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

by Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

The Indian sources which I have consulted represent the effect of this threatening message as a double one. The first effect was against the messengers, who were bound and imprisoned as traitors, then put into a temazcalli (or sweat-bath), for the purpose of smothering them with vapors of red pepper. This treatment was not successful, and the intended victims escaped. As much fear as anger prevailed against the Spaniards, and it was decided not to meet them with hostilities, but to respond to the demand of Cortés and send to Tlascala a formal invitation to him. When the strangers were once within the walls of Cholula then they could be disposed of. The Mexican envoys stirred the fire of excitement.

A large deputation from Cholula went to the Spanish headquarters, bearing gifts and messages of peace and hospitality, and attended the ceremonies which Cortés instituted to make them vassals to the Spanish Crown. Although the true meaning of this transaction was not apparent to the Indians, yet, as nothing was asked of them, they thought that if it did no good it would do them no harm, and conducted themselves as they were desired to do. The Spaniards considered that the Cholulans had voluntarily pledged themselves by the act to be subjects of the Spanish Crown. They did not know that a hundred formal oaths taken by the chiefs could bind the tribe only when they had been commissioned for that purpose by the tribe itself and armed with power to enter into the engagement in its name. The embassy from Cholula was delegated only to amuse the Spaniards, and as a decoy.

The Tlascalans, while they, too, had no clear comprehension of this “submission to the Crown,” recognized that the purposes of the Cholulans could not be sincere. They inferred this from their own usages. Certain religious ceremonies were essential to the obligation of a pledge, and when these were not observed, the engagement was without binding effect. Although discord now existed between the two tribes, they knew or could understand what was going on. The Tlascalans knew that the oracle at Cholula had said, “Let the strangers only come...;” and they cautioned the Spaniards against treachery. Cortés, in order not to show weakness, and in order also to secure a new base against emergencies, decided, nevertheless, to continue his march through Cholula. He had less than five hundred men and his small guns. His new allies of Tlascala furnished him a few thousand men.[90] On the first day he came to the place where the little village of Xoxtla now stands, nine or ten miles north of the pueblo, and, according to the often very untrustworthy Bernal Diaz, one league, or 2-7/10 miles from the Indian plantations. These plantations were those of Coronanco, seven miles from Cholula, where the Indians had a few houses and fields—not a real village, but temporary lodgings. A considerable delegation came to the Spaniards on the next morning in order to welcome them outside of the place. As usual, it included the chief officers—the two highest chiefs,[91] and the medicine-men, or priests, in ample robes, black, red and black, and all red. They carried incense-vessels in their hands, and perfumed the strangers. These attentions were interpreted by the Spaniards as signs of honor, submission, and even reverence; they were not aware that the Mexican Indians perfumed prisoners of war whom they expected afterward to sacrifice.

It could not surprise them much that the Cholulans demanded that as the Tlascalans were enemies they should not encamp within the circuit of the dwellings. The condition was reasonable, and Cortés agreed to it. The Indian allies remained near the present village of Santa Maria Coronanco, while the Spaniards went farther on, in the midst of a multitude that grew constantly more numerous. All Cholula came out to see the white men, their dress and weapons, and especially their wonderful horses. This multitude was not satisfied with seeing the strangers pass by; but the Indians followed them, as children run after a circus procession. Bernal Diaz says characteristically of the scene, “So great was the crowd that came to see us, that the streets and roofs were filled with them.” The six quarters all turned out at once upon the line of march of the Spaniards, so that the same public was around them everywhere. There were, in fact, as Andrés de Tápia says, more than twelve thousand men and women of all ages, and they gave the impression of a population probably approaching a hundred thousand. Hence the “twenty thousand households” (veintemil casas) of Cortés. The word casa applied to an Indian settlement would not signify a single house, but a household.

Any one who has witnessed a dance of the sedentary Indians, with the throngs of spectators on the flat roofs, may form a conception of the diversified scene which this entrance of the Spaniards into Cholula afforded. I have seen in these dances women in their ancient dress, with the hair done up in the style of a turban, the short uipil, or sleeveless waistcoat, made of cotton cloth and embroidered with red, black, and white figures, through which the head and neck projected, and beneath it a long skirt, girt around the body; the men, excepting the officers, bareheaded, in white robes, and also in embroidered jackets; on the heads of the principal officers, the half-mitre, adorned with colored feathers, colored stones, and shells; the priests in black; all the faces painted in festive style, that is, hideously striped, those of the common people with cochineal on the cheeks and forehead, and those of the higher chiefs with green, blue, and yellow, and the faces of the priests black, with white rings round the eyes and mouth. Added to these features were the noise of large and small drums, the squeaking of pipes, the roaring, thumping sound of the “Tozacatl,” and the clattering of many rattles. The Spaniards marched slowly along in the midst of this uproar, while the horses walked under their armored riders, not proudly and defiantly, but gently and rarely shying; for these horses had till now been engaged in hard and dangerous service, and much worse awaited them.

