Two of the houses in Mexico were more particularly noted by the soldiers of Cortes than others—that in which they were quartered, and that in which Montezuma lived. Neither can be said to have been described. I shall confine myself to these two structures.
Cortes made his first entry into Mexico in November, 1519, with four hundred and fifty Spaniards, according to Bernal Diaz, [Footnote: Diaz Conquest of Mex., ed. 1803, Keatinge's Trans., i, 181, 189. Herrera says, 300, ii, 327.] accompanied by a thousand Tlaxcallan allies. They were lodged in a vacant palace of Montezuma's late father, Diaz naively remarks, observing that "the whole of this palace was very light, airy, clean, and pleasant, the entry being through a great court." [Footnote: Diaz, I, 191.] Cortes, after describing his reception, informs us that Montezuma "returned along the street in the order already described, until he reached a very large and splendid palace in which we were to be quartered. He then took me by the hand and led me into a spacious saloon, in front of which was a court through which we had entered." [Footnote: Dispatches of Cortes, Folsom's Trans., p. 86.]
So much for the statements of two eye-witnesses. Herrera gathered some additional particulars. He states that "they came to a very large court, which was the wardrobe of the idols, and had been the house of Axayacatzin, Montezuma's father…. Being lodged in so large a house, that, though it seems incredible, contained so many capacious rooms, with bedchambers, that one hundred and fifty Spaniards could all lie single. It was also worth observing that though the house was so big, every part of it to the last corner was very clean, neat, matted, and hung with hangings of cotton and feather work of several colors, and had beds and mats with pavilions over them. No man of whatsoever quality having any other sort of bed, no other being used." [Footnote: History of America, ii, 330.] In the tidiness of these rooms we gain some evidence of the character of Aztec women.
Joint-tenement houses, and the mode of life they indicate, were at this time unknown in Europe. They belonged to a more ancient condition of society. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Spaniards, astonished at their magnitude, should have styled them palaces, and having been received with a great array by Montezuma, as the general commander of the Aztec forces, should have regarded him as a king, since monarchical government was the form with which they were chiefly acquainted. Suffice it then, to say that one of the great houses of the Aztecs was large enough to accommodate Cortes and his fourteen hundred and fifty men including Indian allies as they had previously been accommodated in one Cholulan house and elsewhere, on the way to Mexico. From New Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama there was scarcely a principal village in which an equal number could not have found accommodations in a single house. When it is found to be unnecessary to call it a palace in order to account for its size, we are led to the conclusion that an ordinary Aztec house was emptied of its inhabitants to make room for their unwelcome visitors. After their reception, Aztec hospitality supplied them with provisions. Mr. Bandelier has, in the article above referred to, explained this house in a very satisfactory manner as "the tecpan, or official house of the tribe." He says: "The house where the Spaniards were quartered was the 'tecpan,' or official house of the tribe, vacated by the official household for that purpose." In sallying forth to greet the newcomers at the dike, "Wrathy chief (Montezuma) acted simply as the representative of the tribal hospitality, extending unusual courtesies to unusual, mysterious, and therefore dreaded guests. Leaving these in possession of the 'tecpan,' he retired to another of the large communal buildings surrounding the central square, where the official business was, meanwhile, transacted. His return to the Spanish quarters, even if compulsory, had less in it to strike the natives than is commonly believed. It was a re-installation in old quarters, and therefore the 'Tlatocan (Council of Chiefs) itself felt no hesitancy in meeting there again, until the real nature of the dangerous visitors was ascertained, when the council gradually withdrew from the snare, leaving the unfortunate 'chief of men' in Spanish hands." [Footnote: 12 Annual Report of Peabody Museum, p. 680.]
We are next to consider the second so-called palace, that in which Montezuma lived, and the dinner of Montezuma which these soldiers witnessed, and which has gone into history as a part of the evidence that a monarchy of the feudal type existed in Mexico. They had but little time to make their observations, for this imaginary kingdom perished almost immediately, and the people, in the main, dispersed. The so-called palace of Montezuma is not described by Diaz, for the reason, probably, that there was nothing to distinguish it from a number of similar structures in the pueblo. Neither is it described by Cortes or the Anonymous Conqueror; Cortes merely remarking generally that "within the city his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent; I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them." [Footnote: Despatches, p. 121.]
