Mexico and its Religion Part 5

MARIANNA IN BRONZE.

In this city of dirty houses and dirty faces there is, nevertheless, some public spirit. Since I was last here a bronze equestrian statue has been set up in the Grand Plaza. It is a bronze woman, sitting quietly and easily upon a furious bronze horse. The horse is in a terrible state of excitement, but the woman is not alarmed in the least; for she seems to be well aware that it is only make-believe pa.s.sion, badly executed in bronze. Who could this woman be but Malinche, or Marianna, the Indian mistress of Cortez--a fit patroness of the women of Puebla. She was the first convert that Cortez ever made to Christianity; and her sort of Christianity is not unusual in Mexico.

That beautiful cone that rises so majestically out of the plain between Puebla and Tlascala bears the name of Malinche; but as this name was applied to her paramour as well as to herself, an additional testimonial, in the form of a bronze statue, was deemed requisite; for she is considered here as almost a saint, and would be altogether such if she had not been the mother of children, and ended her career by getting married. That act of getting married--not her former life--rendered her unfit for a saint; for how could an honest housewife be a saint? She might have been the best of mothers and the best of wives, and have performed scrupulously the duties that G.o.d had a.s.signed to her upon earth; but she was lacking in romance, in those aerial materials from which saints are made. Saints are made in damp, cold prison-cells, where, in the midst of self-inflicted misery, they see visions, dream dreams, and perform cures upon crowds as deluded as themselves.

It was a delightful afternoon when I mounted my horse for a ride to Cholula. The wind of the day before had driven away every vapor from this exceedingly transparent atmosphere, excepting only the cloud that was resting upon Popocatapetl, a little below its snow-covered summit.

It was such weather as we have at "harvest home," and it was truly a "harvest home" throughout the whole Vega. Men were working in gangs in the different fields, gathering stalks, or husking corn, or cutting grain, or plowing with a dozen plows in company, or harrowing, or putting in seed. It was harvest-time and seed-time together. The full green blade and the ripened grain stood in adjoining fields in this region of perpetual suns.h.i.+ne. As I rode along between carefully cultivated estates, I did not fail to catch the enthusiasm which groups of cheerful field-laborers always inspire in one whose happiest recollections run back to the labors of the farm. Such are the varieties this country affords: three days ago I was enjoying the most delicate tropical fruits, which I plucked fresh from the trees; yesterday I was traversing a salt desert covered with clouds of drifting sand; and I was now among grain-farms of a cold climate.

PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.

Right before me, as I rode along, was a ma.s.s of trees, of ever-green foliage, presenting indistinctly the outline of a pyramid, which ran up to the height of about two hundred feet, and was crowned by an old stone church, and surmounted by a tall steeple. It was the most attractive object in the plain; it had such a look of uncultivated nature in the midst of grain-fields. It would have lost half its attractiveness had it been the stiff and clumsy thing which the pictures represent it to be. I had admired it in pictures from my childhood for what it was not; but I now admired it for what it really was--the finest Indian mound on this continent; where the Indians buried the bravest of their braves, with bows and arrows, and a drinking cup, that they might not be unprovided for when they should arrive at the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit. A little digging, a few years ago,[11] has furnished the evidence on which I base this a.s.sertion. This digging has destroyed the old monkish fiction to reinstate the truly Indian idea of the dead, and of the necessity of mounds for their burial.

By going round to the north side, I obtained a fine view of the modern improvements which have been constructed upon this Indian mound. I rode up a paved carriage-way into the church-yard that now occupies the top, and giving my horse to a squalid Indian imp who came out of the vestry, I went in and took a survey of the tawdry images through which G.o.d is now wors.h.i.+ped by the baptized descendants of the builders of this mound. My curiosity was soon gratified, and I returned to my place in the saddle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PYRAMID OF CHOLULA.]

