The Home of the Chichimecs—Michoacan—Tzintzuntzan, Lake Patzcuaro, Teremendo—Aniche and Jiquilpan—Colima—Armería and Cuyutlan—Jalisco—Tonala, Guadalajara, Chacala, Sayula, Tepatitlan, Zapotlan, Nayarit, Tepic, Santiago Ixcuintla, and Bolaños—Guanajuato—San Gregorio and Santa Catarina—Zacatecas—La Quemada and Teul—Tamaulipas—Encarnacion, Santa Barbara, Carmelote, Topila, Tampico, and Burrita—Nuevo Leon and Texas—Coahuila—Bolson de Mapimi, San Martero—Durango—Zape, San Agustin, and La Breña—Sinaloa and Lower California—Cerro de las Trincheras in Sonora—Casas Grandes in Chihuahua.
A somewhat irregular line extending across the continent from north-east to south-west, terminating at Tampico on the gulf and at the bar of Zacatula on the Pacific, is the limit which the progress northward of our antiquarian exploration has reached, the results having been recorded in the preceding chapters. The region that now remains to be traversed, excepting the single state of Michoacan, the home of the Tarascos, is without the limits that have been assigned to the Civilized Nations, and within the bounds of comparative savagism. The northern states of what is now the Mexican Republic were inhabited at the time of the Conquest by the hundreds of tribes, which, if not all savages, had at least that reputation among their southern brethren. To the proud resident of Anáhuac and the southern plateaux, the northern hordes were Chichimecs, 'dogs,' barbarians. Yet several of these so-called barbarian tribes were probably as far advanced in certain elements of civilization as some of the natives that have been included among the Nahuas. They were tillers of the soil and lived under systematic forms of government, although not apparently much given to the arts of architecture and sculpture. Only one grand pile of stone ruins is known to exist in the whole northern Chichimec region, and the future discovery of others, though possible, is not, I think, very likely to occur. Nor are smaller relics, idols and implements, very numerous, except in a few localities; but this may be attributed perhaps in great degree to the want of thorough exploration. A short chapter will suffice for a description of all the monuments south of United States territory, and in describing them I shall treat of each state separately, proceeding in general terms from south to north. A glance at the [map] accompanying this volume will show the reader the position of each state, and each group of remains, more clearly than any verbal location could do.
TARASCAN MONUMENTS.
The civilized Tarascos of Michoacan have left but very few traces in the shape of material relics. Their capital and the centre of their civilization was on the shores and islands of Lake Patzcuaro, where the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest found some temples described by them as magnificent.[X-1] Beaumont tells us that the ruins of a 'plaza de armas' belonging traditionally to the Tarascos at Tzintzuntzan, the ancient capital, were still visible in 1776, near the pueblo of Ignatzio, two leagues distant. Five hundred paces west of the pueblo a wall, mostly fallen, encloses a kind of plaza, measuring four hundred and fourteen by nine hundred and thirty feet. The wall was about sixteen feet thick and eighteen in height, with terraces, or steps, on the inside. In the centre were the foundations of what the author supposes to have been a tower, and west of the enclosed area were three heaps of stones, supposed to be burial mounds. Two idols, one in human form, lacking head and feet, the other shaped like an alligator, were found here, carved from a stone called tanamo, much like the tetzontli. The same author says, "respecting the ruins of the palace of the Tarascan kings, according to the examination which I lately made of these curiosities, I may say that eastward of this city of Tzintzuntzan, on the slope of a great hill called Yaguarato, a hundred paces from the settlement, are seen on the surface of the ground some subterranean foundations, which extend from north to south about a hundred and fifty paces, and about fifty from east to west, where there is a tradition that the palace of the ancient kings was situated. In the centre of the foundation-stones are five small mounds, or cuicillos, which are called stone yacatas, and hewn blocks, over which an Indian guardian is never wanting, for even now the natives will not permit these stones to be removed." "On the shores of Lake Siraguen are found ancient monuments of the things which served for the pleasure of the kings and nobles, with other ruined edifices, which occur in various places."[X-2] Tzintzuntzan is on the south-eastern shore of the lake, some leagues northward from the modern Patzcuaro. Lyon in later times was told that the royal palace and other interesting remains were yet to be seen on the lake shores, but he did not visit them.[X-3]
TEREMENDO AND ANICHE.
Another early writer, Villa-Señor y Sanchez, says that in 1712 he, with a companion, entered what seemed a cavern in a deep barranca at Teremendo, eight leagues south-west of Valladolid, or Morelia. "There were discovered prodigious aboriginal vaults, bounded by very strong walls, rendered solid by fire. In the centre of the second was a bench like the foot of an altar, where there were many idols, and fresh offerings of copal, and woolen stuffs, and various figures of men and animals." It was found according to this author that the builders had constructed walls of loose stones of a kind easily melted, and then by fire had joined the blocks into a solid mass without the use of mortar, continuing the process to the roof. The outside of the structure was overgrown with shrubs and trees.[X-4]
At Aniche, an island in Lake Patzcuaro, Mr Beaufoy discovered some hieroglyphic figures cut on a rock; and at Irimbo about fifty miles east of Morelia, he was shown some small mounds which the natives called fortifications, although there was nothing to indicate that such had been their use.[X-5] In the mountains south-east of Lake Chapala, in the region of Jiquilpan, Sr García reports the remains of an ancient town, and says further that opals and other precious stones well worked have been obtained here.[X-6] Humboldt pictures a very beautiful obsidian bracelet or ring, worked very thin and brilliantly polished; and another writer mentions some giants' bones, all found within the limits of Michoacan.[X-7]
At the time when official explorations were undertaken by Dupaix and Castañeda in the southern parts of New Spain, it seems that officials in some northern regions also were requested by the Spanish government to report upon such remains of antiquity as might be known to exist. The antiquarian genius to whom the matter was referred in Colima, then a department of Michoacan, but now an independent state, made a comprehensive report to the effect that he "had not been able to hear of anything except an infinite number of edifices of ruined towns," and some bones and other remains apparently of little importance, which had been taken from excavations on the hacienda of Armería and Cuyutlan, and which seemed to have been destroyed and covered up by volcanic eruptions. If this archæologist had found more than 'an infinite number' of ruins, it might possibly have occurred to him to describe some of them.[X-8] Nothing more is known of Colima antiquities.
PYRAMID OF TEPATITLAN.