just a place holder for northern materials.
Now back to G.
The Sun of the Wind
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/17/nasa- ... -asteroid/
NASA did not even have a NEO office when I first began working this problem.
The NEO office was formed after the movies "Deep Impact" and "Armgedon",
with a budget of less than $4 million per year.
Now its at $50 million per year, with the NEOcam still to be launched.
Well, some folks want NASA to spend $450 Billion to fly a few men to Mars.
"Nutzbarkheit".
NASA did not even have a NEO office when I first began working this problem.
The NEO office was formed after the movies "Deep Impact" and "Armgedon",
with a budget of less than $4 million per year.
Now its at $50 million per year, with the NEOcam still to be launched.
Well, some folks want NASA to spend $450 Billion to fly a few men to Mars.
"Nutzbarkheit".
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
Moving on to other impact events,
I avoided Aztec materials in my book "Man and Impact in the Americas" for very good reasons.
While Mayan traditions and records line up well, the central valley materials present many problems.
As Tlacaele destroyed all preceding histories ca. 1430 CE, including those from Teotihuacan and Tullan, and rewrote everything, the materials are of difficult and limited use in trying to recover memories of ancient comet and asteroid impacts. That said, what follows suggests something of what was there earlier. It is based on the materials on the Aztec creation stories as given on wikipedia, which material must certainly be very limited.
Two Aztec parallels with Maya and other peoples accounts are their multiple creations, and the four bearers of the heavens. The dates of some impacts and the related climate collapses are roughly known from world wide data sets. The Aztec "creation" dates appear to be pretty worthless as they are preserved and read today.
In the end, excavations from Cholula may make it possible to reconstruct the earlier traditions.
== THE FIVE SUNS ==
From the void that was the rest of the universe, the first god, Ometeotl, created itself.
Ometeotl was both male and female,
good and evil,
light and darkness,
fire and water,
judgment and forgiveness,
the god of duality.
Ometeotl gave birth to four children, the four Tezcatlipocas,
who each preside over one of the four cardinal directions:
[The holders of the heavens - bacabs; but note that the first is cometary.]
Over the East presides the White Tezcatlipoca,
Quetzal/coatl [comet], the god of light, mercy and wind;
over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca,
Huitzilopochtli, the god of war;
over the West presides the Red Tezcatlipoca,
Xipe Totec, the god of gold, farming and Spring time; and
over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca,
known by no other name than Tezcatlipoca,
the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth.
<Smith,Michael E. The Aztecs 2nd Ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2005>
It was these four gods who eventually created all the other gods and the world we know today,
but before they could create they had to destroy,
for every time they attempted to create something,
it would fall into the water [Outer space is as clear as water] beneath them and be eaten by Cipactli, the giant earth crocodile [XWas this originally the Milky Way, following Schele et al., Maya Cosmos? no actually the Earth], who swam through the water [Again, Outer space is clear like water] with mouths at every one of her joints.
The four Tezcatlipocas descended the first people who were giants.
They created the other gods,
the most important of whom were the water gods: Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility
and Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes, rivers and oceans, also the goddess of beauty.
To give light, they needed a god to become the Sun
and the Black Tezcatlipoca was chosen,
but either because he had lost a leg or because he was god of the night,
he only managed to become half a Sun.
[The Sun shines half the day?]
The world continued on in this way for some time, but a sibling rivalry grew between Quetzal/coatl [Comet - quetzal bird] and his brother the mighty Sun
[Black Tezcatlipoca], who Quetzal/coatl [comet] knocked from the sky with a stone club.
With no Sun[light], the world was totally black [A cometary dust veil?]
Tezcatlipoca commanded his jaguars [warriors] to eat all the people.
<Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. "The Aztec World", California State University, Los Angeles, 2006>
[Holocene start impacts, and mega-fauna?]
The gods created a new set of people to inhabit the Earth, this time they were of normal size.
Quetzal/coatl [comet] became the new sun but as the years passed,
the people of the Earth grew less and less civilized and stopped showing proper honor to the gods.
As a result, Tezcatlipoca [the black sun] demonstrated his power and authority as god of sorcery and judgment by turning the animalistic people into monkeys.
Quetzal/coatl [comet], who had loved the flawed people as they were, became upset and blew all of the monkeys from the face of the Earth with a mighty hurricane.[? Unknown] He then stepped down as the Sun to create a new people.
Tlaloc became the next Sun, but Tezcatlipoca seduced and stole Tlaloc's wife Xochi/quetzal [comet], the goddess of sex, flowers, and corn [Note especially that corn is domesticated by this time, and this gives some kind of temporal limit].
Tlaloc then refused to do anything other than wallow in his own grief, so a great drought swept the world.
The people's prayers for rain annoyed the grieving Sun Tlaloc
and he refused to allow it to rain, but the people continued to beg him.
Then, in a fit of rage he answered their prayers with a great downpour of fire.
It continued to rain fire until the entire Earth had burned away.
The gods then had to construct a whole new Earth from the ashes.
[volcanic eruption?]
The next Sun and also Tlaloc’s new wife, was Chalchiuhtlicue.
Chalchiuhtlicue was very loving towards the people, but Tezcatlipoca was not.
Both the people and Chalchiuhtlicue felt Tezcatlipoca's judgment
when he told the water goddess that she was not truly loving
and only faked kindness out of selfishness to gain the people’s praise.
Chalchiuhtlicue was so crushed by these words that she cried blood [a cometary dust veil?] for the next fifty-two years,
causing a horrific flood that drowned everyone on Earth.
Quetzal/coatl [comet] would not accept the destruction of his people
and went to the underworld where he stole their bones from the god Mictlantecuhtli.
He dipped these bones in his own blood to resurrect his people,
who reopened their eyes to a sky illuminated by the current Sun, Huitzilopochtli.
Some of Ometeotl’s later children, the Tzitzimitl, or stars,
became jealous of their brighter, more important brother Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun].
The stars' leader, Coyolxauhqui, the Moon,
leads them in an assault on the Sun
and every night they come close to victory when they shine throughout the sky,
but they are beaten back by the mighty Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] who rules the daytime sky.
To aid this all-important god [Huitzilopochtli, the current Sun]in his continuing war [with the stars, according to this source], the Aztecs offer him the nourishment of human sacrifices. They also offer human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca [the sun or suns as bacabs?]in fear of his judgment, and offer their own blood to Quetzal/coatl [comet], who opposes fatal sacrifices, in thanks of his blood sacrifice for them, and [they] give offerings to many other gods for many purposes. Should these sacrifices cease, or should mankind fail to please the gods for any other reason, this fifth Sun Huitzilopochtli will go black, the world will be shattered by a catastrophic earthquake, and the Tzitzimitl [stars] will slay Huitzilopochtli [the currrent Sun] and all of humanity.
VARIANT 2
Other variations on this myth state that Coatlicue, the earth goddess,
was the mother of
the four Tezcatlipocas [bacabs, holders of the heavens]
and the Tzitzimitl [stars].
Some versions say that Quetzal/coatl [comet] was born to her first, while she was still a virgin,
often mentioning his twin brother Xolotl, the guide of the dead and god of fire.
Tezcatlipoca [the first Sun or the first four Suns as bacabs?] was then born to her by an obsidian knife,
followed by the Tzitzimitl [the stars] and then Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun].
The most popular variation including Coatlicue depicts her giving birth first to the Tzitzimitl [the stars].
Much later she gave birth to Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] when a mysterious ball of feathers[?] appeared to her.
The Tzitzimitl [the stars] then decapitated the pregnant Coatlicue,
believing it to be insulting that she had given birth to another child.
Huitzilopochtli[the current sun] then sprang forth from Coatlicue's, the earth goddess's, womb
wielding a serpent of fire [comet] and began his epic war with the Tzitzimitl [the stars],
who were also referred to as the Centzon Huitznahuas.
Sometimes he is said to have decapitated Coyolxauhqui
and either used her head to make the Moon or thrown it into a canyon.
Further variations depict the ball of feathers as being the father of Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun]
or the father of Quetzal/coatl [comet] and sometimes Xolotl.
VARIANT 3
Other variations of this myth claim that only Quetzal/coatl [comet] and Tezcatlipoca [Sun or Suns] born to Ometeotl,
who was replaced by Coatlicue in this myth probably because it had absolutely no worshipers or temples by the time the Spanish arrived.
It is sometimes said that the male characteristic of Ometeotl is named Ometecutli and that the female characteristic is named Omecihualt.
Further variations on this myth state that it was only Quetzal/coatl [comet] and Tezcatlipoca [Sun]
who pulled apart Cipactli [glossed at wikipedia as the giant earth crocodile], also known as Tlaltecuhtli,
and that Xipe Totec and Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] then constructed the world from her body.
Some versions claim that Tezcatlipoca actually used his leg as bait for Cipactli [the giant earth crocodile; or the Milky Way, following Schele et al., Maya Cosmos?],
before dismembering her.
The order of the first four Suns varies as well,
though the above version is the most common.
Each world’s [age's] end
correlates consistently to the god who was the Sun at the time throughout all variations of the myth,
though the loss of Xochi/quetzal [comet] is not always identified as Tlaloc’s reason for the rain of fire,
which is not otherwise given and it is sometimes said that Chalchiuhtlicue flooded the world on purpose, without the involvement of Tezcatlipoca. It is also said that Tezcatlipoca created half a sun, which his jaguars [missi piasse - comets] then ate before eating the giants.
VARIANT 4
The fifth Sun however is sometimes said to be a god named Nanauatzin.
In this version of the myth, the gods convened in darkness to choose a new sun,
who was to sacrifice himself by jumping into a gigantic bonfire.
The two volunteers were Tecuciztecatl, the young son of Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue,
and the old Nanauatzin.
It was believed that Nanauatzin was too old to make a good sun,
but both were given the opportunity to jump into the bonfire.
Tecuciztecatl tried first but was not brave enough to walk through the heat near the flames and turned around.
Nanauatzin then walked slowly towards and then into the flames and was consumed.
Tecuciztecatl then followed.
The braver Nanauatzin became what is now the Sun and Tecuciztecatl became the much less spectacular Moon.
A god that bridges the gap between Nanauatzin and Huitzilopochtli is Tonatiuh,
who was sick, but rejuvenated himself by burning himself alive
and then became the warrior sun and wandered through the heavens with the souls of those who died in battle,
refusing to move if not offered enough sacrifices.
I avoided Aztec materials in my book "Man and Impact in the Americas" for very good reasons.
While Mayan traditions and records line up well, the central valley materials present many problems.
As Tlacaele destroyed all preceding histories ca. 1430 CE, including those from Teotihuacan and Tullan, and rewrote everything, the materials are of difficult and limited use in trying to recover memories of ancient comet and asteroid impacts. That said, what follows suggests something of what was there earlier. It is based on the materials on the Aztec creation stories as given on wikipedia, which material must certainly be very limited.
Two Aztec parallels with Maya and other peoples accounts are their multiple creations, and the four bearers of the heavens. The dates of some impacts and the related climate collapses are roughly known from world wide data sets. The Aztec "creation" dates appear to be pretty worthless as they are preserved and read today.
In the end, excavations from Cholula may make it possible to reconstruct the earlier traditions.
== THE FIVE SUNS ==
From the void that was the rest of the universe, the first god, Ometeotl, created itself.
Ometeotl was both male and female,
good and evil,
light and darkness,
fire and water,
judgment and forgiveness,
the god of duality.
Ometeotl gave birth to four children, the four Tezcatlipocas,
who each preside over one of the four cardinal directions:
[The holders of the heavens - bacabs; but note that the first is cometary.]
Over the East presides the White Tezcatlipoca,
Quetzal/coatl [comet], the god of light, mercy and wind;
over the South presides the Blue Tezcatlipoca,
Huitzilopochtli, the god of war;
over the West presides the Red Tezcatlipoca,
Xipe Totec, the god of gold, farming and Spring time; and
over the North presides the Black Tezcatlipoca,
known by no other name than Tezcatlipoca,
the god of judgment, night, deceit, sorcery and the Earth.
<Smith,Michael E. The Aztecs 2nd Ed. Blackwell Publishing, 2005>
It was these four gods who eventually created all the other gods and the world we know today,
but before they could create they had to destroy,
for every time they attempted to create something,
it would fall into the water [Outer space is as clear as water] beneath them and be eaten by Cipactli, the giant earth crocodile [XWas this originally the Milky Way, following Schele et al., Maya Cosmos? no actually the Earth], who swam through the water [Again, Outer space is clear like water] with mouths at every one of her joints.
The four Tezcatlipocas descended the first people who were giants.
They created the other gods,
the most important of whom were the water gods: Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility
and Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of lakes, rivers and oceans, also the goddess of beauty.
To give light, they needed a god to become the Sun
and the Black Tezcatlipoca was chosen,
but either because he had lost a leg or because he was god of the night,
he only managed to become half a Sun.
[The Sun shines half the day?]
The world continued on in this way for some time, but a sibling rivalry grew between Quetzal/coatl [Comet - quetzal bird] and his brother the mighty Sun
[Black Tezcatlipoca], who Quetzal/coatl [comet] knocked from the sky with a stone club.
With no Sun[light], the world was totally black [A cometary dust veil?]
Tezcatlipoca commanded his jaguars [warriors] to eat all the people.
<Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. "The Aztec World", California State University, Los Angeles, 2006>
[Holocene start impacts, and mega-fauna?]
The gods created a new set of people to inhabit the Earth, this time they were of normal size.
Quetzal/coatl [comet] became the new sun but as the years passed,
the people of the Earth grew less and less civilized and stopped showing proper honor to the gods.
As a result, Tezcatlipoca [the black sun] demonstrated his power and authority as god of sorcery and judgment by turning the animalistic people into monkeys.
Quetzal/coatl [comet], who had loved the flawed people as they were, became upset and blew all of the monkeys from the face of the Earth with a mighty hurricane.[? Unknown] He then stepped down as the Sun to create a new people.
Tlaloc became the next Sun, but Tezcatlipoca seduced and stole Tlaloc's wife Xochi/quetzal [comet], the goddess of sex, flowers, and corn [Note especially that corn is domesticated by this time, and this gives some kind of temporal limit].
Tlaloc then refused to do anything other than wallow in his own grief, so a great drought swept the world.
The people's prayers for rain annoyed the grieving Sun Tlaloc
and he refused to allow it to rain, but the people continued to beg him.
Then, in a fit of rage he answered their prayers with a great downpour of fire.
It continued to rain fire until the entire Earth had burned away.
The gods then had to construct a whole new Earth from the ashes.
[volcanic eruption?]
The next Sun and also Tlaloc’s new wife, was Chalchiuhtlicue.
Chalchiuhtlicue was very loving towards the people, but Tezcatlipoca was not.
Both the people and Chalchiuhtlicue felt Tezcatlipoca's judgment
when he told the water goddess that she was not truly loving
and only faked kindness out of selfishness to gain the people’s praise.
Chalchiuhtlicue was so crushed by these words that she cried blood [a cometary dust veil?] for the next fifty-two years,
causing a horrific flood that drowned everyone on Earth.
Quetzal/coatl [comet] would not accept the destruction of his people
and went to the underworld where he stole their bones from the god Mictlantecuhtli.
He dipped these bones in his own blood to resurrect his people,
who reopened their eyes to a sky illuminated by the current Sun, Huitzilopochtli.
Some of Ometeotl’s later children, the Tzitzimitl, or stars,
became jealous of their brighter, more important brother Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun].
The stars' leader, Coyolxauhqui, the Moon,
leads them in an assault on the Sun
and every night they come close to victory when they shine throughout the sky,
but they are beaten back by the mighty Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] who rules the daytime sky.
To aid this all-important god [Huitzilopochtli, the current Sun]in his continuing war [with the stars, according to this source], the Aztecs offer him the nourishment of human sacrifices. They also offer human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca [the sun or suns as bacabs?]in fear of his judgment, and offer their own blood to Quetzal/coatl [comet], who opposes fatal sacrifices, in thanks of his blood sacrifice for them, and [they] give offerings to many other gods for many purposes. Should these sacrifices cease, or should mankind fail to please the gods for any other reason, this fifth Sun Huitzilopochtli will go black, the world will be shattered by a catastrophic earthquake, and the Tzitzimitl [stars] will slay Huitzilopochtli [the currrent Sun] and all of humanity.
VARIANT 2
Other variations on this myth state that Coatlicue, the earth goddess,
was the mother of
the four Tezcatlipocas [bacabs, holders of the heavens]
and the Tzitzimitl [stars].
Some versions say that Quetzal/coatl [comet] was born to her first, while she was still a virgin,
often mentioning his twin brother Xolotl, the guide of the dead and god of fire.
Tezcatlipoca [the first Sun or the first four Suns as bacabs?] was then born to her by an obsidian knife,
followed by the Tzitzimitl [the stars] and then Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun].
The most popular variation including Coatlicue depicts her giving birth first to the Tzitzimitl [the stars].
Much later she gave birth to Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] when a mysterious ball of feathers[?] appeared to her.
The Tzitzimitl [the stars] then decapitated the pregnant Coatlicue,
believing it to be insulting that she had given birth to another child.
Huitzilopochtli[the current sun] then sprang forth from Coatlicue's, the earth goddess's, womb
wielding a serpent of fire [comet] and began his epic war with the Tzitzimitl [the stars],
who were also referred to as the Centzon Huitznahuas.
Sometimes he is said to have decapitated Coyolxauhqui
and either used her head to make the Moon or thrown it into a canyon.
Further variations depict the ball of feathers as being the father of Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun]
or the father of Quetzal/coatl [comet] and sometimes Xolotl.
VARIANT 3
Other variations of this myth claim that only Quetzal/coatl [comet] and Tezcatlipoca [Sun or Suns] born to Ometeotl,
who was replaced by Coatlicue in this myth probably because it had absolutely no worshipers or temples by the time the Spanish arrived.
It is sometimes said that the male characteristic of Ometeotl is named Ometecutli and that the female characteristic is named Omecihualt.
Further variations on this myth state that it was only Quetzal/coatl [comet] and Tezcatlipoca [Sun]
who pulled apart Cipactli [glossed at wikipedia as the giant earth crocodile], also known as Tlaltecuhtli,
and that Xipe Totec and Huitzilopochtli [the current Sun] then constructed the world from her body.
Some versions claim that Tezcatlipoca actually used his leg as bait for Cipactli [the giant earth crocodile; or the Milky Way, following Schele et al., Maya Cosmos?],
before dismembering her.
The order of the first four Suns varies as well,
though the above version is the most common.
Each world’s [age's] end
correlates consistently to the god who was the Sun at the time throughout all variations of the myth,
though the loss of Xochi/quetzal [comet] is not always identified as Tlaloc’s reason for the rain of fire,
which is not otherwise given and it is sometimes said that Chalchiuhtlicue flooded the world on purpose, without the involvement of Tezcatlipoca. It is also said that Tezcatlipoca created half a sun, which his jaguars [missi piasse - comets] then ate before eating the giants.
VARIANT 4
The fifth Sun however is sometimes said to be a god named Nanauatzin.
In this version of the myth, the gods convened in darkness to choose a new sun,
who was to sacrifice himself by jumping into a gigantic bonfire.
The two volunteers were Tecuciztecatl, the young son of Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue,
and the old Nanauatzin.
It was believed that Nanauatzin was too old to make a good sun,
but both were given the opportunity to jump into the bonfire.
Tecuciztecatl tried first but was not brave enough to walk through the heat near the flames and turned around.
Nanauatzin then walked slowly towards and then into the flames and was consumed.
Tecuciztecatl then followed.
The braver Nanauatzin became what is now the Sun and Tecuciztecatl became the much less spectacular Moon.
A god that bridges the gap between Nanauatzin and Huitzilopochtli is Tonatiuh,
who was sick, but rejuvenated himself by burning himself alive
and then became the warrior sun and wandered through the heavens with the souls of those who died in battle,
refusing to move if not offered enough sacrifices.
Last edited by E.P. Grondine on Mon May 08, 2017 7:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
So why return to thosr materials now?
FERNANDO DE ALVA IXTLILXOCHITL (1578-1650) of TEXCOCO:
A native born scholar of Mexico named Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (EEsht-leal-sho-cheat-el) is considered by many to be the most prolific early writer on the history of Mexico.
One biographer, Dr. Jose Maria Beristain y Souza, said that Ixtlilxochitl was one of the most distinguished students at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco and that he was the most knowledgeable in the language, history, and antiquities of his people. (Biblioteca Hispano-Americana-Septemtrional, p. 58, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
The author Clavijero called Ixtlilxochitl "the truly noble Indian concerning the antiquities of his nation." (Historia Antigua de Mexico 1:37, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
Dr. Lara Pardo called Ixtlilxochitl a man of great talent and deep intellect and said that Ixtlilxochitl possessed a most excellent library containing the paintings and hieroglyphic history of pre-conquest Mexico. (Leduc-Lara Pardo, Diccionario de Geogrqfia e Historia y Biografias Mexicanas, p. 492, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
[It is now known that Ixtlilxochitl 's hieroglyphic sources were all written after the conquest and burning of the original codices.]
Early writers placed the birth date of Alva Ixltilxochitl somewhere near the year 1568 AD. Edmundo O'Gorman, who published the writings of Ixtlilxochitl in 1975, with an update in 1985, determined that the date of Ixtlilxochitl's birth was in the year 1578 AD. The place of his birth was Texcoco, which is now a suburb of Mexico City. (O'Gorman 17)
Ixtlilxochitl was born of royalty, being a descendant of both the last king of Texcoco and the next-to-the-last Emperor of Mexico, Cuitlahuac. Ixtlilxochitl was also of Spanish descent, as his grandfather on his mother's side was the Spaniard Juan Grande.
The writings on the history of Mexico, according to Ixtlilxochitl, consisted of many manuscripts that were first circulated in the year 1600 AD. His works, Sumaria Relacion de la Historia General, were completed about 1625 AD. Traditionally, the date of the death of Ixtlilxochitl has been placed around 1648. O'Gorman's research indicates that Ixtlilxochitl died in 1650 at the age of 72. (O'Gorman 36)
Regarding the sources for his history of Mexico, Ixtlilxochitl wrote the following:
"... of a truth I have the ancient histories in my hand, and I know the language of the natives, because I was raised with them, and I know all of the old men and the principals of this land.... It has cost me hard study and work, always seeking the truth on everything I have written..." (Chavero 62)
Alfredo Chavero wrote in the preface of his two volumes follows:
Ixtlilxochitl is the original chronista of the texcucanos [from Texcoco, a suburb of Mexico City]. Few of our writers have enjoyed the fame and reputation that he has. Nevertheless, his numerous works are unknown. And that is certainly an understatement. To this very day, the works of Ixtlilxochitl are hardly known in the United States.
The works of Ixtlilxochitl have not been readily available in the English language. [Unless you want to buy the O'Gorman translation from 1975.]
Although Ixtlilxochitl wrote in the 1600s, his work was not circulated widely until Lord Kingsborough of England published nine volumes of work entitled Antiquities of Mexico. Kingsborough included the writings of Ixtlilxochitl in Spanish, having obtained those writings from the National Library of Madrid. Kingsborough's material on Ixtlilxochitl is similar to that of an early Mexican writer by the name of Boturini, who said that he copied his account of the writings of Ixtlilxochitli from his handwriting. Kingsborough's works were published between 1832-1848, but because of the extensive cost, his Antiquities of Mexico were never widely circulated.
Under the mandate of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, Alfredo Chavero edited and footnoted a compilation of Ixtlilxochitl by Jose Fernando Ramirez.
This edition was published in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
This same edition, consisting of two volumes of approximately 500 pages each, was republished in 1965 with a preface by Lic. J. Ignacion Davila Garibi.
Chavero called the books Obras Historicas de Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. The works of Ixtlilxochitl have been published as various editions in Spanish as follows:
Primera edicion: Kingsborough. Antiquities of Mexico. Vol. IX Lon= don 1848
Segunda edition: Chavero. Secretaria de Fomento. Mexico, 1991-92
Reediciones de la anterior: Editora National. Mexico. 1952 y 1965
Tercera edition: O'Gorman. lnstituto de Investigaciones Historicas. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1975
Cuarta edition: O'Gorman. Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1985
It is from Chavero's 1965 edition that I have translated into English the first section of Ixtlilxochitl's works called "The Summary Account" (Sumaria Relacion).
Ramirez and Chavero divided the works of Ixtlilxochitl into two main parts:
(1) Diverse Accounts and
(2) The History of the Chichimeca.
The latter receives the most attention, as Ixtlilxochitl was a descendant of the Chichimeca people and, as a result, he follows the Chichimeca trail right up through the Conquest of Mexico.
The first part, "Diverse Accounts", deals with the origin of the first settlers, called Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime or "giants".
The first part also discusses a group of people called the Tulteca.
Ixtlilxochitl called this section "Sumaria Relacion de todas las cosas que han sucedido en La Nueva Espana y de muchas cosas que los Toltecas alcanzaron."
["A summary account of all the things that happened in New Spain and many things that the Toltecs accomplished."]
THE FIRST CHAPTER ("PRIMER RELACION") OF CHAVERO'S WORKS IS ONLY 11 PAGES, AND THAT PORTION IS WHAT I HAVE INCLUDED IN ITS ENTIRETY IN THIS TEXT.
Chapter 2, or "Segunda Relacion," provides dates of 466 AD to 543 AD. It also provides summary statements of the early history, typical of the way that Ixtlilxochitl wrote. He wrote, "The Toltecs were the third settlers of this land, counting the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] as the first, and the Ulmecas and Xicalancas as the second." (Chavero 28)
Chapter 3 of Chavero's edition consists of seven pages and covers the period of time from 556 AD to 826 AD.
Chapter 4 provides only one date, 880 AD, but the chapter provides a summary of the nature and characteristics of the Tultecas. "The Tultecas were great architects, carpenters, and workers of arts such as pottery: They mined and smelted gold and silver, and worked precious stones
..." (Chavero 40)
Chapter 5, or "Quinta Relacion," covers about 30 pages and terminates with page 108 and the year 958 AD. With the exception of a summary section at the end of Volume One, the remainder of the works of Ixtlilxochitl deals with the history of Mexico from 1000 AD to 1600 AD. The majority of the history is centered in the 16th Century.
Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl indeed makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the pre-Conquest civilizations of Mexico. His writings have been criticized, however, because they contain much repetition and because his chronology and dating often lack consistency. One writer said, "It would have been better if Alva Ixtlilxochitl had written less, and paid more detail and attention to the chronology." (Garcia Icazbalceta, Bibliography de Autores Mexicanos, VIII, 271; as quoted in Chavero in the "Prologo")
We could perhaps defend Ixtlilxochitl by noting that he was only writing down what he read in the different native records he was translating.
[That is not true. Ixtlilxochitl was writing a history acceptable to the Spanish which defended his family's land claims and social position.]
THE WRITINGS OF IXTLILXOCHITL
Introduction The Historical Works of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Edited and annotated by Alfredo Chavero and published as a 2nd edition of the works of Jose Fernando Ramirez in 1892. The 3rd edition was published in 1965 with a preface by Lic. J. Ignacio Davila Garibi.
This treatise consists of Volume 1, Chapter 1, of CHAVERO, translated into English and arranged into verses by JOSEPH L. ALLEN.
Footnotes and commentary with maps are also added by Allen. [Other insertions by yours truly.]
SUMMARY ACCOUNT
1. A history of the events in New Spain including many things regarding the knowledge and accomplishments of the Tultecas from the creation of the world to its destruction, and up to the arrival of the third inhabitants called Chichimecas, and on up to the arrival of the Spanish, taken from the original history of New Spain.
FIRST ACCOUNT
2. The creation of the world and things pertaining thereto, including the origin of man. The omniscience of God and what He has revealed to the Toltecs.
3. The Toltecs had a knowledge of the creation of the world by Tloque Nahuaque, including the planets, mountains, animals, etc. They also knew about how God created a man and a woman from whence all mankind descended and multiplied. They recorded many other events that are not included in this account, inasmuch as the same events are recorded by other nations in the world.
[God, and Adam and Eve, with other parts excluded.]
4. The records indicate that the world was created in the year Ce Tecpatl [1 Flint, likely 1 Flint Mixcoatl, see http://www.ancient.eu/Mixcoatl/],
and the period of time from the creation to the flood is called "Atonatiuh", which means the age of "the Sun of Water" because the world was destroyed by the flood.
And it is recorded in the Toltec history that this period or first world, as they called it, lasted for 1,716 years, after which time great lightning and storms from the heavens destroyed mankind, and everything in the earth was covered by water including the highest mountain called Caxtolmolictli, which is 15 cubits? high.
[The Flood of Noah]
5. To this they recorded other events, such as how, after the flood, a few people who had escaped the destruction inside a Toptlipetla/calli, which interpreted means an "enclosed ark", began again to multiply upon the earth.
[Again, the Flood of Noah.]
6. After the earth began again to be populated, they built a Zacualli very high and strong, which means "the very high tower", to protect themselves against a second destruction of the world.
