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Show i9oo] SOUTHWESTERN INDIANS pyramids are usually built, or at least faced, with stone, while among the Nahua they were constructed of adobe brick. The pyramid of Cholula, originally crowned by a temple which was destroyed by Cort6s, was fourteen hundred and forty feet square at the base and one hundred and seventy-seven feet high. The civilization, 1 however, which is represented by these ancient ruins is not to be regarded as anything radically different from that we have met farther north, but rather as a development along the same lines, with modifications due to a more complex organization. There are many points in common with the Pueblo culture of the southwest: we still find the peace- chief, with his councillors, and the war- chief, though the occupants of these positions have become more conspicuous because of the increasing complexity and material prosperity of a higher state of culture. Montezuma, for example, is now known to have been simply the war- chief of the Aztec confederation, holder of an elective office, from which the chief could be deposed for misconduct- a common provision among Indian tribes, but not ordinarily compatible with hereditary 1 Bandelier, " On the Art of War and Mode of Warfare of the Ancient Mexicans " ( Peabody Museum, Tenth Annual Report); " On the Distribution and Tenure of Lands and the Customs with Respect to Inheritance among the Ancient Mexicans" ( ibid., Eleventh Annual Report); " On the Social Organization and Mode of Government of the Ancient Mexicans" ( ibid., Twelfth Annual Report). |