THE GIFT OF FLORENCE V. V. DICKEY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE DONALD-R. DICKEY LIBRARY OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO VOL. 1. e„(jr..v„ I ,,, ,-, t !K.IimMA]£^B® (D©IIiS^Ii'^p bmjPimjfMjf iixrm. KMiflriPniiM- HISTORY OF THE OONaUEST OF MEXICO, WITH A PREIJMINARY VIEW ANCIENT MEXICAN CIVILIZATION, AND THE LIFE OF THE CONQUEROR, HERNANDO CORTES. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.' "Victrices aquilaa alium laturua in orbem." Ldcan, Pharsalia, lib. r., v. 238 IN THREE VOLUMES. VOLUME I. EIGHTH EDITION. NEW YORK: IIAKPER AND BROTHERS, 82, CLIFF STREET M DCX'C XLVIII. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by William H. Prescott, n tlie Clerk's ofiice of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts PREFACE. As the Conquest of Mexico has occupied the pens of Solis and of Robertson, two of the ablest historians of their respective nations, it might seem that little could remain at the present day to be gleaned by the historical inquirer. But Robertson's narrative is necessarily brief, forming only part of a more extended work ; and neither the British, nor the Castilian author, was provided with the important materials for relating this event, which have been since assembled by the industry of Spanish scholars. The scholar who led the way in these researches was Don Juan Baptista Munoz, the celebrated historiographer of the In- dies, who, by a royal edict, was allowed free access to the national archives, and to all libraries, public, private, and monastic, in the kingdom and its col- onies. The result of his long labors was a vast body of materials, of which unhappily he did not VI PREFACE. live 10 reap the benefit himself. His manuscripts were deposited, after his death, in the archives of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid ; and that collection was subsequently augmented by the manuscripts of Don Vargas Pon9e, President of the Academy, obtained, like those of Munoz, from different quarters, but especially from the archives of the Indies at Seville. On my application to the Academy, in 1838, for permission to copy that part of this inestima- ble collection relating to Mexico and Peru, it was freely acceded to, and an eminent German schol- ar, one of their own number, was appointed to superintend the collation and transcription of the manuscripts ; and this, it may be added, before I had any claim on the courtesy of that respecta- ble body, as one of its associates. This conduct shows the advance of a liberal spirit in the Pen- insula since the time of Dr. Robertson, who com- plains that he was denied admission to the most important public repositories. The favor with which my own application was regarded, however, must chiefly be attributed to the kind offices of the ven- erable President of the Academy, Don Martin Fer- nandez de Navarrete ; a scholar whose personal character has secured to him the same hiuh con- PREFACE. VU sideration at home, which his hterary labors have obtained abroad. To this eminent person 1 am under still further obligations, for the free use which he has allowed me to make of his own manuscripts, — the fruits of a life of accumulation, and the basis of those valuable publications, with which he has at different times illustrated the Spanish colo- nial history. From these three magnificent collections, the re- sult of half a century's careful researches, I have obtained a mass of unpublished documents, relat- ing to the Conquest and Settlement of Mexico and of Peru, comprising altogether about eight thou- sand folio pages. They consist of instructions of the Court, military and private journals, corres- pondence of the great actors in the scenes, legal instruments, contemporary chronicles, and the like, drawn from all the principal places in the exten- sive colonial empire of Spain, as well as from the public archives in the Peninsula. I have still further fortified the collection, by gleaning such materials from Mexico itself as had been overlooked by my illustrious predecessors in these researches. For these I am indebted to the courtesy of Count Cortina, and, yet more, to that of Don Lucas Alaman, Minister of Foreign Aflairs ▼IM PREFACE. in Mexico ; but, above all, to my excellent friend, Don Angel Calderon de hi Barca, late Minister Plenipotentiary to that country from the Court of Madrid, — a gentleman whose high and estima- ble qualities, even more than his station, secured him the public confidence, and gained him free access to every place of interest and importance in Mexico. 1 have also to acknowledge the very kind offices rendered to me by the Count CamaldoH at Naples ; by the Duke of Serradifalco in Sicily, a nobleman, whose science gives additional lustre to his rank; and by the Duke of Monteleone, the present rep- resentative of Cortes, who has courteously opened the archives of his family to my inspection. To these names must also be added that of Sir Thom- as Phillips, Bart., whose precious collection of man- uscripts probably surpasses in extent that of any private gentleman in Great Britain, if not in Eu- rope ; that of Mons. Ternaux-Compans, the pro- prietor of the valuable literary collection of Don Antonio Uguina, including the papers of Muiloz, the fruits of which he is giving to the world in his excellent translations ; and, lastly, that of my friend and countryman, Arthur Middleton, Esq., late Charge d'Affaires from the United States at PREFACE. IX the Couri of Madrid, for the efficient aid he has afforded me in prosecuting my inquiries in that capital. In addition to this stock of original documents obtained through these various sources, 1 have dili- gently provided myself with such printed works as have reference to the subject, including the mag- nificent publications, which have appeared both in France and England, on the Antiquities of Mexi- co, which, from their cost and colossal dimensions, would seem better suited to a public than to a private library. Having thus stated the nature of my materials, and the sources whence they are derived, it remains for me to add a few observations on the general plan and composition of the work. — Among the remarkable achievements of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, there is no one more striking to the imagination than the conquest of Mexico. The subversion of a great empire by a handful of ad- venturers, taken with all its strange and pictur- esque accompaniments, has the air of romance rather than of sober history ; and it is not easy to treat such a theme according to the severe rules prescribed by historical criticism. But, notwith- standing the seductions of the subject, I have con- X PREFACE. scientiously endeavoured to distinguish fact from fiction, and to establish the narrative on as broad a basis as possible of contemporary evidence ; and I have taken occasion to corroborate the text b\ ample citations from authorities, usually in the orig- mal, since few of them can be very accessible to the reader. In these extracts I have scrupulously conformed to the ancient orthography, however ob- solete and even barbarous, rather than impair in any degree the integrity of the original document. Although the subject of the work is, properly, only the Conquest of Mexico, I have prepared the way for it by such a view of the Civilization of the ancient Mexicans, as might acquaint the reader with the character of this extraordinary race, and enable him to understand the difficulties which the Spaniards had to encounter in their subjugation. This Introductory pai't of the work, with the essay in the Appendix which properly belongs to the Introduction, although both together making only half a volume, has cost me as much labor, and nearly as much time, as the remainder of the his- tory. If I shall have succeeded in giving the read- er a just idea of the true nature and extent of the civilization to which the Mexicans had attained, it will not be labor lost. PREFACE. Xi The story of the Conquest terminates with the fall of the capital. Yet I have preferred to con- tinue the narrative to the death of Cortes, relying on the interest which the development of his char- acter in his military career may have excited in the reader. I am not insensible to the hazard I incur by such a course. The mind, previously occupied with one great idea, that of the subversion of the capital, may feel the prolongation of the story be- yond that point superfluous, if not tedious ; and may find it difficult, after the excitement caused by wit- nessing a great national catastrophe, to take an interest in the adventures of a private individual. Soils took the more politic course of concluding his narrative with the fall of Mexico, and thus leaves his readers with the full impression of that memo- rable event, undisturbed, on their minds. To pro- long the narrative is to expose the historian to the error so much censured by the French critics in some of their most celebrated dramas, where the author by a premature denouement has impaired the interest of his piece. It is the defect that neces- sarily attaches, though in a greater degree, to the history of Columbus, in which p^tty adventures anjong a group of islands make up the sequel of a life that opened with the magnificent discovery VOL. I. B XW PREFACE. of a World ; a defect, in short, which has required all the genius of Irving and the magical charm of his style perfectly to overcome. Notwithstanding these objections, I have been induced to continue the narrative, partly from defe- rence to the opinion of several Spanish scholars, who considered that the biography of Cortes had not been fully exhibited, and partly from the cir- cumstance of my having such a body of original materials for this biography at my command. And I cannot regret that I have adopted this course ; since, whatever lustre the Conquest may reflect on Cortes as a military achievement, it gives but an imperfect idea of his enlightened spirit, and of his comprehensive and versatile genius. To the eye of the critic there may seem some incongruity in a plan which combines objects so dissimilar as those embraced by the present history ; where the Introduction, occupied with the antiqui- ties and origin of a nation, has somewhat the char- acter of a philosophic theme, while the conclusion is strictly biographical^ and the two may be sup- posed to match indifferently with the main body, or historical portion of the work. But I may hope that such objections will be found to have less weight in practice than in theory ; and, if j)roper]y PREFACE. Xlli managed, that the general views of the Introduc- tion will prepare the reader for the particulars of the Conquest, and that the great public events narrated in this will, without violence, open the way to the remaining personal history of the hero who is the soul of it. Whatever incongmity may exist in other respects, I may hope that the imity of interest, the only unity held of much importance by modern critics, will be found still to be pre- served. The distance of the present age from the period of the narrative might be presumed to secure the historian from undue prejudice or partiality. Yet to American and English readers, acknowledging so different a moral standard from that of the six- t^enth century, I may possibly be thought too in- dulgent to the errors of the Conquerors ; while to a Spaniard, accustomed to the undiluted pane- gyric of Soils, I may be deemed to have dealt too hardly with them. To such I can only say, that, while, on the one hand, I have not hesitated to expose in their strongest colors the excesses of the Conquerors ; on the other, I have given them the benefit of such mitigating reflections as might be suggested by the circumstances and the period in which they lived. I have endeavoured not only to XIV PREFACE. present a picture true in itself, but to place it in its proper light, and to put the spectator in a proper point of view for seeing it to the best ad- vantage. I have endeavoured, at the expense of some repetition, to surround him with the spirit of the times, and, in a word, to make him, if I may so express myself, a contemporary of the six- teenth century. Whether, and how far, I have suc- ceeded in this, he must determine. For one thing, before I conclude, I may reason- ably ask the reader's indulgence. Owing to the state of my eyes, I have been obliged to use a writing-case made for the blind, which does not permit the writer to see his own manuscript. Nor have I ever corrected, or even read, my own origi- nal draft. As the chirography, under these disad- vantages, has been too often careless and obscure, occasional errors, even with the utmost care of my secretary, must have necessarily occurred in the transcription, somewhat increased by the barbarous phraseology imported from my Mexican authorities. I cannot expect that these errors have always been detected even by the vigilant eye of the perspic.a- cious critic to whom the proof-sheets have be(3n subjected. In the Preface to the " History of Ferdinand and PREFACE. XV Isabella," I lamented, that, while occupied with that subject, two of its most attractive parts had engaged the attention of the most popular of Amer- ican authors, Washington Irving. By a singular chance, something like the reverse of this has ta- ken place in the composition of the present his- tory, and I have found myself unconsciously taking up ground which he was preparing to occupy. It was not till I had become master of my rich collection of materials, that I was acquainted with this circumstance ; and, had he persevered in his design, I should unhesitatingly have abandoned my own, if not from courtesy, at least from policy ; for, though armed with the weapons of Achilles, this could give me no hope of success in a com- petition with Achilles himself. But no sooner was that distinguished writer informed of the prepara- tions I had made, than, with the gentlemanly spirit which will surprise no one who has the pleasure of his acquaintance, he instantly announced to me liis intention of leaving the subject open to me. While I do but justice to Mr. Irving by this state- ment, I feel the prejudice it does to myself in the unavailing regret 1 am exciting in the bosom of the reader. I must not conclude this Preface, too long pro- Xvi PREFACE. traded as it is already, without a word of ac- knowledgment to my friend George Ticknor, Esq., — the friend of many years, — for his patient re- vision of my manuscript ; a labor of love, the wortii of which those only can estimate, who are acquaint- ed with his extraordinary erudition and his nice critical taste. If I have reserved his name for the last in the list of those to whose good offices I am indebted, it is most assuredly not because I value his services least. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT Boston, October 1, 1843. GENERAL CONTENTS. BOOK I. INTRODUCTION. — VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION BOOK II. DISCOVERY OF MEXICO BOOK III MARCH TO MEXICO. BOOK IV. RESIDENCE IN MEXICO. BOOK V. EXPULSION FROM MEXICO BOOK VI. SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF MEXICO. BOOK VII. CONCLUSION. — SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF CORTES. APPENDIX. CONTENTS VOLUME FIRST BOOK I. INTRODUCTION. — VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION. CHAPTER L Page Ancient Mexico. — Climate and Products. — Primitive Racks. — Aztec Empire 3 Extent of the Aztec Territory .... 4 The Hot Region ... 5 Volcanic Scenery .... ... 7 Cordillera of the Andes ... ... 8 Table-land in the Days of the Aztecs . . . 9 Valley of Mexico 10 TheToltecs 11 Their mysterious Disappearance . . . . . .13 Races from the North-west 14 Their Hostilities 15 Foundation of Mexico ....... IG Domestic Feuds ......... 17 League of the kindred Tribes 18 Rapid Rise of Mexico 20 Prosperity of the Empire 21 Criticism on Veytia's History 22 CHAPTER 11. Succession to the Crown. — Aztec Nobilitt. — Judicial System. — Laws and Revenues. — Military Institutions 23 Election of the Sovereign 23 His Coronation 24 VOL. I. C XX CONTENTS. Pago Aztec Nobles 25 Their barbaric Pomp 26 Tenure of their Estates .... 27 Legislative Power .....••• 28 Judicial System .....-••• 29 Independent Judges .....•• «>1 Their Mode of Procedure .... . . 32 Showy Tribunal ........ 33 Hieroglyphical Paintings ....... 35 Marriage Rites .....••• 36 Slavery in Mexico .36 Royal Revenues 38 Burdensome Imposts . . . . • • • .41 Public Couriers ........ 42 Military Enthusiasm 43 Aztec Ambassadors 44 Orders of Knighthood 45 Gorgeous Armor 45 National Standards ........ 46 Military Code 47 Hospitals for the Wounded 48 Influence of Conquest on a Nation ..... 50 Criticism on Torquemada's History . . . . .51 Ahh6 Clavigero 52 CHAPTER III. Mexican Mythology. — The Sacerdotal Order. — The TeM' PLES. — Human Sacrifices Systems of Mythology Mythology of the Aztecs Ideas of a God Sanguinary War-god . God of the Air Mystic Legends . Division of Time Future State Funeral Ceremonies Baptismal Rites . Monastic Orders Fasts and Flagellation . Aztec Confessional . 54 54 56 57 58 59 GO 61 62 63 64 66 67 68 CONTENTS. Education of the Youth Revenue of the Priests Mexican Temples Religious Festivals . Human Sacrifices The Captive's Doom Ceremonies of Sacrifice Torturing of the Victim Sacrifice of Infants Cannibal Banquets . Number of Victims Houses of Skulls Cannibalism of the Aztecs Criticism on Sahagun's History CHAPTER IV Mexican Hieroglyphics. — Manuscripts Chronology. — Astronomy Dawning of Science Picture-writing .... Aztec Hieroglyphics Manuscripts of the Mexicans Emblematic Symbols Phonetic Signs .... Materials of the Aztec Manuscripts Form of their Volumes Destruction of most of them Remaining Manuscripts Difficulty of decyphering them . Minstrelsy of the Aztecs Theatrical Entertainments System of Notation Their Chronology The Aztec Era .... Calendar of the Priests Science of Astrology . Astrology of the Aztecs . Their Astronomy .... Wonderful Attainments in this Science Remarkable Festival Carnival of the Aztecs XXI 69 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 79 83 84 86 — Arithmetic. — 90 90 91 93 94 95 96 99 100 101 103 106 108 109 109 110 114 117 120 121 122 123 125 127 xxil CONTENTS. Page Lord Kingsborough's Work 128 Criticism on Gama 130 CHAPTER V. Aztec Agriculture. — Mechanical Arts. — Merchants. — Domestic Manners .131 Mechanical Genius • 131 Agriculture . . . .133 Mexican Husbandry ....... 134 Vegetable Products 135 Mineral Treasures 138 Skill of the Aztec Jewellers 139 Sculpture 141 Huge Calendar-stone 142 Aztec Dyes ......... 143 Beautiful Feather-work 144 Fairs of Mexico 145 National Currency 145 Trades 146 Aztec Merchants 147 Militant Traders 148 Domestic Life 150 Kindness to Children 151 Polygamy 151 Condition of the Sex 152 Social Entertainments 152 Use of Tobacco 153 Culinary Art 155 Agreeable Drinks 156 Dancing 156 Intoxication 157 Criticism on Boturini's Work 158 CHAPTER VL Tezcucans. — Their Golden Age. — Accomplished Princes. — Decline of their Monarchy 161 The Acolhuans or Tezcucans ...... 161 Prince Nezahualcoyotl 162 His Persecution ........ 163 His Hair-breadth Escapes 164 CONTENTS. His wandering Life . Fidelity of liis Subjects Triumphs over his Enemies Remarkable League General Amnesty The Tezcucan Code Departments of Government Council of Music . Its Censorial Office . Literary Taste Tezcucan Bards Royal Ode .... Resources of Nezahualcoyotl His magnificent Palace His Gardens and Villas Address of the Priest . His Baths Luxurious Residence . Existing Remains of it Royal Amours Marriage of the King Forest Laws Strolling Adventures Munificence of the Monarch . His Religion Temple to the Unknown God Philosophic Retirement His plaintive Verses Last Hours of Nezahualcoyotl His Character Succeeded by Nezahualpilli The Lady of Tula Executes his Son Efieminacy of the King His consequent Misfortunes Death of Nezahualpilli Tezcucan Civilization Criticism on Ixtlilxochitl's Writings xxm Page 165 166 167 168 168 169 170 170 171 172 173 174 176 177 178 181 183 184 185 186 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 197 200 201 201 202 203 203 204 205 206 XXIV CONTENTS. BOOK 11. DISCOVERY OF MEXICO. Pa»e CHAPTER I. Spain under Charles V. — Progress of Discovery. — Colo- nial Policy. — Conquest of Cuba. — Expeditions to Yucatan 211 Condition of Spain . Increase of Empire Cardinal Ximenes Arrival of Charles the Fifth , Swarm of Flemings . Opposition of the Cortes Colonial Administration Spirit of Chivalry Progress of Discovery Advancement of Colonization System of Repartimientos . Colonial Policy Discovery of Cuba . Its Conquest by Velasquez Cordova's Expedition to Yucatan His Reception by the Natives Grijalva's Expedition Civilization in Yucatan . Traffic with the Indians His Return to Cuba His cool Reception . Ambitious Schemes of the Governor Preparations for an Expedition . CHAPTER II 211 212 212 213 213 214 215 216 217 218 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 228 228 228 229 Hernando Cortes. — His Early Life. — Visits the New World. — His Residence in Cuba. — Difficulties with Velasquez. — Aumada intrusted to Cortes . . 230 Hernando Cortes 230 His Education 231 Choice of a Profession . 232 CONTENTS. XXV Page Departure for America 233 Arrival at Hispaniola His Mode of Life Enlists under A^elasquez . Habits of Gallantry Disaffected towards Velasquez Cortes in Confinement . Flies into a Sanctuary Again put in Irons His perilous Escape . His Marriage Reconciled with the Governor Retires to his Plantation Armada intrusted to Cortes Preparations for the Voyage . Instructions to Cortes 234 235 236 237 237 238 239 240 240 241 242 243 245 246 247 CHAPTER III Jealousy of Velasquez. — Cortes embarks. — Equipment of HIS Fleet. — His Person and Character. — Rendezvous AT Havana. — Strength of his Armament . . . 251 Jealousy of Velasquez . . . . . . . 251 Intrigues against Cortes ....... 252 His clandestine Embarkation 253 Arrives at Macaca ........ 254 Accession of Volunteers ....... 255 Stores and Ammunition ....... 256 Orders from Velasquez to arrest Cortes .... 257 He raises the Standard at Havana 257 Person of Cortes ........ 258 His Character . . .259 Strength of the Armament . . . . . . 261 Stirring Address to his Troops 263 Fleet weighs Anchor . . . . . . . . 264 Remarks on Estrella's Manuscript 265 CHAPTER IV. V'oyage to Cozumel. — Conversion of the Natives. — Jero- NIMO DE AgUILAR. ArMY ARRIVES AT TaBASCO. GrEAT Battle with the Indians. — Christianity introduced 266 Disastrous Voyage to Cozumel .... . 266 XXVI CONTENTS. Humane Policy of Cortes Cross found in the Island . Religious Zeal of the Spaniards Attempts at Conversion Overthrow of the Idols Jeronimo de Aguilar His Adventures . Employed as an Interpreter Fleet arrives at Tabasco Hostile Reception Fierce Defiance of the Natives Desperate Conflict . Effect of the Fire-arms Cortes takes Tabasco Ambush of the Indians The Country in Arms Preparations for Battle . March on the Enemy Joins Battle with the Indians Doubtful Struggle . Terror at the War-horse Victory of the Spaniards . Number of Slain . Treaty with the Natives . Conversion of the Heathen . Catholic Communion Soaniards embark for Mexico 267 268 269 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 287 288 289 290 291 292 CHAPTER V. Voyage ALONG the Coast. — Dona Marina. — Spaniakds land IN Mexico. — Intehvievv with the Aztecs . . . 293 Voyage along the Coast 293 Natives come on Board ....... 294 Doiia Marina 295 Her History 296 Her Beauty and Character 297 First Tidings of Montezuma 298 Spaniards land in Mexico . 299 First Interview with the Aztecs . . . . . .301 Their magnificent Presents ...... 302 Cupidity of the Spaniards ..... . . 303 CONTENTS. xxvn Cortes displays his Cavalry Aztec Paintings . 304 304 CHAPTER VI. Account of Montezuma. — State of his Empire. — Strange Prognostics. — Embassy and Presents. — Spanish En campment . 306 Montezuma then upon the Throne 306 Inaugural Address ........ 307 The Wars of Montezuma 308 His civil Policy .309 Oppression of his Subjects ...... 310 Foes of his Empire 311 Superstition of Montezuma 312 Mysterious Prophecy 313 Portentous Omens . ...... 314 Dismay of the Emperor 316 Embassy and Presents to the Spaniards . . . . 317 Life in the Spanish Camp 318 Rich Present from Montezuma 319 Large gold Wheels 320 Message from Montezuma . . . . ' . . 322 Effects of the Treasure on the Spaniards .... 323 Return of the Aztec Envoys 324 Prohibition of Montezuma ....... 325 Preaching of Father Olmedo 326 Desertion of the Natives 326 CHAPTER VII Troubles in the Camp. — Plan of a Colont. — Management OF Cortes. — March to Cempoalla. — Proceedings with the Natives. — Foundation of Vera Cruz . . 328 Discontent of the Soldiery 328 Envoys from the Totonacs ....... 329 Dissensions in the Aztec Empire 330 Proceedings in the Camp ....... 331 Cortes prepares to return to Cuba ..... 332 Army remonstrate ........ 332 Cortes yields ......... 333 Foundation of Villa Rica .....•• 334 VOL. I. D XXVUl CONTENTS. Resignation and Reappointment of Cortfe Divisions in the Camp .... General Reconciliation March to Cempoalla .... Picturesque Scenery Remains of Victims .... Terrestrial Paradise Love of Flowers by the Natives . Their splendid Edifices Hospitable Entertainment at Cempoalla Conference with the Cacique Proposals of Alliance .... Advance of the Spaniards Arrival of Aztec Nobles Artful Policy of Cortes . Allegiance of the Natives City of Villa Rica built . Infatuation of the Indians Page 335 336 337 338 339 341 341 342 343 344 345 346 348 349 350 351 352 353 CHAPTER VIII. Another Aztec Embassy. — Destruction of the Idols. — Despatches sent to Spain. — Conspiracy in the Camp. — The Fleet sunk 354 Embassy from Montezuma ...... 354 Its Results 355 Severe Discipline in the Army ...... 356 Gratitude of the Cempoallan Cacique 357 Attempt at Conversion ...... 358 Sensation among the Natives .... . 359 The Idols burned .360 Consecration of the Sanctuary . . . . . ,361 News from Cuba 362 Presents for Charles the Fifth ...... 363 First Letter of Cortds 364 Despatclies to Spain ........ 360 Agents for the Mission ....... 367 Departure of the Ship ........ 368 It touches at Cuba ........ 309 Rage of Velasquez 369 Ship arrives in Spain 370 Conspiracy in the Camp 371 CONTENTS. ■ xxix Paga Destruction of the Fleet 373 Oration of Cortes . 374 Enthusiasm of the Army . 375 Notice of Las Casas 377 His Life and Character 373 Criticism on his Works 38^ BOOK III. MARCH TO MEXICO. CHAPTER L Proceedings at Cempoalla. — The Spaniards climb the Table-land. — Picturesque Scenery. — Transactions WITH THE Natives. — Embassy to Tlascala . . 389 Squadron off the Coast 389 Stratagem of Cortes . 391 Arrangement at Villa Rica 392 Spaniards begin their March ...... 393 Climb the Cordilleras 395 Wild Mountain Scenery 397 Immense Heaps of human Skulls 399 Transactions with the Natives 400 Accounts of Montezuma's Power 401 Moderation of Father Olmedo 403 Indian Dwellings . 405 Cortes determines his Route • . . . . . . 406 Embassy to Tlascala 407 Remarkable Fortification ....... 408 Arrival in Tlascala . 409 CHAPTER II. Republic of Tlascala. — Its Institutions. — Early Histo- ry. — Discussions in the Senate. — Desperate Battles 410 The Tlascalans ........ 410 Their Migrations 411 Their Government . . 411 XXX CONTENTS. Public Games . . . Order of Knighthood Internal Resources Their Civilization Struggles with the Aztecs . Means of Defence . Sufferings of the Tlascalans . Their hardy Character Debates in the Senate . Spaniards advance . Desperate Onslaught Retreat of the Indians Bivouac of the Spaniards The Army resumes its March Immense Host of Barbarians Bloody Conflict in the Pass Enemy give Ground Spaniards clear the Pass . Cessation of Hostilities Results of the Conflict Troops encamp for the Night Page 413 414 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 CHAPTER III. EcisivE Victory. — Indian Council. — Night Attack. - - Negotiations with the Enemy. — -Tlascalan Hero 434 Envoys to Tlascala ... 434 Foraging Party .... 435 Bold Defiance by the Tlascalans . 436 Preparations for Battle 437 Appearance of the Tlascalans '. . . 438 Showy Costume of (he Warriors 440 Their Weapons .... 441 Desperate Engagement 443 The Combat thickens .... 444 Divisions among the Enemy 445 Decisive Victory .... . 446 Triumph of Science over Numbers . 44? Dread of the Cavalry .... 448 Indian Council .... 449 Night Attack . 450 Spaniards victorious 451 CONTENTS. Embassy to Tlascala Peace with the Enemy Patriotic Spirit of their Chief XXXI Page 452 453 453 CHAPTER IV. Discontents in the Army. — Tlascalan Spies. — Peace with THE Republic. — Embassy from Montezuma . . . 455 Spaniards scour the Country 455 Success of the Foray 456 Discontents in the Camp ....... 457 Representations of the Malecontents 458 Reply of Cortes 459 Difficulties of the Enterprise 461 Mutilation of the Spies 462 Interview with the Tlascalan Chief 464 Peace with the Republic 466 Embassy from Montezuma ....... 467 Declines to receive the Spaniards ..... 468 They advance towards the City » 470 CHAPTER V. Spaniards enter Tlascala. — Description of the Capital. — Attempted Conversion. — Aztec Embassy. — Invited TO Cholula 471 472 . 472 473 . 474 475 . 475 476 477 477 . 473 479 . 479 480 , 481 482 . 482 Spaniards enter Tlascala . Rejoicings on their Arrival . Description of Tlascala Its Houses and Streets . Its Fairs and Police . Divisions of the City Wild Scenery round Tlascala Character of the Tlascalans . Vigilance of Cortes . Attempted Conversion . Resistance of the Natives Zeal of Cortes Prudence of the Friar Character of Olmedo Mass celebrated in Tlascala The Indian Maidens xxxii CONTENTS. Aztec Embassy ; 483 Power of Montezuma 484 Embassy from Ixtlilxochitl 485 Deputies from Cholula 486 Invitation to Cholula ....... 487 Prepare to leave Tlascala 489 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. MAPS. The maps for this work are the result of a laborious investigation by a skilful and competent hand. Humboldt's are the only maps of New Spain which can lay claim to the credit even of tolerable accuracy. They have been adopted as the basis of those for the present history ; and an occasional deviation from them has been founded on a careful comparison with the verbal accounts of Gomara, Bernal Diaz, Clavigero, and, above all, of Cortes, illustrated by his meagre commentator, Lorenzana. Of these, Cortes is generally the most full and exact in his statement of distances, though it is to be regretted that he does not more frequently afford a hint as to the bearings of the places. As it is desirable to present the reader with a complete and unembarrassed view of the route of Cortes, the names of all other places than those which occur in this work have been dis- carded, while a considerable number have been now introduced which are not to be found on any previous chart. The position of these must necessarily be, in some degree, hypothetical ; but, as it has been determined by a study of the narratives of contemporary historians, and by the meas- urement of distances, the result, probably, cannot in any instance be much out of the way. The ancient names have been retained, so as to present a map of the country as it was at the time of the Conquest. PORTRAIT PREFIXED TO VOLUME FIRST. This engraving of Cortes was taken from a full-length portrait, present- ed to me by my friend Don Angel Calderon de la Barca, during his residence as minister to Mexico. It is a copy, and, as I am assured, a very faithful one, from the painting in the Hospital of Jesus. This paint- ing is itself a copy from one taken, probably, a few years before the death of Cortes, on his last visit to Spain. What has become of the original is not known. That in Mexico was sent there by one of the family of Monte- leone, descendants of the Conqueror, as appears from his arms, which the painter has introduced in a corner of the picture. This seems to be re- garded by the family as the best portrait of the Conqueror, and a copy, like that in my possession, has been recently made for the present Duke ot Monteleone in Italy. It has never before been engraved. XXHV MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT PREFIXED TO VOLUME SECOND. The original portrait was said to have heen painted by an artist named Maldonado, who came over to Mexico at the time of the Conquest. It belonged to the Counts of Miravalle, and, not many years since, came into the possession of Mr. Smith Wilcox, consul from the United States to Mexico. Of the authenticity of this portrait I have received opposite opinions, and these, too, from the most respectable sources in Mexico ; the one representing it as undoubtedly genuine, the other regarding it as an ideal portrait, painted after the Conquest, to adorn the halls of the Counts of Miravalle, and to flatter their pride by the image of their royal progeni- tor. The countenance must be admitted to wear a tinge of soft and not unpleasing melancholy, quite in harmony with the fortunes of the unhappy monarch. PORTRAIT PREFIXED TO VOLUME THIRD This likeness of Cortes was originally engraved for that inquisitive scholar and industrious collector, Don Antonio Uguina, of Madrid, from what he considered the best portrait of Cortes. The original is, I am informed, the same portrait which now hangs in the Musco, among the series of viceroys, at Mexico. It must have been taken at a much earlier period of life than the portrait in the Hospital of Jesus, in which both the hair and beard are somewhat grizzled with years. The expression of the countenance, of a higher and more intellectual cast than the preceding, has a quiet, contemplative air, not to have been expected in one of the stirring character of Cortes. ARMS OF CORTES. The t*amp on the back of the work represents the arms granted by letters patent to Cortes by the Emperor Charles V., March 7, 1525. In the instru- ment, it is stated, that the double-headed eagle is given as the arms of the empire ; the golden lion, in memory of the courage and constancy shown by Cortes in the conquest of Mexico; the three gold crowns indicate the three monarchs whom lie successively opposed in the capital of Mexico; the city represents that capital ; and the seven heads held together by a chain, on the border of the shield, denote so many Indian princes whom he subdued in the Valley. IJ1-' -iwrn €iDr>"i';irr 'PPvA'v;i.rrus:K:i.) in' "ri.i:!!; j''D:is ]p:hVJKH<^0'j'T^ :i:i]i3'.i'i)]in' RIDS ©>" TMiEiiR ::>3AKCH TtD ::mexic©. 20 15' 10" 5* 55 • 50 • -15 • 35* 'JO' S5 ■ 20' 'r^ 20* 15* 10' S 10' 35- iO- 25' 30* IS" n'0>'Qr.K.sn' oi*' :;yi>::xji€0. '^ Ail-'Df TilK COlLTfTKT :i'R.