought. 
 Supplies were carried, in Yucatan at least, on the 
 backs of women, and the want of adequate means of 
 transportation is given as one reason why the Maya 
 wars were usually of short duration. The Nicaraguan 
 soldier, as Oviedo states, regarded a calabash of water 
 and a supply of the herb yaat already mentioned, as 
 the most indispensable of his supplies. Respecting 
 their ceremonies before giving battle we only know 
 that on one occasion in Yucatan they brought a braz- 
 ier of burning perfume which they placed before the 
 Spanish forces, with the intimation that an attack 
 
 ss Sec vol. iv., chap, iv., v., for a full description of Miiyii riiiim, with 
 plates. See Lnndn, liclarion, p. 174; Alvarado, in Tenia iix-(.'om/)ans, 
 Voy., 8(Sric i., toni. x., pp. 112, 117; Ootfoi, in Id., p. 158; Cort6s, Cartas, 
 pp. 425-6; Jiiarros, Hist, (iiiat., p. 87; Onedo, Hist. Oen., torn, i., p., 534, 
 torn, iii., pp. 477-8; Fwiifi's, in Kingshorougli's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., p. 
 243; Herrcrn, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. iii., cup. iii., lib. x., cap. iii.; Vtl- 
 lagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 41; Andagoya, ux Navurrete, Col. de Viajea, 
 totn. iii., p. 407. 
 
 ; if 
 
746 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 would be made as soon as the fire went out; and also 
 that Alvarado noticed in Guatemala the sacrifice of a 
 woman and a bitch as a preliminary of battle. 
 
 All fought bravely, with no apparent fear of death, 
 endeavoring to capture the enemy alive, rather than 
 to kill them, and at the same time to avoid being cap- 
 tured themselves by the sacrifice of life if necessary. 
 In most nations it was deemed important to terrify 
 the enemy by shouting, clanging of drums, sticks, and 
 shells, and blowing of whistles. The armies of Yu- 
 catan are said to have exhibited somewhat better order 
 in their military movements than those of other na- 
 tions. They formed their forces into two wings, plac- 
 ing in the centre a squadron to guard the captain and 
 high-priest. The Nicaragui ns fought desperately 
 until their leader fell, but then they always ran away. 
 He who from cowardice failed to do his duty on the 
 battle-field was by the Nicaraguan code disgraced, 
 abused, insulted, stripped of his weapons, and dis- 
 charged from the service, but was not often put to 
 death. As has been stated in a preceding chapter 
 treason and desertion were everywhere punished with 
 death. All booty except captives belonged to the 
 taker, and to return from a campaign without spoil 
 was deemed a dishonor. 
 
 Captives, if of noble blood or high rank, were sac- 
 rificed to the gods, and were rarely ransomed. The 
 captor of a noble prisoner received high honors, but 
 was punished if he accepted a ransom, the penalty 
 being death in Nicaragua. The heads of the sacri- 
 ficed captives were in Yucatan suspended in the 
 branches of the trees, as memorials of victory, a sep- 
 arate tree being set apart for each hostile province. 
 The bones, as Landa tells us, were kept by the cap- 
 tors, the jaw-bone being worn on the arm, as an or- 
 nament. We read of no actual torture of prisoners, 
 but the Cakchiquels danced about the victim to be 
 sacrificed, and loaded him with insults. Among the 
 Pipiles it was left to the priests to decide whether the 
 
riPILE WAR FESTIVAL. 
 
 747 
 
 sacrifice should be in honor of a god or goddess; if the 
 former, the festival lasted, according to Palacio, fifteen 
 days; the captives were obliged to march in procession 
 through the town, and one was sacrificed each day; if 
 the feast was dedicated to a deity of the gentler sex, 
 five days of festivities and blood sufficed. Prisoners 
 of plebeian blood were enslaved, or only sacrificed 
 when victims of higher rank were lacking. They 
 were probably the property of the captors. At the 
 close of a campaign in which no captives were taken, 
 the Nicaraguan captains went together to the altar, 
 and there wept ceremonial tears of sorrow for their 
 want of success. The authorities record no details 
 of the methods by which peace was ratified; the 
 Yucatecs, however, according to Cogolludo, expressed 
 to the Spaniards a desire for a suspension of hostili- 
 ties, by throwing away their weapons, and by kiss- 
 ing their fingers, after touching them to the ground." 
 
 ^ Torqtiemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, ii., p. 386; Cogolludo, Vist Ytic, 
 pp. 5, 77, 130, 181; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., dec. iv., 
 lib. iii., cap. iii., lib. viii., cap. x., lib. x., cap. iv.; Villagutierre, Hist. 
 Conq. Itza, pp. 72-3, 76, 142, 281; Landa, Eelacton, pp. 168, 174, 176; Las 
 Casus, in Kingsborough's Mex. Atitiq., vol. viii., pp. 144, 148; Palacio, 
 Carta, pp. 70-2; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 276, 511-12, 523, torn, iii., 
 pp. 230, 477, toin. iv., pp. 53-4; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 61, 264; Juarro.i' 
 Hist. Gttat., p. 185, etc.; Peter Martyr, dec. viii., lib. v.; Ximenez, Hist. 
 Ind. Gnat., pp. 170, 198, 202-3; Alvarado, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., sd- 
 rie i., torn, x., pp. 112, 138; Diaz, Itiniraire, in Id., pp. 17-18; Squier's 
 Cent. Amer., pp. 325, 333; Id., Nicaragua, (¥,A. 1856,) vol. ii., p. 342; Bras- 
 senr de Boiirootirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp.544, 558-9; Ternaux-Com- 
 pans, in Nouvelli's Annales des Voy., 1843, torn, xcvii., p. 46; Morelet, Voy- 
 a(fi^, torn, i., p. 186; Boyle's Bide, vol. 1., p. 259; FancourVa Hist. Yuc, pp. 
 92, 116. 
 
 '■'1 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MAYA ARTS, CALENDAR, AND HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 Scarcity of Information— Use of Metals — Gold and Precious 
 Stones— Implements of Stone— Scilpture— Pottery— Manu- 
 facture OF Cloth— Dyeing— System of Numeration— Maya 
 Calendar in Yucatan— Days, Weeks, Months, and Years— In- 
 DiCTioNS and Katunes— Perez' System of Ahau Katunes- 
 Statements of Landa and Cogolludo— Intercalary Days and 
 Years— Days and Months in Guatemala, Chiapas, and Soco- 
 Nusco— Maya Hieroglyphic System— Testimony of Early Writ- 
 ers on the Use of Picture-Writing— Destruction of Docu- 
 ments—Specimens WHICH have Survived — The Dresden Codex 
 —Manuscript Troano— Tablets of Palenque, Copan, and Yuca- 
 tan—Bishop Landa's Key— Brasseur de Boukbourg's Interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 Our knowledge of Maya arts and manufactures, so 
 far as it depends on the statements of the early Span- 
 ish writers is very slight, and may be expressed in few 
 words; especially as most of these arts seem to have 
 been very nearly identical with those of the Nahuas, 
 although many of them, at the time of the Conquest 
 at least, were not carried to so high a grade of perfec- 
 tion as in the north. Some branches of mechanical 
 art have indeed left material relics, which, examined 
 in modern times, have extended our knowledge on the 
 subject very far beyond what may be gleaned from 
 sixteenth-century observations. But a volume of this 
 work is set apart for the consideration of material rel- 
 
 (1*8) 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF METALS. 
 
 749 
 
 ics with numerous illustrative plates, and although the 
 temptation to use both information and plates from 
 modern sources is particularly strong in some of the 
 topics of this chapter and the 'bllowing, a regard for 
 the symmetry of the work, and the necessity of avoid- 
 ing all repetition, cause me to confine myself here 
 a).Qost exclusively to the old authors, as I have done 
 in describing the Nahua arts. 
 
 Iron was not known to the Mayas, and it is not 
 quite certain that copper was mined or worked by 
 them. The boat so often mentioned as having been 
 met by Columbus off the coast, and supposed to have 
 come from Yucatan, had on board crucibles for melt- 
 ing copper, and a large number of copper hatchets. 
 Similar hatchets together with bells, ornaments, and 
 spear and arrow points of the same metal were seen at 
 various points, and were doubtless used to a consider- 
 able extent throughout Yucatan, Chiapas, and Guate- 
 mala. But there are no metallic deposits on the pen- 
 insula, and the copper instruments used there, or at 
 least the material, must have been brought from the 
 north, as it is indeed stated by several authors that 
 they were. No metallic relics whatever have been 
 found among the ruins of Yucatan, and only very few 
 in other Maya regions. Copper implements are not 
 mentioned by the early visitors to Nicaragua, and al- 
 though that country abounds in ore of a variety easily 
 worked, yet there is no evidence that it was used, and 
 Squier's statement that the Nicaraguans were skillful 
 workers in this metal, probably rests on no stronger 
 basis than the reported discovery of a copper mask at 
 Ometepec. Godoi speaks of copper in Chiapas, and 
 also of a metallic composition called cacao! 
 
 Small articles of goM, intended chiefly for ornamen- 
 tal purposes, were found everywhere in greater or less 
 abundance by the Spaniards, the gold being generally 
 described as of a low grade. Cortes speaks of the 
 gold in Yucatan as alloyed with copper, and the same 
 Jilloy is mentioned in Guatemala by Herrera, and in 
 
780 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Nicaragua by Benzoni. The latter author says that 
 gold was abundant in Nicaragua but was all brought 
 from other provinces. He also states that there were 
 no mines of any kind, but Oviedo, on the contrary, 
 speaks of 'good mines of gold.' Articles of gold took 
 the form of animals, fishes, birds, bells, small kettles 
 and vases, beads, rings, bracelets, hatchets, small idols, 
 bars, plates for covering armor, gilding or plating of 
 wooden masks and clay beads, and settings for precious 
 stones. Peter Martyr speaks of gold as formed in 
 bars and stamped in Nicaragua, and Villagutierre of 
 silver 'rosillas' in use among the Itzas. We have 
 but slight information respecting the use of precious 
 stones. Oviedo saw in Nicaragua a sun-dial of pearl 
 set on jasper, and also speaks of wooden masks cov- 
 ered with sLone mosaic and gold plates in Tabasco. 
 Martyr tells us that the natives of Yucatan attached 
 no value to Spanish counterfeited jewels, because they 
 could take from their mines better ones of genuine 
 worth.* 
 
 I'he few implements in common use among the 
 Mayas, such as knives, chisels, hatchets, and metates, 
 together with the spear and arrow heads already men- 
 tioned, were of flint, porphyry, or other hard stone. 
 There is but little doubt that most of their elaborate 
 sculpture on temples and idols was executed with stone 
 implements, since the material employed was for the 
 
 I Two spindles with golden tissue. Cords, Cartas, pp. 3, 422. Six 
 golden idols, each one span long, in Nicaragua. Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. 
 lii., lib. iv., cap. v. 20 golden hatchets, 14 carats fine, weighing over 20 
 lbs. Id., lib. iv., cap. vi. Houses of goldsmiths that molded marvellously. 
 Id., cap. vii. See also Id., dec. i., lib. v., cap. v. Little fishes and geese 
 of low gold at Gatoche. Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc., p. 4. Golden armor and 
 ornaments at Tabasco River. Id., pp. 12-13. Idols of unknown metals 
 amang the Itzas. Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 495, 497. Gilded 
 wooden nuisk, gold plates, little golden kettles. Diaz, Itiniraire, in I'cr- 
 naux-Uompans, Voy., s^rie i., torn, x., pp. 16, 26. Vases of chiseled gold 
 in Yucatan. Brasseur de Bourbour^, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 69; Id., 
 in Landa, Relacion, p. 32; Benzoni, Hist. Mondo Nuovo, fol. 102; Onedo, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iv., pp. 39, 95, torn, i., p. 520; Peter Martyr, dec. iv., 
 lib. i., dec. vi., lib. ii., vi.; Torquemada, Mouarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 364; 
 Godot, in Teniaux-Compans, Voy., s^rie i., tom. x., p. 178; Squier's Nica- 
 ragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. li., p. 346. Respecting a con[^r mask from Nicara- 
 gua and two copper medals from Guatemala, see vol. iv. of this work. 
 
STONE CARVING. 
 
 751 
 
 most part soft and easily worked. The carvings in the 
 hard sapote-wood in Yucatan must have presented 
 great difficulties to workmen without iron tools ; but 
 the fact remains that stone implements, with a few 
 probably of hardened copper, sufficed with native skill 
 and patience for all purposes. Villagutierre informs 
 us that the Lacandones cut wood with stone hatchets. 
 Cogolludo speaks of the remarkable facility which the 
 natives displayed in learning the mechanical arts in- 
 troduced by Spaniards, in using new and strange tools 
 or adapting the native implements to new uses. All 
 implements whether of the temple or the house- 
 hold, seem to have been ceremonially consecrated to 
 their respective uses. Oviedo speaks of deer-bone 
 combs used in Guatemala, and of another kind of combs 
 the teeth of which were made of black wood and set 
 in a composition like baked clay but which became soft 
 on exposure to heat. 
 
 The early writers speak in general terms of idols 
 of various human and animal forms, cut from all 
 kinds of stone, and also from wood; Martyr also 
 mentions an immense serpent in what he supposed to 
 be a place of punishment in Yucatan, which was 
 'compacted of bitumen and small stones.' The Itzas 
 constructed of stone and mortar the image of a horse, 
 modeled on an animal left among them by Cortes. 
 The Spanish authors say little or nothing of the 
 sculpture of either idols or architectural decora- 
 tions, except that it was elaborate, and often demon- 
 like; but their observations on the subject would 
 have had but little value, even had they been more 
 extended, and fortunately architectural remains are 
 sufficiently numerous and complete, at least in Yuca- 
 tan, Honduras, and Chiapas, to supply information 
 that, if not entirely satisfactory, is far more so than 
 what we possess respecting other branches of Maya 
 art. Brasseur de Bourbourg speaks of vases exquis- 
 itely worked from alabaster and agate in Yucatan; 
 there is some authority for this in modern discoveries, 
 
762 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 but little or npne, so far as I know, in the writings of 
 the conquerors. Earthenware, shells, and the rind 
 of the gourd were the material of Maya dishes. All 
 speak of the native pottery as most excellent in work- 
 manship, material, and painting, but give no details 
 of its manufacture. Herrera, however, mentions a 
 a province of Guatemala, where very fine pottery was 
 made by the women, and Palacio tells us that this 
 Ijranch of manufactures was one of the chief indus- 
 tries of Aguachapa, a town of the Pipiles. 
 
 All that is known of cloths and textile fabrics has 
 been given in enumerating the various articles of 
 dress; of any differences that may have existed be- 
 tween the Nahua and Maya methods of spinning and 
 weaving cotton we know nothing. It is probable 
 that the native methods have not been modified es- 
 sentially in modern times among the same peoples. 
 We are told that in Yucatan the wife of a god in- 
 vented weaving, and was worshiped under the name 
 of Ixazalvoh; while another who improved the in- 
 vention by the use of colored threads was Yxchebe- 
 lyax, also a goddess. Spinning and weaving was for 
 the most part women's work, and they are spoken of 
 as industrious and skillful in the avocation. Bark 
 and maguey-fibre were made into cloth by the Cak- 
 chiquels, and Oviedo mentions several plants whose 
 fibre was worked into nets and ropes by the Nica- 
 raguans. The numerous dye-woods which are still 
 among the richest productions of the country in many 
 parts, furnished the means of imparting to woven 
 fabrics the bright hues of which the natives were so 
 fond. Bright -colored feathers were highly prized 
 and extensively used for decorative purposes. Gar- 
 ments of feathers are spoken of, which were probably 
 made as they were in Mexico by pasting the plumage 
 in various ornamental figures on cotton fabric.'' 
 
 * For slight notices of the various mechanical arts of the Mayas see the 
 following authorities: Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 276, 350, 521, toni. 
 iv., pp. 33, 36, 105-9; Torquemada, Monarq. Ind., torn, i., p. 354, torn, ii., 
 p. 346; Ltiet, Nomts Ortna, p. 329; Cogolludo, Hist. Yvc., pp. 4, 13, 187, 
 
SYSTEM OF NUMERATION. 
 
 706 
 
 The following table will give the reader a clear 
 idea of the Maya system of numeration as it existed 
 in Yucatan ; the definitions of some of the names are 
 taken from the Maya dictionary, and may or may 
 not have any application to the subject: 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 hun, ' paper' 
 ca, 'calulHiHh' 
 
 60 
 61 
 
 3 
 
 ox, 'tilielled corn' 
 
 70 
 
 4 
 
 eun, 'seriKjnt' or 'count' 
 
 71 
 
 5 
 
 ho, 'entry' 
 
 80 
 
 G 
 
 uoc 
 
 81 
 
 7 
 
 uuc 
 
 82 
 
 8 
 
 uaxae, 'something 
 
 go 
 
 
 Btandint^ erect' 
 
 100 
 
 9 
 
 bolon, bol, 'to roll or 
 
 101 
 
 
 turn ' 
 
 102 
 
 10 
 
 lahun, lah, 'a stone' 
 
 110 
 
 11 
 
 hulue, 'drowned' 
 
 115 
 
 12 
 
 luhcd, (lahun-cn), 10-|-2 
 
 120 
 
 13 
 
 oxiuhun, 3+10 
 
 130 
 
 14 
 
 canliihun, 4+10 
 
 131 
 
 15 
 
 holhun, (ho-lahun), 
 
 140 
 
 
 5+10 
 
 141 
 
 16 
 
 uaclahun, 6+10, etc. 
 
 160 
 
 20 
 
 huukal, kal, 'neck,' or a 
 
 200 
 
 
 measure, 1x20 
 
 300 
 
 21 
 
 huntukal, 1+20 
 
 400 
 
 22 
 
 catukal, 2+20, etc. 
 
