A third writer, Ramirez, by far the most illustrious of those who have treated the same subject, speaking of the two historians who preceded him, says: “I am not claiming infallibility for our historians, yet it must surely be conceded that, if no credence is given to our own, the same measure must be meted out to all the traditions of other countries, for neither Diodorus, Josephus, Livy, Tacitus, nor other historians, are able to bring the array of documents with which our history abounds in support of their assertions. I have purposely omitted Herodotus, the most curious and instructive among ancient historians, because modern discoveries and modern criticism have cleared him from the unjust attacks of Plutarch. A history is true and highly instructive, although it may contain absurd propositions, if it faithfully transmits the traditions, the belief, and the customs of a people; as it may be absolutely false, although relating facts which seem natural and probable, but are only the invention of the author. Mexican history and biography, like those of other nations, are founded on tradition and historical documents; than which none are better authenticated or more trustworthy.”
We think Ramirez proves his case, and, in writing these chapters, we will not be more critical than he is.[24]
Veytia,[25] like all historians of that time, places the primitive home of the Toltecs in Asia, to make his account agree with Genesis, where it is said that after the destruction of the Babylonian Tower, “The Lord scattered the sons of men upon the face of all the earth.” According to him, they crossed Tartary and entered America through the Behring Straits, by means of large flat canoes, and square rafts made of wood and reeds; the former are described, and called acalli, “water houses,” in their manuscripts. Directing their course southward, they built their first capital, Tlapallan, “coloured,” subsequently Huehue-Tlapallan, to distinguish it from a later Tlapallan. Huehue-Tlapallan was the cradle whence originated the various tribes which peopled America. Each tribe was called after the father or chief of the family, who was also its ruler; hence came the Olmecs, from Olmecatl; the Xicalancas, from Xicalantl, etc.; it is uncertain whether the Chichemecs derived their appellation from Cichen, the man, or Chichen, the town in Yucatan.[26]
The Toltecs, by the common consent of historians, were the most cultured of all the Nahua tribes, and better acquainted with the mode of perpetuating the traditions of their origin and antiquities. To them is due the invention of hieroglyphs and characters, which, arranged after a certain method, reproduced their history on skins of animals, on aloe and palm-leaves, or by knots of different colours, which they called nepohualtzitzin, “historical events,” and also by simple allegorical songs. This manner of writing history by maps, songs, and knots, was handed down from father to son, and thus has come to us.[27]
Tlacatzin was the next city they built; and here, after thirteen years of warfare, they separated from the main body of the nation and migrated some seventy miles to the south, where in 604 they founded Tlapallanco, “small Tlapallan,” in remembrance of their first capital. But the arrival of fresh immigrants caused them to remove further south, and, under the command of their wise man, Hueman,[28] “the Strong Hand,” who is endowed with power, wisdom, and intelligence, the Toltecs set out in 607, and marked their progress by building Jalisco, where they remained eight years; then Atenco, where they were five years; and twenty years at Iztachuexuca. In after times other Nahuan tribes followed them by different routes, as the ruins in New Mexico and the Mexican Valley everywhere attest.
Las Casas Grandes, the settlements in the Sierra Madre, the ruins of Zape, of Quemada, recalling the monuments at Mitla, others in Queretaro, together with certain features in the building of temples and altars, which remind one of the Mexican manuscripts from which the Toltec, Aztec, and Yucatec temple was built, make it clear that the civilising races came from the northwest; and Guillemin Tarayre,[29] like ourselves, sees in the calli the embryo of the teocalli, which developed into the vast proportions of the pyramidal mounds found at Teotihuacan, Cholula, in Huasteca, Misteca, Tabasco, and Yucatan.
The next city built by the Toltecs was Tollatzinco, where they remained sixteen years; and finally settled at Tollan or Tula, which became their capital. The date of its foundation is variously given; Ixtlilxochitl sets it down at 556, Clavigero 667, and Veytia assigns 713 A.D. as the probable date. In our estimation, this divergence of opinion confirms rather than invalidates the existence of this people.
When the Aztecs reached Anahuac, Atzacapotzalco, Colhuacan, and Texcuco were small flourishing states. They had inherited from the Toltecs many useful arts, their code of morals, philosophy and religion, which in their turn they taught the Aztecs, so that the institutions and customs of these different tribes were common to all; and in default of documents which have been lost, we ascribe nearly all the historians of the Conquest relate of the Aztecs, whom they found the dominant race, as applicable to the Toltecs, the fountain of all progress both on the plateaux and in Central America, where we shall follow them. As for the Aztecs, who settled for the first time on the Mexican lake at the beginning of the fourteenth century, they were at that period nothing but a rude, barbarous tribe, and to the last day of their political existence they remained a military caste.
Among the ruins to be found at Tula are those of an unfinished temple called Quetzali, consisting of pillars in the shape of serpents, the heads of which form the basement and the tails the capital.