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SOLUTION.
OF THE
GRAND HISTORICAL PROBLEM
OF THE
POPULATION OF AMERICA.
The injudicious and total destruction of the annals and records of the American nations, has not only proved a most
serious loss to history, but very prejudicial to that religion, whose progress, it was supposed, would thereby have
been accelerated: such unexpected effects are sometimes produced by the very limited connexion between the
understanding and the policy of men, to whom it is natural to err, even in designs the best conceived, both as to
their means and object; in addition to which, they are too frequently the result of prejudice or of ignorance.
Religion, which has always been the leading object of attention with civilized nations, is invariably connected with
their history; neither can the one fail in affording instruction as regards the other. If the history of a nation
deserves to be
26
destroyed and blotted out from the memory of man, merely because it is the record of superstition, idolatries, and
other errors, regugnant to true religion, then the sacred books, that are the foundation of our holy catholic faith,
would not have been exampted from the fatal misfortune which produced the destruction of the American Records.
The Hebrews, who were chosen by God, from among all nations, to be the depositories of his true religion and worship,
were not less inclined to idolatry, than were the American nations; for the sacred text informs us of their frequent
lapses from the divine ordinances, and of the various punishments inflicted by the Almighty for the purpose of
correcting and bringing them back to the path of truth, but it does not conceal from us the idolatrous errors into
which they were precipitated.
We no where read of, nor has it ever been asserted of the apostles, who with their inspired voices, desseminated
the mysteries of the catholic religion throughout the world, and who endevoured to esterminate idolatry, even by the
sacrifice of their lives, that they destroyed the histories of the Pagan nations in whose hearts they implanted the
true faith; even the holy fathers and doctors of the church neglect to have them compiled with the minute descriptions
of the many supertitious errors to which they were addicted.
The fate of the American histories immediately brought into action the pens of many learned men, natives as well as
27
Spaniards, and roused the attention of Phillip the second and of the first viceroys of Mexico, to replace, as far as
possible, so deplorable a loss (note 1). Their exertions do not prove if any essential service, as the histories which
they produced embrace only a few of the latter ages; neither do they appear to have employed much research in discovering
the origin of the Americans. At subsequent periods, however, many men of superior attainments undertook to write on
this subject (note 2). But what has proved the result? Notwithstanding all their zeal and application, after
undertaking much and having essayed through many different channels an investigation of how, and from whence the first
inhabitants of America came, yet, to the present period, no hypothesis has been advanced, that is sufficiently
probable, to satisfy a mind sincerely and cautiously desirious of arriving at the truth. This is the conclusion drawn
by that illustrious benedictine, Fray Benito Geronymo Feyjoo, in the twenty-fifth discourse of the fifth vol. of his
Teatro Critico, where he says: "After long study and attentive examination of so many, and such various opinions,
I find no one, having the necessary appearance of truth to satisfy a prudent judgment, and many that do not possess
even the merit of probability."
A research enveloped in so much obscurity, led the celebrated Guiseppo Antonio Constantini to declare, that whatsoever
may be advanced upon the subject, does not pass beyond the limit of mere opinion, as we have neither histories,
manuscripts, nor traditions of the Americans; the greater part of whom, he says, when they were discovered, were
ignorant
28
and uncultivated, and that the suppositions given by many writers are subject to inscrutable difficulties (note 3).
Francisco Xavier Clavigero, a modern American author, has said -- "that the history of the primitive population of
Anahuac is so obscure and so much involved in fable as to render it not merely a most difficult matter for solution,
but totally impossible to come at the truth" (note 4).
The darkness of this historical question opened the road to an attack upon the impregnable rock of religion. About the
middle of the last century, Isaac Peyrere erected his system of the Preadamites which he founded upon the more
philsophical than historical one, of the deluge, invented by Thomas Burnet in his sacred Theology of the Earth
(note 6) denying, on the one hand, the universality of the flood upon the earth, in opposition to the irrefragable
sense of the scriptures, and the uniform belief of the church, pretends, on the contrary with the synogogue, that all
the human race are not the descendants of Adam and Eve, and consequently denies original sin and the principle of our
holy catholic religion; producing the population of America as the chief support of this hypothesis, and the ignorance
that exists as to the source of its origin. Assuming the fact, that there is no communication between the two
continents by land, and not without traversing immense seas, he infers that, anterior to the invention of the mariner's
compass, men could not pass over either from Europe, Asia, or Africa; therefore, as it is clear that America was
peopled before the time of that invention, he infers therefore, that its inhabitants
29
are not the descendants, from those of the old continent; and therefore not indebted to Adam and Eve for their origin,
but to others of the human race both male and female, whom God had created at a much earlier period, and placed in
these southern regions.
Innovation is not to be tolerated in religion; for, being sole, holy and eternal, it is, as it has been, and as it will
be to the end of time, immutable; new doctrines may be admitted in philosophical matters, but even many of these become
dangerous and detrimental to religion from the influence which they may acquire. Thus, for instance, the systematic
novelties of Descartes and other modern philosophers, which, in the beginning, appeared to be neither morally good nor
positively bad, by time and the force of inference, went the length, not only of overturning the spirituality and the
immortality of the soul, and making it material and corruptible; but even proceeded so far as to destroy religion
itself so completely, as to fall into the still greater impiety of atheism: the system of Burnet gave rise to the
heretical one of the Preadamites; and there are many others of a similar stamp abounding in this inconsistent age of
ours, which advances such bold pretensions and calls itself the most enlightened.
Although the Almighty subjected nature to certain laws, he has, notwithstanding, reserved to himself a more supreme
dominion over her, and has, from time to time, been pleased to give the most resplendent demonstrations of his
omnipotent arm, in acts and incidents stupendous in themselves, and even
30
superior to those very laws. In such cases it is better to believe his works miraculous, than endeavor to make an
ostentatious display of our talents by the cunning invention of new systems, in attrubuting them to natural causes
(note 7). On this account, Burnet will always be reprehensible for the singularity of his system, as will many other
modern philosophers, for the notions they have disseminated; but, that of Peyrere, must ever be condemned for its
heretical principles: Feyjoo, father Garcia, and his illustrator, mentioned by Constantini, Clavigero, and all who have
written from the commencement of this century on the origin of the Americans, are alike open to the censure of being
careless investigators, in having passed over the indubitable memorials on the first inhabitants of America written
by the bishop of Chiapa, don Francisco Nunez de la Vega in his Diocesan Constitution, printed at Rome in 1702.
Among the many small historical works that fell into the hands of this illustrious prelate, who was not more zealous
for the glory of God, than he was mistaken in the interpretations he apploes to many of them, and particularly, when
he attributes the whole of them to superstition; instances one that was written by Votan, of whom he speaks as
follows in no. 34, section 30, of the preface to his Constitutions: "Votan is the third gentile placed in the calendar,
he wrote an historical tract in the Indian idiom, wherein he mentions, by name, the people with whom, and places where,
he had been; up to the present time theree has existed a family of Votans in Teopizca. He says also that he is lord of
the Tapanahuasec (note 8);
31
that he saw the great house (meaning the tower of Babel), which was built by the order of his grand-father Noe (Noah),
from the earth to the sky; that he is the first man whom God sent hither to divide and portion out these Indian lands;
and that, at the place where he saw the great house, a different lanhuage was given to each nation."
This illustrious prelate could have communicated a much greater portion of information relative to Votan and to many
other of the primitive inhabitants, whose historical works, he assures us, were in his own possession; but feeling some
scruples, on account of the mischievous use the Indians made of their histories in the superstition of nagualism
(note 9), he thought it proper to withhold it for the reasons assigned in no. 36, section 32 of his preface.
"Although," says he, "in these tracts and papers there are many other things touching primitive paganism, they are not
mentioned in this epitome, least, by being brought into notice, they should be the means of confirming more strongly
an idolatrous superstition. I have made this digression, that it may be observed in the Notices of the Indians (the word
idols is here used which seems to be an error of the press), and the substance of the primitive errors, in which they
were instructed by their ancestors."
It is to be regretted that the place is unknown where these precious documents of history were deposited; but still
more is it to be lamanted, that the great treasure should have been destroyed: this treasure, according to the
Indian tradition, was
32
placed by Votan himself, as a proof of his origin and a memorial for future ages, in the casa lobrega, (house
of darkness) that he had built in a breath, that is, in the space of a few breathings, a metaphorical expression
intended to imply the very short space of time employed in its construction. He committed this deposit to a
distinguished female, and a certain number of plebian Indians appointed annually for the purpose of its safe custody.
His mandate was scrupulously observed for many ages by the people of Tacoaloya, in the province of Soconusco, where it
was guarded with extraordinary care, until being discovered by the prelate before mentioned, he obtained and destroyed
it. Let me give his own words from no. 34, section 30 of his preface -- "This treasure consisted of some large earthen
vases of one piece, and closed with covers of the same material, on which were represented in stone, the figures of
the ancient Indian pagans, whose names are in the calendar, with some calchihuites, which are solid hard
stones, of a green colour and other superstitious figures. -- These were taken from a cave by the Indian lady herself,
and the Tapienes or guardian of them, and given up; when they were publicly burnt in the square at Hueguetan, on our
visits to that province in 1691."
It is possible that Votan's historical tract alluded to by Nunez de la Vega, or another similar to it, may be the one
which is now in the possession of Don Ramon de Ordonez y Aguiar, a native of Ciudad Real; he is a man of extraordinary
genius, and engaged at this time, in composing a work, the title
33
of which I have seen being as follows, Historia del Cielo y de la Tierra; that will not only embrace the
original population of America, but trace its progress from Chaldea immediately after the confusion of tongues; its
mystical and moral theology, its mythology and most important events. His literary acquirements, his application to,
and study of the subject, for more than thirty years, his skill in the Tzendal language, in which idiom the tract
just spoken of is written, and the many excellent authors he has collected, lead us to anticipate a work, so perfect
in its kind, as will completely astonish the world.
To the important information of Nunez de la Vega, I will add the no less valuable notices communicated to me by
Don Ramon Ordonez y Aguiar. The memoir in his possession consists of five or six folios of common quarto paper,
written in ordinary characters in the Tzendal language, an evident proof of its having been copied from the original
in hieroglyphics, shortly after the conquest.
At the top of the first leaf, the two continents are painted in different colours, in two small squares, placed
parallel to each other in the angles: the one representing Europe, Asia, and Africa, is marked with two large SS;
upon the upper arms of two bars drawn from the opposite angles of each square, forming the point of union in the
centre; that which indicates America has two SS placed horizontally on the bars, but I am not certain whether upon
the upper or lower bars, but I believe upon the latter. When speaking of the places he had visited on the old
continent, he marks them on the margin of each
34
chapter, with an upright S, and those of America with a horizontal S. Between these squares stand the title of his
history. "Proof that I am Culebra" (a snake), which title he proves in the body of his work, by saying that he is
Culebra, because he is Chivim. He states that he conducted seven families from Valum Votan to this continent and
assigned lands to them; that he is the third of the Votans; that, having determined to travel until he arrived at
the root of heaven, in order to discover his relations the Culebras, and make himself known to them, he made four
voyages to Chivim (which is expressed by repeating four times from Valum Votan to Valum Chivim, from Valum Chivim
to Valum Votan); that he arrived in Spain, and that he went to Rome; that he saw the great house of God building;
that he went by the road which his brethren the Culebras had bored; that he marked it, and that he passed by the
houses of the thirteen Culebras.
He relates, that, in returning from one of his voyages, he found seven other families of the Tzequil nation, who
had joined the first inhabitants, and recognized in them the same origin as his own, that is, of the Culebras. He
speaks of the place where they built their first town, which, from its founders, received the name of Tzequil; he
affirms the having taught them refinement of manners in the use of the table, table cloth, dishes, basins, cups and
napkins; that, in return for these, they taught him the knowledge of God and of his worship; his first ideas of a
king and obedience to him; and that he was chosen captain of all these united families.
35
It would be of great importance to have this memoir literally translated; for although it is written in a laconic
and figurative style, it would lead to a more ample interpretation and illustration of history, both divine and
human; indeed, such a translation may be considered requisite to the gratification of the public, and, on another
account, because a great number of persons are likely to produce more accurate observations and discoveries than
an indivudual is able to achieve; but, as the proprietor of this fragment espreessed himself to me, we must be
satisfied, for the present, with the little that has been accomplished, (considering the difficulty of understanding
the sentences and situations of the p;aces mentioned), towards construing it, insufficient as it is, to clear up
the historical obscurity which has hitherto fatigued the greatest talents of the world to no good purpose.
Let us now follow the progress of this celebrated chief of the first inhabitants of the American continent, let us
examine his narrative carefully, and observe if it agrees with the histories and antient traditions of the writers
of both hemispheres, and compare it with some of the few monuments and documents furnished by Antonio del Rio, captain
of artillery, who was sent in consequence of an order from his Majesty Charles the third, dated March 15th 1786, by
his Excellency don Joseph Estacheria, captain general of Gautemala, to examine the ruins of a city of very great
extent and antiquity, the name of which is unknown, that was discovered in the vicinity of Palenque, district of
Carmen, in the province of Chiapa where he found
36
magnificent edifaces, temples, towers, aqueducts, statues, hieroglyphics and unknown characters, that have withstood
the raveges of time and a succession of ages, and of which he made many plans and drawings.
Among the figures which this officer copied, are two that represent Votan on both continents, and an historical event,
the memory of which he was desirous of transmitting to future ages.
The first figure displays Votan adorned with many hieroglyphics, the meaning of some of them I will explain, unless my
humble abilities mislead me. -- The hero has a symbolical figure twined round his right arm; this is significative of
his voyages to the old continent. The square, with a bird painted in the centre, indicates Valum Votan: whence he
commenced his travels; and it is an Island, because among antiquarians it is unanimously agreed, that a bird is the
symbol of navigation; for only by the means of navigation could his voyages be undertaken; the remainder of the figure
shews the course taken to reach Valum Chivim.
