F.A.S. M.A. Robert E. Anderson

“ All the religious services were public, and the pyramidal temples, with stairs round their massive sides, allowed the long procession of priests to be visible as they ceremoniously ascended to perform the dread office of slaughtering the human victims.
Human sacrifices had not originally been a feature of the Aztec worship. But about 200 years before the arrival of the Spanish invaders was the beginning of this religious atrocity, and at last no public festival was considered complete without some human bloodshed. ”

“ It was on the morning of Good Friday that Cortés landed on the site of Vera Cruz, which after the conquest of Mexico speedily grew into a flourishing seaport, becoming the commercial capital of New Spain. A friendly conference took place between Cortés and Teuhtlile, an Aztec chief, who asked from what country the strangers had come and why they had come.
"I am a servant," replied Cortés, "of a mighty monarch beyond the seas, who rules over an immense empire, having kings and princes for his vassals. ”

“ The minds of men everywhere were expanded: "whatever works of history, science, morality, or entertainment seemed likely to instruct or amuse were printed and distributed among the people at large by printers and booksellers."
Thus it was that, though the Turks never had any pretension to learning or culture, yet their action in the middle of the fifteenth century indirectly caused a marvelous tide of civilization to overflow all the western countries of Europe. Another result in the same age was the increase of navigation and exploration—the discovery of the world as well as of man. ”

“ How would the Mexicans exult at such a miserable issue! Instead of turning your eyes toward Cuba, fix them on Mexico, the great object of our enterprise." Many other soldiers having gathered round, the mutinous party took courage to say that "another such victory as the last would be their ruin; they were going to Mexico only to be slaughtered." With some impatience Cortés gaily quoted a soldiers' song:
Better die with honor
Than live in long disgrace! ”

“ Cortés asked the cazique if he were subject to Montezuma. "Who is there," replied the local prince, "that is not tributary to that Emperor?" "I am not," said the stranger general. Cortés assured him that the monarch whom the Spaniards served had princes as vassals, who were more powerful than the Aztec ruler. The cazique said:
Montezuma could muster thirty great vassals, each master of 100,000 men. ”

“ Scarcely waiting for his commands the Spaniards moved toward one of the principal teocallis, or temples, which rose high on a pyramidal foundation with a steep ascent of stone steps in the middle. The cazique, divining their purpose, instantly called his men to arms. The Indian warriors gathered from all quarters, with shrill cries and clashing of weapons, while the priests, in their dark cotton robes, with disheveled tresses matted with blood, rushed frantic among the natives, calling on them to protect their gods from violation! ”

“ When Cortés pressed upon the cazique of Zempoalla that his mission was to turn the Indians from the abominations of their present religion, that prince replied that he could not accept what the Spanish priests had told him about the Creator and Ruler of the Universe; especially that he ever stooped to become a mere man, weak and poor, so as to suffer voluntarily persecution and even death at the hands of some of his own creatures. The cazique added that he "would resist any violence offered to his gods, who would, indeed, avenge the act themselves by the instant destruction of their enemies." ”

“ For several generations they lived, like their remote ancestors, the Red Men of the Woods, as hunters, fishers, and trappers, but at last their prince or chief cazique was powerful enough to be called king. The rule of this Aztec prince, beginning A. D. 1440, marked the beginning of their greatness as a race. It became a rule of their kingdom that every new king must gain a victory before being crowned; and thus by the conquest of a new nation furnish a supply of captives to gratify their tutelary deity by the necessary human sacrifices. ”

“ At the end of each of the four cycles of future time in the present world, "the human family will be swept from the earth by the agency of one of the elements, and the sun blotted out from the heavens to be again rekindled." ”

“ The Aztecs, in fact, believed in thirteen dii majores and over 200 dii minores. To each of these a special day was assigned in the calendar, with its appropriate festival. Chief of them all was that bloodthirsty monster Huitsilopochtli, the hideous god of war—tutelary deity of the nation. There was a huge temple to him in the capital, and on the great altar before his image there, and on all his altars throughout the empire, the reeking blood of thousands of human victims was being constantly poured out. ”

“ The Mexicans, ancient and modern, have always been passionately fond of flowers, and on great occasions not only were the halls and courts strewed and adorned in profusion with blossoms of every hue and sweet odor, but perfumes scented every room. ”

“ It is a favorite resort of the wealthier residents in Vera Cruz, and that too tropical plain which Cortés had just left. The mighty mountain Orizaba, one of the guardians of the Mexican Valley, is now full in sight, towering in solitary grandeur with its robe of snow.
At last they reached a town so populous that there were thirteen Aztec temples with the usual sacrificial stone for human victims before each idol. In the suburbs the Spanish were shocked by a gathering of human skulls, many thousand in number. ”

