VASE IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON.
Farther from the capital, Patzcuaro and its lake have hidden their charms still longer. It was only in 1886 that the railroad penetrated to them. They are nearer the middle of the upper part of Michoacan, at an elevation of seven thousand feet abovethe sea. The heights in this region, though they seem hills, because their base is on so high a level, attain to numbers of measurement belonging to mountains. The Place of Delights, as the name of Patzcuaro is translated from the Tarascan language of its old inhabitants, is a lonely little city now, containing no more than eight thousand natives, many of whom are descended from the first inhabitants, and speak the Tarascan tongue. The town is built on hilly broken ground, with narrow crooked streets, from which glimpses are constantly to be had of the beautiful lake stretching out below. Abundant springs water the town and flow through the fountains in the market-place, an open square surrounded by noble ash-trees. Just outside the town stone seats have been placed at a point overlooking a lovely view of the clustering town, the long irregular lake with jutting points clothed throughout the year with verdure, and dotting islands upon its surface.
This place of delights was long the seat of the native chiefs of Michoacan, who, though they did not attain such a reputation for learning and cultivation as Ixtlilxochitl the Texcucan narrator has given his ancestors, had yet taste and intelligence enough to enjoy the beauty of their home.
In the beginning, wandering tribes may have settled on the borders of the lake for the mere casual advantages of satisfying their hunger, for the lake abounds with fish, and feathered game frequent its shores from time immemorial. The first have been supposed to be Chichimecs, either before or after their dealings with the Toltecs. The region wastoo attractive for one tribe to possess it unmolested. Other men, perhaps fresh from the same mysterious North, perhaps driven out by force or discontent from former homes upon Anahuac, came to dispute the fruitful territory. Such contests were decided by the triumph of the stronger; intermarriages healed the wound, and brief peace settled on the shore of the lake, to be broken by and by with similar incursions, followed by similar results. Out of such sequence, a name and date emerge as pegs to hang some facts on, in the hitherto accepted story.
Iré-Titatacamé was this first chief of this first people with a name which could last. He made friends with a neighboring chief, and married his daughter, the Princess of Naranjan. We may imagine her, like her remote descendants, a dusky maiden, rather small, with straight black hair, which she knew how to braid in two long tresses to hang along her back. Did her grandmother learn the art from the same coiffeur that prepared the mother of Ramses for her morning care? Her eyes were intelligent, piercing, but soft, two rows of brilliant white teeth lighted her face when she smiled, as she gathered herself poppies for a wreath on the borders of the Lake of Delights.
This princess became the mother of Sicuiracha, who was born in 1202, they say, about the time that the little English prince, Arthur, was being murdered at Rouen by the order of his wicked uncle. The little prince of Naranjan-Chichimeca was not ten years old when a tribe of Tarascans assaulted his father's city, and slew that monarch. He grewup to console his mother, avenge the deed, and to control his own subjects and the conquered tribe, which however impressed its language and dialect upon the nation, so that in that region, Tarascan survived.
Sicuiracha lived to a good old age, and in peace. He died at the close of the thirteenth century, leaving two sons.
One of these married an island woman of the lake, and her son preserved the royal line; for his father and uncle were put to death by a chieftain of the neighborhood who desired the fair Place of Delights for his own. But Tixiacurí was hidden by priests, who taught him the great art of war, so that in due time he came forth at the head of armies, destroyed his enemies, took to himself all the territory of the king who slew his father, and extended his own even beyond these, thus first really governing the wide kingdom of Michoacan, which goes down to the sea.
Tixiacurí, at his death, divided the territory, giving parts of it to two nephews, one of whom, Hicuxaxé, got Patzcuaro, and called himself king of it. Tangoxoan, the son of the late king summoned his court to Tzintzuntzan, fifteen miles up the lake. He is counted the fifth of the chiefs of Michoacan, and leaves no other record but that all his sons died violent deaths.
In the next period the provinces given to Tixiacurí's nephews came together again under one head, and the tribes thus united grew and prospered. Zovanga, the seventh ruler, held sway over the wholeextent of Michoacan. Its capital was Tzintzuntzan, and its fullest limit touched the waters of the western ocean. This king constructed the celebrated walls of Michoacan to shut in his territories; he advanced agriculture, and brought his army to such excellence that it triumphed over his enemies, even the Mexicans, who, by this time powerful rivals, undertook an expedition into Michoacan in 1481. In a bloody battle which lasted two whole days the Mexicans were utterly routed.
The reign of Zovanga is described as long and glorious, and he left his country in a state of peace and prosperity when he died, near the beginning of the sixteenth century. The eighth and last Tarascan monarch of Michoacan, Tangoxoan II., was the contemporary of Montezuma; like him, unfortunate enough to live to see the invasion of the Conquistadores. He was called by them Calzonzi, which is only the Tarascan word for any chief or leader.
