Part 11 (1/2)
The way by which we descended was a narrow road carried zigzag down the cliff--for the pa.s.s by which we had entered the valley was fully six hundred feet above the level of the lake--and at short intervals along its course this road was defended by walls of very solid masonry, pierced with openings so narrow that only one man at a time could pa.s.s through them. That the walls were for defence was shown by the piles of metal bars on the inner side of each opening--the side towards the mountain--so arranged that in a moment they could be slipped into sockets in the stone-work, thus closing effectually the way.
Perceiving that we regarded with surprise this curious system of fortification, Tizoc explained: ”These are the barriers set up against the Tlahuicos, who, heeding not the order given of old by our lord Chaltzantzin, have striven many times to break forth from the valley--for among these men there are many of perverse natures and evil minds.”
In _tlahuico_ I recognized a Nahua word that means ”men turned towards the earth,” but what its meaning might be in the sense in which Tizoc employed it I did not know. I should have asked for further explanation--for the manner of this man was so frank and so friendly that it invited a cordial familiarity--but as I was about to speak we pa.s.sed through the narrow opening in a wall of unusual height and strength, and so came into a charming garden, in the midst of which stood a large house well built of stone. For the making of this garden a natural nook on the side of the mountain had been enlarged by filling in along its outer edge against a great retaining-wall, built up from a depth of a hundred feet from the slope below; and on the farther side of the plateau thus created, where the path down into the valley went on again, were heavy defensive walls. Near this exit, also, was a long low building that I took to be a guard-house.
The crowd that had followed behind us from the height above went on across the plateau, and out through the gate beside the guard-house--its members casting many curious looks at us as they departed--and the guardsmen who had formed our escort, at an order from Tizoc, went on to their quarters. But Tizoc led us across the garden to the large house that stood in the midst of it, and there, with a formal courtesy, bade us enter. This was his home, he said, and we were his welcome guests.
The house was so like the houses ordinarily found in Mexico that we had no feeling of strangeness in entering it. It was built of stone neatly laid in cement; was but a single story in height, and enclosed a large central court, in the midst of which a fountain sparkled, surrounded by small trees and shrubs and beds of flowers. All of the rooms opened upon this central court, and in the outer wall the only opening was the narrow way by which we had entered--for the prompt closing of which there lay in readiness a pile of metal bars. The flat roof, also of stone, was reached by a stone stair-way from the court, and had about it a heavy stone parapet that was pierced with narrow slits through which javelins and arrows could be discharged. But these arrangements for defence did not by any means produce a gloomy effect, as they would had we encountered them in a country-house in our own part of the world--for similar defence arrangements are found in every hacienda in Mexico at the present day, and even I, though my stay in the country had been so short, already had become accustomed to them.
A buzzing chatter of talk, in which women's voices predominated, ceased suddenly as we entered the court; and from the swaying and twitching of the curtains hanging in the front of the openings leading into several of the rooms, we inferred that we were undergoing a keen inspection. In response to a call from Tizoc, some men-servants came out from one of the rooms and received his order to prepare food for us; and he then led us to a large room in a corner of the court that was arranged very delightfully as a bath. Here was a great stone tank, twenty feet or so square, and with a slanting bottom, so that the depth of it ranged from two feet to nearly five, in which was fresh running water; and over the portion of the room that the tank occupied there was no roof but the bright blue sky. On the stone floor were beautifully woven mats, and towels of cotton cloth hung upon pegs driven into the walls, and in earthen bowls were fresh pieces of a saponaceous root that I have seen the like of in use among the Indians of New Mexico. It seemed to strike Tizoc as odd that we preferred to make use of the bath successively rather than all together; but he was too polite a man to interpose any objections to our eccentricities. Pablo only--coming last of all of us--had a companion in his bathing in the person of El Sabio; and the sleekness of that excellent animal, when Pablo had brushed carefully his long coat when his bath was ended, was a wonder to behold.
Being thus refreshed, we heartily welcomed the excellent meal that was served to us in the cool shade of the veranda by which the court-yard was surrounded. Our eating was somewhat in the Roman fas.h.i.+on, for the table was a broad slab of stone, raised but a little from the ground, and around it we reclined upon mats, with cus.h.i.+ons woven of rushes to lean upon. The food was excellent--a small animal of the deer species, but no larger than a hare, roasted whole; birds very like quails, delicately broiled; little cakes made of maize, which were rather like the hoe-cakes of our Southern negroes than _tortillas_; some sort of sweet marmalade; and a great abundance of oranges, mangoes, bananas, and other fruits common to the hot lands of Mexico; all of which fruits were much more delicate in flavor than Mexican fruits usually are; the result, as we found later, of the great care bestowed upon their culture. Only water was served with the meal, but at the end of it a small jar of some sort of potent liquor was brought, very cool, and with an excellent spicy taste, that Tizoc warned us must be taken but sparingly; and truly he was right, as I found from the warm and mellow feeling of benevolent friendliness that but half a cup of it infused into me. Tizoc himself did not follow very rigidly the advice that he had given us; and to this fact, probably, was due the exceeding frankness with which he subsequently spoke with us concerning grave matters, of which he surely would have been reticent had he been in a less genial mood.
