While the first effects of the impinging civilization were most deleterious to the status and nature of the aboriginal woman, there came a time when, under conditions of comparative peace, there was ampler opportunity for the best of that civilization to prove that it really had a message for red men and women as well as white, though its first words had been so marred in the saying. It would not comport with tenderness for the good name of our country to set forth the wrongs suffered by the Indians at the hands of those who assumed a higher place in the scale of race; the story is written large for all those who care to read. Beneath the combined influences of tyranny, treachery, knavery, and every other crime that the whites could commit against them, together with the degrading effects of the existence which was forced on them and the pernicious results of the introduction of drunkenness as a racial vice, the Indians went from bad to worse, until in the majority of cases they became little better than mere savages. In this retrogression the status of the Indian woman participated, until in almost every tribe within the boundaries of our country she was reduced to the state of the merest beast of burden. Her lot became harder and harder, and was not even ameliorated by the consolations of any religious creed that held promise of better things to come. At last, though very slowly and very late in the history of the Amerinds, there dawned a day when equity began to take some place in our dealings with our red brethren, when there began some organized effort to show them that white civilization held some benefits even for them and that Christianity was something more than a theory. Even then, the efforts to improve the condition of the Indians were chiefly directed toward the education of the youths; for the girls and women there was but little consideration shown. At length, however, this field also was entered by some devoted men and women,--especially the latter,--and the Indian woman, with as much wonder as joy, found that she too was regarded as something better than a slave and brute, that she too was held as being worthy of education and the influences of refinement. Even yet, this message has not been borne to the majority of the women of the tribes, at least in effective manner; but the leaven has been placed in the lump. At first, the reclamation of the Indian woman from the degradation into which she had fallen was a disheartening work. By long years of maltreatment and neglect she had been rendered almost incapable of understanding that any other lot was possible for her; in many cases, her racial instincts and inherited education revolted against the new order of things which was proposed to her. With the apathy in degradation peculiar to primitive peoples, the Indian woman turned her face from civilization and would have none of it; she was not of it, and it was not for her. But a change of plan resulted in at least partial success. The attempt to teach and refine the elder women--the women who had years of experience of their racial conditions as a barrier to the appreciation of a different order of things--was largely abandoned, and the efforts toward amelioration were put forth for the education of the younger women. Even so, the effort has not yet met with satisfying success, but its results bear promise of the future.
Yet, the outlook is not bright; for the conditions which confront the Indian woman are still not favorable for the material betterment of her lot. Those who generalize with insufficient grasp of the premises are fond of saying that the Indian cannot bear civilization, that it is destructive to his health and morals; but they forget that no race has ever become suddenly civilized, even under the most favorable auspices. There is always the past history of that race as a controlling influence in the result; physical and social traditions must be reckoned with before the race can fully adapt itself to its new conditions and make the best of them. Unfortunately, all these traditions among the Amerind peoples are highly unfavorable to their acceptance of the civilization peculiar to the environment into which they have been forcibly brought; and this fact, together with the still persistent injustice of treatment which is meted out to them, has resulted in the physical deterioration of their race, until there now looms near the threat of extinction. In these racial conditions the Indian woman, of course, participates; and she has the further disadvantage of being compelled, in order to be able to make her own the best condition that is offered her, to effect a total change in her social relations with her own people. The Indian warrior can perhaps be brought to understand that for him better conditions are possible than those which have been his lot in times past; but it is well-nigh impracticable for him to grasp the truth that it is possible for his slave, his chattel, his beast of burden, to be aught, to herself or to him, than that which she has been almost for time immemorial. The tradition that woman is an inferior being has become so deeply merged into all his conceptions of sociology, that he cannot rid himself of it; and the woman is perforce compelled to accept this tradition, since she cannot traverse it by any appeal that he could understand.
Therefore, it would seem that the future of the Indian woman is not bright. Before she can shake herself free from the trammels of tradition and even superstition which now hold her down, it is probable that her race will have become practically extinct. Yet before that catastrophe it may well be that her lot will have been ameliorated, that she will have emerged from the degradation which even now is the condition of the greater part of her race and sex, that she will at least have regained the status which was hers before the encroachments of a new and more powerful civilization than that which she knew altered for the worse every condition of her existence. Even this is the less to be hoped for in that the Eastern tribes, which were most cultured in nearly all respects, have now fallen by the wayside in nearly all instances, while the remnants of the Western nations are less adapted to the reception of higher conditions, since they have behind them few or no traditions which make for the best tendencies in this wise. None can safely prophesy of this matter; but, while hope is always permissible, he would be a rash oracle who would foretell the establishment of the Amerind woman upon a plane befitting her sex or even the best traditions of her race.
THE story of the women of Mexico, as that country is known to-day, presents few distinctive features. If that story were confined to the status of woman as found in the present inhabitants of the country of theconquistadores, there would be but little to tell, since from the time of the first coming of the Spaniards to the present day there has been but little change of consequence in the matter with which we are directly concerned. But the very mention of the name of the Spanish conquerors recalls a civilization which preceded that which we now know--a civilization which in various forms has remained impressed upon the characteristics of Mexico, and one which is therefore of some importance as well as of the greatest interest to us in our study of the progress of women in America. That civilization is, of course, that of the Aztecs, that wonderful race which held Mexico from time immemorial--or, more strictly, indeterminate--up to the hour when Cortés and his followers penetrated to their capital and began the work, to know completion in a few short years, of destroying not only a nation but a civilization, and one that was in many ways the most remarkable of which there is record.
