About American Indiana Symbols and Picture Writing.

About American Indiana Symbols and Picture Writing.

    The Indians did not know how to write words by means of letters. There were, however, many things which they wished to remember, and they had found out several ways in which to record these.

Thus among the Sacs and Foxes there is a long legend with songs telling about their great teacher, the good, wise, and kind Wisuka. It is difficult to remember exactly such long narratives, but with objects to remind the reciter of each part, it is not so hard. So the persons who are to repeat the legend have a micäm. This is a wooden box, usually kept carefully wrapped up in a piece of buckskin and tied with a leathern thong; in it are a variety of curious objects, each one of which reminds the singer or reciter of one part of the narrative. Thus he is sure not to leave out any part. In the same way mystery men among other Algonkin tribes have pieces of birch bark upon which they scratch rude pictures, each of which reminds them of the first words of the different verses in their songs. Such reminders are great helps to the memory. Among the Iroquois and some eastern Algonkins, they used, as we shall see, wampum belts to help remember the details of treaties or of important events.

Among many tribes pictures were used for recording matters of importance. Many Sioux chiefs have written the story of their life in pictures. They took several large sheets of paper and gummed the edges together so as to make one long strip. Upon this they made pictures representing the important incidents in their lives. Thus in one picture was shown where, as a boy, the artist shot his first deer; in another was represented his first hunting party; in another, how he went on the war-path to gain the name of brave; in another, where he danced the sun dance; again, how he went to Washington to see the white men's officers, on business.

The most important record made by the Sioux is the Dakota Calendar. More than a century ago a Sioux Indian determined to keep a count of the years and of their happenings. So he began a record which was called a “winter count,” where the events of the different years were shown by pictures. His idea became popular, and a number of these winter counts were begun by other Indians. The most important of these is one which has been called the Dakota Calendar. It belonged for a long time to an Indian named Lone Dog. The one he had was a copy on cloth from a still older one, which had been made upon a buffalo skin. This count appears to have begun about the year 1800.

The Dakota Calendar. (After Mallery.)

Each year its maker selected some important event, by which the year was to be remembered, and made a picture for it. The first five or six pictures run in a nearly straight line to the left; the line of pictures then coils around and around this, the last picture always being added to the end of the coiled line. The pictures are in black and red, and while rudely drawn, most of them can be easily recognized. In 1801 the Sioux had a terrible attack of smallpox, and many of them died; the picture for the year is a man covered with red spots. Whooping-cough is a disease of which white people have little fear, but it is sometimes very destructive to Indians; in 1813 it was among the Sioux, and the picture for that year was a man coughing, as shown by lines diverging from in front of his mouth. In 1840 the Sioux made a treaty of peace with the Cheyennes; the picture shows two hands extended for a friendly grasp. In 1869 there was a total eclipse of the sun, which is represented by a blackened sun and two stars in red: “The stars were seen in the daytime.” In 1833 was the famous display of meteors or falling stars, which was witnessed in all parts of the United States, causing great excitement; many white people believed that it portended the destruction of the world. This star shower was noticed by the Sioux keeper of the winter count, and is represented by a black moon and a lot of red stars represented as falling. You can pick out these different figures in the picture, which represents Lone Dog's winter count, or the Dakota Calendar as it would look on a buffalo hide.

Indian Letter on Birch Bark. (From Schoolcraft.)

Probably you have all seen pictures of a birch-bark letter written many years ago by an Ojibwa Indian. It was written by one of Schoolcraft's guides. Mr. Schoolcraft, with a party of assistants and soldiers, was on a journey of exploration in the Northwest. One morning as they were leaving camp, Schoolcraft saw an Indian putting a bit of birch bark, upon which he had drawn some pictures in black, into a cleft at the end of a pole. This pole was then stuck slantingly into the ground and three notches were cut in it. When Mr. Schoolcraft asked his guide for an explanation, he said this letter would inform any Ojibwa Indians who might pass, about their party. The eagle in the upper corner showed that they were from Washington—government people. The other pictures showed that there were eight common soldiers each with a gun; that there were six officers, the duty of each being indicated by something carried in the hand,—the captain by his sword, the secretary by his book, the geologist by his hammer, etc.; that soldiers and officers were white men, as shown by their wearing hats; that there were two guides, Indians, as shown by their having no hats and carrying spears; that the night before there were three fires in the camp, soldiers, officers, and guides, camping separately; that during the day there had been secured a prairie hen and a turtle, both of which had been taken by the officers for supper. But other facts were shown besides those told in the pictures. The pole stuck into the ground pointed the direction in which the party would journey; the three notches on the pole told that they would journey in that direction three days.

