THE TOLTECS AND THEIR FABULOUS EMPIRE.
In the first addition of myMyths of the New World[87]published in 1868, I asserted that the story of the city of Tula and its inhabitants, the Toltecs, as currently related in ancient Mexican history, is a myth, and not history. This opinion I have since repeated in various publications,[88]but writers on pre-Columbian American civilization have been very unwilling to give up their Toltecs, and lately M. Charnay has composed a laborious monograph to defend them.[89]
Let me state the question squarely.
The orthodox opinion is that the Toltecs, coming from the north (-west or -east), founded the city of Tula (about fortymiles north of the present city of Mexico) in the sixth century, A. D.; that their State flourished for about five hundred years, until it numbered nearly four millions of inhabitants, and extended its sway from ocean to ocean over the whole of central Mexico;[90]that it reached a remarkably high stage of culture in the arts; that in the tenth or eleventh century it was almost totally destroyed by war and famine;[91]and that its fragments, escaping in separate colonies, carried the civilization of Tula to the south, to Tabasco (Palenque), Yucatan, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Quetzalcoatl, the last ruler of Tula, himself went to the south-east, and reappears in Yucatan as the culture-hero Cukulkan, the traditional founder of the Maya civilization.
This, I say, is the current opinion about the Toltecs. It is found in the works of Ixtlilxochitl, Veitia, Clavigero, Prescott, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Orozco y Berra, and scores of other reputable writers. The dispersion of the Toltecs has been offered as the easy solution of the origin of the civilization not only of Central America, but of New Mexico and the Mississippi valley.[92]
The opinion that I oppose to this, and which I hope to establish in this article, is as follows:
Tula was merely one of the towns built and occupied by that tribe of the Nahuas known asAztecaorMexica, whose tribal god was Huitzilopochtli, and who finally settled at Mexico-Tenochtitlan (the present city of Mexico); its inhabitants were called Toltecs, but there was never any such distinct tribe or nationality; they were merely the ancestors of this branch of the Azteca, and when Tula was destroyed by civil and foreign wars, these survivors removed to the valley of Mexico and became merged with their kindred; they enjoyed no supremacy, either in power or in the arts; and the Toltec “empire” is a baseless fable. What gave them their singular fame in later legend was partly the tendency of the human mind to glorify the “good old times” and to merge ancestors into divinities, and especially the significance of the name Tula, “the Place of the Sun,” leading to the confounding and identification of a half-forgotten legend with the ever-living light-and-darkness myth of the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.
To support this view, let us inquire what we know about Tula as an historic site.
Its location is on one of the great ancient trails leading from the north into the Valley of Mexico.[93]The ruins ofthe old town are upon an elevation about 100 feet in height, whose summit presents a level surface in the shape of an irregular triangle some 800 yards long, with a central width of 300 yards, the apex to the south-east, where the face of the hill is fortified by a rough stone wall.[94]It is a natural hill, overlooking a small muddy creek, called theRio de Tula.[95]Yet this unpretending mound is the celebratedCoatepetl, Serpent-Mount, or Snake-Hill, famous in Nahuatl legend, and the central figure in all the wonderful stories about the Toltecs.[96]The remains of the artificial tumuli andwalls, which are abundantly scattered over the summit, show that, like the pueblos of New Mexico, they were built of large sun-baked bricks mingled with stones, rough or trimmed, and both walls and floors were laid in a firm cement, which was usually painted of different colors. Hence probably the namePalpan, “amid the colors,” which tradition says was applied to these structures on the Coatepetl.[97]The stone-work, represented by a few broken fragments, appears equal, but not superior, to that of the Valley of Mexico. Both the free and the attached column occur, and figure-carving was known, as a few weather-beaten relics testify. The houses contained many rooms, on different levels, and the roofs were flat. They were no doubt mostly communal structures. At the foot of the Serpent-Hill is a level plain, but little above the river, on which is the modern village with its corn-fields.