 600 
 
 28 
 
 uaxactukal, or hunkal 
 
 600 
 
 
 catf uaxac, 8 
 
 800 
 
 
 +20, or 20+8 
 
 900 
 
 
 catae, 'and' 
 
 1,000 
 
 30 
 
 lahucakttl, 2x20—10 (?) 
 
 
 31 
 
 buhictukal, 11+20 
 
 1,200 
 
 32 
 
 lahcatukal, 12+20 
 
 1,250 
 
 33 
 
 oxhthutukal, 13+20, 
 
 
 
 etc. 
 
 2,000 
 
 40 
 
 cakal, 2x20 
 
 8,000 
 
 41 
 
 huntuyoxkal 
 
 16,000 
 
 4'2 
 
 catuyoxkal 
 
 160,000 
 
 50 
 
 lahuyoxkal 
 
 1,000,000 
 
 r>i 
 
 buluctuyoxkal 
 
 64,000,000 
 
 oxkal, 3X20 
 huntucankal 
 laliucankal 
 buluctueankal 
 cankal, 40x20 
 hutuyokal 
 catuyokal 
 lahuyokal 
 ho-kal, 5x20 
 huntu uackal 
 catu uackal 
 lahu uackal 
 holhu uackal 
 uackal 6x20 
 lahu uuckal 
 buluc tu uuckal 
 uuckal, 7X20 
 huntu uaxackal 
 uaxackal, 8x20, etc. 
 laliuncal, 10x20 
 holhukal, 15x20 
 hunbak, 1X400 
 hotubak 
 lahutubak 
 cabak, 2x400 
 hotu yoxbak 
 lahuyoxbak 
 or hunpic (modem) 
 oxbak, 3X400 
 oxback catac lahuyox- 
 kal, 3x400+50 
 capic (niodein) 
 hunpic (ancient) 
 ca pic (ancient) 
 calab 
 
 kinchil or huntzotzceh 
 hunalau 
 
 196; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., lib. ii., cap. xvii., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. 
 ix., lib. X., cap. ii., xiv. ; Landa, Relacion, pp. 116, 120, 128-9; Villagu- 
 ticrre, Hist. Conq. Itza, pp. 100, 311-12, 495, 499-601; Remesal, tfist. 
 Chijapa., p. 293; Feter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. ii., dec. vi., lib. iii. ; Bemoni, 
 Hist. Mondo Nuovo, fol. 98, 102-3; Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Gnat., n. 203; 
 Gotnarn, Hist. Ind., iol.idS; Cortis, Cartas, p. 489; Atidagoya, in Nnvar- 
 refe. Col. de Viajes, torn, iii., p. 416; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, MS., 
 cap. cxxiv. ; Id., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. viii., pp. 147-8; 
 Palacio, Carta, p. 44; Squier's Nicaragua, (Ed. 1856,) vol. ii., pp. 339, 
 346; Foster's Pre-IIist. Races, p. 212; Brasseur de Bourbovrg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, ii., pp. 69, 172, 563. 
 Vol. II.-48 
 
7M 
 
 THE MAVA NATIONS. 
 
 Thus the Mayas seem to have had uncompoundcd 
 names fur the numerals from 1 to 11, 20, 40U, uikI 
 8,000, and to have formed all numbers by the addi 
 tion or multiplication of these. The manner in whitli 
 the combinations were made seems clear up to tlio 
 number 40. Thus we have 10 and 2, 10 and 3, etc., 
 up to 19; 20 is hun-kal, 21 is hun-tu-kal, etc., indi- 
 cating that tu, which I do not find in any dictionary, 
 is simply 'and' or a sign of addition. Ihe composi- 
 tion of lahu-ca-kal is clear only in the sense of ten 
 from twice twenty: 40 is two twenties, 60 is three 
 twenties, and so on regularly by twenties up to 400, 
 for which a new word bak is introduced; after which 
 the numbers proceed, twice 400, thrice 400, etc., to 
 8,000, jnc, corresponding to the Nahua xiquipilli 
 But wliile the composition is intelligible so far as the 
 multiples of 20 and 400 are concerned, it is far from 
 clear in the case of the intermediate numbers. For 
 instance, 40 is ca-kal, and forming 41, 42, etc., as 21 
 was formed from 20, we should have hun-tti-ca-kal, 
 ca-tu-ca-kal, etc., instead of the names given, hitn-tu- 
 yox-kal, etc., or, interpreting this last name as the 
 former were interpreted we should have 61 instead of 
 41. The same observation may be made respecting 
 every number, not a multiple of 20, up to 400 ; that 
 is, each number is less by 20 than the composition of 
 its name would seem to indicate. If we gave to tu 
 the meaning 'towards,' then hun-tu-yox-kal might be 
 interpreted *1 (from 40) towards 60,' or 41; but in 
 such a case the word for 21, hun-tu-kal, must be sup- 
 posed to be a contraction of hun-tu-ca-kal, '1 (from 
 20) towards 40.' Other irregularities will be noticed 
 by the rej ier in the numbers above 400. I have 
 thought it best to call attention to what appears a 
 strange inv isistency in this system of numeration, 
 but which li \y present less difficulties to one better 
 acquainted ti n I with the Maya language.' 
 
 * Beltran de S ita Rom Maria, Arte, pp. 195-208; Id., in Brasseur <fe 
 Bourhourg, MS. H .ontio, totii. ii., pp. 93-9. 'Kl niodo de contnr de los In- 
 
THE MAYA CALENDAR. 
 
 766 
 
 Authorities on the Maya calendar of Yucatan, the 
 only one of which any details are known, are Bishop 
 Landn and Don Juan Pio Perez. The lat er was a 
 modern writer who devoted much study to the suh- 
 ject, was perfectly familiar with the Maya languajife, 
 and had in his possession or consulted elsewhere many 
 ancient manuscripts. There are also a few scattered 
 remarks on the subject in the works of other writers.* 
 
 The Maya day was called kin, or 'sun'; malik ocok 
 kin was the time just precec 'ng sunrise; hatzcah was 
 the time from sunrise to noon, which was called chun- 
 kin or 'middle of the day'; tzelep kin was the declin- 
 ing sun, or about three oclock p. m. ; oc na kin was sun- 
 set. The night was akab, and midnight was chumuc 
 akah. Other hours were indicated by the position of 
 the sun in the daytime, and by that of some star— 
 the morning star, the Pleiades, and the Gemini as 
 Landa says — during the night. 
 
 The following table shows the names of the twenty 
 days with the orthography of different writers, and 
 the meaning of the names so far as known: 
 
 Kan 'henequen string,' 'yellow,' 'serpent.' 
 
 Chicchdn ehichan would be 'small,' a thing that grows or increases 
 
 slowly. 
 Cimi (Quinii, Cimii) preterite of cimil, 'to die.' 
 possibly ' passing wind.' 
 
 Manik 
 
 Lamat 
 
 Muluc 
 
 Oc 
 
 Chuen 
 
 Eb 
 
 possibly 'abyss of water,' found as lambat in Oajaca calendar, 
 possibly 'reunion,' also in Ciiiapas calendar, 
 'what may be held in the palm of the hand,' 'foot,' 'leg.' 
 'board,' or name of a tree, (Msrhaps chouen of Quiche calendar, 
 'stairway' or 'ladder.' 
 Hen (Been) perhaps Been, an ancient nrinee, or 'to spend with economy.* 
 Ix (Hix, Gix) possibly 'roughness.' Ihe ijuich^ itz is 'sorcerer.' 
 Men 'builder.' 
 
 Cib (Quib) 'wax' or 'copal.' 
 
 dios es de cinco en cinco, y de quatro cincos hazen veinte.' Landa, Rela- 
 cion, p. 206; Herrcra, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. 
 
 ♦ Landa, Relurio';, pp. 202-31(>; Perez, Croiiologia Antigua de Y'lc, 
 with French translation, in Id., pp. .')Gl>-429; Enjjiish translation of tho 
 same in Stephens' Yucatan, vol. i., pp. 434-59; original Spanish also in the 
 Registro Yitcateco; Orozco y Berra, Geografia, pp. 103-8, 16.3-4; Veytia, 
 Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., p. 137; Glavigero, Stona Ant. del Messico, torn, 
 ii., pp. 65-C; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc, Transact., vol. i., pp. 104- 
 14; Srasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 462-7; Id., 
 MS. Troano, tom. i., pp. 7.3-97. 
 
756 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Caban 
 
 Ezanab (Eanab, Edxnab) 
 
 Cauac 
 
 Ahau (Ajau) ' king,' beginning of the period of 24 (or 20) y«>arft. 
 
 Yniix Imox, in Quiche calendar is the Mexican Cipactli. 
 
 Ik (Yk) 'wind' or 'breath.' 
 
 Akbal In Quiche, 'vase.' 
 
 The hieroglyphics by which the names of the days 
 were expressed are shown in the accompanying cut in 
 their proper order of succession, — Kan, Chicchan, etc., 
 to Akbal ; but it is to be noted that although this order 
 was invariable, yet the month might begin with any 
 one of the four days Kan, Muluc, Ik, and Cauac. 
 
 KAN. CHICCHAN. CI Ml. MANIK. LAMAT. 
 
 CAUAC. 
 
 BEN. 
 
 © © @ © 
 
 MEN. CIB. CABAN. EZANAB. 
 
 AHAU. VMIX. IK. AKBAL. 
 
 o ® © 
 
 Days of the Maya Calendar. 
 
 The month, made up as I have said of twenty 
 days, was called w, or 'moon,' indicating perhaps that 
 time was originally computed by lunar calcuiii^ions. 
 It was also called uincd, a word whose signification is 
 not satisfactorily given. The year contained eighteen 
 months, whose names with the hieroglyphics by which 
 they were written, are shown in the cut on the opposite 
 page, in their order, Pop, Uo, Zip, etc., to Cumhu. 
 
MONTHS OF THE MAYA CALENDAR. 
 
 767 
 
 POP. UO. Zll». TZOZ. Tzec. 
 
 XUL. YAXKIN. MOL. CHEN. VAX. 
 
 ZAC. CCH. MAC. KANKIN. MUAN. 
 
 Months of the Maya Calendar. 
 
 Not only did the months succeed each other al- 
 ways in the same order, but Pop was always the first 
 month of the year, which began on a date corres- 
 ponding to July 16 of our calendar, a date which 
 varies only forty-eight hours from the time when the 
 sun passes the zenith — an approximation as accurate 
 as could be expected from observations made without 
 instruments. 
 
 The following table shows the names of the months, 
 their meaning, and the day on which each began, ac- 
 cording to our calendar: 
 
 Pop (Poop, Popp) 'mat' July 16 
 
 Uo (Woo, Voo) ' Frog' Aug. 5 
 
 Zip (Cijp) name of a tree, 'defect,' 'swollen' Aug.26> 
 
 Tiox (Zoc, Zotz) 'bat' Sept. 14 
 
 Tzec (Zeec) possibly ' discourse,' ' skull ' Oct. 4 
 
 Xul 'end' Oct. 24 
 
 Yaxkin (Dse-Yuxkiu, Tze Vaxkin) 'beginning of summer' Nov. 13 
 
768 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Mol (Mool) 'to reunite' Dec. 3 
 
 Chen (Cheen) 'well' Dec. 23 
 
 Yax (Yaax) 'green' or 'blue' or 'first' Jan. 12 
 
 Zac(Zak) 'clear,' 'white' Feb, 1 
 
 Ceh (Qeh, Quej, Queh) 'deer' Feb. 21 
 
 Mac, ' to close,' ' lid,' a measure Mar. 13 
 
 Kankin, ' yellow sun ' Apr. 2 
 
 Muan (Moan) 'showery day,' the bird called 'ara' Apr. 22 
 
 Pax (Paax) a musical instrument May 12 
 
 Kayab, ' singinu ' June 1 
 
 Cumhu (Cumko) noise of an explosion, as of thunder June 21 
 
 * Cogolludo omita the month Tzoz, and inserts a month Vaycab, Ytuz 
 Kin, or Vlubol Kin, between Cumhu and Pop. He also in one place puts 
 cuchhaab in the place of Kan. Hist. Yuc, p. 185-6. See also Brassettr de 
 Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Cio., torn, ii., pp. 466-7; Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., p. 
 22. The Abb«i Brasseur de Bourbourg, in his attempted interpretation of 
 the Manuscript Troano, gives the following curious etymologies of the names 
 of these months. 'Le vocable ji>oo, que Beltran dcrit long, poop, signiiic la 
 nattc, "esterabpetate," dit Pio Perez, qui donne encore a pop le sens d'un 
 arbrisseau ou d'une plante qu'il ne d^crit point, mais qui, fort probable- 
 inent, doit C>tre de la nature des joiics dont on fait les dinerentes espisces de 
 nattes connucs au Yucatan. £u prcnant ce vocable avec rortliographe de 
 Beltran, noop se comiK>serait dc jm, priinitif inusit^, exprimaiit rciiHurc, la 
 vapciir, 1 expansion |Hir la chaleur d'une matibre dans une enveloppe, ct de 
 
 op, briser, roniprc i>our sortir, crcvasscr \^a.r la force du feu Beltran ajoute 
 
 que no ddsigne en outre le t^tard, une sorte de petit craiwud et un fruit 
 indigene, appelti pitahaya aux Antilles. . . .uo, au rapport du mfiiiic autcur 
 
 tSnoiice I'id^e des caractbres de I'ecriture, en particulicr desvoycllcs 
 
 Cet hi^roglyphe paraft ussez difficile ii expliquer. Sa section inf^>rieure ren- 
 ferme un caract^re ciui semble, en raccourci, celui dc la lettre h, et la sec- 
 tion sup^rieure est identique avec le sigiie que je crois une variaiite du ti, 
 localite, lieu. Ce qu'on pourroit interpreter par "le possesscur enfcrine 
 du lieu," indice du t6tard, de I'dnbryon dans son envelopi)c. (?) L'enscmblc 
 de rid^e gt^ologique, qui a prdsid^ h la com]H>flition du calendrier niaya, sc 
 poursuit dans les noma des mois, ainsi que dans ceux des jours. Aprils Ic 
 mariScage, dtijii crevassii nar le chaleur, appanitt le tetard, I'einbryoii dc la 
 grenouflle, laiss^ au fond de la bourbe, ayinbole de rembryon du feu vol- 
 canique couvant sous la terre glacde et qui ne tardera ihis & rompre son en- 
 
 veloppe, ainsi qu'on le vcrra dans les noma dca mois auivants Zip, ana- 
 
 lya^, donne Zi ip, boia h brftler i^ui ae gonfle outre meaure, sens interessaiit 
 qui rappelle le grand arbre du inonde, gontld outre meaure par lea gaz ct lea 
 
 icux voIcaniqucs,avantd'($cIater J'inclinerais&pensermicLandaa voulii 
 
 expriiner par tzox, non la chauve-aouria zob, maia tzotz, la clievclure, vocable 
 <^ui dana toutea les langucs du groupe mcxico-guatumalicn indique aymliu- 
 liquement la chevelurc do I'cau, la aurface ondoyante, rcmuante de la mcr, 
 d'un lac ou d'une riviere: c'eat ^ qtioi seniblcnt correapondre lea signes dc 
 la glace qui ae prcaeiitent dana riinage du moia Tzoz. \\ a'agirait done ici 
 de la chevelurc, de la aurface dea eaux gelees an-deaaua de la terre et que 
 la force du feu volcanique commence k rider, ik faire grimacer, ainai que 
 
 I'^nonce le nom du moia auivi^nt Tzec Ce que I'autcur du calendrier a 
 
 voulu expriiner, c'est bicn probablenient une t6te dc inort de singe, aux dents 
 grima^antea, image aasez commune dans les fantiiisies mythologiquca dc 
 rAm^rique centnue et qu'on rtitrouve sculptiie frequemincnt dans lea Ixilica 
 ruinea de Copan. . . .Une intention plua profonde encore sc rdv^le dans ccs 
 tfites de singea. Car si lea danaea ct lea mouvenienta de ces animaux aym- 
 bolisent, dana le sens myatdrieux du Popol Vuh, le aoul^vement momen- 
 tan^ dea montagnea h la aurface de la mer dea Carailtea, leura tAtcr, avec 
 I'expression de la mort, ne aauraient faire alluaion, probablement, qu'u In 
 
INTERCALARY DAYS. 
 
 760 
 
 The year was called haah, and consisted of the 
 ei;^hteen months already named, — which would make 
 360 days, — and of five supplementary, or intercalary 
 days, to complete the full number of 365. These in- 
 tercalary days were called xma kaha kin, or 'nameless 
 days,' and also uayah or nayeh haab, u na haab, nayab 
 chab, u yail kin, u yailhaab, u tuz kin, or u lobol kin, 
 which may mean 'bed' or 'chamber' of the year, 
 'mother of the year,' 'bed of creation,' 'travail of the 
 year,' 'lying days,' or 'bad days,' et<!. They were 
 added at the end of each year, after the last day of 
 Cumhu, and although they are called nameless, and 
 were perhaps never spoken of by name, yet they were 
 actually reckoned like the resc; — that is, if the last day 
 of Cumhu was Akbal, the five intercalary days would 
 be reckoned as Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, and 
 Lamat, so that the new year, or the month of Pop, 
 would begin with the day Muluc. 
 
 Besides this division of time into years, months, and 
 days, there was another division carried along simul- 
 taneously with the first, into twenty-eight periods of 
 thirteen days each," which may for convenience be 
 termed weeks, although the natives did not apply any 
 name to the period of thirteen days, and perhaps did 
 not regard it as a definite period at all, but used the 
 number thirteen as a sacred number from some super- 
 stitious motives;'' yet its use produces some curious 
 complications in the calendar, of which it is a most 
 peculiar feature. Tlie name of each day was preceded 
 by a numeral showing its position in the week, and 
 
 disparition de ces montagnes sous Ich caiix, ou dies continiifercnt h grinia- 
 cer, dans lea i^cifs et lc8 Ronfleurs, coiunic dies avaiciit fuit griniucer la 
 
 5 lace, en se aoulevaiit.' As it would occupy too much space to give the 
 kbb^'s explanations of all the months, the above will suttice for specimens. 
 See MS. Troano, torn, i., pp. 98-108. 
 
