Women of America Part 2

While the home discipline of children, like that in the public schools, was of a very severe type, the relations of the Aztec maiden to her parents, after she had arrived at maturity, were of the closest and tenderest description. They enjoined upon her, with loving solicitude for her well-being and felicity, simplicity of manners and conversation, personal neatness, modesty of demeanor, and reverence for her husband when she became a wife. They showed her an affection and consideration which were in conformity with the highest type of social culture, and in return were regarded and treated with respect and love.

When the maiden finally attained the dignity of wifehood, her condition was hardly changed. She received from her husband the utmost respect of demeanor, and she was--of course we are considering the women of the upper cla.s.ses--freed from all obligation of service. She had maidens to wait upon her and to do the tasks of the household, over which she ruled much as did a feudal chatelaine in the days of chivalry in Europe; and a favorite amus.e.m.e.nt with the Aztec wives consisted in listening to their maidens rehea.r.s.e traditionary tales and ballads. When there came to her the further dignity of motherhood, she was the recipient of congratulatory visits from her friends and neighbors--male as well as female--from whom she received gifts of dresses, ornaments, or flowers, in token of sympathy and regard. These visits of ceremony were regulated by a code, unwritten but as thoroughly understood and binding as that which regulates similar forms in our own social world. In short, the Aztec woman, whether as maiden, wife, or mother, received universal acknowledgment of her rightful place in the structure of society and was in almost all respects the peer of her Caucasian sister in status and indeed in civilization. Most of what has thus far been written is applicable to the women of the lower cla.s.ses as well as to their richer and more cultured countrywomen, at least so far as concerns the estimation in which they were held and their place in the household and in their appropriate society. Of course, even as with us, the women of the lower cla.s.ses labored; but their labors were as a rule not severe.

The Aztecs were primarily an agricultural people, and their women a.s.sisted in the toil necessary to the tillage of the soil, but their labors were of the lighter kinds; they sowed the seed and husked the corn, but they did not reap or garner, while they would doubtless have rebelled in ma.s.s had they been required to undertake the more laborious tasks incident to irrigation or actual tillage. Even the slave women, though these of course were doomed to harder service than the wives and daughters of freemen, were not generally condemned to wearing toil.

Indeed, the inst.i.tution of slavery, except in the cases of prisoners taken in war,--a small cla.s.s of slaves, since such prisoners were usually sacrificed to the G.o.ds,--was milder among the Aztecs than among any people of whom there is historical record; the slave could marry at will, could hold property, and could even possess slaves of his own, while, as has been already said, the child of a slave was independent of the status of his parent.

It is unfortunately true that there can be found but few names of women of importance in the history of the Aztecs or indeed of the Conquest itself; nearly all that is to be learned is general and not particular in its import. Though the blood of many of the women of that period, intermingled with that of the Spanish cavaliers, flows in the veins of a very large number of the Mexicans of to-day, there is yet no trustworthy record of particular names or fames. It is indeed recorded that Alvarado, one of the right-hand men of Cortes, married the daughter of Xicotencatl, a Mexican chief; but she was a Tlascalan, not an Aztec. So, as s.p.a.ce would fail in the compa.s.s of a large volume to tell of all the civilizations which surrounded that of the Aztecs, and also as Dona Luisa, as she was called by the Spaniards after her baptism into the Christian faith, did nothing more meritorious than to bear to Tonitiuh--"the Sun"--as Alvarado was called by the Mexicans, because of his bright face and golden hair, a number of children who became by intermarriage the sires and mothers of some of the n.o.blest families of Castile, she does not deserve particular chronicle here. It may, however, be well to take advantage of the introduction of this incident to make the statement that marriage between the followers of Cortes and his successors and the native maidens--who must first, as an unalterable rule, embrace the tenets of Christianity, which had borne its earliest message to them in the flame and steel of the ma.s.sacre of their parents and kinsmen--was adopted as a matter of policy and resulted in the foundation of many lines which have continued to the present day.

Though there is no typical Aztec woman to present as representative of her s.e.x and country, there is one whose name is so welded with the history of the fall of the Aztec power that a brief sketch of her story may be given here. She was of Mexican birth, but had been sold by her unprincipled mother as a slave, the mother thereby securing for her son by a second marriage the estate which would otherwise have fallen to the girl. When Cortes reached his first harbor on his road to Tenocht.i.tlan, as the Aztec capital was called, the cacique of Tabasco presented him with several slaves, among whom was this girl, called by the Spaniards Dona Marina, and by the Mexicans Malinche. She was of great beauty and of a high degree of intelligence, and she soon came within the notice of Cortes by acting as interpreter for him when he was embarra.s.sed by his inability to communicate with the Aztec emba.s.sy. She did not at that time speak Spanish, but she managed to interpret through an intermediary, and she soon became proficient in the language of the men with whom her lot was now thrown, from one of whom she learned more than the Castilian tongue.

The beauty of the young girl, whose charms are said by Spanish writers to have been extraordinary, soon captivated the heart of Cortes, and he first made her his secretary and then his mistress. At least so the fashion of our time would term her, but there can be little doubt that in the eyes of Marina, reared amid traditions of polygamy, there was nothing of wrong in her union with Cortes, and it may be noted that such a good and moral man as Father Olmedo had for her no word of reproof but rather of blessing. At all events, she openly lived with Cortes as his wife and by him had a son, Don Martin Cortes, acknowledged by his father, and who afterward became comendador of the Military Order of Saint lago.

Marina was a loving, faithful, tenderhearted woman, and she was in all ways true to her Spanish lover and to his countrymen, frequently extricating them from grave difficulties by her advice, given with knowledge of the natures as well as customs of the Mexicans. Perhaps this was only to be expected; but it is remarkable, and speaks volumes for her character, that she was always held in affectionate honor by the Mexicans themselves, though she dwelt in the camp of their oppressors.

