[621] It is the same with the Coras (3000), and especially with the Huicholes (4000) of the Nayarit Sierra (north of Jalisco), who are tillers of the soil, and the last remnants of a formerly numerous and warlike population. The Huicholes worship the sun and various plant divinities, more particularly the “peyote” (a cactus, Anhalonium Lewinii), the fruit of which has stimulative and anaphrodisiac properties. (Hamy, Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat., 1898, p. 197; Lumholtz, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 1898, p. 1, with plates; L. Diguet, Nouv. Arch. Miss. Scientif., vol. ix., p. 571, plates, Paris, 1899.)
[622] Hamy, “Distrib. geogr. des Opatus, Tarahumars, etc.,” Bull. Soc. Anthrop., Paris, 1883, p. 785; Ten Kate, “Sur les Pimas, etc.,” Bull. Soc. Anthr., 1883; Lumholtz, “Tarahumara,” Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc., 1894, p. 219.
[623] It is impossible to enter here into details on the ancient Aztec society. Let us simply bear in mind that from the economic point of view it was based on “hoe-culture” (see p. [192]) of maize, tobacco, and cocoa, as well as on a well-developed industry: the weaving of stuffs, pottery, manufacture of paper, malleation and melting (a somewhat rare case in pre-Columbian America) of gold, silver, copper, and bronze. Architecture and sculpture had attained there a great perfection, as well as ideographic and iconomatic writing (see p. [140]). It was politically a confederacy of democratic states, often under the dominion of a dictator on whom the Spaniards bestowed the title of king. It was thought until recent times that there had been several invasions of different peoples into Mexico, the Toltecs in the first instance, then the Chichimecs, lastly the Nahuatlans; but from the recent works by Morgan, loc. cit. (The House-life, etc.), Bandelier (Report Peabody Mus., vol. ii., Cambridge, Mass., 1888), Brinton (Essays of an Americanist, Philadelphia, 1890, and Am. Race), and Bruhl (Die Culturvolker Alt-Amerikas, Cincinnati, 1875–87), we may conclude that the name Toltec has only relation to a small clan or even perhaps to an imaginary mythical people. As to that of Chichimec, it was employed by the Nahuas to denote all those peoples outside of their own civilisation; they used this term as the Romans did that of “barbarian.”
[624] L. Biart, Les Aztèques, histoire, mœurs, Paris, 1885.
[625] E. Hamy, loc. cit. (Anthr. Mex.); Brinton, loc. cit. (Am. Race).
[626] E. Hamy, loc. cit., Bull. Soc. Anthrop., Paris, 1883, p. 787, chart.
[627] D. Charnay, quoted by Hamy, loc. cit. (Anthr. Mex.).
[628] Berendt, Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc., New York, 1875–76, No. 2; Brinton, loc. cit. (Am. R.), p. 117.
[629] The Chontals of Nicaragua are the Lenkas (see p. 540). The “Popolucas” of Puebla speak a Miztec dialect; those of Vera Cruz the Mixe dialect; those of Guatemala the Cakchiquel, one of the Maya dialects adopted as the official language by the Catholic Church, etc.
[630] Mercer, Hill-Caves of Yucatan, Philad., 1896.