The laws against stealing and other crimes were strictly enforced, although unwritten, the penalties probably assigned in accordance with ancient customs.
The Aztecs were essentially musical, as their descendants are now. Their songs and hymns transmitted the traditions of their race, and are carefully taught in the schools. They had a sort of theatrical exhibition, in which the faces of the actors were hid with masks representing birds or animals.
The relic which gives the best testimony of the mental powers of the Aztecs is their calendar, preserved for centuries from destruction, and now built into the cathedral of the city of Mexico. It was carved in the year 1512 a.d., and brought to the ancient Tenochtitlan from the spot where it was made. When it had nearly reached its destination, it broke down the floating bridge on which it was loaded, and was precipitated into the lake. The priest superintending the moving, and many of his assistants, were drowned, but it was raised with great difficulty from the water, and brought to the great temple located by Tizoc and Ahuitzotl, where it was inaugurated with human sacrifices.
Not many years later this temple, like many others, was destroyed, and the huge calendar with other objects of heathen worship were buried in the surrounding marshes as the best way to get rid of them, by the order of the Christian priests. It lay hidden for two centuries, until the 17th of December, 1790, when the grade of the pavement in front of the cathedral was lowered, and it came to light. The Spanish Viceroy then controlling Mexican affairs allowed the commissioners of the cathedral to build it into their sacred edifice, on condition that it should be always preserved and exposed in a public place. It is now, however, considered as the property of the National Museum.
This zodiac or calendar is twelve feet in diameter, made of a piece of basalt of immense weight. It gives a clear exposition of the division of time understood by the Aztecs, into cycles, years, and days. Fifty-two years constituted a cycle, the year had three hundred and sixty-five days, with five very unlucky intercalary days, wholly devoted to human sacrifice. Each year had eighteen months of twenty days each, and these months four weeks of five days each. The days had delightful names, such as "Sea Animal," "Small Bird," "Monkey," "Rain,"; not recurring every week, but different for the twenty different days of the month. The cardinal points were named "Reed," "House," "Flint," "Rabbit," for east, west, north, and south. Thus an Aztec might say, "I am going House on Sea-Animal," which would merely mean that he was starting for the west on Monday. The months likewise had descriptive names: thus the third month, which might correspond to our March, was called "Victims flayed alive," while the more agreeable title for the sixth month, which we call July, was "Garlands of corn on the necks of idols." As their writing was by pictures instead of by combinations of letters selected from an alphabet, they could give a long name in brief space with a few adroit turns of their writing instrument.
The Mexican archæologist, Leony Gama, considers the stone not only to be a calendar, but a solar clock, which by means of shadows cast in a certain manner gave eight intervals of the day between the rising and setting sun. He adds that the stone clearly shows the dates of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, summer and winter solstice. On the other hand, the antiquarian Chavero is of opinion that the stone could not have been used as a calendar on account of lacking certain indispensable elements for the computation of time. He considers it a gigantic votive monument to the sun, above which sacrifices were offered. Whatever was the original intention of the sculptures of this great stone, it has survived them to bear testimony to their attentive notice of the movements of the earth and heavenly bodies, of their interest in astronomy, and their accuracy in arithmetical calculation, as well as their skill in carving and design, and their power to overcome the mechanical difficulty of moving so huge a mass of stone.
The cycle of the Aztecs was a period of fifty-two years. They believed that some great catastrophe would occur at the end of one of these cycles, and therefore approached the termination of each one, at the interval of fifty-two years, with terror and dismay. On the arrival of the five unlucky days at the close of the year when the end of the cycle recurred, they abandoned themselves to despair. They broke in pieces the little images of their household gods, lighted no fires in their dwellings, and allowed the holy fires in the temples to burn out. They destroyed every thing they possessed, and tore their garments, as if there was to be no further use for earthly comforts.
On the evening of the fifth day a procession moved from the city to the top of a hill six miles south of the city. There, at midnight, just as the constellation of the Pleiades reached the zenith, a new fire was kindled by rubbing sticks over the breast of a human victim. The body of this victim was thrown to the flames which sprang up from the new-born fire. Shouts of joy and delight burst forth from the surrounding hills, the housetops, and terraces, which were crowded with the populace watching for the result. Torches lighted at the blazing pile were carried to every home, and kindled with fresh flame every hearthstone. The sun rose, the new cycle commenced, and the Aztecs felt safe for fifty-two years more.
Then came the house-cleaning. All the destroyed pots and pans were replaced by new ones. New clothes, prepared, we must fear, beforehand, took the place of the old ones. The people, gayly dressed and crowned with flowers, thronged to the temples to offer up their thanksgiving. All was joy and merriment; dances and songs were the order of the day, gifts exchanged. The last celebration of this festival was in 1506.
While the warriors of the Mexicans were engaged in ceaseless raids upon neighboring tribes, the true occupation of the people was agriculture, which in their delightful climate well repaid their toil and skill. All the inhabitants, even in the cities, cultivated the soil, except the soldiers and the great nobles. The men did all the heavy work, the women helping them by scattering seed, husking maize, and such light matters. Canals were cut through sterile lands, for they fully understood the importance of artificial irrigation, to aid the influence of their rainy season. The forests which covered the country were preserved by severe penalties. Ample granaries were provided to contain their harvests.