Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/737

Rh ANCIENT MEXICO.] AMERICA 695 or sevx-u t lines, including the Acolhuans, the Tlascaltecs, and the Aztecs or proper Mexicans. All these people spoke dialects of one language, and had similar arts, customs, and institutions. The town of Mexico or Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325, and the series of Mexican kings which commenced in 1352 was continued through eight monarchs to Montezuma. The monarchy was small at first, and passed through many vicissitudes ; but it was gradually enlarged, especially by the policy and enterprise of the later princes of the line. When Cortes arrived, it embraced what are now the provinces of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, Mexico, and part of Valladolid, a surface of 130,000 square miles ; but within this were comprehended three small independent states, Tlascala, Cholullan, and Zapeaca. The pastoral state, which forms the intermediate stage between savage and civilised life, had never existed in Mexico ; for the native wild ox had not been tamed, and the use of milk as food was unknown. The Mexican nations derived their e arts in subsistence from agriculture, which, however, was conducted
 * xicc. i n the rudest manner, with very imperfect instruments.

They cultivated maize, potatoes, plantains, and various other esculent vegetables. They raised cotton, and under stood the art of spinning and weaving it into cloth, of a texture which excited the admiration of the Spaniards. They had no iron, but showed considerable skill in fashion ing the gold, silver, and copper, found in a native state, into domestic utensils and ornamental articles. In some of their buildings the stones were hewn into regular forms, and accurately joined ; and from the ruins of the palace of Mitla, in Oaxaca, still existing, it appears that they had the art of designing ornaments like arabesques, in paste, with great neatness, and attaching them to the walls ; but solid structures of masonry evincing any considerable skill are extremely rare in the country. Their carvings in wood were tolerably well executed, but the figures were disproportioned and uncouth. The same remark applies to their hieroglyphical drawings, which were far inferior in taste and design to those of the Hindoos, Japanese, and Thibetians. For paper they employed sometimes the large leaves of the aloe, sometimes cotton cloth, or the skins of deer dressed. Their books consisted of strips or webs of such materials, composed of pieces neatly joined, one or two feet broad and twenty or thirty long, which were divided into pages by folding them in a zig-zag manner ; and two pieces of thin deal attached to the outer most folds served as boards, and gave these manuscripts, when closed, an appearance very much like our old folios in wooden binding. The written language of Mexico con tained a few real hieroglyphics or symbols, purely conven tional, to designate such objects as water, earth, air, day, night, speech, and also for numbers ; but it was essentially a system of picture-writing in Avhich objects were represented by coloured figures having a resemblance more or less exact to themselves. With all its necessary imperfections, this instrument was familiarly employed to a prodigious ex tent in deeds and instruments for effecting the transmission and sale of property. The government kept couriers for conveying intelligence from all parts of the empire ; and the capital was watched and cleaned by a sort of police estab lishment. This is the bright side of Mexican civilisation. On the other hand, it must be kept in view, that the Mexi cans had no tame animals, no made roads, no money to serve as a universal medium of exchange in commercial transactions. The government was originally a perfect feudal monarchy, in which all power was monopolised by a numerous nobility and the priesthood. The great mass of the people were serfs, attached to the soil, and trans ferred with it from owner to owner by descent or purchase. The peasants or slaves of a nobleman were allowed a cer tain portion of land, which they cultivated in common for their subsistence : the rest of their labour belonged to their lord. The country swarmed with beggars, and thousands were swept off every few years by famine. As among the ancient Egyptians and the Chinese, immutable custom, regulating every act of civil and common life, chained up the course of improvement, and spread a languid monotony over society. The crown was elective, and the powers of the monarch small, till the privileges of the nobles were destroyed by the policy and ambition of Montezuma. The religion of the Mexicans breathed a savage spirit, which degraded them, in a moral point of view, far below the hordes of wandering Indians. Their deities, represented by mis-shapen images of serpents and other hideous animals, were the creation of the darkest passions of the human breast, of terror, hatred, cruelty, and revenge. They delighted in blood, and thou sands of human sacrifices were annually offered at their shrines. The places of worship, called Teocallis, were pyra mids composed of terraces placed one above another, like the temple of Belus at Babylon. These were built of clay, or of alternate layers of clay and unburnt bricks, but in some cases faced with slabs of polished stone, on which figures of animals are sculptured in relief. 1 One or two small chapels stood upon the summit, enclosing images of the deity. The largest known, which is com posed of four stories or terraces, has a breadth of 480 yards at the base, and a height of 55. These structures served as temples, tombs, and observatories ; and it is re markable that their sides are always placed exactly in the direction of the meridian. This leads us to the most in- Calendar teresting fact connected with Mexican civilisation, we mean the perfection of their calendar. The civil year was composed of 3G5 days, divided into 18 months of 20 days, and 5 supplementary days. The Mexicans had besides a ritual or religious year for the regulation of their festivals ; and, by means of a cycle of 52 years, and a very complicated method of computation, the religious and civil periods were connected with one another, and the civil year was made to correspond with the natural by the inter calation of 13 days at the end of the cycle. The month was divided into four weeks of five days, but each day of the month had a distinct name ; and Humboldt has given strong reasons for believing that these names were bor rowed from an ancient zodiac formed of 27 or 28 lunar houses, which was made use of from the remotest anti quity in Tartary, Thibet, and India. The calendar of the Mexicans bespeaks a degree of scientific skill, and an accuracy of observation, which are not easily reconciled with their semi-barbarous habits, their general ignorance in other things, and the recent date of their civilisation according to their own account. It is here, indeed, and not in their language, that we find distinct traces of their connection with Asiatic nations. The character of the Mexicans is probably the same at this day as before the conquest, which, we are disposed to think, made less change in the situation of the people than is often sup posed, though it annihilated the rank and privileges of the nobles. The Mexican Indian is grave, suspicious, and taciturn ; quiet and placid in his external deportment, but rancorous in his spirit ; submissive to his superiors, harsh and cruel to those beneath him. His intellect is limited, and chiefly developes itself in imitative labours and mechanical arts. Slow, cautious, and persevering, he loves, both in his acts and thoughts, to travel in a beaten track. The people, though speaking many different lan guages, have nearly the same physical character. The Mexicans have olive complexions, narrow foreheads, black 1 Robertson was mistaken in believing that the Teocallis were in all cases mere masses of earth, without masonry. See Ilumboldt s Researches, vol. i. p. Ill, English translation.