Anahuac written by Edward Burnett Tylor

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When we had visited the falls we took leave of our hospitable friend,
and set off to return to the Real. We stopped at San Miguel, another of
the haciendas of the Company, where the German barrel-process is
worked. Just behind the hacienda is the Ojo de Agua--the Eye of
Water--a beautiful basin, surrounded by a green sward and a wood of
oaks and fir-trees. A little stream takes its rise from the spring
which bubbles up into this basin, and the name "Ojo de Agua," is a
general term applied to such fountain-heads. When one looks down from a
high hill upon one of these Eyes of Water, one sees how the name came
to be given, and indeed, the idiom is thousands of years older than the
Spanish tongue, and belongs as well to the Hebrew and Arabic. A Mexican
calls a lake _atezcatl_, Water-Mirror, an expressive word, which
reminds one of the German _Wasserspiegel_.

Soon after nightfall we got back to the English inn, and went to bed
without any further event happening, except the burning of some
outhouses, which we went out to see. The custom of roofing houses with
pine-shingles ("tacumeniles"), and the general use of wood for building
all the best houses, make fires very common here. During the few days
we spent in the Real district, I find in my notebook mention of three
fires which we saw. We spent the next day in resting, and in visiting
the mine-works near at hand. The day after, an Englishman who had lived
many years at the Real offered to take us out for a day's ride; and the
Company's Administrador lent us two of his own horses, for the poor
beasts from Pachuca could hardly have gone so far. The first place we
visited was Penas Cargadas, the "loaded rocks." Riding through a thick
wood of oaks and pines, we came suddenly in view of several sugar-loaf
peaks, some three hundred feet high, tapering almost to a point at the
top, and each one crowned with a mass of rocks which seem to have been
balanced in unstable equilibrium on its point,--looking as though the
first puff of wind would bring them down. The pillars were of
porphyritic conglomerate, which had been disintegrated and worn away by
wind and rain; while the great masses resting on them, probably of
solid porphyry, had been less affected by these influences. It was the
most curious example of the weathering of rocks that we had ever seen.
From Penas Cargadas we rode on to the farm of Guajalote, where the
Company has forests, and cuts wood and burns charcoal for the mines and
the refining works. Don Alejandro, the tenant of the farm, was a
Scotchman, and a good fellow. He could not go on with us, for he had
invited a party of neighbours to eat up a kid that had been cooked in a
hole in the ground, with embers upon it, after Sandwich Island fashion.
This is called a _barbacoa_--a barbecue. We should have liked to be at
the feast, but time was short, so we rode on to the top of Mount Jacal,
12,000 feet above the sea, where there was a view of mountains and
valleys, and heat that was positively melting. Thence down to the Cerro
de Navajas, the "hill of knives." It is on the sides of this hill that
obsidian is found in enormous quantities. Before the conquerors
introduced the use of iron, these deposits were regularly mined, and
this place was the Sheffield of Mexico.

We were curious to see all that was to be seen; for Mr. Christy's
Mexican collection, already large before our visit, and destined to
become much larger, contained numbers of implements and weapons of this
very peculiar material. Any one who does not know obsidian may imagine
great masses of bottle-glass, such as our orthodox ugly wine-bottles
are made of, very hard, very brittle, and--if one breaks it with any
ordinary implement--going, as glass does, in every direction but the
right one. We saw its resemblance to this portwine-bottle-glass in an
odd way at the Ojo de Agua, where the wall of the hacienda was armed at
the top, after our English fashion, apparently with bits of old
bottles, but which turned out to be chips of obsidian. Out of this
rather unpromising stuff the Mexicans made knives, razors, arrow- and
spear-heads, and other things, some of great beauty. I say nothing of
the polished obsidian mirrors and ornaments, nor even of the curious
masks of the human face that are to be seen in collections, for these
were only laboriously cut and polished with jewellers' sand, to us a
common-place process.

[Illustration: STONE SPEAR-HEADS AND OBSIDIAN KNIVES AND ARROW-HEADS,
FROM MEXICO. 1. Flame shaped Arrow-head; obsidian: Teleohuacan. 2.
Arrow-head; opake obsidian: Teleohuacan. 3. Knife or Razor of Obsidian;
shown in two aspects; Mexico. 4. Leaf-shaped Knife or Javelin-head;
obsidian: from Real Del Monte. 5. Spear-head of Chalcedony; one of a
pair supposed to be spears of State: found in excavating for the Casa
Grande, Tezcuco. (This peculiar opalescent chalcedony occurs as
concretions, sometimes of large size, in the trachytic lavas of
Mexico.)]