\V£Jiaj:i]Exice,> 20' - IS* 10' 5' 9' 96' 55' 50' 4:.V nio>"Qr_KKS'i' ()>' .;^1 :kam r i BOOK FIRST. INTRODUCTION. PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION VOL. L CONQUEST OF MEXICO. BOOK I. INTRODUCTION. VIEW OF THE AZTEC CIVILIZATION. CHAPTER I. Ancient Mexico. — Climate and Products. — Primitive Races. — Aztec Empire. Of all that extensive empire which once acknowl- edged the authority of Spain in the New World, no portion, for interest and importance, can be com- pared with Mexico ; — and this equally, whether we consider the variety of its soil and climate ; the in- exhaustible stores of its mineral wealth ; its scenery, grand and picturesque beyond example ; the charac- ter of its ancient inhabitants, not only far surpassing in intelligence that of the other North American races, but reminding us, by their monuments, of the primitive civilization of Egypt and Hindostan ; or lastly, the peculiar circumstances of its Con- quest, adventurous and romantic as any legend de- vised by Norman or Italian bard of chivalry. It is the purpose of the present narrative to exhibit the 4 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. histor)' of this Conquest, and that of the remarkable man by whom it was achieved. But, in order that the reader may have a bettei understanding of the subject, it will be well, before entering on it, to take a general survey of the politi- cal and social institutions of the races who occu- pied the land at the time of its discovery. The country of the ancient Mexicans, or Aztecs as they were called, formed but a very small part of the extensive territories comprehended in the mod- ern republic of Mexico.^ Its boundaries cannot be defined with certainty. They were much enlarged in the latter days of the empire, when they may be considered as reaching from about the eighteenth de- gree north, to the twenty-first, on the Atlantic ; and from the fourteenth to the nineteenth, including a very narrow strip, on the Pacific.^ In its greatest 1 Extensive indeed, if we may informed his readers on what frail trust Archbishop Lorenzana, who foundations his conclusions rest, tells us, " It is doubtful if the coun- The extent of the Aztec empire is try of New Spain does not border to be gathered from the writings of on Tartary and Greenland ; — by historians since the arrival of the the way of California, on the for- Spaniards, and from the picture- mer, and by New Mexico, on the rolls of tribute paid by the con- latter " ! Historia de Nueva Es- quered cities ; both sources ex- pafia, (Mexico, 1770,) p. 38, nota. tremely vague and defective. See 2 I have conformed to tlie limits the MSS. of the Mendoza collec- fixed by Clavigero. He has, prob- tion, in Lord Kingsborough's mag- ably, examined the subject with nificent publication (Antiquities of more tlioroughness and fidelity Mexico, comprising Facsimiles o/ than most of his countrymen, who Ancient Paintings and Hieroglyph- differ from liim, and who assign a ics, together with the Monuments more liberal extent to the monar- of New Spain. London, 1830). chy. (See his Storia Antica del The difficulty of the inquiry is Messico, (Cesena, 1780,) dissert, much increased by the fact of the 7.) The Abbe, however, has not conquests having been made, as Ch. I.] . ANCIENT MEXICO. 5 breadth, it could not exceed five degrees and a half, dwindling, as it approached its south-eastern limits, to less than two. It covered, probably, less than sixteen thousand square leagues.^ Yet such is the remarkable formation of this country, that, thougli not more than twice as large as New England, it presented every variety of climate, and was capable of yielding nearly every fruit, found between the equator and the Arctic circle. All along the Atlantic, the country is bordered by a broad tract, called the tierra caliente, or hot region, which has the usual high temperature of equinoctial lands. Parched and sandy plains are in- termingled Vv^ith others, of exuberant fertility, almost impervious from thickets of aromatic shrubs and wild flowers, in the midst of which tower up trees of that will be seen hereafter, by the unit- puts in a sturdy claim for the par- ed arms of three powers, so that it amount empire of his own nation, is not always easy to tell to which Historia Chichemeca, MS., cap. party they eventually belonged. 39, 53, et alibi. The affair is involved in so much 3 Eighteen to twenty thousand, uncertainty, that Clavigero, not- according to Humboldt, who con- withstanding the positive assertions siders the Mexican territory to in his text, has not ventured, in his have been the same with that oc- map, to define the precise limits of cupied by the modern intendancies the empire, either towards the of Mexico, Puebla, Vera Cruz, north, where it mingles with the Oaxaca, and Valladolid. (Essai Tezcucan empire, or towards the Politique sur le Royaume de Nou- south, where, indeed, he has fallen velle Espagne, (Paris, 1825,) torn, into the egregious blunder of as- I. p. 196.) This last, however, serting, that, while the Mexican was all, or nearly all, included in territory reached to the fourteenth the rival kingdom of Mechoacan, degree, it did not include any por- as he himself more correctly states tion of Guatemala. (See torn. I. p. in another part of his work. Comp. 29, and tom. IV. dissert. 7.) The torn. II. p. 164. Tezcucan chronicler, Ixtlilxochitl, 6 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I magnificent growth which is found only within the tropics. In this wilderness of sweets lurks the fatal malaria, engendered, probably, by the decomposition of rank vegetable substances in a hot and humi^ soil. The season of the bilious fever, — vomito, as it is called, — which scourges these coasts, continues from the spring to the autumnal equinox, when it is checked by the cold winds that descend from Hud- son's Bay. These winds in the vdnter season fre- quently freshen into tempests, and, sweeping down the Atlantic coast, and the winding Gulf of Mexico, burst with the fury of a hurricane on its unprotected shores, and on the neighbouring West India islands. Such are the mighty spells with which Nature has surrounded this land of enchantment, as if to guard the golden treasures locked up within its bosom. The genius and enterprise of man have proved more potent than her spells. After passing some twenty leagues across this burning region, the traveller finds himself rising into a purer atmosphere. His limbs recover their elas- ticity. He breathes more freely, for his senses are not now oppressed by the sultry heats and intoxi- cating perfumes of the valley. The aspect of nature, too, has changed, and his eye no longer revels among the gay variety of colors with which the landscape was painted there. The vanilla, the indigo, and the flowering cacao-groves disappear as he advances. The sugar-cane and the glossy-leaved banana still accompany him ; and, when he has ascended about four thousand feet, he sees in the unchanging verd- Ch. I.] CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 7 ure, and the rich foliage of the liquid-amber tree, that he has reached the height where clouds and mists settle, in their passage from the Mexican Gulf. This is the region of perpetual humidity ; but he welcomes it with pleasure, as announcing his es- cape from the influence of the deadly vdmito.^ He has entered the tierra templada, or temperate re- gion, whose character resembles that of the temper- ate zone of the globe. The features of the scenery become grand, and even terrible. His road sweeps along the base of mighty mountains, once gleaming with volcanic fires, and still resplendent in their mantles of snow, which serve as beacons to the mariner, for many a league at sea. All around he beholds traces of their ancient combustion, as his road passes along vast tracts of lava, bristling in the innumerable fantastic forms into which the fiery torrent has been thrown by the obstacles in its career. Perhaps, at the same moment, as he casts his eye down some steep slope, or almost unfathom- able ravine, on the margin of the road, he sees their depths glowing with the rich blooms and enamelled vegetation of the tropics. Such are the singular * The traveller, who enters the who came on shore at Tampico ; country across the dreary sand-hills (Rambler in Mexico, (New York, of Vera Cruz, will hardly recog- 1836,) chap. 1 ;) a traveller, it may nise the truth of the above de- be added, whose descriptions of scription. He must look for it in man and nature, in our own coun- other parts of the tierra cahente. try, where we can judge, are dis- Of recent tourists, no one has given tinguished by a sobriety and fair- a more gorgeous picture of the ness that entitle him to confidence impressions made on his senses by in his delineation of other coun- these sunny regions than Latrobe, tries. 8 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. coiiuasts presented, at the same time, to the senses, in this picturesque region I Still pressing upwards, the traveller mounts into other chmates, favorable to other kinds of cultiva- tion. The yellow maize, or Indian corn, as we usu- ally call it, has continued to follow him up from the lowest level ; but he now first sees fields of wheat, and the other European grains brought into the coun- try by the Conquerors. Mingled with them, he views the plantations of the aloe or maguey {agave Ameri- cana), applied to such various and important uses by the Aztecs. The oaks now acquire a sturdier growth, and the dark forests of pine announce that he has entered the tierra fria, or cold region, — the third and last of the great natural terraces into which the country is divided. When he has climbed to the height of between seven and eight thousand feet, the weary traveller sets his foot on the summit of the Cordillera of the Andes, — the colossal range, that, after traversing South America and the Isthmus of Darien, spreads out, as it enters Mexico, into that vast sheet of table-land, which maintains an eleva- tion of more than six thousand feet, for the distance of- nearly two liundred leagues, until it gradually declines in the higher latitudes of the north.° Across this mountain rampart a chain of volcanic 5 This long extent of country land stretches still three hundred varies in elevaiion from 5570 to leagues further, before it declines 8850 feet, — equal to the height to a level of 2624 feet. Hum- of the passes of Mount Cenis, or boldt, Essai Politique, torn. I. the Great St. Bernard. The tabic- pp. 157, 255. Ch. I.] CLIMATE AND PRODUCTS. 9 hills Stretches, in a westerly dii'ection, of still more stupendous dimensions, forming, indeed, some of the highest land on the globe. Their peaks, entering the limits of perpetual snow, diffiise a grateful cool- ness over the elevated plateaus below ; for these last, though termed ' cold ', enjoy a climate, the mean temperature of which is not lower than that of the central parts of Italy.^ The air is exceedingly dry ; the soil, though naturally good, is rarely clothed with the luxuriant vegetation of the lower regions. It frequently, indeed, has a parched and barren as- pect, owing partly to the greater evaporation which takes place on these lofty plains, through the dimin- ished pressure of the atmosphere ; and partly, no doubt, to the want of trees to shelter the soil from the fierce influence of the summer sun. In the time of the Aztecs, the table-land was thickly covered with larch, oak, cypress, and other forest trees, the extraordinary dimensions of some of which, remain- ing to the present day, show that the curse of bar- renness in later times is chargeable more on man than on nature. Indeed, the early Spaniards made as indiscriminate war on the forest as did our Puri- tan ancestors, though with much less reason. After once conquering the country, they had no lurking 6 About 62° Fahrenheit, or 17° during a great part of the day, Reaumur. (Humboldt, Essai Po- rarely rises beyond 45° F. Idem, litique, torn I. p. 273.) The more (loc. cit.,) and Malte-Brnn, (Uni- elevated plateaus of the table-land, versal Geography, Eng. Trans., as the Valley of Toluca, about 8500 book 83,) who is, indeed, in this feet above the sea, have a stem part of his work, but an echo of climate, in which the thermometer, the former writer. VOL. T. 2 10 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. ambush to fear from the submissive, semicivilizcd Indian, and were not, like our forefathers, obliged to keep watch and ward for a century. This spoliation of the ground, however, is said to have been pleas- ing to their imaginations, as it reminded them of the plains of their own Castile, — the table-land of Eu- rope ; '' where the nakedness of the landscape forms the burden of every traveller's lament, who visits that country. Midway across the continent, somewhat nearer the Pacific than the Atlantic ocean, at an elevation of nearly seven thousand five hundred feet, is the celebrated Valley of Mexico. It is of an oval form, about sixty-seven leagues in circumference,"^ and is encompassed by a towering rampart of porphyritic rock, which nature seems to have provided, though ineffectually, to protect it from invasion. The soil, once carpeted with a beautiful verdure, and thickly sprinkled with stately trees, is often bare, " The elevation of the Castiles, suit of M. de Humboldt's meas- according to the authority repeat- urement, cited in the text. Its edly cited, is about 350 toises, or length is about eighteen leagues, 2100 feet above the ocean. (Hum- by twelve and a half in breadth, boldt's Dissertation, apud Labordc, (Humboldt, Essai Politique, torn. Ttineraire Dcscriptif do I'Espagne, H. p. 29. — Lorenzana, Hist, de (Paris, 1827,) torn I. p. 5.) It is Nueva Espana, p. 101.) Hum- rare to find plains in Europe of so boldt's map of the Valley of Mex- great a height. ico forms the third in his " Atlas 8 Archbishop Lorenzana esti- G^ographique et Physique," and, mates the circuit of the Valley at like all the others in the collection, ninety leagues, correcting at the will be found of inestimable val- ,same time the statement of Cortes, ue to the traveller, the geologist, which puts it at seventy, very near and the historian, tlie truth, as appears from the re- Ch. I.] PRIMITIVE RACES. H and, in many places, white with the incrustation of salts, caused by the draining of the waters. Five lakes are spread over the Valley, occupying one tenth of its surface.^ On the opposite borders of the lar- gest of these basins, much shrunk in its dimensions'" since the days of the Aztecs, stood the cities of Mexico and Tezcuco, the capitals of the two most potent and flourishing states of Anahuac, whose his- tory, with that of the mysterious races that preceded them in the country, exhibits some of the nearest approaches to civilization to be met with anciently on the North American continent. Of these races the most conspicuous were the Toltecs. Advancing from a northerly direction, but from what region is uncertain, they entered the ter- ritory of Anahuac," probably before the close of the 9 Humboldt, Essai Politique, reconciliation, after the idolatrous tona. II. pp. 29, 44-49. — Malta races of the land had been de- Brun, book 85. This latter geog- stroyed by the Spaniards I (Mo- rapher assigns only 6700 feet for narchia Indiana, (Madrid, 1723.) the level of the Valley, contradict- torn. I. p. 309.) Quite as prob- ing himself, (comp. book 83,) or able, if not as orthodox an expla- rather, Humboldt, to whose pages nation, may be found in the active he helps himself, plenis manibus, evaporation of these upper regions, somewhat too liberally, indeed, for and in the fact of an immense the scanty references at the bottom drain having been constructed, of his page. during the lifetime of the good 10 Torquemada accounts, in part, father, to reduce the waters of the for this diminution, by supposing, principal lake, and protect the ca;-- that, as God permitted the waters, ital from inundation. which once covered the whole ii Anahuac, according to Hum earth, to subside, after mankind boldt, comprehended only the coun- had been nearly exterminated for try between the 14th and 21st de- their iniquities, so he allowed the grees of N. latitude. (Essai Po- watersof the Mexican lake to sub- litique, tom. I. p. 197.) Accord side in token of good-will and ing to Clavigero, it included nearl 12 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. seventh century. Of course, little can be gleaned, with certainty, respecting a people, whose written records have perished, and who are known to us only through the traditionary legends of the nations that succeeded them.'^ By the general agreement of these, however, the Toltecs were well instructed in agriculture, and many of the most useful mechanic arts ; were nice workers of metals ; invented the complex arrangement of time adopted by the Aztecs ; and, in short, were the true fountains of the civili- zation which distinguished this part of the continent all since known as New Spain. (Stor. del Messico, torn. I. p. 27.) Veytia uses it, also, as synonymous with New Spain. (Historia An- tigua de Mejico, (Mejico, 1836,) torn. I. cap. 12.) The first of these writers probably allows too little, as the latter do too much, for its boundaries. Ixtlilxochiil says it extended four hundred leagues south of the Otomie countr}'. (Hist. Chichemeca, MS., cap. 73.) The word Anahuac signifies near the water. It was, probably, first applied to the country around the lakes in the Mexican Valley, and gradually extended to the remoter regions occupied by the Aztecs, and the other semicivilized races. Or, possibly, the name may have been intended, as Veytia suggests, (Ilist. Antig., lib. 1, cap. 1,) to denote the land between the wa- ters of the Atlantic and Pacific. '2 Clavigero talks of Boturini's having written "on the faith of the Toltec historians.*' (Stor. del Messico, torn. I. p. 128.) But that scholar does not pretend to have ever met with a Toltec man- uscript, himself, and had heard of only one in the possession of Ix- tlilxochitl. (See his Idea de una Nueva Historia General de la America Septentrional, (Madrid, 17-lG,) p. 110.) The latter writer tells us, that his account of the Toltec and Chichemec races was "derived from interpretation," (probably, of the Tezcucan paint- ings,) " and from the traditions of old men"; poor authority for events which had passed, centu- ries before. Indeed, he acknowl- edges that their narratives were so full of absurdity and falsehood, that he was obliged to reject nino- tenths of them. (See his Rela- clones, MS., no. 5.) The cause of truth would not have suffered much, probably, if he had rejected nine-tenths of the remainder. CH. l.J PRIMITIVE RACES. 13 in later times. '^ They established thek capital at Tula, north of the Mexican Valley, and the remains of extensive buildings were to be discerned there at the time of the Conquest. ^^ The noble ruins of re- ligious and other edifices, still to be seen in vari- ous parts of New Spain, are referred to this people, whose name, Toltec, has passed into a synonyme for architect ^^' Their shadowy history reminds us of those primitive races, who preceded the ancient Egj^ptians in the march of civilization ; fragments of whose monuments, as they are seen at this day, incorporated with the buildings of the Egyptians themselves, give to these latter the appearance of almost modern constructions.^^ After a period of four centuries, the Toltecs, who had extended their sway over the remotest borders of Anahuac,^' having been greatly reduced, it is said, by famine, pestilence, and unsuccessfiil wars, disappeared from the land as silently and mysteri- ously as they had entered it. A few of them still lingered behind, but much the greater number, prob- ably, spread over the region of Central America '3 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., '6 Description de I'Egypte, MS., cap. 2. — Idem, Relaciones, (Paris, 1809,) Antiquites, torn. MS., no. 2. — Sahagun, Historia I. cap. 1. Veytia has traced the General de las Cosas de Nueva migrations of the Toltecs with Espafia, (Mexico, 1829,) lib. 10, sufficient industry, scarcely re- cap. 29. — Veytia, Hist. Antig., warded by the necessarily doubtful lib. 1, cap. 27. credit of the results. Hist. Antig., 14 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva lib. 2, cap. 21-33. Espana, lib. 10, cap. 29. 17 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., 15 Idem, ubi supra. — Torque- MS., cap. 73. mada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 1, cap. 14. 14 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. and the neighbouring isles ; and the traveller now speculates on the majestic ruins of Mitla and Pa- lenque, as possibly the w^ork of this extraordinary people.'^ After the lapse of another hundred years, a nu- merous and rude tribe, called the Chichemecs, en- tered the deserted country from the regions of the far Northwest. They were speedily followed by other races, of higher civilization, perhaps of the same family with the Toltecs, whose language they appear to have spoken. The most noted of these were the Aztecs or Mexicans, and the Acolhuans. The latter, better known in later times by the name of Tezcu- cans, from their capital, Tezcuco,"^ on the eastern border of the Mexican lake, were peculiarly fitted, by their comparatively mild religion and manners, for receiving the tincture of civilization which could be derived from the few Toltecs that still remained in the country. This, in their turn, they communi- cated to the barbarous Chichemecs, a large portion of whom became amalgamated with the new settlers as one nation.^ 18 Veytia, Hist. Antig., lib. 1, fully equal to that of any of his cap. 33. — Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, calling. See his Monarch. Ind., Chich., MS., cap. 3. — Idem, Re- lib. 1, cap. 14. iaciones, MS., no. 4, 5. — Father ^9 Tezcvco signifies "place of Torquemada — perhaps misinter- detention"; as several of the tribes preting the Tczcucan hieroglyph- who successively occupied Ana- ics — has accounted for this mys- huac were said to have halted terious disappearance of the Tol- some time at the spot. Ixtlilxo- tecs, by such fee-faw-fum stories chitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 10. of giants and demons, as show his ^o The historian speaks, in one appetite for the man-ellous was page, of the Chichemecs' burrow- Ca. I.] PRIMITIVE RACES. 15 Availing themselves of the strength derived, not only from this increase of numbers, but from their own superior refinement, the Acolhuans gradually stretched then empire over the ruder tribes in the north ; while their capital was filled with a numerous population, busily employed in many of the more useful and even elegant arts of a civilized commu- nity. In this palmy state, they were suddenly as- saulted by a warlike neighbour, the Tepanecs, their own kindred, and inhabitants of the same valley as themselves. Their provinces were overrun, their armies beaten, their kmg assassinated, and the flour- ishing city of Tezcuco became the prize of the victor. From this abject condition the uncommon abilities of the young prince, Nezahualcoyotl, the rightful heir to the crown, backed by the efficient aid of his Mexican allies, at length, redeemed the state, and opened to it a new career of prosperity, even more brilliant than the former.^' The Mexicans, with whom our history is princi- pally concerned, came, also, as we have seen, from the remote regions of the North, — the populous hive of nations in the New World, as it has been in the Old. They arrived on the borders of Anahuac, towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, some time after the occupation of the land by the kindred ing^ in caves, or, at best, in cabins cap. 1-10. — Camargo, Historia of straw ; — and, in the next, talks de Tlascala, MS. gravely of their senoras, infantas, 21 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., and caballeros! Ibid., cap. 9, et MS., cap. 9-20. — Veytia, Hist. seq. — Veytia, Hist. Antig., lib. 2, Antig., lib. 2, cap. 29-54 1(5 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. races. For a long time they did not establish them- selves in any permanent residence ; but continued shifting their quarters to different parts of the Mex- ican Valley, enduring all the casualties and hardships of a migratory life. On one occasion, they were enslaved by a more powerful tribe ; but their ferocit}' soon made them formidable to their masters.^^ After a series of wanderings and adventures, which need not shrink from comparison with the most extrava- gant legends of the heroic ages of antiquity, they at length halted on the southwestern borders of the principal lake, in the year 1325. They there beheld, perched on the stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from the crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and his broad wings opened to the rising sun. They hailed the auspicious omen, announced by the oracle, as indicating the site of their future city, and laid its foundations by sinking piles into the shallows ; for the low marshes were half buried under water. On these they erected their light fabrics of reeds and rushes ; and sought a precarious subsistence from fishing, and from the wild fowl which frequented the waters, as well as from the cultivation of such simple vegetables as they could raise on their float- ing gardens. The place was called Tenochtitlan, in token of its miraculous origin, though only known 22 These were the Colliuans, have confounded them. See his not Acolhuans, with whom Hum- Essai Politique, torn. I. p. 414; boldt, and most writers since, II. p. 37. Ch. I] PRIMITIVE RACES. 17 to Europeans by its other name of Mexico, derived from their war-god, Mexitli.^ The legend of its foundation is still further commemorated by tlie de- vice of the eagle and the cactus, which form the arms of the modern Mexican republic. Such were the humble beginnings of the Venice of the Western VVorld.^ The forlorn condition of the new settlers was made still worse by domestic feuds. A part of the citizens seceded from the main body, and formed a separate community on the neighbouring marshes. Thus divided, it was long before they could aspire to the acquisition of territory on the main land. They gradually increased, however, in numbers, and 23 Clavigero gives good reasons for preferring the etymology of Mexico above noticed, to varions others. (See his Stor. del Messico, torn. I. p. 168, nota.) The name Tenochtitlan signifies tunal (a cac- tus) 071 a stone. Esplicacion de la Col. de Mendoza, apud Antiq. of Mexico, vol. IV. 24 " Datur haec venia antiqui- tati," says Livy, " ut, miscendo humana divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat." Hist.,Pr8ef. — See, for the above paragraph, Col. de Mendoza, plate 1, apud Antiq. of Mexico, vol.1., — Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 10, — To- ribio, Historia de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 8, — Veytia, Hist. Antig.,lib. 2, cap. 15. — Clavige- ro, after a laborious examination, assigns the following dates to some VOL. I 3 of the prominent events noticed in the text. No two authorities agree on them ; and this is not strange, considering that Clavige- ro — the most inquisitive of all — does not always agree with himself. (Compare his dates for the coming of the Acolhuans ; torn. 1. p. 147, and torn. IV. dis- sert. 2.) — A. D. The Toltecs arrived in Anahuar . . 648 They abandoned the country . . 1051 The Chichemecs arrived . . . . 1170 The Acolhuans arrived about . . 12(10 The Blexicans reached Tula . . 119C Thev founded Mexico . . . . . 1325 See his dissert. 3, sec. 12. In the last date, the one of most im- portance, he is confirmed by the learned Veytia, who differs from him in all the others. Hist. Antig., lib. 2, cap. 15. 18 AZTEC nVILIZATION. [Book I. Strengthened themselves yet more by various im- provements in their polity and military discipline, w hile they established a reputation for courage as well as cmelty in war, which made their name terrible throughout the Valley. In the early part of the iifteenth century, nearly a hundred years from the foundation of the city, an event took place which created an entire revolution in the circum- stances, and, to some extent, in the character of the Aztecs. This was the subversion of the Tezcucan monarchy by the Tepanecs, already noticed. When the oppressive conduct of the victors had at length aroused a spirit of resistance, its prince, Nezahual- coyotl, succeeded, after incredible perils and escapes, in mustering such a force, as, with the aid of the Mexicans, placed him on a level with his enemies. In two successive battles, these were defeated with great slaughter, their chief slain, and their territory, by one of those sudden reverses which characterize the wars of petty states, passed into the hands of the conquerors. It was awarded to Mexico, in re- turn for its important services. Then was formed that remarkable league, which, indeed, has no parallel in history. It was agreed between the states of Mexico, Tezcuco, and the neighbouring little kingdom of Tlacopan, that they .should nnitually support each other in their wars, offensive and dc^fensive, and that, in the distribution of the spoil, one fifth should be assigned to Tlaco- pan, and the remainder be divided, in what propor- tions is uncertain, between the other powers. The Ch. I.] AZTEC EMPIRE. 19 Tezcucan writers claim an equal share for their nation with the Aztecs. But this does not seem to be warranted bj the immense increase of territory subsequently appropriated by the latter. And we may account for any advantage conceded to them by the treaty, on the supposition, that, however inferior they may have been originally, they were, at the time of making it, in a more prosperous condition than their allies, broken and dispirited by long oppression. What is more extraordinary than the treaty itself, however, is the fidelity with which il was maintained. During a century of uninterrupted warfare that ensued, no instance occurred where the parties quarrelled over the division of the spoil, which so often makes shipwreck of similar confederacies among civilized states.^' The alhes for some time found sufficient occupa- tion for their arms in their own Aalley; but they soon overleaped its rocky ramparts, and by the middle of the fifteenth century, under the first Montezuma, '■^5 The loyal Tezcucan chroni- Espagne, trad, de To rnaux, (Paris, cler claims the supreme dignity 1840,) p. 11), both very compe- Ibr his own sovereign, if not the tent critics, acquiesce in an equal greatest share of the spoil, by this division between the two principal imperial compact. (Hist. Chich., states in the confederacy. Anode, cap. 33.) Torquemada, on the still extant, of Nezahualcoyotl, in other hand, claims one half of all its Castilian version, bears testi- ihe conquered lands for j\Iexico. mony to the singular union of the (Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 40.) three powers. All agree in assigning only one , , , , , >., • =' o t) J '-solo se acordaran en las Naciones fifth to Tlacopan ; and Veytia lo bien que gobemaron (Hist. Antig., lib. 3, cap. 3) and las/res Caftezfwqueel ImperiohonrAion.' Zurita (Rapport sur les Differentes Cantares del Emperadob 1 >„ ,. , , -.T ,, Nkzahdalcovotl, IMS. Classes de Chefs de la Nouvelle 20 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. nad spread down the sides of the table-land to the Dorders of the Gulf of Mexico. Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, gave evidence of the public prosperity. Its frail tenements were supplanted by solid struc- tures of stone and lime. Its population rapidly increased. Its old feuds were healed. The citizens who had seceded were again brought under a com- mon government with the main body, and the quar- ter they occupied was permanently connected with the parent city ; the dimensions of which, covering the same ground, were much larger than those of the modern capital of Mexico."*^ Fortunately, the throne was filled by a succession of able princes, who knew how to profit by their enlarged resources and by the martial enthusiasm of the nation. Year after year saw them return, loaded with the spoils of conquered cities, and with throngs of devoted captives, to their capital. No state was able long to resist the accumulated strength of the confederates. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, just before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Aztec dominion reached across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ; and, under the bold and bloody Ahuitzotl, its arms had been carried far over the limits already noticed as defining its perma- '•* See the plans of the ancient turini ; if, as seems probable, it is and modern capital, in Bullock's the one indicated on page 13 of " Mexico,'' first edition. The his Catalogue, I find no warrant original of the ancient map was for Mr. Bullock's statement, that obtained by that traveller from the it was the same prepared for Cor- coUection of the unfortunate Bo- t^.s by the order of Montezuma Ch. I.] VEYTIA. 21 nent territory, into the farthest corners of Guatemala and Nicaragua. This extent of empire, however limited in comparison with that of many other states, is truly wonderful, considering it as the ac- quisition of a people whose whole population and resources had so recently been comprised within the walls of their own petty city ; and considering, moreover, that the conquered territory was thickly settled by various races, bred to arms like the Mex- icans, and little inferior to them in social organiza- tion. The history of the Aztecs suggests some strong points of resemblance to that of the ancient Romans, not only in their military successes, but in the policy which led to them.