Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (free reads .TXT) 📕

are the Mataco and Toba of the Vermejo and Pilcomayo rivers. These two tribes were visited by Ehrenreich, who noticed their disproportionately short arms and legs, and excessive development of the thorax[958]. The daily life, customs, and beliefs of these and other Chaco Indians have been admirably described and illustrated by Erland Nordenskioeld[959], who lived and travelled among them. The Toba and Mataco frequently fall out with the neighbouring Choroti and Ashluslays of the Pilcomayo anent fishing rights and so on, but the conflict consists in ambuscades and treachery rather than in pitched battles. Weapons consist of bows and arrows and clubs, and lances are used on horseback. Enemies are scalped and these trophies are greatly prized, being hung outside the victor's hut when fine and playing a part on great occasions. On the conclusion of peace both sides pay the blood-price for those slain by them in sheep, horses, etc. Within the Choroti or Ashluslay village all are equal, and though property is held individually, the fortunate will always share with those in want, so that theft is unknown. To kill old people or young children is regarded as no crime[960].

FOOTNOTES:

[873] Some Nahuas, whom the Spaniards called "Mexicans" or "Chichimecs," were met by Vasquez de Coronado even as far south as the Chiriqui lagoon, Panama. These Seguas, as they called themselves, have since disappeared, and it is no longer possible to say how they strayed so far from their northern homes.

[874] "Recent Maya Investigations," Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 28, 1904, p. 555.

[875] Alterthuemer aus Guatemala, p. 24.

[876] Analysis of the Pictorial Text inscribed on two Palenque Tablets, N. York, 1896.

[877] H. Beuchat however considers that "the Toltec question remains insoluble"; though the hypothesis that the Toltecs formed part of the north to south movement is attractive, it is not yet proved, Manuel d'Archeologie americaine, Paris, 1912, pp. 258-61.

[878] Quetzalcoatl, the "Bright-feathered Snake," was one of the three chief gods of the Nahuan pantheon. He was the god of wind and inventor of all the arts, round whom clusters much of the mythology, and of the pictorial and plastic art of the Mexicans.

[879] Globus, LXVI. pp. 95-6.

[880] Herbert J. Spinden, "A Study of Maya Art," Mem. Peabody Mus.VI., Cambridge, Mass. 1913, p. 3 ff., and Proc. Nineteenth Internat. Congress Americanists, 1917, p. 165.

[881] J. W. Powell, 16th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. 1894, p. xcv.

[882] Sylvanus Griswold Morley ("An Introduction to the Study of the Maya hieroglyphs," Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 57, 1915), briefly summarises the theories advanced for the interpretation of Maya writing (pp. 26-30). "The theory now most generally accepted is, that while chiefly ideographic, the glyphs are sometimes phonetic." This author is of opinion "that as the decipherment of Maya writing progresses, more and more phonetic elements will be identified, though the idea conveyed by a glyph will always be found to overshadow its phonetic value" (p. 30).

[883] "Day Symbols of the Maya Year," 16th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth.1894, p. 205.

[884] p. 32 ff.

[885] Manuel d'Archeologie americaine, p. 506.

