CHAPTER XVII.

IZAMAL EN ROUTE FOR CHICHEN.

Expedition to Izamal and Chichen-Itza—Brigands—Cacalchen—Market Place—Great Pyramid—Small Pyramid and Colossal Decorative Figures—Cemented Roads—The Convent of the Virgin at Izamal—A Precarious Telegraph—Tunkas—Garrison—Quintana-Roo—An Old Acquaintance—Citas—A Fortified Church—Troops—Opening a Path—Native Entertainment—Arrival at Pisté.

Our expedition to Izamal and Chichen was a somewhat serious undertaking: we required a large number of hands for our work in mid-forest; we should have to camp out for three weeks at least, removed from all human habitation; finally a military escort, fifty strong, was deemed necessary to secure us against a sudden attack from the revolted natives, respecting whom alarming rumours of pillaging were afloat. Our heavy baggage had been sent on, and armed with twelve-shot Winchesters, and provided with letters from the Governor for the officers in command of the district garrisons which were to supply the escort, we started on January 4th, travelling over a monotonous, dusty, abominable road. Our drivers, however, were such good whips, that we went over the distance in no time.

There is hardly a soul to be met on the road, save at rare intervals some carts loaded with henequen; some natives returning from the next village, the women veiling their faces or turning their backs upon us at our approach; now a company of reserve on their way to the front or homeward-bound, for the borders are strictly guarded against a coup de main from the revolted natives.

We stop at Cacalchen; for our early start, the crisp morning air, and the jolting of the road, have sharpened our appetites. We breakfast under a shaded verandah opening into a central court planted with cocoa-trees. We are waited upon by a very pretty Meztiza, whose fair complexion, rosy mouth, large black eyes, and exquisite figure, are shown to the utmost advantage in her transparent uipil, doing her work with simple, quiet grace, while her presence and her bewitching smile seem to light up the whole place. What dish would not have tasted sweet, offered by her shapely hands?

Izamal, where we arrive at three o’clock, is an important place numbering some five or six thousand souls. It looks beautifully white, for it has just undergone its annual cleaning, when every building is whitewashed in honour of the patron saint.

It has been urged by some writers that the civilisation of Yucatan and Tabasco belonged to a remote past; but these writers often speak from mere hearsay, accepting everything without the slightest criticism; their accounts, however valuable, are filled with uncertainties, are often obscure and contradictory, so that they may be made to square with the idiosyncrasy of all or any particular man. Consequently the difficulties in arriving at the truth are almost insuperable, unless it is one who has visited the regions he writes upon, studied the monuments, collated ethnographical documents, compared the various manners and customs, fitting himself to catch a word or a sentence which from time to time shoots across the darkness of their undigested narratives, and correcting with their help errors with which they abound. But the general neglect by ancient writers of monuments which everywhere met their gaze makes me unjust, while our gratitude is due to such industrious writers as Bernal Diaz, Sahagun, Torquemada, and many more.

Izamal, like many other places in the peninsula, was built on the site of an Indian city; here, as elsewhere, the chief care of the Spaniards was to destroy alike palaces, temples, and written documents, bidding the natives forget their ancient traditions. Landa, who wrote forty-five years after the Conquest (1566), speaks of the edifices at Izamal as twelve in number, adding that the founders were unknown; whilst Lizana, sixty years later (1626), with fewer opportunities for collecting legends, gives their history in full, together with the Indian names and their signification; but unfortunately in his time the monuments had dwindled down to five.

Landa, as we have remarked, says these monuments are of unknown origin, yet in another place he affirms they are the work of the existing race, since he writes: “Among the remains of monuments which were destroyed are found fragments of human figures and other decorations, such as the natives make even now with very hard cement.” He further mentions having found in a tomb “stone ornaments artistically wrought, similar to the currency in present use among the natives.”

At Merida he demolished an Indian temple, which crowned the upper part of the great mound, giving a ground plan and describing it as “built with square blocks, beautifully carved, and of such height as to produce a feeling of awe in the beholder” (its real height is 80 feet); thus proving the monument to have been entire when he wrote. Nevertheless it is from an assertion such as this that judgment has been passed on the monuments, and from documents like the Perez manuscript that a chronology has been deduced. The monuments are imposing, no doubt, to judge from the few that remain; but we should err if, following Landa and others, we pronounced them “colossal, gigantic, magnificent, to which nothing in the world can be compared.”