It is in no way needful to enter into the detail of general Aztec sociology. In this work the principal interest is connected with those social aspects and influences which affect women; yet a few words concerning the chief features of the Aztec civilization are absolutely necessary to the understanding of our subject. The Aztecs--in which general title, for convenience, are included the Tezcucans, though there were differences of civilization, the Tezcucans being in many respects superior to their neighbors--the Aztecs present in nearly every way the greatest racial mystery that has ever come under the notice of the student of comparative ethnology. Their very origin is unknown; it is impossible to discover how much of their civilization they owed to their traditions, how much may have been of gradual growth, and how much may have come to them as a legacy from the still more mysterious Toltecs, later probably known as Mayas, of whom remain wonderful monuments and traditional narratives preserved by the Aztecs. This people appeared in the Anahuac Valley in the sixth or seventh century, and founded their chief town, Tula, about fifty miles north of Mexico City. Their name is said to signify "builders," and tradition ascribes to them an advanced knowledge of arts and a remarkable culture. The supremacy of the Toltecs in the Anahuac Valley lasted till the twelfth century, when they abandoned Tula and mysteriously disappeared. Among the traditions preserved, the most conspicuous concerning the Toltec women is that of Xochitl, queen of one of the later chiefs, or "kings."
Huemac II. began to reign in Mexico about 995, in what is called the Toltec period. Xochitl, accompanied by her father, a nobleman, went to the court of Huemac, carrying with her as an offering to the king a beverage which she had invented. The king tasted the wine, and desired to have more. Later, Xochitl returned to the court, and Huemac, who already was fascinated with the girl, caused her to be retained, and sent a message to her father that he had placed her in the care of his court ladies and would complete her education. Shortly afterward his queen died, and Huemac immediately made Xochitl his queen.
The labors of Don Mariano Veytia in hisHistoria Antigua, and the researches of more modern scholars, furnish us with some fragmentary history of the Aztecs before the coming of Cortés; but these fragments, in relation to the status of womanhood in those days, cannot be joined into a coherent whole, and consideration will therefore be here given to some aspects of Aztec civilization as found by the conqueror rather than to the pre-Aztec culture. The most notable general feature of that civilization is its singular contradictions. We find a race, gentle, intelligent, refined in some respects beyond European standards of their day--and yet cannibals, at least under certain conditions! We find these people moral, with high ideals of religion in theory--and in practice holding human sacrifices as an essential part of their cult! We find them warlike and yet mild, the conquerors of the neighboring races, and yet ruling these more by force of intellect than of arms. Most wonderful of all, we find a true and high civilization, isolated from all companionship and existing by its own inherent merits, and not, as has been the case with almost all others, by contact and rivalry with others of almost equal powers.
The Aztecs were versed in the arts of agriculture, mechanics, architecture, pottery, and, generally, in the domestic arts. They built beautiful cities, containing noble edifices, both private and public. Their dress was artistic and graceful, and their tastes were worthy of the highest civilization then known. They delighted in flowers, in beautiful gardens, in all manner of natural graces. They lived under the rule of an emperor, and there were many great nobles, of a distinct class and holding large estates.
There was a regular law of descent for these estates, and the principles of entail and of reversion to the crown were understood and practised. There seems to have been a species of feudality as the foundation of the social order, but our knowledge in this respect is too vague to justify us in reasoning from it to any great length. There were courts of justice, with jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases, and there was the legal machinery of higher and lower courts, with the privilege of appeal. The rights of property and persons were fully, if not acutely, recognized. There was a regularly established priesthood, of which the emperor was the official head. There were admirably organized and conducted schools, where morality as well as education was inculcated. In short, there were all the requisites, though not always in modern form, that we are accustomed to consider as the rightful and unique portion of the highest Caucasian culture.
And yet, this cultured and refined people practised cannibalism! Not only did they eat the bodies of captives taken in war and immolated upon their altars in the execution of their religious rites, but, according to Sahagun in hisHistoria de Nueva Espana, they often, at private feasts, sacrificed a slave and served his flesh to the assembled guests. These dishes were dressed in most elaborate ways, for the Aztecs were excellent cooks. This, however, only adds, in its refinement of bestiality, to the revolting aspect of the custom.
It is now time to turn from this very imperfect summary of the civilization of the Aztecs to the place therein occupied by woman. This place was very high higher than that gained by the sex in any other race found on the North American continent. It may be stated as a general fact that woman held equal social position with man. Physically they were attractive, their complexions being light and their hair long and black. They dressed tastefully, their heads being covered by a gauzy veil or wreathed with flowers or even with strings of precious stones and pearls. They wore flowing robes, handsomely trimmed with embroidery, and their appearance was in all ways far superior to that of any other American women.