In truth, Marina time and again used her influence with Cortes on the side of mercy, and she always displayed a profound sympathy with the misfortunes of the Mexicans, notwithstanding the fact that she may have in some ways aided their foes and tyrants. Even though the act which more than aught else struck terror into the souls of the Indians--the cutting off of the hands of fifty Tlascalans, who had come to the camp of Cortes in the garb of amba.s.sadors but were suspected of being spies--was directly traceable to the watchfulness of Marina in the cause of the man she loved, she was never held culpable by the natives for her guardianship, though this resulted so disastrously to those who, if not precisely her countrymen, were a.s.suredly more nearly of consanguineous race than were those whom she defended from them. It was these people too, who, after their desperate but vain struggle with the Spaniards, whose arms and valor proved invincible against overwhelming numbers, were the most faithful allies of Cortes in his battles with the Aztecs.

Munoz Camargo relates that, among other tokens of their friendship, they presented numbers of "beautiful maidens" to the Conqueror and his companions.

All through the wonderful march to the capital, through the honorable reception accorded to Cortes, through the siege which was the consequence of Spanish treachery, through the "Terrible Night," which saw the banishment of Spanish power for a time from Tenocht.i.tlan, through the long march back to the coast, through all perils, as through all triumphs, Marina stood by the side of her lover, watchful of his welfare, wise in suggestion, tender in helpfulness, in all things a n.o.ble type of woman. When the unhappy Montezuma was made prisoner within his own capital, Marina alone of those who surrounded him never forgot the reverence that was due to the monarch, and it was she who nursed him most tenderly when he lay dying under the wounds inflicted by his own outraged subjects. It was she who most uncomplainingly bore the privations of the siege, she who most bravely met the terrors of the "Noche Triste;" and it may be said that it was she more than any other single man or woman, Alvarado and Sandoval not excepted, who helped Cortes to establish the Spanish rule in Mexico.

The question of the grat.i.tude of Cortes for these services and for her love is one that is to be settled by each reader of history according to his own ideas of the form which true appreciation should take. The facts are simple enough. In 1525 she was with the Conqueror at Coatzacualco, the province which could claim the honor of being her birthplace. Here, by accident, she came into contact with her own mother, who had sold her into slavery and who was now naturally terrified at meeting her injured daughter in a situation of power; but Marina, with her natural generosity, embraced her parent, a.s.sured her of her forgiveness, and even made her many presents, apparently in the wish to regain that affection which had once been hers in her babyhood. This was the last time that Marina appears by the side of Cortes; on the expedition to Honduras, made shortly afterward, he gave her away to Don Juan Xamarillo, a knight of Castile, who wedded her according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Here then is the question which each must decide for himself: Was Cortes just and generous in thus making disposition for the honorable and safe future of the woman who loved him, or was he merely ridding himself of one who had grown to be an enc.u.mbrance? It is impossible to answer; it is not even known whether the marriage was arranged with the sanction of Marina or whether it was a piece of tyranny on the part of the Conqueror, of venality on the part of Don Juan, of heartbroken docility on the part of Marina. Nor is there any record of the further life of the latter by which to decide the probabilities of her marriage being more than a mere contract; from the time of the completion of the ceremony the gentle Marina fades from the page of history. It is certain indeed that she was given estates in Coatzacualco,--possibly the bribe which induced Don Juan to wed the mistress of his captain,--but it is not even known that she lived to take possession of those estates. Except for the unmerited persecution and shameful torture undergone by her son, Don Martin Cortes, we are never again reminded in history that Marina had lived to be the right hand of one of the greatest conquerors of all time, to prove the most valuable ally found by the fierce enemies of her native land, and yet to be held in lasting honor alike by conquerors and conquered.

[Ill.u.s.tration 3: THE BEAUTIFUL MAIDENS PRESENTED TO THE SPANIARDS.

_Reproduced from the "Lienzo de Tlaxcala".

Munoz Camargo relates hot their Tlaxcalan allies presented the Spaniards a large number of "beautiful maidens." This native representation of the scene shows Cortes seated, with his followers behind him, and at his side Marina, a young native woman who was his companion and interpreter.

The_ Lienzo de Tlaxcala _was a long strip of canvas, containing forty-eight representations of scenes of the early Spanish invasions.

The original was destroyed during the revolution following the downfall of Maximilian, but a copy had fortunately been made before the destruction._]

Shortly before the marriage of Dona Marina, Cortes's legal wife a woman of low birth and a drag upon him in his upward career had come over from the Islands to New Spain, but she did not live long after her arrival, and her death furnished the later detractors of Cortes with a pretext to attack him in the way that could most deeply and yet safely pierce his defence. This was absurd enough, since Cortes had always treated his wife with affection and consideration; but suspicion was never entirely allayed. The facts of having thus influenced in some degree the fortunes of the Conqueror and of having been one of the first ladies of Spain to die on the sh.o.r.es of New Spain form the only t.i.tle to mention in this history of Dona Catalina Xuarez.

