Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol. 1 of 2 / A Historical, Geographical, Political, Statistical and Social Account of That Country From the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time.

CHAPTER XIII.
650–1500.

One of the most disgraceful destructions of property, recorded in history, is that which was accomplished in Mexico by the first Archbishop of New Spain, Juan de Zumarraga. He collected from all quarters, but especially from Tezcoco, where the national archives were deposited, all the Indian manuscripts he could discover, and causing them to be piled in a great heap in the market place of Tlatelolco, he burned all these precious records, which under the skilful interpretation of competent natives, might have relieved the early history of the Aztecs from the obscurity with which it is now clouded. The superstitious soldiery eagerly imitated the pious example of this prelate, and emulated each other in destroying all the books, charts, and papers, which bore hieroglyphic signs, whose import, they had been taught to believe was as sacrilegiously symbolic and pernicious as that of the idols they had already hurled from the Indian temples.

And yet, it may be questioned, whether these documents, had they been spared even as the curious relics of the literature or art of a semi-civilized people, would have enlightened the path of the historical student. "It has been shown," says Mr. Gallatin, "that those which have been preserved contain but a meagre account of the Mexican history for the one hundred years preceding the conquest, and hardly anything that relates to prior events. The question naturally arises—from what source those writers derived their information, who have attempted to write not only the modern history of Mexico, but that of ancient times? It may, without hesitation, be answered, that their information was traditional. The memory of important events is generally preserved and transmitted by songs and ballads, in those nations which have attained a certain degree of civilization, and had not the use of letters. Unfortunately, if we except the hymns of the great monarch of Tezcoco, which are of recent date, and allude to no historical fact of an earlier epoch than his own times, no such Mexican remnants have been transmitted to us, or published. On the other hand the recollection and oral transmission of events may have been aided by the hieroglyphics imperfect as they were; thus, those of the significant names of a king and of a city, together with the symbol of the year, would remind the Mexicans of the history of the war of that king against that city which had been early taught him whilst a student in the temple." [12]

It is thus, perhaps, that the virtuoso rather than the historical student has been the sufferer by the superstitious conflagrations of Zumarraga and the Spanish soldiers. We have unquestionably lost most of the minute events of early Aztec history. We have remained ignorant of much of the internal policy of the realm, and have been obliged to play the antiquarian in the discussion of dates and epochs, whose perfect solution, even, would not cast a solitary ray of light upon the grand problem of this continent's development or population. But amid all this obscurity, ignorance, and diffuseness, we have the satisfaction to know that some valuable facts escaped the grasp of these destroyers, and that the grand historical traditions of the empire were eagerly listened to and recorded by some of the most enlightened Europeans who hastened after the conquest to New Spain. The song, the story, and the anecdote, handed down from sire to son in a nation which possessed no books, no system of writing, no letters, no alphabet,—formed in reality the great chain connecting age with age, king with king, family with family;—and, as the gigantic bond lengthened with time, some of its links were adorned with the embellishments of fancy, whilst others, in the dim and distant past, became almost imperceptible. Nor were the conquerors and their successors men devoted to the antiquities of the Mexicans with the generous love of enthusiasts who delight in disclosing the means by which a people emerged from the obscurity of a tribe into the grandeur of a civilized nation. In most cases the only object they had in magnifying, or even in manifesting the real character, genius and works of the Mexicans, is to be found in their desire to satisfy their country and the world that they had indeed conquered an empire, and not waged exterminating war against naked but wealthy savages. It was, in fact, a species of self laudation; and it has, therefore, not been without at least a slight degree of incredulity that we read the glowing early accounts of the palaces, the state and the power of the Mexican emperors. The graphic works of Mr. Stephens on Yucatan and Central America, seem, however, to open new authorities upon this vast problem of civilization. Architecture never lies. It is one of those massive records which require too much labor in order to record a falsehood. The men who could build the edifices of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan and Chichen-Itza, were far removed from the aboriginal condition of Nomadic tribes. Taste and luxury had been long grafted on the mere wants of the natives. They had learned not only to build for protection against weather, but for permanent homes whose internal arrangements should afford them comfort, and whose external appearance should gratify the public taste. Order, symmetry, elegance, beauty of ornament, gracefulness of symbolic imagery, had all combined to exhibit the external manifestations which are always seen among people who are not only anxious to gratify others as well as themselves, but to vie with each other in the exhibition of individual tastes. Here, however, as in Egypt, the architectural remains are chiefly of temples, tombs and palaces. The worship of God,—the safety of the body after death,—and the permanent idea of loyal obedience to authority,—are symbolized by the temple,—tomb,—and the rock-built palace. The masses, who felt they had no constant abiding place on earth, did not in all probability, build for themselves those substantial and beautifully embellished homes, under whose influence modern civilization has so far exceeded the barren humanism of the valley of the Nile. It was useless, they deemed, to enshrine in marble whilst living, the miserable spirit that, after death, might crawl in a crocodile or burrow in a hog. Christianity, alone, has made the Dwelling paramount to the Tomb and the Palace.

