igoo-i.] Spanish Documents Relative to the Canary Islands. 45 



their Chichimec enemies into the south. Some records afifirm that he 

 was pursued and put to death ; others that he escaped, and, in a far off 

 land, estabHshed a new kingdom of the Sun. The only empire in the 

 south rivalling that of Mexico, with the exception of the states of 

 Oaxaca, Yucatan and Guatemala, which were no doubt in existence 

 in 1062, would be that of Peru, which is then said to have had its 

 beginning. Had the Peruvians called themselves Toltecs, the migra- 

 tion might be taken for granted, but there is no evidence that they 

 did so. 



Anahuac was the name of the Mexican region in which the Toltecs 

 founded, in 717 and 752, the kingdoms of Culhuacan and Tollan. 

 Shortly before the first date, they and the Olmecs, who have no 

 separate history, came to Potonchan on the east coast, from a region 

 far beyond the sea, called Chicomoztoc or the Seven Grottos. They 

 are said to have passed through the channels of the Bahamas, to have 

 left some of their seven crews on the shore of Florida, and to have 

 coasted along the Gulf of Mexico till they came to their landing 

 place and permanent settlement. The Toltecs were large, well-made 

 men, almost as white as Europeans, and fully clothed. They were 

 sun-worshippers and offerers of human sacrifices. In the arts of 

 architecture, metal-work, the manufacture of cloth and many other 

 useful articles, they excelled, and were skilled in music and in 

 medicine. They possessed monastic institutions for men and women, 

 had a great variety of religious festivals, and a class of learned men 

 called ainoxoaqiiis. Their history, however, as related by Aztec writers, 

 is so corrupted by the large infiltration of very ancient traditions, such 

 as that of Ouetzalcoatl, which belongs to a period thousands of years 

 in the past, as to be almost incapable of disentanglement, save in its 

 chronological outline. 



Apart from the matter of physical stature and complexion, for 

 which the present Peruvian, in a state of subjection and degradation, 

 furnishes no trustworthy data to compare, the above description of the 

 Toltec is applicable to the subjects of the Incas. They were great 

 masons, which as a rule Turanians are not, being carpenters instead, 

 and built both enormous megalithic structures, and edifices of hewn 

 stone, besides constructing admirable roads and bridges. They 

 excelled in the textile and metallurgic arts. They worshipped the 

 sun, and had monasteries and vestal houses devoted to that deity. 

 Their Amautas or wise men correspond to the Toltec Amoxoaquis, 

 and these cultivated music, astronomy and medicine, in the first and 

 last of these far excelling the Mexicans. Their year consisted of 