^^ 27 Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, wars, with other states, as the torn. I. lib. 2. — Torquemada, Mon- principal"; and expresses his as- arch. Ind., torn. I. lib. 2. — Boturini, tonishment that a similar policy Idea, p. 146. — Col. of Mendoza, should not have been adopted by Parti, and Codex Telleriano-Re- ambitious republics in later times, mensis, apud Antiq. of Mexico, (See his Discorsi sopra T. Livio, \ols. I., VI. lib. 2, cap. 4, apud Opere (Gene- Machiavelli has noticed it as one va, 1798).) This, as we have {Treat cause of the military sue- seen above, was the very course cfisses of the Romans, " that they p'uaurxl by the Mexicans, associated themselves, in their The most impoilant contribution, of late years, to the early history of Mexico is the Historia Antigna of the Lie. Don Mariano Veytia, published in the city of Mexico, in 1836. This scholar was born of an ancient and highly respectable family at Puebla, 1718. After finish- ing his academic education, he went to Spain, where he was kindly received at court. He afterwards visited several other countries of Europe, made himself acquainted with their languages, and retuni-ed hoir.e well stond with the fruits of a discriminating observation and 22 VEYTIA. [Book 1. diligent study. The rest of his life he devoted to letters ; especially ti) the illustration of the national history and antiquities. As the 3xecutor of the unfortunate Boturini, with whom he had contracted an intimacy in Madrid, he obtained access to his valuable collection of "Tianuscripts ia Mexico, and from them, and every other source which nis position in society and his eminent character opened to him, he romposed various works, none of which, however, except the one Defore us, has been admitted to the honors of the press. The time of his death is not given by his editor, but it was probably not later han 1780. Veytia's history covers the whole period, from the first occupation of Anahuac to the middle of the fifteenth century, at which point his labors were unfortunately terminated by his death. In the early portion jie has endeavoured to trace the migratory movements and historical annals of the principal races who entered the country. Every page Dears testimony to the extent and fidelity of his researches ; and, if we feel but moderate confidence in the results, the fault is not imputable to him, so much as to the dark and doubtful nature of the subject. As he descends to later ages, he is more occupied with the fortunes of the Tezcucan than with those of the Aztec dynasty, which have been amply discussed by others of his countrymen. The premature close of his la- bors prevented him, probably, from giving that attention to the domestic institutions of the people he describes, to which they are entitled as the most important subject of inquiry to the historian. The deficiency has been supplied by his judicious editor, Orteaga, from other sources. In the early part of his work, A'eytia has explained the chronological system of the Aztecs, but, like most writers preceding the accurate Gama, with indifferent success. As a critic, he certainly ranks much iiigher than the annalists who preceded him ; and, when his own religion is not involved, shows a discriminating judgment. When it is, he betrays a full measure of the credulity which still maintains its Iiold on too many even of the well informed of his countrymen. The editor of the work has given a very interesting letter from the Abbe (JIavigero to A'eytia, written when the former was a poor and hum- nle exile, and in the tone of one addressing a person of high stand- ing and literary eminence. Both were employed on the same subject The writings of the poor Abbe, published again and again, and trans lated into various languages, have spread his fame throughout Europe while the name of Veytia, whose works have been locked up in theii primitive manuscript, is scarcely known beyond the boundaries of Mexico. CHAPTER II. Succession to the Crowm. — Aztec Nobility. — Judicial Sys- tem. — Laws and Revenues. — Military Institutions. The form of government differed in the different states of Anahuac. With the Aztecs and Tezcucans it was monarchical and nearly absolute. The two nations resembled each other so much, in their politi- cal institutions, that one of their historians has re- marked, in too unqualified a manner indeed, that what is told of one may be always understood as applying to the other.' I shall direct my inquiries to the JNIexican polity, borrowing an illustration oc casionally from that of the rival kingdom. The government was an elective monarchy. Four of the principal nobles, who had been chosen by their own body in the preceding reign, filled the ofifice of electors, to whom were added, with merely an honorary rank however, the two royal allies of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The sovereign was select- ed from the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in default of them, from his nephews. Thus the elec- tion was always restricted to the same family. T!ic candidate preferred must have distinguished himself in war, though, as in the case of the last Montezuma, I Ixllilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36. 24 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. he were a member of the priesthood." This singu- lar mode of supplying the throne had some advan- tages. The candidates received an education which fitted them for the royal dignity, while the age, at which they were chosen, not only secured the nation against the evils of minority, but afforded ample means for estimating their qualifications for the office. The result, at all events, was favorable ; since the throne, as already noticed, was filled by a succession of able princes, well qualified to rule over a warlike and ambitious people. The scheme of election, however defective, argues a more refined and calcu- lating policy than was to have been expected from a barbarous nation.^ The new monarch was installed in his regal dig- nity with much parade of religious ceremony; but not until, by a victorious campaign, he had obtained a sufficient number of captives to grace his trium- j)hal entry into the capital, and to furnish victims for the dark and bloody rites which stained the Aztec superstition. Amidst this pomp of human sacrifice, he was crowned. The crown, resembling a mitre 2 This was an exception. — In II. p. 112. — Acosta, Naturall l*'?ypt, also, the kin^ was fre- and Morall Historie of the East fluently taken from the warrior and West Indies, Eng. trans, caste, though obliged afterwards (London, 1604.) to be instructed in the mysteries According to Zurita, an elec- of the priesthood : « 2i U ju.uxi/ta>r tion by the nobles took place only aTaiihiyftifit iwSw; iyiura rut li^u; in default of heirs of the deceased Plutarch, de Isid. et Osir., sec. 9. monarch. (Rapport, p. 15.) The 3 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., minute historical investigation of lib. 2, cap. 18 ; lib. 11, cap. 27. — Clavigero may be permitted to Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, torn, outweigh this general assertion. Ch. II.] AZTEC NOBILITY. 25 111 its form, and curiously ornamented with gold, gems, and feathers, was placed on his head by the lord of Tezcuco, the most powerful of his royal allies. The title of King, by which the earlier Aztec prin- ces are distinguished by Spanish writers, is supplant- ed by that of Emperor in the later reigns, intimat- ing, perhaps, his superiority over the confederated monarchies of Tlacopan and Tezcuco.^ The Aztec princes, especially towards the close of the dynasty, lived in a barbaric pomp, truly Oriental. Their spacious palaces were provided with halls for the different councils, who aided the monarch in the transaction of business. The chief of these was a sort of privy council, composed in part, probably, of the four electors chosen by the nobles after the accession, whose places, when made vacant by death, were immediately supplied as before. It was the business of this body, so far as can be gathered from the very loose accounts given of it, to advise the king, in respect to the government of the provinces, the administration of the revenues, and, indeed, on all great matters of public interest.'' * Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Es- other writer whom I have con- pana, lib. 6, cap. 9, 10, 14 ; lib. 8, suited. cap. 31, 34. — See, also, Zurita, 5 Sahagun, who places the elec- Rapport, pp. 20-23. tive power in a much larger body, Ixtlilxochitl stoutly claims this speaks of four senators, who form- supremacy for his own nation, ed a state council. (Hist, de Nue- (Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 34.) His va Espana, lib. 8, cap. 30.) Acos- assertions are at variance with ta enlarges the council beyond the facts stated by himself elsewhere, number of the electors. (Lib. 6, and are not countenanced by any ch. 26.) No two writers agree. VOL. I. 4 26 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. In the royal buildings were accommodations, also, for a numerous body-guard of the sovereign, made up of the chief nobility. It is not easy to deter- !nine with precision, in these barbarian governments, the limits of the several orders. It is certain, there was a distinct class of nobles, with large landed possessions, who held the most important offices near the person of the prince, and engrossed the administration of the provinces and cities.^ Many of these could trace their descent from the founders of the Aztec monarchy. According to some writers of authority, there were thirty great caciques, who had their residence, at least a part of the year, in the capital, and who could muster a hundred iliousand vassals each on their estates.^ Without relying on such wild statements, it is clear, from the testimony of the Conquerors, that the country was occupied by numerous powerful chieftains, who lived like inde- pendent princes on their domains. If it be true that the kings encouraged, or, indeed, exacted, the residence of these nobles in the capital, and required hostages in their absence, it is evident that their power must have been very formidable.^ *> Zurita enumerates four orders Firme del Mar Oceano, (Madrid, of chiefs, all of whom were ex- 1730,) dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 12. empted from imposts, and enjoyed 8 Carta de Cortes, ap. Lorenza- very considerable privileges. He na, Hist, de Nueva Espana, p. 110. does not discriminate the several — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ranks with much precision. Rap- lib. 2, cap. 89 ; lib. 14, cap. 6. — port, p. 47, et seq. Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, torn. " See, in particular, Herrera, H. p. 121. — Zurita, Rapport, Historia General de los Hechos de pp. 48, 65. los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Ixtlilxochitl (Hist. Chich., MS.. Cq. II.] AZTEC NOBILITY. 27 Their estates appear to have been held by various tenures, and to have been subject to different restric- tions. Some of them, earned by their own good sw^ords, or received as the recompense of pubhc ser- vices, were held without any limitation, except that the possessors could not dispose of them to a plebe- ian.^ Others were entailed on the eldest male issue, and, in default of such, reverted to the crown. Most of them seem to have been burdened with the obli- gation of military service. The principal chiefs of Tezcuco, according to its chronicler, were expressly obliged to support their prince Avith their armed vassals, to attend his court, and aid him in the coun- cil. Some, instead of these services, were to provide for the repairs of his buildings, and to keep the royal demesnes in order, with an annual offering, by way of homage, of fruits and flowers. It was usual, if we are to believe historians, for a new king, on his accession, to confirm the investiture of estates derived from the crown. "^ cap. 34) speaks of thirty great '0 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., feudal chiefs, some of them Tez- MS., ubi supra. — Zurita, Rapport, cucan and Tlacopan, whom he ubi supra. — Clavigero, Stor. del styles " grandees of the empire " ! Messico, tom. II. pp. 122 - 124. — He says nothing of the great tail Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. of 100,000 vassals to each, men- 14, cap. 7. — Gomara, Cronica de tioned by Torquemada and Her- Nueva Espafia, cap. 199, ap. Bar- rera. cia, tom. II. ^ Macehual, — a word equivalent Boturini (Idea, p. 165) carries to the French word roturier. Nor back the origin oifiefs in Anahuac, could fiefs originally be held by to the twelfth century. Carli says, plebeians in France. See Hallam's " Le systeme politique y etoit feo- Middle Ages, (London, 1819,) dal." In the next page he tells vol. II. p. 207. us, " Personal merit alone made 28 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. It cannot be denied that we recognise, in all this, several features of the feudal system, which, no doubt, lose nothing of their effect, under the hands of the Spanish writers, who are fond of tracing analogies to European institutions. But such analo- gies lead sometimes to very erroneous conclusions. The obligation of military ser\dce, for instance, the most essential principle of a fief, seems to be natu- rally demanded by every government from its subjects. As to minor points of resemblance, they 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, indeed, with many mitigating circum- stances, unknown to the despotisms of the East; but it is chimerical to look for much in common — 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. The legislative power, both in Mexico and Tez- cuco, resided wholly with the monarch. This feature of despotism, however, was, in some measure, coun- teracted by the constitution of the judicial tribunals, — of more importance, among a rude people, than the legislative, since it is easier to make good laws for such a community, than to enforce them, and the the distinction of the nobiUty " ! Carli was a writer of a lively ima- (Lettres Americaines, trad. Fr., gination. (Paris, 1788,) torn. I. let. 11.) Ch. II.] JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 29 best laws, badly administered, are but a mockery. Over each of the principal cities, with its dependent territories, was placed a supreme judge, appointed by the crown, with original and final Jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases. There was no appeal from his sentence to any other tribunal, nor even to the king. He held his office during life ; and any one, who usurped his ensigns, was punished with death. ^^ Below this magistrate was a court, established in each province, and consisting of three members. It held concurrent jurisdiction with the supreme judge in civil suits, but, in criminal, an appeal lay to his tribunal. Besides these courts, there was a body of inferior magistrates, distributed through the country, chosen by the people themselves in their several districts. Their authority was limited to smaller causes, while the more important were carried up to the higher courts. There was still another class of subordinate officers, appointed also by the peo- ple, each of whom was to watch over the conduct of a certain number of families, and report any disorder or breach of the laws to the higher au- thorities. '~ 1^ This magistrate, who was Montezuma, who introduced great called cihuacoatl, was also to audit changes in them. (Antiq. of Mex- the accounts of the collectors of ico, vol. I., Plate 70.) According the taxes in his district. (Clavi- to the interpreter, an appeal lay gero, Stor. del Messico, tom. II. from them, in certain cases, to the p. 127. — Torquemada, Monarch, king's council. Ibid., vol. VI. p. 79. Ind., lib. 11, cap. 25.) The Men- 12 Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, doza Collection contains a painting tom. 11. pp. 127, 128. — Torque- of the courts of justice, under mada, Monarch. Ind., ubi supra. 30 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I In Tezcuco the judicial arrangements were of a more refined character ; '^ and a gradation of tri- bunals finally terminated in a general meeting or parliament, consisting of all the Judges, great and petty, throughout the kingdom, held every eighty days in the capital, over which the king presided in person. This body determined all suits, which, from their importance, or difficulty, had been re- served for its consideration by the lower tribunals. It served, moreover, as a council of state, to assist the monarch in the transaction of public business.'^ Such are the vague and imperfect notices that can be gleaned, respecting the Aztec tribunals, from the hieroglyphical paintings still preserved, and from the most accredited Spanish writers. These, being usually ecclesiastics, have taken much less interest In this arrangement of the more ''* Botuvini, Idea, p. 87. Tor- hiimble magistrates we are remind- quemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 11, ed of the Anglo-Saxon hundreds cap. 26. and tithings, especially the lat- Zurita compares this body to the ter, the members of which were Castilian cortes. It would seem, to watch over the conduct of the however, according to him, to families in their districts, and bring have consisted only of twelve the offenders t,o justice. The hard principal judges, besides the king, penalty of mutual responsibility Ilis meaning is somewhat doubt- was not known to the Mexicans. ful. (Rapport, pp. 94, 101, 106.) •^ Zurita, so temperate, usually, M. de Humboldt, in his account in his language, remarks, that, in of the Aztec courts, has confound- the capital, " Tribunals were insti- ed them with the Tezcucan. Comp. tuted which might compare in their Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens organization with the royal audi- des Peuples Indigenes do I'Amer- ences of Castile." (Rapport, p. ique, (Paris, 1810,) p. 55, and 93.) His observations are chiefly Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, torn, drawn from the Tezcucan courts, II. pp. 128, 129. which, in their forms of procedure, he says, were like the Aztec. (Log. cit.) Ch. II.] JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 31 in this subject, than in matters connected with religion. They find some apology, certainly, in the early destruction of most of the Indian paintings, from which their information was, in part, to be gathered. On the whole, however, it must be inferred, that the Aztecs were sufficiently civilized to evince a solicitude for the rights both of property and of persons. The law, authorizing an appeal to the highest judicature in criminal matters only, shows an attention to personal security, rendered the more obligatory by the extreme severity of their penal code, which would naturally have made them more cautious of a wrong conviction. The existence of a number of coordinate tribunals, without a central one of supreme authority to control the whole, must have given rise to very discordant interpretations of the law in different districts. But this is an evil which they shared in common with most of the nations of Europe. The provision for making the superior judges wholly independent of the crown was worthy of an enlightened people. It presented the strongest barrier, that a mere constitution could afford, against tyranny. It is not, indeed, to be supposed, that, in a government otherwise so despotic, means could not be found for influencing the magistrate. But it was a great step to fence round his authority with the sanction of the law ; and no one of the Aztec monarch?, as far as I know, is accused of an attempt to \iolate it. 32 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. To receive presents or a bribe, to be guilty of collusion in any way with a suitor, was punished, in a judge, with death. Who, or what tribunal, decided as to his guilt, does not appear. In Tezcu- co this was done by the rest of the court. But the king presided over that body. The Tezcucan prince, Nezahualpilli, who rarely tempered Justice with mercy, put one judge to death for taking a bribe, and another for determining suits in his own house, — a capital offence, also, by law.^"' The judges of the higher tribunals were main- tained from the produce of a part of the crown lands, reserved for this purpose. They, as well as the supreme judge, held their offices for life. The proceedings in the courts were conducted with de- cency and order. The judges wore an appropriate dress, and attended to business both parts of the day, dining, always, for the sake of despatch, in an apartment of the same building where they held their session ; a method of proceeding much com- mended by the Spanish chroniclers, to whom de- spatch was not very familiar in their own tribunals. Officers attended to preserve order, and others summoned the parties, and produced them in court. No counsel was employed ; the parties stated their own case, and supported it by their witnesses. The oath of the accused was also admitted in evideflce. '•> " Ah ! si esta se repitiera iiota. — Zurita, Rapport,;). 102. hoy, que bueno seria ! " exclaims Torquemada, Monarch Ind., ubi Sahagun's Mexican editor. Hist, supra. — Ixtlil.\ochitl,Kist. Chich.. de Nueva EspaHa, torn. II. p. 301, MS., cap. 67. Ch. II.] JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 53 The statement of the case, the testimony, and the proceedings of the trial, were all set forth by a clerk, in hieroglyphical paintings, and handed over to the court. The paintings were executed with so much accuracy, that, in all suits respecting real property, they were allowed to be produced as good authority in the Spanish tribunals, very long after the Con- quest ; and a chair for their study and interpretation was established at Mexico in 1553, which has long since shared the fate of most other pro\isions for learning in that unfortunate country. ^^ A capital sentence was indicated by a line traced with an arrow across the portrait of the accused In Tezcuco, where the king presided in the comt, this, according to the national chronicler, was done with extraordinary parade. His description, which is of rather a poetical cast, I give in his own words. " In the royal palace of Tezcuco was a court-yard, on the opposite sides of which were two halls of justice. In the principal one, called the ' tribu- nal of God,' was a throne of pure gold, inlaid with turquoises and other precious stones. On a stool, in front, was placed a human skull, crowned with an immense emerald, of a pyramidal form, and sur- mounted by an aigrette of brilliant plumes and precious stones. The skull was laid on a heap of 16 Zurita, Rapport, pp. 95, 100, Clavigero says, the accused 103. — Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva might free himself by oath; "II Espafia, loc. cit. — Humboldt, reo poteva purgarsi col giuramen- Vuesdes Cordilleres, pp. 55, 56. — to." (Stoi. del Messico, torn. H. Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. p. 129.) What rogue, then, could 11 , cap. 25. ever have been convicted T VOL. I. 5 34 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. military weapons, shields, quivers, bows, and ar- rows. The walls were hung with tapestry, made of the hair of different wild animals, of rich and various colors, festooned by gold rings, and embroi- dered with figures of birds and flowers. Above the throne was a canopy of variegated plumage, from the centre of which shot forth resplendent rays of gold and jewels. The other tribunal, called ' the King's,' was also surmounted by a gorgeous canopy of feathers, on which were emblazoned the royal arms. Here the sovereign gave public audience, and communicated his despatches. But, when he decided important causes, or confirmed a capital sentence, he passed to the ' tribunal of God,' at- tended by the fourteen great lords of the realm, marshalled according to their rank. Then, putting on his mitred crown, incrusted with precious stones, and holding a golden arrow, by way of sceptre, in his left hand, he laid his right upon the skull, and pronounced judgment." ^^ All this looks rather fine for a court of justice, it must be owned. But it is certain, that the Tezcucans, as we shall see here- after, possessed both the materials, and the skill requisite to work them up in this manner. Had they been a little further advanced in refinement, one might well doubt their having the bad taste to do so. The laws of the Aztecs were registered, and ex- i"' Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., bolical meaning, according to Bot MS., cap. 36. iirini, Idea, p. 84. These various objects had a .sym- Ch. II.] LAWS AND REVENUES. 35 hibited to the people, in their hierogljphical paint- ings. Much the larger part of them, as in every nation imperfectly civilized, relates rather to the security of persons, than of property. The great crimes against society were all made capital. Even the murder of a slave was punished with death. Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according to the degree of the offence, was punished by slavery or death. Yet the Mexicans could have been under no great apprehension of this crime, since the entrances to their dwellings were not secured by bolts, or fastenings of any kind. It was a capital offence to remove the boundaries of another's lands; to alter the established measures; and for a guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property. These regulations evince a regard for equity in dealings, and for pri- vate rights, which argues a considerable progress in civilization. Prodigals, who squandered their patrimony, were punished in like manner ; a severe sentence, since the crime brought its adequate pun- ishment along with it. Intemperance, which was the burden, moreover, of their religious homilies, was visited with the severest penalties ; as if they had foreseen in it the consuming canker of their own, as well as of the other Indian races in later times. It was punished in the young with death, and in older persons with loss of rank and confisca- tion of property. Yet a decent conviviality was not meant to be proscribed at their festivals, and they possessed the means of indulging it, in a mild fer- 36 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. merited liquor, called pulque, which is still popular, not only with the Indian, but the European popula- tion of the country. ^"^ The rites of marriage were celebrated with as nmch formality as in any Christian country ; and the institution was held in such reverence, that a tribunal was instituted for the sole purpose of de- termining questions relating to it. Divorces could not be obtained, until authorized by a sentence of this court, after a patient hearing of the parties. But the most remarkable part of the Aztec code was that relating to slavery. There were several descriptions of slaves : prisoners taken in war, who were almost always reserved for the dreadful doom of sacrifice ; criminals, public debtors, persons who, from extreme poverty, voluntarily resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their own parents. In the last instance, usually occasioned also by poverty, it was common for the parents, with the master's consent, to substitute others of 18 Paintings of the Mendoza Col- 112.) Mons. Ternaux's traiisla- lection, PI. 72, and Interpretation, tion of a passage of the Anony- ap. Anliq. of Mexico, vol. VI. p. mous Conqueror, " aucun peuple Vl. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., n'est aussi sobre,'' (Recueil de _b. 12, cap. 7. — Clavigero, Stor. Pieces Relatives a la Conquete du del Messico, torn. II. pp. 130- Mexique, ap. Voyages, &c., (Paris, 134. — Camargo, Hist, de Tlasca- 1838,) p. 54,) may give a more fa- la, MS. vorable impression, however, than They could scarcely have been thatintendedby his original, whose an intemperate people, with these remark is confined to abstemious- heavy penalties hanging over them, ness in eating. See the Relatione, Indeed, Zurita bears testimony tliat ap. Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navi- those Spaniards, who tlioiiglit they gationi et Viaggi. (Venetia, 1554 were, greatly erred. (Rapport, p. - 1565.) Ch. II.] LAWS AND REVENUES. 37 their children successively, as they grew up ; thus distributing the burden, as equally as possible, among the different members of the family. The willingness of freemen to incur the penalties of this condition is explained by the mild form in which it existed. The contract of sale was executed in the presence of at least four witnesses. The ser- vices to be exacted were limited with great precis- ion. The slave was allowed to have his own family, to hold property, and even other slaves. His chil- dren were free. No one could be born to slavery in Mexico ; ^^ an honorable distinction, not known, I believe, in any civilized community where slavery has been sanctioned.^" Slaves were not sold by their masters, unless when these were driven to it by poverty. They were often liberated by them at their death, and sometimes, as there was no natural repugnance founded on difference of blood and race, were married to them. Yet a refractory or vicious slave might be led into the market, with a collar round his neck, which intimated his bad character. '9 In Ancient Egypt the child of so cheap in the eye of the Mex- a slave was born free, if the father ican law, that one might kill were free. (Diodorus, Bibl. Hist., them with impunity. (History of lib. 1, sec. 80.) This, though America, (ed. London, 1776,) vol. more liberal than the code of most IH. p. 164.) This, however, was countries, fell short of the Mexi- not in Mexico, but in Nicaragua, can. (see his own authority, Herrera, 20 In Egypt the same penalty Hist. General, dec. 3, lib. 4, cap. was attached to the murder of a 2,) a distant country, not incorpo- slave, as to that of a freeman, rated in the Mexican empire, and (Ibid., lib. 1, sec. 77.) Robertson with laws and institutions very speaks of a c^ass of slaves held different from those of the latter. 58 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. and there be publicly sold, and, on a second sale, reserved for sacrifice.^^ Such are some of the most striking features of the Aztec code, to which the Tezcucan bore great resemblance/''' With some exceptions, it is stamped with the severity, the ferocity, indeed, of a rude peo- ple, hardened by familiarity with scenes of blood, and relying on physical, instead of moral means, for the correction of evil."" Still, it evinces a profound respect for the great principles of morality, and as clear a perception of these principles as is to be found in the most cultivated nations. The royal revenues were derived from various sources. The crown lands, which appear to have been extensive, made their returns in kind. The places in the neighbourhood of the capital were bound to supply workmen and materials for build- ing the king's palaces, and keeping them in re- pair. They were also to furnish fuel, provisions, and whatever was necessary for his ordinary domes- tic expenditure, which was certainly on no stinted scale. ^' The principal cities, which had numerous 21 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., Mexican, in the latter days of the lib. 12, cap. 15; lib. 14, cap. 16, empire. Zurita, Rapport, p. 95. 17. — Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva 23 Jn this, at least, they did not EspaiTa, lib. 8, cap. 14. — Clavi- resemble the Romans; of whom pero, Stor. del Messico, torn. II. their countryman could boast, pp. 134- 136. " Gloriari licet, nulli gentium mi- ^ Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., tiores placuisse poenas." Livy, MS.,cap. 38, andRelaciones, MS. Hist., lib. 1, cap. 28. The Tezcucan code, indeed, as ^4 Xhe Tezcucan revenues were, digested under the great Nezahu- in like manner, paid in the prod- alcoyoil, formed the basis of the uce of the country. The various CK. II.] LAWS AND REVENUES. 39 villages and a large territory dependent on them, were distributed into districts, with each a share of the lands allotted to it, for its support. The inhab- itants paid a stipulated part of the produce to the crown. The vassals of the great chiefs, also, paid a portion of their earnings into the public treasury ; an arrangement not at all in the spirit of the feudal institutions.^' In addition to this tax on all the agricultural produce of the kingdom, there was another on its manufactures. The nature and variety of the trib- utes will be best shown by an enumeration of some of the principal articles. These wer-^ cotton dresses, and mantles of featherwork exquisit el y made ; orna- mented armor ; vases and plates of gold ; gold dust, bands and bracelets ; crystal, gilt, and varnished jars branches of the royal expenditure were defrayed by specified towns and districts ; and the whole ar- rangements here, and in Mexico, bore a remarkable resemblance to the financial regulations of the Persian empire, as reported by the Greek writers; (see Herodotus, Clio, sec. 192 ; ) with this differ- ence, however, that the towns of Persia proper were not burdened with tributes, like the conquered cities. Idem, Thalia, sec. 97. 25 Lorenzana, Hist, de Nueva Espaiia, p. 172. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 89; lib. 14, cap. 7. — Boturini, Idea, p. 166. — Camargo, Hist, de Tlas- cala, MS. — Herrera, Hist. Gen- eral, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 13. The people of the provinces were distributed into calpulli or tribes, who held the lands of the neighbourhood in common. Offi- cers of their own appointment par- celled out these lands among the several families of the calpulli : and, on the extinction or removal of a family, its lands reverted to the common stock, to be again distributed. The individual pro- prietor had no power to alienate them. The laws regulating these matters were very precise, ami had existed ever since the occupa- tion of the country by the Aztec.-i. Zurita, Rapport, pp. 51-62. 40 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book i. and goblets ; bells, arms, and utensils of copper ; reams of paper ; grain, fruits, copal, amber, cochi- neal, cacao, wild animals and birds, timber, lime, mats, &c.^^ In this curious medley of the most homely commodities, and the elegant superfluities of luxury, it is singular that no mention should be made of silver, the great staple of the country in later times, and the use of which was certainly known to the Aztecs. ^^ 26 The following items of the tribute furnished by different cities will give a more precise idea of its nature : — 20 chests of ground chocolate ; 40 pieces of armor, of a par^.icular device ; 2400 loads of large mantles, of twisted cloth ; 800 loads of small mantles, of rich wearing apparel ; 5 pieces of ar- mor, of rich feathers ; 60 pieces of armor, of common feathers ; a chest of beans ; a chest of cliian ; a chest of maize ; 8000 reams of paper ; likewise 2000 loaves of very white salt, refined in the shape of a mould, for the con- sumption only of the lords of Mex- ico ; 8000 lumps of unrefined co- pal ; 400 small baskets of white refined copal ; 100 copper axes ; 80 loads of red chocolate ; 800 Acaras, out of which they drank chocolate ; a little vessel of small turquoise stones ; 4 chests of tim- ber, full of maize ; 4000 loads of lime ; tiles of gold, of the size of an oyster, and as ihick as the fin- ger ; 40 bags of cochineal ; 20 bags of gold dust, of the finest quality ; a diadem of gold, of a specified pattern ; 20 lip-jewels of clear amber, ornamented with gold ; 200 loads of chocolate ; 100 pots or jars of liquid-amber ; 8000 handfuls of rich scarlet feathers ; 40 tiger-skins ; 1600 bundles of cotton, &c., &c. Col. de Mendoza, part 2, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vols. I., VI. -^ Mapa de Tributes, ap. Lo- renzana. Hist, de Nueva Espafia. — Tribute-roll, ap. Antiq. of Mex- ico, vol. I., and Interpretation, vol. VI., pp. 17-44. The Mendoza Collection, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, con- tains a roll of the cities of the Mexican empire, with the specific tributes exacted from them. It is a copy made after the Conquest, with a pen, on European paper (See Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XVII. Art. 4.) An original painting of the same roll was in Boturini's museum. Ijorenzana has given us engravings of it, in which the outlines of the Oxford copy aio filled up, though some- Ch. II.] LAWS AND REVENUES. 41 Garrisons were established in the larger cities, — probably those at a distance, and recently conquered, — to keep down revolt, and to enforce the payment of the tribute. ^^ Tax-gatherers were also distrib- uted throughout the kingdom, who were recognised by their official badges, and dreaded from the mer- ciless rigor of their exactions. By a stern law, every defaulter was liable to be taken and sold as a slave. In the capital were spacious granaries and warehouses for the reception of the tributes. A receiver-general was quartered in the palace, who rendered in an exact account of the various con- tributions, and watched over the conduct of the inferior agents, in whom the least malversation was summarily punished. This functionary was fur- nished with a map of the whole empire, with a minute specification of the imposts assessed on every part of it. These imposts, moderate under the reigns of the early princes, became so burdensome under those at the close of the dynasty, being rendered still more oppressive by the manner of collection, that what rudely. Clavigero considers ^8 Xhe caciques, who submitted the explanations in Lorenzana's to the allied arms, were usually edition very inaccurate, (Stor. del confirmed in their authority, and Messico, torn. I. p. 25,) a judg- the conquered places allowed to ment confirmed by Aglio, who has retain their laws and usages. (Zu- transcribed the entire collection of rita, Rapport, p. 67.) The con- the Mendoza papers, in the first quests were not always partitioned, volume of the Antiquities of Mex- but sometimes, singularly enough, ico. It would have much facili- were held in common by the three tated reference to his plates, if powers. Ibid., p. 11. they had been numbered ; — a strange omission ! VOL. I. 6 42 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. they bred disaffection throughout the land, and pre pared the way for its conquest by the Spaniards.