Their status, while in some respects sharing in the contradictions that we find prevalent among the Aztecs, was, on the whole, almost equal to that of their European sisters of that day. It is true that polygamy--that institution usually so fatal to the place of woman in the community where it is practised--was permissible among the Mexicans; but it is probable that its practice was confined only to the most wealthy and was not invariable among them. On the other hand, the sanctity of the marriage tie, that great safeguard for women, was strongly insisted upon. Not only was the marriage rite formally celebrated as a religious ceremony, but there was instituted a special legal tribunal for the sole purpose of hearing and deciding questions relating to marriage. Divorce existed, but only by a decree of the tribunal mentioned above, and was not a matter of discretion; due reason must be alleged and proved, infidelity being, of course, the primary cause for divorce. Adultery was severely punished; and it is a remarkable fact, as showing the advance made by this people upon the conceptions of the ancient civilizations, that concubinage was exceptional, though slavery was an institution of the country. Even the slave woman, however, held a position advanced beyond that usual in such cases, for her child was born free; there was no such thing as hereditary slavery among the Aztecs. No other civilization, ancient or modern, has been thus generous.
The practical equality of woman to man was recognized in the fact, among others, that women had a distinct and honorable part in the sacerdotal functions and rites, though they could not participate in sacrifice. The priestesses undertook the education of the girls, the schools being a part of the temples. Here the girls were taught the feminine accomplishments peculiar to their culture as well as those of more general use, such as weaving and embroidering the rich draperies used to cover the altars of their gods. The strictest morality was inculcated in these schools; for the Aztecs were essentially a moral people, and the girls were brought up in habits of the straitest decorum. This they were not likely to exceed, at least while under the tutelage of the priestesses, for offences were visited with the greatest severity, even death being occasionally meted out as punishment for the most marked transgressions. The system of these schools was to some extent conventual, and reverence for religion was instilled as an integral portion of the system.
The education that was received by women among the early Mexicans may be illustrated by a reference to the story ofThe Lady of Tula. Among the Tezcucans, at least at one time, concubinage was recognized as a legitimate appanage of royalty, and the Lady of Tula was one of the concubines of Nezahualpilli, son of the great monarch Nezahualcoyotl and his successor as ruler of the Tezcucan nation. The son of this latter king entered into a correspondence with the Lady of Tula, and, as the offence was capital, the youth was slain by royal command; but we are not concerned so much with the sadness of his fate or with the Roman severity of his father as with the characteristics of the woman who tempted him from his allegiance to his royal sire. It is told of her that, though of humble birth, she possessed most remarkable endowments of mind, that she wrote beautiful verse, and that she was often consulted upon grave matters by the king and his ministers. She was given a separate establishment, and maintained almost regal state. The information that we have of this woman discloses a very high feminine status among the Tezcucans; and as the chronicler of her powers expresses little or no surprise concerning them, we may assume that such education and standing as she enjoyed were not uncommon among Mexican women, even if not in so high a degree as in the case of the Lady of Tula.
To return to the women of the true Aztecs. When the young girl had emerged from the conventual school she took her place in society as one of its rightful factors. She participated on equal terms with the men in all social functions, eating with them at the banquet and taking part in all the festivities which were so congenial to the somewhat superficial nature of that people. It is true that at the banquets she sat apart from the men, as did also the married women; but this was simply a custom, not a result of inferior status. These banquets were carried on in a style not inferior to the feasts of the old Romans; the tables were covered with flowers, and bowls of water and cotton napkins were furnished to each guest, that they might perform before eating the ablutions which were as formal with the Aztecs as with the Mussulmans. There were golden chafing dishes and cups and platters, as well as table ornaments of the precious metal, which was very common among the Mexicans. The feasts of the wealthy, if we may credit the accounts of early writers, were sumptuously provided with delicacies, such as venison, peccaries, rabbits, "tuzas,"--a species of mole,--fish of many names, turtles, iguanas, turkeys, quails, and numerous other kinds of birds. Vegetables and fruits of several varieties completed the dishes. The variety and quality of food here indicated suggest an epicurean supply rather than the frugal dietary to which the Aztecs are reputed to have been accustomed. Before eating it wasde rigueurto smoke, the tobacco being in the form of cigars or used in pipes, the former being held in dainty holders of tortoise shell or silver; but we are not informed whether or not the women participated in this part of the feast. We do, however, know that after the banquet was concluded the elder women as well as the men drank pulque, the national beverage, often to a state of intoxication; but the young of both sexes were rigorously excluded from this portion of the entertainment. The youths and maidens danced while their elders drank--a custom which has not wholly ceased in our own civilization; and we can find in the whole proceeding on these festal occasions more likeness to modern entertainments than is found even by the old Spanish writer who tells us that, after the distribution of gifts with which the entertainment came to a close, the guests dispersed, "some commending the feast, and others condemning the bad taste or extravagance of their host, in the same manner as with us."
While the home discipline of children, like that in the public schools, was of a very severe type, the relations of the Aztec maiden to her parents, after she had arrived at maturity, were of the closest and tenderest description. They enjoined upon her, with loving solicitude for her well-being and felicity, simplicity of manners and conversation, personal neatness, modesty of demeanor, and reverence for her husband when she became a wife. They showed her an affection and consideration which were in conformity with the highest type of social culture, and in return were regarded and treated with respect and love.
