THE FATE OF TRAITORS AND CONSPIRATORS.
Traitors, conspirators, and those who stirred up sedition among the people or created ill feeling between nations, were broken to pieces at the joints, their houses razed to the ground, their property confiscated, and their children and relations made slaves to the fourth generation. The lord of vassals who rebelled, unless taken captive in battle, was killed by having his head smashed with a club; the common rebel was tied to an oaken spit and roasted alive.[538]
In Tezcuco, he who kidnapped a child and sold it into slavery, was hanged; in Mexico, the kidnapper was himself sold as a slave, and of the price he brought one half was given to the stolen child, or its parents, and the other half became the property of the purchaser; if several persons were implicated in the crime, they were all sold as slaves.[539]
LAWS AGAINST INTOXICATION.
Drunkenness was punished with excessive rigor; indeed, intoxicating liquor was not allowed to be drunk, except by express permission from the judges, and this license was only granted to invalids and persons over fifty years of age, who, it was considered, needed strong drink in order to warm their blood; and even they were only permitted to partake of a limited quantity, at each meal,[540] though according to the explanation of Mendoza's collection old men of seventy years were allowed to drink as much as they pleased.[541] Moderate conviviality at weddings and public feasts, was not forbidden, and upon these occasions the young people were allowed to partake of the wine-cup sparingly;[542] the same license was granted to those whose daily occupation necessitated great bodily exertion, such as masons, carpenters, and the like.[543] Women in childbed were allowed to use strong drink as a stimulant, but only during the first days of their confinement. With these exceptions, the law against drinking was strictly enforced. The young man who became drunk was conveyed to the jail, and there beaten to death with clubs; the young woman was stoned to death. In some parts, if the drunkard was a plebeian, he was sold for a slave for the first offence, and suffered death for the second; at other times the offender's hair was cut off in the public market-place, he was then lashed through the principal streets, and finally his house was razed to the ground, because, they said, one who would give up his reason to the influence of strong drink, was unworthy to possess a house, and be numbered among respectable citizens. Cutting off the hair was, as we shall see, a mode of punishment frequently resorted to by these people, and so deep was the degradation supposed to be attached to it, that it was dreaded almost equally with death itself. Should a military man, who had gained distinction in the wars, become drunk, he was deprived of his rank and honors, and considered thenceforth as infamous. Conviction of this crime rendered the culprit ineligible for all future emoluments, and especially was he debarred from holding any public office. A noble was invariably hanged for the first offence, his body being afterwards dragged without the limits of the town and cast into a stream used for that purpose only. But a mightier influence than mere fear of the penal law restrained the Aztec nobility and gentry from drinking to excess; this influence was social law. It was considered degrading for a person of quality to touch wine at all, even in seasons of festivity when, as I have said, it was customary and lawful for the lower classes to indulge to a certain extent. Wine-bibbing was looked upon as a coarse pleasure, peculiar exclusively to the common people, and a member of the higher orders, who was suspected of practicing the habit, would have forfeited his social position, even though the law had suffered him to remain unpunished.[544] These heathens, however, seem to have recognized the natural incongruity existing between precept and practice, fully as much as the most advanced Christian.[545]
He who employed witchcraft, charms, or incantations for the purpose of doing injury to the community or to individuals, was sacrificed to the gods, by having his breast opened and his heart torn out.[546]
MISCELLANEOUS LAWS.
