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Hubert Howe Bancroft
The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History

The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg attempts to reconcile the general fact shown by all the earlier traditions that the primitive Nahua power was in the south, with the idea of a migration from the north apparently entertained by each of the nations of Anáhuac and by the Spanish writers. According to his idea the Nahuas, overcome by the monarchs of Xibalba, were driven from Chiapas, dwelt a few years on the Pacific coast at Tlapallantzinco, and thence migrated north-westward in different bands, following the general direction of the coast, to Sonora and Upper California. Along this route, as this author claims, distinct traces of their migration are apparent, referring perhaps, although he does not say so, to linguistic traces. In this northern region, about the Gulf of California, they established great kingdoms and built great cities, each Nahua colony becoming a centre of civilization to the wild tribes with whom it came in contact. From this region, to places in which the names Teo Culhuacan, Aztlan, etc., of the traditions may be applied, the different Nahua nations descended into Anáhuac in successive migrations from the seventh to the twelfth century, impelled by civil convulsions or the pressure of outside and warlike tribes.³⁶⁰

I am inclined to find in the abbé's theory a statement – too definite perhaps – of a general fact. That is, the Nahua power – established in eastern and south-eastern Mexico by the Olmec tribes almost simultaneously with its growth in the south – was after its overthrow in Central America established by exiled nobles over western and north-western Mexico. I find no evidence, however, that the Nahua power ever became settled and flourishing farther north than Durango and Sinaloa, although the influence of their institutions may, not improbably, have extended to the Sonora tribes; into California and the far north-west the Nahuas never penetrated. If a Nahua empire or political power ever really existed in the north-west, its centre was probably in the region of Quemada, in Zacatecas and Jalisco. Soon, however, the valley of Mexico became the political centre, and the subsequent history of the country was essentially a history of Anáhuac. The modern aboriginal annals of each nation dated from its rise to notice in Anáhuac, and in the traditions of previous history imperfectly communicated to the Spaniards, their former greatness in the south, their defeat and exile, their life in outside provinces, and their settlement in the valley were sadly confused.

ANNALS OF YUCATAN

Mendieta, Torquemada, Gomara, and others, record the popular tradition of the settlement of Mexico as follows: An old man Iztac Mixcohuatl, by his wife Ilancueitl, in Chicomoztoc, or the Seven Caves, had six sons, Xelhua, Tenuch, Ulmecatl, Xicalancatl, Mixtecatl, and Otomitl. Tenuch's descendants were the Aztecs; Xelhua gave his name to no nation, but his followers settled at various points in the south-east; the others founded the nations which took their names. Mendieta adds that by another wife the same old man had a son named Quetzalcoatl.³⁶¹ Piñeda tells us that a nephew of Votan divided the land of Anáhuac.³⁶² According to Arlegui the Toltecs came from the west and divided New Spain between their seven families.³⁶³ I believe I have now given all the important traditions that seem to belong to the pre-Toltec period in Mexico, and I deem it unnecessary to refer to the authors who merely give an abridged version of the same accounts, many of them confining themselves to the simple statement that the Toltecs, a very skillful people, came first from the north and settled in the region afterwards known as New Spain.

Returning to the south, it only remains to examine briefly the primitive Maya annals of Yucatan, which confirm in a few points those of other peoples, so far as they relate to the great American centre of civilization in the south. These annals will be given in full elsewhere; a very general view, with especial reference to the points referred to, will suffice here. A prevalent belief among the Mayas at the time of the Conquest was, that the peninsula was settled in ancient times by two races, one from the east, the other from the west. It is not implied that they came at the same period, but rather that the migration from the east preceded that from the west by many centuries. Lizana tells us that in ancient times the east was called cenial, or 'little descent,' and the west nohenial, or 'great descent,' believing that these names indicate the comparative numbers of the respective colonies. Landa and Herrera record a tradition that the oldest inhabitants came from the east, the sea being divided to afford them a passage. Cogolludo concludes, contrary to the opinion of Lizana, that the colony from the east must have been much more numerous as well as more ancient than the other, because of the universal use of the Maya language and of Maya names of places throughout the peninsula – a conclusion that carries little weight, since it rests mainly on the assumption that those who came from the west spoke the Aztec language, an assumption for which there is no authority whatever.

