Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/235

Rh 1325 and were, previous to that time, nomadic in their habits.

The Tezcocans occupied a portion of the great central valley and appear to have marched with the Aztecs in their development of civilization. The descendants of both the Aztecs and Tezcocans, together with those of all other native populations, have come to be referred to as Indians or peons, and have, since the Spanish occupancy, constituted the common labourers of the country. These two great races had proved their native intellectual power by developing a civilization between 1325 and 1519, when the Spaniards under Cortez first introduced them to the old world, of which Prof. Thomas Wilson, the ethnologist, says:

 "The culture of the aborigines occupying Mexico and Central America was of a totally different character from that of the other aborigines of North America. They were sedentary, agricultural, religious, and highly ceremonious; they built themselves monuments of most enduring character, the outside of the stone walls of some of which were decorated in a high order of art, resembling more the great Certosa of Pavia than any other monuments in Europe. The mounds for ceremony or sacrifice were immense. The manufacture and use of stone images and idols was extensive and surprising to the last degree. The working of jade and the extensive use thereof surpasses that of any other locality in prehistoric times. Their pottery excites