mong the Greeks as among the Romans and the early
English.]

[Sidenote: The tribal council.]

The supreme government of the Aztecs was vested in the tribal council
composed of twenty members, one for each clan. The member, representing
a clan, was not its _calpullec_, or "sachem;" he was one of the
_tecuhtli_, or clan-chiefs, and was significantly called the "speaker"
(_tlatoani_). The tribal council, thus composed of twenty speakers, was
called the _tlatocan_, or "place of speech."[114] At least as often as
once in ten days the council assembled at the _tecpan_, or official
house of the tribe, but it could be convened whenever occasion required,
and in cases of emergency was continually in session. Its powers and
duties were similar to those of an ancient English shiremote, in so far
as they were partly directive and partly judicial. A large part of its
business was settling disputes between the clans. It superintended the
ceremonies of investiture with which the chiefs and other officers of
the clans were sworn into office. At intervals of eighty days there was
an "extra session" of the _tlatocan_, attended also by the twenty "elder
brothers," the four phratry-captains, the two executive chiefs of the
tribe, and the leading priests, and at such times a reconsideration of
an unpopular decision might be urged; but the authority of the
_tlatocan_ was supreme, and from its final decision there could be no
appeal.[115]

[Footnote 114: Compare _parliament_ from _parler_. These twenty
were the "grandees," "counsellors," and "captains" mentioned by
Bernal Diaz as always in Montezuma's company; "y siempre a la
contina estaban en su compania veinte grandes senores y
consejeros y capitanes," etc. _Historia verdadera_, ii. 95. See
Bandelier, _op. cit._ p. 646.]

[Footnote 115: Mr. Bandelier's note on this point gives an
especially apt illustration of the confusion of ideas and
inconsistencies of statement amid which the early Spanish
writers struggled to understand and describe this strange
society: _op. cit._ p. 651.]

[Sidenote: The "snake-woman."]

The executive chiefs of the tribe were two in number, as was commonly
the case in ancient America. The tribal sachem, or civil executive, bore
the grotesque title of _cihuacoatl_, or "snake-woman."[116] His relation
to the tribe was in general like that of the _calpulle