7. As time elapsed, their language became confounded, such that they did not understand one another; and they were scattered to all parts of the world.
[The Tower of Babel]
8. The Toltecs, consisting of seven men and their wives, were able to understand one another, and they came to this land, having first crossed many lands and waters, living in caves and passing through great tribulations. Upon their arrival here, they discovered that it was a very good and fertile land.
9. It has been reported that they wandered for 104 years in different parts of the land until they settled in Huehue Tlapallan [=Hue=Hue +Tula+ Pallan = old old place of reeds tied = very old place of irrigation agriculture= Teotihuacan?], their homeland. This was in the year Ce Tecpatl and 520 years had elapsed since the flood, which represent five periods of time.
10. And 1,715 years after the flood, the people were destroyed by a very great hurricane that carried away trees, rocks, houses, and large buildings. [The Sun of the Wind] Many men and women escaped the storm by hiding in caves and other places where the great hurricane could not reach them.
[Destruction of the Tower of Babel.]
11. After a short period of time, they left the caves to see how much damage had taken place in the land. They discovered that it was populated and covered with monkeys that had been driven by the winds, as they had been in darkness all this time without being able to see the sun or the moon.
12. From this event, the saying came about that men had turned into monkeys. This period became known as the second period, or the second world, called Ehecatonatiuh, which means the "SUN OF WIND". After the destruction, men began again to rebuild and to multiply upon the face of the land.
13. In the year 8 Tochtli [8 Rabbit, Moon?], which was 1,347 years after the second calamity and 4,779 years since the creation of the world, it is recorded in their history that the sun stood still one natural day without moving, and a myth evolved wherein a mosquito saw the sun suspended in the air in a pensive mood and said, "Lord of the world , why are you standing still and why are you in such deep thought? Why are you not doing the work you are supposed to do? Do you want to destroy the world as before?" And the mosquito said many other things to the sun, but the sun still did not move. The mosquito then stung the sun on the leg, and seeing that his leg had been stung, the sun began again to move along its course as before.
14. It had been 158 years since the great hurricane [the Sun of Wind] and 4,964 years since the creation of the world, when there occurred another destruction in this land. The people who lived in this corner of the land, which they now call New Spain, were giants called Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. The destruction consisted of a great earthquake that swallowed up and killed the people when the high volcanic mountains erupted. All of the people were destroyed and no one escaped; or if anyone did escape, it was those who were in the internal parts of the land. Many Toltecs, along with the Chichimecas, who were their neighbors, were killed. This was in the year Tecpatl, and they called this time period Tlacchitonatiuh, which means "Sun of the Earth".
15. In the year Ce Tecpatl, which was 5,097 years since the creation of the world and 104 years after the total destruction of the giant Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime], all of the land of this new age being at peace, a council was held of the leading scientific, astrological, and artistic scholars in their capital city called Huehue Tlapallan [=Teotihuacan, above].
Here they discussed many things, including the destruction and the calamities that had taken place, as well as the movements of the heavens since the creation of the world. They also discussed many other things; but because of the burning of the records, we do not know or understand any more than what is written here.
Among other things, they added the leap year to the calendar to adjust it with the solar equinox; and they discussed many other interesting things as will be observed from their records and laws regarding the years, months, weeks, days, signs, and planets. These, along with other interesting things, were understood by them.
16. It had been 166 years since they had adjusted their calendar with the equinox, and 270 years since the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] had been destroyed, when the sun and the moon eclipsed, and the earth quaked and rocks were broken into pieces and many other signs that had been given came to pass, although man was not destroyed. This was in the year Ce Calli, which, adjusted to our calendar, happened at the same time that Christ, our Lord, was crucified. And they say that this destruction occurred in the first few days of the year. [Ixtlilxochitl would try to turn one of Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus, which accounts for this date.]
17. These, and many other things, from the creation of the world up to our time, were understood by the Toltecs. As I have heretofore stated, according to what appears in their histories and paintings, they only made an abridgement, primarily of their origins; I mean all of the things that are found in their paintings and histories are just an abridgement compared to the records that the first archbishop of Mexico ordered to be burned.
18. It had been 305 years since the time of the eclipsing of the sun and the moon, 438 years since the time of the destruction of the large Quinametzin, and 5,486 years since the creation of the world, when Chalcatzin and Tlacamihtzin, chief leaders and descendants of the Toltec royal lineage, following many years of quiet peace, commenced to desire the usurpation of the kingdom, desiring to overthrow the legitimate successor. This was the year 13 Acatl.
19. They were exiled, and there began to be wars, and they cast them out of the City of Tlachicalzincan, in the region of Huey Tlapallan [= hue+ tula+pallan= old reed piles = Tollan?], their homeland. And they were cast out with their families and allies, their men as well as their women, and a great number were exiled. They left in the year following Ce Tecpatl, banished from all that land, as you will see in that which follows. And this transpired, according to our calculations, 449 years after the birth of our Christ the Lord. [remembering that Ixtlilxochitl was try to turn one of the Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus, this accounts for this date here.]
The Native Races
20. The ancestors of the natives of this land that is now called New Spain, according to the common and general opinion of everyone, as well as that which appears demonstrated in their paintings, came from the western areas.
21. And all who are now called Toltecs, Aculhuas, and Mexica, as well as the other people in this land, boast and affirm that they are descendants of the Chichimecas. The reason, according to their history, is that their first king, whose name was Chichimecatl, was the one who brought them to this new land where they settled. And it was he, as can be deduced, that came from the great Tartary [China or Siberia], and was part of those who came from the division of Babel. This account is described in great detail in their history, and it tells how he, their king traveled with them crossing a large part of the world, arriving at this land, which they considered to be good, fertile, and abundant for human sustenance. As mentioned earlier, they populated the major part of the land, and more particularly that which falls along the northern part. And Chichimecatl called the land by his own name.
22. In each place where the Chichimecatl settled, whether it be a large city or a small village, it was their custom to name it according to the first king or leader who possessed the land. This same custom prevailed among the Toltecs. The general area was called the Land of Tollan, after the first king who was so named. Be that as it may, this custom was prevalent in naming other cities and villages throughout the land.
23. Notwithstanding that some were called Toltecs, others Aculhuas, Tepanecas, and Otomites, they all were proud to be of the lineage of the Chichimecas, because they all descended from them. However, it is true that there were divisions among the Chichimecas themselves. And some were more civilized than others, such as the Toltecs. And others were more barbaric, such as the Otomites, and others like them. Those who are pure Chichimecas, whose kings were direct descendants of the first king and founder Chichimecatl, were bloodthirsty men, warriors, and lovers of power, holding other nations in bondage.
[Essentially, what we are working with is Nonoalco, overlain with Oto-Pame, overlain with Ute-Aztec (Nahuatl).]
24. Although one nation was inclined to righteousness and another nation was full of mischief idleness, being exceedingly haughty and proud and being warmongers, or although one nation was virtuous and another full of iniquity, both, as recorded in their history, they came from the same lineage, the Chichimecas. And all are descended from the same forefathers; and as it has been said, they came from the Occidental [western} areas.
25. In this land called New Spain [Mexico], there were giants, as demonstrated by their bones that have been discovered in many areas.
[The mammoth teeth.]
The ancient Toltec record keepers called them "Quinametzin" [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. They became acquainted with them and had many wars and contentions with them, and in particular in all of the land that is now called New Spain. They [the Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] were destroyed, and their civilization came to an end as a result of great calamities and punishments from heaven for some grave sins that they had committed.
26. It is the opinion of some of these ancient historians that these giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] descended from the same Chichimecas mentioned earlier, and they say that in these northern lands, where the ancient Chichimeca Empire was located that there are villages where there are still men living who are over thirty spans tall. And it is of no wonder, that even our own Spaniards have not yet entered into the interior of the lands, but have only traveled along the coastal areas such as the lands of the Chicoranos and the Duharezases, and they have found men in these parts who are eleven and twelve spans in height, and have been told that there are others even taller.
[11 spans = 87.5 inches = 7 Feet. The Spanish conquistadors did encounter tall people in the Sierra Madre. The 30 span height, say 20 foot, is impossible.]
27. The greatest destruction that occurred among the Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] was in the year and date that the natives call Ce Toxtli, signifying the date 1 Rabbit, 299 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, and with them ended the third age, which was called Ecatonatiuh, [Sun of the Earth] because of the great winds and earthquakes. And almost everyone was destroyed.
Brief Account
28. The Toltecs were the second civilization in this land after the destruction of the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. . ., and they had a knowledge of the creation of the world, and of how the world had been destroyed by the flood; and many other things are recorded in their history and paintings.
29. . . . the word Toltec means men of the arts and sciences, because those of this nation were great artisans, as you can see today in many parts, and especially in the ruins of buildings, such as Teotihuacan, Tula, and Cholula.
CHICHIMECA HISTORY
30. The most serious authors and historians of the ancient pagans included Quetzalcoatl, who is considered to be the first. Some of the modern pagans include Nezahualcoyotzin, King of Texcoco, and the two infants of Mexico, Itzocatzin and Xiuhcozcatzin, sons of King Huitzilihuitzin. And there are many others I could mention if it were necessary.
31. It is declared through their histories about the god Teotloquenahuaque, Tlachihualcipal Nemoanulhuicahua Tlaltipacque, which, according to the correct interpretation, means the universal god of all things, creator of them and in whose will lives all creatures, lord of the heaven and of the earth, etc. After having created all things, he created the first parents of men, from whence came forth all others; and the dwelling place and habitation that he gave them was the world.
32. It is said that the world had four ages. The first, which was from the beginning, was called Atonatiuh, which means "Sun of Water", signifying that the world was terminated by a flood. The second, called Tlachitonatiuh, means "Sun of Earth", because the world came to an end by great earthquakes, in such a manner that almost all of mankind was destroyed. This age or time occurred during the time of the giants, who were called Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime.
33. The third age, Ecatonatiuh, means "Sun of Air", because this period came to an end by winds that were so strong that they uprooted all of the buildings and trees and even broke the rocks in pieces; and the majority of mankind perished. And because those who escaped this calamity found a large number of monkeys that the wind must have brought from other parts, the survivors said man must have been changed into monkeys.
34. Those who possessed this new world in this third age were the Ulmecas and Xicalancas; and according to what is found in their histories, they came in ships or boats from the east to the land of Potonchan, and from there they began to populate the land.
35. On the banks of the Atoyac River, which is the one that passes between Puebla and Cholula, there were found some of the giants [Quinametzin] who had escaped the destruction and extermination of the second age. Taking advantage of their size and strength, they oppressed and enslaved their new neighbors.
36. The principal leaders of the new settlers determined to liberate themselves, and the means they employed were to invite the old settlers to a very solemn feast. After the old settlers became full and intoxicated, they were killed and destroyed with their own weapons, with which feat the new settlers remained free and exempt from bondage, and this increased the domain and command of the Xicalancas and Ulmecas.
37. The people were living in a time of great prosperity, when there arrived in this land a man whom they called Quetzalcoatl.
[Remember here that Ixtlilxochitl was try to turn one of the Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus or the disciple Thomas.]
Others called him Hueman because of his great virtues. He was considered just, saintly, and good, teaching them by deeds and words the road to virtue. He instructed them to refrain from vices and not to sin, and he gave them laws and sane doctrine. He told them to constrain their appetites and to be honest, and he instituted the law of the fast.
38. And [He was] the first to be worshiped and to be placed in authority, and for that reason [He] is called Quiauhtzteotlchicahualizteotl and Tonaceaquahuitl, which means "god of the rains and of health" and "tree of sustenance or of life".
39. After he [Quetzalcoatl] had preached the above mentioned to all of the other Ulmeca and Xicalanca cities, and especially in the City of Cholula, where he spent a great deal of time, and seeing the small amount of fruit that resulted from his doctrine, he returned to the same place from whence he had come, which was to the east, disappearing at Coatzacoalco.
40. And at the time of his farewell from these people, he told them of times to come. He said that in the year that would be called Ce Acatl, he would return and then his doctrine would be accepted, and his children would be lords and heirs of the earth. He also told them that they and their descendants would pass through great calamities and persecutions. He prophesied of many other things that would surely come to pass.
41. Quetzalcoatl, by literal interpretation, means "serpent of the precious feathers", with an allegoric meaning of "man of exceeding great wisdom". And Huemac (Hueman), some say, was the name given to him because his hands were printed, or stamped, on a rock, like a very fine wax, as testimony that what he prophesied would come to pass. Others say that (Hueman) means "he with the great or powerful hand".
[Hueman is another Toltec title, likely to simply mean either "The Elder", or simply Chief Priest.]
42. A few days after he left, a great destruction and devastation took place, which is referred to as the third period of the world. At that time, the great building and tower of Cholula, which was so famous and marvelous, was destroyed. It was like a second tower of Babel that these people had built, with virtually the same idea in mind. It was destroyed by the wind.
43. And later, those who escaped at the end of the third age, in place of the ruins, the people built a temple to Quetzalcoatl, whom they named "the god of wind", because it was destroyed by the wind. They understood that this calamity was sent by his hand. And they called it Ce Acatl, which was the name of the year of his coming. According to the history referred to, and from the records, the foregoing took place a few years after the birth of Christ our Lord.
44. After this age had passed, beginning at this time, entered the fourth age called Tletonatiuh, which means, "sun of fire", because it is said that this fourth and last age will end by fire.
45. Quetzalcoatl was a man of comely appearance and serious disposition. His countenance was white, and he wore a beard. His manner of dress consisted of a long, flowing robe.
Banished from their homeland, the Tultecas embarked upon their journey along the coast. Traveling through the country, they arrived at their Californias by the sea, which they called Hueytlapallan, which today is called Cortez, which name was given because of its reddish color. The date of their arrival was in the year ce Tecpatl, which corresponds to 387 AD.
Following along the coast of Xalixco (Jalisco) and all along the south, leaving from the port of Huatulco and traveling through diverse lands, they arrived at the province of Tochtepec, which is located along the north sea [Gulf of Mexico]. And after walking and exploring, they settled in the Tolantzinco, living in the places where they had stopped.
The Tultecas were the third settlers of this land, counting the giants as the first, with the second being the Ulmecas and Xicalancas. (Chavero 1965:28)
............
1. Following the conquest in 1521 AD, Mexico was called New Spain. The name was entirely abandoned in the early part of the 19th Century when Mexico gained her independence from Spain. New Spain also extended into Central America and, as a result, portions of the history of Ixtlilxochitl may encompass all of Mesoamerica. The setting for his history, however, is the Valley of Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl wrote that all of the natives of this land descended from two lineages, the Tultecas and the Chichimecas. (Chavero 457)
4. Aztec or Nahuatl words such as Caxtolmolictli, Atonatiuh, Toptlipetlacalli, and Zacualli are used extensively by Ixtlilxochitl. The word is normally followed by the interpretation or meaning of the word.
5. It appears here that Ixtlilxochitl confuses the record-keeping Tultecas with the first civilization, whom he consistently calls Quinametzin or giants (see verses = 16, 25, 32, 37).
6. Huehue Tlapallan is apparently the same place as Hueyapan, which is located in the Tuxtla Mountains of Veracruz, Mexico. Today, Huehue Tlapallan is the ancient Olmec site of Tres Zapotes, near the town of Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz. Excavation on the site began in 1939 under the direction of Dr. Matthew Stirling.
7. A period of time refers to the 52-year calendar cycle. In this case, however, Ixtlilxochitl apparently is calling two calendar cycles a period of time. Hence, five periods of time equal 520 years. The 104 years that they wandered represents one period of time or two 52-year calendar cycles.
Potonchan is near the present-day City of Veracruz, Mexico. It is the same place where the Spanish conquerors landed in the 16th Century AD.
The largest-based pyramid in the world is Cholula. It covers over 40 acres of ground and dates to the Preclassic Era (500 BC). It was destroyed at the time of Christ and has been rebuilt several times. A Catholic church sits peacefully on top of the pyramid today.
The State of Puebla borders the State of Veracruz.
25. The Spanish translation at the beginning of verse 38 states: "el primero que adoro y coloco la cruz." I have translated it as referring to Quetzalcoatl inasmuch as that is consistent with the context of the verses preceding and following the statement. I have translated "coloco la cruz" as "placed in authority." Quetzalcoatl has been given many names, including the two above. The "tree-of-life" motif is associated with Christ and is prevalent throughout Mesoamerica. Quetzalcoat l is afforded the prominent position of all of the gods of Mesoamerica.
26. Coatzacoalco(s) (Co-ought-saw-co-all-cos) has grown into a modem oil refinery city located in the State of Veracruz near the border of the State of Tabasco. The Coatzacoalcos River empties into the Gulf of Mexico at the top of the gulf by the City of Coatzacoalcos. The Aztec meaning of the word Coatzacoalcos is "the foundation of the religion of the feathered serpent."
30. Huatulco is in Southern Oaxaca.
Xalisco is the same area as Jalisco in what is the state where Guadalajara is located.
Let's see:
A wind strong enough to break stones? It sounds more to me like an impact blast.
Peter B. Villella, (2014).
The Last Acolhua: Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Elite Native Historiography in
Early New Spain.
Alva Ixtlilxochitl echoed previous generations of Acolhua nobles for at least two reasons:
they supplied his historical information, and he shared their agenda.
To begin, the legal and political activities of earlier leaders such as don Hernando Pimentel
had resulted in a broad paper trail rich with genealogical and historical information,
and their children were among Alva Ixtlilxochitl's primary informants and collaborators (Carrasco 1974; O'Gorman 1975, 23, 47–85, 285–87).
MEANWHILE, THE CHRONICLER'S PICTORIAL SOURCES [hieroglyphic texts]—
WHICH HE ERRONEOUSLY BELIEVED TO BE PRE-HISPANIC—
WERE ALSO THE ARTIFACTS OF POSTCONQUEST EFFORTS TO DEFEND CACIQUE PATRIMONIES AND TRIBUTE RIGHTS
(Carrera Stampa 1971, 223–33; Romero Galván 2003a; García 2006, 59–61).
Alva Ixtlilxochitl's source materials thus reflected not only a primordial Acolhua knowledge,
but also the postconquest maneuverings of noble families seeking to contest and reframe ancestral claims
in terms admissible to colonial authorities (Douglas 2010, 200–1n17).
Overall, Alva Ixtlilxochitl inherited (or was privy to) at least two discrete ‘archives’ of elite
Acolhua historiography, self-representation, and memory.
...Alva Ixtlilxochitl's other primary sources of information came from Teotihuacan,
an Acolhua Province previously subject to Texcoco, where his mother retained the
local cacicazgo (cacique's entailed estate) (Munch Galindo 1976).
FERNANDO DE ALVA IXTLILXOCHITL (1578-1650) of TEXCOCO:
A native born scholar of Mexico named Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (EEsht-leal-sho-cheat-el) is considered by many to be the most prolific early writer on the history of Mexico.
One biographer, Dr. Jose Maria Beristain y Souza, said that Ixtlilxochitl was one of the most distinguished students at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco and that he was the most knowledgeable in the language, history, and antiquities of his people. (Biblioteca Hispano-Americana-Septemtrional, p. 58, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
The author Clavijero called Ixtlilxochitl "the truly noble Indian concerning the antiquities of his nation." (Historia Antigua de Mexico 1:37, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
Dr. Lara Pardo called Ixtlilxochitl a man of great talent and deep intellect and said that Ixtlilxochitl possessed a most excellent library containing the paintings and hieroglyphic history of pre-conquest Mexico. (Leduc-Lara Pardo, Diccionario de Geogrqfia e Historia y Biografias Mexicanas, p. 492, as quoted in Chavero 1965)
[It is now known that Ixtlilxochitl 's hieroglyphic sources were all written after the conquest and burning of the original codices.]
Early writers placed the birth date of Alva Ixltilxochitl somewhere near the year 1568 AD. Edmundo O'Gorman, who published the writings of Ixtlilxochitl in 1975, with an update in 1985, determined that the date of Ixtlilxochitl's birth was in the year 1578 AD. The place of his birth was Texcoco, which is now a suburb of Mexico City. (O'Gorman 17)
Ixtlilxochitl was born of royalty, being a descendant of both the last king of Texcoco and the next-to-the-last Emperor of Mexico, Cuitlahuac. Ixtlilxochitl was also of Spanish descent, as his grandfather on his mother's side was the Spaniard Juan Grande.
The writings on the history of Mexico, according to Ixtlilxochitl, consisted of many manuscripts that were first circulated in the year 1600 AD. His works, Sumaria Relacion de la Historia General, were completed about 1625 AD. Traditionally, the date of the death of Ixtlilxochitl has been placed around 1648. O'Gorman's research indicates that Ixtlilxochitl died in 1650 at the age of 72. (O'Gorman 36)
Regarding the sources for his history of Mexico, Ixtlilxochitl wrote the following:
"... of a truth I have the ancient histories in my hand, and I know the language of the natives, because I was raised with them, and I know all of the old men and the principals of this land.... It has cost me hard study and work, always seeking the truth on everything I have written..." (Chavero 62)
Alfredo Chavero wrote in the preface of his two volumes follows:
Ixtlilxochitl is the original chronista of the texcucanos [from Texcoco, a suburb of Mexico City]. Few of our writers have enjoyed the fame and reputation that he has. Nevertheless, his numerous works are unknown. And that is certainly an understatement. To this very day, the works of Ixtlilxochitl are hardly known in the United States.
The works of Ixtlilxochitl have not been readily available in the English language. [Unless you want to buy the O'Gorman translation from 1975.]
Although Ixtlilxochitl wrote in the 1600s, his work was not circulated widely until Lord Kingsborough of England published nine volumes of work entitled Antiquities of Mexico. Kingsborough included the writings of Ixtlilxochitl in Spanish, having obtained those writings from the National Library of Madrid. Kingsborough's material on Ixtlilxochitl is similar to that of an early Mexican writer by the name of Boturini, who said that he copied his account of the writings of Ixtlilxochitli from his handwriting. Kingsborough's works were published between 1832-1848, but because of the extensive cost, his Antiquities of Mexico were never widely circulated.
Under the mandate of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, Alfredo Chavero edited and footnoted a compilation of Ixtlilxochitl by Jose Fernando Ramirez.
This edition was published in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
This same edition, consisting of two volumes of approximately 500 pages each, was republished in 1965 with a preface by Lic. J. Ignacion Davila Garibi.
Chavero called the books Obras Historicas de Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. The works of Ixtlilxochitl have been published as various editions in Spanish as follows:
Primera edicion: Kingsborough. Antiquities of Mexico. Vol. IX Lon= don 1848
Segunda edition: Chavero. Secretaria de Fomento. Mexico, 1991-92
Reediciones de la anterior: Editora National. Mexico. 1952 y 1965
Tercera edition: O'Gorman. lnstituto de Investigaciones Historicas. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1975
Cuarta edition: O'Gorman. Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. 1985
It is from Chavero's 1965 edition that I have translated into English the first section of Ixtlilxochitl's works called "The Summary Account" (Sumaria Relacion).
Ramirez and Chavero divided the works of Ixtlilxochitl into two main parts:
(1) Diverse Accounts and
(2) The History of the Chichimeca.
The latter receives the most attention, as Ixtlilxochitl was a descendant of the Chichimeca people and, as a result, he follows the Chichimeca trail right up through the Conquest of Mexico.
The first part, "Diverse Accounts", deals with the origin of the first settlers, called Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime or "giants".
The first part also discusses a group of people called the Tulteca.
Ixtlilxochitl called this section "Sumaria Relacion de todas las cosas que han sucedido en La Nueva Espana y de muchas cosas que los Toltecas alcanzaron."
["A summary account of all the things that happened in New Spain and many things that the Toltecs accomplished."]
THE FIRST CHAPTER ("PRIMER RELACION") OF CHAVERO'S WORKS IS ONLY 11 PAGES, AND THAT PORTION IS WHAT I HAVE INCLUDED IN ITS ENTIRETY IN THIS TEXT.
Chapter 2, or "Segunda Relacion," provides dates of 466 AD to 543 AD. It also provides summary statements of the early history, typical of the way that Ixtlilxochitl wrote. He wrote, "The Toltecs were the third settlers of this land, counting the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] as the first, and the Ulmecas and Xicalancas as the second." (Chavero 28)
Chapter 3 of Chavero's edition consists of seven pages and covers the period of time from 556 AD to 826 AD.
Chapter 4 provides only one date, 880 AD, but the chapter provides a summary of the nature and characteristics of the Tultecas. "The Tultecas were great architects, carpenters, and workers of arts such as pottery: They mined and smelted gold and silver, and worked precious stones
..." (Chavero 40)
Chapter 5, or "Quinta Relacion," covers about 30 pages and terminates with page 108 and the year 958 AD. With the exception of a summary section at the end of Volume One, the remainder of the works of Ixtlilxochitl deals with the history of Mexico from 1000 AD to 1600 AD. The majority of the history is centered in the 16th Century.
Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl indeed makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the pre-Conquest civilizations of Mexico. His writings have been criticized, however, because they contain much repetition and because his chronology and dating often lack consistency. One writer said, "It would have been better if Alva Ixtlilxochitl had written less, and paid more detail and attention to the chronology." (Garcia Icazbalceta, Bibliography de Autores Mexicanos, VIII, 271; as quoted in Chavero in the "Prologo")
We could perhaps defend Ixtlilxochitl by noting that he was only writing down what he read in the different native records he was translating.
[That is not true. Ixtlilxochitl was writing a history acceptable to the Spanish which defended his family's land claims and social position.]
THE WRITINGS OF IXTLILXOCHITL
Introduction The Historical Works of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl. Edited and annotated by Alfredo Chavero and published as a 2nd edition of the works of Jose Fernando Ramirez in 1892. The 3rd edition was published in 1965 with a preface by Lic. J. Ignacio Davila Garibi.
This treatise consists of Volume 1, Chapter 1, of CHAVERO, translated into English and arranged into verses by JOSEPH L. ALLEN.
Footnotes and commentary with maps are also added by Allen. [Other insertions by yours truly.]
SUMMARY ACCOUNT
1. A history of the events in New Spain including many things regarding the knowledge and accomplishments of the Tultecas from the creation of the world to its destruction, and up to the arrival of the third inhabitants called Chichimecas, and on up to the arrival of the Spanish, taken from the original history of New Spain.
FIRST ACCOUNT
2. The creation of the world and things pertaining thereto, including the origin of man. The omniscience of God and what He has revealed to the Toltecs.
3. The Toltecs had a knowledge of the creation of the world by Tloque Nahuaque, including the planets, mountains, animals, etc. They also knew about how God created a man and a woman from whence all mankind descended and multiplied. They recorded many other events that are not included in this account, inasmuch as the same events are recorded by other nations in the world.
[God, and Adam and Eve, with other parts excluded.]
4. The records indicate that the world was created in the year Ce Tecpatl [1 Flint, likely 1 Flint Mixcoatl, see http://www.ancient.eu/Mixcoatl/],
and the period of time from the creation to the flood is called "Atonatiuh", which means the age of "the Sun of Water" because the world was destroyed by the flood.
And it is recorded in the Toltec history that this period or first world, as they called it, lasted for 1,716 years, after which time great lightning and storms from the heavens destroyed mankind, and everything in the earth was covered by water including the highest mountain called Caxtolmolictli, which is 15 cubits? high.
[The Flood of Noah]
5. To this they recorded other events, such as how, after the flood, a few people who had escaped the destruction inside a Toptlipetla/calli, which interpreted means an "enclosed ark", began again to multiply upon the earth.
[Again, the Flood of Noah.]
6. After the earth began again to be populated, they built a Zacualli very high and strong, which means "the very high tower", to protect themselves against a second destruction of the world.
7. As time elapsed, their language became confounded, such that they did not understand one another; and they were scattered to all parts of the world.
[The Tower of Babel]
8. The Toltecs, consisting of seven men and their wives, were able to understand one another, and they came to this land, having first crossed many lands and waters, living in caves and passing through great tribulations. Upon their arrival here, they discovered that it was a very good and fertile land.
9. It has been reported that they wandered for 104 years in different parts of the land until they settled in Huehue Tlapallan [=Hue=Hue +Tula+ Pallan = old old place of reeds tied = very old place of irrigation agriculture= Teotihuacan?], their homeland. This was in the year Ce Tecpatl and 520 years had elapsed since the flood, which represent five periods of time.
10. And 1,715 years after the flood, the people were destroyed by a very great hurricane that carried away trees, rocks, houses, and large buildings. [The Sun of the Wind] Many men and women escaped the storm by hiding in caves and other places where the great hurricane could not reach them.
[Destruction of the Tower of Babel.]
11. After a short period of time, they left the caves to see how much damage had taken place in the land. They discovered that it was populated and covered with monkeys that had been driven by the winds, as they had been in darkness all this time without being able to see the sun or the moon.
12. From this event, the saying came about that men had turned into monkeys. This period became known as the second period, or the second world, called Ehecatonatiuh, which means the "SUN OF WIND". After the destruction, men began again to rebuild and to multiply upon the face of the land.
