The Discovery of America Part 8

[Footnote 112: Compare this description with that of the inst.i.tutions of Indians in the lower status, above, p. 69.]

[Sidenote: Rights and duties of the clan.]

The members of the clan were reciprocally bound to aid, defend, and avenge one another; but wergild was no longer accepted, and the penalty for murder was death. The clan exercised the right of naming its members. Such names were invariably significant (as _Nezahualcoyotl_, "Hungry Coyote," _Axayacatl_, "Face-in-the-Water," etc.), and more or less "medicine," or superst.i.tious a.s.sociation, was attached to the name.

The clans also had their significant names and totems. Each clan had its peculiar religious rites, its priests or medicine-men who were members of the clan council, and its temple or medicine-house. Instead of burying their dead the Mexican tribes practised cremation; there was, therefore, no common cemetery, but the funeral ceremonies were conducted by the clan.

[Sidenote: Aztec phratries.]

The clans of the Aztecs, like those of many other Mexican tribes, were organized into four phratries; and this divided the city of Mexico, as the Spaniards at once remarked, into four quarters. The phratry had acquired more functions than it possessed in the lower status. Besides certain religious and social duties, and besides its connection with the punishment of criminals, the Mexican phratry was an organization for military purposes.[113] The four phratries were four divisions of the tribal host, each with its captain. In each of the quarters was an a.r.s.enal, or "dart-house," where weapons were stored, and from which they were handed out to war-parties about to start on an expedition.

[Footnote 113: In this respect it seems to have had some resemblance to the Roman _centuria_ and Teutonic _hundred_. So in prehistoric Greece we may perhaps infer from Nestor's advice to Agamemnon that a similar organization existed:--

[Greek: krin' andras kata phyla, kata phretras, Agamemnon, hos phretre phretrephin arege, phyla de phylois.]

_Iliad_, ii. 362.

But the phratry seems never to have reached so high a development among the Greeks as among the Romans and the early English.]

[Sidenote: The tribal council.]

The supreme government of the Aztecs was vested in the tribal council composed of twenty members, one for each clan. The member, representing a clan, was not its _calpullec_, or "sachem;" he was one of the _tecuhtli_, or clan-chiefs, and was significantly called the "speaker"

(_tlatoani_). The tribal council, thus composed of twenty speakers, was called the _tlatocan_, or "place of speech."[114] At least as often as once in ten days the council a.s.sembled at the _tecpan_, or official house of the tribe, but it could be convened whenever occasion required, and in cases of emergency was continually in session. Its powers and duties were similar to those of an ancient English s.h.i.+remote, in so far as they were partly directive and partly judicial. A large part of its business was settling disputes between the clans. It superintended the ceremonies of invest.i.ture with which the chiefs and other officers of the clans were sworn into office. At intervals of eighty days there was an "extra session" of the _tlatocan_, attended also by the twenty "elder brothers," the four phratry-captains, the two executive chiefs of the tribe, and the leading priests, and at such times a reconsideration of an unpopular decision might be urged; but the authority of the _tlatocan_ was supreme, and from its final decision there could be no appeal.[115]

[Footnote 114: Compare _parliament_ from _parler_. These twenty were the "grandees," "counsellors," and "captains" mentioned by Bernal Diaz as always in Montezuma's company; "y siempre a la contina estaban en su compania veinte grandes senores y consejeros y capitanes," etc. _Historia verdadera_, ii. 95. See Bandelier, _op. cit._ p. 646.]

[Footnote 115: Mr. Bandelier's note on this point gives an especially apt ill.u.s.tration of the confusion of ideas and inconsistencies of statement amid which the early Spanish writers struggled to understand and describe this strange society: _op. cit._ p. 651.]

[Sidenote: The "snake-woman."]

The executive chiefs of the tribe were two in number, as was commonly the case in ancient America. The tribal sachem, or civil executive, bore the grotesque t.i.tle of _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman."[116] His relation to the tribe was in general like that of the _calpullec_ to the clan. He executed the decrees of the tribal council, of which he was _ex officio_ a member, and was responsible for the housing of tribute and its proper distribution among the clans. He was also chief judge, and he was lieutenant to the head war-chief in command of the tribal host.[117]

He was elected for life by the tribal council, which could depose him for misconduct.

