was that assigned since the arrival of
this nation in Guatemala, by the local historian, Francisco Antonio de
Fuentes y Guzman, who wrote in the seventeenth century, from an
examination of their most ancient traditions, written and verbal.[10-2]
Indeed, none of these affined tribes claimed to be autochthonous. All
pointed to some distant land as the home of their ancestors, and
religiously preserved the legends, more or less mythical, of their early
wanderings until they had reached their present seats. How strong the
mythical element in them is, becomes evident when we find in them the
story of the first four brothers as their four primitive rulers and
leaders, a myth which I have elsewhere shown prevailed extensively over
the American continent, and is distinctly traceable to the adoration of
the four cardinal points, and the winds from them.[10-3]

These four brothers were noble youths, born of one mother, who sallied
forth from Tulan, the golden city of the sun, and divided between them
all the land from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the confines of
Nicaragua, in other words, all the known world.[11-1]

The occurrence of the Aztec name of the City of Light, Tulan (properly,
Tonatlan), in these accounts, as they were rehearsed by the early
converted natives, naturally misled historians to adopt the notion that
these divine culture heroes were "Toltecs," and even in the modern
writings of the Abbe Brasseur (de Bourbourg), of M. Desire Charnay, and
others, this unreal people continue to be set forth as the civilizers of
Central America.

No supposition could have less support. The whole alleged story of the
Toltecs is merely an euhemerized myth, and they are as pure creations of
the fancy as the giants and fairies of mediaeval romance. They have no
business in the pages of sober history.

The same blending of their most ancient legends with those borrowed from
the Aztecs, recurs in the records of the pure Mayas of Yucatan. I have
shown this, and explained it at considerable length in the first volume
of this series, to which I will refer the reader who would examine the
question in detail.[11-2]

There is a slight admixture of Aztec words in Cakchiquel. The names of
one or two of their months, of certain objects of barter, and of a few
social institutions, are evidently loan-words from that tongue. There
are also some proper names, both personal and geographical, which are
clearly of Nahuatl derivation. But, putt