The whole continent was peopled with wild tribes of yellow blood from Asia via the north-west at a very remote period. About 1000 B.C., the Culhuas, a mixed race of black and white blood appeared from the east and introduced agriculture and a slight degree of civilization. Soon after the Culhuas, the Nahuas appeared, a white race coming from the north of Europe via the Mississippi Valley, Florida, and West Indies, in successive migrations. Palenque was built by the yellow races under a strong influence of the Culhuas and a very slight Nahua influence; the cities of Yucatan were built when the Nahuas had conquered their rivals and the influence of the white race had become predominant; Mitla owes its origin to a still more recent period, and was built by a migrating tribe in which the yellow blood seems to have predominated. Viollet-le-Duc, in Charnay, Ruines Amér.
[III-94] A document, for the authenticity of which even Brasseur de Bourbourg declines to vouch, dates the first appearance of the Nahuas at 279 B.C. The abbé thinks that event was probably during the century before Christ; but he, it must be remembered, accepts the coming of Quetzalcoatl and his followers and the introduction of a new civilization literally. Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 101.
[III-95] I find no authority for Brasseur de Bourbourg's opinion that the fall of Xibalba preceded the final scattering of the Nahua nations by only one century.
[III-96] Orozco y Berra, Geografía, pp. 128-9, judges from the occurrence of Nahua names in Guatemala that nations speaking Nahua were formerly located there, and were overcome either by Maya-speaking tribes that they found in the country, or by others that invaded the country after them.
[III-97] Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 524. Some of these writers, however, believe strongly in a migration of tribes from the north, although attributing the Nahua culture to the south.
[IV-1] Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., tom. i., pp. 247-50. 'Era servido de unos Sacerdotes llamados Papahua Tlemacàzque, que, à distincion de los demàs, traìan el cabello en melenas sueltas, y al acabarse el Cyclo Indiano, sacaban, y vendian el Fuego Nuevo à los Pueblos vecinos.' Boturini, Idea, p. 42. 'Allí tambien se enterraban los principales y señores, sobre cuyas sepulturas se mandaban hacer túmulos de tierra, que hoy se ven todavia.' Sahagun, Hist. Gen., tom. iii., lib. x., p. 141.
[IV-2] Brasseur cites Torquemada and Duran as authorities for the existence at this period of some remnants of the old Quinames, and of other savage tribes whose names have been lost; but these authors in the chapters cited say nothing to which such a meaning can fairly be attributed.
[IV-4] Boturini, Catálogo, p. 17, No. 12. 'Diferentes Historias Originales en lengua Nàhuatl, y papel Europèo de los Reynos de Culhuàcan, y Mexico, y de otras Provincias, el Autor de ellas dicho Don Domingo Chimalpàin. Empiezan desde la Gentilidad, y llegan à los años de 1591.' See also Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. lxxvi.
[IV-5] Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 198, et seq. This author refers occasionally in his foot-notes to the Spanish writers Torquemada, Duran, and others, but such citations when looked up rarely prove to have any bearing on the matter in question, being for the most part only definitions of names employed in the text. It is much to be regretted that there are no means of testing Brasseur de Bourbourg's version of these important annals. See, however, on this point, a future note of this chapter.