Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican/Volume 1/Book 1/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
1521.
It is perhaps altogether impossible to judge, at this remote day, of the absolute degree of civilization, enjoyed at the period of the conquest, by the inhabitants not only of the valley of Mexico and Tezcoco, but also of Oaxaca, Tlascala, Michoacan, Yucatan, and their various dependencies. In studying this subject carefully, even in the classical pages of Mr. Prescott, and in the laborious criticisms of Mr. Gallatin, we find ourselves frequently bewildered in the labyrinth of historical details and picturesque legends, which have been carefully gathered and grouped to form a romantic picture of the Aztec nation. Yet facts enough have survived, not only the wreck of the conquest, but also the comparative stagnation of the viceroyalty, to satisfy us that there was a large class of people, at least in the capitals and their vicinity, whose tastes, habits, and social principles, were nearly equal to the civilization of the Old World at that time. There were strange inconsistences in the principles and conduct of the Mexicans, and strange blendings of softness and brutality, for the savage was as yet but rudely grafted on the citizen and the wandering or predatory habits of a tribe were scarcely tamed by the needful restraints of municipal law.
It is probable that the Aztec refinement existed chiefly in the city of Tenochtitlan or Mexico; or, that the capital of the empire, like the capital of France, absorbed the greater share of the genius and cultivation of the whole country. Our knowledge of Yucatan, and of the wonderful cities which have been revealed in its forests by the industry of Mr. Stephens, is altogether too limited to allow any conjectures, at this period, in regard to their inhabitants. It is likely that they were offshoots from the same race as the Aztecs, and that they all owed the first germs of their separate civilizations to the Toltecs, who, according to the legends, were the great traditionary ancestors of all the progressive races that succeeded each other in emigrating from the north, and finally nestled in the lovely vale of Anahuac.
It is in the examination of such a period that we feel sensibly the want of careful contemporary history, and learn to value those narratives which present us the living picture of an age, even though they are sometimes tainted with the intolerance of religious sectarianism and bigotry, or by the merciless rancor of party malice. They give us, at least, certain material facts, which are independent of the spirit or context of the story. Posterity, which is now eager for details, infinitely prefers a sketch like this, warm and breathing with the vitality of the beings in whose presence and from whose persons it is drawn, to the cold mosaics, made up by skilful artizans, from the disjointed chips which they are forced to discover, harmonize, and polish, amid the discordant materials left by a hundred writers. Such labors, when undertaken by patient men, may sometimes reanimate the past and bring back its scenes, systems and people, with wonderful freshness; yet, after all, they are but mere restorations, and often depend essentially on the vivid imagination which supplies the missing fragments and fills them, for a moment, with an electrical instead of a natural life.
After a careful review of nearly all the historians and writers upon the ancient history of Mexico, we have never encountered a satisfactory view of the Aztec empire, except in the history of the conquest, by our countryman Prescott. His chapters upon the Mexican civilization, are the best specimens in our literature, since the days of Gibbon, of that laborious, truthful, antiquarian temper, which should always characterize a historian who ventures upon the difficult task of portraying the distant past.
In our rapid sketch of the conquest, we have been compelled to present, occasionally, a few descriptive glimpses of the Aztec architecture, manners, customs and institutions, which have already acquainted the reader with some of the leading features of national character. But it will not be improper, in a work like this, to combine in a separate chapter such views of the whole structure of Mexican society, under the original empire, as may not only afford an idea of the advancement of the nation which Cortez conquered, but, perhaps, will present the student with some national characteristics of a race that still inhabits Mexico jointly with the Spanish emigrants, and which is the lawful descendant of the wandering tribes who founded the city of Tenochtitlan.
The Aztec government was a monarchy, but the right to the throne did not fall by the accident of descent upon a lineal relative of the last king, whose age would have entitled him, by European rule, to the royal succession. The brothers of the deceased prince, or his nephews, if he had no nearer kin, were the individuals from whom the new sovereign was chosen by four nobles who had been selected as electors by their own aristocratic body during the preceding reign. These electors, together with the two royal allies of Tezcoco and Tlacopan, who were united in the college as merely honorary personages, decided the question as to the candidate, whose warlike and intellectual qualities were always closely scanned by these severe judges.
The elevation of the new monarch to the throne was pompous: yet, republican and just as was the rite of selection, the ceremony of coronation was not performed until the new king had procured, by conquest in war, a crowd of victims to grace his assumption of the crown with their sacrifice at the altar. The palaces of these princes and their nobles were of the most sumptuous character, according to the description that has been left us by the conquerors themselves.
The royal state and style of these people may be best described in the artless language of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier of the conquest, whose simple narrative, though sometimes colored with the superstitions of his age, is one of the most valuable and veritable relics of that great event that has been handed down to posterity.
In describing the entrance of the Spaniards into the city—Diaz declares, with characteristic energy, that the whole of what he saw on that occasion appeared to him as if he had beheld it but yesterday;—and he fervently exclaims: "Glory be to our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us courage to venture on such dangers and brought us safely through them!"
The Spaniards, as we have already said in a preceding chapter, were lodged and entertained at the expense of Montezuma, who welcomed them as his guests, and unwisely attempted to convince them of his power by exhibiting his wealth and state. Two hundred of his nobility stood as guards in his ante-chamber.
