The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations / The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2

THE MANUSCRIPT TROANO.

The Manuscript Troano was found about the year 1865 in Madrid by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, and was reproduced in fac-simile by a chromo-lithographic process by the Commission Scientifique du Mexique, under the auspices of the French Government. Its name comes from that of its possessor in Madrid, Sr Tro y Ortolano, and nothing whatever is known of its origin; two or three other old American manuscripts are reported to have been brought to light in Spain since the publication of this. The original is written on a strip of maguey-paper about fourteen feet long and nine inches wide, the surface of which is covered with a whitish varnish, on which the figures are painted in black, red, blue, and brown. It is folded fan-like into thirty-five folds, presenting when shut much the appearance of a modern large octavo volume. The hieroglyphics cover both sides of the paper, and the writing is consequently divided into seventy pages, each about five by nine inches, having been apparently executed after the paper was folded, so that the folding does not interfere with the written matter. One of the pages as a specimen is shown in the following plate, an exact copy, save in size and color, of the original.

The regular lines of written characters are uniformly in black, while the pictorial portions, or what may perhaps be considered representative signs, are in red and brown, chiefly the former, and the blue appears for the most part as a background in some of the pages. A few of the pages are slightly damaged, and all the imperfections are, as it is claimed, faithfully reproduced in the published copy, which with the editor's comments fills two quarto volumes in the series published by the Commission mentioned.[1119]

MAYA INSCRIPTIONS IN STONE.

The plates on the following pages from the works of Stephens and Waldeck I present as specimens of the Maya writing, as it is found carved in stone in Yucatan, Honduras, and Chiapas. For particulars respecting the ruins in connection with which they were discovered, I refer the reader to volume IV. of this work. Fig. 1 represents the hieroglyphics sculptured on the top of an altar at Copan, in Honduras, the thirty-six groups cover a space nearly six feet square. Fig. 2 is a tablet set in the interior wall of a building in Chichen, Yucatan. The tablet is placed over the doorways and extends the whole length of the room, forty-three feet; only a part, however, is shown in the cut. Fig. 3 is a full-size representation of the carving on a green stone, or chalchiuite, found at Ococingo, Chiapas. I take it from the English translation of Morelet's Travels. Many of the monoliths of Copan have a line of hieroglyphics on their side. Plates representing specimens of these monuments will be given in Volume IV. Fig. 4 shows a portion of the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the famous 'tablet of the cross' at Palenque.[1120]

BISHOP LANDA'S ALPHABET.

I have given on a preceding page in this chapter, the signs by which the natives of Yucatan expressed the names of their days and months, taken from the work of Bishop Landa. The same author has also preserved a Maya alphabet. On account of Landa's failure to appreciate the importance of the native hieroglyphics, or to comprehend the system, and also very likely on account of his copyist's carelessness—for the original manuscript of Landa's work has not been found—the passage relating to the alphabet is very vague, unsatisfactory, and perhaps fragmentary; but it is of the very highest importance, since the alphabet here given in connection with the calendar signs already spoken of, furnish apparently the only ground for a hope that the veil of mystery which hangs over the Maya inscriptions may one day be lifted. I therefore give Landa's description as nearly as possible in his own words, copying also the original Spanish in a note.

"Of their letters I give here (see alphabet on the next page) an A, B, C, since their heaviness (number and intricacy?) permits no more; because they use one character for all the aspirations of the letters, and another in the pointing of the parts (punctuation), and thus it goes on to infinity, as may be seen in the following example: lé means 'a snare' or to hunt with it; to write it with their characters, we having given them to understand (although we gave, etc.) that they are two letters, they wrote it with three, placing after the aspiration l the vowel e, which it has before it, and in this they do not err, although they make use, if they wish, of their curious method. Example:

Then at the end they attach the adjoined part. Ha which means 'water,' because the haché (sound of the letter h) has a, h, before it, they put it at the beginning with a, at the end in this manner:

They also write it in parts but in both ways. I would not put (all this) here, nor treat of it, except in order to give a complete account of the things of this people. Ma in kati means 'I will not'; they write it in parts after this manner."[1121]

Respecting this alphabet Landa adds: "this language lacks the letters that are missing here; and has others added from ours for other necessary things; and they already make no use of these characters, especially the young who have learned ours." It will be noticed that there are several varying characters for the same letter, and several syllabic signs.

