Anahuac written by Edward Burnett Tylor
E >>
Edward Burnett Tylor >> Anahuac
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 ANAHUAC
or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern
by
EDWARD B. TYLOR
1861
[Illustration: Frontspiece. See page 93. THE CASCADE OF REGLA. From a
Photograph by J. Ball Esq. of the Hacienda de Regla. March 1856.]
INTRODUCTION.
The journey and excursions in Mexico which have originated the
narrative and remarks contained in this volume were made in the months
of March, April, May, and June of 1856, for the most part on horseback.
The author and his fellow-traveller enjoyed many advantageous
opportunities of studying the country, the people, and the antiquities
of Mexico, owing to the friendly assistance and hospitality which they
received there. With this aid they were enabled to accomplish much more
than usually falls to the lot of travellers in so limited a period; and
they had the great advantage too, of being able to substantiate or
correct their own observations by the local knowledge and experience of
their friends and entertainers.
Visiting Mexico during a lull in the civil turmoil of that lamentably
disturbed Republic, they were fortunate in being able to avail
themselves of that peaceable season in making excursions to remarkable
places and ruins, and examining the national collection of antiquities,
and other objects of interest,--an opportunity that cannot have
occurred since owing to the recommencement of civil war in its worst
form.
The following are some of the chief points of interest in these Notes
on Mexico, which are either new or treated more fully than hitherto:
1. The evidence of an immense ancient population,
shewn by the abundance of remains of works of art
(treated of at pages 146-150), is fully stated
here.
2. The notices and drawings of Obsidian knives and
weapons (at page 95, &c., and in the Appendix) are
more ample than any previously given.
3. The treatment of the Mexican Numerals (at page 108)
is partly new.
4. The proofs of the highly probable sophistication of
the document in the Library at Paris, relative to
Mexican eclipses, have not previously been advanced
(see Appendix).
5. The notices of objects of Mexican art, &c., in the
chapter on Antiquities, and elsewhere (including
the Appendix), are for the most part new to the
public.
6. The remarks on the connection between pure Mexican
art and that of Central America, in the chapter on
Xochicalco, are in great part new.
7. The singular native bridge at Tezcuco (page 153) is
another novelty.
The order in which places and things were visited is shewn in the
annexed Itinerary, or sketch of the journeys and excursions described.
ITINERARY:
Journey 1. Cuba. Havana. Batabano. Isles of Pines.
Nueva Gerona. Banos de Santa Fe. Back to
Havana. _Pages_ 1-14.
Journey 2. Havana. Sisal. Vera Cruz. _Pages_ 15-18.
Journey 3. Vera Cruz. Cordova. Orizaba. Huamantla.
Otumba. Guadalupe. Mexico. _Pages_ 18-38.
Journey 4. Mexico to Tacubaya and Chapultepec, and
back. _Pages_ 55-58.
Journey 5. Mexico to Santa Anita and back. _Pages_
59-65.
Journey 6. Mexico. Guadalupe. Pachuca. Real del
Monte. Regla. Atotonilco el Grande.
Soquital and back to Real del Monte. Real
del Monte to Mount Jacal and Cerro de
Navajas (obsidian-pits), and back to Real
del Monte. Pachuca. Guadalupe. Mexico.
_Pages_ 72-105.
Journey 7. Mexico to Tisapan. Ravine of Magdalena.
Pedrigal (lava-field), and back. _Pages_
118-120.
Journey 8. Mexico to Tezcuco. Pages 129--162.
Tezcuco to Pyramids of Teotihuacan and
back. Pages 136--146. Tezcuco to
Tezcotzinco (the so-called "Montezuma's
Bath," &c.). Aztec Bridge, and back to
Tezcuco. _Pages_ 152-153. Tezcuco to
Bosque del Contador (the grove of
ahuehuetes, where excavations were made.)
_Pages_ 154-156. Tezcuco to Mexico.
_Page_ 62.
Journey 9. Mexico. San Juan de Dios. La Guarda.
Cuernavaca. Temisco. Xochicalco.
