MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE AZTECS.

HE advance in civilization brought about among the Tezcucans by the good Nezahualcoyotl and his successor has already been noticed. We come now to view the social condition of the Aztec race, whose increase in wealth had early produced a love of pomp and magnificence in their modes of living and in their structures. Their government was an elective monarchy. The sovereign was chosen from the brothers or nephews of the deceased prince, by an electoral body of four nobles, who chose their own successors. The necessary qualifications must of course be possessed by a candidate who would hope to be successful under such a system, and its practical results made its advantages apparent. Able princes succeeded each other and guided the warlike and ambitious people successfully to con

quest and glory. The rule seems to have been to choose a man distinguished in war, but an exception is found in Montezuma, who was a member of the priesthood.

The ceremony of coronation was not performed until the monarch returned from a victorious campaign, with a sufficient number of captives to grace his entry, and furnish victims for the human sacrifices, which formed a considerable part of the ceremonies attending his installation. The crown was placed on his head by the king of Tezcuco, as the most powerful of his subject allies. The legislative power rested wholly with the monarch, the executive with judicial tribunals, the higher authorities being appointed for life by the king, but wholly independent of the crown when in office, while the lower magistrates were chosen by the people. The king was assisted in the government by a number of bodies of councillors, the chief of which was a sort of privy council, composed of the four nobles who chose the successor to the crown. It appears that the most important offices and the governments of the provinces and cities were engrossed by the nobles, who mostly resided on their estates like independent princes, but were obliged to render military service, and according to some authorities, to keep hostages at the capital. In the courts, no counsel was employed, the parties stating their own case, and bringing forward their own witnesses. The clerk kept a record of the proceedings in hieroglyphical writing, which was handed over to the court; in capital cases, where a criminal was condemned to death, the death warrant was issued by drawing an arrow over his picture in the record of the proceedings. Death was the punishment for almost every offence in civil and in military life, and among capital crimes was ranked intemperance.

LAVERY existed in the community, under more liberal regulations than ever attended. it elsewhere. The slaves were of four classes, prisoners of war, who were reserved for public sacrifice, criminals, public debtors, voluntary slaves, and children sold by their parents, the two latter classes resulting from the poverty of individuals. The slave was allowed to have his own family, to hold property, and to have other slaves, and his children were always born free. Poverty of the master was the only reason for the sale of a slave, except the latter's own bad conduct; the second time viciousness rendered the sale of a slave necessary, he was liable to be reserved for sacrifice. The royal income appears to have been raised by direct taxation upon the agriculture and manufactures of the realm, the assessment being frequently paid in kind

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Defaulting taxables were liable to be sold as slaves, and with the increased magnificence of the court, the taxes became so heavy, that many of the subjects of Montezuma welcomed the arrival of the Spaniards as deliverers. Despatches were borne by trained couriers, from station to station, with such speed that a message could be transmitted from one to two hundred miles a day, and this system was so complete that the court was kept in constant receipt of intelligence respecting the movements and success of the armies.

The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the God of war, and the chief aim of their institutions was to foster and elevate the profession of arms. The king must needs be a successful warrior, and the nobles and even the members of the royal family were prohibited from wearing other than a coarse dress, until by their deeds they had established a title to admission into the order of knighthood, which had been formed. The magnificence of dress of the warriors corresponded with their rank, and in the army promotion was open to all. The lower orders were stimulated to deeds of heroism by the assurance that the soldier slain in battle was admitted immediately to the enjoyment of eternal happiness in the bright regions of the sun. Their great object in battle was to make captives, in order that their deity might have victims, and the valour of a warrior was estimated by the number of his prisoners. These were never scalped. Their discipline drew forth encomiums from their Spanish adversaries, and the skill of the surgeons in their well established hospitals no doubt merited the praise bestowed on them by the old chronicler, who preferred them to the surgeons of Europe, because they did not protract the cure in order to increase the pay."* N their religion, the Aztecs recognized the existence of a supreme being of sublime attributes, to whom was added thirteen principal deities, and some two hundred inferior, each with a particular function. At the head of all was the war-god, Huitzilopotchli, the patron deity of the nation, whose altars reeked with the blood of hecatombs of human victims in every city. Quetzalcoatl was the god of the air, who taught them the use of metals, and agriculture, and the art of government, whose terrestrial residence in fact formed the golden age of Anahuac. He incurred the anger of one of the principal deities, and was banished the country. On his way, he stopped at Cholula, where are still found the interesting ruins of a temple dedicated to his worship. When he embarked from the shores of he

* Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. 48.