Gothic cathedrals were then standing in Spain, the Alhambra in Grenada, and, without doubt, public and private buildings of dressed stone laid in courses. While the comparison was mendacious, we can understand the desire of the conqueror to magnify his exploits. Herrera, who came later and had additional resources, remarks that the palace in which Montezuma resided "had twenty gates, all of them to the square or market-place, and the principal streets, and three spacious courts, and in one of them a very large fountain…. There were many halls one hundred feet in length, and rooms of twenty-five and thirty, and one hundred baths. The timber-work was small, without nails, but very fine and strong, which the Spaniards much admired. The walls were of marble, jasper, porphyry, a black sort of stone with red veins like blood, white stone, and another sort that is transparent. The roofs were of wood, well wrought and carved…. The rooms were painted and matted, and many of them had rich hangings of cotton and coney wool, or of feather-work. The beds were not answerable to the grandeur of the house and furniture, being poor and wretched, consisting of blankets upon mats or on hay…. Few men lie in this palace, but there were one thousand women in it, and some say three thousand, which is reckoned most likely…. Montezuma took to himself the ladies that were the daughters of great men, being many in number." [Footnote: History of America, ii, 345.]
The external walls of the houses were covered with plaster. From the description it seems probable that in the interior of the large rooms the natural faces of the stone in the walls were seen here and there, some of the red porous stone, some of marble, and some resembling porphyry, for it is not supposable that they could cut this stone with flint implements. Large stones used on the inner faces of the walls might have been left uncovered, and thus have presented the mottled appearance mentioned. The Aztecs had no structures comparable with those of Yucatan. Their architecture resembles that of New Mexico wherever its features distinctly appear upon evidence that can be trusted. The best rooms found in the latter region are of thin pieces of sandstone prepared by fracture and laid up with a uniform face. Herrera had no occasion to speak of the use of marble and porphyry in the walls of this house in such a vague manner and upon more vague information. The reference to the thousand or more women as forming the harem of Montezuma is a gross libel.
Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft, the last of the long line of writers who have treated the affairs of the Aztecs, has put the finishing touch to this picture in the following language: "The principal palace of the king of Mexico was an irregular pile of low buildings enormous in extent, constructed of huge blocks of tetzontli, a kind of porous stone common to that country, cemented with mortar. The arrangement of the buildings was such that they enclosed three great plazas or public squares, in one of which a beautiful fountain incessantly played. Twenty great doors opened on the squares and on the streets, and over these was sculptured in stone the coat-of-arms of the king of Mexico, an eagle griping in his talons a jaguar. In the interior were many halls, and one in particular is said by a writer who accompanied Cortes, known as the Anonymous Conqueror, to have been of sufficient extent to contain three thousand men…. In addition to these were more than one hundred smaller rooms, and the same number of marble baths…. The walls and floors of halls and apartments were many of them faced with polished slabs of marble, jasper, obsidian, and white tecali; lofty columns of the same fine stones supported marble balconies and porticos, every inch and corner of which was filled with wondrous ornamental carving, or held a grinning, grotesquely sculptured head. The beams and casings were of cedar, cypress, and other valuable woods profusely carved and put together without nails…. Superb mats of most exquisite finish were spread upon the marble floors; the tapestry that draped the walls and the curtains that hung before the windows were made of a fabric most wonderful for its delicate texture, elegant designs, and brilliant colors; through the halls and corridors a thousand golden censers, in which burned precious spices and perfumes, diffused a subtle odor." [Footnote: Native Races of the Pacific States, ii, 160.]
Upon this rhapsody it will be sufficient to remark that halls were entirely unknown in Indian architecture. Neither a hall, as that term is used by us, has ever been seen in an Indian house, nor has one been found in the ruins of any Indian structure. An external corridor has occasionally been found in ruins of houses in Central America. The great doors open on the squares and streets; Aztec window-curtains of delicate texture, marble baths and porticos, and floors of polished slabs of marble, as figments of a troubled imagination, recall the glowing description of the great kingdom of the Sandwich Islands—with its king, its cabinet ministers, its parliament, its army and navy, which Mark Twain has fitly characterized as "an attempt to navigate a sardine dish with Great Eastern machinery"; and it suggested also the Indian chief humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo, its houses and its breech-cloth people, cannot conceal the "ragged Indian" therein by dressing him in a European costume.
On the seventh day after the entry into Mexico, Montezuma was induced by intimidation to leave the house in which he lived and take up his quarters with Cortes, where he was held a prisoner until his death, which occurred a few weeks later. Whatever was seen of his mode of life in his usual place of residence was practically limited to the five days between the coming of the Spaniards and his capture. Our knowledge of the facts is in the main derived from what these soldiers reported upon slight and imperfect means of observation. Bernal Diaz and Cortes have left us an extraordinary description, not of his residence, but of his daily life, and more particularly of the dinner, which will now be considered. It is worth the attempt to take up the pictures of these and succeeding authors, and see whether the real truth of the matter cannot be elicited from their own statements. There was undoubtedly a basis of facts underneath them, because without such a basis the superstructure could not have been created.