Miacatlan. Cocoytla. _Pages_ 172-195.
Cocoytla to village and cave of
Cacahuamilpan and back. _Pages_ 196-205.
Cocoytla to Chalma. Oculan. El Desierto.
Tenancingo. Toluca. Lerma. Las Cruzes.
Mexico. _Pages_ 214-220.
Journey 10. Mexico to Tezcuco. Miraflores. Amecameca.
Popocatepetl. San Nicolas de los Ranchos.
Cholula. Puebla. Amozoque. Nopaluca. San
Antonio de abajo. Orizaba. Amatlan. El
Potrero. Cordova. San Andres.
Chalchicomula. La Junta. Jalapa. Vera
Cruz. West Indies and Home. _Pages_ 260-
327.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Cuba. Volantes. A Cuban Railway. Voyage. Passports. Isle of
Pines. Mosquitos. Pirates. Runaway slaves. Baths of Santa Fe.
Alligators. The Cura. Missionary Priest. Florida Colonists.
Blacks in the West Indies. Chinese and African slaves.
CHAPTER II.
Players and Political Adventurers. Voyage. Yucatan.
Slave-trade in Natives. The Ten Tribes. Vera Cruz. Don
Ignacio Comonfort. Mexican Politics. Casualties. The City of
the Dead. Turkey-buzzards. Northers. The "temperate region."
Cordova. The Chipi-chipi. The "cold region." Mirage.
Sand-pillars. The rainy season. Plundered passengers.
Robber-priest. Aztec remains. Aloe-fields. Houses of
mud-bricks. Huts of aloes. Mexican churches. Mexican roads.
Making pulque.
CHAPTER III.
Palace-hotel of Yturbide. Site and building of Mexico.
Changes in the Valley of Mexico. Dearth of Trees.
Architecture. Drunkenness. Fights. Rattles. Judas's Bones.
Burning Judas. Churches in Holy Week. Streets. Barricades.
People. Women. The cypress of Chapultepec. Old-fashioned
coaches. The canal of Chalco. Canoe-travelling. "Reasonable
people." Taste for flowers. The "Floating Gardens."
Promenade. Flooded streets. Earthquakes.
CHAPTER IV.
Tacubaya. Humming-birds and butterflies. Aztec feather-work.
Bullfight. Lazoing and colearing. English in Mexico. Hedge of
organ-cactus. Pachuca. Cold in the hills. Rapid evaporation.
Mountain-roads. Real del Monte. Guns and pistols. Regla. The
father-confessor in Mexico. Morals of servitude. Cornish
miners. Dram-drinking. Salt-trade. The Indian market. Indian
Conservatism. Sardines. Account-keeping. The great Barranca.
Tropical fruits. Prickly pears. Their use. The
"Water-Throat." Silver-works. Volcano of Jorullo. Cascade of
Regla. "Eyes of Water." Fires. The Hill of Knives. Obsidian
implements. Obsidian mines. The Stone-age. The
loadstone-mountain of Mexico. Unequal Civilization of the
Aztecs. Silver and commerce of Mexico. Effect of
Protection-duties. Silver mines. The Aztec numerals.
CHAPTER V.
A Revolution. Siege and Capitulation of Puebla. Military
Statistics. Highway-robbery. Reform in Mexico. The American
war. Mexican army. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Miracles. The rival
Virgins. Sacred lottery-ticket. Literature in Mexico. The
clergy and their system of Education in Mexico. The Holy
Office. Indian Notions of Christianity.
CHAPTER VI.
To Tezcuco. Indian Canoes. Sewer-canal. Water-snakes.
Salt-lakes. A storm on the lake. Glass-works. Casa Grande.
Quarries. Stone Hammers. Use of Bronze in stone-cutting in
Mexico and Egypt. Prickly Pears. Temple-pyramids of
Teotihuacan. Sacrifice of Spaniards. Old Mexico. Market of
Antiquities. Police. Bull-dogs. Accumulation of Alluvium.
