Читать книгу History of the Conquest of Mexico (Vol. 1-4) - William Hickling Prescott - Страница 27

[197]

“It is a gentle and affectionate thought.

That, in immeasurable heights above us,

At our first birth the wreath of love was woven

With sparkling stars for flowers.”

Coleridge: Translation of Wallenstein, act 2, sc. 4.

Schiller is more true to poetry than history, when he tells us, in the beautiful passage of which this is part, that the worship of the stars took the place of classic mythology. It existed long before it.

[198] Gama has given us a complete almanac of the astrological year, with the appropriate signs and divisions, showing with what scientific skill it was adapted to its various uses. (Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 25-31, 62-76.) Sahagun has devoted a whole book to explaining the mystic import and value of these signs, with a minuteness that may enable one to cast up a scheme of nativity for himself. (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4.) It is evident he fully believed the magic wonders which he told. “It was a deceitful art,” he says, “pernicious and idolatrous, and was never contrived by human reason.” The good father was certainly no philosopher.

[199] See, among others, the Cod. Tel.-Rem., Part 4, Pl. 22, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i.

[200] “It can hardly be doubted,” says Lord Kingsborough, “that the Mexicans were acquainted with many scientific instruments of strange invention, as compared with our own; whether the telescope may not have been of the number is uncertain; but the thirteenth plate of M. Dupaix’s Monuments, Part Second, which represents a man holding something of a similar nature to his eye, affords reason to suppose that they knew how to improve the powers of vision.” (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. vi. p. 15, note.) The instrument alluded to is rudely carved on a conical rock. It is raised no higher than the neck of the person who holds it, and looks—to my thinking—as much like a musket as a telescope; though I shall not infer the use of fire-arms among the Aztecs from this circumstance. (See vol. iv. Pl. 15.) Captain Dupaix, however, in his commentary on the drawing, sees quite as much in it as his lordship. Ibid., vol. v. p. 241.

[201] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, sec. 4; Parte 2, Apend.—Besides this colossal fragment, Gama met with some others, designed, probably, for similar scientific uses, at Chapoltepec. Before he had leisure to examine them, however, they were broken up for materials to build a furnace,—a fate not unlike that which has too often befallen the monuments of ancient art in the Old World.

[202] [For additional light upon the Mexican astronomical and calendar system and the “calendar stone,” easily accessible authors are: Bandelier, Archæological Tour, Peabody Museum Reports, ii. 572; Valentini, American Antiquarian Society Proceedings, April, 1878; Squier, Some New Discoveries respecting Dates on the Great Calendar Stone, etc.; American Journal of Science and Arts, Second Series, March, 1849; Bancroft, Native Races, ii. chap. 16 and v. p. 192; Short, North Americans of Antiquity, chap, ix.; Wilson, Prehistoric Man, i; Brasseur, Chronologie historiques des Méxicaines, in Actes de la Soc. d’Ethnographie, vol vi.; Payne, New World Called America, ii. 310 seq. Mrs. Nuttall claims that this calendar stone stood in the great market-place in Mexico, and that its purpose was to regulate the market-days.—M.]

[203] In his second treatise on the cylindrical stone, Gama dwells more at large on its scientific construction, as a vertical sun-dial, in order to dispel the doubts of some sturdy skeptics on this point. (Descripcion, Parte 2, Apend. 1.) The civil day was distributed by the Mexicans into sixteen parts, and began, like that of most of the Asiatic nations, with sunrise. M. de Humboldt, who probably never saw Gama’s second treatise, allows only eight intervals. Vues des Cordillères, p. 128.

[204] “Un calendrier,” exclaims the enthusiastic Carli, “qui est réglé sur la révolution annuelle du soleil, non-seulement par l’addition de cinq jours tous les ans, mais encore par la correction du bissextile, doit sans doute être regardé comme une opération déduite d’une étude réfléchie, et d’une grande combinaison. Il faut donc supposer chez ces peuples une suite d’observations astronomiques, une idée distincte de la sphère, de la déclinaison de l’écliptique, et l’usage d’un calcul concernant les jours et les heures des apparitions solaires.” Lettres Américaines, tom. i. let. 23.