I followed the wall around the church-yard, stopping from point to point to look upon the vast map spread around on every side. Orizaba, which I first saw when 150 miles out at sea as a mammoth sugar-loaf sitting upon a cloud, had at Jalapa, and at "the eye of waters,"

different forms, while here it appeared to be joined with the Perote, forming the limit of the horizon toward the east. On the west were Popocatapetl, Iztaccihuatl, and Malinche; while smaller mountains and hills seemed to complete the line of circ.u.mvallation, which gave to the elevated plain of Puebla the aspect of the bed of an exhausted lake, and to the isolated hills, rising here and there upon its surface, the appearance of having been islands when the waters covered the face of the land.

The cloud was still resting upon Popocatapetl; but its crest, far above the clouds, was in that region where, in the tropics, ice and snow lie undisturbed forever. The marks which it bore of having once been the smoke-pipe of one of Nature's furnaces, furnished us with the translation of its name--"The mountain with a smoking mouth." But that lake of fire has long since ceased to burn, and when the mountain had last emitted smoke was unknown to the oldest inhabitant. And that other mountain, Iztaccihuatl, or the "White Woman," lying so quietly and snug, in her covering of perpetual snow, at the side of the volcano, called up in the minds of the Indians the strange conceit of man and wife. There were forests on the mountain sides and trees along the rivers covered with green, but all else looked dry and parched. Seldom, indeed, has the eye of man ever rested on a finer farming country than the great plain of Puebla, and seldom are lands seen better cultivated.

CHOLULA.

Cholula was of old sacred to Quetzalcoatl, the "G.o.d of the Air," who, during his abode upon earth, taught mankind the use of metals, the practice of agriculture, and the arts of government. Translating myth into history, we may call him the great Aztec reformer. He is represented as a man of fair complexion with curling hair and flowing beard, very different from the type of the Aztecs. On his way from Mexico to the coast he remained for a while at Cholula, where a mound and temple was raised to his honor.

This tradition made Cholula the Mecca of the Indian world; and with the merchants who came to attend the annual fair held at the base of the mound came also hosts of pilgrims, to offer sacrifice to the memory of that G.o.d who introduced flowers into the native wors.h.i.+p, and discouraged cruelties and human sacrifices.

At Cholula I was so fortunate as to procure one of the images of Quetzalcoatl, cut in stone, with curled hair and Caucasian features. I afterward verified the same by comparison with the great image found at Mexico, not without strong suspicions that both were counterfeits; for in this country even the most sacred records are open to suspicion.

Popular tradition and the most approved authors will have it, that some stray white man had found his way among the Mexicans, and taught them empirically the calculations and divisions of time, and a very few of the arts of civilized life unknown to our Indians, and they venerated him as a G.o.d. But the probabilities are that the whole story is a myth, and for once the Inquisition was right in suppressing speculation in relation to him, whether he was Saint Thomas or not.

At the base of this pyramid, three hundred years ago, flourished the rich and opulent city of Cholula, which, according to Cortez,[12]

contained 40,000 houses. He says that he counted from this spot 400 mosques,[13] and 400 towers of other mosques--that the "exterior of this city is more beautiful than any in Spain." That is, as he and all other historians of the Conquest agree in representing it, it was at the same time not only the Mecca and the commercial centre, but the centre of learning and refinement of Mexico. Here Indian philosophers met upon a common footing with Indian merchants. Its government, too, was republican; and upon these very plains, three hundred years ago and more, flourished two powerful republics, Tlascala and Cholula. The first was the Lacedaemon, the second the Athens of the Indian world, and when united they had successfully resisted the armies of Montezuma and his Aztecs. But Aztec intrigue was too powerful for the American Athens, and the polished city of Cholula having been subdued by the same arts by which Philip of Macedon had won the sovereignty of Athens--a combination of intrigue and of arms--Tlascala was left alone to resist the whole force of the Aztec empire, now aided by the faithless Cholulans. Yet Tlascala was undismayed by the new combination brought to bear against her, and did not readily listen to the proposed alliance of Cortez. It was only after three terrible battles with Cortez, that Tlascala learned to appreciate the value of his alliance--an alliance which has conferred upon her perpetual freedom and a distinct political organization to the present time.