”Just ask th' Colonel if he minds my smokin' a pipe, won't you, Professor?” Young said, when our meal was ended; and as I myself wanted to smoke, and as I was sure that Rayburn did also, I made the request general. Tizoc, to my surprise--for I believed smoking to be common to all the indigenous races--evidently did not at all understand my meaning; but perceiving that I asked to have some favor granted, he courteously gave the permission that I desired. As we filled our pipes he watched us curiously; but when we drew out our matches and struck fire by what seemed to him but the turn of our hands, he started to his feet and manifested a strange excitement, in which there seemed to be less of alarm than of awe. His voice shook, and his whole person trembled, as he asked, ”Are ye the children of Chac-Mool, the G.o.d of Fire, and therefore the chosen servants of Huitzilopochtli the Terrible, that ye thus can do what among us is done only by our Priest Captain Itzacoatl?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STRIKING OF A MATCH]
Both Fray Antonio and I heard with delight this utterance, that in a moment settled the long-disputed question as to whether or not Chac-Mool was an idol, and settled it, also, in favor of the ingenious hypothesis presented by the learned Senor Chavero. The moment was not a favorable one, however, for pursuing the matter in its archaeological bearings, for all of our tact and skill just then were required to restore Tizoc to calmness. As well as this was possible in the language common to us--we suddenly realized how difficult it was to express in the Nahua tongue more than rudimentary concepts of the ideas that we sought to convey--we explained to him how matches were made; and ill.u.s.trated our words by showing him how fire was induced by friction, even as the rubbing of two pieces of wood together produced fire also. This explanation was less exact than ingenious; but it was one that he could understand, and it had the effect of allaying his alarm sufficiently to permit him to resume his seat, when he at once drank off a whole bowlful of the strong, spicy liquor at a draught. Added to what he already had inside of him, this draught set his tongue to wagging in the free way that I have already referred to, and he grew bold enough to take a match in his hand. But even in his cups he manifested a certain reverence in his handling of it; and presently, from a little bag that was hung about his neck, he produced the burnt remnant of a match that he compared with it critically. ”They are the same?” he asked, as he extended the whole match and the fragment together towards us that we might examine them.
”They are the same,” Fray Antonio answered. ”Whence comes the one that you guard so carefully?”
”From the Priest Captain--from Itzacoatl. With such things does he miraculously set burning the fire of sacrifice; but he does not speak of them lightly, as you do; he tells us that they are the handiwork of the Fire G.o.d, Chac-Mool; and when the fire of sacrifice is kindled he gives what remains of them as high rewards to those who have served well the State by brave acts or honorable deeds. This which I cherish was my reward for crus.h.i.+ng a revolt among the Tlahuicos.”
Fray Antonio and I exchanged curious glances, for the conviction was forced upon us both that the Priest Captain of whom Tizoc spoke must either have invented friction matches, or that he must have some secret channel of communication with the outside world. In either case it was evident that he must be a man of unusual shrewdness; and it also was evident that his feeling towards us--since we also could perform a miracle that he obviously made use of as a means of manifesting his divine right to rule--must be that of strong hostility.
To Rayburn and Young, who had observed wonderingly Tizoc's extraordinary conduct, I rapidly translated what he had said; and explained how serious our situation appeared in the light of this new development.
”Well, it certainly _is_ cold weather for this Priest Captain fellow,”
Young commented, ”if we've got hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you're about right, Professor--he'll want t' take it out of our hides.
Just poke up th' Colonel t' telling all he knows about this old dodger.
Th' Colonel's got his tongue pretty well greased just now with his own prime old Bourbon--pa.s.s me that jar, Rayburn, I don't mind if I have another whack at it myself--and we may get something out of him that will be useful. Try it on, Professor, any way. Here's luck, gentlemen.”
