To the tribes which figured conspicuously in Mexico prior to the Toltecs and not related to the Nahuas, we may add the Miztecs and Zapotecs, whose language, though not Maya, is in some respects similar to it, while the architectural remains and traditional origin of this people associates them with the Nahuas. Their civilization in Oajaca rivalled that of the Aztecs in its degree of advancement.[366] The Totonacs were formerly, according to Torquemada, of Nahua extraction; but the authority in the face of linguistic difficulties is doubtful.[367] According to Torquemada’s claim, they were the builders of the temple of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan near Lake Tezcuco.[368] The Huastecs of northern Vera Cruz were a Maya branch of the power at the south; they mark the most northern point reached by the Maya tongue. Of the Nahua predecessors of the Toltecs in Mexico the Olmecs and Xicalancas were the most important. They were the forerunners of the great nations which followed. According to Ixtlilxochitl, these people—which are conceded to be one—occupied the new world in the third age; they came from the East in ships or barks to the land of Potonchan, which they commenced to populate, and on the shores of the River Atoyac, between the Ciudad de los Angeles and Cholula, they found some giants who had escaped the calamity which overtook that race in the second age of the world.[369] Here then comes the destruction of the giants referred to above. The first settlement of the Olmecs and Xicalancas in Mexico is supposed to have been on the site of the ancient city of Xicalanco at the point which still bears the name, at the entrance of the Laguna de Terminos, while a second city, built probably a little later, was situated on the coast a short distance below Vera Cruz; the entire region bore the name of Anahuac Xicalanco.[370] The first great exploit of the Olmec chiefs, the destruction of the giants, we observe was performed at some distance from their earliest settlement. The state of Puebla became their chosen ground, and quite soon after the above achievement they undertook the building of the famous tower of Cholula, which is so closely allied in its traditional history with the Tower of Babel. Several authors state that the erection of the pyramid of Cholula was done in memory of the erection of the tower of Babel, at which it is claimed the ancestors of the Olmec chiefs were present. Boturini is probably one of the most sanguine advocates of this view.[371] Others consider that the knowledge which the ancestors of this people transmitted to them with reference to Babel, in time became associated with the Cholula edifice and confounded with its history.
The Toltecs possessed a deluge tradition, which we will notice hereafter, which unquestionably had reference to a very general and devastating flood; perhaps the scriptural one, but it is clear, as we think we have the authority to show, that the Cholula pyramid and its origin had no relation to that tradition, though so often confounded with it and the tower referred to by the Nahua chroniclers. The generally accepted origin of the pyramid is as follows: from the great cataclysm which destroyed the giants, seven of that race of monsters escaped by shutting themselves up in a mountain cavern. After the waters subsided, Xelhua, one of their number, went to Cholula and began the construction of this pyramid “to escape a second flood, should another occur,” according to Kingsborough, or as a “memorial of the mountain called Tlaloc which had sheltered him,” according to Pedro de los Rios. The bricks which were manufactured at the foot of the Sierra de Cocotl were transported to Cholula by being passed through the hands of a file of men extending between the two localities. But the angered gods seeing the presumption of mortals, smote both the tower and its architects with thunderbolts and stopped their work.[372] Lord Kingsborough so intimately connects the erection of the tower with the Toltec deluge legend as to derive Xelhua, the builder of the tower, from the Toltecs rather than from the race of giants, by claiming that he escaped from the deluge with Paticatle the Mexican Noah in an ark, and adds that when the tower was destroyed and the tongues of the builders confounded, Xelhua led a colony to the new world. This last will serve as a specimen of how the Cholula legend has been misunderstood and confounded with the tower of Babel. Father Duran in his MS.,[373] Historia Antigua de la Nueva España, 1585 A. D., quotes from the lips of a native of Cholula, over an hundred years old, a version of the legend which assigns quite a different object for building the Pyramid, one which shows that it never was erected as a memorial of Babel nor ever had any reference to an escape from any flood either past or in anticipation. It is as follows: “In the beginning before the light of the sun had been created, this land was in obscurity and darkness and void of any created thing; all was a plain without hill or elevation, encircled in every part by water without tree or created thing; and immediately after the light and the sun arose in the east, there appeared gigantic men of deformed stature, and possessed the land, who desiring to see the nativity of the sun as well as his occident, proposed to go and seek them. Dividing themselves into two parties, some journeyed toward the West and others toward the East; these travelled until the sea cut off their road, whereupon they determined to return to the place from which they started, and arriving at this place (Cholula), not finding the means of reaching the sun, enamored of his light and beauty, they determined to build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky. Having collected material for the purpose, they found a very adhesive clay and bitumen, with which they speedily commenced to build the tower, and having reared it to the greatest possible altitude, so that they say it reached to the sky, the Lord of the Heavens, enraged, said to the inhabitants of the sky, ‘Have you observed how they of the earth have built a high and haughty tower to mount hither, being enamored of the light of the sun and his beauty? Come! and confound them; because it is not right that they of the earth, living in the flesh, should mingle with us.’ Immediately at that very instant the inhabitants of the sky sallied forth like flashes of lightning; they destroyed the edifice and divided and scattered its builders to all parts of the earth.”[374] This account, the most ancient on record, makes no reference to a flood, and is quite distinct from the Mexican deluge tradition. Its value as an interpreter of the tendency of the American tribes not only of the United States and Mexico, but of both Americas, to erect mounds and truncated pyramids is not inconsiderable, since it confirms the opinion long entertained that they were connected with sun-worship. The great culture-hero, Quetzalcoatl, the white saintly personage from the East, said to have been the leader of the Nahuas, appeared during the Olmec rule, and to his honor the Cholulans erected a temple upon the pyramid which their countrymen or predecessors had failed to complete.[375] Quetzalcoatl was, however, no tribal hero, but was so intimately identified with the institutions and civilization of the entire Nahua race that we purposely defer a consideration of his character at present in order that we may hasten to the traditional origin of the Toltecs.