There are indeed but few names of women a.s.sociated with the conquest of Mexico, that of Marina standing out preeminent. Yet there were women not a few who exercised a certain influence on the fortunes of the Conqueror and his army, though their names are generally unknown to us. In the second march upon the Mexican capital many of the soldiers had brought their wives with them, and during the stress and storm of the days when Guatemozin was hurling his forces again and again upon the fearfully outnumbered but better armed Spaniards, these women did service in true Amazon style. Not only did they cheer and encourage the downhearted and p.r.i.c.k the cowards--though there were very few of the latter in that little army--with the needle of their scorn, but they actually did soldier service as well. When Cortes had besought these women to remain at Tlascala, they had replied that "It was the duty of Castilian wives not to abandon their husbands in danger, but to share it with them, and, if necessary, to die with them." Though some of the names of these heroines have been embalmed in history by Herrera, they have but little meaning for us now; it is more to the point to know that one and all acted to the utmost of their conception of duty and that some of them mounted guard on the walls in the place of their husbands, while one was said actually to have donned mail at a time of disaster and rallied the retreating troops against the enemy. It cannot be said, however, that even these gallant dames showed a higher spirit than did the native women during the same time of battle. The Aztecs were suffering from many evils during the conflict when the Spaniards strove, for long in vain, to take from them their beautiful city. The plague of small-pox was abroad, brought to the Aztecs by a dying negro in the train of Cortes; and that unknown negro proved the most terrible foe of the Aztec nation. Yet, even though they were now dying by hundreds in the streets, while their thinning ranks were being swept by the fire-speaking tubes that weaponed the army of their foes, they fought fiercely on, and their women gave them n.o.ble aid and incitement. They stood by the side of the warrior in battle, strung his bow, filled his quiver, gave him fresh stones for his sling; they nursed the sick through all the horrors of the loathsome disease which had fastened upon them; and they did yet more, for they kept their hearts high with hope and determination when even the n.o.blest warriors failed of these things, and so they upheld the hands of Guatemozin, their beloved but most unhappy chief, and upbore the standard of their country to the very end. It was all in vain; the Mexico of that civilization was doomed; but none the less did the women of that day, both pagan and Christian, display qualities which in the fusion of the races in after years should have borne n.o.ble fruit.

It is not the purpose of this work to trace the history of any country, save at the points where such history touches the universal story of woman; and so there exists no obligation to present to the reader even the most fragmentary sketch of the progress of Mexico from the rule of the barbarism of the Aztecs to that of the civilization of the Spaniards. The latter brought with them their own feminine culture, and for long held it apart from the conditions existing among the indigenous inhabitants of the land. Among the women of Spain who took up their abode in Mexico there are names which lend themselves to story; but their histories touched Mexico only as a scenic background, and, moreover, it would be an unfruitful digression to attempt to find any feminine history in the days of Spain's first occupation of Anahuac. The vice-roys held their courts with little less than regal splendor, and it cannot be that those courts were unadorned by the presence of women of high claim to remembrance; yet there comes down to us no name of those days touched with the halo of romance or in any way made worthy of memoir. Doubtless the ladies of the viceregal courts flaunted as costly attire and held themselves as haughtily as their sisters in the court of Spain itself; but they pa.s.sed away and left no trace, even as an influence. For years of varying fortunes but of constant prosperity in high places, Spain held Mexico under dominance, until the oppression of the lower cla.s.ses began to bear its invariable fruit, and there came first threats, and then acts of rebellion. There was revolution after revolution; but although the unsuccessful revolts bequeathed to history the names of such men as Hidalgo and Morelos, and the successful attempt to throw off the galling yoke of Spain, the names of Yturbide and Santa Anna, there comes down to us even from these later times the name of not one woman of renown. Moreover, there is but little in the way of development and change which is found for record. Long before the expulsion of the Spaniard, the Mexican people had come to be recognized as a nation, not merely descendants of the Spaniards, but a people of self-gained characteristics. Mexico was no longer New Spain; she was herself, even as, a few years before, a greater country on her borders had come to be itself in the matter of nationality, even before it had gained autonomy. To be a Mexican woman was not merely to be a lesser Spaniard, but to be something definite, something individual. Some of the older national traits had become developed, some atrophied; but long before Mexico had achieved her independence, the Mexican woman had attained her own freedom from Spanish dominance in matters of custom, thought, and even heredity.

Yet it cannot be said that there was progress. There was fixed development of nationality as displayed in the establishment of a characteristic femininity, but there was no evolution toward a higher type of individual or of civilization than had been known in the days of the coming of the Spaniards. On the contrary, there may be said to have been retrogression. The woman of Mexico--by which name we must now distinguish the descendants of the Spaniards, while those of Aztec blood, or descendants from any of the native tribes, may be called generically Indians--retained as a rule neither the activity and courage of the wives of the _conquistadores_ nor the graces and dignity of the dames of the viceregal courts. After the establishment of Mexican independence there came as first amba.s.sador from Spain, in 1839, Senor Don Calderon de la Barca; and this gentleman brought with him his very accomplished wife. Madame Calderon, as is the case with most women, was an indefatigable letter-writer, especially when she was amid new conditions; and to a number of her letters, written with no intent of publication, but most vivid and entertaining in their presentation of the chief characteristics of Mexican social life, is owing much of the present-day knowledge of Mexican existence in the early part of the nineteenth century, when that existence had begun to be acknowledged as national and individual. There is no period better adapted than this to the purpose of finding and fixing a typical Mexican woman, for it was the time when the women of Anahuac had emerged from the imitation of Spanish characteristics and customs into a national female existence as well as type, and it was before their briefly held individuality failed beneath the incursions of a northern civilization which has been so universally destructive of national type wherever it has set foot.

Consideration of the characteristics of the Mexican woman of the forties may be begun with an extract from the letters of Madame Calderon. She is speaking of society women in Mexico, and she says: "I must put aside exceptions which are always rising up before me, and write en ma.s.se.

Generally speaking, the Mexican senoras and senoritas write, read, and play a little; sew, and take care of their houses and children. When I say they read, I mean they know how to read; when I say they write, I do not mean that they can always spell; and when I say they play, I do not a.s.sert that they have a general knowledge of music. The climate inclines everyone to indolence, both physical and moral. One cannot pore over a book when the blue sky is constantly smiling in at the open windows."