"Of these," says Diaz, "only certain persons could speak to him, and when they entered, they took off their rich mantles and put on others of less ornament, but clean. They approached his apartment barefooted, their eyes fixed on the ground and making three inclinations of the body as they approached him. In addressing the king they said, "Lord—my lord—great lord!" When they had finished, he dismissed them with a few words, and they retired with their faces toward him and their eyes fixed on the ground. I also observed, that when great men came from a distance about business, they entered his palace barefooted, and in plain habit; and also, that they did not come in by the gate directly, but took a circuit in going toward it.
"His cooks had upward of thirty different ways of dressing meats, and they had earthen vessels so contrived as to keep them constantly hot. For the table of Montezuma himself, above three hundred dishes were dressed, and for his guards above a thousand. Before dinner, Montezuma would sometimes go out and inspect the preparations, and his officers would point out to him which were the best, and explain of what birds and flesh they were composed; and of those he would eat. But this was more for amusement than anything else.
"It is said, that at times the flesh of young children was dressed for him; but the ordinary meats were domestic fowls, pheasants, geese, partridges, quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares and rabbits, with many other animals and birds peculiar to the country. This is certain—that after Cortéz had spoken to him relative to the dressing of human flesh, it was not practised in his palace. At his meals, in the cold weather, a number of torches of the bark of a wood which makes no smoke, and has an aromatic smell, were lighted; and, that they should not throw too much heat, screens, ornamented with gold and painted with figures of idols, were placed before them.
"Montezuma was seated on a low throne or chair, at a table proportioned to the height of his seat. The table was covered with white cloths and napkins, and four beautiful women presented him with water for his hands, in vessels which they call xicales, with other vessels under them, like plates, to catch the water. They also presented him with towels.
"Then two other women brought small cakes of bread, and, when the king began to eat, a large screen of gilded wood was placed before him, so that during that period people should not behold him. The women having retired to a little distance, four ancient lords stood by the throne, to whom Montezuma, from time to time, spoke or addressed questions, and as a mark of particular favor, gave to each of them a plate of that which he was eating. I was told that these old lords, who were his near relations, were also counsellors and judges. The plates which Montezuma presented to them they received with high respect, eating what was on them without taking their eyes off the ground. He was served in earthenware of Cholula, red and black. While the king was at the table, no one of his guards in the vicinity of his apartment dared, for their lives, make any noise. Fruit of all kinds produced in the country, was laid before him; he ate very little; but, from time to time, a liquor prepared from cocoa, and of a stimulative quality, as we were told, was presented to him in golden cups. We could not, at that time, see whether he drank it or not; but I observed a number of jars, above fifty, brought in, filled with foaming chocolate, of which he took some that the women presented him.
"At different intervals during the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians, humpbacked, very deformed, and ugly, who played tricks of buffoonery; and others who, they said, were jesters. There was also a company of singers and dancers, who afforded Montezuma much entertainment. To these he ordered the vases of chocolate to be distributed. The four female attendants then took away the cloths, and again, with much respect, presented him with water to wash his hands, during which time Montezuma conferred with the four old noblemen formerly mentioned, after which they took their leave with many ceremonies.
"One thing I forgot (and no wonder,) to mention in its place, and that is, during the time that Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful women were busily employed making small cakes,[1]with eggs and other things mixed therein. These were delicately white, and, when made, they presented them to him on plates covered with napkins. Also another kind of bread was brought to him in long leaves, and plates of cakes resembling wafers.
"After he had dined, they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented, containing liquid-amber, mixed with an herb they call tobacco; and when he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers, dancers, and buffoons, he took a little of the smoke of one of these canes, and then laid himself down to sleep.
"The meal of the monarch ended, all his guards and domestics sat down to dinner; and, as near as I could judge, above a thousand plates of those eatables that I have mentioned, were laid before them, with vessels of foaming chocolate and fruit in immense quantity. For his women, and various inferior servants, his establishment was of a prodigious expense; and we were astonished, amid such a profusion, at the vast regularity that prevailed.
"His major domo kept the accounts of Montezuma's rents in books which occupied an entire house.
"Montezuma had two buildings filled with every kind of arms, richly ornamented with gold and jewels; such as shields, large and small clubs like two-handed swords, and lances much larger than ours, with blades six feet in length, so strong that if they fix in a shield they do not break; and sharp enough to use as razors.
"There was also an immense quantity of bows and arrows, and darts, together with slings, and shields which roll up into a small compass and in action are let fall, and thereby cover the whole body. He had also much defensive armor of quilted cotton, ornamented with feathers in different devices, and casques for the head, made of wood and bone, with plumes of feathers, and many other articles too tedious to mention."[2]
Besides this sumptuous residence in the city, the Emperor is supposed to have had others at Chapultepec, Tezcoco and elsewhere, which will be spoken of when we describe the ancient remains of Mexico in the valley of Mexico.