We cannot leave the early history of Spanish occupation without naturally casting our eyes over the empire which it was the destiny of Cortéz to conquer. Of its geographical boundaries we know but little. The dominions of the original Aztecs covered but a small part of the territory comprehended in modern Mexico; and although they were enlarged during the empire, they did not even then extend beyond the eighteenth degree and the twenty-first on the Atlantic or Gulf, and beyond the fourteenth and nineteenth degree including a narrow slip on the Pacific.

The seat and centre of the Mexican empire was in the valley of Mexico, in a temperate climate, whose genial mildness is gained by its elevation of over seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. The features of this region,—the same now as at the conquest,—will be more fully described hereafter in those chapters which treat of the geography and statistics of modern Mexico.

On the eastern or western borders of the lake of Tezcoco, facing each other, stood the ancient cities of Tenochtitlan or Mexico, and of Tezcoco. These were the capitals of the two most famous, flourishing and civilized states of Anahuac, the sources of whose population and progress are veiled in the general mystery that overhangs the early history of our continent.

The general, and best received tradition that we possess upon the subject, declares that the original inhabitants of this beautiful valley came from the north; and that perhaps the earliest as well as the most conspicuous in the legends, were the Toltecs, who moved to the south before the end of the seventh century, and settled at Tollan or Tula, north of the Mexican valley, where extensive architectural remains were yet to be found at the period of the conquest. This spot seems to have gradually become the parent hive of civilization and advancement; but, after four centuries, during which they extended their sway over the whole of Anahuac, the Toltecs are alleged to have wasted away by famine, disease, and the slow desolation of unsuccessful wars. This occurred about the year 1051, as the Indian tradition relates,—and the few who escaped the ravages of death, departed for those more southern regions now known as Yucatan and Guatemala, in which we perhaps find the present remains of their civilization displayed in the temples, edifices and tombs of Palenque and Uxmal. During the next century these valleys and mountains were nearly desolate and bare of population, until a rude and altogether uncivilized tribe, known as the Chichimecas, came from Amaquemecan, in the north, and settled in villages among the ruins of their Toltec predecessors. After eight years, six other Indian tribes called Nahuatlacs arrived, and announced the approach of another band from the north, known as the Aztecs, who, soon afterwards, entered Anahuac. About this period the Acolhuans, who are said to have emigrated from Teoacolhucan, near the original territories of the Chichimecas, advanced into the valley and speedily allied themselves with their ancient neighbors. These tribes appear to have been the founders of the Tezcocan government and nation which was once assailed successfully by the Tepanecs, but was finally delivered from thraldom by the signal bravery and talents of the prince Nezahualcoyotl, who was heir of the crown, supported by his Mexican allies.