“ Perhaps it is a more difficult problem to explain how so civilized a community as the Aztec races undoubtedly were could look with complacency upon any one tasting a dish composed of some part of the captive he had taken in battle. It is not only repulsive as an idea, but seems impossible. Yet much depends on the point of view as well as the atmosphere. According to archeologists, all the primeval races of men could at a pinch feed on human flesh, but after many generations learned to do better without it. ”

“ Louis, and the glaciated portions were as unfit for human occupation as the snow-cap of Greenland is to-day, aggregations of population clustered around the equatorial zone, because the climatic conditions were congenial. And inasmuch as civilization, the world over, clings to the temperate climates and thrives there best, we are not surprised to learn that communities far advanced in arts and architecture built and occupied those great cities in Yucatan, Honduras, Guatemala, and other Central American states, whose populations once numbered hundreds of thousands. ”

“ They beheld a country fully peopled and cultivated; the natives were decently clothed, and possessed of ingenuity so far surpassing the other inhabitants of the New World as to have the use of tame domestic animals. But what chiefly attracted the notice of the visitors was such a show of gold and silver, not only in ornaments, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, formed of those precious metals as left no room to doubt that they abounded with profusion in the country. ”

“ The Aztecs, again, after long migrations from place to place, finally, in A. D. 1325, halted on the [Pg 57] southwestern shores of the great lake. According to tradition, a heavenly vision thus announced the site of their future capital:
They beheld perched on the stem of a prickly-pear, which shot out from the crevice of a rock washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in its talons, and its broad wings opened to the rising sun. ”

“ It has been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are broken. They no longer tread their mountain plains with the conscious independence of their ancestors. In their faltering step and meek and melancholy aspect we read the sad characters of the conquered race.... Their civilization was of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own.
Humboldt found some analogy between the Aztec theory of the universe, as taught by the priests, and the Asiatic "cosmogonies." ”

“ In Mexico the Spanish travelers often experienced severe famines; and in India, even at the present day (to the disgrace perhaps of our management) nearly every year many thousands die of hunger. It was very different under the ancient Peruvians, because by law "the product of the lands consecrated to the Sun, as well as those set apart for the Incas, was deposited in the Tambos, or public storehouses, as a stated provision for times of scarcity."
The Spaniards found those prehistoric agriculturists utilizing the inexhaustible supply of guano found on all the islands of the Pacific. ”

“ It was there, accordingly, that Columbus first saw this people, and first heard of Yucatan.
Of the Mexican remains on the central plateau, the most conspicuous is the mound or pyramid of Cholula, although it retains few traces of prehistoric art. A modern church with a dome and two towers now occupies the summit, with a paved road leading up to it. It is chiefly noted, first, by antiquaries, as having originally been a great temple of Quetzalcoatl, the beneficent deity, famous in story; and, secondly, for the fierce struggle around the mound and on the slopes between the Mexicans and Spanish. ”

“ Captives were sometimes reserved a considerable time for the purpose of immolation. It was the regular method of the Aztec warrior in battle not to kill one's opponent if he could be made a captive; to take him alive was a meritorious act in religion. In fact, the Spaniards in this way frequently escaped death at the hands of their Mexican opponents. When King Montezuma was asked by a European general why he had permitted the republic of Tlascala to remain independent on the borders of his kingdom, his reply was, "That she might furnish me with victims for my gods." ”

“ Long before the time of Columbus and the Spanish conquest there existed on the table-land of Mexico two great races or nations, as has already been shown, both highly civilized, and both akin in language, art, and religion. ”

“ The Spanish governors in the West Indies being ambitious of planting new colonies in the name of the Spanish King, conquest and annexation were stimulated in all directions. When Cuba and Hayti were overrun and annexed to Spain, not without much unjust treatment of the simple natives, as we have seen, they became centers of operation, whence expeditions could be sent to Trinidad or any other island, to Panama, to Yucatan, or Florida, or any other part of the continent. ”

“ The great French general consciously aimed at dramatic effect in his exploits, but how paltry his seizing the Duc d'Enghien at dead of night by a troop of soldiers, or his coercing the King of Spain to resign his sovereignty after inducing him to cross the border into France. In the unparalleled case of Cortés, a powerful emperor is seized by a few strangers at noonday and carried off a prisoner without opposition or bloodshed. ”

“ The simple-minded Cubans were amazed that the Spaniards had such a love for gold, and pointed eastward to another island, which they called Hayti, saying it was more plentiful there than in Cuba. Thus Columbus discovered the second in size of all the West Indian islands, Cuba being the first; he, after landing on it, called it "Hispaniola," or Little Spain. Hayti in a few years became the headquarters of the Spanish establishments in the New World, after its capital, San Domingo, had been built by Bartholomew Columbus. ”