These geographical particulars are necessary to understand the ancient legend, and with them in mind its real purport is evident.[98]
That legend is as follows: When the Azteca or Mexica—forthese names were applied to the same tribe[99]—left their early home in Aztlan—which Ramirez locates in Lake Chalco in the Valley of Mexico, and Orozco y Berra in Lake Chapallan in Michoacan[100]—they pursued their course for some generations in harmony; but at a certain time, somewhere between the eighth and the eleventh century of our era, they fell out and separated. The legend refers to this as a dispute between the followers of the tribal god Huitzilopochtli and those of his sister Malinalxochitl. We may understand it to have been the separation of two “totems.” The latter entered at once the Valley of Mexico, while thefollowers of Huitzilopochtli passed on to the plain of Tula and settled on the Coatepetl. Here, says the narrative, they constructed houses of stones and of rushes, built a temple for the worship of Huitzilopochtli, set up his image and those of the fifteen divinities (gentes?) who were subject to him, and erected a large altar of sculptured stone and a court for their ball play.[101]The level ground at the foot of the hill they partly flooded by damming the river, and used the remainder for planting their crops. After an indeterminate time they abandoned Tula and the Coatepetl, driven out by civil strife and warlike neighbors, and journeyed southward into the Valley of Mexico, there to found the famous city of that name.
This is the simple narrative of Tulan, stripped of its contradictions, metaphors and confusion, as handed down by those highest authorities the Codex Ramirez, Tezozomoc and Father Duran.[102]It is a plain statement that Tula and its Snake-Hill were merely one of the stations of the Azteca in their migrations—an important station, indeed, with natural strength, and one that they fortified with care, where for some generations, probably, they maintained an independentexistence, and which the story-tellers of the tribe recalled with pride and exaggeration.
How long they occupied the site is uncertain.[103]Ixtlilxochitl gives a list of eight successive rulers of the “Toltecs,” each of whom was computed to reign at least fifty-two years, or one cycle; but it is noteworthy that he states these rulers were not of “Toltec” blood, but imposed upon them by the “Chichimecs.” This does not reflect creditably on the supposed singular cultivation of the Toltecs. Probably the warrior Aztecs subjected a number of neighboring tribes and imposed upon them rulers.[104]
If we accept the date given by theCodex Ramirezfor the departure of the Aztecs from the Coatepetl—A. D. 1168—then it is quite possible that they might have controlled the site for a couple of centuries or longer, and that the number of successive chieftains named by Ixtlilxochitl should not befar wrong. The destructive battles of which he speaks as preceding their departure—battles resulting in the slaughter of more than five million souls—we may regard as the grossly overstated account of some really desperate conflicts.
That the warriors of the Azteca, on leaving Tula, scattered over Mexico, Yucatan and Central America, is directly contrary to the assertion of the high authorities I have quoted, and also to most of the mythical descriptions of the event, which declare they were all, or nearly all, massacred.[105]
The above I claim to be the real history of Tula and its Serpent-Hill, of the Toltecs and their dynasty. Now comes the question, if we accept this view, how did this ancient town and its inhabitants come to have so wide a celebrity, not merely in the myths of the Nahuas of Mexico, but in the sacred stories of Yucatan and Guatemala as well—which was unquestionably the case?
To explain this, I must have recourse to some of those curious principles of language which have had such influence in building the fabric of mythology. In such inquiries we have more to do with words than with things, with names than with persons, with phrases than with facts.
First about these names, Tula, Tollan, Toltec—what dothey mean? They are evidently from the same root. What idea did it convey?
We are first struck with the fact that the Tula I have been describing was not the only one in the Nahuatl district of Mexico. There are other Tulas and Tollans, one near Ococingo, another, now San Pedro Tula, in the State of Mexico, one in Guerrero, San Antonio Tula in Potosi,[106]etc. The name must have been one of common import. Herrera, who spells itTulo, by an error, is just as erroneous in his suggestion of a meaning. He says it means “place of the tuna,” this being a term used for the prickly pear.[107]Buttunawas not a Nahuatl word; it belongs to the dialect of Haiti, and was introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards. Therefore Herrera’s derivation must be ruled out. Ixtlilxochitl pretends that the name Tollan was that of the first chieftain of the Toltecs, and that they were named after him; but elsewhere himself contradicts this assertion.[108]Most writers follow theCodex Ramirez, and maintain that Tollan—of which Tula is but an abbreviation—is fromtolin, the Nahuatl word for rush, the kind of which they made mats, and means “the place of rushes,” or where they grow.