The characters of Landa's alphabet, and the calendar signs can be identified more or less accurately and readily with some of those of the hieroglyphic inscriptions in stone, the Manuscript Troano, and the Dresden Codex. The resemblance in many cases is clear, in others very vague and perhaps imaginary, while very many others cannot apparently be identified. Although Landa's key must be regarded as fragmentary, I believe there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. But one attempt has been made to practically apply this key to the work of deciphering the Maya documents, that of the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg. This writer, after a profound study of the subject, devotes one hundred and thirty-six quarto pages to a consideration of the Maya characters and their variations, and fifty-seven pages to the translation of a part of the Manuscript Troano. The translation must be pronounced a failure, especially after the confession of the author in a subsequent work that he had begun his reading at the wrong end of the document,[1122]—a trifling error perhaps in the opinion of the enthusiastic Abbé, but a somewhat serious one as it appears to scientific men. His preliminary examinations doubtless contain much valuable information which will lighten the labors and facilitate the investigations of future students; but unfortunately, such is their nature that condensation is impracticable. A long chapter, if not a volume, would be required to do them anything like justice, and they must be omitted here.

Brasseur de Bourbourg devoted his life to the study of American primitive history. In actual knowledge of matters pertaining to his chosen subject, no man ever equaled or approached him. Besides being an indefatigable student he was an elegant writer. In the last decade of his life he conceived a new and complicated theory respecting the origin of the American people, or rather the origin of Europeans and Asiatics from America, made known to the world in his Quatre Lettres. His attempted translation of the Manuscript Troano was made in support of this theory. By reason of the extraordinary nature of the views expressed, and the author's well-known tendency to build magnificent structures on a slight foundation, his later writings were received for the most part by critics, utterly incompetent to understand them, with a sneer or, what seems to have grieved the writer more, in silence. Now that the great Américaniste is dead, while it is not likely that his theories will ever be received, his zeal in the cause of antiquarian science and the many valuable works from his pen will be better appreciated. It will be long ere another shall undertake with equal devotion and ability the well nigh hopeless task.

INTERPRETATION OF MAYA RECORDS.

I close the chapter with a few quotations from modern writers respecting the Maya hieroglyphics and their interpretation. Tyler says "there is even evidence that the Maya nation of Yucatan, the ruins of whose temples and palaces are so well known from the travels of Catherwood and Stephens, not only had a system of phonetic writing, but used it for writing ordinary words and sentences."[1123] Wuttke suggests that Landa's alphabet originated after the Conquest, a suggestion, as Schepping observes, excluded by Mendieta's statement, but "otherwise very probable in consideration of the phoneticism developed in Mexico shortly after the Conquest."[1124] And finally Wilson says, "while the recurrence of the same signs, and the reconstruction of groups out of the detached members of others, clearly indicate a written language, and not a mere pictorial suggestion of associated ideas, like the Mexican picture-writing." "In the most complicated tablets of African hieroglyphics, each object is distinct, and its representative significance is rarely difficult to trace. But the majority of the hieroglyphics of Palenque or Copan appear as if constructed on the same polysynthetic principle which gives the peculiar and distinctive character to the languages of the New World. This is still more apparent when we turn to the highly elaborate inscriptions on the colossal figures of Copan. In these all ideas of simple phonetic signs utterly disappear. Like the bunch-words, as they have been called, of the American languages, they seem each to be compounded of a number of parts of the primary symbols used in picture-writing, while the pictorial origin of the whole becomes clearly apparent. In comparing these minutely elaborated characters with those on the tables, it is obvious that a system of abbreviation is employed in the latter. An analogous process seems dimly discernible in the abbreviated compound characters of the Palenque inscription. But if the inference be correct, this of itself would serve to indicate that the Central American hieroglyphics are not used as phonetic, or pure alphabetic signs; and this idea receives confirmation from the rare recurrence of the same group.... The Palenque inscriptions have all the characteristics of a written language in a state of development analogous to the Chinese, with its word-writing; and like it they appear to have been read in columns from top to bottom. The groups of symbols begin with a large hieroglyphic on the left-hand corner; and the first column occupies a double space. It is also noticeable that in the frequent occurrence of human and animal heads among the sculptured characters they invariably look toward the left; an indication, as it appears to me, that they are the graven inscriptions of a lettered people, who were accustomed to write the same characters from left to right on paper or skins. Indeed, the pictorial groups on the Copan statues seem to be the true hieroglyphic characters; while the Palenque inscriptions show the abbreviated hieratic writing. To the sculptor the direction of the characters was a matter of no moment; but if the scribe held his pen, or style, in his right hand, like the modern clerk, he would as naturally draw the left profile as we slope our current hand to the right. Arbitrary signs are also introduced, like those of the phonetic alphabets of Europe. Among these the T repeatedly occurs: a character which, it will be remembered, was also stamped on the Mexican metallic currency."[1125]

CHAPTER XXV.