His capital was at Tzintzuntzan, a city with a population of forty thousand inhabitants, it is said, at the time of the conquest. Its name is an imitation of the noise of humming birds, which, in the Tarascan days, as now, darted in multitudes over the gay flowers that border the lake in profusion. This people loved birds as they did flowers, and excelled in the delicate feather-work still practised in Mexico, in which bright-colored plumage is daintily made to serve instead of paints. The monarch of Michoacan held court at Tzintzuntzan, but his pleasure-housewas at Patzcuaro, eighteen miles away. Legend says that when he chose to have a collation there, a line of servants was stationed all along the way between the two palaces, to pass the dishes from the royal kitchen to the royal table. However this may be, there are traces of a subterranean passage which perhaps connected the capital with the other town. Some years ago an excavation was attempted at Tzintzuntzan, with the hope of discovering this passage, but the natives quietly resisted this work by always filling up the place as soon as it was dug out. From generation to generation these people transmit the traditions of the ancient grandeur of their race, and silently preserve what they can of its traces. They have no written language of their own, and no orators. What they know of the past they do not wish to tell to outsiders; but their villages are full of legends, which the old people hand down to the younger ones in their strange Tarascan speech. They are tenacious of their manners and customs, and preserve in their church festivals the forms and rites which the early priests allowed them to transfer from their old religion to the ceremonials of the newly acquired Catholic faith. The Tarascans are skilful in carving in bone. They make tiny boxes, neatly fitted with lock and key, of wood. Their canoes are dug out of tree-trunks, and they kill the wild fowl which swarm and herd in quantities upon their lake, with a long wooden javelin hurled with skill. Their pottery, like that of all the Mexicans, is simple in design, graceful in form, and tasteful in color. From time immemorial they havepossessed the knowledge of handling clay and making their utensils of it.
Such are the descendants of the old Tarascan tribes, little changed as yet by the changes of government that have swept over their country since the invasion of the Conquistadores.
There is another race of which something must be said before we begin upon the Aztecs, that branch of the Nahuatl family which took the leading part in the struggle with the Conquistadores.
Although the Mayan civilization was established outside the limits of the present Mexico, it is necessary to know something of it in connection with the other tribes who built up the civilization of Anahuac.
The Mayas are thought to have been the earliest of the Nahuatl family to migrate from their northern home. Their language differs from the other Nahua dialects, and so do their traditions, monuments, and hieroglyphics, but these differences were probably caused by the difference in time in the departure of these races from their common starting-point. The resemblance outweighs the disparity, and we can only imagine that the deviations were caused by a long separation from the original stock. Their descendants live in Yucatan, and the early monuments of the Mayas are found in that country and its neighborhood.
CASA DEL GOBERNADOR, UXMAL.
They are supposed to have migrated from the shores of the Atlantic to the region now the state of Chiapas, the farthest south of all the states, adjoining Guatemala, in the midst of a rich and fertile country. Their empire grew to be one of great importance, so that at one time even the proud Tula was tributary to it. It extended over the greater part of Central America. Mayapan and Copan were the other chief tribes of their confederacy, of whichNachan, or Town of Serpents, was the capital or chief.
This great city was already in ruins, buried in the thick wilderness, its site and very existence forgotten before the arrival of the Conquistadores. Cortés must have marched close to it once when he was on his way to Honduras, but he probably had no notion of its existence. The ruins were discovered by chance in the middle of the eighteenth century, by a curate of the little town Palenque in the neighborhood.
In 1764, the Spanish government sent explorers to visit these ruins, and since then they have been carefully studied. The importance and extent of the buildings seem to show that the ancient city was once the capital and centre of the ancient state of Mayapan. Traces of streets extend for a length of six leagues or more, following the course of mountain streams, which doubtless furnished the inhabitants with water.
The most important building at Palenque is the Palace. It rests on a truncated pyramid about fifty feet high, of which the base measures three hundred and ten feet by two hundred and sixty. Subterranean galleries penetrated the interior of the pyramid. It is made of earth, with external faces of large slabs; steps lead up to the top, on which is the chief building, a quadrilateral of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and eighty; the walls are from two to three feet thick, ornamented with a frieze between two double cornices, covered with painted stucco, either red, blue, black, or white. There are fourteen entrances in the eastern front, which is theprincipal one, separated by pillars ornamented with figures more than six feet in height. Over their heads are hieroglyphics which contain the key to their meaning, still hidden to us.
The inside of the palace corresponds with the outside, galleries run all round the court, and the lofty chambers are decorated with strange bas-reliefs in granite thirteen feet high or more, strange and grotesque to us, but full of meaning and expression to the race which understood them.
STATUE FROM PALENQUE.