If the sovereign lived, thus, in state befitting the ruler of such an empire, it may be supposed that his courtiers were not less sumptuous in their style of domestic arrangements. The great body of the nobles and caciques, possessed extensive estates, the tenures of which were chiefly of a military character;—and, upon these large possessions, surrounded by warlike natives and numerous slaves, they lived, doubtless, like many of the independent, powerful chieftains in Europe, who, in the middle ages, maintained their feudal splendor, both in private life and in active service whenever summoned by their sovereigns to give aid in war.
The power of the Emperor over the laws of the country as well as over the lives of the people, was perfectly despotic. There were supreme judges in the chief towns, appointed by the Emperor who possessed final jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes; and there were, besides, minor courts in each province, as well as subordinate officers, who performed the duty of police officers or spies over the families that were assigned to their vigilance. Records were kept in these courts of the decisions of the judges; and the laws of the realm were likewise perpetuated and made certain, in the same hieroglyphic or picture writing. "The great crimes against society," says Prescott, "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 with slavery or death. 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. Prodigals who squandered their patrimony were punished in like manner. Intemperance 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 confiscation of property.
"The rites of marriage were celebrated with as much formality as in any christian country; and the institution was held in such reverence, that a tribunal was established for the sole purpose of determining questions in regard to it. Divorces could not be obtained, until authorized by a sentence of this court after a patient hearing of the parties."[3]
Slavery seems to have always prevailed in Mexico. The captives taken in war were devoted to the gods under the sacrificial knife; but criminals, public debtors, extreme paupers, persons who willingly resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their parents,—were allowed to be held in bondage and to be transferred from hand to hand, but only in cases in which their masters were compelled by poverty to part with them.
A nation over which the god of war presided and whose king was selected, mainly, for his abilities as a chieftain, naturally guarded and surrounded itself with a well devised military system. Religion and war were blended in the imperial ritual. Montezuma, himself had been a priest before he ascended the throne. This dogma of the Aztec policy, originated, perhaps, in the necessity of keeping up a constant military spirit among a people whose instincts were probably civilized, but whose geographical position exposed them, in the beginning, to the attacks of unquiet and annoying tribes. The captives were sacrificed to the bloody deity in all likelihood, because it was necessary to free the country from dangerous Indians, who could neither be imprisoned, for they were too numerous, nor allowed to return to their tribes, because they would speedily renew the attack on their Aztec liberators.
Accordingly we find that the Mexican armies were properly officered, divided, supported and garrisoned, throughout the empire;—that there were military orders of merit;—that the dresses of the leaders, and even of some of the regiments, were gaudily picturesque;—that their arms were excellent;—and that the soldier who died in combat, was considered by his superstitious countrymen, as passing at once to "the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the sun." Nor were these military establishments left to the caprice of petty officers for their judicial system. They possessed a set of recorded laws which were as sure and severe as the civil or criminal code of the empire;—and, finally, when the Aztec soldier became too old to fight, or was disabled in the national wars, he was provided for in admirable hospitals which were established in all the principal cities of the realm.
But all this expensive machinery of state and royalty, was not supported without ample revenues from the people. There was a currency of different values regulated by trade, which consisted of quills filled with gold dust; of pieces of tin cut in the form of a T; of balls of cotton, and bags of cacao containing a specified number of grains. The greater part of Aztec trade was, nevertheless, carried on by barter; and, thus, we find that the large taxes which were derived by Montezuma from the crown lands, agriculture, manufactures, and the labors or occupations of the people generally, were paid in "cotton dresses and mantles of featherwork; ornamented armor; vases of gold; gold dust, bands and bracelets; crystal, gilt and varnished jars and goblets; bells, arms and utensils of copper; reams of paper; grain; fruits, copal, amber, cochineal, cacao, wild animals, birds, timber, lime, mats," and a general medley in which the luxuries and necessaries of life were strangely mixed. It is not a little singular that silver, which since the conquest has become the leading staple export of Mexico, is not mentioned in the royal inventories which escaped destruction.[4]
The Mexican Mythology was a barbarous compound of spiritualism and idolatry. The Aztecs believed in and relied on a supreme God whom they called Teotl, "God," or Ipalnemoani—"he by whom we live," and Tloque Nahuaque,—"he who has all in himself;" while their counter-spirit or demon, who was ever the enemy and seducer of their race bore the inauspicious title of Tlaleatecolototl, or the "Rational Owl." The dark, nocturnal deeds of this ominous bird, probably indicated its greater fitness for the typification of wickedness than of wisdom, of which the Greeks had flatteringly made it the symbol, as the pet of Minerva. These supreme spiritual essences were surrounded by a numerous court of satellites or lesser deities, who were perhaps the ministerial agents by which the behests of Teotl were performed. There was Huitzilopotchtli, the god of war, and Teoyaomiqui, his spouse, whose tender duties were confined to conducting the souls of warriors who perished in defence of their homes and shrines, into the "house of the sun," which was the Aztec heaven. The image in the plate, presented in front and in profile, is alleged to represent this graceful female, though it gives no idea of her holy offices. Tetzcatlipoca was the shining mirror, the god of providence, the soul of the world, creator of heaven and earth, and master of all things. Ometcuctli and Omecihuatl, a god and goddess presided over new born children, and, reigning in Paradise, benignantly granted the wishes of mortals. Cihuacohuatl, or, woman-serpent, was regarded as the mother of human beings. Tonatricli and Meztli were deifications of the sun and moon. Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were deities of the air and of water, whilst Xiuhteuctli was the god of fire to whom the first morsel and the first draught at table were always devoted by the Aztecs. Mictlanteuctli and Joalteuctli were the gods of hell and night, while the generous goddess of the earth and grain who was worshipped by the Totonacos as an Indian Ceres, enjoyed the more euphonious title of Centeotl. Huitzilopotchtli or Mexitli, the god of war, was an especial favorite with the Aztecs, for it was this divinity according to their legends who had led them from the north, and protected them during their long journey until they settled in the valley of Mexico. Nor did he desert them during the rise and progress of their nation. Addicted as they were to war, this deity was always invoked before battle and was recompensed for the victories he bestowed upon his favorite people by bloody hecatombs of captives taken from the enemies of the empire. We have already spoken of this personage in the portion of this work which treats of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
If the Mexicans had their gods, so also had they their final abodes of blessedness and misery. Soldiers who were slain in conflict for their country or who perished in captivity, and the 
TEOYAOMIQUI. (FRONT.)