13. In the year 8 Tochtli [8 Rabbit, Moon?], which was 1,347 years after the second calamity and 4,779 years since the creation of the world, it is recorded in their history that the sun stood still one natural day without moving, and a myth evolved wherein a mosquito saw the sun suspended in the air in a pensive mood and said, "Lord of the world , why are you standing still and why are you in such deep thought? Why are you not doing the work you are supposed to do? Do you want to destroy the world as before?" And the mosquito said many other things to the sun, but the sun still did not move. The mosquito then stung the sun on the leg, and seeing that his leg had been stung, the sun began again to move along its course as before.
14. It had been 158 years since the great hurricane [the Sun of Wind] and 4,964 years since the creation of the world, when there occurred another destruction in this land. The people who lived in this corner of the land, which they now call New Spain, were giants called Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. The destruction consisted of a great earthquake that swallowed up and killed the people when the high volcanic mountains erupted. All of the people were destroyed and no one escaped; or if anyone did escape, it was those who were in the internal parts of the land. Many Toltecs, along with the Chichimecas, who were their neighbors, were killed. This was in the year Tecpatl, and they called this time period Tlacchitonatiuh, which means "Sun of the Earth".
15. In the year Ce Tecpatl, which was 5,097 years since the creation of the world and 104 years after the total destruction of the giant Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime], all of the land of this new age being at peace, a council was held of the leading scientific, astrological, and artistic scholars in their capital city called Huehue Tlapallan [=Teotihuacan, above].
Here they discussed many things, including the destruction and the calamities that had taken place, as well as the movements of the heavens since the creation of the world. They also discussed many other things; but because of the burning of the records, we do not know or understand any more than what is written here.
Among other things, they added the leap year to the calendar to adjust it with the solar equinox; and they discussed many other interesting things as will be observed from their records and laws regarding the years, months, weeks, days, signs, and planets. These, along with other interesting things, were understood by them.
16. It had been 166 years since they had adjusted their calendar with the equinox, and 270 years since the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] had been destroyed, when the sun and the moon eclipsed, and the earth quaked and rocks were broken into pieces and many other signs that had been given came to pass, although man was not destroyed. This was in the year Ce Calli, which, adjusted to our calendar, happened at the same time that Christ, our Lord, was crucified. And they say that this destruction occurred in the first few days of the year. [Ixtlilxochitl would try to turn one of Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus, which accounts for this date.]
17. These, and many other things, from the creation of the world up to our time, were understood by the Toltecs. As I have heretofore stated, according to what appears in their histories and paintings, they only made an abridgement, primarily of their origins; I mean all of the things that are found in their paintings and histories are just an abridgement compared to the records that the first archbishop of Mexico ordered to be burned.
18. It had been 305 years since the time of the eclipsing of the sun and the moon, 438 years since the time of the destruction of the large Quinametzin, and 5,486 years since the creation of the world, when Chalcatzin and Tlacamihtzin, chief leaders and descendants of the Toltec royal lineage, following many years of quiet peace, commenced to desire the usurpation of the kingdom, desiring to overthrow the legitimate successor. This was the year 13 Acatl.
19. They were exiled, and there began to be wars, and they cast them out of the City of Tlachicalzincan, in the region of Huey Tlapallan [= hue+ tula+pallan= old reed piles = Tollan?], their homeland. And they were cast out with their families and allies, their men as well as their women, and a great number were exiled. They left in the year following Ce Tecpatl, banished from all that land, as you will see in that which follows. And this transpired, according to our calculations, 449 years after the birth of our Christ the Lord. [remembering that Ixtlilxochitl was try to turn one of the Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus, this accounts for this date here.]
The Native Races
20. The ancestors of the natives of this land that is now called New Spain, according to the common and general opinion of everyone, as well as that which appears demonstrated in their paintings, came from the western areas.
21. And all who are now called Toltecs, Aculhuas, and Mexica, as well as the other people in this land, boast and affirm that they are descendants of the Chichimecas. The reason, according to their history, is that their first king, whose name was Chichimecatl, was the one who brought them to this new land where they settled. And it was he, as can be deduced, that came from the great Tartary [China or Siberia], and was part of those who came from the division of Babel. This account is described in great detail in their history, and it tells how he, their king traveled with them crossing a large part of the world, arriving at this land, which they considered to be good, fertile, and abundant for human sustenance. As mentioned earlier, they populated the major part of the land, and more particularly that which falls along the northern part. And Chichimecatl called the land by his own name.
22. In each place where the Chichimecatl settled, whether it be a large city or a small village, it was their custom to name it according to the first king or leader who possessed the land. This same custom prevailed among the Toltecs. The general area was called the Land of Tollan, after the first king who was so named. Be that as it may, this custom was prevalent in naming other cities and villages throughout the land.
23. Notwithstanding that some were called Toltecs, others Aculhuas, Tepanecas, and Otomites, they all were proud to be of the lineage of the Chichimecas, because they all descended from them. However, it is true that there were divisions among the Chichimecas themselves. And some were more civilized than others, such as the Toltecs. And others were more barbaric, such as the Otomites, and others like them. Those who are pure Chichimecas, whose kings were direct descendants of the first king and founder Chichimecatl, were bloodthirsty men, warriors, and lovers of power, holding other nations in bondage.
[Essentially, what we are working with is Nonoalco, overlain with Oto-Pame, overlain with Ute-Aztec (Nahuatl).]
24. Although one nation was inclined to righteousness and another nation was full of mischief idleness, being exceedingly haughty and proud and being warmongers, or although one nation was virtuous and another full of iniquity, both, as recorded in their history, they came from the same lineage, the Chichimecas. And all are descended from the same forefathers; and as it has been said, they came from the Occidental [western} areas.
25. In this land called New Spain [Mexico], there were giants, as demonstrated by their bones that have been discovered in many areas.
[The mammoth teeth.]
The ancient Toltec record keepers called them "Quinametzin" [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. They became acquainted with them and had many wars and contentions with them, and in particular in all of the land that is now called New Spain. They [the Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] were destroyed, and their civilization came to an end as a result of great calamities and punishments from heaven for some grave sins that they had committed.
26. It is the opinion of some of these ancient historians that these giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] descended from the same Chichimecas mentioned earlier, and they say that in these northern lands, where the ancient Chichimeca Empire was located that there are villages where there are still men living who are over thirty spans tall. And it is of no wonder, that even our own Spaniards have not yet entered into the interior of the lands, but have only traveled along the coastal areas such as the lands of the Chicoranos and the Duharezases, and they have found men in these parts who are eleven and twelve spans in height, and have been told that there are others even taller.
[11 spans = 87.5 inches = 7 Feet. The Spanish conquistadors did encounter tall people in the Sierra Madre. The 30 span height, say 20 foot, is impossible.]
27. The greatest destruction that occurred among the Quinametzin [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime] was in the year and date that the natives call Ce Toxtli, signifying the date 1 Rabbit, 299 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, and with them ended the third age, which was called Ecatonatiuh, [Sun of the Earth] because of the great winds and earthquakes. And almost everyone was destroyed.
Brief Account
28. The Toltecs were the second civilization in this land after the destruction of the giants [Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime]. . ., and they had a knowledge of the creation of the world, and of how the world had been destroyed by the flood; and many other things are recorded in their history and paintings.
29. . . . the word Toltec means men of the arts and sciences, because those of this nation were great artisans, as you can see today in many parts, and especially in the ruins of buildings, such as Teotihuacan, Tula, and Cholula.
CHICHIMECA HISTORY
30. The most serious authors and historians of the ancient pagans included Quetzalcoatl, who is considered to be the first. Some of the modern pagans include Nezahualcoyotzin, King of Texcoco, and the two infants of Mexico, Itzocatzin and Xiuhcozcatzin, sons of King Huitzilihuitzin. And there are many others I could mention if it were necessary.
31. It is declared through their histories about the god Teotloquenahuaque, Tlachihualcipal Nemoanulhuicahua Tlaltipacque, which, according to the correct interpretation, means the universal god of all things, creator of them and in whose will lives all creatures, lord of the heaven and of the earth, etc. After having created all things, he created the first parents of men, from whence came forth all others; and the dwelling place and habitation that he gave them was the world.
32. It is said that the world had four ages. The first, which was from the beginning, was called Atonatiuh, which means "Sun of Water", signifying that the world was terminated by a flood. The second, called Tlachitonatiuh, means "Sun of Earth", because the world came to an end by great earthquakes, in such a manner that almost all of mankind was destroyed. This age or time occurred during the time of the giants, who were called Quinametintzoc Ulihicxime.
33. The third age, Ecatonatiuh, means "Sun of Air", because this period came to an end by winds that were so strong that they uprooted all of the buildings and trees and even broke the rocks in pieces; and the majority of mankind perished. And because those who escaped this calamity found a large number of monkeys that the wind must have brought from other parts, the survivors said man must have been changed into monkeys.
34. Those who possessed this new world in this third age were the Ulmecas and Xicalancas; and according to what is found in their histories, they came in ships or boats from the east to the land of Potonchan, and from there they began to populate the land.
35. On the banks of the Atoyac River, which is the one that passes between Puebla and Cholula, there were found some of the giants [Quinametzin] who had escaped the destruction and extermination of the second age. Taking advantage of their size and strength, they oppressed and enslaved their new neighbors.
36. The principal leaders of the new settlers determined to liberate themselves, and the means they employed were to invite the old settlers to a very solemn feast. After the old settlers became full and intoxicated, they were killed and destroyed with their own weapons, with which feat the new settlers remained free and exempt from bondage, and this increased the domain and command of the Xicalancas and Ulmecas.
37. The people were living in a time of great prosperity, when there arrived in this land a man whom they called Quetzalcoatl.
[Remember here that Ixtlilxochitl was try to turn one of the Quetzalcoatl, which was a Toltec king's title, into Jesus or the disciple Thomas.]
Others called him Hueman because of his great virtues. He was considered just, saintly, and good, teaching them by deeds and words the road to virtue. He instructed them to refrain from vices and not to sin, and he gave them laws and sane doctrine. He told them to constrain their appetites and to be honest, and he instituted the law of the fast.
38. And [He was] the first to be worshiped and to be placed in authority, and for that reason [He] is called Quiauhtzteotlchicahualizteotl and Tonaceaquahuitl, which means "god of the rains and of health" and "tree of sustenance or of life".
39. After he [Quetzalcoatl] had preached the above mentioned to all of the other Ulmeca and Xicalanca cities, and especially in the City of Cholula, where he spent a great deal of time, and seeing the small amount of fruit that resulted from his doctrine, he returned to the same place from whence he had come, which was to the east, disappearing at Coatzacoalco.
40. And at the time of his farewell from these people, he told them of times to come. He said that in the year that would be called Ce Acatl, he would return and then his doctrine would be accepted, and his children would be lords and heirs of the earth. He also told them that they and their descendants would pass through great calamities and persecutions. He prophesied of many other things that would surely come to pass.
41. Quetzalcoatl, by literal interpretation, means "serpent of the precious feathers", with an allegoric meaning of "man of exceeding great wisdom". And Huemac (Hueman), some say, was the name given to him because his hands were printed, or stamped, on a rock, like a very fine wax, as testimony that what he prophesied would come to pass. Others say that (Hueman) means "he with the great or powerful hand".
[Hueman is another Toltec title, likely to simply mean either "The Elder", or simply Chief Priest.]
42. A few days after he left, a great destruction and devastation took place, which is referred to as the third period of the world. At that time, the great building and tower of Cholula, which was so famous and marvelous, was destroyed. It was like a second tower of Babel that these people had built, with virtually the same idea in mind. It was destroyed by the wind.
43. And later, those who escaped at the end of the third age, in place of the ruins, the people built a temple to Quetzalcoatl, whom they named "the god of wind", because it was destroyed by the wind. They understood that this calamity was sent by his hand. And they called it Ce Acatl, which was the name of the year of his coming. According to the history referred to, and from the records, the foregoing took place a few years after the birth of Christ our Lord.
44. After this age had passed, beginning at this time, entered the fourth age called Tletonatiuh, which means, "sun of fire", because it is said that this fourth and last age will end by fire.
45. Quetzalcoatl was a man of comely appearance and serious disposition. His countenance was white, and he wore a beard. His manner of dress consisted of a long, flowing robe.
Banished from their homeland, the Tultecas embarked upon their journey along the coast. Traveling through the country, they arrived at their Californias by the sea, which they called Hueytlapallan, which today is called Cortez, which name was given because of its reddish color. The date of their arrival was in the year ce Tecpatl, which corresponds to 387 AD.
Following along the coast of Xalixco (Jalisco) and all along the south, leaving from the port of Huatulco and traveling through diverse lands, they arrived at the province of Tochtepec, which is located along the north sea [Gulf of Mexico]. And after walking and exploring, they settled in the Tolantzinco, living in the places where they had stopped.
The Tultecas were the third settlers of this land, counting the giants as the first, with the second being the Ulmecas and Xicalancas. (Chavero 1965:28)
............
1. Following the conquest in 1521 AD, Mexico was called New Spain. The name was entirely abandoned in the early part of the 19th Century when Mexico gained her independence from Spain. New Spain also extended into Central America and, as a result, portions of the history of Ixtlilxochitl may encompass all of Mesoamerica. The setting for his history, however, is the Valley of Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl wrote that all of the natives of this land descended from two lineages, the Tultecas and the Chichimecas. (Chavero 457)
4. Aztec or Nahuatl words such as Caxtolmolictli, Atonatiuh, Toptlipetlacalli, and Zacualli are used extensively by Ixtlilxochitl. The word is normally followed by the interpretation or meaning of the word.
5. It appears here that Ixtlilxochitl confuses the record-keeping Tultecas with the first civilization, whom he consistently calls Quinametzin or giants (see verses = 16, 25, 32, 37).
6. Huehue Tlapallan is apparently the same place as Hueyapan, which is located in the Tuxtla Mountains of Veracruz, Mexico. Today, Huehue Tlapallan is the ancient Olmec site of Tres Zapotes, near the town of Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz. Excavation on the site began in 1939 under the direction of Dr. Matthew Stirling.
7. A period of time refers to the 52-year calendar cycle. In this case, however, Ixtlilxochitl apparently is calling two calendar cycles a period of time. Hence, five periods of time equal 520 years. The 104 years that they wandered represents one period of time or two 52-year calendar cycles.
Potonchan is near the present-day City of Veracruz, Mexico. It is the same place where the Spanish conquerors landed in the 16th Century AD.
The largest-based pyramid in the world is Cholula. It covers over 40 acres of ground and dates to the Preclassic Era (500 BC). It was destroyed at the time of Christ and has been rebuilt several times. A Catholic church sits peacefully on top of the pyramid today.
The State of Puebla borders the State of Veracruz.
25. The Spanish translation at the beginning of verse 38 states: "el primero que adoro y coloco la cruz." I have translated it as referring to Quetzalcoatl inasmuch as that is consistent with the context of the verses preceding and following the statement. I have translated "coloco la cruz" as "placed in authority." Quetzalcoatl has been given many names, including the two above. The "tree-of-life" motif is associated with Christ and is prevalent throughout Mesoamerica. Quetzalcoat l is afforded the prominent position of all of the gods of Mesoamerica.
26. Coatzacoalco(s) (Co-ought-saw-co-all-cos) has grown into a modem oil refinery city located in the State of Veracruz near the border of the State of Tabasco. The Coatzacoalcos River empties into the Gulf of Mexico at the top of the gulf by the City of Coatzacoalcos. The Aztec meaning of the word Coatzacoalcos is "the foundation of the religion of the feathered serpent."
30. Huatulco is in Southern Oaxaca.
Xalisco is the same area as Jalisco in what is the state where Guadalajara is located.
Let's see:
A wind strong enough to break stones? It sounds more to me like an impact blast.
Peter B. Villella, (2014).
The Last Acolhua: Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Elite Native Historiography in
Early New Spain.
Alva Ixtlilxochitl echoed previous generations of Acolhua nobles for at least two reasons:
they supplied his historical information, and he shared their agenda.
To begin, the legal and political activities of earlier leaders such as don Hernando Pimentel
had resulted in a broad paper trail rich with genealogical and historical information,
and their children were among Alva Ixtlilxochitl's primary informants and collaborators (Carrasco 1974; O'Gorman 1975, 23, 47–85, 285–87).
MEANWHILE, THE CHRONICLER'S PICTORIAL SOURCES [hieroglyphic texts]—
WHICH HE ERRONEOUSLY BELIEVED TO BE PRE-HISPANIC—
WERE ALSO THE ARTIFACTS OF POSTCONQUEST EFFORTS TO DEFEND CACIQUE PATRIMONIES AND TRIBUTE RIGHTS
(Carrera Stampa 1971, 223–33; Romero Galván 2003a; García 2006, 59–61).
Alva Ixtlilxochitl's source materials thus reflected not only a primordial Acolhua knowledge,
but also the postconquest maneuverings of noble families seeking to contest and reframe ancestral claims
in terms admissible to colonial authorities (Douglas 2010, 200–1n17).
Overall, Alva Ixtlilxochitl inherited (or was privy to) at least two discrete ‘archives’ of elite
Acolhua historiography, self-representation, and memory.
...Alva Ixtlilxochitl's other primary sources of information came from Teotihuacan,
an Acolhua Province previously subject to Texcoco, where his mother retained the
local cacicazgo (cacique's entailed estate) (Munch Galindo 1976).
Last edited by E.P. Grondine on Mon May 08, 2017 9:36 am, edited 10 times in total.
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
It is really clear that Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl was desperately trying to align his dates with those understood by the Spaniards,
those based on their understanding of the Bible at that time.
But was there more to Ixtlilxochitl' s dates than that?
Despite the really good dates that we now have for volcanic eruptions in the Valley of Mexico too little work has been recently done (to my knowledge) on Ixtlilxochitl's dates.
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWhj1qKXA6o
So let us examine an early analysis of the chronological problem,
THE STONE OF THE SUNS
and
THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF MEXICO
by
ENRIQUE JUAN PALACIOS,
translated by Frederick Starr, and converted to a working edit here by E.P. Grondine.
"The historian Ixtlilxóchitl, great-grandson of the last king of Texcoco,
is held to be the most faithful and informed conservator of the traditions, history, and cosmogony of the Toltecs.
There reigns, however, the most extraordinary confusion and an incredible disorder in many of the dates which he gives,
which is due to the fact that he did not know how to harmonize the native chronology with the Christian chronology;
but the basis of his narrative, submitted to a vigorous analysis and judiciously pruned,
very nearly approached historic truth, a cabildo of Indian savants (That of San Salvador Quautlancingo) having certified to the exactitude of his statements.
Men of no less merit than Clavijero, Prescott, Count Cortina, Fernando Ramírez, and Manuel Orozco y Berra,
have rendered justice to this man, unduly unesteemed by some.
According to the data in Ixtlilxóchitl's Relaciones (Relations),
from the creation of the world the human species had been destroyed three times:
the first time by inundations (Atonatiuh or the Sun of Water);
the second by hurricanes, or the Sun of the Air;
[and obviously I am inquiring into the exact cause of those "winds"]
after a lapse of time equal to that which passed before.
The third age concluded in the year 4992,
which is just 12 complete cycles of 416 years,
and ended by terrestrial calamities (wars, eruptions, earthquakes, etc.),
“ . . . . those of this earth had another destruction, who were the giants;
and thus also many of the Toltecs died in the year Ce técpatl (1 Knife, 4993);
and this age they called Tlacchitonatiuh (Sun of Earth).”
In this age Ixtlilxóchitl places the Ulmecas and the Xicalancas,
gives data regarding Quetzalcóatl, and speaks of the first pyramid of Cholula.
The destruction of the Quinamétzin (giants) marked the end of the era in 4993.
Notice that the number 4992 is equal to three exact periods of 1,664 years,
1,664 years in its turn made up of 4 cycles of 416 years:
and let us not forget the pronounced tendency of the Indians to distribute the evolution of their history into fixed periods of equal duration.
Thus is explained the allegory engraved in the center of the relief which represents the four ages of the world,
the duration of each one of which appears determined by 4 dots,
the chronological value of which has not been discovered until now.
It is easy for us to suppose that the Toltecs,
always obedient to the quadrapartite conception
which permeated such diverse phases of their social organization, their philosophy, and their religio-cosmogonic beliefs,
would assign to each period, even if it had scarcely begun,
1,664 years, the number formed by four great cycles of 416 years,
the 416 years made up of four huehuetiliztl, 104 year periods,
each made up of two 52 year periods.
According to this reading, the dots on the inscribed stone are valued each one at 416 years,
like the flames from the bodies of the serpents and other diverse elements of this admirably co-ordinated product of talent.
The above might seem to be speculative,
but it is a fact that Ixtlilxochitl fixes the date 4992 and that this date is read twice in the relief of the inscribed stone.
Thus when 4,992 years had run their course, only three ages had been completed;
104 years later, Ixtlilxóchitl affirms that the Toltecs initiated a new chronology,
"they added the bi-sextile, in order to adjust the solar year to the equinox,"
and in fine, they perfected their calendar, determining the rules relative "to the months, the weeks, and the signs and planets".
And this event occurred in Ce técpatl (1-knife) 5097, counting from the creation of the world in the northern calendar.
The important Anales de Cuauhtitlan (Annals of Cuauhtitlan)
(a codex which surpasses all those known in the antiquity and precision of its chronology, which embraces eight great cycles),
and which is considered as in apparent disaccord with Ixtlilxóchitl,
in reality confirm the capital data of Ixtlilxóchitl.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan locate the arrival of the mysterious nation of the Ulmecas,
in the beginnings of the third age,
very nearly at 1,000 BCE,
and categorically fix the beginning of the second Toltec monarchy—
because in remote times the Toltec had first had another—
in the year 674 CE.
Twenty-six years later, the year 700 CE was Ce técpatl (1 Knife);
and all of the traditions affirm that the Toltecs initiated a new epoch in Ce técpatl (1 Knife).
On his part, the canon Ordóñez de Aguiar,
to whom are due the most trustworthy data which we possess upon the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas,
stated that at a little less than a 1,000 BCE the appearance of the Quich'es,
a people mysterious until the present time, in whom, however, we are not the first to suggest affinities with the Ulmecas.
Brasseur de Bourbourg discovered many most interesting things.
With the establishment of the Toltec monarchy or some analogous event of importance,
such as the regulation of the chronology,
we have seen that the period called the fourth age of the world began.
Thus,
if the third age began 1,664 years before that event,
its commencement dates from the year 964 BCE.
Ordóñez has discovered in the traditions of Chiapas,
that "almost a thousand years" before our era, took place the apparition,
and began in our territories the migrations of the Quich'es.
Brasseur de Bourbourg, with data from the codices,
indicates the coming of the Ulmecas in the Plateau in the year 955 B.C.,
a date admitted by Chavero in relation to the Vixtoti,
who were fundamentally the same people;
then is "when the sun began to divide the lands between men."
955 BCE differs by only nine years' from 964 BCE.
We shall have to infer that the Ulmecas and the Quich'es were the same people,
which explains to us the arrival of the first from the east.
Some circumstance set them in movement about 1,000 BCE,
and about the year 964 or 955 [BCE] the Quich'es began to show themselves in the high table-land of Anahuac,
coming from the direction of the Gulf, as all the traditions assert.
It is necessary to admit the probability that they constructed the first pyramids and other monuments,
as legend persistently claims.
Sahagún, Torquemada, and various chroniclers collected the story from the lips of the Indians,
and in our own day Bishop Plancarte y Navarrette urges it with powerful arguments.
Also Waldeck, Lenoir, and Orozco y Berra indicate the event as a thing occurring about 3,000 years ago.
Somewhere about the year 596 CE, a date suggested by Clavijero,
there appeared on the Plateau, or at least began their movement, the advance guards of the Toltec migration.
The best documents, the Anales de Cuauhtitlan among them, agree that the land was then occupied by the Ulmecas.
Some grave event, perhaps the last manifestations of volcanic activity, developed at the time, principally in the Valley of Mexico,
permitting the newcomers to witness the last ruins of the catastrophe in the regions which had been occupied by their predecessors;
the vestiges of human work found under the lavas of Xictli and of Cerro Pelado in the Pedregal of San Angel and on both slopes of Ajusco
strongly corroborate this hypothesis.
It was then the year 4992 in the chronology of the first inhabitants.
After the cataclysm the Toltecs employed another 104 years, a huehuetiliztli,
in establishing themselves in the district,
and in the year 700 CE founded their final seat,
and initiated a new period in the fourth age of the world,
arranging the chronology, consolidating their monarchial institutions, and electing their first king.
Chavero agrees with these data,
although he believes that six years earlier, in 694 CE, some very important event occurred,
a date which some, like Orozco y Berra, connect with the dedication of the pyramids to the astronomic cult;
but he accepts the mentioned date anyway.
Torquemada had gathered from the traditions which came within his reach the same date, 700 CE,
adding that the Toltecs had "wandered" for 104 years before, a statement which accords with other statements that we have.
Clavijero and other authors vary slightly as to the founding of Tula,
assigning the dates 661, 667, 674 CE - the Anales de Cuauhtitlan gives this and even 694 CE, the date given by Motolinia as the year of the beginning of the epoch;
but the date mentioned (700 CE; Ce técpatl (1 Knife) in the native calendar),
whether we relate it to that event or to the exaltation of the first Toltec monarch,
best results from analysis, for which reason Chavero, the erudite author of the first volume of "México a Través de los Siglos",
after a thorough investigation, decides in favor of it.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan mentioned that although they declare that Tula was founded in 674 CE,
add that that nation existed for 27 years without a monarch,
which is to say, the Anales de Cuauhtitlanthey arrived in this way at the notable date 700 CE.
It cannot be denied that this date floats with singular persistency upon the tumultuous waves of native traditions.
Buelna, whose talent and breadth of documentation no one denies, also encounters it in his investigations,
although the learned author of the "Peregrinación de los Aztecas" refers that date to one of the principal stations in the journey of the tribe of Tenoch—
their arrival at Mexcala or Coatlicamac—
an assertion with which we do not agree, because it conflicts with the statements of the Codex Ramírez, of Duran, and of Chimalpahin,
who unanimously assign a much less ancient date to that event.
But even if the date is not related to the tribe of the Mexica,
the suggestive thing is that this date appears in all of the studies,
so that surely it does allude to some event of capital importance in the history of the first inhabitants;
and all the circumstances have us admit that it treats of the Toltecs.
The relative smallness of the discrepancies which we have mentioned
in itself manifests the effective exactness of the chronology in question.
There are those who (Seler, Joyce) in place of the year 700 CE
prefer to assign the initial references of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, relative to the Toltecs, to the year 752 CE;
the fact that this date is just a bundle of years (52 years) after the other, united to other testimonies,
confirms our opinion that 700 CE is the correct date.[1]
Ixtlilxóchitl and the Anales of Cuauhtitlan result then in the whole in agreement:
the year 700 of the Common Era was the year 5097 of the chronology of the Indians.
Here follows a most important passage from Ixtlilxóchitl, which one might almost say was directly deduced from the data of the calendar stone's relief:
". . . . In the year 5097 of the creation of the world,
which was Ce técpatl, and 104 from the total destruction of the Quinamétzin (giants),
there being peace throughout this New World,
all the Toltec savants came together, the astrologers as well as the other arts in Huehuetlapallan [=hue/hue/tula/pallan= old old reed dikes, Teotihuacan?],
head city of their kingdom,
where they treated of many things
such as the events and calamities that had happened and
the movement of the heavens since the creation of the world."
There leaps to view the allusion to the famous meeting of Toltec astronomers,
- which certainly did not occur in the remote district of the Gila (River), as has erroneously been claimed—
in any event, there were various of these assemblies—the meetings in which was made the reorganizaiton of the calendar.
This important meeting took place in the year 5097 from the creation of the world (native chronology),
the year that was Ce técpatl (1 Knife) in its series (commenced with the same name and number).
We have before seen that some event of the greatest importance for that people occurred in the year 700 CE,
and the synchronological tables (see those of Veytia) tell us without room for error that that year 700 CE was Ce técpatl (1 Knife).
At the same time, this paragraph of Ixtlilxóchitl states that
the third age of the world ended in 4992,
since that 104 years before 5097 when the Quinamétzin perished;
this was the Tlacchitonatiuh, or the Sun of the Earth (Tlaltonatiuh).
So thus the Indians considered their third epoch finished in the year 596 CE,
and it is to be noticed that three historians, Torquemada, Clavijero, and Veytia, are in harmony regarding this date;
but as the Toltecs delayed a century (104 years) in consolidating and regulating their calendar,
they adopted the year 700 CE for the chronological beginning.
Thus the inscribed stone in the museum shows the two dates clearly:
in the glyphs on the backs of the serpents, which summed with the 104 years of the meeting of the heads give the number 5,096,
and in the glyphs at the margin of the stone, alluding to the facts already discussed,
which express the number 4,992.
In order to confirm this with noonday clearness,
here is the character Ce técpatl (1 Knife), joined to the face of Tonatiuh in a prominent part of the relief;
here are also the four cosmologic ages;
and here at the edge of the stone the hieroglyphs alluding to the three ages completed.