It is not our purpose to go back to the several traditions of the creation of man, preserved in as many localities in Mexico, each with its own variations, but simply to take up tradition where it first relates to the Toltec families. We are fully aware of the wide range of opinion with reference to what properly constitutes this tradition, and of the irreconcilable variations in dates and numeric details among the several Spanish writers. Probably all will agree that the native writer Ixtlilxochitl, who inherited the rich collection of royal archives and hieroglyphic paintings belonging to his ancestors (and which fortunately escaped the wholesale vandalism of the conquerors), though both contradictory and negligent, has furnished us the most reliable narrative which has yet been brought to light. Without attempting to correct or unravel his chronology, we simply translate his account of the origin of the Toltecs. Speaking of the first age of the world, the pre-diluvial period, he says: “It is found in the histories of the Toltecs that this age and first world as they call it, lasted 1716 years; that men were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains, were covered up and submerged in water ‘caxtolmoletlti,’ or fifteen cubits, and here they add other fables of how men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in a ‘toptlipetlacali,’ that this word nearly signifies a close chest; and how after men had multiplied they erected a very high ‘zacuali,’ which is to say a tower of great height, in order to take refuge in it, should the second world (age) be destroyed. Presently their languages were confused; and not able to understand each other, they went to different parts of the earth. The Toltecs, consisting of seven friends with their wives, who understood the same language, came to these parts, having first passed great land and seas, having lived in caves, and having endured great hardships in order to reach this land, which they found good and fertile for their habitation; and relate that they wandered one hundred and four years through different parts of the world before they reached Hue hue Tlapalan, which was in Ce Tecpatl, five hundred and twenty years after the flood. Seventeen hundred and fifteen years after the flood, there was a terrible hurricane that carried away trees, mounds, houses and the largest edifices, notwithstanding which many men and women escaped principally in caves and places where the great hurricane could not reach them. A few days having passed, they set out to see what had become of the earth, when they found it all covered and populated with monkeys. All this time they were in darkness without seeing the light of the sun nor the moon that the wind had brought them. The Indians invented a fable which says that men were changed into monkeys. * * * One hundred and fifty-eight years after the great hurricane and 4994 from the creation of the world, there was another destruction of this land, which was of the Quinametin, giants who lived in New Spain, which destruction was a great trembling of the earth, which swallowed up and killed them, the mountains and volcanoes burst upon them, that for a certainty none should escape. At the same time many of the Toltecs perished and the Chichimecs their neighbors. That was in the year Ce Tecpatl; and this age they call Tlachilonatnip, that is to say, sun [or age] of earth.”[376] Here follows an account of the construction of the calendar by the assembly of Lords in Hue hue Tlapalan in the year 5097 of the creation of the world and 104 after the destruction of the giants.
The singular agreement of this account with the Mosaic description, in some of its details, such as the height attained by the waters above the mountains, the escape of certain persons in an ark, and the erection of a high tower, together with the subsequent confusion of tongues, Lord Kingsborough is convinced furnishes proof that the Toltecs were of Jewish descent.[377] While we are not prepared to believe the sanguine speculations of that eminent author in this case, still one of two views must be true: either the Toltecs were of old world origin, and at a remote period treasured up among their traditional histories notices of the Mosaic deluge, traditions of which are so generally current among the Asiatic nations, or the Mexican traditions of local inundation were warped by the teachings of the Spanish priests in a degree beyond any precedent in history or reasonable expectation, and that within a comparatively few years after the conquest. Our authority in this case is a native of Tezcuco, a son of the queen; and because of his acquaintance with both the hieroglyphic writings and the Castilian, served as interpreter to the viceroy. His Relacions were composed from the archives of his family and compared with the testimony of the oldest and best informed natives. It does not seem to us that the sense of historic integrity cultivated to so nice a point at Tezcuco, where the censorial council, just prior to the advent of the conquerors, punished with death any who should willfully pervert the truth, could have so sadly degenerated that Ixtlilxochitl and the venerable natives who were conscious of the representations contained in his work, should proclaim a falsehood which would not meet with contradiction.[378] We are aware that this author’s chronology is an inextricable maze of contradictions which cannot be unravelled or reconstructed. The Toltec families, seven in number, are, however, said to have reached Hue hue Tlapalan five hundred and twenty years after the flood. The journey, however, occupied only one hundred and four years of that time. Their wanderings, attended with severe experiences, nakedness, and hunger and cold, were over many lands, across expanses of sea and through untold hardships.[379]
