Thomas A. Joyce

“ Some writers have gone so far as to deny them actual existence at all, regarding them as a purely mythical people to whom the Mexicans conveniently attributed the invention of all useful arts of which they could not readily explain the evolution otherwise. Others have exalted their culture to a pitch far above, one might almost say, the human, and have credited them with a knowledge transcending that of latter-day civilization. ”

“ At Cuilapa in the Zapotec country was current a creation legend not unlike some of the Mexican ætiological myths. According to this the creator and his progeny bore calendrical names, and these semi-deities built their palaces on a huge rock on the summit of which was a copper axe, with the edge upwards, supporting the heavens. This preliminary age was terminated by a great deluge, after which the creator repeopled the world with the human race. ”

“ However Mexican religion is in itself rather an intricate subject, and requires studying in considerable detail if a proper view of the life and culture of the people is to be obtained. Religion amongst the Mexicans was the mainspring of all private and public life, and few of the archæological remains cannot be brought into direct relation with it. Yet even Mexican religion is not as complicated as it appears at first sight; it is in reality the language, with its fondness for long compound names, which renders it so difficult a study to the amateur in the initial stages. ”

“ When the dawn appeared, the Quiché descended from the hills, the cries [293] and the shouts of war broke forth, the banners were displayed. Then were heard the drums, the trumpets and the conches of the combatants. Truly this descent of the Quiché was terrible. They advanced rapidly in rank, and one might see afar off their bands following one another descending the mountain. They soon reached the bank of the river, the houses by the water. They were followed by the chiefs Tepepul and Iztayul, accompanying the god. ”

“ The victors, conscious of their cultural inferiority, in adopting to the best of their ability the mode of life of the conquered, were careful also to propitiate the local gods, whom they regarded as responsible for the superior culture of the latter; though they attempted, as far as they dared, to subordinate them to their own chief deity. These hill-tribes of primitive hunters seem to have worshipped each a god of its own, who was regarded as its personal leader, who presided over war and the chase and who appears to have been connected with the stars and occasionally with the sun. ”

“ The four Quiché ancestors however were too perfect to please the gods, being omniscient, so the latter dimmed their intellects, but, as some sort of compensation, provided them with wives. The sun as yet was not created, all the world was dark, and mankind had no knowledge of ritual. So they set out for Tulan Zuiva, where each tribe received its god under whose leadership it commenced its migration. Before the general separation however the need of fire was felt, and the Quiché god, Tohil, who was a thunder-god, provided his votaries with a constant supply, by striking it from his sandal. ”

“ For the manufacture of the new censers, as for the preparation of fresh idols among the early Yucatec, a special hut is built, new fire is made at which incense is kindled in them for the first time, and blood, drawn from the ears of the worshippers with a stone knife, is smeared upon the images of the gods. ”

“ Much of the time of the more settled peoples of Mexico was devoted to agriculture, and even a few of the Chichimec tribes, who had absorbed something of the culture of their more advanced neighbours, reared a little maize which was tended by serfs. The Otomi also practised agriculture to some extent. Maize was the most important product of cultivation, and the respect in which it was held is seen in the superstition that if a man saw maize-grains lying on the ground and failed to pick them up, they would cry to the gods for vengeance upon him. ”

“ Like the Aztec, the Maya and cognate tribes believed that more than one creation had taken place, and we find the tradition of a great deluge which put an end to the age immediately preceding this. In the Quiché legend, Hunahpu, Gukumatz and Hurakan are the creating-gods; “Earth,” said they, and immediately the earth was formed. Then the animals were created, and various functions were distributed among them, but the gods were not satisfied, because the animals were speechless and could not praise them. So man was made from clay, but he was without intelligence and the gods destroyed him. ”

“ ARCHITECTURAL REMAINS AND POTTERY Now that a sketch has been given of the beliefs and mode of life of the Ancient Mexicans, it is necessary to deal in some measure with the remains of their culture scattered over the country. As far as architecture is concerned, the greater proportion of ruined buildings must be considered to have been either temples or structures associated in some way with religion, and perhaps government. ”