Whoever made use of the royal insignia or ensigns, suffered death, and his property was confiscated.[547] The reader will recollect that the same penalty was inflicted upon him who should usurp the insignia or office of the Mexican cihuacoatl, or supreme judge. Whoever maltreated an ambassador, minister, or courier, belonging to the king, suffered death; but ambassadors and couriers were on their part forbidden to leave the high road, under pain of losing their privileges.[548] He who by force took possession of land not belonging to him, suffered death.[549] He who sold the land of another, or that which he held in trust, without judicial authority, or permission from such as had power to grant it to him, was enslaved.[550] If a piece of land was fraudulently sold twice over, the first purchaser held it, and the vendor was punished.[551] He who squandered his patrimony suffered death.[552] The son that raised his hand against his father or mother, suffered death, and his children were prevented from inheriting the property of their grand-parents. In the same manner a father could disinherit a son who was cowardly or cruel.[553] He who removed boundary-marks, died for it.[554] Those who disturbed the peace by engaging in petty fights and squabbles, without using weapons, were confined in jail for a few days, and obliged to make good whatever damage they had done; for, says Las Casas, they generally revenged themselves by breaking something. If any one was wounded in a brawl, he who made the assault had to defray all the expenses of curing the injured party. But those who fought in the market-place, were dealt with far more severely.[555] Slanderers were treated with great severity. In Mexico, he who wilfully calumniated another, thereby seriously injuring his reputation, was condemned to have his lips cut off, and sometimes his ears also. In Tezcuco, the slanderer suffered death. The false witness had the same penalty adjudged to him that would have been awarded to the accused, if convicted. So great a lover of truth was king Nezahualcoyotl, that he is said to have made a law prescribing the death penalty to historians who should record fictitious events.[556] Whoever obtained goods on credit and did not pay for them, was enslaved, and the delinquent taxpayer met with the same punishment.[557]
PENALTY FOR ADULTERY.
Concerning the way in which adulterers were treated scarcely two of the ancient writers agree,[558] and it is probable that the law on this point differed more or less in various parts of the Aztec kingdoms; indeed, we have Clavigero's testimony that in some parts of the Mexican empire the crime of adultery was punished with greater severity than in others, and Las Casas and Mendieta both speak of several penalties attaching to the offence in different localities. According to what can be gathered on this point, it appears that adulterers taken in flagrante delicto, or under circumstances which made their guilt a moral certainty, were stoned to death. A species of trial was granted to the culprits, but if, as some writers assert, confession of guilt was extorted by torture,[559] this trial must have been as much a mockery of justice as were the proceedings of most European courts of law at that period. The amount of evidence necessary to convict is uncertain. Veytia says that accusation by the husband was in itself sufficient proof.[560] Las Casas and Torquemada, however, who are both far older authorities, tell us that no man or woman was punished for adultery upon the unsupported testimony of the husband, but that other witnesses, and the confession of the defendants were necessary to procure their conviction.[561] Usually if the condemned adulterers were of the lower orders, they were taken out into a public place and there stoned to death by the assembled multitude, and few of the old writers omit to remark that this manner of death was almost painless, since no sooner was the first stone thrown than the poor wretch was immediately covered with a pile of missiles, so great was the number of his executioners, and so eager was each to take a hand in the killing. Another common mode of execution consisted in placing the head of the condemned upon a stone, and smashing his skull by letting another stone fall upon it.[562] The noble convicted of the same crime was not killed in this public manner, but was strangled in jail; and as a mark of respect to his rank, his head, after death, was adorned with plumes of green feathers, and the body was then burned. Adulterers who were found guilty merely upon circumstantial evidence also suffered death by strangulation. It was strictly forbidden for a husband to take the law into his own hands, and he who should seek to avenge his honor by slaying his wife or her paramour, even though he took them in the act of adultery, suffered death; in the same manner should the criminal endeavor to save himself by killing the injured husband, his fate was to be roasted alive before a slow fire, his body being basted with salt and water that death might not come to his relief too soon.[563] An adulterer could not escape the law on the plea of drunkenness,[564] and, indeed, had such an excuse been held admissible, little would have been gained by exchanging the fate of the adulterer for that of the drunkard. The trespass of a married man with a free unmarried woman was not considered to constitute adultery, nor punished as such, so that the husband was not bound to so much fidelity as was exacted from the wife. I have before remarked that although the crime of adultery was punished in all parts of the Aztec empire, yet the penalty inflicted differed in point of severity and in manner of execution. Thus, in the province of Ixcatlan, if we may believe Clavigero, a woman accused of this crime was summoned before the judges, and if the proofs of her guilt were satisfactory, she was there and then torn to pieces, and her limbs were divided among the witnesses, while in Itztepec the guilty woman's husband cut off her ears and nose, thus branding her as infamous for life.[565] In some parts of the empire the husband who cohabited with his wife after it had been proved that she had violated her fidelity, was severely punished.[566]