The whole extent of the Yucatec monuments would not represent in cubic metres the works achieved in Paris during the last twenty-five years; consequently they should be viewed as the unpretending outcome of a semi-civilised people, and this estimate need not lessen their interest, while the mysterious silence which surrounds them forms a void in the history of the human race.

The great mound to the north is called Kinich-Kakmó, “The Sun’s face with fiery rays,” from an idol which stood in the temple crowning its summit. The monument consists of two parts: the basement, nearly 650 feet, surmounted by an immense platform, and the small pyramid to the north. “Great veneration was felt for the idol or deity of Kinich-Kakmó, and in times of public calamity, the entire population flocked to this shrine with peace-offerings, when at mid-day a fire descended and consumed the sacrifice, in the presence of the assembled multitude. Then the officiating priest notified the will of the deity whether for good or for evil, and prophesied more or less the secret longings of their hearts: but as they could not always guess aright, it not unfrequently happened that their expectations were not fulfilled.”114

Facing this to the south was another great mound, known as Ppapp-Hol-Chac, “the House of Heads and Lightning,” the priest’s house, presumably similar to those still standing in various towns of Yucatan. The upper portion of this pyramid was levelled down, and on its lower platform was erected the Franciscan church and convent.

The third pyramid to the east supported a temple dedicated to Izamat-Ul, Izamna, or Zamna, the great founder of the ancient Maya empire. “To him were brought,” says Lizana, “the sick, the halt, and the dead, and he healed and restored them all to life by the touch of his hand;” hence the appellation Kab-Ul, the Miraculous Hand, applied to him.115 He is often represented by a hand only, which recalled him to the memory of his worshippers. His other names are the Strong, the Mighty Hand, the Long-handed Chief, who wrote the code of the Toltecs, and as such has been identified with Quetzalcoatl, with whom he shared the government; he conducting the civil power, whilst Quetzalcoatl, the virgin-born deity, looked after the spiritual.116

“The temple in which these miracles were performed, was much frequented; for this reason four good roads had been constructed, leading to Guatemala, Chiapas, and Tabasco. Traces of them can even now be seen in various places.”117 We also have found marks of a cemented road, from Izamal to the sea facing the island of Cozumel.

Lastly the fourth pyramid to the west, which is shown in our cut of the market-place, had on its summit the palace of Hunpictok, “the commander-in-chief of eight thousand flints.” On its side near the basement, consisting of stones laid without mortar, and rounded off at the corners like those of the Aké pyramid, stood the gigantic face reproduced by Stephens, but which has since disappeared. This head is so interesting that I cannot deprive the reader of the description given by the American traveller: “It is 7 feet 8 inches high. The features were first rudely formed by small rough stones, fixed in the side of the mound by means of mortar, and afterwards perfected with stucco so hard that it has successfully resisted the action of air and water for centuries.”118 The stone forming the chin alone measures 1 foot 6 inches; the figure has enormous moustachios, and a resemblance may be traced to the gigantic faces in stone at Copan, where the plaster has crumbled away and left the stone bare. The resemblance to the Aké pyramids is remarkable and leads us to conclude that the latter were decorated in the same manner. Here also on the east side is found the figure shown in our cut, from which may be traced the builder’s mode of working.

This colossal head is 13 feet high; the eyes, nose, and under-lip were first formed by rough stones coated over with mortar; the ornaments to the right and left were obtained by the same means; the latter are the best preserved, while double spirals, symbols of wind or speech, may be seen, similar to those in Mexico, at Palenque and Chichen-Itza. On the western side of this pyramid, which has been cleared towards the basement, we discovered one of the finest bas-reliefs it has been our fortune to see in Yucatan. Its principal subject is a crouching tiger with a human head and retreating forehead, less exaggerated than those at Palenque, beautifully moulded, and reminding us of the orders of knighthood in which the tiger had the pre-eminence; nor could a better device be imagined for the house of the commander-in-chief at Izamal. To conclude, these documents, which would be a dead letter to one who had not followed the various migrations from north to south, enable us to reconstruct here also a Toltec centre. It may be noted that if numerous monuments are still found in Yucatan, their existence is due to the small number of Spaniards settled in these regions at the time of the Conquest, and more especially to their being at a distance from the centres occupied by the conquerors.

Through the whole length and breadth of Anahuac both monuments and cities have entirely disappeared; for the Spaniards were not satisfied with destroying all that reminded them of a former polity, they were also careful to infuse into their young disciples a profound horror for their former religion, while they trained children to report any word or deed they observed in their parents or priests which savoured of their ancient customs. Thanks to these measures, everything that could recall the past to the rising generation was soon blotted out from the Indian mind. But however dilapidated the monuments we observe at Izamal, they prove that there was here a great population at the time of the Conquest; and this being admitted, it follows that their destruction is comparatively recent, due mainly to civil wars, dating a few years before the arrival of the Spaniards.