The figure, with the bird in the middle, resembles the one I stated as descriptive of his maritime route to the other
old continent; but the bird being figured in an opposite direction, denotes his return to Valum Votan. He holds in his
left hand a sceptre, from the top of which issues the symbol of the wind, such as Clavigero in his second vol. states
it to have been represented by the Americans. Dependant from the right hand is a double band, but to avoid repetition,
I shall reserve the meaning of this until I explain the second figure, as well as that of the
37
deity at his feet, in the act of supplicating to be taken to America, in order to be there known and adored.
The second figure shews Votan returned to America; the deity, before seen kneeling at his feet, is here placed on a
seat covered with hieroglyphics; Votan, with his right hand, is presenting him a sceptre armed with a knife of the
ytzli stone, known here under the name of chay: it is a species of black quartz, but it is sometimes
found of other colours, it is vitreous, semi diaphanous and infusible; the natives armed with their lances and
arrows with this instead of iron which was unknown to them, they frequently formed swords of the same by placing
it in a piece of wood split lengthways; and also used it to make knives employed in their sanguinary sacrifices: by
this act Votan shews the deity to be a principal one to whom sacrifices were offered. Votan has in his turban the
emblem of the air, and a bird with its beak in an opposite direction to his face, to signify his sailing from that
side of the world to this. From his left hand hang the two bands spoken of in the first figure, but they are here
more distinct than in that; the lower band shews the line of his descent on the old continent, and the upper one
exhibits his American progenitors. The three human hearts shew, that he who holds the band, is Votan, and the third
of his race, as he represents himself to be in his historical account. To comprehend this more clearly, it must be
observed, that the word Votan in Tzendal language, means heart; Nunez de la Vega, speaking of this hero of
antiquity in no. 34, section 30, says: "This Votan is much venerated by all the Indians, and in one province they
look upon him as the heart of the people.
38
By comparing Votan's narrative on the subject of his voyages to, and returns from, the old continent, and of his
being the third of the race; with the duplicate effiges of him which Captain del Rio found sculptured on stones, in
one of the temples at the unknown city, that we will, for the present, designate as the Palencian; we shall have a
very conclusive proof of its truth, and this one will be corroborated by so many others, that we shall be forced to
acknowledge this history of the origin of the Americans, excels those of the Greeks, the Romans, and the most
celebrated nations of the world, and even worthy of being compared with that of the Hebrews themselves.
If we accompany this renowned hero and writer of antiquity, I do not hesitate to assert, that he will leave us fully
satisfied with his veracity on the important point of the American population, and whence it proceeded; thereby putting
an end to the conjectural assumptions of modern authors, by enforcing a belief of testimonies so ancient and venerable,
and confirming a discovery made in our own times, which will cause the despised authorities of the ancients to be
received, and smooth those difficulties, hitherto produced by the readiness of writers, to escape from the real
obscurity of the subject, by starting [sic - stating?] brilliant ideas instead of seriously discussing facts.
Before we proceed, it is necessary to identify the deity who has been already described in one place, in the act of
supplication, and in another, as seated on the throne of the altar, and receiving the symbol of homage and adoration
from that hand whence he had before implored favour.
The mitre or cap, with the bull's horns, which this idol
39
bears on its head in both figures, removes all soubts as to his being the celebrated Osiris of the Egyptians, who,
according to Diodorus Siculus, is the same as Mesraim or Menes, son of Cham and heir to the kingdom of Egypt, known
to the Greeks and Romans, and worshipped by them as Dionysius or Bacchus; adopted also by other nations under different
names, and particularly by the Phoenicians, all firmly believing in him, and that, in every place and under what name
soever he was the active power of nature, viz: the good spirit, good fortune, and the bestower of all virtue,
prosperity and joy. On the other hand, his enemy Typhon was believed to be the evil principle, the general cause of
misfortunes and vices; whom, according to Plutarch, neither order nor reason, affections nor family, light nor health
could restrain; for this cause whatever preturbed or disfigured nature, even to the very eclipses, was attributed to
him.
The great aptness of Osiris in the invention of the arts necessary to social life; his justice in settling disputes
between individuals, his prudence in transmitting to his children the inheritance that had descended to him from his
father; finally, his strength and courage in destroying ferocious beasts, obtained for him the confidence and love of
his subjects, or rather, of his family, as it is probable that all the Egyptians were either his brothers or nephews,
over whom he had no other right than that which was conferred by primogenitureship. This people has always continued
firm in the belief of being indebted to him for the art of cultivating the ground, of grinding corn, of making and
40
baking bread, of cultivating the vine, flax, hemp, and the aromatic peculiar to Egypt, and of preparing the wool of
animals, for the clothing of men.
The gratitude due to him for discoveries so numerous and so useful, was accompanied by the effections of his people;
but, not content with making them happy, he sought to extend his humanity to the most remote nations, who, living
like the beasts of the forest, were unacquainted with the benefits of social life.
With this information, he left the government of his kingdom in charge of his equally humane and virtuous sister and
wife Isis, and attended by a large army,in which there were a great number of musicians and dancers of both sexes, he
departed; not with the intention of conquering kingdoms, but impelled by the desire of subduing the hearts of men,
by instructing them in the same arts, he had taught his own subjects, thinking, most reasonably, that it would be
more glorious to succeed by persuasive means in drawing mankind from the rude and wandering mode of life they had
hitherto led, than by force, to attempt bringing them to that gentleness of manners, consistent with the true
character of humanity.
His indefatigable zeal and incessant love towards the human race, his heroic object of rendering them happy without
a thought of depriving them of their liberty, begat a veneration so profound, that it quickly proceeded to the excess
of paying divine honours to a man who only sought to imitate the author of nature in his natural goodness.
A reign so fraught with general felicity well deserved to be
41
eternized; but it was shortened by an enemy rendered more terrible and dangerous, because unsuspected, and allied by
the closest ties of consanguinity. This enemy was Typhon, his own brother, a wretch excited by the fierce spirit of
envy, who contrived schemes to obscure the fame of him he could not imitate; and, being assisted by his compeers, he
conspired against his brother's life, and repeated the atrocious crime of Cain. In the absence of Mesraim, Typhon
secretly formed a party, and, accompanied by twenty six traitors, assassinated him on his return. -- Villainy so
atrocious, could not be long concealed by the shallow contrivance of spreading a report, that the king had been
devoured by a crocodile or hypopotamus. -- It was soon ascertained that his body had been cut into as many pieces as
there were conspirators; Typhon supposed that, dividing the body of Menes among his accomplices, would inflame them
against the memory of the prince, and, as he was ambitious as well as cruel, he expected to be able to engage them,
as a consequence of their barbarity, in support of his usurpation of the crown.
Impious and inhuman Typhon, may thy memory be accursed with interminable hatred, for daring to stain thy murderous
hands, with the blood of thy brother and thy king, thus leaving to posterity the execrable example, of a two fold
crime so horrible; thy ambition caused a polished people to tear asunder the most sacred bonds, to precipitate
themselves into the greatest atrocities, to tarnish the glory of their ancestors, and to disgrace their nation!
As soon as Isis was informed of Typhon's barbarity, inflamed
42
with rage, and assisted by her eldest son Orus, known to the Greeks by the name of Apollo, she avenged the death of
her husband. With a powerful army of her faithful subjects, who, no less incensed than herself at the melancholy fate
of their beloved monarch, and equally eager to take vengeance; she went in pursuit of the murderer, fought a sanguinary
battle, defeated, took him prisoner, and then put him to death with the most guilty of his rebellious partizans.
Not satisfied by this punishing the infamous brotherm Isis resolved to gives proofs of piety and affection for her
husband, and collected the dispersed portions of his mutilated body, to honour them with obsequies of so good a king.
Only one part of the corpse was deficient, and this had been thrown into the Nile, because none of the conspirators
would carry it away. -- Isis greatly lamented this lost portion, and therefore resolved that more respect and
veneration should be paid to it than to nay other: for this purpose she pretended to have found it, and, to celebrate
the recovery, ordered that all the women should carry its effigy suspended from their necks (note 10). This effigy,
deemed impure by us in modern times, was greatly honored by the antients, and, by some nations, even now continues
to be venerated. The Bramins of India carry it in solemn procession at certain festivals, and present it to be kissed
by the people, who believe that they are paying devotion to the author of nature, by honoring the symbol of fecundity,
which they Greeks named Phallo, and the festivals in honor of the same, Phallophorides, see Descartes at
these words.
As Osiris had taught men the art of tillage, the priests
43
chose the ox, as a symbol of agriculture, to represent this defied prince; the cow was chosen as the type of Isis who
was raised to a divinity after her death; and this symbolized ox and cow they called Apis. Hence it is that Osiris
was represented with a mitre from which issue two horns, as spoken of in the figures just described. Sometimes a
twisted or crooked stick was placed in his left hand, and a sort of strap or thong with three ends in his right, this
strap may be observed below the knees of the first figure, and with the distinction of the three ends in the right
hand of the second.
Diodorus Siculus, lib. 1, has left us a description of Osiris found upon ancient monuments, which shews what the
people, who adopted his worship, thought of him -- viz. "Saturn, the youngest of all the gods, was my father; I am
the king Osiris, who, followed by a powerful army, overran all the earth, from the arid sands of India to the
frosts of the bear; and, from the source of the Ister, to the shores of the ocean, so that my inventions and my
benefits were carried into every region."
The superstition of the antients was not satisfied by perpetuating the fame of Isis and Osiris, but it was also
necessary to conciliate the infamous Typhon, known in fabulous history under the name of Python, which is only an
inversion of the same letters; to the former they offered sacrifices to obtain favors, as they did to the latter to
escape injuries.
In the present day Osiris is recognized by the people of Upper Tartary and in China as the god of heaven, and the
dispenser of good; and Typhon as the god of the earth and inflictor
44
of evils; he is worshipped under the form of an idol cloathed with skins and called Natogai. The belief in beneficent
and malignant deities was common with the Americans during their idolatry. In Typhon they even now fear the devil; but
he does not, at present, possess the power of seizing those who speak ill of him. In my mythological fable, that is
chiefly founded upon the events of Egyptian history, the victory of Apollo over Typhon is well known: it is feigned
that the latter, overwhelmed by shame and rage, fled from his conqueror; and wandering through the deserts, under the
form of a serpent, was at last destroyed by a thunderbolt.
The Egyptians conceived so much animosity and aversion to the domestic enemy of their country, that, because Typhon
had red hair, they could not suffer any one whose head was distinguished by that obnoxious colour to remain alive. An
unfortunate stranger, with the proscribed chevelure, happening to arrive in the country shortly after the death
of Osiris, encountered the fury of the people, who dragged him to the sepulchre of the king and immediately immolated
him to his manes.
The following is a drawing from the figure which Captain del Rio found in the temple before mentioned, and describing
this event as do several other figures of Bacchantes sculptured on the walls, which are detailed in his report. It
reoresents a priest performing the initiatory purification of the victim, who is placed on the tomb of Orisis, which
is decorated with many Phalli connected. In this temple, the same gentleman discovered the figure of Isis which
accompanies his memior. It has on its head
45
a cap similar to that of Osiris, and holds with both hands a twisted stick adorned with flowers, having at one end,
a human head, the symbol of royal authority in the administration of justice, and of the duties of sovereigns, both
political and civil, in providing for the happiness of the subject, by giving encouragement and promoting religion,
arts and sciences in their dominions. The male figure, with a sceptre in his hand, is Mercury, whom Osiris left as
chief counsellor and minister to Isis during his absence. This Mercury was the celebrated Athotis or Copt of the
Egyptians, second son of Isis and Osiris; a prince of extraordinary prudence and ability, known among the Greeks as
Thot or Thaut, Theutat by the ancient Celts, and Mercury by the Latins. He founded the city and kingdom of Thebes
in that part of Egypt which fell to his share on the monarchy being divided between his brothers and himself, after
the death of their father. Mercury was the inventor or restorer of the art of writing by sacred hieroglyphics, the
knowledge of which was confined to the priesthood alone, under pain of capital punishment in the case of revealing
the same; he also invented the common method, in a different character, for the use of the people. Didorus Siculus,
on the book before cited, has preserved the valuable inscription of Osiris, mentioned by him, and another of Isis
in the following terms: "I am Isis, queen of this country, I had Mercury as my chief minister: no one was able to
resist the execution of my commands. I am the eldest daughter of Saturn, the youngest of all the gods, sister and
wife of Osiris, the king, and mother of king Orus."
The abbate de Castres, in the fourth vol. of his Mythological
46
Dictionary of Pagan Ages, speaks of a large copper plate called the Isiac table, found at Rome, in 1525, on which
were engraved many Egyptian gods, and in particular many figures of Isis with various symbols. It was purchased by
cardinal Bembo, and afterwards passed into the duke of Mantua's possession, after whose death it was splendidly
engraved in its full size, by Eneas Vico of Parma. The plate is divided into three horizontal bands which are
occupied by Egyptian deities and a great number of hieroglyphics that Pignorio, in his Mesa Isiaca, and father
Kircher, in his Oedipus Aegeyptiacus, have explained, and, I doubt not, but their expositions may serve to interpret
the Egyptian figures and deities of the Palencian city and more particularly the hieroglyphics.
Although the figure of Votan is not found among these, yet, having the fabulous history of Isis and Osiris fully
delineated, (without adverting to many other ultramarine subjects found by del Rio, that will, of themselves, afford
matter for many conclusive proofs), there is a very powerful argument to remove doubts about the existence of a
maritime communication between the two continents in the very remotest ages of antiquity; but, finding the duplicate
figures of Votan in the attitudes we have described, and combining the Indian tradition, that Nunez de la Vega
found verified by his discovery at the casa lobrega, with the small portion of information this illustrious prelate
has communicated, and with the little added thereto by the presbyter Ordonez, these are conclusive proofs in favor
of Votan; the truth of his voyages to the old continent, and of his being the first populator of the new world.
47
I repeat, let us confidently follow this ingenious historian, and examine what he means by Culebra, and what proofs
he gives of being Culebra. His words are, "I am Culebra, because I am Chivim:" this, at first sight, appears a very
short and inconclusive argument, but with a little study, admits of a clear and convincing explanation.
Among the few writers I have consulted, in order to comprehend Votan, the benedictine Calmet, in his Commentaries
on the Old Testament, has cleared the way for me, and saved much trouble in this work, as, by diligent study and
unwearied industry, he has collected whatever the most esteemed ancient authors have produced, in my opinion
as most probable.