^^ Communication was maintained with the remotest parts of the country by means of couriers. Post- houses were estabHshed on the great roads, about two leagues distant from each other. The courier, bearing his despatches in the form of a hieroglyphi- cal painting, ran with them to the first station, where they were taken by another messenger and earned forward to the next, and so on till they reached the capital. These couriers, trained from childhood, travelled with incredible swiftness ; not four or five leagues an hour, as an old chronicler would make us believe, but with such speed that despatches were carried from one to two hundred miles a day.^ Fresh fish was frequently served at Montezuma's table in twenty-four hours from the time it had been taken in the Gulf of Mexico, two hundred miles from the capital. In this way intelligence 29 Collec. of Mendoza, ap. An- Indian of his party travelled a tiq. of Mexico, vol. VI. p. 17. — hundred miles in four and twenty Carta de Cortes, ap. Lorenzana, hours. (Travels in N. America, Hist, de Nueva Espana, p. 110. (New York, 1839,) vol. I. p. 193.) — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., The Greek, who, according to lib. 14, cap. 6, 8. — Herrera, Hist. Plutarch, brought the news of General, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 13. — victory to Platsea, a hundred and Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Espana, twenty-five miles, in a day, was a lib. 8, cap. 18, 19. better traveller still. Some inter- s'* The Hon. C. A. Murray, esting facts on the pedestrian capa- vhose imperturbable good-humor bilities of man in the savage state under real troubles forms a con- are collected by Buffon, who con- trast, rather striking, to the sensi- eludes, truly enough, " L'homme tiveness of some of his predeces- civilise ne connait pas ses forces." sors to imaginary ones, tells us, (Histoire Naturelle ; De la Jeu- among other marvels, that an nesse.) Ch. ii] military institutions. 4^ of the movements of the royal armies was rapidly brought to court ; and the dress of the courier, de- noting by its color that of his tidings, spread joy or consternation in the towns through which he passed.^^ But the great aim of the Aztec institutions, to which private discipline and public honors were alike directed, was the profession of arms. In Mexico, as in Egypt, the soldier shared with the priest the highest consideration. The king, as we have seen, must be an experienced warrior. The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of war. A great object of their military expeditions was, to gath- er hecatombs of captives for his altars. The sol- dier, who fell in battle, was transported at once to the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the Sun.^^ Every war, therefore, became a crusade ; and the warrior, animated by a religious enthusiasm, like that of the early Saracen, or the Christian cru- 31 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., Marco Polo. Their stations were lib. 14, cap. 1. only three miles apart, and they The same wants led to the same accomplished five days' journey in expedients in ancient Rome, and one. (Viaggi di Marco Polo, lib. still more ancient Persia. " Noth- 2, cap. 20, ap. Ramusio, torn. II.) ing in the world is borne so swift- A similar arrangement for posts ly," says Herodotus, " as mes- subsists there at the present day, sages by the Persian couriers " ; and excites the admiration of a which his commentator, Valcke- modern traveller. (Anderson, Brit- naer, prudently qualifies by the ish Embassy to China, (London, exception of the carrier pigeon. 1796,) p. 282.) In all these cases, (Herodotus, Hist., Urania, sec. 98, the posts were for the use of gov- nec non Adnot. ed. Schweighau- ernment only, ser.) Couriers are noticed, in the ^^ Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva thirteenth century, in China, by Espana, lib. 3, Apend., cap. 3. 44. AZTEC CIVILIZATION [Book I. sader, was not only raised to a contempt of danger, but courted it, for the imperishable crown of mar- tyrdom. Thus we find the same impulse acting in the most opposite quarters of the globe, and the Asiatic, the European, and the American, each earnestly invoking the holy name of religion in the perpetration of human butchery. The question of war was discussed in a council of the king and his chief nobles. Ambassadors were sent, previously to its declaration, to require the hostile state to receive the Mexican gods, and to pay the customary tribute. The persons of ambas- sadors were held sacred throughout Anahuac. They were lodged and entertained in the great towns at the public charge, and were everywhere received with courtesy, so long as they did not deviate from the highroads on their route. When they did, they forfeited their privileges. If the embassy proved unsuccessful, a defiance, or open declaration of war, was sent ; quotas were drawn from the conquered provinces, which were always subjected to military service, as well as the payment of taxes ; and the royal army, usually with the monarch at its head, began its march.*^ The Aztec princes made use of the incentives employed by European monarchs to excite the am- bition of their followers. They established various 33 Zurita, Rapport, pp. 68, 120. The reader will find a remark- — Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of able resemblance to these military Mexico, vol. I. PI. 67 ; vol. VI. usages, in those of the early Ro- p. 74. — Torquemada, Monarch, mans. Comp. Liv., Hist., lib. 1, End., lib. 14, cap. 1. cap. 32 ; lib. 4, cap. 30, et alibi ch. ii] military institutions. 45 military orders, each having its privileges and pecu- liar insignia. There seems, also, to have existed a sort of knighthood, of inferior degree. It was the cheapest reward of martial prowess, and whoever had not reached it was excluded from using orna- ments on his arms or his person, and obliged to wear a coarse white stuff, made from the threads of the aloe, called nequen. Even the members of the royal family were not excepted from this law, which reminds one of the occasional practice of Christian knights, to wear plain armor, or shields without device, till they had achieved some doughty feat of chivalry. Although the military orders were thrown open to all, it is probable that they were chiefly filled with persons of rank, who, by their previous training and connexions, were able to come into the field under peculiar advantages.^ The dress of the higher warriors was picturesque and often magnificent. Their bodies were covered with a close vest of quilted cotton, so thick as to be impenetrable to the light missiles of Indian warfare. This garment was so light and serviceable, that it was adopted by the Spaniards. The wealthier chiefs sometimes wore, instead of this cotton mail, a cuirass made of thin plates of gold, or silver. Over it was thrown a surcoat of the gorgeous feather- work in which they excelled.^^ Their helmets ^ Ibid., lib. 14, cap. 4, 5. 33 "Their mail, if mail it may be called. Acosta, lib. 6, ch. 26. — CoUec. nr^'^Tr", ,-., « t«. Of vegetable down, like finest flax, of Mendoza,ap. Antiq. of Mexico, Bleached to the whiteness of new- vol. I. PI. 65 ; vol. VI. p. 72. — fallen snow. Camargo, Hist, de TIascala, MS. 46 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. were sometimes of wood, fashioned like the heads of wild animals, and sometimes of silver, on the top of which waved a panache of variegated plumes, sprinkled with precious stones and ornaments of gold. They wore also collars, bracelets, and ear- rings, of the same rich materials.^^ Their armies were divided into bodies of eight thousand men ; and these, again, into companies of three or four hundred, each with its own comman- der. The national standard, which has been com- pared to the ancient Roman, displayed, in its em- broidery of gold and feather-work, the armorial en- signs of the state. These were significant of its name, which, as the names of both persons and places were borrowed from some material object, was easily expressed by hieroglyphical symbols. The companies and the great chiefs had also their appropriate banners and devices, and the gaudy hues of their many-colored plumes gave a dazzling splen- dor to the spectacle. Their tactics were such as belong to a nation, with whom war, though a trade, is not elevated to the rank of a science. They advanced singing, and Others, of higher office, were arrayed doubt, however, ihc propriety of In feathery breastplates, of more gorgeous ., tut i , , ^ i_ /■ .i_ jijjg ^ " the Welshman s vaunt, before the Than the gay plumage of the mountain- use of fire-arms. cock, 36 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Than the pheasant's glittering pride. But j, -^ jjj,_ g ^ ^^ g what were these, tS Or what the thin gold hauberk, when op- cap. 12. — Relatione d' un gentil' posed huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. III. To arms like ours in^battle , >■ ^^^^ ^ p. 3^5. _Torquemada, Monarch. Beautiful painting! One may Ind-, "bi supra. Ch. II.] MILITARY INSTITUTIONS. 47 shouting their war-cries, briskly charging the enemy, as rapidly retreating, and making use of ambuscades, sudden surprises, and the light skirmish of guerilla warfare. Yet their discipline was such as to draw forth the encomiums of the Spanish conquerors. " A beautiful sight it was," says one of them, " to see them set out on their march, all moving forward so gayly, and in so admirable order ! " ^'^ In battle, they did not seek to kill their enemies, so much as to take them prisoners ; and they never scalped, like other North American tribes. The valor of a war- rior was estimated by the number of his prisoners ; and no ransom was large enough to save the devoted captive.^ Their military code bore the same stern features as their other laws. Disobedience of orders was pun- ished with death. It was death, also, for a soldier to leave his colors, to attack the enemy before the signal was given, or to plunder another's booty or prisoners. One of the last Tezcucan princes, in the spirit of an ancient Roman, put two sons to death,— ^7 Relatione d'un gentil' huomo, The Father of History gives an ubi supra. account of it among the Scythians, 38 Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. showing that they performed the of Mexico, vol. I. PI. 65, 66 ; vol. operation, and wore the hideous VI. p. 73. — Sahagun, Hist, de trophy, in the same manner as our Nueva Espaua, lib. 8, cap. 12. — North American Indians. (Hero- Toribio, Hist, de los Indios, MS., dot., Hist., Melpomene, sec. 64.) Parte I. cap. 7. — Torquemada, Traces of the same savage custom Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 3. — are also found in the laws of the Relatione d'un gentil' huomo, ap. Visigoths, among the Franks, and Ramusio, loc. cit. even the Anglo-Saxons. See Gui- Scalping may claim high au- zot, Cours d'Histoire Modeme, thority, or, at least, antiquity. (Paris, 1829,) torn. I. p. 283. 48 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I after having cured their wounds, — for violating the last-mentioned law.'^^ I must not omit to notice here an institution, the introduction of which, in the Old World, is ranked among the beneficent fruits of Christianity. Hospitals were established in the principal cities, for the cure of the sick, and the permanent refuge of .he disabled soldier ; and surgeons were placed over them, "who were so far better than those in Eu- rope," says an old chronicler, " that they did not protract the cure, in order to increase the pay."^° Such is the brief outline of the civil and military polity of the ancient Mexicans ; less perfect than could be desired, in regard to the former, from the imperfection of the sources whence it is drawn. Whoever has had occasion to explore the early his- tory of modern Europe has found how vague and unsatisfactory is the political information which can be gleaned from the gossip of monkish annalists. How much is the difficulty increased in the present instance, where this information, first recorded in the dubious language of hieroglyphics, was inter- preted in another language, with which the Spanish chroniclers were imperfectly acquainted, while it related to institutions of which their past expe- rience enabled them to form no adequate conception ! Amidst such uncertain lights, it is in vain to expect nice accuracy of detail. All that can be done is, to 39 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., lib. 12, cap. 6 ; lib. 14, cap. 3, — MS., cap. 07. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., *> Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., cap. 86. Ch. II.J AZTEC CIVILIZATION. 49 attempt an outline of the more prominent features, that a correct impression, so far as it goes, may be produced on the mind of the reader. Enough has been said, however, to show that the Aztec and Tezcucan races were advanced in civiH- zation very far beyond the wandering tribes of North America."*' The degree of civilization which they had reached, as inferred by their political institu- tions, may be considered, perhaps, not much short of that enjoyed by our Saxon ancestors, under Alfred. In respect to the nature of it, they may bo 4^ Zurita is indignant at the ep- ithet of barbarians bestowed on the Aztecs ; an epithet, he says, " which could come from no one who had personal knowledge of the capacity of the people, or their institutions, and which, Ir. some re- spects, is quite as well merited by the European nations." (Rapport, p. 200, et seq.) This is strong language. Yet no one had better means of knowing than this emi- nent jurist, who, for nineteen years, held a post in the royal audiences of New Spain. During his long res- idence in the country he had ample opportunity of acquainting himself with its usages, both through his own personal observation and in- tercourse with the natives, and through the first missionaries who came over after the Conquest. On his return to Spain, probably about 1560, he occupied himself with an answer to queries which had been propounded by the government, on the character of the Aztec laws VOL. I. 7 and institutions, and on that of the modifications introduced by the Spaniards. Much of his treatise is taken up with the latter subject. In what relates to the former he is more brief than could be wished, from the difficulty, perhaps, of ob- taining full and satisfactory infor- mation as to the details. As far as he goes, however, he manifests- a sound and discriminating judg- ment. He Ls very rarely betrayed into the extravagance of expression so visible in the writers of the time ; and this temperance, com- bined with his uncommon sources of information, makes his work one of highest authority on the limited topics within its range. — The original manuscript was con- sulted by Clavigero, and, indeed, has been used by other writers. The work is now accessible to all, as one of (he series of translations from the pen of the indefatigable Ternaux. 60 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. better compared with the Egyptians ; and the ex- amination of their social relations and culture may suggest still stronger points of resemblance to that ancient people. Those familiar with the modern Mexicans will hnd it difficult to conceive that the nation should ever have been capable of devising the enlightened polity which we have been considering. But they should remember that in the Mexicans of our day they see only a conquered race ; as different from their an- cestors as are the modern Egyptians from those who built, — I will not say, the tasteless pyramids, — but the temples and palaces, whose magnificent wrecks strew the borders of the Nile, at Luxor and Karnac. The difference is not so great as between the ancient Greek, and his degenerate descendant, lounging among the master-pieces of art which he has scarcely taste enough to admire, — speaking the language of those still more imperishable monu- ments of literature which he has hardly capacity to comprehend. Yet he breathes the same atmosphere, is warmed by the same sun, nourished by the same scenes, as those who fell at Marathon, and won the trophies of Olympic Pisa. The same blood flows in his veins that flowed in theirs. But ages of tyranny have passed over him ; he belongs to a con- quered race. The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the form of civiliza- Ch. II.] torquemada. 51 tion, he seems to sink and pine away beneath it. It has been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination, their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are broken. They no longer tread their mountain plains with the con- scious independence of their ancestors. In their faltering step, and meek and melancholy aspect, we read the sad characters of the conquered race. The cause of humanity, indeed, has gained. They live under a better system of laws, a more assured tran- quillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail. Their civilization was of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European culture, — to be engrafted on a foreign stock. His outward form, his complexion, his lin- eaments, are substantially the same. But the moral characteristics of the nation, all that constituted its individuality as a race, are effaced for ever. Two of the principal authorities for this Chapter are Torquemada and Clavigero. The former, a Provincial of the Franciscan order, came to the New World about the middle of the sixteenth century. As the generation of the Conquerors had not then passed away, he had ample opportunities of gathering the particulars of their enterprise from their own lips. Fifty years, during which he continued in the country, put him in possession of the traditions and usages of the natives, and enabled him to collect their history from the earliest missionaries, as well as from such monuments as the fanaticism of his own countrymen had not then destroyed. From these ample sources he compiled his bulky tomes, beginning, after the approved fashion of the ancient Castilian chroniclers, with the creation of the world, and embracing the whole circle of the Mexican institutions, political, reli- gious, and social, from the earliest period to his own time. In handling 52 CLAVIGERO. [Book I. these fruitful themes, the worthy father has shown a full measure of the bigotry which belonged to his order at that period. Every page, too, is loaded with illustrations from Scripture or profane history, which form a whimsical contrast to the barbaric staple of his story ; and he has sometimes fallen into serious errors, from his misconception of the chronological system of the Aztecs. But, notwithstanding these glaring defects in the composition of the work, the student, aware of his au- thor's infirmities, will find few better guides than Torquemada in tracing the stream of historic truth up to the fountain head ; such is his man- ifest integrity, and so great were his facilities for information on the most curious points of Mexican antiquity. No work, accordingly, has been more largely consulted and copied, even by some, who, like Herrera, have affected to set little value on the sources whence its information was drawn. — (Hist. General, dec. 6, lib. 6, cap. 19.) The Monarchia Indiana was first published at Seville, 1615, (Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, (Matriti, 1783,) tom. II. p. 787,) and since, in a better style, in three volumes folio, at Madrid, in 1723. The other authority, frequently cited in the preceding pages, is the Abbe Clavigero's Storia Antica del Messico. It was originally printed towards the close of the last century, in the Italian language, and in Italy, whither the author, a native of Vera Cruz, and a member of the order of the Jesuits, had retired, on the expulsion of that body from America, in 1767. During a residence of thirty-five years in his own country, Clavigero had made himself intimately acquainted with its antiquities, by the careful examination of paintings, manuscripts, and such other remains as were to be found in his day. The plan of his work is nearly as comprehensive as that of his predecessor, Torque- mada; but the later and more cultivated period, in which he wrote, is visible in the superior address with which he has managed his complicated subject. In the elaborate disquisitions in his concluding volume, he has done much to rectify the chronology, and the various inaccuracies of preceding writers. Indeed, an avowed object of his work was, to vindicate his countrymen from what he conceived to be the misrepresentations of Robertson, Raynal, and De Pau. In regard to the last two, he was perfectly successful. Such an ostensible de- sign might naturally suggest unfavorable ideas of his impartiality. But, on the whole, he seems to have conducted the discussion with good feith ; and, if he has been led by national zeal to overcharge the pic ture with brilliant colors, he will be found much more temperate, on this score, than those who preceded him, while he has applied sound principles of criticism, of which they were incapable. In a word, the diligence of his researches has gathered into one focus the aeattered lights of tradition and antiquarian lore, purified in a great ch. ii] clavigero. 53 measure from the mists of superstition which obscure the best produc- tions of an earlier period. From these causes, the work, notwithstand- ing its occasional prolixity, and the disagreeable aspect given to it by the profusion of uncouth names in the Mexican orthography, which bristle over every page, has found merited favor with the public, and created something like a popular interest in the subject. Soon after its publication at Cesena, in 1780, it was translated into English, and more lately, into Spanish and German. CHAPTER III. Mexican Mythology. — The Sacerdotal Order. — The Temples. — Human Sacrifices. The civil polity of the Atzecs is so closely blended with their religion, that, without understanding the latter, it is impossible to form correct ideas of their government or their social institutions. I shall pass over, for the present, some remarkable traditions, bearing a singular resemblance to those found in the Scriptures, and endeavour to give a brief sketch of their mythology, and their careful provisions for maintaining a national worship. Mythology may be regarded as the poetry of re- ligion, — or rather as the poetic development of the religious principle in a primitive age. It is the effort of untutored man to explain the mysteries of existence, and the secret agencies by which the operations of nature are conducted. Although the growth of similar conditions of society, its character must vary with that of the rude tribes in which it originates ; and the ferocious Goth, quaffing mead from the skulls of his slaughtered enemies, must have a very different mythology from that of the effeminate native of Hispaniola, loitering away his hours in idle pastimes, under the shadow of his ba- nanas. Ch. III.] MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. 55 At a later and more refined period, we sometimes find these primitive legends combined into a regular system under the hands of the poet, and the rude outline moulded into forms of ideal beauty, which are the objects of adoration in a credulous age, and the delight of all succeeding ones. Such were the beautiful inventions of Hesiod and Homer, " who," says the Father of History, " created the theogony of the Greeks " ; an assertion not to be taken too liter- ally, since it is hardly possible that any man should create a religious system for his nation.' They only filled up the shadowy outlines of tradition with the bright touches of their own imaginations, until the} had clothed them in beauty which kindled the imagi- nations of others. The power of the poet, indeed, may be felt in a similar way in a much riper period of society. To say nothing of the " Divina Corn- media," who is there that rises from the perusal of " Paradise Lost," without feeling his own concep- tions of the angelic hierarchy quickened by those of the inspired artist, and a new and sensible form, as it were, given to images which had before floated dim and undefined before him ? The last-mentioned period is succeeded by that of philosophy ; which, disclaiming ahke the legends of the primitive age, and the poetical embellish - 1 woinv»*rts dtaywiJit "Exxti^i. He- supplied the numerous gods that rodotus, Euterpe, sec. 53. — Hee- fill her Pantheon." Historical Ke- ren hazards a remark equally searches, Eng. trans., (Oxford, strong, respecting the epic poets 1833,) vol. HI. p. 139. of India, " who," says he, " have 56 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book i. ments of the succeeding one, seeks to shelter itself from the charge of impiety by giving an allegorical interpretation to the popular mythology, and thus to reconcile the latter with the genuine deductions of science. The Mexican religion had emerged from the first of the periods we have been considering, and, al- though little affected by poetical influences, had received a peculiar complexion from the priests, who had digested as thorough and burdensome a cere- monial, as ever existed in any nation. They had, moreover, thrown the veil of allegory over early tradition, and invested their deities with attributes, savoring much more of the grotesque conceptions of the eastern nations in the Old World, than of the lighter fictions of Greek mythology, in which the features of humanity, however exaggerated, were never wholly abandoned.- In contemplating the religious system of the Az- tecs, one is struck with its apparent incongruity, as if some portion of it had emanated from a com- paratively refined people, open to gentle influences, while the rest breathes a spirit of unmitigated fe- rocity. It naturally suggests the idea of two dis tinct sources, and authorizes the belief that the Az 2 The Hon. MountstuartElphin- philosophic work suggests some stone has fallen into a similar train curious points of resemblance to of thought, in a comparison of the the Aztec religious institutions, Hindoo and Greek Mythology, in that may furnish pertinent illustra- his " History of India," published tions to the mind bent on tracing since the remarks in the text were the aflinities of the Asiatic and written. (See Book I. eh. 4.) American races. The same chapter of this truly Ch III.] MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY 57 tecs had inherited from their predecessors a milder faith, on which was afterwards engrafted their own mythology. The latter soon became dominant, and gave its dark coloring to the creeds of the conquered nations, — which the Mexicans, like the ancient Romans, seem willingly to have incorporated into their own, — until the same funereal superstition settled over the farthest borders of Anahuac. The Aztecs recognised the existence of a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe. They addressed him, in their prayers, as " the God by whom we live," " omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts," " without whom man is as noth- ing," " invisible, incorporeal, one God, of perfect perfection and purity," " under whose wings we find repose and a sure defence." These sublime attri- butes infer no inadequate conception of the true God. But the idea of unity — of a being, with whom volition is action, who has no need of inferior min- isters to execute his purposes — was too simple, or too vast, for their understandings ; and they sought relief, as usual, in a plurality of deities, who presided over the elements, the changes of the seasons, and the various occupations of man.^ Of these, there were thirteen principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior ; to each of whom some special day, or appropriate festival, was consecrated.'* 3 Fitter has well shown, by the Ancient Philosophy, Eng. trans., example of the Kindoo system, (Oxford, 1838,) book 2, ch. 1. how the idea of unity suggests, of "* Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Es- itself, that of plurahty. History of paiia, lib. 6, passim. — Acosta, lib VOL. I. 8 58 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. At tlie head of all stood the terrible Huitzilo- potchli, the Mexican Mars ; although it is doing in- justice to the heroic war-god of antiquity to identify him with this sanguinary monster. This was the patron deity of the nation. His fantastic image was loaded with costly ornaments. His temples were the most stately and august of the public ed- ifi^::j, and his altars reeked with the blood of hu- man hecatombs in every city of the empire. Dis- astrous, indeed, must have been the influence of such a superstition on the character of the people.'^ 5, ch. 9. — Boturini, Idea, p. 8, et seq. — Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 1. — Camargo, Hist, de Tlascala, MS. The Mexicans, according to Clavigero, believed in an evil Spir- it, the enemy of the human race, whose barbarous name signified " Rational Owl." (Stor. del Mes- sico, torn. H. p. 2.) The curate Bernaldez speaks of the Devil be- ing embroidered on the dresses of Columbus's Indians, in the likeness of an owl. (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 131.) This must not be confounded, however, with the evil Spirit in the mytholo- gy of the North American Indians, (see Ileckewelder's Account, ap. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadel- phia, vol. I. p. 205,) still less, with the evil Principle of the Ori- ental nations of the Old World. It was only one among many dei- ties, for evil was found too liberally mingled in the natures of most of the Aztec gods, — in the same manner as with the Greek, — to admit of its personification by any one. 5 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Es- paiia, lib. 3, cap. 1, et seq. — Acos- ta, lib. 5, ch. 9. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 6, cap. 21. — Boturini, Idea, pp. 27, 28. Huitzilopotchli is compounded of two words, signifying " humming- bird," and "left," from his image having the feathers of this bird on its left foot ; (Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. II. p. 17 ;) an amia- ble etymology for so ruffian a dei- ty. — The fantastic forms of the Mexican idols were in the highest degree symbolical. See Gamas learned exposition of the devices on the statue of the goddess found in the great square of Mexico. (Descripcion de las Dos Piedras, (Mexico, 1832,) Parte 1, pp. 34- 44.) The tradition respecting the origin of this god, or, at least, his appearance on earth, is curious Ch III.] MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. 59 A far more interesting personage in their mvthol- ogj was Quetzalcoatl, god of the air, a divinity who, during his residence on earth, instructed the natives in the use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government. He was one of those ben- efactors of their species, doubtless, who have been deified by the gratitude of jx)steritv. Under him, the earth teemed with fruits and flowers, without the pains of culture. An ear of Indian corn was as much as a single man could carry. The cotton, as it grew, took, of its own accord, the rich dves of human art. The air was filled with intcxicatins: perfumes and the sweet melody of birds. In short, these were the halcyon days, which find a place in the mythic systems of so many nations in the Old World. It was the golden age of Anahuac. He was bom of a womaa. His mother, a devout person, one day, in her attendance on the temple, saw a ball of bright-colored feath- ers floating in the air. She took it, and deposited it in her bosom. She soon after found herself preg- nant, and the dread deity was bom, coming into the world, like Miner- va, all armed, — with a spear in the right hand, a shield in the left, and his head surmounted by a crest of green plumes. (See Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. H. p. 19, et seq.) A similar notion in re- spect to the incarnation of their principal deity existed among the people of India beyond the Gan- ges, of China, and of Thibet. " Budh," says Milman, in his leamed and luminous work on the History of Christianity, " accord- ing to a tradition known in the West, was bom of a virgin. So were the Fohi of China, and the Schakaof of Thibet, no doubt the same, whether a mythic or a real personage. The Jesuits in China, says Barrow, were appalled at finding in the mythology of that country the counterpart of the Vir- go Deipara." (Vol. I. p. 99, note.) The existence of similar religious ideas in remote regions, inhabited by different races, is an interesting subject of study ; furnishing, as it does, one of the most important links in the great chain of commu- nication which binds together the distant families of nations. 60 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1 From some cause, not explained, Quetzalcoatl in- curred the wrath of one of the principal gods, and was compelled to abandon the country. On his way, he stopped at the city of Cholula, where a temple was dedicated to his worship, the massy ru- ins of which still form one of the most interesting relics of antiquity in Mexico. When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his wizard skiff, made of serpents' skins, embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan. He was said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a flowing beard. The Mexicans looked confidently to the return of the benevolent deity ; and this remarkable tradition, deeply cherished in their hearts, prepared the way, as we shall see hereafter, for the future success of the Spaniards.^ 6 Codex Vaticamis, PI. 15, and za to identify this god with the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Part apostle Thomas, (Didymussignify- 2, PI. 2, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, ing also a twin,) who, he supposes, vols. I., VI. — Sahagun, Hist, de came over to America to preach Nueva Espafia, lib. 3, cap. 3, 4, 13, the gospel. In this rather start- 14. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ling conjecture he is supported by lib.6,cap. 24. — Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, several of his devout countrymen, Chich., MS., cap. 1. — Gomara, who appear to have as little doubt Cr6nica de la Nueva Espafia, cap. of the fact as of the advent of St. 222, ap. Barcia, Historiadores James, for a similar purpose, in Primitivos de las Indias Occiden- the mother country. See the va- tales, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. II. rious authorities and arguments Quetzalcoatl signifies" feathered set forth with becoming gravity in serpent." The last syllabic means, Dr. Mier's dissertation in Busta- likewise, a "twin"; which fur- mante's edition of Sahagun, (lib. 3, nishcd an argument for Dr. Siguen- Suplem.,) and Veytia, (tom. I.pp Ch. Ill] MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. 