Over the palace rises a tower of three stories, thirty feet square at the base, decorated profusely with symbols no longer suggestive. A strange thing about the palace is that the staircases look new, the steps whole and unworn, as if the people who built it had suddenly taken flight soon after they erected their chief buildings.
One other of the monuments of Palenque should be mentioned, the Temple of the Cross. It rises from a truncated pyramid, and forms a quadrilateral separated by pilasters, ornamented with hieroglyphics and human figures. The openings lead through an inside gallery to three little rooms, of which the middle one contains an altar, ornamented with a frieze. Above this altar until recently stood three marble slabs, of which one is now in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, the central stone at the National Museum in the city of Mexico, and the third still remains at Palenque. They are six feet four inches in height, four feet wide, and six inches thick, of cream-colored stone of a fine grain. The central stone now in Mexico gives a striking representation of the Christian cross on a pedestal in the midst of a tangle of hieroglyphics, with a priestly figure, nearly life size, which in the stone still at Palenque is continued by another figure of a priest and six rows of hieroglyphics running from top to bottom. The piece at Washington is covered with similar rows of hieroglyphics, and contains ornaments to match the human figure on the left of the central stone. The startling resemblance to a cross on this tablet has excited much discussion; it is said that the presence of the emblem of the Christian faith caused it to be torn down and cast forth into the forest, which crowds around the ruins of the ancient city. But such representations of the symbol of an earlier date than the Christian era, have been found elsewhere in America. The cross was looked upon by the Mayas as the sign of the creative and fertilizing
TABLET OF CROSS AT PALENQUE.
powers of nature, and has no affinity with the Christian one. Some attempts have been made to decipher the meaning of the Palenque tablets, considering the three pieces as a whole. The figure on the left (still at Palenque) is said to be the Sun with his grand mitre. He presents an offering in his hand,and appears to be blowing with his mouth or breathing incense. At his back are two astronomical signs, representing, one the four phases of the moon, and the other the great Period of the Sun. The figure at the right (in the museum at Mexico) is larger than the other. It stands erect with outstretched arms offering a child before the cross. This priest differs from the other in being without the sacred mask and the robe ofocelotlskin. Both figures open their lips in prayer to the deity, the cross, here united with the sign Acatl, an arrow thrust through the upper half making another smaller cross. At the right of the cross are the signs of the four seasons of the year, vernal equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice. The bird above the cross is the star of the morning, and the strange figure below may be a skull, to represent the star of the evening. According to this explanation the famous tablet of Palenque, with its accidental likeness to the Christian cross, was dedicated to the Sun as the great creative power, and to the Year with its four seasons, and change of morning and evening. Palenque is by no means the only monument of the ancient people in this region. Yucatan is covered with interesting ruins, the remains of different branches of the mighty Mayan race. It can hardly be doubted, moreover, that extensive ruins lie yet hidden in the unexplored regions of the peninsula. Chichen-Itza is one of the few towns which has preserved its ancient Mayan name, fromchichen, opening of a well, and Itza, one of the chief branches of Mayapan confederacy. Itza maintained its independence,after the destruction of the confederacy, for two centuries after the Conquest. It was then taken by the Spaniards and completely destroyed.
MAYAN BAS-RELIEF.
Over an extent of several miles are seen masses of rubbish, broken sculptures, overturned columns, of which nearly five hundred bases have been counted. Chichen was one of the religious centres of Yucatan, which accounts for the number and magnificence of its temples. The walls, in many cases, are covered with paintings, in black, red, yellow, and white; they represent processions of warriors or priests, with black heads, strange head-dresses, and wide tunics on their shoulders. The faces on the bas-reliefs are remarkable as giving a different typefrom the pointed heads and retreating foreheads of those at Palenque. The heads on the Yucatan monuments as those of the present inhabitants are better developed. The sculpture is rich; the bas-reliefs give an idea of the head-dress of the natives.
A flight of steps is ornamented with a balustrade of interlaced serpents.
Chaak Mool, also known under the name of Balam, the tiger-chief, was one of three brothers who shared between them the government of Yucatan. He was married to Kinich Katmò, a woman of marvellous beauty.
Now Aak, the brother of Chaak Mool, fell in love with the fair Kinich, the wife of his brother. In order to possess her, he caused her husband to be assassinated, hoping thus to win the hand of the widow. But Kinich, far from yielding to the persuasions of Aak, remained faithful to the memory of Chaak, and out of conjugal devotion caused his statue to be made. Moreover she caused her palace to be adorned with paintings representing the chief events in the life of her departed spouse, and the sad scene of his death. In one of these paintings we may see the wicked Aak, holding in his hand three spears, to symbolize the three wounds, by means of which his brother was despatched.