[205] La Place, who suggests the analogy, frankly admits the difficulty. Système du Monde, lib. 5, ch. 3.

[206] M. Jomard errs in placing the new fire, with which ceremony the old cycle properly concluded, at the winter solstice. It was not till the 26th of December, if Gama is right. The cause of M. Jomard’s error is his fixing it before, instead of after, the complementary days. See his sensible letter on the Aztec calendar, in the Vues des Cordillères, p. 309.

[207] At the actual moment of their culmination, according to both Sahagun (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, Apend.) and Torquemada (Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 33, 36). But this could not be, as that took place at midnight, in November, so late as the last secular festival, which was early in Montezuma’s reign, in 1507. (Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 50, nota.—Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères, pp. 181, 182.) The longer we postpone the beginning of the new cycle, the greater must be the discrepancy.

[208]

“On his bare breast the cedar boughs are laid;

On his bare breast, dry sedge and odorous gums,

Laid ready to receive the sacred spark,

And blaze, to herald the ascending Sun,

Upon his living altar.”

Southey’s Madoc, part 2, canto 26.

[209] I borrow the words of the summons by which the people were called to the ludi seculares, the secular games of ancient Rome, “quos nec spectâsset quisquam, nec spectaturus esset.” (Suetonius, Vita Tib. Claudii, lib. 5.) The old Mexican chroniclers warm into something like eloquence in their descriptions of the Aztec festival. (Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 10, cap. 33.—Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 5.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 7, cap. 9-12. See, also, Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 52-54,—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 84-86.) The English reader will find a more brilliant coloring of the same scene in the canto of Madoc above cited,—“On the Close of the Century.”

[210] E.g., gunpowder and the compass.—M.

[211] This latter grain, according to Humboldt, was found by the Europeans in the New World, from the South of Chili to Pennsylvania (Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 408); he might have added, to the St. Lawrence. Our Puritan fathers found it in abundance on the New England coast, wherever they landed. See Morton, New England’s Memorial (Boston, 1826), p. 68.—Gookin, Massachusetts Historical Collections, chap. 3.

[212] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 31.—“Admirable example for our times,” exclaims the good father, “when women are not only unfit for the labors of the field, but have too much levity to attend to their own household!”

[213] A striking contrast also to the Egyptians, with whom some antiquaries are disposed to identify the ancient Mexicans. Sophocles notices the effeminacy of the men in Egypt, who stayed at home tending the loom, while their wives were employed in severe labors out of doors:

“ΟΙ. ὦ πάντʹ ἐκείνω τοῖς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ νόμοις

φύσιν κατεικασθέντε καὶ βίου τροφάς·

ἐκεῖ γὰρ οἱ μὲν ἄρσενες κατὰ στέγας

θακοῦσιν ἱστουργοῦντες, αἱ δὲ σύννομοι

τἄξω βίου τροφεῖα πορσύνουσʹ ἀεί.”

Sophocl., Œdip. Col. v. 337-341.

[214] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 32.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 153-155.—“Jamas padeciéron hambre,” says the former writer, “sino en pocas ocasiones.” If these famines were rare, they were very distressing, however, and lasted very long. Comp. Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41, 71, et alibi.

[215] Oviedo considers the musa an imported plant; and Hernandez, in his copious catalogue, makes no mention of it at all. But Humboldt, who has given much attention to it, concludes that, if some species were brought into the country, others were indigenous. (Essai politique, tom. ii. pp. 382-388.) If we may credit Clavigero, the banana was the forbidden fruit that tempted our poor mother Eve! Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 49, nota.

[216] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.—Hernandez, De Historiâ Plantarum Novæ Hispaniæ (Matriti, 1790), lib. 6, cap. 87.