 * Landa says, however, 'vingt-sept trezaincs et ncuf jours, sans compter 
 les sunnldmentaires.' Relaeion, p. 235. 
 
 1 The number 13 may come from the original reckoning by lunations, 
 2G days Iwing about the time the moon is seen almve the horizon in each 
 revolution, 13 days of increase, and 13 of decrease. Perez, in Landa, Re- 
 laeion, pp. 366-8. Or it may have been a sacred numlier before the inven- 
 tion of the calendar, being ttio number of gods of high rank. BratKur de 
 Bourhourg, lb. 
 
 I 
 
 !l 
 
 'm 
 
 m 
 
760 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 these numerals proceeded regularly from one to thir- 
 teen and then began again at one. Thus 1 Kan meant 
 'Kan, the first day of the week'; 12 Cauac, 'Cauao, 
 the twelfth day of the week,' etc. It is probable also 
 that the days of the month were numbered regularly 
 %m 1 to 20, as events are spoken of as occurring on 
 the 18th of Zip, etc., but the numeral relating to the 
 week was the most prominent. The table shows 
 the succession of days and weeks for several months : 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 X 
 
 ja( 
 
 
 a 
 
 M 
 
 
 .c 
 
 u 
 
 
 JS 
 
 % 
 
 1 
 
 a 
 
 s 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 e 
 
 t 
 
 4 
 
 t 
 
 
 Pop. 
 
 
 
 1? 
 
 Uo. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Zip. 
 
 
 
 TZOZ. 
 
 
 fr>i 
 
 
 >. 
 
 >, 
 
 
 >, 
 
 !» 
 
 
 >> 
 
 >> 
 
 
 >> 
 
 a 
 
 
 « 
 
 c« 
 
 
 « 
 
 et 
 
 
 c« 
 
 cS 
 
 
 tS 
 
 
 Q 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 
 Q 
 1 
 
 ft 
 
 
 ft 
 
 ft 
 9 
 
 
 ft 
 
 1 
 
 Kan 
 
 Kan ..... . 
 
 2 
 
 Kan 
 
 1 
 
 Kan 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Chicch4n . 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 Chicchdn. . 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 Chicchdn. . 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 Chicchdn . 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 Cimi 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 Cimi 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 Cimi 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 Cimi 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 Manik 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 Manik 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 Manik 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 Manik . . . 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 Laiiiat .... 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 Lamat 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Lamat 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 Lamat 
 
 5 
 
 r> 
 
 Muluc 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 Muluc .... 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Muluc 
 
 6 
 
 1 
 
 Muluc 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Oc 
 
 7 
 
 1 
 
 Oc 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 Oc 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 Oc 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 Chueu 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 Chuen.. .. 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 Chuen 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 Chuen 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 Eb 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 Eb 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 Eb 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 Eb 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 Ben 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 Ben 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 Ben 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 Ben 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 Ix 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 Ix 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 Ix 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 Ix 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 Men 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 Men 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 Men 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 Men 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 Cib 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 Cib 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 Cib 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 Cib 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 Caban 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 Caban 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 Caban 
 
 14 
 
 9 
 
 Caban 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 f'zanab . . . 
 
 15 
 
 » 
 
 Ezanab . . . 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 Ezanab . . . 
 
 15 
 
 10 
 
 Ezanab . . . 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 Cauac. .... 
 
 16 
 
 10 
 
 Cauac 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 Cauac 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 Cauac — 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 Ahau 
 
 17 
 
 11 
 
 Aliau 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 Ahau 
 
 17 
 
 12 
 
 Ahau 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 Ymix 
 
 18 
 
 12 
 
 Ymix 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 Ymix 
 
 18 
 
 13 
 
 Ymix 
 
 18 
 
 6 
 
 Ik 
 
 19 
 
 13 
 
 Ik 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 Ik 
 
 19 
 
 1 
 
 Ik 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 Akbal ..... 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 Akbal .... 
 
 20 
 
 8 
 
 Akbal .... 
 
 20 
 
 2 
 
 Akbal.. .. 
 
 20 
 
 Of the twenty days only four, — Kan, Muluc, Ix, 
 and Cauac — could begin either a month or a year. 
 Whatever the name of the first day of the first month, 
 every month in the year began with the same 
 day, accompanied, however, by a different numeral. 
 The numeral of the first day for the first month be- 
 ing 1, that of the second would be 8, and so on for the 
 other months in the following order : 2, 9, 3, 10, 4, 11, 
 5, 12, 6, 13, 7, 1, 8, 2, 9, 3. To ascertain the numer- 
 al for any month 7 must be added to that of the pre- 
 
SUCCESSION OF THE YEARS. 
 
 761 
 
 ceding month, and 13 subtracted from the sum if it be 
 more than 13. 
 
 By extending the table of days and months over a 
 period of years, — an extension which my space does 
 not permit me to make in these pages, — the reader will 
 observe that by reason of the intercalary days, and of 
 the fact that 28 weeks of 13 days each make only 364 
 instead of 365 days, if the first year began with 
 the day 1 Kan, the second would begin with 2 M uluc, 
 the third with 3 Ix, the fourth with 4 Cauac, the 
 fifth with 5 Kan, and so on in regular order; therefore 
 the years were named by the day on which they began, 
 1 Kan, 2 Muluc, 3 Ix, etc., since the year would be- 
 gin with any one of these combinations only once in 
 52 years. Thus the four names of the days Kan, 
 Muluc, Ix, and Cauac served as sign? for the years, 
 precisely as the signs tochtli, colli, tecpatl, and acatl 
 with their numerals served among the Aztecs. In 
 the circle in which the Mayas are said to have in- 
 scribed their calendar, these four signs are located in 
 the east, north, west, and south respectively, and are 
 considered the 'carriers of the years.' 
 
 It will be seen that, starting from 1 Kan, although 
 every fifth year began with the day, or sign, Kan, yet 
 the numeral 1 did not occur again in connection with 
 any first day until thirteen years had passed away; so 
 that 1 Kan or Kan alone not only named the year which 
 it began, but also a period of thirteen years, which is 
 spoken of as a 'week of years' or an 'indiction.' The 
 first indiction of thirteen years beginning with 1 Kan, 
 the second began with 1 Muluc, the third with 1 Ix, 
 and the fourth with 1 Cauac. 
 
 After the indiction whose sign was 1 Cauac, the 
 next would begin again with 1 Kan ; that is 52 years 
 would have elapsed, and this period of 52 years was 
 called a Katun, corresponding with the Aztec cycle, 
 as explained in a preceding chapter. . 
 
 Thus we see that the four signs Kan, Muluc, 
 Ix, and Cauac served to name certain days of 
 
 If! 
 
762' 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 the month; they also named the years of the indic- 
 tion, since in connection with certain numerals 
 they were the first days of these years; they further 
 named the indictions of the Katun, of which with 
 the numeral 1 they were also the first days; and fi- 
 nally they named, or may have named, the Katun it- 
 self which they b^un, also in connection with the 
 numeral 1. How the Katuns were actually named 
 we are not informed. The completion of each Katun 
 was regarded by the Mayas as a most critical and im- 
 portant epoch, and was celebrated with most imposing 
 religious ceremonies. Also a monument is said to 
 have been raised, on which a large stone was placed 
 crosswise, also called katun as a memorial of the cycle 
 that had passed. It is unfortunate that some of these 
 monuments cannot be discovered and identified among 
 the ruins. Thus far the Maya calendar is, after a 
 certain amount of study, sufficiently intelligible; and 
 is, except in its system of nomenclature, essentially 
 identical with that of the Nahuas. The calendars of 
 the Quiches, Cakchiquels, Chiapanecs, and the natives 
 of Soconusco, are also the same so far as their details 
 are known. The names of months and days in some 
 of these calendars will be given in this chapter. 
 
 Another division of time not found in the Nahua 
 calendar, was that into the Ahau Katunes. The sys- 
 tem according to which this division was made is clear 
 enough if we may accept the statements of Sr Perez; 
 several of which rest on authorities that are un- 
 known to all but himself According to this writer, 
 the Ahau Katun was a period of 24 years, divided 
 into two parts; the first part of 20 years was enclosed 
 in the native writings by a square and called amaytun, 
 lamayte, or lamaytun ; and the second, of the other 
 four years, was placed as a 'pedestal' to the others, 
 and therefore called chek oc katun, or lath oc katun. 
 These four years were considered as intercalary and 
 unfortunate, like the five supplementary days of the 
 year, and were sometimes called a yail lutab, 'years of 
 
THE AHAU KATUNES. 
 
 76a 
 
 pain.' This Katun of 24 years was called Ahau from 
 its first day, and the natives began to reckon from 13 
 Ahau Katun, because it began on the day 13 Ahau, 
 on which day some great event probably took place in 
 their history. The day Ahau at which these periods 
 began was the second day of such years as began with 
 Cauac; and 13 Ahau, the first day of the first period, 
 was the second of the year 12 Cauac; 2 Ahau was the 
 second day of the year 1 Cauac, etc. If we construct 
 a table of the years from 12 Cauac in regular order, 
 we shall find that if the first period was 13 Ahau Katun 
 because it began with 13 Ahau, the second, 24 years 
 later, was 1 1 Ahau Katun, beginning with 1 1 Ahau ; 
 the third was 9 Ahau Ka.tun, etc. That is, the Ahau 
 Katunes, instead of being numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., in 
 regular order was preceded by the numerals 13, 11, 
 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2. 13 of these Ahau 
 Katunes, making 312 years, constituted a great cycle, 
 and we are told that it was by means of the Ahau 
 Katunes and great cycles of 312 years that historical 
 events were generally recorded. 
 
 Sr Perez states that the year 1392 of our era was 
 the Maya year 7 Cauac, 'according to all sources 
 of information, confirmed by the testimony of Don 
 Cosme de Burgos, one of the conquerors, and a writer 
 (but whose observations have been lost).' Therefore 
 the 8 Ahau Katun began on the second day of that 
 year; the 6 Ahau Katun, 24 years later, in 1416; the 
 4 Ahau in 1440; the 2, in 1464; the 13, in 1488; the 
 11, in 1512; the 9, in 1536; the 7, in 1560; the 5, in 
 1584; the 3, in 1608, etc. As a test of the accuracy 
 of his system of Ahau Katunes, the author says that 
 he found in a certain manuscript the death of a distin- 
 guished individual, Ahpuld, mentioned as having 
 taken place in the 6th year of Ahau Katun, when 
 the first day of the year was 4 Kan, on the day of 9 
 Ix, the 18th day of the month Zip. Now the 13 
 Ahau began in the year 12 Cauac, or 1488; the 6th 
 year from 1488 wa3 1493, or 4 Kan; if the month of 
 
764 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Pop began with 4 Kan, then the 3d month, Zip, be- 
 
 fan with 5 Kan, and the 18th of that month fell on 9 
 X, or Sept. 11. All this may be readily verified by 
 filling out the table in regular order. 
 
 On the other hand we have Landa's statement that 
 the Ahau Katun was a period of 20 years; he gives 
 however the same order of the numerals as Perez, — 
 that is 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. He 
 also states that the year 1541 was the beginning of 11 
 Ahau; but if 11 Ahau was the second day of 1541, 
 that year must have been 10 Cauac, and 1561, 20 
 years later, would have been 4 Cauac, the second day 
 of which would have been 5 Ahau; which does not 
 aofree at all with the order of numerals. In fact no 
 other number of yea:s than 24 for each Ahau Katun 
 will produce this order of numerals, which fact is 
 perhaps the strongest argument in favor of Sr Perez' 
 system. Cogolludo also says that the Mayas counted 
 their time by periods of 20 years called Katunes, each 
 divided into 5 sub-periods of four years each. Sr 
 Perez admits that other writers reckon the Ahau Ka- 
 tun as 20 years, but claims that they have fallen into 
 error through disregarding the chek oc katun, or 4 un- 
 lucky years of the period. A Maya manuscript fur- 
 nished and translated by Perez is published by Ste- 
 phens and in Landa's work, and repeatedly speaks of 
 the Ahau Katun as a period of 20 years. Again, 
 this is the very manuscript in which the death of Ah- 
 puld was announced, and the date of that event is 
 given as 6 years before the completion of 13 Ahau, in- 
 stead of the sixth year of that period as stated in the 
 calculations of Sr Perez; and besides, the date is dis- 
 tinctly given as 1536, instead of 1403, which dates 
 will m nowise agree with the system explained, or 
 with the date of 1392 given as the beginning of 8 
 Ahau. Moreover, as I have already said, several of 
 the statements on which Perez bases his computations 
 are unsupported by any authority save manuscripts 
 unknown to all but himself Such are the statements 
 
BISSEXTILE ADDITIONS. 
 
 745 
 
 that the Ahau Katun began on the 2d day of a 
 year Oauac; that 13 Ahau was reckoned as the first; 
 and that 8 Ahau began in 1392. These facts, together 
 with various other inaccuracies in the writings of Sr 
 Perez are sufficient to weaken our faith in his system 
 of the Ahau Katunes ; and since the other writers give 
 no explanations, this part of the Maya calendar must 
 remain shrouded in doubt until new sources of infor- 
 mation shall be found.^ The following quotation made 
 by Sr Perez from a manuscript, contains all that is 
 known respecting what was possibly another method 
 of reckoning time. "There was another number which 
 they called Ua Katun, and which served them as a 
 key to find the Katunes, according to the order of its 
 march, it falls on the days of the uayeh haab, and re- 
 volves to the end of certain years: Katunes 13, 9, 5, 
 1,10,6,2,11,7,3,12,8,4.''^ 
 
 We have seen that the Maya year by means of in- 
 tercalary days added at the end of the month Cumhu 
 was made to include 365 days. How the additional 
 six hours necessary to make the length of the year 
 agree with the solar movements were intercalated with- 
 out disturbing the complicated order already described, 
 is altogether a matter of conjecture. The most plaus- 
 ible theory is perhaps that a day was added at the 
 end of every four years, tliis day being called by the 
 same name and numeral as the one preceding it, or, in 
 other words, no account being made of this day in the 
 
 8 'Contaban 8us eras, y edades, que ponian en bus libroa de veinte en 
 
 veinte afios, y por lustros de quatro en quatro Llegando estos lustrog a 
 
 cinco, que ajustan veinte anos, \\anm\mi\ Katiin, y ponian vnapiedralabrada 
 sobre otra labrada, Axada con cal, y arena en las naredes de sua Teninlos, 
 y casas de los Sacerdotes, conio se \h oy en los ediiicifM.' Cogolludo, Hist. 
 Yuc, p. 186. 'Llanian a esta cuenta en su lengua Uazlazon Katun que 
 quicre dezir la gen-a de los Katunes.' Zetnt/a, Bclacion, p. 313. 'Para 
 cuenta de veintenas de anos en calendarios de los indios yucatecos, lo misino 
 que las indicciones nuestnis; pcro de mas aftos aue estas, eran trece ahaues 
 que contenian 260 afios, que era para ellosun sigio.' Beltran de Snnta Rosa 
 Maria, Arte, p. 204. Brasseur de Bourbourg is disposed to reject the sys- 
 tem of Sr Perez, but he in his turn makes several errors in his notes on the 
 subject. In Lamia, Relaeion, pp. 402-13, 428. The Maya MS. referred to 
 in the text is found with its translation in Id., pp. 420-9, and Stephens^ 
 Yucatan, vol. ii., pp. 465-9. 
 
766 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 almanac, although it was perhaps indicated by some 
 sign in the hieroglyphics of these days. The Nicara- 
 guan calendar was practically identical with that of 
 the Aztecs, even in nomenclature although there were 
 naturally some slight variations in orthography. The 
 following table shows the names of the months in sev- 
 eral other Maya calendars, whose system so far uh 
 known is the same as that in Yucatan. 
 
 QuicM.* 
 
 Cakchiquel.* 
 
 ChiapaB 
 and 
 Soconusuo. " 
 
 1 Nabe Tzih Mat word' 
 
 2 U CabTzih '2d word' 
 
 3 Kox Tzih '3d word' 
 
 4 Cho 'tree' 
 
 5 Tccoxenual 
 
 6 Tzibe Pop 
 
 'painted mat' 
 
 7 Zak 'white* 
 
 8 Chab 'liow' 
 
 Huno Bix Gili 
 
 ' Ist song of sun 
 
 10 Nabe Mam 
 
 'Ist old man 
 
 11 U Cab Mam 
 
 '2d old man 
 
 12 Nabe Li^in Ga 
 
 'Ist 8o{t hand 
 
 13 U Cab Li^'iii Ga 
 
 '2d soft hand 
 
 14 Nabe Pach 
 
 ' Ist generation 
 16 U Cab Pach 
 
 '2d generation 
 
 16 Tziquin Gih 
 
 'time of birds 
 
 17 Tzizi Lagan 
 
 ' to sew the standard 
 
 18 Cakam 'time of 
 
 red flowers 
 
 I Bota 'rolls of mats' 
 Qatic 'common seed' 
 Izcal 'spronts' 
 Pariche 'firewood' 
 Tocaxepual 'seeding time' 
 Nabey Tumuzuz 
 
 'Ist flying ants' 
 Rucab Tumuzuz 
 
 '2d flying ants' 
 Cibixic 'time of smoke' 
 
 Uchum 'resowing time* 
 Nabey Mam '1st old man* 
 Ku Cab Mam '2d old man' 
 Ligin Ka 'soft hand' 
 Nabey Togic 'Ist harvest' 
 
 Ru Cab Togic '2d harvest' 
 
 Nabey Pach 
 
 '1st generation' 
 Ru Cab Pach 
 
 '2d generation' 
 Tziquin Gih 
 
 'time of birds' 
 Cakam 
 
 ' time of red flowers ' 
 
 Tzun 
 Batzul 
 
 Sisac 
 
 Muetasac 
 
 Muc 
 
 Olalti 
 
 Ulol 
 
 Oquinajual 
 
 Veh 
 
 Elech 
 
 Nichqum 
 
 Sbanvinquil 
 
 Xchibalvinquil 
 
 Yoxibalvinquil 
 
 Xchanibal- 
 
 vinquil 
 
 Poin 
 Mux 
 Yaxquin 
 
 » The Quich* year, according to Basseta, began on December 24, of our 
 calendar. Following an anonymous MS. history of Guatemala, the Cak- 
 chiqiiel year began on January 31; and the Ist of Parichfe in 1707 was on 
 January 21. Brasseur de Bourbotirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 466^7. 
 
