VII. ANTIQUITIES OF OAJACA AND GUERRERO
NAHUA ANTIQUITIES -- HOME OF THE ZAPOTECS AND MIZTECS -- REMAINS IN TEHUANTEPEC -- FORTIFIED HILL OF GUIENGOLA -- PETAPA, MAGDALENA, AND LAOLLAGA -- BRIDGE AT CHIHUITLAN -- CROSS OF GUATULCO -- TUTEPEC -- CITY OF OAJACA AND VICINITY -- TLACOLULA -- ETLA -- PEÑOLES -- QUILAPAN -- RUINS OF MONTE ALBAN -- RELICS AT ZACHILA -- CUILAPA -- PALACES OF MITLA -- MOSAIC WORK -- STONE COLUMNS -- SUBTERRANEAN GALLERIES -- PYRAMIDS -- FORTIFICATIONS -- COMPARISON WITH CENTRAL AMERICAN RUINS -- NORTHERN MONUMENTS -- QUIOTEPEC -- CERRO DE LAS JUNTAS -- TUXTEPEC -- HUAHUAPAN -- YANGUITLAN -- ANTIQUITIES OF GUERRERO.
[Sidenote: NAHUA MONUMENTS.]
I now enter what has been classified in a preceding volume of this work as the home of the Nahua nations,--nations, most of which were at the time of the Spanish conquest, and during the preceding century, subjected to the allied powers of Anáhuac, and were more or less closely related to the nations of the central valley, in blood, language, or institutions. It has been seen, in what has been said on the subject,[VII-1] that the dividing line between the Nahuas and Mayas, drawn across the isthmus of Tehuantepec, is not a very sharply defined one. Many analogies, linguistic, institutionary, and mythologic, were found between nations dwelling on different sides of the line; so in monumental relics, and in traditional history, we shall find many points of similarity; but on the whole, the resemblances will be so far outweighed by the differences, as "to indicate either a separate culture from the beginning, or what is more probable, and for us practically the same thing, a progress in different paths for a long time prior to the coming of the Europeans," to repeat the words of a preceding chapter.
The relics to be described in the present chapter are those of the isthmus proper, and of that portion of the Mexican Republic above the isthmus which lies in general terms south of the eighteenth parallel of latitude, including the states of Oajaca and Guerrero, and stretching on the Pacific from Tonalá to the mouth of the Rio Zacatula, a distance of between five and six hundred miles. The province of Tehuantepec, belonging politically to the state of Oajaca, includes the central continental mountain chain, with the plains on the Pacific at its southern base, a region somewhat less fertile and attractive than those in which many of the ruins already described are situated. The two chief mountain ranges of the Mexican Republic, one skirting the Atlantic, the other the Pacific shore, draw near each other as the continent narrows, and meet in Tehuantepec. The southern portions of these two converging ranges, the broad mountain-girt valleys in the angle formed by their junction, and a narrow strip of tierra caliente on the southern coast, constitute the state of Oajaca, the home of the Miztecs, Zapotecs, and other tribes somewhat less civilized, powerful, and celebrated. The interior valleys are for the most part in the tierra templada, and include some of the best agricultural land in the country, with all the larger towns grouped round the capital as a centre. Guerrero is made up of the very narrow lowlands of the coast, the southern mountain range extending through its whole length from north-west to south-east, and the valley of the Zacatula further north. It is a region but little known to travelers, except along the great national highway, or trail, which leads from Acapulco, the most important port of the state, to the city of Mexico.
[Sidenote: RUINS OF GUIENGOLA.]
Five or six leagues from the city of Tehuantepec, the capital of the province of the same name, and in the south-western corner of the province, have been found the remains of an aboriginal fortification or fortified town, which, according to the traditional annals of the country, was built by the Zapotecs, not very long before the Conquest, to resist the advance of the Aztec forces. The principal remains are on a lofty hill, the cerro of Guiengola, but the fortified territory is said to extend over an area measuring one and a half by over four leagues, the outer walls being visible throughout the entire circumference at every naturally accessible point. Besides the protecting walls there are remains of dwellings, all of stone without mortar, except a cornice on the larger walls. Three fortresses covered with a coating of hard plaster are mentioned. Ditches accompany the walls and add to the strength of the works. From a subterranean sepulchre were taken about two hundred pieces of pottery, including vases and imitations of various animals. The tombs had a coating of compact cement, and the skeletons found in them were lying face down. The preceding information I take from a very vague account written by Sr Arias and published in the Museo Mexicano. Arias visited the locality in 1833; he claims to have sent some very interesting relics, found at Guiengola and other localities in the vicinity of Tehuantepec, to the museum at Oajaca; but the man to whom they were entrusted probably disposed of them in a manner more profitable to himself, if less advantageous to the museum. Several natural caves are spoken of by Arias, and one of them, seventy feet deep, showed traces, according to the German traveler Müller, of having been formerly inhabited. The latter also found vestiges of dwellings scattered throughout the vicinity, and speaks of a well-preserved tumulus standing not long before his visit in a valley close by. It was thirty-three feet high, with a base of ninety by one hundred and five feet, and a summit platform sixty by seventy-five feet, reached by a stairway of twenty-five wide steps. At the side of this tumulus was a quadrilateral elevation covering an area of about two acres, and enclosed by a wall eight feet high and twelve feet thick. Whether these structures are identical with the 'castles' of Arias is uncertain. A correspondent of Hutchings' Magazine in 1858 describes a wall of rough stones four feet thick and thirty feet high, said to extend nine miles. This writer speaks also of buildings with pillars in their centre, and of quarries from which the stone was originally taken. Some plans accompanied Arias' report but were not published. Unsatisfactory as it certainly is, the preceding is all the information extant respecting these remains,[VII-2] or at least referred definitely to Guiengola by name; but some remains were described by Dupaix and sketched by Castañeda, at a point three leagues west of Tehuantepec, which undoubtedly belonged to this group, and were probably the same ruins which the other writers so vaguely mention. On the top of a high hill, surrounded by other grand ruins, are two pyramids of hewn stone and mortar. The first is fifty-five by one hundred and twenty feet at the base, and thirty by sixty-six feet at the summit. The main stairway, thirty feet wide, of forty steps, leads up the centre of the western slope; there are also narrower stairways on the north and south. The pyramid is built in four terraces, the walls of the lower one being perpendicular; and of all the rest sloping. The whole surface was covered with a brilliant cement of lime, sand, and red ochre. No remains whatever were found on the summit. A remarkable feature is noticed on the surface of the second story, from which project throughout the whole circumference, except where interrupted by the stairways, four ranges of flat stones, forming hundreds of small shelves. The only suggestions made respecting the possible use to which these shelves were devoted are that they supported torches or human skulls.
The second pyramid is shown in the accompanying cut. The dimensions of the base and summit platform are about the same as those of the former pyramid, but the height is over fifty feet. The chief stairway, shown in the cut, is on the east, and narrower stairways also afford access to the summit on the north and south. The curved slope of the lower story constitutes a feature not found in American pyramids farther south, and rarely if at all in the north. The upper story has three projections, or cornices, on its perpendicular sides; and between them is set a row of blocks, said to be white marble, bearing sculptured designs in bas-relief. Three of these blocks with their sculptured figures, found by Castañeda at the foot of the pyramid, are shown in the cut. Of the building which appears on the summit nothing is known further than may be gathered from the cut. The sides of the pyramid were covered with cement, which was doubtless in a much more dilapidated condition than is indicated in the drawing.
Near the pyramids, and perhaps used in connection with them as an altar, is a structure comprised of eight circular masses of stone and mortar, like mill-stones in shape, placed one above another, and diminishing in size towards the top. The base is ten feet and a half in diameter, and the summit about four feet and a half, the height being about twelve feet. Kingsborough's translation, without any apparent authority, represents this monument as standing on a base sixty-six feet long and twelve feet high.
About a hundred paces in front of the second pyramid, stands a structure precisely similar to the lower story of that just described, twelve feet in diameter and three feet high. Both of these altar-like pyramids were built of regular blocks of stone, and covered with a hard white plaster. Dupaix suggests that the latter was a gladiatorial stone, or possibly intended for theatrical representations.[VII-3]
[Sidenote: MONUMENTS OF TEHUANTEPEC.]
In the city of Tehuantepec, or in its immediate vicinity, Dupaix found a flint lance-head of peculiar shape, having three cutting edges, like a bayonet. Its dimensions were one and a half by six inches, and the end was evidently intended to be fixed in a socket on the shaft. Cuts of four terra-cotta idols, sent to the Mexican Museum probably by Arias, already mentioned, are given in a Mexican magazine, and also in a Spanish edition of Prescott's work. Two of them wear horrible masks, the main feature of which is the projection from the mouth of six large tusks, like those of some fierce animal or monster. The same Arias speaks of a statue representing a naked woman, but broken in pieces; also a stone tablet covered with hieroglyphics. A small earthen bowl or censer, with a long handle, was presented to the American Ethnological Society, as coming from some point on the Tehuantepec interoceanic route.[VII-4]
In the region of Petapa, a town forty or fifty miles north of Tehuantepec, a stalactite cave is mentioned by Brasseur, on the walls of which figures painted in black are seen, including the imprint of human hands like those on the Yucatan ruins except in color. A labyrinth of caves, with some artificial improvements, is also reported, where the remains of princes and nobles were formerly deposited, and where an arriero claims to have seen over one hundred burial urns, painted and ranged in order round the sides of the cave.[VII-5] Only four leagues from Tehuantepec, near Magdalena, Burgoa speaks of a statue of Wixepecocha, the white-haired reformer and prophet of the Zapotecs, which Brasseur, without naming his authority, states to have been still visible a few years before he wrote.[VII-6] Lafond briefly mentions three pyramids on the isthmus without definitely locating them;--that of Tehuantepec, seventy-two feet high, that of San Cristóval near the former, and that of Altamia in a broad plain.[VII-7] At Laollaga, seven leagues from Tehuantepec in a direction not stated, Arias--very vaguely, as is the custom of Mexican and Central American explorers of local antiquities--describes a group of mounds, some of which are seventy or eighty varas square, built of stones--or stone adobes, as the author calls them--three feet long and half as thick. In connection with these mounds, flint and copper hatchets have been found, together with many anchor-shaped objects of what is spoken of as brass. A cave containing some relics was reported to exist in the same vicinity; and at another point, some fourteen leagues from the city, is a mound seventy-five feet high, on the side of which was discovered a black rock, covered with hieroglyphic characters.[VII-8] At Chihuitlan, a day's journey from the city, a bridge of aboriginal construction, stretches across a stream. The bridge is twelve feet long, six feet wide, and nine feet high above the water, having low parapets guarding the sides. The conduit is nine feet wide, and is formed by two immense stones, which meet in the centre. According to Castañeda's drawing these two stones have curved surfaces, so that the whole approaches in form a regular arch. The whole structure is of the class known as cyclopean, built of large irregular stones, without mortar.[VII-9]
Respecting Tehuantepec antiquities, I have in addition to what has been said only brief mention by Garay of the following reported relics: On a cliff of the Cerro del Venado, is the sculptured figure of a deer, whence comes the name of the hill. Nine miles east of the same hill the Indians pointed out the location of a valley where they said were the remains of a large town of stone buildings. The Cerro de Coscomate, near Zanatepec, is said to have a sculptured image of the sun, with an inscription in unknown characters. And finally, relics have been found on the islands of Monapostiac, Tilema, and Arrianjianbaj; those on the first being in the form of earthen idols, while in the latter were the foundations of an aboriginal town.[VII-10]
At the port of Guatulco, south-west from Tehuantepec on the Oajacan coast, there may yet be seen, if Brasseur's statement is to be credited, traces of the roads and buildings of the ancient city that stood in this locality, and transmitted its name to the modern town. Guatulco was likewise one of the many localities described by the early Catholic writers as containing a wonderful cross, left here probably by Saint Thomas during his sojourn in America. We are not very clearly informed as to the material of this relic, but we know, from the same authorities, that all the powers of darkness could not destroy it, not even the famous Englishman, Sir Francis Drake, who subjected it for three days to the fiercest flames without affecting its condition. Brasseur also tells us that the remains of Tututepec, a great aboriginal south-coast capital, are still to be seen three or four leagues from the sea, between the Rio Verde and Lake Chicahua.[VII-11]
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[Sidenote: MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS.]
Passing now to the interior valleys about the capital city of Oajaca, where the chief remains of aboriginal works are found, I shall mention first a few miscellaneous relics of minor importance, or at least only slightly known to explorers,[VII-12] beginning with the city of Oajaca, where Dupaix found two ancient ornaments of great beauty. The first was a pentagon of polished transparent agate, about two inches in diameter and an inch and a half thick. The surface bore no marks of the instruments by which it was polished, and a hole was bored through the stone presumably for the insertion of a string. The second was a hexagonal piece of black touch-stone, of about the same dimensions, sprinkled with grains of gold or copper, and like the former brilliantly polished. The hole in this stone was bored in the form of a curve, by an unknown process which must have been accompanied by no little difficulty.[VII-13]
At Tlacolula, some twenty miles south-east of Oajaca, Mr Müller reports the opening of a mound twelve feet high and eight feet in diameter at the base. It was simply a heap of earth, and the only artificially wrought objects found in the excavations were an earthen tube two inches in diameter and nearly two feet long, closed at each end with a stone plug, found in a horizontal position somewhat above the natural surface of the ground, and a bowl-shaped ring of the same material lying in a vertical position over the tube near the centre of the mound, but separated from the first relic by a layer of earth.[VII-14] Remains of the ruined fortress of Quíyechapa are said to have been seen by travelers at a point some twenty-five leagues east of Oajaca.[VII-15] At Etla, two leagues northward from the capital, two subterranean tombs were opened, and found to contain what are supposed to have been earthen torch-bearers, or images in distorted human form, with a socket in the head which indicates their former use. Similar images found at Zachila will be noticed later in this chapter. A wooden fac-simile of the tomb is mentioned by Sr Gondra as preserved in the Mexican Museum.[VII-16] At Peñoles, seven leagues from Oajaca, a skull covered and preserved by a coating of limestone was found.[VII-17] On the western boundary of this state, perhaps across the line in Guerrero, at Quilapan, formerly a great city of the Miztecs, an axe cast from red copper was found, one fourth of an inch thick, four inches long, and three and a half inches wide. From a mound opened in the same vicinity some fragments of statues and of pottery were taken.[VII-18] Fossey tells us that conical mounds in great numbers are scattered over the whole country between Oajaca, Zachila, and Cuilapa. The mounds are from fifteen to fifty feet high, and are formed in some cases of simple earth, in others of clay and stones. Human remains are found often in the centre together with stone and earthen figures. Those figures which are molded in human form agree in features with the Zapotec features of modern times. Copper mirrors and hatchets have also been found, according to this author, as well as golden ornaments and necklaces of gilded beads.[VII-19] M. Charnay saw in the second valley of Oajaca as he came from Mexico the ruins of a temple, the building of which was begun by the Spaniards in the time of Cortés, on the site of an aboriginal temple. The ruined walls of the latter were of adobes, and served for scaffolding in the erection of the former, and both ruins now stand together. The whole valley was covered with tumuli, probably tombs, as the author thinks; but the natives would neither help to make excavations nor permit strangers to make them.[VII-20]
In addition to the relics described in the few and unsatisfactory notes of the preceding pages, three important groups of antiquities in central Oajaca remain to be noticed: Monte Alban, Zachila, and Mitla; our information respecting the two former being also far from satisfactory.
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[Sidenote: RUINS OF MONTE ALBAN.]
Monte Alban is located immediately west of the city of Oajaca, or Antequera, at a distance of from half a mile to five miles according to different authorities. These differences in the statements of the distance perhaps result from the fact that some visitors estimate it in an air line, while others include the windings of the road which must be traveled over a mountainous country in order to reach the ruins, which seem to be located on a high hill or on a range of hills overlooking the town. Dupaix and Castañeda visited this place during their second expedition. Juan B. Carriedo made in 1833 a manuscript atlas of plans and drawings of the remains, which has never been published, but which is said to be preserved in the Mexican Museum. José María García explored Monte Alban in 1855, and his report with some drawings was published in the bulletin of the Mexican Geographical Society. Müller, the German traveler, visited the place in 1857 with one Ortega, and published a plan in his work. Finally we have Charnay's description from an exploration in 1858 or 1859, unaccompanied, however, by photographic views.[VII-21]
Notwithstanding this array of authorities, which ought to give a clear idea of a single group of remains, the reader will find the following description very imperfect, since each of the visitors, as a rule, describes a different part of the ruins, and they do not often agree in their remarks on any one structure. The plan in the annexed cut is copied from that in Müller's work, and shows all the remains marked on the original, except four small structures on a northern continuation of the hill, or spur, a, shown in the north-eastern part of the plan. As the plan indicates, the ruins are situated on a plateau of some three hundred by nine hundred yards along the summit of a range of high hills with precipitous ascent, rising from the banks of a stream which Müller calls the Rio Xoxo. The works mentioned as not included in the plan, are described by Müller as the remains of four walls which form a parallelogram. All he tells us of the works at d and f, is that the terraces are covered with walls and embankments parallel or at right angles to each other. The structure at c is described as a pyramidal elevation fifty feet high and two hundred and fifty varas square at the base, from the summit platform of which rise a smaller terrace, or mound, at the north-west corner, and various other embankments and ruined walls not particularly described, but indicated on the plan. The structures in the central portion of the main plateau, at h, are spoken of as parallel embankments about thirty feet high.
To the ruins thus far mentioned no one but Müller refers definitely, although others speak somewhat vaguely of the ruined embankments and walls that cover the whole surface of the plateau. Only the southern remains at e seem to have attracted the attention of all. These Müller briefly represents as an embankment fifty feet high, enclosing a quadrilateral space, on which embankment were two pyramids or mounds. One of the latter was proved by excavating to have no interior apartments or galleries; the other was penetrated at the base by galleries at right angles with each other, and leading to a central dome-shaped room, the top of which had fallen. García represents the square court as enclosed, not by a continuous embankment, but by four long mounds, having a slight space between them at the ends. The southern mound is the largest of the four, being about forty-five feet high, and, according to García's plan, about twelve hundred feet long and three hundred feet wide. It seems, from the drawings, to be nothing but a simple heap of earth and rough stones, although the slopes of the sides and ends were doubtless regular originally, perhaps even faced with masonry, and there are traces of a stairway leading up to the summit platform from the court. On the summit of the mounds, and also in the court, are many conical mounds, four of which were particularly noticed. These mounds were the only remains on the plateau of Monte Alban which attracted the attention of Dupaix and Castañeda, and are represented by them as heaps of rough stones, in some cases with mortar, covered on the exterior with cement, and traversed at the base by galleries, the sides of which are faced with hewn blocks. García says the mounds are about twenty-four feet high; but Dupaix calls one forty feet, another sixty, and a third still higher.