Our chief concern, however, in groping our way through the tangled labyrinth of tradition, is to ascertain the story of the Aztecs, whose advent has been already announced. It was about the year 1160, that they departed from Aztlan, the original seat of their tribe, on their journey of southern emigration. Their pilgrimage seems to have been interrupted by numerous halts and delays, both on their route through the northern regions now comprehended in the modern Republic of Mexico, as well as in different parts of the Mexican valley which was subsequently to become their home and capital. At length, in 1325, they descried an eagle resting on a cactus which sprang from the crevice of a rock in the lake of Tezcoco, and grasping in his talons a writhing serpent. This had been designated by the Aztec oracles as the site of the home in which the tribe should rest after its long and weary migration; and, accordingly, the city of Tenochtitlan, was founded upon the sacred spot, and like another Venice rose from the bosom of the placid waters.

It was near a hundred years after the founding of the city, and in the beginning of the fifteenth century, that the Tepanecs attacked the Tezcocan monarchy, as has been related in the previous part of this chapter. The Tezcocans and the Aztecs or Mexicans united to put down the power of the spoiler, and as a recompense for the important services of the allies, the supreme dominion of the territory of the royal house of Tezcoco was transferred to the Aztecs. The Tezcocan sovereigns thus became, in a measure, mediatized princes of the Mexican throne; and the two states, together with the neighboring small kingdom of Tlacopan, south of the lake of Chalco, formed an offensive and defensive league which was sustained with unwavering fidelity through all the wars and assaults which ensued during the succeeding century. The bold leaguers united in that spirit of plunder and conquest which characterizes a martial people, as soon as they are surrounded by the necessaries, comforts, and elegances of life in their own country, and whenever the increase of population begins to require a vent through which it may expand those energies that would destroy the state by rebellions or civil war, if pent up within the narrow limits of so small a realm as the valley of Mexico. Accordingly we find that the sway of this small tribe, which had but just nestled among the reeds, rocks and marshes of the lake, was quickly spread beyond the mountain barrier that hemmed in the valley. Like the Hollanders, they became great by the very wretchedness of their site, and the vigilant industry it enforced. The Aztec arms were triumphant throughout all the plains that swept downward towards the Atlantic, and, as we have seen, even maintained dominion on the shores of the Pacific, or penetrated, under the bloody Ahuitzotl, the remotest corners of Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Such was the extent of Aztec power at the beginning of the 16th century, at the period of the Spanish incursion.

CHAPTER XIV.
1521.

It is perhaps altogether impossible to judge, at this remote day, of the absolute degree of civilization, enjoyed at the period of the conquest, by the inhabitants not only of the valley of Mexico and Tezcoco, but also of Oaxaca, Tlascala, Michoacan, Yucatan, and their various dependencies. In studying this subject carefully, even in the classical pages of Mr. Prescott, and in the laborious criticisms of Mr. Gallatin, we find ourselves frequently bewildered in the labyrinth of historical details and picturesque legends, which have been carefully gathered and grouped to form a romantic picture of the Aztec nation. Yet facts enough have survived, not only the wreck of the conquest, but also the comparative stagnation of the viceroyalty, to satisfy us that there was a large class of people, at least in the capitals and their vicinity, whose tastes, habits, and social principles, were nearly equal to the civilization of the Old World at that time. There were strange inconsistences in the principles and conduct of the Mexicans, and strange blendings of softness and brutality, for the savage was as yet but rudely grafted on the citizen and the wandering or predatory habits of a tribe were scarcely tamed by the needful restraints of municipal law.

It is probable that the Aztec refinement existed chiefly in the city of Tenochtitlan or Mexico; or, that the capital of the empire, like the capital of France, absorbed the greater share of the genius and cultivation of the whole country. Our knowledge of Yucatan, and of the wonderful cities which have been revealed in its forests by the industry of Mr. Stephens, is altogether too limited to allow any conjectures, at this period, in regard to their inhabitants. It is likely that they were offshoots from the same race as the Aztecs, and that they all owed the first germs of their separate civilizations to the Toltecs, who, according to the legends, were the great traditionary ancestors of all the progressive races that succeeded each other in emigrating from the north, and finally nestled in the lovely vale of Anahuac.

