The Gilded Man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

The architecture of the natives did not include “sparkling towers.” The one-storied, flat houses were whitewashed with plaster, and above them rose the rounded artificial sacrificial hill, on the narrow level spaces of the summit of which stood little tower-shaped chapels. The view of this whole complex, like that of the Indian pueblos of New Mexico, was very striking and very deceiving as to the real number of people, which appeared nearly twice as large as it actually was. Furthermore, as in the present villages of New Mexico, hardly more than two thirds of the houses are inhabited, and one is led to overestimate the population greatly.

Cholula was neither a specially sacred city nor an emporium of trade. The people had their gods, like any other of the tribes, and among them Quetzal-cohuatl was held in high reverence. Pilgrims did not flock to his shrine from near and far, as to Einsiedeln or Mecca, and the lordly neighbors of Tlascala and Huexotzinco, as well as those of Mexico, regarded the idol of Cholula, accordingly as they felt friendly or hostile toward it, as representing a gallant hero, or a blasphemous image, or an evil spirit.

The trade of Cholula did not surpass that which other equally numerous tribes possessed. It was irregular and limited. As the Pueblo Indians used to go a few years ago to the Comanches, in well-guarded caravans, or, till 1859, to Sonora, sometimes to the loss of their goods and even of their lives, so in aboriginal Mexico they went in armed companies to the neighboring tribes for purposes of trade. Cholula was a good market, for its inhabitants were producers of cochineal, and as it was nearer the lowlands than the Mexican plateau and Tlascala, it was a place where traders could exchange their own products for tropical fruits and decorative articles. Feathers of richly colored birds were very much in demand. Parrots and Trogon resplendens came through Tehuacan to Cholula. The people of that region, on the other hand, had no salt. There is a considerable difference, however, between this primitive trade and a great inland market. What is great and important to an Indian people will appear to a European, as soon as the first impression of strangeness has worn off, often very insignificant. All the descriptions of the high civilization and the magnitude ascribed to Cholula rest upon the testimony of Spanish eye-witnesses, and have been composed without due regard to the sort of comparisons the Spaniards were able at that time to make. When, for example, Cortés compared Tlascala with Granada and Cempohual with Seville, we should not only consider how large those cities were in the year 1519, but should especially recollect that the comparisons only related to superficial extent. Every Indian town contains much more vacant space than any European city of the same area. All these accounts are therefore nearly as inexact as the political “campaign documents” of the present. Without really intending to state what was false, the authors of them involuntarily exaggerated in favor of their predilections. Everything was misunderstood at first, or not understood at all; the character of the people and their manners and customs were novel and bewildering. The population of a place was always greatly overestimated, for wherever the Spaniards showed themselves the people ran together, and the same throngs accompanied them all around, so that they met at every step a multitude that gave the appearance of great traffic.

Cholula had in its original condition not many more than 25,000 inhabitants, who were divided among the six quarters that surrounded, at considerable intervals, the chief sacrificial hill. The hill rose out of the usual walled court and stood where to-day stand the great Franciscan cloister of San Gabriel and the capilla real. At present not 10,000 people dwell in the city and in San Andrés, but the whole district contains at least as many Indians as inhabited it before the conquest, except that they live scattered over the land, and not, as formerly, together in an extensive pueblo.

The tribe of Cholula was tributary to no one; it belonged to the large number of settled groups which, wholly independent of one another, comprised the native population of old Mexico. Among these groups, which were all military democracies with elective officers, never hereditary monarchies or despotisms, three had joined in a confederation and had become very dangerous to all the others. They were the tribes of the Mexican Valley: Mexico, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan. Mexico took the lead in warlike affairs: Montezuma was simply the commander-in-chief of the soldiers of the three tribes, and not a crowned head. The allies were the most dangerous enemies of Cholula. Yet when the Spaniards had forced themselves into the present Mexico, Cholula had approached them, or rather the Confederation had approached the Cholulans, in order to obtain a support against Tlascala and against the powerful strangers who had just concluded an alliance with the Tlascalans.

Not much regard was felt in the neighborhood[89] for the shrine of the holy Quetzal-cohuatl, but its people were generally looked upon as cowards and knaves, and its idol as a “bad medicine”; and every appeal was made to Cortés to induce him not to go by way of Cholula to Mexico. In Cholula the people were not pleased with the sojourn of the Spaniards in Tlascala, for that tribe stood in bad repute among them. It was inclined to favor Cholula’s neighbors of Huexotzinco, between whom and Cholula bloody feuds prevailed at the time over a question of water-supply. Quarrels of this kind were frequent, for the Huexotzintecans controlled the upper course of the streams with which the Cholulans irrigated their gardens. If a Cholulan looked awry at a Huexotzintecan, or met him in hunting and reviled him, or a Huexotzintecan came to the market in Cholula and was overreached, the Huexotzintecans cut off the water from their neighbors, and war ensued. The dispute has lasted till the present day, with the difference that the Spaniards have suppressed the murders of former times, and have directed complainants to the courts.

Notwithstanding the strained relations which prevailed at that time between Cholula and Tlascala, four inhabitants of Cholula called upon Cortés and invited him to visit their tribe. The Tlascalans advised him not to go, and asserted that those men were not deputies, but unimportant personages. But little attention has been given to this episode; it has even been overlooked. It came about in the following way:

The Mexican Confederation regarded the friendly relations between the Spaniards and their hereditary enemies of Tlascala with great concern, and made more earnest efforts to come to a good understanding with Cholula. Through its envoys it stirred up the tribe of Cholula against the strangers, and succeeded in winning at least three of the quarters to its side. At the same time it was anxious that Cortés, in case he insisted on going on to Mexico, should not pass over the territory of Huexotzinco, for that tribe was decidedly hostile to the Confederation. Mexicans were present with the Spanish troops, both messengers and spies. They were ignorant of what was going on at Mexico and Cholula, but urged a march by way of Cholula, in order to withdraw the strangers as soon as possible from their alliance with Tlascala. The Spaniards knew nothing of this confusion; the thing of most importance to them seemed to be to secure the submission of one tribe after another. They felt sure as to Huexotzinco, and were anxious to have Cholula decide in their favor. Cortés therefore sent Indian commissioners thither.

What took place in Cholula cannot be learned from Spanish sources; but Indian paintings preserved at San Juan Cuauhtlantzinco, which were shown me, afford information on the subject. Their evidence is confirmed by the traditions which are still current in and around Cholula.

The summons of Cortés aroused much consternation in Cholula, where great fear prevailed concerning the mysterious visitors, and their presence was not desired at all. But a few, amongst whom were some men of influence, thought it would be better to ally themselves with the Spaniards. Against the voice of the majority, they went secretly to Tlascala and invited Cortés to go to Cholula. Cortés, urged by the Tlascalans, sent these men home, with a peremptory demand upon the tribe to send him officially a formal invitation, otherwise he would regard them as enemies and make war upon them. The Indians conveyed this message to the council which constituted the chief authority of the tribe of Cholula.