The reference could not be more explicit.
The monolith appears to have been worked expressly to record the facts discussed at the memorable assembly of the astronomers,
that “movement of the heavens and the calamities that have occurred since the creation of the world.”
Already we know what these were:
Chavero has read them to perfection in the rectangles which surround the naolin: Ehecatonatiuh, Tletonatiuh, Atonatiuh, and Tlaltonatiuh,
which was the present, initiated by Ce técpatl (1 Knife): the ages, "Suns" and catastrophes of the air, fire, water, and earth.
We already know the meaning of the “movement of the heavens”,
that it was nothing else than the cycles of 104 and 416 years,
determined by the harmonious interlocking of the periods of the sun and of Venus,
which is what the union of the magnificent serpents symbolizes.
And what is the native year 5097 in our chronology?
The synchronological tables, Ixtlilxóchitl, and the Anales of Cuauhtitlan, each in their own style, tell us:
This Ce técpatl (1 Knife), the commencement of the Toltec epoch within the fourth age of the world ,
corresponds to 700 CE,
when the compatriots of Huemántzin declared their new history begun and founded the second Tula,
or what is more probable, elected their monarch Mixcoamazátzin, as Chavero says.
Torquemada gives the same year, but gives the king’s name as Totepeuh;
and Motolinía varies only by six years, since he says that the present age commenced in 694 CE,
while the tables prove that the Ce técpatl (1 knife) mentioned by Ixtlilxóchitl could only be 700 CE.[2]
So many testimonies give this force it might indeed be thought correct;
and we have been driven to seriously think that the calendar stone of the museum was made a little after the year 700 CE,
by the hands of a people who, on account of their knowledge in the arts and sciences, have fame in the native traditions as learned and artistic.
For fuller measure - The year 699 was a 13-ácatl,
the date indicated by the tails of the serpents, in whose heads and bodies we have read so simply the number 5,096.
Whatever chronological tables, those of Veytia, for example, corroborate this assertion.
There is nothing venturous, in the presence of so many and such facts,
in claiming that the stone dates from 700 CE,
and that it was sculptured in record of the most famous assembly of Toltec astronomers,
the meeting of which this stone seems the imperishable official record.
As we think how it has resisted the destructive agencies of the past five hundred years,
we hope that it may defy the kiss of one and of many myriads in the future.
There is another circumstance suggesting the Toltec origin of the inscribed stone,
at least as concerns the ideas represented:
the importance which the planet Venus has in the relief.
Quetzalcóatl was the symbol of the star;
Quetzalcóatl changed himself into Vesper, states the fragment attributed to Olmos in the "Histoire du Mechique";
Quetzalcóatl was the evening star, declares the commentators of Codex Vaticanus A.
Thus, Quetzalcóatl was pre-eminently the product, the most perfect personification of that race.
The son of Ixtacmixcóatl, "the serpent of the white clouds" (the Milky Way),
tradition says that Quetzalcóatl was one of the brothers engendered by the divine creator,
that is to say, one of the original races, called Olmecas, Xicalancas, etc.
The Codex Dehesa confirms this legend, since it shows the last beginning their pilgrimage into the heavens.
They would not be the first people that has deified its progenitors!
Quetzalcóatl is then the representative of the Toltecs, their symbol, their metaphorical incarnation,
and the Toltec priests and kings were accustomed to adopt his name.
And Quetzalcóatl is also the evening star.
Already we have been able to explain to ourselves that they deified him,
and that from his movements combined with those of the star of day they made the basis of their chronological system, the basis of their calendar -
this being the product of the thirteens and the twenties arranged by cycles of 52 and of 104 years,
it obviously results that the adorers of the star are the inventors of the system, the true inventors of the tonalámatl.
It is logical, in truth, that the symbols of the star should figure in a prominent part of the cyclographic stone!
To summarize:
Repeating the reading of the characters of basalt, combining scrupulousness with analytical rigor, the same data will always be found:
the four ages of the world, the number 4,992 twice placed (in one of which the numbers 1,664 figures),
the number 5,096,
the 13-ácatl correspondent to the same year,
the Ce técpatl, (1 Knife) the following year (5097),
and the cycles of 104 and 416 solar years indicated in different modes,
the dates mentioned being the result of the addition of these same cycles.
A simple and highly logical conception!
Translating this into our language and relating it to our modern chronology,
aided by documents as authoritative as the Anales de Cuauhtitlan and the Relaciones of Ixtlilxóchitl, both natives, we may say:
The date 5096 corresponds to the year 699 CE;
this year was a 13-ácatl,
and 1,664 years had passed since 964 B.C.
when in their legends, with discrepancies of about nine years, the natives declared the third era of the world began,
assigning to it a duration of four cycles of 416 years.
The 32 itzpapalotl (obsidian butterflies) of the edge of the relief, each symbolical of a new fire, confirm this assertion.
104 years before the year 4992 of their chronology,
it is declared that the quinamétzin were destroyed.
(Upon the probable origin of these beings consult Hamy, Anthropologie du Mexique; we speak of it also in our Historia de Puebla.)
The Toltec savants then met together and discussed the creation of the world,
the calamities that had occurred,
and the movements of the heavens:
this means that the proceeded to the regulation of the calendar, basing it upon the observations of the heavenly bodies.
Sahagún says that “the Toltec knew the movement of the heavens and this by the stars.”
Clavijero met with data that suggested something analogous,
since he declares that the astronomer Huemántzin, governing Ixtlilcuecháhuac, made the sacred book, the Teoamoxtli,
wherein was explained the movement of the heavens, and assigns to the event a date sufficiently near, the year 660 CE.
It is the same date that Boturini fixes for the beginning of what he calls the third age.
Both authorities agree in the fundamental fact,
but the rigorous and most minute chronology of the Anales, recording the dates 674 CE and 700 CE,
is irreproachable; to it we ought to attach ourselves, supported by the double authority of Torquemada and Chavero:
that the year 700 was Ce Técpatl is certain.
Is there any other way to record permanently the account of that reunion
in which had been condensed the wisdom, the legends, and even the auguries and predictions
of a race which lived ever scrutinizing the secret of the firmament?
No more fitting means existed than to sculpture it in indestructible material,
which should preserve the marvelous secret for following ages.
If the inscribed stone of the museum is that commemorative monument,
we must admit that its glyphs, so long mysterious,
were the work of a master-workman and the conception of a mind which in genius does not yield before Hipparchus, nor Kepler, nor Newton, nor Arago.
Thus Bullock was impelled to declare:
"...The stone is a conspicuous proof of the perfection to which those races had attained in certain sciences:
even in the most enlightened cities of the present day, there are few persons who would be capable of executing such a work."
It has taken us much time to make our analysis, and we have succeeded in making this decipherment only step by step,
strengthened with the most important codices and confirmed by the most notable monuments, as we shall see later on.
But to the eyes of the Mexicans of Tenochtitlan,
who placed the relief in a prominent part of their temple,
whether they worked it themselves or received it already made,
the reading was easy and significant in the extreme.
Translating it, so far as is possible, its form would be more or less as follows:
In the year 4992 the third age of the world came to an end; with four more great rounds, four ages.
At its termination Tonatiuh and Quetzalcóatl met in the heavens,
and in the tonalámatl it was Ce cipactli, the first of the count. It was the end of the year 13-ácatl.
One hundred and four years Iater the Toltec savants founded their city and elected a king, and the old men, the astronomers, and the principal diviners having assembled said:
We are about to commence again the count of time.
And they did so with the commencement of the following year, Ce técpatl, which was the 5,097th year from the creation.
And they added that this age would have to end through terrestrial calamities, after 4X416 years,
since the preceding ages had come to end through the force of water, of air, and of fire,
because so the two lords of heaven, who come together every 8 and 104 years, will it.
And they decided to record it in a monument, strong and eternal as time, that it should be preserved in the history of the world.
It is a strange coincidence, but 416 years after its foundation in 1116 CE,
the flourishing empire of the Toltecs was destroyed!
This is not a date which we arbitrarily suppose:
Torquemada, placing the last monarch Achauatzin at that time, and Veytia give the testimony; the learned Orozco y Berra states it; Chavero resolutely accepts it.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan vary by just 52 years (a bundle of years), which, even if it were erroneous, gives us an indirect confirmation.
But that date is not read upon the monument, nor would it be possible to find it there,
if we admit that it was worked well before the destruction of the Toltec empire in memory of the meeting of the Toltec astronomers.
Another question then arises: if the constructor was that people, how did their monument come to be in the teocalli of a Mexican city?
Let us agree first that the people of Tenoch(titlan) considered themselves the heirs of the Toltec culture, and that they had accepted it almost in its entirety;
on that account it is often compared to the Roman conquerors, conquered themselves in turn by the superiority of Greek culture.
We know that they belonged to one ethnic family, since both spoke Nahuatl.
Moreover, a multitude of circumstances exist which permit the affirmation that the Mexica descended directly from the Toltecs,
with whom they had a very close relationship.
It would not be strange then that,
encountering a monument which in so notable a fashion summarized the wisdom classic for them,
they should carefully preserve it and even erect it in their greatest temple.
The question of transportation as little involves difficulty, supposing that it was transported from the pyramids of Teotihuacan or from Tula.
Taking into consideration the data of geology, modern archaeologists recognize that the rock mass must have been transported
at least from the mountains of Aculco, the nearest locality where this kind of basalt is to be found.
If the Aztecs could transport a monolith of 30 tons' weight from there, they could have done so for a greater distance, for example, from Teotihuacan,
a sacred city concerning which more and more reasons accumulate for maintaining that it was the first Toltec metropolis.
The pyramids of Teotihuacan are not much farther from Mexico City than Chalco,
and it will be remembered that scarcely two or three decades ago there was brought from there a monument, the one called Omecíhuatl, goddess of water or the moon,
almost as large as the inscribed stone of the museum.
We now come to another consideration.
Ixtlilxóchitl expressly declares against the thesis of various authorities,
that the past ages were three and that the Toltecs initiated the fourth in the year Ce técpatl.
He says that the fourth age "has to finish," a phrase that it was the present one.
The sign técpatl, placed in the relief to the left, above the face of the sun, eloquently confirms that assertion:
it initiates the epoch which the constructors held as contemporaneous.
We know from Gama, Boturini, and other authorities
that the initial character of the epoch among the Mexica was tochtli;
hence técpatl belongs exclusively to the Toltec chronology.
There exist presumptions, then, for thinking that the relief condenses the Toltec chronology,
reckoning from the chronological reform instituted by that people in 700 CE.
Further, remember that in the border of the stone, from whose position it is easy to infer that they refer to past ages,
are encountered glyphs corresponding to three ages only,
which shows that the face of the inscribed monolith is destined to the actual or historic sun, it is reasonable to suppose.
Why then are the ages represented in the figure of the naolin four?
If the inscribed stone work were the work of the Aztecs, the explanation is very simple:
the fourth age beginning in the year 700 of the Christian Era, or 5097, of the Indian chronology,
the people of Tenoch(titlan) would consider it ended with the destruction of Tula,
reserving to their own history a fifth sun, which is what Gama, Orozco y Berra, Chavero, and other historians believe.
Thus would be explained the fact that the numeral situated below the arrow of the naolin is a little smaller than the others:
it represents the fifth age, not yet terminated; therefore it is smaller.
We confess that this reading has offered itself to our mind with singular insistence.
Nevertheless, this does not harmonize with the quadrapartite preoccupation of the natives;
and, above all, it is possible for the four figured ages to be explained within the first hypothesis,
that is, that the Toltecs have been the constructors of the stone,
or even that the Mexica did not believe that they lived in other than the fourth age.
A paragraph from Veytia will give us suggestive light upon the matter,
more especially as he speaks precisely of the meeting of the Tula astronomers. He says:
"In the city of Huehuetlapallan (Teotihuacan?, analysis given above) famous and numerous population,
there came together not only the learned astrologers who were of that city but others who came from the surrounding populations,
who, after conferring together at length over the errors which they had recognized in their computations,
determined that the duration of the world ought to be divided into four periods or ages,
which had to end by the violence of each one of the four elements.
The first age, Atonatiuh, from the creation to the Flood (of Noah), which they called the Sun of Water, Atonatiuh.
The second (age) from the Flood (of Noah) up to the hurricanes in which, by the force of the winds they had suffered the second calamity,
and so they called this second age Ehecatonatiuh, Sun of Air.
The third, in which they were, they said had to come to an end by earthquakes,
and so they called it Tlatonatiuh, Sun of the Earth;
and after this fellows the fourth and last age of the world,
which has to end by the violence of fire, and thus they call it Tletonatiuh which is to say the Sun of Fire."
Certain discrepancies with respect to the order of the suns will be noted,
which is different in Veytia, in Ixtlilxóchitl, and in the stone;
on the other hand, this (stone) agrees in the said particular with the “anonymous Codex of Gama” or Chimalpopoca.
There also appears an error of 104 years (a native century) in the accounts of Ixtlilxóchitl, and other divergences are not lacking.
This is inevitable in treating of so remote events, necessarily vague in their nature.
But there is a fundamental accord in the data which cannot be denied;
in any event, the relief is the unimpeachable authority to which in the last instance we must attend.
The Toltecs believed, as we have shown, that they lived in the third age of the world, as Boturini and Veytia suppose,
or at the beginning of the fourth, as is stated by Ixtlilxóchitl.
Their traditions told them that each one of the anterior ages had lasted a definite number of fixed periods of 416 years:
the first 1,664—or a bundle (52 years)more, according to the data of Ixtlilxóchitl,t apparently in error by 52 years in this account;
the second the same length.
The Toltecs found themselves at the end of the third, and held it finished at the expiration of four new cycles of 416 years each,
and here indeed Ixtlilxóchitl appears exact, stating definitely the date 4992, which are 12 great periods or 48 Indian centuries.
Then occurred the destruction of many of the autochthonous inhabitants of the plateau as the result of a catastrophe (apparently volcanic eruptions)
whose last manifestations the Toltecs themselves witnessed;
one huehuetiliztli (104 years) separates this event from the consolidation of the monarchy of Tula.
Clavijero, who places the arrival of the Toltec in the year 596 A.D., indirectly confirms the thesis,
since from then to 700 CE there passed just one native century (104 years).
Torquemada also speaks of their wandering for 104 years.
Clavijero admits the same date, 596 A.D., although he refers it to the beginning of the peregrination.
Buschmann also states the date.
They let these years go by then in consolidating themselves or in wandering,
and in the year 5097, Ce técpatl (1 Knife), which was 700 CE,
they initiated the fourth age of the world.
Chavero claims that they then elected their first monarch;
Boturini, Game, and the majority of authorities agree that the Toltec chronology began with Ce técpatl.
There are those who place the event at the year 713 CE and even 719 CE and 721 CE, an insignificant discrepancy.
Motilinia comes much nearer, giving the date 694 CE.
M. Remí Siméon, very competent in these matters, says that in 690 the Toltecs established their state
which was to last more than four centuries,
and we read it also in the Anales de Cuauhtitlan and in Gómara.
The assertion of this chronicler is of particular precision:
"Counting from then [the beginning of the historic period among the Indians] until the end of 1552, their sun [age] has 858 years.”
But it must not be forgotten that, according to the tables, only the year 700 CE was Ce técpatl,
and Ixtlilxóchitl has told us that in that Ce técpatl the meeting occurred.
The illustrious Orozco y Berra, whose scrupulousness in comparison of data and submitting the very last document to rigorous analysis, is proverbial,
states precisely the two most important dates 4993 and 5097, a fact that lends irrefrangible value to our inferences;
thus he himself points out in the Anales that of 700 and admits that of 694, giving it for the beginning of the epoch.
They celebrated at its time the famous assembly which left so deep a trace in their traditions, which all the chroniclers mention:
there was narrated the history of the world;
the calendar was arranged, based upon the cycles of 52 and 104 years, through the interlocking of the thirteens and the twenties (the tonalámatl);
and it is probable that the astrologers also indicated the end of the era beginning, and which calculations, experience, and the tetranary concept had naturally
to fit in periods of 416 years.
All of this, finally, was condensed in indestructible characters of basalt.
What strangeness then was there in seeing there stamped the four ages of the world’s history although only three had passed?
Veytia says, alluding to the Toltecs, that “ the future ages will be equal to the past.”
Therefore their duration appears to be indicated on the relief with the four numerals enclosed in each rectangle,
and of which we have not yet treated.
Now one conjecture regarding their significance offers itself to us:
each one of these represents a great cycle of 416 years and between them all 1,664, exact length of the three periods gone by.
It may be said that the stone confirms with mathematical exactness the chronology of Ixtlilxóchitl, followed by Boturini and Veytia;
while the interpretations of the Codex Vaticanus imagined by Humboldt and admitted in great part by Chavero and other authors,
who give to the native cosmogony about 18,000 years existence for the world, fall to the ground.
The basalt, unimpeachable text of the Nahoan cosmogony, and chronology,
prove that Ixtlilxóchitl was very near the correct:
he gives the total number precisely and only exceeds by a single bundle (52 years) in the two first partial figures, indicating 1,716 instead of 1,664.
And indeed, here again a hypothesis which seems probable to us;
the Toltecs persuaded that the fourth age was to be the last
and that it would have to endure another 4X416 years, judged in accordance with the tetranary philosophy,
did not hesitate to carve its symbol on the monolith,
assigning to it the duration which they believed foreordained by the lords of the firmament.
In this mode the figures of the relief are reconciled with the supposition that the Toltecs were its constructors.
Nevertheless, there are those who, in the numerals of the rectangles read the names of the days in which the catastrophes occurred.
That the ages had their end in those days (4-océlotl, 4-ehécatl, 4-quiáhuitl, and 4-atl) in fact is stated in the "Leyenda de los Soles",
which is added to the manuscript of the museum, which contains the Anales de Cuauhtitlan,
and in this codex itself, both declaring that the fifth sun would have to end in the day 4-ollin.
Chavero, and, following his example, many competent contemporary authors (Seler, Joyce, Spinden, etc.) have adopted an analogous point of view.
Were not the said reading supported in so important documents, we should not take this hypothesis, really almost puerile, into serious consideration.
Further, this hypothesis contradicts the Codex Vaticanus, pictograph which assigns to the catastrophes—
and be it noted to three only, which is also done by the Tellerian Codex—
very different dates, 10-atl for atemoztli, I-océlotl for pachtli, and 9-ollin for xilomaniztli.
But the assertion fits so well with the data of the relief,
that the hypothesis that the inscribed stone was the work of the Toltecs receives a rude blow.
The reading of the four rectangles appears simple:
they are the dates when the four first ages ended:
as to the naolin at the center, with its great numerals, it may be interpreted as the fifth, or Mexica age,
which has to end with the day 4-ollin.
In such event, the stone was inscribed by that people, who then appear the constructors of the monoliths.
The argument is strong, although, as has been seen, the Codex Rios, Boturini, Veytia, and Ixtlilxóchitl
do not agree with the Anales in the matter.
Nevertheless, our museum possesses a most important specimen,
which supports our first and logical reading, reinforcing the narrations of the Texcocan writer.
It is a stone of cubical form, approximately 0.50 meter on a side,
with a border of solar and Venus gylphs identical with those of the relief.
Upon the lateral faces of the cube, the four ages are represented with their respective dots,
being identical with the symbols of the chronographic stone or relief of the museum.
The fifth age is met nowhere.
We must believe that if the first people had conceived a fifth sun, the Ollintonatiuh,
they would have engraved its figure upon the upper face of the cube: there is no such thing on it.
The reality is expressed in the monolith which is called the monolith of Tenanco:
four are the ages figured, and the last (here, as in the Codex Fuenleal, is that of water) is not enclosed,
as are the others, by means of a band, which demonstrates that they did not consider it as concluded.
Also there are seen, joined to each epoch, three great dots and another two smaller, which is to say,
four larger numerals together: they represent the duration of the four epochs equal in all.
Mrs. Nuttall, in her most important work "The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations", showing in this an analogous mode of thought,
maintains that the Mexica (not the Toltecs) believed that they lived in the fourth age of the world;
Dr. Henning, the author of profound studies in these particulars, supposing the beginning to be the Sun of Air, the Ehecatonatiuh,
says that at the time of the discovery of America the natives were living precisely in the fourth era—this in his Study of the Date 4-Ahau;
Charencey suggests a similar idea in his study "Des Ages ou Soleils Aprés la Mythologie";
Charencey has also told us that this belief prevailed among the Cakchiquels,
and Dr. Brinton makes us know a similar thing with respect to the chronicles of Chilam Balam, that is to say, with respect to the Mayas.
It is possible, therefore, to read in the relief the expression of the cosmogonic ages,
admitting that its constructors believed themselves to belong to the fourth.
The great ollin, with the head of Tonatiuh in the middle, alludes not to a fifth era
but only to the movement of the orb between the solstices and the equinoxes, as Gama supposed;
and the numerals signify the four huehuetiliztli which we have read in them.
And Seler, so learned and well documented generally, studying similar problems affirms in his "Origenes de las Civilizationes"
that the beginning of the Toltec culture and of the system of the tonalámatl, or "the historic sun" for the Indians,
dates from an epoch which oscillates about the year 700 CE.
Further, the narratives of the history of the Aztecs and their precedessors,
the Culhuas (who were Toltecs), which were ordered to be written down
by the daughter of Motecuhzoma, Doña Isabel, and which were published by Señor Icazbalceta,
coincide in assigning to the first king a year of the eighth century, which is notably near to the year 700.
Certainly Dona Isabel utilized the services of some truly learned native priest.
Palacios' reading seems better than this one:
(Open the image in a new window to view it in its entirety)
those based on their understanding of the Bible at that time.
But was there more to Ixtlilxochitl' s dates than that?
Despite the really good dates that we now have for volcanic eruptions in the Valley of Mexico too little work has been recently done (to my knowledge) on Ixtlilxochitl's dates.
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWhj1qKXA6o
So let us examine an early analysis of the chronological problem,
THE STONE OF THE SUNS
and
THE FIRST CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF MEXICO
by
ENRIQUE JUAN PALACIOS,
translated by Frederick Starr, and converted to a working edit here by E.P. Grondine.
"The historian Ixtlilxóchitl, great-grandson of the last king of Texcoco,
is held to be the most faithful and informed conservator of the traditions, history, and cosmogony of the Toltecs.
There reigns, however, the most extraordinary confusion and an incredible disorder in many of the dates which he gives,
which is due to the fact that he did not know how to harmonize the native chronology with the Christian chronology;
but the basis of his narrative, submitted to a vigorous analysis and judiciously pruned,
very nearly approached historic truth, a cabildo of Indian savants (That of San Salvador Quautlancingo) having certified to the exactitude of his statements.
Men of no less merit than Clavijero, Prescott, Count Cortina, Fernando Ramírez, and Manuel Orozco y Berra,
have rendered justice to this man, unduly unesteemed by some.
According to the data in Ixtlilxóchitl's Relaciones (Relations),
from the creation of the world the human species had been destroyed three times:
the first time by inundations (Atonatiuh or the Sun of Water);
the second by hurricanes, or the Sun of the Air;
[and obviously I am inquiring into the exact cause of those "winds"]
after a lapse of time equal to that which passed before.
The third age concluded in the year 4992,
which is just 12 complete cycles of 416 years,
and ended by terrestrial calamities (wars, eruptions, earthquakes, etc.),
“ . . . . those of this earth had another destruction, who were the giants;
and thus also many of the Toltecs died in the year Ce técpatl (1 Knife, 4993);
and this age they called Tlacchitonatiuh (Sun of Earth).”
In this age Ixtlilxóchitl places the Ulmecas and the Xicalancas,
gives data regarding Quetzalcóatl, and speaks of the first pyramid of Cholula.
The destruction of the Quinamétzin (giants) marked the end of the era in 4993.
Notice that the number 4992 is equal to three exact periods of 1,664 years,
1,664 years in its turn made up of 4 cycles of 416 years:
and let us not forget the pronounced tendency of the Indians to distribute the evolution of their history into fixed periods of equal duration.
Thus is explained the allegory engraved in the center of the relief which represents the four ages of the world,
the duration of each one of which appears determined by 4 dots,
the chronological value of which has not been discovered until now.
It is easy for us to suppose that the Toltecs,
always obedient to the quadrapartite conception
which permeated such diverse phases of their social organization, their philosophy, and their religio-cosmogonic beliefs,
would assign to each period, even if it had scarcely begun,
1,664 years, the number formed by four great cycles of 416 years,
the 416 years made up of four huehuetiliztl, 104 year periods,
each made up of two 52 year periods.
According to this reading, the dots on the inscribed stone are valued each one at 416 years,
like the flames from the bodies of the serpents and other diverse elements of this admirably co-ordinated product of talent.
The above might seem to be speculative,
but it is a fact that Ixtlilxochitl fixes the date 4992 and that this date is read twice in the relief of the inscribed stone.
Thus when 4,992 years had run their course, only three ages had been completed;
104 years later, Ixtlilxóchitl affirms that the Toltecs initiated a new chronology,
"they added the bi-sextile, in order to adjust the solar year to the equinox,"
and in fine, they perfected their calendar, determining the rules relative "to the months, the weeks, and the signs and planets".
And this event occurred in Ce técpatl (1-knife) 5097, counting from the creation of the world in the northern calendar.
The important Anales de Cuauhtitlan (Annals of Cuauhtitlan)
(a codex which surpasses all those known in the antiquity and precision of its chronology, which embraces eight great cycles),
and which is considered as in apparent disaccord with Ixtlilxóchitl,
in reality confirm the capital data of Ixtlilxóchitl.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan locate the arrival of the mysterious nation of the Ulmecas,
in the beginnings of the third age,
very nearly at 1,000 BCE,
and categorically fix the beginning of the second Toltec monarchy—
because in remote times the Toltec had first had another—
in the year 674 CE.
Twenty-six years later, the year 700 CE was Ce técpatl (1 Knife);
and all of the traditions affirm that the Toltecs initiated a new epoch in Ce técpatl (1 Knife).
On his part, the canon Ordóñez de Aguiar,
to whom are due the most trustworthy data which we possess upon the ancient inhabitants of Chiapas,
stated that at a little less than a 1,000 BCE the appearance of the Quich'es,
a people mysterious until the present time, in whom, however, we are not the first to suggest affinities with the Ulmecas.
Brasseur de Bourbourg discovered many most interesting things.
With the establishment of the Toltec monarchy or some analogous event of importance,
such as the regulation of the chronology,
we have seen that the period called the fourth age of the world began.
Thus,
if the third age began 1,664 years before that event,
its commencement dates from the year 964 BCE.
Ordóñez has discovered in the traditions of Chiapas,
that "almost a thousand years" before our era, took place the apparition,
and began in our territories the migrations of the Quich'es.
Brasseur de Bourbourg, with data from the codices,
indicates the coming of the Ulmecas in the Plateau in the year 955 B.C.,
a date admitted by Chavero in relation to the Vixtoti,
who were fundamentally the same people;
then is "when the sun began to divide the lands between men."
955 BCE differs by only nine years' from 964 BCE.
We shall have to infer that the Ulmecas and the Quich'es were the same people,
which explains to us the arrival of the first from the east.
Some circumstance set them in movement about 1,000 BCE,
and about the year 964 or 955 [BCE] the Quich'es began to show themselves in the high table-land of Anahuac,
coming from the direction of the Gulf, as all the traditions assert.
It is necessary to admit the probability that they constructed the first pyramids and other monuments,
as legend persistently claims.
Sahagún, Torquemada, and various chroniclers collected the story from the lips of the Indians,
and in our own day Bishop Plancarte y Navarrette urges it with powerful arguments.
Also Waldeck, Lenoir, and Orozco y Berra indicate the event as a thing occurring about 3,000 years ago.
Somewhere about the year 596 CE, a date suggested by Clavijero,
there appeared on the Plateau, or at least began their movement, the advance guards of the Toltec migration.
The best documents, the Anales de Cuauhtitlan among them, agree that the land was then occupied by the Ulmecas.
Some grave event, perhaps the last manifestations of volcanic activity, developed at the time, principally in the Valley of Mexico,
permitting the newcomers to witness the last ruins of the catastrophe in the regions which had been occupied by their predecessors;
the vestiges of human work found under the lavas of Xictli and of Cerro Pelado in the Pedregal of San Angel and on both slopes of Ajusco
strongly corroborate this hypothesis.
It was then the year 4992 in the chronology of the first inhabitants.
After the cataclysm the Toltecs employed another 104 years, a huehuetiliztli,
in establishing themselves in the district,
and in the year 700 CE founded their final seat,
and initiated a new period in the fourth age of the world,
arranging the chronology, consolidating their monarchial institutions, and electing their first king.
Chavero agrees with these data,
although he believes that six years earlier, in 694 CE, some very important event occurred,
a date which some, like Orozco y Berra, connect with the dedication of the pyramids to the astronomic cult;
but he accepts the mentioned date anyway.
