462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



It is recorded that the poet king, who had the gift of friendship, 

 not only composed an ode on the death of one of his relatives but 

 had an inscription carved on the breastwork of the stone steps to 

 commemorate the hour, day, month, and year in which the news of 

 the death of the Lord of Huexotzinco, " whom he loved dearly," 

 was brought to him while he was superintending the engineering 

 work on the hill of Texcotzinco. This inscription in hieroglyphics 

 and a number of notable statues and bas-reliefs representing the 

 most important events of the poet king's life were entirely destroyed 

 by order of Archbishop Zumarraga. A richly decorated clay spin- 

 dle whorl adorned with a swastika, which I found on the hill during 

 my last visit, conjured up visions of the gentle native women who 

 shared the poet's life and his enjoyment of his earthly paradise with 

 its enchanting views, murmuring waters, songs of birds, and all 

 pervading beauty of color and perfume. 



In conclusion, an account of the history and true nature of the 

 famous chinampas, or " floating gardens," must be given in order to 

 dispel some of the erroneous ideas concerning them which were first 

 promulgated by the historian Clavijero and have since flourished 

 with a well-known exuberant vitality of error. 



In the " Cronica Mexicana " of the native historian Tezozomoc, 

 it is related how at a remote period, after the migratory Nahuas had 

 left Tula, they went southward and reached Tequixquiac. There 

 they manufactured beds (for cultivating food plants), giving them 

 the name of chinamitl. This work signifies literally " an inclosed 

 bed surrounded by a fence made of cane or stakes." the name chi- 

 nampa is therefore composed of the word for inclosure and the affix 

 pan-pani, which conveys the meaning that the inclosed bed was a 

 raised one, being " on or above the surface." It would seem that 

 these first chinampas were made in a plain, for Tezozomoc makes 

 special mention of the fact that later, when they reached Xaltocan, 

 they " made beds in the lagoon and planted seeds of maize, beans, 

 huauhtli ( Amaranthus) , squashes, tomatoes, and chile peppers." 



Years later, having reached the valley of Mexico, they selected a 

 site in the shallow fresh-water lagoon, and under the direction of 

 their high priest cut sods of the reeds and other grasses growing in 

 the water and used these to make a foundation for the mud beds they 

 built up, inside of a staked-off inclosure, by means of layer after 

 layer of the muddy sediment at the bottom of the lake. It is exactly 

 in the same way that new chinampas are made nowadays in the 

 Lake of Xochimilco by the descendants of the ancient agriculturalists 

 who, on account of their use of such beds, were and are known as 

 chinampanecas = "chinampa people." 



From time immemorial, however, their oblong raised plots, the size 

 of which varies between 20 to 100 feet in length and 7 to 40 feet in 