“ The names of the ancestors of the Xahila division of the Kakchiquel are given as Gagavitz and Zactecauh, and after the creation they brought tribute to Tulan together with the Zotzil, the other division, consisting of jade, silver, feather-work and carvings. All that they brought away with them were their arms, bows and shields, and throughout the early portion of the annals insistence is continually being made on the fact that the Kakchiquel were warriors of the hills. “Let your rounded shields be your riches, your bows, your bucklers ... there in the hills shall you lift up your faces.” ”

“ The peculiar feature of Mexican architecture lies in the fact that every building of importance was erected upon a substructure, terrace or truncated pyramid, which, though essentially secondary in importance to the building or buildings with which it was crowned, yet represented a vast amount of labour, many hundred times greater than that expended on the superstructure. This feature has been unfortunate, in a sense, for Mexican archæology, since the pyramidal mounds, once the superimposed buildings have disappeared, present a superficial analogy to the pyramids of Egypt. ”

“ Those who were drowned, struck by lightning, or who perished by certain diseases such as dropsy or leprosy, found a home in the terrestrial paradise Tlalocan, the home of the god Tlaloc, where food-plants and flowers flourished in miraculous fertility and summer was perpetual. Those who died of other diseases or old age were obliged to embark upon a difficult journey to Mictlan, the underworld, where the god Mictlantecutli held sway. ”

“ If my dating of the monuments be accepted provisionally, and also the suggestion that the calendar had its origin with the Maya, then it follows necessarily that the Toltec culture was due at least to Maya inspiration. The myth of the arrival of the god Quetzalcoatl, inventor of the calendar, symbolizes the spread of Maya culture northwards. There are so many instances of the god being taken as the representative of his people, and I have already shown how the high mysterious creator-god Kukulkan seems to have lost dignity when he became personified as a tribal leader. ”

“ In the Quiché myths, the introduction of human sacrifice is associated with the “Yaqui,” a name afterwards used of the Mexicans, and it is the god Tohil, whom this people received from Tulan, who, by a trick, obtains the right to the hearts of the other tribes in return for the gift of fire. But the open and extensive practice of the rite belongs to a later stage of Quiché history, as the Popol Vuh also demonstrates. It is possible that the practice was, to speak generally, foreign to the original Maya, but was introduced in later times from Mexico. ”

“ CHAPTER VI—MEXICO: CRAFTS, DRESS, AND DAILY LIFE For most practical purposes the Mexicans at the date of the Spanish conquest were living in an age of stone. It is true that they both knew and worked two metals with great facility, namely, gold and copper, especially the former; but gold is useless as a material from which to make implements, and copper was not sufficiently plentiful to be employed very freely. ”

“ As far [9] as the evidence goes at present, it is fair to draw the conclusion that the first settled agriculturists in the Mexican valley were of the same stock as the agricultural people around lake Pazcuaro; that upon them descended a Nahua tribe from the north, coming in sufficient strength to impose their language, who built up a culture which surprised the subsequent immigrants of similar race when, at a considerably later period, they followed in their footsteps. The tendency of rude hunting tribes to rapid development when they adopt settled life has not yet been fully recognized. ”

“ The Maya language as a whole exhibits certain points of similarity to that of the Mixtec and Zapotec, but its structure is more akin to that spoken on the islands of the Mexican Gulf and the northern coast of South America. A tradition existed in Yucatan that an early section of the inhabitants had come from the east, and the Maya of this neighbourhood were certainly good seamen, since large canoes with sails were met by the expedition of Columbus, so it is at least possible that a section of the early population were immigrants from the Antilles. ”

“ The most important vegetable product from the economic point of view was maize, which constituted the chief food of the natives. The varieties and development of the maize-plant as we know it imply centuries of settled [4] life and patient cultivation, and it is an interesting fact that for years the identity of the wild plant from which it was produced remained a mystery. Other plants of economic importance were cacao, vanilla, tobacco and cotton, grown in the hot regions, and the agave or Mexican aloe which flourishes also in the higher country. ”

“ For the first half-century after their establishment at Tenochtitlan, the Aztec were ruled by a council, composed no doubt of the heads of clans; but in the year 1376 they elected a king. Nothing illustrates better the idea among the Mexicans that kingly power was inherent in certain families, than the fact that they elected Acamapitzin, whose mother was a daughter of the ruler of Colhuacan, Coxcoxtli, and therefore of Toltec descent. Simultaneously the inhabitants of Tlaltelolco elected a ruler, Quaquapitzauac, said to be connected with the ruling family of Azcapotzalco. ”

