16. LITERATURE. All the cultured an. most of the semi-cultured races of America, it eluding the warlike red-man of the north, had passion for oratory and story-telling, fen bearers of formal literature. The Aztecs. tbi Mayas and other more civilized nations of Mei. ico had, years before the Conquest. evolve. literatures which had already begun to break down the barriers of conventionality. The these literatures were noble in sentiment, pas sionate in utterance and beautiful in form tlx fragments that have come down to us, pm the shape of translations or transcrq Lions into some one of the native language leave no doubt. Mistrust has been cast api the legitimacy of these fragments by rear critics; but the fact that, after 400 years, represent, in their utterance, form and the soul of the Indian mind to-day, so distinct.' different from the Latin and the Saxon, plart upon them the stamp of genuineness. Alton rano, the greatest, the most passionate, the subtly poetical, the most oratorical of Mexiaz literary men, was a full-blooded Indian. In ha we see reproduced, in the 19th century, the pt totype of his Indian forebearers, who were dr literary glory of the courts of Netzahualcuya. and Montezuma II, where oratory and dr literary efforts were sedulously cultivated as. the successful public speaker was honored a most as a prophet and as the bearer of a mes sage akin to that of the divine oracles.
To the intolerance and unfortunate of Spain, who waged a relentless war destruction upon these written records whit kept alive the memory of the past greatness the native races of Mexico, we owe the i- nihilation of this literature and the and debasement of the cultured nations uki created it.
According to native Indian writers, the of Netzahualcoyotl, king of Texcoco, was M. Golden Age of Mexican literature in the Conquest days. The monarch himself, 11` was the leading spirit in the literary movenic of his reign, gave much of his time to hien cure and the sciences known to his Round his romantic career cluster manr legend and story. Early Spanish writer Mexican subjects and native Indian literary men represent him as a great and inspired poet, which he may well have been, for poetry is the gift of the Mexican people; and the stories and legends still current among the ignorant In dians are often strikingly imaginative, poetical and beautiful. To the literary men of Indian race who learned Spanish shortly after the Con quest and wrote in it, we owe much of the information we possess of the culture and his tory of the native races of pre-Columbian days.
The best of these Indian writers was a direct descendant of the famous Netzahualcoyotl. These Indian literary men of the days of New Spain formed a promising literary school; but the policy of Spain, which had al ready led her to destroy the pre-Conquest litera ture and records of the native races, soon be gan to show itself in the oppression of the Indians, their nobles and their princes; and the most active and aggressive members of the native literary school, on account of the pres tige they had won and the influence they re tained, were among those most fiercely per secuted. Broken in spirit, they soon ceased to be active figures in the national life.
Of the post-Conquest literature of the 16th century but a very small part has come down to us; and this is principally in the form of letters, grammars of the native languages, chronicles of the religious orders and informa tion of a like nature. The letters of Cortes, the 'History of the Conquest of New Spain' by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the works of Las Casas and de Sahagun are invaluable on ac count of the information they furnish and the light they shed on the customs, habits,. govern ment, industries, religion and superstitions of the native races prior to the Conquest. Fer nando de Alva Ixtlixochitl, a lineal descendant of the royal house of Texcoco, in his 'History of the Chichimeca,> gives a most intimate picture of the life of the court of Netzahual coyotl and extensive and interesting informa tion concerning the Nahuatl race at the height of its glory. Acosta's