Before considering the house architecture of the Aztecs, it remains to notice, briefly, the general character of the houses of the Village Indians within the areas of Spanish visitation. They were joint-tenement houses, usually, of the American model, adapted to communism in living, like those previously described, and will aid us to understand the houses of the pueblo of Mexico.
Herrera, speaking of the natives of Cuba, remarks that "they had caciques and towns of two hundred houses, with several families in each of them, as was usual in Hispaniola". [Footnote: ib., ii, 15.]
The Cubans were below the Sedentary Indians. In Yucatan, the houses of the Mayas, and of the tribes of Guatemala, Chiapas, and Honduras, remain in ruins to speak for themselves, and will form the subject of the ensuing chapter. On the march to Mexico, Cortez and his men, "being come down into the plain, took up their quarters in a country house that had many apartments." [Footnote: ib., ii, 320.]
"At Iztapalapa he was entertained in a house that had large courts, upper and lower floors and very delightful gardens. The walls were of stone, the timber work well wrought, there were many and spacious rooms, hung with cotton hangings extraordinary rich in their way." [Footnote: "History of America", 325.]
His accommodations in the pueblo of Mexico will elsewhere be noticed. After the capture of the pueblo Alvaredo was sent southward with two hundred foot and forty horse to the province of Tututlepec on the Pacific. "When he arrived the lord of Tututlepec offered to quarter the Spaniards in his palace which was very magnificent."
"In 1525 Cortez made his celebrated march to Guatemala with one hundred and fifty horse, the same number of foot, and three hundred Indians. Being well received in the city of Apoxpalan, Cortez and all the Spaniards with their horses were quartered in one house, the Mexicans being dispersed into others, and all of them plentifully supplied with provisions during their stay. The first 'palace' described by Herrera was discovered by Balboa somewhere in the present Costa Rica, and Comagre has gone into history as its proprietor. This palace was more remarkable and better built than any that had been yet seen on the islands or the little that was then known of the continent, being one hundred and fifty paces in length and eighty in breadth founded on very large posts inclosed by a stone wall with timber intermixed at the top and hollow spaces so beautifully wrought that the Spaniards were amazed at the sight of it and could not express the manner and curiosity of it. There were in it several chambers and apartments and one that was like a buttery and full of such provisions as the country afforded, as bread, venison, swine's flesh, &c. There was another large room like a cellar full of earthen vessel containing several sorts of white and red liquors made of Indian wheat etc. The noticeable fact in this description is the two chambers containing provisions and stores for the household which was undoubtedly the case with all of those named. Zempoala near Vera Cruz is described as a very large town with stately buildings of good timber work and every house had a garden with water so that it looked like a terrestrial paradise…. The scouts advancing on horseback came to the great square and courts where the prime houses were, which having been lately new plastered over, were very light, the Indians being extraordinary expert at that work", [Footnote: History of America, ii, 211.] and further states that "the houses were built of 'lime and stone'."
These pueblos were generally small, consisting of three or four large joint-tenement houses, with other houses smaller in size, the different grades of houses representing the relative thrift and prosperity of the several groups by whom they were owned and occupied. It is doubtful whether there was a single pueblo in North America, with the exception of Tlascala, Cholula, Tezcuco, and Mexico, which contained ten thousand inhabitants. There is no occasion to apply the term "city" to any of them. None of the Spanish descriptions enable us to realize the exact form and structure of these houses, or their relations to each other in forming a pueblo. But for the pueblos, occupied or in ruins, in New Mexico, and the more remarkable pueblos in ruins in Yucatan and Central America, we would know very little concerning the house architecture of the Sedentary Village Indians. It is evident from the citations made that the largest of these joint-tenement houses would accommodate from five hundred to a thousand or more people, living in the fashion of Indians; and that the courts were probably quadrangles, formed by constructing the building on three sides of an inclosed space, as in the New Mexican pueblos, or upon the four sides, as in the House of the Nuns, at Uxmal.
The writers on the conquest have failed to describe the Aztec house in such a manner that it can be fairly comprehended. They have also failed to explain the mode of life within it. But it can safely be said that most of these houses were large, far beyond any supposable wants of a single Indian family; that they were constructed, when on dry land, of adobe brick, and when in the water, of stone imbedded in some kind of mortar, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white. Some also were constructed of a red porous stone. Some of these houses were built on three sides of a court, like those on the Chaco, but the court opened on a street or causeway. Others not unlikely surrounded an open court or quadrangle, which must have been entered through a gateway; but this is not clearly shown. The large houses were probably two stories high; an upper and a lower floor are mentioned in some cases, but rarely a third.
Communism in living in large households, the communism being confined to the household, was probably the rule of life among the ancient Mexicans at the time of the Conquest.
[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote 2 relocated to chapter end.]