Anahuac Part 18

My late companion travelled up into the Northern States, went to the Indian a.s.sembly at Manitoulin Island, paid a visit to various tribes of Red Men in the Hudson's Bay Territory--as yet unmissionized, carried away in triumph the big medicine-drum I have already spoken of, and saw and did many other things not to be related here. One sight that he saw, some months later, reminded him of the wild country where we had travelled together. He was in Iowa City, a little town of a year or two's growth, out in the prairie States of the Far West. As he stood one morning in the outskirts, among the plank-houses and half-made roads, there came a solitary horseman riding in. Evidently he had come from the Mexican frontier, a thousand miles and more away across the plains; and no doubt, his waggons and the rest of his party were behind him on the road, beyond the distant horizon of the prairie. By his face he was American, but his costume was the dress of old Mexico, the leather jacket and trousers, the broad white hat and huge jingling spurs. His lazo hung in front of his high-peaked saddle, and his well-worn serape was rolled up behind him like a trooper's cloak. As he approached the town, he spurred his jaded beast, who broke into the old familiar _paso_ of the Mexican plains. "It was my last sight of Mexico," said my companion. He saluted the horseman in Spanish, and the well-known words of welcome made the grim man's haggard sunburnt features relax into a smile as he returned the salutation and rode on.

As for myself, my voyage home was short and unadventurous. From Vera Cruz to Havana, most of my companions were Mexican refugees who had been turned out of the country for being mixed up with Haro's revolution or Santa Ana's intrigues. They were showily got-up men, elaborately polite, and with much to say for themselves; but every now and then some casual remark showed what stuff they were made of, and I pitied more than ever the unfortunate countries whose political destinies depend on the intrigues of these adventurers.

In the hot land-locked bay of St. Thomas's we, with the contents of eight or nine more steamers, were s.h.i.+fted into the great steamer bound homeward. I went ash.o.r.e with an old German gentleman, and walked about the streets. St. Thomas's is a Danish island, and a free port, that is, a smuggling depot for the rest of the West India islands, much as Gibraltar is for the Mediterranean. It is a stifling place, full of mosquitos and yellow fever, and the confusion of tongues reigns there even more than in Gibraltar, for the blacks in the streets all speak three or four languages, and the shopkeepers six or seven.

We were a strange mixture on board the 'Atrato', over two hundred of us. Peruvians and Chilians from across the isthmus, Spaniards and Cubans, black gentlemen from Hayti, French colonists from Martinique, but English preponderating above all other nationalities. One or two governors of small islands, with their families, maintaining the dignity of Government House, at least as far as Southampton, and unapproachable by common mortals. Army men from West India stations, who appeared to spend their mornings in ordering the wine for dinner, and their evenings in abusing it when they had drunk it. West India planters, who thought it was rather hard that the Anti-slavery Society, after ruining them and their plantations, should moreover insist on their believing themselves to be great gainers by the change. We were all crowded, hot, and uncomfortable, and showed our worst side, but as we neared England better influences got the ascendant again.

It was pleasant to breathe a cooler air, and to feel that I was getting back to my own country and my own people; but with this feeling there was mixed some regret for the beautiful scenes I had left. The evenings of our lat.i.tudes seemed poor when we lost the gorgeous sunsets of the tropics, and the sea alive with luminous creatures. When I came on deck one evening and missed the brightest ornament of the sky--the Southern Cross, I felt that I had left the tropics, and that all my efforts to realize the life of the last half-year would produce but a vague and shadowy picture.

Since we left Mexico, I have not cared to follow very accurately even the newspaper intelligence of what has been and still is going on there. It is a pitiable history. Continual wars and revolutions, utter insecurity of life and property, the Indians burning down the haciendas in the South and turning out the white people, the roads on the plains impa.s.sable on account of deserters and robbers; sometimes no practical government at all, then two or three at once, who raise armies and fight a little sometimes, but generally confine themselves to plundering the peaceable inhabitants. An army besieges the capital for months, but appears to do nothing but cut the water off from the aqueducts, shoot stragglers, and levy contributions. One leader raises a forced loan among the foreign residents, and imprisons or expels those who do not submit. The leader on the other side does the same in his part of the country, putting the British merchant in prisons where a fortnight would be a fair average life for an European, and threatening him with summary courtmartial and execution if he does not pay.