ZAMNÁ'S EMPIRE

The personage whose name appears first in the Maya tradition is Zamná, son of the chief deity, who taught the people, invented the hieroglyphic alphabet, and gave a name to each locality in Yucatan. His rôle, so far as anything is known of it, was precisely the same as that of Votan in Chiapas. Zamná is reported to have lived long in the land and to have been buried at the close of his career at Izamal. During his life he founded Mayapan, 'standard (or capital) of Maya,' – Maya being the native name of the country and signifying according to some authorities 'land without water' – a city which was several times ruined and rebuilt after its founder's time. Zamná may be most naturally connected with the traditional migration from the east. Cogolludo, it is true, states that he was at the head of the other colony, and this statement is repeated in one place by Brasseur, but as the Spanish writer directly contradicts his statement on the same page, not much importance is to be attached to it. Vague as it is, the tradition of Zamná and his followers from the east seems identical with that of Votan. If we suppose that such persons as Zamná and Votan actually had an existence – a supposition which like its opposite forms no part of this chapter – it would be impossible to determine whether the two were the same, or Zamná the companion, disciple, or descendant of Votan; but we may well believe that the period, the empire, the institutions alluded to in the Maya record are the same as those connected with the Votanic or Xibalban traditions. The ancient power whose centre was in Chiapas, Tabasco, and Honduras, extended north-eastward into Yucatan as it did north-westward into Anáhuac. Ordoñez states, as usual without giving his authority, that Mayapan was one of the allied capitals, which with Nachan and Tulan constituted the Votanic empire. The fact that the name of the Cocomes, the most ancient people, or at least the oldest line of kings and nobles, in Yucatan signifies in the Nahua tongue 'serpents,' like the name Chanes applied to Votan's followers, may have some significance, although in the Maya tongue Cocome is also said to mean 'listener.'

At an unknown date, but subsequent to that of Zamná's rule, we find three brothers, the Itzaob, reigning at Chichen over a people called from them the Itzas, as the city also was called thereafter Chichen Itza. They came from the west, were just and chaste men, and their reign a long and glorious one. One of them, however, having finally left the country, the others gave themselves up to immoral practices, and were put to death. Notwithstanding the fact that the brothers came, according to the Spanish writers, from the west, there is much reason to suppose that the nation whose capital was at Chichen, was an ancient people dating back to the time of Zamná, since the most satisfactory interpretation of the name 'Itza' is that it came from 'Ytzamna,' the more ancient form of the great founder's name. Connected with the three brothers in a manner not clearly defined by the tradition – either ruling conjointly with them or more probably coming into power immediately after their downfall – was Cukulcan, who also came from the west, who was also famous for the purity of his life, and whose teachings in fact were identical with those of Quetzalcoatl among the Nahua peoples. He also is credited with the founding, or re-founding of Mayapan, which under his rule became the political centre of the whole country, although Chichen still retained great prominence. Cukulcan having raised the country to a condition of the highest prosperity, finally abandoned Yucatan for some unknown motive and returned westward, disappearing at Champoton, or Potonchan, on the coast, where he dwelt for some time and where a temple in his honor was afterwards erected. After his departure the Cocome princes came into power, their capital being still Mayapan.

The identity in character, teachings, and actions between Cukulcan and Quetzalcoatl, suggests the first appearance in Yucatan, at this time, of Nahua tribes or Nahua institutions, corresponding to a certain extent with the appearance of the Olmecs and Xicalancas in Anáhuac, and indicating that the Nahua influence was exerted during its earliest period of development in the north-east as well as in the north-west. Indeed, Veytia records a tradition to the effect that Yucatan was settled by the Olmecs and Xicalancas driven from Mexico at the coming of the Toltecs; this author justly rejects the latter part of this report, but expresses his belief that bands from these nations did actually settle in the peninsula. When to the analogies already noticed between Quetzalcoatl and Cukulcan we add the fact that their names are etymologically identical, both signifying 'plumed serpent,' little reason remains to doubt that the Maya tradition refers, like the others that have been noticed, to the first coming into prominence of the Nahuas in America.

