[896] p. 363.
[897] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Am. Eth. 1895-6, Pt. 1 (1898), p. 11.
[898] The Hill Caves of Yucatan, New York, 1903.
[899] H. Beuchat, Manuel d'Achéologie américaine, 1912, p. 407.
[900] "In the city of Mexico everything has a Spanish look" (Brocklehurst, Mexico To-day, p. 15). The Aztec language however is still current in the surrounding districts and generally in the provinces forming part of the former Aztec empire.
[901] C. Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, II. p. 480; cf. pp. 477-80.
[902] Sylvanus Griswold Morley, "An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs," Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 57, 1915, pp. 2-5.
[903] E. Reclus, Universal Geography, XVII. p. 156.
[904] T. A. Joyce, Central American and West Indian Archaeology, 1916, pp. 157, 256-7. An admirable account is given of the material culture and mode of life of these peoples at the time of the discovery.
[905] The rapid disappearance of the Cuban aborigines has been the subject of much comment. Between the years 1512-32 all but some 4000 had perished, although they are supposed to have originally numbered about a million, distributed in 30 tribal groups, whose names and territories have all been carefully preserved. But they practically offered no resistance to the ruthless Conquistadores, and it was a Cuban chief who even under torture refused to be baptized, declaring that he would never enter the same heaven as the Spaniard. One is reminded of the analogous cases of Jarl Hakon, the Norseman, and the Saxon Witikind, who rejected Christianity, preferring to share the lot of their pagan forefathers in the next world.