Of all American Indians those who went farthest in the direction of developing writing were some of those living in Mexico and Central America. The Aztecs had an extensive system of picture writing. By means of pictures they recorded their traditional history and gave full directions regarding the worship of the gods. They had real books written with these pictures. These books were written sometimes on skin, sometimes on paper. The Aztecs made two kinds of paper, one of the soft inner bark of a tree, the other from the maguey plant. The latter sort was beaten out of the mass of leaf fibres after they had been soaked in water. The maguey plant is much like the century plant which you have seen in parks and greenhouses. The paper or dressed skin was made into long narrow strips many feet in length. These strips were folded back and forth like a screen, and the ends were fastened to two thin boards which served as covers for the book. Sometimes bits of polished green stone were inlaid into these covers to make them pretty. Some of these old books are still in existence, though most of them have long been destroyed. We cannot read any of them very well because pictures are uncertain means of conveying information. Still we can tell something about their meaning.

Page of Aztec Book. (From Photograph.)

Charles V, to know about them, and ordered three skilled painters of the Aztecs to prepare a book to be sent to the Emperor. Each artist took a different subject, so the book ]consists of three parts. The first gives a picture-written story of the Aztecs from the time when they began their wanderings; the second gives a list of the towns that paid tribute to the city of Mexico and a statement of the kind and amount of tribute each paid; the third shows how children were trained, how they were punished when they were naughty, and what kind of work they were taught. Of course the Emperor would not understand the meaning of all these queer pictures, far different from anything he had ever seen; so Mendoza had an explanation or translation written with all the pictures. This is as fortunate for us as it was for the Emperor: in this way we can learn something about the use and meaning of these characters.

Sacred Numbers of the Aztec and Maya

Sacred Numbers of the Aztec and Maya

The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and worthy name “Tree of Our Life,” or “Tree of our Flesh” (Tonacaquahuitl). It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere its simple meaning. “Those of Yucatan,” say the chroniclers, “prayed to the cross as the god of rains when they needed water.” The Aztec goddess of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows. Quetzalcoatl, god of[96] the winds, bore as his sign of office “a mace like the cross of a bishop;” his robe was covered with them strown like flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his worship.96-1 When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious oils.96-2 The arms of the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes, and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it.

The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: “In all the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation; and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in Mexico.”79-2 This fourfold division points not to a common history, but to a common nature. The ancient heroes[80] and demigods, who, four in number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing showers.

They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high priest in his official functions.80-1 In this most civilized branch of[81] the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal points and the four winds.

They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quiché legends tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven, Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of foot, that “they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners and the four angles of the sky and the earth;” that they did not fulfil the design of their maker “to bring forth and produce when the season of harvest was near,” until he blew into their eyes a cloud, “until their faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror.” Then he gave them as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.81-1 Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself.

There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of nature, one[82] that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All, Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who reproduces.82-1 This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier portions of the legends of the Quichés, and is the more surely of native origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators.

Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called Pacari tampu, which may mean “the House of Subsistence,” reminding us of the four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from Tonacatepec, the mountain of our[83] subsistence; or again it may mean—for like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly chosen to bear a double construction—the Lodgings of the Dawn, recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by theirlord.83-1 These brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth. When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long pursued.83-2

There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would carry us back to the four winds.83-3

[84]Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its central point. Thus they are spoken of under such[85] figures as four tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the rains,85-1 or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and blow the winds from their capacious lungs,85-2 or more frequently as four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians, draining the waters of the primitive world,85-3 as four animals who bring from heaven the maize,85-4 as four messengers whom the god of air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild rice, tobacco, and maize.85-5

Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.85-6 Each nation called[86] their sacred mountain “the navel of the earth;” for not only was it the supposed centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the fœtus through the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in Sanscrit, para desa) means literally high land. There, in the unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness; but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion.