Let us suppose then, with Calmet and other authors whom he quotes, that some of the Hivites, who were
descendants from Heth, son of Canaan, were settled on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, and known
from the most remote periods under the name of Hivim or Givim, from which region they were expelled,
some years before the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt, by the Caphtorims or Philistines, who,
according to some writers, were colonists from Cappadocia, others conceiving them to be from Cyprus,
and, more probably, according to a third opinion from Crete, now Candia; that, to strengthen their native
country Egypt, and to protect themselves from all assault, they built five strong cities, viz. Accaron,
Azotus, [Ashdod], Ascalon and Gaza, from whence they made frequent sallies upon the Canaanite towns and all
their surrounding neighbours, (except the Egyptians, whom they always respected,) and carried on many wars
in the posterior ages against the Hebrews (note 11).
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The scriptures, Deuteronomy chap. 2, verse 23, and Joshua, chap. 13, verse 4 inform us of the expulsion
of the Hivites, (Givim) by the Caphtorims, from which it appears that the latter, drove out the former,
who inhabited the countries from Azzah to Gaza. Many others were settled in the vicinity of the mountains
of Eval and Azzah, among whom were reckoned the Sichemites and the Gabaonites; the latter, by stratagem,
made alliance with Joshua, or submitted to him; lastly, others had their dwellings about the skirts of mount
Hermon beyond Jordan, and to the eastward of Canaan. Joshua, chap. 11, 3. Of these last were Cadmus and his
wife Hermione or Hermonia, both memorable in sacred as well as profane history, as their exploits occasioned
their being exalted to the rank of deities, while in regard to their metamorphosis into snakes, (culebras)
mentioned by Ovid, Metam. lib. 3, their being Hivites may have given rise to this fabulous transmutation,
the name in the Phoenician language implying a snake, which the ancient Hebrew writers suppose to have been
given from this people being accustomed to live in caves under ground like snakes (note 12).
Cadmus, in the opinion of Suidas, was the son of Agenor or Ogyges, who, according to Calmet, is the giant
Og, king of Basan, (situated at the foot of mount Hermon) who was vanquished and slain with all his family
and followers by Moses when he entered into the land of promise, about the year of the world 2253, which
agrees with 1451 of the vulgar era, and 1447 before Christ. -- We are told of his immense stature in
Deuteronomy, 3, 11, by the enormous size of his iron bedstead, the length of which is described in cubits,
viz. 9 by 4. In the time of Moses,
49
sojourning in the wilderness. Cadmus accompanied by his sister Cilix, his mother Telephassa and a numerous
company of his friends who were desirous of sharing his fortunes, quitted his father at the entreaty of
his sister Europa, to take revenge upon Jupiter, who had transformed himself into a white bull and carried
her away: some mythologists, however, suppose that the ship in which she was transported had the figure of
a white bull at its prow, and in this manner the fable originated; but the most probable conjecture is,
that he abandoned his country from a reasonable dread of the sentence promulgated by the Almighty for the
total destruction of the children of Canaan, of which the Hebrew people was destined to be the instrument;
and this fear might have been increased by the dreadful plague of hornets that preceded the Hebrew invasion
(note 13).
The first enterprise undertaken by Cadmus was the conquest of the Sidonians, (the descendants of Sidonius,
eldest son of Canaan,) and the foundation of the kingdom of Tyre in that part of the country, bounded on the
west by the Mediterranean sea, and by the Red Sea on the east; a situation most convenient for extending the
great commerce that has rendered this people so celebrated in history, both sacred and profane. The
establishment of this kingdom is fixed by Calmet, anno mundi 2549, or 1455 before Christ, and which year,
he says, corresponds with the 37th of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness: about the same period
Cilix founded the kingdom of Cilicia, on the confines of Tyre, and on the same coast of the Mediterranean.
Cadmus was not satisfied with this conquest, but recollecting
50
the success of Cecrops, an Egyptian prince, who, eight years before, had subjugated that part of Greece
where he founded the kingdom of Athens, and considering Greece, well peopled as it was, an object worthy
of his ambition, and the conquest of it within his power, he directed his views toward Boeotia; not at
all intimidated by the circumstance of its being then governed by the valiant Draco, a son or a descendant
of Mars. "The commencement of this enterprise was commensurate with his wishes; his progress was brilliant;
but the termination disastrous; as it happens in small monarchies when the chiefs, prompted by ambition
and covetousness, mutually seek each other's destruction, and finally become the victims of the most
powerful." Calmet, lib. 1, cap. 8.
Cadmus founded the city of Thebes. situated near mount Parnassus, the capital of his empire, and fortified it
with a citadel' which he called Cadmea' after his own name.
The epoch of the foundation of Thebes is ascertained from one of the Parian marbles, (now called the Arundel
marbles, because the earl of Arundel, an English nobleman, at a very great expense, transported them to his
own country) to have been in the sixty-fourth year of the Attican era, indubitably coinciding with 3195 of
the Julian, and 1519 before the Christian era; at which period, Moses was with his father-in-law Jethro,
in the land of Midian (note 14).
Greece was indebted to Cadmus for the art of writing, the cultivation of the vine, the consecration of
images, the rights of sanctuary so scrupulously respected by antiquity, and the use of
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arms offensive and defensive; he was the first warrior who armed his soldiers with helmets of copper, and he taught
the extraction of this metal from the mineral containing it, and which, up to the present day, has retained the
name of Cadmia. His disastrous end did not prevent the superstition of the times from celebrating his worth,
his talents, and his valour, by placing him among the demi-gods. The fable says, that his soldiers, having
been killed by a serpent near a fountain, whither they went to fetch water, (alluding to a battle that he
lost against Draco,) he avenged their death by killing their destroyer, from which he pulled out the teeth,
and sowing them, by the advice of Minerva, they produced a plentiful harvest of armed men, so warlike, and
so fiery in their tempers, that, upon a slight disagreement arising between them, they fought and killed
each other, excepting five only, by whom this part of Greece was afterwards peopled. This is not a proper
place to discuss the meaning of the fable: unseasonable erudition seldom fails to weary the reader, and
leads his attention from the principal subject under consideration; Homer and many other grave authors have
transgressed by such a display; it is, nevertheless, undeniable, that this fable is one of the greatest
supporters of history; I cannot, however, forbear remarking, that the Phoenician words expressive of a copper
helmet were so ambiguous as to signify also a man armed for war, a serpent's teeth, and the number five.
The invention of such a fable, its being fostered and propagated, either by the priests of the deified
personage, or the princes, his descendants and successors, might have occasioned
52
the first and true meaning of the words to be forgotten; while their own interest or convenience may have
engrafted the deception on the minds of the vulgar, who, from ignorance and simplicity, are always prone to
credit portentous novelties, more particularly, when they tend to identify the characters of their beloved
princes with their national glory; and especially when their religion is concerned.
It is also necessary to observe, that the names of Cadmus and Hermione are not proper to these persons:
Hermione was so called from being born a Hivite among those who dwelt near mount Hermon: while Cadmus
signifies an eastern man, or one who comes from the country situated towards the east; but this denomination
was not indiscriminately given to all Orientals, as Calmet together with other authors quoted by him,
believes; but it properly belonged to the Hivites near mount Hermon, who were known as Kadmonites or
Cedmonites, from the Hebrew word kedem, which, according to the interpretation of the rabbi Jonathan,
Genesis, chap. 15, verse 19, means east; and Calmet also places them in this situation. Paraphrastres of
Jerusalem, in glossing the word Heveum, chap. 10, verse 17, of Genesis, is, in my opinion, more correct
in rendering it Tripolitanum, meaning to insinuate, as Calmet says, that "the Hebrews removed themselves
to Africa, into the kingdom of Tripoli," or to speak more accurately, to Tripoli of Syria, a town in the
kingdom of Tyre, which was anciently called Chivim. Under this supposition, when Votan says he is Culebra,
because he is Chivim, he clearly shews, that he is a Hivite originally of Tripoli in Syria
53
which he calls Valum Chivim, where he landed in his voyages to the old continent.
Here then we have his assertion, I am Culebra, because I am Chivim, proved true, by a demonstration as
evident, as if he had said, I am a Hivite, native of Tripoli in Syria, which is Valum Chivim, the port
of my voyages to the old continent, and belonging to a nation famous for having produced such a hero as
Cadmus, who, by his valour and exploits was worthy of being changed into a Culebra, (snake,) and placed
among the gods; whose worship, for the glory of my nation and race I teach to the seven families of the
Tezquiles, that I found, on returning from one of my voyages, united to the seven families, inhabitants
of the American continent, whom I conducted from Valum Votan, and distributed lands among them.
Should a scrupulous reader not feel conviction from this interpretation, the brass medal, of which two
specimens were found, one of them now in the possession of Don Ramon Ordonez, the other, which was my own,
I presented to the King, with two copies of this work by the hands of the President, on the 2d of
June, 1794, will remove every doubt on this head, (the drawing is in all respects the same as the original,
except being rather enlarged,) and fully authenticate the rest of what Votan relates in his history, as
well as demonstrate that the American tradition as to his origin and his expulsion from the kingdom of
Amaguemecan, which was his first disaster on this continent, applies to him; while the narrative and the
medal, assisted by some portions of information from
54
Captain del Rio, will elucidate a few historical fragments which have been related by writers of the greatest
authority, but are considered apocryphal by the most esteemed modern authors.
The medal is a concise history of the primitive population of this part of North America, and of the
expulsion of the Chichemecas from Amaguemecan the capital of which indubitably was the Palencian city,
hitherto sought for in vain, either to the northward of Mexico, or in the north of Asia. This history,
comprised in so small a compass, is the best panegyric that can be given upon the sublime genius of its
inventors, of whose descendants, at the time of the conquest, it was a matter of doubt whether they possessed
rationality or not. -- On one side, the first seven families to whom Votan distributed lands are symbolized by
seven trees; one of them is withered, manifestly indicating the extinction of the family it represented;
at its root, there is a shrub of a different species, demonstrative of a new family supplying its place. --
The largest tree is a cieba, wild cotton, placed in the midst of the others, and overshadowing them
with its branches; it has a snake, Culebra, twined round its trunk, shewing the Hivite, the origin of all
these seven families; and the principal posterity of Cadmus in one of them; it also exposes the mistake of
Nunez de la Vega, in applying the symbol of the cieba to Ninus (note 17), and more strongly than ever
establishes the derivation of Votan and the seven families he conducted hither from the Culebras. The
signification of the withered tree, the shrub at its foot, and the bird on
55
the top, I shall give when I speak of the idol Huitzlopochtli. -- The reverse of the medal shews other seven trees,
with an Indian kneeling, the hands joined, the countenance sorrowful, the eyes cast down, in the act of invoking
divine help in the serious tribulation that afflicts him: this distress is typified by a crocodile on each side,
with open mouth, as if intent on devouring him. -- These devices doubtless imply the seven families of the Tzequiles,
whom Votan says he found on his return from Valum Chivim. -- Although it may not be an easy matter to assign
a reason why each tree is expressive of each family in particular, it is incontrovertible, that the Mexican
nation had the Opuntia or Nopal, (two of them), as its peculiar device therefore, the others might, in the
same manner, have belonged to other tribes now unknown. An eagle, with a snake in its beak and claws, on
the Nopal is also confirmatory of Votan's having recognised in the Tzequiles the same origin from the
Culebras as his own; and strengthens the Mexican tradition, of his having been driven from Amaguemecan.
Clavigero, in his ancient history of Mexico, vol. I, book 2, speaks of this kingdom, and the arrival of
the Chichemecas at the city before mentioned, which he calls the country of Anahuac and interprets the
name to mean "the place of the waters:" he says their native country and principal city was named
Amaguemecan, a word implying the same meaning as Anahuac, where, according to their own account, many
kings of their nation had reigned. Torquemada says, he found, from the Mexican written and oral histories,
that there had existed three kings of Amaguemecan.
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The traditions alluded to by Torquemada receive some confirmation from Captain del Rio's Report, in which
he says he found in the corridor of a building, (called by him the great house, casa grande, in the
Palencian city), three crowned human heads, cut in stone; and connected with the same, by a line proceeding
from the hinder part, there were figures representing different subjects. -- In this manner, the antients
used to describe their sovereigns; and, in still more remote periods, their deities. -- It is known beyond
the possibility of doubt, that, in the early ages of paganism, the idols were represented by symbols or
symbolical figures only; until, in the course of time, painting and the sculpture of human figures were
introduced, and afterwards greatly improved by Daedalus of Crete. -- Thus, formerly, a trident was the
synonymy of Neptune, until the improved art of designation placed a human head before it; a shield or a
club indicated Hercules; a sword or a shield, Mars; so that each deity or demi-god was known by his
appropriate symbol.
The Mexicans followed this method to express the names of their kings, and transmit the remembrance of
them to posterity, and, in so doing, they used the same means of description that they had been taught
by their ancestors from the old continent. Clavigero has given, in his second volume, portraits of the
nine monarchs who occupied the Mexican throne. The first was Acamapitzin, represented by a crowned head,
to the posterior part of which, joined by a line, is the device of a hand grasping some reeds, because
the name Acamapitzin signifies "one who has reeds in his hand." -- The second was Huitzilihuith, who had
for his device the small bird called chupaflores, or chupamiel
57
(the humming bird), with one of its feathers in its beak; Huitzilihuith meaning a chupaflore's feather.
The third, Chimalpopoca, had a shield emitting smoke; his name by interpretation, is "a smoking shield." The
fourth, Itzcoate, a snake armed with small lances, the itzli stone; the name implying "snake armed with itzli," --
and in like manner for the others.
Another important monument, still more clearly elucidating the Mexican tradition and Torquemada's story of the
kings of Amaguemecan, is the tower discovered by del Rio in the court-yard of the great temple: it consists of
three stories or floors, which was beyond a doubt the sepulchre of the three kings. He found the entrances to
the tower stopped up, and having ordered some of them to be opened, was surprised to see the interior filled
with loose sandy earth, but knew not from what cause, being unacquainted with the practices of the Americans;
and he was still more surprised on finding an interior wall connected with that of the exterior. The supposition
to be drawn from such a circumstance, is, that for the purpose of raising the third story, for the sepulchre of
the last king, the directors of the work, found it necessary to give a more extended circuit to the building,
and therefore devised the expedient of strengthening it by an outward wall, and perhaps with the intention of
continuing other stories as cemeteries for future kings, until the whole should have attained a very considerable
altitude.