That Young's tongue also was a little greased, as he put it, by this very agreeable beverage was quite evident; but his wits were sharpened rather than dulled by the drink, and his present suggestion evidently was a very good one. As for Tizoc, his disposition towards us obviously was most soft and friendly; and as his mind slowly absorbed the fact that, somehow or another, the Priest Captain had made a fool of him with a miracle that was not really a miracle at all, his choler rose in a manner most favorable to our purposes. Yet this very feeling of resentful anger--showing a growing irreverence of one to whom all the traditions of his people gave reverence second only to that due to the G.o.ds themselves--was startling evidence of the menace that our presence was to the theocratic ruler's temporal and spiritual power. Therefore it was with a keen curiosity that we listened--and Tizoc needed, to induce him to talk freely, but little of the poking-up that Young had suggested--to what was told us concerning the strange people among whom we had come by ways so perilous, and of their chieftain, the Priest Captain Itzacoatl--with whom, as no spirit of prophecy was needed to tell us, we were destined soon to engage in a conflict that must be fought out to the very death.
XIX.
THE SEEDS OF REVOLT.
For the sake of brevity I shall summarize here the statement that Tizoc made to us, and for the sake of clearness I shall add to it some facts of minor importance which came to our knowledge later--thus at once exhibiting the whole of the troublous condition of affairs that stirred dangerously the people dwelling in the Valley of Aztlan at the time of our coming among them.
At this period the political situation, as I may term it, was exceedingly critical. Three powerful factions were in existence; and peace was preserved only by the generally diffused belief that open revolt, on the part of either one, would be crushed instantly by a temporary coalition of the other two. The beginning of this unpleasantly volcanic condition of affairs dated back six cycles--that is to say, a little more than three hundred years--and was the direct result of a violation of the law set forth by the wise King Chaltzantzin when the colony was founded, by which it was ordained that all among the Aztlanecas who, on coming to maturity, were weaklings or cripples, should be put to death.
Being once suggested, the repeal or the modification of this law found many advocates. Naturally, the change was urged most strongly by all those whose sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so were doomed to die in the very blossom of their years. It was urged by the n.o.bles because the more astute among them perceived the possibility of so manipulating it that it would result in the creation of a distinctively servile cla.s.s; and the priests urged it because they also perceived a way by which it might be made to provide more victims for sacrifice to the G.o.ds. And so it came to pa.s.s, through the influence of these diverse elements operating together towards a common end, that the law which Chaltzantzin had promulgated was set aside, and a law was made that embodied the provisions demanded by the n.o.bles and the priests, whereby should be created a new social cla.s.s; which cla.s.s, because of the infirmities of those composing it, received the name of Tlahuicos--”men turned towards the earth.” Thereafter, the sickly and the crippled were not slain upon reaching maturity, but then pa.s.sed out from the cla.s.s into which they were born and became servitors. And when the first cycle was ended after the making of this new law, and thenceforward every year, one in every ten among the Tlahuicos was taken by lot to be sacrificed to the G.o.ds--for the priests craftily had gained the barbarous concession that they demanded by placing the first fulfilment of it at a time so far in the future that all concerned in the granting of it would be dead in the course of nature before it became operative. Yet to the end that those of n.o.ble birth might be saved from the ignominy of servitude, it was provided that children which by reason of natural infirmity were doomed to become slaves, might be saved from that fate upon coming to maturity by being then surrendered by their parents to the priests for sacrifice. Other grace there was none. Excepting between death and slavery, there was no choice for the weak or the malformed.
As time pa.s.sed on, the Tlahuicos, marrying among themselves, had greatly increased in numbers; and so far from remaining a weakling race, the had become, by reason of their frugal mode of living and of the wholesome, hearty labor in which they constantly were engaged, exceptionally hale and strong; the weak and crippled among them being mainly those who each year, because of such infirmities, were added to their number from the higher ranks of the community. And thus was collected together material as dangerous as it was inflammable; for the fresh additions to the Tlahuicos kept constantly alive in the whole body a spirit of moody discontent, that time and again, at the season when the lots were cast by which one in every ten was doomed to death, was fanned into armed mutiny. These revolts ever had as their single object escape from the valley; which fact made evident enough the need for the elaborate system of defensive works by which the outlet of the valley was barred.
From the Tlahuicos were drawn the house-servants of the rich; and by those of this wretched cla.s.s who were stout of body all the heavy labor of the community was carried on--the tilling of the fields, the quarrying of stone, the building of houses and bridges and roads, the felling of timber, the carriage of all burdens, and the working of the great gold-mine, concerning which I shall hereafter have more to tell.
And all of these people were held in absolute bondage, either as the serfs of individual owners or as the property of the State; for each year the new accessions to the cla.s.s were sold publicly at an auction to whoever would bid the most for them; and those which none would buy, being too infirm to be useful as laborers, the State laid claim to--but only that they might be kept alive until such time as they should be needed by the priests for sacrifice.