Belonging to a lower order of the same class is that given in the engraving (Fig. 375), the head of a man whose whole history is written in indelible lines in his face. The head is that of Ruminhauy, or Rumminaui, a Peruvian cacique. The piece is from the collection of Senhor Barboza, Rio de Janeiro, and originally belonged to General Alvares, “the last Spanish political chief and commandant of the province of Cuzco.” Mr. Ewbank saw it at Rio, and gives a description of it, and a sketch of the monster whose features are thus preserved. The piece is of reddish clay, modelled by hand, nine inches in height, and with an internal depth of six inches. Everything indicates{406} that the work is a likeness. Little peculiarities, such as the want of a tooth and a scar on the cheek, cannot be explained upon any other hypothesis. The piece is comparatively recent. When, in 1531, Pizarro entered Peru at Tumbez, the Inca, Huayna Capac, had divided his kingdom between his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa, between whom a struggle ensued for the sole power, and resulted in the death of Huascar. Atahualpa was afterward seized by Pizarro, and, under circumstances of gross treachery and brutality, was put to death. It was then that Ruminhauy comes upon the scene in the history of Garcilasso de la Vega. Scheming to succeed Atahualpa, he invited his brother and children to a banquet, and, after making them drunk, murdered them. With the skin of Atahualpa’s brother he covered a drum, and left the scalp hanging to it. His next atrocity was the burying alive of a number of women, young and old. “Thus,” says Garcilasso, as quoted by Mr. Ewbank, “did this barbarous tyrant discover more inhuman cruelty and relentless bowels by this murder committed on poor silly women, who knew nothing but how to spin and weave, than by his bloody treachery practised on stout soldiers and martial men. And what farther aggravates his crime was, that he was there present to see the execution of his detestable sentence, being more pleased with the objects of his cruelty, and his eyes more delighted with the sad and dismal sight of so many perishing virgins, than with any other prospect. * * * Thus ended these poor virgins, dying only for a little feigned laughter, which transported the tyrant beyond his senses. But this villany passed not unpunished; for, after many other outrages he had committed during the time of his rebellion against the Spaniards, and after some skirmishes with Sebastian Belalcaçar (who was sent to suppress him), and after he had found by experience that he was neither able to resist the Spaniards, nor yet, by reason of his detestable cruelties, to live among the Indians, he was forced to retire with his family to the mountains of Antis, where he suffered the fate of other tyrannical usurpers, and then most miserably perished.” These details, beside giving a ghastly kind of interest to the object engraved, enable us to form an opinion of the artist’s ability. Aside from the{407} possibility that the piece has preserved the actual features of the monster, it certainly gives expression to all the bad qualities with which the historian has clothed Ruminhauy, and contrasts strongly with those given above, and with that (Fig. 376) from the Smithsonian Institution.

After these individual examples a few of the leading points of Peruvian decoration and technique must be noticed. We have seen that in forms the leading tendency was toward the reproduction of the natural object. Mingled as the high is with the low, the ultimate aim appears to have been the excellence contained in similitude. In decoration we find designs with which old-world experience has made us more or less familiar. The vessels on which they appear illustrate the tendency not toward a purely ornamental art, but toward the artistic embellishment of the useful. Like all other nations, the Peruvians rose from use to beauty, and having devised the shape best subserving the useful object, they then attempted its ornamentation. In doing so they resorted to decoration closely allied with the European and Asiatic. Their fret is the same as that distinguished by the name “Grecian,” although it originally came from Asia. Their scrolls also occasionally bear a close resemblance to the European. The faces already referred to are either incised, engraved, or laid upon the surface. Those engraved leave the impression of having been cut into a body made{408} sufficiently thick to permit of the successful application of such a method of decoration. They have no appearance whatever of having been made from a mould. Of the same general character is the drinking-vessel (Fig. 377). The design, the import of which it is difficult to determine, is graved in a panel covering the greater part of one side of the piece. Other pieces have the figures similarly graved upon panels studded with dots, for the evident purpose of heightening the relief. On one of this class is a long-billed bird, and on another, which is here given (Fig. 378), the design consists of a nondescript animal. A singular resemblance to a Chinese habit is discoverable in the employment of monkey forms, either for handles or otherwise, where the Chinese used those of lizards. On one of the double-bellied bottles common to Peru, China, and Japan, we find two monkeys clinging to the upper sphere, as if supporting it.