BUILDINGS, MEDICINE, BURIAL, PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES, AND CHARACTER OF THE MAYAS.

Scanty Information given by the Early Voyagers—Private Houses of the Mayas—Interior Arrangement, Decoration, and Furniture—Maya Cities—Description of Utatlan—Patinamit, the Cakchiquel Capital—Cities of Nicaragua—Maya Roads—Temples at Chichen Itza and Cozumel—Temples of Nicaragua and Guatemala—Diseases of the Mayas—Medicines used—Treatment of the Sick—Propitiatory Offerings and Vows—Superstitions—Dreams—Omens—Witchcraft—Snake-Charmers—Funeral Rites and Ceremonies—Physical peculiarities—Character.

A full résumé of the principles of Maya architecture, gathered from observations of ruins made by modern travelers, will be given in another part of this work.[1126] I shall, therefore, without regard to the inevitable scantiness and unsatisfactory nature of such information, confine myself in this chapter to the descriptions furnished by the old writers, who saw the houses and towns while they were occupied by those who built them and the temples before they became ruins, or at least were contemporaries of such observers.

The accounts given of the dwellings of the Mayas are very meagre. The early voyagers on the coast of Yucatan, such as Grijalva and Córdova, saw well-built houses of stone and lime, with sloping roofs thatched with straw or reeds; or, in some instances, with slates of stone;[1127] but this is all they tell us, and, indeed, they had little opportunity for close examination; the natives of those parts were fierce and warlike, and little disposed to submit to invasion, so that the handful of adventurers had barely time to look hastily about them after effecting a landing before they were driven back wounded to their boats. Here, as elsewhere, too, the temples and larger buildings naturally attracted their sole attention, both because of their strangeness and of the treasures which they were supposed to or did contain. These men were soldiers, gold-hunters; they did not travel leisurely; they had no time to examine the architecture of private dwellings; they risked and lost their lives for other purposes. Bishop Landa, however, has something to say on the subject of Maya dwellings. The roof, he says, was covered with straw, which they had in great abundance, or with palm-leaves, which answered the purpose admirably. A considerable pitch was given to the roof, that the rain might run off easily. The house was divided in its length, that is, from side to side, by a wall, in which several doorways were left as a means of communication with the back room where they slept. The front room where guests were received was carefully whitewashed, or in the houses of nobles, painted in various colors or designs; it had no door but was open all the length of the front of the house, and was sheltered from sun and rain by the eaves which usually descended very low.[1128] There was always a doorway in the rear for the use of all the inmates. The fact of there being no doors made it a point of honor among them not to rob or injure each other's houses. The poor people built the houses of the rich.[1129] A new dwelling could not be occupied until it had been formally blessed and purged of the evil spirit.[1130]

NICARAGUAN DWELLINGS.

In Nicaragua, the dwellings were mostly made of canes, and thatched with straw. In the large cities the houses of the nobles were built upon platforms several feet in height, but in the smaller towns the residences of all classes were of the same construction, except that those of the chiefs were larger and more commodious. Some, however, appear to have been built of stone.[1131] Of the dwellings in Guatemala, still less is said. Villagutierre mentions a Lacandone village in which were one hundred and three houses with sloping thatched roofs, supported upon stout posts. The front of each house was open, but the back and sides were closed with a strong stockade. The interior was divided into several apartments. Cogolludo says that their houses were covered with plaster, like those of Yucatan.[1132]

The house, or rather shed, near the Gulf of Dulce, in which Cortés stayed, had no walls, the roof resting upon posts.[1133] In other parts of Guatemala he saw 'large houses with thatched roofs.'[1134] Gage does not give a glowing account of their dwellings. "Their houses," he writes, "are but poor thatched Cottages, without any upper rooms, but commonly one or two only rooms below, in the one they dress their meat in the middle of it, making a compass for fire, with two or three stones, without any other chimney to convey the smoak away, which spreading it self about the room, filleth the thatch and the rafters so with sut, that all the room seemeth to be a chimney. The next unto it, is not free from smoak and blackness, where sometimes are four or five beds according to the family. The poorer sort have but one room, where they eat, dress their meat and sleep."[1135] Las Casas tells us that when the Guatemalans built a new house they were careful to dedicate an apartment to the worship of the household gods; there they burned incense and offered domestic sacrifices upon an altar erected for the purpose.[1136]

HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE.

