Mexico

by James A. Michener

  Ixmiq certainly was in touch with the Mayas to the far south and with the nondescript tribes that flourished to the southeast around what is now Mexico City, for he had a zoo in which he kept animals from distant areas and in it were birds from the seacoast areas controlled by the Mayas. But he seems to have been ignorant of the dreadful Altomec and Aztec tribes that were gathering strength in their caves to the north.

  It is impossible to guess how large City-of-the-Pyramid was in those early days, but my father once estimated that it would have required no fewer than fifteen hundred men to work constantly for forty years to build the first pyramid, and he guessed that each man would have to be served by three others who quarried and transported the building blocks. This would mean about six thousand men, or a total population of somewhere around twenty thousand people. We know from excavations undertaken at the time of the building of the cathedral and the aqueduct that these people, whatever their number, lived in a sprawling Indian city built of mud and wood and located around the plaza that now serves as the center of modern Toledo.

  I stress these matters because throughout my adult life I have been irritated by people who glibly suppose that Spaniards brought civilization to Mexican people who had previously been barbarians, when this was clearly not the case.

  In the year 600 the civilizations of Spain and Mexico were roughly comparable, except for the fact that the former had profited from the invention of the wheel, the development of the alphabet and the knowledge of how to smelt hard metals. In any event I choose to measure advances in civilization by noting such things as soundness in the organization of the state, the humaneness of the religion, the care given to the indigent, the protection of trade, the advances in sciences such as astronomy, and the cultivation of music, dancing, poetry and other arts. In these vital respects my ancestors in City-of-the-Pyramid were just about even with my ancestors in Spain and infinitely far ahead of all who shivered in caves in what would become Virginia.

  In the matter of astronomy, Ixmiq was incredible. He calculated the orbits of the planets and based his century on the movements of Venus, whose behavior he had calculated within an error of only a few days. Unaided, so far as we know, by a single hint from Europe or Asia, Ixmiq solved most of the major problems of keeping time and had even discovered that in the year of 365 days that he had devised, even if he added four days every thirteen years, at the end of his fifty-two-year cycle he would still be one day short of the world’s exact movement, so for that time he added an extra day. It is possible that he may have borrowed his major concepts from the Mayas, but everything he took he perfected.

  I have mentioned the portrait believed to be that of Ixmiq; there is another—but some argue that it is not Ixmiq—which shows a man as I like to think he must have been. He is seated in the center of a huge stone carving and about him are flutes, trumpets, drums made of snakeskin, and shell horns; pitch pine from the forest serves as a torch. The ground seems to be covered with woven mats and ambassadors are waiting to talk with him.

  Ixmiq had fifteen or twenty wives and from one of these sprang the line that ruled City-of-the-Pyramid for nearly half a millennium. Around the year 900 one of these descendants known as Nopiltzín inherited the kingdom, which was now somewhat changed from the days of Ixmiq. For one thing, the pyramid had been rebuilt twice in the interim and was now approaching its present size. The enlargements had been accomplished by the simple process of resurfacing the entire structure with two or three layers of new rocks quarried from the original site. Just when these resurfacings took place we do not know, but each probably occupied the community for fifteen or twenty years, for with any enlargement the number of blocks required to cover the structure increased considerably. Thus in 900, when Nopiltzín took command, each side of the huge edifice was five hundred feet long with a height of about two hundred feet, producing an enormous flat top for the various wooden temples that now crowded the platform.

  The effectiveness of the pyramid as a religious edifice had also been enhanced by a simple improvement. Ixmiq’s original structure had resembled an Egyptian pyramid, with straight, unbroken edges running from the ground to the platform above, but in subsequent rebuildings four huge setbacks had been constructed, yielding four spacious terraces on which religious celebrations could be held. Furthermore, to provide a series of terraces, the angle of incline between the various terraces varied sharply, with the result that a worshiper standing at the base of the pyramid and looking upward could see only so far as the edge of the first terrace; the great temples at the top were no longer visible and the pyramid seemed to soar into the clouds.