Cortes found the barbers at the great market of Tlatelolco busy shaving
the natives with such razors, and he and his men had experience of
other uses of the same material in the flights of obsidian-headed
arrows which "darkened the sky," as they said, and the more deadly
wooden maces stuck all over with obsidian points, and of the priests'
sacrificial knives too, not long after. These things were not cut and
polished, but made by chipping or cracking off pieces from a lump. This
one can see by the traces of conchoidal fracture which they all show.

The art is not wholly understood, for it perished soon after the
Conquest, when iron came in; but, as far as the theory is concerned, I
think I can give a tolerably satisfactory account of the process of
manufacture. In the first place, the workman who makes gun-flints could
probably make some of the simpler obsidian implements, which were no
doubt chipped off in the same way. The section of a gun-flint, with its
one side flat for sharpness and the other side ribbed for strength, is
one of the characteristics of obsidian knives. That the flint knives of
Scandinavia were made by chipping off strips from a mass is proved by
the many-sided prisms occasionally found there, and particularly by
that one which was discovered just where it had been worked, with the
knives chipped off it lying close by, and fitting accurately into their
places upon it.

Now to make the case complete, we ought to find such prisms in Mexico;
and, accordingly, some months ago, when I examined the splendid Mexican
collection of Mr. Uhde at Heidelberg, I found one or two. No one seemed
to have suspected their real nature, and they had been classed as
maces, or the handles of some kind of weapon.

[Illustration: FLUTED PRISM OF OBSIDIAN: THE CORE FROM WHICH FLAKES
HAVE BEEN STRUCK OFF.]

I should say from memory that they were seven or eight inches long, and
as large as one could conveniently grasp; and one or both of them, as
if to remove all doubt as to what they were, had the stripping off of
ribbons not carried quite round them, but leaving an intermediate strip
rough. There is another point about the obsidian knives which requires
confirmation. One can often see, on the ends of the Scandinavian flint
knives, the bruise made by the blow of the hard stone with which they
were knocked off. I did not think of looking to this point when at Mr.
Uhde's museum, but the only obsidian knife I have seen since seems to
be thus bruised at the end.

[Illustration: AZTEC KNIVES OR RAZORS. LONG NARROW FLAKES OF OBSIDIAN,
HAVING A SINGLE FACE ON THE ONE SIDE AND THREE FACETS ON THE OTHER.]

Once able to break his obsidian straight, the workman has got on a long
way in his trade, for a large proportion of the articles he has to make
are formed by planes intersecting one another in various directions.
But the Mexican knives are generally not pointed, but turned up at the
end, as one may bend up a druggist's spatula. This peculiar shape is
not given to answer a purpose, but results from the natural fracture of
the stone.

Even then, the way of making several implements or weapons is not
entirely clear. We got several obsidian maces or lance-heads--one about
ten inches long--which were taper from base to point, and covered with
taper flutings; and there are other things which present great
difficulties. I have heard on good authority, that somewhere in Peru,
the Indians still have a way of working obsidian by laying a bone wedge
on the surface of a piece, and tapping it till the stone cracks. Such a
process may have been used in Mexico.

We may see in museums beautiful little articles made in this
intractable material, such as the mirrors and masks I have mentioned,
and even rings and cups. But, as I have said, these are mere
lapidaries' work.

The situation of the mines was picturesque; grand hills of porphyritic
rock, and pine-forest everywhere. Not far off is the broad track of a
hurricane, which had walked through it for miles, knocking the great
trees down like ninepins, and leaving them to rot there. The vegetation
gave evident proof of a severe climate; and yet the heat and glare of
the sun were more intolerable than we had ever felt it in the region of
sugar-canes and bananas. About here, some of the trachytic porphyry
which forms the substance of the hills had happened to have cooled,
under suitable conditions, from the molten state into a sort of slag or
volcanic glass, which is the obsidian in question; and, in places, this
vitreous lava--from one layer having flowed over another which was
already cool--was regularly stratified.