THE TUTUL XIUS IN YUCATAN

The next prominent event in Yucatan history, as it is also the last that has any special bearing upon the period now under consideration, and the most important in that connection, is the arrival of the Tutul Xius. According to the traditions of the natives as recorded by the Spaniards, this peaceful but highly cultivated people came from the south, perhaps from Chiapas, after wandering for forty years in the unsettled and mountainous portions of the country, and settled near Mayapan. The Cocomes, successors to the Itza brothers and Cukulcan, having at the time governed the country long and prosperously, received the new-comers kindly and formed an alliance with them, an alliance which continued for a long time until the Cocome kings, becoming tyrannical, were overthrown by a revolution in which the Tutul Xius were the most prominent actors. It is, however, with their arrival and not with their subsequent actions that we have to do here. The mere tradition of their arrival after a long migration from the southern highlands would at best furnish only slight grounds for the conjecture of the Spaniards that they came from Chiapas; but another document unknown to the Spanish missionary-authors throws great light upon this people, and invests their appearance in Yucatan with increased importance. The document referred to is the Maya manuscript translated by Pio Perez, first published in Mr Stephens' work on Yucatan, and later with the work of Bishop Landa, which begins as follows: – "This is the series of katunes elapsed since the four Tutul Xius departed from the house of Nonoual, which was west of Zuina, and came from the land of Tulapan. Four katunes passed after they set out before they arrived here with Holonchan Tepeuh and his companions, before they reached this peninsula; the 8 Ahau had passed, the 6 Ahau, the 4 Ahau, and the 2 Ahau – eighty-one years before they arrived in this peninsula, eighty-one years that they spent in their journey from their country to this peninsula of Chacnouitan." Here we find it distinctly stated that this people came from Tulapan, 'capital of Tula,' the very place from which, according to the Quiché record, the Nahua nations migrated, and it is more than likely that Zuina should be Zuiva, defined in the Popol Vuh as the Seven Caves. This, in connection with the Quiché lamentation over that division of their brothers which they had left in the east, is amply sufficient to identify the Tutul Xius as one of the Nahua tribes that migrated from the original centre. The family of Nonoual seems to have given a name to the tribes that occupied Tabasco down to the Conquest. This document assumes to give the date of the Tutul Xiu migration, a most important date, since it is also that of the overthrow of Nahua power in Chiapas and its transfer to Anáhuac; but until the Maya system of Ahau katunes³⁶⁴ shall have been the object of much additional research, there is little hope of arriving at an accurate interpretation of the date. Sr Perez gives it as 144 A.D. The Abbé Brasseur, relying on the same document, gives the date repeatedly as 171 A.D.; but in his translation of the document in Landa's work he concluded that it should be 401 A.D., reckoning each Ahau katun as twenty years, and remarking that this date agrees much better than the earlier one with Ixtlilxochitl's chronology. Of the Perez manuscript Mr Gallatin remarks that it contains all we know of the history and chronology of Yucatan. To ascertain dates is out of the question; but it is probable that the events are stated in their respective order.³⁶⁵

OVERTHROW OF THE NAHUAS

A Mexican document, known only through Brasseur de Bourbourg, and by him called the Codex Gondra, furnishes some additional information respecting the overthrow of the Nahua power in Central America, and especially respecting the house of Nonoual alluded to in the Perez document. I quote from the author named as follows: – "The manuscript begins with a description of the twenty wards of the great city of Tollan, or Tulhá, Huey Tollan; but it gives the names of only the first twelve, the translator, who apparently attached but little importance to names, having deemed it proper to omit the other eight. The author relates the events that precipitated the ruin of the throne, occasioned by the minority of the last Chane prince, whose guardianship was claimed by two powerful families, one called the Chichimec-Toltecs, and the other the Chichimecs of Nonohualco. The quarrel terminated in the insurrection of the latter and the assassination of the young monarch. But the prince was beloved by the people, and on account of the popular indignation, the murderers were forced to flee by night with all their followers. On their departure from Tulhà, Xelhua, the chief the Nonohualcos, went to consult the oracle of Culhuacan, [Palenque?] which enjoined him to depart. On the way he did penance for his crime, and after several defeats at the hands of the tribes through whose lands he was forced to pass, he at last founded the kingdom of the Nonohualcos, fixing the capital at Quetzaltepec in the mountains about the country of the Zoques, who were conquered by his successors. The author gives the names of the thirteen princes who occupied the throne after Xelhua with the leading events of their reigns. But while Xelhua was establishing a new empire, Ieyxcohuatl, chief of the Toltec party, who had seized upon the power after the death of the young king of Tulhà, of which he had been the principal cause, was forced after a few years of power to abandon in his turn the capital, with all his followers, to avoid the vengeance of the people. He went into exile with the Toltecs, and the manuscript gives their itinerary as far as Tlachihualtepec, or Cholula, at the time occupied by the Olmecs and Xicalancas, who ruled the whole Aztec plateau."³⁶⁶

