CITY OF CHOLULA—GREAT TEMPLE—MARCH TO CHOLULA—RECEPTION OF THE SPANIARDS—CONSPIRACY DETECTED 1519
THE ancient city of Cholula, capital of the republic of that name, lay nearly six leagues south of Tlascala, and about twenty east, or rather southeast, of Mexico. It was said by Cortés to contain twenty thousand houses within the walls, and as many more in the environs;[187] though now dwindled to a population of less than sixteen thousand souls.[188] Whatever was its real number of inhabitants, it was unquestionably, at the time of the Conquest, one of the most populous and flourishing cities in New Spain.
It was of great antiquity, and was founded by the primitive races who overspread the land before the Aztecs.[189] We have few particulars of its form{181} of government, which seems to have been cast on a republican model similar to that of Tlascala.{*} This answered so well that the state maintained its independence down to a very late period, when, if not reduced to vassalage by the Aztecs, it was so far under their control as to enjoy few of the benefits of a separate political existence. Their connection with Mexico brought the Cholulans into frequent collision with their neighbors and kindred the Tlascalans. But, although far superior to them in refinement and the various arts of civilization, they were no match in war for the bold mountaineers, the Swiss of Anahuac. The Cholulan capital was the great commercial emporium of the plateau. The inhabitants excelled in various mechanical arts, especially that of working in metals, the manufacture of cotton and agave cloths, and of a delicate kind of pottery, rivalling, it was said, that of Florence in beauty.[190] But such{182} attention to the arts of a polished and peaceful community naturally indisposed them to war, and disqualified them for coping with those who made war the great business of life. The Cholulans were accused of effeminacy, and were less distinguished—it is the charge of their rivals—by their courage than their cunning.[191]
{*} [The older authorities agree in stating that Cholula was democratically governed. Bandelier (Studies about Cholula and its Vicinity, in his Report of an Arch?ological Tour in Mexico in 1881) concludes that there were in the community six kins. Torquemada says the tribal council consisted of six speakers. The tribe was governed by two chief executives (called Aquiach and Tlalquiach). Their functions were partly warlike, as is evidenced by their appellations “eagle” and “tiger,” and partly religious. The tribe occupied one large pueblo, with a few smaller groups, possibly twenty, scattered about it, of which perhaps two deserved the title of villages. The population of the pueblo may have been 30,000 in 1519. The estimate of houses which Cortés gives is too large. Moreover, a large number of houses in each pueblo was always unoccupied.—M.]
But the capital, so conspicuous for its refinement and its great antiquity, was even more venerable for the religious traditions which invested it. It was here that the god Quetzalcoatl paused in his passage to the coast, and passed twenty years in teaching the Toltec inhabitants the arts of civilization. He made them acquainted with better forms of government, and a more spiritualized religion, in which the only sacrifices were the fruits and flowers of the season.[192] It is not easy to determine what he taught, since his lessons have been so mingled with the licentious dogmas of his own priests and the mystic commentaries of the Christian missionary.[193] It is probable that he was one of{183} those rare and gifted beings who, dissipating the darkness of the age by the illumination of their own genius, are deified by a grateful posterity and placed among the lights of heaven.
It was in honor of this benevolent deity that the stupendous mound{*} was erected on which the traveller still gazes with admiration as the most colossal fabric in New Spain, rivalling in dimensions, and somewhat resembling in form, the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. The date of its erection is unknown; for it was found there when the Aztecs entered on the plateau. It had the form common to the Mexican teocallis, that of a truncated pyramid, facing with its four sides the cardinal points, and divided into the same number of terraces. Its original outlines, however, have been effaced by the action of time and of the elements, while the exuberant growth of shrubs and wild flowers, which have mantled over its surface,{184} give it the appearance of one of those symmetrical elevations thrown up by the caprice of nature rather than by the industry of man. It is doubtful indeed, whether the interior be not a natural hill; though it seems not improbable that it is an artificial composition of stone and earth, deeply incrusted, as is certain, in every part, with alternate strata of brick and clay.[194]
In the teacher himself they recognize no less a person than St. Thomas the Apostle! See the Dissertation of the irrefragable Dr. Mier, with an edifying commentary by Se?or Bustamante, ap. Sahagun. (Hist. de Nueva-Espa?a, tom. i., Suplemento.) The reader will find further particulars of this matter in the essay on the Origin of the Mexican Civilization, at the end of the first book of this history.
{*} [The most careful measurements of the great mound, or “pyramid,” were those made by Bandelier in 1881. He found the base to be a trapeze. North line, 1000 feet; east line, 1026 feet; south line, 833 feet; west line, 1000 feet; total, 3859 feet. This would give an approximate area of over twenty acres for the base. Measuring the height of the mound from each of its four sides, he found the average altitude to be 169 feet. There is not a trace of aboriginal work upon the summit. The structure was built long before the Nahuatl period. It was not erected at one time, but grew as necessity ordered. It was a place of refuge and its top was used as a place of worship.—M.]