TEOYAOMIQUI. (PROFILE.)
spirits of women who died in child-birth, went at once to the "house of the sun" to enjoy a life of eternal pleasure. At dawn they hailed the rising orb with song and dances, and attended him to the meridian and his setting with music and festivity. The Aztecs believed that, after some years spent amid these pleasures, the beatified spirits of the departed were changed into clouds or birds of beautiful plumage, though they had power to ascend again whenever they pleased to the heaven they had left. There was another place called Tlalocan the dwelling place of Tlaloc, the deity of water, which was also an Aztec elysium. It was the spirit-home of those who were drowned or struck by lightning,—of children sacrificed in honor of Tlaloc,—and of those who died of dropsy, tumors, or similar diseases. Last of all, was Mictlan, a gloomy hell of perfect darkness, in which, incessant night, unilluminated by the twinkling of a single ray, was the only punishment, and the probable type of annihilation.
The figure which is delineated in the plate representing Teoyaomiqui, is cut from a single block of basalt, and is nine feet high and five and a half broad. It is a horrid assemblage of hideous emblems. Claws, fangs, tusks, skulls and serpents, writhe and hang in garlands around the shapeless mass. Four open hands rest, apparently without any purpose, upon the bared breasts of a female. In profile, it is not unlike a squatting toad, whose glistening eyes and broad mouth expand above the cincture of skulls and serpents. Seen in this direction it appears to have more shape and meaning than in front. On the top of the statue there is a hollow, which was probably used as the receptacle of offerings or incense during sacrifice. The bottom of this mass is also sculptured in relief, and as it will be observed in the plate, that there are projections of the body near the waist, it is supposed that this frightful idol was suspended by them aloft on pillars, so that its worshippers might pass beneath the massive stone.
In 1790, this idol was found buried in the great square of Mexico, whence it was removed to the court of the university; but as the priests feared that it might again tempt the Indians to their ancient worship, it was interred until the year 1821, since which time it has been exhibited to the public.
BOTTOM OF TEOYAOMIQUI.
The reader who has accompanied us from the beginning of this volume and perused the history of the Spanish conquest, has doubtless become somewhat familiar with the great square of ancient Tenochtitlan, its Teocalli, or pyramidal temple, and the bloody rites that were celebrated upon it, by the Aztec priests and princes. It served as a place of sacrifice, not only for the Indian victims of war, but streamed with the blood of the unfortunate Spaniards who fell into the power of the Mexicans when Cortéz was driven from the city.
This Teocalli is said to have been completed in the year 1486, during the reign of the eighth sovereign of Tenochtitlan or Mexico, and occupied that portion of the present city upon which the cathedral stands and which is occupied by some of the adjacent streets and buildings. Its massive proportions and great extent may be estimated from the restoration of this edifice, which we have attempted to form from the best authorities, and have presented in a plate in the preceding portion of this work.
The Mexican theology indulged in two kinds of sacrifice, one of which was an ordinary offering of a common victim, while the other, or gladiatorial sacrifice, was only used for captives of extraordinary courage and bravery.
When we recollect the fact that the Aztec tribe was an intruder into the valley of Anahuac, and that it laid the foundations of its capital in the midst of enemies, we are not surprised that so hardy a race, from the northern hive, was both warlike in its habits and sanguinary in its religion." With a beautiful land around it on all sides,—level, fruitful, but incapable of easy defence,—it was forced to quit the solid earth and to build its stronghold in the waters of the lake. We can conceive no other reason for the selection of such a site. The eagle may have been seen on a rock amid the water devouring the serpent; but we do not believe that this emblem of the will of heaven, in guiding the wanderers to their refuge in the lake of Tezcoco, was known to more than the leaders of the tribe until it became necessary to control the band by the interposition of a miracle. Something more was needed than mere argument, to plant a capital in the water, and, thus, we doubt not, that the singular omen, in which the modern arms of Mexico have originated, was contrived or invented by the priests or chiefs of the unsettled Aztecs.
