"The first was the 'teepan-tlalli,' land of the house of the community, whose crops were applied to the sustenance of such as employed themselves in the construction, ornamentation, and repairs of the public house. Of these there were sometimes several within the tribal area. They were tilled in common by special families who resided on them, using the crops in compensation for the work they performed on the official buildings.
"The second class was called 'tlatoca-tlalli,' land of the speakers. Of these there was but one tract in each tribe, which was to be 'four hundred of their measures long on each side, each measure being equal to three Castilian rods."
[Footnote: Ixtlilxochitl ("Hist. des Chichim," cap. XXXV, p. 242). Vedia (Lib. III, cap. VI, p. 195). "This had to be four hundred of their measures in square ('encuadro,' each side long), each one of these being equal to three Castilian rods"…. See "Art of War" (p. 944, note 183). "The rod" (vara) is equal to 2.78209 feet English (Guyot).]
The crops raised on such went exclusively to the requirements of the household at the 'teepan,' comprising the head-chief and his family with the assistants. The tract was worked in turn by the other members of the tribe, and it remained always public ground, reserved for the same purposes. [Footnote: Veytia (Lib. III, cap. VI, p. 195). It is superfluous to revert to the erroneous impression that the chiefs might dispose of it.]
Both of these kinds were often comprised in one, and it is even not improbable that the first one may have been but a variety of the general tribute-lands devoted to the benefit of the conquering confederates. Still the evidence on this point is too indefinite to warrant such an assumption.
While the crops raised on the 'teepan-tlalli,' as well as on the 'tlatoca-tlalli,' were consumed exclusively by the official houses and households of the tribe, the soil itself which produced these crops was neither claimed nor possessed by the chiefs themselves or their descendants. It was simply, as far as its products were concerned, official soil.
[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote 7 relocated to chapter end.]
The establishing and maintaining of these areal subdivisions was very simple with the tribes of the mainland, since they all possessed ample territories for their wants and for the requirements of their organizations. Their soil formed a contiguous unit. It was not so, however, with the Mexicans proper. With all their industry in adding artificial sod to the patch on which they had originally settled, the solid surface was eventually much too small for their numbers, and they themselves put an efficient stop to further growth thereof by converting, as we have seen elsewhere, for the purpose of defence, their marshy surroundings into water-sheets, through the construction of extensive causeways. [Footnote: "Art of War" (pp. 150 and 151). L. H. Morgan ("Ancient Society," Part II, cap. VII, pp. 190 and 191)].
While the remnants of the original 'teepantlalli' and of the 'tlatocatlalli' still remained visible in the gardens, represented to us as purely ornamental, which dotted the pueblo of Mexico, the substantial elements wherewith to fulfill a purpose for which they were no longer adequate had, in course of time, to be drawn from the mainland. But it was not feasible, from the nature of tribal condition, to extend thither by colonization. The soil was held there by other tribes, whom the Mexicans might well overpower and render tributary, but whom they could not incorporate, since the kinships composing these tribes could not be fused with their own. Outposts, however, were established on the shores, at the outlets of the dykes, at Tepeyacac on the north, at Iztapalapan, Mexicaltzinco, and at Huitzilopocheo to the south, but these were only military positions, and beyond them the territory proper of the Mexicans never extended.
[Footnote: Humboldt ("Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne," Vol. II, Lib. III, cap. VIII, p. 50): Nearly all the old authors describe the pueblo buildings as surrounded by pleasure-grounds or ornamental gardens. It is very striking that, the pueblo having been founded in 1325, and nearly a century having been spent in adding sufficient artificial soil to the originally small solid expanse settled, the Mexicans could have been ready so soon to establish purely decorative parks within an area, every inch of which was valuable to them for subsistence alone!]