The chief colors employed were red, black, and brown. It appears probable that they were mineral colors fixed by firing, since we cannot otherwise account for their preservation. The Chilians are said (Hartt) to have baked their pottery in holes dug in the hill-sides, and to have applied to it a sort of varnish made of mineral earth. It is worth noting, however, that the Peruvians possessed vegetable dyes of which we have no practical knowledge. All the wonderful colors used for dyeing cloth, which preserved their original hue and brilliancy after ages of exposure or burial in the tombs, are vegetable. The lasting quality alone does not, therefore, compel the conclusion that the colors on pottery are mineral.

The consideration of the uses of these colors, and of several other{409} kinds of decoration, may be combined with that of the customs and tastes of the Peruvians as reflected in their clay records. Travellers reaching Peru from the sea tell of encountering, as they neared the shore, numbers of the natives paddling their caballitos. These quaint apologies for boats are merely bundles of reeds tied together, across which the boatman strides, and rows, Indian fashion, with a double-bladed paddle. The prow is turned up in front. So crazy a craft would seem to be among the things least calculated to inspire the potter with an idea. It did, however, prove suggestive (Fig. 379), and the caballito has been found in clay on the sites of different coast settlements.

We also learn from their ceramic decorations that the Peruvians of Chimu lived in buildings of a single story with slanting roof, and having a hole in the gable for light or ventilation. That they had a taste for music is placed beyond dispute by their vessels and instruments of clay (Fig. 380). Some of their ruder devices are very singular. Mr. Ewbank mentions a whistle formed in the body of a small bird of baked clay. The relic, he says, was very old, and the head missing. “The tone was shrill and clear, and was pleasantly modified by partially or wholly closing with the finger an opening in the breast.” The water-vessels are also sometimes so constructed that the handle passes from the spout on one side to a similar projection on the other, on which is a bird or animal’s head. The air rushing through a hole left in the latter, as the vessel is being filled or{410} emptied, frequently causes a sound resembling that peculiar to the bird or animal. To this class of “whistling jars” belongs the double vessel (Fig. 371) representing a man at lunch. Musicians and musical instruments are painted upon vases, and, as in the cut (Fig. 381), the vessel itself may be a representation of a musician.

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Fig. 384.—Peruvian Pottery.
Fig. 384.—Peruvian Pottery.

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Fig. 385.—Peruvian Vessels.
Fig. 385.—Peruvian Vessels.

The decorations hitherto observed have consisted of gravings in the paste, dots, and colors. The black-ware jar (Fig. 382) is a farther exemplification of the first of these methods. The head and the ears of corn which divide the surface into four sections have all been apparently carved in an originally thick body. By cutting it down the ears are left in high relief. The specimen is evidently very old. The vessels decorated with paintings are generally of a totally different artistic order, although a few, such as the cup here given (Fig. 383), combine painting with a rude attempt at modelling. The handle consists of a monkey with its forepaws, or hands, resting upon the edge of the cup. It was taken from a grave at Arequipa, eleven feet below the surface of the soil, and was brought to this country and presented to the Smithsonian Institution by United States Consul Eckel, Talcahuana, Chili. The decoration is dark brown on a creamy ground. Similar to it, but having the mitred head of an Inca on the handle, is the cup on the left of the adjoining cut (Fig. 384). The other vessels, with the exception possibly of the lower one, have been used as pans or boilers, the largest showing marks of the fire, and all being destitute of ornament with the exception of the painted stopper of the largest specimen. It thus appears the Peruvians used earthen-ware for culinary purposes, and several vessels of this kind are elaborately{411} painted in black and red on the yellow ground. In the illustration (Fig. 385) Nos. 1 and 3 are of this class. They were apparently designed either to be suspended above an open fire, or to rest in a stove-cover perforated for their reception. To serve the purpose of a lid hollow stoppers, like No. 4, were used. The lower part of the vessels is undecorated. The flat-bottomed pitcher and bowl, Nos. 2 and 5, are especially worthy of attention for their decoration. The light red body of the former is covered with a dark chocolate ground-color, in which the design appears in white—a mingling of the star, circle, and chain{412} pattern. Other varieties are seen in the pieces (Fig. 386) from Senhor Barboza’s collection. On the left is a caldron, flat-bottomed and with side rings. The greater part of its ornamentation has been worn away. The remaining three pieces are supposed to have been used for carrying liquids, and that on the right has, besides the rings on the body, perforated ears immediately below the lip. The decoration of the small round-bottomed pichet consists of incised lines. The long-necked bottle is ornamented in colors, in regard to the arrangement of which the piece may be taken as representing a large class of vessels in which the decoration—consisting of squares, the larger containing the smaller—is arranged vertically. The art is of the same order as the geometrical designs and concentric circles of Phœnicia and early Greece. We find it again in the shallow ladles (Fig. 387), notably in that on the right, which was found near St. Sebastian, Cuzco, in 1820.