The mines were mere wells, not very deep; with horizontal workings into
the obsidian where it was very good and in thick layers. Round about
were heaps of fragments, hundreds of tons of them; and it was clear,
from the shape of these, that some of the manufacturing was done on the
spot. There had been great numbers of pits worked; and it was from
these "minillas," little mines, as they are called, that we first got
an idea how important an element this obsidian was in the old Aztec
civilization. In excursions made since, we travelled over whole
districts in the plains, where fragments of these arrows and knives
were to be found, literally at every step, mixed with morsels of
pottery, and here and there a little clay idol. Among the heaps of
fragments were many that had become weathered on the upper side, and
had a remarkable lustre, like silver. Obsidian is called _bizcli_ by
the Indians, and the silvery sort is known as _bizcli platera_.[11]
They often find bits of it in the fields; and go with great secrecy and
mystery to Mr. Bell, or some other authority in mining matters, and
confide to him their discovery of a silver-mine. They go away angry and
unconvinced when told what their silver really is; and generally come
to the conclusion that he is deceiving them, with a view of throwing
them off the scent, that he may find the place for himself, and cheat
them of their share of the profits--just what their own miserable
morbid cunning would lead them to do under such circumstances.

[Illustration: MEXICAN ARROW-HEADS OF OBSIDIAN.]

The family-likeness that exists among the stone tools and weapons found
in so many parts of the world is very remarkable. The flint-arrows of
North America, such as Mr. Longfellow's arrow-maker used to work at in
the land of the Dacotahs, and which, in the wild northern states of
Mexico, the Apaches and Comanches use to this day, might be easily
mistaken for the weapons of our British ancestors, dug up on the banks
of the Thames. It is true that the finish of the Mexican obsidian
implements far exceeds that of the chipped flint and agate weapons of
Scandinavia, and still more those of England, Switzerland, and Italy,
where they are dug up in such quantities, in deposits of alluvial soil,
and in bone-caves in the limestone rocks. But this higher finish we may
attribute partly to the superiority of the material; for the Mexicans
also used flint to some extent, and their flint weapons are as hard to
distinguish by inspection as those from other parts of the world. We
may reasonably suppose, moreover, that the skill of the Mexican
artificer increased when he found a better material than flint to work
upon. Be this as it may, an inspection of any good collection of such
articles shows the much higher finish of the obsidian implements than
of those of flint, agate, and rock-crystal. They say there is an
ingenious artist who makes flint arrow-heads and stone axes for the
benefit of English antiquarians, and earns good profits by it: I should
like to give him an order for ribbed obsidian razors and spear-heads; I
don't think he would make much of them.

[Illustration: AZTEC KNIFE OF CHALCEDONY, MOUNTED ON A WOODEN HANDLE,
WHICH IS SHAPED LIKE A HUMAN FIGURE WITH ITS FACE APPEARING THROUGH AN
EAGLE-HEAD MASK, AND HAS BEEN INLAID WITH MOSAIC WORK OF MALACHITE,
SHELL, AND TURQUOISE. LENGTH 12-1/2 INCHES.]

The wonderful similarity of character among the stone weapons found in
different parts of the world has often been used by ethnologists as a
means of supporting the theory that this and other arts were carried
over the world by tribes migrating from one common centre of creation
of the human species. The argument has not much weight, and a larger
view of the subject quite supersedes it.

We may put the question in this way. In Asia and in Europe the use of
stone tools and weapons has always characterized a very low state of
civilization; and such implements are only found among savage tribes
living by the chase, or just beginning to cultivate the ground and to
emerge from the condition of mere barbarians. Now, if the Mexicans got
their civilization from Europe, it must have been from some people
unacquainted with the use of iron, if not of bronze. Iron abounds in
Mexico, not only in the state of ore, but occurring nearly pure in
aerolites of great size, as at Cholula, and at Zacatecas, not far from
the great ruins there; so that the only reason for their not using it
must have been ignorance of its qualities.

The Arabian Nights' story of the mountain which consisted of a single
loadstone finds its literal fulfilment in Mexico. Not far from Huetamo,
on the road towards the Pacific, there is a conical hill composed
entirely of magnetic iron-ore. The blacksmiths in the neighbourhood,
with no other apparatus than their common forges, make it directly into
wrought iron, which they use for all ordinary purposes.

