UNNATURAL CRIMES.
Carnal connection with mother, sister, step-mother or step-sister, was punished by hanging; Torquemada says the same penalty was incurred by him who had connection with his mother-in-law, because they considered it a sin for a man to have access to both mother and daughter. Intercourse between brother-in-law and sister-in-law was, however, not criminal, and, indeed, it was customary for a man to raise up seed to his deceased brother by marrying his widow.[567] He who attempted to ravish a maiden, whether in the field, or in her father's house, suffered death.[568] In Michoacan, the ravisher's mouth was split from ear to ear with a flint knife, and he was afterwards impaled.[569] In Mexico, those who committed sodomy were hanged; in Tezcuco, the punishment for unnatural crime was characteristically brutal. The active agent was bound to a stake, completely covered with ashes and so left to die; the entrails of the passive agent were drawn out through his anus, he also was then covered with ashes, and, wood being added, the pile was ignited.[570] In Tlascala, the sodomite was not punished by law, but was scouted by society, and treated with scorn and contempt by all who knew him.[571] From the extreme severity of the laws enacted by the later sovereigns for the suppression of this revolting vice, and from the fact that persons were especially appointed by the judicial authorities to search the provinces for offenders of this class, it is evident that unnatural love had attained a frightful popularity among the Aztecs. Father Pierre de Gand, or, as he is sometimes known, de Mura, bears terrible testimony to this; he writes: "Un certain nombre de prêtres n'avaient point de femmes, sed eorum loco pueros quibus abutebantur. Ce péché était si commun dans ce pays, que, jeunes ou vieux, tous en étaient infectés; ils y étaient si adonnés, que mêmes des enfants de six ans s'y livraient."[572]
Las Casas relates that in several of the more remote provinces of Mexico unnatural vice was tolerated, if not actually permitted,[573] and it is not improbable that in earlier times this was the case in the entire empire. Inexpressibly revolting as the sin must appear to a modern mind, yet we know that pederasty has obtained among peoples possessed of a more advanced civilization than the Aztecs. In ancient Greece this unnatural passion prevailed to such an extent that it was regarded as heroic to resist it. Plutarch, in his Life of Agesilaus, cannot praise too highly the self-control manifested by that great man in refraining from gratifying a passion he had conceived for a boy named Megabates, which Maximus Tyrius says deserves greater praise than the heroism of Leonidas; Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Zeno, the founder of stoicism, the most austere of all ancient sects, praises that philosopher for being but little addicted to this vice; Sophocles, the Tragic Homer, and the Attic Bee, is said by Athenæus to have been especially addicted to it. Moralists were known to praise it as the bond of friendship, and it was spoken of as inspiring the enthusiasm of the heroic legion of Epaminondas. The defeat of the Romans by Hannibal at Cannæ was said to be caused by the jealousy of Juno, because a beautiful boy had been introduced into the temple of Jupiter. Las Casas tells us that pederasty was tolerated because they believed that their gods practiced it.[574] In precisely the same manner did the ancient Greeks make the popular religion bend to the new vice, and, by substituting Ganymede for Hebe as heavenly cup-bearer, make the head of all Olympus set an example of unnatural love.
LAWS RESPECTING CHASTITY.
The priest who violated his vow of chastity was banished; his house was demolished and his property confiscated.[575] Pimps were publicly disgraced in the market-place, by having their hair burnt off so close to the head that the drops of resin falling from the burning pitch-pine chips fell upon and seared the scalp; if the persons for whom the panderage was committed were of high rank, a greater penalty was inflicted upon the pander.[576] This was the law in Mexico; in Tezcuco, according to the historian of the Chichimecs, the pimp suffered death in all cases.[577]
Simple fornication was not punished, unless it was committed by a noble lady, or with a maiden consecrated to the service of the gods, in which cases it was death. Fornication with the concubine of another also went unpunished, unless they had been living a long time together, and were in consequence, according to custom, considered man and wife. If any one had connection with a slave, and the woman died during her pregnancy, or in giving birth to the child, then the offender became a slave; but if she was safely delivered, the child was free and was taken care of by the father.[578] The woman who took any drug to procure an abortion, and she who furnished the drug, both suffered death.[579] If one woman sinned carnally with another, both died for it.[580] The man who went about the streets dressed as a woman, or the woman who dressed as a man, was slain.[581]
In this account are comprised nearly all the special laws of the Aztecs which have been preserved, with the exception of those relating to military matters, marriage, divorce, and slavery, all of which I have already had occasion to consider.
That the Aztec code was a severe and brutal one there can be no denial, but that it was more severe and brutal than was necessary, is, as I have before remarked, doubtful. We have already seen that a horrible death was the inevitable fate of those detected stealing in the market-place, yet we are told that did the owner of a stall but turn away his head for a moment, his wares would be pilfered. A people accustomed almost daily to see human blood poured out like water in sacrifice to their gods, must of necessity have been hardened to the sight of suffering, and upon such none but an execution of the most revolting description could create an impression of awe or fear. It appears remarkable that punishments involving only disgrace should have been adopted by such a people, yet it is doubtful whether slavery was not considered a lighter punishment than having the hair burned off in the public market. Some of the Aztec monarchs evinced a desire to be as lenient as the stubborn nature of their subjects would allow, but the yoke upon the people, if it were in any degree to control them, must at best be a heavy one; in short, despotism of the harshest was necessary and indispensable to them in their stage of civilization.
NEZAHUALCOYOTL AND THE BOY.
Nezahualcoyotl, king of Tezcuco, was especially merciful and considerate towards his subjects. For instance, he ordered that corn should be planted, at the expense of government, by the roadside, in order that none who were guilty of stealing from the fields, might excuse themselves on the ground of hunger.[582] It is related that this monarch went frequently among his people in disguise, for the purpose of discovering their grievances and general condition, and some of the adventures he met with on these occasions are as entertaining as any told by Sheherezade of the Good Caliph. I select one, not because it is the best, but because it points more particularly to Nezahualcoyotl's benevolence and love of justice. During the reign of this monarch, owing to the immense consumption of wood, the use of oil and tallow being then unknown, the forests began to grow thin, and the king foreseeing that unless some precautions were taken, there would soon be a scarcity of wood in the kingdom, ordered that within certain limits no wood should be touched. Now it happened one day, when the king was abroad in disguise, and accompanied only by his brother Quauhtlehuanitzin, that they passed by the skirts of a forest wherein it was prohibited to cut or gather wood. Here they found a boy who was engaged in picking up the light chips and twigs that had been carried by the wind outside of the enclosure, because in this locality the inhabitants were very numerous, and had exhausted all the timber that was not reserved by law. Nezahualcoyotl, seeing that under the trees of the forest there lay a great quantity of fallen wood, asked the boy why he contented himself with dry leaves and scattered twigs when so great an abundance of fuel lay close at hand. The boy answered that the king had forbidden the people to gather wood in the forest, and therefore he was obliged to take whatever he could get. The king told him to go, nevertheless, into the forest and help himself to fuel, and none would be the wiser, for that he and his companion would say nothing of the matter. But the boy rebuked them, saying that they must be traitors to the king who would persuade him to do this thing, or that they sought to avenge themselves upon his parents by bringing misfortune upon their son, and he refused to enter the forbidden ground. Then was the king much pleased with the boy's loyalty, and seeing the distress to which the people were reduced by the severity of the forest laws, he afterwards had them altered.[583]