Bernardino de Sahagún

“ Sahagun produced several other works, of a religious or philological character. Some of these were voluminous, but none have been printed. He lived to a very advanced age, closing a life of activity and usefulness, in 1590, in the capital of Mexico. His remains were followed to the tomb by a numerous concourse of his own countrymen, and of the natives, who lamented in him the loss of unaffected piety, benevolence, and learning. ”

“ In it he expresses an honest satisfaction at being the first to give Sahagun's work to the world. But in this supposition he was mistaken. The very year preceding, an edition of it, with annotations, appeared in Mexico, in three volumes 8vo. It was prepared by Bustamante—a scholar to whose editorial activity his country is largely indebted—from a copy of the Muñoz manuscript which came into his possession. ”

“ Even the natives of Spain, after a few years in this country, are quite altered, and I have always ascribed this change to a difference of climate and latitude. It is humiliating to our feelings as Christians,” exclaims Sahagun, “to reflect that the Indians of olden time, wise in their generation, knew how to remedy evils peculiar to the soil, by means of practices which were their safeguard, whereas we succumb to our evil propensities; the result of which is that we see a new generation, Indian as well as Spanish, rising around us, which it is difficult to manage or to save. ”

“ The old man haled off the horse, muttering that it would be a bad bargain for his Grace, to which Manvers replied that we should see. Then he went into the Providencia for his coffee and eggs.
CHAPTER III DIVERSIONS OF TRAVEL
If Sahagun puts you out of conceit with Castile, you are not likely to be put in again by Palencia; for a second-rate town in this kingdom is like a piece of the plain enclosed by a wall, and only emphasises the desolation at the expense of the freedom ”

“ The first eleven are occupied with the social institutions of Mexico, and the last with the Conquest. On the religion of the country he is particularly full. His great object evidently was, to give a clear view of its mythology, and of the burdensome ritual which belonged to it. Religion entered so intimately into the most private concerns and usages of the Aztecs, that Sahagun’s work must be a text-book for every student of their antiquities. ”

“ Years after the conquest, Father Sahagun had still to answer the question of the natives, who asked him what he knew of the country of Quetzalcoatl. [8]
What, then, was the fundamental significance of this feathered Serpent that so pre-occupied the religious consciousness of the Aztecs?
He was not the Sun. The Sun does not disappear in the East. He was a god of the wind, as Father Sahagun perfectly well understood, but of that wind in particular that brings over the parched land of Mexico the tepid and fertilizing exhalations of the Atlantic. ”

“ Sahagun has devoted a whole book to explaining the mystic import and value of these signs, with a minuteness that may enable one to cast up a scheme of nativity for himself.— (Hist. de Nueva España, Lib. 4.) It is evident he fully believed the magic wonders which he told. "It was a deceitful art," he says, "pernicious and idolatrous; and was never contrived by human reason." The good father was certainly no philosopher.
Page 69 (2) .—See, among others, the Cod. Tel.-Rem., Part 4, PI. 22, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. ”

“ It is much to be regretted that we have not the eighteen hymns, inserted by the author in his book, which would have particular interest, as the only specimen of devotional poetry preserved of the Aztecs. The hieroglyphical paintings, which accompanied the text are also missing. If they have escaped the hands of fanaticism, both may reappear at some future day.' As may have been noticed, the editions of Sahagun by both Bustamante and Kingsborough have been constantly used together and collated during the course of this present work. ”

“ This is not the theory of an elective Indian office, and it may be dismissed as improbable. Sahagun indicates a much larger constituency. “When the king or lord died,” he remarks, “all the senators called Tecutlatoques, [Pg 209] and the old men of the tribe called Achcacauhiti, and also the captains and old warriors called Yautequioaques, and other prominent captains in warlike matters, and also the priests called Tlenamacaques, or Papasaques—all these assembled in the royal houses. ”

“ Often every man was kept awake by alarms. Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 142-3. The old soldier waxes eloquent over the hardships, for he served at this camp.
[1157] The Spaniards tried in vain to despatch him. Sahagun states that during these attacks fifteen soldiers were captured, and shortly after eighteen more, who were sacrificed in a temple of Tlacuchcalco ward, ‘donde agora es la iglesia de Santa Ana.’ Hist. Conq., 183, ed. 1840, 188-9. One repulse took place in Coyonacazco ward. Torquemada, i. ”

