184 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 



he was a king unacquainted with the sowing of grain for 

 food neither did he know how to make shelters for his 

 subjects. He wore only a simple garb. The people ate 

 onty birds, serpents, rabbits and deer : as yet they had 

 no houses and came and went in all directions." The 

 early life in the open is pictured interestingly in several 

 other documents including the Map of Tlotzin and the 

 Map of Quinatzin. 



We have already seen how the splendid culture of the 

 Toltecan cities broke down under the weight of decad- 

 ence and civil war during the twelfth and thirteenth 

 centuries A.D. To be sure, Cholula appears to have 

 kept alive the flame of Toltecan religion and art up to 

 the advent of the Spaniards. Perhaps Atzcapotzalco 

 and other towns near the lakes that had been established 

 during the Toltecan period were able to hold their own 

 for a time against the newer order. But the sturdy 

 Chichimecas made rapid progress. Tezcoco became 

 their most prominent city only to be eclipsed by Tenoch- 

 titlan, the island capital of the Aztecs. 



Aztecan History. The history of the Aztecs has a 

 mythological preamble in common with other nations of 

 Mexico. The Chicomoztoc or Seven Caves must not be 

 considered historical but simply man's place of emer- 

 gence from the underworld. The general conception of 

 an existence within the earth that preceded the exist- 

 ence upon the earth is found very widely among North 

 American Indians. It is likewise impossible to locate 

 the Island of Aztlan, that served, according to several 

 codices, as the starting place of the Mexican migration. 

 The northern origin for the Aztecan tribe to which so 

 much attention has been paid need not have been far 

 from the Valley of Mexico, since in their entire recorded 

 peregrination they hardly traveled eighty miles. 