One of the mounds stands at the head of the stairway from the court, and the gallery through it at the base is described by García as having a bend in the centre, being six feet high, wide enough for two persons, and according to the plate, surmounted by large inclined blocks of stone resting against each other and forming an angle at the summit. Dupaix describes one of the mounds as traversed from north to south by a gallery nine feet high and six feet wide, which makes a turn, or elbow, near the centre, thus forming a room about twelve feet square and of the same height. The two mounds may very likely be identical, for although Castañeda's plate represents a regular curved arch, Kingsborough's copy has the pointed arch of large stones. Another of these artificial stone hills, according to Dupaix, has in the centre a room eighteen feet square, and thirty feet high, with a semicircular or dome-like top, the surface being formed of hewn stone. From the centre of each side a gallery thirty feet long, seven and a half feet high, and four feet and a half wide, with a regular arch, leads to the open air. The whole is said to be built on a large rectangular base of masonry, the dimensions of which are not given. García mentions a similar mound, but speaks of the central room as being circular.
Another of these structures, resembling at the time of Dupaix's visit a natural hill covered with trees, is sixty feet high, and has a gallery seven and a half feet high and six feet wide, with arched top, extending seventy-eight feet, or nearly the whole diameter from south to north. The left hand, or western, wall of the gallery is composed of granite blocks, generally about twenty-eight by thirty-six inches and eighteen inches thick, on the surface of which are sculptured naked human figures in profile facing northward toward the interior of the mound. Four of these figures were sketched by Castañeda, and one of them, from whose head hangs something very like a Chinese queue, is shown in the cut. García locates this mound or another very similar one in the court, and he also sketched some of the figures, but very slight if any resemblance can be discovered between his drawings and those of Castañeda. Müller speaks of one of the tablets the sculptured design of which represents a woman giving birth to a ball. García states that human bones and fragments of pottery have been dug from these ruins, Dupaix found some bones, and M. Lenoir suggests that the figures in bas-relief were portraits of persons buried in the tombs. Dupaix mentions a fourth mound similar to the others, having an angular ceiling, and a pavement of lime and sand.
Charnay describes the plateau as being partially artificial, and as covering about one half a square league, covered with masses of stone and mortar, forts, esplanades, narrow subterranean passages, and immense sculptured blocks. The arches of the galleries, contrary to Dupaix's statements, are formed by large inclined blocks. The grandest ruins are at the south end of the plateau; they are mostly square truncated pyramids, about twenty-five feet high, and having steep sides. Enormous masses of masonry represent what once were palaces, temples, and forts.[VII-22]
[Sidenote: RELICS AT MONTE ALBAN.]
Three smooth cubical stones, seven and a half feet high, four and a half feet wide, and eighteen inches thick, of granite, according to García, but of red porphyry, in the opinion of Müller, were found during the ascent of the hill, perhaps at b, or g, of the plan. Two of the stones were standing close together, while the third had fallen; all are supposed to have formed an altar or pedestal.[VII-23] At the southern brink of the plateau Müller found a crumbling stone covered with hieroglyphics. On the slope of the hill, stones covered with sculptured hieroglyphics were noticed by Dupaix, also at the western base long cubes, some plain and others sculptured. One of the latter six feet long, four feet and a half wide, and eighteen inches thick, was sketched by Castañeda, together with a circular stone three varas and a half in circumference. His plates also include a semi-spherical mirror of copper-covered lava, three and a half inches in diameter, with beautifully polished surface and a hole drilled through the back; a copper chisel, seven inches long and one inch in diameter; and finally, the cast copper implement shown in the preceding cut, one of two hundred and seventy-six of the same form, but of slightly varying dimensions, which were found in an earthen jar dug up in this vicinity. The dimensions of the one shown in the cut are about eight by ten inches. Pieces of copper of this form were used by the Nahua peoples for money, and such was doubtless the purpose of these Oajacan relics. A precisely similar article from one of the Mexican ruins lies before me as I write. Charnay states that the plateau is covered with fragments of very fine pottery, on which a brilliant red glazing is observable. He states further, that an Italian explorer, opening some of the mounds, found necklaces of agate, fragments of worked obsidian, and even golden ornaments of fine workmanship.
Respecting these ruins Charnay says: "Monte Alban, in our opinion, is one of the most precious remains, and very surely the most ancient, of the American civilizations. Nowhere else have we found these strange profiles so strikingly original." He pronounces the arch similar to that employed in Yucatan, but this opinion does not agree with his description on another page, where he represents the ceilings of the galleries as formed of large inclined blocks of stone. Viollet-le-Duc gives a cut indicating the latter form of arch; and I think there can be no doubt that Dupaix and Castañeda are wrong in representing semicircular arches. M. Viollet-le-Duc deems the sculpture different in type from that at Palenque but very similar to the Egyptian. He regards the works as fortifications and speaks of the galleries as penetrating the ramparts. Müller and García also deem the remains those of fortifications, while Ortega seeks to form them into a stately capital full of royal palaces, temples, and fine edifices. García tells us that these works were erected by a Zapotec king, with a view to resist the advance of the Miztecs; while Brasseur believes that here was the fortress of Huaxyacac built by the Aztecs about the year 1486, and garrisoned to keep the country in subjection.[VII-24]
It seems to me that the preceding description, imperfect as it is, is yet more than sufficient to prove that the structures on Monte Alban were never erected by any people as temporary works of defense. The choice of location shows, however, that facility of defense was one of the objects sought by the builders, and renders it very improbable that a city proper ever stood here, where, at least in modern times, there are no springs of water. On the other hand, the conical mounds as represented by Castañeda's drawings seem in no way fitted for defensive works, and were almost certainly erected as tombs of Zapotec nobles or priests. The plateau was probably in aboriginal times a strongly fortified holy place, sacred to the rites of the native worship, but serving perhaps as a place of refuge to the dwellers in the surrounding country when threatened by an advancing foe. It is moreover very likely that in the period of civil strifes and foreign invasions which preceded the Spanish Conquest, these works were strengthened and occupied by the Zapotecs, and possibly by the Aztecs also in their turn, as a fortress.
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[Sidenote: RELICS AT ZACHILA.]
Zachila, ten or twelve miles, according to the maps, southward from Oajaca, was the site of a great Zapotec capital. A writer in a Mexican magazine mentions the base of an ancient pyramid as still visible near the church of the modern town. With the exception of this brief mention all our information respecting the antiquities of Zachila comes from the work of Dupaix; and this writer, so far as permanent monuments are concerned, only speaks generally of an immense group of mounds in conical form, built of earth and a few stones, and of the imprint of a gigantic foot probably marking the meridian somewhat south of the mounds. From excavations in these tumuli, stone and clay statues, or idols, were obtained, together with pottery, burnt bricks, pieces of human bones, and fragments of ruined walls. Of the objects taken from the tumuli or found in the vicinity, over twenty were described and sketched by Dupaix and Castañeda.
1. A seated human figure with arms and legs crossed as shown in the cut. It is carved from a grayish yellow grindstone-like material, and is about a foot in height. It was found in a tomb together with some human bones. The rear view in the original shows the hair falling down the back and cut square across; while the belt about the waist is passed between the legs and is tied in a knot behind. 2. A seated human figure in granite, eighteen inches high. The arms, from elbow to wrist, are free from the body, and the hands rest on the knees. A string of beads or pearls is suspended from the neck, and a mask with fantastic figures in relief covers the face. In the top of the head is a hollow, and the image seems to have been designed, like many others in the same locality, for a vase or, perhaps, a torch-bearer. 3. A seated human figure, twenty-seven inches high, cut from white marble and painted red. The arms and body are concealed by a kind of semicircular cape. The hands appear below the cape, holding some indescribable object. A necklace of beads or pearls surrounds the neck, the face is apparently masked or at least the features are ideally fantastic, and an immense headdress, as large as all the rest of the figure, surmounts the whole in semicircular form. A serpent appears among the emblems of the head-dress.[VII-25] 4. A stone twenty-seven inches long, twelve inches high, and three inches thick, of very hard and heavy material. On one side, within a plain border, are four human figures in low relief, two on each side facing a kind of altar in the middle. All are squatting cross-legged, one has clearly a beard, and another has a bird--called by Dupaix an eagle, as is his custom respecting every bird-like sculpture--forming a part of his head-dress. The stone was badly broken, but seems to have been carried by the finder to Mexico.[VII-26] 5. A bird bearing considerable likeness to an eagle, holding a serpent in its beak and claws. This figure was sculptured in low relief on a block of hard sandstone three feet square, built into a modern wall. 6. A human face, much like what is in modern times drawn to represent the full moon, three feet in diameter, and also built into a wall. The material is a brilliant gray marble. 7. Three fragments with sculptured surfaces, one of which has among other figures several that seem to represent flowers. 8, 9. Two masked images, similar in some respects to No. 2, but of terra-cotta instead of stone. One of them is shown in the cut. They are about a foot and a half high, hollow, and present some indications, in the form of a socket at the back of the head, of having been intended to hold torches.[VII-27] 10. A terra-cotta figure, about nine inches high, apparently representing a female clad in a very peculiar dress, as shown in the cut.[VII-28] 11. An earthen cylinder, five inches in diameter and nine inches high, on the top of which is a head, possibly the caricature of a dog, from whose open jaws looks out a tolerably well-formed human face. 12-17. Six heads of animals or monsters in terra cotta. 18-23. Six earthen dishes of various forms, one of which, in the form of a platter, has within it a representation in clay of a human skull.
A tomb is said to have been opened at Zachila in which were several tiers of earthen platters, each containing a skull. Some of the vessels have hollow legs with small balls, which rattle when they are moved.[VII-29] At Cuilapa, some distance north-east of Zachila, the existence of tumuli is mentioned, but a German explorer, who visited the locality with a view to open some of them, is said to have been stoned and driven away by the infuriated natives, notwithstanding the fact that he was provided with authority from the local authorities.[VII-30]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: MITLA--HOME OF THE DEAD.]
The finest and most celebrated group of ruins in Oajaca, probably the finest in the whole Nahua territory, is that at Mitla, about thirty miles slightly south of east from the capital, and eight or nine miles north-east of Tlacolula. Here was a great religious centre often mentioned in the traditional annals of the Zapotecs. The original name seems to have been Liobaa, or Yobaa, 'the place of tombs,' called by the Aztecs Miquitlan, Mictlan, or Mitla, 'place of sadness,' 'dwelling of the dead,' often used in the sense of 'hell.'[VII-31] The buildings at Mitla were at least partially in ruins when the Spaniards came, but their dilapidation probably dated only from the fierce contests waged by the Zapotec kings against the Aztec powers in Anáhuac, during one or two centuries preceding the Conquest; and as we shall see later there is no reason whatever to doubt that the place was occupied by the Zapotec priesthood during the long period of that nation's supremacy in Oajaca and the southern Anáhuac.[VII-32]
The gloomy aspect of the locality accords well with the dread signification of its name. The ruins stand in the most desolate portion of central Oajaca, in a high, narrow valley, surrounded by bare and barren hills. The soil is a powdery sand, which supports no vegetation save a few scattered pitahayas, and is borne through the air in clouds of dust by the cold dry wind which is almost continually blowing. A stream with parched and shadeless banks flows through the valley, becoming a torrent in the rainy season, when the adjoining country is often flooded. No birds sing or flowers bloom over the remains of the Zapotec heroes, but venomous spiders and scorpions are abundant. Yet a modern village with few inhabitants stands amid the ruins, and the natives go through forms of worship in honor of a foreign deity in a modern church over the tombs of their ancestors' kings and priests, whose faith they were long since forced to abandon.[VII-33]
[Sidenote: EXPLORATION OF MITLA.]
Most of the early Spanish chroniclers speak of Mitla and of the traditions connected with the place, but what may be called the modern exploration of the structures, as relics of antiquity, dates from the year 1802, when Don Luis Martin and Col. de la Laguna from Mexico visited and sketched the ruins. It was from Martin and from his drawings in the hands of the Marquis of Branciforte, that Humboldt obtained his information. In August 1806, Dupaix and Castañeda reached Mitla in their second exploring tour. In 1830, the German traveler Mühlenpfordt, during a residence in the country, made plans and drawings of the remains, copies of which were retained by Juan B. Carriedo and afterwards published in a Mexican periodical. Drawings were also made by one Sawkins in 1837, and published by Mr Brantz Mayer in a work on Zapotec antiquities. M. de Fossey was at Mitla in 1838, but his description is made up chiefly from other sources. Sr Carriedo, already mentioned, wrote for the Ilustracion Mejicana, a statement of the condition of the ruins in 1852, with measures which had been, or ought to be, taken by the government for their preservation. Mr Arthur von Tempsky spent part of a day at the ruins in February, 1854, publishing a description with several plates in the account of his Mexican travels which he named Mitla. José María García saw the ruins in October, 1855, as is stated in the bulletin of the Mexican Geographical Society, but no description resulted from his exploration. Finally Charnay came in 1859, and succeeded after many difficulties in obtaining a series of most valuable and interesting photographs.[VII-34]
The number of ruined edifices at Mitla is variously stated by different authors, according to their methods of counting; for instance, one explorer reckons four buildings enclosing a court as one palace, another as four. The only general plan ever published is that made by Mühlenpfordt, and published by Carriedo, from which the annexed cut was prepared.[VII-35] Most of the visitors, however, say something of the bearing of some of the buildings from the others, and there are only very few instances where such remarks seem to differ from the plan I have given. The structures usually spoken of as palaces or temples, are four in number, marked 1, 2, 3, and 4; 5 and 7 are pyramids, mounds, or altars; and 6 shows the position of the houses in the modern village.
[Sidenote: GRAND PALACE.]
I begin with the best preserved of all, palace No. 1 of the plan.[VII-36] The arrangement of its three buildings is shown in the accompanying ground plan, a reduction from Castañeda's drawing. Three low oblong mounds, probably of rough stones, only five or six feet high, enclose on the east, north, and west, a court, E, whose dimensions are in general terms one hundred and twenty by one hundred and thirty feet, and each of the mounds supports a stone building. The walls of the northern building are still in a tolerable state of preservation; the eastern one has mostly fallen, and of that on the west only slight traces of the foundations remain. It is possible that originally there was a fourth mound, with or without its building, on the south.[VII-37]
The lateral buildings, d, j, are about nineteen by ninety-six feet on the ground. Of the northern building, the southern portion, A, is about thirty-six by a hundred and thirty feet, the northern portion, C, sixty-one feet square, and the whole not far from eighteen feet high, the walls being from four to nine feet in thickness.[VII-38] Other details will be readily learned from the plan. Three doorways open on the court from each building, and a broad stairway of few steps leads up to the doorways, at least on the north.
The southern wing of the northern building, A of the plan, may be first described, being the best known and one of the best preserved of all; and the structure of the walls naturally claims attention first. In Yucatan we have found a filling of rough stones and cement, faced on both exterior and interior with hewn blocks; at Palenque the walls are built entirely of hewn stone; at Mitla the mode of construction somewhat resembles that in Yucatan, but the filling seems to be clay, instead of cement, with an admixture of irregular stones, varying in quantity in different parts of the walls.[VII-39]
[Sidenote: CONSTRUCTION OF WALLS.]
The exterior facing of the wall is shown very clearly by the two following cuts, which represent the southern façade of the building, A, as seen from the court. The first cut I have reduced photographically from Charnay's original photograph; the second, showing the rest of the façade, was taken from the same photograph for Mr Baldwin's work. The facing is of stone blocks cut in different forms and sizes, placed against or in some cases slightly penetrating the inner filling. First, a double tier of very large blocks are placed as a base along the surface of the supporting mound, projecting two or three feet from the line of the wall, the stones of the upper tier sloping inward. On this base is erected a kind of frame-work of large hewn blocks with perfectly plain unsculptured fronts, which divide the surface of the wall into oblong panels of different dimensions. These panels are then filled with a peculiar mosaic work of small brick-shaped blocks of stone of different sizes, set in different positions, so as to form a great variety of regular patterns, usually spoken of as grecques.[VII-40] No mortar seems to have been employed in this facing of stone; at least its use is not mentioned by any author, and Dupaix states expressly that it is not found. Some of the blocks used in the base, frame-work of the panels, and lintels of the doorways, are very large. One of the latter is described by different writers as from sixteen to nineteen feet long, and is said by Dupaix to be of granite. The only sculpture on the façade is found on these lintels, the surface of which is represented as carved into regular figures in low relief, corresponding with the mosaic in the panels. The doorways are about seven feet wide and eight feet high, and in the upper part of the piers that separate them are noticed four round holes, which may be supposed, as in other aboriginal structures, to have served for the support of an awning, although the natives have a tradition that they were originally occupied by stone heads of native deities.[VII-41] The only other peculiarity to be noticed in this front is, that instead of being perpendicular, it inclines slightly outward from the base, as do many of the walls at Mitla.[VII-42]
[Sidenote: STONE COLUMNS.]
The interior of the building, A, has a pavement of flat stones covered with cement, which latter has mostly disappeared. The inner surface of the walls is of rough stones and earth, probably the same as the interior filling, and covered with a coat of plaster, a greater part of which remained in 1859, and is shown in Charnay's photograph; there were also traces of red paint on these walls in Dupaix's time. There are no windows, or other openings except the doorways; but on the northern wall, at mid-height, there is a niche, perhaps more than one, one or two feet deep, square in form, and enclosed by four blocks of stone. Extending in a line along the centre of this apartment, are six round stone pillars, g, g, of the plan, each about fourteen feet high, three feet in diameter, and cut from a single block of porphyry or granite. The tops are slightly smaller than the bases, and five or six feet of each stone, in addition to the height mentioned, are buried in the ground.[VII-43]
The following cut I take from Baldwin's work, for which it was copied from one of Tempsky's plates. It is very faulty, as is proved by Charnay's photograph taken from the same point of view, in representing the walls as if built of large rough stones without mortar, in putting a doorway in the central part of the northern wall, and in making the columns diminish in size towards the top much more than is actually the case.[VII-44]
[Sidenote: MOSAIC GRECQUES AT MITLA.]
