1887.] ^dO [Brinton. 



its inhabitants come to have so wide a celebrity, not merely in 

 the m^'ths of the Nahuas of Mexico, but in the sacred stories of 

 Yucatan and Guatemala as well — which was unquestionably the 

 case? 



To explain this, I must have recourse to some of those curious 

 principles of language which have had such influence in building 

 the fabric of mythology. In such inquiries we have more to do 

 with words than with things, with names than with persons, 

 with phrases than with facts. 



First about these names, Tula, Tollan, Toltec — what do they 

 mean? The}' are evidently from tlie same root. What idea 

 did it convey ? 



We are first struck with the fact that the Tula I have been 

 describing was not the only one in the Nahuatl district of 

 Mexico. There are other Tulas and Tollans, one near Ococingo, 

 another, now San Pedro Tula, in the State of Mexico, one in 

 Guerrero, San Antonio Tula in Potosi,* etc. The name must 

 have been one of some common import. Herrera, who spells it 

 jTuZo, by an error, is just as erroneous in his suggestion of a 

 meaning. He says it means " place of the tuna," this being a 

 term used for the prickly pear.f But tuna was not a Nahuatl 

 word ; it belongs to the dialect of Haiti, and was introduced 

 into Mexico b}^ the Spaniards. Therefore Herrera 's derivation 

 must be ruled out. Ixtlilxocliitl pretends that the name Tollan 

 was that of the first chieftain of the Toltecs, and that the}" were 

 named after him ; J but elsewhere himself contradicts this asser- 

 tion. Most writers follow the Codex Bamirez, and maintain 

 that Tollan — of which Tula is but an abbreviation — is from 

 tolin, the Nahuatl word for rush, the kind of which they made 

 mats, and means "the place of rushes," or, where they grow. 



The respectable authority of Buschmann is in favor of this 

 derivation ; but according to the analogy of the Nahuatl Lin- 

 guage, the "place of rushes" should be ToUitlan or Tolinan^ 

 and there are localities with these names.§ 



Without doubt, I think, we must accept the derivation of 



* See Buschmann, L'eber die Aztekischen Ortsnamen, ss. 682, 788. Orozco y Berra, Geo- 

 grafia de laa Lenf/aas de Mejico, pp. 248, 255. 



t Iliston'a de las Indias OcrUteid.(des, Dec. iii, Lib. ii, cap. 11. 



X Rdaciones JKstoricas, in Kingsborough's Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 392. Compare his Hisloria 

 CIdchimeca. 



I Buschmann, TJehcr die Aztekischen Orlsnamen, ss. G82, 797. 