In the small turrets on the top of the tower, Rio found two stones imbedded in the walls: on these were sculptured
two female figures with extended arms, each supporting an infant;
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this circumstance appears to point out the burial places of two queens, or two young princesses, or perhaps of
both. Of these figures he took drawings, but they are imperfect, as the faces had disappeared beneath the mouldering
touch of time.
Combining then the tradition of the Mexicans, as related by all writers on their history, respecting their kingdom
of Amaguemecan, of there having been three Chichemecan kings; of their expulsion from thence, as mentioned by
Torquemada and confirmed by del Rio's account of the three crowned heads, accompanied by devices similar to those
used by the Mexicans to represent their sovereigns; the tower divided into three portions, in each of which was
deposited the body of a king: keeping also under consideration Votan's history, and that, so ingeniously shown by
the medal; all these circumstances united tend to demonstrate, by evidence as clear as evidence can prove, that
the kingdom of Amaguemecan was situated in the present province of Chiapa; and that all the writers, who have
embraced the opinion that it existed in the north of America, or in Asia, have continued in error. -- They may have
been misled by discovering in some accounts, that the Chichemecas and other tribes came from the northward to
possess themselves of the kingdom of the Tultecas, which had been nearly depopulated by the plague; they appear
however to have overlooked the information they might have acquired, or perhaps did acquire, that the earliest
inhabitants of America came from the eastward; that they proceeded from the eastern part to the northward, and
again descended thence; or, more probably, from carelessness of research than from
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a total want of information, which, how slender soever it might have been, their curiosity should have prompted them
to examine thoroughly.
Of this historical fact, Herman Cortes obtained intelligence from the Emperor Moetezuma himself, almost immediately
after his arrival: the information was confirmed in a most solemn manner when Moetezuma and the nobles of his
empire assembled to swear homage to the monarch of Spain, Charles V; Cortes however supposing Moetezuma was mistaken,
paid no attention to his account: he was himself deceived, and continuing in this belief, has been the cause of
succeeding writers perpetuating the error, if I may be permitted to speak so decisively. -- In order however to
fix the reader's attention to what I have here asserted, I shall introduce, literally, the two discourses of
Moetezuma, as Cortes communicated them to his Majesty Charles V, in his first letter, dated October 30, 1520. --
This, with several other letters, notes and documents, was reprinted at Mexico in 1770, by order of Don Francisco
Antonio Lorenzana, at that time Archbishop of Mexico, afterwards Archbishop of Toledo, and subsequently raised to
the dignity of a Cardinal.
"It is," said Moetezuma to Cortes, "now many days since our historians have informed us, that neither my ancestors,
nor myself, nor any of the people who now inhabit this country, are natives of it; we are strangers, and came
hither from very distant parts; they also tell us, that a Lord to whom all were vassals, brought our race to this
land, and returned to his native place. That after a long time, he came here again and
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found that those whom he had left were married to the women of the country, had large families, and had built towns
in which they dwelt. He wished to take them away, but they would not consent to accompany him, nor permit him to
remain here as their chief; therefore he went away. That we have always been assured his descendants would return
to conquer our country, and reduce us again to his obedience. You say you come from the part where the sun rises,
we believe and hold to be true the things which you tell us of this great Lord or King who sent you hither; that
he is our natural Lord, particularly as you say that it is very many days since he has had notice of us. Be
therefore sure we will obey you, and take you for our Lord in the place of the good Lord of whom you tell us. In
this there shall be neither failure nor deception; therefore, command according to your will in all the country,
that is, in every part I have under my dominions; your will shall be obeyed and done; all that we have is subject
to whatever you may please to command. You are therefore in your own country, in your own house; rejoice and rest
from the fatigues of your journey, and the wars you have been engaged in." He continued to say many other things,
which I omit as being irrelevant.
In another discourse, Moetezuma said to the chiefs and Caciques, whom he had convoked in the presence of Cortes
and himself: -- "My brothers and friends, you already know that your grand-fathers, your fathers, and yourselves,
have been and are the vassals of my ancestors and myself; by them and by me you have always been honoured and well
treated; you
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have uniformly performed every thing that good and loyal subjects are bound to do for their natural Lords. I
believe also, you have heard from your predecessors, that we are not natives of this country; that they came from
a far distant land; that they were brought hither by a Lord who left them here, and to whom all were subject. A
long time after, this Lord came again, and found that our grand-fathers had married with the women of this country,
had settled and peopled it with a numerous posterity, and would not accompany him back to his country, or receive
him here, as the chief of this. He then went away, saying he would return with, or send such a power as should
overcome them, and reduce them to his service. You well know we have always expected him, and according to the
things. which the Captain has told us, of the King who sent him to us, and from the part he says he comes from,
I think it certain, and you cannot fail to be of the same opinion, that this is no other than the chief we look
for, particularly, as he declares that, in the place he comes from, they have been informed about us. As our
predecessors did not do what they ought to have done by their chief, let us do it, and let us give thanks to our
gods that, in our time has come to pass the event which has been so long expected. As all this is manifest to all
of you, much do I entreat you to obey this great king henceforward as you have hitherto obeyed and esteemed me
as your lawful Sovereign, for he is your natural Lord, and in his place I beseech you to obey this his great Captain."
He proceeded by desiring that such tributes and services as
62
had usually been paid to and performed for him, should in future be transferred to Cortes, as the representative
of their King; saying, that he would himself pay contributions to him, and serve him in whatsoever he should command
The assembled chiefs confirmed the tradition, and replied, "that they had always considered him as their Lord,
and were bound to perform whatever he should command them, and, for this reason, as well as for the one he had just
given them, they were content to do it." (Let this expression, they were content, &c., be noted.) All this, says
Cortes passed before a notary who reduced it to the form of a public act, and I required it to be testified as
such in the presence of many Spaniards.
Cortes, wishing to keep Moetezuma in the error which he supposed him to have fallen into, says in his first letter:
-- "I replied to all he had said in the way most suitable to myself, especially, by making him believe your Majesty
to be the chief whom they have so long expected."
It is surprising that the unvarying tradition of the first occupiers of America having come from the east, should
not have been examined or attended to by Cortes, and that it should have been unobserved by subsequent writers,
and by the introduction of the following notes into the republication of Moetezuma's discourses, is not less
astonishing. "The Mexicans, by tradition, came from the northern parts of the province of Quivira, and the particular
places of their habitations are known with certainty; this affords an evident proof that the conquest of
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the Mexican empire was achieved by the Tultecas, or people of Tula which was the capital. This was an erroneous
belief of the Indians, because they came from the north; but, had they proceeded from the peninsula of Yucatan
it might with truth be said that they came from the east, with respect to Mexico. In the whole of this discourse,
Cortes obviously took advantage of the erroneous notions of the Indians."
The natives were not mistaken, but Cortes was in error from disregarding their traditions, which, to say the least,
he ought to have kept in recollection and carefully examined when a little industry would most unquestionably have
satisfied him; but, as it was known on the other hand, that the Mexicans and other nations, occupying the desolated
kingdom of the Tultecas, descended from the northern regions, he took no pains to search out from whence and in
what manner they came. This negligence of Cortes, occasioned the error in authors who wrote after him; and it
arose principally from their not having attended to the tradition of the few existing testimonies of the Tultecas,
Chiapanecos, and Yucataneses, and the few historical fragments produced by writers of the greatest authority on
the other continent, who have been similarly condemned, by the most celebrated modern authors.
The Indians carefully preserved the remembrance of their origin, and of their ancestor's early progress from the
voluntary or the forced abandonment of Palestine on the ingress of the Hebrews; but these incidents have been,
in my opinion, erroneously interpreted by authors. -- I will here introduce what
64
the advocate Joseph Antonio Constantini advances on this subject. In the second volume of his Critical
Letters, in that entitled On the Origin of the Americans, he says: "We are indebted to Gemelli for
some valuable information which he obtained, during his residence in Mexico, from Don Carlos de Siguenza y Gonzora,
into whose possession it came, as being testamentary executor of Don Juan de Alva, a lineal descendant from the
king of Tezcuco who received it from his ancestors: this is, therefore, the most authentic document which
Gemelli procured, and he has carefully preserved it in his sixth volume by a plate. This engraving displays a
table or itinerary, on which are delineated the voyages of their progenitors who peopled Mexico; it consists of
different circles, divided into a hundred and four signs, signifying 104 years, which they say their forefathers
spent in their several domiciles before they reached the lake of Mexico; there are numerous and various
representations of mountains, trees, plants, heads of men, animals, birds, feathers, leaves, stones, and other
objects descriptive of their different habitations, and the accidents they met with, but which at present cannot
be understood."
This itinerary I have never had an opportunity of seeing, although very desirous of obtaining that advantage,
nor the book which Botturini says was written by the celebrated Mexican astronomer Huematzin and called by him
Teomoxtli: the divine book; wherein, by means of certain figures, he shews the origin of the Indians,
their dispersion after the separation of nations
65
subsequent to the confusion of tongues, their wanderings, their first settlement in America, and the foundation
of the kingdom of Tula, (which, I suspect from the mistakes of writers is not that of Amaguemecan), and their
progress down to his time, these incidents appear to be the same as those which happened to the Canaanites
generally, and to the Hivites in particular, along the whole coast of Africa, until their passing into America
and arrival at the lake of Mexico. The hundred and four years of domicile described by him were in Africa, and
not for the space of one year each, but of many years, according to the exigence of circumstances in the progress
of population; for it is evident the peopling of the earth after the general dispersion of the human race,
advanced but slowly, as colonies could not be settled without surmounting great difficulties in clearing the
ground from trees and thickets which covered it in every part. This was boring the ground, in the meaning of Votan,
when he says, he went by the road that his ancestors the Culebras had formerly bored.
Calmet, in his dissertation on the country to which the Canaanites retired when they were expelled by Joshua,
concurs in affirming this to be true.
This enlightened writer, after relating various opinions which he proves to be ill-founded, says, the one most
generally received, most consonant with truth, and also conformable to the Gemarra Hierosolemitana, is that which
supposes the Canaanites went into Africa. He adds that Procopius, lib. 2, cap. 10, of the Vandalic War, says they
first fled into Egypt,
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where they encreased in number, and then pursued their course to the remotest regions of Africa; they built many
cities, spread themselves over the adjacent countries, occupying nearly all the tract that extends to the columns
of Hercules, and retained their ancient language, although in some degree corrupted. To support this opinion,
he adduces a monument erected by this nation, which was found in the city of Tangier: it consisted of two columns
of white marble, with this inscription in Phoenician characters: "We are the children of those who fled from the
robber Jesus, the son of Nave, and here found a safe retreat" (note 18).
These columns may very possibly be the marks that Votan says he left behind him on the road that his ancestors
had bored; but they were considered Apocryphal by Feyjoo, from the expression of the inscription, that, Jesus or
Joshua was the son of Nave, whereas it is stated in the scriptures, that he was the son of Nun; it seems therefore
to have escaped Feyjoo's recollection, that Joshua is indiscriminately called the son of Nave or of Nun in different
places of Holy Writ.
Although we cannot fix to a certain epoch the time of the Canaanites occupying the coasts of Africa, inasmuch as
it did not take place at one period, but gradually, as they found themselves oppressed by the Hebrew wars;
and because many of the Hivites, as we have already said, abandoned their dwellings before Joshua entered
Palestine (note 19). There is no doubt that all these colonies existed prior to the Trojan war, because Greeks
returning from thence found that every part of the coast of
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Africa where they landed had been already peopled by the Phoenicians. On this point the Greek and Latin writers
agree, according to the testimony of Bochart in his work entitled Canaan; and of Hornius, on the origin of the
people of America. Lib. 2, cap. 3, 4: quoted by Calmet.
The era of the Trojan war is fixed at two hundred and forty years after the death of Joshua. Taking this for
granted, and comparing the epoch when the aforesaid colonies were established in Africa, with that which I shall
presently shew concerning the foundation of the first colony in America by the grand-father of Votan, it will
clearly appear, that, each of the hundred and four signs in the itinerary of Gemelli does not correspond with a
residence of one year, but of many.
This itinerary, supposed by many historians as appertaining to Asia, or the northern parts of America, has been
the means of augmenting our historical difficulties so much, that we encounter nothing but confusion, doubts
and queries: this will be seen by referring to the works of Clavigero, Torquemada and all others who have treated
on this subject. It nevertheless confirms the narrative of Votan, and the suppositions I have ventured to make
as will hereafter appear.
As it has been already proved that Valum Chivim, where Votan landed in his four voyages to the old continent,
is Tripoli in Syria; it is now requisite to examine what was the situation of Valum Votan, from whence he took
his departure.
In order to discuss this important question, which will have the effect of drawing from the depths of obscurity
and uncertainty
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into which time and revolutions upon the old continent, have plunged those historical records that remained
in ancient traditions; we shall derive sufficient assistance from Calmet in his dissertations before mentioned,
relative to the country in which the Canaanites, when expelled by Joshua and the Judges, his successors took
refuge, as also from the excellence of the Hebrew history.
This celebrated writer recites the opinions of the most classic authors on the discovery of America, and
the origin of its inhabitants, to which, however, he does not always assent, and among them produces that
of Hornius, who, supported by the authority of Strabo, affirms, as certain, that voyages from Africa and
Spain into the Atlantic ocean were, both frequent and celebrated, adding from Strabo, that Eudoxius sailing
from the Arabian gulf to Ethiopia and India found the prow of a ship that had been wrecked, which, from
having the head of a horse carved on it, he knew belonged to a Phoenician bark, and some Gaditani merchants
declared it to have been a fishing vessel: Laertius relates nearly the same circumstance. Hornius says
(continues Calmet,) that, in very remote ages, three voyages were made to America, the first by the Atlantes,
or descendants of Atlas, who gave his name to the Ocean and the islands Atlantides; this name Plato appears
to have learned from the Egyptian priests, the general Custodes of antiquity. The second voyage, mentioned
by Hornius, is given on the authority of Diodorus Siculus, lib. 5, cap. 19, where he says: The Phoenicians
having passed the columns of Hercules, and being impelled by the violence of the
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wind, abandoned themselves to its fury, and after experiencing many tempests, were thrown upon an island in
the Atlantic ocean, distant many days navigation to the westward of the coast of Lybia; which island, possessing
a fertile soil, had navigable rivers, and there were large buildings upon it. The report of this discovery soon
spread among the Carthagenians and Romans[;] the former being harassed by the wars of the latter, and the people
of Mauritania; sent a colony to that island with great secrecy, that, in the event of being overcome by their
enemies, they might possess a place of safe retreat (note 20).
