“And those unaltered histories,” I asked, “—how far back do they go?”
“Not nearly far enough. We do not pretend to have accounts dating back to the Lord and Lady Pair. You know the legends. Those two were the very first inhabitants of this earth, and then all the other gods, and then a race of giants.” Neltitíca took a few meditative puffs at his poquíetl. “That legend about the giants, you know, may be true. An old and weathered bone was dug up by a farmer and is still preserved in Texcóco—I have seen it—and the surgeons say it is most definitely a thighbone. And it is as long as I am tall.”
Little Poyec laughed uneasily and said, “I should not care to meet the man whose thigh it was.”
“Well,” said the Lord Teacher, “gods and giants are things for the priests to ponder. My interest is the history of men, especially the first men in this valley, the men who built such cities as Teotihuácan and Tolan. Because all we have, we inherited from them. All we know, we learned from them.” He took a last puff of smoke and removed from the holder the burned-down stub of his picíetl reed. “We may never know why they disappeared, or when, though the fire-charred beams of their ruined buildings suggest that they were driven out by marauders. Probably the savage Chichiméca, the Dog People. We can read but little of the surviving wall paintings and carvings and picture writings, and none of those things tells even the name of that vanished people. But the things are so artfully executed that we respectfully refer to their makers as the Toltéca, the Master Artisans, and for sheaves of years we have been trying to equal their achievements.”
“But,” said Poyec, “if the Toltéca have been so long gone, I do not see how we could have learned from them.”
“Because a few individuals would have survived, even when the mass of them, as a nation, disappeared. There would have been some survivors who took to the high crags or the deep forests. And those diehard Toltéca would have endured in hiding—even preserving some of their books of knowledge perhaps—hoping to hand on their culture through their children and children’s children, as they intermarried with other tribes. Unfortunately, the only other peoples in this area at that time were utter primitives: the stolid Otomí, the frivolous Purémpecha, and of course the ever-present Dog People.”
“Ayya,” said young Poyec. “The Otomí have not yet learned even the art of writing. And the Chichiméca to this day still eat their own excrement.”
“But even among barbarians there can be a handful of extraordinary specimens,” said Neltitíca. “We must assume that the Toltéca chose carefully their mates, and that their children and grandchildren did likewise, and thus at least a few superior bloodlines would have been maintained. It would have been a sacred family trust, to hand down from father to son what each remembered of the ancient Toltéca knowledge. Until finally, from the north, there began to come to this valley new peoples—also primitives, but capable of recognizing and appreciating and utilizing that hoard of knowledge. New peoples with the will to fan that long-guarded ember again to flame.”
The Lord Teacher paused to fit a new reed into his holder. Many men smoked the poquíetl because, they said, its fumes kept their brains clear and healthy. I took up the practice myself when I was older, and found it a great aid to cogitation. But Neltitíca smoked more than any man I ever met, and that habit may have accounted for his exceptional wisdom and long life.
He went on, “The first comers from the north were the Culhua. Then the Acólhua, my own forebears and yours, Póyectzin. Then all the other lake settlers: the Tecpanéca, the Xochimílca, and so on. Then, as now, they called themselves by different names, and only the gods know where they originally came from, but all those migrants arrived here speaking one or another dialect of the Náhuatl language. And here in this lake basin, they began to learn, from the descendants of the vanished Toltéca, what remained of the Toltéca’s ancient arts and crafts.”
“It could not all have been done in a day,” I said. “Or in a sheaf of years.”
“No, and perhaps not in many sheaves of years,” said Neltitíca. “But when learning must be done largely from elusive scraps of information, and by trial and error, and by the imitation of relics—well, the more people engaged in sharing the learning, the faster it is accomplished by all. Fortunately, those Culhua and Acólhua and Tecpanéca and all the rest could communicate in a common language, and they all worked together. Meanwhile, they gradually ousted the lesser peoples from this region. The Purémpecha moved west, the Otomí and Chichiméca drifted north. The Náhuatl-speaking nations remained, and they grew in knowledge and ability at about the same pace. It was only after those peoples had attained some measure of civilization that they ceased to be mutually supportive and began to vie for ascendancy over each other. It was then that the still-primitive Aztéca arrived.”
