The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History. Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ slight importance, for it is not likely that the natives knew anything of their own origin, and the Spaniards had no means not now accessible of learning anything on that subject from other sources. We may well pardon them for finding St Thomas and his Christian teachings in the Toltec traditions of Quetzalcoatl; the ten lost tribes of Israel in the American aborigines; Noah's flood and the confusion of tongues in an Aztec picture of a man floating on the water and a bird speaking from a tree; provided they have left us a correct version of the tradition, a true account of the natives and their institutions, and an accurate copy of the picture referred to. But it is not improbable that their zeal gave a coloring to some traditions and suppressed others which furnished no support to the Biblical accounts, and were invented wholly in the interests of the devil. Fortunately it was chiefly on the mythological traditions supposed to relate to the creation, deluge, connection of the Americans with the Old World peoples, and other very remote events that they exercised their faith, rather than on historical traditions proper; fortunately, because the matters of origin and the earliest primitive history were entirely beyond the reach of such authorities, even had they been represented with the most perfect accuracy.

      The writings of the authors in question were moreover submitted to a rigorous system of censorship by Spanish councils and tribunals under the control of the priesthood, without the approval of whose officials no work could be published. The spirit that animated these censors was the same as that alluded to above, and their zeal was chiefly directed to the discovery and expurgation of any lurking anti-Catholic sentiment. Many valuable works were doubtless suppressed, but such of them as were preserved in manuscript, or those whose contents have since been made known, have not proved that the censors directed their efforts against anything but heterodoxy and unfavorable criticism of Spanish dealings with the natives.

      Spanish credulity accepted as facts many things which modern reason pronounces absurd; shall we therefore reject all statements that rest on Spanish authority? Do we reject all the events of Greek and Roman history, because the historians believed that the sun revolved about the earth, and attributed the ordinary phenomena of nature to the actions of imaginary gods? Should we deny the historical value of the Old Testament records because they tell of Jonah swallowed by a whale, and the sun ordered to stand still? Do we refuse to accept the occurrences of modern Mexican history because many of the ablest Mexican writers apparently believe in the apparition of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe? And finally, can we reject the statements of able and conscientious men – many of whom devoted their lives to the study of aboriginal character and history, from an honest desire to do the natives good – because they deemed themselves bound by their priestly vows and the fear of the Inquisition to draw scriptural conclusions from each native tradition? The same remarks apply to the writings of converted and educated natives, influenced to a great degree by their teachers; more prone, perhaps, to exaggeration through national pride, but at the same time better acquainted with the native character and with the interpretation of the native hieroglyphics. To pronounce all these works deliberately executed forgeries, as a few modern writers have done, is too absurd to require refutation.

      The writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who derived their information from original sources, and on whose works all that has been written subsequently is founded, comprise, 1st, the conquerors themselves, chiefly Cortés, Diaz del Castillo, and the Anonymous Conqueror, whose writings only touch incidentally upon a few points of ancient history. 2d. The first missionaries who were sent from Spain to supplement the achievements of Cortés by spiritual conquests. Such were José de Acosta, Bernardino Sahagun, Bartolomé de Las Casas, Juan de Torquemada, Diego Duran, Gerónimo de Mendieta, Toribio de Benavente (Motolinia), Diego García de Palacio, Didaco Valades, and Alonzo de Zurita. Of these Torquemada is the most complete and comprehensive, so far as aboriginal history is concerned, furnishing an immense mass of material drawn from native sources, very badly arranged and written. Duran also devotes a large portion of his work267 to history, confining himself chiefly, however, to the annals of the Aztecs. The other authorities named, although containing full accounts of the natives and their institutions, devote comparatively little space to historical traditions; Sahagun is the best authority of all, so far as his observations go in this direction. All have been printed, either in the original Spanish or in translations, except Las Casas, whose great historical works exist only in manuscript. 3d. The native writers who after their conversion acquired the Spanish language and wrote on the history of their people, either in Spanish or in their own language, employing the Spanish alphabet. Most of them were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their converters, and their writings as a class are subject to the same criticism. Domingo Muñoz Camargo, a noble Tlascaltec, wrote, about 1585, a history of his own people, which has been published only in a French translation. Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, descended from the royal family of Azcapuzalco, wrote the chronicles of Mexican history from the standpoint of the Tepanecs, represented at the time of the Conquest by the kingdom of Tlacopan. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl was a grandson of the last king of Tezcuco, from whom he inherited all that were saved of the records in the public archives. His works are more extensive than those of any other native writer, covering the whole ground of Nahua history, although treating more particularly of the Chichimecs, his ancestors.268

SECONDARY AUTHORITIES

      In this class should be included the reported but little known writings of Juan Ventura Zapata y Mendoza, Tadeo de Niza, and Alonzo Franco.269 There are also many manuscripts by native authors whose names are unknown, brought to light by comparatively recent researches, and preserved for the most part in the Brasseur and Aubin collections in Paris. Their contents are unknown except through the writings of the Abbé Brasseur. The Popol Vuh is another important document, of which there are extant a Spanish and a French translation. 4th. Spanish authors who passed their lives mostly in Spain, and wrote chiefly under royal appointment. Their information was derived from the writers already mentioned, from the official correspondence of the colonists, and from the narratives of returning adventurers. Most of them touched upon aboriginal history among other topics. To this class belonged Peter Martyr, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Antonio de Herrera, and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés. 5th. Catholic priests and missionaries who founded or were in charge of the missions at later periods or in remote regions, as Yucatan, Guatemala, Chiapas, Oajaca, Michoacan, and the north-western provinces of New Spain. They wrote chiefly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and treat principally of the conversion of the natives, but include also in many cases their historical traditions and their explanations of the few aboriginal documents that fell into the possession of the converts. The number of such works is very great, and many of them have never been printed. Among the most important writers of this class are Diego de Landa, Diego Lopez Cogolludo, Padre Lizana, and Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, on Yucatan; Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar,270 Fuentes y Guzman,271 F. E. Arana,272 Francisco García Pelaez,273 and Domingo Juarros, on Guatemala; Francisco Nuñez de la Vega,274 Francisco Ximenez,275 and Antonio de Remesal, on Chiapas; Ribas, Alegre, and Arricivita on the north-western provinces; and Francisco de Burgoa on Oajaca. To the above should be added the regular records kept in all the missions, and the numerous letters and reports of the missionaries in distant provinces, many of which have been preserved, and not a few printed. There may also be included in this class the writings of some later Mexican authors, such as Boturini, Sigüenza y Góngora, Veytia, Leon y Gama, and Clavigero. Their works were mostly founded on the information supplied by their predecessors, which they did much to arrange and classify, but they also had access to some original authorities not previously used. Clavigero is almost universally spoken of as the best writer on the subject, but it is probable that he owes his reputation much more to his systematic arrangement and clear narration of traditions that had before been greatly confused, and to the omission of the most perplexing and contradictory points, than to deep research or new discoveries.

      The preceding classes include СКАЧАТЬ