When the maiden finally attained the dignity of wifehood, her condition was hardly changed. She received from her husband the utmost respect of demeanor, and she was--of course we are considering the women of the upper classes--freed from all obligation of service. She had maidens to wait upon her and to do the tasks of the household, over which she ruled much as did a feudal chatelaine in the days of chivalry in Europe; and a favorite amusement with the Aztec wives consisted in listening to their maidens rehearse traditionary tales and ballads. When there came to her the further dignity of motherhood, she was the recipient of congratulatory visits from her friends and neighbors--male as well as female--from whom she received gifts of dresses, ornaments, or flowers, in token of sympathy and regard. These visits of ceremony were regulated by a code, unwritten but as thoroughly understood and binding as that which regulates similar forms in our own social world. In short, the Aztec woman, whether as maiden, wife, or mother, received universal acknowledgment of her rightful place in the structure of society and was in almost all respects the peer of her Caucasian sister in status and indeed in civilization. Most of what has thus far been written is applicable to the women of the lower classes as well as to their richer and more cultured countrywomen, at least so far as concerns the estimation in which they were held and their place in the household and in their appropriate society. Of course, even as with us, the women of the lower classes labored; but their labors were as a rule not severe. The Aztecs were primarily an agricultural people, and their women assisted in the toil necessary to the tillage of the soil, but their labors were of the lighter kinds; they sowed the seed and husked the corn, but they did not reap or garner, while they would doubtless have rebelled in mass had they been required to undertake the more laborious tasks incident to irrigation or actual tillage. Even the slave women, though these of course were doomed to harder service than the wives and daughters of freemen, were not generally condemned to wearing toil. Indeed, the institution of slavery, except in the cases of prisoners taken in war,--a small class of slaves, since such prisoners were usually sacrificed to the gods,--was milder among the Aztecs than among any people of whom there is historical record; the slave could marry at will, could hold property, and could even possess slaves of his own, while, as has been already said, the child of a slave was independent of the status of his parent.
It is unfortunately true that there can be found but few names of women of importance in the history of the Aztecs or indeed of the Conquest itself; nearly all that is to be learned is general and not particular in its import. Though the blood of many of the women of that period, intermingled with that of the Spanish cavaliers, flows in the veins of a very large number of the Mexicans of to-day, there is yet no trustworthy record of particular names or fames. It is indeed recorded that Alvarado, one of the right-hand men of Cortés, married the daughter of Xicotencatl, a Mexican chief; but she was a Tlascalan, not an Aztec. So, as space would fail in the compass of a large volume to tell of all the civilizations which surrounded that of the Aztecs, and also as Doña Luisa, as she was called by the Spaniards after her baptism into the Christian faith, did nothing more meritorious than to bear to Tonitiuh--"the Sun"--as Alvarado was called by the Mexicans, because of his bright face and golden hair, a number of children who became by intermarriage the sires and mothers of some of the noblest families of Castile, she does not deserve particular chronicle here. It may, however, be well to take advantage of the introduction of this incident to make the statement that marriage between the followers of Cortés and his successors and the native maidens--who must first, as an unalterable rule, embrace the tenets of Christianity, which had borne its earliest message to them in the flame and steel of the massacre of their parents and kinsmen--was adopted as a matter of policy and resulted in the foundation of many lines which have continued to the present day.
Though there is no typical Aztec woman to present as representative of her sex and country, there is one whose name is so welded with the history of the fall of the Aztec power that a brief sketch of her story may be given here. She was of Mexican birth, but had been sold by her unprincipled mother as a slave, the mother thereby securing for her son by a second marriage the estate which would otherwise have fallen to the girl. When Cortés reached his first harbor on his road to Tenochtitlan, as the Aztec capital was called, the cacique of Tabasco presented him with several slaves, among whom was this girl, called by the Spaniards Doña Marina, and by the Mexicans Malinche. She was of great beauty and of a high degree of intelligence, and she soon came within the notice of Cortés by acting as interpreter for him when he was embarrassed by his inability to communicate with the Aztec embassy. She did not at that time speak Spanish, but she managed to interpret through an intermediary, and she soon became proficient in the language of the men with whom her lot was now thrown, from one of whom she learned more than the Castilian tongue.
The beauty of the young girl, whose charms are said by Spanish writers to have been extraordinary, soon captivated the heart of Cortés, and he first made her his secretary and then his mistress. At least so the fashion of our time would term her, but there can be little doubt that in the eyes of Marina, reared amid traditions of polygamy, there was nothing of wrong in her union with Cortés, and it may be noted that such a good and moral man as Father Olmedo had for her no word of reproof but rather of blessing. At all events, she openly lived with Cortés as his wife and by him had a son, Don Martin Cortés, acknowledged by his father, and who afterward became comendador of the Military Order of Saint lago.
Marina was a loving, faithful, tenderhearted woman, and she was in all ways true to her Spanish lover and to his countrymen, frequently extricating them from grave difficulties by her advice, given with knowledge of the natures as well as customs of the Mexicans. Perhaps this was only to be expected; but it is remarkable, and speaks volumes for her character, that she was always held in affectionate honor by the Mexicans themselves, though she dwelt in the camp of their oppressors. In truth, Marina time and again used her influence with Cortés on the side of mercy, and she always displayed a profound sympathy with the misfortunes of the Mexicans, notwithstanding the fact that she may have in some ways aided their foes and tyrants. Even though the act which more than aught else struck terror into the souls of the Indians--the cutting off of the hands of fifty Tlascalans, who had come to the camp of Cortés in the garb of ambassadors but were suspected of being spies--was directly traceable to the watchfulness of Marina in the cause of the man she loved, she was never held culpable by the natives for her guardianship, though this resulted so disastrously to those who, if not precisely her countrymen, were assuredly more nearly of consanguineous race than were those whom she defended from them. It was these people too, who, after their desperate but vain struggle with the Spaniards, whose arms and valor proved invincible against overwhelming numbers, were the most faithful allies of Cortés in his battles with the Aztecs. Muñoz Camargo relates that, among other tokens of their friendship, they presented numbers of "beautiful maidens" to the Conqueror and his companions.
