# The Native Races of the Pacific States/Volume 2/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE CIVILIZED NATIONS.
In the preceding volume I have had occasion several times to remark that, in the delineation of the Wild Tribes of the Pacific States, no attempt is made to follow them in their rapid decline, no attempt to penetrate their past or prophesy a possible future, no profitless lingering over those misfortunes that wrought among them such swift destruction. To us the savage nations of America have neither past nor future; only a brief present, from which indeed we may judge somewhat of their past; for the rest, foreign avarice and interference, European piety and greed, saltpetre, steel, small-pox, and syphilis, tell a speedy tale. Swifter still must be the hand that sketches the incipient civilization of the Mexican and ​Central American table-lands. For although here we have more past, there is still less present, and scarcely any future. Those nations raised the highest by their wealth and culture, were the first to fall before the invader, their superior attainments offering a more shining mark to a rapacious foe; and falling, they were the soonest lost,—absorbed by the conquering race, or disappearing in the surrounding darkness. Although the savage nations were rapidly annihilated, traces of savagism lingered, and yet linger; but the higher American culture, a plant of more delicate growth and more sensitive nature, withered at the first rude touch of foreign interference. Instead of being left to its own intuitive unfoldings, or instead of being fostered by the new-comers, who might have elevated by interfusion both their own culture and that of the conquered race, the spirit of progress was effectually stifled on both sides by fanatical attempts to substitute by force foreign creeds and polities for those of indigenous origin and growth. And now behold them both, the descendants of conquerors and of conquered, the one scarcely less denaturalized than the other, the curse inflicted by the invaders on a flourishing empire returning and resting with crushing weight on their own head. Scarce four centuries ago the empire of Charles the Fifth, and the empire of Montezuma the Second, were brought by the force of progress most suddenly and unexpectedly face to face; the one then the grandest and strongest of the old world as was the other of the new. Since which time the fierce fanaticism that overwhelmed the New World empire, has pressed like an incubus upon the dominant race, and held it fast while all the world around were making the most rapid strides forward.
No indigenous civilization exists in America to-day, yet the effects of a former culture are not altogether absent. The descendant of the Aztec, Maya, and Quiché, is still of superior mind and haughtier spirit than his roving brother who boasts of none but a savage ​ancestry. Still, so complete has been the substitution of foreign civil and ecclesiastical polities, and so far-reaching their influence on native character and conduct; so intimate the association for three and more centuries with the Spanish element; so closely guarded from foreign gaze has been every manifestation of the few surviving sparks of aboriginal modes of thought, that a study of the native condition in modern times yields, by itself, few satisfactory results. This study, however, as part of an investigation of their original or normal condition, should by no means be neglected, since it may furnish illustrative material of no little value.
Back of all this lies another element which lends to our subject yet grander proportions. Scattered over the southern plateaux are heaps of architectural remains and monumental piles. Furthermore, native traditions, both orally transmitted and hieroglyphically recorded by means of legible picture-writings, afford us a tolerably clear view of the civilized nations during a period of several centuries preceding the Spanish conquest, together with passing glances, through momentary clearings in the mythologic clouds, at historical epochs much more remote. Here we have as aids to this analysis,—aids almost wholly wanting among the so-called savage tribes, antiquities, tradition, history, carrying the student far back into the mysterious New World past; and hence it is that from its simultaneous revelation and eclipse, American civilization would otherwise offer a more limited field for investigation than American savagism, yet by the introduction of this new element the field is widely extended.
Nor have we even yet reached the limits of our resources for the investigation of this New World civilization. In these relics of architecture and literature, of mythology and tradition, there are clear indications of an older and higher type of culture than that brought immediately to the knowledge of the invaders; of a type that had temporarily deteriorated, perhaps through the ​influence of long-continued and bloody conflicts, civil and foreign, by which the more warlike rather than the more highly cultured nations had been brought into prominence and power. But this anterior and superior civilization, resting largely as it does on vague tradition, and preserved to our knowledge in general allusions rather than in detail, may, like the native condition since the conquest, be utilized to the best advantage here as illustrative of the later and better-known, if somewhat inferior civilization of the sixteenth century, described by the conqueror, the missionary, and the Spanish historian.
Antique remains of native skill, which have been preserved for our examination, may also be largely used in illustration of more modern art, whose products have disappeared. These relics of the past are also of the highest value as confirming the truth of the reports made by Spanish writers, very many, or perhaps most, of whose statements respecting the wonderful phenomena of the New World, without this incontrovertible material proof, would find few believers among the sceptical students of the present day. These remains of antiquity, however, being fully described in another volume of this work, may be referred to in very general terms for present purposes.
Of civilization in general, the nature of its phenomena, the causes and processes by which it is evolved from savagism, I have spoken sufficiently in the foregoing chapter. As for the many theories respecting the American civilization in particular, its origin and growth, it is not my purpose to discuss them in this volume. No theory on these questions could be of any practical value in the elucidation of the subject, save one that should stand out among the rest so preëminently well-founded as to be generally accepted among scientific men, and no one of all the multitude proposed has acquired any such preëminence. A complete résumé of all the theories on the subject, with the foundations which support them, is given ​elsewhere in connection with the ancient traditionary history of the aboriginal nations. It is well, however, to remark that our lack of definite knowledge about the origin of this civilization is not practically so important as might appear at first thought. True, we know not for certain whether it is indigenous or exotic; and if the former, whether to ascribe its cradle to the north or south, to one locality or many; or if the latter, whether contact with the old world was effected at one or many points, on one occasion or at divers epochs, through the agency of migrating peoples or by the advent of individual civilizers and teachers. Yet the tendency of modern research is to prove the great antiquity of the American civilization as well as of the American people; and if either was drawn from a foreign source, it was at a time probably so remote as to antedate any old-world culture now existing, and to prevent any light being thrown on the offspring by a study of the parent stock; while if indigenous, little hope is afforded of following rationally their development through the political convulsions of the distant past down to even a traditionally historic epoch.
I may then dispense with theories of origin and details of past history as confusing rather than aiding my present purpose, and as being fully treated elsewhere in this work. Neither am I required in this treatment of the civilized races to make an accurate division between them and their more savage neighbors, to determine the exact standard by which savagism and civilization are to be measured, or to vindicate the use of the word civilized as applied to the American nations in preference to that of semi-civilized, preferred by many writers. We have seen that civilization is at best only a comparative term, applied to some of the ever-shifting phases of human progress. In many of the Wild Tribes already described some of its characteristics have been observed, and the opposite elements of savagism will not be wanting among what I proceed ​to describe as the Civilized Nations. There is not a savage people between Anáhuac and Nicaragua that has not been influenced in its institutions by intercourse, warlike, social, or commercial, with neighbors of higher culture, and has not exerted in its turn a reflex influence on the latter. The difficulty of drawing division-lines between nations thus mutually acting on each other is further increased in America by the fact that two or three nations constitute the central figure of nearly all that has been observed or written by the few that came in actual contact with the natives. This volume will, therefore, deal rather with the native civilization than with the nations that possessed it.
While, however, details on all the points mentioned, outside of actual institutions found existing in the sixteenth century, would tend to confusion rather than to clearness, besides leading in many cases to endless repetition, yet a general view of the whole subject, of the number, extent, location, and mutual relations of the nations occupying the central portions of the continent at its discovery, as well as of their relations to those of the more immediate past, appears necessary to an intelligent perusal of the following pages. In this general view I shall avoid all discussion of disputed questions, reserving arguments and details for future volumes on antiquities and aboriginal history.
That portion of what we call the Pacific States which was the home of American civilization within historic or traditionally historic times, extends along the continent from north-west to south-east, between latitudes 22° and 11°. On the Atlantic side the territory stretches from Tamaulipas to Honduras, on the Pacific from Colima to Nicaragua. Not that these are definitely drawn boundaries, but outside of these limits, disregarding the New Mexican Pueblo culture, this civilization had left little for Europeans to observe, while within them lived few tribes uninfluenced or unimproved by contact with it. No portion of the globe, perhaps, ​embraces within equal latitudinal limits so great a variety of climate, soil, and vegetation—a variety whose important bearing on the native development can be understood in some degree, and which would doubtless account satisfactorily for most of the complications of progressional phenomena observed within the territory, were the connection between environment and progress fully within the grasp of our knowledge. All the gradations from a torrid to a temperate clime are here found in a region that lies wholly within the northern tropic, altitudinal variations taking the place of and producing all the effects elsewhere attributable to latitude alone. These variations result from the topography of the country as determined by the conformation given to the continent by the central cordillera. The Sierra Madre enters this territory from the north in two principal ranges, one stretching along the coast of the Pacific, while the other and more lofty range trends nearer the Atlantic, the two again uniting before reaching the isthmus of Tehuantepec. This eastern branch between 18° 40´ and 20° 30´ opens out into a table-land of some seventy-five by two hundred miles area, with an altitude of from six to eight thousand feet above the sea level. This broad plateau or series of plateaux is known as the tierra fria, while the lower valleys, with a band of the surrounding slopes, at an elevation of from three to five thousand feet, including large portions of the western lands of Michoacan, Guerrero, and Oajaca, between the two mountain branches, constitute the tierra templada. From the surface of the upper table-land rise sierras and isolated peaks of volcanic origin, the highest in North America, their summits covered with eternal snow, which shelter, temper, and protect the fertile plateaux lying at their base. Centrally located on this table-land, surrounded by a wall of lofty volcanic cliffs and peaks, is the most famous of all the valley plateaux, something more than one hundred and sixty miles in circuit, the valley of Mexico, Anáhuac, that is to say, 'country by ​the waters,' taking its name from the lakes that formerly occupied one tenth of its area. Anáhuac, with an elevation of 7,500 feet, may be taken as representative of the tierra fria. It has a mean temperature of 62°, a climate much like that of southern Europe, although dryer, and to which the term 'cold' can only be comparatively applied. The soil is fertile and productive, though now generally presenting a bare and parched surface, by reason of the excessive evaporation on lofty plains exposed to the full force of a tropical sun, its natural forest-covering having been removed since the Spanish conquest, chiefly, it is believed, through artificial agencies. Oak and pine are prominent features of the native forest-growth, while wheat, barley, and all the European cereals and fruits flourish side by side with plantations of the indigenous maize, maguey, and cactus. From May to October of each year, corresponding nearly with the hot season of the coast, rains or showers are frequent, but rarely occur during the remaining months. Trees retain their foliage for ten months in the year, and indeed their fading is scarcely noticeable. Southward of 18°, as the continent narrows, this eastern table-land contracts into a mountain range proper, presenting a succession of smaller terraces, valleys, and sierras, in place of the broader plateaux of the region about Anáhuac. Trending south-eastward toward the Pacific, and uniting with the western Sierra Madre, the chain crosses the isthmus of Tehuantepec at a diminished altitude, only to rise again and expand laterally into the lofty Guatemalan ranges which stretch still south-eastward to Lake Nicaragua, where for the second time a break occurs in the continental cordillera at the southern limit of the territory now under consideration. From this central cordillera lateral subordinate branches jut out at right angles north and south toward either ocean. As we go southward the vegetation becomes more dense, and the temperature higher at equal altitudes, but the same gradations of ​'fria' and 'templada' are continued, blending into each other at a height of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. The characteristics of the cordillera south of the Mexican table-land are lofty volcanic peaks whose lower bases are clothed with dense forests, fertile plateaux bounded by precipitous cliffs, vertical fissures or ravines of immense depth torn in the solid rock by volcanic action, and mountain torrents flowing in deep beds of porphyry and forming picturesque lakes in the lower valleys. Indeed, in Guatemala, where more than twenty volcanoes are in active operation, all these characteristic features appear to unite in their highest degree of perfection. One of the lateral ranges extends north-eastward from the continental chain, forming with a comparatively slight elevation the back-bone of the peninsula of Yucatan.
