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

by Edward B. Tylor

Nearly two hundred Indians crowded into the church to mass, and went through the service with evident devotion. There are no more sincere Catholics in the world than the Indians, though, as I have said, they are apt to keep up some of their old rites in holes and corners. The administradors did not trouble themselves to attend mass, but went on posting up their books just outside the church-door; in this, as in a great many other little matters, showing their contempt for the brown men, and adding something every day to the feeling of dislike they are regarded with.

We speak of the Indians still keeping up their ancient superstitious rites in secret, as we often heard it said so in Mexico, though we ourselves never saw anything of it. The Abbé Clavigero, who wrote in the last century, declares the charge to be untrue, except perhaps in a few isolated cases. “The few examples of idolatry,” he says, “which can be produced are partly excusable; since it is not to be wondered at that rude uncultured men should not be able to distinguish the idolatrous worship of a rough figure of wood or stone from that which is rightly paid to the holy images.” (There are people who would quite agree with the good Abbé that the distinction is rather a difficult one to make.) “But how often has prejudice against them declared things to be idols which were really images of the saints, though shapeless ones! In 1754 I saw some images found in a cave, which were thought to be idols; but I had no doubt that they were figures representing the mystery of the Holy Nativity.”

A good illustration of the wholesale way in which the early Catholic missionaries went about the work of conversion is given in a remark of Clavigero’s. There is one part of the order of baptism which proceeds thus: “Then the Priest, wetting his right thumb with spittle from his mouth, and touching therewith in the form of a cross the right ear of the person to be baptized, &c.” The Mexican missionaries, it seems, had to leave out this ceremony, from sheer inability to provide enough of the requisite material for their crowds of converts.

After mass we rode out to a mound that had attracted our attention a day or two before, and which proved to be a fort or temple, or probably both combined. There were no remains to be found there except the usual fragments of pottery and obsidian. Then we returned to the hacienda to say good-bye to our friends there, before starting on our journey back to Mexico. All the population were hard at work amusing themselves, and the shop was doing a roaring trade in glasses of aguardiente. The Indian who had been our guide for some days past had opened a Monté bank with the dollars we had given him, and was sitting on the ground solemnly dealing cards one by one from the bottom of a dirty pack, a crowd of gamblers standing or sitting in a semicircle before him, silently watching the cards and keeping a vigilant eye upon their stakes which lay on the ground before the banker. Other parties were busy at the same game in other parts of the open space before the shop, which served as the great square for the colony.

Under the arcades in front of the shop a fandango was going on, though it was quite early in the afternoon. A man and a woman stood facing each other, an old man tinkled a guitar, producing a strange, endless, monotonous tune, and the two dancers stamped with their feet, and moved their arms and bodies about in time to the music, throwing themselves into affected and voluptuous attitudes which evidently met with the approval of the bystanders, though to us, who did not see with Indian eyes, they seemed anything but beautiful. When the danseuse had tired out one partner, another took his place. An admiring crowd stood round or sat on the stone benches, smoking cigarettes, and looking on gravely and silently, with evident enjoyment. Just as we saw it, it would go on probably through half the night, one couple, or perhaps two, keeping it up constantly, the rest looking on and refreshing themselves from time to time with raw spirits. Though inferior to the Eastern dancing, it resembled it most strikingly, my companion said. It has little to do with the really beautiful and artistic dancing of Old Spain, but seems to be the same that the people delighted in long before they ever saw a white man. Montezuma’s palace contained a perfect colony of professional dancers, whose sole business was to entertain him with their performances, which only resembled those of the Old World because human nature is similar everywhere, and the same wants and instincts often find their development in the same way among nations totally separated from each other.

We left the natives to their amusement, and started on our twenty miles ride. By the time the evening had fairly begun to close in upon us, we crossed the crest of a hill and had a dim view of a valley below us, but there were no signs of Chalma or its convent. We let our horses find their way as well as they could along the rocky path, and got down into the valley. A light behind us made us turn round, and we saw a grand sight. The coarse grass on a large hill further down the valley had been set fire to, and a broad band of flame stretched right across the base of the hill, and was slowly moving upwards towards its top, throwing a lurid glare over the surrounding country, and upon the clouds of smoke that were rising from the flames. Every now and then we turned to watch the line of fire as it rose higher and higher, till at last it closed in together at the summit with one final blaze, and left us in the darkness. We dismounted and stumbled along, leading our horses down the precipitous sides of the deep ravines that run into the valley, mounting again to cross the streams at the bottom, and clambering up on the other side to the level of the road. At last a turn in the valley showed lights just before us, and we entered the village of Chalma, which was illuminated with flaring oil-lamps in the streets, where men were hard at work setting up stalls and booths of planks. It seemed there was to be a fair next day.

They showed us the way to the meson[^[17]] and there we left Antonio with the horses, while the proprietor sent an idiot boy to show us the way to the convent, for our inspection of the meson decided us at once on seeking the hospitality of the monks for the night. We climbed up the hill, went in at the convent-gate, across a courtyard, along a dim cloister, and through another door where our guide made his way out by a different opening, leaving us standing in total darkness. After a time another door opened, and a good-natured-looking friar came in with a lamp in his hand, and conducted us upstairs to his cell. I think our friend was the sub-prior of the convent. His cell was a very comfortable bachelor’s apartment, in a plain way, vaulted and whitewashed, with good chairs and a table and a very comfortable-looking bed.

[17] The meson of Mexico is a lineal descendant of the Eastern Caravanserai, and has preserved its peculiarities unchanged for centuries. It consists of two court-yards, one surrounded by stabling and the other by miserable rooms for the travellers, who must cook their food themselves, or go elsewhere for it.

We sat talking with him for a long while, and heard that the fair next day would be attended by numbers of Indians from remote places among the mountains, and that at noon there would be an Indian dance in the church. It is not the great festival, however, he said. That is once a year; and then the Indians come from fifty miles round, and stay here several days, living in the caves in the rock just by the town, buying and selling in the fair, attending mass, and having solemn dances in the church. We asked him about the ill feeling between the Indians and the whites. He said that among the planters it might be as we said, but that in the neighbourhood of his convent the respect and affection of the Indians for the clergy, whether white or Indian, was as great as ever. Then we gossipped about horses, of which our friend was evidently an amateur, and when the conversation flagged, he turned to the table in the middle of the room and handed us little bowls made of calabashes, prettily decorated and carved, and full of sweetmeats. There were ten or twelve of these little bowls on the table, each with a different kind of “tuck” in it. We inquired where all those good things came from, and learnt that making them was one of the favourite occupations of the Mexican nuns, who keep their brethren in the monasteries well supplied. At last the good monk went away to his duties and left us, when I could not resist the temptation of having a look at the little books in blue and green paper covers which were lying on the table with the sweetmeat-bowls and the venerable old missal. They proved to be all French novels done into Spanish, and “Notre-Dame de Paris” was lying open (under a sheet of paper); so I conclude that our visit had interrupted the sub-prior while deep in that improving work.

Presently a monk came to conduct us down into the refectory, and there they gave us an uncommonly good supper of wonderful Mexican stews, red-hot as usual, and plenty of good Spanish wine withal. The great dignitaries of the cloister did not appear, but some fifteen or twenty monks were at table with us, and never tired of questioning us—exactly in the same fashion that the ladies of the harem questioned Doña Juana. We delighted them with stories of the miraculous Easter fire at Jerusalem, and the illumination of St. Peter’s, of the Sistine chapel and the Pope, and we parted for the night in high good humour.