The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2 — Themes and Context

Government and Ceremony Among the Nahuas

Bancroft devotes considerable attention to the political structures of the Nahua nations, describing the Aztec confederacy, royal succession, and the election of kings. The text details the ceremony of anointment, including the ascent to the temple, the holy unction, and the address of the high-priest to the king. Penance and fasting in a house called Tlacatecco precede the homage of nobles and general rejoicing. The coronation itself involves procuring sacrifices, a description of the crown, and feasts that extend hospitality even to enemies. These passages are rich with specific ritual vocabulary, such as 'Tlacatecco,' and emphasize the intertwining of religious and political authority. The author also notes variations in government among the Toltecs, Michoacan, Tlascala, Cholula, Huexotzinco, and Oajaca, suggesting a diverse political landscape rather than a monolithic Aztec empire.

Hieroglyphic Writing and the Destruction of Archives

A central tension in the volume emerges in Bancroft's discussion of picture-writing. He describes it as 'one of those most highly prized and most zealously cultivated' arts, entrusted to a specialized class of educated men. The written records included national annals, genealogies, tribute-rolls, land-titles, law codes, and religious mysteries. These were painted on cotton cloth, prepared skins, or maguey-paper, folded fan-like into books called amatl, and sometimes carved on stone. However, Bancroft then recounts how the Spanish priesthood, particularly Juan de Zumárraga, deemed these writings 'painted devices of the devil' and ordered their destruction. A public bonfire of native archives was made, and the author notes that the concentration of records in a few large cities made the task 'comparatively an easy one.' The loss is described as 'priceless,' yet Bancroft also records that some tribute-rolls and historical writings were hidden by natives and thus saved.

The Ambiguous Legacy of Record-Keeping

Bancroft's account reveals a complex aftermath to the destruction. After the priests' zeal abated, natives were permitted to use hieroglyphics again, even writing down their sins in picture-writing when priests were too busy for verbal confession. This detail underscores the resilience of indigenous practices, but also their subordination to European religious frameworks. The author notes that the early authorities were 'unanimous in crediting these people with the possession of a hieroglyphic system sufficiently perfect to meet all their requirements.' Yet the surviving records are only a fraction of what existed, and Bancroft's own work relies on these remnants and on Spanish accounts. The volume thus becomes a meditation on what can be known when the primary sources have been systematically destroyed, and on the role of the European scholar in reconstructing a lost world.

Readers should approach this volume as a product of its time—a late 19th-century synthesis that both preserves and interprets indigenous cultures through a Eurocentric lens. Bancroft's reliance on Spanish chroniclers and his own philosophical framework means that the voices of the Native peoples are filtered. Yet the detailed descriptions of rituals, governance, and writing systems offer a valuable entry point into pre-Columbian civilizations, provided one reads critically, aware of what has been lost and what has been imposed.

Reading about how the Spanish burned the codices made me think of a quiet afternoon years ago, flipping through an old encyclopedia and realizing whole worlds could vanish between bindings. That same ache for lost knowledge surfaced—there’s a strange comfort in The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, Volume 1 of 28 — Story, Setting & Ideas, as if some fragments endure. We preserve what we can, softly.