Passing now to the northern wing of this building, C, the exterior walls are the same in style and construction as those of the southern wing just described, as is proved by the photographic views.[VII-45] The court, C, is about thirty-one feet square, and its pavement was covered with cement, as that of the larger court, E, may have been originally. The ground plan shows the arrangement of the four apartments, b, b, b, b, although it is to be noted that other plans differ slightly from this in the northern and western rooms. The only entrance to the northern court and rooms is from the southern wing through the passage f, f, which is barely wide enough to admit one person. The interior façades, fronting on the court, are precisely like the southern façade of the southern wing, A, being made up of mosaic work in panels.[VII-46] The interior walls of the small apartments, b, b, b, b, unlike those of the southern apartment, A, are formed of mosaic work in regular and graceful patterns, except a space of four or five feet at the bottom, which is covered with plaster and bears traces of a kind of fresco painting in bright colors. The mosaic grecques or arabesques of the upper portions are arranged, not in panels as on the exterior, but in three parallel bands of uniform and nearly equal width, extending round the whole circumference of each room. The cut is a fac-simile from Charnay's photograph of one of these interiors, and gives an excellent idea of the three mosaic bands that extend entirely round each room.[VII-47]
[Sidenote: ROOF STRUCTURES.]
I now have to speak of the roof which originally covered this building, since in the other buildings and palaces nothing will be found to throw any additional light on the subject. It seems evident that the columns in the southern wing were intended to support the roof, and if there were no contradictory evidence, the natural conclusion would be that the covering was of wooden beams stretching completely across the narrow apartments, and resting on the pillars of the wider ones, as we have seen to be the case at Tuloom, on the eastern coast of Yucatan.[VII-48] Burgoa, in whose time it is not impossible that some of the roofs may have been yet in place, tells us that they were formed of large stone blocks, resting on the columns, and joined without mortar.[VII-49] Humboldt states that the roof was supported by large sabino beams, and that three of these beams still remained in place (1802). According to Dupaix, both the roofs and floors in the northern wing were formed by a row of beams, or rather logs, of the ahuehuete, a kind of pine, a foot and a half in diameter, built into the top of the wall, and stretching from side to side. He does not inform us what traces he found to support his opinion. Mühlenpfordt[VII-50] found traces of a roof in one of the northern rooms sufficient to convince him that the original "consisted of round oak timbers, eight inches in diameter, placed across the room at a distance of eight inches one from another; these were first covered with mats, on which were placed stone flags, and over the latter a coat of lime; forming thus a solid and water-proof covering." Fossey speaks of one worm-eaten beam, but probably obtained his information from Humboldt. Tempsky, notwithstanding the shortness of his exploration, made the remarkable discovery that one of the northern rooms was still covered by a flat roof of stone. He also found windows in some of the buildings. What would he not have found had he been able to remain a few hours longer at Mitla? Viollet-le-Duc judges from the quantity and quality of the débris in the south wing, that the roof could not have been of stone in large blocks, but was formed by large beams extending longitudinally from pillar to pillar, and supporting two transverse ranges of smaller timbers, laid close together from the centre to either wall, the whole being surmounted by a mass of concrete like that which constitutes the bulk of the walls; and finally covered with a coating of cement. I have no doubt that this author has given a correct idea of the original roof structure, although in attempting to explain in detail the exact position which--'il y a tout lieu de croire'--each timber occupied, it is possible that the distinguished architect has gone somewhat beyond his data.[VII-51]
* * * * *
As I have said before, the western building of the palace No. 1--like the southern building, if any ever stood on the south of the court--has entirely fallen. Of the eastern building, d, there remain standing a small portion of the wall fronting on the court, including a doorway and its lintel, and also two of the five columns which occupied the centre of the building. The condition of this side structure seems not to have changed materially between Dupaix's and Charnay's visits, a period of over fifty years. The preceding cut, taken by Baldwin from Tempsky's work, gives a tolerably correct idea of what remains of it, except that the lintel had a sculptured front. It is a view from the south side of the court, and includes an imperfect representation also of the northern façade.[VII-52]
The palaces of Mitla are differently numbered by different writers, and much that has been written of them is so vague or confused that is difficult to determine in many cases what particular structure is referred to; I believe, however, that the preceding pages include all that is known of the palace numbered 1 on my general plan. I close my account of this palace by presenting on the opposite page a cut copied for Baldwin's work from one of Charnay's photographs, a general view of the ruins. The cut is a distant view of the palace No. 1 from the south-west, and cannot be said to add very materially to our knowledge respecting this building.[VII-53]
[Sidenote: VIEW OF PALACE.]
[Sidenote: THE SECOND PALACE.]
The remaining palaces of Mitla, Nos. 2, 3, and 4, may be more briefly disposed of, since in the construction of their walls they are precisely the same as No. 1, but are not in so good a state of preservation. No. 2 is located south-west of No. 1, and almost in contact with it, so that both groups have been by some visitors described together under the name of First Palace. It consists of four buildings, built on low mounds like those of No. 1, from seven to nine feet high, about a square court. All four are precisely the same in their ground plan, which is identical with that of the western building in palace No. 1. The dimensions of the four buildings are also the same, according to Castañeda's plan, being about eighteen by ninety-two English feet;[VII-54] but Mühlenpfordt's plan, so far as it can be understood, makes the eastern and western buildings about one hundred and forty feet long, the northern and southern being about twenty by one hundred feet, and the former somewhat larger than the latter.
The western building is the best preserved, being, so far as can be judged by human figures in Charnay's photographs, about seventeen feet high. The eastern building has fallen, and only its foundation stones remain by which to trace its plan. Three doorways open on the court from each building, and in the rear wall opposite the doors square niches are seen. There are no traces of columns in any of the apartments; nor was any part of the roofs in place in 1806. The outer walls are composed, as in palace No. 1, of oblong panels of mosaic; whether any mosaic work is found in the interior, is not stated. The court is said by Mühlenpfordt to be covered with a coating of cement five or six inches in thickness, painted red as was also the exterior of the buildings. The same writer, and Müller, noted that the supporting mounds were double, or terraced, on the exterior;[VII-55] and the latter, that one of the central doorways diminishes in width towards the top. If this, latter statement be true, it must be one of the doorways in the southern building, of which no photographic view was taken.[VII-56] Views of the southern façade of the northern building are given by Charnay, Dupaix, Mühlenpfordt, and Tempsky; of the court façade of the western building, by Charnay and Mühlenpfordt; and Charnay also took photographs of the western and southern façades of the latter building.[VII-57]
* * * * *
Under the northern building of this palace there is a subterranean gallery in the form of a cross. The entrance to this gallery is said by several writers to have been originally in the centre of the court, but this seems to rest on no very good authority, and it is not unlikely that the entrance was always where it is now, at the base of the northern mound, as shown in the photograph and in other views. The centre of the cross may be supposed to be nearly under the centre of the apartment above, and the northern, eastern, and western arms are each, according to Castañeda's drawings, about twelve feet long, five and a half feet wide, and six and a half feet high. The southern arm, leading out into the court is something over twenty feet long, and for most of its length only a little over four feet high; its floor is also several feet lower than that of the other arms, to the level of which latter four steps lead up. Nearly the whole depth of this gallery is probably in the body of the supporting mound rather than really subterranean. The top is formed of large blocks of stone, stretching across from side to side, and, according to Mühlenpfordt, plastered and polished. The floor was also covered, if we may credit Müller, with a polished coat of cement. The walls are panels of mosaic work like that found on the exterior walls above. Mühlenpfordt noticed that the mosaic work was less skillfully executed than on the upper walls, and therefore probably much older. The large dall that covers the crossing of the two galleries is supported by a circular pillar resting on a square base. According to Tempsky the natives call this the 'pillar of death,' believing that whoever embraces it must die shortly. The whole interior surface, sides, floor, and ceiling, are painted red. No relics of any kind have been found here. Fossey says that this gallery, or at least a gallery, leads from the palace to the eastern pyramid--meaning probably the western pyramid, No. 5 of the plan--and from that point still further westward, where it may be traced for a league to the farm of Saga, and extends, as the natives believe, some three hundred leagues. Tradition relates that the Zapotecs originally had their temples in natural caverns, which they gradually improved to meet their requirements, and over which they finally built these palaces. There are consequently many absurd rumors afloat respecting the extent of the subterranean passages, but nothing has ever been discovered to indicate the existence of natural caves or extensive artificial excavations at this point. At the time of Charnay's visit the opening to the gallery had been closed up, and the natives would allow no one to remove the obstructions, on the ground that hidden treasure was the object sought.[VII-58]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THIRD PALACE.]
Palace No. 3 of the plan is said to have no supporting mound, but to stand on the level of the ground. Its ground plan, according to Castañeda, the only authority, is shown in the cut. The whole structure, divided into three courts, is about two hundred and eighty-four feet long and one hundred and eight feet wide, the thickness of the walls, not shown in the plan, being five or six feet. Nearly all the walls have fallen except those of the buildings about the central court, B, which have been repaired, covered with a roof of tiles, and are occupied by the curate of the parish as a residence. In the western front a doorway has been cut, before which, supporting a balcony, or awning, stand two stone columns which were evidently brought from some other part of the ruins. Both on the exterior and court walls, the regular panels of mosaic work are seen in the upper portions; the lower parts have been repaired with adobes, and newly plastered in many places. The modern church, quite a large and imposing structure, stands either upon or adjacent to a part of this ancient palace.[VII-59]
[Sidenote: FOURTH PALACE, AND PYRAMIDS.]
The cut is a ground plan of palace No. 4, which is also said to stand on the original level of the ground. The walls are spoken of by all visitors as almost entirely in ruins, and as presenting no peculiarities of construction when compared with the other palaces. From one of the portions still standing, however, Mühlenpfordt copied some fragmentary paintings, representing processions of rudely pictured human figures, as shown in the accompanying cut. The same author speaks of similar paintings, very likely not the work of the original builders of Mitla, on the walls of some of the other buildings.[VII-60]
* * * * *
Two mounds, or groups of mounds, stand west and south of the other ruins at 5 and 7 of the plan. No. 5 was photographed by Charnay, and is described as built of adobes, ascended by a stone stairway, and bearing now a modern chapel. According to Castañeda's drawing probably representing these pyramids, the principal structure had four stories, or terraces, and was about seventy-five feet high, measuring at the base about one hundred and twenty feet on its shortest sides from east to west. The stairway faces westward towards the court formed by the smaller mounds which have only two stories. Group No. 7 is represented by Castañeda as consisting like No. 5 of a large mound and three small ones, of two and one stories respectively, surrounding a court in whose centre is a block, or altar, which Dupaix thinks may conceal the entrance to a subterranean passage. Mühlenpfordt represents the arrangement of the mounds as on my plan, and thinks the smaller elevations may have borne originally buildings like the northern palaces. In one of these mounds, according to the last-mentioned author, a tomb was found. Dupaix also describes two tombs found under mounds, the locality of which is not specified. One of these tombs was in the form of a cross, with arms about three by nine feet, six feet high, covered with a roof of flat stones, and in its construction like the gallery under palace No. 2, except that the small brick-shaped blocks of which its sides are formed are not arranged in grecques, but laid so as to present a plain surface. The second tomb was of rectangular form, about four by eight feet in dimensions. In one of them some human remains, with fragments of fine blue stone were discovered.[VII-61]
[Sidenote: FORTIFIED HILL.]
At a distance of a league and a half eastward of the village, Dupaix described and Castañeda sketched a small plain square stone building, divided into four apartments, standing on the slope of a high rocky hill. On the plate there is also shown the entrance to a subterranean gallery not mentioned in Dupaix's text.[VII-62] Three fourths of a league westward from the village is a hill some six hundred feet in height, with precipitous sides naturally inaccessible save on one side, toward Mitla. The summit platform, probably leveled by artificial means, is enclosed by a wall of stone about six feet thick, eighteen feet high, and over a mile in circumference, forming many angles, as is shown in the annexed plan. On the eastern and accessible side, the wall is double, the inner wall being higher than the outer; and the entrances are not only not opposite each other, but penetrate the walls obliquely. Heaps of loose stones, c, c, c, were found at various points in the enclosure, doubtless for use as weapons in a hand-to-hand conflict. Outside of the walls, moreover, large rocks, some three feet in diameter, were carefully poised where they might be easily started down the sides against the advancing foe. Within the fortress, at several places, d, e, f, g, are slight remains of adobe buildings, probably erected for the accommodation of the aboriginal garrison. All we know of this fortress is derived from the work of Dupaix and Castañeda.[VII-63]
Dupaix claims to have found the quarries which furnished material for the Mitla structures, in a hill three-fourths of a league eastward from the ruins, called by the Zapotecs Aguilosoé, by the Spaniards Mirador. The stone is described as of such a nature that large blocks may be easily split off by means of wedges and levers, and many such blocks were scattered about the place; the removal of the stone to the site of the palaces, here as in the case of many other American ruins, must have been the chief difficulty overcome by the builders. Stone wedges, together with axes and chisels of hard copper, are said to have been found at Mitla, but are not particularly described.[VII-64]
A head in terra cotta, wearing a peculiar helmet, was sketched here by Castañeda, and is shown in the cut. Another terra-cotta image represented a masked human figure, squatting cross-legged with hands on knees. A large semicircular cape reaches from the neck to the ground, showing only the hands and feet in front. The whole is very similar to some of the figures at Zachila, already described, but the tube which may be supposed to have held a torch originally, projects above the head, and is an inch and a half in diameter. The only specimen of stone images or idols found in connection with the ruins, is shown in the cut. It represents a seated figure, carved from a hard red stone, and brilliantly polished. Its height is about four inches. Tempsky tells us that the children at Mitla offered for sale small idols of clay and sandstone, which had been taken from the inner palace walls.[VII-65]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: GENERAL REMARKS.]
[Sidenote: COMPARISONS.]
The ruins of Mitla resemble Palenque only in the long low narrow form of the buildings, since the low supporting mounds can hardly be said to resemble the lofty stone-faced pyramids of Chiapas. A stronger likeness may be discovered when they are compared with the structures of Yucatan; since in both cases we find long narrow windowless buildings, raised on low mounds, and enclosing a rectangular courtyard, walls of rubble, and facings of hewn stone. The contrasts are also strong, as seen in the mosaic grecques, the absence of sculpture, and the flat roofs, in some cases supported by columns; although in one city on the east coast of Yucatan flat roofs of wooden beams were found. Whether the mosaic work of Mitla indicates in itself an earlier or later development of aboriginal art than the elaborately sculptured façades of Uxmal, I am unable to decide; but the flat roof supported by pillars would seem to indicate a later architectural development than the overlapping arch. The influence of the builders of Palenque and the cities of Yucatan, was doubtless felt by the builders of Mitla. How the influence was exerted it is very difficult to determine; Viollet-le-Duc attributes these northern structures to a branch of the southern civilization separated from the parent stock after the foundation of the Maya cities in Yucatan. Most antiquarians have concluded that Mitla is less ancient than the southern ruins, and the condition of the remains, so far as it throws any light on the subject, confirms the conclusion. This is the last ruin that will be found in our progress northward, which shows any marked analogy with the Maya monuments, save in the almost universal use of supporting mounds or pyramids, of various forms and dimensions. It has already been shown that the Zapotec language has no likeness whatever to the Aztec, or to the Maya, and that so far as institutions are concerned, this people might almost as properly be classed with the Maya as with the Nahua nations. The Abbé Brasseur in one part of his writings expresses the opinion that Mitla was built by the Toltecs from Cholula, who introduced their religion in Oajaca in the ninth or tenth century. Mitla is also frequently spoken of as a connecting link between the Central American and Mexican remains; this, however, is merely a part of the old favorite theory of one civilized people originating in the far north, moving gradually southward, and leaving at each stopping-place traces of their constantly improving and developing culture. There seems to have been no tradition among the natives at the Conquest, indicating that Mitla was built by a people preceding the Zapotecs. On the contrary, Burgoa and other early Oajacan chroniclers mention the place frequently as a Zapotec holy place, devoted to the burial of kings, the residence of a certain order of the priesthood, who lived here to make expiatory sacrifices for the dead, and a place of royal mourning, whither the king retired on the death of a relative. Subterranean caverns were used for the celebration of religious rites before the upper temples were built. Charnay fancies that the palaces were built by a people that afterwards migrated southward. He noticed that the walls in sheltered places were covered with very rude paintings--a sample of which has been given--and suggests that these were executed by occupants who succeeded the original builders. It will be apparent to the reader that the ruins at Mitla bear no resemblance whatever to other Oajacan monuments, such as those at Guiengola, Monte Alban, and Quiotepec; and that they are either the work of a different nation, or what is much more probable, for a different purpose. I am inclined to believe that Mitla was built by the Zapotecs at a very early period of their civilization, at a time when the builders were strongly influenced by the Maya priesthood, if they were not themselves a branch of the Maya people.[VII-66]
The mosaic work undoubtedly bears a strong resemblance to the ornamentation observed on Grecian vases and other old-world relics; but this analogy is far from indicating any communication between the artists or their ancestors, for, as Humboldt says, "in all zones men have been pleased with a rhythmic repetition of the same forms, a repetition which constitutes the leading characteristic of what we vaguely call grecques, meandres, and Arabesques."[VII-67]
In the northern part of Oajaca, towards the boundary line of Puebla, remains have been found in several localities. Those near Quiotepec are extensive and important, but are only known by the description of one explorer, Juan N. Lovato, who visited the ruins as a commissioner from the government in January, 1844.[VII-68] Lovato's account contains many details, but the drawings which originally accompanied it were, with two exceptions, not published, and from the text only a general idea can be formed respecting the nature of the ruins. The following are such items of information as I have been able to extract from the report in question.
[Sidenote: RUINS OF QUIOTEPEC.]
A hill about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide at its base, and over a thousand feet high, known as the Cerro de las Juntas, stands at the junction of the rivers Quiotepec and Salado. At the eastern end, where the streams meet, the ascent is precipitous and inaccessible, but the other sides and the summit are covered with ruins. The slopes are formed into level platforms with perpendicular terrace walls of stone, of height and thickness varying according to the nature of the ground. In ascending the western slope, thirty-five of these terrace walls were encountered; on the southern slope there were fifty-seven, and on the northern eighty-eight, counting only those that were still standing. One of the walls at the summit is about three hundred and twenty feet long, sixty feet high, and five and a half feet thick.
Scattered over the hill on the terrace platforms, the foundations of small buildings, supposed to have been dwellings, were found in at least a hundred and thirty places. In connection with these buildings some tombs were found underground, box-shaped with walls of stone, containing human remains and some fragments of pottery. Tumuli in great numbers are found in all directions, probably burial mounds, although nothing but a few stone beads has been found in them. Other mounds were apparently designed for the support of buildings. At different points towards the summit of the hill are three tanks, or reservoirs, one of which is sixty feet long, twenty-four feet wide, and six feet deep, with traces of steps leading down into it. In the walls traces of beams are seen, supposed by the explorer to have supported the scaffolding used in their construction.
