The people of this coast seemed to have heard of the Spaniards, for at several places they shouted 'Castilians!' and asked the strangers by signs if they did not come from toward the rising sun. Yet, neither the glimpse caught of Yucatan by Pinzon and Solis in 1506 while in search of a strait north of Guanaja Island where Columbus had been, nor the piratical expedition of Córdoba, in 1517, can properly be called the discovery of Mexico.[1] Meanwhile Mexico can well afford to wait, being in no haste for European civilization, and the attendant boons which Europe seems so desirous of conferring.
- ↑ The term Mexico has widely different meanings under different conditions. At first it signified only the capital of the Nahua nation, and it was five hundred years before it overspread the territory now known by that name. Mexico City was founded in 1325, and was called Mexico Tenochitlan. The latter appellation has been connected with Tenuch, the Aztec leader at this time, and with the sign of a nopal on a stone, called in Aztec, respectively nochtli and tetl, the final syllable representing locality, and the first, te, divinity or superiority. The word Mexico, however, was then rarely used, Tenochtitlan being the common term employed; and this was retained by the Spaniards for some time after the conquest, even in imperial decrees, and in the official records of the city, though in the corrupt forms of Temixtitan, Tenustitan, etc. See Libro de Cabildo, 1524-9, M.S. Torquemada, i. 293, states distinctly that even in his time the natives never employed any other designation for the ancient city than Tenochtitlan, which was also the name of the chief and fashionable ward. Solis, Conq. Mex., i. 390, is of opinion that Mexico was the name of the ward, Tenochtitlan being applied to the whole city, in which case Mexico Tenochtitlan would signify the ward Mexico of the city Tenochtitlan. Gradually the
accepting this as the answer to their question, called the country Yectetan, and soon Yucatan. Waldeck, Voy. Pittoresque, 25, derives the name from the native word ouyouckutan, 'listen to what they say.' The native name was Maya. See Bancroft's Native Races, v. 614-34. There are various other theories and renderings, among them the following: In answer to Córdoba's inquiry as to the name of their country, the natives exclaimed, 'uy u tun, esto es: oyes como habla?' Zamacois, Hist. Mej., ii. 228. 'Que preguntundo a estos Indios. si auia en su tierra aquellas rayzes que se llama Yuca. . . . Respondian Ilatli, por la tierra en que se plantan, y que de Yuca juntado con Ilatli, se dixo Yucatta, y de alli Yucatan.' Herrera, dec. ii. lib. ii. cap. xviii. Whencesoever the origin, it was clearly a mistake, as there never was an aboriginal designation for the whole country, nor, like the Japanese, have they names for their straits or bays. For some time Yucatan was supposed to be an island. Grijalva called the country Isla de Santa María de Remedios, though that term was employed by few. In early documents the two names are united; instance the instructions of Velazquez to Cortés, where the country is called la Ysla de Yucatan Sta María de Remedios. On Cortés' chart of the Gulf of Mexico, 1520, it is called Yucatan, and represented as an island. Colon, 1527, and Ribero, 1529, who write Ivcatan; Ptolemy, in Munster, 1530, Iucatana; Orontius, on his globe, 1531, Iucatans; Munich Atlas, no. iv., 1532-40, cucatan; Baptista Agnese, 1540-50, iucatan; Mercator, 1569, Ivcatan; Michael Lok, 1582, Incoton; Hondius, 1595, Laet, Ogilby, etc., Yucatan, which now assumes peninsular proportions.
