Arizona weekly citizen., 1882-10-08
DISAPPEARANCE OF THE AzTECs.
Gnc or tae PaTadoxes Of History that Eiss Never Been >ati>facio-i -iiy Explained.

New York Tines.
 It never seems to have occurred to anyOn that th. re was anything strange
 about the total dIsaI pearance of the Aztec civilization In Mexico. When
 Co tez landed ID Mexico he found e
 natlOn of hIghly-cIvIhz .d people lIvIng : m magnificent cities and having more
 gold Tn their houses than they could
 well Use, IT spite of the fact that thaIr | trylng-pans ana pIe- plates and coffee ! pots were made ut the precious metal. ! The Aztecs had a religion that, much as | the Spamards abhorrsd it, was un- | doubtedly ingenious and elaborate. ! They had a literature that was purely ! Amerlcan, and they were addicted to sculpture, aesthetic crlckery and the other arts. The City ui MeMcO was, on ! the whole, much more magnificent than any European city. It covered vast eZten- of ground and WIS a sort of con- blued Venice and Gran Ida As for the Aztecs themselves, they ere numerous.
 brave when they thought 1t worth while
 tC fight, gentle when they were peace fuL and possessed ui nearly all the
 virtues except that of burning heretics
 The Aztecs and their civilization have
 totally disappeared. This disappear
 auce d es not seem tO have been the
 slow work of centuries, though,
 to be sure, very few centUres
 have elapsec since the landing of Cortez. So far as can be learned
 the disappearance Of -he Aztecs took place the day after Cortez conquered
 their empire, for all subsequent Span
 iarGs were unable to find them. Not only did the Aztecs vanish, giving place t1 savage and degraCed indians, but they took their cities with them. Not a trace of the spleuded buildings which CCrjeZ found m every Mexican city re- maiued tO bear witness to the departed grandeur of the AZtecs. At the present day there Is a collection of crumblmg mounds and ruined masonry in Gucatau and Central America, lG it IS universally believed that tbese are the remains of a civilization which preceded that of the AZtecs. The appearance of Aztec literature mar be due to the fact that sthe Spaniards bur ned all the books they could fad, | least cueap reprints of hem should de- s,roy Spauiard book trade, but We can only explain the q appearance of | Aztec are by the supposition that th. Aztocs, when they disappeared, tool | tL=ir statutes, ? lutincs and aesthetic l crOckery with them.
 But now comes an intelligent, scien- | life person, who has studied the ruins . of Gucatau, and has learned all about the Aztecs that any man can learn, anC who utterly denies that they ever wer, civilized. He maintains that the Az tees, In the time of CUrttZ were precise ly like the Pueblo Indians of moGeri days; that their cities were nuthIn. more than vast communal houses, likt those in which the PuahlOs live, and q at ali the stories of their magnificenct and of the wealth and civilization of tLe Aztec Empire were invented by tn, Spauiarls. According Co this scientific person, neither the Aztecs nor their civ ilizatiou ever disappeared On the con- t-ary they adopted tie methods ol building employed by the SpaniarJ-. their old communal house- made of sun-dried hrIck to crumhle in to shapeless mounds, ard learned the | .r- of revolution, and 53 became the liryicalS of modern times.
 This theory IS certainly very plaus- ble one. Nothing IS more probable han that the Spariards told lies about l Inc Aztecs, and duOthiug is more ImprOb- tb.e than the theory tlat the Aztecs nysterIOusiy disappeared. Wien, how 'vyr, We make mp our minds that the Azeecs were dirty, iguC rant savages, Ike the Pueblos. all the romance of the l -U3risa govuuest y.r5ehas