At the bases of the central continental heights, on the shores of either ocean, is the tierra caliente, a name applied to all the coast region with an elevation of less than 1,500 feet, and also by the inhabitants to many interior valleys of high temperature. So abruptly do the mountains rise on the Pacific side that the western torrid band does not perhaps exceed twenty miles in average width for its whole length, and has exerted comparatively little influence on the history and development of the native races. But on the Atlantic or gulf coast is a broad tract of level plain and marsh, and farther inland a more gradual ascent to the interior heights. This region presents all the features of an extreme tropical climate and vegetation. In the latitude of Vera Cruz barren and sandy tracts are seen; elsewhere the tierra caliente is covered with the densest tropical growth of trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers, forming in their natural state an almost impenetrable thicket. Cocoa, cotton, cacao, sugar-cane, indigo, vanilla, bananas, and the various palms are prominent among the flora; while the fauna include birds in infinite variety of brilliant plumage, with myriads of tormenting and deadly insects and reptiles. The atmosphere ​is deadly to all but natives. The moist soil, enriched by the decay of vegetable substances, breathes pestilence and malaria from every pore, except during the winter months of incessant winds, which blow from October to March. Southern Vera Cruz and Tabasco, the tierra caliente par excellence, exhibit the most luxuriant display of nature's prodigality. Of alluvial and comparatively recent formation this region is traversed by the Goazacoalco, Alvarado, Usumacinta, and other noble rivers, which rise in the mountains of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Tehuantepec. River-banks are crowded with magnificent forest-trees, and the broad savanas farther back marked off into natural plantations of the valuable dye-woods which abound there, by a network of branch streams and canals, which serve both for irrigation and as a medium of transport for the native products that play no unimportant rôle in the world's commerce. Each year inundations are expected between June and October, and these transform the whole system of lagoons into a broad lake. Farther up the course of the rivers on the foothills of the cordillera, are extensive forests of cedar, mahogany, zapote, Brazil, and other precious woods, together with a variety of medicinal plants and aromatic resins.
The whole of Yucatan may, by reason of its temperature and elevation above the sea, be included in the tierra caliente, but its climate is one of the most healthful in all tropical America. The whole north and west of the peninsula are of fossil shell formation, showing that at no very distant date this region was covered by the waters of the sea. There are no rivers that do not dry up in winter, but by a wonderful system of small ponds and natural wells the country is supplied with water, the soil being moreover always moist, and supporting a rich and vigorous vegetation.
Notwithstanding evident marks of similarity in nearly all the manifestations of the progressional spirit in aboriginal America, in art, thought, and religion, ​there is much reason for and convenience in referring all the native civilization to two branches, the Maya and the Nahua, the former the more ancient, the latter the more recent and wide-spread. It is important, however, to understand the nature and extent of this division, and just how far it may be considered real and how far ideal. Of all the languages spoken among these nations, the two named are the most wide-spread, and are likewise entirely distinct. In their traditional history, their material relics, and, above all, in their methods of recording events by hieroglyphics, as well as in their several lesser characteristics, these two stocks show so many and so clear points of difference standing prominently out from their many resemblances, as to indicate either a separate culture from the beginning, or what is more probable and for us practically the same thing, a progress in different paths for a long time prior to the coming of the Europeans. Very many of the nations not clearly affiliated with either branch show evident traces of both cultures, and may be reasonably supposed to have developed their condition from contact and intermixture of the parent stocks with each other, and with the neighboring savage tribes. It is only, however, in a very general sense that this classification can be accepted, and then only for practical convenience in elucidating the subject; since there are several nations that must be ranked among our civilized peoples, which, particularly in the matter of language, show no Maya nor Nahua affinities. Nor is too much importance to be attached to the names Maya and Nahua by which I designate these parallel civilizations. The former is adopted for the reason that the Maya people and tongue are commonly regarded as among the most ancient in all the Central American region, a region where formerly flourished the civilization that left such wonderful remains at Palenque, Uxmal, and Copan; the latter as being an older designation than either Aztec or Toltec, both of which stocks the race Nahua includes. ​The civilization of what is now the Mexican Republic, north of Tehuantepec, belonged to the Nahua branch, both at the time of the conquest and throughout the historic period preceding. Very few traces of the Maya element occur north of Chiapas, and these are chiefly linguistic, appearing in two or three nations dwelling along the shores of the Mexican gulf. In published works upon the subject the Aztecs are the representatives of the Nahua element; indeed, what is known of the Aztecs has furnished material for nine tenths of all that has been written on the American civilized nations in general. The truth of the matter is that the Aztecs were only the most powerful of a league or confederation of three nations, which in the sixteenth century, from their capitals in the valley, ruled central Mexico. This confederation, moreover, was of comparatively recent date. These three nations were the Acolhuas, the Aztecs, and the Tepanecs, and their respective capitals, Tezcuco, Mexico, and Tlacopan (Tacuba) were located near each other on the lake borders, where, except Mexico, they still are found in a sad state of dilapidation. Within the valley, in general terms, the eastern section belonged to Tezcuco, the southern and western to Mexico, and a limited territory in the north-west to Tlacopan. At the time when the confederation was formed, which was about one hundred years before the advent of the Spaniards, Tezcuco was the most advanced and powerful of the allies, maintaining her precedence nearly to the end of the fifteenth century. Tlacopan was far inferior to the other two. Her possessions were small, and according to the terms of the compact, which seem always to have been strictly observed, she received but one fifth of the spoils obtained by successful war. While keeping within the boundaries of their respective provinces, so far as the valley of Mexico was concerned, these three chief powers united their forces to extend their conquests beyond the limits of the valley in every direction. Thus under the leadership of a line ​of warlike kings Mexico extended her domain to the shores of either ocean, and rendered the tribes therein tributary to her. During this period of foreign conquest, the Aztec kings, more energetic, ambitious, warlike, and unscrupulous than their allies, acquired a decided preponderance in the confederate councils and possessions; so that, originally but a small tribe, one of the many which had settled in the valley of Anáhuac, by its valor and success in war, by the comparatively broad extent of its domain, by the magnificence of its capital, the only aboriginal town in America rebuilt by the conquerors in anything like its pristine splendor, and especially by being the people that came directly into contact with the invaders in the desperate struggles of the conquest, the Aztecs became to Europeans, and to the whole modern world, the representatives of the American civilized peoples. Hence, in the observations of those who were personally acquainted with these people, little or no distinction is made between the many different nations of Central Mexico, all being described as Aztecs. Indeed, many of the lesser nations favored this error, being proud to claim identity with the brave and powerful people to whose valor they had been forced to succumb. While this state of things doubtless creates some confusion by failing to show clearly the slight tribal differences that existed, yet the difficulty is not a serious one, from the fact that very many of these nations were unquestionably of the same blood as the Aztecs, and that all drew what civilization they possessed from the same Nahua source. I may therefore continue to speak of the Aztecs in their representative character, including directly in this term all the nations permanently subjected to the three ruling powers in Anáhuac, due care being taken to point out such differences as may have been noticed and recorded.
To fix the limits of the Aztec Empire with any approximation to accuracy is exceedingly difficult, both by reason of conflicting statements, and because the ​boundaries were constantly changing as new tribes were brought under Aztec rule, or by successful revolt threw off the Mexican yoke. Clavigero, followed by Prescott, gives to the empire the territory from 18° to 21° on the Atlantic, and 14° to 19° on the Pacific, exclusive, according to the latter author, of the possessions of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. But this extent of territory, estimated at nearly twice that of the state of California, gives an exaggerated idea of Anáhuac, even when that term is applied to the conquered territory of the whole confederacy. The limits mentioned are in reality the extreme points reached by the allied armies in their successful wars, or rather, raids, during the most palmy days of Aztec rule. Within these bounds were several nations that were never conquered, even temporarily, by the arms of Anáhuac, as for example the Tlascaltecs, the Tarascos, and the Chiapanecs. Many nations, indeed most of those whose home was far from the central capitals, were simply forced on different occasions by the presence of a conquering army to pay tribute and allegiance to the Aztec kings—an allegiance which they were not slow to throw off as soon as the invaders had withdrawn. Such were the nations of northern Guatemala and Soconusco, whose conquest was in reality but a successful raid for plunder and captives; such the nations of Tehuantepec, such the Miztecs and Zapotecs of Oajaca, the latter having completely regained their independence and driven the Aztecs from their soil before the coming of the Spaniards. Other nations were conquered only in the years immediately preceding the Spanish conquest; instance the Matlaltzincas just west of Anáhuac, and the Huastecs and Totonacs of Vera Cruz. By their successful raids among these latter peoples, the Aztecs only sealed their own doom, making inveterate foes of the coast nations, whose services would have been most efficacious in resisting the fatal progress of the Castilian arms. But other tribes less warlike and powerful, or nearer the strongholds of ​their conquerors, were, by means of frequent military expeditions made to check outbreaking rebellion, kept nominally subject to the Aztecs during fifty years, more or less, preceding the coming of the Spaniards, paying their annual tribute with some regularity. Outside the rocky barriers of their valley, the Mexicans maintained their supremacy only by constant war; and even within the valley their sway was far from undisputed, since several tribes, notably the Chalcas on the southern lake, broke out in open rebellion whenever the imperial armies were elsewhere occupied.
The Aztec empire proper, not restricting it to its original seat in the valley of Mexico, nor including within its limits all the nations which were by the fortunes of war forced at one time or another to pay tribute, may then be said to have extended from the valley of Mexico and its immediate environs, over the territories comprised in the present States of Mexico (with its modern subdivisions of Hidalgo and Morelos), Puebla, southern Vera Cruz, and Guerrero. Of all the nations that occupied this territory, most of them, as I have said, were of one blood and language with their masters, and all, by their character and institutions, possessed in greater or less degree the Nahua culture. Of many of the multitudinous nations occupying the vast territory surrounding the valley of Mexico, nothing is known beyond their names and their likeness, near or remote, to the Aztecs. For a statement of their names and localities in detail, the reader is referred to the Tribal Boundaries following the chapter on the Central Mexicans in the first volume of this work. Let it be understood, therefore, that the description of Aztec institutions contained in this volume applies to all the nations of the empire as bounded above, except where special limitation is indicated; besides which it has a general application to a much wider region, in fact to the whole country north of the isthmus of Tehuantepec.
In this connection, and before attempting a description ​of the Mexican nations beyond the limits of the empire,—nations more or less independent of Aztec sway,—a glance at ancient Mexican history seems necessary, as well to throw light on the mutual relations of the peoples of Anáhuac, as to partially explain the broad extent of the Nahua civilization and of the Aztec idiom. The old-time story, how the Toltecs in the sixth century appeared on the Mexican table-land, how they were driven out and scattered in the eleventh century, how after a brief interval the Chichimecs followed their footsteps, and how these last were succeeded by the Aztecs who were found in possession,—the last two, and probably the first, migrating in immense hordes from the far north-west,—all this is sufficiently familiar to readers of Mexican history, and is furthermore fully set forth in the fifth volume of this work. It is probable, however, that this account, accurate to a certain degree, has been by many writers too literally construed; since the once popular theory of wholesale national migrations of American peoples within historic times, and particularly of such migrations from the north-west, may now be regarded as practically unfounded. The sixth century is the most remote period to which we are carried in the annals of Anáhuac by traditions sufficiently definite to be considered in any proper sense as historic records. At this period we find the Nahua civilization and institutions established on the table-land, occupied then as at every subsequent time by many tribes more or less distinct from each other. And there this culture remained without intermixture of essentially foreign elements down to the sixteenth century; there the successive phases of its development appeared, and there the progressional spirit continued to ferment for a period of ten centuries, which fermentation constitutes the ancient Mexican history. During the course of these ten centuries we may follow now definitely now vaguely the social, religious, and political convulsions through which these aboriginals were doomed to pass. ​From small beginnings we see mighty political powers evolved, and these overturned and thrown into obscurity by other and rival unfoldings. Religious sects in like manner we see succeed each other, coloring their progress with frequent persecutions and reformations, not unworthy of old-world mediæval fanaticism, as partisans of rival deities shape the popular superstition in conformity with their creeds. Wars, long and bloody, are waged for plunder, for territory, and for souls; now, to quell the insurrection of a tributary prince, now to repel the invasion of outer barbarian hordes. Leaders, political and religious, rising to power with their nation, faction, city, or sect, are driven at their fall into exile, and thereby forced to seek their fortunes and introduce their culture among distant tribes. Outside bands, more or less barbarous, but brave and powerful, come to settle in Anáhuac, and to receive, voluntarily or involuntarily, the benefits of its arts and science.