Surrounded by enemies, with nothing that they could strictly call their own, save the frail retreat among the reeds and rushes of their mimic Venice, it undoubtedly became necessary for the Aztecs to keep no captives taken in war. Their gardens, like their town, were constructed upon the Chinampas, or floating beds of earth and wicker work, which were anchored in the lake. They could not venture, at any distance from its margin, to cultivate the fields. When they sallied from their city, they usually left it for the battle field; and, when they returned, it is probable that it seemed to them not only a propitiation of their gods, but a mercy to the victims, to sacrifice their numerous captives, who if retained in idleness as prisoners would exact too large a body for their custody, or, if allowed to go at large, might rise against their victors, and, in either case, would soon consume the slender stores they were enabled to raise by their scant horticulture. In examining the history of the Aztecs, and noticing the mixture of civilization which adorned their public and private life, and the barbarism which characterized their merciless religion, we have been convinced that the Aztec rite of sacrifice originated, in the infancy of the state in a national necessity, and, at length, under the influence of superstition and policy, grew into an ordinance of faith and worship The Common Sacrifice, offered in the Aztec temples was performed by a chief priest, and six assistants. The principal flamen, habited in a red scapulary fringed with cotton, and crowned with a circlet of green and yellow plumes, assumed, for the occasion, the name of the deity to whom the offering was made. His acolytes,—clad in white robes embroidered with black; their hands covered with leathern thongs; their foreheads filleted with parti-colored papers; and their bodies dyed perfectly black,—prepared the victim for the altar, and having dressed him in the insignia of the deity to whom he was to be sacrificed, bore him through the town begging alms for the temple. He was then carried to the summit of the Teocalli, where four priests extended him across the curving surface of an arched stone placed on the sacrificial stone, while another held his head firmly beneath the yoke which is represented elsewhere. The chief priest,—the topiltzin or sacrificer, then stretched the breast of the victim tightly by bending his body back as far as possible, and, seizing the obsidian knife of sacrifice, cut a deep gash across the region of the captive's heart. The extreme tension of the flesh and muscles, at once yielded beneath the blade, and the heart of the victim lay palpitating in the bloody gap. The sacrificer immediately thrust his hand into the wound, and, tearing out the quivering vital, threw it at the feet of the idol,—inserted it with a golden spoon into its mouth,—or, after offering it to the deity, consumed it in fire and preserved the sacred ashes with the greatest reverence. When these horrid rites were finished in the temple, the victim's body was thrown from the top of the Teocalli, whence it was borne to the dwelling of the individual who offered the sacrifice, where it was eaten by himself and his friends, or, was devoted to feed the beasts in the royal menagerie.
Numerous cruel sacrifices were practised by the Indians of Mexico, and especially among the Quauhtitlans, who, every four years, slew eight slaves or captives, in a manner almost too brutal for description. Sometimes the Aztecs contented themselves with other and more significant oblations; and flowers, fruits, bread, meat, copal, gums, quails, and rabbits, were offered on the altars of their gods. The priests, no doubt, approved these gifts far more than the tough flesh of captives or slaves!
The Gladiatorial Sacrifice was reserved, as we have already said for noble and courageous captives. According to Clavigero, a circular mass, three feet high, resembling a mill stone, was placed within the area of the great temple upon a raised terrace about eight feet from the wall. The captive was bound to this stone by one foot, and was armed with a sword or maquahuitl and shield. In this position, and thus accoutred, he was attacked by a Mexican soldier or officer, who was better prepared with weapons for the deadly encounter. If the prisoner was conquered he was immediately borne to the altar of common sacrifice. If he overcame six assailants he was rewarded with life and liberty, and permitted once more to return to his native land with the spoils that had been taken from him in war. Clavigero supposes that for many years, twenty thousand victims were offered on the Mexican teocallis, in the "common sacrifice;" and in the consecration of the great temple, sixty thousand persons were slain in order to baptise the pyramid with their blood.
SACRIFICIAL STONE.
SIDE OF SACRIFICIAL STONE.
stone, the same two figures which are drawn in the second plate. They evidently represent a victor and a prisoner. The conqueror is in the act of tearing the plumes from the crest of the vanquished, who bows beneath the blow and lowers his weapons. The similarity of these figures to some that are delineated in the first volume of Stephens' Yucatan is remarkable.
The Aztec Calendar Stone, another monument of Mexican antiquity, was found in December, 1790, buried under ground in the great square of the capital. Like the idol image of Teoyaomiqui, and the sacrificial stone, it is carved from a mass of basalt, and is eleven feet eight inches in diameter, the depth of its circular edge being about seven and a half inches from the fractured square of rock out of which it was originally cut. It is supposed, from the fact that it was found beneath the pavement of the present plaza, that it was part of the fixtures of the great Teocalli of Tenochtitlan, or that it was placed in some of the adjoining edifices or palaces surrounding the temple. It is now walled into the west side of the cathedral, and is a remarkable specimen of the talent of the Indians for sculpture, at the same time that its huge mass, together with those of the sacrificial stone and the idol Teoyaomiqui, denote the skill of their inventors in the movement of immense weights, without the aid of horses.