The painting is accompanied by hieroglyphics, which an explorer in 1875, Dr. Le Plongeon, succeeded in deciphering far enough to learn that the tomb of Chaak Mool was to be found at a place some four hundred yards from the palace. He at once set about excavations at this spot. At first werefound several bas-reliefs representing cats and birds of prey; about twenty feet lower down was an urn of stone containing ashes, and last of all the statue of a man reclining upon a slab of stone. This statue is now in the National Museum of Mexico, under the title of Chaak Mool, as if it were the image made by order of the devoted Kinich Katmò; but the type of the face, the costume, head-dress, and sandals are altogether different from the usual Yucatan models, and moreover other little Chaak Mools have been found in different parts of Mexico, so that the wise are led to suppose that it represents some unknown divinity rather than a king of Yucatan.
STATUE OF CHAAK MOOL.
The Spaniards found throughout Yucatan roads made for the convenience of travellers, probably to the religious centres of the country. Some of theseroads arecalzadas, like those of which traces exist in many parts of Mexico, dating far beyond the Spaniards. The remains of one of these were used in building the modern city of Merida in Yucatan. This highway measured from between seven and eight yards in width; it was made of blocks of stone covered with mortar, and a layer of cement about two inches thick. Solid bridges of masonry spanned the rivers of Mexico and Yucatan, of which the massive piers have been seen standing during the last century.
Such are the monuments of the Mayan people, of whom not many facts are to be disentangled from the early legends. Like the traditions of the Mexican tribes, the Mayas tell of a supernatural being, who came from the other side of the Caribbean seas, from a land of shadows. His name was Votan, in the Mayan tradition. He found a people in the extreme of barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example, and for generations after he left them by his precepts, they advanced to high civilization. According to his instructions, the only sacrifices offered to the gods were the flowers and incense, sometimes birds and animals. Votan is described as a great warrior, leading his people to one triumph after another. Votan, it would seem, had a companion and disciple called Zamna, to whom also the inhabitants of Yucatan ascribe their ancient progress. It was he, they say, who invented hieroglyphics, and he was the first to attach names to men andthings. He was buried, according to the account of the natives, at Izamal, one of the sacred towns of Yucatan, beneath three different pyramids. Under one is his right hand, the head under another, and the heart is beneath the third. A huge head carved in stone has been found at Izamal, which perhaps represents the Prophet Zamna.
ZAMNA.
The Mayas used copper and gold. Their weapons were slings, spears, and arrows with points made of obsidian or bone. Their warriors wore armor of well-padded cotton, their shields were round and decorated with feathers, or the skins of animals. They made boats by hollowing out the trunks of trees, large enough to hold fifty people, which they guided with great skill. Votan was regardedas a god after his death, like Quetzalcoatl, with the Toltecs. Fierce wars waged between votaries of the two as time went on. The Mayan legends and the few manuscripts preserved tell of nothing but wars and conquests, struggles and defeats. The confederation invaded by other tribes who triumphed over it declined. Their religion deteriorated, as the traditions of Votan and his precepts faded away, and the people returned to the custom of human sacrifice, as bloody and terrible with them as with the other American races.
In their monuments we can trace these evidences of their civilization; they are remarkable for number and dimension, and the taste and skill shown in their ornamentation implies a condition above that of savage tribes warring against each other to defend the necessities of mere existence.
We now come to the tribe best known among those who lived on the great plateau of Anahuac, the Aztecs, also called Mexicans. The latter name has come so generally to include the inhabitants of the whole country, that a distinction must be made.
This people was one of those which formed the great family of the Nahuas; its emigration from the mysterious regions of the northeast towards Anahuac, like that of the other tribes which recognize the same traditions, rests on the same authority. Their origin is no clearer than that of the rest. It seems certain that previous to migrating they dwelt in a land far to the northeast of Lake Chapala. This region, hallowed in their traditions with all the memories and all the attractions of a far-off, long-lost home, they called Aztlan, and from this name were they called Aztecs.
Why they abandoned this delightful home is entirely unknown, except to conjecture and the probabilities of human life; the date is equally uncertain, but to it has been assigned the middle of the seventh century, and even the year 648 of our era is given.
The Aztecs having left their old habitations wanderedvaguely off towards the southwest, guided by the inspirations or indications of their priests. They paused whole years in different places, building in each houses and temples, of which traces are still found to mark their path. They left behind them, indeed, settlements which still exist. But the great body of these emigrants had not yet found a permanent resting-place. They continued to move on, with intervals of pause, from generation to generation, always impelled by the restlessness which caused their first fathers, and the priests, their guides, to leave Aztlan. It was six hundred years after the date commonly given for their exodus that the Aztecs came to their final resting-place in 1243. The tribe was already called Mexicas as well as Aztec, because the priests received an order from one of their gods, Mexitli, that they should receive a name like his. From Mexi or Mexicas was derived the word Mexican. This name has attached itself, not only to the town they founded, but to the broad valley in which it lies, and to the whole country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific; yet when they came there the ancient tribe of the Toltecs already possessed the land, and farther south the Mayas had attained a high degree of civilization. They themselves were but a handful of men, despised by surrounding races for the customs of their religion, even then regarded as barbarous and horrible by the older inhabitants. They gained and maintained a foothold in the place they had chosen against many enemies and countless difficulties, triumphed over all these, and established themselves so firmly as to imprint a name upon the whole region.
