Читать книгу History of the Conquest of Mexico (Vol. 1-4) - William Hickling Prescott - Страница 24

[43] This was an exception.—In Egypt, also, the king was frequently taken from the warrior caste, though obliged afterwards to be instructed in the mysteries of the priesthood: ὁ δὲ ἐκ μαχίμων ἀποδεδειγένος εὐθὺς ἐγίνετο τῶν ίέρων. Plutarch, de Isid. et Osir., sec. 9.

[44] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 18; lib. 11, cap. 27.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 112.—Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies, Eng. trans. (London, 1604).—According to Zurita, an election by the nobles took place only in default of heirs of the deceased monarch. (Rapport, p. 15.) The minute historical investigation of Clavigero may be permitted to outweigh this general assertion.

[45] [“Chief of men.”—M.]

[46] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 9, 10, 14; lib. 8, cap. 31, 34.—See, also, Zurita, Rapport, pp. 20-23.—Ixtlilxochitl stoutly claims this supremacy for his own nation. (Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 34.) His assertions are at variance with facts stated by himself elsewhere, and are not countenanced by any other writer whom I have consulted.

[47] [The spacious palace in which the “chief of men” lived was the chief communal house of the clan. The “privy council” was made up of the clan officers specified on page 33.—M.]

[48] Sahagun, who places the elective power in a much larger body, speaks of four senators, who formed a state council. (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 30.) Acosta enlarges the council beyond the number of the electors. (Lib. 6, ch. 26.) No two writers agree.

[49] [There was, according to Bandelier, no such thing as a “body-guard.” Guards were unknown. This was evidenced when Montezuma was captured. No “body-guard” attempted his rescue. Bandelier’s conclusions should be kept steadily in mind in reading this chapter. The “distinct class of nobles, with large landed possessions,” were only the principal officers of the tribe, who were of course of the same “kin” as the so-called Aztec monarch. The great caciques, with thousands of vassals, were tribal officers leading tribal warriors. The “estates” were all held by the tribe, and were all subject to tribute.—M.]

[50] Zurita enumerates four orders of chiefs, all of whom were exempted from imposts and enjoyed very considerable privileges. He does not discriminate the several ranks with much precision. Rapport, p. 47, et seq.

[51] See, in particular, Herrera, Historia general de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra firme del Mar Océano (Madrid, 1730), dec. 2, lib. 8, cap. 12.

[52] Carta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 110.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 89; lib. 14, cap. 6.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 121.—Zurita, Rapport, pp. 48, 65.—Ixtlilxochitl (Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 34) speaks of thirty great feudal chiefs, some of them Tezcucan and Tlacopan, whom he styles “grandees of the empire”! He says nothing of the great tail of 100,000 vassals to each, mentioned by Torquemada and Herrera.

[53] Macehual,—a word equivalent to the French word roturier. Nor could fiefs originally be held by plebeians in France. See Hallam’s Middle Ages (London, 1819), vol. ii. p. 207.

[54] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., ubi supra.—Zurita, Rapport, ubi supra.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 122-124.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 7.—Gomara, Crónica de Nueva-España, cap. 199, ap. Barcia, tom. ii.—Boturini (Idea, p. 165) carries back the origin of fiefs in Anahuac to the twelfth century. Carli says, “Le système politique y étoit féodal.” In the next page he tells us, “Personal merit alone made the distinction of the nobility”! (Lettres Américaines, trad. Fr. (Paris, 1788), tom. i. let. 11.) Carli was a writer of a lively imagination.

[55] [There was no such thing as feudalism among the Aztecs. There could not be where the communism which the clan system implies prevailed. Feudalism was a social-political system based upon land. Under it there was a well-defined gradation of ranks, and each lower was bound to the next higher order by protection given in return for service rendered. Moreover, where feudalism prevailed the ownership of the land was vested in one person while the occupancy belonged to another. Feudalism exalted the individual and assured to each man his rights. The clan knew nothing whatever of individual rights. When the conception of personal ownership was developed, and kinship ceased to be the bond which held men together, the clan system of communal living of necessity passed away. But among the Aztecs the feudal conception of personal property never was developed. The Spaniards, knowing no civilization but their own, naturally supposed that the Aztec institutions were similar to the Spanish, and historians generally accepted that view.—M.]