All through the wonderful march to the capital, through the honorable reception accorded to Cortés, through the siege which was the consequence of Spanish treachery, through the "Terrible Night," which saw the banishment of Spanish power for a time from Tenochtitlan, through the long march back to the coast, through all perils, as through all triumphs, Marina stood by the side of her lover, watchful of his welfare, wise in suggestion, tender in helpfulness, in all things a noble type of woman. When the unhappy Montezuma was made prisoner within his own capital, Marina alone of those who surrounded him never forgot the reverence that was due to the monarch, and it was she who nursed him most tenderly when he lay dying under the wounds inflicted by his own outraged subjects. It was she who most uncomplainingly bore the privations of the siege, she who most bravely met the terrors of the "Noche Triste;" and it may be said that it was she more than any other single man or woman, Alvarado and Sandoval not excepted, who helped Cortés to establish the Spanish rule in Mexico.
The question of the gratitude of Cortés for these services and for her love is one that is to be settled by each reader of history according to his own ideas of the form which true appreciation should take. The facts are simple enough. In 1525 she was with the Conqueror at Coatzacualco, the province which could claim the honor of being her birthplace. Here, by accident, she came into contact with her own mother, who had sold her into slavery and who was now naturally terrified at meeting her injured daughter in a situation of power; but Marina, with her natural generosity, embraced her parent, assured her of her forgiveness, and even made her many presents, apparently in the wish to regain that affection which had once been hers in her babyhood. This was the last time that Marina appears by the side of Cortés; on the expedition to Honduras, made shortly afterward, he gave her away to Don Juan Xamarillo, a knight of Castile, who wedded her according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Here then is the question which each must decide for himself: Was Cortés just and generous in thus making disposition for the honorable and safe future of the woman who loved him, or was he merely ridding himself of one who had grown to be an encumbrance? It is impossible to answer; it is not even known whether the marriage was arranged with the sanction of Marina or whether it was a piece of tyranny on the part of the Conqueror, of venality on the part of Don Juan, of heartbroken docility on the part of Marina. Nor is there any record of the further life of the latter by which to decide the probabilities of her marriage being more than a mere contract; from the time of the completion of the ceremony the gentle Marina fades from the page of history. It is certain indeed that she was given estates in Coatzacualco,--possibly the bribe which induced Don Juan to wed the mistress of his captain,--but it is not even known that she lived to take possession of those estates. Except for the unmerited persecution and shameful torture undergone by her son, Don Martin Cortés, we are never again reminded in history that Marina had lived to be the right hand of one of the greatest conquerors of all time, to prove the most valuable ally found by the fierce enemies of her native land, and yet to be held in lasting honor alike by conquerors and conquered.
THE BEAUTIFUL MAIDENS PRESENTED TO THE SPANIARDSReproduced from the "Lienzo de Tlaxcala"
Muñoz Camargo relates hot their Tlaxcalan allies presented the Spaniards a large number of "beautiful maidens." This native representation of the scene shows Cortés seated, with his followers behind him, and at his side Marina, a young native woman who was his companion and interpreter. TheLienzo de Tlaxcalawas a long strip of canvas, containing forty-eight representations of scenes of the early Spanish invasions. The original was destroyed during the revolution following the downfall of Maximilian, but a copy had fortunately been made before the destruction.
Shortly before the marriage of Doña Marina, Cortés's legal wife a woman of low birth and a drag upon him in his upward career had come over from the Islands to New Spain, but she did not live long after her arrival, and her death furnished the later detractors of Cortés with a pretext to attack him in the way that could most deeply and yet safely pierce his defence. This was absurd enough, since Cortés had always treated his wife with affection and consideration; but suspicion was never entirely allayed. The facts of having thus influenced in some degree the fortunes of the Conqueror and of having been one of the first ladies of Spain to die on the shores of New Spain form the only title to mention in this history of Doña Catalina Xuarez.
There are indeed but few names of women associated with the conquest of Mexico, that of Marina standing out preeminent. Yet there were women not a few who exercised a certain influence on the fortunes of the Conqueror and his army, though their names are generally unknown to us. In the second march upon the Mexican capital many of the soldiers had brought their wives with them, and during the stress and storm of the days when Guatemozin was hurling his forces again and again upon the fearfully outnumbered but better armed Spaniards, these women did service in true Amazon style. Not only did they cheer and encourage the downhearted and prick the cowards--though there were very few of the latter in that little army--with the needle of their scorn, but they actually did soldier service as well. When Cortés had besought these women to remain at Tlascala, they had replied that "It was the duty of Castilian wives not to abandon their husbands in danger, but to share it with them, and, if necessary, to die with them." Though some of the names of these heroines have been embalmed in history by Herrera, they have but little meaning for us now; it is more to the point to know that one and all acted to the utmost of their conception of duty and that some of them mounted guard on the walls in the place of their husbands, while one was said actually to have donned mail at a time of disaster and rallied the retreating troops against the enemy. It cannot be said, however, that even these gallant dames showed a higher spirit than did the native women during the same time of battle. The Aztecs were suffering from many evils during the conflict when the Spaniards strove, for long in vain, to take from them their beautiful city. The plague of small-pox was abroad, brought to the Aztecs by a dying negro in the train of Cortés; and that unknown negro proved the most terrible foe of the Aztec nation. Yet, even though they were now dying by hundreds in the streets, while their thinning ranks were being swept by the fire-speaking tubes that weaponed the army of their foes, they fought fiercely on, and their women gave them noble aid and incitement. They stood by the side of the warrior in battle, strung his bow, filled his quiver, gave him fresh stones for his sling; they nursed the sick through all the horrors of the loathsome disease which had fastened upon them; and they did yet more, for they kept their hearts high with hope and determination when even the noblest warriors failed of these things, and so they upheld the hands of Guatemozin, their beloved but most unhappy chief, and upbore the standard of their country to the very end. It was all in vain; the Mexico of that civilization was doomed; but none the less did the women of that day, both pagan and Christian, display qualities which in the fusion of the races in after years should have borne noble fruit.