It is in the examination of such a period that we feel sensibly the want of careful contemporary history, and learn to value those narratives which present us the living picture of an age, even though they are sometimes tainted with the intolerance of religious sectarianism and bigotry, or by the merciless rancor of party malice. They give us, at least, certain material facts, which are independent of the spirit or context of the story. Posterity, which is now eager for details, infinitely prefers a sketch like this, warm and breathing with the vitality of the beings in whose presence and from whose persons it is drawn, to the cold mosaics, made up by skilful artizans, from the disjointed chips which they are forced to discover, harmonize, and polish, amid the discordant materials left by a hundred writers. Such labors, when undertaken by patient men, may sometimes reanimate the past and bring back its scenes, systems and people, with wonderful freshness; yet, after all, they are but mere restorations, and often depend essentially on the vivid imagination which supplies the missing fragments and fills them, for a moment, with an electrical instead of a natural life.

After a careful review of nearly all the historians and writers upon the ancient history of Mexico, we have never encountered a satisfactory view of the Aztec empire, except in the history of the conquest, by our countryman Prescott. His chapters upon the Mexican civilization, are the best specimens in our literature, since the days of Gibbon, of that laborious, truthful, antiquarian temper, which should always characterize a historian who ventures upon the difficult task of portraying the distant past.

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In our rapid sketch of the conquest, we have been compelled to present, occasionally, a few descriptive glimpses of the Aztec architecture, manners, customs and institutions, which have already acquainted the reader with some of the leading features of national character. But it will not be improper, in a work like this, to combine in a separate chapter such views of the whole structure of Mexican society, under the original empire, as may not only afford an idea of the advancement of the nation which Cortéz conquered, but, perhaps, will present the student with some national characteristics of a race that still inhabits Mexico jointly with the Spanish emigrants, and which is the lawful descendant of the wandering tribes who founded the city of Tenochtitlan.

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The Aztec government was a monarchy, but the right to the throne did not fall by the accident of descent upon a lineal relative of the last king, whose age would have entitled him, by European rule, to the royal succession. The brothers of the deceased prince, or his nephews, if he had no nearer kin, were the individuals from whom the new sovereign was chosen by four nobles who had been selected as electors by their own aristocratic body during the preceding reign. These electors, together with the two royal allies of Tezcoco and Tlacopan, who were united in the college as merely honorary personages, decided the question as to the candidate, whose warlike and intellectual qualities were always closely scanned by these severe judges.

The elevation of the new monarch to the throne was pompous: yet, republican and just as was the rite of selection, the ceremony of coronation was not performed until the new king had procured, by conquest in war, a crowd of victims to grace his assumption of the crown with their sacrifice at the altar. The palaces of these princes and their nobles were of the most sumptuous character, according to the description that has been left us by the conquerors themselves.

The royal state and style of these people may be best described in the artless language of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier of the conquest, whose simple narrative, though sometimes colored with the superstitions of his age, is one of the most valuable and veritable relics of that great event that has been handed down to posterity.

In describing the entrance of the Spaniards into the city—Diaz declares, with characteristic energy, that the whole of what he saw on that occasion appeared to him as if he had beheld it but yesterday;—and he fervently exclaims: "Glory be to our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us courage to venture on such dangers and brought us safely through them!"

The Spaniards, as we have already said in a preceding chapter, were lodged and entertained at the expense of Montezuma, who welcomed them as his guests, and unwisely attempted to convince them of his power by exhibiting his wealth and state. Two hundred of his nobility stood as guards in his ante-chamber.

"Of these," says Diaz, "only certain persons could speak to him, and when they entered, they took off their rich mantles and put on others of less ornament, but clean. They approached his apartment barefooted, their eyes fixed on the ground and making three inclinations of the body as they approached him. In addressing the king they said, "Lord—my lord—great lord!" When they had finished, he dismissed them with a few words, and they retired with their faces toward him and their eyes fixed on the ground. I also observed, that when great men came from a distance about business, they entered his palace barefooted, and in plain habit; and also, that they did not come in by the gate directly, but took a circuit in going toward it.

