Note 971 — Chapter III

In regard to the nature of the chief-of-men we find, among much else of the first importance in the study of the Mexican government, an exposition in Sahagún (lib. vi. cap. 20), which seems to establish the elective and non-hereditary character of the office. It was “this office and its attributes,” says Bandelier (Peabody Mus. Repts. ii. 670), “which have been the main stays of the notion that a high degree of civilization prevailed in aboriginal Mexico, in so far as its people were ruled after the manner of eastern despotisms.” Bandelier (Ibid. ii. 133) says: “It is not impossible that the so-called empire of Mexico may yet prove to have been but a confederacy of the Nahuatlac tribe of the valley, with the Mexicans as military leaders.” His argument on the word translated “king” is not convincing.