This language reads as the words of one who is reluctantly compelled to tell the whole truth and then seeks to withdraw or at least palliate the accusation which she has brought. It is entirely plain that at the time of Madame Calderon ignorance and sloth were the prevailing feminine characteristics among those who sat in high places. It is true that the chronicler goes on to say that the Mexican women generally made good wives and affectionate mothers; but even in this matter she does not strike us as speaking from conviction. However this may be, she is certainly at no loss to characterize the taste in dress displayed by the "fine ladies" upon festal occasions. Describing one of these, she writes: "Here was to be seen a group of ladies, some with black gowns and mantillas, others, now that their church-going duty was over, equipped in velvet or satin, with their hair dressed--and beautiful hair they have; some leading their children by the hand, dressed--alas, how were they dressed! Long, velvet gowns trimmed with blonde, diamond earrings, high French caps furbelowed with lace and flowers, or turbans with plumes of feathers. Now and then, the head of a little thing that could hardly waddle alone might have belonged to an English dowager-d.u.c.h.ess in her opera-box. Some had extraordinary bonnets, and as they toddled along, top-heavy, one would have thought they were little old women, without a glimpse caught of their lovely little brown faces and blue eyes."

Though again Madame Calderon very kindly bestows her criticism upon the dresses of the children rather than those of the mothers, even a mere man can guess what must have been the appearance of the mothers who had chosen thus to dress their offspring.

It is not, however, among the higher cla.s.ses of city-dwellers that one should seek for the most characteristic aspects of the life of a nation.

These city-dwellers, and especially the female moiety of them, are apt to be mere imitators of other cultures, shaping their lives, as their costumes, in obedience to the dictates of some other land, higher in the scale of fashion. It is to the country, the _terris_ as distinguished from the _urbis_, that one must go to obtain the truth of female life in Mexico or any other land; for, though fashion may hold sway here also, it is less apt to overcome national taste and custom.

Female life on the great estates of Mexico, the _haciendas_, in the first days of the republic was in a measure characteristic and individual--more so, at least, than at any time since the days of the first coming of the Spaniards. To some extent there was a continuance of the customs of the race which had dwelt in Anahuac before the coming of the invaders, the customs being modified by the conditions and needs of the new time. Among the upper cla.s.ses, there was no costume peculiar to the country, save that nearly all wore the graceful veil in lieu of the hideous European headdress of the period. There was, however, then as now, a decided love for garishness of color among the Mexican women, and there was but little display of taste in the direction of costume.

The mistress of a large hacienda was somewhat in the position of one of the European "ladies of the castle" in feudal days; but as a rule--though, of course, the stated rules had many exceptions--she did not occupy herself in the same manner as did the feudal chatelaine. She was apt to be ignorant and lazy; she pa.s.sed the greater part of the day in idling upon the _azotea_, as was called the roof-garden which crowned most of the long and low houses of the Mexican country estates, perhaps rolling and smoking her cigarettes,--for the Mexican ladies were inveterate smokers,--or perhaps writing a _papelcito_ to be sent to her lover in appointment of a tryst. This latter if she were young and handsome; if she were old--and no daughter of Anahuac pa.s.sed the Rubicon of forty and retained her beauty in even the most modified form--she might reflect on her sins, which probably gave her some little uneasiness, or she might rehea.r.s.e them into the ears of her confessor, or she might do aught that called for no exertion, of mind or body. Of the latter she would never be guilty, and the former she abhorred to an almost equal extent. There were, however, marked exceptions to the rule of inactivity of body in the persons of certain senoritas who could ride like Comanches and throw a _lazo_ almost as well as their lovers and brothers, and who delighted in the display of these, their chief and perhaps only accomplishments. These ladies, however, were in the minority; the rule of Mexican female life was pa.s.sivity, not to say sloth.

As in the case of their predecessors, so with the women of modern Mexico, consideration has been accorded chiefly to those of the upper cla.s.s. There was, however, until recently a very large and significant cla.s.s in Mexico called _peons_, who might be said roughly to answer to the servitors of European feudal times. This cla.s.s was composed chiefly or entirely of those of native Indian blood, the descendants of the races enslaved by the Spaniards and set free so late in the history of Mexico as even now hardly to have lost in all respects the characteristics of slavery. These peons form the servitor cla.s.s on the great haciendas, and are almost retainers of the wealthy proprietors.

Their women are of widely different type from the senoras who form the bulk of the upper cla.s.ses; and the same difference which exists to-day was even more determined in the days of the youth of the Mexican republic. So constant, indeed, have been the individualities of this people that it matters little whether we look at them in the past or in the present; as is generally the case with cla.s.ses which represent the lower strata of the population and are from their very unimportance in the social scale less affected by outer influences and therefore more steadfast to national type, the peon cla.s.s has altered but little in its peculiar customs and characteristics, these being modified only as is rendered necessary to meet the changes in material conditions which have from time to time occurred. In this peon cla.s.s are encountered many recurrent and persistent customs of the Aztec civilization; but as these instances do not strongly affect the life of the women they may be pa.s.sed over. That which it is needful to note, however, is the fact that always in the history of feminine Mexico it is these women, of truly native stock, who have formed the characteristically native cla.s.s. It is they who have had and held a settled and constant tradition and custom; it is they who have conserved an individuality which has come down to them from mingled cultures--from that of the Aztecs, with their paradoxical civilization and nature, and that of the Spanish intruders, with their Latin characteristics modified by new environment. The mingling of these cultures produced the true Mexican individuality.