The date of the migration to Hue hue Tlapalan cannot be approximated from available data, but it is evident that Ixtlilxochitl fixes it at 520 years after the flood, or 2236 years after the creation—a period which must have antedated the Christian era by a score of centuries or more, even if we accept his chronology, which (on p. 322 of his Relacions), implies that more than five thousand years elapsed between the creation and the birth of Christ. The Codex Chimalpopoca, a Nahua record written in Spanish letters, which occupies probably the same relation to early Mexican history that the Popol Vuh does to the Maya history, has been made known to us through the writings of Brasseur de Bourbourg, but as yet it has not been published. Ixtlilxochitl was the copyist of this document, and of course used it in composing his Relacions. Mr. Bancroft has attempted to collect from scattered passages, taken from the Codex Chimalpopoca and found in Brasseur’s writings, a continuous narrative, but with little success. “The division of the earth,” by the sun, “six times four hundred, plus one hundred, plus thirteen years ago to-day, the twenty-second of May, 1558;” in other words, in the year 955 B. C., is a date obtained which seems to refer to the division of the land among the followers of Votan.[380] In the Popol Vuh, Gucumatz (whose name signifies plumed serpent) is described as going in search of maize, while the Codex Chimalpopoca describes Quetzalcoatl, whose name is identical in meaning with that of Gucumatz, as entering upon the same undertaking, though under somewhat different circumstances, and states that when he had found it, he brought it to Tamoanchan.[381] We shall see hereafter that Sahagun locates Tamoanchan in Tabasco, a fact of considerable value in studying the Toltec migration. The reader will not, however, associate Quetzalcoatl with the above date, since such is not the purport of the record. The Chimalpopoca implies that Quetzalcoatl afterwards becoming obnoxious to his companions forsook them, a statement noted by Mr. Bancroft, though its full value does not seem to have been observed by that author.[382] The account clearly refers to the role of Quetzalcoatl among the Quichés, when he was known as Gucumatz, and prior to his appearance among the Olmec (Nahua) tribes. It indicates that the Codex Chimalpopoca account of the discovery of maize is purely Quiché, and has no reference to the Nahuas whatever. The search for maize by the plumed serpent, call him by either his Quiché or Nahua name if you wish, was prior to the advent of that remarkable personage among the Nahuas. The reputed discovery we consider nothing more than a figurative allusion to the introduction of agriculture by this culture-hero, the knowledge of which he afterwards communicated to the Nahuas at Tamoanchan. If these inferences are true, the Codex Chimalpopoca, so far as we are acquainted with its contents, can render us no assistance with reference to the question in hand. We will now return to the beginning of the subject and cite additional authorities, chief among them Sahagun. In the introduction to his Historia General, in speaking of the origin of this people, he expresses the opinion that it is impossible to definitely determine more than that they report “that all the natives came from seven caves, and that these seven caves are the seven ships or galleys in which the first populators of the land came.” He adds, “The first people came to populate this land from towards Florida, and came coasting and disembarked at the port of Pánuco, which they called Panco, which signifies a place to which they come who pass the water. This people came in quest of the terrestrial paradise, and were known by the name Tamoanchan, by which they mean, ‘we seek our home.’ They settled around the highest mountains that they found. In coming toward the midday to find the terrestrial paradise, they did not err, because it is the opinion of the knowing that it is under the equinoctial line.”[383] The above account is rendered more definite in the following passage from his third volume:[384] “Countless years ago the first settlers arrived in these parts of New Spain—which is nearly another world—coming with ships by sea, approached a port at the North, and because they disembarked there, it is called Panutla or Panaoia, place where they arrive who come by the sea; at present it is corruptly called Pantlan. From that port they commenced to journey by the shores of the sea, ever beholding the snow-capped Sierras and the volcanoes, until they came to the province of Guatemala, being guided by their priest who carried with him their god, with whom he always counseled concerning what he should do. They settled down in Tamoanchan, where they were a long time, and never ceased to have their wise men or prophets, called Amoxoaqui, which signifies ‘men learned in the ancient paintings,’ who, although they came at the same time, did not remain with the rest in Tamoanchan, for leaving them there, they re-embarked and took with them all the paintings of the rites and mechanic arts which they had brought.” The account continues by stating that the priests informed their companions before leaving them, that their God had made them masters of the land, and that they should inhabit it and await his return. The priests then departed towards the East with their idol wrapped in blankets. Whereupon the people invented judicial astrology and the art of interpreting dreams. They there also constructed the calendar which was followed during the time of the Toltecs, Mexicans, Tepanecs and Chichimecs. The first migratory movement was to Teotihuacan, where they erected two mountains in honor of the sun and moon. Here they elected their rulers and buried their princes, erecting mounds over their graves. This seems to have become their holy city. The main power which had remained for a long time in Tamoanchan was changed to Xumiltepec. From this latter place they, however, at the instance of their priests, started again on their migrations. First going to Teotihuacan in order to choose their wise men. Notwithstanding the remarks of Sahagun that the seven caves were the seven ships in which the first settlers came to New Spain, he here affirms that in the course of their migration they came to the valley of the seven caves. How long they remained in this national centre we