Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/57

Rh direction." Besides these republics, there were many independent tribes. At the very door of the capital was Tezcuco, whose territory rivaled that of the Aztecs in extent, while its history, as related by Tezcucan writers to their adopted countrymen of Spain, shows a line of monarchs some of whom were claimed to be the intellectual peers of Socrates, David and Solomon. While the Tezcucans took precedence of the Aztecs with regard to culture, the Zapotecs of the South defied them as warriors. We learn from Cortez that no Aztec ever dared to set foot on their territory.

There is nothing stranger in the history of the Aztecs than the quiet behavior of the people when their so-called emperor was taken captive. During a morning call at his palace he is arrested by Cortez, and after a brief explanation is carried in his litter through the streets by his weeping nobles to the quarters of an armed band of foreigners and left there a prisoner, to guide the affairs of his realm by their permission and under their direction. Nothing explains the inconsistencies of this relation or dispels the mystery which surrounds this Indian potentate until we study the social customs which still prevail among the aborigines of America and examine the deserted homes and temples of the very tribes in question. Such a study clears up many of the mistakes of early historians. We find everywhere evidences of a state of society so widely different from that existing in Europe as to be unintelligible there. Cortez speaks of his host as Senor Montezuma—"señor" being a title applied to an ordinary Spanish gentleman—while in the same letter he describes the princes and the lords who formed the court of this Indian ruler. Other writers are more consistent, and,