It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found a new world, it was but to light[87] upon the same race of men, deluding themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west, amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he sought;87-1 and when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola, whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore youth and vigor to the worn out and the aged.87-2 This was no fiction of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba, Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive joys, forgetful of former ties.87-3

The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Mayas,and Algonquins as sacred to the lord of the dead.

The Aztecs and the Symbolism of the Owl

The owl was regarded by Aztecs, Quichés, Mayas, Peruvians, Araucanians, and Algonkins as sacred to the lord of the dead. “The Owl” was one of the names of the Mexican Pluto, whose realm was in the north,106-1 and the wind from that quarter was supposed by the Chipeways to be made by the owl as the south by the butterfly. As the bird of night, it was the fit emissary of him who rules the darkness of the grave. Something in the looks of the creature as it sapiently stares and blinks in the light, or perhaps that it works while others sleep, got for it the character of wisdom. So the Creek priests carried with them as the badge of their learned profession the stuffed skin of one of these birds, thus modestly hinting their erudite turn of mind, and the culture hero of the Monquis of California was represented, like Pallas Athene, having one as his inseparable companion (Venegas).

As the associate of the god of light and air, and as the antithesis therefore of the owl, the Aztecs reverenced a bird called quetzal, which I believe is a species of parroquet. Its plumage is of a bright green hue, and was prized extravagantly as a decoration. It was one of the symbols and part of the
 name of Quetzalcoatl, their mythical civilizer, and the prince of all sorts of singing birds, myriads of whom were fabled to accompany him on his journeys.

Aztec Picture Writing

Aztec Picture Writing

Of all American Indians those who went farthest in the direction of developing writing were some of those living in Mexico and Central America. The Aztecs had an extensive system of picture writing. By means of pictures they recorded their traditional history and gave full directions regarding the worship of the gods. They had real books written with these pictures. These books were written sometimes on skin, sometimes on paper. The Aztecs made two kinds of paper, one of the soft inner bark of a tree, the other from the maguey plant. The latter sort was beaten out of the mass of leaf fibres after they had been soaked in water. The maguey plant is much like the century plant which you have seen in parks and greenhouses. The paper or dressed skin was made into long narrow strips many feet in length. These strips were folded back and forth like a screen, and the ends were fastened to two thin boards which served as covers for the book. Sometimes bits of polished green stone were inlaid into these covers to make them pretty. Some of these old books are still in existence, though most of them have long been destroyed. We cannot read any of them very well because pictures are uncertain means of conveying information. Still we can tell something about their meaning.

Charles V, to know about them, and ordered three skilled painters of the Aztecs to prepare a book to be sent to the Emperor. Each artist took a different subject, so the book

consists of three parts. The first gives a picture-written story of the Aztecs from the time when they began their wanderings; the second gives a list of the towns that paid tribute to the city of Mexico and a statement of the kind and amount of tribute each paid; the third shows how children were trained, how they were punished when they were naughty, and what kind of work they were taught. Of course the Emperor would not understand the meaning of all these queer pictures, far different from anything he had ever seen; so Mendoza had an explanation or translation written with all the pictures. This is as fortunate for us as it was for the Emperor: in this way we can learn something about the use and meaning of these characters.