It is not the purpose of this work to trace the history of any country, save at the points where such history touches the universal story of woman; and so there exists no obligation to present to the reader even the most fragmentary sketch of the progress of Mexico from the rule of the barbarism of the Aztecs to that of the civilization of the Spaniards. The latter brought with them their own feminine culture, and for long held it apart from the conditions existing among the indigenous inhabitants of the land. Among the women of Spain who took up their abode in Mexico there are names which lend themselves to story; but their histories touched Mexico only as a scenic background, and, moreover, it would be an unfruitful digression to attempt to find any feminine history in the days of Spain's first occupation of Anahuac. The vice-roys held their courts with little less than regal splendor, and it cannot be that those courts were unadorned by the presence of women of high claim to remembrance; yet there comes down to us no name of those days touched with the halo of romance or in any way made worthy of memoir. Doubtless the ladies of the viceregal courts flaunted as costly attire and held themselves as haughtily as their sisters in the court of Spain itself; but they passed away and left no trace, even as an influence. For years of varying fortunes but of constant prosperity in high places, Spain held Mexico under dominance, until the oppression of the lower classes began to bear its invariable fruit, and there came first threats, and then acts of rebellion. There was revolution after revolution; but although the unsuccessful revolts bequeathed to history the names of such men as Hidalgo and Morelos, and the successful attempt to throw off the galling yoke of Spain, the names of Yturbide and Santa Anna, there comes down to us even from these later times the name of not one woman of renown. Moreover, there is but little in the way of development and change which is found for record. Long before the expulsion of the Spaniard, the Mexican people had come to be recognized as a nation, not merely descendants of the Spaniards, but a people of self-gained characteristics. Mexico was no longer New Spain; she was herself, even as, a few years before, a greater country on her borders had come to be itself in the matter of nationality, even before it had gained autonomy. To be a Mexican woman was not merely to be a lesser Spaniard, but to be something definite, something individual. Some of the older national traits had become developed, some atrophied; but long before Mexico had achieved her independence, the Mexican woman had attained her own freedom from Spanish dominance in matters of custom, thought, and even heredity.
Yet it cannot be said that there was progress. There was fixed development of nationality as displayed in the establishment of a characteristic femininity, but there was no evolution toward a higher type of individual or of civilization than had been known in the days of the coming of the Spaniards. On the contrary, there may be said to have been retrogression. The woman of Mexico--by which name we must now distinguish the descendants of the Spaniards, while those of Aztec blood, or descendants from any of the native tribes, may be called generically Indians--retained as a rule neither the activity and courage of the wives of theconquistadoresnor the graces and dignity of the dames of the viceregal courts. After the establishment of Mexican independence there came as first ambassador from Spain, in 1839, Señor Don Calderon de la Barca; and this gentleman brought with him his very accomplished wife. Madame Calderon, as is the case with most women, was an indefatigable letter-writer, especially when she was amid new conditions; and to a number of her letters, written with no intent of publication, but most vivid and entertaining in their presentation of the chief characteristics of Mexican social life, is owing much of the present-day knowledge of Mexican existence in the early part of the nineteenth century, when that existence had begun to be acknowledged as national and individual. There is no period better adapted than this to the purpose of finding and fixing a typical Mexican woman, for it was the time when the women of Anahuac had emerged from the imitation of Spanish characteristics and customs into a national female existence as well as type, and it was before their briefly held individuality failed beneath the incursions of a northern civilization which has been so universally destructive of national type wherever it has set foot.