London newspapers dwell on these details, and tell us that we may learn from the condition of this unfortunate country how useless are democratic forms among a people incapable of liberty, and that very weak governments can commit all sorts of crimes with impunity, from the fact that they have no official existence which foreign powers can recognize; and various other weighty moral lessons, which must be highly edifying to our countrymen in the Republic, who are meanwhile left pretty much to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.

All this time the United States are steadily advancing; and the destiny of the country is gradually accomplis.h.i.+ng itself. That its total absorption must come, sooner or later, we can hardly doubt. The chief difficulty seems to be that the American const.i.tution will not exactly suit the case. The Republic laid down the right of each citizen to his share in the government of the country as a universal law, founded on indefeasible lights of humanity, fundamental laws of nature, and what not, making, it is true, some slight exceptions with regard to red and black men. The Mexicans, or at least the white and half-caste Mexicans, will be a difficulty. Their claims to citizens.h.i.+p are unquestionable, if Mexico were made a State of the Union; and, as everybody knows, they are totally incapable of governing themselves, which they must be left to do under the const.i.tutional system of the United States; moreover, it is certain that American citizens would never allow even the whitest of the Mexicans to be placed on a footing of equality with themselves.

Supposing these difficulties got over by a Protectorate, an armed occupation, or some similar contrivance, Mexico will undergo a great change. There will be roads and even rail-roads, some security for life and property, liberty of opinion, a nouris.h.i.+ng commerce, a rapidly increasing population, and a variety of good things. Every intelligent Mexican must wish for an event so greatly to the advantage of his country and of the world in general.

Some of our good friends in Mexico have bought land on the American frontier by the hundred square leagues, and can point out patches upon the map of the world as large as Scotland or Ireland--as their private property. What their gains will be when enterprising western men begin to bring the country under cultivation, it is not an easy matter to realize.

As for ourselves individually, we may be excused for cheris.h.i.+ng a lurking kindness for the quaint, picturesque manners and customs of Mexico, as yet un-Americanized; and for rejoicing that it was our fortune to travel there before the coming change, when its most curious peculiarities and its very language must yield before foreign influences.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REBOZO AND THE SERAPE.]

APPENDIX.

I. THE MANUFACTURE OF OBSIDIAN KNIVES, ETC. (_Note to p. 97._)

Some of the old Spanish writers on Mexico give a tolerably full account of the manner in which the obsidian knives, &c., were made by the Aztecs. It will be seen that it only modifies in one particular the theory we had formed by mere inspection as to the way in which these objects were made, which is given at p.97; that is, they were cracked off by pressure, and not, as we conjectured, by a blow of some hard substance.

Torquemada (_Monarquia Indiana, Seville_, 1615) says; (free translation) "They had, and still have, workmen who make knives of a certain black stone or flint, which it is a most wonderful and admirable thing to see them make out of the stone; and the ingenuity which invented this art is much to be praised. They are made and got out of the stone (if one can explain it) in this manner. One of these Indian workmen sits down upon the ground, and takes a piece of this black stone, which is like jet, and hard as flint, and is a stone which might be called precious, more beautiful and brilliant than alabaster or jasper, so much so that of it are made tablets[24] and mirrors. The piece they take is about 8 inches long or rather more, and as thick as one's leg or rather less, and cylindrical; they have a stick as large as the shaft of a lance, and 3 cubits or rather more in length; and at the end of it they fasten firmly another piece of wood, 8 inches long, to give more weight to this part; then, pressing their naked feet together, they hold the stone as with a pair of pincers or the vice of a carpenter's bench. They take the stick (which is cut off smooth at the end) with both hands, and set it well home against the edge of the front of the stone (_y ponenlo avesar con el canto de la frente de la piedra_) which also is cut smooth in that part; and then they press it against their breast, and with the force of the pressure there flies off a knife, with its point, and edge on each tide, as neatly as if one were to make them of a turnip with a sharp knife, or of iron in the fire. Then they sharpen it on a stone, using a hone to give it a very fine edge; and in a very short time these workmen will make more than twenty knives in the aforesaid manner. They come out of the same shape as our barbers' lancets, except that they have a rib up the middle, and have a slight graceful curve towards the point. They will cut and shave the hair the first time they are used, at the first cut nearly as well as a steel razor, but they lose their edge at the second cut; and so, to finish shaving one's beard or hair, one after another has to be used; though indeed they are cheap, and spoiling them is of no consequence. Many Spaniards, both regular and secular clergy, have been shaved with them, especially at the beginning of the colonization of these realms, when there was no such abundance as now of the necessary instruments, and people who gain their livelihood by practising this occupation. But I conclude by saying that it is an admirable thing to see them made, and no small argument for the capacity of the men who found out such an invention."