 "> 'Algunos de estos nombres estan en lengua zotzil, y los demas se ig- 
 nore en qu^ idioma se hallan.' Pineda, in Soc. Mex. Oeog., Boletin, torn, 
 iii., p. 408; Oi-ozco y Berra, Geografia, pp. 205-6. 
 
DAYS IN GUATEMALA AND CHIAPAS. 
 
 7«7 
 
 I shall treat of the Maya hieroglyphics by giving first 
 the testimony of the early writers respecting the 
 existence of a system of writing in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury; then an account of the very few manuscripts 
 that have been preserved, together with illustrative 
 
 f)lates from both manuscripts and sculptured stone tab- 
 ets; to be followed by Bishop Landa's alphabet, a 
 mention of Brasseur de Bourbourg's attempted inter- 
 pretation of the native writings, and a few speculations 
 of other modern writers on the subject. The state- 
 ments of the early writers, although conclusive, are 
 not numerous, and I wnll consequently translate them 
 literally. 
 
 Landa says that "the sciences which they taught 
 were — ^to read and write with their books and charac- 
 ters with which they wrote, and with the figures which 
 signified (explained, or took the place of?) writings. 
 
 !■ Brasseur de Bo urbourg. Hist. Nat. Civ,, torn, iii., pp. 462-3. 
 
 ^* Brasseur de Bourbourg, ubisup.; Boturini, Idea, p. 118; Humboldt, 
 Vues, torn, ii , pp. 356-7; Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. 
 L, p. 104; Orozcoy Berra, Geogra/ia, p. 106; Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mei., torn, 
 i., p. 137, makes Votan the first month; Clavigero, StoriaAnt. del Messico, 
 torn, ii., p. 66; Pineda, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, torn, iii., p. 344. 
 
 The names of the days in t 
 
 fir>11r>AVR * 
 
 ae same calendars are as | 
 
 i 
 
 
 Quich^ and Cakchiquel." 
 
 Chiapas (Tiendal?) Soconusco.i* 
 
 
 1 Imox 'sword-fish* 
 
 Imox or Mox 
 
 2 Ig spirit or 'breath' 
 
 3 ATclwl 'chaos' 
 
 Igh or Ygh 
 Votan 
 
 
 4 Oat 'lizard' 
 6 Can ' snake ' 
 
 Chanan or (Jihanan 
 
 
 Abah or Abash 
 
 
 6 Caniey 'death' 
 
 Tox 
 
 ' 
 
 7 Qtiieh 'deer' 
 
 Moxic 
 
 i •: 
 
 8 Ganel 'rabbit' 
 
 Lambat 
 
 'i'i 
 
 9 Toh 'shower' 
 
 Molo or Mulu 
 
 1 1 
 
 10 Tzy'doR' 
 
 Elab or Elah 
 
 
 1 1 Ilatz ' monkey ' 
 
 Batz 
 
 M 
 
 12 Ci or Balam, 'broom,' ' tiger' 
 
 Evob or Enob 
 
 1 IK 
 
 13 Ah 'cane' 
 
 Been 
 
 ti !i' 
 
 14 Yiz or Itz ' sorcerer' 
 
 Hix 
 
 Hll 
 
 16 Tziqiiin 'bird' 
 
 Tziauin 
 
 Chabin or Chahin 
 
 ■ 1 
 
 10 Ahmak ' fisher,' 'owl' 
 
 RR 
 
 17 Noh 'temperature' 
 
 Chic or Chiue 
 
 ffifl 
 
 18 Tihax 'obsidian' 
 
 Chinax 
 
 ttU 
 
 19 Cook 'rain' 
 
 Cahogh or Cabogh 
 
 1 11 
 
 20 Hunahpu 'shooter of blowpipe' 
 
 Aghual 
 
 It 
 
766 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 They wrote their books on a larffe leaf, doubled in 
 folds, and inclosed between two boards which thev 
 made very fine (decorated) ; and they wrote on both 
 sides in columns, according to the folds; the paper they 
 made of the roots of a tree, and gave it a white var- 
 nish on which one could write well; these sciences 
 were known by certain men of high rank (only), who 
 were therefore more esteemed although they did not 
 use the art in public." "These people also used cer- 
 tain characters or letters with which they wrote in 
 their books their antiquities and their sciences ; and by 
 means of these and of figures and of certain signs in 
 their figures they understood their things, and made 
 them understood, and taught them. We found among 
 them a great number of books of these letters of theirs, 
 and because they had nothing in which there were not 
 superstitions and falsities of the devil, we burned them 
 all, at which they were exceedingly sorrowful and 
 troubled."" According to Cogolludo, "in the tine 
 of their infidelity the Indians of Yucatan had books, 
 made of the bark of trees, with a white and durable 
 varnish, ten or twelve yards long, which by folding 
 were reduced to a span. In these they painted with 
 colors the account of their years, wars, floods, hurri- 
 canes, famines, and other events." "The son of the 
 only god, of whose existence, as I have said, they 
 were aware, and whom they called Ytzamnst, was the 
 man, as I believe, who first invented the characters 
 which served the Indians as letters, because they 
 called the latter also Ytzamnd."" The Itzas, as Vil- 
 lagutierre tells us, h&d "characters and figures painted 
 on the bark of trees, cuch leaf, or tablet, being about 
 a span long, as thick as a real de k ocho (a coin), folded 
 both ways like a aeraen, which they called analtees."^'^ 
 Mendieta states that the Mexicans had no letters, " al- 
 
 1' Landa, Relacion, pp. 44, 316. 
 " Cogolludo, Hist. Yue.,m. 185 
 salida to the effect that the Itza priests still kept in his time' a record of 
 
 ftp. 185, 196. The same author quotes Fuen- 
 
 past events in a book 'like a history which they call Analte.' Id., p. 507. 
 
 " Villagutierre, Hist. Cong. Itza, pp. '393-4. 'Analtehes, 6 Historias, 
 ea vna misma cosa.' Id., p. 352. 
 
MAYA HIEROGLYPHIC SYSTEM. 
 
 769 
 
 though in the land of Champoton it is said tl)at such 
 were found, and that they understood each other by 
 means of them, as we do by means of ours."" Aeosta 
 says that in Yucatan "there were books of leaves, 
 bound or folded after their manner, in which the 
 learned Indians had their division of their time, knowl- 
 edge of plants and animals and other natural objects, 
 and their antiquities ; a thing of great curiosity and 
 diligence."" The Maya priestb "were occupied in 
 teaching their sciences and in writing books upon 
 them."" In Guatemala, according to Benzoni, "the 
 thing of all others at which the Indians have been 
 
 most surprised has been our reading and writing. 
 
 Nor could they imagine among themselves in what 
 way white paper painted with black, could speak."" 
 Peter Martyr gives quite a long description of 
 the nativ'j wood-bound books, which he does not 
 refer particularly to Yucatan, although Brasseur, 
 apparently with much reason, believes they were 
 the Maya ancdth rather than the regular Aztec 
 picture writings. The description is as follows in 
 the quaint English of the translator. "They make 
 not their books square leafe by leafe, but extend the 
 matter and substance thereof mto manv cubites. They 
 reduce them into square peeces, not loose, but with 
 binding, and flexible Bitumen so conioyned, that be- 
 ing compact of wooden table bookes, they may seeme 
 to haue passed the hands of some curious workman that 
 ioyned them together. Which way soeuer the book 
 bee opened, two written sides ofifer themselues to the 
 view, two pages appeare and as many lye vnder, vnlesse 
 you stretch them in length : for there are many leaues 
 ioyned together vnder one leafe. The Characters are 
 very vnlike ours, written after our manner, lyne after 
 lyne, with characters like small dice, fishookes, snares, 
 
 M Mendieta, Hist. Eelet., p. 143. 
 
 " Acoata, Hist, de lot Ynd., p. 407; Ctavigero, Storia Ant. del Mestieo, 
 torn, n., p. 187. 
 
 " Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec iv., lib. x., cap. ii. 
 I* Benzoni, Hist. Hondo Nuovo, fol. 109-ia 
 Vol. U. 4» 
 
770 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS, 
 
 files, starres, & other such like formes and shapes. 
 Whereiii they immitate almost the Egyptian manner of 
 writing, and betweeue the lines they paint the shapes 
 of men, & beasts, especially of their kings & nobles. 
 .... They make the former wooden table bookes also 
 with art to content and delight the beholder. Being 
 shut, they seeme to differ nothing from our bookes, in 
 these they set downe in writing the rites, and the cus- 
 tomes of their laws, sacrifices, ceremonies, their com- 
 putations, etc."* 
 
 Respecting hieroglyphic records in Chiapas and 
 Guatemala, we have the statement of Ordonez that 
 " Votan wrote a work upon the origin of the Indians," 
 and that he, Ordonez, had a copy of the book in his 
 possession ; a complaint in the Quichd annals known as 
 the Popol Vuh, that the 'national book' containing the 
 ancient records of their people had been lost; and finally 
 the reported discovery and destruction in Soconusco of 
 archives on stone by Nunez de la Vega in 1691. 
 All this amounts to little save as indicating the 
 ancient use of hieroglyphics by the followers of V^o- 
 tan, a fact sufficiently proven, as we shall see, by 
 the engraved tablets of Palenque and Copan.'* The 
 Nicaraguans at the time of the conquest had records 
 
 *" Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. viii., or Latin edition of Cologne, 1574, p. 
 .354; also quoted in Brasseur de Bourboura, MS. Troano, toni. i., pp. 2-.3; 
 Montanus, Nieuwe Weereid, p. 77. Carli tells us that the inhabitants of Aina- 
 titlan in Guatemala were especially expert in making palm-leaf paper for 
 writing. Cartas, pt ii., p. 104; Malte-Brim, Pricis de la Giog., tom. vi., p. 
 470. References to modern authors who, except possibly Medel, have iio 
 .:tiier sources of information than those I have quoted, are as follows: ' Dans 
 le Yucathan, on m'a montre dcs csp^ces de lettres ct de caractiires dont se 
 
 servent les habitants lis employaieut au lieu do papier I'^corce de cer- 
 
 taines arbres, dont ils enlevaient dcs morceaux qui avaient deux aunes de 
 long et un quart d'aune de large. Cette dcorce ctait de I'dpaisseur d'une 
 peau de veau et se pliait comme un linge. L'usage de cette ecriturc n'otait 
 pas gdndralement rupantlu, et elle n'dtait connue que dcs prfitres et de quel- 
 ques caciques.' Mcdel, in Nouvelles Annates des Voy., 184.", toni. xcvii., 
 pp. 49-50; Waldeck, Voy. Pitt., p. 40; Sqiiier's Cent. Amer., p. 552; More- 
 let, Voyage, torn, i., p. 191; FancourCs Hist. Yuc., p. 119; Carrillo, in Soc. 
 
 269-70; Brasseur de Bour- 
 
 Voyage, torn. \., p. 191; Fancourfs Hist. Yuc., 
 Mex. Geoff., Boletin, 2da dpoca, tom. iii., pp. """ 
 bourg. Hist. Nat. Ci%>„ tom. i., p. 79. 
 
 *' Ordofiez, Hist. Cielo, etc., MS., and NutUz de la Vega, Constit. Di- 
 eeces., quoted by Bra.sseur de Bourbourq, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 71, 74; 
 fd., Popol Vuk, p. 6; Juarros, Hist. Guat., p. 208; Pineda, in Soc. Mex. 
 Geog., Boletin, ioxa. iii., pp. .345-6. 
 
MAYA MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 7T1 
 
 painted in colors upon skin and paper, undoubtedly 
 identical in their figures with those of the Nahuas, to 
 whom the civilized people of Nicaragua were nearly 
 related in blood and language. No specimens of these 
 southern hieroglyphics have, however, been preserved. 
 Oviedo and Herrera slightly describe the paintings 
 and later writers have followed them.*" 
 
 Of the aboriginal Maya manuscripts three speci- 
 mens only, so far as I know, have been preserved. 
 These are the Meaican Manuscript, No. 2, of the Im- 
 perial Library at Paris ; The Dresden Codex; and the 
 Manuscript Troano. Concerning the first we only 
 know of its existence and the similarity of its charac- 
 ters to those of the other two and of the sculptured 
 tablets. The document was photographed in 1864 by 
 order of the French government, but 1 am not aware 
 that the photographs have ever been given to the pub- 
 lic. The Dresden Codex is preserved in the Royal 
 Library of Dresden. A complete copy was published 
 in Lord Kingsborongh's collection of Mexican antiqui- 
 ties, and fragments were also reproduced by Hum- 
 boldt. It was purchased in Vienna by the librarian 
 Gotz in 1739, but beyond this nothing whatever is 
 known of its history and origin. It was published by 
 Kings borough as an Aztec picture-writing, although 
 its characters present little if any resemblance to those 
 of its companion documents in the collection. Its 
 form was also different from all the rest, since it is 
 written on both sides of fi, e leaves of maguey-paper. 
 At the time ot" its publication, however, the existence 
 of any but Azto<" hieroglyphics in America was un- 
 known. Mr Stephens in his antiquarian exploration 
 of Central America, at once noticed the similarity of 
 its figures to those of the sculptured hieroglyphics 
 found there, but he used this similarity to prove the 
 identity of the northern and southern nations, since it 
 
 ' Oviedo, Hist. Oen., torn, iv., p. 36; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. 
 iv., cap. vii. ; Oallatin, in Aincr. Ethno. Soe., Transact., vol. i., p. 8; 
 Malte-Brun, Pr&.isdi'ln Gfog.. torn, vi., p. 472; Squier'n Sit:i;r(igua, (Ed. 
 1856.) vol. ii., pp. 3 '.7-8. 
 
772 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 did not occur to him that the Aztec origin of the Dres- 
 den document was a mere supposition. Mr Brantz 
 Mayer, fully aware of the differences between this and 
 other reputed Mexican picture-writings, went so far 
 as to pronounce it the only genuine Aztec document 
 that he had seen. There can be no reasonable doubt, 
 however, at this day, that the Maya and Nahua <^or 
 Maya and Aztec, since some authors will not agree 
 with my use of the term Nahua) hieroglyphic systems 
 were i)ractically distinct, although it would be hardly 
 wise to decide that they are absolutely without affini- 
 ties in some of their details. The accompanying cut 
 from Stephens' work shows a small fragment of the 
 Dresden Codex.** 
 
 miL 
 
 Fragment of the Dresden Codex. 
 
 The Manuscript Troano was found about the year 
 1865 in Madrid by the Abbi5 Brasseur de Bourbourg, 
 
 •> Kingsbarouffh's ^fGX. Antiq., vol. iii., No. 2; Hinnboldt, Vims, toin. 
 u., pp. 268-71, pi. xvi. Mr Prescoit, Mex., vol. i., pp. 104-.5, wiys tliut 
 thiH aociinicnt bears but little rcsoniblance to other Aztec MS8., und that 
 it indicates a miicli hi^rlicr stage of civilization ; but he also fails to detect 
 any strt nger likeness to the bas-reliefs of Falenque, of which latter, how- 
 ever, he probably had a very iui|)erfect idea. It cannot be interpreted, for 
 'even if a Kosetta stone were discovered in Mexico, there is no Indian 
 tongue to supply the key or interpreter.' M^^yrr, Mex. as it Was, pp. 258-^9. 
 'Le Codex de liresde, et «n autre <le la Bihli(»thfeque Nationale a Paris, 
 bien qu'ttffrant quelque rapport avec les Rituels, «ichai>pent Jl toute internn5- 
 tation. lis appartiennent, ainsi que les inscriptions tie Chiapjm et du Yu- 
 catan h, une dcriture plus <ilabon5e, conitne incrnst^eet calculifonnc, dont on 
 croit trouver des tro'>es dans toutes les parties trfes-ancienncinent |H>lic('cs 
 des doux Amdriques.' Aubin, in Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., 
 torn, i., p. Ixxi. See Stephens' Cent. Amer., vol. ii., pp. 342, 453-6; Id., 
 Yucatan, vol. ii., pp. 292, 453. 
 
THE MANUSCRIPT TROANO. 
 
 778 
 
 Ihiit 
 JLluit 
 Iteot 
 
 and was reproduced in fac-simile by a chromo-litho- 
 graphic process by the Commission Scientifique du 
 Mexique, under the auspices of the French Govern- 
 ment. Its name comes from that of its possessor in 
 Madrid, Sr Tro y Ortolano, and nothing whatever is 
 known of its origin ; two or three other old American 
 manuscripts are reported to have been brought to light 
 in Spain since the publication of this. The original 
 is written on a strip of maguey-paper about fourteen 
 feet long and nine inches wide, the surface of which is 
 covered with a whitish varnish, on which the figures 
 are painted in black, red, blue, and brown. It is folded 
 fan -like into thirty-five folds, presenting when shut 
 much the appearance of a modern large octavo volume. 
 The hieroglyphics cover both sides of the paj)er, and the 
 writing is consequently divided into seventy pages, each 
 about five by nine inches, having been apparently exe- 
 cuted after the paper was folded, so that the folding 
 does not interfere with the written matter. One of the 
 pages as a specimen is shown in the following plate, 
 an exact copy, save in size and color, of the original. 
 