61 We have not space for further details respecting the Mexican divinities, the attributes of many of whom were carefully defined, as they descended, in regular gradation, to the penates or household gods, whose little images were to be found in the humblest dwelling. The Aztecs felt the curiosity, common to man m almost every stage of civilization, to lift the veil which covers the mysterious past, and the more awful future. They sought relief, like the nations of the Old Continent, from the oppressive idea of eternity, by breaking it up into distinct cycles, or periods of time, each of several thousand years' du- ration. There were four of these cycles, and at the end of each, by the agency of one of the elements, the human family was SAvept from the earth, and the sun blotted out from the heavens, to be again rekindled.'' 160-200.) Our ingenious coun- the key to llie calculations of the tryman, McCulloh, carries the Az- former. (Vues des Cordilleres, tec god up to a still more respectable pp. 202-212.) In truth, there antiquity, by identifying him with seems to be a material discordance the patriarch Noah. Research- in the Mexican statements, both es, Philosophical and Antiquarian, in regard to the number of revo- concerning the Aboriginal History lutions and their duration. A of America, (Baltimore, 1829,) p. manuscript before me, of Ixtlilxo- 233. chitl, reduces them to three, before ■^ Cod. Yat., PI. 7-10, ap. Antiq. the present state of the world, and of Mexico, vols. I., VI. — Ixtlilxo- allows only 4394 years for them ; chitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 1. (Sumaria Relacion, MS., No. 1 ;) M. de Humboldt has been at Gama, on the faith of an ancient some pains to trace the analogy Indian MS., in Boturini's Cata- between the Aztec cosmogony logue, (VIII. 13,) reduces the du- and that of Eastern Asia. He ration still lower ; (Descripcion do has tried, though in vain, to find las Dos Piedras, Parte 1, p. 49, et a multiple which might serve as seq. ;) while the cycles of the Vat B2 AZTEC CIVILIZATION.' [Book I They imagined three separate states of existence in the future life. The wicked, comprehending the greater part of mankind, were to expiate their sins in a place of everlasting darkness. Another class, with no other merit than that of having died of certain diseases, capriciously selected, were to enjoy a negative existence of indolent contentment. The highest place was reserved, as in most warlike nations, for the heroes who fell in battle, or in sacri- fice. They passed, at once, into the presence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and choral dances, in his bright progress through the heavens ; and, after some years, their spirits went to animate the clouds and singing birds of beautiful plumage, and to revel amidst the rich blossoms and odors of the gardens of paradise.^ Such was the heaven of the Aztecs ; more refined in its character than that of the more polished pagan, whose elysium reflected only the martial sports, or sensual gratifications, of this life.'' In the destiny they assigned to the ican paintings take up near 18,000 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. years. — It is interesting to observe 13, cap. 48. how the wild conjectures of an ig- The last writer assures us, no rant age have been confirmed "that, as to what the Aztecs said by the more recent discoveries in of their going to hell, they were geology, making it probable that right ; for, as they died in igno- the earth has experienced a number ranee of the true faith, they have, of convulsions, possibly thousands witnout question, all gone there to of years distant from each other, suffer everlasting punishment " ! which have swept away the races Ubi supra. then existing, and given a new 9 It conveys but a poor idea of aspect to the globe. these pleasures, that the shade of 8 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Achilles can say, " he had rather Espana,lib. 3,Apend. — Cod. Vat., be the slave of the meanest man ap. Antiq. of Mexico, PI. 1-5. — on earth, than sovereign among Oh. Ill] MEXICAN MYTHOLOGY. 63 wicked, we discern similar traces of refinement ; since the absence of all physical torture forms a striking contrast to the schemes of suffering so in- geniously de\ised by the fancies of the most enlight- ened nations. ^° In all this, so contrary to the natural suggestions of the ferocious Aztec, we see the evidences of a higher civilization, inherited from their predecessors in the land. Our limits will allow only a brief allusion to one or two of their most interesting ceremonies. On the death of a person, his corpse was dressed in the peculiar habiliments of his tutelar deity. It was strewed with pieces of paper, which operated as charms against the dangers of the dark road he was to travel. A throng of slaves, if he were rich, was sacrificed at his obsequies. His body was burned, and the ashes, collected in a vase, were preserved in one of the apartments of his house. Here we have the dead." (Odyss. A. 488-490.) 1° It is singular that the Tuscan The Mahometans believe that the bard, while exhausting his inven- souls of martyrs pass, after death, tion in devising modes of bodily into the bodies of birds, that haunt torture, in his "Inferno," should the sweet waters and bowers of have made so little use of the mor- Paradise. (Sale's Koran, (Lon- al sources of misery. That he don, 1825,) vol. I. p. 106.) — has not done so might be reck- The Mexican heaven may remind oned a strong proof of the rude- one of Dante's, in its material en- ness of the time, did we not meet joyments ; which, in both, are with examples of it in a later made up of light, music, and mo- day ; in which a serious and tion. The sun, it must also be sublime writer, like Dr. Watts, remembered, was a spiritual con- does not disdain to employ the ception with the Aztec ; same coarse machinery for moving "He sees with other eyes than theirs; where the conscience of the reader, they Hehold a sun, he spies a deity." 64 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. successively the usages of the Roman Catholic, the Mussulman, the Tartar, and the Ancient Greek and Roman ; curious coincidences, which may show how cautious we should be in adopting conclusions found- ed on analogy." A more extraordinary coincidence may be traced with Christian rites, in the ceremony of naming their children. The lips and bosom of the infant were sprinkled with water, and " the Lord was im- plored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the world; so that the child might be born anew."'^ We are reminded of Christian morals, in more than one of their prayers, in which they used regular forms. "Wilt thou blot us out, O Lord, for ever? Is this punishment intended, not for our reforma- tion, but for our destruction ? " Again, " Impart to us, out of thy great mercy, thy gifts, which we are not worthy to receive through our own mer- its." " Keep peace with all," says another petition; U Carta del Lie. Zuazo, (Nov., ^ This interesting rite, usually 1521,) MS. — Acosta, lib. 5, cap. solemnized with great formality, 8. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., in the presence of the assembled lib. 13, cap. 45. — Sahagun, Hist, friends and relatives, is detailed de Nueva Espana, lib. 3, Apend. with minuteness by Sahagun, Sometimes the body was buried (Hist, de Nueva Espafla, lib. G, entire, with valuable treasures, if cap. 37,) and by Zuazo, (Carta, the deceased was rich. The MS.,) both of them eyewitnesses. "Anonymous Conqueror," as he For a version of part of Sahagun's is called, saw gold to the value of account, see Appendix, Part 1. 3000 castellanos drawn from one note 26. of these tombs. Relatione d' un gentir huomo, ap. Ramusio, torn. m. p. 310, Ch. III.] SACERDOTAL ORDER. (55 " bear injuries with humility ; God, who sees, will avenge jou." But the most striking parallel with Scripture is in the remarkable declaration, that "he, who looks too curiously on a woman, commits adul- tery with his eyes." These pure and elevated max- ims, it is true, are mixed up with others of a puerile, and even brutal character, arguing that confusion of the moral perceptions, which is natural in the twilight of civilization. One would not expect, however, to meet, in such a state of society, with doctrines as sublime as any inculcated by the en- lightened codes of ancient philosophy.'^ But, although the Aztec mythology gathered noth- ing from the beautiful inventions of the poet, nor from the refinements of philosophy, it was much indebted, as^ I have noticed, to the priests, who endeavoured to dazzle the imagination of the people by the most formal and pompous ceremonial. The influence of the priesthood must be greatest in an imperfect state of civilization, where it engrosses all 13 *' jEs posible que este azote Dios bien os ve y respondera por y este castigo no se nos da para vosotros, y el os vengara (a) sed nuestra correccion y enmienda, humildes con todos, y con esto os sino para total destruccion y aso- hara Dios merced y tambien hon- lamiento?" (Sahagun, Hist, de ra." (Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 17.) Nueva Espaiia, lib. 6, cap. 1.) " Tampoco mires con curiosidad " Y esto por sola vuestra liberali- el gesto y disposicion de la gente dad y magnificencia lo habeis de principal, mayormente de las mu- hacer, que ninguno es digno ni geres, y sobre todo de las casadas, merecedor de recibir vuestras lar- porque dice el refran que el que guezas por su dignidad y mereci- curiosamente mira a la muger naiento, sino que por vuestra benig- adultera con la vista.' (Ibid., lib nidad." (Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 2.) 6, cap. 22.) " Sed sufridos y reportados, que VOL. I. 9 6S AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book [ the scanty science of the time in its own body. This is particularly the case, when the science is of that spurious kind which is less occupied with the real phenomena of nature-, than with the fanci- ful chimeras of human superstition. Such are the sciences of astrology and divination, in which the Aztec priests were well initiated ; and, while the}' seemed to hold the keys of the future in their own hands, they impressed the ignorant people with sentiments of superstitious awe, beyond that which has probably existed in any other country, — even in ancient Egypt. The sacerdotal order was very numerous ; as may be inferred from the statement, that five thousand priests were, in some way or other, attached to the principal temple in tlie capital. The various ranks and functions of this rnnltitudinous body were discriminated with great exactness. Those best instructed in music took the manao-ement of the choirs. Others arranged the festivals conformably to the calendar. Some superintended the education of youth, and others had charge of the hieroglyphi- cal paintings and oral traditions ; while the dismal rites of sacrifice were reserved for the chief digni- taries of the order. At the head of the whole establishment were two high-priests, elected from the order, as it would seem, by the king and prin- cipal nobles, without reference to birth, but solely for their qualifications, as shown by their previous conduct in a subordinate station. They were equal in dignity, and inferior only to the sovereign, who Ch. III.] SACERDOTAL ORDER. Q7 rarely acted without their advice in weighty matters of public concern.'^ The priests were each devoted to the service of some particular deity, and had quarters provided within the spacious precincts of their temple ; at least, while engaged in immediate attendance there, — for they were allowed to marry, and have families of their own. In this monastic residence they lived in all the stern severity of conventual discipline. Thrice during the day, and once at night, they were called to prayers. They were frequent in their ablutions and vigils, and mortified the flesh by fasting and cruel penance, — drawing blood from their bodies by flagellation, or by piercing them with the thorns of the aloe ; in short, by practising all those austerities to which fanaticism (to borrow the strong language of the poet) has resorted, in every age of the world, " In hopes to merit heaven by making earth a hell." '5 14 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva may be." (Monarch. Ind., lib. 9, Espana, lib. 3, Apend; lib. 3, cap. cap. 5.) It is contradicted by 9. — Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., Sahagun, whom I have followed lib. 8, cap. 20 ; lib. 9, cap. 3, 56. as the highest authority in these — Gomara, Cr6n., cap. 215, ap. matters. Clavigero had no other Barcia, torn. n.—Toribio, Hist, de knowledge of Sahagun's work los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4. than what was filtered through Clavigero says that the high- the writings of Torquemada, and priest was necessarily a person of later authors, rank. (Stor. del Messico, tom. II. ^^ Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva p. 37.) I find no authority for Espana, ubi supra. — Torquemada, this, not even in his oracle, Tor- Monarch. Ind., lib. 9, cap. 25. — quemada, who expressly says, Gomara, Cron., ap. Barcia, ubi "There is no warrant for the as- supra. — Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 14, sertion, however probable the fact 17. 38 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. The great cities were divided into districts, placed under the charge of a sort of parochial clergy, who regulated every act of religion within their pre- cincts. It is remarkable that they administered the rites of confession and absolution. The secrets of the confessional were held inviolable, and penances were imposed of much the same kind as those enjoined in the Roman Catholic Church. There were two remarkable peculiarities in the Aztec cere- mony. The first was, that, as the repetition of an offence, once atoned for, was deemed inexpiable, confession was made but once in a man's life, and was usually deferred to a late period of it, when the penitent unburdened his conscience, and settled, at once, the long arrears of iniquity. Another pecu- liarity was, that priestly absolution was received in place of the legal punishment of offences, and au- thorized an acquittal in case of arrest. Long after the Conquest, the simple natives, when they came under the arm of the law, sought to escape by producing the certificate of their confession. ^^ ^6 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva from the soul. Thou knowest that Espafia, lib. 1, cap. 12; lib. 6, this 'poor man has sinned , not from cap. 7. Aw oicn free rvill, but from the The address of the confessor, influence of the sign under which on these occasions, contains some he was born." After a copious things too remarkable to be omit- exhortation to the penitent, en- ted. " O merciful Lord," he joining a variety of mortifications says, in his prayer, "thou who and minute ceremonies by way of knowest the secrets of all hearts, penance, and particularly urging let thy forgiveness and favor de- the necessity of instantly procur- scend, like the pure waters of ing a slave for sacrifice to the heaven, to wash away the stains Deity, the priest concludes with Gh. in.] SACERDOTAL ORDER. 69 One of the most important duties of the priest- hood was that of education, to which certain build- ings were appropriated within the inclosure of the principal temple. Here the youth of both sexes, of the higher and middling orders, were placed at a very tender age. The girls were intrusted to the care of priestesses ; for women were allowed to exercise sacerdotal functions, except those of sac- rifice.'^ In these institutions the boys were drilled in the routine of monastic discipline ; they deco- rated the shrines of the gods with flowers, fed the sacred fires, and took part in the religious chants and festivals. Those in the higher school — the Calmecac, as it was called — were initiated in their traditionary lore, the mysteries of hieroglyphics, the principles of government, and such branches of as- tronomical and natural science as were within the inculcating charity to the poor. ap. Antiquites Mexicaines, (Par- " Clothe the naked and feed the is, 1834,) torn. II. p. 7, note.) hungry, whatever privations it may The early missionaries, credulous cost thee ; for remember, their enough certainly, give no coun- Jlesh is like thine, and they are men tenance to such reports ; and fa- like thee.'''' Such is the strange ther Acosta, on the contrary, ex- medley of truly Christian benevo- claims, " In truth, it is very strange lence and heathenish abomina- to see that this false opinion of tions which pervades the Aztec religion hath so great force among litany, — intimating sources wide- these yoong men and maidens of ly different. Mexico, that they will serve the l'' The Egyptian gods were also Divell with so great rigor and served by priestesses. (See Herod- austerity, which many of us doe otus, Euterpe, sec. 54.) Tales of not in the service of the most high scandal similar to those which the God ; the which is a great shame Greeks circulated respecting them, and confusion." En?. Trans., lih have been told of the Aztec vir- 5, cap. Ifi gins. (See Le Noir's dissertation, 70 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. compass of the priesthood. The girls learned vari- ous feminine employments, especially to weave and embroider rich coverings for the altars of the gods. Great attention was paid to the moral discipline of both sexes. The most perfect decorum prevailed ; and offences were punished with extreme rigor, in some instances with death itself. Terror, not love, was the spring of education with the Aztecs.'^ At a suitable age for marrying, or for entering into the world, the pupils were dismissed, with much ceremony, from the convent, and the recom- mendation of the principal often introduced those most competent to responsible situations in public life. Such was the crafty policy of the Mexican priests, who, by reserving to themselves the business of instruction, were enabled to mould the j'oung and plastic mind according to their own wills, and to train it early to implicit reverence for religion and its ministers ; a reverence which still maintained its hold on the iron nature of the warrior, long after every other vestige of education had been effaced by the rough trade to which he was devoted. To each of the principal temples, lands were 18 Toribio, Hist, de los Indies, good father last cited, " to eschew MS., Parte 1, cap. 9. — Sahagun, vice, and cleave to virtue, — ao Hist. de Nueva Espana, lib. 2, cording to their notions of them ; Apend. ; lib. 3, cap. 4-8. — Zu- namely, to abstain from wrath, to rita, Rapport, pp. 123 - 126. — offer violence and do wrong to Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 15, 16. — no man, — in short, to perform the Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. duties plainly pointed out by natu- 9, cap. 11-14, 30, 31. ral religion," " They were taught," says the Ch. III.] SACERDOTAL ORDER. 71 annexed for the maintenance of the priests. These estates were augmented by the policy or devotion of successive princes, until, under the last Monte- zuma, they had swollen to an enormous extent, and covered every district of the empire. The priests took the management of their property into their own hands ; and they seem to have treated their ten- ants with the liberality and indulgence characteristic of monastic corporations. Besides the large supplies drawn from this source, the religious order was en- riched with the fust-fruits, and such other oflerings as piety or superstition dictated. The surplus beyond what was required for the support of the national worship was distributed in alms among the poor ; a duty strenuously prescribed by their moral code. Thus we find the same religion inculcating lessons of pure philanthropy, on the one hand, and of mer- ciless extermination, as we shall soon see, on the other. The inconsistency will not appear incredible to those who are familiar with the history of the Roman Catholic Church, in the early ages of the Inquisition.''' •9 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., may consult, for the same purpose, lib. 8, cap. 20, 21. — Camargo, Heeren, (Hist. Res., vol. V. chap. Hist, de Tlascala, MS. 2,) Wilkinson, (Manners and It is impossible not to be struck Customs of the Ancient Eg}'ptians, with the great resemblance, not (London, 1837,) vol. I. pp. 257- merely in a few empty forms, but 279,) the last writer especially, — in the whole way of life, of the who has contributed, more than Mexican and Egyptian priesthood, all others, towards opening to us Compare Herodotus (Euterpe, the interior of the social life of this passim) and Diodorus (lib. 1, sec. interesting people. 73. 81). The English reader 72 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I The Mexican temples — teocallis, "houses of God," as they were called — were very numerous. There were several hundreds in each of the principal cities, many of them, doubtless, very humble edifices. They were solid masses of earth, cased with brick, or stone, and in their form somewhat resembled the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The bases of many of them were more than a hundred feet square, and they towered to a still greater height. They were distributed into four or five stories, each of smaller dimensions than that below. The ascent was by a flight of steps, at an angle of the pyramid, on the outside. This led to a sort of terrace, or gallery, at the base of the second story, which passed quite round the building to another flight of stairs, commencing also at the same angle as the preced- ing and directly over it, and leading to a simi- lar terrace ; so that one had to make the circuit of the temple several times, before reaching the sum- mit. In some instances the stairway led directlv up the centre of the western face of the building. The top was a broad area, on which were erected one or two towers, forty or fifty feet high, the sanc- tuaries in which stood the sacred images of the presiding deities. Before these towers stood the dreadful stone of sacrifice, and two lofty altars, on which fires were kept, as inextinguishable as those in the temple of Vesta. There were said to be six hundred of these altars, on smaller buildings within the inclosure of the great temple of Mexico, which, with ihosc on the sacred edifices in other CH. III.] TEMPLES. 73 parts of the city, shed a brilliant illumination over its streets, through the darkest night.^° From the construction of their temples, all reli- gious services were public. The long processions of priests, winding round their massive sides, as they rose higher and higher towards the summit, and the dismal rites of sacrifice performed there, were all visible from the remotest corners of the capital, impressing on the spectator's mind a super- stitious veneration for the mysteries of his religion, and for the dread ministers by whom they were interpreted. This impression was kept in full force by their numerous festivals. Every month was consecrated to some protecting deity ; and every week, nay, al- most every day, was set down in their calendar for some appropriate celebration ; so that it is difficult to understand how the ordinary business of life could have been compatible with the exactions of religion. Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined. Pro- 20K.el. d' un gent.,ap. Ramusio, some of the smaller temples, or torn. III. fol. 307. — Camargo, pyramids, were filled with earth Hist, de TIascala, MS. — Acosta, impregnated with odoriferous gums lib. 5, cap. 13. — Gomara, Cron., and gold dust; the latter, some- cap. 80, ap. Barcia, tom. II. — times in such quantities as prob- Toribio, Hist, de los Indios, MS., ably to be worth a million of cas- Parte 1, cap. 4. — Carta del Lie. ^e^/anos.' (Ubi supra.) These were Zuazo, MS. ihe temples of Mammon, indeed! This last writer, who visited But I find no confirmation of such Mexico immediately after the golden reports. Conquest, in 1521, assures us that VOL. 1. 10 74 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. cessions were made of women and children crowned with garlands and bearing offerings of fruits, the ripened maize, or the sweet incense of copal and other odoriferous gums, while the altars of the deity were stained with no blood save that of animals.^' These were the peaceful rites derived from their Toltec predecessors, on which the fierce Aztecs en- grafted a superstition too loathsome to be exhibited in all its nakedness, and one over which I would gladly draw a veil altogether, but that it would leave the reader in ignorance of their most striking in- stitution, and one that had the greatest influence in forming the national character. Human sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs early in the fourteenth century, about two hundred years before the Conquest.^^ Rare at first, they became more frequent with the wider extent of their empire ; till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination. These religious ceremonials were generally arranged in such a man- ner as to afford a type of the most prominent cir- cumstances in the character or history of the deity 2' Cod. Tel. -Rem., PI. I, and 22 Xhe traditions of their origin Cod. Vat., passim, ap. Antiq. of have somewhat of a fabulous Mexico, vols. I., VI. — Torquema- tinge. But, whether true or false, da, Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 10, they are equally indicative of un- ct seq. — Sahaguii, Hist, de Nue- paralleled ferocity in the peoph; va Espaila, lib. 2, passim. who could be the subject of them Among the offerings, quails Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. may be particularly noticed, for I. p. 167, et seq. ; also Humboldt, the incredible quantities of them (who does not appear to doubt sacrificed and consumed at many them,) Vues des Cordilleres, p. 95. of the festivals. Cu. III.] HUMAN SACRIFICES. 75 who was the object of them. A single example will suffice. One of their most important festivals was that in honor of the god Tezcatlipoca, whose rank was inferior only to that of the Supreme Being. He was called " the soul of the world," and supposed to have been its creator. He was depicted as a handsome man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year before the intended sacrifice, a captive, dis- tinguished for his personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors took charge of him, and in- structed him how to perform his new part with becoming grace and dignity. He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with incense and with a profusion of sweet-scented flowers, of which the ancient Mexicans were as fond as their descendants at the present day. When he went abroad, he was attended by a train of the royal pages, and, as he halted in the streets to play some favorite melody, the crowd prostrated themselves before him, and did him homage as the representative of their good deity. In this way he led an easy, luxurious life, till within a month of his sacrifice. Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the principal goddesses, were then selected to share the honors of his bed ; and with them he continued to live in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the principal nobles, who paid him all the honors of a divinity. At length the fatal day of sacrifice arrived. The 76 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I term of his short-lived glories was at an end. He was stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal barges transported him across the lake to a temple which rose on its margin, about a league from the city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked, to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyra- mid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chap- lets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical instruments with which he had solaced the hours of captivity. On the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disor- derly over their sable robes, covered with hiero- glyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its upper surface somewhat convex. On this the pris- oner was stretched. Five priests secured his head and his limbs ; while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor of itztli, — a volcanic substance, hard as flint, — and, inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpitating heart. The minister of death, first holding this up towards the sun, an object of worship throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity to whom the temple was devoted, while the multitudes below prostrated themselves in hum- ble adoration. The tragic story of this prisoner was expounded by the priests as the type of human Ch. Ill.J HUMAN SACRIFICES. 77 destiny, which, brilliant in its commencement, too often closes in sorrow and disaster.^^ Such was the form of human sacrifice usually practised by the Aztecs. It was the same that often met the indignant eyes of the Europeans, in their progress through the country, and from the dreadful doom of which they themselves were not exempted. There were, indeed, some occasions when preliminary tortures, of the most exquisite kind, — with which it is unnecessary to shock the reader, — were inflicted, but they always terminated with the bloody ceremony above described. It should be remarked, however, that such tortures were not the spontaneous suggestions of cruelty, as with the North American Indians ; but were all rigorously prescribed in the Aztec ritual, and doubt- less were often inflicted with the same compunc- tious visitings which a devout familiar of the Holy Office might at times experience in executing its stern decrees."^ Women, as well as the other sex, 23 Sahag-un, Hist, de Nueva tale of woe by coolly dismissinor Espaiia, lib. 2, cap. 2, 5, 24, et "the soul of the victim, to sleep alibi. — Herrera, Hist. General, with those of his false gods, in dec. 3, lib. 2, cap. 16. — Torque- hell ! " Lib. 10, cap. 23. mada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 7, cap. 24 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva 19; lib. 10, cap. 14. — Rel. d' un Espaua, lib. 2, cap. 10, 29.— gent., ap. Ramusio, torn. HI. fol. Goraara, Cron., cap. 219, ap. Bar- 307. — Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 9-21. cia, torn. H. — Toribio, Hist, de — Carta del Lie. Zuazo, MS. — los Indies, MS., Parte 1, cap. 6- Relacion por el Regimiento de 11. Vera Cruz, (Julio, 1519,) MS. The reader will find a tolerably Few readers, probably, will exact picture of the nature of sympathize with the sentence of these tortures in the twenty-first Torquemada, who concludes his canto of the " Inferno." The fan. 78 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1 were sometimes reserved for sacrifice. On some occasions, particularly in seasons of drought, at the festival of the insatiable Tlaloc, the god of rain, children, for the most part infants, were offered up. As they were borne along in open litters, dressed in their festal robes, and decked with the fresh blossoms of spring, they moved the hardest heart to pity, though their cries were drowned in the wild chant of the priests, who read in their tears a favorable augury for their petition. These innocent victims were generally bought by the priests of parents who were poor, but who stifled the voice of nature, probably less at the suggestions of pov- erty, than of a wretched superstition.^^ The most loathsome part of the story — the man- ner in which the body of the sacrificed captive was disposed of — remains yet to be told. It was de- livered to the warrior who had taken him in battle, and by him, after being dressed, was served up in lastic creations of the Florentine lowed to escape. If vanquished, poet were nearly realized, at the he was dragged to the block and very time he was writing, by the sacrificed in the usual manner, barbarians of an unknown world. The combat was fought on a huge One sacrifice, of a less revolting circular stone, before the assem- character, deserves to be men- bled capital. Sahagun, Hist, de tioned. The Spaniards called it the Nueva Espafia, lib. 2, cap. 21. — " gladiatorial sacrifice," and it may Rel. d'un gent., ap. Ramusio, remind one of the bloody games of torn. III. fol. 305. antiquity. A captive of distinc- 25 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva tion was sometimes furnished with Espaiia, lib. 2, cap. 1, 4,21, et arms, and brought against a num- alibi. — Torquemada, Monarch, ber of Mexicans in succession. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 10. — Clavigc- If he defeated them all, as did ro, Stor. del Messico, tom. IT occasionally happen, he was al- pp. 76, 82. Ch. III.] HUMAN SACRIFICES. 79 an entertainment to his friends. This was not the t oarse repast of famished cannibals, but a banquet teeming with delicious beverages and delicate viands, prepared with art, and attended by both sexes, who, as we shall see hereafter, conducted themselves with all the decorum of civilized life. Surely, never were refinement and the extreme of barbarism brought so closely in contact wdth each other ! ^^ Human sacrifices have been practised by many nations, not excepting the most polished nations of antiquity ;^^ but never by any, on a scale to be compared with those in Anahuac. The amount of victims immolated on its accursed altars would stag- ger the faith of the least scrupulous believer. Scarce- ly any author pretends to estimate the yearly sacri- fices throughout the empire at less than twenty thou- sand, and some carry the number as high as fifty ! ~- 26 Carta del Lie. Zuazo, MS. — than a hundred years before the Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. Christian era, — a law recorded in 7, cap. 19. — Herrera, Hist. Gen- a very honest strain of exultation eral, dec. 3, lib. 2, cap. 17.— by Pliny; (Hist. Nat., lib. 30, Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva Espaiia, sec. 3, 4 ;) notwithstanding which, lib. 2, cap. 21, et alibi. — Toribio, traces of the existence of the prac- Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, tice may be discerned to a much cap. 2. later period. See, among others, ^ To say nothing of Egypt, Horace, Epod., In Canidiam. where, notwithstanding the indi- 28 gge Clavigero, Stor. del cations on the monuments, there Messico, torn. H. p. 49. is .strong reason for doubting it. Bishop Zumarraga, in a letter (Comp. Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. written a few years after the Con- 45.) It was of frequent occurrence quest, states that 20,000 victims among the Greeks, as every school- were yearly slaughtered in the boy knows. In Rome, it was so capital. Torquemada turns this, common as to require to be in- into 20,000 infants. (Monarch, terdicted by an express law, less Ind., lib. 7, cap. 21.) Herrera 80 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1 On great occasions, as the coronation of a king, or the consecration of a temple, the number becomes still more appalling. At the dedication of the great temple of Huitzilopotchli, in 1486, the prisoners, who for some years had been reserved for the pur- pose, were drawn from all quarters to the capital. They were ranged in files, forming a procession nearly two miles long. The ceremony consumed several days, and seventy thousand captives are said to have perished at the shrine of this terrible deity ! But who can believe that so numerous a body would have suffered themselves to be led unresistingly like sheep to the slaughter ? Or how could their remains, too great for consumption in the ordinary way, be disposed of, without breeding a pestilence in the capital ? Yet the event was of recent date, and is unequivocally attested by the best informed histori- ans."