[92]. Since writing the above I have received from the Comte de Charencey a reprint of his article on Xibalba, in which he sets forth the theory of the late M. L. Angrand, that all ancient American civilization was due to two “currents” of Toltecs, the western, straight-headed Toltecs, who entered Anahuac by land from the north-west, and the eastern, flat-headed Toltecs, who came by sea from Florida. It is to criticise such vague theorizing that I have written this paper.
[93]. Motolinia, in his Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, p. 5, calls the locality “el puerto llamado Tollan,” the pass or gate called Tollan. Through it, he states, passed first the Colhua and later the Mexica, though he adds that some maintain these were the same people. In fact, Colhua is a form of a word which means “ancestors:” colli, forefather; no-col-huan, my forefathers; Colhuacan, “the place of the forefathers,” where they lived. In Aztec picture-writing this is represented by a hill with a bent top, on the “ikonomatic” system, the verb coloa, meaning to bend, to stoop. Those Mexica who said the Colhua proceeded them at Tula, simply meant that their own ancestors dwelt there. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan (pp. 29, 33) distinctly states that what Toltecs survived the wars which drove them southward became merged in the Colhuas. As these wars largely arose from civil dissensions, the account no doubt is correct which states that others settled in Acolhuacan, on the eastern shore of the principal lake in the Valley of Mexico. The name means “Colhuacan by the water,” and was the State of which the capital was Tezcoco.
[94]. This description is taken from the map of the location in M. Charnay’s Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde, p. 83. The measurements I have made from the map do not agree with those stated in the text of the book, but are, I take it, more accurate.
[95]. Sometimes called the Rio de Montezuma, and also the Tollanatl, water of Tula. This stream plays a conspicuous part in the Quetzalcoatl myths. It appears to be the same as the river Atoyac (= flowing or spreading water, alt, toyaua), or Xipacoyan (= where precious stones are washed, from xiuitl, paca, yan), referred to by Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, Lib. ix., cap. 29. In it were the celebrated “Baths of Quetzalcoatl,” called Atecpanamochco, “the water in the tin palace,” probably from being adorned with this metal (Anales de Cuauhtitlan).
[96]. See the Codez Ramirez, p. 24. Why called Snake-Hill the legend says not. I need not recall how prominent an object is the serpent in Aztec mythology. The name is a compound of coatl, snake, and tepetl, hill or mountain, but which may also may mean town or city, as such were usually built on elevations. The form Coatepec is this word with the postposition c, and means “at the snake-hill,” or, perhaps, “at Snake-town.”
[97]. Or to one of them. The name is preserved by Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones Historicas, in Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix., p. 326. Its derivation is from palli, a color (root pa), and the postposition pan. It is noteworthy that this legend states that Quetzalcoatl in his avatar as Ce Acatl was born in the Palpan, “House of Colors;” while the usual story was that he came from Tla-pallan, the place of colors. This indicates that the two accounts are versions of the same myth.
[98]. There are two ancient Codices extant, giving in picture-writing the migrations of the Mexi. They have been repeatedly published in part or in whole, with varying degrees of accuracy. Orozco y Berra gives their bibliography in his Historia Antigua de Mexico, Tom. iii. p. 61, note. These Codices differ widely, and seem contradictory, but Orozco y Berra has reconciled them by the happy suggestion that they refer to sequent and not synchronous events. There is, however, yet much to do before their full meaning is ascertained.
[99]. The name Aztlan is that of a place and Mexitl that of a person, and from these are derived Aztecatl, plural, Azteca, and Mexicatl, pl. Mexica. The Azteca are said to have left Aztlan under the guidance of Mexitl (Codex Ramirez). The radicals of both words have now become somewhat obscured in the Nahuatl. My own opinion is that Father Duran (Hist. de Nueva España, Tom. i, p. 19) was right in translating Aztlan as “the place of whiteness,” el lugar de blancura, from the radical iztac, white. This may refer to the East, as the place of the dawn; but there is also a temptation to look upon Aztlan as a syncope of a-izta-tlan, = “by the salt water.”
Mexicatl is a nomen gentile derived from Mexitl, which was another name for the tribal god or early leader Huitzilopochtli, as is positively stated by Torquemada (Monarquia Indiana, Lib. viii, cap. xi). Sahagun explains Mexitl as a compound of metl, the maguey, and citli, which means “hare” and “grandmother” (Hist. de Nueva España, Lib. x. cap. 29). It is noteworthy that one of the names of Quetzalcoatl is Meconetzin, son of the maguey (Ixtlilxochitl, Rel. Hist., in Kingsborough, Vol. ix, p. 238). These two gods were originally brothers, though each had divers mythical ancestors.
[100]. Orozco y Berra, Historia Antigua de Mexico, Tom. iii, cap. 4. But Albert Gallatin was the first to place Aztlan no further west than Michoacan (Trans. American Ethnolog. Society, Vol. ii, p. 202). Orozco thinks Aztlan was the small island called Mexcalla in Lake Chapallan, apparently because he thinks this name means “houses of the Mexi;” but it may also signify “where there is abundance of maguey leaves,” this delicacy being called mexcalli in Nahuatl, and the terminal a signifying location or abundance. (See Sahagun, Historia de Nueva España, Lib. vii, cap. 9.) At present, one of the smaller species of maguey is called mexcalli.