†This celebrated monument is thus described by Baron Humboldt:

"The pyramid of Cholula," says he, is exactly of the same height as that of Tonatiuh

D

gulf, in his boat made of serpents' skins, he bade his followers farewell, promising to return to them at some future day with his descendants. This remarkable tradition was universally known, and the promised return was constantly expected; a circumstance which proved of considerable advantage to the Spaniards."

In their ideas of a future state, the Mexicans evinced a degree of progress that seems to be attributable to the Tezcucans, so incongruous is it with the other parts of their religious creed.

The wicked were consigned after death to a place of everlasting darkness; those who died of certain diseases, were subjected to an existence of indolent contentment; while those who fell in battle or died on the sacrificial stone, were transported at once to the presence of the sun, whom they accompanied for some years in his course

Ytxaqual at Teotihuacan. It is three metres higher than that of Mycerinus, or the third of the great Egyptian pyramids of the group of Djizeh. Its base, however, is larger than that of any pyramid hitherto discovered by travellers in the old world, and is double of that known as the pyramid of Cheops.

Those who wish to form an idea of the immense mass of this Mexican monument by the comparison of objects best known to them, may imagine a square four times greater than that of the Place Vendome, in Paris, covered with layers of bricks, rising to twice the elevation of the Louvre. Some persons imagine that the whole of the edifice is not artificial; but as far as explorations have been made, there is no reason to doubt that it is entirely a work of art. In its present state, (and we are ignorant of its perfect original height,) its perpendicular proportion is to its base as eight to one, while in the three great pyramids of Djizeh, the proportion is found to be one six-tenths to one seven-tenths to one or nearly as eight to five.

• Prescott, vol i. 60.

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through the heavens, and then went to animate the clouds and singing birds of beautiful plumage, and to revel amidst the rich blossoms and odours of the gardens of paradise. At death, the corpse of a person was clothed in habiliments peculiar to his tutelar deity, strewed with pieces of paper, to preserve him from the dangers of the road he had to travel. Slaves, if he were rich, were sacrificed at his obsequies; his body was burned, and the ashes collected into a vase, and preserved in his house.

HE ceremony of conferring a name upon infants was very nearly akin with that of Christian baptism. The lips and bosom of the child were sprinkled with water, and "the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the world, so that the child might be born anew."*

The sacerdotal order was exceedingly numerous, and the priests, adding to their usual functions great learning in the sciences of astrology and divination, obtained an ascendancy over the minds of the people, such as has probably never been equalled. They taught the choirs, they arranged the festivals, they educated the youth, and to them was confided the task of preserving the historical records of the country, whether in hieroglyphical writings or oral traditions. Two high priests were at the head of their establishment, inferior only to the sovereign, who rarely presumed to act upon any important matter without their advice.

The priests were each devoted to some particular deity, and haa their residence assigned them in some part of the temple, where they lived in strict conventual discipline, practising austerities equally severe with any known to monastic fanaticism. They were allowed to marry, however, and have families of their own. They administered the rites of the confessional and absolution, imposing penances, as in the Roman Catholic church. The repetition of an offence once atoned for was deemed inexpiable, wherefore confession was usually deferred to an advanced period in life, when the sinner settled up accounts with his conscience, as a preparatory step to making his will. Priestly absolution was received instead of the legal punishment of offences, and a criminal, when arrested, was set at liberty, on producing the certificate of his confession.

Nor was the maintenance of the priests neglected. It was amply

* Prescott, vol. i. 63-4.