Little is said about the interior appointment and decoration of dwellings. Landa mentions that in Yucatan they used bedsteads made of cane,[1137] and the same is said of Nicaragua by Oviedo, who adds that they used a small four-legged bench of fine wood for a pillow.[1138] In Guatemala, there was in each room a sort of bedstead large enough to accommodate four grown persons, and other small ones for the children.[1139] Brasseur de Bourbourg gives a description of gorgeous furniture used in the houses of the wealthy in Yucatan, but unfortunately the learned Abbé has for his only authority on this point the somewhat apocryphal Ordoñez' MS. The stools, he writes, on which they seated themselves cross-legged after the Oriental fashion, were of wood and precious metals, and were often made in the shape of some animal or bird; they were covered with deer-skins, tanned with great care, and embroidered with gold and precious stones. The interior-walls were sometimes hung with similar skins, though they were more frequently decorated with paintings on a red or blue ground. Curtains of finest texture and most brilliant colors fell over the doorways, and the stucco floors were covered with mats made of exquisite workmanship. Rich hued cloths covered the tables. The plate would have done honor to a Persian satrap. Graceful vases of chased gold, alabaster or agate, worked with exquisite art, delicate painted pottery, excelling that of Etruria, candelabra for the great odorous pine torches, metal braziers diffusing sweet perfumes, a multitude of petits riens, such as little bells and grotesquely shaped whistles for summoning attendants, in fact all the luxuries which are the result of an advanced civilization, were, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, to be found in the houses of the Maya nobility.[1140]

MAYA FORTIFICATIONS.

Of the interior arrangement of the Yucatec towns we are told nothing except that the temples, palaces, and houses of the nobility were in the centre, with the dwellings of the common people grouped about them, and that the streets were well kept.[1141] Some of them must, however, have been very large and have contained fine buildings. During Córdova's voyage on the coast of Yucatan a city was seen which, says Peter Martyr, "for the hugenesse thereof they call Cayrus, of Cayrus the Metropolis of Ægipt: where they find turreted houses, stately tēples, wel paued wayes & streets where marts and faires for trade of merchandise were kept."[1142] During Grijalva's voyage a city, the same one perhaps, was seen, which Diaz, the chaplain of the expedition, says was as 'large as the city of Seville.'[1143] None of the Yucatec cities appear to have been located with any view to defense, or to to have been provided with fortifications of any description.[1144] The towns of Guatemala, on the other hand, were very strongly fortified, both artificially and by the site selected. Juarros thus describes the city of Utatlan in Guatemala: "it was surrounded by a deep ravine that formed a natural fosse, leaving only two very narrow roads as entrances to the city, both of which were so well defended by the castle of Resguardo, as to render it impregnable. The centre of the city was occupied by the royal palace, which was surrounded by the houses of the nobility; the extremities were inhabited by the plebeians. The streets were very narrow, but the place was so populous, as to enable the king to draw from it alone, no less than 72,000 combatants, to oppose the progress of the Spaniards. It contained many very sumptuous edifices, the most superb of them was a seminary, where between 5 and 6000 children were educated; they were all maintained and provided for at the charge of the royal treasury; their instruction was superintended by 70 masters and professors. The castle of the Atalaya was a remarkable structure, which being raised four stories high, was capable of furnishing quarters for a very strong garrison. The castle of Resguardo was not inferior to the other; it extended 188 paces in front, 230 in depth, and was 5 stories high. The grand alcazar, or palace of the kings of Quiché, surpassed every other edifice, and in the opinion of Torquemada, it could compete in opulence with that of Montezuma in Mexico, or that of the Incas in Cuzco. The front of this building extended from east to west 376 geometrical paces, and in depth 728; it was constructed of hewn stone of different colors; its form was elegant, and altogether most magnificent; there were 6 principal divisions, the first contained lodgings for a numerous troop of lancers, archers, and other well disciplined troops, constituting the royal body guard; the second was destined to the accommodation of the princes, and relations of the king, who dwelt in it, and were served with regal splendour, as long as they remained unmarried; the third was appropriated to the use of the king, and contained distinct suits of apartments, for the mornings, evenings, and nights. In one of the saloons stood the throne, under four canopies of plumage, the ascent to it was by several steps; in this part of the palace were, the treasury, the tribunals of the judges, the armory, the gardens, aviaries, and menageries, with all the requisite offices appending to each department. The 4th and 5th divisions were occupied by the queens and royal concubines; they were necessarily of great extent, from the immense number of apartments requisite for the accommodation of so many females, who were all maintained in a style of sumptuous magnificence, gardens for their recreation, baths, and proper places for breeding geese, that were kept for the sole purpose of furnishing feathers, with which hangings, coverings, and other similar ornamental articles, were made. Contiguous to this division was the sixth and last; this was the residence of the king's daughters and other females of the blood royal, where they were educated and attended in a manner suitable to their rank."[1145]