The Aztecs calculated their civil year by the solar; they divided it into eighteen months of twenty days each, and added five complimentary days, as in Egypt, to make up the complete number of three hundred and sixty-five. After the last of these months the five nemontemi or "useless days" were intercalated, and, belonging to no particular month, were regarded as unlucky, by the superstitious natives. Their week consisted of five days, the last of which was the market day; and a month was composed of four of these weeks. As the tropical year is composed of about six hours more than three hundred and sixty-five days, they lost a day every fourth year, which they supplied, not at the termination of that period, but at the expiration of their cycle of fifty-two years, when they intercalated the twelve days and a half that were lost. Thus it was found, at the period of the Spanish conquest, that their computation of time corresponded with the European, as calculated by the most accurate astronomers.
At the end of the Aztec or Toltec cycle of fifty-two years,—for it is not accurately ascertained to which of the tribes the astronomical science of Tenochtitlan is to be attributed,—these primitive children of the New World believed that the world was in danger of instant destruction. Accordingly, its termination became one of their most serious and awful epochs, and they anxiously awaited the moment when the sun would be blotted out from the heavens, and the globe itself once more resolved unto chaos. As the cycle ended in the winter, the season of the year, with its drearier sky and colder air, in the lofty regions of the valley, added to the gloom that fell upon the hearts of the people. On the last day of the fifty-two years, all the fires in temples and dwellings were extinguished, and the natives devoted themselves to fasting and prayer. They destroyed alike their valuable and worthless wares; rent their garments; put out their lights, and hid themselves, for awhile in solitude. Pregnant women seem to have been the objects of their especial dread at this moment. They covered their faces with masks and imprisoned them securely, for they imagined, that on the occurrence of the grand and final catastrophe, these beings, who, elsewhere, are always the objects of peculiar interest and tenderness, would be suddenly turned into beasts of prey and would join the descending legions of demons, to revenge the injustice or cruelty of man.
At dark, on the last dread evening,—as soon as the sun had set, as they imagined, forever,—a sad and solemn procession of priests and people marched forth from the city to a neighboring hill, to rekindle the "New Fire." This mournful march was called the "procession of the gods," and was supposed to be their final departure from their temples and altars.
As soon as the melancholy array reached the summit of the hill, it reposed in fearful anxiety until the Pleiades reached the zenith in the sky, whereupon the priests immediately began the sacrifice of a human victim, whose breast was covered with a wooden shield, which the chief flamen kindled by friction. When the sufferer received the fatal stab from the sacrificial knife of obsidian, the machine was set in motion on his bosom, until the blaze had kindled. The anxious crowd stood round with fear and trembling. Silence reigned over nature and man. Not a word was uttered among the countless multitude that thronged the hill-sides and plains, whilst the priest performed his direful duty to the gods. At length, as the first sparks gleamed faintly from the whirling instrument, low sobs and ejaculations were whispered among the eager masses. As the sparks kindled into a blaze, and the blaze into a flame, and the flaming shield and victim were cast together on a pile of combustibles which burst at once into the brightness of a conflagration, the air was rent with the joyous shouts of the relieved and panic stricken Indians. Far and wide over the dusky crowds beamed the blaze like a star of promise. Myriads of upturned faces greeted it from hills, mountains, temples, terraces, teocallis, house tops and city walls; and the prostrate multitudes hailed the emblem of light, life and fruition as a blessed omen of the restored favor of their gods and the preservation of the race for another cycle. At regular intervals, Indian couriers held aloft brands of resinous wood, by which they transmitted the "New Fire" from hand to hand, from village to village, and town to town, throughout the Aztec empire. Light was radiated from the imperial or ecclesiastical centre of the realm. In every temple and dwelling it was rekindled, from the sacred source; and when the sun rose again on the following morning, the solemn, procession of priests, princes and subjects, which had taken up its march from the capital on the preceding night, with solemn steps, returned once more to the abandoned capital, and restoring the gods to their altars, abandoned themselves to joy and festivity in token of gratitude and relief from impending doom.
AZTEC CALENDAR STONE.
We have thought it proper and interesting to preface the description of the calendar stone by the preceding account of the Aztec festival of the New Fire, which illustrates the mingled elements of science and superstition that so largely characterized the empire of Montezuma. The stone itself has engaged the attention, for years, of numerous antiquarians in Mexico, Europe and America, but it has received from none so perfect a description, as from the late Albert Gallatin, who devoted a large portion of his declining years to the study of the ancient Mexican chronology and languages. In the first volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society he has contributed an admirable summary of his investigations of the semi-civilized nations of Mexico, Yucatan and Central America, and from this we shall condense the portion which relates to this remarkable monument.
Around the principal central figure, representing the sun, are delineated in a circular form the twenty days of the month; which are marked from 1 to 20, with figures in the plates, and, in this order, are the following:
|
1 Cipactli. |
8 Ocelotl. |
15 Mazatl. |
The triangular figure I, above the circle enclosing the emblem of the sun, denotes the beginning of the year. Around the circumference which bounds the symbols of the days and months are found the places of fifty-two small squares, of which only forty are actually visible, the other twelve being covered by the four principal rays of the sun marked R. These doubtless denote the cycle of 52 years; and each of these squares contains five small oblongs, making in all 260 for the 52 squares. They are presumed to represent the 260 days or the period of the twenty first series of thirteen days. All the portion, included between the outer circumference of these 260 days and the external zone, has not been decyphered accurately. The external zone consists, except at the extremities, of a symbol twenty times repeated, and is alleged by Gama, a Mexican who first described and attempted to interpret the stone, to represent the milky way. The waving lines connected with it are supposed by this writer to represent clouds, while others imagine them to be the symbols of the mountains in which clouds and storms originated. These fanciful interpretations, however, are unavailable in all scientific descriptions, and Mr. Gallatin supposes the figures to be altogether ornamental.