This is the poetry of the thing. Let us give it a little matter-of-fact examination.

The spot on which I stand, instead of being what it has often been represented to be, is but a shapeless ma.s.s of earth 205 feet high, occupying a village square of 1310 feet. It is sufficiently wasted by time to give full scope to the imagination to fill out or restore it to almost any form. One hundred years ago, some rich citizen constructed steps up its side, and protected the sides of his steps from falling earth by walls of adobe, or mud-brick; and on the west side some adobe b.u.t.tresses have been placed to keep the loose earth out of the village street. This is all of man's labor that is visible, except the work of the Indians in shaving away the hill which const.i.tutes this pyramid. As for the great city of Cholula, it never had an existence; for if there had been, only three hundred years ago, such a city here, composed of 40,000 houses, with 400 towers, besides the 400 mosques, then some vestige or fragment of a fallen wall or a ruined tower would still be visible. But I searched in vain for the slightest evidence of former magnificence, and was driven to the unwelcome conclusion that the whole city was fabricated out of some miserable Indian village, inferior, perhaps, to the present town of one-story, whitewashed mud huts.

My contemplations were broken in upon by a swarm of squalid women and children from the church vestry, importuning me to buy relics in clay, which might answer the double purpose of images of saints or of heathen G.o.ds, according to the taste of the purchaser. But when they found me impracticable, they brought out their greatest curiosity--a flint arrow-head, such as used to be plowed up in scores near the place where I was born. Thoroughly disgusted with the sight of this Acropolis, with this ancient Athens of mud, I turned my horse's head toward Puebla; and as I rode on, I met scores of these modern Athenians trotting homeward, bare-headed and bare-footed, carrying "papooses" on their backs, while their faces, forms, and hair, and ragged dress, were the very counterpart of the Indians of North America.

The Indians of Puebla have long enjoyed the distinguished honor of being the governing men, while the white inhabitants were ineligible to a seat in the city councils. This city was formerly an Indian village, bearing the indigestible name of Cuetlaxcapen, or "Snake in the Water;"

but, in 1530, the Vice-King Mendoza established here a Spanish colony, but left the original government unchanged; so that, down to the independence, the city administration was conducted by an Indian alcalde, a.s.sisted by a council of four Indians. Notwithstanding the anomalous form of its government, Puebla has ever been a great manufacturing town, and at this day consumes a quant.i.ty of cotton equal to some of our large manufacturing cities.

[11] The living witnesses of the result of this excavation are still at Cholula, and the fact is mentioned in several American works; my inference from the fact is the only novelty in the matter.

[12] Cortez's "Letters," Folsom's translation, p. 71.

[13] This word mosques Cortez constantly makes use of, apparently to keep before the people of Spain the idea that he Was conducting a holy war.

CHAPTER IX.

A Ride to Popocatapetl.--The Village of Atlizco.--The old Man of Atlizco and the Inquisition.--A novel Mode of Escape.--An avenging Ghost.--The Vice-King Ravillagigedo.--The Court of the Vice-King and the Inquisition.--Ascent of Popocatapetl.--How a Party perished by Night.--The Crater and the House in it.--Descent into the Crater.--The Interior.--The Workmen in the Volcano.--The View from Popocatapetl.--The first White that climbed Popocatapetl.--The Story of Corchado.--Corchado converts the Volcano into a Sulphur-mine.

One of the first objects of interest in Mexico is the volcano of Popocatapetl. A stage runs from Puebla to Atlizco, but beyond that village the visitor must travel upon horseback. Atlizco is worthy of a special notice from its situation in a most fertile valley, and its peculiar location at the base of a conical hill. This hill, like every attractive locality in Mexico, is the scene of romantic traditions of the common people. From many, I select one ill.u.s.tration of the state of society in the times of the vice-kings.

There once was, the tradition runs in this village, an old _hidalgo_ who possessed a plantation in the immediate neighborhood of the town.