Consideration of the characteristics of the Mexican woman of the forties may be begun with an extract from the letters of Madame Calderon. She is speaking of society women in Mexico, and she says: "I must put aside exceptions which are always rising up before me, and write en masse. Generally speaking, the Mexican señoras and señoritas write, read, and play a little; sew, and take care of their houses and children. When I say they read, I mean they know how to read; when I say they write, I do not mean that they can always spell; and when I say they play, I do not assert that they have a general knowledge of music. The climate inclines everyone to indolence, both physical and moral. One cannot pore over a book when the blue sky is constantly smiling in at the open windows." This language reads as the words of one who is reluctantly compelled to tell the whole truth and then seeks to withdraw or at least palliate the accusation which she has brought. It is entirely plain that at the time of Madame Calderon ignorance and sloth were the prevailing feminine characteristics among those who sat in high places. It is true that the chronicler goes on to say that the Mexican women generally made good wives and affectionate mothers; but even in this matter she does not strike us as speaking from conviction. However this may be, she is certainly at no loss to characterize the taste in dress displayed by the "fine ladies" upon festal occasions. Describing one of these, she writes: "Here was to be seen a group of ladies, some with black gowns and mantillas, others, now that their church-going duty was over, equipped in velvet or satin, with their hair dressed--and beautiful hair they have; some leading their children by the hand, dressed--alas, how were they dressed! Long, velvet gowns trimmed with blonde, diamond earrings, high French caps furbelowed with lace and flowers, or turbans with plumes of feathers. Now and then, the head of a little thing that could hardly waddle alone might have belonged to an English dowager-duchess in her opera-box. Some had extraordinary bonnets, and as they toddled along, top-heavy, one would have thought they were little old women, without a glimpse caught of their lovely little brown faces and blue eyes."
Though again Madame Calderon very kindly bestows her criticism upon the dresses of the children rather than those of the mothers, even a mere man can guess what must have been the appearance of the mothers who had chosen thus to dress their offspring.
It is not, however, among the higher classes of city-dwellers that one should seek for the most characteristic aspects of the life of a nation. These city-dwellers, and especially the female moiety of them, are apt to be mere imitators of other cultures, shaping their lives, as their costumes, in obedience to the dictates of some other land, higher in the scale of fashion. It is to the country, theterrisas distinguished from theurbis, that one must go to obtain the truth of female life in Mexico or any other land; for, though fashion may hold sway here also, it is less apt to overcome national taste and custom.
Female life on the great estates of Mexico, thehaciendas, in the first days of the republic was in a measure characteristic and individual--more so, at least, than at any time since the days of the first coming of the Spaniards. To some extent there was a continuance of the customs of the race which had dwelt in Anahuac before the coming of the invaders, the customs being modified by the conditions and needs of the new time. Among the upper classes, there was no costume peculiar to the country, save that nearly all wore the graceful veil in lieu of the hideous European headdress of the period. There was, however, then as now, a decided love for garishness of color among the Mexican women, and there was but little display of taste in the direction of costume.
The mistress of a large hacienda was somewhat in the position of one of the European "ladies of the castle" in feudal days; but as a rule--though, of course, the stated rules had many exceptions--she did not occupy herself in the same manner as did the feudal chatelaine. She was apt to be ignorant and lazy; she passed the greater part of the day in idling upon theazotea, as was called the roof-garden which crowned most of the long and low houses of the Mexican country estates, perhaps rolling and smoking her cigarettes,--for the Mexican ladies were inveterate smokers,--or perhaps writing apapelcitoto be sent to her lover in appointment of a tryst. This latter if she were young and handsome; if she were old--and no daughter of Anahuac passed the Rubicon of forty and retained her beauty in even the most modified form--she might reflect on her sins, which probably gave her some little uneasiness, or she might rehearse them into the ears of her confessor, or she might do aught that called for no exertion, of mind or body. Of the latter she would never be guilty, and the former she abhorred to an almost equal extent. There were, however, marked exceptions to the rule of inactivity of body in the persons of certain señoritas who could ride like Comanches and throw alazoalmost as well as their lovers and brothers, and who delighted in the display of these, their chief and perhaps only accomplishments. These ladies, however, were in the minority; the rule of Mexican female life was passivity, not to say sloth.
As in the case of their predecessors, so with the women of modern Mexico, consideration has been accorded chiefly to those of the upper class. There was, however, until recently a very large and significant class in Mexico calledpeons, who might be said roughly to answer to the servitors of European feudal times. This class was composed chiefly or entirely of those of native Indian blood, the descendants of the races enslaved by the Spaniards and set free so late in the history of Mexico as even now hardly to have lost in all respects the characteristics of slavery. These peons form the servitor class on the great haciendas, and are almost retainers of the wealthy proprietors. Their women are of widely different type from the señoras who form the bulk of the upper classes; and the same difference which exists to-day was even more determined in the days of the youth of the Mexican republic. So constant, indeed, have been the individualities of this people that it matters little whether we look at them in the past or in the present; as is generally the case with classes which represent the lower strata of the population and are from their very unimportance in the social scale less affected by outer influences and therefore more steadfast to national type, the peon class has altered but little in its peculiar customs and characteristics, these being modified only as is rendered necessary to meet the changes in material conditions which have from time to time occurred. In this peon class are encountered many recurrent and persistent customs of the Aztec civilization; but as these instances do not strongly affect the life of the women they may be passed over. That which it is needful to note, however, is the fact that always in the history of feminine Mexico it is these women, of truly native stock, who have formed the characteristically native class. It is they who have had and held a settled and constant tradition and custom; it is they who have conserved an individuality which has come down to them from mingled cultures--from that of the Aztecs, with their paradoxical civilization and nature, and that of the Spanish intruders, with their Latin characteristics modified by new environment. The mingling of these cultures produced the true Mexican individuality.