Yet, though individuality was at the time of the foundation of the republic to be found most decisive in the peon cla.s.s, it may be broadly said that at that period the Mexican woman was generally characteristic and individual. She reproduced and accentuated many Spanish traits; she was gay beneath a mask of propriety, immoral--the rule of generalities must be remembered--under the cloak of a profound piety, vengeful and jealous under the garb of a real love, and in all ways was the emphasis of the Spanish woman of her time. She was more than that, however; she had her national and even racial traditions and characteristics which parted from the Castilian culture at certain points and turned to the old fount of the Aztec racial influence. She was more profoundly superst.i.tious than her Spanish sister, and she was more concerned with outer guise in all matters of morality or religion. She would not for the world miss her accustomed attendance at ma.s.s, but she did not fail to recognize the opportunities offered by the ceremonial, with its genuflections and its periods of rest, for the transmittal of notes of amorous inspiration, and many was the _billet d'amour_ which was slipped by a tiny hand into a broader palm as the respective owners thereof bowed in apparently deep reverence at the elevation of the Host. Among the higher cla.s.ses, the Mexican senora and senorita were far less educated and cultivated than their Spanish kindred; yet among the lower cla.s.ses--not the peons, but the shopkeeper cla.s.s in the cities, the small landholders in the country--education of a kind was further advanced in Mexico than in Spain. Most interesting in certain ways, though least individual of all, was this middle cla.s.s, wearing as their festal costume, "white embroidered gowns, with white satin shoes and neat feet and ankles, _rebozos_, or bright shawls, thrown over their heads;" while the peasants on the same occasions were dressed in "short petticoats of two colors, generally scarlet and yellow, with thin satin shoes and lace-trimmed chemises." Stockings, it may be noticed, are not referred to in either case; sixty years ago they were not considered at all _de rigueur_ in the costume of a Mexican woman of any but the very highest cla.s.s and, if we are to believe all travellers, not even invariably among the senoritas themselves.

The Mexican woman of the dawn of the republic was a type--indefinite, even elusive, amid the crowd of southern Latin nationalities, yet possessing some distinctive traits of manner, custom, and nature, and by these to be distinguished from her Italian, Spanish, or even South American kinswomen. But the individuality which she possessed, never strongly marked, soon began to fade before the incursion of a northern culture, with its novel ideals, standards, and requisites. When the United States was at war with Mexico, the type of the latter culture was at its most distinctive stage; and, though there were not a few of the women who were enamored of the methods of the northern invaders and became _Ayankeados_, as sympathizers with the foe were contemptuously termed, yet, as a rule, the women of Mexico proved true daughters of Anahuac in their hatred of the enemy of their native land. But these pa.s.sions pa.s.sed away with the coming of peace; and the Maximilian episode served to bring Mexico into somewhat closer relation with the civilization of her northern border neighbor. Still the national culture, if so it can be called, remained practically unaffected for years after the founding of the republic; for the purely Spanish families had been banished in large numbers, and the Maximilian rule was too brief to effect a new Latin invasion.

But there was an invasion lowering upon the horizon of Mexico, though foreseen perhaps by few, which was destined to prove most effectual in influencing the future of the Mexican woman--the invasion of the Anglo-American in peaceful guise, armed with scrip and not with stave, and bearing the axe and spade in his hands. The wealth of Mexico began to attract the attention of the citizens of her northern neighbor, and they kindly hastened to relieve her of as much as she found at all burdensome and they themselves decided the discomfort of that burden.

The typical American, the American _par excellence_, he of the United States, invaded Mexico once more, though this time in search of dollars, not glory; and under his influence, perhaps yet more under that of his wife and daughters, the feminine civilization of Mexico lost its individuality in its acceptance of standards which were unfitted to its conditions and unacceptable to its traditions. The woman of Mexico forgot her history and her very nature, and became, in the majority of cases, a mere imitator of Anglo-Saxon and Gallic fashion and custom.

Once she smoked her dainty cigarette with entire nonchalance; now, even though her English and North American sisters have found a charm in the nicotian incense that is offered to the G.o.d of social converse, your Mexican woman, having long since been told solemnly that "_Las Americanas_ do not smoke," has thrown away her little roll of paper and tobacco, and has become "proper" according to standards with which she should have nothing in common. She has doffed her _rebozo_--that which might have been termed the national garment of the Mexican woman--and has accepted the less graceful and becoming garments of European fashion. In all outer guise, she is steadfastly setting herself to become a mere imitation, if not a caricature, of the belles of other civilizations; but within she is still the child of the South, the daughter of a race of Indians, dashed indeed with Spanish blood but preserving many of the Indian characteristics intact; and these do not agree with normal culture. For it must be remembered that in Mexico there is to-day, owing to the wholesale expulsion of the Spaniards at the establishment of independence, hardly a family of unmixed blood; and those who do claim uncontaminated descent from the Spanish _hidalgos_ are looked upon with utmost disfavor almost--ostracized, indeed. On the other hand, the Mexicans have come to look upon Americans of the North with respect and even affection, and to welcome them to their country and often to their homes. The result, of course, has been partly to establish a heterogeneous culture, neither Spanish, Indian, nor American, and yet a commingling of all three, at least in outward form.

But beneath the veneer of the new culture the Mexican woman preserves the characteristics which have been hers for centuries and which in their greater part came down to her from her Indian forebears. She is still pa.s.sionate, jealous, vengeful, sudden and violent in all her impulses, most of which are founded upon that which she calls her love, but which, as a rule, is but pa.s.sion. Her traditions do not agree with her surroundings as she would fain make them; and the question as to which will finally survive in permanent conquest is one that can be answered by time alone, that convenient arbitrator to which to refer all vexed questions of this sort. To that tribunal may be left the questions for the future which have been suggested to thoughtful readers concerning the Mexican woman.