[Footnote 116: In Aztec mythology Cihuacoatl was wife of the supreme night deity, Tezcatlipoca. Squier, _Serpent Symbol in America_, pp. 159-166, 174-183. On the connection between serpent wors.h.i.+p and human sacrifices, see Fergusson's _Tree and Serpent Wors.h.i.+p_, pp. 3-5, 38-41. Much evidence as to American serpent wors.h.i.+p is collected in J. G. Muller's _Geschichte der amerikanischen Urreligionen_, Basel, 1855. The hieroglyphic emblem of the Aztec tribal sachem was a female head surmounted by a snake.]

[Footnote 117: Other tribes besides the Aztec had the "snake-woman." In the city of Mexico the Spaniards mistook him for a "second-king," or "royal lieutenant." In other towns they regarded him, somewhat more correctly, as "governor," and called him _gobernador_,--a t.i.tle still applied to the tribal sachem of the pueblo Indians, as e. g. in Zuni heretofore mentioned; see above p. 89.]

[Sidenote: The "chief-of men."]

[Sidenote: Evolution of kings.h.i.+p in Greece and Rome.]

The office of head war-chief was an instance of primitive royalty in a very interesting stage of development. The t.i.tle of this officer was _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men."[118] He was primarily head war-chief of the Aztec tribe, but about 1430 became supreme military commander of the three confederate tribes, so that his office was one of peculiar dignity and importance. When the Spaniards arrived upon the scene Montezuma was _tlacatecuhtli_, and they naturally called him "king." To understand precisely how far such an epithet could correctly be applied to him, and how far it was misleading, we must recall the manner in which early kings.h.i.+p arose in Europe. The Roman _rex_ was an officer elected for life; the typical Greek _basileus_ was a somewhat more fully developed king, inasmuch as his office was becoming practically hereditary; otherwise _rex_ was about equivalent to _basileus_. Alike in Rome and in Greece the king had at least three great functions, and possibly four.[119] He was, primarily, chief commander, secondly, chief priest, thirdly, chief judge; whether he had reached the fourth stage and added the functions of chief civil executive, is matter of dispute.

Kings.h.i.+p in Rome and in most Greek cities was overthrown at so early a date that some questions of this sort are difficult to settle. But in all probability the office grew up through the successive acquisition of ritual, judicial, and civil functions by the military commander. The paramount necessity of consulting the tutelar deities before fighting resulted in making the general a priest competent to perform sacrifices and interpret omens;[120] he thus naturally became the most important among priests; an increased sanct.i.ty invested his person and office; and by and by he acquired control over the dispensation of justice, and finally over the whole civil administration. One step more was needed to develop the _basileus_ into a despot, like the king of Persia, and that was to let him get into his hands the law-making power, involving complete control over taxation. When the Greeks and Romans became dissatisfied with the increasing powers of their kings, they destroyed the office. The Romans did not materially diminish its functions, but put them into commission, by entrusting them to two consuls of equal authority elected annually. The Greeks, on the other hand, divided the royal functions among different officers, as e. g. at Athens among the nine archons.[121]

[Footnote 118: This t.i.tle seems precisely equivalent to [Greek: anax andron], commonly applied to Agamemnon, and sometimes to other chieftains, in the Iliad.]

[Footnote 119: Ramsay's _Roman Antiquities_, p. 64; Hermann's _Political Antiquities of Greece_, p. 105; Morgan, _Anc. Soc._, p. 248.]

[Footnote 120: Such would naturally result from the desirableness of securing unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole command of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and had been a _basileus_, with priestly authority, who can doubt that some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus would have been adopted, and thus one of the world's great tragedies averted? See Grote, _Hist.

Greece_, vol. vii. chap. lx. M. Fustel de Coulanges, in his admirable book _La Cite antique_, pp. 205-210, makes the priestly function of the king primitive, and the military function secondary; which is entirely inconsistent with what we know of barbarous races.]