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Fig. 386.—Peruvian Pottery. (Senhor Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 386.—Peruvian Pottery. (Senhor Barboza Coll.)

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Fig. 387.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 387.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)

On these pieces yellow is combined with the red, white, brown, and black we have hitherto met. A yet richer palette was brought to the decoration of the flat circular bottle (Fig. 388), the upper part of which is painted upon the red paste in black, white, green, and purple lines.{413}

As to the processes to which the Peruvians resorted, Marryat quotes a passage from Southey’s “History of Brazil” which gives a little light. “The Tupinambas,” he says, “were in many respects an improved race. The women were skilful potters. They dried their vessels in the sun, then inverted them, and covered them with dry bark, to which they set fire, and thus baked them sufficiently. Many of the American tribes carried this art to great perfection. There are some who bury their dead in jars large enough to receive them erect.

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Fig. 388.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 388.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)

“The Tupinambas, by means of some white liquid, glazed the inside of their vessels so well, that it is said that the potters in France could not do it better. The outside was generally finished with less care. Those, however, in which they kept their food were frequently painted in scrolls and flourishes, intricately intertwisted and nicely executed, but after no pattern; nor could they copy what they had once produced. This earthen-ware was in common use; and De Lery observes that in this respect the savages were better furnished than those persons in his own country who fed from trenchers and wooden bowls.” Other Indian tribes used water-colors after burning, and also a vegetable varnish. How far these customs extended we cannot define by geographical limits. It shows the tendency of this people, already remarked in the Peruvians, to making beauty subservient to use. An inside glaze in connection with a rough exterior is something rarely to be found elsewhere. That the Peruvians used moulds is almost certain. Mr. Hartt is of the opinion that many of their vessels were moulded in two parts and then luted together, and that some of the moulds were made from natural objects. He also suggests that the mould was sometimes made from a pattern vessel, and then baked.{414}

To conclude as to Peru, its ceramics may yet be more fully and systematically studied. At present it is instructive to remark how, on the assumption of its art being original and not derivative, it sought expression in ways so nearly identical with those of the Old World. A theory of chronology cannot, in the present condition of our knowledge, be constructed. The works passed in review evidently belong to epochs far apart from each other, and probably to different branches of the people inhabiting Peru. Some of the specimens are undoubtedly very old, and others, including the painted wares, cannot be ascribed to a very remote era. The head of Ruminhauy cannot be referred to a more distant date than the middle of the sixteenth century, and the modern work, though inferior to that we have noticed, is too closely allied to it, in composition and the style of decoration, for us to feel justified in according to much of the older painted pottery a greater age than two or three hundred years.

Of modern Brazil we would expect much, if we take its ruler, the indefatigable and enlightened Dom Pedro, as a representative of his people. Our knowledge is extremely meagre. In an otherwise admirable section at the Centennial Exhibition, the pottery was of little consequence. The best works were unglazed terra-cottas, Greek in form, and decorated with Greek subjects. There were also some vases of red clay representing native Brazilian forms decorated with reliefs, medallions, and faces, in light-brown clay. In others the colors{415} were reversed, the light brown clay forming the body and the red the ornaments. Some of the better specimens are now in the Smithsonian Institute, at Washington.

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Fig. 391.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.
Fig. 391.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.