The Lord Teacher turned his eyes on me.
“The Aztéca, or Mexíca, settled into a society that was already well developed, but a society that was beginning to separate into rival fragments, And the Mexíca managed to survive until Coxcox of the Culhua condescended to appoint one of his nobles named Acamapíchtli to be their own first Revered Speaker. Acamapíchtli introduced them to the art of word knowing, then to all the other knowledge already salvaged and shared by the longer-settled nations. The Mexíca were avid to learn, and we know what use they made of that learning. They played off the other rival factions of these lands, one against another, shifting their allegiance from one to another, until finally they themselves had achieved military supremacy over all the rest.”
Little Poyec of Texcóco gave me a look as if I had been to blame for my ancestors’ aggressiveness, but Neltitíca went on speaking with the dispassion of the detached historian:
“We know how the Mexíca have thrived and prospered since then. They have far surpassed, in wealth and influence, those other nations that once snubbed them as insignificant. Their Tenochtítlan is the richest and most opulent city built since the days of the Toltéca. Though there are countless languages spoken in The One World, the far-ranging Mexíca armies and traders and explorers have made our Náhuatl the second language of every people from the northern deserts to the southern jungles.”
He must have seen the trace of a smug smile on my face, for the Lord Teacher concluded:
“Those accomplishments would, I think, be enough for the Mexíca to boast about, but they have insisted on even more self-glorification. They rewrote their history books, trying to persuade themselves and others that they have always been the foremost nation of this region. The Mexíca may delude themselves, and may deceive historians of generations to come. But I believe I have adequately demonstrated that the usurping Mexíca are not the great Toltéca reborn.”
The Lady of Tolan invited me to take chocolate in her chambers, and I went eagerly, with a question bubbling inside me. When I arrived, her son the Crown Prince was there, and I kept silent while they discussed minor matters concerning the palace management. But when there came a lull in their colloquy, I made bold to ask the question:
“You were born in Tolan, my lady, and that was once a Toltéca city. Are you then a Toltécatl?”
Both she and Black Flower looked surprised; then she smiled. “Anyone of Tolan, Head Nodder—anyone anywhere—would be proud to claim even a drop of Toltéca blood. But in honesty, ayya, I cannot. During all of living memory, Tolan has been part of the Tecpanéca territory, so I come of Tecpanéca stock—though I suspect our family may long ago have included an Otomítl or two, before that race was ousted.”
I said in disappointment, “There is no trace of the Toltéca in Tolan?”
“In the people, who can say for certain? In the place, yes, there are the pyramids and stone terraces and vast walled courts. The pyramids have been stunted by erosion, and the terraces are all buckled and crazed, and the walls are fallen in places. But the exquisite patterns in which their stones were set are still discernible, and the low-relief carvings, and even fragmentary paintings here and ther
e. The most impressive and least worn objects, though, are the many statues.”
“Of the gods?” I asked.
“I do not think so, for they each have the same face. They are all of the same size and shape, sculptured simply and realistically, not in the convoluted style of today. They are cylindrical columns, as if once they supported some massive roof. But the columns are carved into the form of standing humans, if you can imagine humans more than three times as tall as any human known.”
“Perhaps they are portraits of the giants who lived on earth after the gods,” I suggested, remembering the monstrous thighbone of which Neltitíca had told.
“No, I think they represent the Toltéca themselves, only portrayed much larger than life size. Their faces are not stern or brutal or haughty, as you would expect of gods or giants. They wear an expression of untroubled watchfulness. Many of the columns are toppled and scattered about the low ground, but others still stand on the heights, and they look out across the countryside as if patiently, tranquilly waiting.”
“Waiting for what, do you suppose, my lady?”