Besides the terrace walls, foundations of dwellings, and the remains that have been mentioned, there are also many ruins of statelier edifices, presumably palaces and temples. Of these, the only ones described are situated at the summit on a small level plateau, of a hundred and twenty-two by two hundred and forty-eight feet. These consist of what are spoken of as a palace and a temple, facing each other, a hundred and sixty-six feet apart. Between the two are the bases of what was formerly a line of circular pillars, leading from one edifice to the other. The bases, or pedestals, are fourteen inches in diameter, five inches high, and about fourteen feet apart. The Temple faces north-east, and its front is shown in the accompanying cut. This is a form of the pyramidal structure very different from any that has been met before. Its dimensions on the ground are fifty by fifty-five feet. The Palace is described as thirty-nine feet high in front and thirty-three feet in the rear, and has a stairway of twenty steps about twenty-eight feet wide, leading up to the summit on the front. Judging by the plate, this so-called palace is a solid elevation with perpendicular sides, ornamented with three plain cornices, one end of which is occupied throughout nearly its whole width by the stairway mentioned. The material of the two structures is the stone of the hill itself cut in thin regular blocks, laid in what is described as mud, and covered, as is shown by traces still left in a few parts, with a coating of plaster. Both the structures, according to the plates, have a rather modern appearance, and differ widely from any other American monuments, but there seems to be no reason to doubt the reliability of Sr Lovato's account, considering its official nature, and I cannot suppose that the Spaniards ever erected such edifices. The foundations and arches of three small apartments are vaguely spoken of as having been discovered by excavation in connection with the Palace, but whether they were on its summit or in the interior of the apparently solid mass, does not clearly appear, although Müller states that the latter was the case. On the summit of the Palace a copal-tree, one foot in diameter, was found. Five sculptured slabs were sketched by Müller at Quiotepec, but he does not state in what part of the ruins they were found. Each slab has a human figure in profile, surrounded by a variety of inexplicable attributes. The foreheads seem to be flattened, and four of the five have an immense curved tongue, possibly the well-known Aztec symbol of speech, protruding from the mouth. Somewhere in this vicinity, on the perpendicular banks of rock that form the channel of the Rio Tecomava, painted figures of a sun, moon, and hand, are reported, at a great height from the water.[VII-69]
[Sidenote: TUXTEPEC AND HUAHUAPAN.]
Near the town of Tuxtepec, some fifty miles eastward from Quiotepec, near the Vera Cruz boundary, there is said to be an artificial mound eighty-three feet high, known as the Castillo de Montezuma. A passage leads toward the centre, but nothing further is known of it, except that some stone idols are mentioned by another writer as having been dug from a mound in a town of the same name.[VII-70]
At Huahuapan, about fifty miles westward of Quiotepec, Dupaix found the sculptured block shown in the cut. It is four and a half feet long, and a foot and a half high; the material is a hard blue stone, and the sculpture in low relief seems to represent a kind of coat of arms, from which projects a hand grasping an object, a part of which bears a strong resemblance to the Aztec symbol of water. This relic was found in a hill called Tallesto, about a league east of the town.[VII-71]
In another hill, called Sombrerito, only half a league from the town, a laborer in 1831 plowed up an ancient grave, said to have contained human bones, fine pottery, with gold beads and rings. All the relics were buried again by the finder, except four of the rings, which came into the possession of the Bishop of Puebla, and two of which are shown in the cut. With some doubts respecting the authenticity of these relics I give the cuts for what they are worth. There are accounts and drawings of several rudely carved stone images from the same region.[VII-72]
At Yanguitlan, ten or fifteen miles south-east of Huahuapan, several relics were found, including a human head of natural size carved from red stone; two idols of green jasper, slightly carved in human likeness; three cutting implements of hard stone; and the two objects shown in the cuts on the opposite page. The first is a spear-head of gray flint, and the second a very curious relic of unknown use, and whose material and dimensions the finder has neglected to mention. It is of a red color, and is very beautifully wrought in two pieces, one serving as a cover for the other, apparently intended to be joined by a cord as represented in the cut. Among the uses suggested are those of a censer and a lantern.[VII-73]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ANTIQUITIES OF GUERRERO.]
Respecting the relics of the state of Guerrero, my only information is derived from a statistical work by Sr Celso Muñoz, contained in the report of Gov. Francisco O. Arce to the legislature of the state in 1872. This author mentions such relics in the district of Hidalgo, north of the Rio Zacatula towards the Mexican boundary, as follows: 1st. "The momoxtles, or tombs of the ancient Indians, which are found in almost all the towns, although they are constantly disappearing, and abound especially in the municipality of Cocula." 2d. "Traces of ancient settlements of the aborigines, who either became extinct or migrated to other localities: such are seen on the hill of Huizteco, in the municipality of Tasco, in that of Tetipac el Viejo and of Coatlan el Viejo, of Tetipac, of Coculatepil, of Piedra Grande or San Gaspar, region of Iglesia Vieja, Cocula, and many others." 3d. At Tepecoacuilco "there are traces very clearly defined of many foundations of houses; and in excavations that have been made there have been found many idols and flint weapons, especially lances, very well preserved, and other curious relics of Aztec times." 4th. At Chontalcuatlan, there are traces of the ancient town on a hill called Coatlan el Viejo, where there is also said to be a block of porphyry one or two mètres in diameter, on the surface of which is sculptured a coiled serpent.[VII-74]
FOOTNOTES:
[VII-1] See vol. ii., chap. ii., of this work.
[VII-2] Arias, Antigüedades Zapotecas, in Museo Mex., tom. i., pp. 246-8, Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., pp. 356-7; Hutchings' Cal. Mag., vol. ii., pp. 395; 539-41; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 359, with reference to Carriedo, Estudios hist. y estad. del Estado Oaxaqueño, tom. ii., append. i.; Garay, Reconocimiento, p. 110; Id., Survey, pp. 112-13; Id., Acct., pp. 79-81.
[VII-3] Dupaix, 3d exped., pp. 6-7, pl. iii.-v., fig. 6-9; Kingsborough, vol. vi., p. 469, vol. iv., pl. iii.-v., fig. 6-9; Larenaudière, Mex. Guat., pl. viii., from Dupaix, showing second pyramid; Mayer's Observations, pp. 25-6, with cut of the first altar representing its successive platforms as forming a spiral ascent.
[VII-4] Dupaix, 3d exped., p. 6, pl. ii., fig. 5; cut of same lance-head in Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., p. 85, pl. xiv.; Museo Mexicano, tom. i., pp. 248-9, tom. iii., pp. 135-7; Hist. Mag., vol. iii., p. 240.
[VII-5] Brasseur de Bourbourg, Voy. Tehuan., pp. 122-5.
[VII-6] Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., tom. ii., cap. lxxii.; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 9-10.
[VII-7] Lafond, Voyage, tom. i., p. 139.
[VII-8] Museo Mex., tom. i., p. 248.
[VII-9] Dupaix, 3d exped., p. 8, pl. vi., fig. 10; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 289, vol. vi., p. 469, vol. iv., pl. vi., fig. 10; Lenoir, pp. 16, 71. Kingsborough calls the name of the locality of these remains Chilmitlan. His plate shows regular quadrilateral openings in the parapets, while in Castañeda's plate they appear of irregular form, as if made by the removal of stones.
[VII-10] Garay, Reconocimiento, pp. 110-12; Id., Survey, pp. 113-15; Id., Acct., pp. 79-81.
[VII-11] Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., tom. ii., p. 298; Florencia, Hist. Comp. Jesus, pp. 233-6, Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Hist. Nat. Civ._, tom. iii., pp. 39, 286, tom. i., p. 146.
[VII-12] Besides remains attributed to particular localities, see Museo Mex., tom. iii., p. 135, cuts and descriptions of four earthen idols found in this state; Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., tom. i., fol. 160, 166, 170, 197, tom. ii., fol. 275, 298, 319-21, 330, 344-5, 363, mention and slight description of burial places, caves, temples, etc., of the natives, some of them seen by the author; Mühlenpfordt, Mej., tom. ii., pp. 186, 195, 200, 206, 212, 215, slight mention of scattered relics; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. ii., p. 218, cuts of three heads in Peñasco collection, said to have come from Oajaca.
[VII-13] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 28-9.
[VII-14] Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., p. 282, with cut of the ring.
[VII-15] Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 47.
[VII-16] Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., p. 91.
[VII-17] Museo Mex., tom. i., p. 249.
[VII-18] Dupaix, 3d exped., p. 6, pl. ii., 2d exped., p. 51.
[VII-19] Fossey, Mexique, pp. 375-6. No authority is given, and M. Fossey was not himself an antiquarian explorer.
[VII-20] Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 249-51.
[VII-21] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 17-23, pl. xxi-viii., fig. 64-77; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 247-51, vol. vi., pp. 444-6, vol. iv., pl. xix-xxv., fig. 64-77; Lenoir, pp. 16, 22, 49-51. Carriedo's Atlas de una Fortaleza Zapoteca, etc., mentioned by Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., p. 94, and in Museo Mex., tom. i., p. 246. The editors of the latter magazine announced their intention to publish the drawings as soon as the plates could be engraved, but I have not seen the volume in which their purpose was carried out, if indeed it was ever carried out. García's report in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., pp. 270-1, with plates; Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., pp. 270-1, with plates; Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 250-3; Viollet-le-Duc, in Id., pp. 25-6, with cut. Other references to slight notices of Monte Alban, containing no original information are;--Larenaudière, Mex. Guat., pl. i., from Dupaix; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 340; Fossey, Mexique, pp. 370-1. This writer locates the ruins ¼ of a league from the city. Escalera and Llana, Mej., p. 332; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., p. 91.
[VII-22] See authorities in preceding note.
[VII-23] Plate showing the stones in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., p. 270.
[VII-24] Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 339-40.
[VII-25] 'Elle représente un dieu dont les attributs caractérisent le principe actif de la nature qui produit les grains et les fruits. C'est le dieu qui crée, conserve et est en hostilité permanente avec le Génie destructeur qui gouverne aussi le monde. Son casque ou son diadème, ombragé d'un panache considérable et qui atteste son importance, est orné de la Grande couleuvre, nommée aussi par les astronomes modernes le serpent d'Ève, dont la présence dans le ciel annonce la saison des récoltes.' Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 57-8. Cut also in Mayer's Obs., p. 32, pl. iii., from the original which is preserved in Mexico.
[VII-26] Plate also in Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 64-5, pl. xi.
[VII-27] Copies of plates in Mayer's Obs., p. 32, pl. iii.; Id., Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. ii., pp. 218-19.
[VII-28] Dupaix says of this image: 'Elle participe un peu du style égyptien. Elle est couverte de trois vêtements qui croisent l'un sur l'autre symétriquement, et qui sont bordés de franges. La tête est ornée de tresses qui font deviner le sexe; les oreilles et le cou sont parés de bijoux; enfin toute cette figure est étrange.' 2d exped., p. 49. This image in the opinion of M. Lenoir, Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 60-1, represents the Mexican goddess Toci, and the preceding one the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. These images are now in the Mexican Museum, and plates of them were published by Sr Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 90-5, pl. xvii., who by no means agrees with Lenoir's conclusions identifying them with Aztec deities, although he agrees with Dupaix respecting their probable use as chandeliers.
[VII-29] Authorities on antiquities of Zachila. Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 44-51, pl. xlvii., fig. 95-116; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 269-78, vol. vi., pp. 458-63, vol. iv., pl. xlvii.-li., fig. 96-117. Kingsborough also attributes fig. 118-19 to Zachila, but according to the official edition the relics represented by those numbers came from Tizatlan in Tlascala. Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 57-63. The aboriginal name of the place was Zaachillatloo. Dupaix, pp. 44-5. Brasseur, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 47, speaks of a fortress visited by several travelers, built by Zaachila, the great Zapotec conqueror, on the top of a lofty rock 25 leagues east of Oajaca. Mention of ruins and two cuts of figures in Ilustracion Mej., tom. iii., pp. 367-8, 480; Escalera and Llana, Mej. Hist. Descrip., p. 226.
[VII-30] Escalera and Llana, Mej. Hist. Descrip., p. 226; Fossey, Mex., p. 376.
[VII-31] Liubá, 'Sepultura;' Miquitlan, 'infierno ó lugar de tristeza.' Dupaix, 2d exped., p. 30. Leoba, or Luiva, 'sépulture;' Miguitlan, 'lieu de désolation, lieu de tristesse.' Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., pp. 278-9. Yopaa, Lyoba, or Yobaa, 'terre des tombes;' Mictlan, 'séjour des Morts.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., pp. 304-5, tom. iii., p. 9. Liobáá, 'place of rest.' Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., p. 170.
[VII-32] 'Uno, llamado Mictlan, que quiere decir infierno ó lugar de muertos, á do hubo en tiempos pasados, (segun hallaron las muestras) edificios mas notables y de ver que en otra parte de la Nueva España. Hubo un templo del demonio y aposentos de sus ministros, maravillosa cosa á la vista, en especial una sala como de artesones, y la obra era labrada de piedra de muchos lazos y labores.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 395-6; Burgoa, Descrip. Geog., tom. ii., fol. 259, etc.
[VII-33] 'Du haut de la forteresse de Mitla, la vue plonge dans la vallée et se repose avec tristesse sur des roches pelées et des solitudes arides, image de destruction propre à relever l'effet des palais de Liobaa. Un torrent d'eau salée (?), qui se gonfle avec la tempête, coule au milieu des sables poudreux qu'il entraîne avec lui. Les rives sont sèches et sans ombrages; à peine voit-on de distance en distance quelques nopals nains, ou quelques poivriers du Pérou, aussi maigres que le terrain où ils ont pris racine. Seulement, du côté du village, la verdure sombre des magueys et des cactus donne au tableau l'aspect d'un jardin d'hiver planté de buis et de sapins.' Fossey, Mexique, p. 371.
[VII-34] Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., pp. 278-85, pl. xvii-viii., fol. ed., pl. xlix-l; Id., in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., pp. 28-30, supl. pl. viii.; Id., Essai Pol., pp. 263-5. Humboldt speaks of Martin as 'un architecte mexicain très-distingué.' Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 30-44, pl. xxix-xlvi., fig. 78-93; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 255-68, vol. vi., pp. 447-56, vol. iv., pl. xxvii-xli., fig. 81-95; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., pp. 16, 23-4, 52-7. Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. i., pref., p. 5, claims to have been for some time Director of road-construction in the state of Oajaca, and states his intention of publishing at some future time 18 or 20 large copper-plate engravings illustrating the antiquities of Mitla and others. These plates, so far as I know, have never been given to the public. Carriedo accompanied Mühlenpfordt, or Mihelenpforott as he writes the name, and published some of the drawings, perhaps all, in the Ilustracion Mejicana, tom. ii., pp. 493-8. Some of the German artists' descriptive text is also quoted from I know not what source. Tempsky's Mitla, pp. 250-3, with plates which must have been made up for the most part from other sources than the author's own observations. García's visit, Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., pp. 271-2. Sawkin's exploration, in Mayer's Observations, p. 28, et seq., with plates. It will be shown later that Mr Sawkins' drawings are without value to the archæological student. Fossey's account, Mexique, pp. 365-70; Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 261-9, phot. ii-xviii.; Viollet-le-Duc, in Id., pp. 74-104, with cuts. After Charnay had completed, as he thought, the work of photographing the ruins, all his negatives were spoiled for want of proper varnish. He was therefore compelled to return alone, since he had exhausted the somewhat limited patience of his native assistants, and to work day and night to take a new set of pictures. Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., pp. 279-81, seems also to have made a personal exploration. Other references for Mitla containing no original information are as follows:--Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 117-22, with two cuts from Charnay and two from Tempsky, all given in my text. Gallatin, in Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 173; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 85-6; Larenaudière, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., tom. xxxiv., pp. 121-2; Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 90-5, pl. xvii.; Mayer's Mex. as it Was, pp. 251-3; Id., Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 213-16; Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, tom. v., pp. 157-60; Morelet, Voyage, tom. i., pp. 270-1; Id., Travels, p. 92; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 462; Prescott's Mex., vol. i., p. 14, vol. iii., pp. 404-6; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. vi., p. 463; Mexicanische Zustände, tom. i., pp. 403-4; Wappäus, Mex. Guat., p. 162; Lemprière, Mexique, p. 144; Hassel, Mex. Guat., p. 255; Hermosa, Manual Geog., p. 135; Escalera and Llana, Mex., pp. 327-32, 225, same as in Fossey; Lafond, Voyages, tom. i., p. 139; Bonnycastle's Span. Amer., vol. i., p. 154, vol. ii., p. 233; D'Orbigny, Voyage, p. 356; Conder's Mex. Guat., vol. ii., pp. 130-4; Dally, Races Indig., pp. 16-17; Macgillivray's Life Humboldt, pp. 314-15; Mills' Hist. Mex., p. 158; Mexico in 1842, p. 77; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. ii., p. 105; Larenaudière, Mex. Guat., pl. ii-vi., from Dupaix; Delafield's Antiq. Amer., pp. 55, 59-60.
[VII-35] Charnay, phot. xvii., gives a general view of the ruins, from which, however, no clear idea can be formed of the arrangement of the structures. The buildings are named or numbered as follows by the different authors; Dupaix numbers them as they are marked on my plan; Carriedo and Mühlenpfordt unite Nos. 1 and 2 under the name of 1st Palace, making No. 3 No. 2, and No. 4 No. 3; Charnay's 1st or grand palace is the northern building of No. 1; his 2d is the eastern building of the same; his 3d and 4th are the northern and western buildings respectively of No. 2. My No. 3 is called by him the House of the Curate, and No. 4 is only mentioned by him without name or number.
[VII-36] At the Conquest the ruins covered an immense area, but they now consist of six palaces and three ruined pyramids. Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 261.
[VII-37] Dupaix's ground plan, pl. xxix., fig. 78, represents such a southern building and mound, although very slight, if any, traces remained of the former at the time of his visit. Martin's plan, given by Humboldt, shows two shorter mounds without buildings; while Carriedo's plan locates no structure whatever south of the court, and I have omitted it in my plan.
[VII-38] The dimensions are very nearly those of the plans of Martin and Castañeda, who differ only very slightly. The dimensions given by the different authorities are as follows: A. 12½×47½ varas, Castañeda; 13¼×46½ varas, Martin, in Humboldt; 40 mètres long, Charnay; 180 feet long, Tempsky; 132 feet long, Fossey. C. 22×22 varas, Castañeda and Martin; d, 7×35½ varas, Castañeda; 7½×34½ varas, Martin. Walls 1½ to 3½ varas thick, Castañeda; 1½ varas, Martin. Height 5 to 6 mètres, Humboldt; 14 feet, Fossey. The height of the inner columns, to be spoken of later, shows something respecting the original height of the walls.