Aztec Indians and War

Aztec Indians and War

War was the great mainspring of action of the Aztecs. It is true that they had a long peaceful period after their establishing upon the lake-girt island of the Eagle and the Serpent, and that they developed their civilisation in some security within this natural fortification, but nevertheless, as previously shown, they extended their conquests on all sides. Fear, not regard, kept the subject-nations of Anahuac under their sway, however, and this was one of the elements leading to the downfall of the empire, in the course of time. Military orders were much esteemed and bestowed. The armies were well equipped and drilled, and breaches of discipline were rigorously punished. The hospitals, which were established for the treatment of the sick and wounded, called forth the praise of the Spanish chroniclers. Captives of war were made as abundantly as possible, to be reserved for the sacrificial stone of the war-god, and the Aztecs carried on this appalling practice of human sacrifice to such an extent as has not been equalled by any other nation. But the most atrocious part of the ceremony, as practised on some occasions, was that of the serving up of the body of victims at a repast, where they were eaten!—sheer cannibalism, which is vouched for as their practice as a religious rite.

Aztec Indian's Means of Communication

Aztec Means of Communication

Another institution of the Aztecs which calls to the traveller's mind a similar one among the coeval Incas of Peru, three thousand miles away in South America, was that of their means of communication. Such were maintained by relays of runners or postmen, who journeyed at great speed over roads which connected the distant parts of the empire; and it is stated that two hundred miles were covered in a day by these trained messengers, each of which performed the two leagues—the distance between the post-houses—within an hour. Just as the Inca Emperor of Peru, at Cuzco, beyond the great Cordillera of the Andes, was served with fish brought in fresh from the Pacific Ocean, so Montezuma, the Aztec monarch, also ate it, straight from the Gulf of Mexico, at his capital of Tenochtitlan beyond the maritime Cordillera of Anahuac. Striking and of marked interest to the traveller of to-day, in those vast and rugged regions of Mexico and Peru, is this matter of the native couriers, who journeyed over mountain roads, swollen rivers, desert plains, and ice-crowned summits.

Aztec and Inca Taxes

Aztec and Inca Taxes

Taxes were paid upon agriculture and manufacture, in goods. These included most of the very varied products of the empire—varying as they did with the wide range of climate and topography, just as the products of the Mexico of to-day vary. Gold and copper utensils, pottery, arms, paper, cochineal, timber, cocoa, grains, fruits, gums, animals, and birds, and the beautiful feather-work in which the people excelled, were among these. Spacious warehouses in the capitals existed (as in Peru) for the storing of these, and any embezzlement or maladministration was rigorously punished.

Distribution of lands for farming for the Inca and Aztecs

Land System of the Aztecs

   The land system was, in some respects, similar to that which obtained amongst the Incas: a just and philosophical distribution of the soil amongst the people who dwelt upon it. Indeed, in the matter of land tenure, both the Incas and the Aztecs—these semi-civilised peoples of prehistoric America—employed a system which the most advanced nations of to-day—Great Britain or the United States—have not yet evolved, although in the case of Britain it seems that such is slowly appearing. The system was that of parcelling out the land among the families of the villages or country-side, and did not permit its absorption by large, individual landholders. The peasant thus had his means of support assured, and it was forbidden to dispose of the land thus allotted, which reverted to the State in the case of extinction of the family. This land system was governed by a careful code of laws, in these American communities. In Peru the individual ownership of land was a very marked feature of the social régime.[10] Lands were nevertheless set apart for the sovereign.

Government of the Aztecs

Government of the Aztecs

The form of government of the principal peoples of Anahuac, the Aztecs and Texcocans, was an uncommon one—that of an elected monarchy. The king or emperor was chosen, however, from among members of the royal family, whether brothers or nephews of the preceding sovereign, by the four appointed electors. He was installed with barbaric splendour, a main feature of the event being the great sacrifice of human beings in the Teocalli—that diabolical custom which ever robs the Aztecrégime of the dignity of any appellation beyond that of semi-civilisation. Otherwise the Aztec régimemay be considered as a military democracy. The land was held, to some extent, by great chiefs under a species of feudal system which carried with it certain obligations as to military service, but it was also assigned to the use of the people. The monarchy became of a despotic character, and legislative power lay with the sovereign, although a system of judicial tribunals administered justice throughout the cities of the Empire, and the Aztec civilisation had at least advanced far enough to acknowledge and uphold, by legal machinery, the rights and security of individuals and of property. Like the customs of the Incas of Peru, heavy penalties—generally of death—were meted out for bribery or corruption of the officers of justice.