As for the Perez manuscript, which was written by a native from memory long after the Conquest, purporting to be the faithful rendering of legends handed down from mouth to mouth, in a particular family, it adds nothing to our knowledge, throws no light on the question which perplexes us. The narrative begins from 144 A.D., and goes on to 1560 A.D.; but is it possible to admit seriously the authority of an account so obtained, extending over so many centuries? At the time of its publication all the natives had preserved was a dubious legend; and traditions fared hardly better with the caciques and nobles fallen from their high estate, than they did with the common people, for “the former were often reduced,” says Cogolludo, “to the extreme of poverty; and forty years after the Conquest (1582) the royal descendants of Tutulxiu, and the princely house of Mayapan, were obliged to work for their living like the humblest amongst their ancient subjects.”119

This picture, sad as it is, became even worse a few years later, when the conquerors had reduced the whole population to a state of hard bondage. The only difference of any importance between the Perez manuscript and the narratives of Clavigero, Veytia, and Ixtlilxochitl, is in the chronology, which is far too absurd for any serious consideration, for while the latter gives the seventh century as the date of the arrival of the Toltecs at Tula, and their subsequent migration in Central America at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth century; with the former they leave Tula in 144 A.D., and arrive in Yucatan in 217 A.D., nearly five hundred years before the generally accepted date of their arrival at Tula. Moreover he calls Yucatan an island, although the new-comers had penetrated the country through Tabasco and the south without crossing the sea, clearly indicating that it was a peninsula.

The church of Izamal is very fine, but its chief attraction in the eyes of the natives is a statue of the Virgin. Its story runs thus:

A celebrated artist of Guatemala received an order from the towns of Izamal and Merida respectively, for two statues of the Virgin; in their transit, which took place in the rainy season, neither the case containing the images, nor the men conveying them, got a drop of rain. Valladolid, jealous that so small a place as Izamal should possess this fine statue, came in great force and carried it off, but the image proved stronger than all those men put together, for it became so heavy that it had to be abandoned at the outskirts of the little town. The miracle was followed by a great many more, so that the Izamal Virgin was soon the most celebrated in the peninsula, attracting as many pilgrims as did formerly Kab-Ul, of the Miraculous Hand.

We set off at five in the morning for Valladolid, to avoid the overpowering heat of the day; indeed, all traffic between May and September in these tropical regions is done by night, for the greater comfort of both man and beast. We watch the sun rise in the east, but far from enlivening the scene, it seems only to bring out in stronger relief the desolateness of the landscape. A few carts with natives on their way home shivering with the night cold, a wretched tumbledown hamlet called Stilipech, is all we notice on our route; and indeed we have much to do with keeping our seats in these volan cochés, which rattle along at so furious a pace on these atrocious roads, as to make us wonder what power keeps them from being smashed to pieces.

I had had suspicion during my stay at Merida as to Yucatan having any postal or telegraphic administration, for a number of my telegrams were left unanswered, and my inquiries were met with the evasive reply that the line was not in good order. That such was the case I could now plainly see for myself. A wire which skirted the wood had indeed been laid, but having no poles or insulators it trusted to fate to get fixed now and again to a branch or a tree, which, bending with the breeze, allowed it to trail among the rocks or get entangled in the brambles. Wonderful to relate, a message sometimes reached its destination; a great step forward as compared to Tabasco, where no sooner is the wire laid than it is purloined by the inhabitants, who, it seems, find it useful. But our volan suddenly stops, and the driver draws our attention to an important cenoté known as Xcolac, shaded by beautiful trees and full of fish. On its banks a number of Indians are filling their gourds to the brim, and with simple grace offer us a drink of its cool, fresh pure water. It argues strange apathy in the natives that in a country where water is so scarce, a hamlet or hacienda should not have been erected around it. We re-enter our cochés and reach Tumbras, formerly a flourishing place, about eleven o’clock; it was burnt down during the civil wars and has not been rebuilt. We alight before a decent-looking house, having a tienda stocked with salt, tobacco, wine, liqueurs, preserves, sardines, and American hams. For whom are all these good things? I was going to ask, when I recollected that a garrison is stationed here.