“ It would be against all experience to suggest that the people who built Palenque could at a subsequent period have adopted the clumsy and unnecessarily laborious architecture of Tikal. On the other hand, the site of Palenque bears a certain similarity to that of Menché, including the presence at both of buildings with underground passages and chambers, though the “palace” at Palenque is a far more elaborate construction than the analogous building at Menché, being in fact a complex of associated buildings. ”

“ The gladiatorial sacrifice is symbolical of war, and the creation-myths relate how the gods called into being special bands of warriors whose blood and hearts should be devoted to the nourishment of the sun and the earth. War, therefore, was necessary, in order that the processes of nature might continue without hindrance, and war amongst the Mexicans had thus assumed a ceremonial character. The arrow-sacrifice was apparently introduced from the Huaxtec country, together with the worship of the earth-goddesses Ixcuinamé, of whom Tlazolteotl was the chief. ”

“ Further the earth in Mexican symbolic art is invariably represented by a monster with gaping jaws, which is often shown as swallowing Tonatiuh or Tlaloc. I think that it is perfectly just to conclude that the so-called “double-headed dragon” of Maya art is the earth-monster. As we have seen, the god who is usually shown in his jaws is the sun-god, and the occasional substitution of God B is paralleled in the Mexican manuscripts which sometimes show Tlaloc in the jaws of the earth-monster. ”

“ Apart from the attempts at capturing the enemy’s god, war did not have nearly so close a connection with religion as in Mexico, at least as far as can be ascertained. Most of the wars concerning which traditions have been preserved either were dynastic or resulted from the refusal on the part of a subject tribe to pay tribute. ”

“ A variant legend narrates the special creation of the Centzon Mimizcoa who by fighting might provide the sun with the necessary blood-offerings. The connection of the sun with the war-gods is therefore very close, for war in Mexico was in the main of a ceremonial nature, undertaken with the express purpose of obtaining prisoners for sacrifice, and not necessarily with the intention of inflicting mortal hurt upon the foe. It is in this sense that in a ceremonial invocation to Uitzilopochtli, the warrior-god, the deity is made to exclaim “Through me has the sun risen.” ”

“ Between the plateau and Yucatan, buildings of the highest type are found, in low-lying alluvial country, densely forested, in which stone is, practically speaking, only procurable where the hills approach the rivers. In Yucatan, material for architectural construction was ready to hand in the soft limestone of which the peninsula is formed, and the action of the underground streams in causing the land-surface to collapse in places, had broken up the limestone into slabs of all sizes, almost as if to suit the convenience of the builder. ”

“ The corpse was enveloped in wrappings, the mouth filled with maize-meal and currency-stones for use in the future life, and burial took place in or behind the house. The house was usually abandoned, through fear of the dead, unless a number of individuals were living there together and consequently felt less nervous of the departed spirit. The personal idols of a man were buried with him, and, in the case of a priest, certain of his religious books also. Upon the latter fact rests the hope that more of the precious manuscripts may yet be discovered. ”

“ Gods whose functions were similar or associated had been invested with the attributes one of the other, and there is reason to suspect that the names of deities whose importance was relatively recent had been incorporated in the earlier myths by a priesthood jealous of the dignity of its own particular god. The history of the valley of Mexico, as far as it can be traced, consists, as we have seen, of the conquest from time to time of the sedentary agricultural population by ruder and more warlike tribes from the hills. ”

“ The question as to how far Maya buildings were definitely oriented is rather complex. On the whole far fewer indications of the practice occur in the Maya region than in the Mexican. To speak generally the sites at Seibal and in southern Yucatan, as far as surveyed, are more carefully oriented than in northern Yucatan and elsewhere. The buildings at Copan are not oriented, but here and at such sites as Palenque, the surrounding hills and forests obscure the true horizon, and the arrangement of courts may yet be found to square with the apparent point of rising of certain heavenly bodies. ”

“ The answer would be that the finest ruins have focussed all attention up to the present, and that earlier manifestations of the culture have not been [369] sought, while the difficulties afforded by environment and climate place serious obstacles in the way of systematic excavation. Further, the art itself affords many indications that it is based upon wood-carving, and the conditions are not favourable to the survival of any remains save those constructed in stone. ”