Patinamit, the Cakchiquel capital, was nearly three leagues in circumference. It was situated upon a plateau surrounded by deep ravines which could be crossed at only one point by a narrow causeway which terminated in two gates of stone, one on the outside and the other on the inside of the thick wall of the city. The streets were broad and straight, and crossed each other at right angles. The town was divided from north to south into two parts by a ditch nine feet deep, with a wall of masonry about three feet high on each side. This ditch served to divide the nobles from the commoners, the former class living in the eastern section, and the latter in the western.[1146]

Peter Martyr says of the cities of Nicaragua: "Large and great streetes guarde the frontes of the Kinges courts, according to the disposition and greatnes of their village or towne. If the town consist of many houses, they haue also little ones, in which, the trading neighbours distant from the Court may meete together. The chiefe noble mens houses compasse and inclose the kinges streete on euery side: in the middle site whereof one is erected which the Goldesmithes inhabite."[1147]

The Mayas constructed excellent and desirable roads all over the face of the country. The most remarkable of these were the great highways used by the pilgrims visiting the sacred island of Cozumel; these roads, four in number, traversed the peninsula in different directions, and finally met at a point upon the coast opposite the island.[1148] Diego de Godoi, in a letter to Cortés, states that he and his party came to a place in the mountains of Chiapas, where the smooth and slippery rock sloped down to the edge of a precipice, and which would have been quite impassable had not the Indians made a road with branches and trunks of trees. On the side of the precipice they erected a strong wooden railing, and then made all level with earth.[1149]

MAYA TEMPLES.

Of the Maya temples very little is said. There was one at Chichen Itza which had four great staircases, each being thirty-three feet wide and having ninety-one steps, very difficult of ascent. The steps were of the same height and width as ours. On both sides of each stairway was a low balustrade, two feet wide, made of good stone, like the rest of the building. The edifice was not sharp-cornered, because from the ground upward between the balustrades the cubic blocks were rounded, ascending by degrees and elegantly narrowing the building. There was at the foot of each balustrade a fierce serpent's head very strangely worked. On the top of the edifice there was a platform, on which stood a building forty-three feet by forty-nine feet, and about twenty feet high, having only a single doorway in the centre of each front. The doorways on the east, west and south, opened into a corridor six feet wide, which extended without partition walls round the three corresponding sides of the edifice; the northern doorway gave access to a corridor forty feet long and six and a third feet wide. Through the centre of the rear wall of this corridor a doorway opened into a room twelve feet nine inches by nineteen feet eight inches, and seventeen feet high; its ceiling was formed by two transverse arches supported by immense carved beams of zapote-wood, stretched across the room and resting, each at its centre, on two square pillars.[1150] The island of Cozumel was especially devoted to religious observances, and was annually visited by great numbers of pilgrims; there were therefore more religious edifices here than elsewhere. Among them is mentioned a square tower, with four windows, and hollow at the top; at the back was a room in which the sacred implements were kept; it was surrounded by an enclosure, in the middle of which stood a cross nine feet high, representing the God of rain.[1151] Other temples so closely resembled those of Mexico as to need no further description here.[1152]

NICARAGUAN TEMPLES.

The temples of Nicaragua were built of wood and thatched; they contained many low, dark rooms, where the idols were kept and the religious rites performed. Before each temple was a pyramidal mound, on the flat top of which the sacrifices were made in the presence of the whole people.[1153]

In Guatemala, Cortés saw temples like those of Mexico.[1154] The temple of Tohil, at Utatlan, was, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, a conical edifice, having in front a very steep stairway; at the summit was a platform of considerable size upon which stood a very high chapel, built of hewn stone, and roofed with precious wood. The walls were covered within and without with a very fine and durable stucco. Upon a throne of gold, enriched with precious stones, was seated the image of the god.[1155]

The particular diseases to which the Mayas were most subject are not enumerated, but there is no reason to doubt that they suffered from the same maladies as their neighbors the Nahuas. They seem to have been greatly afflicted with various forms of syphilis,[1156] and in winter, with catarrh and fever.[1157] They were much troubled, also, with epidemics, which not unfrequently swept the country with great destruction.[1158]

TREATMENT OF THE SICK.

