Identifier: mexicoitsancient01enoc (find matches)
Title: Mexico, its ancient and modern civilisation, history and political conditions, topography and natural resources, industries and general development;
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Enock, C. Reginald (Charles Reginald), 1868-1970
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Scribner
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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. In primitive Mexico—like primitive Peru—agriculturewas far advanced as an industry. Land was apportioned,as has been shown, on a philosophical basis for the needsof the inhabitants. In that respect the system was farsuperior to that of the Republic of Mexico of to-day,where the whole surface of the land is mainly held bylarge landholders. Irrigation was an advanced art,artificial canals being made to conduct the water from thestreams to the arid lands. The main article of diet amongthe mass of the people—then, as now—was maiz, whichgrows freely from highlands to lowlands. Bananas,chocolate—indeed, the latter, chocolatl, is an Aztec word—were among their numerous agricultural products.The maguey—the Agave americana—was an invaluablei ally of life and civilisation. It afforded them the famousbeverage of pulque; they made ropes, mats, paper, andother things from its fibre; and the leaves furnished anarticle of diet. Mining was confined to the getting of gold from river-
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THE STRANGE CITIES 53 beds, where it had been concentrated by Nature, andpossibly on a small scale by amalgamation with quick-silver. Copper and tin were found and used, and indeedto-day the natives in certain places beat out large coppervessels,^ and offer for sale masses of rude copper matte,^from their primitive earthen furnaces. The obsidianmines of Itzala furnished them with tools for the cuttingof stone, sculpture, and other purposes, and for theirterrible weapons of war. Sculpture and painting were very rudimentary, theformer being confined chiefly to the representation ofrepugnant deities, although the carved stone edifices andtemples were in some cases singularly beautiful, aselsewhere described. The sculptured figures of Mexicandeities, in some cases, remind the traveller strongly ofsimilar representations of the Incas,^ such as exist in thefastnesses of the Andes of Peru. The famous MexicanCalendar stone, weighing about fifty tons, which wasbrought for many miles over broke

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