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Show 210 DISSERT. 1. \......--v---1 ri I s T o R y 0 F M E X I C 0. 1 · · · } 'th was very conformable to the tradition of the Chia-lJS optnwn, w 11 . h 1 · panefc. Other :mthors, on the contt:ary, belteve t at popu at1011 very d becat1fc the writers of the ht!l:ory of the Mextcans and Peru-rna ern, · f h · · 1 vians did not find among thofe nations any memory o t e1r parttcu ar events 1c. art he r ba c· k tha' 11 eight centuries. But th.o fe. authors con-found the population of Mexico made by the Chtch1mecas and the Az tecas, WI' th th"" t which their anc. efl:ors had .m a. de .m any ages be. fore in the northern countries of America, nor ddl:mgudh the Mcx1chns Ji·om other nations who occupied tlutt country before them. Who can afcertain when theOtomies, Olmecas., Cuitlatecas, a~d Michuac~ne[c entered into the country of Anahuac? It is not fupn6ng that tome writers of Mexico could not find any memorials more ancient than eight centuries ; Gnce, beudes the lofs of the greater part of the hifl:or~ca~ monuments of thofe nations, as they did not know how to adjuft the Mexican years with ours, they frequently committed groCs anacroniftns; but they who had procured greater abundance of the ancient and feleet paintings, and knew a little better how to trace the chrono~ logy of thofe people, fuch as Seguenza and Ixtlilxochitl, found r~cords certainly more ancient, and ufed them in their valuable manufcnpts. . We do not doubt that the population of America has been very ancient, and more fo than it may feem to have been to European authors. 1. Becaufe the Americans w:mted thoie arts and inventions, fuch., for example, as thofe of wax and oil for light, which, on the one hand, being very ancient in Eut·ope and Afia, are on the other mo!l: ufeful, not to fay neceffary, and when· once difcovered, are never forgotten. 2. Becaufe the poliilied nations of the new world, and particularly thofe of Me~ico, preferve in their traditions and in their paintings the memory of the creation of the world, the building of the tower of Babel,. the confufion of languages, and the difperfion of the people,. though blended with fame fables, and had no knowledge of the events which happened afterwards in Afia, in Africa, or in Europe •. although many of them were fo great and remarkable,. that they could not eauly have gone from their memories. 3· Becaufe neither was there among the· Americans any knowledge of the people of the old continent, nor among the latter any account of the paifage of the former. to the new wo.rl.d . Thefe reafons, we prefume, give fame probability to our opm1an. SECT~ H I S T 0 R Y 0 F M E X I C 0 . S E C T. II. Who were the Peoplers of America. THOSE who que!l:ion the aLlthority of the facred writings fay the Americans derive not their origin from Aciam and Noah, and believe, or feign to believe, that as God created Adam that he might be tht! hlthcr of the Afiatic:s, alfo made before or after him other men, that they might be the patriarchs of the Africans, Europeans, and Ameri~ cans. This does not arraign the authority of the f.1cred writir~gs, fays a modern author (a), b(;caufc although Mofc::s makes mentiou of no othtr fir!l: patriarch than Adam, it was owing to his having undertaken to write the hiitory of no other people than the Ifraelites. But this is contrary to the tradit.ion of the Americans, who in their paintings and in their hymns called thcmfelvcs the d efcendant~ of thofe men who efcaped from the general deluge. The Toltecas, Mexicans, Tlafcalans, and all the other nations were agreed on this point. They all iaid that their anceil:ors came from el(cwhere iato thofc countries ; they pointed out the road -they had come, and even preferved the names, true or falfe, of thofe their fi.r!l: progenitors, who, after the confufion of languages, feparated from the reil: of men. F. Nunez de la Vega, bitbop of Chiapa, fays, in the preface to his Synodal Conjlitutions, th.tt in the vifit which he made to his dioccle towards the end of the lail: c;en tury, he found many ancient calendars of the Chiapanefe, and an old m;-~nufcript in the language of that country, made by the Indians themfdves, in which it was ft1id, ac cording to their ancien~ tradition, th<lt a ccrtaiu perfon named Votan (b), was prefent at that great building, which was made by ord T of his uncle, in or,.ler to mou11t up to heaven; that then every people was .given its hnguage, and th..1t Votan himfelf was charged by God to make the divilion of the Lmds of Anahuac. The prdate adJs afterwards, that there was in his time in Teopixca a great fcttlemeut of (n) The aurhor of a mifcrablc little performance, entirled, Lt Philoftplx Do11crur, printed llt '8, rlin, in the year 177 5• • (b) Votan is th e chief of thofc twenty famous men whofc names were given to the twenty days of the Chiapa·1efe month. D d 2 that 211 DISSERT. I. "--'v'--1 |