have no means of knowing, but eventually their god told them to retrace their steps, which they did, going to Tollancingo (Tulancingo) and finally to Tulan (Tollan). Ixtlilxochitl, if he can be relied upon (and if he is unreliable we might as well give up the task of tracing the early history of this or any other Mexican people) shows clearly that the ancestors of the Toltecs were possessed of certain traditions which point to an Asiatic origin; that at a remote period they set out from that common home of so many peoples, possessing the same traditions, in search of a suitable country in which to live; that after one hundred and four years occupied in traversing broad lands and seas, they arrived in a country called Hue hue Tlapalan. This event, according to his chronology, must have occurred upwards of twenty centuries before Christ. He tells us also that in Hue hue Tlapalan, the Toltecs regulated their calendar. Sahagun says that countless years ago the first inhabitants of the country (Mexico) came by sea from the direction of Florida on the North, and landing at Pánuco, journeyed down the coast to Guatemala (which is supposed to have embraced Chiapas and perhaps Tabasco, though such is only the conjecture of an earnest advocate of the Southern location of Hue hue Tlapalan, i. e., Mr. Bancroft) where they established a city called Tamoanchan—there the calendar was regulated or corrected. Whether this was the same construction of the calendar referred to by Ixtlilxochitl as having taken place in Hue hue Tlapalan is questionable. If positive proof of the identity of these occurrences could be produced, the identity of Tamoanchan and Hue hue Tlapalan would be complete, and the disputed location of the latter would be fixed in the Chiapan region or the country of the Xibalbans. The fact that Quetzalcoatl brought maize to Tamoanchan seems to indicate a comparative proximity of that country to the Southern region where that culture-hero figured so conspicuously under the Quiché name of Gucumatz. If no other testimony need be introduced the disputed locality might be fixed as above indicated. However, the contradictory records of Ixtlilxochitl, which we are now about to cite, unsettle this conclusion. The Toltec migration from Hue hue Tlapalan is briefly as follows: Three hundred and thirty-eight years after Christ a revolt occurred among the Toltecs in Hue hue Tlapalan, in which two rebel princes attempted to depose the legitimate successor to the throne. These rebel chiefs, named Chalcatzin and Tlacamihtzin respectively, were unsuccessful, and together with five other chiefs and their numerous allies and people, were driven out of their city Tlachicatzin in Hue hue Tlapalan. After a journey of sixty leagues, they arrived at a place which they called Tlapallanconco, or Little Tlapalan. Their departure from their old home did not occur till they had withstood a contest of eight years—or, according to Veytia, thirteen years—duration.[385] At Tlapallanconco they lived three years, at the end of which time there arose among them a great astrologer, named Hueman or Huematzin, who counseled them to forsake the land of their misfortunes and journey toward the rising sun, where there was a happy land formerly occupied by Quinames, but now depopulated. This advice seeming good they set out on their journey at the end of the three years, or eleven years after leaving Hue hue Tlapalan. After traveling twelve days and accomplishing seventy leagues they arrived at Hueyxalan, and remained there four years. From thence a twenty days journey toward the East, or according to Veytia, toward the West, and of one hundred leagues in length, brought them to Xalisco, near the sea-shore. Here they remained eight years. Twenty days journey and 100 leagues more brought them to Chimalhuacan on the coast opposite certain islands, where they resided five years. Eighteen days or 80 leagues traversed toward the East, and they arrived at Toxpan, where they dwelt five years more. Proceeding eastward twenty days’ journey or 100 leagues, they came to Quiyahuitztlan Anahuac, situated on the coast. Here they were obliged to pass inlets of the sea in boats. During a six years’ sojourn at this point, they suffered many hardships. An eighteen days’ journey or 80 leagues brought them to Zacatlan where they dwelt seven years. From thence they journeyed eighty leagues to Totzapan and dwelt there six years. They next journeyed to Tepetla, distant twenty-eight days, or 140 leagues, where they dwelt seven years. Eighteen days’ journey or 80 leagues brought them to Mazatepec, where they remained eight years, and a similar journey brought them to Ziuhcohuatl where they tarried also eight years. Turning northward from this unknown point, they journeyed twenty days or 100 leagues and halted at Yztachuexucha, where they dwelt twenty-six years. At last, after a journey of eighteen days or eighty leagues, they arrived at Tulancingo (Tulantzinco, or Tollantzinco) a name already familiar to us. Here the Toltecs emerge from what has been to us an unknown wilderness without geographic guide-post or even a polar star by which to reckon. Their itinerary, full of so many gaps and inconsistencies, its frequent omission of the directions traversed, with its starting-point so indefinitely located, is meaningless and confusing, and so far as the reader is concerned, practically begins nowhere and ends in nothing. At Tulancingo they remained eighteen years, living in a house sufficiently large to accommodate them all. Their knowledge of architecture must have been quite advanced to have enabled them to construct such an edifice. The third year after their arrival at Tulancingo, marked a Toltec age of 104 years from the time they left their home in Hue hue Tlapalan. Finally, eighteen years having elapsed, they transferred the capital to Tollan, afterwards the centre of the Toltec empire. Tollan is stated to have been eastward of Tulancingo (in all probability a mistake).