Of the ancient Brazilian pottery Mr. Thomas Ewbank describes a basin (Fig. 389) in the Rio Museum. It is made presumably by hand, as no marks of the wheel are observable, of a grayish yellow clay imperfectly burned, covered with a light and poor kind of glazing, and is overrun by minute cracks. It is colored inside and out with red, yellow, and brown. The outside was black with smoke, and suggests that the vessel may have been used as a pot or caldron. The decoration consists of a dark-red band just below the rim, and a tangled mass of lines and dots. Some of the tribes, and among them the Coroados of the Parahiba River, used earthen jars for the reception of the mummies of their chiefs (Fig. 390). Mr. Ewbank also gives some interesting details regarding the making and quality of modern Brazilian pottery. On one estate which he visited he found a number of female slaves engaged in making bricks and tiles. The native Brazilian gives no encouragement to foreign trade, preferring the pottery of his own country as better suited to the domestic usages{416} among which he lives. Water-vessels form the staple of the industry, entire cargoes sometimes consisting of talhas and moringues, for holding water and drinking. The large centre piece in the illustration (Fig. 391) is a talha, and may be seen in almost any Brazilian house. It will hold from ten to fifteen gallons. The four vases in the engraving, two on either side of the talha, are varieties of the same vessel. Of the drinking-vessels the most common is that called the “monkey” (Fig. 392, a). Although it holds from a gallon and a half to two gallons and a half, it is used without the intervention of a tumbler, the smaller spout being applied to the lips. In the same engraving, b, c, d, and e are table moringues, as are those at i, i. The decanter, h, is common porous earthen-ware, admirably suited for keeping its contents cool. The ewer and basin, f and g, are highly colored earthen-ware from Bahia, and between them stands an Indian moringue of ingenious construction. It is filled from the bottom by means of the tube marked by a dotted line. The cup-like vessel at k is one of the ordinary kind of censers.

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Fig. 392.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.
Fig. 392.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.

{417}

To show that the Peruvians did not necessarily use mineral colors for their pottery, Mr. W. H. Edwards’s description of the processes he found among the wild tribes on the Amazon may be referred to. Their colors were of the simplest kind: indigo blue, black from the juice of the mandioca, green from another plant, and red and yellow from clays. A small kind of palm was made into a brush to apply the pigments. The designs consisted of squares, circles, and rudely drawn figures. A resinous gum was rubbed over the vessels after they had been warmed, and answered all the purposes of a glaze.

Before leaving the South American continent attention may be directed to a single specimen from Colombia. It is (Fig. 393) an unpainted bowl of corrugated ware, and is of importance to the present inquiry, as belonging, apparently, to a class of pottery of which examples have been found in many parts of the North American continent. These will be treated of hereafter.{418}

CHAPTER II.

CENTRAL AMERICA.

PASSING the Isthmus we reach the archaeological wonderland comprising Central America and Mexico. It is not improbable that there was an early connection between the ancient occupants of these regions and the South Americans. As they appear to us in their architectural remains, however, there is little beyond the grandeur common to their undertakings to suggest affinity. At the time of the Conquest the natives of the Isthmus had undoubtedly relations with Peru. It was there that Balboa and the more successful Pizarro first heard anything definite of that country. On Pizarro’s second attempt to reach the rumored land of gold, he met one of the Peruvian balsas laden with textile fabrics, silver mirrors, vases, and general merchandise. It is curious to find Mr. Squier describing the same primitive craft in the Gulf of Guayaquil, more than three hundred and fifty years later. These rafts could hardly have been used for distant voyages, but were apparently the means of carrying on a coast trade between Peru and the north. The inhabitants of the Isthmus had a tolerably{419} intimate acquaintance with Peru, and Balboa, according to Mr. Baldwin, gained clear information in regard to that country from natives who had evidently seen it. From this it may be inferred that the intercourse between the two peoples was sufficiently close to account for any similarity between the pottery belonging to Central America and that of Peru.

