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Legends of Mexican Migration
All early writers on the history of Mexico agree that the Toltecs
were the first of the several swarms of Nahua who streamed upon
the Mexican plateau in ever-widcning waves. Concerning the reality
of this people so little is known that many authorities of standina
have regarded them as wholly mythical, while others profess
to see in them a veritable race, the founders of Mexican civilisation.
The author has already elaborated
his theory of this difficult question elsewhere,' but will briefly
refer to it when he comes to deal with the subject of the Toltec
civilisation and the legends concerning it. For the present
we must regard the Toltecs merely
as a race alluded to in a migration myth as the first Nahua
immigrants to the region of Mexico. Ixtlilxochitl, a native
chronicler who flourished shortly after the Spanish conquest
of Mexico, gives two separate accounts of the early Toltec
migrations, the first of which goes back to the period of their
arrival in the fabled land of Tlapallan,
alluded to above.
In this
account Tlapallan is described
as a region near the sea, which the Toltecs
reached by voyaging southward, skirting the coasts of California.
This account
must be received with the greatest caution.
But we know that
the natives of British Columbia
have been expert in the use of the canoe from an early period,
and that the Mexican god Quetzalcoatl, who is probably originally
derived from a common source with their deity Yed, is represented
as being skilled in the management of the craft.
It is,
therefore, not outside the bounds of possibility that the early
swarms of Nahua immigrants made their way to Mexico by sea,
but it is much more probable that their migrations took place
by land, following the level country at the base of the Rocky
Mountains.
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