Tezcotzinco. Ancient baths and bridge. Salt and salt-pans.
Fried flies'-eggs. Water-pipes. Irrigation. Agriculture in
Mexico. History repeats itself.
CHAPTER VII.
Horses and their training. Saddles and bits. The Courier.
Leather clothes. The Serape. The Rag-fair of Mexico, Thieves.
Gourd water-bottles. Ploughing. Travelling by Diligence.
Indian carriers. Mules. Breakfast. Bragadoccio. Robbers.
Escort. Cuernavaca. Tropical Vegetation. Sugar-cane. Temisco.
Sugar-hacienda. Indian labourers. The evensong. The Raya.
Strength of the Indians. Xochicalco. Ruins of the Pyramid.
Sculptures. Common ornaments. The people of Mexico and
Central America. Their civilization. Pear-shaped heads.
Miacatlan.
CHAPTER VIII.
Cocoyotla. Indian labourers. Political Condition of the
Indians. Indian Village and huts. Cotton-spinning. The Indian
Alcalde. Great Cave of Cacahuamilpan. Optical phenomenon.
Monk on horseback. Religion of the Indians. Idols. Baptism by
wholesale. Village amusements. Dancing. Chalma. The meson and
the convent. Church-dances. The miller's daughter. Young
friar. The Hill of Drums. Sacred cypress-tree. Oculan. Change
of climate. Grain-districts of Mexico. The Desierto.
Tenancingo. Toluca. Lerma. Robbers.
CHAPTER IX.
Museum. Fate of Antiquities. War-God. Sacrificial Stone.
Mexican words naturalized in Europe, &c. Chamber of Horrors.
Aztec Art. Wooden Drums. Aztec Picture-writings. The
"Man-flaying" Mr. Uhde's Collection. Mr. Christy's
Collection. Bones of Giants. Cortes' Armour. Mexican
Calendar-stone. Aztec Astronomy. Mongol Calendar.
Peculiarities of Aztec Civilization. The Prison at Mexico. No
"Criminal class." Prison-discipline. The Garotte. Mexican
law-courts. Statistics. The Compadrazgo. Leperos and Lepers.
Lazoing the bull. Cockfighting. Gambling. Monte. The
fortunate Miners.
CHAPTER X.
A travelling companion. Mexicans who live by their wits.
Jackal-masks, &c. Mexican words used in the United States.
Miraflores. Cotton-factory. Sacred Mount and Cypress-tree.
Rainy Season. Ascent of Popocatepetl. The Crater. View of
Anahuac. Descent from Popocatepetl. Plain of Puebla.
Snow-blindness. Hospitable Shopkeeper. Morality of Smuggling.
Pyramid and Antiquities of Cholula. Hybrid Legends of Mexico.
Genuine Legends. Old-world analogies among the Aztecs.
CHAPTER XI.
Puebla. The Pasadizos. Revolutions in Mexico. Festival of
Corpus Christi. Mexican clergy. Their incomes and morals.
Scourging. Religion of the People. Anomalous constitution of
the Republic. The horse-bath. Debt-slaves or peons. Great
fortunes in Mexico. Amozoque. Spurs. Nopalucan. Orizaba.
Robbers. Locusts. Indian village. Inroads of Civilization.
Lawsuits. Native Aristocracy. The vapour-bath. Scanty
population. Its explanation. Unhealthy habits. Epidemics.
Intemperance. Pineapples. Potrero. Negros. Mixed races.
"Painted men."
CHAPTER XII.
Barrancas. Indian trotting. Flowers. Armadillo. Fire-flies.
Singular Fandango. Epiphytes. The Junta. Indian Life.
Decorative Art. Horses. Jalapa. Anglo-Mexicans. Insect-life.
Monte. Fate of Antonio. Scorpion. White Negress. Cattle.
Artificial lighting. Vera Cruz. Further Journey. St.
Thomas's. Voyage to England. Future destinies of Mexico.
APPENDIX.