[386] In this migration we have a distance of 1150 leagues traversed; the first two moves, aggregating 130 leagues, is in an unknown direction; the next advance is 100 leagues in an easterly direction, according to one author, and westerly according to another; however, it is agreed that the point was on the sea-shore. The next move of 100 leagues is still along the sea-shore, but the direction is not stated. We then have two advances amounting to 180 leagues, in an easterly direction. The confusion is completed in the following advances, aggregating 460 leagues in unknown directions. Of the remaining 180 leagues, 100 were traveled in a northern direction, while the remaining 80 leagues were taken toward an unknown quarter. It is quite plain to any one, that the distances traversed in the directions stated could not be traced consistently with the geography of Mexico and Central America, upon the assumption that Tamoanchan and Hue hue Tlapalan are identical and situated in the Rio Usumacinta region. The itinerary would carry the emigrants far out upon the Gulf of Mexico. It is evident that a broader territory than that of Southern Mexico and Central America is required for the realization of such distances. The account of the migration is no doubt faulty; but even if we disregard the gaps, it presents insuperable difficulties when applied to the South-Mexican region. It is manifest that Sahagun and Ixtlilxochitl refer to different migrations. The former to the Olmecs, who came by sea to Pánuco and thence to Tabasco, from which they migrated north to Teotihuacan. The latter narrates the wanderings of the Toltecs who subsequently came into Mexico by land. If this distinction is borne in mind, much of the obscurity attending the subject is cleared away. We are inclined to think that the accounts of the two distinct migrations have become confused, and the details of one substituted for the details of the other. Every one familiar with the study of traditional histories is aware of this danger, or even more, this tendency among semi-civilized peoples. No better illustration of this fact can be presented than the sad confusion which has been wrought by nearly every writer who has attempted to describe the two distinct personages in Mexican history, known by the name of Quetzalcoatl. Only Sahagun of all the early writers has seemed to have any clear conception of their individual and independent attributes. The demi-god, and the Toltec king, and the achievements of each, have been made to change places so often by Spanish writers, that the result has, with each new treatment of the subject, been confusion worse confounded. Sahagun’s account of the arrival of the Nahuas in ships, from the direction of Florida, their landing in Pánuco, their journey toward Guatemala, their residence in Tamoanchan (probably somewhere in the Chiapan region) and their subsequent migration northward to Teotihuacan with its well-known pyramids, and finally their removal to Tollan, north of the City of Mexico, by the way of Tolancingo, is a straightforward account which finds support in the best of evidence, both of a material and linguistic character. Sr. Orozco y Berra has clearly shown by linguistic testimony that the Nahua nations entered the country somewhere between the nineteenth and twenty-first degrees of north latitude, on the Gulf coast, migrated southward to a point seventeen and one-half degrees north latitude, almost to the Chiapan region, and then retracing their steps northward, almost to a point opposite Vera Cruz, they crossed Mexico to the Pacific coast, along which they extended their language northward nearly to the twenty-seventh degree north latitude.[387] Sahagun says nothing of Hue hue Tlapalan in his account of the migration from Tamoanchan to Tollan or from Chiapas to Anahuac, for his account refers to the Olmecs, the first Nahuas to reach Mexico.
Mr. John H. Becker, of Berlin, in an able paper addressed to the Congrès des Américainistes at Luxembourg (Compte Rendu de la Seconde Session, tom. i, pp. 325–50), after offering plausible arguments for the identification of Tulan Zuiva of the Quichés, Hue hue Tlapalan of the Toltecs, Amaquemecan of the Chichimecs, and Oztotlan of the Aztecs, with the region of the upper Rio Grande del Norte and Rio Colorado—the land of the ravines, of grottoes, and of cañons—attempts to trace the Toltec migration as given by Ixtlilxochitl. His interesting solution of the difficult problem is as follows: “The Toltecs driven out of Hue hue Tlapalan by civil wars (towards the end of the fourth century of our era?) move in a westerly direction sixty leagues to Tlapalanconco (northern Sinaloa and Sonora on the Rio Yaqui, where distinct traces of the Nahua language exist?); thence, after eleven years, they go to Hueyxalan, seventy leagues distant (perhaps the northern part of Durango, where the Tepehuana language shows strong Nahua affinities); thence to Xalisco on the coast, one hundred leagues distant; thence to Chimalhuacan Atenco on the coast opposite some islands, one hundred leagues (opposite the islands in the southern end of the Gulf of California)? In that case they did undoubtedly suffer a reverse in Xalisco (where they touched upon the more thickly populated and civilized country, and by which they were forced to retire); thence eastward eighty leagues to Toxpan (in the neighborhood of the Laguna de Tlahuila and on the upper Sabina River). In that country there is even now a tribe of Tochos, and the Tarahumara language there spoken, shows distinct affinities to the Nahua tongue; thence eastward one hundred leagues to Quahuitzlan Anahuac, on the coast with inlets—the coast-land of the state of Tamaulipas, on the Gulf of Mexico? About this locality there can scarcely be a doubt, since this eastern coast country and the eastern plateau bore the general name Quetzalapan or Huitzilapan, until the Nahuas took possession of them, when the plateau was designated as Huitznahuac, and the name above given would be the natural one to apply to the coast, since while nahuac (an) means simply the Nahualand, Anahuac (an) means the ‘Nahua land on the water,’ while Quahuitzlan is the old name retained in order to distinguish this Anahuac on the Gulf coast from the