Sculpture and painting were very rudimentary, the former being confined chiefly to the representation of repugnant deities, although the carved stone edifices and temples were in some cases singularly beautiful, as elsewhere described. The sculptured figures of Mexican deities, in some cases, remind the traveller strongly of similar representations of the Incas,[12] such as exist in the fastnesses of the Andes of Peru. The famous Mexican Calendar stone, weighing about fifty tons, which was brought for many miles over broken country to the Aztec capital, is one of the most remarkable examples of their sculpture. Numerous smaller examples of prehistoric sculpture exist, some beautiful in design and execution. The feathered serpent is a frequent symbolical device upon these native works of art.
12 The figure of the conventionalised serpent-god on the onyx tablet found in 1895 in the Valley of Mexico and taken to the Museum of Chicago (see Holmes's "Ancient Cities of Mexico") strongly reminds me of the figure on the stone from Chavin in Peru (see "The Andes and the Amazon").
| PREHISTORIC MEXICO: RUINS OF TEMPLE AT CHICHEN-YTZA, IN YUCATAN. |
Pottery was made without the potter's wheel, by modelling; and painting and burning were practised. Musical instruments were also made of clay. Trade was conducted in ancient Mexico in great fairs or marketplaces, not in shops, and indeed this custom is still that preferred by the Mexican natives of the peon class to-day. The currency consisted of quills of gold-dust, small pieces of tin, and stamped copper, and barter was a principal mode of transaction. The merchants were an important class, carrying on extensive operations and expeditions far beyond the borders of the empire, under armed escorts, and they occupied often a position of political, and even diplomatic nature, such as was a peculiar feature of Aztec civilisation.
Social conditions showed much of quiet civilisation and tolerance. The women were never employed in the fields; and they took equal part with the men in social matters. They were modest and not unattractive, traits which remain to this day among the peasant class of Mexico. The ménage of Aztec homes, method of feasting, foods, napery, ablutions, and other matters, as recorded by the historians show a marked stage of refinement, except for the abominable practice of cannibalism. Chocolate and pulque were the favourite drinks.
Any survey of the Aztec customs shows a remarkable fact—they seem to have received their civilisation and customs from more than one source. For among the most refined habits and methods the most barbarous and disgusting acts are found. A refined and humane spirit of culture seems, by some method, or at some time, to have been grafted on to a spirit of primitive savagery, and each to have retained its character and practices. But their social system was not an unhappy one for their people. It was an epoch of handiwork, where all were employed and all were fed; and if there were few comforts and enlightenments in their life, there was, at least, little misery, such as is so freely encountered in the life of modern civilisation.
But destiny was now to compass the end of the Aztec régime, for from the shores of the stormy waters of the seas towards the sunrise, came rumours of strange white men. Who were they? asked the Aztec emperor and his advisers, in solemn conclave. Were they not those heralded by the long-expected Quetzalcoatl? If so, of what use was it to defy the fates, which had set forth long ago that the land should be ruled, some day, by a white race coming from the East? And when a fleet of great "water-houses," with white wings, touched at Yucatan, and the swift runners brought the tidings over nigh a thousand miles of forest and mountain in a few days, the credulous ear of Montezuma listened easily. And when the Spaniards landed at Vera Cruz, and won their way up to the fastnesses of Anahuac, it was still the hand of destiny. The time was fulfilled, the arm of civilisation had reached out towards the West, and it fell athwart the Great Plateau of unknown Mexico.