CHAPTER III

THE WOMEN OF SOUTH AMERICA

As in our retrospect of the feminine history of Mexico, so in our review of the past of the women of South America, it is necessary to begin with a consideration of an extinct civilization,--necessary not only to the completeness but to the interest of our subject, for the chief claim of these chapters to the reader's attention rests on the consideration of those primitive cultures. Were it not for the dead civilizations of the Aztecs and the Incas, with their surrounding and dependent cultures, there would be but little to say concerning the women of Mexico or South America. For in their later aspects these American cultures represent simply a more or less decadent Spanish and Portuguese civilization, modified indeed by circ.u.mstance and the infusion of alien blood as well as custom, yet so close in all material respects to the parent stock that there is but little of variance worthy of note, while even the variations from the modern types are most frequently the result of the influence of the dead civilizations which still live in the stock which was grafted upon them, though only upon their dead trunks.

Even as for long the history of the eastern coast was that of North America, so at first the story of Peru was all of true history that we find of the southern division of our continent. Yet closer in likeness is the story of Peru to that of Mexico; there is the same tale of a high, and in many respects admirable, civilization overthrown and practically destroyed by Spanish l.u.s.t for gold, and yet in some wise abiding in influence upon the race which had crushed it. There is the same record of a mild race yielding to the strength of one armed for conquest; but in the case of the culture of the Incas the contrast between conquerors and conquered is still more marked to the advantage of the Peruvians, for they were of even gentler and more refined natures than the Aztecs, influenced by a higher and purer religion and dwelling under a system which encouraged and developed the n.o.blest tendencies of human nature. There were among the Peruvians fewer paradoxes and contradictions of culture than among the Aztecs; they were not given to even the refined forms of cannibalism indulged in by their northern brethren, nor did they include human sacrifice as a part of their cult.

Their religion was a pure and somewhat simple sun-worship; indeed, the Incas themselves claimed to be children of the sun. In other respects, there were many points of approach between the civilization of the Peruvians and that of the Aztecs; they might be roughly called cultures of the same cla.s.s, though where there lay advantage it was usually, especially in matters which were of the ethical rather than the material cultivation, on the side of the Peruvians.

As might be expected in such a state of culture, woman held among the Peruvians a high place; one that might, in a further rough estimate, be regarded as equal to the status of woman among the Aztecs. In this comparison, however, the advantage is again found on the side of the Peruvians, woman being, in some respects, in higher estimation among them than among their northern compeers. Without pushing the comparison,--indeed, it is less dangerous to speak positively,--let us glance at the chief features of feminine life among the people of the Incas. In the first place, we find that even in the religion of the Peruvians woman held an honored place. The sun was the chief personage in the theogony of the Peruvians; but he had his satellites, and among them the most important was the moon, his sister and wife. In this union of a G.o.d to his sister we are reminded of the Egyptian cult, wherein Osiris was married to Isis, and it is somewhat curious that in both nations, Egyptian and Peruvian, wherein there obtained this feature of incest elevated to sacred places, there was also the introduction of the same offence against nature in the royal house; for both Peruvian Inca and Egyptian Pharaoh were given to marrying their sisters, that the royal race might be preserved uncontaminated by any alien strain.

The religion thus acknowledged the status of woman by giving her a place among its deities; nor did it stop at this point, though, as is so frequently to be found in primitive cults, it mingled the sacred and the profane in a manner rather confusing to our more complex modern thought.

The inst.i.tution of the "Virgins of the Sun" was in some ways a most singular reproduction of the Roman Vestal and the Catholic nun, and in others the exact opposite of the intentions of these European types. The Virgins of the Sun were young maidens who from their infancy had been dedicated to the service of their deity, and who, when very young, were placed in convents. Here they were instructed by elderly matrons called _mamaconas_, who taught them religious theory and duty as well as the material arts of spinning, embroidery, and other occupations suited to their s.e.x and situation. These maidens were usually selected from those of royal blood or from the daughters of the greater n.o.bles, though a girl of great beauty would sometimes be raised from the ranks of the commonalty to the high dignity of a Virgin of the Sun. Their life was strictly conventual; no one but the Inca himself, or his queen, could enter the consecrated precincts without having duties to call them thither. Chast.i.ty was most strongly inculcated, and it is said that no lapse was ever known on the part of an inmate of these convents. This is not so surprising when the provisions of the law of the Incas on this subject are recalled. The offending virgin was to be buried alive, her lover was to be strangled, and the town or village in which he resided was to be utterly destroyed and "sown with stones," that it might be effectually forgotten. It would take an enterprising and desperate lover indeed to dare such results, even could he have overcome the difficulties of access and the reluctance of his mistress.

Yet, with all this strict regard for chast.i.ty on the part of the consecrated virgins, it was only while the latter were inhabitants of the cloister that they were so rigorously bound. Indeed, their destiny was to be brides of the Inca; and thus the whole system was but a sort of sacred concubinage, and it may be suspected that in the eyes of the framers of the severe law above cited it was less the offence against purity than that against the Inca that called for such heavy penalties.

When the Virgins of the Sun attained a fitting age, they were, if sufficiently beautiful, sent to the seraglio of the Inca. The number of these royal concubines at times amounted to thousands, and it is not improbable that to the majority of them a visit from the monarch was unknown. They lived in sumptuous seclusion at the various royal palaces scattered throughout the country, guarded and attended by the trusted officers of the Inca, until the monarch determined, as periodically happened, to reduce his establishment in this respect, when a large number of his "brides" were sent away. They did not return to the conventual inst.i.tutions from which they had come, but to the home of their childhood, where they lived in state befitting those who had been the spouses, even if only theoretically, of the monarch. Nor did these ladies suffer any loss of good repute for their past; on the contrary, they were held in reverence as having been admitted into such close relation with the Child of the Sun. It does not appear whether they were allowed to contract ordinary marriages after their dismissal from the royal harem; but it is not probable that this was permitted to those who might still be termed brides of the Inca, however he might be pleased to dispense with their society for a time.