Anahuac around the Mexican lakes. Here they ‘suffered great hardships,’ and finally went westward eighty leagues to Zacatlan (the northern part of the State of Zacatecas?); from there eighty leagues to Totzapan, probably again in the neighborhood of Toxpan before mentioned (where the Tusanes are located even to-day); thence one hundred and forty leagues to Tepetla (the extraordinary distance shows that at last they gained a decisive victory, and broke through the frontier of the more civilized country which they had hitherto felt). Tepetla, mountainland, must consequently be sought in the neighborhood of the high mountains of Anahuac; thence eighty leagues to Mazatepec (the mountain of the Mazahuas, skirting the valley of Mexico towards north and west); thence eighty leagues to Ziuhcohuatl, where they probably suffered another defeat, for they move full one hundred leagues northward to Yztachuechucha, and stop there twenty-three years, a sufficient time to raise another generation of warriors; thence eighty leagues to Tollantzingo, and then finally to ‘Tollan,’ the capital of their future empire, which if Ixtlilxochitl’s dates can be trusted, they built about 500 B. C., on the site of a former city of the Otomis.” This ingenious and thoughtful review of the route commends itself to all who are interested in this subject. Mr. Becker considers that one great argument for the correctness of the starting-point which he has chosen is “the fact that even the distances as given by Ixtlilxochitl agree with the actual situation of the various localities here indicated.” Ixtlilxochitl, obscure as he is, gives in another part of his work an additional account, besides the one we have already quoted, which greatly strengthens our conviction that the Toltecs came into Mexico from the north, and confirms the investigations of both Mr. Becker and of Sr. Orozco. The account is as follows: “In this fourth age there came to this land of Anahuac, which is at present called New Spain, those of the Toltec nations who, according to the accounts of their histories, were expelled from their land, and after having navigated and coasted on the South Sea along various lands as far as the present California, they came to what is called Huitlapalan, that which at present they call after Cortés. This locality they passed in the year called Ce Tecpatl, which was in the year 387 of the incarnation of our Lord. Having coasted the land of Xalisco, and all the coast of the south, they set out from the port of Huatulco, and went through various lands as far as the province of Tochtepec, situated on the coast of the North Sea, and having traversed and viewed it they came to stop in the province of Tulantzinco, having left some people in most of their stopping-places in order to populate them.”[388]
It will be observed that in this migration part of the same general route above referred to, along the Pacific coast nearly opposite the extremity of the California peninsula, and then returning southward and inland, is clearly marked out. The Pacific ocean, called the South Sea, seems to have facilitated their movements northward. Xalisco was coasted, and the entire width of Mexico traversed, the Gulf of Mexico reached (Sea of the North), and finally Tolancingo chosen as a suitable home. It will be observed that the Huitlapalan named above is not identical with Hue hue Tlapalan, the earliest home of the nations. Mr. Bancroft has apparently confounded the two names, and endeavors to find in the Tlapallan de Cortés (so named because of Cortés’ expedition to a Tlapallan) the ancient Hue hue Tlapalan.[389] The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg attempts precisely the same thing. The investigations of both these writers on this point are interesting, though without any result, unless unintentionally to strengthen the above distinction between Huitlapalan and Hue hue Tlapalan. Substantially the facts are as follows: Pedro de Alvarado, writing from Santiago or old Guatemala to Cortés in 1524, refers to Tlapallan as fifteen days march inland, and Mr. Bancroft thinks that the name must have been applied to a region corresponding to either Honduras, Peten or Tabasco. Cortés’ name was affixed to a Tlapallan said to lie towards Ihueras or Ibueras, the former name of Honduras, because of his expedition to that country. The Abbé says the name was applied to a region between the tributaries of the Rio Usumacinta and Honduras. Finally, the fact that the second Quetzalcoatl, when he embarked on the Gulf coast near the Goazacoalco River, announced his intention of going to Tlapallan, is cited as proof that the name was applied to a southern locality.[390] The entire argument is perfectly satisfactory in locating a Tlapallan in the Usumacinta region, but it does not have the slightest value in proving that Hue hue Tlapalan was identical with that locality. On the other hand, Cabrera, in referring to the ancient country of the Toltecs, calls it Hue Hue Tlapalan, and states that the simple name was Tlapallan, but that it was called Hue hue—old—to distinguish it from three other Tlapalans which they founded in the new districts which they came to inhabit. This statement is confirmed by Torquemada.[391] It is therefore probable that Bancroft’s and Brasseur’s investigations were all expended on one or more of these three Tlapalans. The undoubted residence of a tribe of the Nahuas (Olmecs) in the Tabasco region for a considerable period—one which is measured relatively in the language of Sahugun between the “countless years ago when they arrived from towards Florida” and their departure towards Anahuac in the fourth or fifth century—has led many writers to suppose that they were of southern origin, notwithstanding the statement of Sahagun, Ixtlilxochitl and all the early writers to the contrary. Supposing that the sweeping assumption of the northern origin so persistently adhered to by native and Spanish writers is nothing but a priestly fabrication, be admitted, simply that our attention may be turned to other testimony, still the evidence is against the southern origin theory. The material relics of Honduras and Nicaragua absolutely disprove the positive supposition that they were ever the work of the people who figured in Anahuac, and no transition from one style of sculpture to the other has ever been discovered, nor could be imagined. An examination of the first few chapters of Mr. Bancroft’s fourth volume and the works from which it has been drawn will fully satisfy the reader of this fact. The evidence from the linguistic standpoint is even more satisfactory, since the Nahua language as spoken in Central America, in the states of San Salvador and Nicaragua, is dialectic, indicating a fragmentary migration southward.[392]
