History of the Conquest of Mexico; vol. 2/4

by William Hickling Prescott

CITY OF CHOLULA—GREAT TEMPLE—MARCH TO CHOLULA—RECEPTION OF THE SPANIARDS—CONSPIRACY DETECTED

1519

THE ancient city of Cholula, capital of the republic of that name, lay nearly six leagues south of Tlascala, and about twenty east, or rather southeast, of Mexico. It was said by Cortés to contain twenty thousand houses within the walls, and as many more in the environs;[187] though now dwindled to a population of less than sixteen thousand souls.[188] Whatever was its real number of inhabitants, it was unquestionably, at the time of the Conquest, one of the most populous and flourishing cities in New Spain.

It was of great antiquity, and was founded by the primitive races who overspread the land before the Aztecs.[189] We have few particulars of its form of government, which seems to have been cast on a republican model similar to that of Tlascala.{*} This answered so well that the state maintained its independence down to a very late period, when, if not reduced to vassalage by the Aztecs, it was so far under their control as to enjoy few of the benefits of a separate political existence. Their connection with Mexico brought the Cholulans into frequent collision with their neighbors and kindred the Tlascalans. But, although far superior to them in refinement and the various arts of civilization, they were no match in war for the bold mountaineers, the Swiss of Anahuac. The Cholulan capital was the great commercial emporium of the plateau. The inhabitants excelled in various mechanical arts, especially that of working in metals, the manufacture of cotton and agave cloths, and of a delicate kind of pottery, rivalling, it was said, that of Florence in beauty.[190] But such attention to the arts of a polished and peaceful community naturally indisposed them to war, and disqualified them for coping with those who made war the great business of life. The Cholulans were accused of effeminacy, and were less distinguished—it is the charge of their rivals—by their courage than their cunning.[191]

{*} [The older authorities agree in stating that Cholula was democratically governed. Bandelier (Studies about Cholula and its Vicinity, in his Report of an Archæological Tour in Mexico in 1881) concludes that there were in the community six kins. Torquemada says the tribal council consisted of six speakers. The tribe was governed by two chief executives (called Aquiach and Tlalquiach). Their functions were partly warlike, as is evidenced by their appellations “eagle” and “tiger,” and partly religious. The tribe occupied one large pueblo, with a few smaller groups, possibly twenty, scattered about it, of which perhaps two deserved the title of villages. The population of the pueblo may have been 30,000 in 1519. The estimate of houses which Cortés gives is too large. Moreover, a large number of houses in each pueblo was always unoccupied.—M.]

But the capital, so conspicuous for its refinement and its great antiquity, was even more venerable for the religious traditions which invested it. It was here that the god Quetzalcoatl paused in his passage to the coast, and passed twenty years in teaching the Toltec inhabitants the arts of civilization. He made them acquainted with better forms of government, and a more spiritualized religion, in which the only sacrifices were the fruits and flowers of the season.[192] It is not easy to determine what he taught, since his lessons have been so mingled with the licentious dogmas of his own priests and the mystic commentaries of the Christian missionary.[193] It is probable that he was one of those rare and gifted beings who, dissipating the darkness of the age by the illumination of their own genius, are deified by a grateful posterity and placed among the lights of heaven.

It was in honor of this benevolent deity that the stupendous mound{*} was erected on which the traveller still gazes with admiration as the most colossal fabric in New Spain, rivalling in dimensions, and somewhat resembling in form, the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The date of its erection is unknown; for it was found there when the Aztecs entered on the plateau. It had the form common to the Mexican teocallis, that of a truncated pyramid, facing with its four sides the cardinal points, and divided into the same number of terraces. Its original outlines, however, have been effaced by the action of time and of the elements, while the exuberant growth of shrubs and wild flowers, which have mantled over its surface, give it the appearance of one of those symmetrical elevations thrown up by the caprice of nature rather than by the industry of man. It is doubtful indeed, whether the interior be not a natural hill; though it seems not improbable that it is an artificial composition of stone and earth, deeply incrusted, as is certain, in every part, with alternate strata of brick and clay.[194]

In the teacher himself they recognize no less a person than St. Thomas the Apostle! See the Dissertation of the irrefragable Dr. Mier, with an edifying commentary by Señor Bustamante, ap. Sahagun. (Hist. de Nueva-España, tom. i., Suplemento.) The reader will find further particulars of this matter in the essay on the Origin of the Mexican Civilization, at the end of the first book of this history.

{*} [The most careful measurements of the great mound, or “pyramid,” were those made by Bandelier in 1881. He found the base to be a trapeze. North line, 1000 feet; east line, 1026 feet; south line, 833 feet; west line, 1000 feet; total, 3859 feet. This would give an approximate area of over twenty acres for the base. Measuring the height of the mound from each of its four sides, he found the average altitude to be 169 feet. There is not a trace of aboriginal work upon the summit. The structure was built long before the Nahuatl period. It was not erected at one time, but grew as necessity ordered. It was a place of refuge and its top was used as a place of worship.—M.]

The perpendicular height of the pyramid is one hundred and seventy-seven feet. Its base is one thousand four hundred and twenty-three feet long, twice as long as that of the great pyramid of Cheops. It may give some idea of its dimensions to state that its base, which is square, covers about forty-four acres, and the platform on its truncated summit embraces more than one. It reminds us of those colossal monuments of brickwork which are still seen in ruins on the banks of the Euphrates, and, in much higher preservation, on those of the Nile.[195]