[217] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 13, et alibi.

[218] The farmer’s preparation for his crop of Indian corn was of the simplest. He simply cut away the dense growth from his corn-field and burned it. The ashes thus secured were the only fertilizer used. Just before the first rain in May or June he made holes with a sharpened stick, and at regular intervals, in the prepared ground, and into them dropped four or five grains of corn. In the later days of the Aztec domination considerable care was taken of the growing crops. They were kept free from weeds and in some cases irrigated. Boys stationed on elevated platforms or trees frightened away the birds.—M.

[219] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.—He extols the honey of the maize, as equal to that of bees. (Also Oviedo, Hist. natural de las Indias, cap. 4, ap. Barcia, tom. i.) Hernandez, who celebrates the manifold ways in which the maize was prepared, derives it from the Haytian word mahiz. Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 44, 45.

[220] And is still, in one spot at least, San Ángel,—three leagues from the capital. Another mill was to have been established, a few years since, in Puebla. Whether this has actually been done, I am ignorant. See the Report of the Committee on Agriculture to the Senate of the United States, March 12, 1838.

[221] Before the Revolution, the duties on the pulque formed so important a branch of revenue that the cities of Mexico, Puebla, and Toluca alone paid $817,739 to government. (Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 47.) It requires time to reconcile Europeans to the peculiar flavor of this liquor, on the merits of which they are consequently much divided. There is but one opinion among the natives. The English reader will find a good account of its manufacture in Ward’s Mexico, vol. ii. pp. 55-60.

[222] [Ober (Travels in Mexico) gives a very full account of the uses to which the maguey is put. On the maguey plantations the plants have an average value of five dollars. “A long train departs every day from the stations on the plains of Apam, loaded exclusively with pulque, from the carriage of which the railroad derives a revenue of above $1000 a day,” p. 345. The pulque “tastes like stale buttermilk and has an odor at times like that of putrid meat.” It is wholesome and refreshing. Mexicans ascribe to it the same beneficent properties which Scotsmen assign to their whiskey.—M.]

[223] Hernandez enumerates the several species of the maguey, which are turned to these manifold uses, in his learned work, De Hist. Plantarum. (Lib. 7, cap. 71, et seq.) M. de Humboldt considers them all varieties of the agave Americana, familiar in the southern parts both of the United States and Europe. (Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 487, et seq.) This opinion has brought on him a rather sour rebuke from our countryman the late Dr. Perrine, who pronounces them a distinct species from the American agave, and regards one of the kinds, the pita, from which the fine thread is obtained, as a totally distinct genus. (See the Report of the Committee on Agriculture.) Yet the Baron may find authority for all the properties ascribed by him to the maguey, in the most accredited writers who have resided more or less time in Mexico. See, among others, Hernandez, ubi supra.—Sahagun, Hist, de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2; lib. 11, cap. 7.—Toribio, Hist, de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 19.—Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS. The last, speaking of the maguey, which produces the fermented drink, says expressly, “With what remain of these leaves they manufacture excellent and very fine cloth, resembling holland, or the finest linen.” It cannot be denied, however, that Dr. Perrine shows himself intimately acquainted with the structure and habits of the tropical plants, which, with such patriotic spirit, he proposed to introduce into Florida.

[224] The first regular establishment of this kind, according to Carli, was at Padua, in 1545. Lettres Américaines, tom. i. chap. 21.

[225] [Though I have conformed to the views of Humboldt in regard to the knowledge of mining possessed by the ancient Mexicans, Señor Ramirez thinks the conclusions to which I have been led are not warranted by the ancient writers. From the language of Bernal Diaz and of Sahagun, in particular, he infers that their only means of obtaining the precious metals was by gathering such detached masses as were found on the surface of the ground or in the beds of the rivers. The small amount of silver in their possession he regards as an additional proof of their ignorance of the proper method and their want of the requisite tools for extracting it from the earth. See Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos, p. 73.]