Torquemada had gathered from the traditions which came within his reach the same date, 700 CE,
adding that the Toltecs had "wandered" for 104 years before, a statement which accords with other statements that we have.
Clavijero and other authors vary slightly as to the founding of Tula,
assigning the dates 661, 667, 674 CE - the Anales de Cuauhtitlan gives this and even 694 CE, the date given by Motolinia as the year of the beginning of the epoch;
but the date mentioned (700 CE; Ce técpatl (1 Knife) in the native calendar),
whether we relate it to that event or to the exaltation of the first Toltec monarch,
best results from analysis, for which reason Chavero, the erudite author of the first volume of "México a Través de los Siglos",
after a thorough investigation, decides in favor of it.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan mentioned that although they declare that Tula was founded in 674 CE,
add that that nation existed for 27 years without a monarch,
which is to say, the Anales de Cuauhtitlanthey arrived in this way at the notable date 700 CE.
It cannot be denied that this date floats with singular persistency upon the tumultuous waves of native traditions.
Buelna, whose talent and breadth of documentation no one denies, also encounters it in his investigations,
although the learned author of the "Peregrinación de los Aztecas" refers that date to one of the principal stations in the journey of the tribe of Tenoch—
their arrival at Mexcala or Coatlicamac—
an assertion with which we do not agree, because it conflicts with the statements of the Codex Ramírez, of Duran, and of Chimalpahin,
who unanimously assign a much less ancient date to that event.
But even if the date is not related to the tribe of the Mexica,
the suggestive thing is that this date appears in all of the studies,
so that surely it does allude to some event of capital importance in the history of the first inhabitants;
and all the circumstances have us admit that it treats of the Toltecs.
The relative smallness of the discrepancies which we have mentioned
in itself manifests the effective exactness of the chronology in question.
There are those who (Seler, Joyce) in place of the year 700 CE
prefer to assign the initial references of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, relative to the Toltecs, to the year 752 CE;
the fact that this date is just a bundle of years (52 years) after the other, united to other testimonies,
confirms our opinion that 700 CE is the correct date.[1]
Ixtlilxóchitl and the Anales of Cuauhtitlan result then in the whole in agreement:
the year 700 of the Common Era was the year 5097 of the chronology of the Indians.
Here follows a most important passage from Ixtlilxóchitl, which one might almost say was directly deduced from the data of the calendar stone's relief:
". . . . In the year 5097 of the creation of the world,
which was Ce técpatl, and 104 from the total destruction of the Quinamétzin (giants),
there being peace throughout this New World,
all the Toltec savants came together, the astrologers as well as the other arts in Huehuetlapallan [=hue/hue/tula/pallan= old old reed dikes, Teotihuacan?],
head city of their kingdom,
where they treated of many things
such as the events and calamities that had happened and
the movement of the heavens since the creation of the world."
There leaps to view the allusion to the famous meeting of Toltec astronomers,
- which certainly did not occur in the remote district of the Gila (River), as has erroneously been claimed—
in any event, there were various of these assemblies—the meetings in which was made the reorganizaiton of the calendar.
This important meeting took place in the year 5097 from the creation of the world (native chronology),
the year that was Ce técpatl (1 Knife) in its series (commenced with the same name and number).
We have before seen that some event of the greatest importance for that people occurred in the year 700 CE,
and the synchronological tables (see those of Veytia) tell us without room for error that that year 700 CE was Ce técpatl (1 Knife).
At the same time, this paragraph of Ixtlilxóchitl states that
the third age of the world ended in 4992,
since that 104 years before 5097 when the Quinamétzin perished;
this was the Tlacchitonatiuh, or the Sun of the Earth (Tlaltonatiuh).
So thus the Indians considered their third epoch finished in the year 596 CE,
and it is to be noticed that three historians, Torquemada, Clavijero, and Veytia, are in harmony regarding this date;
but as the Toltecs delayed a century (104 years) in consolidating and regulating their calendar,
they adopted the year 700 CE for the chronological beginning.
Thus the inscribed stone in the museum shows the two dates clearly:
in the glyphs on the backs of the serpents, which summed with the 104 years of the meeting of the heads give the number 5,096,
and in the glyphs at the margin of the stone, alluding to the facts already discussed,
which express the number 4,992.
In order to confirm this with noonday clearness,
here is the character Ce técpatl (1 Knife), joined to the face of Tonatiuh in a prominent part of the relief;
here are also the four cosmologic ages;
and here at the edge of the stone the hieroglyphs alluding to the three ages completed.
The reference could not be more explicit.
The monolith appears to have been worked expressly to record the facts discussed at the memorable assembly of the astronomers,
that “movement of the heavens and the calamities that have occurred since the creation of the world.”
Already we know what these were:
Chavero has read them to perfection in the rectangles which surround the naolin: Ehecatonatiuh, Tletonatiuh, Atonatiuh, and Tlaltonatiuh,
which was the present, initiated by Ce técpatl (1 Knife): the ages, "Suns" and catastrophes of the air, fire, water, and earth.
We already know the meaning of the “movement of the heavens”,
that it was nothing else than the cycles of 104 and 416 years,
determined by the harmonious interlocking of the periods of the sun and of Venus,
which is what the union of the magnificent serpents symbolizes.
And what is the native year 5097 in our chronology?
The synchronological tables, Ixtlilxóchitl, and the Anales of Cuauhtitlan, each in their own style, tell us:
This Ce técpatl (1 Knife), the commencement of the Toltec epoch within the fourth age of the world ,
corresponds to 700 CE,
when the compatriots of Huemántzin declared their new history begun and founded the second Tula,
or what is more probable, elected their monarch Mixcoamazátzin, as Chavero says.
Torquemada gives the same year, but gives the king’s name as Totepeuh;
and Motolinía varies only by six years, since he says that the present age commenced in 694 CE,
while the tables prove that the Ce técpatl (1 knife) mentioned by Ixtlilxóchitl could only be 700 CE.[2]
So many testimonies give this force it might indeed be thought correct;
and we have been driven to seriously think that the calendar stone of the museum was made a little after the year 700 CE,
by the hands of a people who, on account of their knowledge in the arts and sciences, have fame in the native traditions as learned and artistic.
For fuller measure - The year 699 was a 13-ácatl,
the date indicated by the tails of the serpents, in whose heads and bodies we have read so simply the number 5,096.
Whatever chronological tables, those of Veytia, for example, corroborate this assertion.
There is nothing venturous, in the presence of so many and such facts,
in claiming that the stone dates from 700 CE,
and that it was sculptured in record of the most famous assembly of Toltec astronomers,
the meeting of which this stone seems the imperishable official record.
As we think how it has resisted the destructive agencies of the past five hundred years,
we hope that it may defy the kiss of one and of many myriads in the future.
There is another circumstance suggesting the Toltec origin of the inscribed stone,
at least as concerns the ideas represented:
the importance which the planet Venus has in the relief.
Quetzalcóatl was the symbol of the star;
Quetzalcóatl changed himself into Vesper, states the fragment attributed to Olmos in the "Histoire du Mechique";
Quetzalcóatl was the evening star, declares the commentators of Codex Vaticanus A.
Thus, Quetzalcóatl was pre-eminently the product, the most perfect personification of that race.
The son of Ixtacmixcóatl, "the serpent of the white clouds" (the Milky Way),
tradition says that Quetzalcóatl was one of the brothers engendered by the divine creator,
that is to say, one of the original races, called Olmecas, Xicalancas, etc.
The Codex Dehesa confirms this legend, since it shows the last beginning their pilgrimage into the heavens.
They would not be the first people that has deified its progenitors!
Quetzalcóatl is then the representative of the Toltecs, their symbol, their metaphorical incarnation,
and the Toltec priests and kings were accustomed to adopt his name.
And Quetzalcóatl is also the evening star.
Already we have been able to explain to ourselves that they deified him,
and that from his movements combined with those of the star of day they made the basis of their chronological system, the basis of their calendar -
this being the product of the thirteens and the twenties arranged by cycles of 52 and of 104 years,
it obviously results that the adorers of the star are the inventors of the system, the true inventors of the tonalámatl.
It is logical, in truth, that the symbols of the star should figure in a prominent part of the cyclographic stone!
To summarize:
Repeating the reading of the characters of basalt, combining scrupulousness with analytical rigor, the same data will always be found:
the four ages of the world, the number 4,992 twice placed (in one of which the numbers 1,664 figures),
the number 5,096,
the 13-ácatl correspondent to the same year,
the Ce técpatl, (1 Knife) the following year (5097),
and the cycles of 104 and 416 solar years indicated in different modes,
the dates mentioned being the result of the addition of these same cycles.
A simple and highly logical conception!
Translating this into our language and relating it to our modern chronology,
aided by documents as authoritative as the Anales de Cuauhtitlan and the Relaciones of Ixtlilxóchitl, both natives, we may say:
The date 5096 corresponds to the year 699 CE;
this year was a 13-ácatl,
and 1,664 years had passed since 964 B.C.
when in their legends, with discrepancies of about nine years, the natives declared the third era of the world began,
assigning to it a duration of four cycles of 416 years.
The 32 itzpapalotl (obsidian butterflies) of the edge of the relief, each symbolical of a new fire, confirm this assertion.
104 years before the year 4992 of their chronology,
it is declared that the quinamétzin were destroyed.
(Upon the probable origin of these beings consult Hamy, Anthropologie du Mexique; we speak of it also in our Historia de Puebla.)
The Toltec savants then met together and discussed the creation of the world,
the calamities that had occurred,
and the movements of the heavens:
this means that the proceeded to the regulation of the calendar, basing it upon the observations of the heavenly bodies.
Sahagún says that “the Toltec knew the movement of the heavens and this by the stars.”
Clavijero met with data that suggested something analogous,
since he declares that the astronomer Huemántzin, governing Ixtlilcuecháhuac, made the sacred book, the Teoamoxtli,
wherein was explained the movement of the heavens, and assigns to the event a date sufficiently near, the year 660 CE.
It is the same date that Boturini fixes for the beginning of what he calls the third age.
Both authorities agree in the fundamental fact,
but the rigorous and most minute chronology of the Anales, recording the dates 674 CE and 700 CE,
is irreproachable; to it we ought to attach ourselves, supported by the double authority of Torquemada and Chavero:
that the year 700 was Ce Técpatl is certain.
Is there any other way to record permanently the account of that reunion
in which had been condensed the wisdom, the legends, and even the auguries and predictions
of a race which lived ever scrutinizing the secret of the firmament?
No more fitting means existed than to sculpture it in indestructible material,
which should preserve the marvelous secret for following ages.
If the inscribed stone of the museum is that commemorative monument,
we must admit that its glyphs, so long mysterious,
were the work of a master-workman and the conception of a mind which in genius does not yield before Hipparchus, nor Kepler, nor Newton, nor Arago.
Thus Bullock was impelled to declare:
"...The stone is a conspicuous proof of the perfection to which those races had attained in certain sciences:
even in the most enlightened cities of the present day, there are few persons who would be capable of executing such a work."
It has taken us much time to make our analysis, and we have succeeded in making this decipherment only step by step,
strengthened with the most important codices and confirmed by the most notable monuments, as we shall see later on.
But to the eyes of the Mexicans of Tenochtitlan,
who placed the relief in a prominent part of their temple,
whether they worked it themselves or received it already made,
the reading was easy and significant in the extreme.
Translating it, so far as is possible, its form would be more or less as follows:
In the year 4992 the third age of the world came to an end; with four more great rounds, four ages.
At its termination Tonatiuh and Quetzalcóatl met in the heavens,
and in the tonalámatl it was Ce cipactli, the first of the count. It was the end of the year 13-ácatl.
One hundred and four years Iater the Toltec savants founded their city and elected a king, and the old men, the astronomers, and the principal diviners having assembled said:
We are about to commence again the count of time.
And they did so with the commencement of the following year, Ce técpatl, which was the 5,097th year from the creation.
And they added that this age would have to end through terrestrial calamities, after 4X416 years,
since the preceding ages had come to end through the force of water, of air, and of fire,
because so the two lords of heaven, who come together every 8 and 104 years, will it.
And they decided to record it in a monument, strong and eternal as time, that it should be preserved in the history of the world.
It is a strange coincidence, but 416 years after its foundation in 1116 CE,
the flourishing empire of the Toltecs was destroyed!
This is not a date which we arbitrarily suppose:
Torquemada, placing the last monarch Achauatzin at that time, and Veytia give the testimony; the learned Orozco y Berra states it; Chavero resolutely accepts it.
The Anales de Cuauhtitlan vary by just 52 years (a bundle of years), which, even if it were erroneous, gives us an indirect confirmation.
But that date is not read upon the monument, nor would it be possible to find it there,
if we admit that it was worked well before the destruction of the Toltec empire in memory of the meeting of the Toltec astronomers.
Another question then arises: if the constructor was that people, how did their monument come to be in the teocalli of a Mexican city?
Let us agree first that the people of Tenoch(titlan) considered themselves the heirs of the Toltec culture, and that they had accepted it almost in its entirety;
on that account it is often compared to the Roman conquerors, conquered themselves in turn by the superiority of Greek culture.
We know that they belonged to one ethnic family, since both spoke Nahuatl.
Moreover, a multitude of circumstances exist which permit the affirmation that the Mexica descended directly from the Toltecs,
with whom they had a very close relationship.
It would not be strange then that,
encountering a monument which in so notable a fashion summarized the wisdom classic for them,
they should carefully preserve it and even erect it in their greatest temple.
The question of transportation as little involves difficulty, supposing that it was transported from the pyramids of Teotihuacan or from Tula.
Taking into consideration the data of geology, modern archaeologists recognize that the rock mass must have been transported
at least from the mountains of Aculco, the nearest locality where this kind of basalt is to be found.
If the Aztecs could transport a monolith of 30 tons' weight from there, they could have done so for a greater distance, for example, from Teotihuacan,
a sacred city concerning which more and more reasons accumulate for maintaining that it was the first Toltec metropolis.
The pyramids of Teotihuacan are not much farther from Mexico City than Chalco,
and it will be remembered that scarcely two or three decades ago there was brought from there a monument, the one called Omecíhuatl, goddess of water or the moon,
almost as large as the inscribed stone of the museum.
We now come to another consideration.
Ixtlilxóchitl expressly declares against the thesis of various authorities,
that the past ages were three and that the Toltecs initiated the fourth in the year Ce técpatl.
He says that the fourth age "has to finish," a phrase that it was the present one.
The sign técpatl, placed in the relief to the left, above the face of the sun, eloquently confirms that assertion:
it initiates the epoch which the constructors held as contemporaneous.
We know from Gama, Boturini, and other authorities
that the initial character of the epoch among the Mexica was tochtli;
hence técpatl belongs exclusively to the Toltec chronology.
There exist presumptions, then, for thinking that the relief condenses the Toltec chronology,
reckoning from the chronological reform instituted by that people in 700 CE.
Further, remember that in the border of the stone, from whose position it is easy to infer that they refer to past ages,
are encountered glyphs corresponding to three ages only,
which shows that the face of the inscribed monolith is destined to the actual or historic sun, it is reasonable to suppose.
Why then are the ages represented in the figure of the naolin four?
If the inscribed stone work were the work of the Aztecs, the explanation is very simple:
the fourth age beginning in the year 700 of the Christian Era, or 5097, of the Indian chronology,
the people of Tenoch(titlan) would consider it ended with the destruction of Tula,
reserving to their own history a fifth sun, which is what Gama, Orozco y Berra, Chavero, and other historians believe.
Thus would be explained the fact that the numeral situated below the arrow of the naolin is a little smaller than the others:
it represents the fifth age, not yet terminated; therefore it is smaller.
We confess that this reading has offered itself to our mind with singular insistence.
Nevertheless, this does not harmonize with the quadrapartite preoccupation of the natives;
and, above all, it is possible for the four figured ages to be explained within the first hypothesis,
that is, that the Toltecs have been the constructors of the stone,
or even that the Mexica did not believe that they lived in other than the fourth age.
A paragraph from Veytia will give us suggestive light upon the matter,
more especially as he speaks precisely of the meeting of the Tula astronomers. He says:
"In the city of Huehuetlapallan (Teotihuacan?, analysis given above) famous and numerous population,
there came together not only the learned astrologers who were of that city but others who came from the surrounding populations,
who, after conferring together at length over the errors which they had recognized in their computations,
determined that the duration of the world ought to be divided into four periods or ages,
which had to end by the violence of each one of the four elements.
The first age, Atonatiuh, from the creation to the Flood (of Noah), which they called the Sun of Water, Atonatiuh.
The second (age) from the Flood (of Noah) up to the hurricanes in which, by the force of the winds they had suffered the second calamity,
and so they called this second age Ehecatonatiuh, Sun of Air.
The third, in which they were, they said had to come to an end by earthquakes,
and so they called it Tlatonatiuh, Sun of the Earth;
and after this fellows the fourth and last age of the world,
which has to end by the violence of fire, and thus they call it Tletonatiuh which is to say the Sun of Fire."
Certain discrepancies with respect to the order of the suns will be noted,
which is different in Veytia, in Ixtlilxóchitl, and in the stone;
on the other hand, this (stone) agrees in the said particular with the “anonymous Codex of Gama” or Chimalpopoca.
There also appears an error of 104 years (a native century) in the accounts of Ixtlilxóchitl, and other divergences are not lacking.
This is inevitable in treating of so remote events, necessarily vague in their nature.
But there is a fundamental accord in the data which cannot be denied;
in any event, the relief is the unimpeachable authority to which in the last instance we must attend.
The Toltecs believed, as we have shown, that they lived in the third age of the world, as Boturini and Veytia suppose,
or at the beginning of the fourth, as is stated by Ixtlilxóchitl.
Their traditions told them that each one of the anterior ages had lasted a definite number of fixed periods of 416 years:
the first 1,664—or a bundle (52 years)more, according to the data of Ixtlilxóchitl,t apparently in error by 52 years in this account;
the second the same length.
The Toltecs found themselves at the end of the third, and held it finished at the expiration of four new cycles of 416 years each,
and here indeed Ixtlilxóchitl appears exact, stating definitely the date 4992, which are 12 great periods or 48 Indian centuries.
Then occurred the destruction of many of the autochthonous inhabitants of the plateau as the result of a catastrophe (apparently volcanic eruptions)
whose last manifestations the Toltecs themselves witnessed;
one huehuetiliztli (104 years) separates this event from the consolidation of the monarchy of Tula.
Clavijero, who places the arrival of the Toltec in the year 596 A.D., indirectly confirms the thesis,
since from then to 700 CE there passed just one native century (104 years).
Torquemada also speaks of their wandering for 104 years.
Clavijero admits the same date, 596 A.D., although he refers it to the beginning of the peregrination.
Buschmann also states the date.
They let these years go by then in consolidating themselves or in wandering,
and in the year 5097, Ce técpatl (1 Knife), which was 700 CE,
they initiated the fourth age of the world.
Chavero claims that they then elected their first monarch;
Boturini, Game, and the majority of authorities agree that the Toltec chronology began with Ce técpatl.
There are those who place the event at the year 713 CE and even 719 CE and 721 CE, an insignificant discrepancy.
Motilinia comes much nearer, giving the date 694 CE.
M. Remí Siméon, very competent in these matters, says that in 690 the Toltecs established their state
which was to last more than four centuries,
and we read it also in the Anales de Cuauhtitlan and in Gómara.
The assertion of this chronicler is of particular precision:
"Counting from then [the beginning of the historic period among the Indians] until the end of 1552, their sun [age] has 858 years.”
But it must not be forgotten that, according to the tables, only the year 700 CE was Ce técpatl,
and Ixtlilxóchitl has told us that in that Ce técpatl the meeting occurred.
The illustrious Orozco y Berra, whose scrupulousness in comparison of data and submitting the very last document to rigorous analysis, is proverbial,
states precisely the two most important dates 4993 and 5097, a fact that lends irrefrangible value to our inferences;
thus he himself points out in the Anales that of 700 and admits that of 694, giving it for the beginning of the epoch.
They celebrated at its time the famous assembly which left so deep a trace in their traditions, which all the chroniclers mention:
there was narrated the history of the world;
the calendar was arranged, based upon the cycles of 52 and 104 years, through the interlocking of the thirteens and the twenties (the tonalámatl);
and it is probable that the astrologers also indicated the end of the era beginning, and which calculations, experience, and the tetranary concept had naturally
to fit in periods of 416 years.
All of this, finally, was condensed in indestructible characters of basalt.
What strangeness then was there in seeing there stamped the four ages of the world’s history although only three had passed?
Veytia says, alluding to the Toltecs, that “ the future ages will be equal to the past.”
Therefore their duration appears to be indicated on the relief with the four numerals enclosed in each rectangle,
and of which we have not yet treated.
Now one conjecture regarding their significance offers itself to us:
each one of these represents a great cycle of 416 years and between them all 1,664, exact length of the three periods gone by.
It may be said that the stone confirms with mathematical exactness the chronology of Ixtlilxóchitl, followed by Boturini and Veytia;
while the interpretations of the Codex Vaticanus imagined by Humboldt and admitted in great part by Chavero and other authors,
who give to the native cosmogony about 18,000 years existence for the world, fall to the ground.
The basalt, unimpeachable text of the Nahoan cosmogony, and chronology,
prove that Ixtlilxóchitl was very near the correct:
he gives the total number precisely and only exceeds by a single bundle (52 years) in the two first partial figures, indicating 1,716 instead of 1,664.
And indeed, here again a hypothesis which seems probable to us;
the Toltecs persuaded that the fourth age was to be the last
and that it would have to endure another 4X416 years, judged in accordance with the tetranary philosophy,
did not hesitate to carve its symbol on the monolith,
assigning to it the duration which they believed foreordained by the lords of the firmament.
In this mode the figures of the relief are reconciled with the supposition that the Toltecs were its constructors.
Nevertheless, there are those who, in the numerals of the rectangles read the names of the days in which the catastrophes occurred.
That the ages had their end in those days (4-océlotl, 4-ehécatl, 4-quiáhuitl, and 4-atl) in fact is stated in the "Leyenda de los Soles",
which is added to the manuscript of the museum, which contains the Anales de Cuauhtitlan,
and in this codex itself, both declaring that the fifth sun would have to end in the day 4-ollin.
Chavero, and, following his example, many competent contemporary authors (Seler, Joyce, Spinden, etc.) have adopted an analogous point of view.
Were not the said reading supported in so important documents, we should not take this hypothesis, really almost puerile, into serious consideration.
Further, this hypothesis contradicts the Codex Vaticanus, pictograph which assigns to the catastrophes—
and be it noted to three only, which is also done by the Tellerian Codex—
very different dates, 10-atl for atemoztli, I-océlotl for pachtli, and 9-ollin for xilomaniztli.
But the assertion fits so well with the data of the relief,
that the hypothesis that the inscribed stone was the work of the Toltecs receives a rude blow.
The reading of the four rectangles appears simple:
they are the dates when the four first ages ended:
as to the naolin at the center, with its great numerals, it may be interpreted as the fifth, or Mexica age,
which has to end with the day 4-ollin.
In such event, the stone was inscribed by that people, who then appear the constructors of the monoliths.
The argument is strong, although, as has been seen, the Codex Rios, Boturini, Veytia, and Ixtlilxóchitl
do not agree with the Anales in the matter.
Nevertheless, our museum possesses a most important specimen,
which supports our first and logical reading, reinforcing the narrations of the Texcocan writer.
It is a stone of cubical form, approximately 0.50 meter on a side,
with a border of solar and Venus gylphs identical with those of the relief.
Upon the lateral faces of the cube, the four ages are represented with their respective dots,
being identical with the symbols of the chronographic stone or relief of the museum.
The fifth age is met nowhere.
We must believe that if the first people had conceived a fifth sun, the Ollintonatiuh,
they would have engraved its figure upon the upper face of the cube: there is no such thing on it.
The reality is expressed in the monolith which is called the monolith of Tenanco:
four are the ages figured, and the last (here, as in the Codex Fuenleal, is that of water) is not enclosed,
as are the others, by means of a band, which demonstrates that they did not consider it as concluded.
Also there are seen, joined to each epoch, three great dots and another two smaller, which is to say,
four larger numerals together: they represent the duration of the four epochs equal in all.
Mrs. Nuttall, in her most important work "The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations", showing in this an analogous mode of thought,
maintains that the Mexica (not the Toltecs) believed that they lived in the fourth age of the world;
Dr. Henning, the author of profound studies in these particulars, supposing the beginning to be the Sun of Air, the Ehecatonatiuh,
says that at the time of the discovery of America the natives were living precisely in the fourth era—this in his Study of the Date 4-Ahau;
Charencey suggests a similar idea in his study "Des Ages ou Soleils Aprés la Mythologie";
Charencey has also told us that this belief prevailed among the Cakchiquels,
and Dr. Brinton makes us know a similar thing with respect to the chronicles of Chilam Balam, that is to say, with respect to the Mayas.
It is possible, therefore, to read in the relief the expression of the cosmogonic ages,
admitting that its constructors believed themselves to belong to the fourth.
The great ollin, with the head of Tonatiuh in the middle, alludes not to a fifth era
but only to the movement of the orb between the solstices and the equinoxes, as Gama supposed;
and the numerals signify the four huehuetiliztli which we have read in them.
And Seler, so learned and well documented generally, studying similar problems affirms in his "Origenes de las Civilizationes"
that the beginning of the Toltec culture and of the system of the tonalámatl, or "the historic sun" for the Indians,
dates from an epoch which oscillates about the year 700 CE.
Further, the narratives of the history of the Aztecs and their precedessors,
the Culhuas (who were Toltecs), which were ordered to be written down
by the daughter of Motecuhzoma, Doña Isabel, and which were published by Señor Icazbalceta,
coincide in assigning to the first king a year of the eighth century, which is notably near to the year 700.
Certainly Dona Isabel utilized the services of some truly learned native priest.
Palacios' reading seems better than this one:
(Open the image in a new window to view it in its entirety)
Last edited by E.P. Grondine on Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:54 pm, edited 26 times in total.
Re: The Sun of the Wind
You have been busy.
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
Estudios cultural náhuatl vol.43 México ene./jun. 2012
Artículo:
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca in Cuauhquechollan (Valley of Atlixco, Mexico)
Avis Darlene Mysyk
Doctora en Antropología por la University of Manitoba. Se desempeña como Associate Professor en la Cape Breton University. Es autora de varios artículos, así como del libro Manitoba Commercial Market Gardening, 1945-1997: Class, Race, and Ethnic Relations.
"According to the Codex Ríos, [81] seven giants escaped the destruction by flood of the first age in the world's creation. One, named Xelhua, fled to Cholollan, where he had his followers build a tower so high that it seemed to rise to the heavens. There, they would find refuge if another flood were to occur.
But a jadestone —shaped like a toad, some said— fell from the sky, knocking the tower to the ground.
The message seemed clear: "[The gods] reprimanded [Xelhua and his followers], saying that why did they want to rise to the heavens, that it was enough to see what is there below, on the earth."
Artículo:
Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca in Cuauhquechollan (Valley of Atlixco, Mexico)
Avis Darlene Mysyk
Doctora en Antropología por la University of Manitoba. Se desempeña como Associate Professor en la Cape Breton University. Es autora de varios artículos, así como del libro Manitoba Commercial Market Gardening, 1945-1997: Class, Race, and Ethnic Relations.
"According to the Codex Ríos, [81] seven giants escaped the destruction by flood of the first age in the world's creation. One, named Xelhua, fled to Cholollan, where he had his followers build a tower so high that it seemed to rise to the heavens. There, they would find refuge if another flood were to occur.
But a jadestone —shaped like a toad, some said— fell from the sky, knocking the tower to the ground.
The message seemed clear: "[The gods] reprimanded [Xelhua and his followers], saying that why did they want to rise to the heavens, that it was enough to see what is there below, on the earth."
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
And of course, the impact megatsunami whcih preceded this
impactors to left,
with splash on right.
impactors to left,
with splash on right.
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
Just a few thoughts before returning to Palacio and the problem of the correlation of Northern Calendars.
Mexico has many major sites to manage:
http://www.taringa.net/comunidades/tari ... anico.html
It is interesting to watch the restoration of Tulum.
Somehow money must be found to manage all of those sites,
and priorities made among them.
Generally, you want any site to appear as close as possible to its appearance at the time of its greatest prosperity,
in other words most magnificence, in order to ensure the best visitor experience.
That said, although the heat in Mexico can be brutal,
it makes little sense to restore a facade,
and then hide any of it behind trees,
which has happened too often.
[I do not know if Japanese hook grass, developed for the low cost maintenance if golf courses,
might be of any help in lowering the costs of site maintenance,
or if it could survive Mexico's brutal heat,
but it may work, and would certainly be worth checking out.]
Arcgaeological sites provide a better visitor experience if they have a "story",
that is to say, if they have their history recovered and explained.
Cholula lies between Teotihuacan and the Maya, and many other peoples,
and thus it is a very important site for recovering that history
It is likely that the Spanish conquistadors simply threw down its sides
whatever was on top,
so the temple's base sides and base perimeter need to be checked thoroughly.