[Footnote 121: It is worthy of note that the archon who retained the priestly function was called _basileus_, showing perhaps that at that time this had come to be most prominent among the royal functions, or more likely that it was the one with which reformers had some religious scruples about interfering. The Romans, too, retained part of the king's priestly function in an officer called _rex sacrorum_, whose duty was at times to offer a sacrifice in the forum, and then run away as fast as legs could carry him,--[Greek: hen thysas ho basileus, kata tachos apeisi pheugon ex agoras] (!) Plutarch, _Quaest. Rom._ 63.]

[Sidenote: Mediaeval kings.h.i.+p.]

The typical kings.h.i.+p in mediaeval Europe, after the full development of the feudal system, was very different indeed from the kings.h.i.+p in early Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages all priestly functions had pa.s.sed into the hands of the Church.[122] A king like Charles VII. of France, or Edward III. of England, was military commander, civil magistrate, chief judge, and _supreme landlord_; the people were his tenants. That was the kind of king with which the Spanish discoverers of Mexico were familiar.

[Footnote 122: Something of the priestly quality of "sanct.i.ty,"

however, surrounded the king's person; and the ceremony of anointing the king at his coronation was a survival of the ancient rite which invested the head war-chief with priestly attributes.]

[Sidenote: Montezuma was a "priest-commander."]

Now the Mexican _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men," was much more like Agamemnon in point of kings.h.i.+p than like Edward III. He was not supreme landlord, for landlords.h.i.+p did not exist in Mexico. He was not chief judge or civil magistrate; those functions belonged to the "snake-woman." Mr. Bandelier regards the "chief-of-men" as simply a military commander; but for reasons which I shall state hereafter,[123]

it seems quite clear that he exercised certain very important priestly functions, although beside him there was a kind of high-priest or medicine-chief. If I am right in holding that Montezuma was a "priest-commander," then incipient royalty in Mexico had advanced at least one stage beyond the head war-chief of the Iroquois, and remained one stage behind the _basileus_ of the Homeric Greeks.

[Footnote 123: They can be most conveniently stated in connection with the story of the conquest of Mexico; see below, vol. ii. p. 278. When Mr. Bandelier completes his long-promised paper on the ancient Mexican religion, perhaps it will appear that he has taken these facts into the account.]

[Sidenote: Mode of succession to the office.]

The _tlacatecuhtli_, or "chief-of-men," was elected by an a.s.sembly consisting of the tribal council, the "elder brothers" of the several clans, and certain leading priests. Though the office was thus elective, the choice seems to have been practically limited to a particular clan, and in the eleven chiefs who were chosen from 1375 to 1520 a certain principle or custom of succession seems to be plainly indicated.[124]

There was a further limit to the order of succession. Allusion has been made to the four phratry-captains commanding the quarters of the city.

Their cheerful t.i.tles were "man of the house of darts," "cutter of men,"

"bloodshedder," and "chief of the eagle and cactus." These captains were military chiefs of the phratries, and also magistrates charged with the duty of maintaining order and enforcing the decrees of the council in their respective quarters. The "chief of the eagle and cactus" was chief executioner,--Jack Ketch. He was not eligible for the office of "chief-of-men;" the three other phratry-captains were eligible. Then there was a member of the priesthood ent.i.tled "man of the dark house."

This person, with the three eligible captains, made a quartette, and one of this privileged four _must_ succeed to the office of "chief-of-men."

[Footnote 124: I cannot follow Mr. Bandelier in discrediting Clavigero's statement that the office of _tlacatecuhtli_ "should always remain in the house of Acamapitzin," inasmuch as the eleven who were actually elected were all closely akin to one another. In point of fact it _did_ remain "in the house of Acamapitzin."]

The eligibility of the "man of the dark house" may be cited here as positive proof that sometimes the "chief-of-men" could be a "priest-commander." That in all cases he acquired priestly functions after election, even when he did not possess them before, is indicated by the fact that at the ceremony of his induction into office he ascended to the summit of the pyramid sacred to the war-G.o.d Huitzilopochtli, where he was anointed by the high-priest with a black ointment, and sprinkled with sanctified water; having thus become consecrated he took a censer of live coals and a bag of copal, and as his first official act offered incense to the war-G.o.d.[125]

[Footnote 125: H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, vol. ii. p. 145. Hence the accounts of the reverent demeanour of the people toward Montezuma, though perhaps overcoloured, are not so absurd as Mr. Morgan deemed them. Mr.