Vetancurt (_Teatro Mejicano_) gives an account, taken from the above.

Hernandez (_Rerum Med. Nov. Hisp. Thes.: Rome_, 1631) gives a similar account of the process. He compares the wooden instrument used to a cross-bow. It was evidently a T-shaped implement, and the workman held the cross-piece with his two hands against his breast, while the end of the straight stick rested on the stone. He furthermore gives a description of the making of the well-known _maquahuitl_, or Aztec war-club, which was armed on both sides with a row of obsidian knives, or teeth, stuck into holes with a kind of gum. With this instrument, he says, a man could be cut in half at a blow--an absurd statement, which has been repeated by more modern writers.

II. ON THE SOLAR ECLIPSES RECORDED IN THE LE TELLIER MS.

The curious Aztec Picture-writing, known as the _Codex Telleriano-Remenensis_, preserved in the Royal Library of Paris, contains a list or calendar of a long series of years, indicated by the ordinary signs of the Aztec system of notation of cycles of years.

Below the signs of the years are a number of hieroglyphic pictures, conveying the record of remarkable events which happened in them, such as the succession and death of kings, the dates of wars, pestilences, &c. The great work of Lord Kingsborough, which contains a fac-simile of this curious doc.u.ment, reproduces also an ancient interpretation of the matters contained in it, evidently the work of a person who not only understood the interpretation of the Aztec picture-writings, but had access to some independent source of information,--probably the more ample oral traditions, for the recalling of which the picture-writing appears only to have served as a sort of artificial memory. It is not necessary to enter here into a fuller description of the MS., which has also been described by Humboldt and Gallatin.

Among the events recorded in the Codex are four eclipses of the sun, depicted as having happened in the years 1476, 1496, 1507. 1510.

Humboldt, in quoting these dates, makes a remark to the effect that the record tends to prove the veracity of the Aztec history, for solar eclipses really happened in those years, according to the list in the well-known chronological work, _L'Art de Verifier les Dates_, as follows: 28 Feb., 1476; 8 Aug., 1496; 13 Jan., 1507; 8 May, 1510. The work quoted, however, has only reference to eclipses visible in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and not to those in America. The question therefore arises, whether all these four eclipses recorded in _L'Art de Verifier les Dates_, were visible in Mexico. As to the last three, I have no means of answering the question; but it appears that Gama, a Mexican astronomer of some standing, made a series of calculations for a totally distinct purpose about the end of the last century, and found that in 1476 _there was no eclipse of the sun visible in Mexico_, but that there was a great one on the 13th Feb., 1477, and another on the 28th May, 1481.

