Note II-25 — Chapter II · ORIGIN AND END OF THINGS.

Boturini, Idea de una Hist., pp. 113-4; Id., Catálogo, pp. 39-40; Clavigero, Storia Ant. del Messico, tom. i., pp. 129-30, tom. ii., p. 6; Spiegazione delle Tavole del Codice Mexicano (Vaticano), tav. vii., in Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., vol. v., pp. 164-5; Gemelli Carreri, in Churchill's Col. Voy., vol. iv., p. 481; Humboldt, Vues, tom. i., pp. 114-15, tom. ii., pp. 175-8; Tylor's Anahuac, pp. 276-7; Gondra, in Prescott, Conquista de Mexico, tom. iii., pp. 1-10. A careful comparison of the passages given above will show that this whole story of the escape of Coxcox and his wife in a boat from a great deluge, and of the distribution by a bird of different languages to their descendants, rests on the interpretation of certain Aztec paintings, containing supposed pictures of a flood, of Coxcox and his wife, of a canoe or rude vessel of some kind, of the mountain Culhuacan, which was the Mexican Ararat, and of a bird distributing languages to a number of men. Not one of the earliest writers on Mexican mythology, none of those personally familiar with the natives and with their oral traditions as existing at the time of, or immediately after the conquest, seems to have known this legend; Olmos, Sahagun, Motolinia, Mendieta, Ixtlilxochitl, and Camargo, are all of them silent with regard to it. These facts must give rise to grave suspicions with regard to the accuracy of the commonly accepted version, notwithstanding its apparently implicit reception up to this time by the most critical historians. These suspicions will not be lessened by the result of the researches of Don José Fernando Ramirez, Conservator of the Mexican National Museum, a gentleman not less remarkable for his familiarity with the language and antiquities of Mexico than for the moderation and calmness of his critical judgments, as far as these are known. In a communication dated April, 1858, to Garcia y Cubas, Atlas Geográfico, Estadístico e Histórico de la Republica Mejicana, entrega 29, speaking of the celebrated Mexican picture there for the first time, as he claims, accurately given to the public—Sigüenza's copy of it, as given by Gemelli Carreri, that given by Clavigero in his Storia del Messico, that given by Humboldt in his Atlas Pittoresque, and that given by Kingsborough being all incorrect—Señor Ramirez says:—'The authority of writers so competent as Sigüenza and Clavigero imposed silence on the incredulous, and after the illustrious Baron von Humboldt added his irresistible authority, adopting that interpretation, nobody doubted that "the traditions of the Hebrews were found among the people of America;" that, as the wise Baron thought, "their Coxcox, Teocipactli, or Tezpi is the Noah, Xisutrus, or Menou of the Asiatic families;" and that "the Cerro of Culhuacan is the Ararat of the Mexicans." Grand and magnificent thought, but unfortunately only a delusion. The blue square No. 1, with its bands or obscure lines of the same color, cannot represent the terrestrial globe covered with the waters of the flood, because we should have to suppose a repetition of the same deluge in the figure No. 40, where it is reproduced with some of its principal accidents. Neither, for the same reason, do the human heads and the heads of birds which appear to float there, denote the submerging of men and animals, for it would be necessary to give the same explanation to those seen in group No. 39. It might be argued that the group to the left (of No. 1), made up of a human head placed under the head of a bird, represented phonetically the name Coxcox, and denoted the Aztec Noah; but the group on the right, formed of a woman's head with other symbolic figures above it, evidently does not express the name Xochiquetzal, which is said to have been that of his wife.... Let us now pass on to the dove giving tongues to the primitive men who were born mute. The commas which seem to come from the beak of the bird there represented, form one of the most complex and varied symbols, in respect to their phonetic force, which are found in our hieroglyphic writing. In connection with animated beings they designate generically the emission of the voice.... In the group before us they denote purely and simply that the bird was singing or speaking—to whom?—to the group of persons before it, who by the direction of their faces and bodies show clearly and distinctly the attention with which they listened. Consequently the designer of the before-mentioned drawing for Clavigero, pre-occupied with the idea of signifying by it the pretended confusion of tongues, changed with his pencil the historic truth, giving to these figures opposite directions. Examining attentively the inexactitudes and errors of the graver and the pencil in all historical engravings relating to Mexico, it is seen that they are no less numerous and serious than those of the pen. The interpretations given to the ancient Mexican paintings by ardent imaginations led away by love of novelty or by the spirit of system, justify to a certain point the distrust and disfavor with which the last and most distinguished historian of the Conquest of Mexico (W. H. Prescott) has treated this interesting and precious class of historical documents.' Señor Ramirez goes on thus at some length to his conclusions, which reduce the original painting to a simple record of a wandering of the Mexicans among the lakes of the Mexican valley—that journey beginning at a place 'not more than nine miles from the gutters of Mexico,'—a record having absolutely no connection either with the mythical deluge, already described as one of the four destructions of the world, or with any other. The bird speaking in the picture, he connects with a well-known Mexican fable given by Torquemada, in which a bird is described as speaking from a tree to the leaders of the Mexicans at a certain stage of their migration, and repeating the work Tihui, that is to say, 'Let us go.' A little bird called the Tihuitochan, with a cry that the vulgar still interpret in a somewhat similar sense, is well known in Mexico, and is perhaps at the bottom of the tradition. It may be added that Torquemada gives a painted manuscript, possibly that under discussion, as his authority for the story. The boat, the mountain, and the other adjuncts of the picture are explained in a like simple way, as the hieroglyphics, for the most part, of various proper names. Our space here will not permit further details—though another volume will contain this picture and a further discussion of the subject—but I may remark in concluding that the moderation with which Señor Ramirez discusses the question, as well as his great experience and learning in matters of Mexican antiquity, seem to claim for his views the serious consideration of future students.