In another place, Calmet introduces this passage of Diodorus more in detail, saying, that the Phoenicians
having returned from the island, so highly extolled its beauty and opulence as to inspire the Romans with a
desire of making themselves masters of it and settling a colony there. This perplexed the Carthagenians,
who began to fear their countrymen would be enamoured of a fertility so much praised, and abandon their
native soil to settle there. They viewed it, on the other hand, as a safe refuge in the event of any
unforeseen calamity, or, if their Republic in Africa should fall, to which, as being masters of the sea,
they could easily retire to secure themselves and families, more especially as the region was unknown to
other nations (note 21). Aristotle, continues Calmet, in his book of wonderful things, speaking of this island,
says, the Magistrates of Carthage having observed that many of their citizens who had undertaken the voyage
thither, had not returned, prohibited, under the penalty of capital punishment, any further
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emigration, and ordered those who had remained there to return to their country, fearing, that as soon as the
affair should be known, other nations would endeavour to establish there a peaceable commerce (note 22).
The other voyage in the Atlantic spoken of by Calmet was anterior to the preceding, and is that attributed
to Hercules, who is the supposed author of the Gaditanian columns, and whom Galleo
ranks as contemporary with Moses, and chief of the Canaanites who left Palestine on the invasion of Joshua:
this hero had the surname Magusanus, derived from the Chaldean word Gouz, signifying to scratch, and by
metaphor to pass, from which root, ships and fords of rivers are called Megizze in the Chaldaic idiom; of
his sea voyages, there existed a vestige in the town of West Cappell in the island of Walcheren; it was
the painting of a ship and her captain, who was represented at an advanced age, the forepart of his head
bald, and his face tanned by the sun; he was worshipped as a deity at a temple in the same town, and
sacrifices, according to the Phoenician rites, were offered to him (note 23). There were many other heroes of
this name; but no writer has decided whether to Magusanus or one of his descendants, or whether to a Phoenician
distinguished by the same appellation, we are to attribute the navigation of the Atlantic. Certain, however,
it is, that Diodorus speaks of a Hercules who sailed round the world, and who founded the city of Lecta in
Septimania; but no writer has pointed out its situation (note 24).
With how much reason was the prize awarded to that young
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prince of the royal house of David who maintained, when disputing in the congress of wise men assembled by king
Ahasuerus, that truth is the most irresistible gift that can be bestowed; for the power of the most absolute
monarch, the stimulating effects of the most generous wine, or the transcendent charms of the most bewitching
beauty, is not sufficiently strong to subdue it.
The coincidence in the memorials of the writers of the old continent, whom I have just mentioned, with the
tradition, as introduced in Moetezuma's two discourses, that the Mexicans came originally from the east;
with the narrative of Votan, with the incidents commemorated by the medal, with the report of Captain
del Rio, and with the figures of the ultramarine deities Isis and Osiris sketched by him in the temple of
the Palencian city, form altogether such an irrefragable body of evidence as it is almost impossible to
discredit. The revolution of ages has been the parent of an error among modern writers, and even rendered
the truths of the more classic ancients problematical, because the latter have not been studied with
sufficient care by their successors; but time itself now steps in to vindicate their credit, and becomes
an incontrovertible evidence of the veracity of these slighted and discredited narratives.
To connect the various incidents I have adduced, it will now be necessary to examine the periods of the
events narrated, and inquire in which of the voyages, already mentioned, the population of America had its
beginning; and in what part, and at what time, the ancestors of Votan colonised it, and who these ancestors
were.
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The first voyage was that of Atlas. Atlas was the son of Japetus brother to Saturn, and cousin to Jupiter, who,
in the war which the latter waged against his father Saturn and his uncles the Titans, made himself master of
the frontiers of Africa; Atlas and Jupiter were therefore contemporaries: the reign of the latter is supposed by
many ancient historians to have been coeval with that of Belus king of Assyria; but this supposition determines
nothing with certainty, on account of the difficulty which exists in attempting to ascertain the precise epoch
when the Assyrian empire commenced. The Abbe Lenglet, after much research, decides it to have been one thousand
eight hundred years prior to the christian era. See his work, 8vo. edit. tom II, chap. 12.
It will be pertinent to our enquiry, to introduce a brief sketch of Jupiter's genealogy from the detailed account of
him in the above named part of the Abbe's work.
The descendants of Magog, the second son of Japetus, formed at the earliest periods the Dacian, Celtic, and Scythian
nations, and subsequently the Tartars and the Moguls; they remained but a short time in the country where they
settled after the general dispersion; but iverrunning [Armenia], they occupied the best and most fertile parts of
the country, as Strabo informs us, lib. 2: Sacae optimam Armeniae partem occuparunt. Not content with this
excellent location, their restless disposition and warlike spirit, keeping them unsettled, they spread over the
western part of Asia, then called Asia-minor, and now Anatolia, they then took possession of Cappadocia, and pursuing
their course along the shores of the Euxine, now the Black Sea, built
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the city of Acmonia, in that part bounded by the rivers Thermodon and Ivis; they afterwards built another in Phrygia,
which they also named after Acmon the son of Menes, whom Stephanus Byzantinus, in his explanation of the word
Acmonia, affirms to have been their chief in the first invasion. Acmon met a violent death by his eager pursuit after
wild beasts, and was placed among the gods to eternize his moral, political and military virtues; he was worshipped
as a supreme being, under the appellation of the most high; woods were consecrated to him, and sacrifices
celebrated in honour of him, as we are told by Sanchoniathon in Eusebius, lib. de Preparatione evangelica
Uranius, that his eldest son, was the brother and husband of Titeca from whom sprang the Titans so well known in
history for their extraordinary strength and prowess (note 25). Utanius succeeded his father in the empire which he
greatly extended, and even excelled him in his virtues and valour. His attachment to the science of astronomy and
his continually studying the movements, revolutions and influence of the heavenly bodies, obtained for him the
surname of Coelus, while Titeca received that of Terra; their descendants availed themselves of these appellations,
concealed their origin, being in common with all mortals, and taking advantage of circumstances, caused themselves
to be acknowledged, and obeyed by the people, who feared them under the high sounding title of the sons of heaven
and earth.
The sons of Uranius were Titanus, Oceanus, Hypericon, Japetus or Japhetus the father of Atlas, and Saturnus the
youngest of all. Uranius discovering that his sons were
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conspiring to rebel against him, caused them all to be seized, except Oceanus who refused to join his brothers in the
revolt, but Saturnus, encouraged and aided by his mother Titeca, set them at liberty, and they, in gratitude, placed
him on the throne, by dispossessing their father, who died a few years after, borne down by age and sorrow.
Saturn, according to Diodorus, lib. 3, married his sister Rhea, but fearing the imprecations his father had
fulminated against him, and the prediction, that one of his children should treat him in the manner he had used his
father, he caused all his offspring to be incarcerated as soon as they were born, but they were educated in a manner
suitable to their rank; which gave rise to the fable of his having devoured them.
Rhea exasperated by her husband's cruelty, was dexterious enough to rescue her youngest son Jupiter, and had him
eduacted secretly by the Curetes in the island of Crete. The Curetes were descended from a brother of Uranius to
whom he confided the government of Crete, which had just been subdued. This Governor, at his death, left ten sons
who were called Curetes, and became celebrated from the order of priesthood which they exercised on mount Ida for
many ages.
The Titans, mortified that Saturn should reign alone to their exclusion, revolted several times and ultimately
succeeded in getting both him and Rhea into their power; but, as soon as Jupiter got intelligence of his parents
captivity, he speedily equipped a force and hastening from Crete to their assistance; having obtained a complete
victory over the insurgents, he set
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them at liberty, replaced them on the throne, and then returned to Crete.
The suspicion of Saturn encreased as he advanced in years, so that he every day grew more fearful of his father's
meance, as the oracle which he had consulted, advised him to be upon his guard in respect of his youngest son, he
plotted against Jupiter's life, who, more by stratagem than force, contrived to defeat many of the machinations by
which his existence was menaced, and continued to treat his father with filial respect; till at length he was
forced, in self-defence to come to an open rapture with him, after a sanguinary contest compelled him, with such
of the Titans as escaped with their lives, to retreat into Italy. Saturn found an asylum with Janus king of Latium,
but not thinking himself secure as Jupiter continued in pursuit, and extended his conquests to the extremities of
Spain, he retired to Sicily, where he soon died oppressed by misery and old age. History tells us, that the place
of his sepulchre was long remembered; and venerated by his subjects for many ages.
Jupiter lived an hundred and twenty years, and reigned after the defeat of the Totans sixty-two years with great
glory: he died in Crete where his sepulchre remained for centuries near Gnosus, one of the principal cities, and
had honours paid to it. His heroism raised him to the highest pitch of admiration; he was not only exalted over
all mortals but elevated to the dignity of a god, considered superior to all those who had preceded him, and
extolled as the father and king of all the deities.
Neither from Atlas then, nor from any of his posterity could
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Votan derive his origin, for this reason, among many others, that I omit in order to avoid fatiguing the reader,
that the Atlantides were not of the race of the Culebras.
Votan's family must, therefore, be sought for among some of the maritime heroes of succeeding ages. It could not
have been from any one of the Phoenicians in the second voyage that has been described, since they found large
houses on the island, consequently it must have been peopled long before their arrival, and if we examine
attentively the time at which this voyage could have been made, it will appear to be long subsequent to the
periods of which Votan speaks in his history. At the time Diodorus alludes to, the Republic of Carthage was in the
zenith of its splendour, for it was then able to intercept the expedition sent against the island by the Romans,
with the intention of establishing their dominion in the same. This epoch must have been a little prior to the
first Punic War; the commencement of the kingdom of Amaguemecan was at some period during the progress of that
contest; this kingdom was not however of long continuance, and its ruin gave rise to that of Tula. This hypothesis
we shall now proceed to elucidate.
The Romans were engaged in three very destructive conflicts with the Carthaginians: the first commenced two hundred
and sixty-five years before the christian era, and lasted twenty-three. Historians have not related what caused the
interruption of that friendship which the two Republics had so often professed for each other; but it is certain
that about three hundred and seven years before Christ, under the Consolate of
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Quintus Martius and Quintus Fabius Tremulus, the Romans entered, for the second time, into an alliance with the
Carthaginians; this coincides, according to Varo's computation, with the four hundred and forty-eight years after
the building of Rome.
Some historians, it is true, attribute the breach between these rival Republics to a stroke of policy, for it is
usual with the powerful to dignify the abominable vices of covetousness by giving to it this virtuous appelation.
They say that the war between Pyrrhus and the Romans being terminated, the former was driven from his kingdom of
Macedonia by Brennus king of the Guals, (others say that Brennus was only general of the Gauls under the king),
and retired to the Italian states, where, with a view to idemnify himself for the losses he had just sustained, he
once more declared war against the Romans; but the latter being victorious, and making themselves masters of all
Italy, soon turned their attention towards Carthage, a power that could then impede them in their vast projects
(note 26).
The Roman war against Pyrrhus was declared four hundred and seventy-three years after the foundation of Rome, or
two hundred and eighty-two years before Christ, under the consulate of Lucius Emilius Barbulus, and Quintus Mancius
Philipus, and lasted six years, for, in the year four hundred and seventy-nine, Marcus Curius Dentatus, and Lucius
Cornelius Lentus, being Consuls, Pyrrhus was again defeated and compelled to abandon Italy to the conquerors
(note 27). Historians have observed, that it is the characteristic of barbarous nations alone, to wage war upon, and
invade the territories of their neighbours, without a just cause, or, at least offering some good
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pretence for the same, in order to disguise their depraved wishes from the public eye. Is it then credible that a
Republic so ambitious of glory as that of Rome, should have declared hostilities against Carthage without alledging
some cause, either real or imaginary, after having long kept up a friendly understanding with her? There is in
consequence every reason to believe that the obstructions, which the Carthaginians opposed to the convoy that
Diodorus affirms the Romams attempted sending to the newly discovered island with the intent of colonizing the same,
may have been deemed a sufficient inticement for such belligerent operations.
The second Punic war began two hundred and eighteen years before Christ and lasted seventeen years. The severity which
the Romans had displayed towards the Carthaginians in the treaty of peace, inflamed the minds of the latter with a
desire of revenge and reprisal. The Romans lost four battles that would have anninilated any other power; but, during
their greatest distress, Italy furnished them with the resources by her councils which they could not derive from
their arms, to rescue them from the almost inevitable gulph of ruin. The Romans scarcely able to defend their own
walls, nevertheless found means to carry the war, even to the gates of Carthage. Scipio was dispatched into Spain
which he subdued, rather by the prudent advice of Lelius, than by belligerent measures, and immediately passing into
Africa, raised the glory of the Republic so as to command the admiration of the world, by granting peace to its
vanquished and powerless rival (note 28).
The third Punic war commenced one hundred and forty-seven
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years before Christ and terminated with the Carthaginian Empire six years afterwards. During the preceding wars,
although the Carthaginians were conquered, they were neither subjugated nor enslaved, their resentful spirits still
plotted against the Romans while they waited for a favourable opportunity to compass revenge; the latter therefore,
considering they could not be free from future inquietude while Carthage existed, determined upon her ruin, and
Carthage was, in consequence, destroyed (note 29).
From the different epochs of the Punic wars, we may certainly perceive that they were ulterior to the time at
which Votan says he undertook his voyages to the old continent, and much more recent than the period when the
first American colony was settled by the grand-father of Votan, as well as many ages posterior to the foundation
of the kingdom of Amaguemecan, which, as I have before observed, are the points we must now consider.