Our host, a fat, red-faced man, receives us with a profusion of smiles, putting “everything in his house at our feet.” Warned by sad experience, feeling, moreover, as hungry as schoolboys after a game of cricket, we stammered out for the usual “portion” in the shortest possible delay, but what was our agreeable surprise to find a menu consisting of strong clear soup, a sardine omelette, beefsteak, French beans, wine, English beer, and excellent coffee!

Meanwhile the commander, who had received instructions with regard to our mission, came in just as we were sitting down; he was immediately invited to join our party, which he did with alacrity, for the life of an officer quartered in this out-of-the-way place, without a soul to speak to from year’s end to year’s end, whose sole business consists in the morning and evening parades, or giving the order of the day, must be indescribably monotonous and trying in the extreme.

The presence of our volan has set the village in motion; soon a number of people are seen crossing the deserted plaza in our direction: some are old and decrepit, and all look as though they could hardly stand on their rickety legs, for the able-bodied men are in the fields preparing the milpa, cleaning the ground for the sowing of Indian corn. They invade the tienda, peering into our room; the boldest advances with rolling gait, to have a nearer view of our group, delivering himself of a little speech in the Maya tongue, presumably indiscreet, to judge by the amused smiles of the company. The commandant desires him to leave the room, but he refuses, and has to be ejected by the united efforts of two orderlies.

Refreshed with our excellent luncheon, our pleasant chat, and last, not least, a respite from the too lively coché, we set out, and do not stop again until we reach Quintana-Roo, sometimes used as a basis by the revolted natives in their expeditions, whence they sallied forth for their razzias, carrying off the women, and massacring the men, except in the rare instances when a large ransom might be looked for; this, however, did not always save the poor wretch, who, his money being paid, was ruthlessly butchered by these savages.

Quintana is about as small a place as can be conceived, consisting of one small fort garrisoned by twelve men, and one house; in the landlord of the latter I recognise my old guide, who in 1859 accompanied me to Chichen. My old acquaintance is now a prosperous man, with a nice house, a tienda and poultry-yard well stocked, while a comely wife, lovely children, and pretty Meztizas, attend to the business of the household and enliven it. My friend insists on our having some chocolate, and wishes to be again our guide to Chichen. I am delighted, and with expressions of mutual regard we take leave of this charming family, en route for Citas, where we arrive so late in the evening that everybody had given us up, so that nothing had been prepared, and the people did not seem inclined to bestir themselves for us. No house or room was to be had. It was fortunately holiday time; the school-room was placed at our disposal, in which we at once deposited our camp-beds and other paraphernalia. The next thing was how to get something to eat, and we should have gone supperless to bed, if the magistrate and the mayor had not kindly interfered in our behalf, and partly by coaxing, partly by the weight of their authority, induced the people to bring out the contents of their larder.

Here we leave the volan for saddle-horses, mules, and tamenes, for our next stage is through thick woods right across country. Our preparations take a good deal of time; horses are scarce and have to come some distance, while tamenes must be brought down from their extravagant prices before we can think of engaging them. The same difficulties have beset us everywhere; the natives deeming fair game any one so insane or ridiculous as to come from distant lands to view some crumbling stones; of course he has more money than he knows what to do with, and it is only common justice to ease him of some of his surplus. We despatch our men a day in advance to open the way through the woods, while we tarry to witness a jardana, native dance, to which an invitation in due form, that we “would honour the same with our presence,” has been received.

“What, you dance here?” I exclaimed on first hearing of it; “but you told me that your life and property were continually threatened; that you never knew when you lay down at night whether you would not be massacred by your revolted countrymen, ere another day dawned.”

“That’s quite true,” answered my servant, “but we dance for all that, and as often as we have the opportunity. Why should we neglect to cull the few flowerets growing on the short, dreary path of our life?”

I confess that I was not prepared for so much philosophy in such a place, and from such a man, savouring of a ci-devant at the time of the Convention rather than of a half-savage.

The streets of Citas might not improperly be called ridges of rock divided by minute precipices, down which, however, a stranger may break his neck. To avoid so great a calamity, we set out holding on to two native guides by means of ropes tied round our waist, for the night is pitch dark, and the distance to the jardana some 500 yards.

The house in which the entertainment is given wears a poor appearance. Three huge fires are burning, round which stand women busy with roasting and otherwise preparing the feast with chickens, turkeys, pork, etc.; whilst outside, other women are kneeling before metates, or, comals in hand, prepare tortillas to be served hot during the whole “fiesta.” A little in front is a thatched barn, lighted by smoking lamps, which forms the ball-room, with benches and chairs against the walls for the ladies, while in the centre the men dancers in white hose, flowing shirt, and loose coloured neckties, are meditating on whom their choice may fall with any chance of success. The whole village, Indians and Meztizos, are here to-night, but hardly any Ladinos or whites.