 The regular lines of written characters are uniformly 
 in black, while the pictorial portions, or what may per- 
 haps be considered representative signs, are in red 
 and brown, chiefly the former, and the blue appears 
 for the most part as a background in some of the 
 p:'qres. A few of the pages are slightly damaged, and 
 <'ll the imperfections are, as it is claimed, faithfully re- 
 |)r(*duced in the published copy, which with the edi- 
 t:;r's comments fills two quarto volumes in the series 
 nubli'^hed by the Commission mentioned.'" 
 
 The plates on tl\e following pages from the works 
 of Stephens and Waldeck I present as specimens of 
 the Maya writing, as it is found carved in stone in 
 Yucatan, Honduras, and Chiapas. For particulars 
 respecting the ruins in connection with which they 
 were discovered, I refer the reader to volume IV. of 
 
 n Brnssfur de Bourbourtf, MS. Troano; dtudea mtr Ic Hi/stimr. (irnphique 
 ft la langnc des Mayas, I'liris, ISOO-TO, 4°, 2 vi>!h, 70 colored plutcs. 
 
 /•[ !: 
 
m 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Page of Manuscript Troano. 
 
MAYA INSCRIPTIONS IN STONE. 
 
 775 
 
 Fig. I. — Altar Inscription from Copan. 
 
 III 
 III, 
 
 FJ!'. 2.— Tablet from Cliichen. 
 
 Fig. 3.— Chttlchiiiitc from Ococingo. 
 
776 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 O 
 t 
 
 s 
 o 
 
 Fig, 4— Tablet from Palenque. 
 
BISHOP LANDA'S ALPHABET. 
 
 777 
 
 this work. Fig. 1 represents the hieroglyphics sculp- 
 tured on the top of an altar at Copan, in Honduras, 
 the thirty-six groups cover a space nearly six feet 
 square. Fig. 2 is a tablet set in the interior wall of a 
 building in Chichen, Yucatan. The tablet is placed 
 over the doorways and extends the whole length of 
 the room, forty-three feet; only a part, however, is 
 shown in the cut. Fig. 3 is a full-size representation 
 of the carving on a green stone, or chalchiuite, found 
 at Ococingo, Chiapas. I take it from the English 
 translation of Morelet's Travels. Many of the mon- 
 oliths of Copan, have a line of hieroglyphics on their 
 side. Plates representing specimens of these mon- 
 uments will be given in Volume IV. Fig. 4 shows a 
 portion of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the famous 
 'tablet of the cross' at Palenque.*" 
 
 T have given on a preceding page in this chapter, 
 the signs by which the natives of Yucatan expressed 
 the names of their days and months, taken from the 
 work of Bishop Landa. The same author has also 
 preserved a Maya alphabet. On account of Landa's 
 failure to appreciate the importance of the native hie- 
 roglyphics, or to comprehend the system, and also very 
 likely on account of his copyist's carelessness — for the 
 original manuscript of Landa's work has not been 
 found — the passage relating to the alphabet is very 
 vague, unsatisfactory, and perhaps fragmentary ; but it 
 is of the very highest importance, since the alphabet 
 Vere given in connection with the calendar signs al- 
 ready spoken of, furnish apparently the only ground 
 for a hope that the veil of mystery which hangs over 
 the Maya inscriptions may one day be lifted. I there- 
 fore give Landa's description as nearly as possible in 
 his own words, copying also the original Spanish in a 
 note. 
 
 « Waldeck, Palenqiti, pi. 21; Stephen's Cent. Amer., vol. i., pp. 1! 
 140-2; Id., Yucatan, vol. li., pp. 300-1; Morelet's Trav., p. 98; Vol. 
 pp. 91-2, 97-9, 234, aiid clmp. vi., of thin work. 
 
 136-7. 
 iv.. 
 
778 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 " Of their letters I give here (see alphabet on the 
 next page) an A, B, C, since their heaviness (number 
 and intricacy?) permits no more ; because they use one 
 character for all the aspirations of the letters, and an- 
 other in the pointing of the parts (punctuation), and 
 thus it goes on to infinity, as may be seen in the fol- 
 lowing example: IS means *a snare' or to hunt with 
 it; to write it with their characters, we having given 
 them to understand (although we gave, etc.) that they 
 are two letters, they wrote it with three, placing after 
 the aspiration I the vowel e, which it has before it, 
 and in this they do not err, although they make use, 
 if they wish, of their curious method. Example: 
 e I e u Then at the end they attach the ad- 
 ^^^|g)@^^) joined part. Ha which means * water,' 
 because the hach4 (sound of the letter 
 h) has rt, h, before it, they put it ,at the beginning 
 with a, at the end in this manner : ' 
 write it in parts but in both ways, 
 not put (all this) here, nor treat of 
 in order to give a complete account 
 things of this people. Ma in kati means 
 they write it in parts after this 
 
 manner, 
 
 »a« 
 
 They also 
 I would 
 it, except 
 of the 
 
 I will not'; 
 
 * n ka ti 
 
 ma 
 
 K The Spanish text is as follows: 'De sns letras porne aqui nn a, b, c, 
 que no permite su pesadunibre mas porqiie usan para todas las aspiraciones 
 de las letras de un caracter, y despues, al puntar de las partes otro, y assi 
 viene a hazcr in infinitum, como se podra vcr en el siguiente exemplo. Li, 
 
 Siiiere dezir laco y ca9ar con el; pai-a escrivirle con sus caruteres, liavien- 
 olcs nosotros necho cntender que son dos letras, lo escrivian ellos con item, 
 pitniendo a la aspiracion de la I la vocal i, que antes de si trae, y en 
 esto no hierran, aunque usense, si quisieren ellos de su curiosidad. Exem- 
 plo: eleU. Despues al cabo le pegan la parte junto. Ha que quierc de- 
 zir agua, porque la hach6 tiene a, h, antes de si la ponen ellos al principio 
 con a, y al caoo desta manera: hn. Tambien lo escriven a partes pero de 
 la una y otra manera, yo no pusiera aqtii ni tratara dello sino por dar cuenta 
 entera de las cosas desta gente. Ma tn kati quiere dezir no quiero, cIIok 
 lo escriven a partes desta manera: mn i n ka ti.^ Landa, Rclacion, pp. 316- 
 22; also in Brasseur de Bourhoiirg, MS. Troano, toni. i., pp. 37-S. 
 
BISHOP LANDA'S ALPHABET. 
 
 779 
 
 I. S dP 
 
 B 
 
 C(qT) 
 
 T t 
 
 f 
 
 H 
 
 CA(?) 
 
 '^ 
 
 M 
 
 
 N 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 tl 
 
 X X 
 
 (dj or dz?) 
 
 oJLo 
 
 MA 
 
 (me, mo?) 
 
 f 
 
 U 
 
 S 
 
 TO 
 
 n 
 
 Sign of 
 Aspiration. 
 
 Respecting this alphabet Landa adds: "this lan- 
 guage lacks the letters that are missing here; and has 
 others added from ours for other necessary things; and 
 they already make no use of these characters, espe- 
 cially the young who have learned ours." It will be 
 noticed that there are several varying characters for 
 the same letter, and several syllabic signs. 
 
 The characters of Landa's alphabet, and the calendar 
 signs can be identified more or less accurately and 
 readily with some of those of the hieroglyphic inscrip- 
 tions in stone, the Manuscript Troano, and the 
 Dresden Codex. The resemblance in many cases is 
 clear, in others very vague and perhaps maginary, 
 while very many others cannot apparently be identified. 
 Although Landa's key must be regarded as fragment- 
 
780 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 ary, I believe there is no reason to doubt its authen- 
 ticity. But one attempt has been made to practicaily 
 apply this key to the work of deciphering the Maya 
 documents, that of the Abbd Brasseur de Bourbourg. 
 This writer, after a profound study of the subject, 
 devotes one hundred and thirty-six quarto pages to a 
 consideration of the Maya characters and their varia- 
 tions, and fifty-seven pages to the translation of a part 
 of the Manuscript Troano. The translation must be 
 pronounced a failure, especially after the confession of 
 the author in a subsequent work that he had begun 
 his reading at the wrong end of the document,'" — a 
 trifling error perhaps in the opinion of the enthusiastic 
 Abbe, but a somewhat serious one as it appears to 
 scientific men. His preliminary examinations doubt- 
 less contain much valuable information which will 
 lighten the labors and facilitate the investigations of 
 future students; but unfortunately, such is their 
 nature that condensation is impracticable. A long 
 chapter, if not a volume, would be required to do them 
 anything like justice, and they must be omitted here. 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg devoted his life to the study 
 of American primitive history. In actual knowledge 
 of matters pertaining to his chosen subject, no man 
 ever equaled or approached him. Besides being an 
 indefatigfable student he was an elegfant writer. In 
 the last decade of his life he conceived a new and 
 complicated theory respecting the origin of the 
 American people, or rather the origin of Europeans 
 and Asiatics from America, made known to the world 
 in his Quatre Lettres. His attempted translation of 
 the Manuscript Troano was made in support of this 
 theory. By reason of the extraordinary nature of the 
 views expressed, and the author's well-known tendency 
 to build magnificent structures on a slight foundation, 
 his later writings were received for the most part by 
 critics, utterly incompetent to understand them, with 
 a sneer or, what seems to have grieved the writer 
 
 *f Bibliothique Mexko-GuaUmalienne, Paris, 1871, p. xxvii. 
 
INTERPllETATION OF MAYA RECORDS. 
 
 781 
 
 more, in silence. Now that the great Am^ricaninte 
 is dead, while it is not likely that his theories will 
 ever be received, his zeal in the cause of antiquarian 
 science and the many valuable works from his pen 
 will be better appreciated. It will be lonjjere another 
 shall undertake with equal devotion and ability the 
 well nigh hopeless task. 
 
 I close the chapter with a few quotations from 
 modern writers respecting the Maya hieroglyphics 
 and their interpretation. Tyler says "there is even 
 evidence that the Maya nation of Yucatan, the ruins 
 of whose temples and palaces are so well known from 
 the travels of Catherwood and Stephens, not only had 
 a system of phonetic writing, but used it for writing 
 ordinary words and sentences."* Wuttke suggests 
 that Landa's alphabet originated after the Conquest, 
 a suggestion, as Schepping observes, excluded by 
 Mendieta's statement, but "otherwise very probable 
 in consideration of the phoneticism developed in 
 Mexico shortly after the Conquest."** And finally 
 Wilson says, "while the recurrence of the same signs, 
 and the reconstruction of groups out of the detached 
 members of others, clearly indicate a written language, 
 and not a mere pictorial suggestion of associated 
 ideas, like the Mexican picture-writing." "In the 
 most complicated tablets of African hieroglyphics, 
 each object is distinct, and its representative signifi- 
 cance is rarely difficult to trace. But the majority of 
 the hieroglyphics of Palenque or Copan appear as if 
 constructed on the same polysynthetic principle which 
 gives the peculiar and distinctive character to the lan- 
 guages of the New World. This is still more apparent 
 when we turn to the highly elaborate inscriptions on 
 the colossal figures of Copan. In these all idei'^^ o: 
 simple phonetic signs utterly disappear. Like the 
 bunch-words, as they have been called, of the Ameri- 
 
 *• Tylor's Researches, pp. li)0-l. 
 
 29 Wuttke and Schcpptng, in Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, no. 2., div. 
 ii., pt l-B, p. 61. See note 16 of this chapter. 
 
782 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 can languages, they seem each to be compounded c 
 number of j)art8 of the primary symbols used in 
 
 f)icture-writing, while the pictorial origin of the whole 
 )ecomes clearly apparent. In comparing these mi- 
 nutely elaborated character with those on the tables, 
 it is obvious that a system of abbreviation is employed 
 in the latter. An analogous process seems dimly 
 discernible in the abbreviated compound characters of 
 the Palenque inscription. But if the inference be 
 correct, this of itself would serve to indicate that the 
 Central American hieroglyphics are not used as pho- 
 netic, or pure alphabetic signs; and this idea receives 
 confirmation from the rare recurrence of the same 
 group .... The Palenque inscriptions have all the 
 characteristics of a written language in a state of 
 development analogous to the Chinese, with its word- 
 writing ; and like it they appear to have been read 
 in columns from top to bottom. The groups of sym- 
 bols begin with a large hieroglyphic on the left-hand 
 corner ; and the first column occupies a double s'^ace. 
 It is also noticeable that in the frequent occum of 
 human and animal heads among the sculpture* 
 acters they invariably look toward the left; an indica- 
 tion, as it appears to me, that they are the graven in- 
 scriptions of a lettered people, who were accustomed 
 to write the same characters from left to right on paper 
 or skins. Indeed, the pictorial groups on the Copan 
 statues seem to be the true hieroglyphic characters; 
 while the Palenque inscriptions show the abbreviated 
 hieratic writing. To the sculptor the direction of the 
 characters was a matter of no moment; but if the 
 scribe held his pen, or style, in his right hand, like the 
 modern clerk, he would as naturally draw the left pro- 
 file as we slope our current hand to tlie right. Arbi- 
 trary signs are also introduced, like those of the pho- 
 netic alphabets of Europe. Among these the T repeat- 
 edly occurs : a character which, it will be remembered, 
 was also stamped on the Mexican metallic currency." 
 
 >• Wilson's Pre-Historic Man, p. 378, et seq. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HUILDINOS, MEDICINE, BURIAL, PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES, AND 
 CHARACTER OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 Scanty Information oiven by the Early Voyagers— Private 
 Houses of the Mayas— Interior Arranoement, Decoration, 
 and Furniture— Maya Cities -Description of Utatlan— Pa- 
 tin amit, the Cakchiquel Capital— Cities CI Nicaragua— Maya 
 Roads— Temples at Chichen Itza and Cozimel— Temples of Nic- 
 aragua AND Guatemala— Diseases of the Mayas— Medicines 
 used— Treatment of the Sick— Propitiatory Offerings and 
 Vows— Superstitions—Dreams—Omens— Witchcraft— Snake- 
 Charmers—Funeral Rites and Ceremonies— Physical pecul- 
 iarities—Character. 
 
 A full r^sumd of the principles of Maya architecture, 
 gathered from observations of ruins made by modern 
 travelers, will be given in another part of this work.' 
 I shall, therefore, without regard to the inevitable 
 scantiness and unsatisfactory nature of such informa- 
 tion, confine myself in this chapter to the descriptions 
 furnished by the old writers, who saw tlie houses and 
 towns while they were occupied by those who built 
 them and the temples before they became ruins, or 
 at least were contemporaries of such observers. 
 
 The accounts given of the dwellings of the Mayas 
 are very meagre. The early voyagers on the coast of 
 Yucatan, such as Grijalva and C6rdova, saw well- 
 
 ' See vol. iv., pp. 267, et. seq. 
 (788) 
 
784 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 built houses of stone and lime, with sloping roofs 
 thatched with straw or reeds; or, in some instances, 
 with slates of stone f but this is all they tell us, and, 
 indeed, they had little opportunity for close examina- 
 tion; the natives of those parts were fierce and war- 
 like, and little disposed to submit to invasion, so that 
 the handful of adventurers had barely time to look 
 hastily about them after effecting a landing before 
 they were driven back wounded to their boats. Hero, 
 as olsewhere, too, the temples and larger buildings 
 naturally attracted their sole attention, both because 
 of their strangeness and of the treasures which they 
 were supposed to or did contain. These men were 
 soldiers, gold-hunters; they did not travel leisurely; 
 they had no time to examine the architecture of 
 private dwellings ; they risked and lost their lives for 
 other purposes. Bishop Landa, however, has some- 
 thing to say on the subject of Maya dwellings. The 
 roof, he says, was covered with straw, which they had 
 in great abundance, or with palm-leaves, which an- 
 swered the purpose admirably. A considerable pitch 
 was given to the roof, that the rain might run off 
 easily. Tho house was divided in its length, that is, 
 from side to side, by a wall, in which several doorways 
 were left as a means of communication with the back 
 room where they slept. The front room where guests 
 were received was carefully whitewashed, or in the 
 houses of nobles, painted in various colors or designs ; 
 it had no door but was open all the length of the front 
 
 *'A todo lo lan^ tcnian los vccinon de aqiicl lugar mnchas cosas, hecho 
 el ciniiento dc piccira y Itxiu liastii la iiiitad dc las narcdes, y luego cubier- 
 tas dc paja. Esta gciite del diclio lu);ar, uii lo8 edincios y cii latt casas, pa- 
 rccc iter gcntc dc graiidc ingcnio: y si no fuera {rarquc ]iarecia hahcr alli 
 algiinoa edificios nucvoa, se pudicra presumir ciiie craii cditicios liechos por 
 Espauolcs.* Diaz, Kincrario, \n Icazbalceta, Col. de Doc, torn, i., p. 286; 
 (icc altio Id., pp. 281, 287. ' Las casaa son de picdra, y Imlriilo con la cn- 
 bicrta dc paia, o rama. Y aun alguna de lanchas de picdra.' Gomara, 
 Conq. Mex., fol. 23. 'The houses were of stone or brick, and lynie, vcr^- 
 arttilcially composed. To the square Courts or first habitations of their 
 liouHCB they ascended by ten or twcluc steps. The roofe was of Reeds, or 
 stalkcs of Herbs.' Purchas his Pilgrimage, vol. v., p. 885; Bernal Diaz, 
 Jlist. Conq., fol. 2-3; Bienvenida, in Ternaux-Coinpatts, Voy., s^rie i., toni. 
 ii., p. 311; Oviedo, Hi t. Gen., torn, i., p. 607, torn, iii., p. 230; Montanm, 
 Nieutoe IVeereld, p. 7-; Peter Martyr, dec. iv., lib. i. 
 
