Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/44

38 by their more intelligent neighbors. A few of the Toltecs no doubt remained in the valley, and they had taught the Alcohuans—a tribe which preceded the Aztecs—who afterward became the most cultured people in Mexico. Their calculations were thus exact enough to guide us in ours, so that we know that the Aztecs entered the Valley of Mexico early in the fourteenth century. Their records also show that at that time the Aztecs were composed of seven related families, or clans, each one of which formed a little community guided by its own chief, and all bearing the same surname. In other words, there were only seven surnames in the whole tribe.

From the outset these new comers were considered intruders, and were obliged to content themselves with a precarious footing on the neutral ground by which, in Indian fashion, the settlements of their neighbors were surrounded. They lived on fish, birds and such water-plants as grew in the swamp, as well as by predatory raids on the peaceful farmers around them. While they were still in this unsettled state the oracle of the tribe is reported to have spoken for Humming-Bird, their war-god, in this wise:

"I was sent on this journey, and my office it is to carry arms, bows, arrows and shields. War is my chief duty and the object of my coming. I have to look out in all directions, and with my body, head and arms have to do my duty in many tribes, being on the borders and lying in wait for many nations to maintain and gather them, though not graciously."

We can picture in imagination the wily old medicine-man who made this speech, and thus fixed the policy of the tribe on a distinctively war-basis.