Every traveller who has witnessed these native dances, has described them as entrancing; for my part I confess that I find them devoid of attraction: the performers, without grace or animation, move gravely on one spot, without looking at or touching their partners, going round them as they would a pole, to the sound of very primitive and monotonous music.

“It is an Indian who gives the entertainment,” said my friend the judge. “It will last several days, or rather several nights, and cost at least sixty pounds, which to a native is a fortune—ruination in fact—but he will not care, and after him another will be found to take up the ball, and so on to the end of time.”

“But what happens afterwards?”

“Oh, nothing happens; they’ll go to their milpas as before; if the harvest is good they will lay by a little in view of another party when their turn comes round; if it is a bad year, they’ll pinch; if a famine, they’ll starve. Care never sits behind an Indian, and as for the lessons of experience, they seem incapable of learning them.”

In these entertainments may be traced the customs of the ancient Indians which are unconsciously kept up by their descendants. We read in Landa: “They often spent in one banquet what they had been a long time earning with difficulty. Banquets were of two kinds: those given by the caciques and great nobles to their friends for the mere pleasure of showing their hospitality, when they expected to be asked in return. The table on all such occasions was well provided with meats, game, vegetables, and fruit of every kind, and at the conclusion of the entertainment, the guests were presented with rich dresses and ornaments, when they withdrew after midnight.” “If one died before the debt of his obligation had been paid, the duty fell to his family. Next came the occasions when a marriage occurred in a family, or when the illustrious deeds of an ancestor were celebrated by the whole clan. On such occasions the necessity of returning the banquet was not enforced; but if a person belonging to another family had been asked, he was expected to invite them all again when he married.”120

There is positively nothing worthy of remark with regard to our road, save here and there a palm or cedar-tree towering like a giant over the thick underwood overrun with flowering lianas, peopled with great sky-blue butterflies, whose wings are tipped with black; for the whole country to the east and south of Citas is a vast scene of desolation. Pisté, where we arrive, stands on the extreme border of the state; it has been so often sacked and burnt by the revolted natives, that the only building left is the church, occupied by a company of twenty-five men. It looks a forsaken, God-forgotten place, a veritable exile for the small garrison quartered here in turn for three months in the year; not that there is any immediate danger, for the natives, who first rose to conquer their liberties, fell to massacring from a spirit of revenge, and now only take the field for the sake of plunder. We have nothing to tempt their cupidity, consequently our escort of fifty men is a measure of prudence rather than of necessity.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHICHEN-ITZA.

Chichen-Itza—El Castillo—General Survey—A Maya City—Aguilar—Historical Jottings—Montejo’s Expedition—Historians—Their Contradictions—Chichen Deserted—The Conqueror’s Retreat—The Nunnery—Impressions and Photographs—Terrestrial Haloes—An Unexpected Visitor—Electric Telegraph—Akab-Sib—Prison—Caracol—Cenotés—Ruined Temples—The Temple of the Sacred Cenoté—Tennis-Court—Monuments Described—Portico—Paintings—Bas-reliefs—New Analogy—The Tlalocs of Chichen and of the Uplands—Market-place—End of Our Labours—Col. Triconis.

The ruins of Chichen are two miles east of Pisté, and were used as pasture for the cattle of the inhabitants, who at stated periods had the woods cut down, when the monuments were easily distinguished. It was a favourite place, to the prejudice of the palaces and the sculptures, which were made the butt by the visitors to shoot at; but since the destruction of Pisté, nature again reigns supreme; every sign of the buildings has disappeared, and the jungle has become so impassable, that twenty men were required to open the old path.

This was not my first visit to Chichen, nevertheless my emotion was profound on beholding again the gigantic outline of El Castillo, which we had decided beforehand should be our headquarters, as from its elevated position it offered many strategical advantages, which would secure us against surprise. It was with considerable difficulty that we climbed the steps, which are steep and completely invaded by a vigorous vegetation; as for our great quantity of baggage, none but nimble, sure-footed natives could have succeeded in hauling it up on to the platform of the monument.

