To the tribes which figured conspicuously in Mexico prior to the Toltecs and not related to the Nahuas, we may add the Miztecs and Zapotecs, whose language, though not Maya, is in some respects similar to it, while the architectural remains and traditional origin of this people associates them with the Nahuas. Their civilization in Oajaca rivalled that of the Aztecs in its degree of advancement.[366] The Totonacs were formerly, according to Torquemada, of Nahua extraction; but the authority in the face of linguistic difficulties is doubtful.[367] According to Torquemada’s claim, they were the builders of the temple of the sun and moon at Teotihuacan near Lake Tezcuco.[368] The Huastecs of northern Vera Cruz were a Maya branch of the power at the south; they mark the most northern point reached by the Maya tongue. Of the Nahua predecessors of the Toltecs in Mexico the Olmecs and Xicalancas were the most important. They were the forerunners of the great nations which followed. According to Ixtlilxochitl, these people—which are conceded to be one—occupied the new world in the third age; they came from the East in ships or barks to the land of Potonchan, which they commenced to populate, and on the shores of the River Atoyac, between the Ciudad de los Angeles and Cholula, they found some giants who had escaped the calamity which overtook that race in the second age of the world.[369] Here then comes the destruction of the giants referred to above. The first settlement of the Olmecs and Xicalancas in Mexico is supposed to have been on the site of the ancient city of Xicalanco at the point which still bears the name, at the entrance of the Laguna de Terminos, while a second city, built probably a little later, was situated on the coast a short distance below Vera Cruz; the entire region bore the name of Anahuac Xicalanco.[370] The first great exploit of the Olmec chiefs, the destruction of the giants, we observe was performed at some distance from their earliest settlement. The state of Puebla became their chosen ground, and quite soon after the above achievement they undertook the building of the famous tower of Cholula, which is so closely allied in its traditional history with the Tower of Babel. Several authors state that the erection of the pyramid of Cholula was done in memory of the erection of the tower of Babel, at which it is claimed the ancestors of the Olmec chiefs were present. Boturini is probably one of the most sanguine advocates of this view.[371] Others consider that the knowledge which the ancestors of this people transmitted to them with reference to Babel, in time became associated with the Cholula edifice and confounded with its history.