^ One fact may be considered certain. It was following Acosta, says 20,000 vie- real number was not above 50 " ! tims on a specified day of the (CEuvres, ed. Llorente, (Paris, year, throughout the kingdom. 1822,) torn. I. pp. 365,386.) Prob- (Hist. General, dec. 2, lib. 2, cap. ably the good Bishop's arithme- 16.) Clavigero, more cautious, tic, here, as in most other instan- infers that this number may have ces, came more from his lirart than been sacrificed annually through- his head. With such loose and out Anahuac. (Ubi supra.) Las contradictory data, it is clear thai Casas, however, in his reply to any specific number is mere con- Sepulveda's assertion, that no one jecturc, undeserving the name of who had visited the New World calculation. put the number of yearly sacrifices 29 I ^m within bounds. Tor- at less than 20,000, declares that quemada states the number, most '' this is the estimate of brigands, precisely, at 72,344. (Monarch, who wish to find an apology for Ind., lib. 2, cap. 63.) Ixtlilxo- their own atrocities, and that the chitl, with equal precision, at Ch. III.] HUMAN SACRIFICES. 81 customary to preserve the skulls of the sacrificed, in buildings appropriated to the purpose. The com- panions of Cortes counted one hundred and thirty- six thousand in one of these edifices ! ^^ Without attempting a precise calculation, therefore, it is safe tj conclude that thousands were yearly offered up, in the different cities of Anahuac, on the bloody altars of the Mexican divinities.^^ Indeed, the great object of war, with the Aztecs, was quite as much to gather victims for their sacri- fices, as to extend their empire. Hence it was, that an enemy was never slain in battle, if there were a chance of taking him alive. To this circumstance ' the Spaniards repeatedly owed their preservation. 80,400. (Hist. Chich., MS.) iQui- en sabe ? The latter adds, that the captives massacred in the capital, in the course of that memorable year, exceeded 100,000! (Loc.cit.) One, however, has to read but a little way, to find out that the sci- ence of numbers — at least, where the party was not an eyewitness — is any thing but ac exact sci- ence with these ajicient chroni- clers. The Codex Tcl.-Remen- sis, written some fifty years after the Conquest, reduces the amount to 20,000. (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. I. PI. 19 ; vol. VI. p. 141, Eng. note.) Even this hardly warrants the Spanish interpreter in calling king Ahuitzotl a man " of a mild and moderate disposi- tion," templada y henigna condi- cion! Ibid., vol. V. p. 49. VOL. I. 11 20 Gomara states the number on the authority of two soldiers, whose names he gives, who took the trou- ble to count the grinning horrors in one of these (Jolgothas, where they were so arranged as to pro- duce the most hideous effect. The existence of these conservatories is attested by every writer of the time. 31 The " Anonymous Conquer- or" assures us, as a fact beyond dispute, that the Devil introduced himself into the bodies of the idols, and persuaded the silly priests that his only diet was human hearts ! It furnishes a very satisfactory solu- tion, to his mind, of the frequen- cy of sacrifices in Mexico. Rel. d' un gent., ap. Ramusio, torn III. fol. 307. 82 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. When Montezuma was asked, " why he had suffered the republic of Tlascala to maintain her indepen- dence on his borders," he replied, " that she might furnish him with \ictims for his gods " ! As the supply began to fail, the priests, the Dominicans of the New World, bellowed aloud for more, and urged on their superstitious sovereign by the denunciations of celestial wrath. Like the militant churchmen of Christendom in the Middle Ages, they mingled themselves in the ranks, and were conspicuous in the thickest of the fight, by their hideous aspect and firantic gestures. Strange, that, in every country, the most fiendish passions of the human heart have been those kindled in the name of religion ! ^ The influence of these practices on the Aztec character was as disastrous as might have been ex- pected. Familiarity with the bloody rites of sacrifice steeled the heart against human sympathy, and begat a thirst for carnage, like tKat excited in the Romans 32 The Tezcucan priests would field ■wus marked out, on which fain have persuaded the good king the troops of the hostile nations Nezahualcoyotl, on occasion of a were to engige at stated seasons pestilence, to appease the gods by and thus supply themselves with the sacrifice of some of his own subjects for sacrifice. The victo- subjects, instead of his enemies ; rious party was not to pursue his on the ground, that, not only they advantage by invading the other's would be obtained more easily, but territory, and they were to contin- would be fresher victims, and more ue, in all other respects, on the acceptable. (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, most amicable footing. (Ubi supra.) Chich., MS., cap. 41.) This wri- The historian, who follows in the ter mentions a cool arrangement track of the Tezcucan Chronicler, entered into by the allied mon- may often find occasion to shelter archs with the republic of Tlasca- himself, like Ariosto, with la and her confederates. A battle- " Meitendolo Turpin, lo metto anch' io." Cn. III.] HUMAN SACRIFICES. 83 by the exhibitions of the circus. The perpetual re- currence of ceremonies, in which the^ people took part, associated religion with their most intimate concerns, and spread the gloom of superstition over the domestic hearth, until the character of the nation wore a grave and even melancholy aspect, which belongs to their descendants at the present day. The influence of the priesthood, of course, became unbounded. The sovereign thought himself honored by being permitted to assist in the services of the ^emple. Far from limiting the authority of the priests to spiritual matters, he often surrendered his opinion to theirs, where they were least competent to give it. It was their opposition that prevented the final capitulation which would have saved the capital. The whole nation, from the peasant to the prince, bowed their necks to the worst kind of tyran- ny, that of a blind fanaticism. In reflecting on the revolting usages recorded in the preceding pages, one finds it difficult to rec- oncile their existence with any thing like a regular form of government, or an advance in civilization. Yet the Mexicans had many claims to the charac- ter of a civilzed community. One may, perhaps, better understand the anomaly, by reflecting on the condition of some of the most polished countries in Europe, in the sixteenth century, after the estab- lishment of the modern Inquisition ; an institution, which yearly destroyed its thousands, by a death more painful than the Aztec sacrifices ; which armed the hand of brother against brother, and, setting its 84 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I burning seal upon the lip, did more to stay the march of improvement than any other scheme ever devised by human cunning. Human sacrifice, however cruel, has nothing in it degrading to its victim. It may be rather said to ennoble him by devoting him to the gods. Although so terrible with the Aztecs, it was sometimes volun- tarily embraced by them, as the most glorious death, and one that opened a sure passage into paradise.^ The Inquisition, on the other hand, branded its vic- tims with infamy in this world, and consigned them to everlasting perdition in the next. One detestable feature of the Aztec superstition, however, sunk it far below the Christian. This was its cannibahsm ; though, in truth, the Mexicans were not cannibals, in the coarsest acceptation of the term. They did not feed on human flesh merely to gratify a brutish appetite, but in obedience to their religion. Their repasts were made of the victims whose blood had been poured out on the altar of sacrifice. This is a distinction worthy of notice.^ Still, cannibalism, under any form, or whatever sanc- tion, cannot but have a fatal influence on the nation '•^ Rel. d' un gent., ap. Ramu- 28.) This was the law of honoi sio, torn. III. fol. 307. with the Aztecs. Among other instances, is that ^ Voltaire, doubtless, intends of Chiinalpopoca, third king of this, when he says, " lis n'etaient Mexico, who doomed himself, with point anthropophages, comme un anumber of his lords, to this death, tres-petit nombre de peupladea to wipe off an indignity offered him Am^ricaincs." (Essai sur les by a brother monarch. (Torque- Moeurs, chap. 147.) mada, Monarch . Ind., lib. 2, cap. Ch. Ill] HUMAN SACRIFICES. 85 addicted to it. It suggests ideas so loathsome, so degrading to man, to his spiritual and immortal na- ture, that it is impossible the people who practise it should make any great progress in moral or intellec- tual culture. The Mexicans furnish no exception to this remark. The civilization, which they pos- sessed, descended from the Toltecs, a race who never stained their altars, still less their banquets, with the blood of man. All that deserved the name of science in Mexico came from this source ; and the crumbling ruins of edifices, attributed to them, still extant in various parts of New Spain, show a decided superiority in their architecture over that of the later races of Analmae. It is true, the Mexicans made great proficiency in many of the social and me- chanic arts, in that material culture, — if I may so call it, — the natural growth of increasing opulence, which ministers to the gratification of the senses. In purely intellectual progress, they were behind the Tezcucans, whose wise sovereigns came into the abominable rites of their neighbours with reluctance, and practised them on a much more moderate scale. ^^ In this state of things, it was beneficently ordered by Providence that the land should be delivered over to another race, who would rescue it from the brutish superstitions that daily extended wider and wider, with extent of empire.^ The debasing in- ^5 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., character engendered by their MS., cap. 45, et alibi. sanguinary rites greatly facilitated '■^ No doubt the ferocity of their conquests. Machiavelli at- 86 AZTEC CIVILIZATIO>. [Book 1 stitutioiis of the Aztecs furnish the best apology for then- conquest. It is true, the conquerors brought along with them the Inquisition. But they also brought Christianity, whose benign radiance would still survive, when the fierce flames of fanaticism should be extinguished ; dispelling those dark forms of horror which had so long brooded over the fair regions of Anahuac. tributes to a similar cause, in part, contains some ingenious reflec- the military successes of the Ro- tions — much more ingenious than mans. (Discorsi sopra T. Livio, candid — on the opposite tenden- lib. 2, cap. 2.) The same chapter cies of Christianity. The most important authority in the preceding chapter, and, indeed, wherever the Aztec religion is concerned, is Bernardino de Sahagun, a Franciscan friar, contemporary with the Conquest. His great work. Historia Universal de Nueva Espana, has been recently printed for the first time. The circumstances attending its compilation and subse- quent fate form one of the most remarkable passages in literary history. Sahagun was born in a place of the same name, in old Spain. He was educated at Salamanca, and, having taken the vows of St. Fran- cis, came over as a missionary to Mexico in the year 1529. Here he distinguished himself by his zeal, the purity of his life, and his un- wearied exertions to spread the great truths of religion among the natives. He was the guardian of several conventual houses, succes- sively, until he relinquished these cares, that he might devote himself more unreservedly to the business of preaching, and of compiling va- rious works designed to illustrate the antiquities of the Aztecs. For these literary labors he found some facilities in the situation which he continued to occupy, of reader, or lecturer, in the College of Santa Cruz, in the capital. The " Universal History " was concocted in a singular manner. In order to secure to it the greatest possible authority, he passed some years in a Tezcucan town, where he conferred daily with a number of respectable natives unacquainted with Castilian. He propounded to them queries, which they, after deliberation, answered in their usual Ch. III.] SAHAGUN. 87 method of writing, by hieroglyphical paintings. These he submitted to other natives, who had been educated under his own eye in the college of Santa Cruz ; and the latter, after a consultation among themselves, gave a written version, in the Mexican tongue, of the hieroglyphics. This process he repeated in another place, in some part of Mexico, and subjected the whole to a still further revision by a third body in another quarter. He finally arranged the combined results into a regular history, in the form it now bears; composing it in the Mexican language, which he could both write and speak with great accuracy and elegance, — greater, indeed, than any Spaniard of the time. The work presented a mass of curious information, that attracted much attention among his brethren. But they feared its influence in keeping alive in the natives a too vivid reminiscence of the very superstitions which it was the great object of the Christian clergy to eradicate. Sahagun had views more liberal than those of his order, whose blind zeal would willingly have annihilated every monument of art and human ingenuity, which had not been produced under the influence of Christianity. They refused to allow him the necessary aid to transcribe his papers, which he had been so many years in pre- paring, under the pretext that the expense was too great for their order to incur. This occasioned a further delay of several years. What was worse, his provincial got possession of his manuscripts, which were soon scattered among the different religious houses in the country. In this forlorn state of his affairs, Sahagun drew up a brief statement of the nature and contents of his work, and forwarded it to Madrid. It fell into the hands of Don Juan de Ovando, president of the Council for the Indies, who was so much interested in it, that he ordered the manuscripts to be restored to their author, with the request that he would at once set about translating them into Castilian. This was accordingly done. His papers were recovered, though not without the menace of ecclesiastical censures ; and the octogenarian author began the work of translation from the Mexican, in which they had been originally written by him thirty years before. He had the satis- faction to complete the task, arranging the Spanish version in a parallel column with the original, and adding a vocabulary, explaining the difficult Aztec terms and phrases ; while the text was supported by the numerous paintings on which it was founded. In this form, making tvi'o bulky volumes in folio, it was sent to Madrid. There seemed now to be no further reason for postponing its publication, the importance of which could not be doubted. But from this moment it disappears ; and we hear nothing further of it, for more than two cen- turies, except only as a valuable work, which had once existed, and 88 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. was probably buried in some one of the numerous cemeteries of learn- ing in which Spain abounds. At length, towards the close of the last century, the indefatigable MuHoz succeeded in disinterring the long lost manuscript from the place tradition had assigned to it, — the library of a convent at Tolosa. in Navarre, the northern extremity of Spain. With his usual ardor, he transcribed the whole work with his own hands, and added it to the inestimable collection, of which, alas ! he was destined not to reap the full benefit himself. From this transcript Lord Kingsborough was enabled to procure the copy which was published in 1830, in the sixth volume of his magnificent compilation. In it he expresses an honest satisfaction at being the first to give Sahagun's work to the world. But in this supposition he was mistaken. The very year preceding, an edition of it, with annotations, appeared in Mexico, in three volumes 8vo. It was prepared by Bustamante, — a scholar to whose editorial activity his country is largely indebted, — from a copy of the Mufioz manuscript which came into his possession. Thus this remarkable work, which was denied the honors of the press during the author's lifetime, after passing into oblivion, reappeared, at the distance of nearly three centuries, not in his own country, but in foreign lands widely remote from each other, and that, almost simultaneously. The story is extraordinary, though unhappily not so extraordinary in Spain as it would be elsewhere. Sahagun divided his history into twelve books. The first eleven are occupied with the social institutions of Mexico, and the last with the Conquest. On the religion of the country he is particularly full. His great object evidently was, to give a clear view of its mythology, and of the burdensome ritual which belonged to it. Religion entered so intimately into the most private concerns and usages of the Aztecs, that Sahagun's work must be a text-book for every student of their antiqui- ties. Torquemada availed himself of a manuscript copy, which fell into his hands before it was sent to Spain, to enrich his own pages, — a circumstance more fortunate for his readers than for Sahagun's rep- utation, whose work, now that it is published, loses much of the origi- nality and interest which would otherwise attach to it. In one respect it is invaluable ; as presenting a complete collection of the various forms of prayer, accommodated to every possible emergency, in use by the Mexicans. They are often clothed in dignified and beautiful lan- guage, showing, that sublime .speculative tenets are quite compatible with the most degrading practices of superstition. It is much to be regretted that we have not the eighteen hymns, inserted by the author in his book, which would have particular interest, as the only specimen of devotional poetry preserved of the Aztecs. The hieroglyphical Cn. Ill] SAHAGUN. 89 paintings, which accompanied the text, are also missing. If they have escaped the hands of fanaticism, both may reappear at some future day. Sahagun produced several other works, of a religious or philologi- cal character. Some of these were voluminous, but none have been printed. He lived to a very advanced age, closing a life of activity and usefulness, in 1590, in the capital of Mexico. His remains were followed to the tomb by a numerous concourse of his own countrymen, and of the natives, who lamented in him the loss of unaffected piety, benevolence, and learning. VOL. I. 12 CHAPTER IV. Mexican Hieroglyphics. — Manuscripts. — Arithmetic. — Chronology. — Astronomy. It is a relief to turn from the gloomy pages of the preceding chapter, to a brighter side of the pictm'e, and to contemplate the same nation in its generous struggle to raise itself from a state of barbarism, and to take a positive rank in the scale of civilization. It is not the less interesting, that these efforts were made on an entirely new theatre of action, apart from those influences that operate in the Old World ; the inhabitants of which, forming one great brother- hood of nations, are knit together by sympathies, that make the faintest spark of knowledge, struck out in one quarter, spread gradually wider and wider, until it has diffused a cheering light over the re- motest. It is curious to observe the human mind, in this new position, conforming to the same laws as on the ancient continent, and taking a similar direc- tion in its first inquiries after truth, — so similar, indeed, as, although not warranting, perhaps, the idea of imitation, to suggest, at least, that of a com- mon origin. In the eastern hemisphere, we find some nations, as the Greeks, for instance, early smitten with such a love of the beautiful as to be unwilling to dispense Cn. IV.] MEXICAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 91 \\ ith it, even in the graver productions of science ; and other nations, again, proposing a severer end to themselves, to which even imagination and elegant art were made subservient. The productions of such a people must be criticized, not by the ordinar} rules of taste, but by their adaptation to the peculiar end for which they were designed. Such were the Egyptians in the Old World, ^ and the Mexicans in the New. We have already had occasion to notice the resemblance borne by the latter nation to the former in their religious economy. We shall be more struck with it in their scientific culture, especially their hieroglyphical writing and their astronomy. To describe actions and events by delineating visi- ble objects seems to be a natural suggestion, and is practised, after a certain fashion, by the rudest sav- ages. The North American Indian carves an arrow on the bark of trees to show his followers the direc- tion of his march, and some other sign to show the success of his expeditions. But to paint intelhgibly a consecutive series of these actions — forming what Warburton has happily called picture-writing ^ — re- ^ " An Egyptian temple," says The bishop of Gloucester, in his Denon, strikingly, "is an open comparison of the various hiero- volume, in which the teachings of glyphical systems of the world, science, morality, and the arts are shows his characteristic sagacity recorded. Every thing seems to and boldness by announcing opin- speak one and the same language, ions little credited then, though and breathes one and the same since established. He affirmed the spirit." The passage is cited by existence of an Egyptian alphabet, Heeren, Hist. Res., vol. V. p. 178. but was not aware of the phonetic 2 Divine Legation, ap. Works, property of hieroglyphics, — the (London, 1811,) vol. lY. b. 4, great literary discovery of our age. sec. 4. 92 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. quires a combination of ideas, that amounts to a positively intellectual effort. Yet further, when the object of the painter, instead of being limited to the present, is, to penetrate the past, and to gather from its dark recesses lessons of instruction for coming generations, vi^e see the dawnings of a literary cul- ture, — and recognise the proof of a decided civiliza- tion in the attempt itself, however imperfectly it may be executed. The literal imitation of objects ^vi\[ not answer for this more complex and extended plan. It would occupy too much space, as well as time, in the execution. It then becomes necessary to abridge the pictures, to confine the drawing to outlines, or to such prominent parts of the bodies delineated, as may readily suggest the whole. This is the representative or figurative writing, which forms the lowest stage of hieroglyphics. But there are things which have no type in the material world ; abstract ideas, which can only be represented by visible objects supposed to have some quality analogous to the idea intended. This con- stitutes symbolical writing, the most difficult of all to the interpreter, since the analogy between the material and immaterial object is often purely fanci- ful, or local in its application. Who, for instance, could suspect the association which made a beetle represent the universe, as with the Egyptians, or a serpent typify time, as with the Aztecs? The third and last division is the phonetic, in which signs are made to represent sounds, either entire words, or parts of them. This is the nearest Ch. IV.] MEXICAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 93 approach of the hieroglyphical series to that beauti- ful invention, the alphabet, by which language is re- solved into its elementary sounds, and an apparatus supplied for easily and accurately expressing the most delicate shades of thought. The Egyptians were well skilled in all three kinds of hieroglyphics. But, although their public monu- ments display the first class, in their ordinary inter- course and written records, it is now certain, they almost wholly relied on the phonetic character. Strange, that, having thus broken down the thin partition which divided them from an alphabet, their latest monuments should exhibit no nearer approach to it than their earliest." The Aztecs, also, were acquainted with the several varieties of hieroglyphics. But they relied on the figurative infinitely more than on the others. The Egyptians were at the top of the scale, the Aztecs at the bottom. In casting the eye over a Mexican manuscript, or map, as it is called, one is struck with the grotesque caricatures it exhibits of the human figure ; mon- strous, overgrown heads, on puny, misshapen bod- 3 It appears that the hieroglyph- may seem more strange that the ics on the most recent monuments enchorial alphabet, so much more of Egypt contain no larger infusion commodious, should not have been of phonetic characters than those substituted. But the Egyptians which existed eighteen centuries were familiar with their hiero- before Christ ; showing no ad- glyphics from infancy, which, vance, in this respect, for twenty- moreover, took the fancies of the two hundred years! (See Cham- mostillit.erate,probably in thesanio pollion. Precis du Systeme Hi^ro- manner as our children are attract glyphique des Anciens Egypliens, ed and taught by the picture-alpha (Paris, 1824,) pp. 242, 281.) It bets in an ordinary spelling-book. 94 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. ies, which arc themselves hard and angular in their outlines, and without the least skill in composition. On closer inspection, however, it is obvious that it is not so much a rude attempt to delineate nature, as a conventional symbol, to express the idea in the most clear and forcible manner ; in the same way as the pieces of similar value on a chess-board, while they correspond with one another in form, bear little re- semblance, usually, to the objects they represent. Those parts of the figure are most distinctly traced, which are the most important. So, also, the coloring, instead of the delicate gradations of nature, exhibits only gaudy and violent contrasts, such as may pro- duce the most vivid impression. " For even col- ors," as Gama observes, " speak in the Aztec hie- roglyphics."* But in the execution of all this the Mexicans were much inferior to the Egyptians. The drawings of the latter, indeed, are exceedingly defective, when criticised by the mles of art ; for they were as igno- rant of perspective as the Chinese, and only exhibit- ed the head in profile, with the eye in the centre, and with total absence of expression. But they handled the pencil more gracefully than the Aztecs, were more true to the natural forms of objects, and, above all, showed great superiority in abridging the original figure by giving only the outline, or some character- istic or essential feature. This simplified the process, and facilitated the communication of thouoht. An o ^ Descripcion Hist6rica y Cronol6gica de las Dos Piedras, (Mexico, 1832,) Parte 2, p. 39. Ch. IV.J MEXICAN HIEROGLYPHICS 95 Egyptian text has almost the appearance of alpha- betical writing in its regular lines of minute figures. A Mexican text looks usually like a collection of pictures, each one forming the subject of a separate study. This is particularly the case with the delin- eations of mythology ; in which the story is told by a conglomeration of symbols, that may remind one more of the mysterious anaglyphs sculptured on the temples of the Egyptians, than of their written records. The Aztecs had various emblems for expressing such things as, from their nature, could not be direct- ly represented by the painter ; as, for example, the years, months, days, the seasons, the elements, the heavens, and the like. A " tongue " denoted speak- ing ; a " foot-print," travelling ; a " man sitting on the ground," an earthquake. These symbols were often very arbitrary, varying with the caprice of the writer ; and it requires a nice discrimination to inter- pret them, as a slight change in the form or position of the figure intimated a very different meaning.' An ingenious writer asserts that the priests devised secret symbolic characters for the record of their religious mysteries. It is possible. But the re- searches of Champollion lead to the conclusion, that 5 Ibid., pp. 32, 44. — Acosta, The editor has rendered a good lib. 6, cap. 7. service by this further publication The continuation of Gama's of the writings of this estimable work, recently edited by Busta- scholar, who has done more than inante. in Mexico, contains, among any of his countrymen to explain other things, some interesting re- the mysteries of Aztec science. marks on the Aztec hieroglyphics. 9G AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. the similar opinion, formerly entertained respecting the Egyptian hieroglyphics, is without foundation/' Lastly, they employed, as above stated, phonetic signs, though these were chiefly confined to the names of persons and places ; which, being derived from some circumstance, or characteristic quality, were accommodated to the hieroglyphical system. Thus the town Cimatlan was compounded of cimatl, a " root," which grew near it, and tlan, signifying " near " ; Tlaxcallan meant " the place of bread," from its rich fields of corn ; Huexotzinco, " a place surrounded by willows." The names of persons were often significant of their adventures and achievements. That of the great Tezcucan prince, Nezahualcoyotl, signified " hungry fox," intimating his sagacity, and his distresses in early life.'' The emblems of such names were no sooner seen, than they suggested to every Mexican the person and 6 Gaina, Dcscripcion, Parte 2, Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. p. 32. 34-43. Warburton, with his usual pen- Heeren is not aware, or does etration, rejects the idea of mys- not allow, that the Mexicans used tery in the figurative hieroglyph- phonetic characters of any kind, ics. (Divine Legation, b. 4, sec. (Hist. Res., vol. V. p. 45.) They, 4.) If there was any mystery indeed, reversed the usual order reserved for the initiated, Cham- of proceeding, and, instead of poliion thinks it may have been adapting the hieroglyphic to the the system of the anaglyphs, name of the object, accommodated (Precis, p. 360.) Why may not the name of the object to the hie- this be true, likewise, of the mon- roglyphic. This, of course, could strous symbolical combinations not admit of great extension. We which represented the Mexican find phonetic characters, however, deities'? applied, in some instances, .to com- ■^ Boturini, Idea, pp. 77-83. — mon, as well as proper names. Ch. IV.] MEXICAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 97 place intended ; and, when painted on their shields, or embroidered on their banners, became the armo- rial bearings, by which city and chieftain were dis- tinguished, as in Europe, in the age of chivalry.^ But, although the Aztecs were instructed in all the varieties of hieroglyphical painting, they chiefly resorted to the clumsy method of direct representa- tion. Had their empire lasted, like the Egyptian, several thousand, instead of the brief space of two hundred years, they would, doubtless, like them, have advanced to the more frequent use of the pho- netic writing. But, before they could be made acquainted with the capabilities of their own system, the Spanish Conquest, by introducing the European alphabet, supplied their scholars with a more perfect contrivance for expressing thought, which soon sup- planted the ancient pictorial character.^ Clumsy as it was, however, the Aztec picture- writing seems to have been adequate to the demands of the nation, in their imperfect state of civilization. By means of it Avere recorded all their laws, and even their regulations for domestic economy ; their tribute-roils, specifying the imposts of the various towns; their mythology, calendars, and rituals; their political annals, carried back to a period long before the foundation of the city. They digested a com- 8 Boturini, Idea, ubi supra. testimony to the literary ardor 9 Clavigero has given a cata- and intelligence of the native logue of the Mexican historians races. Stor. del Messico, torn. I., of the sixteenth century, — some Pref. — Also, Gama, Descripcion, of whom are often cited in this Parte 1, passim. history, — which bears honorable VOL. I. 13 98 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. plele system of chronology, and could specify with accuracy the dates of the most important events in their history ; the year being inscribed on the mar- gin, against the particular circumstance recorded. It is true, history, thus executed, must necessarily ])e vague and fragmentary. Only a few leading in- cidents could be presented. But in this it did not differ much from the monkish chronicles of the dark ages, which often dispose of years in a few brief sentences ; — quite long enough for the annals of barbarian s.^° In order to estimate aright the picture-writing ot the Aztecs, one must regard it in connexion \vith oral tradition, to which it was auxiliary. In the col- leges of the priests the youth were instructed in astronomy, history, mythology, &c. ; and those who were to follow the profession of hieroglyphical paint- ing were taught the application of the characters appropriated to each of these branches. In an histor- ical work, one had charge of the chronology, another of the events. Every part of the labor was thus mechanically distributed." The pupils, instructed '"M. de Humboldt's remark, that looseness and uncertaiiity of these the Aztec annals, from the close historical records are made apparent of the eleventh century, "exhibit by the remarks of the Spanish the greatest method, and astonish- interpreter of the Mendoza ctdex, ing minuteness," (Vues des Cor- who tells us that the natives, to dilleres, p. 137,) must be received whom it was submitted, were very with some qualification. The read- long in coming to an agreement er would scarcely understand from about the proper signification of It, that there are rarely more than the paintings. Antiq. of Mexico, one or two facts recorded in any vol. VI. p. 87. year, and sometimes not one in a ^^ Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2. dozen or more. The necessary p. 30. — Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 7. Ch. IV.J MANUSCRIPTS. 99 in all that was before known in their several depart- ments, were prepared to extend still further the boundaries of their imperfect science. The hiero- glyphics served as a sort of stenography, a collection of notes, suggesting to the initiated much more than could be conveyed by a literal interpretation. This combination of the written and the oral compre- hended what may be called the literature of the Aztecs.'