It has been the common custom of Spanish writers and those who followed them down to the middle of this century, to locate Hue hue Tlapalan on the Californian coast. Vater and Humboldt from their standpoints of investigation fell in with this view. The former, basing his convictions on seeming linguistic affinities in the north-west, which, while they are quite significant, indicative of Nahua influences if not of Nahua residence, are too few to prove any lengthy sojourn. Humboldt based his opinion chiefly on the traditions and certain ethnological and geographical facts. Buschmann[393] has completely overthrown the arguments of Vater in his series of works on American languages, while Mr. Bancroft has shown conclusively that there are no material remains assignable to the Toltecs to be found on the Californian coast or the adjoining region.[394] When he asserts, however, that there are no remains farther north than California, he overlooks a well-known fact. We refer to the mounds of Oregon and their extension eastward into the Yellowstone and North Missouri River region. The most reasonable conjecture as to the locality of Hue hue Tlapalan is that which places it in the Mississippi Valley, and assigns the works of our Mound-builders to the Nahua nations. In previous chapters we have shown the close resemblance of the mound crania to the ancient Mexican, and have pointed out the gradual transition from the rude and simple mounds of the north to the truncated pyramid of the south, constructed on strict geometrical principles, having one or more graded ways, and so closely resembling the Mexican teocallis. Besides the testimony of Sahagun that the first settlers of Mexico came from towards Florida, and the universal report of a northern origin prevalent among the Aztecs at the time of the conquest, there are other evidences of a racial identity common to Mound-builders and Mexicans, such as pottery, sculptured portraitures of the facial type, indications of commercial intercourse between the two countries, such as the discovery of Mexican obsidian in the mounds of the Ohio Valley, and the probability that both worshipped the sun and offered human sacrifices.[395]
With the Toltec annals proper we have nothing to do; only the most primitive period of the growth of this people concerns us here, and that period is conceded to have closed with the establishment of the great capital at Tollan, on the site of the present village of Tula, thirty miles north-west of the city of Mexico. Seven years after the arrival of the Toltecs in Tollan, the government was a theocratic republic, with the seven chiefs who had conducted them thither acting as their rulers, under the advice of the venerable Huemen. Finally, in the beginning of the eighth century, somewhere between 710 and 720 A.D., the republic was changed into a monarchy and the throne given to the son of their dreaded enemies and former neighbors, the warlike Chichimecs, as a peace-offering, on condition that the Toltecs should always be a free people and in no way tributary to the Chichimecs. The history of the Toltec monarchy during the three and a half centuries of its duration to the final overthrow of Tollan (1062 A.D.) as well as the power of the remarkable people who built the ancient capital, has often been sketched, and for us to repeat what has been recorded in almost every language of modern Europe, would add nothing to the cause of science. This part of ancient American history, so replete with the romantic and marvellous, so confusing at times, because of our ignorance of many geographic and archæologic features entering into it (which, in time, will probably be brought to light), so saddening because of its stories of wholesale misfortunes to a people whose civilization rivalled that of Europe in the middle ages; and yet, after all, so fresh and novel, must continue to receive increased attention, if only as a means of recreation to the student of history, wearied with the beaten paths from Rome to Greece, and from Greece to Rome. Mr. Bancroft has given an excellent resumé of the annals of the Toltec period, accompanying it with an ample literary apparatus in the notes. During the last century of the Toltec power, Anahuac was overrun by the incursions of a fierce and dreaded people—the Chichimecs. These semi-barbarians, taking advantage of the internal dissensions in the Toltec monarchy, became a powerful factor, either on their own part or in the hands of the enemies of Tollan, in the overthrow of the empire. In the Toltec traditions we read of the Chichimecs being their neighbors in Hue hue Tlapalan.[396] In the annals as given in Ixtlilxochitl, Torquemada and many writers, the Chichimecs are represented as having pursued and annoyed the Toltecs, to have followed them up in their wanderings. This probably is not literally true, but their arrival upon the borders of Anahuac, soon after its occupation by the Toltecs, is quite certain. It has been common to consider the Chichimecs as a Nahua people, and even so critical a writer as Mr. Bancroft adopts this popular error. As long ago as 1855, Sr. Francisco Pimentel undertook to show the mistake into which many had fallen, and in his Lenguas Indigenas de Mexico (published in 1862), has furnished conclusive proof that the Chichimecs originally spoke a different language from the Nahua nations, but subsequently adopted the Nahua tongue, on the principle set forth by Balbi: “It is not the language of the conquering people that invariably dominates, but that which is most regular and cultured.” On the testimony of Torquemada,[397] Ixtlilxochitl[398] and Juan Bautista Pomar,[399] Sr. Pimentel shows that the Chichimec language was once distinct and different from the Nahua, and that these people came under the civilizing influences of the Toltecs during their golden age, but in their declining period availed themselves of the opportunity of possessing their country and advanced civilization.