[226] P. Martyr, De Orbe Novo, Decades (Compluti, 1530), dec. 5, p. 191.—Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 3.—Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. iii. pp. 114-125.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.

“Men wrought in brass,” says Hesiod, “when iron did not exist.”

χαλκῴ δʹ ἐργάϛοντο μέλας δʹ οὐκ ἒσκε σίδηρο

Hesiod, Ἒργα καὶ Ἥμεραι.

The Abbé Raynal contends that the ignorance of iron must necessarily have kept the Mexicans in a low state of civilization, since without it “they could have produced no work in metal, worth looking at, no masonry nor architecture, engraving nor sculpture.” (History of the Indies, Eng. trans., vol. iii. b. 6.) Iron, however, if known, was little used by the ancient Egyptians, whose mighty monuments were hewn with bronze tools; while their weapons and domestic utensils were of the same material, as appears from the green color given to them in their paintings.

[227] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 25-29.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., ubi supra.

[228] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 15-17.—Boturini, Idea, p. 77.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., loc. cit.—Herrera, who says they could also enamel, commends the skill of the Mexican goldsmiths in making birds and animals with movable wings and limbs, in a most curious fashion. (Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 15.) Sir John Maundeville, as usual,

“with his hair on end

At his own wonders,”

notices the “gret marvayle” of similar pieces of mechanism at the court of the grand Chane of Cathay. See his Voiage and Travaile, chap. 20.

[229] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 11.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.—Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 27, 28.

[230] “Parece, que permitia Dios, que la figura de sus cuerpos se asimilase á la que tenian sus almas por el pecado, en que siempre permanecian.” Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.

[231] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 195.

[232] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, p. 1. Besides the plaza mayor, Gama points out the Square of Tlatelolco, as a great cemetery of ancient relics. It was the quarter to which the Mexicans retreated, on the siege of the capital.

[233] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 34.—Gama, Descripcion, Parte 2, pp. 81-83.—These statues are repeatedly noticed by the old writers. The last was destroyed in 1754, when it was seen by Gama, who highly commends the execution of it. Ibid.

[234] This wantonness of destruction provokes the bitter animadversion of Martyr, whose enlightened mind respected the vestiges of civilization wherever found. “The conquerors,” he says, “seldom repaired the buildings that were defaced. They would rather sack twenty stately cities than erect one good edifice.” De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 10.

[235] Gama, Descripcion, Parte 1, pp. 110-114.—Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 40.—Ten thousand men were employed in the transportation of this enormous mass, according to Tezozomoc, whose narrative, with all the accompanying prodigies, is minutely transcribed by Bustamante. The Licentiate shows an appetite for the marvellous which might excite the envy of a monk of the Middle Ages. (See Descripcion, nota, loc. cit.) The English traveller Latrobe accommodates the wonders of nature and art very well to each other, by suggesting that these great masses of stone were transported by means of the mastodon, whose remains are occasionally disinterred in the Mexican Valley. Rambler in Mexico, p. 145.

[236] [In 1875 Dr. Augustus Le Plongeon, having successfully interpreted certain hieroglyphic inscriptions at Chichen Itza, unearthed, at a distance of four hundred yards from the palace at that place, a statue of Chaac Mol, or Balam (the tiger king), the greatest of the Itza rulers. It was seized by the Mexican officials and sent to the city of Mexico. There, in the courtyard of the National Museum, it may be seen to-day, just opposite its exact duplicate, which was found buried, either in the plaza of Mexico or somewhere in Tlaxcala, some years ago. The story of the discovery seems marvellous in the extreme, but photographs taken at many stages of the exhumation dispel doubt as to its truth. For a very full report upon the whole matter, see the paper by Stephen Salisbury, president of the American Antiquarian Society, in the Proceedings of that society for 1877-78, pp. 70-119.—M.]