I have no disposition unduly to magnify the New World civilization, nor to under-rate old world culture, but during these ten centuries of almost universal mediæval gloom, the difference between the two civilizations was less than most people imagine. On both sides of the Dark Sea humanity lay floundering in besotted ignorance; the respective qualities of that ignorance it is hardly profitable to analyze. The history of all these complicated changes, so far as it may be traced, separates naturally into three chronologic periods, corresponding with what are known as the Toltec, the Chichimec, and the Aztec empires. Prior to the sixth century doubtless there were other periods of Nahua greatness, for there is little evidence to indicate that this was the first appearance in Mexico of this progressive people, but previous developments can not be definitely followed, although affording occasional glimpses which furnish interesting matter for antiquarian speculation.
At the opening then, of the historic times, we find ​the Toltecs in possession of Anáhuac and the surrounding country. Though the civilization was old, the name was new, derived probably, although not so regarded by all, from Tollan, a capital city of the empire, but afterward becoming synonymous with all that is excellent in art and high culture. Tradition imputes to the Toltecs a higher civilization than that found among the Aztecs, who had degenerated with the growth of the warlike spirit, and especially by the introduction of more cruel and sanguinary religious rites. But this superiority, in some respects not improbable, rests on no very strong evidence, since this people left no relics of that artistic skill which gave them so great traditional fame; there is, however, much reason to ascribe the construction of the pyramids at Teotihuacan and Cholula to the Toltec or a still earlier period. Among the civilized peoples of the sixteenth century, however, and among their descendants down to the present day, nearly every ancient relic of architecture or sculpture is accredited to the Toltecs, from whom all claim descent. In fact the term Toltec became synonymous in later times with all that was wonderful or mysterious in the past; and so confusing has been the effect of this universal reference of all traditional events to a Toltec source, that, while we can not doubt the actual existence of this great empire, the details of its history, into which the supernatural so largely enters, must be regarded as to a great extent mythical.
There are no data for fixing accurately the bounds of the Toltec domain, particularly in the south. There is very little, however, to indicate that it was more extensive in this direction than that of the Aztecs in later times, although it seems to have extended somewhat farther northward. On the west there is some evidence that it included the territory of Michoacan, never subdued by the Aztecs; and it probably stretched eastward to the Atlantic, including the Totonac territory of Vera Cruz. Of the tribes or nations ​that made up the empire none can be positively identified by name with any of the later peoples found in Anáhuac, though there can be little doubt that several of the latter were descended directly from the Toltecs and contemporary tribes; and indeed it is believed with much reason that the semi-barbarous Otomís of Anáhuac, and several nations beyond the limits of the valley, may date their tribal history back to a period even preceding the Toltec era. During the most flourishing period of its traditional five centuries of duration, the Toltec empire was ruled by a confederacy similar in some respects to the alliance of later date between Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan. The capitals were Culhuacan, Otompan, and Tollan, the two former corresponding somewhat in territory with Mexico and Tezcuco, while the latter was just beyond the limits of the valley toward the north-west. Each of these capital cities became in turn the leading power in the confederacy. Tollan reached the highest eminence in culture, splendor, and fame, and Culhuacan was the only one of the three to survive by name the bloody convulsions by which the empire was at last overthrown, and retain anything of her former greatness.
Long-continued civil wars, arising chiefly from dissensions between rival religious factions, resulting naturally in pestilence and famine, which in the aboriginal annals are attributed to the direct interposition of irate deities, gradually undermine the imperial thrones. Cities and nations previously held in subjection or overshadowed by the splendor and power of Tollan, take advantage of her civil troubles to enlarge their respective domains and to establish independent powers. Distant tribes, more or less barbarous, but strong and warlike, come and establish themselves in desirable localities within the limits of an empire whose rulers are now powerless to repel invasion. So the kings of Tollan, Culhuacan, and Otompan lose, year by year, their prestige, and finally, in the middle of ​the eleventh century, are completely overthrown, leaving the Mexican table-land to be ruled by new combinations of rising powers. Thus ends the Toltec period of ancient Anáhuac history.
The popular account pictures the whole Toltec population, or such part of it as had been spared by war, pestilence, and famine, as migrating en masse southward, and leaving Anáhuac desolate and unpeopled for nearly a half century, to be settled anew by tribes that crowded in from the north-west when they learned that this fair land had been so strangely abandoned. This account, like all other national migration-narratives pertaining to the Americans, has little foundation in fact or in probability.
The royal families and religious leaders of the Toltecs were doubtless driven into perpetual exile, and were accompanied by such of the nobility as preferred, rather than content themselves with subordinate positions at home, to try their fortunes in new lands, some of which were perhaps included in the southern parts of the empire concerning which so little is known. That there was any essential or immediate change in the population of the table-land beyond the irruption of a few tribes, is highly improbable. The exiled princes and priests, as I have said, went southward, where doubtless they played an important part in the subsequent history of the Maya-Quiché nations of Central America, a history less fully recorded than that of Anáhuac. That these exiles were the founders of the Central American civilization, a popular belief supported by many writers, I cannot but regard as another phase of that tendency above-mentioned to attribute all that is undefined and ill-understood to the great and wonderful Toltecs; nor do I believe that the evidence warrants such an hypothesis. If the pioneer civilizers of the south, the builders of Palenque, Copan, and other cities of the more ancient type, were imbued with or influenced by the Nahua culture, as is not improbable, ​it certainly was not that culture as carried southward in the eleventh century, but a development or phase of it long preceding that which took the name of Toltec on the Mexican plateaux. With the destruction of the empire the term Toltec, as applied to an existing people, disappeared. This disappearance of the name while the institutions of the nation continued to flourish, may indicate that the designation of the people—or possibly of the ruling family—of Tollan, was not applied contemporaneously to the whole empire, and that in the traditions and records of later times, it has incidentally acquired a fictitious importance. Of the Toltec cities, Culhuacan, on the lake border, recovered under the new political combinations something of her old prominence; the name Culhuas applied to its people appears much more ancient than that of Toltecs, and indeed the Mexican civilization as a whole might perhaps as appropriately be termed Culhua as Nahua.
The new era succeeding the Toltec rule is that of the Chichimec empire, which endured with some variations down to the coming of Cortés. The ordinary version of the early annals has it, that the Chichimecs, a wild tribe living far in the north-west, learning that the fertile regions of Central Mexico had been abandoned by the Toltecs, came down in immense hordes to occupy the land. Numerous other tribes came after them at short intervals, were kindly received and granted lands for settlement, and the more powerful of the new comers, in confederation with the original Chichimec settlers, developed into the so-called empire. Now, although this occupation of the central table-lands by successive migrations of foreign tribes cannot be accepted by the sober historian, and although we must conclude that very many of the so-called new comers were tribes that had occupied the country during the Toltec period,—their names now coming into notice with their increasing importance and power,—yet it is probable that some new tribes, ​sufficiently powerful to exercise a great if not a controlling influence in building up the new empire, did at this time enter Anáhuac from the immediately bordering regions, and play a prominent part, in conjunction with the rising nations within the valley, in the overthrow of the kings of Tollan. These in-coming nations, by alliance with the original inhabitants, infused fresh life and vigor into the worn-out monarchies, furnishing the strength by which new powers were built up on the ruins of the old, and receiving on the other hand the advantages of the more perfect Nahua culture.
If one, and the most powerful, of these new nations was, as the annals state, called the Chichimec, nothing whatever is known of its race or language. The Chichimecs, their identity, their idiom, and their institutions, if any such there were, their name even, as a national appellation, were merged into those of the Nahua nations that accompanied or followed them, and were there lost. The ease and rapidity with which this tribal fusion of tongue and culture is represented to have been accomplished would indicate at least that the Chichimecs, if a separate tribe, were of the same race and language as the Toltecs; but however this may be, it must be conceded that, while they can not have been the wild cave-dwelling barbarians painted by some of the historians, they did not introduce into Anáhuac any new element of civilization.
The name Chichimec at the time of the Spanish conquest, and subsequently, was used with two significations, first, as applied to the line of kings that reigned at Tezcuco, and second, to all the wild hunting tribes, particularly in the broad and little-known regions of the north. Traditionally or historically the name has been applied to nearly every people mentioned in the ancient history of America. This has caused the greatest confusion among writers on the subject, a confusion which I believe can only be cleared up by the supposition that the name Chichimec, like ​that of Toltec, never was applied as a tribal or national designation proper to any people, while such people were living. It seems probable that among the Nahua peoples that occupied the country from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, a few of the leading powers appropriated to themselves the title Toltecs, which had been at first employed by the inhabitants of Tollan, whose artistic excellence soon rendered it a designation of honor. To the other Nahua peoples, by whom these leading powers were surrounded, whose institutions were identical but whose polish and elegance of manner were deemed by these self-constituted autocrats somewhat inferior, the term Chichimecs, barbarians, etymologically 'dogs,' was applied. After the convulsions that overthrew Tollan and reversed the condition of the Nahua nations, the 'dogs' in their turn assumed an air of superiority and retained their designation Chichimecs as a title of honor and nobility.
The names of the tribes represented as entering Anáhuac after the Chichimecs, but respecting the order of whose coming there is little agreement among authors, are the following: Matlaltzincas, Tepanecs, Acolhuas, Teo-Chichimecs (Tlascaltecs), Malinalcas, Cholultecs, Xochimilcas, Chalcas, Huexotzincas, Cuitlahuacs, Cuicatecs, Mizquicas, Tlahuicas, Cohuixcas, and Aztecs. Some of these, as I have said, may have entered the valley from the immediate north. Which these were I shall not attempt to decide, but they were nearly all of the same race and language, all lived under Nahua institutions, and their descendants were found living on and about the Aztec plateau in the sixteenth century, speaking, with one or two exceptions, the Aztec tongue.
In the new era of prosperity that now dawned on Anáhuac, Culhuacan, where some remnants even of the Toltec nobility remained, under Chichimec auspices regained to a great extent its old position as a centre of culture and power. Among the new nations ​whose name now first appears in history, the Acolhuas and Tepanecs soon rose to political prominence in the valley. The Acolhuas were the Chichimecs par excellence, or, as tradition has it, the Chichimec nation was absorbed by them, giving up its name, language, and institutions. The capitals which ruled the destinies of Anáhuac down to the fifteenth century, besides Culhuacan, were Tenayocan, Xaltocan, Coatlychan, Tezcuco, and Azcapuzalco. These capitals being governed for the most part by branches of the same royal Chichimec family, the era was one of civil intrigue for the balance of power and for succession to the throne, rather than one of foreign conquest. During the latter part of the period, Tezcuco, the Acolhua capital under the Chichimec kings proper, Azcapuzalco the capital of the Tepanecs, and Culhuacan held the country under their sway, sometimes allied to meet the forces of foreign foes, but oftener plotting against each other, each, by alliance with a second against the third, aiming at universal dominion. At last in this series of political manœuvres Culhuacan was permanently overthrown, and the Chichimec ruler at Tezcuco was driven from his possessions by the warlike chief of the Tepanecs, who thus for a short time was absolute master of Anáhuac.