Besides the place of woman in the cult of the country, she had high position in the dynastic as well as domestic polity and customs of the land. Notwithstanding the number of concubines possessed by the Inca, there was but one legal queen, the _Coya_, whose eldest son inherited the crown,--at least so say most authorities, although there are some dissentients,--and it is stated by the Inca historian that the succession came down in unbroken line through the whole dynasty. The Coya was always a sister of the ruling Inca; but as to this custom there are also diverse statements, some authorities claiming that it was of comparatively modern innovation, while others a.s.sert that it was as ancient as the dynasty itself, which a.s.sertion there seems to be but little reason to doubt. The Coya received all due reverence from her people, n.o.ble and common; but she had no real authority, however great may have been her influence. The so-called _Loi Salique_ was in force among the Peruvians, even though they had never heard of the original heresy concerning the sceptre and distaff. They acknowledged no female rule; at the death of the Inca the sceptre pa.s.sed to his eldest son by the Coya, provided that the heir-apparent had successfully pa.s.sed through an ordeal of great severity, imposed upon him as the test of his fitness to bear the toil of ruling, while his invest.i.ture with that which answered to knighthood among the Christian cultures was imposing and wonderfully impressive in its significance.

It is commonly said that polygamy was customary among the Peruvians; but this statement may be strongly doubted. It is entirely true that the n.o.bles had large seraglios; but, when the open concubinage that was a prerequisite, as it were, of royalty is taken into consideration, together with the fact that polygamy was not known among the common people, it is far more likely that the real custom was that of open and legal concubinage rather than true polygamy. The confounding of nearly related facts in this wise is too common to make us chary of attributing such confusion; even to this day many well-informed writers are given to stating that polygamy among the Mussulmans is unrestrained, whereas no Mussulman can have more than a fixed and small number of wives, all the other women in his harem being merely legal concubines. Because of this rashness of statement as well as of the difficulty of ascertaining the precise facts in regard to Peruvian domestic polity, we may a.s.sume that monogamy was the legal custom, with a recognized concubinage as the privilege of the n.o.bility as well as of the monarch, since this theory best consorts with the facts as we know them. Be this as it may, there is no doubt that among the Peruvians, speaking of them in general and not as divided into cla.s.ses and castes, domesticity was on a plane fully equalling that known to any of the primitive cultures of America or even of Europe. Marriage was regarded as a sacred relation, and adultery was considered one of the most heinous of crimes, being punishable with death. In this and other places, however, it must be borne in mind that in speaking of the old Peruvian civilization, the word "punishable" is necessarily used instead of the more positive "punished"; for it does not seem that all the laws were straitly enforced. It was, for example, a singular provision of this law that made no distinction between adultery and fornication, both being equally visitable by death; yet there was a recognized, if not legalized, system of prost.i.tution in the cities of the Incas. Such a contradiction of facts casts a very grave suspicion upon the integrity of the whole of the code in which that contradiction appears; and it may therefore be supposed that much of the legislation of the Incas was allowed to remain a dead letter. Still, the tendency of thought among a people can frequently be discovered by a study of their statute-book, even if the laws be not implicitly enforced; and we may judge from the laws of the Incas that the people over whom they ruled were straitly moral according to their lights, which is all that can justly be demanded of any people, even the most civilized.

The other facts pertaining to the status of women in that wonderful civilization which Pizarro destroyed may be well summed up within the scope of a paragraph. The women of the Peruvians knew a domestic lot which was strongly akin to that held by their Aztec contemporaries. They were reared in affection, though with some severity, and they were early taught the principles of chast.i.ty, modesty, and reverence for parents and religion, as well as the more material knowledge that enters into the life of the normal woman of all cultures: housewifery, needlework, and certain of the arts pertaining to the household. The Peruvian maiden was well fitted for the responsibilities and dignities of wifehood ere she was allowed to a.s.sume that place of honor; and the occasion of her marriage was marked by a ceremony so quaint and original that it deserves special mention. The Peruvian maidens could not choose their own marriage day; this was appointed by law, and only once did it come in a year, so that each twelvemonth there was a season of bridal rejoicing throughout the land. Those who were desirous of being married a.s.sembled on this stated day in the public square of their respective cities, and their hands were joined by a cacique in face of the people.

This simple ceremony, together with the p.r.o.nouncement of the contract by the cacique, const.i.tuted a marriage. The gentile system was, in some sort, in force among the Peruvians, and no one was allowed to contract marriage with any but a member of his or her gens; but this rule was capable of broad extension, even to including those residing in the same province. The ceremony was followed by festivities lasting several days; and the fact of all weddings being simultaneous turned the whole land into a festal place. We are not told what was done when some one was so inconsiderate as to die during this period and thus interfere with the merriment of his particular kindred; probably the corpse was compelled to wait until its turn came and grief could legitimately take the place of joy. However this may be, it is certain that marriage was in all ways held in high respect by the Peruvians, and divorce was almost or quite unknown. For the rest, the lot of the Peruvian woman was practically the same as that held by the woman of the Aztecs and does not call for amplification.

There is, however, another primitive civilization of South America which calls for notice, as being in its way as interesting as that of the Peruvians, and moreover of greater importance to the present, since in some aspects it still survives. This was the civilization of the Araucanians, to adopt the general, though not absolutely correct nomenclature. While the more remarkable civilization of the early Peruvians has centred general attention upon itself among the primitive cultures of South America, that of the Araucanians was hardly less wonderful in certain aspects, though as an absolute culture it was far below the standard of its more northern compeer. The Araucanians were simply Indians, but Indians of a very remarkable cla.s.s. Among the tribes of North America their nearest peers would probably be found among the Navajos; but the Araucanians were in many respects far superior to their brothers of the northern plains. They were, above all, warriors, and for long they successfully resisted the Spanish invasion. They were a free, restless, brave, and highly independent people, and far better fitted for survival than their more highly cultured neighbors, and this they have proved by resistance to the ill effects of eastern civilization and a persistence unto this day.