The respectable authority of Buschmann is in favor of this derivation; but according to the analogy of the Nahuatl language, the “place of rushes” should beToltitlanorTolinan, and there are localities with these names.[109]
Without doubt, I think, we must accept the derivation of Tollan given by Tezozomoc, in hisCronica Mexicana. This writer, thoroughly familiar with his native tongue, conveys to us its ancient form and real sense. Speaking of the early Aztecs, he says: “They arrived at the spot called Coatepec, on the borders ofTonalan, the place of the sun.”[110]
This name, Tonallan, is still not unusual in Mexico. Buschmann enumerates four villages so called, besides a mining town,Tonatlan.[111]“Place of the sun” is a literal rendering, and it would be equally accurate to translate it “sunny-spot,” or “warm place,” or “summer-place.” There is nothing very peculiar or distinctive about these meanings. The warm, sunny plain at the foot of the Snake-Hill was called, naturally enough, Tonallan, syncopated to Tollan, and thus to Tula.[112]
But the literal meaning of Tollan—“Place of the Sun”—brought it in later days into intimate connection with many a myth of light and of solar divinities, until this ancient Aztec pueblo became apotheosized, its inhabitants transformed into magicians and demigods, and the corn-fields of Tula stand forth as fruitful plains of Paradise.
In the historic fragments to which I have alluded there is scant reference to miraculous events, and the gods play no part in the sober chronicle. But in the mythical cyclus we are at once translated into the sphere of the supernal. The Snake-Hill Coatepetl becomes the Aztec Olympus. On it dwells the great goddess “Our Mother amid the Serpents,”Coatlan Tonan,[113]otherwise called “The Serpent-skirted,”Coatlicue, with her children, The Myriad Sages, theCentzon Huitznahua.[114]It was her duty to sweep the Snake-Hillevery day, that it might be kept clean for her children. One day while thus engaged, a little bunch of feathers fell upon her, and she hid it under her robe. It was the descent of the spirit, the divine Annunciation. When the Myriad Sages saw that their mother was pregnant, they were enraged, and set about to kill her. But the unborn babe spake from her womb, and provided for her safety, until in due time he came forth armed with a blue javelin, his flesh painted blue, and with a blue shield. His left leg was thin and covered with the plumage of the humming-bird. Hence the name was given to him “On the left, a humming-bird,” Huitzilopochtli.[115]Four times around the Serpent-Mountain did he drive the Myriad Sages, until nearly all had fallen dead before his dart, and the remainder fled far to the south. Then all the Mexica chose Huitzilopochtli for their god, and paid honors to the Serpent-Hill by Tula as his birthplace.[116]
An equally ancient and authentic myth makes Huitzilopochtli one of four brothers, born at one time of the uncreated, bi-sexual divinity, the God of our Life, Tonacatecutli, who looms dimly at the head of the Aztec Pantheon. His brothers were the black and white Tezcatlipoca and the fair-skinned, bearded Quetzalcoatl. Yet a third myth places the birthplace of Quetzalcoatl directly in Tula, and names his mother, Chimalman, a virgin, divinely impregnated, like Coatlicue, by the descending spirit of the Father of All.[117]
Tula was not only the birthplace, but the scene of the highest activity of all these greatest divinities of the ancient Nahuas. Around the Coatepetl and on the shores of the Tollanatl—“the Water of Tula”—as the stream is called which laves the base of the hill, the mighty struggles of the gods took place which form the themes of almost all Aztec mythology. Tulan itself is no longer the hamlet of rush houses at the foot of the Coatepec, surmounted by its pueblo of rough stone and baked brick; it is a glorious city, founded and governed by Quetzalcoatl himself, in his first avatar as Hueman, the strong-handed. “All its structures werestately and gracious, abounding in ornaments. The walls within were incrusted with precious stones or finished in beautiful stucco, presenting the appearance of a rich mosaic. Most wonderful of all was the temple of Quetzalcoatl. It had four chambers, one toward the east finished in pure gold, another toward the west lined with turquoise and emeralds, a third toward the south decorated with all manner of delicate sea-shells, and a fourth toward the north resplendent with red jasper and shells.”[118]The descriptions of other buildings, equally wondrous, have been lovingly preserved by the ancient songs.[119]What a grief that our worthy friend, M. Charnay, digging away in 1880 on the Coatepec, at the head of a gang of forty-five men, as he tells us,[120]unearthed no sign of these ancient glories, in which, for one, he fully believed! But, alas! I fear that they are to be sought nowhere out of the golden realm of fancy and mythical dreaming.