  Up the southern face led a steep flight of steps, which paused four times at the terraces, and it must have been one of the most exciting experiences in Mexico to climb these steps, not knowing what one was to find at the topmost level; at the apex one came upon a broad platform, now larger than in the days of Ixmiq, containing four temples to the rain god, the gods of earth and sun, and the mysterious serpent god that protected all things of beauty. There had still, in the days of Nopiltzín, been no man sacrificed to these gods, although turkeys, flowers, musical instruments and cakes were regularly offered at the four altars.

  It is difficult for me to write of what happened next, because it shows my Indians in a poor light, and this provides fuel for Christian apologists who preach that when Hernán Cortés invaded Mexico in 1519 he found it occupied by barbarians to whom he brought both civilization and Christianity. Even in 900 Nopiltzín’s people were not barbarians, but they became so lax in guarding their marvelous civilization that they allowed real barbarians to overrun them.

  The events I am about to discuss are genuinely historic, for they derive from records uncovered by archaeologists. Such records, of course, were written in hieroglyphics and not in words, for our Indians had no alphabet, but they are at least as substantial as many related to Europe’s Middle Ages. But in the reign of Nopiltzín, when the building of pyramids had long since stopped, the civilization of the high valley fell into a curious state of apathy. When wars ceased there was nothing to excite the passions of the citizens; when building halted, there was nothing to engage their energies.

  Some years ago I helped excavate an ancient quarry site that proved, by carbon dating, that no significant activity had occurred there for a period of three hundred years. How did the team of which I was the reporter know this? Because at the site we unearthed much pottery from the early Ixmiq age and each subsequent period down to 900. Then for three hundred years, through the 1100s, we found no local pottery of any kind, and when I asked the leader of our dig what this signified he explained: “We often see this phenomenon in Near East digs. It means the locals had acquired enough wealth that they could stop making things for themselves and import them from other regions in which workmen remained at their kilns.” But at the upper edge of this dead period comes a flood of Altomec pottery that can be positively dated to about 1200. The record was as clear to us as if work sheets had been kept at the site.

  Worship of the old gods seems also to have diminished and a tradition arose that the flowered serpent had left the area to return at some future date. Because the high valley was not plagued by droughts, the god of rain was taken more or less for granted. The sun god lost his fury, and the goddess of earth grew prettier and less motherly in her pottery representations. Peaceful trade relations to the east, south and west had reached their maximum advantage, and practically every good thing known to Mexico at large was now available in City-of-the-Pyramid.

  In the year 900, during the reign of Nopiltzín, life was probably as good in the high valley as it was anywhere on earth, but some of the older priests, led by their superior, Ixbalanque, eighty years old and clothed with wisdom and power, questioned the status quo. Their view was ably voiced by a fiery younger prelate: “Our citizens are growing soft. They pay no attention to the old virtues. The king ought to launch some significant project to enlist his people’s energies.�
� When his companions agreed, it fell to High Priest Ixbalanque to present their concern to the king.

  It’s not easy, at this distance from the year 900, to define the relationship between the old priest Ixbalanque and the young king Nopiltzín, but it is possible to gain some idea of the story from what the old murals show and what the archaeologists have been able to uncover. Power and responsibility among the Builders was cunningly divided: the king controlled short-term decisions, the high priest those on which the long-term welfare of the people depended. The king could declare war and prosecute it; the high priest determined the terms of peace, but since no wars occurred for long periods, these powers remained in limbo. The king could collect taxes, but the priest decided how the money should be spent for the welfare of the people. And underlying all was the tacit understanding that the king could never depose the high priest, while the latter could and sometimes did depose a king who had become ineffective or corrupt.

  Nevertheless, it was traditional for the high priest always to defer in private speech and in public display to the king, using Builder words which were equivalents of our “Sire” and “Majesty.” Thus the illusion was maintained that the king ruled and the high priest merely counseled, and for centuries the system worked. It was on the basis of this understanding that High Priest Ixbalanque asked for a private session with King Nopiltzín.

  Ixbalanque: My Ruler, I feel it is imperative that we resurface the pyramid.