Passing northward through Costa Rica, where many specimens have been found, we reach Nicaragua. Dr. J. F. Bransford, U. S. N., exhumed from the graves on Ometepec Island, in Lake Nicaragua, a number of very interesting relics, which are now in the Smithsonian Institution. They are especially worthy of study as having been discovered in different deposits marked by successive layers of volcanic matter. One of the oldest (Fig. 394) was taken from a grave below the low-water level of the lake. Making due allowance for the fact that the lake lies in a region dotted in every direction with volcanoes, the grave and its contents must still possess a very respectable antiquity. Generally the old burying-grounds occupy elevated sites. The design resembles the double cross, and is graved in the paste. A similar style of decoration appears on another vase (Fig. 395) from the same district. The red clay is covered with a creamy enamel, overrun with incised lines. These are carried round the body in two bands of three lines each, and are otherwise disposed over the surface without any apparent method in the arrangement. The colors found upon many of the Peruvian vessels, red, creamy buff, and black, are seen upon the tripod (Fig.{420} 396), also from Ometepec. Whatever may have been the purpose for which this vessel was employed, its use was not confined to Ometepec. At Gueguetenango, in Guatemala, Mr. Stephens found one of polished ware of the same general design. It was taken from a vault containing bones, under a religious—probably a sacrificial—pyramidal structure. The specimen from Ometepec was found in a grave.

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Fig. 397.—Burial Urns from Ometepec.
Fig. 397.—Burial Urns from Ometepec.

The urns of the ancient Nicaraguans are generally of one shape (Fig. 397), and have been found containing both ashes and unburned bones. Terra-cotta vessels of all kinds, some of them painted, have been dug up both within and beyond the bounds of the cemeteries. They occasionally take the form of men (Fig. 398) and animals.

The present inhabitants are skilful potters. They follow methods of decorating practically identical with those of the Brazilians, and such as they have been acquainted with for at least three centuries. The wheel is unknown among them. Colors and a kind of glaze are both brought into requisition.

The old inhabitants of Guatemala have left clay idols and urns. One of the former, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, and here given in front and profile (Fig. 399), is{421} hollow, very hard and smooth. It is said to be the image of Cabuahuil, one of the old deities of the country. From the same district come the terra-cotta heads (Fig. 400), one of which—that on the left—is hollow, and the other is solid. They are well polished and extremely hard.

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Profile of Figure. Fig. 399.—Terra-cotta Hollow Figure, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.
Profile of Figure.
Fig. 399.—Terra-cotta Hollow Figure, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.

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Fig. 400.—Terra-cotta Heads, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.
Fig. 400.—Terra-cotta Heads, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.

Resembling the burial urns of Ometepec is one taken from a mound at Gueguetenango (Fig. 401). The chief differences are the handle and a decoration in relief on the unpolished surface. It was accompanied by a vase or cup (Fig. 402) of polished ware tastefully decorated with bands and a graved design.

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Fig. 401.—Vase found at Gueguetenango, Guatemala.
Fig. 401.—Vase found at Gueguetenango, Guatemala.

Over this entire region, extending from Nicaragua to Mexico, and only partially explored, there are evidences of successive changes having taken place between{422} the Spanish conquest and a remote antiquity. As in Peru, dates are purely conjectural. Epochs are marked by broad divisions, such as make it clear that the changes which took place were deeply felt. History, properly so called, gives us but little aid. We are told of a time when the Chichimecs inhabited the country—a rude, ignorant people, classed as aboriginal. The name Chichimecs is applied to all savage tribes. They may have been either the original inhabitants of the country, or wanderers from the Peruvian centre of civilization, from which they had been separated so long that they had relapsed into barbarism, or detached portions of the original settlers who travelled from the north to the south. In any event, civilization came to Central America with the Colhuas, who introduced the arts and industries, and left the grandest monuments to be found in that strange land. Who were the Colhuas? and whence did they come? No positive answer can be returned to these questions, and that is selected which appears most reasonable, viz., that they came by sea from the northern parts of South America. Tradition points in this direction. After the Colhuas the Toltecs arrived, and reduced their predecessors to subjection at a suppositious epoch, B.C. 1000. For some reason or other, possibly on account of both internal disorganization and attack from without, the Toltec power is said to have decayed a few centuries{423} before the Aztecs appear on the scene. Several hundred years later (1519) Cortez arrived, and the results marking Pizarro’s conquest of Peru followed in Mexico. That the Aztecs were a people of great intelligence cannot reasonably be doubted; that they equalled their Toltec or Colhuan predecessors may be questioned. All the evidence goes to show that they went upward from the South, where they had existed as a semi-civilized tribe, and that, on reaching the seat of the Toltecs, they subjugated them, and availed themselves, to the best of their ability, of all the knowledge and attainments with which conquest brought them in contact. The beginnings of Central American civilization are buried in an antiquity which even to the Aztecs was remote. To measure it, we must bear in mind that forests grow upon the ruins of cities which were as inaccessible to the Aztecs as they are to the modern explorer, and that the science and art of which they are the monuments must have required many centuries to develop.

