Hubert Bancroft - The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History

In this class should be included the reported but little known writings of Juan Ventura Zapata y Mendoza, Tadeo de Niza, and Alonzo Franco. 269There are also many manuscripts by native authors whose names are unknown, brought to light by comparatively recent researches, and preserved for the most part in the Brasseur and Aubin collections in Paris. Their contents are unknown except through the writings of the Abbé Brasseur. The Popol Vuh is another important document, of which there are extant a Spanish and a French translation. 4th. Spanish authors who passed their lives mostly in Spain, and wrote chiefly under royal appointment. Their information was derived from the writers already mentioned, from the official correspondence of the colonists, and from the narratives of returning adventurers. Most of them touched upon aboriginal history among other topics. To this class belonged Peter Martyr, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Antonio de Herrera, and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés. 5th. Catholic priests and missionaries who founded or were in charge of the missions at later periods or in remote regions, as Yucatan, Guatemala, Chiapas, Oajaca, Michoacan, and the north-western provinces of New Spain. They wrote chiefly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and treat principally of the conversion of the natives, but include also in many cases their historical traditions and their explanations of the few aboriginal documents that fell into the possession of the converts. The number of such works is very great, and many of them have never been printed. Among the most important writers of this class are Diego de Landa, Diego Lopez Cogolludo, Padre Lizana, and Juan de Villagutierre Soto-Mayor, on Yucatan; Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar, 270Fuentes y Guzman, 271F. E. Arana, 272Francisco García Pelaez, 273and Domingo Juarros, on Guatemala; Francisco Nuñez de la Vega, 274Francisco Ximenez, 275and Antonio de Remesal, on Chiapas; Ribas, Alegre, and Arricivita on the north-western provinces; and Francisco de Burgoa on Oajaca. To the above should be added the regular records kept in all the missions, and the numerous letters and reports of the missionaries in distant provinces, many of which have been preserved, and not a few printed. There may also be included in this class the writings of some later Mexican authors, such as Boturini, Sigüenza y Góngora, Veytia, Leon y Gama, and Clavigero. Their works were mostly founded on the information supplied by their predecessors, which they did much to arrange and classify, but they also had access to some original authorities not previously used. Clavigero is almost universally spoken of as the best writer on the subject, but it is probable that he owes his reputation much more to his systematic arrangement and clear narration of traditions that had before been greatly confused, and to the omission of the most perplexing and contradictory points, than to deep research or new discoveries.

The preceding classes include all the original authorities, that is, all founded on information not accessible to later writers. These works have been the foundation of all that has been written since, except what has been developed from linguistic and other scientific researches. All that modern authors have done may be followed step by step, their facts as well as their conclusions.

Of the secondary authorities already alluded to, the condition and institutions of the natives, with the material relics of their past, not much need be said. It is only indirectly by means of comparisons that these authorities can help us in the study of history. How little they can teach unaided is illustrated in the case of the wild tribes, for whose history they are practically the only authorities. In Mexico and Central America the state of civilization as shown in native art, religion, government, or manners and customs, may indicate by resemblances or dissimilarities a connection or want of it between the different civilized tribes, and may thus corroborate or modify their written annals; it may even throw some light on the unity or diversity of its own origin by showing the nature of the connection between the Nahua and Maya cultures, in which striking resemblances as well as contrasts are observed. Outside of the regions mentioned, where there were no tangible records, we can only search among the wilder tribes for points of likeness by which to attach their past to that of the civilized nations. It may be foreseen that the results of such a search will be but meagre and unsatisfactory, yet on several important branches of the subject, such as the relation borne by the Mound-Builders and Pueblos to the southern nations, it furnishes our only light.

Of the historical aids now under consideration, ethnology proper, the study of physical and mental characteristics, has yielded and promises apparently the least important results. In fact, as has been already pointed out in another part of this work, it has hardly acquired the right to be classed among the sciences, so far as its application to the American people is concerned. Theoretically it may, in a more perfect state of development than now exists, throw some light on the route and order of American migrations, possibly on the question of origin; thus far, however, ethnological studies have been practically fruitless. Results obtained from a comparison of the miscellaneous arts and customs of various tribes have likewise furnished and will continue to furnish but very slight assistance in historical investigations. Resemblances and dissimilarities in these respects depend intimately on environment, which in comparatively short periods works the most striking changes. Strongly marked analogies are noted in tribes that never came in contact with each other, while contrasts as marked appear in people but a short time separated. Under the same circumstances, after all, men do about the same things, the mind originating like inventions; and coincidences in arts and customs, unless of an extraordinary nature, may be more safely attributed to an independent origin resulting from environment, than to international identity or connection. That language is by far the best of these secondary authorities is conceded by all. No better proof of relationship between native tribes can be desired than the fact that they speak the same language, or dialects showing clear verbal and constructive resemblances. The most prominent abuse of this authority has been a disposition to connect the past of tribes in whose languages slight and forced verbal similarities are pointed out. There is also some difference of opinion about the use of the authority. That two tribes speaking the same languages or similar dialects have had a common origin, or have at least been intimately connected in the past, as tribes, is evident; but how far back that origin or connection may extend, whether it may reach back through the ages to the first division of the human race, or even to the first subdivision of the American peoples, is a disputed point. Fortunately the doubts that have been raised concern chiefly the question of origin, which for other reasons cannot yet be settled. 276

Having thus given a sketch of the sources to which we may look for all that is known and has been conjectured respecting the American past, I shall proceed to place before the reader in the remaining chapters of my work what these authorities reveal on the subject. I have not, I believe, exaggerated their value, but fully comprehend the unsubstantial character which must be attributed to many of them. I am well aware that aboriginal American history, like the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew annals, differs materially in its nature and degree of accuracy from the history of England since the expedition of William the Conqueror, or of Mexico since the Conquest by Hernan Cortés. I do not propose to record such events only as may be made to conform to the modern idea of chronologic exactitude, rejecting all else as fabulous and mythic. Were such my purpose, a chapter on the subject already given in the second volume would suffice, with some contraction for the earlier epochs, and a corresponding expansion, perhaps, for Aztec history during the century immediately preceding the Conquest. On the contrary, I shall tell the tale as I find it recorded, mingled as it doubtless is at many points with myth and fable, and shall recount, as others have done, the achievements of heroes that possibly never lived, the wanderings of tribes who never left their original homes. It is not in a spirit of real or feigned credulity that I adopt this course, – on the contrary, I wish to clearly discriminate between fact and fancy wherever such discrimination may be possible, and so far as an extensive study of my subject may enable me to do so – but it is in accordance with the general plan of the whole work to record all that is found, rejecting only what may be proven false and valueless rather than what may possibly be so.