ORGAN CACTUS.
It is no wonder that the broad, lofty valley where they found themselves made so strong an impression upon them that they at once decided to adopt it; though the exact spot they selected for their capital has been often condemned by posterity.
They saw a vast oval of more than forty leagues' circumference, surrounded, like an amphitheatre, with a girdle of mountains. On the east rose the two proud volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl, covered with perpetual snow, their sides clothed with forests. When the Aztecs came, one vast lake occupied the basin of the broad plateau, too wide to be called a valley, as well as too elevated, for the lowest part is more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea.
They saw a rocky height rising above the wet soil near the lake, out of which were doubtless even then growing huge cypress-trees,ahuehuetl, making a dense and pleasant shade; a large spring of water flowed constantly from the rock. Here they stopped and named the place Chapultepec, which means the Hill of the Grasshopper. In the picture-writings of the Aztecs it is depicted as a small hill with a huge grasshopper standing all over it.
Here the Mexicans, or Aztecs, remained for a few years, but their place was contested by the neighboring tribes, who also all of them saw the merits of the site, and valued as much as the new-comers the spring of sparkling water. The Mexicans made themselves odious by their religious practices, and acombined array of Chichimecs and other tribes dispossessed them of the Grasshopper Hill. They betook themselves to a group of low islands in the lake, and there led a miserable existence for many years, covered with rags, living on such fishes and insects as they could lay hold of from the lake, and dwelling in wretched huts made out of reeds and rushes. They were nothing more than the slaves of the Tepanecs and Culhuas, surrounding tribes, and it is extraordinary that from such a life they roused themselves to any thing better. In the course of a battle between two of their tyrant tribes, they, the miserable slaves, the despised eaters of insects, gave such proof of unconquerable valor on the side of their masters, that these were terrified and gave them their liberty. This was nearly one hundred years after they had been driven from Chapultepec. They now shook off the yoke of their oppressors, gathered themselves together, and leaving the wretched island where they had languished so long, set forth once more in search of a permanent dwelling-place.
The story has often been told of the way in which they fixed upon its position. The priests declared that their great god, Huitzilopochtli, had decreed for the situation of their abiding city, anopalgrowing from a rock, upon which should be sitting an eagle with a snake in his beak. Thenopalis one kind of cactus. When they suddenly came upon this very combination of objects, the priests declared it to be the preordained spot, and there they settled themselves after all the long wanderings of their race, far from the shadowy Aztlan. The situation is low, and toonear the lake, which in those early days extended much farther than at present. It has now been made to subside, leaving much territory formerly under water spread out as barren marsh-land. Several lakes, divided by low lands have taken the place of the broad inland sea overlooked by the Mexican capital.
Here the Mexicans built their capital city, which in time grew to be the centre of a great confederacy. They called it Tenochtitlan, which means Place of the Stone and the Nopal. Its name was also Mexico early in its history, from the old god Huitzilopochtli, who was also called Mexitli.
Tenochtitlan covered about one fourth of the ground now occupied by the city of Mexico. Its founders divided it into four quarters or divisions, to which were given the names of Cuepopan, Atzacualco, Moyotla, and Zoquipan. In the centre rose the great teocalli dedicated to the god Huitzilopochtli. The cathedral of the present city of Mexico stands on the site of this ancient temple, but not a trace of the Aztec town is now visible. The names of the quarters above given remain in those of the suburbs of the modern town.
Little by little smaller islands were united to the larger ones by means of stone- and earth-works. From a life of misery, by industry and energy the Mexicans advanced their condition. They devoted themselves to fishing and hunting, and exchanged the product of these labors with the neighboring people for wood, stone and such things as they wanted.
Up to this time they had obeyed their priests, orcertain chiefs who controlled them. The last of these was Tenoch.
IDOL IN TERRA-COTTA.
The rulers who followed have been called kings, their government a monarchy, their homes palaces, their places of worship, temples. The Conquistadores described the civilization they found upon Anahuac with such wealth of words, that the Halls of the Montezumas have been ever since the type of all that is rich and magnificent. Their realm was an empire, their sway was absolute, their lives were one of luxury and ease.