It may be succinctly said that, while the status of the Araucanian woman was far from being equal to that of her Peruvian or Aztec sister, she was yet held in higher esteem than was usual among most Indian tribes.

One of the manifestations of the racial instincts of the Araucanians is to be found in their delight in that which is generally and contemptuously denoted "finery." The women as well as the men painted their faces: not after the manner of civilization, but after that of savagery, the colors used being red and black, and with pigments of these hues the Araucanian belle decorated her face, using the black chiefly for emphasis of the eyebrows, eyelashes, and eyelids, much in the manner in which henna is used by Oriental women. A curious use of the black paint was the occasional depiction of sable tears rolling down the cheeks. Silver and beads were much worn,--for silver was almost as common as stone among the aborigines of Chili,--and bright colors were profusely used in the dress of the Araucanian lady of social standing.

The most distinctive part of the costume of the Araucanian belle was her headdress and the manner of wearing the hair, the former being composed entirely of beads, and coming low upon the forehead, while it pa.s.sed over the head and descended quite low on the back; the hair was worn in two queues, which were wound with bright colored beads, the ends falling over the face or sticking out in front like horns.

As among most Indian races, polygamy prevailed among the Araucanians. To the women fell the greater part of the work; indeed, it would not be overstating the case to a.s.sert that the wife did all the labor in the Araucanian household, even to those offices which the Indian of the northern continent generally performed for himself. Yet the women of the Araucanians were not ill treated as a rule. Marriage by capture prevailed, though there was about it also the elements of marriage by purchase. The friends of the wooer sought the father of the girl and requested his consent to the match; but this was rather a matter of form to even more than the usual extent, since while the father was thus being flattered the lover was searching for his bride. Invading the sanct.i.ty of her chamber and plucking her forth, by the hair or heels, as was most convenient,--for the Araucanian was somewhat strenuous in his wooing,--he threw her upon his horse and galloped off with her _a la_ Lochinvar, leaving his friends to sustain the attacks of the women, who always rallied fiercely to the defence of the bride. The latter made it a point of honor, indeed, to scream loudly for help; and, however doubtful may have been her good faith, the other women considered it a duty to their s.e.x to accept her protests as implicit and to visit her rape upon the heads of the allies of the lover, which allies rarely escaped with unscarred faces. Having covered the retreat of the ardent swain, the friends then followed him to the sylvan haunts which he sought for concealment and from which he emerged some two or three days later with his captive, now a willing bride. No other ceremony was needful; but, if the parents of the girl were really averse to the match and rallied in time to prevent the wooer from gaining the shelter of the woods with his captive, there was no marriage; if, on the other hand, the thicket was safely gained, the marriage could not be afterward annulled. After the emergence of the wedded pair from their solitude, the friends of the husband called upon him to congratulate him and to offer him gifts, most of which had been pledged beforehand. These presents were then conveyed in procession to the father of the bride, who, if he considered that he had been paid full value for his daughter, took the bridegroom by the hand and declared his delight at the alliance. The mother, however, was supposed to be so angered with her son-in-law for the robbery of her child that she would not even speak to him or so much as look at him; and though she generally relented so far as to tell her daughter to ask her husband if he were not hungry, and upon receiving an affirmative answer proceeded to cook a feast for the a.s.sembled company, nevertheless for years after the marriage she would never speak face to face with her son-in-law, though with her back turned to him she would converse with him with entire freedom. This formal resentment on the part of the mother-in-law seems to indicate a recognized status on the part of the _mater familias_, since it was theoretically in opposition to the will of the _pater familias_ and therefore in some sense a declaration of independence.

Divorce was known among the Araucanians, and the discarded wife was sent back to her father's house with full liberty to marry whom else she would; but in such case the second husband was compelled to pay to the first the full price which the woman originally cost him. When a man died his widow became independent, except where there were surviving sons by another wife, who in such case could claim their father's widow as a concubine to be held in common. This singular custom doubtless arose from the theory of the woman being a chattel of the estate and reverting by right to the heirs. Adultery was punished on the woman by death, while if the outraged husband took the guilty paramour in _flagrante delicto_ he could slay him without incurring any penalty; if, however, the man escaped, he could not afterward be killed with impunity, but could be made to pay to the injured husband the original cost of the wife. It seems highly probable, however, that among the early Araucanians female virtue was of a high standard, though among their descendants it is not quite so highly esteemed.

A somewhat curious custom, still in force among the Araucanians, was that of borrowing children. A sterile woman was an object of reproach, as has been the case among all primitive peoples, and she was likely to forfeit the consideration of her husband and to be supplanted by a new wife who might bear him children. It was to guard against this as far as possible--as well as for protection, since sterility was cause for divorce--that the barren Araucanian wife would often borrow from some complacent and prolific kinswoman one or more of her children, whom the sterile wife would rear as her own. The exact status of these children in the household is not clear; they would seem to have been attributed by courtesy, as it were, to the wife, but not to have stood as heirs to the husband unless in default of heirs of his body, nor even then except by express testamentary act, or that which bore the value of such act, on his part. Yet the fact that the custom existed and still exists is sufficient to show that it must in some way have a.s.sured the position of the barren wife. The Araucanians, by the way, notwithstanding a statement to the contrary by Molinos, swathe their children as do most Indian tribes, and they even tie their infants to a bamboo frame so tightly that the little unfortunates have no control over any portion of their bodies save their eyes, and in this state they are hung upon the walls when it is desirable to get them out of the way an occurrence so frequent that the infants pa.s.s nearly their whole existence hung upon pegs like unhappy _lares_.