Of such character, according to the accounts of Indian writers of the sixteenth century, were the reception processions of the natives of Mexico. If we add to this picture the little company of Spaniards with their uniforms, their horses, and their small artillery, we can imagine the entrance of Cortés into Cholula as a festival far less formal and ceremonious than most of the historians have represented it, but still extraordinary, gorgeous, and strange enough. I have found the first impression in all the Indian dances well-nigh overpowering, but the eye gradually becomes accustomed to regard the spectacle with indifference.

The Spaniards, dazzled by the sight, wavering between heed to the warning of the Tlascalans and a favorable interpretation of the bearing of the people of Cholula, could not help regarding with wonder and suspicion whatever might reveal the real feeling of the people. They observed that the road was interrupted by ditches and depressions, and that sling-stones were piled up on the flat roofs. The first sign seemed very suspicious and appeared to confirm certain statements of the Tlascalans. The depressions indicated pitfalls, or at least devices to stop their horses. The ditches, on the other hand, were not trenches, but simply the channels of the smaller irrigation rills such as run through the roads everywhere in the southwest. The Spaniards now saw them for the first time, and were naturally suspicious of them. To them, as to the Indians, whatever was new was doubtful. The piles of gravel on the roofs were at all events a warlike provision, but it is still questionable whether they were intended particularly for the Spaniards. Most of the Indian villages were open, and were defended directly from the houses, or, in case of extremity, from the sacrificial hills; and piles of sling-stones were always kept convenient and ready for this event. Cholula lay in a plain, with the heights of Tzapotecas three miles away. It had no walls, and an assailing enemy must of necessity be repelled from the roofs of the houses. The Spaniards not properly understanding the conditions, these hostile precautions seemed to them to be directly opposed to what had appeared a formal voluntary submission of the Cholulans. Cortés was moved by them to suspect treachery.

While thus many of the external signs were mistakenly interpreted by him, he was right in the main. The Indian paintings at Cuauhtlantzinco confirm the native story that the people of Cholula had prepared a trap for him; but not, as Bernal Diaz declares, with the aid of a corps of troops from Mexico. The Mexicans could not furnish such aid, for they had not the means; their own tribe numbered hardly 40,000 souls, and their allies hardly 60,000. Had they indeed ventured to appear in the neighborhood with 20,000 men, Cholula would not have permitted them to concentrate such a force on its territory; especially as they were its hereditary enemies. It was, besides, impossible to conceal even 10,000 men in that region so that, even though not visible to the Spaniards, they could escape the peering eyes of the Tlascalans who were encamped without. The tale of the auxiliaries from Mexico is a fable, like many other of the stories in the history of the Conquest of Mexico. The origin of the story, which the Spaniards really believed, is of great, of momentous significance.

The Spaniards were quartered in a large house surrounding a courtyard, which they supposed to be a public building. According to tradition, Cortés was lodged in the present southwestern quarter of the city, which is now called “Santa Maria Tecpan”—the “Tecpan” being the communal house where strange visitors were received. In the middle of the quarter there still stands, in the Calle de Herreros, an ancient portal, with the inscription, in the Nahuatl language and Latin letters, “Here stood the Tecpan, where now is the house of Antonio de la Cruz.” The Spaniards were therefore really residing in a government building, but at the same time in private dwellings, for each quarter formed a connected complex, which had been temporarily vacated to give accommodation to the strangers. The people gathered in a crowd outside, and this gave the start to the story that a hostile force was lurking around Cholula.

In assigning a dwelling of this character to the Spaniards, the Cholulans enclosed them as if in a fortress, for the thick walls were proof against every attempt to break through them with native implements. The entrance indeed had no doors, but guards with guns and cannon were so planted that they covered the larger openings, and showed the Indians, or rather might have shown them, that an assault would be dangerous. The people of Cholula did not know what sort of guests they had invited, or what means they possessed for opposing any treachery.