A brief notice of the Aztec race / by Richard Cull. Followed by a description of the so-called Aztec children exhibited on the occasion ; by Richard Owen.

  • Cull, Richard.
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief notice of the Aztec race / by Richard Cull. Followed by a description of the so-called Aztec children exhibited on the occasion ; by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    they came from the north-west, and one authority even gives an itinerary of the march of the original Aztec adventurers, but the details of that march are limited to a distance which, in after times, was within the boundary of the empire. The general tradition of the American Indians, like that of the Aztecs, points to the far north-west as the locality whence they migrated to spread themselves over the vast continent. The Aztec annals give the following chronology as the date of their arrival and the founding of the city of Mexico :— They arrived in the beginning of the thirteenth century. They founded Mexico a.d. 1325. The Toltecs occupied this region before the Aztecs. The only source of our knowledge of the Toltecs is Aztec history and tradition, which no doubt is trustworthy in some particu- lars. Humboldt, who is not easily imposed upon, gives more credit to it than do many other writers. The chronology is— A.D. Toltecs arrive in Anahuac . . . 648 „ abandon the country . . 1051 The Chichemacs arrive . . . . 1170 The Acolhuans arrive 1200 The Mexicans or Aztecs reach Tula, 1196 They found Mexico 1325 When the Aztecs arrived they found the Cyclopean ma- sonry, and they attributed the building of the palace at Pa- lenque, which is described, and whose ruins are figured by Stephens, to the Toltecs. The Toltecs were skilled in agriculture, and in many of the useful mechanical arts. They were the inventors of the complex arrangement and denotation of time, which the Aztecs confess to have borrowed from them. The ruins of Tula, their capital city, were in existence when the Spaniards conquered the country, and attested its extent and magnifi- cence. All the great ruins are referred to as those of Tol- tecan temples and palaces. In short, as Mr. Prescott remarks, the name Toltec has passed into a synonym for architect^ and Humboldt calls them the Pelasgi of the New World. The Toltecs were doubtless the founders of that civiliza- tion which distinguishes the territory in later times. After b 2