THE AZTEC MONARCHY ELECTIVE. 101 Cortéz conquered, but, perhaps, will present the student with some national characteristics of a race that still inhabits Mexico jointly with the Spanish emigrants, and which is the lawful descendant of the wandering tribes who founded the city of Tenochtitlan. The Aztec government was a monarchy, but the right to the throne did not fall by the accident of descent upon a lineal relative of the last king, whose age would have entitled him, by European rule, to the royal succession. The brothers of the deceased prince, or his nephews, if he had no nearer kin, were the individuals from whom the new sovereign was chosen by four nobles who had been selected as electors by their own aristocratic body during the preceding reign. These electors, together with the two royal allies of Tezcoco and Tlacopan, who were united in the college as merely honorary personages, decided the question as to the candidate, whose warlike and intellectual qualities were always closely scanned by these severe judges. The elevation of the new monarch to the throne was pompous: yet, republican and just as was the rite of selection, the ceremony of coronation was not performed until the new king had procured, by conquest in war, a crowd of victims to grace his assumption of the crown with their sacrifice at the altar. The palaces of these princes and their nobles were of the most sumptuous character, according to the description that has been left us by the conquerors themselves. The royal state and style of these people may be best described in the artless language of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier of the conquest, whose simple narrative, though sometimes colored with the superstitions of his age, is one of the most valuable and veritable relics of that great event that has been handed down to posterity. In describing the entrance of the Spaniards into the city-Diaz declares, with characteristic energy, that the whole of what he saw on that occasion appeared to him as if he had beheld it but yesterday;—and he fervently exclaims: "Glory be to our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us courage to venture on such dangers and brought us safely through them!" The Spaniards, as we have already said in a preceding chapter, were lodged and entertained at the expense of Montezuma, who welcomed them as his guests, and unwisely attempted to convince them of his power by exhibiting his wealth and state. Two hundred of his nobility stood as guards in his ante-chamber. 102 ROYAL STYLE IN TENOCHTITLAN. "Of these," says Diaz, "only certain persons could speak to him, and when they entered, they took off their rich mantles and put on others of less ornament, but clean. They approached his apartment barefooted, their eyes fixed on the ground and making three inclinations of the body as they approached him. In addressing the king they said, "Lord-my lord-great lord!" When they had finished, he dismissed them with a few words, and they retired with their faces toward him and their eyes fixed on the ground. I also observed, that when great men came from a distance about business, they entered his palace barefooted, and in plain habit; and also, that they did not come in by the gate directly, but took a circuit in going toward it. "His cooks had upward of thirty different ways of dressing meats, and they had earthen vessels so contrived as to keep them constantly hot. For the table of Montezuma himself, above three hundred dishes were dressed, and for his guards above a thousand. Before dinner, Montezuma would sometimes go out and inspect the preparations, and his officers would point out to him which were the best, and explain of what birds and flesh they were composed; and of those he would eat. But this was more for amusement than anything else. "It is said, that at times the flesh of young children was dressed for him; but the ordinary meats were domestic fowls, pheasants, geese, partridges, quails, venison, Indian hogs, pigeons, hares and rabbits, with many other animals and birds peculiar to the country. This is certain that after Cortéz had spoken to him relative to the dressing of human flesh, it was not practised in his palace. At his meals, in the cold weather, a number of torches of the bark of a wood which makes no smoke, and has an aromatic smell, were lighted; and, that they should not throw too much heat, screens, ornamented with gold and painted with figures of idols, were placed before them. "Montezuma was seated on a low throne or chair, at a table proportioned to the height of his seat. The table was covered with white cloths and napkins, and four beautiful women presented him with water for his hands, in vessels which they call xicales, with other vessels under them, like plates, to catch the water. They also presented him with towels. "Then two other women brought small cakes of bread, and, when the king began to eat, a large screen of gilded wood was placed before him, so that during that period people should not behold him. The women having retired to a little distance, four MONTEZUMA'S WAY OF LIFE. 103 ancient lords stood by the throne, to whom Montezuma, from time to time, spoke or addressed questions, and as a mark of particular favor, gave to each of them a plate of that which he was eating. I was told that these old lords, who were his near relations, were also counsellors and judges. The plates which Montezuma presented to them they received with high respect, eating what was on them without taking their eyes off the ground. He was served in earthenware of Cholula, red and black. While the king was at the table, no one of his guards in the vicinity of his apartment dared, for their lives, make any noise. Fruit of all kinds produced in the country, was laid before him; he ate very little; but, from time to time, a liquor prepared from cocoa, and of a stimulative quality, as we were told, was presented to him in golden cups. We could not, at that time, see whether he drank it or not; but I observed a number of jars, above fifty, brought in, filled with foaming chocolate, of which he took some that the women presented him. "At different intervals during the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians, humpbacked, very deformed, and ugly, who played tricks of buffoonery; and others who, they said, were jesters. There was also a company of singers and dancers, who