The whole circle is divided into eight equal parts by the eight triangles R, which designate the rays of the sun. The intervals between these are each divided into two equal parts by the small circles indicated by the letter L. At the top of the vertical ray is found the hieroglyphic 13 Acatl, which shows that this stone applies to that year. It must be recollected that, although this Mexican calendar is in its arrangement the same for every year in the cycle, there was a variation at the rate of a day for every four years, between the several years of the cycle and the corresponding solar years. Gama presumes that this date of 13 Acatl was selected on account of its being the twenty-sixth year of the cycle and equally removed from its beginning and termination. Beneath this hieroglyphic, in correct drawings of the stone—but not in that of Gama which has been reproduced by Mr. Gallatin—will be found, between the letters Y and G, the distinct sign of 2, Acatl, and the ray above it points to the sign of the year 13 Acatl, which coincides with our 21st of December, and is undoubtedly the hitherto undetermined date of the winter solstice in the Mexican calendar.[5]
The smaller interior circle, we have already said, contains the image of the sun, as usually painted by the Indians; and to it are united the four parallelograms, A, B, C, D, which are supposed by some writers to denote the four weeks into which the twenty days of the month were divided, but which contain the hieroglyphics, A, of 4 Ocelotl; B, of 4 Ehecatl; C, of 4 Quiahuitl; and D, of 4 Atl. The lateral figures E and F, according to Gama denote claws, which are symbolical of two great Indian astrologers who were man and wife, and were represented as eagles or owls.
The representations in these parallelograms, are believed to have originated in the Mexican fable of the suns, which will be hereafter noticed. The Aztecs believed that this luminary had died four times, and that the one which at present lights the earth, was the fifth, but which nevertheless was doomed to destruction like the preceding orbs. From the creation, the first age or sun, lasted 676 years, comprising 13 cycles, when the crops failed, men perished of famine and their bodies were consumed by the beasts of the field. This occurred in the year 1 Acatl, and on the day 4 Ocelotl, and the ruin lasted for thirteen years. The next age and sun endured 364 years or 7 cycles, and terminated in the year 1 Tecpatl on the day 4 Ehecatl, when hurricanes and rain desolated the globe and men were metamorphosed into monkeys. The third age continued for 312 years, or 6 cycles, when fire or earthquakes rent the earth and human beings were converted into owls in the year 1 Tecpatl, on the day 4 Quiahuitl;—while the fourth age or sun lasted but for a single cycle of 52 years, and the world was destroyed by a flood, which either drowned the people or changed them into fishes, in the year 1 Calli, on the day 4 Atl. The four epochs of destruction are precisely the days typified by the hieroglyphics in the four parallelograms A, B, C and D.
It will be seen by adding the several periods together that the Aztecs counted 1469 years from the creation of the world to the flood; yet there is an incongruity in this imaginary antediluvian history. If the fourth age had lasted only 52 years, it would have terminated in the year 1 Tecpatl instead of 1 Calli. Bustamante, the publisher and annotator of Gama, states that some authorities contend for only three antecedent periods, and that the present age is expected to end by fire. But Mr. Gallatin alleges that the four ages and five suns have been generally adopted, and are sustained by the ancient Aztec paintings contained in the Codex Vaticanus, plates 7 to 10. Like most of the Mexican antiquities, this branch of the Chronology is admitted to be exceedingly obscure, for it is asserted in the Appendix to Mr. Gallatin's essay that the hieroglyphics annexed to these paintings, may be interpreted as giving to the four ages respectively the duration of either 682, 530, 576, and 582, or of 5206, 2010, 4404, and 4008 years.
"This would appear to be purely mythological, but the fact that all these imaginary antediluvian periods consist of a certain number of cycles, shows that this fable was invented subsequent to the time when the Mexicans had attained a knowledge of cycles, years and of the approximate length of the solar year. It seems, therefore, probable that the mythological representation is in some way connected with celestial phenomena, and it is accordingly, found that the days designated in the parallelograms A and C, as 4 Ocelotl, and 4 Quiahuitl, correspond respectively, (on the assumption that the first year of the cycle corresponds with the 31st of December,) with the 13th of May and 17th of July, old style, or 22d of May and 26th of July, new style. And these two days 22d of May and 26th of July, are those, according to Gama, of the transit of the sun by the zenith of the city of Mexico, which, by the observations of Humboldt, lies in 19° 25' and 57" north latitude and in 101° 25' 80" west longitude from Paris. The two other days 4 Ehecatl, and 4 Atl, do not correspond either in the first year of the cycle or in the year 13 Acatl, with any station of the sun or any other celestial phenomena.