[56] [See summary of Bandelier’s studies, p. 36.—M.]

[57] This magistrate, who was called cihuacoatl,{*} was also to audit the accounts of the collectors of the taxes in his district. (Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 127.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 11, cap. 25.) The Mendoza Collection contains a painting of the courts of justice under Montezuma, who introduced great changes in them. (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i., Plate 70.) According to the interpreter, an appeal lay from them, in certain cases, to the king’s council. Ibid., vol. vi. p. 79.

{*} [This word, a compound of cihuatl, woman, and coatl, serpent, was the name of a divinity, the mythical mother of the human species. Its typical application may have had reference to justice, or law, as the source of social order.—K.]

[58] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 127, 128.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ubi supra.—In this arrangement of the more humble magistrates we are reminded of the Anglo-Saxon hundreds and tithings, especially the latter, the members of which were to watch over the conduct of the families in their districts and bring the offenders to justice. The hard penalty of mutual responsibility was not known to the Mexicans.

[59] Zurita, so temperate, usually, in his language, remarks that, in the capital, “Tribunals were instituted which might compare in their organization with the royal audiences of Castile.” (Rapport, p. 93.) His observations are chiefly drawn from the Tezcucan courts, which in their forms of procedure, he says, were like the Aztec. (Loc. cit.)

[60] Boturini, Idea, p. 87.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 11, cap. 26.—Zurita compares this body to the Castilian córtes. It would seem, however, according to him, to have consisted only of twelve principal judges, besides the king. His meaning is somewhat doubtful. (Rapport, pp. 94, 101, 106.) M. de Humboldt, in his account of the Aztec courts, has confounded them with the Tezcucan. Comp. Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples indigènes de l’Amérique (Paris, 1810), p. 55, and Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 128, 129.

[61] “If this should be done now, what an excellent thing it would be!” exclaims Sahagun’s Mexican editor. Hist. de Nueva-España, tom. ii. p. 304, nota.—Zurita, Rapport, p. 102.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ubi supra.—Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 67.

[62] [There is a hint here of the “Compurgators” of the Germanic tribes.—M.]

[63] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 95, 100, 103.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, loc. cit.—Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp. 55, 56.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 11, cap. 25.—Clavigero says the accused might free himself by oath: “il reo poteva purgarsi col giuramento.” (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 129.) What rogue, then, could ever have been convicted?

[64] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 36.—These various objects had a symbolical meaning, according to Boturini, Idea, p. 84.

[65] [Compare the “codes” of the Germanic races.—M.]

[66] Paintings of the Mendoza Collection, Pl. 72, and Interpretation, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 87.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 12, cap. 7.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 130-134.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—They could scarcely have been an intemperate people, with these heavy penalties hanging over them. Indeed, Zurita bears testimony that those Spaniards who thought they were greatly erred. (Rapport, p. 112.) M. Ternaux’s translation of a passage of the Anonymous Conqueror, “aucun peuple n’est aussi sobre” (Recueil de Pièces relatives à la Conquête du Mexique, ap. Voyages, etc. (Paris, 1838), p. 54), may give a more favorable impression, however, than that intended by his original, whose remark is confined to abstemiousness in eating. See the Relatione, ap. Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigationi et Viaggi (Venetia, 1554-1565).

[67] In ancient Egypt the child of a slave was born free, if the father were free. (Diodorus, Bibl. Hist., lib. 1, sec. 80.) This, though more liberal than the code of most countries, fell short of the Mexican.