  Nopiltzín: Ridiculous. It’s as big as it ever need be.

  Ixbalanque: For a pyramid dedicated to the gods it can never be said that it is high enough.

  Nopiltzín: There is, however, a limit to how we can waste men’s work.

  Ixbalanque: Would you consider building a new pyramid altogether?

  Nopiltzín: Equally foolish.

  Ixbalanque: Powerful One, I’ve studied the crest of a small hill off to the northeast, and it occurs to me that with no more effort than it would take to resurface our present pyramid we could build one there that could be seen for miles. Whoever entered the valley would know that we served the gods.

  Nopiltzín: I cannot sentence my people to the folly of building useless pyramids. Why do you argue this way?

  Ixbalanque: Because I have the concern of our people at heart.

  Nopiltzín: And do pyramids in any way increase the welfare of our city?

  Ixbalanque: No, but engagement upon projects of enormous size does. It binds our society together and keeps all parts strong.

  Nopiltzín: Now, exactly what is it you want to do?

  Ixbalanque: I want to engage our city in some project so stupendous that those who come in later years will say, “They were crazy to try so much.” Because then I know we will all grow stronger. We’ll have something to work for.

  Nopiltzín: Why do you keep saying the people need something to work for? Our people have enough food. They have many celebrations with music and flowers. What more do they need?

  Ixbalanque: I want the spirit of the gods to motivate this place as it used to. I want our people to dedicate themselves to something.

  Nopiltzín: I don’t understand a word you’re saying.

  Ixbalanque: Great One, let me tell you what I mean. Last month, when our scouts captured that stranger who said he came from the north I was present when we interrogated him. I watched the blaze of wonder that came into his eyes when he saw our canals and our abundance and our pyramid, and I could sense that he wanted similar things for his people. I can imagine him now, telling his savage tribe about the majesty of our city.

  Nopiltzín: I don’t follow you at all.

  Ixbalanque: It was the look in his eyes that I’m talking about. That look of inspiration and wonder. Go out into your city, Powerful One, and see if you can any longer find that look in the eyes of your people.

  Nopiltzín: There will be no new pyramid. This discussion is over.

  What the king did, in lieu of building a pyramid, is remembered as one of the turning points in the history of Mexico, and certainly in the history of the Builder Indians. He had for some time been experimenting with the maguey bushes that grew luxuriantly along the edges of his palace grounds. He loved the dark green plants that threw twisting arms into the air and he suspected that the poetic joyousness of the maguey sprang from some secret hidden in its heart, and this secret he proposed to uncover.

  After he had dissected several dozen plants, he found that each held a certain amount of honey water, a fact that had been known to the Indians for several thousand years. It occurred to King Nopiltzín that this honey water must contain the secret of the maguey, and he tried putting it to many different uses, such as medication for a cut finger or fertilizer for other plants, but his experiments led nowhere. In disgust he abandoned the project, forgetting a small store of the honey water that he had put into a clay jar wrapped in cotton cloth.

  Some three weeks later he wanted to reuse the clay jar and found that the honey water had turned into an opaque whitish substance thicker than water. He threw this out, but in so doing some of it got on his fingers and out of curiosity he tasted it. He found to his surprise that the whitish fluid made his gums tingle slightly and had a wholly pleasing taste. Tilting the jar to his lips, he drained the few remaining drops, which he found more than palatable.

  Nopiltzín, realizing that he had found something that might prove to be of interest, recalled the various steps he had followed and extracted a new supply of honey water from the maguey, stored it in the same clay jar, wrapped it in the same cloth and set it aside, planning to open the jar at the end of three weeks. When the time came, however, he found himself preoccupied with further proposals being made by the priest Ixbalanque, who was insisting upon further discussion of the pyramid project. It was Ixbalanque’s contention, after protracted consideration of the king’s objections, that the people of the high valley would continue to find themselves in growing confusion unless their energies were directed toward some significant community undertaking, but now the elderly priest had an entirely new plan.