Now, in supposing civilization to be transmitted from one country to
another, we must measure it by the height of its lowest point, as we
measure the strength of a chain by the strength of the weakest link.
The only civilization that the Mexicans can have received from the Old
World must have been from some people whose cutting implements were of
sharp stone, consequently, as we must conclude by analogy, some very
barbarous and ignorant tribe.

From this point we must admit that the inhabitants of Mexico raised
themselves, independently, to the extraordinary degree of culture which
distinguished them when Europeans first became aware of their
existence. The curious distribution of their knowledge shows plainly
that they found it for themselves, and did not receive it by
transmission. We find a wonderful acquaintance with astronomy, even to
such details as the real cause of eclipses,--and the length of the year
given by intercalations of surprising accuracy; and, at the same time,
no knowledge whatever of the art of writing alphabetically, for their
hieroglyphics are nothing but suggestive pictures. They had earned the
art of gardening to a high degree of perfection; but, though there were
two kinds of ox, and the buffalo at no great distance from them, in the
countries they had already passed through in their migration from the
north, they had no idea of the employment of beasts of burden, nor of
the use of milk. They were a great trading people, and had money of
several kinds in general use, but the art of weighing was utterly
unknown to them; while, on the other hand, the Peruvians habitually
used scales and weights, but had no idea of the use of money.

To return to the stone knives; the Mexicans may very well have invented
the art themselves, as they did so many others; or they may have
received it from the Old World. The things themselves prove nothing
either way.

The real proof of their having, at some early period, communicated with
inhabitants of Europe or Asia rests upon the traditions current among
them, which are recorded by the early historians, and confirmed by the
Aztec picture-writings; and upon several extraordinary coincidences in
the signs used by them in reckoning astronomical cycles. Further on I
shall allude to these traditions.

On the whole, the most probable view of the origin of the Mexican
tribes seems to be the one ordinarily held, that they really came from
the Old World, bringing with them several legends, evidently the same
as the histories recorded in the book of Genesis. This must have been,
however, at a time, when they were quite a barbarous, nomadic tribe;
and we must regard their civilization as of independent and far later
growth.

We rode back through the woods to Guajalote, where the Mexican cook had
made us a feast after the manner of the country, and from her
experience of foreigners had learnt to temper the chile to our
susceptible throats. Decidedly the Mexicans are not without ideas in
the matter of cookery. We stayed talking with the hospitable Don
Alejandro and his sister till it was all but dark, and then rode back
to the Real, admiring the fire-flies that were darting about by
thousands, and listening to our companion's stories, which turned on
robberies and murders---as stories are apt to do in wild places after
dark. But, save an escape from being robbed some twenty years back, and
the history of an Indian who was murdered just here by some of his own
people, for a few shillings he was taking home, our friend had not much
reason to give for the two huge horse-pistols ho carried, ready for
action. His story of the death of a German engineer in these parts is
worth recording here. He was riding home one dark night, with a
companion; and, trusting to his knowledge of the country, tried a short
cut through the woods, among the old open mines near the Regla road.
They had quite passed all the dangerous places, he thought, so he gave
his horse the spur, and plunged sheer down a shaft, hundreds of feet
deep. His friend pulled up in time, and got home safely.

We had one more day among the mines, and then went back to Pachuca, and
next day to Mexico in the Diligence. Everywhere the same hospitality
and good-natured interest in us and our doings, often shown by people
with whom we had hardly the slightest acquaintance. Travelling here is
very different from what it is in a country on which the shadow of
Murray's Handbook has fallen.

Almost all the interest Europe takes in Mexico, politically and
commercially, turns upon the exportation of silver. The gold,
cochineal, and vanilla are of small account. It is the silver dollars
that pay for the Manchester goods, woollens, hardware, and many other
things--those ubiquitous boxes of sardines a l'huile, for instance. The
Mexicans send to Europe some five millions sterling in silver every
year, that is, about twelve shillings apiece for all the population. It
is just about what their government spends annually in promoting the
maladministration of the country (and, looking at the matter in that
point of view, they don't do their work badly for the money). The
income of the Mexican church is not quite so much, but not far off.