[VII-39] Charnay, p. 264, describes the material of this filling as 'terre battue, mêlée de gros cailloux.' His photographs of walls where the facing has fallen show in some places a mass of large irregular stones, even laid with some regularity in a few instances; in other parts of the ruins there seem to be very few stones, but only a mass of earth or clay; and in still other parts the wall has every appearance of regular adobes. Dupaix, p. 35, says that sand and lime are mixed with the earth. 'El macizo, ó grueso de las paredes se compone de una tierra mezclada y beneficiada con arena y cal.' 'De tierra preparada, hollada ó beneficiada cuando fresca y pastosa.' Tempsky, p. 251, declares the material to be rough boulders in cement. Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., p. 283, speaks of 'une masse d'argile qui paroît remplir l'intérieur des murs.'
[VII-40] 'Los compartimientos divididos por unos tableros cuadrilongos, terminados por unas molduras cuadradas que sobresalen á la linea de la muralla, contienen en sus planos unas grecas de alto relieve de una bella invencion, pues sus dibujos presentan unos enlaces complicados arreglados á una exactisima geometría, con una grande union entre las piedras que los componen, las que son de varios gruesos, y configuraciones; ademas se advierte una perfecta nivelacion en toda esta admirable ensambladura.' Dupaix, 2d exped., p. 31. A mosaic of soft sandstone cut in blocks 7×2⅛×1 inches, and all forming a smooth exterior surface. Tempsky's Mitla, pp. 251-2, with a very faulty cut. The statement about the smooth surface is certainly erroneous, as is probably that respecting the size of the blocks. 'Ces arabesques forment une sorte de mosaïque, composée de petites pierres carrées, qui sont placées avec beaucoup d'art, les unes à côté des autres.' Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., p. 283; with cuts of three styles of this mosaic from Martin. 'Briquettes de différentes grandeurs.' The modern church is built of stone from the ruins. The natives carry away the blocks of mosaic in the belief that they will turn to gold. Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 252, 263-5. Phot. v-vi., view of southern façade. 22 different styles of grecques on this front. Fossey, Mexique, pp. 367-8. Cuts of 16 different styles in Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 501.
[VII-41] An Indian woman was reported to have one of the heads from these holes, built into the walls of her house, but it could not be found. Dupaix, 2d exped., p. 31.
[VII-42] Besides the photograph copied above, Charnay's photographs, vii.-viii., present views from the east and west, showing that the same style of construction and ornamentation extends completely round the building. Dupaix's plate xxx. represents this façade, but shows only a small portion of the stone-work. Kingsborough gives in its place a magnificent plate, 1×5 feet, showing the whole front restored in all its details; he gives also the plate from Antiq. Mex., but refers it to the palace No. 2. pl. xxxi., fig. 85. See description of the walls quoted from Burgoa, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., pp. 170-3.
[VII-43] 5.8 mètres high; one third of the height buried in the ground. Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., p. 282. 4 varas above surface, 2 varas below, 1 vara diameter. Id., in Antiq. Mex., suppl. pl. viii. Of the material, Humboldt says: 'Quelques personnes, très-instruites en minéralogie, m'ont dit que la pierre est un beau porphyre amphibolique; d'autres m'ont assuré que c'est un granite porphyritique.' 12 feet high, 9½ feet in circumference. Fossey, Mex., pp. 367-8. About 14 feet high, Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 263; 5½ varas high, 1 vara in diameter, material granite, Dupaix, p. 31. Over 5 varas high. Burgoa, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., p. 171. 12 feet high, 4 feet diameter. Tempsky's Mitla, p. 253. 10 feet 10½ inches above ground, over 6 feet below, 3⅓ varas in circumference; material porphyry. Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., pp. 495-6. So large that two men can hardly reach round them, 5 fathoms high. Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., pp. 395-6. Material a porous limestone. Viollet-le-Duc, in Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 78.
[VII-44] See Charnay, phot. x.
[VII-45] Charnay, phot. vii.-viii.
[VII-46] Charnay, phot. xi. Plate in Tempsky's Mitla, pp. 252-3, very incorrect, as are nearly all of this author's illustrations.
[VII-47] Charnay, phot. ix.
[VII-48] See p. 257 of this volume.
[VII-49] Murguia, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., pp. 170-3. 'De grandes dalles, de plus de deux pieds d'épaisseur, reposant sur des piliers d'une hauteur de trois mètres, formaient le plafond de ces palais: au-dessus on voyait une corniche saillante ornée de sculptures capricieuses, dont l'ensemble formait comme une sorte de diadème posé sur le sommet de l'édifice.' Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., p. 26, Burgoa.
[VII-50] As quoted in Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 496.
[VII-51] Viollet-le-Duc, in Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 78-9.
[VII-52] Charnay, phot. xii., p. 264; Dupaix, pp. 31-2, pl. xxxi., fig. 80.
[VII-53] In the preceding pages it will be noticed that I have paid no attention to the plates and description by Mr J. G. Sawkins, from an exploration in 1837, as given by Col. Brantz Mayer in his Observations on Mexican History and Archæology, published among the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. My reasons for disregarding Sawkins' authority are, that the said descriptions and plates are just sufficiently accurate to identify palace No. 1 with the one referred to, but otherwise constitute one of the most bare-faced frauds recorded in the annals of antiquarian exploration in America. The following points are more than sufficient to substantiate what I have said:--1st. Sawkins reverses the cardinal points, respecting which the other authorities agree, placing the principal building on the east of the court instead of the north, etc. To avoid repetition and confusion, I shall in the following remarks, however, correct this error and speak of each building in its proper location. 2d. Sawkins found five standing columns in the eastern building, d, four of which supported parts of a wall, while the other standing apart was taller than the rest; now the columns supporting the wall may have been the piers between the doorways--but only three of these were standing in 1806 (see Dupaix, pl. xxxi.); and the taller column standing apart agrees well enough with the truth, except that there were two of them standing in 1859. (See Charnay, Ruines Amér., phot. xii.) On the west our explorer correctly found everything obliterated, and the 'crumbling and indistinct walls' which he found on the south may have been part of palace No. 2. 3d. Coming now to the northern building, Sawkins found in the front 4 doorways, so narrow and low that only one person at a time could enter, and that only by stooping; during the next 20 years these doorways grew remarkably in size, and decreased in number, since Charnay's photograph shows 3 doorways with standing human figures in two of them, not obliged to stoop or much pressed for elbow room, as may be seen in the copy I have given. 4th. Sawkins found all the adornments removed from this façade; they were perhaps replaced before Charnay's visit. 5th. In the interior, A of the plan, Sawkins found niches in the end walls not seen by any other visitor. 6th. The six columns represented by Martin and Dupaix as standing in the centre of this apartment, had all been removed (!) at the time of Sawkins' visit. It was a strange freak of the camera to picture them all in place 20 years later. 7th. But Charnay's photographic apparatus had yet other repairs to make, for in the northern wing, C, the walls of the interior apartments had all disappeared, and even the interior surface of the outer walls, which enclosed the quadrangle, had no mosaic work, but the panels presented only 9 long recesses in three tiers on each side. Mr Sawkins' plates are two in number; one of them presents a general view of this palace from the west, and although faulty, indicates that the artist may have actually visited Mitla; the other is a rear view of the northern building, gives a tolerably correct idea of the construction of the walls, and may possibly have been made up from the large plate in Kingsborough's work. I have no more space to devote to Sawkins. He may have been already 'shown up' by some critic whose writings have escaped my notice. It is proper to add that as Col. Mayer apparently consulted only Humboldt's description of Mitla, it is not at all strange that this zealous investigator and usually correct writer was deceived by a pretended explorer.
[VII-54] Dupaix, pl. xxxii., fig. 81, where the dimensions are 6½×33½ varas. Carriedo's, or Mühlenpfordt's, plan, pl. ii., makes the court 114×135 feet, and the western building 128.9 feet on the inside; on page 495, and on another plan, it is implied that the eastern mound never bore any building.
[VII-55] Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 495.
[VII-56] Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., p. 280.
[VII-57] Charnay, Ruines Amér., phot. xiii.-xvi.; Dupaix, p. 33, pl. xxxiii., fig. 82-3; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 258-9, vol. vi., pp. 450-1, vol. iv., pl. xxx., fig. 84; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 53, 16; Mühlenpfordt, in Ilustracion Mej., p. 500, pl. vi.; Tempsky's Mitla, pp. 250-1.
[VII-58] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 32-3, pl. xxxiv.-v., fig. 82; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 259, vol. vi., p. 451, vol. iv., pl. xxxii.-iii., fig. 86-7, ground plan, and section showing mosaic work; Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., pp. 495-500, pl. iv., v., ix. Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., pp. 278-82, places the gallery erroneously under the northern wing of palace No. 1, with an entrance in the floor of the column chamber. Murguia, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., pp. 170-3, from Burgoa, about the caves on which the palaces were built. Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., p. 280; Tempsky's Mitla, pp. 250-1; Fossey, Mex., p. 369; Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 264-5; Mayer's Observations, p. 30, with cuts from Dupaix. Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., p. 53. 'Un appartement souterrain qui a 27 mètres de long, et 8 de large.' Humboldt, Essai Pol., p. 264.
[VII-59] Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. 263, phot. iii.-iv.; Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 33, 35-6, pl. xxxvi., fig. 83; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 259, vol. vi., p. 451, vol. iv., pl. xxxiv., fig. 88, this plan differs from the one given above in making the passage d straight. Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 496.
[VII-60] Dupaix, pl. xxxvii., fig. 84; Kingsborough, vol. iv., pl. xxxv., fig. 89. The latter plan represents three doorways in each of the buildings fronting on the northern court, C. See also references of preceding note.
[VII-61] Dupaix, pp. 34, 39, pl. xxxlx-xl., xliii-iv., fig. 86-7, 91-2; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 260-1, vol. vi., pp. 451-3, vol. iv., pl. xxxvii-ix., fig. 91-4; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 55-6; Charnay, p. 263, phot. ii.; Mühlenpfordt, in Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 496; Fossey, Mexique, pp. 368-9, locates these pyramidal groups east and north, instead of south and west of palace No. 1. He also mentions a granite block, or altar, 4½ feet long and one foot thick.
[VII-62] Dupaix, p. 34, pl. xxxviii., fig. 85; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 259, vol. vi., p. 451, vol. iv., pl. xxxvi., fig. 90. Kingsborough's plate represents the walls as mostly fallen. Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., p. 53.
[VII-63] Dupaix, pp. 40-1, pl. xliv.-v., fig. 93-4, view of hill, and plan copied above. Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 265, vol. vi., p. 455, vol. iv., pl. xl.-i., fig. 95; Lenoir, p. 56. Dupaix's plates are copied in Mosaico Mex., tom. ii., pp. 281-4, and Armin, Alte Mex., p. 290; Fossey, Mex., p. 370. Plate from Sawkins' drawing, different from that of Castañeda, but of course unreliable, in Mayer's Observations, p. 32, pl. iv.
[VII-64] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 41-3; Tylor's Anahuac, p. 139.
[VII-65] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 37-8, pl. xli.-ii., fig. 88-90; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 254, vol. vi., p. 447, vol. iv., pl. xxvi., fig. 78-80; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., pp. 23-4, 55; Tempsky's Mitla, p. 254.
[VII-66] Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., fol. 257-60; Id., in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. vii., p. 170, et seq., pp. 271-2; Id., in Ilustracion Mej., tom. ii., p. 494; Id., in Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. iii., pp. 21-30. Brasseur says that the temple built over a subterranean labyrinth was called Yohopehelichi Pezelao, 'supreme fortress of Pezelao.' Built under Toltec influence. Id., tom. i., pp. 304-5, tom. iii., p. 9. Sacked by the Aztecs about 1494, and the priests carried as captives to Mexico. Id., tom. iii., p. 358; Tylor's Anahuac, p. 139. Buildings of different age. Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 34-5; Charnay, Ruines Amér., pp. 252-3, 265; Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., p. 279.
[VII-67] Humboldt, Vues, tom. ii., pp. 284-5. 'Les palais funéraires de Mitla reproduisent en certains cas l'ordonnance des demeures chinoises.' Charnay, Ruines Amér., p. iii. The ruins of Mitla 'nous paraissent appartenir à la civilisation quichée, quoique postérieurs à ceux de l'Yucatan. La perfection de l'appareil, les parements verticaux des salles avec leurs épines de colonnes portant la charpente du comple, l'absence complète d'imitation de la construction de bois dans la décoration extérieure ou intérieure, l'ornementation obtenue seulement par l'assemblage des pierres sans sculpture, donnent aux édifices de Mitla un caractère particulier qui les distingue nettement de ceux de l'Yucatan et qui indiquerait aussi une date plus récente.' Viollet-le-Duc, in Id., pp. 100-1.
[VII-68] Lovato's report was published with two of the nine plates which originally accompanied it in the Museo Mex., tom. iii., p. 329-35, and, without the plates in Diccionario Univ., tom. ix., pp. 697-700. Müller, Reisen, tom. ii., pp. 251-4, gives an account which seems to have been made up mostly from Lovato's report, although he may have personally visited the ruins. A short description, also from the Museo Mex., may be found in Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., p. 217, and Id., Observations, pp. 25-6.
[VII-69] Museo Mex., tom. i., p. 136. Lovato's exploration was made by the order of Gen. Leon, and the account furnished for publication by Sr J. M. Tornel. In describing the Temple, the three flights of stairs are said to have 10, 8, and 6 steps, respectively, which does not agree with the plate as copied above. Müller gives the number of small buildings, or dwellings, whose foundations are visible as 120 instead of 130; he also gives in his dimensions mètres instead of varas, which would increase them in English feet in the proportion of 92 to 109. He further states that the structures face the cardinal points.
[VII-70] Unda, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 30; Museo Mex., tom. i., p. 250.
[VII-71] Dupaix, 2d exped., p. 14, pl. xix., fig. 55; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 244, vol. vi., p. 442, vol. iv., pl. xvii., fig. 55; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., p. 47.
[VII-72] Museo Mex., tom. i., pp. 249, 401, with plates of the rings and 7 stone relics.
[VII-73] Dupaix, 2d exped., pp. 15-16, pl. xix.-xx., fig. 56-63; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 244-5, vol. vi., pp. 442-3, vol. iv., pl. xvii.-xviii., fig. 56-63. Respecting the jasper figures M. Dupaix says: 'Le nombre de celles qu'on trouve dans les sépultures de la nation zapotèque est infini. Elles ont deux à trois pouces de haut; elles sont presque toutes de forme triangulaire, quadrangulaire, ou prismatique, et sont sculptées en jaspe vert foncé, ayant invariablement la même attitude semblable à celle d'Iris ou d'Osiris, dont les petites idoles étaient destinées à accompagner les momies égyptiennes.' The hole in the back part of each is drilled in a curved line. Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 47-8.
[VII-74] Muñoz, Estadística del Distrito de Hidalgo, in Guerrero, Memoria presentada á la H. Legislatura, por el Gobernador, Fran. O. Arce, 1872, pp. 45, 150, 272.
VIII. ANTIQUITIES OF VERA CRUZ
PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE STATE -- EXPLORATION AND REPORTS -- CAXAPA AND TUXTLA -- NEGRO HEAD -- RELICS FROM ISLAND OF SACRIFICIOS -- EASTERN SLOPE REMAINS -- MEDELIN -- XICALANCO -- RIO BLANCO -- AMATLAN -- ORIZAVA -- CEMPOALA -- PUENTE NACIONAL -- PASO DE OVEJAS -- HUATUSCO -- FORTIFICATIONS AND PYRAMIDS OF CENTLA -- EL CASTILLO -- FORTRESS OF TLACOTEPEC -- PALMILLAS -- ZACUAPAN -- INSCRIPTION AT ATLIACA -- CONSOQUITLA FORT AND TOMB -- CALCAHUALCO -- RUINS OF MISANTLA OR MONTE REAL -- DISTRICT OF JALANCINGO -- PYRAMID OF PAPANTLA -- MAPILCA -- PYRAMID AND FOUNTAIN AT TUSAPAN -- RUINS OF METLALTOYUCA -- RELICS NEAR PÁNUCO -- CALONDRAS, SAN NICOLAS, AND TRINIDAD.
Passing now to the eastern or gulf coast, I shall devote the present chapter to the antiquities of Vera Cruz, the ancient home of the Totonacs in the north, and the Xicalancas and Nonohualcos in the south. Vera Cruz, with an average width of seventy miles, extends from the Laguna de Santa Ana, the western boundary of Tabasco, to the mouth of the River Pánuco, a distance of about five hundred miles. Its territory is about equally divided lengthwise between the low malarious tierra caliente on the immediate gulf shore, and the eastern slope of the lofty sierra that bounds the Mexican plateau. Two or three much-traveled routes lead inland from the port of Vera Cruz towards the city of Mexico, and travelers make haste to cross this plague-belt, the lurking-place of the deadly vomito, turning neither to the right nor left to investigate the past or present. A railroad now completed renders the transit still more direct and rapid than before. Away from these routes the territory of this state is less known than almost any other portion of the Mexican Republic, although a portion of the southern Goatzacoalco region has been pretty thoroughly explored by surveyors of the Tehuantepec interoceanic routes, and by an unfortunate French colonization company that settled here early in the present century. The mountain slopes and plateaux twenty-five or thirty miles inland are, however, fertile and not unhealthy, having been crowded in ancient times with a dense aboriginal population, traces of whose former presence are found in every direction. Most of our information respecting the antiquities of this state is derived from the reports of Mexican explorers, only one or two of whom have in most cases visited each of the many groups of ruins. These explorers have as a rule fallen into a very natural, perhaps, but at the same time very unfortunate error in their descriptions; for after having displayed great energy and skill in the discovery and examination of a ruin, doubtless forming a clear idea of all its details, they usually compress these details into the space of a few paragraphs or a few pages, and devote the larger part of their reports to essays on the Toltec, Chichimec, or Olmec history--subjects on which they can throw no light. They neglect a topic of the deepest interest, concerning which their authority would be of the very greatest weight, for another respecting which their conclusions are for the most part valueless.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RELICS AT SACRIFICIOS ISLAND.]