"There are three other hieroglyphics contained within the interior circumference or representation of the sun, which indicate the dates of some celebrated feasts of the Aztecs. The three following indications or hieroglyphics are found immediately below the figure of the sun. The first of these, designated by the letter H, is placed between the parallelograms C and D, and consists of two squares of five oblongs each, indicating the Aztec numeral 10. The symbol of the day is not annexed, but the whole of the central figure is itself the sign Olin Tonatiah, and the hieroglyphic of the day Olin, as delineated on the stone among the other emblems of the days, is on a small scale and abbreviated form of that central and principal figure of the stone. The day designated here, is consequently, 10 Olin. Below this, and on each side respectively of the great vertical ray of the sun, are found the hieroglyphics of the days 1 Quiahuitl, and 2 Ozomatli. Of the last mentioned days,—10 Olin corresponds in the first year of the cycle, with the 22d day of September, new style;—1 Quiahuitl with the 28th of March, and 2 Ozomatli with the 28th of June, as will be seen by the table at the end of this description of the calendar.
"We find, therefore, delineated on this stone all the dates of the principal positions of the sun, and it thus appears that the Aztecs had ascertained with considerable precision the respective days of the two passages of the sun by the zenith of Mexico, of the two equinoxes, and of the summer and winter solstices. They had therefore six different means of ascertaining and verifying the length of the solar year by counting the number of days elapsed till the sun returned to each of these six points,—the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and the two passages by the zenith." [6] MEXICAN ALMANAC,
ACCORDING TO GAMA.
| In this perpetual almanac, each day in the year is designated by three characteristics derived from the combination of three series, viz.: That of the 20 days of the month, each of which has a distinct name and hieroglyphic, from Cipactli to Xochitl; and as these names are the same and in the same order in every month, the column in which they are set down answers for every month. The series of 13 days, designed by its proper numeral from 1 to 13. And the series of the 9 night companions, designated in this Table by the letters a, b,. . . .h, i, viz.: |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
But it is only for the first year of the cycle (1 Tochtli) that the Mexican year corresponds with ours in the manner stated in the Table. For, on account of our intercalation of one day every bissextile year, the Mexican year receded, as compared with ours, one day every four years. This correction must therefore be made, whenever a comparison of the dates is wanted for any other than the first year of the cycle. The Mexican intercalation of 13 days at the end of the cycle of 52 years made again the first year of every cycle correspond with our year, in the manner stated in the Table.
Another correction is again necessary, when we have a Tescocan instead of a Mexican date. For the first year of the Mexican cycle was 1 Tochtli, and that of Tescoco was 1 Acatl; which caused a difference now of three, now of ten days in their calendars, which in every other respect were the same. Both corrections appear in the second Table.—Trans. Amer. Ethnol. Soc., vol. i, p. 114. Tables C¹ and C²
MEXICAN CYCLE OF 52 YEARS.
| 1st year. | 14th year. | 27th year. | 40th year. | ||||
| 1 | Tochtli | 1 | Acatl | 1 | Tecpatl | 1 | Calli |
| 2 | Acatl | 2 | Tecpatl | 2 | Calli | 2 | Tochtli |
| 3 | Tecpatl | 3 | Calli | 3 | Tochtli | 3 | Acatl |
| 4 | Calli | 4 | Tochtli | 4 | Acatl | 4 | Tecpatl |
| 5 | Tochtli | 5 | Acatl | 5 | Tecpatl | 5 | Calli |
| 6 | Acatl | 6 | Tecpatl | 6 | Calli | 6 | Tochtli |
| 7 | Tecpatl | 7 | Calli | 7 | Tochtli | 7 | Acatl |
| 8 | Calli | 8 | Tochtli | 8 | Acatl | 8 | Tecpatl |
| 9 | Tochtli | 9 | Acatl | 9 | Tecpatl | 9 | Calli |
| 10 | Acatl | 10 | Tecpatl | 10 | Calli | 10 | Tochtli |
| 11 | Tecpatl | 11 | Calli | 11 | Tochtli | 11 | Acatl |
| 12 | Calli | 12 | Tochtli | 12 | Acatl | 12 | Tecpatl |
| 13 | Tochtli | 13 | Acatl | 13 | Tecpatl | 13 | Calli |
See 1st vol. Ethnol. Trans, ut antea page 63.
- ↑ No doubt tortillias, or maize cakes—still the staff of life with all the Indians and, indeed, a favourite and daily food of all classes of Mexicans.
- ↑ Bernal Diaz Del Castillo's Hist. Conq. Mexico.
- ↑ Prescott, vol. 1, p. 35.
- ↑ Prescott, vol. 1, p. 39, and compare Lorenzana's edition of Cortéz's letters.
- ↑ See Ethnological Trans. 1 vol., p. 96, and Am. Journal of Science and Arts, second series, vol. vii., p. 155. March No. for 1849.
- ↑ See Trans. Amer. Ethnol. Soc'y., vol. 1, p. 94. We should remark that the letters Q. Q., X. Z., P. P., S. Y., on the edge of the stone, denote holes out into it, in which it is asserted that gnomons were placed whose shadows on the calendar converted it into a dial.