But with the decadence of the Culhua power at Culhuacan, another of the tribes that came into notice in the valley after the fall of the Toltecs, had been gradually gaining a position among the nations. This rising power was the Aztecs, a people traditionally from the far north-west, whose wanderings are described in picture-writings shown in another part of this volume. Their migration is more definitely described than that of any other of the many who are said to have come from the same direction, and has been considered by different writers to be a migration from California, New Mexico, or Asia. Later researches indicate that the pictured annals are ​
simply as a record of the Aztec wanderings in the valley of Mexico and its vicinity. Whatever their origin, by their fierce and warlike nature and bloody religious rites, from the first they made themselves the pests of Anáhuac, and later its tyrants. For some centuries they acquired no national influence, but were often conquered, enslaved, and driven from place to place, until early in the fourteenth century, when Mexico or Tenochtitlan was founded, and under a line of able warlike kings started forward in its career of prosperity unequaled in the annals of aboriginal America. At the fall of Culhuacan, Mexico ranked next to Tezcuco and Azcapuzalco, and when the armies of the latter prevailed against the former, Mexico was the most powerful of all the nations that sprang to arms, and pressed forward to humble the Tepanec tyrant, to reïnstate the Acolhua monarch on his throne, and to restore Tezcuco to her former commanding position. The result was the utter defeat of the Tepanecs, and the glory of Azcapuzalco departed forever.
THE AZTEC ERA.
Thus ended in the early part of the fifteenth century the Chichimec empire,—that is, it nominally ended, for the Chichimec kings proper lost nothing of their power,—and, by the establishment of the confederacy already described, the Aztec empire was inaugurated. Under the new dispensation of affairs, Mexico, by whose aid chiefly Azcapuzalco had been humbled, received rank and dominion at least equal to that of Tezcuco, while from motives of policy, and in order, so far as possible, to conciliate the good will of a strong though conquered people, Tlacopan, under a branch of the Tepanecs, with a less extensive domain, was admitted to the alliance. The terms of the confederacy seem, as I have said, never to have been openly violated; but in the first years of the sixteenth century the Aztecs had not only excited the hatred of the most powerful nations outside the bounds of Anáhuac by their foreign raids, but by their arrogant overbearing spirit had made themselves obnoxious ​
at home. Their aim at supreme power was apparent, and both Tezcuco and the independent republic of Tlascala began to tremble at the dangerous progress of their mighty neighbor. A desperate struggle was imminent, in which the Aztecs, pitted against all central Mexico, by victory would have grasped the coveted prize of imperial power, or crushed as were the Tepanecs before them by a coalition of nations, would have yielded their place in the confederacy to some less dangerous rival. At this juncture Cortés appeared. This renowned chieftain aided Montezuma's foes to triumph, and in turn fastened the shackles of European despotism on all alike, with a partial exception in favor of brave Tlascala. The nations which formed the Aztec empire proper, were the tribes for the most part that have been named as springing into existence or notice in Anáhuac early in the Chichimec period, and the names of most of them have been preserved in the names of modern localities. It will be seen, in treating of the languages of the Pacific States, that the Aztec tongue, in a pure state, in distinct verbal or grammatical traces, and in names of places, is spread over a much wider extent of territory than can be supposed to have ever been brought under subjection to Anáhuac during either the Toltec, Chichimec, or Aztec phases of the Nahua domination. To account for this we have the commercial connections of the Aztecs, whose traders are known to have pushed their mercantile ventures far beyond the regions subjected by force of arms; colonies which, both in Toltec and Aztec times, may be reasonably supposed to have sought new homes; the exile of nobles and priests at the fall of the Toltec empire, and other probable migrations, voluntary and involuntary, of princes and teachers; the large detachments of Aztecs who accompanied the Spaniards in the expeditions by which the continent was brought under subjection; and finally, if all these are not sufficient, the unknown
history and migrations of the Nahua peoples during the centuries preceding the Toltec era. ​
THE TARASCOS OF MICHOACAN.
I will now briefly notice the civilized nations beyond the limits of Anáhuac, and more or less independent of the Aztec rule, concerning whose institutions and history comparatively little or nothing is known, except what is drawn from the Aztec annals, with some very general observations on their condition made by their Spanish conquerors. Westward of the Mexican valley was the flourishing independent kingdom of Michoacan, in possession of the Tarascos, whose capital was Tzintzuntzan on Lake Patzcuaro. Their country, lying for the most part between the rivers Mexcala and Tololotlan, is by its altitude chiefly in the tierra templada, and enjoys all the advantages of a tropical climate, soil, and vegetation. Topographically it presents a surface of undulating plains, intersected by frequent mountain chains and by the characteristic ravines, and well watered by many streams and beautiful lakes; hence the name Michoacan, which signifies 'land abounding in fish.' The lake region of Patzcuaro, the seat of the Tarasco kings, is described as unsurpassed in picturesque beauty, while in the variety of its agricultural products and in its yield of mineral wealth, Michoacan was equaled by few of the states of New Spain.
If we may credit the general statements of early authors, who give us but few details, in their institutions, their manners, wealth, and power, the Tarascos were at least fully the equals of the Aztecs, and in their physical development were even superior. That they successfully resisted and defeated the allied armies of Anáhuac is sufficient proof of their military prowess, although they yielded almost without a struggle to the Spaniards after the fall of Mexico. With respect to their civilization we must accept the statements of their superiority as the probably correct impression of those who came first in contact with this people, notwithstanding which I find no architectural or artistic ​
relics of a high culture within their territory. All that is known on the subject indicates that their civilization was of the Nahua type, although the language is altogether distinct from the Aztec, the representative Nahua tongue. The history of Michoacan, in the form of any but the vaguest traditions, does not reach back farther than the thirteenth century; nevertheless, as I have said, there is some reason to suppose that it formed part of the Toltec empire. The theory has even been advanced that the Tarascos, forming a part of that empire, were not disturbed by its fall, and were therefore the best representatives of the oldest Nahua culture. Their reported physical superiority might favor this view, but their distinct language on the contrary would render it improbable. A careful study of all that is known of this people convinces me that they had long been settled in the lands where they were found, but leaves on the mind no definite idea of their earlier history. Their later annals are made up of tales, partaking largely of the marvelous and supernatural, of the doings of certain demi-gods or priests, and of wars waged against the omnipresent Chichimecs. Branches of the great and primitive Otomí family are mentioned as having their homes in the mountains, and there are traditions that fragments of the Aztecs and other tribes which followed the Chichimecs into Anáhuac, lingered on the route of their migration and settled in the fertile valleys of Michoacan. Between the Tarascos and the Aztecs, speaking a language different from either but allied more or less intimately with the former, were the Matlaltzincas, whose capital was in the plateau valley of Toluca, just outside the bounds of Anáhuac. This was one of the tribes that have already been named as coming traditionally from the north-west. For a long time they maintained their independence, but in the last quarter of the fifteenth century were forced to yield to the victorious arms of Axayacatl, the Aztec warrior king. ​
Immediately below the mouth of the Mexcala, on the border of the Pacific, were the lands of the Cuitlatecs, and also the province or kingdom of Zacatollan, whose capital was the modern Zacatula. Of these two peoples absolutely nothing is known, save that they were tributary to the Aztec empire, the latter having been added to the domain of Tezcuco in the very last years of the fifteenth century.
The provinces that extended south-westward from Anáhuac to the ocean, belonging chiefly to the modern state of Guerrero and included in what I have described as the Aztec empire proper, were those of the Tlahuicas, whose capital was Cuernavaca, the Cohuixcas, capital at Acapulco, the Yoppi on the coast south of Acapulco, and the province of Mazatlan farther inland or north-east. The name Tlapanecs is also rather indefinitely applied to the people of a portion of this territory in the south, including probably the Yoppi. Of the names mentioned we have met those of the Tlahuicas and Cohuixcas among the tribes newly springing into notice at the beginning of the Chichimec period. It is probable that nearly all were more or less closely allied in race and language to their Mexican masters, their political subjection to whom dates from about the middle of the fifteenth century.
MIZTECS AND ZAPOTECS.
The western slope of the cordillera still farther south-west, comprising in general terms the modern state of Oajaca, was ruled and to a great extent inhabited by the Miztecs and Zapotecs, two powerful nations distinct in tongue from the Aztecs and from each other. Western Oajaca, the home of the Miztecs, was divided into Upper and Lower Miztecapan, the latter toward the coast, and the former higher up in the mountains, and sometimes termed Cohuaixtlahuacan. The Zapotecs in eastern Oajaca, when first definitely known to history, had extended their power over nearly all the tribes of Tehuantepec, besides encroaching somewhat on the Miztec boundaries. The Miztecs, notwithstanding the foreign aid of Tlascaltecs ​
and other eastern foes of the Aztec king, were first defeated by the allied forces of Anáhuac about 1458; and from that date the conquerors succeeded in holding their stronger towns and more commanding positions down to the conquest, thus enforcing the payment of tribute and controlling the commerce of the southern coast, which was their primary object. Tehuantepec and Soconusco yielded some years after to the conquering Axayacatl, and Zapotecapan still later to his successor Ahuitzotl; but in the closing years of the fifteenth century the Zapotecs recovered their country with Tehuantepec, leaving Socunusco, however, permanently in Aztec possession. The history of the two nations takes us no farther back than the fourteenth century, when they first came into contact with the peoples of Anáhuac; it gives a record of their rulers and their deeds of valor in wars waged against each other, against the neighboring tribes, and against the Mexicans. Prior to that time we have a few traditions of the vaguest character preserved by Burgoa, the historian of Oajaca. These picture both Miztecs and Zapotecs as originally wild, but civilized by the influence of teachers, priests, or beings of supernatural powers, who came among them, one from the south, and others from the direction of Anáhuac. Their civilization, however received, was surely Nahua, as is shown by the resemblances which their institutions, and particularly their religious rites, bear to those of the Aztecs. Being of the Nahua type, its origin has of course been referred to that inexhaustible source, the dispersion of the Toltecs, or to proselyting teachers sent southward by that wonderful people. Indeed, the Miztec and Zapotec royal families claimed a direct Toltec descent. It is very probable, however, that the Nahua element here was at least contemporaneous in its introduction with the same element known as Toltec in Anáhuac, rather than implanted in Oajaca by missionaries, voluntary or involuntary, from Tollan. I have already remarked that the presence of ​
Nahua institutions in different regions is too often attributed to the Toltec exiles, and too seldom to historical events preceding the sixth century. The Oajacan coast region or tierra caliente, if we may credit the result of researches by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, was sometimes known as Anáhuac Ayotlan, as the opposite coast of Tabasco was called Anáhuac Xicalanco. Both these Anáhuacs were inhabited by enterprising commercial peoples, whose flourishing centres of trade were located at short intervals along the coast. Material relics of past excellence in architecture and other arts of civilization abound in Oajaca, chief among which stand the remarkable structures at Mitla.
NATIONS OF TEHUANTEPEC.
Although Tehuantepec in the later aboriginal times was subject to the kings of Zapotecapan, yet within its limits, besides the Chontales,—a name resembling in its uncertainty of application that of Chichimecs farther north,—were the remnants of two old nations that still preserved their independence. These were the Mijes, living chiefly by the chase in the mountain fastnesses of the north, and the Huaves, who held a small territory on the coast and islands of the lagoons just east of the city of Tehuantepec. The Mijes, so far as the vague traditions of the country reveal anything of their past, were once the possessors of Zapotecapan and the isthmus of Tehuantepec, antedating the Zapotecs and perhaps the Nahua culture in this region, being affiliated, as some believe, in institutions and possibly in language, with the Maya element of Central America. While this connection must be regarded as somewhat conjectural, we may nevertheless accept as probably authentic the antiquity, civilization, and power of this brave people. The Huaves were traditionally of southern origin, having come to Tehuantepec by sea from Nicaragua or a point still farther south. In navigation and in commerce they were enterprising, as were indeed all the tribes of this southern-coast Anáhuac, and they took gradually from the Mijes, ​
whom they found in possession, a large extent of territory, which as we have seen they were finally forced to yield up to their Zapotec conquerors.