We will therefore commence by enquiring who was Votan's grand-father? Sallust, quoted by Calmet, in his
commentary on the Jugurthine war, states in the history of the kingdom of Numidia, written in the Punic
language, that he had read an African tradition of the arrival in that country of Hercules Tyrius or Lybius,
with an army of Medes, Persians, and Armenians; these soldiers married Lybian women, and their language
imperceptibly degenerating from its original purity; in process of time they lost the name of Medes and
Armenians, and at last, by an astonishing corruption of these words, were called Maurucii or Moors.
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Hornicus, in his commentary upon this passage of Sallust, relying on the authority of Pausanias, says, that the
true name of this Hercules was Macerim, which he supposes to be derived from the Phoenician, or Hebrew word
mechoer, meaning wise, desirous of knowledge, or investigator.
Sallust, from not being well informed in the affairs of the Canaanites, may very probably have confounded the
names of the Arabians, Syrians or Amorites, conducted by Hercules; so that the Armenians the Amorites, may have b
een the Maurucii, or Madianites the Medes, and the Pheresians the Persians.
The opinion, says Calmet, of such authors as conceive that the major part of the Canaanites, after being driven
from Palestine, occupied the coast of Africa, is neither new nor doubtful; it is confirmed by ancient names, such
as Ardanes, Pona Leptis, Utica, Tangier and others, which are all of Phoenician origin; and in the time of
Saint-Augustine these people still retained some record of having originally been Canaanites; for, he says, in
his exposition of Saint-Paul's epistle to the Romans, when interrogating the country people concerning their
origin, they replied in the Punic tongue, that they were Canaanites (note 30). To this we may add, that modern
critics acknowledge an affinity between the Punic and Canaanite languages; that the places mentioned have
Phoenician appellations; the name of Carthage is Phoenician, and so for instance is that of the Canary islands,
so called from their inhabitants having been Canaanites, and giving this name generally, (note 31), while Hornius
speaking of Gomera, one of these islands, supposes it to have
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been peopled by the Amorites. More credit must be ascribed to Votan, who makes the people of the same race as
himself, viz.: of the Culebras, and consequently Hivites; these Islands, are thirteen in number, and it can
scarcely be doubted that they are the thirteen houses of the Culebras which he speaks of having visited in his
voyages: it is also as little to be disputed that in these islands, as well as throughout all the coast, the race
of Canaan was found to be mixed with the Hivites.
The bird noticed in the Itinerary by Gemelli, shews the course which the Hivites took in their route to these
islands; but the arm of the sea observed by Torquemada in all the paintings of the same document, is not, and
indeed cannot be, the Rio Colorada (red river) as Clavigero and other authors have imagined, whose waters fall
into the bay of California, which is the most considerable of all those northward of Mexico from whence it is
pretended those nations came who first peopled the continent, as it evidently represents that part of the Atlantic,
between the Canaries and America. See Torquemada and Clavigero in their second volumes.
All that has been advanced will prove Hercules Tyrius to have been a different person from Magusanus, and subsequent
to him; the latter, as Lenglet understands, was Ethens, a contemporary of Moses and the former a Hivite, from being
a Tyrian; it has equally been proved that the Hivites founded the kingdom of Tyre, and what Sallust relates convinces
us, in all its circumstances, that the irruption of this Hercules was many ages after that of Magusanus.
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Votan declares himself to be the third of the Votans, Sallust affirms that the soldiers of Hercules Tyrius and their
wives spoke the African language, but sensibly degenerated from its ancient purity. Diodorus asserts that one
Hercules navigated the whole circuit of the earth, and built the city of Alecta in Septimania. All these
circumstances, in conjunction with what I have already stated, induce me, and will lead any erudite examiner to
conclude, with every appearance of probability, that Hercules Tyrius was the progenitor of Votan, that Septimania is,
beyond a doubt, the island Atlantis or Hispaniola, that the city of Alecta was Valum Votan, capital of the same
island from whence Votan embarked his first colony to people the continent of America, and whither he departed for
the countries on the old hemisphere.
I am confirmed in my selection of this island from among the many dispersed throughout the Atlantic, not only on
account of its position and magnitude exceeding all the others, but also, from its fertility and numerous navigable
rivers, and chiefly from its having been the island of the Olmeca nations. In the Mexican tradition, which has been
adopted by many eminent authors, (Siguenza and Boturini among others), it was considered certain, that the Olmecas
arrived at this island from the eastward, and crossed from thence to the continent. Boturini, however, is of opinion,
that when the Olmecas were driven from their country, they proceeded to the Antilles Island, and thence to the
southern part of America; this may have been the fact with part of that nation, when the kingdom of Amaguemecan
was destroyed, without being repugnant to the idea that the portion of that race
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which remained on Terra Firma may have penetrated further into the continent and shared in the adversities of
the other nations expelled from the same kingdom. I refer the reader to what father Jumilla says on the subject
in his "Orinoco Illustrated" respecting those nations that retained the tradition of their having left the island
of Hispaniola in order to take possession of those countries.
If what has been adduced be combined with the points of history I have extracted from writers of both hemispheres,
it will not be difficult to fix the epoch in which Hercules Tyrius lived, and founded the first town in America;
that, in which his grandson Votan lived; of his voyages to the old continent; of his arrival there from America;
of the Phoenician ship driven ashore by the tempest; of the transport of the Carthagenian colony to America; of the
prohibitory decree inflicting capital punishment on any of their subjects who should proceed thither, and the
recalling of such as had already emigrated; of the periods of the foundation and ruin of Amaguemecan; the
circumstances which caused that event, and, as connected with it, the beginning of the kingdom of the Tultecas.
Admitting, then, that Votan was the third of his race, and supposing thirty years to be allowed for each
generation; Hercules Tyrius will appear to have lived ninety years before Votan. This period is not so
definitively fixed, but that the variation of thirty or forty years, more or less, may be admitted; "the
error of a few years in the calculation of historical periods may be allowed, but the mistake of two or
three centuries is not to be tolerated," says Dionysius Halicarnassus, and the Abbe Lenglet
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conjectures, that by an age in chronology the space of thirty years is to be understood. Under such a supposition,
the above period will correspond with three hundred and eighty-one years, a little more or less, before
the christian era (note 32).
The epoch of Votan's voyage to the old continent may be decided with certainty, for, he says he was at Rome,
and saw the great House of God building.
Consulting the annals of the Roman Republic, we find that in the four hundred and sixty-fourth year of the
foundation of that city, and two hundred and ninety-one years before Christ, peace was granted to the
Samnites after a sanguinary war of eight years, and an alliance founded between the two nations; in
commemoration of which event, Publius Cornelius Rufinus, then Consul, ordered a magnificent temple to be
built in honor of Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city, upon the side of the Curia, which had been
the residence of the first of those two brothers, and where, after his death, the Senate used to assemble
in order to deliberate on public affairs (note 33).
About this period, Rome and Carthage were in alliance for the second time, and the first war between them
commenced forty-two years after this alliance, and twenty-six years after the arrival of Votan, consequently in
the four hundred and forty-eighth year of the foundation of the city corresponding with three hundred and seven
years before Christ, this second alliance was formed, and in the four hundred and ninetieth year of Rome and the
two hundred and sixty-fifth year before Christ, the first Punic War began. There is but little doubt that the
Romans and
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the Carthaginians obtained their first knowledge of America from Votan himself, although it is probable, the
latter soon after obtained a confirmation of his report from the mariners of the ship spoken of by Diodorus; or,
that the seven Tzequiles whom Votan speaks of finding in one of his returns, were of this same people; nor is it
less to be doubted, that the first colony sent to America by the Carthaginians, was previous to the first Punic War
This colony, united to the Tzequiles and reinforced by the Carthaginian mariners who fled from the miseries of war,
remained in America, and almost immediately rendered itself master of the country by subduing the first inhabitants,
and interrupted the order which the native people had, until that time observed, of being governed by two Captains
elected by the priests, one from the family of Votan, the other from the Tzequiles, as related by Clavigero, lib. 1.
To preserve harmony between them, the kingdom of Amaguemecan was established; and the perceptible migrations of
the Carthaginians from their own country, occasioned the Senate's decree commanding them to return, as mentioned
by Diodorus and confirmed by Moetezuma in his discourses with Cortes.
It is very credible that disobedience to this decree, the refusal to acknowledge fealty, the threat of the person
sent to make known the decree, that he would either return with, or send a sufficient force to overpower and
compel them to subjection, and the consternation excited in their minds by such a menace (for this alarm is implied
in the Mexican tradition, and
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was spoken of by Moetezuma to Cortes, when he says: "that those who were descended from him would return to conquer
the country and reduce them to vassalage,") may have occasioned the downfall of Amaguemecan, because the original
inhabitants, taking advantage of the general panic, which was probably increased by the death of Hamacatzin the
last king, and the dissensions arising between his two sons Acheauhtzin and Xolotl respecting the succession,
seriously thought of shaking off the yoke. For this purpose they formed secret meetings to concert measures for
simultaneously commencing in all parts, operations against their oppressors, and they suddenly expelled them.
Torquemada, Clavigero and others, mention these circumstances very confusedly, but, they had not access to
information of which we are now in possession. This fact, supported as it is by traditions of the Mexicans and
Tultecas of Amaguemecan, is confirmed by the suppliant posture of the Indian between the two crocodiles on the
medal, a document sufficient in itself to perpetuate so great and memorable an event.
Again, there were no more than three kings of Amaguemecan (Torquem.: vol. 2). Ycoantzin, Moceloquichtzli, and
Amacalzin; to the second, authors assign a reign of one hundred and fifty-six years, and to the third, one hundred
and thirty-three years, but make no mention of the period the first reigned; these epochs are wholly beyond the
[pale] of probability. By following however the rule laid down by Dionysius, Halicarnassus, and the note of Lenglet
as better founded on experience, we shall have ninety years, little more or less, which assumes a much greater
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appearance of truth; and, if this computation be adopted, it will shew that the dynasty was extinct shortly after
the decree which caused this revolution, had been promulgated. If we have ascertained precisely the period when
Votan was at Rome, it enables us to do the same in respect to other periods now under consideration, and, it is
undeniable, that from fixed principles, consequences equally certain may be deduced.
To accomplish this, we must have recourse to the Mexican computation, collate it with ours, and compare it with
the periods of certain events of American history and to the epochas assigned to them in their annals. The abbe
Clavigero, in the sixth book of his second volume, treats, with great erudition, upon the system adopted by the
Americans in reckoning their months, years, and centuries.
In computing centuries, years, and months, says the historian, the Mexicans and other nations used the same method
as the ancient Tultecas The century consisted of fifty-two years, divided into four parts of thirteen years each;
two centuries made an age of one hundred and four years, which was denominated Huchiretiliztli, a word meaning
old age; to the end of the century they gave the name Toxihicnlolpia, which means the bond of our years, as it
united two centuries to form one age. The years had four names, Tochtli (rabbit), Acatl, (reed), Teopatl, (flint)
and Calli, (house) which, combined with different numbers, formed the century. The first year of the century was
one rabbit, the second two reed, the third three flint, the fourth four house, the fifth five rabbit, thus
continuing to the thirteenth, which was
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thirteen rabbit, when the first period terminated. The second period commenced with one reed, and proceeded,
two flint, three house, four rabbit, and finished with thirteen reed. The third period began with one flint,
and ended with thirteen flint, the fourth began with one house, and finished the century with thirteen house;
so that the names being four, and the numbers thirteen, there was no year that could be confounded with another.
The Mexican year, like ours, consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days, it contained eighteen months,
and each month twenty days, making together three hundred and sixty days; they added to the last month five
days, which were called Nemontemi, that is useless, because on those days they did nothing but pay
and receive visits. The year one rabbit began on the 26th of February, but in every fourth year it advanced
one intercalary day upon our bissextile year. In the last year of the century they began on the 14th of
February, on account of the thirteen days interposed in the course of fifty-two years, but, when the century
was completed they recommenced upon the 26th.
The same author says that he discovered in ancient writings and traditions, that the Tultecas being banished
from Amaguemecan and its capital Huchicetlapalla, or Huehuetlapalan, commenced their pilgrimage in the year
one flint; and that their settlement, at the foundation of their empire, was, in the year eight reed, and
although he supposes these two events happened about the years five hundred and ninety-six, and six
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hundred and sixty-seven of the christian era, he declares in a note, that the dates are not certain, but probable.
It is not very surprising, considering the want of some information which has recently been acquired, that
although Torquemada and others found from the annals of the Tultecas that their pilgrimage lasted eight
years, from the first flint, until the eighth reed, they should have confounded it with one hundred and
four years or signs of Gemelli's Itinerary, which, as we have already seen, was in Africa; nor does it
excite much astonishment that they have proceeded with so much uncertainty, and diverged into such a variety
of opinions, without having been able to discover the true origin of the Tultecas and Chichimecas. It
deserves notice, as strongly confirming Votan's correctness on the subject of the seven Tzequil families,
whom the authors before named, discovered, that, during their pilgrimage, the people were subject to seven
Captains or Chiefs whose names they have preserved, Zacatlebalcatzin, Evecatzin, Couatzin, Tzihualcoatl,
Metzotzin and Tlapalmetzotzin, which are given with a trifling difference by Torquemada, who experienced
so much difficulty in comprehending the Mexican tradition of their coming originally from the seven caves,
that he confesses; "he felt great diffidence in endeavouring to unravel a perplexity, the solution of which
so many had attempted and yet failed in developing;" yet all the obscurities would be cleared away by
substituting the word houses for caves, and families for houses. The system of the Mexican century, divided
as it is into four
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names and thirteen numbers, does not admit of any one year being repeated under the same name and any
one year being repeated under the same name and number during that century, yet this repetition does
occur in different centuries. This repetition will perhaps occasion doubts as to the century in which
any particular event may have happened, especially in referring to very remote times, therefore the
connexion and combination of one event with another, is the only method of surmounting the difficulty,
and exactly deciding upon the century to which it refers.
