Teotihuacan

“ The concept of humanity they forged provided the foundation of the perpetual optimism of the men that succeeded them. Their heirs, whether Teotihuacan, Zapotecs, Mayan, Mixtecs, Huastecs, Totonacs, Aztec, succeeded, thanks to the momentum provided by them, in the endless proliferation of happy cultural constructions whose vestiges still educate and dazzle. ”

“ Of architectural remains as a whole it may be said that the Aztec buildings show a tendency to simplicity and exhibit on the whole fewer traces of arrangement on a large and comprehensive plan, such as may be observed at Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan itself, as far as actual buildings are concerned, has many points in common with Tulan, and in its general arrangement shows a considerable similarity to Monte Alban. The last-named site is obviously closely connected with other remains in Oaxaca ”

“ On the other hand Teo-Culhuacan, the place of yearly sacrifice, may have been a city of the Chiapan region, since Sahagun located Tamoanchan the first city of the Nahuas (Olmec) after their arrival from Florida in Mexico, somewhere in the Usumacinta Valley. It is possible that a large number of the immigrants remained behind the company which migrated northward to Teotihuacan and thence to the seven caves, subsequently uniting with the Toltecs at Tollan. This view has had quite a number of advocates. ”

“ The name Teotihuacan signifies the "house of the gods." Doubtless it was, in unknown centuries past, the centre of a thriving civilisation and busy and extensive agricultural population. To-day the great pyramid casts its shadow toward a small village of jacales, upon a semi-arid plain.
The pyramid of Cholula is of truncated form, like most of these numerous structures. Its height is 200 feet and its base measures 1,440 feet, which is greater than that of the pyramid of Cheops, and it forms the oldest and largest teocalli in Mexico. ”

“ That portion of the plain of Teotihuacan immediately about the pyramids is rather sterile, but about the little village of San Juan, where clear streams have their birth, near an ancient templo, the soil is fertile, and the dwellers there seem contented and happy. At all events, they are contented and lazy, and it is only by very active skirmishing that one may eventually capture a boy as guide to the ruins, and it requires equally hard work to find a horse. ”

“ We had already been struck by the appearance of the two pyramids of Teotihuacán, when we passed by Otumba on our way to Mexico. The hills which skirt the plain are so near them as to diminish their apparent size; but even at a distance they are conspicuous objects. Now, when we came close to them, and began by climbing to their summits, and walking round their terraces, to measure ourselves against them, we began gradually to realize their vast bulk; and this feeling continually grew upon us. Modern architecture strives to unite the greatest possible effect with the least cost ”

“ Most prominent among his peculiar reforms, and the one that is reported to have contributed most to his downfall, was his unvarying opposition to human sacrifice. This sacrifice had prevailed from pre-Toltec times at Teotihuacan, and had been adopted more or less extensively in Culhuacan and Tollan. By Quetzalcoatl it was absolutely prohibited in the temples of the latter capital, and thus the powerful priesthood of Otompan, and Culhuacan was arrayed against him. ”

“ Teotihuacan and Cholula differ from any works of the later Nahua epochs; while Xochicalco and Mitla are far superior to any known works of the Aztecs proper. All remains sustain the traditions that the Aztecs were superior to their neighbors chiefly in the arts of war, and that the older inhabitants were more devoted to the arts of architecture and sculpture, if not more skillful in the practice of them, than their successors. ”

“ The conclusions are supported by evidence in Guatemalan chronicles and also in records of the Mayas for we have already seen that Quetzalcoatl conquered Chichen Itza in 1191 A. D. The three great Toltec emperors, Huetzin, Ihuitimal, and Quetzalcoatl, swept over an area extending from Durango to Nicaragua, the three seats of their government being Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico, Chichen Itza in Yucatan, and Iximché in Guatemala. ”

“ It was evident that the gods were very angry with this unhappy people. To avert their wrath, as Torquemada relates, a meeting of all the wise men, priests, and nobles, was convened at Teotihuacan, where the gods from the most ancient times had been wont to hear the prayers of men. ”

