Note 10 — Chapter XV · WHO WERE THE MAYANS?

According to Dr. Brinton, the name Nahuatl, which of late years scholars have agreed to use in the place of Aztec, does not belong to the latter people. It is an Aztec word meaning—first, to speak clearly; second, to order or command; third, to speak as one with authority. Hence it gained the sense of "astute," "superior," and Nahuatlaca were the Superior People. Dr. Brinton thinks it was another name given by the Aztecs to the dispossessed Mayans, and that as the years passed and the legends of the two races became hopelessly confused, the Aztecs adopted the name themselves.