^ Their manuscripts were made of different mate- rials, — of cotton cloth, or skins nicely prepared ; of a composition of silk and gum ; but, for the most " Tenian para cada genero," says Ixtlilxochitl, " sus Escritores, linos que trataban de los Anales, poniendo por su orden las cosas que acaecian en cada un afio, con dia, mes, y hora ; otros tenian a su cargo las Genealogias, y descen- dencia de los Reyes, Seijores, y Personas de linaje, asentando por cuenla y razon los que nacian, y borraban los que morian con la misma cuenta. Unos tenian cui- dado de las pinturas, de los termi- nos, limites, y mojoneras de las Ciudades, Provincias, Pueblos, y Lugares, y de las suertes, y repar- timiento de las tierras cuyas eran, y a quien pertenecian ; otros de los libros de Leyes, ritos, y sere- moniasqueusaban." Hist. Chich., MS., Prologo. 19 According to Boturini, the ancient Mexicans were acquainted with the Peruvian method of re- cording events, by means of the quippus, — knotted strings of va- rious colors, — which were after- wards superseded by hieroglyphi- cal painting. (Idea, p. 86.) He could discover, however, but a sin- gle specimen, which he met with in Tlascala, and that had nearly fallen to pieces with age. McCul- ]oh suggests that it may have been only a wampum belt, such as is conamon among our North American Indians. (Researches, p. 201.) The conjecture is plausi- ble enough. Strings of wampum, of various colors, were used by the latter people for the similar pur- pose of registering events. The insulated fact, recorded by Boturi- ni, is hardly sufficient — unsup- ported, as far as I know, by any other testimony — to establish the existence of quippus among the Aztecs, who had but little in com- mon with the Peruvians. 100 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [ Book I. part, of a fine fabric from the leaves of the aloe, agave Americana, called by the natives, maguey, which grows luxuriantly over the table-lands of Mexico. A sort of paper was made from it, resem- bling somewhat the Egyptian papyrus,^^ which, when properly dressed and polished, is said to have been more soft and beautiful than parchment. Some of the specimens, still existing, exhibit their original freshness, and the paintings on them retain their brilliancy of colors. They were sometimes done up into rolls, but more frequently into volumes, of mod- erate size, in which the paper was shut up, like a folding-screen, with a leaf or tablet of wood at each extremity, that gave the whole, when closed, the appearance of a book. The length of the strips was determined only by convenience. As the pages might be read and referred to separately, this form had obvious advantages over the rolls of the an- cients.^* 13 Pliny, who gives a minute dilleres, p. 52. — Peter Martyr account of the papyrus reed of Anglerius, De Orbe Novo, (Corn- Egypt, notices the various manu- pluti, 1530,) dec. 3, cap. 8 ; dec. factures obtained from it, as ropes, 5, cap. 10. cloth, paper, &c. It also served Martyr has given a minute de- as a thatch for the roofs of houses, scription of the Indian maps, sent and as food and drink for the na- home soon after tke invasion of tives. (Hist. Nat., lib. 11, cap. New Spain. His inquisitive mind 20-22.) It is singular that the was struck with the evidence they American agave, a plant so totally afforded of a positive civiliza- different, should also have been tion. Ribera, the friend of Cortes, applied to all these various uses, brought back a story, that the ^* Lorenzana, Hist, de Nueva paintings were designed as pat- Espafia, p. 8. — Boturini, Idea, terns for embroiderers and jewel- p. 96. — Humboldt, Vues des Cor- lers. But Martyr had been in Ch. IV.] MANUSCRIPTS. 101 At the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, great quantities of these manuscripts were treasm'ed up in the country. Numerous persons were employed in painting, and the dexterity of their operations excited the astonishment of the Conquerors. Un- fortunately, this was mingled with other, and unwor- thy feelings. The strange, unknown characters inscribed on them excited suspicion. They were looked on as magic scrolls ; and were regarded in the same light with the idols and temples, as the symbols of a pestilent superstition, that must be extirpated. The first archbishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumarraga, — a name that should be as immortal as that of Omar, — collected these paint- ings from every quarter, especially from Tezcuco, the most cultivated capital in Anahuac, and the great depository of the national archives. He then caused them to be piled up in a " mountain-heap," — as it is called by the Spanish writers themselves, — in the market-place of Tlatelolco, and reduced them all to ashes ! '^ His greater countryman, Arch- bishop Ximenes, had celebrated a similar auto-da-fe of Arabic manuscripts, in Granada, some twenty years before. Never did fanaticism achieve two Egypt, and he felt little hesitation Writers are not agreed whether in placing the Indian drawings in the conflagration took place in the the same class with those he had square of Tlatelolco or Tezcuco. seen on the obelisks and temples Comp. Clavigero,Stor.delMessico, of that country. torn. II. p. 188, and Bustamante's 15 Ixtlilxochit], Hist. Chich., Pref. to Ixtlilxochitl, Cruautes des MS., Prologo. — Idem, Sum. Re- Conquerans, trad, de Ternaux, p. lac, MS. xvii. \Ql2 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I more signal triumphs, than by the annihilation of so many curious monuments of human ingenuity and learning ! ^'^ " The unlettered soldiers were not slow in imitating the example of their prelate. Every chart and volume which fell into their hands was wantonly destroyed ; so that, when the scholars of a later and more enlightened age anxiously sought to re- cover some of these memorials of civilization, nearly all had perished, and the few surviving were jeal- ously hidden by the natives. '~ Through the inde- fatigable labors of a private individual, however, a considerable collection was eventually deposited in the archives- of Mexico ; but was so little heeded there, that some were plundered, others decayed piecemeal from the damps and mildews, and others, again, were used up as waste-paper ! ^^ We con- template with indignation the cruelties inflicted by the early conquerors. But indignation is qualified with contempt, when we see them thus ruthlessly trampling out the spark of knowledge, the common boon and property of all mankind. We may well 16 It has beer my lot to record '^ The enlightened governor, both these displays of human in- Don Lorenzo Zavala sold the doc- firmity, so humbling to the pride uments in the archives of the of intellect. See the History of Audience of Mexico, according to Ferdinand and Isabella, Part 2, Bu«tamante, as wrapping-paper, Chap. 6. to L.poihecarics, shopkeepers, and 1' Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva rocket-makers ! Boturini's noble Espana, lib. 10, cap. 27. — Bus- collection has not fared much tamante, Mafianas de Alameda, better. (Mexico, 1836.) tom. II., Pr61ogo. Ca IV.] MANUSCRIPTS. 105 doubt, which has the strongest claims to civilization, the victor, or the vanquished. A few of the Mexican manuscripts have found their way, from time to time, to Europe, and are carefully preserved in the public libraries of its capi- tals. They are brought together in the magnificent work of Lord Kingsborough ; but not one is there from Spain. The most important of them, for the light it throws on the Aztec institutions, is the Mendoza Codex ; which, after its mysterious dis- appearance for more than a century, has at length reappeared in the Bodleian library at Oxford. It has been several times engraved. ^^ The most brilliant 19 The history of this famous collection is familiar to scholars. It was sent to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, not long after the Con- quest, by the viceroy Mendoza. Marques de Mondejar. The ves- sel fell into the hands of a French cruiser, and the manuscript was taken to Paris. It was afterwards bought by the chaplain of the Eng- lish embassy, and, coming into the possession of the antiquary Purchas, was engraved, in exten- so, by him, in the third volume of his " Pilgrimage." After its pub- lication, in 1625, the Aztec origin- al lost its importance, and fell into oblivion so completely, that, when at length the public curiosity was excited in regard to its fate, no trace of it could be discovered. Many were the speculations of scholars, at home and abroad, respecting it, and Dr. Robertson settled the question as to its ex- istence in England, by declaring that there was no Mexican relic in that country, except a golden goblet of Montezuma. (History of America, (London, 1796,) vol. III. p. 370.) Nevertheless, the identical Codex, and several oth- er Mexican paintings, have been since discovered in the Bodleian library. The circumstance ha.-> brought some obloquy on the his- torian, who, while prying into the collections of Vienna and the Es- curial, could be so blind to those under his own eyes. The over- sight will not appear so extraordi- nary to a thorough-bred collector, whether of manuscripts, or med- als, or any other rarity. The Men- doza Codex is, after all, but a copy, coarsely done with a pen on Eu- ropean paper. Another copy, from which Archbishop Lorenzana en- 104 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book J. in coloring, probably, is the Borgian collection, in Rome.-° The most curious, however, is the Dres- den Codex, which has excited less attention than it deserves. Although usually classed among Mexi- can manuscripts, it bears little resemblance to them in its execution ; the figures of objects are more deli- cately drawn, and the characters, unlike the Mexi- can, appear to be purely arbitrary, and are possibly phonetic.^^ Their regular arrangement is quite equal to the Egyptian. The whole infers a much higher ^^raved his tribute-rolls in Mexico, existed in Boturini's collection. A third is in the Escurial, according 10 the Marquess of Spineto. (Lec- tures on the Elements of Hiero- glyphics, (London,) lect. 7.) This may possibly be the original paint- ing. The entire Codex, copied from the Bodleian maps, with its Span- ish and English interpretations, is included in the noble compilation of Lord Kingsborough. (Vols. L, V.jVL) It is distributed into three parts ; embracing the civil history of the nation, the tributes paid by the cities, and the domestic econo- Tny and discipline of the Mexicans ; and, from the fulness of the inter- pretation, is of much importance in regard to these several topics. * It formerly belonged to the Ciustiniani family ; but was so lit- tle cared for, that it was suffered to fall into the mischievous hands of the domestics' children, who made sundry attempts to burn it. Fortunately it was pain ed on deerskin, and, though so/newhat singed, was not destoyed. (Hum- boldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 89, et seq.) It is impossible to cast the eye over this brilliant assem- blage of forms and colors with- out feeling how hopeless must be the attempt to recover a key to the Aztec mythological symbols ; which are here distributed with the symmetry, indeed, but in all the endless combinations, of the kaleidoscope. It is in the third volume of Lord Kingsborough's work. 21 Humboldt, who has copied some pages of it in his " Atlas Pit- toresque," intimates no doubt of its Aztec origin. (Vues dcs Cor- dilleres, pp. 26G, 267.) M. Le Noir even reads in it an exposition of Mexican Mythology, with oc- casional analogies to that of Egypt and of Hindostan. (Antiquites Mexicaines, tom. II., Introd.) The fantastic forms of hieroglyphic symbols may afford analogies for almost any thing. Oh. IV.] MANUSCRIPTS 105 and offers abundant food civilization than the Aztec, for curious speculation*^ . Some few of these maps have interpretations an- nexed to them, which were obtained from the na- tives after the Conquest.-^ The greater part are 22 The history of this Codex, engraved entire in the third volume of the " Antiquities of Mexico," goes no further back than 1739, when it was purchased at Vienna for the Dresden library. It is made of the American agave. The fig- ures painted on it bear little re- semblance, either in feature or form, to the Mexican. They are surmounted by a sort of head- gear, which looks something like a modern peruke. On the chin of one we may notice a beard, a sign often used after the Con- quest to denote a European. Many of the persons are sitting cross- legged. The profiles of the faces, and the whole contour of the limbs, are sketched with a spirit and freedom, very unlike the hard, angular outlines of the Aztecs. The characters, also, are delicately traced, generally in an irregular, hut circular form, and are very mi- nute. They are arranged, like the Egyptian, both horizontally and perpendicularly, mostly in the for- mer manner, and, from the preva- lent direction of the profiles, would seem to have been read from right to left. Whether phonetic or ideo- graphic, they are of that compact and purely conventional sort which belongs to a well-digested system VOL. I. 14 for the communication of thought. One cannot but regret, that no trace should exist of the quarter whence this MS. was obtained ; perhaps, some part of Central America ; from the region of the mysterious races who built the monuments of Mitla and Palenque. Though, in truth, there seems scarcely more resemblance in the symbols to the Palenque bas-reliefs, than to the Aztec paintings. 23 There are three of these ; the Mendoza Codex ; the Telleriano- Remensis, — formerly the property of Archbishop Tellier, — in the Royal library of Paris ; and the Vatican MS., No. 3738. The in- terpretation of the last bears evi- dent marks of its recent origin : probably as late as the close of the sixteenth, or the beginning of the seventeenth century, when the ancient hieroglyphics were read with the eye of faith, rather than of reason. Whoever was the commentator, (comp. Vues des Cordilleres, pp. 203, 204 ; and Antiq. of Mexico, vol. VI. pp. 155, 222,) he has given such an exposition, as shows the old Az- tecs to have been as orthodox Christians, as any subjects of tiie Pope. 106 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I without any, and cannot now be unriddled. Had the Mexicans made free use of a phonetic alphabet, it might have been originally easy, by mastering the comparatively few signs employed in this kind of communication, to have got a permanent key to the whole.^ A brief inscription has furnished a clue to the vast labyrinth of Egyptian hieroglyphics. But the Aztec characters, representing individuals, or, at most, species, require to be made out separately ; a hopeless task, for which little aid is to be expected from the vague and general tenor of the few inter- pretations now existing. There was, as already mentioned, until late in the last century, a professor in the University of Mexico, especially devoted to the study of the national picture-writing. But, as this was with a view to legal proceedings, his infor- mation, probabl}^, was limited to deciphering titles. In less than a hundred years after the Conquest, the knowledge of the hieroglyphics had so far declined, that a diligent Tezcucan writer complains he could find in the country only two persons, both very aged, at all competent to interpret them.-"' ^ The total number of Egyp- Boturini, who travelled through tian hieroglyphics discovered by every part of the country, in the ChampoUion amounts to 864 ; and middle of the last century, could of these 130 only are phonetic, not meet with an individual who notwithstanding tliat this kind of could afford him the least clue to character is used far more frequent- the Aztec hieroglyphics. So com- ly than both the others. Precis, pletely had every vestige of their p. 203 ; — also Spineto, Lectures, ancient language been swept away lect. 3. from the memory of the natives. 25 Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., (Idea, p. 116.) If we are to be- MS., Dedic. lieve Bustamante, however, a com- Ch. IV.] MANUSCRIPTS. 107 It is not probable, therefore, that the art of read- ing these picture-writings will ever be recovered ; a circumstance certainly to be regretted. Not that the records of a semi-civilized people would be like- ly to contain any new truth or discovery important to human comfort or progress ; but they could scarce- ly fail to throw some additional light on the previous history of the nation, and that of the more polished people who before occupied the country. This would be still more probable, if any literary relics of their Toltec predecessors were preserved ; and, if re- port be true, an important compilation from this source was extant at the time of the invasion, and may have perhaps contributed to swell the holo- caust of Zumarraga.'^ It is no great stretch of fancy, to suppose that such records might reveal the plete key to the whole system is, &c., &c., a good deal too much at this moment, someivhere in for one book. Ignolum pro mag- Spain. It was carried home, at nifico. It has never been seen by the time of the process against a European. A copy is said to father Mier, in 1795. The name have been in possession of the of the Mexican ChampoUion who Tezcucan chroniclers, on the taking discovered it is Borunda. Gama, of their capital. (Bustamante, Descripcion, tom. 11. p. 33, nota. CronicaMexicana, (Mexico, 1822,) 26 Teoamoxtli, "the divine carta 3.) Lord Kingsborough, who book," as it was called. Accord- can scent out a Hebrew root, be it ing to Ixtlilxochitl, it was com- buried never so deep, has discov- posed by a Tezcucan doctor, named ered that the Teoamoxtli was the Huematzin, towards the close of Pentateuch. Thus, — teo means the seventh century. (Relaciones, "divine," amotl, "paper" or MS.) It gave an account of the "book," and moxtli ^^ appears to migrations of his nation from Asia, be Moses," — "Divine Book of of the various stations on their jour- Moses " ! Antiq. of Mexico, vol ney, of their social and religious VI. p. 204, nota. institutions, their science, arts, 108 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. sticcessive links in the mighty chain of migration of the primitive races, and, by carrying us back to the seat of their possessions in the Old World, have solved the mystery which has so long perplexed the learned, in regard to the settlement and civilization of the New. Besides the hieroglyphical maps, the traditions of the country were embodied in the songs and hymns, which, as already mentioned, were carefully taught in the public schools. These were various, embracing the mythic legends of a heroic age, the warlike achievements of their own, or the softer tales of love and pleasure. ^'^ Many of them were com- posed by scholars and persons of rank, and are cited as affording the most authentic record of events.^^ The Mexican dialect was rich and ex- pressive, though inferior to the Tezcucan, the most polished of the idioms of Anahuac. None of the Aztec compositions have survived, but we can form some estimate of the general state of poetic culture from the odes which have come down to us from the royal house of Tezcuco.^^ Sahagun has fur- nished us with translations of their more elaborate prose, consisting of prayers and public discourses, 27 Boturini, Idea, pp. 90-97. — dida, que siempre observaroa y Clavigero, Stor. del Messi'io, torn, adquirieron la verdad, y esta con II. pp. 174 - 178. tanta, y razon, quanta pudieron 28 " Los cantos con que las ob- tener los mas graves y fidedig- servaban Autores muy graves en nosAutores." Ixtlilxochitl, Hist, su modo de ciencia y facultad, Chich., MS., Prologo. pues fueron los mismos Reyes, y 20 gee Chap. 6, of this Intro- de la gente mas ilustre y enten- duction. ch. iv] arithmetic. 109 which give a favorable idea of their eloquence, and show that they paid much attention to rhetorical effect. They are said to have had, also, something like theatrical exhibitions, of a pantomimic sort, in which the faces of the performers were covered with masks, and the figures of birds or animals were frequendy represented ; an imitation, to which they may have been led by the familiar delineation of such objects in their hieroglyphics.^'' In all this we see the dawning of a literary culture, surpassed, however, by their attainments in the severer walks of mathematical science. They devised a system of notation in their arith- metic, sufficiently simple. The first twenty numbers were expressed by a corresponding number of dots. The first five had specific names ; after which they were represented by combining the fifth with one of the four preceding ; as five and one for six, five and two for seven, and so on. Ten and fifteen had each a separate name, which was also combined with the first four, to express a higher quantity. These four, therefore, were the radical characters of their oral arithmetic, in the same manner as they were of the written with the ancient Romans ; a more simple arrangement, probably, than any exist- ing among Europeans.^' Twenty was expressed by 30 See some account of these gravings of them are both in Lord mummeries in Acosta, (lib. 5, cap. Kingsborough's work, and in the 30,) — also Clavigero (Stor. del Antiquites Mexicaines. Messico, ubi supra). Stone mod- 31 Gama, Descripcion , Parte 2, els of masks are sometimes found Apend. 2. among the Indian ruins, and en- Gama, in comparing the language 110 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1. a separate hieroglyphic, — a flag. Larger sums were reckoned by twenties, and, in writing, by re- peating the number of flags. The square of twenty, four hundred, had a separate sign, that of a plume, and so had the cube of twenty, or eight thousand, which was denoted by a purse, or sack. This was the whole arithmetical apparatus of the Mexicans, by the combination of which they were enabled to indicate any quantity. For greater expedition, they used to denote fractions of the larger sums by draw- ing only a part of the object. Thus, half or three fourths of a plume, or of a purse, represented that proportion of their respective sums, and so on.^ With all this, the machinery will appear very awk- ward to us, who perform our operations with so much ease, by means of the Arabic, or, rather, Indian ciphers. It is not much more awkward, however, than the system pursued by the great mathemati- cians of antiquity, unacquainted with the brilliant invention, which has given a new aspect to mathe- matical science, of determining the value, in a great measure, by the relative position of the figures. In the measurement of time, the Aztecs ad- justed their civil year by the solar. They di- vided it into eighteen months of twenty days each. Both months and days were expressed by peculiar hieroglyphics, — those of the former often intimating of Mexican notation with the de- ^ Ibid., ubi supra, cimal system of the Europeans, This learned Mexican has given and the ingenious binary system a very satisfactory treatise on the of Leibnitz, confounds oral with arithmetic of the Aztecs, in his written arithmetic. second part. Ch. IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 1 1 1 the season of the year, like the French months, at the period of the Revolution. Five complementary days, as in Egypt,^^ were added, to make up the full number of three hundred and sixty-five. They be- longed to no month, and were regarded as peculiarly unlucky. A month was divided into four weeks, of five days each, on the last of which was the public fair, or market day.^' This arrangement, differing from that of the nations of the Old Continent, whether of Europe or Asia,^^ has the advantage of giving an equal number of days to each month, and of comprehending entire weeks, without a fraction, both in the months and in the year."^*^ As the year is composed of nearly six hours more than three hundred and sixty-five days, there still remained an excess, which, like other nations who have framed a calendar, they provided for by in- tercalation ; not, indeed, every fourth year, as the Europeans,^" but at longer intervals, like some of the 33 Herodotus, Euterpe, sec. 4. monument existing of astronom- 34 Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva ical science. See La Place, Ex- Espafia, lib. 4, Apend. position du Syst^me du Monde, According to Clavigero, the fairs (Paris, 1808,) lib. 5, chap. 1. were held on the days bearing the 36 Veytia, Historia Antigua de sign of the year. Stor. del Mes- Mejico,(Mejico, 180G,) torn. I. cap. sico, torn. n. p. 62. fi, 7. — Gama, Descripcion, Parte 35 The people of Java, accord- 1, pp. 33, 34, et alibi. — Boturini, ing to Sir Stamford Raffles, reg- Idea, pp. 4, 44, et seq. — Cod. ulated their markets, also, by a Tel. -Rem., ap. Antiq. of Mexico, week of five days. They had, vol.VI.p. 104. — Camargo,Hist. de besides, our week of seven. (His- Tlascala, MS. — Toribio, Hist, de tory of Java, (London, 1830,) vol. los Indies, MS., Parte 1, cap. 5. L, pp. 531, 532.) The latter di- 37 Sahagun intimates doubts of vision of time, of general use this. " Otra fiesta hacian de cua- throughout the East, is the oldest tro en cuatro aiios a honra del 112 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. Asiatics.^^ They waited till the expiration of fifty- two vague years, when they interposed thirteen days, or rather twelve and a half, this being the number which had fallen in arrear. Had they inserted thir- teen, it would have been too much, since tlie annual excess over three hundred and sixty-five is about eleven minutes less than six hours. But, as their calendar, at the time of the Conquest, was found to correspond with the European, (making allowance for the subsequent Gregorian reform,) they would seem to have adopted the shorter period of twelve days and a half,^^ which brought them, within an fuego, y en esta fiesta cs verosimil, y hay congeturas que hacian su visiesto contando seis dias de ne- mnntemi''^ ; the five unlucky com- plementary days were so called. (Hist, de Nueva Espaiia, lib. 4, Apend.) But this author, how- ever good an authority for the superstitions, is an indiflferent one lor the science of the Mexicans. 38 The Persians had a cycle of one hundred and tvi'enty years, of three hundred and sixty-five days each , at the end of which they inter- calated thirty days. (Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 177.) This was the same as thirteen after the cycle of fifty-two years of the Mexicans ; but was less accurate than their probable intercalation of twelve days and a half. It is obviously indifferent, as far as ac- curacy is concerned, which mul- tiple of four is selected to form the cycle ; though, the shorter the interval of intercalation, the less, of course, will be the temporary departure from the true time. ^ This is the conclusion to which Gama arrives, after a very careful investigation of the subject. He supposes that the "bundles,'" or cycles, of fifty-two years, — by which, as we shall see, the Mex- icans computed time, — ended, al- ternately, at midnight and mid- day. (Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 52, et seq.) He finds some war- rant for this in Acosta's account, (lib. 6, cap. 2,) though contra- dicted by Torquemada, (Monarch. Ind., lib. 5, cap. 33,) and, as it appears, by Sahagun, — whose work, however, Gama never saw, — (Hist, de Nueva Espaiia, lib. 7, cap. 9,) both of whom place the close of the year at midnight. Gama's hypothesis derives con- firmation from a circumstance I have not seen noticed. Besides the "bundle " of fifty-two years, the Mexicans had a larger cycle Ch. IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 113 almost inappreciable fraction, to the exact length of the tropical year, as established by the most accurate observations.^" Indeed, the intercalation of twenty- five days, in every hundred and four years, shows a nicer adjustment of civil to solar time than is pre- sented by any European calendar ; since more than five centuries must elapse, before the loss of an en- tire day.^' Such was the astonishing precision dis- played by the Aztecs, or, perhaps, by their more polished Toltec predecessors, in these computations, so difficult as to have baffled, till a comparatively re-' cent period, the most enlightened nations of Chris- tendom ! ^ of one hundred and four years, called "an old age." As this was not used in their reckonings, which were carried on by their " bundles," it seems highly prob- able that it was designed to ex- press the period which would bring round the commencement of the smaller cycles to the same hour, and in which the intercalary days, amounting to twenty-five, might be comprehended without a fraction. 40 This length, as computed by Zach, at 365d. 5h. 48m. 48sec., is only 2m. 9sec. longer than the Mexican ; which corresponds with the celebrated calculation of the astronomers of the Caliph Alraa- mon, that fell short about two minutes of the true time. See La Place, Exposition, p. 350. 4t "El corto exceso de 4hor. 38min. 40seg., que hay de mas de los 25 dias en el periodo de 104 afios, no puede componer un dia entero, hasta que pasen mas de cinco de estos periodos maximos 6 538 ailos." (Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 23.) Gama estimates the solar year at 365d. 5h. 48m. 50sec. ■^2 The ancient Etruscans ar- ranged their calendar in cycles of 110 solar years, and reckoned the year at 365d. 5h. 40m. ; at least, this seems probable, says Niebuhr. (History of Rome, Eng. trans., (Cambridge, 1828,) vol. I. pp. 113, 238.) The early Romans had not wit enough to avail them- selves of this accurate measure- ment, which came within nine minutes of the true time. The Julian reform, which assumed 365d. 5dh. as the length of the VOL. T. 15 114 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book 1 The chronological system of the Mexicans, b_y which they determined the date of any particulai event, was, also, very remarkable. The epoch, from which they reckoned, corresponded with the yeai 1091, of the Christian era. It was the period of the reform of their calendar, soon after their migra- tion from Aztlan. They threw the years, as already noticed, into great cycles, of fifty-two each, which they called " sheafs," or " bundles," and represented by a quantity of reeds bound together by a string. As often as this hieroglyphic occurs in their maps, it shows the number of half centuries. To enable them to specify any particular year, they divided the year, erred as much, or rather more, on the other side. And when the Europeans, who adopted this calendar, landed in Mexico, their reckoning was nearly eleven days in advance of the exact time, — or, in other words, of the reck- oning of the barbarous Aztecs ; a remarkable fact. Gama's researches lead to the conclusion, that the year of the new cycle began with the Aztecs on the ninth of January ; a date considerably earlier than that usu- ally assigned by the Mexican wri- ters. (Descripcion, Parte I, pp. 49-52.) By postponing the in- tercalation to the end of fifty-two years, the annual loss of six hours made every fourth year begin a day earlier. Thus, the cycle com- mencing on the ninth of January, the fifth year of it began on the eighth, the ninth year on the sev- enth, and so on ; so that the last day of the series of fifty-two years fell on the twenty-sixth of Decem- ber, when the intercalation of thir- teen days rectified the chronolog}'. and carried the commencement of the new year to the ninth of Jan- uary again. Torquemacia, puzzled by the irregularity of the new- year's day, asserts that the Mex- icans were unacquainted with the annual eslcess of six hours, and therefore never intercalated ! (Mon- arch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 36.) The interpreter of the Vatican Codex has fallen into a series of blunders on the same subject, still more ludicrous. (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. VI. PI. 16.) So soon had Aztec science fallen into oblivion, afte' the Conquest ! Ch. IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 115 great cycle into four smaller cycles, or indictions, ot thirteen years each. They then adopted two periodi- cal series of signs, one consisting of their numerical dots, up to thirteen, the other, of four hieroglyphics of the years.^^ These latter they repeated in regular succession, setting against each one a number of the corresponding series of dots, continued also in reg- ular succession up to thirteen. The same system was pursued through the four indictions, which thus. It will be observed, began always with a different hieroglyphic of the year from the preceding; and in this way, each of the hieroghphics was made to combine successively with each of the numerical signs, but never twice with the same ; since four, and thirteen, the factors of fifty-two, — the number of years in the cycle, — must admit of just as many combinations as are equal .to their product. Thus every year had its appropriate symbol, by which it was, at once, recognised. And this symbol, pre- ceded by the proper number of " bundles," indicat- ing the half centuries, showed the precise time which had elapsed since the national epoch of 1091.'" The ingenious contrivance of a periodical series, in place of the cumbrous system of hiero- 43 These hieroglyphics were a bit" and "air," which lead the " rabbit," a " reed," a " flint," a respective series, "house." They were taken as ^ The following table of two .sj'^mbolical of the four elements, of the four indictions of thirteen air, water, fire, earth, according to years each will make the texi Veytia. (Hist. Antig., tom. I. cap. moreclear. The first column shows 5.) It is not easy to see the con- the actual year of the great cycle, nexion between the terms " rab- or " bundle." The second, the nu- 116 AZTEC CIVILIZATION [Book 1. glyphical notation, is not peculiar to the Aztecs, and is to be found among various people, on the Asiatic merical dots used in their arithme- hieroglyphics for rabbit, reed, flint, tic. The third is composed of their house, in their regular order. First Indiction. Second Indiction. Year f the Jycl©. 1. 2. • • 3. . . . 4. .... 5. 6. . . . . . 7. . . . . . 8. '.'.','' 9. ::.'.' 10 11. 12. '.'.'' 13. '.'.'.' Year of the Cycle. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. S liy pursuing the combinations coincide with the same 'a: rv. through the two remaining indie- glyphic. tioiis, it will be found that the These tables are genc-..illy same number of dots will never thrown into the form of wheels, Ch. IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 117 continent, — the same in principle, though varying materially in arrangement.^'' The solar calendar, above described, might have answered all the purposes of the nation ; but the priests chose to construct another for themselves. This was called a " lunar reckoning," though nowise accommodated to the revolutions of the moon.