t delighted in tales of the marvelous; add
to this the further fact that Cortez was not, at the beginning of his
expedition, acting with the sanction of his royal master; indeed, his
sailing from the island of Cuba was in direct violation of the commands
of the governor. It was very necessary for him to impress upon the court
of Spain a sense of the importance of his undertaking.

Certain it is that the accounts that have been handed down to us, though
read with wonder and admiration, though made the basis on which many
writers have constructed most glowing descriptions of the wonders of the
barbaric civilization, which they would fain have us believe, rivaled
that of "Ormus and of Ind," are to-day seriously questioned by a large
and influential portion of the scientific world. We have another point
to be considered that is of no little weight, as all candid men must
admit that it would influence the opinions the Spaniards would form
of the culture of the Indians. As the man of mature years has lost the
memory of his childhood, so have the civilized races of men lost, even
beyond the reach of tradition, the memory of their barbaric state. The
Spaniards were brought face to face with a state of society from which
the Indo-European folks had emerged many centuries before. They could
not be expected to understand it, and hence it is that we find so many
contradictory statements in the accounts of the early explorers; so much
that modern scholars have no hesitation in rejecting.

The main tribe of the empire which Cortez is said have overthrown is
known to us by the name of the Aztecs; but as this name properly denotes
but one of many tribes in the same state of development, it is better
to use a word which includes all, or nearly all, of the tribes that in
olden times had their home in the territory now known as Mexico. Careful
comparisons of the various dialects of ancient Mexico have shown that,
with the exceptions of some tribes in Vera Cruz, they all belonged to
one stock-language; and so they are collectively known as the Nahua
tribes.<2>

We wish now to inquire into the culture of this people, to see how much
of the strange story that the Spaniards have to tell us has a reasonable
foundation. We will state frankly that, though the literature on this
subject is of vast proportions, yet it is very far from being a settled
field. All accounts of the early explorers of the strange scenes,
customs, and manners of the in