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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 13 



Mayance. From this supposed substratum the 

 modern Totonac have diverged widely. Years 

 ago, before the Olmeca achieved their current 

 vogue, Krickeberg (pp. 145-158) envisaged pretty 

 much the same panorama and attempted to trace 

 relics of a Mayan cultural substratum along the 

 Gulf coast. 



LEGENDARY HISTORY 



Of traditions concerning the early history of 

 Totonacapan, no trace remains at Taj in, as far as 

 we could determine. However, many of the old 

 sources — mostly non-Totonac — contain references 

 to the legendary history. Few mention the 

 Papantla area specifically ; several refer to Zaca- 

 tlan, at one time a Totonac center in the Sierra de 

 Puebla ; and further data come from the modern 

 Jalapa-Misantla area, in the State of Veracruz. 

 Despite the fact that the sources are scattered and 

 confused, 32 we shall attempt to formulate the pic- 

 ture for Totonacapan as a whole, relating the 

 Papantla-Tajin area to it inferentially. 



It has just been noted that the archeological 

 evidence may be interpreted as implying close con- 

 tact in remote times between Totonacapan and the 

 central highlands; and legendary history, which 

 starts with the Toltecs, similarly reveals relation- 

 ships between coast and highland. For example, 

 in their pre-Tula days, the Toltecs wandered 

 extensively, reaching the "coasts and beaches" of 

 the Gulf (Veytia 1: 153). Later, among other 

 stops, they settled temporarily at Zacatlan, "Tuza- 

 pan" (near Papantla), and Tulancingo, before 

 establishing themselves definitely at their great 

 center of Tula (Veytia 1 : 154-156) , in the modern 

 State of Hidalgo. 



Their "empire" flourished, and the realm of 

 Topiltzin, the last Toltec ruler at Tula, is said 

 somewhat bombastically to have extended during 

 its heyday "from one sea to the other" (Ixtlilxo- 

 chitl 1: 88). But Topiltzin was an illegitimate 

 son, and there were violent objections when he 

 inherited the "Toltec empire," especially by three 

 subject "kings" who were "from the provinces 

 which lie on the coasts of the Gulf" (Ixtlilxochitl 



1 : 472). 33 Owing in part to the uprising of these 

 dissenters, Tula was destroyed, in A. D. 1156 or 

 1168 (Jimenez Moreno, 1942 b, p. 125). 



The surviving Toltecs scattered, some going to 

 "Tozapan, Tochpan, Tziuhcoac y Xicotepec" 

 (Ixtlilxochitl 2: 37). This brought them to the 

 fringes of Totonacapan, in Tuxpan and in old 

 "Tzicoac," and within its limits, in "Tuzapan," 

 near Papantla, and in "Jicotepec" (modern Villa 

 Juarez). Years later, it was said that there were 

 surviving Toltecs "on the coasts of the South and 

 North sea" (Ixtlilxochitl 1:89). If the ruins at 

 Teayo prove to be post-Tula, they lend credence 

 to this legendary dispersal ; in any case, they indi- 

 cate a center of Toltec influence in the Papantla 

 area. 



Others of the Toltec survivors (generally called 

 the Tolteca-Chichimeca) conquered Cholula, in 

 the modern State of Puebla (Jimenez Moreno, 

 1942 b, p. 126 ; Kirchhoff, 1947, p. xxvii) . At that 

 time, Cholula was occupied by a people desig- 

 nated as "Olmeca." They were dislodged by the 

 Toltec conquest and one group, called the Olmeca- 

 Zacateca, migrated to Zacatlan, in northern Toto- 

 nacapan ; another, the Olmeca-Xicalanca, went to 

 the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Jimenez 

 Moreno, 1942 b, p. 126; Kirchhoff, 1940, pp. 99- 

 100). The conquest of Cholula still was not com- 

 plete. Allies of the ousted Olmeca continued to 

 battle with the Toltecs, and eventually the latter 

 imported seven tribes of Chichimecs to assist them. 



The Toltecs, weakened and scattered, ceased to 

 play a major role, and there is no further refer- 

 ence to them in connection with Totonacapan. It 

 is curious that the Totonac sources make no men- 

 tion of the arrival of the Olmeca-Zacateca at 

 Zacatlan. They report incursions by Chichimecs, 

 but the culture of the latter was far too simple 

 (Torquemada 1 : 279) to permit identification with 

 the Olmeca-Zacateca; moreover, as will be seen 

 below, assuredly the Chichimecs were new-comers 



32 Manifestly, the ordering of these early data is a job for the 

 specialist, btit since none of the latter has published a general 

 collation or interpretation, -we have no choice but to struggle 

 individually with the early sources. To reduce the inevitable 

 confusion to n minimum, details such as personal names have 

 been omitted from the text insofar as possible. 



33 In this connection, Ixtlilxochitl (1 : 67) mentions specifically 

 "Quinhuixtlan" and "Auahuacac." At the time of the Spanish 

 Conquest, "Quiahuixtlan" -was an important Totonac settlement 

 on the coast near "Cempoala" ; and Anahuac apparently is an old 

 name for both the east and west coasts (Sahagun 2 : 341, 354- 

 355 ; Chavero, in Muiioz Camargo, ftn. 2, pp. 34-35 ; Simeon, 

 in Chimalpahln, ftn. 3, p. 174) as well as for the Valley of 

 Mexico. 



However, Veytia (1 : 189, 198) appears to place "Quiahuix- 

 tlan" and the rebel "kings" in western Mexico ; he mentions 

 "toda la costa del mar del Sur. hasta mas adelante de Jalisco . . ." 

 (cf. ftn. 27, map 17). 



