Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

But not only were the Maya day characters phonetic; the Maya calendar itself, afterwards borrowed by the Aztecs, has been described as even more accurate than the Julian itself. "Among the Plains Indians the calendars are simple, consisting commonly of a record of winters ('winter counts'), and of notable events occurring either during the winter or during some other season; while the shorter time divisions are reckoned by 'nights' (days), 'dead moons' (lunations), and seasons of leafing, flowering, or fruiting of plants, migrating of animals, etc., and there is no definite system of reducing days to lunations or lunations to years. Among the Pueblo Indians calendric records are inconspicuous or absent, though there is a much more definite calendric system which is fixed and perpetuated by religious ceremonies; while among some of the Mexican tribes there are elaborate calendric systems combined with complete calendric records. The perfection of the calendar among the Maya and Nahua Indians is indicated by the fact that not only were 365 days reckoned as a year, but the bissextile was recognized[886]."

Nahua and Shoshoni.

In another important respect the superiority of the Maya-Quiché peoples over the northern Nahuans is incontestable. When their religious systems are compared, it is at once seen that at the time of the discovery the Mexican Aztecs were little better than ruthless barbarians newly clothed in the borrowed robes of an advanced culture, to which they had not had time to adapt themselves properly, and in which they could but masquerade after their own savage fashion.

It has to be remembered that the Aztecs were but one branch of the Nahuatlan family, whose affinities Buschmann[887] has traced northwards to the rude Shoshonian aborigines who roamed from the present States of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon down into Utah, Texas, and California[888]. To this Nahuatlan stock belonged the barbaric hordes who overthrew the civilisation which flourished on the Anahuac (Mexican) table-land about the sixth century A.D. and is associated with the ruins of Tula and Cholula. It now seems clear that the so-called "Toltecs," the "Pyramid-builders," were not Nahuatlans but Huaxtecans, who were absorbed by the immigrants or driven southwards.

Chichimec and Aztec Empires.

To north and north-west of the settled peoples of the valley lived nomadic hunting tribes called Chichimec[889], merged in a loose political system which was dignified in the local traditions by the name of the "Chichimec Empire." The chief part was played by tribes of Nahuan origin[890], whose ascendancy lasted from about the eleventh to the fifteenth century, when they were in their turn overthrown and absorbed by the historical Nahuan confederacy of the Aztecs[891] whose capital was Tenochtitlan (the present city of Mexico), the Acolhuas (capital Tezcuco), and the Tepanecs (capital Tlacopan).

Thus the Aztec Empire reduced by the Conquistadores in 1520 had but a brief record, although the Aztecs themselves as well as many other tribes of Nahuatl speech, must have been in contact with the more civilised Huaxtecan peoples for centuries before the appearance of the Spaniards on the scene. It was during these ages that the Nahuas "borrowed much from the Mayas," as Förstemann puts it, without greatly benefiting by the process. Thus the Maya gods, for the most part of a relatively mild type like the Maya themselves, become in the hideous Aztec pantheon ferocious demons with an insatiable thirst for blood, so that the teocalli, "god's houses," were transformed to human shambles, where on solemn occasions the victims were said to have numbered tens of thousands[892].

Uncultured Mexican Peoples.

Besides the Aztecs and their allies, the elevated Mexican plateaus were occupied by several other relatively civilised nations, such as the Miztecs and Zapotecs of Oajaca, the Tarasco and neighbouring Matlaltzinca, of Michoacan[893], all of whom spoke independent stock languages, and the Totonacs of Vera Cruz, who were of Huaxtecan speech, and were in touch to the north with the Huaxtecs, a primitive Maya people. The high degree of civilisation attained by some of these nations before their reduction by the Aztecs is attested by the magnificent ruins of Mitla, capital of the Zapotecs, which was captured and destroyed by the Mexicans in 1494[894]. Of the royal palace Viollet-le-Duc speaks in enthusiastic terms, declaring that "the monuments of the golden age of Greece and Rome alone equal the beauty of the masonry of this great building[895]." In general their usages and religious rites resembled those of the Aztecs, although the Zapotecs, besides the civil ruler, had a High Priest who took part in the government. "His feet were never allowed to touch the ground; he was carried on the shoulders of his attendants; and when he appeared all, even the chiefs themselves, had to fall prostrate before him, and none dared to raise their eyes in his presence[896]." The Zapotec language is still spoken by about 260 natives in the State of Oajaca.

Otomi—Seri.