Yet, though individuality was at the time of the foundation of the republic to be found most decisive in the peon class, it may be broadly said that at that period the Mexican woman was generally characteristic and individual. She reproduced and accentuated many Spanish traits; she was gay beneath a mask of propriety, immoral--the rule of generalities must be remembered--under the cloak of a profound piety, vengeful and jealous under the garb of a real love, and in all ways was the emphasis of the Spanish woman of her time. She was more than that, however; she had her national and even racial traditions and characteristics which parted from the Castilian culture at certain points and turned to the old fount of the Aztec racial influence. She was more profoundly superstitious than her Spanish sister, and she was more concerned with outer guise in all matters of morality or religion. She would not for the world miss her accustomed attendance at mass, but she did not fail to recognize the opportunities offered by the ceremonial, with its genuflections and its periods of rest, for the transmittal of notes of amorous inspiration, and many was thebillet d'amourwhich was slipped by a tiny hand into a broader palm as the respective owners thereof bowed in apparently deep reverence at the elevation of the Host. Among the higher classes, the Mexican señora and señorita were far less educated and cultivated than their Spanish kindred; yet among the lower classes--not the peons, but the shopkeeper class in the cities, the small landholders in the country--education of a kind was further advanced in Mexico than in Spain. Most interesting in certain ways, though least individual of all, was this middle class, wearing as their festal costume, "white embroidered gowns, with white satin shoes and neat feet and ankles,rebozos, or bright shawls, thrown over their heads;" while the peasants on the same occasions were dressed in "short petticoats of two colors, generally scarlet and yellow, with thin satin shoes and lace-trimmed chemises." Stockings, it may be noticed, are not referred to in either case; sixty years ago they were not considered at allde rigueurin the costume of a Mexican woman of any but the very highest class and, if we are to believe all travellers, not even invariably among the señoritas themselves.
The Mexican woman of the dawn of the republic was a type--indefinite, even elusive, amid the crowd of southern Latin nationalities, yet possessing some distinctive traits of manner, custom, and nature, and by these to be distinguished from her Italian, Spanish, or even South American kinswomen. But the individuality which she possessed, never strongly marked, soon began to fade before the incursion of a northern culture, with its novel ideals, standards, and requisites. When the United States was at war with Mexico, the type of the latter culture was at its most distinctive stage; and, though there were not a few of the women who were enamored of the methods of the northern invaders and becameAyankeados, as sympathizers with the foe were contemptuously termed, yet, as a rule, the women of Mexico proved true daughters of Anahuac in their hatred of the enemy of their native land. But these passions passed away with the coming of peace; and the Maximilian episode served to bring Mexico into somewhat closer relation with the civilization of her northern border neighbor. Still the national culture, if so it can be called, remained practically unaffected for years after the founding of the republic; for the purely Spanish families had been banished in large numbers, and the Maximilian rule was too brief to effect a new Latin invasion.
But there was an invasion lowering upon the horizon of Mexico, though foreseen perhaps by few, which was destined to prove most effectual in influencing the future of the Mexican woman--the invasion of the Anglo-American in peaceful guise, armed with scrip and not with stave, and bearing the axe and spade in his hands. The wealth of Mexico began to attract the attention of the citizens of her northern neighbor, and they kindly hastened to relieve her of as much as she found at all burdensome and they themselves decided the discomfort of that burden. The typical American, the Americanpar excellence, he of the United States, invaded Mexico once more, though this time in search of dollars, not glory; and under his influence, perhaps yet more under that of his wife and daughters, the feminine civilization of Mexico lost its individuality in its acceptance of standards which were unfitted to its conditions and unacceptable to its traditions. The woman of Mexico forgot her history and her very nature, and became, in the majority of cases, a mere imitator of Anglo-Saxon and Gallic fashion and custom. Once she smoked her dainty cigarette with entire nonchalance; now, even though her English and North American sisters have found a charm in the nicotian incense that is offered to the god of social converse, your Mexican woman, having long since been told solemnly that "Las Americanasdo not smoke," has thrown away her little roll of paper and tobacco, and has become "proper" according to standards with which she should have nothing in common. She has doffed herrebozo--that which might have been termed the national garment of the Mexican woman--and has accepted the less graceful and becoming garments of European fashion. In all outer guise, she is steadfastly setting herself to become a mere imitation, if not a caricature, of the belles of other civilizations; but within she is still the child of the South, the daughter of a race of Indians, dashed indeed with Spanish blood but preserving many of the Indian characteristics intact; and these do not agree with normal culture. For it must be remembered that in Mexico there is to-day, owing to the wholesale expulsion of the Spaniards at the establishment of independence, hardly a family of unmixed blood; and those who do claim uncontaminated descent from the Spanishhidalgosare looked upon with utmost disfavor almost--ostracized, indeed. On the other hand, the Mexicans have come to look upon Americans of the North with respect and even affection, and to welcome them to their country and often to their homes. The result, of course, has been partly to establish a heterogeneous culture, neither Spanish, Indian, nor American, and yet a commingling of all three, at least in outward form. But beneath the veneer of the new culture the Mexican woman preserves the characteristics which have been hers for centuries and which in their greater part came down to her from her Indian forebears. She is still passionate, jealous, vengeful, sudden and violent in all her impulses, most of which are founded upon that which she calls her love, but which, as a rule, is but passion. Her traditions do not agree with her surroundings as she would fain make them; and the question as to which will finally survive in permanent conquest is one that can be answered by time alone, that convenient arbitrator to which to refer all vexed questions of this sort. To that tribunal may be left the questions for the future which have been suggested to thoughtful readers concerning the Mexican woman.