Nor, in that happy age, was the land unworthy such a glorious city. Where now the neglected corn-patches surroundthe shabby huts of Tula, in the good old time “the crops of maize never failed, and each ear was as long as a man’s arm; the cotton burst its pods, not white only, but spontaneously ready dyed to the hand in brilliant scarlet, green, blue and yellow; the gourds were so large that they could not be clasped in the arms; and birds of brilliant plumage nested on every tree!”
The subjects of Quetzalcoatl, the Toltecs, were not less marvelously qualified. They knew the virtues of plants and could read the forecast of the stars; they could trace the veins of metals in the mountains, and discern the deposits of precious stones by the fine vapor which they emit; they were orators, poets and magicians; so swift were they that they could at once be in the place they wished to reach; as artisans their skill was unmatched, and they were not subject to the attacks of disease.
The failure and end of all this goodly time came about by a battle of the gods, by a contest between Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli on the one hand, and Quetzalcoatl on the other. Quetzalcoatl refused to make the sacrifices of human beings as required by Huitzilopochtli, and the latter, with Tezcatlipoca, set about the destruction of Tula and its people. This was the chosen theme of the later Aztec bards. What the siege of Troy was to the Grecian poets, the fall of Tula was to the singers and story-tellers of Anahuac—an inexhaustible field for imagination, for glorification, for lamentation. It was placed in the remote past—according to Sahagun, perhaps the best authority, about the year 319 before Christ.[121]All arts and sciences,all knowledge and culture, were ascribed to this wonderful mythical people; and wherever the natives were asked concerning the origin of ancient and unknown structures, they would reply; “The Toltecs built them.”[122]
They fixedly believed that some day the immortal Quetzalcoatl would appear in another avatar, and would bring again to the fields of Mexico the exuberant fertility of Tula, the peace and happiness of his former reign, and that the departed glories of the past should surround anew the homes of his votaries.[123]
What I wish to point out in all this is the contrast between the dry and scanty historic narrative which shows Tula with its Snake-Hill to have been an early station of the Azteca, occupied in the eleventh and twelfth century by one of their clans, and the monstrous myth of the later priests and poets, which makes of it a birthplace and abode of the gods, and its inhabitants the semi-divine conquerors and civilizers of Mexico and Central America. For this latter fable there is not a vestige of solid foundation. The references to Tula and the Toltecs in theChronicles of theMayasand theAnnals of the Kakchiquelsare loans from the later mythology of the Nahuas. It is high time for this talk about the Toltecs as a mighty people, precursors of the Azteca, and their instructors in the arts of civilization, to disappear from the pages of history. The residents of ancient Tula, the Tolteca, were nothing more than a sept of the Nahuas themselves, the ancestors of those Mexica who built Tenochtitlan in 1325. This is stated as plainly as can be in the Aztec records, and should now be conceded by all. The mythical Tula, and all its rulers and inhabitants, are the baseless dreams of poetic fancy, which we principally owe to the Tezcucan poets.[124]