Supposing that Gama made no mistake in his calculations, the idea at once suggests itself, that the person who compiled or copied the Le Tellier Codex, some few years after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, inserted under the date of 1476 (long before the time of the Spaniards) an eclipse which could not have been recorded there had the doc.u.ment been a genuine Aztec Calendar; _as, though visible in Europe, it was not visible in Mexico_. The supposition of the compiler having merely inserted this date from a European table of eclipses is strengthened by the fact that _the great eclipse of 1477, which was visible in Mexico, but not in Europe, is not to be found there_. These two facts tend to prove that the Codex, though undoubtedly in great part a copy or compilation from genuine native materials, has been deliberately sophisticated with a view of giving it a greater appearance of historical accuracy, by some person who was not quite clever enough to do his work properly. It may, however, be urged as a proof that the mistake is merely the result of carelessness, that we find in the MS.

no notice of the eclipse of 25th May, 1481, which was visible both in Mexico and in Europe, and so ought to have been in the record. This supposition would be consistent with the Codex being really a doc.u.ment in which the part relating to the events before the Spanish Conquest in 1521 is of genuine ancient and native origin, though the whole is compiled in a very grossly careless manner. It would be very desirable to verify the years of all the four eclipses with reference to their being visible in Mexico, as this might probably clear up the difficulty.

III. TABLE OK AZTEC ROOTS COMPARED WITH SANSCRIT, ETC.

Several lists of Aztec words compared with those of various Indo-European languages have been given by philologists. The present is larger than any I have met with; several words in it are taken from Buschmann's work on the Mexican languages. It is desirable in a philological point of view that comparative lists of words of this kind should be made, even when, as in the present instance, they are not of sufficient extent to found any theory upon.

As the Aztec alphabet does not contain nearly all the Sanscrit consonants, many of them must be compared with the nearest Aztec sounds, as:

SANSCRIT, t, th, d, dh, &c. ... AZTEC, t.

SANSCRIT, k, kh, g, gh, &c. ... AZTEC c.q.

SANSCRIT, l, r. ... AZTEC, l.

SANSCRIT, b, bh, v. ... AZTEC, v. or u.

The Aztec c is soft (as s) before e and i, hard (as k) before a, o, u.

The Aztec ch as in _cheese_. I have followed Molina's orthography in writing such words as _uel_ or _vel_ (English, _well_) instead of the more modern, but I think less correct way, _huel_.

1. a-, _negative prefix_ (_as_ qualli, _good_; aqualli, _bad_). SANS., a-; GREEK, a-, &c.

2. o-, _preterite augment_ (_as_ nitemachtia, _I teach_; onitemachti, _I taught_); SANS., a-; compare GREEK e-.

3. pal, _prep. by_: compare SANS. _prep._, para, _back_; pari, _circ.u.m_; pra, _before_; GREEK, para; LAT., per.

4. ce-, cen-, cem-, _prefix collective_ (_as_ tlalla, _to place_, centlalla, _to collect_); SANS., sa-, san-, sam-; GREEK, syn; LAT., syn.

5. ce, cen-, cem-, _one_. SANS., sa (_in_ sa-krit, _once_: comp. Bopp, Gloss., p. 362.) LAT., se-_mel_, si-_mul_, sim-_plex_.

6. metz (metz-tli), _moon_. SANS., mas.

7. tlal (tlal-li), _earth_. SANS., tala, dhara. LAT., terra, tellus.

8. citlal (citlal-in), _star_. SANS., stri, stara. LAT., stella. Eng., star.

9. atoya (atoya-tl), _river_. SANS., udya.

10. teuh (teuh-tli), _dust_. Sans., dhu-li (_from_ dhu, to drive about.)

11. teo (teo-tl),_G.o.d_. Sans., deva. Greek, _Theos_. Lat., deus.

12. qual (qual-li),_good_. Sans., kalya, kalyana. Greek, kalor.

13. uel, _well_. Sans., vara, _excellent_; vli, _to choose_. Lat., velle. Icel., vel. Eng., well.

14. uel, _power, brave, &c_., (uel-e, tla-uel-e.) Sans., bala, _strength_. Lat., valeo, valor.

15. auil, _vicious, wasteful_. Sans., avila, _sinful, guilty;_ abala, _weak_. Eng., evil.

16. miec, _much_. Sans., mahat, _great_; manh _or_ mah, _to grow_.

Icel., miok, _much_. Eng., much.

17. vey, _great_. Sans., bahu, _much_.