Our next thought was how to dispose of ourselves. The interior of El Castillo consists of a rectangular corridor, running along two-thirds of the edifice, pierced east, south, and west by three large apertures, and a gallery giving access to a great hall closed in on every side. We very stupidly gave up the latter to our men, with the idea that we should be cooler and have more air in the open gallery, not taking into consideration that at this altitude, whichever way the wind blew, it would sweep in upon us in fearful blasts, causing perpetual sneezing, coughing, and freezing the very life out of us.

The day was spent unpacking and classifying, and at suppertime we discovered that our cook, who was to have come from Valladolid, had failed us; food we had in tins, but no water, having left our cantaros at Citas, so that we were obliged to go without soup, coffee, or our evening tub.

It may seem unworthy to have been put out by such trivial details with the grand spectacle we had before us: a glorious moon had risen, sailing on her course with her brilliant retinue of scintillating stars, illuminating the vast wooded expanse, like a boundless, heaving ocean on a calm day; fragments of walls, mounds, eminences, shrouded in a sombre vegetation, were distinctly visible, which I pointed out one by one to my companions who, unlike myself, beheld them for the first time. El Castillo occupies nearly the centre of the ruins; below it to the east was the Market-place, and two small palaces which belonged to it; to the north, a stately but ruinous building, the cenoté and the temple attached; to the north-west, the famous Tennis-court; to the west and south-west, the Chichan-Chob, the Caracol and the other cenoté, the Nuns’ Palace, the Akab-Sib; and farther south, the hacienda, which has long been abandoned.

We were conversing in subdued tones of the mysterious past of this dead city, which mayhap our studies and explorations would bring to life again; all was hushed, and the death-like silence was only broken at regular intervals by the cry of our sentinels; and these very cries carried us back to the far-gone days, when the city was perhaps similarly guarded against a sudden inroad from her jealous neighbours.

The morning effects of light and shade were no less beautiful; the broad level wrapped in a transparent mist, pierced here and there by the pyramids and the wooded eminences, looked like a whitening sea interspersed with green islets; while the horizon was gilded with the brightness of the rising sun, who seemed to create, to raise suddenly into life all the objects touched with his golden wand; presently, like a mighty giant he tore asunder and burnt up the white vapour, and lit up the whole sky.

Meanwhile, our unpacking and our plans for the immediate future are almost completed; the cantaros have come, and as water is one of our great requirements, as the cenoté is at some distance, and there are ninety steps to our abode, ten men are told off for it; other ten are set to cleaning the place, while an equal number will open up the paths and clear the monuments we wish to explore.

Here it may be remarked that Yucatan had centres rather than cities; for the groups of dwellings and palaces we find resemble in no way our cities of the present day, although they are continually compared to Spanish places, notably Sevilla, by the conquerors. They consist everywhere of temples and palaces, either of the reigning prince or caciques, of public edifices scattered about, apparently at random, covering a vast area, with cemented roads and gardens intervening, while the avenues were occupied by the dwellings of dependents and slaves. This is borne out by Landa, who says: “Before the arrival of the Spaniards the aborigines lived in common, were ruled by severe laws, and the lands were cultivated and planted with useful trees. The centre of their towns was occupied by the temples and squares, round which were grouped the palaces of the lords and the priests, and so on in successive order to the outskirts, which were allotted to the lower classes. The wells, necessarily few, were found close to the dwellings of the nobles, who lived in close community for fear of their enemies, and not until the time of the Spaniards did they take to the woods.”121

These last words plainly indicate the sudden desertion of Indian cities at the coming of the Spaniards.

The word used by Landa is pueblo, “hamlet,” meaning, perhaps, town; at all events, it shows that even after the breaking up of the Maya empire (from great provinces) into small independent principalities, the people had preserved their ancient customs. Chichen-Itza, “the mouth of the wells,” from the two cenotés around which the town was built, is more recent than Izamal or Aké, but older than Uxmal, although it belongs, like the latter, to the “cut stone period.”

Our information respecting it is of the vaguest, and Aguilar and Montejo are equally silent on the subject, while E. Ancona is of opinion that the greater portion of the writings and documents treating of the conquest of Yucatan have been lost, or at any rate have escaped our investigations. Nevertheless, we find in a letter of Montejo to the King of Spain, April 13th, 1529, published by Brinton, of Philadelphia, from the unpublished documents and archives of the Indies, this remarkable passage: “This region is covered with great and beautiful cities and a dense population” (“ciudades muy frescas,” recent, new). Could he have expressed more clearly that the cities he had visited were lately built? Can these places have disappeared and left no trace? Who were the builders of the noble ruins that have filled with admiration every one who has visited them?