Crossing now to the Atlantic or Gulf shores we have from the past nothing but a confused account of Olmecs, Xicalancas, and Nonohualcas, who may have been distinct peoples, or the same people under different names at different epochs, and who at some time inhabited the lowlands of Tehuantepec and Vera Cruz, as well as those of Tabasco farther south. At the time of the conquest we know that this region was thickly inhabited by a people scarcely less advanced than those of Anáhuac, and dotted with flourishing towns devoted to commerce. But neither in the sixteenth nor immediately preceding centuries can any one civilized nation be definitely named as occupying this Anáhuac Xicalanco. We know, however, that this country north of the Goazacoalco River formed a portion of the Aztec empire, and that its inhabitants spoke for the most part the Aztec tongue. These provinces, known as Cuetlachtlan and Goazacoalco, were conquered, chiefly with a view to the extension of the Aztec commerce, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, notwithstanding the assistance rendered by the armies of Tlascala.
THE TLASCALTECS.
The plateau east of Anáhuac sometimes known as Huitzilapan was found by the Spaniards in the possession of the independent republics, or cities, of Tlascala, Huexotzinco, and Cholula. The people who occupied this part of the table-land were the Teo-Chichimecs, of the same language and of the same traditional north-western origin as the Aztecs, whom they preceded in Anáhuac. Late in the thirteenth century they left the valley of Mexico, and in several detachments established themselves on the eastern plateau, where they successfully maintained their independence of all foreign powers. As allies of the Chichimec king of Tezcuco they aided in overturning the Tepanec tyrant of Azcapuzalco; but after the subsequent dangerous ​
development of Aztec ambition, the Tlascaltec armies aided in nearly every attempt of other nations to arrest the progress of the Mexicans toward universal dominion. Their assistance, as we have seen, was unavailing except in the final successful alliance with the forces of Cortés; for, although secure in their small domain against foreign invasion, their armies were often defeated abroad. Tlascala has retained very nearly its original bounds, and the details of its history from the foundation of the city are, by the writings of the native historian Camargo, more fully known than those of most other nations outside of Anáhuac. This author, however, gives us the annals of his own and the surrounding peoples from a Tlascaltec stand-point only. Before the Teo-Chichimec invasion of Huitzilapan, Cholula had already acquired great prominence as a Toltec city, and as the residence of the great Nahua apostle Quetzalcoatl, of which era, or a preceding one, the famous pyramid remains as a memento. Outside of Cholula, however, the ancient history of this region presents but a blank page, or one vaguely filled with tales of giants, its first reputed inhabitants, and of the mysterious Olmecs, from some remaining fragments of which people the Tlascaltecs are said to have won their new homes. These Olmecs seem to have been a very ancient people who occupied the whole eastern region, bordering on or mixed with the Xicalancas in the south; or rather the name Olmec seems to have been the designation of a phase or era of the Nahua civilization preceding that known as the Toltec. It is impossible to determine accurately whether the Xicalancas should be classed with the Nahua or Maya element, although probably with the former.
The coast region east of Tlascala, comprising the northern half of the state of Vera Cruz, was the home of the Totonacs, whose capital was the famous Cempoala, and who were conquered by the Aztecs at the close of the fifteenth century. They were probably
one of the ancient pre-Toltec peoples like the Otomís and Olmecs, and they claimed to have occupied in former times Anáhuac and the adjoining territory, where they erected the pyramids of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan. Their institutions when first observed by Europeans seem to have been essentially Nahua, and the abundant architectural remains found in Totonac territory, as at Papantla, Misantla, and Tusapan, show no well-defined differences from Aztec constructions proper. Whether this Nahua ​culture was that originally possessed by them or was introduced at a comparatively late period through the influence of the Teo-Chichimecs, with whom they became largely consolidated, is uncertain. The Totonac language is, however, distinct from the Aztec, and is thought to have some affinity with the Maya.
North of the Totonacs on the gulf coast, in the present state of Tamaulipas, lived the Huastecs, concerning whose early history nothing whatever is known. Their language is allied to the Maya dialects. They were a brave people, looked upon by the Mexicans as semi-barbarous, but were defeated and forced to pay tribute by the king of Tezcuco in the middle of the fifteenth century.
NATIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA.
The difficulties experienced in rendering to any degree satisfactory a general view of the northern nations, are very greatly augmented now that I come to treat of the Central American tribes. The causes of this increased difficulty are many. I have already noticed the prominence of the Aztecs in most that has been recorded of American civilization. During the conquest of the central portions of the continent following that of Mexico, the Spaniards found an advanced culture, great cities, magnificent temples, a complicated system of religious and political institutions; but all these had been met before in the north, and consequently mere mention in general terms of these later wonders was deemed sufficient by the conquerors, ​
who were a class of men not disposed to make minute observations or comparisons respecting what seemed to them unimportant details. As to the priests, their duty was clearly to destroy rather than to closely investigate these institutions of the devil. And in the years following the conquest, the association between the natives and the conquerors was much less intimate than in Anáhuac. These nations in many instances fought until nearly annihilated, or after defeat retired in national fragments to the inaccessible fastnesses of the cordillera, retaining for several generations—some of them permanently—their independence, and affording the Spaniards little opportunity of becoming acquainted with their aboriginal institutions. In the south, as in Anáhuac, native writers, after their language had been fitted to the Spanish alphabet, wrote more or less fully of their national history; but all such writings whose existence is known are in the possession of one or two individuals, and, excepting the Popol Vuh translated by Ximenes as well as Brasseur de Bourbourg, and the Perez Maya manuscript, their contents are only vaguely known to the public through the writings of their owners. Another difficulty respecting these writings is that their dependence on any original authority more trustworthy than that of orally transmitted traditions, is at least doubtful. The key to the hieroglyphics engraved on the stones of Palenque and Copan, and painted on the pages of the very few ancient manuscripts preserved, is now practically lost; that it was possessed by the writers referred to is, although not impossible, still far from proven. Again, chronology, so complicated and uncertain in the annals of Anáhuac, is here, through the absence of legible written records, almost entirely wanting, so that it is in many cases absolutely impossible to fix even an approximate date for historical events of great importance. The attempts of authors to attach some of these events, without sufficient data, ​
to the Nahua chronology, have done much to complicate the matter still further.
The only author who has attempted to treat of the subject of Central American civilization and antiquity comprehensively as a whole is the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg. The learned abbé, however, with all his research and undoubted knowledge of the subject, and with his well-known enthusiasm and tact in antiquarian engineering, by which he is wont to level difficulties, apparently insurmountable, to a grade which offers no obstruction to his theoretical construction-trains, has been forced to acknowledge at many points his inability to construct a perfect whole from data so meagre and conflicting. Such being the case, the futility must be apparent of attempting here any outline of history which may throw light on the institutions of the sixteenth century. I must be content, for the purposes of this chapter, with a mention of the civilized nations found in possession of the country, and a brief statement of such prominent points in their past as seem well-authenticated and important.
THE ANCIENT MAYA EMPIRE.
Closely enveloped in the dense forests of Chiapas, Guatemala, Yucatan, and Honduras, the ruins of several ancient cities have been discovered, which are far superior in extent and magnificence to any seen in Aztec territory, and of which a detailed description may be found in the fourth volume of this work. Most of these cities were abandoned and more or less unknown at the time of the conquest. They bear hieroglyphic inscriptions apparently identical in character; in other respects they resemble each other more than they resemble the Aztec ruins—or even other and apparently later works in Guatemala and Honduras. All these remains bear evident marks of great antiquity. Their existence and similarity, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, would indicate the occupation of the whole country at some remote period by nations far advanced in civilization, and closely allied in manners and customs, if not in blood and language. Furthermore, the ​
traditions of several of the most advanced nations point to a wide-spread civilization introduced among a numerous and powerful people by Votan and Zamná, who, or their successors, built the cities referred to, and founded great allied empires in Chiapas, Yucatan and Guatemala; and moreover, the tradition is confirmed by the universality of one family of languages or dialects spoken among the civilized nations, and among their descendants to this day. I deem the grounds sufficient, therefore, for accepting this Central American civilization of the past as a fact, referring it not to an extinct ancient race, but to the direct ancestors of the peoples still occupying the country with the Spaniards, and applying to it the name Maya as that of the language which has claims as strong as any to be considered the mother tongue of the linguistic family mentioned. As I have said before, the phenomena of civilization in North America may be accounted for with tolerable consistency by the friction and mixture of this Maya culture and people with the Nahua element of the north; while that either, by migrations northward or southward, can have been the parent of the other within the traditionally historic past, I regard as extremely improbable. That the two elements were identical in their origin and early development is by no means impossible; all that we can safely presume is that within historic times they have been practically distinct in their workings.
There are also some rather vague traditions of the first appearance of the Nahua civilization in the regions of Tabasco and Chiapas, of its growth, the gradual establishment of a power rivalling that of the people I call Mayas, and of a struggle by which the Nahuas were scattered in different directions, chiefly northward, to reappear in history some centuries later as the Toltecs of Anáhuac. While the positive evidence in favor of this migration from the south is very meagre, it must be admitted that a southern origin of the Nahua culture is far more consistent with fact and ​
tradition than was the north-western origin, so long implicitly accepted. There are no data by which to fix the period of the original Maya empire, or its downfall or breaking-up into rival factions by civil and foreign wars. The cities of Yucatan, as is clearly shown by Mr Stephens, were, many of them, occupied by the descendants of the builders down to the conquest, and contain some remnants of wood-work still in good preservation, although some of the structures appear to be built on the ruins of others of a somewhat different type. Palenque and Copan, on the contrary, have no traces of wood or other perishable material, and were uninhabited and probably unknown in the sixteenth century. The loss of the key to what must have been an advanced system of hieroglyphics, while the spoken language survived, is also an indication of great antiquity, confirmed by the fact that the Quiché structures of Guatemala differed materially from those of the more ancient epoch. It is not likely that the Maya empire in its integrity continued later than the third or fourth century, although its cities may have been inhabited much later, and I should fix the epoch of its highest power at a date preceding rather than following the Christian era. A Maya manuscript fixes the date of the first appearance in Yucatan of the Tutul Xius at 171 A. D. The Abbé Brasseur therefore makes this the date of the Nahua dispersion, believing, on apparently very slight foundation, the Tutul Xius to be one of the Nahua fragments. With the breaking-up of this empire into separate nations at an unknown date, the ancient history of Central America as a whole ceases, and down to a period closely preceding the conquest we have only an occasional event preserved in the traditions of two or three nations.
MAYA NATIONS OF YUCATAN.
Yucatan was occupied in the sixteenth century by the Mayas proper, all speaking the same language, and living under practically the same institutions, religious and political. The chief divisions were the ​
Cocomes, Tutul Xius, Itzas, and Cheles, which seem to have been originally the designations of royal or priestly families, rather than tribal names proper of the peoples over whom they held sway. Each of these had their origin-traditions of immigrating tribes or teachers who came in the distant past to seek new homes, escape persecution, or introduce new religious ideas, in the fertile Maya plains. Some of these stranger apostles of new creeds are identified by authors with Toltec missionaries or exiles from Anáhuac. The evidence in favor of this identity in any particular case is of course unsatisfactory, but that it was well-founded in some cases is both probable,—commercial intercourse having undoubtedly made the two peoples mutually acquainted with each other,—and is supported by the presence of Nahua names of rulers and priests, and of Nahua elements in the Yucatec religion, the same remark applying to all Central America. The ancient history of Yucatan is an account of the struggles, alliances, and successive domination of the factions mentioned. To enumerate here, in outline even, these successive changes so vaguely and confusedly recorded would be useless, especially as their institutions, so far as can be known, were but slightly affected by political changes among people of the same blood, language, and religion.
