Mound No. 25
Fig. 68.—Incense burner decorated with crude clay figurine from Mound No. 25.
Mound No. 25 was situated in the country of the Icaichè Indians, Quintana Roo, Yucatan. The mound was discovered by the Indians when cutting down virgin bush to make a milpa, or corn plantation. It was a moderate-sized mound, about 10 feet high, and upon its summit, uncovered, lay the objects illustrated in figures [68], [69], and [70]. Figure [68] exhibits a roughly formed clay figurine, nearly 1 foot in height, decorating a small hourglass-shaped incense burner. Both figure and vase are very crudely modeled in rough pottery; most of the prominent characteristics of the carefully modeled and elaborately decorated incense burner represented in plate [20] and figure [67] are still retained. The large round ear plugs, with long flaps from the headdress overlapping them, the horizontally striated breastplate, and even a rudimentary maxtli, together with the extended position of the arms, as if in the act of making an offering, and the background of featherwork are features which may be recognized. There is exhibited, however, a lamentable decadence from the art which fabricated the more elaborate vase. In figure [69] may be seen what probably represents a further stage of degeneration—namely, the substitution of the head for the entire figure on the outside of the incense burner. The last stage of all in the decadence of this branch of Maya art is to be seen in the small crude bowls found by Sapper in the great Christa of the settlement of Izan, and by Charnay in the ruins of Menche Tinamit.[49]
Fig. 69.—Crude clay figurine found in Mound No. 25.
These bowls, each decorated with a roughly modeled human face, are manufactured by the modern Indians and used by them in burning copal gum in the ruins of the temples erected by their ancestors. Figure 70 shows a life-sized hollow head, in rough pottery, with a thin hollow neck, probably used to carry around in processions on the top of a long pole. There can be no doubt that these bowls and hourglass-shaped vessels, each decorated externally with a human figure or face, usually that of a god, were used as incense burners, since a number of them, as already stated, were found in a mound at Santa Rita with half burnt out incense still contained in them. Moreover, their use for this purpose persists to the present day among the Lacandones[50] and even among the Santa Cruz Indians. These incense burners occur most frequently in the central part of the Maya area and are not common in northern Yucatan or southern Guatemala. Three distinct types are found: The first include the large, well-modeled specimens found in and around burial mounds, decorated with the complete figure of the god (usually Cuculcan or Itzamna), having every detail in clothing and ornament carefully executed in high relief. These are all probably pre-Columbian, and such as have been found seem to have been used only as ceremonial mortuary incense burners, to be broken into fragments (which were scattered through or over the burial mound) immediately after use.
The specimen shown in plate [20] and figure [67] is a typical example of this class.
Incense burners of the second type are smaller, cruder, and probably later in date than those of the first type. Some of these are decorated with the entire figure, but more of them with the face only of the god.
Fig. 70.—Crude clay figurine found in Mound No. 25.
Villagutierre tells us that the Indians of this region as late as the end of the seventeenth century still practiced to some extent the rites of their ancient religion;[51] and in the voyages which he describes up the Rio Hondo, and to Tipu, the Spaniards must frequently have come in contact with the ancestors of the present Santa Cruz and Icaichè Indians, from whose territory the specimens shown in figures [68] and [69], typical examples of this class, were taken. During the early years of the Spanish occupancy it is probable that the Indians, even in this remote and little visited region, living in a constant state of semiwarfare and rebellion, robbed, enslaved, driven from their villages, with little time to cultivate their milpas, gradually lost their ancient traditions and arts, and, long neglecting, ultimately almost entirely forgot, the elaborate ritual connected with their former religion. Such a decadence may be observed in comparing the incense burners illustrated in plate [20] and figure [68]. The very marked facial characteristics of the former have given place to the crudely modeled, vacuous face of the latter, resembling the work of a child; while the elaborate dress and ornament, each minutest part of which probably had a special significance and symbolism, though retaining to some extent the form of their main constituents—the headdress, breastplate, maxtli, and sandals—have almost completely lost the wealth of detail which gave them significance.
Incense burners of the third type are decorated with a very crude representation of the face only of the god, consisting in some cases merely of slits for the eyes and mouth, with a conical projection for the nose, on the outer surface of the vessel. Some of the faces are represented conventionally by two ears, with ear plugs, one on each side of the vessel, or by knobs of clay on its outer edge, which represent the hair. Lastly, the incense burner, which may be recognized by its hourglass shape, may be quite plain and undecorated.
The third type is probably the latest in point of time;[52] this includes the crude face-decorated bowls still used by the modern Lacandones,[53] among whom the ritual, as is so frequently the case, seems to have survived almost in its entirety the faith which gave birth to it. This is the more readily comprehensible when we remember that the manufacture and use of these ceremonial incense burners was practiced commonly by all classes of the people, not having been restricted, like most other details of the Maya ritual, solely to the priests.
Fig. 71.—Small pottery vases found in Mound No. 26.