Morgan was sometimes too anxious to reduce Montezuma to the level of an Iroquois war-chief.]

[Sidenote: Manner of collecting tribute.]

As the "chief-of-men" was elected, so too he could be deposed for misbehaviour. He was _ex officio_ a member of the tribal council, and he had his official residence in the _tecpan_, or tribal house, where the meetings of the council were held, and where the hospitalities of the tribe were extended to strangers. As an administrative officer, the "chief-of-men" had little to do within the limits of the tribe; that, as already observed, was the business of the "snake-woman." But outside of the confederacy the "chief-of-men" exercised administrative functions.

He superintended the collection of tribute. Each of the three confederate tribes appointed, through its tribal council, agents to visit the subjected pueblos and gather in the tribute. These agents were expressively termed _calpixqui_, "crop-gatherers." As these men were obliged to spend considerable time in the vanquished pueblos in the double character of tax-collectors and spies, we can imagine how hateful their position was. Their security from injury depended upon the reputation of their tribes for ruthless ferocity.[126] The tiger-like confederacy was only too ready to take offence; in the lack of a decent pretext it often went to war without one, simply in order to get human victims for sacrifice.

[Footnote 126: As I have elsewhere observed in a similar case:--"Each summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired; and up and down the Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons and wampum, and proclaimed the last harsh edict issued from the savage council at Onondaga." _Beginnings of New England_, p.

121.]

Once appointed, the tax-gatherers were directed by the "chief-of-men."

The tribute was chiefly maize, but might be anything the conquerors chose to demand,--weapons, fine pottery or featherwork, gold ornaments, or female slaves. Sometimes the tributary pueblo, instead of sacrificing all its prisoners of war upon its own altars, sent some of them up to Mexico as part of its tribute. The ravening maw of the horrible deities was thus appeased, not by the pueblo that paid the blackmail, but by the power that extorted it, and thus the latter obtained a larger share of divine favour. Generally the unhappy prisoners were forced to carry the corn and other articles. They were convoyed by couriers who saw that everything was properly delivered at the _tecpan_, and also brought information by word of mouth and by picture-writing from the _calpixqui_ to the "chief-of-men." When the newly-arrived Spaniards saw these couriers coming and going they fancied that they were "amba.s.sadors."

This system of tribute-taking made it necessary to build roads, and this in turn facilitated, not only military operations, but trade, which had already made some progress albeit of a simple sort. These "roads" might perhaps more properly be called Indian trails,[127] but they served their purpose.

[Footnote 127: See Salmeron's letter of August 13, 1531, to the Council of the Indies, cited in Bandelier, _op. cit._ p. 696.

The letter recommends that to increase the security of the Spanish hold upon the country the roads should be made practicable for beasts and wagons. They were narrow paths running straight ahead up hill and down dale, sometimes crossing narrow ravines upon heavy stone culverts.]

[Sidenote: Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted.]

The general similarity of the Aztec confederacy to that of the Iroquois, in point of social structure, is thus clearly manifest. Along with this general similarity we have observed some points of higher development, such as one might expect to find in traversing the entire length of an ethnical period. Instead of stockaded villages, with houses of bark or of clay supported upon a wooden framework, we have pueblos of adobe-brick or stone, in various stages of evolution, the most advanced of which present the appearance of castellated cities. Along with the systematic irrigation and increased dependence upon horticulture, we find evidences of greater density of population; and we see in the victorious confederacy a more highly developed organization for adding to its stock of food and other desirable possessions by the systematic plunder of neighbouring weaker communities. Naturally such increase in numbers and organization entails some increase in the number of officers and some differentiation of their functions, as ill.u.s.trated in the representation of the clans (_calpulli_) in the tribal council (_tlatocan_), by speakers (_tlatoani_) chosen for the purpose, and not by the official heads (_calpullec_) of the clan. Likewise in the military commander-in-chief (_tlacatecuhtli_) we observe a marked increase in dignity, and--as I have already suggested and hope to maintain--we find that his office has been clothed with sacerdotal powers, and has thus taken a decided step toward kings.h.i.+p of the ancient type, as depicted in the Homeric poems.