 Cotnj, 
 
TH 
 
 NICARAGUAX DWELLINUa 
 
 785 
 
 of the house, and was sheltered from sun and rain by 
 the eaves which usually descended very low.' There 
 was always a doorway in the rear for the use of all 
 the inmates. The fact of there being no doors made 
 it a point of honor among them not to rob or injure 
 each other's houses. The poor people built the 
 houses of the rich.* A new dwelling could not be 
 occupied until it had been formally blessed and purged 
 of the evil spirit." 
 
 In Nicaragua, the dwellings were mostly made of 
 canes, and thatched with straw. In the large cities 
 the houses of the nobles were built upon platforms 
 several feet in height, but in the smaller *.owns the 
 residences of all classes were of the same construction, 
 except that those of the chiefs were larger and more 
 commodious. Some, however, appear to have been 
 built of stone.' Of the dwellings in Guatemala, still 
 less" is said. Villagutierre mentions a Lacandone 
 village in which were one hundred and three houses 
 with sloping thatched roofs, supported upon stout 
 posts. The front of each house was open, but the 
 bfick and sides were closed with a strong stockade. 
 The interior was divided into several apartments. 
 Cogolludo says that their houses were covered with 
 plaster, like those of Yucatan.' 
 
 The house, or rather shed, near the Gulf of Dulce, 
 in which CorttJs stayed, had no walls, the roof resting 
 
 
 Br am 
 i8 por 
 
 286; 
 la cu- 
 
 tara, 
 , vcrj- 
 
 their 
 ids, or 
 
 Diaz, 
 toin. 
 
 annn, 
 
 ' 'Cost encore aujounl'liiii de cctte maniiirc <|iie hc constriiiHcnt h la 
 eampa^nc Icr niaixuiis iion Hculcnicnt dcs iiidi}ri!iie8, iimiH encore <le la plu- 
 part lies aiitrcs Iiuliitant8 du payM, an Vucutun ct ailleura.' Brasseur de 
 BoHrbinirt), in Landa, Jiclarion, pp. J 10-11. 
 
 * Landa, Rtlncion, p. 110. 
 
 i Cofiolludo, Hint. Vuc, p. 184. 
 
 • ' Their houses of brickc or stone, are coucrcd with reedes, wliere there 
 is a Bcnrcitie of st^ines, hut where Qiian'ies arc, thoy arc couercd with shin- 
 die or slate. Many houses haue niarhlc pillars, as they haue with vs.' Peter 
 Martyr, dec. iv., lib. iii., dec. vi., lih. v.; Herrern, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. 
 iv., cup. vii. ; Jtcnzoiii, Hint Moiido Nuovo, p. 102. 
 
 T Hi»t. Yiir., p. 700. 'Lasii'.suH er-in ciento y tres, degrucssoH, yfuer- 
 tes Madcros, en <|ue bc nuintenian Ion Teclios, que cran do niucha I'aja, re- 
 zianiente anuirnula, y con su corriente, y doscuhiertos tiMlos los Frontispi- 
 cios, y tu|mdos los costados, y eB|>aldas, de Es^uicada, con bus Aposeiitos, 
 donde los.lndias cozinavan, y tcnian bub uienosteres.' Villagutierre, Hist. 
 Conn. Itza, pp. 311-12. 
 Vol.. II. SO 
 
786 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 upon posts.' In other parts of Guatemala he saw 
 'large houses with thatched roofs.'" Gage does not 
 give a glowing accoun of their dwellings. "Their 
 houses," he writes, "are .but poor thatched Cottages, 
 without any upper rooms, but commonly one or two 
 only rooms below, in the one they dress their meat in 
 the middle of it, making a compass for fire, with two or 
 three stones, without any other chimney to convey the 
 smoak away, which spreading it self aboub the room, 
 filleth the thatch and the rafters so with sut, that A\ 
 the room seemeth to be a chimney. The next unto it, 
 is not free from smoak and blackness, where some- 
 times are four or five beds according to the family. 
 The poorer sort have but one room, where they eat, 
 dress their meat and sleep. "^'' Las Casas tells us that 
 when the Guatemalans built a new house they were 
 careful to dedicate an apartment to the worship of 
 the household gods; there they burned incense and 
 offered domestic sacrifices upon an altar erected for 
 the purpose." 
 
 Little is said about the interior appointment and 
 decoration of dwellings. Landa mentions that in Yu- 
 catan they used bedsteads made of cane," and the same 
 is said of Nicaragua by Oviedo, who adds that they 
 used a small fo»ir-legged bench of fine wood for a pil- 
 low." In Guatemala, there was in each room a sort 
 of bedstead large enough to accommodate four grown 
 persons, and other small ones for the children." Bras- 
 
 ^Cortis, Cartas, p. 447. 
 »/</., p|). 268, 426. 
 
 io New Survetf, p. 318. 
 
 n Hist. ApologMica, MS., cap. cxxiv. 
 
 niMacion, p. 110. 
 
 IS ' A la parte oriental, & siete ii ocho possoB debaxo deste portal, estd uii 
 echo dc trea palnios aitu de tierra, fecho de las cafias gnicasaH aiie dixe, v 
 en^inia llano u de dicz 6 do^e pies de luengi 4 de f inco 6 bcj'h uc ancho, u 
 una estera dc i)alnia (rruessa enfima, 4 Robre t<quclla otras trcs esteras del- 
 gados 6 inuy bien labrados, y cn^ima tendido ol cafique desnudo d con una 
 mantilla de algodon bianco 6 delgada revuella sobre ai: 4^ jwr ainioliada 
 tenia un ban(|uito pcquefto de quatro pi^s, al,^ c6ncavo, quellos llanian 
 duho, c de niuy lintfa e lisa madera muy bien Ir.brodo, por cabe^era.' Hist, 
 den., torn, iv., p. 109. 
 
 1* ' Y eu cada ApoHento vn Tapeaco, sobre ni ideros f ucrtes, que en cada 
 \no cabian quatro Fersonas; y otros Tapesquillcs aparte, eu que pouian Ibh 
 
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE. 
 
 787 
 
 seur de Bourbourg gives a description of gorgeous 
 furniture used in the houses of the wealthy in Yuca- 
 tan, but unfortunately the learned Abbti has for his 
 only authority on this point the somewhat apochry- 
 phal Ordofiez' MS. The stools, he writes, on which 
 they seated themselves cross-legged after the Oriental 
 fashion, were of wood and precious metals, and were 
 often made in the shape of some animal or bird; they 
 were covered with deer-skins, tanned with great care, 
 and embroidered with gold and precious stones. The 
 interior walls were sometimes hung with similar skins, 
 though they were more frequently decorated with 
 paintings on a red or blue ground. Curtains of fin- 
 est texture and most brilliant colors fell over the door- 
 ways, and the stucco floors were covered with mats 
 made of exquisite workmanship. Rich hued cloths 
 covered the tables. The plate would have done honor 
 to a Persian satrap. Graceful vases of chased gold, 
 alabaster or agate, worked with exquisite art, delicate 
 painted pottery, excelling that of Etruria, candelabra 
 for the great odorous pine torches, metal braziers dif- 
 fusing sweet perfumes, a multitude o{ petits riens, such 
 as little bells and grotesquely shaped whistles for sum- 
 moning attendants, in fact all the luxuries which are 
 the result of an advanced civilization, were, according 
 to Brasseur de Bourbourg, to be found in the houses 
 of the Maya nobility." 
 
 Of the interior arrangement of the Yucatec towns 
 we are told nothing except that the temples, palaces, 
 and houses of the nobility were in the centre, with the 
 dwellings of the common people grouped about them, 
 and that the streets were well kept." Some of them 
 
 Criaturos.' Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. Itza,^. 312. Onge writes: They have 
 
 'four or five beds according to the family Few tliere are that set any 
 
 locks iijwn their doors, for they fear no robbing nor Htcaling, neither have 
 they in their houses much to lose, earthen ])ots, and puns, and dishes, and 
 cups to drink their Chocolattc, lieing the chief commodities in their house. 
 There is scarce any house which hath not also in the yard a stew, wherein 
 they bath themselves with hot water.' New Survey, p, 318. 
 
 » Ifisf. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., pp. 68-9. 
 
 >« Herreru, Hist. Gen., dec.iv., lib. x., cap. ii., iii. 
 
788 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 must, however, have been very large and have con- 
 tained fine buildings. During Cordova's voyage on 
 the coast of Yucatan a city was seen which, says 
 Peter Martyr, "for the hugenesse thereof they call 
 Cayrus, of Cayrus the Metropolis of vEgipt: where 
 they find turreted houses, stately teples, wel paued 
 wayes & streets where marts and faires for trade of 
 merchandise were kept."" During Grijalva's voyage a 
 city, the same one perhaps, was seen, which Diaz, the 
 chaplain of the expedition, says was as 'large as the 
 city of Seville.'" None of the Yucatec cities appear 
 to have been located with any view to defense, or to 
 to have been provided with fortifications of any descrip- 
 tion." The towns of Guatemala, on the other hand, 
 were very strongly fortified, both artificially and by 
 the site selected. Juarros thus describes the city of 
 Utatlan in Guatemala: "it was surrounded by a deep 
 ravine that formed a natural fosse, leaving only tWo 
 very narrow roads as entrances to the city, both of 
 which were so well defended by the castle of Res- 
 guardo, as to render it impregnable. The centre of 
 the city was occupied by the royal palace, which was 
 surrounded by the houses of the nobility ; the extrem- 
 ities were inhabited by the plebeians. The streets 
 were very narrow, but the place was so populous, as to 
 enable the king to draw from it alone, no less than 
 72,000 combatants, to oppose the progress of the Span- 
 iards. It contained many very sumptuous edifices, 
 the most superb of them was a seminary, where be- 
 tween 5 and 6000 children were educated; they 
 were all maintained and provided for at the charge of 
 the royal treasury ; their instruction was superintended 
 by 70 masters and professors. The castle of the 
 Atalaya was a remarkable structure, which being 
 raised four stories high, was capable of furnishing 
 quarters for a very strong garrison. The castle of 
 
 " Dec iv., lib. i. 
 
 I* Diaz, Itinerario, in Icazbalceta, Col. de Doe., torn, i., p. 287. 
 
 «» See vol. iv. of this work, pp. 267-8. 
 
MAYA FORTIFICATIONS. 
 
 m 
 
 Besguardo was not inferior to the other; it extended 
 188 paces in front, 230 in depth, and was 5 stories 
 high. The grand alcazar, or palace of the kings of 
 Quiche, surpassed every other edifice, and in the opin- 
 ion of Torquemada, it could compete in opulence with 
 that of Montezuma in Mexico, or that of the incas in 
 Cuzco. The front of this building extended from east 
 to west 376 geometrical paces, and in depth 728 ; it 
 was constructed of hewn stone of different colors; its 
 form was elegant, and altogether most magnificent; 
 there were 6 principal divisions, the first contained 
 lodgings for a numerous troop of lancers, archers,- 
 and other well disciplined troops, constituting the royal 
 body guard; the second was destined to the accommo- 
 dation of the princes, and relations of the king, who 
 dwelt in it, and were served with regal splendour, as 
 long as they remained unmarried ; the third was appro- 
 priated to the use of the king, and contained distinct 
 suits of apartments, for the mornings, evenings, and 
 nights. In one of the saloons stood the throne, under 
 four canopies of plumage, the ascent to it was by sev- 
 eral steps; in this part of the palace were, the treas- 
 ury, the tribunals of the judges, the armory, the gar- 
 dens, aviaries, and menageries, with all the requisite 
 offices appending to each department. The 4 th and 
 5th divisions were occupied by the queens and royal 
 concubines ; they were necessarily of great extent, 
 from the immense number of apartments requisite 
 for the accommodation of so many females, who were all 
 maintained in a style of sumptuous magnificence, gar- 
 dens for their recreation, baths, and proper places for 
 breeding geese, that were kept for the sole purpose of 
 furnishing feathers, with which hangings, coverings, 
 and other similar ornamental articles, were made. 
 Contiguous to this division was the sixth and last ; this 
 was the residence of the king's daughters and other 
 females of the blood royal, where they were educated 
 and attended in a manner suitable to their rank."** 
 
 *< Juarroi, Hist. Ouat., pp. 87-8; Lom Caaai, Hist. Apologitiea, MS., 
 
790 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 Patinamit, the Cakchiquel capital, was nearly three 
 leagues in circumference. It was situated upon a 
 plateau surrounded by deep ravines which could be 
 crossed at only one point by a narrow causeway which 
 terminated in two gates of stone, one on the outside 
 and the other on the inside >f the thick wall of the 
 city. The streets were broad and straight, and crossed 
 each other at right angles. The town was divided 
 from north to south into two parts by a ditch nine 
 feet deep, with a wall of masonry about three feet 
 high on each side. This ditch served to divide the 
 'nobles from the commoners, the former class living in 
 the eastern section, and the latter in the western." 
 
 Peter Martyr says of the cities of Nicaragua: 
 "Large and great streetts guarde the frontes of the 
 Kinges courts, according to the disposition and great- 
 nes of their village or towne. If the town consist of 
 many houses, they haue also little ones, in which, the 
 trading neighbours distant from the Court may meete 
 together. The chiefe noble mens houses compasse and 
 inclose the kinges streete on euery side : in the middle 
 site whereof one is erected which the Goldesmithes 
 inhabite."*' 
 
 The Mayas constructed excellent and desirable roads 
 all over the face of the country. The most remarkable 
 of these were the great highways used by the pilgrims 
 visiting the sacred island of Cozumel; these roads, 
 four in number, traversed the peninsula in different 
 directions, and finally met at a point upon the coast 
 opposite the island."* Diego de Godoi, in a letter 
 to Cortds, states that he and his party came to a place 
 in the mountains of Chiapas, where the smooth and 
 slippery rock sloped down to the edge of a precipice, 
 
 cap. lii.; Braaaeurde Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn. iL, p. 49.3; Palacio, 
 Carta, yp. 123-4. 
 
 *' Juarros, Hist. Ouat, pp. 383-4; Braaseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. 
 Civ., torn, ii., p. 520. 
 
 « Dec. vi., lib. vi; Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 263; Herrera, Hist. Gen., 
 dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. 
 
 *^ Lizana, in Landn, Relacion, p. 358; Copolludo, Hist. Yuc, p. 193; 
 Brasaeur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., toiu. li., pp. 26, 46-7. 
 
MAYA TEMPLES. 
 
 791 
 
 and which would have been quite impassable had not 
 the Indians made a road with branches and trunks of 
 trees. On the side of the precipice they erected a 
 strong vfooden railing, and then made all level with 
 earth." 
 
 Of the Maya temples very little is said. There was 
 one at Chichen Itza which had four great staircases, 
 each being thirty-three feet wide and having ninety- 
 one steps, very difficult of ascent. The steps were of 
 the same height and width as oijrs. On both sides of 
 each stairway was a low balustrade, two feet wide, 
 made of good stone, like the rest of the building. The 
 edifice was not sharp-cornered, because from the ground 
 upward between the balustrades the cubic blocks were 
 rounded, ascending by degrees and elegantly narrow- 
 ing the building. There was at the foot of each bal- 
 ustiade a fierce serpent's head very strangely worked. 
 On the top of the edifice there was a platform, on 
 which stood a building forty-three feet by forty-nine 
 feet, and about twenty feet high, having only a single 
 doorway in the centre of each front. The doorways 
 on the east, west and south, opened into a corridor 
 six feet wide, which extended without partition walls 
 round the three corresponding sides of the edifice; the 
 northern doorway gave access to a corridor forty feet 
 long and six and a third feet wide. Through the cen- 
 tre of the rear wall of this corridor a doorway opened 
 into a room twelve feet nine inches by nineteen feet 
 eight inches, and seventeen feet high; its ceiling was 
 formed by two transverse arches supported by im- 
 mense carved beams of zapote-wood, stretcheH ^cross 
 
 * ** Godot, in Ternaux-Compans, Vou., sdrie i., torn, x., pp. \l\-2. At 
 the Lake of Masaya in Nicarn<;ua, Boyle noticed a 'cutting in the solid rock, 
 a mile long, and gradually descending to depth of at least three hundred 
 feet ! This is claimed as the work ot a peofile which was not acquainted 
 with blasting or with iron tools. Nature had evidently little hand in the 
 matter, though a cleft in the rock may perhaps have helped the excavators. 
 The mouth of this tunnel is about half a mile from the town.' Ride, vol. 
 ii., p. 11. Herrera, Hint. Gen., dec. iv., lib. viii. , cap. vii., mentions the 
 Bame thing in a very different manner: ' La subida y baxada, tan derecha 
 como vna pared, que como es de pefia viua, tiene en ella hechos agujcros, 
 adonde ponen los dedos de las manos, y de los pica.' 
 