The Cocomes were traditionally the original Maya rulers of the land, and the Tutul Xius first came into notice in the second century, the Itzas and Cheles appearing at a much later date. One of the most prosperous eras in the later history of the peninsula of Yucatan is represented to have followed the appearance of Cuculcan, a mysterious stranger corresponding closely in his teachings, as in the etymology of his name, with the Toltec Quetzalcoatl. He became the head of the Cocome dynasty at Mayapan, and ruled the country as did his successors after him in alliance with the Tutul Xius at Uxmal, the Itzas at Chichen Itza, and the Cheles at Izamal. But later the Cocomes ​
were overthrown, and Mayapan destroyed by a revolution of the allies. The Tutul Xius now became the leading power, a position which they held down to the time, not long before the conquest, when the country was divided by war and civil dissensions into numerous petty domains, each ruled by its chief and independent of the rest, all in a weak and exhausted condition compared with their former state, and unable to resist by united effort the progress of the Spanish invaders whom individually they fought most bravely. Three other comparatively recent events of some importance in Yucatec history may be noticed. The Cocomes in the struggle preceding their fall called in the aid of a large force of Xicalancas, probably a Nahua people, from the Tabascan coast region, who after their defeat were permitted by the conquerors to settle in the country. A successful raid by some foreign people, supposed with some reason to be the Quichés from Guatemala, is reported to have been made against the Mayas with, however, no important permanent results. Finally a portion of the Itzas migrated southward and settled in the region of Lake Peten, establishing their capital city on an island in the lake. Here they were found, a powerful and advanced nation, by Hernan Cortés in the sixteenth century, and traces of their cities still remain, although it must be noted that another and older class of ruins are found in the same region, dating back perhaps to a time when the glory of the Maya empire had not wholly departed.
CHIAPAS AND GUATEMALA.
Chiapas, politically a part of the Mexican Republic, but belonging geographically to Central America, was occupied by the Chiapanecs, Tzendales, and Quelenes. The Tzendales lived in the region about Palenque, and were presumably the direct descendants of its builders, their language having nearly an equal claim with the Maya to be considered the mother tongue. The Chiapanecs of the interior were a warlike tribe, and had before the coming of the Spaniards conquered the ​
other nations, forcing them to pay tribute, and successfully resisting the attacks of the Aztec allies. They also are a very old people, having been referred even to the tribes that preceded the establishment of Votan's empire. Statements concerning their history are numerous and irreconcilable; they have some traditions of having come from the south; their linguistic affinity with the Mayas is at least very slight. The Quelenes or Zotziles, whose past is equally mysterious, inhabited the southern or Guatemalan frontier.
Guatemala and northern Honduras were found in possession of the Mames in the north-west, the Pocomams in the south-east, the Quichés in the interior, and the Cakchiquels in the south. The two latter were the most powerful and ruled the country from their capitals of Utatlan and Patinamit, where they resisted the Spaniards almost to the point of annihilation, retiring for the most part after defeat to live by the chase in the distant mountain gorges. Guatemalan history from the Votan empire down to an indefinite date not many centuries before the conquest is a blank. It recommences with the first traditions of the nations just mentioned. These traditions, as in the case of every American people, begin with the immigration of foreign tribes into the country as the first in the series of events leading to the establishment of the Quiché-Cakchiquel empire. Assuming the Toltec dispersion from Anáhuac in the eleventh century as a well-authenticated fact, most writers have identified the Guatemalan nations, except perhaps the Mames by some considered the descendants of the original inhabitants, with the migrating Toltecs who fled southward to found a new empire. I have already made known my scepticism respecting national American migrations in general, and the Toltec migration southward in particular, and there is nothing in the annals of Guatemala to modify the views previously expressed. The Quiché traditions are vague and without chronologic order, much less definite than ​
those relating to the mythical Aztec wanderings. The sum and substance of the Quiché and Toltec identity is the traditional statement that the former people entered Guatemala at an unknown period in the past, while the latter left Anáhuac in the eleventh century. That the Toltecs should have migrated en masse southward, taken possession of Guatemala, established a mighty empire, and yet have abandoned their language for dialects of the original Maya tongue is in the highest degree improbable. It is safer to suppose that the mass of the Quichés and other nations of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Honduras, were descended directly from the Maya builders of Palenque, and from contemporary peoples. Yet the differences between the Quiché-Cakchiquel structures, and the older architectural remains of the Maya empire indicate a new era of Maya culture, originated not unlikely by the introduction of foreign elements. Moreover, the apparent identity in name and teachings between the early civilizers of the Quiché tradition and the Nahua followers of Quetzalcoatl, together with reported resemblances between actual Quiché and Aztec institutions as observed by Europeans, indicate farther that the new element was engrafted on Maya civilization by contact with the Nahuas, a contact of which the presence of the exiled Toltec nobility may have been a prominent feature. After the overthrow of the original empire we may suppose the people to have been subdivided during the course of centuries by civil wars and sectarian struggles into petty states, the glory of their former greatness vanished and partially forgotten, the spirit of progress dormant, to be roused again by the presence of the Nahua chiefs. These gathered and infused new life into the scattered remnants; they introduced some new institutions, and thus aided the ancient people to rebuild their empire on the old foundations, retaining the dialects of the original language.
NICARAGUANS AND PIPILES.
In addition to the peoples thus far mentioned, there ​
were undoubtedly in Nicaragua, and probably in Salvador, nations of nearly pure Aztec blood and language. The former are known among different authors as Nicaraguans, Niquirans, or Cholutecs, and they occupied the coast between lake Nicaragua and the ocean, with the lake islands. Their institutions, political and religious, were nearly the same as those of the Aztecs of Anáhuac, and they have left abundant relics in the form of idols and sepulchral deposits, but no architectural remains. These relics are moreover hardly less abundant in the territory of the adjoining tribes, nor do they differ essentially in their nature; hence we must conclude that some other Nicaraguan peoples, either by Aztec or other influence, were considerably advanced in civilization. The Nahua tribes of Salvador, the ancient Cuscatlan, were known as Pipiles, and their culture appears not to have been of a high order. Both of these nations probably owe their existence to a colony sent southward from Anáhuac; but whether in Aztec or pre-Aztec times, the native traditions, like their interpretation by writers on the subject, are inextricably confused and at variance. For further details on the location of Central American nations I refer to the statement of tribal boundaries at the end of Chapter VII., Volume I., of this work.
I here close this general view of the subject, and if it is in some respects unsatisfactory, I cannot believe that a different method of treatment would have rendered it less so. To have gone more into detail would have tended to confuse rather than elucidate the matter in the reader's mind, unless with the support of extensive quotations from ever-conflicting authorities, which would have swollen this general view from a chapter to a volume. As far as antiquity is concerned, the most intricate element of the subject, I shall attempt to present—if I cannot reconcile—all the important variations of opinion in another division of this work. ​
In the treatment of my subject, truth and accuracy are the principal aim, and these are never sacrificed to graphic style or glowing diction. As much of interest is thrown into the recital as the authorities justify, and no more. Often may be seen the more striking characteristics of these nations dashed off with a skill and brilliance equaled only by their distance from the facts; disputed points and unpleasing traits glossed over or thrown aside whenever they interfere with style and effect. It is my sincere desire, above all others, to present these people as they were, not to make them as I would have them, nor to romance at the expense of truth; nevertheless, it is to be hoped that in the truth enough of interest will remain to command the attention of the reader. My treatment of the subject is essentially as follows: The civilized peoples of North America naturally group themselves in two great divisions, which for convenience may be called the Nahuas and the Mayas respectively; the first representing the Aztec civilization of Mexico, and the second the Maya-Quiché civilization of Central America. In describing their manners and customs, five large divisions may be made of each group. The first may be said to include the systems of government, the order of succession, the ceremonies of election, coronation, and anointment, the magnificence, power, and manner of life of their kings; court forms and observances; the royal palaces and gardens. The second comprises the social system; the classes of nobles, gentry, plebeians and slaves; taxation, tenure, and distribution of lands; vassalage and feudal service; the inner life of the people; their family and private relations, such as marriage, divorce, and education of youth; other matters, such as their dress, food, games, feasts and dances, knowledge of medicine, and manner of burial. The third division includes their system of war, their relations with foreign powers, their warriors and orders of knighthood, their treatment of prisoners of war and ​
their weapons. The fourth division embraces their system of trade and commerce, the community of merchants, their sciences, arts, and manufactures. The fifth and last considers their judiciary, law-courts, and legal officials. I append as more appropriately placed here than elsewhere, a note on the etymological meaning and derivation, so far as known,

### ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES.

<a name="acolhua" id="acolhua">Acolhuas</a>;—Possibly from coloa, 'to bend,' meaning with the prefix atl, 'water-colhuas,' or 'people at the bend of the water.' Not from acolli, 'shoulder,' nor from colli, 'grandfather.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 85, 89. 'Coloa, encoruar, o entortar algo, o rodear yendo camino.' 'Acolli, ombro.' 'Culhuia, lleuar a otro por rodeos a alguna parte.' Molina, Vocabulario. Colli, 'grand-father,' plural colhuan. Colhuacan, or Culiacan, may then mean 'the land of our ancestors.' Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., pp. 204-5. 'El nombre de aculhuas, ó segun la ortografía mexicana, aculhuaque, en plural, y no aculhuacanes, ni aculhues.' Dicc. Univ., tom. i., p. 39. 'Col, chose courbe, faisant coloa, colua, ou culhua, nom appliqué plus tard dans le sens d'ancêtre, parce que du Colhuacan primitif, des îles de la Courbe, vinrent les émigrés qui civilisèrent les habitants de la vallée d'Anahuac.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, p. 407. 'Colhua, ou culhua, culua, de coltic, chose courbée. De là le nom de la cité de Colhuacan, qu'on traduit indifféremment, ville de la courbe, de choses recourbées (des serpents), et aussi des aïeux, de coltzin, aïeul.' Id., Popol Vuh, p. xxix.
Aztecs;—From Aztlan, the name of their ancient home, from a root Aztli, which is lost. It has no connection with azcatl, 'ant,' but may have some reference to iztac, 'white.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 5-6. 'De Aztlan se deriva el nacional Aztecatl.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 158. 'Az, primitif d'azcatl, fourmi, est le mot qui désigne, à la fois, d'une manière générale, la vapeur, le gaz, ou toute chose légère, comme le vent ou la pluie; c'est l'aile, aztli qui désigne aussi la vapeur, c'est le héron dans aztatl. Il se retrouve, avec une légère variante, dans le mot nahuatl composé, tem-az-calli, bain de vapeur, dans ez-tli, le sang ou la lave; dans les vocables quichés atz, bouffée du fumée, épouvantail, feu-follet.... Ainsi les fourmis de la tradition haïtienne, comme de la tradition mexicaine, sont à la fois des images des feux intérieurs de la terre et de leurs exhalaisons, comme du travail des mines et de l'agriculture. Du même primitif az vient Aztlan "le Pays sur ou dans le gaz, az-tan, az-dan, la terre sèche, soulevée par les gaz ou remplie de vapeurs."' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, p. 311.