The ruins of an aboriginal city are mentioned at Caxapa, between the volcano of Tuxtla and the coast in the southern part of the state.[VIII-1] In the vicinity of Tuxtla, at the south-western base of the volcano, a colossal granite head, six feet high, was found by a laborer in 1862, while making a clearing for a milpa. The head was photographed, and a copy of the plate published by the Mexican Geographical Society, together with an accompanying text prepared by J. M. Melgar. A copy of the plate is given in the cut. The most noticeable peculiarity in this head is the negro cast of the features, and Señor Melgar devotes his article to the negro race, which as he supposes lived in America before the coming of the Spaniards.[VIII-2]
On the island of Sacrificios, in the harbor of Vera Cruz, one author[VIII-3] states that remains of the ancient temple are visible. This is probably an error, but numerous small relics have been dug up on the island. Many of the relics were articles of pottery, one of which of very peculiar form is shown in the cut from Waldeck. This, like most of the other articles found here, is preserved in the Museum of Mexico, and was sketched by Mayer and by Waldeck. Mr Tylor pronounces it not the work of the natives before the Conquest, in fact a fraud, "one of the worst cases I ever noticed." There is no doubt of the accuracy of the drawing, and Sr Gondra assured Col. Mayer, as the latter informs me, that the relic is an authentic one.[VIII-4] Workmen engaged in laying the foundations of the modern fort found, at a depth of six feet, vases of hard material, which in the opinion of M. Baradère resembled vases that have been brought from Japan.[VIII-5] Col. Mayer gives cuts of thirteen relics dug from a subterranean chamber or grave in 1828. Two of these were of white marble or alabaster, and one of them is shown in the cut. M. Dumanoir made an excavation also in 1841, finding a sepulchre containing well-preserved human skeletons, earthen vases painted and etched, idols, images, bracelets, teeth of dogs and wild beasts, and marble, or alabaster, urns. Plates of many of the relics have been published.[VIII-6]
[Sidenote: REMAINS ON THE EASTERN SLOPE.]
From the city of Vera Cruz two main routes of travel lead inland toward the city of Mexico. The first extends north-westward via Jalapa, and the second south-westward via Orizava. After crossing the first lofty mountain barrier which divides the coast from the interior plateaux, the roads approach each other and meet near Puebla. On the eastern slope, the roads with the mountain range, which at this point extends nearly north and south, form a triangle with equal sides of about eighty miles, at the angles of which are the cities of Vera Cruz, Jalapa, and Orizava, or more accurately points ten or fifteen miles above the two latter. This comparatively small triangular area, round which so many travelers have passed in their journey to Anáhuac, is literally covered with traces of its aboriginal population, in the shape of pottery, implements, foundation stones of dwellings, fortifications, pyramids, and graves. I quote the following from an article on the antiquities of Vera Cruz, written in 1869, for the Mexican Geographical Society, by Carlos Sartorius:
"On the eastern slope of the lofty volcanic range, from the Peak of Orizava to the Cofre de Perote, at an average elevation of two to five thousand feet above the level of the gulf, there exist innumerable traces of a very numerous indigenous population before the Conquest. History tells us nothing respecting this part of the country, distinguished for its abundant supply of water, its fertility, and its delightful and healthy climate." "For an extent of fifteen to twenty leagues, from east to west, there was not a span of earth that was not cultivated, as is proved by numberless remains.... The whole country is formed into terraces by stone walls, which follow all the variations of the surface with the evident object of preventing the washing away of the soil. Sometimes the terraces are ten or twelve yards wide, at others hardly one yard. The small ravines called rayas served for innumerable water-tanks, built of rocks and clay, or of stone and mortar, these dams being also covered with a coating of hard cement. It is evident that a numerous population took advantage of every inch of land for cultivation, using the water gathered in the tanks during the rainy season for irrigation, possibly effected by hand by means of earthern vessels. In the more sterile portions of the land, on the top of hills which have no soil are seen the foundations of dwellings, all of stone without mortar, arranged in streets or in groups. They always form an oblong rectangle and face the cardinal points. They are found in clearing heavy forests as well as on open tracts, and the fact that oaks a mètre in diameter are found within the enclosure of the walls, proves that many centuries have passed since the population disappeared. In many parts are found groups of pyramids, of various sizes and degrees of preservation. The largest, of stone, are fifty feet and over in height, while the smallest are not over ten or twelve. The last seem to be tombs; at least several that we opened contained skeletons in a very decomposed state, with earthen utensils like those now made by the natives, arrow-heads of obsidian and bird-bone, doubtless the supplies given to the dead for their journey." One contained an elegant burial urn, bearing ornamental figures in relief, containing ashes and fragments of human bones, and covered first with small pebbles, and then with stone flags. "The region which we subjected to our investigation comprehends the slope of the sierra to the coast between Orizava and Jalapa. At an elevation of four or five thousand feet there are many springs, which at a short distance form ravines in a soil composed of conglomerates or, further south, of lime. In their course the ravines unite and form points sometimes with vertical walls of considerable height. As the water-courses do not follow a straight line, but wind about, the erosion of the current above the meeting of the ravines destroys a great portion of the dividing ridge, so that above there remains only a narrow pass, the ridge afterwards assuming greater width until the end is reached. This play of nature occurs in the region of which we are speaking, at many points and with great uniformity, almost always at the same level of two thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. The natives selected these points, strong by nature, fortifying them by art so ingeniously as to leave no doubt as to their progress in military art.... Some of them are almost inaccessible, and can be reached only by means of ladders and ropes. They all have this peculiarity in common, that, besides serving for defense, they enclose a number of edifices destined for worship,--teocallis and traces of very large structures, such as residences, quarters, or perhaps palaces of the priests and rulers. In some of them there are springs and remains of large artificial tanks; in others, aqueducts of stone and mortar, to bring water from distant springs." Sr Sartorius then proceeds to the description of particular ruins, of which more hereafter.[VIII-7]
[Sidenote: TRACES OF ABORIGINAL POPULATION.]
Mr Hugo Finck, a resident for twenty-eight years in the region under consideration, in which he traveled extensively to collect botanical specimens, contributed the following general remarks to the Smithsonian Report for 1870: "There is hardly a foot of ground in the whole state of Vera Cruz [the author refers particularly to the region about Córdova, Huatusco, and Mirador] in which, by excavation, either a broken obsidian knife, or a broken piece of pottery is not found. The whole country is intersected with parallel lines of stones, which were intended during the heavy showers of the rainy season to keep the earth from washing away. The number of those lines of stones shows clearly that even the poorest land, which nobody in our days would cultivate, was put under requisition by them.... In this part of the country no trace of iron or copper tools has ever come under my notice. Their implements of husbandry and war were of hard stone, but generally of obsidian and of wood. The small mounds of stones near their habitations have the form of a parallelogram, and are not over twenty-seven inches high. Their length is from five to twelve yards, their width from two to four. On searching into them nothing is found. A second class of mounds is round, in the form of a cone, always standing singly. They are built of loose stones and earth, and of various sizes; some as high as five yards, with a diameter of from five to twenty yards. Excavation made in them brought to light a large pot of burned clay filled with ashes, but in general nothing is found. The third class of mounds, also built of loose stones and earth, have the form of a parallelogram, whose smaller sides look east and west, and are from five to six yards high, terminating at the top in a level space of from three to five yards in width, the base being from eight to twelve yards. They are found from fifteen to two hundred yards long. Sometimes several are united, forming a hollow square, which must have been used as a fortress. Others again have their outer surface made of masonry, but still the inside is filled up with loose stones and earth. Near river-beds, where stones are very abundant, these tumuli are largest. Principally in this latter class, idols, implements of husbandry and war are discovered, sometimes lying quite loose, and at others imbedded in hollow square boxes made of masonry. The last-described mounds form the transition to those constructions which are altogether built of solid masonry.... One peculiarity of the last-mentioned ruins is, that they are all constructed at the junction of two ravines, and used as fortresses, on account of their impregnability. Most of the larger barrancas have precipitous sides from three hundred to one thousand feet deep, which guarded the inhabitants on their flank, so that nothing more was required than to build a wall, leaving a small entrance in the middle, as a passage, which could be barricaded in time of war.... Such constructions can be seen to this day in tolerable good condition. The interior of these fortified inclosures is in general large, sometimes holding from four to five square miles, and could be put under cultivation in case of a siege. The wall is in general from four to five yards high, and has on the inside terraces with steps to lead to the top. At other places there is a series of semicircular walls, the front one lower than the following, and a passage between each to permit one person at a time to pass from one to the other. The innermost wall is sometimes perforated with loopholes through which arrows could be thrown. Quite a number of ruins are found inside the fortification, as mounds, altars, good level roads with a foundation of mortar. Most of these monuments have good preserved steps leading to the top. In some very small pots of burning clay are found filled with ashes."[VIII-8]
The preceding quotations are sufficient to give a clear idea of the ruins in their general features, and leave only such particular remains as have been made known through the labors of different explorers to be described. Some ten or twelve of the peculiar fortified places alluded to above have been more or less fully described, but as there is no even tolerably accurate topographical map of this region, it is utterly impossible to locate them. Each stream, ravine, bluff, hill, and mountain of all the labyrinth, has its local name; indeed, some of them seem to have two or three, but most of them have no place on the maps. It is consequently quite possible that the same ruins have been described under more than one name. I shall present each group as it is described by the explorer, giving when possible the distance and bearing from some point laid down on the map which accompanies this volume.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: AMATLAN AND ORIZAVA.]
Before treating of these ruins, however, I shall mention some miscellaneous relics, from the region under consideration, found at well-known towns, or in their vicinity. Colonel Albert S. Evans dug two terra-cotta images from a grave at Medellin, about eight miles south-west of Vera Cruz, in 1869. They seem to represent a male and female, and are now in the collection of Mr C. D. Voy, of Oakland, California. Near the same town, on the Rio Jamapa, are to be seen, Brasseur tells us, the ruins of one of the two ancient cities called Xicalanco; and also that the traces of an ancient city may yet be seen under the water between the city of Vera Cruz and the fort of San Juan de Ulloa.[VIII-9] About forty-five miles south-east of Córdova, between that town and the bridge over the Rio Blanco, Dupaix found a hard stone of dark blue color, artificially worked into an irregular spherical form, about six feet in diameter, and so carefully balanced that it could be made to vibrate by a slight touch. A number of small shallow holes were formed on the surface. A similar stone is placed two leagues to the eastward, and they are supposed by Dupaix to have served as boundary marks. Teololinga is the name by which the natives call them.[VIII-10] Also in the neighborhood of Córdova, at Amatlan de los Reyes, certain traces of a temple are vaguely mentioned by the same traveler; and on a wooded hillside near by is a cave, in which have been found fragments of carved stone and pottery, including a squatting trunk and legs, and a head carved from the same kind of stone that constitutes the walls of the cave. The latter relic is shown in the cut. The form of the head seems to have nothing in common with the ordinary aboriginal type.[VIII-11]
At Orizava two relics were seen, one of them a triangular stone five feet thick and ninety feet in circumference, used in modern times as the floor of a native's cabin. On one of the triangular surfaces was incised in rude outline a colossal human figure twenty-seven feet high, standing with legs spread apart and arms outstretched. A girdle appears at the waist, plumes decorate the head, and the mouth is wide open. On one side a fish stands on its tail; on the other is a rabbit with ten small circles, very likely expressing some date after the Aztec manner,--ten tochtli. Some carvings not described were noticed on the edges also. The other relic was a kind of yoke carved from green jasper and supposed to have been used in connection with the Aztec sacrifices. It is shown in the cut according to Castañeda's drawing. The original yoke was carried by Dupaix to Mexico and deposited in one of the antiquarian collections there, where it was afterwards sketched by Mayer and Gondra.[VIII-12] Near Jalapa, Rivera states that a serpent fifteen feet long and nine feet broad, may be seen carved in the rock.[VIII-13] Half a day's journey from Vera Cruz towards Mexico, at a point which he calls Rinconado, Robert Tomson saw "a great pinacle made of lime and stone, fast by a riuer side, where the Indians were wont to doe their sacrifices vnto their gods."[VIII-14] About the location of Cempoala, a famous city in the time of the Conquest, there has been much discussion. Lorenzana says that the place "still retains the same name; it is situated four leagues from Vera Cruz, and the extent of its ruins indicates its former greatness." Rivera tells us, however, that "to-day not even the ruins of this capital of the Totonac power remain," although some human bones have been dug up about its site.[VIII-15]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS AT PUENTE NACIONAL.]
Passing now to the labyrinth of ruins within the triangular area extending from the peaks of Orizava and Perote to the coast, I begin with those in the vicinity of the Puente Nacional, where the road from Vera Cruz to Jalapa crosses the Rio de la Antigua. These remains are located on the summit of a forest-covered hill over a hundred feet high, on the bank of the river some two leagues from the bridge. They were discovered in 1819 or 1820 by a priest named Cabeza de Vaca, and in November, 1843, J. M. Esteva, to whom the priest related his discovery, made an exploration, and as a result published a description with two plates in the Museo Mexicano. On the uneven surface of the hill-top stands a pyramid of very peculiar form, shown in the cut, which is an ichnographic plan of the structure. It is built of stone and mortar, the former probably in hewn blocks, although the text is not clear on this point. The height varies from thirty-three to forty-two feet, according to the inequalities of the ground. The circumference is not far from three hundred English feet, while the summit platform measures about fifty-five by forty-four feet. On all sides except the eastern the slope is divided into six stories, or steps, about one foot wide and seven feet high at the base but diminishing towards the top, making the ascent much steeper than that of most aboriginal pyramids that we have met hitherto. The eastern side is all taken up by a stairway about sixty-three feet wide, consisting of thirty-four steps. This stairway, as is more clearly shown in Esteva's view of this side than in my cut, is arranged in the form of a cross.
On the western base is the entrance to a gallery which penetrates the body of the pyramid; it was obstructed by fallen stones, but Esteva succeeded in exploring the passage far enough to convince himself that the interior was divided into several apartments. At some distance from the pyramid were noticed the foundations of a wall.[VIII-16]
Mr Lyon mentions the existence of ruins--which he did not visit--in this vicinity on the edge of a plateau, at the north side of the valley, about a mile and a half to the right of the road, and only a short distance from Paso de Ovejas. "All that remains are the traces of streets and inclosures, and an assemblage of pyramidical elevations of earth and stones of various sizes, some of them forty feet in height." Sr Sartorius reports very extensive ruins on the right bank of the Antigua, some leagues west of Consoquitla, near Tuzamapa, from the material of which the 'puente nacional' was constructed. An old native also reported that a spiral stairway formerly led down to the bottom of the barranca. Whether the two groups of ruins last mentioned are identical with that described by Esteva, it is impossible to determine; quite likely they are distinct remains.[VIII-17]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FORTIFICATIONS OF CENTLA.]
Some twenty-five or thirty miles northward from Córdova, in the vicinity of Huatusco, and stretching northward from that town, is a line of fortified places, nearly every junction of two ravines bearing more or less extensive remains. One of the most extensive of these works is that known as Centla, a few leagues north-east of Huatusco. The ruins are said to have been discovered by rancheros in 1821. Ignacio Iberri saw them in 1826, but published no description. An explorer whose name is not given visited the locality in 1832, and furnished information from which Sr Gondra published an account, illustrated with plates, in 1837. Sr Sartorius made an exploration of Centla in 1833, but his description, also accompanied with plates, was not published until 1869.[VIII-18]
[Sidenote: FORTRESS OF CENTLA.]
Two ravines, running from east to west, with precipitous sides from three hundred to a thousand feet high, approach so near to each other as to leave only space for a passage about three feet wide, and this narrow pass is made still stronger by protecting walls not particularly described. The barrancas then diverge and again converge, forming an oval table of about four hundred acres, across which, from east to west is excavated a ditch, or protected road, about seventeen feet wide and from eight to eleven feet deep, leading to the second narrow pass, where the ravines again approach each other.[VIII-19]
This second pass is about twenty-eight feet wide from the brink of the northern to that of the southern precipice.[VIII-20] This pass is fortified by defensive works of the strongest character, the plan of which is shown in the cut on the following page. The only entrance is through the narrow passage only three feet wide, shown by the arrows, beginning at the southern brink, passing between two stone pyramids, A, and E, D, C, and then along the northern brink to the plateau beyond, the issue into the latter being guarded additionally by three smaller pyramids. The chief pyramid on the right of the entrance is built of stone and mortar in three stories, or terraces, C, D and E, respecting the arrangement of which the plan[VIII-21] is not altogether satisfactory; but each story is reached by a stairway on the east, and on the summit are parapets pierced with loopholes for the discharge of weapons. This structure is also flanked on the south, where the descent for a short distance is less precipitous than elsewhere, by a terraced wall at B. The left hand fortification, A, is described by Gondra as a simple wall, but according to Sartorius and the plan it is also a pyramid, with stairway on the east and parapets on the summit. It has apparently only one story, and is lower than its companion, but its front has an additional protection in the form of a ditch eleven feet wide and five and a half feet deep, excavated in the solid rock, the position of which is shown by the dotted line a, a.[VIII-22]
Beyond the narrow fortified pass that has been described, the southern ravine again diverges and forms a semicircle before joining that on the north, forming thus a peninsular plateau a mile and a half long, and somewhat less than three quarters of a mile wide, covered with soil of great fertility, and divided in two parts by the waters of a spring, whose waters flow through the centre. Since its discovery this fertile table has been settled and cultivated by modern farmers, some twenty families of whom--whether native or Spanish is not stated--were living here in 1832. The whole surface was covered with traces of its former inhabitants, but most of the monuments in the cultivated portions have been destroyed by the settlers, who used the stones for buildings and fences. In other parts, covered with a forest at the time of exploration, extensive remains were found in good preservation, besides the fortresses at the entrance. Pyramids of different dimensions, standing singly and in groups, together with foundations of houses and sculptured fragments, were scattered in every direction enveloped in the forest growth.
The pyramids are all built of rough stones, clay, and earth, faced on the outside with hewn blocks from eighteen inches to two feet long, laid in mortar. The stone seems to have been brought from the bottom of the ravines, and it is said that no lime is procurable within a distance of fifteen or twenty miles. Sartorius gives a plate representing one of the pyramids, which he states to be a type of all those at Centla, and indeed of all in this region, and which is copied in the cut. The stairways are generally on the west, and the niches at the sides are represented as having arched tops and as occupied by idols. Some of the smaller mounds have been found to contain human skeletons lying north and south, and from one of them a farmer claimed to have dug a number of green stone beads. Sartorius claims to have found in connection with one of the pyramids an altar having a concavity on the top, and a canal leading to a receptacle at the foot of the mound; he also mentions a very elegant vase, six by four inches, found under a stone flag, near the altar. Gondra speaks of a large square or court, level and covered with a coat of hard polished cement; he also claims that six columns of stone and mortar were seen, twelve feet high, standing at the bottom of a ravine.
[Sidenote: RUINS AT HUATUSCO.]