708 
 
 JhE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 the room and resting, each at its centre, on two square 
 pillars. "" The island of Cozumel was especially 
 devoted to religious observances, and was annually 
 visited by great numbers of pilgrims; there were there- 
 fore more religious edifices here than elsewhere. 
 Among them is mentioned a square tower, with four 
 windows, and hollow at the top; at the back was a 
 room in which the sacred implements were kept; it 
 
 ** For description o^ ruins of this building as they now exist, and cuts 
 of staircase, erouiid pluii, and ornanientatiun, see vol. iv., pp. 22&-9. Bishop 
 Landu thus describes it: ' Este editicio tiene quatro escaleras que miran a 
 las quatro partes del inundo: tienen de ancho a xxxiii pies y a uoventa y 
 un escalones cada una que es muerte subirlas. Tienen en los escalones 
 la mesma altura y anchura que nosotros danios a los nuestros. Tiene cada 
 escalera dos passanianos baxos a ygual de los escalones, de dos piez de an- 
 cho de buena canteria conio lo es todo el etlificio. No es este cdificio esqui- 
 nado, porque desde la salida del suelo se coinien^an labrar desde los passe- 
 manos al contrario, conio estan pintado unos cubos redondos que van subi- 
 endo a trechos v estrechando el edificiopor inuy galana orden. Avia quaudo 
 yo lo vi al pie de cada passaniano una faera boca de sierpe de una pie^a bien 
 curiosamente labrada. Acabadas de esta manera las escaleras, queda en lo 
 alto una pla^eta llaua en la aual estaun editicio edificadode quatro quartos. 
 Los tres se andan a la redonaa sin inij>cdimento y tiene cada uno puerta en 
 medio y estan cerrados de boveda. LI <[uurto del norte se anda por si con 
 un corredor de pilares gruessos. Lo dc en medio que avia de ser como el 
 patinico que haze el orden de los pafios del ediiicio tiene una puerta que sale 
 al corredor del norte y esta por arriba cerrado de madera y servia de que- 
 mar los saunierios. Ay en la entrada desta puerta o del corredor un modo 
 de armoa esculpidas en una piedra que no pude bien entender. Tenia este 
 editicio otros muchos, y tiene oy en dia a la redonda de si bien hechos y 
 
 frandes, y todo en suelo del a ellos encalado que aun ay a partes nicnioria 
 e los encalados tan fuerte es el argamasa de que alia los hazen. Tenia de- 
 lante la escalera del norte algo aparte dos teatros de canteria pequeiios de a 
 quatro escaleras, y enlosados jwr arriba en que dizeu representavan las 
 nirsos y coniedias para solaz del pueblo. Va desde et patio en frente des- 
 tos t«atros una nermosa y ancna cal^ada hasta un pofo como dos ti- 
 ros de piedra. £n este po^o an tenido, y tenian entonces costumbre 
 de cchar hombres vivos en sacriticio a los dioses en tieni|K) de seca, 
 y tenian no morian aunque no los veyan mas. Hccliirnn tambien 
 otros muchas cosas, de piedras de valor y cosas que tciiiun deiKsiadas 
 
 Es P090 que tiene largos vii estados de hondo hasta el agua, 
 
 hancho nius de cien pies y redondo y de una pefia tajada hasta el agiu que 
 es maravilla. Parcce que tiene ai agua niuy verde, y creo lo causan las ar- 
 boledas de qiie esta cercmlo y es muy hondo. Tiene en cima del junto a la 
 boca un edihcio pequeno donde Imlle yo idolos hechos a honra de todos los 
 editicios principales de la tierra, casi como el Pantheon de Roma. No se 
 si era esta inveucion antigua o de los niodemos para toparse con sus idolos 
 quando fucssen con ofrenda«> a aquel pof o. Halle yo leones labrados de 
 bulto y jarros y otros cosas q iie no se como nadie dira no tuvieron herrami- 
 ento esta gente. Tambien huUe dos hombres de grondes estaturus labrados 
 de piedra, cado uno de una pie^a en cames cubierta su honestidod como se 
 cubrian los indios. Tenian las cabe^as por si, y con zarcillos en las orejas 
 como lo usavan los indios, y hecha una espiga par detras en el pcscuepo que 
 encaxava en an agujero hondo para ello hecno en el mesmo pe8Cue9o y en- 
 caxado queda va el bulto cumplido.' Relacion, pp. 342-6. 
 
MICARA6UAN TEMPLES. 
 
 7W 
 
 was surrounded by an enclosure, in the middle of 
 which stood a cross nine feet high, representing the 
 Grod of rain.** Other temples so closely resembled 
 those of Mexico as to need no further description 
 here." 
 
 The temples of Nicaragua were built of wood and 
 thatched; they contained many low, dark rooms, 
 where the idols were kept and the religious rites per- 
 
 •• ' Vieron algunos adoratorios, v templos, y vno en particular, cuya for- 
 ma era de vna torre quadrada, ancna del pie, y hueca en lo alto con uiiatro 
 grandea ventanas, on sua corredores, y en lo hueco, qne era la Capilla, es- 
 tauan Idolos, y a las espaldas estaua vna sacriatia, adonde ae guturdauan 
 las coaaa del seruicio del templo: y al pie deateeataua vn cercado de piedra, 
 y cal, alnienado y enluzido, y en medio vna Crnz de cal, de trea varaa en 
 alto, a la qual tenian por el Dioa de la lluuia.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. ii., 
 lib. iii., cap. i. 'Junto k vn templo, conio torre quadrada, donde tenian vn 
 Idolo muy celebrado, al pie de ella aula vn cercado de piedra, v cal muy 
 bien luzido, y alnienado, en medio del qual auia vna Cruz de cal tan alti^ 
 como diez palmoH,' to which they prayed for rain. Cogolludo, Hist. Yuc, 
 p. 200. It ia doubtleaa the aame structure of which Gomara writes: 'El 
 templo es como torre quadrada, ancha del pie, y con gradas al derredor, 
 derecha de medio arriba, y en lo alto hueca, y cubierta de paja, con quatro 
 puertas o ventanaa con aus antepechos, o corredorea. En aquello hueco, 
 que parece capilla, aaaientan o pmtau aus dioses.' Gomara, Conq. Mex., 
 tol. 23. 
 
 " The pyramids are of different aize: 'aunque todos de vna forma. Son 
 al mo4lo de los ^ue de la Nueua Espafia refiere el Padre Torquemada en su 
 Monarquia Indiana: leuantado del auelo vn terrapleno fundauiento del edi- 
 ficio, y aobre ^1 \hn ascendiendo ^das en figuraa piramidal, aunque no 
 remata en ella, porque en lo superior haze vna placeta, en cuyo auelo cstiin 
 separada (aunque diatantea poco) doa Capillaa pequefias en que eataban los 
 Idoloa (eato ea en lo de Vxumual) y alii se hazian loa sacnficioa, aasi de 
 hombres, mugerea, y niiioa, como de las demks coaas. Tienen algunos de 
 elloa altura de mas de cien gradas de poco mas de medio pie de ancho cada 
 vno.' Cogolltu/o, Hist. Yuc., p. 193. Landa describes a pyramidal structure 
 which differs from others: 'Ay aqui en Yzamal un editicio entre los otros 
 de tanta altura que eaimnta, el qual se vera en esta figura y en esta razon 
 della. Tiene XX gradas de a mas de dos bucnos pannos de alto y ancho 
 cada un y tema, mas de cien pica de largo. Son catas gradaa de muy gran- 
 des piedras labnidas aunque con el mucno tiempo, y estar ul ngua, cHtuii ya 
 feaa y maltratadaa. Tiene deapues labrado en tomo como aefiala esta ruya, 
 redonda labrado de canteria una muy f uerte pared a la qual como cstado y 
 medio en alto aale una ceja de hermosas piedraa todo a la redonda y dcsde 
 ellas se toma deapues a scguir la obru haata ygualar con el altura de la 
 pla9a que ae haze despuca de la primera escalera. Deapues de la qua! pla^a 
 ae haze otra buena placeta, y en ella a\^o pegado a la pared esta licclio un 
 cerro bien alto con au eacalera al medio dia, donde caen las cscaleras grandes 
 y encima esta una hermosa capilla de canteria bien labrada. Yo subi en 
 lo alto desta capilla y como Yucatan es tierra liana se vee desdc ella tierra 
 quanto puede fa vista alcancar a maravilla y ae vee la mar. Estos ediii- 
 cios de Yzamal eran por todoa XI o Xll, aunque cs eate el mayor y eatan 
 muy cerca unoa de otroa. No oy memoria de loa f uudadorea, y pareccn aver 
 aido los primeroa. Eatan viil leguas de la mar en muy hermoao aitio, y 
 buena tierra y comarcu de geute.' Belacion, pp. 328-30. 
 
794 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 formed. Before each temple was a pyramidal mound, 
 on the flat top of which the sacrifices were made in 
 the presence of the whole people."* 
 
 In Guatemala Cortes saw temples like those of 
 Mexico." The temple of Tohil, at Utatlan, was, 
 according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, a conical edifice, 
 having in front a very steep stairway ; at the summit 
 was a platform of considerable size upon which stood 
 a very high chapel, built of hewn stone, and roofed 
 with precious wood. The walls were covered within 
 and without with a very fine and durable stucco. 
 Upon a throne of gold, enriched with precious stones, 
 was seated the image of the god.** 
 
 The particular diseases to which the Mayas were 
 most subject are not enumerated, but there is no rea- 
 son to doubt that they suffered from the same mala- 
 dies as their neighbors the Nahuas. They seem to 
 have been greatly afflicted with various forms of svph- 
 ilis,'* and in winter, with catarrh and fever.*" 'fhey 
 were much troubled, also, with epidemics, which not 
 unfrequently swept the country with great destruc- 
 tion.* 
 
 Medicinal practitioners were numerous. Their med- 
 icines, which were mostly furnished by the vegetable 
 kingdom, were administered in the usual forms,** and 
 
 «* Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 37; Peter Martyr, dec. vi., lib. v. 
 
 » Cortis, Cartas, p. 448. 
 
 '0 Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 552. See also Villagutierre, Hist. Conq. 
 Itza, p. 402. 
 
 3^ ' Y en estas partes 6 Indias pocos chripstianos, i miiy pocos digo, son 
 los ([ne ban escaiuido deste trabajoHo inal (buboes) que hayan tcnido partifi- 
 
 rkfion carnal con las mugeres naturales desta gencra9ion de indias; porque 
 la verdad es propria plaga desta tierra, i tan usada & los indios v indias 
 conio en otras partes otras comunes enfermedades.' Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, 
 i., p. 365. 
 
 3* 'Comienfa el inuiemo de aquella tierra desde san Francisco, quando 
 entran los Nortes, ayre frio, y que destiempla mucho a los naturales: y por 
 estar hechos al calor, y traer pocaropa, les dan rezioscatarros, ycalenturas.' 
 Hcrrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv.. lib. iii., cap. iv. 
 33 Landa, Relaeion, pp. 60-2. 
 
 ^ 'Ay infinitos generos de cortezas, rayzes, y hojas de arboles, y gomas, 
 para muchas enfermedades, con que los Indios curauan en su gentilidad, con 
 Boplos, y otras inuenciones del denionio.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. 
 X., cap. xiv. ; Las Casus, Hist. Apologitica, in KingshorougKs Mex. Antiq., 
 vol. viii., p. 234. 
 
TKEATMENT OF THE SICK. 
 
 795 
 
 their treatment of patients involved the customary 
 mummeries. Clysters were much used." For syph- 
 ilis they used a decoction of a wood called guayacan, 
 which grew most plentifully in the province of Na- 
 grando in Nicaragua.* For rheumatism, coughs, 
 colds, and other complaints of a kindred nature, 
 they used various herbs, among them tobacco," 
 and a kind of dough made of 'stinking poisonous 
 worms.''* Sores arising from natural causes they 
 washed in a decoction of an herb called coygaraca, or 
 poulticed it with the mashed leaves of another named 
 mozot.^ Wounds taken in battle they always treated 
 with external applications.*" Cacao, after the oil had 
 been extracted was considered to be a sure preventive 
 against poison." 
 
 When a rich man or a noble fell sick a messenger 
 was dispatched with gifts to the doctor, who came at 
 once and staid by his patient until he either got well 
 or died. If the sickness was not serious the physician 
 merely applied the usual remedies, but it was thought 
 that a severe illness could only be brought on by some 
 crime committed and unconfessed. In such cases, 
 therefore, the doctor insisted upon the sick man mak- 
 ing a clean breast of it, and confessing such sin even 
 though it had been committed twenty years before. 
 This done, the physician cast lots to see what 
 
 '3 'Curat! viejas los enfermos y echan melezinas con vn cafiuto, to- 
 
 mando la decojcion en la boca, y soplando. Los niiestros lc8 liazian mil 
 burln>^, uesuenteando al tieinpo, que guerian ellas sonlar, o riendo del arti- 
 ficio.' Gomara, Hist. Ind., fol. 2G4; Lerrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iil., lib. iv., 
 cap. vii. 
 
 M Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn. i. , p. 365. 
 
 ^ 'Ay en esta terra mucha diuersidad de yeruas niedicinales, con que se 
 curan los naturales: y matan los ^^usanos, y con que restrifien la san^e, 
 conio es el Piciete, por otro nonibrc Tabaco, que quita dolores causados de 
 frio, y tornado en humo cs prouechoso para Ins reunias, asnia, y tos; y lo 
 traen en |m>1uo en la boca los Indios, y los negros, para adormecer, y no sen- 
 tir el trabajo.' Herrera, Hist. Oen., dec. iii.. lib. vii., cap. iii. 
 
 ^ ' Hazen en el ( Atiquizaya) vna massa de gusanos hediondosy pon^ofio- 
 808, que es niarauillosa medicina para todo genero de frialdades, y otras in- 
 disposiciones.' Id., dec. iv., lib. viii., cap. x. 
 
 » Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, i., pp. 383-^. 
 
 <> ' Curauan los heridos con polnos de yemas, o carbon que lleuauan 
 paraesto.' Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii. 
 
 " Oviedo, Hist. Gen., Um. l, p. 3'21. 
 
796 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONa 
 
 sacrifices ought to be made, and whatever he deter- 
 mined upon was always given even though it amounted 
 to the whole of the patient's fortune.*' In Yucatan 
 the practitioner sometimes drew blood from those parts 
 of the patient's body in which the malady lay.** Li- 
 zana n^entions a temple at Izamal to which the sick 
 were carried that they might be healed miraculously.** 
 In Guatemala, as elsewhere, propitiatory offerings of 
 birds and animals were made in ordinary cases of sick- 
 ness, but if the patient was wealthy and dangerously 
 ill he would sometmies strive to appease the anger of the 
 gods and atone for tlie sins which he was supposed to 
 have committed by sacrificing male or female slaves, 
 or, in extraordinary cases, when the sick man was a 
 prince or a great noble, he would even vow to sacrifice 
 a son or a daughter in the event of his recovery; and 
 although the scapegoat was generally chosen from 
 among his children by female slaves, yet so fearful of 
 death, so fond of life were they, that there were 
 not wanting instances when legitimate children, and 
 even only sons were sacrificed. A; d it id said, more- 
 over, that they were inexorable as Jephthah in the per- 
 formance of such vows, for it was held to be a great 
 sin to be false to a bargain made with the gods.*" 
 
 The Mayas, like the Nahuas, were grossly su- 
 perstitious. They believed implicitly ir the fulfill- 
 ment of dreams, the influence of omens, and the 
 power of witches and wizards. No important mat- 
 ter was undertaken until its success had been fore- 
 told end a lucky day determined by the flight of 
 
 bird or some similar omen. Whether the 
 
 a 
 
 non- 
 
 *' Las Casfu, in KingaborougKi Mex. Antio., torn, viii., p. 234; Xi- 
 inenez, Hist. Ind. Quat., pp. 191-2; CogoUudo, Hist, Yue., }t. 184. 
 
 *> Landa, Relacion, p. 160i 
 
 ** 'Otro altar y teiiiplo sobre otro cuyo levantaron estos ' ' mi 
 centilidad & aquel su rey 6 f^lso Diua Ytzuuit-ul, doiide pu8i> .\nm\ 
 
 de la mano, que lea servia de ineinnria, y dizeii que alU le > au lott 
 
 niuertos y enfermos, y que alii reoucituvan y Hnimvaii, tocando > iiiuiio: 
 y cBte era el que esta en la jiarte del puniente; y iwsi se llama \ oinlx 
 Kab-ul que quiere dezir mano ubradora.' Lizana, in Landa, Beluvion, 
 
 35S. 
 
 « Ximenez, Hist. hid. Onat., pp. 181-2, 209-10. 
 
PKACTICE OF BORCEKY. 
 
 797 
 
 ful^lment of the prediction was provided against by 
 a double entendre, after the manner of the sibyls, 
 we are not told. The cries or appearance of certain 
 birds and animals were thou^'ht to presage harm to 
 those who heard or saw them.** They as firmly be- 
 lieved and were as well versed in the black art as thoir 
 European brethren of a hundred years later, and they 
 appear to have had the same enlightened horror 
 of the arts of gramarye, for in Guatemala, at least, 
 they burned witches and wizards without mercy. 
 They had among them, they said, sorcerers who could 
 metamorphose themselves into dogs, pigs, and other 
 animals, and whose glance was death to their victims. 
 Others there w ore who could by magic cause a rose to 
 bloom at will, and could bring whomsoever they wished 
 under their control by simply giving him the flower to 
 smell. Unfaithful wives, too, would often bewitch 
 their husbands that their acts of infidelity might not be 
 discovered.*'' All these things are gravely recount- 
 ed by the old chroniclers, not as matters unworthy 
 of credence, but as deeds done at the instigation 
 of the devil to the utter damnation of the benighted 
 heathen. Cogolludo, for instance, speaking of the 
 performances of a snake-charmer, says that the ma- 
 gician took up the reptile in his bare hands, as he did 
 so using certain mystic words, which he, Cogolludo, 
 wrote down at the time, but finding afterwards that 
 they invoked the devil, he did not see fit to reproduce 
 them in his work. The same writer further relates 
 that upon another occasion a diviner cast lots, accord- 
 ing to custom, with a number of grains of corn, to 
 find out which direction a strayed 'ihild had taken. 
 The child was eventually found upon the road indi- 
 cated, and the narrator subsequently endeavored to 
 discover whether the devil ha/i been invoked or not, 
 but the magician was a poor simple fool, and could 
 
 <• Coyolludo, Hist. Yuc., pp. 183-4. 
 
 *'' Las Caaas, in Kingshorough's Mc:j. Antia., torn, viii., p. 144; Oviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 65; Goma-.a, Hist. Ind., fol. 264; Cogolludo, Hist. 
 MC, p. 181. 
 
THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 not tell him.*" Nor does there seem to have been any 
 great difference between the credulity and superstition 
 of conquerors and conquered in other respects. The 
 Spanish F.ithers, if we may judge from their writings, 
 believed in the Aztec deities as firmly as the natives ; 
 the only difference seems to have been that the former 
 looked upon them as devils and the latter as gods. 
 When the Spaniards took notes in writing of what they 
 saw, the Costa Ricans thought they were working out 
 some magic spell ; when the Costa Ricans cast incense 
 towards the invaders telling them to leave the coun- 
 try or die,** the Spaniards swore that the devil was 
 in it, and crossed themselves as a counter-spell. 
 
 The Yucatecs observed a curious custom during an 
 eclipse of the moon. At such times they imagined 
 that the moon was asleep, or that she was stung and 
 wounded by ants. They therefore beat their dogs to 
 make them howl, and made a great racket by striking 
 with sticks upon doors and benches ; what they hoped 
 to accomplish by this, we are not told.* 
 
 The Mayas disposed of the bodies of their dead by 
 both burial and cremation. The former, however, 
 appears to have been the most usual way. In Vera 
 Paz, and probably in the whole of Guatemala, the 
 body was placed in the grave in a sitting posture, 
 with the knees drawn up to the face. The greater 
 part of the dead man's property was buried with him, 
 and various kinds of food and drink were placed in 
 the grave that the spirit might want for nothing on 
 its way to shadow-land." Just before death took 
 
 M/6. 
 
 ** III Campeche the priests 'illeuauan braserillos de barroen queer!iauan 
 aninie, que entre nlloa aizcn Copal, y Bahiiniaiiaii a los CastellaDoa, dizieii- 
 dolesque se fiiesscii de su tiernt, porque iob inatariau.' Herrerc, Hist. Geii., 
 dec. ii., lib. ii., cup. xvii. 
 
 M Cogolhtdo, Hist. Yuc, p. 183. 
 
 ^> Cki^olludo says that a calalmsh filled witli atole, so'.ne large cakes, and 
 some maize bran, were deposited in th? ^<ive. The tirxt, fur the son! to 
 drink on its journey; the second, for the dogs which tlie deceased had eaten 
 during his life, that they might not bite him in th>; other world; and the 
 last to conciliate the other animals that he had eaten. Hist. Ytic, p. 700. 
 
FUNERAL RITES. 
 
 799 
 
 place, the nearest relation, or the most intimate friend 
 of the dying man, placed between his lips a valuable 
 stone, which was supposed to receive the soul as soon 
 as it passed from the body. As soon as he was dead, 
 the same person removed the stone and gently rubbed 
 the face of the deceased with it. This office was 
 held to be a very important one, and the person who 
 performed it preserved the stone with great rever- 
 ence. When the lord of a province died, messengers 
 were sent to the neighboring provinces to invite the 
 other princes to be present at the funeral. While 
 awaiting their arrival the body was placed in a sitting 
 posture, in the manner in which it was afterwards to 
 be interred,** and clothed in a great quantity of rich 
 clothing.'' On the day of the ftineral the great lords 
 who had come to attend the ceremony, brought pre- 
 cious gifts and ornaments, and placed them by the 
 side of or on the person of the corpse. Each pro- 
 vided also a male or female slave, or both, to be 
 sacrificed over the grave of the deceased. The body 
 was then placed in a large stone chest," and lx)rne 
 with great solemnity to its last resting-place, which 
 was generally situated on the top of a hill. The 
 coffin having been lowered into the grave with its 
 ornaments, the doomed slaves were immolated, and 
 also east in along with the implements which they 
 had used in life, that they might follow their accus- 
 tomed pursuits in the service of their new master in 
 the other world. Finally, the grave was filled up, a 
 mound raised over it, and a stone altar erected above 
 all, upon which incense was burned and sacrifices 
 were made in memory of tl>e deceased. The conmion 
 people did not use coffins, but placed tiie body in a 
 
 *» BrnsHciir dc Bo;ir1»onrff, Hist. Naf. Civ., torn, ii., p. .'>74, wiys tlint tlie 
 liixly wiM eiiiltalnied; hut Xinienez, from whom his account m eviilciitly 
 tuken, is silent on thJH )H>int. 
 
 M Ximencz, Hint. Intl. Gunt., p. 210, ct acq., affirms thut wealthy (lennle, 
 when they began growing; oUI, sci aliout collecting a vast number of clotlies 
 and ontaincnts in which to be buried. 
 
 4* Hni8Hcur de BourlMnirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., torn, ii., p. 575, soys thav the 
 body was dcjtuBitcd in the grave seated u]M>n i> throne. 
 
800 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 sitting posture and wrapped up in many cloths, in an 
 excavation made in the side of the grave, burying 
 with it many jars, pans, and implements. They 
 raised a mound over the grave of a height in propor- 
 tion to the rank of the defunct." 
 
 Only the poorer classes of the Yucatecs buried their 
 dead. These placed corn in the mouth of the corpse, 
 together with some money as ferriage for the Maya 
 Charon. The body was interred either in the house 
 or close to it. Some idols were thrown into the grave 
 before it was filled up. The house was then forsaken 
 by its inmates, for they greatly feared the dead." The 
 books of a priest were buried with him, as were like- 
 wise the charms of "a sorcerer.'" The Itzas buried 
 their dead in the fields, in their every-day clothes. 
 On the graves of the males they left such implements 
 as men used, on those of the females they placed 
 grinding-stones, pans, and other utensils used by the 
 women." In Nicaragua, property was buried with 
 the possessor if he or she had no children; if the 
 contrary was the case, it was divided among the heirs. 
 Nicaraguan parents shrouded their children in cloths, 
 and buried them before the doors of their dwellings." 
 Among the Pipiles the dead were interred in the house 
 they had lived in, along with all their property. A 
 deceased high-priest was buried, clad in the robes and 
 ornaments appertaining to his office, in a sepulchre or 
 vault in his own palace, and the people mourned and 
 lusted fifteen days." 
 
 Cremation or partial cremation seems to have been 
 reserved for the higher classes. In Yucatan, an image 
 of the dead person was made, of wood for a king, of clay 
 
 ^ Ximenez, Hist. Ind. Guat., pp. 210-14; Palacio, Carta, p. 119; Co- 
 golhuio. Hist. Yuc, pp. 699-700. 
 
 M Unless a great nunil>er of people were living in it, when they seem to 
 have gathered courage from each otner's company, and to have remained. 
 
 w Lattda, Relacion, p. 196; Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. 
 
 4* Villaffutirrre, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 313. 
 
 * Palncio, Carta, p. 119; Oi'iedo, Hist. Oen., tom. iv., p. 48. 
 
 • Palacio, Carta, p. 78; Brasseur de Bourbmirg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. 
 ii., p. 556. 
 
MOURNING FOB THE DEAD. 
 
 801 
 
 for a noble. The back part of the head of this image 
 was hollowed out, and a portion of the body having 
 been burned, the ashes were placed in this hollow, which 
 was covered with the skin of the occiput of the corpse. 
 The image was then placed in the temple, among the 
 idols, and was much reverenced, incense being burned 
 before it, almost Jis though it had been a god. The 
 .'emainder of the body was buried with great solem- 
 nity. When an ancient Cocome king died, his head 
 was cut off and boiled. The flesh was then stripped 
 off, and the skull cut in two crosswise. On the front 
 part of the skull, which included the lower jaw and 
 teeth, an exact likeness of the dead man was molded 
 in some plastic substance. This was placed among the 
 statues of the gods, and each day edibles of various 
 kinds were placed before it, that the spirit might want 
 for nothing in the other life, ivhich, by the way, must 
 have been a poor one to need such terrestrial aliment."' 
 When a great lord died in Nicaragua, the liody was 
 burned along with a great number of feathers and or- 
 naments of difterent kinds, and the ashes were placed 
 in an urn, which was buried in front of the palace of 
 the deceased. As usual, the spirit must be supplied 
 with food, which was tied to the body before crema- 
 tion.«» 
 
 According to the information we have on the sub- 
 ject, the mourning customs of the Mayas appear to 
 have been pretty much the same everywhere. For the 
 death of a chief or any of his family the Pipiles la- 
 mented for four days, silently by day, and with loud 
 cries by night. At dawn on the fifth day the high- 
 priest })ul)litly forbade the people to make any further 
 demonstration of sorrow, saying that the soul of the 
 
 *• Lnndn, Rclnrion, pp. 196-8; Herrcra, Hist. Orn., doc iv., lih. x., 
 cap. iv. 
 
 *' Ociolo, Hist. Gen., tom. iv., pp. 48-9. In the islnnd of Oiiietci>cc 
 the ancient graven arc not Hiirronndcd by isolated stones like the ralinitti of 
 the nKxlerii Indians, but are found siatt«red irregularly over tho plain at a 
 depth of three feet. Urns of in rut clay are found iu thuHC ({raves, filloil 
 with earth and displaced iMUieH; and viutes of the Name material, covered 
 with red paintings and hicroulyphicH, stone |H)ints of arrows, small idoJH, 
 and trold ornaments. Sircrs, Stitttlnimriku, pp. l'J8-9. 
 Vol. H. M 
 
802 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 departed was now with the gods. The Guatemalan 
 widower dyed his body yellow, for which reason he 
 was called malcam. Mothers who lost a sucking child, 
 withheld their milk from all other infants for four 
 days, lest the spirit of the dead babe should be of- 
 fended.** 
 
 The Mayas, like the Nahuas, were mostly well- 
 made, tall, strong, and hardy. Their complexion was 
 tawny. The women were passably good-looking, 
 some of tliem, it is said, quite pretty, and seem to 
 have been somewhat fairer-skinned than the men. 
 What the features of the Mayas were like, can only 
 be conjectured. Their sculpture would indicate that 
 a large hooked nose and a retreating forehead, if 
 hot usual, were at least regarded with favor, and 
 we know that head-flattening was almost universal 
 among them. Beards were not worn, and the Yuca- 
 tec mothers bui aed the faces of their cliildren with 
 hot cloths to prevent the growth of linir. In Landa's 
 time some of the nutives allowed their beard to grow, 
 but, says the worthy bi«hop, it came out as rough as 
 hog's bristles. In Nicaragua it would seem that 
 they did not even understand what a beard was; 
 witness the following 'pretio policy' of ^jgidius Gon- 
 salus: "All the Barbarians of those Nations are 
 beardlesse, and are terribly afraide, and fearefull of 
 bearded men: and tlierefore of 25. beardlesse youthes 
 by reason of their tender yeres, -^gidius made beard- 
 ed men with the powlinges of their heades, the haire 
 being orderly composed, to the end, tliat the number 
 of bearded men might appeare the more, to terrifie 
 the if they should be assailed by warre, as afterwarde 
 it fell out.""* Squinting eyes were, as 1 have said 
 l)efore, thought beautiful in Yucatan."* 
 
 « Landa, Relacion, p. 196; Jlerrera, Hist. Gen., dec. iv., lib. x., cnp. 
 iv. ; /(I. ,Iib. viii., cap. x. ; Ximetiez, Hist. Ind. Gunt., p. 214; Villiiiin- 
 tienr, Hist. Conq. Itza, p. 31.3; I'alacio, Carta, pp. 76-8. 
 
 •* t'eler Martyr, dec. vi., lili. v. 
 
 ^ Ainlagoya, in Navarrrtc, Col. de Viages, toiii. iii., p. 414; Herrera, 
 
CHARACTER OF THE MAYAS. 
 
 SOB 
 
 Of all the Maya nations, the Yucatecs bear the 
 best character. The men were t^enerous, poHte, hon- 
 est, truthful, peaceable, brave, in<»'enious, and partic- 
 ularly hospitable, though, on the other hand, they 
 were great drunkards, and very loose in their morals. 
 The women were UKxlest, very industrious, excellent 
 housewives, and careful mothers, but, tliough gener- 
 ally of a gentle disposition, they were excessively 
 jealous of their marital rights; indeed. Bishop Landa 
 tells us that upon the barest suspicion of infidelity on 
 the part of their husbands they became perfect furies, 
 and would even beat their unfaithful one."* The Gua- 
 temalans are sjioken of as having been exceedingly 
 warlike and valorous, but withal very simple in their 
 tastes and manner of life."^ Arricivita calls the La- 
 candones thieves, assassins, cannibals, bloody-minded 
 men, who received the missionaries with great vio- 
 lence.^ The fact that the Lacandones strove to re[>ol 
 invasion, without intuitively knowing that the invad- 
 ers were missionaries, may huxe helped the worthy 
 padre to come to this decision, however. The Nica- 
 raguans were warlike and brave, but at the same time 
 false, cunning, and deceitful. Their resolute hatred 
 of the whites was so great that it is said that for two 
 years they abstained from their wives rather than be- 
 get slaves for their conquerors. 
 
 m 
 
 Next after the collecting of facts in any one direc- 
 
 Hist. Gen., dec. iii. , lil). iv., cap. vii., dec. iv., lil). x., cui). iii.; Oviedo, 
 Hist. Gen., inn\. iv., p. Ill; Gi>mnrtt, (^tHq. Mi:x.,M. 'i.'J; iMriln, Tcntro 
 £clcs.,Unn. i., p. 170; ('iiijiiHiihi, Hist. Yiir., p. 70<l; Litmlu, Itiliirinii, j)p. 
 112-14; Vill'Kjiitivnr, Hist. Vo.k/. Jtzii, p. 402; J)f J.aet, Xonii Orhin, \). 
 329. 
 
 lie Landti, liclncioii, pp. 1(H), 122, 188-90; I'illmiiifiern; Hi.if. Conq. 
 Itzu, i»p. .S12, 516; iMrilii, Teutro Kclcs., toin. i., p. 20;i; Hn-nrn, Hint. 
 Gen., tlf'c. iv., lib. x., cap. iv. ; Coijollwlo, llist. Yii<\, pp. ISO, IS7 S; Go- 
 mara, Hist. Ytul., fol. 02; Las Casus, in KiinjshorotKjh's Mtj\ Aiitiq., 
 vol. viii., pp. 147-8. 
 
 « Oomara, Hist. Ynd., fol. 268; Durila, Tmtro Eelcs., toiu. i., p. 148; 
 Ovicdo, Hist. Ocn., toiii. iv., p. 33; Las Casas, Hist. Apologttira, MS., 
 cap. xlvi. 
 
 68 Crdniea Smifirii, pp. 25-6. 
 
 69 Hcrrera. Hist. Gen., dec. iii., lib. iv., cap. vii., dec. iv., lib, iii., cap. 
 ii. ; Oviedo, Hist. Gen., torn, iv., p. 39. 
 
804 
 
 THE MAYA NATIONS. 
 
 tion comes their comparison with other ascertained 
 facts of the same category, by which means fragments 
 of knowledge coalesce and unfold into science. This 
 fascinating study, however, is no part of my plan. If 
 in the foregoing pages I have succeeded in collecting 
 and clas^fying materials in such a manner that others 
 may, with comparative ease and certainty, place the 
 multitudinous nations of these Pacific States in all 
 their shades of savagery and progress side by side with 
 the savagisms and civilizations of other ages and na- 
 tions, my work thus far is accomplished. But what 
 a flood of thouglit, of speculation and imagery rushes 
 in upon the mind at the bare mention of such a study ! 
 Isolated, without the stimulus of a Mediterranean 
 commerce, hidden in umbrageous darkness, walled in 
 by malarious borders, and surrounded by wild barbaric 
 hordes, whatever its origin, indigenous or foreign, there 
 was found on Mexican and Central American table- 
 lands an unfolding humanity, unique and individual, 
 yet strikingly similar to human unfoldings under like 
 conditions elsewhere. Europeans, regarding the cul- 
 ture of the conquered race first as diabolical and then 
 contemptible, have not to this day derived that benefit 
 from it that they might have done. It is not neces- 
 sary that American civilization should be as far ad- 
 vanced as European, to make a perfect knowledge 
 of the former as essential in the study of mankind as 
 a knowledge of the latter; nor have I any disposi- 
 tion to advance a claim for tfee equality of American 
 aboriginal culture with European, or to make of it 
 other than what it is. As in a work of art, it is not 
 a succession of sharply defined and decided colors, but 
 a happy blending of light and shade, that makes the 
 picture pleasing, so in the grand and gorgeous per- 
 spective of human progress the intermediate stages 
 are as necessary to completeness as the dark spectrum 
 of savagism or the brilliant glow of the most ad- 
 vanced culture. 
 
 This, however, I may safely claim ; if the preceding 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 806 
 
 as 
 
 jsi- 
 
 ?an 
 
 it 
 
 pages inform ua aright, then were the Nahuas, the 
 Mayas, and the suhordinate and lesser civilizatl(»nH 
 surrounding these, but little lower than the eonteni- 
 poraueouH civilizations of Europe and Asia, and not 
 nearly so low as we have hitherto been led to supjuKse. 
 Whatever their exact status in the world of nations — 
 and that this volume gives in esse and not in jmsse — 
 they are surely entitled to their place, and a clear and 
 comprehensive delineation of their character and condi- 
 tion tills a gap in the history of humanity. As in every 
 individual, so in every people, there is something dif- 
 ferent from what may be found in any other people; 
 something better and something worse. (Jne civiliza- 
 tion teaches another; if the superior teaches most, the 
 inferior nevertheless teaches. It is by the mutual ac- 
 tion and reaction of mind upon mind and nation uj)on 
 nation that the world of intellect is forced to develop. 
 Taking in at one view the vast range of humanity 
 portrayed in this volume and the preceding, with all 
 its infinite variety traced on a background of infinite 
 unity, individu.ality not more clearly evidenced than 
 a heart and mind and soul relationship to humanity 
 everywhere, the wide differences in intelligence and 
 culture shaded and toned down into a homogeneous 
 whole, we can but arrive at our former conclusion, 
 that civilization is an unexplained j)henomenon whose 
 study allures the thoughtful and yields results preg- 
 nant with the welfare of mankind. 
 
 )Ut 
 
 bhe 
 
 |)er- 
 
 res 
 
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 lad- 
 
 END OF THK SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 Inu