afforded Montezuma much entertainment. To these he ordered the vases of chocolate to be distributed. The four female attendants then took away the cloths, and again, with much respect, presented him with water to wash his hands, during which time Montezuma conferred with the four old noblemen formerly mentioned, after which they took their leave with many ceremonies. "One thing I forgot (and no wonder,) to mention in its place, and that is, during the time that Montezuma was at dinner, two very beautiful women were busily employed making small cakes,1 with eggs and other things mixed therein. These were delicately white, and, when made, they presented them to him on plates covered with napkins. Also another kind of bread was brought to him in long leaves, and plates of cakes resembling wafers. "After he had dined, they presented to him three little canes, highly ornamented, containing liquid-amber, mixed with an herb they call tobacco; and when he had sufficiently viewed and heard the singers, dancers, and buffoons, he took a little of the smoke of one of these canes, and then laid himself down to sleep. 'No doubt tortillias, or maize cakes still the staff of life with all the Indians and, indeed, a favorite and daily food of all classes of Mexicans. 104 DESPOTIC POWER OF THE EMPEROR OVER LIFE AND LAW. "The meal of the monarch ended, all his guards and domestics sat down to dinner; and, as near as I could judge, above a thousand plates of those eatables that I have mentioned, were laid before them, with vessels of foaming chocolate and fruit in immense quantity. For his women, and various inferior servants, his establishment was of a prodigious expense; and we were astonished, amid such a profusion, at the vast regularity that prevailed. "His major domo kept the accounts of Montezuma's rents in books which occupied an entire house. "Montezuma had two buildings filled with every kind of arms, richly ornamented with gold and jewels; such as shields, large and small clubs like two-handed swords, and lances much larger than ours, with blades six feet in length, so strong that if they fix in a shield they do not break; and sharp enough to use as razors. "There was also an immense quantity of bows and arrows, and darts, together with slings, and shields which roll up into a small compass and in action are let fall, and thereby cover the whole body. He had also much defensive armor of quilted cotton, ornamented with feathers in different devices, and casques for the head, made of wood and bone, with plumes of feathers, and many other articles too tedious to mention." 1 Besides this sumptuous residence in the city, the Emperor is supposed to have had others at Chapultepec, Tezcoco and elsewhere, which will be spoken of when we describe the ancient remains of Mexico in the valley of Mexico. If the sovereign lived, thus, in state befitting the ruler of such an empire, it may be supposed that his courtiers were not less sumptuous in their style of domestic arrangements. The great body of the nobles and caciques, possessed extensive estates, the tenures of which were chiefly of a military character; and, upon these large possessions, surrounded by warlike natives and numerous slaves, they lived, doubtless, like many of the independent, powerful chieftains in Europe, who, in the middle ages, maintained their feudal splendor, both in private life and in active service whenever summoned by their sovereigns to give aid in war. The power of the Emperor over the laws of the country as well as over the lives of the people, was perfectly despotic. There were supreme judges in the chief towns, appointed by the Emperor who possessed final jurisdiction in civil and criminal causes; and there were, besides, minor courts in each province, as well as 1 Bernal Diaz Del Castillo's Hist. Conq. Mexico. THEFT INTEMPERANCE-MARRIAGE- SLAVERY - WAR. 105 subordinate officers, who performed the duty of police officers or spies over the families that were assigned to their vigilance. Records were kept in these courts of the decisions of the judges; and the laws of the realm were likewise perpetuated and made certain, in the same hieroglyphic or picture writing. "The great crimes against society," says Prescott, "were all made capital; — even the murder of a slave was punished with death. Adulterers, as among the Jews, were stoned to death. Thieving, according to the degree of the offence, was punished with slavery or death. It was a capital offence to remove the boundaries of another's lands; to alter the established measures; and for a guardian not to be able to give a good account of his ward's property. Prodigals who squandered their patrimony were punished in like manner. Intemperance was visited with the severest penalties, as if they had foreseen in it the consuming canker of their own as well as of the other Indian races in later times. It was punished in the young with death, and in older persons with loss of rank and confiscation of property. "The rites of marriage were celebrated with as much formality as in any christian country; and the institution was held in such reverence, that a tribunal was established for the sole purpose of determining questions in regard to it. Divorces could not be obtained, until authorized by a sentence of this court after a patient hearing of the parties. Slavery seems to have always prevailed in Mexico. The captives taken in war were devoted to the gods under the sacrificial knife; but criminals, public debtors, extreme paupers, persons who willingly resigned their freedom, and children who were sold by their parents, were allowed to be held in bondage and to be transferred from hand to hand, but only in cases in which their masters were compelled by poverty to part with them. A nation over which the god of war presided and whose king was selected, mainly, for his abilities as a chieftain, naturally guarded and surrounded itself with a well devised military system. Religion and war were blended in the imperial ritual. Montezuma, himself had been a priest before he ascended the throne. This dogma of the Aztec policy, originated, perhaps, in the necessity of keeping up a constant military spirit among a people whose instincts were probably civilized, but whose geographical position exposed them, in the beginning, to the attacks of unquiet. and annoying tribes. The captives were sacrificed to the bloody Prescott, vol. 1, p. 35. |