I. The Manufacture of Obsidian Knives.
II. On the Solar Eclipses recorded in the Le Tellier MS.
III. Table of Aztec roots.
IV. Glossary.
V. Ancient Mexican mosaic work (in Mr. Christy's Collection).
VI. Dasent's Essay on the Ethnographical value of Popular Tales and
Legends.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:
PLATES:
Cascade of Regla. _From a photograph by J. Bell, Esq. (To face
title-page.)_
Porter and Baker in Mexico.
Indians bringing Country Produce to Market.
Indians in a Rancho, making and baking Tortillas.
Map to illustrate Messrs. Tylor and Christy's journeys and excursions
In Mexico.
WOODCUTS:
_(The cuts of smaller objects of antiquity, and articles at present
in use, have been drawn from specimens in the Collection of Henry
Christy, Esq.)_
Indian Tlachiquero, collecting juice of the Agave for Pulque.
View of Part of the Valley of Mexico.
Water-carrier and Mexican Woman at the Fountain.
Group of Mexican Ecclesiastics.
Stone Spear-heads, and Obsidian Knives and Arrow-heads, from Mexico.
Fluted Prism of Obsidian, and Knife-flakes.
Mexican Arrow-heads of Obsidian.
Aztec Stone-knife, with wooden handle, inlaid with mosaic work.
Aztec Head in Terra-cotta.
The Rebozo and the Serape.
Aztec Bridge near Tezcuco.
Spanish-Mexican Saddle and appendages.
Spanish-Mexican Bit, with ring and chain.
Sculptured Panel, from Xochicalco. _(After Nebel)_.
Small Aztec Head in Terra-cotta.
Ixtacalco Church.
Spanish-Mexican Spurs.
Goddess of War. _(After Nebel)_.
Three Views of a Sacrificial Collar or Clamp, carved out of hard
stone.
Two Views of a Mask, carved out of hard stone.
Ancient Bronze Bells.
Spanish-Mexican Cock-spurs.
Leather Sandals.
Mexican Costumes. _(After Nebel)_.
View of Orizaba.
Indians of the Plateau. _(After Nebel)_.
[Illustration: MAP OF PART OF MEXICO TO ILLUSTRATE A JOURNEY FROM VERA
CRUZ TO MEXICO AND BACK & EXCURSIONS IN THE COUNTRY, By Messrs. E.B.
Tylor and H. Cristy.]
CHAPTER I.
THE ISLE OF PINES.
In the spring of 1856, I met with Mr. Christy accidentally in an
omnibus at Havana. He had been in Cuba for some months, leading an
adventurous life, visiting sugar-plantations, copper-mines, and
coffee-estates, descending into caves, and botanizing in tropical
jungles, cruising for a fortnight in an open boat among the
coral-reefs, hunting turtles and manatis, and visiting all sorts of
people from whom information was to be had, from foreign consuls and
Lazarist missionaries down to retired slave-dealers and assassins.
As for myself, I had been travelling for the best part of a year in the
United States, and had but a short time since left the live-oak forests
and sugar-plantations of Louisiana. We agreed to go to Mexico together;
and the present notes are principally compiled from our
memorandum-books, and from letters written home on our journey.
Before we left Cuba, however, we made one last excursion across the
island, and to the _Isla de Pinos_--the Isle of Pines--off the southern
coast. A volante took us to the railway-station. The volante is the
vehicle which the Cubans specially affect; it is like a Hansom cab, but
the wheels are much taller, six and a half feet high, and the black
driver sits postillion-wise upon the horse. Our man had a laced jacket,
black leather leggings, and a pair of silver spurs fastened upon his
bare feet, which seemed at a little distance to have well polished
boots on, they were so black and shiny.
The railway which took us from Havana to Batabano had some striking
peculiarities. For a part of the way the track passed between two walls
of tropical jungle. The Indian fig trees sent down from every branch
suckers, like smooth strings, which rooted themselves in the ground to
draw up more water. Acacias and mimosas, the seiba and the mahagua,
with other hard-wood trees innumerable, crowded close to one another;
while epiphytes perched on every branch, and creepers bound the whole
forest into a compact mass of vegetation, through which no bird could
fly. We could catch the strings of convolvulus with our walking-sticks,
as the train passed through the jungle. Sometimes we came upon a swamp,
where clusters of bamboos were growing, crowned with tufts of pointed
leaves; or had a glimpse for a moment of a group of royal palms upon
the rising ground.