Dupaix in his first exploring tour visited Huatusco, and states that at a distance of half a league down the river from the modern town was found a group of ruins known as the Pueblo Viejo. These ruins were on the slope of a hill, and on the summit stood the pyramid shown in the cut, known as El Castillo. The height of this Castle is about sixty-six feet, and according to Dupaix's text the base is two hundred and twenty-one feet square, but, according to Castañeda's drawing, copied above, each side is not over seventy-five feet.[VIII-23] The foundation, or pyramid proper, is built in three stories, being about thirty-seven feet high. A broad stairway, with solid balustrade, leads up the western front. On the summit platform stands a building in three stories, with walls about eight feet thick, which, at least on the exterior, are not perpendicular but slope inward. The lower story has but one doorway, that at the head of the stairway; it forms a single hall, in the centre of which are three pillars, which sustained the beams of the floor above, pieces of the beams being yet visible. The two upper stories seem to have had no doors or windows. Dupaix says that on the summit was a platform three feet thick, yet as the roof was fallen, he probably had little or no authority for the statement. The interior of the whole structure was a rubble of stone and mortar, and the facing of hewn blocks regularly laid. The whole exterior surface, at least of the superimposed structure, was covered with a polished coating of plaster, and a peculiar ornament is seen in each side of the second story, in the form of a large panel, containing regular rows of round stones imbedded in the wall. El Castillo, if we may credit Dupaix's account of it, must be regarded as a very important monument of Nahua antiquity, by reason of the edifice, in a tolerable state of preservation, found on the summit of the pyramid. These upper structures with interior apartments have in most instances entirely disappeared. In connection with these ruins Dupaix found a coiled serpent carved from hard stone; a fragment of terra-cotta with decorations in relief; and a fancifully modeled skull, the material of which is not stated.[VIII-24]
[Sidenote: FORTRESS OF TLACOTEPEC.]
Sartorius mentions a 'castle,' with towers and teocallis, situated on a frightful cliff between two barrancas, three leagues from Huatusco, distinct from Centla, and some leagues further southward.[VIII-25] Clavigero says that in his time the ancient fortress of Quauhtochco, or Guatusco, was still standing, surrounded with lofty walls of solid stone, which could only be entered by means of many high and narrow steps.[VIII-26] Sr Iberri applies the name El Castillo to the ruins visited by him in 1826, but it is evident from his slight description that he refers to Centla.[VIII-27] It is clear that at least two and probably more groups of remains are indicated by the different authorities cited.
* * * * *
The following are mentioned as the localities of undescribed ruins, several of them belonging to what seems to be a line of ancient fortifications extending northward from the vicinity of Huatusco: Cotastla, Matlaluca, Capulapa, Tlapala, Poxtla, Xicuintla, and Chistla.[VIII-28] The fortress of Tlacotepec is located four leagues east of Jolutla, between the Rio de la Antigua and Paso de Ovejas, six thousand varas west of and a quarter of a league above the houses of the hacienda of Mirador, separated by a deep ravine from San Martin on the south--a location which might possibly be clear enough with the aid of a good map, or to a person perfectly familiar with the topography of the country. The position of the fortified plateau is similar to that of Centla, and a ditch, generally fourteen feet deep and from sixteen to eighteen feet wide, leads over the hills for several leagues to the entrance of the plateau. This ditch, however, seems only to be excavated in the earth, and disappears in several places where the solid rock is encountered.[VIII-29] At the terminus, towards the fortifications, the ditch widens into a rectangular excavation, one hundred and eight by two hundred and seventy-six feet, surrounded with an embankment formed of the earth thrown out. The defensive works which guard the passage between the ravines, and the extensive ruins of temples and dwellings on the plateau beyond, are described only by Sartorius, and his text, plan, and sketch, all fail to convey any clear notion respecting the arrangement and details of these remains. The following, however, are the principal features noted:--A wall twenty-eight feet high across the entrance to the plateau; two small towers in pyramidal form on the narrow pass; a building called the castle, apparently somewhat similar to the fortifications at Centla; a line of pyramids, serving as a second line of defense; a ditch excavated in the solid rock; another group of pyramids protected by a semicircular wall; an excavation apparently intended as a reservoir for water, covering two thousand square yards, the bottom of which is literally covered with fragments of pottery, and on the banks of which are the foundations of many dwellings; a number of temple pyramids, like the type at Centla shown in a preceding cut, one of them having the so-called blood-canal; an earthen receptacle at the foot of the altar, filled with earth, in which were found two human skulls; the foundations of an edifice two hundred yards long, having along its whole length "a corridor of cement with hewn stone at its sides, forming one or two steps;" a small pyramid formed from the living rock of the cliff, at the very edge of the precipice where the ravines meet; and finally, arrow-heads, lance-heads, and knives of obsidian, which are found at every step, and are even dug up from under the roots of large trees.[VIII-30]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: REMAINS ABOUT MIRADOR.]
A few leagues eastward from Tlacotepec on the same barranca, are two forts known as Palmillas, separated by a deep ravine. One of them was used by the Mexican forces under General Victoria in the war of independence; the other has the remains of an aqueduct which brought water from a point over a league distant.[VIII-31] At Zacuapan, near Mirador, and five leagues from Huatusco, according to Heller, are remains of the ordinary type, including terraced walls, parapets with loopholes, a plaza with plastered pavement in the centre of which stands a pyramid, a cubical structure or altar on the very verge of the precipice, and the usual scattered pottery and implements. Six miles south of Mirador the same traveler mentions some baths, on a rock near which is the inscription shown in the cut.[VIII-32] Also in the vicinity of Mirador, at the junction of two tributaries of the Santa María, is the fortress of Consoquitla, similar to the others. A line of plastered pyramidal structures is mentioned, in one of the smallest of which was a tomb three by six feet lying north and south and covered with large stone flags. Within the tomb was a skeleton, together with earthen boxes filled with arrow-heads and bird-bones. Some large idols are also said to have been found here, and on the summit platform of some of the pyramids were the marks of upright beams, which seem to have supported wooden buildings.[VIII-33] Calcahualco, 'ruined houses,' is also on one of the tributaries of the Santa María. A parapeted wall fifty-five feet long protects the entrance, and could only be crossed by the aid of ropes or ladders. The wall seems to stand in an excavation, so that its top is about on a level with the original surface of the plateau. Within the fortifications is a large pyramid surrounded by smaller ones and by the foundations of houses; and another excavation, a hundred yards long and twenty-five in width, is vaguely mentioned as of unknown use. A mile and a half further south-east are some ruins in the bottom of a ravine. A wall nine feet high rises from the water's edge, and on it stand a row of round monolithic columns, which seem to have supported a stone architrave.[VIII-34] Mr Tylor noticed some remains by the roadside, at the eastern foot of Orizava, as he was traveling towards San Antonio de Abajo.[VIII-35]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS OF MISANTLA.]
Northward from the triangular area, the remains of which I have described, ruins seem to be no less abundant, and accounts of them no less unsatisfactory. The remains known by the name of Misantla, from a modern pueblo near by, are located some twenty-five or thirty miles north-eastward of Jalapa, near the headwaters of the Rio Bobos. They are sometimes called Monte Real, from the name of one of the hills in the vicinity. They were discovered accidentally by men searching for lost goats, and visited by Mariano Jaimes in 1836; in October of the same year, I. R. Gondra, from information furnished by the discoverers and Jaimes, and from certain newspaper accounts, wrote and published a very perplexing description, illustrated with a plan and two views. In the same or the following year J. I. Iberri made an official exploration of Misantla, or Monte Real, and his report, also illustrated with many plates, and rivaling that of Gondra in its unsatisfactory nature, was published in 1844. Not only are the two accounts individually to a great extent unintelligible, but neither they nor their accompanying illustrations seem to have any well-defined resemblance to each other.[VIII-36]
The site of the ruins seems to be a ravine-bounded plateau, somewhat similar to those already described, the approach to which is guarded by a wall. This wall extends not only across the pass, but down one of the slopes, which is not so steep as to be naturally inaccessible to an enemy. According to Iberri the wall is a natural vein of porphyry, artificially cut down in some parts, and built up by the addition of blocks of stone in others, measuring three yards high and two in width. The same explorer, after passing the wall and climbing with much difficulty to a point about two hundred and fifty feet higher, found a pyramid standing on a terraced hill, on the terraces of which were various traces of houses and fortifications. The pyramid was built of porphyry and basalt in blocks of different sizes, laid in mortar, was thirty-three feet square at the base and seventeen feet high, and had a narrow stairway on one side at least. On the summit platform were traces of apartments of rough stones and mortar; also a canal nine inches square, leading to the exterior. The first wall mentioned by Gondra in the approach to the ruins, was one of large stones in poor mortar, mostly fallen; it seemed to form a part of walls that bounded a plaza of nearly circular form, in the centre of which stood the pyramid. This edifice was forty-seven by forty-one feet at the base, twenty-eight feet high, and was built in three stories; the lower story had a central stairway on the front, the second had stairways on the sides, while on the third story the steps were in the rear. There are also some traces of a stairway on the front of the second story. The whole surface is covered with trees, one of which is described as being about fourteen feet high, and over eight feet in diameter. The only resemblance in the two views of this pyramid, is the representation of a tree on the summit in each; between the two plans there is not the slightest likeness; and so far as Iberri's third figure is concerned, it seems to resemble nothing in heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. Both authors agree on the existence of many house-foundations of stone without mortar, extending the whole length of the plateau. According to Iberri these houses were eleven by twenty-two feet, some of them divided in several apartments, standing on the terraces of the hill, only a foot and a half apart, along regular streets about six feet wide. The walls are of hewn stone without mortar, and none remained standing over three feet high. Gondra represents the houses as extending in three and four straight and parallel rows for over two miles on the plateau, with a wall of masonry running the whole length on the south. At various points on the summit and slopes of the hill tombs are found, containing seated skeletons and relics of obsidian and pottery. One of these tombs, as represented by Gondra, is shown in the cut, in which the arched doorway has a very suspicious look.
The miscellaneous relics found in connection with the ruins and in the tombs include pottery, metates, slabs with sculptured grecques, hieroglyphics, and human figures in relief, stone images of different sizes up to eighteen inches, representing human figures seated with elbows on the knees, and head raised; and finally an obsidian tube, a foot in diameter and eighteen inches long, very perfectly turned, together with similar earthen tubes with interior compartments. Such is all the information I am able to glean from the published accounts and plates respecting Misantla, in the vicinity of which town other groups of ruins are very vaguely mentioned.
In the same range of mountains, in the district of Jalancingo, walls of hewn stone, with well-preserved subterranean structures containing household idols, are mentioned as existing at Mescalteco; also some remains at Pueblo Viejo and Jorse, those of the latter including a remarkable stone statue of marble. This reported relic is said to have represented a naked woman clasping a bird in her arms. The lower parts of the woman are missing, and the bird much mutilated, but the prefect of Jalancingo says in his report, "it would be easy to complete the figure into Jupiter-swan fondling Leda."[VIII-37]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS OF PAPANTLA.]
About a hundred and fifty miles north-westward from Vera Cruz, fifty miles in the same direction from the ruins of Misantla, forty-five miles from the coast, and four or five miles south-west from the pueblo of Papantla, stands the pyramid shown in the cut, known to the world by the name of the pueblo, Papantla, but called by the Totonac natives of the region, El Tajin, the 'thunderbolt.' It was accidentally discovered in March, 1785, by one Diego Ruiz, who was exploring this part of the county in an official capacity, with a view to prevent the illegal raising of tobacco; and from his report a description and copper-plate engraving were prepared and published in the Gaceta de Mexico.[VIII-38] Humboldt described but did not visit the pyramid. He states that Dupaix and Castañeda explored and made drawings of it, but neither description nor plates appear in the work of these travelers.[VIII-39] The German artist Nebel visited Papantla about 1831, and made a fine and doubtless perfectly accurate drawing, from which the cut which I have given has been copied.[VIII-40]
The pyramid stands in a dense forest, apparently not on a naturally or artificially fortified plateau like the remains further south. Its base is square, measuring a little over ninety feet on each side, and the height is about fifty-four feet; the whole structure was built in seven stories, the upper story being partially in ruins.[VIII-41] Except the upper story, which seems to have contained interior compartments, the whole structure was, so far as known, solid. The material of which it was built is sandstone, in regularly cut blocks laid in mortar--although Humboldt, perhaps on the authority of Dupaix, says the material is porphyry in immense blocks covered with hieroglyphic sculpture--the whole covered on the exterior surface with a hard cement three inches thick, which also bears traces of having been painted. According to the account in the Gaceta, the stones that form the tops of the many niches shown in the cut are from five and a half to seven feet long, four to five and a half wide, and four to nine inches thick. Respecting the stairway nothing can be said in addition to what is shown in the cut. It leads up the eastern slope, and is the only means of ascent to the summit. It is divided by solid balustrades into five divisions, only two of which extend uninterruptedly to the upper story, while the central division can hardly have been used at all as a stairway.[VIII-42]
The niches shown in my cut extend entirely round the circumference of each story, except where interrupted on the east by the stairways. Each niche is about three feet square and two feet deep, except those in the centre of the eastern front, which are smaller. Their whole number seems to have been three hundred and twenty-one, according to Nebel's plate, without including those that may have occurred on the seventh story.[VIII-43]
[Sidenote: RUINS OF MAPILCA.]
Only slight mention is made of any scattered or movable relics at Papantla. It is said that fragments of ruins are scattered over an area of half a league from the pyramid, but no exploration has been made. A small golden idol is reported by Gondra to have been found here, very like a terra-cotta image of Quetzalcoatl, from Culhuacan, of which a cut will be given in the next chapter. Bausa speaks of a stone trough found on the summit of the pyramid, ruins of houses in regular streets in the vicinity, and immense sculptured blocks of stone.
Mr Nebel also visited another locality where remains were discovered, south-eastward from Papantla towards the Tecolutla river, near the rancho of Mapilca. Here in a thick forest were several pyramids in a very advanced stage of dilapidation and not described. There were also seen immense blocks of granite scattered in the forest. The one sketched by Nebel and shown in the cut is twenty-one feet long, and covered with ornamental sculpture in low relief: it rested on a kind of pavement of irregular narrow stones. Another explorer, who saw the ruins in 1828, found the remains of twenty houses, one of them seventy paces long, with walls still standing to the height of ten feet. Most of them were only six feet high, and the small amount of débris indicated that only part of the original height was of stone.[VIII-44]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS OF TUSAPAN.]
On a low hill some forty miles west of Papantla, at the foot of the cordillera, enveloped in an almost impenetrable forest, is another group of ruins, called Tusapan, known only from the drawings and slight description of Nebel. The only structure which remains standing is shown in the cut. It consists of a pyramid thirty feet square at the base, and bearing a building in a tolerable state of preservation. Except the doorposts, lintels, and cornices, the whole structure is said to be built of irregular fragments of limestone; but if this be true, it is evident from the drawing that the whole was covered with a smooth coat of plaster. The building on the summit contains a single apartment twelve feet square, with a door at the head of the stairway. The apartment contains a block, or pedestal, which may have served for an altar, or to support an idol; and it has a pointed ceiling similar in form to the exterior. It is unfortunate that we have no further details respecting this ceiling, since it would be interesting to know if it was formed by overlapping stones as in the Maya ruins, particularly as this is one of the very few remaining specimens of the aboriginal arch in Nahua territory. From the large number of stone blocks and other débris found in the vicinity it is supposed that the pyramid represented in the cut was not the grandest at Tusapan. Several filled-up wells, and numerous fragments of stone images of human and animal forms much mutilated were also noticed.
The water which supplied the aboriginal inhabitants of the place, seems to have come from a spring located on the side of a precipitous mountain; and at the base of the cliff, where the water reached the plain, was the very remarkable fountain shown in the cut, artificially shaped from the living rock. The cut is an exact fac-simile of Nebel's plate, except that the surroundings, which add much to its interest, are necessarily omitted. I quote Nebel's brief description in full. "Among the ruins of Tusapan is found the grotesque fountain here represented. The whole monument consists of a statue nineteen feet high, sculptured in the living rock. The clothing indicates clearly a woman, seated, resting her head on the left arm, which is supported by her knee. The head seems to be adorned with feathers and precious stones. Among the plumes behind is a hollow intended to receive the waters of a neighboring spring (which no longer exists). The water ran through the whole figure and out under the petticoats in the most natural manner, whence it was conducted in a canal of hewn stone to the town near by."[VIII-45]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS OF METLALTOYUCA.]
The Mesa de Metlaltoyuca is on the Tuxpan River, about twelve leagues south-west from the port of Tuxpan, twenty-two leagues north-east of Tulancingo, and probably in the state of Vera Cruz, although very near the boundary. The table-land is very extensive, and is covered throughout most of its extent by a thick forest. Juan B. Campo, Sub-Prefect of Huauchinango, discovered a group of ruins here, and gave a description of his discoveries in a report dated June 27, 1865.[VIII-46] His account is very general, alluding to the ruins of a great city, whose streets were paved with polished stones, a fine stone palace plastered and painted, all surrounded by a wall fifteen feet thick and ten feet high, with a great gate, covered way, stone bastions, etc., etc. Immediately after the publication of Campo's report, Ramon Almaraz, chief of a Mexican scientific commission, engaged with other engineers in surveying for a road in this region, spent five days in the exploration of the ruined city, preparing plans and other drawings, and also taking some photographic views. His report, very far from being full and satisfactory, illustrated with several plates, was published in the government reports for the year mentioned.[VIII-47]
The name, Metlaltoyuca, according to Galicia Chimalpopoca, signifies 'place fortified with solid stones,' but Sr Linares attributes to the word a different derivation, and makes it mean 'land of the maguey.'[VIII-48] Almaraz says: "A succinct account of the ruins might be given by saying that they consist of pyramids built of hewn blocks of sandstone, partially covered with a good hydraulic cement, as will be seen by the chemical analysis which will be given,[VIII-49] and of some tumuli, and remains of edifices of slight elevation." The arrangement of the remains is shown in the plan; only a few of the structures indicated on the plan are mentioned in the description, and of those few very little is said. The space covered by the ruins is in rectangular form, about two hundred and fifty by five hundred yards, and is located in the south-western portion of the mesa. The chief structure, a of the plan, stands at the north-west corner, and its northern and western walls, four hundred and eighty-five and one hundred and ninety-four feet respectively, meet at an angle of 87° 30´; on the other sides the walls are irregular, forming many angles, and in the interior there are walls which divided the enclosed area into several compartments. There are, according to the text, traces of walls, in some places five or six feet high, extending from the ends of the main structure and inclosing the other works, but not shown in the plan. Some steps and also water-tanks were found in connection with the corner walls. Campo also found two doors blocked up with stone slabs. There are several truncated pyramids, the largest of which, at b, is thirty-six feet high, and one hundred and thirty-one feet square at the base. It is built in six stories, and has traces of the buildings which formerly occupied its summit. All the structures are built of brick-shaped blocks of sandstone, very nicely cut, and laid in mud.[VIII-50] On the surface of the cement, which covers all the buildings to a thickness of over an inch, painted figures are seen.