"His cooks had upward of thirty different ways of dressing meats, and they had earthen vessels so contrived as to keep them constantly hot. For the table of Montezuma himself, above three hundred dishes were dressed, and for his guards above a thousand. Before dinner, Montezuma would sometimes go out and inspect the preparations, and his officers would point out to him which were the best, and explain of what birds and flesh they were composed; and of those he would eat. But this was more for amusement than anything else.

"It is said, that at times the flesh of young children was dressed for him; but the ordinary meats were domestic fowls, pheasants, geese, partridges, quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares and rabbits, with many other animals and birds peculiar to the country. This is certain—that after Cortéz had spoken to him relative to the dressing of human flesh, it was not practised in his palace. At his meals, in the cold weather, a number of torches of the bark of a wood which makes no smoke, and has an aromatic smell, were lighted; and, that they should not throw too much heat, screens, ornamented with gold and painted with figures of idols, were placed before them.

"Montezuma was seated on a low throne or chair, at a table proportioned to the height of his seat. The table was covered with white cloths and napkins, and four beautiful women presented him with water for his hands, in vessels which they call xicales, with other vessels under them, like plates, to catch the water. They also presented him with towels.

"Then two other women brought small cakes of bread, and, when the king began to eat, a large screen of gilded wood was placed before him, so that during that period people should not behold him. The women having retired to a little distance, four ancient lords stood by the throne, to whom Montezuma, from time to time, spoke or addressed questions, and as a mark of particular favor, gave to each of them a plate of that which he was eating. I was told that these old lords, who were his near relations, were also counsellors and judges. The plates which Montezuma presented to them they received with high respect, eating what was on them without taking their eyes off the ground. He was served in earthenware of Cholula, red and black. While the king was at the table, no one of his guards in the vicinity of his apartment dared, for their lives, make any noise. Fruit of all kinds produced in the country, was laid before him; he ate very little; but, from time to time, a liquor prepared from cocoa, and of a stimulative quality, as we were told, was presented to him in golden cups. We could not, at that time, see whether he drank it or not; but I observed a number of jars, above fifty, brought in, filled with foaming chocolate, of which he took some that the women presented him.

"At different intervals during the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians, humpbacked, very deformed, and ugly, who played tricks of buffoonery; and others who, they said, were jesters. There was also a company of singers and dancers, who afforded Montezuma much entertainment. To these he ordered the vases of chocolate to be distributed. The four female attendants then took away the cloths, and again, with much respect, presented him with water to wash his hands, during which time Montezuma conferred with the four old noblemen formerly mentioned, after which they took their leave with many ceremonies.

"One thing I forgot (and no wonder,) to mention in its place, and that is, during the time that Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful women were busily employed making small cakes, [13] with eggs and other things mixed therein. These were delicately white, and, when made, they presented them to him on plates covered with napkins. Also another kind of bread was brought to him in long leaves, and plates of cakes resembling wafers.

"After he had dined, they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented, containing liquid-amber, mixed with an herb they call tobacco; and when he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers, dancers, and buffoons, he took a little of the smoke of one of these canes, and then laid himself down to sleep.

"The meal of the monarch ended, all his guards and domestics sat down to dinner; and, as near as I could judge, above a thousand plates of those eatables that I have mentioned, were laid before them, with vessels of foaming chocolate and fruit in immense quantity. For his women, and various inferior servants, his establishment was of a prodigious expense; and we were astonished, amid such a profusion, at the vast regularity that prevailed.

"His major domo kept the accounts of Montezuma's rents in books which occupied an entire house.

"Montezuma had two buildings filled with every kind of arms, richly ornamented with gold and jewels; such as shields, large and small clubs like two-handed swords, and lances much larger than ours, with blades six feet in length, so strong that if they fix in a shield they do not break; and sharp enough to use as razors.