Indeed, the great crimes were in most cases capital offences, as murder, adultery, thieving, as well as the misappropriation of funds, and the removal of land boundaries with intent to defraud. Marriage was a solemn and binding ceremonial, and divorce could be obtained only after a careful judicial inquiry and sanction. Slavery existed in several forms—captives of battles, reserved for the sacrifice; criminals, paupers, and debtors became slaves voluntarily; and children of poor parents who were sold into a species of mild servitude or dependency. No child, however, could be born into the condition of slavery—a somewhat unique proviso among systems of servitude.

Mexico's Aztec Ruins at Mitla

MEXICAN MITLA AZTEC RUINS

The ruins called Mitla are in the Mexican State of Oxaca, about twelve leagues east from the city of Oxaca. They are situated in the upper part of a great valley, and surrounded by a waste, uncultivated region. At the time of the Spanish Conquest they were old and much worn by time and the elements, but a very large area was then covered by remains of ancient buildings. At present only six decaying edifices and three ruined pyramids, which were very finely terraced, remain for examination, the other structures being now reduced to the last stage[ of decay. Figures 30 and 31 present views of some of these structures, as given by Von Temski. Figure 32, from Charnay’s photograph, shows a ruin at Mitla.

Fig. 31.—Great Hall at Mitla.

These important ruins were not described by Stephens and Catherwood. Captain Dupaix’s work gives some account of them, and Desiré Charnay, who saw them since 1860, brought away photographs of some of the monuments. Four of the standing edifices are described by Dupaix as “palaces,” and these, he says, “were erected with lavish magnificence; * * * they combine the solidity of the works of Egypt with the elegance of those of Greece.” And he adds, “But what is most remarkable, interesting, and striking in these monuments, and which alone would be sufficient to give them the first[]
[

 rank among all known orders of architecture, is the execution of their mosaic recievos, very different from plain mosaic, and consequently requiring more ingenious combination and greater art and labor. They are inlaid on the surface of the wall, and their duration is owing to the method of fixing the prepared stones into the stone surface, which made their union with it perfect.” Figure 33, taken from Charnay’s photograph, shows part of the mosaic decoration on a wall of one of the great edifices at Mitla.

Fig. 32.—Ruined Palace at Mitla.

Fig. 33.—Mosaics at Mitla.

The general character of the architecture and masonry is much like that seen in the structures at Palenque, but the finish of the workmanship appears to have been more artistic and admirable. These ruins are remarkable among those of the country where they are found. All who have seen them speak much as Dupaix speaks of the perfection of the masonry, the admirable design and finish of the work, and the beauty of the decorations. Their beauty, says M. Charnay, can be matched only by the monuments of Greece and Rome in their best days. One fact presented by some of the edifices at Mitla has a certain degree of historical significance. There appears to be evidence that they were occupied at some period by people less advanced in civilization than their builders. M. Charnay, describing one of them, points out this fact. He says of the structure:

“It is a bewildering maze of courts and buildings, with facings ornamented with mosaics in relief of the purest design; but under the projections are found traces of paintings wholly primitive in style, in which the right[ line is not even respected. These are rude figures of idols, and meandering lines that have no significance. Similar paintings appear, with the same imperfection, on every great edifice, in places which have allowed them shelter against the ravages of time. These rude designs, associated with palaces so correct in architecture, and so ornamented with panels of mosaic of such marvelous workmanship, put strange thoughts in the mind. To find the explanation of this phenomenon, must we not suppose these palaces were occupied by a race less advanced in civilization than their first builders?”

Two miles or more away from the great edifices here mentioned, toward the west, is the “Castle of Mitla.” It was built on the summit of an isolated and precipitous hill of rock, which is accessible only on the east side. The whole leveled summit of this hill is inclosed by a solid wall of hewn stone twenty-one feet thick and eighteen feet high. This wall has salient and retiring angles, with curtains interposed. On the east side it is flanked by double walls. Within the inclosure are the remains of several small buildings. The field of these ruins was very large three hundred years ago. At that time it may have included this castle.

