Page:Mexican Archæology.djvu/441

Rh of the Mexican valley by the Nahua-speaking Toltec.

A word may now be said concerning the "Toltec" culture of the Mexican valley. The fact that this is related to the early culture of the Maya is, as said before, obvious. Many points of similarity exist in religious symbolism, art (such as the interlaced trapezoidal sign described above), glyphs surrounded by a cartouche, and the bar-form of the numeral five. If my dating of the monuments be accepted provisionally, and also the suggestion that the calendar had its origin with the Maya, then it follows necessarily that the Toltec culture was due at least to Maya inspiration. The myth of the arrival of the god Quetzalcoatl, inventor of the calendar, symbolizes the spread of Maya culture northwards. 'There are so many instances of the god being taken as the representative of his people, and I have already shown how the high mysterious creator-god Kukulkan seems to have lost dignity when he became personified as a tribal leader. The myth of the immigrant Nahua tribes awaiting the "dawn for the administration of society" at Teotihuacan then represents their first contact with the culture derived from the Maya. So far the matter is simple, but a difficulty now arises. The last Maya date in the long count, at Chacula on the Chiapas border, falls about the middle of the fourth century The Annals of Quauhtitlan give the foundation of the Toltec state as 752  The migration-myth last mentioned states that the Toltec were with the other Nahua immigrants at Teotihuacan when the "dawn" appeared. These Toltec are definitely stated to have been Nahua-speakers, while the name of the first Toltec ruler, Mixcoamazatzin, is distinctly Nahua. Finally, the list of Toltec rulers, seven only in number, is far too short to account for the thick stratum of Toltec remains at Azcapotzalco. The only explanation possible surely must be the following: The