[237] A great collection of ancient pottery, with various other specimens of Aztec art, the gift of Messrs. Poinsett and Keating, is deposited in the Cabinet of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia. See the Catalogue, ap. Transactions, vol. iii. p. 510. Another admirable collection may be seen in the Museum of Natural History in New York.—M.

[238] Hernandez, Hist. Plantarum, lib. 6, cap. 116.

[239] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.—Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 15.—Boturini, Idea, p. 77.—It is doubtful how far they were acquainted with the manufacture of silk. Carli supposes that what Cortés calls silk was only the fine texture of hair, or down, mentioned in the text. (Lettres Américaines, tom. i. let. 21.) But it is certain they had a species of caterpillar, unlike our silkworm, indeed, which spun a thread that was sold in the markets of ancient Mexico. See the Essai politique (tom. iii. pp. 66-69), where M. de Humboldt has collected some interesting facts in regard to the culture of silk by the Aztecs. Still, that the fabric should be a matter of uncertainty at all shows that it could not have reached any great excellence or extent.

[240] Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.—Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 37.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 18-21.—Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 15.—Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.—Count Carli is in raptures with a specimen of feather-painting which he saw in Strasbourg. “Never did I behold anything so exquisite,” he says, “for brilliancy and nice gradation of color, and for beauty of design. No European artist could have made such a thing.” (Lettres Américaines, let. 21, note.) There is still one place, Patzquaro, where, according to Bustamante, they preserve some knowledge of this interesting art, though it is practised on a very limited scale and at great cost. Sahagun, ubi supra, nota.

[241] “O felicem monetam, quæ suavem utilemque præbet humano generi potum, et a tartareâ peste avaritiæ suos immunes servat possessores, quod suffodi aut diu servari nequeat!” De Orbe Novo, dec. 5, cap. 4.—(See, also, Carta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 100, et seq.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 8, cap. 36.—Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 3, cap. 8.—Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.) The substitute for money throughout the Chinese empire was equally simple in Marco Polo’s time, consisting of bits of stamped paper, made from the inner bark of the mulberry-tree. See Viaggi di Messer Marco Polo, gentil’ huomo Venetiano, lib. 2, cap. 18, ap. Ramusio, tom. ii.

[242] “Procurad de saber algun oficio honroso, como es el hacer obras de pluma y otros oficios mecánicos.... Mirad que tengais cuidado de lo tocante á la agricultura.... En ninguna parte he visto que alguno se mantenga por su nobleza.” Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 17.

[243] Col. de Mendoza, ap. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 71; vol. vi. p. 86.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 41.

[244] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 4, 10-14.

[245] Ibid., lib. 9, cap. 2.

[246] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2, 4.—In the Mendoza Codex is a painting representing the execution of a cacique and his family, with the destruction of his city, for maltreating the persons of some Aztec merchants. Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i. Pl. 67.

[247] Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 41.—Ixtlilxochitl gives a curious story of one of the royal family of Tezcuco, who offered, with two other merchants, otros mercaderes, to visit the court of a hostile cacique and bring him dead or alive to the capital. They availed themselves of a drunken revel, at which they were to have been sacrificed, to effect their object. Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 62.

[248] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 2, 5.—The ninth book is taken up with an account of the merchants, their pilgrimages, the religious rites on their departure, and the sumptuous way of living on their return. The whole presents a very remarkable picture, showing they enjoyed a consideration, among the half-civilized nations of Anahuac, to which there is no parallel, unless it be that possessed by the merchant-princes of an Italian republic, or the princely merchants of our own.

[249] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 23-37.—Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.—These complimentary attentions were paid at stated seasons, even during pregnancy. The details are given with abundant gravity and minuteness by Sahagun, who descends to particulars which his Mexican editor, Bustamante, has excluded, as somewhat too unreserved for the public eye. If they were more so than some of the editor’s own notes, they must have been very communicative indeed.