The perpendicular height of the pyramid is one hundred and seventy-seven feet. Its base is one thousand four hundred and twenty-three feet long, twice as long as that of the great pyramid of Cheops. It may give some idea of its dimensions to state that its base, which is square, covers about forty-four acres, and the platform on its truncated summit embraces more than one. It reminds us of those colossal monuments of brickwork which are still seen in ruins on the banks of the Euphrates, and, in much higher preservation, on those of the Nile.[195]
On the summit stood a sumptuous temple, in{185} which was the image of the mystic deity, “god of the air,” with ebon features, unlike the fair complexion which he bore upon earth, wearing a mitre on his head waving with plumes of fire, with a resplendent collar of gold round his neck, pendants of mosaic turquoise in his ears, a jewelled sceptre in one hand, and a shield curiously painted, the emblem of his rule over the winds, in the other.[196] The sanctity of the place, hallowed by hoary tradition, and the magnificence of the temple and its services, made it an object of veneration throughout the land, and pilgrims from the farthest corners of Anahuac came to offer up their devotions at the shrine of Quetzalcoatl.[197] The number of these was so great as to give an air of mendicity to the motley population of the city; and Cortés, struck with the novelty, tells us that he saw multitudes of beggars, such as are to be found in the enlightened capitals of Europe;[198]—a whimsical criterion of civilization, which must place our own prosperous land somewhat low in the scale.
Cholula was not the resort only of the indigent devotee. Many of the kindred races had temples of their own in the city, in the same manner as some Christian nations have in Rome, and each temple{186} was provided with its own peculiar ministers for the service of the deity to whom it was consecrated. In no city was there seen such a concourse of priests, so many processions, such pomp of ceremonial, sacrifice, and religious festivals. Cholula was, in short, what Mecca is among Mahometans, or Jerusalem among Christians; it was the Holy City of Anahuac.[199]{*}
{*} [Cholula was not a “Holy City” or pilgrim resort for other tribes. “It suffices to recall the state of intertribal warfare which prevailed in aboriginal Mexico to establish the utter fallacy of this pretension.... Even the pre?minence which Quetzalcohuatl, the chief idol of Cholula, is said to have enjoyed over the whole of Central Mexico is vigorously denied by the Indians of Tlascala and of the Mexican valley itself.” Cholula was a great mart of trade and crowds flocked to it because of that fact. Outside Indians were accustomed to bring presents to its chief idol. See Bandelier, Arch. Tour, pp. 168, 169.—M.]
The religious rites were not performed, however, in the pure spirit originally prescribed by its tutelary deity. His altars, as well as those of the numerous Aztec gods, were stained with human blood; and six thousand victims are said to have been annually offered up at their sanguinary shrines![200] The great number of these may be estimated from the declaration of Cortés that he counted four hundred towers in the city;[201] yet no temple had more than two, many only one. High above the rest rose the great “pyramid of Cholula,” with its undying fires flinging their radiance{187} far and wide over the capital, and proclaiming to the nations that there was the mystic worship—alas! how corrupted by cruelty and superstition!—of the good deity who was one day to return and resume his empire over the land.
Nothing could be more grand than the view which met the eye from the area on the truncated summit of the pyramid. Towards the west stretched that bold barrier of porphyritic rock which nature has reared around the Valley of Mexico, with the huge Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl standing like two colossal sentinels to guard the entrance to the enchanted region. Far away to the east was seen the conical head of Orizaba soaring high into the clouds and nearer, the barren though beautifully-shaped Sierra de la Malinche, throwing its broad shadows over the plains of Tlascala. Three of these are volcanoes higher than the highest mountain-peak in Europe, and shrouded in snows which never melt under the fierce sun of the tropics. At the foot of the spectator{*} lay the sacred city of Cholula, with its bright towers and pinnacles sparkling in the sun, reposing amidst gardens and verdant groves, which then thickly studded the cultivated environs of the capi{188}tal. Such was the magnificent prospect which met the gaze of the Conquerors, and may still, with slight change, meet that of the modern traveller, as from the platform of the great pyramid his eye wanders over the fairest portion of the beautiful plateau of Puebla.[202]
{*} [Bandelier (Gilded Man, p. 259) shows that the spectator who stood on the “truncated summit of the pyramid” was standing upon a structure which had long been in ruins, and which was covered with bushes when Cortés passed through the country. On the summit was a “little ancient temple.” There was no trace of a large building, and the pyramid looked so much like a wooded hill that the Conquerors regarded it as a natural elevation. No pinnacles sparkled in the sun, because the architecture of the natives did not include those features. The houses were for the most part only one story high, and were whitewashed.—M.]
But it is time to return to Tlascala. On the appointed morning the Spanish army took up its march to Mexico by the way of Cholula. It was followed by crowds of the citizens, filled with admiration at the intrepidity of men who, so few in number, would venture to brave the great Montezuma in his capital. Yet an immense body of warriors offered to share the dangers of the expedition; but Cortés, while he showed his gratitude for their good will, selected only six thousand of the volunteers to bear him company.[203] He was{189} unwilling to encumber himself with an unwieldy force that might impede his movements, and probably did not care to put himself so far in the power of allies whose attachment was too recent to afford sufficient guarantee for their fidelity.
After crossing some rough and hilly ground, the army entered on the wide plain which spreads out for miles around Cholula. At the elevation of more than six thousand feet above the sea, they beheld the rich products of various climes growing side by side, fields of towering maize, the juicy aloe, the chilli or Aztec pepper, and large plantations of the cactus, on which the brilliant cochineal is nourished. Not a rood of land but was under cultivation;[204] and the soil—an uncommon thing on the table-land—was irrigated by numerous streams and canals, and well shaded by woods, that have disappeared before the rude axe of the Spaniards. Towards evening they reached a small stream, on the banks of which Cortés determined to take up his quarters for the night, being unwilling to disturb the tranquillity of the city by introducing so large a force into it at an unseasonable hour.
Here he was soon joined by a number of Cholulan caciques and their attendants, w............