Chalcas;—'Il nome Chalcho vale, Nella gemma. Il P. Acosta dice, che Chalco vuol dire, Nelle bocche.' Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 253. Buschmann believes Acosta's definition 'in the mouths' to be more ​correct. Ortsnamen, p. 83. 'Chalca, Ce qui est le calcaire; c'est l'examen de tous les vocables mexicains, commençant en chal, qui m'a fait découvrir le sens exact de ce mot; il se trouve surtout dan chal-chi-huitl, le jade, littéralement ce qui est sorti du fond du calcaire.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, pp. 403, 406.
Cheles;—'Le Chel dans la langue maya est une espèce d'oiseaux particuliers à cette contrée.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 19.
Chiapanecs;—Chiapan, 'locality of the chia' (oil-seed). Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 187. 'Chiapanèque, du nahuatl chiapanecatl, c'est-à-dire homme de la rivière Chiapan (eau douce), n'est pas le nom véritable de ce peuple; c'est celui que lui donnèrent les Mexicains.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 87.
Chichimecs;—'Chichi, perro, o perra.' Molina, Vocabulario. Chichi, 'dog'; perhaps as inhabitants of Chichimecan, 'place of dogs.' Mecatl may mean 'line,' 'row,' 'race,' and Chichimecatl, therefore 'one of the race of dogs.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 79, 81. 'Chichimèque veut dire, à proprement parler, homme sauvage.... Ce mot désigne des hommes qui mangent de la viande crue et sucent le sang des animaux; car chichiliztli veut dire, en mexicain, sucer; chichinaliztli, la chose que l'on suce, et Chichihualli, mamelle.... Toutes les autres nations les redoutaient et leur donnaient le nom de Suceurs, en mexicain, Chichimecatechinani. ... Les Mexicains nomment aussi les chiens chichime, parce qu'ils lèchent le sang des animaux et le sucent.' Camargo, Hist. Tlaxcallan, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1843, tom. xcviii., p. 140. 'Teuchichimecas, que quiere decir del todo barbados, que por otro nombre se decian Cacachimecas, ó sea hombres silvestres.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., p. 116. 'Chichimec ou chichimetl, suceur de maguey, et de là les Chichimèques.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 171, 56. Other derivations are from Chichen, a city of Yucatan, and from chichiltic 'red,' referring to the color of all Indians. Id., Popol Vuh, p. lxiii. 'Chi ... selon Vetancourt, c'est une préposition, exprimant ce qui est tout en bas, au plus profond, comme aco signifie ce qui est au plus haut.... Chichi est un petit chien (chi-en), de ceux qu'on appelle de Chihuahua, qui se creusent des tanières souterraines.... Chichi énonce tout ce qui est amer, aigre ou âcre, tout ce qui fait tache: il a le sens de sucer, d'absorber; c'est la salive, c'est le poumon et la mamelle. Si maintenant ... j'ajoute me, primitif de metl, aloès, chose courbée, vous aurez Chichime, choses courbes, tortueuses, suçantes, absorbantes, amères, âcres ou acides, se cachant, comme les petits chiens terriers, sous le sol où elles se concentrent, commes des poumons ou des mamelles.... Or, puisqu'il est acquis, d'après ces peintures et ces explications, que tout cela doit s'appliquer à une puissance tellurique, errante, d'ordinaire, comme les populations nomades, auxquelles on attacha le nom de Chichimeca.' Id., Quatre Lettres, pp. 111-12.
Cholultecs;—From choloa, meaning 'to spring,' 'to run,' 'to flee,' or 'place where water springs up,' 'place of flight,' or 'fugitives.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 100. 'C'est du lieu d'où ils étaient sortis primitivement, ou plutôt à cause de leur qualité actuelle d'exilés, qu'ils prirent ensuite le nom ​de Cholutecas.' 'Cholutecas, mieux Cholultecas, c'est-à-dire, Exilés, et aussi, Habitants de Cholullan.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 79.
Chontales;—'Chontalli, estrangero o forastero.' Molina, Vocabulario; Orozco y Berra, Geografía, p. 21; Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 133; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 47.
Cocomes;—'Cocom signifie écouteur, croyant.' Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 39. 'Cocom est un nom d'origine nahuatl; il est le pluriel de cohuatl, serpent.... Dans la langue maya, le mot cocom a la signification d'écouteur, celui qui entend; cette étymologie nous paraît plus rationnelle que la première.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 78.
Cohuixcas;—Ayala translates the name of their province Cuixca, 'tierra de lagartijas.' Orozco y Berra, Geografía, p. 48.
Cuitlahuacs;—'Cuitlatl, excremento, y genéricamente cosa sucia.' Orozco y Berra, Geografía, p. 47. 'Cuitlahuac, Dans celui qui a les Excréments, de cuitlatl, excrément, déjection de l'homme ou de l'animal, mais que le chroniste mexicain applique ici aux déjections du volcan voisin de la Grande-Base ... de là le nom de teo-cuitlatl, excréments divins, donné aux métaux précieux, l'or avec l'adjectif jaune, l'argent avec l'adjectif blanc.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, p. 407. Cuitlatlan, 'locality of dirt.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 15. 'Cuitlatl, mierda.' Molina, Vocabulario. The name of the Cuitlatecs seems to have no separate etymological meaning.
Culhuas;—See <a href="#acolhua">Acolhuas</a>. The two people are not supposed to have been the same, but it is probable that they are identical in the derivation of their names.
Huastecs;—'Huaxtlan es una palabra mexicana que significa, "donde hay, ó abunda el huaxi," fruto muy conocido en México con el nombre castellanizado de guaje. Compónese aquella palabra de huaxin, perdiendo in por contraccion, muy usada en mexicano al componerse las palabras, y de tlan, partícula que significa "donde hay, ó abunda algo," y que sirve para formar colectivos. De huaxtlan es de donde, segun parece, viene el nombre gentilicio huaxtecatl, que los españoles convirtieron en huaxteca ó huaxteco.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., pp. 5-6; Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 12-13. 'El que es inhábil ó tosco, le llaman ... cuextecatl.' From the name of their ruler, who took too much wine. 'Así por injuria, y como alocado, le llamaban de Cuextecatl.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., pp. 134-5, 143-4.
Huexotzincas;—Diminutive of huexotla, 'willow-forest.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 100.
Itzas;—From the name of Zamná, the first Yucatan civilizer. 'Le llamaban tambien Ytzamná, y le adoraban por Dios.' Cogolludo, Hist. de Yucathan, p. 196. 'Itzmat-ul, que quiere dezir el que recibe y posee la gracia, ó rozio, ó sustancia del cielo.' 'Ytzen caan, ytzen muyal, que era dezir yo soy el rozio ó sustancia del cielo y nubes.' Lizana, in Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 356. 'Suivant Ordoñez, le mot itza est composé de itz, doux, et de hà, eau.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 15.
Malinalcas;—'Malina, nitla, torcer cordel encima del muslo.' 'Ma ​linqui, cosa torcida.' Molina, Vocabulario. 'Malinal est le nom commun de la liane, ou des cordes tordues.' 'Malina, tordre, qui fait malinal, liane ou corde. Ou bien plus littéralement de choses tournées, percée à jour, de mal, primitif de mamali, percer, tarauder, et de nal, de part en part, tout autour.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, pp. 407-8.
Mames;—'El verdadero nombre de la lengua y de la tribu es mem, que quiere decir tartamudos porque los pueblos que primero les oyeron hablar, encontraron semejanza entre los tardos para pronunciar, y la manera con que aquellos decian su lengua.' Orozco y Berra, Geografía, p. 24. 'A esta lengua llaman Mame, é indios mames á los de esta sierra, porque ordinariamente hablan y responden con esta palabra man, que quiere decir padre.' Reynoso, in Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., pp. 83-4. 'Mem veut dire bègue et muet.' '"Mem", mal à propos défiguré dans Mame par les Espagnols, servit depuis généralement à désigner les nations qui conservèrent leur ancienne langue et demeurèrent plus ou moins indépendantes des envahisseurs étrangers.' Mam 'veut dire ancien, vieillard.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 119. Mam sometimes means grand-son. Id., Popol Vuh, p. 41.
Matlaltzincas;—'El nombre Matlalcincatl, tomóse de Matlatl que es la red con la cual desgranaban el maiz, y hacian otras cosas.... Tambien se llaman Matlatzincas de hondas que se dicen tlematlate, y así Matlatzincas por otra interpretacion quiere decir, honderos ó fondibularios; porque los dichos Matlatzincas cuando muchachos, usaban mucho traer las hondas, y de ordinario las traían consigo, como los Chichimecas sus arcos, y siempre andaban tirando con ellas. Tambien les llamaban del nombre de red por otra razon que és la mas principal, porque cuando à su idolo sacrificaban alguna persona, le echaban dentro en una red, y allí le retorcian y estrujaban con la dicha red, hasta que le hacian echar los intestinos. La causa de llamarse coatl (Ramirez) dice que "debe leerse cuaitl (cabeza). Coatl significa culebra," cuando es uno, y qüaqüatas cuando son muchos és, porque siempre traían la cabeza ceñida con la honda; por lo cual el vocablo se decia qüa por abreviatura, que quiere decir quaitl que es la cabeza, yta que quiere decir tamatlatl (Molina says 'Honda para tirar es tematlatl, tlatematlauiloni') ques es la honda, y así quiere decir quatlatl hombre que trae la honda en la cabeza por guirnalda: tambien se interpreta de otra manera, que quiere decir hombre de cabeza de piedra.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 128, and Orozco y Berra, Geografía, pp. 29-30. 'Matlatzinia, dar palmadas.' 'Matlatepito, red pequeña.' Molina, Vocabulario. From matlatl, 'net', meaning therefore 'small place of nets'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 13. 'De Matlatl, le filet, les mailles.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, p. 408. 'Matlatzinco es una palabra mexicana que significa "lugarcito de las redes", pues se compone de matlat, red, y la partícula tzinco que expresa diminucion. Fácilmente se comprende, pues, que matlatzinca viene de matlatzinco, y que la etimología exige que estas palabras se escriban con c (mejor k) y no con g como hacen algunos autores', Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 500.
Mayas;—'"Mai", une divinité ou un personnage des temps antiques, sans doute celui à l'occasion duquel le pays fut appelé Maya.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, ​in Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 42. 'Maya ou Maïa, nom antique d'une partie du Yucatan, paraît signifier aussi la terre.' Id., p. lxx. 'Maayhà, non adest aqua, suivant Ordoñez, c'est-à-dire, Terre sans eau.' Id., Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 76. The terminations a and o of this name are Spanish. Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. ii., p. 35.
Mizquicas;—'Mizquitl, arbol de goma para tinta.' Molina, Vocabulario. Mizquitl, a tree yielding the pure gum arabic, a species of acacia. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 104.
Miztecs;—'La palabra mexicana Mixtecatl, es nombre nacional, derivado de mixtlan, lugar de nubes ó nebuloso, compuesto de mixtli, nube, y de la terminacion tlan.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 39. Mixtlan, 'place of clouds.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 18. 'Mixtecapan ... pays des brouillards.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 146.
Nahuas;—'Todos los que hablan claro la lengua mexicana que les llaman nahóas, son descendientes de los Tultecas.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 114. 'Nahoatl ó nahuatl, segun el diccionario de Molina, significa cosa que suena bien, de modo que viene à ser un adjetivo que aplicado al sustantivo idioma, creo que puede traducirse por armonioso.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 158. Something of fine, or clear, or loud sound; nahuatlato means an interpreter; nahuati, to speak loud; nahuatia, to command. The name has no connection whatever with Anáhuac. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 7-8. 'Molina le traduit par Ladino, instruit, expert, civilisé, et lui donne aussi un sens qui se rapporte aux sciences occultes. On n'en trouve pas, toutefois, la racine dans le mexicain. La langue quichée en donne une explication parfaite: il vient du verbe Nao ou Naw, connaître, sentir, savoir, penser; Tin nao, je sais; Naoh, sagesse, intelligence. Il y a encore le verbe radical Na, sentir, soupçonner. Le mot Nahual dans son sens primitif et véritable, signifie donc littéralement "qui sait tout"; c'est la même chose absolument que le mot anglais Know-all, avec lequel il a tant d'identité. Le Quiché et le Cakchiquel l'emploient fréquemment aussi dans le sens de mystérieux, extraordinaire, merveilleux.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 101-2, 194.