His family consisted of himself and two daughters; and he was rich.

Upon a certain time, one of those strolling monks, with whom the country abounds, chanced to offer an indignity to one of the daughters, and the old man chanced to return the indignity by inflicting upon the monk such a beating as never poor friar had yet received in the vice-kingdom--such a one as the feelings of an outraged father alone could justify. This was not the end of the matter; it was only the beginning of evil to the old man, as he well knew, for he had laid his hands upon one of the consecrated--one who had received the sacrament of "Holy Orders;" and, above all, he was rich enough to tempt the cupidity of the Inquisition, which always watched with jealous care over the orthodoxy of those whose estates, when confiscated, would add to "the greater glory of G.o.d," that is, to the treasury of the "Holy Office."

Guilty or not guilty, the old man had but one mode of escape, and that was by avoiding an arrest. To effect this object he resorted to a novel expedient. As soon as he heard that his accuser had started for Mexico, it was given out that the old man had suddenly died. A circ.u.mstance by no means thought remarkable, when it became known that he had a.s.saulted a priest. As he had not yet been accused, his neighbors ventured to come to his funeral; and a coffin, with his name and age marked upon it, was decently buried in holy ground. The funeral fees, too, were secured before the estate was pounced upon by the familiars of the Inquisition. The daughters put on the deepest mourning, and hid themselves from the public gaze, among their relatives; for they had not only to endure the loss of home and estates, but were to be shunned as the accursed of G.o.d--the children of one dying while under the accusation of sacrilege. As for the Inquisition, its officials did not care to investigate the question of the decease, for it had reaped all the benefit it might hope for from his conviction--"The Holy Office"

had become his heir.

THE OLD MAN OF ATLIZCO.

Strange appearances and stranger noises after a time were heard about the cave that is said to be in the top of the hill of Atlizco, and sometimes a ghost had been seen wandering about the hill by certain benighted villagers; and one time, when the accusing monk was returning rather later than usual from a drunken revel, this ghost who had now become the town-talk, chanced to fall in with him, and to give him such a beating as few living men could inflict, and then disappeared. Still there was no earthquake, and the sun rose and set as though no injury had been done to a priest.

Time wore its slow course along, without any important incident occurring in this matter, until the reputation of the new Virey, Ravillagigedo, reached Atlizco. Shortly thereafter there appeared at the vice-royal palace in the city of Mexico an old man, who related in a private audience the story of his griefs and of his misfortunes, and insisted that, in striking "the Lord's priest," he had no intention of committing an act of impiety, but that the feelings of a father had overcome him in an unguarded moment, and induced him to avenge an attempt made to dishonor his daughter. The story of the old man touched the Virey, who had a manly heart wrapped up in a forbidding exterior.

But it was a delicate undertaking even for a vice-king to attempt to wrest a rich estate out of the clutches of the "Holy Office" without himself being suspected of heresy, or of disloyalty to the Church. Yet Ravillagigedo was never at a loss for expedients when justice was to be done or the oppressed relieved. The best advice, however, that he could give the old man was to hide himself again, and to send his daughters to Mexico to accuse the monk.

Upon a set day, the vice-king was found arrayed in state, surrounded by a council of Inquisitors, before whom the daughters, in the deepest mourning, presented themselves as the accusers of the profligate monk.

They stated, with an artless simplicity which could not fail to convince, the story of the wrongs the monk had done them. The Inquisitors, sitting in the presence of the incorruptible Virey, could not, for very shame, do otherwise than declare unanimously that the monk, and not the old man, was worthy of the censure of the Church.

"Then let us wipe away the stain that rests upon the fair fame of these ladies as daughters of one dying suspected, by decreeing their father's innocence," said the Virey.