Later investigations take away from the early Aztec dynasty all its splendors, one by one, until the poor Mexican kings have scarcely a shred of regal dignity left them. Even their warfare is reduced tothe pitiful raids of one savage tribe against another, their title of Emperor, no longer hereditary, although, it is admitted, kept in one family, is reduced to that of chief; their capital city is apueblo, their palaces as low buildings of adobe, their teocallis are mounds.
For the sake of preserving the succession hitherto accepted, and to avoid confusion in the mind of the reader, we will continue the narration of the kings of Mexico, as if they still retained that title, shorn as it is of its rays.
Tenoch died in 1363, thirty-eight years after the foundation of the city. As his name forms part of the word Tenochtitlan, some authorities give, as explanation, that the city was named after the chief, rather than for reason of the nopal, the eagle, and the snake. But the valuable legend remains, and is preserved on the national banner of the Mexicans to-day.
Mexitzin succeeded Tenoch in command, who, as by this time the people had greatly grown in importance, counselled them to follow the example of the nations round about them, and choose a ruler to rule over them, after the manner of their neighbors, the Tepanecs, and those of Texcuco, across the lake. The proposal was favorably accepted, and Acamapichtli was made king—the first monarch of the Mexican dynasty, in Tenochtitlan, in 1376, fifty years after the foundation of the city. He was Mexican upon his father's side, Chichimec, through his mother's family. He was, according to the account of his chroniclers, one of the most prudent and illustrious personages of his time. He marrieda daughter of a most noble Aculhuan, and as all the monarchs of the valley practised polygamy, allowed himself two other wives. Of one of these wives the son Huitzilihuitl was the immediate successor to the throne, and his half-brother, son of another wife, reigned next, named Chimalpopoca. A third son, born of a slave to the king, lived to reign in his stead after the death of the half-brothers. But the father of these sons lived himself to reign for twenty years, if reigning it can be called, to keep in hand a handful of poor Indians just escaping from barbarism and degeneration of the lowest sort. Their one city was but fifty years old. They had no capital, no resources beyond the toil of their hands in fishing and hunting. They were regarded as interlopers by the petty kingdoms which surrounded them, and their lives were made miserable by the tyranny of any one of their neighbors who felt himself strong enough to exact tribute. Yet some great vital force was in them to hold them together and bring them increase.
Their belief in their old god, Huitzilopochtli, was strong as ever; probably their fortunes rose and fell with the intelligence or the lack of it in the priests who transmitted to the people the will of this deity. Through them it was decreed that the tribute demanded by the Tepanecs should be paid. These neighbors were pacified, and the Mexicans could go on unmolested in their work of improving their city, which they did by building temples and houses, and cutting canals through their island that the water of the lake might circulate freely.
In the next reign, Huitzilihuitl, son of the first king, not only followed but improved upon the example of his father in marrying a daughter of some rival monarch. He sent ambassadors to various courts asking the hand of each princess in marriage. The result was good. By marrying a daughter of the king of the Tepanecs he relieved his people of the heavy tribute they had been forced to pay. His other wife, Cuauhnahuac, brought with her the knowledge of cotton for making wearing apparel, for the district she came from produced it in abundance, and her people understood the use of it. It is due to her, therefore, that the Mexicans became well clothed. Specimens of the wearing of their early times are preserved in the National Museum at Mexico. Her son was the famous Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, better known to us as Montezuma I. This king, who married the Princess of Cloth, greatly advanced his nation. He compiled laws, regulated religious ceremonies, systematized the army, with his brother at its head, thus establishing a custom which was always afterwards followed, that a brother of the monarch should be general-in-chief. In his day canoas, hollowed from trunks of trees, were put into general use for war as well as for traffic. The system thus introduced made his army a valuable accession to his neighbors when they went to battle. By the service they rendered to the Aculhuans in such a case, the Mexicans gained a high reputation as dangerous warriors. They were still tributary to the Tepanecs of Atzcapotzalco, then in the hands of the tyrant Maxtla, whom careful readers will remember. This usurper, jealous of the growing power of his vassal, and afraid of its results, caused the death of the little son and daughter of the Mexican monarch. "The king, Huitzilihuitl," says the authority, "dissimulated this cruel offence, considering that this was no time to expose his people to open war with the Tepanecs, thus giving proof of a patriotism equal to personal sacrifice."
CANAL OUTSIDE THE CITY OF MEXICO.
This was however not the end of the matter for after the death of his father, Chimalpopoca, who reigned in his stead became implicated in a conspiracy against Maxtla. It was discovered, and the punishment that the young king had to endure was to assume certain garments of the style worn by women sent him by Maxtla, as signs of effeminacy and cowardice, while Maxtla carried off and took to himself one of his wives. Chimalpopoca waited to avenge these insults, and life being insupportable to him, resolved to sacrifice himself to the great god of his fathers, Huitzilopochtli; but Maxtla anticipated his intention, and seizing him, shut him up in a wooden case, such as was used for common criminals. The Mexican king, however, succeeded in his intent, by hanging himself from a bar of his disgraceful prison.