We passed sugar-plantations with their wide cane-fields, the
sugar-houses with tall chimneys, and the balconied house of the
administrador, keeping a sharp look out over the village of
negro-cabins, arranged in double lines.
In the houses near the stations where we stopped, cigar-making seemed
to be the universal occupation. Men, women, and children were sitting
round tables hard at work. It made us laugh to see the black men
rolling up cigars upon the hollow of their thighs, which nature has
fashioned into a curve exactly suited to this process.
At Batabano the steamer was waiting at the pier, and our passports and
ourselves were carefully examined by the captain, for Cuba is the
paradise of passport offices, and one cannot stir without a visa. For
once everybody was _en regle_, and we had no such scene as my companion
had witnessed a few days before.
If you are a married man resident in Cuba, you cannot get a passport to
go to the next town without your wife's permission in writing. Now it
so happened that a respectable brazier, who lived at Santiago de Cuba,
wanted to go to Trinidad. His wife would not consent; so he either got
her signature by stratagem, or, what is more likely, gave somebody
something to get him a passport under false pretences.
At any rate he was safe on board the steamer, when a middle-aged
female, well dressed, but evidently arrayed in haste, and with a face
crimson with hard running, came panting down to the steamer, and rushed
on board. Seizing upon the captain, she pointed out her husband, who
had taken refuge behind the other passengers at a respectful distance;
she declared that she had never consented to his going away, and
demanded that his body should be instantly delivered up to her. The
husband was appealed to, but preferred staying where he was. The
captain produced the passport, perfectly _en regle_, and the lady made
a rush at the document, which was torn in half in the scuffle. All
other means failing, she made a sudden dash at her husband, probably
intending to carry him off by main force. He ran for his life, and
there was a steeplechase round the deck, among benches, bales, and
coils of rope; while the passengers and the crew cheered first one and
then the other, till they could not speak for laughing. The husband was
all but caught once; but a benevolent passenger kicked a camp-stool in
the lady's way, and he got a fresh start, which he utilized by climbing
up the ladder to the paddle-box. His wife tried to follow him, but the
shouts of laughter which the black men raised at seeing her
performances were too much for her, and she came down again. Here the
captain interposed, and put her ashore, where she stood like black-eyed
Susan till the vessel was far from the wharf, not waving her lily hand,
however, but shaking her clenched fist in the direction of the
fugitive.
To return to our voyage to the Isle of Pines.--All the afternoon the
steamer threaded her way cautiously among the coral-reefs which rose
almost to the surface. Sometimes there seemed scarcely room to pass
between them, and by night navigation would have been impossible. We
were just in the place where Columbus and his companions arrived on
their expedition along the Cuban coast, to find out what countries lay
beyond. They sailed by day, and lay to at night, till their patience
was worn out. Another day or two of sailing would have brought them to
where the coast trends northwards; but they turned back, and Columbus
died in the belief that Cuba was the eastern extremity of the continent
of Asia.
The Spaniards call these reefs "cayos," and we have altered the name to
"keys," such as _Key West_ in Florida, and _Ambergris Key_ off Belize.
It was after sunset, and the phosphorescent animals were making the sea
glitter like molten metal, when we reached the Isle of Pines, and
steamed slowly up the river, among the mangroves that fringe the banks,
to the village of Nueva Gerona, the port of the island. It consisted of
two rows of houses thatched with palm-leaves, and surrounded by wide
verandahs; and between them a street of unmitigated mud.
As we walked through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern the
inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of
white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars,
and singing seguidillas. It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a
romance. There was no romance about the mosquitos, however. The air was
alive with them. When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in the
European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my
feet used to find their way out in the night, and the mosquitos came
down and sat upon them. Experience taught us that it was better to lie
down half-dressed, so that only our faces and hands were exposed to
their attacks.