[400] If the Chichimecs were the neighbors of the Toltecs in Hue hue Tlapalan, it is reasonable to expect some light on the situation of that disputed locality in the Chichimec traditions; but in this expectation we are disappointed. There is no mention of that ancient home of the Nahuas, nor of any route pursued in their migrations. Amaquemecan is the only name which is applied to their most primitive land or history; one of the cities which they occupied at some remote period seems to have borne the name. When the Toltecs sent to the Chichimecs for their first king, they were, according to Ixtlilxochitl, in the neighborhood of Panuco. Panes describes them as having passed the sea, and, according to their reckoning, in the year Five Tolti to have arrived at the seven caves. Thence they journeyed to Amacatepeque, and certain persons left that province to go to Tepenec, which is to say “the Mountain of Echo.”[401] Ixtlilxochitl and some other authors derive them from Chicomoztoc, a rendezvous of the nations, which has been located by Clavigero at about twenty miles south of Zacatecas but is considered by Duran and Acosta as identical with Aztlan in the region of Florida.[402] It is impossible to determine either the starting-point or route of this people, who subsequently became amalgamated with the scattered Toltecs after the fall of Tollan, and whose rule in Anahuac may properly be dated from the (1062) middle of the eleventh until nearly the middle of the fifteenth (1431) century.
A few years after the Chichimec power was established there came from the North (at least their last move is admitted to have been from that quarter) six tribes of Nahuatlacas, who arrived in the country adjoining Tollan. There were altogether seven tribes, namely, the Xochimilcos, Chalcas, Tepanecs, Tlahuicas, Acolhuas, Tlascatecs and Aztecs or Mexicans. The latter people, however, had separated themselves from the remaining six tribes at Chicomoztoc and did not reach Anahuac until about 1196 A.D. These people all acted as tributary to the Chichimecs at first; and of the seven tribes, two eventually arose to great political importance, the Tlascatecs who founded an independent republic, and the Aztecs whose empire has been the wonder of students of antiquity and the subject of histories as romantic as the purest fiction. Some authors add a number of tribal names to those already given as belonging to fragments of the Nahuatlaca family, but the probability is that these minor and unimportant tribes were offshoots from the others, after their arrival on the central plateau. The representative branch of all the Nahuatlacas was the Aztec nation, who separated from their brethren in Chicomoztoc, and whose arrival at the Lake region of Mexico, is dated subsequent to that of the other tribes. All of these tribes are said to have come from the unknown Aztlan, their early home. The question of its locality has been as much a subject of controversy as the location of Hue hue Tlapalan, since, in fact, the question is possibly one and the same, for the Nahua speaking people who migrated into Mexico at intervals, extending over a period of a thousand years, must have had a common origin. Aztlan is described by Duran as a most attractive land and the presumption is that the Nahuas were forcibly driven from their fair heritage by the gradual encroachments of their enemies. The account of this delightful country given by Cueuhcoatl to the elder Montezuma, is as follows: “Our fathers dwelt in that happy and prosperous place which they called Aztlan, which means “whiteness.” In this place there is a great mountain in the middle of the water, which is called Culhuacan, because it has the point somewhat turned over toward the bottom, and for this cause it is called Culhuacan, which means “crooked mountain.” In this mountain were some openings, or caves or hollows, where our fathers and ancestors dwelt for many years; there, under this name Mexitin and Aztec, they had much repose; there they enjoyed a great plenty of geese; of all species of marine birds and water fowls; enjoyed the song and melody of birds with yellow crests; enjoyed many kinds of large and beautiful fish; enjoyed the freshness of trees that were upon those shores, and fountains enclosed with elders, and savins (junipers) and aldertrees, both large and beautiful. They went about in canoes, and made furrows in which they planted maize, red-peppers, tomatoes, beans and all kinds of seed that we eat.”[403] The location of Aztlan is not a philosophical question for our consideration, since scarcely sufficient data of a definite character are available on which to base a process of reasoning. The report common among the Aztecs was that they had come from the North, and this was no doubt true of the final move prior to their settlement in Anahuac, but whether it was true of their starting-point and the general course of the Aztec migration, is a question which cannot be satisfactorily answered. Most Spanish writers and others of the earlier school, locate Aztlan directly north of the present boundary line of Mexico,[404] others again California,[405] while some favor the North-western Mexican States.[406] A recent school of Americanists assign Aztlan a southern location, placing it in the Central American region.[407] Duran and Brasseur de Bourbourg, both celebrated authorities, on the other hand locate Aztlan in the United States; the former in Florida, by which we are to understand the region of the Gulf States,[408] while the latter simply expresses the conviction that Aztlan was situated to the north-east of California.[409]