Aztlan

“ AZTECS (from the Nahuatl word aztlan, “place of the Heron,” or “Heron” people) , the native name of one of the tribes that occupied the tableland of Mexico on the arrival of the Spaniards in America. It has been very frequently employed as equivalent to the collective national title of Nahuatlecas or Mexicans. The Aztecs came, according to native tradition, from a country to which they gave the name of Aztlan, usually supposed to lie towards the north-west, but the satisfactory localization of it is one of the greatest difficulties in Mexican history. ”

“ Our chief concern, however, in groping our way through the tangled labyrinth of tradition, is to ascertain the story of the Aztecs, whose advent has been already announced. It was about the year 1160, that they departed from Aztlan, the original seat of their tribe, on their journey of southern emigration. Their pilgrimage seems to have been interrupted by numerous halts and delays, both on their route through the northern regions now comprehended in the modern Republic of Mexico, as well as in different parts of the Mexican valley which was subsequently to become their home and capital. ”

“ They were mostly divided into tribes or large families, going under the above names. Each tribe was governed by a chief of their own selection. They had no law or manner of government to guide themselves with, and, by reason thereof, were continually at war with one another until 963,—some have it 1064,—when they elected Xolotli first king, Napoltzin the second king, and so on until the seventh tribe, Navatlancos, or Aztlancos (Aztecs) came from their country, then called Aztlan, now called New Mexico. They are the first original Mexicans. ”

“ But the great body of these emigrants had not yet found a permanent resting-place. They continued to move on, with intervals of pause, from generation to generation, always impelled by the restlessness which caused their first fathers, and the priests, their guides, to leave Aztlan. It was six hundred years after the date commonly given for their exodus that the Aztecs came to their final resting-place in 1243. The tribe was already called Mexicas as well as Aztec, because the priests received an order from one of their gods, Mexitli, that they should receive a name like his. ”

“ Clavigero states that they left Aztlan in 1160, crossed the Colorado River, stayed three years in Hucicolhuacan, went east to Chicomoztoc, reached Tula in 1196, and finally Chapultepec in 1245. [415] Acosta, Herrera and Duran state that Nahuatlaca tribes left Aztlan in 820 A.D., and eighty years later reached Mexico; that the Aztecs, however, did not start until 1122 A.D. [416] Duran identifies Aztlan 261with Teo-Culhuacan, and locates it towards our Mississippi Valley. He in common with other writers identifies Chicomostoc with the seven caves. ”

“ In attempting to convince, Ixtl had oversold his case.
t was shortly after he had returned to Washington, that the aliens gave the waiting world the reasons for their appearance on Earth. They were, they said, members of a very ancient highly evolved culture called Aztlan. And the Aztlans, long past the need for conquest and expansion, had turned their mighty science to the help of other, less fortunate, races in the galaxy. The aliens were, in a sense, missionaries—one of hundreds of teams travelling the star lanes to bring the benefits of Aztlan culture to less favored worlds. ”

“ It is supposed by some that in this region was situated the Aztlan, whence came the Aztecs to Mexico; by others that it was along the Gila River, in Arizona. But throughout that entire country the ancient towns which are now inhabited and the deserted ruins show a common origin.
The view has been entertained by some who have given this subject attention that it was at this point in the progress of the migrations that Madoc and his followers finally became amalgamated with the Aztecs. ”

“ Buschmann, who spells it Tollan, takes it from tolin, a rush, and translates, juncetum, Ort der Binsen. Ueber die Aztekischen Orstnamen, p. 682. Those who have attempted to make history from these mythological fables have been much puzzled about the location of this mystic land. Humboldt has placed it on the northwest coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan, literally, the White Land, is another name of wholly mythical purport, which it would be equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. ”

“ Finally the Aztecs, the last of the Nahuas, reached Anáhuac four centuries before the Spanish conquest. Mr. Becker has conjectured that Aztlan (land of whiteness) was the name applied to the southern Mississippi Valley and the region of the Gulf States; that Hue hue Tlapalan (old red land) , the ancient empire of the Nahuas, was situated on the great plains of the west and in the region occupied by the Cliff-dwellers and Pueblos, and further, that the “seven caves” or “ravines,” the Tulan Zuiva of the Quichés, is the region of the Colorado River, the land of cañons. ”