Nonohualcas;—The Tutul-Xius, chiefs of a Nahuatl house in Tulan, seem to have borne the name of Nonoual, which may have given rise to Nonohualco or Onohualco. 'Nonoual ne serait-il pas une altération de Nanaual ou Nanahuatl?' Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 420.
Olmecs;—Olmecatl was the name of their first traditionary leader. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 152. Olmecatl may mean an inhabitant of the town of Olman; but as mecatl is also used for 'shoot', 'offspring', 'branch', the word probably comes from olli, and means 'people of the gum'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 16.
Otomís;—'El vocablo Otomitl, que es el nombre de los Otomies, tomáronlo de su caudillo, el cual se llamaba Oton.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 122. Not a native word, but Mexican, derived perhaps from otli, 'road', and tomitl, 'animal hair', referring possibly to some peculiar mode of wearing the hair. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 18-19. 'Otho en la misma lengua othomí quiere decir nada, y mi, quieto, ó sentado, de manera que ​traducida literalmente la palabra, significa nada-quieto, cuya idea pudiéramos expresar diciendo peregrino ó errante.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 118; Náxera, Disertacion, p. 4. 'Son étymologie mexicaine, Otomitl, signifie la flèche d'Oton.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 158.
Pipiles;—A reduplication of pilli, which has two meanings, 'noble' and 'child', the latter being generally regarded as its meaning in the tribal name. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, pp. 137-8. So called because they spoke the Mexican language with a childish pronunciation. Juarros' Hist. Guat., p. 224.
Pokomams;—'Pokom, dont la racine pok désigne une sorte de tuf blanc et sablonneux.... La termination om est un participe présent. De Pokom vient le nom de Pokomam et de Pokomchi, qui fut donné à ces tribus de la qualité du sol où ils bâtirent leur ville.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 122.
Quichés;—'La palabra quiché, kiché, ó quitze, significa muchos árboles.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. ii., p. 124. 'De quï beaucoup, plusieurs, et de che, arbre, ou de queche, quechelah, qechelah, la forêt.' Ximenez, in Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. cclxv.
Tarascos;—'Tarasco viene de tarhascue, que en la lengua de Michoacan significa suegro, ó yerno segun dice el P. Lagunas en su Gramática.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 273. 'Taras en la lengua mexicana se dice Mixcoatl, que era el dios de los Chichimecas.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 138. 'Á quienes dieron el nombre de tarascos, por el sonido que les hacian las partes genitales en los muslos al andar.' Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. ii., p. 105; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 57.
Tepanecs;—Tepan, 'stony place', from tetl, or tecpan, 'royal palace'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 92. 'Tecpantlan signifie auprès des palais.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. cx. 'Cailloux roulés sur la roche, te-pa-ne-ca, littéralement ce qui est mêlé ensemble sur la pierre; ou bien te-pan-e-ca, c'est-à-dire avec des petites pierres sur la roche ou le solide, e, pour etl, le haricot, frijol, étant pris souvent dans le sens d'une petite pierre sur une surface, etc.' Id., Quatre Lettres, p. 408.
Tlahuicas;—From tlahuitl, 'cinnabar', from this mineral being plentiful in their country. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 93. Tlahuilli, 'poudres brillantes.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, p. 422. 'Tlauia, alumbrar a otros con candela o hacha.' Molina, Vocabulario.
Tlapanecs;—'Y llámanlos tambien tlapanecas que quiere decir hombres almagrados, porque se embijaban con color.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 135. From tlalpantli, 'ground'; may also come from tlalli, 'land'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 162. Tlapallan, 'terre colorée'. Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh, p. lxiii. Tla, 'feu'. Id., Quatre Lettres, p. 416. 'Tlapani, quebrarse algo, o el tintorero que tiñe paños.' Molina, Vocabulario. Probably a synonym of Yoppi, q. v. Orozco y Berra, Geografía, pp. 26-7.
Tlascaltecs;—'Tlaxcalli, tortillas de mayz, o pan generalmente.' Molina, Vocabulario. Tlaxcalli, 'place of bread or tortillas', the past participle of ixca, 'to bake or broil'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 93.
​Toltecs;—'Toltecayotl, maestria de arte mecanica. Toltecatl, official de arte mecanica. Toltecauia, fabricar o hazer algo el maestro.' Molina, Vocabulario. 'Los tultecas todos se nombraban chichimecas, y no tenian otro nombre particular sino este que tomaron de la curiosidad, y primor de las obras que hacian, que se llamaron obras tultecas ó sea como si digesemos, oficiales pulidos y curiosos como ahora los de Flandes, y con razon, porque eran sutiles y primorosos en cuanto ellos ponian la mano, que todo era muy bueno.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 107. Toltecs, 'people of Tollan'. Tollan, 'place of willows or reeds', from tolin, 'willow, reed.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 76. 'Toltecatl était le titre qu'on donnait à un artiste habile.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 194. Tollan: 'Elle est frappante ... par l'identité qu'elle présente avec le nom de Metztli ou le Croissant. En effet, ce qu'elle exprime, d'ordinaire, c'est l'idée d'un "pays recourbé" ou incliné. Sa première syllabe tol, primitif de toloa, "abaxar, inclinar la cabeça," dit Molina, "entortar, encorvar," dit-il ailleurs, signifie donc baisser, incliner la tête, se tortuer, courber, ce qui, avec la particule locale lan pour tlan ou tan, la terre, l'endroit, annonce une terre ou un pays recourbé, sens exact du mot tollan. Du même verbe vient tollin, le jonc, le roseau, dont la tête s'incline au moindre vent; de là, le sens de Jonquière, de limné, que peut prendre tollan, dont le hiéroglyphe représente précisément le son et la chose, et qui paraît exprimer doublement l'idée de cette terre fameuse de la Courbe ou du Croissant, basse et marécageuse en beaucoup d'endroits suivant la tradition.... Dans sa (the word toloa) signification active, Molina le traduit par "tragar", avaler, engloutir, ce qui donne alors pour tollan, le sens de terre engloutie, abîmée, qui, comme vous le voyez, convient on ne peut mieux dans le cas présent. Mais si tollan est la terre engloutie, si c'est en même temps le pays de la Courbe, Metztli ou le Croissant, ces deux noms, remarquez-le, peuvent s'appliquer aussi bien au lieu où il a été englouti, à l'eau qui se courbait le long des rivages du Croissant, soit à l'intérieur des grandes golfes du nord et du midi, soit au rivage convexe, tourné comme le genou de la jambe, vers l'Orient. C'est ainsi qu'on retrouve l'identification continuelle de l'idée mâle avec l'idée femelle, du contenu et du contenant, de tollan, le pays englouti, avec tollan, l'océan engloutisseur, de l'eau qui est contenue et des continents qui l'enserrent dans leurs limites. Ajoutons, pour compléter cette analyse, que tol, dans la langue quichée, est un verbe, dont tolan est le passé, et qu'ainsi que tulan il signifie l'abandon, la nudité, etc. De tol, faites tor, dans la même langue, et vous aurez avec toran, ce qui est tourné ou retourné, comme en mexicain, de même que dans turn (touran) vous trouverez ce qui a été renversé, bouleversé de fond en comble, noyé sous les eaux, etc. Dans la langue maya, tul signifie remplir, combler, et an, comme en quiché, est le passé du verbe: mais si à tul on ajoute ha ou a, l'eau, nous avons Tuhla ou Tula, rempli, submergé d'eau. En dernière analyse, tol ou tul paraît avoir pour l'origine ol, ul, couler, venir, suivant le quiché encore; primitif d'olli, ou bien d'ulli, en langue nahuatl, la gomme élastique liquide, la boule noire du jeu de paume, qui devient le hiéroglyphe de l'eau, remplissant les deux golfes. Le préfixe t pour ti serait une préposition; faisant to, il signifie l'orbite de l'œil, en quiché, image de l'abîme que la boule noire remplit comme ​me sa prunelle, ce dont vous pouvez vous assurer dans la figure de la page suivante; to est, en outre, l'aide, l'instrument, devenant tool; mais en mexicain, to, primitif de ton, est la chaleur de l'eau bouillante. Tol, contracté de to-ol, pourrait donc avoir signifié "le liquide bouillant", ou la venue de la chaleur bouillante, de l'embrasement. Avec teca, étendre, le mot entier tolteca, nous aurions donc, étendre le courbé, etc., et tol-tecatl, le toltèque, serait ce qui étend le courbé ou l'englouti, on bien l'eau bouillante, etc. Ces étymologies rentrent donc toutes dans la même idée qui, sous bien des rapports, fait des Toltèques, une des puissances telluriques, destructrices de la terre du Croissant.' Id., Quatre Lettres, pp. 118-20.
Totonacs;—From tototl and nacatl, 'bird-flesh'; or from tona, 'to be warm'. Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 13. 'Totonaco significa á la letra, tres corazones en un sentido, y tres panales en otro,' from toto, 'three', and naco, 'heart', in the Totonac language. Dominguez, in Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., pp. 226-7. 'Totonal, el signo, en que alguno nasce, o el alma y espiritu.' Molina, Vocabulario.
Tutul-Xius;—'Le nom des Tutul-Xiu paraît d'origine nahuatl; il serait dérivé de totol, tototl, oiseau, et de xíuitl, ou xíhuitl, herbe.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, in Landa, Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan, p. 47.
Xicalancas;—'Xicalli, vaso de calabaça.' Molina, Vocabulario. Xicalli, 'place of this species of calabash or drinking-shell.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 17. 'Xicalanco, la Ville des courges ou des tasses faites de la courge et appelée Xicalli dans ces contrées, et dont les Espagnols ont fait Xicara.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 110.
Xochimilcas;—From xochitl, 'flower', and milli, 'piece of land', meaning 'place of flower-fields.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 94. 'Xochimicque captiuos en guerra.' Molina, Vocabulario. 'Xochimilca, habitants de Xochimilco, lieu où l'on sème tout en bas de la Base, nom de la terre végétale et fertile où l'on ensemençait, m'il, qu'on retourne, d'où le mot mil ou milli, champ, terre ensemencée, et sans doute aussi le latin milium, notre míl et millet.' 'J'ajouterai seulement que ce nom signifie dans le langage ordinaire, ceux qui cultivent de fleurs, de xochitl, fleur, littéralement, ce qui vit sous la base.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Quatre Lettres, pp. 406-8.
Yoppi;—'Llámanles yopes porque su tierra se llama Yopinzinco.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 135. 'Inferimos ... que yope, yopi, jope, segun se encuentra escrita la palabra en varios lugares, es sinónimo de tlapaneca.' Orozco y Berra, Geografía, pp. 26-7. Yopaa, 'Land of Tombs.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 9.
Zapotecs;—'Tzapotl, cierta fruta conocida.' Molina, Vocabulario. Tzapotlan, 'place of the zapotes, trees or fruits.' Buschmann, Ortsnamen, p. 16. 'Derivado de la palabra mexicana tzapotlan, que significa "lugar de los zapotes", nombre castellanizado de una fruta muy conocida.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. i., p. 319. 'Zapotecapan est le nom que les Mexicains avaient donné à cette contrée, à cause de la quantité et de la qualité supérieure de ses fruits.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 38.
Zotziles;—'Zotzil, murciélago.' Pimentel, Cuadro, tom. ii., p. 245. Zotzilha 'signifie la ville des Chauves-Souris.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 88.