[68] In Egypt the same penalty was attached to the murder of a slave as to that of a freeman. (Ibid., lib. 1, sec. 77.) Robertson speaks of a class of slaves held so cheap in the eye of the Mexican law that one might kill them with impunity. (History of America (ed. London, 1776), vol. iii. p. 164.) This, however, was not in Mexico, but in Nicaragua (see his own authority, Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 4, cap. 2), a distant country, not incorporated in the Mexican empire, and with laws and institutions very different from those of the latter.

[69] [A “collared” slave was fastened at night to a wall by his wooden collar.—M.]

[70] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 12, cap. 15; lib. 14, cap. 16, 17.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 14.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 134-136.

[71] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 38, and Relaciones, MS.—The Tezcucan code, indeed, as digested under the great Nezahualcoyotl, formed the basis of the Mexican, in the latter days of the empire. Zurita, Rapport, p. 95.

[72] In this, at least, they did not resemble the Romans; of whom their countryman could boast, “Gloriari licet, nulli gentium mitiores placuisse pœnas.” Livy, Hist., lib. 1, cap. 28.

[73] [For “crown lands” read “subject tribes”; for “king’s palaces,” “communal houses.”—M.]

[74] The Tezcucan revenues were, in like manner, paid in the produce of the country. The various branches of the royal expenditure were defrayed by specified towns and districts; and the whole arrangements here, and in Mexico, bore a remarkable resemblance to the financial regulations of the Persian empire, as reported by the Greek writers (see Herodotus, Clio, sec. 192); with this difference, however, that the towns of Persia proper were not burdened with tributes, like the conquered cities. Idem, Thalia, sec. 97.

[75] Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 172.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 89; lib. 14, cap. 7.—Boturini, Idea, p. 166.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 13.—The people of the provinces were distributed into calpulli, or tribes, who held the lands of the neighborhood in common. Officers of their own appointment parcelled out these lands among the several families of the calpulli; and on the extinction or removal of a family its lands reverted to the common stock, to be again distributed. The individual proprietor had no power to alienate them. The laws regulating these matters were very precise, and had existed ever since the occupation of the country by the Aztecs. Zurita, Rapport, pp. 51-62.

[76] The following items of the tribute furnished by different cities will give a more precise idea of its nature:—20 chests of ground chocolate; 40 pieces of armor, of a particular device; 2400 loads of large mantles, of twisted cloth; 800 loads of small mantles, of rich wearing-apparel; 5 pieces of armor, of rich feathers; 60 pieces of armor, of common feathers; a chest of beans; a chest of chian; a chest of maize; 8000 reams of paper; likewise 2000 loaves of very white salt, refined in the shape of a mould, for the consumption only of the lords of Mexico; 8000 lumps of unrefined copal; 400 small baskets of white refined copal; 100 copper axes; 80 loads of red chocolate; 800 xícaros, out of which they drank chocolate; a little vessel of small turquoise stones; 4 chests of timber, full of maize; 4000 loads of lime; tiles of gold, of the size of an oyster, and as thick as the finger; 40 bags of cochineal; 20 bags of gold dust, of the finest quality; a diadem of gold, of a specified pattern; 20 lip-jewels of clear amber, ornamented with gold; 200 loads of chocolate; 100 pots or jars of liquid-amber; 8000 handfuls of rich scarlet feathers; 40 tiger-skins; 1600 bundles of cotton, etc., etc. Col. de Mendoza, part 2, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vols. i., vi.{*}

{*} [From those too poor to pay the regular taxes, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and vermin were exacted. “It is related that soon after Cortés arrived in the city of Mexico certain cavaliers of his force ... were roaming through the royal palace, ... when they came across some bags filled with some soft, fine, and weighty material.... They hastened to untie one of the sacks and found its contents to consist of nothing but lice, which had been paid as a tribute by the poor.” Bancroft, Native Races, vol. ii. p. 235. Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., tom. i. p. 461.—M.]