The Isle of Pines used to be the favourite resort of the pirates of the
Spanish main; indeed there were no other inhabitants. The creeks and
rivers being lined with the densest vegetation, a few yards up the
winding course of such a creek, they were lost in the forest, and a
cruiser might pass within a few yards of their lurking-place, and see
no traces of them. Captain Kyd often came here, and stories of his
buried treasures are still told among the inhabitants. Now the island
serves a double purpose; it is a place of resort for the Cubans, who
come to rusticate and bathe, and it serves as a settlement for those
free black inhabitants of Florida who chose to leave that country when
it was given up to the United States. One of these Floridanos
accompanied us as our guide next day to the Banos de Santa Fe.
When we left the village we passed near the mangrove trees, which were
growing not only near the water but in it, and like to spread their
roots among the thick black slime which accumulates so fast in this
country of rapid vegetable growth, and as rapid decomposition. In Cuba,
the mangoe is the abomination of the planters, for they supply the
runaway slaves with food, upon which they have been known to subsist
for months, whilst the mangroves give them shelter. A little further
inland we found the guava, a thick-spreading tree, with smooth green
leaves. From its fruit is made guava-jelly, but as yet it was not ripe
enough to eat.
In the middle of the island we came upon marble-quarries. They are
hardly worked now; but when they were first established, a number of
emancipados were employed there. What emancipados are, it is worth
while to explain. They are Africans taken from captured slavers, and
are set to work under government inspection for a limited number of
years, on a footing something like that of the apprentices in Jamaica,
in the interregnum between slavery and emancipation. In Cuba it is
remarked that the mortality among the emancipados is frightful. They
seldom outlive their years of probation. The explanation of this piece
of statistics is curious. The fact is that every now and then, when an
old man dies, they bury him as one of the emancipados, whose register
is sent in to the Government as dead; while the negro himself goes to
work as a slave in some out-of-the-way plantation where no tales are
told.
We left the marble-quarries, and rode for miles over a wide savannah.
The soil was loose and sandy and full of flakes of mica, and in the
watercourses were fragments of granite, brought down from the hills.
Here flourished palm trees and palmettos, acacias, mimosas, and
cactuses, while the mangoe and the guava tree preferred the damper
patches nearer to the coast. The hills were covered with the pine-trees
from which the island has its name; and on the rising ground at their
base we saw the strange spectacle of palms and fir trees growing side
by side.
Where we came upon a stream, the change in the vegetation was
astonishing. It was a sudden transition from an English, plantation of
fir trees into the jungle of the tropics, full of Indian figs, palms,
lancewood, and great mahagua[1] trees, all knotted together by endless
creepers and parasites; while the parrots kept up a continual
chattering and screaming in the tree-tops. The moment we left the
narrow strip of tropical forest that lined the stream we were in the
pine wood. Here the first two or three feet of the trunks of the pine
trees were scorched and blackened by the flames of the tall dry
savannah-grass, which grows close round them, and catches fire several
times every year. Through the pine forest the conflagration spreads
unobstructed, as in an American prairie; but it only runs along the
edge of the dense river-vegetation, which it cannot penetrate.
The Banos de Santa Fe are situated in a cleared space among the fir
trees. The baths themselves are nothing but a cavity in the rock, into
which a stream, at a temperature of about 80 deg., continually flows. A
partition in the middle divides the ladies from the gentlemen, but
allows them to continue their conversation while they sit and splash in
their respective compartments.
The houses are even more quaint than the bathing-establishment. The
whole settlement consists of a square field surrounded by little
houses, each with its roof of palm leaves and indispensable verandah.
Here the Cubans come to stay for months, bathing, smoking cigarettes,
flirting, gossiping, playing cards, and strumming guitars; and they
seemed to be all agreed on one point, that it was a delightful
existence. We left them to their tranquil enjoyments, and rode back to
Nueva Gerona.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26