Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/43

or "wanderers;" whereas, in other districts, the Nahuas had established themselves on a footing of acknowledged supremacy and developed a brilliant civilization. Thus they founded at the extreme north of the present Mexico the ancient city of Tulan or Tullan, the name of which passed into that of its inhabitants, the Toltecs, and this latter, in its turn, became the designation of everything graceful, elegant, artistically refined and beautiful. Ethnographically, it simply indicates the most brilliant foci of the civilization imported from Central America. In fact, there never was a Toltec empire at all, but simply a confederation of the three cities of Tullan, Colhuacan and Otompan, all of which may be regarded as Toltec in the social sense which I have just described. Many other small states existed outside this confederation. It was destroyed by the revolt or invasion of more northern tribes, hitherto held in vassalage and looked down upon as belonging to a lower level of culture and manners. These tribes received or assumed the name of Chichimecs or "dogs," which may have been a term of contempt converted into a title of honour, like that