1887.] Zoi [Brinton. 



the north into the Valley of Mexico.* The rnins of the old 

 town are upon an elevation about 100 feet in height, whose 

 summit presents a level surface in the shape of an irregular 

 triangle some 800 3'ards long, with a central width of 300 yards, 

 the apex to the south-east, where the face of the hill is fortified 

 by a rough stone wall.f It is a natural hill, overlooking a small 

 muddy creek, called the Eio de Tula.X Yet this unpretending 

 mound is the celebrated CoalepetJ, Serpent-Mount, or Snake- 

 Hill, famous in Nahuatl legend, and the central figure in all the 

 wonderful stories about the Toltecs.§ The remains of the arti- 

 ficial tumuli and walls, which are abundantly scattered over the 

 summit, show that, like the pueblos of New Mexico, they were 

 built of large sun-baked bricks mingled with stones, rough or 

 trimmed, and both walls and floors were laid in a firm cement, 

 which was usually painted of different colors. Hence probablj^ 

 the name PaZ/:)an, " amid the colors," which tradition says was 

 applied to these structures on the Coatepetl.|| The stone-work, 



* Motolinia, in his Histnria de los Indios de Nucva Espana, p. 5, calls the locality " el 

 Puerto llamado Tollan," the pass or gate called ToUan. Through it, he states, passed 

 first the Colhua and later the Mexica, though he adds that some maintain these were 

 tlie same people. In fact, Colhua is a form of a word which mekns "ancestors;" colli, 

 forefather, no-col-hiian, my forefathers, Colhuacan, "the place of the forefathers," where 

 they lived. In Aztec picture-writing this is represented hy a hill with a bent top, ou the 

 "ikonomatic" system, the verb colna, meaning to bend, to stoop. Those Mexica who 

 said the Colhua preceded them at Tula, simply meant that their own ancestors dwelt 

 there. The Analei^ de Cuaufitillan (pp. 29, 33) distinctly states that what Toltecs survived 

 the wars which drove them southward became merged in the Colhuas. As these wars 

 largely arose from civil dissensions, the account no doubt is correct which states that 

 others settled in Acolhuacan, on the eastern shore of the principal lake in the Valley of 

 Mexico. The name means " Colhuacan by the water," and was the State of which the 

 capital was Tctzcoco. 



t This description is taken from the map of the location in M. Charnay's Andennes 

 Villes du Nouveau Monde, p. 83. The measurements I have made from the map do not 

 agree with those stated in the text of the book, but are, I take it, more accurate. 



t Sometimes called the Rio de Montezuma, and also the Tollanatt, water of Tula. This 

 stream plays a conspicuous part in the Quetzalcoatl myths. It appears to be the same as 

 the river ALoyac (= flowing or spreading water, all, loyaiia), or Xipacoyan (= where 

 precious stones are washed, from ziuill, paca, yan), referred to by Sahagun, Hist, de la 

 Nueva EKpana, Lib. ix, cap. 29. In it were the celebrated "Baths of Quetzalcoatl," 

 called Atccpanamochco, "the water in the tin palace," probably from being adorned 

 with this metal [Anales de Cuauhtitlan). 



g See the Codex Ramirez, p. 24. Why called Snake-Hill the legend says not. I need not 

 recall how prominent an object is the .serpent in Aztec mythology. The name is a com- 

 pound of c.oatl, snake, and tepetl, hill or mountain, but which may also mean towTi or city, 

 as such were usually built on elevations. The form Coatepec is this word with the post- 

 position c, and means "at the snake-hill," or, perhaps, " at Snake-town." 



II Or to one of them. The name is preserved by Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones Hifloricas, in 

 Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 326. Its derivation is from paUi, a color (root pa), and 

 the postposition pan. It is noteworthy that this legend states that Quetzalcoatl in his 