“ Aztecan History.
The history of the Aztecs has a mythological preamble in common with other nations of Mexico. The Chicomoztoc or Seven Caves must not be considered historical but simply man’s 205 place of emergence from the underworld. The general conception of an existence within the earth that preceded the existence upon the earth is found very widely among North American Indians. It is likewise impossible to locate the Island of Aztlan, that served, according to several codices, as the starting place of the Mexican migration. ”

“ The Aztec migration is a conspicuous feature of native tradition, and is, therefore, prominent in the histories, being figured by several of the codices, as well as in Durán's Album. An early narration of the Aztec myth forms chh. ix ff. of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, while the Historia de los Reynos de Colhuacan y de México, the narrative of the "Anónimo Mexicano," and Tezozomoc, i-iii, give other native versions. Mendieta, Sahagun, and Durán, are other sources for the myth. Seler [a] , ii, "Wo lag Aztlan, die Heimat der Azteken?" ”

“ The assumption that the native race claimed descent from the Ursa Major or Minor constellation is further supported by the fact that the shape of the mythical recurved mountain and the name Aztlan=land of light or brightness are simultaneously explained, as well as the number of caves and tribes. It does not seem to be a mere coincidence that in two totally different Codices (the Selden MS. p. 7, Kingsborough, vol. 1, and the B. N. MS., p. 70) a sacred dance is represented as executed by seven individuals who move around a central seated personage. ”

“ According to the Codex Boturini (one of the migration picture-records) , as interpreted by Seler and others, after leaving Aztlan, represented as an island upon which stood the shrine of Huitzilopochtli in care of the tribal ancestor and his wife Chimalma, the Aztec landed at Colhuacan (or Teocolhuacan, i. e. "the divine Colhuacan") , where they united with eight related tribes, the Uexotzinca, Chalca, Xochimilca, Cuitlauaca, Malinalca, Chichimeca, Tepaneca, and Matlatzinca, who are said to have had their origin in a cavern of a crook-peaked mountain. ”

“ They are admitted to agree, however, in representing the populous North as the prolific hive of the American races. [413] In this quarter were placed their Aztlan and their Huehuetlapallan,—the bright abodes of their ancestors, whose warlike exploits rivalled those which the Teutonic nations have recorded of Odin{253} and the mythic heroes of Scandinavia. From this quarter the Toltecs, the Chichimecs, and the kindred races of the Nahuatlacs came successively up the great plateau of the Andes, spreading over its hills and valleys, down to the Gulf of Mexico. ”

“ The Nahua peoples (Toltecs, Aztecs, Mexicans, or what you will) , according to the prevalent views of the early Spanish writers, came by successive influxes from the north or northwest, and from a remote place called Tollan, Tula, Tlapallan, Huehue-Tlapallan, as respects the Toltec group, [815] and called Aztlan as [138] respects the Aztec or Mexican. When, by settlement after settlement, each migratory people pushed farther south, they finally reached Central Mexico. ”

“ The civilization on the Mexican table-land was regarded by the inhabitants themselves as the copy of something which had existed elsewhere, as the reflection of the primitive civilization of Aztlan. Where, it may be asked, must be placed that parent land of the colonies of Anahuac, that officinum gentium which, during five centuries, sends nations toward the south who understand each other without difficulty, and recognize each other for relations? ”

“ One element of disturbance in the mind of Montezuma was the prophecy of Quetzaloatl, the "Plumed Serpent" (see pages 39 and 40) , who had declared at his departure that he would return from the direction in which he went—from the land of the rising sun. Centuries had passed since then; the Aztec nation had risen from the obscurity of the marshes of Aztlan to be the greatest empire in the western world. To the inhabitants of this country there was no other world. ”

“ Indeed it seems bound up with the mythical history of all the tribes of Mexico and the [16] greater part of Central America, with one striking exception, the Zapotec, and as such must belong to an earlier movement of tribes than the actual Aztec migration from Aztlan. The Nahua-speaking tribes, including the Toltec, and the Michoacans, called themselves Chichimec, a term which, as mentioned above, possesses rather a cultural than a racial significance, and means wandering hunters. ”