A GPR survey of the surrounding area needs to be done,
in order to locate the sites for any possible murals or inscriptions.
At Xochichalco, the colonial sugar mill that was built using the facade stones
of the second and third stages of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent
needs to be located and torn apart and the fragments recovered.
Given the urban sprawl of Mexico City,
the site of Texcoco should be restored and turned into a city park,
thu providing both a visitor attraction as well as green space.
I greatly admire France's Centre Nationdl du Research Scientifiques' policy of free publication of their works via Open Books.
Since most visitors to Mexico's sites speak and read either Spanish or English,
the standard works of Mexico's history need to be made easily available in good editions
in order to present those sites history.
Mexico may want to consider translations into German as well,
given general German interest in Native America.
Mexico has many major sites to manage:
http://www.taringa.net/comunidades/tari ... anico.html
It is interesting to watch the restoration of Tulum.
Somehow money must be found to manage all of those sites,
and priorities made among them.
Generally, you want any site to appear as close as possible to its appearance at the time of its greatest prosperity,
in other words most magnificence, in order to ensure the best visitor experience.
That said, although the heat in Mexico can be brutal,
it makes little sense to restore a facade,
and then hide any of it behind trees,
which has happened too often.
[I do not know if Japanese hook grass, developed for the low cost maintenance if golf courses,
might be of any help in lowering the costs of site maintenance,
or if it could survive Mexico's brutal heat,
but it may work, and would certainly be worth checking out.]
Arcgaeological sites provide a better visitor experience if they have a "story",
that is to say, if they have their history recovered and explained.
Cholula lies between Teotihuacan and the Maya, and many other peoples,
and thus it is a very important site for recovering that history
It is likely that the Spanish conquistadors simply threw down its sides
whatever was on top,
so the temple's base sides and base perimeter need to be checked thoroughly.
A GPR survey of the surrounding area needs to be done,
in order to locate the sites for any possible murals or inscriptions.
At Xochichalco, the colonial sugar mill that was built using the facade stones
of the second and third stages of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent
needs to be located and torn apart and the fragments recovered.
Given the urban sprawl of Mexico City,
the site of Texcoco should be restored and turned into a city park,
thu providing both a visitor attraction as well as green space.
I greatly admire France's Centre Nationdl du Research Scientifiques' policy of free publication of their works via Open Books.
Since most visitors to Mexico's sites speak and read either Spanish or English,
the standard works of Mexico's history need to be made easily available in good editions
in order to present those sites history.
Mexico may want to consider translations into German as well,
given general German interest in Native America.
Last edited by E.P. Grondine on Fri Apr 28, 2017 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
Before retuning to Palacios and the northern calendar correlation problem,
I need to point out some data about the Yucatek correlation problem.
Shortly before 1562, the local peoples had performed the heart sacrifice at the seating of the katun,
which set off Landa's actions.
The court records may provide an exact date.
Now back to Palacios, finally.
For Background, see:
http://www.danielschavelzon.com.ar/?p=511
His method of analysis was very good.
He threw out the 5th creation, or sun, which was a creation of the Aztec (mexica)
and belonged to them alone.
Palacios checked Xtlilxóchitl angainst the Anales of Cuauhtitlan
and found agreement between them.
He then went on to other contact era works,
and found they generally aligned as well.
I need to point out some data about the Yucatek correlation problem.
Shortly before 1562, the local peoples had performed the heart sacrifice at the seating of the katun,
which set off Landa's actions.
The court records may provide an exact date.
Now back to Palacios, finally.
For Background, see:
http://www.danielschavelzon.com.ar/?p=511
His method of analysis was very good.
He threw out the 5th creation, or sun, which was a creation of the Aztec (mexica)
and belonged to them alone.
Palacios checked Xtlilxóchitl angainst the Anales of Cuauhtitlan
and found agreement between them.
He then went on to other contact era works,
and found they generally aligned as well.
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E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
2 La leyenda de la destrucción de los quíname ezpresa la preponderancia délos
mecas, y la formación de la nueva raza nonualca. El origen de llamar gigantes
á los quíname, fué sin duda el descubrimiento de fósiles de paquidermos,
que son muy abundantes en la región del Atoyac.
[the same view as later distantly reflected Mayor's works on fossil myths]
1 En las primeras pinturas del Códice Vaticano, están representados los
cuatro soles ó edades. Para evitar errores, reproduzco aquí su orden y duración:
Como la fecha del último sol corresponde al año de 217 antes de nuestra era,
resulta de antigüedad á la raza nahua 6768 años hasta la presente fecha.
Véase mi Historia Antigua, Lib. 1? Cap. 2?
Atonatiuh
Ehecatonatiuh
Tletonatiuh....
Tlaltonatiuh ...
800 años.
810 años.
964 años.
1416 años.
Los cuatro soles 8628 años.
[a competely different calendar than Palacios]
The Sun of Wind
La tercera edad llamaron Ecatonatiuh, que quiere decir sol de aire,
porque feneció esta edad con aire;
que fué tanto y tan recio el viento que hizo entonces, que derrocó todos los edificios y árboles y aun deshizo las peñas,
y pereció la mayor parte de los hombres:
y porque los que escaparon de esta calamidad hallaron cantidad de monos que el viento debió traer de otras partes,
dijeron haberse convertido los hombres en esta especie de animales,
de donde nació esta fábula tan mentada de las Monas.
Los que poseían este Nuevo Mundo en esta tercera edad fueron los ulmecas y xicalancas;
y según por sus historias se halla,
vinieron en navios ó barcas de la parte de Oriente hasta la tierra de Potorichan,1
desde donde comenzaron á poblarle;
y en las orillos del Río Atoyac, que es el que pasa entre la ciudad de los Ángeles y Cholula,
hallaron algunos de los gigantes que habían escapado de la calamidad y consumisión de la segunda edad;
los cuales siendo gente robusta y confiados en sus fuersas y mayoría de cuerpo,
se señorearon de los nuevos pobladores de tal manera,
que los tenían tan oprimidos como si fueran sus esclavos;
por cuya causa los caudillos y gente principal buscaron modos para poderse librar de esta servidumbre,
y fué en un convite que les hicieron muy solemne:
después de repletos y embriagados,
con sus mismas armas los acabaron y consumieron,
con cuya hazaña quedaron libres y exentos de esta sujeción y fué en aumento su señorío y mando.
Y estando en la mayor prosperidad de él, llegó á esta tierra un hombre á quien llamaron Quetzalcoatl, y otros Huemac,
por sus grandes virtudes, teniéndolo por justo, santo y bueno;
enseñándoles por obras y palabras el camino de la virtud y evitándoles
los vicios y pecados, dando leyes y buena doctrina;
y para refrenarles de sus deleites y deshonestidades les instituyó el ayuno,
y el primero que adoró y colocó la cruz que Uama-
Quetzalcoatl por interpretación literal, significa sierpe de plumas preciosas;
por sentido alegórico varón sapientísimo;
y Huemac, dicen unos que le pusieron este nombre porque imprimió y estampó sobre una peña sus manos,
como si fuera en cera blanda,
en testimonio de que se cumpliría todo lo que les dejó dicho.
Otros quieren decir que significa el de la mano grande ó poderosa.
El cual ido que se fué, de allí á pocos días sucedió la destrucción
y asolamiento referido de la tercera edad del mundo;
y entonces se destruyó aquel edificio y torre tan memorable y suntuosa de la ciudad de Cholula,
que era como otra segunda torre de Babel,
que estas gentes edificaban casi con los mismos designios, deshaciéndola el viento.
Y después los que escaparon de la consumisión de la tercera edad,
en las ruinas de ella edificaron un templo á Quetzalcoatl,
á quien colocaron poi dios del aire,
por haber sido causa de su destrucción el aire,
entendiendo ellos que fué enviada de su mano esta calamidad;
y le llamaron asimismo Ge Acatl que fué el nombre del año de su venida.
Y según parece por las historias referidas y por los anales,
sucedió lo uno1 referido algunos años después de la Encarnación de Cristo Señor nuestro;
y desde este tiempo acá entró la cuarta edad que dijeron llamarse Tletonatiuc,
2 que significa sol de fuego,
porque dijeron que esta cuarta edad del mundo se ha de acabar con fuego.
Era Quetzalcoatl hombre bien dispuesto, de aspecto grave, blanco y barbado.
Su vestuario era una túnica larga.
1 Aquí refiere el autor la leyenda de Quetzalcoatl á la época de loa ulmecas,
mientras otros escritores la ponen en tiempo de los toltecas. Esto confirma
que esa leyenda es puramente astronómica, y representa la aparición y desaparición
periódica en el Oriente de la estrella de la tarde, á la cual los nahuas
llamaban Quetzalcoatl.
Los toltecas ocupan la ciudad de Mam-he-mi y la llaman Tollan en el año 674
Su gobierno fué teocrático hasta el año 700.
Su primer rey fué Mixcoamazatzin, y gobernó del 700 al 765
Los dos reyes siguientes fueron Huetzin y Totepeuh,
cuyo gobierno abarcó hasta el año de 887.
El cuarto fué Ilhuitilmaitl, que reinó hasta 925.
Se siguió la primera teocracia de los Quetzalcoatl,
y gobernó Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl hasta 947.
Después reinaron: Matlaoxochitl hasta 982;
Nauhyotzin hasta 997;
Matiacoatzin hasta 1025,
y Tlicoatzin
hasta 1046.
Siguió la teocracia de Huemac, en oposición á los Quetzalcoatl, hasta 1048;
y entonces se sobrepusieron éstos,
y gobernó esta tercera teocracia el segundo Quetzalcoatl, hasta 1118 fecha de la destrucción de Tollan.
Y que asimismo los conejos en este tiempo habían de criar cuernos como venados,
y el pájaro Huitzitzilin criar espolón como gallipavo;
todo lo cual sucedió así, porque el rey Topiltzin tuvo el cabello como está dicho,
y se vido en el tiempo de su remado acaecer lo referido en los conejos y huitzitzilies;
y acaecieron otros prodigios de que causó grande espanto y alteración al rey,
y mandó juntar á los sacerdotes y adivinos para que le declarasen lo que significaba;
y habiéndole dicho ser de su destrucción según por las historias parece,
mandó llamar á sus mayordomos y entregarles sus tesoros,
que eran los mayores que hubo en aquel tiempo, para
que los retirasen en la provincia de Quiahuiztlan, temiéndose
de los reyes sus contrarios: y tras de los prodigios y señales
comenzó la hambre y esterilidad de la tierra, pereciendo la
mayor parte de las gentes y consumiéndose de gorgojo y gusanos
los bastimentos que tenían en sus trojes, y otras muchas
calamidades y persecuciones del cielo, que parecía caer fuego;
y fué tan grande la seca que duró 26 años, de tal manera
que se secaron los ríos y fuentes.
y de dos
hijos que tenía sólo el uno, que fué el Príncipe Pochotl, lo escapó
Tochcucie,1 que así se decía la ama que lo criaba en los
desiertos de Nonoalco; y los pocos de los tultecas que escaparon
en las montañas y sierras fragosas, y éntrelos carrizales
2 Según las épocas anteriores y la que pone al fin de este capítulo, sólo duró
el imperio tulteca 456 años, aunque se cuente desde la fundación de Tula,
hecha 7 años antes de la elección del primer rey; que si se cuenta desde
ésta, que dice el autor en el capítulo anterior (que fué el año de 610), hasta el
de 959 (que dice al fin de éste que fué la última y total destrucción), sólo pasaron
449 años.—Nota del Original.
3 Aquí el autor supone, y generalmente Be repite, que Tollan fué completamente
destruida y abandonada. Adelante se verá, que más tarde los reyes chichimecas
tuvieron que ir sobre ella, porque se había rebelado, lo que prueba
que estaba habitada; y así la encontraron los españoles. Lo mismo se ha dicho
de Teotihuacan; pero no solamente siguió habitada, sino que tenemos los nombres
de sus señores, desde Xolotl hasta la Conquista.
4.Tollan ó Tula había sido construida por los otomfes; y Teotihuacan y
Cholula por los vixtoti.
y los pocos tultecas que habían escapado de su destracción, los dejó vivir en los puestos y lugares en donde estaban
reformados y poblados cada uno con su familia, que fué
en Chapoltepec, Golhuacan, Tlatzalantepexoxoma, TotolapanT
Quauhquecholan, y hasta las costas del mar del Norte en Tozapan,
Tochpan, Tziuhcoac y Xicotepec, y lo mismo en Chololan,
aunque algunos de ellos no pasaron sino hasta la tierra
de Nicaragua á donde fueron á poblar, y á btras tierras remotas,
en donde no llegó con tanta fuerza la seca y calamidad referida.
La ciudad de Tetzcuco tuvo principio su población en tiempo
de los tultecas y se decía Cattenihco, y se destruyó y acabó
con las demás de los tultecas, y después la fueron reedificando
los reyes chichimecas y en especial Quinatzin que la ilustró
mucho, y quedó en ella haciéndola cabeza y corte del imperio:1
pusiéronle después de la venida de los chichimecas Tetzcoco,
que significa lugar de detención, como en efecto lo fué, pues
en ella se poblaron casi todas las naciones que había en esta
Nueva España.
Los cuales según parece
por las pinturas y caracteres de la historia antigua, eran del
linaje de los tultecas y de la familia de Huetzitin, un caballero
que escapó con su gente y familia cuando la destrucción de los
tultecas en el puerto de Chapoltepec, que después se derrotó,
y fué con ella por las tierras del reino de Michhuacan hasta la
provincia de Aztlan como está referido: el cual estando allí
murió, y entró en su lugar Ozelopan, segundo de este nombre,
el cual acordándose de la tierra de sus pasados, acordó de venir
á ella, trayendo consigo á todos los de su nación, que ya se
llamaban Mezitin, que los acaudillaban, juntamente con Izcahui
Guexpalatl Yopi y según otros Aztlal y Acatl; y asimismo venía
con ellos una hermana suya, mujer varonil llamada Matlalatl,
hasta el puerto referido; sucediéndoles en su peregrinación
muchas y varias cosas que cuentan las historias, trayendo
por su particular ídolo á Huitzilopochtli, con quien por medio
de sus sacerdotes se regían por asegurarse de las calamidades
pasadas, y estar debajo del amparo del rey de Azcaputzalco, en
cuyas tierras comenzaron á poblar
En este mismo
tiempo entró en la sucesión de los culhuas Goxcox por muerte
de Calcozametzin rey que había sido, como está referido: tuvo
guerras con los mexicanos sobre lo pasado y sobre el término
de sus tierras; y asimismo socorrió al sumo sacerdote de la
ciudad de Ghololan llamado Iztacima, como persona á quien
competía su amparo, pues le hacían guerra los de Quecholan
chalchiuhapan y otros chichimecas que por allí estaban poblados:
socorrióle con la gente que pudo y con la que le dio Quinatzin,
echando de toda aquella tierra á los chichimecas que
ofendían al sumo sacerdote y á los chololtecas
y de tal manera hicieron
la guerra, que se apoderaron del reyno de los otomíes,
y Tzonpantecuhtli, su señor, determinó irse huyendo á la provincia
de Metztitlan de donde lo era también.
y como supo de su calamidad
y trabajos,'y que era gente doméstica, los mandó volver
y les dio tierras y lugares en la provincia que desde entonces
se llamó de Otompan, para que los poblasen, y Tezozomoc
se alzó con el reyno de los otomíes desde este tiempo
Asimismo vinieron otros otomíes del
reyno de los tepanecas y de la provincia de Guahuacan para
que los amparase y les diese tierras en que poblar, porque Tezozomoc
su señor los tenía muy oprimidos con pechosy tributos
excesivos que cada día les imponía
(porque estas tres cabezas se fundaban
ser señoríos é imperios sobre todas las demás, por el derecho
que pretendían sobre toda la tierra, que había sido de los
toltecas, cuyos sucesores y herederos eran ellos, y por la población
y nueva posesión que de ella tuvo el gran Chichimecatl
Xolotl su antepasado)
y como interesados y muy religiosos en el servicio de sus falsos
dioses, apretaron en el negocio para que se efectuase, y así
Nezahualcoyotzin señaló el campo que fué entre Quauhtepec
y Ocelotepec, y por ser tres las cabezas del imperio, señaló
para el efecto otras tres provincias, que fueron la de Tlaxcalan
referida, la de Huexotzinco y Cholulan, que llamaron los
enemigos de casa, con calidad que peleasen tantos á tantos
yendo los de las tres cabezas juntos, y que diesen su batalla
los primeros días de sus meses, comenzando por Tlaxcalan la
primera vez, y luego de allí á otro mes que fué la segunda en
el campo que estaba señalado de Huexotzinco, y la tercera
en el campo de Cholulan, cuyos defensores eran los de Atlixco;
y luego comenzaba otra vez la tanda por Tlaxcalan: con
que hubieron suficiente recaudo los sacerdotes de los templos
de Tezcatlipoca, Hmtzilopochtli, Tlaloc y los demás que eran
ídolos de los mexicanos, y los délos contrarios Camaxtli y Matlalcueye
y Quetzalcoatl. Así se comenzaron estas guerras y
abominables sacrificios de los dioses (ó para mejor decir) demonios,
hasta que vino el invictísimo D. Fernando Cortés primer
Marqués del Valle á plantar la santa fe católica: asimismo
quedó por ley que ninguno de los naturales de las tres provincias
referidas pudiesen pasar á estas partes, ni los de acá ir allá,
con pena de ser sacrificados á los dioses falsos. En el año se
hacían diez y ocho fiestas principales álos dioses fingidos, que
era á los primeros días de sus diez y ocho meses con que repartían
su año solar, en los cuales sacrificaban los hombres
cautivos en las guerras referidas, y en otras fiestas que tenían
movibles.
1
y en la del medio estaban
en sus bordos tres ramas esculpidas y labradas en la misma
peña, que significaban la gran laguna, y las ramas las cabezas
del imperio; y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas,
y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas
y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas
En recompensa de tan grandes mercedes que
había el rey recibido del Dios incógnito y criador de todas las
cosas, le edificó un templo muy suntuoso, frontero y opuesto
al templo mayor de Huitzilopochtli, el cual demás de tener
cuatro descansos el cu y fundamento de una torre altísima,
estaba edificada sobre él con nueve sobrados, que significaban
nueve cielos; el décimo que servía de remate de los otros nueve
sobrados, era por la parte de afuera matizado de negro y
estrellado, y por la parte interior estaba todo engastado en oro,
pedrería y plumas preciosas, colocándolo 1 al Dios referido y no
conocido ni visto hasta entonces, sin ninguna estatua m formar
su figura.2
Pomar nos da exactamente la idea que los tetzcucanos tenían del Tloque
Nahuaque, que Ixtlilxochitl pretende presentarnos semejante á la del Dios
cristiano En la página 24 de su Relación dice "Lo que sentían algunos
principales de sus ídolos y dioses es que sin embargo de que los adoraban y
hacían los sacrificios que se han dicho, todavía dudaron de que realmente fuesen
dioses, sino que era engaño creer que unos bultos de palo y de piedra hechos
por manos de hombres fuesen dioses, especialmente Nezahualcoyotzin,
que es el que más vaciló buscando de donde tomar lumbre para certificarse
del verdadero Dios y criador de todas las cosas, y como Dios Nuestro Señor
por su secreto juicio no fué servido de alumbrarle, tornaba á lo que sus padres
adoraron, y de eso dan testimonio muchos cantos antiguos que hoy se saben á
pedazos, porque en ellos hay muchos nombres y epítetos honrosos de Dios, como
es el decir que había uno solo y que este era el Hacedor del cielo y de la
tierra, y sustentaba todo lo hecho y criado por él, y que estaba donde no tenía
segundo, y en un lugar después de nueve andanas, y que no se había visto
jamás en forma ni en cuerpo humano, ni en otra figura, y que al lugar donde
estaba iban á parar las almas de los virtuosos después de muertos, y que
las de los malos iban & otro lugar de penas y trabajos horribles; y jamas aunque
tenían muchos ídolos que representaban diferentes dioses, nunca cuando
se ofrecía á tratar los nombraban á todos en general ni en particular á cada
uno, sino que decían en su lengua vn Tloque tn Nákuaqw, que quiere decir el
Señor del cielo y de la tierra."
Pues aun en estas apreciaciones, diversas déla Iztlilzochitl, incurre Pomar
en error, pues los indios no creían, ni en la inmortalidad eterna del alma, ni
en el libre albedrío Véase esta materia eztensamennte en mi Historia Antigua
de México
Ya se ha tratado en la vida de Nezahualcoyotzin cómo fueron
á la conquista de la Huasteca los dos infantes Xochiquetzaltzm
y Acapioltzin, el uno por capitán general del ejército y
el otro con el socorro que después se despachó, y como se dio
tan buena maña, que por su prisa y buena industria sojuzgó
aquella tierra, por cuya causa los poetas de aquellos tiempos,
demás de hacer relación en sus cantos de la conquista y acaecimientos
que hubo, le alabaron sus hechos heroicos y juntamente
con él á su hermano el que fué por general, que aunque
fué tarde todavía hizo algunas hazañas dignas de memoria
y el rey mandó que se intitulase el
canto Teotlan Guextecayotl, que significa el canto de la conquista
de la Huasteca perteneciente á la casa de Teotlan, que
eran los palacios y casas solariegas del infante Acapioltzin
Con que de todo punto sojuzgaron todo el imperio
de esta Nueva España, desde los términos de los chichimecas
y remo de Michoacan hasta las últimas provincias que
poseyeron los antiquísimos reyes tultecas, que fueron los de
Hueymolan, Acalan, Verapaz y Nicarahua, que es todo lo que
contiene la tierra de Anahuac, y desde los cuextecas (que
son las provincias de Panuco) hasta llegar á Huitlapalan,
que es lo que llaman el mar Yermejo ó de Cortés, por las
costas del mar del Sur, donde se incluían grandes y espléndidos
reinos y provincias, como fueron las de los chohuixcas
y yopicas, cuitlatecas, chochonas, mixtecas, tzapotecas,
quauhtemaltecas, coatzaqualcas, nonoalcas, xicalancas, Moniques,
y otras muchas naciones que quedaron de todo punto
rendidas, y todas debajo del imperio de las tres cabezas, que
tenía de longitud más de cuatrocientas leguas, y de latitud desde
el mar del Norte hasta el del Sur.
Y porque los autores
que han escrito las conquistas que estos señores tuvieron, especifícadamente
no las cuentan por extenso, porque las halla¬
ron en sus historias, particularmente en la monarquía indiana
que escribió el diligentísimo Torquemada, sólo refiero lo que
me pareció convenía tratar de ellas, según las pinturas y anales
que tengo citados. Últimamente en el año de mil quinientos
y catorce, fueron tan excesivas las nieves que hubo, que se
destruyeron las plantas y arboledas, haciéndose pedazos y desgajándose.
En este tiempo se perdió el ejército de las tres cabezas
del imperio que iban sobre la provincia de Amantlan,
una de las rebeladas como está referido.
La señoría viendo que con la refriega y mortandad de Chololan,
estaban Cortés y los suyos faltos de mantenimientos, los socorrió
de estos bastantemente, y en persona fueron á verle
Maxixcatzin y los de su cabecera, Zitlalpopoltzin1 de la de-
Quiahuiztlan con Axoquentzin, Tlehuexolotzin, Tequitlatotzinr
Tzompantzin, Axayacatzin, Mocuetlazatzin y Tzicuhcuacatl, habiéndose
ofrecido á Cortés á ayudarle á todo lo que se le ofreciese
y en quince días que estuvo Cortés en Chololan, fué siempre servido y
favorecido de los tlaxcaltecas. A esta sazón tornaron los embajadores
de Motecuhzoma á darle otro recado de parte de su
señor, con seis patos de oro muy rico, muchas mantas y cosas
de comer, satisfaciéndole que lo que se decía de él era fraude
y engaño; que se asegurase de él que sería su buen amigo, y
para satisfacción de esto se fuese luego á Mexico, que allí le
-esperaba con mucho deseo de verle y regalarle; y así dio orden
de su ida á la. ciudad de Mexico.
Luego que salió Cortés de la ciudad de Chololan, fué á hacer
noche en la parte que llaman Quauhtechcatl, que es en la
obra que está entre el volcán y la sierra nevada; y á otro día
por la mañana desde allí reconoció la laguna, en donde estaba
fundada la ciudad de Mexico y otros muchos y hermosos pueblos;
y caminando con su ejército fué á hacer noche en el
pueblo de Amecamecam,1 en las casas del señor de allí llamado
Cacamatzin, en donde fué muy bien recibido y regalado de él,
y le dio muchas quejas de las demasías de Motecuhzoma.
mecas, y la formación de la nueva raza nonualca. El origen de llamar gigantes
á los quíname, fué sin duda el descubrimiento de fósiles de paquidermos,
que son muy abundantes en la región del Atoyac.
[the same view as later distantly reflected Mayor's works on fossil myths]
1 En las primeras pinturas del Códice Vaticano, están representados los
cuatro soles ó edades. Para evitar errores, reproduzco aquí su orden y duración:
Como la fecha del último sol corresponde al año de 217 antes de nuestra era,
resulta de antigüedad á la raza nahua 6768 años hasta la presente fecha.
Véase mi Historia Antigua, Lib. 1? Cap. 2?
Atonatiuh
Ehecatonatiuh
Tletonatiuh....
Tlaltonatiuh ...
800 años.
810 años.
964 años.
1416 años.
Los cuatro soles 8628 años.
[a competely different calendar than Palacios]
The Sun of Wind
La tercera edad llamaron Ecatonatiuh, que quiere decir sol de aire,
porque feneció esta edad con aire;
que fué tanto y tan recio el viento que hizo entonces, que derrocó todos los edificios y árboles y aun deshizo las peñas,
y pereció la mayor parte de los hombres:
y porque los que escaparon de esta calamidad hallaron cantidad de monos que el viento debió traer de otras partes,
dijeron haberse convertido los hombres en esta especie de animales,
de donde nació esta fábula tan mentada de las Monas.
Los que poseían este Nuevo Mundo en esta tercera edad fueron los ulmecas y xicalancas;
y según por sus historias se halla,
vinieron en navios ó barcas de la parte de Oriente hasta la tierra de Potorichan,1
desde donde comenzaron á poblarle;
y en las orillos del Río Atoyac, que es el que pasa entre la ciudad de los Ángeles y Cholula,
hallaron algunos de los gigantes que habían escapado de la calamidad y consumisión de la segunda edad;
los cuales siendo gente robusta y confiados en sus fuersas y mayoría de cuerpo,
se señorearon de los nuevos pobladores de tal manera,
que los tenían tan oprimidos como si fueran sus esclavos;
por cuya causa los caudillos y gente principal buscaron modos para poderse librar de esta servidumbre,
y fué en un convite que les hicieron muy solemne:
después de repletos y embriagados,
con sus mismas armas los acabaron y consumieron,
con cuya hazaña quedaron libres y exentos de esta sujeción y fué en aumento su señorío y mando.
Y estando en la mayor prosperidad de él, llegó á esta tierra un hombre á quien llamaron Quetzalcoatl, y otros Huemac,
por sus grandes virtudes, teniéndolo por justo, santo y bueno;
enseñándoles por obras y palabras el camino de la virtud y evitándoles
los vicios y pecados, dando leyes y buena doctrina;
y para refrenarles de sus deleites y deshonestidades les instituyó el ayuno,
y el primero que adoró y colocó la cruz que Uama-
Quetzalcoatl por interpretación literal, significa sierpe de plumas preciosas;
por sentido alegórico varón sapientísimo;
y Huemac, dicen unos que le pusieron este nombre porque imprimió y estampó sobre una peña sus manos,
como si fuera en cera blanda,
en testimonio de que se cumpliría todo lo que les dejó dicho.
Otros quieren decir que significa el de la mano grande ó poderosa.
El cual ido que se fué, de allí á pocos días sucedió la destrucción
y asolamiento referido de la tercera edad del mundo;
y entonces se destruyó aquel edificio y torre tan memorable y suntuosa de la ciudad de Cholula,
que era como otra segunda torre de Babel,
que estas gentes edificaban casi con los mismos designios, deshaciéndola el viento.
Y después los que escaparon de la consumisión de la tercera edad,
en las ruinas de ella edificaron un templo á Quetzalcoatl,
á quien colocaron poi dios del aire,
por haber sido causa de su destrucción el aire,
entendiendo ellos que fué enviada de su mano esta calamidad;
y le llamaron asimismo Ge Acatl que fué el nombre del año de su venida.
Y según parece por las historias referidas y por los anales,
sucedió lo uno1 referido algunos años después de la Encarnación de Cristo Señor nuestro;
y desde este tiempo acá entró la cuarta edad que dijeron llamarse Tletonatiuc,
2 que significa sol de fuego,
porque dijeron que esta cuarta edad del mundo se ha de acabar con fuego.