I have placed before the reader such historical traditions of the civilized nations as seem to bear upon the earliest period of their development. Their exact meaning, so far as details are concerned, is with the aid of existing authorities beyond the reach of the most careful study, and no attempt has been made to attach a definite significance to each aboriginal tale, or to form from all a symmetrical chronologic whole; indeed, their interpretation has not been carried so far in many cases as the authorities seemed with considerable plausibility to justify. Taking up one after another the annals of the leading nations as recorded by the best authorities, I have endeavored to point out only the apparent general significance of each. The evidence thus elicited by a separate examination of each witness has pointed – with varying force, but with great uniformity of direction – towards the Central or Usumacinta region, not necessarily as the original cradle of American civilization, but as the most ancient home to which it can be traced by traditional, monumental, and linguistic records. In obtaining this evidence there has been no occasion to resort to the sifting process of rejecting all testimony seemingly opposed to a preconceived theory. Almost the only argument against the general tenor of the traditions, monuments, and languages, has been the prevalent idea among Spanish writers favoring a migration from the north; and the force of this argument has proved to be more apparent than real. Comparison of the records one with another has greatly strengthened the evidence derived from them separately; and the cumulative proof afforded by their successive examination has been deemed sufficient to confirm the general conclusions of the preceding pages, which may be expressed as follows:

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Throughout several centuries preceding the Christian era, and perhaps one or two centuries following, there flourished in Central America the great Maya empire of the Chanes, Culhuas, or Serpents, known to its foes as Xibalba, with its centre in Chiapas at or near Palenque, and with several allied capitals in the surrounding region. Its first establishment at a remote period³⁶⁷ was attributed by the people to a being called Votan, who was afterwards worshiped as a god. Whether such a person as Votan ever had an actual existence; who, or what he was; whence, or how, or among what people the civilization attributed to him was introduced – we can only form vague conjectures. America was certainly peopled before the Votanic era, and that most likely by civilized as well as savage tribes, but pre-Votanic nations have left absolutely no record.³⁶⁸ Perhaps the most reasonable conjecture is that the Votanic power was of gradual growth, at first humble and subordinate, but constantly increasing, overcoming, absorbing, succeeding other powers as others in later times succeeded, absorbed, and overcame it. The Votanic institutions can only be known by the traces they may be supposed to have left in those of the later Maya nations. The prevailing language was doubtless either the Maya, the Tzendal, or a mother-tongue from which these as well as the Quiché, Cakchiquel, and others of the same linguistic family, have sprung; although it is not unlikely that the empire embraced some nations speaking other languages. From its centre in the Usumacinta region the Votanic power was gradually extended north-westward towards Anáhuac, where its subjects vaguely appear in tradition as Quinames, or giants. It also penetrated north-eastward into Yucatan, where Zamná was its reputed founder, and the Cocomes and Itzas probably its subjects. In other regions where its influence was doubtless felt it seems to have left no definite traces.