“ A luminary, sun, moon, or star, may be deified and achieve godhead by reason of striking natural characteristics, or, on the other hand, it may be identified with some god already known. Thus Mexican myth, as related to Sahagun by the natives, asserted that the gods met at Teotihuacan and told how two of their number, Nanahuatl and Tecciztecatl, sacrificed themselves by leaping into a great fire, becoming the sun and moon respectively. ”

“ In the same manner as I have described at San Juan Teotihuacan, the great pyramid of Cholula was surrounded by many inferior erections of the same character, though I am not aware what was their precise arrangements. The ruins of many are seen from the summit; and doubtless divers of those isolated mounds which break the uniformity of the great level in the vicinity for many miles round have a similar origin. ”

“ Tezcuco, the city second in importance, lies to the north-east of the lake, and is somewhat more isolated, the other pueblos (towns) clustering round the southern or western shores. To the north of Tezcuco is Teotihuacan, the sacred city of the gods. To the south-east of Mexico is Tlaxcallan, or Tlascala, the city which assisted Cortés against the Mexicans, and the inhabitants of which were the deadliest foes of the central Nahua power. To the north lie the sacred city of Cholula and Tula, or Tollan. ”

“ These philosophical principles that embodied the ancient grandparents’ religion, allowed commoners: peasants, housewives, artists, teachers, artisans, builders, bureaucrats, and so on; have the necessary bases to conduct a harmonious personal, family and society life. For this reason, during more than a thousand years, during the period known as the Classical or splendor, there was a bright and dazzling human development, being the pulsating center of this period Classical "the city" where men learned to be gods, Teotihuacan. ”

“ Even at Tamoanchan a dispersal of the tribes had begun: the Olmac and the Huastec had departed toward the east, and from them had come the invention of the intoxicating drink, pulque, and (apparently as a result of this) the power of creating magical illusions; for they could make a house seem to be in flames when nothing of the sort was taking place, they could show fish in empty waters, and they could even make it appear that they had cut their own bodies into morsels. But the peoples associated with the Mexicans departed from Teotihuacan. ”

“ At Teotihuacan, the bodies of children were placed head downwards in funeral urns,26 and excavations in the alluvial deposits of the Mississippi yielded, among immense quantities of pottery, two huge rectangular basins glued together with clay and containing the body of a young child. It is indeed interesting to meet with the same practice in so many different places and to find the genius of many races expressing itself in the same way in so many diverse inventions, produced at times so widely separated. ”

“ Respecting miscellaneous remains at Teotihuacan the author says, 'The river empties into Lake Tezcuco, with great freshets in the rainy season, its current becoming at such times very impetuous. Its waters have laid bare throughout an immense extent of territory, foundations of buildings and horizontal layers of a very fine mortar as hard as rock, all of which indicates the remains of an immense town, perhaps the Memphis of these regions. Throughout a great extent of territory about the pyramids, for a radius of over a league are seen the foundations of a multitude of edifices ”

“ The sacred city was ruled by the long-haired priests of the Sun, famous for their austerity and for their wisdom. Through the hands of these priests, as the Spanish writers tell us, yearly offerings were made of the first fruits of all their fields; and each [239] year at harvest-time a solemn festival was celebrated, not unattended by human sacrifice. It is true that the Spanish authorities in their descriptions of Teotihuacan and the ceremonies there performed, refer for the most part to the Toltec rather than the pre-Toltec period ”

“ Chinantecs, Chatinos, Cohuixcas, Chontales, Colhuas, Coras, Cuitatecs, Chichimecs, Cuextecas (Guaxtecas, Huastecs) , Mazetecs, Mazahuas, Michinacas, Miztecs, Nonohualcas, Olmecs, Otomís, Papabucos, Quinames, Soltecos, Totonacs, Triquis, Tepanecs, Tarascos, Xicalancas, Zapotecs. It is not unlikely the same people may be here mentioned under different names. The diversity of opinions respecting the future of these vapory existences is seen in Bancroft’s collation (v. 202) . Torquemada tells us about all that we know of the Totonacs, who claim to have been the builders of Teotihuacan. ”

“ The tlacahuapahualiztli concept, which means "the art of raising and educating men", speaks of this deep cultural Anahuac heritage.
This sense started from the human being conception, education beginning and end. The human being was divine creation, perfectible and in constant evolution. The Teotihuacán gods sacrificed for them and their world. The Fifth Sun era was lived, which had been preceded by four previous Suns, in successive creation-destruction, always had the human being, their food and their society, in a process of constant evolution. ”