Era Quetzalcoatl hombre bien dispuesto, de aspecto grave, blanco y barbado.
Su vestuario era una túnica larga.
1 Aquí refiere el autor la leyenda de Quetzalcoatl á la época de loa ulmecas,
mientras otros escritores la ponen en tiempo de los toltecas. Esto confirma
que esa leyenda es puramente astronómica, y representa la aparición y desaparición
periódica en el Oriente de la estrella de la tarde, á la cual los nahuas
llamaban Quetzalcoatl.
Los toltecas ocupan la ciudad de Mam-he-mi y la llaman Tollan en el año 674
Su gobierno fué teocrático hasta el año 700.
Su primer rey fué Mixcoamazatzin, y gobernó del 700 al 765
Los dos reyes siguientes fueron Huetzin y Totepeuh,
cuyo gobierno abarcó hasta el año de 887.
El cuarto fué Ilhuitilmaitl, que reinó hasta 925.
Se siguió la primera teocracia de los Quetzalcoatl,
y gobernó Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl hasta 947.
Después reinaron: Matlaoxochitl hasta 982;
Nauhyotzin hasta 997;
Matiacoatzin hasta 1025,
y Tlicoatzin
hasta 1046.
Siguió la teocracia de Huemac, en oposición á los Quetzalcoatl, hasta 1048;
y entonces se sobrepusieron éstos,
y gobernó esta tercera teocracia el segundo Quetzalcoatl, hasta 1118 fecha de la destrucción de Tollan.
Y que asimismo los conejos en este tiempo habían de criar cuernos como venados,
y el pájaro Huitzitzilin criar espolón como gallipavo;
todo lo cual sucedió así, porque el rey Topiltzin tuvo el cabello como está dicho,
y se vido en el tiempo de su remado acaecer lo referido en los conejos y huitzitzilies;
y acaecieron otros prodigios de que causó grande espanto y alteración al rey,
y mandó juntar á los sacerdotes y adivinos para que le declarasen lo que significaba;
y habiéndole dicho ser de su destrucción según por las historias parece,
mandó llamar á sus mayordomos y entregarles sus tesoros,
que eran los mayores que hubo en aquel tiempo, para
que los retirasen en la provincia de Quiahuiztlan, temiéndose
de los reyes sus contrarios: y tras de los prodigios y señales
comenzó la hambre y esterilidad de la tierra, pereciendo la
mayor parte de las gentes y consumiéndose de gorgojo y gusanos
los bastimentos que tenían en sus trojes, y otras muchas
calamidades y persecuciones del cielo, que parecía caer fuego;
y fué tan grande la seca que duró 26 años, de tal manera
que se secaron los ríos y fuentes.
y de dos
hijos que tenía sólo el uno, que fué el Príncipe Pochotl, lo escapó
Tochcucie,1 que así se decía la ama que lo criaba en los
desiertos de Nonoalco; y los pocos de los tultecas que escaparon
en las montañas y sierras fragosas, y éntrelos carrizales
2 Según las épocas anteriores y la que pone al fin de este capítulo, sólo duró
el imperio tulteca 456 años, aunque se cuente desde la fundación de Tula,
hecha 7 años antes de la elección del primer rey; que si se cuenta desde
ésta, que dice el autor en el capítulo anterior (que fué el año de 610), hasta el
de 959 (que dice al fin de éste que fué la última y total destrucción), sólo pasaron
449 años.—Nota del Original.
3 Aquí el autor supone, y generalmente Be repite, que Tollan fué completamente
destruida y abandonada. Adelante se verá, que más tarde los reyes chichimecas
tuvieron que ir sobre ella, porque se había rebelado, lo que prueba
que estaba habitada; y así la encontraron los españoles. Lo mismo se ha dicho
de Teotihuacan; pero no solamente siguió habitada, sino que tenemos los nombres
de sus señores, desde Xolotl hasta la Conquista.
4.Tollan ó Tula había sido construida por los otomfes; y Teotihuacan y
Cholula por los vixtoti.
y los pocos tultecas que habían escapado de su destracción, los dejó vivir en los puestos y lugares en donde estaban
reformados y poblados cada uno con su familia, que fué
en Chapoltepec, Golhuacan, Tlatzalantepexoxoma, TotolapanT
Quauhquecholan, y hasta las costas del mar del Norte en Tozapan,
Tochpan, Tziuhcoac y Xicotepec, y lo mismo en Chololan,
aunque algunos de ellos no pasaron sino hasta la tierra
de Nicaragua á donde fueron á poblar, y á btras tierras remotas,
en donde no llegó con tanta fuerza la seca y calamidad referida.
La ciudad de Tetzcuco tuvo principio su población en tiempo
de los tultecas y se decía Cattenihco, y se destruyó y acabó
con las demás de los tultecas, y después la fueron reedificando
los reyes chichimecas y en especial Quinatzin que la ilustró
mucho, y quedó en ella haciéndola cabeza y corte del imperio:1
pusiéronle después de la venida de los chichimecas Tetzcoco,
que significa lugar de detención, como en efecto lo fué, pues
en ella se poblaron casi todas las naciones que había en esta
Nueva España.
Los cuales según parece
por las pinturas y caracteres de la historia antigua, eran del
linaje de los tultecas y de la familia de Huetzitin, un caballero
que escapó con su gente y familia cuando la destrucción de los
tultecas en el puerto de Chapoltepec, que después se derrotó,
y fué con ella por las tierras del reino de Michhuacan hasta la
provincia de Aztlan como está referido: el cual estando allí
murió, y entró en su lugar Ozelopan, segundo de este nombre,
el cual acordándose de la tierra de sus pasados, acordó de venir
á ella, trayendo consigo á todos los de su nación, que ya se
llamaban Mezitin, que los acaudillaban, juntamente con Izcahui
Guexpalatl Yopi y según otros Aztlal y Acatl; y asimismo venía
con ellos una hermana suya, mujer varonil llamada Matlalatl,
hasta el puerto referido; sucediéndoles en su peregrinación
muchas y varias cosas que cuentan las historias, trayendo
por su particular ídolo á Huitzilopochtli, con quien por medio
de sus sacerdotes se regían por asegurarse de las calamidades
pasadas, y estar debajo del amparo del rey de Azcaputzalco, en
cuyas tierras comenzaron á poblar
En este mismo
tiempo entró en la sucesión de los culhuas Goxcox por muerte
de Calcozametzin rey que había sido, como está referido: tuvo
guerras con los mexicanos sobre lo pasado y sobre el término
de sus tierras; y asimismo socorrió al sumo sacerdote de la
ciudad de Ghololan llamado Iztacima, como persona á quien
competía su amparo, pues le hacían guerra los de Quecholan
chalchiuhapan y otros chichimecas que por allí estaban poblados:
socorrióle con la gente que pudo y con la que le dio Quinatzin,
echando de toda aquella tierra á los chichimecas que
ofendían al sumo sacerdote y á los chololtecas
y de tal manera hicieron
la guerra, que se apoderaron del reyno de los otomíes,
y Tzonpantecuhtli, su señor, determinó irse huyendo á la provincia
de Metztitlan de donde lo era también.
y como supo de su calamidad
y trabajos,'y que era gente doméstica, los mandó volver
y les dio tierras y lugares en la provincia que desde entonces
se llamó de Otompan, para que los poblasen, y Tezozomoc
se alzó con el reyno de los otomíes desde este tiempo
Asimismo vinieron otros otomíes del
reyno de los tepanecas y de la provincia de Guahuacan para
que los amparase y les diese tierras en que poblar, porque Tezozomoc
su señor los tenía muy oprimidos con pechosy tributos
excesivos que cada día les imponía
(porque estas tres cabezas se fundaban
ser señoríos é imperios sobre todas las demás, por el derecho
que pretendían sobre toda la tierra, que había sido de los
toltecas, cuyos sucesores y herederos eran ellos, y por la población
y nueva posesión que de ella tuvo el gran Chichimecatl
Xolotl su antepasado)
y como interesados y muy religiosos en el servicio de sus falsos
dioses, apretaron en el negocio para que se efectuase, y así
Nezahualcoyotzin señaló el campo que fué entre Quauhtepec
y Ocelotepec, y por ser tres las cabezas del imperio, señaló
para el efecto otras tres provincias, que fueron la de Tlaxcalan
referida, la de Huexotzinco y Cholulan, que llamaron los
enemigos de casa, con calidad que peleasen tantos á tantos
yendo los de las tres cabezas juntos, y que diesen su batalla
los primeros días de sus meses, comenzando por Tlaxcalan la
primera vez, y luego de allí á otro mes que fué la segunda en
el campo que estaba señalado de Huexotzinco, y la tercera
en el campo de Cholulan, cuyos defensores eran los de Atlixco;
y luego comenzaba otra vez la tanda por Tlaxcalan: con
que hubieron suficiente recaudo los sacerdotes de los templos
de Tezcatlipoca, Hmtzilopochtli, Tlaloc y los demás que eran
ídolos de los mexicanos, y los délos contrarios Camaxtli y Matlalcueye
y Quetzalcoatl. Así se comenzaron estas guerras y
abominables sacrificios de los dioses (ó para mejor decir) demonios,
hasta que vino el invictísimo D. Fernando Cortés primer
Marqués del Valle á plantar la santa fe católica: asimismo
quedó por ley que ninguno de los naturales de las tres provincias
referidas pudiesen pasar á estas partes, ni los de acá ir allá,
con pena de ser sacrificados á los dioses falsos. En el año se
hacían diez y ocho fiestas principales álos dioses fingidos, que
era á los primeros días de sus diez y ocho meses con que repartían
su año solar, en los cuales sacrificaban los hombres
cautivos en las guerras referidas, y en otras fiestas que tenían
movibles.
1
y en la del medio estaban
en sus bordos tres ramas esculpidas y labradas en la misma
peña, que significaban la gran laguna, y las ramas las cabezas
del imperio; y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas,
y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas
y por un lado (que era hacia la parte del Norte)
otra alberca, y en una peña esculpido el nombre y escudo de
armas de la ciudad de Tolan, que fué cabecera del imperio
de los tultecas; y por el lado izqmerdo que caía hacia la parte
del Sur estaba la otra alberca, y en la peña esculpido el eficudo
de armas y nombre de la ciudad de Tenayocan que fué la
cabecera del imperio de los chichimecas
En recompensa de tan grandes mercedes que
había el rey recibido del Dios incógnito y criador de todas las
cosas, le edificó un templo muy suntuoso, frontero y opuesto
al templo mayor de Huitzilopochtli, el cual demás de tener
cuatro descansos el cu y fundamento de una torre altísima,
estaba edificada sobre él con nueve sobrados, que significaban
nueve cielos; el décimo que servía de remate de los otros nueve
sobrados, era por la parte de afuera matizado de negro y
estrellado, y por la parte interior estaba todo engastado en oro,
pedrería y plumas preciosas, colocándolo 1 al Dios referido y no
conocido ni visto hasta entonces, sin ninguna estatua m formar
su figura.2
Pomar nos da exactamente la idea que los tetzcucanos tenían del Tloque
Nahuaque, que Ixtlilxochitl pretende presentarnos semejante á la del Dios
cristiano En la página 24 de su Relación dice "Lo que sentían algunos
principales de sus ídolos y dioses es que sin embargo de que los adoraban y
hacían los sacrificios que se han dicho, todavía dudaron de que realmente fuesen
dioses, sino que era engaño creer que unos bultos de palo y de piedra hechos
por manos de hombres fuesen dioses, especialmente Nezahualcoyotzin,
que es el que más vaciló buscando de donde tomar lumbre para certificarse
del verdadero Dios y criador de todas las cosas, y como Dios Nuestro Señor
por su secreto juicio no fué servido de alumbrarle, tornaba á lo que sus padres
adoraron, y de eso dan testimonio muchos cantos antiguos que hoy se saben á
pedazos, porque en ellos hay muchos nombres y epítetos honrosos de Dios, como
es el decir que había uno solo y que este era el Hacedor del cielo y de la
tierra, y sustentaba todo lo hecho y criado por él, y que estaba donde no tenía
segundo, y en un lugar después de nueve andanas, y que no se había visto
jamás en forma ni en cuerpo humano, ni en otra figura, y que al lugar donde
estaba iban á parar las almas de los virtuosos después de muertos, y que
las de los malos iban & otro lugar de penas y trabajos horribles; y jamas aunque
tenían muchos ídolos que representaban diferentes dioses, nunca cuando
se ofrecía á tratar los nombraban á todos en general ni en particular á cada
uno, sino que decían en su lengua vn Tloque tn Nákuaqw, que quiere decir el
Señor del cielo y de la tierra."
Pues aun en estas apreciaciones, diversas déla Iztlilzochitl, incurre Pomar
en error, pues los indios no creían, ni en la inmortalidad eterna del alma, ni
en el libre albedrío Véase esta materia eztensamennte en mi Historia Antigua
de México
Ya se ha tratado en la vida de Nezahualcoyotzin cómo fueron
á la conquista de la Huasteca los dos infantes Xochiquetzaltzm
y Acapioltzin, el uno por capitán general del ejército y
el otro con el socorro que después se despachó, y como se dio
tan buena maña, que por su prisa y buena industria sojuzgó
aquella tierra, por cuya causa los poetas de aquellos tiempos,
demás de hacer relación en sus cantos de la conquista y acaecimientos
que hubo, le alabaron sus hechos heroicos y juntamente
con él á su hermano el que fué por general, que aunque
fué tarde todavía hizo algunas hazañas dignas de memoria
y el rey mandó que se intitulase el
canto Teotlan Guextecayotl, que significa el canto de la conquista
de la Huasteca perteneciente á la casa de Teotlan, que
eran los palacios y casas solariegas del infante Acapioltzin
Con que de todo punto sojuzgaron todo el imperio
de esta Nueva España, desde los términos de los chichimecas
y remo de Michoacan hasta las últimas provincias que
poseyeron los antiquísimos reyes tultecas, que fueron los de
Hueymolan, Acalan, Verapaz y Nicarahua, que es todo lo que
contiene la tierra de Anahuac, y desde los cuextecas (que
son las provincias de Panuco) hasta llegar á Huitlapalan,
que es lo que llaman el mar Yermejo ó de Cortés, por las
costas del mar del Sur, donde se incluían grandes y espléndidos
reinos y provincias, como fueron las de los chohuixcas
y yopicas, cuitlatecas, chochonas, mixtecas, tzapotecas,
quauhtemaltecas, coatzaqualcas, nonoalcas, xicalancas, Moniques,
y otras muchas naciones que quedaron de todo punto
rendidas, y todas debajo del imperio de las tres cabezas, que
tenía de longitud más de cuatrocientas leguas, y de latitud desde
el mar del Norte hasta el del Sur.
Y porque los autores
que han escrito las conquistas que estos señores tuvieron, especifícadamente
no las cuentan por extenso, porque las halla¬
ron en sus historias, particularmente en la monarquía indiana
que escribió el diligentísimo Torquemada, sólo refiero lo que
me pareció convenía tratar de ellas, según las pinturas y anales
que tengo citados. Últimamente en el año de mil quinientos
y catorce, fueron tan excesivas las nieves que hubo, que se
destruyeron las plantas y arboledas, haciéndose pedazos y desgajándose.
En este tiempo se perdió el ejército de las tres cabezas
del imperio que iban sobre la provincia de Amantlan,
una de las rebeladas como está referido.
La señoría viendo que con la refriega y mortandad de Chololan,
estaban Cortés y los suyos faltos de mantenimientos, los socorrió
de estos bastantemente, y en persona fueron á verle
Maxixcatzin y los de su cabecera, Zitlalpopoltzin1 de la de-
Quiahuiztlan con Axoquentzin, Tlehuexolotzin, Tequitlatotzinr
Tzompantzin, Axayacatzin, Mocuetlazatzin y Tzicuhcuacatl, habiéndose
ofrecido á Cortés á ayudarle á todo lo que se le ofreciese
y en quince días que estuvo Cortés en Chololan, fué siempre servido y
favorecido de los tlaxcaltecas. A esta sazón tornaron los embajadores
de Motecuhzoma á darle otro recado de parte de su
señor, con seis patos de oro muy rico, muchas mantas y cosas
de comer, satisfaciéndole que lo que se decía de él era fraude
y engaño; que se asegurase de él que sería su buen amigo, y
para satisfacción de esto se fuese luego á Mexico, que allí le
-esperaba con mucho deseo de verle y regalarle; y así dio orden
de su ida á la. ciudad de Mexico.
Luego que salió Cortés de la ciudad de Chololan, fué á hacer
noche en la parte que llaman Quauhtechcatl, que es en la
obra que está entre el volcán y la sierra nevada; y á otro día
por la mañana desde allí reconoció la laguna, en donde estaba
fundada la ciudad de Mexico y otros muchos y hermosos pueblos;
y caminando con su ejército fué á hacer noche en el
pueblo de Amecamecam,1 en las casas del señor de allí llamado
Cacamatzin, en donde fué muy bien recibido y regalado de él,
y le dio muchas quejas de las demasías de Motecuhzoma.
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
a passage from the Historia Tolteca-Chichieca:
(2 The legend of the destruction of those who take the preponderance of the Mexica,
and the formation of the new Nonoalca race.
The Origin of their calling them Giants was undoubtedly the discovery of fossils of pachyderms,
which are very abundant in the region of Atoyac River.)
[This note precedes Mayor's work on Fossil Legends by about 100 years]
(1 In the first paintings of the Vatican Codex [now Codex Rios], Four suns or ages.
To avoid errors, I reproduce here its order and duration:
As the date of the last sun corresponds to the year of 217 BC,
resulting from antiquity to the Nahua race 6768 [?] years to the present date.
See my Ancient History, Lib. 1? Chap. 2?
Atonatiuh 800 years
Ehecatonatiuh 810 years
Tletonatiuh ....964 years
Tlaltonatiuh ... 1416 years
The four suns are 8628 [?] years old.)
THE SUN OF THE AIR,
or THE SUN OF THE WIND
The third age was called Ecatonatiuh,
which means Sun of Air, because this age was ended by air;
Which was so, and so the wind that made it then,
that overthrew all the buildings and trees
and even broke the rocks, and most of the men perished:
and because those who escaped from this calamity found a number of monkeys
that the wind must have brought from other parts,
the men were said to have become this species of animals,
from where this fable was born, the Monkeys.
Those who owned this land in this old age [the age of wind or air] were the Ulmecas and Xicalancas;
And according to that found in their stories,
they came in ships or boats from the east side until the land of Potorichan, (1)
from which they began to populate it;
on the borders of the Atoyac River,
which is the river that passes between the city Of Los Angeles and Cholula,
they found some of the Quinones (giants) who had escaped the calamity and consummation of the second age;
Who being strong people and confident in their strengths and most of the body, were ruled by the new settlers
So that they were as oppressed as if they were their slaves;
For which reason the chieftains and main people they sought ways to escape this bondage,
and it was at a treaty that made them very solemn:
after becoming full and drunk,
they finished them with their very own arms and ate them,
and with the death of those who exploited them,
they were free and exempt from this subjection
and its dominion and command was increased.
And being in the greatest prosperity of him,
he came to this earth a man whom they called Quetzalcoatl and others Huemac by his great virtues,
holding him righteous, holy and good;
Teaching them by works and words the path of virtue and avoiding vices and sins,
giving laws and good doctrine;
and to restrain them from their delights and dishonesty,
instituted for them the fast,
and the he was first who worshiped and placed the cross that Uama-
[Here this author tries to turn a Toltec ruler into an Indian Jesus; Xtlilochotli would do the same thing.]
Quetzalcoatl by literal interpretation means serpent of precious feathers;
in its allegorical sense it means greatest knowledge of evil;
and Huemac, say some who gave him this name because it printed and stamped his hands on a rock,
as if in wax, in testimony that everything he said.
Others say that Huenac means the big hand or powerful.
The one who went away,
from there to a few days happened the destruction and desolation referred to to the elderly of the world;
And then was destroyed that building and tower so memorable and sumptuous view of the city of Cholula,
which was like another second tower of Babel,
which these people built almost with the same designs,
stopping the wind.
And then those who escaped the consumption of the elderly,
in the ruins of it built a temple to Quetzalcoatl,
to whom they placed an idol of the god of the air,
for the air, having been the cause of its destruction,
understanding that it was sent from his hand
This calamity; and they called it Ce Acatl (1 Knife), which was the name of the year of its coming.
And it seems from the stories referred to and by the annals,
what is referred to happened some years after the Incarnation of Christ our Lord;
and since this time here entered the fourth age that they called themselves Tletonatiuc,
(meaning Sun of Fire) because they said that this the fourth age of the world is to end fire.
It was Quetzalcoatl, a well-disposed man, with a serious, white and
bearded. His dress was a long robe.
(1 Here the author refers to the legend of Quetzalcoatl at the time of the Ulmecas,
while other writers put it in the time of the Toltecs.
This confirms that this legend is purely astronomical,
and represents the appearance and disappearance Periodic in the East of the evening star, The Sun of Wind.)
[Scholars at the time had just broken into some of the Venus tables.
I think that the author may have actually adopted a description of a comet
and turned it into Jesus.]
(1 Here the author refers to the legend of Quetzalcoatl at the time of the Ulmecas,
While other writers put it in the time of the Toltecs. This confirms
That this legend is purely astronomical, and represents the appearance and disappearance of the Nahuas
Called Quetzalcoatl.)
[Here the author confuses a Toltec title with a word for "comet", which is the same.]
(The Toltecs occupied the city of Mam-he-mi and call it Tollan in the year 674 AD
Their government was theocratic until the year 700 AD.
Their first king was Mixcoamazatzin, who ruled from 700 to 765 AD
The following two kings were Huetzin and Totepeuh, whose government extended until the year 887 AD.
The fourth was Ilhuitilmaitl, who reigned until 925 AD.
The first theocracy of the Quetzalcoatl was followed, and ruled Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl until 947 AD.
Later there reigned:
Matlaoxochitl up to 982 AD;
Nauhyotzin up to 997 AD;
Matiacoatzin until 1025 AD,
And Tlicoatzin up to 1046 AD.
Then followed the theocracy of Huemac, in opposition to the Quetzalcoatl, until 1048 AD;
And then they overlapped,
And governed this third theocracy the second Quetzalcoatl, until 1118 AD date of the destruction of Tollan.)
[no source given for this]
And also that the rabbits at this time were to breed horns like deer,
and the bird Huitzitzilin to raise ram as gallipavo;
All of which happened thus,
because the king Topiltzin had the hair as is said,
and it was seen in the time of its rowing to happen the referred thing in the rabbits and huitzitzilies;
[the author seems to be having problems here reading a hieroglyph passage.]
and other wonders occurred that caused great terror and alteration to the king,
and he ordered the priests and soothsayers to be gathered together to declare what it meant;
And they having said to be of its destruction according to the histories it seems,
He sent for his stewards, and gave them his treasures,
who were the greatest that there was at that time,
to withdraw them in the province of Quiahuiztlan,
fearing of kings their opposites:
and after the wonders and signs
there began the starvation and barrenness of the land,
Most of the people consuming weevil and worms,
and the stores they had in their trojes,
and many others calamities and persecutions of heaven,
which seemed to fall on fire;
and the dryness was so great that it lasted 26 years,
in such a way that the rivers and fountains dried up.
And two children who had only the one, who was Prince Pochotl,
escaped Tochcucie, (1)
who was said to be the nurse who raised him in the deserts of Nonoalco;
And the few of the Toltecas that escaped In the mountains and mountain ranges, and in the reeds
(2 According to the previous times and the one that puts to the end of this chapter, the
Toltec Empire only lasted 456 years, although it is counted from the foundation of Tula,
which was made 7 years before the election of the first king;
So if counted from this,
which the author says in the previous chapter (which was the year of 610 AD),
to the year 959 AD
(which says at the end of it that it was the last and total destruction),
There only passed 449 years.-Note in the Original.)
(3 Here the author assumes, and generally repeats,
that Tollan was completely destroyed and abandoned.
Later it will be seen, that later the Chichimecas' kings had to attack it,
because he had rebelled, which proves it was inhabited;
and so the Spaniards found it.
The same thing has been said of Teotihuacan;
but it not only remained inhabited,
we have the names of their lords, from Xolotl to the Conquest).
(4.Tollan or Tula had been built by the Otomi (?);
and Teotihuacan and Cholula by the Vixtoti. (more likely but still (?))
And the few Toltecs who had escaped of their destruction,
he let them live in the positions and places where they were with their families,
which was in Chapoltepec, Colhuacan, Tlatzalantepexoxoma, Totolapan,
Quauhquecholan, and to the shores of the North Sea [Gulf Coast] in Tozapan,
Tochpan, Tziuhcoac and Xicotepec, and the same in Cholola,
although some of them did not pass until the lands of Nicaragua,
where they went to settle, and to other remote lands,
where the drought and related calamity did not arrive so strongly.
The city of Texcoco had its population beginning in the time of the Toltecs
and was the called Cattenihco,
and was destroyed and finished
with the other cities of the Toltecs,
and later they were rebuilt by the Chichimec kings;
and especially the Quinatzin [?] who had enhanced it greatly,
and it remained in her making it head and cut of the Empire:
[Here the author emphasizes Texcoco's role, as would Ixtlilxocitl]
Put him after the coming of the Chichimecas
Texcoco, which means place of detention, as indeed it was,
because in it lived were almost all the nations that were in this land.
Which, it seems by the paintings and characters of ancient history,
were of the lineage of the Toltecas and of the family of Huetzitin,
a gentleman who escaped with his people and family
from the destruction of Toltecs in the port of Chapoltepec,
which was later defeated,
And he went with them through the lands of the kingdom of Michhuacan to the Aztlan Province as it is mentioned:
and being there died,
and Ozelopan, second of this name, entered into his place,
who remembering the land of his pasts, agreed to come to it,
[The Chichimeca generally held that they had to return to Aztlan or Chicomoztoc to get help for their southern conquest
and their passage through Michoacan seems likely.]
bringing with him all those of his nation,
who were already called Mezitin,
and who led them,
along with Izcahui, Cuexpalatl, Yopi, and others Aztlal, and Acatl;
And also came with them a sister of theirs,
a manly woman named Matlalatl, to the referred port;
Succeeding them in their pilgrimage many and various things tell the stories,
bringing by his particular idol to Huitzilopochtli,
with whom of their priests were governed for ensuring the [prevention of] calamities
and be under the protection of the King of Azcaputzalco,
whose lands they began to populate.
At this same time went into the succession of Coxcox Culhuas
by the death Of Calcozametzin their king who had been, as it is referred:
had wars with Mexica on their title to and on the extent of their lands;
And also helped the high priest of the the city of Cholola, namedc Iztacima,
as a person to whom his amparo competed,
as the Quecholan Chalchiuhapan and other Chichimecas who were populated there:
He succored him with the people he could and with whom Quinatzin gave him,
Casting all the land to the Chichimecas
who offended the high priest and the Chololtecas
And so did the war, which seized the kingdom of the Otomi,
and Tzonpantecuhtli, its lord,
determined to flee to the Province of Metztitlan from where it was also.
And how he learned of his calamity
And jobs, 'and that it was domestic people, he sent them back
And gave them lands and places
in the Province that since then was called from Otompan,
to have them settled,
and Tezozomoc was raised with the King of the Otomi since this time
Other Otomies from the kingdom of the Tepanecas
and the province of Huahuacan
give them lands to inhabit to protect them
and because Tezozomoc their lord had them very oppressed with heavy tributes
and excessive demands imposed on them.
(Because these three heads were founded to be rulers and empires over all others,
by right the whole land, which had been the Toltecs',
whose successors and heirs they were,
and by the population and new possession
that of the whole land had the great Chichimeca Xolotl his ancestor)
And as interested and very religious in the service of their Gods,
pressed in the business to make it happen,
and so Nezaotzinhualcoy pointed out
the field that was between Quauhtepec and Ocelotepec,
and for being three heads of the empire,
Nezaotzinhualcoy pointed out for the effect other three provinces,
that were the one of Tlaxcalan referred to,
and that of Huexotzinco and that of Cholula, which enemies of the house,
with the quality that so many fought so many those of the three heads coming together,
and that they would give their battle the first days of his months,
beginning with Tlaxcalan the first time,
and then to another month, which was the second in the field that was designated Huexotzinco,
and the third in the field of Cholula, whose defenders were those of Atlixco;
And then the round began again with Tlaxcalan:
with this there were enough priests of the temples of Tezcatlipoca, Hmtzilopochtli, Tlaloc
and the others who were the gods of the Mexica,
and the opposites of Camaxtli, and Matlalcueye, and Quetzalcoatl.
Thus began these wars and abominable sacrifices for the gods,
Until the invicible D. Fernando Cortés first came
to become Marquis of the Valley to plant the holy Catholic faith:
likewise it was a law that
none of the natives of the three provinces referred to could pass to these parts,
nor those of here to go there,
upon the penalty of being sacrificed to the gods.
