[849] Brinton’s Amer. Hero Myths, 139, etc. See, on the prevalence of the idea of the return at some time of the hero-god, Brinton’s Myths of the New World, p. 160. “We must remember,” he says, “that a fiction built on an idea is infinitely more tenacious of life than a story founded on fact.” Brinton (Myths, 188) gathers from Gomara, Cogolludo, Villagutierre, and others, instances to show how prevalent in America was the presentiment of the arrival and domination of a white race,—a belief still prevailing among their descendants of the middle regions of America who watch for the coming of Montezuma (Ibid. p. 190). Brinton does not seem to recognize the view held by many that the Montezuma of the Aztecs was quite a different being from the demi-god of the Pueblas of New Mexico.
[850] It is not easy to reconcile the conflicting statements of the native historians respecting the course of events during the Aztec supremacy, such is the mutual jealousy of the Mexican and Tezcucan writers. Brasseur has satisfied himself of the authenticity of a certain sequence and character of events (Nations Civilisées), and Bancroft simply follows him (v. 401). Veytia is occupied more with the Tezcucans than with the Aztecs. The condensed sketch here given follows the main lines of the collated records. We find good pictures of the later history of Mexico and Tlascala, before the Spaniards came, in Prescott (i. book 2d, ch. vi., and book 3d, ch. ii.). Bancroft (v. ch. 10) with his narrative and references helps us out with the somewhat monotonous details of all the districts of Mexico which were outside the dominance of the Mexican valley, as of Cholula, Tlascala, Michoacan, and Oajaca, with the Miztecs and Zapotecs, inhabiting this last province.
[851] Bancroft (v. 543-553).
[852] It is so held by Stephens, Waldeck, Mayer, Prichard, Ternaux-Compans, not to name others.
[853] Vol. v. 617.
[854] The Maya calendar and astronomical system, as the basis of the Maya chronology, is explained in the version which Perez gave into Spanish of a Maya manuscript (translated into English by Stephens in his Yucatan), and which Valentini has used in his “Katunes of Maya History,” in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., Oct. 1879. On the difficulties of the subject see Brasseur’s Nations Civilisées (ii. ch. 1). Cf. also his Landa, section xxxix., and page 366, from the “Cronologia antigua de Yucatan.” Cf. further, Cyrus Thomas’s MS. Troano, ch. 2, and Powell’s Third Report Bur. of Ethn., pp. xxx and 3; Ancona’s Yucatan, ch. xi.; Bancroft’s Nat. Races, ii. ch. 24, with references; Short, ch. 9; Brinton’s Maya Chronicles, introduction, p. 50.
[855] Bancroft (v. 624) epitomizes the Perez manuscript given by Stephens, the sole source of this Totul Xiu legendary.
[856] Brasseur’s Nations Civilisées (i., ii.), with the Perez manuscript, and Landa’s Relacion, are the sufficient source of the Yucatan history. Bancroft’s last chapter of his fifth volume summarizes it.
[857] See Vol. II. p. 402.
[858] See Vol. II. p. 397.