If we accept the date given by the Codex Ramirez for the departure of the Aztecs from the Coatepetl—A. D. 1168—then it is quite possible that they might have controlled the site for a couple of centuries or longer, and that the number of successive chieftains named by Ixtlilxochitl should not be far wrong. The destructive battles of which he speaks as preceding their departure—battles resulting in the slaughter of more than five million souls—we may regard as the grossly overstated account of some really desperate conflicts.

That the warriors of the Azteca, on leaving Tula, scattered over Mexico, Yucatan and Central America, is directly contrary to the assertion of the high authorities I have quoted, and also to most of the mythical descriptions of the event, which declare they were all, or nearly all, massacred.[[105]]

The above I claim to be the real history of Tula and its Serpent-Hill, of the Toltecs and their dynasty. Now comes the question, if we accept this view, how did this ancient town and its inhabitants come to have so wide a celebrity, not merely in the myths of the Nahuas of Mexico, but in the sacred stories of Yucatan and Guatemala as well—which was unquestionably the case?

To explain this, I must have recourse to some of those curious principles of language which have had such influence in building the fabric of mythology. In such inquiries we have more to do with words than with things, with names than with persons, with phrases than with facts.

First about these names, Tula, Tollan, Toltec—what do they mean? They are evidently from the same root. What idea did it convey?

We are first struck with the fact that the Tula I have been describing was not the only one in the Nahuatl district of Mexico. There are other Tulas and Tollans, one near Ococingo, another, now San Pedro Tula, in the State of Mexico, one in Guerrero, San Antonio Tula in Potosi,[[106]] etc. The name must have been one of common import. Herrera, who spells it Tulo, by an error, is just as erroneous in his suggestion of a meaning. He says it means “place of the tuna,” this being a term used for the prickly pear.[[107]] But tuna was not a Nahuatl word; it belongs to the dialect of Haiti, and was introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards. Therefore Herrera’s derivation must be ruled out. Ixtlilxochitl pretends that the name Tollan was that of the first chieftain of the Toltecs, and that they were named after him; but elsewhere himself contradicts this assertion.[[108]] Most writers follow the Codex Ramirez, and maintain that Tollan—of which Tula is but an abbreviation—is from tolin, the Nahuatl word for rush, the kind of which they made mats, and means “the place of rushes,” or where they grow.

The respectable authority of Buschmann is in favor of this derivation; but according to the analogy of the Nahuatl language, the “place of rushes” should be Toltitlan or Tolinan, and there are localities with these names.[[109]]

Without doubt, I think, we must accept the derivation of Tollan given by Tezozomoc, in his Cronica Mexicana. This writer, thoroughly familiar with his native tongue, conveys to us its ancient form and real sense. Speaking of the early Aztecs, he says: “They arrived at the spot called Coatepec, on the borders of Tonalan, the place of the sun.”[[110]]

This name, Tonallan, is still not unusual in Mexico. Buschmann enumerates four villages so called, besides a mining town, Tonatlan.[[111]] “Place of the sun” is a literal rendering, and it would be equally accurate to translate it “sunny-spot,” or “warm place,” or “summer-place.” There is nothing very peculiar or distinctive about these meanings. The warm, sunny plain at the foot of the Snake-Hill was called, naturally enough, Tonallan, syncopated to Tollan, and thus to Tula.[[112]]

But the literal meaning of Tollan—“Place of the Sun”—brought it in later days into intimate connection with many a myth of light and of solar divinities, until this ancient Aztec pueblo became apotheosized, its inhabitants transformed into magicians and demigods, and the corn-fields of Tula stand forth as fruitful plains of Paradise.