In a year they made eighteen principal feasts to their gods,
who was in the first days of their eighteen months
into which they distributed their solar year,
in which men sacrificed the captives in the wars referred to,
and other parties that had
Movable.
1
And in the middle were on its edges three branches carved and carved in the same
Which meant the great lagoon, and the branches the heads Empire;
And on the one hand (which was towards the northern part) another pool,
and in a carved rock the name and shield of weapons of the city of Tolan,
that was head of the empire of the Toltecs;
And on the left side that fell towards the part of the South was the other pool,
and in the carved rock the effective and name of the city of Tenayocan
that was the head of the empire of the Chichimecas,
There, in return for such great gifts that
the King had received from the unknown God and creator of all things,
he built a very sumptuous temple, opposite and opposite to the main temple of Huitzilopochtli,
which four breaks the ground and foundation of a tower soaring,
Was built on it with nine sobrado, which meant Nine heavens;
The tenth that served as the end of the other nine
Was on the outside with black and stars, and on the inside was all set in gold,
jewels and precious feathers,
dedicating it to the God referred to and not known or seen until then,
without any statue in form
His figure.2
(Pomar gives us exactly the idea that the Texcocans had of Tloque Nahuaque,
which the author intends to present to us similar to that of Christian God.
On page 24 of his Relation he says
"What some of their idols and gods is that however they worshiped them
and made the sacrifices that have been said,
they still doubted that they really were Gods,
but it was a hoax to believe that a few lumps of stick and stone made by the hands of men they were gods,
especially Nezahualcoyotzin,
That is the one that more hesitated looking from where to take fire to certify
of the true God and creator of all things, and as God our Lord by his secret judgment was not served to light him,
he returned to what his parents had worshiped, and many ancient songs testify to this.
Because in them there are many names and honorable epithets of God,
like is to say that there was only one and that this was the Maker of heaven and Earth,
and sustained everything made and raised by him,
and that was where he did not have a second,
and in a place that had nine levels,
and that this god had not ever been seen in form or in human body, nor in another figure,
and that to the place where the souls of the virtuous were to be stopped after death,
and that those of the bad ones went to another place of sorrows and horrible works;
And never though he had many idols representing different gods,
never when he offered to treat them all, in general and in particular,
each one, but they said in their language vn Tloque tn Nákuaqw, which means the
"Lord of heaven and earth".
For even in these appraisals, several of the Iztlilzochitl, Pomar incurs
In error, because the Indians did not believe, nor in the eternal immortality of the soul, nor
In free will See this matter eztensamennte in my Ancient History
from Mexico
It has already been discussed in the life of Nezahualcoyotzin
how they were to the conquest of the Huasteca
the two infants Xochiquetzaltzm and Acapioltzin,
the one by captain general of the army and the other with the relief that was later dispatched, and as it happened
So good, that by his haste and good industry he subdued that land,
for which the poets of those times,
to make connections in their songs of conquest and that there was,
praised his heroic deeds and together With him to his brother,
who was generally, although It was late still did some feats worthy of memory
And the King commanded that its title be
"Singing Teotlan Huextecayotl",
which means the song of conquest of the Huasteca
belonging to the house of Teotlan,
which were the palaces and manor houses of the infant Acapioltzin
With which they completely subjugated the whole empire of this land,
from the rule of the Chichimecas
and rowing from Michoacan to the last provinces
that the ancient tultecas kings,
who were the Hueymolan, Acalan, Verapaz and Nicaragua,
which is all that contains the land of Anahuac,
and from the Cuextecas (which are the provinces of Panuco) until arriving at Huitlapalan,
Which is what they call the sea the name of Cortes, by the Coasts of the South Sea,
which included great and splendid kingdoms and provinces,
as were those of the Chohuixcas, and Yopicas, Cuitlatecas, Chochonas, Mixtecas, Tzapotecas,
Quauhtemaltecas, coatzaqualcas, nonoalcas, xicalancas, Moniques,
And many other nations that remained from all points
And all under the rule of the three heads,
which was more than four hundred leagues long,
and in width from The North Sea (Gulf of Mexico) to the South (Pacific Ocean).
And because the authors who have written of the conquests that these gentlemen made,
specifically they do not count them in extenso,
because they find them their stories,
particularly in the Indian monarchy.
Which the most diligent Torquemada wrote,
I only mean what I found it convenient to deal with them,
according to the paintings and annals which I have cited.
Lately, in the year fifteen hundred and fourteen,
the snows were so excessive that they destroyed the plants and groves, falling apart and falling apart.
At this time the army of the three heads was lost
Of the empire that went over the Province of Amantlan,
One of the rebels as referred to
....
And in fifteen days Cortes was in Cholola,
he was always served and favored by the Tlaxcalans.
(2 The legend of the destruction of those who take the preponderance of the Mexica,
and the formation of the new Nonoalca race.
The Origin of their calling them Giants was undoubtedly the discovery of fossils of pachyderms,
which are very abundant in the region of Atoyac River.)
[This note precedes Mayor's work on Fossil Legends by about 100 years]
(1 In the first paintings of the Vatican Codex [now Codex Rios], Four suns or ages.
To avoid errors, I reproduce here its order and duration:
As the date of the last sun corresponds to the year of 217 BC,
resulting from antiquity to the Nahua race 6768 [?] years to the present date.
See my Ancient History, Lib. 1? Chap. 2?
Atonatiuh 800 years
Ehecatonatiuh 810 years
Tletonatiuh ....964 years
Tlaltonatiuh ... 1416 years
The four suns are 8628 [?] years old.)
THE SUN OF THE AIR,
or THE SUN OF THE WIND
The third age was called Ecatonatiuh,
which means Sun of Air, because this age was ended by air;
Which was so, and so the wind that made it then,
that overthrew all the buildings and trees
and even broke the rocks, and most of the men perished:
and because those who escaped from this calamity found a number of monkeys
that the wind must have brought from other parts,
the men were said to have become this species of animals,
from where this fable was born, the Monkeys.
Those who owned this land in this old age [the age of wind or air] were the Ulmecas and Xicalancas;
And according to that found in their stories,
they came in ships or boats from the east side until the land of Potorichan, (1)
from which they began to populate it;
on the borders of the Atoyac River,
which is the river that passes between the city Of Los Angeles and Cholula,
they found some of the Quinones (giants) who had escaped the calamity and consummation of the second age;
Who being strong people and confident in their strengths and most of the body, were ruled by the new settlers
So that they were as oppressed as if they were their slaves;
For which reason the chieftains and main people they sought ways to escape this bondage,
and it was at a treaty that made them very solemn:
after becoming full and drunk,
they finished them with their very own arms and ate them,
and with the death of those who exploited them,
they were free and exempt from this subjection
and its dominion and command was increased.
And being in the greatest prosperity of him,
he came to this earth a man whom they called Quetzalcoatl and others Huemac by his great virtues,
holding him righteous, holy and good;
Teaching them by works and words the path of virtue and avoiding vices and sins,
giving laws and good doctrine;
and to restrain them from their delights and dishonesty,
instituted for them the fast,
and the he was first who worshiped and placed the cross that Uama-
[Here this author tries to turn a Toltec ruler into an Indian Jesus; Xtlilochotli would do the same thing.]
Quetzalcoatl by literal interpretation means serpent of precious feathers;
in its allegorical sense it means greatest knowledge of evil;
and Huemac, say some who gave him this name because it printed and stamped his hands on a rock,
as if in wax, in testimony that everything he said.
Others say that Huenac means the big hand or powerful.
The one who went away,
from there to a few days happened the destruction and desolation referred to to the elderly of the world;
And then was destroyed that building and tower so memorable and sumptuous view of the city of Cholula,
which was like another second tower of Babel,
which these people built almost with the same designs,
stopping the wind.
And then those who escaped the consumption of the elderly,
in the ruins of it built a temple to Quetzalcoatl,
to whom they placed an idol of the god of the air,
for the air, having been the cause of its destruction,
understanding that it was sent from his hand
This calamity; and they called it Ce Acatl (1 Knife), which was the name of the year of its coming.
And it seems from the stories referred to and by the annals,
what is referred to happened some years after the Incarnation of Christ our Lord;
and since this time here entered the fourth age that they called themselves Tletonatiuc,
(meaning Sun of Fire) because they said that this the fourth age of the world is to end fire.
It was Quetzalcoatl, a well-disposed man, with a serious, white and
bearded. His dress was a long robe.
(1 Here the author refers to the legend of Quetzalcoatl at the time of the Ulmecas,
while other writers put it in the time of the Toltecs.
This confirms that this legend is purely astronomical,
and represents the appearance and disappearance Periodic in the East of the evening star, The Sun of Wind.)
[Scholars at the time had just broken into some of the Venus tables.
I think that the author may have actually adopted a description of a comet
and turned it into Jesus.]
(1 Here the author refers to the legend of Quetzalcoatl at the time of the Ulmecas,
While other writers put it in the time of the Toltecs. This confirms
That this legend is purely astronomical, and represents the appearance and disappearance of the Nahuas
Called Quetzalcoatl.)
[Here the author confuses a Toltec title with a word for "comet", which is the same.]
(The Toltecs occupied the city of Mam-he-mi and call it Tollan in the year 674 AD
Their government was theocratic until the year 700 AD.
Their first king was Mixcoamazatzin, who ruled from 700 to 765 AD
The following two kings were Huetzin and Totepeuh, whose government extended until the year 887 AD.
The fourth was Ilhuitilmaitl, who reigned until 925 AD.
The first theocracy of the Quetzalcoatl was followed, and ruled Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl until 947 AD.
Later there reigned:
Matlaoxochitl up to 982 AD;
Nauhyotzin up to 997 AD;
Matiacoatzin until 1025 AD,
And Tlicoatzin up to 1046 AD.
Then followed the theocracy of Huemac, in opposition to the Quetzalcoatl, until 1048 AD;
And then they overlapped,
And governed this third theocracy the second Quetzalcoatl, until 1118 AD date of the destruction of Tollan.)
[no source given for this]
And also that the rabbits at this time were to breed horns like deer,
and the bird Huitzitzilin to raise ram as gallipavo;
All of which happened thus,
because the king Topiltzin had the hair as is said,
and it was seen in the time of its rowing to happen the referred thing in the rabbits and huitzitzilies;
[the author seems to be having problems here reading a hieroglyph passage.]
and other wonders occurred that caused great terror and alteration to the king,
and he ordered the priests and soothsayers to be gathered together to declare what it meant;
And they having said to be of its destruction according to the histories it seems,
He sent for his stewards, and gave them his treasures,
who were the greatest that there was at that time,
to withdraw them in the province of Quiahuiztlan,
fearing of kings their opposites:
and after the wonders and signs
there began the starvation and barrenness of the land,
Most of the people consuming weevil and worms,
and the stores they had in their trojes,
and many others calamities and persecutions of heaven,
which seemed to fall on fire;
and the dryness was so great that it lasted 26 years,
in such a way that the rivers and fountains dried up.
And two children who had only the one, who was Prince Pochotl,
escaped Tochcucie, (1)
who was said to be the nurse who raised him in the deserts of Nonoalco;
And the few of the Toltecas that escaped In the mountains and mountain ranges, and in the reeds
(2 According to the previous times and the one that puts to the end of this chapter, the
Toltec Empire only lasted 456 years, although it is counted from the foundation of Tula,
which was made 7 years before the election of the first king;
So if counted from this,
which the author says in the previous chapter (which was the year of 610 AD),
to the year 959 AD
(which says at the end of it that it was the last and total destruction),
There only passed 449 years.-Note in the Original.)
(3 Here the author assumes, and generally repeats,
that Tollan was completely destroyed and abandoned.
Later it will be seen, that later the Chichimecas' kings had to attack it,
because he had rebelled, which proves it was inhabited;
and so the Spaniards found it.
The same thing has been said of Teotihuacan;
but it not only remained inhabited,
we have the names of their lords, from Xolotl to the Conquest).
(4.Tollan or Tula had been built by the Otomi (?);
and Teotihuacan and Cholula by the Vixtoti. (more likely but still (?))
And the few Toltecs who had escaped of their destruction,
he let them live in the positions and places where they were with their families,
which was in Chapoltepec, Colhuacan, Tlatzalantepexoxoma, Totolapan,
Quauhquecholan, and to the shores of the North Sea [Gulf Coast] in Tozapan,
Tochpan, Tziuhcoac and Xicotepec, and the same in Cholola,
although some of them did not pass until the lands of Nicaragua,
where they went to settle, and to other remote lands,
where the drought and related calamity did not arrive so strongly.
The city of Texcoco had its population beginning in the time of the Toltecs
and was the called Cattenihco,
and was destroyed and finished
with the other cities of the Toltecs,
and later they were rebuilt by the Chichimec kings;
and especially the Quinatzin [?] who had enhanced it greatly,
and it remained in her making it head and cut of the Empire:
[Here the author emphasizes Texcoco's role, as would Ixtlilxocitl]
Put him after the coming of the Chichimecas
Texcoco, which means place of detention, as indeed it was,
because in it lived were almost all the nations that were in this land.
Which, it seems by the paintings and characters of ancient history,
were of the lineage of the Toltecas and of the family of Huetzitin,
a gentleman who escaped with his people and family
from the destruction of Toltecs in the port of Chapoltepec,
which was later defeated,
And he went with them through the lands of the kingdom of Michhuacan to the Aztlan Province as it is mentioned:
and being there died,
and Ozelopan, second of this name, entered into his place,
who remembering the land of his pasts, agreed to come to it,
[The Chichimeca generally held that they had to return to Aztlan or Chicomoztoc to get help for their southern conquest
and their passage through Michoacan seems likely.]
bringing with him all those of his nation,
who were already called Mezitin,
and who led them,
along with Izcahui, Cuexpalatl, Yopi, and others Aztlal, and Acatl;
And also came with them a sister of theirs,
a manly woman named Matlalatl, to the referred port;
Succeeding them in their pilgrimage many and various things tell the stories,
bringing by his particular idol to Huitzilopochtli,
with whom of their priests were governed for ensuring the [prevention of] calamities
and be under the protection of the King of Azcaputzalco,
whose lands they began to populate.
At this same time went into the succession of Coxcox Culhuas
by the death Of Calcozametzin their king who had been, as it is referred:
had wars with Mexica on their title to and on the extent of their lands;
And also helped the high priest of the the city of Cholola, namedc Iztacima,
as a person to whom his amparo competed,
as the Quecholan Chalchiuhapan and other Chichimecas who were populated there:
He succored him with the people he could and with whom Quinatzin gave him,
Casting all the land to the Chichimecas
who offended the high priest and the Chololtecas
And so did the war, which seized the kingdom of the Otomi,
and Tzonpantecuhtli, its lord,
determined to flee to the Province of Metztitlan from where it was also.
And how he learned of his calamity
And jobs, 'and that it was domestic people, he sent them back
And gave them lands and places
in the Province that since then was called from Otompan,
to have them settled,
and Tezozomoc was raised with the King of the Otomi since this time
Other Otomies from the kingdom of the Tepanecas
and the province of Huahuacan
give them lands to inhabit to protect them
and because Tezozomoc their lord had them very oppressed with heavy tributes
and excessive demands imposed on them.
(Because these three heads were founded to be rulers and empires over all others,
by right the whole land, which had been the Toltecs',
whose successors and heirs they were,
and by the population and new possession
that of the whole land had the great Chichimeca Xolotl his ancestor)
And as interested and very religious in the service of their Gods,
pressed in the business to make it happen,
and so Nezaotzinhualcoy pointed out
the field that was between Quauhtepec and Ocelotepec,
and for being three heads of the empire,
Nezaotzinhualcoy pointed out for the effect other three provinces,
that were the one of Tlaxcalan referred to,
and that of Huexotzinco and that of Cholula, which enemies of the house,
with the quality that so many fought so many those of the three heads coming together,
and that they would give their battle the first days of his months,
beginning with Tlaxcalan the first time,
and then to another month, which was the second in the field that was designated Huexotzinco,
and the third in the field of Cholula, whose defenders were those of Atlixco;
And then the round began again with Tlaxcalan:
with this there were enough priests of the temples of Tezcatlipoca, Hmtzilopochtli, Tlaloc
and the others who were the gods of the Mexica,
and the opposites of Camaxtli, and Matlalcueye, and Quetzalcoatl.
Thus began these wars and abominable sacrifices for the gods,
Until the invicible D. Fernando Cortés first came
to become Marquis of the Valley to plant the holy Catholic faith:
likewise it was a law that
none of the natives of the three provinces referred to could pass to these parts,
nor those of here to go there,
upon the penalty of being sacrificed to the gods.
In a year they made eighteen principal feasts to their gods,
who was in the first days of their eighteen months
into which they distributed their solar year,
in which men sacrificed the captives in the wars referred to,
and other parties that had
Movable.
1
And in the middle were on its edges three branches carved and carved in the same
Which meant the great lagoon, and the branches the heads Empire;
And on the one hand (which was towards the northern part) another pool,
and in a carved rock the name and shield of weapons of the city of Tolan,
that was head of the empire of the Toltecs;
And on the left side that fell towards the part of the South was the other pool,
and in the carved rock the effective and name of the city of Tenayocan
that was the head of the empire of the Chichimecas,
There, in return for such great gifts that
the King had received from the unknown God and creator of all things,
he built a very sumptuous temple, opposite and opposite to the main temple of Huitzilopochtli,
which four breaks the ground and foundation of a tower soaring,
Was built on it with nine sobrado, which meant Nine heavens;
The tenth that served as the end of the other nine
Was on the outside with black and stars, and on the inside was all set in gold,
jewels and precious feathers,
dedicating it to the God referred to and not known or seen until then,
without any statue in form
His figure.2
(Pomar gives us exactly the idea that the Texcocans had of Tloque Nahuaque,
which the author intends to present to us similar to that of Christian God.
On page 24 of his Relation he says
"What some of their idols and gods is that however they worshiped them
and made the sacrifices that have been said,
they still doubted that they really were Gods,
but it was a hoax to believe that a few lumps of stick and stone made by the hands of men they were gods,
especially Nezahualcoyotzin,
That is the one that more hesitated looking from where to take fire to certify
of the true God and creator of all things, and as God our Lord by his secret judgment was not served to light him,
he returned to what his parents had worshiped, and many ancient songs testify to this.
Because in them there are many names and honorable epithets of God,
like is to say that there was only one and that this was the Maker of heaven and Earth,
and sustained everything made and raised by him,
and that was where he did not have a second,
and in a place that had nine levels,
and that this god had not ever been seen in form or in human body, nor in another figure,
and that to the place where the souls of the virtuous were to be stopped after death,
and that those of the bad ones went to another place of sorrows and horrible works;
And never though he had many idols representing different gods,
never when he offered to treat them all, in general and in particular,
each one, but they said in their language vn Tloque tn Nákuaqw, which means the
"Lord of heaven and earth".
For even in these appraisals, several of the Iztlilzochitl, Pomar incurs
In error, because the Indians did not believe, nor in the eternal immortality of the soul, nor
In free will See this matter eztensamennte in my Ancient History
from Mexico
It has already been discussed in the life of Nezahualcoyotzin
how they were to the conquest of the Huasteca
the two infants Xochiquetzaltzm and Acapioltzin,
the one by captain general of the army and the other with the relief that was later dispatched, and as it happened
So good, that by his haste and good industry he subdued that land,
for which the poets of those times,
to make connections in their songs of conquest and that there was,
praised his heroic deeds and together With him to his brother,
who was generally, although It was late still did some feats worthy of memory
And the King commanded that its title be
"Singing Teotlan Huextecayotl",
which means the song of conquest of the Huasteca
belonging to the house of Teotlan,
which were the palaces and manor houses of the infant Acapioltzin
With which they completely subjugated the whole empire of this land,
from the rule of the Chichimecas
and rowing from Michoacan to the last provinces
that the ancient tultecas kings,
who were the Hueymolan, Acalan, Verapaz and Nicaragua,
which is all that contains the land of Anahuac,
and from the Cuextecas (which are the provinces of Panuco) until arriving at Huitlapalan,
Which is what they call the sea the name of Cortes, by the Coasts of the South Sea,
which included great and splendid kingdoms and provinces,
as were those of the Chohuixcas, and Yopicas, Cuitlatecas, Chochonas, Mixtecas, Tzapotecas,
Quauhtemaltecas, coatzaqualcas, nonoalcas, xicalancas, Moniques,
And many other nations that remained from all points
And all under the rule of the three heads,
which was more than four hundred leagues long,
and in width from The North Sea (Gulf of Mexico) to the South (Pacific Ocean).
And because the authors who have written of the conquests that these gentlemen made,
specifically they do not count them in extenso,
because they find them their stories,
particularly in the Indian monarchy.
Which the most diligent Torquemada wrote,
I only mean what I found it convenient to deal with them,
according to the paintings and annals which I have cited.
Lately, in the year fifteen hundred and fourteen,
the snows were so excessive that they destroyed the plants and groves, falling apart and falling apart.
At this time the army of the three heads was lost
Of the empire that went over the Province of Amantlan,
One of the rebels as referred to
....
And in fifteen days Cortes was in Cholola,
he was always served and favored by the Tlaxcalans.
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
From Tikal we have
https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2007 ... al-ancesto
The opening Long Count on the temple’s inscription is 5.0.0.0.0 12 Ajaw 3 Sak (1143 BC!), later followed by 7.10.0.0.0 3 Ajaw 13 Pax (157 BC). The ten reliably placed dates of the entire text are given here, with a brief description of their associated events:
5.0.0.0.0 12 Ajaw 3 Zak - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar - 1143 bc
6.14.16.9.16 11 Cib 4 Zak - ? 455 BCE
7.10.0.0.0 3 Ajaw 13 Pax - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar - 157 BCE
9.4.0.0.0 13 Ajaw 18 Yax - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar 514 CE
9.4.13.0.0 13 Ajaw 13 Yaxkin - Ritual at waybil shrine of White Owl Jaguar
9.4.13.4.16 5 Kib 9 Keh - Fashioning of stone, White Owl Jaguar - 527 CE
9.4.13.6.14 4 Ix 7 Kankin - “Road-striking”(?) event, White Owl Jaguar
9.4.13.7.7 4 Manik 0 Muwan - ? 528 CE
[…missing portions…]
9.16.14.17.17 4 Kaban 15 Pop - Dedication of waybil shrine - 765 CE
9.16.15.0.0 7 Ajaw 18 Pop - PE by Ruler B
Where "PE" stands for '"Partitioning Event", or impact event.
It is clear that "White Owl Jaguar" is not a mortal being, as no one lives for 700 years or so.
I wonder if White Owl Jaguar is related to Lady White from Palenque?
And then later some individual either claimed his powers or saw him again?
https://decipherment.wordpress.com/2007 ... al-ancesto
The opening Long Count on the temple’s inscription is 5.0.0.0.0 12 Ajaw 3 Sak (1143 BC!), later followed by 7.10.0.0.0 3 Ajaw 13 Pax (157 BC). The ten reliably placed dates of the entire text are given here, with a brief description of their associated events:
5.0.0.0.0 12 Ajaw 3 Zak - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar - 1143 bc
6.14.16.9.16 11 Cib 4 Zak - ? 455 BCE
7.10.0.0.0 3 Ajaw 13 Pax - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar - 157 BCE
9.4.0.0.0 13 Ajaw 18 Yax - PE in presence of White Owl Jaguar 514 CE
9.4.13.0.0 13 Ajaw 13 Yaxkin - Ritual at waybil shrine of White Owl Jaguar
9.4.13.4.16 5 Kib 9 Keh - Fashioning of stone, White Owl Jaguar - 527 CE
9.4.13.6.14 4 Ix 7 Kankin - “Road-striking”(?) event, White Owl Jaguar
9.4.13.7.7 4 Manik 0 Muwan - ? 528 CE
[…missing portions…]
9.16.14.17.17 4 Kaban 15 Pop - Dedication of waybil shrine - 765 CE
9.16.15.0.0 7 Ajaw 18 Pop - PE by Ruler B
Where "PE" stands for '"Partitioning Event", or impact event.
It is clear that "White Owl Jaguar" is not a mortal being, as no one lives for 700 years or so.
I wonder if White Owl Jaguar is related to Lady White from Palenque?
And then later some individual either claimed his powers or saw him again?
-
E.P. Grondine
Re: The Sun of the Wind
From Charles' Kolb's review:
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=1625
In 1983, a cache of original Nahuatl- and Spanish language
documents composed by the seventeenth century
Nahua historian Don Domingo de San Anton Munon Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (b. 1579 - d.1660)
was located in the archive of the Bible Society that
was being rehoused in Cambridge University Library.
These important documents, acquired in 1827 as a part
of a corpus of indigenous-language materials obtained
by the London-based British and Foreign Bible Society,
were forgotten until they were moved to Cambridge and
catalogued in 1982.[5] Three large volumes of original accounts
about native life in Prehispanic and sixteenth century
New Spain might have been lost to Mexican historiography
except for the efforts of Wayne Ruiwet (College
Library, University of California, Los Angeles). He apprised
the senior translator of these works and served as
the project’s manuscript editor.
....
Mexican history is traced
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES THROUGH MIGRATIONS,
initial settlement, and the deaths of native rulers,
and includes significant informationon Nahua calendrics,
and year counts from the annals of Ayala dating 1243-1562.
The second volume begins with the arrival of the Mexica in the Basin of Mexico,
traces the establishment of Tenochtitlan,
and relates the conquest of Tlatelolco Culhuacan and other polities.
It also provides detailed genealogies of the kings and lords of the members of the Triple Alliance,
characterizes other lineage groups and inter-dynastic marriages,
and ends with supplementary accounts of the Mexica month count,
native and Christian calendars, and the Zodiac.
....
In addition, he was a contemporary
of two Nahua nobles Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Don Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc,
and the Jesuit priest Juan de Tovar. Chimalpahin knew the priest and, possibly both of the former,
but definitely used passages from Ixtlilxochitl and Tezozomoc’s works,[7]
as well as from other prehispanic and colonial Nahuatl documents,
in preparing his sociopolitical histories of the major polities
of Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, and Culhuacan.
In general, Chimalphin
BEGINS WITH THE MOST ANCIENT ACCOUNTS
and brings them forward to his own time.
-------
In order to nail down The Sun of the Wind,
recovering this proto-history, or set of historical myths,
is necessary.
The Chimalpahin papers provided scholars with a new way of analyzing Ixtlilxochitl's works,
as well as new materials. Most previous translations are now obsolete, as are most previous
deconstructions.
I think it is still likely that most documents concerning genealogy an title began in the traditional manner
with a short historical summary to "prove"their authenticity. That, combined with the memories of oral performers,
still offer some hope of recovering the Sun of the Wind.
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=1625
In 1983, a cache of original Nahuatl- and Spanish language
documents composed by the seventeenth century
Nahua historian Don Domingo de San Anton Munon Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (b. 1579 - d.1660)
was located in the archive of the Bible Society that
was being rehoused in Cambridge University Library.
These important documents, acquired in 1827 as a part
of a corpus of indigenous-language materials obtained
by the London-based British and Foreign Bible Society,
were forgotten until they were moved to Cambridge and
catalogued in 1982.[5] Three large volumes of original accounts
about native life in Prehispanic and sixteenth century
New Spain might have been lost to Mexican historiography
except for the efforts of Wayne Ruiwet (College
Library, University of California, Los Angeles). He apprised
the senior translator of these works and served as
the project’s manuscript editor.
....
Mexican history is traced
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES THROUGH MIGRATIONS,
initial settlement, and the deaths of native rulers,
and includes significant informationon Nahua calendrics,
and year counts from the annals of Ayala dating 1243-1562.
The second volume begins with the arrival of the Mexica in the Basin of Mexico,
traces the establishment of Tenochtitlan,
and relates the conquest of Tlatelolco Culhuacan and other polities.
It also provides detailed genealogies of the kings and lords of the members of the Triple Alliance,
characterizes other lineage groups and inter-dynastic marriages,
and ends with supplementary accounts of the Mexica month count,
native and Christian calendars, and the Zodiac.
....
In addition, he was a contemporary
of two Nahua nobles Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Don Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc,
and the Jesuit priest Juan de Tovar. Chimalpahin knew the priest and, possibly both of the former,
but definitely used passages from Ixtlilxochitl and Tezozomoc’s works,[7]
as well as from other prehispanic and colonial Nahuatl documents,
in preparing his sociopolitical histories of the major polities
of Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, and Culhuacan.
In general, Chimalphin
BEGINS WITH THE MOST ANCIENT ACCOUNTS
and brings them forward to his own time.
-------
In order to nail down The Sun of the Wind,
recovering this proto-history, or set of historical myths,
is necessary.
The Chimalpahin papers provided scholars with a new way of analyzing Ixtlilxochitl's works,
as well as new materials. Most previous translations are now obsolete, as are most previous
deconstructions.
I think it is still likely that most documents concerning genealogy an title began in the traditional manner
with a short historical summary to "prove"their authenticity. That, combined with the memories of oral performers,
still offer some hope of recovering the Sun of the Wind.