“Perhaps for the Toltéca to come again.” It was Black Flower who answered, and he added a harsh laugh. “To emerge from wherever they have been lurking through all these sheaves of years. To come in might and fury, to conquer us interlopers, to reclaim these lands that were theirs.”
“No, my son,” said the First Lady. “They were never a warlike people, nor wanted to be, and that was their undoing. If they could ever come again, they would come in peace.”
She sipped at her chocolate and made a face; it had gone flat. She took from the table at her side the beater of large and small wooden rings strung loose and jingling on a central stem, the whole instrument cunningly carved from a single stick of aromatic cedar. Putting it into her cup and holding the stem between her palms, she rubbed briskly to rotate the beater rings until the red liquid puffed up foamy and stiff again. After another sip, she licked the froth from her upper lip and said to me:
“Go sometime to the city of Teotihuácan, Head Nodder, and look at what is left of the wall paintings there. Only one of them shows a Toltécatl warrior, and he is merely playing at war. His spear has no blade, but a tuft of feathers at its point, and his arrows are tipped with óli gum, like those employed in teaching archery to boys.”
“Yes, my lady, I have used such arrows in practicing the war games.”
“From other murals, we can deduce that the Toltéca never gave human sacrifices to their gods, but only butterflies, flowers, quail, and such offerings. The Master Artisans were a peaceable people because their gods were gentle gods. One of them was that Quetzalcóatl still worshiped by all nations far and wide. And the Toltéca concept of that Feathered Serpent tells us much about them. Who but a wise and kindly people could have bequeathed to us a god that so harmoniously blends lordliness and lovingness? The most awesome but most graceful of all creatures, the snake, clad not in hard scales but in the soft and beautiful plumage of the quetzal tototl bird.”
I said, “I was taught that the Feathered Serpent once really lived in these lands, and will someday come back again.”
“Yes, Head Nodder, from what we can understand of the remains of Toltéca writing, Quetzalcóatl did indeed once live. He was a long-ago Uey-Tlatoáni, or whatever the Toltéca called their rulers, and he must have been a good one. It is said that he himself devised the writing, the calendars, the star charts, the numbers we use today. It is even said that he left us the recipe for ahuacamóli and all the other moli sauces, though I am sure I cannot see Quetzalcóatl doing cook’s work in a kitchen.”
She smiled and shook her head, then was serious again. “It is said that during his reign the farmers’ fields grew not just white cotton but cotton of all colors, as if already dyed, and that a single ear of maize was as much as a man could carry. It is said that there were no deserts in his time, but fruit and flowers growing everywhere in abundance, and the air was perfumed with all their mingled fragrances….”
I asked, “Is it possible that he could come again, my lady?”
“Well, according to the legends, Quetzalcóatl somehow unintentionally committed some sin so awful—or did something which so violated his own high standards of behavior—that he voluntarily abdicated his throne. He went to the shore of the eastern ocean and built a raft—of interwoven feathers, some say, or of intertwined live snakes. In his last words to the grieving Toltéca he vowed to return again someday. And he rowed away, and he vanished beyond the ocean’s eastern horizon. Since then, the Feathered Serpent has become the one god recognized by every nation and every people known to us. But all the Toltéca have also disappeared since then, and Quetzalcóatl has yet to return.”
“But he could have, he may have,” I said. “The priests say that the gods often walk among us unrecognized.”
“Like my Lord Father,” said Black Flower, laughing. “But I believe the Feathered Serpent would be rather harder to overlook. The reappearance of such a distinctive god should certainly make a stir. Be assured, Head Nodder, if ever Quetzalcóatl comes again, with or without his retinue of Toltéca, we will know him.”
I had left Xaltócan toward the close of the rainy season in the year Five Knife and, except for my frequent yearnings for the presence of Tzitzitlíni, I had been so engrossed in my studies and my enjoyments of palace life that I had scarcely noticed the swift passing of time. I was frankly surprised when my schoolmate Prince Willow informed me that the day after tomorrow would be the first of the forthcoming nemontémtin, the five lifeless days. I had to count on my fingers to believe that I had been away from home for more than the round of a whole year, and that this one was coming to a close.