A remarkable feature at Metlaltoyuca is the existence of the parallel mounds at c, of the plan. As nearly as can be ascertained from the drawings and text, they are about one hundred and forty feet long, twenty feet wide, and ten or twelve feet high. The interior is filled with loose stones and earth, and the surface is covered with somewhat irregular brick-shaped blocks, laid in mud or clay, and apparently covered with cement. The cut shows a transverse section of one of the mounds, and indicates a near approach to the principle of the regular key-stone arch, although as the interior was filled to the top, there is no evidence that the arch was intentionally self-supporting. Some traces of hieroglyphic paintings were found on the mortar which covered a part of these mounds.[VIII-51]
Something over two miles north-west of the ruins described, at the only point where the mesa is accessible on the northern side, is a double stone wall guarding the passage. The outer wall is three or four hundred yards long, thirteen feet high, and fifty feet thick at the base, diminishing towards the top. The inner wall is of smaller dimensions. The same system of defensive works is repeated on the opposite side of the mesa. The only movable relics found were, the figure of a female bearing a sculptured cross, a representation of a mummy closely wrapped as if for burial and having features of a different type from those ordinarily found in Aztec idols, and the form of a man with arms crossed and legs bent, sculptured on a slab, all of the same sandstone of which the buildings were constructed. According to Campo, another smaller group of remains has been seen farther south, towards the Mesa de Amistlan. Two idols of porous basalt and numerous arrow-heads of obsidian are reported at Guautla, twenty-five or thirty miles north-west of Metlaltoyuca.[VIII-52]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RELICS AT PÁNUCO]
In the northern extremity of the state, in the region about Pánuco, small relics are said to be very abundant. A list of thirty specimens collected by Mr Francis Vecelli during a survey of the Pánuco River, some of them doubtless belonging to the state of Tamaulipas, across the river, is given by Mr Vetch in the Journal of the London Geographical Society. They are mostly of limestone and represent human figures, for the most part females, rudely sculptured and wearing peculiar head-dresses. The foreheads are represented as high and broad, the lips thick, and the cheek-bones high. The sculpture is rude, and nearly every one of the images has a long unshaped base or tenon, as if intended to be fixed in a wall. A front and rear view of one of these images are shown in the cut.[VIII-53] In the town itself, idols, heads, obsidian arrow-heads, and fragments of ancient pottery, some of it glazed, are often washed out by the heavy rains. Mr Lyon speaks of "several curious ancient toys and whistles, with one small terra cotta vase very beautifully carved with those peculiar flourishes introduced in the Mexican manuscripts," also "an antique flute of a very compact red clay, which had once been polished and painted. It had four holes, and the mouth part was in the form of a grotesque head." Flutes occur both single and double, with two, three, and four holes. Earthen representations of birds, toads, and other animals are frequently found either whole or in fragments. West of the town five or six mounds from thirty to forty feet high are vaguely mentioned.[VIII-54] Buried in the ground in a ravine near the town, and resting on the stone walls of a dilapidated sepulchre, Mr Norman claims to have found a stone slab seven feet long, wider at one end than the other, but two feet and a half in average width, one foot thick, and bearing on one side the sculptured figure of a man. Dressed in a flowing robe, with girdle, sandal-ties on his feet, and a close-fitting cap on his head, he lies with crossed arms. The face is Caucasian in feature, and the work is very perfectly executed. For the authenticity of so remarkable a relic Mr Norman is hardly a sufficient authority. Two small images, probably of terra cotta, were presented by Mr Norman to the New York Historical Society.[VIII-55]
At the Calondras Rancho, some twenty-five miles from Pánuco, a large oven-like chamber is reported on the slope of a hill, which contains large flat stones used for grinding maize. The ruins at Chacuaco, three leagues south of the town, are said to cover about three square leagues. Mr Norman also gives cuts of two clay vases from the same locality, one of them having a negro face, very likely of modern origin. San Nicolas, five leagues, and Trinidad six leagues south-west of Pánuco, are other places where ruins are reported to exist.[VIII-56]
FOOTNOTES:
[VIII-1] Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. ii., p. 32; Mexikanische Zustände, tom. i., p. 31.
[VIII-2] Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 292-7, tom. iii., pp. 104-9, with two plates representing the colossal head, and several other relics from some locality not mentioned.
[VIII-3] Ottavio, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1833, tom. lix., p. 64.
[VIII-4] Waldeck, Palenqué, pl. xlix.; Tylor's Anahuac, pp. 230-1.
[VIII-5] Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., p. 35.
[VIII-6] Mayer's Mex. as it Was, pp. 93-7; Id., Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. ii., p. 272, with 3 cuts; Id., in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 588, pl. vi., fig. 5, 6, 8, 11, 12; Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 82-4, pl. xv., plate of a vase.
[VIII-7] Sartorius, Fortificaciones Antiguas, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 818-27.
[VIII-8] Finck, in Smithsonian Rept., 1870, pp. 373-5. Mr Tylor, in traveling northward towards Jalapa, speaks of 'numerous remains of ancient Indian mound-forts or temples which we passed on the road.' Anahuac, p. 312.
[VIII-9] Brasseur de Bourbourg, Palenqué, p. 33. 'Chalchiuhcuecan, ou le pays des coquilles vertes. On voit encore des débris de la ville de ce nom, sous les eaux qui s'étendent de la ville de la Véra Cruz au château de San-Juan-de-Ulloa.' Id., Hist. Nat. Civ., tom. i., p. 143. Ruins of the ordinary type are reported outside the triangular area, in the Sierra de Matlaquiahuitl or del Gallego, running south from the Rio Jamapa to San Juan de la Punta. Sartorius, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 820.
[VIII-10] Dupaix, 1st exped., pp. 7-8, pl. viii., fig. 8; Kingsborough, vol. v., p. 214, vol. vi., p. 425, vol. iv., pl. iv., fig. 10; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., p. 28. Kingsborough's text represents this relic as 16 leagues from Orizava instead of Córdova.
[VIII-11] Dupaix, 1st exped., p. 7, pl. vi., vii., fig. 6, 7; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 213-14, vol. vi., pp. 424-5, vol. iv., pl. iv., fig. 8, 9; Lenoir, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., div. i., pp. 22, 27-8.
[VIII-12] Dupaix, 1st exped., p. 5, pl. iv-v., fig. 4-5; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 212-13, vol. vi., pp. 423-4; vol. iv., pl. iii., fig. 6-7; Lenoir, pp. 18, 22, 26-7.
[VIII-13] Historia de Jalapa, Mex. 1869, tom. i., p. 7.
[VIII-14] Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii., p. 453.
[VIII-15] Note in Cortés, Despatches, p. 39; Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, Mex., 1869, tom. i., p. 39. Cempoala is located on some maps on the coast a few leagues north of Vera Cruz; there is also a town of the name in Mexico.
[VIII-16] Esteva, in Museo Mex., tom. ii., pp. 465-7, with plan and view. Respecting the circumference of the structure, Esteva's text says: 'la media circunferencia de la base, tomada desde el escalon ó cuerpo A. B. C., (letters which do not appear in his plate) pues mas abajo no se podia tomar con esactitud, es de ciento cincuenta y seis piés castellanos.' I have taken the circumference from the plan. The material Esteva states to be 'cal, arena, y piedras grandes del rio,' but the view indicates that hewn stone is employed, or at least that the whole structure is covered with a smooth coating of cement in perfect preservation. Esteva's account is also published in the Diccionario Univ. de Geog., tom. x., pp. 166-8, and a slight description from the same source in Mayer's Mex. Aztec, etc., vol. ii., pp. 203-4.
[VIII-17] Lyon's Journal, vol. ii., p. 209; Sartorius, in _Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin_, 2da época, tom. i., p. 826. Mühlenpfordt, Mej., tom. ii., p. 89, also mentions the Paso de Ovejas remains.
[VIII-18] Iberri, in Museo Mex., tom. iii., p. 23. Gondra's account in Mosaico Mex., tom. ii., pp. 368-72, with two views and a plan. Sartorius' description in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 821-2, tom. ii., p. 148, with two views apparently the same as by Gondra, an additional side and front view of a pyramid, and a plan which bears no likeness to Gondra's, representing perhaps a different part of the ruins. According to this author the ruins were first made known in 1829 or 1830. The two accounts are very perplexing to the student, sometimes resembling each other so closely that one is ready to believe that Sartorius was the explorer from whom Gondra obtained his information and drawings, in other parts so different as to indicate that different ruins are referred to. I am inclined to believe that Gondra's information did in part refer to some other ruin in the same region. Gondra's account is also printed in Diccionario Univ. Geog., tom. ix., pp. 565-8. Brief mention in Rivera, Hist. Jalapa, Mex. 1869, tom. i., pp. 389-90.
[VIII-19] Respecting the first narrow pass, the oval table, and the ditch, Sartorius says nothing. He mentions such a ditch, however, in connection with the ruins of Tlacotepec, as we shall see. It is quite possible that the features mentioned do not belong to Centla at all.
[VIII-20] 10 varas according to Sartorius; Gondra says 15.
[VIII-21] Copied from Sartorius, with the addition of the shading only.
[VIII-22] The views given by Gondra and Sartorius are of the pyramid A, from the east, and of the terrace walls at B, from the west. The latter also gives a view of the small pyramid b, from the north. The plan given by Gondra bears no resemblance to the other. It may represent ruins in other parts of the plateau; it may be a faulty representation made up from the explorer's description of the works that have been described; or, what is, I think, more probable, it may refer to some other group of ruins in the vicinity. It represents a collection of pyramids and buildings, bounded on both the east and west by walls, one of which has an entrance close to the brink of the precipice, while the other had no opening till one was made by the modern settlers.
[VIII-23] 'Ochenta varas en cuadro.' Perhaps it should read feet instead of varas. The plate makes the front slightly over 24 varas.
[VIII-24] Dupaix, 1st exped., pp. 8-9, pl. ix-xi., fig. 9-12; Kingsborough, vol. v., pp. 215-16, vol. vi., pp. 425-6, vol. iv., pl. v-vi., fig. 11-15. The skull is mentioned and sketched only in Kingsborough's edition. Lenoir, pp. 23, 29. Slight mention of these ruins from Dupaix, in Mosaico Mex., tom. ii., pp. 373-4; Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte, tom. v., p. 157; Warden, in Antiq. Mex., tom. ii., pp. 67-8.
[VIII-25] Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 821.
[VIII-26] Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. ii., p. 150; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., p. 104.
[VIII-27] Museo Mex., tom. iii., p. 23.
[VIII-28] Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 822; Mosaico Mex., tom. ii., pp. 368, 372; Smithsonian Rept., 1870, p. 374.
[VIII-29] This may possibly be the ditch referred to by Gondra in his account of Centla.
[VIII-30] Sartorius, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 822-4, with plan and view, the latter giving no information.
[VIII-31] Id., p. 824.
[VIII-32] Heller, Reisen, pp. 61, 72-3, 76-7, with cut.
[VIII-33] Sartorius, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., pp. 825-6.
[VIII-34] Id., pp. 821, 824-5, with a sketch which amounts to nothing.
[VIII-35] Anahuac, p. 297.
[VIII-36] Mosaico Mex., tom. i., pp. 102-5. Gondra's account of the location is as follows: 'En la serranía al Norte de Jalapa, y distante de aquella ciudad de diez á once leguas, se encuentra en el canton de Misantla el cerro llamado del Estillero, á cuya falda se descubre una montaña terminada por una meseta muy angosta, de cerca de legua y media de largo, y aislada por barrancos profundos y acantilados, y por despeñaderos inaccessibles; rodeada por los cerros del Estillero, Magdalenilla, el Chamuscado, el Camaron y el Conejo por la parte del Oeste; por el Monte Real ácia el Este, y lo restante por la elevada cuesta de Misantla.... La única parte algo accesible para subir á la meseta de la montaña donde se hallan las ruinas, está ácia la falda del Estillero.... Al comenzar la meseta, bajando por la falda del cerro del Estillero, lo primero que se observa es un paredon demolido hecho de gruesas piedras,' etc. Gondra's account was reprinted in the Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. ii., p. 220-3. Iberri's account is found in the Museo Mex., tom. iii., pp. 21-4. Respecting the location he says:--'El cerro conocido de la Magdalena, degradando su altura en picos porfiríticos que afectan figuras cónicas ó piramidales, ... forma un grupo de montañas sumamente escabrosas, que se dividen como rádios en ramas estrechadas por barrancas profundas y escarpadas de pórfido.... En una de estas ramas se hallan las referidas ruinas, cuya entrada está cerrada por un muro,' etc. Account made up from Gondra, with cut probably from same source in Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 200-3; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 250-1. Slight mention by Mühlenpfordt, Mej., tom. ii., p. 88, who thinks the ruin may be identical with that of Tusapan. Same account in Mexicanische Zustände, tom. i., p. 142.
[VIII-37] Mühlenpfordt, Mej., tom. ii., pp. 88-9; Mexikanische Zustände, tom. i., pp. 142-3.
[VIII-38] Gaceta de Mexico, July 12, 1785, tom. i., pp. 349-51. Location 'por el rumbo del Poniente de este pueblo, á dos leguas de distancia, entre un espeso bosque.' This original account was printed later in Diccionario Univ. Geog., tom. x., pp. 120-1; it was also translated into Italian, and printed in Marquez, Due Antichi Monumenti, Rome, 1804, p. 3, also accompanied by the plate.
[VIII-39] Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 102-3; Id., Essai Pol., p. 274; Id., in Antiq. Mex., tom. i., div. ii., p. 12. Humboldt's account translated by Gondra, in Prescott, Hist. Conq. Mex., tom. iii., pp. 39-40, says it is the forest that is called Tajin, that the ruin was discovered by hunters, and pronounces the plate in the Gaceta very faulty.
[VIII-40] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco. The drawing is geometric rather than in perspective, and the author's descriptive text in a few details fails to agree exactly with it. José M. Bausa gives a slight description in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., p. 411, without stating the source of his information. He locates the ruin 2½ leagues south-west of the pueblo. This author states that Carlos M. Bustamante published a good account of the ruin in 1828, in his Revoltijo de Nopalitos. Other accounts of Papantla made up from the preceding sources, are as follows:--Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 196-7, with cut after Nebel; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 248-9; Id., in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. vi., p. 583, pl. xi.; Baldwin's Anc. Amer., pp. 91-2; Conder's Mex. Guat., tom. i., p. 227; Fossey, Mex., pp. 317-18; Hassel, Mex. Guat., pp. 238-9; Larenaudière, Mex. Guat., p. 45; De Bercy, Travels, tom. ii., p. 237; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 79-80; Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. ii., p. 88; Mexicanische Zustände, p. 142; Bingley's Trav., pp. 259-60; Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transact., vol. i., p. 256; Armin, Heutige Mex., pp. 96-7, with cut; Malte-Brun, Précis de la Géog., tom. vi., p. 462; Müller, Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 459; Priest's Amer. Antiq., pp. 276-8; Wappäus, Geog. u. Stat., p. 154; Wilson's Mex. and its Religion, pp. 246-7.
[VIII-41] The dimensions in Nebel's text are, 120 feet square and 85 feet high, which must be an error, since the author says that the stairway in the plate may be used as a scale, each step being a foot; and measuring the structure by that scale it would be something over 90 feet square at the base and about 54 feet high. The Gaceta says that the base is 30 varas (83 English feet) square, and the steps in sight were 57 in number. Humboldt calls the pyramid 25 mètres (82 feet) square and 18 mètres (59 feet) high, or, in Essai Pol., 16 to 20 mètres. Bausa, Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., p. 411, calls the height 93 feet, with 53 steps.
[VIII-42] Bausa says the pyramid faces the north. The Gaceta account represents the stairway as 10 or 12 varas wide. The plate represents the lateral narrow stairways as single instead of double, and the niches as not extending entirely across the wide central stairway. Only six stories are shown in the plate, terminating in a summit platform on which stand two small altar-like structures at the head of the lateral stairways. Nebel speaks simply of a 'double stairway.' Humboldt agrees with the plate in the Gaceta.
[VIII-43] The Gaceta's text says 342, but its own figures correctly added make the number 378 as is pointed out by Marquez; and the plate accompanying the same account makes the number 309. Fossey says 360 niches. Humboldt made the number 378, which he supposed to relate to the signs of the Toltec civil calendar.
[VIII-44] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco; Cassel, in Nouvelles Annales des Voy., 1830, tom. xlv., pp. 336-7; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., p. 198; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 246-7.
[VIII-45] Nebel, Viage Pintoresco; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, vol. ii., pp. 199-200; Id., Mex. as it Was, pp. 247-8; Armin, Alte Mex., p. 43; Bausa, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, tom. v., pp. 411-12, locates Tusapan 14 leagues south-west of Papantla.
[VIII-46] The original of this report I have not seen; a translation, however, was published in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, of Feb. 20, 1866.
[VIII-47] Mex., Mem. del Ministro del Fomento, 1865, p. 234, etc. It was also published in a separate pamphlet. Almaraz, Mem. acerca de los Terrenos de Metlaltoyuca, pp. 28-33. Mention by García y Cubas, a companion of Almaraz, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2da época, tom. i., p. 37.
[VIII-48] Chimalpopoca, in Almaraz, Mem., p. 28; Linares, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 3ra época, tom. i., p. 103.
[VIII-49] The analysis is as follows:--quartzy sand, 31.00; silex, 13.00; aluminia and iron, 2.60; carbonate of lime, 48.00; magnesia, 2.50; moisture, 2.00; loss, 0.90. Almaraz, Mem., p. 30.
[VIII-50] 'De las dimensiones que usan hoy para hacer los árboles de tierra.' I am unable to say what such dimensions amount to in English measurement.
[VIII-51] A plate showing these paintings is given by Almaraz.
[VIII-52] Burkart, Mexiko, tom. i., p. 51.
[VIII-53] Vetch, in Lond. Geog. Soc., Jour., vol. vii., pp. 1-11, with plate.
[VIII-54] Lyon's Journal, vol. i., pp. 57-61.
[VIII-55] Norman's Rambles by Land and Water, pp. 145-51, 164; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, tom. i., pp. 193-6.
[VIII-56] Lyon's Journal, vol. i., pp. 61-2; Norman's Rambles, pp. 149-50. Slight mention of relics in this region, in Mühlenpfordt, Mejico, tom. ii., p. 72; Bradford's Amer. Antiq., pp. 112-13.