Origin of the Maya and Aztec Tribes

Origin of the Maya  and Aztec Tribes.

Mayan Origins with the god Itzamna

The Mayas did not claim to be autochthones. The Maya legends of their origins referred to their arrival by the sea from the East, in remote times, under the leadership of Itzamna, their hero-god, and also to a less numerous, immigration from the west, from Mexico, which was connected with the history of another hero-god, Kukul Càn.

The first of these appears to be wholly mythical, and but a repetition of the story found among so many American tribes, that their ancestors came from the distant Orient. I have elsewhere explained this to be but a solar or light myth.

The second tradition of the Maya origins deserves more attention from the historian, as it is supported by some of their chronicles and by the testimony of several ]of the most intelligent nativs of the period of the conquest, which I present on a later page of this volume.

It cannot be denied that the Mayas, the Kiches and the Cakchiquels, in their most venerable traditions, claimed to have migrated from the north or west, from some part of the present country of Mexico.

These traditions receive additional importance from the presence on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, on the waters of the river Panuco, north of Vera Cruz, of a prominent branch of the Maya family, the Huastecs. The idea suggests itself that these were the rearguard of a great migration of the Maya family from the north toward the south.

Support is given to this by their dialect, which is most closely akin to that of the Tzendals of Tabasco, the nearest Maya race to the south of them, and also by very ancient traditions of the Aztecs.

It is noteworthy that these two partially civilized races, the Mayas and the Aztecs, though differing radically in language, had legends of their origins which claimed a community of origin in some indefinitely remote past. We find these on the Maya side narrated [in the sacred book of the Kiches, the Popol Vuh, in the Cakchiquel Records of Tecpan Atitlan, and in various pure Maya sources which I bring forward in this volume. The Aztec traditions refer to the Huastecs, and a brief analysis of them will not be out of place.

At a very remote period the Mexicans, under their leader Mecitl, from whom they took their name, arrived in boats at the mouth of the river Panuco, at the place called Panotlan, which name means “where one arrives by sea.” With them were the Olmecs under their leader Olmecatl, the Huastecs, under their leader Huastecatl, the Mixtecs and others. They journeyed together and in friendship southward, down the coast, quite to the volcanoes of Guatemala, thence to Tamoanchan, which is described as the terrestialparadise, and afterwards, some of them at least, northward and eastward, toward the shores of the Gulf.

On this journey the intoxicating beverage made from the maguey, called octli by the Aztecs, cii by the Mayas, and pulque by the Spaniards, was invented by a woman whose name was Mayauel, in which we can scarcely err in recognizing the ]national appellation Maya. Furthermore, the invention is closely related to the history of the Huastecs. Their leader, alone of all the chieftains, drank to excess, and in his drunkenness threw aside his garments and displayed his nakedness. When he grew sober, fear and shame impelled him to collect all those who spoke his language, and leaving the other tribes, he returned to the neighborhood of Panuco and settled there permanently.

The annals of the Aztecs contain frequent allusions to the Huastecs. The most important contest between the two nations took place in the reign of Montezuma the First (1440-1464). The attack was made by the Aztecs, for the alleged reason that the Huastecs had robbed and killed Aztec merchants on their way to the great fairs in Guatemala. The Huastecs are described as numerous, dwelling in walled towns, possessing quantities of maize, beans, feathers and precious stones, and painting their faces. They were sig]nally defeated by the troops of Montezuma, but not reduced to vassalage.

At the time of the Conquest the province of the Huastecs was densely peopled; “none more so under the sun,” remarks the Augustinian friar Nicolas de Witte, who visited it in 1543; but even then he found it almost deserted and covered with ruins, for, a few years previous, the Spaniards had acted towards its natives with customary treachery and cruelty. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference, had enticed them into a large wooden building, and then set fire to it and burned them alive. When this merciless act became known the Huastecs deserted their villages and scattered among the forests and mountains.

These traditions go to show that the belief among the Aztecs was that the tribes of the Maya family came originally from the north or northeast, and were at some remote period closely connected with their own ancestors.