This being a.s.sented to, the record of the old man's innocence was made up, and, when duly attested by the Inquisitors, was handed to the daughters. A door was at this moment opened, and there entered into the august presence a gray-headed old man, to whom the daughters presented the record. The old man, when he had received the record, advanced, and, bowing humbly, made confession of his fault. It was a bitter pill for the "Holy Office" thus to be tricked into the performance of a common act of justice, and in this way to lose a valuable estate. From this time onward, it is said that Inquisitors were never known to hold court with a Virey.

ASCENT OF POPOCATAPETL.

At Atlizco horses must be procured for the journey up the mountain, for beyond this point there is no carriage-road. I here follow the verbal narrative of Mr. Frank Kellott, the artist of whom I have already made mention, as I dared not venture where bleeding of the lungs is produced by the rarity of the atmosphere and by the fatigue.

"The company consisted of Mr. Corchado, the proprietor, Mr. Munez, a neighboring gentleman, three ladies, and myself, all on horseback.

Sixteen Indians had been sent forward on foot early in the morning, with all the conveniences to make the trip a safe and agreeable one.

The party went cheerfully up the mule-road that leads to the mountain rancho of Zacopalco, one of the highest inhabited points upon our globe. The soil upon the mountain, composed of volcanic mud, yields such rich gra.s.ses, that almost at the upper edge of the timber there is a milk-house (_lecheria_), where a cattleherd, if caught out at night, may find a shelter. The inner man being well cared, for at the rancho, we journeyed on, following the path that led us through a tangled ma.s.s of trees and plants, and among _barrancas_ whose sides were covered with pines. The timber grew shorter and more stunted as we proceeded, until, at the height of 12,544 feet, the pines entirely disappeared. A little farther on, at an elevation of 12,692 feet, we were at the limit of vegetation. After journeying a league or so over the yielding sand mixed with sharp stones, twelve of our Indians and our horses gave out.

From this point for a little way farther, our party proceeded on foot, with the four remaining servants.

"We had gone only a little way farther when two of our fair companions also gave out, and we sent them back to the rancho with the returning horses and the fatigued servants, for there was now no time for delay, if we intended to reach the summit that day. The third lady went bravely on, and would probably have enjoyed the honor of being the first woman that had ever ascended Popocatapetl, had it not been for the unfortunate arrangement she had made in her wardrobe. Instead of putting on the pantaloons, or _bloomers_, she had added extra skirts by way of precaution against the cold; so that when she had climbed about 3000 feet over volcanic sand and loose stones, she gave out from fatigue and the bruises she had received in her numerous falls. It was a painful effort even for those of us who had no _skirts_ to impede us to get on; and it was imprudent for her to proceed farther, for the icicles would be in her way as much as the sand and stones; for these icicles were like spikes projecting upward from the rocks, and between which we should have to place our feet and pick our way as best we could without falling upon them. In this state of things there was no alternative, and we were reluctantly obliged to dissuade her from farther effort, and to consign her over to the kind attentions of three more of our Indians, who had given out, to conduct her down the mountain.

"Unfortunately, one of the last three Indians sent back had in his pocket all the chocolate, an article almost indispensable to the comfort of a party climbing a high mountain, and, unconscious of our loss, we continued our way until it was too late to remedy this loss.

The basaltic rock which we had now reached was covered with the icicles which I have described, and we found no little difficulty in placing our feet between them, and guiding ourselves with the iron-pointed sticks which had been furnished us; while the dizziness caused by looking back upon the world we had left behind added to our troubles.

"Mr. Corchado, to draw off our attention from our own hards.h.i.+ps, related to us the story of the death of six of his workmen, who undertook to make the journey down the mountain by night. Each of them had a load of stolen brimstone on his head. The day after this rash and criminal attempt, their dead bodies were found in such a situation as to indicate plainly the manner of their death. Stiffened with the intense cold, and impeded by their heavy burdens, they had stumbled in the darkness, and had fallen upon the sharp ice. One had his cheek pierced, and the others had divers wounds and bruises marked upon them as they lay frozen in death. The story of these unfortunates was not calculated to inspire us with very pleasant reflections, in case the weather should change while we were on the mountain.