This chief had reigned but ten years; during this time he had an aqueduct constructed to bring clear water from Chapultepec to the city, and built a finecalzada, or paved road, to make direct communication between Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan.
This was the period of the usurpation of Tezozomoc, king of Atzcapotzalco, who wrested the throne of the Chichimecs from Ixtlilxochitl, andkilled this brave but unfortunate prince. Maxtla, the tyrant, was the son and heir of Tezozomoc, and as we have seen he poured his wrath upon Nezahualcoyotl, the legitimate heir to the throne of the Chichimecs, the monarchy of Texcuco or Aculhuacan.
After the death in prison of their king Chimalpopoca, the Mexicans did not hesitate to elect as his successor, Itzcoatl, the third son of their first sovereign, brother to their last, and general-in-chief of their armies, in which capacity he had shown himself of great force and valor.
When Maxtla heard of this he was full of wrath, having vainly imagined that the murder of the late king's children would have put an end to that line forever. He immediately began to make preparations to destroy utterly the Mexicans, still nominally his vassals.
Itzcoatl at once sent messengers to Nezahualcoyotl, the rightful heir of the Texcucans, proposing an alliance for the overthrow of the tyrant. Nezahualcoyotl, as we have seen, had already recovered a part of his inheritance, and feeling himself strong enough for the effort, he accepted the proposals of the Mexican sovereign.
Maxtla, to anticipate this step, sent open commands to his vassals, the Mexicans, that they should hold themselves in readiness to join his whole army in an attack upon Texcuco, since, as he announced,he was determined now to possess himself of the whole of the ancient kingdom of the Chichimecs.
The chronicles say that the Mexicans were greatly terrified, so intense was the terror inspired by Maxtla and his cruel warriors. The people burst into tears and lamentations at being forced into so unwelcome a war.
Itzcoatl, with the greatest skill, calmed their agitation, and summoned them to another combat, which should decide the fate of the still youthful monarchy of the Mexicans.
A great battle was fought against the Tepanecs with Maxtla at their head. Opposite him were arranged the united forces of the Mexicans, the Chichimecs, and their allies, of the neighboring little state of Tlatelolco, as well as a great body of auxiliary troops, which ranged themselves on the side of justice and against the terrible tyrant. The allied army sallied forth to the encounter, but was driven back, and the city of Tenochtitlan was about to fall into the hands of Maxtla, when the three chiefs, Nezahualcoyotl, Itzcoatl and Motecuhzoma, followed by their bravest warriors, plunged into the thickest of the fray, and by the fury of their attack caused the Tepanecs to flee with all haste.
The battle was continued the next day, victory declaring itself for the allies, who pursued the Tepanecs even into their own capital Atzcapotzalco, where they set fire to the houses, sacking them first, and killing the inhabitants. The king Maxtla himself fell under the stroke of Nezahualcoyotl, who thus avenged the murder of his father. Thetaking of the capital city was the end of the kingdom of the Tepanecs. This took place in 1428.
By the downfall of this monarchy, Nezahualcoyotl was reinstated upon the throne of his ancestors, at Texcuco, henceforth called the kingdom of Acolhuacan; a small new kingdom arose, upon the ruins of the old, called that of the Tepanecs of Tlacopan; these two formed with the Mexicans a triple alliance which lasted for more than a century.
This alliance is called that of the "Valley Confederates," who by their united strength could crush the surrounding isolated tribes with perfect success.
Itzcoatl died in 1440, much lamented by his people. His obsequies were performed with great solemnity. He was justly celebrated for his great gifts, and the services he rendered his country. An old author says of him that he was "a man so excellent that there is no language sufficient for his praises."
On the death of this ruler, the Mexicans again came together to choose a king, and unanimously selected Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, brother of the late king, and son of the first one. His election was received with enthusiasm, because he was a great general, who had filled the minds of the people with his brilliant deeds in emancipating them from the tyrant control of the Tepanecs.
Under this king the fortunes of the Mexicans reached their height. He was a great warrior, and by force of arms he subdued many surrounding tribes, and extended the power of his kingdom. He was an intense fanatic in religion, and a true despot, and carried his convictions to an extreme which,while it extended his power, alienated the other peoples of Anahuac, so that in the dark days of the future, they were ready rather to be against the Mexicans than for them.
