Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/223

Rh To us the most wonderful part of it is, not the wonders themselves, but that it should so happen, if indeed it did, that these fearful forebodings, runningtwo hundred and sixty years.' The name is also given as Chilam Balan and Chilan Balam, the latter part savoring of the Canaanite divinity. ''Remesal, Hist. Chyapa, 245-6; Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles''., i. 203-4. A priest of Itzalan, named Patzin Yaxun Chan, is recorded as having urged his people to worship the true god, whose word would soon come to them; and the high-priest of the same place, Na Hau Pech, prophesied that within four ages — a Yucatec age equals twenty of our years — news would be brought of the supreme God, by men who must be received as guests and masters. Ah Ku Kil Chel, also a priest, spoke with sorrow of ills to come upon the people from the north and from the east. In the age following the date of his prediction no priest would be found to explain the will of their idols. Another temple guardian announced that in the last age idolatry would cease, and the world would be purified by fire. Happy he who repented! Cogolludo, ''Hist. Yucathan'', 97-101. Several prophecies therein quoted literally are reproduced in ''Villagvtierre, Hist. Conq. Itza''., 34-5, which also refers to Itzan predictions.

Among the Mexicans, says Mendieta, predictions were current some four generations before the conquest of the coming of bearded men dressed in raiments of different color, and with caskets on their heads. Then the idols would perish, leaving but one supreme God; war would cease, roads would be opened, intercourse established, and the husband would cherish but one wife. ''Hist. Ecles., 180; Torquemada'', i. 235-6. This smacks of an elaboration of the Quetzalcoatl promise. Nezahualcoyotl, the wise Tezcucan monarch, who died in 1472, left poems in which chroniclers have discovered vague allusions to a coming race. The reader may, perhaps, be equally fortunate if he examine the specimens of his poems given in Native Races, ii. 494-7. His son Nezahualpilli, equally celebrated as a just king and a philosopher, versed in the occult arts, revealed to Montezuma that, according to his astrologic investigations, their towns would within a few years be destroyed and their vassals decimated. This, he added, would soon be verified by celestial signs and other phenomena. ''Duran, Hist. Ind''., MS., ii. 254-7. The precursor of these harbingers of evil appears to have been the famine of 1505, which compelled many a parent to sell his children for the means to obtain food, while others lined the road-side with their famished bodies. The cessation of smoke from the volcano Popocatepetl, for twenty days, was a feature seized upon by the diviners as a sign of relief; and true enough, in the following year, the suffering people were cheered with an abundant harvest. Soon again their fears were roused by an eclipse and an earthquake, in the very inaugural year of the new cycle, 1507, and by the drowning of 1800 soldiers during the Miztec campaign. Almost every succeeding year confirmed their apprehensions by one or more signs or occurrences of an ominous nature. One of the most alarming was the appearance, in broad day, of a comet with three heads, which darted across the sky, eastward, with such speed that the tails seemed to scatter sparks. 'Salierɔn cometas del cielo de tres en tres. . . . parecian. . . . . echando de sí brasas de fuego. . . . y llevaban grandes y largas colas.' ''Mendieta, Hist. Ecles''., 179. 'Cayó una cometa, parecian tres estrellas.' ''Sahagun, Hist. Conq., i. 4; Native Races'', v. 463. After this, in 1507 or 1510, a pyramidal light, which scattered sparks on all sides, rose at midnight from the eastern horizon till its apex reached the zenith, where it faded at dawn. This continued for forty days, or for a year, according to some accounts. 'Diez años antes que viniesen los españoles. . . . duró por espacio de un año cada noche.' ''Sahagun, Hist. Conq., i. 3. "Ocho años antes de la venida de los españoles, . . . . y esto se vió euatro años.' Id., Hist. Gen., ii. 271. It occurred in 1509, and lasted over forty days. Codex Tell. Rem., in Kingshorough's Mex. Antiq''., v. 154; vi. 144. The interpreter of the Codex enters into a lengthy