The Indigenous Civilizations of America [pp. 468-474]

I875.] THE INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 469
injury wrought by this holy iconoclast is the former class of books is much rarincalculable. Blinded by the mad fanat- er and more difficult to obtain than the
icism of his age, he saw a devil in every latter.
Aztec image and hieroglyph; his ham- And here I come back to the proposimers did more in a few years to efface tion with which I started, namely: that
all vestiges of Aztec art and greatness those who have hitherto attempted to
than time and decay could have done in grapple with the more difficult and obas many centuries. It is a few such scure questions involved in the great
men as this that the world has to thank Nahua and Maya- Quich6 civilizations
for the utter extinction in a few short have failed to attain any very satisfactory
years of a mighty civilization. Ina letter results. With the help of only two or
to the Franciscan Chapter at Tolosa, dat- three or even half a dozen of the old
ed June 12th, I53I, we find the old bigot authorities it is impossible to investigate
exultingover his vandalism.'Very rev- fairly and surely. What one positively
erend fathers,' he writes,'be it known to affirms, another as positively denies.
you that we are very busy in the work Each has his particular hobby to ride,
of converting the heathen; of whom, by and he generally rides it rough-shod
the grace of God, upward of one million over everything. Perhaps it is some pet
have been baptized at the hands of the theory of origin, a theory which may
brethren of the order of our seraphic seem harmless enough when his work is
father, St. Francis; five hundred tem- read by itself, but which upon compariples have been leveled with the ground, son proves to be a perfect little Juggerand more than twenty thousand figures naut to all opposing facts. Take Las
of the devils they worshiped have been Casas, for instance, or even the Abb6
broken to pieces and burned.' And it Clavig ro, and you will learn that the
appears that the worthy zealot had even Indians were paragons of virtue; read
succeeded in bringing the natives to his Gomara or Acosta, and you will hear a
way of thinking, for farther on he writes: very different story. Most of these ear'They watch with great care to see where ly chroniclers were monks or priests;
their fathers hide the idols, and then with men whose natural credulity, passion for
great fidelity [to the priests] they bring what we should now call "the sensathem to the religious of our order that tional," and excessive fondness for analthey may be destroyed; and for this ogy, led them to make the most monmany of them have been brutally mur- strous statements. Others, such as Berdered by their parents, or, to speak more nal Diaz, the Anonymous Conqueror,
properly, have been crowned in glory and even Cortds himself, were mere unwith Christ.'" lettered soldiers, who hesitated at no
I mention these things to show that "yarn" that would excite wonder and
information, original and presumably au- magnify the importance of their conthentic, concerning the new-world civil- quests. Diaz, it is true, vaunts himself
ization, can only be found in the works of on being nothing but "a blunt soldier,"
the early writers, who came to the coun- and affects to make truth a specialty.
try within a few years after the Con- Indeed, there is reason to believe that
quest; those who came later saw noth- he did write conscientiously enough;
ing of it. but he wrote many years after the Con Almost all that is known of the wild quest, shortly before his death in Spain,
tribes is, on the other hand, contained when the recalling of those fighting days,
in the works of comparatively modern the mere memory of the terrible noche
travelers. It follows, therefore, that triste, so warmed the cockles of the an