The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical SystemsNuttall, Zelia
Religion
The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations: A Comparative Research Based on a Study of the Ancient Mexican Religious, Sociological, and Calendrical Systems
After considering the foregoing data it seems impossible not to conclude
that it must have taken centuries of time for the idea of duality, or of
the Above and Below to have taken such a deep hold upon the native mind
and to have produced such a growth of symbolism and association in so many
ramifications of thought. Let us endeavor to obtain a further insight into
the native mode of thought by carefully studying some significant details
concerning the social organization of the Mexicans from the time of
Acamapichtli to that of Montezuma and the influences it had been subjected
to gradually. This, the first ruler, unquestionably ruled as the
Cihuacoatl, a name which means either Woman-serpent or Female-twin. This
fact in itself testifies to an epoch-making change in the organization of
the Mexican government, in the making of which a concession was made to a
previously existing order of things, by the retention of the female title
by a male ruler.
Having carefully studied the question for many years, I have long
considered it proven that when the Mexicans settled in the valley of
Mexico they came under a series of influences emanating from an ancient
and highly cultured centre of civilization situated in the south, which
had followed, during untold centuries, the same lines of primitive thought
which have been stated. This question of contact and influence from an
older civilization is so important and the material I have collected on
the subject is so extensive and complex, that it cannot be adequately
treated here. Further on I shall discuss at length certain historical data
throwing light on ancient contact and influences. Meanwhile I may as well
state here that, having carefully weighed all testimony, I accept as amply
proven and well supported, the testimony of Las Casas, Torquemada,
Mendieta and others, who record that the Mexican culture-hero Quetzalcoatl
was an actual person who had come to Mexico from Yucatan twice and had
finally returned thither, leaving a small colony of his vassals behind him
whose influence upon the religious and social organization and symbolism
of the tribes, inhabiting the central plateau, can be plainly discerned.
Montezuma himself, in his famous speech to Cortés, which the latter
carefully reported to the Emperor Charles V, states that: “we [the Mexican
rulers] were brought here by a lord, whose vassals all of our predecessors
were, and who returned from here to his native land. He afterwards came
here again, after a long time, during which many of his followers who had
remained, had married native women of this land, raised large families and
founded towns in which they dwelt. He wished to take them away from here
with him, but they did not want to go, nor would they receive or adopt him
as their ruler, and so he departed. Hut we have always thought that his
descendants would surely come to subjugate this country and claim us as
their vassals....” (Historia de Nueva España. Hernan Cortés, ed.
Lorenzana, p.
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