Unfortunately, whether we consult the traditions collected too late, or the Perez manuscript with its doubtful dates, we find no certain data to go upon; in the latter we read that the Toltecs travelled in 360 from Bacalar (Ziyancan) to Chichen; left it in 452 to return in 888, when they remained until 936; that a governor of Chichen was defeated in 1258 by a prince of Mayapan, etc.; in fact, a mere roll of obscure names without any meaning. If we would find an ascertained historical fact, we must turn to Cogolludo and Landa, who wrote from 1420 to 1460, where the Chichemec exodus is recorded, corresponding to the capture and destruction of Mayapan.

The cause of this emigration (or elopement, since there was a lady in the case) is thus told by Cogolludo: “A king of Chichen, called Canek (a generic name of the sovereigns of the Iztaes), fell desperately in love with a young princess, who, whether she did not return his affection, or whether she was obliged to obey a parent’s mandate, married a more powerful Yucatec cacique. The discarded lover, unable to bear his loss, moved by love and despair, armed his dependents and suddenly fell upon his successful rival; when the gaiety of the feast was exchanged for the din of war, and amidst the confusion the Chichen prince disappeared, carrying off the beautiful bride. But conscious that his power was less than his rival’s, and fearing his vengeance, he fled the country with most of his vassals.”122

Thus runs the legend; the historical fact is that the inhabitants of Chichen did emigrate, and did establish in the Peten lagoons, one hundred leagues to the south, a little principality with Tayasal for its capital, seen by Cortez in his journey to Honduras, and brought under the Spanish sway as late as 1696. That a whole population should abandon their native city, is an example of the facility with which these peoples moved from one place to another at a moment’s notice; nevertheless, we cannot accept the reasons given by Cogolludo for this migration, so little in accordance with the deep-seated love of the Mayas for their country. It is more likely that one or a series of calamities incident to a primitive race, such as war, pestilence, famine, more or less periodical among the aborigines, was the true cause of their migration.

One thing is clear, that Chichen was inhabited scarcely sixty years before the Conquest, when her monuments were entire; and it is equally clear that a city possessed of two considerable cenotés, so important in a country without water, was not left uninhabited, and that the vacuum left by the exodus was soon filled up, the city preserving its normal existence down to the time of the Spaniards. I am well aware that this kind of evidence will not suit people fond of the marvellous, yet the paucity of documents allows us only a tentative theory, but it will be our care to collect probabilities in such vast numbers, knitting them into a cumulative whole by a patient comparison of monuments, sculptures, bas-reliefs, customs, arms, and public ceremonies, so as to make the evidence absolute. Had Aguilar, who was wrecked and made prisoner on this coast, and lived for nearly eight years as factotum of a powerful cacique, been more observant, we might have a graphic and thorough description of the public and private life among the Mayas; but like the rest of his countrymen, his ideas were turned into quite a different channel, so much so that he has not even recorded the name of the place where later Cortez found him. Ancona tells us that the conquest of Yucatan was hastened by Aguilar, who, when in Mexico with Cortez, persuaded Montejo that “the region was fertile and covered with magnificent monuments”—words of paramount importance, since Aguilar could not have mentioned them in such terms, had they been in ruins or hid away in the woods. It may also be inferred from the incessant mutual warfare of the caciques, that the country had lost its unity and was split up into several provinces, which Herrera says were “eighteen in number covered with stately edifices.”123 According to the same authority Montejo had a return of the whole population taken, that he might apportion them among his followers, when every one received no less than two or three thousand.124 This, however, is obviously a gross exaggeration, for supposing the 400 soldiers of Montejo to have dwindled down to 300, the mean population of the district would have amounted to 750,000, which is quite impossible.125 At all events, the Spaniards occupied Chichen-Itza for two years, but nothing is known of their doings, for Montejo was no writer, nor did he, like Cortez, have chroniclers to record his deeds. At first the submission of the natives was complete; but after a time they rallied from the stupor into which the unparalleled success of the Spaniards had plunged them, and tiring of ministering to the insatiable wants of the Spanish marauders, who consumed in one day what would have kept in comfort a native family for a month, they disappeared, and the Spaniards were soon reduced to foraging in distant villages. This gave rise to daily skirmishes and a more active hatred on the part of the Indians against the foreigners, until at last exasperated, relying moreover on their numerical strength, they came in great numbers and laid siege to Chichen, during which the Spaniards lost 150 of their number, while the rest were all covered with wounds. In this strait, Montejo, despairing of holding the place much longer, determined to evacuate it; this it was not easy to do, for the whole country round was occupied by the Indians; but a pitch-dark night seemed to favour their flight: Montejo took the precaution of having the horses’ hoofs muffled, not to arouse the natives’ suspicions respecting their movements, while he left a dog tied to a pole beneath a piece of meat with a bell attached, which the animal rang every time he tried to reach the prey, thus keeping the Indians in the full belief that the enemy was entrenched behind the walls. Only on the morrow did the natives find out their mistake; they gave instant but unavailing pursuit, for the Spaniards had several hours’ start of them and were able to reach the territory of a friendly cacique, not far from their own ships.