Medicinal practitioners were numerous. Their medicines, which were mostly furnished by the vegetable kingdom, were administered in the usual forms,[1159] and their treatment of patients involved the customary mummeries. Clysters were much used.[1160] For syphilis they used a decoction of a wood called guayacan, which grew most plentifully in the province of Nagrando in Nicaragua.[1161] For rheumatism, coughs, colds, and other complaints of a kindred nature, they used various herbs, among them tobacco,[1162] and a kind of dough made of 'stinking poisonous worms.'[1163] Sores arising from natural causes they washed in a decoction of an herb called coygaraca, or poulticed it with the mashed leaves of another named mozot.[1164] Wounds taken in battle they always treated with external applications.[1165] Cacao, after the oil had been extracted was considered to be a sure preventive against poison.[1166]

When a rich man or a noble fell sick a messenger was dispatched with gifts to the doctor, who came at once and staid by his patient until he either got well or died. If the sickness was not serious the physician merely applied the usual remedies, but it was thought that a severe illness could only be brought on by some crime committed and unconfessed. In such cases, therefore, the doctor insisted upon the sick man making a clean breast of it, and confessing such sin even though it had been committed twenty years before. This done, the physician cast lots to see what sacrifices ought to be made, and whatever he determined upon was always given even though it amounted to the whole of the patient's fortune.[1167] In Yucatan the practitioner sometimes drew blood from those parts of the patient's body in which the malady lay.[1168] Lizana mentions a temple at Izamal to which the sick were carried that they might be healed miraculously.[1169] In Guatemala, as elsewhere, propitiatory offerings of birds and animals were made in ordinary cases of sickness, but if the patient was wealthy and dangerously ill he would sometimes strive to appease the anger of the gods and atone for the sins which he was supposed to have committed by sacrificing male or female slaves, or, in extraordinary cases, when the sick man was a prince or a great noble, he would even vow to sacrifice a son or a daughter in the event of his recovery; and although the scapegoat was generally chosen from among his children by female slaves, yet so fearful of death, so fond of life were they, that there were not wanting instances when legitimate children, and even only sons were sacrificed. And it is said, moreover, that they were inexorable as Jephthah in the performance of such vows, for it was held to be a great sin to be false to a bargain made with the gods.[1170]

PRACTICE OF SORCERY.

The Mayas, like the Nahuas, were grossly superstitious. They believed implicitly in the fulfillment of dreams, the influence of omens, and the power of witches and wizards. No important matter was undertaken until its success had been foretold and a lucky day determined by the flight of a bird or some similar omen. Whether the non-fulfilment of the prediction was provided against by a double entendre, after the manner of the sibyls, we are not told. The cries or appearance of certain birds and animals were thought to presage harm to those who heard or saw them.[1171] They as firmly believed and were as well versed in the black art as their European brethren of a hundred years later, and they appear to have had the same enlightened horror of the arts of gramarye, for in Guatemala, at least, they burned witches and wizards without mercy. They had among them, they said, sorcerers who could metamorphose themselves into dogs, pigs, and other animals, and whose glance was death to their victims. Others there were who could by magic cause a rose to bloom at will, and could bring whomsoever they wished under their control by simply giving him the flower to smell. Unfaithful wives, too, would often bewitch their husbands that their acts of infidelity might not be discovered.[1172] All these things are gravely recounted by the old chroniclers, not as matters unworthy of credence, but as deeds done at the instigation of the devil to the utter damnation of the benighted heathen. Cogolludo, for instance, speaking of the performances of a snake-charmer, says that the magician took up the reptile in his bare hands, as he did so using certain mystic words, which he, Cogolludo, wrote down at the time, but finding afterwards that they invoked the devil, he did not see fit to reproduce them in his work. The same writer further relates that upon another occasion a diviner cast lots, according to custom, with a number of grains of corn, to find out which direction a strayed child had taken. The child was eventually found upon the road indicated, and the narrator subsequently endeavored to discover whether the devil had been invoked or not, but the magician was a poor simple fool, and could not tell him.[1173] Nor does there seem to have been any great difference between the credulity and superstition of conquerors and conquered in other respects. The Spanish Fathers, if we may judge from their writings, believed in the Aztec deities as firmly as the natives; the only difference seems to have been that the former looked upon them as devils and the latter as gods. When the Spaniards took notes in writing of what they saw, the Costa Ricans thought they were working out some magic spell; when the Costa Ricans cast incense towards the invaders telling them to leave the country or die,[1174] the Spaniards swore that the devil was in it, and crossed themselves as a counter-spell.

The Yucatecs observed a curious custom during an eclipse of the moon. At such times they imagined that the moon was asleep, or that she was stung and wounded by ants. They therefore beat their dogs to make them howl, and made a great racket by striking with sticks upon doors and benches; what they hoped to accomplish by this, we are not told.[1175]

FUNERAL RITES.

