The Origin of the Mound BuildersCoffin, Alfred Oscar
History
The Origin of the Mound Builders
Coffin, Alfred Oscar
Indians of Mexico -- Antiquities; Mexico -- Antiquities; Mound-builders
On the Panuca River, near the Gulf of Tampico, Mr. Norman found
twenty-five mounds, some of them covering two acres, and built of earth
as those in the Mississippi Valley, though some were faced with stones.
According to the Smithsonian Report of 1873, across the river from Vera
Cruz occurs a locality of mounds covering three square leagues. The
pyramids of Papantla and Tuscapan are of solid masonry with steps on the
outside. The pyramid of Cholula is truncated, its base being one
thousand four hundred and twenty-three feet long, covering forty-four
acres. Its perpendicular height is one hundred and seventy-two feet, and
its truncated summit contains more than one acre; this was the Mecca of
the valley of Anahuac. The hanging gardens of Tezcuco had a summit
reached by five hundred and twenty steps and crowned by a fountain.
Nezahualeoyotl built a pyramidal temple nine stories high, dedicated to
“The Unknown God, the Cause of Causes.” In the ruins of Mitla, Oaxaca,
Guingola, and numerous others, we have numerous ruins of different
construction; but to say that they are the works of different races of
people is saying too much. All the inhabitants of Nahuac were kindred
tribes, and spoke the Nahuatl language, though entering the valley at
different times in different clans. Winchell states that the Mongoloids
entered North America by Behring’s Strait and spread east and southward;
that the beginning of this wave is lost in obscurity, but in due
succession the Nahuas moved forward. The Toltecs followed and crowded
the Nahuas through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec into Yucatan and Central
America. The Astecs followed the Toltecs in occupancy. While the Astecs
crowded on the Toltecs, these pushed farther the Nahuas, and the Nahuas
pressed on the rear of their unknown and mysterious predecessors, and so
forth to the borders of Chili. Also another branch of Mongoloids entered
South America by the Polynesian route, crossed the Andes, ascended the
Atlantic Slope to the Caribbean Sea, crossed to the Antilles and entered
North America by the Tortugas and Florida, ascended the Atlantic Slope
and began war on the peaceful inhabitants of the Pacific Slope, when the
white man arrived and interrupted this symmetrical rotation and sequence
of invasion. I beg leave differ with regard to a part of this plan, on
grounds adduced further on.
The Toltec clan was among the first to enter the Valley of Mexico or
Nahua, followed by the Chichimecs, who were succeeded by the seven clans
or tribes who dwelt in the valley at the same time, and who probably are
connected with “the seven mysterious cities of Cibola” in New Mexico.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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