To return to our excavations, “El Palacio de las Monjas,” or Nuns’ Palace, is one of the most important monuments at Chichen-Itza, and possesses a greater number of apartments than any other. Whether the name is due to this circumstance, or from its traditionary appellation, is uncertain; but we know from Mexican writers that it was the custom among the Aztecs to dedicate girls of noble birth to the service of the gods, on their attaining the age of twelve or thirteen. Some remained there until they were about to be married; some few took perpetual vows; others, on account of some vow they had made during sickness, or that the gods might send them a good husband, entered the Nunnery for one, two, three, or four years. They were called deaconesses or sisters; they lived under the superintendence of staid matrons of good character, and upon entering the convent, each girl had her hair cut short. They all slept in one dormitory, and were not allowed to undress before retiring to rest, that they might always be ready when the signal was given to rise. They occupied their time with weaving and embroidering the tapestry and ornamental work of the temple. They rose in the night to renew the incense in the braziers, a matron leading the procession; the maidens with eyes modestly cast down filed up to the altar, and returned in the same manner; they fasted often, and were required to sweep the temples and keep a constant supply of fresh flowers on the altars. They did penance for the slightest infringement of their religious rules by pricking their tongues and ears with the spines of the maguey plant. Death was the punishment of the Mexican maiden who violated her vow of chastity.126

It has been supposed, from the latter custom, that an order of Vestals, similar to those in Rome, existed in America, but the analogy is more apparent than real. According to Clavigero, priesthood was not binding for life among the Mayas. Of the different male and female religious orders, those dedicated to Quetzalcoatl deserve particular mention; their members had to submit to the strictest observances, but in compensation the people paid them almost divine honours, whilst their power and influence were boundless. Their chief or superior bore the name of Quetzalcoatl, and never walked abroad except to visit some royal personage.127 Thus the Nunnery may very well have been both a convent and a priestly abode. It is not a considerable pile, the façade measuring only some 29 feet by 19 feet 6 inches high, while its grotesque, heavy ornamentation reminds us in its details of a Chinese carving. The base up to the first cornice is occupied by eight large superimposed idols, and four of these figures are enclosed within two very salient cornices. The door is crowned with a medallion representing a cacique or priest with the usual head-dress of feathers, the inscription of the palace and stone spires, some of which have entirely disappeared, while the outline of the rest is much defaced. The whole length of the frieze of the north façade has a row of similar gigantic heads, bearing the general characteristics of the ornamentation observable throughout this structure. The Nunnery is typical of the Toltec calli, of which we gave a drawing in our chapter on Tula. The left wing is but 26 feet wide, by 13 feet deep, and about 32 feet high; it consists of three cornices, with two friezes intervening in which the same designs are repeated; the first two high-reliefs represent stooping figures, one having his body locked in a tortoise shell, while the centre and the sides of the frieze are decorated with grotesque figures like those of the main façade, which, with small variations, are the same throughout the peninsula. As we have seen in a former chapter, these monstrous masks have been called elephants by Waldeck and others, who wished to claim a fabulous antiquity for these monuments, but the types they most resemble are the Japanese or Chinese. Here, as at Palenque, the upper portion of the wall is ornamented so as to enhance the effect of height.

The main body of the Nunnery rests on a perpendicular pyramid, the platform of which is occupied by a solidly constructed building, intersected with small apartments having two niches facing each other, traversed by a corridor running from east to west of the pyramid. Over this is a smaller structure or third story. The first platform is reached by a steep, broad stairway 50 feet wide, which continues with additional steps to the second platform, where the apartments of the ruined building were but cells. The ornamentation of the first story differs from that of other buildings at Chichen; it consists of small sunk panels, having in the centre a large rose-like device, framed with exquisitely moulded stones. The lintels, likewise of stone, were covered with sculptures and inscriptions now fallen into decay; we could only collect three, and even these are much defaced. In this building are curious traces of masonry out of character with the general structure, showing the place to have been occupied at two different epochs.