“ This devout spirit had been well inculcated among the children, and even the youngest did good work at their homes and in the neighborhood. On the way to the convent one day the scholars met a procession of natives, brazenly parading the living representative of an idol. In a twinkling they were upon him, and before the skirmish ended he had been stoned to death. [59] Regular raids were also made on the temples. At Tezcuco, for instance, the friars themselves led a procession amid chants to the famous chief teocalli, and after breaking the idols to pieces they fired the building. ”

“ A remarkable native development of Mexican theism must be admitted, in so far as we may receive the native historian Ixtlilxochitl’s account of the worship paid by Nezahualcoyotl, the poet king of Tezcuco, to the invisible supreme Tloque Nahuaque, he who has all in him, the cause of causes, in whose star-roofed pyramid stood no idol, and who there received no bloody sacrifice, but only flowers and incense. ”

“ I called attention to the “full human face probably representing the Sun” between the Oratories of the Teocalli of Huitzilopochtli. The map is, I believe, in error in placing the Teocalli on the west side of the Temple Enclosure, but that the full human face is intended to represent the sun is confirmed by the following passage from Motolinia [8] :—
“Tlacaxipenalistli.—This festival takes place when the sun stood in the middle of Huichilobos, which was at the Equinox, and because it was a little out of the straight [9] Montezuma wished to pull it down and set it right.” ”

“ In a few minutes the tzin's mother appeared, bearing a lighted taper. When she saw the muffled figure near the entrance, she paused and inquired:
"Who seeks to communicate with Teochma?"
"One who is a fugitive, with a price upon his life, comes to ask of Teochma shelter for a short time, until the way is made clear for him to go on," was answered.
"Prince Hualcoyotl!"
"Sh! Have a care, O Teochma; speak not that name so loud, even here, beneath this friendly roof. Walls do not always confine the voice's sound, and the winds are treacherous. ”

“ And now, since we are pledged, let us, every man, be up and doing. Let no loyal Tezcucan be overlooked. Move silently and quickly, ceasing not the work until the fire of patriotism, which has been enkindled in our hearts to-night, shall have spread to the farthest borders of Anahuac, and every true friend of Tezcuco has espoused her cause, and enrolled himself under the banner of Hualcoyotl and liberty. ”

“ Much depends on our guarding carefully the secrets of our home, in these times, from those we may not trust. It would not please the king to know that we had favored the prince," she answered.
Euetzin caught her meaning, and became deeply interested. Teochma continued:
"Hualcoyotl was here, at the villa, four days ago, remaining over one sun. He came in the night, and left the following evening. He had one attendant with him; Oza, I think he called him. If no ill has befallen them, they are now on the mountains, off toward Tlascala. ”

“ Nezahualcoyotl himself was a poet, and very beautiful are some of the songs which have come down to us in the Spanish translation of the Tezcucan chronicler.
No wonder that under such a king the Tezcucans became the most refined and civilised of all the people of Anahuac. The Mexicans, their rivals in luxury, splendour, and power, were but humble disciples in the crowning glory of science and culture. ”

“ E. Seler in his pamphlet entitled ‘Die Ausgrabungen am Orte des Haupttempels in Mexico’ (1904) .
We know from Cortés’s own account, confirmed by Gomara, that the Great Teocalli was so close to the quarters of the Spaniards that the Mexicans were able to discharge missiles from the Teocalli into the Spanish quarters, and according to Sahagun’s account the Mexicans hauled two stout beams to the top of the Teocalli in order to hurl them against the Palace of Axayacatl so as to force an entrance. ”

“ The reign of Nezahualcoyotl is the most glorious period of the kingdom of Texcuco, and of all the kingdoms of Anahuac.
Its splendors have been confounded with those of the Aztec Court, and, as we see in the names now given to the ruins of the king's garden, even the name of the Montezumas is mixed up with the Texcucan annals. It is well, however, to keep the different dynasties distinct, in order to understand, when we come to the Conquest, the various parts these distinct peoples played in that exciting drama. ”