“All activities are suspended during the five hollow days,” said the young prince. “So this year we will take the opportunity to pack and move the entire court to our Texcóco palace, to be ready to celebrate the month of Cuáhuitl Ehua there.”
That was the first month of our solar year. Its name means The Tree Is Raised and refers to the many elaborate ceremonies during which the people of all nations were accustomed to beseech the rain god Tlaloc that the forthcoming summer’s wet season would be an abundantly wet one.
“And you will want to be with your family for the occasion,” Willow went on. “So I ask you to accept the loan of my personal acáli to carry you thither. I will send it again at the close of Cuáhuitl Ehua, and you will rejoin the court at Texcóco.”
This was all very sudden, but I accepted, expressing my gratitude for his thoughtfulness.
“Just one thing,” he said. “Can you be ready to leave tomorrow morning? You understand, Head Nodder, my oarsmen will want to be safely back on their home shore before the lifeless days begin.”
Ah, the Señor Bishop! Once more I am pleased and honored to have Your Excellency join our little gathering. And once more, my lord, your unworthy servant makes bold to give you worshipful greeting and welcome.
… Yes, I understand, Your Excellency. You say that I have not hitherto spoken sufficiently of my people’s religious rites; that you especially want to hear in person about our superstitious dread of the hollow days; that you wish to hear at first hand my account of the ensuing month’s heathen rituals of petition to the rain god. I understand, my lord, and I shall cause your reverend ears to hear all. Should my old brain wander in its recollection, or should my old tongue skip too lightly over any details of relevance, please do not hesitate, Your Excellency, to interrupt with questions or demands for elucidation.
Know, then, that it was on the sixth-to-last day of the year Six House that Prince Willow’s carved and bannered and canopied acáli put me ashore on a Xaltócan jetty again. My splendid borrowed craft of six oarsmen rather put to shame the uncovered, two-oared canoe of the Lord Red Heron which was, that same day, likewise bringing his son home from school for the ceremonial month of Cuáhuitl Ehua. I was even noticeably better dressed than that provincial princeling, and Pactli involuntarily
gave me an ingratiating nod before he recognized me and his face froze.
At my house, I was welcomed like a hero home from some war. My father clapped his hands on my shoulders, which now nearly matched his in height and breadth. Tzitzitlíni wrapped both arms around me in a squeeze that would have looked merely sisterly to anyone who did not see her fingernails digging softly but suggestively into my back. Even my mother was admiring, if mainly of my costume. I had deliberately chosen to wear my most wonderfully embroidered mantle, with the bloodstone clasp at the shoulder, and my gilt sandals which laced almost to the knee.
Friends and relations and neighbors came crowding in to gawk at the rover returned. Among them, I was happy to see, were Chimáli and Tlatli, who had each begged a ride home from Tenochtítlan on limestone freight acáltin returning to the island to ride out the lifeless days at their moorings. My family’s three rooms and dooryard, which now appeared to me to have curiously shrunken, were quite overflowing with visitors. I do not attribute that to my personal popularity, but to the fact that midnight would bring the beginning of the hollow days, during which there could be no social mingling.
Not many of the gathered people, except my father and some other quarriers, had ever been off our island, and were naturally eager to hear of the outside world. But they asked few questions; they seemed content to listen to me and Chimáli and Tlatli trading tales of our experiences in our separate schools.
“Schools!” snorted Tlatli. “It is precious little time we have for schoolwork. Every day the vile priests roust us out at dawn to sweep and clean our quarters and all the rooms of the whole building. Then we must go to the lake to tend the school’s chinámpa, and pick maize and beans for the school kitchen. Or go all the way to the mainland to chop wood for the sacred fires, to cut and fetch bags full of maguey thorns.”
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