The Tubares were a peaceable nation living in the Sierra of Sinaloa. They received the missionaries willingly and seem to have been an industrious tribe, their principal object of commerce being articles of clothing. It is said that they spoke two entirely distinct languages, one a dialect of Nahuatl, the other of unknown affinities.[148] The Guazapares and the Varogios are described as living near the Tubares, on the head-waters of the Rio del Fuerte, and speaking the same or a similar dialect.[149]
In the defiles of the lofty range, which is sometimes called the Sierra de Topia, resided the Acaxees, Xiximes and other wild tribes, speaking related tongues. By some authorities they are alleged to belong to the Sonoran group, but as the material is lacking for comparison, their ethnographic position must be left undetermined.
The Guaymas, on the coast of the Gulf of California, south of the Ceris (a Yuma folk), have been ascertained by Mr. Pinart to speak a dialect allied to that of the southern Pimas, and are therefore to be added to this group. Another Pima dialect was the Bacorehui, spoken by the Batucaris and Comoparis on the lower Rio del Fuerte; as it was also that of the Ahomes, a distinctly Pima people.[150]
The uniform tradition of all the tribes of this stock in Sonora and Sinaloa, so far as they were obtained by the early missionaries, was to the effect that their ancestors had migrated from localities further to the north.[151]
c. The Nahuatl Branch.
Under the term Nahuas, which has the excellent authority of Sahagun in its favor, I shall include all the tribes of the Uto-Aztecan stock who spoke the Nahuatl language, that called by Buschmann the Aztec, and often referred to as the Mexican. These tribes occupied the slope of the Pacific coast from about the Rio del Fuerte in Sinaloa, N. lat. 26°, to the frontiers of Guatemala, except a portion at the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Beyond this line, they had colonies under the name of Pipiles on the coast of Guatemala, and in the interior the Alaguilacs. The Cuitlatecos, or Tecos, “dung-hill people,” was a term of depreciation applied to those in Michoacan and Guerrero. On the borders of the lakes in the valley of Mexico were the three important states Tezcuco, Tlacopan and Tenochtitlan, who at the time of the conquest were formed into a confederacy of wide sway.
The last mentioned, Tenochtitlan, had its chief town where the city of Mexico now stands, and its inhabitants were the Azteca. East of the valley were the Tlascaltecs, an independent tribe; south of and along the shore of the gulf from Vera Cruz almost to the mouth of the Rio de Grijalva, were Nahuatl tribes under the dominion of the confederacy. An isolated, but distinctly affiliated band, had wandered down to Nicaragua, where under the name Nicaraos they were found on the narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific, which they had conquered from tribes of Chapanec lineage. The most distant of all were the Seguas, who at the time of the conquest resided in the Valle Coaza, on the Rio Telorio, and later moved to Chiriqui Lagoon. After the conquest they were scattered still further by the transportation of colonies of Tlascalans to Saltillo in the north, and to Isalco in San Salvador in the south.
I omit entirely from this group the Toltecs and the Chichimecs. These were never tribal designations, and it is impossible to identify them with any known communities. The Toltecs may have been one of the early and unimportant gentes of the Azteca, but even this is doubtful. The term was properly applied to the inhabitants of the small town of Tula, north of the valley of Mexico. In later story they were referred to as a mythical people of singular gifts and wide domain. Modern and uncritical writers have been misled by these tales, and have represented the Toltecs as a potent nation and ancestors of the Aztecs. There is no foundation for such statements, and they have no historic position.[152]
The term Chichimeca was applied to many barbarous hordes as a term of contempt, “dogs,” “dog people.”[153] It has no ethnic signification, and never had, but was used in much the same way as Cuitlateca, above referred to.[154]