Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/226

106 To what end are signs that cannot be interpreted until after the occurrence, as is generally the case, when their interpretation is not needed, sages do not say.silence, and wished to call Montezuma, but no one daring to appear before the cruel and superstitious monarch, Nezahualpilli was summoned, and he brought the brother with him to her dwelling, together with several attendants. To them she related that, on being released from her earthly bonds, she had entered a boundless plain, upon a road which soon divided into several branches. On one side was a fiercely running stream, which she attempted to cross, but was motioned back by a youth of fine stature, dressed in a loose robe of dazzling whiteness. His face, bright as a star, was of fair complexion, the eyes grey, and the forehead marked with a cross. Taking her by the hand, he led her up the valley past heaps of dead men's bones, from many of which rose the sound of lament. She also observed a number of black persons, with horns and deer legs, building a house. As the sun rose, large vessels could be seen ascending the river, bearing white and bearded men in strange attire, with shining head-gear, and standard borne aloft. They were children of the sun. The youth, in pointing them out, said that God did not yet wish her to pass the river, which could never be recrossed, but to wait and bear testimony to the faith coming with these men, who were destined to wage great wars with her people and become their masters. The lamenting bones were her forefathers — 'who had not received the faith,' is the uncharitable term used by Torquemada — suffering for their evil deeds, and the house building was to hold the bones of those slain in battle by the fair-faced crews. She must return to earth, await these men, and guide her people to baptism. On being restored to her senses from the death or trance, whatever her listeners chose to term it, she removed the stone from the vault and returned to her chamber. Many of those present sneered at the story as originating in the brain of a sick woman, but Montezuma was more deeply moved than he cared to show. He never again saw his sister, who lived a retired life till the arrival of the Spaniards. She then came forward, the first woman in Tlatelulco to receive baptism, and under the name of María Papantzin rendered good aid in the missionary cause. This account, says Torquemada, has been taken from old native paintings, translated and sent to Spain, and was regarded as strictly true among the natives, Papantzin being well known in the town. 'Esta Señora era del numero de los Predestinados,' i. 238-9. Ixtlilxochitl, strangely enough, does not refer to the resurrection. According to him, the mother of Ixtlilxochitl, king of Tezcuco, was the first woman baptized, and this under compulsion from her husband. She received the name of María. After her came Papantzin, now wife of this king, who was named Beatriz. Cortés stood godfather to both. Sahagun refers briefly to the resurrection of a woman of Tenochtitlan, who issued, four days after her death, from the garden vault where she had been deposited. Appearing before Montezuma, she announced that with him would cease the Mexican empire, for other people were coming to rule and settle. This woman lived twenty-one years after this, and bore another child. ''Hist. Gen''., ii. 270-1. At this rate she must have been' alive when Sahagun arrived in the country; yet he fails to speak of her as a princess. Boturini applies the story to a sister of King Caltzontzin, of Michoacan, who died at the time the Spaniards were besieging Mexico, and rose within four days to warn her brother not to listen to the Mexican overtures for an alliance against the white invaders. The new-comers, she said, were destined by heaven to rule the land, and a testimony hereof would appear on the principal feast-day in the form of a youth, who, rising in the eastern sky, with a light in one hand and a sword in the other, would glide over the city and disappear in the west. This sign appearing, the king did as she bade him, rejected the Mexican advances, and received the Spaniards in peace. Catálogo, 27-8. Clavigero censures Boturini's work, in this