[250] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 112-134.—The Third Part of the Col. de Mendoza (Antiq. of Mexico, vol. i.) exhibits the various ingenious punishments devised for the refractory child. The flowery path of knowledge was well strewed with thorns for the Mexican tyro.

[251] Zurita, Rapport, pp. 151-160.—Sahagun has given us the admonitions of both father and mother to the Aztec maiden on her coming to years of discretion. What can be more tender than the beginning of the mother’s exhortation? “Hija mia muy amada, muy querida palomita: ya has oido y notado las palabras que tu señor padre te ha dicho; ellas son palabras preciosas, y que raramente se dicen ni se oyen, las quales han procedido de las entrañas y corazon en que estaban atesoradas; y tu muy amado padre bien sabe que eres su hija, engendrada de él, eres su sangre y su carne, y sabe Dios nuestro señor que es así; aunque eres muger, é imágen de tu padre ¿que mas te puedo decir, hija mia, de lo que ya esta dicho? “ (Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 19.) The reader will find this interesting document, which enjoins so much of what is deemed most essential among civilized nations, translated entire in the Appendix, Part 2, No. 1.

[252] Yet we find the remarkable declaration, in the counsels of a father to his son, that, for the multiplication of the species, God ordained one man only for one woman. “Nota, hijo mio, lo que te digo, mira que el mundo ya tiene este estilo de engendrar y multiplicar, y para esta generacion y multiplicacion, ordenó Dios que una muger usase de un varon, y un varon de una muger.” Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 21.

[253] Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 21-23; lib. 8, cap. 23.—Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 305.—Carta del Lic. Zuazo, MS.

[254] As old as the heroic age of Greece, at least. We may fancy ourselves at the table of Penelope, where water in golden ewers was poured into silver basins for the accommodation of her guests, before beginning the repast:

“Χέρνιβα δʹ ἀμφίπολος προχόῳ ἐπέχευε φέρουσα

Καλῇ χρυσείῃ ὑπὲρ ἀργυρέοιο λέβητος,

Νίψασθαι: παρὰ δὲ ξεστὴν ἐτάνυσσε τράπεζαν.”

ΟΔΥΣΣ. Α.

The feast affords many other points of analogy to the Aztec, inferring a similar stage of civilization in the two nations. One may be surprised, however, to find a greater profusion of the precious metals in the barren isle of Ithaca than in Mexico. But the poet’s fancy was a richer mine than either.

[255] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 6, cap. 22.—Amidst some excellent advice of a parent to his son, on his general deportment, we find the latter punctiliously enjoined not to take his seat at the board till he has washed his face and hands, and not to leave it till he has repeated the same thing, and cleansed his teeth. The directions are given with a precision worthy of an Asiatic. “Al principio de la comida labarte has las manos y la boca, y donde te juntares con otros á comer, no te sientes luego; mas antes tomarás el agua y la jícara para que se laben los otros, y echarles has agua á las manos, y despues de esto, cojerás lo que se ha caido por el suelo y barrerás el lugar de la comida, y también despues de comer lavarás te las manos y la boca, y limpiarás los dientes.” Ibid., loc. cit.

[256] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 227.—The Aztecs used to smoke after dinner, to prepare for the siesta, in which they indulged themselves as regularly as an old Castilian.—Tobacco, in Mexican yetl, is derived from a Haytian word, tabaco. The natives of Hispaniola, being the first with whom the Spaniards had much intercourse, have supplied Europe with the names of several important plants.—Tobacco, in some form or other, was used by almost all the tribes of the American continent, from the Northwest Coast to Patagonia. (See McCulloh, Researches, pp. 91-94.) Its manifold virtues, both social and medicinal, are profusely panegyrized by Hernandez, in his Hist. Plantarum, lib. 2, cap. 109.