"There was also an immense quantity of bows and arrows, and darts, together with slings, and shields which roll up into a small compass and in action are let fall, and thereby cover the whole body. He had also much defensive armor of quilted cotton, ornamented with feathers in different devices, and casques for the head, made of wood and bone, with plumes of feathers, and many other articles too tedious to mention." [14]

Besides this sumptuous residence in the city, the Emperor is supposed to have had others at Chapultepec, Tezcoco and elsewhere, which will be spoken of when we describe the ancient remains of Mexico in the valley of Mexico.

If the sovereign lived, thus, in state befitting the ruler of such an empire, it may be supposed that his courtiers were not less sumptuous in their style of domestic arrangements. The great body of the nobles and caciques, possessed extensive estates, the tenures of which were chiefly of a military character;—and, upon these large possessions, surrounded by warlike natives and numerous slaves, they lived, doubtless, like many of the independent, powerful chieftains in Europe, who, in the middle ages, maintained their feudal splendor, both in private life and in active service whenever summoned by their sovereigns to give aid in war.

The power of the Emperor over the laws of the country as well as over the lives of the people, was perfectly despotic. There were supreme judges in the chief towns, appointed by the Emperor who possessed final jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes; and there were, besides, minor courts in each province, as well as subordinate officers, who performed the duty of police officers or spies over the families that were assigned to their vigilance. Records were kept in these courts of the decisions of the judges; and the laws of the realm were likewise perpetuated and made certain, in the same hieroglyphic or picture writing. "The great crimes against society," says Prescott, "were all made capital;—even the murder of a slave was punished with death. Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according to the degree of the offence, was punished with slavery or death. It was a capital offence to remove the boundaries of another's lands; to alter the established measures; and for a guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property. Prodigals who squandered their patrimony were punished in like manner. Intemperance was visited with the severest penalties, as if they had foreseen in it the consuming canker of their own as well as of the other Indian races in later times. It was punished in the young with death, and in older persons with loss of rank and confiscation of property.

"The rites of marriage were celebrated with as much formality as in any Christian country; and the institution was held in such reverence, that a tribunal was established for the sole purpose of determining questions in regard to it. Divorces could not be obtained, until authorized by a sentence of this court after a patient hearing of the parties." [15]

Slavery seems to have always prevailed in Mexico. The captives taken in war were devoted to the gods under the sacrificial knife; but criminals, public debtors, extreme paupers, persons who willingly resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their parents,—were allowed to be held in bondage and to be transferred from hand to hand, but only in cases in which their masters were compelled by poverty to part with them.

A nation over which the god of war presided and whose king was selected, mainly, for his abilities as a chieftain, naturally guarded and surrounded itself with a well devised military system. Religion and war were blended in the imperial ritual. Montezuma, himself had been a priest before he ascended the throne. This dogma of the Aztec policy, originated, perhaps, in the necessity of keeping up a constant military spirit among a people whose instincts were probably civilized, but whose geographical position exposed them, in the beginning, to the attacks of unquiet and annoying tribes. The captives were sacrificed to the bloody deity in all likelihood, because it was necessary to free the country from dangerous Indians, who could neither be imprisoned, for they were too numerous, nor allowed to return to their tribes, because they would speedily renew the attack on their Aztec liberators.

Accordingly we find that the Mexican armies were properly officered, divided, supported and garrisoned, throughout the empire;—that there were military orders of merit;—that the dresses of the leaders, and even of some of the regiments, were gaudily picturesque;—that their arms were excellent;—and that the soldier who died in combat, was considered by his superstitious countrymen, as passing at once to "the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the sun." Nor were these military establishments left to the caprice of petty officers for their judicial system. They possessed a set of recorded laws which were as sure and severe as the civil or criminal code of the empire;—and, finally, when the Aztec soldier became too old to fight, or was disabled in the national wars, he was provided for in admirable hospitals which were established in all the principal cities of the realm.