The Mayas disposed of the bodies of their dead by both burial and cremation. The former, however, appears to have been the most usual way. In Vera Paz, and probably in the whole of Guatemala, the body was placed in the grave in a sitting posture, with the knees drawn up to the face. The greater part of the dead man's property was buried with him, and various kinds of food and drink were placed in the grave that the spirit might want for nothing on its way to shadow-land.[1176] Just before death took place, the nearest relation, or the most intimate friend of the dying man, placed between his lips a valuable stone, which was supposed to receive the soul as soon as it passed from the body. As soon as he was dead, the same person removed the stone and gently rubbed the face of the deceased with it. This office was held to be a very important one, and the person who performed it preserved the stone with great reverence. When the lord of a province died, messengers were sent to the neighboring provinces to invite the other princes to be present at the funeral. While awaiting their arrival the body was placed in a sitting posture, in the manner in which it was afterwards to be interred,[1177] and clothed in a great quantity of rich clothing.[1178] On the day of the funeral the great lords who had come to attend the ceremony, brought precious gifts and ornaments, and placed them by the side of or on the person of the corpse. Each provided also a male or female slave, or both, to be sacrificed over the grave of the deceased. The body was then placed in a large stone chest,[1179] and borne with great solemnity to its last resting-place, which was generally situated on the top of a hill. The coffin having been lowered into the grave with its ornaments, the doomed slaves were immolated, and also cast in along with the implements which they had used in life, that they might follow their accustomed pursuits in the service of their new master in the other world. Finally, the grave was filled up, a mound raised over it, and a stone altar erected above all, upon which incense was burned and sacrifices were made in memory of the deceased. The common people did not use coffins, but placed the body in a sitting posture and wrapped up in many cloths, in an excavation made in the side of the grave, burying with it many jars, pans, and implements. They raised a mound over the grave of a height in proportion to the rank of the defunct.[1180]

Only the poorer classes of the Yucatecs buried their dead. These placed corn in the mouth of the corpse, together with some money as ferriage for the Maya Charon. The body was interred either in the house or close to it. Some idols were thrown into the grave before it was filled up. The house was then forsaken by its inmates, for they greatly feared the dead.[1181] The books of a priest were buried with him, as were likewise the charms of a sorcerer.[1182] The Itzas buried their dead in the fields, in their every-day clothes. On the graves of the males they left such implements as men used, on those of the females they placed grinding-stones, pans, and other utensils used by the women.[1183] In Nicaragua, property was buried with the possessor if he or she had no children; if the contrary was the case, it was divided among the heirs. Nicaraguan parents shrouded their children in cloths, and buried them before the doors of their dwellings.[1184] Among the Pipiles the dead were interred in the house they had lived in, along with all their property. A deceased high-priest was buried, clad in the robes and ornaments appertaining to his office, in a sepulchre or vault in his own palace, and the people mourned and fasted fifteen days.[1185]

Cremation or partial cremation seems to have been reserved for the higher classes. In Yucatan, an image of the dead person was made, of wood for a king, of clay for a noble. The back part of the head of this image was hollowed out, and a portion of the body having been burned, the ashes were placed in this hollow, which was covered with the skin of the occiput of the corpse. The image was then placed in the temple, among the idols, and was much reverenced, incense being burned before it, almost as though it had been a god. The remainder of the body was buried with great solemnity. When an ancient Cocome king died, his head was cut off and boiled. The flesh was then stripped off, and the skull cut in two crosswise. On the front part of the skull, which included the lower jaw and teeth, an exact likeness of the dead man was molded in some plastic substance. This was placed among the statues of the gods, and each day edibles of various kinds were placed before it, that the spirit might want for nothing in the other life, which, by the way, must have been a poor one to need such terrestrial aliment.[1186] When a great lord died in Nicaragua, the body was burned along with a great number of feathers and ornaments of different kinds, and the ashes were placed in an urn, which was buried in front of the palace of the deceased. As usual, the spirit must be supplied with food, which was tied to the body before cremation.[1187]

MOURNING FOR THE DEAD.

According to the information we have on the subject, the mourning customs of the Mayas appear to have been pretty much the same everywhere. For the death of a chief or any of his family the Pipiles lamented for four days, silently by day, and with loud cries by night. At dawn on the fifth day the high-priest publicly forbade the people to make any further demonstration of sorrow, saying that the soul of the departed was now with the gods. The Guatemalan widower dyed his body yellow, for which reason he was called malcam. Mothers who lost a sucking child, withheld their milk from all other infants for four days, lest the spirit of the dead babe should be offended.[1188]