[257] This noble bird was introduced into Europe from Mexico. The Spaniards called it gallopavo, from its resemblance to the peacock. See Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio (tom. iii. fol. 306); also Oviedo (Rel. Sumaria, cap. 38), the earliest naturalist who gives an account of the bird, which he saw soon after the Conquest, in the West Indies, whither it had been brought, as he says, from New Spain. The Europeans, however, soon lost sight of its origin, and the name “turkey” intimated the popular belief of its Eastern origin. Several eminent writers have maintained its Asiatic or African descent; but they could not impose on the sagacious and better-instructed Buffon. (See Histoire naturelle, art. Dindon.) The Spaniards saw immense numbers of turkeys in the domesticated state, on their arrival in Mexico, where they were more common than any other poultry. They were found wild, not only in New Spain, but all along the continent, in the less frequented places, from the Northwestern territory of the United States to Panamá. The wild turkey is larger, more beautiful, and every way an incomparably finer bird than the tame. Franklin, with some point, as well as pleasantry, insists on its preference to the bald eagle as the national emblem. (See his Works, vol. x. p. 63, in Sparks’s excellent edition.) Interesting notices of the history and habits of the wild turkey may be found in the Ornithology both of Buonaparte and of that enthusiastic lover of nature, Audubon, vox Meleagris, Gallopavo.

[258] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37; lib. 8, cap. 13; lib. 9, cap. 10-14.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.—Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 306.—Father Sahagun has gone into many particulars of the Aztec cuisine, and the mode of preparing sundry savory messes, making, all together, no despicable contribution to the noble science of gastronomy.

[259] The froth, delicately flavored with spices and some other ingredients, was taken cold by itself. It had the consistency almost of a solid; and the “Anonymous Conqueror” is very careful to inculcate the importance of “opening the mouth wide, in order to facilitate deglutition, that the foam may dissolve gradually, and descend imperceptibly, as it were, into the stomach.” It was so nutritious that a single cup of it was enough to sustain a man through the longest day’s march. (Fol. 306.) The old soldier discusses the beverage con amore.

[260] Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 4, cap. 37; lib. 8, cap. 13.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.—Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 306.

[261] Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 2, lib. 7, cap. 8.—Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 14, cap. 11.—The Mexican nobles entertained minstrels in their houses, who composed ballads suited to the times, or the achievements of their lord, which they chanted, to the accompaniment of instruments, at the festivals and dances. Indeed, there was more or less dancing at most of the festivals, and it was performed in the court-yards of the houses, or in the open squares of the city. (Ibid., ubi supra.) The principal men had, also, buffoons and jugglers in their service, who amused them and astonished the Spaniards by their feats of dexterity and strength (Acosta, lib. 6, cap. 28; also Clavigero (Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. pp. 179-186), who has designed several representations of their exploits, truly surprising). It is natural that a people of limited refinement should find their enjoyment in material rather than intellectual pleasures, and, consequently, should excel in them. The Asiatic nations, as the Hindoos and Chinese, for example, surpass the more polished Europeans in displays of agility and legerdemain.

[262] “Y de esta manera pasaban gran rato de la noche, y se despedian, é iban á sus casas, unos alabando la fiesta, y otros murmurando de las demasías y excesos, cosa mui ordinaria en los que á semejantes actos se juntan.” Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 13, cap. 23.—Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva-España, lib. 9, cap. 10-14.

[263] [In reading this chapter we must constantly bear in mind the fact that it is founded almost entirely upon traditions. We must also remember—first, that Ixtlilxochitl is the principal authority for the legends therein chronicled; second, that Ixtlilxochitl possessed a very fertile imagination; third, that Ixtlilxochitl’s “Historia Chichimeca” was not written from an entirely unprejudiced point of view. To use the words of Bandelier (Archæological Tour in Mexico, p. 192): “Ixtlilxochitl is always a very suspicious authority, not because he is more confused than any other Indian writer, but because he wrote for an interested object, and with the view of sustaining tribal claims in the eyes of the Spanish government.”—M.]

[264] For a criticism on this writer, see the Postscript to this chapter.

[265] See Chapter I. of this Introduction, p. 17.