^^ It as are those, also, of their months and days, having a very pretty effect. Several have been publish- ed, at different times, from the col- lections of Siguenza and Boturini. The wheel of the great cycle of fifty-two years is encompassed by a serpent, which was also the sym- bol of "an age," both with the Persians and Egyptians. Father Toribio seems to misapprehend the nature of these chronological wheels ; " Tenian rodelas y escu- dos, y en alias pintadas las figuras y armas de sus Demonios con su blason." Hist, de los Indies, MS., Parte 1, cap. 4. ^ Among the Chinese, Japan- ese, Moghols, Mantchous, and oth- er families of the Tartar race. Their series are composed of sym- bols of their five elements, and the twelve zodiacal signs, making a cycle of sixty years' duration. Their several systems are exhib- ited, in connexion with the Mex- ican, in the luminous pages of Humboldt, (Vues des Cordilleres, p. 149,) who draws important con- sequences from the comparison, to wliich we shall have occasion to return hereafter. ^ In this calendar, the months of the tropical year were dis tributed into cycles of thirteen days, which, being repeated twenty times, — the number of days in a solar month, — completed the lu- nar, or astrological, year of 260 days ; when the reckoning began again. "By the contrivance of these trecenas (terms of thirteen days) and the cycle of fifty-two years," saysGama, "they formed a luni-solar period, most exact for astronomical purposes." (Descrip- cion,Partel,p. 27.) Headds,that these trecenas were suggested by the periods in which the moon is visible before and after conjunction. (Loc. cit.) It seems hardly possible that a people, capable of construct- ing a calendar so accurately on the true principles of solar time, should so grossly err as to suppose, that, in this reckoning, they really " rep- resented the daily revolutions of the moon." " The whole Eastern world," says the learned Niebuhr, " has followed the moon in its cal- endar ; the free scientific division of a vast portion of time is pecu- liar to the West. Connected with the West is that primeval extinct world which we call the New." History of Rome, vol. I. p. 239. 118 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. was formed, also, of two periodical series, one of them consisting of thirteen numerical signs, or dots, the other, of the twenty hieroglyphics of the days. But, as the product of these combinations would only be 260, and, as some confusion might arise from the rep6'tition of the same terms for the remaining 105 days of the year, they invented a third series, con- sisting of nine additional hieroglyphics, which, alter- nating with the two preceding series, rendered it im- possible that the three should coincide twice in the same year, or indeed in less than 2340 days ; since 20 X 13 X 9 = 2340.'*^ Thirteen was a mystic number, of frequent use in their tables.^® Why they resorted to that of nine, on this occasion, is not so clear .^^ 47 They were named ' ' compan- ions," and "lords of the night," and were supposed to preside over the night, as the other signs did over the day. Boturini, Idea, p. 57. '^ Thus, their astrological year was divided into months of thir- teen days, there were thirteen years in their indictions, which contained each three hundred and sixty-five periods of thirteen days, &c. It is a curious fact, that the number of lunar months of thir- teen days, contained in a cycle of fifty-two years, with the intercala- tion, should correspond precisely with the number of years in the great Sothic period of the Egyp- tians, namely, 1491 ; a period, in which the seasons and festivals came round to the same place in the year again. The coincidence may be accidental. But a people employing periodical series, and astrological calculations, have gen- erally some meaning in the num- bers they select and the combina- tions to which they lead. ^3 According to Gama, (Descrip- cion, Pai'te 1, pp. 75, 76,) because 360 can be divided by nine without a fraction ; the nine ' ' companions ' ' not being attached to the five com- plementary days. But 4, a mystic number much used in their arith- metical combinations, would have answered the same purpose, equal- ly well. In regard to this, McCul- loh observes, with much shrewd- ness, " It seems impossible that the Mexicans, so careful in con- structing their cycle, should ab- ruptly terminate it with 360 revo- lutions, whose natural period of termination is 2340." And he supposes the nine "companions" Ch. IV.] CHRONOLOGY. 119 This second calendar rouses a holy indignation in the early Spanish missionaries, and father Sahagun loudly condemns it, as " most unhallowed, since it is founded neither on natural reason, nor on the influ- ence of the planets, nor on the true course of the year ; but is plainly the work of necromancy, and the fruit of a compact with the Devil ! "^° One may doubt, whether the superstition of those who in- vented the scheme was greater than that of those who thus impugned it. At all events, we may, without having recourse to supernatural agency, find in the human heart a sufficient explanation of its origin ; in that love of power, that has led the priest- hood of many a faith to affect a mystery, the key to which was in their own keeping. By means of this calendar, the Aztec priests kept their own records, regulated the festivals and seasons were used in connexion with the solar year might have annexed to it cycles of 260 days, in order to the first of the nine " companions," throw them into the larger ones, which signified " lord of the year "; of 2340 ; eight of which, with a (Idea, p. 57 ; ) a result which ninth of 260 days, he ascertains to might have been equally well se- be equal to the great solar period cured, without any intermission of 52 years. (Researches, pp. 207, at all, by taking 5, another favor- 208.) This is very plausible. But ite number, instead of 9, as the in fact the combinations of the two divisor. As it was, however, first series, forming the cycle of the cycle, as far as the third se- 260 days, were always interrupted ries was concerned, did terminate at the end of the year, since each with 360 revolutions. The sub- new year began with the same ject is a perplexing one ; and I hieroglyphic of the days. The third can hardly hope to have presented series of the " companions " was it in such a manner as to make it intermitted, as above stated, on the perfectly clear to the reader, five unlucky days which closed the ^^ Hist, de Nueva Espafia, lib year, in order, if we may believe 4, Introd. Boturini, that the first day of the 120 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. of sacrifice, and made all their astrological calcula- tions.''^ The false science of astrology is natural to a state of society partially civilized, where the mind, impatient of the slow and cautious examination by which alone it can arrive at truth, launches, at once, into the regions of speculation, and rashly attempts to lift the veil, — the impenetrable veil, which is drawn around the mysteries of nature. It is the characteristic of true science, to discern the impassable, but not very obvious, limits which divide the province of reason from that of speculation. Such knowledge comes tardily. How many ages have rolled away, in which powers, that, rightly di- rected, might have revealed the great laws of nature, have been wasted in brilliant, but barren, reveries on alchemy and astrology ! The latter is more particularly the study of a primitive age ; when the mind, incapable of arriving at the stupendous fact, that the myriads of minute lights, glowing in the firmament, are the centres of systems as glorious as our own, is naturally led to speculate on their probable uses, and to connect them in some way or other with man, for whose convenience every other object in the universe seems to have been created. As the eye of the simple child of nature watches, through the long nights, the 51 " Dans les pays Ics plus dif- doce a du au culte des elements et ferents," says Benjamin Constant, des astres un pouvoir dont aujour- concluding some sensible reflec- d'hui nous concevons a peine lions on the sources of thp saccr- I'idee." De la Religion, (Paris dotal power, " chez les pcuples de 1825.) lib. 3, ch. 5. nicBurs les plus oppos'-os, le sacer- Ch. IV.] ASTRONOMY. 121 Stately march of the heavenly bodies, and sees the bright hosts coming up, one after another, and chan ging with the changing seasons of the year, he natu- rally associates them with those seasons, as the pe- riods over which they hold a mysterious influence. In the same manner, he connects their appearance with any interesting event of the time, and explores, in their flaming characters, the destinies of the new- born infant.''" Such is the origin of astrology, the false lights of which have continued from the earliest ages to dazzle and bewilder mankind, till they have faded away in the superior illumination of a com- paratively recent period. The astrological scheme of the Aztecs was founded less on the planetary influences, than on those of the arbitrary signs they had adopted for the months and days. The character of the leading sign, in each lunar cycle of thirteen days, gave a complexion to the whole ; though this was qualified, in some degree, by the signs of the succeeding days, as well as by those of the hours. It was in adjusting these conflicting forces that the great art of the diviner was shown. In no country, not even in ancient Egypt, were the dreams of the astrologer more implicitly deferred to. On the birth of a child, he was in- 52 "It is a gentle and affectionate thought, than history, when he tells US, in That, in immeasurable heights above us, At our first birth the wreath of love was woven the beautiful passage of which this is part, that the worship of With sparkling stars for flowers." the stars took the place of classic Coleridge, Translation of Wal- mythology. It existed long he- lenstein, Act 2, sc. 4. /. fore It. Schiller is more true to poetry VOL. I. 16 122 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I stantly summoned. The time of the event was accurately ascertained ; and the family hung in trem- bling suspense, as the minister of Heaven cast the horoscope of the infant, and unrolled the dark vol- ume of destin}^ The influence of the priest was confessed by the Mexican, in the very first breath which he inhaled.^^ We know little further of the astronomical at- tainments of the Aztecs. That they were acquainted with the cause of eclipses is evident from the repre- sentation, on their maps, of the disk of the moon projected on that of the sun.^^ Whether they had arranged a system of constellations is uncertain ; though, that they recognised some of the most ob- vious, as the Pleiades, for example, is evident from the fact that they regulated their festivals by them. We know of no astronomical instruments used by them, except the dial.'^-' An immense circular block ^ Gama has given us a com- trous ; and was never contrived by plete almanac of the astrological human reason." The good father year, with the appropriate signs was certainly no philosopher, and divisions, showing with what ^ See, among others, the Cod. scientific skill it was adapted to Tel.-Rem., Part 4, PI. 22, ap. An- its various uses. (Descripcion, tiq. of Mexico, vol. I. Paite 1, pp. 25-31; 02-76.) Sa- ^5 " It can hardly be doubted," hagun has devoted a whole book says Lord Kingsborough, "that to explaining the mystic import the Mexicans were acquainted with and value of these signs, with a many scientifical instruments of minuteness that may enable one strange invention, as compared to cast up a sclieme of nativity for with our own ; whether the tele- himself. (Hist, de Nueva Espafia, scope may not have been of the lib. 4.) It is evident he fully be- number is uncertain ; but the thir- lieved the magic wonders which teenth plate of M. Dupaix's Mon- he told. " It was a deceitful art," umcnts, Va.ri Second, which rep he says, " pernicious and idola- resents a man holding som3thing :h. IV.] ASTRONOMY. 123 of carved stone, disinterred in 1790, in the great square of Mexico, has supplied an acute and learned scholar with the means of establishing some inter- esting facts in regard to Mexican science.''^ This colossal fragment, on which the calendar is engraved, shows that they had the means of settling the hours of the day with precision, the periods of the solstices and of the equinoxes, and that of the transit of the sun across the zenith of Mexico."^" We cannot contemplate the astronomical science of the Mexicans, so disproportioned to their progress in other walks of civilization, without astonishment. An acquaintance with some of the more obvious principles of astronomy is within the reach of the of a similar nature to his eye, af- fords reason to suppose that they knew how to improve the powers of vision." (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. VI. p. 15, note.) The in- strument alluded to is rudely carved on a conical rock. It is raised no higher than the neck of the person who holds it, and looks — to my thinking — as much like a musket as a telescope ; though I shall not infer the use of firearms among the Aztecs from this circumstance. (See vol. IV. PL 15.) Captain Dupaix, however, in his commentary on the drawing, sees quite as much in it as his Lordship. Ibid., vol. V. p. 241. 56 Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, sec. 4 ; Parte 2, Apend. Besides this colossal fragment, Gama met with some others, de- signed, probably, for similar scien- tific uses, at Chapoltepec. Before he had leisure to examine them, however, they were broken up for materials to build a furnace ! A fate not unlike that which has too often befallen the monuments of ancient art in the Old World. ^"^ In his second treatise on the cylindrical stone, Gama dwells more at large on its scientific con- struction, as a vertical sun-dial, in order to dispel the doubts of some sturdy skeptics on this point. (Des- cripcion, Parte 2, Apend. 1.) The civil day was distributed by the Mexicans into sixteen parts ; and began, like that of most of the Asiatic nations, with sunrise. M. de Humboldt, who probably never saw Gama's second treatise, al- lows only eight intervals. Vues des Cordilleres, p. 128. 124 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. rudest people. With a little care, they may learn to connect the regular changes of the seasons with those of the place of the sun at his rising and set- ting. They may follow the march of the great lu- minary through the heavens, by watching the stars that first brighten on his evening track, or fade in his morning beams. They may measure a revolu- tion of the moon, by marking her phases, and may even form a general idea of the number of such revolutions in a solar year. But that they should be capable of accurately adjusting their festivals by the movements of the heavenly bodies, and should fix the true length of the tropical year, with a pre- cision unknown to the great philosophers of antiqui- ty, could be the result only of a long series of nice and patient observations, evincing no slight progress in civilization.'^^ But whence could the rude inhab- itants of these mountain regions have derived this curious erudition ? Not from the barbarous hordes who roamed over the higher latitudes of the North ; nor from the more polished races on the Southern continent, with whom, it is apparent, they had no intercourse. If we are driven, in our embarrass- ment, like the greatest astronomer of our age, to ^ Un calendrier," exclaims the naison. II faut done supposer chez enthusiastic Carli, " qui est reg\6 ces peuples une suite d'observa- sur la revolution annuelle du so- tions astronomiques, une idee dis- leil, non seulement par I'addition tincte de la sphere, de la decli- de cinq jours tous les ans, mais en- naison de I'^cliptique, et I'usage core par la correction du bissextile, d'un calcul concernant les jours doit sans doute etre regarde comme et les heures des apparitions so une operation dcduite d'une etude laircs." Lettres Am^ricaines, torn reflechie, et d'une grande combi- I. let. 23. Ch. IV.] ASTRONOMY. 125 seek the solution among the civilized communities of Asia, we shall still be perplexed by finding, amidst general resemblance of outline, sufficient dis- crepancy in the details, to vindicate, in the judg- ments of many, the Aztec claim to originality.^^ I shall conclude the account of Mexican science, with that of a remarkable festival, celebrated by the natives at the termination of the great cycle of fifty- two years. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, their tradition of the destruction of the world at four successive epochs. They looked forward confi- dently to another such catastrophe, to take place, like the preceding, at the close of a cycle, when the sun was to be effaced from the heavens, the human race, from the earth, and when the darkness of chaos was to settle on the habitable globe. The cycle would end in the latter part of December, and, as the dreary season of the winter solstice approached, and the diminished light of day gave melancholy presage of its speedy extinction, their apprehensions increased ; and, on the arrival of the five " unlucky " days which closed the year, they abandoned them- selves to despair.^" They broke in pieces the little images of their household gods, in whom they no 59 La Place, who suggests the till the 26th of December, if Gatna analogy, frankly admits the diffi- is right. The cause of M.Jomard's culty. Systeme du Monde, lib. 5, error is his fixing it before, instead ch. 3. of after, the complementary days. 60 M. Jomard errs in placing the See his sensible letter on the Az- new fire, with which ceremony the tec calendar, in the Vues des Cer- oid cycle properly concluded, at dilleres, p. 309. the winter solstice. It was not 126 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. longer trusted. The holy fires were suffered to go out in the temples, and none were lighted in their own dwellings. Their furniture and domestic uten- sils were destroyed ; their garments torn in pieces ; and every thing was thrown into disorder, for the coming of the evil genii who were to descend on the desolate earth. On the evening of the last day, a procession of priests, assuming the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital towards a lofty moun- tain, about two leagues distant. They carried with them a noble \dctim, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the suc- cess of which was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. On reaching the summit of the moun- tain, the procession paused till midnight ; when, as the constellation of the Pleiades approached the zenith,*^^ the new fire was kindled by the friction of the sticks placed on the wounded breast of the vic- tim. ^^ The flame was soon communicated to a funeral pile, on which the body of the slaughtered captive was thrown. As t-he light streamed up to- 6^ At the actual moment of their Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres, culmination, according to both Sa- pp. 181, 182.) The longer we hagun (Hist, de Nueva Espana, postpone the beginning of the new lib. 4, Apend.) and Torquemada cycle, the greater still must be the (Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 33, discrepancy. 36). But this could not be, as that 62 " On his bare breast the cedar boiigh.s took place at midnight, in Novem- n u- "k^ ^V ' . j j j j '^ o ' On his bare breast, dry sedge and odor- ber ; so late as the last secular ous gums festival, which was early in Monte- Laid ready to receive the sacred spark, „ „)„ ; ■ t rnm tc And blaze, to herald the ascending Sun, zuma s reign, m 1507. (Uama, „ , . ,. . , ,, o . ° ' ^ ' Upon his uving altar." Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 50, nota. — Southey's Madoc, pari2, canto 2B Ch IV.] ASTRONOMY 127 wards heaven, shouts of joy and triumph burst forth from the countless multitudes who covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the house-tops, with eyes anxiously bent on the mount of sacrifice. Cou- riers, with torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over every part of the country ; and the cheering element was seen brightening on altar and hearth-stone, for the circuit of many a league, long before the sun, rising on his accustom- ed track, gave assurance that a new cycle had com- menced its march, and that the laws of nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs. The following thirteen days were given up to fes- tivity. The houses were cleansed and whitened. The broken vessels were replaced by new ones. The people, dressed in their gayest apparel, and crowned with garlands and chaplets of flowers, thronged in joyous procession, to offer up their obla- tions and thanksgivings in the temples. Dances and games were instituted, emblematical of the re- generation of the world. It was the carnival of the Aztecs ; or rather the national jubilee, the great sec- ular festival, like that of the Romans, or ancient Etruscans, which few alive had witnessed before, — or could expect to see again. ®^ ^ I borrow the words of the sum- Mexican chroniclers warm into mons by which the people were something like eloquence in their called to the ludi seculares, the descriptions of the Aztec festival, secular games of ancient Rome, (Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. ^'' quos nee spectasset quisquam, nee 10, cap. 33. — Toribio, Hist, de spectaturus esset.''^ (Suetonius, Vi- los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 5. — ta Tib, Claudii, lib. 5.) The old Sahagun, Hist, de NuevaEspana, 128 LORD KINGSBOROUGH. [Book I. lib. 7, cap. 9 - 12. See, also, lish reader will find a more bril- Gama, Descripeion, Parle 1, pp. liant coloring of the same scene 52-54, — Clavigero, Stor. del Mes- in the canto of Madoc, above cited, sico, tom. II. pp. 84-86.) TheEng- — " On the Close of the Century." M. de Humboldt remarked, many years ago, " It were to be wished that some government would publish at its own expense the remains of the ancient American civilization ; for it is only by the comparison of several monuments, that we can succeed in discovering the meaning of these allegories, which are partly astronomical, and partly mystic." This enlightened wish has now been realized, not by any government, but by a private individual. Lord Kingsborough. The great work, published under his auspices, and so often cited in this Introduction, appeared in London in 1830. When completed, it will reach to nine volumes, seven of which are now before the public. Some idea of its magnificence may be formed by those who have not seen it, from the fact, that copies of it, with colored plates, sold originally at £\15, and, with uncolored, at £120. The price has been since much re- duced. It is designed to exhibit a complete view of the ancient Aztec MSS., with such few interpretations as exist ; the beautiful drawings of Castafieda relating to Central America, with the commentary of Dupaix ; the unpublished history of father Sahagun ; and, last, not least, the copious annotations of his Lordship. Too much cannot be said of the mechanical execution of the book, — its splendid typography, the apparent accuracy and the delicacy of the drawings, and the sumptuous quality of the materials. Yet the pur- chaser would have been saved some superfluous expense, and the read- er much inconvenience, if the letter-press had been in volumes of an ordinary size. But it is not uncommon, in works on this magnificent plan, to find utility in some measure sacrificed to show. The collection of Aztec MSS., if not perfectly complete, is very extensive, and reflects great credit on the diligence and research of the compiler. It strikes one as strange, however, that not a single docu- ment should have been drawn from Spain. Peter Martyr speaks of a number having been broiigiit thitlier in his time. (Do Insulis nuper Inventis, p. 368.) The Marquis Spineto examined one in the Escurial, being the same with the Mendoza Codex, and perhaps the original, since that at Oxford is but a copy. (Lectures, lee. 7.) Mr. Waddilove, chap- lain of the British embassy to Spain, gave a particular account of one to Dr. Robertson, which he saw in the same library, and considered an Aztec calendar. Indeed, it is scarcely possible, that the frequent voya- Ch. IV.] LORD KINfiSBOROUGH. 129 gers to the New World should not have furnished the mother-countrv with abundant specimens of this most interesting feature of Aztec- civilization. Nor should we fear that the present liberal governmeiu would seclude these treasures from the inspection of the scholar. Mucli cannot be said in favor of the arrangement of these codices. In some of them, as the Mendoza Codex, for example, the plates are not even numbered ; and one, who would study them by the corresponding interpretation, must often bewilder himself in the maze of hieroglyphics, without a clue to guide him. Neither is there any attempt to enlight- en us as to the positive value and authenticity of the respective docu- ments, or even their previous history, beyond a barren reference to the particular library from which they have been borrowed. Little light, indeed, can be expected on these matters ; but we have not that little. — The defect of arrangement is chargeable on other parts of the work Thus, for instance, the sixth book of Sahagun is transferred fi-om the body of the history to which it belongs, to a preceding volume ; while the grand hypothesis of his lordship, for which the work was concoct- ed, is huddled into notes, hitched on random passages of the text, with a good deal less connexion than the stories of queen Scheherezade, in the " Arabian Nights," and not quite so entertaining. The drift of Lord Kingsborough's speculations is, to establish the colonization of Mexico by the Israelites. To this the whole battery of his logic and learning is directed. For this, hieroglyphics are unriddled, manuscripts compared, monunaents delineated. His theory, however, whatever be its merits, will scarcely become popular ; since, instead of being exhibited in a clear and comprehensive form, readily embraced by the mind, it is spread over an infinite number of notes, thickly sprinkled with quotations, from languages ancient and modern, till the weary reader, floundering about in the ocean of fragments, with no light to guide him, feels like Milton's Devil, working his wav through chaos, — " neither sea, Nor good dry land ; nigh foundered, on he fares." It would be unjust, however, not to admit that the noble author, if his logic is not always convincing, shows much acuteness in detecting analogies ; that he displays familiarity with his subject, and a fund of erudition, though it often runs to waste ; that, whatever be the defects of arrangement, he has brought together a most rich collection of un- published materials to illustrate the Aztec, and, in a wider sense, Ameri- can antiquities ; and that, by this munificent undertaking, which no government, probably, would have, and few individuals could have, ex- ecuted, he has entitled himself to the lasting gratitude of every friend of science. VOL. L 17 130 GAMA. [Book I. Another writer, whose works must be diligently consulted by ever" student of Mexican antiquities, is Antonio Gama. His life conlaii as few incidents as those of most scholars. He was born at Mexico, ii. 1735, of a respectable family, and was bred to the law. He early showed a preference for mathematical studies, conscious that in this career lay his strength. In 1771, he communicated his observations on the eclipse of that year to the French astronomer M. de Lalande, who published them in Paris, with high commendations of the author. Gama's increasing reputation attracted the attention of government ; and he was employed by it, in various scientific labors of importance. His great passion, however, was the study of Indian antiquities. He made himself acquainted with the history of the native races, their traditions, their languages, and, as far as possible, their hieroglyphics. He had an oppoilunity of showing the fruits of this preparatory train- ing, and his skill as an antiquary, on the discovery of the great cal- endar-stone, in 1790. He produced a masterly treatise on this, and another Aztec monument, explaining the objects to which they were devoted, and pouring a flood of light on the astronomical science of the Aborigines, their mythology, and their astrological system. He afterwards continued his investigations in the same path, and wrote treatises on the dial, hieroglyphics, and arithmetic of the Indians. These, however, were not given to the world till a few years since, when they were published, together with a reprint of the former work, under the auspices of the industrious Bustamante. Gama died in 1802 ; leaving behind him a reputation for great worth in private life ; one, in which the bigotry, that seems to enter too frequently into the character of the Spanish-Mexican, was tempered by the liberal feelings of a man of science. His reputation as a writer stands high for pa- tient acquisition, accuracy, and acutcness. His conclusions are neither warped by the love of theory so common in the philosopher, nor by the easy credulity so natural to the antiquary. He feels his way with the caution of a mathematician, wliose steps are demonstrations. M. de Humboldt was largely indebted to his first work, as he baa emphatically acknowledged. But, notwithstanding the eulogiums of this popular vnriter, and his own merits, Gama's treatises are rarely met with out of New Spain, and his name can hardly be said to have « transatlantic reputation. CHAPTER V. AzTEO Agriculture. — Mechanical Arts. — Merchants. — Domestic Manners. It is hardly possible that a nation, so far advanced as the Aztecs in mathematical science, should not have made considerable progress in the mechanical arts, which are so nearly connected ^vith it. In- deed, intellectual progress of any kind implies a de- gree of refinement, that requires a certain cultiva- tion of both useful and elegant art. The savage, wandering through the wide forest, without shelter for his head, or raiment for his back, knows no other wants than those of animal appetites ; and, when they are satisfied, seems to himself to have answered the only ends of existence. But man, in society, feels numerous desires, and artificial tastes spring up. accommodated to the various relations in which he is placed, and perpetually stimulating his inven- tion to devise new expedients to gratify them. There is a wide difference in the mechanical skill of different nations ; but the difference is still greater in the inventive power which directs this skill, and makes it available. Some nations seem to have no power beyond that of imitation ; or, if they possess invention, have it in so low a degree, that they are 132 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Book I. constantly repeating the same idea, without a shadow of alteration or improvement; as the hird builds precisely the same kind of nest which those of its own species built at the beginning of the world. Such, for example, are the Chinese, who have, prob- ably, been familiar for ages with the germs of some discoveries, of little practical benefit to themselves, but which, under the influence of European gen- ius, have reached a degree of excellence, that has wrought an important change in the constitution of society. Far from looking back, and forming itself slavishly on the past, it is characteristic of the European in- tellect to be ever on the advance. Old discoveries become the basis of new ones. It passes onward from truth to truth, connecting the whole by a suc- cession of links, as it were, into the great chain of science which is to encircle and bind together the universe. The light of learning is shed over the labors of art. New avenues are opened for the com- munication both of person and of thought. New facilities are devised for subsistence. Personal com- forts, of every kind, are inconceivably multiplied, and brought within the reach of the poorest. Se- cure of these, the thoughts travel into a nobler region than that of the senses ; and the appliances of art are made to minister to the demands of an elegant taste, and a higher moral culture. The same enlightened spirit, applied to agricul- ture, raises it from a mere mechanical drudgery, or the barren formula of traditional precepts, to the Ch. v.] agriculture. 133 dignity of a science. As the composition of the earth is analyzed, man learns the capacity of the soil that he cultivates ; and, as his empire is gradu- ally extended over the elements of nature, he gains the power to stimulate her to her most bountiful and various production, it is with satisfaction that we can turn to the land of our fathers, as the one in which the experiment has been conducted on the broadest scale, and attended with results that the world has never before witnessed. With equal truth, we may point to the Anglo-Saxon race in both hemispheres, as that whose enterprising genius has contributed most essentially to the great interests of humanity, by the application of science to the use- ful arts. Husbandry, to a very limited extent, indeed, was practised by most of the rude tribes of North Ameri- ca. Wherever a natural opening in the forest, or a rich strip of interval, met their eyes, or a green slope was found along the rivers, they planted it with beans and Indian corn.^ The cultivation was sloven- ly in the extreme, and could not secure the improvi- dent natives from the frequent recurrence of desolat- ing famines. Still, that they tilled the soil at all was a peculiarity which honorably distinguished ^ This latter grain, according to thers found it in abundance on iii Tlumboldt, was found by the Eu- New England coast, wherever Topeans in the New World, from they landed. See Morton, New the South of Chili to Pennsylva- England's Memorial, (Boston, nia; (Essai Politique, torn. II. p. 1826,) p. 68. — Gookin, Massa- 408 ;) he might have added, to the chusetts Historical Collections, St. Lawrence. Our Puritan fa- chap. 3. 134 AZTEC CIVILIZATION. [Rook. I. them from other tribes of hunters, and raised them one decree higher in the scale of civilization. Agriculture in Mexico was in the same advan- ced state as the other arts of social life. In few countries, indeed, has it been more respected. It was closely interwoven with the civil and religious institutions of the nation. There were peculiar dei- ties to preside over it ; the names of the months and of the religious festivals had more or less refer- ence to it. The public taxes, as we have seen, were often paid in agricultural produce. All, except the soldiers and great nobles, even the inhabitants of the cities, cultivated the soil. The work was chiefly done by the men ; the women scattering the seed, husking the corn, and taking pait only in the lighter labors of the field.^ In this they presented an honorable contrast to the other tribes of the continent, who imposed the burden of agriculture, severe as it is in the North, on their women.^ In- deed, the sex was as tenderly regarded by the Aztecs in this matter, as it is, in most parts of Europe, at the present day. 2 Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., notices the effeminacy of the men lib. 13, cap. 31. in Egypt, who stayed at home "Admirable example for our tending the loom, while their wives times," exclaims the good father, were employed in severe labors " when women are not only unfit out of doors, for the labors of the field, but have ..m ' • ,» ' - . a. ' too much levity to attend to their own household ! " ^.^^^ ««r.,»a