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

by Edward B. Tylor

SCULPTURED PANEL,
From the ruined Pyramid of Xochicalco. (After Nebel.)

Above these bas-reliefs is a frieze between three and four feet high, with another sculptured panel repeated eight times on each side of the pyramid. This remarkable sculpture represents a man sitting barefoot and crosslegged. On his head is a kind of crown or helmet, with a plume of feathers; and from the front of this helmet there protrudes a serpent, just where in the Egyptian sculptures the royal basilisk is fixed on the crowns of kings and queens. The eyes of this personage are protected by round plates with holes in the middle, held on by a strap round the head, like the coloured glasses used in the United States to keep off the glare of the sun, and known as “goggles.” In front of this figure are sculptured a rabbit and some unintelligible ornaments or weapons. “Rabbit” may have been his name.

The frieze is surmounted by a cornice; and above the cornice of the second storey enough remains to show that it was covered with reliefs, in the same way as the first There were five storeys originally: the others have only been destroyed about a century. The former proprietor of the hacienda of Temisco pulled down the upper storeys, and carried away the blocks of stone to build walls and dams with.

The perfect execution of the details in the bas-reliefs and the accuracy with which they are repeated show clearly that it was not so much want of skill as the necessity of keeping to the conventional mode of representing objects that has given so grotesque a character to the Mexican scriptures. Certain figures became associated with religion and astrology in Mexico, as in many other countries; and the sculptor, though his facility in details shows that he could have made far better figures if he had had a chance, never had the opportunity, for he was not allowed to depart from the original rude type of the sacred object. Humboldt remarks that the same undeviating reproduction of fixed models is as striking in the Mexican sculptures done since the Conquest. The clumsy outlines of the rude figures of saints brought from Europe in the 16th century were adopted as models by the native sculptors, and have lasted without change to this day.

It is evident that Xochicalco answered several purposes. It was a fortified hill of great strength, also a sacred shrine, and a burial-place for men of note, whose bodies, no doubt, still lie under the ruined cairns near the pyramid. The magnitude of the ditch and the terraces, as well as the great size of the blocks of stone brought up the hill without the aid of beasts of burden, indicate a large population and a despotic government. The beauty of the masonry and sculpture show that the people who erected this monument had made no small progress in the arts. We must remember, too, that they had no iron, but laboriously cut and polished the hardest granite and porphyry with instruments of stone and bronze; we can hardly tell how.

The resemblances which people find between Assyrian and Egyptian sculptures and the American monuments are of little value, and do not seem sufficient to ground any argument upon. When slightly civilized races copy men, trees, and animals in their rude way, it would be hard if there were not some resemblance among the figures they produce. With reference to their ornamentation, it is true that what is called the “key-border” is quite common in Mexico and Yucatan, and that on this very pyramid the panels are divided by a twisted border, which would not be noticed as peculiar in a “renaissance” building. But the model of this border may have been suggested—on either side of the globe—by creepers twined together in the forest, or by a cord doubled and twisted, such as is represented in one of the commonest Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The cornice which finishes the first storey of the pyramid is a familiar pattern, but nothing can be concluded from these simple geometrical designs, which might be invented over and over again by different races when they began to find pleasure in tracing ornamental devices upon their buildings. Upon the tattooed skins of savages such designs may be seen, and the patterns were certainly in use among them before they had any intercourse with white men. This is the view Humboldt takes of these coincidences. That both the Egyptian king and the Mexican chief should wear a helmet with a serpent standing out from it just above the forehead, is somewhat extraordinary.

Now, who built Xochicalco? Writers on Mexico are quite ready with their answer. They tell us that, according to the Mexican tradition, the country was formerly inhabited by another race, who were called Toltecâ, or, as we say, Toltecs, from the name of their city, Tollan, “the Reed-swamp;” and that they were of the same race as the Aztecs, as shown by the names of their cities and their kings being Aztec words; that they were a highly civilized people, and brought into the country the arts of sculpture, hieroglyphic painting, great improvements in agriculture, many of the peculiar religious rites since practised by other nations who settled after them in Mexico, and the famous astronomical calendar, of which I shall speak afterwards. The particular Toltec king to whom the Mexican historians ascribe the building of Xochicalco was called Nauhyotl, that is to say, “Four Bells,” and died A.D. 945.

We are further told that just about the time of our Norman Conquest, the Toltecs were driven out from the Mexican plateau by famine and pestilence, and migrated again southward. Only a few families remained, and from them the Aztecs, Chichemecs, and other barbarous tribes by whom the country was re-peopled, derived that knowledge of the arts and sciences upon which their own civilization was founded. It was by this Toltec nation—say the Mexican writers—that the monuments of Xochichalco, Teotihuacán, and Cholula were built. In their architecture the Aztecs did little more than copy the works left by their predecessors; and, to this day, the Mexican Indians call a builder a toltecatl or Toltec.

If we consider this circumstantial account to be anything but a mere tissue of fables, the question naturally arises—what became of the remains of the Toltecs when they left the high plains of Mexico? A theory has been propounded to answer this question, that they settled in Chiapas and Yucatan, and built Palenque, Copan, and Uxmal, and the other cities, the ruins of which lie imbedded in the tropical forest.