How are we to demonstrate the correctness of the following epochs? viz. Votan's arrival at Rome, in one
of his voyages, in the year two hundred and ninety-one before Christ; the punic wars in two hundred and
thirty-five, in two hundred and nineteen, and in one hundred and fifty before Christ, and the destruction
of Carthage one hundred and forty-seven years before Christ. For these must prescribe the rule whereby to
fix the Mexican century in which the pilgrimage of the Tultecas happened, and consequently the destruction
of Amaguemecan and such other periods as may be required. Taking these as fixed data, and comparing the
Mexican computation with our own, the year one flint, that in which the Toltecas were driven from
Huchuetlapalan, the capital of Amaguemecan and began their pilgrimage will appear to be in one of their
centuries which elapsed between Votan's appearance at Rome and the destruction of Carthage, for in this
interval it must have happened; in one century it will
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agree with two hundred and eighty-five, in another with two hundred and thirty-three, and in a third with one
hundred and eighty-one years before Christ.
It is now our business to discover in which of these it actually did happen; which being discovered,
and eight years added thereto, will give the precise period of the foundation of the Tultecan empire
which arose from the ruins of Amaguemecan or Anahuac. It could not have been in the first period, for
this would fall on the sixth year after Votan's arrival at Rome, nor in the second, for if ninety years,
the duration of Amaguemecan, be added to two hundred and thirty-three, on which the year one flint falls,
these added together would make three hundred and twenty-three years, and as Votan was at Rome in two
hundred and ninety-one, the colony would thereby be dated thirty-two years before his arrival there;
which is not satisfactory for many obvious reasons.
From hence it may be concluded that the true epoch of the fall of Amaguemecan and the consequent peregrination
of the Tultecas or Chichimecas is, that in which the Mexican year one flint, corresponds with the year one hundred
and eighty-one before Christ, because, if the ninety years assigned as the duration of Amaguemecan be added
thereto, they will make two hundred and seventy-one. The result therefore is, that the date of the colony will be
two hundred years after Votan's arrival, or six years before the first Punic war; the decree of the recall by the
Carthagenians will appear to have been promulgated thirty-eight years before the second war commenced, thirty-one
years before the third war
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broke out, and thirty-four years before the destruction of Carthage.
The continual wars waged by Carthage during this interval, against the Romans and Numidians deprived it of any
opportunity of avenging the affront of its rejected decree, and chastising the disobedience of its American subjects.
Boturini concurs with this epoch, he was well acquainted with the figures, symbols, characters, songs, and
manuscripts of the Indian authors, and in the Tultecan history, he found that above a hundred years before Christ,
they had observed in their ancient country Huehuetlapallan the excess of nearly six hours in the solar, over the
civil year, which they regulated by adding an intercalary day to every fourth year.
Clavigero speaking of the idol Quetzalcoatl (a name signifying a snake covered with feathers) the god of the air,
says, the Mexicans, believed this deity had been the chief priest of Tula, the capital of Tulteca, and that he was
of a white complexion, tall and corpulent, with a broad forehead, large eyes, long black hair, and a thick beard;
a man of austere and exemplary life clothed in long garments from a sense of modesty of a most gentle and prudent
disposition, which showed itself in the laws he enacted for the good of the people; added to which, he was very
expert in the arts of melting metals, and of polishing precious stones, which he taught the Tultecas.
Tescatlipoca, the god of providence, or more correctly speaking the providence of god, or god in our acceptation,
being desirous of withdrawing Quetzalcoatl from Tula, appeared
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to him under the form of an old man, stating it was the will of the gods that he should go to the kingdom of
Tlapalla to obtain immortality; he then gave him a certain liquor to drink, which he had no sooner swallowed,
than he felt so anxious a desire to repair thither, that he set out immediately, accompanied by many of his
subjects. Passing by Cholula he was detained by the inhabitants, who conferred the government upon him, which he
retained for twenty years; being still resolved upon continuing his journey to Tlapalla (which Clavigero supposes
to be an imaginary place) and having proceeded as far as the province of Coatzacoalco he despatched four noble
youths who attended him, to acquaint the Cholultecas, that he would afterwards return and render them happy.
Doctor Liguenza believes this Quetzalcoatl, was the apostle Saint Thomas, who preached the gospel to them, and he
maintains this position with much learning in a work mentioned by Betaneourt, and doctor Eguiara in the Biblioteca
Mexicana, among others, supports a similar opinion. This work was unfortunately lost through the negligence of
his heirs, he therein drew a comparison between the name which Saint Thomas bore, viz. Didymus, signifying twin,
and Quetzalcoatl, compounded of the words Quetzalli a precious stone, and Coatl twin[,] a precious twin.
This agrees admirably well with the time fixed in the narrative of Boturini, which mentions a regulation
of the calendar to have taken place at Huehuetlapallan, upwards of an hundred years before the kingdom of
Amaguemecan was destroyed. If this epoch be adopted, it will be obvious that
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there was ample time for the kingdom of Tulteca to become well established after its foundation in the year eight
reed, agreeing with one hundred and seventy-four years before Christ, so that it had already existed more than two
hundred years before Saint Thomas announced the gospel to that people.
The kingdom of Tlapallan was not an imaginary one as Clavigero supposed, and the route taken by Quetzalcoatl from
Cholula to Coatzacalco, in the absence of all other proofs, is sufficient to shew that it was not situated to the
northward of Mexico, but to the south east.
Huehuetlapallan is a compound name of two words, Huehue, old, and Tlapallan, and it seems the Tultecas prefixed
the adjective to distinguish it from three other places which they founded in the districts of their new kingdom,
to perpetuate their attachment to their ancient country, and their grief at being expelled from the same; whence
it arose that the place which formerly had the simple name of Tlapallan, was afterwards denominated Huehuetlapallan;
at least so says Torquemada.
Such, without doubt, was the name which anciently distinguished the Palencian city, and this supposition is
strengthened by a report, quoted by Clavigero and other authors, that the Mexicans were driven from their city of
Axtlan, as were the Acolhuans from Teoacoluacan; for these people lived in different cities, each governed by
its own chief or cacique, although subject to the sovereign of Amaguemecan, and like him, driven from their domains.
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The origin of the Tulteca nation hitherto unknown, has now been proved; they were Chichimecas or Nagautlacas like
the others, but so much exceeding them in stature, that there were some of gigantic size among them; they obtained
the name of Tultecas from excelling in manufactures and arts, particularly that of working in gold and silver:
Torquemada says, the word Tultecas means excellent artist; their language and method of reckoning time were
similar to the Mexicans.
Not less clearly has it been ascertained that the founder of the Tultecan empire was Achcanhtzin, eldest son of
Hamacatzin last king of Amaguemecan, from whom his brother Xoloth, chief of the remainder of the Chichemecas,
separated. But Achcauhtzin must have died during their eight years wandering, for Torquemada affirms that
Chalchuhtlanextzin, who was probably his son, was the first king of Tula known in history.
The difficulties that have excited so much discussion among writers as to the origin of these nations,
the place whence they came, and the time of their migration, are now surmounted; the incongruities which
have operated as a barrier against ascertaining the beginning of their history are reconciled, and the
anachronisms which they occasioned are exposed and rectified.
Returning to the history of Votan and the seven families of the Tzequiles, which he found blended with the seven
that he had brought from Hispaniola, and in which he recognised the Culebra origin, there remains but little more
to say than that we are warranted in concluding, from the strongest evidence, they were Carthagenians. The
illustrious Huet, bishop of Avranches,
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in his Evangelical Demonstrations, Alexis Venegas in his work on the Variation of Books, and several other writers,
after careful examination, accord with this opinion, supposing them to have been a colony of Tyrians, consequently
Hivites; therefore the truth of Votan's narrative remains clearly substantiated by many conclusive evidences.
After bestowing some consideration upon the meaning of the word Tzequil, and confiding in the knowledge of, the
before-mentioned don Ramon Ordonez, I shall assert that Tzequil, in the Zendal language, means an upper petticoat,
(Enagua, Basquina) and the same word means Nahuatlacas in the Mexican idiom; at the present time the natives of
Chiapa call the Mexicans Tzequiles. Don Ramon affirms that the town of Tzequil, founded by these seven families
of which Votan speaks, is the suburb called the Mexican, and joins the city of Ciudad Real (but for this I will
not vouch;) and that they were named Tzequils or Nahuatlacas, not only from having introduced the use of petticoats,
for the greater propriety and decency of the women, but also, from having tolerated the sect or superstition of
Nagualism. Votan alludes to this when he says, the Tzequiles gave him the first notions of a God and of his worship.
To conclude this discourse in the manner I propose, there still remains to investigate the origin of Huitzilopochtli,
the tyrannical deity of the Mexicans, who is said to have destroyed so many hundred thousands of human victims
during his empire over them, that they stood in need of arithmetical terms to enumerate them. For the better
solution of this historical
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problem, I will transcribe the description of this personage literally from Clavigero, vol. 2, book 6.
"Huitzilopochtli is a name composed of two words, Huitzilin, the beautiful bird we call Chupalflores,
(the Humming bird,) and Opochtli, to the left; this name was given because the idol has feathers of the
Humming bird placed on its left foot. Boturini, who understood but little of the Mexican idiom, derives this name
from Huitziton, the chief of the Mexicans during their peregrination, and supposes the deity to represent this
chief; this is a forced etymology, and the supposed identity is entirely unknown among the Mexicans, for they
worshipped this god of war from time immemorial, before they commenced their wandering life under the guidance of
Huitziton. Some say this divinity was a pure spirit, and others represent him as having been born of a woman,
without a father, and relate the circumstance in this way. There lived, say they, at Contepec, a place not far
distant from the ancient city of Tula, a woman called Coatlicue, mother of Centzonthuiznahui, and she devoted
herself to the worship of the gods. One day, according to her custom, being employed in sweeping the temple,
she saw a ball of different coloured feathers fall through the air to the ground; she took it up and put it in
her bosom, intending to make use of the feathers to decorate the altar; but looking for them as soon as she had
finished her employment, they were not to be found. This excited her surprise, and she was still more astonished
on finding herself from that moment
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pregnant, and the circumstance in due time became visible to her sons, who, although they did not suspect their
mother's virtue, yet feared such a birth might bring disgrace upon them and determined to prevent it by parricide.
This resolution was not taken with sufficient secrecy to prevent the mother's discovering it, who was bitterly
afflicted at the thought of dying by the hands of her own children, when she suddenly heard a voice speaking to her,
which said, Be not alarmed, my mother, for I will preserve your honour and my own; her cruel sons, however, were
urged on by their sister Cotolzauhi, who was much more eager to accomplish the design than they were ready to
perpetrate their meditated atrocity. Huitzilopochtli was at length born with a shield on his left arm, a dart in
his right hand, and a plume of green feathers on his head; his countenance was of a bright blue colour, and his
left leg, his thighs, and his arms were covered with feathers. The first moment of his existence was signalized by
causing a snake of pine wood to appear before him, and he commanded one of his soldiers, named Tochnacolgni, to kill
Cotolzauhi with it, because she had been the most culpable, whilst he attacked her brothers with so much fury, that,
in spite of their strength, their arms, and their entreaties, he killed them, pillaged their houses, and presented
the spoils to his mother. This event threw the people into such consternation that they called him Tetzohuitl
(terror), Tetzauhteotl, (terrible god).
"This god having been protector of the Mexicans, led them,
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according to their own account, during many years of their wandering life, and at last settled them in the place
where they built the great city of Mexico. On his head was a beautiful plumage, shaped like a bird; on his neck a
collar composed of ten figures of human hearts; in his right hand a staff in the form of a serpent; and in his left
a shield on which were five balls of feathers disposed in the form of a cross."
This description of the manner and circumstances under which the Mexicans represented Huitzilopochtli; the
human hearts round his neck; the signification of his compound name; the figure of the bird on his head; the
feathers on his thighs and left leg, and the fable of his birth, being compared with the medal which
represents the seven first families; the withered tree and the bird perched on the shrub springing from its
root; with the figure of Votan having the three human hearts painted on the band which he holds in his hand,
will readily point out that the extinct family designated by the withered tree is Votan's, that the mother
[of] Huitzilopochtli is the widow of that first populator of America, and that Huitzilopochtli, the
illegitimate issue of this hypocritical widow, undoubtedly wished, by adopting as his device the bird
Huitzlin (humming bird,) to enroll himself among the family of Votan, although he had actually destroyed
the last . members of it, and to take his illustrious appellations from the symbol of Votan (who had been
his mother's husband,) that is, the hearts, rather than from the father who had begotten him, notwithstanding
he was pretended to have been divine.
It must be observed, that Huitzilopochtli was worshipped by
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all the Chichemecan and Nahuatlacan nations, not even excepting the Tultecas, with the same sanguinary rites as by
the Mexicans, but it was under different names and figures, according to their peculiar languages; for example,
by the Tultecas under the name of Tlaloc; by the Tlascaltecas or Teochichecmecas as Camaxtle; and by the Chiapanecos
and Mixtecas as the heart of the people; the two last represented him by a little idol of emerald, about four fingers
in length and two in breadth, on which was sculptured the figure of a bird surrounded by a little snake.
This idol was found by father Benito Fernandez, a zealous Dominican Missionary of Mixteca, on the lofty-mountain
of Achianhtla, where it was worshipped by the natives; he refused three thousand dollars which were offered to him
by some Spaniards who saw it, thinking it would be more conducive to the spiritual welfare of his new converts,
to reduce it to dust, which he accordingly performed with great pomp in presence of the people. See Clavigero,
2d vol. of his history.
In speaking of the Tultecas, Clavigero says: that although they were idolaters, he did not know they offered human
victims; but Torquemada relating the allegorical history of their destruction, says, an immense number of Tultecas
being assembled to celebrate a festival to appease the anger of their gods when a famine and pestilence were raging
in their country, after they had danced with a giant phantom that appeared among them, were next morning found dead
and their hearts taken out; an evident proof of their having been sacrificed according to the rites of the country.