[886] 16th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. 1894, p. xcvi. In "The Maya Year" (1894) Cyrus Thomas shows that "the year recorded in the Dresden codex consisted of 18 months of 20 days each, with 5 supplemental days, or of 365 days" (ib.). S. G. Morley points out (Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 57, pp. 44-5) that though the Maya doubtless knew that the true length of the year exceeded 365 days by 6 hours, yet no interpolation of intercalary days was actually made, as this would have thrown the whole calendar into confusion. The priests apparently corrected the calendar by additional calculations to show how far the recorded year was ahead of the true year. Those who have persistently appealed to these Maya-Aztec calendric systems as convincing proofs of Asiatic influences in the evolution of American cultures will now have to show where these influences come in. As a matter of fact the systems are fundamentally distinct, the American showing the clearest indications of local development, as seen in the mere fact that the day characters of the Maya codices were phonetic, i.e. largely rebuses explicable only in the Maya language, which has no affinities out of America. A careful study of the Maya calendric system based both on the codices and the inscriptions has been made by C. P. Bowditch, The Numeration, Calendar Systems and Astronomical Knowledge of the Mayas, Cambridge, Mass. 1910. The Aztec month of 20 days is also clearly indicated by the 20 corresponding signs on the great Calendar Stone now fixed in the wall of the Cathedral tower of Mexico. This basalt stone, which weighs 25 tons and has a diameter of 11 feet, is briefly described and figured by T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archaeology, 1914, pp. 73, 74; cf. Pl. VIII. fig. 1. See also the account by Alfredo Chavero in the Anales del Museo Nacional de Mexico, and an excellent reproduction of the Calendar Stone in T. U. Brocklehurst's Mexico To-day, 1883, p. 186; also Zelia Nuttall's study of the "Mexican Calendar System," Tenth Internat. Congress of Americanists, Stockholm, 1894. "The regular rotation of market-days and the day of enforced rest every 20 days were the prominent and permanent features of the civil solar year" (ib.).

[887] Spuren der Aztek. Sprache, 1859, passim.

[888] Linguistic and mythological affinities also exist according to Spence between the Nahuan people and the Tsimshian-Nootka group of Columbia. Cf. The Civilization of Ancient Mexico, 1912, p. 6.

[889] "Chiefly of the Nahuatl race" (De Nadaillac, p. 279). It should, however be noted that this general name of Chichimec (meaning little more than "nomadic hunters") comprised a large number of barbarous tribes--Pames, Pintos, etc.--who are described as wandering about naked or wearing only the skins of beasts, living in caves or rock-shelters, armed with bows, slings, and clubs, constantly at war amongst themselves or with the surrounding peoples, eating raw flesh, drinking the blood of their captives or treating them with unheard-of cruelty, altogether a horror and terror to all the more civilised communities. "Chichimec Empire" may therefore be taken merely as a euphemistic expression for the reign of barbarism raised up on the ruins of the early Toltec civilisation. Yet it had its dynasties and dates and legendary sequence of events, according to the native historian, Ixtlilxochitl, himself of royal lineage, and he states that Xolotl, founder of the empire, had under orders 3,202,000 men and women, that his decisive victory over the Toltecs took place in 1015, that he assumed the title of "Chichimecatl Tecuhti," Great Chief of the Chichimecs, and that after a succession of revolts, wars, conspiracies, and revolutions, Maxtla, last of the dynasty, was overthrown in 1431 by the Aztecs and their allies.

[890] H. Beuchat, Manuel d'Archeologie americaine, pp. 262-6.

[891] Named from the shadowy land of Aztlan away to the north, where they long dwelt in the seven legendary caves of Chicomoztoc, whence they migrated at some unknown period to the lacustrine region, where they founded Tenochtitlan, seat of their empire.

[892] "The gods of the Mayas appear to have been less sanguinary than those of the Nahuas. The immolation of a dog was with them enough for an occasion that would have been celebrated by the Nahuas with hecatombs of victims. Human sacrifices did however take place" (De Nadaillac, p. 266), though they were as nothing compared with the countless victims demanded by the Aztec gods. "The dedication by Ahuizotl of the great temple of Huitzilopochtli in 1487 is alleged to have been celebrated by the butchery of 72,344 victims," and "under Montezuma II. 12,000 captives are said to have perished" on one occasion (ib. p. 297); all no doubt gross exaggerations, but leaving a large margin for perhaps the most terrible chapter of horrors in the records of natural religions. Cf. T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archaeology, pp. 261-2.

[893] A popular and well-illustrated account of Huichols and Tarascos, as also of the Tarahumare farther north, is given by Carl Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 2 vols. New York, 1902.

[894] Cf. Hans Gadow, Through Southern Mexico, 1908, map p. 296, also p. 314.

[895] Quoted by De Nadaillac, p. 365.

[896] p. 363.

[897] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. 1895-6, Pt. 1 (1898), p. 11.

[898] The Hill Caves of Yucatan, New York, 1903.