“ These geographical particulars are necessary to understand the ancient legend, and with them in mind its real purport is evident. [98]
That legend is as follows: When the Azteca or Mexica—for 88these names were applied to the same tribe [99] —left their early home in Aztlan—which Ramirez locates in Lake Chalco in the Valley of Mexico, and Orozco y Berra in Lake Chapallan in Michoacan [100] —they pursued their course for some generations in harmony; but at a certain time, somewhere between the eighth and the eleventh century of our era, they fell out and separated. ”

“ The priests declared that their great god, Huitzilopochtli, had decreed for the situation of their abiding city, a nopal growing from a rock, upon which should be sitting an eagle with a snake in his beak. The nopal is one kind of cactus. When they suddenly came upon this very combination of objects, the priests declared it to be the preordained spot, and there they settled themselves after all the long wanderings of their race, far from the shadowy Aztlan. The situation is low, and too near the lake, which in those early days extended much farther than at present. ”

“ This kingdom lasted three hundred and eighty-four years, which was divided into cycles of fifty-two years each; and each cycle was occupied by the reign of one king. Seven kings had thus ruled the people, when, during the twenty-eighth year of the reign of the eighth monarch, the nation was destroyed by a pestilence. If a monarch died during one of these cycles, the government was administered by the nobles. Tradition, as well also as the paintings of this people, beside Tollan and Huehuetapallan, mention Aztlan as their first residence. ”

“ Estas cuebas son en Teo-culhuican, que por otro nombre le llaman Aztlan, tierra de que todos tenemos noticia caer hacia la parte del Norte y Tierra-firma con la Florida; por tanto desde este lugar de estas cuebas dare verdadera relacion de estas Naciones y de sus sucessos. * * * Salieron pues siete Tribus de Gentes de aquellas cuebas donde habitaban para venir á vuscar esta Tierra, á las cuales llamaban Chicomostoc, de donde vienen a fingir que sus Padres nacieron de unas cuebas, no teniendo noticia de lo de atras de la salida.”—Duran, Hist. ”

“ It remembered the descendants of its subjects, the Aztec Indians. It remembered how the Spaniards had cruelly broken the Aztec nation. Through the subtle influence of psychic forces, it stirred up a passion of hate for Spain in the hearts of the people of the United States, and it fostered the awful spirit of strife, and at the right moment it let loose the dogs of war. One convulsive touch of its rocky claws on the hidden currents coursing in earth's veins and an evil spark fired the fatal mine under the battleship Maine, in the harbor of Havana. ”

“ Delafield’s Inquiry (N. Y., 1839) and Léon de Rosny’s Les doc. écrits de l’antiq. Amér. (Paris, 1882) . The original is preserved in the Museo Nacional of Mexico. A palm-tree on the map, near Aztlan, has pointed some of the arguments in favor of a southern position for that place, but Ramirez says it is but a part of a hieroglyphic name, and has no reference to the climate of Aztlan (Short, p. 266) . F. Von Hellwald printed a paper on “American migrations,” with notes by Professor Henry, in the Smithsonian Report, 1866, pp. ”

“ As I knew, it was in keeping with the Aztec customs that prisoners taken in war thus should be brought first of all before the god Huitzilopochtli, that they and their captors together might do him reverence; therefore, I was not surprised when a priest came forth from behind the altar and bade us prostrate ourselves in adoration of the idol. As this order was given, all the Aztlanecas with us bowed themselves to the floor; but Young, who did not understand the order, and I, who felt my gorge rising at the thought of thus humbling myself, remained erect. ”

“ Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., pp. 168-71; Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 145. Brasseur de Bourbourg gives as the tribes that left Aztlan: the Huexotzincas, Chalcas, Xochimilcas, Quitlahuacas, Malinalcas, Chichimecas, Tépanecas, and Matlaltzincas. Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 292.
[V-45] Monarq. Ind., tom. i., pp. 78-9; Hist. de las Ynd., p. 454; Hist. Indias, MS., tom. i., cap. 2. On Boturini's map the hieroglyphs of the eight tribes are seen at Chicomoztoc for the last time; the priests or leaders of the Aztecs alone pursue the remainder of the course. ”