Much of our knowledge respecting the original Maya empire is drawn from the traditions of a rival power. It is not quite certain even that any of the ruined temples or palaces in the central region were entirely the work of the ancient people before they came under Nahua influences; the differences noted in the monuments referred to suggest the effects of such influences exerted in different degrees.³⁶⁹ The Maya empire seems to have been in the height of its prosperity when the rival Nahua power came into prominence, perhaps two or three centuries before Christ.³⁷⁰ The origin of the new people and of the new institutions is as deeply shrouded in mystery as is that of their predecessors, although the nature of the institutions themselves is well known to us in a later and doubtless somewhat modified state of development. The language of the nations among which these institutions were first established was doubtless the Nahua, or old Aztec. The Plumed Serpent, known in different tongues as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, and Cukulcan, was the being who traditionally founded the new order of things. The Nahua power grew up side by side with its Xibalban predecessor, having its capital Tulan apparently in Chiapas. Like the Maya power, it was not confined to its original home, but was borne by the Olmec colonies towards Anáhuac, where it came in contact with that of the Quinames; and in the person of Cukulcan it penetrated the peninsula of Yucatan to exert its influence upon the Itzas and Cocomes. The two powers seem not to have been on unfriendly terms at first. In fact there is much reason to suspect that their respective institutions did not differ radically, and that their rivalry developed into open hostility only after the Nahuas had succeeded in introducing their ideas among so many Maya nations, and in reducing to a life of civilization so many wild tribes, that they had acquired a balance of political power. For it is certain that, whatever may have been true of the Maya culture, the Nahua institutions and power were by no means confined to nations of the Nahua language, and that some of the leading nations which accepted the Nahua ideas of religion and government spoke other and even Maya tongues. The struggle on the part of the Xibalbans seems to have been that of an old effete monarchy against a young and progressive people. Whatever its cause, the result of the conquest was the overthrow of the Votanic monarchs at a date which may be approximately fixed within a century before or after the beginning of our era.³⁷¹ From that time the ancient empire disappears from traditional history, and there is no conclusive evidence that the Xibalban kings or their descendants ever renewed the struggle. Yet we read of no great destruction or enslavement or migration of the Chanes resulting from the Nahua victory. The result was only a change of dynasty accompanied by the introduction of some new features in government and religious rites. The old civilization was merged in the new, and practically lost its identity; so much so that all the many nationalities that in later times traced their origin to this central region were proud, whatever their language, to claim relationship with the successful Nahuas, whose institutions they had adopted and whose power they had shared.

Respecting the ensuing period of Nahua greatness in Central America nothing is recorded save that it ended in revolt, disaster, and a general scattering of the tribes at some period probably preceding the fifth century. The national names that appear in connection with the closing struggles are the Toltecs, Chichimecs, Quichés, Nonohualcas, and Tutul Xius, none of them apparently identical with the Xibalbans. Indeed there seems to be very little reason to suppose that this final struggle was a renewal of the old contest between the followers of Votan and Quetzalcoatl, although Brasseur de Bourbourg seems inclined to take that view of it; but a series of civil wars between rival Nahua tribes, or tribes that had accepted Nahua government, seems rather to have been the agency that brought about their final forced migrations. Of the subsequent history of the nations that finally remained masters of their central home nothing is known; it may be conjectured that the Tzendales and Chiapanecs found by the Spaniards in that part of the country were their somewhat degenerate descendants. Of the tribes that were successively defeated and forced to seek new homes, those that spoke the Maya dialects, although considering themselves Nahuas, seem to have settled chiefly in the south and east.³⁷² Some of them afterwards rose to great prominence in Guatemala and Yucatan, and their annals will form the subject of future chapters. The Nahua-speaking tribes as a rule established themselves in Anáhuac and in the western and north-western parts of Mexico, as their companion tribes, the Olmecs and Xicalancas, had already established themselves in the south-eastern region. The valley of Mexico and the country immediately adjoining soon became the centre of the Nahuas in Mexico; its history or that of the nations that successively rose to power there, will be continued in the following chapter.

From this epoch of separation in Chiapas the Mayas of the south and the Nahuas of the north were practically distinct peoples, as they have been considered in the preceding volumes of this work. At the date of separation all were in a certain sense Nahua nations, and the Nahuas proper had doubtless been considerably affected by the ancient peoples whom they had overcome or converted, and with whom they had so long associated: – hence the analogies that appear between the institutions and monuments of the north and south. Of the contrasts that also appear, some date back to original differences between the two rival powers; others result from development and progress in different paths, during the ten centuries that elapsed before the coming of the Spaniards.

Bradford, Squier, Tylor, Viollet-le-Duc, Bartlett, and Müller,³⁷³ may be mentioned with Brasseur de Bourbourg among the authorities who practically agree with the conclusions expressed above, at least so far as the southern origin of the Nahua culture is concerned. It is true that the Abbé Brasseur's general conclusions differ in many points from those that I have given; that his opinions expressed in different works and even in different parts of the same work differ most perplexingly from each other; that his theories in many of their details rest on foundations that seem purely imaginary; that his style, while fascinating to the general reader, is most confusing to the student; and that his citations of authorities are often inaccurate; – yet he must be regarded as the true originator of the views advanced in this chapter, inasmuch as the material from which they are built up was largely the fruit of his investigations, and his researches have done more than those of all other writers combined to throw light on primitive American history.