ARCHITECTURE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.
The descent and the immigration of the aborigines of the American continent, and the investigation of its oldest culture, have exer cised science scarcely to a less extent than similar questions con cerning the prehistoric peoples of Europe. This, at least, seems certain —that even in the earliest times they had communication with the Old World. On the Taunton River, in Massachusetts, upon a block of gneiss —the much-discussed Writing Rock or Dighton Rock—a Phoenician inscription is alleged to have been found whose purport is assumed to be that In, son of Indios, king of Atlantis, was sent to America (in 1800 B. C.) to conclude a treaty of commerce.
series of ruins have been discovered which prove that powerful races must have inhabited the country before the days of the modern North American Indian. At Chillicothe, in Ohio, are fortifica tions which cover over one hundred acres, and which are surrounded by a wall zo feet thick and 12 feet high, with a ditch zo feet wide. Another has a sort of covered-way. A series of such fortifications, some rectangu lar, others round tumuli of earth—some of which are ioo feet high mine-shafts, cromlechs, and balancing-stones, cannot have been the work of the Indians who were discovered by the Europeans at the end of the fifteenth century.' America also has its ancient history; over the land there have passed waves of population, contending, subduing, forming states and destroying them, and leaving behind traces the careful examination of which to-day engages the attention of investigators. For our purpose, however, only a small portion of this broad continent is of interest, since only the mon uments of the southern extremity of North America are of such a grade as to fall within the scope of Architecture, although the principles of correct tectonics did not constitute the leading attributes of the peculiar expression of form developed there. But the Mexican structures which come within the range of Architecture do not go back to a very high antiquity.
Aboriginal the most ancient times to which indigenous traditions refer, various races dwelt in the Mexican Andes. The Olmeks,
the most powerful of these, dwelt on the Plateau of Tlascala, and thence spread to the Gulf of Nicoya and to Leon de Nicaragua. The Toltecs came (544 A. D.; comp. Vol. II. p. SS) from the North; about one hun dred years later they established their domination in Anahuac, the sacred mountain-land of Mexico. They had a powerful civilization. In the beginning of the eighth century was composed the " divine book " in which their history, mythology, and laws were set down. Among them came the great founder of their religion, Onetzalcoatl, who had a white complexion and a beard and was attended by many strangers clothed in sacerdotal garments of black. In the middle of the eleventh century the Toltecs wandered farther southward, and their place was taken by the Aztecs, whose capital, Tenochtitlan, was founded 1325 A. D.
In Peru, at the end of the eleventh century, there appeared a stranger, Blanco Capac, the founder of the kingdom of the Incas and of their relig ion, which, like that of the Mexicans, made the sun the highest divinity. The empire of the Aztecs and that of the Incas, together with their cul ture, which was in a condition to execute immense monuments, existed only about four hundred years until the Spaniards under Cortez and Pizarro conquered the countries and rapidly annihilated both people and culture. Dense wildernesses soon surrounded the ruins of the once great cities, which were lost to sight until, about a hundred years ago, science commenced to take some interest therein, and the axe opened a way through the luxuriant vegetation which in that tropical climate had in a few centuries grown into thick forest.
It cannot at present be proved that the course of development of this series of edifices was peculiar. Whether, also, this architecture had its origin in wood-construction cannot by a consideration of its fantastic details be directly negatived, but the mound of earth and the stone build ing erected upon it form here the cradle of development, even as among the races before treated of. We may distinguish the simple Toltec from the fanciful Aztec structures.