Bernardus de Sahagún

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And she knelt down before the king her brother, and besought him that he would let their brother Don Alfonso take the habit of St. Benedict, in the royal Monastery of Sahagun. And the king took my Cid aside, and asked counsel of him what he should do; and the Cid said, that if Don Alfonso were willing to become a monk, he would do well to set him free upon that condition, and he besought him so to do. Then King Don Sancho, at my Cid's request, granted to Donya Urraca what she had asked. And Don Alfonso became a monk in the Monastery at Sahagun, more by force than of free will. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A fuller and to some extent different account of the ancient Mexican worship of the maize has been given us by the Franciscan monk Bernardino de Sahagun, who arrived in Mexico in 1529, only eight years after its conquest by the Spaniards, and devoted the remaining sixty-one years of his long life to labouring among the Indians for their moral and spiritual good. ”

“ Humanity had been respited for a generation.
It is difficult to believe that a people so imbrued in a religion of bloodshed could have been punctilious in matters of morality, and it is still more difficult to believe the evidence of Sahagun and Clavigero concerning their personal [43] piety. It seems certain, however, that as a race the Aztecs were austerely moral, pious, truth-loving, and loyal as citizens, and even the sanguinary priests do not appear to have reaped any benefit from their terrible offices. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our knowledge of the mythology of the Mexicans is chiefly gained through the works of those Spaniards, lay and cleric, who entered the country along with or immediately subsequent to the Spanish Conquistadores. From several of these we have what might be called first-hand accounts of the theogony and ritual of the Nahua people. The most valuable compendium is that of Father Bernardino Sahagun, entitled A General History of the Affairs of New Spain, which was published from manuscript only in the middle of last century, though written in the first half of the sixteenth century. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the Sahagun MS. (Palacio) he wears the domino mask edged round with small white circles (the “stellar face-painting”) and the mouth and chin are blackened or reddened. The headdress resembles the flag used as Uitzilopochtli’s symbol for the panquetzaliztli festival. [264] He carries the shield of Uitzilopochtli, with the five balls of eagle’s down, one half of the weapon being coloured red, like blood, and in his right hand he holds an instrument which, from comparison with another Sahagun MS. (Bib. Laurenz.) we know to be a rattle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to Sahagun's native record, the Tlascaltecs persuaded Cortés to avenge them on the Cholultecs, and as the latter received him coldly, he began to believe the accusations of his allies. Assembling the chiefs and soldiers, together with citizens, in the temple court, he slaughtered them, defenceless as they were. Hist. Conq., 18. Bustamante comments on this version, and denounces the conquerors as atrociously cruel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Cortez landed, the Mexicans were expecting the return of Quetzalcoatl; and, according to Sahagun, the very outlooks who first beheld the ships of the Spaniards had been posted to watch for the coming god. The white men (perhaps the image was aided by their shining armour, their robed priests, their crosses) were inevitably assumed to be the deity, and among the gifts sent to them by Montezuma were the turquoise mask, feather mantle, and other apparel appropriate to the god. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Probably no dead religion whose life was among a people ignorant of syllabaries or of the alphabet is presented to us in a more trustworthy form than the religion of Mexico. It is necessary, however, to discount the theories of Sahagun and his converts, who though they never heard of Euhemerus, habitually applied the euhemeristic doctrine to their facts. They decided that the gods of the Aztecs had once been living men and conjurors, worshipped after their decease. ”

“ By this terse periphrasis he referred to his obligations to church and state in Somersetshire.
At six o'clock on this fine April morning he had already ridden far—from Sahagun. indeed, where he had spent three or four idle days, lounging and exchanging observations with the inhabitants. He was popular with them, for he was perfectly simple; never asked what he did not want to know, and never refused to answer what it was obviously desired that he should. But man cannot live on small talk, and as he had taken up his rest in Sahagun in a moment of impulse, so now he left it. "Great Heaven!" ”

“ His flight from the monastery of Sahagun, where his brother Sancho endeavoured to imprison him, his chivalrous friendship for his host Almamun of Toledo, caballero aunque mon, a gentleman although a Moor, the passionate loyalty of his vassal Peranzules and his brotherly love for his sister Urraca of Zamora, may owe something to the poet who took him for hero. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”