Baron Humboldt has expressed a hope that, at some future day, the
Mexicans will turn their attention to producing articles of real
intrinsic value, and not those which are merely a sign to represent it.
He tells us, quite feelingly, how the Peace of Amiens stopped the
working of the iron-mines that had been opened when they could get no
iron from abroad; for, when trade was reopened, people preferred buying
in Europe probably a better article at one-third the price. He even
hopes an enlightened government will encourage (that is, protect) more
useful industries. This was written fifty years ago, though. If an
enlightened government will give people some security for life and
property, and make reasonable laws, and execute them,--leaving men of
business to find out for themselves how it suits them to employ their
capital, it seems probable that the balance between articles of real
value and articles of imaginary value will adjust itself, perhaps
better than an enlightened government could do it. The Mexican
government has, unfortunately, followed Humboldt's advice in some
respects. Cotton goods, woollens, and hardware are thus protected. We
may sum up the statistics of the Mexican cotton-manufacture in a rough
way thus,--taking merely into question the coarse cotton cloth called
_manta_, and used principally by the Indians. We may reckon roughly
that for this article alone the Mexicans have to pay a million sterling
annually more than they could get it for if there were no
protection-duty. The only advantage anybody gets by this is that a
certain part of the population is employed in a manufacture unsuited to
the country, and is thus taken away from work that may be done
profitably. The actual amount of money paid in wages to the class of
operatives thus forced into existence is much _less_ than the amount
which the country forfeits for the sake of making its manta at home.
Thus a sum actually amounting to a third of the annual taxation of the
country is thrown away upon this one article; and more goes the same
way, to encourage similar unprofitable manufactures.

With respect to the silver-mines, it is stated, on competent authority,
that the northern States of Mexico are very rich in silver; but there
is scarcely any population, and that consisting mostly of Red Indians
who will not work. When this district becomes a territory of the United
States--as seems almost certain, this silver will, no doubt, be worked.
We may make three periods in the history of Mexican silver-mining.
Before the Conquest, the Aztecs worked the silver-ore at Tasco and
other places; and were very familiar with silver, though they did not
value it much. Under the Spaniards, the working of silver became the
prominent industry of the country; and, until the Mexican Independence,
the production steadily increased. The Spaniards invented amalgamation
by the _patio_-process, a most, important improvement. Then came above
twenty years of confusion, when little was done. But when the Republic
had fairly got under way, and the country was in some measure open to
foreigners, Europe, especially England, in hot haste to take advantage
of the opportunity, sent over engineers and machinery, and great sums
of money, much of which was quite wasted, to the hopeless ruin of a
great part of the adventurers.

The improvements and the machinery remained, however; and the mines
passed into other hands. Of late years the companies have been doing
very well, and now export nearly as much silver as during the latter
years of the Spanish government--nearly, but not quite. The financial
history of the Real del Monte Company is worth putting down. The
original English company spent nearly one million sterling on it,
without getting any dividend. They sold it to two or three Mexicans for
about twenty-seven thousand pounds, and the Mexicans spent eighty
thousand more on it, and then began to make profits. The annual profit
is now some L200,000.

I have said that the modern Mexican Indian has but little idea of
arithmetic. This was not the case with his ancestors, who had a curious
notation, serving for the highest numbers. The Indians of the present
day use the old Aztec numerals, and from these there is something to be
learnt.

Baron Humboldt, speaking of the Muysca Indians of South America, says
that their word for eleven is _quihicha ata_, that is, "foot one;"
meaning that they have counted all their fingers, and are beginning
their toes. He proceeds to compare the Persian words, _pentcha_, hand,
and _pendj_, five, as being connected with one another, and gives
various other curious instances of finger-numeration. We may carry the
theory further. The Zulu language reckons from one up to five, and then
goes on with _tatisitupe_ ("take the thumb"), meaning _six_;
_tatukomba_ ("take the pointer," or forefinger), meaning _seven_, and
so on. The Vei language counts from one up to nineteen, and for twenty
says _mo bande_--"a person is finished"--that is, both fingers and
toes. I venture to add another suggestion. Eichhoff gives a Sanskrit
word for finger, "daicini" (taken apparently from _pra-decini_,
forefinger), and which corresponds curiously with "dacan," ten; and we
have the same resemblance running through many of the Indo-European
languages, as [Greek: deka] and [Greek: daktylos], _decem_ and
_digitus_; German, _Zehn_ and _Zehe_, and so on.

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