Note 5 — EARLIEST HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS OF TURQUOIS MOSAIC IN MEXICO

Bernal Díaz, op. cit., vol. I, p. 53. In the work of Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana, is an important statement bearing on this matter, of which we give the following translation in extenso:

“And this present it was that Gomara and Antonio de Herrera make confused mention as having been brought to Ferdinand Cortés by the governors of Montezuma on his first landing, which they notice in the following words: ‘Which present it is said was sent for Juan de Grijalva, when he touched on those shores; but that, notwithstanding the haste of those who carried it, they found that he was gone.’ The fact was as they state; but I do not understand how those who drew up the account of which Herrera availed himself, could have omitted that which I say in this chapter, and many other particulars which shall be observed in the sequel; since the circumstances which they mention, and those which I relate, are intimately connected with each other, and those who could have given an account of the former, could likewise have done so of the latter; although I think that the error lay in their seeking information only from the Spaniards, who at that period returned from the Indies, without verifying facts by applying to the Indians, who were mainly concerned in most of them, or I may say in all, since they were the mark which all who have written on the affairs of the conquest strove to hit, and were those who were very well acquainted with them, and in the beginning recorded them by means of figures and characters, and afterward, when some of the most curious amongst them had learned how to write, wrote them down; which histories are in my possession: and so high is the estimation in which I hold them, on account of their language and the style of their composition, that I should be glad to feel myself competent to the task of translating them into Spanish with the same elegance and grace as the Mexicans penned them in their own language; and since these histories are true and authentic, I follow them to the letter; but lest the accounts which they contain should appear strange to those who read them, I affirm that they are merely a true relation of what actually happened, but that other authors have not noticed them before me, because the few that have written on the affairs of the Indies were ignorant of the events which then occurred, nor had they any one to give them the requisite information; neither should I have mentioned these facts had I not found that they were verified by Father Bernardino de Sahagun, a grave and pious ecclesiastic, who was of the second number of those who undertook the conversion of the natives of New Spain, but was the first of the investigators of the most secret things of this land, of which he knew all the secrets, and employed himself for more than sixty years in composing works in the Mexican language and in incorporating into it all the information which he was able to acquire.” Lib. IV, cap. XIII.