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I have now ascertained the origin, if not of all the Americans, at least of those who inhabited the countries
bordering on the gulph of Mexico and the adjacent islands; and I have cleared up such other points as I proposed
to examine. From various accidents, since the introduction of the arts of navigation, it is probable that many
other families besides those alluded to may have been conveyed to different parts of America and have formed
settlements; the numerous dialects known in America, as well as their superstitious religion and rites of exotic
origin, which they continued to practise and diffuse, will warrant such a supposition. At any rate, this present
examination, and the traditions which have been regularly and generally preserved by all the nations, from one pole
to the other, relative to the deluge, the confusion of languages, and the subsequent dispersion of the tribes
are arguments sufficiently strong, if there were no others, to refute the impious doctrine of the Proeadamites
as heretical, and without any foundation on fact.
That most troublesome of all the difficulties hitherto started by authors respecting the passage of animals to
America, particularly of the ferocious kinds at enmity with man, even retaining in full force the plausible reasons
so ingeniously urged, if not entirely removed, is nearly surmounted by the discovery and examination of Anian or
Behring's straits' which are of no greater breadth than thirteen leagues from shore to shore, and where, by means
of the ice, the two continents of Asia and America are connected; this would afford a practical route not only for
animals but men, from whom it is possible to suppose that those
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who inhabit the most northerly countries from the straits as far as Hudson's and Baffin's Bays, and from the Frozen
Sea to California, New Mexico, and Canada to the southward, are descended.
On this subject we may consult the third and fourth volumes of the English Captain James Cook's Voyages,
and Don Antonio Herrera's Decades to Spanish and foreign authors, who have written concerning the nations
that inhabit the regions from California to the other side of New Mexico. We may also take under
consideration the accounts given of the latest discoveries of the Spaniards along the northern coasts of
America in the Pacific Ocean; the languages, manners, customs, rites and religion may be compared with
those of the nations of Kamstchatka, Tshutski, Tungusi, Siberia, and adjacent territories. We may also
examine the quadrupeds of both parts of the globe, at the same time bearing, in mind the singular hunting
parties formed by the Asiatics, particularly by the Tartars of the vast empire of Genghis Khan, about the
eleventh century of the christian era, in which wild beasts of all descriptions were driven together in
general confusion. If we take the trouble to enter upon such examination, the possibility will occur to
our minds, that the tenants of the forests, flying from this annual persecution which was ordained by law,
may have passed, or at least some of them, by the glacial isthmus to America, and spread themselves over
it, occupying those climates most propitious to their respective natures.
As a corollary to this little work, I will offer my opinion upon the system adopted by the American nations in
their computation
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of time, upon this proviso however, that when it shall appear my humble judgment is opposed to the opinions of many
celebrated and estimable writers, in the progress of this discourse, it does not arise from a mere desire of
contradiction, but from the necessity of dissenting from their ideas on account of the more recent information which
has been obtained, and from a wish to place truth on its proper basis, that history may shine forth with that lustre
which time has obscured; while the destruction of some records, the indistinctness of others, and the difficulty of
comprehending the few that remain, has not only dimmed but almost entirely obscured.
All writers have been surprised at the ingenious method pursued by the Americans from a very remote period, without
adopting the practices of any of the polished countries of the old continent as for example in the division of the
months into twenty days, the years into eighteen months, and the centuries into fifty-two years; the duplication of
the century to form an age of one hundred and four years, and the prudent collocation of the intercalary days.
Failing in all their efforts to trace an imitation, they have been obliged to confess that this singular system,
so far from being inferior to, does actually excel that of the most polished nations in the world: but, being
unwilling to yield to the ancient Americans so much talent and discretion as were requisite for its arrangement,
they have had recourse to Egypt, the cradle of sciences, and to Asia whence the Tultecas, its reputed authors, are
said to have derived their origin. The utmost, however, that they have been able to discover, is, that on
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the 26th of February, the Mexican century begins, which was celebrated from the time of Nabonassor, seven hundred
and forty-seven years before Christ, because the Egyptian priests, conformably to their astronomical observations
had fixed the beginning of their month Toth and the commencement of their year at noon on that day; this was
verified by the Meridian of Alexandria, which was erected three centuries after that epoch.
Hence it has been contended there could exist no doubt of the conformity of the Mexican with the Egyptian calendar,
for, although the latter assigned twelve months of thirty days each to the year, and added five days besides, in
order that the circle of three hundred and sixty-five days should recommence from the same point; yet, notwithstanding
the deviation from the Egyptian mode in the division of the months and days, they yet maintained that the Mexican
method was conformable thereto, on account of the superadded five days; with this only difference, that upon these
the Americans attended to no business, and therefore termed them Nemontemi or useless, whereas the Egyptians
celebrated, during that epoch. the festival of the birth of their gods, as attested by Plutarch de Feide, and Osiride.
Upon the other hand it is asserted, that though the Mexicans differed from the Egyptians by dividing their year into
eighteen months, yet, as they called the month Mextli Moon, they must have formerly adopted the lunar month,
agreeable to the Egyptian method of dividing the year into twelve months of thirty days; but to support this assertion,
no attempt has been made to ascertain the cause why this method was laid aside.
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The analogy between the Mexican and the Egyptian calendars is thus assumed to be undeniable. Besides what has been
here introduced, the same is attempted to be proved in many other works which I pass over to avoid prolixity, and
therefore only mention that they may be found in Boturini, in La Idea del Universo, by the Abbe Don Lorenza de Hervas,
published in the Italian language, in Clavigero's dissertations, and in a letter addressed to him by Hervas; which
he added to the end of his second volume.
The reason, according to my humble judgment, which induced the Mexicans to deviate from the Egyptian practice, and
form a distinct system for themselves, could be no other than this, viz.: as they had constituted themselves a
separate people and independent of the nations of the old continent, they determined to lay aside the Egyptian style,
which was in common use with the Carthagenians, (from whom, be it remembered, they were descended and whose yoke
they had shaken off), and other nations of the old hemisphere, and by reserving the original basis, from which indeed
it was no easy matter to depart, in order to form a new system, analogous both to their origin and to the wandering
life of their forefathers, during the hundred and four years or domiciles, before they came to occupy the American
soil.
Having exhausted my small portion of talent in this little work, I am sensible there yet remain many and
very serious difficulties to overcome; but, if the arguments I offer do not at present assume the force of
evident demonstration, it will not be denied that they amount to probability, which approximates
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thereto; and I may, at least, take credit to myself for having discovered a route by which we may ultimately
arrive at the truth; in my opinion it is the only one. and, if not entirely new, is, at any rate, but little
trodden by other writers. A search after monuments which doubtless still remain in the Palencian city,
in Mayapan or Ocozingo and many other places in the province of Yucatan, and that of Chichen Ytza or Peten,
which adjoins, as well as at various other places in the kingdom of Guatemala, will some time hence add to
it that degree of certainty required at present, and repair the loss (which can never be sufficiently
lamented), of the valuable histories of the American nation; a loss, as I have before mentioned, caused by
an inconsiderate zeal that has not been less injurious to the republic of letters than prejudicial to the
interests of true religion.
There is yet another circumstance, equally important with the monumnets already described, that may powerfully
contribute so desirable an object and which I shall state in the following
APPENDIX.
The indifference of many individuals, possessing precious relics that have, from time to time, fallen into their
hands is, in my estimation, very reprehensible.
We have already seen, with grief, what was done by Nunez de la Vega with those which he obtained in the Casa Lobrega
at Tlacoaloya; but without going so far back, or reverting to losses that are now beyond the power of remedy, I will
confine myself
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to some recent important discoveries which may be preserved, should they attract attention from the superior authorities.
Being very desirous of ascertaining the time when, and the place where, the two medals before described were found, I
collected various reports which indeed agreed but little with each other; at last, I was assured by don Nicholas Ortiz
de Letona, residing in the city of New Guatemala, that, in 1787, don Jose Antonio Colomo, curate of the town of
Ostuncalco, in the jurisdiction of Questabtenango, informed him, that, having issued orders for digging at a certain
place in his curacy where he had previously observed that something must have been buried, he found, about twelve feet
below the surface of the ground, a small jar of fine clay, covered with a tile of the same material, containing two
hundred different brass medals, and among them he recollects to have seen one similar to that represented in this work.
Don Ramon Ordonez and the presbyter don Gabriel Chacon y Godoy related to me, that a few years back, the presbyter don
Patricio Chinchilla, a native Indian, gave an account to the vicar of Saint Bartholomew de los Llanos, in the bishoprick
of Chiapa, that he had discovered, in a cavern, many sacred vessels and utensils of silver, and repeatedly entreated him
to go and take possession of them; but perceiving the vicar had not sufficient confidence in him to credit his report,
he brought, as a proof of his veracity, a silver chalice: it was very broad at the foot and the cup shaped like an
inverted pyramid; and on being compared with others of a similar make, preserved in the church, it is presumable it may
be attributed to the times of the
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Apostles: the Indian died soon after this circumstance, and the remainder of this treasure has not since been discovered.
The chalice in question, as lam informed, was destined by the curate for an oratory on an estate of his own called
Rosario. This discovery is of great importance, since it confirms the Mexican tradition before alluded to of the gospels
having been made known in these countries by the Apostle Saint Thomas, who was worshipped under the from of the idol
Quetzalcoatl.
The licentiate don Francisco Ortiz also informed me, that there is in the possession of the present curate of Saint
Catharine of Yatahuacan, a little historical book of an Hebrew Indian nation, which may probably be
that of Been, mentioned by Nunez de la Vega. Letters have been addressed to this person with a view to
obtain a copy of the same as well as to the curate of Saint Bartholomew for the purpose of verifying the fact of the
chalice; but as no replies have yet been received, it is supposed the letters did not reach their destination.
In the environs of this city, on the plain in the road leading to the town of Mixco, there are evident vestiges of the
site of an extensive village; these consist of a vast number of fragments of earthen vessels dispersed in all directions,
in numerous pyramidical mounds notorious for having been the sepulchres of distinguished personages, and in many rude
statues of stone. One of the latter, which don Paul Tauriginii brought to this city, is now placed at the corner of his
house; a second has been erected near a fountain called el Ojo de Agua, on
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the estate named Incienso; and a third may be seen in an angle of a court yard in the town of Ciudad Vieja de Guatemala.
In the inner court of the house on the Incieso estate, there is also a stone tablet supported upon feet, having
hieroglyphics on the four corners of the superficies and on three of its edges; this must have been a table used in
sacrifices.
On the same plain one Felix Consuegra, of this city, dug up a round flat stone about a yard in diameter and a quarter
thick, on one of its superficies a deity is represented under the figure of a man in the'act of seating himself; pointing
upwards with the fore finger of his right hand, and downwards with the fore finger of his left which is placed behind
him; before him there is a bird with a crest like a cock and many hieroglyphics and unknown characters. This stone was
beneath another very large one of a parallelagramatic form, which shews it to have been an altar for sacrifices.
Calmet relates that the Cuteans, a people who emigrated from Samaria, worshipped the goddess Nergel under the figure of
a bird resembling a hen; and father Pezronio affirms in his chronological canon, that this emigration was from Persia
and headed by Asarradon king of Assyria and Babylon, in the twenty-second year of the reign of Manasses, six hundred and
seventy-six years before the christian era.
Don Juan de Letona, chief officer of the royal treasury, and don Pedro Garziaguirre engraver of the royal mint, have in
their possession numerous historical medals.
There can be no doubt but many important relics might
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now be discovered in the Palencian city, in Mayapam [sic - Mayapan?] and other places in the same kingdom, if careful
researches were made; because this region was the first on the continent, where the polished nations, before described,
founded their settlements. Many valuable documents might be found in the archives of the different bishopricks and in
the libraries of convents; indeed in the Dominican convent of this city there are some learned manuscripts in six folio
volumes, that were written by father Francisco Ximenes, relative to the conquest of this province, the progress of
religion, and the apostolic fathers who desseminated Christianity. In the first volume he has given an history of the
creation of the world as believed by the Indians of Chiapa, to ascertain this from the natives cost him a great deal of
labour, for so he expresses himself. Such a document will add much to the fame of don Ramon Ordonez who, I am told, has
introduced it into his work del Cielo y de la Tierra. There are also many records in the hands of curates, and of
private individuals who do not consider them of much value, and probably they will be lost, unless they fall into the
possession of those who know how to estimate the treasures of information which they contain. May not the historical
works spoken of by Nunez de la Vega, (a Domicinn friar prior to his nomination to the bishoprick of Chiapa), which he
has declared were in his possession, yet be found in the library of the Dominican convent of Ciudad Real, or in the
archives of the bishoprick? It is possible.
All this, however, requires the powerful arm of his Majesty. Were the royal interposition successful, some of the
original
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works might be deposited in the royal cabinet; faithful copies of which, and of the hieroglyphics, figures and characters
that might be discovered, duly authenticated by a public act, would, in my opinion, a most desirable acquisition to the
university of this city. Such statues and stones as could be transported, might be placed in the halls and galleries of
the university, where they would afford to the students of antiquity, excellent and authentic materials for discussing
and reviving their forgotten merits; which could not fail of redounding to the honor of his Majesty and to the benefit of
the public.
Although Calmet says the few monuments, as well as the hieroglyphics and characters, which have descended to us uninjured,
can now be neither read nor understood, because the Greek language, introduced by the dominion of the Ptolemies,
occasioned the Egyptian, (which very nearly resembled the Punic and Phoenician) to be forgotten; I am persuaded the
Zendal, Mexican and American mother tongues, must have a great affinity to the Egyptian; and as it is undeniable that the
languages of these nations have been preserved, they may be capable of affording some assistance in decyphering the
hieroglyphics and different characters, particularly as the similitude between the Egyptian and the Punic is well known
to the learned.
But, admitting there did exist a great difference between the Egyptian and Punic languages, yet it is probable the method
of writing and understanding the hieroglyphics and characters might have been the same with both people, or, have had
some resemblance. This is indeed the opinion of father Kircher who thinks,
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as stated by Calmet himself, that the Egyptian hieroglyphics and characters are the same as the Phoenician or Cadmean,
introduced by Cadmus into Boetia, with no other difference, than what I have before pointed out between the sacred and
the vulgar. Lucan attributes the invention of the latter to the Phoenicians, in the following verses, lib. 3.
Phoenicii primi, famae, si creditur anst,
Mensuram rudibus vocem signare figuris.
Nondum flumineas, Memphis, contexere Biblos.
Noverat et saxis tantum, volucresque, ferosque,
Sculptaque servabant, Magicas, Animalia, linguas.
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