Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/490

 472 MEXICO a higher civilization than that which filled the early Spanish conquerors with admiration ; but neither can assist in determining the name or the origin of the first immigrants. Historic ground in Mexico is not reached until the end of the 6th century ; all beyond belongs to the domain of mythology. The Toltecs came to the valley of Mexico, and there built their capital, Tollan (Tula), toward the beginning of the 7th century. According to one theory, they came from Guatemala; another theory represents them as crossing from Asia to America, by a chain of islands which in re- mote ages stretched at the north from the shores of the eastern to those of the western continent. They are described as an agricul- tural people, clothed in long tunics, sandals, and straw hats ; not very warlike, but humane and civilized, and proficient in the highest mechanical arts; erecting cyclopean edifices; having a worship not sanguinary ; and invent- ing the system of astronomy afterward adopt- ed by the Tezcucans and Mexicans. The first Toltec dynasty is said to have been founded early in the 8th century by Icoatzin. After a lapse of about 500 years, the kingdom of Tollan, reduced by civil strifes, pestilence, and famine, was divided, and many of the survi- ving inhabitants migrated southward. The Toltecs were the first tribe to leave a written account of their nationality and polity ; they are regarded in Mexican history as the primi- tive nation of the country, and their epoch is taken as the starting point of a fixed chronol- ogy for the native annals. With the downfall of their monarchy terminated the civilization of the north. Not long afterward the Chichi- mecs, described as a fierce northern tribe, liv- ing by the chase, dwelling in caverns or straw huts, monogamous, and worshipping the sun as their father and the earth as their mother, came to the Toltec country, which they did not conquer, as they met with no resistance, but merely occupied peacefully, settling in the same towns with the Toltecs who remained from the general emigration. The descendants of these Toltecs became once more numerous and pros- perous, and, taking the name of Colhuis or Culhuas, founded Colhuacan on the margin of the lake. Between the arrival of the Chichi- mecs and the end of the 12th century, tradition mentions the influx of a multitude of other northern tribes, chief among whom were the Tepanecs, who, with Atzcapozalco as their capi- tal, established an independent state, and became gradually so powerful that in later times two of their kings usurped the throne of Tezcuco. Another of these tribes were the Techichimecs, the founders of the Tlaxcalan republic ; and all of them spoke the Nahoa or Nahuatl tongue. After these came the Acolhuis, likewise of Na- hoa origin, and consequently kindred to the Toltecs, and especially distinguished among all the immigrants by the Chichimecs as being the most refined. From them the latter readily learned agriculture, the mechanic arts, and town life ; and the two races became so completely intermingled as at last to be confounded in one great nation in the kingdom of Tezcuco or Acolhuacan, a name indicating that not only the customs and culture of the Acolhuis pre- vailed, but also their language, which was in- comparably more perfect than the Ohichimecan. The most important of all the tribes, the Mexi- cans or Aztecs, although the last to choose a permanent resting place, had been as long in the valley as any of the sister nations. They proceeded from Aztlan, an unknown region of the north, and reached Anahuac about 1195, having made three stations, at which the ruins of casas grandes are still to be seen. (See CASAS GBANDES.) Their first halting place was on the shores of the lake of Teguyo or Teguayo, probably identical with the lake of Timpanogos, or Great Salt lake, in Utah ; the second was on the river Gila, and the third not far from the Presidio de los Llanos. After reaching the plain of the lakes, the Mexicans led a nomadic existence for 130 years. After a series of unsuccessful encounters, in which their numbers were greatly diminished, they laid on the islands of the lake the foundations of their city of Tenochtitlan in 1325. Reduced to extreme poverty, and hated by surround- ing nations, they resolutely strove against ill fortune until they became numerous and pow- erful enough to take the offensive. They then spread desolation and slavery through many of the tribes who in former days had shown them little mercy. Their capital was extended, and beautified to an extraordinary degree ; they soon became the equals of the Tezcucans in the cultivation of the arts and sciences ; their institutions, customs, theogony, and even their language, were propagated wherever their pow- er reached. The adjacent territories were in- vaded and occupied by Aztec garrisons. The Tezcucans were perhaps more advanced in knowledge and refinement than the Mexicans ; but the latter were certainly far more power- ful, and they gave their name to the whole country and to the civilization of their day. The boundaries of the Aztec realm have never been precisely defined ; but they extended northward to the country of the Huastecas, whom the Mexicans never subdued ; to the northwest the empire did not reach beyond the province of Tulba, the vast tract of land beyond which was occupied by the Otomies and some Chichimec tribes ; to the west it ter- minated at the frontier of Michoacan ; on the southwest it was in general only limited by the Pacific ; and the greatest length on that coast was from Xoconochco (Soconusco) to Coliman. On the Atlantic side the Mexicans possessed all that lay W. of the Coatzacoalcos. The Acolhuan dominions did not form one eighth of the Aztec kingdom. It should be observed that Ahuizotl, whose reign immediately pre- ceded the Spanish conquest, carried his arms successfully into Guatemala, subduing that country and a portion of Nicaragua. The