deceased being given the preference. In this sense, which was the usual limitation in America, many positions were hereditary, including that of the chieftaincy of the tribe or confederation. The Montezuma who was the ruler who received Cortez, was the grandson of Axayacatl, who in turn was the son of the first Montezuma, each of whom exercised the chief power.”[380] The daughter of the first Montezuma seems to have occupied the position of head chief for a time, or, as Prescott would put it, she was queen. It is possible that while Montezuma was a war chief he may have combined certain civil powers with his war office, and that the confederacy was actually on the road to an absolute monarchy[381] or something of the kind, which, if human progress takes always the same general directions, was the next stage to be expected on this soil. Bandelier, Morgan, and others see in the various Mexican tribes and confederacies little that is different from the organisation of the Amerinds to the northward, and probably when all is well understood we may find that they are not far from correct; that, while there are differences, they are yet not sufficient to entitle the Mexicans to the separation from other Amerinds that has been claimed for them by romantic writers. Speaking of Tlaxcala, the famous “province” where Cortes found a resting-place on his inward journey, Bandelier says: “Owing to a misconception of aboriginal institutions, it has been palmed off as a kind of Mexican Switzerland, as a free republic in the midst of despotically ruled communities. Such was not the case. There was not the slightest fundamental difference between the social organisation and mode of government of the Tlaxcaltecos and that of the Mexican tribe; but the exceptional geographical position of the latter and the natural barrenness of their land led them to seek means of subsistence from abroad. The confederacy of tribes grew out of tribal organisation, and the greater ability of the inhabitants of the Central Valley gave to their confederacy a power of aggression superior to that of any other aboriginal cluster in the same country.... The Tlaxcaltecos were organised in four localised _phratries_, like the Mexicans. Two elective chiefs—that is, elective in regard to the individual, but with heredity of office in a certain _gens_—formed the nominal head of the tribe. The true directive power, however, lay in the council of the tribe. The tribe of Mexico had a similar organisation. What created an apparent dissimilarity was the confederacy of the valley tribes, with its chief-captain always taken from the Mexicans. As, in the single tribe, the war-chief office was hereditary in the _gens_, so, in the confederacy, the same office becomes hereditary in the _tribe_.”[382] How different is the wording of Prescott when speaking of the Aztec organisation! “The government was an elective monarchy. Four of the principal nobles, who had been