  Ixbalanque: Powerful One, if the rebuilding of the pyramid is impractical, why not introduce some new god, or elevate one of the old ones to a position of preeminence?

  Nopiltzín: What good would this serve? Our present gods have proved more than adequate.

  Ixbalanque: I sometimes think that you do not appreciate the great loss our community has suffered with the flight of the flowered serpent.

  Nopiltzín: We have other gods. The loss of one is of no significance.

  Ixbalanque: I believe you might be overlooking two important points. The god who has fled protected those elements of our life that gave mystery and meaning to the people, and for such a deity to depart is a sad loss. But I suspect that even more significant, in the long run, is the fact that a god has been lost without another of equal importance arising to take his place.

  Nopiltzín: Now how can that be of any worry to the people?

  Ixbalanque: They’re not worried about it. Apparently they don’t even realize that the flowered serpent has really fled. And you’re not worried about it. But the spirit of this great valley is worried.

  Nopiltzín: How can you claim that?

  Ixbalanque: Because when a god departs an emptiness is left, whether at the moment we appreciate the fact or not. In time a restlessness sets in. The people become apprehensive. Life has lost a little of its meaning and the city is in danger.

  Nopiltzín: What are you driving at, Ixbalanque?

  Ixbalanque: Revered Ruler, I’ve spent much time thinking about your objections to the pyramid, and although I am as sure as ever that I am right in this matter, I do see why you don’t want to disturb the city and launch a project that might take thirty or forty years to complete. The people don’t want it. You don’t want it. And some of the other priests don’t want it. All right. The pyramid idea is dead.

  Nopiltzín: I’m glad you’ve come to your senses.

  Ixbalanque: I surrender that idea
on the ground of expense. What I now propose will cost nothing. I propose that the empty place in our circle of gods be filled by the veneration of your ancestor Ixmiq, whose spirit broods over this valley.

  Nopiltzín: Ixmiq? In some quarters he’s remembered only as the mad builder who drove his people to construct useless buildings throughout the valley.

  Ixbalanque: He is remembered elsewhere as the man who gave this city character.

  Nopiltzín: Ixmiq? I find no affinity in my heart for Ixmiq. I would feel no pleasure in elevating Ixmiq to the top of the pyramid. None at all. Ixmiq stands for nothing that I stand for.

  Ixbalanque: If Ixmiq is unacceptable, we could establish a new god.

  Nopiltzín: What would this accomplish?

  Ixbalanque: There would be a sense of vitality in the air. Women would grow more flowers with which to decorate the temple of the new god. There would be a fresh spirit at the top of the pyramid.

  Nopiltzín: I was thinking just the other night that at last you priests have the temples atop the pyramid nicely arranged. To add another would cause confusion.

  Ixbalanque: I see we’re getting nowhere. You fail to understand a thing I’m talking about.

  Nopiltzín: I’m afraid that’s right. But I will listen to this extent. Suppose we were to create a new god—but no buildings, mind you. What kind of god would it be?

  Ixbalanque: I have given great thought to this, and I wish to speak without being interrupted, for it is important to this valley that what I have to say be fully understood by the king.

  Nopiltzín: I will be most attentive, for up to now I haven’t understood anything.

  Ixbalanque: The god who left us, the serpent with flowery scales, represented the joyous things of life but also those that are most difficult to comprehend. Who has seen the spirit of beauty? Who has ever touched music, or the genesis of a clay bowl? Who knows what makes one man an artist and another completely unskilled? With the flight of the serpent we have lost our god of beauty. Now I see no reason to try to create another in his place, but it does occur to me that there is a real and dangerous emptiness in our life, and this must be remedied, or I honestly fear that our great city will begin to fall apart. I have therefore come to the conclusion that we should have a god who goes far beyond what the flowery serpent represented. I would propose a god who represented nothing of substance, perhaps a god of the nether sky, or of the darkness that comes when lightning has vanished, or of this valley, or of what you and I might think about the day after tomorrow. I believe that such a god might capture the imagination of our people, and at times I suspect that it might accomplish more even than the rebuilding of the pyramid.