“ Thus from the shape beheld in the seer’s mirror, Tezcatlipocâ came to be regarded as the seer. That into which the wizard gazed became so closely identified with sorcery as to be thought of as wizard-like itself; for Tezcatlipocâ is, of all Mexican deities, the one most nearly connected with the wizard’s art. He is par excellence the nocturnal god who haunts the crossways and appears in a myriad phantom guises to the night-bound wayfarer. “These,” says Sahagun, “were masks that Tezcatlipocâ assumed to frighten the people.” ”

“ Even such writers as Ixtlilxochitl and Camargo, from whom, considering their Indian descent, we might expect more independence, seem less solicitous to show this, than their loyalty to the new faith and country of their adoption. Perhaps the most honest Aztec record of the period is to be obtained from the volumes, the twelfth book particularly, of father Sahagun embodying the traditions of the natives soon after the Conquest. ”

“ Sahagun's account contains a strange admixture of native absurdities and vague recollections of converted soldiers. A more complete version is given by Gomara, the biographer of the great captain, who had access to private and public archives and individual narratives now lost; but he frequently colors the incidents to the credit of his hero and his profession. Nevertheless the value of the text is testified to by his Mexican translator Chimalpain, who adds some interesting facts from native records and personal knowledge. ”

“ Many of the Aztecs, according to Sahagun, seeing the fate of such of their comrades as fell into the hands of the Spaniards on the narrow terraces below, voluntarily threw themselves headlong from the lofty summit and were dashed in pieces on the pavement. “Y los de arriba viendo á los de abajo muertos, y á los de arriba que los iban matando los que habian subido, comenzáron á arrojarse del cu abajo, desde lo alto, los cuales todos morian despeñados, quebrados brazos y piernas, y hechos pedazos, porque el cu era muy alto ”

“ The hieroglyphic codices, the anonymous Historia de los Mexicanos [Pg 353] por sus pinturas and Historia de los Reynos de Colhuacan y de Mexico (better known and commonly cited as The Annals of Quauhtitlan) , and the writings of men of native blood in the Spanish period, notably Ixtlilxochitl, Tezozomoc, and Chimalpahin, are the most important of these sources; unless, as is doubtless proper, the works of Sahagun, originally written in Nahuatl from native sources, be here included—undoubtedly the single source of greatest importance. ”

“ At this place also we are to take leave of Father Sahagun, who has accompanied us through our narrative. As his information was collected from the traditions of the natives, the contemporaries of the Conquest, it has been of considerable importance in corroborating or contradicting the statements of the Conquerors. Yet its value in this respect is much impaired by the wild and random character of many of the Aztec traditions,—so absurd, indeed, as to carry their own refutation with them. Where the passions are enlisted, what is too absurd to find credit? ”

“ A less lovely set of Olympians than the Aztec gods it is difficult to conceive. Yet, making every allowance for Catholic after-thoughts, there can be no doubt that the prayers, penances, and confessions described at length by Sahagun indicate a firm Mexican belief that even these strange deities "made for righteousness," loved good, and, in this world and the next, punished evil. ”

“ Sahagun states, however, that this was the town to which the Otomís had on the preceding day invited them, chiefly because they were related to the Otomís of the Tlascaltec division under Cortés. Hist. Conq., 34-5. A risky proceeding, if true, for an isolated community, on whom might fall the vengeance of the hostile Mexicans. In the account of the route followed to Tlascala Cortés is still the best guide, for he not only kept a record, but wrote his report while the occurrences were yet fresh. ”

“ Archbishop Lorenzana falls nothing short of the Tlascalan historian in his admiration of the religious zeal of the great Conquistador, which, he assures us, “entirely overwhelms him, as savoring so much more of the apostolic missionary than of the soldier!” Lorenzana, p. 393, nota.
[183] Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 1.—Father Sahagun, who has done better service in this way than any other of his order, describes with simple brevity the rapid process of demolition. ”