[77] Mapa de Tributos, ap. Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España.—Tribute-roll, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i., and Interpretation, vol. vi., pp. 17-44.—The Mendoza Collection, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, contains a roll of the cities of the Mexican empire, with the specific tributes exacted from them. It is a copy made after the Conquest, with a pen, on European paper. (See Foreign Quarterly Review, No. XVII. Art. 4.) An original painting of the same roll was in Boturini’s museum. Lorenzana has given us engravings of it, in which the outlines of the Oxford copy are filled up, though somewhat rudely. Clavigero considers the explanations in Lorenzana’s edition very inaccurate (Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 25), a judgment confirmed by Aglio, who has transcribed the entire collection of the Mendoza papers, in the first volume of the Antiquities of Mexico. It would have much facilitated reference to his plates if they had been numbered;—a strange omission!

[78] The caciques who submitted to the allied arms were usually confirmed in their authority, and the conquered places allowed to retain their laws and usages. (Zurita, Rapport, p. 67.) The conquests were not always partitioned, but sometimes, singularly enough, were held in common by the three powers. Ibid., p. 11.

[79] [Very few garrisons were ever quartered in subject pueblos. The warriors Cortés encountered in his second attack upon Mexico were not the garrisons of the cities, but special bodies sent out to meet the Spaniards. The “calpixqui,” or tax-gatherers, were spies as well as officers, and were hated as were the “publicans” in all lands where the taxes were “farmed.” The “chief of men” had many subordinates. His couriers were not infrequently outcasts. Bearing in mind the class of persons with whom he had to deal officially, and the fact that it was his function to represent the majesty of the clan on all public occasions, it is not remarkable that he should have conducted himself with such haughtiness as to lead the Spaniards to suppose that he was an absolute king. That he had really no kingly power was manifested when Montezuma was a prisoner in the hands of the Spaniards. His special duty was to execute the commands of the tribal council.—M.]

[80] Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 17.—Carta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, Hist. de Nueva-España, p. 110.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 6, 8.—Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 13.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 18, 19.

[81] The Hon. C. A. Murray, whose imperturbable good humor under real troubles forms a contrast, rather striking, to the sensitiveness of some of his predecessors to imaginary ones, tells us, among other marvels, that an Indian of his party travelled a hundred miles in four-and-twenty hours. (Travels in North America (New York, 1839), vol. i. p. 193.) The Greek who, according to Plutarch, brought the news of victory to Platæa, a hundred and twenty-five miles, in a day, was a better traveller still. Some interesting facts on the pedestrian capabilities of man in the savage state are collected by Buffon, who concludes, truly enough, “L’homme civilisé ne connaît pas ses forces.” (Histoire naturelle: De la Jeunesse.)

[82] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 1.—The same wants led to the same expedients in ancient Rome, and still more ancient Persia. “Nothing in the world is borne so swiftly,” says Herodotus, “as messages by the Persian couriers;” which his commentator Valckenaer prudently qualifies by the exception of the carrier-pigeon. (Herodotus, Hist., Urania, sec. 98, nec non Adnot. ed. Schweighäuser.) Couriers are noticed, in the thirteenth century, in China, by Marco Polo. Their stations were only three miles apart, and they accomplished five days’ journey in one. (Viaggi di Marco Polo, lib. 2, cap. 20, ap. Ramusio, tom. ii.) A similar arrangement for posts subsists there at the present day, and excites the admiration of a modern traveller. (Anderson, British Embassy to China (London, 1796), p. 282.) In all these cases, the posts were for the use of government only.

[83] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 3, Apend., cap. 3.

[84] [The general council of the tribe.—M.]

[85] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 68, 120.—Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 67; vol. vi. p. 74.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 1.—The reader will find a remarkable resemblance to these military usages in those of the early Romans. Com. Liv., Hist., lib. 1, cap. 32; lib. 4, cap. 30, et alibi.

[86] [“Distinguished braves,” see note, p. 35.—M.]

[87] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 4, 5.—Acosta, lib. 6, ch. 26.—Col. of Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 65; vol. vi. p. 72.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.