The Mayas, like the Nahuas, were mostly well-made, tall, strong, and hardy. Their complexion was tawny. The women were passably good-looking, some of them, it is said, quite pretty, and seem to have been somewhat fairer-skinned than the men. What the features of the Mayas were like, can only be conjectured. Their sculpture would indicate that a large hooked nose and a retreating forehead, if not usual, were at least regarded with favor, and we know that head-flattening was almost universal among them. Beards were not worn, and the Yucatec mothers burned the faces of their children with hot cloths to prevent the growth of hair. In Landa's time some of the natives allowed their beard to grow, but, says the worthy bishop, it came out as rough as hog's bristles. In Nicaragua it would seem that they did not even understand what a beard was; witness the following 'pretie policy' of Ægidius Gonsalus: "All the Barbarians of those Nations are beardlesse, and are terribly afraide, and fearefull of bearded men: and therefore of 25. beardlesse youthes by reason of their tender yeres, Ægidius made bearded men with the powlinges of their heades, the haire being orderly composed, to the end, that the number of bearded men might appeare the more, to terrifie them if they should be assailed by warre, as afterwarde it fell out."[1189] Squinting eyes were, as I have said before, thought beautiful in Yucatan.[1190]

CHARACTER OF THE MAYAS.

Of all the Maya nations, the Yucatecs bear the best character. The men were generous, polite, honest, truthful, peaceable, brave, ingenious, and particularly hospitable, though, on the other hand, they were great drunkards, and very loose in their morals. The women were modest, very industrious, excellent housewives, and careful mothers, but, though generally of a gentle disposition, they were excessively jealous of their marital rights; indeed, Bishop Landa tells us that upon the barest suspicion of infidelity on the part of their husbands they became perfect furies, and would even beat their unfaithful one.[1191] The Guatemalans are spoken of as having been exceedingly warlike and valorous, but withal very simple in their tastes and manner of life.[1192] Arricivita calls the Lacandones thieves, assassins, cannibals, bloody-minded men, who received the missionaries with great violence.[1193] The fact that the Lacandones strove to repel invasion, without intuitively knowing that the invaders were missionaries, may have helped the worthy padre to come to this decision, however. The Nicaraguans were warlike and brave, but at the same time false, cunning, and deceitful. Their resolute hatred of the whites was so great that it is said that for two years they abstained from their wives rather than beget slaves for their conquerors.[1194]

Next after the collecting of facts in any one direction comes their comparison with other ascertained facts of the same category, by which means fragments of knowledge coalesce and unfold into science. This fascinating study, however, is no part of my plan. If in the foregoing pages I have succeeded in collecting and classifying materials in such a manner that others may, with comparative ease and certainty, place the multitudinous nations of these Pacific States in all their shades of savagery and progress side by side with the savagisms and civilizations of other ages and nations, my work thus far is accomplished. But what a flood of thought, of speculation and imagery rushes in upon the mind at the bare mention of such a study! Isolated, without the stimulus of a Mediterranean commerce, hidden in umbrageous darkness, walled in by malarious borders, and surrounded by wild barbaric hordes, whatever its origin, indigenous or foreign, there was found on Mexican and Central American table-lands an unfolding humanity, unique and individual, yet strikingly similar to human unfoldings under like conditions elsewhere. Europeans, regarding the culture of the conquered race first as diabolical and then contemptible, have not to this day derived that benefit from it that they might have done. It is not necessary that American civilization should be as far advanced as European, to make a perfect knowledge of the former as essential in the study of mankind as a knowledge of the latter; nor have I any disposition to advance a claim for the equality of American aboriginal culture with European, or to make of it other than what it is. As in a work of art, it is not a succession of sharply defined and decided colors, but a happy blending of light and shade, that makes the picture pleasing, so in the grand and gorgeous perspective of human progress the intermediate stages are as necessary to completeness as the dark spectrum of savagism or the brilliant glow of the most advanced culture.

CONCLUSION.

This, however, I may safely claim; if the preceding pages inform us aright, then were the Nahuas, the Mayas, and the subordinate and lesser civilizations surrounding these, but little lower than the contemporaneous civilizations of Europe and Asia, and not nearly so low as we have hitherto been led to suppose. Whatever their exact status in the world of nations—and that this volume gives in esse and not in posse—they are surely entitled to their place, and a clear and comprehensive delineation of their character and condition fills a gap in the history of humanity. As in every individual, so in every people, there is something different from what may be found in any other people; something better and something worse. One civilization teaches another; if the superior teaches most, the inferior nevertheless teaches. It is by the mutual action and reaction of mind upon mind and nation upon nation that the world of intellect is forced to develop. Taking in at one view the vast range of humanity portrayed in this volume and the preceding, with all its infinite variety traced on a background of infinite unity, individuality not more clearly evidenced than a heart and mind and soul relationship to humanity everywhere, the wide differences in intelligence and culture shaded and toned down into a homogeneous whole, we can but arrive at our former conclusion, that civilization is an unexplained phenomenon whose study allures the thoughtful and yields results pregnant with the welfare of mankind.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME

FOOTNOTES