We have already glanced at a few of the ancient settlements on the Pacific slope. The remains found among the ruins of Yucatan and the entire sweep of country between the Sierra Madre and the Gulf and Caribbean Sea were also taken from the tombs. They are usually of a red paste, and present an endless variety of form and, if those found together are contemporaneous, an equally wide range of taste. Of the leading cities it is necessary to mention only Quirigua, Copan, and Palenque. Of these the first named is considered the most ancient, and Palenque the most modern. Copan is situated in the western part of Honduras, and many urns of the prevailing red color have been taken from the recesses of its arched tombs. At Palenque and Mitla a silico-alkaline glaze covers some of the specimens of gray earthen-ware. The shapes include grotesque images of deities and priests, and rudely modelled snakes and other animals. Found at places far apart, and presenting widely varying characteristics, these potteries admit of no classification, either by date or character.

In Central Mexico bricks were used alternatively with stone for facing the gigantic pyramidal mounds which there abound. The Tlascalans, who aided Cortez in his war upon Montezuma, burned their bricks.

At Palenque, farther to the south, the ceramic remains are of a higher artistic order. At the risk of invading the domain of architecture,{424} we may mention the stucco or plaster figures with which the buildings were embellished. In other places were statuettes, one of which is described as “made of baked clay, very hard, and the surface smooth, as if coated with enamel.” At Mitla we again meet with the phenomenon which we found so strange in Peru—the association of two entirely different orders of art, the most magnificent architecture and exquisite inlaid decoration with rude paintings of the figures of idols. The knowledge of coloring materials is nowhere better illustrated than in Yucatan, where red, yellow, blue, green, and brown appear in the wall-paintings. We find the pottery of Nicaragua compared with that of Mexico and Peru, but far more enthusiastic language was employed by the Spaniards in regard to what they saw. Cortez, in 1520, compared the pottery of Tlascala with the best of Spanish manufacture, and Herrera finds in Faenza ware the best parallel with that of Chulula.

Should farther explorations be made of the cities buried by the forests which have sprung up around the ruins we have indicated, a more connected history of the ceramics of the entire region may be written. At present one is liable to be lost in conjecture, and to launch into speculations such as that which very plausibly attributes to Central America a civilization the most ancient in the world.{425}

CHAPTER III.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

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Fig. 403.—Mound-builders’ Vases, from Southern Missouri. Centre piece, height, 9 inches. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 403.—Mound-builders’ Vases, from Southern Missouri. Centre piece, height, 9 inches. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)

IN the central part of the North American continent, along the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, the land was, in a very remote age, settled by a people akin to those of Mexico and Central America. Their name is now unknown, and to designate them they are, from the great mounds of earth which they have left, called “Mound-builders.” Whence they came or whither they went is unknown. It is conjectured that they are the same people whom we have called Toltecs; that therefore they passed up from the south, and then, in course of ages, deserted their northern settlements on the incursion from the north-west of the Asiatic tribes known as North American Indians. It is surmised that they were then in part absorbed by the invaders of their lands, and that they in part sought refuge in the south, whence they had{426} issued centuries before. Their long absence had given them all the appearance of a distinct people. The evidence in favor of these several surmises may be condensed into the following form:—

That the mounds of North America were intended apparently for both religious and defensive purposes, and are practically identical with those of Central America;

That their most populous settlements were in the southern part of the Mississippi valley, whence they passed upward until they reached and overspread the valley of the Ohio;

That, according to old books and traditions, the Toltecs reached Central America from the north-east;

That the reason given for the Toltecs deserting their settlements in the north-east, designated Huehue-Tlapalan, was the successive attacks of Chichimecs. We have already seen that the name Chichimecs was applied to all barbarians, and would in this case point to the North American Indians.