“ Passing from the traces of Aztec and Mayan civilization, we may now glance at the antiquities of the Colombian states. There are no temples or large structures, because the natives, before the Spanish conquest, used timber for building, but owing to the abundance of gold in their brooks and rivers, they developed skill in gold-working, and produced fine ornaments of wonderful beauty. Many hollow figures have been found, evidently cast from molds, representing men, beasts, and birds, etc. Stone-cutting was also an art of this ancient race, sometimes applied to making idols bearing hieroglyphs. ”

“ When James Boswell and others regularly attended the spectacles of Tyburn and sometimes cheered the wretched victim if he "died game," the philosopher will not wonder at the populace of some city of ancient Mexico crowding round the great temple and greedily watching the bloody sacrifice done with full sanction of the priesthood and the king. ”

“ Balboa was unjustly prevented from exploring that unknown country, but among the Spanish soldiers in Panama there were two who determined to carry out Balboa's scheme. The younger, Pizarro, was destined to rival Cortés as explorer and conqueror; Almagro, his companion in the expedition, was less crafty and cruel. Sailing from Panama, the Spanish first landed on the coast below Quito, and found the natives wearing gold and silver trinkets. On a second voyage, with more men, they explored the coast of Peru and visited Tumbez, a town with a lofty temple and a palace for the Incas. ”

“ Geologists and geographers have seriously tried to find evidence of Atlantis having existed in the Atlantic, whether as a portion of the American continent, or as a huge island in the ocean which could have served as a stepping-stone between the Western World and the Eastern. From a series of deep-sea soundings ordered by the British, American, and German Governments, it is now very well known that in the middle of the Atlantic basin there is a ridge, running north and south, whose depth is less than 1,000 fathoms, while the valleys east and west of it average 3,000 fathoms. ”

“ For this purpose, with the assistance of the faithful Marina, Cortés engaged the Emperor in a theological discussion; explaining the creation of the world as taught in the Jewish Scriptures; the fall of man from his first happy and holy condition by the temptation of Satan; the mysterious redemption of the human race by the incarnation and atonement of the Son of God Himself. "He assured Montezuma that the idols worshiped in Mexico were Satan under different forms. A sufficient proof of this was the bloody sacrifices they imposed, which he contrasted with the pure and simple rite of the mass. ”

“ One of the most attractive features of the market was the display of provisions: meats of all kinds, domestic poultry, game from the neighboring mountains, fish from the lakes and streams, fruits in all the delicious abundance of these temperate regions, green vegetables, and the unfailing maize."
This market, like hundreds of smaller ones, was of course held every fifth day—the week of the ancient Mexicans being one-fourth of the twenty days which constituted the Aztec month. ”

“ In architecture they were in advance from the earliest ages not only of the Aztec peoples, but of all the American races.
In Yucatan the Mayas have left some wonderful remains at Mayapan, their prehistoric capital, and near it at a place called Uxmal which has become famous from its vast and elaborate structures, [13] evidencing a knowledge of art and science which had flourished in this region for centuries before the arrival of the Spanish. The chief building in Uxmal is in pyramidal form, the principal design in the ancient Aztec temples (as well as those of Chaldea, etc.) ”

“ The thousands who perished for religious ideas by means of the Holy Roman Inquisition should not be overlooked by the Spanish writers who are so indignant that Montezuma and his priests sacrificed tens of thousands under the claims of a heathen religion. ”

“ Horace forbids a banquet of human flesh being prepared before the eyes of the public, as had been done in a play written by Ennius, the Roman poet. The religious sacrifice of human victims by the "Druids" or priests of ancient Gaul and Britain seems exactly parallel to the wholesale executions on the Mexican teocallis, since the wretched victims whom our Celtic ancestors packed for burning into those huge wicker images, were captives taken in battle, like those stretched for slaughter upon the Mexican stone of sacrifice. ”

“ Columbus, the Latinized form of the Italian Colombo, Spanish, Colon. This Genoese navigator must throughout all history be called the discoverer of America, notwithstanding all the work of smaller men. From his study of geographical books in several languages, Columbus had convinced himself that our planet is spherical [Pg 39] or ball-shaped, not a flat, plane surface. Till then India had always been reached by traveling overland toward the rising sun. Why not sail westward from Europe over the ocean, and thus come to the eastern parts of Asia by traveling toward the setting sun? ”

“ On the evening of the last day, a procession of priests, assuming the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved from the capital toward a lofty mountain, about two leagues distant. They carried with them a noble victim, the flower of their captives, and an apparatus for kindling the new fire, the success of which was an augury of the renewal of the cycle. On the summit of the mountain, the procession paused till midnight, when, as the constellation of the Pleiades [11] approached the zenith, the new fire was kindled by the friction of some sticks placed on the breast of the victim. ”