Toltecs a Historic Nationality?

the north into the Valley of Mexico.^[7] The ruins of the old town are upon an elevation about 100 feet in height, whose summit presents a level surface in the shape of an irregular triangle some 800 yards long, with a central width of 300 yards, the apex to the south-east, where the face of the hill is fortified by a rough stone wall.^[8] It is a natural hill, overlooking a small muddy creek, called the Rio de Tula.^[9] Yet this unpretending mound is the celebrated Coatepetl, Serpent-Mount, or Snake-Hill, famous in Nahuatl legend, and the central figure in all the wonderful stories about the Toltecs.^[10] The remains of the artificial tumuli and walls, which are abundantly scattered over the summit, show that, like the pueblos of New Mexico, they were built of large sun-baked bricks mingled with stones, rough or trimmed, and both walls and floors were laid in a firm cement, which was usually painted of different colors. Hence probably the name Palpan, "amid the colors," which tradition says was applied to these structures on the Coatepetl.^[11] The stone-work,

[7] Motolinia, in his Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, p. 5, calls the locality "el puerto llamado Tollan," the pass or gate called Tollan. Through it, he states, passed first the Colhua and later the Mexica, though he adds that some maintain these were the same people. In fact, Colhua is a form of a word which means "ancestors;" colli, forefather, no-col-huan, my forefathers, Colhuacan "the place of the forefathers," where they lived. In.Aztec picture-writing this is represented by a hill with a bent top, on the "ikonomatic" system, the verb coloa, meaning to bend, to stoop. Those Mexica who said the Colhua preceded them at Tula, simply meant that their own ancestors dwelt there. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan (pp. 29, 33) distinctly states that what Toltecs survived the wars which drove them southward became merged in the Colhuas. As these wars largely arose from civil dissensions, the account no doubt is correct which states that others settled in Acolhuacan, on the eastern shore of the principal lake in the Valley of Mexico. The name means "Colhuacan by the water," and was the State of which the capital was Tetzcoco.

[8] This description is taken from the map of the location in M. Charnay's Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde, p. 88. The measurements I have made from the map do not agree with those stated in the text of the book, but are, I take it, more accurate.

[9] Sometimes called the Rio de Montezuma, and also the Tollanatl, water of Tula. This stream plays a conspicuous part in the Quetzalcoatl myths. It appears to be the same as the river Atoyac (= flowing or spreading water, atl, toyaua), or Xipacoyan (= where precious stones are washed, from xiuitl, paca, yan). referred to by Sahagun, Hist. de la Nueva España, Lib. ix, cap. 29. In it were the celebrated "Baths of Quetzalcoatl," called Atecpanamochco, the water in the tin palace," probably from being adorned with this metal (Anales de Cuauhtitlan).

[10] See the Codex Ramirez:, p. 24. Why called Snake-Hill the legend says not. I need not recall how prominent an object is the serpent in Aztec mythology. The name is a compound of coatl, snake, and tepetl, hill or mountain, but which may also mean town or city, as such were usually built on elevations. The form Coatepec is this word with the postposition e, and means "at the snake-hill" or, perhaps, "at Snake-town."

[11] Or to one of them. The name is preserved by Ixtlilxochitl, Relaciones Historicas, in Kingsborough, Mexico, Vol. ix, p. 326. Its derivation is from palli., a color (root pa), and postposition pan. It is noteworthy that this legend states that Quetzalcoatl in his

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