d the last harsh edict issued from the
savage council at Onondaga." _Beginnings of New England_, p.
121.]

Once appointed, the tax-gatherers were directed by the "chief-of-men."
The tribute was chiefly maize, but might be anything the conquerors
chose to demand,--weapons, fine pottery or featherwork, gold ornaments,
or female slaves. Sometimes the tributary pueblo, instead of sacrificing
all its prisoners of war upon its own altars, sent some of them up to
Mexico as part of its tribute. The ravening maw of the horrible deities
was thus appeased, not by the pueblo that paid the blackmail, but by the
power that extorted it, and thus the latter obtained a larger share of
divine favour. Generally the unhappy prisoners were forced to carry the
corn and other articles. They were convoyed by couriers who saw that
everything was properly delivered at the _tecpan_, and also brought
information by word of mouth and by picture-writing from the _calpixqui_
to the "chief-of-men." When the newly-arrived Spaniards saw these
couriers coming and going they fancied that they were "ambassadors."
This system of tribute-taking made it necessary to build roads, and this
in turn facilitated, not only military operations, but trade, which had
already made some progress albeit of a simple sort. These "roads" might
perhaps more properly be called Indian trails,[127] but they served
their purpose.

[Footnote 127: See Salmeron's letter of August 13, 1531, to the
Council of the Indies, cited in Bandelier, _op. cit._ p. 696.
The letter recommends that to increase the security of the
Spanish hold upon the country the roads should be made
practicable for beasts and wagons. They were narrow paths
running straight ahead up hill and down dale, sometimes
crossing narrow ravines upon heavy stone culverts.]

[Sidenote: Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted.]

The general similarity of the Aztec confederacy to that of the
Iroquois, in point of social structure, is thus clearly manifest. Along
with this general similarity we have observed some points of higher
development, such as one might expect to find in traversing the entire
length of an ethnical period. Instead of stockaded villages, with houses
of bark or of clay supported upon a wooden framework, we have pueblos of
adobe-brick or stone, in various stages of evolution, the most advanced
of which present the appea