“ This chapter was copied by Seler from the manuscript in the Real Palacio, Madrid. In the reproduction of the pictorial part of the manuscript published in colors by Troncoso, we find the representation of this deity, in which the mosaic shield is graphically drawn and painted blue (see our fig. 70, p. 17) . Sahagun (book 1, chap. 2) briefly describes “this god called Paynal, who was a kind of under-captain of Huitzilopochtli.” He is said to have been a man adored as a god. ”

“ Hence it may be assumed that the common application of Otoncapulco to this hill is due to a misinterpretation of Sahagun’s versions, which have been greatly tampered with, for that matter, and that the ruins mentioned by Lorenzana had disappeared by the time Alzate examined the place. ”

“ Señora de Guadalupe, pp. iv., viii., xxiii., runs as follows: 'As he [Sahagun] wrote with the frankness proper to truth, and as this was not pleasing to the heads of the then government, nor even to some of his brother friars, he was despoiled of his writings. These were sent to Spain, and ordered to be stored away in the archives of the convent of San Francisco de Tolosa de Navarra, so that no one should ever be able to read them; there they lay hid for more than two centuries. During the reign of Carlos iii., Señor Muñoz was commissioned to write the history of the New World. ”

“ Sahagun, Hist. Conq. (ed. Mex. 1840) , 79-84. See note 12, this chapter. Brasseur de Bourbourg accepts this view. Hist. Nat. Civ., iv. 212-13. Still Sahagun describes the interview with Cortés as most cordial. He is in fact contradictory, and it is evident that the order issued to the people to keep the narrow causeway clear, and the etiquette which required them to give way to the emperor, have been hastily interpreted by the chronicler into 'deserted streets' and 'popular indignation.' Had the citizens objected to receive the strangers, the bridges could have been raised against them. ”

“ On that day several captives were doomed to be burnt alive. A great brazier was prepared; young men disguised as monsters danced round about it, and while dancing, hurled the unhappy victims into the fire, in the manner already explained. Other ceremonies took place which will be described in the account of this festival.”
MYTHS
Sahagun says of Tezcatlipocâ that he was invisible and was able to penetrate into all places, heaven, earth, and hell. The Mexicans, he says, believed that he wandered over the earth stirring up strife and war, and setting men against one another. ”

“ Although a distance of five hundred leagues separates the banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco from the Mexican table-land; although history records no fact that connects the savage nations of Guiana with the civilized nations of Anahuac, the monk Bernard de Sahagun, at the beginning of the conquest, found preserved as relics at Cholula, certain green stones which had belonged to Quetzalcohuatl. This mysterious personage is the Mexican Buddha; he appeared in the time of the Toltecs, founded the first religious associations, and established a government similar to that of Meroe and of Japan. ”

“ Among these sources of information were some manuscripts, with which it is not now easy to meet; as, for example, the memorial of Alonso de Ojeda, one of the followers of Cortés, which has eluded my researches both in Spain and Mexico. Other writings, as those of Father Sahagun, of much importance in the history of Indian civilisation, were unknown to the historian. Of such manuscripts as fell into his hands, Herrera made the freest use. From the writings of Las Casas, in particular, he borrowed without ceremony. ”

“ We have seen that amongst the nature-gods of Mexico there was one, Tezcatlipoca, who was looked upon as the austere guardian of law and morals. If we are to believe Father Sahagun,—and even if we allow for strong suspicions as to the accuracy of his translations of the prayers and exhortations uttered under certain circumstances by parents and priests,—it is evident that the Mexicans were taught to consider a decent and virtuous life as required by the gods. ”

“ For the non-Nahuatlan civilizations of Mexico the literature is sparse, especially upon the side of mythology. Sahagun gives certain details, mainly incidental, except in X. xxix, which is devoted to a brief description of the peoples of Mexico. Gómara, Herrera, and Torquemada afford added materials, touching several regions. For the Totonac-Huastec region the sources are particularly scanty, except for such descriptions of externals as naturally appear in the chronicles of Cortez, Bernal Diaz, and other conquistadores who here made their first intimate acquaintance with the mainland natives. ”