Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern

by Edward B. Tylor

Returning to the entrance of the quarry, well loaded with stone hammers and knives, we sat down to breakfast, in a cave, where our man had established himself with the horses. An attempt on my part to cut German sausage with an obsidian knife proved a decided failure.

We had already been struck by the appearance of the two pyramids of Teotihuacán, when we passed by Otumba on our way to Mexico. The hills which skirt the plain are so near them as to diminish their apparent size; but even at a distance they are conspicuous objects. Now, when we came close to them, and began by climbing to their summits, and walking round their terraces, to measure ourselves against them, we began gradually to realize their vast bulk; and this feeling continually grew upon us. Modern architecture strives to unite the greatest possible effect with the least cost; and the modern churches of southern Europe and Spanish America, with their fine tall facades fronting the street, and insignificant little buildings behind, show this idea in its fullest development. Pyramids are built with no such object, and make but little show in proportion to their vast mass of material; but then one gets from them a sense of solid magnitude that no other building gives, however vast its proportions may be. Neither of us had ever seen the Egyptian pyramids. Even in Mexico these of Teotihuacán are not the largest; for, though the pyramid of Cholula is no higher, it covers far more ground. Were these monuments in Egypt, they would only rank, from their size, in the second class.

As has often been remarked, such buildings as these can only be raised under peculiar social conditions. The ruler must be a despotic sovereign, and the mass of the people slaves, whose subsistence and whose lives are sacrificed without scruple to execute the fancies of the monarch, who is not so much the governor as the unrestricted owner of the country and the people. The population must be very dense, or it would not bear the loss of so large a proportion of the working class; and vegetable food must be exceedingly abundant in the country, to feed them while engaged in this unprofitable labour.

We know how great was the influence of the priestly classes in Egypt, though the pyramids there, being rather tombs than temples, do not prove it. In Mexico, however, the pyramids themselves were the temples, serving only incidentally as tombs; and their size proves that—as respects priestly influence—the resemblance between the two people is fully carried out.

Like the Egyptian pyramids, these fronted the four cardinal points. Their shape was not accurately pyramidal, for the line from base to summit was broken by three terraces, or perhaps four, running completely round them; and at the top was a flat square space, where stood the idols and the sacrificial altars. This construction closely resembled that of some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids. Flights of stone steps led straight up from terrace to terrace, and the procession of priests and victims made the circuit of each before they ascended to the one above.

The larger of the two teocallis is dedicated to the Sun, has a base of about 640 feet, and is about 170 feet high. The other, dedicated to the Moon, is rather smaller.

These monuments were called teocallis, not because they were pyramids, but because they were temples; “Teocalli” means “god’s house”—(teotl, god, calli, house), a name which the traveller hears explained for the first time with some wonder; and Humboldt cannot help adverting to its curious correspondence with θεου καλια, dei cella. Another odd coincidence is found in the Aztec name for their priests, papahua, the root of which papa, (the hua, is merely a termination). In the Old World the word Papa, Pope, or Priest, was connected with the idea of father or grandfather, but the Aztec word has no such origin.

When the Aztecs abandoned their temples, and began to build Christian churches, they called them also “teocallis,” and perhaps do so to this day.

The heavy tropical rains have to a great extent broken the sharpness of the outline of these structures, and brought them more nearly to the shape of real pyramids than they were originally; but, as we climbed up their sides, we could trace the terraces without any difficulty, and even flights of steps.

The pyramids consist of an outer casing of hewn stone, faced and covered with smooth stucco, which has resisted the effects of time and bad usage in a wonderful manner. Inside this casing were adobes, stones, clay, and mortar, as one may see in places where the exterior has been damaged, and by creeping into the small passage which leads into the Temple of the Moon. Both pyramids are nearly covered with a coating of debris, full of bits of obsidian arrows and knives, and broken pottery. On the teocalli of the moon we found a number of recent sea-shells, which mystified us extremely; and the only explanation we could give of their presence there was that they might have been brought up as offerings. A passage in Humboldt, which I met with long after, seems to clear up the mystery. Speaking of the great teocalli of the city of Mexico, he says, quoting an old description, that the Moon had a little temple in the great courtyard, which was built of shells. Those that we found may be the remains of a similar structure on the top of the pyramid.