His first act, having resolved to erect a great temple to the god Huitzilopochtli, in gratitude for the success of the recent conflicts, was to send messages to all the country round about, summoning the neighbors to come and lend their aid in bringing the great work to an end. All obeyed with alacrity, except the Chalcas, a little tribe upon the lake, who entirely refused to contribute aid. The king instantly made war upon these people, and after bloody contests took possession of Amecameca, their capital, an ancient town at the very base of the volcanoes. Other towns fell into the hands of the Mexicans. Meanwhile, the influence of the Texcucan court, aided by the natural development that comes with success, had much advanced the Aztec from the pitiful state of squalor in which his race made their entrance into the Valley of Anahuac only a century before. Without believing the exaggerated accounts of the Spaniards describing the splendors they found in Mexico, we may at least allow the Aztecs a degree of intelligence and cultivation on a level with the civilization of their time.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Mexicans suffered from an infliction which has since many a time caused trouble to their capital. Abundant rains so swelled the lake that the city was inundated, many buildings destroyed, and inhabitants drowned.The king of Texcuco advised the building of a great dike, so thick and strong as to keep out the water. The next year the chronicles relate that a heavy snow fell for six days and nights, destroying all vegetation, and a great number of human beings and animals. The loss of crops for these years caused such a famine, that in spite of the great liberality of the king and his grandees, many people emigrated to the south.
These disasters furnish but a poor excuse for the human sacrifice with which the Aztecs sought to appease the wrath of their god. The Mexican king used to sally forth at fixed intervals to battle with the sole object of seizing prisoners for sacrifice, without laying any claim to lands or kingdoms. He extended these raids as far as the valley of Tlaxcalla, and the neighboring city of Cholula, carrying off victims, but leaving the government of these provinces as he found them. This explains the cause of the continued independence of these provinces, in spite of their constant warfare with Mexico, and also shows what reason these people had for hating a neighbor who made himself so disagreeable. Motecuhzoma made the power of his arm felt even to the shores of the Gulf, and enlarged his territory in all directions. He framed a code for repressing crime, made laws regulating the dress and ornaments of his subjects, invented any number of new religious rites and sacrifices hitherto unheard of, built many temples, and strove to establish the principles of his religion throughout Anahuac. Thus the poor and miserable little tribe of a century before, at the death of MotecuhzomaIlhuicamina had greatly gained in strength and extent.
Three sovereigns followed Motecuhzoma, in due course, and in practice of the same methods of government. They extended their depredations all over the country, sometimes meeting with resistance, as in the case of Michoacan, in 1479, when the Mexicans were utterly routed by the Tarascos in a bloody battle which lasted two days. The king at that time was Axayacatl, who died soon after his disastrous defeat. He left two sons destined to play a part in the last scene of the history of Mexican monarchy—Motecuhzoma the Second and Cuitlahuac.
The immediate successor of Axayacatl was his brother, Tizoc, who, as was the custom, left the position of general-in-chief to become king. He was a brave warrior, stern and uncompromising in character, zealous in gathering victims to sacrifice to his gods.
In the museum of Mexico is a monument which preserves the name and deeds of this great warrior king. It is a large carved stone, which was found in the course of excavation for a sewer, almost a hundred years ago in the principal plaza of the city of Mexico. It is called the Cuauhxicalli of Tizoc, which means the Drinking cup of the Eagle. On its upper face is carved an image of the sun. On the carved sides are fifteen groups, each group of two persons, the conquering warrior grasping by the hair a prisoner. The warrior is in each the same figure repeated. The fifteen prisoners represent fifteen conquered tribes. The conqueror is Tizoc, seventh king of Mexico, whooccupied the throne from 1481 to 1486. There is a theory that these carvings have a further allegorical meaning. The evening star and the moon are represented as two warriors engaged in a struggle, in which the former makes the attack, and the latter defends himself. Tizoc is intended by the morning star, and the moon represents the conquered nations. The evening star wears the sacred mask; the part of his face left uncovered, as well as his hands and feet, are smeared with a black ointment peculiar to priests and gods. His body is covered with a tiger skin, which is always an attribute with the natives of the morning star, which draws captive after it all the other stars, so that the sky spotted with light seemed to them typified by the spotted skin of the tiger. The warrior has in one hand a sword of obsidian, and in the other a shield bearing the symbols of the planet. The face and garments of the vanquished warrior are white like the rays of the moon. His feet are bound, but in one hand he holds high his sword of obsidian, while the other grasps the standard and mirror of the moon.
The use to which the stone was applied by Tizoc was less purely fanciful. In his time, among the Aztecs, there existed an order of nobles whose title was the eagles. The sun was their patron saint. During certain ceremonies they sacrificed to the sun a human victim, upon this stone, the drinking-cup of the Eagles. This victim was chosen from the prisoners taken in war. He was brought forward, at the sound of music, surrounded by illustrious noblemen. His legs were painted with red and white stripes, and half his face was painted red; a white plume was stuck in his hair. In one hand he carried a walking-stick, gay with ribbons and plumes; in the other, a shield covered with cotton. His thighs were bound round with little bundles containing gifts. He was led to the bottom of the grand staircase of the temple and thus addressed: