A Glimpse at Guatemala / And Some Notes on the Ancient Monuments of Central America

by Anne Cary Maudslay; Alfred Percival Maudslay

CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSIONS (?).

In the foregoing pages a slight sketch has been given of the principal groups of ruins visited during my eight winters’ wanderings in Central America, and I will now attempt to formulate some results of my observations. The first point that is noticeable is the marked limitation in range of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. I have never heard of any Maya inscriptions being found beyond the area marked on the map which accompanies this volume. The geographical features of this area have probably had a very considerable influence on the evolution of Maya civilization, for when once the Mayas were settled on the high land to the north of the great volcanic range which follows the trend of the Pacific coast, and on the peninsula of which this range forms the base, they were in an exceptionally strong position for defence and may have existed there for many centuries, slowly developing their civilization undisturbed by later migrating tribes from Mexico, which would have passed along the natural roadway of the Pacific slope. This idea gains strength when we note that although tribes of distinctly Nahuatl origin are found in Nicaragua, only one small tribe of that stock, the Pipiles, is to be found within the area marked as that of Maya inscriptions, and this tribe is located on the Pacific seaboard.

It seems probable that the Mayas and the so-called Toltecs were originally the same people, but whether the migration from Mexico to the valleys of the Usumacinta and Motagua was merely owing to the natural expansion of the race or to expulsion by force there is no evidence to show. It is usually assumed as most probable that the general movement of population has been from Mexico to Central America, but all we know is that there are to be seen in Mexico remains, such as those at Teotihuacan, which bear more resemblance to the work of the Mayas than to that of the Nahuas, and these ruins are believed to be pre-Aztec. However, the true Maya area is apparently to be distinguished by the existence in it of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions, and, judging from the evidence at present available, it seems clear that a distinctly progressive movement, marked by the development of this hieroglyphic writing, must have taken place after the Mayas had left Mexico and settled to the east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. With what other races the Mayas may have been brought in contact in their eastern home we do not know, but they were almost certainly people of lower culture, and it seems probable that we may possess specimens of their art in the rude images found near Guatemala city, which are shown on [page 15], and that we may judge of their appearance from the figures of the prisoners carved on the Stela at Ixkun[8]. After a period of time, which must have included the age during which the race reached the highest point of its development, the centres of population were abandoned and the Mayas disappeared from the southern part of the Maya area, their places being taken by the races whom the Spaniards found in occupation of the country—races speaking languages derived from the Maya stock, and possibly allied to the Mayas by blood, but certainly behind them in the arts of peace and probably inferior in social organization. When and why the valleys of the Usumacinta and Motagua were deserted by the Mayas there is no evidence to show; there are not even vague traditions such as those which have been handed down regarding the disappearance of the Toltecs from Mexico. Famine and pestilence, civil strife, and the attacks of warlike neighbours have all been suggested as the causes, and all may have contributed to the result, but there is some reason for giving preference to the last. Mr. Mercer and other investigators have shown us that in Northern Yucatan the Mayas were the original inhabitants of the country and that they brought their culture with them from elsewhere, and there seems little reason to doubt that they brought it from the southern part of the Maya area. Judging from the sculptures and mural paintings at Chichén Itzá, this change from south to north seems also to have been a change from a peaceful to a warlike condition, and it therefore appears likely that the peopling of Yucatan may have taken place after the Mayas had been driven by force from their peaceful southern homes, and had been compelled to cultivate the arts of war in order to save their race from extinction.

THE ISLAND OF FLORES.

It is true that we do not possess, and are never likely to find, an account of the abandonment or destruction of Palenque or Tikál, and it cannot be actually proved that at the time of the Spanish conquest they had ceased to exist as living cities, but it can be shown that the absence of all mention of these cities in the Spanish accounts of the invasion and conquest of the country is incompatible with the theory of their existence at that time.

In Chapter XXI. we followed the earlier expeditions which coasted along the shores of Yucatan until finally, in April 1519, Hernando Cortés landed in Mexico on the site of the modern city of Vera Cruz. During the next few years the conquest of Mexico absorbed the attention of the Spanish adventurers and the land of the Mayas was neglected, but on the 12th of October, 1524, Cortés left Mexico city behind him and started on his celebrated march to Honduras, a march which occupied him for nearly two years, and carried him through regions where some of the most magnificent of the Maya ruins are still to be found. Although we have an account of this expedition both from Cortés’s own pen and from that of his stout-hearted follower Bernal Diaz, it is by no means an easy matter to trace the exact course of the march and to identify the places named. The task has, however, been made easier by the researches of my friend Dr. Sebastian Marimon, who, a few years before his death, discovered, in the Lonja at Seville, a map of the Province of Tabasco drawn in the year 1579 by Melchor de Santa Cruz, which contains some place-names which have disappeared in later maps.

The earlier part of Cortés’s march from the city of Mexico to the town of Guacacualcos, on the northern side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, does not now concern us. On leaving Guacacualcos he entered the province of Tabasco and crossed the low-lying and swampy plain seamed by the intricate network of streams which flow towards the Gulf of Mexico. There was no road to follow, for the good reason that no roads were in existence, the natives passing from place to place in their canoes; yet across this difficult country Cortés, with wonderful persistency, led his troops, wading through swamps, cutting his way through dense jungle, and building innumerable bridges across the streams, bridges of such dimensions that Bernal Diaz wrote, in his old age, “people to this day speak of the bridges of Cortés as they speak of the Pillars of Hercules.” We can trace the line of march with something like accuracy through the province of Copilco to Zaguatan, where the Rio Grijalva was crossed, and thence on to Chilapa and Tepititan on the Rio Tulija. From Tepititan to Ciguatecpan on the Usumacinta the actual route is obscure, as Cortés and his followers were for some days lost in the forest, but there can be little doubt that Ciguatecpan (a name which is not to be found on the maps) was a town on the banks of the Rio Usumacinta in the near neighbourhood of Tenosique. A line drawn from Tepititan to Tenosique is between fifty and sixty miles in length, and in passing from one place to the other, Cortés must have passed within twenty miles of Palenque, yet, although he and his men were half starved, and were eagerly seeking for any trace of a track which would lead them to an Indian settlement, nothing was seen of Palenque and no track was crossed which might have led to it. Arrived at Ciguatecpan, Cortés asked the Indians to direct him to Acalá, which was probably the next place of importance marked on his map of the country drawn on a cloth, with which he had been furnished by the natives of Guacacualcos; and on this request a great discussion arose, some saying that his best way lay through the villages up the river, others saying that that route was by far the longest and passed through difficult and uninhabited country, and that the nearest way was to cross the River Usumacinta at Ciguatecpan and follow a small track to Acalá much used by pedlars. This last counsel was followed, and it was probably the better of the two. Had Cortés continued his journey up the course of the river he must have passed Piedras Negras and Menché, both the sites of important ruins, which could hardly have been living cities at that time without some report of their existence having come to his ears or those of his numerous Indian followers. The position of the chief town of the Province of Acalá has never been determined, but it may with some confidence be placed on the upper waters of the Rio San Pedro. Cortés says that the whole province was thickly peopled and of considerable commercial importance; the historian Villagutierre tells us that a few years later the province was brought into subjection by an expedition from Merida under the leadership of Don Francisco Tamayo Pacheco, but that the Spaniards were soon driven out again by the Lacandones and other wild forest tribes. No account of Pacheco’s expedition has come to light and Acalá is no more mentioned. From Acalá Cortés marched through a thinly peopled country to the Lake of Peten and visited the island of Tayasal, the modern Flores, which was then the chief town of the warlike Itzáes, where he was well received by the chief and people. In his letter to Philip II. of Spain, Cortés says: “At this village, or rather at the plantations that were close to the lake, I was obliged to leave one of my horses, owing to his having got a splinter in his foot. The chief promised to take care of the animal and cure him, but I do not know if he will succeed or what he will do with him.”

From the Lake of Peten Cortés continued his march into what is now British Honduras, and after crossing the River Sarstoon, arrived at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, near where Livingston now stands. Before we follow him through this latter part of his arduous task, let us return to Tayasal and the Itzáes and see how far our knowledge of the people and country can be brought to bear on the question of the existence of Tikál as a living city. Fortunately we know something of the subsequent history of the Itzáes, for Tayasal was visited by missionaries from Yucatan in 1618, 1619, and 1623, and in the year 1697 an expedition from Yucatan reached the lake, defeated the Itzáes, and captured Tayasal itself.

In 1618, when the Padres Bartolomé de Fuensalida and Juan de Orbita set out from Merida on their missionary expedition to Peten, the extreme Spanish outpost in Yucatan was at Tipu, on the upper waters of the Rio Hondo, near the present frontier of British Honduras, and within a few days’ march of the Lake of Peten. On reaching Tayasal the missionaries were well received by the chief of the Itzáes, and on the day after their arrival they were conducted round the town. “The padres estimated the number of houses at about two hundred; these stood along the shore of the lagoon, at a little distance one from the other, and in each one of them dwelt parents and sons with their families. On the higher ground in the middle of the island stood the cués, or oratories, where they kept their idols. They (the padres) went to see them and found twelve or more temples equal in size and capacity to any of the churches in this province of Yucatan, and according to their account each one could hold more than a thousand persons. In the middle of one of these temples there was a great idol in the form of a horse, made of stone and cement (cal y canto). It was seated on the floor of the temple on its haunches with its hind legs bent under it, raising itself on its fore legs. It was worshipped as the God of Thunder and called Tzimin Chac, which means the horse of thunder or the thunderbolt. The reason why they possessed this idol was that when Don Fernando Cortés passed through this land on his way to Honduras, he left behind him a horse which could travel no further. As the horse died the Indians, terrified at the thought of not being able to give it up alive, should Cortés by chance return that way and ask them for it, had a statue made of the horse and began to hold it in veneration, so that it might be clear (coligiessen) that they were not to blame for its death. Believing the horse to be an intelligent being (animal de razon), they gave it to eat chickens and other meat and offered it garlands of flowers as they were wont to do to their own chieftains. All these honours, for such they were in their sight, helped to bring about the death of the poor horse, for he died of hunger. It was given its name (the god of the thunderbolt) because they had seen some of the Spaniards discharging their arquebuses or guns when on horseback hunting the deer, and they believed that the horses were the cause of the noise, which appeared to them like thunder, and the flash from the muzzle of the gun and the smoke of the powder they mistook for lightning. Upon this the Devil took advantage of the blindness of their superstition so to increase the veneration in which the statue was held that, by the time the missionaries arrived, this idol had become the principal object of their adoration.