VALLEY OF MEXICO — VAILLANT 523 



represented in this way, while events were depicted pictorially. The 

 dates of various incidents were also given in terms of a 52-year cycle, 

 but no method of distinguishing one cycle from another was evolved. 

 This system caused the same kind of confusion as if we were to date 

 our history in terms of a century only, so that an event recorded as 

 falling in "65" might mean 1065, 1365, or 1865. The Aztec picture 

 records were undoubtedly supplemented by chants or sagas, which 

 gave detail and color to the simple annals set forth in the manuscripts, 

 and some of the records have notes added at a later date in Spanish 

 or Aztec which describe the native text. 



Besides these indigenous documents, there were also histories 

 written by Spanish priests and educated Indians after the Conquest. 

 These authors seem to have had access both to the oral traditions 

 and the pictorial records. In most cases their original sources have 

 disappeared or else survive in copies distorted by European draughts- 

 manship. These later authors were often bewildered by the native 

 method of dating, as would naturally be the case if one lacked a com- 

 plete knowledge of the events of Aztec history. Thus, by confusing 

 the various cycles, rulers are sometimes fantastically credited with 

 160-year reigns. But in the main the native records are fairly com- 

 plete from 1200 to the Conquest and one or two accounts, written 

 after 1519 but based on native traditions, reach as far back as the 

 seventh century. 



The history recorded for the Valley of Mexico begins with mytho- 

 logical tales relating to the foundation of the world and to the presence 

 on earth of gods and giants. Then follow accounts of the Toltecs, 

 in which the supernatural is heavUy involved. The lists of their 

 rulers do not always agree, but there is strong evidence that the 

 Toltecs actually existed, and the Toltec era is described as a golden 

 age in Mexican history. 



Famine and the incursions of savage tribes, the Chichimecs, brought 

 an end to the Toltec Empire in the twelfth century. One of these 

 entities settled in Azcapotzalco and through intermarriage with the 

 remnant Toltecs picked up enough of the earlier culture to achieve a 

 sedentary life. At the end of the thirteenth century Quinatzin, the 

 fourth of the Chichimec line, moved his court from Tenayuca to 

 Texcoco; but insurrection broke out in his former dominion and 

 thenceforth there was bitter rivalry for the control of the Valley of 

 Mexico between Azcapotzalco and Texcoco. In the second quarter 

 of the fourteenth century two groups of people from the Mixteca 

 came to Texcoco bringing not only writing, but also the cult of the 

 god Tezcatlipoca. A few years later the Tenochca, or Aztecs of 

 Tenochtitlan, the modern Mexico City, along with several other 

 groups, filtered into the valley and became tributary to the Tepanecs 

 of Azcapotzalco. 