[899] H. Beuchat, Manuel d'Acheologie americaine, 1912, p. 407.

[900] "In the city of Mexico everything has a Spanish look" (Brocklehurst, Mexico To-day, p. 15). The Aztec language however is still current in the surrounding districts and generally in the provinces forming part of the former Aztec empire.

[901] C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, II. p. 480; cf. pp. 477-80.

[902] Sylvanus Griswold Morley, "An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs," Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 57, 1915, pp. 2-5.

[903] E. Reclus, Universal Geography, XVII. p. 156.

[904] T. A. Joyce, Central American and West Indian Archaeology, 1916, pp. 157, 256-7. An admirable account is given of the material culture and mode of life of these peoples at the time of the discovery.

[905] The rapid disappearance of the Cuban aborigines has been the subject of much comment. Between the years 1512-32 all but some 4000 had perished, although they are supposed to have originally numbered about a million, distributed in 30 tribal groups, whose names and territories have all been carefully preserved. But they practically offered no resistance to the ruthless Conquistadores, and it was a Cuban chief who even under torture refused to be baptized, declaring that he would never enter the same heaven as the Spaniard. One is reminded of the analogous cases of Jarl Hakon, the Norseman, and the Saxon Witikind, who rejected Christianity, preferring to share the lot of their pagan forefathers in the next world.

[906] H. Beuchat, pp. 507-11, 526-8.

[907] Paper read before the National Academy of Sciences, America, 1890.

[908] T. A. Joyce, p. 2, who deals with the archaeology, as far as it is known as yet, of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Cf. especially linguistic map at p. 30 for distribution of tribes.

[909] T. A. Joyce, South American Archaeology, 1912, p. 7.

[910] "The travels of P. de Cieza de Leon" (Hakluyt Soc. 1864, p. 50 f.).

[911] Sir C. R. Markham, "List of Tribes," etc., Journ. Roy. Anth. Inst. XI. 1910, p. 95. "This idea was widespread, and many Amazonian peoples declared they preferred to be eaten by their friends than by worms."

[912] Quoted by Steinmetz, Endokannibalismus, p. 19.

[913] C. Darwin, Journal of Researches, 1889, p. 155. Thanks to their frequent contact with Europeans since the expeditions of Fitzroy and Darwin, the Fuegians have given up the practice, hence the doubts or denials of Bridges, Hyades, and other later observers.

[914] V. Martius, Zur Ethnographie Brasiliens, 1867, p. 430.

[915] Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, 1892, I. p. 330.

[916] The national name was Muysca, "Men," "Human Body," and the number twenty (in reference to the ten fingers and ten toes making up that score). Chibcha was a mimetic name having allusion to the sound ch (as in Charles), which is of frequent recurrence in the Muysca language. With man = 20, cf. the Bellacoola (British Columbia) 19 = 1 man - 1; 20 = 1 man, etc.; and this again with Lat. undeviginti.

[917] W. Bollaert, Antiquarian, Ethnological, and other Researches in New Granada, etc. 1860, passim.

[918] T. A. Joyce, South American Archaeology, 1912, p. 28.

[919] Ibid. p. 44.

[920] T. A. Joyce, loc. cit. pp. 18-22.

[921] Markham locates it in the province of Paruro, department of Cuzco; Hiram Bingham, director of the Peruvian Expeditions of the Nat. Geog. Soc. and Yale University, identifies it with Machu Picchu (Nat. Geog. Mag., Washington, D. C., Feb. 1915, p. 172).

[922] H. Beuchat, pp. 573-5. For culture sequences in the Andean area see P. A. Means, Proc. Nineteenth Internat. Congress of Americanists,1917, p. 236 ff., and Man, 1918, No. 91.

[923] Anthropologie Bolivienne, 3 vols. Paris, 1907-8.

[924] An admirable account of the material culture of Peru is given by T. A. Joyce, South American Archaeology, 1912, cap. VI.

[925] Peru, p. 120.

[926] De Nadaillac, Pre-Historic America, 1885, p. 438.

[927] Alonzo de Ercilla's Araucana.

[928] T.