Briuton.] ^4X) [-ggpt^ o, 



chosen theme of the later Aztec bards. What the siege of Troy- 

 was to the Grecian poets, the fall of Tula was to the singers and 

 story-tellers of Auahuac — an inexhaustible field for imagination, 

 for glorification, for lamentation. It was placed in the remote 

 past — according to Sahagun, perhaps the best authority, about 

 the year 319 before Christ.* All arts and sciences, all knowledge 

 and culture, were ascribed to this wonderful mythical people, 

 and wherever the natives were asked concerning the origin of 

 ancient and unknown structures, the^^ would reply," The Toltecs 

 built them."t 



They fixedly believed that some day the immortal Quetzal- 

 coatl would appear in another avatar, and would bring again to 

 the fields of Mexico the exuberant fertility of Tula, the peace 

 and happiness of his former reign, and that the departed glories 

 of the past should surround anew the homes of his votaries.^ 



I have elsewhere so fully represented this phase of the mj^th- 

 ical C3'clus that I need not emphasize it further ; nor need I 

 explain the significance of these myths as revealed to us by an 

 application of the principles of comparative mythology ; for 

 that, too, would be repeating what I have already published in 

 ample detail. 



What I wish to point out in clear terms is the contrast 

 between the dry and scant}^ historic narrative Avhich shows 

 Tula with its Snake-Hill to have been an earlj' station of the 

 Azteca, occupied in the eleventh and twelfth centur^^ by one of 

 their clans, and the monstrous m3'th of the later priests and 

 poets, which makes of it a birthplace and abode of the gods, and 

 its inhabitants the semi-divine conquerors and civilizers of 

 Mexico and Central America. For this latter fable there is 

 not a vestige of solid foundation. The references to Tula and 



* Historia de Nueva Espana, Lib. viii, cap. 5. 



t Father Duraii relates, " Even to this day, when I ask the Indians, ' Wlio created this 

 jiass in the mountains? Who opened this spring? Who discovered this cave? or, Who 

 built this edifice?' they reply, 'The Toltecs, the disciples of Papa.'" Historia de las 

 Iiidias de Nuei^a EspaTia, cap. 79. Papa, from papachtic, the bushy-haired, wa.s one of the 

 names of Quetzalcoatl. But the earUer missionary. Father Motiliiiia, distinctly states 

 that the Mexica invented their own arts, and owed nothing to any imaginary teachers, 

 Toltecs or others. "Hay entre todos los Indios muchos oficios, y de todos dicen que 

 fucron inventores los Mexicanos." Historia de los Indios de la Nucva Espana, Tratado iii, 

 cap. viii. 



J Quetzalcoatl announced that his return should take place 5012 years after his final 

 departure, as is mentioned by Ixtlilxocliitl (in Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 33:!). 

 This number has probably some mystic relation to the calendar. 