But all this expensive machinery of state and royalty, was not supported without ample revenues from the people. There was a currency of different values regulated by trade, which consisted of quills filled with gold dust; of pieces of tin cut in the form of a T; of balls of cotton, and bags of cacao containing a specified number of grains. The greater part of Aztec trade was, nevertheless, carried on by barter; and, thus, we find that the large taxes which were derived by Montezuma from the crown lands, agriculture, manufactures, and the labors or occupations of the people generally, were paid in "cotton dresses and mantles of feather-work; ornamented armor; vases of gold; gold dust, bands and bracelets; crystal, gilt and varnished jars and goblets; bells, arms and utensils of copper; reams of paper; grain; fruits, copal, amber, cochineal, cacao, wild animals, birds, timber, lime, mats," and a general medley in which the luxuries and necessaries of life were strangely mixed. It is not a little singular that silver, which since the conquest has become the leading staple export of Mexico, is not mentioned in the royal inventories which escaped destruction. [16]

The Mexican Mythology was a barbarous compound of spiritualism and idolatry. The Aztecs believed in and relied on a supreme God whom they called Teotl, "God," or Ipalnemoani—"he by whom we live," and Tloque Nahuaque,—"he who has all in himself;" while their counter-spirit or demon, who was ever the enemy and seducer of their race bore the inauspicious title of Tlaleatecolototl, or the "Rational Owl." The dark, nocturnal deeds of this ominous bird, probably indicated its greater fitness for the typification of wickedness than of wisdom, of which the Greeks had flatteringly made it the symbol, as the pet of Minerva. These supreme spiritual essences were surrounded by a numerous court of satellites or lesser deities, who were perhaps the ministerial agents by which the behests of Teotl were performed. There was Huitzilopotchtli, the god of war, and Teoyaomiqui, his spouse, whose tender duties were confined to conducting the souls of warriors who perished in defence of their homes and shrines, into the "house of the sun," which was the Aztec heaven. The image in the plate, presented in front and in profile, is alleged to represent this graceful female, though it gives no idea of her holy offices. Tetzcatlipoca was the shining mirror, the god of providence, the soul of the world, creator of heaven and earth, and master of all things. Ometcuctli and Omecihuatl, a god and goddess presided over new born children, and, reigning in Paradise, benignantly granted the wishes of mortals. Cihuacohuatl, or, woman-serpent, was regarded as the mother of human beings. Tonatricli and Meztli were deifications of the sun and moon. Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were deities of the air and of water, whilst Xiuhteuctli was the god of fire to whom the first morsel and the first draught at table were always devoted by the Aztecs. Mictlanteuctli and Joalteuctli were the gods of hell and night, while the generous goddess of the earth and grain who was worshipped by the Totonacos as an Indian Ceres, enjoyed the more euphonious title of Centeotl. Huitzilopotchtli or Mexitli, the god of war, was an especial favorite with the Aztecs, for it was this divinity according to their legends who had led them from the north, and protected them during their long journey until they settled in the valley of Mexico. Nor did he desert them during the rise and progress of their nation. Addicted as they were to war, this deity was always invoked before battle and was recompensed for the victories he bestowed upon his favorite people by bloody hecatombs of captives taken from the enemies of the empire. We have already spoken of this personage in the portion of this work which treats of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

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If the Mexicans had their gods, so also had they their final abodes of blessedness and misery. Soldiers who were slain in conflict for their country or who perished in captivity, and the spirits of women who died in child-birth, went at once to the "house of the sun" to enjoy a life of eternal pleasure. At dawn they hailed the rising orb with song and dances, and attended him to the meridian and his setting with music and festivity. The Aztecs believed that, after some years spent amid these pleasures, the beatified spirits of the departed were changed into clouds or birds of beautiful plumage, though they had power to ascend again whenever they pleased to the heaven they had left. There was another place called Tlalocan the dwelling place of Tlaloc, the deity of water, which was also an Aztec elysium. It was the spirit-home of those who were drowned or struck by lightning,—of children sacrificed in honor of Tlaloc,—and of those who died of dropsy, tumors, or similar diseases. Last of all, was Mictlan, a gloomy hell of perfect darkness, in which, incessant night, unilluminated by the twinkling of a single ray, was the only punishment, and the probable type of annihilation.